Jan. 29-Feb. 4, 2024

Weather | 1/29, clear, 20°, 53° | 1/30, cloudy, 35°, 38° | 1/31, clear, 29°, 53° | 2/1, p. cloudy, 40°, 60° | 2/2, fog to cloudy to clear, 35°, 49° | 2/3, p. cloudy, 29°, 51° | 2/4, p. cloudy, 27°, 49° |

• Monday, 1/29: Sparkling Hoar Frost
  
  • Overnight fog painted all tree branches, grass, and bushes with white hoar frost that sparkled this morning (see photos, below).
    
  • We had our first full day of sun for a very long time.
    
  • A flock of cedar waxwings really showed off their nice colors in the tops of frosty trees this morning.
    
  • A pair of red-tailed hawks were sunning themselves in oak branches over the north edge of the west field, so after letting out chickens, Mary and I walked partway down the west field until they flew away. On the way back, Mary spotted spider webs in the bent over grass in the field. Spiders must have been there during our days of fog in pretty cool temperatures.
  • We uncovered the winter greens and to our surprise, the Winterbor Kale was still green, after enduring -20° temperatures with nothing but a sheet of plastic as protection from the elements.
    
  • We watched two flocks of Giant Canada geese merged overhead while we walked back from the chicken yard.
    
  • I boiled labels off nine wine bottles, then cleaned them. Just vinegar, dish soap and water go into Mary's water bath canner, along with the bottles. I bring the water to a rolling boil, then let it sit for about 30 minutes. A filet knife removes labels easily, even stubborn ones.
  • After attaching new labels, I put 15 bottles of apple wine on their sides in coolers. I'm running out of space to store wine, so I might have to buy another used cooler.
  • We finished watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice TV series, then watched a 2005 movie by the same name. We are now very ashamed and fair, the antonyms of pride and prejudice.

Morning frost viewed from west living room window.

Frost on Virginia Creeper vine.

• Tuesday, 1/30: Bottled Perry
  
  • Skies were gray, but a northwest wind meant Mary hung out clothes on the line that dried sheets and a few shirts. The rest received final drying above the woodstove.
    
  • She saw 32 trumpeter swans fly east to west. They were loud enough that I heard them from inside the house and stepped out on the porch to take a look. Mary also saw two flocks of snow geese. She said there were tons of robins in yard all day.
  • I paid for an online subscription to finehomebuilding.com. Since we're not paying monthly for the Quincy newspaper, we figured this would be okay. The website has a lot of great construction information.
    
  • I racked for the fifth time and bottled pear cider (perry). I corked the equivalent of 18 bottles (see photos, below). One was a 1.5-liter bottle. The specific gravity was 1.005 and the pH was 3.2. I added an 80 percent dosage of Kmeta at 0.5 grams. Mary says this pear cider is really cinnamon wine with a pear carrier. It's a nice, light tasting drink, which is understandable, since the alcohol level is 5.63 percent. We drank all of the fines and they tasted good. We look forward to trying this cider, chilled, on a warm summer day.

Bottled and corked pear cider (perry).

The perry cleared up very nicely.

• Wednesday, 1/31: Fourth Racking of Parsnip Wine
  
  • More and more snow geese are migrating west and northward with additional Vs flying overhead.
    
  • In the morning, we heard the tufted titmouse spring song.
  • I racked the parsnip wine for the fourth time. It's specific gravity was 1.002 and the pH was 3.3. I added a full dose of 0.65 grams of Kmeta. Light fines were in the bottoms of containers, so I lost about half a wine bottle of liquid, resulting in enough wine for a 3-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jug and a 12-ounce pop bottle. A taste revealed a delicious, earthy lemonade flavor. This stuff is so good that we even drank all of the fines. Using all homegrown parsnips, instead of substituting in some store-bought parsnips, vastly improves this wine.
    
