The grapes are all in, the wines fermented and pressed and in barrel. The production side is quiet. And things have quieted down in the vineyard too. Arnulfo has gone home to visit family in Michoacan, and the vines have turned color and dropped most of their leaves. But we had very unusual continued dry […]

The grapes are all in, the wines fermented and pressed and in barrel. The production side is quiet. And things have quieted down in the vineyard too. Arnulfo has gone home to visit family in Michoacan, and the vines have turned color and dropped most of their leaves. But we had very unusual continued dry weather and I took advantage of that to dig out the dry pond, which over the years had silted up, perhaps six inches each year. Although the pond dries out every year, it has heretofore never dried out enough to get down into it with at tractor–and get the tractor out without sticking in the mud. This year though I was able to dig a “road” down into the pond and keep on digging with my trusty loader bucket. Where to put the dirt? Well, I created a level picnic ground near the pond and found low spots here and there to fill in.

Then we finally got rain. I was tempted to stay home on Monday and keep digging, because the rain was at first just a slight mist really, but we had a very rare opportunity to observe our son, Austin, dance at the SF Ballet Academy. So we did that, which was wonderful, truly, and then late afternoon and that night the rain really let loose. Still it was only an inch of rain, so I figured by now things should have dried out enough to go finish the job…