Our Journey Begins....Life of a Canal Captain

As I write this entry I am sipping a very very cheap Pinot Grigio. The bottle label says it has hints of pear and apple and a nice finish. Well, Poland Spring water has a nice finish too....it just doesn't provide the buzz. And it has to be great stuff when they suggest it goes well with rotisserie chicken........you know, the dried chicken that you can pick up at the corner grocery store when you're too tired to cook. No doubt a good combination.

Our trip began in Boston, preparing to get on a Delta flight to Amsterdam. I am always a bit jittery getting on a plane. I just don't like having to undress and put my belongings in 3 plastic bins. There is always something I forget to take off....I  end up being searched no matter what. This time wasn't any different. I had taken off my belt (my pants didn't fall down), I took off my shoes (no holes in my socks), I removed my watch and my wallet and put them in the bin where they wouldn't fall out mid-conveyor. I clenched my passport and my boarding pass as I stepped into the body scanner, raised my arms over my head as this machine did a 360 around me.

But I hadn't removed my camera from my bag, and of course my body density didn't match some profile. I had to go through a body scan. "Would you mind if we did a scan of your body, sir?" To say no meant I had to figure out how to cross the Atlantic without the help of a plane. "Just do it." I thought.........get this over with. Need less to say, I passed the exam and was then put into another stress situation having to get redressed out of my bins as bins started to pile up behind me full of other passenger's goods that didn't require special screening. Geez.

I can say that Delta has it figured out. They have you absolutely captive on a plane for 8+ hours, and they do everything they can to keep you busy (i.e. bother you) so the time will pass by. Snacks, head phones, meals, drinks, more snacks, breakfast, etc. etc. Only during the final 2 hours did they allow you to get a full nights sleep without interruption. Understand, by Boston time it was the middle of the night; by Europe's time it was close to 6 a.m. If you knew what was happening, this was a time to catch a movie, or a couple of Z's. I tried the movie thing but the earphones were designed for someone with a different shaped ear; my socket wasn't a nice round one that the earphones were designed for. Obviously a hereditary flaw. If I do any more traveling a nice Bose set will be on my Christmas list.

Diane and I landed in Amsterdam without a hitch, but unlike other travel spots the airport didn't have all the signs in English, French, or Whatever. But like all other arrogant Americans, we tried making sense of all the signs by figuring out how they may have been derived from English. After feeling like complete linguistic failures, we decided to go with the flow and see where it landed us, and fortunately it got us to  Customs.

The lines were long, and after our extensive experience dealing with toll booths in the States, we opted to ride out the line we were in rather than jockey into what appeared to be a faster moving line. If you can measure success by our ability to once again convince their TBA clerk we weren't a danger to society, we passed. However, when you hear your names announced over the loudspeaker because you are the last people to board the KLM flight to Geneva, you know you're late and the cause of excessive burning of jet fuel and global warming. The flight was fully booked, except for our two seats, so we knew exactly where to sit and try to ward off stares from everyone else on board who were made up of a wide array of nationalities, languages, and experiences.

It didn't matter at this time that we were really really tired. The KLM flight was only an hour. They too managed to provide drinks and something to munch on as we obtained altitude and the pilot said we were now in approach. Diane looked at me and you could read her face that the hard part was over. Little did we know.

We landed and once again I reviewed the way people get off the plane in absolutely the most inefficient manner. Why not tell everyone in the aisles just to get off....NOW! Then the next wave of passengers exiting could occur. No, we had to wait for everyone to leave in a nice organized manner. If you yelled fire the plane would empty in 10.8 seconds. Why can't we have an equivalent word for GET OFF? Who knows....this stupid procedure is ingrained in people and it'll never change, must be like ignoring the stewardess when she(he) shows you how to put on a seat belt.

We went to baggage claim which was not unlike all the others that we have seen. Bags are propelled up onto a revolving belt, and you try to differentiate your black bag from everyone else's black bag. There are those veteran travelers that have found interesting ways to make their bag stand out, but if you go to Europe once every 20 years why bother? The bags went round and round. Then fewer bags went round and round. An airport attendant came up to me and said that that was it from our flight. When Diane came back from the ladies room I had to give her the bad news....they had lost our bags when our stayover in Amsterdam wasn't long enough to get our bags on the flight. Life sucks.

