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.