Nov. 18-24, 2024

Weather | 11/18, 0.29" rain, 54°, 64° | 11/19, 0.25" rain, sunny, 49°, 59° |11/20, xx°, xx° | 11/21, xx°, xx° | 11/22, xx°, xx° | 11/23, xx°, xx° | 11/24, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 11/18: Rain, Minestrone Soup & Knife Sharpening
  
  • I woke at 5 a.m. to see if deer hunting was an option today. It was pouring rain outside, so I said the heck with it and went back to bed.
    
  • Rain fell for a good part of the day.
  • Mary made a big batch of minestrone soup. I picked eight kale leaves that she put into the soup. She uses a gallon bag of frozen homegrown tomatoes and can of tomato paste. It tastes much better than the three cans of store-bought tomato juice that we once bought to put in the soup.
    
  • Mary put together a shopping list that we'll use tomorrow.
    
  • We both vacuumed flies and Asian ladybugs. 'Tis the season.
    
  • Around 12:30 p.m., I sat for five minutes in the Boys' Fort blind just north of the machine shed and saw three deer run through the woods just north of me. I wasn't hunting. I was just looking at the compass and what would be a good wind direction for that hunting location. Since deer could approach from all directions in the north woods, there is no good or bad wind direction.
    
  • I sharpened knives for the rest of the day. I've had problems sharpening three curved Victorinox boning knives that Mary prefers using. The problem is that the three stones in the knife sharpener are concave on the surface, due to wear over time. So, I unscrewed the hold-down pieces and turned the stones over, giving me completely flat surfaces. From that point forward, knives sharpened very nicely. 
  • I did a bunch of cleanup while turning the stones over in this Norton Abrasives Multi-Oilstone. There was probably a quarter inch of fine metal particles in the bottom of the oil reservoir. Mary says the sharpener came with the grocery store in Lewistown that her grandfather bought and operated from the mid-1950s to the 1960s. Herman, Mary's uncle, had the sharpener when he ran that same store from 1964 to 1978. I found it out in the machine shed. So, we're the third owner of that knife sharpener. Mary looked it up online and it has a long history of use in America's meat industry. It does an excellent job.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of last year's cherry wine. It sure is good.
    

• Tuesday, 11/19: Shopping & Deer Hunting
  
  • There was an additional quarter inch of water in the rain gauge from rainfall overnight.
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL, today. The entire town was packed with tottering old duffs, as if all of the senior homes let out for a grand day of shopping. Thanks to our son, Bill, who says we shop like we're on a mission to take out Osama bin Laden, we chuckled to ourselves as we marched through the stores. Mary was thrilled to find two more big frozen turkeys for 88 cents a pound at Walmart. We now have four in the freezer.
    
  • After getting home and emptying the pickup, I went hunting. I got to the Four Trunk Deer Stand at 2:45 p.m. A steady wind switched from the southwest to the west. I didn't dress warm enough and froze my ass off. Every year I initially seem to forget how cold the wind feels while sitting up in the air in a deer stand. I heard one shot in the valley on property west of our land around 3:30 and then I heard a goonball shooting an AK-15 style rifle in rapid-fire fashion to the distant west. A hunter like that isn't really hunting. I never saw a deer. I did hear something moving north to south a ways west of my location, but beyond my vision. It might have been a deer, or maybe a coyote.
    
  • Right before legal shooting ended, I heard an American woodcock. That's odd. Woodcocks aren't usually heard around here in November. I also watched a red-bellied woodpecker drink rainwater out of a hollowed out part of a hickory tree where a branch once broke off. That was a cool sight to witness.
    
  • While I went hunting, Mary vacuumed flies and Asian ladybugs. Flies by the hundreds were on the windows and the ceiling of our bedroom. They're all smashed into a shop vac, now. 
  • Mary also did the evening chores. She picked two large strawberries...amazing for late autumn.
    

Nov. 11-17, 2024

Weather | 11/11, sunny, 40°, 59° | 11/12, sunny, 30°, 52° |11/13, 0.07" rain, cloudy, 40°, 55° | 11/14, cloudy, 45°, 47° | 11/15, sunny, 27°, 58° | 11/16, cloudy, 35°, 50° | 11/17, cloudy, 49°, 64° |

• Monday, 11/11: Moving Wood Duck Deer Blind
  
  • This morning while we were letting the chickens out, we heard snow geese flying overhead, but we never saw them. They must have been extremely high.
    
  • I checked the spiced apple wine this morning and the specific gravity was 1.028, so it dropped five thousandths overnight. The nighttime specific gravity was 1.022 for a drop of 11 over 24 hours.
    
  • Mary and I walked down to Wood Duck Pond. We first looked at the current deer blind. So many dead trees near it means it must be abandoned. It's not safe. We walked around and picked a new location for a deer blind. It's somewhat in the open, so I'll have to build a blind that is superior at hiding me from the deer. It's on the west side of the dry creek bed, opposite from where I've parked the last several years. In 2010, I had a deer stand about 100 feet further west of where I'm building this one. From this new location I can see the pond and the forest floor west of the dry creek bed as I look north and east. I can also spot animals coming down the hill to the west of me.
    
  • We spooked up two coveys of bobwhite quail as we walked around near the pond. When we first walked to the pond's edge, about eight ducks took off. We couldn't identify them, but we know they weren't wood ducks.
  • Mary mowed our quarter mile lane. Even on a cooler day, like today, that's a hard job.
    
  • I went back to Wood Duck Pond with the tractor and wagon loaded with saws and tools. I tore down the cattle and hog fences at the old blind and moved them to the new location. I'll start assembling it tomorrow.
  • On the way to Wood Duck, I spotted a bufflehead duck swimming in Bass Pond. It was nervous with the sound of the tractor, but stayed in the pond. They have a striking appearance. HERE is a link to a photo of a bufflehead.
    
  • We heard barred owls calling from all over the place about 30 minutes prior to the sun going  down.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of perry tonight. It was made last fall and bottled in January 2024. We drank it at room temperature, which we decided is better, because when iced, some of the flavor disappears. The spice is lighter than the spiced apple wine. The pear taste comes out nicely. It's got a light, happy flavor.
    

• Tuesday, 11/12: Garlic Mulched & Deer Blind Construction
  
  • Mary mowed part of the east yard and finished mulching the last row of garlic in the far garden. It's now good for the winter.
    
  • I wired together the cow panel and hog panels of the new Wood Duck Deer Blind. I want to be a little more discreet, so I used a four-foot square sheet of quarter-inch lauan paneling I found in the old cow barn as a roof, instead of bright silver steel barn siding. I sawed five-foot long logs from a nearby ash that fell to the ground. Then, I stacked and wired the logs into the cow panel on the west side of my semi-circle blind. I've got more concealment work that I'll do tomorrow.
    
  • I saw tracks of a large deer on the trail I'm using to get to my new blind that runs parallel to the dry creek bed. I also watched a duck gliding the west shoreline of Wood Duck Pond. Without binoculars or a scope on a gun, I couldn't see what kind of duck it was.
    
  • A huge, thick halo appeared around the moon while we were walking the puppies at night.
  • We are finally getting weather matching the month of November. Snow is expected in next week's weather prediction.
  • A check of the spiced apple wine in the morning resulted in a 1.017 specific gravity. By nighttime, it was 1.010, so I racked it into a 3-gallon carboy and a half-gallon jug. Most of the jug was applesauce slurry, so I'm expecting mostly thick fines from that container when I rack for the second time in a few days.
    

• Wednesday, 11/13: New Blind Nearly Done
  
  • While Mary made flour tortillas, I cut down a tall maple stump and finished stacking logs on the west side of the new Wood Duck Blind. A deer snorted at me from the east side of the pond while I was checking out the fold-up garden seat inside the new blind. I was talking to myself about how it all fits nicely when the deer heard me and snorted. 
  • I went home after Mary texted that chimichangas for a midday meal were ready in 10 minutes. They were topped with winter greens...yummy!
  • I walked back to the Wood Duck Blind and stuffed tall grass that I picked up along the trail to the ponds. I wove it between the sections in the hog fence. I'm amazed I haven't used this for camo in the past, because it works wonderful at concealing the inside occupant, while appearing very natural (see photos, below). I cut a couple oak branches that grew into the trail, placed them on the roof top so they draped over the side and added a heavy dead branch on top to weigh them down. Light rain started the moment I showed up for the second time and it turned to a steady rain, but I kept working to get all grass stuffed into place. I was pretty wet after driving the tractor home.
  • I got deer tags for the upcoming hunting season. It's all done online, which is nice and easy.