It was apparent this occurs all the time, especially to Americans. We went into a nicely equipped room with two men who were trained to relieve passengers of their stress by being overly friendly and having the latest in technical gadgets to try to trace lost bags. Why I know alot of Americans loose their bags is because they both spoke perfect English (as if there was such a thing!). While we were there Diane's bag appeared....her I.D. tag had been ripped off which is why she couldn't identify it on the carousel. However mine was still gone and we proceeded to go through the process of filling out all the forms so they could eventually get it to me. No easy task knowing we were going to be on a boat in a few short hours. Nothing beats hitting a moving target on some water in another country. At that point we knew we were at a disadvantage.

In Geneva (oh, by the way that's where we landed) we were supposed to meet up with a taxi driver to take us to Brange , France. We didn't have his name, his taxi service, his phone number, the number or address of our location in France. I felt so unprepared for this to all happen. We frantically went through all of our travel paperwork looking for anything that could identify where we were going or how to get hold of us. Only after Diane scanned down though her emails on her phone did she find a number we could call to get all the info. the clerk needed. We had been hoping the taxi driver would show up and give them all the information but he was no where to be found. Well, the clerk's job was done. He put a trace for the bag. put into the system all of our contact info, and now we were on our own. "Have a pleasant stay"....his departing words.

So just like what we have seen many times on TV travel logs, we went out into the lobby and looked for someone, any one, with a SHELDON placard, or one the said LeBOAT. No one. We circled again. No one. Now it was time to talk to anyone who spoke English for some divine guidance.
We found an attentive ear in Information, and just as we decided that breaking down and crying might get us something, our taxi driver appeared with a LeBoat sign which looked like it was made seconds before from a disposed shoe box and a lipstick marker. He was one hour late.

We were relieved though. He escorted us to his car, threw Diane's bag in the rear and we all jumped in (these are such tiny cars), and we raced out of the parking lot. There was no compass in the car, just a GPS which had Branges on it. It gave us some warm comfort to know we were headed southwest to our destination; he wasn't some underworld crook kidnapping us for ransom. He raced on, weaving through the Geneva traffic, getting on their expressway, and much to our surprise passing right through Customs without stopping. OMG, now we were fugitives in a foreign land.  Our driver didn't speak English (this is a sign) and we had thought we had broken a law.

Ninety minutes later we were in the tiny town of Branges. Two hundred Euros lighter but where we were supposed to be. Those in the boating center were nice. All spoke English. One was really from Great Britain while the clerk behind the desk had spent years in California doing whatever. They gave us our welcome package (wine, cheese, and crackers), a day's worth of provisions so we didn't have to worry about food until tomorrow, a Captain's Information booklet, some maps, and pointed to our boat.

It wasn't a big boat. It was in fact a small houseboat that slept 2+2 (i.e 2 more if you wanted to sleep on the dining table), It didn't need to be too big, after all it was just Diane and me. The Welshman walked us through the boat, showed us where everything was, how to start/stop the boat, where the life preservers were etc. I signed the legal document preventing us from suing him if we crashed or sunk. At this time it was around 1 p.m. France time.....we really hadn't slept or had normal food, but he was ready to give us a five minute test drive on the boat under his guidance of course, so we would consider ourselves to be experienced enough to be on our own.

The three of us headed upstream; I cautiously steered the boat in the narrow canal adjacent to ten or twelve other boats that were moored. We maybe went 1/10th of a mile, did a u-turn and headed back. I commented to our instructor that it just didn't feel right. I could just read his mind.....stupid ass American.....landlubber........inept boatsman.....clueless. But I said it again so he took over the controls. Further down the canal we went, passing all the other boats as he turned around now facing upstream into the current. He looked at me and asked me to take over the controls as he went to the stern of the boat to take a look. Hmmmmmmm......no turbulence in the water. The boat had lost its propeller !

