I am writing this a couple days before the Winter Solstice. By the time you read it Christmas will be over and New Years too. Hopefully we have survived both events. I had a prioritized list for Christmas: write newsletter; get cards; print labels; buy stamps; send cards and newsletters; figure out gifts; get tree. … (read more)
No Spring We had thunder and lightning here all night. It is back again now. So, I have time to write something and not get soaking wet working in the vineyard. I was ready to write this family blog update almost 3 weeks ago and am just getting to it. That is the kind of… (read more)
Almost everyone likes sweet things, often to our detriment. Nevertheless sugars are an important source of energy for people, animals and microbes. In the wine-making business, the sugar content of grapes is key to whether a wine will be dry or sweet, also to how well it will keep. The brix scale is a standard… (read more)
It takes awhile to learn the slow story of geology covering eras, eons and epochs. The world’s seven tectonic plates spread over time from volcanic seams in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Within those plates are stratigraphic terranes, large masses of rock with related histories. The names and times of geologic events become more twisted… (read more)
A lot of things don’t seem normal anymore. It felt like they were building up as the long “Indian Summer” extended from September through October. But today only one of them hurts more than the others. Our dog, Gretchen, always waited for us at the top of the driveway when we came back from someplace… (read more)
It was an interesting summer…
When I was much younger I thought about becoming a writer. But I realized that if I had in mind to write about everything that I experienced it would be like a huge version of “Kiss and Tell”. Not wanting to contaminate my life with ulterior motives, I backed off from writing hoping some day… (read more)
Start with For the Love of Soil by Nicole Masters. It was certainly both the most inspirational and educational book I read last year. The main chapters of the book include story after story of farms that underwent almost miraculous transformations by the application of biological and sometimes chemical/mineral treatments as well as management practices. … (read more)
We are getting whiplashed by sub-teen low temperatures and two feet of soft snow then temperatures above freezing and snow bombing everything as it falls out of the trees. Here is a little album.