Southeast corner & entrance of new blind.

Northeast corner of Wood Duck Blind.

Southwest corner of blind. Stacked logs are braced.

East side of blind. My vision is through top of hog fence.

• Thursday, 11/14: Baked Bread & Finalizing Deer Blinds
  
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread, which always puts an amazing scent throughout the house.
    
  • I finished all deer hunting preparation in the field by first marking all new trails to blinds and the deer stand with reflective thumbtacks. A quick check of existing blinds and the deer stand showed all were in good shape. I added more oak branches to the top edges of the newest deer blind cut from limbs invading paths. I cut out a massive multiflora rose bush growing across the dry creek bed and other weeds and shrubs growing on the trail to the other deer blind in the west woods, the Black Medick Blind. There is a major north/south deer trail just down the hill from that blind. Finally, I checked out sitting in the new Wood Duck Deer Blind with my two 30-30 rifles. The 30-30 Marlin with a shorter barrel works best in that blind, due to its close quarters, so I'll have to put both rifles in use this year. I usually only use the 30-30 with the longer barrel.
    
  • I cleaned the two 30-30 rifles. Mary's Uncle Herman neglected cleaning the 30-30 Marlin with the long barrel, so all I can do is clean it to a point. The shorter 30-30 Marlin rifle cleans up nice and shiny inside the barrel. I bought that one from Ansel Marquette in 2010.
    
  • FedEx has improved, slightly. They find our location. They still have issues. When the FedEx driver showed up with our shipment of oatmeal, he discovered that the folks in Quincy failed to load our package into his truck. It will hopefully show up tomorrow.
  • Mary saw a belted kingfisher while she walked our lane to the mailbox. It followed her up the lane from the mailbox, then cut in front of her to the east, continuing with its rusty chain call. THIS is what they sound like. She also watched a sharp-shinned hawk haunting the lower reaches of bushes and trees in the yard. That's why we don't have little birds in the yard right now.
    

• Friday, 11/15: Tree Skirt & Sighting In Rifles
  
  • Mary started making a Christmas tree skirt. Last year she bought a green Christmas tablecloth that has a damask holly pattern on it. Today she used our round dining room table as a pattern to cut it into a large circle, cut out a small circle in the middle, cut a slit to the middle circle, then pinned a shiny gold bias tape to all edges. She made a similar tree skirt in 2001 and it's shot. Nick and Holly (cats) were born on the old tree skirt in 2009. Holly is gone, but Nick and his mother, Rosemary, are still with us.
    
  • I sighted in the two 30-30 Marlin rifles. Initially, they both were shooting high. I believe the rifle with the shorter barrel has a faulty scope. Changes on the dial made no difference on where the shot hit the target. I just need to remember that on that rifle, it shoots two inches high at 50 yards, so I need to aim low. The rifle with the longer barrel is now zeroed into the bullseye of the target.
  • Today was perfect for sighting in guns. It was sunny and calm.
  • Mom's 90th birthday is today. I talked to her on the phone. She had a great birthday celebration. Mom told the crowd at the Circle Senior Center luncheon of how her father traded a truckload of potatoes to the sisters at the Catholic hospital where she was born in Missoula, MT, as a way to pay for the bill of her birth. She said a truck in 1934 was about the size of a large pickup, today. "So, that's what I'm worth, a truckload of potatoes," she told the group, which drew a big laugh. I didn't know it, but apparently Grandad Robison grew potatoes and sold them in the early days, while he operated a dairy at Lolo, MT.
  • We ate Aldi turkey franks cooked over the woodstove fire this evening. With Mary's homemade piccalilli relish added as a topping, along with mustard, they taste great.
  • Afterwards, we enjoyed a bottle of last year's apple wine. We're finding all apple wines are better at room temperature, because apple flavor comes out stronger.
    

• Saturday, 11/16: Firearms Deer Season Starts
  
  • Today is the first day of firearms deer hunting season, November portion. This year it is Nov. 16-26. But not for me. Lewis County is now in the Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) Management Zone, which means that all hunters who bag a deer during the opening weekend (today and tomorrow) must take the deer to a sampling station, where they collect a lymph node sample for testing. I don't want to load a bloody deer carcass in the pickup and drive it to and from the Lewis County Fairgrounds before butchering it. Also, temperatures are high this weekend. So, I'll wait a couple days. Another factor is that with the CWD designation, our county gets an additional CWD hunting season that is Nov. 27-Dec. 1. Then, there's an anterless deer season that runs between Dec. 7-15. So, there are several days available to hunt deer beyond the opening weekend.
  • There were fewer rifle shots on the opening day, compared to what we've heard in years past. Maybe others are going with my rational of putting off hunting for a couple days.
    
  • Mary and I pulled out the last two air conditioners. As I removed them, Mary was ready with a shop vac to suck intruding Asian ladybugs. Surrounding the large AC in the living room window were hundreds of the crawling stinkers. We moved the ACs to the machine shed.
    
  • I strung several lights up in the machine shed in preparation for butchering deer. I moved the location of where I hang the deer to the middle of the building. It gives me a place to butcher deer, yet allows me to park the tractor and wagon inside the shed and not out in the weather.
    
  • Our order of tea came in from Harney & Sons. It smells absolutely wonderful.
    
  • I watched an old airplane fly overhead. It was louder than most single prop planes and it had a British Spitfire logo on it, so it was obviously an old World War II fighter plane. There certainly wasn't any stealth involved with those loud engines.
    

• Sunday, 11/17: Firewood Collection
  
  • I sharpened one of the two chains on the big Stihl chainsaw. Half of the teeth were well worn. They were all on the left side of the chain, where I must have hit something hard with the saw. It only took five strokes with a file to sharpen the right side, but 15 strokes on the left side. The sharp chain proved excellent while cutting firewood later in the day.
    
  • Mary and I took the tractor and wagon east of the garden, down the hill, to some downed maple branches. I sawed up and Mary loaded a full wagon load of firewood. Most of it was either standing, or above ground, so it was exceptionally dry and in great shape. Maple burns hot and fast, which makes it perfect for small fires when it's not too cold outside, such as is the case right now. We loaded small pieces into the woodshed and large pieces to split into the machine shed, next to the splitter.
    
  • Mary vacuumed bugs inside the house. They were mainly flies, today, and they were in a continuous motion from out to inside the house.
    
  • I sharpened knives. The weather forecast predicts a 100 percent chance of rain for tomorrow. So, I only sharpened one knife to use inside the house and two knives used for field dressing venison. If I get out, tomorrow, I can sharpen the rest after a deer is hanging in the machine shed. If it's too wet for me to venture outside, I'll have plenty of time to sharpen the rest.
    

Nov. 4-10, 2024

Weather | 11/4, 0.40" rain, cloudy, 57°, 69° | 11/5, 0.58" rain, cloudy, 59°, 65° |11/6, cloudy to clear, 45°, 55° | 11/7, sunny, 31°, 57° | 11/8, cloudy, 36°, 55° | 11/9, 0.15" rain, cloudy, 45°, 51° | 11/10, sunny, 47°, 57° |

• Monday, 11/4: A Beetle Bug Day
  
  • After letting chickens out of the coop and giving them new water this morning, I counted eight squirrels leaving the pecan trees. Later, Amber had great fun chasing squirrels and woofing at them while bouncing on the ground under the trees.
    
  • Mary vacuumed a ton of beetle bugs. The temperature was a little higher, with little or no wind, creating ideal conditions for Asian ladybugs to congregate on the sides of buildings. The ceiling of the chicken coop was a mass of crawling bugs.
    
  • I used the big loppers and the Stihl trimmer fit with the steel blade to forge a path through woods next to the north yard and over the north field to a hickory tree with four trunks just inside the woods on the west side of the north field. I'll move the aluminum ladder stand to that location. I think I'll call it the Four Trunk Deer Stand.
    
