Dec. 5-11, 2021

Weather | 12/5, 31°, 59° | 12/6, 25°, 33° | 12/7, 17°, 33° | 12/8, 25°, 38° | 12/9, 35°, 57° | 2/10, 0.14" rain, 29°, 55° | 12/11, 29°, 43° |

• Sunday, 12/5: Food Planning & Hunting
  
  • Mary did some planning, including making a food menu that better encompasses our own homegrown garden produce, chicken and venison meat. She also did some cross stitching, cleaned the house, made a turkey/rice casserole, and accomplished all of the evening chores.
  • I hunted at a new location. Wind blew out of the west, so I went east, across the dry creek bed, to an old cottonwood tree that leans almost perpendicular to the ground. Years ago, I had a deer stand on it. I thought I'd go up the hill, east of there, next to our east property line, but cedars have grown up so you can't see very far. There are lots of game trails and bed-down spots at the base of these cedars. I ventured a little bit to the north of there, just into the woods where I could see further, and leaned up against a wide oak tree. At 4:10 p.m., I saw the legs, belly, and rump of a deer walking north to south in the grass on the west side of the dry creek bed. I think it was a buck. About 20 minutes after sunset, a small deer walked north to south up the hill from me in the woods. I couldn't see whether it had antlers or not, so I didn't try to shoot. Then, a bigger deer stepped into the woods where the first deer exited. It slowly walked in a semi-circle to the north, then west of me, turned around, and retraced its path out of the woods. Both of these deer should have smelled me, because they were downwind from where I sat. The last deer stepped with sharp and loud foot falls, like deer do when they know you're there. I'm wondering if they know my scent, were wary, but not enough to snort and run away. I only want to bag a small deer, so I never shot at the large one. Besides, it might have been a buck, and antlered deer are illegal to shoot, now. Other animals...lots of squirrels...one that barked at me for a full 20 minutes. I also had 2 big Canada geese fly right over my head.
  • Wind switched to the NW after dark and really picked up with a steady 22 mph blast, and gusts to 38 mph.
  • Yeast is bubbling along nicely in the garlic wine. A quick test and bag squeeze in the evening gave a 1.092 specific gravity, a drop from 1.100. The house smells like a bad Italian restaurant.
    
    
• Monday, 12/6: Got COVID Boosters
  
  • From the living room's south window, I spotted a large bird flying above the trees. Mary grabbed the binoculars and identified it as a golden eagle. We only see them this time of the year as they migrate through our region.
    
  • On a call to the pharmacy at the Quincy, IL, Sam's Club, I discovered we can get COVID booster shots as Missouri residents and appointments aren't necessary, so we drove to Quincy, got the shots, and bought a few things. The young woman administering the shots was very good. More people are wearing masks in Quincy.
    
  • I called Lisa at Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative in Glendive, because we were supposed to get directions in October, then in November, on steps to take regarding the pension that Mid-Rivers is dropping. I'll still get it through an annuity. Lisa said they still haven't finished figuring up pension totals for everyone. That job was supposed to be done last week, so she said hopefully this week the job will be complete and letters will go out. I asked how she likes her job. Her response was that it's quiet, with not a lot to do. They've gone from 190 employees to 120, with a goal of reducing down to 90 employees. They're automating everything, so eventually customer questions will be answered without a customer ever needing to talk to a person. That's a 180-degree turn from when I worked there. I predict that eventually Mid-Rivers won't exist.
  • Since it was below 40° outside, I checked the foundation vents I recently bought from Lowe's. They closed within minutes when I took them outside. Great! They work. Brought them in and they opened right away. They will vent a future greenhouse.
  • Katie called us regarding Christmas gift packages sent to us. She was diagnosed today with a corneal ulcer. She got antibiotic drops and artificial tears, and might get a steroid prescribed to her. She bought a 2010 Jeep Liberty as transportation in Anchorage. She was delivering a proposal from UIC to Soldotna for a potential construction job, today.
  • I called FedEx once we got home. One of Katie's packages has been in Quincy since Saturday and they've failed to deliver it for 3 days, straight. A sign is up on State Highway J stating that the road is closed 5 miles from the Highway 156/Highway J junction. Our turn-off is a mile up that road. When I explained the sign to the guy at the FedEx Ground office in Quincy, he figured the temporary drivers running this route don't realize they can still get to our location, and aren't delivering the package. He put a hold on the package, so I can pick it up tomorrow at their Quincy facility. There's another package that was delivered according to USPS tracking, but we never saw it. I'll have to see what happened with that one. You'd think we live in the middle of a desert they way packages can't get to us!
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/7: Package Chasing
  • I spent daylight hours chasing packages and came home empty. First, I asked the Hispanic couple across the road from us if they saw a package. They didn't. Next, I drove to the Ewing post office. Kathy, the post mistress, told me the tracking number I gave her was for someone else's package, which was delivered yesterday to an address east of Ewing. She suggested Katie contact whomever she purchased the item from to get the correct tracking number. I sent Katie a text to this effect. I then drove to Quincy to pick up the package from FedEx Ground. Even though the guy at FedEx I talked to yesterday said they'd pull the package out of the truck, they didn't do that. It's still on the truck running around to be delivered. The woman I emailed directions to couldn't find my directions on her computer, even though the guy I talked to yesterday on the phone saw my directions. So, I wrote out directions, again, this time adding to ignore the sign indicating Highway J is closed. I doubt they'll deliver the package, but I'm sick and tired of wasting my day. This happens every year and it's ending right now! Either items arrive at our home, or they're lost. I don't have time for this nonsense.
    
