Spider Monkey

You must be quite confused with the title of this blog but I can explain. See, this was my job description on Thursday and Friday of this past week. Imagine that you are 30 feet in the air, climbing between oak barrels with a wine pump in one hand and sweeping away the cobwebs with the other. And the only light in the room comes from one skylight and the headlamp you have on. I wasn't imagining these things, I was doing just that. Every six weeks all of the barrels in the cellar room have to be topped off with wine. There are a few cups that evaporate out of the barrels during that time and it is best to keep them full with the least amount of air contact. At first I was excited about the challenge as climbing to great heights aren't one of my favorite pastimes. But as the day went on and I climbed higher and higher and the barrels started to wobble back and fro, the excitement wore off and I was just plain scared! But as time went on, I realized that I wasn't going to fall, that I was wedged in between the barrels and was safer than I first let myself believe. Nearing the end of my task, I honestly was sad that my days as a spider monkey were coming to an end. I ended up really liking the job and only pushed myself as far as my brain would let me. As you can see in the pictures, there was no way I was going to get on the very top barrels and fill those so I left those to the professional. P.S I didn't include any pictures of me climbing for fear that my mother would have a conniption. She really hates heights! Ciao~