Oct. 25-31, 2020

Weather | 10/25, 35°, 42° | 10/26, skiff of snow or 0.08" moisture, 29°, 33° | 10/27, 29°, 42° | 10/28, 30°, 49° | 10/29, 36°, 43° | 10/30, 26°, 53° | 10/31, 37°, 63° |

• Sunday, 10/25: Second roof job completed:
  
  • I opened curtains in the living room this morning to watch a young buck with 6-inch spikes walk around the south side of the house.
  • I started today by removing the plank and the 2 brackets on the roof under the chimney, then patching the holes left by removing 6 big nails that held the brackets on the roof.
  • Meanwhile, Mary made a batch of flour tortillas.
  • I light a fire in the woodstove. Goodbye, weak electric heat. Hello, deep warming wood fire heat.
    
  • While I switched chains on the chainsaw, Mary loaded up bricks we had in various places and stacked them behind the woodshed.
    
  • Next, we cut down the mulberry tree that grew the past several years right outside the south windows of the sunroom. I sawed up larger pieces into firewood size. Mary hauled branches west to near the woods and stacked the green firewood pieces on top of the newly-stacked bricks behind the woodshed. Most branches came down easy, but one hit the railing of the south porch and bounced back toward my head. I dodged it. The final branch reached as high as the second story windows. When I notched it's base, it wanted to lean into the house. I tied 2 lengths of 50-foot long half-inch nylon rope together and had Mary pull it away from the house as I made the final cut. It worked.
  • We moved the lift from west of the house to the SE corner of the house, outside the sunroom. We had to move it closer once I discovered I couldn't reach the old gas heater exhaust pipe when the lift was in its first position. 
  • I then went through a crawl space in a small closet in our bedroom and disconnected the gas heater exhaust pipe. I had to vacuum spider webs, first. Nests of hay are just above the sunroom ceiling in this crawl space area and a big snake skin was shed and now drapes across a couple roof joists. We suspect the nests were made by squirrels. Ice cream buckets are sitting in there, so Herman, Mary's uncle, had leaky roof issues prior to us living in this house.
  • Next, I took the lift to the roof and pulled the exhaust pipe out. Then, I removed the boot that it went through. I discovered that this SE corner of the roof was never covered with tar paper prior to nailing on asphalt shingles. WOW! Below this pipe, the plywood was wet and nail heads in the plywood were rusty...a good indication of our leak issue into the sunroom.
  • It was getting dark, but with snow predicted tomorrow, I decided to finish this project. I rigged up 2 clamp-on lights on the lift's basket. A plug-in receptacle is at the basket of the lift with a place to plug in at the base, so I ran a cord from where we usually plug in our electric fence unit to the lift's base. I had excellent lighting that I could redirect where I needed it and continued working.
  • While I kept working on the roof, Mary cleaned up the mess I made by emptying out our bedroom closet to get to the roof crawl space to disconnect the gas heater exhaust pipe. Prior to that, she brought in all chainsaw-related tools. She kidded me that her whole day was spent cleaning up after me. 
  • After removing several horribly rotten shingles, I squeezed 2 laps of tar roofing cement around the foot-square aluminum and OSB patch I bought last year to patch this mess and nailed it into place. Then, I ran 2 more laps of tar on either side of the seam, laid down 4-inch wide fiberglass/tar screening, ran a wavy line of tar over that and ran a nitrile glove covered finger over the tar to fully impregnate the screen. Next, I nailed new shingles over everything. I finished around 10:30 pm. I was beyond exhausted.
  • Nailing shingles below you at 35° with a north wind blowing chimney smoke in your face while leaning over an aluminum bar in a tiny lift basket is hard. At one point, I stepped one foot on the roof to better position myself for using the hammer and stepped right into fresh tar. I guess I wanted to be a Tarheel. It gave me an excuse to throw away old Walmart tennis shoes that were shot, anyway.
    
    
• Monday, 10/26: Our first snow:
  
  • We woke to our first snowfall of the season...just a skiff. Our soon-to-be freezer chickens, who are 15 weeks old today, didn't know what to think of the white stuff. For me, today is going to be a day of doing abso-bloomin-lutely nothing. My muscles and joints are telling me I'm a nut!
  • Around 5:30 pm, I started the lift and got it ready to transport, since it's due back tomorrow by 1:30 pm. I tried to start the pickup and it wouldn't start. I put the charger on the battery, since I cranked the engine quite a bit. I did some online research. It could be a weak fuel pump, or moisture in the distributor. I'll try again in the morning and if it doesn't start, I'll call Sunbelt Rentals to determine my options. If I can't get a pickup from them, I'll see if I can rent one from Home Depot. The timing of our truck not starting stinks.
  • It snowed all day, but it melted as it hit the ground throughout the day.
  • Bill called. He will visit us the entire week of Thanksgiving.
  • We saw 16 wood ducks fly off of our tiny Bluegill pond. We also saw a small doe and a barred owl while walking to the mailbox to get our mail.
    
