Dec. 1-7, 2025

Weather | 12/1, 2" snow, 20°, 25° | 12/2, sunny, 13°, xx° | 12/3, xx°, xx° | 12/4, xx°, xx° | 12/5, xx°, xx° | 12/6, xx°, xx° | 12/7, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 12/1: More Snow
  • Light snow fell all day, adding up to about two inches.
  • A nice aspect about fresh snow on the ground is all of the wild animal tracks that you see. Based on the tracks, bunnies are very active and we have quite a collection of deer wondering through our lawns. Tracks show that one deer walked right up to the west living room window. Our normal collection of deer ate pears under the Kieffer tree at various times through the day.
  • We took the day off from doing much of anything.
  • We watched two movies, which were Miss Potter (2006) and Little Women (1994).
  • Mary and I realized that this is the first time we've been without a dog since 1993. There are some activities that become automatic with dog ownership for us, such as walking the puppy first thing in the morning and before going to bed. Walking outside at night is something I really miss. Each time an apple is sliced, the urge is to feed a piece of apple core, minus the seeds, to the dog (Plato loved apples). 

Nov. 24-30, 2025

Weather | 11/24, 0.05" rain, cloudy, 43°, 54° | 11/25, 0.31" rain, cloudy, 45°, 51° | 11/26, p. cloudy, 31°, 37° | 11/27, sunny, 21°, 39° | 11/28, cloudy, 14°, 37° | 11/29, 12" snow, 27°, 31° | 11/30, cloudy, 15°, 25° |

• Monday, 11/24: Autumn Chores
  • Coyotes were howling to the east and southeast during the morning hours.
  • Mary added hay to the chicken coop floor in preparation for cooler temperatures predicted later this week. She also moved a bag of chicken feed, some grit, and oyster shell to the coop.
  • When I drove the tractor yesterday I noticed vapor coming from the radiator and smelled antifreeze. This morning I checked the radiator and could see liquid, but I added a little over a gallon to fill it. I need to do a better job of regularly checking antifreeze levels in that tractor, because the 8N Ford's engine was obviously overheating, yesterday. 
  • Mary raked leaves and added four wheelbarrow loads to the compost bin.
  • When I walked down to the mailbox, several Bob White quail flew away from nearby cedar trees.  
  • I moved several loads of dry firewood from the machine shed to the woodshed. Then I split the ash firewood logs that were sitting next to the splitter and stacked the split pieces in the machine shed to dry.
  • We watched two movies, which were Trading Places (1983) and The Holiday (2006).

• Tuesday, 11/25: Shopping...Again
  • A young barred owl sat in a maple tree in the east yard in the early morning hours while we were outside. Blue jays harassed it.
  • I drove to Quincy and got fresh veggies for our Thanksgiving meal. I also picked up a kitchen faucet at Home Depot. Our current faucet is 10 years old and leaking. It's old enough that new cartridges for it are non-existent. Stores were pretty busy with shoppers. I also canceled the protection plans on our cell phones. It's just an added expense that make no sense for us. We keep phones on a shelf while we're home and look at them at breakfast and in the evenings. We're not hauling them around with us much at all. I gassed up the pickup at Lewistown on the way home. It was $2.55 a gallon.
  • I realized once I arrived home that I forgot to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. Damn! 
  • Mary cleaned house while I was gone.
  • A cold front rolled in after dark and west wind gusts hit over 40 mph. I woke at 4 a.m. (11/26) with the house shaking on a huge wind blast.

• Wednesday, 11/26: Plato Died
  • Plato died at 3:07 a.m. (11/27/2025). He hasn't eaten for several days and hasn't accepted water for three days. Today, he would walk outside, but collapse. Two of us would carry him inside. We stayed with him in shifts after dark to comfort him. Plato was the best pup we've ever owned. He got along with all animals. Cats rubbed up against him all the time. Plato was easy to train and obeyed extremely well. He will be greatly missed.
  • Bill showed up around noon. He's maybe here for five days. Anywhere from 6 to 11 inches of snow is predicted this weekend, along with wind gusts over 20 mph. Bill might leave early for his home to avoid getting snowed in at our place.
  • I drove to Quincy and got a prescription and some winemaking ingredients. Shoppers were thicker than yesterday. Wind gusts over 40 mph blasted from the west/northwest, giving me a tailwind on the way to town and a headwind driving home.
  • We watched two movies that Bill selected. They were Grumpy Old Men (1993) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). 
  • I left partway through the last movie to comfort Plato, who was at the other end of the house on his bed. He didn't like heat from the woodstove for the past couple days. When the movies were over, Mary and Bill joined me, so I went to bed around midnight and set the alarm for 4 a.m. to relieve Mary. Bill retired at 1:30 a.m. Mary woke me at 3:20 to have me help her move Plato after he died. We put him in the back of the pickup and locked it up. Bill and I will dig a grave tomorrow.

• Thursday, 11/27: Thanksgiving 2025
  • Bill and I dug a grave for Plato near where Mary and I buried Amber in January. I peeled out clay ground with a mattock and Bill dug out the lumps with a shovel. We finished within 30 minutes of eating turkey dinner. Bill and I were both sore and tired. I'm sure glad Bill was here to help. He mentioned it was the second time he dug a hole through the Thanksgiving holiday. The last time was when Bill helped dig out our waterline when it had a major leak.  
  • Mary fixed up a marvelous Thanksgiving meal with a big turkey that gave us several leftover meals of meat. All dishes tasted wonderful, including our homegrown sweet potatoes. We had a bottle of cherry wine with our meal.
  • Bill picked out the 1998 film, You've Got Mail for us to watch. Mary grabbed a Keeping Up Appearances Christmas show that we watched while eating pumpkin pie.

• Friday, 11/28: Collecting Firewood
  • A leftover from Thanksgiving Day is a photo (see below) of Mocha and Gandalf on the top of the fridge staring at Mary, who at that moment was carving a big turkey.
  • Bill, Mary, and I spent the day cutting and hauling firewood. Mary and Bill first looked for dry firewood to the west. Mary reported several pieces west of the house in the woods south of Frog Pond, so I drove the tractor to the edge of the woods. We took two wagon loads out and stacked most of the firewood in the woodshed. We were all very tired after a day of firewood work.
  • An immature bald eagle flew over us at one point. 
  • Mary gave the chickens more hay on the floor of the coop.

  

  Turkey vultures, Mocha & Gandalf, watching Mary carve a turkey.

   

• Saturday, 11/29: Foot of Snow and Christmas Decorating
  • We experienced heavy snow from the time we got up until about 2:30 p.m. At times, big wet snowflakes the size of golf balls fell to the ground (see video below). We're estimating that we got a foot of snow.
  • Bill wanted to get his car down to the end of our lane, so he and I first walked down the lane to the gravel road. A lone tire track in the snow on the gravel road showed that someone drove down it a couple hours earlier. Bill and I put chains on the rear tires of the tractor after unhooking the trailer and moving it aside. Installing chains on the big-lugged tires is not easy and takes over an hour. Meanwhile, Mary shoveled out all of the trails from the house to various buildings.
  • After we got chains on the tractor, I drove up and down the lane to mash down the wet snow. I drove four times up and down the lane. The tire chain connection on the inside of the left tire caught on a bolt sticking through the through the tractor's fender, so I stopped, got tools, and Bill and I removed that bolt and rewired the connection on the chains. I finished smashing all of the snow down.
  • Bill easily drove his car to the end of the lane and parked it next to the big cedar tree next to the gravel road.
  • After snow quit falling, huge flocks of robins filled our yard and area trees.
  • Mary made three pizzas that we devoured as we played several hands of Rummy. We also enjoyed the last of 2024 apple wine. It was a perfect pick by Bill to match the taste of pizza.
  • The three of us put up the Christmas tree and other decorations around the house as we listened to Christmas music.
  • Once decorations were up, we ate the last of the pumpkin pie and enjoyed a bottle of parsnip wine.
  Big snowflakes falling.
  The sounds are from the woodstove contracting in the heat.
  

