Water into wine

The one thing that I never really thought about when I planted a vineyard was what to do with all of the grapes. The problem is that they are all ripening at the same time. We eat a bunch but still have a surplus. Although it is highly against my better judgement. I am considering trying recreate the first miracle and using my dad's recipe to attempt to make wine. I'll let you know if that ever happens.











These are a mix or Concord and Fredonia grapes. I promise that my next blog will be something more interesting than agriculture.

Attack of the giant worms

Today I came home and noticed that most of the leaves were missing off of my tomatoes. I was perplexed as to where the leaves had gone. There were no leaves on the ground. I just asked myself, "who would have done this to my tomatoes?"

I was only seconds from blaming the kid next door when I noticed some well camouflaged visitors. Maybe some of you are familiar with these giant worms, but I ,for one, have never seen anything like it. They had eaten until they were lethargic and immobile.

After getting E to check them out, I pulled them off one by one and took them to the neighbors garden.........just kidding, I took them to the empty field and let them have they're way with a young sweet gum tree. I guess that organic gardening is much more difficult than I thought.

My brother is a geek....... but it is about cycling!click the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_70uupNgfs

The 109 is a pretty popular route in the Birmingham AL area. It descends into the edge of Leeds, which is our old stomping ground. It's a nice ride with a beautiful climb. You gotta stop at the Meth Mart, half way for some juice. Greg and I have been riding the 109 since Lance was a Junior and Indurain was king. Since before inflation hit. It was just the 42 back then.

Violent Thursday at SLP

It was a normal, but not so hot, Thursday. I showed up to SLP early after a long day at work and a long week recovering from our trip to the 30A. I was looking forward to a casual MTB ride with some idle chat and a couple of water breaks in between laps. BF showed up and mounted his 29r. A few salutations were exchanged and BF was off down the trail with me to follow. All started out pretty tame. We caught up on the past week as we rolled through SLP's many steep hills and off camber switch backs.

SLP ( Sportsman's Lake Park) is a relatively short MTB and Xcountry running trail that is right in the heart of town. It is only 1 minute from my office. It packs an unbelievable punch into such a short amount of trail. There is never more than 30 seconds rest at any point on this trail. You are either trying to keep traction in a switchback, climb a painful 16% slope or keep from shooting off into the poison oak on a tight and technical down hill. It is a wonderful trail and 90% of it is smooth enough to ride with an cross bike. Although, disc brakes really help you to get the best out of this trail.

Anyway, Back to BF. Soon the chat became more difficult as I noticed the pace beginning to rise. I thought that maybe this is just a short peak in a usually fast but mellow riding style. Well, needless to say...... The pace never broke. When he started the blog " Life at 15mph", I didn't know he was talking about the mountain bike. I obviously said something to piss him off, because he was out to hurt me. We rolled into every corner (which is always followed by a nasty climb at slp) at full speed. I rarely had to hit my brakes before we would slide through the sharp turns and immediately stand on the climbs, never loosing speed. From time to time I would think to my self,"Maybe he will let up after this section", No! such luck. BF was not here to play today. After two good laps of this painful exchange, I was hanging on but definitely aware of my discomfort. We passed the cars as we approached the middle of the trail and I pulled off. BF never slowed. He continued on to ride the middle section again. To add insult to injury, I could hear him in the trail pushing his 29r to the edge as I sat on the pic nic table, feeling like a wuss.

When the ride was over, I looked into BF's cooler. I have to say that I halfway expected to find a couple of bags of blood on ice and a vile of EPO. All I found was a couple of huggys and two of BF's favorite after ride brew. An A.. whoop'n and ice cold beverage turned out to be a perfect solution to a rough week.