A November to Remember

(Written in December)

Every month I review my journal entries to compose a post on this website.  You might notice that there are a lot of entries for November.  That’s because the website crashed during a power outage on Friday the 13^th in November.  I had just changed the bottled wine page to replace out sampler 12 pack with a sample 3 pack.  But the crash took out those changes and everything for the previous 3 months.  Maybe there is something to the Friday the 13^th phobia.

At any rate this site is back but a lot of catching up led to everything being behind schedule for December.  I could go on about everything that is late but then I would be even later.  So moving on…  

Our main wood guy, Joe Cooper, brought us 6 cords of wood.  We had some really cold days and 12 inches of snow in that same storm on the 13^th.  So the woodshed was full of really good wood but we have burned a cord since then.

            Cheryl celebrated birthday number 71 at home.  Our daughter April and family came over to celebrate at a distance and brought gifts and BBQ.  So we all had a good time and since that was over a month ago and none of us got sick, it was safe and sane. 

            Food is also good to have going into winter and I noticed that there were notes about food in many of my journal entries.  November is the Thanksgiving month after all and food is another good thing to stock up on for winter.

            So is wine.  Although this was not a great wine year, some friends brought me a big crop of Marquette, a grape that I don’t grow but it is cold hardy, has beautiful color and makes a nice red wine.  Like most of my wines and for that matter, probably several other events in November, it will be a couple of years before we know how it turns out.  All of the wines I made this Fall were started from their own natural yeast. 

            In a related experiment, I used yeast from the wines I was making in some pancakes.  The color was a mellow mauve and they tasted good, but they don’t rise as quickly as from baking powder.  More like sour dough.

            There was also a lot of apple cider and wine, compost, biochar and mulch going on too in November and on into December, but later for that. 

            We did send out our annual Christmas newsletter and you can get a copy here if you didn’t get one in the mail.

            I hope everyone had a great Christmas and that we are all caught up by New Years.