Can you make Wine from Fuzzy Strawberries

Woke up this morning to a whishing sound and then silence, then a whishing sound and then silence.  Suddenly I remembered what it was from last year and jumped out of bed and went outside.  A hot air balloon.

Because all of this happened at 7:20 in the morning which is before my wake up time, I went back in to bed after it started to move off and this is what I could see from my bed.

There is a company that does balloon rides every morning at sunrise and it lasts for up to 3.5 hours.  You can get a ticket for Verde Valley Balloons here.  Last year I remember a couple of balloons every morning but apparently they are down to one this year.

After lunch the ladies headed into Cottonwood to check out the bargains.  Harold and I headed out to check out the country side.  We are both farm boys so like to check out what grows around us.  We found a vineyard just down the road from us.

Alcantara Vineyard is just down the road from where we are hanging our hats.  They have wine tasting there but neither Harold or I are wine drinkers so we just checked out the vineyard.

Some of the vines have tiny little leaves on them so I guess this must be the beginning of the growing season.

It must take a lot of manual labour to trim back all of the plants by hand.  It would be neat to see them when they are hanging with grapes and how they harvest them.

Our fellow bloggers Kevin & Ruth would like to have this flag I bet.  Couldn't help but think of you guys and your taste for a good wine.

As we left we took a picture of the vineyard in the middle of an expanse of desert and rocky hills.  There is a nice creek that runs by the bottom of the vineyard, so that is why they are set up here.  You can grow anything if you have access to enough water it seems.

Just up the hill from the vineyard is the gate to a Thousand Trails campground.  We visited it last year and it is a long slow drive down the hill to the campground, so I passed up the adventure today.

On the way home we spotted a few cows and this bull grazing near some of the RV's.  Cows have the run of the whole area where we boondock so we are wondering if this bull may do some damage around this trailer.  Note the nice Harley sitting there that could be knocked down by that bull as fast as you can say "Jack Sprat"!!

Sue and I have a standing joke because she always wants to buy strawberries for a treat.  I always say to her "I wonder if we can buy them with the white fuzz on them already"!   Well look what I found tucked in the back of the fridge.  And I don't think there was one berry missing.  Very pretty arrangement!!!  Almost Christmassy!!!

Tonight we are camped on BLM land near Cottonwood AZ at 34.66837, -111.9620 and this is the view from our window.