  • Below are photos of the results of the past month of work.

SE corner of chimney, my worst stucco job
and what people will see.

NW corner of chimney, my best stucco job
and what deer will see.

Lift, mulberry stump, & roof job (light color).

Newly stacked bricks & green mulberry firewood.

• Tuesday, 10/27: I'm tired of things not going our way. It has to turn around. We had a week of really poor weather, both wet and windy. The newly purchased pickup won't start. As a result, we didn't get the lift back on time and probably incurred more charges. Our only vehicle that remains running has a front passenger-side brake that is scraping metal on metal. We're past due on butchering chickens. It's freezing at night and our garlic isn't planted. I'm dedicated to taking the bull by the horns and doing something about all of this...better vehicle maintenance, earlier garden plantings, a dedication and timeline for getting out of this 111-year old squirrel, snake and bug infested house and into a new house. I'm mad and I plan on doing something about it.
  
  Today:
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread.
  • I tried removing the distributor cap on the pickup. It's crammed against the firewall. The head of the front hold-down screw started to strip, so I stopped. We tried starting fluid, but my can was so low, I couldn't get any to spray down into the throttle body. 
  • I called Sunbelt Rentals 3 times. The first time, I was told they'd try to get someone out to pick up the lift. The second time, I was told a sales rep might get out to us to get the lift. The third time, I was told no one was coming.
  • I drove to Lewistown and bought a new can of starting fluid from McKenzie Auto, squirted it in and the pickup still wouldn't start. I looked for chewed wiring, but didn't find any. I removed the number 2 spark plug. It was rough looking and soaked with gas, so the gas supply is good. I'll need professional help to get into the distributor, so I decided to stop.
  • I called Home Depot. They rent pickups, but not for towing. I called U-Haul in Quincy. They have a pickup that can be used for towing. I reserved it for picking it up tomorrow morning. On my third call to Sunbelt Rentals, I told them I'm renting a pickup and will have the lift into them around noontime tomorrow.
  • We're out of chick feed and an order of powdered milk came in, so I drove to Quincy and got the milk, bought cat, dog, chick, and hen food, and various staples for us. 
  • While driving home, someone hit a deer just prior to me coming around a corner of the highway. Then, on State Highway J, about 2 miles from the house, I saw 4 deer on the edge of the road eating dried soybeans. They're out and about, now.
  • Mary did some cross stitching and all of the chores while I was in Quincy.
    
  • The house is nice and warm and our reconstructed chimney is pulling a good draft through the woodstove. That makes me happy.
    
    
• Wednesday, 10/28: Driving Day:
  
  • Today I drove to Quincy, rented a pickup from U-Haul (it was a 2019 Chevy), drove home, hooked up the lift, drove to Quincy, dropped off the lift at Sunbelt Rentals (they didn't charge extra), dropped off the pickup at U-Haul, then drove back home. The pickup was a gas hog, but it towed the lift well. It road like a tank. Our pickup, when it's running, rides better and gets better mileage. I'm glad that's all done.
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch ornament and did house cleaning.
  • We had smoked scrambled eggs, fresh bread, and tomato slices for a meal.
  • Mary took a photo (see below) of a deer buck rub on a 6-inch in diameter walnut tree right next to our driveway and the house. It had to be a big buck. It certainly didn't fear being next to our house last night.

  

  Buck rub on 6" walnut tree.
  

  
  
• Thursday, 10/29: A slow day:
  
  • It was cloudy and cool outside, so we put in a quiet day.
  • I gave Mary a haircut. Her last one was on Feb. 8th. She prefers short hair. It wasn't prior to the haircut.
  • The pear wine slowed way down on bubbling out CO2, so I cleaned up the overflow tubing and put in a regular airlock. The silicone seal on the cap of the Big Mouth vessel is poor, so I tried the screw-on cap from the small 1.4-gallon Big Mouth that cracked. That was even worse, so I went back to the silicone cap and tied it down to the milk crate that the 5-gallon Big Mouth Bubbler sits in with laces that once were on old hockey skates I owned. That works, but it looks like I'm trying to hold down a demon (see photo, below). I read online that this type of brewing carboy breaks easily, so I tried not to get it too tight. The specific gravity of the wine is at 1.000, which is perfect.
  • While putting chickens away for the night, Mary saw an 8-point buck and a doe just west of the chicken run. 
  • Katie texted Mary that she will be staying at her job in Alaska through Christmas. She said that temporary power for the village that needs to be babysat during the Christmas break. Since she figured we were leery about her visiting us, due to COVID issues, she volunteered to stay and babysit the temporary power generators.
    
