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It stopped blowing briefly Thursday afternoon. The silence was deafening and I found it difficult to maintain my balance, having become accustomed to leaning into the wind. Fortunately the wind returned the next day and I and the chickens were satisfied.
Kari made it home from Nicaragua and passed Chris in the airport on his way to Greece. Joyce and I offered to pick Kari up, but Abigail and Rebecca took care of that. Kari enjoyed her time in Nicaragua in spite of it being windy there. At least it wasn’t the cold wind she would have had to endure here. Because of the political strife of late, tourism there is much diminished and, though Kari felt for the people who derive much of their livelihood from tourism, she enjoyed the lack of obnoxious gringos. She also felt she made great strides in improving her conversational Spanish.
Chris left for Greece on a Sunday and returned the following Thursday. He spent about the same amount of time in route as he did in country but had a satisfying trip anyway. For one thing, he got to meet some of his new colleagues employed by his new firm.
Jill called her mother yesterday and they had a nice chat. She was at a soccer game, Vivian’s I think. I’m told Sophia missed a couple of days of school recently, as did Rebecca, due to the sniffles. Jill is working as hard as ever and there is never a dull moment in Wylieville. I try to keep up with them from Jill’s FB page but FB is too much for me so I don’t get much information.
Recently I was able to not only get my grapevines trimmed up and the trimmings hauled off, I also bottled the 2016 vintage that had been aging in a carboy for over two years. That is over twice as long as I had previously left wine in a carboy. I’ve read that wine ages better in a carboy than in a bottle so maybe it was best I left it so long. I consumed a glass while doing the bottling and found it to be the tastiest wine I’ve produced. The 2016 vintage was a perfect 21 brix (sugar content) when I harvested and pressed it and I didn’t add any sugar or anything else to it, mostly because I’m too lazy, but also because I’m not worried much about the final product. Since I’m the only one that drinks it, it doesn’t have to be perfect. If it isn’t drinkable, I’ll pour it out, simple as that.
A carboy makes 25 bottles max. I only had 23 corks and didn’t want to buy another package for one or two more bottles so 23 it was. I try to drink one bottle a month, which I don’t always do, so 23 bottles is a two year supply. Given that I already had about that many bottles left, mainly from the 2014 vintage, I won’t need to make anymore for at least two years. Since it takes two years to age the wine, I’ll need to produce a batch in a couple of years to be ready when I finish the 2016, that is, if I want a continuous supply. Since I won’t make any wine this year, I trimmed the vines severely and will trim the new growth more than in the past to produce fewer grapes and make it easier on myself.