Feb. 26-March 4, 2023

Weather | 2/26, 27°, 53° | 2/27, 0.60" rain, 43°, 47° | 2/28, 34°, 50° | 3/1, 29°, 57° | 3/2, 27°, 41° | 3/3, mist, 32°, 47° | 3/4, 28°, 57° |

• Sunday, 2/26: Cutting Tree Branches
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas and washed a load of laundry.
  • I measured the circumference of the grain bins. I'd like to tear down those bins and build two nicer, critter-proof wooden sheds to replace them. Mary's Uncle Herman stored animal salt blocks in one of the bins. They melted and helped rust out the bottom fourth of the north side of the base section wall. The hole is big enough to allow cats, squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, and opossums to enter. A 45' 8" circumference means the concrete pads under the bins is 14.5' in diameter and a 10' square shed would fit on each concrete pad. Two such sheds gives us 200 square feet of storage, which is needed if we build and move from our current 1900 square foot home into a 1000 square foot new home that eventually expands to 2000 square feet.
    
  • Mary trimmed yard tree branches to give us better access for mowing under and around trees without getting poked in the eye.
    
  • I used the small chainsaw to saw up several old persimmon stakes pulled from past garden fences. They were stacked in the machine shed. I also sawed up elm branches that were thrown in a heap near the large Bartlett pear tree from cutting down an elm near the power line going to the machine shed. I helped Mary cut large oak branches off a tree in the north yard.
    
  • The first robins showed today. Several dozen sassed at me in the evening as I walked under the walnut trees in the east yard.
    
    
• Monday, 2/27: Windy Day
  
  • Rain fell overnight, finishing around 10 a.m.
    
  • Wind gusts to 50 mph blew today. We used to see such winds when we lived in Eastern Montana. Wind isn't usually that strong, here.
    
  • I received a phone call from the Lewistown Medical Clinic just four minutes after they opened with lab test results. My A1C is 9.2, which is way too high. It needs to be 6.0, or lower. My cholesterol is good. Thyroid, liver, and kidneys are all functioning fine. The doctor called in drug prescriptions. I lined up an appointment in two weeks to see the doctor on Monday, March 13th at 9:15 a.m.
    
  • I drove to Quincy, IL, in the pickup to get my medications and a few other items. I was glad the camper box is tied down with eight, instead of six, clamps to the pickup bed as I drove through high winds.
  • A U.S. government audit of the Medicare billing at the Sam's Club pharmacy meant I was supposed to come back in 2 weeks to get the test strips for the glucometer. I said that won't work and paid full price for them (just over $30). Other costs were minuscule.
    
  • While I was gone, Mary mowed down bugs with the shop vac over and over again. I did a couple rounds of bug sucking in the evening.
  • My birthday presents, a sack full of fly tying goodies, came in today's mail...YIPPEE!
    
  • We heard our first spring peepers (frogs) of the season. There were three woodcocks calling in the evening at twilight. We still a few snow geese flying overhead.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/28: Bottling Garlic Wine
  
  • We heard the first Eastern meadowlark of the season while walking dogs in the morning.
    
  • Mary enjoyed an invigorating day vacuuming bugs. It never ends! This was a vengeance tour after she took a swig of tea and almost swallowed an Asian ladybug...YUCK!!!
    
  • I racked and bottled the garlic wine. It's nice and clear this year (see photo, below). The specific gravity is 0.995 and the pH is 3.3. I added 0.9 gram of Kbeta, then bottled and corked 25 wine bottles (750-ml). Part of a 350-ml bottle went into the fridge. We tasted the dregs. This is a cooking wine, not a sipping wine, so it wasn't great tasting. But, garlic wine is wonderful when cooking asparagus or shrimp and it's super when added to venison General Tso.
  • Snow geese are still wondering through. 
  • Woodcocks are making their "peenter" noise each evening. We even heard one late at night while walking dogs. THIS is how they sound.

  

  A clear bottle of garlic wine.

• Wednesday, 3/1: Racking Persimmon Wine
  
  • We started the morning with fog that soon dissipated.
    
