March Madness

The madness is almost over for a minute! This crazy hectic month all culminates on April 3rd at planting day; are you signed up? I sent out an email with deets last week.

AFRAME:

We scheduled a framing inspection for tomorrow… we got so swamped in the vineyard that the house definitely took a backseat but we’re finally getting an inspection in. That means we’re cramming this weekend to make sure all is finished inside before Monday. All the windows that can go in, need to go in (still waiting on our fixed glass), the staircase was installed, the roof was installed, and our front door is going in today!

We are sooo thrilled with how this roof turned out! You can see on the picture on the right there are some trim pieces needed for the roof by the dormer, these will go on after we do the siding so Dan will finish that up next month.

The stair installation was brutalll. We drove 2.5 hours to Lookout Mountain to pickup our custom staircase from a metal fabricator named Sam (straight out of Duck Dynasty). Incidentally I think Dan needs a pair of overalls now. This guy was so great to work with and he and his sons helped load this gorgeous 500+lb staircase onto our trailer. When we got back to our place we offloaded it with our tractor but getting it up the stairs and in the house and then vertical was a grueling 4 hour test of strength and wits. Between me, my mom, Dan and my dad we managed in the end! The staircase came primed black and we will eventually paint it, though we’ll probably keep it black.

Over the next month Dan will work on making stair treads for this from some of the oak on our property by bringing it to a saw mill.

VINEYARD:

This month in the vineyard, we ripped all the vine rows after fertilizing with chicken manure, then we tilled that in all the rows. Now we’re going back and placing a bamboo stake every 4 feet where a vine will go so we will know where to auger the holes on Thursday and Friday of this week.

Tuesday compost is getting delivered and Wednesday vines! The compost will need to be distributed, one or two scoops next to each vine hole so we can incorporate it when planting.

Top left is after ripping rows, pre tilling. Right is after tilling and below are the bamboo going in.