Nov. 5-11, 2023

Weather | 11/5, 31°, 63° | 11/6, 55°, 69° | 11/7, 43°, 69° | 11/8, 53°, 73° | 11/9, 33°, 56° | 11/10, 29°, 49° | 11/11, 26°, 51° | 

• Sunday, 11/5: Nuts, Garlic, & Deer Blind Prep
  
  • Mary and I picked up 322 pecans today during two sessions of nut collecting. Nuts aren't dropping out of the trees as much, but we still did well.
    
  • Mary found where some animal dug up a yellow jacket nest just beyond where we're picking pecans. Several paper combs were just outside a 4-5 inch hole dug into the ground.
    
  • Mary turned the soil on three rows in the far garden, mixing in compost and grass clippings. Everything is ready for planting garlic.
    
  • I clipped red cedar boughs off four different trees and wove them through fencing as a form of camouflage at the Bobcat Deer Blind. When I first arrived to the blind, two deer ran from the creek bed below me uphill and to the southwest, where they stopped for a minute to look me over, before leaving completely.
    
    
• Monday, 11/6: Pecan Picking & Garlic Planting is Done
  • While walking dogs this morning, I saw two bucks and a doe deer. I also saw an American kestrel zoom over our yard and head east. Mary and I saw two bald eagles circling over the eastern edge of our property.
    
  • Pecan nuts called to me, again. I picked a few off the ground, then plucked several off the near pecan tree. In the evening, Mary picked about 10 off the ground and I got a few more off the tree. We got 170 nuts, with 125 pulled off the tree. Nuts falling from the trees have really diminished and I've got the 10-foot ladder on the southwest corner of the tree, where they baked in the sun, making it difficult to peel husks. We've decided to quit pecan picking.
  • Mary planted all six varieties of garlic. It took most of the afternoon. Her next chore is watering and mulching all garlic rows with mowed grass.
  • I walked part of the west, north, and east property lines, checking on purple paint put on trees and fence posts in years past to make sure it's still in good shape, since it indicates no trespassing to deer hunters. It's all in good condition.
  • The neighbor to the west put a salt block near the deer stand that is within a few feet of our property line and added a remote trail camera (it has an antenna) focused on the mineral block...really sporting, isn't it?
    
  • Rich, our southwest neighbor, has three tree stands within sight of our property line. If all are occupied at once, it's like a city of hunters trying to shoot one another. I won't get anywhere near that mess during hunting season!
  • Our neighbor north of us did an excellent job rebuilding the fence. They have a hunting trailer parked about 25 feet from the fence. Fortunately, it's over the hill from where I hunt to the north.
  • I saw a buck with a large rack near Wood Duck Pond and our east property line.
  • Mary and I shared a bottle of 2021 pear wine. It's exceptional. It really helps to let wine age beyond a year. This wine was bottled 12-24-21. It tastes much better now, compared to a year or more ago. We had the same experience drinking a bottle of 2021 autumn olive wine on Sunday. Again, it was bottled in November 2021 and it tasted marvelously good.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/7: Nuts, Mulch, & Final Deer Trail
  
  • Our commitment to stop picking pecan nuts lasted only a few hours. East wind gusts to 20 mph sent nuts to the ground. Of course, we had to go grab them. I finished picking nuts that I can reach with the 10-foot ladder off the near pecan tree, this time on the northwest part of the tree. We got 190 pecans, today.
    
  • Mary identified a juvenile broad-winged hawk that was sitting in a black walnut tree limb between our gardens during the noon hour. These hawks winter in South America or southern Mexico, so it has a long journey ahead of it.
    
  • Mary mowed sections of our lawn and put grass clipping mulch on the entire west row of the far garden that's planted in garlic. She has two more rows to go.
    
  • I finished whacking down grass, weeds, and saplings on the trail down Black Medick Hill. I also looked at the Wood Duck Deer Blind to make sure it's ready for hunting season. I'm now done with trail and blind prep prior to the main deer hunting season.
  • We walked the dogs on that trail. Several oak trees now show an orange or red autumn color (see photos, below).

Orange autumn color of an oak tree.

Red & orange leaves of another oak tree.

• Wednesday, 11/8: Mulching & Racking Wine
  
  • It was so warm during the first half of today that we heard a white-crowned sparrow and an eastern meadowlark singing their early spring bird songs. In the late afternoon, a cold front went through with a wind that put leaves onto the yard.
    
  • Mary mowed more of our yard and placed grass mulch on two rows of planted garlic in the far garden. She has just a small part of the last row left to cover.
    
  • I drove the tractor and trailer east, sawed up an oak tree limb that fell across the dry creek bed in the east forest, hauled the firewood to the tractor and drove it back home. More and more leaves are dropping in the woods. Oak trees are really showing their colors this autumn.
    
  • I racked the jalapeño wine for the third time. The pH was 3.2 and the specific gravity was 0.994. The wine was a lot calmer and not as hot as expected, since this year's peppers seemed hot. It tasted good. A three-gallon carboy and one 330-ml beer bottle was reduced by just a little after racking to the same carboy and three-fourths of a beer bottle. I'm getting much better at conserving liquid during the racking process.
    