• Sunday, 11/30: Bill Travels Safely
  • Bill decided he wanted to leave around 1:30 p.m. to give him plenty of daylight time to get to his St. Charles apartment. He and I walked down the lane and then east on the gravel road to beyond our neighbor's house. A couple tire tracks were in the snow on the gravel road. One was a vehicle with aggressive tread for tires, providing potentially good traction. Most importantly, snow levels dropped significantly since yesterday to about 4-5 inches deep. After a midday meal of turkey leftovers, Bill went to leave, but his car had no traction. We got out his shovel and dug out under his car, which was high centered on snow that froze into a chunk. He asked that I drive while he pushed and on the second attempt his car rolled free. He drove slowly out of sight. When he called from Lewistown to inform us that he made it, Bill said that the mile of driving on the gravel road was the scariest driving he's ever experienced. He was fishtailing the entire stretch. Later, when he texted from his apartment, he said the deepest snow was right at our house.
  • We hope future days off for Bill are a little bit more relaxing. In five days, he experienced a pet's death, digging a grave, trudging firewood out of the forest, digging out of a foot of snow, chaining up a tractor, and skiing in his car down a snow-covered road. 
  • In the afternoon we watch four deer pawing at the frozen snow under the Kieffer pear tree while munching away on yummy pears. The fruit must taste good. The deer were there for probably an hour.
  • One, or all of our pullets are laying little eggs. We're getting one egg a day and that started on Thanksgiving Day.
  • The regular mob of robins were in our yard before dark. They really like taking shelter in the big cedar trees. 

Nov. 17-23, 2025

Weather | 11/17, p. cloudy, 31°, 54° | 11/18, 0.05" rain, cloudy, 43°, 57° | 11/19, foggy cloudy, 42°, 51° | 11/20, 0.06" rain, foggy cloudy, 44°, 50° | 11/21, 0.46" rain, fog, 45°, 49° | 11/22, p. cloudy, 29°, 50° | 11/23, fog, sunny, 33°, 57° |

• Monday, 11/17: My First Deer Hunting Session
  • I went deer hunting from the Boys' Fort Deer Blind in the north woods. A deer stepped away from me as I walked the trail to the blind, then I heard a deer walking to the northwest of me that also snorted a couple times. I could tell by the loud foot falls that it was a large deer...probably a big buck. I caught glimpses of several other deer, but they were always covered partially by tree trunks or heavy brush, so I couldn't get off a good shot. No bullets were wasted this morning. Another deer snorted at me from the bottom of the hill west of the blind. I saw the head of that deer for only a second or two. Leaves were falling in the woods like snow with a strong southeast wind blowing my scent into the deer. Easterly winds make the Boys' Fort a poor choice, as I learned today.
  • Meanwhile, Mary took a photo (see below) through the storm door of our house of a young deer eating grass about 20 feet away.
  • Mary startled a barred owl in the lawn during predawn chores. I saw a barred owl fly across the lane in front of me while I was getting mail this evening. About that same time, Mary watched a juvenile barred owl chasing an adult barred owl. The young owl was screeching like they do when they're asking for food.
  • I took husks off 36 black walnuts, let them dry in the sun, then stored them in an old milk crate.
  • I split some ash firewood. It's not dry enough, so I stacked it in the machine shed. Some hickory firewood I stacked in the machine shed a couple weeks ago is now dry and I took a wheelbarrow load to the house. The inside north wall of the machine shed is an excellent location for drying wood. There's always a breeze through there that helps dry wood quickly.
  • Mary picked up more pecan nuts. It's hard to break that nut-picking habit when you hear them cascading out of trees and hitting the tin on top of the grain bins.
  • Today's high temperature was too hot and tomorrow morning low temperature will likewise be too warm for easily handling venison meat, so I didn't hunt this evening and I decided against hunting tomorrow morning. We're shopping on Wednesday, so no hunting tomorrow evening, either. A St. Louis TV station had a report that the opening weekend's deer hunting numbers were low, this year, due to temperatures averaging statewide at 70°, which is 20° warmer than the normal Nov. 15th temperature. Deer aren't moving around as much, plus hunters going after venison meat are concerned with high heat spoiling the deer carcass.
  • I finished the 14th book in Alexander Kent's nautical series entitled A Tradition of Victory.

  

  This young deer, a button buck, was feeding on grass
  just outside our door while I was hunting this morning.

• Tuesday, 11/18: 2nd Racking of Pear Wine
  • Mary heard three great horned owls hooting when she walked Plato this morning.
  • I cleaned up several winemaking items that were in the west room. I used alcohol to clean up several airlocks. A 5-gallon carboy with dried-on residue took a lot of elbow grease to remove the crud.
  • I racked the pear wine for the second time. The specific gravity was 0.999 and the pH was 3.3. A huge amount of fines were in the bottoms of the 5-gallon carboy and the 1-gallon jug. The remaining liquid went into a 5-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jugf, and a 12-ounce Jarritos bottle. I added one gram of Kmeta. The black raisins I used in this pear wine gives it more of a yellowish orange pear color. I used golden raisins in the past. The darker raisins add a nice flavor to this pear wine. Mary and I really liked the wine when we tasted the leftovers.
  • Mary and I picked over 100 pecan nuts off the ground under the pecan trees.
  • Mary worked up a shopping list for our visit to Quincy, IL, tomorrow.
  • Some idiot tied a dog to a post to the west of us. It barked from late afternoon until dark. Hopefully it wasn't a coyote snack. Mary heard six shots in succession north, northwest of us. Either a hunter missed the mark several times, or the result was a mass of venison hamburger.

• Wednesday, 11/19: Shopping
  • One of our four cats, I don't know which one, landed on the side of my face and the base of my right hand last night with claws fully extended. I woke up for a second, but immediately fell back asleep. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror first thing in the morning, I had dried blood down my face in several spots. I cleaned it off with running water and a wet paper towel. Then I thoroughly dabbed hydrogen peroxide on all of the wounds. Everything healed nicely. 
  • We went shopping in Quincy, today. The highlight of the day was purchasing three over-20 pound turkeys for 84 cents a pound. Our freezer now stores four turkeys to help with our yearly meat supply. Of course, one is destined for our Thanksgiving dinner.
  • Stores were real busy with shoppers. You'd swear it was a day before a major holiday.
  • We picked up five movies at two thrift stores.
  • After getting home, emptying the pickup, and doing evening chores, we worked up a big batch of popcorn and watched one of the movies we bought today. It was the 2007 film, The Jane Austen Book Club. This is a good movie.

• Thursday, 11/20: Foggy Grey Day
  • We had heavy fog all day. It was really thick during the mid- to late-afternoon. Right before darkness fell, I couldn't see the Kieffer pear tree from the west living room window.
  • We heard two flocks of snow geese flying overhead this morning. 
  • Mary cleaned the inside of the fridge.
  • I cleaned carboys and winemaking items. Two carboys that once held apple wine had dried residue near the top. They're made with ridges that indent the inside of the carboy and when these areas are filled with gunk, it's very hard to clean. I ended up using hot water and OxiClean and let the carboys lay on their sides with the dried junk sitting in the solution for several minutes, then scrubbing that same area with a bent bottle brush pushing a washcloth into the grooves. It took a long time.
  • I watched a Missouri Department of Conservation Webex on how to identify winter sparrows. It was excellently done.
  • Mary ran into a doe and two grown fawns at three different times while doing evening chores. Conditions continue to be poor for handling venison meat, so I haven't hunted except for one morning this deer hunting season.
  • I ordered a Carpathian walnut sapling from Fedco, along with a seed catalog and 50 strawberry plants.