  • I wove a small cedar tree through hog fencing on the east side of the Boys Fort and pounded an 18-inch piece of rebar into the ground to hold the hog fence entrance closer to the tree, thereby better concealing me inside the deer blind.
    
  • I picked some lettuce, arugula, and kale from our winter greens for a wonderful salad prior to our chicken and baked potato supper.
  • Our eldest cat, Rosemary, hasn't eaten in four days. She ate some pieces of cheese midday and some small bits of chicken meat tonight. We hope she eats more tomorrow.
    
  • I held the apple sauce intended for making apple wine in the refrigerator today. I have an eye appointment tomorrow and 10 a.m. in Quincy. We'll vote in Lewistown on the way back home. All of tomorrow's activities make it hard to attend to winemaking duties, so I'm holding off starting to make the wine until I'm back at home and not running around.
    

• Tuesday, 11/5: Final Eye Checkup
  
  • We drove to Quincy for an eye appointment at 10 a.m. We were in there for 1.5 hours, with most of the time spent waiting. Doctors want patients to get to appointments early, but they are not prompt at doing their jobs. I have perfect vision in the left eye and 25/20 vision in the right eye. Insertions have healed, lenses are in perfect locations, and retinas look good. I don't need glasses and I can continue using over-the-counter reading glasses. Floaters and flashes I'm noticing in my left eye are age-related. If they increase, I need to return to the eye doctor to have my retina investigated.
  • We bought a couple items in Quincy, then drove to Lewistown and voted. The voting precinct at the Lewistown Fire Department building was full. We returned home by 2:30 p.m.
  • We continued with feeding chicken bits of meat to Rosemary and progressed with turkey. She's eating, so we're hopefully on a road to recovery with her.
    
  • After doing evening chores, we ate and watched the 1993 movie, Dave, then watched the election results. Nothing was decided when we went to bed, but Trump was leading across the country. The constitutional amendment to ensure abortion rights in Missouri was approved.
  • Katie texted a photo of her "I voted" sticker (see photo, below). Alaska has some really cool Tlingit artwork on their voting stickers.

  

  An Alaskan "I voted" sticker.
  

• Wednesday, 11/6: First Spiced Apple Wine Started
  
  • I made up a batch of spiced apple wine. Two nylon mesh bags were stuffed with 22 pounds, 6.8 ounces of course applesauce; 1 pound, 14 ounces of chopped raisins; 0.5 ounce of cloves; six broken cinnamon sticks; and eight ounces of shredded ginger root. A gallon of juice came out of the applesauce. In the brew bucket I added a gallon of water, 1.5 pounds of sugar, and 0.4 grams of K-meta. The specific gravity was 1.060 and the pH was 3.0. I left it in the pantry, covered with a towel, to sit overnight. Once I do the first racking, I should have a little over three gallons of wine. I'll make a second three-gallon batch once this batch is in a glass carboy.
    
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch project.
    
  • Mary painted fence posts and tree trunks on our south border, next to the gravel road, with purple paint to mark our property edge and indicate no trespassing to deer hunters.
    
  • We watched the 2013 film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
  • Turkey meat is a big hit with our oldest cat, Rosemary. She ate all of her meals very well, today, and even had some dry cat food on her nighttime meal. It's really good to see her getting excited about eating after a four-day session of not eating. With just two days of me ripping up chicken and turkey meat small enough for her to eat, she sticks with me in the kitchen while all other pets head into the back room with Mary to get their food.
    

• Thursday, 11/7: Winemaking, Cleaning, & Great Winter Greens
  
  • A multitude of spiders are spinning webs in the tops of small shrubs in the fields that resemble small platforms surrounded by an orb of web threads. Mary also noticed them on the late afternoon dog walk as the evening sun lit them up with gold light. They're really beautiful.
    
  • I removed our bedroom air conditioner while Mary vacuumed hundreds of Asian ladybugs that poured out of the AC's housing. They really packed into the unit and emerged as soon as we started moving the air conditioner through the window. We're at a stage in autumn when window air conditioners only leak cold temperatures into the room.
    
  • Mary cleaned our bedroom and washed all of the throw rugs in that room.
    
  • I picked greens that we added to the top of our midday meal of taco salad. All of the winter greens are growing very well (sees photos below). I continue to pick them, yet they still keep expanding upward and outward.
  • I added two tablespoons of pectic enzyme and two grams of diammonium phosphate (DAP) to the spiced apple wine brew bucket. I worked up a starter batch of Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast throughout the day and pitched it into the brew bucket before going to bed, just after squeezing the two nylon mesh bags. At that point the specific gravity was 1.065, up five thousandths from yesterday, and the pH was 3.2, meaning I didn't need to add sugar or acid blend. The yeast went to work immediately in the brew bucket. Last year I let the brew bucket sit an extra day, with the idea being to give the pectic enzyme time to release more liquid from the applesauce. The problem with that idea is wild yeast starts to kick in and eat away at sugars. I didn't do that with this batch. We'll see which approach is best.
    
  • I used a tank of gas in the trimmer and whacked weeds and grass out of the trail to Wood Duck Pond. There's a lot more to clean up on that trail.
    
  • I took down the aluminum ladder deer stand and the hog fence with old cedar branches woven through it from the cedar tree next to the trail I cleaned up today. I'll move it to the four-trunk hickory tree in the north woods.
    
  • A young deer stood on the lane and watched us as we walked toward it with the puppies this evening. At dusk, four deer were eating hazelnut bushes next to our lane. I walked outside, told them to stop eating our bushes, and they bounded off to the southwest.

Kale (left) & spinach (right) growing in tubs.

More winter greens of lettuce (left) & arugula (right).

• Friday, 11/8: Strawberries in November
  
  • Mary picked two huge strawberries out of our strawberry patch that grows in buckets and tubs in the near garden. Who would have guessed that we'd be eating strawberries on our waffles in November.
  • Mary and I moved the aluminum ladder deer stand to the north woods.
    
  • I used two gas tanks in the Stihl trimmer to knock down more grass and weeds in the trail to Wood Duck Pond. I'm now between Bass and Dove Ponds where tall sericea lespedeza grows.
    
  • I used two tie-down straps and secured the aluminum ladder deer stand into four trunks of the hickory tree in the north woods (see photo, below). I can survey the north field from that location, along with a chunk of the north woods.
    
  • The yeast in the spiced apple wine is humming right along. The specific gravity is 1.060 after 24 hours in the brew bucket. The pantry smells very good.

  

  The Four Trunk Deer Stand in the north woods.An Alaskan "I voted" sticker.
  

• Saturday, 11/9: Quiet Rainy Day
  
  • Today was a quiet day. We had misty rain for most of the day, and then fog after it turned dark.
  • Squirrels love wet weather. I saw them all over the place outside. I think they feel safer from getting nabbed by birds of prey when rain is falling.
    
  • Mary cleaned the floor and books in the upstairs north bedroom while I put away winemaking stuff and years of saved bill receipts in the main floor west room. Neither of us finished.
  • We enjoyed two pots each of Keemun tea from Stash while watching the 2001 movie, Gosford Park, which was a prelude to Downton Abbey. It's very good. Julian Fellows, who wrote both productions, won an Oscar for the screenplay of this movie.
    

• Sunday, 11/10: Mulching Garlic & Trail Cleanup
  
  • I checked the spiced apple wine twice, today. Around noon, it had a specific gravity of 1.041 and an increased temperature of 68°. It was in the 50s when I started this batch. By bedtime, the specific gravity was at 1.033. The amount of material in the two nylon mesh bags is significantly reduced.
    
  • Mary mowed the east yard and used the grass clippings to mulch two of the three rows of garlic, which are already sprouting. If these high temperatures keep up, we'll be harvesting garlic in early May, instead of June.
    
