Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2019

Weather | 10/27, 34°, 63° | 10/28, 0.31" rain, 40°, 46° | 10/29, 29°, 39° | 10/30, 0.41" rain, 29°, 35° | 10/31, 2" snow, or 0.18" moisture, 24°, 36° | 11/1, 26°, 50° | 11/2, 29°, 48°

• Sunday, 10/27: Wine burping was every 4:25 minutes in the morning. Fixed the damper in the woodstove by removing the elbow coming out of the back of the stove while Mary held the pipe. Then I wiggled the damper's poke-through rod out, turned the rod 180 degrees, and jammed it back into the damper. A bump on the rod was facing the wrong way, allowing the damper to spin on the rod. It's correct, now. Added silicone caulking to the stovepipe sections and re-installed them. Mary washed clothes. Mary and I picked pecan nuts...Mary picked from off the ground, and I used a step ladder to reach low-hanging nuts on branches. Then, we moved the firewood I split yesterday to the north wall of the machine shed. Next, I weedwhacked to the cherry deer stand in the NE area of our property, and a little on the north trail going west from that stand. Mary vacuumed Asian lady bugs...they were flying about, today. Had a voicemail from Katie, so called her after finishing chores. They've finished the temporary school at Mertarvik, AK. Next is to finish the clinic, but they're waiting on an architect's signature to proceed. She said worst-case scenario involves leaving in 3 weeks and coming back after Christmas to work on the clinic. While she was talking to us she was watching a barge arrive from Nome. We talked Christmas ideas. After the call, she booked a two-way flight between New Orleans and St. Louis, arriving at Lambert Field in St. Louis on 12/21 at 10:30 am, and then leaving on 12/30 at 7:30 pm. We'll pick her up, grab Bill, visit the Arch in St. Louis, and per Bill (who Katie texted), eat at Sameem, an Afghan restaurant. I looked up a bunch of Christmas gift ideas, in an attempt to get what I want for Christmas to others. Still need to get pricing before I ship out the list. We smelled a skunk while we were in the living room in the evening. Mary checked prior to walking dogs...nothing there, but we still smelled skunk while walking the dogs.
• Monday, 10/28: Mary made her last batch of salsa...a new record of 30 pints, put in 11 quart and 8 pint jars. The 3 salsa canning sessions resulted in a grand total of 86 pints. I removed all of the ACs out of windows. Cleaned a long stretch of the bench in the machine shed and moved the ACs onto that location for the winter. Found mold on the window sill in our bedroom, since that AC wasn't tilted down enough on the outside, so I took a bleach solution to the wood. Took all day for both of us to do these 2 chores. The water bath canning put a ton of moisture in the air, so we aired the house out after she was done canning. It started misting when I was doing evening chores, which turned into rain after dark. We installed curtain rods and put curtains up in our bedroom to block yard lights from our neighbor's house. They work wonderfully. Trees are turning to beautiful colors and some are dropping their leaves.
• Tuesday, 10/29: I picked another batch of pecans, by using a step ladder and pulling down on branches. Mary picked several off the ground. I replaced parts on the 8N Ford tractor and changed oil and the oil filter. The oil was very smelly with gasoline. With a 3-inch oil plug on the bottom of the oil pan, used oil comes down in a huge gully wash. Luckily, my large 10-gallon oil catch pan caught it all. The tank-type oil filter that you pull the filter out of is a huge mess, because you have to sop excess oil out of the device once the filter is removed, because there is no drain plug on the bottom. I removed the entire gas line/filter and installed the missing gas sediment bowl, gas line, and fitting/filter at the carburetor. Put gas in and it started much better than it ever has in the past...obviously there's a fuel constriction with a newer canister fuel filter, just as I read online. Most importantly, the sediment bowl has a shut-off valve, so now when the carb float sticks open, I don't get gas in the engine oil. I sat for 7 minutes watching for a fermentation lock burp on the pear wine and didn't see one. It's clearing to a yellow/green color. We were going to butcher chickens this week, but there's snow in the forecast for several days, so we're putting it off. Mary washed sheets, did cross-stitching, and made flour tortillas and chimichangas. By our late-night dog walk, we saw freezing sleet on the porch steps. I ordered a heavy-duty nutcracker online.
