In my last post I talked about sourcing local grapes for making wine at home in the Adirondacks. After crushing and fermenting, it was time to press. So this week I wanted to show you how I pressed the grapes using a home-made wine press. Pressed for Time? Pressing the grapes, which separates the juice […]
01
Oct
Oct
We’ve made some excellent wines with family in New Jersey at La Cantina Bongiovanni and we’re now going into our third year. We’ve made Sangiovese and Montepluciano blends that have amazed our friends and family. But all of the red wine grapes we’ve used so far have come from California. One question kept popping up: what […]
09
Sep
Sep
In the Spring of your life the living was free. In the Summer you slept like a mountain. In the Fall you hurried to gather your wood. In the Winter you searched for the Fountain. An end to a lovely Summer seems only a few short weeks away but with the record-breaking temperatures raging high […]
19
Aug
Aug
It’s good to know where you’ve come from and it’s also good to know where you’re headed. Or as Wendell Berry puts it: “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” Recently we took a Sunday drive around our little slice of paradise that is the small towns and hamlets […]
29
Jul
Jul
While that may have been the prize puzzle phrase on last night’s Wheel of Fortune, it is also what we’ve been up to at work recently at the Cornell Research Farm in Willsboro. You see, a rare thing happened last week. The Sun shone brightly and warmly for 3 successive days thus allowing us simple peasants […]
20
Jul
Jul
Today I have an easy homesteading project that anyone can accomplish in a few days with very inexpensive materials. In the hopes of reducing, reusing and recycling, nothing could be better for the planet than composting your kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, hay, straw and even old bones as long as it’s done right. One person’s […]
24
Jun
Jun
Many of you have heard me wax poetic about a thousand year old, hardy breed of sheep called Icelandics. Kim and I recently returned from a scenic spot of land high up in the Mad River Valley of Vermont. There we attended an Icelandic Sheep workshop by Helen Whybrow of Knoll Farm. Why the breed […]
23
May
May
So just like that… I got a new job and I’m actually farming! The impetus to start living at the farm full-time was partly influenced by a new opportunity that was too good to pass up. I recently landed a seasonal job farming at the Willsboro Research Farm that is owned and run by Cornell University. […]