Nov. 6-12, 2022

Weather | 11/6, 41°, 62° | 11/7, 33°, 53° | 11/8, 33°, 59° | 11/9, 50°, 77° | 11/10, 60°, 75° | 11/11, 0.30" rain, 25°, 33° | 11/12, 24°, 29° |

• Sunday, 11/6: Fixing Up Another Deer Hunting Location...You Can't Have Too Many
  
  • When Mary opened the living room curtains this morning, a ruby-crowned kinglet flew up just outside the window. It's passing through on its way south. Mary says they usually fly through late winter, or early spring, when they're heading north.
    
  • I gave Mary a haircut.
  • I made waffles for breakfast and Mary made venison General Tso for our main meal.
  • Mary found 39 books to donate.
    
  • Together, Mary and I checked out potential deer stand locations and decided the cedar and the American elm tree location on the Bass Pond Trail that I originally picked out is best.
    
  • I took down 4 strands of barbed wire fence between 3 fence posts and coiled up the wire. This will allow deer to walk right by the cedar/elm trees. Then I moved the aluminum ladder deer stand from the cow barn to the cedar/elm location. I sawed 3 limbs off the north side of the cedar tree and put the stand in place. I cinched up 1 ratchet strap around 2 limbs and the trunk of the tree and through slots in the 2x4 platform of the stand. I ran out of time. Plans are to add a second ratchet strap to make it good and secure.
    
  • In the evening, a flock of 5 wood ducks flew right over top of me. They're very pretty.
    
  • After letting the dogs out right at sunset, I spotted a squirrel in the pecan tree closest to the house and said to the dogs, "There's a squirrel." Plato briefly ran south, the complete opposite direction from that tree. Amber slowly walked to the tree, looked up, and spotted the squirrel. It ran to the ground, then due north. Amber tore after it, followed by Plato. They had their fun for the evening.
  • I washed 10 bottles from the recent collection I bought.
    
    
• Monday, 11/7: House Cleaning & Finishing Tree Stand
  • We watched a large female red-tailed hawk sit in the Keiffer pear tree while we drank our coffee this morning. It searched the ground below it for something to eat.
    
  • Mary was mainly inside, washing bedding and some clothes, replacing 35 gallons of water stored in 1-gallon containers in case the running water stops flowing, dusting books and sorting them, and sweeping.
  • I finished putting a second ratchet strap on the aluminum ladder tree stand. I also nipped several small branches out of the way. I wired up a semi-circle of hog fencing in front of the deer stand platform and wove cedar branches through the fencing as a small blind to hide me from deer eyeballs (see photos and videos, below). In the process of cutting off a cedar branch, I broke a wooden handle off the long-handled nippers that we bought years ago in Montana.
  • At noon, I harvested a bowl of winter greens that we enjoyed on top of taco noodles.
  • I looked up a sample ballot, then online information to determine how we want to vote tomorrow.
    
  • I washed 10 more wine bottles.

Aluminum Ladder Tree Stand viewed from NE.

The same deer stand viewed from SW.

View from the Aluminum Ladder Deer Stand.
Turn on your audio to hear me describe the view.

View inside the blind build around the tree stand.

• Tuesday, 11/8: Mulching Garlic & Sighting In the Gun
  
  • After getting up and opening the curtains on the west living room window, we noticed the bottom third of the moon was blocked in what was the end of the lunar eclipse.
  • When we walked to the chicken coop to let the chickens out for the day, 6 squirrels scurried out of the pecan tree nearest to the house. It is a domestic pecan tree, compared to the wild pecan trees that we get a few nuts from. This domestic pecan tree never seems to have a long enough growing season to develop mature nuts, so the husks stay on, harden, and never open, therefore the inside nut never develops. Squirrels are grabbing them and crunching them open, but there's nothing inside. That doesn't stop them from swarming the tree. This evening I let the dogs chase squirrels. As they ran into the north woods, Amber stood at the edge of the timber and woof, woof, woofed at them.
    
  • We drove to Lewistown this morning and voted. There was a line with lots of people waiting to vote. Okay, it wasn't a whole lot of people, but normally Mary and I are the only ones in the place. Today, there were 3 people ahead of us in line and a couple others behind us when we got to the poll workers.
    
