Odds and Ends

Canning apples

We did some more canning of the York apples yesterday.  Katherine and I peeled and sliced up a little more than 13 quarts worth of apples and canned them in a light syrup.   We have another 1/3rd of a bushel left, I think.  Probably enough for another 6 quarts.  They were going bad, an we lost about 24+ apples to rot and damage.  The apples that are left are in somewhat better shape so maybe they will produce more.  I decided to can in syrup as opposed to apple pie filling because 1)  I don't trust the apple pie filling recipe (although non-one has reported any issues and the ones I did make seem to be fine), and 2) this lets us use the apples for other purposes rather than just pies.

Winter Wheat status

I removed the row covers from the winter wheat.  All that I can say is that I must not have planted enough - it is pretty sparse.  I am thinking maybe on planting some more and just letting it come up in the early spring.  I don't want to plant it in the spring because the weather usually won't cooperate (snow on the ground or garden soil too wet, etc).

Here's some pictures:

Deer Damage to Trees

The deer have been wreaking havoc on the unprotected trees!  They damn near totally destroyed the "wild" elderberry bush over by the big patch.  They evidently use them to clear their antlers.  Here are some pictures of my poor spruce trees:

Kale Survives!

Wow!  This kale survived the 18F temperatures last week!  I was going to harvest it last week to give some to Chris Murray, but I ran out of time (we were rushing home to avoid getting caught in a snow storm that never showed up!).  I hope it tastes ok!

Wine Updates

I got a filter and a bunch of wine finings (clarifying agents) to try to get the pear wine cleaned up a bit.  I got 4 of these 2-stage SuperKleer K.C. (SKKC) "kits" - 1 pouch of Kieselsol and 1 pouch of Chitosan - enough for 6 gallons on wine per kit.  I followed the directions on the kit:  1 pouch Kiesesol mix in gently, then wait 1 hour and mix the Chitosan with 1 oz warm water then combine into the wine.  The kit directions indicate that it should work within 48 hours, so I won't see anything until I come back later this week.  It's Thanksgiving week, so I will be back Wednesday (I hope)!   I also got a 1lb package of Sparkolloid powder.  If these two fail to clear the wine I will try the filter (actually, I will probably filter it regardless!)

Super-kleer K.C.  Sorry the picture just won't rotate for me!

Sparkolloid.  Same issue with picture!  Weird

I won't use this until later - I nee to give the finings time to work.   Arg!  I really want to try it now!

The two bottles of pear wine in which I doubled the pectic enzyme

The bottle of pear wine with half the pectic enzyme added after fermentation (it has SKKC in it now, as well - but its not been 24 hours yet)

The remaining concord.  I am thinking of fining this and the filtering - just to compared with previous batch that I didn't fine or filter.