The headmaster sent a boat down to tow us back to port, at which time he offered to have the clerk take us into town to try to get some food in us while he prepped another boat. It took us about an hour or so to drive into town and realize no restaurants were open on Monday, and by now the kitchens were closed in the bars.  We did however pick up some food for our trip.

When we returned to the boats we were told that the boat they were going to give us had major electrical problems, so they upgraded us to a Continental, a 42' yacht! It had 3 staterooms with 3 bathrooms, full galley with 2 refrigerators and a microwave, a color TV, inside and outside controls and a full top deck. Wow, what a boat. The staff moved all of our stuff from one boat to this one, we were given another lesson on the boat, and sent on our merry way. Point of note, every time the staff gave us bad news they gave us another bottle of wine. During the entire trip we bought only one bottle, and that one we brought home with us. Every night we had another adventure in French wine tasting......though they all tasted good, I am sure they were from obscure wineries that fell short of French standards..........hey what do these Americans know.

It was now 4 p.m. and we were slowly getting used to the boat, traveling maybe 4 knots going with the current. It was getting dark, fast. We turned on our navigational light located on the bow. We had no clue where we were on the map; our destination was Cuisery on the Seille River. The river banks were now all blending together with the water's edge, and we depended on reflections to tell us we weren't going to crash. We slowed, but we kept going. What were we to do ? We were tired. We were hungry. We had no idea what we would find or what we were looking for, how to handle the boat when we got to whereever we were going. Only later did we find that we disobeyed the law by operating the boat at night. Six more days of adventures.

Our Trip To Burgundy - October 2013

Diane and I had the opportunity to travel to France this Fall, arriving on the scene just as harvest was being completed on October 19th.  We spent most of our time in Santenay, the last major village in the southern part of Cote d'Or.

The village, like many others in the Burgundy area, had a traditional square in the center of town with its fountain and sidewalk seating for people to relax in and just get intoxicated by the views. Mountains in the background surrounded the village that dated back centuries.  Around the square were old stone buildings, many being owned by the larger Domains in the area. Unlike the States where you need to go winery hopping in your car, here these Domains had their own tasting rooms where you could easily visit 4 or 5 all within a hundred yards of each other. There were many many more  outside of town and a quick bicycle ride would get you to those.

The wineries in Burgundy take great pride in their not being like Bordeaux, their neighbor to the west. Bordeaux has succumbed to the global market, changing the labels on the bottles to meet international demands, but Burgundy has held back and kept the Village Name as being the dominant identification on the label with no mention of the grape variety.

We were invited to a private tasting in one of the town's wineries. The winemaker led us down to the cellar on steps and doorways intended for much shorter people. The cellar was really 2 floors underground, lined with bottles covered by dust that was years' old. He gave us each a glass that resembled a brandy sniffer, and poured a small amount of white wine for us to do our swirling and tasting. We asked what it was and he replied Santenay. He poured us another sample, and once again he said it was Santenay, but it tasted different. For a third time we went through the process, and for a third time we were told it was a Santenay.  This is when we were awakened by what was happening in regards to the identification. You see, in Burgundy there are predominantly only 2 types of grapes grown.....Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. So all of the white wine we had just tasted was Chardonnay, and we "should have known this". But the wines were from different parts of the vineyard, and different years. He repeated the process for the red wine, which of course was all Pinot Noir. And of course, we left with a bottle of his delicious wine.

Whenever we visited a village, we made it a point to check out the visitor's bureau. These seemed to be the only places that had WiFi so we could catch up on the doings back home....the Government shutdown was of particular interest because they were holding up our Winery License, the Red Sox were in the playoffs, and I was expecting my cows to start having calves. Also, regardless of what you've heard, once you get in these back villages there were very few people who could speak English, so finding someone who could explain the layout of the land was welcoming.

There is a lot more about the trip that I'll cover in another blog, because on this trip we celebrated our 40th anniversary in a boat while cruising the canals north of Lyon and south of Dijon.

Seeing Red

This past week we greeted our newest members at White Oak Farm, four pregnant registered Red Angus cows. Now I know that for those readers that hang on my every word will wonder what is going on here. In my last post I indicated that I would be spending all my time taking care of the vineyard and now it looks like I have already strayed from this pledge.

