Busy weekend - cold snap here

Leaf gathering

I finished my duty as acting TA for the division on Thursday.  I had Friday off for CWS.  I got up a bit early on Friday and ate a good breakfast of leftover Chinese food - lol.  I was sitting on the couch either playing video games or watching tv when I notice the sound of a large truck in the neighborhood.  They have been doing some water-main repairs a couple of streets over so at first I didn't think anything of it.  Then it got louder - like it was getting close - within a block.  So i got up and it suddenly struck me that maybe it was the leaf gathering crew.  I check out the front door and sure enough - they were VERY close - going down the other side of the street!  I rush to get my rake and started raking up the front lawn to try to get my leaves out before the truck got to my side of the street.  I worked furiously and did it!  The workers actually helped me finish raking a small part of the lawn on the far side of the driveway.  Whew!

Anyway, we got out the door and up to the farm around 12-1pm-ish.  I soon started vacuuming up the leaves in the front lawn of the farm.  Unfortunately I had to stop and take care of some mechanical issues. The blade on one side keeps coming loose for some reason,  I tightened the blade and continued vacuuming a bit too aggressive into the woods - up the trail down by the persimmons.  Well, i got the mower stuck - stuck real good!  I eventually had to go get the UTV and pull it out.  in the course of pulling out the mower I bent the front mower mount so much that the front of the mower deck was dragging the ground.  So I had to stop and re-adjust the mower deck.  I finally got everything back up and running.  I vacuumed the leaves so late that I had to use the headlights on the mower, but I got the front lawn done!

Cleaning the chimney

I gt up the next day and decided I had better get the wood stove chimney clean - they were calling for very cold weather!  I got up on the ladder and used my "new" chimney brush to clean from the top side.  It doesn't reach all the way down, but I did what I could.  The top of the chimney didn't look too sooty.  Then I went inside and started cleaning the horizontal pipe that leads up to the chimney.  That was filthy.  I had to use the wet/dry vac to vacuum-up the soot.  There was a lot of dangerous soot that I needed to get out of there.   Once the soot was cleaned up I reassembled the stove pipe (making sure that the flue vent was working right this time!)   I think everything is in good shape now.  I didn't start a fire though because my sinuses were in rough shape from all those leaves from the day before.

Digging out the Taproot radishes

Mom had expressed interest in trying the tap-root radishes last weekend, but I forgot to get some for her until it was too late.  So this weekend I made a point to dig some up for her!  I dug up about 5 nice ones.  I tasted them again - not great, but not horrible either.  I am just not a big radish fan.  We did end up dropping them off for her late Sunday.  I have no idea what she is going to do with them

Shelling the sunflowers

While I had the leaf vacuum set up, I decided to shell the sunflowers out using the cyclone rake.  It worked, but not as well as I had hoped.  All of the stuff pretty much stayed together - i was hoping that the seeds would separated from the chaff more clearly.  Also, I noticed that some of the seeds were shelled out - separating the kernel from the seed!  I will have to winnow the mess out later.  I just put it all in a tarp and stored it in the garage for now.

Digging out the shop wall

I decided to risk damage to the shop wall by using the backhoe to dig out the mass of dirt there,  I just didn't have the time to do it by hand.   I dug down until I hit a gravel layer.  I accidentally bumped the bucket into the concrete block wall and the wall flexed a bit!  I went inside to check to see if there was any damage and found none.  In fact, it looks like that bumped caused the wall to re-normalize - there is no longer any offset where the wall had pushed in some last year!  There is still some cleanup to do by hand, but that can wait.  the most important thing right now was getting that weight off the wall before water got behind it again and pushed it even further in!  It should be safe from that now.

Re-attaching the satellite cable

I got the co-ax cable out and started the process of re-attaching the satellite dish to the house.  It took awhile but I finally figured out how the co-ax plug-tool worked.  I got it all connected and ran the line up to the house after marking a "safe route" to bury the cable.  I started digging the cable in but I ran out of daylight.  I was, however, able to finish the in-house work and re-attached the satellite dish to the modem.  I called Hughes Net and had them re-activate my service.  After the service was restored I did some speed checking and found everything worked as well as it did before!  Whew!  I still need to finish burying the remainder of the cable but that will have to wait until next time.  I had an appointment Sunday to help Chris get some walnut wood off John's property.  

