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!