Feb. 21-27, 2021

Weather | 2/21, 0.02" mist, 20°, 37° | 2/22, 27°, 46° | 2/23, 31°, 56° | 2/24, 32°, 46° | 2/25, 21°, 45° | 2/26, 0.02" rain, 23°, 49° | 2/27, 0.01" rain, 31°, 56° |

• Sunday, 2/21: Heavy Mist
  
  • While bad weather roared across Iowa, north of us, we experienced a day of only heavy mist. Snow levels are shrinking.
    
  • Mary dusted 5 shelves of books in the sun room. She also did some cross stitching.
    
  • The specific gravity of the grapefruit wine was 1.032 at 1 p.m. and 1.028 at 10 p.m. It's getting close to a move into a carboy with an airlock. It tastes and smells very good.
  • Mary saw a barred owl in the Kieffer pear tree, west of the living room window, towards dusk.
    
  • We played a game of Scrabble. I won, but I cheated. An online look reveals that any combination of letters is an acronym...ha, ha, ha. We agreed that online checks and acronyms are outlawed in future Scrabble games. Other Scrabble cheating methods (Melvin Rules) are allowed.
    
    
• Monday, 2/22: Big Snow Melt
  
  • Our snow is melting a great deal now that temperatures are well above freezing.
  • Mary cooked up the last pumpkin that we raised last summer and froze 4 quarts of pumpkin meat. She also did 2 loads of laundry, and finished cleaning book shelves in the sun room.
  • I walked through the woods, immediately north, south, and west of the house looking for dead trees to saw up for firewood. Critter tracks are everywhere. I found some nice firewood trees.
    
  • The grapefruit wine's specific gravity was 1.016 at noon at 1.014 at 8 p.m. I'm sure I'll be siphoning the must into glass jugs tomorrow.
  • Our water pressure is dropping, so Mary filled 13 plastic gallon jugs, so we have water if it stops running from the tap altogether.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/23: Faucet Dribbles
  
  • We still have running water...barely. I called the Knox County Water District #1. Knox County is west of us. They supply water to us that comes from Mark Twain Lake, located about 50 miles due south of us. I was told several people are without water or have low water pressure in a wide swath and a crew is looking to find the leak. At bedtime, we still had water, but it was about an eighth of what we usually see for pressure.
  • Mary was going to wash clothes, due to warm temperatures for drying outside, but didn't with hardly any water. I coined a little ditty for our situation..."Trickle, trickle, little water. You aren't running like you oughter!"
    
  • The grapefruit wine's specific gravity was at 1.004 and it should be moved to an airlocked glass container at 1.010, so since the move was overdue, I transferred the wine must into a gallon glass jug and a clear glass wine bottle (see photo below). By using 1 of my new #2 stoppers, I was able to fit an airlock on the wine bottle. If I had a clear glass beer bottle, I could have racked even more wine must. There was a little less than a full wine bottle left, so Mary and I drank the rest (see photo of happy taste tester below). It's very good and much better than last year's grapefruit wine attempt.
  • Mary dusted 2 shelves of living room books.
  • Mary also sorted bad garlic out of our garlic supply, eliminating about a third of the bulbs. Mary said she's impressed with this crop, because it's usually shot by now.
  • I vacuumed Asian lady bugs and flies from the inside of house windows, twice.

2021 grapefruit wine's 1st racking.

Oh, woe is me...tasting the wine dregs.

• Wednesday, 2/24: Wildlife Abounds
  
  • After walking the dogs this morning, we heard a coyote howling in the north field, very close to our house. We usually don't hear coyotes howling during the day.
  • While eating breakfast, we saw either a bald eagle fly across the west field twice, or 2 bald eagles.
  • While walking to the woods to cut firewood, we saw a mourning cloak butterfly.
    
  • This evening, we saw a bunch of snow geese flying east to west. Mary saw some prior to our big snow and cold temperatures, but this is the first batch we've seen since the warm up.
    
  • We walked down our lane to the south of the house and cut firewood from dead trees and limbs in the woods just south of Bluegill Pond. Mary stacked the cut firewood on branches. We'll pick it up in the morning when the ground is frozen. The ground looked relatively dry, but after walking through a spot several times, water was oozing down the newly walked-on trail. 
  • We spotted one cherry tree where you could see how a lightening strike sizzled the bark off in a swirling pattern from the tip to the base of the tree. Woodpecker holes were drilled into the tree. One hole had a mouse nest in it. I didn't cut it down, because live green branches were showing at its top. Cherry trees might look dead when they're still alive.
    
