Grape Swales and a good weekend

This weekend was a good blend of socializing and productivity.  We managed to get most of the second storage unit cleaned out - the last of it will probably move early this week.  We also plowed the 3 swales for our future grape vines.  I was able to create the swale for one of the three before my left arm got completely exhausted (my right is still recovering, so I wasn't using it). 

Jeremy doing the second pass on the first row

The top 2 swales.  The left one has been dug out already.

Each swale was made by doing 2 passes with the plow along a contour line so that the entire row should be at basically the same elevation.  The swale should capture runoff and focus the water at the base of the grape vines so that they will be better able to survive long dry spells without irrigation.  Eventually, we'll put up our grape trellises along the trenches and then we'll plant our grape vines.



This weekend was also the 75th anniversary of the Hobbit's first printing.  In honor of the event (and as an excuse to have a get together), we had brunch at our house on Saturday.  The buffet included 2 kinds of bread pudding, shephard's pie, cherry pie, lemon cake, seed cakes, banana cake, banana bread, candied bacon, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, and some other stuff.  Needless to say, everyone had plenty to eat!  Good food and good friends - who could ask for more on a Saturday morning?