Feb. 27-March 5, 2022

Weather | 2/27, 21°, 47° | 2/28, 29°, 57° | 3/1, 25°, 64° | 3/2, 33°, 71° | 3/3, 29°, 45° | 3/4, 25°, 55° | 3/5, 0.15" rain, 53°, 69° |

• Sunday, 2/27: Apple Tree Planting Ideas
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas, then chimichangas for our main meal. She also sprayed all of the house plants with Dawn to kill scales.
  • I downloaded an iCloud app for Windows onto my laptop after adding to do items to the "Reminders" feature of my phone. It didn't work. Reminders is unreadable on the laptop, since it doesn't contain the software to view it. 
  • I split some of the logs next to the wood splitter for firewood. Most of the logs are wet, so I'm splitting them into small pieces, enabling better drying.
    
  • A large flock of Canada geese, containing multiple Vs, went over us quite low, flying west to east, during our evening dog walk. We were somewhat concealed by the trees around Bluegill Pond.
  • By reading apple growing books and online info, I gathered these ideas when planting trees in clay soils: 1) Dig a hole 3x the width of the root ball...don't go too far down, but more outward. 2) Scar the hole with a pick ax, spud bar, or shovel to crack clay soil, giving roots a starting place to grow. 3) Build up soil to add an additional foot of height to the planting area. 4) Stretch out all roots and don't wind them around the dug-out hole. 5) Plant tree so the ground at the trunk is higher than edge of roots, so there isn't a sunken area to collect water. 6) Add wood chips and small branches a foot beyond planted root ends, encouraging tree roots to grow to nutrients settling into the ground in this area. 7) Use pea gravel immediately around tree trunk to discourage grass growth that competes with young tree roots.
  • I started a To Do list on a Pages (Apple's version of Microsoft Word) on iCloud.
    
    
• Monday, 2/28: Planning & Good Soup
  
  • Mary made a huge batch of minestrone soup. It is delicious. She also did laundry.
  • A quick check of the garlic showed that nothing much is happening. There are only a few tiny sprouts.
  • Mary vacuumed a huge collection of Asian ladybugs and flies. She also made a shopping list.
    
  • I finished a master To Do list and also made a list of maintenance items to accomplish on the GMC pickup. 
  • I used a gas tank full in the trimmer with the blade on it and whacked down more lespedeza weeds in the south field. I'm about halfway down that field.
  • Mary heard the first killdeer of the season. She also saw a bald eagle circling above our property. For some reason, several Vs of snow geese are flying the wrong way, from west to east. Mary thinks so many geese are west of us and the geese we see are heading backward to find feed. I think there's too much snow north of us in Iowa & Minnesota and they're just milling about. Maybe we're both right.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/1: All Hail the March Lamb!
  
  • March entered our world with a very warm and calm day. Geese are flying in all directions. Conditions are very nice.
  • We took the pickup to Quincy and shopped. For the first time in a couple years, we didn't wear masks. It helped that stores were quiet. Prices are significantly higher. A 25-pound bag of flour was $3 higher. We found canning lids and bought some to boost our supply. I found a 16-pound bag of fruit and citrus tree fertilizer for $5 at Farm & Home...a great price. We picked up 4 sweet potatoes to grow slips to plant. At Salvation Army, Mary found a book written Sigurd Olson, who writes about Ely, MN and the canoe country of that area. I bought 2 coolers for storing wine. We also got a 20-movie collection of comedies from 1934 to 2009. We topped the pickup's gas. It was $3.25 a gallon. The pickup's fuel economy is 19.81 mpg...which is good for a full-size half-ton.
  • We returned home by 4 p.m. After chores, we enjoyed nachos and watched the last 2 episode's of Downton Abbey's 4th season.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/2: Pruning and Sawing
  
  • Mary pruned 7 fruit trees and 2 maples. She added wound sealer to cuts she made on the fruit trees. Each year the growth of these trees means pruning takes longer.
    
  • I used the small Stihl chainsaw to cut dead branches off the large McIntosh tree in the north yard (see photo, below). This ancient apple tree has a great deal of dead wood that I removed. I hope to finish cutting off dead wood tomorrow and proceed with some light pruning on green growth.
    
  • Thousands of snow geese flew from east to west throughout the day. A warm day with calm air produced multiple Vs of geese heading out. We saw some cackling in the morning. Smaller Ross's geese flew in with the snow geese...they're much smaller than the snow geese.
    
  • We heard the first spring peepers (small frogs), today. Mary heard a pileated woodpecker in woods.
  • We ordered powdered milk, coffee beans, textured vegetable protein (TVP), and a 1200 Red Rose tea bags. When stores fail to supply items you want, the online shopping commences.
  • Mom texted that upon visiting with a vascular surgeon in Miles City, MT, she learned that her arteries are good and are not the cause of her passing out. She has a cardiologist visit on April 11.

