March 14-20, 2021

Weather | 3/14, 0.02" rain, 41°, 45° | 3/15, 0.47" rain, 34°, 39° | 3/16, 0.02" rain, 35°, 43° | 3/17, 0.98" rain, 36°, 37° | 3/18, 1.70" rain, 33°, 45° | 3/19, 25°, 49° | 3/20, 26°, 57° |

• Sunday, 3/14: Time to Reflect
  
  • After Bill left to go to his home in St. Charles (St. Louis suburb), we took it easy. A windy day turned to a rainy and windy day around 4 pm.
  • Our hens are laying a nice variety of daily eggs (see photo below). Our varied chicken breeds lay a wide range of egg colors. 
  • The blackberry wine yeast is kicking into action. The specific gravity dropped 3 points to 1.090. I squeezed the bag, turning the must to a deeper purple shade. The liquid volume increased from 5.25 to 5.55 gallons, so the berries are releasing juice. After attending to the wine, I updated my wine diary with the past week's winery activities.
  • On a late afternoon dog walk, we watched about 50 snow geese fly just over the trees, from south to north, looking for a place to land. There was a winter weather warning 5 counties north of us in Iowa and the geese know when to stop their travels without looking online.
  • We startled an American woodcock from under a cedar while walking the dogs on their last venture outside for the night. The woodcock's wings reveal their identity when they fly, giving off a whistling sound.

  

  Eggs from our laying hens.
  

• Monday, 3/15: Greening Grass
  
  • A half inch of rain today instantly greened up lawns around the house. It also brought out several earthworms crawling across our lane in the evening, when we had fog. One earthworm was over a foot long, when stretched out.
    
  • The specific gravity of the blackberry wine is 1.085. The yeast is bubbling, nicely.
    
  • Mary made 4 loaves of bread that put an amazingly yummy smell throughout the house.
    
  • I checked out safe room ideas and added 8 more feet to the length of our proposed house plans to accommodate a safe room (protection from tornadoes), an entry/mud room, and a bedroom closet.
    
  • The apple tree scions came in today's mail from Fedco. They are tiny twigs and a lot smaller in diameter than I expected. I'll have to investigate how to graft these twigs onto much larger in diameter root stock trees.
    
  • I walked the dogs to the old cow barn and watched 3 deer run away to the east.
    
  • In the evening, we watched 5 episodes of the 2017 National Geographic TV series Genius: Einstein.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/16: Evil-Looking Wine
  
  • The top of the blackberry wine must looks "sick" (see photo below). It develops pink cottage cheese with wisps of white froth bubbling up in areas. After stirring, it mixes in revealing a deep purple liquid. Specific gravity is at 1.078 and the liquid level has increased to 5.811 gallons (22 liters).
    
  • Mary cleaned and fertilized all of the house plants. A second stalk of blossoms are open on the amaryllis.
    
  • We had chicken, potatoes, beans, and turkey gravy for our main meal.
  • I fixed the upstairs south bedroom door. Our shifting house altered elevations so the door latch didn't work. Some cardboard under a door hinge and some carving at the latch hole fixed the problem.
    
  • I did reading and online research on apple tree grafting procedures.
    
  • Mary spotted a pair of wood ducks, so they've returned for the season.
    
  • We watched the last five episodes of Genius: Einstein.
    
  • On the last dog walk, we flushed a woodcock that was on the lane and I followed it in light of my flashlight for a few seconds.

  

  Blackberry wine must with mesh bag in the center.
  

  
  
• Wednesday, 3/17: Morning Thunder
  
  • We woke to thunder cracking overhead. Mary unplugged appliances. It stormed all morning.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas and then chimichangas for our main meal.
    
  • We ordered chicks from Cackle Hatchery, involving our normal order of 25 cockerels called the Frypan Special, that are large breed male chickens we butcher in the fall. Since sexing just-hatched chicks isn't perfect, we usually get 1 or 2 pullets out of the group that join our flock of laying hens.
    
  • A check of the blackberry wine indicated a specific gravity of 1.063. Mary and I tasted it. The wine must tastes sweet, but very good.
    
  • I sent out dentist inquiries to 5 Quincy dental offices.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/18: Most Rain of the Year
  
  • I woke at 5 a.m. and a quick tour indicated the leaking roof of our 110-year old house wasn't doing well under the heavy rain. I told Mary and we both attended to the leaks. It rained hard until 11 a.m., sprinkled until 4 p.m., then we watched the sun set with clearing skies. We received 2.68" of rain in the past 2 days. Water is laying everywhere, due to the wonderful clay soil on this property. Locals affectionately call it Missouri loam.
    
