For the past 10 days now Matt and I have been pruning every single day, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, every day. We get up have breakfast, read the paper online, pack a lunch and then head out the prune, prune, prune! Matt took 2 weeks off to help me finish and to do a bit of work on his "new" tractor and our back yard. As usual this year we've had friends and family volunteer to help with the task of pruning over 15,000 vines.
In January when my parents were here, they were out faithfully every day along with my brother-
in-law Billy O'Riordan. Billy stayed on through February, so he really helped me out. Especially since there were several "unfavorable days" according to the bio-dynamic calendar that fell on weekends this year. Unfavorable or black days as we like to call them happen when the moon and stars align to create a conflict and it is recommended that no vineyard (or
agricultural) work be done on that day. There are usually one or two black days during a normal two-week
pruning period, which is nice because then we get to take the day off. This year several fell on the weekend so thus far Matt had done virtually no pruning!
He made up for it over the past two weeks, there haven't been any bad days in the last 10 days, so we've been out there a lot! Luckily the weather has been sunny and even wonderfully warm recently. In the beginning we had quite a bit of Mistral (the famous Provençal wind) which kept the temps chilly, but the past few days have been divine! Yesterday I was out there in a tank top! Unfortunately I came home to some lovely v-shaped tan lines on my back where the straps for my electric pruners lay... Oh well, they don't call it a farmer's tan for nothing! Every year at this time people tell me that I have a "bonne mine" which basically means I have good color, and ask if I've been skiing... If only.
WIth all of this sun, the almond trees and the apricot trees are in full bloom, the
asparagus rows have been covered with plastic to encourage them to grow, and the lady bugs are back! All inspiring signs that Spring isn't far away. I'm sure we've not seen the last of old man winter, but there's hope that soon we'll see green leaves on the trees, and be enjoying those delicious spring veggies from the market! Let's hope that we don't have a late freeze again this year, and that we'll have a bumper crop of apricots and cherries come June.
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