Rock and Vine

Vineyard....legit.

2008-02-29T15:48:00.000-08:00

We took the plunge and made it official. Jodi got the paperwork done and the vineyard is officially named "Leaping Fox Vineyard, LLC". So, it's a bit off from the original "Elsa Run Vineyard". We figured it wasn't fair to little Nadia but hey, she wasn't around back then! Leaping Fox came from me watching a fox cruising through the vineyard in the snow. He/she disappeared from view down towards the creek below a little knoll that sits on the property. Out of nowhere the fox leaps into view then drops out of view again. This happened a couple of times. I found it odd but intriguing, certainly entertaining to watch! I figure it was drumming up a mole or something and was playing with its food! Wah la....Leaping Fox Vineyard. Just in case you were wondering. -s

Winter 2008 and the Vineyard

2008-02-29T13:53:00.000-08:00

It's farming. Nothing goes on in the winter right? Wrong! I've been spending what little free time I've had, away from the studio and either working in the vineyard or doing vineyard related things. As much as I would prefer being at the beach and diving, I've been suiting up in the ole trusty Carhart's (and yes, it is quite a fashion statement!) and clearing tree-lines, building fences, augering fence posts, and carrying lumber around the property. Sounds like fun right? At one point I did start to question if I was doing the right thing- I mean, doing all the work myself. Upon running the numbers this morning, yup, very glad that I'm doing things myself. We're coming in under budget and I'm THRILLED! So, where're we at?

Trellis + fence! The order came! That was about where the excitement ended. I guess I really should have asked them to bring a forklift as well. Nobody died, that was the good thing. I did however probably kill my tractor and my nerves trying to unload almost 9,000 board feet of lumber from a flatbed. Seriously, there's nothing wrong with a semi, sitting in your frozen field, full of lumberwhile the frozen earth begins to warm, slowly sucking the semi's tires into the earth. If it had taken an extra half hour we would have had to bring a wrecker as well. Eeek. Oh yeah, and to the lady driving the Mercedes on Pageland Lane that morning who, while the semi was taking a wide turn into the driveway, decided that she would cut it off on the inside at top speed.... I truly hope you never run into a trucker like this again who isn't quick on the brakes. You should have died and it would have been all your own fault. F U mercedes lady.

So, to date I've put in a bit over 250 posts, 79 end posts (8-9" X 8'), and around 30 (4" X 10') posts for the deer fence. I figure I still have around 200 more posts to go. We changed the original layout of the deer fence line to encompass more of the surrounding area around the house. This will eliminate running deer fence through the backyard and takes greater advantage of the existing property fence line. This also means that plant and flower borders around the house itself will be protected. Um, or that's what's supposed to happen. The deer have come back with a vengeance now that deer season is over and the fields are full of lovely treats for Elsa and Nadia to eat. Shiny coats and all that! Now, as part of the fence changes- I have yet another 300+ feet of three-board fence to do to fully enclose the property. I've purposely made this fence a bit higher than normal and the jury is out on whether or not I will need to add a hot wire to the top and bottom of the fence for critter control. For those looking for supplies- all the trellis posts came from ACME lumber out in WV. I HIGHLY recommend calling them. Their prices were super cheap even compared to the Farm Co-op.

Deerbusters! Public enemy #1....."the deer". I placed an order today with Deerbusters.com for, what I hope to be, all my deer fence needs. 1900' of extra-strength 7.5' tall deer fence, a couple of gates and all the extra little bits to get it all attached. I've heard that this can be a hit or miss project so I'll let you know how it goes.

Vines. I had a heart stopping phone call from Ute at Grafted Grapevines up in NY. Seems that due to the extreme heat last year and a problem with their irrigation that they had trouble with their Viognier #1's that we ordered. For a brief moment there I thought that we wouldn't have any Viognier at all this year. Phewww. She apologized and said that she could accommodate our order but would have to use #2's instead. Though we would have preferred the #1's to get a bit more of a growth headstart, by all accounts her #2 vines are fantastic and she cut us a break on pricing.

Nadia. 33+ lbs now. She's going to be a big girl and is nothing short of "tank-linke" in her approach to things. If dad's in the vineyard, then she's right there as well! Elsa prefers the couch in front of the tv!

The Viognier section with trellis posts

Truck o' wood

Nadia keeps an eye on her sister!

Vineyard, Fools and Horses, The Speaks!

2007-12-04T05:57:00.000-08:00

Winter's just about here. 50 mph gusts and a call for snow. As reluctant as I am to stop working outside, I'm not crazy. I'm impatient. I know that I don't really need to get everything done for the vineyard until next year but I'd almost rather get it done now than to worry about it in the spring. I still have a tremendous amount of clearing to do around the tree-line in order to get the deer fence in. I've already pulled 4 trailer loads of vines, briars and barbed wire out of the fence line and fear that I may have another 10 or so ahead of me. This is gonna be a hell-uva bonfire!

