The pic on top is that of the Moore Family Tree Farm, they are planting new seedlings next door to the East of our place.
Next is Kay getting the hay off to a good start by trying to keep some of those dandilions from taking over.
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St. Augustine Easter Parade
Uploaded to Flickr using my BlackBerry Smartphone
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Last Saturday I took a quick shot of one of our Native American Flower beds we planted last spring.
The idea here is to get some perenial flowers growing. The plants we put in were growing in the Midwest and if we can get them established should last till the next ice age with a little bit of care.
It is quite a challenge to get them started and it is not cheap either. We have some plants coming back this year we just hope they can out compete the non-native weed species that have taken over the area.
If we can get them going it is just one more reason for you to come and see why Maize Valley IS the place to BE!
It’s Monday and it’s cold and it is trying to snow! So what makes you feel better than getting new stuff!! Thanks to all our wonderful old customers, and all the new ones too! Demand for Maize Valley wines have been really strong this spring so in order to keep up we had to upgrade and get a new wine chiller. Todd “Z” winemaker (we say, “Z” so we sound all fancy and french like, yea that’s us) has hammer in hand and is getting at his new toy! Todd does a way cool, good job making awesome wines and this can really help out more and make the wine chilling process go much smoother.
The chiller is used in the wine making process to “freeze” the wine or at least hold it at a low enough temperature for a period of time to get the solids that are in the wine to precipitate or “fall out” of the suspension. Mostly we are trying to get the tartaric crystals to fall out in our bulk tanks so they don’t end up in the bottom of the bottle. Native American grapes (Niagara, Concord, Catawba) tend to create a great deal of these crystals and are very prone to ending up with them in the bottom of the bottle especially if the wine goes through a number of cooling and warming cycles before it is enjoyed.
It depends upon the type of wine you are drinking as to the benifits or perceived problems these crystals in the wine create. Follow the link above to learn more.
Saturday I was happy to get out and finish up spraying the grapes that were ready for this summers weed crop. Weeds like death and taxes are sure to come. We still have some more grafted grapes to uncover yet to spray later. We try and not use any more crop protection products than we have to, but after I had to weed eat 7 acres of grapes for 3 days in the 90 degree heat of August last year I am NOT going to let our lovely little vines get choked by some nasty ole’ weeds!! I also cared for the Raspberries and Apple trees too.
That is all the wine news today, the more probably deals with Galen chasing a would be thief from our old dairy farm as he was trying to make off with some our our bakery racks we had in storage. Probably after the aluminum, as some copper pipe was also gathered near the door.
Also working on the trucks for our upcoming “Farmers’ Market” season too. Putting a new canopy system on my 52′ Ford F5 I think it is going to be way cool.
For me the FunTSAR Monday like many of you involves getting after new marketing ideas, ad approval and all that paper work stuff. My wife and I woke at 2:30am to hear our son Brett playing “Monster Jam” on the Wii! He is autistic but does very well, however he can’t tell between 2:30 & 6:30 he just thought it was time to get up and thought he would get a game in or two before school. Needless to say nobody got back to sleep very well after that for some reason, and he is home with a cold today from school.
Well gotta go and stop by grandma’s and pick up Brett and take him home so he can catch some ZZZZZZ’s, maybe I can too!
Hakuna Matata
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Learn More about Ohio Wine
http://www.communicationsgoddess.net/2009/04/authentic-tips-for-marketing-to.html;http://travelswithwine.com/
I am looking for things to do without going out into the cold yet, yea I am being whimpy but hey isn’t it supposed to be getting warmer out?
It’s cloudy and cool out today but it is time to start getting some more veggie seeds going in the greenhouse. Kay my wife’s Dad (that would be my father-in-law) has the Weisant boys helping him plant seeds in the greenhouse. Galen Weisant has worked with us for over 20 years and is a huge part of us getting all the work done on the farm. His boys help out to and this is just one way by growing local that we can help to provide jobs for kids in our area. When we really need a job done we put Galen on it!
Greetings from the FunTSAR at Maize Valley!
Coming up to speed on providing meaningful content for our Ohio Wine and More Blog from Maize Valley. I had hoped to get out a bit early and get started in the vineyard working more on some of the weed control I started the other day, but it a bit too cold yet.
Todd my brother-in-law and our wine maker, has been busy working his way across the varieties pruning last year growth and getting ready for bud break this year. We start with the grapes that we know we won’t have a issue with winter kill and work across the blocks of grapes. This past winter was really hard on our Reisling. We are not sure yet how they are going to emerge as we had an extended period of very cold weather in Jan. The plants seem ok, but the buds look shot. We have a about an acre of newly planted Traminet to uncover yet too. They look good but the first 2-3 years are tough for them, once you getting them going they are usually good to go. Our native american and French American Hybrids all look good and except for some primary bud die back we should be okay as the secondary buds should fill the gaps.
We are also getting some really cool trucks ready to go in our shop for our farmers’ markets this year and I will have pics up soon. One is a 52 Ford and the other is a 51. They look way cool and our fun platforms to sell off of. In the fields they have been getting the vegtable ground ready when the rain gives us a break. They are putting the final touches on some equipment and doing odd jobs that slipped through the cracks this winter.
Looks like a busy night to be had in the winery tonight with a great band, and one group of 30-40 already on board, plus some other smaller groups and walk ins should be a busy night. That’s cool, not much fun growing and making the stuff if nobody enjoys it!
Well gotta go take my daughter to the high school, she has a track meet today then I hope to get back out to the fields, work on my trucks, etc. One cool thing is I really enjoy my “job” and in as much never think of it as “work”.
F.T.
Yesterday the weather was great, got a jump on this year’s spring work!