Dec. 24-31, 2023

Weather | 12/24, fog, 49°, 61° | 12/25, 0.53" rain, 63°, 33° | 12/26, 31°, 39° | 12/27, 0.14" rain, 35°, 35° | 12/28, 0.02" rain, 2" snow, 29°, 37° | 12/29, 0.48" moisture, 29°, 35° | 12/30, 22°, 43° | 12/31, 28°, 33° |

• Sunday, 12/24: Christmas Eve 2023
  • After opening the curtains this morning, we saw six deer in the two gardens. They jumped or walked over fences with ease. Of course, all electric fences are off. With live electric fences, they stay away.
    
  • I split a small portion of firewood and loaded three wheelbarrow loads into the woodshed. That job ended due to a spattering of rain.
    
  • We enjoyed a smorgasbord in the evening of a multitude of cheeses, slices from a summer sausage, several vegetables, and ranch dressing dip, plus desserts.
  • Bill, Mary, and I played Yahtzee. Bill won. He got four yahtzees in one game. I took second place and Mary was in third place.
    

• Monday, 12/25: Christmas Day 2023
  • We had rain and heavy mist all day, gaining just over a half an inch of moisture.
    
  • We unwrapped presents this morning. Highlights: Bill gave us a portable record player and two old Christmas records. We also received a 4K disc of this year's Oppenheimer movie. We gave Bill a short-handled shovel that I've owned for several years. I cleaned it up with a wire brush on an electric drill and sandpaper on the wooden handle. The metal parts got flat black paint and Mary put mineral oil on the wood. Below are before and after photos of the shovel. Mary looked up the company name revealed after I cleaned it up and this shovel dates back to prior to World War II, when it was made to be installed on the side of U.S. Army Jeeps. HERE is a website link explaining the shovel. Bill needs something for removing snow from under his car. I used it in Minnesota and Montana while shoveling snow to dig out the '84 GMC Suburban. It works well.
    
  • I called Mom. Hank is with her for Christmas. He brought the ingredients and she fixed a stuffed chicken, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, with apple pie for Christmas dinner.
    
  • Bill, Mary, and I played Azul, a unique and fun board game that Bill gave us for Christmas. It was so good, we played it for 6.5 hours.
    
  • Katie called during our game and we talked for quite some time. It was morning (12 hours ahead of us) at her base and she was in the gym, exercising "to keep up with these youngsters," as she put it. She said they're getting lots of snow in Anchorage. She and her group aren't allowed off the base, due to current circumstances. She's due back on this side of the world in April.

Old shovel before it was cleaned up.

WW II-era shovel after we removed rust & painted it.

• Tuesday, 12/26: Bill Leaves for His Home
  
  • Bill left for his St. Charles apartment at 1 p.m. He had several chores to do prior to going to work tomorrow, like grocery shopping. He said the traffic driving south was less than he expected.
    
  • Mary and I reviewed all of the books that we received as Christmas gifts.
    
  • I caught my wine diary up to date, which involved all of the winemaking activity since Oct. 28th.
    
  • We heard several Canada geese up in the sky squawking when we walked the dogs on their final outing after dark.
    

• Wednesday, 12/27: Christmas Decorations are History
  
  • We experienced light rain and mist throughout today. Snow was predicted, but never showed until well after dark set in. Because of the snow prediction, we left chickens inside the coop.
    
  • I did some planning and checked online to discover all erroneous charges were removed from our credit card.
  • Mary dusted and removed Christmas ornaments. I started helping her remove them as she got toward the end of glass ornaments, then I took down all of the lights and stored them away as she took down the artificial tree. She swept up and moved furniture back into place. We are now back to more space in the living room.
  • I discovered on Facebook that Al Tennant, the former pottery teacher at Homer High School back in the early 1970s, when I was in high school, is originally from Terry, MT. It's a very small world. He now lives in Coupeville, WA, on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle.
    

• Thursday, 12/28: Snow
  • A natural weather forecast is bird activity. Sun was out earlier today, but we noticed hardly any birds. When that happens, weather is arriving. Afternoon clouds grew darker by the hour as weather crept in from an unusual direction, from the northeast. When we finished evening chores at 3:30, we started seeing snow. By an 8:30 p.m. dog walk, about an inch of snow was on the ground. Snow was even deeper on our second dog walk at 9:30 p.m. (see photo, below). Birds knew it was coming.
    
  • We were going to do a bunch of things, both inside and outside, but we were basic bums, and didn't accomplish much more that online drivel.
  • I found out that the Quincy Herald-Whig is dropping down to printing the newspaper just two times a week for all subscribers, so I canceled our subscription. I think they're rapidly going out of business. It saves us $13.95 a month or $167.40 a year. Recently, we see most daily issues of the newspaper at 10 pages that are read in just a couple minutes, so it's not a great loss. We'll just have to light fires some other way after our stack of newspapers runs out.

  

  After 2" snowfall on near garden & nearby cedar trees.

• Friday, 12/29: 33 Years Together
  
  • We started the day with a late white Christmas, as seen in above photo. It was the second two-inch snow this winter. Our first was on Nov. 26th. A lot of the snow melted throughout the day.
    
  • Mary saw three deer out the south living room window when she opened the curtains this morning. They saw her and ran into the west woods.
    
  • Today is our 33rd anniversary. I'm 66, so half of my life has been with Mary. I must say, I've really enjoyed this second half of my life with her.
    
  • Mary picked seven cross stitch patterns and then inventoried current floss she has that fit these patterns. The ultimate goal is to buy material and floss for these seven patterns that she doesn't have while using Katie's present to Mary, which is a $100 gift card to 123stitch.com.
    
  • Mary practiced drawing from nature photos she likes.
  • I labeled the the 27 bottles of 2023 pear wine and put them away in three coolers that had available space.
  • I cleaned tape residue using Goo Gone from the surface of some bottles I bought over a year ago. I then washed the Goo Gone off with Dawn soap, then washed 20 bottles to add to the five already clean bottles to have enough for bottling blackberry wine. I also put winemaking stuff away in the west room that was all over the place.
    

• Saturday, 12/30: Goodbye "Twistie" Lights
  
  • We finally eliminated all of the CFL "twistie" bulbs. I replaced them with LEDs. Good riddance on the twisties, since they were the worst bug collectors...no more cooked-on Asian lady bugs between the coils!
    
  • I drove to Quincy to get some medications and a couple items. Mary read online that this weekend was the biggest shopping time of the year. I believe it. The people were out in droves. Several parking lots were packed with cars. Fortunately, I had no more than two items to get per store visit.
    
  • Mary fixed up a very nice chicken meal.
  • We played the Azul game that Bill gave us for Christmas in the evening. It's a very fun and interesting game.
    

• Sunday, 12/31: Bottling Blackberry Wine
  
  • We watched six deer run away to the east as we stepped out on the porch to walk the dogs this morning. First, Plato growled, which spooked the deer out of our east yard, and then they ran into the east field.
    
  • Mary drew a historic flint scraper that she once found on a creek north of our place in the 1980s. 
  • She also finishing a Halloween cross stitch ornament.
  • I researched online about adding Kmeta during winemaking and discovered my levels are generally correct. The amount required is based on pH. The lower the pH, or the more acidic the wine is means less preservative, or Kmeta, is required. A common pH for grape wine is 3.8, resulting in adding a full quarter teaspoon, or 2.3 grams of Kmeta, to a 5-6-gallon batch. My wines often measure a 3.0 pH, where one gram is more than enough.
    
  • I racked the blackberry wine for the fifth time and bottled the equivalent of 26 bottles (one was a 1.5 liter bottle). The specific gravity was 0.995, resulting in an alcohol level of 10.9 percent. The pH was 2.9, which is extremely acidic. I added two-thirds of my normal amount, or 0.6 grams of Kmeta. The clear bottles shows off a pretty deep red/purple color of this wine (see photo, below). We tasted it and this stuff is GOOD! We think blackberry flavors in dry years are more concentrated in the fruit. This wine has an unusual deep berry flavor. It's also extremely tart, due to the high acid.
    
  • We watched the 2023 movie, Oppenheimer, given to us as a Christmas present by Bill. It's a good one.
  • Mary and I finished off a bottle of 2021 pear wine and yelled "Happy New Year" at midnight. This bottle was in the fridge. Pear wine tastes better at room temperature, not chilled.

  

  Clear bottles (front) show off color of '23 blackberry wine.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Dec. 17-23, 2023

Weather | 12/17, 33°, 45° | 12/18, 25°, 33° | 12/19, 15°, 41° | 12/20, 26°, 51° | 12/21, 43°, 57° | 12/22, 0.07" rain, 43°, 51° | 12/23, 49°, 57° | 

• Sunday, 12/17: A Firewood Day
  
  • I walked the dogs to the east, down Black Medick Hill, north on the dry creek bed, then back home via Bramble Hill. As we walked, I assessed the best route to drive the tractor to get firewood in the east woods. We saw lots of deer tracks on all of the trails.
    
