Nov. 22-28, 2020

Weather | 11/22, 36°, 47° | 11/23, 24°, 39° | 11/24, 0.55" rain, 37°, 47° | 11/25, 0.18" rain, 43°, 45° | 11/26, 0.02" rain, 36°, 49° | 11/27, 35°, 48° | 11/28, 27°, 53° |

• Sunday, 11/22: Garlic Wine Started
  
  • Bill and I first started to make a jalapeno wine, but most of the peppers were either starting to rot, or had mold on them. When they were picked, I was building a new chimney and I didn't get to them soon enough. Mary suggested we make a garlic cooking wine, so she helped us peel 20 garlic bulbs and then chop them up in her food processor. I added a gallon of white grape juice, acid blend, yeast nutrient, a little water, and 3 cups sugar to put the the specific gravity at 1.110, which will give it a 14-15% alcohol content after the yeast is done. The brew bucket with garlic wine must in it sits 12 hours, then pectic enzyme is added, then after an additional 12 hours, yeast is included. The house smells like a garlic factory, especially in the pantry, where the brew bucket sits.
  • Bill made 3 excellent pizzas. We enjoyed some beer he brought with him. Last night, we had a glass, each, of coffee stout beer that he brewed, which was really good. 
  • We played Michigan Rummy between 7:30 and midnight. Mary blasted Bill and I in the game. It was fun. There were times when we laughed so hard, it hurt.
  • Mary reported that at times, there were several shots fired in properties all around us. This is the last weekend of regular deer hunting season. I'm happy to be done with hunting. Mary saw 53 Canada geese fly over while she was handling chickens in the evening, obviously disturbed by hunters walking by Wood Duck Pond. She saw them turn their heads, look at her with her hunter orange vest on, then veer to the north. It's easy to see that they know that hunter orange equals a human with a gun. We wear hunter orange throughout deer hunting gun season as a safety measure, when venturing outside.
    
    
• Monday, 11/23: First Snow
  
  • We got the first snow that stuck to the ground. It came down after sunset, at late dusk, when distant hills disappeared with oncoming snowfall.
  • I added pectic enzyme to the garlic wine in the morning, then yeast to it in the evening. Vampires won't visit our house. It smells strongly of garlic.
  • Katie texted me photos of the last sunrise and sunset of the year where she works at Nuiqsut, AK. She put them on Facebook, too, HERE.
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
  • We were going to cook pork loin on an outdoor fire, but predicted rain and stomachs full of waffles changed our minds. Instead, Mary fixed up pork loins with BBQ sauce, acorn squash, and small garden potatoes. We opened a bottle of grapefruit wine that I made earlier this year. It was more mellow. Mary and Bill like it. This wine is not my favorite.
  • Bill picked out a movie to watch. It was National Treasure.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/24: Rainy Day
  
  • We didn't get a significant rain, but a steady rain fell slowly throughout the day.
  • Today is the last day of the regular deer hunting season. Of course, here in the land of shooting, there are more deer hunting seasons. The weekend after Thanksgiving Day is the second youth hunting season. Then, Dec. 4-5 is the anterless deer hunting season. The second archery deer hunting season is Nov. 25-Jan. 15. And, alternative deer hunting season, when you can throw a spear at a deer, or knock them over with a black powder gun, is Dec. 26-Jan. 5. There are multiple ways to annihilate deer in Missouri. We've got our meat, so we'll let them roam freely.
    
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. She also cleaned a food-grade 5-gallon bucket. I added a Gamma screw-on lid, then Mary filled it with flour.
  • The garlic wine isn't fermenting, yet. Specific gravity went up 2 points to 1.112. A second look prior to bedtime revealed white ropes in the must, which could be mold (not good), or collections of bubbles from the start of fermentation (good). 
  • Mary made venison stroganof, a dish requested by Bill.
  • Katie almost missed her flight from Deadhorse to Anchorage, due to an airplane that was to fly from Barrow to Nuiqsut breaking down. She said they transferred to a different plane at Barrow in order to fly to Deadhorse. She made it to Anchorage, then to Minneapolis in the early morning hours of 11/25.
  • Bill and I were bums all day.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/25: Remembering Dad
  
  • My father died 7 years ago on this day. Not one to take a long time to make decisions, my father never let moss grow under his feet. That's the reason why I was gifted with living in so many places as I grew up. I lived a few weeks in Florida after birth, then several spots in western Montana until age 6, then Anchorage and Ninilchik, AK, Carlisle near Fergus Falls, MN, Fargo & Mandan, ND, Greeley and Winter Park, CO, then Anchorage, Eagle River, and Homer, AK. A big advantage to moving so much is that no one is a stranger. It's easy for me to make friends. Also, one learns to read people quickly. Plus, long distances of travel never bother me. So, thank you, Robert A. Melvin. You helped me be what I am today.
    
  • Mary made 42 flour tortillas, chimichangas for our main meal, 2 pumpkin pies from a solid pumpkin that was first baked as halves in the oven, then turned into wonderful pies, and cranberry sauce from scratch (see photo below). She had a busy day in the kitchen.
    