  • Six wood ducks blasted out of Bluegill Pond on the morning dog walk. While Mary walked dogs in the late afternoon, 11 wood ducks flew out of Bluegill Pond.
    
  • We are still seeing snow geese flying around.
    
  • After sunset, we saw the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus high in the western sky. They were very close.
    
  • Mary and I vacuumed bugs all day.
    
  • I racked the persimmon wine for the third time. The specific gravity is 0.990 and the pH is 3.5. Even though the liquid was clear, a significant amount of fines were in the bottom of the carboy. Since I didn't add Kmeta, I moved the wine directly into other containers involving a 3-gallon carboy, gallon and half-gallon jugs, a wine and a beer bottle (see photo, below). The wine has a strong alcohol taste. There is a hint of fruit essence. It needs aging to bring out the fruit taste and settle the alcohol flavor.
    
  • We listened to the end of Chapter 7 of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, detailing when Hitler murdered his competitors in the SA (Sturmabteilung).

  

  Racked persimmon wine (foreground) & fines (background).

• Thursday, 3/2: Putting Things Away
  
  • Mom texted that she had a couple episodes of unsteadiness and visited the emergency room. Patti Wittkopp, the PA in Circle, MT, is getting Mom an appointment with a neurologist.
  • Our amaryllis flower is opening. I traded photos with Mom, who has one opening, too (see photos, below).
  • Mary swept and mopped floors.
  • I put away wine making stuff and then organized and put away fly tying materials. I included some of Dad's old fly tying stuff into the collection. I threw out several year's of computer software CDs and manuals. Some of this was to a Gateway desktop computer we bought in 2004 that we died long ago. It's amazing how much junk you save that you don't need!
  • Mary made a zucchini chocolate cake. We enjoyed cake and loose-leaf tea while watching two movies, which were Aquaman and Stardust.

Mom's amaryllis flower.

Our amaryllis flower.

• Friday, 3/3: Staking Spots For New Trees
  
  • Low clouds and mist made for a damp morning, but no measurable moisture showed in the rain gauge.
  • Karen sent me photos of blooming pear and cherry trees on their neighbor's property.
    
  • I updated my winemaking diary.
  • After getting blank bottle labels out of storage, I realized that the cooler I planned on using for storing the new garlic wine still smelled like mold, so detoured from the labeling job and washed the cooler out with 100-percent bleach. This is the third time I've cleaned this cooler. I'll air it out on the south porch for a couple days.
    
  • I measured and placed three stakes in the ground south of the existing two apple trees located south of the house. I made sure the new apple tree locations were 25 feet apart and 25 feet from existing trees. These are for three apple trees we ordered from Fedco that will arrive later this month. The Granny Smith and Empire apple trees south of the house seem to thrive with the least disease and animal damage, compared to trees in other locations on our property.
    
  • We heard red-tailed hawks on our morning dog walk. Mary saw a red-tailed hawk south of the house later in the morning. Coyotes howled nearby on the nighttime dog walk and were howling close to the house when we went to bed. Mary heard snow geese flying overhead on the last dog walk of the night.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/4: Katie Gets a Homemade Fur Hat
  
  • I spooked two deer that were near the Bartlett pear trees. It occurred while I was emptying ashes in the morning. Later, visiting moron neighbors who own land west of us roared around with a squadron of 4-wheelers and spooked four deer out of the west woods and into the our south field. Riding loud 4-wheelers is not a good way to see animals. They just run away.
    
  • Some good advice received from the doctor I visited on 2/24 led me to trying simethicone. Pains in my abdomen worried me that diabetes was wrecking my organs. It turns out to be excessive gas. I always knew I was full of it! I tried a generic version of GasX. The pain is gone, or nearly so most of the time.
  • Since I was close to running out of my experimental bottle of simethicone, I drove to Quincy, IL, and bought a larger bottle. I also picked up files for sharpening the large chainsaw chain and pork loin on sale at County Market. On the way home, I bought gas for $2.99 a gallon.
  • Mary planted 4 sweet potatoes to develop slips to plant in the garden later this spring. These came from sweet potatoes Mary dug up last fall. We still have plenty of our own taters to eat. Sweet potatoes do very well in storage.
  • Katie sent a photo (see below) of a fur hat she was given from the elderly lady who handles freight at the airport in Venetie, AK, where Katie is working right now. It's handmade from raccoon fur. Whenever Katie is at that airport, she helps this woman unload or load airfreight. The homemade fur hat was a nice gesture of appreciation.
  • On our last dog walk, we had several woodcocks calling and flying all around us as we walked down the lane. The moon was bright enough to curtail using a flashlight. It was obviously bright enough for woodcocks to do their thing, too.

