Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Ahh, you just like to say anemometer!

Denny setting up the weather station.

Kathy pretending to work on the anemometer
so it looks like she helped.

The weather station is up and running.

Denny and Kathy "assembled" and installed Kathy's Davis Weather Station in the middle of the vineyard today. There was really little assembling to do, but we took our time and were very careful, so it took us many hours to get it functional.

The purpose of the weather station is to keep a log of the micro climate in the vineyard so we know what kinds of growing seasons produce good grapes and which don't. Kathy and Denny are also interested in wind turbines and you need to know the average wind speed where you live to see if a wind turbine is practical for your situation. The station will be able to provide us with that info. Not that anyone can afford a 15-grand wind turbine even with the gov't rebate! It might pay for itself before we die. What is the return? 15 years?

Kathy joined the Citizen Weather Observer Program but hasn't figured out how to upload her data yet. She sent an email out for help. Another day.

Tomorrow another foliar feeding and maybe some hoeing before it rains. And grocery shopping.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Window to our world

The vertical blinds finally went up today.
In foreground is Marquette and under table is Possum.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

Tacumwah assisted in hanging the blinds.

The vertical blinds finally were hung today and the window to our world can now be closed to the rest of the world. Denny will have to use his binoculars to watch birds now. ; )

We still have the windows on the porch, the two upstairs doors and the loft windows to buy treatments for. The basement also has three windows and the double doors to treat. Now that we are experts at hanging vertical blinds, we may put them at the walk-out.

The mirror leaning against the buffet still needs to go on the wall over the buffet. That is a two-person job as the mirror is very heavy. The wine cooler next to the buffet will be taken to the basement and a cabinet will take its place on which we will set our KitchenAid. The cabinet will have room to store mixing bowls and other items underneath. Kathy made room for the wine cooler in the basement this evening and also put the cover on the breaker box. She did not get out into the vineyard as she hoped, but there are always her days off.

Fruitful

Muskmelon

Golden Mama

Yellow summer squash

Bonnie's garden is providing us with a bounty of zucchini, summer squash and cucumbers. It will be difficult to eat them all before they go bad. Bonnie is planning on doing some canning and freezing after she retires. Only 5 workdays left.

Bonnie found out this past week that she is no longer borderline diabetic and must make some lifestyle changes. She sees her doctor this week and expects more tests and a discussion of how best to control her diabetes. We exercised last evening by taking a walk, and drove to a larger Kroger and Scott's in the morning to stock up on low-sugar foodstuffs she could eat. And 5 oz. of wine per day is still on the diet.

Kathy's Davis Weather Station arrives tomorrow and she is very excited about it. She has a vineyard post selected to mount it on (smack dab in the middle of the vineyard) and has recruited Denny (who shares her interest in weather) to assist in getting the station up and running. (The anemometer has to be oriented to true north and that could be a trick for one person to accomplish.) This is a wireless unit that will send all the info to a receiver in the house. The software that goes with it will then allow the data to be transferred to the laptop. We can keep excellent records of the micro climate in the vineyard. Kathy is already talking about joining a reporting group for NOAA.

Today's plan calls for (finally) hanging the vertical blinds in the dining room. Kathy also hopes to get out into the vineyard to do some hoeing.

Kathy's Uncle Bob passed away Friday night. No one could have ever had a better uncle.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Farm art or eye sore?

Farm art? (Click on photos to enlarge.)

Squash blossoms

Squash

Melon blossoms

There seems to be limited time to blog these days. We have had an exceptionally mild summer (one of the coolest on record) with highs some days reaching only the high 60s and lows in the 50s. It is a wonderful first summer at The Farm, the weather allowing us to work outdoors almost daily, and outdoors is where most of the work we need to accomplish is. We have even had adequate rain, never going into a draught situation...so far. Bonnie is concerned that our garden may suffer from lack of high temperatures. Kathy is planning on purchasing a Davis weather station to keep track of the micro climate in the vineyard and has some books coming to the library on the subject.

Today we are receiving a gentle rain. Kathy was out early pushing some dirt around. The dirt left over from when Denny worked on the drainage issue by the walk-out needed a new home, and Kathy has been filling low spots around the house and putting the majority of the dirt on the south side of the south retaining wall where it is needed. We really need some more soil brought in. Mike asked if we wanted him to bring us some if he had any from projects he would be working on and we told him yes.

The work Denny did seems to have resolved the standing water and mud at the walk-out. We need to bring in some gravel for the area between the retaining walls, and that should help even more.

