Vintage 2018: Fall Chores

To say that this fall is quite a deviation from the norm is an understatement. On Thursday, November 15, we had our first snowfall. Since we live along the coast, we were under the mistaken impression that our snowfall would be a mixture of rain, sleet and snow which would melt very quickly. However, as early evening came around, the white stuff began to fall and we ended up with between 3-4 inches of snow!
Our plan to work in the vineyard on Friday took a back seat when the winds blew and it just didn't seem like a good idea to go to the vineyard. However, we couldn't neglect the work we had to do for 2 nice (40 degree weather) days in a row and we had friends coming to help us, so on Friday, we went back to securing our netting for the coming winter.
Without help, one person can do one row in 2 hours and 45 minutes. With one persons help, that time is reduced to 1 hour and 30 minutes, and with 3 people working, one row, which really consists of two 800 feet worth of netting can be done in 45 minutes!

This is our second year at securing netting. Last year, we thought that the best thing to do was to secure the netting to the trellis wire. When spring came around, we found that the wind had blown one side of the netting and caught on the anchors on the other side. It was a mess. This year, we are trying some thing different. We have always used grapevine rubber bands for the various securing and tethering activities that we do in the vineyard. Our strategy this year is to put the rubber band very close to the anchor clip that holds the netting. We hope that this weight will keep the netting from getting caught on the netting on the other side of the trellis.
Our anchor clips are spaced (should be) 4 feet apart from each other. By trial and error, we learned that the best way to get the netting as tight as possible is to begin rolling the netting at one end of the row, and then move to the third anchor clip and roll the netting back to the second anchor clip. There will be eight feet between anchor clips that have been rubber banded. We'll see in the spring how our method held up. Meanwhile, we have just 10 more rows of netting to roll up. (For those of you keeping track, for one person that would equal 137.5 more hours of work!)