Midway

We have reached the midpoint of winter.

February 2nd, halfway between the winter and spring Equinox, is traditionally a day for farmers and those who tend the earth to pause and look forward.

In North America, ancient traditions have coalesced into Groundhog Day. Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, we look to our largest native North American rodent to prognosticate about what the future may hold.

Few animals in our region truly hibernate, even in the coldest of winters. There is a surprising amount of animal activity around us all winter long as we perform our winter vineyard tasks. In fact, in seasons where we have consistent snow on the ground, the volume and variety of tracks in the snow reminds us that open fields and woodland edges are heavily populated with a variety of creatures, most of which we never see.

And though our vineyard groundhogs have been with us all winter, we nevertheless have a little fun each season trudging out to their burrows, to see if one emerges to see his shadow on this particular day.

These latter days of winter are a fabulous time for shadows. Winter skies are often clear, ever increasing light comes down in a dramatic slant across an austere landscape.

The shadows of unpruned vineyard sections inscribe something that looks like a fantastical musical staff.

Our own trudgings are thrown in sharper relief, as are the slithers and scampers of vineyard denizens.

Trees cast long shadows across the lake.

The familiar profile of wild turkeys foraging crabapples in faint pre-dawn light is a familiar morning sight.

The rhythm of animal and plant life is fairly consistent across the seasons.

But of course, each winter can be very different than the last. The winter of 2014 and the winter of 2015 were especially memorable.

This year, snow has been rare.

By all accounts, this has been a very wet, and very warm winter: not ideal conditions for the grapevines, as it can stimulate them toward growth in the month when they should be most dormant.

There is a lot of winter still to be had.

For those interested in the prognostications of our resident Marmota monax: our vineyard groundhog did NOT see his shadow this morning.

A band of snow showers blotted the sky at sunrise, and briefly dressed the mud in a thin layer of flakes.

Which, the oldtimers contend, means warmer than usual conditions may well continue through these waning days of winter.

Our vineyard denizens will increase their activity as the days grow longer. As for our grapevine buds, we hope they remain fully asleep at least a few months longer.

Bud burst May 2015

St. Giuseppe

This year, like last, on the first day of spring a mushy late season snow fell in the pre-dawn hours.

Remnants of winter ice clung to the coldest corners of an otherwise warming lake.

In the vineyard our growing piles of winter vine prunings were blanketed once more in snow.

Marquette prunings in the North Vineyard

Despite the snow, however, the first indications of spring arrived in the vineyard just as they should:

For months buried in a thick snow pack, the turf in the vineyard rows is no longer ice crusted. It is now soft (and muddy) as the soil begins to thaw.

As as the soil thaws, capillary action in the vines pulls excess moisture from our old farm soil, a currently water-logged silty loam.

As the temperatures begin to rise, each of our thousands of vineyard pruning cuts begins to bleed: a good and welcome sign that the vines are alive and waking up after one of the coldest recorded winters in our region.

As the soil awakens, the plants will follow.

Down in the marsh, the (aptly named) skunk cabbages melt their own microclimate, sheaths of red mottled leaves arising steamily through the mire. They will bear early (and malodorous) flower, weeks before those plants on drier ground have even begun to show green.

And of course the vineyard animals are newly astir.

The killdeer have returned to chirp noisily through the vineyard rows, where they will build pebble nests under the vines.

Bluebirds cheerfully negotiate for the choicest knotholes in the trellis poles.

And of course, seasonal drama unfolds amongst the waterfowl.

Giuseppe, our large male swan, hurumphed his way through the vineyard yesterday, in hot pursuit of an errant Canada goose.

Silly goose.

Anyone who's seen Giuseppe glide regally across our lake knows that this is undeniably Giuseppe's terrain.

You don't just show up with your bags packed, as the goose pair did, expecting to build a down feather nest under a pine tree.

If Giuseppe looked especially proud and puffed up yesterday, it might be because he knew it was St. Giuseppe Day.

