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I’ll admit it, we have a gardener. He comes every other Thursday to do the typical suburban Mow ‘N Blow. We had a terrible clover and weed problem in the grass in the back, so we’ve been treating it and alternatively adding a lot of fertilizer and watering like crazy.

The gardener came and went this past Thursday and the yard looked so great that I dinged Paul on IM and said hey, I have an idea for this weekend….

What if we hike on Saturday instead, and take Sunday totally off. Then we can fire up the smoker, put some music on, sip lemonade, kick our feet up, read, nap, relax, whatever. A day off. Sounds good yes?

We did just that. Saturday morning early, we headed to Grant Park (Joseph D Grant County Park if you want to look it up) in the Eastern foothills, paid the fee, found the parking lot nearest the trailhead of choice and hit the trail by 9:45.

Temperature was middle 60’s, light breeze, and only three cars in the parking lot. It was kind of eery actually walking through knowing there weren’t very many people around.

The trail we picked is a hard climb up for about 1,000 feet, which we did in just under an hour. We stopped at the overlook, stretched, took a couple photos and saw our first person go by, this one on a bike. The park is mountain bike friendly and after looking at some of the trails I think it could be fun to explore on wheels next time.

We cruised the rest of the way at a steady clip, it was moderately hilly and very scenic, super quiet, and mostly deserted. We hiked just over 3 hours, and just under 7 miles. We saw 5 people on the trail and five more that were in the campground.

We walked up the hill…

Made it to the overlook and stretched…

Looking West at the Santa Cruz Mountains…

Lots of old wood fences surround the property…

A unique view of Mt. Hamilton and the observatory (need to click on the photo to make it bigger to actually see what I’m talking about)

Paul taking a break…

Sunday’s Reward:

I marinaded the leg of lamb for an hour in fresh lime juice, garlic, rosemary, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Then it went on the smoker for three hours, and finished on the gas grill for 45 minutes.

Paul rubbed the beef ribs with his special beef pepper mix (he uses cinnamon, star anise, and cloves along with black pepper), and smoked those for four hours then finished on the gas grill for 45 minutes.

Opened a 2000 Chateauneuf du Pape Boisrenard, sides of steamed chard and wild rice.

Paul called his dad after dinner and I reminisced about mine while we ate the lamb…

It was a great Sunday.

No, not a blog about s-e-x, but real birds and real bees. BEES!

I took Paul out front lastnight (while the wine decanted) to show him two volunteer rosemary plants I spotted. I was doing my daily walk-through in the morning checking on each vine, and there they were, in the middle of the row.

It was probably around 7pm, the sun was low, and there was the usual evening breeze that blows in from the coast when we stepped out the front door. We both spotted the movement right away and exclaimed, Bees! Lots of them!!

The Crimson Clover was buzzing, literally. I spotted a couple of wasps too, hmmm, and we’ve had a couple of large bumble bees all along. Even our neighbor commented awhile back about the lack of bees in our neighborhood – ha ha! Not anymore, we are loaded!!

I recently put up the humming bird feeders, and the phoebe has made our backyard a local feeding spot for her brood. The mockingbird has been singing day and night and I think the doves have finally moved on. At least I don’t remember hearing them through the night or into this morning. It’s been a wonderful Winter and Spring with the birdlife that has come through our neighborhood but I’m definitely ready for Summer to kick off.

Happy Early Solstice and Welcome Summer!

Bzzzzzzzzzzz

We entered two wines into the 33rd Annual Orange County Fair Commercial Wine Competition and won!

Ok, we didn’t win BIG, but still!

The two wines we entered were:

2006 Cabernet Sauvignon Uvas Creek Santa Clara Valley
2007 Syrah Eaglepoint Ranch Mendocino County

Both won Bronze Medals!

Last week we hiked the long trail at Calero Park. I carried in binoculars and my little camera while Paul hauled our snacks, water, first aid kit, etc.

We went back to Calero again today and did a shorter trail, only 6.2 miles (!). I carried my own pack again, only today I grabbed the rock pick, gloves, my phone (for the camera), and a pocket knife. Paul loaded me up with a couple gatorades too.

At first the extra weight from the bottles felt odd, but I got used to it right away. One thing I did differently today was I wore a wider straw hat, last week was a baseball cap, and I put on a tank top under my regular t-shirt. Once the fog burned off and it was hotter I took off the t-shirt and relied on sunscreen and the brim of my hat to shade my shoulders. I missed some spots with the sunscreen and I’m bright red and burned in a couple spots. It was a much better day though and I never felt over-hot.

We got a late start this morning. We had wanted to leave the house pretty early but Millie was coming by to pick up end posts for her home vineyard and I wanted to douse ours while it was overcast and cool. I ended up watering until 9:30, we got on the trail an hour later.

Go figure, the day I don’t bring the binoculars, we spot a bobcat on the lower trail. We were up above on the connecting trail and stopped to watch her for several minutes. There are signs of cats all over, and we’ve spotted one other bobcat at the park before, but this was the first time we got a good long look. We thought she might try to sneak up and attack a wild turkey that was nearby but she trotted past along a well worn path to a grove of trees.

Before I forget – diet is an important part of training and hiking. Last week we had a proper breakfast before heading off on our trek. This morning however… leftover potato chips from yesterdays pouring event, and spinach dip on crackers. Let it be known that we both noted the poor choice of calories as we ascended the first hill. We were both huffing and puffing and felt like slugs.

