Waiting for the grape press to finish it's cycle...right now it contains perhaps the best Syrah that this winery produces, so I am being very careful with it. It is very cold again this morning. Today my roommates and I decided that it doesn't matter if it is expensive, we have to start running the heat in the house when we get home---it's just too miserable to be cold all evening. Been working on my car after work, and looking forward to more time to devote to all the things that need to be done...and learning how to relax again.

It is so cold! Even though the actual temperature has not been that low, somehow these last couple of days have been bone-chilling. But the rain has been light and seldom; once again the morning fog has burned off into pale sunlight. I love Autumn...

Friday the 13th...I am not superstitious in the least, but I do get a kick out of weird creepy things...and this would be a good day for a disappearance or ghost or something Halloweeny. But so far it is a normal day. It is chilly here, and the sun is shining. This morning I am running a huge stainless steel wine press, squeezing juice out of fermented grapes. Working the press is nice because you actually have a little down time here and there to think and try to collect your wits. Or blog, like right now.

Gotta get back to it...

Life has been very intersecting lately. Two weeks of over 80 hours of work (each), enthralling new purchases, friends who are oh so cute and probably getting hitched someday and very sore arm muscles from punching down fermenting grapes. The first week and half or so since my last blog post I was a truck driver, hurrying all over the Willamette Valley and all the way up to Yakima Washington, and for the last week-ish I have been learning how to run a wine press. Messy work and long hours, but not hard. Driving was very fatiguing but I had a lot of fun seeing vineyards and learning about the different fruit and locations. I spent so much time in that tired beat-up Isuzu that I gave her a name so we could commiserate together while waiting for the grapes to be loaded at yet another vineyard.





I saw some incredible scenery too. Oregon is an amazing state. And now it is cloudy and sprinkly and cool and even lovelier.





Seven AM is too early for intense physical labor, but my AMHfuture-C is adorable as ever...sigh...



And perhaps the most exciting thing of all is of a vehicular nature...(ahem) our new car: a 1972 Volvo 145-E wagon; lowered, custom wheels, manual transmission, hot-rodded engine. Could we possibly be hipper?