Yesterday we bottled the Vidal Blanc wine from last seasons grapes.
The wine has been working in its little glass barrels for almost a year now.
And the little taste I was allowed before it flowed through the pipes and into the bottles led me to believe that this will be a definite improvement on the 2011. No more cleaning fluid notes. Though the wine is in shock from the bottling for a wee while yet. A proper taste will not be had for a month or so yet. This is why Our John hates to bottle it as I keep having to taste it. And it would benefit from a good sit in the bottles.
Vidal Blanc is meant to be a sweeter wine. So, last year we picked late, after the first of the frosts. This year the peahens are locked up in their Peahen Palace, they ate a good third of my crop last year, so there is a chance we will get more grapes and I am tempted to try for an ice wine, leaving the grapes on the vine right through to the first hard freeze.
This means less wine, but we may get as far as producing a real sticky dessert wine which is my objective.
Sheila. I love Sheila. She is trying to talk me into leaving Charlotte in the rat house paddock. 
Though I think that Charlotte is over the fighting now and wants to be friends. They are divided by this gate and it is still in good shape, so in a few days I will put them together and see how they get on. My first attempt resulted in a ferocious pig fight. Both came away with scrapes and bites. 
The Lady Vet came out yesterday and took blood from Queenie and Daisy for their pregnancy tests. I brought Daisy into a stall, she saw the Lady Vet and quick as a whip she jack-knifed like a truck in a canyon, and jammed her rear into a corner. She was not having any of it. She does not like the Lady Vet one tiny bit. And as I have said before she is a huge cow, being IN a pen with a huge ton of furious cow, showing the whites of her eyes is a little unnerving but with some trickery and soothing words I got her tied up and it only takes seconds to draw blood. The vein is underneath the base of their tail so it is fairly easy to draw. We should have the results within the week. 
That bad storm the other day leveled much of the sweetcorn and dumped the rest of the cooking apples on the ground. That’s OK, the pigs and I are happy to share the windfalls. My stash of apple sauce is growing nicely. 
This cool weather is not helping my tomatoes ripen but the aubergine is loving it.
Good morning. It is dawning fine and clear again. Another excellent day to work in. The man is coming today to scrounge about the sheds for materials and start to build the mobile chicken run. I am very much looking forward to this taking shape. Nothing pleases me more than having animals and birds out on the grass. And the thought of a mobile field fertiliser is deeply pleasing. Chicken poop is very high in nitrogen, one of the best fertilisers you can get, so I will be watching the regrowth carefully. The chicken tractor will be moved daily, maybe even twice a day and when they are bigger there will be a little door so they can come out and free range in the day time and be tucked up in their house for the nights.
Now, I had better get my own tractor out and go into the field to cut more sweetcorn and their stalks for the animals. They love them.
Have a lovely day won’t you. Find loveliness in your day if you can. Each day is so precious.
Your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
44 responses to “More Wine Less Whine”
Sheila. What a star. And the wine looks nice! Celi, I always feel a little humbled here. You look at the small calamities of life – wind which destroys sweetcorn, fallen apples – and you turn it on its head and you say: it’s not so bad….
Hi Celi! Good morning 🙂
I love to cook with wine…..sometimes I even put it in the food! 🙂
How wonderful you are making wine from your grapes! I’ll have to send this to my friend who is also growing grapes for wine. 🙂
I love Charlotte’s face.
What a rich color your wine has, I’ll bet it will be wonderful when it has rested. I do hope Sheila and Charlotte can be buddies again. We are still reveling in the great sweet corn around here…the only thing that would make it better was if we could grow it ourselves. Have a great day!
Your wine looks like honey–nectar of the gods. Why do pigs have such unusual noses?
That is a very good question, they do a lot of digging in the ground for grubs, roots and minerals. so i guess it is all about the biggest hoover! c
I so wish I had your energy! Nevertheless, I do enjoy every day and am grateful for the privilege. Wishing you a lovely farmy day. X
Poor Daisy. She just can’t trust that Lady Vet any more. I hope you get good news.
I don’t blame Daisy one bit for not liking needles or Vets! 😉 Your wine looks lovely, I could almost taste it from here.
Hopefully the piggy sisters will be back to normal soon. I’m an only child but I remember some amazing fights between some of my friends and their sisters. Maybe it holds true for the pig world too?
Hope you had a lovely day! ~ April
Daisy is no dope!
memory like an elephant that cow! c
Ah…the reentering of the ‘who is the boss’ world of pigs. I vote for Sheila, although Charlotte has been having her way for some time with the little piglets. I wonder how it will all spill out?
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
she is being so nasty, and is getting meaner.. i am not sure how to handle it actually.. c
Humm I tried to leave a comment and it just vanished. It went somewhere but where? I do not know.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
I’m thinking of your gloriously glowing golden wine and wishing it bon vivant… actually I’m thinking about the joys of partaking of it, and the wonder that from a bunch of grapes such good things do come 😉
Although I like my wines dry and drier and driest, I love the colour you have produced! Reminds me of a Provencal rose I used to love called ‘Cendres de Novembre’ [OK, the French readers can correct 🙂 !] – that wonderful almost orangey tone!! And why can’t the Shush Sisters get along all of a sudden: jealous Auntie Sheila? Tut, tut!!!!!
do you remember when Charlotte was pregnant she got progressively meaner and i had to take Sheila out. Hopefully she will adjust but it is definitely Char who is being the aggressor and i am mystified as to why..
Yep, do remember . . . 🙂 ! Perhaps she did not like her gravid state nor all those squealy ones popping out when Sheila seemed to be playing Lady Muck . . .?