Oct. 11-17, 2020

 

Weather | 10/11, 55°, 81° | 10/12, 0.01" rain, 55°, 67° | 10/13, 43°, 73° | 10/14, 45°, 82° | 10/15, 47°, 57° | 10/16, 32°, 55° | 10/17, 39°, 65° |

• Sunday, 10/11: What we did:
  
  • I laid 5 bricks to completely mortar in all flashing pieces that I put into place yesterday, then cut and bent the aluminum sheeting for the head counterflashing that faces the east side of the chimney, sprayed lacquer on it, temporarily carpet taped it into place, then laid 3 bricks to mortar it permanently to the chimney. I added a little bit of caulking on this final piece of flashing when the sun was setting. Below is a photo from the ground of today's work. Please disregard my sloppy mortar work. I'm an amateur and I'm going to cover all of the bricks with stucco. All I have left is laying several courses of brick and applying stucco to finish the chimney. I also have some ridge caps north and south of the chimney to nail into place.
    
  • The forecast is for rain tomorrow between 4-8 am, so we'll see if my waterproofing of the chimney works. It's also supposed to blow with NW gusts to 35 mph. If it blows that hard, I won't be on the roof.
  • Mary did another firewood tree marking adventure, this time into the north woods. There are some trees close by, but further north the dead trees are covered with poison ivy. Mary had a deer run ahead of her and all she saw was a rump that was about 2-foot wide...a big buck.
  • Mary froze 3 more gallons of tomatoes. We have 20 gallons in the freezer. One more gallon and Mary has all she needs to make 3 batches of salsa and 1 batch of slumgullion. The rest of the ripening tomatoes we'll just have to eat, fresh...darn!

  

  Head flashing & counterflashing on chimney,
  looking at it from the east on the ground.

• Monday, 10/12: Grandad Melvin used to say, "It really stinks getting old." I also remember asking him how old he was on a visit to what later became Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota. He answered that he was 65 and I said, "Boy, that's old." He suggested I wait and see how I felt about it when I turn 65. I'm a year and a little over 4 months away from that age and I surely don't feel old. My body sometimes reminds me that it stinks to get older. For days, I've been doing the limbo as I climb out of the lift's aluminum cage onto a 2x10 plank on the roof. Now my right knee aches like the dickens. Somehow, I've stressed it. I'm fine, but just achy in the knee.
  
  Today's events:
  
  • Rain fell while we walked dogs this morning, but it only lasted for a few minutes.
  • Since a NW wind was howling, we declared today as a day off from chimney repair. I suggested going shopping, but since my knee hurt, a day on concrete wasn't smart.
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
    
  • Mary defrosted our largest freezer. It's now ready for new chicken and deer meat. We have to start butchering chickens, soon. The chicks are now big and 13 weeks old, today. Fourteen weeks old is the outer limit.
    
  • I called Sunbelt Rentals about renting the lift for another week. It's been $1000 a week. I've had it for 2 weeks. If we had a flatter roof, I wouldn't need the expensive gizmo. Expecting to have to commit another $1000, I was told that for another $174, I hit the monthly rate and I can keep it until Oct. 27th, which I approved. That was great news.
  • Mary brought out 2 strings of orange lights and I helped put them into the branches of the ficus tree in the living room. She added decorations, including miniature witch's brooms, 4 cross stitch ornaments Mary made, an old cauldron, and a witch's hat (see photos below).
    
    

The orange glow of our lit tree.

Our Halloween tree.

Cat with ghosts cross stitch ornament.

Pumpkin Pi cross stitch ornament.

The Pumpkit cross stitch ornament.

Kitty on pumpkin cross stitch ornament.

Miniature broom ornament.

Witch's hat on an old cauldron.

• Tuesday, 10/13: Today:
  
  • Mary canned 12 quarts of slumgullion. In a big pot, she put in 5 gallons of tomatoes, 8 medium white onions, 6 huge sweet peppers, a bit of salt, and 3/4 of a cup of Real lemon juice. Then, she brought it to a boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes and then canned it. Mary's story about slumgullion is that her grandparents weren't the richest people, and they had a lot of kids, but Mary's Grandmother Hutton had a hard time turning down hobos who would ask for a meal during the Great Depression. A hobo stopped by one day and she didn't have anything to feed him. He asked, "Do you have some tomatoes, onions, peppers, and corn bread?" She said, "Yes." He said, "You make the corn bread and give me the vegetables and I'll show you how to make slumgullion." The dish was so popular that it became a standard in the Hutton family, ever since.
  • Mary also froze 29 small packages of chopped sweet peppers.
  • I laid 11 bricks on the chimney. Bricklaying is going faster, now that I don't have to make those infernal flashing pieces. Of course, my all-time high achievement of 11 bricks in a day is probably what a pro bricklayer can do in 15 minutes. After I laid 3 bricks to finish the course that covers the last flashing, I calculated that I need to lay 6 more courses of 6 bricks per course to get to the required height that the chimney needs to reach. By nightfall, I had 2 bricks at the second course of 6 courses to get to the top.
    


