“Winter Is ….” OK, Knock It Off!

For those not endeared to the television series “Game of Thrones”, today’s blog title may not make sense. The full statement is “Winter Is Coming” and it’s a reference to a frozen, zombie-like enemy to the heroes of the series. The phrase has now woven its’ way into pop culture and social media in reference to the actual season arriving. Well this year in our part of the country, it came late and still seems to be here even 3 weeks into Spring.

Even though it’s technically been a mild Winter, the back and forth nature of it paired with these late season snowfalls have made it impossible to get into the yards to get anything prepped. While we’d love to have the coir hung and ready, the ground is supremely wet and will easily get torn up between the tractor and the hops platform trailer. I’ve considered rigging a ladder to a platform sitting atop my Father-in-law’s truck, however even that would cause compaction and overall…just doesn’t sound like a particularly smart idea. 😉

I am also leery of uncovering the hops from beneath the snowpack and the straw mulch we laid down last Fall as even if there are crowns to cut (“crowned”), my fear is the cold will damage them. So we are in a holding pattern of sorts. I was able to get the tractor fired up and ready for action however. Took about three tries but once it was going, it was like it’d been running all Winter long. We love our IH674!

Stretching the legs of the IH674 after a long Winter nap from Joshua Brock on Vimeo.

It’s looking like Spring…actually Summer…weather is on the way as we’re seeing 70 degrees by the weekend. Will it stay? Probably not, however it’ll be nice to break the chain of miserable weather we’ve had and begin to dry things out.

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