  • We had our usual five-quart sized popcorn topped with Japanese BBQ seasoning and watched the third installment of the Ken Burns' miniseries, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. I looked up one of the Theodore Roosevelt historians shown in this series and discovered he's from Dickinson, ND, which is just east of eastern MT. His name is Clay Jenkinson.
  • Bill called. He came in third place last weekend in a hot sauce eating contest. His friend, Mike, place first. What a pair of hot heads! He's visiting us in February, from the 17th through the 20th.
    

• Thursday, 2/1: Nogo, the Black Cat
  
  • There's a black cat we see almost daily that is hunting in our yard. Mary calls it Nogo, because it's a "no go" on us adopting another cat. We watched it catch a mouse near the blueberry bushes.
  • A check of Antonovka apple seeds that I put in the fridge late last year showed four swelled seeds that I planted in two Styrofoam cups.
    
  • Mary uncovered half of the garlic from underneath mulch that was flattened by our January snow. If left alone, some garlic will not get through the mulch, so she helps it out. She noticed little earthworms just under the mulch. She also watered the kale.
  • Mary heard and saw the first red-winged blackbird of the year.
  • I attached labels to the jalapeño wine and found homes for the 15 bottles in the upper parts of coolers.
    
  • We watched three deer walk across the south field, just south of the house. I was in the middle of chores. They saw me, but only looked and kept on grazing on grass. We think they are the twin fawns and their mother. These deer pretty much live in and around our yard.
    

• Friday, 2/2: Groundhog Day
  
  • If a groundhog crawled out this morning, it didn't see a shadow, due to the dense fog. But, by mid-afternoon, a bright sun revealed lots of shadows. It feels like spring outside right now. I suspect our groundhog was a late riser and we are yet to see more winter weather.
    
  • Today was a big meal day for us. I made waffles for breakfast and Mary made a venison General Tso dish for our midday meal. Both are large meals, so the evening meal was just cheese and crackers.
    
  • We saw snow geese migrating to the west throughout the day. We heard them flying overhead in the dark when we went on the final dog walk.
  • I labeled the perry, put 18 bottles put away into two coolers, and recorded the amount on a tally sheet in the pantry.
    
  • I worked more on house plans in the floorplanner.com program. I need to measure distances in the east yard and see where how this plan looks with building corner survey marks on the property.
    

• Saturday, 2/3: Garlic Wine
  
  • Mary finished loosening mulch in the garlic rows of the far garden.
  • Mary had a hankering for spaghetti, but spaghetti noddles send my blood glucose levels skyrocketing. But, the fiber in brown rice keeps my glucose levels down. So, Mary substituted brown rice for the noodles. It tasted great and Mary satisfied her spaghetti craving. All is well.
    
  • I started a 5-gallon batch of garlic wine. Last year's garlic contains several bad cloves within the bulbs, so instead of counting out 100 bulbs, I just counted good cloves. After peeling 100 cloves in 1.5 hours, I thought I was progressing nicely. Mary jumped in and helped after our midday meal. With a pro garlic peeler involved, we did another 366 cloves in the same amount of time for a grand total of 466 peeled cloves. I ground them in the food processor and put them in a nylon mesh bag that went into the brew bucket. Added to the bucket were three 96-ounce bottles of Walmart generic white grape juice, 2.25 gallons of water, seven pounds of sugar, and 0.8 grams of Kmeta. The specific gravity was 1.096 and the pH was 3.5. I left the brew bucket sit overnight in the pantry, covered with a flour sack towel. A strong garlic aroma permeates our house. We suspect last year's dryness contributes to stronger garlic.
    
  • Mary saw five deer bounce off to the northwest when she opened the curtains to the west living room window this morning, and two deer in the evening out the same window that were near the Kieffer pear tree.
    
  • A strong east wind gave several Vs of snow geese an added boost as they kept flying west throughout the day.
    

• Sunday, 2/4: Garlic Wine Yeast
  
  • Mary heard a killdeer in morning, which was the first of the year. It's extremely early, based on past history. As Mary was hanging laundry outside, she saw and heard a golden eagle flying overhead from northeast to southwest. They're kind of rare through here, but they come through occasionally.
    