  • I also spotted a mounded up pile of mud, kind of resembling an ant hill, in the tiny stream in the heart of the trees. This is home to a type of crawfish that lives here in Missouri.
    
  • Around 11 a.m., we started to see our water pressure go back up. It dropped again, but after we returned from cutting firewood, it was near full strength. We also had our 3-week supply of garbage get picked up...YAHOO! We ran out of garbage cans with tight-fitting lids.
    
  • Katie's birthday and Father's Day gift to me arrived via UPS. It's a sound bar and sub-woofer sound system for our TV.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/25: Firewood Day
  
  • We got up with the first shades of sunrise red showing on eastern clouds, lit a fire, ate an oatmeal breakfast, then drove the 8N Ford tractor and trailer to our stacked pile of firewood, picked it up, drove it back to the machine shed, and stacked wet, dry, big to-be-split logs and kindling branches of firewood into appropriate piles. We finished at 9 a.m., right before frost started going out of the ground turning it to mush.
    
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry and hung them on the outside line.
    
  • I racked the gallon jug of pumpkin wine into a new jug to remove fines. Specific gravity is at 0.994, which puts alcohol levels at 13%. The wine is dark, yet clear, so I added a crushed Campden tablet. I bottled 4 bottles and one 3/4 of a 750 ml bottle, which I put into the fridge. If I had a few beer bottles, I could bottle the last partial into a full bottle. Mary and I tasted the fines. It has a fairly strong alcoholic flavor that shifts into tasting the dark raisins and finishes into the pumpkin taste. You cannot taste the cinnamon, so I'll need to add more in the next batch. Also, I should drop sugar content to lower alcohol levels. With aging, this wine should be very good.
    
  • Mary spotted 2 red-tailed hawks circling high above us. They looked like they were into a courtship dance.
    
  • Mary did more cross stitch while waiting for Mr. Wine to get out of the kitchen.
    
  • We cut up a white oak tree for firewood that was leaning into other trees SW of the house on the edge of the south timber and stacked it on the grass, so we can pick it up tomorrow morning when the ground is frozen. Afterwards, I thoroughly cleaned the chainsaw.
    
    
• Friday, 2/26: Freeze to Thaw
  
  • We were up at sunrise, again, to eat a grapefruit (for me) and a glass of water (for Mary). Then, I fired up the tractor, we loaded the trailer with the firewood I cut, and stacked it in appropriate piles. The ground was nice and frozen, allowing us to easily move a heavy load of firewood. It became thawed and gooshie as the day transpired.
    
  • I filled out the county's property tax form and mailed it.
    
  • Mary and I inspected the planted garlic. A few green shoots are just starting to show.
    
  • There were several Vs of snow geese flying very fast overhead, from east to west, this morning.
    
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry, and made a venison General Tso dish for our main meal.
    
  • I set up the TV sound bar and subwoofer speaker that Katie got me for my birthday. It has amazing sound.
    
  • We watched the first Pirates of the Caribbean 2003 movie, because it has booming sound and music. What an experience with this sound system. Back when we got this DVD, we watched it on an old tube-type TV. We've finally caught up with the rest of the world.
  • A little light rain fell after dark.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/27: Working on Fruit Trees
  
  • Mary pruned the fruit trees and blueberry bushes. The tree that takes the longest time pruning is the Sergeant crab apple tree, which involves branches that spread out over 30 feet. She snipped, sawed, and painted pruning wound sealer on that tree for 2 hours. She did the same work on 2 Bartlett pear trees, the Jonathan apple tree, the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree, 2 Stayman Winesap apple trees, 3 pie cherry trees, 1 sweet cherry tree, and 4 blueberry bushes. There are 2 pie cherry trees yet to prune.
    
  • I put an old bar and an old chain on the chainsaw so I could cut just above the ground and not dull a newer chain. I started cutting down small cherry trees surrounding our largest pie cherry tree. The chain grew loose. Upon trying to tighten it, I noticed I couldn't tighten it further without removing a link, so I grabbed the other old chain. It was very dull, so I sharpened it. I then filed down rakers in front of each cutter of that chain, so it will bite correctly, a procedure I learned from hand-filing chainsaws. It cut like a champ while finishing sawing down the little cherry trees...there were probably 50 of these little guys. Now the big cherry tree has less water competition and lower branches that can breathe. Plus, Mary can get to it to prune it, and we can mow under and around it.
    
