Friday was a super-busy day in the (future) vineyard. Gordon Cook, our vineyard manager, has been working on measuring, spacing and marking the field for the first third of the estate plantings. It looks like this:
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Gordon walking the field.
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Row # 40.
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Gordon uses a tape measure to space the rows equally.
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Because of the property lines, curve of the slope and other factors…
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…there’s lots of little adjustments to be made.
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It still looks like a lot of dirt right now, but it’s carefully-measured dirt.
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After he’s pulled the tape, Gordon repositions the flags along the new span of field.
Meanwhile, Dave re-filled the holes that Gordon had dug previously to uncover our septic system’s drain boxes and drain field. We had to be careful to avoid planting right on top of those access points, so Gordon had to measure around them.
Dave backfills the holes used to locate our septic drain field.
And, what would a day on our property be without the latest chapter of “The Battle of the Blackberries”?
Man Versus Blackberry.
Then, as if there wasn’t enough excitement in one Friday, Ted from SunRidge Nursery showed up with our first batch of bare-rooted vines! We received 2550 Pinot Noir grapevines yesterday: 1700 Pommard-clone vines and 850 667-clone vines, all grafted to 3309 rootstock.
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Here comes Trouble, with a Capital T, that stands for Ted. From Sunridge Nurseries. Just kidding. We *heart* Ted.
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Well, lookee here. Ted brought our bare rooted Pinot Noir vines!
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Unloading by hand (into the Willamette Valley’s sexiest picking bins–just check out that Bells Up Winery logo!).
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Since we haven’t acquired a forklift yet, unloading was done by hand.
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Almost done.
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Time to sign the paperwork.
Whew. End of a LONG day. Gordon’s still marking out the field today, so the planting crew will be putting the vines in the ground on Sunday.
End of a long, long day. And, yes, behind Dave is essentially the view from the barn/tasting room/winery we’ve been working on too.