Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 32: Tax Write Off Edition!

Hi all:

First of all,  we would like to welcome any new readers who have found our blog through our new listing of local blogs in the

                Palo Alto Weekly

internet website at the bottom of course, listed alphabetically.  You can see what great friends I have by scrolling down towards the bottom of the blog on the right side bar.  Then you can scroll back upwards and see a quick pictorial history of the establishment of our family vineyard.

While the newcomers are doing that, the rest of you are going to have a pop quiz on vocabulary from our previous lesson to see who has been paying attention!

Question #1 - What is the definition of a cordon.

Question #2 - Compare & contrast a spur with a cordon.

"What's that little Johnnie!  You don't remember what a cordon or spur is!  Didn't you pay attention when I explained that last time!  Johnnie, how many times do I have to repeat this information?"

Hey, there are only 40 school days left till summer vacation and boy, as a new teacher, am I ever ready!

Well, we had a wonderful time at YOV's 1st Annual Easter Egg Hunt today, with many of our old friends, new friends & neighbors coming by for great Peet's coffee, great Hobbie's coffeecake and great conversations!  Unfortunately, I was a bit under the weather and wasn't up to getting any pictures.  But we did have a dozen youngsters invade the vineyard and find Easter Eggs a plenty.  Well, actually, our two dogs made a pre-emptive strike Thursday night in our family room where we were assembling the Easter Eggs and our losses were considerable!  The dogs are okay and our Egg hunters still had enough chocolate!

But the big story is that things are happening in the vineyard and I don't just mean Easter Egg Huntin'.  Some of the vines are starting to bud & leaf out already.  So, we are excited for another growing season after our winter dormancy!  I hope all is well with you & your families and that you have got your taxes done, ..., or at least filed your extension!

Wishing you well from down in my tax write-off, .... ah, I mean my, .. ah, vineyard!  John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 31: Train that Trunk!

Hey, Happy April Fool's Day Everyone:

For the last week or so, we here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and all across California, have been enjoying a huge migration of butterflies coming from Mexico on their way to Canada.  As they fly by, I am reminded of all the constant little seasonal changes that are going on in the living things around us!

Another daily pleasure I have, is passing by this wonderful Pinot Noir vineyard on Concepcíon Road in Los Altos Hills about half way between Gunn High School and our house.  I believe this vineyard is about six or seven years old.  It is one of the vineyards that inspired me to take on my own vineyard project.

They have done a wonderful job of pruning over the years and I wanted to snap a few pictures for examples of how things should progress over the next three or four years on our vines, if we watch our "p's & q's"! First look at an individual grapevine with its single mature, vertical "trunk" and the left and right "cordon" canes extending to the sides laterally.  Off of each of those "cordons" are about six little "spur" canes about three to five inches long.  Those "spur" canes are where the fruiting canes grow out from each year, budding out into leaves and fruit.

So, for this first and now second year at Young Oak Vineyards, we are just establishing that main "trunk".  In the second and third years we will be establishing the "cordon" canes.  And in the third and fourth years, we will be establishing the "spurs".  Now, along the way we will be getting some fruit and we may be able to make some wine, but the emphasis in pruning for these first couple of years is in establishing the "trunk", the "cordons" and the fruiting "spurs". 

As you can see in the last photo from my previous post, we are headed in the right direction.  And boy, we have really come a long ways from the planting party grafted clones in the picture below that!  Now, you will just have to be patient while we wait a couple of years!  ..........

..........  Oh heck, I tired of waiting!  I think I'll try to snag a bottle of that Pinot Noir from down on Concepcíon Road!  Here's to waiting!

Wishing you well from down in the vineyard.  And that's no joke!  John

PS-Hope to see you at our Easter Egg Hunt !

Young Oak Vineyards - Easter Egg Hunt - 2009 !!!

Come on up to Young Oak Vineyards for a good ol' fashion Easter Egg Hunt in the vineyard!

See how the grapevines that you planted are doing and visit with your fellow vineyard workers!

Easter Egg Hunt for the little ones and the "young at heart"!  Come meet, greet & feed the baby goats!  Check out the bee hive & taste the honey!

Enjoy some Great Coffee & Morning Treats along with your fellow vineyard friends!  

