Oct. 30-Nov. 5, 2022

Weather | 10/30, 0.02" rain, 47°, 58° | 10/31, 0.21" rain, 46°, 64° | 11/1, 37°, 69° | 11/2, 43°, 72° | 11/3, 53°, 74° | 11/4, 63°, 73° | 11/5, 0.85" rain, 41°, 59° |

• Sunday, 10/30: Finishing the Last Deer Blind
  
  • We woke to falling rain.
    
  • This morning, flocks of cedar waxwing birds were enjoying the fruit in the persimmon trees.
    
  • I cut the rest of the limbs off the weeping willow tree (the weeping willow stump has to come down this winter) and wove the branches into the hog panels at the Bobcat Deer Blind. There were still panels to fill, so I cut branches off unwanted cedar trees and wove them into place, finishing the job of building walls to disguise me while hunting in that blind. Eventually, I want to build a roof over this blind, like I did this year with my other 2 deer hunting blinds, but I ran out of time to do that this season.
  • While I was working on the last weaving job, a deer snorted at me from west of my location. After I finished, I sat for awhile to see if I'd see anything, and I did. A buck crossed the valley north of me. When I left to walk home, that same deer was on the trail I use to walk out of the woods, but near the west field. It snorted at me and ran off to the west. 
  • This finishes my work on deer blinds. I'm done a day later than I wished to be finished, but it's okay. I still want to put up a short deer stand I have stored in the cow barn that possesses an 8-foot aluminum ladder bolted to a 2x4 and plywood platform. I'm going to put it on a cedar tree near the start of the trail to Bass Pond. In past years, Mary witnessed deer crossing the field near this location while waiting for me to return after hunting from deer stands in the woods.
    
  • With a slight rain, today, leaves were coming down like snow in the woods.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas and venison fajitas that we ate for our midday meal. She also enjoyed some cross stitch work.
  • Mary picked 28 persimmons. Today's rain probably helped them fall off the trees. Mary found only one pecan nut. They're essentially finished.

Bobcat Deer Blind viewed from the north.

Bobcat Deer Blind viewed from the south.

Inside Bobcat Deer Blind.


 
View from Bobcat Deer Blind, starting north and rotating clockwise 360 degrees.
North and east views are across a creek bed to a nearby slope.

• Monday, 10/31: Halloween
  • Birds were extremely plentiful during our morning dog walk. Cedar waxwings and robins were eating crabapples out of the Sargent tree. Two chickadees followed us all the way down the lane, then back to the house, and finally to the chicken coop.
  • I saw a buck in the north woods this morning. It grunted and went off running to the north.
    
  • Mary made a zucchini chocolate cake.
  • She also made venison stroganoff for our main meal.
  • I went through the Kieffer pears we stored away after picking them 2 weeks earlier. A dozen went bad, so I have 20 left.
    
  • I removed seeds from the persimmons stored in the refrigerator. Mary picked more that I also deseeded. These persimmons gave me over 3 pounds of fruit in 2 quart bags. Just over 17 pounds of persimmons are in the freezer. I have enough to make a 5-gallon batch of wine.
  • An attempted pumpkin carving of Amber, our Viszla/pitbull dog, didn't go very well. The Jack-o'-lantern I created made Amber look like a pig (see photos, below), even though I sometimes call her "Little Piggy Doggy."
  • We enjoyed 2 big pieces of cake, each, because we were piggies, and a bottle of pumpkin wine while watching the 1993 movie, Hocus Pocus.

Photo of Amber I used for carving a pumpkin.

My poor attempt at an Amber Jack-o'-lantern.

• Tuesday, 11/1: Garlic Planting Prep & Two Wines
  
  • Mary baked and froze the Halloween Jack-o'-lantern, minus any carved parts or meat burned by the candle. Four quarts of pumpkin meat are in the freezer.
  • Mary popped the last 3 garlic varieties, in prep for planting garlic. She mowed around the rows in the far garden where garlic will be planted, along with spreading grass and compost in these garden rows.
  • Finally, Mary took down the Halloween tree, which is a very dead and dried up cedar. It's back out in the north woods for storage until next fall.
    