  

  McIntosh apple tree with cut dead branches in foreground, left.
  

• Thursday, 3/3: Pruning Continues
  
  • Mary and I pruned more trees. Mary pruned 4 fruit trees and 3 blueberry bushes. There are 2 more trees to prune, which are the large pie cherry and the large Bartlett pear trees. I finished pruning the large McIintosh tree. More large, dead branches came out of the tree, along with several tall shoots. The orchard ladder I bought last fall is really great at getting me to the top of this tree. This old McIntosh tree needs more pruning, but I don't want to kill it by cutting off too many branches, so I'll wait for another year to continue its haircut.
    
  • Mary baked a large pumpkin, gaining 5 quarts of pumpkin meat for the freezer.
  • She also started 4 sweet potatoes to grow slips for the garden by putting them partway into Mason quart jars and filling the jars with water.
    
  • We heard and saw an eastern towhee. I've heard that bird call for several days around the yard, but this was the first time we actually saw it.
    
  • Several Vs of snow geese flew east to west overhead. With an east tail wind, they were often flying too high for us to to see.
    
  • In the evening, I researched the best chemical tree sprays for our three tough fruit tree diseases, which are cedar apple rust, apple scab, and fire blight. Captan is the best fungicide for killing scab, but it's a known carcinogen, and it lingers on fruit surfaces, so I opted out of that product. Copper spray and neem oil work against scab and we already have those two on hand. I ordered 3 different tree spray chemicals. Two are coming through Home Depot, which are Sevin sulfur dust for apple scab and Spectricide's Immunox, which contains the fungicide, myclobutanil, that controls apple scab and cedar apple rust. I also ordered Fertilome's fire blight spray, with the active ingredient of streptomycin sulfate, that controls the bacterial fire blight infection. Fire blight infected several branches of the large Bartlett pear and a couple branches on the Sargent crabapple tree last year.
  • I redirected two recently ordered packages shipped via FedEx to the Quincy Walgreen's store.
    
    
• Friday, 3/4: Aerial Pruning
  
  • Mary and I finished fruit tree pruning. While I moved 2 wheelbarrow loads of dead McIntosh apple tree branches, which I call Corpse Bride branches, to the machine shed (they'll make great smoke on a future outdoor meat roasts), Mary pruned at ground level on the large pie cherry and large Bartlett pear trees. Then, I used ladders to prune higher level branches while Mary steadied the ladders. At one point, I was sawing a pear branch above my head while standing high on the orchard ladder. It felt like I was up with the birds. All trees look better. We still have pruned branches to cart away.
  • Another east wind helped push snow geese Vs west above our heads.
  • We watched the 1940 black and white movie, The Philadelphia Story. It's good. Watching Jimmy Stewart play the part of a drunk was unique. He and Katharine Hepburn won Oscars in this movie.
  • Karen messaged about all of the birds she sees around their new home. She also sent a photo of spring daffodils that are blooming (see below).

  

  Daffodils blooming at Karen & Lynn's house in Georgia.
  

• Saturday, 3/5: First Thunderstorm
  
  • Strong south winds blew throughout the day and into the night. At one point, after dark, we kept hearing banging on the roof. A check on our final dog walk showed everything in place up there. Around 8:30 p.m., a thunderstorm blasted through, the first of the year. Most of the lightening and thunder was high in the sky.
    
  • Mary vacuumed the usual squadron of  bugs from the insides of windows. She made venison fajitas for our main meal, and did some cross stitch.
  • I picked up pruned branches from the big McIntosh apple tree (a total of 5 wheelbarrow loads of dead branches), the large cherry tree, and the large Bartlett pear tree. Episodes of light mist slowed me down on this chore, but it always subsided, so I was able to finish. Some of the dead McIntosh branches were covered with what looks like black soot. Is it any wonder apples off that tree are stunted and scarred with disease?
  • I updated my wine diary and updated my calendar. Next week, I have two wines to handle. I rack and bottle cherry wine on Tuesday and do the third racking of pumpkin wine on Saturday.
  • Karen messaged a photo of tulip tree blossoms from a tree in her yard (see below). We see such trees in Quincy, where they're not battered by country winds.
  • Mom texted a photo of her amaryllis (see below) with 17° winter weather just outside the window. I sent back a photo (see below) of our amaryllis, with its second set of blossoms, along with newly started sweet potatoes.

Tulip tree blossoms from Karen & Lynn's place.

Mom's amaryllis with wintry background.

Our amaryllis & sweet potatoes in water.

