June 17-23, 2024

Weather | 6/17, p. cloudy, 75°, 91° | 6/18, sunny, 70°, 89° | 6/19, sunny, 73°, 89° | 6/20, sunny, 66°, 91° | 6/21, sunny, 68°, 91° | 6/22, sunny to thunderstorm, 73°, 92° | 6/23, 0.42" rain overnight, sunny, 68°, 89° |

• Monday, 6/17: Watering Trees & Starting Cherry Wine
  
  • A strong south wind and high heat is drying out the land and plants.
    
  • Mary spent most of the day watering fruit trees and blueberry bushes. Due to high heat, she'd haul water for a short while, then take an indoor air conditioning break. We have a lot of trees and bushes to water and they need it in this intense heat.
    
  • I made a five gallon batch of cherry wine. Thawing eight packages of cherries that collectively weighed 17.8 pounds was quick and easy in the sun on the porch. I juiced two bags of mandarin oranges to put 32 ounces of juice into the brew bucket. I used two nylon mesh bags to hold the cherries. Zest from two navel oranges also went into the bags, along with the mandarin and orange pulp. The following were added to the bucket: 3.5 gallons of water, 7 pounds of sugar, a cup of strong tea brewed with two Red Rose tea bags, and 1 gram of Kmeta. The specific gravity was 1.074 and the pH was 3.4, so I didn't add acid blend. I let it sit overnight in the pantry.
  • Katie called to wish me a good belated Father's Day. She was in the middle of a visit to care for a cat as part of her part-time pet care work she does through rover.com. She talked about hosting dogs for a couple days, such as a pair of doodles and a cane corso. It sounds interesting. In her main job, she's working on a school build for Kaktovik, which is on the north shore of Barter Island on the Beaufort Sea and near the Alaska/Yukon border. The Kaktovik school burned down in 2020. Katie said the new-to-her Mazda is a nice vehicle. She got it on a regular maintenance schedule and foresees a few mechanic fixes once she builds back her savings that were drained for purchasing this rig. Nice summer weather, with temperatures into the 70s, is rolling through Anchorage.
    

• Tuesday, 6/18: Cherry Wine Batch 2
  
  • It's still hot, but not quite as bad by a couple degrees from prior hot days. We have a strong south wind blowing day and night.
  • I made a second five-gallon batch of cherry wine. The ingredients were almost identical as the first batch made yesterday, except today I used nine packages of cherries with an accumulative weight of 18.28 pounds. The specific gravity was 1.075 and the pH was 3.2.
  • In the morning, I added 3.75 teaspoons of pectic enzyme to cherry wine Batch 1, then worked up a Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast starter. Prior to pitching the yeast late at night, the specific gravity read 1.070. I added a half pound of sugar for a grand total of 7.5 pounds of sugar, which raised the specific gravity to 1.077. I also added 3 grams of diammonium phosphate (DAP) to the brew bucket. DAP is the main ingredient of yeast nutrient and I was told that several winebrewers prefer it, because less is needed to boost yeast production. Immediately upon pitching the yeast, a flowery aroma wafted from the brew bucket in the pantry.
  • The chicks have been with us for a week and they've grown a bunch in just seven days (see photos, below).
    
  • I watched Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, where the Edmonton Oilers won, 5-3. The Florida Panthers lead the series three games to two, but the Oilers won the past two games. Game 6 is Friday in Edmonton.

Chicks pictured from one week ago.

A chick as of today with wing feathers appearing.

• Wednesday, 6/19: A Blackberry Check
  
  • Mary walked around our property to check on blackberries. She says there are lots of green berries, a few ripe ones, and a bunch of red berries. There are fewer plants this year, probably due to dry conditions.
    
  • She startled up a young buck deer on Bramble Hill. Mary thinks it was resting in one of the old hog buildings. Its antlers were about eight inches tall.
  • Mary spotted a very large leaf of a plant in the southeast corner of Bass Pond. She identified it as lotus. We don't know if it's Asian or American lotus. Unfortunately, lotus is invasive and can take over an entire pond. We'll probably have to beat it back if the muskrats don't beat us to it. She adds that there are lots of bass in the pond.
    
