Oct. 26-Nov. 1, 2026

Weather | 10/26, p. cloudy, 49°, 73° | 10/27, cloudy, 49°, 70° | 10/28, cloudy, 51°, 77° | 10/29, sunny, 55°, xx° | 10/30, xx°, xx° | 10/31, xx°, xx° | 11/1, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 10/26-Tuesday, 10/27: Giant Tomato Vines
  • I'm on the same head-down regimen, although I must admit, I'm very poor at following it too closely. I walk 2-3 miles each day up and down our quarter-mile lane. It keeps me sane and gives Cooper good exercise.
  • An area farmer was combining across the gravel road and down the hill to the south of our property. A south breeze blew dust our way, so I continue to have allergy problems with my right eye. I wash my face more frequently and wear a pair of chemical splash eye guards when I'm outside.
  • Mary cleared all of the vegetable plants from the far garden. In some cases, she removed 20-foot vines that traversed across several rows of the garden. The black cherry tomatoes grew the longest vines and any spot where the vines touched the ground, they took root. It took Mary two days to complete this task, partly because she's allergic to the mold that grows on tomato plants, so she had to take breaks.
  • On Tuesday, Mary mowed the far garden, then spread compost on three of the four rows in that garden. She also turned the first row's soil and mixed in our wonderful compost.
  • In the evening, Mary popped the cloves for three varieties of garlic. This involves half of the garlic varieties she plants. She's determined to get garlic in the ground before rain that is predicted to fall very early Friday morning.
  • The early youth deer hunting season took place over the past weekend. We only heard one shot through the three-day season. An online report said there were lower numbers of deer taken this year, probably due to the high temperatures.
  • First-time birds that Mary discovered while using the Merlin app on her phone include an orange-crowned warbler, an American pipit, a ruby-crowned kinglet, a Lincoln's sparrow, and a purple finch.
  • Cooper is keeping the squirrels honest. Twice, he ran to within a couple feet a squirrel's backside while on a chase. It's great fun for him.

   

• Wednesday, 10/28: Half of Garlic Planted
  • On Cooper's morning walk, Mary said that in the dark south of Bluegill Pond, she and Cooper noticed two dark forms that were darker than the surrounding grass. She and the puppy stopped. The dark forms started moving closer to them. Mary suddenly thought there might be an odd chance that they were looking at a black bear. The forms spun around and ran off to the west and snorted. They also gave off an odor that deer emit when they're disturbed. She then knew that they were just a couple curious deer that were wondering why Mary had a fawn deer on a leash. We think Cooper's color is so similar to the color of a baby deer, that they get closer to get a better look. It happens all of the time.
  • Mary turned over soil in the second row of the far garden. She also planted three varieties of garlic, which means half of the garlic is planted.
  • Mary popped cloves from the rest of the garlic bulbs in the evening. She plans on finishing planting garlic tomorrow.
  • Today was the first official day of me holding my head up, even though I've done some of that before now. Today on my walks up and down the lane, I was able to look at the scenery. On my first outing, two farmer semi trucks hauling grain rumbled down the gravel road, kicking up huge clouds of dust. I waited until later in the evening to finish my walking, when trucks were no longer filling the air with thick dust. It's not good for my eye.
  • Autumn leaves are turning on all of the maple trees. Walnut trees are empty of leaves. Some oak leaves are turning, but there are still oaks with green leaves.
  • There are several fox sparrows feeding on foxtail grass seed in the near garden.
  • One or two of the newest white chickens are either going through or over the chicken run fence. I had to help Mary move two of these pullets back into the chicken yard.

   

• Thursday, 10/29: Garlic Planting Finished
  • Mary dug compost into the last row of the far garden and planted the last three garlic varieties. Handling garlic is done for now. The next garlic task will be giving all of the rows a light mulch in November.
  • Mary considered celebrating the conclusion of planting garlic by sharing a bottle of wine with me. I looked up the medication in the eye drops that I'm taking and mixing alcohol with them is a no-no, so that idea was canceled.
  • I did the dishes, like I did yesterday, to give Mary more time to plant garlic. I also walked three miles with Cooper up and down our quarter-mile lane.
  • I saw a deer twice, or maybe two different deer, on my walks.
  • Mary vacuumed a bunch of Asian ladybugs from the inside of the windows in the house, which gave me an extra mile of hiking distance. I don't want to be inside the house as the shop vac is kicking up bug dust.
  • We watched the 1998 film, Practical Magic.
  • Rain pounded off the roof above our heads as we fell asleep for the night.

Oct. 19-25, 2026

Weather | 10/19, p. cloudy, 35°, 67° | 10/20, sunny, 40°, 69° | 10/21, p. cloudy, 42°, 71° | 10/22, sunny, 43°, 73° | 10/23, p. cloudy, 45°, 74° | 10/24, p. cloudy, 47°, 74° | 10/25, p. cloudy, 47°, 75° |

• Monday, 10/19: Looking Down
  • I hung my head in shame all day. While sitting on the couch, I look down at the laptop that's sitting with the screen facing up on top of a milk crate. After my neck gets sore, I lay across the bed with the computer in the same arrangement at the edge of the bed. I'll be very happy when I don't have to act like a shameful dog.
  • Mary finished processing the jalapeños that she picked out of the garden last Friday and made them into two quarts of pickled peppers. They are very spicy, so they should last for quite some time.
  • I walked 2.5 miles by going up and down the lane while looking down at my feet. At least it gets me outside.
  • We are experiencing a very late fall. There is hardly any color on the trees.

   

• Tuesday, 10/20: Another Head Down Day
  • I spent another day looking down. It's an exciting time!
  • I walked 2.5 miles up and down the lane. Cooper came with me. I wore him out. He slept very hard in his chair this evening.
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread and cross stitched while waiting for the bread to cool down before cutting and freezing the bread.
  • I did research and ordered a shop vacuum. We figure we need a spare in preparation for Asian ladybug season. We don't want to be without when the influx of bugs shows up.
  • I listened to the Oilers/Wild NHL game. Edmonton was ahead 3-1. Minnesota tied it up 3-3 in the third period. The Oilers scored in overtime to win, 4-3. Two good teams played a game that could have gone either way.

   

• Wednesday, 10/21: Retina is Still Attached
  • We saw a young deer in our front lawn (see photo and video, below). It meandered off to the southwest.
  • Mary drove us to Quincy for my eye checkup, a week after my surgery. This time I was seen by Dr. Kevin Blinder. He whispers and mutters in a low voice. I felt like this old guy needs to retire, soon. Online research reveals he is about 64-65. Dr. Blinder said the retina looks good and is attached. He says I'm not to lift anything, to stay face-down for another week, then see him in two weeks. I asked him when I'll be back to normal activities. He looked astounded that I'd even think of such a question and said it will be months down the road. That was the same answer as to when I'll get the oil removed from my eye. I get the feeling that he will retire before I'm out of the woods with this eye surgery business.
  • We bought a few things before heading home, so we don't have to shop before my Nov. 4th eye appointment. 
  • I walked my normal 2.5 miles with Cooper this evening.
  • Mary saw the first red-breasted nuthatch of the year.