Regards, Kristen & John

Where:  Young Oak Vineyards, 12121 Foothill Lane, LAH

When:   Saturday, April 11th, 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon

             

What:   Coffee & Danish    9:00 a.m.

            Easter Egg Hunt   11:00 a.m.

Why:    Friendship.  Can't make it for the whole time?

           No problem!  Drop by for a short visit.

           We'd love to see you!

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 30: Pruning 101 - The First Year

Well, here goes! Its time to prune, prune, prune, but first off, let's talk about the pruning shears. From the internet, books & videos, I learned that the best kind of pruning shears are the scissors type or by-pass shears. The other kind have a blade & a flat anvil, usually made out of a soft metal like brass, aluminium or even plastic. These type tend to crush the cane (branch) against the anvil as it cuts, leaving cracks & large wounds, which take longer to heal and create sites for disease to enter the plant. The scissor type leave a sharp clean cut, which heals over more quickly. Felco seems to be the brand favored by the pros. I found a nice pair of Fiskars for a reasonable price at our local hardware store, OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware).

As you can see, I have mi amigo, Leo, pruning away at the vines and this was after just a few minutes of training. We decided as a first pass to cut the grapevine growth down to two trunk canes so if one cane gets damaged during the early spring we will have a spare to work with instead of replacing the entire plant. When the buds start leafing out a little later in the spring, then we cut the spare away.

To show in more detail what we are doing, we put a white board behind a really good plant that had a tremendous amount of growth for the first year. Really, as we said last post, this is more like second year growth. We were very fortunate to plant so early at the March 1st, 2008 planting party and have so many sunny days of spring with our early heat spell last year.

Well, the first cane we are going to cut off is a large lateral branch, low on the bottom right side kind of hidden in the weeds. After that, we selected the main cane that we want to keep and a secondary cane, which actually buded and grew out of our main cane. We continued to prune off the smaller side branches until we had only the two well formed canes left. In other plants we selected two separate canes that had budded out of the original clone graft, which is even a safer bet if anything happens to one of the canes, like getting broken.

Well there you have it. It took about eight hours to prune all the grapevines on this first pass. We will probably spend a couple more hours in a month or so to prune off the spare canes.

On another note, I received a pink slip a week ago for "pruning" costs at my school district to meet next year's budget, which hopefully will be rescinded in a couple of months. Given that, I can't help but pass on a joke I heard from the Palo Alto superintendent of schools:

Attention All Personnel - In our ongoing effort to reduce costs, we will be turning "off" the light at the end of the tunnel !

As a parent, educator & voter, California really needs to find a better way to fund education in our state. To go from being first in the nation in education, both in funding and student performance, when I was a child, to vying for last place in both today, is utterly ridiculous. I really want to find an organization that is going to address this issue with some practical common sense from all sides. If you hear of any please let me know.

I think I'll need a glass of wine after that tirade! Hope you are having a pleasant first day of spring.

From down in the vineyard, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 29: First Year Anniversary Edition

        WELL, WE DID IT !!!

WE SURVIVED OUR 1ST YEAR  !!!

And the vineyard has survived ... voracious deer, gol' darn gophers, defective water system assembly (code for my stupid plumbing mistakes) and monster weeds that overwhelmed the trellises.  But the job at hand, pruning, is rapidly nearing the critical period.  So, today we started to clear the weeds that the goats have not managed to eat.  Notice the "goats' exodus" of the vineyard due to the noise of the weed wacker™.

That's "mi amigo, Leo" wacking™ away at the weeds.  We used the small sheet of plywood propped up against the grapevine to protect the plant as well as the drip-lines during the wacking process™

This year's pruning is a little different from that of an established vineyard.  In this first and second year's pruning we are establishing the trunk & cordons of the grapevine.  From the description of most sources, including The Backyard Vintner by Jim Law, it seems like we got the equivalent of "two years worth of growth" on most of our grapevine as you can see in the photo of one of the grapevines with the white poster board background.

So, from all the shoots that have grown out from the clone, we will choose the straightest & most upright cane, then prune away all the others.  That remaining cane we will tie off to a "grape stake" with some of that green gardening elastic tie or use "growtubes".  We will also top (cut-off) this cane at the level of the trellis wire to stimulate lateral growth.