  • With the prospect of high winds tomorrow, which means it's not wise to be in the woods, I cut firewood today. I drove to the bottom of Bramble Hill and cut up a big maple tree that recently fell down just north of there. It was about 18 inches thick at its base. It made for a full load in the trailer. 
  • Mary showed up as I was nearly finished loading the firewood into the trailer. For two days she's had a Buff Orpington hen hide under the coop when she's trying to put all of the chickens into the coop for the night. Mary had to return several times to the chicken yard before it finally showed up to go inside.
  • Mary and I finished loading the trailer with firewood, then unloaded all of the big chunks and stacked them next to the woodsplitter in the machine shed.
  • A surface element switch is going out on our kitchen stove. While Mary was making tortillas, the large element she always uses stayed red hot and never cycled off while the setting was on eight. She had to turn off the stove to get that element to shut down and when it did, there was a loud click from within the stove. I checked old blogs and discovered I replaced it in 2017. I found a new one on repairclinic.com for $44, then other switches on different websites for half that price. I'll order a new one tomorrow.
    
    
• Monday, 12/18: Fourth Racking of Jalapeño Wine
  
  • We experienced strong northwest winds, with gusts to 40 mph.
    
  • Mary made a huge pot of minestrone soup. We ate some of it. With winds howling outside, this was a perfect hot soup day.
    
  • I racked the jalapeño wine for the fourth time (see photo, below). We tasted the leftovers. This wine seems mild at first, but the aftertaste reminds you in a strong way that it's made from hot peppers. The specific gravity is 0.993 and the pH is 3.1. In past versions, I bottled this wine on the fourth racking. It always develops floaties, so I decided to go another month in the carboy with this variety. I pulled a small amount of fines off during this racking. We even tasted the dregs with the fines in it and they weren't too bad. The clear glasses of leftover wine was really good!
    
  • We watched a movie.

  

  Fourth racking of jalapeño wine, plus leftovers!

• Tuesday, 12/19: Cookies!
  
  • After opening bedroom curtains this morning, we saw three deer walking to the west on the trail to the ponds.
  • Mary and I reviewed the pear wine and perry (pear cider). The pear wine looks clear and ready to bottle. The perry is almost clear, but with a hint of cloudiness. I'll rack the perry and let it sit for another month and bottle the pear wine.
    
  • I pulled the cook stove away from the wall, removed the back panel, then the surface burner switch, recorded the part number and then ordered the part from a parts store in the Twin Cities for a little over $20. It was in the mail by the end of the day.
    
  • Katie messaged me that she got the Christmas care package that we sent her. It took 10 days to get to her through the U.S. Mail, which I thought was pretty speedy. She said temperatures have been moderate, with lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s.
  • Mary baked a batch of butterscotch oatmeal cookies. Of course, we had to test one each.
    
  • I cut up more firewood next to where I sawed up a downed maple tree two days ago. This time I cut up a standing dead ash tree. The firewood pieces, ranging from eight inches in diameter to half-inch kindling sticks, filled the trailer to the top of the sides. I unloaded the trailer back home to appropriate locations. Ash always sounds like baseball bats slamming together when you stack this firewood.
    
  • I updated the wine diary to Oct. 29th. There's so much to write about...so many wines that were made.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/20: Perry & Firewood
  
  • We saw three deer in the far garden first thing this morning. Mary didn't want them grazing on garlic plants, so she opened the bedroom window and tapped on the outside of the house. They easily jumped over the garden fencing, but didn't go far. As they slowly walked north I saw a total of six deer. I had two deer scamper off when I walked the lane to get the mail this evening.
    
  • I racked the perry (pear cider) for the fourth time. There was between 1-2 inches of very loose fines at the bottom of containers. I thought I did pretty well at getting the most liquid off those fines by losing only a quart of must. I was left with 3.75 gallons. Unfortunately, the resulting liquid was cloudier. The specific gravity is 1.004 and the pH is 3.1. The resulting liquid went into a 3-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jug, and a 750-ml wine bottle. Mary and I tasted it and this time, after more aging, we liked the perry. It's tangy with a touch of bitterness. Mary said it tastes like green olives. I think it's got a pear taste, but also an essence of cinnamon. We think it might be good on a hot summer day.
    
  • I took the small chainsaw, along with the tractor and trailer, north to the east side of the north woods and cut up dead oak limbs and small dead hickory trees. Mary helped by scouting out dry firewood before I showed up. She also helped load the trailer. We came back with another wagon of wood, which mainly went into the woodshed. Anything wet was stacked in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary put new hay on the floor of the chicken coop and raked leaves that went into the compost bin.
  • Mary made chocolate peanut clusters. They're in the freezer solidifying. We tasted tested one each...YUMMY!!!
    
    
• Thursday, 12/21: A Veggie Run
  
  • Mary heard snow geese flying over the north woods this morning. She couldn't see them, due to low clouds.
  • I went to Quincy on a veggie run. Mary chops and cleans up radishes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and celery and we dip them in Ranch dressing dip as part of our Christmas eats, along with other goodies Mary bakes or creates. We decided yesterday that I should go today, since tomorrow, the day before Christmas weekend, might be worse for Christmas shoppers. Stores were busy today, but I found everything we needed.
  • Mary swept and mopped floors.
  • I was going to make a batch of garlic wine, but we decided to wait. Nothing deadens the Holidays like the "BO" smell of garlic wine in the making.
  • The hickory and oak limbs that I cut up for firewood yesterday really kick out heat from the woodstove.
  • Tonight, while walking the puppies, we heard deer snorts very close to us. They came from Bluegill Pond. My guess is this deer was about 50 away from us.
    
    
• Friday, 12/22: Lime Zingers!
  
  • Light rain, mist, and then fog kept conditions wet outside. The first full day of winter felt like spring. I'm starting to think we live in northern Florida.
    
  • I called on a credit card charge that we didn't make. Over the past month, we were dinged with two charges at about $400, each, to National General Insurance in New York, and $200 to Comcast in Maryland. Two of those three charges were successfully dropped. The second New York charge was made the same day I called in the first erroneous charge and since it was for roughly the same amount, I didn't realize we were charged twice until I talked to the Wells Fargo representative, today. Wells Fargo is removing all of these charges, thank goodness.
    
  • Mary made lime zinger cookies. My contribution was cracking about 55 hazelnuts that Mary crushed and put in these cookies. Lime zest, plus the juice of the limes, also go into them. Mary freezes the cookies after bringing them out of the oven and letting them cool. They make a wonderful addition to pots of tea.
    
  • The cook stove burner switch came in today's mail, so I installed it. The appropriate burner works like a charm.
    
  • I cleaned 10 wine bottles, which, when added to the 19 bottles already cleaned, give me enough for the pear wine that is ready to bottle.
    
  • This evening as it was darkening outside and while Mary closed the west curtains in the living room, she spotted four deer walking through our west yard. They were two young ones, probably born this summer, and two does. One doe was a really big. The young deer were frisky and running around, playing.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/23: Bill Arrives For Christmas
  
  • The day started with dense fog that ended around 8:30 a.m.
  • Bill showed up for a Christmas visit around noon.
  • Mary made a pistachio tort, which is Bill's favorite dessert.
    
  • Bill and I racked the pear wine for the fourth time and bottled it into 27 bottles. The specific gravity was 0.999, giving it a 10.6 percent alcohol content. The pH is 3.0. The taste: very good and fruity.
  • We watched movies that Bill picked out.
    

Dec. 10-16, 2023

Weather | 12/10, 24°, 39° | 12/11, 25°, 46° | 12/12, 29°, 37° | 12/13, 26°, 46° | 12/14, 25°, 58° | 12/15, 33°, 58° | 12/16, 0.33" rain, 39°, 45° | 

• Sunday, 12/10: Deer One, Me Zero
  
  • We woke at 5 a.m. and after eating 10 crackers with peanut butter, I walked to my adopted oak tree overlooking Wood Duck Pond. A sliver of the moon was in the southeastern sky. I watched slush ice slowly form on a corner of the pond, until wave action started knocking it back. After sunrise, the sun highlighted trees on the west edge of the pond that reflected into the water for a beautiful image. A mallard pair swam close to me. I moved about a quarter of an inch. They saw my minuscule movement and immediately paddled away and out of sight. I saw no deer and went back home at 8:30 a.m.
  • I went to the Black Medick blind for a couple hours through the noon hour. I just saw squirrels. One ran across the tin above my head. They're always very curious about my presence.
  • After eating a midday meal, I went back to the oak tree at Wood Duck Pond. On the way there, deer snorted at me from the woods just north of the machine shed. A Cooper's hawk landed on a willow stump just below me. It sat there for about 5-10 minutes, then dropped down to the ground, grabbed something, and flew off to the east. Right before I left, I heard fast steps of something turning around and running away just up the hill and behind me. I suspect a coyote. I heard the clucks from turkeys and as I started walking home, a turkey flew out of a tree top just above the dry creek bed. I saw no deer. Thank goodness there was a new early anterless season this year, when I got a button buck. This is the first year I've been skunked through both the regular deer season and the traditional anterless season. This year, the deer didn't follow their normal patterns and I only recently started seeing tracks where they normally go. I guess we'll be buying more meat for the next year.
  • Mary and I celebrated the end of hunting season by sharing a bottle of blackberry wine, followed by a bottle of Kieffer pear wine. They both tasted wonderful. We watched two Christmas movies.
    
