January 5, 2009:   To a person who thrives on order, January is the best time of the year.  It's a clean slate.  It's an opportunity to complete tasks not completed in the prior year.  It's a chance to eliminate the detritus from prior years and streamline.  January on a farm or ranch represents all the hope and promise that a new year brings -- hope for rain, hope for a very productive three months of winter, hope for a good fruit set and a warm gentle spring, hope for an insect-free summer, with not too much heat, and hope for the perfect amount of grapes, olives, and lavender.   

All that being said, with a pruning seminar scheduled for Saturday, January 10th and our shears having been sharpened, we can barely restrain ourselves from starting to clip away and beginning the process of instilling order, once again, to the ranch.  Truth be told, I could not wait and started on the table grapes over the weekend.

Additionally, after one of the recent storms, Stuart rototilled the area in which we're going to be planting some new vines.  He worked on the schedule of getting the stakes in and repairing our barbed wire fences, olive tree pruning, continued oak tree maintenance, and plans for a small area for processing in the barn.

He also very patiently taught me how to use a power drill, and I eagerly began installing all the knobs in the house.  I had great hopes of getting all the pulls installed, but that apparently involves quite a bit of math and, quite frankly, I didn't feel like doing that much math over New Year's.

We hope that 2009 brings you good health, a productive, happy year!

 Stuart & Kathy