Friday, February 18, 2011

Hello, Outside World!

I actually went outside for the first time in about three months the other day.  Sadly, that's hardly an exaggeration.  We had our first big snowstorm November 13th and it just kept coming and then in got cold and...well, you know how winter goes.  Between being at the end of my pregnancy and then being home with a newborn, there really never seemed an opportune time to get outside for a bit.

When the temp climbed into the mid-40s the other other day, I decided to climb out from under my rock (where I have spent the last five weeks snuggling my little guy), bundle him up and take a walk outside.  First out to the outbuilding to visit Aaron and see the projects he's been working on all winter.  The man has been busy!  He's been telling me about an air-blast sprayer he's building for the vineyard, but I had no idea how big it was!  He'll be able to use it to spray fungicide on the vines this year.  Instead of buying one for a couple thousand bucks, he made good use of this off-season, put his handy-man skills to work and built one.

Then the three of us walked out to the vineyard.  I can't believe I haven't so much as looked at the vineyard in at least 3 months!  Aaron has done a lot of the pre-pruning and we'll have to spend a few weekends in March doing all the pruning to get the vines ready for bud-break in the spring. 

Anyone want to come help?



Anyone? 

We actually had fun doing it last year!  We picked a warmer weekend to do it and when we were done, I made a bunch of grapevine wreaths!


Although this has been one long winter, I can't believe spring is just around the corner! 

With these warmer temps, we've had a great thaw and can actually see some of our lawn now!  I found things like old dog toys lying around that have been buried all winter, one of my green rubber boots one of the dogs must have stolen off the deck last fall and carried out to the lawn.  But what took the cake were all of the pumpkins and gourds I had surrounding my deck last fall that never got thrown out.  I kept saying I would throw them out once the snow melted after the first storm.  But it never did.  So anyone coming to our house now is greeted by soggy, rotten pumpkins.

And then I caught the dogs eating them today.

Sometimes I feel like I have three children.  As though one baby wasn't enough to keep my hands full, Belle came into the house limping.  After examining her paw, I determined the pain was coming from a BROKEN NAIL on her paw.

Seriously.  A broken nail.  Such a female! 

They'll do anything to get the attention back on them.  Like a few weeks ago when we looked over at them sitting on their dogbed like this...



Completely un-posed.  They did this on their own!  It's as if they collaborated and said, "what can we do that will make us look irresistible? Let's cuddle. Look cute!"


And we fell for it.

They looked so cute and comfy together, we thought maybe, just maybe, if they stayed that way we could stick the baby in the middle of them for a photo that could quite possibly rival Anne Geddes.


Aaaaand...that's as close as we got.  Doggies got way too excited when I got this close, so there was no way I was putting him down and positioning them all for an artistic shot.

But, we tried.


Aaron has spent the last few days at the Minnesota Grape Growers Association (MGGA) Cold Climate Conference.  Since I couldn't go this year, I told him to take good notes for me!  In the meantime, here is my recap from last year.