Feb. 20-26, 2022

Weather | 2/20, 32°, 57° | 2/21, 36°, 58° | 2/22, 0.03" rain, 15°, 42° | 2/23, 4°, 19° | 2/24, freezing mist to snow, 0.02" moisture, 15°, 25° | 2/25, 15°, 27° | 2/26, 9°, 30° |

• Sunday, 2/20: My 65th Birthday
  
  • While dumping ashes in the morning, I heard, then saw, two huge trumpeter swans flying west to east above the north field. They've been hanging around here the past few days.
  • We had four red-tailed hawks in west yard at same time. Mary and I went outside and chased them off.
    
  • I talked to Mom on a birthday call. Her health tests came back and she has 50 percent blockage of carotid arteries. She also has a heart valve that's not closing all of the way. Mom is to see a vascular specialist, who is based at St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings, on an appointment in Miles City, MT, on March 2nd. We'll see what comes from that visit, plus she is to see a heart specialist once an appointment is established.
  • Katie called. She's busy at work. Her dogs like running with her on Russian Jack trails in Anchorage. Snow, followed by rain, created several avalanches that closed the Seward Highway, the old Glenn Highway, and the road to Hatcher Pass. It means she's staying put in Anchorage, instead of driving to areas outside the city.
    
  • Mary washed sheets and a few clothes.
  • Mary also made 2 cherry pies. They're amazingly great. Today is Cherry Pie Day. How appropriate! The filling, coming from cherries picked off our trees, is brown. Canned cherry pie filling sold in stores is filled with red dye, because red is not the color of natural pie cherries, which are frozen, then thawed. Ours tastes better, too.
    
  • Bill and I racked, then bottled the garlic wine. First, I cleaned 27 wine bottles with OxiClean, while Bill sanitized them. Then we racked the wine into a brew bucket. The specific gravity is 0.998, a bit higher than 0.996 from a month ago, probably because I added 11 ounces of spring water last month. That makes alcohol at 13.36%. We used a new ampule test for SO2 and it gave an erroneous 100 ppm test result. This was because wine with ascorbic acid or tannin produces false high test results. Well, garlic contains tannins. We added a crushed Campden tablet, just to be safe. A tartaric acid test gave us 0.85% tartaric. The highest level should be 0.65%, which means it's quite acidic. A check with the wine litmus papers gave a pH of 3.4. A check with the litmus paper I use for making tree spray indicated a 2.9 pH, or high acid. We decided not to alter the wine, since garlic is a cooking wine. Acidity is more of a taste aspect of the wine. Other flavors are mixed with the cooking wine, so high acid content is acceptable. Bill filled 25 wine bottles and one beer bottle. I corked the bottles, using the floor corker that Katie gave me for Christmas (see video, below). It works wonderfully. As Bill said, in 15 minutes I finished what it would take 2 people to do in 45 minutes with a handheld corker. We soaked the corks for an hour in a Campden tablet solution. The corks wanted to rise slightly out of the bottles, once corked. In future corkings, I will dunk corks for a few seconds and let them dry, just to sterilize them. Soaking is unnecessary with the floor corker. Bill drank remaining the garlic wine and liked it.
    
  • We watched a DVD Bill picked out...the 1994 movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral.
  The new floor corker is fast and efficient.
  
  
  
• Monday, 2/21: First Snow Geese
  
  • Those 2 trumpeter swans were flying south to north over the west side of our property during our morning dog walk. Mary looked up that they are 60 inches long and their wingspan is just under 8 feet. They look like monsters in the sky.
    
  • We saw the first movement of snow geese. Several Vs of geese went over us, today.
  • We also heard the first of red-winged blackbirds, today.
  • Bill washed a big batch of clothes.
  • Mary broke kindling sticks into correct lengths, then she picked up sticks around the yard and moved them into the machine shed to dry for future kindling.
  • I fired up the Stihl weedwhacker with a blade on it and took down lespedeza stalks in the south field. It's the best tool we have for this job. A better tool would be a sickle bar on farm tractor, which we don't have. A tank of gas took me about a third of the way down the south field from the house.
  • In the evening, Bill, Mary, and I played 3 games of Atlas Adventures. Each of us won a game. We enjoyed pots of tea, while playing the game.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/22: Bill Returns to St. Louis
  
  • Around 6 a.m., I woke up with lightning flashing, but I couldn't hear thunder. Even so, Mary went ahead and unplugged appliances. The high of the day was in the early morning. Temperatures dropped throughout the day.
  • We enjoyed our last leftover turkey dinner, with the last of cherry pie dessert, before Bill left for his St. Charles, MO, apartment. He said he had to do some grocery shopping, and cook up something that he can heat up for this week's dinners, because he is expecting a lot of extra hours of work to try to catch up at his place of employment.
  • Mary and I were kind of slugs in the afternoon and evening. Mary read over 100 pages in her new book about Teddy Roosevelt. I stopped an online newspaper subscription, added a less expensive one, and halted an online ecard subscription. We need to save money in order to pay off the credit card debt for renting a lift to fix the roof last fall.
  • A birthday card from Katie to me came in today's mail. She gave me an electronic gift card of $65 for 65 years to The Home Brewery. They're based in Ozark, MO (SW part of the state). I spent time looking through their website for future purchases.
  • Shopping was in our plans, but with frozen, hard ground forecast for tomorrow, we decided to get firewood, instead. Frozen ground means easier mobility with the tractor to haul firewood out of the woods.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/23: Firewood
  
  • One big group of snow geese flew over while we did morning chores. They lifted off nearby and were forming Vs as they flew. A strong north wind blew them to the SW.
    