    
• Monday, 12/11: Another Medicine Trip
  
  • Last week the pharmacy refilled a prescription that wasn't empty, yet, when another ran out yesterday. I called it into the pharmacy on Saturday and got a text this morning it was filled, so I went to Quincy to pick it up, plus I got a couple other items. I eat up so much time and gas these days on getting drug prescriptions that run out about every week. It's a topic I'm going to discuss on my next doctor's visit.
  • Mary baked the one pumpkin we grew in our garden. It was significantly different from the five I bought. There were many more seeds and it was firmer and dryer, yielding more meat for the freezer. Instead of four quarts, Mary put away six quarts of meat from this pumpkin.
  • Mary also figured out our seed needs for 2024.
  • We watched another Christmas movie.
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/12: Last Of Pumpkin Processed
  
  • Mary finished pumpkin processing by cooking up the last one. She put four quarts of pumpkin meat into the freezer.
  • Our midday meal of chimichangas was covered with winter greens that I picked. The kale, lettuce, and arugula are growing nicely. It's great to have homegrown greens this time of the year.
    
  • I split the last of the firewood stacked next to the woodsplitter. Four wheelbarrow loads of mainly cherry wood went into the woodshed.
    
  • We watched two Christmas movies. 
  • I had one glass of 2022 apple wine. Patowee!!! It has a metallic taste. I'm working at getting rid of it, but don't have the heart to dump it down the drain.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/13: Pork General Tso & Harvesting Honey Locust Firewood
  
  • Since I only harvested one small deer this year, Mary decided to try the General Tso dish using a piece of pork loin, instead of venison. It tasted great.
  • Mary also made an apple crisp and worked up a shopping list for a trip to Quincy tomorrow.
  • I cut down a honey locust that I girdled several years ago. By making two cuts completely around the trunk of the tree years ago, or girdling it, I killed the tree. Honey locust trees have large two- to three-inch spines. When the tree dies and bark falls off, these spines go with the bark. Honey locust is extremely dense wood and burns hot for a long time. Once I dropped the tree, I cut it up into appropriate lengths, loaded it in the wagon behind the 8N Ford tractor, and hauled it to the machine shed, where Mary helped me unload it to next to the woodsplitter.
  • Mary and I spent about an hour this evening watching the Geminid meteor shower. We saw several while listening to barred owls and coyotes mouth off.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/14: Shopping, Again!
  
  • Two deer looked at us from the west woods as we walked puppies this morning, so things are back to normal now that nobody is hunting. We also watched a northern harrier hawk flew west to east over our property.
  • Mary and I shopped in Quincy, today. We found a Krupps steamer at the Salvation Army for $10. It's never been used, but sat in someone's storage and collected dead bugs. This gives us a standby rice cooker when our current one dies. We eat a lot of rice. That was our big "find" for the day.
  • We found everything we had on our list. Stores were filled with people, but we marched through all of them quickly. This was the "buy ingredients prior to making Christmas goodies" shopping trip.
  • On the way to Quincy, we saw two mature bald eagles eating on a carcass a few feet away from the road.
  • We returned home right before sunset. Mary and I divided up and got chores done, quickly. Mary said Silver, our silver Wyondotte hen, was marching back and forth behind the gate into the chicken yard, in expectation of getting fed for the evening.
    
    
• Friday, 12/15: Deer & Snow Geese
  
  • When Mary first took the dogs out on their morning walk, three big doe deer ran away. They were just south of the big cedar trees in our east yard. When I stepped out a few seconds later, they were running into the woods near Bluegill Pond.
    
  • I put away all of the lights and extension cords I had out in the machine shed for nighttime lighting in case I got a deer during the hunting season.
    
  • I worked on a Christmas present for most of the day. Only Santa knows the details of this present.
    
  • Mary drew up a new food chart listing an inventory of all of the food in various freezers. It involves several pages of old fan fold computer paper that's hung up on the pantry wall. As food is pulled from freezers, it's marked off, giving us a running total of everything.
    
  • Mary also cleaned the new-to-us steamer. Goo Gone was needed to remove sticky residue left from packing tape that was wrapped around the electrical appliance.
    
  • I counted all bottles of wine, and put the inventory on the new food chart.
    
  • On an after-dark outside visit, I had snow geese cackling at me because they saw my head lamp. Once I turned off the lamp, they quit yelling. I think they were flying west to east.
  • Bill sent a photo of the sunrise when he arrived at work this morning (see photo, below).

  

  A sunrise photo that Bill took this morning.

• Saturday, 12/16: A Nice Rain
  
  • We enjoyed rain and mist throughout the day. The moisture is very welcome.
  • Dark clouds and outside wetness kept our activity levels down.
    
  • We wrapped most all of the Christmas gifts.
  • Katie sent a photo (see below) of a very nice Christmas ornament that she made. She added a calendar (see below) with the following explanation: "There is a USO set up in one of the tents here, and they put on lots of fun events like this."
  • We watched two movies...Monuments Men and The Big Year. Both have a Christmas scene, so we've designated them as Christmas movies. They really aren't, but who cares? Not us!

A Christmas ornament that Katie made.

The USO December calendar at Katie's base.

Dec. 3-9, 2023

Weather | 12/3, 0.30" rain, 31°, 40° | 12/4, 29°, 43° | 12/5, 0.04" rain, 31°, 37° | 12/6, 23°, 47° | 12/7, 37°, 61° | 12/8, 45°, 59° | 12/9, 0.34" rain, 37°, 43° | 

• Sunday, 12/3: No Deer, Just Other Wildlife
  
  • Dozens and dozens of cedar waxwings are now in trees in our yard. You hear their peeping sounds everywhere.
    
  • I caught my wine diary up to Oct. 10th.
  • I hunted from the Wood Duck Deer Blind starting at 1:50 p.m. until legal deer hunting closing time, which today was at 5:11 p.m. I saw no deer, but plenty of squirrels. I heard swans and snow geese flying by to the north. I also watched turkeys land on Wood Duck Pond's north shore and walk to the west. I watched a nuthatch go down a nearby cherry tree, upside down, hop to a nearby oak tree, and go up that tree right side up. They're funny little birds.
    
  • Mary cleaned floors, did the evening chores, and worked on a cross stitch project while I was hunting.
  • Mary also made a new type of tortilla, made from flour, wheat flour, ground flax, Crisco, and water. The change is the addition of wheat flour and flax. It made a vast difference in my blood glucose reading. With traditional flour tortillas, I can only eat two and the blood sugar levels go high. If I eat four, it's way too high. Tonight I ate three of the new tortillas made into chimichangas. The blood glucose reading at bedtime was 86, which is really good a few hours after eating. Mary is happy that we're back to eating chimis!
    
    
• Monday, 12/4: Saw a Deer!
  
  • I got up at 5:30 a.m. and hunted at the Black Medick blind in the east woods. Nary a deer showed up. The rising sun gleamed through the base of the cedar trees up the hill and east of me and lit up the base of trees all around the east woods. It was really a pretty sight. When I walked home, I noticed only one set of deer tracks. Usually, the dry creek bed is filled with tracks. Deer aren't following their normal patterns this year and are absent in areas where they're usually abundant.
  • After breakfast, I studied aerial maps of our property and decided to try something new. I looked for spots to sit near cedar trees on the west side of Bass Pond to look westerly over the north pasture, since I saw two deer cross that area two days ago. I spotted a big buck rub on a honey locust tree and huge numbers of cedar berries (see photos, below). I found a spot and hunted there in the afternoon. Right at sundown, I watched a buck with a big body, but small antlers, walk towards me and veer off to a valley below the Bass Pond Dam, just north of me. It never saw me, but I had several clear views of it. Now, if only a doe, or button buck, would walk the same route, I'd have something.
    
  • While I hunted, Mary did morning and evening chores and finished a cross stitch Christmas ornament.
  • After a great chicken dinner, Mary and I shared a bottle of 2023 pumpkin wine. It's very good. You can taste the pumpkin and the cinnamon, so it's a real treat...almost like dessert.

Buck rub on 3" diameter honey locust tree.

Cedar berries are extremely abundant this year.

• Tuesday, 12/5: No Animal Movement, So I Watched Wind Blow
  
  • We woke to beautiful sun that turned to dark clouds an hour later. The clouds lasted for the rest of the day.
    
