Meet Mabel and more chicken drama

Mable stares down the camera

As I have said before, most of the drama in our family centers around our animals, which I guess is a good thing. About two months ago I went out to the chicken yard after work to gather eggs. The chickens seemed a little rattled - Gladys and her chicks were out of their little enclosed corner. I was collecting the eggs from the nest boxes and I found Thelma (Crooked Chicken) laying dead under the coop. Maybe the injuries sustained during her encounter with coyote finally caught up with her, or maybe it had had nothing to do with that - we really don't know why she died. I know it happens and maybe we've been lucky with our chickens being so healthy so far but it is still really hard to lose one.
Right before I saw Thelma I tried to catch Gladys and the chicks to get them back in their protected area. In this process I scared Mabel and she flew out of the chicken yard. As I was investigating Thelma I heard chicken yelps and realized that Ouzo had gotten a hold of Mabel. Once again, I go running down the hill (a very steep hill) after the dog yelling like a crazy lady. I was wearing sandals and realized I was moments away from breaking my ankle so I kicked them off and ran down the burr-studded hill in my socks. I finally caught up with Ouzo and got Mabel out of his mouth. I had Mabel in one arm and was trying to roll and scold Ouzo with the other (that didn't work very well) and then trudged back up the hill in my socks. I brought Mabel home and relayed the chicken drama to Matt. Mabel was fine, just matted down with burs. We returned Mabel, closed up Gladys and the chicks and removed poor Thelma from the yard.
Mabel is an Auracana hen (a green egg layer). She's lighter colored and has a beard (I always like the ones with beards). All of the Auracanas (Hazel, Mabel, Fern and Marla) are prolific egg layers and a little timid. The days are getting shorter which is reflected in our daily egg catch. Right now we're down to 2 to 3 eggs per day from an average of 6 during the long summer days. There are many signs of the upcoming winter on the farm and the chickens are just one of them.

Walnuts!

Squirreling away our share

One of the many joys of living here is the giant walnut tree in front of our house. A quarter of it split and fell a couple years ago and it's still huge. Its a beautiful tree and every couple years it produces a bumper crop of walnuts. This is one of those years. We, however, are not the only ones that enjoy the fruit of this tree. We are in a race against the squirrel. I think we're winning so far, but I do have thumbs and buckets so I recognize that it is not a very fair race. We can hear them fall from inside our house and I can see the squirrel rushing out to find the fallen nut before I can get my boots on. We have been gathering them pretty steadily over the last two weeks. They really started to fall with the first big rain of the season. The nut itself is encased in a green husk which is hanging from the branch. When it gets ripe the husk cracks and releases the walnut in its shell. We were so excited about the baskets of walnuts we've been able to gather that I eagerly cracked open a few. The nuts were still a little soft and under ripe tasting. Last time I gathered nuts they didn't taste like this - they were wonderful. I think we might be collecting them earlier this year than I usually do - both because of trying to beat the squirrel and because of the rain prematurely knocking them out of their husks. I think that if we just let them dry a little in their shells that they will be delicious. We'll see. Walnuts are one of those things that I hated as a child and now I love.
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Walnut about to fall.....

Wild Mushroom Season!

First Chanterelle of the year!

Just  as my friend Mary Jo predicted, two weeks after the first rains of the season we have mushrooms! Ashley and I found a couple of pounds of golden chanterelles yesterday, practically in our back yard! (ok, so we live on a 500 acre ranch, but these were just a short distance from the road!) We only just started to forage mushrooms last season, and are quite cautious about what we take home, not feeling like we know enough about these fungi to take any chances with possibly poisonous ones. We are, however, 100% confident in discerning chanterelles. We have both the golden and white varieties around here, and both are easy to identify and delicious!

Hello Beautiful!

We found these guys just starting to push through the leaf litter underneath a live oak on an east facing slope. I've learned that mushroom people need to know these details!

Handful of Yum!

Last nights dinner? Chanterelle risotto and a big salad!

At last... we've finished harvest!

We finished harvest on the vineyard I manage at 5:00 this afternoon, November 5. I'm happy and tired and relieved and I think my crew feels the same. My crew did an amazing job picking 148 tons of grapes. Some of those tons in very hot weather, some in rain. At one point the tractor slid sideways down the hill in the mud - not a good thing. We had three days this week of 75-78 degree weather and it was beautiful. Just what the vines needed. The skins softened and the red color bled from the grapes as you squeezed them. A little bit of mold - hopefully that mildewy smell in the last couple lots of grapes will dissipate. I just talked to my neighbor who manages the ranch down the road and he says this was the most unpredictable and difficult year he has seen in his many, many years (well over 20 just on this mountain) of farming.

The winery will still be busy processing the grapes and helping them to become wine over the next couple weeks. In the vineyard, we can relax a little and mostly just worry about erosion control and the upcoming rains. Now we can put our trailers to rest and our picking pans in the barn for storage. Put away the picking shears and get out the rain boots and shovels!

Food and Wine Pairings on intowine.com

I've been asked to come up with a few food and wine pairings for intowine.com, and the first one has been published! Check out my suggestion for lamb shanks.  http://www.intowine.com/best-wine-pair-lamb-shanks

Harvest Report

Ashley with a bin of zin

As much as I love Fall I sometimes forget how busy we get. From our lack of blog posts you might think we've been sitting on our butts watching baseball for the last month (well now we have been doing that for the last week and a half - Yay Giants!). We have been very busy picking grapes, cooking many delicious meals, harvesting my dad's grapes, picking figs and apples, gathering walnuts, attending music festivals and concerts, and generally being really tired from working so many long hours. Harvest in the vineyard has been going strong. We started on September 30 and picked pretty consistently for the next three weeks. The weekend before last we got over 8 inches of rain here - and at least five fell all on Sunday. Last week it was cold and it rained a little more. So it has been a very difficult harvest, which seems only appropriate after such a tough growing season. It is November 2 and we still have about 30 tons hanging out on the vine - this is very late - we rarely ever pick in November. Hopefully we will finish harvest this week, but there are a couple blocks of Cabernet that just aren't quite ready yet. Will they get any better if we let them hang out for another week in November? That's the big question. The days are getting short, the weather is risky, and there is a lot of water in the ground from the last rains (more than what I would irrigate in an entire season). However, it could be 80 degrees on Wednesday, maybe it will be enough sun and ripening weather to just bump up the sugar, lower the acid a touch and soften those tannins. So far, most of the grapes we have harvested this year have had ripe flavors at lower sugar levels, which we love. In general, the 2010 harvest is following that of a typical cool climate growing area - sugar on the low side, acid on the high side, and nice flavors from a long easy, cool ripening period. I am definitely looking forward to this harvest and this growing season ending - its been pretty rough. Then it's mud, rain, scotch and cozy fires in the wood stove.

Matt picks grapes at the Anderson vineyard

Ashley in the Napa Paper

Ashley's friend Catherine writes a wine column in the Napa Valley Register. Ashley was featured last week. Check it out! http://napavalleyregister.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/wine/columnists/wine-tales/article_2fdf5fd8-e303-11df-bfaa-001cc4c03286.html