It’s been a while since my last post.  After wrestling with what to write about, I realized I should tell the story of what many “farmers” witness in the middle of winter – which is nothing.  The vines are dormant right now, and not much is happening.

After we harvested, the vines remained busy continuing the process of photosynthesis, which creates reserves of carbohydrates to store in the vine’s roots and trunk.  Once an adequate supply was stored, the chlorophyll in the leaves broke down and our leaves changed color from green to yellow and red.  This photo was taken in November.

Our leaves started to really fall off shortly after Thanksgiving and our vines entered their winter dormancy.  Here they are during the first week of December.  I love this photo because several vultures came to rest and dry out their wings on our fence.

While we are talking about birds hanging out here, I thought I’d add this photo from last January.  These are egrets and look carefully and you’ll see six of them in the walnut tree that is located very near to where the vultures were in the photo above.

Here are the vines as of about two hours ago.

Quiet, resting, waiting.

All our best to each of you, and we wish for everyone a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.