• Friday, 11/21: Cleaning, Labeling, & Storing Wine
  • We received rain for most of the day. 
  • One of my two blood glucose monitors has a loose button battery that sometimes gives me an error message. Last night while trying to fix it, I lost the battery down the bathroom sink drain. This morning I fished the battery out of the S trap under the bathroom sink. I cleaned the trap with a bucket of water out on our lawn, put it back in place and cleaned the sink, counter and mirror.
  • Mary swept floors and cleaned the kitchen sink.
  • I put on rain gear and slogged down our lane in the rain to get the mail. Partway down the lane, a UPS truck met me and drove on up to the house to deliver a package, then left. Rain was really pouring while I was outside.
  • I made waffles for our midday meal.
  • We got evening chores done real early.
  • I labeled five pea pod wine bottles and 56 cherry wine bottles. I shuffled other full wine bottles into various coolers to free up space and gained three empty coolers that I used to store these new bottles of wine. While I did all this, I listening to music on the record player.

• Saturday, 11/22: Harvested a Button Buck
  • I hunted in the Boys' Fort Deer Blind, arriving at about 6:15 a.m. It was calm. Soon after getting settled, a pack of coyotes howled all around me. Some were just through the trees north in a field. About 15 minutes later, I saw the white flash of a tail as a deer ran away to the west of me. Immediately after that I watched an animal with a blunt nose run into the woods northwest of me. I think it was a bobcat. Finally, I caught glimpses of two deer walk north quite a ways west of me. I heard several flocks of snow geese flying overhead.
  • As we ate a late breakfast, we watched up to four deer eating rotten pears that are now under the Kieffer pear tree. They left and returned several times. Apparently slightly alcoholic pears are addictive to deer.
  • I hunted at the Wood Duck Deer Blind in the afternoon/evening, showing up around 3 p.m. A southwest wind blew right down the dry creek bed and out onto Wood Duck Pond. I noticed several big squirrels and often heard them chewing on nuts. About 15 minutes after the sun set, three deer walked out of the woods just a few feet south of me. I aimed, click, and no discharged bullet. I repeated two more times as the deer walked towards me, stamping their front hooves. Finally, I realized that the safety was on in my rifle. I turned off the safety, aimed, and shot a button buck in the heart. The other two deer didn't run off right away. I aimed at a second deer, but decided that one deer was enough to butcher in one session, and didn't shoot a second time. I texted Mary that I got a button buck and walked home. On the way home, several turkeys flew out of the tops of cedar trees next to Bramble Hill.
  • Mary was waiting for me when I got home. She'd already gathered knives, a saw, and several pairs of latex gloves. I changed to sloppy clothes while Mary walked down to the deer to help with field dressing. Her flashlight went dark as she first saw the blind. I told her the deer was just a few feet south of the blind, so she went to the blind, then moved south through the brush until she stumbled onto the deer. She said howling coyotes were approaching. Mary isn't frightened by them, but wanted to guard the deer from gnawing teeth, so that's why she hurried to it. They left with the sound of me approaching on the tractor.
  • After field dressing the button buck, Mary and I hauled him through the east woods and loaded him in the wagon behind the tractor parked at the bottom of Bramble Hill. At a resting spot while hauling the deer, I pointed out a buck rub that was on a 10-inch diameter cedar trunk. A huge buck must have rubbed his rack against that tree. With a lit hat light, I walked Mary through the cut in the fence next to the north field where she could make it home, then walked back to the tractor and drove it home. We wash out the deer's cavity with a garden hose and hung the deer in the machine shed. A lone coyote was howling west of us. We'll be busy tomorrow handling venison meat.
  • After eating a late supper, we enjoyed a bottle of 2024 cherry wine. It has a beautiful red color and tastes great.

• Sunday, 11/23: Processing Venison
  • We noticed a great blue heron flying overhead when we were outside with Plato.
  • Mary and I processed venison meat from the button buck deer that I got yesterday. Overnight temperatures were perfect at just above freezing. I skinned off the hide and noticed that my shot entered the deer's right shoulder and existed higher the deer's neck. So, one shoulder was no good. This was a deer with a long body and patches of black hair. The meat seemed quit tender as we deboned it. We froze 36 packages of venison, which is very good for a yearling deer. We decided that I'll try to get another small deer. I can foresee the text now..."I got a deer and it's kind of big!"
  • Rain is predicted tomorrow and the next day, with a chance of snow in the forecast. We decided to wait until after Thanksgiving before considering going hunting, again. 
  • When I drove the deer carcass and hide to the north woods in the wagon behind the tractor, I saw three deer bounding away. Our property is messy with deer, especially yearlings. I think it was an excellent year for baby deer.
  • There is reduced hunting pressure from nearby properties. The nephew of the owner of the land east of us isn't there anymore. His cinch straps that were permanently holding the stand to a honey locust tree killed the tree. When the tree fell down it took the stand down with it and bent the stand up in a rusted heap. I never hear shots from the trailer parked just north of our property line, nor do I ever hear guns going off from the stand just west of our west property line. Rich, who owns land adjacent to our southwest property corner, didn't hunt this year. I think most everyone is hunting for racks instead of meat and does and young deer aren't hunted at all. I saw a recent survey that in 2008, over half of Missouri hunters sought meat. Today, only 17 percent hunt for food. That explains why deer don't run after a gun goes off. They're unfamiliar to the sound of a rifle.

Nov. 10-16, 2025

Weather | 11/10, cloudy, 17°, 35° | 11/11, cloudy, 25°, 51° | 11/12, sunny, 35°, 62° | 11/13, sunny, 35°, 64° | 11/14, sunny, 47°, 74° | 11/15, p. cloudy, 58°, 71° | 11/16, sunny, 30°, 53° |

• Monday, 11/10: Wood Duck Blind is Ready & Bottling Peapod Wine
  • We had a real hard overnight freeze. Leaves dropped off most of the trees, except the oaks. Whole collections of leaves tumbled out of the pecan trees at almost every second.
  • Mary picked a lot of pecans off the tree nearest the house. Those pecans are larger and possess thicker husks, which squirted juice with every squeeze. "Man, was that messy!" exclaimed Mary.
  • I weedwhacked the rest of the Wood Duck Trail, cleaned leaves out of the Wood Duck Blind, stuffed grass in gaps in the hog fence surrounding the blind, wired a lauan wood roof to the blind, and put several oak branches with leaves over the roof and weighed them down with heavy sticks. That blind is ready for deer hunting season.
  • On the way to the blind, I saw eight wild turkeys walking on the trail near the north field. They flew in several directions once I got too close to them.
  • At twilight, three deer were looking over the south orchard apple trees while smacking their lips. I ran outside and clapped loudly to send them running.
  • I racked the peapod wine for the fifth time and bottled it. The wine is still a little hazy. The specific gravity was 0.990 and the pH was 3.2. The alcohol content is 12.445, which is rather high, caused by the very low final specific gravity level. I corked five bottles. Mary and I tasted the remaining wine. This wine needs a lot of aging. Right now it has a strong alcohol flavor. It's actually a complex taste. It's flowery, with a citrus accent, along with an essence of grape Kool-Aid, which is odd! The color is yellow/green (see photo, below). I'll hide it for a year and then give it another taste.

  

  2025 peapod wine in a clear bottle.

