Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2022

Weather | 1/30, 16°, 28° | 1/31, 18°, 46° | 2/1, 4" snow, 0.19" rain, 40°, 47° | 2/2, 12" total accumulation of snow, 0.80" moisture, 10°, 19° | 2/3, 7°, 20° | 2/4, 0°, 27° | 2/5, -3°, 29° |

• Sunday, 1/30: Firewood & Football
  
  • Mary and I went to the west edge of the SW woods and cut a wagon load of firewood. I downed 3 mid-size dead trees and cut up a few pieces that were already down. The standing dead trees make excellent firewood, because they're already dry and ready to burn. There are tons of game trails all over that area.
  • We listened to the Kansas City Chiefs/Cincinnati Bengals AFC championship game. We rooted for the Chiefs, who played a good first half and a rotten second half. The Bengals won 27-24, with a sudden death overtime field goal. They play the LA Rams in the Super Bowl.
  • Mom texted that she and her friend, Hank, (see photo, below) went to the Circle (MT) Chamber dinner. She reported that the food was great and the speaker, a comedian from Texas, was really funny.
  • We watched the 2001 movie, The Fellowship of the Ring. It was the first time viewing it on our larger TV, with the fancy speaker.
  • We had a bottle of 2020 pear wine. This one was tainted with cork must taste. I looked it up and it happens to about 2-7 percent of all wine. A fix is to pour the wine in a bowl that has a sheet of plastic wrap in it. The 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA), which comes with some corks if bleach gets into them, puts a moldy smell into the wine. It's harmless, but overpowers the fruity smell of the wine. The compounds of the plastic wrap draw out the TCA. I have mixed crushed Campden tablets or StarSan (both used to sanitize things, such as corks) with tap water. The tab water contains some bleach compounds, so that might contribute to corks tainted with TCA. I need to use distilled water in the future.

  

  Mom and her friend, Hank.
  

• Monday, 1/31: More Firewood
  
  • We went back to the SW woods and cut up dead trees into firewood, completely overfilling the trailer behind the 8N Ford tractor. It involved one large cherry tree and several medium-sized hickory trees.
  • The cherry tree was hollow near the top, so when I dropped it, the tree broke in half and the top flipped back towards me as I jumped out of the way. One must be super vigilant while downing a tree.
  • Mary found a mouse next to where the cherry tree broke in half. He had a winter home within the tree. He was in shock. Mary put him next to the base of another tree. He moved some, but seemed befuddled. When we finished hauling firewood to the trailer, she found a fallen dead tree trunk with a hole under the rotten wood. Mary moved the mouse to just outside the hole and as she was putting dried leaves over the hole, she saw the mouse dash into the hole.
    
  • After driving that wagon load of firewood back to the house, we unloaded it, with smaller pieces going into the woodshed and large pieces stacked next to the splitter. We wanted to split it, too, but darkness beat us to that job.
    
  • Mary also did a load of laundry and moved new hay to the chicken coop.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/1: Splitting Firewood & Quick Shopping Trip
  
  • We split all of the firewood stacked next to the splitter. We spent 1.5 hours splitting wood, yielding a good sized pile of dry wood, and a smaller stack of wet wood.
    
  • Since a winter storm is predicted to start by evening, I drove to Quincy and bought a few things we needed. The storm prediction had some people mobbing stores. In Walmart, the shelves that were most bare were the potato chip and cookie areas. I guess the Quincy fatsos got their food for hunkering down during a snow storm. Aldi had several bare shelves. By the time I left Quincy, a heavy rain accompanied by a strong north wind was hitting the pickup's windshield.
    
  • Meanwhile, Mary moved and stacked all of the firewood we split earlier in the day. The stack in the woodshed went from ankle high to chest high. This cherry and hickory wood combination makes for high heat and long lasting firewood. Mary put two crisscross stacks of wood on the north inside of the machine shed to dry.
  • Rain started to fall at home by 12:30 p.m. The first snow started falling at 4 p.m. (see video, below), while we finished evening chores. It snowed all night and there was 4" on the ground by midnight.
  • We watched the 2002 Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers.
  The first snowflakes were an inch in diameter.
  
  
  
• Wednesday, 2/2: Snow & Wind
  
  • Snow fell all night and there was 9" on the ground by at 9 a.m. It continues to fall at noon (see video, below), although with less vigor.
    
  • Bill texted that his employer canceled work for the day before he had to call in. He saw several people at his apartment complex clean off their cars, leave, then return home 10 minutes later. The St. Louis area experienced more freezing rain than our neck of the woods.
    
  • Most schools in our area are closed, today. At noon, a 15 mph north wind is blowing.
  • Snow stopped at 1 p.m. and the sun came out, briefly. All together, we got a foot of snow.
  • Mary shoveled a path through the snow NW of the house to the chicken coop, with spurs shoveled to the woodshed and the west end of the machine shed. I shoveled a path eastward to the compost bins and where we dump wood ashes, just east of the south edge of the far garden.
  • I put on my down parka we bought years ago in Roseau, MN, and walked to the mailbox. No mail was delivered. The dairy folks a mile west of us plowed to where their employees live (2 mobile homes across the gravel from us), but I doubt the gravel road is plowed going east. With a strong north wind blowing all day, I imagine part of that gravel road is blown shut with deep drifting snow. We're good, though, with enough food for humans, pets, and chickens, to last for more than a month.
  • Mary and I pretty much hibernated for the day, reading books and magazines.
  • It's ground hog's day, today. Some big, dumb rodent in PA says we have 6 more weeks of winter. Here, all ground hogs are sensibly hibernating under a foot of snow, so we don't adhere to that idiot hog in PA. Predictions are for temperatures in the 40s next week, so patoowee to the ground hog in the east!
    