  • Mary and I ate our midday meal early, in the late morning, so we could go out and cut  firewood.
  • I walked to the woods just west of the house and cut some pieces of small downed trees. A tree wedged between live trees that I spotted a couple days ago turned out to be a honey locust with poison ivy growing along most of it, so I left that tree. I dropped a large dead white oak, sawed it up, then sawed several smaller dead trees. Mary and I collected all of the wood and stacked it in the tractor wagon, producing an overfilled load. We unloaded large pieces next to the wood splitter and smaller firewood into the wood shed. Even though the ground was hard where I drove the tractor, we walked on soft, mushy places in the woods. It felt good to be back doing physical work, again.
  • When I got the mail, three trumpeter swans flew by just above my head and headed into the setting sun. These huge white birds are amazing.
  • The Russian military invaded Ukraine, today. Will humans ever quit killing one another over land?
    
    
• Thursday, 2/24: Freezing Mist
  
  • We experienced freezing mist all day until after dark, when it snowed just a little...about 1/2 inch. According to news sources, vehicles went sliding all over the place. Most area schools shut down by late morning. In northern regions we've lived, this would have been an average day, without mishap. Here, the conditions result in shutting down schools and hiding inside. When you witness how they drive, you can understand this.
    
  • I chased the neighbor's dog away, a big lab, as it trotted down the path next to the near garden. It really took off when I yelled for it to go home. Every neighbor who ever shows up in the house across the road doesn't possess enough sense to keep dogs home. Maybe it's time to invest in a paintball gun.
    
  • Mary made venison General Tso using up the beer bottle full of garlic wine. It was exceptionally yummy.
  • I looked at several online drafting programs. Nothing is as good as floorplanner.com, which I already use.
  • As I walked home from getting mail, I heard several turkey calls to the east. Mary and I both listened as we heard them to the NE, east and slightly SE. The birds were moving around all over the place, eastward, and talking to one another.
    
  • We enjoyed 2 pots of tea, each, and watched the last 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 3rd season, plus the extras.
    
    
• Friday, 2/25: House Considerations & Cinnamon Rolls
  
  • Mary made fridge dough, followed by cinnamon rolls, which we ate in the evening.
    
  • I looked at the size and distance between posts in the machine shed, in consideration of making a pole barn house. Herman, Mary's uncle, used 4x6 posts, except for 6x6 posts on the 4 corners. I determined the bookshelf girt size (horizontal framing) of 2x6s. I determined the outside wall depth from the outside cladding to the inside drywall to be 7". I figured out the house section sizes need to be divisible by 3 feet, to match 3-foot sheet metal widths, so the pantry/bedroom/mudroom section will be 18' wide, instead of 16' wide. I restarted the house plan draft with these alterations in mind.
    
  • When Mary let the dogs out for a walk during evening chores, there was the neighbor's black lab. Plato roared out the door barking and started chasing it. Mary hollered. Plato stopped. The lab tore off for home. 
  • I saw a deer run across the north field, from west to east, as we did evening chores.
    
  • Katie texted that one of the employees where she works is from Ukraine and shows everyone in the office videos and tells stories.
    
  • We watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's 4th season while enjoying cinnamon rolls and pots of tea.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/26: House Drafting Plans & Wine Stuff
  
  • Mary did house cleaning.
  • I worked on drafting plans for a new house, finishing the 36'x18' west end that is the pantry, bedroom, safe room, and mud room of the building.
  • Labels went on 23 bottles of garlic wine, then I stored them on their sides in 2 of the plastic coolers I have in the upstairs north bedroom. I did an inventory of existing wine varieties to discover I have 2 more 2020 pear wine bottles and 2 fewer 2020 autumn olive bottles compared to numbers recorded on my inventory list.
    
  • Two weeks ago I accidentally shot parsnip wine back into the 330-ml beer bottle while trying to move clear liquid out through a large plastic tube, all of which made the wine cloudy, again. Today, I successfully racked the clear wine off the fines of the beer bottle (see photo, below). This is the 3rd racking of the wine in the beer bottle. In 6 weeks, I should be able to rack all of the parsnip wine for the final time, then bottle it.
  • We enjoyed a second batch of cinnamon rolls, pots of tea (this time China Keemun), while watching 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's 4th season.

