Bud Break and Heartbreak

--bud in the Arandell vineyard, 4.19.26--

Exactly five years ago today I was ruminating on the exact same thing bugging me today: the weather. Yes, as farmers we care about the weather but signed up knowing we can't do a lot about it. Some of the ways in which we're the most vulnerable as grapegrowers include the threat of extreme cold (below  0° F) during the winter, which we happily escaped this year, and of an early or late frost. It's this last threat which is looming pretty large through our windshields here at the moment, with temperatures in two nights predicted to get down as low as 26° F. This week our vines have bud-break, which means they're vulnerable to any spring temperatures below 32° F. Crap.

On April 21, 2021, I posted here about how it felt to have the cold coming. Certainly rings familiar. The next day I went even farther and wrote a poem about all the feels.

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--Carl night-spraying the vines with a potassium fertilizer protectant--

April, 2026, is a crazy time in the world, and certainly every human is experiencing the kind of anxiety which comes with not having control over things that matter. These tiny grapevine buds--holding the seeds of the next two years' worth of growth--matter. Carl is doing what he can by spraying the vines protectively ahead of time, and then we'll be here waiting.

​Luckily there's wine.