  • On Nov. 21st, we were contacted by our Wells Fargo credit card about a charge to a New York insurance company for over $400. I called them immediately to indicate that wasn't our doing and Wells Fargo issued us new credit cards. I checked today and there was a charge to Comcast in Maryland on Nov. 22nd for over $200, so I called Wells Fargo, again. They added that charge to the invalid charge claim. The two charges will be investigated in the near future.
    
  • I didn't hunt this morning, since I was tired and deer are absent, everywhere. I went to the Bobcat Deer Blind to hunt after our midday meal. I saw nothing, not even a squirrel or birds. At 3 p.m., I returned home, then went to my hidey-hole next to Bass Pond overlooking the north pasture. A northwest wind, with gusts to 20 mph, kept me awake. Several layers of clothing kept me warm. I continued to see nothing, except for a couple crows. I heard a barred owl. Cows north of our property mooed constantly throughout the afternoon and into the night. I think someone was in the hunting trailer just north of the fence bordering our north property line. It seems if you had cows in a pasture and wanted to hunt deer, you'd remove the cattle so they weren't constantly yelling at you while you hunted. I'm hearing shots every evening. There's more hunting pressure this year than we've ever seen during an anterless season in the past. I wonder if the current cost of meat in the supermarket is creating an incentive to hunt deer for venison meat, this year.
    
  • Mary did a load of towels, then hung them on the line to flap dry in the wind. She said, "That was cold deal!"
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/6: Mission Care Package
  • I didn't hunt in the morning, because I knew I needed to handle shipping a package to Katie.
  • I walked to the northwest and found a cedar tree to hide behind that's south of where I've been the past couple days. I needed a different location, since a several-day southwest wind would blow my scent into where I suspect deer walk.
    
  • On Nov. 23rd, I ordered a military care kit from the U.S. Postal Service. It was to arrive in 5-6 business days. We still don't have it, so since Katie said the deadline to mail a package and for her to get it at her base prior to Christmas is Dec. 6th, I took other action. I took the items we bought to send to her to the post office in Lewistown. Teri, the postmaster, prepared a box, got out the necessary forms, and then weighed each item, and filled out the forms for me. I thought we'd need two boxes, but she got everything into one box with amazing cramming and stuffing abilities. She thoroughly taped the box so that it could be drop-kicked to the moon without difficulty. The Lewistown Post Office doesn't have the right computer software to print out the necessary label, so I had to drive to Edina, MO, which is 20 miles west of Lewistown. I got it in the mail at 3 p.m. and the good folks at Edina assured me it was going out in today's mail. I've got to say, I'm very impressed with Teri at Lewistown, who, I discovered in talking to her, lives near us. She was very kind and helpful. She even told me not to go to Monticello, because that woman was crabby. Ah, the beauties of small town Midwestern life!
    
  • I bought a couple cans of gasoline on the way back home. Gas is $2.72 a gallon.
    
  • I got back home at 3:45 p.m., changed quickly, and went to my selected cedar tree, ready to start scanning for deer at 4:20. I saw nothing. At least the cows weren't continuously mooing. After I walked home, deer snorted at me from the west field just beyond our west lawn.
  • Mary and I watched two Christmas-related movies.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/7: Poor Marksmanship
  
  • We had a very warm day. It felt like spring.
  • I checked for deer tracks in the east woods. There are some tracks on the trail through Bramble Hill, where I wasn't seeing anything just a few days earlier. The south part of the dry creek bed still lacks tracks, but the north end of the creek and the south shore of Wood Duck Pond is filled with them. I picked out a wide oak tree to sit behind that is up the hill from that shoreline, near where I once put a stand in a maple tree about 10 years ago, and decided to try it this afternoon.
    
  • After a midday meal, I hunted facing Wood Duck Pond, behind that oak tree. A SSW wind blew down the hill and into the pond. I was looking for deer to the west of me. My squirrel friends checked me out. At one point, something hit the ground next to my right foot. I looked up and about eight feet above me was a squirrel looking down at me. I reached in my shirt pocket for my phone to try to get a photo of him and he spun around and scurried up the tree. About 10 minutes after sunset, a couple of deer showed up west of me, munching on twigs. If I would have been in my Wood Duck Blind, I probably would not see these deer. I shot as one turned around next to a tree, but missed. I think I yanked the trigger, instead of slowly squeezing off the shot. They ran off and another white tail flash of a third deer flew up the dry creek bed. That was it for me, so I walked home. 
    
  • While I was hunting, the mail carrier drove up to the house and dropped off our military care kit. Maybe we can use it in the future.
    
  • Mary and I watched a Christmas movie.
    
    
• Friday, 12/8: Shopping & Rain
  
  • I didn't hunt, because I decided to give it a break and let animals settle down. Besides, forecasts called for rain starting at 5 p.m., which would be when we'd be field dressing deer. Mary said she only saw and heard one bird...all wild things were under cover with dark clouds approaching.
    
  • Mary baked and froze another pumpkin. There are two more left to process.
  • I drove to Quincy for one of my medications, pork loin that was on sale at HyVee, and few other items. I got the "Scan and Go" feature to work on my phone at Sam's Club, which was cool. Christmas shoppers who can't decide which foot to put forward were out in full force, blocking aisles. When I got home, I realized the medication I needed wasn't the one that was automatically filled, so I have to return probably on Monday. The good news is gas prices are dropping. I got home as darkness fell.
  • Mary and I watched a Christmas movie.
  • Rain fell after we walked the puppies for their last outing. It was raining when we went to bed.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/9: Saw Deer, But Didn't Shoot
  • A sunny morning with deep blue skies turned cloudy by noon. We had west wind gusts to 32 mph.
  • I texted a few messages to Katie. She's extremely busy. Bill went to a gift exchange with a good friend and received a nice stainless steel frying pan with a long handle.
    
  • I hunted between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Wood Duck Blind. There are several deer tracks on the path down Bramble Hill to this location. I didn't see any deer. I watched a big V of snow geese fly overhead, from east to west. They were flying slowly, because they were battling against a strong west headwind.
    
  • After eating turkey pot pie that Mary made, I went back out hunting, this time to the oak tree spot facing Wood Duck Pond. Prior to setting up my stool behind the tree, I walked to the east fence line to make sure the neighbor was absent from the deer stand just over the fence. No one was there. I added reflective thumb tacks to various trees from the dry creek bed to that oak tree, so I can find it in the dark tomorrow morning with a flashlight. Wind blasted over top of the hill behind me and onto the pond. Wind swirls around that hill, so sometimes I'd feel a back draft on my cheek, blowing from the northeast, even though the wind was west, northwest. 
  • At 4:10 p.m., an eight-point buck showed up west of me. He slowly and cautiously walked below me, from left to just 20 feet down the hill from me. I was peeking around the oak tree trunk at him, occasionally only seeing the tips of his antlers, or one eyeball. He all of a sudden turned towards me, then trotted off to the west. I think some swirling wind sent my scent to him.
  • Around 5 p.m., three deer stepped out onto the flats northwest of me and walked down to the pond's edge to drink. It's illegal to shoot deer while they're drinking. Also, the end of legal shooting today was minutes away, at 5:11, with darkness setting in. I could not see antlers, or the lack of antlers, due to faint light conditions. The third problem was a willow thicket near the shoreline prevented me from seeing clearly. So, I didn't shoot. Tomorrow is the last day of anterless season. Hopefully, I have better luck, but at least I saw several deer today.
  • We watched a Christmas movie...When Harry Met Sally...it has a couple Christmas scenes in it.
    

Nov. 26-Dec. 2, 2023

Weather | 11/26, 0.37" moisture from 2" snow, 29°, 33° | 11/27, 14°, 31° | 11/28, 9°, 30° | 11/29, 23°, 51° | 11/30, 37°, 57° | 12/1, 0.78" rain, 37°, 39° | 12/2, 0.03" rain, 31°, 49° | 

• Sunday, 11/26: First Snow & Bill Leaves
  
  • We woke up to two inches of wet snow on the ground. It's the first major snow that we've seen in two years. We never used snow shovels through all last winter, but we did this morning. All of the cedar trees and branches of hardwood trees are covered with big dollops of white stuff.
    
  • Big flocks of cedar waxwings flew from treetop to treetop in our yard.
    
  • I racked the parsnip wine for the first time. A morning hydrometer check indicated a specific gravity of 1.008. I like to catch it between 1.010 and 1.020, so I'm a little late on moving this wine with its fast-acting yeast. The pH is 3.0, a significant drop from 3.4, when I made this batch. I suspect the lemon zest and lemon juice contributed to more acid. I filled a 3-gallon carboy, a one-gallon jug, and a 12-ounce pop bottle. Foam fizzed up the neck of the carboy, so Bill and I installed a blow-off airlock. I changed it to a regular airlock a few hours later. By bedtime, the wine's color changed from an eggnog tint to a dark orange.
    
