Another Harvest Hosts Winery

September 12, 2012
Firelands Winery
Harvest Hosts
Sandusky, Ohio

A very pleasant long 249 mile drive today.  We stayed off the toll roads so at times it was a little slower, but saw some beautiful country.

I always like to get flag pictures, 

usually we are driving so many are too blurry to post.  

There were three flags in a row but only got two

A cute little town along US Hwy 20.  already forgot the name.

You don't get these cute places on the toll roads

Crossing the Sandusky Bay. to the left of us is Lake Erie but the hwy divider is too tall to see it.

Almost looks like my picture when we were going across the Sunrise Bridge into Tampa, FL

Unfortunately we had to drive right by this nuclear plant a little west of Sandusky

The Streamer is still following us

We finally get to our destination, just in time for a little sampling.  

This winery is the largest in Ohio and produces about 70,000 cases a year. 

We have a really nice place to spend the night.

We are going to have cards made and I think this is the picture we will use on them but I might take another picture when I get my new glasses, which have already been mailed to Joe's sister in Maryland and we will be there on the 22nd.

 This is a bit blurry but I wanted to show how the beans are drying up.  They go from green to golden to a light gray and all the leaves fall off.  I guess they will be harvesting them soon.  Now and then we see the corn being harvested.

The actual bean pods

Have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by

Nancy

Picking Grapes

Sept 8 & 9, 2012
Massbach Ridge Winery
Elizabeth, Illinois

You may remember I mentioned last winter that we belonged to Harvest Hosts, which is a network of farms, ranches, wineries, orchards, etc. that are willing to let a self-contained RV stay at their facility, at no cost.  Sometimes there involves volunteering to help out.

Massbach Ridge Winery is a Harvest Hosts member.  We were going to only stay one night but we found out they were harvesting and they needed all the volunteers they could get.  We ended staying two nights and had a fabulous time, of course I had to get out the ibuprofen for the aching shoulders and neck, but yes we would do it again.  Joe and I have never picked grapes before, in one easy lesson from Peggy, the owner, we were on our way.  We started about 0730 and soon there were at least 50 -  60 volunteers, maybe more.  There were people here from 3 yrs to about 80 yrs old, we picked 20 rows of grapes, in fact this was the last 20 rows to be picked this year.  We worked from about 0730 to 1200 and we were done.  We were then fed a delicious lunch of sausages, sauerkraut, salads, beans, brownies and all the fixins including  Sangria.  It was quite the feast.

This is how we picked the grapes, we were each given this little tool (that is partially hidden behind the leaf)  the end of the tool is a V that is very sharp.  You just put the V up in there on the stem and snip, the bunch comes right off.  Then the grapes go in the bucket, when the bucket is full, grab another bucket and Peggy will be along with the wagon to empty the buckets.

Peggy, owner, picker, driver, you name it she does it, 

oh yea she is also the Master Wine Maker

 The Lab (I don't remember his name) is catching a ball.

 Peggy's cute little nephews

 Peggy never stopped

When we got back to the tasting room there was a Can-Am Club 

that had stopped by for a little tasting

 And, a Corvette club stopped by

This machine takes off the stems, leaves, mice and what ever else got brought in.

This is the end and it was already wash up and it getting ready to be put away

The stems to be hauled to the compost 

Three vats of grapes that we picked today

time for lunch 

 Notice the big container of Sangria, it was reeeeaaaly goooooood...!

 Me picking grapes

The grapes are starting to ferment, a small amount of yeast has been added to the vats

All the buckets have been washed

All the wagons have been washed

Today was the last day of harvesting - that corn is a different farm

What a great day, now for another glass of wine and off to bed.  Tomorrow we are moving again.

Drive safe, have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by.

Nancy

Russian River Wineries

July 3 thru 8, 2012

Leaving my sister's house we decided to head over to Hwy 101 and the Russian River Wineries.  We have been down Hwy 101 many times but we have not been to the wineries in the Russian River area since about 1990 when we moved to Washington.

We found the West Side Road along the Russian River and there must be new wineries every 1/2 mile.  We were looking for a small winery called Porters Creek.  Sure enough we finally found it and it's still very small and the wine still very good.  But, when did wine get so expensive?  Or, have we been drinking too much "two-buck-chuck"? (Which is actually $2.99 in Washington but $1.99 in California).

We stayed in Cloverdale a small little town a few miles north from the Russian River wineries.  This was only about 170 miles from my sisters place in Auburn, CA so we had plenty of time to visit a couple of wineries before we checking in to our motel.  (Motels and eating out all the time is sure strange)

All the pictures in this blog were taken with my phone.  Some are good and some are not but it's all I have and many times it was so bright out that I could not see the screen when I took the picture.

This is Hop Kiln Winery.  I was not aware that many many years ago hops were grown along the river valley here.  This is the kiln used to dry the hops.  After visiting this place we started noticing other old hop kilns in the area but not preserved like this one.

Beautiful grounds around the winery

This is the Porter Creek Vineyards  that we were looking for, I'm amazed that we found it, 

everything has changed so much.

The parking lot, house and the tasting room is a small shed behind the house.  Excellent wine.

Gracie was there to met and greet Buddy

Leaving the winery, this vineyard across the street was a major dairy last time we were here

in fact at one time we came around the corner and saw a dead cow in the pasture so we always knew where this winery.  We had joked about this being  "the dead cow winery"

Leaving the next morning was July 4th, and everyone was lining up to see the parade, we were the last car through before they closed the street.

r

Continuing north on Hwy 101 we spotted this herd of elk just south of Big Lagoon

Our next stop was in Gold Beach, Oregon.  More on that in the next blog

Safe travels to all, thanks for stopping by

Joe and Nancy