  • After our evening meal, Mary popped all 6 garlic varieties into individual cloves for her garlic planting in a few days.
  • Prior to going to bed, we put rings on the legs of all 6 of our hens from this year's chicks. We start butchering cockerels tomorrow night.

  

  Skate lacing tie-down to keep silicone top in place.
  

  
  
• Friday, 10/30: If you want to notice wildlife in action, spend a night outside. The wild critters are abundant and loud. During chicken butchering that we did between 9:30 pm on 10/30/20 and 5:30 am on 10/31/20, we encountered an opossum, heard barred owls, great horned owls and coyotes, and chicken feet theft. The opossum came right at us while we were knocking off our second chicken at the killing cone. The smell of chicken blood must have attracted it. I had to poke it with a long black walnut branch to get it to move on. I heard foot steps on the machine shed's metal roof while working on a chicken. After a coffee and toast break, midway through butchering, all of the chicken feet were missing. We think a coyote was our thief. Needless to say, one of us is always near dead chickens that we hang on a spud bar rigged between two step ladders, or we'd notice even more theft.
  
  Happenings:
  • Mary made huge batches of popcorn to give us inexpensive snacks.
  • A young raccoon walked down our lane next to the house in the afternoon.
    
  • She filled the coffee maker half-full of vinegar and the rest with water to clear sodium residue out of it. Prior to doing the cleaning, it would take an hour to make coffee. Now it takes 12 minutes.
  • Mary also raked leaves and put them in the compost pile.
  • I picked up tools, leftover asphalt shingles, and mortar, cement, lime, and mortar sand buckets that were scattered outside, in the woodshed, and in the machine shed, and put everything away.
  • I fixed a big clamp light fixture that shorted out when I used lights on the roof job. Hot and ground bare wires twisted together inside of the ceramic fixture. I soldered new eyelets on the end of newly bared wires, added heat shrink, put it together and used it as a light hanging from the rafters for chicken butchering in the machine shed. 
  • I also set up the machine shed for butchering, with 4 other lights aimed to the center from north, east, south, and west. After repositioning a come-along hanging from a rafter, I added an aluminum meat hook below it and put 2 old Mid-Rivers Telephone wall calendars on the floor below it. The killing cone got a couple new pieces of aluminum tape to smooth over rough edges. Buckets of water were added where needed. Then, I sharpened 9 knives.
  • We started by killing 4 cockerels, then I skinned one at a time and Mary thoroughly cleaned each one, cut them into pieces, put each chicken in a zipped gallon freezer bag, and put them in the freezer. We then did a second batch of 4 chickens. By doing them at night, it's easier collecting chickens off the roost. We prefer skinning chickens, because of the slick way that feathers, skin and excess fat comes off altogether and instead of round chicken bodies, we get compact flat ziplock packages in the freezer. This year, the chicken food was much better than in past years, so these birds are bigger and more developed, thereby considerably slowing down our butchering speed. We were hoping to get 12 done tonight. We only got 8 chickens butchered, so it's going to take us 3 nights to butcher all 24 cockerels.
    
    
• Saturday, 10/31: A Day of the Walking Dead:
  
  • After finishing butchering chickens at 5:30 am, we took baths, crawled under blankets on couches in the living room, and slept an hour and a half. A woodpecker banging on the side of the house woke me. Plato jumped off an easy chair, came over wiggling his tail so hard his butt swung back and forth, and smiled at me. I talked about it. Mary bitched about me talking. We were up for the day.
  •  On what was a very windy day, we saw several raptors and bluebirds. We counted 16 bluebirds eating fruit from the Sargeant Crab Apple tree. At noon, we watched a golden eagle sail into the wind while some other bird chased it. Several hawks flew overhead through the day. Mary saw a peregrine falcon. Our chickens were very aware of these birds, calling out and hiding.
  • I cleaned up blood and gut buckets from chicken butchering.
    
  • We had a wiener roast on a small fire, since it was windy. Mary's relish is amazing on hotdogs. We ended it with a quarter cup of 2019 pear wine.
  • I smelled wine around the seal of the Big Mouth Bubbler holding this year's pear wine, so I racked it into my 6.5-gallon glass carboy, added 2 crushed Campden tablets, to kill any harmful mold that might have entered with the faulty seal, and sanitized and added an airlock. Instantly, the airlock was burping, which wasn't happening with the bubbler. Obviously, correct action was taken. 
    
  • Mary did chores while I handled wine duties.
  • Mary baked 4 small apples, each, which we enjoyed while watching the 1993 movie Hocus Pocus.
    
  • We turned in early, extremely tired.