  • I cleaned the chainsaw. It was full of dead grass from cutting so low to the ground.
  • Several Vs of snow geese flew overhead. We heard our first killdeer and red-winged blackbirds, today. We also saw our first robins.
  • A birthday card Mom sent 11 days ago finally arrived. The U.S. Postal Service is now about as good as it was several decades ago.
    
  • I reviewed inexpensive roofing ideas.
    

Feb. 14-20, 2021

 Weather | 2/14, -6°, 6° | 2/15, 2" snow, 0.18" moisture, -7°, 2° | 2/16, -8°, 11° | 2/17, 1/2" snow, 0.03" moisture, -5°, 23° | 2/18, 1°, 23° | 2/19, -1°, 31° | 2/20, 10°, 39° |

• Sunday, 2/14: Cold Temps
  
  • Cold temperatures continued outside. Mom texted that it was -32 in Circle, MT, this morning. Chickens remain in the coop, as they have been for several days. The electric heater in there keeps temperatures roughly 10 degrees higher than outside temperatures. Mary gives them extra sunflower seeds and they're working on a pecking seed block. Our crew of 11 hens and 1 rooster seems content for days inside the coop.
    
  • Mary made a very nice chocolate zucchini cake dusted with dark chocolate chips and hickory nut pieces, today. It tastes delightful and keeps our figures svelte!
  • We enjoyed a shrimp midday meal for Valentine's Day. The shrimp was sauteed in my homemade garlic wine. We also drank the rest of the partial bottle of garlic wine. It's a wonderful cooking wine, but not as good for drinking. After eating shrimp, we had some blackberry wine with the cake. Now, that's a really excellent wine.
  • Since we didn't enjoy Saturday Game Night yesterday, we played the Senet game in the living room, next to the woodstove this evening. Senet is a very fun board game. Mary looked it up online. Senet was invented by Egyptians around 3500 B.C. Instead of dice, you throw four 4-inch long sticks that are rounded, but with one flat side. One flat side up means you move one space; two flat sides up, move 2 spaces; three flats up, 3 spaces; 4 up, 4 spaces; 4 rounded sides up, move 6 spaces. There are several other rules, which equals a lot of fun. I'm glad we have this game and we'll definitely play it again, in the future. As usual, Mary beat me three games to two.
    
  • I worked up a grapefruit wine recipe, altering ingredients and methods from last year's attempt, which was too high in alcohol and tannin taste.
    
    
• Monday, 2/15: Bill Didn't Get the Memo
  • Our son texted that he made it back home from work early and that they got about 5 inches of snow in St. Louis. One hundred percent of the employees who work under him called in saying they were not coming to work, today. "Got a lot done with no one around," Bill texted. "I didn't get the memo everyone else did lol."
  • I made up a batch of grapefruit wine. It took about 1.5 hours to skin the grapefruit sections free from white pith. Last year, I included rinds from 8 grapefruit. This year, I used 1.5 grapefruit rinds in the nylon mesh bag. I didn't add tannin, which I did last year. I used 1.4 pounds of sugar this year to reach a specific gravity of 1.080. Last year, I used 3 pounds of sugar and hit a specific gravity of 1.093. I used white grape juice this year, instead of the orange juice concentrate of last year. Hopefully, I have a mellower, better tasting result this year. My new 28" spoon was a delight to use. I'm waiting for a new variety of yeast to come in tomorrow's mail that I'll use in this batch of wine.
    
  • Mary did some book shelf cleaning and some cross stitching.
  • All of the wildlife is huddled in their hidey-holes, except for rabbits. Dogs last only a minute or two in the newly fallen snow at subzero temperatures, then they're lifting paws in the air due to the cold.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/16: First All-Day Sun Since Jan. 12th
  • We had sun all day, today, an event we haven't seen for over a month. The sun has amazing power. Even though our high was 11, steam rose off our roof as the sun melted snow on it.
    
  • Mary made a batch of flour tortillas and chimichangas for our main meal.
    
