Jan. 22-28, 2024

Weather | 1/22, 0.06" freezing rain, 27°, 35° | 1/23, fog to cloudy, 0.41" rain, 29°, 38° | 1/24, fog, 0.15" rain, 30°, 40° | 1/25, fog, 0.65" rain, 31°, 37° | 1/26, cloudy, 31°, 39° | 1/27, cloudy, 31°, 37° | 1/28, cloudy, 29°, 37° |

• Monday, 1/22: Freezing Rain
  
  • We had freezing rain overnight that put a nice sheen of ice on everything. Last night the Missouri Highway Patrol advised everyone to stay off roads. All schools were closed. News sources said there were accidents and vehicles, including semis, sliding off roads everywhere.
    
  • Bill texted that he stayed home from work, due to freezing rain in St. Louis.
    
  • I added a second 24' x 40' addition and a walkway on the house drawing I'm working up on floorplanner.com.
    
  • We watched five deer walk south of the house at dusk. They started chewing on the hazelnut bushes, so Mary went out with the dogs. Our pups didn't see the deer. Mary unzipped her coat and waved the opening back and forth. The deer ran off and then the dogs saw them. Plato barked for a final send off.
    

• Tuesday, 1/23: Cleaning Bottles & Books
  
  • We saw bobcat tracks in the snow on our lane this morning. They look like cat tracks, only larger. We've never seen a bobcat, just bobcat tracks.
    
  • Mary spotted 10 eastern bluebirds at one time. Bluebirds are only supposed to be as far north as southern Missouri in winter. I guess these birds didn't get that memo.
    
  • I cleaned old tape and label residue and washed 12 wine bottles.
    
  • Mary dusted bookshelves in the sunroom.
  • We watched the 2013 movie, Whitehouse Down. 
    
  • Rain and warmer temperatures are significantly lowering the level of our snow.
    

• Wednesday, 1/24: Bright Nighttime Fog
  
  • Fog covered our land all day, especially after 3 p.m., when it got pea soup thick. A nearly full moon illuminated the fog after dark. Add snow cover for reflectivity and flashlights weren't needed for nighttime visibility.
    
  • Mary finished dusting the sunroom books. Then, she scanned magazines, pulled interesting articles, and threw the remains into a recycle pile.
    
  • At noon, I attended a virtual Missouri Department of Conservation oak tree identification presentation. The presenter was a guy who works out of the wildlife visitor's center in Cape Girardeau in southeast Missouri. He was excellent and I learned a lot. White oak is needed for whiskey barrels, because it seals tight. Red oak leaks moisture. White oak acorns grow yearly, whereas red oak acorns take two years to grow. Squirrels eat white oak acorns, but bury red oak acorns, since they taste strong with two years of tannins in them. The buried acorns lose their tannins, becoming edible and are dug up by squirrels months later. About 10 percent aren't found, sprout and grow. So, squirrels are effective planters of red oak trees. An average white oak lifespan is 400 years.
    
  • I racked and bottled the jalapeño wine. It has a nice brown tinge (see photo, below), probably due to dark raisins and red jalapeños in the ingredients. The specific gravity was 0.994, giving the wine an 11.34 percent alcohol content. The pH was 3.2. I added an 80 percent amount of Kmeta at 0.4 grams for a three gallon batch. Exactly 15 bottles were corked. We tasted leftovers. It tasted warm, but surprisingly not overwhelmingly hot, despite all of the red jalapeño peppers that went into this wine. It is delicious.

  

  Jalapeño wine with a clear, slightly brown tinge.

• Thursday, 1/25: Rain & a Haircut
  
  • I got a new antivirus program for my laptop. Trying to renew with the old antivirus was difficult. I figure it's time to change when you can't get anywhere online with an internet-related company.
    
  • I gave Mary a haircut. She's very happy, now.
    
  • Mary made a shopping list.
  • Heavy rain fell starting at mid-afternoon and continued into darkness. Vast amounts of bare ground are showing across the fields as snow melts. The rain seemed to knock down the fog that we've had for three days.
    
  • We are noticing several opossum tracks in remaining snow. They're up and down the lane and outside of our chicken yard.
  • We watched three episodes of the second season of Star Trek: Picard.
    

• Friday, 1/26: What a Difference a Day Makes
  
  • Mary heard a cardinal singing a spring song this morning.
  • Our first stop on our shopping trip to Quincy was at the Salvation Army to drop off over 90 books. We got a couple items. I talked to Emily, who worked at Petco when I worked there and who is now the assistant manager of the Salvation Army store. The store manager checked us out and said, "What a difference a day makes." Yesterday's rain and today's melting almost eliminated snow cover. Plus, we noticed a lot less snow in Quincy compared to the snow at home.
  • We marched through all of the stored quickly. The only item we didn't find was wheat flour, but we have extra at home.
  • We saw a big bald eagle on the drive to Quincy and six deer on Missouri Highway J on the way back home.
  • Mary bought a compartmentalized plastic box at Salvation Army that she'll fill with embroidery floss. It came with beads that I decided to keep for possible lure making and fly tying purposes...so we both won on that $4 purchase.
    

• Saturday, 1/27: Melting Here, Cold Up North
  
  • Mary and I took a noontime walk with the dogs to Wood Duck Pond and back. The dogs loved sniffing everything along the way. The pond is up to its normal level and the creek bed is running with water. Most all of the snow melted away. We saw mist through the day.
  • I saw online from an old university friend who works at UAF's Poker Flats Research Center that it was -54° on Ester Dome, outside of Fairbanks, and that a recent dumping of five feet of snow sunk eight boats in the Juneau boat harbor. There was a warning in the Anchorage Daily News that over 1,000 commercial roofs are in danger of collapsing if snow isn't removed throughout the city. Alaska is witnessing a severe winter.
    
  • I washed and cleaned tape and label residue off 11 wine bottles, which finished cleanup on the last of the bottles I bought over a year ago from a retired winemaker in the county north of us. Now, I start on bottles with labels on them. I need 6-7 more for bottling the Perry that is now clear.
    
  • Mary and I played Yahtzee after dark. I won the first couple games, but Mary came on strong at the end (three Yahtzees in the final game) and was the ultimate winner. It was fun.
    

• Sunday, 1/28: Clouds, Fog, Turkey & Chiefs
  
  • We went through another gray day, but the clouds cleared right at sunset and the night sky was filled with stars for the first time in over a week. When we walked the dogs on their final outing, ground fog was illuminated by the moon for a really eerie effect.
  • I filled out two sets labels for recently bottled wines: apple and jalapeño.
    
  • Mary baked a turkey that we had for a midday meal. It was good.
  • We had a bottle of 2021 autumn olive wine with the turkey meal. After over two years of aging, this wine has a beautiful color (see photo, below). It was fine combined with the meal, but drinking it straight, after eating, was a little rough. The alcohol flavor overwhelmed the nuances of the autumn olives, so it tastes more like brandy. If I make it again, I need to drop the alcohol down from this level, which is 12.34 percent.
    
  • Pride and Prejudice was published anonymously on this date in 1813, so in honor of that fact, we watched four episodes of the BBC's TV series by the same name.
  • The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 to win the AFC Championship and earn a spot in the Super Bowl. I just looked online occasionally for the score. Listening to the game seems to jinx them. I watched the game recap in the evening. Their defense is remarkable. Go Chiefs!

  

  The berries are red, but Autumn Olive wine is gold.