Dec. 26, 2021-Jan. 1, 2022

Weather | 12/26, 27°, 45° | 12/27, 41°, 53° | 12/28, 0.46" rain, 31°, 43° | 12/29, 20°, 30° | 12/30, 2 or 3 snowflakes, 27°, 34° | 12/31, 29°, 53° | 1/1/22, 2" snow, sleet, or 0.58" moisture, 9°, 19° |

• Sunday, 12/26: Cherry Wine, Bill Leaves
  
  • I made a double batch of waffles for breakfast.
    
  • Bill and I made a 5-gallon batch of cherry wine. He juiced 2 bags of mandarin oranges while I made waffles. Bill also took zest off 2 oranges. After breakfast, Bill and I squished 24 quart bags of cold, and in some cases, partially frozen cherries and dumped just over 17.5 pounds of fruit into a new nylon mesh bag. About 12 pounds involved 2020 cherries and 5.75 pounds were 2021 cherries. We added the orange zest to the mesh bag. Into the brew bucket went a mug of strong tea, 3 gallons of water, 5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient, 5 crushed Campden tablets, and 8 pounds of sugar to get a specific gravity of 1.084. The pH is 3.6, so no acid is needed. We covered it and moved the brew bucket to behind the woodstove in the living room, since the cold, cold must is at 47°. The must tastes like sugar water.
    
  • Bill packed his car and left for his apartment in St. Chargles around 2 p.m.
    
  • During evening chores, Mary saw a flock of snow geese.
  • Katie ran on the gravel road to Highway J. The neighbor's dog, a young Lab, followed her east to the stop sign, then all the way back to our house. He was playful and just bounced around when she told him to go home. I light 2 fire crackers, then chased the dog down our lane. He ran back to its home.
    
  • We played Yahtzee. Mary won, because she kept playing to allow someone else to get a yahtzee, which Katie eventually accomplished. In the meantime, Mary got 3 yahtzees in that final game. It was fun. We shared a bottle of 2021 dandelion wine, which is very good, with a fruity taste from the 2 lemons and a lime I added, a flower taste, plus a little zing from the ginger root.
    
    
• Monday, 12/27: Katie Leaves, More Firewood
  
  • Katie left around 9:30 a.m. She dropped off a return of the doubled-up gift at the Ewing Post Office.
    
  • Mary and I cut another wagon load of firewood from dead trees in the woods south of the west field, then stacked wood next to the splitter and in the woodshed.
    
  • We received texts from Katie as she got to Lambert Field in St. Louis, flew to Chicago, and landed at O'Hare. She called to say that after realizing she couldn't get into the secure area of the airport until 4 hours prior to her flight, which was 18 hours later, and after seeing homeless people sleeping in the public part of the airport, she got a hotel room, so she could eat a decent supper, take a shower, and get some sleep.
    
  • I added 2.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme to the cherry wine 24 hours after making the must. The specific gravity was still 1.084, indicating these sour cherries are low in sugar content. The temperature is 69, the must is redder in color, and it tastes like cherries, instead of sugar water. I worked up a starter of Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast that I added heated must to every couple of hours. I pitched the yeast 12 hours after adding pectic enzyme. Immediately, a nice yeast aroma emanated from the brew bucket in the pantry.
    
  • We watched the first year, or 6 episodes of Keeping Up Appearances, a gift from Katie to Mary. It is really funny.
  • While watching these episodes, I got a text from Wells Fargo that our credit card was charged over $900 with Aero Mexico. I checked to make sure the number listed was legitimate. It is the 24-hour credit card number listed on our bills and on the Wells Fargo website, so I called. They canceled our card and issued new credit cards, which we'll see in 4-5 days. Thank goodness for their fraud alert system.
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/28: Anchorage Return for Katie, Christmas Tree Comes Down
  
  • Katie got up at 5 a.m. in Chicago, checked into the airport, got on her Alaska Airlines flight, and flew 7 hours to Anchorage, starting at around 7 a.m. CST.
  • Rain fell through the morning, ending around noon. It was our first major rain for the month.
  • Mary took ornaments off the Christmas tree, dusting each one before putting it away in various plastic totes. I helped remove the strings of lights. Mary wrapped small-bulb strings on cardboard rolls. I put the 2 strings of large-bulb lights into their original packages. We took down the Christmas tree, packed branches away in bags, then into old computer screen boxes. We had the tree up from Nov. 26th until today, or for 32 days. It's good to move on.
  • I reviewed KN95 surgical masks to use during the trip with Katie to Seattle and back home on Jan. 12-15. Since we're without a credit car for a few days, I saved the website and I'll order once we receive a new credit card.
  • The cherry wine yeast is bubbling. The specific gravity is 1.081, down just a little bit from yesterday's 1.084 starting point. There is now a significant cherry taste to the must. I gave Mary a sample to taste and her response was, "Wow, that's really good."
  • Katie called. Her apartment building is soon going to be sold. Eviction is possible and rent might go up significantly with new owners, her current building manager told Katie. She was bummed with the news. I told her to get looking right away. I made a quick online check, found 7 Anchorage apartment rental groups on Facebook's Marketplace and 147 apartment rental listings on the Anchorage Craig's List. I forwarded that info to Katie. She messaged back with a link to an inexpensive house for rent that was recently listed. I urged her to contact them immediately. She did. We'll see what happens. There are several rentals on the market in Anchorage. I wonder if recent heavy snows have pushed some former Anchorage residents not used to "normal" wintertime weather to move to the Lower 48 states.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/29: 31st Anniversary
  
  • Mary and I have been married 31 years, as of today. It was a really cold day in Red Lake Falls, MN. We had a mob of people in the little white house we were renting at the time. The high for the day on 12/29/90 was -29. Snow was falling, too. Ruth, Mary's mother, left the next morning for her home in Hannibal, MO. Mary and I have been together ever since then. We never fight or squabble. Okay, that's a big, fat, hairy lie. We yell at each other when she's a miserable hard head, or when I'm an old nose-out-of-joint toad, which happens about once every other month. Other than that, we live in perfect harmony. Ha, ha, ha! (Mary just threw a pillow at me.)
    
