Dec. 24-31, 2023

Weather | 12/24, fog, 49°, 61° | 12/25, 0.53" rain, 63°, 33° | 12/26, 31°, 39° | 12/27, 0.14" rain, 35°, 35° | 12/28, 0.02" rain, 2" snow, 29°, 37° | 12/29, 0.48" moisture, 29°, 35° | 12/30, 22°, 43° | 12/31, 28°, 33° |

• Sunday, 12/24: Christmas Eve 2023
  • After opening the curtains this morning, we saw six deer in the two gardens. They jumped or walked over fences with ease. Of course, all electric fences are off. With live electric fences, they stay away.
    
  • I split a small portion of firewood and loaded three wheelbarrow loads into the woodshed. That job ended due to a spattering of rain.
    
  • We enjoyed a smorgasbord in the evening of a multitude of cheeses, slices from a summer sausage, several vegetables, and ranch dressing dip, plus desserts.
  • Bill, Mary, and I played Yahtzee. Bill won. He got four yahtzees in one game. I took second place and Mary was in third place.
    

• Monday, 12/25: Christmas Day 2023
  • We had rain and heavy mist all day, gaining just over a half an inch of moisture.
    
  • We unwrapped presents this morning. Highlights: Bill gave us a portable record player and two old Christmas records. We also received a 4K disc of this year's Oppenheimer movie. We gave Bill a short-handled shovel that I've owned for several years. I cleaned it up with a wire brush on an electric drill and sandpaper on the wooden handle. The metal parts got flat black paint and Mary put mineral oil on the wood. Below are before and after photos of the shovel. Mary looked up the company name revealed after I cleaned it up and this shovel dates back to prior to World War II, when it was made to be installed on the side of U.S. Army Jeeps. HERE is a website link explaining the shovel. Bill needs something for removing snow from under his car. I used it in Minnesota and Montana while shoveling snow to dig out the '84 GMC Suburban. It works well.
    
  • I called Mom. Hank is with her for Christmas. He brought the ingredients and she fixed a stuffed chicken, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, with apple pie for Christmas dinner.
    
  • Bill, Mary, and I played Azul, a unique and fun board game that Bill gave us for Christmas. It was so good, we played it for 6.5 hours.
    
  • Katie called during our game and we talked for quite some time. It was morning (12 hours ahead of us) at her base and she was in the gym, exercising "to keep up with these youngsters," as she put it. She said they're getting lots of snow in Anchorage. She and her group aren't allowed off the base, due to current circumstances. She's due back on this side of the world in April.

Old shovel before it was cleaned up.

WW II-era shovel after we removed rust & painted it.

• Tuesday, 12/26: Bill Leaves for His Home
  
  • Bill left for his St. Charles apartment at 1 p.m. He had several chores to do prior to going to work tomorrow, like grocery shopping. He said the traffic driving south was less than he expected.
    
  • Mary and I reviewed all of the books that we received as Christmas gifts.
    
  • I caught my wine diary up to date, which involved all of the winemaking activity since Oct. 28th.
    
  • We heard several Canada geese up in the sky squawking when we walked the dogs on their final outing after dark.
    

• Wednesday, 12/27: Christmas Decorations are History
  
  • We experienced light rain and mist throughout today. Snow was predicted, but never showed until well after dark set in. Because of the snow prediction, we left chickens inside the coop.
    
  • I did some planning and checked online to discover all erroneous charges were removed from our credit card.
  • Mary dusted and removed Christmas ornaments. I started helping her remove them as she got toward the end of glass ornaments, then I took down all of the lights and stored them away as she took down the artificial tree. She swept up and moved furniture back into place. We are now back to more space in the living room.
  • I discovered on Facebook that Al Tennant, the former pottery teacher at Homer High School back in the early 1970s, when I was in high school, is originally from Terry, MT. It's a very small world. He now lives in Coupeville, WA, on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle.
    

• Thursday, 12/28: Snow
  • A natural weather forecast is bird activity. Sun was out earlier today, but we noticed hardly any birds. When that happens, weather is arriving. Afternoon clouds grew darker by the hour as weather crept in from an unusual direction, from the northeast. When we finished evening chores at 3:30, we started seeing snow. By an 8:30 p.m. dog walk, about an inch of snow was on the ground. Snow was even deeper on our second dog walk at 9:30 p.m. (see photo, below). Birds knew it was coming.
    
