Having Helpers Home

Over Thanksgiving Jake and Allie came home. We only had one serious day of work, and it came after Allie left, but we got a lot done. Trusted friend Jorgen lent me his Stihl chainsaw-on-a-stick and we cleaned up the Lacebark Elm trees lining the driveway. Then Jake helped with the annual task of putting up the greenhouse plastic.

I've run out of washers for the green clips, we'll see if we can pick up some replacements at the hardware store. We're trying an experiment this year; we're leaving the south end uncovered, just a single layer of tempered glass, to see if we can let more light in without sacrificing too much heat.

Thanksgiving 2016

Adam stayed in Florida with Joy's family for the 2016 Thanksgiving, but Jake and Allie were home. I think we were all hoping for a better November, as both the election and The Game didn't have the desired outcomes. Still, it was great to have everyone together.

The weekend had an inauspicious start. 

The sole occupant, not from our family, was unhurt. Not sure the tree will survive however, as the wound is large and deep. It takes a lot of alcohol to total a car without leaving the yard.

On to the food.

The new breakfast dish had apples and pastry topping. Easy and delicious.

Breakfast casserole is tradition.

I finished some limoncello that has been sitting in the closet for a long time. Vanilla is the secret ingredient.

For the first time, we smoked our turkey. The turkey was injected, and thus the big controversy was over whether we should wet brine it starting the day before. In the end, I gave it a 12 hour soak in a diluted wet brine, then smoked it for 6.5 hours around 275F. 

It was good, but not that smoky. All of the online sources say the perfect smoking turkey is 12# and we used a 20# bird. So maybe next time we'll try a little smaller bird.

We drank 2015 Elderberry-Blackberry with dinner and while nobody commented on the wine, the bottle was emptied, so I think that is a favorable review.

Before the weather turned on Sunday, Jake and I got some outside work done. We did some fence repairs, adding a fifth board where the cattle are still pushing under the fence.

Then we rented yet another great tool, a T-post driver, and went to work in the vineyard.

With this tool, the in-line T-posts went up in under 2 hours.

The cattle watering trough is gone, replaced by a hydrant. We're almost ready for grapes. In April we're getting 36 Norton and 36 Vidal Blanc, for 2 rows of each. I'm also trying Frontenac, Marechal Foch, Chambourcin, Traminette, and grafted Chardonel.

On the winemaking front, MLF of the Chambourcin and the Syrah was more or less complete 2 weeks ago.

 

Today we hit both batches with Kmeta and racked off of the oak. Naturally, we sampled both. The Chambourcin has a deep color, medium body, firm tannins; it tastes of dark berries with a nice long finish. The Syrah is, oddly, light in color and body; tannins are soft, and it is quite fruit forward jammy. While it is lighter than I was aiming for, Lisa will love this wine.  Jake too! Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2015

The kids were home for Thanksgiving, along with Bob and Sharon.  We took a couple of hours and got the greenhouse tucked in.  Lychee should have gotten the necessary chill hours over the past 2-3 weeks.  Citrus is ripening.  We've got a handful each of calamondin, Meyer lemon, and kumquats.  

The grapefruit are the size of olives.  And the chocolate pudding fruit (Diospyros nigra) is the size of a tennis ball yet hard as a rock and split.

In an hour we got the insulation up.  In a second hour we chased the calves out the the yard and repaired the fence. That was the extent of the work done over the weekend.

Adam has become a photographer, and the good pictures are almost certainly his.

We didn't stray far from the standard fare...turkey, stuffing, strawberry jello, seven-layer salad.

We made as much wine as we drank and we sent Sharon home with another dozen bottles, different varieties and styles.

Thanksgiving

For the first time in ages, all of the Pierce kids, Allie, Jake, and Adam, home at the same time.  Betty and Jake's friend Charli came, too.  It was a great Thanksgiving, and yes, it did involve a little wine and a little food.

We bottled Joe and Barb's loquat wine.  This wine is very interesting.  The fruit comes from Joe and Barb's loquat tree to the north of their house.  Jeanna and Charlie helped pick the fruit, and Barb carefully packaged the frozen loquats and shipped them so that they arrived in perfect shape.

When thawed and fermenting, loquat wine smells unmistakably like amaretto.  That is why some recipes call for the addition of almonds in the secondary.  The amaretto smell fades however, and by the time this wine was a couple of months old, unfortunately, the smell was gone.  I was left with a decent wine which was very troublesome to clear.  Time did the trick, and finally, at 16 months, it was ready for tweaks and bottling.

The tweaks were centered on restoring that amaretto smell the loquat had early on.  I bench tested almond extract and backsweetened, but finally settled on simply flavoring it with a tiny bit of amaretto liqueur...just enough to pick up the smell and hopefully no extra bitterness.  I figured that it was justified since after all, amaretto is Italian.

 

We also finally got around to my 5 gallons of white catawba.  This was hand made straight from grapes from the Books vineyard down the road.  This wine was challenging, however, because by the time Lisa and I got there to pick the ends of the rows, the grapes are a little past their prime, as the pH was a ridiculous 2.93.  What I should have done was adjust the pH right at the beginning.  I didn't know better, and I forged ahead, pressing the grapes and fermenting off of the skins for a straight white wine.

It was sharp!  So I tweaked.  In an effort to get some balance, I backsweetened it a lot.  I also gave it a tropical twist with a slight infusion of passionfruit in an attempt to counter the foxiness.  In the end, it came out pretty good.  It won't be a wine for pasta meals.  More likely a wine for spritzers and spicy Asian food.

We experimented with food as well.  We had the usual Pierce Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, dressing, strawberry jello, and 7-layer salad.  With the leftovers, we tried a new breakfast idea.  Leftover stuffing is pressed into a muffin tin to make a thick crust. Then an egg is cracked into the center.  We topped with leeks and cheddar cheese.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until the egg white is cooked.  Excellent.  Happy Thanksgiving.