  • I used 3.5 tanks of gas in the Stihl trimmer and whacked weeds and grass from the rest of the trail to Wood Duck Pond.
  • I made a quick check of the deer stand that a relative of our neighbor to the east put near our property at Wood Duck Pond. He used tie-down straps wrapped completely around the tree to hold the metal deer stand in place. Over a few years, those straps girdled the tree and killed it. Since last year, the tree fell over and took the stand down with it. Good! I might be able to hunt closer to the pond without fear of someone from that stand aiming a rifle west and toward me. Anytime I've hunted in recent years with the pond in plain sight, I first check to see if someone is in that stand.
  • I might change the location of the Wood Duck Blind. Currently, an oak branch fell on it and smashed in the roof. It needs rebuilding. It's tucked into the hill opposite of our neighbor's property to the east and faces west. I only saw one big buck deer from there last year, whereas I saw several deer while parked behind an oak tree facing north and looking directly down on the pond. I'm also seeing more deer tracks near the pond's shoreline, compared to up and down the dry creek bed just in front of the current Wood Duck Blind. The oak tree facing the pond might be a better deer blind location.
    
  • In the evening, I ordered powdered milk and coffee through Sam's Club. Both are items the Quincy Sam's Club no longer sells, but we can buy online. I also ordered another 50-pound bag of old fashioned oatmeal through webstaurantstore.com. Finally, I ordered six varieties of loose leaf tea through Harney & Sons, based in CT. Mary read that they're a very good tea company. Stash, who we've bought tea from for years, has less loose leaf tea varieties and seems to be trending toward flavored teas...not what we prefer.
    

Oct. 28-Nov. 3, 2024

Weather | 10/28, cloudy, 45°, 73° | 10/29, p. cloudy, 64°, 81° |10/30, 0.02" rain, cloudy, 65°, 79° | 10/31, 1.38" rain overnight, cloudy, 51°, 53° | 11/1, sunny, 30°, 57° | 11/2, p. cloudy, 37°, 57° | 11/3, 0.53" rain, 50°, 69° |

• Monday, 10/28: Two Garlic Varieties Planted & Done With Pecans
  
  • Mary planted the first two garlic varieties. They are Samarkand and Shvelisi. These are the longest keepers and the tastiest.
    
  • She also turned the second row in the far garden in preparation for planting another row of garlic tomorrow.
    
  • Mary mowed up fallen leaves and grass for a compost mixture.
    
  • I husked 220 pecans, which is a new daily record. It brings the grand total to 4,285 nuts. Since starting on Oct. 14th, I've husked 1,942 pecans. I'm done! My thumbs and wrists tell me I should have quit long ago. Mary said this was a good activity to keep me away from the temptation of lifting heavy items during the weeks I needed to be careful, due to cataract surgery. Tomorrow is my three-week limit, according to the eye surgeon, so enough with scraping husks off nuts.
    
  • Even with strong southeast wind gusts, Asian ladybugs constantly landing in my face made me move to a spot east of the pecan trees where the wind kept them down. Mary vacuumed them a couple times inside the house, which seems to be a daily event.
  • I only saw one squirrel running away from me, but I really wasn't even watching for the nut-thieving buggers.
    

• Tuesday, 10/29: Garlic Planted & Chimney Cleaned
  
  • Mary finished planting garlic, putting four varieties (Music Pink, German Extra Hardy, Georgian Crystal, and Siberian) in the far garden. She also turned over ground on the last row to get all garlic planted. She to finish planting garlic, because a large amount of rain is expected in the next several days and it's no fun mudding in garlic cloves.
    
  • I cleaned soot out of the chimney and the stove pipe. Mary found safety goggles she bought for scientific experiments back when we homeschooled our elementary-aged kids in Circle, MT. They are perfect for protecting my eyes during dirty jobs, which cleaning soot out of the chimney is the dirtiest of jobs. I can tell that we burn good wood, because the soot level was low this year.
    
  • I found a chimney swift nest near the top of the soot pile in the chimney (see photos, below). It's amazing how they hold the sticks together with solidified saliva that looks just like glue. The nest is very bare bones. The only other bird with a skimpier nest is a dove.
    
  • We watched sharp-shinned hawk get blown through our east yard by a very strong southwest wind. It was struggling to drop down into the bushes, but the wind held it up in the air and it went flying by us.
  • We experienced gusts over 40 mph. A lot of leaves are on the ground, now.

A chimney swift nest.

The shiny appearance is solidified chimney swift saliva.

• Wednesday, 10/30: More Pecans & Firewood
  
  • We're just as hooked on nuts as the squirrels. With 38 mph south wind gusts thrashing branches about, pecans in their husks were falling from the tree nearest the house. Mary and I picked 300 pecans off the ground. We only kept the nuts that immediately released their husks. Most that we picked up did so. We also learned that with this pecan variety, which is some commercial tree and not a native Missouri pecan tree, when the husk is slightly yellow, the husk comes off easily. We now have a grand total of 4,585 nuts.
    
  • I used the small Stihl chainsaw and cut firewood from pecan and maple branches that have dropped out of trees in the lawn over the past year. I also sawed up persimmon poles saved in the machine shed with the bark on. They turn out to be poor poles that rot quickly when left in the elements, but burn nicely in the woodstove. I put three wheelbarrow loads of small firewood pieces in the woodshed.
    
  • We have our own natural weather service. We heard a frog calling from somewhere east of the house at sunset. After a dry spell, when you hear a frog croaking, rain is on its way.
    
  • A hard rain fell with several thunderstorms as we were going to bed. We saw 1.38 inches in the rain gauge this morning (10/31).
    

• Thursday, 10/31: Happy Halloween
  
  • I brought the metal rack into the house that we stack firewood on and four armloads of firewood. Then, I started a small fire in the woodstove, opened all of the windows, and burned off the oil protecting the stovepipe. That puts smoke into the living room, but with a north wind blowing through the house, the smoke disappeared quickly. We now have wood heat in the house, which Rosemary, our eldest cat, really likes. She parked just behind the stove right after I lit the fire.
    
  • We gathered more pecan nuts...31 in the morning and 15 in the evening.
    
  • Mary made a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies while I did several of the evening chores.
    
  • I looked online and sketched a simple witch pattern on the pumpkin, then carved it (see photos, below). It was fun and took little time to do with a small fillet knife. Mary cut the top off the pumpkin and cleaned out the seeds.
    
  • We enjoyed cookies and a bottle of 2024 cherry wine. Even though I bottled this wine a little over a month ago, making it a very new wine, it tastes marvelous. This has a strong cherry flavor, a nice red color, and a very smooth taste. It ought to be amazing after aging, if it lasts that long.
    
  • We watched the 1993 movie, Hocus Pocus, which has become a Halloween tradition for us.

Carving a Halloween jack-o'-lantern.

Gee!! Can you spot the shining gourd?

This year's finished  jack-o'-lantern.

With the candle lit.

• Friday, 11/1: Halloween Tree Back in Outside Storage
  
  • We experienced calm winds for first time in several days. There was an east breeze in the late afternoon.
  • We saw an almost white barred owl perched on several different tree limbs at the edge of the woods southwest of the house during our morning dog walk. We also had a large deer eating shrubs at the base of the black walnut tree northeast of the house and several more crossing the lane at Bluegill Pond. Mary saw a large buck with short antlers. I call it headhunter's Darwinism. Hunters always shoot bucks with large antlers. Over time, the genetics of the deer herd changes to large bucks with tiny racks.
    
  • We picked 111 nuts, most of them coming right off the lower branches of the nearest pecan tree. Mary says, "It's a done deal and I mean it." Um, I've heard that before.
    
  • Mary took down the Halloween tree, vacuumed dust off cross stitch ornaments, and stored the sticky cedar tree in the north woods next to an old dead round baler. It stays there until next October.
    
  • Mary baked the bottom half of the pumpkin and put two quarts of pumpkin meat in the freezer.
    
  • I worked on my newest deer blind that Mary calls the boys' fort in the woods. I hauled out the large Stihl chainsaw and cut down a two-inch sapling that grew through a hog panel between two hazelnut bushes south of the house. I removed three hog panel pieces from the hazelnuts and used a couple of them to make the fence around the blind higher. Then, I dug up some old Osage orange fence posts laying and sometimes sunk into the forest floor just inside the north woods and stacked them along the north hog fence of the blind. I cut some to fit with the chainsaw. They have a deep yellow wood, even after laying in a pile for decades in the woods. I wired each log into place through the hog fence panels.
    
  • We watched a couple deer in the field southeast of the house after sunset. One was a buck that was following a scent. Another smaller deer started heading toward our south apple trees, so I walked outside to encourage it to go somewhere else..
    

