SO MUCH WINE!

My mummy is here! She surprised me by showing up a few days earlier than expected! Her and Jamo have settled in on the farm, setting up their caravan amongst the fruit trees.

In exchange for free rent (hah!) we've put them to work. Jamo has been helping Josh with some manly things, like pruning trees back to bare stumps, clearing up some junk and picking SO MUCH FRUIT! The boys spent three days picking buckets and buckets of jaboticaba fruit, to make 290 litres of wine. It was an epic effort, and they're both covered in scratches - but they've done it!

We've crushed all the fruit and are using one of our largest fermentation tanks to start the process. Today, we added some sugar (nearly 40kg!) and finally the yeast. In a day or two, we'll remove the jaboticaba skins from the wine and press them to extract as much juice as we can, and then continue the fermentation process.

In a week or so after that (it depends on so many variables, it's all a little slower in the cooler weather) the fermentation should stop and we will remove the wine from the big tank and leave it to settle in smaller tanks. (Well, I think that's the plan - Josh is the winemaker, not me!)

Mum has been just as busy as Jamo. She's been on a cleaning binge, and I'm more than happy to let her! She's vacuumed and cleaned my beloved car, Betsy, and has cleaned the donga. She has also lovingly tended to our washing, taking it in and out in between rain showers. She's also our chief dishwasher, cleaning up the coffee cups etc after we have customers. She is also an expert Jam Maker now! She helped me make a ginormous batch of Spiced Jaboticaba and Tawny Port Jam - I don't think she liked it much, but she pushed through anyway.

They've spent a bit of time checking out the town, and have spent plenty of money in town already! They are VERY generously gifting Josh a new battery for the ute for his birthday (thanks guys!) and are taking Betsy in for a service. They're also testing all the coffee shops in town to see who has the best coffee and scones!

We haven't had a Mammino gourmet ice-cream yet, but I'm sure we will soon. We also missed out on going to the local fudge shop last week (it's only open Fri, Sat, Sun!), so we'll have to go there this weekend.

It's been pretty strange here lately, business wise. It seems we're busier during the week, and then dead on weekends...well, at least it seems that way for the last two weeks. Today, for instance, we had a group of motorbikers call in for morning tea really early, then a recently retired wine-lover who's moved to the area looking for a local drop, then a couple travelling up from Tin Can Bay who saw our ad in a magazine and drove the hour up to visit and have lunch, then a late drop in who was sent to buy a bottle of wine for his mum. It doesn't sound like too many customers, I'm sure, but that's a pretty solid day for us, especially for a Monday!

Aaaaaand, I think that's all that's been happening lately!

The good, the bad and the ugly

THE GOOD

• We have more jaboticaba fruit that is ripe, which means I'm on a jam-making binge! I made 19 and a half jars of Jaboticaba Jelly today, and plan to make at least that many jars of the Spiced Jaboticaba and Tawny Port Jam tomorrow.
• We've signed up to "Farmhouse Direct", a website promoting local growers and produces, which also provides a way for them to sell their products online. They take a fairly large chuck in fees from each sale, but if we can get a few sales out of it, it'll be great for us. (If you'd like to buy anything though, just contact me directly - it'll work out cheaper for you!!)
• My mummy will be here soon! Josh has had plenty of family come and visit him, so I'm pretty excited that it'll soon be my turn. They should be here by the end of the week, and I can't wait to show Mum and Jamo around this quirky little town.
• My beloved Indian takeaway shop closed down a few weeks after we moved here (wahhh!) but word on the street is that a Thai restaurant has taken over the lease of the building and will be opening soon. Fingers crossed it'll be good and give us an alternative to Maccas!
• We went to a real, live, actual concert the other night! Busby Marou (a folk duo) played an acoustic set at the beautiful Paragon Theatre. 

THE BAD

• It looks like a few of our Jaboticaba trees have been hit by 'Myrtle Rust', a fungal disease that affects trees in the Myrtaceae family (native trees, eucalypts, papayas, guavas....and jaboticabas). Only 5 of our 400 trees have signs of being affected, however the rust is very contagious and can be transferred via birds, insects and simply wind...so it could all change very quickly. There is no known cure or preventative, all we can do is spray a general fungicide and hope for the best.
• We had a very quiet weekend. As in VERY quiet. Last weekend was pretty busy and this weekend was dead. We really can't predict it, so all we can do is stay positive and hope the people that do come have a great time and tell all their friends!
• I nearly was a celebrity...AGAIN! (But it all fell through). I was invited to be part of a 'rent-a-crowd' for the local ice-cream producer, for some kind of video/photo promo shoot. I was pretty excited about the prospect of free ice-cream, alas, it wasn't meant to be.

THE UGLY

• It's been SO cold here lately. No one told me Queensland still gets cold during winter, and I was thoroughly unprepared for it. The other night was so cold that I went to bed wearing trackie pants tucked into thick wooly socks, a long sleeved shirt under a regular shirt, a hoody and a beanie...and I still woke up cold.
• I'm in desperate need for a pedicure. No such luxuries in Childers.

Relish Festival and the longest weekend

This week has been pretty mental. We attended our FIRST festival - the Relish Food and Wine festival in Maryborough (about 40 minutes south of Childers).

The end of last week was a bit of a scramble to bottle up some more liqueurs to take along to the festival with us. Josh had me washing and sanitising bottles and printing labels while he was bottling, capping and labelling.

Poor little Betsy (my 2003 Hyundai Getz, who trained it over from Perth) was packed to the rafters with gear - heaps of booze, a gazebo, a table, more booze and three people. I didn't think she'd make it, but she hung in there.

We arrived in Maryborough nice and early, and got all set up. Our latest recruit (Nathan!) came up from Brisbane to give us a hand. It was awesome having a third body there, it meant that we could take turns having a quick look around or grabbing a bite to eat.

At first I thought we had a bit of a crappy location at the festival, as we were away from the other wineries. In hindsight, it was a definite blessing! It seems that all the traditional wineries kind of blurred into one, and then festival goers could toddle down the hill and stumble upon us, who offer something a little different. We ended up selling more booze than we were expecting...AND 35 jams!

The rest of the long weekend turned out to be pretty busy too. We had lots of people in for lunch on Sunday, although it never seemed too rushed or frantic, just nicely busy. Then on Monday we had a few more through for lunch (everywhere else in town was closed!) and a few people who bought bottles.

It would be lovely if every weekend was that busy!!!

Aside from that, we've just been busy cleaning up around the place. We've had a few trees removed around the place. They were looking a little sick and sorry for themselves, so we've cleared away some space to plant new things (if we ever have enough $$ to do so!) and Josh has been working like a trojan to clear away some more of the junk around the place that we've inherited.

We had a huge burn pile go up in flames (and managed to smoke out the town for 48 hours! Oops!) and I think we might have turned a very slight corner in getting this place back on track. The winery side of things is starting to look after itself, so we really want to start focussing on our fruit orchard and building that up.

Anyway - that's all in Winery life! If you haven't already, please feel free to give us a 'like' on Facebook. It's good for our stats! ;) https://www.facebook.com/OhanaWinery

The slackers at Ohana Winery

Bye trees!

Bye junk!