Walnut Wood

Chris Murray and I headed up to John Mahaffey's farm near State College PA on Sunday morning.  We got there and I sawed down the tree while John and Chris pulled on the rope.  I had to leave the saw when I noticed that the tree was pinching the chain - it was leaning the wrong way!  I ran to help them pull the tree toward them - whew - it worked!  The tree came down where John wanted it.  We trimmed off the stuff we wanted.  John helped us load it into the van using his front loader.  We zipped back to my farm as quick as we could - we were afraid the weather was going to be uncooperative!  We got back to my farm and ate a delicious lunch that Katherine had prepared for us.  Werested only a little before I took Chris on a whirlwind tour of the farm on the UTV.  Of course, the UTV ran out of gas on the FAR side of the big field - ARGH.  Anyway, we finished the tour and got back to work unloading the walnut wood from the van.  The  damn stuff was leaking sap all over the place and had soaked into Chris and my coats!  I used my tractor to unload the logs and stack them on the locust wood pile next to the garage.  They need to lose some of their liquid before we can doing anything else.  I would like to saw them into boards ASAP - but I am still waiting on the sawmill from the guy in Michigan!

Funeral and lots of work

Funeral

Aunt Reva passed away Wednesday.  She was 90 years old.   We took mom to the funeral on Monday and stayed for the wake.  I already had Tuesday off, but I did make arrangements at work (since I am still acting TA) to take Monday off for the funeral.  Was good to see some of my cousins again.  Some of them I don't think I had ever met before.  Joe Smith was there, I don't recall ever seeing him before.  He lives in Colorado now.  He came in Saturday for viewing and funeral.  The funeral and afterword pretty much ate up my Monday.

Front drainage tile installed!

I finally got the front drainage tile installed!  I have had the front yard dug up for almost a year now, so it was about time to finish it!  I really needed the backhoe for this job.  As you saw in a previous post, I dug the rest of the drain line a couple weekends ago, but this weekend (Sunday) I dug out the line from the house to the drain line (there are 2 connections from the downspouts and sump pumps to the drain line - one at each end of the house).   I put the tile in and placed some fittings to try to work out if I needed anything else - I did!  I needed more tile!  I wanted to get 2x20 ft lengths, but TSC only had 100ft lengths.  I also bought some work gloves, an outdoor thermometer, and 9 fiberglass electric fence posts.  More on the fence later.   So here are the pictures of the project:

After using the backhoe to dig the ditch for the far end of the house.

Connecting up the sump and the downspout

All set up to start backfill!  

Looking out toward the far end of the house

Looking down from the corner toward the "Y"

The "Y" joining the two sides of  the drains

Looking toward the end of the drain line

After back-filling on Monday morning

Looking up toward the house.

After Monday morning - looking down to the end of the drain

Finally all done!  Looking down to the drain end

Smokey is checking it all out!

Last of the Veggies?

I got down to the paw-paw patch before I left and harvested some Brussels sprouts!

Only 2 of the 4 plants seemed to have any on them

This is cool - this and one other came off of an early plant that had sprouted out!

And still more broccoli!  Fantastic!  I think I might have harvested a couple pounds.  They are smallish heads, but they seem tender and I ate one and they taste good!

Sauerkraut canning

We got up to the farm afternoon on Saturday (I had to be in at work Friday because I am acting TA so I wasn't able to head out early - and its too dark now to head out afterwork Friday!)   The ground was a bit wet so I didn't think it would be a good idea to start work in the drainage project.  I did see some electric fence down due to deer damage, but there is really nothing for the deer to harm inside the fences so i let the fence repair wait until later.  I checked the kraut and found a scum on the top and I freaked a little bit - BUT... it was fine, not mold, I think, but smelled like the kraut.   I cleaned off the scum and proceeded to can the kraut!  Woohoo - 19 quarts of kraut from 41 lbs of cabbage!  Nice!

