Notes from Summer 2009

We got a great crop of winter wheat. The trick is getting it harvested and threshed. Because it was planted between the rows of grapes I cannot get mowing equipment in to machine-cut it. On the other hand (have you noticed how there always seems to be another hand?) since it was planted as weed control, all the straw and grain is a "bonus." I was hand scything winter rye and sliced my little finger pretty good. It's healing but I obviously needed a reminder to be careful. I'm back to hand harvesting, with a gloved left hand and more patience. I did use a gas hedge trimmer while one-handed, and it worked to a point. Cutting by hand you have the handful of oriented stalks and can set them neatly on a pile to be bound (sheaved?) later. Using the trimmer everything falls more or less behind the cutting swath but in a sheet that is hard to orient or pile in anything but a chaotic bundle. This was OK for the rye which will be stored whole and fed whole, but does not work for the wheat which must be threshed or the grain is lost. I haven't started harvesting the barley yet.
The tractor is back (Ted Suss ended up finishing reassembly and I drove it home). There's a new electrical problem but it is not overheating anymore. I do deeply appreciate the work that Bill and his class did.
The grapes are looking good. Despite my talk about an organizational paradigm, I was inconsistent in my pruning techniques. Well, its an experiment. Also, I am making my first attempt at wine making. I bought an E. C. Krause kit with california pinot noir juice. I was struck by how altered the product is. I followed the recipe exactly and it called for not only grape juice and yeast, but also acid "blend" (citric and what?), grape tannin, yeast nutrient (di-ammonium phosphate), and a significant quantity of white (!) sugar. I love the fermentation vessel with the screw-on lid, air-lock and discharge valve. I started this last night so I have nothing else to report yet.
However, perhaps some history is relevant: Ruth and I took 41 students and others on an art field trip to Italy and Greece a few years ago. This was a economy (cheap) trip so we stayed in economy (cheap) places, ate economy (cheap) food, and were served local, economy (cheap) wine. Everywhere we went the local wine was very good - the base standard was high. I read this as a sign of civilization and I look forward to the time when we can meet that (casual) standard in this country. That is why I planted grapes. Part of the reason, anyway.
The corn looks lousy, planted too densely and the soil down in the riverbottom is just too sandy to grow grain without irrigation. I lent a quarter acre right next to the corn patch to the Yangs from town and their garden is beautiful. But they take very good care of it and irrigate with buckets when required. I will plant some winter wheat down there this fall, but I have low expectations. I'm curious to see if a winter grain will do better than the spring types on that soil. Worst case, I'll plant uber-hardy grapes down there. The water table is actually only between 5 and 9 feet deep there and anyone with deep roots should do fine.
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The greenhouse (attached to the main earthship) is up although not completely sheathed yet. There's a bathtub out there and I took a hot bath while listening to the rain on the fiberglass roof the other day. The roof is 11' high on the high end. I've installed a wire mesh shelf at 4' and have tomato and pepper plants in large pots on it. Below that there is a planter box (bottomless) holding peppers, green onions, romano beans, cilantro, carrots, and cucumbers for late fall harvest. The cucumbers and beans are netted to grow up. I've installed a drip system to water the pots and a soaker line to water the planter. The composting toilet is online. The house 110v wiring is done, but I've compromised, for this winter at least, on a tanked 30 gal water heater. The Bosch tankless is here but it is not going to be installed in the core house and I don't have the mudroom built yet. So the "temporary" tanked heater is installed. I picked up a bunch of scrap granite countertop left-overs and I want to set the kitchen floor as mosaic. More on that soon as I can't really use the kitchen until there is a floor, can't install the sink yet, etc. And I'm tired of the stove in the living room. The 12v wiring is going to be more of an evolutionary project. I'm trying to anticipate where I will need what, but it is a new way of doing things and I'm finding that I make a lot of changes. I do have a battery well, and I know the best place to put PV panels, but there are a lot of options for placement of outlets (I've decided to use M type) and what will be needed where. Some things like basic lights are easy, but we are used to a great deal of flexibility in 110 configurations and I suspect I'll want as much in 12v.
Bruce has been by and mowed much of the hay. Jim round-baled what he could reach (but doesn't take his baler back behind the ditch) and Bruce hasn't been in with his smaller square baler yet. That is a really good feeling, like having the cow's pantry filled. Hand cutting is possible, but it is a huge chore. I don't have (or know) horse drawn technology, but I suspect that a horse drawn mower and rake is the most sensible in a non-petrochemical environment.