  

  Katie and her homemade raccoon fur hat.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Feb. 19-25, 2023

Weather | 2/19, 33°, 55° | 2/20, 23°, 556° | 2/21, 27°, 49° | 2/22, 1.19" rain, 37°, 46° | 2/23, 27°, 33° | 2/24, light freezing rain after dark, 11°, 32° | 2/25, 25°, 43° |

• Sunday, 2/19: Wheelbarrow Tire Work
  
  • I replaced a tire on our oldest wheelbarrow. The old tire looked good once I removed it from the ring. After filling the new tire with air, I could hear air leaking. I couldn't find leaks by dipping it in a tub of water, because air is leaking through the inside of the rim. I will buy an inner tube to solve that problem and the tire I took off will go on the other large wheelbarrow that has checked rubber on its tire, but a good inner tube keeping it inflated.
  • I washed all chicken waterers in the tub of water I used to check for tire air leaks. The waterers weren't cleaned all winter and looked much better after I finished. 
  • Because it was a very nice day, Bill took a long hike around our property. He took photos of trumpeter swans swimming in Wood Duck Pond. He scared wood ducks off Bass Pond. He found a deflated silver balloon in the shape of an S in a tree at the northwest corner of our property that he brought home and we threw away.
    
  • Mary and I watched V after V of snow geese flying high in the sky while heading west. Mary heard an eastern blue bird, the first of the season.
    
  • Mary picked up all of the branches laying on the ground after we pruned fruit trees a few days ago.
    
  • Bill picked out three very serious movies that we watched. They were My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Galaxy Quest, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
    
    
• Monday, 2/20: I'm 66, Today
  
  • Today is my birthday. Karen put a photo of our parents and me when I was a few months old on Facebook. I talked with Mom on the phone, and with Katie. A big dump of snow, high winds, and temperatures in the -20s is expected in the next several days for Circle, MT. Katie was at a construction planning meeting in Hawaii last week and recently returned from a reggae concert in L.A. This week she returns to Venetie, AK, to supervise the end of installing a fire suppression system in that school.
    
  • Bill gave me three birthday presents: an assortment of fly tying hooks, a bag of silver fly tying beads, and an assortment of silk body fiber in eight colors. Katie gave me a gift card to J. Stockard, a fly tying supply company.
    
  • We ate smoked scrambled eggs for our midday meal.
    
  • Bill returned to his St. Charles apartment, leaving around 2:30 p.m.
    
  • Mary and I took a hike with the puppies on the north loop trail.
    
  • I got a call from Quincy Medical Group informing me that the doctor I wanted to have as a primary care doctor turned me down. Apparently I wasn't rich enough for his liking. The medical clinic in Lewistown is run by Quincy Medical Group. They transferred the phone call to Leiwstown and I got an appointment for Friday morning at that location.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/21: Picking Up Plant Trays
  
  • Yesterday, I saw used plastic plant trays for sale near Palmyra that cost $1 for 10 trays. Mary uses them to hold Styrofoam cups when starting garden plants. I drove to Palmyra and picked them up. The lady there used to sell garden plant starts, but quit it with the pandemic. She gave me all of her trays without holes, which was 13, for just one dollar...very nice of her.
  • I bought gas on the way back home. It's $3.08 a gallon.
    
  • I scrubbed out a cooler that I discovered with a mold smell when I recently retrieved a bottle of wine. It got a thorough scrubbing with a bleach/water solution and aired in the sun.
  • I looked up information about making trusses for post frame buildings. I didn't find much. I'll keep looking.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/22: Fly Tying Order
  
  • We received over an inch of rain throughout the day. Right before sunset, the sky cleared. Sloppy water puddles were everywhere.
    