  • Bill left for his St. Charles apartment after eating a noontime meal of Thanksgiving leftovers.
  • I racked the blackberry wine for the fourth time. The specific gravity is 0.996. I added one gram of Kmeta. The remaining liquid filled a five-gallon carboy and a 330-ml bottle. Taste: This wine has more of a ripe blackberry taste. It has an extreme dark red/purple color. There was a very small amount of fines. We even drank dregs, since they weren't too murky, and it was very tasty.
    
    
• Monday, 11/27: Early Christmas Gift
  
  • It was a cool day, with temperatures failing to surpass freezing. We left the winter greens covered with plastic and blankets.
    
  • Mary discovered that a torchiere lamp that I changed several years ago to hold four regular LED bulbs has copper wires showing near the plug in. I found a good electrical plug amongst my stuff and soldered it into place with butt connectors, then covered the new connection with heat shrink and electrical tape.
    
  • I raked up pecan leaves with a garden rake in order to keep out snow clumps and put two wheelbarrow loads around the apple rootstock saplings as added cold winter protection.
    
  • I wrote up labels for the two wines that Bill helped me bottle.
  • I decided that a Christmas present I was getting myself, a raincoat, was boring, and decided to spend the money on something more interesting. Instead, I'm getting tickets to a St. Louis Blues vs. Edmonton Oilers hockey game on April 1st in St. Louis. I asked Bill if he wanted to go. The catch is I stay overnight at his place and he buys dinner. He agreed. The reason I picked an April 1st game is it's on a weekday and near the end of the season, so nose bleed seats are cheaper. Bill says that there's not a bad seat in the St. Louis Enterprise Center. He added that he would love to witness, in person, Connor McDavid, a top center for the Oilers, flying down the ice. It ought to be fun.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/28: Firewood Collection
  
  • Today was another cool day that started off very cold at sunrise with a reading of 9°. The snow is slow to melt.
  • When I looked north from the house prior to walking dogs this morning, the pecan tree nearest to the house was filled with cedar waxwings flitting about on various branches and three squirrels grabbing old, hard nuts that are impossible for humans to open.
    
  • I walked around in the north woods and cut firewood with the small Stihl chainsaw. This firewood came from small dead branches and trees. While I cut wood, Mary made a venison General Tso midday meal.
    
  • After eating, I went back out and collected up all of today's cut firewood. I was able to move the large wheelbarrow into the timber and transported three loads to the machine shed, where I stacked the wood. It's good dry wood, but it has surface moisture from snow on one side that I brushed off. A day or two in the machine shed and it will be good to burn in the woodstove. Today's wood collection should last for about a week's worth of heat.
  • At nighttime, I stuck labels on the spiced apple wine and the apple cider and stored the bottles in a couple coolers in the upstairs north bedroom.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/29: Shopping in Quincy
  • I uncovered the winter greens this morning. Plastic and blankets covered them for two days and three nights. They looked wonderful!
    
  • Mary and I went shopping in Quincy, mainly to pick up two medications for me, but also to get some Christmas items, locally. It was quiet in Quincy, which was nice. We got back home before sunset and got chickens back inside, which was perfect.
  • Most all of the snow that fell a couple days ago melted today.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/30: Cherry Firewood
  
  • Mary heard cackling geese flying to the east of us, this morning.
    
  • Mary and I took the tractor and wagon to just south of the Bluegill Pond dam and cut firewood. I sawed down and cut up four cherry trees that completely filled the wagon. We unloaded large pieces and put them near the woodsplitter in the machine shed. The rest went into the woodshed, except for four armloads that Mary took inside and stacked next to the woodstove. Cherry is exceptional firewood. One fire gave us heat through the entire evening.
    
  • I updated my wine diary from Sept. 1st to Sept. 22nd. There was a great deal of winemaking activity that month.
  • We started to see mist and light rain at 10 p.m., when we walked the pups. By the time we went to bed, it was pouring rain, outside.
    
    
• Friday, 12/1: Wonderful Rain
  
  • We received a nice overnight rain. All ponds are extremely low, so any moisture is welcome.
    
  • Mary spotted a fox sparrow. Online research revealed this bird nests in Alaska and flies to the southeast U.S. for the winter. It's passing through our neighborhood.
  • Mary made two pizzas and cooked one, which we ate. The second one is in the fridge for tomorrow.
    
  • I split about half of the firewood that we cut yesterday and put by the woodsplitter. This cherry firewood is colorful with a red tinge (see photo, below). It also puts out a wonderful cherry odor. Mary could smell it partway down the lane, while walking dogs. I stacked the split wood in the woodshed.
    
  • I racked the parsnip wine for the second time, due to over a half-inch of fines in the containers. The specific gravity is 1.003, a five thousandths drop from Sunday. The pH is 3.3, an increase from 3.0 on Sunday. I added 0.7 grams of Kmeta. Liquid filled a three-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jug, and a 1.5-liter bottle. The must is still cloudy and it smells good...very much like citrus.

  

  Cherry firewood. The white pieces are hickory.

• Saturday, 12/2: The Deer Told Me Off
  
  • Today was the start of the second anterless deer season. I got up at 5:15 a.m., ate a quick bit of peanut butter on crackers, and then walked west, northwest to the Bobcat Deer Blind. Deer snorted at me from all directions. Through my time sitting there, I had nine different deer snorting at me, usually before I could ever see them. All I ever saw were white tails from deer running away. The wind was light and variable. Add in the wet air and my scent must have been penetrating throughout the woods. At one point, I had two different deer snorting at me from the north and the west. It was one of the most frustrating times I've ever hunted. There were lots of deer, but I never was able to shoot.
    
  • After eating breakfast, I walked to the Cherry Deer Blind and hunted. I saw nothing. I left around 2 p.m., when I noticed on weather radar that snow was approaching from the west. I heard snow geese settling in a field southeast of our property.
    
  • We ate a pizza, did evening chores, and then I went to the Pond Trail Deer Stand without a gun, since shooting anything would have meant field dressing an animal in rain that was approaching. I saw a big coyote trot to the north along the east edge of the north woods. Then, I watched a big deer walk west to east across the north pasture. About five minutes later, another deer followed the same route. I think the first deer was a buck and the second one was a large doe. The doe caught a whiff of my scent, stood awhile, then trotted off toward Bass Pond. Both deer were too far away for a decent shot, but I didn't have a gun, so it didn't matter.
    
  • We watched two Christmas-related movies.
    

Nov. 19-25, 2023

Weather | 11/19, 31°, 59° | 11/20, 0.08" rain, 40°, 44° | 11/21, 0.20" rain, 37°, 44° | 11/22, 27°, 45° | 11/23, 31°, 47° | 11/24, 25°, 37° | 11/25, 23°, 41° | 

• Sunday, 11/19: Big Parsnip Crop
  
  • Mary and Bill dug the parsnips out of the ground in the near garden. We suspected voles ate up the roots, but such was not the case. It is a big crop (see photos, below). Some parsnip roots were two feet deep. Bill and Mary did a lot of digging. They filled two milk crates with parsnips. Mary scrubbed them all and let them dry. They currently put a strong aroma in the back porch closet that smells like a very good stew tonight. Mocha, our youngest cat, wants to gobble the roots up. Other cats think it smells interesting, but Mocha is quick to grab a root and start gnawing. Now I need to make parsnip wine, which we've found tastes marvelous.
    
  • Mary raked leaves from under the pecan trees and put them in the compost bin. She also added more hay to the floor of the chicken coop.
  • I watched trees grow in the afternoon. In other words, I went hunting, but didn't see any deer. I was in the Cherry Deer Blind. I heard several footsteps to the northwest of me, and then a few minutes later, heard a coyote howl southeast of me, near Bass Pond. I probably heard coyote footfalls. There were lots of birds flitting about. I saw crows, jays, juncos, robins, chickadees, titmice, and cedar waxwings. I heard cardinals. When I walked home, the same owl that circled above me a few days ago performed the same trick. I heard only one gunshot south of me, so I think deer are really hunkered down and not moving.
    
  • Mary made a really yummy batch of chicken tortellini soup.
  • We watched a 2023 movie that Bill brought with him, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. It's good.

Bill with a very long parsnip plant & root.

All of the parsnips laid out to dry in the grass.

• Monday, 11/20: Three Wines
  
  • Bill and I worked on three different wine varieties. Recently, I've stored small amounts in beer bottles. That's unwise. On both occasions where I had half bottles, vinegar developed after a month in the pantry. I need to stop this practice.
    
  • We gave the pear wine a third racking. The specific gravity was 1.000 and the pH was 3.0. The must went into a 5-gallon carboy, and a half-gallon jug. We threw out the vinegar that was in a  beer bottle. The taste test: it's a bit alcoholic, because it's green, but it's going to be a good wine.
    
  • Bill and I racked the spiced apple wine for the fifth time and bottled it into 15 bottles. We added 0.6 grams of Kmeta. The specific gravity was 1.000, and the pH was 3.1. The taste test: mmmm, mmmm, good. This is going to be a new favorite.
    
