Nov. 7-13, 2021

Weather | 11/7, 39°, 64° | 11/8, 46°, 66° | 11/9, 47°, 63° | 11/10, 48°, 63° | 11/11, 0.36" rain, 46°, 51° | 11/12, snow & sleet that immediately melted, 35°, 37° | 11/13, 0.04" rain, 30°, 39° |

• Sunday, 11/7: More of the Same!
  
  • I pounded nails into shingles on the roof, again. I've passed the halfway mark of the valley, which isn't saying that I'm halfway done, because the roof grows progressively wider the further up you go. On the flip side, a wider roof means less time fiddling with cutting shingles and fitting them into the valley. So far, I've pounded in 22 courses of shingles on the south-facing slope, 10 courses today, and 18 on the east-facing slope, 5 courses today (see photos, below). The color of our roof was mosaic until today. I got tired of trying to mix colors, so from now on it will be striped. Since I bought other people's leftovers, I have multiple colors. We hope to be out of this house in the future. Looks mean nothing. What matters is to get a roof that doesn't leak.
  • Wind gusts were to 31 mph from the south. I knew it was windy, but my concentration was on getting more shingles on the roof, rather than the wind. There's an 80% chance of rain Wednesday night. I want to be done with the roof by then.
    
  • Mary washed furniture covers, then made venison stew and biscuits, which was extra yummy.
    
  • She also cleaned the third row of the far garden, involving hauling away rotten watermelon vines and melons and Diablo pumpkin vines. Then, Mary planted the Music Pink and German Extra Hardy garlic varieties. Garlic planting is now finished.
  • To celebrate Mary's release from bending over for hours in the far garden planting garlic, we uncorked a bottle of homemade blackberry wine that I made earlier this year. It's exceptionally tasty and works nicely with peach jelly on biscuits.

A view of our roof's progress from the lift.

A second view of the roof, from the lift.

• Monday, 11/8: Purple Paint, Parsnips & Shingles
  
  • Bill called last night after I wrote this blog just to chat. He helped his friends move most recently. The people he trained in SC told Bill he should move there. He's not interested. Bill will be here 11/20 through 11/28.
  • Mary painted trees and fence posts on the south border of our property, next to the gravel road, with purple paint. In Missouri, purple paint signifies no trespassing. It's easier than tacking up signs, which our neighbor did. Mary says his signs are made of cheap plastic and recent winds are ripping them up and blowing them away.
  • Mary also sprayed expanding foam to fill cracks and crevasses in our home's foundation. She said the SW corner foundation is leaning outward. We need to get out of this house!
  • Mary harvested and cleaned 34 parsnips from the near garden. I plan on making parsnip wine from them. Some are the size of a finger. Others are the size of beets.
  • Mary also sawed up firewood.
  • I was boring and pounded nails into shingles on the roof, all day long. I finished the sand-colored shingles and started on shingles with the fancy name of colonial slate. I call them gray flannel. I have about 6 feet left on the south-facing slope and about 8 feet left on the east-facing slope (see photo, below). 
  • The forecast is for a 20% chance of rain tomorrow afternoon and evening. I hope that means zip, zero rain for us. Wednesday calls for a 40% chance of rain in the afternoon. Again, I hope we don't get a drop. They're predicting a 90% chance of rain Wednesday night, so I need to be finished in a day or two days.
  • When Mary was off purple painting, I noticed a hawk fly by south of the house. Then, for about 15 minutes, two hawks were calling. They were red-tailed hawks. Their call is distinct and often used in movies while showing eagles soaring aloft.
  • I see where some people, such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz, are mad because Big Bird got a COVID vaccination. Good grief, there are more important things to be worried about, like which underwear to put on in the morning. A lot of people need to lighten up!
  • Don Kimmel, Roundup, MT, who was on Mid-Rivers Telephone's board while I worked for the cooperative, died on Nov. 4th at age 86. He was a high school classmate of Mom's in Ronan, MT. I interviewed him in 1996. He majored in physics in college to become a rocket engineer. Instead, he took over his wife's family ranch at Flatwillow, outside of Roundup. Don said Mom was the reason he wasn't salutatorian of his high school class. He was a very kind, thoughtful, and smart man.

  

  Progress on shingling the SE part of our roof.
  

• Tuesday, 11/9: Didn't Mean to Lower Mom's High School Grades
  
  • Apologies to my mother. I inadvertently lowered her high school class standing yesterday while writing about Don Kimmel. She was the valedictorian of her high school class in Ronan, MT, not salutatorian.
  • Mary spent all day cutting up the dry wood pile left behind after cutting down the weeping willow tree. She did it with a hand saw. There is a thigh-high stack of wood in the machine shed from her efforts. She's tired, tonight. Dry willow burns like gasoline. I lit a small fire in the woodstove, tonight. It's nice short-term heat and perfect for November.
    