  

  This young deer liked the taste of the grass.

   

  A young deer browsing on front yard grass.
   
  
  

• Thursday, 10/22 - Sunday, 10/25: Harvest Air Swelling
  • I've been struggling a bit with harvest air around us as area farmers stir up dust while running combines in their fields. It's resulting in some swelling in my right eye. I wear chemical splash goggles that completely cover the eyes while going outside. They help.
  • I keep my head down when I can, but I sleep on my left side several times a day when I don't have my head down. I still have to live!
  • I walk 2-3 miles each day. Cooper loves coming along with me. We're intimate with our quarter-mile lane.
  • Cooper is keenly into chasing squirrels. He sent one up the power pole next to the house. That fox squirrel jumped from the top of the power pole to the ground and ran off. We didn't know that a squirrel could drop that far, sustain the fall, and hit the ground running. Cooper sent another one to the top of the weeping willow stump, which is about 7-8 feet high. The dog stood on his hind legs trying to get to that squirrel. Squirrels are cleaning up all of our pecans, since I can't shoot them while I recover from eye surgery.
  • I've listened to several hockey and football games for entertainment.
  • Mary picked the last of the tomatoes that she's willing to harvest.
  • She also mowed the west yard. Shorter grass makes it easier for Mary to collect leaves after they fall.
  • On Sunday, Mary started vacuuming Asian ladybugs in earnest. That chore eliminated what she planned to do outside.
  • During the overnight hours between Saturday night and Sunday morning, all of our trees started to change color, despite not receiving a hard freeze. We now realize that it's not necessarily a hard freeze that makes Asian ladybugs start to swarm; it's a change in tree leaf color that gets them moving.
  • Sunday morning, a bird brushed Mary's shoulder as she was sitting on our porch.
  • New birds that Mary discovered by using the Merlin app on her phone include a hermit thrush. These are birds I used to hear during twilight hours while sleeping in a tent under a tree in Homer, AK, the summer between 8th and 9th grade. Other new birds include a bufflehead duck, a fox sparrow, and a house finch.
  • Cooper and I spooked up a covey of Bob White quail on one of our walks on Sunday.

Oct. 12-18, 2026

Weather | 10/12, sunny, 65°, 86° | 10/13, p. cloudy, 0.33” rain after dark, 65°, 87° | 10/14, cloudy, 60°, 71° | 10/15, 0.15” rain, 59°, 67° | 10/16, 0.02" rain, 43°, 53° | 10/17, frost & sunny, 31°, 55° | 10/18, sunny, 35°, 64° |

• Monday, 10/12: Tomatillo Harvest
  • I drove to Quincy to pick up two types of eye drops needed for after my retina surgery. The cost of one was dropped down to $65 with a coupon that the pharmacist had. I hope I only need one bottle of that stuff! I picked up a couple other items.
  • While I was gone, Mary washed the inside of all house windows and washed all curtains. She had curtains back on the windows before I returned from Quincy. A south wind helped dry and iron out the wrinkles while the curtains hung on the outside clothesline.
  • After getting home, I poured a gallon of windshield washing fluid in the new tank and tested the washer on the pickup's wipers. Everything worked great and there was no leakage.
  • She raked up grass that she cut a couple days ago.
  • I mowed the lane. The grass was getting high enough to smack on the pickup's undercarriage, which means it was too high.
  • Mary harvested some comfrey leaves.
  • She picked and froze a quart bag of tomatillos, which is enough for one batch of salsa. One salsa batch is all that Mary plans on making this year. She also found an acorn squash that was in the middle of the tomatillo plants.
  • Mary hears a white-throated sparrow from the brush under the first pecan tree, where it likes to hide.

   

• Tuesday, 10/13: To St. Louis
  • Mary picked a big bunch of tomatoes.
  • I packed up stuff to take to St. Louis…enough for a visit for a week, if I have to stay that long.
  • I drove to Bill’s apartment and unloaded. He had an amazing chicken dinner ready for me.
  • Bill and I watched a Wild/Jets NHL game. Winnipeg won.

 

• Wednesday, 10/14: Retina Surgery
  • Bill drove me to the St Louis Eye Surgery & Laser Center. We arrived 30 minutes early in a rain storm. They were administering dilation drops by 8 am. I saw the clock read 9:03 when they wheeled me into the surgery room. I was put out for just a few minutes as they deadened my right eye and inserted tiny surgical instruments. Two hours later and my retina was reattached, tears lasered together, a gas bubble and oil put inside the eye, instruments pulled out, and insertions sewed up.
  • Bill went to work and I spent the rest of the day resting with my head in the face down position for most of the time. I have to do the face down scene during the day for a week. At night I can only sleep on my left side. I’m to keep the eye guard on my right eye until tomorrow.
  • Back home, Mary froze two gallons of tomatoes.
  • She added a golden-crowned kinglet, a swamp sparrow, and a common grackle to this year’s bird list.
  • Mary also saw two pairs of deer. One was a pair of does in the west yard, who seemed to be too tame. The other was a doe and a fawn without spots near Bluegill Pond. All of the deer have their gray winter coats.
  • I went to bed early, while Bill was washing dishes. I have an 8:55 a.m. appointment tomorrow.

   

• Thursday, 10/15: Post-Op Appointment 
  • Bill drove me to my 8:55 a.m. post-op appointment in the rain. It was in the St. Luke’s Hospital complex. A helper guided us to the office.
  • They dilated my eye and the doctor checked it thoroughly. He said it looked good for a day after surgery. He said continue the straight down approach with my head for a week, then I get a week without the face down regiment. I cannot lift anything more than 10 pounds for 2-3 months. I don’t know if I’ll be hunting deer this year. Cutting firewood will also be interesting.
  • An appointment was set for Wednesday, Oct. 21st at 12:20 with Dr. Blinder in Quincy. 
  • Back home, Mary had light rain for most of the day. 
  • She cross stitched for four hours. Outside of the sunroom windows, several birds put on a show. She saw robins, cardinals, yellow-rumped warblers, and a yellow perula warbler.
  • Mary took out the ashes from the woodstove before tomorrow’s predicted winds made that task difficult. She plans on lighting the stove tomorrow evening.
  • On a call, Mary, Bill and I decided Bill will drive me home tomorrow after he gets off work, then drive Mary back to St. Louis on Sunday. She will drive the pickup home Sunday afternoon. It gets me home to a better place to sleep, gives Bill his bed back, and gets our wheels back home.
  • Bill and I listened to the Wild/Blues hockey game. Minnesota won, but St. Louis almost tied the game at the end. The score was 5-4.