  By noon, snow is about a foot deep.
  
  
  
• Thursday, 2/3: Clouds & Pumpkin Meat
  
  • Clouds covered the skies until right before sunset.
  • Bill texted that he stayed home for a second day. He helped 2 people get out of the middle of the road in his apartment parking lot, because they were spinning tires and creating ice.
    
  • Mary sewed, did some cross stitch, and made a macaroni casserole.
  • Mary dug out frozen bags of pumpkin put away this year. I weighed them until I had 32 pounds, 6 ounces of pumpkin meat, which I'll use to make 6.5-gallons of pumpkin wine. I set it out to thaw.
    
  • I shoveled snow that blew into the path I shoveled yesterday to the east, after north winds prevailed all day. It's fine, granular snow, so it shovels up as large, heavy igloo blocks.
    
  • Mary and I watched the 2003 Lord of the Rings movie, The Return of the King.
  • Temperatures outside might be in the single digits, or teens, but in our living room, with cherry and hickory firewood burning, it's a lot hotter (see photo, below).

  

  Cool outside, but 96 in the living room with a hot woodstove.
  

• Friday, 2/4: Shoveling, Pumpkin Wine, & News from Kids
  
  • I made breakfast waffles.
  • The bags of pumpkin were frozen bricks, so Mary set them next to the woodstove in the living room. I didn't start using them until 16 hours after we took them out of the freezer.
  • Mary shoveled snow at the end of the lane and next to the mailbox, making it easier for the mailman and garbage pickup folks to get to our mailbox and turn around in our lane.
  • I started a 6.5-gallon batch of pumpkin wine, after writing up the recipe, based on last year's 1-gallon creation. I chopped nearly 4 pounds of dark raisins. Wow...what a sticky job. Below is a photo of initial ingredients. Then, I alternately filled the largest nylon mesh bag with pumpkin meat, raisins, and 24 cinnamon sticks. I poured 2.5 gallons of spring water in the bucket and realized that with 32.5 pounds of pumpkin meat, raisins, and cinnamon, I didn't have enough room in the 8.5-gallon brew bucket for 6.5 gallons of must. There 3 gallons of must in the bucket. I'll have to split this batch up into 2 brewing buckets, then combine the 2 buckets of must, once I move it into a glass carboy. I added 6.5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient, 6 crushed Campden tablets, then 5 tablespoons of acid blend to move the pH from 7.5 to 3.8. Pumpkin is basic and wine needs acid for longevity. More acid will need to be added later. I didn't add sugar, in order to let sugars from cooked pumpkin and chopped raisins to soak into the must. After covering the brew bucket with a flour sack towel, I set the bucket in the pantry to soak overnight.
  • Katie texted me in the morning, asking me what I wanted for my birthday. I didn't answer, because I don't know, so she called in the evening. We decided a gift card would be easiest for Katie. I'll decide from where, tomorrow. Her employer's bid for the Bethel school came in second. She's helping work up several other bids, one which she might go to as a supervisor. She's contemplating certain training certifications related to her job. Her dogs and cats are liking their new living situation. She takes the dogs on regular treks on Russian Jack trails. She bought a couple pieces of furniture.
    
  • Bill worked, today. He said it was insane, with missing employees and a two-day ship-out backlog.

  

  Pumpkin wine items: 4 lbs raisins, 32.5 lbs pumpkin, 24 cinnamon sticks.
  

• Saturday, 2/5: Pumpkin Wine
  
  • Morning temps were below zero, but a south wind and clear skies warmed us up, nicely. Snow that started out a foot deep is now less than half that depth. A couple times, the sump pump came on in the basement, further pointing to melting snow.
    
  • Mary did some house cleaning.
  • I worked on pumpkin wine, which became an all day and all night project. First, I drained liquid out of the pumpkin-filled nylon mesh bag. When I put it in a 5-gallon bucket, it was wide enough to provide a temporary seal along the bucket's inside, and as it slid down into the bucket, air and liquid sprayed upward onto my face and on the floor. Nice tasting mess! 
  • I put another nylon mesh bag in a 7-gallon brew bucket, then used a ladle to scoop pumpkin/raisin/cinnamon goop from the first bag and into a measuring cup to weigh it. Then, I dumped each measuring cup full of goop into the second mesh bag. Once I had 16-17 pounds in each bag, I tied both bags shut. 
  • I added 1.5 gallons of spring water to 3.5 gallons of pumpkin must, then 10 pounds of sugar to bring specific gravity from 1.023 to 1.090. Using last year's measurements, it should have taken 13 pounds of sugar. This year's pumpkins are higher in sugar content. I added another half a gallon of water to bring the total liquid level to 6.5 gallons. I accidentally added 2 tablespoons of yeast nutrient, then added 11 tablespoons to the 5 tablespoons of acid blend I put in yesterday for a total of 16 to bring the pH to 3.5. This is extremely basic pumpkin meat. I added 3.25 teaspoons of pectic enzyme, then transferred juice until 3.25 gallons were in each brew bucket. After adding a bag of pumpkin meat to each bucket, I covered each with a towel and set them in the pantry. 
  • Then, I started a batch of Lalvin D-47 yeast, adding 2 ounces of juice heated to 98° to the quart Mason jar of yeast every hour, or so. I pitched the yeast into the 2 brew buckets 10 hours later. I started the yeast at 5:30 p.m. and pitched it at 3:30 a.m.
  • Since I was supposed to wait 12 hours before adding yeast, after putting pectic enzyme in the wine, we decided to watch a bunch of Downton Abbey. We watched 5 episodes of Downton Abbey's Season 1.