Sept. 24-30, 2023

Weather | 9/24, 61°, 79° | 9/25, 53°, 81° | 9/26, 55°, 80° | 9/27, 53°, 75° | 9/28, 52°, 78° | 9/29, 59°, 89° | 9/30, 61°, 91° | 

• Sunday, 9/24: Racking Spiced Apple Wine
  
  • I ordered some winemaking items that I need, such as yeast for pear wine, carboy carriers, airlocks, universal stoppers, and wine bottle corks from Hobby Homebrew in Carbondale, IL. They had it packaged and a shipping label ready by the end of the day.
    
  • I looked up past years' temperatures for Oct. 6-8, which are the dates for a new anterless deer hunting season this year. Last year, our first frost was on Oct. 6th, but other than that, most years the temperatures are too hot for butchering deer. Time will tell, but I'm not hunting when temperatures are in the 70s through 80s. Butchering large animals is better in near-freezing to 40s temperatures.
    
  • I racked the spicy apple wine for the third time. There were quite a few fines for a third racking. Liquid pulled off the fines equaled a three-gallon carboy and two 750-ml wine bottles (see photo, below). The specific gravity was 1.000, the same as a month ago, giving it 8.25 percent alcohol content. Mary and I tasted the wine. It's very yummy, with a full mouth feel that revealed the distinct flavors of apple, cinnamon, and cloves. It's warming, so this wine will be a great winter drink. It might even be good heated up. This is a big winner. It's still cloudy, so it definitely needs five rackings, or more to clear it up. After labeling the containers, I realized if you take the period away from S. Apple, you get Sapple, a new name for this wine.
    
  • I hunted squirrels at noon and again around 4:30 p.m. Squirrels are living a long life this year with me shooting at them. I shot at two with the sights dead center on them. Something's amiss. Dead-eye, I'm not!!! These squirrels are getting used to noise. I shot at one squirrel, then heard chewing in a tree above me. There was one brazen nut-chewer sprinkling shells to the ground. A twig floated down from my shot and that squirrel scrambled down the trunk and zipped across the lawn in front of me, hollering, "Thank you for being such a terrible shooter."
    
  • Mary cross stitched in the afternoon, getting a long way on her Native Raven pattern.

  

  Spiced apple wine after 3rd racking.

• Monday, 9/25: Deer & Squirrels
  
  • I watched four deer, the two does and two fawns, before sunrise, as they walked on the lane in front of the house and into the east yard. They looked north, with their tails up and stomped on the grass. I think they heard squirrels dropping pecan nut shells on the grain bin metal roofs.
    
  • Later, when I walked the dogs down the lane, I heard a deer snort and then watched a turkey fly off to the southwest near Bluegill Pond.
  • I took mold spots out of two S-shaped airlocks by swishing full-strength bleach around in them. It took over two hours to clean these up. I made the mistake of leaving them on top of the woodstove and letting air conditioned air blow on them. They never dried inside and instead, grew black mold. Next time I see mold, I'm tossing them. Most of my airlocks involve three pieces that when taken apart, are easy to clean.
  • I also put away winemaking items that were all over the kitchen table and the west room.
    
  • My squirrel hunting in the Elmer Fudd mode continues. I shot at a squirrel. It fell out of the tree and I heard it flopping around on the ground. There was another squirrel further away, so I waited. The second squirrel ran away after a couple minutes. I went investigating. The moment I saw the first squirrel on the ground, it zoomed off running to the northwest. I followed. I heard it rustling leaves as it zipped further into the woods. My guess is that it was knocked out after hitting the ground, came to as I approached, and then ran away. My near misses are having an effect. I notice fewer squirrels mobbing the pecan trees closest to the house.
    
    
• Tuesday, 9/26: Haircut, Purple Paint, & Trail Clearing
  • Mary received a haircut. For some reason, she didn't want to venture off our property looking like a shaggy wild woman from the woods. Her hair stylist is cheap. All he wants is food. She says that the best hairdressers are the bald ones.
    
  • Mary purple painted fence posts and tree trunks along our south property border, which is most important, because it borders the gravel road. Missouri allows property owners to signify no trespassing by using purple paint.
    
  • She found an unknown bush near the southwest corner of our property with blue berries hanging from it (see photos, below). We have yet to identify it.
    
  • I used up three tanks of gas in the Stihl trimmer fitted with a steel blade to clear trails to deer blinds situated to the east and northeast of our home. I ended the day on the trail to the Cherry Deer Blind just west of Bass Pond. Mary scooped out cut grass left on the edges of the trails with a hay fork and spread it out to dry. We'll store this hay in a grain bin to use on the floor of the chicken coop throughout the upcoming year.
  • I didn't see a single squirrel in pecan trees, today.
    
