Why California Transplant?
I picked the name of my Tumblr on a whim. But I had no idea how fitting it is.
We are all familiar with transplanting - the idea of taking something from somewhere and putting it someplace else. We do it with organs, we do it with plants.
I am a Viticulture and Enology student who has lived in California my whole life. I’m not as stereotypical as possible, but I reek Californian. I am not uprooting myself to move across the country to (what I view as) the frigid wilderness of New York where Cornell has given me a very generous offer to persue a Masters degree in Viticulture.
I have no real reason to want to leave California. In fact, I’m rather terrified to do so. I love it here for so many things - family, friends, a man who just got into the picture - are major obvious ones. The amazing weather. But even more so, I love California culture, I can party in SF to LA without a problem, I love the mix of people, foods, types of places. I love the wine (obviously). Why am I going then?
Money. And the desire to see something new. The challenge. I’d be lying a little bit if I said I didn’t feel as if I had outgrown Davis.
Wikipedia says Transplanting (for plants, always my sphere of reference being a plant/ag person) is defined as:
“the technique of moving a plant from one location to another. Most often this takes the form of starting a plant from seed in optimal conditions, such as in a greenhouse or protected nursery bed, then replanting it in another, usually outdoor, growing location. Botanical transplants are used infrequently and carefully because they carry with them a significant risk of killing the plant”
I was a seed so to speak in California. I grew up in really optimal conditions on so many levels. The question is am I a “botanical” transplant?
I’m praying I’m not. God knows that conditions will be far from optimal in snowy, cold, far far away NY.
The article pointedly goes on to describe:
In all cases, avoiding transplant shock—the stress or damage received in the process—is the principal concern. Plants raised in protected conditions usually need a period of acclimatization, known as hardening off.
I am going to undergo some harsh transplant shock I’m thinking. It all comes down to if I can survive my period of acclimatization, if I harden off well enough before the grey and cold of upstate New York’s winter hit me and kill me off, like a botanical plant.
But I like to think I’m more like Vinifera - my beloved grapevine. Vinifera is a BAMF, but not as hardcore as other wild grapevines. Really more like a weed it grows like crazy during nice weather and it can successfully harden off every winter to survive frigid temps in places even as north as Michigan and Canada. A few every year are taken by winter kill.
Hopefully I won’t be.
So join me as this Californian cutting uproots herself and her dog to be a California transplant in New York. Hopefully, I’ll thrive.
