More Books

It's not often I abandon a book half way through but Steve Job's biography is one.
It is an interesting enough history of Apple but the repetitive description of Job's manic and self obsessed behavior wears a little thin after a few hundred pages.

                         "Flight 32" is the absorbing story of a QANTAS Airbus A380 flight from Singapore to Sydney that suffered an almost catastrophic engine explosion a few minutes after departure.
Written by the flight's captain, it is a detailed story of how the crew kept the plane in the air and eventually landed safely without injury to anyone on board. Some people on the ground in Indonesia were hurt by falling debris.
It will either put you off flying for life or give you additional confidence in the air crews who pilot us around the world, usually without incident, on a daily basis.
It has a six degrees of separation element for us. Stirl's nephew was cabin crew on that flight. A little known fact is that after a few days rest and recovery in Singapore, the crew was put on another flight which also had to return to Singapore with mechanical problems.
The nephew is still flying.

George Smith is one of Australia's all time great Rugby players.
He played 110 times for his country as well as numerous Super Rugby games for the Canberra Brumbies.
Raised in a large Tongan family on the northern beaches of Sydney, he had a checked youth, falling in with the wrong crowd and getting expelled from school.
But Rugby saved him from an uncertain future.
An interesting biography from a social and sporting point of view but really one for the Rugby tragic only, one of whom resides in this house.

"Revolutionaries" is a detailed account of both the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War concentrating on those who went into battle, those who kept the country running during the conflict and drew up the states' and national constitutions (and subsequent amendments), the diplomats seeking foreign support abroad, the treaty makers and those who took up the challenges, political, social and economic, of making a success out of a newly formed nation.
A lot of well known names and some not so well known. For a change this book delves into their personalities, motivations and private lives, not just their actions.
Hard going in a lot of places, especially when it comes to constitutional matters, but rewarding in the end.
Definitely one for American history buffs only.

My daughter bought me a Kindle for my birthday.
Takes a bit of getting used to but I am warming to it.
Lots of free books available as well as latest releases.
We buy most of our books from Amazon USA and even with freight added they are about 50% of the prices in Australian book stores.

So with a book being downloaded within a few seconds, we will now be saving the freight costs.
The upshot of all this is my 'reviews' may now be minus a cover shot although I have a lot of real books stacked up to read. Hopefully I can work my way through them all during summer.

Calves! And More Calves

Obviously the bull we sold back in June had had one last fling with his girls.
The first calf appeared a few weeks ago.
And then another a little later.
And one last week.
Last night we had two.
One of those had to be helped a little. It was the mother's first and she was struggling a bit.
Neighbour Bob (a cow man from way back) thought it was good idea to do 'a pull'.
So we did.

A bit of a struggle at first but finally with our help she pushed out a very healthy looking bull calf.
Mother was exhausted and it took some expert wrangling to get her to her feet. Bob could also be a rodeo star!
Another one born a week or so ago wasn't looking that good so we have kept her and her mother up around the house paddock to could keep an eye on her. The two have bonded well and now the calf seems to be out of the woods.

Neighbour Bob has been promoted to Doctor Bob......for a little while anyway.
We wish him well with his horse which is racing today up at Nowra as part of the Australia wide racing carnival based around the Melbourne Cup, a famous race run on the first Tuesday of November at the Flemington racecourse. Today is the 152nd time the race has been run.
And seeing we have just touched on gambling, the Oz Lotto draw tonight is worth $100 million.
You have to be in it to win it!
7th November Update: Bob's horse ran 6th. So it's back to Seldom Winning Trainer Bob. The Melbourne Cup was won by 19-1 outsider Green Moon.
And the $100 million OzLotto was shared between four. Sadly, we weren't one of those.

Sculpture by the Sea

There is a wonderful walk along the coast line of Sydney's eastern suburbs from southern Bondi Beach to Coogee and on to Maroubra
The first part covers about 6 km and winds its way around rugged headlands, down to some of the city surf  beaches and past some of the most expensive real estate in the world.
You can stop for a coffee or a meal at the many beach side restaurants, cool off with a swim in the surf or an ocean pool or just sit and people watch.

Every year on the Bondi to Tamarama section they hold a 'Sculpture by the Sea' exhibition.
It is very popular and gets really crowded especially at weekends.
We had to go to Sydney for an overnighter and decided to see if the parking fairy would be with us in the area.
We were in luck! We managed a spot just a short walk away.