  • I racked the apple wine for a fourth time. The pH was 3.0 and the specific gravity was 0.998, slightly less than the last racking. I added 0.6 grams of Kmeta. Since this wine is slightly cloudy, I added a tablespoon of pectic enzyme. This was based on a Jack Keller apple wine recipe that calls for a tablespoon of pectic enzyme per gallon of liquid. Since I'm now at 3.25 gallons and I've used two tablespoons so far, I decided another tablespoon was appropriate to try to clear up the wine. A taste revealed a very light wine. The apple flavor came on strongest as an aftertaste. With a lower alcohol content of nine percent, a stronger apple taste shines through. This wine also has an amazing scent. A three-gallon carboy and two 750-ml wine bottles was reduced to the same carboy, a wine bottle, and a 12-ounce pop bottle.
  • We had a successful day of ignoring pecans. It's a first for us for several days.
  • I picked a bowl full of greens from my tubs of winter greens that Mary put on top of an evening meal of taco salad. YUM, YUM!!!
    
    
• Thursday, 11/9: Mowing & Shopping
  
  • This morning, around 6 a.m., Venus was located right next to a waning crescent moon for a spectacular view in the eastern sky.
    
  • Mary mowed and mowed and mowed. First, she did our quarter-mile lane. Then, she mowed up the south lawn, collecting the clippings to finish mulching the newly planted garlic.
  • I drove to Quincy and got some meds and a couple other items.
  • This makes me sound like an old duff, but prices are crazy high. A dinky Briggs & Stratton fuel filter made of red plastic and the size of a quarter costs $5. Gasoline prices are dropping, though. I noticed Sam's Club had it for $2.99 a gallon.
  • We're back teetering on very dry. We haven't had rain in 11 days. While driving back home, I saw a rural fire fighting truck handling a grass fire that burned about a quarter mile of the highway's ditch. It's a concern we have with the main deer hunting season starting this Saturday. Careless campfires or even a vehicle's hot muffler could easily start a fire in these dry conditions. The Missouri Dept. of Conservation is warning hunters to be careful with fires this hunting season.
    
    
• Friday, 11/10: Racking & Bottling Cherry Wine
  
  • During the noon hour, several crows were in a big walnut tree northeast of the house. I ran out and yelled "caw, caw" at them. We find that an imitation crow sound by a human must sound evil, because they immediately fly away. This time a big bald eagle also flew out of the north yard.
    
  • I racked and bottled the cherry wine. This was the fifth racking, a new tactic I'm trying to better control "floaties" in some wines. The fines involved just a dusting on the bottom of containers. The pH was 3.1 and the specific gravity was 0.995. The alcohol content is 10.6 percent. I bottled and corked the equivalent of 27.5 750-ml bottles. One was a 1.5-liter bottle and another was a 375-liter bottle. A titret SO2 test indicated the wine contained 27 ppm. It should be 50-70 ppm. Midwest Supplies suggests a quarter teaspoon raises 20 liters (5 gallons) 40 ppm...whoa, Nelly!!! I use 0.18 grams per gallon, which is a tiny portion of a quarter teaspoon, so I added only 1 gram for the 5.45-gallon batch. On a taste test, Mary and I thought the cherry flavor comes through beautifully. It's still a young wine that needs aging, so there is a stronger alcoholic taste. It smells fantastic and has a clear, faint orange/pink tint (see photo, below).
  • Tomorrow morning is the start of the main firearms deer hunting season. This evening, it sounded like World War III as neighbors sighted in guns. That's not the smartest idea just 12 hours prior to hunting season. We're guessing several boxes of shells went through a gun being sighted in at the house located southeast across the road from us. I'm not going out tomorrow morning. There are too many amateurs nearby. Besides, it's too warm during the day, but cooler after dark, which is better for venison meat. Instead, I'll start hunting late tomorrow afternoon.
  • Three young deer were next to the Empire apple tree, just south of the living room window, this evening after the sun set. They looked disturbed, probably from human activity, nearby. Every hunting season, deer pack onto our property, where they feel safe.

  

  A sample of 2023 cherry wine.

• Saturday, 11/11: Nothing on Opening Day
  
  • We watched a pair of common goldeneye ducks fly over us while walking the puppies this morning.
    
  • I started putting up lights up in the machine shed enabling nighttime venison butchering. I didn't finish.
    
  • Mary gave the garlic a thorough watering. She's glad she put mulch on, since it's so dry.
    
  • Around 3 p.m., I hunted from the Cherry Deer Blind while listening to our neighbor farmer east of us clang rocks while discing the field. His yearly late harvest means he's always plowing during deer hunting season long after other farmers finished working fields weeks and months ago. I couldn't hear much at all due to his constant racket. The half hour after the sun set, I heard footsteps beyond the cedar trees south of me, but I never saw a thing, except lots of robins. I think they spend the day in the cow pasture north of us, then find cedar boughs to sleep in at night. There were plenty of gunshots. Some dunce was driving around at sunset, which is a prime time for deer movement. I'll sure be glad when amateurs go home after this opening weekend of hunting season.
    
  • On the walk back home, I had an owl circling over me while I walked by Bass Pond. It was just curious. It flew several loops around me. The owl even perched on a branch near me to look me over. I saw a deer run off to the northwest in the north field. As I approached home, another deer took off to the south. It was located near the Granny Smith apple tree. Maybe if I just sat home in a rocking chair, I'd have better hunting success.