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch project.
    
  • At twilight, Mary heard two American woodcocks east and northeast of the house.
  • We saw the conjunction of the waxing moon and Jupiter in the western sky. Venus was below them.
    
  • I was a bum all day, reviewing fly tying equipment and materials. Before bed, I placed an order. I was only a couple bucks over my allotted dollar amount. There's all kinds of fun in my future.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/23: Windy
  
  • The wind blew hard, especially in the morning.
  • We watched a red-tailed hawk sitting in a walnut tree at the northwest corner of our lawn. When Mary went out with the dogs, it flew to the north.
    
  • Mary made a large batch of minestrone soup. She also worked on a cross stitch pattern.
    
  • I worked out a list of health issues that I have, then wrote them down to take with me on tomorrow's visit to the doctor.
    
  • I got an email that the fly tying order from J. Stockard shipped today, the very next day after placing the order.
  • My friend, Alison, put a link on Facebook to a very good country music artist called Tony Jackson, who sang a fabulous version of the Randy Travis song, "Diggin' Up Bones."
    
    
• Friday, 2/24: Doctor's Visit
  
  • I went to the Lewistown Clinic to see Dr. Arvin Abueg. He's Filipino. I liked him. My blood pressure is high...160 something over 90 something. I weigh 155 pounds. At one point in Circle, MT, I weighed 185. There's more activity in my life, nowadays. Dr. Abueg took a blood sample. From that he will be able to determine my blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and how my kidneys, liver, and thyroid are functioning. He says this will establish a baseline. He sent in a prescription for a glucometer for me. He will get results from tests on my blood on Monday, then call in appropriate drug prescriptions. The Lewistown Clinic folks will call me after that to let me know the details. I'm to visit him two weeks after all of this takes place. He asked me to immediately start taking baby aspirin, not only as a blood thinner, but to protect organs, such as kidneys. I'll know more next week.
  • Mary cooked up three New England pumpkins and froze 4 quarts of pumpkin meat.
    
  • We took a hike to throw out pumpkin seeds for birds and critters to eat. Then, we walked the dogs down to Wood Duck Pond and back.
    
  • In the evening, Mary finished her Theodore Roosevelt book. I diddled around online.
  • Below is a photo of one of my son's T-shirts that was on the line drying last weekend.

  

  Bill's T-shirt...typical example of his humor.

• Saturday, 2/25: Mothballs for Vehicles
  
  • Last night's freezing drizzle put a skim of ice on the front porch that reminded me of the pebbled surface of a curling rink. It melted quickly.
    
  • Mom and I texted back and forth, comparing medical information.
    
  • I put one mothball in each of my Gatorade bottles that have holes drilled in them, which I put under and in vehicles to keep chewing critters away. One mothball added every other month seems to refresh them. The pickup has 14 bottles in the engine compartment and 11 under it for a grand total of 25. The Buick has 13 in the engine compartment, seven around it, for a total of 20.
    
  • I aired up a Buick front tire. I was pleasantly surprised that the wheelbarrow tire I recently fixed dropped only 5 psi in air pressure.
    
  • Snow geese are still flying east and west each morning and evening. In other words, they're milling around right now and not flying out of here.
  • I looked at past years of this blog. Plato walked into our lives nine years ago. Here's a LINK to that day.
    
  • We watched the 2011 movie, The Grand Exotic Marigold Hotel. It's really very good, with several outstanding British actors in it.
    

Feb. 12-18, 2023

Weather | 2/12, 25°, 55° | 2/13, 27°, 55° | 2/14, 0.21" rain, 39°, 50° | 2/15, 0.16" rain overnight, 37°, 40° | 2/16, 0.08" rain, 25°, 32° | 2/17, 7°, 34° | 2/18, 27°, 55° |

• Sunday, 2/12: Pruning Large Fruit Trees
  
  • Mary and I pruned the Prairie Fire crabapple, the Esopus Spitzenburg apple, the large pie cherry, and the large Bartlett pear trees. Mary did the low branches. I pruned the higher branches standing in a ladder while Mary directed where I should cut while standing on the ground. Pruning four large trees in one day is quite an accomplishment. They all looked vastly improved as a result.
    