Drilling holes for the line posts has also begun. The original plan was to wait until planting time, take the tractor and auger and drill all the holes for the line posts AND the vines at the same time. I still think that it's a good idea but it feels almost overkill doing it with the tractor. The current thinking is that if I can start getting line posts and, more importantly, end posts and anchors installed that it will allow them to settle into the ground a bit before they really need to support any weight. Probably doesn't matter at all, right? Now if I can just find a place that will deliver a combined 800+ posts I'll be in business! Free would be awesome too!!!

Now that it's getting cold again I'm heading back into the studio for a number of projects over the next few months. First I'm in with the great "Fools and Horses" from Baltimore. I love these guys. Our last time in yielded three songs that I'm very proud of and I've got high hopes for this next batch of tunes! Also, "The Speaks" record that I just produced is being released this friday with a special show at the State Theater! Should be an amazing show!

Tilled and Ripped!

2007-11-26T11:48:00.001-08:00

Finally! I'm just about done with my tractor time for the year. It's starting to get cold out and sitting on a tractor in a nice breeze with temps somewhere between 35 and 45 is not my ideal cup of tea. I've measured and marked and remeasured and remarked a million times to find enough space for the vines that were ordered. I begrudgingly called one of the vine suppliers to ask if we could change our order and they were happy to do so. Doing so would have meant me being defeated by our space limitations and I'm a stubborn bastard! I have officially managed to till enough space for 1,000 Vidal Blanc vines and 1,400 Viognier vines!! The next step will be working on getting the deer fence marked and installed. I'm going to try and follow as much of the existing fence line and possibly use the original barbed wire posts so I can preserve as much of the interior property as possible. The only issue with this is that there is a ton of undergrowth on the perimeter, old rusted barbed wire and a number of trees that will need to be trimmed. Looks like I have my winter work cut out! As we marked out the fence lines, we found a space that could be used as a vegetable garden without having to do a separate garden area on the property. We can enclose it within the vineyard fence. Ahh, life is good when things are easy! Speaking of easy! I want to thank Jim over at Hartwood Winery for his generous offer of free Blue-X grow tubes. He had posted on the Virginia Vineyard Association website about having some grow tubes that he wanted to get rid of. We took a nice 45 minute drive out to the vineyard and low and behold- grow tubes!!! I do believe there are a few more than the "couple hundred" that he had listed! I'll head back out this week and pick up the rest. It's a great drive and Jim's a fantastic person to talk to so grow tubes or not, it'll be a good day! Now if I could just find another couple thousand of free tubes! ha!

Vineyard: The Beginning

2007-11-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

I had this nice long article about "ripping" the fields and working with the sub-soiler, talked about our vineyard consultant, and so on but for some reason the post was lost within Blogger and I'm not really in the mindset to recreate the post again! Summary: I spent a good deal of saturday and sunday creating the rows that will eventually make up our small (2 acre) vineyard. This process utilized our 30hp Kubota tractor and a "sub-soiler"

that I purchased over at Tractor Supply. The sub-soiler basically "rips" the top 12-14" of soil (hardpan) giving young new roots an advantage to dig down into the soil. I was a little nervous at first, crossing my fingers that I wouldn't hit rock and that the soil would give to the tractor/sub-soiler combo. End result- no problems what-so-ever and now we're on to the next phase. I believe we're going to till over top of what has been ripped and I'm going to start digging holes for deer fence and trellis systems. I'll post a total count needed but I'm estimating somewhere in the 500+ range. This world is so much different than my "rock" world in the studio but it's a nice release and clears my head in between projects! More later- got a gassy puppy sleeping next to me!

Birthday Eve....11-16-07

2007-11-16T15:42:00.001-08:00

I'm sitting here contemplating my birthday, not really, but I am thinking.. "hmmm, maybe I am starting to grow up..". I'm starting to do grown up things like vacations with groups of people instead of a weekend at Ocean City with crazy friends, wine dinners instead of beer and ballgames, and tracking stocks over viewing porn. Well, ok, not all the time! I do like what my life has become but it's a strange stage to go through. I went to a "grown up social event" last nite and it was interesting to be taken seriously. As if I have anything relevant to say. When I'm looking around the room and realize that I'm the youngest in the immediate vicinity and everyone else has a title prefacing their name but yet they are still interested in what I'm saying....hmmm, kind of twilight zone'ish! Mayor, Dean, Doctor, Father......weird. Cool. Weird.

