Marquettes are now almost fully turned, and pretty small as far as the bunches go.
Frontenac Gris look delicious. They are turning this beautiful champagne color, small grapes on a large bunch.
And Frontenacs, which are huge and it seems like it takes forever to get the entire bunch to turn.
Corot Noir
, still nothing.
And finally the Noriets, who are by far the most inconsistant plants in the vineyard. Some are dead. Some are vigorous. Some bunches are tiny, some look great. And still some pushed up new growth with blooms and leaves only to die back all the sudden. Weird. Looks like a very light crop if any at all will make it.
Otherwise, everything looks good. I keep watching the tractors do their rounds cutting, tethering, and baling the hay. It seems like it's never ending and I always look out in the field just a few weeks after it has been cut to find that my dog almost disappears in the tall blades of grass and bushes of clover.
Every day for a week I've seen the same turkey vulture sitting on top of a giant round bale, just giving me a long hard stare. Sometimes they circle overhead and I wonder what I look like to them... although I wonder that when the planes and helicopters circle overhead. The blimp came by once. I just imagined rich people drinking champagne on their -alternative to a cruise ship- day outing. It looked like they were not sure which way to go when leisurly hanging in the sky until they saw me and made a quick jaunt over to see what the little plot of land with such strange angular rows of green could be. By the time I could hear the whurr overhead, they had found something else that caught their eye and changed course so I went back to counting train whistles. Some conductors really go for the gusto and blow their horn for 5 seconds with only a half second rest. Some are very conservative and only blow two short horn blows before going through the crossing. And there must have been a new guy who was a real jerk who decided it would be funny to blow it at me when I was less than 50 feet away playing in the garden by the tracks. It took me a half hour to get the ringing out of my ears.
Anyway, it feels like the neverending task of beating wild vines into some managable shape is never ending, but I'm starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. While it used to take me a long time to go down a row, straightening trunks, training new trunks, combing fruiting wood, thinning clusters... now it's starting to be a bit easier. I come up to a vine and look at it like I've seen it before and I kinda get what I was thinking when I tied it up the last time and all I have to do is a little light pruning and move the tie up higher.
Anyway, it feels like the neverending task of beating wild vines into some managable shape is never ending, but I'm starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. While it used to take me a long time to go down a row, straightening trunks, training new trunks, combing fruiting wood, thinning clusters... now it's starting to be a bit easier. I come up to a vine and look at it like I've seen it before and I kinda get what I was thinking when I tied it up the last time and all I have to do is a little light pruning and move the tie up higher.
Help is always good to have as well. After awhile the grapevines start blurring in together and every once and awhile it's good to have a word of empathy at the ease or difficulty of a particular variety (oh man the marquettes...) or to judge pace at how fast a row can be done. Otherwise, I was going to the dollar store just to have a conversation with the outside world. I keep asking my friends about fashion because I feel like I live in a grape vine bubble where jean shorts and a tshirt is perfectly accented by waterproof rubber boots and a baseball hat.
...oh how I hope farmers tans are in style this fall.
