A,R&I watched a double-feature in the cave Friday night. The first one, Beethoven, had a dog as the protagonist and the second had a lizard, an animated chameleon I think. Not long ago we watched another dog show, this one about a Chihuahua. It was OK but I really got a kick out of the iguana and packrat duo for comic relief. The show wasn’t animated but the iguana and packrat obviously were. I say obviously, they were quite realistically drawn and their movements were reptile and rodent compliant. Only their heavy Mexican accent and their slapstick comedy gave them away. Computer-generated animation is getting very life-like.
Chris got his bees last week. He was in Austin when they arrived and they sat in their garage making an ominous buzzing. Saturday he “hived” them while Kari and the girls watched them from the island. He built the hive a year or so ago and put it on a former candy shop marble slab in the enclosure. He was hoping a passing band of gypsy bees would take up residence but when that didn’t happen he decided to shell out for queen and court. I’m told nobody got stung and Chris says he’s supposed to leave them alone for five days. What he’s supposed to do after the five days he didn’t say. I’d be inclined to leave them alone more or less indefinitely. It will be interesting to see how they get on.
Our grapevines are doing well. The bunches of grape buds started blooming yesterday. Even the young table grapes we put down east of the orchard are progressing. They are probably a couple years away from producing. We want their engergy channeled into developing the vines so we remove any fruit they try to produce. There are a couple of wine vines I planted two or three year’s ago to replace ones that had died and we’re doing the same with them. The older vines are producing new growth nicely and I spend time daily training the canes. There appears to be a least as much fruit as last year and I’m trying to do a better job of controlling the position and number of bunches for maximum grape development. I learned a lot last year and I hope that knowledge results in a better harvest, not to mention more competent wine making. I won’t be able to tend the vines for the next three weeks and I hope the growth doesn’t get too crazy in that time. Likely it will, though, but maybe I’ll be able to get it sorted out OK.