Brush yourself off and start all over again

It's been a week now since I have been at the vineyard. For the most part I have been in overdrive to get done what needs to get done. My Sunday is winding down and unlike the other night, I took my walk down the driveway in the day light this time. My driveway is a quarter mile long, so it is a good 7 to 10 minutes depending on my pace and stamina.

It is an inspection of what has been accomplished, and a realization there is still way more to do. I have just finished weed-wacking around all 2000 Cabernet Sauvignons....it took nearly three days to do them all. The difficulty was that I was making up for last year's neglect along with this year's growth. But now that it is done I can use herbicides to keep the weeds in check.

My walk is slow. The sky has those clouds that look like they were a paint by number picture. Shades of blue with a zig-zag of white throughout. There is a light wind....not as hot as earlier in the day but still warm nevertheless. I am drinking maybe my 12th bottle of water for the day. My hands are swollen from all the pruning and holding the wacker with its never-ending vibration. I can't even make a fist, but the good news is that I had one pair of pruning shears disintegrate in my hand, and the wacker's forward handle broke mid-way through the project. Bodily parts held together even though the man-made ones fell apart because they couldn't take the hard abuse.

When on a farm one must recognize that a couple hours a week must be planned for socializing. Yesterday my next door neighbor, an old time farmer, came over and said hi. We shared a couple local stories, he wished me well and let me get back to work. Today George appeared to pick up some cherry wood I had cut up and piled. George, along with his being a drummer in a local band, also loves to bar-be-que, and he wanted to try this type of fruit wood in his next ribs adventure. I was more than willing to contribute. Also this afternoon Alan from Summerwind Vineyard showed up. He has a nice vineyard located over in Smithfield and we on occasion share horror stories on the hard work constantly being challenged by the nutricious weed-growing rains and onslaught of black rot that comes from high humidity. It is nice to cry on each other's shoulders.....it is also nice to know someone who cares about his grapes as much as I do and has gone through many of the trials that I seem to be attracting.

I have so much paperwork to do but it just doesn't seem to get done. I have to layout the next expansion block, Block 3 for next year. I have already ordered 1700 Gamays (think Beaujolais) for next Spring and have to put together my requirements for Scuppernongs. The winery business plan must be put together, along with the permiting process that needs to get underway. And then working on the websites for the vineyard and winery to support all this effort from a sales / marketing perspective. But I am so tired at the end of the day I don't have the focus for these projects. Getting out in the field at maybe 5:30 a.m. to take advantage of the cooler mid-60's temperatures and working easily to 6 p.m. or so makes one not want to do anything more, even though dinner still must be planned. I try to think ahead here and make it easy and not boring. I have succeeded so far, avoiding attacking the cans in storage which provide basically filler, no flavor or imagination. Once I get past this, after having a glass of wine or a beer sort of puts me in a phase out mode. Paperwork no longer is a priority. It'll have to wait until I get home "to rest" I guess.

So wound up

I've been at the vineyard for 3 days now.My method of operation is to come up with a list of projects to get done before I leave, and usually this list is way too long. About mid-way through, after I realize that there still is too much left to do, I decide which are the critical jobs, and which ones can wait till next time. It goes back to Business 101, set priorities, marking them A,B,or C and tackling the A's first (C's always seem to be more fun though).

I'm not yet at the point where I can classify these by their importance.....I still feel that I can cross most of them off the list. My days have started rather early....4 a.m. now as I write this blog. It is with 5 hours sleep, but I feel OK. The days have been really hot and to take a nap right after lunch is always a possibility. Last night I couldn't get to feeling tired, so I put on my mocs and walked down the driveway to unwind. The temperature was on the muggy side, and the light bouncing off the clouds onto the driveway was just enough for me to see where I was going without a flashlight. It was strange to see parallel white lines in the driveway's sandy ruts reflecting this nightime light. It wasn't like the skies were clear and the full moon was shinng. Overcast skies still allowed for this good visibility. Off on the side of the road is Block 2, and there I could see similar lighting patterns as the reflections off the tilled strips made for a zebra-like effect amongst the vineyard rows.

I have started my mowing, putting in 6 hours on the tractor. I did all of the vineyard and a couple of adjacent areas. I still need to do around the house and barn......maybe another 2 hours for that. Then I can switch the tractor back to the sprayer for a must-do fungicide & insecticide spraying. While pruning the Nortons (finally) I saw some really huge catepillars....big ugly green things that if I was into eating bugs, I'm sure one or two of these things would cover a slice of bread....with Miracle Whip of course.

The Nortons as I have discussed in the past have been the neglected child in the vineyard. An American grape that can take alot of abuse (please disregard the slaughter by the new tiller when I say this), they prosper without much attention. Finally getting to clean them up some requires a significant time per vine to just remove the suckers, any of which are the size of small trees. Looking down the completed rows shows serious signs of demolition, because as I cut the trimmings I drop them in the grass strip between the rows where I later mow them in.

