Pruning progress

As the days get lighter, the grape vines out back get pruned. The process is a little different this year because the biggest grower has new workers doing the pruning. I'm guessing that they're a team of seasonal workers, hired to go in and prune parcels quickly. Some cut, others pull the cut canes off the vines and line them up in between rows for mulching.

This parcel is owned by a smaller grower. He and his wife do all the work themselves. You can see that the vines have been pruned to a single cane and the cuttings have already been mulched between the rows. Next, they'll bend the single canes to the horizontal and attach them to the guide wires.

Up until last year, there were three permanent employees who did the work. We would see them nearly every day of the year doing one thing or another out among the vines. One we know left over a year ago. And now we haven't seen the other two since last year's harvest. Oh well, change is our friend.