Deer fencing issues

I found the fence around the elderberries torn up a bit, but not too bad.  Had to replace a couple of posts, but all in all a quick and complete repair.  However, the fence over by the grapes and orchard was in bad shape.  The wire was actually broken!  I bet some deer got caught in it and freaked out when he got shocked.   Bedsides the broken wire, there were several posts broken and the new fiberglass posts that I had just installed a couple weeks ago had the insulators/wire holders torn off!  The fiberglass posts fared better than the original posts though.   I decided to change the outline of the fence a little bit to surround the grape vines as well (and maybe make it a little easier to mow).  I needed more electric fence posts which I picked up Sunday morning on our trip to TSC.  I had to re-arrange the wires a bit so they wouldn't short out on the metal parts, but it is working now.  All the fences are back on.  I do, however, need more deer-pops now!  Sorry. I didn't get pictures, but its really not that exciting. :)

Missing weekend explained

Missed a weekend due to some health issues.   

On Wednesday I didn't eat anything from about 11:30 am on until about 7 (?) pm.  Ken was over to the house and I broke out the wine.  We ate a delicious dinner that Katherine prepared.   We had Kale and some cheese ravioli in our own home canned tomato sauce - it was all very good!    Too good.  I ate double portion of the kale and drank the entire liter of wine all by myself!  We went to bed around midnight.  Then around 4:30am, Smokey needed to go out and started barking.  Kathrine took him out and about that time I decided I needed to pee.  I went into the bathroom and noticed that my stomach hurt and I was feeling nauseated.   I felt like I was going to vomit so I knelt in front of the bowl.  Next thing I know I was waking up and Katherine was on the phone with 911!  She said that I had passed out and was having seizures!  I felt like I had simply blacked out and tried to convince her of that, but no go.  The paramedics arrived and checked me out quick, but to be safe they suggested that I go in with them.  So I did.  2 CAT scans, bloods test and hours later it was determined that I had only passed out and that I had no signs of having had a seizure.  Evidently it is not uncommon to "spazz" a bit when you have blacked out and that is what Katherine mistook for a seizure.  Whew.  None-the-less, I went into see Dr. Li Thursday and he wants me to see a cardiologist.  Also gave me blood test prescription for damn near everything I think,  I got home and made blood test "reservations" and went to them the next day, Friday.  The cardiologist office actually called me to make the appointment!  I made it for Nov 11, but they called later and had me move it until Nov 24th at 11:15am (which works perfectly since I have a dental cleaning that morning).

Anyway, Katherine wanted me to stay this weekend and since I needed to be back early (Monday starts my acting TA duty) I decided to stay.  Also, Friday was Halloween and Katherine would have her hands full of taking care of Smokey and doling out candies to the weenies.   Although, as it turned out, we got NO weenies at all!  I think that is the first time that's happened.  Maybe it was because Halloween fell on a Friday this year and there were parties being held that absorbed all of the kids?  I was able to start on making some shelving for the canned goods for downstairs and I worked on trying to get our toilets back in shape.  I finally got the hall bathroom toilet to stop leaking around the bowl-to-tank bolts by using some silicone grease between the rubber washers and the tank surface.  The master bathroom toilet got a new fill-valve and new water fill line.  That stopped the leak from tank but then the flapper valve started leaking pretty bad, so I replaced that.  It still leaked!  All I can think of at this point is that the overflow pipe and the tank-to-bowl seal should be replaced so that I can get a decent flapper valve seat installed.  I am pretty sure its leaking BELOW the new seat.  Anyway, that's not critical so I am letting that sit until winter when I will probably get stuck down here in town.  I also replaced a bunch of the fluorescent tube light bulbs out in the shop and downstairs.  They were all burned out.  I bought an 8 pack and used all but 2.

More apple canning and my backhoe is home!

Apple pie filling

I found a recipe online that looked interesting and didn't require apple juice (the Ball recipe requires apple juice).  the recipe doesn't call for blanching the apples, but cold packs them in quart jars, and THEN proposes to pour the thick sauce over the cold apples!  I made 7 quarts this way.  I had to remove the cold apples from the jars and alternate packing apples in and pouring the thick sauce over top.  I water bathed quarts for 40 mins because 25 just didn't seem long enough for raw apples!  One quart jar didn't seal so I brought it back to taste.  It is good, but i really am going to keep an eye on these!  The next time we are going to use a Ball or similar recipe!


