Death among the vines

Sometimes grape vines die. I don't know why one vine among dozens just gives up. But they do, especially in the older, established vineyard parcels. In some cases, the dead vine is replaced with a younger, healthy one. In other cases, the vine is removed but not replaced. An empty space marks the spot until, at some point, there are too many empty spaces and the entire parcel is dug up and, eventually, replanted. Or not. I'm sure vineyard management is not so simple as that.

A dead grape vine among the living.

Yesterday was a productive day. I made another trip to the dump and got rid of several containers of spent fryer oil. I also went to the filling station for ten liters of gasoline for the mower. After, I managed to cut the grass in the west forty. Today I hope to cut the south forty and the strips outside hedges. The weather forecast looks good. 

Twenty years ago

Just a quick photo from 2005 when we started harvesting green beans from our garden. Yum! No such bounty this year. :(

Green and yellow beans from one of our first vegetable gardens, 2005.

I was up and out early this morning. Another trip to the dump and to buy some gasoline for the mower. 

Getting plowed

One way to keep weeds under control out in the vineyards is to plow them under. That's what's happened in this parcel in the past week. It's good for the vines and it looks nice. But walking in the newly plowed rows is next to impossible. Oh well, the vineyard isn't there for our strolling pleasure.

A newly plowed vineyard parcel.

Can you believe that, after our near 40ºC days last week, we're now back to putting blankets on the bed. It rained most of the day on Sunday. The rain was welcome. You may have noticed from the photos of our back yard how brown the grass is. It's almost like California in the summer.

Top heavy

The apple trees are looking a little top heavy these days. They're on the list for pruning during the winter months. It'll be the second time we've have them done in twenty years. There aren't any apples on the tree this year. We seem to be in a year-on year-off cycle with them. One year were drowning in apples, the next year there are none. I've read that this happens when trees are not pruned regularly.

No apples on the trees this year. That'll make mowing a lot easier. Didn't I see this tree in The Wizard of Oz?

We woke up to light rain this morning and about 18ºC on the thermometer. Dare I say, it's almost fall-like. Our high is predicted to be 20ºC, a far cry from the nearly 40º we had for a couple of days last week. 

It's grapes

Here are some grapes on the vines out back. They're coming along nicely. I think they like the hot weather and all the trimming and pruning they've been getting.

These are red grapes, I think, but are they gamay, cabernet, or côt (malbec)?

Today is market day and I'm thinking of going for some poultry sausages. Next weekend is a big holiday weekend: July 14, commemorating the French Revolution and, if the weather is good, I expect there to be a lot of vacationers in the area. The market can get crowded. 

Ivy league

It just got away from us. The ivy growing on the garden shed, that is. And we can't remove it; Ken has tried. However, the landscape contractor said "no problem." But, he warned, it will try like heck to come back, so we'll have to cut away any shoots we that see at ground level to keep the takeover from happening again. Doses of weed killer could help, but we may have to move those irises.

Ken cut some of the ivy (you can see where it's brown), but it's tough going, and we can't pry it off the walls.

It's chilly this morning! It was 16.4ºC when I took Tasha out. That's about 61ºF. The high is expected to top out at 31ºC (about 88ºF). Sleeping is much easier, especially for Tasha.

Relief!

This morning's low temperature is below 20ºC (about 68ºF) for the first time in a while. It feels nice. We're expecting a high of 31ºC (about 88ºF) this afternoon. Much better.

The remaining hazelnut hedge, about half of what it was.

This photo shows the row of hazelnut hedges out in the west forty. You can see them between the fig on the left and the artichoke on the right. It's about half the the hazelnuts we had before I had the other half ripped out many years ago. Some have died, others are being taken over by ronces (blackberry brambles). The hedge serves no purpose; it's up against the fence. It gets trimmed back every year with the other hedges, but there's really no reason for it to be there. It doesn't produce any edible nuts and hasn't for years. It's filling up with sharp-thorned brambles and they're choking the hedge. One of the nut trees that make up the hedge is already dead. So the whole hedge will come out as part of our Big Beautiful Pruning Project (sorry) that we hope will happen some time this coming winter.