Child Abuse.

I love children.  I believe myself a very lucky Vino-auntie to have 14 of the very best nieces and nephews on the planet.  Eight girls and six boys in total.  However, just of late, I have been seriously considering committing a crime that is considered a felony in the United States.  Relax, nothing as heinous as homicide, no, just a little common or garden child abuse.  I have decided that it may be worth doing some porridge in return for venting my displeasure - at the amount of rain that I have had to suffer through the past two weeks - with El Niño.  And it's not just about me, look at what that titchy, wet-whippersnapper is doing to my Pinot grigio buddies.  My bud-babies are all soggy.
This morning, after getting up at the break of day, having breakfast, starting a load of laundry and walking Vinodog 2, I managed to finish pruning the Syrah vines.  Yay!  And I got about 25% of the canes tied down.  Double yay!  It was wet, muddy, slippery work.  The weather forecast was correct as in it started to rain promptly at 11 am and then, once again, I was banished from the vineyard at the behest of some snotty, little meteorological-brat.  Now, where is that baseball bat?  I feel a Ramones moment coming on.

Don't let the Syrah catch you crying.

Don't be fooled by the sunniness of this photograph - the sun was only out long enough for me to take this snap.  And that was it, in the blink of an aperture it was gone again.
I hadn't once thought about panicking this pruning-season, until yesterday that is.  All day, nonstop rain had me near tears (well, sort of) because things out in the vineyard are progressing whether I am out there pruning or not.  Since last week, the Syrah vines have decided to swell their little buds to almost breaking point, so frustrating.  I had considered just putting waterproofs on and pruning in the rain, but the constant downpour was just too torrential.  February had been so nice, I thought I had started to prune early enough to give myself plenty of time to prune all of Vinoland's grapevines.  Wrong!
I had just over 3 hours (according to the weather forecast on my iPhone) to prune as much as I could this afternoon.  (There was one, very heavy, five minute shower, but Vinodog 2 and I just sat in the back of the barn and waited for it to pass by.)  Amazingly, I did fairly well: I pruned like a Vinogirl possessed.  I just have one short, experimental row of cordon trained vines to go, but I am determined to also get all of the canes tied down before the end of the weekend. Rain, rain go away...

Firewood.

It has rained and rained the past two days and there is more to come, sigh. On my way out for a walk with Vinodog 2 this morning, a quick check of Vinoland's rain gauge indicated that 4 inches of the wet stuff had fallen on me (I am taking it personal) in a little over 24 hours.  My weekend has been a disaster as far as pruning is concerned, I only managed to get a small number of Syrah vines pruned.  I feel like I am falling behind on my pruning schedule, so, yes, I am taking this ungodly amount of rainfall personal.  So is Vinomaker.
First thing this morning the sun was actually shining, but just for a little while.  As I was making breakfast I looked out to see if all that rain had had any effect on the creek that runs along the eastern edge of Vinoland. As it happens, I couldn't see the creek because during the night a huge oak tree had fallen across the creek just missing the Pinot grigio vines. On looking closer, I realised that a second tree had fallen, behind the first one, and had just missed crushing a neighbours fence.
Vinomaker is gutted, storm-felled trees are a lot of work.  He has been very busy the past few weeks removing sweet broom, acacia and an out of control bramble patch from the creek area - the last thing he wanted, I am sure, is the amount of chainsawing and chipping that removing these two trees will necessitate.  Me? All that I could think of was how toasty all that firewood will make me feel on a future, cold winter's night.

Dewi Sant: 2016.

Happy St. David's Day!
The threat of a full on El Niño year for California was apparently just that, a threat.  There has been quite a bit of rain this winter, but not the amount that was forecast: February's weather was simply spectacular. Temperatures in the the mid-70s all month were very springlike, just gorgeous.  (We have not had the need for any type of heating in Vinoland for the past 11 days.) Consequently, Vinoland's daffodils all flowered early this winter and it was hard for me to find a perfect bloom to photograph - hence the rather bedraggled, dog-eared daffodil represented here on today's post.  There possibly could have been a better specimen just outside Vinoland's gates, but I didn't want to venture that far in my pyjamas.  Wouldn't want to frighten the neighbours so early in the morning, would I?  Nope.
Bore da!

Rain stopped play.

Today was the day that the new Oakville Crossroad bridge, the bridge that makes it possible to reach Highway 29 from the Silverado Trail, was supposed to be completed.  I say supposed because, (like anything to do with government it seems), the bridge is not yet finished.  Shocker! Closed due to a small 4.1 earthquake that occurred on May 21st of last year, this was the first time I had driven up close to the bridge since the day before the temblor struck.  So, for the past 8 months, if I had had the sudden urge to treat myself to a latte, or a $15.00 bar of chocolate from the Oakville Grocery, I would have had had to endure an almost 17 mile round trip instead of the usual 3 miles.
Citing rainy weather (damn you, El Niño), the Napa County Public Works Department has said it needs several consecutive dry days so that it can finish striping the lanes, etc.  The new opening day, for the $5.2 million bridge, has yet to be announced.  Sigh.
I am thinking, perhaps, that if a few English workies had been on this particular construction project that the Oakville Crossroad bridge would have been finished on time.  If the English continually had to wait for rainy weather to be absent for several days on end we'd never get anything built.  Thud recently finished building this Gothic cottage.  There was no playing around, Thud built his bothy come rain or shine.