  • I washed, then cut 20 Kieffer pears into quarters while removing the fruits' cores. All the pear pieces went in lemon water, so they wouldn't turn brown. Instead of buying spring water, I decided to try using our tap water and adding potassium metabisulfite (Kmeta) to eliminate chlorine and chloramines in the water. I measured my glass pitcher. It holds 7 cups of water. I calculated that by adding 0.1 gram of Kmeta, I can de-chlorinate the water. A tenth of a gram is a very small amount. A nylon mesh bag was filled with pear quarters alternating with a pound of chopped golden raisins. Gee, I miss William, my son. He's good at chopping up sticky, gooey raisins. After smashing the pear pieces in the nylon mesh bag, I added to the brew bucket the juice 2 lemons, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient, a teaspoon of acid blend, 0.2 grams of Kmeta, 14 cups (2 pitchers) of treated tap water, and a pound of sugar. I left the specific gravity at 1.060, because after sitting, sugar content should increase with the raisins. The pH is 3.3, which is just fine. I covered the bucket and let it sit in the pantry overnight.
    
  • I racked the apple wine for the third time. Almost an inch of fines were in the bottom of the 3-gallon carboy. This wine might need an extra fifth racking. I added 0.5 grams of Kmeta to the liquid. The specific gravity is 0.996, giving it an 11.7% alcohol content. The pH is still 3.2. The must seemed pretty clear (see photo, below), so I didn't add pectic enzyme. We tasted the wine right after I racked it and then later, after adding Kmeta. The first time it tasted harsh and metallic. Upon the second tasting, it was vastly improved.The apple taste is strong, yet subtle. With aging, it should be a good wine.
  
  

  

  A wine bottle, half-gallon and 2 gallon jugs of apple wine.

• Wednesday, 11/2: Garlic 50 Percent Planted & Winemaking
  
  • While walking dogs first thing in the morning, we watched a large number of robins fly south. There were probably 50 robins in the flock.
    
  • Mary turned the ground for 3 rows of garlic in the far garden and planted Music Pink, German Extra Hardy, and Siberian garlic varieties. She said growing sweet corn in formerly clay-bound soil vastly improved the ground, because it's more friable.
    
  • Sugar content in the pear wine must increased with an overnight soak, with the specific gravity moving from 1.060 to 1.074. Trying to reach 1.080, I added 2 ounces of sugar and the specific gravity didn't change. I added another 6 ounces of sugar and the specific gravity overshot the mark to 1.088. I added 2 cups of water to drop it to 1.078. That's close enough. Including yesterday's amounts, added water was 1 gallon and added sugar was 1.5 pounds. I put 0.75 teaspoons of pectic enzyme into the brew bucket, since my total liquid amount is now 1.5 gallons. I created a yeast starter with Red Star Cote des Blanc wine yeast. This time I added a pinch of sugar and a pinch of yeast nutrient to the mix, making the yeast respond quicker. I pitched it about 6 hours later and the yeast was bubbling by bedtime.
  • I racked the jalapeño wine for the second time. The specific gravity is 0.990, giving it an alcohol level of 12.2%. The pH remains at 3.5. I added 1.2 grams of Kmeta. The remaining liquid filled a 6.5-gallon carboy and two 750-ml wine bottles (see photo, below). This equals 7 gallons and almost 3 cups of wine. The fines weren't deep, but they were rather chunky. This wine sat for almost 2 months, when I usually rack it after just a month, which probably contributed to fines resembling sedimentary rock. Mary and I tasted the wine and it's not as hot as last year's jalapeño wine, which is what I wanted. It has a stronger alcohol taste, probably due to 2 months of sitting on the fines. Aging will improve its taste.

  

  Jalapeño wine after 2nd racking.

