Getting Ready to Use the Grape Hoe

In looking at my own blog posts (this is a good reason to write a blog), it appears that Hans and Doug of H&W Equipment for Vineyard and Winery, came in early June to drop off the grape hoe for us to test. But using the grape hoe presented us with a Grape Hoe: Catch-22 because we needed to get our line posts into the ground.
We soon learned that pounding in our line posts was going to take a good portion of the summer as we rotated the Atlas Copco post pounder with our Rears Pak Tank and our Ferri mower on to the only narrow tractor that we own, our trusty Landini. That is how summer slipped away.

We now have most of our line posts in the ground and have even finished putting in our end posts, so ready or not, we must use the grape hoe!
Today, my husband was busy configuring the grape hoe so that he can use it, which meant that he had to properly connect all of the hydraulic lines including two lines that go back to the front of the Landini which returns the hydraulic fluid to the sump, which will cool the heated hydraulic fluid in the lines. Using the grape hoe also required that he modify his Landini a little bit. He put in a 12-volt fused outlet for the electric overhydraulic valve switch, also known as the panic button. The panic button is used to complete the circuit to the valve that controls the weeding knife. I don't quite understand all of the mechanics and my husband is currently plugged into his laptop so I'll report on the details later.