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and for this, we are so very thankful... 5.7-5.8

5/11/2010

This was the weekend the vines were to be planted... Friends and family would be driving from as far away as Oklahoma and Kansas City, Montrose and Luverne, MN, to our supporting community.

Our future arrived in six beaten up, medium sized boxes.

Our first vine was planted.

The Kimberley boys modified a trailer to carry water tanks... In the dark...

Friday night the clouds rolled in, the wind picked up, and we worried about the turnout for the planting on Saturday.

The temperature got down to 35 degrees F Saturday morning. This is a picture of frost on the seat of our four wheeler.

Despite all of this, the sun came out, the wind died down, and our first dedicated planter arrived a little after eight ready to move some soil.

Giving a "how to" speech.

...and the crew grew.

Our brother-in-law, Cory, was on planting quality detail.

We found out we have a PERFECT site for kite flying as well!

We finished planting the 2,250 grape vines in six hours. We figured this would take all day and into Sunday. With our family and friends this only took six hours.

A toast to you... Thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We could not have done this without you. For the memories, the laughter, and the success... Cheers.

Click here to view KSFY and KELO news coverage, and more pictures from the event!

We thank Tim K. for many of the pictures from the event.

Calico Skies Vineyard and Winery, Inc. 712.441.5547 1366 Able Boulevard, Inwood, IA [email protected]

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The Final Countdown... 5.4-5.5

5/6/2010

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The rows have been marked, the soil amended, vine rows tilled, and now, rows ridged.

Dealing with our previous issue of the soil spreading out to five feet instead of the 3.5 to 4 feet we had tilled---we used a blade to push the soil back to the middle of the rows. This ridging will also improve surface drainage away from the plants and rows and into the row middles where we have established sod.

Rural water rolled in and finished the project in less than 5 hours.

Marking where the vines will soon be planted.

Probably not the most efficient method... But the only one that we came up with that worked...
Originally Will was thinking he would be able to follow the 24 foot row marks Seth had made, and drag 3 chains attached to a pole, to mark every 8 feet. This failed miserably as it didn't leave as mark as shown in the video below.

No worries... We're not afraid of manual labor. We cut a PVC pipe to be 24 feet, and followed the marks Seth had made and marked every 8 feet with spray paint and moved to the next 24 foot line. Lots of walking...

This was early in the process... The x's turned into dots later in the day.

What our diet has been consisting of...

Getting Closer!!

The auguring started off great! It was taking about 30 seconds from beginning the hole, to moving to the next.

That is, until it broke down...

Will stopped in to Caswell Plumbing in Inwood to pick up more PVC. Will told of his woes of his broken down skid steer... The gentleman at Caswell's offered their skid steer for us to use!

And again, we were movin'.

Dad brought over his telahandler, and we were really moving.

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Till time. 5.1-5.3

5/5/2010

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We rented a five foot rototiller to break up the sod, and incorporate the soil amendments. We removed the outer blades on each side to give us a three and a half to four foot area. While doing this, however, it still spread the soil out to five feet, (a dilemma we will have to come back to). This worked... for a while. That is until the PTO broke. Thankfully, we have some dedicated businesses and mechanics in Inwood and we were up and running the next day to finish the first go.

Another issue. Not deep enough... Back to the drawing board. We once again looked to the row cultivator for a solution. Will added six thick washers to three of the sweeps on the top bolt to give it more of an angle for a deeper dig.

This worked relatively well, mainly cutting in the center of the row. We the did another round with the rototiller-which loosened the soil down to about six inches.

Will's fighter plane.

Marking off the end rows, as a farmer would say.

...or "row ends" as Will calls them. We left 40 feet at the end of some rows and 30 at others. This will give us some room to turn tractors around when working in the vineyard.

Coming soon...

Water!

How many vines can we fit?

Walked the vineyard rows measuring the length. From our calculations, we should be able to fit 3000 vines on property (eventually), with 8 feet (between plants) x 10 feet (between rows).

Up next---auguring the vine planting holes in preparation for our planting party on Saturday!

Calico Skies Vineyard and Winery Inc. 2010 1366 Able Boulevard, Inwood, IA 51240 712-441-5547 [email protected]

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Progress?... 4.30-5.1

5/3/2010

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We have decided to designate our fencing accomplishments in stages so we can actually say something is done... Fencing the land between ours and our neighbors---DONE (basically... we still need to put up the high tinsel wire on and the wire for the electric fence... But, we'll just stick to the positives for now.) The main push was to get the woven wire up so that we would be able to fertilize the land without bothering the neighboring cattle and calves.

Last piece of the current puzzle right before it was put into place...

