Back to work

I returned from my vacation last Sunday well rested. I went down to Naples with Robbie and Jordan, for 10 days of adventure. We also visited two islands, Procida and Ischia. Both of the islands had a lot to offer and I took full advantage of it. This was a good opportunity to get a taste of Italian culture and explore the different aspects of it. In the brief time that I was there, I can now see why South Tyrol has autonomy from the rest of the country. The German influence sets it apart from the rest of Italy. Although the trip was fun, I was glad to be back to Brunnenburg and to get back work.

Naples/Napoli

Procida, small island about 45 minutes away from Naples by Ferry.

Statue of Hercules

Street below our hostel in Naples

Sunset on Procida

Ferry Ride to Procida

Church in Naples

Naples was by far one of the dirtiest city I have ever visited, trash was thrown everywhere.

Pizzeria da Michele, run by the same family for 29 generations.

One of the best cheese pizzas I have eaten

Beach on Procida

My traveling partners, both pictures taken at Pompeii

Robbie

Jordan

I got back to Brunnenburg Sunday, which gave me the whole day to rest up and get ready for work tomorrow. While we were gone, the apple trees bloomed and the vines started to grow. Now that the vines are growing, they will soon require more work to produce some fantastic grapes.

Monday

On my first day back to work and my first task was cleaning up the recycling that has piled up. This essential task is carried out every few weeks when the bins start to over flow. As you can see in the picture below, the bins were at full capacity. As Nik goes through and makes sure everything is in the right bin, he then passes them to me. I take the bins and put them in the trailer that is hooked up to Niks car. When all of the bins are out of the garbage room, we take them to the local recycle center and dispose of them. This is not the most glamorous job, but it is up to Nik and I to complete it.

Although I do not have pictures, I also finished the last of the binding. I had a few rows left in one part of the vineyard that I did not complete before I left for break. I got my cutting ring, medical tape and rubber tubing and headed out to the vines. Binding is essential, it connects the vines to the trellising and stabilizes them. Without binding, the vines would go any which way and would lead to inefficient grape growing. Uniformity is key.

Nik going through the recyclables

All containers are packed into the trailer, and the room is empty

Wednesday/Friday

On Wednesday I worked on a few random tasks but one important job was cleaning up the trellising wires and tighten them. As the vines grow upwards they will need support from these wires, and it is better for them to be nice and taut. I also had to make sure that the two wires were not connected by some left over vines, which was common. These small vine pieces were left over from when Nik and I pruned. Jane and I started at the bottom of the PV vines and made our way up towards the castle. We started this task later in the day and were not able to finish all of the PVs on Wednesday. I had to work on this the next day but also moved on to the Gold Muskatllers.

This task is simple. You go down each row and cut any vines that are just hanging around or connecting the two wires. As with most things in the vineyard, the tool of choice was my trusty pruners. You just find the vines and cut away. Once the whole row is cleaned up, you tighten the wires. You must also make sure they are all position correctly, so that the top wires have a little more space then the bottom. To tighten the wires you go to the end of the row where there are chains connected to the wire. You take them off a nail and pull tight, once the wire is taut you place the chain back on the nail. This job was easy but time consuming. There were some nasty spots where the vines were interlocking. From Wednesday through Friday I worked a few hours each day to get this task done.

Vine piece

The cut

Chain at end of trellising

Another small task that I had was to smooth out the compost pile. The day before Mitch and his wife dug into the compost and pushed it down into a pile. The pile consisted of mostly animal dung, straw and other organic matter, but not food. Nik will use this rich soil around the farm where it is needed most. With most of the work done, this did not take to long.

Compost

Thursday

Here at Brunnenburg, potatoes serve as one of the main food sources for the pigs. The family gets these second hand potatoes from a friend. They are taking an otherwise useless product and turning it into meal production. Currently Mira, her piglets, and Gulliver are down at the other pig area. They receive a hefty portion of potatoes each day, but the bulk of potatoes are up in the stable. I loaded up crates of potatoes and put them on the tractor. I have done this before, but the potatoes were running low. The crate in the stable was also getting low, so nine crates of potatoes went down to the pigs and four went into the garage. We also took some animal feed down with us.