  • We were going to do a bunch of things, both inside and outside, but we were basic bums, and didn't accomplish much more that online drivel.
  • I found out that the Quincy Herald-Whig is dropping down to printing the newspaper just two times a week for all subscribers, so I canceled our subscription. I think they're rapidly going out of business. It saves us $13.95 a month or $167.40 a year. Recently, we see most daily issues of the newspaper at 10 pages that are read in just a couple minutes, so it's not a great loss. We'll just have to light fires some other way after our stack of newspapers runs out.

  

  After 2" snowfall on near garden & nearby cedar trees.

• Friday, 12/29: 33 Years Together
  
  • We started the day with a late white Christmas, as seen in above photo. It was the second two-inch snow this winter. Our first was on Nov. 26th. A lot of the snow melted throughout the day.
    
  • Mary saw three deer out the south living room window when she opened the curtains this morning. They saw her and ran into the west woods.
    
  • Today is our 33rd anniversary. I'm 66, so half of my life has been with Mary. I must say, I've really enjoyed this second half of my life with her.
    
  • Mary picked seven cross stitch patterns and then inventoried current floss she has that fit these patterns. The ultimate goal is to buy material and floss for these seven patterns that she doesn't have while using Katie's present to Mary, which is a $100 gift card to 123stitch.com.
    
  • Mary practiced drawing from nature photos she likes.
  • I labeled the the 27 bottles of 2023 pear wine and put them away in three coolers that had available space.
  • I cleaned tape residue using Goo Gone from the surface of some bottles I bought over a year ago. I then washed the Goo Gone off with Dawn soap, then washed 20 bottles to add to the five already clean bottles to have enough for bottling blackberry wine. I also put winemaking stuff away in the west room that was all over the place.
    

• Saturday, 12/30: Goodbye "Twistie" Lights
  
  • We finally eliminated all of the CFL "twistie" bulbs. I replaced them with LEDs. Good riddance on the twisties, since they were the worst bug collectors...no more cooked-on Asian lady bugs between the coils!
    
  • I drove to Quincy to get some medications and a couple items. Mary read online that this weekend was the biggest shopping time of the year. I believe it. The people were out in droves. Several parking lots were packed with cars. Fortunately, I had no more than two items to get per store visit.
    
  • Mary fixed up a very nice chicken meal.
  • We played the Azul game that Bill gave us for Christmas in the evening. It's a very fun and interesting game.
    

• Sunday, 12/31: Bottling Blackberry Wine
  
  • We watched six deer run away to the east as we stepped out on the porch to walk the dogs this morning. First, Plato growled, which spooked the deer out of our east yard, and then they ran into the east field.
    
  • Mary drew a historic flint scraper that she once found on a creek north of our place in the 1980s. 
  • She also finishing a Halloween cross stitch ornament.
  • I researched online about adding Kmeta during winemaking and discovered my levels are generally correct. The amount required is based on pH. The lower the pH, or the more acidic the wine is means less preservative, or Kmeta, is required. A common pH for grape wine is 3.8, resulting in adding a full quarter teaspoon, or 2.3 grams of Kmeta, to a 5-6-gallon batch. My wines often measure a 3.0 pH, where one gram is more than enough.
    
  • I racked the blackberry wine for the fifth time and bottled the equivalent of 26 bottles (one was a 1.5 liter bottle). The specific gravity was 0.995, resulting in an alcohol level of 10.9 percent. The pH was 2.9, which is extremely acidic. I added two-thirds of my normal amount, or 0.6 grams of Kmeta. The clear bottles shows off a pretty deep red/purple color of this wine (see photo, below). We tasted it and this stuff is GOOD! We think blackberry flavors in dry years are more concentrated in the fruit. This wine has an unusual deep berry flavor. It's also extremely tart, due to the high acid.
    
  • We watched the 2023 movie, Oppenheimer, given to us as a Christmas present by Bill. It's a good one.
  • Mary and I finished off a bottle of 2021 pear wine and yelled "Happy New Year" at midnight. This bottle was in the fridge. Pear wine tastes better at room temperature, not chilled.

