Jan. 23-29, 2022

Weather | 1/23, 19°, 22° | 1/24, 31°, 38° | 1/25, -3°, 15° | 1/26, -6°, 22° | 1/27, 23°, 36° | 1/28, 6°, 22° | 1/29, 9°, 39° |

• Sunday, 1/23: No Maple Wine, No Topper, A Chiefs' Win
  
  • For a few days, I've looked up how to collect maple tree sap for making wine with it. Then, I read someone's assessment for this wine. It has no maple taste, just the taste of the additives put in with it. Boiling it down amplifies the taste and I don't want to spend days boiling down tree sap, so I won't be making that wine.
  • I spent a bulk of the day searching for pickup truck shells. Years ago, I remember reading how vehicle manufacturers changed pickup beds so they weren't square and now I own one. It's 100" long and 70" wide in the front, but 67" wide in the back. I need a topper that fits Chevy/GMC pickups between the years of 1999 and 2006 with long beds. It greatly reduces my prospects of finding one. Needless to say, I didn't find one.
  • We listened to the Kansas City Chiefs/Buffalo Bills NFL playoff game. The lead changed 3 times in the last 2 minutes. The Chiefs tied the game with 4 seconds left. Then, they won it in sudden death overtime with a touchdown. We rooted for the Chiefs. One of the radio announcers was extremely biased towards the Bills. He didn't have much to say when the Chiefs won.
    
    
• Monday, 1/24: Shopping
  
  • Mary did a load of laundry, hung it outside to air, then brought it back inside to completely dry.
  • She also baked another pumpkin and put 2 more gallon bags of pumpkin meat in the freezer.
    
  • I shopped in Quincy. We want to get a topper for the bed of the pickup in order to better store groceries in a locked area while on shopping trips, so I looked for clamps to secure a pickup shell. An auto parts guy directed me to a business called Cross-Country Trailer, where I learned there are 3 different types of clamps and new toppers include their own clamps, so I asked the seller of a used shell on Facebook Marketplace if his came with clamps. It does, so I arranged to see his topper tomorrow. It's near Troy, MO, which is about 100 miles south of us.
    
  • Mary said there were over 100 robins in the yard near sunset. It's the most robins she's seen at one time.
  • I ordered 4 pairs of leather gloves from Galeton. We've purchased gloves from them in the past and they're much better than any gloves available in nearby stores. The problem is their shipping is high. I sent a message complaining about their shipping rate of $28 and was offered shipping for $7.95. I took their lower offer, naturally.
    
    
• Tuesday, 1/25: 200-Mile Drive for Nothing
  
  • Mary made 2 quiche pies. She also did some cleaning, and a little bit of cross stitch.
  • Mary is suffering from lower back pain. She found that sitting in a more upright chair, while putting a hard tennis ball opposite of the pain, helped relieve the pain. She spent most of the day resting her back in this fashion.
    
  • I drove to Troy. The camper shell I went to look at turned out to be one that fits a short bed pickup. In my initial conversation, I failed to ask the most important question, "Does it fit an 8-foot truck bed?" I went on into Troy, which was only 6 more miles south of where that topper was located, to buy some zippered quart and sandwich bags that I didn't find yesterday in Quincy. So, I essentially drove 200 miles, round trip, for a couple boxes of bags. I left at 10 a.m. and got back home at 4:30 p.m. It was a waste of time, gas, and money. I won't make that mistake, again.
    
    
• Wednesday, 1/26: New-To-Us Pickup Topper
  • Mary dusted books, did some cross stitching, and did the evening chores.
  • I contacted JC Auto & Truck Parts, a big auto salvage business in Monroe City, MO, to see if they had a pickup topper that fits our truck. They had a maroon one that came off a 2005 GMC Sierra 1500, just one year newer than our pickup. The photo looked good. It didn't come with clamps.
  • I drove to Cross Country Trailers in Quincy, IL, and bought 6 used aluminum topper clamps for $5, each. Then, I drove 35 miles to JC's in Monroe City. The fiberglass topper with a gel coat looked great. I bought it for $200. They loaded it up on a forklift, moved it to behind my pickup, then 5 guys lifted it onto the pickup bed. I attached the clamps and tightened them. The topper looks nice (in better shape than the pickup) on the truck bed (see photos, below). I then drove 38 miles north, to home.
  • Katie texted that her 2 dogs went to a doggy daycare for the first time in Anchorage, today. DeSoto made friends with a dog named Cooper, played all day with that dog, and spent the evening sleeping. They are in this daycare each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
  • We drank a celebratory autumn olive wine, which I made almost a year ago, on Jan. 29, 2021. It's very nice and smooth with a light amber color.
  • I finished reading The Dark is Rising, a good book.