  • We aren't feeling perfect, due to the COVID booster shots. It's like you're just entering, or just leaving, a sickness. Mary feels worse than me, achy with a headache. My arm hurts, too.
  • A check of the garlic wine showed a specific gravity of 1.067. The yeast is fizzing, nicely.
    
  • I cut out room sizes to scale on graph paper for a new house. Then, Mary and I tried different configurations with our graph paper rooms and came up with a similar arrangement to our original rough draft sketch of a few months ago. The only difference is we will build in 3 stages, making the project hopefully more affordable.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/8: Harvested 2nd Deer
  
  • Mary cross stitched and did the chores.
  • I got a text from Sandy, the woman who runs a business staging events in Quincy, IL. She has 12 cases of wine bottles for me, and all are bottles that take corks. She'll sell them to me for $70. That's $5.83 a case, or 49 cents a bottle. I said I'd buy them. I pick them up on Friday at 11 a.m.
  • I scrubbed up the 4 coolers I bought last week for $15. They'll be perfect for storing wine.
  • I walked to the Cherry Tree Stand in the NE section of our property at 3 p.m. I heard what seemed like chewing just beyond the cedar trees in front of me the whole time I was in the stand. I saw lots of woodpeckers. Right at sunset (4:41 p.m.), a doe walked through the cedars and up the hill, just below me. I took a right-handed shot and she dropped like a rock. It was a neck shot that hit her in the spine. Other deer ran off that were behind this doe. Mary told me to get a small deer, due to limited freezer space. I failed. She says this is the grandmother of Bambi, not Bambi. It's a large doe (see photo, below). I walked home and got Mary. She and I unloaded firewood out of the wagon, then I fired up the 8N Ford and drove it to the deer. We field dressed it...lots of fat. Deer on our property eat well. We drove it home, cleaned out the body cavity with the garden hose, then hung it in the machine shed. We must get at butchering early tomorrow morning. The forecast calls for 48° by 10 a.m. We now have more than enough venison, so deer hunting ends for me. Missouri's anterless firearms season ends on Sunday.

  

  The doe I harvested today. Lot's of good venison meat!
  

• Thursday, 12/9: The Final Butchering of the Year
  
  • Late last night I labeled the 21 bottles of jalapeno wine and stored them on their sides in a cooler.
    
  • We butchered the doe, today. Before going to bed, last night, the temperature was at 30°, which was great for cooling off the meat. Throughout today's butchering, that meat stayed cool. My shot wiped out all of one shoulder and half of the other. Even so, 35 packages of venison meat came from this very long-bodied deer. We have lots of venison to eat for a year. We feel happy to be done with the yucky job of butchering animals for the year.
    
  • Prior to me finishing up skinning the deer, Mary washed a load of laundry. 
  • She also moved packages of watermelon from the largest freezer to the smaller freezer, which had room after she did two batches of salsa last week, thereby using up several frozen bags of tomatoes, tomatillos, and hot peppers. By moving watermelon, we had room for new venison meat. 
  • Mary also set the kitchen table up for butchering and prepared several freezer zippered bags with necessary wording. The Missouri Department of Conservation requires venison to be labeled with the hunter's name, address, the date the deer is harvested, and the confirmation number sent back to the hunter after the deer is telechecked via a cell phone.
  • Mary swept up a mostly tan wooly worm, then looked up online "wooly worm winter predictions," which told her that this colored wooly worm means we're going to have a very mild winter.
    