  

  Clear bottles (front) show off color of '23 blackberry wine.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Dec. 17-23, 2023

Weather | 12/17, 33°, 45° | 12/18, 25°, 33° | 12/19, 15°, 41° | 12/20, 26°, 51° | 12/21, 43°, 57° | 12/22, 0.07" rain, 43°, 51° | 12/23, 49°, 57° | 

• Sunday, 12/17: A Firewood Day
  
  • I walked the dogs to the east, down Black Medick Hill, north on the dry creek bed, then back home via Bramble Hill. As we walked, I assessed the best route to drive the tractor to get firewood in the east woods. We saw lots of deer tracks on all of the trails.
    
  • With the prospect of high winds tomorrow, which means it's not wise to be in the woods, I cut firewood today. I drove to the bottom of Bramble Hill and cut up a big maple tree that recently fell down just north of there. It was about 18 inches thick at its base. It made for a full load in the trailer. 
  • Mary showed up as I was nearly finished loading the firewood into the trailer. For two days she's had a Buff Orpington hen hide under the coop when she's trying to put all of the chickens into the coop for the night. Mary had to return several times to the chicken yard before it finally showed up to go inside.
  • Mary and I finished loading the trailer with firewood, then unloaded all of the big chunks and stacked them next to the woodsplitter in the machine shed.
  • A surface element switch is going out on our kitchen stove. While Mary was making tortillas, the large element she always uses stayed red hot and never cycled off while the setting was on eight. She had to turn off the stove to get that element to shut down and when it did, there was a loud click from within the stove. I checked old blogs and discovered I replaced it in 2017. I found a new one on repairclinic.com for $44, then other switches on different websites for half that price. I'll order a new one tomorrow.
    
    
• Monday, 12/18: Fourth Racking of Jalapeño Wine
  
  • We experienced strong northwest winds, with gusts to 40 mph.
    
  • Mary made a huge pot of minestrone soup. We ate some of it. With winds howling outside, this was a perfect hot soup day.
    
  • I racked the jalapeño wine for the fourth time (see photo, below). We tasted the leftovers. This wine seems mild at first, but the aftertaste reminds you in a strong way that it's made from hot peppers. The specific gravity is 0.993 and the pH is 3.1. In past versions, I bottled this wine on the fourth racking. It always develops floaties, so I decided to go another month in the carboy with this variety. I pulled a small amount of fines off during this racking. We even tasted the dregs with the fines in it and they weren't too bad. The clear glasses of leftover wine was really good!
    
  • We watched a movie.

  

  Fourth racking of jalapeño wine, plus leftovers!

• Tuesday, 12/19: Cookies!
  
  • After opening bedroom curtains this morning, we saw three deer walking to the west on the trail to the ponds.
  • Mary and I reviewed the pear wine and perry (pear cider). The pear wine looks clear and ready to bottle. The perry is almost clear, but with a hint of cloudiness. I'll rack the perry and let it sit for another month and bottle the pear wine.
    
  • I pulled the cook stove away from the wall, removed the back panel, then the surface burner switch, recorded the part number and then ordered the part from a parts store in the Twin Cities for a little over $20. It was in the mail by the end of the day.
    
  • Katie messaged me that she got the Christmas care package that we sent her. It took 10 days to get to her through the U.S. Mail, which I thought was pretty speedy. She said temperatures have been moderate, with lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s.
  • Mary baked a batch of butterscotch oatmeal cookies. Of course, we had to test one each.
    
  • I cut up more firewood next to where I sawed up a downed maple tree two days ago. This time I cut up a standing dead ash tree. The firewood pieces, ranging from eight inches in diameter to half-inch kindling sticks, filled the trailer to the top of the sides. I unloaded the trailer back home to appropriate locations. Ash always sounds like baseball bats slamming together when you stack this firewood.
    
  • I updated the wine diary to Oct. 29th. There's so much to write about...so many wines that were made.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/20: Perry & Firewood
  
  • We saw three deer in the far garden first thing this morning. Mary didn't want them grazing on garlic plants, so she opened the bedroom window and tapped on the outside of the house. They easily jumped over the garden fencing, but didn't go far. As they slowly walked north I saw a total of six deer. I had two deer scamper off when I walked the lane to get the mail this evening.
    
