by 
Just when it looked like it would never rain again, it did. It had really gotten dry since the rain we had in July and we’d missed out on some of the chances in the interim, but it puckered up and hit us with a shower Friday evening about chicken time. The next morning when I checked the gauges there were four tenths of an inch in the toad on the southeast side of the house and an inch in the gauge on the fence which is on the west side of 1911. The garden gauge also had about four tenths and Kari’s gauge had an inch. It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that there could be a significant difference between the north end of SA and the south end, but over half an inch from one side of the house to the other is hard to believe. Saturday afternoon we got another shower, this time about six tenths of an inch and that seemed pretty uniform over the whole place. Needless to say we’ll take what we can get.
Kari has been busy getting the girls ready for the start of school and no doubt Jill is in the same predicament. Abigail has been going to her Jet volleyball practice regularly. She says they’ve been put through some pretty strenuous drills. Things get a little tougher as they advance in age. I know the feeling.
I’m monitoring the brix (sugar level) in the grapes daily now. It’s running about 17. The ideal at harvest is 22. The end of August has been the harvest time for the 2011 and 2012 vintage. You may recall the 2013 got hailed out. Harvest day will also be crush day to begin the fermentation process. That day is pretty busy but once the fermentation is started things slow down. Compared to trimming the vines in late winter, tending the vines all summer, the harvest and the crush, the primary fermentation, secondary fermentation, re-racking and bottling are pretty easy since the work is spread out over a couple of years. Anyone wishing to help in the harvest and crush is welcome. Just standby until the grapes are ready. I’ll let you know.
Our new pink water lily is doing a fine job of putting up blooms. There is usually one or two and they last several days.
I got in a nice hike at Wildcat Bluff Friday morning. Actually, it wasn’t a hike. I was still trimming back the grass on the trail I worked on last week. My approach has been to gas up the trimmer, hike out to where I left off trimming the week before (about 15 minutes), run the trimmer until it runs out of gas, which, coincidentally, is about the time I run out of gas, then hike back to the nature center. Friday I decided I was about at the point of no return and wanted to see what was ahead of me in the way of trail needing trimming so I continued down the trail until it circled back to the nature center. The good news it there isn’t too much trimming left to do and I should be able to finish the next time. The bad news is that the trails that were trimmed a few weeks ago may need trimming again this year. It would be nice to think someone could be found to take some of the pressure of this poor, sad relic.
For your viewing pleasure: Humans Need Not Apply