May 30-June 5, 2021

Weather | 5/30, 40°, 69° | 5/31, 0.11" rain, 52°, 61° | 6/1, 51°, 75° | 6/2, 52°, 76° | 6/3, 54°, 81° | 6/4, 56°, 83° | 6/5, 63°, 85° |

• Sunday, 5/30: A Crisp, Wine Bottling, Mowing, and a Roast
  
  • Mary made a cherry crisp, requested by Bill.
  • She also mowed the rest of the west yard, then raked it all up, and mulched the rest of a row in the far garden with grass clippings.
    
  • Bill and I bottled the grapefruit wine from the gallon jug it was aging in directly into five 750-ml wine bottles (see photos, below). The specific gravity is 0.994, so the alcohol level is 10.74%. We tasted the little bit that we didn't bottle. It is tart, with a strong grapefruit aftertaste. It's very good.
    
  • We then racked the blackberry wine from a 5-gallon carboy, a 750-ml wine bottle, and a 330-ml beer bottle into a 6.5-gallon brew bucket. We left behind a little bit of fines. The racked wine looked clear, so we bottled it into 26 wine bottles (see photos, below) with a little bit left over. It tastes smooth, with a tang, and a subtle undertone of blackberry flavor. After aging, it will be excellent. The specific gravity was the same, at 0.994, giving it an alcohol content of 12.97%, a little more than what I prefer. The pH dropped from 3.7  at the start of fermentation on March 13th to 3.3, at the end of fermentation, today. I didn't alter acid content, since it was good.
    
  • After chores, I built an outside fire and we had a wienie roast. We listened to coyotes howling to the south of us, near Bluegill Pond.
    
  • On the dog walk after the wienie roast, we saw an increase in fireflies.
  • We ate some of the cherry crisp...YUMMY!
    

Bottled 2021 grapefruit wine.

Clear bottle of grapefruit wine.

Clear bottles of blackberry wine.

Bottled 2021 blackberry wine, plus leftover fines.

• Monday, 5/31: Memorial Day
  
  • I made breakfast waffles for Bill, Mary and I.
    
  • After online stuff, and doing dishes that included yesterday's wine bottling dishes, we served up what Mary calls eggritos, which is a flour tortilla, scrambled eggs, pickles, Parmesan cheese, choice of ketchup or mustard, topped with piccallili, either inside the tortilla, or on the side. We had 4 each. Bill also had some cherry crisp.
    
  • I loaded Bill's cooler up with 12 dozen eggs. When I tried to stuff a 13th dozen of eggs into his clothes bag, he said he didn't need that many. OK, I guess! Bill said goodbye (see photo, below) and left for his apartment in St. Charles (St. Louis suburb).
    
  • Mary and I cut more garlic scapes. Three of the six garlic varieties are showing yellow leaves, which is a sign they're getting close to harvest time.
  • Other than finishing off the cherry crisp, Mary and I didn't do much more than read the rest of the day away.
  • We heard and saw a blue grosbeak outside of our south living room window.
    

  

  Bill giving his mother a goodbye hug.
  

• Tuesday, 6/1: Bird Haven
  • Our property must be a bird haven. We saw the blue grosbeak for the second time as it sat on a cow panel surrounding the sweet cherry tree. It appears to be trying to attract a mate.
    
  • Mary cut garlic scapes. She also hoed grass in compost bins, in order to keep weeds from growing on the compost. Mary weeded the north row of the near garden, taking an hour to finish that row.
  • She pinned down 7 strawberry runners into cups filled with potting soil. We now have a  total 10 new strawberry runners.
  • Mary harvested some radishes. There is a new variety, which is tan, called Zlaty, rhymes with snotty. It's very good.
  • Mary finished a cross stitch project called Witch's Brew. She did the evening chores.
  • I cut a 5-inch diameter elm tree and 2 small maple trees on the east side of our lane that UPS trucks hit with their mirrors when they drive into our yard. I cut the big pieces up and stacked them on the green wood pile north of the woodshed, then chopped up all of the branches into 4-inch pieces. Twigs were chopped with a hatchet. Thicker pieces got cut up with the small chainsaw. Elms grow with tons of branches, so this is a drawn-out job. I dumped 2 big wheelbarrow loads of chopped twigs around the root zone of the big McIntosh apple tree.
    
  • Mary determined that what I thought was frost kill on the Bartlett pear tree is actually fire blight. The last time we had fire blight on that tree, I stopped it with copper spray, so I mixed up a gallon and sprayed both Bartlett pear trees with copper. An apple tree review showed fire blight problems in several trees, so I mixed up a 2-gallon batch of copper spray and sprayed one of the Stayman's Winesap trees, the Grimes Golden, Asopus Spitzenburg, and the McIntosh apple trees. It's a very infectious tree growing year, with so much cool, damp weather. Even small walnut trees are disease-ridden.
  • Katie texted that she was going to be flying to Eek, AK, around 4 p.m. our time.
    
  • The book written by the late Jack Keller, called Home Winemaking, that I ordered using a gift card that Mom sent me for my birthday, arrived via UPS, today (see below). I told the UPS driver that I cleared trees out along the driveway and he said he didn't hit any with his mirrors. I did notice that the top of his truck brushed leaves on his way out.

  

  Jack Keller's Home Winemaking book.
  

• Wednesday, 6/2: Clean Up
  
  • Mary did some house cleaning, then she weeded the near garden for 2 hours. Her work finished weeding the south row, and all of the near garden.
  • She also checked strawberries, and we each tasted a strawberry...YUM!
  • We checked the cherries. Birds are hitting cherries that aren't even ripe, yet. I ate a pie cherry. Nice cherry taste, but it was extremely sour, which is what's expected.
    