  • Bill called. He lost the responsibility of overseeing one warehouse department and gained the supervision of about four other departments. He also lost his lone employee in the receiving department, so he, alone, is the receiving section of the warehouse.
    
  • We heard snorty deer, both east and west of the lane, when we walked dogs for their last outing of the night. Deer are extremely plentiful this year.

The leaf of our unknown bush.

Fruit of unknown bush is 1/4" wide.

• Wednesday, 9/27: All Apples Harvested
  
  • A package arrived in yesterday's mail from Hobby Homebrew in Carbondale, IL, with the wrong wine yeast. I called them up. They're going to let me keep the yeast they sent (I use it for jalapeño wine) and send the yeast I ordered. It will ship on Friday.
  • Mary checked the Bartlett pears and they're yellowing, so they should be ready this weekend, or Monday.
    
  • I whacked down more weeds and grass on the trail to the Cherry Deer Blind. I took down tall weeds in the field I look out upon while sitting at that blind. Then, I started on whacking down weeds in the trail to Wood Duck Blind. I used up over three tanks of gas in the trimmer.
  • Mary picked a bunch more hazelnuts. 
  • She froze two more gallons of tomatoes. We now have enough tomatoes to get through the next year.
    
  • Mary froze 18 quarts of watermelons.
  • Mary and I picked all of the Granny Smith apples (see photo, below). An intruding woodpecker that I chased off the Granny Smith tree made me check them and they were ready to pick. Mary immediately stored them in the refrigerator. That's the last of this year's apples.
    
  • Katie called and we talked for awhile.

  

  Freshly picked Granny Smith apples.
  

   
• Thursday, 9/28: Shopping in Quincy
  • We awoke to a thick fog. It was gone by around 9 a.m.
    
  • We shopped in Quincy, IL. I bought three khaki pants at Salvation Army, along with a pair of sweats and another cooler for storing wine. I'm skinnier now, dropping from a 36 waist to a 34 waist. It's the difference between sitting at a desk and eating potato chips and doing things like cutting firewood or whacking down weeds and eating healthier foods.
    
  • We watched the 2001 movie, Shrek. We used to have it as a VHS tape, but lost it when we tossed all VHS movies. We found a DVD version of it in Walmart's $5 bin, today.
    
    
• Friday, 9/29: Buying Yogi Bear Picnic Baskets
  • Three old fashion rattan picnic baskets that Mary likes for storing things in were on sale in Facebook Marketplace for $5, each, so we drove to north of Canton and bought them. It turns out this was the same couple I bought some asphalt shingles from two years ago. Two years ago, they had a lot of junk. Today, they have even more junk. They're back yard is filled with semi trailers full of stuff.
  • On the way home, we bought gas for $3.54 a gallon in Lewistown.
  • Mary looked up one of the picnic baskets that has an Indiana manufacturer's name on it. Similar baskets sell for as much as $250 on Etsy. One of her picnic baskets includes a pie shelf, which is like a false bottom, where you store your pie, with other food items put above the pie shelf. Mary cleaned them all up, inside and out. They are destined to store embroidery floss and sewing threads.
    
  • I used up a tank of gas in the trimmer and took down more tall weeds and grass on the trail to the Wood Duck Deer Blind. I'm now near where we pick blackberries on Bramble Hill.
    
  • Mary watered what few plants we're keeping alive in the gardens.
  • On the way back from picking up mail, a four-wheeler drove by and then up our driveway. It was David Marquette. Mary says it's like getting a visit from a marmot...not exactly something you want to see in your yard! He was shirtless, wearing bib overalls, which is interesting, since David is especially skinny. He's full of fables and half-truths. He claims his great-grandfather brewed moonshine in the basement of our house. It took me about an hour to detach myself from his constant yammering. Mary said she walked down the lane a little ways to check to see why it took me so long to get the mail. When she heard David's voice, she went back home and did the dishes.
    
    
• Saturday, 9/30: Cleaning Room of Requirement
  • Mary cleaned most of the upstairs south bedroom. Because it's so full of stuff, we call it the Room of Requirement. Part of the cleanup involves eliminating some belongings.
    
  • I heard the telltale sign of squirrels in the pecan trees...nut husks dropping on the roof tin of the grain bins under these trees. I took a shot at a squirrel this morning and sent it scampering to the north.
    
  • Due to heat in the 90s, I attended to indoor chores. WGEM says Quincy saw a record high of 94°. We were lower, at 91°. My little indoor chores included putting away winemaking stuff from a recent shipment, updating the checkbook, researching pear cider recipes, and scrubbing sooty blotch and flyspeck off the Grimes Golden apples.
  • I ate one of the Grimes apples. It's mealy and tasteless. That tree will be taken out this winter. It doesn't grew well, anyway.
  • While Mary watered the garden, I watered small cherry trees and the three newest apple trees. We are very, very dry. It's good for farmers, though. Our east neighbor is combining corn.