Hey, its starting to rain and I hear its going to rain all week, so we will probably take a couple of weeks to tame these weeds as we dance around the rain storms.  So we will be actually pruning in the last weeks of winter or the first week or so of spring!

Wishing you happy anniversary from down in the vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Volume 28: Valentine's Day Edition!

Hi all:

Hope you all are enjoying the weekend.  We are having a very wet & rainy Valentine's Day here.  Over two days of heavy rain and two more fore-casted for Monday & Tuesday.  Well, all this rain is a good thing for California.  The rain here means snowfall in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Which means no drought this summer!

Is my picture out of focus you ask?  Actually, it is raining so hard that my camera is focusing on the close in rain drops, which can be seen upon very close inspection (see the white streak by the corner of the old deck beams) and the background vineyard falls out of that focal range!

Well, as you can kind of see, the goats have valiantly tried to eat the weeds in the vineyard.  At least now you can see the trellis posts!  Before the goats started, the weeds had overgrown the trellis posts.  We had six foot tall mustard grass!  Big Mac, Ellie & their little crew of four have spent a great deal of time down there eating the weeds, but the time has come to prune.  And so, I will have to intervene and whack down the rest of the weeds as soon as we get a dry spell!

Hope you are all well and staying dry & out of the weather!

From down in the very wet vineyard,

John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 27: Goat Powered Lawn Mowers!!!

Hi all:

The vineyard is truly in fallow with only a couple of dry leaves left on the grapevines.  In the cold of our California winter [ah, ... wait a second ... you know, taken from my own personal experiences, ... we Californians are really wimps when it comes to the cold.  It's not cold here!  Its a bloomin' 70 degrees (that's 22 for you metric folk)!  Notice I am in a tee-shirt!  You could live in Finland!  Now that would be cold!!]... So, here in the "relative" cold of our Californian winter, the weeds have grown up, choking the vines.  Some of the weeds are taller than the vines themselves!

We had a nice visit from one of my oldest, longest (?) friends, Duncan MacKenzie & members of his clan, notably his son, daughter & the boyfriend, sister Ann & husband Doug (who took the pictures in this post!  Thanks, Doug!)  After an inspection of the goats, we adjourned to the vineyard where you can see my very healthy weeds.

I have attempted to let the goats wander down to the tall green grass of the vineyard, but they really want to stay in the northern pasture we have created for them.  I think Ellie, the mom, is being a little protective of her little ones.  So I will have to coax them down to the vineyard everyday until Mom is more comfortable with the new local!

Our bee man, Alan, checked out our hive this weekend and things are looking good.  The queen is working away laying eggs.  Alan thinks there are 80,000 bees plus in our hive with lots of new honeycomb.  I got to sample the honey, which was as clear as light corn syrup, but had a wonderful flavor.  Alan said that the clear color was due to only one flower being pollinated right now, although my rosemary, my neighbor's lavender and the mustard grass in the fields are all in bloom.

Hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather, at least those of you in California.  The rest of you guys, put another log on the fire and bundle up!

Happy winter, John

Young Oak Vineyards - Vol. 26: Happy New YOV !!!

Hi all:

We hope you have had a wonderful holiday season!  The vineyard is entering its dormaint period, so before the leaves all drop and the pruning begins, we have little more time to socialize & play a bit.

Our family's holiday season started with a Thanksgiving visit to my brother Mike's new place in Nevada, west of Lake Tahoe, opposite the Kingsbury Grade, in the Minden Valley.  We had a wonderful time visiting with my sister-in-law Monica, my niece Melissa, her husband Luke & their three children who live in Truckee, while Uncle Mike and my son Scott planned a January sailing trip from Puerto Rico to the Virgin Islands.  The mountain scene above is the view to the southwest of Job's Peak at sunrise from my brother's place.

In mid-December, fulfilling my Aunt Doris's annual family tradition that she started some 50 years ago, Kristen, Scott, the girls & I all dressed up and attended the San Francisco Nutcracker Ballet.  Afterwards we had a fine dinner and enjoyed some nice French wine at Jardiniere  [http://www.jardiniere.com/], right behind the San Francisco Opera House on Grove Street.  Wonderful food and great service!  They have consistently maintained a great menu and are so convenient for the SF opera, ballet, symphony or the civic center.