  • I received another package of winemaking stuff (birthday presents), including several stoppers that fit wine bottles, so I can properly age smaller wine leftovers that don't fit into existing carboys. I also got some Lalvin R2 yeast, an aromatic variety that's good for white wines, such as the grapefruit wine I'm making right now.
    
  • I worked up a yeast starter batch with the R2 dry yeast by first adding 97° water, then 2 ounces of wine must heated to 97° every hour and added to the starter. I dumped the yeast starter into the brew bucket at midnight. The specific gravity dropped from 1.080 to 1.076 in one day. If I take the specific gravity down to 0.995, it will have an alcohol content of 10.5%, which ought to bring out the taste better than a wine with higher alcohol levels.
  • I learned from Karen that half-hour electrical outages were planned for Mom in Circle, MT, due to struggling electrical issues in Texas with cold temperatures. Mom texted that no outages were in place, yet, but they were to start tonight and run through Thursday.
    
  • I hauled a second garbage can down the lane on a plastic toboggan this evening. The first garbage can sat at the end of the lane all this past week. As my boots crunched the snow while pulling the load, a barred owl hooted at me from the trees just south of the lane. Mary said a tufted titmouse stared at her from a cedar tree alongside the lane. Not much wildlife moving right now, so any bird is a big deal.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/17: Perfect Snow Flakes
  
  • We had light snow for most of the day, with little wind, so full flakes settled down. After dark, they glittered in the flashlight.
  • The grapefruit wine fermentation slowed to a crawl. The must's temperature is 53°, when it's best at 60°. I tried opening the door to the pantry and guarding it from cat intrusion, but the wine must stayed at 53°, so I moved the brew bucket to the living room whenever I was on the couch. It worked. By bedtime, steady bubbles were percolating from the wine must.
  • Mom texted that they didn't have to endure electrical outages in MT.
  • I saw a deer when I went down to get the mail. No garbage pickup today. A half an inch of snow must be treacherous for a several-ton garbage truck, at least for here in NE Missouri. The mailman, in his Jeep, gets through every single day, whether it's snowing, or not snowing.
  • We watched the 2017 movie, Darkest Hour.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/18: Packages Arrive
  • We got a message that a box containing a brew bucket I ordered arrived and was waiting for pickup at Walgreen's in Quincy. So, I drove to Quincy to pick it up and buy some groceries. 
  • On the drive to town, I noticed some impressive wind-blown snow banks along the north side of the mile-long gravel road (see photos below).
  • In today's mail was a long, lost package. It was a book that Mary ordered on Dec. 1st. When the book never showed up, she asked that a replacement be sent. She finished reading it last week. We'll have to return this copy. It really got lost in the mail system.
  • While I was shopping, Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. 
  • She also worked on her Native Raven cross stitch pattern.
  • Even though the specific gravity of the grapefruit wine was at 1.075, the same as yesterday, fermentation is bubbling right along.

North winds produce snowdrifts on gravel road.

Two years ago, this was filled in with deep snow.

• Friday, 2/19: Warmer
  
  • We received warmer weather today after several days of cold temperatures. It was the warmest day we've had since Feb. 3rd. 
  • The chickens saw the outdoors for the first time in 13 days. We shoveled a path from the coop door around the south chicken run for them to walk.
    
  • Mary did house cleaning, and a load of laundry that dried on racks in the living room.
    
  • Mary made a cherry pie for someone's birthday, tomorrow.
  • We watched an immature bald eagle fly over the north woods.
  • I vacuumed up bugs in all of the house windows.
    
  • Upon checking the grapefruit wine and squeezing the mesh bag, specific gravity was at 1.060, from 1.075 yesterday, so fermentation is burning up sugar levels. Mary and I tasted it. This will be much better grapefruit wine than I made last year.
    
  • After evening chores, we had nachos and watched 2 movies, Independence Day (1996), and Men in Black (1997).
    
    
• Saturday, 2/20: Birthday & Phone Calls
  
  • I turn 64 today. Bill called around 9 a.m. and talked with us for over an hour. Work is going well for him. He's been helping his friends, Mike & Erin, remove old flooring and install new flooring in a house they're about to sell. Bill will visit us March 6-14. He gave me a gift card to The Home Brewery. Mom called at noon and we talked for an hour. Conditions are dry in Circle, MT. The heater fan in the Senior Center blew and they had to work one day last week in jackets and gloves. Katie tried calling several times and we connected after chores in the evening. With a 2-week Air Force National Guard engagement at the end of March, she and her employer are working out when she'll go back to work. She ordered me a sound bar and subwoofer for our TV.
    