• Wednesday, 10/30: Another mouse in the Buick trapline. A lazy day. The wood heat is wonderful. Mary baked a small turkey...yum, yum. I diddled online. Heavy snow was falling after dark. The pear wine is turning into what looks like a 6.5-gallon bottle of pee...hope it tastes better than that! Bill had the day off and went to a Minnesota Wild/St. Louis Blues hockey game. Blues won 2-1. It was a birthday gift from his friend, Mike Push.
• Thursday, 10/31: Woke up to about 2" of snow outside. Left the chickens inside. Laughed when I saw snow decorating a railroad tie post with poison ivy all over it and started singing, "Deck the Halls with Poison Ivy..." Let chickens out in the afternoon. I spent all day reviewing Christmas present ideas and sent ideas to Bill & Katie. Mary baked chocolate chip cookies. John Hendrix emailed me that I should attend the high school reunion in Homer in August of next year. He said I could use his Alaska Airline miles.
• Friday: 11/1: We wrote a 45-item list of things we need to do prior to deer hunting season on 11/16, assigned who is doing them, and deadlines. Mary popped all of the garlic cloves to plant, and dug up 1 of 3 rows for garlic in the far garden. I drove the 8N Ford tractor to the aluminum deer stand, brought it back to the machine shed, replaced the rotten OSB wood top with a good piece of OSB, drove it to my new spot on the south edge of the Rose Butt Field, and strapped it into a maple tree. Snipped off some cedar branches and tops. Cut out a 6' section of fence. When I pulled out the fence piece, I looked up and saw a buck with antlers the size of a medium bush running away from me. The damn rack looked like it belonged on an elk! Ordered Christmas gifts online for Mary and I. Told our kids that we were collecting possum poop for their gifts, since they weren't helping us with Christmas lists. Bill texted us several ideas.
• Saturday: 11/2: Yesterday while driving the tractor by the swim pond, a pair of huge mallard ducks lifted off the water, 3 deer ran off, and 4 Bobwhite quail flew off. Today, I drove to Quincy to buy chicken feed...feeding 12 cups, twice a day, to the young birds. Also, bought a 6-volt flashlight battery, some reflector trail tacks for marking my way to deer stands, and a couple grocery items. Mary planted 2 kinds of garlic and dug up another row. Digging is hard work...very wet, heavy and cold clay soil. She found a foot-long night crawler. While I was gone, Mary was hanging towels on the line and a red-tailed hawk came swirling down to attack the chickens. Mary had a handful of wash rags and started waving them around and shouted, "Go away!" It did. When I got back from Quincy, I weedwhacked a new trail to the NE corner of the far garden, where I'll dig in a wooden post for a new location for our rain gauge to replace the teetering railroad tie post down the lane that holds our rain gauge today. Then, I whacked a connecting trail to the chicken killing cone. Next, I weedwhacked another tank full of gas on the south leg of the east trail. We watched a movie we picked up secondhand at Salvation Army called A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe. It's very good.

Oct. 20-26, 2019

Weather | 10/20, 39°, 63° | 10/21, 0.55" rain, 51°, 55° | 10/22, 43°, 55° | 10/23, 39°, 67° | 10/24, 37°, 49° | 10/25, 38°, 53° | 10/26, 0.05" rain, 37°, 48° |

• Sunday, 10/20: I gave Mary a haircut We were planning on going to a free youth choir concert at 7 pm in Quincy, but a wine emergency prevented us from going. Checked the wine's specific gravity and it's at 1.004. It's supposed to be racked into the secondary fermentation container at 1.014. It's sugar content went down very quickly. I sanitized the glass carboy and hose, then we drained the wine from the primary fermentation bucket to the carboy. Recipe directions said to add sugar syrup to fill up the carboy, so we added 5 quarts of it. All that did is put the yeast into hyperdrive and after installing the fermentation lock, it fizzed wine right up through the lock. We mopped up wine for about 30 minutes, then it settled down. Checked online and you don't need to fill syrup to the top, because CO2 gas released during fermentation prevents oxygen from filling the air gap. Later, after fermentation has stopped, when you're trying to get the wine to become clear, you worry about an oxygen gap. What we did by adding syrup was to boost fermentation, thereby adding more alcohol to the wine. We might be making super alcoholic wine that can only be used in the place of gas to power the tractor. We tasted what was left in the bottom of the primary fermentation bucket. It tastes really good. Who knows what the end result will taste like. We keep learning.
