Hello!

My goodness, I've been away from this space for longer than expected. I'm sure you all understand sometimes work and life just gets busy and there's not much time for anything else. My new job is going really well, but I am still working at my old job to help wind things up, so that is where much of my time and energy is focused right now. There is lots going on here on the homestead as well, so I thought I'd give you guys a quick update to show that we aren't just being lazy over here! ;)

We finished planting the vineyard! I say "we" but actually it was 99% David and 1% me. He worked really hard on this space, from cutting down trees and cleaning up the mess, to installing the support for the vines and finally getting them all planted. It took us several months from start to finish (check out more on that here) and we are both thrilled that the vines are in! PS - The blue tubes you see are grow tubes which act as a mini-greenhouse to get the vines growing.

The garden is coming along very well! We have so much planted, I can't even remember it all. Again, by "we" I mean mostly David haha. This year we went a bit crazy with starting tomato seeds that we saved from our tomatoes last year and had over 100 seedlings going under grow lights in the garage at one point. I ended up selling some plants to a coworker and we planted the majority of them in our garden. We didn't have enough space for them all in the garden beds, so many of them are in pots and other repurposed containers (like buckets).

Our main bee hive is doing incredibly well, but our split not so much. It's having a hard time getting up and going, and we are trying to figure out what's wrong and help it along as much as we can. But we are hopeful that we will be able to harvest a good amount of honey this year!

The animals are doing well and we actually gained a new guinea friend recently. One of our neighbor's guineas starting hanging around a couple weeks ago and now he won't leave. He's pretty entertaining, so we don't mind the extra company.

All the plants around the house are springing back to life and it is amazing to see the transformation. After the horrible winter, I just can't get enough of all the green out here!

I hope I can post again soon, but in the meantime, I just want to thank each of you who has checked in and sent sweet messages and emails to me letting me know I'm missed. It means so much that you would think of me and take time out of your day to say hello!

We have a busy weekend planned, but hopefully we can get some relaxation in to recharge before the new week starts. I hope we can get in at least a little hammock time :)

~Tammy

The Vineyard: Part I

Back in January, I shared our resolution for this year is to dig in and add long-term improvements to our property. We visited a winery in January to get some ideas on how to set up our vineyard and ever since then David has been working like crazy to get our space ready for the vines.

This is the view from our back porch. If you look really hard, you can see up on top of the hill we have our space cleared and all the posts in for the vines! David gets about 99% of the credit here, since he cut down around 60 massive trees and stacked up all the wood. I helped with moving the wood that I could carry and burning some bigger sticks.

Here you can see the posts and all the wood stacked in between the trees (yes, we got snow yesterday - ugh!) and a pile of sticks to burn still. The posts were reused from part of the rustic wooden fence that ran in front of our house.

We also have bamboo placed where the vines will go in order to get an idea of the spacing. We're planting a total of 56 vines, so we need a lot of fencing and support. The vines are being shipped to us in a few weeks so we had to get the structural support in place before planting the vines.

This is the view from the vineyard looking back down towards the house. We do still have some cleanup left, but for now at least the space is ready for the vines. (If you look to the right of our house, you can see our garden space. To the left of the house is the chicken compound.)

Our biggest goal of all is to dig a pond on the property in the space between the house and the vineyard. We are getting quotes on the pond construction and mapping out the best size and placement for the pond. Now all we have to do is win the lottery!

~Tammy

Shared with Maple Hill Hop 

Digging In: Visiting A Winery

You may remember our post from earlier in the month about how we decided to dig in and add long-term improvements to our homestead this year. Last week we wrote about visiting a goat farm and today I'd like to share what we learned on our recent trip to a local winery.

Since we have decided to plant a small vineyard this year, we figured it would be wise to get advice from someone experienced to help us decide what types of grapes to plant, where to plant them, and how to set up the vineyard. One of David's fellow teachers at Puxico is the owner of a winery in town called Indian Hills Winery, and earlier this month he invited us out to learn more about grapes and the wine making process.

The winery is located on beautiful land in the country with rolling hills and a nice pond situated on the edge of the vines. We first got a lesson on how to build fences to support the vines and David asked a lot of questions. I tried to pay very close attention but there were a couple of sweet pups following us around and I couldn't help but pet them a little and take some photos!

It turns out they weren't there just to be cute. Martie said that having several dogs in the vineyard is the best solution he has found to prevent deer from munching on his prized vines. We are keeping this in mind since we often see deer on our property and don't want them to be a problem.

Next we got a demonstration on how to prune vines. We headed over to several rows of Concord grapes, which is probably one of the more well-known varieties. Martie isn't too keen on them though because the vines tend to grow wildly each season and are hard to manage.

Before pruning

After pruning

I was surprised at how much is actually cut off in the pruning process, but the majority of the wood produced in the previous season should be removed. This is a necessary step to allow for new growth in the upcoming season and yield a better harvest. Pruning is done when the grapes are dormant, between January and March each year.

After we were well versed on the fencing and pruning of the vines, we went inside the distillery to see how Martie turns all those grapes into wine.

We got a taste of some of the wine in process before any sugar or other additives were mixed in. It was a little dry for my taste as I do like sweeter wines, but it was neat to be able to taste it at this step and see how different it is from the final product.

David asked about how much wine they produce from their vines, and I was surprised to learn that from 1,200 vines they can get anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 bottles of wine per year. Each vine produces about 30 pounds of grapes and it takes around 15 pounds of grapes to make a gallon of wine.

We learned so much and after our visit to the winery felt more confident in purchasing our own grape vines. So we came home and did just that! We have 32 Chambourcin, 8 Marquis, 8 Canadice, and 8 Lakemont vines coming to us this March. Martie has had good luck with his vines ordered from Double A Vineyards so we decided to get our grapes from them as well.

Now we are working on clearing a spot for the vineyard behind our house at the top of the hill. The process of logging our property in 2012 made a mess up there, so we need to clean up the branches then get to work installing our fencing system for the vines to be ready for planting this spring.

I am so excited to be moving forward with our goal of having a small vineyard and glad that we decided to get several different varieties of grapes. The Chambourcin grapes are good for making wine, and the others are perfect for eating off the vines or making jams and jellies. Lakemont grapes even make excellent raisins! I can't wait to have loads of grapes to work with.

Many thanks to Martie for sharing his knowledge with us and answering all of our questions. If you are ever in Southeast Missouri, please do stop by Indian Hills Winery. You will enjoy your visit!  

~Tammy