  • I almost finished shingling the east-facing slope of our roof (see photo, below). All that's left is a row of shingles cut in half lengthwise and cap shingles. I still have a chunk of shingles to nail onto the top of the south-facing slope, plus cap shingles. I'm not as far along as I wanted to be by tonight. Rain is in tomorrow's forecast. I hope rain stays away, like it did today.
  • I used up all of the colonial slate (I call it gray flannel) colored shingles. I also used up a color Owens Corning calls sandstone. I call it light gray flannel. The color of the shingles going on, now, is dark brown. It probably has some exotic name, such as chocolate wafers. It's dark brown to me.
  • After a full day of working with shingles, my forearms are itchy, similar to the itchy feeling after installing fiberglass insulation. That's because today's asphalt shingles start out as a fiberglass mat that is then immersed in asphalt and covered with colored granules.
  • A truly happy day will arrive when we turn in the lift and I'm done on the roof. After a whole day up there, the evening is filled with feeling as though the floor is rocking and the ground is moving around. The higher up the roof the lift takes me, the longer the lifts arms extend out, and the bouncier the lift's cage moves on every motion I make. Reaching out through the lift's cage to swing a hammer means my shoulder and neck muscles are sore every evening. I could sand oak wood to a smooth finish by using the skin of my hands. Shingle granules roughen hands considerably.
    
  • Mary thinks the red-tailed hawk calls that we heard again, today, are from young fledgling hawks calling for food from their mother. This is probably a result a late hatch, which could be possible with the late warm weather we've experienced this fall.

  

  Concentrated on the east-facing slope (left), today.
  

• Wednesday, 11/10: ROOF IS DONE!!!
  • Starting at the break of dawn, I finished nailing all roof shingles by 3:30. Mary helped a bunch today. She used a pair of tin snips to trim 101 cap shingles into the correct shape. Mary took the cap shingles inside and placed them behind the woodstove to heat them up and make them more pliable, prior to me installing them on the roof. I finished installing cap shingles on the east/west roof peak by 5 p.m., or when it turned dark. Then, we got the clamp-on light and Mary went up with me in the lift. She held the light in various positions and handed me nails as I cut shingles in half, lengthwise, installed them and the cap shingles on the north/south roof peak. We finished at 7:30 p.m. Unlike the last time we were in the lift above the peak of the roof, we didn't have lightning flashing. This time, the moon peaked out from behind clouds, occasionally, An east, southeast wind was blowing hard, but except for a few drops of rain in the evening, we experienced no rain while working on the roof. A thunderstorm arrived around midnight, well after us leaving the roof, this time. It's sure good to be done with that job (see photo, below).
  • Besides helping me, Mary raked up a bunch of maple leaves and cut grass in an area near the compost bins to dump wood ashes in the future. Our old wood ash pile is filling in with poison ivy and it's on a hillside where the ashes wash downhill.
  • We celebrated the end of the roof job with a bottle of autumn olive wine. We were both beat tired and went to bed early after unplugging big appliances, due to lightning flashing to the west.
  • Later in the night, I woke and checked outside. Rain was pouring off the roof and there weren't any drip sounds of rain water leaking onto the ceiling of the sunroom. For the first time, ever, in this house, we finally have a solid roof over our heads.
  • Katie texted us that it looks like she's been offered a permanent full-time job with UIC in their Anchorage office involving assisting and estimating projects, and doing existing project support, such as invoicing and submittals. She still might go out and head-up projects, too.

  

  Our multi-colored roof is finished and passed a rain test, overnight.
  

• Thursday, 11/11: R & R For Us Today
  
  • We pretty much took the day off.
  • I cleaned roofing stuff out of the wagon behind the 8N Ford tractor.
  • I drove the tractor to the Cherry Deer Stand as a way to break a trail through the tall grass, since I don't have time to cut a trail with the weedwhacker. I tightened a cinch strap and moved raccoon dung off the platform. A well beaten down deer trail runs through the grass right below that stand.
  • I then drove the tractor to as far as I could go on the trail to the Wood Duck Deer Stand. As I walked into the woods, a barred owl lifted off, flew to a tree, looked down at me, then flew away. Sometime this summer, a big dead oak fell and barely missed that stand. Either water washed the ground away under the stand, or the trees it's attached to grew up, because the ladder is at a steeper angle. I moved a petrified raccoon poop off the plywood platform on this stand. I trimmed downed branches and trees out of the way through the woods to the stand with the small Stihl chainsaw, then took out some small cedars so I could turn the tractor around to go back home. There are deer tracks everywhere in the woods and in the sand of the creek bottom near this stand. Two flocks of mallard ducks flew out of the shallows of Wood Duck Pond. It grew dark and that's all I had time for. I'll have to finish deer hunting preparations tomorrow.
  • A check of the lift's fuel tank shows we used more than 5 gallons of diesel last night.
  • Katie texted that she's applying steel roofing in -10° temperatures and she feels the cold more with her sensitive burn areas. Katie said she's definitely applying for the office job she was recently offered.
    