  • I goofed up yesterday and started the garlic wine in the largest brew bucket. I have an older bucket dedicated to garlic, since it leaves a strong odor. I switched the liquid to that bucket and now I'll need to thoroughly clean and air the large bucket. I added the following to the wine: 2.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme, five teaspoons of yeast nutrient, and 2.5 teaspoons of yeast energizer. The pH was 4.1, so I added 2 teaspoons of acid blend to bring it back to a 3.5 pH reading. I added 12 ounces (3/4 lb.) of sugar to boost the specific gravity to 1.100. I worked up a starter of Lalvin EC-1118 yeast and added 97° to 99° must from the brew bucket to it throughout the day. Ten hours later, I pitched it into the brew bucket. The specific gravity was still 1.100.
  • This garlic wine wafts a very strong scent through the house. It's especially pungent this year. I bet it will make a good cooking wine, which is its only purpose.
    
  • We watched three episodes of the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
    

Jan. 22-28, 2024

Weather | 1/22, 0.06" freezing rain, 27°, 35° | 1/23, fog to cloudy, 0.41" rain, 29°, 38° | 1/24, fog, 0.15" rain, 30°, 40° | 1/25, fog, 0.65" rain, 31°, 37° | 1/26, cloudy, 31°, 39° | 1/27, cloudy, 31°, 37° | 1/28, cloudy, 29°, 37° |

• Monday, 1/22: Freezing Rain
  
  • We had freezing rain overnight that put a nice sheen of ice on everything. Last night the Missouri Highway Patrol advised everyone to stay off roads. All schools were closed. News sources said there were accidents and vehicles, including semis, sliding off roads everywhere.
    
  • Bill texted that he stayed home from work, due to freezing rain in St. Louis.
    
  • I added a second 24' x 40' addition and a walkway on the house drawing I'm working up on floorplanner.com.
    
  • We watched five deer walk south of the house at dusk. They started chewing on the hazelnut bushes, so Mary went out with the dogs. Our pups didn't see the deer. Mary unzipped her coat and waved the opening back and forth. The deer ran off and then the dogs saw them. Plato barked for a final send off.
    

• Tuesday, 1/23: Cleaning Bottles & Books
  
  • We saw bobcat tracks in the snow on our lane this morning. They look like cat tracks, only larger. We've never seen a bobcat, just bobcat tracks.
    
  • Mary spotted 10 eastern bluebirds at one time. Bluebirds are only supposed to be as far north as southern Missouri in winter. I guess these birds didn't get that memo.
    
  • I cleaned old tape and label residue and washed 12 wine bottles.
    
  • Mary dusted bookshelves in the sunroom.
  • We watched the 2013 movie, Whitehouse Down. 
    
  • Rain and warmer temperatures are significantly lowering the level of our snow.
    

• Wednesday, 1/24: Bright Nighttime Fog
  
  • Fog covered our land all day, especially after 3 p.m., when it got pea soup thick. A nearly full moon illuminated the fog after dark. Add snow cover for reflectivity and flashlights weren't needed for nighttime visibility.
    
  • Mary finished dusting the sunroom books. Then, she scanned magazines, pulled interesting articles, and threw the remains into a recycle pile.
    
  • At noon, I attended a virtual Missouri Department of Conservation oak tree identification presentation. The presenter was a guy who works out of the wildlife visitor's center in Cape Girardeau in southeast Missouri. He was excellent and I learned a lot. White oak is needed for whiskey barrels, because it seals tight. Red oak leaks moisture. White oak acorns grow yearly, whereas red oak acorns take two years to grow. Squirrels eat white oak acorns, but bury red oak acorns, since they taste strong with two years of tannins in them. The buried acorns lose their tannins, becoming edible and are dug up by squirrels months later. About 10 percent aren't found, sprout and grow. So, squirrels are effective planters of red oak trees. An average white oak lifespan is 400 years.
    