  

  Inside of fiberglass topper, showing aluminum clamps.
  

Maroon pickup topper on our truck.

This truck cap has 2 handles with locks.

• Thursday, 1/27: Dealing with Pickup Shell
  
  • After researching online about a seal to use between the pickup bed and the shell, I decided to get EPDM sponge rubber weatherstripping from AutoZone. It's more expensive than the PVC foam tape at Home Depot or Menards, but will do a better job of sealing out rain and dust. Whatever was on the shell's bottom edge is old, squished, and in pieces.
  • I readjusted the shell a little bit back on the pickup bed, so that the back gate of the shell shuts correctly. I used double-sided carpet tape to stick 1-inch pieces of wood to the edge of the clamp that butts up against the pickup bed metal framing, enabling the clamps to sit squarely on the bed's edge. I discovered a light on the inside, above the back opening. The latch of the driver's side topper handle is rusting and will need replacing. I will also need to run wiring to the tail light at the top of the topper.
  • The manufacturer of this pickup shell is Jason Truck Caps. They are based in Kansas City and they make strong, fiberglass shells and tonneau covers for pickups.
    
  • We watched the last two episodes of the HBO miniseries John Adams.
    
    
• Friday, 1/28: Coyote Encounter
  
  • It was rather cool, today, with a brisk north wind blowing that switched to calm at sundown.
    
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
  • I vacuumed flies out of house windows.
  • I figured ingredients needed for 5- and 6.5-gallon batches of pumpkin wine.
    
  • Mary dusted books in the sunroom.
    
  • After evening chores, I took the dogs on a walk to the swim pond. At the north edge of the north lawn, Amber peered inquisitively into the woods for a very long time. As we walked east on the Swim Pond trail, Amber had hair up on her back and her ears laid back. Then, Plato stopped dead on the trail and wouldn't move. I walked to the pond. It's covered with a thick coat of ice that cracked, like a gun shot, as I drew near. I walked back home. As I got to where Plato stopped, a coyote appeared just beyond him in the trail. Both dogs started to go after it, but I told them to stay with me, and they obeyed my request very nicely. The coyote, which was very dark gray in color and about the same size as Plato, just trotted ahead, stopped every so often, and turned to look at us. As we got to the north yard, it ventured west of the trail, to the edge of the woods. Plato hung back, so that I had to coax him to come up to me. The coyote was keenly interested in Amber. As she trotted on the trail to the house, the coyote came out towards me to look at Amber. I stayed put, in case I had to help Amber, and kept calling to Plato to come to me. Eventually, he did. As Plato approached, the coyote slipped into the woods. I think it's the same coyote I filmed last summer. It's not afraid of me or the dogs. I think I'll refrain from walking dogs at dusk.
    
    
• Saturday, 1/29: Large Buck & Chainsaw Sharpening
  
  • While leaving the chicken coop this morning, we saw a big buck deer walk across the west end of the west field. It was too far away to count points, but it had a huge rack. This buck was brown, not gray, like some old bucks eventually become with age.
  • I cleaned one of the two chainsaw chains with carb cleaner and a wire brush, then sharpened it. These chains are two years old and by sharpening them with a file, they aren't wearing down as fast as when I sharpened with a grinder. I also sharpened a chain for the small chainsaw. It's time to get back to cutting up firewood, since our supply is dwindling.
  • I took Plato and Amber to the east edge of the woods south of the house and found several old, dead trees to cut up for firewood. The dogs loved the walk. Snow is melted enough in the south field that I'm sure I can drive the tractor over it without slipping, making that location a good place to collect firewood. Other spots contain too much ice and snow for the tractor, unless I add tire chains, which I'd rather not do, since putting them on the tractor takes a lot of time.
    
  • Mary dusted books. She also made flour tortillas.