Every year

Every year, the grapes eventually* push out, from stark winter's wood. The buds swell and get woolly, and then the leaves push through and begin to unfurl, like sails, to harvest the photons from our star.

To us, budbreak is a long-awaited event, the "year hand" on the clock of our lives. Each year is pretty momentous and filled with events. But to the grapes it is just business as usual, reaching back hundreds of thousand of years.

The pic is of Jupiter (a seedless Muscat grape) emerging in my vineyard. Developed by University of Arkansas, it's a terrific grape.

*"Eventually," because emergence is about 3 weeks late this year (update: my hybrid grape mentor says we may be more like 6-7 weeks late, and he predicts a record grass allergy year starting in a couple of weeks). We will need a long, hot summer, to catch up. Will somebody please kick "La Nina" out of our neighborhood?