Finding pride in caretaking...

I am the caretaker of what is believed (by me) to be the most beautiful vineyard in Blue Earth County. I know what you are thinking and it’s true. There are others.

As caretaker (or vineyard manager if I’m feeling uppity), I spend a good deal of time toiling along the rows taking care of putsy chores like weeding, watering, tying, and now, pruning. Pruning is a new chore, brought on by lots of summer heat, lots of sunshine, rain sufficient enough for me to shelve my tank sprayer, and fertile soil that also has pushed the corn across the road to towering heights.

My vines have gotten unwieldy, dangerously, snapping off in the wind unwieldy, so I must prune, especially now that I know which leaves contribute to the strength and vigor of their developing trunks, and which leaves detract from the process. With these hybrids that trace their roots to vitis riparia, all leaves are not created equal!

Pruning is not physically taxing but it requires a gentle touch, patience, flexibility, and the ability to forward think the trellising pattern to protect the most likely candidate for the cordon. When I prune, I also allow for the possibility of winter kill and wind damage; the latter having shown itself too frequently this past week. Pruning suits a contemplative nature, which I’ve developed as I’ve walked the rows, grateful for my iPod and whatever breeze God sends my way.

By now, you can detect that my vines and I have developed a relationship. They are like children to me; I am attending to them (even when the dew point is 73) so that they will grow strong and bear fruit for decades. This is my vineyard.

And then, I find a horn worm. Dear readers, the horn worm is without doubt the ugliest creature on God’s green earth. I found two of them in the vineyard yesterday and, with lower dew points, found them to be a curiosity. (One ended up in the compost heap and the other was recycled back into the food chain thanks to the chickens.) But tonight, with sweat rolling off my nose, I was less than pleased to find this interloper clinging to my Edelweiss plant.

My scouting guide for Grape IPM tells me the horn worm likes new vineyards. Well, not in my vineyard, I say as I pull him from the leaf. It’s about then that the pest spews green slime on my gloved finger. That’s when his removal from my vineyard ceases to be a business transaction. Now it’s personal. And it’s a long walk to the chicken coop.

I threw the interloper onto the dirt near where, conveniently, a rock the size of a softball sat. I’ll end the story here because you get the picture. (If not, refer to the Kabul soccer game scene in “The Kite Runner.”)

And thus the sun sets on another day in the vineyard. Tomorrow, there will be more ties, more cuts, more weeds to pull, and God willing, a wind out of the northwest.

[Postscript: I used to read the New Yorker and Harpers magazines for pleasure. Now I read the Pocket Guide for Grape IPM Scouting.]