• Tuesday, 11/11: Bottling Cherry Wine
  • A strong southwest wind blasted through most of the day.
  • Mary picked pecans from on the ground and off the tree nearest to the house. She used a ladder to get up higher on limbs of the tree. She said she's officially done picking pecans.
  • I racked and bottled 11 gallons of cherry wine. It amounted to seven hours of work, ultimately corking 56 bottles. The specific gravity was 0.995 and the pH was 3.0. The alcohol content is 10.15 percent. I added 1.1 grams of Kmeta to the wine from the 6-gallon carboy and 1 gram to the wine from the 5-gallon carboy and the 750-ml bottle. Mary and I drank the leftovers, which was an amount just shy of 750 ml. It has the strongest cherry flavor of any cherry wine I've ever made. It's also very smooth, which is amazing for a newly bottled wine. This will be a great wine, well worth the effort of picking all those cherries and making the wine.
  • Bill called with dates of when he's visiting us for the two upcoming holidays, which are Nov. 26-28, and Dec. 24-26.
  • Katie and Mary sent texts back and forth in the nighttime hours. Katie showed several photos of the aurora dancing above Anchorage.

• Wednesday, 11/12: Pears, Begone, & Cleaning Guns
  • Mary tossed all of the remaining Bartlett pears out of two drawers in the chest of drawers on the upstairs landing. It was just too many pears for us to eat before they went bad. Fortunately, Mary put plastic down on the bottom of each drawer.
  • Mary raked mulberry leaves near the entrance to the chicken yard and put 12 wheelbarrow loads into the compost bin, covering rotten pears.
  • Mary watered the dry rows of garlic in the far garden.
  • She also poured a 40-pound bag of sunflowers into buckets that stay inside the chicken coop.
  • I used the loppers to clip tree branches and autumn olive saplings along the gravel road that were hiding purple paint, which indicates no trespassing to hunters. The Asian ladybugs were so thick that on some tree trunks, I counted 100 bugs in a one foot area.
  • I cleaned the two 30-30 rifles. In the process, I broke my cleaning rod and bent the 30 caliber gun cleaning brush. It's an aluminum cleaning rod I got from Mary for Christmas back in the 1990s when we lived in Roseau, MN, so it lasted a long time. Fortunately, I cleaned the rifle with the longest barrel first before it broke. The two remaining sections of the rod were long enough for me to clean the rifle with the shorter barrel.
  • I measured from the corner of the trail to the ponds where it first turns east and then whacked tall grass and weeds for just over 100 feet to get me the total 100 yards I need for sighting in the two 30-30 rifles.
  • In the evening, I finalized my Christmas wish list and sent it to Katie and Bill. I also ordered a gun cleaning kit for myself for Christmas. I just can't look at it or open the package until Dec. 25th. 
  • We heard flying squirrels talking to each other in the pecan trees when we walked Plato on his last outing before bed. They sound like squeaky birds.

• Thursday, 11/13: Sighting in Rifles
  • Mary mowed part of the front yard and mulched a row and a half of garlic in the far garden.
  • I used a 100-foot measuring tape to accurately measure 100 yards on the trail to the ponds. Yesterday's measuring was nine feet off, so I whacked down another 10-12 feet of tall weeds. Then, I set up a target clamped to a saw horse at the 100 yard mark and my rifle rest on a Workmate portable work bench. I loaded the rifle rest with several boxes of shotgun shells. The lead in these old shells gives the rest plenty of weight to keep it from moving. I sighted in both 30-30 rifles. The adjustments of the scope on the short barreled rifle doesn't seem to change the end result. I made no adjustments on the long barreled rifle...it was spot-on.
  • I watched a fly tying Webex detailing scuds and midges. Scuds are tiny freshwater crustaceans and midges are tiny flies, but spend most of their life in water. They had a camera that needed an update which was discovered immediately prior to going live, so they tried using a cell phone's camera to show tying details. It didn't work very well, so they verbally described how to tie the fly. Interestingly enough, two hairs from moose mane are the best material for making these tiny flies. They will present a series of beginning fly tying classes starting in January. Sign up starts on Nov. 17th and they limit it to 20 participants. I'm going to attempt to get in that online class.
  • Mary and I got Santa's elves lined up to make presents for Christmas.

• Friday, 11/14: Making Salsa & Finishing Deer Blind Prep
  • Mary made salsa, canning 14 quarts. One pint of unprocessed salsa went into the fridge. I tried a little of it and it's quite yummy. With warmer outside temperatures, she had some windows open to let out the moist air from steam coming off the the canner, that boils water for 90 minutes.
  • I took the small chainsaw east to the dry creek bed and cut out several willow trees that fell over and blocked the way. It helps open up a walking area for deer. There are a ton of deer tracks in the sand of the dry creek bed.
  • After whipping up waffles so Mary didn't have to cook a meal, I took the trimmer east and cleaned up a trail to the dry creek bed, then walked south on that bed and cleaned up a trail from it to the East Woods Deer Blind. I wired some chunks of wood into the east wall of that blind and replaced old cedar branches at its entrance with oak branches with leaves attached that I cut a few days ago on the Wood Duck Trail. The East Woods Deer Blind is now ready for the deer season, thereby finishing all deer blind preparations.
  • Tomorrow is the start of the main rifle deer hunting season. I noticed a bunch of traffic on the gravel road at twilight. The head hunters (those who are only after a big rack to hang on their wall) have arrived. 
  • I watched a Webex session on identifying waterfowl in Missouri. It involved extremely basic information. Again, a software update made things difficult for the presenters.
  • Mary and I did more encouragement to Santa's elves during nighttime hours. They're getting slightly testy with us.

• Saturday, 11/15: Salsa Batch #2 & Tractor Maintenance
  • Mary made the second batch of salsa, resulting in another 14 quarts. The push is on to finish three batches prior to my deer hunting, when spending all day whipping up a batch of salsa is out of the question. Three salsa batches is enough to keep us supplied for one year.
  • I did maintenance on the 8N Ford tractor. First, I cleaned up battery clamps with a wire brush, then attached the clamps and tested starting the tractor. The new battery spins the motor over quicker than the last battery. Next, I cleaned the four spark plugs and reset their gaps. I was startled to discover three of the four plugs weren't tight. I'm sure that decreased engine compression. Again, on the test start up, the engine ran much better. Tractor engine maintenance at this time of the year helps it start when it's needed to help move a deer and the temperatures are colder.
  • I set up lights in the machine shed in preparation to butchering deer.
  • Today was the first day of the main rifle deer hunting season and it was extremely quiet in the morning. We heard three shots right after sunset. One involved four shot, three of which were quick shots to the northwest. That usually indicates someone trying to shoot a running deer, which usually doesn't work. 
  • Mary and I watered the garlic. We're hoping the rain predicted for us in the next couple days results in actual moisture.
  • I called Mom on her 91st birthday. Hank drove in from Glasgow, MT, to help her celebrate with a nice cake. She and three other November birthday folks celebrated birthdays at the Circle Senior Center. Hank took her out for dinner before leaving for his home due to snow mixed with rain coming down on the highways. Mom and some other friends were off in the evening to a Glendive Community Concert.
  • Mary and I ordered the final Christmas presents. We like to get it done early enough for items to arrive before the Christmas shipping rush.

• Sunday, 11/16: Salsa Making is Finished
  • We must be home to hundreds of blue jays. We saw a continuous supply of them out all of our living room windows this morning.
  • Mary finished making salsa by cooking up another 14-quart batch. This time, one quart jar didn't seal, so it went in the fridge to be eaten, soon. She was very happy to be done with this chore.
  • Mary also finished mulching all of the garlic by mowing the rest of the front lawn and moving grass clippings to the far garden.
  • I sharpened eight knives that we'll use for field dressing and butchering deer.
  • I collected 85 black walnuts to add to our supply. The nuts under walnut trees between the gardens grew to a very large size this year.
  • The spider balloonists were plentiful while we were outside, today. 
  • I got items, such as outdoor garments, ready for hunting deer tomorrow morning.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of spiced apple wine.

