Yes, that's right. Exactly one year ago we started our travels outside the US of A. To celebrate the occasion, we packed up everything in the van today and started traveling. This time though, our destination was only a few hours away. We have arrived safely to the New Jersey Shore which shall be our home for the time it takes us to plan our next adventure in life. Anyone want to come visit? Let us know, we'd love to fill up our social calendar!
Also, as you might have noticed, we've been a bit absent on uploading our travel photos. We were having a bit of technical difficulty and at the same time had reached our storage quotient on the Globalclarkes photo gallery page. Now you can find an additional link right here on our blog homepage to our photo gallery take two, where we are catching up with our final NZ photos and stuff we have since we've been home. Check them out.
~J
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Home again, home again, jiggidy jig
We're home, if you define "home" as back in the country of your tax paying residency. Actually, we got home, to Baltimore, at 11:30 on May 21st. Would you believe that we had 4 back to back flights, none of which were delayed, and our luggage made it? We even got in a couple minutes early because the flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore was 22 minutes. Why would an airline fly that route? In the past, when we've flown into Newark with a connecting "flight" to Allentown, the flight has actually been a bus. After 25 hours of travel, I'm quite glad that we DID fly to Baltimore.
So we're home now, what's next? My sister and good friend are getting married next week. After that we're going to try to figure out where we want to live next and what we want to do for a source of income.
This blog has not come to an end though. Stay tuned as we decompress from our year of "cultural exchange." I'm sure as we readjust to life here in the US, we'll have plenty of thoughts about what makes the world go around, the people in it, and other random stuff that never occurred to us before.
Cheers,
S
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Add one more to the Resume
And with that, we finish out another job here in New Zealand. Friday, May 9th we said our good byes to those great folks at Nobilo who turned us from total greenies when it came to working with wine to rough and tumble veterans of a wine vintage. Note to self: Maybe it takes a few more vintages to be able to party like a wine vintage veteran - holy crap these people party hard!
It'll take us a few weeks to fully recover from vintage, for the calluses and cuts to heal on our hands, for us to wake up at a normal hour of the day, for the nightmares of overflowing a tippy tank or running the RDV dry to stop and for the pallet to return to normal and not think that every Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tastes like the sludge at the bottom of the tank.
Today and tomorrow we'll spend packing up, trying to get everything to fit back in our bags and then we'll head off to see the South Island before flying out, back to the US on the 21st of May.
Before we head off, I'm going to try to post some more pictures and set up a new quiz to keep you all busy while we travel. Be sure to check it all out.
It'll take us a few weeks to fully recover from vintage, for the calluses and cuts to heal on our hands, for us to wake up at a normal hour of the day, for the nightmares of overflowing a tippy tank or running the RDV dry to stop and for the pallet to return to normal and not think that every Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc tastes like the sludge at the bottom of the tank.
Today and tomorrow we'll spend packing up, trying to get everything to fit back in our bags and then we'll head off to see the South Island before flying out, back to the US on the 21st of May.
Before we head off, I'm going to try to post some more pictures and set up a new quiz to keep you all busy while we travel. Be sure to check it all out.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Still here, just exhausted
Well folks, the 12 hour shifts have come to an end, yet the winery is still operating on 24 hour shifts. We're (un)lucky enough to have scored the 11pm to 7am shift, so we're currently readjusting to night shift (we'd begun to work days a few weeks ago) and beginning to decompress from the madness that was vintage 2008.
The good news is that the end is in sight - May 9th (or 10th or 11th???) will be our last day of work. May 12-21st we'll be traveling around the South Island saying goodbye to the country that's been our home since mid-December. May 21st we fly home and after 24 hours of travel we'll hopefully be back in the USA.
Thanks for all the emails and comments from all of you over the past months. As the work hours come back to are a more manageable level in the next few weeks, hopefully we'll get a chance to write more.
Cheers,
Steve
The good news is that the end is in sight - May 9th (or 10th or 11th???) will be our last day of work. May 12-21st we'll be traveling around the South Island saying goodbye to the country that's been our home since mid-December. May 21st we fly home and after 24 hours of travel we'll hopefully be back in the USA.
Thanks for all the emails and comments from all of you over the past months. As the work hours come back to are a more manageable level in the next few weeks, hopefully we'll get a chance to write more.
Cheers,
Steve
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The 84 hour work week
How do you make half a month disappear? Why you work 12 hour shifts for 3 weeks straight, that's how. Finally, after 3 weeks, we have a bit of some time off. It's not really a "whole" day off, but more like we're switching from night shift to day shift (note to self: bring sunscreen).
So here we are, it's mid-April, and we're well into vintage. I believe we've processed slightly more than half of the grapes that we'll receive this vintage but there's still much work to do. The end of the perfect growing season has been a bit of a wild ride, weather wise, with colder temperatures (frost=bad), rain and birds affecting the grapes that are still on the vine. Some grapes you see coming in are in good condition, and others are suffering from botrytis or slip rot. Luckily, each block of grapes is kept separate from the others so the good ones aren't affected by the bad.
So what have we been doing from 7pm to 7am each day? A mix of things really. First of all, the thing that takes the most time out of our work day is finding all the necessary equipment to complete your assigned task. When it's busy, you're hard pressed to find the pumps, hoses, fittings or other assorted stuff you need to complete the task. That coupled with people who don't put away their equipment after completing their project is really frustrating. Equipment is in such a short supply at times, that I've actually had my project poached by others while I'm still gathering up things to get started. Let's just say this made me REALLY mad.