  • I worked on cherry wine (see photo, below). Batch 1 is fizzing with yeast activity. I squeezed the mesh bag and stirred it twice, today. The morning specific gravity reading was 1.070 and the nighttime reading was 1.063. Batch 2 received strong tea and 3.75 teaspoons of pectic enzyme in the morning. I worked up a starter of Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast for Batch 2. I added three grams of DAP prior to pitching the yeast. The specific gravity was 1.072, so I didn't add any sugar, then dumped in the yeast.
    
  • I chainsawed multiflora rose vines that covered the electric fencer power unit and a massive mulberry bush that grew to completely shade the south windows of the sunroom. Behind the mulberry were several poke berry weeds that extended above the roof eve. They're all down, now, putting better sunlight into the sunroom. I cut up mulberry branches to make stakes for fencing in the far garden.
    
  • There are dead branch tips on the ground, everywhere, which is the result of cicada damage. They lay eggs in these branches, causing them to die back and fall to the ground. Our small cherry trees were hit hard by cicadas.

  

  10 gallons of cherry wine...Batch 2 (left) & Batch 1 (right).

• Thursday, 6/20: Picking First Blackberries
  • When Mary opened the gate into the chicken yard this morning, she saw a juvenile prairie king snake, about 15" long, attempting to capture two mice. The snake was coiled around one mouse. The second mouse was caught by the end of its tail and was dragging the snake wrapped around the first mouse in an attempt to escape. Once it wedged the heavy weight behind a weed, the second mouse broke free. Mary scooped the snake wrapped around the first mouse into a shovel and moved it to outside the chicken fence, so our feathered dinosaur chickens wouldn't eat it. After attending to chickens, she noticed it was eating the mouse. Later, the snake was gone.
    
  • Mary also noticed baby wood frogs hanging out in the bedding plants that she placed on the north side of the house, where it was damp and shady. They're tiny at about a half inch long.
    
  • We picked a handful of ripe blackberries. During a quick check upon returning home, we found we picked up more ticks (about 45) than berries.
  • Winemaking took up part of my day. A morning specific gravity check returned a 1.047 reading for Batch 1 and 1.068 amount for Batch 2. A nighttime check registered 1.029 for Batch 1 and 1.057 for Batch 2. Additional liquid from cherries melting away due to yeast activity is pushing the mesh bags into the flour sack towel covering the brew bucket of Batch 2, putting a red/pink stain on the cloth. I'll be racking wine tomorrow morning.
    

• Friday, 6/21: Racking Cherry Wine Batch 1
  
  • When walking the dogs this morning, a squirrel jumped on the south side of our house. We went down the lane with the puppies. Returning home, there was the squirrel, again, so I reached up with a shovel. It leaped over my head, ran up the power pole in our yard, and sassed at us.
  • I racked about 5.33 gallons of cherry wine, batch 1, for the first time (see photo, below). The specific gravity was at 1.012. The pH was 3.0. Since cherry wine has a history of foaming, I filled a five-gallon carboy and two 1-gallon jugs to where they start to curve in, leaving lots of head room for foam.  Once that was done, I cleaned the largest brew bucket, ran sanitizer through it, and moved batch 2 into this larger container. This allowed more room for increasing juice that floats fruit in mesh bags upward and was touching the towel covering the smaller brew bucket and getting it wet. I washed the flour sack towel in OxiClean and hung it on the line outside. After drying in the hot sun, the red stain was gone in a pure white towel. The early specific gravity reading on batch 2 was 1.039. Before bed, it was 1.022.
    
  • Mary dusted books in the north bedroom and pulled several to donate.
    
  • Plato's right rear leg buckled under him as I let him inside after an outside whittle. We moved his blanket from upstairs to the kitchen floor in the sunroom doorway. Then, he was off the concrete, laying on softer material, and he didn't have to go upstairs. Mary gave him one aspirin, based on his body weight. He seemed a little better by the nighttime walk.
    
