Dec. 20-26, 2020

Weather | 12/20, 20°, 45° | 12/21, 35°, 53° | 12/22, 25°, 51° | 12/23, 23° at night, 58° at noon | 12/24, 7°, 21° | 2/25, 2°, 27° | 12/26, 15°, 47° |

• Sunday, 12/20: The Wild Turkey Hen
  
  • While I was loading the chainsaw into the trailer to get firewood, I heard a hen turkey call. Hunters imitate that sound by scratching the end of a stick on a piece of slate. You usually hear that sound in spring and summer months, not the last day of fall. I thought it was a trespassing turkey hunter. While doing evening chores, Mary and I heard it again. We heard it drastically change from NE to due north. The sound moved faster than a human could run, so it was a bird that flew to a new location. We're guessing it was a turkey that lost contact with its flock and was calling to try to get back with other turkeys.
  • Mary baked a batch of lime zinger cookies. I helped her squeeze lime juice out of 6 limes. These are supposed to be cut out with cookie cutters, but Mary just smushed down round balls. They're really tasty. We enjoyed cookies with tea in the evening.
  • Mary found 4 lime seeds in today's limes, something we haven't seen in years of purchasing limes. She carefully planted them. She wants an indoor citrus orchard of her own. I better include that into plans for a new house!
    
  • I cut down a dry, dead red oak tree that was roughly 10 inches wide at the base in the north woods near the entrance to Bobcat Trail, sawed it up into woodstove chunks, loaded them into the trailer, and parked the tractor/trailer in front of the woodshed. The tree broke in the middle when it came down with a big thump. These pieces of firewood are super dry wood that sound like baseball bats when you collect pieces in your arms to move them.
  • We got a tiny egg, the first of eggs from our 6 new pullets. Yahoo! Our 2-3 eggs per week ration will be increasing. Old hens are molting, so egg production is low right now.
    
  • We watched the first 2 episodes of the second year of Downton Abby after dark.
  • Katie updates:
    
    • She had more pain, which, according to nurses, is good, because it indicates she's healing.
    • Katie's newest roommate is preventing her from sleeping at night.
    • She asked if she could walk on the skywalk that she can see on her walks. The answer is no, due to too many overflow patients in the wing she's staying in.
    • Karen and Mom called Katie and talked with her.
    • Several subcontractor friends she works with in Alaska have connected with her to say hi.
    • A bed Katie ordered arrived at her Anchorage apartment. She ordered some end tables.

• Monday, 12/21: Alaska New Years
  • Dad always used to call Winter Solstice an "Alaska New Year's Day," because from this day forward, days grew longer, and it was a true start of a new year, related to sunlight.
  • Mary spent most of today working on a Christmas cross stitch project.
  • She also washed 2 loads of clothes. Drying time was fast, due to a strong NNW wind.
  • I vacuumed flies and Asian ladybugs out of all house windows.
    
  • I split and stacked all of the firewood pieces I cut from yesterday's red oak tree I cut down.
  • We viewed Saturn and Jupiter, that were very close in the sky, after sunset. To me it looked like a vehicle with one headlight that was dim, which was Saturn, compared to the brighter planet, Jupiter.
  • We watched 2 more episodes of Downton Abbey.
    
  • News from Katie in Seattle:
    
    • They sedated Katie at 8:30 a.m., cleaned up her wounds, did some assessments, and brought her back at 10 a.m. She woke with a strong headache, which they helped to get it to subside by giving her coffee, tea, and a cold compress on her head.
    • Doctors will do skin grafts for the burns on her armpit, chest, and underarm area. It will involve 2 grafts, each about the size of a slice of bread. Skin for the grafts will come from her thigh. They tell her the thigh is the quickest at recovering skin.
      