  • After butchering clean-up, Mary did chores, and raked leaves, while I moved firewood logs to the splitter and split the wood. I finished after sunset and got my hat light. Mary helped me load the split firewood into the woodshed.
  • FedEx delivered Katie's package that arrived in Quincy on Friday to the neighbors across the gravel road, even though taped to the outside of the box was my emailed directions that included turning north (right) and driving up our lane to our house. The neighbors drove it up to us. We could tell from the outside of the box that it wasn't the item that Katie ordered. Katie talked to the seller, who is sending out the correct item and emailed a prepaid FedEx return shipping label. She forwarded that email to me. I'll send it out when I go to Quincy tomorrow to get my 12 cases of wine bottles.
  • Tonight, the garlic wine's specific gravity is 1.033, dropping from 1.050, when I checked it last night. It should be ready to move to a 5-gallon carboy tomorrow.
    
    
• Friday, 12/10: Wine Bottles & Tornadoes
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. She also did some cross stitching.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up 12 cases of used wine bottles. Rain started to fall right when I loaded the wine bottles. All 12 cases fit in the Cadillac's trunk. Next, I printed out the FedEx label and Katie's invoice at Staples, wrote a note on the invoice and slipped it inside the package containing the fancy bottle capper that must be returned, since it is the wrong item ordered. I taped the package up thoroughly, then added the label on the top. I drove to the FedEx Express office on the north edge of Quincy, and dropped the package off, then drove home, filling the car with gas on the way home.
  • I left the wine bottles in the car after getting home, since rain was falling. It's so nice to be inside and next to a warm woodstove with not a single drip coming through the roof. The new roofing works wonderfully. While doing chores, I stood at the SE corner of the house for several minutes and just smiled, because it looked so nice watching rain run off that roof.
    
  • We watched the 1989 movie, Christmas Vacation.
  • We tried our first bottle of jalapeño wine with omelets for dinner. The wine has mellowed and tastes very good. It tastes best while eating something. I munched on carrots while finishing off the wine.
    
  • Tornadoes swept through St. Charles, MO, in the evening, where Bill lives. He went to a main floor bathroom/laundry area in his building. Nothing happened where he lives. Across the river in Edwardsville, Illinois (an east St. Louis suburb), a tornado hit a large Amazon warehouse and took walls and part of the roof off. As of this morning (12/11/21), two died in that building. The National Weather Service reports that 37 tornadoes touched down in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Fortunately, all of that occurred about 100 miles south of us.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/11: A Hobby Day
  
  • Mary cross stitched all day.
  • Winemaking filled my day. A specific gravity of 1.013 on the garlic wine was close enough to 1.010 that I moved the wine into a 5-gallon glass carboy, a 750 ml wine bottle, and a 330-ml beer bottle. It is this wine's first racking. We tasted a little of it and the wine was surprisingly good, kind of semi-sweet, as it would be with still some sugar for the yeast to burn up. There is a fruity, floral taste to it. The 3 containers continue to burp CO2 gas, because of the still-active yeast.
  • I moved the 12 cases of wine bottles into the house and checked all of them. Some have labels removed and are cleaned. Most require label removal. All need cleaning. I was able to fit them all into the ground floor, west room closet under the stairs, where I keep winemaking stuff. There are several winter inside days worth of bottle cleanup in my future.
    
  • I racked the parsnip wine from a gallon jug and a wine bottle to a gallon jug and a beer bottle. The process removed a great deal of fines. The specific gravity is exactly 1.000. The wine with fines tasted earthy. We also tasted it without the fines. It had the tang from the lemon, a floral essence, and still a slight earthy taste, but mellow. This is going to be an interesting wine when its done. The wine must went into a brew bucket, where I added one crushed Campden tablet, then into the glassware for its second racking.
  • I put away cleaned, dried, and empty wine bottles and carboys in the west room closet.
  • We heard snow geese flying west to east in the dark as we walked the dogs. They are smart to fly at night. No hunters are shooting are around, then.
  • We read online news accounts and watched a few videos of tornado destruction in the St. Louis area and in Kentucky. Debris from the Amazon building in Ewardsville, IL, was discovered 3 counties away. It all makes me more determined to build a safe room in new house construction.