  • While pruning, we saw several flights of snow geese heading west. We watched on group dodge a bald eagle and a single engine plane. Watching their white wings flash in the sunlight as they turn in midair is like watching a school of fish dodging a predator fish in the ocean.
    
  • We also heard a fox bark in the woods southwest of our house.
    
  • After 5:30 p.m., we listened to the 57th Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles. The Chiefs won 38-35, after being down by 10 at halftime. We rooted for the Chiefs. Bill texted occasionally through the game on what plays we ought to watch. After the game, Bill said he heard fireworks outside.
    
  • I washed 12 wine bottles while listening to the game.
    
    
• Monday, 2/13: Pruning Sargent
  
  • We enjoyed a warm, sunny day.
  • Mary and I pruned the Sargent crabapple tree. It's a very wide tree, so the job took most of the day. Mary did ground-level branches and I worked on the ladder to trim upper branches. Birds don't seem to like the dried up blueberry sized apples, but Plato loves them. There are now several on the ground, so he's going to be happy for several days. We hauled away several armloads of cut branches.
  • While pruning, we watched a pair of red-tailed hawks circling above us. We also saw the usual compliment of snow geese heading west. In the evening, I watched 12 trumpeter swans fly southward. We thought the swans were gone, but apparently some are still here. On the last dog walk, we heard coyotes howling to the southwest and south of us.
  • I made a doctor's appointment for this Thursday and 1 p.m. in Quincy for a general checkup, especially to get back on diabetic medication. This time, I called in. Last month's online request for a doctor's appointment failed. Quincy Medical Group's online geek forgot to tell anyone to monitor their own website, I guess, since I never heard back from them via an online appointment request.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/14: Pretty Rainbow & Snow Geese
  
  • I gave Mary a haircut.
  • Mary fixed a barbeque pork loin dinner with green beans and sweet potato. The last two items came from our garden.
    
  • Mary made an apple crisp, using Empire apples we picked last year. It tastes great.
  • It rained for most of the day, but cleared as the sun was setting, giving us a nice rainbow (see photos, below). Clouds filled the sky, again, after sunset.
    
  • Right at sundown, huge numbers of snow geese (our guess is 3,000-4,000) landed in the neighbor's field east of us. The entire field was white with birds. We tried to photograph them with a cell phone's shutter looking through an eye piece of binoculars. It didn't work.
  • We heard our first killdeer while the snow geese were raising a ruckus east of our property.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine with our apple crisp and watched the 2019 movie, Downton Abbey. The wine is amazing.

A double rainbow, looking east from our house.

Another photo of the rainbow.

• Wednesday, 2/15: Turkeys, Shopping & Geese
  
  • When I opened the living room curtains after awakening, there were seven male turkey gobblers slowly walking across the west lawn. They turned and walked east just north of the house (see photos, below), then turned again and walked south on the west side of the far garden. Finally, they disappeared to the east. These are large birds. No wonder they sound like dump trucks when they land in treetops when I'm hunting deer in the east woods.
    
  • We shopped in Quincy, IL, today. The streets and stores were nice and quiet, which is just the way we like them.
    
  • Mary found a shooting rest for $25 at the Salvation Army store. It's a very nice addition that I can use for sighting in my rifle prior to hunting season. In the past I've used several big rags and a portable clamping Black+Decker Workmate.
    
  • We turned out of the Salvation Army parking lot onto Broadway in Quincy and then waited in traffic for an hour as all traffic was stalled, due to a potential suicide incident in the middle of the Bayview Bridge that crosses the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri. HERE is WGEM's take on the situation.
  • While sitting in traffic, I returned a call after receiving a voice mail from Quincy Medical Group. Tomorrow's doctor's appointment is postponed. The person who took my original call is new to her job and didn't know that doctors in that facility must approve of a patient prior to becoming their primary care provider. Now there's a phenomenon that's unfamiliar to me. This is sure a fiasco just to see a doctor!
    