  • We gave the perry, or pear cider, a third racking. It's extremely cloudy. We added 0.4 grams of Kmeta and a tablespoon of pectic enzyme. The specific gravity is 1.004. The pH is 3.2. The resulting liquid went into a three-gallon carboy, and a one-gallon jug. We threw out another  bad tasting vinegar from half of a beer bottle. There was lots of liquid waste, with racking from four one-gallon jugs. Taste test: It tastes weird. Bill said it has the flavor of pineapple juice left over from dinner, or that someone tried to make artificial mango, but missed the mark. Mary said it was bland, but with an odd thing going on in the corner, in the dark. I think perry is not in our future.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/21: Shopping and Michigan Rummy
  
  • I shopped in Quincy for raw vegetables used for our Thanksgiving meal, ingredients for making parsnip wine, and hen food.
    
  • On the way back home, I saw an accident on the two west-bound lanes between West Quincy and Taylor, MO. The rear wheels of a grain-hauling semi trailer ran over a Lincoln Town Car. News reports indicate the driver of the Lincoln was passing to the right of the semi, on the shoulder of the highway, when the semi turned right onto a county road, and rolled over the car. The driver of the Lincoln was air lifted to Blessing Hospital in Quincy. He was in serious, but stable condition.
    
  • Mary did a bunch of house cleaning, then made pizza.
  • After eating, Bill, Mary and I played Michigan Rummy. I had insane luck of winning with poor cards while keeping others from collecting on great hands of cards. I heard, "You bastard," all night long. There were lots of laughs and great fun.
  • Today is the last day of regular deer hunting season. I decided to forego the last two days, since deer just aren't moving much. I'll get back to the hunting scene during the anterless deer hunting season, which is Dec. 2-10.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/22: Parsnip Wine
  
  • Bill and I made a 4-gallon batch of parsnip wine. Bill cut bad parts off parsnip roots, threw out tiny roots, and chopped up what remained. That took two hours. A total of 17 pounds, 1.2 ounces of parsnips was reduced to 14 pounds, 12.8 ounces. It equals 19 percent waste, not the seven percent I originally estimated. I chopped four 15-ounce boxes of white raisins, then worked zest off eight lemons and juiced them. We boiled the parsnips in two sessions in the big 15-quart pot, using a total of three gallons of water (1.5 gallons each session). We ran the liquid through the wire mesh strainer and into the brew bucket. Cooked parsnips still taste yucky, like they did two years ago. Bill found that parsnip dipped in lemon juice was pretty good. After tossing the parsnip pieces in the compost pile, the following was added to the brew bucket: raisins and lemon zest in a mesh bag, lemon juice, a cup of strong tea (two tea bags), six quarts of apple juice, 0.7 grams of Kmeta, and four teaspoons of yeast nutrient. We set the brew bucket in the pantry to sit overnight.
    
  • Mary made two pumpkin pies and cranberry sauce for tomorrow's Thanksgiving meal.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/23: Thanksgiving Day
  
  • Katie called. She's busy with rebuilding work at the base she's at. A lot of what she's doing involves rebuilding old tent platforms. The crew at the base did a knock-up job on Thanksgiving dinner, including butter sculptures (see photo, below). She's there until April.
  • I looked up sending something to Katie and ordered, for free, a military care kit from the U.S. Postal Service, which includes six boxes, tape, and necessary customs forms. Sending to an APO address (which Katie gave me) means you pay an in-the-U.S mailing rate. I asked Katie questions about a few gift ideas.
    
  • Mary worked up a wonderful turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. We helped where we could (Bill mashed potatoes and I set out veggies and dip), but she did 99.9 percent of the work. It was really amazing. We each had two helpings, plus veggies. After eating, Mary got one gallon bag and four quart bags of meat off the bird. Mary and I marched the carcass into the north woods as a peace offering to the wildlings.
    
  • I worked on the parsnip wine through the day. I added four teaspoons of pectic enzyme. An initial specific gravity was 1.054. I added 1.75 pounds of sugar to reach a specific gravity of 1.073. The pH was 3.8, so I added a tablespoon of tartaric acid to get an acceptable pH of 3.4. I didn't add any water, even though the liquid level without the mess bag is between 3.5-4.0 gallons, on the thought that the quality of undiluted must is better than gaining a higher volume with added water. I worked up a starter batch of Red Star Premier Classique yeast and pitched it into the brew bucket eight hours later. At that point, the specific gravity was 1.079 and the pH was still 3.4.
    
  • We played a game of Triopoly. Mary won. Bill was a very close second place finisher. I was way, way behind in last place. My gambling ways hurt me. It's a good thing I don't gamble in real life!

  

  Thanksgiving meal, with butter sculptures, at Katie's base.

• Friday, 11/24: Apple Cider, Swans & Decorating Christmas Tree
  
  • Bill and I racked the apple cider for the fourth time, bottled, and corked 15 bottles. It's slightly cloudy, but I don't care, since apple cider is often cloudy. The specific gravity was 1.000 and the pH was 2.8, making it very tart. The alcohol content is 6.55 percent. It tastes good. This cider is a very light drink with nice apple zip. It will be good in the summer in the place of lemonade. It probably will taste good iced and with a twist of lime.
    
  • I checked the parsnip wine. The specific gravity is 1.073. The brew bucket contains lots of fine bubbles and it smells wonderful.
  • We heard and Mary saw trumpeter swans for the first time this winter season. She saw seven flying by to the north. They arrived a month earlier than they did last year.
    
  • We put up the Christmas tree and decorations on the tree and around the house. Up went three garlands, each covered with cross-stitch Christmas ornaments that Mary makes. Some of her ornaments are on the tree, too.
    
  • After decorating, Bill, Mary and I split a bottle of 2021 parsnip wine. Bill says it tastes like an earthy apple butterscotch, or like apple caramel candy that he tried once made by a friend's wife's brother's fiancee. The wine is very good.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/25: Rootstock Protector
  
  • A check of the parsnip wine showed it has a specific gravity of 1.047, a big drop from 1.073 a day earlier. This is fast-acting yeast.
    
  • Bill and I worked on building protection for the three apple rootstocks that are in pots. I recently bought two 10-foot long by three-foot high rolls of quarter-inch hardware cloth to make a cube to protect these saplings from mice, voles, rabbits and deer. It will also hold leaves to help insulate roots against cold winter temperatures. Bill suggested we use the old catfish rearing pen, made of PVC pipe and plastic netting, as a frame. We walked to Bass Pond, where it's been sitting for years and pulled it out of the weeds. The wooden top rotted away. We added three side of hardware cloth to the frame, but ran out of time to add the other three sides. I moved the saplings to near the west gate of the near garden, where they'll get more sunshine and flipped this newly created, but half finished, protector over them. I then unplugged the electric fence for the winter.
    
  • We found a praying mantis egg case on the frame of this old catfish pen and Bill took a photo of it (see below).
    
  • Mary raked leaves under the pecan trees and put them in the compost bin. She also added a wheelbarrow load of hay to the floor of the chicken coop.
    
  • Bill picked out movies that we watched, which included the 2016 movie, Arrival, and the 1995 movie, While You Were Sleeping.

  

  A praying mantis egg case.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Nov. 12-18, 2023

Weather | 11/12, 34°, 61° | 11/13, 34°, 63° | 11/14, 35°, 62° | 11/15, 39°, 67° | 11/16, 43°, 60° | 11/17, 39°, 51° | 11/18, 25°, 57° | 

• Sunday, 11/12: Whizbang, But No Deer
  
  • We vacuumed dust and hair out from the back and bottom of the refrigerator. It's been loud and after the cleanup, the fridge sounded normal, again.
    
  • I checked out an online website called Whizbang cider.net, where Herrick Kimball describes how to make cidermaking equipment. His designs are interesting and simple.
    
  • I hunted at the Black Medick blind in the east woods, arriving at 3:30 p.m. Wind was from the southwest. I saw tons of squirrels that pounce around in the dried autumn leaves and sound like mastodons. Canada geese were honking about on Wood Duck Pond. I caught a glimpse of a deer through the trees north of me. It was marching along quickly, heading east to the recently plowed field. I bet it was a buck, but I couldn't tell, since I only saw it briefly. When I walked home, I heard several vehicles leaving on the gravel road...a sign of hunters going home. Maybe deer might settle down, now that some hunters from St. Louis left for home.
    
  • On the final dog walk, we noticed a very clear night sky with bright stars showing without any twinkle, indicating a steady atmosphere. Jupiter was especially bright.
    
    
• Monday, 11/13: Seeing Deer, But No Shooting
  
  • This morning, we saw several deer. When Mary opened the curtains in the west living room window, there were two bucks standing near the Kieffer pear tree. We saw five more deer in the west field while we let out the chickens this morning.
    
  • Our dogs really love chasing squirrels away from the pecan trees. It continues.
    
