Moka Explosion

This is what happens when your sleepy wife tries to make coffee with a Moka, senz aqua, and the rubber gasket melts and you come along and try to make coffee with water and you wonder why it's taking so long and lift the lid to see what's up . . . just at the right moment.

No worries. The scalds healed quickly and I was wearing the red down vest of the last blog, which protected my chest from most of the blast. Good thing!

Leaves of Grass

It has rained a lot since we got here. The wild oats and mustard are high among the vine rows. If I leave them, they will eventually load with grain and fall over dead, completing and beginning another cycle. But I will not let this happen.

I must cut them down right now because the rain and grass are a bad combination in a vineyard, keeping the young shoots and blossoms damp and promoting the malady here called oidio, mold, that fuzzy grape eating fungus that hit so many clusters in the resurrected vineyard last year because I couldn't manage it on a broken leg.

And so I mow. Tomorrow's blog: "Scythe vs. Weed Eater