Sept. 12-18, 2021

Weather | 9/12, 65°, 85° | 9/13, 60°, 85° | 9/14, 69°, 83° | 9/15, 52°, 79° | 9/16, 52°, 81° | 9/17, 56°, 87° | 9/18, 60°, 85° |

• Sunday, 9/12: Morning Bass Fishing
  
  • Bill, Mary, and I went fishing in the Swim Pond (see photo below). We kept 8 bass. On our first casts, we all hauled in fish, immediately. Several were too small. The largest fish was one Bill caught on a walleye lure. I ventured to the north side of the pond. Plant life is over head-high and needs to be cleaned out. There are also increased weeds in the water along the pond's edges. We need to get a grass carp to clean that out.
    
  • On the way back from the pond, we spotted a monarch caterpillar feeding on a milkweed (see photo below).
    
  • Bill and I filleted out the fish, after which, Mary cooked them up. We had fish, fresh tomatoes, garlic toast, followed by a muskmelon. All were home grown, but the toast.
    
  • We loaded Bill up with 12 dozen eggs, a watermelon, and 5 bottles of wine. Bill put all of the dried hops into 3 one-gallon bags and squeezed the air out of the bags. It equaled over 8 ounces, which he says is more than enough to make into a batch of beer. He left to go back to his place in St. Charles at 1 p.m.
    
  • Mary and I picked pears off the big Bartlett pear tree. There's no way we'll be able to use all of the pears. We took 4 buckets into the house, each weighing 20 pounds. The rest of the pears will have to be picked to save the tree from breaking any more branches. Already, about 4 branches are broken from too much weight.
    
  • I sorted 226 pears and tossed 81 of them. The remaining 145 I wrapped in newspaper and put in dresser drawers on the upstairs landing to ripen. I'll use around 100 for pear wine and we can eat others. In the future, I want to make a fruit press and make discarded pears into pear cider.
    
  • Mary froze 4 gallons of tomatoes. We now have 20 gallons in the freezer, which is enough for canning 3 batches of salsa and 1 batch of slumgullion. Now, we freeze 12 more gallons of tomatoes for minestrone soup for 1 year.
  • Seeds sprouted in the winter greens tubs of Astro Arugula, Winterbor Kale, and Fun Jen. I still have armies of aphids on the rims of the kale tubs that I squish throughout the day.
    
  • I checked the jalapeño wine. Yeast is fizzing nicely. The specific gravity is 1.080. Mary and I tasted it. It tastes like jalapeño bread, which means it's very good. It's filling the house with a flowery pepper smell that you notice the instant you walk through the front door.

Bill and Mary fixing fishing gear at the Swim Pond.

A monarch caterpillar feeding on milkweed.

• Monday, 9/13: New Pickup Wheels
  
  • I drove the pickup 114 miles south to Hawk Point, MO, and bought 5 aluminum rims with tires for $75 that came off a 2002 Chevy Suburban. A rusty steel wheel comes with the deal that I'm going to toss out. The tires on these rims aren't worth keeping, but the rims are a vast improvement from the extremely rusty steel rims currently on the pickup. This was a sale I saw last week on Facebook's Marketplace. On the way south, I stopped in Palmyra to get money out of a branch of our bank, then stopped at the Farm & Home store in Hannibal, MO, and bought dog, cat, and chick food. A strong SW head wind was blowing as I drove south. I got back home with the sun setting in the west.
    
  • Mary processed and froze 7 quarts of green beans. We now have enough beans in the freezer for another year.
  • She also picked more tomatoes. There are no more muskmelons to pick. Mary did all of the evening chores, too.
  • Before leaving to get the pickup wheels, I moved all 6 of my winter greens tubs to between the woodshed and a maple tree. I killed another army of aphids on the rims of 3 tubs. When Mary covered them with sheets to keep rabbits from chomping off new sprouts, she only killed one aphid. So, moving the tubs solved the aphid problem. They are thick under the weeping willow tree.
  • I checked the jalapeño wine in the evening. In 48 hours, the specific gravity dropped from 1.095 to 1.030, which means this is fast moving yeast. It will be ready to rack into glass containers tomorrow morning.
    
    
• Tuesday, 9/14: Holly Died (see Holly photos, below)
  
  • Holly, one of our cats, who was born on Dec. 19, 2009, under the Christmas tree, died today at 12:28 p.m., with Mary stroking her fur. She lost a lot of weight since about a year ago. She lived longer than we expected. Before she got skinny, Holly could out jump any other cat, even though she was the runt cat of the household. I wouldn't say she was a great cat...I cussed her antics quite often. But, Mary and I have lumps in our throats today. We buried her on the west edge of the north yard, just beyond where we buried Churchill, who was a lab/mastiff cross, last year on Feb. 29th. Merlin, a cat, and Klondike, a golden retriever, are also buried there. Molly, another golden retriever, is buried on the edge of the east yard.
  • A morning check of the jalapeño wine indicated that the specific gravity was 1.013. I racked the wine must into a 5-gallon wide mouth carboy, a half-gallon jug, a 750-ml wine bottle, and a 330-ml beer bottle. Clean up was interrupted by pet burial duties.
  • After burying Holly, Mary and I had a glass, each, of homemade autumn olive wine.
  • I picked over a half bucket of tomatoes while Mary killed hornworms. We watered garden plants.
    

Holly as a kitten on Jan. 27, 2010.

Holly & Nick (her brother) as kittens.

Rosemary (mother), Holly (daughter) and Nick (son).

Holly in sunroom, Sept. 1, 2011.