Well, I ask your forgiveness here, but it is really part of the big picture plan, so let me continue. These four cows (for you city folks this is a female that has had a calf previously) are all due to have calves again in late October. Call them Halloween babies I suppose. If you understand compounding, nothing beats doubling your asset base every year.  The Red Angus breed is a specialized breed within the Angus group, where most of you recognize Black Angus as the "steak of choice". Red Angus are better suited for our climate because their red hides do not absorb the heat of a hot summer's day like the black variety does. They have greater marbling too for those that eventually make it for dinner.

Our cows do not have names like Lucy and Ethel, or Cagney & Lacy. They are just known by U204, T29,X406, and X446.  They may be around for quite awhile since this will be our starter herd intended for breeding, and they may all have personalities (really, cows do have unique character traits), but they are not pets. It is our intent to eventually offer grass fed Prime Cut beef in the cafe / meat counter associated with our winery. We are catering to our specific type of customer who wants a rich tasting steak to go along with their new bottle of red wine. We'll see how this marketing decision goes......our first offering will probably be in mid-2015........

There is alot to animals. Sure, for the most part you leave them alone. The grass fields provide most of what they need. But they need fresh water so I had to hook up a fresh water trough. And they need mineral supplements so I made a mineral barrel to house their block of salt & molasses. There will be plenty of flies, so I made a fly catcher (thank you You - Tube!) to try to deal with a pre-determined threat. There are the vaccinations and vet visits.  But you don't have to bring them in at night. I do have that fear of a coyote deciding to cause trouble, but these cows ARE HUGE, weighing in at 1100 to 1500 pounds each. No coyote is going to mess with them (calves may be a different worry however).

They're fun to watch. I brought them buckets of sweet corn Friday and it was like they found their new best friend. They'll chase you down to put their nose into a bucket of corn. And when I left the field they followed me right to the fence hoping I'd be getting more, or be back soon. The herding instinct is confirmed.......where U204 goes, they all follow. When I went out with the corn, I had 4 buckets.....stupid me. I laid them all out, maybe each 10' apart figuring each cow would grab one. What happened was that U204 muscled in, and the other 3 stood in line waiting for their turn. Of course U204 finished the bucket....with the size of her tongue 2 pounds of corn doesn't take long to finish. She then went to bucket #2 while the others moved in to a nearly empty bucket..

There is a grazing ritual they go through as they move around the field over a 24 hour period. I have been told they will search for the best tasting grass. Sorry, I can't relate. Maybe it's like compaing iceburg lettuce to arugula to romaine (and with these if you put enough blue cheese dressing on them they all taste the same).

They say if you see them all lying down in the field it is a sign of a storm coming. Next week we're due for some heavy rains so we can test this theory out then.

I'm sure I'll have more to share about these cows in future blogs. Obviously they have more personality than do the vines. Cows are cool.

Another Year Gone By, Another Year Ahead

It's been quite some time since my last post. It seemed that I was getting redundant in my entries, so I took some time off........no , I was really busy and never felt I could give any new enlivened incite.

It's now Spring of 2013. I am fully devoted to the vineyard (and getting my house up North sold). It is a strange time. The drum rolls in anticipation of bud break. Ordinarily it would have come by now, but with the cold spells as of late everything is taking its time to bloom.  Some trees are all white with new flowering buds. The daffodils are out randomly popping up in the middle of yards and roadsides. But the grapevines don't look any different than they did a month ago.


I am playing catch up never the less. All the pruning is done with the help of my son Rich. He was down here the last two months as he waited for the Red Sox home opener, where he still hangs his baseball hat. It is the furthest along we've ever been. The vines will have to be trimmed one more time (they've already been pruned twice) once we know what canes and main stems survived the winter. We have a bud count to maintain and absolutes are near impossible when the buds are in their dormant stage.

Most of the work that still needs to be done centers around spraying. Killing off the weed growth under the wires. Getting ready to spray the vines shortly after bud break and the shoots are only a couple of inches long. This is to anticipate, and combat, future fungus growth and bug problems.