  • We were rather lazy throughout the day.
  • Katie texted that the inexpensive house was a scam.
  • Bill called after dark and said that Mike, his friend, who was going with him to the NHL Winter Classic in Minneapolis, tested positive for COVID, today. Mary suggested I go with Bill. He felt immediately relieved. Bill didn't want to go up there, alone. He will overnight at our home on 12/30. We'll leave the morning of 12/31 in the Cadillac. It's a better car for winter driving than his Hyundai Sonata. We overnight in a bed and breakfast in Minneapolis. The game starts 6 p.m. on 1/1/22 outdoors with subzero temperatures predicted. That ought to be toasty. Meanwhile, at home, a winter storm is supposed to drop 5-7 inches of snow. Mary figures she will be shoveling out on 1/2/22. We leave the morning of 1/2/22 for home. Bill then drives from our house to his apartment in St. Charles, MO, since he works the next morning. Interesting times are coming!
  • The specific gravity of the cherry wine is 1.070, so those active yeast beasts are eating up sugar and fizzing profusely. A quick taste test indicates this will be a yummy wine.
    
  • I cleaned labels off 10 wine bottles that were soaking for over a week in baking soda water. Four had stubborn mold inside, so I pour a liberal amount of OxyClean into them, added water, and set them aside to soak.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/30: Shopping & Trip Prep
  
  • I got in the Cadillac to start it up this morning. The battery was dead. After half an hour on the charger, the car started. Then, we headed for Quincy to do some shopping. Upon pulling into Ewing, about 10 miles away from our house, Mary realized we didn't have face masks, so we turned around, went home, let the dogs out for a quick leak, picked up the face masks, and headed out, again.
  • While shopping, we noticed that everything costs a lot more. Some items are double what they were just weeks or months ago. We had a new battery put in Mary's cell phone. Stores were packed with about as many shoppers as 2 days before Christmas. We were glad to go home.
  • Once home, Mary unloaded the car while I changed oil and the oil filter in the Cadillac. After bringing all fluid levels up, I inflated the tires to appropriate levels.
  • Mary made a chicken pot pie that will make 2 meals for Bill and I while we're in Minneapolis.
  • Bill showed up just after 6 p.m. We ate nachos soon after he arrived.
    
  • I moved the winter greens to inside the machine shed and covered them with plastic, since 3-7 inches of snow is predicted for New Year's Day and another inch that night. I was going to move the strawberries, but ran out of time. Mary says if it snows, she'll mound snow on them to protect the plants.
  • Mary and I hung the heater in the chicken coop.
  • I got a text from Mom that her grandson, Kevin, who is Karen and Lynn's son, lives near the area in Boulder, CO, where there are wildfires, tonight.
    
  • I made a list of things to pack in the morning for our trip to the Winter Classic. Bill and I tried on clothes to make sure we could sit down in them. We can.
  • The cherry wine's specific gravity is 1.050. It's fizzing like crazy. Bill and I are going to try to move it into a carboy tomorrow morning, prior to leaving.
  • Dense fog is predicted for tomorrow morning both here and in eastern Iowa. The fog advisory ends at 10 a.m., so that's when we'll leave. I estimate about an 8-hour drive from here to Minneapolis.
    
    
• Friday, 12/31: Driving to Minneapolis
  
• We woke at 6 a.m., ate breakfast, then Bill and I moved the cherry wine must from the brew bucket to a 5-gallon carboy and part of a half-gallon jug. The specific gravity was 1.040, the highest amount to safely move it to a carboy. We put a overflow airlock on the large carboy and a regular airlock on the half gallon. It only took an hour to do this job, complete with clean up.
• Bill and I packed up and left at 10 a.m. We encountered light fog until Iowa City, Iowa, then it rained lightly. Snow was on the ground shortly before Iowa City and all the rest of the way to Minneapolis. We stopped at Walmart in Iowa City for some oil, gas at Cedar Falls, IA, and got into our B&B in the Twin Cities at 7 p.m. We ate half of the chicken pot pie Mary made for us and watched TV until after midnight.
• Back home, Mary had a nice, lazy time, watching TV, besides doing chores.
  
  
• Monday, 1/1: NHL Winter Classic
  
  • Bill and I were up by 9 a.m. (it was -11), fixed a bacon and egg meal, lazied around, ate a bean burrito meal at 2 p.m., then got $10 in gas, drove to Target Field, got lost while trying to park and ended up on Highway 394, heading west. We finally found a parking garage, walked around a bit, then stood in a line to enter Target Field. Luckily, it was Gate 6, where we were supposed to go to get to our seat. It opened at 4 p.m., just minutes before we got in line.
  • We found our seats with hardly anyone there (see photos, below). But, in the next 2 hours, the entire place filled up. It was a capacity crowd of 38,600. The temperature was -6. The game started at 6 p.m. At the end of 1 period, my feet were getting cool. At the end of 2 periods, it was 6-2, with the St. Louis Blues leading the Minnesota Wild. I couldn't feel my right toes. The Wild pulled their goalie with 6:30 left in the game. They scored 2 more goals. I thought they were going to tie the game, the way the came on so strongly. Time ran out. Mr. and Mrs. Beer, to my left, drank at least a 6-pack. The whole place was dancing anytime the loud "boom, boom" music played. While walking to the car, our feet warmed. When we got back to the B&B, we were pretty warm. It was -14.
  • We watched Crash Course: US History on Bill's tablet via YouTube, after texting with Katie and talking to Mary.
  • Back home, Mary worked out her plans for 2022 and got them written down.