  • I racked and bottled the jalapeño wine. It has a nice brown tinge (see photo, below), probably due to dark raisins and red jalapeños in the ingredients. The specific gravity was 0.994, giving the wine an 11.34 percent alcohol content. The pH was 3.2. I added an 80 percent amount of Kmeta at 0.4 grams for a three gallon batch. Exactly 15 bottles were corked. We tasted leftovers. It tasted warm, but surprisingly not overwhelmingly hot, despite all of the red jalapeño peppers that went into this wine. It is delicious.

  

  Jalapeño wine with a clear, slightly brown tinge.

• Thursday, 1/25: Rain & a Haircut
  
  • I got a new antivirus program for my laptop. Trying to renew with the old antivirus was difficult. I figure it's time to change when you can't get anywhere online with an internet-related company.
    
  • I gave Mary a haircut. She's very happy, now.
    
  • Mary made a shopping list.
  • Heavy rain fell starting at mid-afternoon and continued into darkness. Vast amounts of bare ground are showing across the fields as snow melts. The rain seemed to knock down the fog that we've had for three days.
    
  • We are noticing several opossum tracks in remaining snow. They're up and down the lane and outside of our chicken yard.
  • We watched three episodes of the second season of Star Trek: Picard.
    

• Friday, 1/26: What a Difference a Day Makes
  
  • Mary heard a cardinal singing a spring song this morning.
  • Our first stop on our shopping trip to Quincy was at the Salvation Army to drop off over 90 books. We got a couple items. I talked to Emily, who worked at Petco when I worked there and who is now the assistant manager of the Salvation Army store. The store manager checked us out and said, "What a difference a day makes." Yesterday's rain and today's melting almost eliminated snow cover. Plus, we noticed a lot less snow in Quincy compared to the snow at home.
  • We marched through all of the stored quickly. The only item we didn't find was wheat flour, but we have extra at home.
  • We saw a big bald eagle on the drive to Quincy and six deer on Missouri Highway J on the way back home.
  • Mary bought a compartmentalized plastic box at Salvation Army that she'll fill with embroidery floss. It came with beads that I decided to keep for possible lure making and fly tying purposes...so we both won on that $4 purchase.
    

• Saturday, 1/27: Melting Here, Cold Up North
  
  • Mary and I took a noontime walk with the dogs to Wood Duck Pond and back. The dogs loved sniffing everything along the way. The pond is up to its normal level and the creek bed is running with water. Most all of the snow melted away. We saw mist through the day.
  • I saw online from an old university friend who works at UAF's Poker Flats Research Center that it was -54° on Ester Dome, outside of Fairbanks, and that a recent dumping of five feet of snow sunk eight boats in the Juneau boat harbor. There was a warning in the Anchorage Daily News that over 1,000 commercial roofs are in danger of collapsing if snow isn't removed throughout the city. Alaska is witnessing a severe winter.
    
  • I washed and cleaned tape and label residue off 11 wine bottles, which finished cleanup on the last of the bottles I bought over a year ago from a retired winemaker in the county north of us. Now, I start on bottles with labels on them. I need 6-7 more for bottling the Perry that is now clear.
    
  • Mary and I played Yahtzee after dark. I won the first couple games, but Mary came on strong at the end (three Yahtzees in the final game) and was the ultimate winner. It was fun.
    

• Sunday, 1/28: Clouds, Fog, Turkey & Chiefs
  
  • We went through another gray day, but the clouds cleared right at sunset and the night sky was filled with stars for the first time in over a week. When we walked the dogs on their final outing, ground fog was illuminated by the moon for a really eerie effect.
  • I filled out two sets labels for recently bottled wines: apple and jalapeño.
    
  • Mary baked a turkey that we had for a midday meal. It was good.
  • We had a bottle of 2021 autumn olive wine with the turkey meal. After over two years of aging, this wine has a beautiful color (see photo, below). It was fine combined with the meal, but drinking it straight, after eating, was a little rough. The alcohol flavor overwhelmed the nuances of the autumn olives, so it tastes more like brandy. If I make it again, I need to drop the alcohol down from this level, which is 12.34 percent.
    
