March 6-12, 2022

Weather | 3/6, 31°, 43° | 3/7, 1" snow, 0.54" moisture, 25°, 32° | 3/8, 15°, 41° | 3/9, 25°, 40° | 3/10, 4" snow, 0.34" moisture, 17°, 21° | 3/11, 15°, 33° | 3/12, 3°, 25° |

• Sunday, 3/6: Bugs & Firewood
  
  • We both vacuumed bugs at 2 different times. Any infinitesimal bit of outdoor heat brings hundreds of Asian ladybugs and flies to our inside windows.
    
  • Mary made venison General Tso for our main meal.
  • She also figured bills and savings monies, enabling us to knock another monetary chunk off our credit card bill left from doing the roof last fall.
  • I moved split wood from the machine shed to the woodshed. A few days of warm temperatures and strong south winds dried it quite well while it was in the machine shed.
  • Two bird firsts for this year...we heard an eastern meadow lark in the morning, and heard and saw the first 3 American woodcocks at dusk.
    
  • Katie texted and put images of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race start from Wasilla on Facebook and Instragram. One of Katie's photos is below.
    
  • We enjoyed 2 pots of China Yunnan tea, each, and watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th season.

  

  Start of the 2022 Iditarod (50th year) in Willow, AK.
  

• Monday, 3/7: Bottling Cherry Wine
  
  • On the morning dog walk, I saw 6 bluebirds on the power line. It's snowy, again. It snowed less than an inch overnight, but it was really wet snow, resulting in over a half of an inch of moisture.
    
  • Mary did house cleaning, some cross stitching, and sorted new floss that she received in today's mail.
  • I racked the cherry wine for the 4th and final time. Prior to racking, I cleaned and sanitized bottles. Specific gravity is 0.992, up 2 thousands from the last racking. Alcohol level is 12.05%. Tartaric acid level is 0.825%, which means it contains a high acid content, giving it a tart taste. The highest reading of white wine should be 0.75%. The pH is 3.0, further proving high acid. It's no surprise, considering pie cherries are quite tart. Correcting it involves diluting the wine with distilled water. We decided we like the tart taste, so I'll leave it alone. I filled 25 bottles (see photo, below). Bill is usually around for bottle filling, so he's become an expert. I overfilled a couple bottles, which proved the case when I corked a couple bottles, felt wine drops on my arms during the corking process and noticed no air gap after the cork went into the bottle. This time I only dunked corks in a solution of a bit of crushed Campden tablet and distilled water for about 10 seconds. The wonderful floor corker that I got from Katie for Christmas plunged the corks in beautifully. We drank about 400 ml left after corking. The wine tastes neutral until it hits the back of your throat, then the cherry taste pops in your mouth. Aging is going to make this another big hit on the wine parade.
    
  • In the evening, we heard coyotes calling just outside our living room windows.

  

  25 bottles of 2022 cherry wine.
  

• Tuesday, 3/8: Shopping & Wild Critters
  
  • Two FedEx shipments redirected to the Quincy Walgreens store needed picking up, so I drove the pickup to Quincy to get them. While there, I got some herbicide concentrate containing triclopyr for killing lespedeza, and a 3-gallon sprayer dedicated to herbicide usage. I bought a pork loin for $1.88 a pound, cat and dog foods, and other human food items. When I went to town, gas was $3.69 a gallon. When I drove home and bought gas, it was $3.79 a gallon. Lesson learned...buy gas earlier in the day, because it will probably increase in price.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, then cooked up the last of the pumpkins we grew last year. She added 6 more quarts of pumpkin meat into the freezer.
  • Birds were plentiful. Mary spotted wood ducks and some common golden eye ducks. We heard several woodcocks in the evening. A towhee sat in the forsythia bush, not 5 from where Mary was walking by while carrying firewood, and sang the entire time.
  • We heard a coyote howling at night just NW of the house. It makes us glad chickens are sleeping in a securely shut-up wooden chicken coop. 
  • A raccoon walked on the trail to the chicken coop just a few feet from the house. The raccoon tracks weren't there during evening chores, and the ground froze overnight, so it walked through just after the sun set (see photos, below).
     

Raccoon tracks left in trail near our house.

Raccoon tracks over boot print proves the
animal left these tracks in early night hours.