  

  Parsnip wine fines (left) & clear liquid (right).
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Feb. 13-19, 2022

Weather | 2/13, 14°, 23° | 2/14, 14°, 46° | 2/15, 20°, 49° | 2/16, 45°, 58° | 2/17, rain, 5" snow, 1.10" moisture, 9°, 20° | 2/18, 1°, 34° | 2/19, 11°, 39° |

• Sunday, 2/13: Firewood Move
  
  • Mary made French toast for our midday meal. She also did some cross stitching.
    
  • A north wind blew all day. I was going to cut more firewood, but didn't feel like going out with temps in the teens and a north wind blasting through the timber. Instead, I moved firewood that was drying in the machine shed to the woodshed.
  • We spotted a red-tailed hawk land on the electric line to the house, that was swinging back and forth, balancing on the line. He flew low over the south field into the edge of the west timber to dodge out of the way of the wind.
    
  • We watched the last 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 2nd year, plus the extras.
  • In past years, Super Bowl Sunday brought out coyote hunters who sat in pickups on the gravel road and aimed their tracking devices out the window to follow their hounds. That wasn't the case today. Oh, by the way, the Rams beat the Bengals, 23-20, this year. Our Super Bowl participation was me looking up the score before going to bed. It takes up less time, that way.
    
    
• Monday, 2/14: Valentine's Day
  • Mary made a zucchini chocolate cake for Valentine's Day. It tasted wonderful.
    
  • She also vacuumed Christmas cross stitch ornaments and put them away. Mary did some cross stitching, too.
  • We have acres and acres of sericea lespedeza that at this time of the year, stands as 3- to 4-foot stalks. We got out Mary's scythe, sharpened it, and tried to cut some lespedeza. It's blade is too thin for effectively cutting through the woody, quarter to 3/8-inch thick stalks. I tried the small chain saw and used a tank full of gas in the saw to knock down an area east of the far east garden. It's not really the right tool. I'll try the Stihl trimmer with the saw blade, next. There's a great deal of shattering bits and dust from cutting the lespedeza stalks and mixed with chainsaw oil, creates quite a mess on the chainsaw surface that I discovered once I cleaned it.
    
  • Mary made a big dinner of pork loin, sweet potatoes, and green beans. 
  • Mary also did a large load of laundry.
  • Katie texted an image of a creation of northern lights that she made using felt (see photo, below). It will be future artwork for the wall of her apartment.
  • Mary ordered 2 books with Christmas money sent from Mom. One is a Guide to Historic Artists' Homes & Studios and the other is Mornings on Horseback, about Teddy Roosevelt, written by David McCullough.

  

  Katie's northern lights felt artwork.
  

• Tuesday, 2/15: Prescribed Burn Instruction
  
  • One of the several steps in eradicating lespedeza is with prescribed burning. It makes more seeds germinate and results in a more thorough herbicide kill. The Missouri Department of Conservation holds several prescribed burn workshops throughout the state. The closest one is in Unionville, which is about 100 miles west. It's held on Feb. 26th. I signed up for it and was sent an access code to an online course needed prior to the field event in Unionville. 
  • I added 2 more clamps to hold down the pickup topper, so that each side has 4 clamps.
  • We watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's third season.
  • Mary packed the clothesline with several loads of laundry. She also made a chicken pot pie for our midday meal and vacuumed another army of flies and bugs.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/16: Bread & Driver's License
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. We ate the last batch quickly.
    
  • I drove to Monticello, our county seat, and renewed my driver's license. It expires on my birthday and a strong snow storm is expected to arrive tomorrow. I didn't get the kind required to fly on an airplane, since you need to bring a certified birth certificate and a bunch of other items in order to get one. I look like an escapee from the state penitentiary in the photo on my new driver's license.
  • I drove from Monticello, east to Canton, MO, to buy a couple things at the County Market store and to fill the pickup with gas. The price of gas is $3.19 per gallon.
  • On the way back home, I took a different route, on Highway BB, that runs from Monticello to Ewing. This very nicely paved road is in great shape and covers some pleasant country in our county. Most of the county is relatively barren of trees. We're lucky to own so much timber.
  • Mary heard a mallard duck, but didn't see it.
  • Rain started falling as we finished evening chores. We heard rain hitting windows through the evening and when we walked dogs for the last time, the ground was wet and mushy. Expected dropping temperatures might give us freezing rain, overnight.r Super Bowl participation was me looking up the score before going to bed. It takes up less time, that way.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/17: Another Snow Dumping
  
  • When we got up around 7 a.m., a fine coat of ice covered everything. An hour later, snow started falling. Then, it really came down with a strong NW wind that produced very low visibility. Around 1 p.m., snow stopped. We received about 5 inches of snow, although in some areas it's drifted to deeper snow levels. The northerly wind must have blown the gravel road shut. We didn't get any mail and there were no tire tracks on the gravel road when I checked the mail around 5 p.m. The snow-clogged road might prevent Bill from arriving on Saturday, as planned. It's interesting that since Jan. 1st, we've seen 3 snows. Each time the snow is mostly melted, we get another snow that covers the ground with more white.
  • Stretches of area highways were closed, due to windblown drifts and accidents. Highway 61, from Palmyra to Hannibal, was closed. A semi was stuck on the hill in Quincy after going over the Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River, thereby backing up traffic for about 3 miles into Missouri. There was a 100-car pile up south of Normal, IL, which about 188 miles east of us. It was a great day for staying home and watching the snow go by while nestled near the warm woodstove.
    
