Oct. 13-19, 2025

Weather | 10/13, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 61°, 76° | 10/14, sprinkles, cloudy, 59°, 78° | 10/15, cloudy, 59°, 79° | 10/16, p. cloudy, 57°, 81° | 10/17, p. cloudy, 61°, 81° | 10/18, p. cloudy, 61°, 75° | 10/19, 0.49" rain, sunny, 45°, 60° |

• Monday, 10/13: Ladybugs & Jalapeño Wine
  • I installed the woodstove's outer casing nuts and bolts to secure it into place. One connection required small hands, so Mary helped. She couldn't get her fingers into place, so she used tape to attach the nut to an open end wrench and I screwed the small bolt into the nut.
  • I didn't deal with the stovepipe. Old stovepipe bolts are #8 hex head screws and the holes they go through in the stovepipe sections are so worn that the screws don't stay in place. I decided I need to move up to #10 x 1/2" hex head screws for better stovepipe connectors. I'll get them during our next shopping trip.
  • Mary washed all of the house curtains and cleaned all the interior house windows.
  • The first of the autumn Asian ladybug invasion started today, so Mary vacuumed bugs from all of the windows. They were thick outside. I always thought that a frost followed by warming temperatures triggered Asian ladybugs to seek out our house, but that's not the case this year. The actual trigger must be fewer minutes of sunlight in the day.
  • Mary picked 60 jalapeño peppers that I made into three gallons of jalapeño wine. A vast majority of these peppers were ripe red (see photo, below). After cutting off stems, I had one pound, 14.52 ounces of peppers. The past two years, 50-60 peppers weighed 2.5 pounds, but that was before stems were cut off. I think I have about the same amount this year. I ground the peppers in Mary's food processor, then chopped up one pound, 14 ounces of black raisins. After putting the peppers and raisins in a nylon mesh bag, dark red liquid oozed into the brew bucket. I added 2.5 gallons and 3 cups of water, 4.5 teaspoons of acid blend to yield a pH of 3.1, 0.6 grams of Kmeta, and four pounds of sugar for a specific gravity of 1.067. The resulting liquid resembled root beer in color. I covered the brew bucket with a flour sack towel and put it in the pantry. A strong pepper odor soon filled the air.
  • While finishing evening chores, I spotted a great horned owl on the top of a cedar tree southeast of the south orchard.

  

  Freshly washed jalapeño peppers in the kitchen sink.
  

• Tuesday, 10/14: Squirrel Hunting & Winemaking
  • Rain was falling right when I opened the curtains after waking up, but it quit immediately. It wasn't even enough to register in the rain gauge.
  • I hunted squirrels before breakfast with five shots that didn't hit anything. Around noon, I tried, again, and shot two big squirrels. The three shots I made in the evening missed the mark, but at least I sent the little demons away. I found a branch from the pecan tree on the ground with husks that surrounded pecan nuts about to open. That's probably why squirrels are on the attack to pecan trees right now.
  • I saw a small doe deer in the north woods near the Boys' Fort Deer Blind this afternoon.
  • I worked on jalapeño wine throughout the day. I added two teaspoons of pectic enzyme to the brew bucket, along with 2.2 grams of diammonium phosphate. I created a starter batch of Red Star Premier Blanc yeast and added healthy amounts of must to it two times. Before bedtime, the specific gravity was 1.078, an 11-point increase in sugar content from yesterday, due to the raisins releasing more sugar. I pitched the yeast into the brew bucket.
  • Mary watched five blue jays escorting a sharp-shinned hawk out of the area and into the southwest woods. She said that they were absolutely silent and surrounding the hawk on three sides. "It was as if they were escorting a dangerous prisoner," Mary said.

• Wednesday, 10/15: Shopping
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL, today. We got a used spray painting device at Salvation Army. We also got a new-to-us rice steamer at Goodwill that looks like it was hardly used. Mary found a Missouri history book and a wildflower identification book at Goodwill. I picked up various woodstove parts at Menards. I discovered that unlike what their website says, O'Reilly's won't take used hydraulic oil, but Walmart will take it.
  • When I hauled the garbage down our lane at dusk, two deer ran off the lane at Bluegill Pond. One young deer stood at the edge of the trees outside the pond and watched me walk by without moving. When I returned home, four deer ran away at that same location.
  • Our Missouri Conservation Department calendar states that the average first frost date in northern Missouri is Oct. 12, which was Sunday. Frost will come later this year.