   

• Friday, 10/16: Returned Home
  • Today was a day of rest for me in Bill's apartment. Slowly throughout the day, I packed my stuff.
  • When Bill returned from work, we loaded my gear in his car and drove north. Before leaving St. Louis, we picked up a meal from Bill's favorite Mediterranean restaurant, leaving there at 6 p.m. We got to our house around 8:30 and ate a wonderful meal of chicken and rice. It felt good to be back home!
  • Back home, Mary dodged rains while harvesting the last of the garden produce. She picked about a third of a grocery bag of jalapeno peppers, about a 4-gallon bucket of tomatoes, and 19 more acorn squash for a grand total of 42 squash.
  • She also ground up the Jonathan apples that we recently bought from Edgewood Orchard in Quincy and froze 27 packages of apple slush for topping breakfast oatmeal. It's not as good as using our apples, but it's the best we can do on a year when our apple crop froze out.
  • Mary brought in some firewood and kindling, but didn't light a fire. The house was still warm from hotter days.
  • Cooper went after a squirrel that was on the old weeping willow stump. It ran into the woodshed with Cooper right behind. Mary said that there was a great deal of thumping in the woodshed before the squirrel zinged back out to the stump, then to the maple tree next to the woodshed. It was an exciting time for the puppy.

   

• Saturday, 10/17: Hiking Day
  • I decided sitting around with my head down is no good, so I walked up and down the lane with my head down looking at my feet. I put in three round trips, which on our quarter-mile lane, equals two miles. Something scurried off when I was next to Bluegill Pond. I didn't see it, since I was looking down, but it sounded like a deer.
  • Bill took a hike to the ponds. He spooked nine wood ducks off Bass Pond.
  • We played six games of Yahtzee. It was a game fit for down-looking me. I had five yahtzees in the final game. It was insane!
  • We deciding that I will go on the roundtrip venture to St. Louis tomorrow. That way, Mary has company while she drives and I can watch the Google Maps directions on my phone and help direct her through city traffic. The amount of time should be similar to a shopping trip to Quincy, so it's not too bad for pets. Plus, I can behave and keep my head down inside the vehicles.

   

• Sunday, 10/18: Returning Our Pickup Home
  • Bill spotted a cardinal and a fledgling outside the living room's west window. It's pretty late for birds to be bringing up little ones!
  • The entire day was spent returning our pickup home. Mary and I rode in Bill's car with him driving the 130 miles south to his apartment in St. Charles. En route, we ate horrible McDonald's hamburgers that had the flavor of "NEVER AGAIN"! We fueled Bill's car up at the gas station across from his apartment complex, and left soon after with Mary in the driver's seat and me giving her directions based on Google Maps and my previous experience. It was an uneventful drive home.
  • By leaving our home just after 10 a.m., we were able to return well before sunset and feed the chickens and handle pets with plenty of time to spare. 

Oct. 5-11, 2026

Weather | 10/5, sunny, 45°, 71° | 10/6, sunny, 44°, 74° | 10/7, sunny, 56°, 80° | 10/8, sunny, 49°, 78° | 10/9, p. cloudy, 55°, 83° | 10/10, sunny, 54°, 83° | 10/11, sunny, 51°, 83° |

• Monday, 10/5: Splitting Firewood & Cutting Hay
  • Mary heard a great horned owl during the early morning hours when she couldn't get back to sleep. It's the first hoot she's heard from that owl type since last winter.
  • While feeding pets, Mary watched a barred owl fly into the pecan tree north of the house well after sunup. It's a perfect location to find a squirrel snack for any owl.
  • I chased squirrels away from the pecan trees all day. They are really tenacious this year.
  • I split wood that's been sitting next to the woodsplitter all summer. It involved several wheelbarrow loads to the woodshed. Prior to stacking firewood in the woodshed, I cleaned up wood bits and bark and dumped a wheelbarrow load around two cherry trees. We now have a stack of firewood about 30 inches high, which is a nice start to fuel for the heating season.
  • Mary cut down hay in the lawn east of the lane and north of the near garden. She will let it dry for a couple days.
  • Mary created a shopping list for a trip to Quincy tomorrow.

   

• Tuesday, 10/6: Shopping Trip to Quincy
  • We shopped in Quincy and returned with a full pickup of stuff. It was over a month since we last made a major shopping trip.
  • Mary heard a white-throated sparrow, so those birds are down from the north for the winter.
  • I spent the evening packing items in case I have to spend a night or two at Bill's apartment in St. Louis.

   

• Wednesday, 10/7: St. Louis Eye Visit
  • I left for Bill's apartment at 7:45 a.m. and reached there by 10:30 a.m. The trip to The Retina Institute only took about 10 minutes from Bill's apartment, so I was there for my 11 a.m. appointment by 10:50.
  • While I was gone, Mary turned the hay that she cut a couple days ago and mowed part of the lawn.
  • Dr. Nicholas Iafe, gave me a thorough exam and showed me images inside both of my eyes. I have a 360-degree detached retina in the right eye. My left eye looks good. The right eye will require surgery sometime next week. The exact day and time of the surgery will come to me in future days. They remove liquid of the eye, move the retina back onto the inside of the eyeball wall, patch up tears with a laser, then place either gas or oil into the eye to hold the retina in place while it heals. Healing takes up to two months with gas, or up to a year with oil. A different doctor will perform the surgery. I left their office within one hour with a folder full of reading material and word that a scheduler will call me in the next few days with surgery scheduling details. 
  • We ate at a place where Bill enjoys the food. It's called the Albadia Mediterranian Cuisine in St. Peters, MO. He had chicken and I had lamb. The food was exceptional!
  • I bought gas at a station just across the road from Bill's apartment complex for $3.97 a gallon and drove back home. It was 260-mile roundtrip excursion.
  • On the way home, I stopped at Fastlane in Taylor, MO. Outside of the store is firewood for sale where you can purchase five sticks of firewood for $6.99 a bundle. Gee whiz...at that price, we have a fortune in firewood in our woodshed!

   

• Thursday, 10/8: Book Sale
  • We drove to Quincy in the morning to take in the Quincy Library Book Sale. We paid $6 for 12 inches of books, which involved 14 books. That means we spent 43 cents per book. Mary got several art books. I bought a biography of John Steinbeck and a book about Barack Obama's mother.
  • We stopped by a sporting goods store and bought some gun cleaning oil. I received a phone call from The Retina Institute about surgery details while in that store. Surgery will be at the St. Louis Eye Surgery & Laser Center on Wednesday, Oct. 14th at 9 a.m. I have to be there by 8 a.m. The surgery takes 90 minutes. The surgeon is Dr. Sweta Kavali. I have a post-operative appointment with Dr. Nicholas Iafe, who I saw yesterday, on Thursday, Oct. 15th at 8:55 a.m. at The Retina Institute's office in Chesterfield, MO. Then, I go home. Future follow-up visits will be in Quincy, where my optometrist is located, with Dr. Kevin Blinder, who travels there biweekly.
  • This schedule means I need to drive to St. Louis and overnight at Bill's apartment Tuesday and Wednesday nights, then drive back home on Thursday. 
  • After we got back home, I filled out a long online questionnaire prior to the surgery. It was amazingly extensive and took me two hours to finish.
  • Mary picked up the hay and stored it in the second grain bin. She said it smells so good and that we had perfect hay curing weather.

