Drill Baby Drill!!!

Last night we took our sturdy “tractor trailer” to our local timberyard (Baud) to collect the stakes needed for the #barrelandvine vineyard. This was a mini-herculean task as we need around 280 2.5m #chataigner chestnut stakes. To quieten the nervous anxiety from Jayne, the very helpful female forklift driver firmly assured us that our trailer could take 3tonnes of wood. What you see in the picture is 1.8tonnes. Which meant the rest ended up in the back of the trusty van!!! The journey home took 30 minutes longer, because we sat at a comfortable 45mph. The difficult bit came once back at #uncoindeparaids.

First thing this morning it was up to me to unload and distribute aforementioned stakes around the vineyard. Under the eagle eye of Eno senior (aka dad the supervisor) over the next 3 hours, 3.2 tonnes of wood were unloaded and strategically deposited around the site. Fortunately during this time, because the sun was out and the earth warming, my fellow viticulteurs were able to spend the morning planting hanging baskets and enjoying cups of tea with a Breton shortbread.

It is at this point, I am beginning to wonder if we have all the right tools for this project. A telehandler, or something similar would have made a big impact, much like a motorised post whacker! Amazon does not exist in quite the same way here in France (no same day deliveries here for petrol post whackers, or next day, or the day after, more like 9 days after), the prospect of manually installing 280 2.5m stakes is somewhat daunting. Sooooooooooo…. in true Clarkson’s Farm spirit, out came the petrol auger, brum brum, making the install eminently doable.

Like most men, I am very grateful for the woman in our lives. Without Jayne, I would not have read the instructions, learnt how to turn it on, or know what depth to drill to. With her expert tutelage, we managed to avoid most of the rocks, though at one point I did sense we nearly struck oil.

Today has been the most labour intensive so far but am very pleased we managed to prepare the terrain for the first 100 vines!