  • There's a $25 fee for taking the online prescribed burn course. Gas in the pickup to drive 200 miles, roundtrip, to attend the field event will be nearly $40. It's just a little too costly for us right now, so I canceled taking the Missouri Dept. of Conservation prescribed burn course.
  • I ordered chicks for this year. The order to Cackle Hatchery is for 3 barred rock pullet chicks and 25 cockerels in what they call the Fry Pan Special. The shipment will be on Monday, June 13th. Based on past years, they should be at the Ewing post office the morning of Wednesday, June 15th.
  • While walking down to the mailbox, I first heard, then saw, two trumpeter swans fly east to west. They have an extremely unique honk as they fly. It resembles the ah-ooga sound of a Model T horn.
  • Mary saw 3 mallard ducks while doing morning chores, before the snow fell.
    
  • Mary made a batch of flour tortillas.
  • We watched 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 3rd season.
    
    
• Friday, 2/18: Plan to Fix Boat Seats
  
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
    
  • Mary cleaned the house.
  • We both walked to the end of our quarter-mile lane and shoveled snow to make it easier for the postman.
  • After reviewing options, I decided to take Christmas and birthday money and buy plywood and paint to redo the wooden seats in the 16-foot Lund boat. I repainted them when we lived in Circle, MT, but the wood is shot, now, and needs replacing.
  • I got Mom's birthday card in today's mail.
    
  • Mary saw 8 pelicans flying over the north woods, going east to west. She saw them while doing our evening chores.
  • I drove the pickup down our lane, picked up the mail and drove it back home, then drove east to where the gravel road meets the asphalt at State Highway J. A road grader went through and knocked back drifting snow, so it's relatively clear.
  • I texted Bill, suggesting that when he gets to Ewing, tomorrow, on his way here, he texts me, so I can meet him at the intersection of the gravel road and J road and lead interference with the pickup through any drifting snow on the gravel road. He responded that he thought he'd be there around noon.
    
  • We watched 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's third season.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/19: Bill Arrives & Turkey Dinner
  
  • Bill called a little after 12 p.m., while going through Ewing. I smashed down snow where he can park behind the Buick and the Suburban, then drove to the end of the gravel road. A small drift of snow crossed the road near there, so I drove over it about 4 times, tramping it down so Bill didn't get high centered in his Hyundai Sonata. It worked.
  • Bill is tired. Employees are leaving his place of work. His department, which was him and 4 other employees is down to him and 1 employee. Their starting wage is low, so employees leave like flies. He puts in 10-hour days and gets tired. After talking a bit, he took a nap.
    
  • Mary made a turkey dinner. It was great, as usual. Mary and Bill had most of a 2020 bottle of pear wine. I only had a little bit. I've been having stomach issues for the past week, so I'm laying off of wine and coffee. Mary said that the pear wine is so mellow, all you taste is the pear. She adds that it's really great wine. Bill says it's fruity and pairs well with any food...ha, ha. He adds that it's very good.
    
  • One of my amaryllis plants is blooming (see photos, below). The stalk is 26" high.
    
  • We watched 2 movies that Bill picked out. The first was the 1999 movie, October Sky. The 2nd movie was Men in Black 3.

One of the amaryllis blossoms.

Two more Red Pearl Amaryllis blossoms.

Feb. 6-12, 2022

Weather | 2/6, 23°, 40° | 2/7, 9°, 35° | 2/8, 25°, 49° | 2/9, 29°, 45° | 2/10, 25°, 39° | 2/11, 0.44" rain, 35°, 47° | 2/12, 6°, 21° |

• Sunday, 2/6: Birds & Wine
  
  • We are tired today, since we only got 4 hours of sleep.
    
  • Mary watched 10 yellow-rumped warblers fly up to the sides of the house to catch emerging flies. Step outside, and they hide in nearby bushes, yacking at us. She also spotted a purple finch, and a fox sparrow, both birds we only notice in winter with snow on the ground.
    
