A little mould anyone?

One wish granted. I was sick of pruning and wanted to do something different. This coincided with the need to pick the last of the grapes. We left some Sav Blanc on the vines to get botrytis as we need some for our tokay. It was not fun. It was freezing. And as we were pressing such a small amount of grapes we couldn't use the mechanical press but had to use an old fashioned one. In future I think we should always ensure we need a sufficiently large amount of grapes pressed.

another orchid

so we got some more chooks

Ex-battery hens. Not pretty, but not as bad as some we had in the past and you have to feel a little sorry for them, they don't even know what real food looks like. One thought it was a duck and wanted to sleep in the water trough, so Dad is giving them perching lessons, one at a time... all the simple things their mothers didn't get to teach them.

Here they are eating dirt when fresh food is down the other end of the cage. As I said these ones don't look too bad, but they are missing a lot of feathers around their necks.

Hopefully they will lay soon....

Bigger, but still not cute

I didn't mean I didn't like our current chooks

I just wanted some more.
Unfortunately that message didn't get across to the foxes.

The wet weather may be good for the vines, but it has made the ground easy digging...

another phalaenopsis

Yah

Winter solstice.

Now we can get some more chooks.

Not so cute

This spider was in a doorway. I jokingly said to Xanthe I hoped it didn't fall on me.

Later that night I walked through the doorway and heard a thud. The spider had fallen off the wall.

Not so ugly

I love playing with depth of field, pity I didn't pay so much attention to the sun....

Ugly.

Aren't they.

The sheep fairy dropped by yesterday

And left us 55 Ewes and a little lamb.


We have absolutely no idea who owns them, but the are keeping down the weekends in Block 5.

Its a little cold.

So cold in fact that I didn't even consider doing any work yesterday.

The mechanical pruner

I think the canes won todays battle....


They drew blood four time, I didn't take that many limbs...

Mechanical Pruning

We are going to mechanical prune some of the vines. Chop them roughly, then go through and clean it all up by hand. But unlike when Xanthe and I prune, the blades don't care which canes should kept to be wrapped down to extend the vine along the wire. Does that make sense, probably not. Let me put it another way, as the vineyards is still relatively young, some of the vines don't meet each other along the wire, so each year a strong cane is wrapped down to further extend the vine. The mechanical pruner indiscriminately cuts all the canes. So my current job is to wrap down the canes we want to keep and extend.

The weather has been miserable (why am I not in Sydney?) and I don't think I ate enough (I got a little impatient). Not a good start. And it didn't get better. My hands were continually pinched between the cane and the wire (and it was cold so it hurt so much more), my face was whipped by stubborn canes and was scared I was going to lose an eye, the canes were trimmed in spring and a few have strong sharp points ( I really should wear safety glass, not for acid splashes as I have previously used them, but could you imagine - "how'd you lose the eye?" "well that was a stubborn Cabernet back in 08").

Unfortunately a few canes preferred to leave the vine rather than be wrapped down as I wanted them to. A whole arm of a young vine came off at one point. It was a young vine and a weak arm, but I felt bad none the less. It's not a nice feeling to rip the arm of a living plant. I could hear it scream. No actually I couldn't, but I still felt bad.

So yes life is boring, hence the lack of interesting blog posts. I take my camera with me next time I go outside.

June is here

May was lovely, May was warm, May was sunny, May was great for working outdoors.

June is not.

Day to day the pencil varies in thickness

When pruning a grape vine you need to know there to cut if off. If a vine is growing well and the cane is thick, cut it off where it meets the other vine. If it is not long enough I am told to cut it off when it is pencil thickness. Some days it is thicker than others.

Kicking vines, throwing spiders

work is not all dull.... I finished pruning the Pinot and started on some Tempranillo. This block is still developing, mainly because Dad hasn't had enough water for it in the past few years, but as the more mature vines in other blocks need less water, we are trying to re-establish this block. Some of the vines are growing very well, those near the swamp which as the name suggests is fairly wet. But those on top of the hill are not faring so well. My current job is to prune the established vines, train the struggling vines and remove the dead ones. The ones which have died either did not establish or died after initially shooting. When a vine has died, or a cutting not taken, they are brittle and snap easily. If I think a vine is dead I give it a kick. Live vines have more give and will bend rather than snap. Unless you kick them too hard... I only did that once, but felt very bad. Dead ones fly away.

Young vines are protected from hares, Kangaroos and the like by a plastic sleeve. As I find a dead vine, I throw the sleeve over into the next row so that I can easily collect them all when I finish with the block. Spiders, mostly redbacks love life inside these sleeves, I'm not sure what they think of being thrown, missile-like, across the rows.