  • I racked the perry (pear cider) for the fourth time. There was between 1-2 inches of very loose fines at the bottom of containers. I thought I did pretty well at getting the most liquid off those fines by losing only a quart of must. I was left with 3.75 gallons. Unfortunately, the resulting liquid was cloudier. The specific gravity is 1.004 and the pH is 3.1. The resulting liquid went into a 3-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jug, and a 750-ml wine bottle. Mary and I tasted it and this time, after more aging, we liked the perry. It's tangy with a touch of bitterness. Mary said it tastes like green olives. I think it's got a pear taste, but also an essence of cinnamon. We think it might be good on a hot summer day.
    
  • I took the small chainsaw, along with the tractor and trailer, north to the east side of the north woods and cut up dead oak limbs and small dead hickory trees. Mary helped by scouting out dry firewood before I showed up. She also helped load the trailer. We came back with another wagon of wood, which mainly went into the woodshed. Anything wet was stacked in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary put new hay on the floor of the chicken coop and raked leaves that went into the compost bin.
  • Mary made chocolate peanut clusters. They're in the freezer solidifying. We tasted tested one each...YUMMY!!!
    
    
• Thursday, 12/21: A Veggie Run
  
  • Mary heard snow geese flying over the north woods this morning. She couldn't see them, due to low clouds.
  • I went to Quincy on a veggie run. Mary chops and cleans up radishes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and celery and we dip them in Ranch dressing dip as part of our Christmas eats, along with other goodies Mary bakes or creates. We decided yesterday that I should go today, since tomorrow, the day before Christmas weekend, might be worse for Christmas shoppers. Stores were busy today, but I found everything we needed.
  • Mary swept and mopped floors.
  • I was going to make a batch of garlic wine, but we decided to wait. Nothing deadens the Holidays like the "BO" smell of garlic wine in the making.
  • The hickory and oak limbs that I cut up for firewood yesterday really kick out heat from the woodstove.
  • Tonight, while walking the puppies, we heard deer snorts very close to us. They came from Bluegill Pond. My guess is this deer was about 50 away from us.
    
    
• Friday, 12/22: Lime Zingers!
  
  • Light rain, mist, and then fog kept conditions wet outside. The first full day of winter felt like spring. I'm starting to think we live in northern Florida.
    
  • I called on a credit card charge that we didn't make. Over the past month, we were dinged with two charges at about $400, each, to National General Insurance in New York, and $200 to Comcast in Maryland. Two of those three charges were successfully dropped. The second New York charge was made the same day I called in the first erroneous charge and since it was for roughly the same amount, I didn't realize we were charged twice until I talked to the Wells Fargo representative, today. Wells Fargo is removing all of these charges, thank goodness.
    
  • Mary made lime zinger cookies. My contribution was cracking about 55 hazelnuts that Mary crushed and put in these cookies. Lime zest, plus the juice of the limes, also go into them. Mary freezes the cookies after bringing them out of the oven and letting them cool. They make a wonderful addition to pots of tea.
    
  • The cook stove burner switch came in today's mail, so I installed it. The appropriate burner works like a charm.
    
  • I cleaned 10 wine bottles, which, when added to the 19 bottles already cleaned, give me enough for the pear wine that is ready to bottle.
    
  • This evening as it was darkening outside and while Mary closed the west curtains in the living room, she spotted four deer walking through our west yard. They were two young ones, probably born this summer, and two does. One doe was a really big. The young deer were frisky and running around, playing.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/23: Bill Arrives For Christmas
  
  • The day started with dense fog that ended around 8:30 a.m.
  • Bill showed up for a Christmas visit around noon.
  • Mary made a pistachio tort, which is Bill's favorite dessert.
    
  • Bill and I racked the pear wine for the fourth time and bottled it into 27 bottles. The specific gravity was 0.999, giving it a 10.6 percent alcohol content. The pH is 3.0. The taste: very good and fruity.
  • We watched movies that Bill picked out.
    

Dec. 10-16, 2023

Weather | 12/10, 24°, 39° | 12/11, 25°, 46° | 12/12, 29°, 37° | 12/13, 26°, 46° | 12/14, 25°, 58° | 12/15, 33°, 58° | 12/16, 0.33" rain, 39°, 45° | 

