Dec. 1-7, 2019

Weather | 12/1, 30°, 34° | 12/2, 25°, 38° | 12/3,  29°, 49° | 12/4, 30°, 53° | 12/5, 27°, 57° | 12/6, 31°, 40° | 12/7, 21°, 44° |

• Sunday, 12/1: Another gloomy, misty, foggy day. We had another turkey leftover meal before Bill left to go home around 2 pm. I finished reading the third Patrick O'Brian book, HMS Surprise. I enjoy these novels. I also looked online at post and beam house construction.
• Monday, 12/2: A huge part of the day was spent looking for a FedEx package that according to a tracking link, was left at our door on Saturday. We were here. FedEx never showed up. We looked all around the property and inside all cars, including Bill's in St. Louis. Mary visited with all 3 neighbors across the gravel road from us. They haven't seen it. In the evening, after Bill said nothing was in his car, Mary texted Katie encouraging her to talk to FedEx and the company she ordered the item from. We'll see what develops. As usual, FedEx delivery really stinks for us. Mary figured all of our monies and funded our various purchasing accounts. I tested the corker I have by putting a #9 cork into 1 of the empty wine bottles. It works great. Ordered a bunch of items online.
• Tuesday, 12/3: Mary washed a load of clothes. Found a dead big squirrel behind the second bin. I hauled it off to the north woods. We cut firewood from an elm tree that blew down the summer of 2018. Mary stacked the wood nearby...the ground's too wet to drive a tractor on. Texted Midwest Supplies, a brewing supply company in the Twin Cities, asking them to add a package of potassium sorbate, a wine finisher that ensures yeast is dead prior to bottling your wine, to an order for wine corks, that I placed yesterday. In the evening, they texted back that they'd add it, but that the finisher was on them, which was very nice, since it normally costs $16 for a pound of it.
• Wednesday, 12/4: Woke to an extremely blue sky. Katie called. FedEx wasn't helpful with the lost package, but in talking to the business who she ordered from, they are sending a replacement to her Gulfport, MS address, so it all worked out. They're mudding in sheetrock walls in the clinic she's working on. She's leaving this weekend from there to Anchorage. Her flight out of Anchorage is on 12/11, so she'll probably be overnighting in Anchorage a couple nights. She goes back to work in May in a village close to Bethel. Mary and I loaded up the cut wood from the downed elm tree and hauled it with the tractor/trailer to the machine shed and woodshed. We built an outdoor fire and cooked up pork loins. Did chores, then ate veggies and dip inside. I did hours of pole barn building research.
• Thursday, 12/5: Mary washed 2 loads of clothes. Found a stubby cat in the machine shed. Saw it scampering away, twice. Had trouble starting the wood splitter. Removed the spark plug. Took a propane torch and burned the gas residue out of spark plug, then cleaned it with a wire brush. Pulled the air cleaner and pulled empty pecan shells out of it...damn critters. When the engine started, more pecan shells ricocheted out of the magneto...goddamn critters! Split wood from the past 2 firewood gatherings...most went to the north wall of the machine shed to dry.
• Friday, 12/6: Today is the first day of a 3-day anterless deer season. Got up at 4:45 am and hunted Bobcat Deer Blind, since a north wind was gusting to 20 mph and I didn't want to be rocking around in the trees while sitting in a tree stand. Saw absolutely nothing...too windy and the deer are hunkered down under cedars. Heard a screech owl and saw a bald eagle way above the trees. Went home and enjoyed hot oatmeal, hot coffee, and a hot woodstove. I took some auto lense polishing material on an electric polishing pad to the crinkled outside tint of the left lense in my old eyeglasses and got rid of the crinkled, wavy pattern on the outside. I need to finish the whole lense, so I can see through it better. Trying this. If it works, I might have a second pair of glasses to use while doing outside work, like cutting firewood. After a squash and taco noodle meal, I hunted under the cedar forest, east of the swim pond and didn't see a single deer. Had squirrels all around me. After sunset, heard several coyotes just east of me. Also heard sirens and when I got home, noticed a fire with big smoke billowing up east of us. Mary and I drove to investigate. Looks like hay bales caught fire in the middle of a field belonging to a farm NE of us. That's not the first time. They must bale wet hay, because their round bales are always catching on fire.
• Saturday, 12/7: Got up at 4:45 am and hunted the Cherry Tree Stand, located in the NE quadrant of our property. My boots crunched on frosty grass. Orion and Sirius were setting in the west. A slight south breath of air was moving. I heard raccoons cussing each other out in the woods east of me. Before legal shooting time, I saw a deer moving and standing east of me...too dark to tell what sex it was. It went back east into the woods. At legal shooting time, saw 3 bucks in succession walk out of the woods east of me, going NW. The last one stood for about 10-15 minutes east of me, surveying the west and sniffing the air. It was a magificent-looking animal. I heard a snort to the north after he went on...probably smelled my scent well down the tree line. None of the others seemed to notice me. A light breeze blowing through a fenceline of cedars obviously hides your scent, for the most part. My last chance for deer will be tomorrow, since we're going to a Quincy Symphony Choir Christmas concert tonight. Katie shows up here 2 weeks from today, so I drew up a to-do list for the next 2 weeks. Mary washed towels. We did chores early and went to Quincy, checked out a couple stores, and were going to eat at Subway, but their subs are now over $7...were between $5-$6 a year ago. Went to Qdoba, instead, to eat. Went next door to Petco, looked at fish, and visited with Taylor, 1 of my old work associates. Fish and small animals are looking much better. Went to the concert that was in the Salem Evangelical Church in the old German district of Quincy. It was first built in 1877, with several renovations since then. The concert was excellent. The place was standing-room only, so we were squished into wooden pews. Got home and had a tea. Got to bed at midnight.