Birdie!

I just had to include this little antedote (did I spell that right?). While getting our place ready to be able to host events, including weddings, we found we needed to do some landscaping. So, a couple of overgrown bushes needed to go. They were completely hiding this neat stone staircase. Marshall looked first to make sure there weren't any birds in their nests then chopped them down. Oops. He did find a nest with 2 baby robins inside. He picked the babies up, with gloved hands, and brought them over to John and I (who were making some wine) and he had a sad look on his face. My man's so sensitive! We thought maybe since no human had actually touched them, and if we could find the nest, that maybe mom would come back and take care of them. Marshall found the nest, took one of our spare birdhouses ( I do have a few), and placed it where the bush had been. Not long after that the mom robin came back and she went inside and fed her babies! Isn't that sweet?

Crushing it!

With the help of friends, and child labor, we took the chilean grapes and got them ready to be made into wine. Who knew you needed so many different things & chemicals to do this. Thats whats showing in the first pic. That big bag has some expensive french oak chips. They really add depth to the wine. The next pic, if they load in this order, is all of the baskets of grapes that we crushed.  In the next photo you'll notice we 'employ' child labor. Hey, it's free and they said they had fun! The husband, Marshall, is in the next one dumping some of the Merlot grapes in and the next pic is how happy this is making him! The next pic shows what the inside of the bin in the de-stemmer/crusher looks like. What a great piece of machinery! The next pic may look like polka-dots but what you're looking at is the bottom of the de-stemmer (the white rectangular thing) at the top of the pic, which drains the de-stemmed and crushed grapes into the white tub. The stems go out the back end of course. And the final pic is of yours truly tasting a Merlot grape. They taste great on their own but have alot of seeds inside. The next blog will be the continuing saga of winemaking and drinking lots of grapejuice!

What a 'grape' trip!!

So this was the day the grapes came home. Often times, when a winery can't grow a certain kind of grape due to the zone they'll order grapes from somewhere else. That's what we did! We ordered 5 different kinds of grapes that should produce around 300-350 bottles of red wine. I'm thinking we're gonna have a fun winter!! The 5 types we brought home are Merlot, Cabernet, Marebec, Carmenere, and Syrah and they're all from Chile! The first pic is our winemaker John with some of the grapes. The containers they come in are wonderful. It keeps them from getting mushy. Thats winery jargon. The next pic is Marshall, my fabulous hubby, with our oh-so-friendly dogs Spice Girl and Sarge.  The last one is most of the grapes, on the left, a big container, and just above and behind that container is the magic machine. It's also called a de-stemmer and crusher. Surely this was invented by a winemaker who got tired of doing the de-stemming by hand. Can you imagine?  Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of all of us making the wine. You won't believe what goes into it!!

Shearing day 2010

So shearing day finally arrived. I anticipate this day with trepidation and excitement. Excited because I spend all day at the barn with my alpacas and because  it's a sort of herd health day too as we do toenails and check out their skin underneath all that fleece. The trepidation comes from the fact that it's labor intensive and the alpacas absolutely hate it. There are wonderful farms that like to make it a PR event but I just can't do that since I know that will stress the animals out even more with more noise and strangers. So anyway, we're done, it's the next day and of course there's no sunshine and it's chilly. I did put a coat on my smallest guy Pender. So here are the pictures. If you check yesterday's blog you'll see the befores. The first & second pics are of my first girl Lady. Don't her eyes look like she's terrified? She actually wimpers. The 3rd pic is my youngest baby Pender. It's his first time. The 4th is our man Skye. He's very laid back. The 5th one is my 'crankee yankee' Mikey. He's always the first and always has a funny look on his face afterwards.  The 6th pic is of 3 of the boys, Mikey,Tripper, and Skye checking out the girls all done up! The next one, the 7th, is too funny. It looks like Tripper is laughing at Concord's new doo! The last 2 are the girls and 2 babies all done! They all look so much younger huh? Wish that was the same for us humans!!

Before shots

It's the day before shearing and I wanted to post some 'before shots.' I took them today, in fact about 2 hours ago. Of course what happens is the day of or the day after shearing, the weather turns cold and blustery. I think this time it might actually be nice. Woohoo. Last year, the day of shearing was great, weather wise, but the day after was cold, rainy, and windy. They stayed in the barn all day huddled close together. We only have 9 to shear but that will still take awhile as we only have 4 of us and we like to chat! A friend of mine sheared 70 in one day!!! Thats with a ton of help and being extremely well organized. I still don't know how they did it though. Of course today they're not moving at all, their bodies are on a 'day of rest!' A well deserved one. Anyway, here are the photos from today and I'll post the 'afters' tomorrow or the next day depending on how much wine I need tomorrow night. :) The most dramatic differences in before and after will be Queenie(5th pic), Skye(6th pic), The babies(3rd & 4th pics), Tripper(last pic), and Mikey(1st pic in back).

A haircut!

So about a week ago I went in to my usual place to get my hair trimmed. I paid no attention to the fact that my hairdresser was stressed because her 16 year old son, on foreign exchange, had to have an emergency appendectomy surgery in Mexico!! Wouldn't every mother just absolutely freak out?!! I love Bethany, my hairdresser, who always does a great job. Actually this time she cut my hair just fine except that it was shorter than I wanted. So I went home and played with it alittle then realized that I didn't know what to do with it since it was so short. The only time I've had my hair short was the year my husband Marshall met me. He loves my hair this short and that was 25 years ago! So then I start thinking that my alpacas are getting a 'haircut' this week, except we call it shearing. It will take us all day for 4 of us to shear 9 alpacas and we'll be ready for a glass of wine afterwards. So my alpacas will have that 'what do I do with my hair now?' feeling that I just had.  I know exactly how they feel. When the first one gets done, and thats always my 'crankee yankee' Mikey (we always go light to dark, and Mikeys' white), he'll go back in with the other boys and he'll feel like he's the only naked alpaca in the bunch. Which he is. Of course the day after I get my haircut I only see women with long perfect hair. Oh well, my hair will grow back and so will the alpacas'. Patience! And BTW, no pictures of my me and my new haircut!