Our view of crews on the rink.

When people stood, we looked left to this.

Dec. 19-25, 2021

Weather | 12/19, 18°, 35° | 12/20, 22°, 43° | 12/21, 15°, 42° | 12/22, 16°, 39° | 12/23, 33°, 57° | 2/24, 41°, 67° | 12/25, 0.05" rain, 41°, 47° |

• Sunday, 12/19: Four Bald Eagles at Once
  
  • I spotted a bald eagle out the west living room window. Mary and I both looked and then saw 2 bald eagles circling one another, with one aggressively chasing the other one. Then, we saw a second pair doing the same thing. There were 4 bald eagles in the sky. That's a first!
    
  • Today is Nick's 12th birthday. He was born under the Christmas tree during the early morning hours of 12/19/09. He outlived his sister, Holly, who died in September. His mother, Rosemary, still bounces around like a kitten.
    
  • Mary made minestrone soup. This way, she doesn't have to fix a main meal for 3 days and can spend time making Christmas treats.
  • She also cracked several hazelnuts that will go into tomorrow's batch of lime zinger cookies.
    
  • On a dog walk to the cow barn, I moved the deer stand from the south side of the building to inside the structure. Upon checking an old maple log of a tree south of the cow barn that I cut down a couple years ago, the wood is still fine. I'll need to get back and saw it up.
    
  • While searching for dead hardwood to cut up for firewood, I spotted a metal deer stand just 6 feet west of our property line, off the NW corner of the west field. It's facing west, but if someone in that stand took a shot to the east, the bullet could reach our house, yard, and chicken coop. There's firewood to cut just 10-20 feet east of that stand. Alternative (muzzleloading 40-caliber rifles & handguns, pistols, 40-caliber air-powered guns, longbows, compound bows, recurve bows, crossbows, and atlatls) deer hunting season runs Dec. 25 through Jan. 4. Except for Christmas Day, I'll be cutting and gathering firewood in that area. I guess it's typical of a city dude to crowd your property.
    
  • I cut up a large white oak a few feet in the woods south of west field. Parts of it were too large to move, so I cut those chunks in half and stacked it all in the wagon (see photo, below), which made for a large load. The high wind a few days ago brought down a lot of dead wood in the forest. I'll be going back there for more, some of which I cut, but was unable to load.
  • David Parmeter (Homer High School classmate) texted me that he's driving through Missouri, tomorrow, on his way to Virginia (D.C. area) to see grandchildren. With a photo he sent, I can see he's driving a pickup, pulling a camper/trailer.

  

  Big white oak firewood pieces overfilled the trailer.
  

• Monday, 12/20: Garlic Wine & Lime Zinger Cookies (Not at the same time!)
  
  • Flipping and hoisting around huge white oak logs strained a few body parts, so I decided not to do firewood work, today.
  • Katie texted, asking whether to go with studded, or non-studded snow tires. I recommended studs for driving around Anchorage in the winter. She's considering a Toyo tire. I told her it looks like a good choice.
    
  • Mary washed towels.
  • I racked the garlic wine for the second time, due to a half inch of sediment in the bottom of the carboy. The yeast was still fizzing when I started, but ended after racking. The specific gravity is 0.999, dropping just one-thousandth from 1.000. I added 3.75 crushed Campden tablets. We didn't taste it this time. 
  • While I did winemaking, Mary finished a cross stitch Christmas ornament (see photo, below). She did the evening chores while I washed up winemaking stuff.
    
  • Mary made lime zinger cookies (see photo, below), my request for Christmas goodies. Crushed hazelnuts, lime juice and zest, among other ingredients, go into these cookies. They taste wonderful with pots of loose leaf tea.
    
  • I brought my wine diary up-to-date with the 3 wines I'm working on right now, which are pear, parsnip, and garlic. The pear wine will be bottled on Friday and cherry wine will be started on Saturday. I guess I'm a real wino...maker!

Mary's newest ornament, called Bunnies in the Snow.
To the left is a loon ornament & to right, a puffin.

Lime zinger cookies, ready for the oven.

• Tuesday, 12/21: Winter Solstice
  
  • Several of my old Alaskan friends mentioned that today is the winter solstice. In Alaska, this day is a big deal, because each future day until summer solstice is a day of more sunshine.
  • Mary made a triple batch of butterscotch oatmeal cookies. They're yummy!
  • She also finished her cross stitch Christmas gifts.
  • I split dried wood, stacked it in the woodshed, then started splitting wood from the large white oak tree I cut up 2 days ago. The wood, inside, is wet, so I'll need to stack it in the machine shed to dry. Only less than a quarter of the wood from the white oak tree is now split. It's a big tree.
  • From 5 sources, I put together and wrote a sour cherry wine recipe in my wine diary.
    
  • Eight more bottles are without labels, as I keep chipping away at wine bottle delabeling.
  • Katie felt an earthquake while at work in Anchorage. The Anchorage Daily News reports that it was a 5.9 earthquake centered near Mt. Illiamna, across the Cook Inlet from Ninilchik.
  • Mom texted that she helped serve at the Circle (MT) Senior Citizen Center's Christmas dinner. They served 65 people.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/22: Firewood & Kid's Tires
  
