Nov. 27-Dec. 3, 2022

Weather | 11/27, 0.93" rain, 37°, 43° | 11/28, 27°, 49° | 11/29, 35° in AM, 25° in PM, 63° | 11/30, 18°, 32° | 12/1, 13°, 43° | 12/2, 37°, 58° | 12/3, 15°, 31° |

• Sunday, 11/27: Bill Returns to St. Charles
  
  • We received nearly an inch of early morning rain that ended right before we got up.
  • Mary made chimichangas for our midday meal. I picked leaves off the winter greens that we enjoyed on top of the chimis. The greens tasted wonderful.
    
  • Bill left for his apartment in St. Charles in the early afternoon. The company he works for is doing an inventory this weekend, so he will be working through the weekend.
  • Right before Bill left, I stepped out the door and told the neighbor's black Labrador retriever to go home. He was scratching his ears with his hind legs as he ran home. Last night, we heard coyotes howling and one of our neighbor's dogs giving off a high-pitched series of yelps. That dog was frightened. Damn neighbors! Bring your dogs in at night, you fools! These are the same people who have 2 dead deer hanging from a tree, untouched, except for field dressing, since the opening day of season, which was Nov. 12th. That venison meat is surely inedible. They did the same thing last year. What a waste!!! Those kind of hunters don't belong owning a hunting rifle or any hunting license.
    
  • We worked up Christmas lists and ordered Christmas presents. This activity went into the early morning hour. I have a couple leather craft 3-dimensional project instructions I got a few years back. I went through both projects lists and ordered 5 additional leather working tools that I don't have. Grandad Robison's Craftool leather tools that I inherited are old enough to have different identification numbers on them then what is used today. Modern numbers start with a letter, such as a "B" for bevelers, or a "P" for pear shaped shaders. The old tools were identified only with numbers. It took me a long time to match what I have to what I need for these 2 projects. One of our happy discoveries was a 4K Ultra Downton Abbey: A New Era DVD for only $10.
    
    
• Monday, 11/28: A Slow Day
  
  • We laid low for the day.
  • I cleaned electronic devices. They all show very bright screens, now.
  • We got another egg from our chickens. If we did things correctly, we'd knock off the unproductive hens. But, we don't do things right, so geriatric hens live to see another day.
    
  • Mary and I took a hike to Wood Duck Pond. It's a pretty location. Various trails are filled with deer tracks. Raccoon and deer tracks were in the sand on the pond's shore. A big rotten oak with a 2-foot trunk near the dry creek bed fell over. It isn't far from my old deer stand. We saw a flock of wild turkeys fly away as we climbed Black Medic Hill.
  • We watched the 2001 movie, Bridget Jones Diary.
  • I ordered vitamins from Swanson Vitamins in Fargo, ND.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/29: Temperature Drop
  
  • We saw a high in the 60s around 3 p.m. At 3:30, the temperature was 51°. Forty-five minutes later, it was 39°. By bedtime, it was 25°.
  • In the morning, while taking wood ashes to the pile near our compost bins, I watched a dozen wood ducks fly overhead. 
    
  • We had another quiet day. I went down several internet rabbit holes. I looked for pH paper for winemaking purposes and found some at a good price on Etsy. I'm waiting until after Christmas to order anything related to making wine. In the evening, I looked for automotive solutions for firewall and under-the-hood insulation. Mice and squirrels have eaten a lot of that material on the Buick and the GMC pickup. I found several. Most are expensive. I found a reasonably-priced solution called Fatmat from Ohio.
  • I took Amber and Plato on the same walk that Mary and I did yesterday. They really liked all of the smells along the way.
  • We watched the 1994 movie, Little Women.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/30: Long Dog Memory
  
  • I took the dogs on a walk on the east loop trail. During the summer of 2021, Amber got nipped by the electric fence around the near garden. She still remembers it. When I tried to start by walking by the near garden, I called and called and called Amber. Instead of coming to me, she ran to the porch and sat down. So, instead of starting on the south leg of the east trail, I took the north leg and she came running along. At the end of the walk, she trotted right by the electric fence, which is now off. So, Amber has no problem walking by it at the end of the walk, but don't force her to walk by that dreadful ass-zapping fence to start the walk!
  • Karen said they received 3 inches of rain from the storm that went through, yesterday.
    
