Grapevine Bathing
First, you, the reader, need to know that grapevines are dormant in the winter. They shed their leaves just like apple trees and other deciduous trees and then look like a messy bush of brown sticks all winter.
In the winter, I like to snowshoe in each row and bathe in the art of the Grapevine. Each vine is unique. Their high cane arches show me fanciful art, perhaps heart shapes or magnificent hands reaching to the sky. The beautiful design of each one of them is unique, the uniqueness of snowflakes.
Pictured below tendril dancing in the full moon.
I am one of the caretakers of the vines. I start the cycle each spring with my team. I cannot call it work to bundle up in February and March and go outside to begin pruning each vine of its extra growth. The vines seem happy we are there. I am cold and on my knees, brushing snow and looking at each vine carefully to check on this year’s future for each vine. We are so lucky in the Champlain Islands that we have Lake 
Champlain so close, and that keeps our grapes from the very hard winter frosts of middle Vermont. Each of the varieties is pruned differently and looks clean and bare when we are done. Our tools are clean sharp pruners or saws that will safely allow the vine to continue in best health. The pruning is done, and I bathe in the art of the Grapevine yet again.
I then go with my team to the beginning of each grapevine row and start the process of pulling the extra branches we pruned away.
The vines are appreciative, and when the sun comes out, they try to stand tall. They are beautiful and somewhat naked, and I bathe in the art of the Grapevine, waiting for something to happen. I want them to be ready and touch them yet again with special ties that will guide their tendrils to the wires. I take great care to tighten each wire in each row because I know the secret of the grapevine, and it will flourish and be heavy with fruit at our harvest.
I wonder what will happen next…
