Full Moon

 

Full moon rising yesterday evening. 

Tonight we had a full moon, tides over the road, and a comet that passes by once every 80,000 years. Last week, we had an aurora display that we did not see. Do all these natural phenomena have an effect on the growth patterns of our flora?

In England, they've had a very poor harvest which grape growers are projecting as 20-70% below target primarily due to wet weather. The weather has been the most changeable I can ever recall. Ours was about 50% of the year before. 

This weekend we have a major gale approaching and we haven't been able to get a weather window this month of 2-3 days to deliver our sailboat to Kilrush for the winter. That's a gauge for what our vines are experiencing. With the astronomical tides and strong winds, the vineyard will be exposed to salt spray for days. Fortunately, it's the end of the season. The salt will contribute to the terroir as they claim in Galicia. And another season will take shape next year. 

Tide up to our driveway.

Road is gone.

Clour reflections.

Clouds decorating the moon. 

And the moon rose over an open field...

Unusual cold

 

As Hurricane Kirk passed by, wreaking havoc in Spain, Portugal, France, and beyond, he pulled down arctic air to blanket us. Mid-day yesterday, it suddenly got very cold and has remained there since. Temperatures have dropped to 3C overnight, and they were predicting frost in the Midlands. 

It's been alternately sunny and cloudy with the occasional shower, except last night, when the moon showed brightly to the south but was cloudy to the north, where the aurora was seen again throughout Ireland. Bummer, I missed it again. 

Lots of cleanup is taking place in the garden. Alex has strimmed the orchard with the intent of seeding yellow rattle. 

I raked up the leaves and cut back all the perennials and started pulling Mombretia. It's going to take a long time to finish. I think with leaves and grass we will finally have good compost next year. 

On another front, although Hurricane Milton put much of Florida under rain water or ocean surge, the destruction was not as bad as feared. He continued across from cat 3 to cat 1 spawning scores of tornados and affecting both coasts. Over 3 million lost power, the new normal. 

Solaris racked today

 

The Solaris wine had stopped bubbling and was clearing nicely. So, we opted to rack it today. Naturally, we had a taste of the wine and it was good. Dry, not overly fruity. Easy on the palate and quite a pleasant almost citrus finish. We used some from the smaller bottle to top off the demijohn. Rather pleased with the outcome. 

Meanwhile, Hurricane Kirk, which formed in the lower Atlantic and took a direct northerly route, heading straight for us at first, veered right when a low stalled directly to our west, and is now passing over the Azores. Unusually, the US NHC cone has it glancing off the northwestern edge of Spain before it heads to France, Germany and Denmark. We've never seen an extratropical storm passing so far inland on the continent and maintaining storm status. 

In Florida, they are preparing for their second major hurricane in less than two weeks. Helene was catastrophic in Florida wiping out entire communities and travelled far inland over western Georgia, SC and NC causing unprecedented flooding. Milton is a category 5 and is expected to double in size before landfall over the Tampa Bay area where a million people are under evacuation orders. Huge swaths of Florida will be underwater and the eyewall is expected to stay intact all the way across the state, wreaking havoc on the other side as well. 

A study published earlier this year suggests that the Saffir-Simpson scale of 1-5 is no longer adequate for a world facing climate change effects. 

US Committee Investigates Dietary Guidelines Research Related to Alcohol Consumption

US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued subpoenas to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra and U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack for documents in an investigation into development of the 2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Committee is investigating recommendations related to alcohol consumption.

Both HHS and USDA have failed to fully comply with the Committee’s requested documents and communications after the Committee’s initial request on April 4, 2024. Both agencies provided incomplete responses despite multiple follow-up requests from Committee staff.

It has come under scrutiny that many of the studies were conducted by right-wing scientists who are looking to control many aspects of American's behaviour and freedoms. It is believed that the scientists are working with far-right lawmakers to restrict alcohol consumption through scaremongering about the negative health effects of alcohol consumption. 

Here are the guidelines:

https://rethinkingdrinking.niaaa.nih.gov/how-much-too-much/what-are-us-guidelines-drinking

Now lawmakers are demanding a halt to the controversial study about alcohol.

Vistors to the Vineyard

Fellow viticulturists, Brian Bakeburg and his wife Orla, who moved to Ireland from South Africa and planted a vineyard in Mayo in 2023, came to visit. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely time trading ideas and getting to know each other. We love showing people what we've done here. 

 

Harvested Rondo this morning

Big difference in a few days

We decided to harvest the Rondo regardless of the sugar content. I was pleasantly surprised that the Brix reading was 20.6 or SG 1.086. Our yield from the 5 vines was about 2 1/2 bushels, close to what we got from all the Solaris. We were lucky as it started raining after we finished and brought the gear up to the shed. 

Two vines had lots of very nice grapes and three had mediocre bunches -- small and/or shriveled. The weight of the grapes was 41.2 lb or 18.7 kg, not far off the 2023 take of 20 kg. After destemming, we 31.6 lb (14.3 kg) of grapes. But there was little juice even after crushing more of the grapes by hand. The Brix of the must was encouraging at 22 and SG 1.090. The pH was 3.0. 

We discussed what to do and decided to mix sugar water to an equivalent SG or slightly higher. I mixed 1 kg of regular granulated sugar in 4 litres of boiled water. The SG was 1.095 which would result in a potential ABV 14%. 

We had to wait for it to cool then added in the yeast mixture. After a short while of letting the yeast get going in the sugar water, Alex added the mixture to the must. We sealed the lid and will now await fermentation. Wait and see. 

Ghost was with us the whole time, supervising as usual, and the donkeys came down to keep us company as we worked. 

Solaris bubbling has slowed down a lot.

Fermentation

 

The weather had turned quite cold but the fermentation is doing well in our temperature-controlled room in the shed.