March 26-April 1, 2023

Weather | 3/26, 35°, 55° | 3/27, 28°, 49° | 3/28, light snow, 34°, 51° | 3/29, 31°, 49° | 3/30, 30°, 70° | 3/31, 0.21" rain, 56°, 71° | 4/1, 34°, 51° |

• Sunday, 3/26: Chainsaw Chaps Saved My Thigh
  
  • We enjoyed a mostly sunny day.
    
  • On the morning dog walk down the lane, we heard a wild turkey gobbling to the east.
  • Asian ladybugs marched en masse today. While Mary made two quiche egg pies, I vacuumed continuously in the kitchen. Mary vacuumed the entire house several times. I emptied the vacuum in the afternoon. We must have millions of bugs packed under the vinyl siding of this house through the winter. Several hundred, or thousands venture inside each day. A new home built tight would help.
  • While emptying the shop vac, I saw a bat sunning itself on the east side of the house. It saw me and crawled under a piece of vinyl siding, which indicates how tight this house is built!
  • I went into the north woods and collected two more buckets of rotten wood, this time from a rotting hickory branch. Roots from surrounding bushes seek out the nutrients in the decaying wood. Some of it is pure black.
    
  • I watched a deer run off to the west right after I entered the north woods.
  • Mary and I hiked the dogs on the north trail that is filled with deer tracks. Mary spotted a big buck deer track and showed it to me. It was on the east side of the north woods.
    
  • I cut down persimmon trees near the Bartlett pear trees in order to give us space for a trail accessing the west field and to give us room for fencing around the pear trees and blueberry plants.
    
  • While operating the big chainsaw to cut down these small trees, I got the saw too close to my left thigh. It touched and cut a 3-inch slice in the chainsaw protective chaps I wear while using the saw. It's a good thing I wear the chaps. That mistake would have cut into my leg muscle without the chaps. They're made of nine layers of Avertic, a type of Kevlar manufactured in Sweden, that snags the chain and stops it. I had what looked like fiberglass fibers on the chain. Afterwards, I had to remove the chainsaw's sprocket to unwind the fibers wrapped around the sprocket shaft. I need to get a new pair of chaps. Once they're cut, you toss them. They're very, very worth wearing when running a chainsaw.
  • I saw two Vs of snow geese flying east while doing chores this evening. They are late! Migrating snow geese are usually done by the first day of spring.
    
    
• Monday, 3/27: Spraying Dormant Oil
  • A barred rock hen got over the chicken yard fence. I chased her out of the east side of the chicken yard. Instead of going in the gate, she roared past Mary and zipped down the west side. Mary chased her back, where she hid behind a blackberry thicket. Mary clapped her hands loudly and the hen went south and ran through the gate. Then Mary picked blackberry stickers out of her clothes.
    
  • Mary weeded the asparagus bed. She added compost. It's too early for shoots to appear.
    
  • Mary and I poured a 40-pound bag of sunflower seeds and a 50-pound bag of oyster shell into buckets and took them out to the chicken coop.
    
  • I mixed up two tank loads of dormant oil and sprayed the small Bartlett, the large pie cherry, five small pie cherry, the sweet cherry, the Porter's Perfection crabapple, the Liberty apple, Empire apple, Granny Smith apple, Grimes Golden apple, and the Prairie Fire crab apple trees. I ran out of spray on the second tank on the trunk of the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree.
    
  • We watched the 2009 movie, The Blind Side.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/28: Dormant Oil Spraying Finished
  
  • We woke to light rain that turned to snow, but there wasn't enough to register in the rain gauge. The sky cleared around 10 a.m.
    
  • We watched five deer cross the lane when we walked the dogs this morning.
    
  • Mary vacuumed bugs a couple times.
    
  • Mary and I pruned the old McIntosh apple tree. Last year I took out the dead branches and had a big stack. This year, we pruned away live branches and came away with another large stack. There's more breathing room in the middle of the old tree, now.
    
  • I mixed two tankfuls of dormant oil and sprayed the McIntosh and Esopus Spitzenburg apple trees, along with the large Bartlett pear tree. All dormant oil spraying is done.
    
  • Mary did the evening chores while I finished spraying.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/29: Mother Nature Isn't Always Kind
  
  • After checking the Antonovka apple seeds I have in the fridge, I found a seed growing a root and planted my second apple seed.
    
  • Plato found a rabbit laying on the ground in front of the Buick's driver side tire. It was breathing, but died later that morning. We spotted rabbit fur north of the car. Something happened. We're guessing it was two rabbits fighting. I took it to the middle of the north woods.
    
