Back to bacchus

Yesterday’s languid watering session was but a memory. Today I was in the vines.  Or should I say brambles, bracken, chestnut trees, broom, grass and vines.

One day this vineyard is going to contain vines and nothing else.  But for now it’s just a bit of a battle.

And I battled until lunch. A late lumch.

It almost looks like a vineyard if you squint.  And I somehow managed to get sidetracked by the bracken just below the vineyard as I thought it would be a nice easy swoop.

Hah.

Lurking underneath these innocent seven foot high plants were brambles that were, I swear, over twelve feet long, branching all over the place and thick as can be.

So frustrating. And I had to contend with the sloes growing out of the walls which I needed to cut with secatuers.

And my strimmer kept getting caught up with the fronds. Hey ho. But I made some progress.

I just don’t think I’ll go back down until the weather cools down. I was dripping by the time I hauled all my toys back up the mountain in the wheelbarrow.

So it was a flat out on the sofa for lunch and then back into the fray.

And this time in the upper forest. What was I thinking?

Blame the garden. Back in London on a piece of paper I plotted out a plan to improve the terrace bank above the potting shed.

I needed nine trees to achieve it.

So here are the huge and incredibly heavy logs all chainsawed and ready to be dragged down the mountain.  Hopefully with a bit of help from my friends this weekend.

And of course there are a huge pile of ready to be chipped branches up there in the forest as well.  I may just have the energy to drag them down myself tomorrow.

So that should have been the end of the day. But no. Back down the mountain to the vineyard again. I had left behind my loppers and branch saw. And I have just realised that my rake is still down there still.

But the aim was to cut down the four chestnut trees that has grown right on the edge of the wall. And one of them was over twenty feet high. How did that happen?

Years of neglect of course.

And then with a bit of moto mix left in the chain saw it was attack the medlar time. These trees were (sorry, are) growing on the edge of the vineyard. And boy have they grown. They were leaning out and shading the first two rows of the vines.

And I don’t like medlars. I have no idea if this radical hard prune will kill them. But comes a time when you have to decided to be brutal. And who knows, they might grow back to the right height and reach.

I was beyond caring by 6pm. Time to come in and have a nice lie down.