Family | Dimes2Vines

Drip Irrigation

What a beautiful day we had yesterday! Knowing that vineyard work was soon to begin, we have been doing concentrated schoolwork in preparation to take time off. With the temperature near 70F, we decided to enjoy the warmth. We began laying the drip irrigation tape for this year’s planting. We will be adding 2 1/3 acres of grapes in March, 2 acres will be Petit Verdot and 1/3 acre will be Muscat Canelli. Our rows are 1/3 of a mile long and 3 rows equals one acre, so we will be adding 7 more rows.

What made this year’s expansion even more exciting for us was the fact that we are using our own tractor! John had tried to arrange to use a neighbor’s big John Deere = speed and GPS accuracy. Since our ’54 Ford tractor is not equipped with a GPS system, the rows were first marked off at the 8 foot spacing. (This tractor was generously gifted to us by a friend who got out of farming.) The dry, hard ground was then ripped to a depth of about a foot (broken up with a blade) to make it easier for the tape to go in the ground. The vine rows are 8 feet apart and drip tape will be laid down the center of the rows. The picture below shows the ripped lines where the drip tape will be. The rye stubble protected our land from blowing away in the wind storms. The small green plants are the self-seeded rye that will provide the next year’s protection.

As with most things, getting the tractor set up right seems to be the most time consuming part. The taping rig, courtesy of our grape consultant, is essentially a blade that cuts into the dirt and allows the irrigation tape to be placed at an even depth in the ground. It is first attached to the tractor, then the depth of the plow can be set and finally the roll of tape put in place. The irrigation tape will spin off the roll in the arms above head clearance and feed down through a tube at the back of the knife blade into the ground.

At the start of a new row, the tape must be held in place by a lucky volunteer until the tractor is far enough ahead so that the weight of the dirt prevents it from being pulled out by the tractor.

I know our tractor is old, but I really do not think it needs to be pushed along! Then again, a little help never hurt anyone

Normally, someone sits in the seat or walks beside the rig to prevent the tape from twisting. (Did they put sunblock on?)

At the end of the row, the tape is cut. These cut ends will be connected later to the vineyard irrigation system.

The tape at this point is flat with emitters, or holes, every 2 feet. When it is all hooked up, water will fill the tape and evenly come out the holes for the grapevines. Each of these holes drip at ~0.24 gal/hr. Every now and then, a gopher will make an extra hole in the tape, but their holes leak quite a bit faster!

Once all the rows are finished, the boys will go back over each one with the tractor packing the dirt down. Gophers are very prevalent here in west Texas and they love to dig in fresh dirt. Packing the dirt down will hopefully keep them from digging and chewing through the drip tape.

Pellenc AP25

We have a new toy in the vineyard! It is the Pellenc AP25. What, you might ask is that? It is a battery powered tying machine used to anchor grape vines to either a bamboo stake (for new vines) or wire for older vines. This little baby was not cheap but it is already proving its worth!

Soon, we will be going through the vineyard with a pre-pruner. The pre-pruner will cut off and shred last years growth from the vines. The amount cut off is adjustable and we will leave 2 buds per spur. Our vines are trained up to 4 ft and then 2 arms are tied down horizontally in opposite directions on a wire forming a cordon.

Each arm is allowed to grow 2 ft along the wire. From these arms, upward growing spurs have the buds for the new growth.

Each bud should produce two bunches of grapes. Optimally, we want 20 buds per plant – 10 evenly spaced over each 2 ft arm. These will yield 5 to 15 lbs. of grapes per vine. You can see the fuzzy white bulges in the picture below.

With the pre-pruner we will cut the vines back so that each spur has 2 buds. We will then come through and hand prune, cleaning up each vine to achieve the 20 buds per plant.

Before pre-pruning, it is important to replace any dead or weak arms. This is done by pulling down a healthy looking arm from last years growth to replace the compromised one. The Pellenc AP25 is used to tie down the arm to the cordon wire.

You can see from the picture below, the bulk of the Pellenc AP25 is worn at the back of the waist. (The jeans are designer, by yours truly – call for pricing!) This back part holds the battery pack and the roll of ties. For tying down mature arms, we are using a standard tie designed to last 12 – 14 mths. They look much like bread bag ties. When training our new planting, we will be using paper ties designed to degrade in 8 – 10 mths so that they do not girdle the fast growing young plants.

The handheld part of the Pellenc AP25 looks like a space age gun. You can hopefully see the line of brown ties coming from the back pack and feeding into the rear of the gun.

The open tip of the gun is positioned over the vine and cordon wire (in this case) and the trigger is pulled.

