Oct. 27-Nov. 2, 2019

Weather | 10/27, 34°, 63° | 10/28, 0.31" rain, 40°, 46° | 10/29, 29°, 39° | 10/30, 0.41" rain, 29°, 35° | 10/31, 2" snow, or 0.18" moisture, 24°, 36° | 11/1, 26°, 50° | 11/2, 29°, 48°

• Sunday, 10/27: Wine burping was every 4:25 minutes in the morning. Fixed the damper in the woodstove by removing the elbow coming out of the back of the stove while Mary held the pipe. Then I wiggled the damper's poke-through rod out, turned the rod 180 degrees, and jammed it back into the damper. A bump on the rod was facing the wrong way, allowing the damper to spin on the rod. It's correct, now. Added silicone caulking to the stovepipe sections and re-installed them. Mary washed clothes. Mary and I picked pecan nuts...Mary picked from off the ground, and I used a step ladder to reach low-hanging nuts on branches. Then, we moved the firewood I split yesterday to the north wall of the machine shed. Next, I weedwhacked to the cherry deer stand in the NE area of our property, and a little on the north trail going west from that stand. Mary vacuumed Asian lady bugs...they were flying about, today. Had a voicemail from Katie, so called her after finishing chores. They've finished the temporary school at Mertarvik, AK. Next is to finish the clinic, but they're waiting on an architect's signature to proceed. She said worst-case scenario involves leaving in 3 weeks and coming back after Christmas to work on the clinic. While she was talking to us she was watching a barge arrive from Nome. We talked Christmas ideas. After the call, she booked a two-way flight between New Orleans and St. Louis, arriving at Lambert Field in St. Louis on 12/21 at 10:30 am, and then leaving on 12/30 at 7:30 pm. We'll pick her up, grab Bill, visit the Arch in St. Louis, and per Bill (who Katie texted), eat at Sameem, an Afghan restaurant. I looked up a bunch of Christmas gift ideas, in an attempt to get what I want for Christmas to others. Still need to get pricing before I ship out the list. We smelled a skunk while we were in the living room in the evening. Mary checked prior to walking dogs...nothing there, but we still smelled skunk while walking the dogs.
• Monday, 10/28: Mary made her last batch of salsa...a new record of 30 pints, put in 11 quart and 8 pint jars. The 3 salsa canning sessions resulted in a grand total of 86 pints. I removed all of the ACs out of windows. Cleaned a long stretch of the bench in the machine shed and moved the ACs onto that location for the winter. Found mold on the window sill in our bedroom, since that AC wasn't tilted down enough on the outside, so I took a bleach solution to the wood. Took all day for both of us to do these 2 chores. The water bath canning put a ton of moisture in the air, so we aired the house out after she was done canning. It started misting when I was doing evening chores, which turned into rain after dark. We installed curtain rods and put curtains up in our bedroom to block yard lights from our neighbor's house. They work wonderfully. Trees are turning to beautiful colors and some are dropping their leaves.
• Tuesday, 10/29: I picked another batch of pecans, by using a step ladder and pulling down on branches. Mary picked several off the ground. I replaced parts on the 8N Ford tractor and changed oil and the oil filter. The oil was very smelly with gasoline. With a 3-inch oil plug on the bottom of the oil pan, used oil comes down in a huge gully wash. Luckily, my large 10-gallon oil catch pan caught it all. The tank-type oil filter that you pull the filter out of is a huge mess, because you have to sop excess oil out of the device once the filter is removed, because there is no drain plug on the bottom. I removed the entire gas line/filter and installed the missing gas sediment bowl, gas line, and fitting/filter at the carburetor. Put gas in and it started much better than it ever has in the past...obviously there's a fuel constriction with a newer canister fuel filter, just as I read online. Most importantly, the sediment bowl has a shut-off valve, so now when the carb float sticks open, I don't get gas in the engine oil. I sat for 7 minutes watching for a fermentation lock burp on the pear wine and didn't see one. It's clearing to a yellow/green color. We were going to butcher chickens this week, but there's snow in the forecast for several days, so we're putting it off. Mary washed sheets, did cross-stitching, and made flour tortillas and chimichangas. By our late-night dog walk, we saw freezing sleet on the porch steps. I ordered a heavy-duty nutcracker online.
• Wednesday, 10/30: Another mouse in the Buick trapline. A lazy day. The wood heat is wonderful. Mary baked a small turkey...yum, yum. I diddled online. Heavy snow was falling after dark. The pear wine is turning into what looks like a 6.5-gallon bottle of pee...hope it tastes better than that! Bill had the day off and went to a Minnesota Wild/St. Louis Blues hockey game. Blues won 2-1. It was a birthday gift from his friend, Mike Push.
• Thursday, 10/31: Woke up to about 2" of snow outside. Left the chickens inside. Laughed when I saw snow decorating a railroad tie post with poison ivy all over it and started singing, "Deck the Halls with Poison Ivy..." Let chickens out in the afternoon. I spent all day reviewing Christmas present ideas and sent ideas to Bill & Katie. Mary baked chocolate chip cookies. John Hendrix emailed me that I should attend the high school reunion in Homer in August of next year. He said I could use his Alaska Airline miles.
• Friday: 11/1: We wrote a 45-item list of things we need to do prior to deer hunting season on 11/16, assigned who is doing them, and deadlines. Mary popped all of the garlic cloves to plant, and dug up 1 of 3 rows for garlic in the far garden. I drove the 8N Ford tractor to the aluminum deer stand, brought it back to the machine shed, replaced the rotten OSB wood top with a good piece of OSB, drove it to my new spot on the south edge of the Rose Butt Field, and strapped it into a maple tree. Snipped off some cedar branches and tops. Cut out a 6' section of fence. When I pulled out the fence piece, I looked up and saw a buck with antlers the size of a medium bush running away from me. The damn rack looked like it belonged on an elk! Ordered Christmas gifts online for Mary and I. Told our kids that we were collecting possum poop for their gifts, since they weren't helping us with Christmas lists. Bill texted us several ideas.
• Saturday: 11/2: Yesterday while driving the tractor by the swim pond, a pair of huge mallard ducks lifted off the water, 3 deer ran off, and 4 Bobwhite quail flew off. Today, I drove to Quincy to buy chicken feed...feeding 12 cups, twice a day, to the young birds. Also, bought a 6-volt flashlight battery, some reflector trail tacks for marking my way to deer stands, and a couple grocery items. Mary planted 2 kinds of garlic and dug up another row. Digging is hard work...very wet, heavy and cold clay soil. She found a foot-long night crawler. While I was gone, Mary was hanging towels on the line and a red-tailed hawk came swirling down to attack the chickens. Mary had a handful of wash rags and started waving them around and shouted, "Go away!" It did. When I got back from Quincy, I weedwhacked a new trail to the NE corner of the far garden, where I'll dig in a wooden post for a new location for our rain gauge to replace the teetering railroad tie post down the lane that holds our rain gauge today. Then, I whacked a connecting trail to the chicken killing cone. Next, I weedwhacked another tank full of gas on the south leg of the east trail. We watched a movie we picked up secondhand at Salvation Army called A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe. It's very good.