 If you have been around for awhile, you know that we moved from Alabama a little over 5 years ago. We left a very comfortable lifestyle (thanks to corporate America) to relocate in west Texas and start a vineyard. Unfortunately, our nearly 5,000 sq ft home about 40 minutes from Mobile was put  You may have noticed that there was no Family Friday post last week. I have a good excuse – I was in Georgia visiting my mother and sister before heading to Alabama to clean the rest of our stuff out the house we had lived in for 20 years before moving to Texas  Today on Family Friday, I thought I would give a quick run down of our week and end with the highlight! We have had extremely cold, wet and windy weather here in west Texas. This is why be started pruning the vineyard early – so we would not have to prune in this type  Today on Family Fridays I have a couple of highlights to share. The week started with decanting the Aglianico and Montepulciano wines we have settling in our shed- 90 gallons of each – that is a lot of wine! Don’t worry mom, we will not drink all of it – we give a  This week on Family Friday I thought I would show our new hobby – playing the hammer dulcimer. This is one of those times that I use “we” loosely! It is actually John and our 15, 13, 10 and 7 year old sons. It all started years ago when John was young.  I hope each of you had a wonderful holiday, a very merry Christmas and are excited about the new year and what it holds! I would like to share today on Family Fridays some of the highlights of our Christmas celebration. We woke up to a white Christmas – yes, there was between 1/2  As I posted earlier, we are hobby winemakers with the aspiration of having our own, real winery one day. As a result, our batches of wine have been scaled up to larger volume – of course, having your own grapes helps! The Montepulciano we ferment in our tote was pressed out and will  In anticipation of Aglianico grape harvest and more grapes to make our own wine, it was important to clear out the Montepulciano fermenting in the tote. As I said earlier, we are hobby winemakers with the dream of one day having our own “real” winery, so, we scaled up our batch size. Once the  Sunday is the day for our cows to calve! If you remember, Buttercup had LBC on Sunday while we were at church. Yesterday, after returning home from church, Emme, who was due last week, was standing and acting differently. Normally, if she even thinks we are going to give her a treat, she  After last week’s Montepulciano harvest, we gleaned the vines and have ended up with enough grapes to make 80-90 gallons of wine! Lest you worry that we have a problem, we will use much of it as gifts and this is still well below the legal limits. Someday, we would like to begin |
     
 
God has amazingly blessed me, Dina-Marie, with a wonderful husband and 10 beautiful children. Moving from our "secure" life in Alabama to the "exciting" life of starting a vineyard in west Texas has definitely been challenging. Besides frugality, farm life and simple living, I have learned the importance of diet, quality of food and traditional cooking. Through the GAPS diet, I am successfully reversing my rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis and food allergies. I hope to encourage you to make the most of where you are and what you have as I share my life with you. 
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