Cleaning up, Decisions

What I did:  
     Cleaned up under the vines, evaluated progress

Comments:
     It was a nice, sunny day, upper 50's.  After being gone to NY for two weeks, I was sure the vines would be sending out sprouts and I would need to spray.  As the photo above shows, I was only seeing bud swell on most vines.  Three vines show no budding--two aurore and one DeChanauc.  The latter does seem to show some flexibility in some of the twigs and there is budding at the base of the plant.  At this point, given the disease problems I've had with aurore and the mediocre quality of the wine, I am thinking of replacing all 3 vines with something that is well suited to the cold climate and would be more disease resistant.  I was leaning towards a white, like LaCrescent, until I read about the Frontenac red.  It sounds like a distinct possibility and I think I'll order it.  Good cold hardiness, seems to make a decent wine.  I was tempted to try the Marquette after reading its description.  Then I read about the strong recommendation that malolactic fermentation should be undertaken and I backed off--don't feel I'm quite ready to tackle that.  So I think I'll go with the Frontenac (described here) and perhaps try to move the DeChanauc that shows a little life and see if it can eventually survive.

This is one of the solar endcaps I put at the end of the pergola.  Kind of cool at night.