The Summer 2009 Wine

Word of the Day

Seethroughity - The measure of an object's transparent property. Often gauged between opaque and completely transparent, or see-through.

Woodtick Count of the Day - 42

Due to the short time HTP and I have left here at The Lake this year and the incredible amount of items on my To Do List...morphing into my Packing List...blogging is going to be hit or miss for the next couple of weeks.

I picked 15 pounds of green tomatoes from my tomato vines on Friday. Despite how poorly Sis was feeling, she helped me get a batch of piccalilli relish brining on Saturday. On Sunday, I canned fifteen pints of relish.

Monday morning, I got a call from Sis' hubby telling me that Sis was in the hospital. Her bout of flu...wasn't. Pancreatitis. No fun...really....no fun. So, Sis wasn't able to help me bottle wine this year through no fault of her own. HTP stepped in to help out. Between the two of us, we got all the wine bottled by Monday night. Tuesday was spent labeling and getting the foils shrunk onto each of the bottles. I even quickly designed a Concord Grape Wine label (temporary) until Willie's creative genius unsticks itself. We ended up with 34 bottles of Concord Grape Wine, 33 bottles of Prickly Gooseberry Wine, 27 bottles of Rhubarb Wine, and 95 bottles of Rhubarb/Strawberry Wine. LOTS of wine! I had to use most of the bottles Sis and I had accumulated and recycled. We'll have to step up our recycling program. I'm already starting to think about my bottle recycling program in Arizona. Arizona wine-making will be commencing in about three weeks but, a lot depends upon my pomegranate tree...and my neighbor's prickly pear cactus fruit. But...I refuse to give any of that more than a passing thought. In the meantime, I've boxed up all of Sis' share of the wine to bring over to her place. I've boxed up all of Willie's share of the wine to bring over to Sis' place because I probably won't be here to give it to him. I've boxed up half of my share of the wine so I can bring it to Arizona. And, I took the other half of my share of wine down to my basement to store and age in the brand new wine racks that my Dad made for me. Thanks T-Square! You're a life-saver! The wine racks are beautiful!

I've only got two weeks left here. I'm still harvesting ripe tomatoes from my deck garden but I have to face facts. I canned three quarts of tomatoes this morning but I can't continue to can right up to the day of our departure. The deck gardens need to be put to bed for the winter even though we still haven't seen our first garden-killing frost. I plan/need to harvest EVERYTHING by Friday. Green tomatoes will be made into either relish or into green tomato pickles. Peppers need to be pickled or fried, depending upon the variety. Earthboxes need to be cleared of all vegetation and hauled out to the garage.

#1 Son will be coming this weekend to help us pull out the dock and the boat. I'll have to bring all the fishing gear up from the boat to store in the basement. Lots to do. Lots to do. However, I'll try to blog...maybe. Everything will get done. I know this because...it alway does...even if it means sliding into home base with a pair of skinned knees. And heck, if I had more time to get ready for our winter exodis, I'd still end up with skinned knees.

Random Thought of the Day

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no Internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

America's greatest strength, and its greatest weakness, is our belief in second chances, our belief that we can always start over, that things can be made better.

- Anthony Walton