  • We got home before darkness set in. Mary immediately handled putting chickens to bed. While doing evening chores we heard a cacophony of snow geese to the northeast. We're guessing that even more geese than yesterday were settling on fields and water on and beyond our property. They were loud enough to resemble highway traffic on a busy interstate road.
  • We smelled a skunk as we emptied the pickup of the groceries and items we bought today. It was the first skunk of this year. Did the geese scare the skunk? Maybe.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine. This wine is wonderful iced.

Seven wild turkeys marching in single file.

Each of these turkeys have a beard.

• Thursday, 2/16: Mom's Test Results
  
  • Freezing drizzle, light rain, and sleet fell throughout the day. Light snow started falling at dusk.
  • Yesterday evening, Mom learned the results of her head scan. The episode Mom experienced three weeks ago was a slight transient ischemic attack (TIA). She also has a spot in her brain's white matter which indicates a stroke in the past. It was probably when she passed out over a year ago. "Anyway, there is nothing  I can do for this," she said, "other than what I do now...take blood thinner, keep the blood pressure down, eat healthy, drink plenty of fluids, etc."
  • We had a midday wienie roast over the coals in our woodstove.
  • I took the dogs on a walk to just beyond Bass Pond and back. Snow geese continue a dull roar in the neighbor's field east of us. I tried to record their noise on my phone, but a strong north wind blowing through cedar trees negated geese calls.
    
  • We enjoyed pots of Yunan loose-leaf tea and watched the 2022 movie, Downton Abbey: A New Era. It's very good. That's the last of all Downton Abbey videos.
    
    
• Friday, 2/17: Snow Geese Lift Off
  
  • The snow geese that were loud in a field northeast of us for a couple days lifted off right after sunrise and headed west (see video, below). It was an amazing sight to see so many birds flying overhead all at once. Based on snow geese migration maps that Mary looked up, geese flying through here nest north of Hudson Bay and even in northern Greenland.
    
  • Mary made two cherry pies, flour tortillas, and chimichangas, which we ate for our midday meal. The pies are for someone's birthday.
    
  • Mary and I cleaned house, today.
  • Karen sent me a photo of daffodils blooming next to her home in northeast Georgia.
    
  • After cutting them down with a hacksaw to the correct size, I replaced the screws attaching the toilet seat and lid to the hinge with stainless steel screws. Why on earth would a manufacturer use cheap screws that easily rust on such an item?!
    
  • I also replaced the curtain rod holders with sturdier versions in the south living room window and replaced the curtain rod.
  • We read books in the evening. Mary is currently reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, by Edmund Morris and I'm reading Co. Aytch, by Sam R Watkins, who was in the Confederate Army in the Civil War and is often quoted in Ken Burns' The Civil War documentary.
  Snow Geese flying west over our house.
  

• Saturday, 2/18: Bill Arrives, Turkey Dinner & Michigan Rummy
  
  • More snow geese flew over this morning. They came in from the northeast, quickly raising in altitude and actually grunting with their efforts. As soon as they got to directly above our house, they turned and flew due west. It makes us wonder if our house isn't some kind of pinpoint on their biological mapping system. Online reports indicate that millions of snow geese are arriving, then immediately leaving Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge on the west side of the state. Loess Bluffs is due west of us.
    
  • Bill arrived at 11:30 a.m. for a weekend visit.
    
  • Mary fixed a turkey dinner, complete with a green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and turkey gravy. This was 23-pound bird, the biggest she's ever baked. It was delicious. Not including a gallon bag of breast meat she stored in the fridge for future meals, Mary put six quarts of turkey meat in the freezer after our meal was over.
  • At twilight, I heard trumpeter swans to the south, watched a small V of snow geese fly to the southwest, and heard the first woodcock of the season in the trees just north of the burn barrel.
    