  • Mary cooked a turkey that we had for an afternoon meal. Later, while watching the 2013 movie, The Book Thief, we enjoyed cherry pie.
    
  • After the meal and carving meat off the bird, Mary and I hauled the turkey carcass into the north woods and left it for the coyotes to dine on this evening. Snow is crusty and melting in most places, but on the north side of cedar trees, it's still deep and fluffy.
    
  • The specific gravity of the grapefruit wine is 1.049 and fermenting nicely.
    

Feb. 7-13, 2021

Weather | 2/7, 3" snow, 0.22" moisture, -8°, 5° | 2/8, skiff snow, 0.03" moisture, 0°, 9° | 2/9, 3°, 15° | 2/10, 2" snow, 0.11" moisture, 5°, 15° | 2/11, 1°, 19° | 2/12, -3°, 13° | 2/13, skiff snow, 0.01" moisture, -7°, 5° |

• Sunday, 2/7: Snow
  • Snow fell all day. We haven't seen a pile-up of snow like this for a couple years. We kept chickens inside the coop, changing water regularly, and keeping the electric heater in the coop on throughout the day.
  • In past years, we always see on Super Bowl Sunday coyote hunters driving the gravel road, with their hounds baying throughout the country. Everything is wrong about the way they hunt. They drive country roads with their windows down, ready to shoot from the road onto private property. Their dogs trespass across everyone's land. Shooting across, or from, a highway is illegal, yet they do it. Fortunately, today it was too cold for the little he-men to go pickup hunting with the windows rolled down. GOOD!
  • Mary made a wonderful minestrone soup. There's is nothing better than a good soup on a cold winter day.
  • I swam through gobs of online winemaking blogs.
  • We listened to the Super Bowl on the radio while playing a game of Rummy. Mary soundly defeated me. The team we wanted to win, the Kansas City Chiefs, lost to the great football messiah, Tom Brady, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-9.
  • A late night check of the autumn olive wine showed a specific gravity of 1.001, so tomorrow I'll rack the wine to draw yeast cells in the lees off the wine and help end fermentation.
    
    
• Monday, 2/8: Second Day of Single-Digit Cold
  
  • Latitudinal geography significantly alters attitudes about weather. At above 64° latitude in Fairbanks, AK, schools started thinking about keeping kids home when temperatures entered the -35° range and us college students walked to classes even if it was -50°. Here at 40° latitude, schools close with temps in the single digits above zero range. In Roseau, MN, at latitude 48°, road graders, front end loads, and dump trucks scraped up, loaded, and hauled away snow that fell overnight on town streets almost every morning. They'd start around 3-4 a.m. and have it all cleaned up by 8. Snow days, where kids stayed home from school, were rare. Here, a half inch of snow results on no school. I saw a piece on KHQA, a Quincy TV station, showing how a wet T-shirt will freeze in minutes in subzero temperatures. What idiot would be outside with a wet T-shirt when it's below zero? Such a piece wouldn't be newsworthy in Fairbanks for Roseau, but it is here, where below zero is a rare event.
  • I racked the autumn olive wine to a new glass carboy (see photo below) and added 4 crushed Campden tablets and 3.5 grams of potassium sorbate to stop fermentation. The specific gravity was 1.000. The remaining red lees were fizzing in the bottom of the carboy after wine was removed (see photo below). The resulting wine is quickly clearing as yeast and material settles. The only factor keeping the wine must pink was fermentation bubbling berry bits to the surface. Mary and I tasted the wine. It tastes great, but like no other taste imaginable. Autumn olive wine is unique.
  • On the last daytime walk of the dogs, we watched an American kestrel fly overhead. Deer tracks are everywhere in the snow.
    
  • We watched the last 2 episodes and extras of the 5th season of Downton Abbey.

Racked autumn olive wine, (1st carboy, left; 2nd carboy, right).

Remaining lees fizzing after racking.