Nov. 3-11, 2025

Weather | 11/3, p.cloudy, 34°, 61° | 11/4, p. cloudy, 39°, 68° | 11/5, sunny, 49°, 60° | 11/6, sunny to T-storm, 0.02" rain, 30°, 62° | 11/7, sunny, 46°, 67° | 11/8, cloudy, 0.06" rain, 36°, 52° | 11/9, sunny to cloudy, 25°, 33° |

• Monday, 11/3: Ladybug Invasion Begins
  • We picked more pecan nuts. Mary gathered several in the morning and in the evening. I grabbed some from above the first bin roof during our morning collection.
  • I cut down a medium-sized hickory that had bark shedding, so I knew it was dead. The big Stihl chainsaw did fast work at sawing it up. Six pieces went into the machine shed next to the woodsplitter. The rest went into the woodshed. It amounted to two wheelbarrow loads.
  • Mary finished popping the last two varieties of garlic in preparation to planting it.
  • The Asian ladybug invasion of our house began (see video, below). It's a yearly event that starts on the first warm day in autumn after a killing frost. 
  • I moved tall cut grass with a wheelbarrow to the Boys' Fort deer blind and filled holes in the hog fence surrounding it with handfuls of grass to block a deer's view of me.
  • Mary spread compost on the three future rows of garlic in the far garden and turned all of the soil in the western first row. 
  • I used a pitchfork to move weeds I cut yesterday off the trail between the ponds and weedwhacked head-height lespedeza weeds on the Wood Duck Trail. I got to Bramble Hill.
  • I checked the pear wine and squeezed the nylon mesh bags. The specific gravity was 1.048.
  • We saw the twin deer that hang around the house on the lane during our evening walk with Plato. Several minutes later, while walking to the compost bins, I heard deer thundering away on the other side of the cedar trees. That was probably those same two deer.
   
  Asian ladybugs on the south living room window.
  

• Tuesday, 11/4: Planting Garlic & Racking Apple Wine
  • Mary picked pecan nuts off the ground in the morning and evening.
  • I racked the apple wine for the third time. It had a specific gravity of 0.998 and a pH of 3.0. I lost a wine bottle's worth of liquid and put the must into a 3-gallon carboy and a half-gallon jug. Mary and I tasted the leftovers. It had a lemon flavor and was very tart. The apple taste will come out with aging.
  • Mary planted the Siberian and Georgian Chrystal garlic varieties in the first row of the far garden and turned over the third row's soil.
  • The battery was dead, again, on the 8N Ford tractor. I set up the charger, then marched east with the big chainsaw and eventually reached the cedar forest prior to what Mary calls the Banana Field, a clear cut area just west of the dry creek bed. Dead trees I thought were there have all decayed, so I walked north, then west along a gully. Finally, close to the old cow barn, I found and cut a dead cherry tree. I walked back, started the tractor, then drove it to the cherry tree, loaded the trailer with firewood, hauled it home, unloading seven trunk pieces next to the woodsplitter, with the rest in the woodshed. I NEED TO BUY A NEW BATTERY!
  • I saw an American kestrel fly overhead as I was at the cherry tree. It eyeballed me, then flew on. 
  • Mary vacuumed Asian ladybugs from inside the house for the second day in a row.
  • I moved downed weeds out of Wood Duck Trail that I cut yesterday.
  • While I was near Dove Pond, I heard whistling sounds from duck wing beats as they took off. Mary looked it up and that's probably the sound of common goldeneye ducks that are migrating through here. 
  • I checked the pear wine. The specific gravity was 1.039, so it's brewing along, slowly. This is good. Slow brewing produces a better taste.

• Wednesday, 11/5: Firewood & Garlic Planting
  • Mary picked up more pecans with morning and evening nut searches.
  • I removed the air conditioner in the upstairs north bedroom.
  • The oven baking element came via UPS and I installed it. The old element really looked fried where it burst into flames.
  • Mary planted two more garlic varieties. They were Music Pink and German Extra Hardy.
  • I drove the tractor and trailer to just east of the old cow barn where a large dead ash tree stands that has six trunks and cut down one of the trunks. After loading the firewood, I ended up with a three-quarters full trailer of wood. Several big pieces went to near the woodsplitter in the machine shed, while the rest was stacked in the woodshed.
  • Today, the 8N Ford tractor started, probably because I never shut the engine off once I got it running yesterday, thereby fully charging the battery. I'm still getting a new battery, so I can depend on starting it when I need to when cold temperatures arrive.
  • The rising full moon was huge this evening. Mary took a nice photo of it (see below).

  

  A large full moon viewed from our east yard.

• Thursday, 11/6: Eye Exam & All is Well!
  • I went to Quincy for an annual eye checkup. I have 20:20 vision in my right eye and 20:25 vision in my left eye. After a thorough look, the doctor said there are no signs of macular degeneration or glaucoma, so how I'm dealing with diabetes is working. It was a quick visit.
  • Mary found more pecans, several of which are falling as husks open in the trees.
  • She turned the soil over in the last garlic row of the far garden and planted garlic cloves. Today the Samarkand and Shvelisi varieties went into the ground, finishing all garlic planting.
  • Mary threw out the Halloween pumpkin. She usually cooks the meat up and freezes it, but due to the oven mishap, cooking pumpkin meat was delayed several days and it was too late, even with the pumpkin stored in the refrigerator.
  • After my eye checkup, I bought a new battery for the tractor from Farm & Home, a 2.5 gallon jug of glysophate for killing autumn olives and lespedeza, and a few other food items, such as a turkey for 89 cents a pound.
  • A check of the pear wine gave me a specific gravity of 1.026. This is a slow brewing batch of wine.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. It's very good.
  • We had a brief heavy rain from a small thunderstorm that rolled through right after we walked Plato for his last outing before bedtime.
    

• Friday, 11/7: Pickled Jalapeños & Clearing a Trail
  • Mary made four quarts of refrigerated pickled jalapeños. 
  • She also did a bit of mowing under the maple tree next to the woodshed to clean up leaves.
  • Mary picked pecans off the ground under the trees.
  • I removed the last air conditioner, which was in our bedroom. There were lots of bugs that emerged from it...both Asian ladybugs and flies.
  • I used a full gas tank in the Stihl trimmer and whacked weeds and grass from the Wood Duck Trail. I also mowed where I'd whacked weeds on the trail in order to catch pieces sticking up. Finally, I trimmed overhanging branches so I don't have to duck while driving the 8N Ford on the trail. Any autumn olive saplings were left standing. I want to hit them with glyphosate weed killer this year, so I don't have to continue trimming them out every single year. I reached the cut through the fence just prior to entering the east forest.
  • We covered the tubs of autumn greens with blankets before going to bed. We noticed that a north wind dropped temperatures when we walked Plato, so we figured it best to cover the plants.
  • Katie was visiting Mekoryuk, a native village on Nunivak Island, near Bethel. While watching the Native Youth Olympics at the school, Katie texted about various achievements by winners in specific events. It was fun to read how well the athletes performed and to look up the different events.
    

• Saturday, 11/8: First Racking of Pear Wine
  • Mary picked up another nice batch of pecans off the ground. She got several off the tree nearest to the house, which is more of a commercial tree, as compared to the others that are native Missouri pecan trees.
  • I racked the pear wine for the first time. The specific gravity was 1.013 and the pH was 3.4. I got just under 6 gallons after I squeezed juice out of the two nylon mesh bags. Liquid went into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug with an ample amount of room at the tops of both containers to handle foam expansion. We didn't taste any, but the aroma is marvelous.
  • I split firewood and stacked four wheelbarrow loads into the woodshed. The splitter's engine runs very nicely, now that I updated a few things on it.
  • I cut a new sheet of plastic to cover the greens. Mary helped me anchor it down over the tubs of greens with bricks and a couple large chunks of old firewood.
  • A brief bit of rain swept through in the afternoon. After dark, a strong northwest wind started blowing. 
  • We watched the first half of the Ken Burns' documentary on Mark Twain while we enjoyed two pots, each, of hot cinnamon spice tea, made by Harney & Sons.
    

