Oct. 15-21, 2023

Weather | 10/15, 49°, 53° | 10/16, 35°, 61° | 10/17, 34°, 67° | 10/18, 0.08" rain, 47°, 71° | 10/19, 50°, 63° | 10/20, 43°, 71° | 10/21, 45°, 67° | 

• Sunday, 10/15: Racking Pear Wine & Perry
  
  • Mary picked tomatoes and said it was the last of them, since the plants were nipped by frost this week. The far garden gets colder than near the house and temperatures in the 30s means freezing out there.
  • She also picked the last five acorn squash, making it a total of 83 harvested this year. Many were small, but it was a good year for growing this squash variety.
    
  • Mary picked a few more pecans from under those trees.
  • I racked the two pear wines. There was an inch and 5/8 of fines in the pear cider and 1.25 inches of fines in the pear wine. Here are the details:
  • Pear wine: Once liquid was removed, I had 5.5 gallons of must. I added a gram of Kmeta. The specific gravity was 1.001 and the pH was 3.1. The must went into a 5-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jug, and half of a 330-ml beer bottle (see photo, below).
  • Perry: The fines were loose and not compacted, so I lost about a gallon of must, ending up with 4.25 gallons of liquid. I added 0.8 grams of Kmeta. The specific gravity was 1.004 and the pH was 3.2. The must went into four one-gallon jugs, a 750-ml wine bottle, and part of a 330-ml beer bottle (see photo, below).
  • Since I had such a large amount of fines, I cleaned the carboys outside with a garden hose. When I sprayed water into the perry carboy, the foam was three inches deep. Upon dumping out this water, the ground hissed and fizzed as it soaked in the yeasty substance.
  • The pantry is really full of several aging wine varieties. Twenty-three different containers hold eight wines or ciders. I've got garlic and parsnip wine yet to make. I'm not making Kieffer pear wine. Parsnip wine depends on whether voles did or didn't eat up the roots of those plants.

Pear wine after 2nd racking.

Perry (pear cider) after 2nd racking.

• Monday, 10/16: Catch Up Day
  • While dumping ashes from the woodstove in the morning, I noticed that squash plants that had green leaves yesterday were all brown and black. But, pepper plants near small persimmon trees were nice and green. So, we had patchy frost in the far garden overnight.
    
  • I did a bunch of odds and ends, like updating the checkbook and putting all of my winemaking stuff away. 
  • I undid electric fence wires to the far garden and the Esopus apple tree, so the only enclosure electrified is the fence around the near garden.
  • We still had about a quarter of an apple box of Bartlett pears wrapped in newspaper. I cleaned out 27 pears that were going bad and kept five good ones. We're kind of tired of pears and can't eat them fast enough.
    
  • Mary and I walked the dogs north on the trail to the Cherry Deer Blind and scared wood ducks off Bass Pond.
    
  • We also picked pecans off the ground and from branches I could reach with an eight-foot step ladder. We gathered just under 30 nuts. Most of the pecans on the tree aren't ready.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. It's color is a deep purple. This wine is very smooth, with no alcoholic taste and a strong blackberry flavor...really yummy!
  • Bill gave us an Audible book: Patrick Stewart's new autobiography, Making It So. We look forward to hearing Mr. Stewart read it.
    
    
• Tuesday, 10/17: Spraying Old Stuff
  
  • We noticed the signs on some forsythia leaves that a light frost touched a few of them. I noticed a tiny bit of frost here and there on the east yard grass in areas hidden from the sun this morning.
    
  • Mary husked some hazelnuts.
  • I sprayed EM-1 (essential micronutrients) that I made up on April 28 and never did anything with through the summer. Using a steady stream, instead of a fine mist, it went down on the ground inside the dripline of all fruit trees, except pears, the old McIntosh tree, and the two apple trees I plan to cut down (Esopus and Grimes). The hazelnut bushes, the lilac bush, and the Prairie Fire crabapple tree also received a ground soaking, also. I added other components, such as fish fertilizer, into with three tanks of mix that I used. This should give everything a boost going into winter.
    
  • Mary and I picked 30 pecans off tree branches and from the ground. We're noticing blue jays and woodpeckers flying into the pecan trees, attempting to grab nuts. Often, nuts drop to the ground from their efforts and we benefit. 
  • Mary checked in the north woods for hickory nuts...nothing. There aren't even husks under those trees, evidence that they didn't produce nuts this year.
  • The black walnut and tall persimmon trees between our east yard and the far garden are loaded with nuts and fruit.
    
    
• Wednesday, 10/18: Animals & Maintenance
  
  • When I opened the bedroom curtains, I saw a deer in the far garden. Just two days ago, I disconnected the electric fencer to that garden. Deer are quick at discovering these things.
    
  • I chased a squirrel away from the pecan trees. When I hollered and clapped to encourage its flight, a coyote ran away from just north of me in the trees.
  • On a few occasions, we watched turkey vultures drop real low and fly over the yard as they played in the wind. They're masters in the art of flying.
    
