Vineyard Worker

Late autumn and early winter and it is time for the grape vines to be tidied up, pruned and tied to the wires in readiness for next year's crop.
We have 24000 hectares of land planted in grapes in Marlborough. That is over 59000 acres. Hard to imagine eh?
We need an enormous seasonal workforce to deal with the task of getting all the vineyards pruned before bud burst in the Spring.
A large number of seasonal workers are brought into New Zealand especially for the grape pruning months. They come from countries such as Thailand, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea. A large number of young people from Europe, who are visiting New Zealand as part of their OE, also find work in the vineyards. We become a truly international community.
If you are interested in learning any more about the wine industry here I suggest you look up www.wine-marlborough.co.nz.
The young woman in today's blip was pruning grapes in the vineyard where I walk my dogs. There were over thirty workers in that vineyard yesterday and today. They quickly become very skilled at their work and are incredibly fast. There is no way I would ever keep up with them.
Today's worker is from Thailand and was a tiny little thing with very little English. I suspect she has not long arrived here.
I felt sorry for the overseas workers this morning as there was quite a heavy frost and as they come from very warm climates the cold must be quite a shock for them.
This lass was dressed up for the cold and even had her face covered against a chill wind. She was moving so fast at pruning and tying down the vines that I could have done with my DSLR to do her justice.