Willamette Valley—Trying My Hand At Harvest

During a damp and dreary week in June of 1974, I nearly lost my love for strawberries. I was 13, about to enter high school, and had jumped a Trailways bus bound for Portland. I'm not exactly sure who had the great idea, but I was headed to my grandparents' home to spend several days as a cog in the Willamette Valley's annual strawberry harvest. Each morning, I'd trudge into the dark with my sack lunch and wait for the bus that would carry the army of young teens into which I’d been drafted toward our introduction to manual labor.

Our destination was a farm well south of Portland, in the upper reaches of the Willamette Valley. By the time that old bus turned off the country road, daylight was just beginning to illuminate the mist that hung above the rolling fields. We'd pile off the bus, grab an empty flat, and go to work. I usually started the day with an eat-one-save-one regimen, wishing I'd brought along some shortcake and an aerosol can of cream. Once a flat was filled, I would lug it onto the back of a trailer, and wait for the farm foreman to punch my card before heading back to the rows with an empty tray. At the end of the day I'd collect on my pickings; I think each flat brought in a dollar or so, and I took home the earnings from eight or nine flats each day. After a week of this drudgery, I swore I'd never eat another strawberry. That lasted for about a month, when I came face-to-face with a particularly frothy strawberry shake after a Little League game.

Something I did gain during my stint as a child labor statistic that summer was an undying love of the Willamette Valley, a crush I still have today.

One of my favorite things to do in these parts is to pick a road, put away the map, and just drive. I've found so many interesting farms, produce stands, and weathered old townships doing this. On one blind excursion several years ago I happened upon a stretch of incredible Victorian farmhouses somewhere outside of Aurora, between Portland and Salem. Don't ask me where…I haven't managed to find that road since. In many of the towns that dot this valley, homes from that era have been converted to inns and bed and breakfasts. If you like sitting on a front porch with a cup of coffee, this is called nirvana.

Of course, the fact that there's such a concentration of great wineries here is another reason I default to the Willamette Valley when an afternoon on the open road calls. Funny to think that when I was picking those strawberries 32 years ago, families like the Ponzi's, Erath's, Adelsheim's, Sokol Blosser's and Lett's were just establishing the roots of the Oregon wine industry. Those pioneers, and the vintners that followed, have helped establish the valley, from outside of Portland to down past Eugene, as a restaurant destination worth the drive. You'll never be disappointed at the Dundee Bistro in—yes, you guessed it—Dundee. Further south, Marche in Eugene is always on my radar when I'm down that way. They do such phenomenal things with what's grown and raised here.

It's fall now, and the pickings at the region's farms are of the pumpkin, squash, corn and gourd variety. When I get back from this adventure, I know I’ll be heading out on a country road and seeing what's around the next corner. I'll look, and probably take home a few ears and a jack-o-lantern-to-be, but I'll let someone else do the picking, thank you.

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