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
    
  • The blackberry wine looks wonderful. The specific gravity is 1.047.
    
  • I had 2 dentist offices reply to my inquiries. I called 2 that didn't reply, then picked one that did reply. That office was the only one to completely answer all of my questions. It is a long established business, but with new technology. I felt they were upfront in answering questions. I have an upper front tooth cap that keeps coming off and enamel missing on some teeth. My first appointment is April 21 at 8:30...it will be a bright an early day.
    
  • Mary and I split all of the firewood logs sitting in the machine shed.
    
    
• Friday, 3/19: Sunny
  • We enjoyed the first sunny day in several days.
    
  • I went to Quincy and shopped for groceries and other items.
    
  • I bought our cat litter came from Petco, this time. I was last in the Petco store, where I once worked, in December, 2019. The place was a wreck...very dirty. Ron, the dog trainer, loaded me up on all of his latest ailments. Missy was blabbering with a customer in Aquatics while Breanna struggled at the registers trying to get through a long line of customers. Two employees I didn't know were working on overstuffed shopping carts of new merchandise to put away. It felt like old times. Ron said he and Molly talk about how it would be fun if I was back working there and asked if I'd ever be interested on returning to work. "NO!" said I, "I prefer my current life." Emily, the smartest of my past co-workers, left Petco 2 weeks ago and is now a supervisor at the Salvation Army. I texted Shane Mace, the former Quincy Petco store manager who now manages an A-class store in St. Louis (Quincy is a C-class store) about the state of things at the Quincy Petco store. He said he wasn't surprised and said he's waiting for me to move to St. Louis so he can hire me. I told him not to hold his breath waiting for me to move to St. Louis. I like where I currently live, even if some of our neighbors seem as though they came out of the movie, Deliverance.
    
  • Mary did some housecleaning and 2 loads of laundry.
    
  • She moved the strawberries and 2 pots of herbs out of the machine shed for watering and to get some sun. Several strawberry plants are showing green leaves, which is good, since rabbits really munched them down to the crowns.
    
  • Mary saw 3 mallard ducks.
  • A check of the blackberry wine in the evening indicated a 1.023 specific gravity and a reddish/purple color with good yeast activation (see video below).
    
  • We watched the 2017 movie, Victoria and Abdul. It's very good.

Blackberry wine in the brew bucket.

• Saturday, 3/20: First Day of Spring
  • Sun kissed our first day of spring with warmth and brightness. More birds are singing. The grass is greening. It's nice.
  • Mary culled bad onions, garlic and potatoes from our storage supply. She saved the onion sprouts to chop up and add to the smoked scrambled eggs we had in the evening.
  • Mary fertilized the garlic. They're 4-5 inches tall and a little bit pale, due to recent cold temperatures, but looking great.
    
  • I carefully added soil and additives to the 4-gallon cat litter buckets housing the roots of the 10 apple rootstock trees. The soil sunk about halfway down in each bucket, last year. Now, with these additions, the soil is back on top of each bucket. Soon, I'll cut existing tops off the rootstocks and graft various apple varieties to them.
  • Amber and Plato were outside with us, chewing on sticks, play-growling with each other, sniffing, laying in the sun, and doing doggy things. They loved it.
  • Mary vacuumed Asian ladybugs ad nauseam. They're on the move.
    
  • A check of the blackberry wine gave me a 1.010 specific gravity reading, so it was time to transfer the wine to glass containers with airlocks (see video below). The once full mesh bag squeezed down to just a fourth of a bag of pulp and boosted the remaining liquid to about 23.25 liters, or 6.14 gallons. This wine foams once it's in a glass carboy, so I didn't fill the 6.5-gallon carboy to the top, leaving enough air gap for foam, and added a blow-off airlock involving a hose into a quart Mason jar with an inch of water in the bottom. The burping of the wine through the Mason jar adds a metronome beat in the pantry that can be heard in the bathroom and kitchen. It's as if the house has a heart that's ticking. The remaining wine must went into a half-gallon jug. When the foaming quits, I'll combine all blackberry must into one container. Because we don't want blackberry bushes growing in our compost, I threw the seed-ridden pulp away. The garbage can gives the house a strong winebrewing yeasty smell. Bedtime got late with all of my winemaking endeavors.
  Blackberry wine in 6.5-gallon carboy & half-gallon jug.