  • I collected six buckets of soil by leveling off mounds dug up from moles in our yard. The soil close to the house is better than the pure clay soil elsewhere on our property. Today's work takes out hills that make mowing the lawn difficult and gives us good soil to help build up the areas where we'll plant apple trees. By mounding up the earth, the new tree roots stay above soggy soil during wet times, giving new trees a better chance for survival.
    
  • Mary planted pepper (both hot and sweet bell peppers) and sage seeds.
  • She also weeded the garlic beds and added fish fertilizer. Despite not much snow for winter insulation, Mary reports that the garlic plants are vibrant and green. Only tips are burned by freezing. It looks like 98 percent of the bulbs grew leaves.
    
  • We walked the dogs to Wood Duck Pond and back. On the way home, we stopped at Bass Pond. Both ponds were calm and peaceful. Bass Pond's water has turned over. We saw a couple ripples in the middle from some large fish, which might have been a grass carp or catfish.
    
  • Down at Wood Duck, Mary spotted the tail of a fish that was recently eaten. It looked like the tail of a bluegill. We're guessing it was possible caught and eaten by an otter. Nearby, we spotted a squirrel jaw. We thought this was the work of some raptor.
    
  • I moved three cow panels to the three spots were we'll plant new apple trees. Two were surrounding the sweet cherry tree and one came from the Grimes Golden apple tree. The sweet cherry never produces much, so we decided not to worry if deer eat branches from it. The Grimes tree has a dwarf rootstock that hates our clay soil. I'm saving it so I can graft branches from it onto better rootstock. It had two cow panels around it, one of which I removed. I added strands of wire to close off the semi circle created by removing the cow panel and added four fence stiffeners. This should keep munching deer at bay until I can do some grafting, hopefully after my Antonovka seeds grow into saplings large enough to be rootstocks.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/30: The Broken Record Call of the Asian Ladybug
  
  • The Asian ladybugs never end. We remove them with a shop vac several times every single day. There must be millions and millions packed into the walls of this house. It's exhausting and very old.
  • Mary swept and mopped the floors and dusted. She also made flour tortillas.
  • I mowed eight-foot wide circles in the three areas where we'll plant new trees. We received a notice from FedEx that the trees shipped today from Fedco in Maine.
  • I noticed that the narcissus plants are sprouting near the Empire apple tree. I also saw that the hyacinths are poking through the ground north of the machine shed.
    
  • I mowed up leaves under the pecan trees and filled up the compost bin to add organic matter.
    
  • I moved all of the branches I pruned off the McIntosh apple tree into the north woods. Old growth apple branches are extremely crooked and grab onto every nearby branch, weed, and leaf.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2021 pear wine to celebrate "Indictment" day, or as the brilliant genius wrote in his Truth Social account that he was "indicated." The wine has a deep gold color and a strong pear taste. It's very good.
    
    
• Friday, 3/31: Just Hail Here
  
  • Schools in our county closed today, due to weather predictions. Our western side of the county was under a Level 4 severe weather advisory, while eastern Lewis County was in a Level 5 advisory, the highest. Tornadoes failed to touch down here, but we did see pea and marble-size hail (see photos, below). Our geography seems to always divert the worst weather around us. We're grateful for that. Storms that went through our area grew in size and developed tornadoes in Iowa and Illinois.
  • Mary watched weather throughout the day. She set up the weather radio. It has a new alarm when a nearby weather alert initiates that sounds like a police siren.
  • I vacuumed bugs all day. Mary gets bad sinus issues and a bad headache when vacuuming bugs, so I'm taking over the chore as mush as possible. I hope they leave and get back to the woods, where they belong.
  • Mary heard a brown thrasher in the cedar trees in our east yard, the first of the season.
  • The first Antonovka apple seed that I planted sprouted.
     

Hail in front of our east porch.

Hail under the forsythia bush.

• Saturday, 4/1: Bill Arrives for Weekend
  
  • High winds, up to almost 50 mph, dominated the day.
    
  • Mary made two pizzas for our midday meal.
    
  • Bill showed up around noon. He said it was interesting driving north in a car that is basically the same weight as balsa wood.
  • While Mary cross stitched, Bill and I racked, then corked 23 bottles of persimmon wine (see photo, below). The specific gravity is 0.990, unchanged from a little over a month ago. The pH is 3.2. We drank leftovers. This wine is very unique and quite good. It has a brown sugar flavor, yet a fruity taste. I think it's a wine I'll want to continue to make. The color of the finished wine is amazingly clear, considering the murky, burnt orange color of the actual fruit. For the first time in months, we have no wine brewing in the pantry.
    