• Sunday, 11/9: Winemaking Day
  • We woke to colder temperatures and witnessed a couple snow flurries today. We kept chickens in the coop with a strong northwest wind blowing and subfreezing temperatures prevailing. We also kept the greens covered with plastic.
  • While dumping ashes this morning, I heard quiet honking sounds, looked up and watched six trumpeter swans fly overhead, heading south.
  • I racked two wines for the second time today, which were jalapeño and parsnip:
    
    • Jalapeño - The specific gravity was 0.992 and the pH was 3.1. I added 0.6 grams of Kmeta. Made from mainly ripe red peppers, the fines had an orange pumpkin moon crater look to them. The liquid filled a 3-gallon carboy and a 750-ml bottle. Mary and I tasted leftovers. It's warm, but not overwhelming. This will be a good drinking wine.
    • Parsnip - The specific gravity was 1.000 and the pH was 3.5. Fines were quite flowable and the racked liquid is cloudy. I added 0.8 grams of Kmeta. I filled a 3-gallon carboy, a gallon jug and a 375-ml half bottle. Mary and I tasted leftovers. It is amazingly good, considering how young it is, with an earthy, citrus flavor.
  • Mary and I picked pecan nuts off the ground in the morning and she did another collection in the evening prior to darkness. Several nuts are falling from husks left in the trees.
  • Mary added blankets to the outside of the plastic covering the greens, then put the old plastic cover over the blankets. It sort of gives them a double pane effect of plastic, plus insulation. We'll see how well it keeps the greens warm in subfreezing weather. 
  • One of our two white hens met its demise today after Mary witnessed it landing on top of a young pullet and ripping at the pullet's comb. This has been an ongoing issue. We can't have a hen that we didn't order, which was an extra from last year's chicken shipment, trying to kill young pullets that we ordered and paid for this year. Mary killed that chicken tonight. Instantly, the coop was settled down without so much fussing. 
  • We watched the second half of the Ken Burns' documentary on Mark Twain.

Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2025

Weather | 10/27, cloudy, 48°, 65° | 10/28, 0.05" rain, cloudy, 45°, 52° | 10/29, 0.69" rain, cloudy, 44°, 55° | 10/30, p. cloudy, 33°, 54° | 10/31, sunny, 30°, 58° | 11/1, 0.05" rain, cloudy, 39°, 46° | 11/2, fog, hard freeze, 25°, 51° |

• Monday, 10/27: Parsnip Wine & Garlic Garden Prep
  • The pecan trees were messy with squirrels this morning. I shot one squirrel.
  • Bill and I checked the parsnip wine. The specific gravity was 1.070, so sugar content increased from soaking the raisins. The pH stayed the same at 3.5. We created a yeast starter from Red Star Premier Classique (Montrachet) yeast. Late at night, the specific gravity was the same, at 1.070, when I pitched the yeast into the brew bucket. As usual, it smells wonderful!
  • Bill left  mid-afternoon for his apartment.
  • I mowed tall grass in the near far garden and put grass mulch on the first two rows. Mary plans on planting three rows in garlic as soon as she adds compost and turns the soil over.
  • Mary picked a few more pecan nuts from the ground under the trees.
  • The colors of autumn are slowly creeping in. Fall is late this year for us.
  • Katie texted Mary, "I'll be helping do damage assessments on villages affected by the typhoon with my regular job."

• Tuesday, 10/28: Quail, Deer & Webex on Bats
  • In the morning and evening, we experienced misty rain.
  • When we walked the puppy first thing this morning, a covey of Bob White quail burst from under the cedar trees next to the lane.
  • I chased away three squirrels from the pecan trees with .22 bullets. I never hit anything.
  • Around noon, while on a dog walk, Mary turned to face me and realized that two young deer were just a few feet away on the other side of the hazelnut bushes. They weren't too concerned about us, walked away with their tails up, then stopped to eat. In the evening while putting chickens to bed, Mary had a doe deer near her just outside of the chicken yard.
  • Mary picked a few pecan nuts that dropped to the ground.
  • The parsnip wine is slowly bubbling and emitting a wondrous odor. 
  • I ordered a 50-pound bag of oatmeal and after searching for the best price, ordered a roll of newsprint paper from Staples. The paper is for starting fires in the woodstove. We're almost out of our newspapers that once was a high stack.
  • I watched a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) Webex about bats. One bat will eat 600-1000 insects in one night. Less than one percent of bats have rabies. You have a better chance of getting rabies from a domestic cat or dog. The MDC employee lecturing on this topic from Joplin, MO, said she once saw a snake hanging from the top of a cave opening catching bats as they flew out of the cave.
  • We watched the seventh Harry Potter movie.

• Wednesday, 10/29: Pecans & Pear Wine
  • We saw a doe and a partially grown fawn around 10 a.m. on the lane.
  • Mary picked pecan nuts for most of the day. After picking several off the ground, she got on a ladder and used a garden rake to release pecans from branches above the grain bins. It worked very well.
  • I worked on pear wine all day. First, I cored and sliced up Bartlett pears, putting the pieces in a ReaLemon/water solution. This year's pears are significantly larger. In year's past, I used just over 100 pears. Today I only used 70 pears to get 31 pounds of fruit. Another difference was the weight measured in the past was prior to coring the pears. This year's weight was after cutting out cores. I chopped about three pounds of black raisins, which included two partial boxes of raisins, one of which was golden raisins. I juiced 15 lemons that produced a quart of liquid. The fruit and raisins went into two nylon mesh bags. Smashing fruit with my fist produced about two gallons of pear juice. I added the to the brew bucket:
    
  • 1 quart of lemon juice.
  • 2 gallons of water.
  • 1.1 grams of Kmeta
  • 5 pounds sugar for a specific gravity of 1.073.
  • no acid blend, since the pH was 3.1. 
  • The brew bucket went into the pantry for an overnight soak.
  • Winemaking activities went late into the night. At one point, I accidentally poured lemon water down the front of my pants while moving the largest stainless steel bowl of cut up pears to the sink to pour out the liquid. From that point forward, I walked with a sticky, crunching sound across the kitchen floor. Mary helped me by moping the sticky crud off the floor after I finished.  
  • I had to move the parsnip wine to a smaller brew bucket in order to use the larger bucket for the 6-gallon batch of pear wine. The parsnip wine's yeast is leisurely fizzing along. The specific gravity was 1.050.
  • I watched a webinar at 5 p.m. hosted by Anderson Windows on tips for installing windows and doors. It actually involved listening to three architects complaining on how hard it is to get construction crews to follow their directions on window installations. I did pick up some good information, such as only using windows that open and close in strategic locations and using solid glass windows in other spots, because solid glass windows are less expensive. Most people think they want UV reflective windows until they realize colors viewed through the windows are altered. Sliders and double hung windows leak air much more than casement or European windows. Cut WRB (water-resistant barrier) an inch from the rough window edge, so that tape is applied correctly for strong adhesion.

• Thursday, 10/30: Winemaking Activity
  • I saw three deer when I opened the curtains on our bedroom windows this morning. A big doe was staring directly at me while two other deer walked along the far garden fence.
  • We were a bit lazy today, due to the lateness of getting to bed last night.
  • Mary gathered more pecans that dropped to the ground under the trees.
  • I shot a squirrel while facing north at the burn barrel. 
  • A check of the parsnip wine 12 hours after the last test revealed a specific gravity of 1.040.
  • I added 7.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme and 3 grams of diammonium phosphate to the pear wine. Then I worked up a starter batch of Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast that I added pear wine must to throughout the day. Twelve hours after adding the pectic enzyme, a test showed the specific gravity still at 1.073, so I added another pound of sugar to bring it to 1.082, which is a similar level to past pear wines I've made. I pitched the yeast into the brew bucket exactly 24 hours after creating the pear wine must. 
  • We watched the eighth and final Harry Potter movie.