  • Mary made a batch of flour tortillas.
  • I moved the 2 brew buckets of pumpkin wine to behind the woodstove, in order to give them addition heat to get yeast to kick in. There was no yeast fizzing when I checked the buckets around 3:30 p.m., or 12 hours since pitching the yeast. Yet, the specific gravity dropped from 1.090 to 1.087 in the wide bucket and to 1.084 in the tall bucket. I squeezed the bags in both buckets.
  • I read up on yeast action and acid levels in winemaking. It's interesting, but gets very scientific in a chemistry sense. Another fact is wine freaks make everything harder. Besides requiring cleanliness, winemaking is more like cooking. Mix up several ingredients and get a final product. You really don't need to know the chemical reactions to get a good result.
  • Snow melted down to only about 3-4 inches deep. It will soon disappear.
    
    
• Monday, 2/7: Wine & Birds (Something New!)
  
  • Our property is messy with birds. They like bare, grassy paths where we shoveled snow. Unfortunately, we're seeing flocks of starlings, which happens every winter.
    
  • Mary made a venison General Tzo dish for our main meal. She also did some cross stitching.
  • I checked the pumpkin wine and squeezed the bags of pumpkin goo in both brew buckets. The yeast is bubbling, slightly, and the specific gravity dropped to 1.080 in both buckets. It smells wonderful, like a mix of pumpkin pie and yeasty bread dough. The pantry is filled with developing wine. When Mary sent Bill the photo below, he suggested that I'm starting to get professional in my winemaking project.
    
  • Bill called after I texted him asking if he was showing up on my birthday. He is. Bill put in for using his paid time off (PTO) for the Monday and Tuesday after Sunday, Feb. 20th.
    
  • I walked down to the mailbox, twice, but we saw no mail. I spotted turkey tracks left in the hard snow. Several turkeys crossed the lane, walking east to west, near Bluegill Pond. They have extremely large feet.
  • We watched Episode 6 and 7 of Series I of Downton Abbey, plus the extras on that disk.

  

  Winemaking explosion in pantry includes:
  2 pumpkin wine brew buckets, a 5-gallon
  cherry wine carboy, a gallon jug and beer bottle
  of parsnip wine, and a 5-gallon carboy of garlic wine.
  

• Tuesday, 2/8: Amazing Cherry Wine
  
  • Mary did a load of laundry, dusted DVD shelves, and made a big batch of chicken noodle soup.
  • A specific gravity check of the 2 pumpkin wine brew buckets showed the wide one at 1.078 and the tall one at 1.071. I moved the wide one to behind the woodstove, to give it more heat and hopefully more robust yeast action. Both were bubbling well in the afternoon.
  • I racked the cherry wine (see photo, below) for the 3rd time. The wine has cleared so it resembles zinfandel wine (see photo, below). Specific gravity is 0.990, producing an alcohol level of 12.3%. A good layer of extremely minute fines were left on the bottom of the carboy. We tasted the clear wine...WOW! It tastes like cherry pie, with the nice tartness of pie cherries. It's very good. As Mary said, "I think this is a keeper." We liked it so much, we tried to sieve the fines out of the little bit that remained at the bottom of the carboy, but the fines completely clogged the paper towels I used on top of the wire mesh strainer to the point that liquid no longer flowed through the towels. We tossed it all, instead.
  • We liked the taste of the cherry wine so much that we split a bottle of April 2021 autumn olive wine, which was very good. Mary says it tastes of cranberries and raisins. I say it tastes like autumn olives, which are excellent off the tree, accept for the seeds in them.
    
  • Mary heard coyotes howling on the ridge just north of the chicken coop at dusk. That's really close and it's why all chickens go inside well before sunset.

Racking cherry wine to a new 5-gallon carboy.

A sample of cherry wine.

• Wednesday, 2/9: Baked Bread & Pumpkin Wine
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of very wonderful bread. We almost did in one whole loaf for our evening meal. She cross stitched while waiting for bread to rise and to cool after taking it out of the oven. Guarding during bread making is a necessary activity in a house with cats.
  • I checked pumpkin wine midday and specific gravity was 1.040 in the wide brew bucket and 1.045 in the tall bucket. Heating up the wide bucket really sent it into faster fermentation. Yeast activity is producing heat. The must temperature is around 67°, compared to 60° from just a couple days ago.
  • I did the 2021 tax returns and sent them in. It's easy, since we only take out taxes from just the Mid-Rivers Telephone pension. I received messages in the evening that both state and federal tax forms were accepted by all involved.
  • I balanced the checkbook.
  • Checking wine at 8 p.m. showed specific gravity at 1.023 in the wide brew bucket and 1.030 in the tall bucket, so I racked the pumpkin wine for the first time. I first squeezed both mesh bags to remove liquid, which took time and arm muscles. The pumpkin meat contained copious amounts of moisture. Combined must from the two buckets equaled a half of a cup shy of 9 gallons (see photo, below). I might tone down ingredient amounts next time. Once combined, the specific gravity was 1.020...the yeast was digesting sugar quickly. I filled the 6.5-gallon carboy and immediately had an eruption of CO2 gas. Bubbles were expanding up the carboy's neck. I got Mary to stir bubbles with the thermometer's end while I ran for tubing and a Mason jar to set up a blow-off airlock. The hole in the middle of the rubber stopper was enlarged so liquid was forced around the tube pushed through the stopper's hole. I ran for a different stopper, which fixed the issue. Still, the CO2 release was amazing (see video, below). I then filled two 1-gallon jugs and fit them with regular airlocks (see photo, below). I squeezed a little more out of a mesh bag for tasting. The higher acid blend addition, compared to last year's batch, gives the wine a stronger sour taste. It's good. You can taste all three key ingredients...pumpkin, raisins, and cinnamon. Of course, it's early wine. It will probably be better in 6-12 months. Clean up after this mess took extra time. I finished close to 1 a.m. WHEW!!!
  Pumpkin wine CO2 explosion. Gandalf, who likes
  pumpkin wine smell, is in the chair behind the carboy.
  

