Springtime is accelerating

 

I got a big assist from Kubota, my youngest son.

Yesterday, he got the riding mower running and flattened the weeds where the 2026 potato patch will be planted.

While he was doing that, I was pruning grapevines. This is a "before" picture

This is an "after" picture.

I cut disposable, plastic grocery bags into strips. I use them to mark the canes I want to keep. I get tunnel vision when pruning and am apt to remove material I intend to keep if I don't mark it in a big and obvious way.

Then, I use the same strips to tie the canes to the wire. The UV will shred the thin plastic before it has a chance to girdle the growing stems.

I have been shrinking the number of grapevines. I am down to one full row and two partial rows. I will probably always have some vines but apples and Asian pears are much better at paying their rent and grass/clover is much less labor to maintain.

2 hours and 40 minutes time-on-task. About 3 hours and 30 minutes by the clock start-to-finish. I still have to drag the prunings out of the orchard.

Kubota's efforts probably saved me another three hours of time.