  • Bill, Mary and I played Michigan Rummy for about five hours. Mary won by just a few points. I was second. Bill took third, although he said he won if you go by golf scoring rules of the lowest score getting the win. We each enjoyed two pots of loose-leaf tea and a quarter piece of cherry pie. A good time was had by all!
    

Feb. 5-11, 2023

Weather | 2/5, 27°, 55° | 2/6, 26°, 59° | 2/7, 31°, 49° | 2/8, mist, 19°, 43° | 2/9, rain & snow, 1.56" moisture, 29°, 37° | 2/10, 19°, 37° | 2/11, 17°, 47° |

• Sunday, 2/5: Pruning Trees
  
  • We're now noticing snow geese flying high and going west. They congregate at Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in northwest Missouri, which is due west of us, then head north.
    
  • Mary did two loads of laundry.
  • Mary and I pruned small fruit trees. She did most of the work. I was recruited to reach high in trees to get upper branches. The pruned trees include the small Bartlett pear, 3 blueberry bushes, six small cherry trees, the Empire apple tree, and the Granny Smith apple tree.
  • I added hardware cloth around the base of a cow panel surrounding our smallest cherry tree after seeing that a rabbit nearly bit the trunk of this tree in two. I also added a plastic tree guard to the tree.
    
  • I charged the Buick's battery for another day, then disconnected the ground to the battery to help preserve its charge.
    
  • We enjoyed a second batch of cinnamon rolls, pots of loose leaf tea, and watched four episodes of Downton Abbey.
    
    
• Monday, 2/6: High Wind Gusts
  
  • We experienced a real windy day, with gusts to 40 mph.
    
  • Mary baked a chicken with sweet potato, baked potato with turkey gravy, and green beans for our midday meal.
    
  • She also sketched for 45 minutes and did some cross stitching.
  • I spent all day looking for fly tying tools and materials. A place in CT named I. Stockard is where I'll buy my supplies. Now I just need to finalize what to purchase.
  • We walked the puppies to the Cherry Blind, near the northeast corner of our property. Based on heavy sniffing by the dogs, a great deal of game wonders through the field next to Cherry Blind.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/7: Frightful Floor Joists
  
  • I opened the basement entrance for the first time in a couple years. After sweeping the narrow concrete steps down to the basement, I vacuumed spiders in the overhead floor joists and the webs hanging from them. 
  • I saw something rotating in one of the two 3" pipes that empty into the sump. It was the moving body of a live snake. It's probably the reason we see fewer mice in the house this year.
  • After our midday quiche meal, I thoroughly looked into the crawl space under the west side of the house. Floor joists on the east side, under the kitchen, are newer pine joists, because when Mary's Uncle Herman first moved here, the kitchen floor was rotten and he replaced everything, including the joists. Under the bathroom, living room and west room is original oak floor joists installed in 1908. The crawl space under them contains wet earth and these boards are rotten. I can see a one-inch gap between the joists and the bathroom floor. There are some concrete supports (it looks like Herman's work) in the middle of the floor. One of these is tilting. Replacing these joists would be tough and dangerous, since the crawl space is very thin near the east wall the house. I think we need to get very serious about building a different structure to live in, even if it's small. Before long, the floor of this place will collapse and I don't want to be in it when it goes.
    
  • We walked the pups on the south trail loop. Amber bounces like a bison when on a long walk.
    
  • We enjoyed popcorn and watched three episodes of Downton Abbey.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/8: Considering Building Ideas
  
  • Mary took four clippings off the ficus tree and restarted it. This weeping fig fills about a quarter of the sunroom (see photo, below). Since we need to inhale to suck our bellies in to get through the door, it's time to gain a smaller version of the plant. Mary first bought the plant in 1989. It's gone through several clonings.
    
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch project.
    
  • Investigating post and frame options for a new house was today's endeavor for me. I measured what seemed like a minimal living space for us, which is the size of our current kitchen, pantry, bathroom, living room, and west bedroom on the ground level. It's 31' 4" by 31' 4", or 982 square feet. Then I developed possible widths and lengths that match that square footage. Finally, I looked online for books that describe this type of construction. I didn't find anything current. I'll have to do more digging.
  • I walked the dogs on an east loop. There weren't too many deer tracks in the dry creek bed sand, but some of the tracks I did see were very large.
  • Bill's friend from high school, Craig, was T-boned while driving his car today. Craig wasn't hurt, but his car is totaled.