With the beginning of the winter school break, we began our adventure northward for an old-fashion Christmas family reunion!  Taking the RV, we proceeded north along old haunts of John's near the University of California - Davis past Winters, California to Interstate Highway 5.   The next day after a great breakfast at Oasis Grill at "Exit 8" (town unknown?), we headed northward past Mount Shasta and made for Ashland, Oregon to visit a friend of son Scott's, Mark (an ex-pat of Palo Alto!) who with his wife and their two horses have a beautiful home in the hills overlooking Ashland.  After a nice cup of tea and some good conversation we headed northward again.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at the Remote Outpost RV Park & Lodgings, which is Kristen's sister's husband's mother's place (Wow - that's a mouthful!).  Its is located south of Eugene on the Coquille River, half way between Roseberg & Coos Bay on Oregon State Highway 42.  Uncle Steve's mom, Charlotte & her husband Gary have made a wonderful place next to the river with woodsy cabins, RV facilities, campgrounds, a colorful common room & grounds.  Additionally, Gary has installed very nice facility for dressing deer & elk for those who are inclined to hunting.   If you are interested in staying there, call ahead for reservations as the lodgings book up really quick.  [phone (541) 572-5105 or email:  remoteoutpost@hughes.net] 

As you can see we had a wonderful White Christmas (See my RV parked behind the main pavilion where we grilled oysters & roasted prime rib in the open air kitchen!)  It was great re-visiting with family & friends, enjoying good conversations after our last get together some eight years back! Charlotte shared with me a picture of my son, Scott when he visited one summer 16 years ago!  We had wonderful meals, featuring the fantastic cooking of the Jones family (Kristen's sister's husband Steve & brother Tim), including those grilled oysters fresh from Coos Bay (Yow, they were good!), steamed clams, prime rib, Christmas ham, garlic mashed potatoes, Grandma Karen's roasted asparagus, etc., etc., etc!  And not to mention the great wines!   Boy, I am salivating just thinking about it all!  Man, those Jones boys sure can cook.  Almost as good as their mom!!

The trip home was quite a long adventure as we went along the coastal route to avoid the snows of a severe winter storm inland.  But we were still buffeted by the winds and rain along the beautiful Oregon coast.  Scott missed out on the excitement as he ditched us early and flew back to attend his 10th high school reunion back in Palo Alto and then prepare for his trip to the Caribbean.  

As we approached Santa Rosa, we got word from Scott back home that our pregnant goat, Ellie, had giving birth to not two, but four baby kid goats on the evening of the December 27th!  Fortunately, our Los Altos Hills neighbor, Laney Harney, is a goat herder from way back and after several phone calls back & forth and much advise, we found a feed store in Petaluma that was open, stocked up on goat nursing supplies and made for home lickety-split!  Here are some pictures of the little ones with our daughter Suzie & her friend Caroline:

I was probably pushing my luck, but we decided to hit the slopes & do a little skiing for New Years.  So we headed for our cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Pincecrest Lake & Dodge Ridge.  The weather in the mountains was absolutely beautiful with clear blues skies, perfect snow conditions and crowds that were non-exsistent!  I had a great day skiing on New Year Eve, but in the afternoon I misstepped coming off a ski lift, fell down and in a fluke accident, sprained/strained both my right hip and my knees! OUCH!!  Good thing Katie was along to drive me back to the cabin!

I am OK and healing quickly, but I think I have to hang up my skis for the season until after my hip surgery in the summer.  Here's a picture of the view from our cabin of Mt. Cooper (the central peak) and to the right you can make out the upper runs cut through the trees of Chair #7, where I met my demise!  Actually, we can't see this view from our deck anymore as we have a cabin that was built in front of us some years back.  (Should have bought that lot back in 1970 when they wanted the outrageous price of $4,500 for it!)

So, now I am hobbling around at home, getting out some last minute holiday cards, correcting papers for my students and trying to help Kris with house cleaning, as much as one can do with crutches.  And even though my holiday ended on a painful note, we had some wonderful experiences and cherished memories that we will remember for a long time to come.

We hope that your holidays were special and that your families are all well and in good health or at least like me, on the mend!  We are all looking forward to an exciting, peaceful & productive 2009 tending the vineyard and fixin' up our old house!  And we look forward to visiting you all soon!

Our best wishes to you all from down in the vineyard,

Kristen, John, Scott, Katie & Suzie