• Monday, 10/21: It rained in the early morning hours. Mary canned 13 quarts of salsa, which took all day. The wine keeps on fizzing. We're calling it the yeast beast and we're leaving it alone until the fizzing stops. I drove the tractor on future trails I want to cut through the grass...to the swim pond, then to the field east of the pond, which we're calling the Rose Butt field, because several deer seasons ago, I shot a deer in the woods north of that field and we dragged it into the field, started field dressing it in the dark and realized that Mary's butt was parked right in the middle of a multiflora rose bush. I also drove the north trail, stopping to check the cherry deer stand, which is fine, and the aluminum ladder deer stand, which needs a new plywood top. I also checked along the north fence where a trail camera was aimed into our property and it's now gone. I guess the purple paint on the post it was sitting on told them that they were encroaching onto our property. I then drove the east trail, and spotted another autumn olive bush packed full of berries. Then, I drove a new south trail, and a shorter west trail. I walked to the new autumn olive bush and picked a full bowl of berries. The new mower blades arrived in the mail.
• Tuesday, 10/22: This morning, fermentation in the wine is way down, which is just what we want. Mary figured our monthly finances. She bagged up 3.5 more quarts of autumn olives, making 19 total in the big freezer. I installed the new mower blades. Mary mowed part of the lawn & said the new blade cut like going through butter. I weedwhacked the east trail from the far garden to the old pond, giving Mary a place to dump dead garden plants, then whacked part of the north trail on the east side. Mary and I picked a bunch of pecan nuts, since they're larger this year and might actually amount to something. After baths, we watched a movie (don't know which one, since it's future tense at the time of this writing). It was Hocus Pocus.
• Wednesday, 10/23: Wine is down to burping the fermentation lock every 23 seconds in the morning and 27 seconds in the evening. I weedwhacked another stretch of the north trail to just 10 yards from where I'll turn east for a short jaunt to the cherry deer stand. I picked another bowl of autumn olives, taking the tractor to pull the trailer to hold the step ladder. Mary froze 13 packages of sweet peppers, making a total of 31 packages for winter. She racked up a bunch of grass to use for our indoor toilet and put it in the second bin to dry. She also went down a long stretch of the Swim Pond Trail and pulled long grass that I cut when weedwhacking the trail into the middle of the trail to dry. We'll use that for chicken coop straw. I can smell gas in the oil in the tractor's crankcase. It's a common issue if you don't turn off the gas at the sediment bowl...the carb float sticks open and gas drains into the oil. Herman removed the sediment bowl, replacing it with a canister fuel filter. A Ford N-series tractor website I've bookmarked says never to do that, because, 1) you can't turn off the gas when the tractor is sitting, 2) it's a gravity feed gas system and a canister fuel filter restricts flow, and 3) you lose 2 filters with the sediment bowl assembly. I ordered a sediment bowl, gas line, gas line fitting at the carburetor, an oil filter, an oil breather cap, an oil filter canister top gasket, and an oil drain plug gasket from Just8Ns.com. Got word online that my glasses are in. Texted Mom. Picked up several pecans and stained my thumbs pitch black from opening pecan husks with my bare hands.
• Thursday, 10/24: Tried to remove pecan husk stains. Now my thumbs aren't pitch black, but mostly black. Mary worked up a shopping list and I drove to Quincy and picked up my new glasses. Then, I shopped for human food, dog & cat food, hen food, chick food, a file for sharpening mower blades, PEX pipe for my wine auto siphon, oil for the tractor,  and cross stitch floss. I was having real troubles seeing with my new glasses...tried on my old ones in the Walmart parking lot and the distance vision is better with the old ones. Damn! Mary checked hickory nuts & decided they're not worth worrying about...likewise with persimmons, because the latter is not ripe, yet. She picked up several more pecans. She found 3 dead mice in the mouse traps in the Buick. Wine was burping the lock every 30 seconds this evening. We watched Corpse Bride and ate nachos.
