Thanksgiving weekend

First Snow of the season!

Katherine and I drove up to the farm Wednesday afternoon, through the first snowstorm of the season!  The GPS directed us up through McConnellsburg instead of the usual Breezewood route.  We stopped at Save-a-lot at got some pork and a country ham!  They had great prices on the pork and ham.  We also got some Chinese food from Main Moon.  It was pretty good!  Here are some pictures from the farmstead after we arrived:

Attic Vents

Well, I did a lot more out in the shop other than simply build these vents.  I assembled the large shelving that I got at Walmart last year and used it to hold the stuff from the old crooked shelving next to the radial arm saw.  Then I straightened out the old shelving and braced it (as best I could) so that I could put something on it without fear of a collapse!

front view of the restored little shelf

back view of the restored shelf

I also put the radial arm saw up on the roller-stand that I purchased when I got the one for the table saw.  This time it went together quite quickly.  I also unpacked the chop-saw (its NICE!) and the small drill press that I had purchased earlier this year but never got around to using.  I used the chop saw to cut up the reclaimed pine boards to make the attic vents.  Below are some pics of the vent building jig and the vents themselves.

I put the jig on a piece of scrap OSB.

Oh, and I finally got to use the air-powered nail
guns and staple guns!

here you can see the stack of cut pieces i used to assemble the vents.

And here they are!  Well, this is one

both together

both together - another view!

I found some exterior paint (primer too!) and was going to paint these today, but I decided to patch the holes with some wood putty instead.  The putty takes a while to dry and needs to be sanded before I paint, so painting will have to wait for now.   Even though they are somewhat out-of-square and a bit rough, I am happy with this accomplishment!  I still need to make the mounting frame and of course, paint everything, but so far so good!

Pumpkin Drying

I dried some more of the pumpkins.  The house was very humid due to all the breathing and cooking! I let the dried pumpkins sit in the dehydrator too long after they finished and they re-absorbed some moisture.  This extra moisture made it hard to get a good fine grind in the vitamix.  None-the-less, I got a bunch stored away and vacuum sealed in mason jars:

Grain Grinding

I also brought up the NutriMill grinder so that I could grind up some of the corn and wheat for bread and stuff.  Here are some pics of the finished products.

Corn meal on the left, flour in the center and right

close up! lol

 Thanksgiving with the family

We had our family thanksgiving celebration on Saturday the 29th which was also Mom's birthday!  Tom, Julie, Connie, Mom, Katherine and me all ate too much and talked loudly at each other - lol, good times!  Unfortunately Ben wasn't able to come along since he was out hunting deer.  He called during the shin-dig and reported no-luck that day.  His back was hurting him bad - I hope that doesn't develop into a real problem!

Katherine made pulled pork and candied sweet potatoes - we were going to make a pie and some kind of dried corn casserole, but we reflected on how much food we always have (too much) and decided to pull back a bit!

Katherine spent most of the time cleaning the house - she did a great job.   Things are finding there places now.  I still need to build some shelving to hold the canned goods.

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.

More apples and planer upgrade

Was a rainy start this past weekend,  but that was ok since I needed to install my new Shelix head cutter on my delta 22-540 planer!

Took a while to break down the planer and clean it, but it went together much faster.  I needed to get a set of clip ring pliers at the hardware store,  but I'm glad I got them there, they had a nice pair with multiple attachments!

Planer much quieter and goes through oak like butter and leaves nice smooth finish!   I  planed the paint of some pine boards mom gave to me -the planer did great!

Apple update

I went over to mom's on Sunday morning to pick up some canning jars and some apples.  I picked about 2 bushels of York  apples.  They look pretty good.  I wanted can some apple pie filling but I didn't have any clear-gel (special starch used frequently for canning).  I did process 10 pints of apple slices in syrup for just eating and making apple crisp.

Weekend Plantings

The ground was pretty wet, but I was able to plant garlic and wheat in the front patch.  I mulched the garlic with wood chips.  I put row covers over the wheat since it's late and I was afraid of freeze.  Also, so many crows around I figured they would strip it clean!

I also trimmed around the blueberries and put a bunch of wood chip mulch down for them.

Pear wine

I removed the pear pulp (must) from the fermenter and wrung it out.  The fermentation got it down to S.G. 1.010 from 1.095 so it did well this past week.  Lots of cloudiness though.  I'm thinking of adding more pectic enzyme to see if that helps.  I  racked into a new big mouth bubbler.  I saw it bubbling so I know it's still working.