trick or treat!

it's amazing...we received our last lot of grapes october 24th...chardonnay grapes, no less. there's still a lot of work to be done with the cabernets that are fermenting in tank. also, my work load in the lab is steadily increasing as i'm monitoring all the barrels with the 2008 pinots and chardonnays. but, this week will be my first week with 2 days off...in a row! i don't know what i'll do with myself. i do know that i'm starting to have the energy to call my friends again, many of whom i haven't talked to in ages.

well, winter is definitely approaching...even in california. it's certainly darker in the morning when i leave for work and a bit colder. today we got our first autumn rain and it was a chill-to-your-bone kind. i look forward to sweater and hot chocolate weather though. and after these few years in california, i still miss the first snowfall.

on that note, i leave you with the pumpkins that jon and i carved this week. it was great to be a kid again...hand inside the pumpkin tearing out pumpkin guts. and it was great to roast pumpkin seeds again...mmm...

every day is a wednesday...teetering on the hump

so i'm still in harvest. i have been since labor day. it's been an odd harvest. the heat at the beginning of september brought in our 1st wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it got colder. then it started warming up a bit more during the day, which led to the 2nd wave of pinot and chardonnay. then it threatened to rain, which brought in a bit more pinot, chardonnay, and our 1st cabernet. then it rained. so now we're in limbo...waiting for the grapes to dry a bit and regain equilibrium. then, i bet you, it's going to hit us like a ton of bricks.

i love my job...i love my job...i love my job...

well, at least that's what i say to myself every morning on my way to work. ah...i've lost track of what the actual day of the week it is. to me, every day feels like a wednesday. teetering on that hump day. unsure which way the see-saw will swing...back towards the beginning of the week or towards the end of the week where a faint light glows showing the way to the elusive "day off". although, to be honest, sometimes i'd rather not have a day off, then my body is constantly on adrenaline to keep going and going. when i come back from 1 day off, my body is just more tired than before. to fully recover, one needs 2 days off in a row. well, there's always december!

at least, my life is not filled with ugliness as you can see by the photo of our estate vineyard at 7am a week or so ago before the rains came.
and on a different note. i've done a piss-poor job trying to grow my dahlias that i had high hopes for back in the summer. too much sun...not enough sun...too much water...not enough water (kind of like this harvest). so imagine my surprise when i noticed that one of the plants did try to produce a flower...albeit a quite "special" looking flower as you can see below. but a flower nonetheless! you can understand the degree of suprisedness (yes that's a word in my world) when you see what the rest of the plant looks like next to the flower. reminds me to be optimistic again...maybe america's economy won't completely crash...maybe voters this year will actually do the right thing...