  • Mary cleaned the house and made flour tortillas.
  • First I stacked firewood that I split yesterday and then split all of the rest of the firewood that I cut up from the large oak tree. It took 3 hours to perform this firewood splitting. The wagon is filled with split wood. Because these trunk pieces are wet, the entire machine shed smells like the inside of a whiskey oak barrel.
  • Katie and I were on the phone and texted throughout the day. She got new studded snow tires on her vehicle. She said her vehicle has a much greater grip on the road. Katie also said most people told her she'd be fine driving around Anchorage with all-season tires. That proves something I've always thought...Anchorage residents are crackpots about Alaska winter weather and it's why so many crash and burn each winter. 
  • The place she went to performed a vehicle inspection and replaced some burned out light bulbs. She thought her brakes needed replacing, but they found them to be adequate. Her vehicle has worn out ball joints. I did some online research for her vehicle, a 2010 Jeep Liberty. Ball joints on that rig are notorious for failing. Replacements have grease fittings, while originals don't. The mechanic informed her that they were over-greased, the rubber caps broke, water leaked in, and they're failing. The fact there is a grease fitting says they aren't original. A ball joint coming apart at highway speeds is catastrophic. I looked up pricing on RockAuto, and the replacement cost of all 4 control arms and the 4 ball joints is about $40 more than what she was quoted. I recommended Katie should go ahead with replacing them. She plans on doing that next month.
  • Katie will be boarding her flight to here in Anchorage after 4 a.m. on 12/23. She has a 13-hour layover in Seattle. Her flight gets into St. Louis around 10ish on 12/24. It's worse going back, when she has an 18-hour layover in Chicago.
  • Bill texted that he had glass embedded in a tire on his vehicle. He held his breath while running on a donut spare tire for 2 days and got it replaced with a new tire, today.
  • Mom informed me that I got her post office address off by one digit on a Christmas gift I'm sending her. We're hoping the small size of Circle, MT means the post office will put it in the correct mailbox.
    
  • The garlic wine is now changing from its eggnog color to a clearer, more golden shade.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/23: Getting Veggies on Christmas Eve Eve Day
  
  • We think we saw a peregrine falcon dipping down over the west woods this morning. Robins and cedar waxwings are flying all around the yard, today.
    
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry. Wind gusts to 30 mph from the SW dried clothes fast. 
  • She also made black raspberry bars (her Christmas snack choice), pistachio torte (Bill's Christmas snack choice), and 2 pumpkin pies (Katie's Christmas snake choice). The house smelled wonderful.
  • I drove to Quincy and bought Christmas smorgasbord veggies used with Ranch dip. Quincy city traffic was fierce, as were the crowds in all stores. I only made 2 stops. Bought two 5-gallon cans of gas for the tractor and wood splitter engine. Gas is $2.94 a gallon.
  • Our neighbor east of us is trenching more pipe to drain onto the gravel road. His field drain tile project already washes gravel off the road and produces gullies we have to drive across. I feel like asking the county board if a ferry system is planned after Farmer Turd-Butt drains more water across the gravel road.
  • After returning home, while Mary did evening chores, I stacked the firewood I split yesterday into criss-cross stacks in the machine shed. These stacks dry wood in the fastest manner. I was wrong. After splitting the wood, I can see it was a red oak, not a white oak tree. Two huge 1.5" black beetles with big mandibles came out of that firewood.
    
  • Mary washed, sliced, and bagged up all of the Christmas veggies, which are green onions, baby carrots, radishes, cauliflower, broccoli, and celery. She made Ranch dip earlier, today. We're now ready for Christmas eating. Now, we just need eaters. Katie and Bill will be here, tomorrow. Bill will show up around 10 a.m. and Katie is due in at roughly 2 p.m.
    
    
• Friday, 12/24: Christmas Eve, Kids Arrive
  • Mary and I got the north and south upstairs bedrooms ready for Bill & Katie.
    
  • Bill arrived around 10:30 a.m.
    
  • Bill and I bottled the pear wine after transferring it to a brew bucket and adding 4 crushed Campden tablets. The tartaric acid is 0.65, which is perfect for white wines. The specific gravity is 0.998, giving it 11% alcohol. It tastes marvelous, even though it hasn't aged at all. This is the best pear wine I've made. It's incredibly smooth, with not any taste of alcohol. This pear wine tastes like a pear cider, due to a slight bit of tang in the taste.
    
  • Katie arrived at 2:30 p.m. She was smart and slept for a little bit in Hannibal while drive north from St. Louis in her rental car.
    
  • Mary started the 2 amaryllis bulbs in a couple pots.
    
  • Katie wrapped her presents and discovered she had 2 of the same gift for her mother, because one that she ordered from Walmart arrived in an Amazon box. We weren't opening her gifts as they arrived to our address.
    
  • After evening chores were done, and cleanup after bottling pear wine finished up, Mary cut up salami and various cheeses and we had a smorgasbord of food.
    
  • Mary saw a of flock cackling geese during chores.
    
  • We played Michigan rummy for 6 hours. It was a blast. We shared in drinking a bottle of jalapeño wine and a bottle of autumn olive wine. Katie said she had a glass of wine at an airport restaurant while flying south from Anchorage, but it wasn't as good as the wines I make. Brownie point for her!
    
    
• Saturday, 12/25: Christmas Day with Katie & Bill
  
  • We had a bacon and eggs breakfast.
  • We opened presents from late morning into the early afternoon.
    
  • When Katie opened a present from Mary and I that was a Verilux happy light, there was a surprise. The box contained not one, but 6 happy lights. At first, Katie asked if we got 2 lights. As she pulled one out she laughed, realizing several were inside the cardboard box. We never opened it when the package arrived, figuring it was just a big light. A Walmart employee who can't read didn't see that a case of 6 lights was sent to us, instead of just 1 light that we ordered. She gave a light to Mary and one to Bill, then packed 4 lights in her plastic tote to take back with her to Anchorage.
    
  • Mary made venison stroganoff for our Christmas dinner. A side dish of frozen muskmelon added to the flavor. We shared a bottle of blackberry wine with this dinner.
    
  • While walking dogs during evening chores, Mary and Bill spooked up 5 wood ducks off Bluegill Pond.
    
