Shiver me timbers!

I have often thought about how stable of a career I might have had if I had chosen to become a meteorologist.  I am more than capable of licking my finger and holding it up into a prevailing wind; I can molest a piece of seaweed to assess its dampness; I can delight in, along with some random shepherd, a beautiful sunset.  I can do all those things, I'm a veritable amateur-augur.  So I hold that being a precipitation-prognosticator on the telly not only seems to be a really cool career, but it is perhaps the only job I know of that any person working as one can be wrong 50% of the time (forecasting the weather) and they won't get the old heave-ho.

High winds forecast for October 14th did not materialise. (Although, as a precautionary measure, PG&E did shut off the power to most of the county of Napa for a total of 46 hours and 31 minutes).  A similar forecast for October 25th seemed like an non-event: that was until about 7 pm in the evening.  I was busy making dinner when all of a sudden the roof felt like it was being lifted off the house, the timbers creaking and moaning.  Vinodog 2 was very disturbed.  My poochie does not like wind.  

The extremely high winds continued throughout the night and were very, very loud.  So loud, in fact, that I did not hear the demise of a large deciduous oak that was toppled on the edge of Vinoland's creek.  At first, it looked like it had missed the bottom row of Cabernet vines.  However, on closer inspection, when V2 and I returned from our walk, I was able to see that the fallen tree had landed on the first seven vines.  Bummer.  It was only later, when Vinomaker had performed a bit of chainsaw-surgery, that I discovered only one vine had bit the dust, snapped off near the base.  Bad, but it could've been worse.  Sigh.

Hard life being a farmer, I really should have become a meteorologist.

Debitum naturae.

In a quiet corner of Vinoland, forlornly leaning against a California live oak, several dead (or dying) Cabernet sauvignon vines await their final fate - the wood chipper, sigh.  I always find it sad when grapevines have to be removed, but for a number of reasons nature just runs it's course; viruses, the health of the initial plant material, gopher blight etc.  There are many things that can cause a grapevine to decline and eventually die.  Nothing lives forever.
So instead of gadding about the Napa Valley like a tourist (although I enjoyed myself immensely yesterday), I spent today in the vineyard.  I performed small jobs, training up some young vines and stuffing shoots, whilst Vinomaker dug out the vines that were to be replaced.  It was a hard job removing them, as the vines had taken a firm hold in Vinoland (even though the rootstock is the relatively shallow 101-14).  I, of course, helped in a supervisory capacity.

Vinished!

Vinished, that's Vinoland lingo meaning I have finished tying down every last cane in the vineyard. Yay!
It was a pretty easy process as the Cabernet sauvignon vines are still slumbering.  The cooler weather this week has slowed things down a bit, so I'm predicting that budbreak won't happen for another 4 or 5 days yet.
Also, got a couple of dead vines removed (thank you, Vinomaker) and filled the holes (that Vinomaker dug) with new, baby vines.  The photograph shows, but not very well (I should have used a different background), one of the extracted vines which has a deep, 11" split along the lower half of it's trunk.  Did this split cause the death of this vine?  No, I'm sure this vine had just run it's natural course and the split occurred postmortem.  Hate when that happens.  But I love it when I have finished pruning.