Ah, speaking of "father".....I got a call from Jodi who was at the vet with Elsa the other day. All I heard were the words "could you come down here"... Regardless of her saying "it's not serious"...doesn't matter. Thats my little girl who may be in trouble! So I arrive at the vet and suspiciously everything looks fine... in fact, it looks so fine that they are playing with a ...... puppy?In fact that puppy is now asleep on my foot at home while I'm doing this blog. Do evenings get any better? Fireplace is rocking, Johnny Dangerously is on the tele, giant glass of white wine and a small dog sleeping on my giant foot! Ladies and gentleman, let me present....um, er, puppy? Got any recommendations? Sasha is currently the #1 name on the list! Send me some thoughts!

Riviera Maya, Mexico

2007-11-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Ah...Mexico! My vacation officially starts today even though we've been here for 5 days now! I've spent the last 3 full days studying and diving, doing something that I never really thought that I would do- getting my dive certification! It put a damper on my drinking agenda and my night hours but totally fulfilling! So far I've made 4 ocean dives spending a little over 3 hours on the bottom! What a cool, other world! I wish I had an underwater camera! The book studies sucked- not difficult, just a lot of information thrown at you in between dives, dinners at the resort, etc. Lots to remember and multiple written tests to go along with it. (4 main tests of 10 questions and then a 50 question final exam). Of course the tests are setup so that if you fail by a certain number then you can't dive, need to study more, and then take additional tests. I didn't really want to do that so somehow I stumbled through and managed to get 47 of 50 right! woot! I'm taking today off and staying off the bottom but I believe Mark, Dave and Eric and I are doing a night dive tomorrow- it's supposed to be pretty spectacular as that's when things like Octopus come out. To date I've seen a million fish, a couple of sea turtles, rays, lobster, moray eels, and copulating flounders. So cool!

We're staying at the Aventura Spa Resort in Riviera Maya Mexico. The resort is very nice, service impeccable, food.... eh, booze.. lovely and accomodations and spa are fantastic! As far as I'm concerned, any place that has bottles of liquor mounted to your bedroom wall, delivers 24 hour room service, champagne and bottles of bailey's to your room is just fine with me. Of course, its all included so hey- I'm fine with abusing the system! Well, enough sitting in the room- time for me to head out to the gym and then maybe a stop in the hydrotherapy spa. Life's tough right? Hmm, do I have the champagne and orange juice or the mudslide on the way over to the gym? Decisions, decisions, decisions..... :)

Here's a link to the dive shop and the god folks over there! Dive Aventuras

Vacation- Mexico 2007!

2007-10-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm laying here, actually excited to head out on another flight! You would think that the 20+ hours that I spent flying the other week would have taken it out of me but man, I'm really looking forward to a vacation! All inclusive, adults only...Mexico. This makes me happy. So does the upside down dog snoring at my feet. It just makes me smile. What makes it all sweeter is this morning was the first frost- the first cold and it was friggin cold this morning. This time tomorrow I will be strapping on scuba gear and trying not to drown! Deep breath, deep breath! Ok, I'm gonna finish this strapping glass of wine and begin putting all of this weeks frustrations behind me.........

Bahrain? WTF?

2007-10-11T00:39:00.000-07:00

so, we're still in diego garcia. i'll go into more details later. yesterday was a marathon 24 hours of sleep deprivation- part fun, part not. tuna fishing in the morning, massage in the afternoon, show in the evening and then a "BTW, you guys are leaving tonite instead of on friday".... huh? why's that? here's where it gets fun..... diego is a military access location...only. no commercial flights which means that you are limited to military transport planes and when they make it in (or out). as we all know, these flights can change at a moments notice. at 4:30 in the morning, as we're sitting around waiting to board our bus at the flight line (having already been at the airport for 4+ hours) it was announced that our flight was cancelled and the next flight out wasn't until the 18th. HUH? the only other flight that was leaving was a flight headed to Norfolk, VA by way of Bahrain....another HUH? yes, we could actually get home early but we would be travelling for 48 hours with stops in Bahrain, Ireland, Italy, Greece and so on. sounds like a blast on a vacation with a loved one but not under these circumstances! so here we are at the airport...no idea when we are leaving, no idea where we are staying, trying to coordinate things with our POC in Hawaii. at 5 am we finally get back to the rooms that we had already checked out of, catch a couple hours of sleep and get up to a gorgeous day. once again, things have changed during the 3 hours that we are asleep. we are once again bound for singapore later tonite, and once again get to spend a wonderful night at the airport, waiting to see if we are indeed leaving. (airstrip at 6 pm, attempted flight at 1:30 am) i love my job.... i love my job.... i love my job.....

Bound for Diego!

2007-10-08T01:26:00.000-07:00

Here we are- a little late on the blog action but trying to catch up where I can. We've been in Singapore for just under 24 hours and are waiting to board a cargo plane bound for a tiny little island called "Diego Garcia". Apparently it's british owned but essentially rented by the US military. The only access to the island is military ship or plane. Outside of that we hear that the food is good (we've eaten crap the entire tour), the fishing is fantastic, and there is a fairly famous trans-sexual named Yum-Yum that we've been hearing about since Japan. I guess you're doing something right when we start hearing about you and you're still 11 hours away by plane. (7 from Japan to Singapore and 4 from Sing to DG). I think we're all looking forward to this stop- not because it'll be exciting but because it will be the complete opposite. A little downtime on a hectic trip is rewarding.