A better recipe may be found on NCHFP.

My Backhoe is home!

Yep!  They finally delivered it Saturday afternoon.  I was getting concerned because by 1 pm i had heard nothing.  I started doing the leaf vacuum thing and was well into it when i saw the truck pull up!  It really wasn't that expensive a fix - they replaced several leaking hoses and rebuilt a hydraulic manifold.  They also serviced the engine, looks much nicer and has considerably more power!  I am very happy!

My baby is home!  I parked it there because i need to use it more in the next couple of weeks!

The Drainage ditch

The next day I put my backhoe to work digging the drainage ditch I had put on hold since last fall!  This ground is stony and well packed so a backhoe is needed to dig it up!  The backhoe did a great job!  I need to clean up the ditch a little and then lay down the tile.  I will have to wait until next weekend though.  There just isn't enough time this weekend.

First leaf gathering of the fall

I fired up the cyclone rake and mowed/vacuumed up the leaves in the front yard.  Nothing unusual.  The grass was a bit taller than it should have been for optimal performance (the vent screen got clogged a couple of time due to grass clippings).    Looks and smells much nicer now.  More leafs are coming down though, so I am sure there will be more vacuuming in the future!

First corking of my concord (well, any) wine!

I finally got the equipment I needed to cork my wine (and the wine was ready - I think) so away I went!  I only did one of the carboys of concord as a test.  The other one was topped off with the leftovers from the first carboy.  Even though I didn't go through a whole carboy of wine I still managed to fill 2 cases of bottles! The second carboy can be bottled at my leisure now since its topped off tight.  Here are some pictures of the setup:

Bottle tree loaded with bottles.

This is a gadget that holds sanitizer and can shoot it up into the bottles.  Very handy!

Here are the bottle after corking.  First 1-2 days they are kept upright.  Then they are stored on their sides.

Bottle rinsing attachment for the sink.  This allows one to clean a bunch of bottles very quick!

I didn't get a picture of the floor corker.  I will try next time I am up at the farm!  It all went fairly smoothly.  It is quite a production though.  Very messy.  Many rags/towels were used!

Pear wine

I racked the first batch of pear wine into a narrow mouth bubbler/carboy.  I added another tablespoon of pectic enzyme to help it clear - its still very hazy.   We will see how it looks next weekend.

I went out to the garage and gathered the remaining pears.  Good lord!  They were ready and there were lots!  I weighed them out after trimming the bad spots and cleaning - all told I ground up 80 lbs of pears for wine tonight!  Counting the first carboy that makes a total of over 120 lbs of pears!   I added double the pectic enzyme to both of the new batches of pear wine to help in the haze issue noted in the first batch.  I did not add any acid to these batches.  I added sugar to get to a SG of about 1.060, as called for in the purple book recipe for "perry".  I used Cuvee yeast since that's what they call for with champagne.   This should be a drier wine.  I need to get some more champagne bottles for this though - I only have 24 champange bottles!   I should probably get more claret bottle for corking too!

