Oct. 18-24, 2020

 

Weather | 10/18, 0.02" rain, 37°, 43° in morning | 10/19, 35°, 40° | 10/20, 0.01" rain, 36°, 46° | 10/21, 0.37" rain, 41°, 49° | 10/22, 45°, 80° | 10/23, 0.58" rain, 37°, 42° | 10/24, 33°, 41° |

• Sunday, 10/18: Today's relaxation:
  
  • The high temperature for the day was this morning. We had some rain and then temperatures dropped a little throughout the day.
  • I bottled the worst wine I've made, which is the watermelon wine, and the best wine I've made, which is the blackberry wine (see photos below). The watermelon wine smells bad, but tastes sort of okay. Mary hates it. She calls it the limburger cheese of the wine world. The blackeberry wine tastes smooth, tart, without any strong alcohol taste. It's a real winner and it has no aging in the bottle, yet. Both wine types have an approximate 12% alcohol content. 
  • I also added pectic enzyme to the pear wine, activated yeast with 95° water, then throughout the afternoon and evening, added quarter cups of pear must to the yeast mixture. I pitched the yeast into my pear wine brew bucket at midnight, 24 hours after this batch was first made.
  • Mary cleaned the upstairs north bedroom walls and ceiling.
  • After I was done playing in the kitchen with my wine, Mary made a venison General Tso meal.

Bottling blackberry wine.

Blackberry (left) and watermelon (right) wine bottles.

• Monday, 10/19: Happenings:
  • Temperatures continue to hang lower than weather predictions, making chimney/roof work difficult. I nailed ridge caps from the chimney's edge to the south and north on the peak of the roof. Some of the asphalt shingles broke, due to being brittle from cold temperatures. My solution was to put them under the electric heater in the house, keep the lift engine running and to transport each piece outside in a plastic shopping bag to the roof, then bending the warm shingle into place on the roof ridge and nailing it. It took longer to do it this way, so I never got to brick and mortar work, today. But, all shingling is done around the chimney.
  • Mary made flour tortillas and venison fajitas.
  • I checked the pear wine. It's bubbling along, nicely. The specific gravity went up to 1.084. We're guessing that the mesh bag filled with pear and raisins released more sugar into the must.
  • We watched the first Harry Potter movie, a good Halloween item.
  • I checked with Katie and she flew from Anchorage to Nuiqsut this morning.
    
    
• Tuesday, 10/20: When weather knocks your plans awry, it's maddening. Such is the case, now. A week from today, I need to return the lift. Wind and rain keeps delaying me from accomplishing 3 jobs I want to get done while using the lift. I can't seem to get job number 1, the chimney, done, let alone the other two, removing an old gas furnace vent while shingling over that spot, and cutting down the weeping willow tree. Mary needs to clean up the garden so she can plant garlic. Rain halted that today. We're late at getting chickens butchered. It's been too cold for that. Ugh! On the other hand, it's not snowing, like it's been doing in the northern states.
  
  Today's fun:
  
  • Rain was predicted after 1 pm, but I wanted to proceed on the chimney, so I took an old canvas tarp covering a table saw that belonged to Mary's Uncle Herman and tested it as a cover for the chimney. It worked, so I went ahead and laid 4 bricks to put the chimney top at 23" above the roof peak. Heavy mist cut the job short around 2 pm, so I couldn't lay the other 2 bricks of that course and had to cover the chimney to keep rain water from washing out today's mortar.
  • Mary started taking down the chicken wire of the rabbit fence in the far garden. The 4' long small persimmon trees I used as stakes for that fence rotted in the ground, so Mary broke them off. 
  • A great horned owl hooted all day long in the north woods, just NW of the chicken run. We never saw it, but heard it throughout the day.
  • The specific gravity of the pear wine dropped 10 points from yesterday to today to 1.074. The yeast is fizzing along nicely, emanating a fruity aroma from the pantry into the kitchen.
  • We watched the second Harry Potter movie.
    
    
• Wednesday, 10/21: Today's events:
  
  • Rain halted our actions, again. I laid 2 bricks to finish a course, but ran out of mortar on the last brick. After quickly slamming together a quarter of a batch of mortar and filling gaps on the last brick where I ran out of mortar, I used the leftover mortar to hold nails at an angle in the holes that are pre-made in the center of the bricks. These nails will be covered with cement to help hold the crown on the top of the chimney.
    