• Tuesday, 2/9: A Snowy Dessert
  
  • Mary made a persimmon pudding dessert. It's really quite good. Snow reminds us of it, because in 2011, when it snowed 18 inches, the deepest snowfall seen around here (they called it Snowpocalypse), Mary first made this dessert, which we ate at intervals while shoveling snow.
  • I texted Katie throughout the day. She's heading north the beginning of March, instead of today, which was originally planned. The reason in Katie's words, "I guess the company wants to wait, since I'm sensitive to the cold. The windchill in Nuiqsut has been -50 to -75." She said healing is going okay and that she's feeling better.
    
  • Mary spotted a deer meandering along the edge of the SW woods, next to the yard, about midday, and I saw a deer crossing the gravel road about a quarter mile west of the end of our driveway, when I got the mail and took the garbage down on the plastic toboggan in the evening.
    
  • I reviewed leather tools and supplies that I own versus what I need for doing an extreme three-dimensional leather project of a fish from a how-to booklet I got 2 Christmases ago.
    
  • We watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's 6th season.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/10: Snow Keeps Piling Up
  
  • We're into a real winter, now, with snow that's piling up on the ground. An additional 2" of snow fell today. We probably have 6" on the ground.
  • Mary made 2 quiche pies and we ate 1 for our main meal, with corn on the cob, because we needed something summery on our plates.
  • I created a list of winemaking items I want with pricing from 5 online sources, then ordered from 2 places, The Home Brewery, out of Ozark, MO, and MoreWine!, from California and Pennsylvania. These suppliers have larger inventories and better prices than Midwest Supplies, from Minneapolis, MN, where I used to order. Plus, they both employ less expensive shipping. These are my birthday gifts.
  • With a NE wind blowing, I wore my down parka with a coyote ruff on the hood while getting the mail. Yesterday, I wore it with layers underneath and it was too warm. Today, I wore just coveralls underneath and it was just right. We bought these down parkas while living in Roseau, MN, in the early 1990s. We don't wear them much, here, but they're perfect for wind blowing in colder temperatures.
  • We watched 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's final and 6th season.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/11: Bird Antics
  
  • We have at least 2 Carolina wrens staying on our property this winter. They overnight inside the woodshed. Today one was pecking on the outside of the vinyl siding of the house and occasionally on the sash outside living room windows while picking bugs out of crevices. Before we could see it, Mary banged a couple times on the wall, thinking the sound was a mouse chewing on the inside of the wall. While in sight of the windows, it kept cats and dogs very interested in its activities. At one point our youngest cat, Mocha, and Plato, one of our dogs, stared intently at the bird through the window.
    
  • Mary did house cleaning, and some cross stitch work.
    
  • I rinsed a brew bucket and a mesh bag that I had soaking in bleach.
    
  • I also assessed what size kitchen we'd prefer if we built new and discussed it with Mary.
    
  • We watched the last 2 episodes and bonus features of the final season of Downton Abbey.
    
    
• Friday, 2/12: Bummed Out with Missouri Senators
  
  • We have jerks representing us at our nation's capital. U.S. Senators are to be jurors in Trump's second impeachment trial. Some make a mockery of the entire proceeding. Our junior senator, Josh Hawley, hangs his feet over a chair in front of him in the Senate Chamber's visitor's galley in a show of complete disrespect. Both he, and our senior Missouri U.S. senator, Roy Blunt, voted that the proceeding was unconstitutional. I disagree, vehemently. I will do everything in my power to make the two of them former senators.
  • Mary made a delightful chicken dinner. She also did some cleaning.
  • I measured and contemplated living room sizes in a future home.
  • Alison Rabich Boyce invited me to the "Historic Homer, Alaska" group on Facebook. I spotted a photo of Joel Moss and added my 2 bits about the Moss family. It's a fun online location.
    
  • We watched the 2019 Downton Abbey movie that Katie gave her mother for Christmas. Now, we're done with all things Downton.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/13: Single Digit Temperatures
  
  • We were in the single digits, both below and above zero, on the thermometer. Mom said it was -24 in Circle, MT.
  • Some of my winemaking birthday gifts came in today from The Home Brewery in Ozark, MO (see photo below). They really did a great job of packaging everything up, including two half-gallon glass jugs. I now have a spoon with a 28" handle. The end opposite of the spoon fits through the hole of a carboy, allowing for stirring after adding powdered items. I used the vinometer, which measures alcohol by volume (ABV) content of dry wines, on the 2019 pear wine. It's at 19%. We always knew it was high. It was my first attempt at winemaking. I now try to make wines in the 10-12% range, because they taste better.
  • I checked both the pumpkin and autumn olive wines that are aging. The pumpkin wine is dark, probably from black raisins and cinnamon. The autumn olive wine is becoming very clear, with quite a bit of lees settled out on the bottom of the carboy.
    
