A Cat Is In The Driver's Seat.

Getting friendly in her old age.

A Saturday that started out really well. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting and Bob and I were on a mission to pick up twigs. Sounds easy you say? Well, yes and no. Easy but repetitious.

A few weeks ago the pruning of vines was done, with the cut off branches landing on the ground, in the middle of the rows of vines. Before you ask, that is how it is done and we already knew that they'd have to be picked up at a later stage. At least we've become more organized. Thanks to Bob we've started the practice of making little mounds of twigs every few meters instead of just dropping the cut-offs without care. A few times when I'd forgotten, either mum or Bob gave me a friendly reminder!

Both of us were looking forward to the work ahead and Bob was busy attaching the trailer to the chariot when for some reason, Tigger our feral but morphing into domesticated cat, jumped into the open front door and curled herself onto the soft cushion of the driver's seat. How funny, how sweet and how fortunate that she jumped straight back out and not onto the back seat.

The sunny weather ( about 15 degrees ) was marred by a constant strong gusty wind and thus we only managed a few hours of collecting the twigs. Thankfully we're about halfway at least. You know, each season we get more inventive and find ways to lessen the hard work. The first year, I remember walking up and down the long rows of vines and picking up twigs and carrying them to the trailer by the road. The first hour it had romantic idealism attached to it but then a dose of realism in the guise of protesting back muscles kicked in.

Mum cleverly took a big sheet of plastic, which somehow resembles a big sail yet Bob and I call it the magic carpet, attached ropes to it and voila, we had a moving receptacle for the twigs. Fill the sheet with twigs and drag it to the trailer to unload. Cuts the work in half. Brilliant.

Despite what it might have sounded like, it was fun to do this yesterday. Working together with Bob, fresh air and fabulous surroundings made it another day in paradise...

Just to show you the heaps of cut off vines...( This photo was taken two years ago )

Bob unloading the trailer at the local tree cuttings dump.

Biggi