• Friday, 10/25: Found another mouse in my Buick trap line. I drove to Quincy to turn in my new glasses. They checked old and new glasses and discovered my old glasses hold a stronger prescription. The optometrist ran me through another free eye exam. Came up with same numbers as my new glasses for distance vision, but went ahead and bumped up the prescription to match old glasses. The increased close-up vision of the new prescription is right-on. I also opted for a better lens type with a tint, recommended by the glass-fitting expert at the glass shop. Cost me an additional $166. They'll send my new glasses back and get them refitted with newer lenses. Returned the PEX to Home Depot and got a smaller size for my auto siphon. Grabbed strawberries and bananas from Aldi and went back home. Mary loaded 10 wheelbarrow loads of chicken coop hay into the second bin, giving us enough for another year. She also picked up more pecans. Wine is burping the fermentation lock every 67 seconds this evening. Bill called. He's working long hours and doing beer brewing in his spare time.
• Saturday, 10/26: Three dead mice were in my Buick trap line this morning. Picked some more pecan nuts, this time wearing latex gloves. The trees are really loaded this year. Picked another bowl of autumn olives. Mary made another batch of salsa, canning 13 quarts and 1 pint. My 8N Ford parts came in. I split logs that we left last spring next to the splitter, which is inside the machine shed. It was raining while I split wood. At the end of chores we enjoyed a complete double rainbow. After dark, coyotes were howling just west of the house. The pear wine burped the fermentation lock every 80 seconds in the morning and every 2 minutes, 46 seconds in the evening. Texted with Katie and Bill. Katie plans to work through Thanksgiving in Alaska.

Oct. 13-19, 2019

Weather | 10/13, 33°, 61° | 10/14, 32°, 62° | 10/15, 53°, 67° | 10/16, 39 °, 55° | 10/17, 32°, 59° | 10/18, 39°, 67° | 10/19, 0.01" rain, 45°, 61° |

• Sunday, 10/13: Second morning in a row of white frost...the garden plants are dark and dead. Mary looked for hickory nuts in various locations in the woods, but didn't find any signs of them. I added to my pear-making notes on the various steps where we varied from the directions I wrote down prior to making the wine. After looking online, I learned that the wine bucket needs to be vented while the crushed campden tablets are in the brew, so I sanitized a fermentation lock, put distilled water in it, pulled the stopper I had in the bucket's lid, and put it in place. I also left the pantry door open for several minutes to let heat in while I guarded it from cats. Temperature is staying at 68-70°. Seventy is ideal, but it can be anywhere from 55-80°, as long as temperatures don't change drastically. I weedwhacked more of the Swim Pond Trail and veered to the beginning of the Wood Duck Pond Trail, then grabbed Mary's mower and mowed that section. I then fired up the chainsaw and cut up limbs that fell out of the weeping willow, pecan, and old apple trees (dried apple wood is extremely hard). I also sawed up part of an old oak tree that fell across the West Field Trail. Then, I sanitized a glass, heated water to 95°, and got my wine yeast going, then gently poured it into the pear must in the wine fermentation bucket...started bubbling immediately. Stirred it gently, then tasted the juice off the stirring spoon...very sweet and tasty. Replaced the lid and fermentation lock. Sent wine-making photos to family. Bill texted several times. He's removed labels from all bottles and will be bottling his beer tomorrow, after work. Mary and I watched the 5th Harry Potter movie.
• Monday, 10/14: Third morning of frost. Wrote down info into my wine making notebook. Mary washed 2 loads of towels/wash cloths. I cut a foot-square piece out of a larger piece of hardboard and rubber cemented the checkbook leather to it, in order for the leather to keep its shape while I tool it. I then alternated 1 minute of running with 5 minutes of walking just 2 times, instead of 5 times. Last time I did this running/walking trick, I did 5 times..a total of 30 minutes and was too sore to do it again in subsequent days. Obviously, I need to run/walk less initially. Mary mowed the south third of the far garden. I weedwhacked more on the Wood Duck Trail. Grabbed the mower and before finishing a loop of mowing on that stretch of the trail, I hit an ant hill with the mower, the blade dug into red clay and it bent down 90 degrees into the dirt. Walked home, got a wrench, took the ruined blade off, and pushed the mower home. I've got to buy a new blade. Picked up some of the wood I chopped up yesterday. Checked the wine...absolutely no fermentation, plus, the hydrometer is at 1.100 specific gravity, so sugar content has risen, not gone down, as it should have with fermentation. Guessing that the campden tablets haven't off-gassed thoroughly. Mixed up a second batch of yeast, added it to the must, but didn't stir it in this time. There were bubbles, but it seemed like they were only due to pouring the yeast in. Put the lid and fermentation lock back on to leave one more day. Bill texted a photo of all of his beer bottled up, and we texted back and forth.
