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.