• Wednesday, 10/14: My maternal grandfather, Jack Robison, had a bulldog approach to living. He was famous for getting a cast on his leg and spending hours in an irrigation ditch, essentially melting it away. Mom says he would enter the house and my grandmother would say, "Now, what did you do?" But, that tenacity was a good thing. When doctors told him a stroke meant he wouldn't walk again, his response was to get up and start walking, even if it meant his walk was a little bit teetering. No problem, he carved 2 canes from diamond willow we found in Alaska, marching about a mile every morning with his beautiful canes to support him. Would my grandfather have worn a mask if he were alive today. Even though he had a reckless streak, I think he would. He didn't go to college, but he was smart. I bring this up, because on our visit to Quincy today, we saw most everyone wearing masks. It's changed from months ago, when many weren't doing so. You might smash forward in life, like Grandad Robison did, but you still need to be smart about it. Wearing a mask right now is smart.
  
  Our day:
  
  • We had NW gusts up to 40 mph, so no roof-time for me. We went shopping in Quincy, IL. Prior to leaving, I drilled a hole in a bolt, put the bolt through a hole in the hitch coupler of the lift, and padlocked it, to detract from someone stealing it. Besides shopping for needed items, we dropped off a couple items I didn't use on my chimney project.
  • We ate nachos and watched the 1998 movie, Practical Magic.
    


• Thursday, 10/15: Events today:
  
  • A NW wind was gusting hard this morning, so I stayed away from the chimney until afternoon, when the winds decreased.
  • I texted Katie. She was in the Atlanta airport, getting on a flight to Seattle. After Seattle, she'll fly to Anchorage.
    
  • Mary and I looked at all of the Bartlett pears wrapped in newspaper in a chest of drawers on the upstairs landing. Out of 116 pears, we only had 15 that went bad. Still, I have to make pear wine very soon.
  • Mary picked 40 Kiefer pears.
  • Mary picked 25 jalapeno peppers after I mentioned the possibility of making jalapeno wine. She also picked red or yellow hot peppers of other varieties. Mary picked a full bucket of absolutely ripe tomatoes and a half of a bucket of green tomatoes. She froze 5 more gallons of tomatoes. Mary picked the last of the comfrey leaves to dry.
    
  • I laid 8 bricks on the chimney, finishing the 2nd course and putting 4 bricks on the 3rd of 6 courses left to lay. The top of the chimney is now 17.5 inches from the roof peak.
  • We celebrated October 15th, just 'cause, with a bottle of pear wine. It's very good, now...extremely smooth..
    


• Friday, 10/16: Happenings:
  
  • Late last night, Katie texted that she made it to Anchorage. She stays there until Monday, in order to quarantine and pass covid tests.
  • Morning winds were gusting to 30 mph, so I delayed working on the chimney until afternoon. I laid 8 bricks, finishing up the 3rd and 4th courses and raising the height of the chimney to 20.5 inches. 
  • I sharpened the lawn mower's blade.
    
  • Mary used a scythe to cut down grass on the path to the chicken killing cone, then raked it up to use it as an organic cushion in a new compost bin.
    
  • Mary added 2 sheet metal pieces to metal fence posts to start a new compost bin and added grass to about 2/3 full.
    
  • We saw hundreds and hundreds of robins flying south today. Online, we noticed it's snowing in northern Minnesota.
    


• Saturday, 10/17: Today we did:
  • I moved vehicles to the lane, SE of the house, due to SW wind gusts to 50 mph, and to avoid any weeping willow branches hitting the vehicles. It's not a day for chimney work.
  • I removed 2 air conditioners on the ground floor level and stored them on the bench in the machine shed. I also moved a stack of asphalt shingles to inside the machine shed.
    
  • I went to Quincy and bought a 3-pound bag of lemons, a needed ingredient for pear wine that I forgot to pick up when we shopped on Wednesday.
    
  • Mary moved garden tools, shovels, and tar paper back into the first grain bin that I left on the grass when getting to asphalt shingles.
    
  • Mary mowed the trail to the chicken killing cone, did some cleaning, and strung hot peppers.
  • We made pear wine. Mary chopped up 3 pounds of golden raisins while I juiced out 10 lemons. Then, Mary peeled, while I cored, and quartered about 96 Bartlett pears and 12 Kieffer pears. It's a messy job, especially when the Bartlett pears are so ripe. I put the pear quarters in 2 big bowls containing water and Real lemon, a solution that prevents the pear meat from turning brown. Then, we put alternate layers of pear pieces and raisins into a large mesh bag, squeezing after each layer was added to release pear juice. Next, I added 5 crushed Campden tablets, 5 teaspoons of acid blend, 5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient, and 2.75 gallons of water to bring the must level to the 6-gallon mark in the brew bucket, with the bag also in the bucket. Next, I measured the specific gravity. Starting at 1.030, I added sugar until it was at 1.080. This is much lower than last year's pear wine starting point. I'm trying to make this year's pear wine at a lower alcoholic content, to keep our ears from curling when we drink it. Now, I let the must sit for 12 hours, to let the crushed Campden tablets kill any wild mold on the fruit. For roughly $16, we get about 2 dozen delicious bottles of pear wine. We started this project at 7 pm and ended it at midnight. Below is a photo of the pear must in the brew bucket.

  

  Measuring specific gravity in pear wine must.