  • This afternoon, Mary put a layer of compost on the three rows of garlic. Then, she mowed a section of the west lawn, bagged the grass, and used those lawn clippings to mulch the garlic. The garlic planting project is done for this year.
    
  • I cleaned the Marlin long-barreled .30-30 rifle (I own a second Marlin .30-30 rifle with a shorter barrel) and the Marlin .22 rifle that I recently used to hunt squirrels.
    
  • I sighted in the .30-30 rifle. After two shots at the target, I only moved the scope one notch to the left and one notch down. I hit the bullseye on the third shot. It's ready for deer hunting season, which starts this Saturday, Nov. 12th.
    
  • Bill called after sending us his Christmas wish list. He is training South Carolina employees at his St. Louis location. The company manager asked that Bill inventory stock that was ordered, but not needed. It amounted to $1.5 million worth of inventory. Bill will be visiting us for over a week starting Nov. 20th.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/9: Plant Cleaning & AC Removal
  • Mom texted that it was 10° this morning in Circle, MT, with a couple inches of snow on the ground. There's a blizzard warning in ND and SD, and eastern MT is on the edge of that weather.
    
  • Mary moved the last three big house plants outside, washed them with a watering can and warm water out of the sink, then let them dry. Once dry, the ficus tree attracted several wasps. I helped her haul the huge ficus tree outside. When going back inside, she got tired of me telling her that pushing a hand truck up a set of stair wouldn't work, grabbed the trunk and hoisted it into the sunroom by herself.
  • Mary mowed the west yard and put mulch on fruit trees and blueberry plants.
  • She also washed rugs.
  • We enjoyed a chicken pot pie for our evening meal.
    
  • I removed our 4 air conditioners. Mary helped with the big ones. Each had squadrons of Asian ladybugs hidden in cracks. We vacuumed a lot of bugs, today.
    
  • I started moving willow logs into the machine shed, next to the splitter. Small logs went into the woodshed. We figure by the time we get to them at the bottom of the pile, they can be used for quick fires in the spring. I also took the chainsaw to longer willow branches in the outdoor stack of willow logs and in the machine shed. Once cut up, they went into the woodshed.
    
  • I marked 14 wine bottles that I previously washed up with a white grease pencil dot, stuck corks partially in them to keep out dust, and put them in the west room closet.
  • We enjoyed a wonderful bottle of 2021 blackberry wine. It's one of our favorites.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/10: Baking Bread & Splitting Willow Firewood
  
  • We saw a small flock of red-winged blackbirds flying south while we walked the dogs this morning.
    
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. We had a Sound of Music evening meal of Red Rose tea with jam, jam and bread (freshly baked, that is!).
    
  • Mary also put a wheelbarrow load of hay in the chicken coop.
    
  • I spent all day splitting weeping willow logs into firewood. The heat content of willow is poor, but it's great for a quick fire in the fall or spring. I'm stacking it in the back of the woodshed, so it will be ready for us in the spring. I filled up a ring's worth of wood with the willow I split today (see photo, below). I'd move logs off the pile that's been stacked on the lawn between the machine shed and the chicken coop, stack them in front of the splitter, split that stack, then move the split firewood to the woodshed with a wheelbarrow, and stack it in there.
  • Mary started helping me once she was done with baking bread. Together, she and I moved all the rest of the good weeping willow logs into the machine shed. Then, we split and stacked more firewood in three sessions running the splitter. Logs that were on the bottom of the stack on the lawn are too wet, with roots on the bottom and sprouts on the top. Yes, weeping willow is really a weed. I plan on tossing those logs into a ravine that's down the hill and quite a ways east of the house.
  • Rain was predicted for 2 p.m., then at 5 p.m. By the time of this writing at 9:50 p.m., it still is west of us. They're predicting a skiff of snow in the morning. I'm hoping to finish splitting weeping willow tomorrow, then split the hardwood that I already have stacked near the splitter. I also must get the east end of the machine shed ready for butchering in case I harvest a deer Saturday morning. The prediction is for a low of 25° early Saturday morning. We're always colder, so it'll be around 22°, with northwest wind gusts up to 22 mph. It's going to be nice and toasty!

  

  One ring of willow firewood in our Quonset-shaped woodshed.