  • Meanwhile, Mary rolled up the chicken wire that was in the far garden, then cut down and removed the corn stalks.
  • While eating lunch, I saw that rain was coming while looking at online radar. Since I had nail heads sticking up on top of the chimney, I found a Styrofoam packing piece that came with an air conditioner about 4 inches deep and roughly the size of the chimney top that I put on top of the chimney. I then covered the chimney with the old tarp and tied it down. Mary and I did a couple of chores until thunder persuaded us to go inside.
  • I drove to Quincy and bought a bag of chick feed, since we're not getting to chicken butchering. I also picked up pork loin on sale at HyVee.
  • The specific gravity of the pear wine dropped 24 points to 1.050 and the yeast beasties are fizzing along happily (see video, below). I'll probably need to rack the wine into a carboy and add an airlock tomorrow morning.

• Thursday, 10/22: Our day:
  • The pear wine's specific gravity was 1.028, so I racked it into a 5-gallon Big Mouth. Instantly, foam went through the airlock, so I rigged up a blow-off overflow with tubing and a Mason jar half filled with distilled water. The CO2 gas from the yeast is constant (see video below). I now wait 3 weeks to rack it again.
  
  
  • Today was hot with a strong SW wind, gusting up to 30 mph. In the past, I wouldn't have used the lift, due to the wind, but the lift's rental days are limited and we need to get jobs done, so I went above, anyway. I felt like I was in the mast of an old sailing ship.
    
  • I built a crown of sorts on the top of the chimney (see photo below), with about 4 batches of sand concrete. It's not perfect, but it isn't bad for my first, ever, attempt at working concrete. A true crown would cover the opening from rain and let smoke out of gaps in the 4 sides under it. This is more like a cap on top of the chimney bricks.
    

  

  Concrete crown on the chimney top.
  

  
  
  • Next, I put stucco on the east side of the chimney and started a 4-inch square of stucco on the north side. Darkness was closing in while finishing my last stucco batch.
  • Mary washed all the clothes. They dried quickly in the wind, today.
  • She also froze 3 gallons of tomatoes, and picked about a quart of very ripe persimmons from under the large persimmon trees.
  • Mary mowed most of the far garden where garlic will be planted.
  • The moon was in a triangle with Saturn and Jupiter after sunset...very pretty.
    
  • We watched the 3rd Harry Potter movie.
    
    
• Friday, 10/23: More rain:
  
  • Weather continues to play havoc with accomplishments. A flash of lightning woke me this morning. Sure enough, it was raining. It rained until noon.
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
  • In the afternoon, I finished applying stucco to the north side of the chimney and got to within 1 brick height of finishing putting stucco on the south chimney wall. Due to cool temperatures, I'm using hot water in my stucco mix. The result is a fast set-up time, requiring me to make smaller batches and to hurry once a batch is made to get it in place and smoothed out with a trowel. After an afternoon and crawling in and out of the lift's basket many times, I'm rather worn out.
  • Mary did some cross stitch, all of the evening chores, and picked some more ripe persimmons that blew out of the trees (see photo, below). They look horrible, but Mary makes a pudding out of the meats of these, which is very good.
    
  • Oh, a north wind blew with gusts to 25 mph, today...the adventures of roof work. I'm now calling the chimney, my crow's nest.
    

  

  Persimmons picked today.

• Saturday, 10/24: A FINISHED CHIMNEY!!!
  • I finished putting stucco on the south and west sides of the chimney, ending a project that has lasted nearly a month. I still have to remove the plank and brackets from the roof, and fill nail holes from the 6 nails that currently hold down the brackets, but the main work is over.
  • First thing this morning, I labeled blackberry and watermelon wine bottles and laid them down sideways in dark boxes in the upstairs north bedroom so wine soaks into the corks and for them to age.
  • I took apart all of the stove pipe pieces for the woodstove, cleaned soot out from inside of them with a wire brush, cleaned their outsides, and put them back together between the stove and the base of the chimney. Mary helped me with the installation, holding stove pipe as I added silicone sealant and screws to tie all the sections together. We decided to let it sit overnight, but tomorrow we'll be able to heat with wood. Our electric heaters are fair, but nothing compared to the deep heat of a good woodstove fire.
  • Mary removed the seeds, picked a few more, and froze 3 quarts of persimmons.
  • She cleaned up the walls and floor where we put firewood throughout the heating season, brought in the firewood rack, and filled it with wood.
  • Mary did all of the evening chores, since I was on the roof, finishing the chimney.