Even after I prune each vine they still aren't quite right. There is a specific pattern for pruning the Nortons, which are hung on a Geneva Double Curtain trellis system. But after ignoring them since Aptil it is nearly impossibe to separate the new growth and locate them where they need to be....it is a lost cause. Will it effect the grapes, maybe, but I am not overly concerned. The grape bunches that exist now with the grapes the size of pearls are so plentiful that if they weren't so bitter they could feed all of Smithfield.

We had some rain earlier in the week, so while I was recovering from my long drive down I could apply myself to some inside work in a more relaxed manner. Just as there are winter projects and seasonal projects, there are also outside projects and foul weather projects. Organizing all the chemicals, trying to make room in the shed from all the tossed tools and half-completed repair projects, and jump-starting putting up another Purple Martin house were on the agenda. Like many of these chores, you can get just so far before you need a certain tool, or some hardware that just isn't in the inventory. Going into town for a 45 cent bolt to complete the task but spending $3 of gas to do it just doesn't make sense. So you just put it on the list, and do the "Little House on the Prairie" thing and go into town once a week to pick-up food supplies, parts, or whatever in order to make the best use of time and cost efficiency. No wonder some projects take weeks to complete !

Though it seems I am personally working on fumes putting out all the work on what appears to be very little sleep, I do sneak in a nap as I mentioned every now and then. In the evening with the t.v. on I'm not sure if I am only listening to the programing instead of watching it. Since I generally listen to news, or political speak, I don't need to follow visually a well-constructed plot line. And with all this being said, I am sure I tend to get cranky, but working alone prevents me from taking it out on any passer-by. Diane does get my abraisiveness when we talk on the phone, but with years of experience I am hoping that she puts the phone down while I rant and doesn't take any of it personally. Chris, who was running my operation took the major brunt of my lack of sleep last time I was here......he is sort of escaping that this time with better planning.

Spraying, running wire in Block 2, and working on getting rid of the weeds under the wires that the tiller didn't quite reach are the assignments forr the next week and a half. I think I will spend Sunday doing the odds jobs that are of personal interest, like putting up that Purple Martin house, and a flag pole too. The front fence needs painting, and there are fallen trees and branches that need to be cleaned up, left over from the last storm. At some point I have to go food shopping......I am still working off of the inventory I carried down with me which will start falling short in the next day or so.

So much to do, so much to do. Too bad I'm not a good whistler.

May was so yesterday

I am in a perpetual state of going back and forth, back and forth. Two weeks there, two weeks away.If the month has more than 28 days in it, I have no clue where I'm going or heading.

It becomes a matter of making a list, checking it twice, and plowing forward trying to get all the things done that need to get done.....in 2 locations. The economy is in the tank, so my interest at the factory drops. The workload on the farm never seems to achieve "caught up" status, but when I am there there seems to be a forward motion, even though the results of my labor are month's away. This Fall will be our first harvest, and the efforts made now should be reflected in the grape production.

May was no different than many others, but with the traditional kick-off list of things to get started. I spent quite a bit of time pruning our varietals, this being the 3rd time this Spring they have been shaped. It is amazing how the suckers dominate in just a few short weeks. Once again the Nortons have taken a hit and were ignored, but in my June trip I hope to give them some needed attention. My Father visited at this time on his trip from Florida to the Adirondecks, and actually spent time with the Seyval Blancs cleaning up new growth. The vineyard has come a long ways from when he first visited on our initial planting three years or so ago.

He stayed for 5 days, working in the field off and on and visiting people in Williamsburg. And though the pruning was both relaxing and productive, the high (?) point of the week was when we were all anticipating the final episode of American Idol to see if our southern entry, Scotty, wins it all. On that Wednesday after an Italian dinner we were about to head into the living room for some relaxation and entertainment, but before we got up from the table a large BANG was heard. We had been directly hit by lightning from a passing storm. Well, the sound lasted only a microsecond but that was all it needed to blow out our power, and my Father's ear drums. But putting things in priority, we knew if we didn't act fast our chances of watching Scotty were dim.

My Father and I rushed out to the barn and grabbed the portable generator and hooked it up to the t.v. in his camper. All was saved.....Scotty won and we got to see it. Dominion Power came out within a couple of hours and replaced some fuses up on our power pole and we were back in business like nothing had happened, except for my Father's hearing which to this day hasn't fully recovered.

The rest of my time on the farm was devoted to pruning plus some spraying. Applying fungicides and insecticides now is a bi-weekly thing. It is the necessary element of trying to grow grapes in a humid region. Japanese beetles have habitually made themselves known on June 1st, so I was able to put this first spray down before their onslaught.

I also devoted a day to using my new tiller. In 8 hours I was able to till the 6 1/2 acres of vines, which easily would have taken 8 days had I done it using the walk-behind Troy tiller. The Italian machine is a monster, and though it has its quirks (it eats anything in its path), it was a real time saver and did a good job. It added another thing to my Winter list of to-dos, to try to adjust the sensor that "notices" vines by being more sensitive. Not something to re-engineer now.

June should be rather dull by comparison. More mowing, more spraying, more pruning. I am truly looking forward to it.