• Friday, 11/11: More Split Firewood
  
  • We enjoyed waffles that I made for breakfast.
  • Mary and I started splitting firewood first thing after breakfast. We finished splitting all of the weeping willow logs, split a few elm logs, then split all of the oak, hickory, and cherry logs that we collected a couple weeks ago from the east woods. We finished around 4 p.m. with about half of the second ring finished in the woodshed (see photo, below). This is the best collection of firewood stacked in the woodshed prior to deer hunting season going back several years.
  • Squirrels are swarming the pecan tree that's north of the house and east of the woodshed. Mary watched a woodpecker fly away from that tree with a pecan.
    
  • The weather prediction calls for northwest gusts to 22 mph starting at 1 a.m. and continuing until sunset. I've decided to forego getting up at 4 a.m. to freeze may ass off in the wind while waiting for a deer to march by. I'll wait for an afternoon hunt.
  • Mary and Bill traded song links on texts to one another into the night.
  • I washed 10 more wine bottles. I also stuck corks in 12 dry, clean bottles and stored them in the west room's closet.

  

  Half a ring added to firewood stack in the woodshed.
  Freshly cut hardwood is brighter than year-old willow.

• Saturday, 11/12: Opening Day of Hunting Season...One Shot, One Deer
  
  • We woke to a cloudy and cold day. I stayed in bed until just after 7. Squirrels stayed in bed, too. I only saw one on the pecan tree today.
  • Mary made a big batch of vegetable soup.
  • I strung up five lights in the machine shed in order to butcher deer.
  • Mary cleaned and sorted books into new locations. She's finding Asian ladybugs hidden behind books. If these bugs aren't removed, they stain the edges of a book's pages orange.
  • I hunted in the Cedar East Woods Deer Blind. A northwest wind blew up the hill and into my face. The blind is cozy and blocks wind quite well. 
  • I started hunting at 2:50 p.m. Thirty minutes later, a 10-point buck walked by the blind just north of me. He had a nice rack, but looked haggard. There was no rump on it. The buck literally ran its butt off chasing does. The meat in that deer probably tasted only slightly better than a piece of cast iron. Since I'm more interested in quality food over a nice set of antlers, I let that deer walk on by. It walked up the hill so close to my blind that I could have hit it just by throwing a piece of wood. Eventually the deer was downwind of me. He stood for about 5 minutes sniffing the air. At one point, he looked right at me. I didn't even blink, so the buck turned, then trotted northeast and jumped the fence to the east. About 15-20 minutes later I saw it walking west just a little further north of me. The buck turned north at the dry creek and I saw it later under the distant trees northwest of me.
  • About a half hour later, 12 huge turkeys walked across the forest floor just down the hill from me. They were fun to watch. As a couple pecked and scratched at the ground, in the same fashion our chickens do, another would play sentinel and watch for danger. Then, the guard would scratch and another would take on the lookout role. Eventually, they were down at Wood Duck Pond making all kinds of turkey calls. Before nightfall, I heard them flying up to roost in treetops.
  • The end of legal shooting today was 5:23 p.m. At 5:15 p.m., I started getting ready to leave. Then a deer walked by, south to north, just in front of the blind. As I slid the gun from left to right across the top of the horizontal cedar log used as a ledge to the blind's window, the gun's sling caught on quarter-inch high branch nubbins, making it impossible to see through the scope. The deer stopped to eat some brush. I saw it didn't have antlers, so I executed a right-handed shot. Shooting a .30-30 rifle under roofing tin is really loud! It dropped and died immediately. One shot...one deer...that's the way I like to hunt, using the least amount of bullets, possible. It's a young button buck (see photo, below). Them's good eatin's!!! As I walked to the deer to make sure it was dead, several deer snorted at me from the north and east. As I turned the bend into the north yard while walking home, more deer snorted at me.
    
  • I texted Mary that I got a deer after I electronically notched the deer tag. With it getting dark, Mary figured we were free on working on deer, tonight. When she got the text, she said, "Damn it!" She walked behind me as I drove the tractor. We field dressed the deer, then hauled it down the hill, across the dry creek bed, and into the wagon behind the tractor. The whole time we handled the deer, snowflakes filtered down through the timber. Once we got home, we rinsed out the body cavity real well with the garden hose. Then, we hung it in the machine shed for the night. Temperatures are perfect overnight for hanging venison. It's predicted to hit 19°. We'll process the venison meat tomorrow.

  

  I harvested this yearling button buck this afternoon.