  • Because it was calm and warm, I decided to fix the loose shingle on the roof. I was going to put the extension ladder on the roof to climb up to that shingle. Katie stepped up onto the roof to help pull the ladder up, then proceeded to march around on the roof like a monkey and said she could fix it without a ladder. She expertly removed 3 nails, pounded in 6 new nails once she pulled the shingle into place, then applied some strips of tar in appropriate locations to help hold down shingle edges. I told her she did a nice job and she replied, "Well, I do this for a living."
    
  • I called Mom. It snowed several inches, which she finished shoveling. It was -5° in Circle, MT, when I called. She talked to Bill and Katie for quite a bit, then to me. We were on the phone with her for over an hour.
    
  • We watched the movie, Leap Year. We've all seen it several times, which is a good thing, since there were some closed eyelids during the movie. We shared a bottle of 2020 pear wine while watching the movie.
    

Dec. 12-18, 2021

Weather | 12/12, 29°, 55° | 12/13, 33°, 53° | 12/14, 34°, 58° | 12/15, 55°, 71° | 12/16, 29°, 45° | 2/17, 0.03" rain, 21°, 37° | 12/18, 29°, 37° |

• Sunday, 12/12: A Quiet Sunday
  
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry after I dumped all of my various hunting clothes into the basket. She also made a venison General Tso meal and did some cross stitching.
  • I set 2 buckets up to soak labels off wine bottles in a baking soda/water solution.
  • I also went through this blog and updated my wine diary for wines I made this year, especially comments about how wines tasted after they were bottled and aged. It's educational and fun recounting the making and enjoyment of various wines.
  • Today is the last day of the anterless rifle deer hunting season. We aren't hearing rifle shots close to us...only shots far away. There is an alternative season, from Dec. 25th to Jan. 4th, when you can use spears and black powder guns, but hunting numbers are greatly reduced. Who wants to hunt a deer with an atlatl on Christmas Day? (Atlatls are a rod or board-like device used to launch, through a throwing motion of the arm, a dart 5 to 8 feet in length.) The end of regular deer hunting season means we can walk around without blaze orange vests outside of our coats and without the fear some idiot trespasser might be lurking in our woods with a high-powered rifle.
  • I saw 2 bald eagles fly over our house just above treetop level.
  • The garlic wine still bubbles profusely. Its yeast is taking a long time to settle down.
    
    
• Monday, 12/13: Watching Geminid Meteor Shower
  
  • Mary washed coats, including blaze orange hunting gear. She also did some cross stitch work, and evening chores. 
  • I cleaned labels off 6 wine bottles, 3 of which were big 1.5-liter bottles. I rotated 8 more bottles into a bucket of baking soda/water solution.
  • After driving the 8N Ford tractor and trailer to the SW corner of the north field, I chainsawed up a red oak tree that fell over the corner post of the fence around that field. That gave me just over a half a wagon load of firewood, so I cut down another small dead red oak (base was about 7-8" in diameter), and filled the rest of the wagon. I unloaded small firewood pieces into the woodshed. The remaining larger firewood chunks, about a third of a wagon load, I'll split tomorrow.
    
  • Mary fixed baked chicken, corn on the cob, and potatoes covered with turkey gravy she froze and reheated from our Thanksgiving dinner.
  • After the nighttime dog walk, when deer stomped off while snorting at us, we stood in the lawn to watch the sky during the height of the Geminid Meteor Shower. We were out there for an hour and saw several bright streaks in the night sky. To the east of us were 2 barred owls who were really talking. They were almost making a cat purring sound. Mary says now is the height of their mating season. We also heard a coyote howling session.
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/14: High Temperatures, Hoofing Out Firewood, & Trumpeter Swans
  
  • "It's beginning to feel a lot like Easter," is my new song. Local news sources are predicting that we will break a record high tomorrow, which is 70° in Quincy, IL, set in 1948.
    
  • I sharpened the mower blade and Mary mowed the lane.
  • After unloading large firewood logs out of the trailer, I drove the tractor/trailer to where I was yesterday and cut another load of firewood from small dead hickory trees, parts of a downed red oak and a dead white oak that I dropped. I found a large turkey feather and stuck it in my hardhat. I hauled the entire wagon load, an armload at a time, up a hill in the forest and dumped the wood over the fence, then loaded the firewood in the wagon. It's the best exercise plan on earth. When I drove home, darkness was falling. Mary told me we weren't getting rain until tomorrow night, so instead of unloading firewood, I just parked the tractor/trailer in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary made a week's supply of popcorn, then did the evening chores. 
  • While doing chores, she heard trumpeter swans in the neighbor's field east of us. Then, they lifted off and 15 trumpeter swans flew over our lane. Mary was walking dogs at that moment and Plato and Amber thought loud, flying swans were very interesting.
  • We watched the 2006 movie, The Holiday.
  • Katie texted me asking for our dog's height and length measurements. She's guessing that her dogs are the same size and needs the numbers to fly them from New Orleans, LA to Anchorage, AK, which she plans to do on Jan. 16th.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/15: Crazy Winds
  • A southwest wind blew hard all day, but after dark, gusts shook our house enough that floor boards in the kitchen were vibrating. Ventusky, a weather app we use, indicated gusts to 63 mph. We checked the roof prior to going to bed and one shingle in the tan-colored area is hanging loose, attached by only one end. That's a result of putting on shingles in cooler weather. The tar under the tips of the shingles doesn't get a chance to melt and stick in summer heat, resulting in the chance of high winds to flip them up. I'll have to try to use ladders to get to that shingle and repair it. Thankfully, it's lower on the roof and not on top.
  • On our last dog walk, we smelled a strong whiff of grass smoke on the wind. It made us stay up into the early morning hours, concerned a out-of-control grass fire was close. I walked down to the gravel road, but couldn't see anything to the west, which was the direction of the wind by 1 a.m. As I walked back to the house, I sensed a wind change to the NW and the smoke subsided. This morning, we read online that fires in Kansas were making Kansas City residents call 911 to complain about smelling smoke. Maybe that was the smoke we were smelling.
  • Quincy set a new high temperature record of 75. We were lower, at 71. Flies loved the heat and swarmed all inside windows. Mary vacuumed flies twice, today.
  • Mary also cross stitched and made a shopping list. Since we were up very late, we decided we'll go shopping on Friday.
  • I cleaned labels off 11 wine bottles and added more bottles to the baking soda water soup in 2 buckets. I also balanced the checkbook.
  • Katie texted that she purchased airline-approved crates for her pets and her 2 dogs and 2 cats are officially confirmed on a flight to Anchorage, mid-January.
  • Bill is game for helping me bottle pear wine Christmas Eve, as long as it doesn't hinder the traditional Christmas Eve smorgasbord that we do. Mary texted him that he has his priorities straight.
  • Opossums must roam on high-wind nights. I almost stumbled on one that was just in front of the porch steps after dark. We saw one while walking the dogs midway down the lane and Mary and I saw a big, roly-poly one when we checked the chicken coop for wind damage. The coop was fine.
  • We saw a juvenile bald eagle zip over the house around noon.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/16: Haircut, Firewood & Bottles
  