• Saturday, 11/2: Deer Burgers of Youth Hunting Season
  
  • Our puppy, Amber, always looks north when she steps outside and onto the porch. If she sees any squirrel movement, she's off to the races. Often, she's only a few feet behind a squirrel that was too slow to notice a bullet train fur blast heading its way. Then, she bounces around tree trunks while looking up at squirrels. She's really fun to watch. Plato watches Amber, too, but he's more into sniffing where squirrels once chewed on nuts.
    
  • Today is the first day of the first two-day youth deer hunting season. We heard shots to the south. They were rapid-fire shots from a smaller caliber rifle. I'm guessing it's an assault rifle. They use a .223 caliber bullet, which is only three thousandths of an inch larger than a .22. We'd hear "bang, bang," then "bang, bang." There's not much aiming with that kind of shooting...just making deer burger if the animal is actually hit with bullets.
    
  • We watched a bald eagle fly over the south field from the living room window. It circled above Bluegill Pond, then flew further south.
    
  • Mary made wonderful pizza for our midday meal.
    
  • I worked on my deer blind, the boy's fort, by adding more Osage orange logs to the north and east sides, wiring them into place, and wiring down two lengths of old barn tin as a roof. The south side has old cedar branches woven into hog fencing that was at the old Bobcat Deer Blind that I might just refresh with new cedar boughs. I'm running out of time for the upcoming deer hunting season to stack logs on that side, which is what I need to eventually accomplish.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of parsnip wine corked in April. This is a wine that's suppose to age for two years, but it tastes very good with only a few months of aging. It has a unique taste that's hard to identify. This parsnip wine is earthy, tart, and somewhat bitter, in other words, delicious. It has a pretty gold color and this batch fizzes when initially poured into a glass (see photo, below). We definitely need to plant more parsnips, for it makes excellent wine.

  

  Parsnip wine photo taken by Mary in
  an obviously fancy glass...ha, ha!
  

• Sunday, 11/3: New Blind & Christmas Shopping Done
  
  • I put three one-gallon bags of frozen apple sauce, amounting to over 22 pounds, out to thaw in preparation for making some apple wine. There was still ice in the center of these bags at night. I should have put them out to thaw last night. We put them in the refrigerator before going to bed.
    
  • I did some checkbook balancing that I've neglected for over a month. Then, Mary paid the bills, including a big one for my recent cataract surgery and lenses.
  • I finished up work on my newest deer blind, the Fort, by weaving cedar branches through holes in the south and east hog fence walls. I also stuck cedar branches into all roof edges to help disguise me while sitting in the blind. It's done (see photos, below).
    
  • We finalized our Christmas shopping, sent wish lists to our kids, and made several online purchases to finish most all of our gift buying.
    
  • We celebrated today's accomplishments with a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. It's almost two years since I bottled this wine and aging vastly improved its taste. The wine is very smooth, but boy, does it have a kick. It's a beautiful dark red wine with a strong blackberry flavor that's quite good.

Northwest corner of the Fort Deer Blind.

Southwest corner of the same blind in the north woods.

Oct. 21-27, 2024

Weather | 10/21, sunny, 45°, 77° | 10/22, 0.01" rain, sunny, 53°, 79° |10/23, cloudy to sunny, 53°, 59° | 10/24, sunny, 33°, 69° | 10/25, 0.44" rain, sunny, 53°, 63° | 10/26, sunny, 33°, 60° | 10/27, sunny, 32°, 63° |

• Monday, 10/21: Racking Jalapeño Wine
  • Autumn tree leave colors are glorious (see photos, below). Bill took these photos in the evening, with the sun low on the west horizon.
  • Bill and I racked the jalapeño wine for the third time. The specific gravity was 0.992, which was the same as when it was racked five weeks ago. The pH was 3.1. We racked directly into another 3-gallon carboy and a 375-ml bottle, so I only lost a half wine bottle of liquid. We tasted the remaining wine. It's a dark amber color that looks like it would be hot. But, it's a perfect drinking wine. The wine is warm and peppery, but it doesn't burn the tongue at all. It tastes great.
    
  • I husked 40 more pecans to reach my goal. I realized that my numbers are off, because I figured each month at four weeks, and 4 x 12 is 48. There are 52 weeks in a year, so I'm low by four weeks. I'm tired of this job, so we might make due with hazelnuts that Mary harvested earlier this autumn.
    
  • Mary vacuumed Asian ladybugs for hours. They weren't quite as bad as on Saturday, but there were still enough to vacuum non-stop for most of the afternoon.
    
  • Mary fixed up tasty pizzas with homegrown green peppers and tomatoes. They tasted really good. We played a game of Monopoly while eating pizza and enjoying 2023 cherry wine. Bill won by building on the three properties just shy of the "Go To Jail" corner. He forced Mary out of the game, first, then knocked me out when I didn't have enough money to pay $50 to get out of jail. At the end of the game, he had over $11,000 in cash and property. It was fun.

Autumn colors from north edge of west field.

Similar photo, but showing the big Bartlett pear tree.

• Tuesday, 10/22: WOW...One Hundredth Inch of Rain!
  
  • We received our first moisture since September 24th, but it didn't rain at the house. We know this because dust on vehicles was untouched. Less than an eighth of a mile away at the rain gauge, we measured 0.01 inch of rain. Radar showed an entire front to the east of us when we woke, which had just moved through us. This property location is really weird at drying up rain chances.
    
  • Bill changed oil in his car. He used a 4' x 3' piece of three-quarters inch thick plywood to block wind, allowing the oil to drip straight down.
    
  • Gusty southwest winds kept Asian ladybugs down a little bit. But, they were still buzzing around in the wind.
    
  • Bill left for his St. Charles apartment around 2 p.m.
    
  • Mary vacuumed more bugs inside the house.
    
  • Mary picked up a bunch more nuts from under the paper pecan tree. I took husks off 85 pecan nuts. I figured a new goal of 3,750 after realizing my mistake that 3500 only accounted for 48, instead of 52 weeks in the year. I have 3,646 at the end of today, so I need 104 more to reach my new goal.
  • I saw an American kestrel fly north to south over the tree tops in the late afternoon.
    
  • Squirrels kept trying to raid the pecan trees after the sun set. They are so pecan crazy that they now have no regard for owls lurking about at that hour.
    

• Wednesday, 10/23: Lane Tree Limb Trimming Is Done
  
  • Mary collected more pecans from under the trees. I husked 80 nuts. I'm only 24 shy of my new goal. There are more than that many nuts in the bucket yet to have husks removed.
  • Squirrels are just as prominent as they've always been. I chased away many with bullets. My aim was horrendous, today.
  • We had a few drops of rain around noon, but not enough to show in the rain gauge.
    
  • Mary trimmed cedar branches off 10 trees along the last third of our lane, finishing the job of nipping back tree limbs that were nearly touching our pickup as we drove to or from the house.
  • Mary saw an American kestrel near Bluegill Pond.
  • Mary made a shopping list, since we're going to Quincy, tomorrow.
  • Katie sent Bill, Mary, and I a Christmas wish list. Now we all need to do the same.
  • We went almost a month without seeing eggs from our hens, because they were molting. Eggs first started showing, one egg every couple days, about a week ago. Mary collected two eggs when we put the chickens to bed tonight.
  • Mary took two photos of autumn colors just north of the east end of the machine shed (see below).

Oaks with red and orange. Hickory is yellow.

Maple yellow leaves & pecan leaves are still green.

• Thursday, 10/24: Quincy Library Book Sale
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy. Our first stop was at the library book sale, where we loaded two Mid-Rivers canvas bags with books. The place was packed with people when we arrived. I found a very good 1970s-vintage Rodale Press book called The New, Improved Wood Heat. Mary found a number of good books. At 50 cents an inch, the price is hard to beat. We ended up with 14 books and a movie for $8.75.
  • We picked up a set of new sheets at the Salvation Army for $20, along with some vinyl records and a DVD movie. For the first time in years, we found Stash tea at Walmart. As you can see, little things make us happy.
  • On the way home, I bought gas at $2.79 a gallon in Lewistown, MO.
    
