Nov. 17-23, 2019

Weather | 11/17, 0.06" rain, 33°, 43° | 11/18, 0.03" rain, 26°, 49° | 11/19,  40°, 58° | 11/20, 30°, 56° | 11/21, 0.22" rain, 43°, 56° | 11/22, 25°, 35° | 11/23, 29°, 45° |

• Sunday, 11/17: Light rain most of the day...kept chickens inside the coop. Mary cleaned. I racked the pear wine. The specific gravity is at 0.99, which means it's very dry, with high alcohol content. Mary & I tried a quarter glass...very light tasting...one hell of a kick! This will definitely be a sipping wine. Had about 3/8" of white yeast residue on the bottom of the carboy. It took 2 rinsings with the garden hose to clean that out. I'm guessing that another racking, prior to bottling, should clear it out sufficiently. Watched Love Actually movie. Bill texted that he was racking a third batch of beer. By the photo he sent, it looks good. Here are photos of the pear wine:

Racking pear wine from carboy to plastic bucket.

Yeast residue left in the carboy after racking the pear wine.

• Monday, 11/18: Mary and I picked some pecan nuts off the lawn under the trees and for the first time, got some off branches of the tree closest to the house, which has larger nuts. Mary made flour tortillas and chimichangas. I hunted at the SE deer blind in the late afternoon. Saw 2 deer south of me. Unfortunately, just behind them is our neighbor's house, so not shooting in that direction. Both veered to north of me, behind cedar trees. The second one, was smart. It walked west up the hill in a gully, so all I could see was its ears and top of its head. Read some wine-making info online. Our wine alcohol content, based on initial and ending hydrometer readings, is 13%. It might be even higher, because of us adding sugar water after the first racking into the carboy, thereby restarting fermentation. Katie texted us throughout the day...Christmas present related. Bill texted a bunch in the evening. His 3rd batch of beer is actively fizzing (see below video). Matisse, his former fiancee who married someone else, is bombarding Bill with online friend requests. He wants nothing to do with it. Rightly so...she's a nutcase. 

 