  

  When a weeping fig takes over a room.

• Thursday, 2/9: Nice Moisture Dump
  
  • We woke to huge snowflakes settling on the ground. The snow only fell for a short time and melted quickly. It rained hard earlier in the night and into the morning hours, as indicated by deep puddles and running water. In one overnight rain we received a normal rainfall amount for the entire month of February.
  • Mom texted that she feels in good shape after I asked her how she's doing. She gets a CT scan of her head tomorrow (2/10) in Glendive. She's riding the senior van to get to and from Glendive. She's also getting an ultrasound of her carotid arteries during a visit to a vascular surgeon in Miles City on March 1st.
    
  • I balanced our checkbook.
  • Mary made a venison General Tso midday meal.
    
  • I did flooring research and took step-by-step notes on how to construct a concrete-free slab on grade foundation.
  • Mary's package from 123stitch.com came in today's mail. She sorted floss skeins.
    
  • Mary and I took the dogs on a walk to the end of Bobcat Trail and back. The lichen on trees was bright green after the overnight and morning rain. We heard a barred owl singing out in the north woods while we walked back to the house.
    
  • We watched four episodes of Downton Abbey.
    
    
• Friday, 2/10: Soil Research
  
  • While walking our pups this morning, we heard a dog yipe north of the machine shed. Mary walked back fast to the house and spotted the neighbor's black lab next to the west doorway to the machine shed. I tucked our dogs inside and saw him between the machine shed and the bins. We seem to always have neighbors who own dogs that run wild.
    
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
    
  • I spent most of the day trying to determine load capacity of our soil types, but to no avail. Our frost line is 30 inches here.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • We walked the dogs on a north loop. There is no trail running across the north end of the north field, so we walked game trails. The dogs loved it.
    
  • During evening chores, we watched huge Vs of thousands of snow geese fly northeast above us.
  • We watched the final two episodes of Downton Abbey to finish the TV series.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/11: Building Calculations
  
  • Cardinals are starting to sing their spring songs every morning.
  • Mom texted that yesterday's scan of her head was quick and easy. She doesn't know results until she visits Patti Wittkopp in a few days. Hank is visiting Mom over the weekend.
    
  • I took old fire brick pieces I removed last fall from the woodstove and stacked them on the concrete pad where we have cookouts. Then, I lit a small fire inside the stacked pieces, using wood scraps from under the wood splitter and we cooked up smoked eggs. Smoked eggs are scrambled eggs with a chopped up shallot and frozen green peppers. When cooked over the open fire in a cast iron skillet, the egg retains smoke flavor. It's really yummy.
    
  • Mary did some house cleaning.
  • I did more post and frame construction research. I found a pdf file from the Vermont Extension Service of a pamphlet called Pole and Post Buildings: Design and Construction Handbook. It helps determine several building concepts. The 50-year wind high for here is 87 mph, which equals 15 pounds per square foot upward pull on a post and frame roof. Posts spaced 9.7 feet apart with a 10.5 foot side wall will hold up in that velocity of wind. Our ground snow load is 20 pounds per square feet. I used a formula to estimate concrete footing sizes at the base of each post on various building widths in our clay soil. It varies from a 20-inch footing for a 32-foot wide building to a 14-inch footing for a 15-foot wide building. Since we're not thrilled with living in a trailer-width house, we'll probably need to go with a wider concrete footings. My calculations might be off, since I didn't add the weight of an insulated attic in the building.
    
  • We walked the dogs on an east loop. The dry creek wasn't dry...it was full of running water. We walked through brush, thorny rose bushes and under stickery cedar trees into an area we rarely visit under tall cedars (see photo, below). The pups enjoyed the side trip.
    
  • In the evening, about a dozen Vs involving thousands of snow geese went overhead flying west. We also saw a low-flying bald eagle, twice.

  

  Me under tall cedar trees at the base of Black Medic Hill.