  • We got home around 3 p.m.
  • I husked 20 more pecans for a grand total of 3,746. Four more and I reach my new goal. Squirrels are just as messy as usual.
  • Mary roared through evening chores. An approaching storm showed on the radar. By around 5:30, we heard thunder and it was raining around 6 p.m.
  • We reviewed our newly acquired books throughout the evening.
  • Around 10 p.m., more storms were approaching from the west. Lightning flashed as we walked the puppies.
    

• Friday, 10/25: Help With Drought Conditions
  
  • We experienced rain overnight, which is much needed, since the National Weather Service now shows us as being in a severe drought. We woke to falling mist, but the sun broke out by 10 a.m.
    
  • Mary collected more pecan nuts with husks on them. There are fewer, now, but several are still on the tree.
    
  • I husked 54 pecans for a grand total of 3,800. I've husked 1,457 nuts this year. No wonder my fingers are brownish green!
    
  • I watched an invading squirrel army arrive in our pecan trees at sunset. I think a squirrel appeared once every two minutes. They're absolutely nuts for pecans. I shot three of them.
    
  • We watched the 2018 film, The House with a Clock in Its Walls.
  • Below are more autumn color photos that Mary took on a late morning dog walk to the north.

Bright gold color of mulberry leaves.

Deep red oak leaves.

• Saturday, 10/26: More Pecans & Popping Garlic
  
  • Mary did her last pecan pickup under the trees. Squirrels continue to rip them off and send them to the ground.
    
  • I husked 105 pecans while a northeast wind blew in my face. The grand total is now at 3,905.
  • Squirrels are just as thick as ever. This summer was obviously a boom on raising baby squirrels. Last year, squirrel visits quit after I shot a few. This year they just keep on invading the pecan trees. I shot two squirrels, today.
  • Mary popped cloves from garlic bulbs on three of the six varieties. These are big cloves that she will plant this upcoming week.
    
  • I enjoyed a plentiful wildlife walk to the mailbox as darkness was seeping into the landscape this evening. A deer was eating short grass on the lane near Bluegill Pond and trotted a few yards east, then stood and watched me walk by on the lane. I think it had a rack. As a rabbit bounced into the grass, an owl flew low across the lane. Then, on the way back home I saw two deer a few feet east of the lane looking at me while I walked by them. It was a doe and a yearling perfectly silhouetted against the grass of the southeast field.
    

• Sunday, 10/27: Garlic Planting Prep & Pecan Husking Record
  
  • Mary popped the rest of the garlic designated for planting. She then turned over the ground on the first of three rows destined for garlic planting. Mary added a good amount of compost. She says that she's ready to plant garlic in that row tomorrow.
    
  • Meanwhile, I husked 160 pecan nuts for an updated grand total of 4,065. It was the most pecans I've husked in one day. Husks are coming off nuts easier, now, probably because the nuts are more mature. I picked up a partial bucket of more nuts scattered under the paper pecan tree, put there by squirrels. Mary and I agreed that today was the last day for working the pecans, but I couldn't resist collecting another day's worth of nuts to husk. Mary says I've turned into Scrat, the saber tooth squirrel in the Ice Age animated movies. Tomorrow is the last day of husking...I promise. Mary says she doesn't believe me.
    
  • Squirrels were as plentiful as always. I shot one. I tried using my Ruger 22 rifle. It's so in need of getting sighted in that I would have been better off throwing bullets by hand. I went back to the Marlin rifle, which is very accurate.
  • While looking through scopes of the two rifles, I noticed that vision in my right eye has improved. It's not quite as good as the left eye, but very close to perfect, plus it still will probably get better.
    
  • After the sun set, I kept hearing leaves rustling in the woods, thinking it was from squirrels. I shot at a fox squirrel. It ran down the tree and a few steps into the woods. Then I didn't hear it, so I stepped to the edge of the woods to investigate. At that point I saw a deer walking east to west across the north yard. It stopped at the wood's edge, trying to figure out where I was. Then another deer ran north from just inside the woods and the original deer I spotted followed the running deer. 
  • I also watched a sharp-shinned hawk swoop in under the paper pecan tree branches and grasp a small bird. It flew to the wagon behind the 8N Ford tractor in the machine shed, right next to me. The hawk realized my presence and immediately jumped to a new location inside the shed, then flew out and somewhere to the west. The whole time, the tiny bird was peeping while in the claws of the hawk. 
  • Finally, as I was leaving, a third deer, with a very gray coat of hair, was walking west to east across the north yard. When I reported to Mary all of the deer activity, she said I should be able to tag a deer from my newest deer blind just north of the machine shed when hunting season begins.
    
  • We watched the 2005 film, Corpse Bride.
    

Oct. 14-20, 2024

Weather | 10/14, p. cloudy, 39°, 57° | 10/15, p. cloudy, 41°, 55° |10/16, sunny, 29°, 57° | 10/17, sunny, 30°, 65° | 10/18, sunny, 36°, 67° | 10/19, sunny, 39°, 73° | 10/20, sunny, 45°, 77° |

• Monday, 10/14: Cleaning Plants Prior to Tomorrow's Killing Frost
  
  • This morning, several dozen robins piled into the poke berries under the Granny Smith apple tree and went after the Sargent crabapples. These robins came in with yesterday's northerly winds. They had very pale breasts. Some were almost white.
  • Mary saw a young deer with a gray winter coat when she walked the first waterer to the chicken coop. I heard it snort just a couple minutes earlier from the north woods.
    
  • Mary and I collected more nuts with the husks on that were under the pecan trees.
  • Mary picked the remaining hot peppers and hung three strings of them in the upstairs south bedroom.
  • Then, Mary picked 90 jalapeño peppers that she will make into refrigerator jalapeño pickles.
  • Next, Mary picked a five-quart pan of cherry tomatoes, and a four-gallon bucket of big tomatoes, including some unripe ones.
  • I took the husks off a 26 pecans.
  • I made noontime waffles, giving Mary relief from cooking.
  • Mary pulled up all pepper and tomato plants. She wanted to get them prior to the killer frost that's predicted for tomorrow night. She says there were probably 1,000 immature green tomatoes that were too young to save. If left until after the freeze, they all would have been pounds of gooey mush. In the future, we must get tomato plants in the garden sooner than we did this year. She moved seven wheelbarrow loads of plants stacked up to head level to a pile down the hill, east of the far garden. Mary had green hands and forearms after that job.
  • I chased squirrels away roughly every 10-20 minutes and husked another 105 pecans for a grand total of 133 put away for the day. There's only 577 left to reach our pecan nut goal for the year.
  • The tool I'm using to husk pecans is nice and black. I remember Dad telling me that prior to trapping muskrats, he and Grandad would soak new steel traps in boiling water filled with walnut husks. Pecans, hickories, and walnuts are all related. I understand, now, how well the juice from these husks blackens steel.
    

• Tuesday, 10/15: Eyes Are Good
  • Katie called us last night after I sent out this blog. She was making a butternut squash soup while she talked to us. She made a recent assessment trip to Kaktovik, AK, on a school project her employer is preparing to start. Katie is getting a new promotion to master sergeant in the Alaska Air National Guard. She got an award for her work in flood recovery efforts she did as a National Guard member in Juneau this summer. Katie reminded us that we need to get a Christmas wish list to her, soon.
    
  • We got to Quincy around 9:50 a.m. for a 10 a.m. surgery post-op visit. Dr. Benedict, my optometrist, took a detailed view of both new lenses and said they looked perfect, with no movement. Eye pressures were 12 in the left eye and 19 in the right eye. Normal eye pressure is between 10-20, so they are good and I can stop taking drops for that symptom. He also said the left eye recovered quicker than normal and the right eye is recovering at a normal pace. I have 25/20 vision in the left eye and 35/20 vision in the right. Dr. Benedict predicts the vision will improve over the next couple weeks in both eyes. I have another post-op visit with him in three weeks on Nov. 5th. Then we decide whether I need glasses or if I can just stick with the cheater glasses for close-up viewing.
  • Mary and I shopped for a few things after the eye appointment. The highlight was frozen turkeys for only 88 cents a pound at Walmart. We bought two of their largest birds. We also got a cheap pumpkin at Menards.
  • We got back home around 1:30 p.m.
  • Mary yanked all of the green bean plants out of the far garden. There are still squash and cucumber vines in the near garden. She'll move them after they're dried out later this fall.
  • We both collected more downed pecan nuts with their husks on and I husked 27 of them while chasing squirrels away. Pecans draw squirrels in better than anything else in the world.
  • Mary and I covered the winter greens with blankets to protect them from the expected overnight freeze. We decided not to worry about the strawberry plants.
  • We're noticing that the juncos are home for the fall/winter.
    