  • Bill picked out two movies he has never seen that we watched. They were Crazy Rich Asians, and Wonder Woman.

  

  Newly bottled persimmon wine.
  

  
   
  

March 19-25, 2023

Weather | 3/19, 13°, 40° | 3/20, 25°, 59° | 3/21, 0.02" rain, 39°, 47° | 3/22, 0.09" rain, 39°, 49° | 3/23, 0.02" rain, 37°, 45° | 3/24, 31°, 49° | 3/25, 0.63" rain/snow, 29°, 54° |

• Sunday, 3/19: Homemade Maple Syrup
  
  • Mary did a load of laundry, some house cleaning, and a little bit of cross stitch.
  • I rearranged my master "To Do" list. It was too cumbersome. I created several categories, then highlighted important items in each category.
    
  • I walked the dogs on the east loop trail. Recent winds have knocked down a number of tree branches and trees. I have firewood collection and clean up to do in the near future.
    
  • In an attempt to eat better food that helps my blood sugar, I made maple syrup to use on waffles instead of honey. From experience making syrup with Splenda when we lived in Circle, MT, maple extract, Splenda, and water never thickens. It's like pouring water on waffles. It also goes bad quickly. Today, I tried a recipe I found online that adds xanthum gum as a thickener. We found xanthum gum in powder form at Walmart on our last shopping trip. I used McCormick maple extract. The recipe called for 1 tablespoon. It wasn't enough. I used 4 tablespoons. Next time, I'll seek out Crescent's Mapleine. It's better maple extract. The recipe called for 1 teaspoon of xanthum gum. Next time, I'll use less. It thickened the syrup substantially (see photo, below). Our nickname for it is rock snot. HERE is a link describing real rock snot. Fortunately, this syrup tastes pretty good. Plus, it's better for diabetic me than honey.

  

  My maple syrup, a.k.a. rock snot (left) & honey (right).

• Monday, 3/20: Heart Failure With Medicine Pricing
  
  • I made waffles for breakfast and tried out the new homemade syrup. It's good and I think I can make it even better in the future.
    
  • I called the Lewistown Clinic and left a message asking to speak to a nurse, who called back within minutes. I gave her my blood sugar numbers for the past week, asking if further adjustments should be made now, instead of waiting another week, due to continuous high figures. She talked to my doctor, who agreed with my assessment and boosted my metformin prescription and added another diabetes drug.
  • I drove to Quincy. The new drug, Jardiance, costs $624.64 for 30 pills and my share of the cost is $505, which equals Humana's Stage 1 deductible on my Part D plan. I had heart failure when I heard that price and told the pharmacist I'm not buying that drug. I called Humana, then called Lewistown Clinic, asking if my doctor could change the medication to something more affordable. I repeated what the Humana person said, which is to ask the doctor to prescribe a Tier 2, instead of a Tier 3 drug. I got a quick call back from the clinic's nurse, who talked to the doctor. He will get back to me tomorrow and said to get the newer metformin, which I did.
    
  • Meanwhile, back on the home front, Mary vacuumed bugs five times. They are horrible, today. She also did three loads of laundry. Sun and high winds worked well for quickly drying clothes outside.
  • I looked up and saved an application form for financial help from the drug company that sells Jardiance.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/21: New Cheaper Meds
  
  • We watched a male bluebird hunt for bugs on the ground below the sweet cherry tree. The bird's colors were amazing. I heard an eastern phoebe this morning, the first of the season.
  • Katie sent a TikTok video of a race up a mountain that she participated in on Saturday, 3/18. All race participants were walking up a mountain with wind swirling snow about. Mary said it is reminiscent of 1898 Chilkoot Pass gold rush photos.
    
  • Mary and I discussed various options for paying for high-priced medications.
  • A call from the Lewistown Clinic nurse at 11 a.m. solved the medication issue. My doctor came up with a different drug. It's not as good as Jardiance. As soon as I eat through the $505 deductible, he suggests I switch to Jardiance. 
  • I drove to Quincy via Lewistown, since gas is cheapest there right now at $2.99 per gallon. I fueled up the pickup, then drove to Quincy. The newest blood sugar med is Glipizide and it was only $2 for a month's supply.
  • In other eye-rolling news, I tried to get more blood sugar testing strips. My price was to be at full charge, without insurance help, because Sam's Club is in the middle of an audit by the Federal government that's lasted over a year. The pharmacy sends my request for test strips back to the federal government, who, after 7 days (but usually takes more than 7 days), they send my doctor a form that he fills out, then sends back, then they approve or disapprove of my purchase. Another option is for the doctor to send the prescription to a different pharmacy, but it cannot be Walmart, because that pharmacy is under the same audit. I drove home, tired of the entire fiasco!
    
