Hey, It's my son's birthday! Happy 28th Birthday, Scott! He is currently off traipsing around Kyrgyzstan on a holiday! But Katie, my 16 year old daughter, will be visiting Scott in Finland in a week, where he currently resides. He has planned a world-wind trip for them, flying to Budapest, then by train/car to Bratislava, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich & Frankfurt, visiting friends along the way! Then flying to Estonia to ferry back to Helsinki! Sounds like a John Candy Movie or Mel Brook's If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium!
Closer to home, just look at those grapevines! My youngest daughter, Suzie, is 5' 7" and several of the vines are almost as tall as she is.
As we had in Palo Alto, we have the wonderful, but contriversal Yosemite/Hetch-Hetchy West Bay water up here in Los Altos Hills. Since we moved here, our home water usage has been about 8 WU per month (water units, where 1 WU = 100 cubic feet of water). Hey, that is on the lowest usage billing tier, for anyone who is checking on my water conservation during our drought, by the way! Also, we don't have any landscaping, just weeds!
Well, after the March vineyard planting, our water usage has gone up to an average of 18 WU per month with a high of 30 WU during the May/June 2008 heat waves. Cutting to the chase, it was costing $25.63 per month, on average, to water the grapes by hand, using about 7,500 gallons a month. This has really allayed my fears of horrendous, multi-$100 water bills!
Also, we started using the drip system over 4th of July weekend, watering for 4 hours (at one gallon an hour) every 4-5 days or even longer. That would be about only 6,000 gallons a month. That is a reduction in our current usage by about 20%. We will just have to wait & see if we have any $20.50 per month bills in the future!
The featured musician of this edition of the Young Oak Vineyards Blog is Ottmar Liebert with "Bullfighter's Dream". Ottmar is a extremely talented German guitarist, first starting as a rock musician, then becoming one of the world most foremost Nouveau Flamenco guitarists. He has a great website with a diary blog (just like me!!), lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, US and is into environmentalism, Buddhism & photography among his many other creative talents & interests!
Drinking Mojitos & wishing you well from down in the vineyard,
John
John
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