  • Pride and Prejudice was published anonymously on this date in 1813, so in honor of that fact, we watched four episodes of the BBC's TV series by the same name.
  • The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 to win the AFC Championship and earn a spot in the Super Bowl. I just looked online occasionally for the score. Listening to the game seems to jinx them. I watched the game recap in the evening. Their defense is remarkable. Go Chiefs!

  

  The berries are red, but Autumn Olive wine is gold.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Jan. 15-21, 2024

Weather | 1/15, cloudy, -15°, 4° | 1/16, sunny, -10°, 8° | 1/17, cloudy, 0°, 27° | 1/18, mostly sunny, 17°, 33° | 1/19, 0.06" from overnight snow, sunny, -2°, 9° | 1/20, sunny, -11°, 9° | 1/21, partly cloudy, -3°, 27° | 

• Monday, 1/15: Hibernating in Missouri
  
  • With cold temperatures outside, today was a lay-low day near the heat of the woodstove for all humans, dogs, and cats of this household.
    
  • During evening chores, we watched about 100 Canada geese fly due south over the house.
    
  • While feeding pets their supper, Mary watched a small coyote trot by the McIntosh apple tree, heading east, in the north yard.
  • Mary and I shared young pumpkin wine bottled in August. It contains a strong taste of sulfur, because I left it on the fines too long prior to the second racking. It needs to age a lot longer.
    
  • We watched three episodes of the first season of Star Trek: Picard.
    

• Tuesday, 1/16: Only Slightly Warmer
  
  • With cold temperatures outside, we all more or less hibernated inside again today. It was only a little bit warmer than yesterday.
    
  • Mary was the busy one, making another batch of flour tortillas, followed by chimichangas. I didn't even check for winter greens, because I'm sure they're freeze dried and dead.
  • Since Jan. 3rd, I've worked on floorplanner.com drawing up a sketch of a 24' x 40' building and trying to fit belongings into it. Our current house involves 1,980 square feet and this plan has an area of 960 square feet. The idea is that we will move into this smaller footprint, then build another structure of similar size, along with an enclosed walkway connecting the two buildings. I'm still working on the drawings.
    
  • After dark, we watched the first episode of Ken Burns' 2014 documentary, The Roosevelts.
    

• Wednesday, 1/17: Stacking, Falling, Restacking, Falling, I Quit!
  
  • I stacked firewood over and over again. The last batch of split red oak firewood is in a long stack inside the south-facing wide entrance on the west end of the machine shed. When snow melts the ground under that stack will get wet, so it needs to be moved prior to snow melting. I built a criss-cross stack on the north inside wall of the same shed. When it was chest high, it fell down. I rebuilt it into two stacks and added to them. At chest high, the original stack collapsed a second time. I quit at that point. Today is just not my day for stacking wood!
    
  • Mary made two pizzas, one of which we ate for our noontime meal.
    
  • Mary saw about 50 robins fly north to south over the yard to Bluegill Pond while doing evening chores.
  • We don't get snow that sticks around. So, our recent snow that's stayed on the ground for about 10 days shows off our high rabbit population with an abundance of bunny tracks everywhere (see photos, below). With so many rabbit tracks, is it any wonder we have coyotes wandering through the yard?
    
  • I updated the software to our Blu-ray player and our TV. The player wasn't accepting newer Blu-ray disks. I tested one that it spit out yesterday and the player started the movie, so we're now working correctly.

Rabbit tracks south of our far garden.

Bunny trail going by Porter's Perfection apple tree.

• Thursday, 1/18: Hay, Books, & Firewood
  
  • Mary moved two old clothes basket loads of hay to the chickens. It adds to their bedding, plus, they eat a bunch of it. She also opened all doors to let chickens wander outside and to dry inside walls of the coop. After several days inside, breathing chickens put frost on the inside walls that was melting, making the walls wet on the inside. We're going back into the deep freeze starting tonight.
    