  • I vacuumed flies and Asian ladybugs.
  • Katie texted in early morning hours that she left Anchorage, then landed in Minneapolis. After a layover in the Twin Cities, she flew to Chicago. Her flight got in early to O'Hare, so she was able to catch a midday flight to Quincy. She called from Chicago, letting us know about her early flight. It meant I had to hightail it to Quincy.
  • Once in Quincy, I bought veggies for tomorrow's Thanksgiving meal at Aldi and HyVee, then picked Katie up at the Quincy airport. As we went home, we drove by a farmer's semi with a grain trailer that jackknifed in the middle of the road in West Quincy, MO.
  • The dogs gave Katie a proper wiggy-waggy tail greeting (see photo below).
    
  • After eating, we watched the 2003 movie, Love Actually.
  • While checking my garlic wine before going to bed, I discovered that the yeast finally kicked in and started fermentation.

The first stage of making cranberry sauce.

Plato and Katie saying hello.

• Thursday, 11/26: Thanksgiving Day
  
  • Everyone was a bum, today, except Mary. She runs with a checklist every Thanksgiving Day, to remind her of the various things that need to be done. The turkey went in at 11 am, and was done by 2 pm. We ate by 2:30. It was amazing!
  • Bill washed 2 loads of clothes. The clothesline was filled and some had to come in and be dried hanging from the line in the living room.
  • I checked the garlic wine. The specific gravity moved just a little bit...from 1.112 to 1.108, so fermentation is starting to eat up sugars.
  • After Mary cleaned all of the meat off the turkey, we took the carcass out to where I left deer carcasses, and dumped the turkey carcass. The only thing left of the 2 deer were part of hides and a couple feet. Coyotes or other critters really cleaned everything up. We're sure they enjoyed the Thanksgiving turkey, too.
  • Katie picked out a game to play. It's called Constellation. We played twice. I won the first game and Katie won the second one. 
  • Katie picked out 2 movies to watch. They were The Man Who Invented Christmas and The Polar Express. 
  • Clouds were closing off the moon and stars when Mary and I walked the dogs for the final time at midnight, prior to going to bed.
    
    
• Friday, 11/27: Day After Thanksgiving (I refuse to name a day black!)
  
  • We enjoyed the All American duty of eating turkey leftovers.
  • We saw a golden eagle fly over our property.
  • Katie wrapped Christmas presents.
  • I checked the garlic wine. The fermentation is robust and the specific gravity is 1.093. 
  • Bill and I racked the pear wine into the 5-gallon big mouth carboy, cleaned the 6.5-gallon carboy we moved the wine from, and then put the wine back into that carboy. We carefully removed leftover wine from atop the yeast residue and tasted it. This tasted like aged pear wine. With an alcohol content between 10-11%, this is much better tasting wine than the pear wine I made last year. The pear taste comes out strongly, which is great. Bill and I cleaned up the winemaking stuff, then washed all of the dishes.
  • Mary, Katie, Bill, and I put up the Christmas tree and decorated it while listening to Christmas music.
  • After trimming the tree, we divided up a bottle of blackberry wine. It's only a month since I bottled it, yet it tasted like a fine finished wine, full of body and very good.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/28: Katie's Christmas
  • I drove Katie to the Hannibal (MO) Clinic. You park in their parking lot in front of a sign with a number (we were number 17), call the phone number listed on a post, give them your personal information, then a nurse comes outside and administers the COVID test. It's a requirement 72 hours prior to arriving by air into Alaska. It was Katie's 4th COVID test. This nurse did the longest nose swab job Katie has ever experienced. Usually, the administrator of COVID tests email results, but not here. Instead, Katie has to develop a patient portal to get results. It took an hour at the Hannibal Clinic parking lot to get through their process.
  • When Katie left Nuiqsut, AK, she was wearing her winter work clothes. Putting them in her suitcase made it overweight, so the clothes went into a big plastic garbage sack. We went to JCPenney in Hannibal for Katie to buy a suitcase. All Penneys had was high-priced junk, so she bought a 17-gallon plastic tote for $10 at Lowe's.
  • While Katie and I were gone, Mary figured out what garden seeds we need to order. We figure seeds ought to be ordered early, since most seed sellers were swamped with extra sales this year and a repeat is imminent.
    
  • When we got home, we built an outdoor fire and had a wienie roast. Mary's relish and piccalilli were very popular with Bill and Katie.
  • The specific gravity of the garlic wine is 1.060, with strong fermentation occurring.
    
  • We opened Christmas gifts for Katie after dark. Katie's gifts to all of us were very thoughtful. She gave Mary several movie bluray disks. Bill got an incredible pillow. I got several tools, including a Milwaukee LED headlamp, plus a 5-gallon glass carboy.
  • We divided a bottle of dandelion wine that was bottled on July 4th. It has too high of an alcohol content...17.7%, so it's too strong. But the floral aftertaste is quite good. We all agreed it's a wine to make, again.
    
  • We called mom after opening gifts. Bill and Katie talked with her for several minutes. Mom was exposed to COVID from her friend, Martha, but after 10 days of staying home, Mom has no symptoms. Mom said a large man camp for the oil pipeline out of Canada is being built between of Circle and Brockway, MT.
  • We watched the 2020 movie, Emma, one of the movies that Katie gave Mary.