Will this be our busiest month of the year?
It sure seems like it! We may change our mind when we’re busy clearing the next 5 or so acres while simultaneously taking care of baby grapes and mayyybe starting on the tasting room but Dan thinks tasting room will get pushed to 2022. The biggest priority is getting out next field cleared, amended and ready for vines April 2022. Whew. Thinking way too far ahead. Back to March 2021!
HOUSE:
Hopefully we’ll be ready for a framing inspection next week! The metal roof was hired out (yay! one thing off our plate) and he is trying to squeeze us in soon. Our windows were all ordered but these will take 3–4 weeks to arrive. Dan’s dad is coming down from Iowa next week and is helping us with the plumbing and hvac. Still waiting on the well guy to fit us in but we’re on his schedule.
Below you can see we’ve finally “dried in” the final portion of the house, now we have to wrap it with house wrap. We also needed to put some trim pieces in place before the roofers arrive. The paint color for the vertical tongue and groove siding is going to be Sherwin Williams “Black Magic”. It’s a beautiful warm black and I can’t wait.
We did increase the window size in the loft (it still looks small in picutres but we pretty much doubled the size!) We had a normal vertical double hung window planned but when we saw the potential here for sweeping vineyard views, we had to increase it. We went for a picture window (it wont open, its too large) because if we had opted for a sliding window you end up with this awful bar down the middle that just doesn’t frame the view nearly as well! I really wanted it to look like a portrait so here we are. To give you an idea, if we had made the entire thing floor to ceiling windows like the view probably demands, it would’ve cost about $3500. This new window is approx $750 and our old double hung was about $170….big difference but we couldn’t not! We will cut back elsewhere :)
In other news, our adorable neighbor Ed has been itching to help with the home construction since we started. He’s helped build things for many a neighbor and always gives great advice (his advice is the reason we were finally able to finish the roof without renting any fancy equipment)! Every so often we hear him from across the street start up his riding lawnmower and make the long drive up our driveway to say hello. He’s so cute I can’t handle it. Anyway he popped over the other day and said Sunday he was going to come over and help us build the stairs onto our deck…we had procrastinated and were entering the house by walking a narrow wooden plank over a “gauntlet” out the back side of the house. Needless to say we are thrilled to have real steps now!
VINEYARD:
At the same time we’re getting ready to spread chicken manure in our grape fields, a bit more lime and then oversow some more grass seed (clover and fescue). We have wooden end posts on order (should be here in a week or so), grow tubes and bamboo stakes (delivered today!). Below is a picture of how our end posts need to be installed at a 65 degree angle (still need to figure out how to auger holes at this precise angle). The bamboo stakes are not depicted here (you can also use rebar) but will serve to support the baby vines between the line posts until they stabilize and grow tall enough to tie onto a cordon wire. The grow tubes will protect the vines from deer for a while! Need to find a solution for this after they grow out of them….anyone want to hunt deer?? We have a lot and we don’t have the heart yet, though things may change when they threaten our crop!
More soon!