  • Mary finished culling books that she's been working on for the past two days. She has 86 books ready for donating to the Salvation Army.
    
  • I stacked all remaining firewood. I redid the leaning stack and added a third stack, raising them all to head height. We now have five and a half stacks drying in the machine shed, along with firewood in the woodshed. Mary is already taking wood off the oldest drying stacks in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary watched an eastern bluebird drink water dripping off the bottom edge of our roof's valley. Then, a flock of cedar waxwings showed up and drank from the same area.
  • We both saw a large V of Canada geese flying to the southwest.
    
  • Mary heard a pileated woodpecker near our north yard.
    
  • In the evening, we watched the last three episodes of Star Trek: Picard, Season 1.
  • We now have a popcorn habit. We pop two big batches, each filling a six-quart container, which is probably bigger than the largest container sold in movie theaters. We sprinkle it with Kinder's Japanese BBQ seasoning that we get out out of Sam's Club, which includes soy, ginger, and garlic. It's recommended for seasoning meat, but the taste is amazing on popcorn. An added benefit, all of this popcorn has a minimal effect on my blood glucose levels. Plus, it tastes great.
    

• Friday, 1/19: Cold is Back
  
  • The cold temperatures arrived, again. It warmed up to a balmy 9° above zero. We kept chickens inside and puppies went out for very short walks, since new light snow makes dog paws quickly freeze in subzero temperatures. By bedtime, it was -4°.
  • When I marched yesterday's wood ashes to the ash pile, located just beyond the southeast corner of the far garden, I was amazed at the sparkling jewels as sun bounced off perfect snowflakes that fell overnight.
    
  • I made a batch of waffles for our midday meal.
  • Mary saw a pair of bluebirds drinking drops of water falling from our south roof valley. No matter how cold it is outside, sun always melts a little snow, resulting in water drops falling off the end of the valley in our south-facing roof.
    
  • We ordered seeds for our 2024 garden. We also ordered 50 new Seascape everbearing strawberry plants. Their berries taste wonderful. A new Elizabeth blueberry bush is also in the order. I held off on ordering any new orchard sprays. I'll work on that next month. For the first time in three years, Fedco had everything we needed.
    
  • We watched the second episode of The Roosevelts documentary.
    

• Saturday, 1/20: Heat of the Sun
  
  • Even though we got to -11° this morning, sun heated up the inside of the chicken coop so that by midday, temperatures reached 36° for the chickens. Even when it's cold, there's a lot of heat in the sun.
    
  • When Mary let the dogs outside around noon, she saw three deer run out of our east yard.
    
  • I cleaned off tape and label residue, then washed 12 wine bottles. These are bottles I bought from a guy who once made grape wine in the county north of us. He taped his labels on the bottles, but never removed old tape. A filet knife, followed by a green Scotch pad and some baking soda cleans it all off, beautifully.
    
  • At one point during the day, we watched starlings flying back and forth between the cedar trees east of the house and our roof. It was a sight to see them swooping onto the roof right above our heads. When starlings appear, we don't see other birds, so Mary went outside and chased them away.
    
  • Mary saw a coyote at sunset in the north yard.
  • We read books until bedtime. It was -3° when we retired.
    

• Sunday, 1/21: Damp Air Feels Cold
  
  • A southeast to southwest wind brought in humid Gulf of Mexico air. Outside temperatures were warmer, but the strong wind and damp air made it feel colder than when we had subzero temperatures.
    
  • Mary watched several eastern bluebirds on the grain bin roof this morning.
    
  • On a dog walk down the lane, we saw an owl wing print in snow where it dropped down on the snow to grab something.
    