• Wednesday, 3/9: TVP, Stroganoff, & Tree Spraying Research
  
  • Mary divided up the 25-pound bag of textured vegetable protein (TVP) that I picked up yesterday into 120 one-cup amounts in sandwich bags and froze them. We use this soybean item in the place of hamburger. Each bag is the equivalent of a pound of cooked hamburger. Mary figured out that we save over $500 by using 25 pounds of TVP in the place of hamburger.
    
  • She also split up the pork loin into 6 meals and froze it.
  • Mary made venison stroganoff.
  • I researched the timing of spraying all of my various fruit tree sprays. It gets very detailed, based on what stage leaf buds of the trees are showing in the spring.
  • I took the dogs on a walk on our old east loop trail. Deer trails follow the old trail that I need to further clear. We scared up a flock of wood ducks that were swimming on Dove Pond. We also spooked 2 deer that I saw running through the east woods.
    
  • We set 23 quart bags of 2021 blackberries out to thaw. They equaled 20.5 pounds of fruit that I'll make into 5 gallons of blackberry wine tomorrow.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/10: Christmas in March
  • Snow fell all day. It started as very light snow. By evening, grass still showed through the white stuff. After dark, bigger flakes fell, so that by the last dog walk, we were wading through about 4 inches.
    
  • Mary saw 2 northern harrier hawks while doing evening chores.
  • I made a 5-gallon batch of blackberry wine by first squishing 23 quart bags of blackberries and dumping them into a nylon mesh bag. After adding 3.75 gallons of spring water, I put in 5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and 5 crushed Campden tablets. Nine pounds of sugar went into the must, giving it a specific gravity of 1.089, and bringing the liquid level up to 5 gallons. The pH was 3.5, so I didn't add acid. I covered the brew bucket with a flour sack towel and set it into the pantry to soak overnight.
    
  • Mary did some cross stitch, since it was wintry outside.
    
    
• Friday, 3/11: Blowing Snow, Pizza, & Wine Yeast
  
  • A strong NW wind blew snow out of trees and across the fields all day. It was a cold wind, so we stayed inside. Online news indicated that people crashed and smashed cars throughout Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, both yesterday and today.
    
  • Mary made 2 pizzas. We ate one for a midday meal and one in the evening.
    
  • I stirred up the blackberry wine must, then added 2.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme. A specific gravity check gave a 1.082 reading, so I added a pound of sugar to raise the level to 1.090. The pH is now 3.2. As the blackberries break down, even more acid is going into the must. I began a yeast starter with Lalvin RC 212 yeast, adding 2 ounces of must heated to 95° every hour. The yeast starter went into the brew bucket 12 hours later. A specific gravity test gave a 1.086 reading, so I added 8 ounces of sugar to take it back up to 1.090. Now the brew bucket sits, covered with a towel, while the yeast breaks sugar down into alcohol in the next few days.
    
  • During evening chores, we saw 2 batches of snow geese fly very low over the house. Their white breasts were the color of cantaloupes in the setting sun. Normally, we don't see snow geese that close.
    
  • We watched 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th season.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/12: Blackberry & Pumpkin Winemaking
  
  • I made breakfast waffles.
  • The blackberry wine was quiet when I checked it around 1 p.m., but the specific gravity dropped to 1.088 and there was a strong wine yeast smell in the pantry. In the evening, the top of the brew bucket was covered with what I call a purple cottage cheese lava bed (see photo, below). Occasionally, a bubble pops out from under the curds. When I sent this image to Bill, he texted back with an image of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein saying, "It's alive!"
  • I racked the pumpkin wine for the 3rd time. About of 1/2" of fines were at the bottom of the 6.5-gallon carboy and roughly 1/8" in the gallon and 1/2-gallon jugs. Cleaning this yeast poop out was interesting, because it was like sticky toothpaste. And, it stunk like sulfur. Specific gravity is still 1.000, as it was a month ago. The pH is 2.2, which is way too acidic. It needs adjusting prior to bottling. The wine is clearer, but still needs time to clear completely. The taste was good, but tart. The pumpkin and cinnamon flavors come through loud and clear. If I tame the acidity, it will be even better. After racking, I have 7.5 gallons...a 5-gallon carboy, two 1-gallon jugs, and a half-gallon jug (see photo, below).
    
  • A strong westerly wine and single-digit temperatures kept outside wildlife quiet.
     

7.5 gallons of pumpkin wine after 3rd racking.

A weird foam next to mesh bag atop blackberry wine.