• Tuesday, 10/15: Found the following things online that I've done wrong with my wine: 1) No lid or fermentation lock should be used for 24 hours after adding campden tablets, or during primary fermentation. Instead, a towel or cheese cloth should cover the bucket. 2) Use spring water, not the distilled water I used, because distilling water removes air and minerals required for yeast reproduction. Like Mary says, if this doesn't turn out, at least we're learning a lot. Mary's Carhartt coat arrived via UPS. It fits her, though the sleeves are long. She likes it. Walked Plato and Amber on my newly weedwhacked Swim Pond/Wood Duck Trails. Knocked down the mounds that took out the mower blade with a shovel. They aren't ant hills, they're mole hills. At the same time, the dogs did laps running through the tall grass. Switched mower blades so Mary could use her mower. Checked the pear wine...there are bubbles. We put a flour sack towel on top of the fermentation bucket, after removing the lid, and tied the towel tight with a string. As the day progressed, the yeast/pear smell increased...we have lift off!!! Mary mowed the front lawn, raked it up, and put mulch on future rows in the far garden for garlic. I walked the trail twice, then picked a stainless steel bowl full of autumn olive berries. Then, I weedwhacked another tank full on the Wood Duck Trail...making it to just before the woods south of Wood Duck Pond. Read how to graft apple trees, since I want to take graftings from the old McIntosh apple tree in the north yard and plant new trees from that. We watched the 6th Harry Potter movie.
• Wednesday, 10/16: Ordered 2 lawnmower blades through Amazon. Pear/yeast smell gets stronger in the pantry. Decided not to disturb it, so left the fermentation bucket alone, today. Walked 2 laps on my newly whacked trail...going to call it the Ponds Trail, since it goes by the Swim Pond, Dove Pond, and ends at Wood Duck Pond. Scratched a line 1/8th inch in from the stitching holes on the checkbook leather, giving me a boundary to tool to. Mary made slumgullion and canned 12 quarts of it. She also chopped up all of the bell peppers that were in the fridge and froze 18 packages. We use them to give smoked scrambled eggs a taste. I picked another bowl of autumn olives. Weedwhacked the remainder of the Wood Duck Pond Trail. Squirrels ate holes right through the middle of the plywood top of my Wood Duck deer stand. I'll have to replace it. All that's left of my Wood Duck blind is a milk crate tied to a tree. Wood that I stacked up around it as a blind is all washed away and the pond's edge is right next to that crate. I started a trail down the field due east of the swim pond, because I often see deer down that field when I walk the Ponds Trail. I'm going to move the aluminum ladder deer stand to somewhere down there, since I haven't used that stand, which is further NW, for years. Found a very excellent online wine making source, Jack Keller's WineBlog, and learned a better way to develop yeast over several hours prior to pitching it into the fermentation bucket. He also has an autumn olive wine recipe.
• Thursday, 10/17: Woke to low-lying fog with the sun shining through it...very pretty. After letting out chickens, a white young chicken crowed for the first time, an indication that chicken butchering is just around the corner. Around 10 am, the wine brew bucket started fizzing and bubbling with gusto. You can hear it anytime you're near the bucket. We took off the towel and the specific gravity is the same, so it needs time to burn off sugar and make alcohol. Mary froze 4 quarts of autumn olives. With 2 from last year and 6 from earlier this summer, we now have 12 quarts in the freezer. Picked another bowl of them. Mary trimmed weeping willow branches so we can walk under it, better. She checked hickory nuts and persimmons. It's a bad hickory nut year and the persimmons are still green. Then, she picked up small branches around the yard for kindling. I weedwhacked more of the trail to a new deer stand location and located a crook in a maple tree that will be perfect for the aluminum ladder stand. We lit the outdoor fire and had a weinie roast as the stars appeared. Mary heard a woodcock, probably heading south. Went in at 8:30, since an east wind made it cold. Sitting in the living room, we had coyotes serenade us who were near where we had our fire in the west yard. We are but guests in their wild world.