The Pellenc AP25 does the rest. The tie is extruded, twisted and voile!

Until now, we have all had our own hand tapers and done our own pruning (or training, as the case may be) and taping as we go. The old tapers, pictured below, just didn’t last even the season – we went through 19 of them!

To date, we are finding the Pellenc AP25 to be very fast and feel that while 6 or 7 of us are pruning, 1 person using the Pellenc AP25 will be able to keep up with the rest. Pellenc proports one person can do 12,000 ties per day. We will see!

End of an Era

Our 3 year old is now officially potty trained!

This would be a milestone for anyone, but for us, it is the end of an era. An era spanning 26 1/2 years.

Our oldest son was born ten days before our first anniversary. Little did we know that our first year would be one of the few periods of time in our married lives without diapers.

Diaper bags took the place of purses. Why carry both? It was much easier to throw my wallet and lipstick in the diaper bag. I think I have gone through at least 8 – 10 diaper bags. They were stylish, of course, and though they did not define me, they became my main fashion accessory. I like big purses so my diaper bags were also big. Maybe I should say, they were mutli-functional bags.

Having used cloth diapers for the past 26 1/2years (except occasionally splurging on disposables) I have seen the decline in diaper quality over the years. I am not talking about those cute ones available now with covers that use snaps rather than diaper pins. Being a hard core cloth diaper mommy, I stuck with diaper pins and plastic pants. Plastic pants which, by the way, as the quality decreased over the years, your fingers could go through if you were in a hurry and pulled them up on your toddler too quickly! My reasoning for not investing in the latest cloth diaper craze was, of course, financial. While still less expensive than disposables, they were much more costly than if I just stuck with what I had. After all, how many more children would I have?

So, here we are, twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight years from when we started. I am finally trading diapers for big girl panties for the last time and a diaper bag for a purse.

Think you detect a bit of sadness?

I do like purses – big metallic ones and big ones in pop colors – that’s undeniable.

I guess I just have to face it – the end of an era has come!

Maybe the girls will let me carry the grandchildren’s diaper bags.

Or …

Maybe, I should go shopping for a new purse!

*Photo Credit: Bing Images

Free Magazines

I have been enjoying a couple of free magazines that I would like to share with you.

The first is the “In Touch” magazine published by In Touch Ministries. This is a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta where Dr. Charles Stanley is the pastor. “In Touch” is a monthly publication and in addition to encouraging articles, it also has daily devotions. At the end of each day’s devotion is a Bible reading designed to guide you in reading through the Bible in one year. I have tried several of these “read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year” programs and have never been able to keep up. This one is different. I have found it very manageable and even enjoyable! If you are interested, simply visit InTouch.org and sign up for this free magazine. You might also enjoy browsing the site. Many of Dr. Stanley’s sermons are available free of charge, as well as, their store to purchase other products.

*You will receive letters with ministry updates from Dr. Stanley and be asked to give monetarily to them. You may choose to do so, or not, and continue to receive the magazine.

The second publication I would like to introduce you to is “Above Rubies”. This magazine is published 3-4 times per year and is also free to receive. AboveRubies is a website and magazine founded by Nancy Campbell. On their website they describe their mission well:

Above Rubies is a ministry to encourage women in their high calling as wives, mothers, and homemakers. Its purpose isto uphold and strengthen family life and to raise the standard of God’s truth in the nation.

The name has been chosen from Proverbs 31.10 AMP, “A capable, intelligent and virtuous woman, who is he who can find her? She is far more precious than jewels and her value is far Above Rubies or pearls.”

Both of these ministries offer products free of charge and I would encourage you to give them a try. I know I have really enjoyed them!

*I am in no way affiliated with either of these ministries and just wanted to share with you something that I enjoy!

40 Frugal Living Tips Revisited

“Use it up, wear it out, make do or do without!”

—— My husband

At the end of 2009, I posted “My Top 40 Frugal Living Tips.” Now, 2 years later, it is encouraging to review it. If you have been reading Dimes2Vines for a while, you know the last 4 years have been challenging, to say the least! Starting a 20 acre vineyard from scratch is a lot of hard work. Hard work without an accompanying paycheck!

With a large family, frugal living has always been a part of our lifestyle but became significantly more important. Now after our first successful harvest, we are continuing our frugal lifestyle. Why? To be good stewards. I am not talking about a miserly lifestyle. Rather, we are continuing to work together for our common family goals.

These goals include expanding the vineyard – we are planting another 2 1/3 acres of grapes this year – and finishing our house which overlooks the vineyard. Hopefully, we will continue the Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) upward after this year’s havest in Oct. 2012.