Bondi Beach from Marks Park

It was a perfect day with the crowd at a minimum, the sea blue as blue and the sun shining in a cloudless sky.
Really the star of the show is the walk itself but some of the work on display was interesting.
Our favourite was a collection of 222 bamboo poles with wind driven fans on top. These were attached to a clapper which hit the poles, each of which had been cut to a certain length, to produce a different tone.
It is a memorial to the 222 victims of the two Bali bombings nearly a decade ago.
The stiff northerly breeze produced waves of Indonesian sound and it was a weird sensation to walk through.

A close second for me was a man made completely out of staples.
We spend a couple of hours there enjoying the view and starting our summer tan.

Refrigeration in the Wine Industry

No, not getting the bottle of white wine cold before drinking but keeping the juice (must) and wine cool during the production process ie. grape delivery, crushing, fermentation, pressing, transfer, storage.
Modern wineries use refrigeration units to keep their white fermenting musts cool.
This encourages desirable aroma and flavour compounds. The target is usually between 10°C and 16°C.
The temperature of grapes coming in from the vineyard during harvest in summer can be a lot higher than this, so cooling is almost always necessary.
But what about the more primitive 'Vin de Garage' operations like mine?
How do I keep the ferment cool without going to a huge (and unwarranted) equipment expenditure?
Adding dry ice has been suggested. This would have the additional advantage of adding carbon dioxide as an oxidizing protectant but it always involve the danger of taste taint and it is not the safest thing to handle (burns and asphyxiation).
Putting a small tank inside a larger one and filling the void with an ice or ice/salt mix has been suggested together with insulating the outside tank with a flexible foam sleeve. Logistically all possible but no real temperature control.
Adding ice in containers to the actual must is another suggestion. This could be viable as long as the containers were sanitized and secure so any melt water did not get into the wine.
Searching on the net I found plenty of information on the affects of ice addition to water and the resultant cooling affect.
One formula was able to calculate final temperature based on original weight and temperature of water and weight of ice added.

I decided to test this out. So I added a specific amount of ice (1000g) contained in a sealed mineral water bottle to a specified amount of water (6000g) and noted the temperature drop. It fell 6°C in one hour and remained there for about 3 hours before starting to rise.
The result was considerably higher than the formula predicted . I guess ambient conditions were to blame.
However this method is indeed worth pursuing and I will try a full scale experiment with water in a wine tank soon.
Temperature could be adjusted by the addition and removal of bottles. Maintenance of the required temperature would depend on the number of bottles required. That is the great unknown at this stage.

An Unseasonal Weather Event

We had 24 hours warning that an intense low pressure system was forming off the coast and that there would be torrential rain and gale force winds.
So we spent the day battening down, cleaning out gutters and putting things away.
And wooooosh......... in it came!
Over 300mm (12inches) of rain in 36 hours accompanied by 95km/hr wind gusts.
In a tropical zone it would have been a category 1 cyclone (hurricane).
Our creek soon broke its banks and flooded the bottom paddock. Some trees came down.
The surf was huge.
Up in the mountains there was snow down to 700m. Some roads were closed.
But it went as quickly as it came.
And amongst it all a new calf was welcomed into the world. Mother and son are both doing well.
Back to typical spring weather now, sunny, warm and humid.
It's a bit soggy around here but won't take long to dry out.

                    
                      All the grapes needed respraying after all the rain including the Cabernet Sauvignon for the first time.
Again with copper and sulphur but this time with a downy mildew curative in combination just in case.
I use phosphorous acid (Agri-fos 6oo) as a downy mildew curative. It is the world’s only fully systemic downy fungicide, moving easily up and down in the vascular fluid of the vine after rapidly moving away from sprayed tissue.
PA is usually not used in commercial vineyards which export wine. Most countries have a strict MRL (maximum residue limit) which can be met with proper applications but both China and Canada have a no tolerance level. Keeping grapes separate for different wine export markets is almost impossible so it's easier not to apply the chemical at all.
It's a very effective fungicide and the Australian wine industry is working with both countries to have reasonable MRLs introduced. I believe they are making some headway.