We received our soil test recommendations in the nick of time. Results: good on the organic matter, a higher than recommended pH, low phosphorous, and low zinc. With these results, the recommendations from the Iowa State University Extension fruit specialist, and a joint effort with a gentleman from the Inwood Farmers Elevator, we were able to put the rates and product together as a dry/granular fertilizer, and spread the next afternoon and finish the following morning.

More machine modification. This time we used the row cultivator, the John Deere 8420, and the GPS auto-steer, to mark where the vineyard posts will go. We removed the sweep on the center row unit, (the part that digs into the soil), and lowered the disk by 5 inches. This allowed us to make lines every 24 feet going East and West without tearing up the soil.

Picture of what the vineyard posts and end posts will look like. This picture was taken at a vineyard in central Iowa at residential school for a Viticulture class at Des Moines Area Community College.

Progress?... Progress indeed...

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calm day---time to spray! 4.27

4/29/2010

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Luckily, the forecast changed-and we didn't get rain OR wind. So we were able to spray out our vineyard rows with round-up. Check one more "to do" off the list!

Will preparing the sprayer. He put caps on the outer 2 spray heads to keep the width of spray 4 feet.

Will in action.

Checking out our vineyard rows.

Of course, the day involved fencing. Actually, day and night...

To do list for tomorrow... FINISH FENCE!

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modified equipment and auto-steer GPS

4/28/2010

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As May approaches, we are realizing we really need to kick it in gear. Every day that goes by we think by the end of that day we will be able to finish the fence... Not the case. BUT, very, very, soon. We did have to put the fence on hold for a couple hours, however, and mark out our vineyard rows. This seemed like a daunting task when we set out to decide how we would actually accomplish this. With experienced farmers in the family, this task was simplified...

Dad... Brilliant farmer, father, and equipment modifier, (amongst other things). We hooked up a row cultivator to a 8420 John Deere tractor and jacked up and chained all but two row units to give us the spacing of 10 feet between rows.

Saving us even more time - Seth, (king of technology), set up his auto steer GPS system in the tractor and locked in at 0 degrees (North) and 180 degrees (South), and tractor spacing of every 20 feet. To begin the row, the computer would tell us when the tractor was on the right mark, Seth would lock the steering and the tractor would basically drive itself to the end of the row. We were able to mark all of the vineyard rows in just about two hours going perfectly north to south and with a spacing of exactly 10 feet between rows. This would have taken us days to do on our own but with the help of family it went very smoothly.

Next on our list... We will be spraying round-up using a four foot wide sprayer attached to a four-wheeler, to kill the grass under the vines. We did receive our soil samples back from ISU, which were totally different from our first sampling, but we are waiting to receive our recommendations. Once we receive those, we will be able to apply our amendments and use a rotary tiller to incorporate.

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and the day laborers arrive! 4.24

4/26/2010

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Family of course. ;o) We are so lucky to have family close by, (within 5 miles). We did do some enticing with grilling, campfires, and s'mores.

The day started out somewhat moist and breezy, once we got working it turned into an absolutely gorgeous day, progressed into scattered showers, dark clouds surrounding us, with thunder and lightning about 10 miles away, and ended with the sun peaking through.

Family photo op.
(snapshots by Laura Marie Photography)

Basically more of the same, with many more hands helping---which equals, progress.

Rain delay...

There is a chance of rain everyday for the next week. Hopefully that won't stall us too much...
Time to get out the rain gear!

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stretch-splice-nail-wrap and repeat 4.23

4/24/2010

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This was the day of finding more efficient ways to do things... Will found a more appropriate crimping tool to connect wires, and I found a tool that makes wrapping the ends of wire T-post clips fun! ;o) ---used to stabilize the woven wire to the T-posts

Discussing the method to his madness.

The most simple, yet, amazing tool ever... Not that I don't love my pliers.

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raw fingers, aching bones, sore muscles... and still fencing...

4/23/2010

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We've had our ups and downs while fencing, (going into our 3rd week), and we feel like we're gaining some momentum. The weather has been absolutely perfect, the trees are budding out and blossoming, the calves are playing on the pasture land across the road, and the air smells of freshly tilled soil... Can't get much better than that. On the 19th, Will and my dad set out the woven wire rolls and next step of the fencing began...

We have to thank our 10 year old nephew for the photography and videos, he did an awesome job---catching all of the details as he was running beside the truck, from the Ford truck logo, to the cowpies that currently can be found spotted throughout the property.

Gaining momentum, however, plenty yet to do...

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and the fencing continues...

4/19/2010

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After a decent day of work.

We finished installing the T-posts last night! of course we did hit a few rocks... We are finishing up the H-braces today, where we also had hit a few rocks and are having to post hole dig those. Next on the list, pour concrete in the holes around the posts, and stretch the woven wire...

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Marking where the vines will soon be planted.

Getting Closer!!

Marking off the end rows, as a farmer would say.

Coming soon...

How many vines can we fit?

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