Our weeds are serving a purpose while we wait for conditions to be right for planting grass seed. When they are cut the land does not look too bad. (The vineyard, of course, always looks good because it does have grass.) The weeds and crab grass are helping to keep mud and erosion issues down.

The sofa-bed frame and springs (see top photo) have become a standing joke around here. Denny comments about them on a regular basis. Kathy is trying to make lemonade of the situation and told Denny she considers it Farm Art. What do you think? Kathy moves them out of the burn ring when she has a large amount of items to burn, and then moves them back into the burn ring when she knows Don is going to be over to mow. We are, by the way, very pleased with what a great job Don is doing mowing the land.

We have been struggling with sewer gas odor, and it appears to be coming from the bathroom in the loft. It has been hard to pin down the source (it comes and goes) and Rex has tried several things now including a goose neck on the vent pipe and increasing the height of the pipe. Yesterday he changed the seal on the loft toilet. The seal that was on it seemed fine when we removed it, but the new seal seems to have reduced the odor (so far) to practically nothing.

Kathy finished her online wine and food pairing class and enjoyed it very much. (She was so busy that she had to have two extensions on it!) She has also been studying trellis and pruning systems and has many fine books she uses for resources. She is hoping to find an online viticulture certification program to take next.

Bonnie is still on track to retire on the 31st of this month. It will be nice to have her home for however long she chooses, to work on the various projects she feels she would like to accomplish before winter, and also because we have two older dogs, Millie and Little Bear, who need more trips outside these days.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Yankee Doodle Dandy!

Roadside before trimming.
(Click on photos to enlarge.)

After trimming.

Another "after" photo.

It has been a busy time here at Blossom Ridge Farm. Kathy has been on vacation, or, as she calls it, a working vacation. She goes back to the library tomorrow for one day only before she has two more days off...then she works Friday before having two more days off. Hmmm...we detect a pattern here.

The hoeing is caught up, the vines have had a foliar feeding which is also supposed to help with mold and mildew and other nasty vine issues. The trimming along the road (all 300' of it) has been trimmed once. Kathy managed, of course, to get poison ivy, but not her worse case, which was contracted when clearing a fence row.

Bonnie has been weeding her veggie garden and insisted Kathy remove the previous photos she took of her garden and replace them with more weed-free pics, hence the later date on the photos than the date of that post.

Denny went truck shopping and came home with a 2010 Toyota Tundra! Very, very nice!

Today Kathy finally got around to shortening some inexpensive navy bed sheets to hang over the windows of the walk-out doors. Not the greatest "curtains," but they will keep the sun from pouring through the windows and making it too hot for Millie, Gizmo and Gennie. Kathy also bought them a small fan for when it gets over 80 degrees in the basement.

Kathy's son is now driving solo for Hiner Transport here in Huntington. He completed six weeks of being a driver trainee, did his orientation, and was given his own tractor, an '06 with over 300,000 miles on it already! Kathy drove to Hiner yesterday for a tour of the tractor and thought it was very nice. KJ has a small fridge, a microwave, a CB radio, a Tom Tom GPS, and the TV Bonnie gave him with built-in DVD player. Bonnie also has an older laptop he can use while traveling. It has bluetooth and wi-fi.

July 4th was overcast here with some light rain. Most cities postponed their fireworks until Sunday, but Timber Lake set theirs off about 10:15 p.m. We couldn't see much of them because of the trees.

The 4th included a funeral, wedding and birthday and Bonnie headed to Pierceton for the wedding of the daughter of a friend we used to camp next to. Denny, Barbara, their son Keith and Keith's fiance, traveled to Michigan to celebrate daughter Shelly's 4th of July birthday, and Kathy drove to North Manchester for the funeral of Allen Dingess, the father of KJ's wife, Sherry. Allen was only two years older than Kathy, who herself lived in the North Manchester area for over 20 years, raising her family on two acres in the country. It is sad to know that we will never get to visit with Allen again.

Kathy heads to Logansport for another sleepover on Wednesday and is very much looking forward to the time with her mother. They are doing surf 'n turf this month...sauteed scallops and fillet mignon. Yum!

We worked on the villa a few days, getting it ready to show. We had to move everything that was still on the carpet to either the garage or 4-seasons room so that the carpet could be cleaned. It was disappointing that some stains did not come out. After the carpet was cleaned we returned to mop and clean. No word from the people who kept after us to show it. That is twice that has happened now. We also set some large pieces of furniture by the road to be picked up and that should have been done today. We still have much to give away, throw away or donate, boxes to go through....