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.