• Sunday, 12/10: Deer One, Me Zero
  
  • We woke at 5 a.m. and after eating 10 crackers with peanut butter, I walked to my adopted oak tree overlooking Wood Duck Pond. A sliver of the moon was in the southeastern sky. I watched slush ice slowly form on a corner of the pond, until wave action started knocking it back. After sunrise, the sun highlighted trees on the west edge of the pond that reflected into the water for a beautiful image. A mallard pair swam close to me. I moved about a quarter of an inch. They saw my minuscule movement and immediately paddled away and out of sight. I saw no deer and went back home at 8:30 a.m.
  • I went to the Black Medick blind for a couple hours through the noon hour. I just saw squirrels. One ran across the tin above my head. They're always very curious about my presence.
  • After eating a midday meal, I went back to the oak tree at Wood Duck Pond. On the way there, deer snorted at me from the woods just north of the machine shed. A Cooper's hawk landed on a willow stump just below me. It sat there for about 5-10 minutes, then dropped down to the ground, grabbed something, and flew off to the east. Right before I left, I heard fast steps of something turning around and running away just up the hill and behind me. I suspect a coyote. I heard the clucks from turkeys and as I started walking home, a turkey flew out of a tree top just above the dry creek bed. I saw no deer. Thank goodness there was a new early anterless season this year, when I got a button buck. This is the first year I've been skunked through both the regular deer season and the traditional anterless season. This year, the deer didn't follow their normal patterns and I only recently started seeing tracks where they normally go. I guess we'll be buying more meat for the next year.
  • Mary and I celebrated the end of hunting season by sharing a bottle of blackberry wine, followed by a bottle of Kieffer pear wine. They both tasted wonderful. We watched two Christmas movies.
    
    
• Monday, 12/11: Another Medicine Trip
  
  • Last week the pharmacy refilled a prescription that wasn't empty, yet, when another ran out yesterday. I called it into the pharmacy on Saturday and got a text this morning it was filled, so I went to Quincy to pick it up, plus I got a couple other items. I eat up so much time and gas these days on getting drug prescriptions that run out about every week. It's a topic I'm going to discuss on my next doctor's visit.
  • Mary baked the one pumpkin we grew in our garden. It was significantly different from the five I bought. There were many more seeds and it was firmer and dryer, yielding more meat for the freezer. Instead of four quarts, Mary put away six quarts of meat from this pumpkin.
  • Mary also figured out our seed needs for 2024.
  • We watched another Christmas movie.
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/12: Last Of Pumpkin Processed
  
  • Mary finished pumpkin processing by cooking up the last one. She put four quarts of pumpkin meat into the freezer.
  • Our midday meal of chimichangas was covered with winter greens that I picked. The kale, lettuce, and arugula are growing nicely. It's great to have homegrown greens this time of the year.
    
  • I split the last of the firewood stacked next to the woodsplitter. Four wheelbarrow loads of mainly cherry wood went into the woodshed.
    
  • We watched two Christmas movies. 
  • I had one glass of 2022 apple wine. Patowee!!! It has a metallic taste. I'm working at getting rid of it, but don't have the heart to dump it down the drain.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/13: Pork General Tso & Harvesting Honey Locust Firewood
  
  • Since I only harvested one small deer this year, Mary decided to try the General Tso dish using a piece of pork loin, instead of venison. It tasted great.
  • Mary also made an apple crisp and worked up a shopping list for a trip to Quincy tomorrow.
  • I cut down a honey locust that I girdled several years ago. By making two cuts completely around the trunk of the tree years ago, or girdling it, I killed the tree. Honey locust trees have large two- to three-inch spines. When the tree dies and bark falls off, these spines go with the bark. Honey locust is extremely dense wood and burns hot for a long time. Once I dropped the tree, I cut it up into appropriate lengths, loaded it in the wagon behind the 8N Ford tractor, and hauled it to the machine shed, where Mary helped me unload it to next to the woodsplitter.
  • Mary and I spent about an hour this evening watching the Geminid meteor shower. We saw several while listening to barred owls and coyotes mouth off.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/14: Shopping, Again!
  
  • Two deer looked at us from the west woods as we walked puppies this morning, so things are back to normal now that nobody is hunting. We also watched a northern harrier hawk flew west to east over our property.
  • Mary and I shopped in Quincy, today. We found a Krupps steamer at the Salvation Army for $10. It's never been used, but sat in someone's storage and collected dead bugs. This gives us a standby rice cooker when our current one dies. We eat a lot of rice. That was our big "find" for the day.
  • We found everything we had on our list. Stores were filled with people, but we marched through all of them quickly. This was the "buy ingredients prior to making Christmas goodies" shopping trip.
  • On the way to Quincy, we saw two mature bald eagles eating on a carcass a few feet away from the road.
  • We returned home right before sunset. Mary and I divided up and got chores done, quickly. Mary said Silver, our silver Wyondotte hen, was marching back and forth behind the gate into the chicken yard, in expectation of getting fed for the evening.
    
