The surf shots:

Typical Day at the Hatchery

Typical Day at 3 Mile

Maryhill

Adams Archive

Sept Fog

Petroglyph

Hood Morning

Hat on Adams

Jim's Place in Snow

Jim's Place in Spring (Big)

Drinking Gigondas

Anne's House

Camper Page

                               Ah.....Baja !! A photo of a sierra laguna in southern Baja

             Sailing in Baja...the beach is no better place to kill time waiting for the afternoon wind. 

                                             Click the photo to see what I want to be doing.

               Software:  Virtual Weather Station version 12.07

                                            PCLink 4

                      Hardware:  Davis Weather Monitor II

                  EMAIL Comments To:  Barrilles@yahoo.com 

Diary                                                                   Archive                                                Top

February 4, 2006.   We've had a great winter featuring the vacation to Baja.  See the pics above. 

October 26, 2006.  Well we have had a good harvest season.  The Chardonnay was harvested three weeks ago.  At 22.8 brix it was in a good range for chardonnay and it is fermenting well in the winery without any adjustment.  The Pinot Noir was harvested two weeks ago at 23.2 brix and a pH of 3.57...great numbers. And the fruit looked great.   

September 3, 2006.   Still been warm except for two days last week. Low was 43.  Today we are back into the 80's. 

Pinot is about 10% red...cab franc just starting..the merlot on the arbor is 20% there (!). An earlier verasion than last year, thankfully.  No sign of rot.  I applied a light solution of fungicide to make sure. 

August 13, 2006.   Temperatures have maintained in the 80's.  Everything is growing still.  The yellowjackets were very slight in numbers this year, but the paper wasp nests are everywhere. Jeanne got stung twice today by wasps we disturbed when we were taking measurements on the trailer...they had build a nest up in the tongue. 

I applied bordeaux mix fungicide to the estate vineyard this morning. Keeping to a two week cycle of spraying fungicides.  So far no sign of problems.  One cluster of martini pinot noir is turning red. 

July 8, 2006.  Lots of heat in June and so far in July.  90 degrees today, at least one triple digit day in the past two weeks. Sweating it out waiting for the west wind to return. 

The grapes are growing fairly well. Lots of holes due to gophers taking vines over the winter, but the mature ones are doing good. Flowering was mostly last weekend, the fourth of July. Pinot was about a week earlier.

June 24th.  I turn 50 in two days, but Jeanne thought she would surprise me, and surprise me she did. A pig roast was had with 30+ guests. What a day.

April 28th, 2006.  A windy Saturday but surprisingly pleasant.  Bottled some rose', cleaned equipment, made up a labeling aid and visited the neighbors who were celebrating their new metal cow. Cute sight and good people. Gracie our border collie has made friends with the labs next door, they romped a lot today. Tomorrow we plan a 45 mile bike ride in the Hood River valley, a shake down trip prior to the upcoming vacation in southern France where we hope to bike in the Pyrenees.  So much to do, so little time.

March 26, 2006.  Good weekend but cool.  I racked the cabernet franc and got cold feet cause I was in my flip flops doing the wet work. We woke up this morning to a dusting of snow.  This is the opposite of last year's early spring followed by cool weather - we seem to have the cool weather now.

March 20, 2006.  Arrived at the cabin to find the appliances did not work.  After talking to the pump people and the house electrian, the PUD came out and found one leg of the house power was out due to a gopher attack at the connection box outside.  I only hope the little sucker was fried.  I went to a bonfire next door and met some new neighbors, great time.

Wine notes: Syrah is doing well, Pinot is good, the Cab Franc needs to be racked but is not settled enough yet.

February 4, 2006.  Finally installed a new PC, we hope the reliability of the website will be improved. Snowing now but not much, a lot of rain this year should make all the neighbor's well's happy.  

The wine is looking very good...the pinot is rounding out, the Grenache suddenly got a life and is expressing itself, and all the 2005 cuvee's are doing well (syrah, cab franc, pinot noir) so, life is pretty good for a February.

October 12, 2005.   September was beautiful. Warm weather, little rain but on Oct 4th the rain started.  2 days of rain followed by several days of light rain.  

Wine notes: we are just finishing the pinot noir and the syrah fermentation.   Pressing is this weekend.

September 11, 2005.   July was a great month, good wind and fair temps. August was hot and dry.  Yesterday was the first rain in quite some time, and the Mountains have a little bit of new snow on them. 

Grape notes: A little powdery mildew appeared in July so I have been spraying since early August. No verasion yet except the merlot shows a few red berries. This the latest verasion I can remember.

June 12, 2005  Very windy weekend.  Sailed at Doug's yesterday and had some of the highest jumps ever.   The wind was a little more southy than normal, which formed ramps straight at me some times. Excellent. Quite sore today.

We returned from vacation to find a few feet of grass and weeds.  Got out the tractor and the mower and started dealing with it, plus checking on the new vines and garden, etc. Can't seem to get the beans to come up - those that do are yellowed, and there are several stalks no leaves. Either lack of water or nutrients I think. Peas look good. 

March 27, 2005.   Very rainy weekend. No chance to do anything in the vineyard. Got a new microscope and checked the wines for anything growing in them and all looks clear. Lhotse unhappy about being inside last night, but it was way to rainy to leave him out.

March 15, 2005.  It has been warm and very dry since January. Ski areas on Hood are closed. And snowpack is like 20% of normal. Roses, willows and other plants are budding out. Pruned the estate vineyard, with the hopes that there will not be hard freeze between now and May. 

Grape notes: I planted many cuttings with the hope of new cab franc, pinot noir and chardonnay. Two weeks ago I sprayed the vineyard with lime sulfur to control mildew

January 22, 2005.  Really cold last week - 11 degrees low on the 15th - but quite mild today and it was up to 58 degrees this past week.  

We tasted the 2003 pinot and it is quite nice. Planning on bottling soon, and will take a few bottles to the Washington Wine Grape Convention next month.

October 17, 2004.  Well, I had to load XP on the computer and upgrade from Win98 and it only took a couple of months to repair the damage. 

The 2004 Crush has happened for Pinot and Syrah. The grapes were just right (Pinot) to overripe (syrah). Pinot was pressed last wednesday in one 9 hour push by yours truly.  Syrah will be pressed today, with Jeanne's help.  The weather has been great up til yesterday, except that there was a week or so of rain in September.