The aftermath

The grape harvest seems to be complete. In the vineyard parcels where harvesting is done by machine, you can see the naked stems where there once were grapes. The machines vibrate the vines and suck the grapes right off the stem. In the manual process, the stem is cut at the top and goes into the press with the grapes. The ghostly bunches seem fitting for this time of year.

What's left after the harvester passes.

I'm having problems with my chainsaw. It starts up, but after about a minute it stalls. Then it takes nearly a hundred pulls to get it started back up again (after which I'm too tired to cut). When it finally does start up, it makes a lot of smoke. There's probably a problem with carburetor, but I'm no mechanic and can't imagine taking the thing apart.

I will take the machine to the shop to see if they can do anything. The chainsaw is twenty years old (I bought it used and have had four good years of use), so I may have to face the facts and retire it. We shall see.

Of dreams and red leaves

There's something a little special about this photo. I didn't even notice it when I took the picture, but once the image was up on the computer, there it was. Can you see it?

You can run, but you can't hide.

Last night, I had one of those vivid dreams one has from time to time. The kind you actually remember. Ken and I were out to dinner with the Two Fat Ladies: Jennifer Paterson (who passed away in 1999) and Clarissa Dickson Wright. In the lobby we ran into an older gentleman with a closely cropped white beard. He was dressed in what looked like a military uniform from the British Raj in India. He didn't say much. Jennifer slyly referred to Clarissa with some impressive British title, and the restaurant staff treated us like royalty. I remember one of our numerous appetizers was lobster, in the shell, one for each of us. Unfortunately, that's the only part of the meal I remember.

Tiny universes

It's as if each drop is it's own tiny universe, filled with microscopic critters and who knows what else, sealed inside, unaware of what's outside, all resting on the back of a simple leaf. It startles the imagination to think about it. Especially if you've had a glass or two of wine.

Water droplets on an overturned leaf.

This morning the sky is clear and the result is a chilly morning. We've got about 8ºC (46ºF) outside the house this morning. I'll wager it's a degree or two colder out in the vineyards. The boiler is running to take the chill off inside the house. It won't run for long. If necessary, I'll build a fire later in the day.

The wood stove's chimney got swept yesterday, so we're good for another year. If I'm lucky, and industrious, I could get most if not all of the remaining logs cut this week.

A little color among the vines

The vineyards are shedding their green for the yellows, golds, and reds of fall. Then, sometime in the next couple of weeks, everything will go brown and the leaves will start dropping. The vineyard will take on a ghostly aspect, a spider's web of bare canes and tendrils.

We have to enjoy sights like this while they last.

Pruning will start in late fall or early winter, a job that I do not envy. The pruning is done entirely by hand, vine by vine. It will last well into late winter. Whatever the weather, cold, raining, windy, or snowy, the pruners will be out there clipping and burning. Only the harshest storm will keep them away.

The harvest is winding down

There are still a few grapes here and there. But most have been picked now. Wine making is underway. In a few weeks we'll be able to taste the Touraine Primeur, the new young wine. It's like Beaujolais Nouveau, only from our region. Then, through winter and spring, this year's wine will ferment and age a bit until it's released next summer.

One of the last harvesters working out behind our house this season.

I think that all the grapes in the vineyards behind our house have now been harvested. I still hear the hum of a harvester or two in the distance, but less now. It's still unseasonably warm, but that will end all to soon as well, I'm sure.

Like peas in a pod

Except that they're chestnuts or châtaignes in French. The floor of the woods around our house is covered in them. And so is our road as it descends toward the river. The nuts and their spiky pods are falling now, along with a good share of the chestnut trees' leaves.

Chestnuts often come three-in-a-pod. They're too small to be worth eating.

Callie doesn't like walking on some of her favorites paths through the woods right now. The spikes on the pods hurt her feet. I don't blame her. It won't be long, though, until they start to soften and decompose, then they'll no longer hurt.

When châtaignes are cultivated to be larger and rounder, they're called marrons. They're what get roasted or canned or made into a sweet paste for eating.

Sunrise over an abandoned vineyard

There are several abandoned vineyard parcels among the active ones out behind our house. The posts and vines are still there, but have been left untended for years. The vines still produce grapes, but the bunches are too numerous and the grapes are too small. They really need the hard and constant pruning to produce well.

The sun had just cleared the horizon when I snapped this photo.

When a grower gets old, infirm, or dies, and he has no one to take over for him or to sell to, his parcels are left to go wild. It's a bit sad, but the abandoned parcels do provide some habitat for wildlife among the tended vineyards. And they can be pretty.