    
• Friday, 12/15: Deer & Snow Geese
  
  • When Mary first took the dogs out on their morning walk, three big doe deer ran away. They were just south of the big cedar trees in our east yard. When I stepped out a few seconds later, they were running into the woods near Bluegill Pond.
    
  • I put away all of the lights and extension cords I had out in the machine shed for nighttime lighting in case I got a deer during the hunting season.
    
  • I worked on a Christmas present for most of the day. Only Santa knows the details of this present.
    
  • Mary drew up a new food chart listing an inventory of all of the food in various freezers. It involves several pages of old fan fold computer paper that's hung up on the pantry wall. As food is pulled from freezers, it's marked off, giving us a running total of everything.
    
  • Mary also cleaned the new-to-us steamer. Goo Gone was needed to remove sticky residue left from packing tape that was wrapped around the electrical appliance.
    
  • I counted all bottles of wine, and put the inventory on the new food chart.
    
  • On an after-dark outside visit, I had snow geese cackling at me because they saw my head lamp. Once I turned off the lamp, they quit yelling. I think they were flying west to east.
  • Bill sent a photo of the sunrise when he arrived at work this morning (see photo, below).

  

  A sunrise photo that Bill took this morning.

• Saturday, 12/16: A Nice Rain
  
  • We enjoyed rain and mist throughout the day. The moisture is very welcome.
  • Dark clouds and outside wetness kept our activity levels down.
    
  • We wrapped most all of the Christmas gifts.
  • Katie sent a photo (see below) of a very nice Christmas ornament that she made. She added a calendar (see below) with the following explanation: "There is a USO set up in one of the tents here, and they put on lots of fun events like this."
  • We watched two movies...Monuments Men and The Big Year. Both have a Christmas scene, so we've designated them as Christmas movies. They really aren't, but who cares? Not us!

A Christmas ornament that Katie made.

The USO December calendar at Katie's base.

Dec. 3-9, 2023

Weather | 12/3, 0.30" rain, 31°, 40° | 12/4, 29°, 43° | 12/5, 0.04" rain, 31°, 37° | 12/6, 23°, 47° | 12/7, 37°, 61° | 12/8, 45°, 59° | 12/9, 0.34" rain, 37°, 43° | 

• Sunday, 12/3: No Deer, Just Other Wildlife
  
  • Dozens and dozens of cedar waxwings are now in trees in our yard. You hear their peeping sounds everywhere.
    
  • I caught my wine diary up to Oct. 10th.
  • I hunted from the Wood Duck Deer Blind starting at 1:50 p.m. until legal deer hunting closing time, which today was at 5:11 p.m. I saw no deer, but plenty of squirrels. I heard swans and snow geese flying by to the north. I also watched turkeys land on Wood Duck Pond's north shore and walk to the west. I watched a nuthatch go down a nearby cherry tree, upside down, hop to a nearby oak tree, and go up that tree right side up. They're funny little birds.
    
  • Mary cleaned floors, did the evening chores, and worked on a cross stitch project while I was hunting.
  • Mary also made a new type of tortilla, made from flour, wheat flour, ground flax, Crisco, and water. The change is the addition of wheat flour and flax. It made a vast difference in my blood glucose reading. With traditional flour tortillas, I can only eat two and the blood sugar levels go high. If I eat four, it's way too high. Tonight I ate three of the new tortillas made into chimichangas. The blood glucose reading at bedtime was 86, which is really good a few hours after eating. Mary is happy that we're back to eating chimis!
    
    
• Monday, 12/4: Saw a Deer!
  
  • I got up at 5:30 a.m. and hunted at the Black Medick blind in the east woods. Nary a deer showed up. The rising sun gleamed through the base of the cedar trees up the hill and east of me and lit up the base of trees all around the east woods. It was really a pretty sight. When I walked home, I noticed only one set of deer tracks. Usually, the dry creek bed is filled with tracks. Deer aren't following their normal patterns this year and are absent in areas where they're usually abundant.
  • After breakfast, I studied aerial maps of our property and decided to try something new. I looked for spots to sit near cedar trees on the west side of Bass Pond to look westerly over the north pasture, since I saw two deer cross that area two days ago. I spotted a big buck rub on a honey locust tree and huge numbers of cedar berries (see photos, below). I found a spot and hunted there in the afternoon. Right at sundown, I watched a buck with a big body, but small antlers, walk towards me and veer off to a valley below the Bass Pond Dam, just north of me. It never saw me, but I had several clear views of it. Now, if only a doe, or button buck, would walk the same route, I'd have something.
    
