Vintage 2021: May Vineyard Tasks

On April 28, I wrote a blogpost called Cuttings Are a Fact of Vineyard Pruning and on May 13, we finally finished picking up all of the cuttings from the vineyard alleys just as the weeds and the grass were beginning to grow into the cuttings serving as an effective camoflage. We took a moment to breathe a sigh of relief and moved on to other tasks.
We were trimming the ends of the canes that we had laid down as well as the kicker canes so the next things to do was mowing and weed wacking. Here is a photo of what my husband has been doing:

I have been disbudding. The goal of disbudding is to attempt to make the shoot growth as synchronous as possible and to give each developing shoot enough space for airflow, part of early canopy management.

Meanwhile, we take time to see all the birds that have made their return to the vineyard. My husband saw an Oriole nest but so far he hasn't been able to take a decent photo. Our hunter on the other hand has visitors parading in front of his camera. His trail camera took this photo of a mother and her newborn fawn on May 15 and on May 17th the same mother and fawn posed for a daytime photo.