  • Mary vacuumed bugs two times and made flour tortillas. After getting home, I took over vacuuming.
    
  • We enjoyed two pots of loose-leaf tea.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/22: Leatherwork & Fleas
  
  • Mary practiced drawing this morning.
  • I used the basket weave leatherworking tool and put a pattern on half of a new checkbook cover I'm making for us. It's a Tandy kit I bought in Billings, MT many years ago.
    
  • One of my Antonovka apple seeds that I have in the refrigerator developed a root, so I planted it. I'll use these trees as rootstocks for grafting.
    
  • Mary and I walked the dogs on the north loop trail. At the northeast corner of the trail, Plato barked with hair up on his back at something that we never saw. We're guessing it was a fox or a coyote. On the way back home, Mary saw a deer. We heard cardinals singing everywhere while we walked our property. This evening, I watched a meadowlark sit in a black walnut tree in our east yard and sing loudly.
    
  • Mary mended several clothes.
    
  • I cracked a dozen hazelnuts for tomorrow's oatmeal breakfast. Yesterday, we used the last of the pecans we picked last fall, so we didn't have nuts on this morning's oatmeal. We also put a sliced up Granny Smith apple and several blackberries in our bowls.
  • We saw rain, mist, and fog through the day. Tonight, thunderstorms developed around us.
  • Mary found a flea on Amber's head, so she did a thorough search with a flea comb on both dogs. She found a biting flea on Plato. She put baking soda on the upstairs north bedroom rug, the dog blanket in that room, and on the two chairs the dogs sleep on in the living room. Baking soda desiccates fleas. We used it with success last year.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/23: Basket Weave Leather Stamping Finished
  
  • Rain was falling this morning. Mary said she saw lightning flashes through the bedroom curtains prior to us getting up. The rest of the day was gray and cloudy.
    
  • Mary went through four drawing lessons.
  • I finished the basket weave pattern on the new leather checkbook cover that I'm making (see photo, below). Next will be to stamp the border.
    
  • Mary made a delicious chicken dinner with potatoes and turkey gravy, sweet potatoes, and a side dish of coleslaw. It was amazing.
    
  • She also cooked another Diablo pumpkin and froze four quarts of pumpkin meat.
    
  • The hazel nuts mixed in with our morning oatmeal was good, but a dozen wasn't enough, so I cracked 20 nuts today for tomorrow's breakfast.
    
  • On our walk with the dogs, we went to Wood Duck Pond. Christmas ferns are sprouting next to the creek dumping into the pond. Mary says they are electric green in color.
    
  • I removed the rim from our smallest wheelbarrow and inserted a new valve stem. I tried to mount the new tire, but the outside temperatures were too cool to work a new and stiff tire over the rim. I took the tire inside to warm up overnight. Hopefully, I can get it on the rim tomorrow. Gandalf the Gray (cat) fell in love with the tire. He spent a good 10 minutes rubbing against it.
    
  • I cut two persimmon trees that were about two inches in diameter near the big Bartlett pear tree. I also pulled up old wire out of the tall dead grass, coiled it up, and put it on the salvage pile. I want to put an electric fence around the Bartlett pear trees and the blueberry bushes and cut a path through the persimmons so we can drive the tractor west. The old path going west is filled with blackberry and black raspberry bushes that give us high yields, so we'll abandon the old path and make a new access route.

  

  New leather checkbook cover in the making.

• Friday, 3/24: Shrimp Dinner & Wheelbarrow Tires
  
  • Mary practiced drawing. Today, she drew a cup and saucer, a wine glass, and an apple.
  • I called the company that makes Jardiance, the expensive drug I didn't buy. They have a customer assistance program. I don't qualify, because I own a 401K. When I told Mary that we don't qualify because we're rich, she showed me the holes of the T-shirt she wore today and laughed.
    
  • Mary made a shrimp dinner that was really amazing.
  • Hordes of bugs continue marching into our house. Mary did two rounds and I sucked bugs once.
    
  • I worked on the small wheelbarrow tire pretty much all day. In the morning sun, I attempted to put the tire on the rim for almost an hour, but to no avail. I'm sure the tire is too small for the rim, despite the numbers imprinted on the Chinese-made creation. I put the old tire back on the rim with ease. After trying to inflate the old tire as a tubeless setup and not succeeding, I quit that route. I dug an old shot wheelbarrow once used by Mary's Uncle Herman from under a junk pile at the west end of the machine shed. That tire looked good and it held air when inflated. After cutting spacers out of a plastic pipe, I installed the tire assembly on our small red wheelbarrow. It works great. Mary suggested propping up the old wheelbarrow next to the woodshed and using it as a planter for lettuce this summer.
    