   

• Friday, 10/9: More Surgery Info
  • I finally read all the paperwork that was handed to me during my first visit to The Retina Institute in St. Louis and discovered that I won't be immediately driving after my surgery next week. Instead, I will be my son's roommate for a few days. Also, he can't just drop me off. Bill will need to be with me during my surgery. Bill and I discussed all of the new developments. When I relayed that being able to drive can be anywhere from a few days to several months, Bill responded that he will pay someone to drive my pickup home if it leads to a visit involving months.
  • Reading the procedures used to perform the surgery is interesting. They use instruments that are the equivalent of half the diameter of a human hair.
  • Dr. Kavali's office sent prescriptions for two kinds of eye drops to the Sam's Club pharmacy in Quincy. I also got a voice mail from the billing office of the St. Louis Eye Surgery & Laser Center, where my surgery takes place. They have cost estimates and asked me to call back, which I did, and left a voice mail with them. I didn't hear back from them. 
  • Some weird events of nature are taking place. Lilac flowers are opening, as are some violets. These blossoms are usually reserved for springtime. Mary noticed a carpenter bee buzzing around the machine shed. Again, they surface in the spring, not now. 
  • Mary mowed more lawn and raked up some grass.
  • I added mothballs to the plastic Gaterade bottles I have in the pickup, the riding mower, and the woodsplitter. After checking the pickup's air filter housing, I noticed a couple bits of insulation, so I added eight mothballs to that airbox.
  • Today was the first day of the early anterless deer hunting season. Temperatures in the 80s are just too hot for handling venison meat, which is probably the reason why we never heard a single shot today.
  • Mary and I put up the Halloween tree and decorations.

   

• Saturday, 10/10: Replacing Pickup Parts
  • I saw on the Sam's Club app that the prescription for the two types of eye drops called in by my surgery doctor was delayed, so I called the Quincy Sam's Club Pharmacy to ask about it. The pharmacist said he'd fill it right away, which he did. One is rather costly at over $70, but I think that's going to be a minor cost compared to the bill for the upcoming retina surgery.
  • I replaced the plastic window washer tank and the rusted battery tray in the pickup. The leak in the tank is undetectable with the naked eye. I cleaned up bolts and metal parts under the battery tray with a wire brush. It all went together without a hitch. The process took all day. I want to be able to use the washer on the windshield while driving on multi-lane highways during a rain, such as on I-70 in St. Louis.
  • Mary made pizza and topped it with garden tomatoes...wow, it was really tasty.
  • She also washed house plants and repotted two plants.
  • I heard one shot from a nearby deer hunter. I was in the machine shed at the time and couldn't tell the direction of the shot.
  • After dark, we heard coyotes howling from the west yard, somewhere outside of the chicken coop.

   

• Sunday, 10/11: Winterizing Cellar Door & Harvesting Squash
  • We noticed glow worms on the lane at 51 degrees in the morning before dawn while we were walking the puppy. 
  • The steel cellar doors to the basement were initially put on with a wooden board between the outer edge and the cement underneath. Over the years, that board rotted away leaving a significant air gap. Instead of wood, I found that two 4x8x16-inch concrete blocks set on their skinny edges, along with a brick, fit perfectly under that edge of the steel cellar doors and the concrete step below it to block the air gap. I added a piece of mortar from when I redid the chimney and three pieces of asphalt shingle to fill in gaps. Then I used a can of Great Stuff Gaps & Cracks expanding foam to seal up air gaps all around the base of that set of steel cellar doors. It's ready for east winter winds and in better shape than it's been in the past few years.
  • Mary picked 22 acorn squash from the far garden. I helped her haul the squash to the house. There are several more squash that are not quite ripe. If the first freeze holds off, we'll get more.

Sept. 28-Oct. 4, 2026

Weather | 9/28, sunny, 55°, 73° | 9/29, sunny, 51°, 80° | 9/30, 0.21" rain, 62°, 78° | 10/1, 1.11" rain, 64°, 70° | 10/2, 0.25" rain overnight, sunny, 51°, 67° | 10/3, sunny, 41°, 70° | 10/4, sunny, 47°, 73° |

• Monday, 9/28: Storing Dried Garlic
  • I cleaned up all chicken butchering things, but didn't get to the saved feathers or putting away lights and extension cords.
  • Mary took down all of the garlic hanging in the machine shed, trimmed off the dried tops and sorted the garlic bulbs. She threw out seven bulbs, stored questionable bulbs in a separate bag to be used first, pulled out the best bulbs for replanting, and put all other bulbs into loose-knit bags according to each garlic variety. There were several large bulbs this year and a few bad bulbs. Continuous rains contributed to larger bulb sizes. A hard spring freeze nailed a few garlic bulbs that turned bad.
  • I took down the wall that separates chicks from hens in the chicken coop and stored all of the wall pieces in the machine shed rafters. The older hens liked being let loose in the north chicken run, along with the added space of the entire chicken coop.
  • Mary saw a bald eagle flying north to south.
  • We watched Sense and Sensibility (1995), enjoyed popcorn, then shared a bottle of 2024 parsnip wine. 
  • We heard a screech owl in the west woods near Frog Pond while walking Cooper on his last outing.

   

• Tuesday, 9/29: Sweet Potato Harvest and a Clean Chicken Coop
  • Mary harvested our sweet potatoes. We got about the same amount as in years past. Several were relatively small. She set them out to dry on the upstairs south bedroom floor (see photo, below). All of the sweet potatoes came out damp from the wet soil, so they need drying time.
  • Mary also picked about half a bucket of tomatoes.
  • I spread out the white feathers on the upstairs south bedroom floor that I collected Sunday night from our last session of chicken butchering. 
  • I cleaned the chicken coop. It's always a major chore. I swept spiderwebs from the inside and it was the most I've ever seen in the building. Five full wheelbarrow loads of chicken manure went into the compost bin. With expected rain, that ought to turn into a heat factory. Mary moved hay into the coop while I cleaned up the nesting boxes and put fresh hay into them.
  • The five new white pullets are starting to mix with our existing elderly hens. 
  • Mary picked a full bucket of hazelnuts. I yanked out two pieces of hog fencing buried between hazelnut bushes.
  • We drank the second to the last bottle of 2023 apple cider. We're trying to use it up. The corks used to bottle that vintage weren't very good. This cork was wet to its very top end. I don't order anything from that company anymore.