• Tuesday, 11/19: After several solid freezes, willow leaves are falling like snowflakes. Mary washed towels, did a bunch of mowing, and put grass mulch on a row and a quarter row of garlic, to protect it through the winter. I hunted at the Rose Butt deer stand in the afternoon. The stand faces north, looking across a field. Wind was out of the NW. At 4:05, several deer snorted in the woods behind me, to the south. They were probably following a path through the woods that enters the field east of the stand, smelled me, and snorted. I heard deer in the woods beyond the field after sunset. Right when I was getting ready to leave, after the legal shooting time ended, I saw a big deer step into the field. I thought it was a buck, due to its size. It heard me getting out of the stand, snorted and bounced back into the woods, followed by another smaller deer. Bucks are alone right now, so that was a very large doe with a yearling. Winds out of the NE or east would be better for that stand, due to deer movement patterns. It was the first time hunting from there. Now I know. Katie called. Talked about Christmas gifts she's getting and having sent to our address. Her construction company is working until Dec. 20th, but she plans on leaving Dec. 10th, giving her time to do make-up drill duty with the Air National Guard, and to visit us for Christmas. They're wrapping up inside work on the school and will start on inside work of the clinic, next. She figures work will start back up at the end of February, or the first of March. They were under a blizzard warning or watch. Recently, it was 3° with a subzero windchill. She hasn't worn her new Carhartt coat...too warm-blooded. She tried seal meat recently...said it tasted fishy, but tasted good. A guy she works with, who hails from a neighboring village, told Katie she is big-boned. He meant it as a compliment...that she grew up where milk is consumed, so she has a healthy bone structure, being well-fed as a kid. He meant well, but his compliment didn't sound like one. So now, as a joke, she's known as "Big-Boned Katie" by her co-workers. We decided not to hunt for the next couple days, due to predicted real high temperatures and rain, making deer butchering tougher.
• Wednesday, 11/20: Yesterday while Mary was mowing, she drug her mower over some mole mounds and the rear plastic flap that I guess is supposed to protect the person pushing the mower, tore off and got chopped up by the mower. In the process, the blade got dinged up, so today, I sharpened her mower's blade with a new file I have. She then mowed some tall grass west of the house and finished mulching her garlic. Mary also washed clothes. I found a Chevy pickup that looked promising located 170 miles NE of us in Illinois. The owner had someone showing up at 3. After I sent an inquiring email, he said it didn't sell and I said I'd show up tomorrow. I tightened the north chicken coop vent windows with packing tape, put loose insulation in the north chicken door and screwed a board on the inside, while screwing the outside door shut. This tightens up the north side of the chicken coop from invading cold winter air. Went to bed at 10 pm, anticipating driving east for a pickup in the morning.
• Thursday, 11/21: I woke up at 2:20 and couldn't get back to sleep. Around 5 am, saw lightning and heard thunder. Received a message at 6:50 am...the Illinois truck owner said he would let me know if the pickup sold this morning and at 7:30, he said it sold. I looked online and found another half-ton Chevy pickup near Ste. Genevieve, MO (SE corner of the state and about 200 miles away). Talked to that truck owner. The pickup sounded good, but has close to 300,000 miles. Later, decided not to go, due to Thanksgiving preparations and hunting required in next few days. I went through 4 months of bank statements and balanced our account. Hunted the Bobcat deer stand with a west, northwest wind blowing. Saw 3 things between 3:25 and 3:40 pm. First, a legal buck walked up the draw west of where I sit, walked up the hill towards me, smelled my track on the trail just 20 feet SE of me, and looked right at me for several seconds. I stayed perfectly still. He didn't register that I was there and went on further east and over the hill. Could have easily shot him, but we're not wanting testosterone-laden deer meat, since it's already been quite cold and the male deeries are as horny as hell. A few minutes later, a second buck, this one with 4-inch spikes and illegal to shoot, followed the trail of the first deer. He looked at me from the exact same place, 20-feet away and on my trail, then slowly walked over the hill to the east. A few minutes later, a big mama raccoon led 2 yearling raccoons down the hill to the west of me, going south to north. About an hour later, another legal buck walked up the same draw as the first two, but turned around and walked north, walked up the ridge that my blind is on so that he was close enough I could have poked him with a stick, then crossed a deep ditch NE of me, and walked up and over the hill to the north. As dusk was settling in, I watched a coyote that was about the size of a German Shepherd, walk north to south to the west of me. That coyote was super quiet, unlike the leaf-crunching deer. Then, at 4:55, a deer to the east of me that I couldn't see snorted at me. At just after 5 pm, I decided it was too dark to see and emptied my gun's magazine of ammo. When a stood up, a deer in the deep ditch just to the north, below me, snorted and ran to the east snorting. As I walked into our west yard, another deer snorted at me from the west woods. I swear, the deer were like lice in the woods today.
• Friday, 11/22: Got up at 4 am, ate a sandwich, and hunted the Bobcat deer blind. A north wind was blowing and I could see the big dipper through the treetops. As daylight crept in, a squirrel scampered about. At one point, it was at the entrance of my blind. I looked at it and it leaped into the air, like a cat that's playing, "Oh, it's fun to be frightful," and ran up a tree. At 7, a big gray buck with not much of a rack appeared NE of me. He thrashed brush for several minutes with his rack. Then, he walked east, jumped a downed tree (when I saw how immense his body was), and went off to the east. He was a big, old granddaddy. I think that over the years, hunters continually taking bucks with big horns change the genetics of the deer herd so that big bucks with small racks are breeding...bucks with large racks aren't. Year after year, I'm seeing large bucks with medium or small racks. Didn't see anything else, so I went home at 8 to eat breakfast. Mary and I picked up more pecan nuts off the ground. She did more house cleaning. I researched engine issues through various years of pickups. Hunted the Rose Butt deer stand at 2:30 pm. A NE breeze eventually turned calm. At 4, a lame buck walked from the woods across the field from me to the corner of the field east of me. At 4:30, I heard a snort NE of me, leaned forward to look, and a large, small-racked buck was at the end of the field. It was looking right at me. He ran north through the woods, snorting several times. Decided this stand is in a poor location, because I'm sitting lower than the rest of the field and deer detect me before I can see them. Heard a deer snort through the woods SE of me at 5, then saw a big V of ducks fly from near there to our Swim Pond west of that stand. That probably was someone on our neighbor's land to the east, spooking up deer and ducks. Walked home at 5:05. All I ever see is bucks (what most hunters prefer to see)! With snow in the overnight forecast, decided to give hunting a break tomorrow morning.
• Saturday, 11/23: Got up with a tiny bit of snow here and there, but not much. On our morning dog walk, we saw a squadron of blue jays chase a kestrel through the pecan and walnut trees. Mary and I picked more pecans that are dropping from trees in our yard. Mary finished cleaning the north bedroom. She made a chicken dinner from 1 of this year's Wyandottes. It was delicious. I hunted the Wood Duck deer stand with a west wind blowing. Saw a legal buck at 4:30 pm. It emerged from the woods north of me, walked to the creek bed just down the hill from the stand, looked up and me, then walked north, down the creek bed to Wood Duck Pond, turned east and disappeared. About 5 minutes later, a non-legal buck followed the path of the first deer, but he walked north and east closer to me. I was facing west, didn't hear him anymore, turned my head to look for him. He saw me move and ran back where he came from. At about 4:50, 3 deer in a row, all non-legal bucks, walked from the north woods up to opposite my stand, then north to the pond, then east, out of sight. I then heard a 4-wheeler, followed by a combine, to the east. All 3 deer ran back west and disappeared. This stand is a good one, because I'm high and the deer don't see me unless I move. Plus, a west wind filters my scent among the treetops and deer don't smell me, even if they're downwind from me. As I walked home after legal hunting ended, I started singing, "Where have all the doe-wees gone, long time passing." A deer snorted at me just east of the house when I returned home.