Friday, February 24, 2012

Snowy Morning Pictures





Here are a few pics I took this morning. That's the frozen vineyard out there. I've done a little pruning but have most of the vineyard left to do.

After having almost no snow all winter, conditions were perfect last night for light, fluffy snow. It was fairly calm all night so the snow stuck to every surface. It was beautiful this morning. Of course, the wind kicked up and blew most of it out of the trees
by mid morning, and by this afternoon, the snow was drifting across the roads making little snow dunes in open areas. I went to the dump to get rid of some construction debris, and had a fun time getting it out of the truck. I'd loaded the truck on Monday thinking I'd get to the dump on Wednesday when it was 40-something degrees, then procrastinated until today, and of course everything was frozen into one solid chunk of drywall scraps, trash from the barn, and assorted pieces of plywood and other lumber from constructing the studio. What a pain that was... I finally situated the truck on enough of a slope that I could get into the bed and shove the whole frozen pile out to the tailgate, and finally tipped it out, and drove out from under it.








Thursday, February 23, 2012

Cracking the Code

Iowa wines have been getting some very good press lately. Here's a link to a story that aired last night on our local news. Slowly but surely, Midwest winemakers are learning how to make terrific wines with the cold climate grapes we're able to grow here.

http://www.kcci.com/video/30523859/detail.html

... and here is a write-up on the growth of small-scale wineries popping up all over the place. If you have the chance, take the time to stop in and check out what they have to offer.

http://westernfarmpress.com/grapes/local-wineries-boosting-us-economy

... and here's a link to a review of a local Iowa winery's offerings.

http://blog.nowandzin.com/2012/02/16/wine-country-iowa---schade-creek-vineyard--winery.aspx

... and finally, here's a link to the Iowa Winegrower's Association, to see how much has happened in only about 12 short years.

http://iowawinegrowers.org/

Very exciting times around these parts!!!