Summer Summary

It's been a busy summer. The COVID dominos fall every which way. But it is time to post some happenings because harvest is here and the wine is already being made. 

We like to see one new fruit every year and this year it is Pitomba (Eugenia luschnathiana). The fruit is the size of a cherry, texture of an apricot, but aromatic and moderately sweet. Hoping for more than one next year. 

Just before Jake's graduation from medical school we hosted him and two friends at the chalet. We went out on the big lake and brought back a decent haul of fish. I've never been a fan of lake trout frozen, then thawed and cooked in the usual way but I found a terrific smoked lake trout recipe which is delicious. 

The greenhouse is at least half empty and production has been variable. We had a good crop of jaboticabas, but the dragon fruit has disappointed. We did get a couple of softball sized dragon fruit that made a delicious dragon fruit salsa. 

In the vineyard, I replanted 5 Frontenac gris, 10 Itasca, and 10 LaCrescent. From the 2020 vintage, the Chambourcin is terrific, by far the best dry red grape wine I've ever made. It was eye opening for me because I almost didn't pick the fruit. I let it hang a long time, long enough that no adjustments to the must were needed. It seems that letting the fruit hang is, well, kind of important. That lesson has been remembered this year, as you will later see. 

Lisa got me a drone for my birthday.

We took the drone to the chalet for Sharon and Bob's 60th anniversary party 

Itasca, Foch, and Frontenac are out of the vineyard and so far, no adjustments needed on any of them. Vidal will start coming out tomorrow. 

Spring has Sprung, 2020 Version

Let's start with the yard. We had plenty of help with the mulch this year and it's all down by the first week of April, thanks to Hunter.

Epimediums

This little loader was not sufficient. Bucket was too small and it didn't easily clear the edge of the truck. We made it work but next year we'll use a real loader again. The grasses are mowed, pre-emergent down, beautyberries and other shrubs pruned. We're seeing 100% survival of the transplanted hellebores in the woodland area, and the epimediums are starting to poke through.

In the greenhouse, most plants look good. We have strawberry guava and grumichama fruit set. Pitomba is flowering as never before. We lost a calamondin, and a couple of the other citrus trees don't look great. The star apples have some marginal leaf necrosis, I wonder if they didn't like so much fertilizer. Hopefully we get them outside soon and they perk up. I took some fall cuttings of grapes, and some of them are pushing leaves.

Frontenac Gris

Speaking of grapes, we have the vineyard pruned. The Chardonel look like a complete loss. They didn't look great last fall but we got 3 gallons of wine from them. It may be the last Chardonel wine we make. My plan is to replace these with Frontenac Gris from cuttings. Aside from the Norton losses to crown gall, we're otherwise in good shape. Foch broke bud 4/9. We replaced some of the Norton with 10 Itasca vines. Itasca is described as having "aromas of pear, quince, violet, melon, minerals along with faint notes of honey." It broke bud already on 4/10. Another 10 Norton were replaced with La Crescent. This grape is used to make off-dry to sweeter wines and is known for "aromas are primarily apricot, peach and citrus." I'm linking the Stark Brothers page here because after the crown gall trouble on the vines from AA Vineyards, I found a new source. Our Frontenac, Vidal and Traminette look strong and I see bud swell on at least 9 Nortons. 

Itasca foreground, row 1; La Crescent row 2

Foch and Traminette

Jake and Taylor were in town for a few weeks after being sidelines due to the pandemic. Jake fished at every opportunity (thanks to Dave, Jane, Betsy, Jorgen, Tom, Jamie). 

Costa Rica 2019

The blog is generally about our free time at home in Missouri, but there is precedent for publishing vacation posts. The family went to Costa Rica to ring in the new year. We had a terrific time in Guanacaste, but really, I'm just here to brag about the fish.

View from our villa

Dinner. Adam looking more serious than necessary.

We caught 16 of these, had to release most of them

Mahi mahi ceviche

Christmas 2018

Allie and Jake were home for Christmas. Allie brought Joe which was great because Joe is a breadmaker. Puzzles. Games. Good food. Family Fun!

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!

Having Helpers Home

Over Thanksgiving Jake and Allie came home. We only had one serious day of work, and it came after Allie left, but we got a lot done. Trusted friend Jorgen lent me his Stihl chainsaw-on-a-stick and we cleaned up the Lacebark Elm trees lining the driveway. Then Jake helped with the annual task of putting up the greenhouse plastic.

I've run out of washers for the green clips, we'll see if we can pick up some replacements at the hardware store. We're trying an experiment this year; we're leaving the south end uncovered, just a single layer of tempered glass, to see if we can let more light in without sacrificing too much heat.

Sauerkraut

The soccer season is coming to an end.  The regular season didn't come out as we had hoped, but Hendrix ended on a positive note with win on Senior Day.  Jake had the equalizer on a blistering free kick.  Lisa had tears.

We will soon be home for the weekend again, and so we'll soon be back to winemaking.  There are bags upon bags of fruit in the freezer.  First however, we're trying our hand at a different type of fermentation: kraut.

I used 1.5T of sea salt for the 1 large head of cabbage. It took longer to get water out of the cabbage than I thought it would, but eventually it was completely submerged in the brine.

We'll give three days then try a taste.

4th of July Pork Butt

Jake and Taylor surprised me and drove up from Conway for the weekend.  The weather was great and so we decided to smoke a pork butt for the 4th of July.

My Weber smoker is not ideal.  It is really hard to keep the temp up.  We smoked it for about 7 hours.  Meanwhile, Shawn made some tasty sparkling wine/blueberry frozen treats which we enjoyed by the pool.  At the tenderization stage, I gave up on the smoker which was stuck at 190F.  I wrapped it in foil and finished it in the oven at 250F.

It came out great.  We had apple-raisin baked beans, marinated fresh vegetables, marjoram-lime grilled corn on the cob, and the pork.  For desert, Suzanne made an angelfood fruit layer cake.