  • My blood sugar numbers are improving. The first week, I had after-meal numbers in the upper 200s. One was 302. Wednesday and Thursday I had before breakfast numbers of 96. Last night, my nighttime after-meal number was 137 and this morning, my pre-meal number was 84.
    
  • The Sargent crabapple tree is in the green stage...showing leaf buds.
  • We enjoyed two pots of loose-leaf tea this evening while reading.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/25: Preparing New Apple Ground
  
  • We woke to falling snow, after going to bed with rain pounding on the roof. Mary was up a half hour prior to the alarm going off and said it was snowing hard at 5:30 a.m. By 9 a.m., all of the wet snow melted and the sun appeared around 10 a.m.
    
  • Mary practiced drawing. Today she did three dead oak leaves and a pair of scissors.
  • I started bug sucking duties with a vacuuming stint throughout the house, then emptied the shop vac near the west woods. That five-gallon vacuum was almost half full of Asian ladybugs. Mary took it up and vacuumed almost continuously for the rest of the day.
  • We enjoyed a venison General Tso midday meal.
  • I cut borders on the leather checkbook cover.
    
  • I sharpened the machete and cut dead grass and weeds away from the three new apple tree planting spots south of the house.
    
  • I collected four buckets of rotten, dead wood from an oak tree that fell in the north woods about four or five years ago. It's added, with other amendments, to where we'll plant new apple trees.
    
  • We watched the 2004 movie, The Day After Tomorrow.
    

March 12-18, 2023

Weather | 3/12, 29°, 41° | 3/13, 23°, 35° | 3/14, 22°, 42° | 3/15, 24°, 58° | 3/16, 0.06" rain, 31° in p.m., 55° | 3/17, 0.35" rain, 20°, 37° | 3/18, 10°, 27° |

• Sunday, 3/12: Another Gray Day
  
  • The weather was mostly cloudy. Temperatures dropped from noon onward and a strong northwest wind picked up in the afternoon and evening.
    
  • Mary cooked up another Diablo pumpkin that resulted in 4 quarts of pumpkin meat in the freezer. The pumpkins are lasting for an amazingly long time stored in the dark cold closet of the back porch.
  • We ordered 25 chicks from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO. Huge portions of the summer months are blocked off for obtaining chicks from Cackle Hatchery, probably due to a boost in people buying chicks for at-home egg production. Our chicks ship on Monday, 6/12, about 10 days earlier than we wanted them. It's the closest date we could get. Most hen varieties are temporarily unavailable, so we passed on getting new hens.
  • We also ordered two pounds of ginger powder. We can't find it in Sam's Club, so we got this from a company in Houston, TX, for $15 and no shipping cost.
    
  • During a late afternoon dog walk on the south loop trail, a wood duck hen flew straight up into the air, after lifting off Bluegill Pond. It's amazing how vertically they can fly.
    
  • Mary received a text from Bill that his cold wasn't much better, so he decided upon staying home from work tomorrow, in order to get better. He also is thinking on visiting us on April 1-3, but he still has to ask for the time off.
    
  • I did more online research on post-frame foundations. The best involves suspending the post 8 inches off the bottom of the hole, then pouring enough concrete in to cover 10 inches up the bottom part of the pole. This provides both a support pad under the pole and an adhesive hold above the bottom of the pole to hold it in place due to uplift factors during high winds.
    
    
• Monday, 3/13: Doctor's Visit
  
  • I went to a scheduled doctor's appointment at Lewistown in the morning. Blood pressure is down slightly, but still too high, so the medication was altered with an addition of a diuretic. My blood sugar was high enough on my last visit to classify me as a candy bar. Now, I measure it two times a day, record it for two weeks, and hand that in to determine future drug regimen changes. 
    
  • After returning home, Mary and I investigated meal tweaking to help handle diabetes.
    
  • We took a hike to Wood Duck Pond with the puppies. Water levels are high. The pond is full and so is the once dry creek bed. We found a skeleton on the side of Bramble Hill that we think is that of a raccoon.
    
  • Mary put wood ashes on the sugar maple in the north yard.
    
  • I worked at setting up the blood glucose monitor, what I call the "poinker." It's a bluetooth enabled glucometer. I also created a chart for writing down my blood sugar amounts.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/14: Dessert & Debarking
  
  • Mary made a dessert and created a shopping list. We're shopping tomorrow.
    