  • While I hunted, Mary did morning and evening chores and finished a cross stitch Christmas ornament.
  • After a great chicken dinner, Mary and I shared a bottle of 2023 pumpkin wine. It's very good. You can taste the pumpkin and the cinnamon, so it's a real treat...almost like dessert.

Buck rub on 3" diameter honey locust tree.

Cedar berries are extremely abundant this year.

• Tuesday, 12/5: No Animal Movement, So I Watched Wind Blow
  
  • We woke to beautiful sun that turned to dark clouds an hour later. The clouds lasted for the rest of the day.
    
  • On Nov. 21st, we were contacted by our Wells Fargo credit card about a charge to a New York insurance company for over $400. I called them immediately to indicate that wasn't our doing and Wells Fargo issued us new credit cards. I checked today and there was a charge to Comcast in Maryland on Nov. 22nd for over $200, so I called Wells Fargo, again. They added that charge to the invalid charge claim. The two charges will be investigated in the near future.
    
  • I didn't hunt this morning, since I was tired and deer are absent, everywhere. I went to the Bobcat Deer Blind to hunt after our midday meal. I saw nothing, not even a squirrel or birds. At 3 p.m., I returned home, then went to my hidey-hole next to Bass Pond overlooking the north pasture. A northwest wind, with gusts to 20 mph, kept me awake. Several layers of clothing kept me warm. I continued to see nothing, except for a couple crows. I heard a barred owl. Cows north of our property mooed constantly throughout the afternoon and into the night. I think someone was in the hunting trailer just north of the fence bordering our north property line. It seems if you had cows in a pasture and wanted to hunt deer, you'd remove the cattle so they weren't constantly yelling at you while you hunted. I'm hearing shots every evening. There's more hunting pressure this year than we've ever seen during an anterless season in the past. I wonder if the current cost of meat in the supermarket is creating an incentive to hunt deer for venison meat, this year.
    
  • Mary did a load of towels, then hung them on the line to flap dry in the wind. She said, "That was cold deal!"
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/6: Mission Care Package
  • I didn't hunt in the morning, because I knew I needed to handle shipping a package to Katie.
  • I walked to the northwest and found a cedar tree to hide behind that's south of where I've been the past couple days. I needed a different location, since a several-day southwest wind would blow my scent into where I suspect deer walk.
    
  • On Nov. 23rd, I ordered a military care kit from the U.S. Postal Service. It was to arrive in 5-6 business days. We still don't have it, so since Katie said the deadline to mail a package and for her to get it at her base prior to Christmas is Dec. 6th, I took other action. I took the items we bought to send to her to the post office in Lewistown. Teri, the postmaster, prepared a box, got out the necessary forms, and then weighed each item, and filled out the forms for me. I thought we'd need two boxes, but she got everything into one box with amazing cramming and stuffing abilities. She thoroughly taped the box so that it could be drop-kicked to the moon without difficulty. The Lewistown Post Office doesn't have the right computer software to print out the necessary label, so I had to drive to Edina, MO, which is 20 miles west of Lewistown. I got it in the mail at 3 p.m. and the good folks at Edina assured me it was going out in today's mail. I've got to say, I'm very impressed with Teri at Lewistown, who, I discovered in talking to her, lives near us. She was very kind and helpful. She even told me not to go to Monticello, because that woman was crabby. Ah, the beauties of small town Midwestern life!
    
  • I bought a couple cans of gasoline on the way back home. Gas is $2.72 a gallon.
    
