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Monday I went to physical therapy for my hand. It has gotten much better, thank you. Saturday, I went to a wee one's first Birthday party and survived the handshake of a burly tuffty Long Beach fireman without crying. And they say I am not stoic.
Well on Monday Kristy, aka, Sister Sadism was so proud of her work she suggested I follow up the appointment with 4-6 hours of pruning.
It just so happened I had the equipment at home to execute that therapy. Monday afternoon and for several hours today, I joined Antonio, our foreman, and Dennis for a fun two days of pruning about 100-110 grape vines.
Today I insisted that we buy new pruning equipment as I am pretty sure Antonio was dulling the blades on my shears so I would not be as fast as he. On Monday he was doing about 3 vines to everyone of mine. Today it was closer to two.
Today while working with Dennis and Antonio, Antonio mentioned we should have musica. So I started singing O Solo Mio. Though impressed for a moment or two, he put his ear buds back in and went on pruning. (Everybody Is a Critic.)
It is very rewarding work. Unfortunately our vines have been neglected for about two years so the vine structure is a bit helter skelter. Sometimes deciding what is a trunk or what is a cordon (arm), or what is a shoot, can be a good guess at best.
When you take one of these neglected plants and trim them back to their essence, it is kinda neat to see what you end up with. Here is a good illustration of the parts of a vine.
Ok enough education. Don't think that because I posted two nights in one week or that I was able to prune for a few hours that things are all settled at Chateau Cronin/Circle D Ranch. Far from it.
For the last 5 days we have had a team of two to three guys figuring out our lighting system. It is the most confusing thing we, and they have ever seen. Saturday night, we discovered that the divorced lady who lived here for two years could never figure out what her husband had programmed.
Devin has become the best person for not screwing up the lights at night so we have shut most of them off and jack and I walk around with our flashlight app on our iPhone to see where we are going.
If we actually try and turn on a light, we could easily illuminate the estimated 130-200 lights on the property causing a brown out for most of South Orange County. So we stumble around the dark with our iPhones.
Tonight we wrapped up the day when Devin interrupted a call from my buddy Butch to announce, "IT WAS VERANDA TIME". She extended an invitation to Antonio to join us for a glass of wine. It was great and we all enjoyed the drinks and then Devin made our first homemade meal in the new house.
Life Is Good
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