  • Mary cooked up one of the five pumpkins and put four quarts of pumpkin meat in the freezer.
    
  • I finished putting up lights in the machine shed.
    
  • I started hunting at the Bobcat Deer Blind around 3 p.m. It was unseasonably warm, requiring fewer layers to stay warm while sitting in the blind. Again, there were lots of noisy squirrels. Before sunset, I caught glimpses of deer running from the north field into the woods along a ridge far to the north of me. Just before the end of legal hunting, which is a half hour after sunset (today it was 5:22 p.m.) I heard several foot falls west and south of me, but it was too dark to see anything. Once I shucked shells from my rifle's magazine, all creatures were gone. Since we know of a deer stand just beyond our property line west of the west field, I wore and turned on a flashing red light while walking home, as a safety measure. I think these folks were back in St. Louis, because I didn't hear four-wheelers, but it never hurts to employ extra precaution.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/14: 10-Point Buck I Let Pass
  
  • Mary heard a white-throated sparrow singing this morning. HERE is their song. They don't usually sing until later winter.
  • I affixed wine labels to the 27 bottles of cherry wine and stored them in a couple coolers in the upstairs north bedroom.
    
  • Just before 3 p.m., I crawled into the Wood Duck Deer Blind for an afternoon deer hunting session. Right after getting settled, I heard peeping sounds uphill and east to me. Then I caught view of several northern bobwhite quail just north of me walking down the slope. One male bird stood on a downed tree and looked at me for several minutes (see photo, below). They eventually meandered off. I watched about 20 crows drink at the pond's edge and then land in tree branches. They were loud. The normal battalion of squirrels scampered about. One raised a 10-minute raucous just above my head at sunset. Who says the woods are restful and quiet? As the woods darkened, I saw a buck north of me. I think it came from the field east of me and walked down the hill. It munched away at brush, then slowly walked down to the dry creek bed and toward me. At one point, it was only 30 feet away. I counted four points on one side of the rack, so with the brow tine, it would be five on one side, or at least a 10-point buck. He was big. I figured the venison from that deer would be like chewing on a neoprene tarp, so I let it walk on by, even though I had an excellent bead on the deer through my rifle's scope. It moved slowly on. I looked at the time and it was exactly the end of legal shooting, or 5:21 p.m. The sound of me removing the shells from my rifle's magazine quickened his fading footsteps. I didn't hear a single shot from other hunters, so hunting pressure has dropped. I'm going to give it a rest for tomorrow and maybe even Thursday.
    
  • I updated my wine diary from postings on this blog, catching me up to the end of August.

  

  A poor iPhone photo of a bobwhite quail.

• Wednesday, 11/15: Mom's Birthday
  • Today Mom turns 89. I talked with her for just over a half hour today.
  • Mary made and baked four loaves of bread.
  • I split all but three chunks of firewood stacked around the woodsplitter in the machine shed. After purposefully letting the engine on the splitter run out of fuel, I pulled the gas tank and replaced the fuel line and gas filter. The engine is burning oil and the hydraulic cylinder is leaking at the base. I need to either put new rings and valves into the engine, or get a new engine. Probably the cylinder needs replacing, or new seals replaced in it. The hydraulic hoses are checked and also need replacing.
  • I didn't hunt today, since we're shopping tomorrow, and if I shot a deer, a late night of butchering would have postponed any shopping. Besides, the deer need a break from my presence to let them settle down.
    
  • I got the wine diary updated to Sept. 1st. There are several wines to record.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/16: Shopping
  
  • We shopped in Quincy, IL, today. We picked up some clothes at Salvation Army (T-shirts for Mary and sweat pants for me), and from Walmart, 40 more pounds of turkey (two turkeys), along with other food items from there and other stores. We now have four turkeys and over 80 pounds of turkey in the freezer. At 98 cents a pound at Walmart, we decided to stock up.
  • As we drove up the gravel road for home and just reached our property line, there were four huge Canada geese flying over our land. It's the first geese we've seen in weeks.
  • Our neighbors in the house southeast of us have dead deer lying on the ground. What a complete waste! I hate irresponsible hunters who waste good meat.
    
    
• Friday, 11/17: No Deer, Just Squirrels, an Owl, and a Fox
  
  • We heard a weird bird call this morning while walking the dogs and saw that it was coming from doves. Mary looked up the bird call online and confirmed that it was from a Urasian collared dove. It's the first time we've seen them on this property. We noticed them in Circle, MT, when we lived there.
  • Mary did a bunch of house cleaning.
  • Bill is taking a well-deserved vacation and visiting us for a week and two weekends starting tomorrow. He recently led a yearly inventory at his place of work through a weekend and received a nice letter from the company's vice president for his efforts.
    
  • I split the last 3-4 logs I didn't get to a couple days ago. The woodsplitter's engine runs much better. Obviously, the old gas filter was holding back the engine's power. I ran it at a lower RPM and it did great.
    
  • I moved firewood from the machine shed to the woodshed, including stacks that dried all summer and newly split dry wood. Some of the stacks of firewood left to dry were loaded with mouse nests filled with chicken feathers. Small branches from walnut trees I cut down near the house were covered with very fine sawdust, put there by insect larvae boring into the wood. I dumped all this off prior to moving the firewood. Now the firewood is stacked up to the top of the stem wall with the first ring of wood in the woodshed.
  • I hunted the Black Medick Blind (furthest south) in the east woods, starting at 3 p.m. The only deer I saw was one that ran away into the neighbor's field east of our property when I first arrived at the blind, which says I need to get out there earlier than 3 p.m. For about 30 minutes, I had three squirrels chattering at me. At sunset, I saw something dark and about 18 inches tall down the slope from me that ran very fast to the south. I think it was a grey fox. It ran too fast to see it's body. A barred owl sounded off just after sunset. It was in a tree just up the hill from me. I heard two loud shots northwest of me. It was probably from the hunting trailer blind parked a few feet north of our north property line. Some years, I get deer within the first few days of hunting season. This is not one of those years. I'll keep trying. Regular deer season runs through Tuesday, 11/21. Then there is a 12/2 through 12/10 anterless deer hunting season. There's also a 12/23 through 1/2/24 alternative methods deer season, but I don't care to hurl a lance or pick my butt off the ground while shooting a black powder gun, so I'll stay home on that one. If I was a bow hunter, I could hunt from 11/22 through 1/15/24, but I'm not into archery. Oh, and there's the second youth deer hunting season for three days after Thanksgiving Day. Missouri gives ample opportunity to hunt deer.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/18: Bill Arrives
  
  • Bill showed up around noon.
  • I added moth balls to plastic Gatorade bottles with holes drilled in them that I keep under and in engine compartments of vehicles. I gave 10 bottles to Bill to put under and in the engine area of his car. This keeps mice from destroying vehicle wiring.
    
  • I hunted from the Wood Duck Deer Blind, starting at 2:40 p.m. I saw five different deer at various times through the afternoon. All were too far to the north and I only caught glimpses of them through the trees. No shots fired by me, today. They were walking east and west along the north side of Wood Duck Pond. The normal army of squirrels was on parade. I saw a fox squirrel that was really big. After sunset, a mouse was rustling dry autumn leaves just outside the blind. There were a few gunshots, but off in the distance.
  • Bill, Mary, and I enjoyed a bottle of 2021 blackberry wine and watched a couple movies. The wine was very smooth, with a strong blackberry flavor.
    

Nov. 5-11, 2023

Weather | 11/5, 31°, 63° | 11/6, 55°, 69° | 11/7, 43°, 69° | 11/8, 53°, 73° | 11/9, 33°, 56° | 11/10, 29°, 49° | 11/11, 26°, 51° | 

• Sunday, 11/5: Nuts, Garlic, & Deer Blind Prep
  
  • Mary and I picked up 322 pecans today during two sessions of nut collecting. Nuts aren't dropping out of the trees as much, but we still did well.
    
  • Mary found where some animal dug up a yellow jacket nest just beyond where we're picking pecans. Several paper combs were just outside a 4-5 inch hole dug into the ground.
    
  • Mary turned the soil on three rows in the far garden, mixing in compost and grass clippings. Everything is ready for planting garlic.
    
  • I clipped red cedar boughs off four different trees and wove them through fencing as a form of camouflage at the Bobcat Deer Blind. When I first arrived to the blind, two deer ran from the creek bed below me uphill and to the southwest, where they stopped for a minute to look me over, before leaving completely.
    
    
• Monday, 11/6: Pecan Picking & Garlic Planting is Done
  • While walking dogs this morning, I saw two bucks and a doe deer. I also saw an American kestrel zoom over our yard and head east. Mary and I saw two bald eagles circling over the eastern edge of our property.
    