• Wednesday, 10/16: First Frost of Fall
  
  • We got our first autumn frost. We were sure glad that we removed tomato and pepper plants. They would have been blackened mush with this frost.
    
  • Mary and I picked up more pecans left on the ground by marauding squirrels and jays. Squirrels are in such a frenzy that they knock multitudes of nuts to the ground.
    
  • Mary cleaned the insides of all windows. She also washed all curtains. A west to southwest breeze flapped them enough on the line that she didn't need to iron them.
    
  • I husked pecans all day and chased squirrels. I now have a grand total of 3,058 nuts, with only 442 left to gather and husk.
  • One big gray squirrel wouldn't leave the paper pecan tree, even after I threw firecrackers into the tree to scare it away. I debated about getting the .22 rifle out. Mary said since I got a good bill of health from the eye clinic, she thought I could use it. So, with Mary's help at spotting the squirrel high in the tree, I shot it. As the late afternoon progressed, I shot at a few other squirrels, but missed them. I'm rusty at shooting left-handed. Squirrels really change their tune about attacking pecan nuts once rifle shots are fired. They get scarce quickly.
    
  • After the sun set, I heard something in the north woods, but never saw anything. Then, after entering the living room. there were three deer walking north to south just west of the house. That's probably the footsteps I heard in the woods. The leading deer got too close to the south apple trees, so I went outside and shooed them away into the west woods. They all had on their dark brown/gray winter coats.
  • The hunter moon was extremely bright when we walked dogs for their final outing.
    

• Thursday, 10/17: Tasty Salads
  
  • Frost covered the ground again this morning.
  • A dump truck loaded with gravel showed up in front of the house this morning. The first thing the driver said was that he must be at the wrong place and then asked where Rich's hunting cabin is located. Rich owns under 50 acres opposite of our property's southwest corner. I gave the driver directions and he left only small dents in our lawn while turning the dump truck around. It's a good thing we're currently dry!
    
  • Mary and I collected pecans and I removed husks from 127 nuts throughout the day.
    
  • I shot three squirrels. They were all big guys.
    
  • Mary froze cut-up sweet peppers, creating 11 small sandwich bags of peppers for the freezer. She also made three quarts of jalapeño refrigerator pickles. They're hotter than the last batch she made.
    
  • We ate the best tasting salads (see photo, below) of freshly picked winter greens plus cherry tomatoes recently collected from the garden. This was in addition to the venison stroganoff on rice as our main dish.
  • We watched the 2002 film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

  

  Salads consisting of winter greens and cherry tomatoes.
  

• Friday, 10/18: Several Deer
  
  • We heard a great blue heron making croaking sounds to the northeast while walking the dogs before sunrise.
  • A mature bald eagle flew by the west side of the house below the treetops and landed in the south woods. We don't usually see bald eagles that low to the ground.
  • I shot three more squirrels this morning.
  • We picked up more pecans dropped by squirrels and birds and I removed husks from 120 nuts. I need 211 more nuts to reach our goal of 3500 pecans for oatmeal breakfasts for the upcoming year.
    
  • Mary took the garden hose and washed house plants. She also cleaned the sunroom where most of the plants sit throughout the year.
    
  • I saw two deer in the north woods near my newest deer blind this morning and three deer on the second half of our lane when I got mail right after sunset.
    

• Saturday, 10/19: Asian Ladybug Hordes
  
  • White-crowned sparrows are thick in the bushes. Mary and I watched one hopping around while we picked pecans under the trees in the morning. I heard them all day as they kicked over autumn leaves nearby.
  • Bill arrived around 11:30 a.m.
  • Katie sent photos of awards she received from the Alaska Air National Guard (see photos, below). She also said that she "found out today that I was picked as NCO of the quarter for my group and will compete at the wing level."
    
  • I shot two squirrels.
  • I husked exactly 100 pecans, bringing my total to 3,379 and only 121 away from the 3,500 goal.
  • Asian ladybugs started swarming around 2 p.m. and they increased to the worst we've ever witnessed. We hoped last winter's -20 temperature might have killed a few, but today proved that theory all wrong. Poor Mary started vacuuming in the living room starting around 2:30, where the inside west wall was covered with thousands of crawling bugs. She literally vacuumed bugs for hours. I got inside right when the sun was setting and took over vacuuming duties so she could break and do chores. Waterers in the chicken coop were filled with floating bugs. Inside the machine shed, it sounded like it was raining. The sound came from bugs hitting the outside of the tin on the south side of the building. After the sun went down, Mary and I attacked all rooms with the shop vac and cleaned them up. They were horrible and we now have a shop vac stuffed with stinking bugs. The house smelled like Asian ladybug odor for a couple hours after we finished vacuuming.
    
  • Bill, Mary, and I watched the 2004 film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Katie said, "Quite the day at drill," with this photo.

Katie said her dogs were at her promotion.

• Sunday, 10/20: Stargazing with Bill's Binoculars
  
  • Mary sucked up Asian ladybugs starting around 11:30 a.m., which allowed her to keep up with the insect invasion into the house. They were a little less intense, due to a southwest wind, with about 20 mph gusts. I watched them get blown into the north woods throughout the day.
    
  • I husked another 100 pecan nuts, raising the grand total to 3,479, which is only 21 away from the goal of 3,500. After several hundred, I'm getting quicker at the task. However, I have greenish brown Shrek fingers and thumbs, due to pecan juice eventually seeping through the latex gloves.
  • Several times in the late afternoon, squirrels would sneak down the tree directly above me. As soon as I'd take of the gloves and reach for the rifle, they'd scurry back up the tree and hop from tree limb to tree limb, escaping to the north.
  • Bill worked throughout the day on learning his statistics programs.
  • After dark, we peered at the night sky through Bill's Celestron Skymaster binoculars (see photo, below). He had them set up on a tripod and used a very cool app on his phone called Stellarium. Holding his phone at any point in the sky and specific names of stars, planets, constellations and other celestial items showed up on the screen. We looked at several star clusters and nebulae. We looked at craters on the moon, the stars of Pleides, Jupiter and three of its moons, and Saturn. Satellite names showed up on Bill's app, several of which we couldn't see. We watched a row of Starlink satellites move across the west sky. It was a real blast looking through his binoculars.
    
  • We started our stargazing in front of the chicken coop, but moved to the trail going east from the grain bins to view the moon and Jupiter, rising in the east sky. While there, we heard many flying squirrels chirping, moving about, and chewing on pecan nuts. There were either several in the trees, or one extremely active flying squirrel.

  

  Bill's Celestron Skymaster 20x80 binoculars are really big.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Oct. 7-13, 2024

Weather | 10/7, sunny, 40°, 67° | 10/8, sunny, 39°, 73° |10/9, sunny, 42°, 78° | 10/10, sunny, 45°, 78° | 10/11, sunny, 51°, 83° | 10/12, p. cloudy, 58°, 87° | 10/13, sunny, 49°, 67° |

• Monday, 10/7: Trimming Lane Branches
  
  • Mary trimmed tree branches on the east side of the lane that have grown so far that the pickup's antenna and mirrors sometimes touch them while we drive to and from the gravel road. They are mainly cedar branches. She chopped off branches from the house to about two-thirds down our quarter-mile lane.
    
  • I chased squirrels away from the pecan trees all day.
    
  • I weeded grass and weeds out of the spinach tub in the winter greens.
  • I cleaned inside and outside of the pickup's windows to aid Mary in driving the truck, tomorrow, when we go to Quincy for my second cataract surgery.
    
  • I wrote questions down to ask the eye surgeon for tomorrow's visit.
    

• Tuesday, 10/8: Right Eye Cataract Surgery
  
  • We drove to Quincy in the morning for my right eye cataract surgery. 
  • We had to be to the hospital by 11 a.m., but we arrived in Quincy early so I could pick up some cheater glasses enabling me to read and view the computer screen. I got a pair of 3+ reading glasses for close-up reading and a pair of 2+ glasses for viewing the laptop from a little further away. Later in the evening, I tested the glasses and they worked great.
    