  • I watched the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers, 5-1, and force a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals, which will be in Florida on Monday. Bill and I texted each other throughout the game. While Oiler's Defenseman Mattias Ekholm (see photo, below), who is Swedish, was interviewed at the end of the second period, Bill made me laugh with this comment: "Mattias Ekholm's ancestors raided English fishing villages, I mean look at him."

Cherry wine, batch 1, after its first racking.

Mattias Ekholm plays defense for the Oilers.

• Saturday, 6/22: Racking Cherry Wine Batch 2
  • Mary picked a handful of blackberries. She found a number of new blackberry patches across the north field, all with green berries. She picked in the morning, when it was not so hot.
    
  • Mary spooked up four deer in various places throughout our property while picking berries. One, a buck, and the only one she clearly saw, was bedded down near a tree in the west field.
    
  • Right after breakfast, I racked cherry wine batch 2 for the first time. The specific gravity was 1.011 and the pH was 3.0. The temperature of both batches prior to racking was 80°. Ten gallons of wine is now racked and settling down in the pantry (see photo, below).
    
  • Mary saw a crow attacked by one small bird as it flew over our place, The little bird would hit the crow on the back, making the crow drop a bit in the sky.
  • We enjoyed our first bottle of 2023 perry, or pear cider. It's a very light wine with a low alcohol level (5.63%), perfect for a summer drink. It tastes good with a tangy cinnamon flavor and a hint of pear.
    
  • On our last dog walk, a big, bright moon was shining on southeastern horizon with lightning flashing across the sky from the west.
    
  • We received an intense downpour from a thunderstorm right before midnight.
  • Plato is getting a lot better. Some good sleep and a little pain relief seems to improve his leg.

  

  10 gallons of cherry wine settling down in the pantry.

• Sunday, 6/23: Fresh Bread, Fixed Pickup Fan, & New Outdoor Electric Cover
  
  • It's Karen's 66th birthday. I left my sister a couple messages.
  • The junk dealer who picked up a bunch of mowers, the Buick, and the Ford Jubilee tractor, texted me that he will pick up the '84 GMC Suburban from us next weekend.
    
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread.
    
  • I looked up prices on an air conditioner/heater blower fan for the pickup. Prices ranged from $30 to $122 at RockAuto to $216 at AutoZone. Then I learned that the blower motor resistor usually is replaced at the same time as the fan, which is another $40-$50. I went out to check which resistor I have and discovered a plastic tang to bend slightly which allows the fan motor to come out with ease. In the squirrel cage fan mechanism was a pecan shell and a desiccated bird's skull. I removed these items, cleaned dust out of the place the fan fits into, and reinstalled the fan. On a test of the fan with the ignition on, it sounded much better. Online research tells me that the cab's air intake is under the plastic shroud beneath the windshield and the window wipers. At a later date, I'll remove wipers, that shroud, and vacuum any debris out of this air intake. It's a famous place for mice to leave stuff.
    
  • Mary hauled away mulberry branches and rose bushes that I cut down and left on the lawn while uncovering the electric fencer unit and the sunroom's south windows.
    
  • I installed a waterproof outdoor electrical receptacle cover where we plug in the electric fencer. I also replaced the outlet. Breakers aren't marked in the main breaker box, so I plugged a trouble light into the outside plug in and turned breakers off and on until I found the right one. I also discovered that breaker not only involves the outside electric plug in, but also the one in the living room that an air conditioner is plugged into and the one in the upstairs north bedroom that another air conditioner is plugged into. The electric circuits in this house are a nightmare. I applied silicone caulking around the edges of the waterproof cover.
    
  • All 10 gallons of cherry wine is turning dark red as particulates settle out. The airlocks stopped burping. It's time to rack the good liquid off the fines.
    
  • We watched the 2017 film, Darkest Hour.