    • The operation will be on Wednesday, Dec. 23. It's scheduled, but if a more serious burn patient comes in, her operation could be postponed until after Christmas, such as Monday, Dec. 28.
    • She spoke with the nurse UIC has assigned to her case, who said it is fine for her to convalesce with us, once she's released from Harborview.
    • Katie also talked with Monica at UIC, who said she can go public with her accident.
    • Since the clothes that Katie has in Seattle are limited, she will buy some items online and have them shipped to our address, so she has a few more choices when she gets here.

• Tuesday, 12/22: It Was a Quiet Day in Lake Wobegon, My Home Town
  • Mary picked up sticks from around the yard and stored them in the Machine Shed to break into usable pieces at a later date and use as kindling.
  • Single digit temperatures are predicted on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day morning, so we worked on chicken coop chores. Mary put 2 wheelbarrow loads of hay onto the coop floor. Leo, our rooster, chuckled loudly in approval of the new hay. I tighten air drafts by first cleaning dust off wood surrounding windows, then sticking packing tape over cracks where windows close. By quickly running a heat gun over the tape after it's applied, then rubbing it down with a gloved hand, the tape sticks quite well. I got the 2 north vent windows taped, plus 2 or the 5 south windows. I also put old dog bed stuffing in the cavity of the north chicken door, screwed down an inside panel and screwed down the outside north chicken door.
    
  • Mary baked butterscotch/oatmeal cookies. She also washed and dried 3 loads of laundry. A south wind made for a great drying day.
    
  • Katie updates:
    
    •  It was a sunny day in Seattle, according to photos taken through her window.
      
    • An elderly woman gets surgery tomorrow morning. If all goes well with her, Katie goes into surgery tomorrow afternoon (as of this morning...12/23...it's a 1:15 p.m. appointment).
    • Harborview's physical therapist is extremely pleased with how well Katie's hands and face were healing.
    • A connection in Seattle to the Air Force Reserves that Katie belongs to contacted her. They said they would get her clothes and personal items, which by the end of the day, she received. It includes socks, underwear, sweats, sandals, a large and loose-fitting flannel shirt, a toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner, and a suitcase for storing her newly acquired belongings. 
    • Katie is receiving a new drug that deadens the pain from nerve endings, which means she's not feeling as much pain.
    • We got a text from Katie that included a photo of flowers with the words, "Grandma sent me flowers!!!"

• Wednesday, 12/23: Katie's Surgery
  
  • Katie went in for surgery at 1:15 p.m. and got out of surgery 4 hours later. Surgeons grafted skin from her thigh to her right underarm and arm area. Her chest area did not require a skin graft, with enough viable tissue there. Surgeons did a different clean-up procedure on that area. Katie describes it as receiving a W. Katie told the anesthesiologist about always waking up with a headache, so she was given continuous Tylenol in an IV, and given extra liquids, resulting in a wake up that was headache-free. She gets to wear a pillow/cage device on her right arm to keep her armpit area open, allowing the skin graft to heal. Katie said the earliest she'd get out of Harborview is Sunday or Monday. We advised her not to rush getting out of the hospital. Katie finished reading a book on the new Kindle that she received on Monday from Kristen, Mary's sister-in-law.
  • Mary cleaned the house.
  • She also finished cross stitching an ornament and did final Christmas wrapping.
  • I finished taping up the 3 remaining windows in the chicken coop and nailed a board that was loose near the chicken door.
  • I drove to Quincy and bought Christmas veggies and a gallon of steering fluid for when I replace the 6-foot long pressurized steering hose on the Cadillac. Traffic was insane in Quincy.
  • We got 3 eggs, 2 of which were little ones from our pullets. Egg numbers are going up.
    