  • The surgery on my right eye went fine. It started just a few minutes after noon. I thought it went faster than last week, but Mary assured me that my time in the operating room was about the same, roughly 20-25 minutes.
  • The Quincy Medical Group's hospital is in the old mall where Penneys and Sears once were located and are since gone. We parked in the mall parking lot's northwest side, that is completely empty, ate lunch, and waited until my post-op appointment at 4:10 p.m.
  • We got to the eye office early and checked in. We waited and waited while other customers came and went. Employees started to go home. Finally, Mary and I were the only customers left. I asked the folks at the desk if we were forgotten and I was told we weren't checked in  yet. A couple minutes later, I was called back and went through my appointment. Mary had a remaining employee apologize profusely, telling her that when we were initially checked in, we were listed in their computer system as checked into the hospital, not the eye clinic office. It's a glitch in their computer programming that happens, sometimes. Mary was rather a little bit chewy about that fact!
    
  • Meanwhile, in my post-op diagnosis, my left eye's vision is at 20:20. The right eye is at 200:20, due to all of the floating medicine in it. The pressure inside the right eye was quite high, so the doctor gave me additional medication after answering all my questions. I'll be able to get back to normal on lifting 50-pound bags of feed and cutting firewood with a chainsaw in three weeks, he said. So, we'll celebrate Eye Freedom Day on Oct. 29th.
  • Mary drove us home just in time to get dogs walked and chickens ushered into the coop prior to darkness falling. We were glad for the day to be over!
    

• Wednesday, 10/9: Husking Pecans & Eliminating Garden Plants
  
  • I sat in the shade under the pecan trees and pealed husks off paper pecan nuts with an offset screwdriver while chasing squirrels out of the pecan trees. It's a good activity I can do while recuperating from cataract surgery.
    
  • Mary cut grass in the lawn immediately east of the house with her scythe. We've neglected mowing for several weeks and the grass is too high for a mower. This gets it down to a good height for the mower and gives us more hay for the chickens.
    
  • Mary picked the last of the green beans and thereby eliminated bean plants from the watering schedule. She also picked some tomatoes. She eliminated most of a row tomatoes from the watering schedule that show no promise of producing tomatoes in the next 4-5 days. We were too late at planting tomatoes, this year.
    
  • We're predicted to see a low of 36° on Monday and 35° on Tuesday, which means we will be even colder here on top of our hill, so we're sure to see frost damage in our gardens. Mary plans on cleaning out garden plants prior to Monday and Tuesday, since mucking out dead tomato plants killed by frost is a sloppy and gooey job.
  • Like last week, but in the right eye, I have slowly decreasing octopus ink swirls from the medicine they use in my eye when the new lens is implanted. Vision is fuzzy in that eye, but getting better. Cover my right eye and I see distances quite well.
  • Plato wants to jump off the porch, so Mary puts a leash on him to get him out the door, then removes it once we're outside and on the ground. He limps just a little, but he's improving  every day. Plato often trots a short distance on walks.
    

• Thursday, 10/10: Pecans & Northern Lights
  
  • Mary picked up fully husked pecans under the trees. I spent most of the day removing those husks. I also chased squirrels away several times. Even though I wore latex gloves, I now have the annual autumn disease that I call pecan thumbs (see photo, below). Juice from peeling husks of pecan nuts eventually seeps through the gloves and turns my thumbs black.
  • Mary did a bunch of housecleaning. The Asian ladybugs started flying about and trying to get into the house, so Mary was busy vacuuming them out of windows.
  • We watched the 1998 movie, Practical Magic.
  • Bill received an image from his high school friend, Cole, with a photo of the aurora above Edmonton. Bill also noticed it in St. Louis. When we went out with the dogs, we saw red and green in our northern sky. We went back out and sat in lawn chairs partway down the lane for a couple hours. Unfortunately, the best display was right when we went out with the puppies. Even so, it was fun watching the night sky as the moon set. We saw two meteors streak across the north sky.

  

  Blackness on my thumbs from husking pecan nuts.

• Friday, 10/11: No Gun Shots
  
  • On the first morning check for squirrels, a deer ran off from behind the machine shed through the north woods. It went right by my newest deer blind.
  • Today is the first day of early rifle anterless deer season. I think it's too warm to be handling venison meat. Besides, I can't be shooting a gun or lifting anything over 10 pounds after cataract surgery, so I'll wait for better hunting days. We didn't hear a single rifle shot, today.
    
  • I have diminished floaters in my right eye, but my vision in that eye is blurry. As Mary says, "Patience...you just need patience."
    
  • Bill called. He compared notes with us about last night's aurora and spent the rest of the time chatting. He is coming here for a visit on Oct. 19-22.
  • Mary picked nuts off lower branches and the ground for me. I husked pecans and chased away squirrels all day while sitting under the pecan trees.
  • Mary picked the last of the sweet peppers and nearly the last of the hot peppers. She hung hot peppers up to dry.
    
  • Mary also turned hay that's in the front lawn. It smells wonderful, resembling a barn's hayloft after getting a new supply of hay.
  • Clouds rolled in before sunset. It's the first clouds we've seen since Oct. 4!
  • Plato marched upstairs to say hi to Mary. He was very proud of himself. He ventured down the stairs, too. He's getting better!
    

• Saturday, 10/12: Finishing Some Autumn Chores
  
  • Mary picked the last of the green beans, cut them up, and processed six quarts and three one-serving packages for the freezer. It was a good green bean year in 2024.
    
  • Mary also picked up the hay in the front lawn and stored it in the second grain bin. There were several wheelbarrow loads, enough to replace what she put into the coop after I cleaned it, and then an additional amount. She said she's done with the chore of cutting and storing hay for this year.
    
  • Mary picked a bunch of pecan nuts for me, which I husked, while chasing squirrels away throughout the day and sitting under the pecan trees. Wind picked up in the late afternoon, when Mary found more nuts. A branch came down several feet ahead of me. Mary looked up above me and had me move to just in front of the machine shed, due to the chance of a dead branch coming down on my head.
    
  • Hops are taking over (see photos, below). Soon, they'll be all over the area near our house.
  • The vision in my right eye is still fuzzy. It's taking longer to clear than my left eye after cataract surgery. I noticed that my near vision is slightly better, today. I didn't use cheater reading glasses all day.
    

Hops atop persimmon saplings. Raspberry
patch at the bottom of these saplings

More hops vines climbing persimmon saplings.
Kieffer pear tree is in the background.

• Sunday, 10/13: Pecan Nut Inventory
  
  • I counted all of the pecan nuts that we picked last year and it is 2,343. Then, I added the 442 pecans I husked so far this year for a grand total of 2,785 nuts. I crack 12 pecan nuts per morning to add to oatmeal breakfasts. We eat six oatmeal breakfasts each week. Waffles are our breakfast fare on Fridays. Add in a couple oatmeal breakfasts for Bill when he's visiting each month and we need 300 pecans per month. Multiply by 14 months (pecans take roughly two months to dry) and we need 4,200 nuts, or 1,415 additional pecans. Consuming eight per day and we already have enough with last year's nuts. Consuming 10 per day equals 250 per month or 3,500 over 14 months, which means we need to collect an additional 715. That's our goal.
    
  • I picked up and husked 35 pecan nuts. I also played hide and seek with the always reappearing squirrel hordes. They sneak in over the fallen leaves like a herd of buffalo, then I stomp into the woods and send them running. We repeat this dance several times a day.
    
  • Mary and I picked up several more pecans blown down by the wind. Most had husks that were once gnawed on by either squirrels or birds.
  • There is a large nest just north of the machine shed that is well hidden behind shorter oak trees (see photo, below). It looks like the beginnings of a winter nest built by squirrels. They start with sticks, then fill it with leaves.
    
  • The wind blew out of the northwest too hard for doing much outside. Mary was going to give all houseplants a bath, but wind gusts prevented that activity.
    
  • My right eye is still fuzzy. Time will tell if it gets better. All vision is so much brighter. You don't realize how dark your vision gets until after cataract surgery.

  

  A squirrel nest in the making behind the machine shed.