• Friday, 10/18: Left the wine alone, today. I drained the 8N Ford tractor's hydraulic/transmission fluid and then added new fluid. Drove the tractor down and up the lane. Checked the dipstick when I returned and it's way above the full level. Mary froze another 4 quarts of autumn olives, giving us a total of 16 quarts. She mowed the north lawn areas, and washed clothes. In the evening, I learned that even though 8N Ford manuals say they take 5 gallons of hydraulic/transmission fluid, it's more like a quart or 2 shy that amount. Also, dipsticks are usually wrong. Better to remove lowest bolt of hydraulic pump's viewing plates on either side of the tractor and when fluid starts flowing from there, the correct level is obtained. Then, the dipstick can be re-marked.
• Saturday, 10/19: Checked the wine's specific gravity and it is1.045, so the sugar level is dropping quickly. I picked a half of a bowl of autumn olives. I also removed the lowest viewing plate bolts on the 8N Ford and drained hydraulic/transmission fluid from the tractor. Checked dipstick. It has "Full" with an arrow to a line, followed by "With rams fully extended" above that. The new full line is right at the "I" in the word, "With," or 2 letters above the full mark. Mary took the day off, due to a sinus headache. We watched the last 2 Harry Potter movies.

Oct. 6-12, 2019

Weather | 10/6, 45°, 69° | 10/7, 45°, 69° | 10/8, 45°, 68° | 10/9, 45°, 67° | 10/10, 0.69" rain, 55°, 63° | 10/11, 0.12" rain, 39°, 45° | 10/12, 29°, 63° |

• Sunday, 10/6: I decided To Do's for the week, then took a wire wheel on the electric hand grinder to rust on the wood stove, then painted the top and sides of the stove with flat black spray paint that's good to 2000°F and painted the front with similar silver colored paint. Mary peeled, processed, and froze 12 quart bags of Bartlett pears. I realized a trip to Quincy was needed to get items to make pear wine and for woodstove pipe caulking. Bill called in the evening and talked to both of us for about 90 minutes. He and his friend, Mike Push, are getting into beer making.
• Monday, 10/7: Went to Quincy and bought stove pipe silicone sealant for the woodstove pipe, a dozen lemons, 5 lbs. of golden raisins, 5 gallons of water, and a large plastic spoon for making pear wine. Mary peeled and processed 8 quarts of pears. She then mowed 1/3 of the lawn. I mowed the lane after I returned home. We had nachos and watched the first Harry Potter movie.  
• Tuesday, 10/8: I took down the stove pipe, removed the soot out of the chimney, took a wire brush and cleaned soot out of the inside of all the stove pipe sections, applied stove pipe caulking, and with Mary's help, installed the stove pipe. Mary washed clothes, and turned grass over she's drying. Had an outside fire and cooked pork loin until about 10 pm. After bathing, discovered the outside of the left lens of my glasses was full of wavy lines, as if the coating melted (maybe from the fire). I'll have to get new glasses. Dug out my old glasses and I can see better at distances with them...never thought the optometrist we saw at the now defunct Shopko eye department was any good. Looked up eyecare businesses online.
• Wednesday, 10/9: UPS delivered a Carhartt coat we ordered. It's a large Yukon Extreme work coat. It fits me fine...large enough to put layers under it, which is what I want. It's too small for Mary, so we'll need to get her an extra large. Bill texted us, saying he's sick with a fever and staying home. Called an eye glass place in Quincy. Their full-time optometrist is the same guy we saw a year ago at Shopko...hell no on that place! Checked with Sam's Club in Springfield, IL, since the Sam's Club in Quincy doesn't have an eye care center, and their optometrist recently retired. Checked with an elderly couple in Quincy who I had as a dog training client (both wear glasses) and they recommended International Eye Care. Called them, got pricing, and set up an appointment for tomorrow at 10:50 am to get an eye exam. Mary washed sheets and furniture covers, and then cleaned out garden items, since they're predicting a low of 34° Friday night. She collected 51 acorn squash, 2 buckets of hot and bell peppers, and several more tomatoes. She also harvested comfrey and sage leaves. Mary brought in the wood rack, wood, and kindling. With all of the windows open, I lit a small fire in the wood stove to burn the oil off the outside of the stove pipe. I used up a tank of gas to weedwhack a part of the trail to the Swim Pond, then mowed that same part of the trail. Mom texted me that it snowed and blew all day in Circle...about an inch, but melted on the streets.