  

  Our 2026 harvest of sweet potatoes.

  
  
  

• Wednesday, 9/30: More Tomatoes Frozen & Hazelnuts Husked
  • Mary froze more tomatoes. She finished filling the fourth gallon bag of tomatoes in the freezer and started on the fifth bag.
  • Vision in my right eye has slowly vanished since July, so I called to get an appointment with my optometrist. He's booked out for two months, but someone canceled at 10 a.m. tomorrow, so we're going to Quincy tomorrow morning.
  • Mary husked another bucket of hazelnuts. She says this is really her last time working with those nuts this year.
  • I started putting lights away in the machine shed, but heard squirrels right away in the pecan trees, so instead I shot three squirrels. They just kept on coming!

   

• Thursday, 10/1: Eye Doctor Visit
  • At daybreak, rain was falling at a steady rate, so we kept the chickens inside. The five young birds would have stayed outside all day. This way, they stay dry.
  • We went to Quincy for the 10 a.m. eye appointment. I have a detached retina in my right eye. Surgery will be required. I will be referred to an eye surgeon in St. Louis. It will require a couple trips.
  • We experience such a hard rain on the way home. It was difficult to see much more than a car length. At that moment we got a call from the optometrist's office asking if we can get to St. Louis today. With no arrangements made to handle animals at home and no idea when we'd be back, Mary, who was on my phone while I drove, said no. I was trying to merge into the right lane of traffic in the downpour. They asked Mary if we could go tomorrow. She asked them if we could call them back due to road conditions. The call ended.
  • I tried several times trying to get back with the eye doctor's office, but with no call back. This optometrist works out of an extremely poor office where they just don't give a damn about customers. As soon as I'm finished with this situation, we're going to find someone else.
  • I did online research into the eye surgeon I'm being referred to in St. Louis. He's with The Retina Institute. Their website includes a bunch of information related to questions I had. 
  • In text discussions with Bill, he said he will help me with driving logistics while I'm in St. Louis for this procedure. I can also stay with him, if need be...THANKS, BILL!
  • Mary and I watched Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016).

   

• Friday, 10/2: Baked Bread & Eye Surgery Appointment
  • There was an extreme blue sky that arrived today with a northeast wind.
  • Mary discovered two new birds for the year, which are the American redstart and the Savannah sparrow. A flock of robins came in with the cold front.
  • At 8 a.m. I called the Quincy Medical Group Eye & Vision Institute, where my optometrist is located, to ask them to refer me to the eye surgeon in St. Louis. They called me back at 11:30 to tell me that they did and to call The Retina Institute in St. Louis at 2 p.m., if I don't hear from them by then. I called and all they had on me was that I had an appointment yesterday at 2 p.m. So the Quincy folks made an appointment, then called us to ask if we could go, but never canceled the appointment. The St. Louis entity had no other information on me, like an address or a phone number. How were they going to call me if they didn't even have my phone number? They didn't even have the reason for my transfer to them. It took a half hour to give them all the information that they needed. My appointment is for Wednesday, Oct. 7th at 11 a.m. (I'm so done with my current optometrist when this is over!)
  • In texts with Bill, he says the location of the eye surgery appointment is only 3.5 miles away from his apartment. Bill will take the day off from work to shuffle me around. Usually there is a preliminary visit, then surgery at a later date, but sometimes surgery is on the same day. It all depends on the seriousness of the situation. We'll find out next week.
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread, filling the house with that wonderful aroma. 
  • I covered the winter greens with new tulle material, since the old material had holes in it. The tulle prevents sulphur butterflies from laying eggs, resulting in cabbage worms, which gobble up kale and arugula.
  • I scrubbed the inside of seven pet food bags, dried them, marked them, and and used them to store recyclable items, such as tin cans, cardboard, glass, and paper, in the pickup. We eventually dump them at a recycling collection station. The paper and string enclosures on the old bags were eaten by mice, so I went to all plastic pet bags.
  • I hunted squirrels for a couple minutes at sunset. I shot at a couple of them, but didn't get any.
  • Mary and I watched Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018).

   

• Saturday, 10/3: Enough Tomatoes & Cleaning Stove Pipe
  • Mary cleaned and froze tomatoes to fill the fifth gallon bag in the freezer. This gives her enough to make one batch of salsa. With salsa we already have in stock plus one more batch, we have enough in stock for another year. The rest of the tomatoes from the garden are ours to eat fresh.
  • I removed the stove pipe from between the woodstove and the chimney and disconnected all sections of pipe. I then cleaned soot from the inside of each stove pipe section with a long barbecue grill brush. I laid each section on old chicken feed bags on the ground in the machine shed for overnight storage. I'll finish cleaning the chimney and assembling the stove pipe tomorrow. 
  • I shot a squirrel at sunset. A squadron of squirrels was in the pecan trees. They never quit!
  • All of the winter green seeds that I planted sprouted and are looking great.
  • When Mary and I walked Cooper this evening prior to sunset, we saw a deer in the lane. It was a big doe. At first, Cooper walked toward it in his stalking mode. The doe took a few steps toward the dog. Mary called Cooper and he ran back to us. The doe ran off. Cooper was a fine gentleman who listened to us and received a big bunch of praise.
  • We watched the Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) movie.

   

• Sunday, 10/4: Stove Pipe & Chimney Ready For Heating Season
  • I cleaned the soot out of the chimney. There was less this year compared to past years, which means we burned drier wood last winter. I cleaned the outside of each section of stove pipe and installed them from the bottom to the top. Everything went well with the system I've developed over the years.
  • One mistake we made this year was running the living room air conditioner while removing soot from the chimney. The AC's fan blew fine sooty dust all over the living room. Cooper, who must supervise every aspect of a human's existence, helped track black soot dust across the entire floor. As a result, Mary mopped the sooty living room floor after I swept it.
  • Mary picked some tomatoes for our midday chicken dinner. We tried a 2026 bird. Usually, chickens butchered after they're 15 weeks old, such as this year's chickens, are chewy. That isn't the case this year.
  • Cackle Hatchery classifies these Plymouth White Rock chickens as mild mannered. These five pullets from this year's chicks are the flightiest chickens we've experienced. Tonight Mary chased one of them around the south chicken yard for several laps before it finally entered the coop.
  • Cooper and I saw the large doe deer again midway down our lane.  