  • I labeled the bottles of wine that Bill and I bottled on Sunday. My wine bottle storage was in apple boxes and they were too full, with collapsing cardboard walls. I decided to change to old plastic ice coolers, no long in use. I dug out and cleaned up a cooler from the back porch closet with a broken latch. Then, I cleaned an old cooler, once given to me by my folks, that's been in the machine shed for years. Finally, I cleaned a wheeled cooler we found 12 years ago on the edge of Wood Duck Pond. It had beer glass shards in it. I had to use baking soda to clean mud and algae off sidewalls. Mary's Uncle Herman said the Fleer boys zoomed a 4-wheeler right into Wood Duck Pond in the dark and needed help to get pulled out. In the process they left the cooler behind. One of those "boys" owns an auto garage and is a county commissioner, today. I was able to put all my wine in the cleaned-up coolers and label wine varieties on the outside of each of the 3 coolers. It's a great solution, because bottles are thoroughly covered, protected, in a constant temperature, and in darkness. Also, if a bottle breaks, the liquid is contained.
    
  • Katie sent some Facebook Messenger texts. Her air flight to Eek, AK, was bumpy, due to winds and storms. Building Eek's school is a large and multi-year project. She studied prints and inventoried lumber and materials on a spreadsheet. She's getting along well with her supervisor.
    
    
• Thursday, 6/3: Big Baby Birds
  
  • We heard a commotion to the east of us while walking dogs and realized that halfway down the hill was a squawking young red-tailed hawk on a tree branch with a mother hawk flying up and down in front of the branch. It was an interesting sight to see.
    
  • Mary washed 2 loads of towels, hoed a row in the far garden, cut garlic scapes, harvested more radishes, and watered the near garden.
  • She also picked about 25 cherries, mostly from the sweet cherry tree. The start of cherry picking has begun.
    
  • I mowed the south half of the far garden.
  • Next, I cut up small persimmon saplings that I cut down several weeks ago into 4' stakes to support chicken wire in the far garden. The small chainsaw is nice and light...perfect for the job. I moved 33 stakes to the far garden.
  • Katie texted a couple photos of her jobsite at Eek, AK (see photos, below).

Eek school construction site.

Roof steel beams installed.

• Friday, 6/4: Garlic and Cherry Harvest Begins
  
  • I made the appropriate breakfast for Waffle Friday.
  • I pounded 24 persimmon posts in the ground around the south end of the near garden ahead of installing chicken wire.
  • I cut the top off an old air bed, washed it, and hung it on the pickup's tailgate. I plan to use it as ground cover when I'm hunting from certain areas.
  • A check of fruit trees shows that the copper spray application stopped the fire blight.
  • Mary paid bills.
    
  • She picked cherries and put the first quart bag in the freezer.
  • Mary dug up the German Extra Hardy and Music Pink garlic varieties. Together, she and I hung those 2 varieties from the rafters of the machine shed. They are in good shape. Pulling garlic is tricky. If you leave them in the ground too long, they get diseased and start rotting. Mary said she's always happy to start drying garlic, because it's the end of a long cycle. They're planted in November, endure the winter, sprout in February, grow through spring, and we harvest them in June.
  • I saw ripe cherries higher than Mary could pick and decided to use the trailer behind the tractor to get higher and pick additional cherries. A steel fence post sunk significantly into the ground to hold up a cherry tree that died years ago was in the way. I tried pulling it out with 2 jacks. Mary grabbed the long skinny shovel she calls a spade and I call a clam digging shovel (shows my razor clam digging days at Clam Gulch, AK) and started digging. She watered the garden and did evening chores as I continued digging. After digging 4 feet into the ground, I finally removed the 7' post that showed only 2' when I started. The sun had set, so cherry picking was put off until tomorrow.
  • We ate our first salad filled with fresh lettuce, spinach, and radishes from our garden. Mary splashed homemade garlic wine on top. It was delicious.
    
  • While walking dogs on their final evening walk, we saw a large doe deer in the flashlight's beam just down the lane a few feet. Mary thought the doe has a fawn nearby.
    
    
• Saturday, 6/5: Garlic Harvest 2/3 Complete
  
  • Mary dug out 2 more varieties of garlic, which were Georgian Crystal and Siberian. It took 2 hours, instead of the one hour it took to dig up yesterday's garlic. That's due to clay-bound soil in this row. Mary and I hung 16 new garlic bundles from the rafters of the machine shed. The last of the garlic is scheduled for harvest tomorrow. So far, the garlic is in excellent shape.
    
  • Mary mowed the lane. She figured out that when one of us mows our quarter-mile lane, it involves 2 miles of walking while pushing a lawnmower.
    
  • I picked cherries, adding another quart to the freezer. I used a 6' step ladder in the tractor trailer to get to cherries high on the tree.
  • I tied chicken wire fencing to posts encompassing the south end of the far garden. I combined 2 chicken wire lengths with twine using the same knot technique I used in the '70s to attach netting to shrimp pots, which involves 2 half-hitches followed by a clove hitch. I just need to add 1 small piece of chicken wire, attach the chicken wire to a couple more posts, add the gate, and come up with a gate closure, and I'm done with half of the far garden.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of autumn olive wine while reading in the evening. It's very good.
  • Dragonflies have hatched, which is great. They catch gnats and deer flies in midair and eat them. Between the dragonflies, the birds, the spiders, and the frogs, we have almost no mosquitoes, even though we live next to the woods.
    
  • Lightning bugs have more than doubled in numbers, so now we have stars above and twinkling in the grass and timber.