Winey Weekend

It’s been a busy Monday to wind up a busy weekend.

We went to Prosser this weekend to get our grapes for this year’s wine making experience. The barn above is located in Sunnyside, just down the road from Prosser. Every year we go, we are afraid this barn will have been torn down. So, we are always happy when it appears at our exit. It does not appear to be used for anything other than a haven for a herd of pigeonses.

We picked up 100 pounds of Tempranillo for us and 100 pounds of Syrah for Susan’s friend, Ellen.

We did a whole bunch of wine tasting at a variety of wineries down in the Yakima Valley and then, on our way home yesterday, we stopped at Eclectic Vineyards and collected our grapes. 

We got home last night and felt pretty beat up. I don't enjoy long drives like I used to. It was early to bed for me.

Today we crushed the grapes. We have two buckets of mashed grape skins sitting out in the carriage house. It only took us about half an hour to crush both hundred pounds of grapes and then about 45 minutes to clean up.

After that, I got the hose out and cleaned the truck bed, getting all the dirt out of the back of the truck. I wanted to dry out the bed a little bit, so I went on a drive. I went to the gas station to clean my smashed bug riddled windshield. I stopped for a nice little mocha and then I went to the General Store to buy a new faucet for the back of the house. 

I would now say that job is complete. We have a new ball valve for the water shut off. We have a shiny new Pex water line and now we have a nice half turn faucet at the end of the line. And for the first time since we have lived here, we have decent water pressure at that faucet.

I feel pretty stupid that I waited this long to fix that problem.

The only problem I see is there is a small water drip coming from the back of the faucet. It's a little out of focus but you can see it there. I'll give it a couple of days to see what happens after my threading glue sets.

The bottom of the pipe had corroded away right at the threading so that may be where the leak is coming from. With the season winding down and my ability to completely shut off that water line, I'm not going to worry too hard over this issue. Still, I hate wasting the water.