Sept. 21-27, 2026

Weather | 9/21, cloudy, 61°, 67° | 9/22, 0.03" rain, 60°, 63° | 9/23, cloudy, 51°, 69° | 9/24, cloudy, 53°, 67° | 9/25, cloudy, 57°, 70° | 9/26, 0.03" rain, 57°, 69° | 9/27, 0.46" rain, 53°, 63° |

• Monday, 9/21: Baking Cookies & Shopping Trip
  • I shot at two squirrels that were in the pecan trees this morning and missed.
  • Mary noticed cardinal parents that were taking care of a yellow-billed cuckoo youngster. She discovered from online sources that cuckoos occasionally parasitize during years of very abundant cicadas, moths, and caterpillars, but it doesn't happen often. We had huge numbers of caterpillars this year.
  • I drove to Quincy because we're almost out of chicken food. I picked up a couple other items.
  • Mary made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies to have as snacks while we butcher chickens.
  • She picked half of an ice cream bucket of tomatoes.
  • After Mary put the chickens to bed, I asked if she heard any squirrels rummaging around in the pecan trees. She said she heard a barred owl hooting from within one of the pecan trees, so there probably were no squirrels in those trees. 
  • I added mothballs to all of the plastic pop bottles in the pickup's engine compartment that lacked mothballs, due to them drying up over time. The last batch of mothballs we bought were faulty. They dry up in less than a week. Usually, they last longer. I removed a mouse nest under the air filter in the air filter housing. Effective moth balls would inhibit mouse nest activity.
  • We originally planned to butcher chickens tonight, but decided not to start, due to a chance of rain. Killing chickens is never fun. Doing it in the rain is even less enjoyable. It was misting at nightfall. We made the right decision.
  • I learned from online videos about better methods of cleaning the Marlin 39A .22 rifle by disassembling the lever action and barrel, similar to how bolt-action guns are cleaned.

   

• Tuesday, 9/22: Big Monarch Butterfly Campout
  • Today was a misty, drizzly day...so much so that we decided to postpone butchering chickens for one more day.
  • I set six mouse traps inside the bed of the pickup. 
  • Mary froze more tomatoes. She finished filling a second gallon ziplock bag and started a third bag in the freezer.
  • Heath asters are starting to bloom along our lane. They are white with a slightly purple center.
  • I shot a squirrel that was high in the pecan trees northeast of the machine shed. 
  • While I was hunting and sitting next to the burn barrel on the garden stool, I noticed monarch butterflies flitting about above me. When Mary came out to get a wheelbarrow to move some chicken feed, I told her to look up. She noticed hordes of monarchs nestling onto pecan branches. The tree was alive with hundreds of butterflies settling in for an overnight sleep (see video, below...this is a 35 MB file, so it may take awhile to download). These monarchs were pouring into the tree from all directions. We have never seen this many monarch butterflies since we moved here in 2009.
  • When we put the chickens to bed for the night, a fawn and a doe deer were moving about west of the chicken coop and eating forbs. A few minutes later, I walked Cooper south down our lane when we saw Mama and her youngster, again. A few steps later, we saw two more deer running away near Bluegill Pond.
  • On Cooper's last walk of the night, we spooked up a dove that was parked right in the middle of the lane...silly bird...owls and coyotes are out there who would love a dove dinner.
  Mary counted 43 monarch butterflies within this group.
   
  
  

• Wednesday, 9/23: First Night of Chicken Butchering
  • Right after letting chickens out this morning, Mary and I stood below the pecan trees and watched monarch butterflies leave for their travels south.
  • Mary picked a few more tomatoes.
  • I weeded the six totes north of the woodshed and planted winter green seeds, which involved three varieties of kale in five totes and some tote of arugula. We're not planting lettuce this year. It dies off immediately when temperatures get below freezing. Kale survives frosty weather.
  • Mary saw three rose-breasted grosbeaks feeding on giant ragweed seeds next to woodshed. They enjoyed a good season raising young.
  • I saw an American kestrel flying west to east. 
  • I filled buckets with water and scattered them around where we needed them for butchering chickens.
  • After dark, we butchered seven chickens. We have 13 to go after tonight's efforts. I skinned them and Mary cleaned them in the kitchen sink, cut them up, and froze them. An added part to this year's process was collecting hackle feathers for supplying my fly tying hobby.
  • Besides hearing and seeing scurrying mice in the machine shed, Mary and I listened to a large group northern flying squirrels as they made bird-like calls all night long in the pecan trees. We could also hear them eating pecan nuts. Between gray and fox squirrels eating pecans in daylight hours and flying squirrels eating them at night, it's amazing there are any left for us.
  • I also heard coyotes howling from just east of the far garden. Barred owls hooted to one another. At one point, a barred owl was sounding off from just above one of the grain bins. I heard the growl of a raccoon while I was skinning the sixth chicken, with the seventh chicken carcass hanging just outside the east end of the machine shed. I loudly stomped on old chicken feed bags, walked to the edge of the building, and yelled at it to get lost. I asked Mary to come out momentarily to help move it along. It was long gone by the time she walked around the grain bins. Our property is a Wild Kingdom.

   

• Thursday, 9/24: Tarred Railroad Tie
  • I shot at two squirrels in the pecan trees in the morning and missed.
  • I cleaned up all of the buckets involved with butchering chickens. When I dumped chicken feet in the woods, I saw a squirrel running up a log, of course, since our woods seem to be loaded with squirrels.
  • When I washed up the killing cone, I noticed two tears in the aluminum sheeting that it's made from, which if not attended to, will mean that the cone with break free from the upright railroad tie that its attached to while in the middle of killing a chicken...NOT GOOD! Mary helped me fix it. At first I tried driving a roofing nail into the railroad tie, but the aluminum nail started bending, so I removed it. Then I drilled holes prior to pounding in four roofing nails. The railroad tie is extremely well tarred. I had to go in and out several times with the drill bit. We applied aluminum tape over the nail heads and the splits in the aluminum sheeting. Mary knows that her Uncle Herman got the railroad ties from the dismantling of the railroad spur from Quincy to Kansas City that ran through Lewistown. Online research shows that spur was built in 1871, when Lewistown, MO was created. It's probably the date of this railroad tie.
  • Mary picked a half of an ice cream pail of tomatoes. 
  • I saw a small deer near the southwest corner of the chicken yard while I was doing evening chores.
  • Since we were dead tired, we decided that bed was a better option compared to a second night in a row of butchering chickens. That job will wait until tomorrow night.

   

• Friday, 9/25: Chicken Butchering Round 2
  • Mary picked and froze more tomatoes. She finished filling a third gallon and started the fourth gallon bag in the freezer.
  • She also froze seven packages of bell peppers. There are 33 bags of green peppers from this year in the freezer with a grand total 65 bell pepper servings frozen. These are used in making pizza, fajitas, and scrambled eggs, so it's good to have plenty on hand.
  • Mary also hung more hot peppers to dry.
  • She made a quart of refrigerator jalapeño pickled peppers.
  • I sharpened all of the knives we use for butchering chickens and checked to make sure all buckets of water were in place and that they didn't have any frogs that moved into them.
  • Mary discovered three new birds for the year, which are a Nashville warbler, a least flycatcher, and a marsh wren. She played the song of the marsh wren on her cell phone and then heard an identical bird call through the living room window behind her.
  • We have catbirds eating Virginia creeper berries hanging on vines just outside the kitchen window. 
  • We butchered seven chickens tonight. There are only six more left to handle after tonight's work. Despite heavy cloud cover, the nearly full moon illuminated everything around us. It was the normal wildlife scenario, featuring flying squirrels squeaking and dropping nut shells from the pecan trees, coyotes howling in the distance, and barred owls sounding off. At one point while at the killing cone, we heard two raccoons fighting while on the path to the ponds. Mary let out her high-pitched "ooloo" sound and they shut up.
  • After making several fishing flies, I'm noticing useful chicken feathers on unusual anatomical locations. Perfect small feathers that resemble bug wings are located just above chicken feet. Nice round feathers are at the base of wings. Fluffy feathers, named marabou by fly tyers, are located under a chicken's bottom. I've got a four-gallon bucket filling up with feathers. With most of these chickens of a white color, I'm hoping to dye some of these feathers into different colors.

