Green tints

lower terrace workTerrace work. And I don’t mean lying on a sun lounge on a sunny terrace and getting stuck into a crime novel.

I mean strimming the terraces and trying to stop the bracken in their tracks.

I started on the steep wide bowl of the lower terrace where the bracken is marching steadily towards the rest of the farm.

That was fun and easy. And I made my way gingerly down to the even lower terraces towards the vineyard.

In my mind I have strimmed the vineyard and it is a neat and tidy delight to work in.  In reality, I kept catching it out of the corner of my eye as I worked down yet another small but long patch of grass and baby bracken. lower t 1

The vineyard needs a lot of careful work and I had to come up for lunch and a painkiller before I plod back down.

I am trying to think whether it is because the strimmer harness was invented for men and it’s just the wrong shape for me; but frankly I think it is just the result of wielding a heavy machine on one side of the body for hours on end.

At least I earned by cup of tea and too many biscuits. And a chat with Artur.

I dont mind too much about longish grass.  But the whole area is peppered with brambles and bracken just bursting into life.

Pause. I think I’ve written that before. Sorry. Bracken on the brain.

***

vineyard doneAnd here it is.  A manicured vineyard.

Stimmed, trimmed; bracken thwacked, brambles sliced, grass reduced and all manner of vegetable matter reduced to a green mulch.

It took hours. Mainly because I kept getting the strimmer blade caught in the fallen wires of the broken fence posts.

And I had to go carefully around the vines themselves.

I was muttering darkly when I made it to the far end rows.  I swear, this vineyard is going to get one more year to prove its productivity and then I will rip them all out and plant fruit trees.

The vineyard has been warned.