- Sunday, 5/3: Day started cloudy, then light rain, then clear and sunny. I stirred the must of my dandelion wine...nothing happening with fermentation, yet, but it's smelling yeasty. Mary made a turkey and rice dish, along with yummy chocolate pudding pie. She also did some cleaning. I raked the remaining grass that was mowed in the far garden. Also, helped water all plants in both gardens. It's looking like a complete crop failure with peas...no germination. Our lilacs are in full bloom.
- Monday, 5/4: Beautiful sunrise to ominous western approaching clouds to thunder and rain for the afternoon, which is much needed for our garden. I texted for a bit with Mom. My sister, Karen, plans on visiting her for Mother's Day. Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. I knocked down tall grass with the whacker for paths to 3 apple trees and the asparagus bed in the east yard and to the 2 pear trees and 2 blueberry bushes west of the chicken coop. It took 2 tanks of gas in the weed whacker. Mary sorted out monies, paid bills, and mended clothes. I reviewed what I need to buy to get the aquarium running. I bought it in 2017 with a deal when I was working at Petco...who knows, it might have fish swimming in it before I die, but don't hold your breath! I didn't order anything for the aquarium, but I did order more wine making supplies from Midwest Supplies in the Twin Cities. I also ordered the remaining 4 Patrick O'Brian novels. I'm currently reading the 10th in his series entitled The Far Side of the World. My dandelion wine is starting to smell more of yeast. Still a bubble or two in my grapefruit wine. Bill texted a photo from his friend, Mike, of a beer he's making that's bubbling like crazy. Bill said they both plan to make their own brews and then join up to compare their concoctions. All of our trees are leafing out, now. The predicted temperature for Friday night and Saturday morning keeps dropping in the 30s to a point we'll need to cover garden plants to protect them from frost. Mary saw a mockingbird. One arrives every spring, but then moves on.
- Tuesday, 5/5: Day started with light mist, then patches of sun, then rain. We were inside. Mary made flour tortillas, then chimichangas. I called Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO, and ordered 25 cockerels from their Frypan Special and 3 pullets. We wanted Golden Comet pullets, but they wouldn't have them available until August 17th, which is way too late...would mean we'd be butchering chickens in the middle of deer season, which is an ugly scenario. So, we went with 3 Rhode Island Reds, with the order arriving the week of July 13th. We wanted the chicks arriving around the first day of summer, but Cackle Hatchery is swamped with orders and can't do the pullets any earlier. Checked aquarium item prices at Petco's website. They are now matching Amazon's prices and since I'll be buying fish from Petco in Quincy and can use PALS Rewards at that time, I bought a UV algae zapper and a water test kit from Petco. Decided to check availability of Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), a soybean food that we use in the place of hamburger, since there is now a meat shortage due to closed packing plants with coronavirus issues. Mary found a 25-pound bag of Bob's Red Mill TVP at a wholesale warehouse. I ordered a bag and resurrected our Quillstar business name...shsh, no one needs to know it was a writing company, not a restaurant.
- Wednesday, 5/6: Drove to Quincy to pickup a FedEx package of fruit tree spray at Walgreen's. When I got up to the Walgreen's counter to get the package and she asked me for a personal ID, I realized I left my wallet at home...didn't even have a driver's license. Drove back home, got my wallet and a lunch that Mary made, then returned to Quincy, got package and a few grocery items from Sam's Club, County Market, and Aldi. Meanwhile, Mary weeded part of the near garden and mowed a piece of the lawn NW of the house. She also planted tomatoes and tomatillo seeds. It rained a few drops after I got home. Did chores. Our TVP order is already in Quincy. It was shipped from DOT Foods in Mt. Sterling, IL, which is only 40 miles east of Quincy. After struggling for a couple hours, I changed FedEx delivery to the Quincy Walgreen's store. Yeast in my dandelion wine hasn't kicked off, yet, probably due to cool temperatures in our house right now. For 2 days in a row, I see no bubbles in the grapefruit wine, which means it's ready to bottle. Katie texted that she got straight A's in all of her courses, which means she'll graduate summa cum laude with an associate's degree. She moved in with a friend, since the place she got to live in isn't available until July. She was rehired by the construction company she worked for prior to going to Alaska. There were 2 whip-poor-wills calling to the north when I walked the dogs tonight. Plato and Ember were frightened from their calls, wouldn't go very far down the lane, and roared back home.
- Thursday, 5/7: Cloudy day, with rain at dusk. We watched online until we saw that UPS delivered our package, then I walked to the end of the lane and got packages from Petco (aquarium stuff) and JCPenney (hooded sweatshirt and underwear). We raked the NW lawn and mulched more of the far garden, then I mowed the east lawn while Mary weeded and raked grass behind where I mowed. We finished chores just prior to rain. The dandelion wine yeast started to bubble...yahoo!
- Friday, 5/8: Sunny and windy day. I received my wine brewing stuff from Midwest via a UPS delivery, along with 5 items for Mary as early-ordered birthday gifts. I drove to Quincy and picked up our 25-pound bag of TVP at Walgreen's. Also got couple things at Sam's Club and Aldi. At home, Mary moved the buckets of strawberries and apple tree rootstock to the woodshed. When I got home, we dug old sheets and blankets out of the Suburban and covered plants in the garden, since they're talking frost for the morning. I received 3 of the 4 Patrick O'Brian books in the mail. In the evening, we ate nachos and watched the movie The Man Who Invented Christmas, about Charles Dickens writing A Christmas Carol. It's a good movie. A fruity yeasty smell fills the pantry from the fermenting dandelion wine. It smells quite good.
- Saturday, 5/9: Woke to 30° and frost everywhere. Around 8 am, I removed the sheets and blankets covering garden plants. After breakfast, we stretched out and dried sheets on the grass and blankets draped over car hoods. I disassembled Mary's lawnmower down to the carburetor. Determined that the automatic choke vacuum diaphragm works, Thoroughly cleaned the carb and parts surrounding it and cleaned with gas and blew it out with compressed air. The gas hose was rotten. Mary divided up the 25-pound bag of TVP into 104 meal-size sandwich bag packages and froze them (see photo below). Each sandwich bag of TVP makes the equivalent of 1 pound of hamburger meat, and it costs 83 cents per package. Try to find hamburger for 83 cents a pound! Mary washed towels and weeded part of the near garden. In the late evening, I checked the dandelion wine's specific gravity and racked the wine into a 1-gallon jug.We got to bed in the wee hours of the morning.
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| 104 packages of TVP, our hamburger substitute. |
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