Many items on my top 40 list seem to be common sense things but they are also easy to forget about, such as, #16 adjust your thermostat, #17 turn off lights and #18 turn off ceiling fans when leaving a room.

In fact, as I review the list, we are still practicing them all – from tithing (#1),to writing down all expenses in my budget book (#2) to using VoIP as our phone rather than cell phones (#40).

Don’t underestimate the power of the “little things”. The little things can quickly add up! Each of the 40 tips alone may seem insignificant, but, together they can amount to great savings.

A Sad Day

Because of more problems with our internet, I was unable to post the introduction to Bob and Monty when I originally wrote them last week. I debated as to whether or not to post them as written. If you read them, you will remember that several of the pictures included Squiggles, our red and white Pembroke Welsh corgi. It is with great sadness that I write – Squiggles is no longer with us.

While we were away one evening, she wandered from home which was very unusual (as far as we know anyway) and someone shot her. Our neighbors all knew her, so, our assumption is that someone mistook her for a coyote. (There has been a problem with rabid coyotes this year.) Although I do not see how, it is also incomprehensible that someone would be so cruel as to shoot a dog and leave it to suffer.

Needless to say, it has been very sad for all of us and many tears have been shed. In light of the suffering that other families are experiencing, I know this may seem trivial. But, while Squiggles was just a dog, she was a great dog and had her place in our family. It is one of those lessons that as parents we must deal with and help our children through. Death is a reality – we will all face it.

This life is temporary and fleeting – make the most of your time and be prepared for eternity.

Monty

We have another new family member.

A cat.

Monty – short for Montepulciano – one of the Italian red grape varieties that we grow.His mother was Siamese. From the looks of Monty, his father may have been Persian.That would make him a Himalayan.

I am a dog person NOT and I repeat, NOT a cat person.

But, even I have to admit, Monty is a nice cat.

Why would I feel this way being such a loyal dog person?

He thinks he is one of the dogs! He sleeps with them. They eat out of the same bowl. They all eat dog food (Monty prefers it!). They run together. They play together. They all walk to the vineyard and back together.

But, Monty, although he may not realize it, is still a cat.

How do I know?

He still purrs!

Boomerang Dog?

Most everyone has heard of boomerang children – but – a boomerang dog?

Well, we have one!

Meet Bob, a Pembroke Welsh Corgi.

Bob was on of Sophie and Scruggs’ puppies and is 2 years old.He belonged to our second oldest son and lived in El Paso. Since our son’s was finding it difficult to spend time with Bob – between girlfriend and work (mostly girlfriend, I think!) – Bob has now come back to his roots.

Bob’s favorite activity? Fetch! He is obsessed with it! Whether it is a small stick or a 3 foot 2′ x 4′ board, he will bring whatever he finds and drop it at your feet.

If you ignore him? He picks it up and drops it again, making a louder sound! If you still do not pick the stick up and throw it, he will go find another and drop it at your feet and repeat the whole process over.

How does Bob like his new home? He loves it! There are 9 people here just to play fetch with him! Then, as if that were not enough, there is Squiggles. They love to play and although she does not understand the fetch game, she races him every time he takes off running, snapping and growling at him. She has finally learned to tease him by grabbing the other end of the stick and they play tug-of war.

Winter in the Vineyard

While many may not see beauty in a vineyard during the winter, I do. Vines which are growing so vibrant and green during the summer, are now brown and gnarly. I’m not sure “gnarly” is a word but it definitely describes the dried, brown, bare vines.

I guess when I look at the vineyard this time of year, I see promise and the hope of things to come.

Or maybe …

I see a vineyard that does not require work right now … ie… a rest period for us!

A White Christmas!

For the first time ever, I woke up to a white Christmas! Now, I would have expected this in Switzerland, but not here in west Texas. I must say, it was beautiful and really added to the festive atmosphere.

The snow clouds hung around all day and we had about two inches of accumulation. The children loved it and I loved the warm cozy fire! The only downside was the mud as it melted and was trampled. I don’t mind the mud outside but it seems to somehow, find its way in the house! I am sure it had nothing to do with the 40 feet and 16 paws going in out (this count includes children, spouses, grandchildren, our 2 dogs and cat, my mother, my sister and their dog)!

Buttercup was definitely easy to spot in the snow covered landscape! She did not seem to mind it at all and kept on doing what cows do – grazing.

The stormy weather did not keep the Canadian geese from continuing their migration – a sight we all enjoy watching especially when they fly low enough to hear their honking.

I hope you all enjoyed a merry Christmas and made wonderful memories!