Holly (left) and Rosemary (right).

Rosemary, Merlin, Holly & Nick. Yup, Merlin was big.br />

• Wednesday, 9/15: Pears Off Bartlett Tree
  
  • I pulled the remaining pears off the big Bartlett pear tree. I hauled 155 pounds of pears and dumped them at the edge of the north woods. I kept 25 pounds of the best pears. I removed broken and loose branches. There are broken and attached branches I still have to saw off, along with sawing off jagged areas where branches tore off the tree.
    
  • Mary picked about a quarter of the hazelnuts (see photo, below). Most years, all hazelnuts are mature by now. This year, several are still green.
  • Mary froze 3 quarts of muskmelons and is happy to report that muskmelon season is finally over.
  • She also froze 18 quarts of watermelon. The best variety is the Sweet Dakota Rose watermelon. This variety develops small fruits that are very tasty.
  • Mary took the large nippers and pulled 3 large Diablo pumpkins, and 9 small watermelons (see photos, below) from the garden.
  • After a chicken dinner, we put on the 1998 movie You've Got Mail, while Mary husked several hazelnuts and I wrapped pears with newspaper.
  • I put 76 pears in 2 drawers of a chest of drawers owned by Bill. We have 221 pears ripening, enough for two 6-gallon batches of pear wine, or one batch of wine and too much to eat. What a problem!

A quarter of our hazelnuts.

Watermelons: dark Verona and striped Sweet Dakota Rose.

Diablo pumpkins.

Mary with a 22-pound pumpkin from our garden.

• Thursday, 9/16: Messing With Plants
  
  • Mary froze 5 gallons of tomatoes. These are designated for minestrone soup.
  • She also picked about a half a bucket of tomatoes.
  • In another gardening project, Mary harvested ripe hot peppers, and then strung them up to dry in the upstairs south bedroom.
    
  • I cut heavy wire that I bent into hoops for the winter greens tubs. Then, I cut 1-inch wooden dowels, drilled holes in them and put the dowels on the top center of the hoops to add stability to the contraption. Finally, I covered the hoops with white netting, or tulle fabric. The main purpose of these coverings is to keep sulfur butterflies off the kale and fun jen plants. I moved tubs so the winter greens get a little more sunlight and secured tulle with clothes pins and bricks (see photo, below). In the evening, we covered these hoops with sheets, to help keep out varmints. The sheets make them look like miniature covered wagons.
    

  

  Winter greens with new netting. "Wagons-Ho!"
  

• Friday, 9/17: Strawberries on Waffle Breakfast
  
  • I made waffles for breakfast. We had enough strawberries to put on one waffled for each of us.
  • Due to some critter eating on green bell peppers and an urgent need to get them used before they were gone, Mary made and canned 12 quarts of slumgullion. With 5 quarts from last year, we have a total of 17 quarts of "slummy" on the shelves. We use it in spaghetti sauce and macaroni casserole.
  • I picked 3 quarts of autumn olives from trees just east of our lane and near the gravel road. Quite a few honey bees were in the lespedeza and goldenrod flowers, nearby.
  • We both watered remaining garden plants. Afterward, Mary found 5 hornworms. I saw 2 swallowtail caterpillars in the parsnip leaves. We're leaving them. The parsnips are about done and we like swallowtail butterflies.
    
  • I figured out remaining wines I intend to make, extra ingredients, yeast types, volumes for each wine variety, and estimated make dates, in order to plan winemaking purchases, available winemaking primary ingredients, and subsequent production dates. I still need to check if I have enough bottles and available carboys for the 7 future wines (pear, parsnip, garlic, cherry, pumpkin, blackberry, autumn olive) and 2 wines currently in carboys (autumn olive & jalapeño). I also need to plan in shingling a roof, butchering chickens, deer hunting prep, hunting, deer butchering, wood stove pipe and chimney soot removal, building a greenhouse, and firewood collection. While I was discussing things with Mary, she said her hobby is easier. All she has to worry about is a pattern and some floss.
  • We're very dry. We've only seen 0.15" of rain for the month of September.
    
    
• Saturday, 9/18: Tired of Heat
  
  • Summer heat continues for us. We see highs in the 80s, with a prediction for tomorrow in the 90s. Cracks are forming in our clay-bound soil. I yearn for cooler weather.
  • I was in the afternoon heat, standing on a step ladder, picking autumn olives. I froze 3 more quarts. I needed 12 pounds for a future 3-gallon batch of wine. After weighing all of my quart bags, I'm a half an ounce shy of 13 pounds, so autumn olive picking is done for this year.
    
  • Mary cleaned floors and dusted.
  • She also froze 8 quarts of watermelon for a grand total of 50 quarts in the freezer. Any other watermelons from the garden are to be eaten.
  • We both watered garden plants and picked tomatoes. I found a ripe muskmelon on vines that were supposed to be done.
  • Mary fixed venison on biscuits that we ate in the evening, along with some watermelon.
  • I added winemaking dates to an online calendar, including estimated racking dates, to determine if I need more carboys. I'll be fine, as long as I back up the start of making blackberry wine from the end of January to mid-February. After adding other necessary activities and discussing them with Mary, we might butcher chickens a week earlier, so that I can start roofing the SE of the house roof by Oct. 1st, in order to erect a greenhouse on the south-facing porch by Oct. 20th. Roof waste has to slide off the roof and hit the ground/porch right where I'm building a greenhouse, so roofing must be completed before dealing with a greenhouse, which needs to be in place prior to freezing. All timelines get tight, especially if we have early freezes.