Sometimes all it takes is a windless day...

People unfamiliar with grape growing are often surprised to learn that there is much work to be done in the vineyard in what they'd presumed to be our "off-season." The bulk of the work falls under the category of pruning, but it is far different from the pruning we do in late spring and early summer. In winter, we are assigned the task of dormant pruning, a critical task that affects the quality of the harvest we hope to enjoy about nine months from now.

There is a formula one can follow to determine how to prune (30 buds left behind per pound of wood removed) but simply put, we leave as many buds as we think our plants can effectively ripen next season and remove the remainder of last season's growth. As you can see from the photo above, that's a lot of wood to be cut, hauled out of the vineyard, and burned.

Cutting is something we've gotten quite proficient at here as we approach our third growing season. And we've even got quite adept at gauging optimum pruning weather. Hint: we ignore the forecast and walk outside. If the temperature exceeds 20 degrees and there's no wind, we prune.
This winter, though, we've been challenged by excessively deep snow. A walk down one row is currently an extreme cardio workout, so much so that we've adopted a new pruning strategy.
Now, we trudge down the rows, pruner in hand trying not to get stuck or tip over, make our critical cuts, and leave all the wood hanging in the trellis. (It's not going anywhere).
This is all we can manage in knee-deep snow. This way, we can be assured of getting the work done that absolutely needs to get done. When the snow melts to more modest levels, sometime between next week and May, we can get back down the pruned rows to clean the wood out of the trellis.

My children urged me to invest in snow shoes to ease the process. I hedged at first. Then my son reminded me that this probably won't be the only winter I'll prune in deep snow. The snow shoes are in transit.