Anomaly Vineyards

Seems I had the same title on a post back in March, 2005, and about the same thing - weather. And here are are again! Talking weather - but it's mid-May and itt's been raining. We had temperatures in the 90s Monday - Wednesday - so hot it was hard to sleep, then on Thursday it actually had the nerve to rain! Not drizzle, mind you, rain. Umbrella opening, hat wearing, coat-donning, rain. We had the air conditioning going all day and night earlier in the week, and the past two days we've turned the heat on in the house. But what goes on in the house is less concerning than what goes on in the vineyard (most of the time, anyway!). Our little clusters on the grapevines are beginning to loosen up a tad, meaning that flowering is impending. Although what you see now on the vines look like miniature grapes, they are actually the pre-cursor. These little clusters will turn into tiny flower blossoms that will pollinate and then set the stage for the grapes they will eventually turn into. So far, so good, but I read in the local paper that the weather predictors (and we know they're always right) are hinting that there is a possibility of a system in ithe Gulf of Mexico that we will need to keep our eyes on around the beginning of June (just about when we will begin to see flowering of the cabernet vines here in the Valley). So tune in and, of course, Chantico.