Dear diary, my sweet paprika:

Dear diary, wassup?

Woke this morning and went downstairs to make coffee and stepped in front of the sink onto the little rug we keep there and it was soaked through.  Uh-oh.  After some quality time crawling around and emptying all of the stuff that's accumulated under there and drying things and watching where new puddles formed it became pretty clear the hose at the back of the dishwasher must be where the water's coming from.  Shut the cut-off valve and am gonna leave it that way for the day and not let it harsh my my Labor Day weekend mellow.  (This same dishwasher is wedged tightly under a soapstone counter that's a little too shallow for it, and it took some imaginative work to get the puppy under there.  So it doesn't come out real easy.  About 5 years (10?) when the latch to the to machine busted I decided to replace the broken part with a light, long machine bolt.  Problem was, the latch also acts as something of an electrical switch or lock, so whenever I drove the bolt into place, current would run through it and I'd get a pretty jimmying shock.  But because the washer is so wedged in, I decided not to try to pull it out to get to the electrical connection and unplug it.  Then for the better part of an hour I kept repeating a cycle of screwing up my courage, fiddling the bolt, getting jimmied until I couldn't hold on to it, and weeping as it slid back out of place.  Eventually I got it set, but not before two of my teeth had turned to soap.  And I can still put a q-tip half way into my left ear before it hits anything solid.)

Made coffee and went into the back with, darned chilly compared to what it's been.  Sudden bird-quiet, too, except for the cardinals which where futzing in the grapes.  Just last night we were saying how last year there was a heck of a lot of feeding in the grapes and shitting of totally psychedelic guano.  (I see now it was last Labor Day's post.  Gee.  With pics.)

Then back inside to put a batch of Hungarian peppers in the oven to dry.  I've been wanting to do this since last year when I bought a precious little jar of paprika from Bradley and as I was paying RB himself said, Why don't you make it yourself?  Wella wella.  So yesterday instead of buying paprika from Bradley we bought paprika peppers.  Maggy's Farm has a nice post about making your own.

Da Savino will be over in a couple of hours to bottle the last of his family's Grenache from last year so we can free up come ore carboys.  Lot and I have been concentrating a lot on this year's making, and buying a bunch of new equipment, as B has moved off to Staten Island and will be making his own wine there with the ancestral equipment.  Gonna have to change my pants before we bottle.  Threw on a pair of MK jeans that I bought on a whim a week or two ago at a discount place.  They're nice, but the distance between the top of the jeans way down there and my belly button way up here is interesting. 

By.  Good talking to you again.  Say hi.