• Thursday, 10/16: Pecan Nuts & Cleaning Stove Pipe
  • The jalapeño wine is fizzing with intense yeast activity. A hydrometer check 36 hours after pitching the yeast showed a specific gravity of 1.051, a 27-point drop.
  • Mary picked pecan nuts off the trees and from the ground under the trees throughout the day, gathering a significant amount to dry in the upstairs south bedroom. She noticed a lot fewer nut chewings from squirrels compared to what we saw in previous years. Mary also picked up dead branches under the pecan trees to store in the machine shed for future kindling.
  • I dismantled and worked on stove pipe. I took a long wire barbecue grill brush to the inside of each stove pipe section. I also used an old screwdriver and a putty knife to scrape off hardened stove cement at the ends of each stove pipe section, which took quite a bit of time. In past years, I've had to rush this job, because we needed heat at night. That's not the case this year, giving me extra time to do a thorough job. We burned better dry wood last heating season, because there's less soot inside the pipes and no pile of soot where the last stove pipe section goes into the chimney. I hope to finish this dirty job tomorrow.
  • As I cleaned stove pipe sections a little bit east of the Granny Smith apple tree, I occasionally heard walnuts dropping from trees growing on either side of the lane. We had a big nut year and wherever black walnut trees grow, the ground around the base of these trees are covered in walnuts that have fallen. The path between the gardens is filled with nuts (see photo, below).
  • I grabbed the dog bed we stored for several years in an upstairs closet and brought it downstairs for Plato. It was in storage because two cats who are gone, Merlin and Rosemary, were constantly using it as a toilet. After Mary cleaned it with cat urine remover, she stored it away. Plato doesn't go upstairs to sleep on his bed anymore, because he can't manage successfully going down the steep stairs, due to old age. So, his bed is now permanently on the first floor. The big dog bed gives him more comfort. Mocha, our youngest cat, also likes the bed, along with Plato (see photo, below). 

Black walnuts on the path between the gardens.

Plato and Mocha on the large, soft dog bed.

• Friday, 10/17: Stove Pipe Installed
  • We experienced a strong south wind today.
  • Mary picked over half of a bucket of ripe tomatoes from the garden, 10 green, but ripening tomatoes, and some cherry tomatoes. She also picked nine acorn squash.
  • She picked a bunch of pecans nuts from under the pecan trees.
  • I cleaned three partial bucket loads of soot from the inside base of the chimney. Then I cleaned the outside of each stove pipe section and installed stove pipe a section at a time. Stove cement went into each stove pipe connection, along with new stainless steel #10 x 1/2" hex head screws. I finished after the sun went down.
  • Mary watched four wood ducks fly over the cedar trees, just east of the house, heading for Wood Duck Pond.
  • We watched the 2001 film, Monsters, Inc., that we picked up from Goodwill on our last shopping trip.

• Saturday, 10/18: Racking Jalapeño Wine & Woodstove Gaskets
  • Mary picked several more pecans from the trees and off the ground.
  • I racked the jalapeño wine for the first time into a 3-gallon carboy, a 750-ml bottle, and a 12-ounce bottle. The specific gravity was 1.019 and the pH was 3.0. This batch has a rusty/orange color, due to all of the red jalapeño peppers that were used in its making (see photo, below). The wine's yeast is still producing lots of fizz. Fortunately, this wine doesn't foam up with that much fizz like blackberry or cherry wine. Mary and I tasted the tiny bit of liquid left over. It was sweet and warming, but not overwhelmingly hot. It also has a solid pepper flavor. It might be the best jalapeño wine I've made.
  • We watched two big flocks of snow geese fly overhead. The first group was flying due south. The second flock was flying east and dropping for the night.
  • Mary heard a blue jay making a perfect imitation sound of a red-shouldered hawk.
  • I scraped out the old woodstove door gaskets, cleaned the grooves with a wire brush, applied stove gasket cement and new door gaskets. By closing the woodstove's doors onto opened newspapers, the cement dries without sticking the gaskets to the wrong parts of the stove. I also added a bit of cement to where the stove pipe enters the chimney, making sure there is a tight seal at that location.
  • We watched the fifth Harry Potter movie.
  • A nearby lightning strike cut off power for a second and ended our movie watching. Fortunately, we were a few minutes away from the end of that film. We had a good rain after that lightning strike.

  

  A rusty/orange color of the jalapeño wine.
  

• Sunday, 10/19: Clearing Trails
  • The cool weather makes it finally feels like autumn around here, which is nice.
  • When we walked Plato this morning, at least two red-shouldered hawks were calling from a couple different locations.
  • A flock of juncos blew in with yesterday's storm and are here for the winter.
  • Mary froze three gallons of tomatoes. They are destined for future homemade soup.
  • She also brought in the wood rack and some firewood, in case we need it overnight.
  • Mary picked several more pecans. 
  • I used the steel blade on the trimmer to knock down tall weeds and grass on the trail to the ponds. Two tanks of gas in the trimmer got me to where the fence once was into the north pasture.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's 13th British Navy novel, The Inshore Squadron, and started the 14th book, A Tradition of Victory.