  • Mary received a haircut from her favorite hair dresser, her husband. She feels human, again.
  • She also worked on a craft project.
  • I unload firewood from the wagon into the woodshed, and put large pieces next to the splitter. I also rinsed winemaking mesh bags to clear bleach from them and hung them out on the clothesline. I took the bleach water and cleaned 2 coolers to make sure old mold was completely killed and set them in the woodshed to air out.
    
  • I cleaned labels off 7 wine bottles and put more labeled bottles into the baking soda water. Some of the wine bottles I recently purchased are from Spirit Knob Winery, located in Ursa, IL, just north of Quincy. Nobody rinsed out those bottles, so a dark line of dried sweet wine lines the inside bottom edges. I'm glad that I'm cleaning these bottles, first.
    
    
• Friday, 12/17: Shopping
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL. Lots of shoppers, everywhere. Maybe 1 in 20 people wore masks. We found everything we wanted, except for tangerines for future cherry winemaking. Instead, I bought 2 bags of Clementines. A quick online lookup indicates that clementines, sometimes called "cuties," are a type of Mandarin orange, as are tangerines. So, I got what I needed! We also picked up the last 2 gifts Katie ordered for Christmas and sent to our address, but I diverted for a Quincy Walgreen's store pickup.
  • We watched 2 movies after unloading the car. They were The Seeker and The Polar Express.
  • On our last dog walk of the night, we heard a call that we couldn't identify. At first, we thought it was a coyote howling, but the sound was different. Checking online, it was either a bobcat in heat, or a fox during mating season. The sound was more like that of a bobcat.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/18: House Cleaning, Firewood & Bottles
  
  • Mary baked up 4 more New England long pie pumpkins, then froze 3 packages of pumpkin meat. She washed sheets and did a bunch of house cleaning.
  • Katie called me. The company that gets airline tickets for Worker's Comp still hasn't purchased them for her mid-January laser burn work in Seattle. She's contacted them, asking for some action and received an email back promising answers soon.
    
  • I split all of the big firewood logs that were next to the splitter, then stacked a wagon load of wood into the woodshed (see photo, below). The first stack of firewood is about halfway up the building and it goes down a little each day as about 4 armloads go into the house. I need to stack to about 6 feet, then fill up 2 more rows and there is enough wood for the rest of the winter.
    
  • I took labels off 10 wine bottles and cleaned them up, which finished up old bottles that we've saved. I'm now starting to work on bottles I recently bought. I threw away a bottle that had brown paint on the inside of it. Ten more bottles were added to the baking soda water soup in the large bucket.
  • While Mary did cross stitch and I worked on bottles, we celebrated...something...that required drinking a bottle of autumn olive wine I made in January. It tastes like cranberry raisins, which means it's really good.
    
  • Mary and I watched cedar waxwings in the maple tree above the woodshed pass a maple bud back and forth between them until one finally ate the bud. It's a trick they often perform.
  • A deer snorted at us when the dogs and I walked for the last time down the lane under a full moon. It was near Bluegill Pond and snorted for a long time as it went off to the SW of the pond.

  

  Stacked firewood of 1st row in woodshed.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Dec. 5-11, 2021

Weather | 12/5, 31°, 59° | 12/6, 25°, 33° | 12/7, 17°, 33° | 12/8, 25°, 38° | 12/9, 35°, 57° | 2/10, 0.14" rain, 29°, 55° | 12/11, 29°, 43° |

• Sunday, 12/5: Food Planning & Hunting
  
  • Mary did some planning, including making a food menu that better encompasses our own homegrown garden produce, chicken and venison meat. She also did some cross stitching, cleaned the house, made a turkey/rice casserole, and accomplished all of the evening chores.
  • I hunted at a new location. Wind blew out of the west, so I went east, across the dry creek bed, to an old cottonwood tree that leans almost perpendicular to the ground. Years ago, I had a deer stand on it. I thought I'd go up the hill, east of there, next to our east property line, but cedars have grown up so you can't see very far. There are lots of game trails and bed-down spots at the base of these cedars. I ventured a little bit to the north of there, just into the woods where I could see further, and leaned up against a wide oak tree. At 4:10 p.m., I saw the legs, belly, and rump of a deer walking north to south in the grass on the west side of the dry creek bed. I think it was a buck. About 20 minutes after sunset, a small deer walked north to south up the hill from me in the woods. I couldn't see whether it had antlers or not, so I didn't try to shoot. Then, a bigger deer stepped into the woods where the first deer exited. It slowly walked in a semi-circle to the north, then west of me, turned around, and retraced its path out of the woods. Both of these deer should have smelled me, because they were downwind from where I sat. The last deer stepped with sharp and loud foot falls, like deer do when they know you're there. I'm wondering if they know my scent, were wary, but not enough to snort and run away. I only want to bag a small deer, so I never shot at the large one. Besides, it might have been a buck, and antlered deer are illegal to shoot, now. Other animals...lots of squirrels...one that barked at me for a full 20 minutes. I also had 2 big Canada geese fly right over my head.
  • Wind switched to the NW after dark and really picked up with a steady 22 mph blast, and gusts to 38 mph.
  • Yeast is bubbling along nicely in the garlic wine. A quick test and bag squeeze in the evening gave a 1.092 specific gravity, a drop from 1.100. The house smells like a bad Italian restaurant.
    