Even More Spring Flowers

Nashi

Bottlebrush

Apple

Wisteria

Peach

Pear

Waratahs

There are four species of Waratah. They belong to the Proteaceae family which is a group of flowering plants found in the southern hemisphere. Members of that family native to Australia include Banksias, Grevilleas and the Macadamia nut.
The Protea from South Africa is also a member.
The best known Waratah is probably Telopia speciosissima which is the state flower of New South Wales.

                  They grow wild on 3m high shrubs with typical leathery leaves in the sand stone gullies around Sydney.
They are very sought after as cut flowers with prices reaching $20 a stem.
For that reason, they are now hard to find in the wild due to poaching. Even plants growing in private gardens have flowers stolen off them.
Stealing flowers in the wild threatens the survival of some populations. If Waratahs are torn off, they will not flower through the next season and seeds are prevented from returning to the bushland, They take five years to flower from seedlings. The species has already disappeared from some of the more 'rural' suburbs.

Our vineyard friends down the road have one shrub. This year it has been flowering profusely.
Telopia means 'seen from afar' and speciosissima means 'beautiful'.

Vintage 2013 Continues

Warm weather and some sporadic rain have encouraged pretty rapid shoot growth of the Pinot Noir.
In viticulture talk it had reached growth stage E-L 12 ie. five to six leaves unfolded with inflorescence clearly visible.
The E-L system designates the phenological stages of grapevine development described by Eichhorn and Lorenz and there are 47 of them.
A simpler system is the modified Baggiolini one which is limited to 15 stages ie. A to O.
In that case the Pinot Noir was at F
It was time for the first spraying.
In my opinion it is essential in the early stages of growth to protect the vines from both downy and powdery mildew, especially in a warm maritime climate like ours.
Then again there is another school of thought that believes only curative sprays should be applied ie. spray only after a weather event that would be conducive to the development of those diseases. However while there are suitable curative sprays for downy mildew, there are none that are really effective for powdery mildew.
After last year's disaster with a modified version of a curative spray program, it was a no brainer to apply protective sprays this season.

Against downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola), I use the copper based spray copper oxychloride. The dried copper spray droplets sit on the leaf surface and slowly release a supply of cupric ions.
These are picked up by the fungus spores and travel through their cell walls to eventually disrupt cellular enzyme activity. Copper sprays are not systemic ie. they don't get into the plant's sap system and get translocated around the plant. They are surface sprays. Droplets remain static so as the vine grows, additional sprays must be applied to protect new growth as well as replenishing the already sprayed areas. Under normal circumstances this is done approximately every two weeks. Rain events shorten the spray intervals.
Against powdery mildew (Uncinula necator), I use a micronised wettable sulphur powder.
Despite sulphur usage dating back some 180 years the mode of action still remains unclear.
Actual contact of the sulfur particle with the fungus is necessary before fungicidal action can occur. There is some debate as to whether vapour inhibits spore germination. The jury is still out on that one.

                      A sulphur spray forms a protective barrier on the plant surfaces. This barrier kills fungi by interfering with cellular respiration preventing it from accumulating the materials and energy it needs to survive.
Sulphur also keeps the vines clear of blister mites (Colomerus vitis). Although I have never seen them here, they are in the area.
Blister mites feed on the under-surface of leaves and cause very obvious blisters on the upper surface of leaves and white or brown hairy growths within the raised blisters on the lower surface of leaves.
Damage by the mite is more unsightly than economically consequential.
As with copper, sulphur sprays need to be reapplied on a regular basis.
Both copper and sulphur can be mixed and applied at the same time.
A little care has to be taken with sulphur sprays. Application at temperatures above 30C and high humidity can lead to phytotoxicity problems on young growth.
As far as shoot development is concerned, the Semillon is a little behind the Pinot Noir and the Tempranillo slightly behind the Semillon.
We are just now getting Cabernet Sauvignon bud burst.

Pikes Wines Come to Town

A few years ago we visited the Clare Valley in South Australia and enjoyed the wines there.
The Clare is a cool climate area and is famous for its white wines, especially Riesling.
One of the wineries that took our fancy was Pikes. While there we joined their wine club to take advantage of specials offered during the year together with free freight and have been buying their Rieslings, including some excellent clean skins, and Pinot Gris ever since.
To celebrate the release of their 2012 wines they took their tasting room 'on the road' and we were invited to join them at Revisi's Hotel at Sydney's famous Bondi Beach.