  • Temperatures went from close to 60 in the early afternoon to the lower 20s at night. After dark, a light snow was falling, but the moon and a few stars were shining through for an unusual weather phenomenon. West to NW wind gusts were over 40 mph.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/24: Christmas Eve
  
  • Mary made a pistachio tort, a dessert that Bill asked his mother to make for Christmas. Mary also cut up fresh vegetables, cut salami pieces and cheese pieces. 
  • Katie called, upset, because doctors told her she would be discharged on Sunday or Monday, even though her surgery was just yesterday, and they wanted her to check back in on Friday (Jan. 1) for a final checkup. She informed her doctor that she had no one in Washington State who could help her. The head doctor suggested she get a hotel room. She talked with her case worker nurse, who then went to work figuring out arrangements for Katie. In the evening, Katie called, with better solutions. First, higher ups in the hospital's staff came into Katie's room convinced she could handle redressing her own wounds. The nurses taking care of her said otherwise, convincing the hospital big whigs that they were wrong. They all agreed that Katie would get a nearby hotel with an in-house restaurant once discharged from Harborview. She will also go to the outpatient part of Harborview daily to get her dressings changed. The head doctor will see her on Friday.
    
  • Bill showed at 12:30 p.m.
  • After chores, we enjoyed a Christmas smorgasbord of 12 various cheeses, salami slices, fresh vegetables, crackers, and ranch dressing dip. We played a game of Triopoly. We enjoyed cookies on breaks in the game. Mary won the game.
  • After the game, we watched A Christmas Carol, starring Patrick Stewart, along with a Christmas episode of the TV show, Due South.
    
    
• Friday, 12/25: Christmas Day
  
  • Katie is lined up with a hotel, once she is discharged, which now will be on Sunday. Her wounds are healing quickly. By the afternoon, she wasn't required to wear her pillow brace continuously. She will be seen by her head doctor on Thursday and she will be flying from Seattle to here on Friday, New Year's Day. Airline flights haven't been decided, yet, but Katie told them the nearest airport is Quincy, so hopefully she will fly into the Quincy airport. Katie had calls from her grandmother and from her Uncle Don's (Mary's brother) family.
  • We opened presents starting just before noon. 
  • Texts with Mom revealed she had Christmas Dinner with Patti Schipman's family.
  • Bill and I burned Christmas wrapping and boxes, along with a few animal food bags.
  • We watched the movies 1917 and Finding Nemo, both picked out by Bill. The first movie is a World War I movie that Katie gave her mother for Christmas. It's very intense, but very good. 
  • When we went to bed at midnight, the winds that have been blowing for a couple days quit and all was generally calm, with a slight southerly breeze.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/26: Bottling, Not Boxing, Day
  
  • Bill and I bottled the 2020 pear wine into 22 750 ml wine bottles. Before we did that, we racked the garlic wine into a new glass gallon jug. The specific gravity is at 1.003. We tasted the garlic wine and surprisingly, it tasted very good, considering how horrible it smelled a month ago when it was fermenting. Bill said, "It tastes like it belongs with shrimp." Mary thought it would be good with pizza. It has a garlic flavor, but with sweet, fruity undertones. Bill says it's as if someone mixed a garlic sauce with a zinfandel wine. After the garlic wine, we racked the pear wine into the big mouth 5-gallon carboy, even though there wasn't much for finds at the bottom. Then, we cleaned labels off several wine bottles, which takes over an hour to accomplish. I mentioned to Bill that every time I do a big wine batch, he's here. He said, "YES, I KNOW!" Finally, we bottled and corked the pear wine. About a half a bottle was left, which we drank. This wine that isn't aged is very smooth, with a strong pear flavor, and a tang, that we suspect comes from the Kieffer pears we added to this batch. The specific gravity was still at 1.000, making its alcohol at 11%.
  • We called Katie while drinking the pear wine. Her burn wounds are improving. She got a new roommate, who informed Katie that she is an insomniac, so expect the TV and lights to be on well into the night. Katie was having a hard time hearing us due to chatter from the other side of the room. Hopefully, it's the last night in the hospital for Katie.
  • Mary broke up sticks for kindling in the machine shed.
    
  • We ate nachos and watched Secondhand Lions and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  • Two bald eagles circled above the house, slowly moving east to west, around noon.
  • We heard coyotes every time we took the dogs out for nighttime walks. One time, they were close...near the gravel road.