  • I got back home at 3:45 p.m., changed quickly, and went to my selected cedar tree, ready to start scanning for deer at 4:20. I saw nothing. At least the cows weren't continuously mooing. After I walked home, deer snorted at me from the west field just beyond our west lawn.
  • Mary and I watched two Christmas-related movies.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/7: Poor Marksmanship
  
  • We had a very warm day. It felt like spring.
  • I checked for deer tracks in the east woods. There are some tracks on the trail through Bramble Hill, where I wasn't seeing anything just a few days earlier. The south part of the dry creek bed still lacks tracks, but the north end of the creek and the south shore of Wood Duck Pond is filled with them. I picked out a wide oak tree to sit behind that is up the hill from that shoreline, near where I once put a stand in a maple tree about 10 years ago, and decided to try it this afternoon.
    
  • After a midday meal, I hunted facing Wood Duck Pond, behind that oak tree. A SSW wind blew down the hill and into the pond. I was looking for deer to the west of me. My squirrel friends checked me out. At one point, something hit the ground next to my right foot. I looked up and about eight feet above me was a squirrel looking down at me. I reached in my shirt pocket for my phone to try to get a photo of him and he spun around and scurried up the tree. About 10 minutes after sunset, a couple of deer showed up west of me, munching on twigs. If I would have been in my Wood Duck Blind, I probably would not see these deer. I shot as one turned around next to a tree, but missed. I think I yanked the trigger, instead of slowly squeezing off the shot. They ran off and another white tail flash of a third deer flew up the dry creek bed. That was it for me, so I walked home. 
    
  • While I was hunting, the mail carrier drove up to the house and dropped off our military care kit. Maybe we can use it in the future.
    
  • Mary and I watched a Christmas movie.
    
    
• Friday, 12/8: Shopping & Rain
  
  • I didn't hunt, because I decided to give it a break and let animals settle down. Besides, forecasts called for rain starting at 5 p.m., which would be when we'd be field dressing deer. Mary said she only saw and heard one bird...all wild things were under cover with dark clouds approaching.
    
  • Mary baked and froze another pumpkin. There are two more left to process.
  • I drove to Quincy for one of my medications, pork loin that was on sale at HyVee, and few other items. I got the "Scan and Go" feature to work on my phone at Sam's Club, which was cool. Christmas shoppers who can't decide which foot to put forward were out in full force, blocking aisles. When I got home, I realized the medication I needed wasn't the one that was automatically filled, so I have to return probably on Monday. The good news is gas prices are dropping. I got home as darkness fell.
  • Mary and I watched a Christmas movie.
  • Rain fell after we walked the puppies for their last outing. It was raining when we went to bed.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/9: Saw Deer, But Didn't Shoot
  • A sunny morning with deep blue skies turned cloudy by noon. We had west wind gusts to 32 mph.
  • I texted a few messages to Katie. She's extremely busy. Bill went to a gift exchange with a good friend and received a nice stainless steel frying pan with a long handle.
    
  • I hunted between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Wood Duck Blind. There are several deer tracks on the path down Bramble Hill to this location. I didn't see any deer. I watched a big V of snow geese fly overhead, from east to west. They were flying slowly, because they were battling against a strong west headwind.
    
  • After eating turkey pot pie that Mary made, I went back out hunting, this time to the oak tree spot facing Wood Duck Pond. Prior to setting up my stool behind the tree, I walked to the east fence line to make sure the neighbor was absent from the deer stand just over the fence. No one was there. I added reflective thumb tacks to various trees from the dry creek bed to that oak tree, so I can find it in the dark tomorrow morning with a flashlight. Wind blasted over top of the hill behind me and onto the pond. Wind swirls around that hill, so sometimes I'd feel a back draft on my cheek, blowing from the northeast, even though the wind was west, northwest. 
  • At 4:10 p.m., an eight-point buck showed up west of me. He slowly and cautiously walked below me, from left to just 20 feet down the hill from me. I was peeking around the oak tree trunk at him, occasionally only seeing the tips of his antlers, or one eyeball. He all of a sudden turned towards me, then trotted off to the west. I think some swirling wind sent my scent to him.
  • Around 5 p.m., three deer stepped out onto the flats northwest of me and walked down to the pond's edge to drink. It's illegal to shoot deer while they're drinking. Also, the end of legal shooting today was minutes away, at 5:11, with darkness setting in. I could not see antlers, or the lack of antlers, due to faint light conditions. The third problem was a willow thicket near the shoreline prevented me from seeing clearly. So, I didn't shoot. Tomorrow is the last day of anterless season. Hopefully, I have better luck, but at least I saw several deer today.
  • We watched a Christmas movie...When Harry Met Sally...it has a couple Christmas scenes in it.