    
• Monday, 12/6: Got COVID Boosters
  
  • From the living room's south window, I spotted a large bird flying above the trees. Mary grabbed the binoculars and identified it as a golden eagle. We only see them this time of the year as they migrate through our region.
    
  • On a call to the pharmacy at the Quincy, IL, Sam's Club, I discovered we can get COVID booster shots as Missouri residents and appointments aren't necessary, so we drove to Quincy, got the shots, and bought a few things. The young woman administering the shots was very good. More people are wearing masks in Quincy.
    
  • I called Lisa at Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative in Glendive, because we were supposed to get directions in October, then in November, on steps to take regarding the pension that Mid-Rivers is dropping. I'll still get it through an annuity. Lisa said they still haven't finished figuring up pension totals for everyone. That job was supposed to be done last week, so she said hopefully this week the job will be complete and letters will go out. I asked how she likes her job. Her response was that it's quiet, with not a lot to do. They've gone from 190 employees to 120, with a goal of reducing down to 90 employees. They're automating everything, so eventually customer questions will be answered without a customer ever needing to talk to a person. That's a 180-degree turn from when I worked there. I predict that eventually Mid-Rivers won't exist.
  • Since it was below 40° outside, I checked the foundation vents I recently bought from Lowe's. They closed within minutes when I took them outside. Great! They work. Brought them in and they opened right away. They will vent a future greenhouse.
  • Katie called us regarding Christmas gift packages sent to us. She was diagnosed today with a corneal ulcer. She got antibiotic drops and artificial tears, and might get a steroid prescribed to her. She bought a 2010 Jeep Liberty as transportation in Anchorage. She was delivering a proposal from UIC to Soldotna for a potential construction job, today.
  • I called FedEx once we got home. One of Katie's packages has been in Quincy since Saturday and they've failed to deliver it for 3 days, straight. A sign is up on State Highway J stating that the road is closed 5 miles from the Highway 156/Highway J junction. Our turn-off is a mile up that road. When I explained the sign to the guy at the FedEx Ground office in Quincy, he figured the temporary drivers running this route don't realize they can still get to our location, and aren't delivering the package. He put a hold on the package, so I can pick it up tomorrow at their Quincy facility. There's another package that was delivered according to USPS tracking, but we never saw it. I'll have to see what happened with that one. You'd think we live in the middle of a desert they way packages can't get to us!
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/7: Package Chasing
  • I spent daylight hours chasing packages and came home empty. First, I asked the Hispanic couple across the road from us if they saw a package. They didn't. Next, I drove to the Ewing post office. Kathy, the post mistress, told me the tracking number I gave her was for someone else's package, which was delivered yesterday to an address east of Ewing. She suggested Katie contact whomever she purchased the item from to get the correct tracking number. I sent Katie a text to this effect. I then drove to Quincy to pick up the package from FedEx Ground. Even though the guy at FedEx I talked to yesterday said they'd pull the package out of the truck, they didn't do that. It's still on the truck running around to be delivered. The woman I emailed directions to couldn't find my directions on her computer, even though the guy I talked to yesterday on the phone saw my directions. So, I wrote out directions, again, this time adding to ignore the sign indicating Highway J is closed. I doubt they'll deliver the package, but I'm sick and tired of wasting my day. This happens every year and it's ending right now! Either items arrive at our home, or they're lost. I don't have time for this nonsense.
    
  • We aren't feeling perfect, due to the COVID booster shots. It's like you're just entering, or just leaving, a sickness. Mary feels worse than me, achy with a headache. My arm hurts, too.
  • A check of the garlic wine showed a specific gravity of 1.067. The yeast is fizzing, nicely.
    
  • I cut out room sizes to scale on graph paper for a new house. Then, Mary and I tried different configurations with our graph paper rooms and came up with a similar arrangement to our original rough draft sketch of a few months ago. The only difference is we will build in 3 stages, making the project hopefully more affordable.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/8: Harvested 2nd Deer
  
  • Mary cross stitched and did the chores.
  • I got a text from Sandy, the woman who runs a business staging events in Quincy, IL. She has 12 cases of wine bottles for me, and all are bottles that take corks. She'll sell them to me for $70. That's $5.83 a case, or 49 cents a bottle. I said I'd buy them. I pick them up on Friday at 11 a.m.
  • I scrubbed up the 4 coolers I bought last week for $15. They'll be perfect for storing wine.
  • I walked to the Cherry Tree Stand in the NE section of our property at 3 p.m. I heard what seemed like chewing just beyond the cedar trees in front of me the whole time I was in the stand. I saw lots of woodpeckers. Right at sunset (4:41 p.m.), a doe walked through the cedars and up the hill, just below me. I took a right-handed shot and she dropped like a rock. It was a neck shot that hit her in the spine. Other deer ran off that were behind this doe. Mary told me to get a small deer, due to limited freezer space. I failed. She says this is the grandmother of Bambi, not Bambi. It's a large doe (see photo, below). I walked home and got Mary. She and I unloaded firewood out of the wagon, then I fired up the 8N Ford and drove it to the deer. We field dressed it...lots of fat. Deer on our property eat well. We drove it home, cleaned out the body cavity with the garden hose, then hung it in the machine shed. We must get at butchering early tomorrow morning. The forecast calls for 48° by 10 a.m. We now have more than enough venison, so deer hunting ends for me. Missouri's anterless firearms season ends on Sunday.