   

• Saturday, 9/26: Day Off From Butchering
  • We took the day off from doing much, since we were up until around 4 a.m. with chicken butchering duties.
  • I cleaned up buckets and chicken butchering things.
  • I moved chicken feathers I saved in a bucket to a piece of plastic on the floor in the south upstairs bedroom, where it looks like someone dropped a bird from 10,000 feet (see photo, below). I want to make sure the feathers are completely dry prior to storing them away in zip lock bags.
  • A young deer was eating grass and plants under the big cherry tree while I walked to the machine shed. It just looked at me and continued eating.
  • Three nice rows of arugula seeds are sprouting in one of the winter greens totes. 
  • Mary and I now count five pullets in our remaining young chickens. We thought we had four, but a thorough count told us differently. The female birds are easier to spot, now that there are fewer male chickens in the group. It means we only have five chickens yet to butcher, instead of six. We'll finish chicken butchering tomorrow night.
  • I investigated white chickens sold by Cackle Hatchery, where we buy our birds, and determined that the white cockerels with traces of brown are male versions of Cinnamon Queen chickens. The all-white birds, such as the remaining pullets, are White Plymouth Rock chickens, commonly called White Rocks.

  

  A large heap of feathers I'll use for tying fishing flies.

  
  
  

• Sunday, 9/27: Chicken Butchering is Done!!!
  • We had rain until midday.
  • An old wooden corner post next to the gate to get into the chicken yard leaned to the north due to rot at ground level months ago. We propped it from falling all the way over with a steel fence post. We stacked bricks in the open area. It hasn't stopped four hens from escaping into the west lawn to eat grass and bugs. Today, in an attempt to put a stop to that, I attached a four-foot high piece of chicken wire to the hollow aluminum pipe that the gate latches to and wired the other end of the chicken wire to the existing chicken wire fencing, thereby encapsulating the rotten wooden fence post to the inside of the chicken coop and closing up the hen-escaping gap.
  • Mary picked two-thirds of an ice cream bucket of tomatoes. We now have 3.5 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer.
  • Five of the six totes of winter greens seeds have sprouted.
  • We butchered the last five chickens of this year's cockerels. We did it without a break between 8-11:30 p.m. I gathered another big bunch of fly tying feathers. We now have 19 additional chickens in the freezer. Five new pullets join our flock of laying hens. We're now done with our most hated job of the year.
  • We noticed a lot more flying squirrels in the pecan trees tonight. One flew right over Mary's head.

Sept. 14-20, 2026

Weather | 9/14, 0.15" rain to p. cloudy, 55°, 79° | 9/15, p. cloudy, 74°, 89° | 9/16, 1.92" rain, 65°, 80° | 9/17, sunny, 68°, 89° | 9/18, foggy to sunny, 70°, 84° | 9/19, cloudy, 71°, 85° | 9/20, 0.12" rain, 68°, 75° |

• Monday, 9/14: Red Sky at Morning
  • We saw a brick orange color all across the sky as the sun rose behind clouds east of us. It was a good indicator of the saying, "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."
  • I shot at one squirrel. It hurried down the tree trunk and ran away. After that, there were no more squirrels. They knew that weather was arriving.
  • It rained this morning as thunderstorms rolled through.
  • Later in the day, I mowed around the compost bins and dumped clippings into the middle bin in order to build up a carbon cushion where future chicken carcasses will go. It's now about a foot deep. I have a ways to go to get it to the three-foot height of the metal roof panels that make up the sides of the compost bin. Grass is extremely tall, since it wasn't mowed during several bouts of high temperatures. About five lawnmower passes are needed to get it all mowed up.
  • Mary picked tomatoes and hot peppers. 
  • She strung up the hot peppers to dry and put jalapeño peppers in the fridge. She made jalapeños picked last week into refrigerator pickles.
  • Mary picked 39 worms off the garden plants, 35 with a UV flashlight after darkness fell. Six came out of the pepper patch. Too bad we're not harvesting and selling worms. It would be a bumper crop!
  • While in the pepper patch tonight, Mary heard the churring sound of a raccoon not far away. She made a racket that silenced it.

   

• Tuesday, 9/15: Rifle Cleaning & Picking Hazelnuts
  • I cleaned the .22 rifle I like to use. It's a Marlin Golden 39A that Mary's uncle Herman once owned. Mary looked up the serial number. It was made in 1964 and is extremely sought after. I like it because it's very accurate.
  • I sharpened two knives. They were very dull and took 40 strokes on each of the three stones to produce a sharp edge. There are only 12 more knives to do to catch up on sharpening all of the main knives that we use. Mary was about to go on strike in cooking meals, due to super dull knives. Plus, we need several sharpened for chicken butchering.
  • Mary picked an overflowing four-gallon bucket of hazelnuts. There are still many more nuts left on the bushes.
  • I shot squirrel at the same time Mary was putting the chickens to bed. I was inside the machine shed, shooting out the open east end of the building at a squirrel in the pecan trees. Even a shot from a small caliber .22 rifle really is loud when you're shooting from inside a metal building!
  • A little later, as I stepped out of the woods on the trail between the two gardens, I saw two great blue herons flying north to south just above the far garden. The nearest bird let out a squawk when it saw me and was flying so low that it barely cleared the cedar trees just south of the garden. Herons have a very ratchety call.
  • Thunderstorms arrived after dark and rain was pouring down by bedtime.