• Friday, 10/31: Pecans, Peppers, Pears, & Pumpkin
  • I moved the big 10-foot step ladder to under our main pecan tree and picked nuts while Mary grabbed pecans from under the tree on the ground.
  • I went through all of the pears that are wrapped in newspaper in the upstairs landing chest of drawers and threw out bad ones, which almost filled a 4-gallon bucket. We have enough pears for me to make two more 6-gallon batches of wine, but we don't need that much pear wine! Then I wrapped the Kieffer pears that Mary collected and put them in the chest of drawers.
  • Mary chopped up and froze sweet peppers, placing 23 packages in the freezer for grand total 72 sandwich bags of frozen bell peppers from this year.
  • The specific gravity of the parsnip wine was 1.020. I'll need to rack it tomorrow. The pear wine is fizzing and foaming, so the yeast is doing it's job. 
  • Mary made a chocolate zucchini cake...YUM, YUM!
  • I carved an owl Jack-o'-lantern for our Halloween pumpkin (see photo, below). I got the idea of a BBC wildlife article.
  • In the evening, we ate a salad from our winter greens, two huge pears for each of us, some chocolate zucchini cake, and finished it off with a bottle of spiced apple wine.
  • Katie treated herself and bought a piece of Yupik loon artwork made by a UIC (the company she works for) shareholder (see photo, below).
  • We watched the 1993 film, Hocus Pocus.
  • I researched and then ordered an Anker power bank, a charger, and a cord to help us if and when we have an electrical power outage. 

Our owl Jack-o'-lantern that I carved.

Yupik loon artwork that Katie recently bought.

• Saturday, 11/1: Oven Element Fire
  • We picked more pecans off the ground and from branches I reached with the tall ladder.
  • While preheating the oven to cook some pork loin meat, the lower element suddenly burst into flames, shooting up an eight-inch shot of fire. Mary, who was in front of the oven, immediately turned it off. I tried ordering a new element. Today and tomorrow is a youth deer hunting season and our neighbors on the land west of us are here. We can always tell when they show up, because they soak up all of the bandwidth off our cell towers resulting in extremely slow internet service. It took me 40 minutes to work through an appliance parts website for me to finally check them out when I didn't notice the normal https secure protocol for using a credit card online and found out they provide very poor service. I quit the order. I'll order in the future when we have a stronger signal.
  • We built an outdoor fire and cooked the pork loin outside. In the middle of that, light rain started to settle on us. We ate quickly, then went inside for a potato cooked in the microwave.
  • Mary took down the Halloween tree and decorations.
  • She then popped garlic cloves for planting. Mary got through four of the six varieties. Popping garlic equals sore fingers.
  • I racked the parsnip wine for the first time. The pH stayed at 3.5 and the specific gravity was 1.010. Liquid filled a 3-gallon carboy, a gallon jug, and a 750-ml wine bottle. Mary and I tasted the remains. It was sweet, earthy, and resembled the taste of grapefruit juice...weird!
  • A quick check of the pear wine showed that the yeast is fizzing, producing a good amount of foam. 
  • Rain fell off and on through the afternoon, wrecking my plans to cut firewood. I shot a squirrel and sent a couple more away, chased by bullets. When it's raining, the east end of the machine shed is a good place to sit, just inside the edge of the drip line off the roof.
  • At dusk, we covered the tubs of winter greens with blankets, since a hard hard freeze is predicted for tonight. By bedtime, the outdoor thermometer showed a temperature of 32.

• Sunday, 11/2: First Autumn Hard Freeze
  • Our first hard freeze of autumn put a layer of white frost on everything outside. We also saw dense fog in the morning.
  • I ordered an oven element. It's an original GE part, instead of an aftermarket knockoff.
  • Mary and I picked more pecan nuts. Occasionally we find clusters of 4-6 nuts. When grabbing nuts while using the tall ladder I'm noticing that some husks still on the tree opened enough to shed the actual nut.
  • A check of the pear wine gave me a specific gravity of 1.063, so the yeast has a ways to go. I squeezed the two nylon mesh bags of fruit and stirred the must.
  • I cut firewood from small dead oak and ash trees just north of the machine shed. It's close enough for me to use a wheelbarrow to move the wood. One load went inside next to the woodstove and the other went into the woodshed.
  • Using the Stihl trimmer with the metal blade, I cut trails to the ash pile just beyond the far garden, to the Boys' Fort Deer Blind, and to between the ponds.
  • While knocking down the trail to the ash pile, I saw two young deer run away that were eating on garden vegetation piles that Mary created while removing plants from the far garden.

Oct. 20-26, 2025

Weather | 10/20, sunny, 39°, 73° | 10/21, sunny, 45°, 57° | 10/22, sunny, 35°, 59° | 10/23, sunny, 33°, 60° | 10/24, cloudy, 35°, 61° | 10/25, cloudy, 49°, 59° | 10/26, cloudy to sprinkles, 47°, 62° |

• Monday, 10/20: Nuts!
  • We noticed a small patch of frost on the grass near the lane prior to sunrise this morning. It was a very windy day.
  • Several robins were flying about in the morning. We suspect a number of them flew in from the north.
  • Mary picked pecans twice, today, gathering a nice number of nuts. I helped in the evening by using a step ladder to collect several off branches above the first grain bin roof.
  • I gathered black walnuts that fell from trees over the lane. Over two days, I collected enough in a milk crate to give me only two more inches before I need to start putting nuts in another crate. At first, I was wiping gooey husk sludge off the nuts in the grass, but it takes too much time. I've progressed to swiping the husks off the nuts in a quick backward foot motion while wearing boots with aggressive cleats. This takes less time. I feel like a bull tossing dust on his chest when I'm kicking walnut husks off the nuts. I hope to collect several milk crate loads of walnuts.
  • Mary mowed several portions of the lawn and left the grass lay, instead of picking it up. Mowing goes faster with this method. I helped her by mowing the stretch just north of the house.
  • We watched the sixth Harry Potter movie.

• Tuesday, 10/21: Harvesting Prior to Frost & First Woodstove Heat
  • Strong west winds blew today. At one point, Mary heard a tree crash in the north woods. I took a look and spotted a large hickory tree down just northwest of the north end of the chicken yard.
  • I removed the air conditioner from the living room's west window. It was leaking too much cold air, especially with a strong west wind. Mary and I moved it to the machine shed. 
  • I collected a handful of black walnuts that fell on the lane, due to the wind.
  • Mary collected pecans that fell on the ground under the trees two times today.
  • I drove to Lewistown for high octane gasoline for trimmer and chainsaw use and put $20 of gas in the pickup. The price is $2.59 per gallon.
  • Mary picked tomatoes, one last acorn squash (there are now 75 stored away), and several hot and sweet peppers. A chance of frost prompted this harvest session.
  • I picked the last of the apples off the Granny Smith and Goldrush trees. Later in the evening after cutting apples open, I discovered the Granny apples were too far gone. I should have picked them a month ago. However, the Goldrush apples were firm and great tasting. They indeed can be picked well into October.
  • I ran a tank of gas in the Stihl trimmer to clear more tall weeds and grass from the trail to the ponds. Today, I ended just before the area between Bass and Dove Ponds. Head-high lespedeza is really thick right there.
  • Right at sunset, I lit a fire in the woodstove for the first time this autumn with several windows open to let the wind blast smoke out of the house. It only took a minute or two for high heat to burn mineral oil off the stove pipes that Mary applied in the spring. That oil keeps the metal pipes from rusting through summer. After closing windows, the wood heat felt really good.
  • The dog bed placed in front of the woodstove attracted feline friends next to Plato this evening (see photo, below). There's nothing cozier than a large, warm puppy on a big bed in front of the fire.