  • Pecan nuts called to me, again. I picked a few off the ground, then plucked several off the near pecan tree. In the evening, Mary picked about 10 off the ground and I got a few more off the tree. We got 170 nuts, with 125 pulled off the tree. Nuts falling from the trees have really diminished and I've got the 10-foot ladder on the southwest corner of the tree, where they baked in the sun, making it difficult to peel husks. We've decided to quit pecan picking.
  • Mary planted all six varieties of garlic. It took most of the afternoon. Her next chore is watering and mulching all garlic rows with mowed grass.
  • I walked part of the west, north, and east property lines, checking on purple paint put on trees and fence posts in years past to make sure it's still in good shape, since it indicates no trespassing to deer hunters. It's all in good condition.
  • The neighbor to the west put a salt block near the deer stand that is within a few feet of our property line and added a remote trail camera (it has an antenna) focused on the mineral block...really sporting, isn't it?
    
  • Rich, our southwest neighbor, has three tree stands within sight of our property line. If all are occupied at once, it's like a city of hunters trying to shoot one another. I won't get anywhere near that mess during hunting season!
  • Our neighbor north of us did an excellent job rebuilding the fence. They have a hunting trailer parked about 25 feet from the fence. Fortunately, it's over the hill from where I hunt to the north.
  • I saw a buck with a large rack near Wood Duck Pond and our east property line.
  • Mary and I shared a bottle of 2021 pear wine. It's exceptional. It really helps to let wine age beyond a year. This wine was bottled 12-24-21. It tastes much better now, compared to a year or more ago. We had the same experience drinking a bottle of 2021 autumn olive wine on Sunday. Again, it was bottled in November 2021 and it tasted marvelously good.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/7: Nuts, Mulch, & Final Deer Trail
  
  • Our commitment to stop picking pecan nuts lasted only a few hours. East wind gusts to 20 mph sent nuts to the ground. Of course, we had to go grab them. I finished picking nuts that I can reach with the 10-foot ladder off the near pecan tree, this time on the northwest part of the tree. We got 190 pecans, today.
    
  • Mary identified a juvenile broad-winged hawk that was sitting in a black walnut tree limb between our gardens during the noon hour. These hawks winter in South America or southern Mexico, so it has a long journey ahead of it.
    
  • Mary mowed sections of our lawn and put grass clipping mulch on the entire west row of the far garden that's planted in garlic. She has two more rows to go.
    
  • I finished whacking down grass, weeds, and saplings on the trail down Black Medick Hill. I also looked at the Wood Duck Deer Blind to make sure it's ready for hunting season. I'm now done with trail and blind prep prior to the main deer hunting season.
  • We walked the dogs on that trail. Several oak trees now show an orange or red autumn color (see photos, below).

Orange autumn color of an oak tree.

Red & orange leaves of another oak tree.

• Wednesday, 11/8: Mulching & Racking Wine
  
  • It was so warm during the first half of today that we heard a white-crowned sparrow and an eastern meadowlark singing their early spring bird songs. In the late afternoon, a cold front went through with a wind that put leaves onto the yard.
    
  • Mary mowed more of our yard and placed grass mulch on two rows of planted garlic in the far garden. She has just a small part of the last row left to cover.
    
  • I drove the tractor and trailer east, sawed up an oak tree limb that fell across the dry creek bed in the east forest, hauled the firewood to the tractor and drove it back home. More and more leaves are dropping in the woods. Oak trees are really showing their colors this autumn.
    
  • I racked the jalapeño wine for the third time. The pH was 3.2 and the specific gravity was 0.994. The wine was a lot calmer and not as hot as expected, since this year's peppers seemed hot. It tasted good. A three-gallon carboy and one 330-ml beer bottle was reduced by just a little after racking to the same carboy and three-fourths of a beer bottle. I'm getting much better at conserving liquid during the racking process.
    
  • I racked the apple wine for a fourth time. The pH was 3.0 and the specific gravity was 0.998, slightly less than the last racking. I added 0.6 grams of Kmeta. Since this wine is slightly cloudy, I added a tablespoon of pectic enzyme. This was based on a Jack Keller apple wine recipe that calls for a tablespoon of pectic enzyme per gallon of liquid. Since I'm now at 3.25 gallons and I've used two tablespoons so far, I decided another tablespoon was appropriate to try to clear up the wine. A taste revealed a very light wine. The apple flavor came on strongest as an aftertaste. With a lower alcohol content of nine percent, a stronger apple taste shines through. This wine also has an amazing scent. A three-gallon carboy and two 750-ml wine bottles was reduced to the same carboy, a wine bottle, and a 12-ounce pop bottle.
  • We had a successful day of ignoring pecans. It's a first for us for several days.
  • I picked a bowl full of greens from my tubs of winter greens that Mary put on top of an evening meal of taco salad. YUM, YUM!!!
    
    
• Thursday, 11/9: Mowing & Shopping
  
  • This morning, around 6 a.m., Venus was located right next to a waning crescent moon for a spectacular view in the eastern sky.
    
  • Mary mowed and mowed and mowed. First, she did our quarter-mile lane. Then, she mowed up the south lawn, collecting the clippings to finish mulching the newly planted garlic.
  • I drove to Quincy and got some meds and a couple other items.
  • This makes me sound like an old duff, but prices are crazy high. A dinky Briggs & Stratton fuel filter made of red plastic and the size of a quarter costs $5. Gasoline prices are dropping, though. I noticed Sam's Club had it for $2.99 a gallon.
  • We're back teetering on very dry. We haven't had rain in 11 days. While driving back home, I saw a rural fire fighting truck handling a grass fire that burned about a quarter mile of the highway's ditch. It's a concern we have with the main deer hunting season starting this Saturday. Careless campfires or even a vehicle's hot muffler could easily start a fire in these dry conditions. The Missouri Dept. of Conservation is warning hunters to be careful with fires this hunting season.
    
    
• Friday, 11/10: Racking & Bottling Cherry Wine
  
  • During the noon hour, several crows were in a big walnut tree northeast of the house. I ran out and yelled "caw, caw" at them. We find that an imitation crow sound by a human must sound evil, because they immediately fly away. This time a big bald eagle also flew out of the north yard.
    
  • I racked and bottled the cherry wine. This was the fifth racking, a new tactic I'm trying to better control "floaties" in some wines. The fines involved just a dusting on the bottom of containers. The pH was 3.1 and the specific gravity was 0.995. The alcohol content is 10.6 percent. I bottled and corked the equivalent of 27.5 750-ml bottles. One was a 1.5-liter bottle and another was a 375-liter bottle. A titret SO2 test indicated the wine contained 27 ppm. It should be 50-70 ppm. Midwest Supplies suggests a quarter teaspoon raises 20 liters (5 gallons) 40 ppm...whoa, Nelly!!! I use 0.18 grams per gallon, which is a tiny portion of a quarter teaspoon, so I added only 1 gram for the 5.45-gallon batch. On a taste test, Mary and I thought the cherry flavor comes through beautifully. It's still a young wine that needs aging, so there is a stronger alcoholic taste. It smells fantastic and has a clear, faint orange/pink tint (see photo, below).
  • Tomorrow morning is the start of the main firearms deer hunting season. This evening, it sounded like World War III as neighbors sighted in guns. That's not the smartest idea just 12 hours prior to hunting season. We're guessing several boxes of shells went through a gun being sighted in at the house located southeast across the road from us. I'm not going out tomorrow morning. There are too many amateurs nearby. Besides, it's too warm during the day, but cooler after dark, which is better for venison meat. Instead, I'll start hunting late tomorrow afternoon.
  • Three young deer were next to the Empire apple tree, just south of the living room window, this evening after the sun set. They looked disturbed, probably from human activity, nearby. Every hunting season, deer pack onto our property, where they feel safe.

  

  A sample of 2023 cherry wine.

• Saturday, 11/11: Nothing on Opening Day
  
  • We watched a pair of common goldeneye ducks fly over us while walking the puppies this morning.
    
  • I started putting up lights up in the machine shed enabling nighttime venison butchering. I didn't finish.
    
  • Mary gave the garlic a thorough watering. She's glad she put mulch on, since it's so dry.
    
  • Around 3 p.m., I hunted from the Cherry Deer Blind while listening to our neighbor farmer east of us clang rocks while discing the field. His yearly late harvest means he's always plowing during deer hunting season long after other farmers finished working fields weeks and months ago. I couldn't hear much at all due to his constant racket. The half hour after the sun set, I heard footsteps beyond the cedar trees south of me, but I never saw a thing, except lots of robins. I think they spend the day in the cow pasture north of us, then find cedar boughs to sleep in at night. There were plenty of gunshots. Some dunce was driving around at sunset, which is a prime time for deer movement. I'll sure be glad when amateurs go home after this opening weekend of hunting season.
    
  • On the walk back home, I had an owl circling over me while I walked by Bass Pond. It was just curious. It flew several loops around me. The owl even perched on a branch near me to look me over. I saw a deer run off to the northwest in the north field. As I approached home, another deer took off to the south. It was located near the Granny Smith apple tree. Maybe if I just sat home in a rocking chair, I'd have better hunting success.