Let's do this! Old Town & Walker's Wedding quilts on the docket (& a photo-dump)

 

Behind-the-blogging scenes, Bonnie K Hunter's Old Town 24/25 mystery quilt has been seeing some leisurely activity recently...

But today, Walker's Wedding quilt needs to be #1 priority.  Tick-tock, tick-tock... #OnADeadline!

... a photo-dump from this past week's FRIGID week; #NoSchool on Monday nor Tuesday. 
Whoop-whoop.

Sure... looks like a great morning for a run!

DECEIVINGLY beautiful sunshine

The struggles of long-runs in Wisconsin;  after mile 5, no more hydration - LOL.

no running outside for Monday, though!

YouTube to the rescue!  A 45 minute run through Arizona ensued

Tuesday - #anothersnowday (*cold day) - Wine bottled and racked

Sampling is a given!

Three different flavors bottled; kept them all dry for a change of pace.

Root/Wine cellar restocked

Currants & wine bottling day

As I said I would, although actually surprised myself I did so...
the currant picking began yesterday morning.

Our original two bushes of red currants were planted in 2013 and have now evolved into four full bushes after transplanting some new growth over the years.  Actually, a 5th additional baby plant has also been planted a handful of years ago, but that one hasn't quite hit any solid development yet.

Last summer, I was lazy!  

Yup.  Let 'em go completely.  

The birds were the only ones to enjoy the berries.  

They get to be DAUNTING!

But...

THIS year, with wine in mind and a lil' self-talk, they are being picked.  Completely, is the goal.

This morning was overcast, but quite beautiful all the same for picking... until the storm hit.

Between yesterday and today, enough currants have been picked for 2 gallons of wine (3.5lb/gal); the end-goal is for six, and hubby is onboard with interest, so maybe between tonight and tomorrow, the rest of the bushes will be completed.

The day evolved into another one of those "as-things-happen" days.  Meaning, I had zero plans nor intentions to have today become a bottling day when I woke this morning.  But, after dashing inside just as the storm hit, after washing up the dishes on the counter, after processing the 3 lbs of currants picked, ... the "wine counter" held my attention.  
Yup.  Let's bottle it up today!

I remember really tackling the counter of carboys by bottling it all up last summer (there was probably on the upwards of 30 gals in a variety of flavors on the counter) with the mindset of backing-off from wine-making.  We have quite the loot in the root cellar, so much that I can't imagine ever drinking it all.  Bottles have been given to friends and family... but still, I distinctly remember I had full plans to back away from making wine.

So, surprise-surprise when I uncovered these babies to see that three of them were new starts last summer.

What?!  Goodness!  I truly don't remember starting anything.  ((Hence, another reason why I'm glad to get this blog going again.))  Therefore, only the Rhubarb-Strawberry was bottled, leaving the Plum, Cherry, and Honeyberry for some more settling after racking into clean carboys.

Wanting to stage a catchy, corny photo, but not having fresh strawberries available, and the rhubarb patch is in its midsummer "I-could-look-better" stage... 

We are left with...

Option A corny table view of the frugally collected mismatched set of bottles with 26-year-old wedding photos peering as a backdrop

Option B corny deck-rail resting prop with girls’ playset and cloudy post-rain backdrop.

Rhubarb-Strawberry (2:1) finished

Started: 6/16/23

Bottled: 7/13/24

9%

Next up:  Crab-Apple

crabapple juice preserved from 2019 - received two HUGE burlap bags of crabapples from a friend that year

Although I attempted to keep this one on the lower ABV side of things...
dem apples were clearly a bit on the sugary side.

After this finishes at 0.99, the ABV will end right around 11%.

Yeast planned:  Red Star Premier Cote des Blancs

When people in Wisconsin want peaches... wine-making updates

As some of you may know, wine-making has become an upfront hobby of mine since the summer of 2017 when a family acquaintance 'scolded' me for mowing over our yard full of dandelions.  She shared her brother's Dandelion wine recipe with me, and truly......as the saying goes, the rest was history.  Some of my favorites since then... the 2018 Cherry is ranked #1 followed closely by the 2018 Currant, but this 2017 Banana was just bottled last month after aging for 3 years.  Yummmmmmmo.

The root-cellar wine racks are just about filled right now after bottling the 3-gallons of banana ('17), 6-gallons of Cherry ('19) and 3-gallons of Blueberry ('19) recently.

2019 Cherry

The emptied carboys from the recent bottling were supposed to be set aside for the Cherry and Currant harvests this summer, but a friend has a BEAUTIFUL rhubarb patch that she rarely makes a dent in, so she invited me over to save her the guilty feelings of watching it all go to waste this year.  Besides, it's her MOM that is the family acquaintance mentioned earlier 👍

A morning of rhubarb picking lead to a freezer full of fruit. A few days later, the fruit was thawed, placed in my steam-juicer (one of my best purchase decisions last summer!) resulting in enough juice for a 6-gallon batch of Rhubarb wine.

a few of the wines underway

So, back to the title of this post...
It's not common to see Peach trees growing in Wisconsin; there are some, specially in the southern parts, but we cold folk up here in the north don't have much luck due to the higher chances of late spring frosts.  Enter: the Pearson Farm of Georgia.  Working together with the Tree-Ripe Fruit Co.,  truckloads of peaches are shipped up to us poor peach-deprived people of the northern states a few times over the summer, so when the truck arrives....

... you wait in line.  But SOOOOOO worth it!

A few days of these ripening on the table should get them all good -n- ready for the 2020 batch of Peach wine in addition to some canned peaches 💛

Weeeee! Today WILL be a "me" day!

I know I'll come back to this post in as little as a month and say.....'WHAT was I thinking?!?!?!"

But.....LOOK!!!!!!



The first substantial snow of the season!!!! {{and as you can see, it's still coming down}}
{and WHAT ever happened to sleeping in on Saturdays?!?!?! I was wide awake at 5:50 AM....and stopped fighting the will to lull myself back to sleep at 6:10}} And THIS is what awaited my eyes....



DH was dutifully getting the yard snow-ready yesterday; we knew this snow was going to come. However, the deck toys didn't get put away yet.


Today......it WILL be a ME day! I just told DH (who is also awake) that I hopes he doesn't mind the disarray of the house, because I ONLY have intentions of being downstairs today. His response...."I don't care."
Weeee!!!! Yippeeeee!!

I can't even tell you what I all have planned because (again) I haven't really been down there much. I know I have Judy's June Mystery on the floor yet.....but this Bonnie Mystery (Roll, roll, cottonboll ??) is probably going to see a little bit of time in the order of fabric selections. And then, I'm also thinking that Alycia's Veteran's Rail Fence quiltalong will also see some time today.

On a final note.....any of you wine drinkers? DH has added another "first" to his list of accomplishments and bottled his first batch of wine this week after allowing it to "brew" (? is that the word we use for wine????) for the past couple of months.

My analysis-----YUM! REALLY REALLY YUMMY!

SO....off to print out some directions, and then, OFF to start my day.

Happy Snowy Saturday (depending where you live)