• Thursday, 11/3: All Garlic Planted!
  
  • Mary turned over soil and planted the last 3 garlic varieties, which are Georgian Crystal, Samarkand, and Shvelisi. She wanted to get all garlic in the ground prior to rain that's predicted for tomorrow.
    
  • A check of the Kieffer pear wine showed a specific gravity of 1.069, a drop of 11 points. The yeast is bubbling right along.
    
  • I dug into the west room closet to count remaining wine bottles. I have 120 left to clean up. A count of bottles required for existing wines in the pantry and future wines scheduled for making into early next summer showed I need 200 bottles. I called a guy near Kahoka, MO, who is advertising wine bottles for 50 cents, each, and asked if I could buy 100 bottles from him. We agreed I'd visit him tomorrow at 10 a.m. to pick them up.
    
  • I measured the aluminum ladder deer stand's height and a cedar tree I'd like to put it in. It will work, but, unfortunately there's a second cedar just north of there that would block my northern view.
    
  • I washed 7 milk crates, a big round tub, and a large plastic tote to use to put wine bottles into when I buy them tomorrow. I also threw 2 cardboard wine bottle boxes into the pickup.
    
  • In the evening, I looked up the route to take to get to the guy I'm buying bottles from in the morning. He is 30 miles northeast of us.
    
    
• Friday, 11/4: Wine Bottle Buying
  • I drove north, northeast into Clark County to Sam LaFrenz's house that's deep into an oak forest and bought 100 wine bottles. They're all washed and in good shape. It took a long time, because Sam, a 79-year old retired teacher, had a long-winded story about everything. I showed up at his place at 10 a.m. and left at 11:30 a.m. He once raised grapes, but quit after getting tired of battling animals eating his crop. He still makes grape wine, but buys his grapes from a country store.
  • While I was gone, Mary did some mowing until rain drops started falling.
  • She also paid bills and did some cross stitching.
    
  • When I got home, Mary made a pork loin dinner topped with barbecue sauce, corn on the cob, yellow potatoes, and a salad made from winter greens that I picked.
  • The Kieffer pear wine's specific gravity is 1.031. I'll be racking it tomorrow.
    
  • I unloaded bottles. I got nine 1.5-liter bottles out of the deal. Those bottles are double the size of regular 750-ml bottles, so it's as if I got 9 extra bottles. Of course, I also got two 375-ml bottles...half the size of 750-ml bottles. They are really good bottles. One bottle has CSJ  formed into the glass. Mary looked it up. It was a California wine called Chateau St. Jean, that goes for $50-$90 per bottle. I stuffed used corks in several bottles that will sit, uncovered, in the west room's closet.
  • We put chickens away into the coop early, with pending rain predicted. It started raining hard around 6 p.m. and it rained all evening and into the night.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/5: Racking Kieffer Pear Wine
  
  • Our high for the day was at 5 a.m., when the center of a low blasted through. Mary saw the temperature when she got up to use the bathroom. She was so surprised by such a high temperature that she had to look at the thermometer twice. We had mist and a strong southwest wind until 2:30 p.m. When the sun popped out, I let the chickens out. It was too nasty for them earlier in the day.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • While she did that, I racked the Kieffer pear wine for the first time. The specific gravity was 1.013. I squeezed the nylon mesh bag until the pear and raisin pieces in the bag were about the size of a softball, which is amazing, considering it was about 18 inches tall when I first put the ingredients into the bag. I got a little under 2 gallons of juice, which I transferred into two one-gallon jugs (see photo, below). I added about 6 ounces of distilled water to each jug to top up the contents. There was a little foaming in the jugs, starting about an hour later, but only a tiny bit of foam entered one airlock. The Kieffer pears give off a stronger pear smell in the wine, compared to Bartlett pears. It will be interesting to see if there's a difference in taste.
  • We read magazines and enjoyed two Brown Betty pots of tea...a nice, quiet evening.

  

  Kieffer pear wine after 1st racking.