Holidays, etc.
Hi Everyone!
Another month has passed without any updates so here goes!
Vineyard:
Dan and I have been trying to finish up all the infrastructure in our first vineyard block so we can move on to the next one to get it ready for Spring vines. I finished installing all the irrigation lines in the second half of the vineyard and mounted all the emitters (one per vine). Took me about 6 days off and on. During the “off” part, to give my knees and back a break, I installed another 2 clips per end post in the whole vineyard so Dan could run more wires. I got blisters on my “hammer hand” and had to alternate to my left hand but this arm workout was a nice respite from the former squatting exercise.
Dan ran the wires in the whole vineyard and now all that’s left is burying the irrigation tubes on the top side of the rows which will require renting a trencher one weekend when there’s no rain in the forecast.
Below are a few pictures from our Atlas Estate Block and as you can see the end posts are slowly going in! We have about 25 posts in out of 60 or so. Our rows are twice as long as last years’ so thankfully we only need half the amount of end posts! The Avondale Estate Block has a whopping total of 108 posts! Why did we do that to ourselves??
We’ve been quietly working on our next building site behind the scenes. Building permit is in hand and we’ve passed our first inspection with the inspector commenting “these are the best footings I’ve ever seen”. The footings are just 4 foot deep holes that we dug, squared off and tamped down in order for the building’s wooden posts to sit in. There were 18 in total and it took us the better part of a weekend with my dad and sisters’ help even with the rented auger to make things easier. Nothing you can do when you hit roots and rocks except dig by hand until the obstruction is removed.
Hopefully we’ll get the exterior framework and roof installed no later than January. We were going to hire this part out for about $13,000 which kind of hurt to have to pay but our installer has been difficult to get ahold of and just pushed us out another month. He says he cant find anyone to work so we’re not super confident he’ll have found anyone by then and we can’t afford another month delay. Other installers we’ve called are booked out half a year or more. So once again, we’ll tackle this ourselves and save a ton of money that we’ll need elsewhere. Can’t wait to finally see a structure at the top of our hill even if it’s just the “outline” of one!
No major updates on our house, just tackling small projects that we’ll post about once we’re finished and have something to show for it.
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and we’ll chat next in the new year!
