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".