  • I changed engine oil, changed the spark plug, and cleaned and re-oiled the foam of the air filter in the woodsplitter.
  • Mary cleaned and mopped the floors. Some guy made a mess in the kitchen with wine drips.
    
  • Mary and I picked 60 pecans off the ground after a strong south wind blew all day.
    
  • We received a little bit of rain as two fronts went through our area.
    
  • Mary and I tried another bottle of persimmon wine. Last time we tried it, the wine tasted bad. This time, it was quite good. It's aged over six months since the wine was bottled. It has a brown sugar taste, with a slight hint of a beer flavor. I might have to make more...maybe a small batch.
    
    
• Thursday, 10/19: AC Removal & Window Cleaning
  
  • I removed all three of the window air conditioners, along with pieces of vinyl siding I used to block sunlight and insects. The ACs are now stored on the machine shed workbench and the sunlight blockers are in labeled bags.
    
  • Mary washed window curtains and the inside of windows. She wanted to get this job finished before the annual autumn Asian ladybug invasion. Curtains drying on the clothesline outside and in the west breeze came out free of wrinkles, requiring no ironing.
    
  • I removed stickum and aluminum tape on the outside of window sills and then washed the window exteriors. Now, house windows are so clear, it's scary.
  • Each time I ventured to the machine shed, I scared a squirrel out of the pecan trees.
    
  • Mary and I picked more pecans. I've developed a way of rubbing the nut on the grass with my boot and getting pecan husks to start peeling off, so Mary collected several nuts off the ground and piled them up for me to work on. We got 117 nuts, this evening.
    
    
• Friday, 10/20: Squirrel Hunting
  
  • I looked out the window right before sunrise and saw squirrels marauding the pecan trees, so I went out with a gun and scared about six of them away. I joined Mary walking the dogs and when I returned, more squirrels were chomping away. I shot one. I ended up hunting squirrels all day. I dropped three out of the trees that immediately ran away. Mary says I need to sight in that gun. She's right. At least I put fear in several squirrels.
  • Mary cleaned and scrubbed the walls and floor of our bedroom. She also washed rugs.
  • Asian ladybugs are on the march starting today. Soon, we'll be vacuuming them up by the hundreds. House window cleaning preceded them by just one day.
    
  • We picked 200 pecans. Several were on the ground, but we also picked a number off a tree branch we reached from the step ladder. A view through binoculars reveals large numbers of nuts on upper branches of the pecan trees.
  • We heard a deer snorting at us from just north of the chicken yard while we picked pecans.
  • Katie bought seashell and sand dollar Christmas ornaments for her mother while she visited relatives in SC a couple weeks ago and Kristen (Mary's sister-in-law) sent them. UPS delivered the package at the end of our lane, today.
    
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2022 dandelion wine. "I'm afraid to say that this is very good wine," Mary announced. It means I need to go through several days of plucking dandelion blossom petals. I didn't do it this year, because it comes in the spring when I also need to spray fruit trees. I'll have to do both chores next year.
    
  • On the last dog walk, we heard snow geese traveling through on a starlit night.
    
    
• Saturday, 10/21: A Roll Top Desk Addition
  
  • Last night, I spotted a free roll top desk at Palmyra, which is 30 miles southeast of us. We picked it up, today. I plan on using it as a hobby station, foreseeing it as a great location for fly tying activity. It was made in 1976, according to a card inside a drawer. The construction is press board, covered with wood-appearance plastic. It's not fancy, but alright for being free. 
  • When Mary and I moved the desk up onto the east porch, we realized it is very heavy. Initially, we thought of putting it in the upstairs north bedroom, but the weight would have been a real killer going up our steep stairs.
    
  • Before moving the desk out of the pickup, we moved loads of wine in coolers out of the north bedroom and moved Bill's desk to the other side of the room. But once we made a decision not to go upstairs with the new-to-us desk, we tried figuring out where to put it. After looking at various first floor locations, we decided to put it in the sunroom. The cement floor supports it better there, plus the lighting is great (see photo, below).
  • Mary moved the rolling book cart to in front of a stationary bookcase on the west wall of the sunroom. We can roll it out of the way to access books. She cleaned the desk, inside and out.
    
  • We rearranged the upstairs north room and did some vacuuming and wall cleaning after removing a long table I used to work on in there.
  • Mary and I picked 225 pecans...some from the ground, but several from tree branches. I moved the tractor and put the step ladder in the trailer, giving me an additional three feet of height, which hoisted me higher into the pecan tree branches. At one point, I had a walking stick insect on the bill of my hat. They're kind of creepy. While we were picking nuts, we heard a squirrel monkeying around in trees north of us.
  • On the final dog walk of the night, the puppies roared up to an opossum that was on our lane. It played dead. We coaxed the dogs further down the lane and when we turned around and walked back home, the opossum was gone.

  

  Our new-to-us roll top desk in the sunroom.