  • I sharpened the draw knife, then removed bark off five of the 10 tall persimmon stakes I cut when I took down trees under the Kieffer pear tree. Persimmon stakes that we've used as fence posts in the gardens rot and break off, but they go in with the bark on. Persimmon is supposed to be very hard wood. I want to see if removing the bark and letting the wood dry before using it might make for a stronger post. I gathered up all of the persimmon bark shavings and stored them in a 5-gallon bucket to use as compost on future apple trees.
  • Sitting on a narrow post over a 2x4 sawhorse and reaching out to pull a draw knife toward me used a lot of muscles unused through the winter. Tonight, my body is wondering what's wrong with my brain.
    
  • Cardinals and tufted titmice sang all day in the sunshine.
  • We watched 12 wood ducks fly out of Bluegill Pond this afternoon. 
  • It sounds like the Canada goose mating pair is back nesting in the neighbor's pond across the gravel road. They were there last year. We hear them in mornings and evenings.
  • Katie texted that she's still in Venetie, AK.
  • Ryan Redington won this year's Iditarod sled dog race today. It's nice to see an Alaskan native and grandson of Joe Redington, Sr. win the Iditarod.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/15: Shopping Trip
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL.
    
  • Our first stop was the Salvation Army, where we found really cheap LED light bulbs (60-watt equivalents, four bulbs for $0.99) and bought our six package limit. While talking to Emily, the Salvation Army store's assistant manager who worked at Petco when I worked at the pet store, she said once a month Ameren, the electric company for most of Illinois and towns in Missouri, donates the light bulbs. She said they sell out quickly. I also bought super fuzzy yarn (see photo, below) to use in making flies for fishing.
    
  • We found frozen shrimp at a reduced price at Aldi and bought four 12-ounce packages. They had a due date of 3/16/23.
    
  • I picked up new blood pressure medication at Sam's Club.
    
  • We saw a squadron of American white pelicans floating high in the sky over the Mississippi River while we shopped in Quincy. Mary spotted a Bonaparte's gull as we drove across the Bayview Bridge over the Mississippi.
    
  • I felt strong south wind gusts as I drove the pickup home. Upon arrival at our mailbox, we saw smoke to the southwest of our property where an idiot neighbor lit a field of grass on fire. That's not a smart move on a highly windy day!
    
  • I replaced CFL light bulbs with newer LED bulbs throughout the house. The curly design of CFL bulbs attract and collect Asian ladybugs and appear hideous. The LEDs are instantly brighter, use less energy, and don't have bug-collecting nooks and crannies. Bill will be thrilled. He complains about how lit up our house appears. It's now brighter...ha, ha, ha!!!
    
  • We bushwhacked through hundreds of Asian ladybugs with the vacuum cleaner, since we didn't get to them, because we were out shopping.

  

  Fuzzy yarn for making new fishing flies.

• Thursday, 3/16: Beetle Bugs, Please Leave!!!
  
  • In light of today's headline, this is the main reason. While helping Mary wash dishes, an Asian ladybug flew near my ear. They sound like B-52 bombers when they buzz by your head. I swatted hard at the bug and accidentally smashed the end of the fingers of my left hand onto the top of the kitchen counter, cracking two of my fingernails lengthwise. Cracked fingernails hurt a lot! From that point forward, beetle bugs got an extra dose of my vacuuming fury. I rigged up a vinyl glove, cutting off fingers of the glove, but leaving the two longest glove fingers intact, so I wouldn't snag broken fingernails on blankets in my sleep and bleed all over the bedding.
    
  • We had rain in the form of continuous showers, but not a steady rain, for most of the day. The wind switched from the south to west to northwest. At nighttime, a northwest wind blew with 40 mph gusts.
    
  • We sucked bugs all day! Mary and I took shifts. Armies of Asian ladybugs marched into the house every second.
    
  • While walking the lane to get the mail, I watched two wood ducks drop through the tall oak trees and land on Bluegill Pond. About five seconds later, once they noticed me walking on the lane, they take off.
  • Across the gravel road, seven Canada geese are marching around in the neighbor's driveway. Last year, only two geese were there. I'm guessing the youngsters from last year showed up with the two parents, this year. Maybe there will be a raft of geese in their yard in three years.
    
  • I found a company in eastern Illinois (near Peoria) that's a leader in post-frame bracket manufacturing called Perma-Column. I also found a Texas post-frame building company who puts several formulas on their website to help determine building construction decisions.
    