  • I split firewood currently sitting by the splitter that Bill and I gathered up last week and hauled 5 wheelbarrow loads to the woodshed and stacked them. Two pieces from the base of oak trees filled two wheelbarrows once they were split. One wheelbarrow load of firewood went into house.
  • I worked on updating my wine diary based on entries I wrote on these pages. I was way behind. I only got to the first week of May, with several winemaking adventures yet to record.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/1: Splitting Wood & Online Stuff
  
  • We spotted a bald eagle circling high above our property. A strong south wind gradually blew the large bird northerly.
  • I walked the dogs to my Bobcat Deer Blind in the north woods and back home. Both dogs got very alert as we neared the blind. There's obviously a lot of wild animal smells at that point, deep in the north timber.
    
  • I finished splitting the wood next to the splitter and put 2 wheelbarrow loads into the woodshed and 1 load into the house. A stack of green wood and another stack of wet cherry needs to be restacked inside the north machine shed wall, where it can dry.
  • I identified a unique oak tree we see on our property. It has course bark that resembles alligator skin and a leaf without pronounced lobes. It's called Blackjack oak. HERE is a link showing its leaf and bark. One of the oak trees Bill and I cut down for firewood last week was a blackjack.
    
  • We removed blankets from the winter greens, but left the plastic on them through today and overnight.
  • I spent several hours in the evening investigating how to get the Feedly RSS reader to work on our Amazon Kindle tablets. Amazon only allows their apps on Kindles, but geeks come up with ways to bypass Amazon's dictatorial stipulations. After a failed attempt, I finally got Feedly to work on my Kindle. My next task is to get it running on Mary's newest Kindle.
    
    
• Friday, 12/2: High Winds
  
  • I got the migraine flashing eye thing while emptying woodstove ashes first thing in the morning, but these days, the headache side of migraines is much less than it was in my younger years. With two acetaminophen pills, I'm good to go.
  • Wind gusts to 40 mph kept me inside. Cutting up firewood while in the timber during windy conditions isn't the best idea. Dead trees get blown down during wind events and it's best to avoid the woods.
  • Mary saw a red-tailed hawk land in a short elm tree along the lane. She went out to chase it away, but it already left once she was out the door.
  • I wrote on 29 labels for the recently bottled blackberry wine.
  • I collected a bowl of leaves from the winter greens. We added them on top of chimichangas that Mary made for our main meal.
  • We watched the 1995 movie, While You Were Sleeping.
  • I added more to my wine diary, catching up to mid-August.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/3: Anterless Deer Season
  • Today is the first day of anterless deer hunting season. Fortunately, we have all of the venison we need this year, so I stay warm and inside. Everyone else must have the same idea. We didn't hear a single gun shot all day.
    
  • A strong northwest wind blew early in the day, but slowly died off into the afternoon.
  • Mary made a big batch of chicken noodle soup.
  • Just after the sun set, we watched a great horned owl hooting while it was sitting on top of a power pole south of us and next to Bluegill Pond. Mary said it was a male, which has a higher pitched voice. A lower-pitched great horned owl, that Mary said was a female, answered his call. We couldn't see her, but based on the sound, she was just west of him in the woods. We looked at him through binoculars. Every time he hooted, he bent forward in a courting display.
    
  • I labeled and stored 29 bottles of 2022 blackberry wine in a couple coolers.
    
  • I looked up the ingredients to making garlic wine and discovered that I need white grape juice that I currently don't have in supply. That delays making garlic wine.
  • We watched two movies. One was the 2017 movie, The Man Who Invented Christmas. Dan Stevens plays Charles Dickens and Christopher Plummer is a perfect Scrooge. Then, we watched another 2017 Dan Stevens movie, Beauty and the Beast.
  • Between the two movies, we shared a bottle of 2021/2022 blackberry wine. When we pick the berries one year and I make the wine the next year, I include both years on the name. This wine possesses a deep red color that works well with Christmas decorations (see photo, below). It's very smooth and fruity and a very nice tasting wine.

  

  Blackberry wine has a festive color.