Close to 9 gallons of pumpkin wine must.

All of the pumpkin wine in the pantry after 1st racking.

• Thursday, 2/10: Slow Day
  
  • Mary dusted books. Every book dusting removes bugs and spiders, too. 
  • She also made a delicious pumpkin cake. I guess the smell of pumpkin wine put the idea of a pumpkin cake in her head.
  • I vacuumed flies and beetles out of windows twice during the day.
    
  • The yeast in the pumpkin wine died down to a bubble once a second.
    
  • I didn't do diddly. I've been through too many late winemaking nights.
    
  • We watched the first 2 episodes of Downton Abbey, year 2.
    
    
• Friday, 2/11: Rain, Parsnip Wine, & Robins
  
  • Rain fell overnight and into the morning, giving us just 6/100s shy of half an inch. Snow is almost gone. The outside temperature started dropping around noon.
  • Mary did some house cleaning and finished book dusting. I vacuumed bugs off windows, a daily chore this winter.
    
  • I racked the parsnip wine for the 3rd time...that is I racked the gallon jug. I goofed on a 330-ml beer bottle of parsnip wine. I tried moving the liquid out of the bottle using a 3/8" inside diameter vinyl hose. It's too big. I always cover the other end of the hose with a paper towel and suck to get the liquid flowing through the hose. This time I didn't pull the liquid far enough into the hose. When I let up sucking, all of that liquid shot back into the beer bottle, hit the inside bottom of the bottle with enough power to mix all of the fines back up and into the liquid. So, I'll let that liquid settle, again. The specific gravity is 0.997. We tasted some. You can detect the earthiness of the parsnips and a citric element of the lemons. It has a complex taste, which is quite good and very unique.
  • The CO2 release from the pumpkin wine dropped way down, and fines are thick at the bottom of the carboy and gallon jugs, but I didn't want to fool with another wine, today. I'll get it tomorrow.
    
  • Robins are plentiful. At one point, the back yard contained a robin every 2 feet, right at sunset.
    
  • We watched 5 episodes of Downton Abbey's 2nd year.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/12: The Last of Wine Stuff, for a Week
  
  • Mary made 2 pizzas. We ate one for a midday meal and the other in the evening. She also cross stitched.
  • I was Mr. Wino, again. I racked the pumpkin wine for the second time, because it had deep lees in the bottom of all containers...over an inch in the 6.5-gallon carboy and over a half inch in the two 1-gallon jugs. I put all liquid into the largest brew bucket and lost a half gallon with all of the lees. Specific gravity is exactly 1.000. It will drop more, but current alcohol is 11.79%. I added 4 crushed Campden tablets, this time dissolved in distilled water heated to 100°. Two crushed tablets went into a half-cup of heated water at a time. It dissolves better this way. We tasted the wine. Mary says it tastes like a sweet tart candy. The liquid filled a 6.5-gallon carboy, a gallon, and a half-gallon jug. It all sits now for a month.
  • We heard some ninny blasting off an automatic rifle and a shotgun to the SW of us. At first, we thought it was Rich, the guy who owns land SW of our property. But then we heard a no-muffler pickup go roaring off down the gravel road. We guess it was some high school brat who got his hands on a new gun. There are lots of witless kids with guns around these parts.
  • Katie texted Mary that she and her dogs ran 7.59 miles. She also sent photos of items she's picked up for her apartment.
  • I researched DIY weed killer and decided against it. Homemade weed killer just nails plants above ground and not the roots. It also alters the soil to a point nothing grows for awhile. Chemical herbicides kill the whole plant and some leave no soil residue, making them more environmentally-friendly than salt-derived homemade herbicides. The Missouri Dept. of Conservation recommends herbicides containing triclopyr for eliminating sericea lespedeza, an invasive weed taking over our property. A quick online check revealed it's available relatively cheaply at Home Depot and Menards. To the home buyer, it's called "Woody Shrub Killer".