- Sunday, 4/12: It warmed up to a high in the early afternoon, then dark clouds arrived with rain and temperatures dropped drastically. We read internet news in the morning. I looked up wine info related to floaties in the wine...decided not to worry about it. Also, checked out online wine yeast purchasing potentials. We did most of our chores early when we saw dark clouds arriving from the SW...always the direction for a real dumper of moisture. After dishes, I drilled a hole in the center of a screw cap to a vitamin bottle to use to keep rubber stoppers in place in 1-gallon jugs while brewing wine. Then, I racked the grapefruit wine into a new jug. Prior to racking, I checked the specific gravity. It decreased slightly to 0.990 on one hydrometer and 0.998 on another. Since I added refrigerated must during the last racking, I expected this change, because the refrigerated must wasn't as far along as that in the jug. Tasted some of the wine used to check specific gravity. It's more mellow, still bitter, a strong grapefruit taste, sort of similar to beer with high amounts of hops in it. After racking, I added a crushed Campden tablet and potassium sorbate to kill all yeast. I'll let it sit for 10 days to ensure all yeast is deactivated, then bottle it. Below are 6 wine racking photos.
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| Black modified bottle cap to hold stopper. |
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| Wine flowing from first jug and dregs. |
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| Wine flowing into second jug. |
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| Racking from the first jug to the second jug. |
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| Dregs (left), racked wine (center), and yeast killing material (right). |
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| Wine ready to wait 10 days until bottled. |
- Monday, 4/13: Found a birthday ecard and forwarded it to Katie on her 28th birthday. She called around noon while on the way to a friend for a birthday meal. She had to leave her home, because of an inspector that needed to visit the house. She's decided to remove the fence when she leaves, since the landlord who once said she'd reimburse Katie the $1000 it took to put up the fence is now saying she won't do that, even though the landlord sold the house with a fenced yard. Katie is trying to find work, since she's not sure anything will develop as far as employment in Alaska this year. Mary did some house cleaning and made vegetable soup. I fiddled with html code for most of the afternoon to get my wine making photos to appear correctly above. It took a lot of trial and error, internet searches, and cuss words.
- Tuesday, 4/14: Even though we continue to get cold morning temperatures, the pear blossoms are staying on trees...amazing. I spotted an article in The Atlantic about Petco groomers bitching on how they have to work through the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Passed the article onto Shane Mace, my old Petco boss. We chatted for quite a bit. He now manages the Fenton, MO store, which he said averages $9000 in daily sales, but they're down to $5000 a day. Mary did more house cleaning. I took the tractor/trailer on the north edge of the north woods and cut a chainsaw gas tank's worth of firewood, hauled it to 2 locations near the tractor, when stacked it on the trailer. With a much sharper chain, a gas tank full cuts nearly double the amount of wood that I used to cut. I came back home with a monstrous stack of firewood on the trailer (see photo below). The sun had already set while I stacked the last of the wood on the trailer. About every minute, I heard one after another deer snorting to the NW of me, obviously on their normal evening routine walk and not liking a human where he shouldn't be located. I had sore muscles in the evening after bench pressing oak firewood logs up the hill at my outdoor exercise gym. Checked wine, it still bubbles just a little bit. Damn yeast in this batch is exceptionally robust.
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| Big load of firewood with Plato inspecting it. |
- Wednesday, 4/15: Mary leaves the pepper plants in the upstairs south bedroom, which is closed off to cats. This morning, 4 of newly sprouted pepper plants were eaten off by mice. She reseeded those (only hot peppers) and moved her overnight storage location to the pantry. I called a wine making supply company in California asking if they can ship via the U.S. Postal Service, since Fedco can't ever find us and they said I just need to signify it when I order. Their shipping rates are the lowest I can find, so I ordered 4 varieties of wine yeast for a total of 18 packets. Two other varieties are on back order, so I asked to be notified by email when they are in. In the evening, Mocha earned her huge vet bill by catching a mouse. She's the best mouser we've ever seen. Then, she played with the dead mouse for 2 hours, sometimes tossing it 3 feet into the air (see photos below). Mary kept her hand over her drink, because she kept seeing a flying mouse at eye level as she read her book. Finally, Mocha ate it. During my night wine check, I saw 2 tiny bubbles...the yeast is slowly being strangled.
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| Mocha staring at mouse. |
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| Mocha about to fling dead mouse. |
- Thursday, 4/16: Woke to 3 inches of wet snow on everything. During morning dog walk, we took photos of blossoms with snow cover (see photos by Mary below). Most of the snow was gone by the afternoon. Mary made venison General Tso for our main meal. It started snowing in the evening and went to heavy rain. We watched the Crazy Rich Asians movie. No bubbles in my wine...the yeasties are finally dead!
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| Snow-covered unopened redbuds. |
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| More redbuds. |
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| McIntosh apple blossoms in snow. |
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| More McIntosh apple blossoms. |
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| Snow-covered forsythia blossoms. |
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| Bartlett pear blossoms in snow. |
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| More pear blossoms in snow. |
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| And again, snow-covered pear blossoms. |
- Friday, 4/17: A cold day, so we stayed inside. Pear blossoms are still there, but this "spring" weather is really making it hard on them. I balanced our checkbook, which was easy, since we're not spending money. Mary made a turkey dinner with the last bird we had in the freezer that we bought around thanksgiving time. Enjoyed it with half a bottle of pear wine, which is tasting better...more of a pear taste and more mellow. Mary and I discussed where we want to spend money. We looked online and ordered her some bras. Mary chased a Cooper's hawk away from an oak branch SW of the house. Katie texted Mary. She got a job that starts Monday. Katie worked all day trying to find a place to rent and ran into difficulties...high prices for slum dwellings, plus several scams. Nighttime online news review revealed that the first COVID-19 case surfaced in our county in a nursing home. There are 30 cases now in Adams County (Quincy), IL.
- Saturday, 4/18: I saw a deer in the field south of the house while walking the dogs in the morning. Even though the wind was howling out of the SW today, we noticed native pollinators in the pear blossoms, such as hover flies, small bees, and small flies. We ate leftover turkey dinner. It was great. After I sharpened the blade, Mary mowed the quarter-mile lane and a chunk of the lawn. I got 4 more buckets of rotten wood and put a third to half of a bucket of wood in the remaining strawberry buckets. Then, I went to the stream in the north woods and dug up 2 buckets of sand. I noticed that this stream is turning into a deep gulch in some places. Walked the dogs to the Swim Pond and then to Rose Butt Field. When we walked up to the pond, a Great Blue Heron flew off, followed by 2 swirls from large fish in the pond...either catfish or grass carp. My yeast came in from Williams Brewing in CA...pretty good service for ordering it on Wednesday. Since I saw several gooseberry bushes while getting rotten wood, I investigated making gooseberry wine. They say it's very good wine, so I'll have to give it a try. The nighttime check of my grapefruit wine was I saw 5 tiny bubbles in a minute of observation...damn, that yeast is supposed to be dead!
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