The days are in the mid-50's while the nights hang just above freezing. There is the occassional frost that one is reminded of if you happen to get up early and have to scrape the windshield.  Being in Virginia, I am without the scraper that is standard issue in Massachusetts, so there has been many a day when I open the window so I can see as I wait for the defroster to catch up to meet minimum visual requirements through the windshield. I'd never do this up north....my face would freeze.

Just a couple of weeks ago Diane, Rich, and I spent a very late evening bottling our first wine. It was a Rose made from the Nortons we harvested late last year. We had enough for 32 or 33 cases of 187L bottles, at 24 bottles per case. When we were all done there were some "leftovers" that were put in a pitcher for the refrigerator. It reminded me alot of my Uncle Bill who had a dairy farm. After he milked the cows he would bring a pitcher in to his frige for the family meals. Nothing like pouring a glass of wine from a cold pitcher !

I have at least two more trips up north to do some work on the house before the For Sale sign goes in the front yard. It'll be great when that is all behind me. This year has many new things in store, including the winery being built, getting in some Red Angus to start our cattle business, maybe getting some goats and chickens too.....gotta be the well-rounded farmer you know. And Diane and I will have been married 40 years in September, so immediately following our harvest we're going to France.

I won't make it a resolution, but with 7000 vines in the ground, a few of them should be able to help me stay active on the blog. Here's to warm weather !

Veraison

For those that read my blog, you find that I am either celebrating or complaining. A project is finally completed, or maybe a new mission has finally begun. There are several times during the year that get me all goosebumps though. Harvest time is obviously one of them, and personally I am very fond of budbreak for it signals the official start of the new year.

In between these however there seems to be just a never ending series of mundane tasks. Mowing, spraying, and of course weeding and more weeding. Add to this several prunings and a series of other tasks such as putting in a new vineyard with its poles, drip lines, wires, and plantings, and the summer seems to go by way too fast.

There is a time in the middle of the hot summer months though where, as a vintner, you wait for a particular time that signals that the conclusion of the growing months has now "been scheduled" in. That time is called veraison. It is the time when the pea-sized green grapes just start to change color, and bunches of grapes may be green, pink, blue, purple, and violet. A grape changing color can now be squeezed between your index finger and thumb to squirt out its juice, and if you dare you may now put one in your mouth to first start testing for those sugars that are all important in the fermenting process which ultimately leads to a nice wine.

At first these grapes are rather tart. Sugar levels are low, probably in the 2 to 5% range. But they will quickly climb up to a BRIX reading (that's wine talk for percentage of sugar) of around 15 or so. And then there starts the tease. Sugar content has a direct relationship to the alcohol that one can have in the wine, so with an alcohol content of 12% you are looking for a BRIX number that is twice this, or a 24.

But that number seems to be both elusive, and freighteningly easy to screw around with. Having raced up to a 15 level, it now just looks at you. Grape skins have already started to soften to allow the grape to expand and hold more juice, but this might easily turn into a nightmare should sunny days turn into a series of rainy ones. Grapes will suck up this new found moisture and play games with your forecasts and sugar content, all of a sudden reducing the percentage level of the sugar as the grape begins to bloat. Too much rain could lead to late season fungus, or possibly lead to skins breaking under the water pressure within the grape.

Our fingers are crossed however, hoping there isn't a sudden and prolonged weather change.  Sunny days are good for promoting an increase in sugar levels, and more times than not our prayers are answered. Diligence is still required however. Spray schedules must be adhered to, though as you get closer to harvest there is a time when you have to back off to make sure they are not present during picking. As these BRIX readings get very close to signaling removing the tons of grapes, all manually I might add, one eye is aimed at the sky deciding if rain is due which might accelerate the picking process.   Last year we picked 3 of our varieties a little early knowing Hurricane Irene was coming up the coast.

This has been a really hot summer, and unlike the weather the Midwest has had, where if you listen to RFD TV you hear alot about the drought they are having. We have had plenty of rain which has led to other problems aforementioned. Heat and rain, hanging humidity causes all sorts of spores to latch onto grape leaves and the fruit. Hence all the spraying we have done.  I know those into "organics" don't like the use of all these chemicals, but not using them is the quickest way of declaring surrender, and bankruptcy in the grape bussiness. For the most part we have adhered to a qualified schedule and our harvest should reflect our ability to stay ahead of many of the problems.