Much of Jesse's day is spent at the receival dock where the trucks dump their grapes into a bin. The grapes are then sent through a destemmer/crusher and pumped directly into a press or into a tippy tank where they wait until there is a press available. Careful attention must be paid to how much goes into the press or into a tippy tank. A lapse in judgment can cause quite a spectacular explosion of grapes.
There are so many additions of chemicals and solutions to the juice to turn it into wine that frequently we find ourselves schlepping 5 gallon buckets full of Bentonite, Potassium Metabisulphate, Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) up a 30 foot flight of stairs. Who says wine isn't healthy?
Also, we spend a good deal of time racking and transferring grape juice from tank to tank. As part of the wine making process, grape juice is put into a tank and allowed to settle. The clean juice is then "racked" off the stuff that has settled out, or lees. The lees then are filtered and sometimes readded to the clean juice.
Cheers,
~S
So here we are, it's mid-April, and we're well into vintage. I believe we've processed slightly more than half of the grapes that we'll receive this vintage but there's still much work to do. The end of the perfect growing season has been a bit of a wild ride, weather wise, with colder temperatures (frost=bad), rain and birds affecting the grapes that are still on the vine. Some grapes you see coming in are in good condition, and others are suffering from botrytis or slip rot. Luckily, each block of grapes is kept separate from the others so the good ones aren't affected by the bad.
So what have we been doing from 7pm to 7am each day? A mix of things really. First of all, the thing that takes the most time out of our work day is finding all the necessary equipment to complete your assigned task. When it's busy, you're hard pressed to find the pumps, hoses, fittings or other assorted stuff you need to complete the task. That coupled with people who don't put away their equipment after completing their project is really frustrating. Equipment is in such a short supply at times, that I've actually had my project poached by others while I'm still gathering up things to get started. Let's just say this made me REALLY mad.
Much of Jesse's day is spent at the receival dock where the trucks dump their grapes into a bin. The grapes are then sent through a destemmer/crusher and pumped directly into a press or into a tippy tank where they wait until there is a press available. Careful attention must be paid to how much goes into the press or into a tippy tank. A lapse in judgment can cause quite a spectacular explosion of grapes.
There are so many additions of chemicals and solutions to the juice to turn it into wine that frequently we find ourselves schlepping 5 gallon buckets full of Bentonite, Potassium Metabisulphate, Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) up a 30 foot flight of stairs. Who says wine isn't healthy?
Also, we spend a good deal of time racking and transferring grape juice from tank to tank. As part of the wine making process, grape juice is put into a tank and allowed to settle. The clean juice is then "racked" off the stuff that has settled out, or lees. The lees then are filtered and sometimes readded to the clean juice.
Cheers,
~S
Saturday, March 29, 2008
First Real Night Shift - Rain
So I believe someone above is laughing at us. To add insult to injury of going to work at 7pm and ending at 7:30am, the powers that be decided to bring on torrential downpours for 90% of our evening shift, including the bike to work. Now, normally, this would/could be expected, except this is Blenheim. It hasn't rained one drop since we got here a month ago. The sun has been out all but two cloudy days. Needless to day the rain made work very damp and cold, especially for those who had to work prolonged stints outside.
Now that the rain has stopped, it's cold and windy. I guess fall has finally arrived.
Funny thing about adjusting to night shift. Usually when you stay out all night or don't sleep on a normal schedule, it's because there's alcohol involved and waking up the next morning involves a hangover of some sorts. However, waking up at 2:30 pm today feels slightly less miserable. I opened one eye, saw it was light out and braced myself for the standard feeling of dry mouth, headache, nausea associated with being over served. Delightfully surprised that none of those symptoms became apparent, I was caught off guard when the dead weight of being up all night hit me like a sack of potatoes. I certainly hope it's like skiing, where if you can pull through the third day, you can rally on the fourth.
~S
Now that the rain has stopped, it's cold and windy. I guess fall has finally arrived.
Funny thing about adjusting to night shift. Usually when you stay out all night or don't sleep on a normal schedule, it's because there's alcohol involved and waking up the next morning involves a hangover of some sorts. However, waking up at 2:30 pm today feels slightly less miserable. I opened one eye, saw it was light out and braced myself for the standard feeling of dry mouth, headache, nausea associated with being over served. Delightfully surprised that none of those symptoms became apparent, I was caught off guard when the dead weight of being up all night hit me like a sack of potatoes. I certainly hope it's like skiing, where if you can pull through the third day, you can rally on the fourth.
~S
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Let the Savalanche Begin!
The onslaught (Savalanche) of grapes has begun. This week we've worked one 12 hr shift already and are gradually moving towards "the night shift." Tomorrow we work from 12 noon to midnight. I have 3 filtering jobs lined up (more diatomaceous earth) for tomorrow and Jesse's scheduled to receive 350 tonnes of grapes.
If you're curious, we've picked mainly Sauvignon Blanc and a little Chardonnay. The Pinots (Gris and Noir) are still hanging out on the vines, increasing in Brix.
Oh, so we learned that next Monday, they're going to feed us "lunch" once a day, for free. This probably works out for our 1 am meal, but I'm always pumped over free food!
Cheers,
~S
If you're curious, we've picked mainly Sauvignon Blanc and a little Chardonnay. The Pinots (Gris and Noir) are still hanging out on the vines, increasing in Brix.
Oh, so we learned that next Monday, they're going to feed us "lunch" once a day, for free. This probably works out for our 1 am meal, but I'm always pumped over free food!
Cheers,
~S
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