  

  Left to right, Mocha, Gandalf, & Plato on the big dog bed.
  

• Wednesday, 10/22: Picking Kieffer Pears & Transplanting Saplings
  • Mary picked the equivalent of one four-gallon bucket of Kieffer pears. She said the area under that pear tree smelled like the makings of bad wine, but with a higher alcohol content. Rotting pears covered with yellowjackets were in the tree and all over the ground. It was hard to find good pears. Mary says she was late at collecting the Kieffers.
  • I transplanted two Sargent saplings that were under the east side of the large Sargent crabapple tree to the spot in the south orchard where an earlier transplant died. After the transplant was done, I gave the saplings four gallons of water, a bucket of sawdust and shavings from under the woodsplitter, plastic tree protectors tied to a rebar stake, and a two-foot wide tube of quarter inch hardware cloth tied to a second rebar stake.
  • I used a pitchfork to toss weeds and grass that I cut down yesterday from the trail to the ponds. Then I mowed that section of the trail with the push mower.
  • Mary picked pecans in the morning and evening. I helped her in the evening by grabbing pecans off the tree from a six-foot ladder.
  • We covered the winter greens with blankets, since frost is expected in the morning. 
  • Mary and I ate two Goldrush apples, each, as an evening snack. They have excellent taste.

• Thursday, 10/23: Quincy Library Book Sale
  • A solid frost covered the ground when we walked Plato this morning, prior to sunrise.
  • We had our first morning woodstove fire. It felt very nice.
  • We bought the following books at the Quincy Library Book Sale for 50 cents an inch, or $6 total:
    • Einstein. Relativity: The Special and General Theory.
    • Oberrect. Home Book of Picture Framing, an excellent DIY book.
    • Time-Life Foods of the World. American Cooking: Southern Style, to add to Mary's collection.
    • Strickland. Alaskans: Life on the Last Frontier, featuring several people I recognize.
    • Queenan. One for the Books, a collection of essays on authors, books, and reading.
    • Mordal. 25 Centuries of Sea Warfare, translated from French to English.
    • McCullough. The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, to add to Mary's collection by this author.
    • Beard. Confronting the Classics, a series of essays arguing for the reading of ancient Greek and Roman literature.
    • Haygood & Grossfeld. Two on the River, on traveling the Mississippi River in the 1980s.
    • Teyckare. The Lore of Ships, a very thick reference all about ships through the ages, written by a Swedish author.
    • American Heritage (August 1956).
    • Horizon (Spring 1970).
  • We also did a bit of shopping. Two foot-long sandwiches, plus drinks, from Subway was $33.09! And we thought it was outrageous when Subway's charge was over $20.
  • After we returned home, I emptied the pickup and put our purchases away while Mary raked up grass cut a couple days ago and stored it inside the second grain bin.
  • Mary and I both picked pecans.
  • We spent the evening reviewing the books we bought today. The two seafaring reference books are very good.

• Friday, 10/24: Nuts & Firewood
  • We watched two young deer walk on the lane in front of our house early this morning and then turn east on our trail to the far garden. Mary went outside with Plato while the second deer was near the northeast corner of the near garden. It looked at Mary and Plato, then slowly meandered further east. We're just part of the scenery to our resident deer population.
  • I hunted squirrels in the pecan trees and shot two of them. I saw a barred owl fly into those trees a couple times and the squirrels just ignored it. There were also gobs of nuthatches going up and down the tree trunks.
  • Mary and I picked pecan nuts. Mary searched the ground and I grabbed nuts off the tree while standing on a step ladder.
  • I moved probably about 100 black walnuts from the grass along the edge of the lane, then mowed the lane.
  • I cut firewood from the hickory tree that toppled over northwest of the chicken run. When I tried to start the 8N Ford tractor, the battery was dead. I left the ignition switch on about a month ago when I moved it prior to butchering chickens. I attached the charger and let it run while I cut wood. The chainsaw's bar became stuck on one cut when the tree shifted and the end of my cut wedged up against another tree. Mary held the saw while I used a hatchet to remove wood under the saw. Boy! Hickory is really, really hard wood! After several whacks with the hatchet, it came loose. The tractor started, so I moved it to south of where I was cutting and hoofed several arm loads of firewood up the hill to load the trailer. When I tried starting the tractor, the battery was dead, again. I got wrenches, removed the battery, hauled it to the machine shed, and set the battery charger to it, again. After several minutes charging and after a two minute 30-amp boost with the charger, I hauled the battery back to the tractor while using a hat light. After installing the battery, the tractor fired up and I drove it back to inside the machine shed with the first of many loads of firewood for the season.

• Saturday, 10/25: Splitting Firewood
  • There were seven squirrels in the pecan trees this morning. I shot one. Our pecan trees are like neon signs to squirrels from miles around.
  • Bill arrived around 11:30 a.m. He's here for three days.
  • I split firewood and stacked most of it in the machine shed to dry. 
  • The wood splitter started on the first pull and ran better than when we first arrived here in 2009. Maintenance I did earlier on the engine and hydraulics really made a big improvement. It split hickory logs with ease, which usually are usually difficult, since it's such hard wood that often splinters.
  • A quick check of the 8N Ford tractor's battery indicated that it held a charge and works fine in starting the tractor. 
  • We had turkey chimichangas covered with winter greens, ripe garden tomatoes, and Greek yogurt for our midday meal. It was super filling.
  • Mary was on the pecan nut search for about an hour in the afternoon and found several. Squirrels, blue jays, and wind knock nuts to the ground. 
  • After dark, we watched two movies that Bill picked out, which were Super 8 and Stardust.

• Sunday, 10/26: Parsnip Wine & Cleaning Far Garden
  • Bill and Mary pulled parsnips from the near garden. It was an average harvest. Most had good, straight roots. Only a few grew weird, stubby roots. The first parsnip that Bill pulled out had about a four-foot whip root at the very end. I cleaned a little over half of them with a brush and a bucket of water. Mary finished the task.
  • While Mary and Bill harvested parsnips, I removed husks off black walnuts that fell in the path between the gardens and collected enough to fill the rest of a milk crate of this year's nuts, along with starting a new crate.
  • Bill and I made a four-gallon batch of parsnip wine. Bill did a lot of the work. He chopped up 60 ounces of black raisins while I washed parsnips. Bill also zested eight lemons and squeezed juice from them. He chopped up 11 pounds, 10.3 ounces of parsnips, ending up with nine pounds, 11.8 ounces of finished product, equaling only 16.4 percent waste. Raisins and lemon zest went into a nylon mesh bag. We boiled two batches of sliced parsnip roots in 1.5 gallons of water each time. A little over a gallon of liquid went into the brew bucket after each of the two boils. After getting to a rolling boil, we let the roots boil for 15 minutes. By making parsnip wine immediately after harvesting the roots, the parsnip slices stayed intact and didn't turn to mush, which happened the last time we made this wine. After each boil, I removed most of the slices with a spoon. Then we poured the liquid through a colander and into the brew bucket to collect remaining parsnip slices. The leftover parsnip pieces went into the compost bin. Added to the brew bucket was: 1.5 gallons of apple juice, 0.7 grams of Kmeta, 1 teaspoon of tartaric acid to yield a pH of 3.5, 2 pounds of sugar for a specific gravity of 1.059, and a cup of tea brewed from 2 tea bags. The brew bucket went into the pantry for an overnight soak.
  • Mary cleaned all partially dead plants from the far garden. It involved several wheelbarrow loads that were stacked neck high with plants, complete with green tomatoes, peppers, and squash that went through a couple frosts.
  • We watched two movies, which were The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Practical Magic.