Corking the Vintage 2007 Wines

Word of the Day

Houndwound - Canine act of circling a spot three or four times before settling on it.

Woodtick Count - 14

Despite hiking with Sis yesterday. Gypsy, on the other hand, managed to find an enterprising woodtick that attached itself to her eyelid. Have you ever tried to take a woodtick off a dog's eyelid? Sis helped by lending me a couple additional hands. Despite the calendar, it becomes apparent that it's time for another dose of Frontline. I'll give Gypsy a bath today and then Frontline her after she's all dried off.

No watercress. Well...it was there but along with the rest of the woods...it's slow. About a month behind when it comes to growing. Sis and I will hike back in a couple of weeks to see if it's ready for harvest. We didn't feel like robbing the cradle. Robbing the cradle, when it comes to watercress, is tantamount to killing the golden goose in order to get hasten the harvest of golden eggs. Over-harvesting or rushing the harvest of the watercress would jeopardize future harvests.

Sis and I have the beginnings of Dandelion Wine. We boiled up our 2-pounds of dandelion blossoms (just the yellow) into a strong tea before adding lemon and orange zest and sugar. More boiling before we added the juice and pulp from the lemons and oranges and our white grape juice concentrate. More waiting until things cooled down enough for me to add the rest of the ingredients. The sweetened dandelion "tea" didn't cool down until darkness had covered the earth. I had to wait until after supper and even longer...until HTP and I had our strawberry sundaes for dessert...before adding the yeast. Our sweetened dandelion "tea" has started its journey toward Vintage 2008 Dandelion Wine. I hope this vintage turns out as well as our 2007 vintage which Sis and I sampled yesterday afternoon. Yummy! A fine dessert wine with a faint nutty flavor. You never know what you'll end up with when you when you start each new batch of wine. Weather has so much to do with it. Heat, cold, rain or not. This year there are LOTS of dandelions. Everywhere! Huge blossoms. A sea of yellow.

Our rhubarb is getting a slow start this year. The gal at the wine shop tells me that this means that the rhubarb that we use in our wine will be really juicy and sweet. Sis put out a call to her friends and family. We need rhubarb. Please donate. It looks like a couple of more weeks before I can even think about pulling some of my rhubarb. Sis had to move her rhubarb plants so she was only able to "steal" 3-pounds of the 16-pounds that we'll need to make our rhubarb wine this summer. I divided my plants when I got here this spring so I could start three more hills of rhubarb. It'll be a couple more weeks, from the looks of things, before I can start pulling rhubarb for baking, jam making, and our 2008 Vintage Rhubarb Wine.

Sis and I sampled our Prickly Gooseberry Wine - 2007 and discovered that it's a sparkling wine. Wonderful! It has a slight citrus flavor that reminds me of mimosas but without the sugar of the orange juice. I'll have to dig out the recipe for what we did last summer to come up with this wonderful sparkling wine. It wasn't intentional. As I stated previously, you never really know what you'll end up with when you start this process of wine-making. You may even end up with vinegar....which...of course...works well in cooking and salad dressings. Call me Pollyanna.

Speaking of rain... It rained last night. We got a nice thunder-boomer. Only 3/4" of rain but we needed the rain. My garden needed the rain. The lawn needed the rain. The woods needed the rain. I was hoping that we'd get more rain today but it looks like the majority of the stuff decided to track south of us. They're predicting clear and sunny skies for the weekend....which means...the lake will be rife with weekenders tearing up the water with their speed boats and jet-skis. Oh well...I guess I'll do laundry and read a good book. Sis and I can get the dandelion wine strained and air-locked. The lake will be nice and quiet again by Sunday night.

#1 Son will be coming home tonight. He has to go back to The Big City on Monday but will be returning to stay with us next week.

Murphyism of the Day

Wilkie's Law

A good slogan can stop analysis for fifty years.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical.

- G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)