Dec. 8-14, 2019

Weather | 12/8, 33°, 50° | 12/9, 19°, 47° | 12/10,  12°, 31° | 12/11, 17°, 37° | 12/12, 27°, 49° | 12/13, 24°, 49° | 12/14, 26°, 27° |

• Sunday, 12/8: Woke at 6 am, ate a sandwich and hunted the Cherry Tree Stand. Got there at 7, crawled up onto the stand, looked down to load my gun and realized I didn't wear my hunter orange vest that has the bullets in the pockets...boy, what an idiot! Walked back, got my vest, returned to the stand, and was boiling hot due to my quadruple forced march. Didn't see deer. Thought I heard some under the cedars immediately south of the stand, but that might have been rabbits or squirrels. Not a good idea to go hunting while the sun is rising. Mary washed sheets. I hunted the SE deer blind at 2:30 pm. Didn't see a single deer. Saw a small coyote trot by, running south to north. Saw gobs of squirrels...one came up to 3 feet away. Heard turkeys landing in the trees NE of me, two great horned owls hooting in that same general area, and coyotes howling in the woods just north of me. Tonight's the end of deer hunting. Got 1 doe on opening day. Including most of part of one of last year's deer, we have a total of 42 packages of venison in the freezer, so we're not hurting. Also, this means we're doing the traditional smorgasbord meal at Christmas, instead of some venison thing Mary was going to do. It also means we go back to normal life, instead of not planning, in case we had to spend time butchering a deer. That makes Mary happier. Watched The Holiday movie. Katie texted at 11:15 pm that she is in Anchorage. I texted back, asking how her flight was and she called. She was eating Thai food at a restaurant. They had blizzard conditions in Mertarvik for 2 days, but temps warmed when she flew out today. She said it was different flying into Anchorage in a small plane. With a jet, you drop out of the clouds and there are the town's lights. In a small plane, you see Anchorage's lights a long way out. Her flight out of Anchorage is Wed., 12/11, so she'll be there for a few days.
• Monday, 12/9: Started out as a dark, cloudy day, but cleared in the afternoon. I used a tank full of gas in the chainsaw and cut up a wagon load of firewood. Unloaded wood in various places, based on its dryness. Mary baked 4 loaves of bread, so she couldn't help me with firewood. While unloading wood in the machine shed, I heard kittens meowing after I said something to myself. They seemed to respond to my voice. Told Mary. She found 2 kittens, both very fluffy, 1 orange and 1 a brownish/gray tabby, both with swirls on their sides. She guesses they're 4-6 months old. She gave them food and water, which they gulped up. They seem to be familiar with humans. We're guessing they were dumped...hate humans! Pulled the cat food and water after dark, so it wouldn't attract wild animals. Mary also found a couple winter wrens in the machine shed...we ought to rename it the zoo. When Bill found out we were doing a Christmas smorgasbord, he asked all gung-ho, "You want me to bring some cheeses!"
• Tuesday, 12/10: Some mornings, when I wake early, I go to the easy chair in the upstairs north bedroom, throw blankets on, and look out the north window. This morning after doing that, I saw 5 doe deer walk by the north edge of our garden, heading to the west. They were happy and sassy, saying, "Nanny, nanny, you can't shoot us!" Mary put feed and water out and the 2 newest outdoor kittens in the Machine Shed ate, then slept in the sun. We don't know their sex, so Mary named them Frankie and Johnnie, from the song by that name. Mary and I moved split wood from the Machine Shed to the woodshed, then cut another gas tank load of firewood from the downed elm tree...this time mainly large pieces that need to be split. We're leaving the rest of that tree for Mother Nature, since it's full of knots and has poison ivy growing up the trunk. We stacked the firewood in correct places. After chores and our nightly meal, we did a Christmas-related job, which took all night, that will be revealed after Santa visits.
• Wednesday, 12/11: I split the firewood from the last 2 sessions of firewood cutting. This job took all afternoon, creating 2 waist-high firewood piles, about 5-foot long. Mary dusted the DVDs. We watched the movie, Miss Potter.
• Thursday, 12/12: I'm sore from several continuous days of firewood work, so took morning and half of the afternoon off. Every morning for weeks, I've been browsing online sites for used pickups. I'm always finding junk, based on the money we have saved up for buying a pickup, so far. Decided to wait until February/March, when we'll have a bigger pickup nest egg, and then look again. Mary and I sorted and stacked firewood into the woodshed and machine shed that I split yesterday. I took down temporary lights in the machine shed and coiled, cleaned up and put away electrical cords. Katie called around 11 am to tell us she made it into Gulfport in the early morning hours. She called in the evening and talked for 1 hour, 24 minutes, while driving to Florida to do her makeup Air National Guard duty. Talked about her job in Alaska, about earlier sunrises here in the Lower 48, compared to AK, upcoming spring college attendance (she's 2 classes away from an associate's degree), ideas on becoming an AK resident, and thoughts about moving.
• Friday, 12/13: FedEx strikes, again. All day, the online tracking of a package indicated it was on a delivery truck. Since a package sent via FedEx was lost Thanksgiving weekend, we monitored this one regularly throughout the day. It never showed. At night, an email indicated that the package had the wrong address, yet the address listed in that email for the package was our correct address. I called FedEx, only got a computerized voice, which said the address was wrong on the package and that only the entity shipping the package could change the address. I sent an email message to the originating company asking them to forward explicit directions on how to get to our home to the Quincy, IL office of FedEx. Mary washed clothes and dusted books. I sharpened the two chainsaw chains. Attempted to cut firewood from a downed white oak tree north of the chicken yard, but it's so wet, it's almost soil, just like it was a year ago. Went to the woods west of the west yard. Cut up a downed red oak tree and several branches. Also, felled a tall red oak tree and cut it into firewood. Loaded a full wagon load and Mary and I unloaded it. There's still cut firewood left in the woods...it was too dark to go back. While doing chores and getting the mail, Mary saw a red-tailed hawk and a sharp-shinned hawk. At the mailbox, Mary saw 10 trumpeter swans flying low and on the way back from the mailbox, a belted kingfisher. 
• Saturday, 12/14: A 3:54 am email from FedEx says our package is out in a delivery truck due to be dropped off at our place today. Obviously, our email worked. We also got a 8:53 am FedEx email that a Florida package is out for delivery. Hopefully, we'll see these 2 packages by the end of the day. Knowing FedEx, they'll screw something up. I drove the tractor and trailer back into the woods and picked up the red oak tree that I cut up yesterday, unloaded it into the machine shed, and split the firewood I cut and hauled in yesterday. Mary helped me stack it. We're now shoulder-high with a stack of firewood in the woodshed. Mary raked leaves and insulated potted blueberry plants with the leaves. Watched The Polar Express and The Seeker movies. We got Mom's package...a case of oranges from Florida. That was delivered, because it was a FedEx package handled by the U.S. Postal Service from St. Louis onward and the postal folks know where we live. The FedEx delivery bozos don't know where we live. The other package that was on a delivery truck never showed up, for the second day in a row. I found a website that is dedicated to complaints about FedEx. They do the same trick around the country. On FedEx's website I found where you can ask for the package to go to a Walgreens store, where you can pick it up. I selected that option. It takes 5 business days for them to do this. We'll be through Quincy after 5 business days and can hopefully get the package before Christmas, since it's a gift. In the future, we will not do business with anyone who ships via FedEx.