Animals

Of Grapes and Wine and Doing it Right

Is there anything more cheerful than a giant sunflower??

How about one with a bumblebee happily gathering nectar and pollen...

These sunny faced giants are taller than me and stand around the circumference

of the garden.

I planted them to attract any garden stink bugs.

It's part of our integrated pest management efforts.

Planting specific flowers in and around a vegetable garden,

as well as bringing beneficial insects into a garden to eat the "bad" ones...

both are part of an organic way of managing crop-destroying insects.

You might recall that I had mentioned a great book entitled Farmacology,

that I read while on vacation.

A chapter in the book was dedicated to Integrated Pest Management.

The author wrote of Scribe Winery in Sonoma California and their

efforts to produce wine using IPM techniques.

Hubbs ordered several bottles of their wine,
(short, stubby little bottles...very cute!)

and we opened the first last evening.
It is a little more than our usual cheap wine,
but we believe in supporting individuals who are trying to make a change...
trying to do it "right."

We took our glasses down the outside stairs to the lowest level of our back decks.

This small deck juts out into the woods.

It is private, secluded, peaceful...a hidden sanctuary...

and the perfect place to share a glass of wine at the end of a long hot day.

By the way, our own grape vines are doing well,

loaded with grapes that should ripen over the next month.

These grapes will not make wine,

but instead will be turned into grape jam.

(Better than Welch's any day...and organic, too!)

Can you believe it's Friday already?
I hear our heat wave is to end this weekend...
with temperatures plummeting way down into the 80's!
Please take that high humidity with you, Mr. 96 Degree Heat!
We are planning a quiet weekend at home.
You?

- Inquiring Minds....en Guard! (ening)
Janice asked: "Enjoyed your fairy garden. How do you decide on what to put in it each year. And your beautiful flower gardens. Do you save the seeds from the year before??? Thanks, now i know what i have, lack of sunshine and the outside jobs, wow...

- Integrated Pest Management And Integrated Turkey Management
Yep, that's me...standing in the middle of our hayfield.Which, by the way, is way overdue for harvesting. Again...Mother Nature has a way of making these decisions for us.With the weather being the deciding factor,and the schizophrenic weather patterns...

- Guineas And Pinnies
Things have been quiet around the barnyard this past week.Besides receiving the gift of a few days of rain,the chickens have been behaving themselves. Ole Roy took a bit of time and considered Guido and his pals' offer to snuff out Number 6....

- Cat Naps
Ever wonder where the phrase "cat nap" came from? All you would have to do is to watch my barn kittiesand you would know how that phrase came to be! I spent yesterday morning watering.You see, we are going to Chicago for the rest of the week,and I wanted...

- Our First Grape Harvest
...

Animals