The Mysterious Vineyard

I may be working at a small vineyard in Maryland. It isn't nailed down so I won't say much about it. I don't really even know where it is. There may be no one else minding it anyway, but I may be effectively in charge of it.

Wine is what I really want. A rough formula estimating the yield of the roughly fathomed dimensions says we might be able to expect 50 cases of wine from this vineyard. I don't know the varieties or for what purpose they are extended, but table grapes or raisins would be fun too. Reading Joel Salatin (in particular You Can Farmhas forced me to think about that dread topic, marketing. It occurs to me that in order to make a saleable product as soon as possible and make investment in the vineyard feel like worth the effort earlier, there might be better options than waiting to make the kind of wine that people want to buy. Certainly some from the first and from all crops should go toward figuring out how to make good wine of it, but people like to have good vinegar too. Perhaps I'm being cavalier and some gourmets would take offense but I think it's probably faster and easier to make good vinegar than good wine, and then there would be money to turn back into the site.

I also read an article today in Acres USA about using animals and turning them off from the crop plant by inducing nausea after the first time they eat the plant. Say, grapes, leaves, or the wood itself. I've seen a lot about training in feeding in Stockman but it's usually been to maximize pasture use or control weeds, but exclusion is new to me. It's probably common for pets. Mulberry trees would have to go in if there were goats cause I could hardly deprive them of stems and leaves. I wonder if geese would be prey to raccoons and such. I've heard of them as guard animals for other fowl so maybe they'd be fine without getting locked up nightly. It would probably be more useful to run some ducks and chickens to eat the bugs that the vegetarian geese reject. And if the geese roosted near the smaller birds perhaps even the slyest of foxes would be foiled. Cause it would be a pip to not have to be there every day and have eggs meat, feathers and sweet critters, better fertility and pest control. I'm trying to visit the site in August so I'll know more then.