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.