Potatoes for pigs

Food/Potatoes on tractor

The piglets, which have gotten much bigger since I first arrive, have a habit of digging holes up by the fence. They use their powerful snouts to dig and look for food. If we allow them to dig, there is a possibility they could get under the fence and escape. Every once and awhile it is good to fill in the holes then put this mineral powder on top of the filled in holes. The powder is suppose to deter the pigs from digging in these areas. The powder works some of the time but eventually the piglets dig again. This was my second time doing this, but like many jobs it had to be done.

Mineral powder

Baby swine digging up by fence

The final task of the day was spreading some calcium on one part of the vineyard. This area has some older vines, which means they have been sprayed more then the newer vines. Nik sprays copper to help the vines, but some of the copper soaks into the soil and sits. It is not good to have an over abundance of any one mineral in your soil. I just applied the calcium onto the top of the soil in the middle of the row. It will eventually soak into the ground and slowly absorb the excess copper.

Calcium

Calcium in vineyard

Spring Break 2010

I am off to Naples/Napoli soon for a nice long break, I will not have access to my computer, so I will not be updated my blog for a bit. Below are some pictures from Wednesday nights fest that the students prepared for everyone. Good times had by all.

The Museum Opening

Easter is today and I celebrated with the family at an Easter brunch. There was a lot of food to be eaten and some good old Easter fun. It was interesting to spend the holiday with a different family. Although I am far from home, I find comfort in having this family get together for the holiday.

But enough about that, let me move onto some of the interesting things that went down this week. One of the big changes this week was the opening of the museum to the public. The flood gates have been opened and anyone who wants to spend a few euros can come to Brunnenburg. They can see the agricultural history of the region, take a stroll into the Ezra Pound room, or check out all the animals. As the weather gets warmer, I suspect I will have many interactions with the different visitors and hopefully I will be of some help.

Above the croft door their has been a sign that says St. Andrews on one side and Gilford College on the other. These are two schools that been having coming to Brunnenburg for awhile, St. Andrews for over 30 years. The students wanted to represent Green Mountain so they created this colorful sign to put above the door.

A cool shot of an X in the sky

The peaks got a small dusting of snow the night before

Step one of operation Vineyard Transformation has successfully been completed. We finished pruning all of the vines this week before the full moon. A local superstition states it will bring good luck to your fields if you prune all of your vines during one full lunar cycle. We had about 7 rows left on Tuesday, the night of the full moon, but luckily we finished them. After we got through the Gold Muskatellers, the rest of the vines seemed to go by faster. Most of the PV vines are relatively young and do not have too much growth. The final vineyard was across the tapinderveg and were all PV plants. This field will need little to no spraying of chemicals. The vines are entering their 3rd season and should start producing a good amount of grapes.

Throughout all of the pruning, Nik and I worked going from one vine to the next. India and Jane both helped us when they could. It was nice when all of us could come together to finish up the last bit of vines. We made it through all the vines in record time, each of us doing one aspect of the pruning. I did not know how well the system would work but it ended up being quite successful.

The Zaushauf hanging out

Nik started pruning before I got there

A look at the vines. Many vines are not this big but vary in size.

It is interesting to see this because they were all planted at the same time but the soil is always different. Some of the vines can even be twice as big as others.

The prune crew

Lila and Gina

Heavy rains were fore casted for Tuesday, so Nik made the decision to our move work day to Wednesday. The rain did not come until Tuesday night and Wednesday had a heavy overcast. You could barely see Meran and the mountains above. But as the day progressed slivers of blue sky streaked the sky, until finally around lunch the sun broke through.

The museum was open the next day so more sweeping had to be done. Most of the day I spent my time working with Tim and Nik hauling wood from the wood shed to the front of the croft. Alaina and Kelsey also help with moving the wood. Emma and Jacquelian swept up part of the museum and cleaned out some gutters. Most of these tasks were done to make the museum look better for when it opened the next day.

Museum pieces that Emma and Jacquelian cleaned up

The blue sky poking through the clouds

Trailer hooked up to the Camponola

Throwing wood onto the pile by the croft

Pile of wood, eventually it was all stacked

Nik backing up

Students hanging out after a long days work

Neustift

Saint Sebastian

Tomb Stone

Another tomb stone, they even made sure the man's double chin was visible Pavilion with the eight wonder of the ancient world around it, the eight being Neustift

We drank some wine

Brixen

Bishop that was stationed at Schloss Tirol for some time

Adam and Eve and the seven deadly sins

Joshua and Kalab

Christ being crucified. The man in the bottom right is the benefactor for this piece.

Swans

Leaving Brixen

Cathedral in Bozen