  

  The doe I harvested today. Lot's of good venison meat!
  

• Thursday, 12/9: The Final Butchering of the Year
  
  • Late last night I labeled the 21 bottles of jalapeno wine and stored them on their sides in a cooler.
    
  • We butchered the doe, today. Before going to bed, last night, the temperature was at 30°, which was great for cooling off the meat. Throughout today's butchering, that meat stayed cool. My shot wiped out all of one shoulder and half of the other. Even so, 35 packages of venison meat came from this very long-bodied deer. We have lots of venison to eat for a year. We feel happy to be done with the yucky job of butchering animals for the year.
    
  • Prior to me finishing up skinning the deer, Mary washed a load of laundry. 
  • She also moved packages of watermelon from the largest freezer to the smaller freezer, which had room after she did two batches of salsa last week, thereby using up several frozen bags of tomatoes, tomatillos, and hot peppers. By moving watermelon, we had room for new venison meat. 
  • Mary also set the kitchen table up for butchering and prepared several freezer zippered bags with necessary wording. The Missouri Department of Conservation requires venison to be labeled with the hunter's name, address, the date the deer is harvested, and the confirmation number sent back to the hunter after the deer is telechecked via a cell phone.
  • Mary swept up a mostly tan wooly worm, then looked up online "wooly worm winter predictions," which told her that this colored wooly worm means we're going to have a very mild winter.
    
  • After butchering clean-up, Mary did chores, and raked leaves, while I moved firewood logs to the splitter and split the wood. I finished after sunset and got my hat light. Mary helped me load the split firewood into the woodshed.
  • FedEx delivered Katie's package that arrived in Quincy on Friday to the neighbors across the gravel road, even though taped to the outside of the box was my emailed directions that included turning north (right) and driving up our lane to our house. The neighbors drove it up to us. We could tell from the outside of the box that it wasn't the item that Katie ordered. Katie talked to the seller, who is sending out the correct item and emailed a prepaid FedEx return shipping label. She forwarded that email to me. I'll send it out when I go to Quincy tomorrow to get my 12 cases of wine bottles.
  • Tonight, the garlic wine's specific gravity is 1.033, dropping from 1.050, when I checked it last night. It should be ready to move to a 5-gallon carboy tomorrow.
    
    
• Friday, 12/10: Wine Bottles & Tornadoes
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. She also did some cross stitching.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up 12 cases of used wine bottles. Rain started to fall right when I loaded the wine bottles. All 12 cases fit in the Cadillac's trunk. Next, I printed out the FedEx label and Katie's invoice at Staples, wrote a note on the invoice and slipped it inside the package containing the fancy bottle capper that must be returned, since it is the wrong item ordered. I taped the package up thoroughly, then added the label on the top. I drove to the FedEx Express office on the north edge of Quincy, and dropped the package off, then drove home, filling the car with gas on the way home.
  • I left the wine bottles in the car after getting home, since rain was falling. It's so nice to be inside and next to a warm woodstove with not a single drip coming through the roof. The new roofing works wonderfully. While doing chores, I stood at the SE corner of the house for several minutes and just smiled, because it looked so nice watching rain run off that roof.
    
  • We watched the 1989 movie, Christmas Vacation.
  • We tried our first bottle of jalapeño wine with omelets for dinner. The wine has mellowed and tastes very good. It tastes best while eating something. I munched on carrots while finishing off the wine.
    
  • Tornadoes swept through St. Charles, MO, in the evening, where Bill lives. He went to a main floor bathroom/laundry area in his building. Nothing happened where he lives. Across the river in Edwardsville, Illinois (an east St. Louis suburb), a tornado hit a large Amazon warehouse and took walls and part of the roof off. As of this morning (12/11/21), two died in that building. The National Weather Service reports that 37 tornadoes touched down in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Fortunately, all of that occurred about 100 miles south of us.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/11: A Hobby Day
  
  • Mary cross stitched all day.
  • Winemaking filled my day. A specific gravity of 1.013 on the garlic wine was close enough to 1.010 that I moved the wine into a 5-gallon glass carboy, a 750 ml wine bottle, and a 330-ml beer bottle. It is this wine's first racking. We tasted a little of it and the wine was surprisingly good, kind of semi-sweet, as it would be with still some sugar for the yeast to burn up. There is a fruity, floral taste to it. The 3 containers continue to burp CO2 gas, because of the still-active yeast.
  • I moved the 12 cases of wine bottles into the house and checked all of them. Some have labels removed and are cleaned. Most require label removal. All need cleaning. I was able to fit them all into the ground floor, west room closet under the stairs, where I keep winemaking stuff. There are several winter inside days worth of bottle cleanup in my future.
    
  • I racked the parsnip wine from a gallon jug and a wine bottle to a gallon jug and a beer bottle. The process removed a great deal of fines. The specific gravity is exactly 1.000. The wine with fines tasted earthy. We also tasted it without the fines. It had the tang from the lemon, a floral essence, and still a slight earthy taste, but mellow. This is going to be an interesting wine when its done. The wine must went into a brew bucket, where I added one crushed Campden tablet, then into the glassware for its second racking.
  • I put away cleaned, dried, and empty wine bottles and carboys in the west room closet.
  • We heard snow geese flying west to east in the dark as we walked the dogs. They are smart to fly at night. No hunters are shooting are around, then.
  • We read online news accounts and watched a few videos of tornado destruction in the St. Louis area and in Kentucky. Debris from the Amazon building in Ewardsville, IL, was discovered 3 counties away. It all makes me more determined to build a safe room in new house construction.