• Thursday, 10/10: Went to eye appointment at International Eye Care in Quincy an hour early to pick out frames. The optometrist, a woman, was excellent...very meticulous. My prescription is slightly stronger, especially in the left eye. Eye retinas are good. She's seeing the start of cataracts, but says I shouldn't need surgery for 15-20 years. She said we all get them, but she mainly sees them starting with people in their 50s, so I'm better than most. She also said I have blephartitis, a fancy word for crusty eyelids that can turn into sties, bacterial infections and vision loss. Her solution...cleaning a closed eye with a wash rag containing baby shampoo. Tried it this evening and my eyes feel better already. The total bill was $710.32. After paying, it leaves us with $50 in our emergency fund. Shopped for baby shampoo and a couple food items in Walmart, chick food and hand warmers at Farm & Home, and celery, strawberries and chips at Aldi. Mary found my wine yeast order wrapped in plastic and in our mailbox...the UPS driver left it there rather than driving up our lane in the rain. She baked 4 loaves of bread and made a big batch of vegetable soup, which I ate when I got home. After chores, we watched the 2nd Harry Potter movie. Bill stayed home for a second day...felt better in the evening, when he was soaking labels off beer bottles.
• Friday, 10/11: It blew hard overnight, knocking a branch out of the weeping willow tree. Made waffles and ate with strawberries for breakfast. I went through all of my books and wrote down in a rough draft all of the steps to making pear wine. This is something Bill recommended, so you aren't wondering what to do in the middle of the process. Then, I transferred that into a theme book...there are 34 steps. I also created a calendar of dates on when to siphon (rack) from one container to another. We'll be able to start drinking the wine in a year, or 10/13/20. This took most of the day to accomplish. Mary made tortillas, then chimichangas, and helped me hash out the wine recipe. She also strung up the last of the hot Portugal and Ho Chi Minh hot peppers to dry in the living room. We had a fire all day in the wood stove. Wood heat is such a thoroughly penetrating warmth. Saw little deer tracks in the trail I recently mowed while walking Plato and Churchill in the morning, then in the late afternoon, I saw many more larger deer tracks on the same area, in our north yard. We live with a lot of deer. We watched the 3rd Harry Potter movie. 
• Saturday, 10/12: Mary and I made pear wine...what a chore!!! After sharpening knives, getting equipment out, and sanitizing everything, we started. I squeezed juice out of 10 lemons while Mary diced golden raisins. We cut up 3, instead of 5 pounds of raisins. Raisins give the wine a more "vinous" character. Then, we peeled and cored 104 pears. It lasted 2.5 sticky, slimy, wet, and gooshy hours. Mary peeled while I cored and cut them into quarters. Towards the end, we were joking about Mary jumping off the roof hollering, "No more pearssss...plop!" It was her third day of peardom! We filled 2 huge stainless steel bowls with them, floating them in lemon water, so they wouldn't brown. We snarfed snacks and then put a layer of pears, then a layer of raisins in our long, sturdy, nylon mesh bag, then mashed each layer with a potato masher. Three gallons of juice emerged around a big, long, white nylon covered turd of pear mash. Next, we put 18 cups of sugar into 2 gallons of heated water, stirred until dissolved, then cooled it down to 75° after several cold water baths in the sink. Poured into my brew bucket and came up with a total of 6 gallons...oops...was only supposed to have 5 gallons. Two gallons of water, plus a ton of sugar, equals 3 gallons of sugar water. Also, added pectin enzyme (kills pectin for clearer wine), wine acid, yeast nutrient, and lemon juice. Checked specific gravity...it was 1.100...is supposed to be 1.085 for making dry wine. Even though we cut back the sugar, it was too much. Obviously, there was quite a bit of sugar in the pear juice. Removed some juice and added 5 cups of water to get specific gravity to 1.090. Quit, because we're afraid of getting liquid level too high in the brew bucket and bubbling over during fermentation. Put brew bucket, sealed, in the pantry. We are to let it sit for 24 hours with crushed campden tablets (sodium metabisulfite), which kill bacteria and wild yeasts in the juice. Clean up was fierce, with pear juice and mush on counters, the cabinet doors, and the floor. We ate, watched the fourth Harry Potter movie, bathed, and wearily went to bed.