  • We shelled several hickory nuts. I crack the nuts and Mary pulls meat pieces from nut shells. Mary is going to use some of them on top of a Valentine's Day chocolate summer squash cake, tomorrow.

  

  Winemaking items from a Missouri supplier.
  

  
  
  
  

Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 2021

Weather | 1/31, 0.52" rain, 27°, 31° | 2/1, 25°, 28° | 2/2, fog, 15°, 29° | 2/3, fog, 21°, 39° | 2/4, 0.18" rain, 1/2" snow, 21°, 35° | 2/5, 0.06" rain, 17°, 27° | 2/6, 2" snow, 0.11" moisture, 7°, 17° |

• Sunday, 1/31: Rain Here, Snowing North
  
  • We received over an inch of rain the past 2 days. North of us, in Iowa and northern Illinois, several inches of snow came down. We're just south of the snow fields.
    
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread, and then did some cross stitch.
  • The autumn olive wine is progressing nicely. Foam developed on top of the liquid. The specific gravity is 1.084...slightly down. I squeezed the bag at noon and midnight and stirred the must. After bag squeezings, the must is turning slightly pink. It has a nice berry taste and smells like almonds. I think it will develop into a nice wine.
    
  • I figured our 2020 income taxes and sent them to the IRS, electronically.
  • We watched the 2 last episodes and special features of Downton Abbey's 4th season and enjoyed teatime, which included China Yunnan loose leaf tea, hard boiled eggs, fresh bread with apricot jam, an apple, pepper jack cheese slices, and the last of the pumpkin cake.
    
    
• Monday, 2/1: Tastes Great, Looks Horrible
  
  • I continued my twice-daily squeezing of the autumn olive wine nylon mesh bag. The wine must tastes and smells marvelous. Mary said it tastes like a cranberry meets raisin concoction. It smells flowery. With a mauve colored bag surrounded by beige foam, the top of the brew bucket looks hideous. There are also bits of what I call "pink cottage cheese" floating in the must. It looks horrible, but tastes and smells wonderful. The specific gravity is at 1.078, so the sugar content is dropping and the alcohol level is rising.
  • Mary made the General Tso venison/brown rice dish that we ate for our midday meal. It included garden-raised snow peas. She also figured out the February meals menu.
  • Mary and I took the dogs on a walk to Wood Duck Pond. We saw a great many deer and coyote tracks on our trails. Water level was up on the pond, but ice teepees around twigs indicated the pond's water levels are dropping. We heard, but didn't see, a wild turkey fly off to the NW.
    
  • I read Jack Keller's online winemaking info, then found a brewing supply store in Ozark, MO (a town south of Springfield, MO) called The Home Brewery, that has more variety and better prices than other suppliers I've used in the past. Mary suggested I write a birthday wish list.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/2: Living in Wildlife Preserve
  
  • When I looked out the window right after getting up, I saw what I first thought was a deer. As it moved toward the house, I saw it was a large dark-colored coyote. It was the size of a German Shepherd. It quickly visited and sniffed all of the spots where the dogs sniff to the side of the lane, then took advantage of the short grass of our lawn and headed to the west. The color and size of this coyote could easily make people misdiagnose it as a wolf. But, I've seen wolves in Alaska and I know that this was no wolf. It was one big coyote, though.
    
  • The autumn olive wine is progressing nicely and each time I test it, we're given the treat of tasting it. "This might move into being my favorite," Mary told me. The morning specific gravity reading was 1.064 and it was 1.055 in the evening.
    
  • Mary made a shopping list and some flour tortillas.
  • We moved the refrigerator out from the wall and removed the gunk under the fridge, which included cat toys and a desiccated dead mouse. The night before, we agreed to clean up the fridge and Mary said, "And, get the dead mouse from underneath it." When we moved the refrigerator, Mary said, "I was only kidding!" I removed the cover over the condenser and vacuumed hair and dirt out of that area. It runs much better, now.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/3: Shopping Day
  
  • I drove to Quincy to shop. Nothing new, except for missing items and the need to visit several stores to find all that is on the shopping list. I never quit marveling at how ancient so many people appear while shopping. Several times, I came to complete standstills as old duffers blocked entire aisles while standing stock still, staring at a product for several minutes, as if inanimate objects put them in a complete trance. I hope I'm never too old as to "move it" through a store while shopping.
    