Giuseppe and Gina

Falling on the eve of the Vernal Equinox, the Feast of San Giuseppe is traditionally a time to set an elaborate table in honor of St. Joseph, patron saint of children and of families.

And so, in the vineyard, it seems fitting on this day to pause for a few minutes, and watch resolute old Giuseppe defend his family home.

The first day of spring, under gray skies and just a little bit of snow.

The Vernal Equinox: a time to pause, and appreciate subtle spring awakenings.

Today, the daylight hours will be exactly as long as the night.

Tonight, the March New Moon will create an especially dark sky, perfect for stargazing.

An ideal time to pause, perhaps to enjoy a zeppole pastry topped with black cherries. (It's okay to take a brief respite from Lenten austerity, St. Joseph is also patron saint of pastry chefs).

A time to perhaps open a special bottle of wine, and savor the brief lull before the full flush of spring. (Which the blooming of the skunk cabbages tells us, is just around the corner.)

Persephone

The ancients had a goddess for this day: Persephone.

Whisked away to the underworld after the harvest, Persephone was said to take with her all that was green and vital, leaving mortals behind to languish in a barren realm. 

And then, this joyous day, the vernal equinox. From a cleft in the earth, Persephone was said to return, and once more, the world would be awash in color and rampant with new growth.

Today, the first day of spring, found us out in the vineyard, continuing the work we began many cold months ago: pruning back last season's grape canes, leaving behind just those few choice buds we select to bear this season's fruit.

Was the vineyard suddenly different today? Were we awash in color? Did the earth's mantle cleave and release a new birth of life?

Well, all things are relative.

This first day of spring in Canton, Ohio, the sky was leaden.

Snow flurries fell.

A raw wind blew.

Although the blanket of white we tromped through for most of our winter was largely gone, it was not replaced by a verdant carpet, but rather by mud and a thatch of brown turf.

As we finished up the Marquette block and made steady progress through the Frontenac Gris, the rhythm of stainless steel blades snapping through last summer's now dormant growth competed with raucous avian rivalries from a rapidly thawing lake.

Each pruning cut revealed the familiar kiwi green that has fed our winter weary souls through a long frigid season: the response of our resilient grape vines to a season of brutal cold. Encased in dull brown cells of insulating tissue, the vital force of each plant remained visible, even in the dim light of a sun shrouded by flurries. 

And yet, today, something WAS different:

Pruning cut, March 20, 2014

At a certain point in the afternoon, as the sun burned through gray, the brown turf warmed just a few more degrees. 

Not enough warmth to feel a discernible difference on wind chaffed skin, but enough to trigger the movement of vital fluids from grape roots drenched within a thawing terrain. 

Up through craggy six-year old trunks, through cordons stretched horizontally across galvanized trellis wire, and eventually, out, out into the sunshine, the vital fluids of each plant flowed.

The difference we experienced today: those kiwi green pruning cuts glistened.

Sap is rising. The grape vines bled, which is a good and beautiful thing.

Nutrients and vitality pulsed from the ground below, priming each vine's vascular system, cleansing each pruning wound.

As our clay soil thaws and spring rains fall, our terrain will likely persist for some time in its sodden state. (Which is hardly surprising in our region of the world, where a massive clay bed fed the nation's leading paving brick industry, centered right here in Canton, Ohio.)

Canton paving bricks in autumn, a legacy of our terrain.

Days will arrive (soon, we hope) when bright sun will shine, and the temperature will rise above fifty.

On those days, our pruning cuts will gush, and we will delight, sure of Persephone's return.

Perhaps the earth did not cleave in our vineyard soil today.

But nonetheless, something new and vital rose from the earth below.

Perhaps it was not as dramatic as classical depictions of Persephone's return from exile in the underworld.

But for those of us who toil  routinely through seemingly changeless seasons, our reward is being present for subtle shifts in the status quo.

Today's pruning cuts were no different from thousands we made all winter.

Except that they WERE. 

They glowed, saturated with nectar arising from a wakening earth.

Frederic Leighton's Return of Persephone (1821)