It was a nice venue and I guess around 50 people turned up to taste the new vintage whites as well as some older wines including their reserve reds.
And they served some pretty good canapes during the night as well.
The 2012 "Traditionale" Riesling was of the usual high standard. The reserve "Merle" Riesling, while typically steely dry, seemed to lack something on the middle palate compared to previous years. But this is a very young wine just out of the tank and initial impressions can be deceiving.
The Pinot Gris was also of high standard.

             We have never ventured much into Pike's range of reds although the Clare can produce some good ones as we found out on our 2010 trip.
We thought the reserve Sangiovese and Shiraz particularly tempting and with the rather large discount and free delivery on offer for this night only, we succumbed to ordering a few bottles.
I am happy to say that my wine budget so far this year has not been exceeded.
Am still well within my end 2019 limit.

Some Occupational Hazards of the Vineyard

Working in and around the vineyard can have its wildlife problems.
I am ever on the watch for snakes. There are red belly blacks around and while quite timid they can become aggressive when cornered or trodden on early in the season when they are a bit slow getting out of the way.
We had the first of the season in our back yard the other morning, a big one, about 2m long. A bite from them is an immediate emergency drive to the hospital.
Also ticks, leeches and wasps can be a bit of a nuisance.
It's only when you are doing some digging that another danger becomes apparent.

                     I found a suspicious hole the other day when doing some remedial work on the post stays and poured some dilute acid down. This morning I found a dead spider by the hole.
It was either the really venomous funnel web spider or perhaps a mouse spider. It's hard to tell the difference.
Both can give you a nasty bite and the funnel web is renowned for its highly toxic and fast acting venom.

The male of Atrax robustus, the Sydney Funnel-web Spider, is probably responsible for all recorded deaths (13) and many medically serious bites. However no deaths have been recorded since the introduction of an anti venom in 1981. In the picture below you can see the quite large fangs.

Some mouse spiders have a very toxic venom too and a bite can be potentially as dangerous as that of the funnel web. Fortunately funnel-web spider anti venom has proven effective in cases of mouse spider bite.
We are aware that the antivenin is carried by our local hospital.
A further inspection found a few more holes around the place so really it is a matter now of being a little bit vigilant and wearing gloves when working around the places where they may live.

Bud Burst / Vintage 2013 Begins

With Spring in the air the early grape varieties have stirred into action.
Bud swell (woolly bud) is the first thing you notice and then bud burst.
The Pinot Noir is followed by the Semillon with the Tempranillo close behind.
The later variety Cabernet Sauvignon is a few weeks behind those.
Over the years this event  has been getting earlier and earlier.

 

I estimate that in the 15 years I have grapes in the ground, bud burst is now 3 weeks earlier than  it originally was ie.irrefutable evidence of climate change.
September is usually our windiest month. The westerlies can howl for days on end. Father's Day 2010 was the worst we have had with gusts up to 120km/hr.
This year however is not far behind. One week in and we have had days where winds have gusted to 70km/hr plus.
This can damage or blow the new shoots right off the vine.

But so far so good.
When the shoots are around 10cm long it will be time for the first fungicide spray.
Then the work will start in earnest.

More Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring

A Fishing Trip to Narooma

The co driver had a quilting class in Moruya about an hour’s drive south so, after dropping her off, I continued on for another 45 minutes to Narooma to do a bit of fishing.
It turned out to be a pretty nasty day with a cold howling southerly wind so, looking for some protection from the elements, I headed down to the small harbour.

 Narooma sits at the entrance to Wagonga Inlet which now empties into the sea through a man made breakwater. The bar is notorious for boating accidents and this day it was in full flight with huge waves crashing over it. No one would be heading out to sea this day except maybe for Marine Rescue.
The view from the end of the breakwater along the rugged coast was quite beautiful despite the bad conditions.

Out to sea, about 8km offshore, is Montague Island.
This is a unique NSW south coast destination being a nature reserve which is accessible only by boat for day tours or for an overnight stay in the island's accommodation in the restored lighthouse keepers quarters.
The island lies within the Batemans Marine Park and features thousands of years of ongoing Aboriginal heritage and over 125 years of lighthouse history.