Apple caramel jam and plumbing problems

Plumbing problems

The Toto toilet in the hall bathroom has been leaking for a while and I finally decided to act on it after seeing our last water bill (it was more than double the prior bill!)  The issue was a faulty fill-valve.  I ordered a replacement Wednesday, rush order - overnight for extra $6.  I received the valve Thursday evening and proceeded to install.  OMG - the toilet is one of the long ones and its almost smack up against the wall.  There is no room to get  your hand or any tool back there to un-couple the water supply from the old fill-valve!  I ended up taking the tank off the bowl and replacing the fill-valve and the water supply connections before re-seating the tank on the bowl.  This meant that the tank-to-bowl gasket had to be re-seated - BUT - that gasket, as well as any other rubber based material in the toilet, was showing signs of decomposition due to the chlorine in the water (I suspect).  In any case, the leaf from the fill valve was fixed but then there was a leak from the tank to the floor!  I searched online and found a local store that had a replacement for the tank-to-bowl gasket.  I removed the tank again and installed the gasket.  I wanted to use new tank bolt gaskets too, but the kit I got didn't have the right size gaskets.  Well, partial success.  The leak slowed down, but now I noticed that the flapper vale was also leaking.  So i got a new flapper valve and installed it.  That fixed the leak into the bowl from the tank, however, the leak from the tank to the floor was only partially "healed".  Katherine gave me the news that there was still a slow leak from the tank to the floor on Saturday.  I looked online for the correct tank-bolt gaskets and found a place in CA that sold them - but they are back-ordered - possibly for a week!  In the meantime we are just going to have to turn off the water to the toilet between flushes.  Sigh.  I hate plumbing.

For the record, here is some info on the toilet and parts:

toilet:  Toto "pacifica" model ST804S
replacement fill-valve: TOTO TSU99A.X Universal Fill Valve 
replacement tank-to-bowl gasket: 9BU024E
Tank to Bowl Mounting Kit: TS810DV2

City beets!

I finally harvested the beets from my raised beds down in the city (Silver Spring, really a suburb).  I just picked and cleaned them off a bit then left for the farm.  Katherine cooked, diced, and vacuum packed and froze them.  I estimate she did about 2 quarts.

Caramel apple jam

I went up to the farm late Friday because of the above toilet issue.

I was pretty tired after the long 3 hour drive, eventually recovered enough to try a recipe for caramel apple jam.  I peeled and chopped 6 cups of York apples  (some of mom's I picked last weekend).  I followed a recipe that seemed to be fairly popular on the web (I should have read more of the reviews first, in retrospect! ) 

Anyway, I found that I needed to add more water to the first step (cooking the apples), as many people had commented in the recipe reviews.  Also, very subjective as to when the apples are boiling because even with an extra .5 C water you are still looking at a fairly dry mass of apples!  I did the pectin thing and canned and water bathed the half pint jars 12 min.  I got 8 pints from the recipe.   I tasted a little that remained and was not impressed.   Nothing caramel about the taste!  I must have messed something up because the jam did not set!  Well, some didn't.   Some jars seem more set than others! Weird.  I'm thinking I might puree this stuff up with some apples and put it in dehydrator to make a apple-leather.  Not a recipe to repeat!

8 half-pints

Obviously, this did not set correctly!

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. 

Pear wine and potatoes

Wine

Well, it's still Columbus day weekend, so I decided I would bite the bullet and do a batch of pear wine.  I looked at the pears yesterday and saw so many green ones that I had pretty much decided to wait until next week when they were riper.  Especially after reading online that over-ripe pears are best.  But I considered that there are some pears that are ripe now and some that are even overripe and will rot by next weekend...

So, I sorted through the pears until I had about 40 lbs (I used the bathroom scale). Then I washed and cut the bad spots out, then washed again and ground them up.  I placed the pulp in the nylon bag in the square fermenter.  I used the purple book recipe, but I deviated a bit.  Here is the recipe I essentially used:

• 40 lbs pears - ground up and placed in nylon bag in fermenter - this is DOUBLE what the recipe calls for!  These pears don't seem too juicy
• 2 gallons water (I may add more after I do first fermentation and remove the bag of pulp, if needed to get the 5 gallons I want)
• 4 lbs sugar (I brought the S.G. up to about 1.095, about where they advise it should be - I may add more sugar when I re-rack depending on taste.  Before I added sugar the S.G. was about 1.04)
• 4 tbsp acid
• 4 tsp pectic enzyme
• 5 tsp nutrient
• 5 campden tablets

The rest of the recipe was followed as written.

Sorted out the ripe and damaged ones.

Here is all that is left - probably another batch like this one?  Perry next time, I think!

More canned taters!

I finally got around to canning the rest of the "seconds" potatoes.  Some were looking might rough.  I really should go through and re-sort the "good" potatoes too, but I will do that later.

I got 17 pints!  Looking good now:

Once the starch sets, things will cloud up significantly, I am sure!