The last week of April was cold, cloudy and windy, but our days are starting to warm up. Thankfully, it wasn’t so cold that it went below freezing even in the early morning.
We are busy spraying the vines with micronized sulfur as well as applying fertilizers to prevent mold from forming on the young vines.
We continue to enjoy the fire in the fireplace to relieve the cold in our homes. This year officially started on March 19th, so I’d say it’s been a cool spring for most of us.
The 15-day weather forecast calls for cool temperatures and cloudy skies, so you might keep the fireplace going at home for a while longer.
A few weeks ago I had to replenish a wood pile by my house. I enlisted the help of my daughter, Kathleen, and her mother to help collect the wood that my son, Clayton, had dumped on the ranch a few months earlier.
I was able to use one of the tractors I asked the staff to leave the front end loader attached to transport the split wood to my house. Kathleen and her mom helped keep the loader level so we didn’t end up with too much dirt in the bucket instead of wood.
After scooping up the wood, we all piled more wood on top to finish off the load and headed down to the house to unload.
After I finished cooking, Kathleen helped me create a new recipe, especially one with beef short ribs. I love beef short ribs, but they can be hard to find sometimes.
The local supermarket I always go to had some. First I asked the butcher behind the counter if he had anything. Somehow I always feel better when I can get something straight from the meat aisle that isn’t wrapped in plastic.
Unfortunately, his reply was, “Please check the top shelf where the rest of the meat is sold.” I was hoping that he would say, “I’d love to buy it for you.”
I always remember going to Hansen’s Meat Market in Solvang in the early 1960s when I was very young with my mother and seeing the meat displayed behind the glass counter.
They would take whatever their mother ordered and wrap it in meat paper to take home.
I couldn’t find what I wanted at the grocery store in Orcutt, so I decided to go to the butcher in Santa Maria.
No luck there either, I had some frozen ribs but they needed to be cut into smaller pieces. Again, not exactly what I was looking for, but I asked if they could cut it and was told they didn’t have a saw, so they couldn’t. Today I wanted to welcome you to the world of butchering without a saw.
I finally got the ribs I wanted, so Kathleen and I made a great dinner that night based on a recipe we had seen on the TV show “The Kitchen.” I record some cooking shows that air on Sundays and try new recipes.
Most of them are keepers, but some are not. Our rib dinner was a keeper.
I had a similar experience when I tried to buy a chain at a big box store in town. I’ll save that story for another day. Keep your jacket on hand this week.
Kevin Merrill of Mesa Vineyard Management is a board member of the Santa Barbara County Farm Bureau and director of the Santa Barbara County Fair Commission. Contact him at kmerrill@mesavineyard.com.
