Too Much Nice Weather

Last weekend we visited Adam. In the spirit of a budding tropical fruit fanatic, he added a mango and Barbados Cherry, and this weekend he followed up with jaboticaba and avocado. A winter storm forced us to stay an extra day, so we went fishing with Bryan of Southern Thunder Fishing Charters.

Today it's sunny and 55F, the day after the winter solstice. Lisa and I took to the greenhouse in T-shirts for a day of cleanup, repotting, and the remainder of the greenhouse winter insulation.

Jake and I put the film up on the roof at Thanksgiving. It was so difficult that I almost resolved that this would be my last greenhouse winter. But I have a new idea, one that will not require this tiresome effort every year. Stay tuned in the spring for an update.

For now we're going with 0.7mil film again. We finally got the north and south ends sealed up today and it's a better job that the last couple of years, with less infiltration.

The citrus are generally doing well. One lime is in intensive care, but we have good crops of Persian lime, kumquat, calamondin, and satsuma.

I fired up the heat map for a few of the plants which aren't thriving.

Kari didn't do well in the pot over the summer and hasn't done any better in the greenhouse. So we moved it into the ground in the center bed and gave it a couple of good shovels worth of tasty compost.

Loquat is blooming, and a couple of the mangoes look like they are about to bloom as well.

Our forecast is for highs in the 50s to 60s the next several days. I have some wine work to do ahead of the KC Cellarmasters Annual Wine Classic, it will be tough to hide out in the basement when it is so nice outside.

Struggling Norton, Father's Day Fishing

The Nortons are struggling a bit. Many to the south are weak and pale. Three have suddenly wilted and died. Right now I'm missing 9 of 44 vines. Many will not be strong enough to support grapes. Norton is notoriously hard to root, but I took a dozen cuttings from the stronger vines, trimmed them, dipped in rooting hormone, and potted them up.

Jake wanted to go fishing so we got permission from the neighbors across the road and headed out on Father's Day. The fish were biting.

We have our first meaningful jostaberry harvest. They could be sweeter and less sour. We'll freeze them for a Tutti Fruiti wine at some later time.

Callaway County sunset, by Jake

Clapp's Lake, circa 1997

20+ years later

Spring Fishing

Not every post can be about central Missouri gardening and grapes. Our winter just broke last week and so everything here in Fulton is 2-3 weeks behind. Gardening posts are on the way, but in the meantime, there is fishing.

Jake, Adam, David and I scheduled a trip to Florida to do some bass fishing. The idea was Jake's; he wanted to celebrate completion of his Step 1 exam, and what started as a camping trip morphed into fishing in Florida. I did a farm pond shake-down the weekend before.

I circled the 2 acre pond 8 or 10 times in under 3 hours. Cloudy water and sky prompted me to go with dark spinnerbaits and shallow crankbaits. The fish were shallow, possibly still spawning, and the bite was very good.

I ended with about 25 fish, and as a result ironed out some of my baitcasting reel issues.

On Wednesday we flew into Orlando. Miraculously, all of the flights were on time, and Adam picked us up.

We fished the Harris chain of lakes with guides Mark and Gary from Lakeside Bait and Tackle.

We think Adam got the big fish but we're certain that each of us lost a bigger one. Great weather, great time! Thanks guys!

Drinking White Wine in the Sun

For the second time in a month, the Pierces are together for the holiday.  This time we headed south.  Marathon, Florida is much nicer than Fulton in the winter.

Monday we tried some snorkeling, and it was quite nice.  Captain Kevin Johnsen put us on several good reefs.  Highlights included moray eel, rays, sharks, barracuda, lobster, and countless different types of reef fish.

 Chili-lime fresh shrimp and rum-soaked grilled pineapple with a citrus rum sauce made a great dinner early in the week.

  Captain Kevin took the boys out again a second time later in the week.  Just for posterity: Snapper (Lane, Yellowtail, Mangrove, Mutton, Schoolmaster), Ladyfish, Nassau Grouper, Blue Striped Grunt, Cero Mackerel, Porgy, and a shark.

We ended up with 5-6 pounds of fish.  It made for a somewhat unconventional Christmas Eve dinner of fish tacos.

 This is, in part, a wine blog.  Thanks to Joy, we celebrated with a bottle of Schnebly Guava wine.   Schnebly is perhaps the most well-known of the tropical fruit wine producers.  We were very impressed with this wine.  It's a lovely rose color, not too sweet, and surprising strawberry element.  We'll be having this one again.

Happy Holidays, everyone!