It is late in the afternoon on a Saturday as I write this. It is still 90 degrees outside and I am thinking it might drop a few degrees so I can go out and mow in between the rows.  Sounds like I have already messed up my grand plan I described last week that would have given me a change of pace and some personal time. Oh well. When the fields, and the grapes call, you must go.

Beauty and the Beast

Whenever you buy a "Dream House" there tends to be a blind eye as you go through a period of visualizing living in this stately mansion. Rooms are just too many to comprehend, hallways and doors make orientation just a bit confusing. You manage to avoid looking at things that will become fairly important and you miss things that add some additional charm and personality to the property.  No, I didn't find out that the plumbing doesn't work or that there had been an electrical fire. Neither of those things occurred. And it was abundantly clear from the beginning that animals owned by the previous owner were not kept very well, and after three months I have to some extent been able to remove their memory and territorial markings.

But these things take time to learn about, and right now Plan A is to put my efforts into the vineyard. However with that being said one needs time to just back away and change the routine or you will get both mentally and physically exhausted.

For a farmer, and I must accept that title, which is what a vineyard worker ultimately is, the work never really ends.  It is a sun up to sun down job. You never know exactly when it will rain to plan a day off from the fields, and even then there may be equipment repairs or other work that is required indoors even if nature is telling you to take a break.  What I have done is to redefine the weekend to see if I can bring some normalcy to my rigorous schedule.  I have decided to use the weekends to catch-up on required projects not yet finished from the week, and hopefully this may not extend beyond Saturday noon, and then spend the remainder of the weekend putting around the house by being Mr. Fix-it or just tackling a pet project. Of course there have already been major violations to this type of planning.  Mowing the lawn and between the vines takes about 8 hours in each of our two locations, and with the dew so heavy in the morning this generally is spread out over four days. If it has been rather rainy this could be a once a week affair.  The other "must do" assignment is to adhere to a spray schedule, which could be putting down fungicides or insecticides every 7 to 10 days.  My experience  has been that if this isn't followed you will really regret it by Japanese beetle onslaughts or black rot attacking the fruit.

So this may appear that there isn't much time in my weekend, but you make do.

One of my most recent projects was to recover the brick walks that surround the house and meander by the herb garden, old chimney, spring house, and backyard. As with all open bricks weeds find any little crack and grow, and after awhile you don't even know there is a brick path there. Some hard scraping though, digging the edges, and an ample application of Round-Up brings them back to life, and wouldn't you know it there is a hidden flower garden tucked in the corner of the yard with a reading bench should you want complete solitude, making exception to the bugs and butterflies that enjoy the flowers too.

With every ying there is a yang, and adjacent to this peaceful area there is a swimming pool, aptly called THE BEAST. This poor pool had been neglected and was full of green pea water and scum.. Local frogs and toads had taken up residency, and there is no doubt in my mind that if I accidentally fell in it might take a year to find my body.

We first went at it with the unusual hope that if you add enough shock treatment it would eventually come around. It wasn't the case however. Spending nearly a hundred dollars on chemicals, having the sand filter and pump work overtime, and manually skimming the surface only got us to make believing that we were making progress. It was time to surrender, and just pump out the water, all 35,000 gallons of it, and start over. Fortunately I had a new irrigation pump I could divert from its rightful purpose of watering the new grapes (we have had plenty of rain to balance out this assignment so I wasn't concerned)  and with a few simple hook-ups I put a 2" pipe down to the bottom of the pool and starting sucking up all the sludge.  As much as green pea & ham soup was a winter favorite of mine, it may be several years before I lose the memory of how this pool invited me to otherwise pleasant surroundings.