   

• Wednesday, 9/16: Big Overnight Rain
  • Thunderstorms rolled through us all night long, resulting in almost two inches of rain. There was no puddling of water on the ground, so the soil was able to soak it all in, which is good for all plants.
  • Mary and Cooper went outside before I did this morning. As I stepped outside, Mary told me to walk her direction, southeast of the house, where Cooper treed a squirrel while Mary made noises to freeze the animal. Hazelnuts in its mouth revealed that it was eating nuts off the nearest bush. I shot the squirrel while Cooper watched. The gun shot didn't make Cooper flinch. He's a natural gun dog with a long memory. For the rest of the day whenever he went outside, he immediately ran to that tree, sniffed the base around the tree, and looked up to try to find another squirrel. 
  • Mary husked the fourth four-gallon bucket of hazelnuts...what a big year for them!
  • I sharpened another knife.
  • I cleaned my Ruger Model 10/22 Carbine .22 rifle. I looked up the serial number and it was made in 1977. Dad gave it to me as a Christmas present about then. It's not worth quite as much as the Marlin .22 gun.
  • I hunted a little bit as the sun set and saw only one squirrel. There are fewer, lately. I think they're getting wise to my ways and formed a Squirrel Preservation Society. "Don't go near that weird guy with the thunder stick in his hands."
  • Mary found 12 worms with the UV flashlight. We both hunt in our own ways.

   

• Thursday, 9/17: 30-30 Rifle Info & a Canine Beatles Critic
  • Today was hot and humid, with a light breeze that didn't cool at all. I thought this month was hotter than usual. Mary looked up in her records. We always get streaks of high heat in every September.
  • I sharpened two more knives.
  • I looked up details of our two 30-30 rifles. 
    
    • The shorter barreled gun is a Marlin 30AS. This is a lower cost rifle made to be sold by department stores. It has a cross-bolt safety indicated by the letter S. The stock is birch, a cheaper alternative to the traditional walnut stock. The barrel is 20 inches long with micro-groove rifling. This gun was made in 1988. It has a JM stamp on the barrel, which improves it's value. It means the rifle was made prior to Marlin's purchase by Remington and then when it was taken over by Ruger. The gun's value is $550-$750.
    • The longer barreled 30-30 is a Marlin 336 rifle that is known for accuracy in hunting deer. It has a walnut stock and a 24-inch micro-grooved barrel. This rifle was made in 1976. It also has the JM stamp. The value is $650-$800. 
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation Virtual Vise webinar featuring Matt Murray, a St. Louis employee, showing how to make poppers. The first fly he demonstrated how to make was a simple foam popper. He laminated yellow and black craft foam with contact cement and then sharpened a large bullet casing to punch out perfect cylinders of multi-colored foam. Some feathers, thread, stick-on eyes, and super glue finished the project. The second demonstration involved deer hair spinning where bunches of deer hair are splayed out in a cylinder shape around the hook shank, then carefully trimmed into a popper shape with an old-fashioned razor blade. It's a messy project, with bits of deer hair falling everywhere, but very fascinating to experience. UV resin is added to the face to give it a solid surface that plops the water when pulled with a fishing rod. He used deer hair dyed green. I'll have to try it sometime.
  • Cooper hates the Beatles. I played a couple Beatles songs on my laptop in the evening and with each song, Cooper moaned.

   

• Friday, 9/18: Freezing Tomatoes & No Hickory Nuts
  • I used the Stihl trimmer with a steel blade and made two passes to cut down tall grass in the east lawn. It amounted to about half of that lawn. I gathered up the grass with a pitchfork and added it to the middle compost bin to build up an organic sponge. The cut grass is about halfway up the sides of that bin.
  • Mary picked tomatoes and peppers. She froze about a half gallon of tomatoes. There's over a gallon of this year's tomatoes in the freezer.
  • Mary looked for hickory nuts in the west woods, but didn't find any. We thought that the absence of squirrels in the pecan trees the past couple days meant they were after hickory nuts in surrounding woods. Such is not the case. Hickory nuts might still be high in the trees.
  • I hunted next to the pecan trees after Mary spooked a squirrel away from that area. All I did was chase one away with a couple bullets. 
  • I noticed several monarch butterflies settling into tree branches for the night. We're seeing more monarchs than in past years.
  • Two batches of Canada geese flew overhead at sunset. One was a perfect V of about 15 mature geese. The second group involved four youngsters. They were low enough for us to hear their wing beats.
  • Mary looked for worms on garden plants and found 11 worms of all varieties.

   

• Saturday, 9/19: Chicken Butchering Preparation
  • I shot one squirrel this morning. It first appeared on the machine shed roof. Later, it was on a small tree next to the machine shed's north side. I moved so a bullet wouldn't go through the metal siding and was amazed how a squirrel that's still and against a tree trunk blends right into the tree. 
  • Mary picked an overflowing fifth bucket of hazelnuts. There are more, but they're finally dwindling.
  • She also picked and froze more tomatoes.
  • While using the Merlin app on her phone, Mary heard a tree frog and the app told her it was a Caspian tern. It goes to show that sometimes the Merlin app is wrong! She saw two new birds for the year. One was a Tennessee warbler and the other was a yellow-throated warbler.
  • I whacked down two more passes in the east yard and filled the middle compost bin to the top of the metal sides with grass. A tiny bit of tall grass still exists in this yard, but after two days in a row of using the weed whacker, my joints and muscles told me it stays in place for now.
  • I moved lights out to the machine shed that we'll use to illuminate the building for butchering chickens. I also backed up the 8N Ford tractor and trailer to give us an adequate area inside for butchering.
  • I mowed the trails we use at night while butchering chickens and trimmed some tree branches and saplings intruding into these trails.
  • Bill sent us a text that he attended a St. Louis Blues preseason hockey game tonight with free tickets from work. He told us later that there were lots of teenagers fighting on the ice. 
  • Lightning flashed in the west sky as we walked Cooper on his last outing. A heavy rain fell as we went to bed.

   

• Sunday, 9/20: Impressive Hazelnut Harvest
  • Mary made a big batch of minestrone soup that was very yummy. 
  • She also husked her fifth bucket of hazelnuts. The stacked flats of hazelnuts drying in the upstairs south bedroom is quite impressive (see photo, below). Mary says that even though there are more nuts on the hazelnut bushes, her fingers are sore enough for her to call it quits, but she says, "I know I won't."
  • I ran extension cords and installed the five lights we use while butchering in the machine shed. One is hung in the rafters. Two are clamp lights situated on each side in high positions and the last two are freestanding tripod work lights, each with two LED bulbs that replaced halogen bulbs.
  • I also added some aluminum tape to the killing cone and trimmed tree branches near it and to the entrance to the chicken yard.
  • I sharpened five more knives and resharpened three knives sharpened a few days ago, but used recently for cooking duties.
  • We're now ready to butcher chickens. As of tomorrow, the chicks are 15 weeks old. Plus, weather forecasts show lows for us in the low 50s, which are good temperatures for handling this job. 
  • I hunted off and on throughout the day, but saw no squirrels. A couple times I heard husks falling north of the machine shed. I finally spotted movement extremely high in the top of a big oak tree. It involved bluejays that were ripping acorns from the branches that would then fall through branches down below and to the ground.
  • I'm seeing more monarchs as I'm out hunting. We're also noticing that the goldenrod flowers, which usually die off after one week of blooming, are continuing for several weeks this year.

  

  Boxes and boxes of drying hazelnuts...what an amazing harvest.