    
• Friday, 11/12: Moved the Lift & Deer Hunting Prep
  • Before breakfast, I called the water district to inform them that our water pressure was dropping. I was one of several calls this morning, reporting the same phenomenon. They are looking for the leak. After breakfast, Mary filled gallon plastic jugs until we had 33 gallons stored, in case the water quits running.
    
  • Next, we moved the lift using the DuraDeck panels. It took some puzzling to get the lift turned to cross the yard without using up all 8 panels and failing to have 2 panels to move ahead of the lift, but we did it eventually. Throughout the exercise, a strong NW wind alternated between blasting sleet and snow in our faces to showing the sun with blue sky. At different times, both Mary and I tripped while hauling the 87-pound panels and walking backwards. It took almost 3 hours to creep the lift over the soft lawn. The panels worked marvelously. Dents are in the lawn, but they will go away. Without the panels, the roof job would be impossible. It was glorious to see melted snow and sleet dripping off the end of the roof's valley with ease.
    
  • After lunch, I called United Rentals to inform them that we're done with the lift. Their driver will pick it up on Monday, between 10 a.m. and noon. I also called Sunbelt Rentals to inform them that I'm finished using the DuraDeck panels and I'll have them back on Monday.
  • I used my phone and got 3 free landowner deer tags. Tomorrow is opening day of the firearms deer season in Missouri.
  • I loaded up chainsaws, a hammer, nails, the long handled nippers and worked at getting trails to deer stands/blinds ready. Due to limited time, instead of weedwhacking trails open, I simply drove the tractor over trails a couple times to smash down weeds and grass. I cut down some small cedar and persimmon trees, where needed, with the small chainsaw. Using the nippers, I cleaned intruding multiflora rose stalks and tree branches. The big chainsaw came out to cut my way through a large oak that fell across the trail to the Bobcat Deer Blind. I started at 2 p.m. and ended at 5 p.m., when darkness fell. There are now 5 smashed-down trails to 2 deer blinds and 3 deer stands. Wind howled with 35 mph gusts through day.
  • Multitudes of birds flew around in the trees around the house all day. They were mainly cedar waxwings and robins.
  • Weather predictions are for 31° in the morning with NW wind gusts to 27 mph. I'm sleeping in and not going hunting until the afternoon, when winds will be lower and from the SW.
  • Mary did cross stitch and the evening chores this afternoon.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/13: Lots of Deer & Nothing Wrong With Their Eyesight!
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas and chimichangas.
  • I got deer hunting stuff together, then went to the Wood Duck Deer Stand at 1:30 p.m.
  • Mary sorted books and started putting them back into the sunroom bookshelves.
  • Wind was out of the west and slowly changed to SW through the afternoon. The first game I noticed at Wood Duck were turkeys. I heard a hen turkey clucking to the east of me. Next, I heard footsteps and saw a long line of turkey heads (probably 20 turkeys) walking fast to the south in a single line. They spotted me and were getting away. Next, I saw 5 mallard ducks swimming around in Wood Duck Pond. They came into my field of view a couple times. Mary and I talked in the morning about building a deer blind and taking out the deer stand at Wood Duck, so I spotted a place on the ground and moved there around 2:15 p.m. Then, a spike buck (illegal to shoot) walked south to north on the dry creek bed just west of me. It turned at the pond's edge and walked east. Then, I saw 2 deer easing their way out of the woods to the NW of me to near the creek bed. One of them saw me, snorted, and about 6-8 deer (all does and most of which I didn't see until that moment) spun around and ran away. Next, 3 does ventured out in the same area. As I'm raising my gun, a doe and a yearling to the SW of me, which I didn't see, start snorting after seeing me and the 3 does run away. The snorting doe kept it up for about 5 minutes and slowly left. I'm too visible on the ground. Mad for what I did in going to the ground, I crawled back up the deer stand. A few minutes later, a big gobbler with a large beard busted through the tree branches over my head and flew to the NW. Then, I saw another spiked buck at the water's edge, facing west. It walked to the creek's edge and another buck entered into view from the west. They circled each other, then the larger buck walked to the SW. It was growing darker and I couldn't see well enough to count the points of the rack on the larger buck, so I let it go. I saw a lot of deer, but never pulled the trigger. I was frustrated. As it grew darker, I heard turkeys flying into treetops south of me. I walked home as darkness fell. Just before Dove Pond, 2 deer stomped off in the brush. Once I entered the north field, a spotted the white flash of a deer tail as a deer ran off to the north. We're really messy with deer.
  • Predictions are for NW wind gusts above 40 mph for tomorrow and temps in low 30s in the morning. I decided to give hunting a rest, tomorrow. I won't be hunting Monday, due to returning rental equipment. The rest should help hunting chances when I return to the field on Tuesday.
  • Rain fell after dark. For the past several years, we moved books from the sunroom to the kitchen table whenever it rained. Tonight, we just sat in the warm living room and listened to rain hitting the west windows. We finally have a waterproof roof. Life is good!