Will We Become Like Lucy Stomping Grapes?

Did you read my previous post about how it's getting so difficult to grow avocados? We're grappling with the problem - do we cut down our trees and plant grapes? Will our future become stomping grapes in a big vat just like Lucy?:



If we do shift from avocados to grapes, we'll probably be interested in the following wine-related items from Etsy. You might be interested in them also.



Here are some wine charms that are from B Bye Buttefly. They're made from recycled scrabble tiles:

The folks from Retired Records make everything you can think of from old LPs - bowls, jewelry, and even a wine holder. See what you think of this unique item:

Do you ever feel the need to dress up your wine bottle?  JC Jools has just the thing - this gorgeous necklace that any bottle would be proud to wear:

I've been wanting a wine bottle stopper. This one is quite beautiful. It's from Jerrys Woodworks. 
It looks heavy duty enough to really keep the wine fresh and drinkable.

And last but not least, here's the wine rack that will have them cracking up in your kitchen. It's from Knob Creek Metal Works.

And I'll leave you on that note.

Fallbrook No Longer Avocado Capitol??

There was an article in the North County Times (our local north San Diego paper) which said that the California Avocado Commission was worried about the disappearance of groves in San Diego county. Growers are either removing trees to plant other crops or turning off the water on groves to "shrink" the stumps and force less watering or they're simply letting the land go fallow.

We noticed a grove in our area that looked as if they've stopped watering. I'm not sure you can tell from this photo:

It looks like they're watering the shrubs and ground cover surrounding their area, but the avocado trees are not getting much water at all.

We talked to another grower on Friday who said he was just going to water enough to keep his trees green, but not enough to get any fruit this year.

So the commission is going to pay to have a study made of what's happening to the groves by using aerial imagery. Satellites will be taking specialized digital photographs of the area to get an acreage update.

The article went on to say that San Diego's avocado acreage has dropped 26% since 2005, from 26,004 to 19,133.

We're still trying to decide what to do. We may do the same as our neighbor who is just going to water enough to keep the trees green and then decide later whether to take more drastic action.

In the future this blog may be called "Ladies of the Vineyard".