We made good time up and over the hill, and chose to do the loop clockwise. Our first stop was at the pond and I took a picture when we got there. The reason I took the picture was to remind myself to mention the bull frogs. They were making the most absurd noises; it was comical. They actually sounded like pigs grunting and since there are wild pigs in the area I wondered if they were opposite the pond from us and we just couldn’t see them. But then they frogs started to splosh and splash in and out of the water. Once the sounds started to repeat it was clear that’s what it was.

I took a second picture at the same spot of Paul, I was trying to get the hills in the background to show where we had just come from. Upper left actually…

The reason I grabbed the pick for this trail was in case we found any good crystals. This trail is known for quartz deposits and I’ve found some great rocks before that are loaded with quartz bands and crystals.

Paul has a rule about me and rocks. If I’m going to pick them up and keep them, I have to haul them out. My pockets came home with just a few little pieces today, all really great, and at least two that Paul picked up (I should have made him carry those!).

The last picture is of a boulder I spotted off the trail about 10 feet – way too big to carry home, but full of crystals and quartz. It’s awesome. I didn’t think the picture would come out, I actually thought it might be blurry, but it seems to have come out just fine.

We spotted two deer today, tons of butterflies and a hillside loaded with tiny pink flowers.

Trail time to day was just over three hours, and even though we had a poor choice of breakfast calories, we did pretty good.

We will be in the winery tomorrow from 11 AM to 3PM for our summer open house. We will have 5-6 different wines to try and I will be cooking hot dogs for anyone who would like them. The field has also been mowed and you are welcome to bring a picnic and enjoy the vineyard and view. Directions are at:

http://www.chainedor.com/directions.html

It is Vintner’s Festival but we are not participating in that event, but we wanted to be open for people who’ve come in the past on the one ‘open’ day we have per year. We will not be open on Sunday, Stef and I are doing another training hike for our Grand Canyon trip!

We will have preview pours of our next Haut Tubee release as well as our 06 and 07 Syrah, and all the current Cabernet releases. We will have wine for sale and I may do some specials.

Stop by and say hello and enjoy the view and some wine. As always the tasting is free!

I keep promising updates of the suburban vineyard project, so here it is.

Below, a before photo during a rain storm before the vines went in.

Last November we removed the lawn, in February we “planted” the trellis (posts and wires) in March we put in the vines, and in April we put down the cover crop.

I tried to stand in the same spot to get the similar photo for comparison. This was just the other day and as you can see the crimson clover and wildflower mix is getting pretty tall.

Above, the street view from the corner during that same rain storm before the plants went in.

And below, the similar shot from the other day. I had Jerry help me move dirt from the far right under the windows (can’t see that in this picture) so that it’s level and ready for a redwood deck. Around the pathway I planted a bunch of lavender, pineapple sage, and rosemary. I’m still thinking about putting in thyme and oregano, but I’ll fill in with those after we build the deck (I don’t want it to get trampled).

Just for giggles, if you google our address; 564 Canton Drive, San Jose, the streetview photo is when we were doing some interior work and there is a dumpster in this view. Super.

Kind of cool though to see the original vines and Pauls raised planter bed that we took out.

The pictures are limited some by the fact I spent the entire time loading glass on to the truck 🙂

It had just turned 60 when we set out at 7:18 for Big Basin. We’ve had a snap of real cool weather over the past few weeks.

When we arrived at Big Basin right at 7:58, the temperature there was 51 degrees. Actually really great for bottling as the wine and glass would both stay cool during the 3+ hour process.

The three person crew getting ready to go. I took the picture from the glass dumping station. I picked up 215 empty cases of glass and started them on the line. Rachel, our Intern was at the end of the line taking the full finished bottles and putting them back in the cardboard cases. Jerry tapes the cases shut and stacks them on the pallet. When we get 56 cases he wraps them up and moves in the next set of glass.

Stefania is the stamper/runner. She stamps each finished case with the bond number and makes sure it has a label on it for ID later in the warehouse. She also moves empty cases so they are easier to lift and gets anything else done while the other three people keep the line moving.

Here she is adding labels as we got started.

And the cases start to fly. Since I was part of the crew this time I really could not take a lot of pictures. Things went very smooth and we finished up about 11:30. Enough time to get some lunch and drop off a few deliveries we had pending.

This is now our third run with this bottling company and we’re super happy we found them!

Tomorrow we will be up at Big Basin Vineyards to bottle our remaining 2007 wines. There hasn’t been much drama building up to this bottling. That’s mainly because Stefania did all the logistics and ordering at the same time as the bottling at Chaine d’Or.

I’ll bring my computer up, but I don’t think they have wireless in the winery, so I might not be able to post during bottling like last time. I will also be working the line loading bottles so there will likely be fewer pictures. I will get them up by Saturday though.

Joe is the assistant winemaker at Big Basin and he will be handling the forklift duties. That’s a great relief to me. If all goes well we should be done by 1 PM or so. Joe and Bradley Brown are racking the wine into tank today so we’ll be all ready to go. Bradley just checked in with me on final sulfur levels and that’s the last step.

It will be nice to have bottling behind us for the year and we will be free to focus on the vineyard from here to harvest.