  • Mary did house cleaning and 3 loads of laundry while I was gone.
    
  • She also found rabbit chewings on the trunks of some of our apple tree rootstocks in the machine shed. She move all 12 little trees in 4-gallon buckets to areas above ground in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary saw the first snow geese of the season.
    
  • She also saw a bald eagle and heard a red-tailed hawk at same time. It reminded her of how many times movies and TV shows picture an eagle, yet put the cry of a hawk in the audio.
    
  • With subzero temperatures predicted, Mary added more hay to the chicken coop floor.
  • After I got back from shopping at 8:30 p.m., we ate Reuben sandwiches and watched the first episode of Downton Abbey's fifth season.
  • The specific gravity of the autumn olive wine was 1.048 in the morning and 1.033 at night.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/4: Rain to Snow to Partly Cloudy
  
  • The day started with hard rain that kicked on the basement sump pump. Then, around noon, a SE breeze changed to a strong NW wind and heavy snow came down. After dark, it was partly cloudy, with stars showing. We had a complete weather cycle, today.
  • Yesterday, after reading my comment about old slow pokes shopping, Bill replied, "Haha I don't think you'll ever be an old duffer shopping. You and mom go through stores like your special ops taking out Bin Laden. No messing around."
  • Katie texted that she got her tech sergeant stripes (see photo below).
    
  • The autumn olive wine's specific gravity was 1.022 in the morning. It was at 1.017 in the evening. The magic number to move it from the plastic bucket to a glass carboy is 1.015, so with it being only 0.002 above that number, I went ahead and transferred the liquid to the carboy, adding a sterilized airlock. I squeezed about 3 quarts of liquid from the nylon mesh bag before the transfer, resulting in just a quart under 5 gallons of liquid, after starting brewing with 4 gallons. Tiny autumn olive berries contain a lot of juice. The berry mash that I dumped out of the mesh bag was weird...mauve pulp with fluorescent yellow/green seeds throughout. The wine looks like pink lemonade. It develops an inch of white foam on the top, then in a mater of about a minute, the foam disappears. Then, it slowly foams back up, again (see below photos). The cycle repeats itself, over and over, again. I'm glad I put 4.75 gallons in a 5-gallon carboy, or foam would occasionally overflow through the airlock.
    
  • Mary and I paid the bills for the month.
  • We watched a red-tailed hawk battle strong air currents as it flew overhead.
  • We watched 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th season.
   

  

  Katie's tech sergeant stripes.
  

  
  

Autumn olive wine must, no foam.

Autumn olive wine must with foam.

• Friday, 2/5: Clear Windy Day
  
  • An otherwise warm and sunny day was blunted by a strong NW wind. 
    
  • Mary cut up and froze a pork loin that I bought while shopping on Wednesday. She also made a turkey and rice dish for our main meal.
    
  • We got the last of our garden seeds for the year.
    
  • The specific gravity of the autumn olive wine is 1.010. At 1.000, I'll add potassium sorbate and crushed Campden tablets to stop the fermentation process.
    
  • At dusk, I watch a great horned owl fly across the south field to a tree next to bluegill pond. A look through binoculars showed two large tufts on the bird's head, revealing its identity.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/6: Snowy Day
  
  • We had another snow that started roughly at noon. This time the snow was coming down heavy enough to block visibility to about 1/8 of a mile. We got about 2"-3" of snow. Then, it started clearing at sunset and temperatures dropped significantly. By midnight, it was 1° and dropping.
  • The specific gravity of the autumn olive wine was 1.004 in the morning and 1.003 in the evening, which signifies that the sugar-to-alcohol conversion is slowing down.
  • I researched online how to halt wine fermentation with cold temperatures. to pull it off, we need a refrigerator dedicated to wine production. Time to look for old fridges and a new house to put them in.
    
  • Mary made an apple pie.
    
  • We decided to do game night tomorrow, while listening to the Super Bowl. We watched 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th season. The apple pie tasted good.