    
• Friday, 3/17: Spring Peepers to Snow Flurries
  
  • When winds blow from a specific direction, Asian ladybugs always gather on the inside of windows on the opposite side of the house where the wind is hitting. Today, we had a northwest wind, so we vacuumed bugs on the south and southeast interior parts of the house. Mary sucked bugs once midday and I took my tour of duty after dark.
    
  • We walked the dogs on the north loop trail. All of the deer trails are laden with water. Our topsoil is saturated.
    
  • I reviewed a Lewis County soils map and the area we want to build a house on contains Kilwinning soil, which is a clay, silt mix. I also downloaded a 1992 Lewis County Soil Survey book, which contains thorough descriptions of this soil.
    
  • The spring peepers were out speaking their minds in the morning, but later in the day, they went into hiding.
  • Katie is back home in Anchorage. She asked her mother some indoor plant questions.
    
  • When we walked the dogs at night, the wind gusts were strong and falling snow swirled by us. A woodcock lifted off from a cedar tree and I caught it for a few seconds in the flashlight as it hovered above us.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/18: Cold & Windy
  
  • Cold temperatures, high northwest wind gusts, and clouds were on the agenda, today. We even saw a couple snow flurries. We were mainly inside. Birds and animals were hiding in or under trees.
    
  • I looked up information about the new high blood pressure drug recently administered to me...Losartan/HCT.
  • Mary made vegetable soup, this time without store-bought tomato juice. In its place, she used a can of tomato paste and a gallon of frozen homegrown tomatoes. It's the best vegetable soup she's ever made and it's less expensive.
    
  • I found an LSU Extension Service website with directions on how to make trusses.
  • I walked the dogs on the south loop and scared up nine wood ducks.
  • Mary keeps finding nice chicken feathers that I save for future fly tying attempts.
    
  • We watched the 2020 movie Wonder Woman 1984 and the 1994 movie, Little Women, while enjoying two pots of loose leaf tea.
    

March 5-11, 2023

Weather | 3/5, 31°, 60° | 3/6, 51°, 60° | 3/7, 32°, 49° | 3/8, 0.07" rain, 35°, 45° | 3/9, 0.57" rain, 37°, 45° | 3/10, 29°, 39° | 3/11, 0.23" rain, 23°, 41° |

• Sunday, 3/5: No More Snow Geese or Swans...Enter Robins
  
  • On this morning's dog walk, Plato was sniffing for a long time underneath a cedar tree along the lane. After too much sniffing, a Bob White quail flew out from under the tree, heading east.
    
  • Mary did two loads of laundry. A strong southeast wind helped dry clothes quickly on the line.
    
  • She also figured savings for the month and filled out bills.
  • I did online and in-house book research on building roof trusses.
    
  • We enjoyed a barbequed pork loin midday dinner and a bottle of 2022 dandelion wine (see photo, below). It was our first taste of the 2022 version. The larger piece of ginger I put in the 2022 batch adds to its flavor. Mary says it possesses a citrus flavor and the wine is a bit bitter. It's quite good. Unfortunately, it means I need to continue making dandelion wine, even though picking dandy petals takes forever.
    
  • We no longer see or hear snow geese or trumpeter swans, but lots of robins yell at us every evening as they gather in walnut tree tops in the east yard.

  

  The golden glow of a partial glass of 2022 dandelion wine.

• Monday, 3/6: Bugs, Bugs, Bugs!
  
  • The day started out quit warm and quickly went to 60°. A northwest wind blowing off fields of snow in northern states eventually brought our temperatures down.
  • Mom texted that Circle, MT, is receiving snow flurries and cold temperatures. She said, "I wish things would start warming up!" I told her I want colder temps, here, so fruit trees don't bloom prematurely. Her reply was, "We can't win, can we?"
    
  • Morning warm temperatures brought out hordes of Asian ladybugs. Mary and I took turns vacuuming bugs as they marched through windows, walls, and doors.
    
  • As Mary made biscuits, I continuously sucked up bugs in ground level rooms so we wouldn't add crunchy insects to our food. Ain't our house lovely!
    
  • Mary trimmed the tarragon and chives, then watered them, because both are growing in their respective pots. She's considering enlarging their pots or adding additional pots after splitting them up.
  • When I walked the dogs on the south loop trail, I saw two wood ducks on Bluegill Pond that didn't fly off, which is unusual. Most of the time wood ducks sitting on that pond beeline out of there when we show up.
    