So what else have we missed? We had a number of shows in Japan that were, for lack of better words, lightly attended. Japan bases have a tendency to be fairly large, and there's a ton to do throughout the country. The last thing a lot of these folks want to do is hang out on base and see a band. Its the equivalent of staying home at your parents house and drinking with mom and dad. Doable in a pinch but its much cooler to be.... anywhere. I don't blame the soldiers at all- AFE is doing what they can to bring morale support to the bases but what can you do?

They're calling are flight! Back when I can! (with pictures!)- s

Fuji to Yokota and back again!

2007-10-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly I feel pretty good. I made myself get some sleep last night though I did wake up every couple of hours to check the clock and watch bad TV. We have a 10AM lobby call at Fuji and we are heading to Yokota Air Base to go pick up back-line and PA for our dates here in Japan. This mean breakfast with Spike. If last time was any indicator then it means we’ll be dining at McDonald’s. Odd? Not really. They are everywhere here. It kind of takes away from the sexiness of being away from home and in a beautiful foreign land. “Look, there’s a beautiful pagoda and a..... mcdonald’s.” I’d love to have made it over to the base chow hall and loaded up on a good breakfast but when the morning grub line ends at 7:30 in the morning, chances are you’re not going to see me over there!

We Have Arrived! Welcome Narita Japan!

2007-10-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

We’ve landed! Probably one of the more painless flights I’ve ever been on, and well, maybe one of the drunker. (though nothing compares to the JAPAN to GUAM flight with Plunge last year!). The Ketel, Jack, Bailey’s and red wine goulash rolling around in my stomach is just feeling lovely right now. I’ve started to get to know the guys and this is going to be a good tour. It’s a little strange to pack up, head to asia, and put your life on hold for a couple of weeks with a band that you’ve never met but that’s part of the adventure right? I’m sure they’re a little weirded out as well seeing as they’ve brought me along for the ride with no idea if I’m going to fit into their family. Little do they know how much of a pain in the ass I am! ha! After getting disembarking from the place we rocked through customs and grabbed the gear. So nice not to have a million things with us like on the Plunge tour. We were able to secure backline and PA in each country so we’re actually traveling very light. We were met at Narita Airport by our coordinator “Spike”. What a funny dude- I met him last year and well, he’s the same! We’re presently on our bus headed to FUJI, Japan and the marine base there. To get there, we’re rolling through Tokyo and the downtown area. I’m not sure why but there’s some crazy thing with massive ferris wheels here. They jut into the sky from a number of locations and they’ve turned them into these massive color wheels complete with spectacular light shows! We just passed Disneyland. Last time I was here it was too fogged in to see anything on the drive to FUJI. I’m out- too much cool stuff to check out!

Scott Gets On A Plane

2007-10-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

They’re late. I don’t know if they are coming. Is that them? I hope not. I don’t want them to come. “Ladies and gentleman, we’re closing the doors and preparing to leave for Narita, Japan”. Are you kidding? I’m flying 6,000 + miles and there is no one sitting next to me? Ridiculously cool! I guess sacrificing that live chicken this morning really did do wonders!!!! (jk..no chickens actually lost their lives for me to travel comfortably). Having changed my seat from a middle seat upon arrival in Chicago I’m pleasantly surprised by this amazing turn of events! Not so sure the band is thrilled as I could swear that the three sitting together are bookended by monks. Not that that’s a bad thing, it’s just how often to you find yourself in a monk sandwich on a flight to Japan? Hopefully the graciously intoxicating flight attendant that I’ve had is taking care of them as she has me. Up at 4 AM, a rather uneventful flight to Chicago (minus the idiotic woman who’s headphones weren’t working so she solved this by turning up the volume at her seat so it would come blasting through the little tiny port on her armrest, sharing the soothing sounds of steve winwood with the rest of the plane. BTW, steve winwood, i hate you.) I finally met the band at a stop over in Chicago, a couple of quick rounds at the bar before boarding and now I’m into my 3rd double Jack Daniels and coke onboard the plane. I think I’m going to enjoy this flight! The setup for a trip like this is still somewhat stressful but its slowly starting to fade. The projects that I crammed to make good before I left, the negotiations on selling the studio + house, the leaving of loved ones.....its all starting to settle into the “out of my hands” category now. I got on the plane and we took off, not much I can do about it now. Well, I’m off to continue my quest for Jack Daniel’s and catching up on bad movies. It looks promising....Diehard and Ocean’s 13 are coming up. Cheers!