The lighthouse was built in 1881 and automated in 1986 and then demanned in 1987. It is 21 metres tall and the light is 80 metres above sea level with a nominal range of 20 nautical miles (37 km)
It has the state’s largest little penguin colony, approximately 12,000, as well as a fur seal colony. The seasonably variable wildlife includes Crested Terns and Shearwaters (mutton birds).
Obviously the rough conditions had upset the local seals. There were a few splashing about in the relative calmness behind the sea wall and one was even asleep on the rocks.

I headed back to the wharf and spent a few hours casting into the boat channel.
Suddenly my line went taught and it took some effort to reel it in. But it was deadweight. Seaweed or a snag of some sort I thought.
But no, it was huge red octopus!
I had no chance with the light gear I was using to get it up onto the wharf so thought I might have to cut the line. Finally after quite a struggle with much squirting of water and black ink, he managed to get himself free.
So it was sausages for dinner, not calamari.

The Olympic Games Wrap Up

Well, it's all over!
Two weeks of great sport, a few upsets, the usual controversy and, as always, a little bit of scandal.
London did a great job and thankfully the English summer didn't live up to its reputation.
Our satellite television coverage could not be faulted. Every sport, every heat and final, every medal presentation covered over eight channels. For us the action was live throughout the night and into the early morning due to the 9 hour time difference with replays during the day.
Despite all good intentions we did not manage one overnighter. We are getting old!
My favourite moments?
Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter burning up the track in the 100m, 200m and 4 x100m relay, the latter in world record time.
Kenya's David Rudisha's 800m win in world record time dragging everyone behind him in the race to personal bests and national records.
USA swimmer Michael Phelp's four golds and two silvers in the pool to add to his previous impressive collection.
Australian junior athlete Steven Solomon, controversially picked to run the 400m over more fancied runners who qualified for both semi final and final with personal best times. One to watch for the future.

Australia did not do as well as expected. We really never do. Fifteen gold were predicted but that was always a big ask.
We ended up with 7 gold, 16 sliver and 12 bronze medals and number 10 in the rankings.
We always have high hopes for many athletes and somehow take it personally when they don't perform.
But this time round, the media really got stuck into many of them.
For some reason 'A Silver' was considered a failure. It was obvious from many comments that the general public did not share this view.
It took our long jumper, Mitchell Watt, a silver medal winner to give the media a bit of a serve about their attitude.
So now we wait on the dust to settle and the inevitable post mortems.
But for me it's what happens on the track, in the pool, on the field etc. that counts, not the bean counters' performance analysis.
Only another four years to go until Rio!
Can't wait!

August Update

Life as we know it has come to a bit of a standstill. Over the next two weeks we will become nocturnal beings glued to the television for all the excitement of the Olympic Games in London.
But we have worked extremely hard over the last month getting things on the farm in order so we could take some time off.
The spray program against the bracken seems to have gone well with huge amounts dying off over the last few months.

Because of our late nights we needed extra firewood so we have been attacking some of the larger fallen trees around the place.
Cutting it up with the chain saw is an easy job but splitting it into usable size is a harder one.
I am well supervised by the co driver who obviously has inherited some lumberjack skills from somewhere and is sensitive to the dangers of dealing with big trees, even those lying on the ground.
Suffice to say that one did roll suddenly (luckily away from me) during the cutting so her concern is justified.

We also revamped the Pinot Noir vineyard. The initial netting height was too low making it uncomfortable to work under and somewhat limiting the growth of the vines. It was also in two pieces which meant constant repair work along the seam.

So with the help of Stirls, we took off all the old (and rotting) netting, put in higher stakes and threw one piece of 10m wide netting to cover the whole area. Now we can work in comfort and the vines will be able to grow longer shoots ie. extra leaves, to improve their fruit ripening capability.

 Stirls also helped in the clean up/burn off which gets rid of all the non usable fallen timber and is part of a bush fire prevention tactic recommended by the authorities. This is a huge job and he will be back soon to continue. We need to do as much as we can before fire restrictions come back on on the 1st October.
And last but not least, the vegetable garden has been dismantled and will be left to return to grass. I managed to salvage a lot of star pickets during this exercise despite it meaning a lot of extra work. But as my father used to say "many a mickle makes a muckle". 
Phew! Enough work already!
Where is the remote?