  • I cleaned up the big chainsaw, then sharpened one of the two chains using a new file.
  • Through online searches, I found an Amish company called Eicher Truss and Lumber, north of Canton, in our county, that might be a good source for roof trusses.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/7: Cutting Unwanted Trees
  
  • We saw this season's first turkey vulture gliding over the house, today.
    
  • I used both chainsaws to clear small trees and cut them up south and east of the house. Several are black walnuts growing too close to fruit trees. Black walnut trees release a chemical called juglone, which suppresses growth in other plants. Other trees I cut down were maples in the west yard and persimmons directly under the Kieffer pear tree. The persimmons are growing into the lower branches of the pear tree. Ten tall persimmons became stakes. I cut up all of the rest and stacked the green wood in the machine shed to dry. Branches went to a brush pile southwest of the house and near the west woods. Cut branches under the pear tree still need to go to the brush pile.
    
  • Mary mended clothes inside while listening to a Great Courses lecture on World War I.
    
  • I cleaned both chainsaws.
  • While walking into the west end of the machine shed, I saw the legs of a cat disappearing under the north edge of the building. Mary and I heard a deer snorting at us just north of the machine shed while we were talking inside the building.
    
  • I found an online calculator to help decide footing sizes of a post-frame house based on several variables. I also found dead weight amounts online for various post-frame building scenarios.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/8: Cloudy Day
  
  • We were cloudy with an east wind gusting to 20 mph.
    
  • I balanced the checkbook.
  • Mary worked on her Native Raven cross stitch pattern. HERE is an image of the finished product.
    
  • I moved the rest of the persimmon branches from small trees I cut that were growing under the Kieffer pear tree. The brush pile is high, now. It's amazing how many branches grow on these small trees.
  • Our cats were busy. In the morning, they killed a juvenile prairie king snake. While we washed dishes after dark, Mocha ran a mouse out from under the kitchen counter that Juliet promptly grabbed and ate.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/9: A Long Rain
  
  • While walking dogs in the morning, we watched some wood ducks fly out of Bluegill Pond and as they headed south a peregrine falcon flew in to try to intercept them.
    
  • Rain started falling around 9:30 a.m. and continued until around 3:30 p.m. It rained hard, at times.
    
  • Mary cross stitched on her Native Raven pattern.
    
  • I labeled the 25 bottles of garlic wine and filled a cooler with them. Mary says I need to take a break on winemaking, since we're running out of room in the upstairs north bedroom with all of the coolers of wine in there. That might be hard to do.
    
  • Mary and I listened to the Third Reich audio book, featuring the Nazification of Germany by Hitler, including journalism, movies, arts, religion, and education. One religion, banning books, and dictating how to educate children are some present-day topics in today's news.
    
  • We watched the 2003 movie, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and the 1998 movie, The Man in the Iron Mask.
    
    
• Friday, 3/10: Apple Wine Tastes Great
  
  • It was mostly cloudy and windy all day. Wind gusts over 20 mph are a daily event.
  • I made waffles for breakfast. Mary made venison General Tso for our midday meal.
    
  • Both Mary and I performed some light housecleaning chores.
    
  • I finished stacking green persimmon wood in the machine shed.
    
  • We tried a bottle of 2022 apple wine two months after bottling it. Mary said it tasted like cider. It possessed a good flowery apple taste and didn't have an alcoholic flavor.
    
  • I found a 34-page online pamphlet from the Purdue Extension Service entitled Managing Pests in Home Fruit Plantings that is the best fruit tree spraying guide I've seen about the subject.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/11: Rain, Construction Research
  
  • Mary heard, then saw an eastern towhee in the forsythia bush, near our east-facing entrance door. It's the first of the season.
    
  • Mom texted that a blizzard was roaring through Circle, MT, today.
    
  • Gray clouds eventually led to rain in the afternoon/evening.
  • We walked the dogs on the south loop trail and did our chores early, due to expected rain. While on the lane, a great blue heron lifted off from Bluegill Pond and flew south. Then, as we neared the pond, five wood ducks flew off.
  • Mary made two quiche pies and we enjoyed one for a midday meal. We're receiving 5-6 eggs a day from the hens.
  • After updating the wine inventory written on a large sheet of paper in the pantry, I did online research of the four soil types on our property. I found an engineering study for a proposed water tower in a small town between Ames and Davenport, Iowa, involving the same soil type. At 4-6 feet, the soil capacity was 2,000 pounds per square foot, which is double the capacity I thought our land's soil possessed. Plunked into a formula I found, it means we need a 24-inch by 8-inch cement footing at the base of posts on a post-frame building.
  • Bill texted that he has a cold. He's hoping it's better by Monday.
    
  • We watched the 2017 movie, Wonder Woman.