I Hate Vermin!!!

Bud break was beautiful.

I was pinching off unwanted buds and suckers from the vines when I noticed it. One of the vines was not doing very well. It had seemed to have just stopped growing. The buds that had appeared just the week before were frozen in time and had not grown at all. In fact, it seemed like they were shriveling up like the legs of the Wicked Witch of the east after Dorothy's house fell on her.

"That is odd." I thought as I reached down to examine the young vine. As I grasped the vine to see how supple it was, the ground around the base of it just seemed to fall away. The ground surrounding the sad vine collapsed into a large cavern and what I was left holding in my had was a sad little rootless stick.

GOPHERS!!!!. Man do I hate gophers. The little bugger had dug under the vine like prisoners under the guard station and prison fence. The snacked for a while on the tasty roots of my vine and then vanished without a trace.

Traps have not brought any satisfaction but the rains seemed to have caused him to move on . . . for now.

Time for a road trip to Napa. Hopefully I will be able to locate replacement vines.