So now a simple task, where all I wanted was to jump in the pool at the end of a long hot day, had now developed into a major task. Drain the water, pressure wash the pool, scrub the insides with muriatic acid and TSP, paint the pool, refill, repair pool fittings, scrub the decks and repair certain concrete blemishes, and remove vegetation growing through the fence. This has now gone beyond a casual to-do list on a weekend. To be able to jump in my pool before Labor Day will be a major endeavor. But stay tuned......hopefully I can show you the results of being side-tracked.

Crooks,Compromise, & Crops

We are about a third of the way into the new season, and I am finally getting around to making a post. Skipping through the basic "we do it at the beginning of every year" stuff, I have decided to finally settle down and bring everyone up to speed on the oddities we have encountered this year.

In my transition piece I talked about finally selling my plastics business, and now I am down on the vineyard, and new homestead, full time. It allows me to at least make a solid effort in keeping up with the requirements of the vineyard, though I may never catch up since I had a late start beginning in mid-April. It also provides me opportunity to tie up alot of looses ends, and try to resolve issues as they come along, and there have been many.

One of the main things I had to devote some attention to was a year long battle with an ex-employee who decided to break in to my house and trash the place. To really make a long story short, he had just gotten out of jail (nice ex-employee, huh ?) on another matter, and having burned every bridge he crossed he was thrown out into the street without a friend or a dollar in his pocket. OK, he probably had a dollar, but whatever he had went to beer and smokes. At the time, and now we are talking in the Fall of 2010, I was on my odd schedule juggling work in Massachusetts with my farm duties, and he knew this. It made my house ripe for the entering. He ate my food (no big deal here yet), but he drank all my cooking wine which very quickly exited his system. Unable to control his bodily functions, having been off of booze for 6 months, he proceeded to mark the territory. What a mess.

Through my personal police work, getting DNA samples, and prodding our local police force to get a warrant issued, he was finally caught and "brought to justice".  I was issued a subpoena on a couple  of occasions to show up in court, but he rolled over like a dying mule when he saw we had him cold, and I was in the court to see that the proceedings went smoothly and never had to be called to testify.

One of the things that bothered me most was that he targeted my home, which I wasn't too pleased when knowing I was the only one who gave him a job, but also that the incident removed that nice, trusting charm of the rural south. I could go on and psycho-analyze the whole thing (well I did, I just won't bore you with it here) , but I'll just conclude this sad chapter saying I now subscribe to ADT. The time to get ADT is not after the crime is committed. Where have I heard that line before ?

In previous write-ups I talked about this year's plantings, and that didn't all flow so well either.  I wanted in the worst way to plant 1500 Gamays (think Beaujolais), but the graftings didn't take this past year so I had to change at the last minute to another variety, so I chose Malbec. This is another one of those Bordeaux grapes, which puts us at having 4 of the 5 being grown in our 2 vineyards. The only one we aren't growing is the Merlot, which everyone else seems to be growing since it was a major fad a short while ago. What this means is that there is plenty of this grape available to purchase should we decide to make a Merlot wine.

The Malbecs came mid-May and with the help of a couple of local young farmers we were able to bang in all the poles and then plant the Malbecs without any problems, albeit one major one. I had ordered 700 of the line posts and 90 of the end posts, only to get just the line posts. What is important about the end posts is that they are required to tie in the irrigation system. Without them all the drip lines and wires are just hanging without tension or hook-up. So far though we haven't had a problem with the weather. We have had plenty of rain and the Malbecs, as well as the newly planted Scuppernongs and our vines at the other vineyard are all doing well. We have had so much rain however that we are fighting black rot and powdery mildew which is a challenge every year, but more so this year.

Diane and I have close to 73 aces now, with about 10 in grapes. Doing quick subtraction it leaves us with about 40 acres that is considered farmable, and being a financially - centered guy I can't see having a resource doing nothing at all, so I lease the open land out.  This year I am working with 3 new farmers (not really new, new......they have each been in the business 30+ years) because I really pissed off the farmer I had previously leased to......but that is a blog entry all its own. So my other land is being used to grow peanuts, soybeans, and raise Angus cattle. It's all pretty cool stuff  if you are into farming, and I must say I've got the bug. 

That's the quick update. I have much more to catch up on, with the winery being designed and the new house getting a boatload of attention. But they deserve their own entries, so stay tuned !