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.