making bondfires and taking cuttings

Sunday February 11, 2007

Today I went over to the Amber’s vineyard to work outdoors! (yay!) It was a bit chilly, but not as bad as it has been, though there’s still some snow on the ground. First I got to watch Cliff cut down a tree maybe a foot diameter and trim the branches off, which we carted down with his tractor-cart-thing to add to the brush pile of trimmings from the vines in order to help it burn (since they were still a little green). We added a little deisil fuel (not gasoline because that would explode) and got a nice hot fire going which dried up the clippings enough so that they burned. He still has a lot of trimming to do, and needed to make space for a new pile. By the time the vine excess caught fire it was smoking pretty badly, but uber fun to watch so long as the wind didn't shift too suddenly and send smoking ash clouds in our faces. I also watched as Cliff spread some more ash on the vineyard that he collects from their fireplace to help bring up the pH of the soil. Then we went around the vineyard taking cuttings from certain different vines that people had ordered online. Each cutting was about a foot long consisting of three or four nodes and about pencil width. The bottom of the cutting was cut straight across the vine while the top was cut at an angle. That way whoever got them would know which end goes up, since vines won’t send nutrients the opposite way up the stalk (which I thought was interesting). I was kind of surprised how different the vines were. Some seemed to be thinner and straighter with not as many nodes while others were pretty twisty, ect. Then when we had however many they had ordered from each vine type (most seemed to be around 25) we would bundle them up and tie them at the top and bottom end with labeled pink ribbon-tape and put them in buckets with water to keep them moist. Then later Cliff said he would wrap them in wet newspaper and a trash bag and mail them out. Next time we have a nice day Cliff said he would take me out to help him prune, or cut back a lot of the vines essentially down to the first wire for next season. If we don’t, the vines go haywire and get tangled and would end up everywhere and produce too much fruit.