Monday, May 26, 2008













Look at the happy graduate!




We took time away from the vineyard last week to go up to KU and see Jeffrey graduate. It was very exciting for all of us, seeing him and his classmates successfully make it through. We have known many of them for years, which made it doubly sweet. The weather was absolutely beautiful for the whole weekend, which we appreciated so much, especially when we came home to storms.


The weather has been unstable for days, first with high winds that toppled 2 large trees in the front yard, then with rain and thunderstorms the last three nights. We are supposed to get more severe weather today. We are fortunate not to have had hail or tornados so far, as many people around us have had.


We started bottling our wine yesterday, and have plans to finish the rest of the white and rose wines in the next 2-3 weeks. It all went smoother than we expected, and faster too. What a pleasant surprise!


The vineyard is coming out more every day. The new plants are growing quickly, peeking their heads out from the grow tubes. The older plants are getting ready to bloom, any day now. Bloom in the vineyard is tough to see, unless you look closely. On a few of our oldest plants there are a few blossoms present, as shown here. You would never notice if you didn't know what to look for!

Sunday, May 11, 2008






Spring has finally arrived! When you look across the vineyard, it is now green- new baby shoots, but green. The photo on the left is a cluster of blossoms, not yet in bloom. But it's a sign that grapes are on the way.

It has been a bit of a rough week for us, but it finished gloriously. We were frustrated early this week when we went to filter the Barrel Reserve White, and the filter pump didn't work. After much swearing and frustration, we took it apart, figured out the problem and fixed it. So then we felt pretty good, because the winery business is full of technical problems, but we are getting a handle on them one step at a time. We did the filtering yesterday, and it went flawlessly. We are now on target to start bottling over Memorial Day weekend. Spring is flying past, but we are making progress!

The vineyard is beautiful now, with wildflowers in bloom everywhere around the periphery. Tonight was perfect, warm with no wind. We had a dinner salad of greens fresh from the garden, and it was wonderful. Days like this are why we moved to the country.