  • I racked and bottled the apple wine, corking an equivalent of 16 bottles (one was a 1.5-liter bottle). Wine that was cloudy the last time I racked it, on 11/8, is very clear, now (see photos, below). The numbers were the same as the last racking...specific gravity of 0.998 and a pH of 3.0. The alcohol level is 9.04 percent. One cork didn't go in all the way, so we used that as an excuse to share a bottle. It has a strong apple taste and is quite good, especially for a green wine.
  • I popped up some popcorn to enjoy with our apple wine and we watched three episodes of the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
  • At bedtime, the first drops of freezing rain showed on the porch outside the east-facing exterior house door.
    

Apple wine, mainly from Empire apples.

Very clear apple wine.

Jan. 8-14, 2024

 

Weather | 1/8, cloudy to snow, 27°, 35° | 1/9, 10" snow, 1.10" precip., 29°, 33° | 1/10, p. cloudy, 19°, 32° | 1/11, sunny to cloudy, 25°, 35° | 1/12, rain to snow, 0.39" moisture, 31°, 11° | 1/13, snow, 0.04" moisture, 5°, 8° | 1/14, mostly cloudy, -20°, -4° | 

• Monday, 1/8: Hickory Firewood to Snow
  
  • I felled the tree that Mary spotted yesterday. It was a hickory, not an ash tree. I cut it up into firewood chunks. Mary and I both loaded the wood into the trailer and hauled it home, then we split the big pieces and stacked this wood into the woodshed, reaching a chin-high level at the top of the stacked firewood.
    
  • Rain started in at 2:30 p.m., quickly shifting to snow by 3:15. After evening chores, I stuck a yard stick in the snow and it was 3.5 inches deep. This was heavy, wet snow.
    
  • After dark, we watched the rest of Season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
    

• Tuesday, 1/9: Power Goes Out
  
  • Through the night, the snow really piled up. All of the cedar boughs were bent over. Snow smashed our forsythia bush to the ground.
    
  • The electric power flicked off and on. It went completely off at 11 a.m. Strong winds were bouncing power lines loaded with caked-on snow.
  • I called the Lewis County Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) office to report our outage. Of their total 7800 customers, a bit over 3800 were without power.
    
  • I labeled the blackberry wine and found home in the coolers in the upstairs north bedroom for 25 more bottles.
  • I trudged the filled garbage can down the lane using the plastic toboggan, which was quite a chore in the deep snow. An evening measurement showed we had 9.5 inches of snow. 
    
  • Mary dug out eight pillar candles and lit them on the kitchen table. She heated up some chili dinner and tea water on top of the woodstove. It worked very well.
    
  • We played a card game of Rummy by candlelight and drank a bottle of spiced apple wine, along with several cups of Red Rose tea. The wine was very yummy, even though it was bottled recently on Nov. 20th. Mary says you can really taste the cloves, and that it hit the spot. Mary and I went back and forth as game leader. Ultimately, Mary won.
  • We noticed all of the neighbor's lights on at 11 p.m., but there was no electricity at our house.
    
  • Mary covered our two chest freezers with sleeping bags and blankets.
  • We were in bed by a few minutes after midnight.
    

• Wednesday, 1/10: Power Restored
  
  • We still were without power this morning. There was another half inch of snow on the ground.
  • While walking pups down the lane, we watched six deer run across the snow-filled driveway. Snow doesn't slow down these long-legged critters.
  • I walked to the end of the lane and saw one of the two electric lines that feeds us with electricity on the ground between the gravel road and the first pole going to our house. I also noticed where a truck turned around in our driveway and there were boot tracks walking in from the gravel road where someone looked at our downed electrical wire. At that point I knew the electric co-op recognized our issue.
    
  • Since cell phone batteries dropping off when I was trying to communicate with the electric people, I dug the pickup out from under the snow, started it, and charged our cell phone batteries.
  • Meanwhile, after Mary put refrigerator items in two coolers outside on the front porch and opened the chicken coop, she started shoveling snow off the at end of our lane in order to give the mail lady access to our mailbox and to assist electric co-op trucks in getting to the downed wire.
    
  • I joined Mary partway through her digging and we shoveled snow until we were parallel to the first electric power pole going to our house.
    
  • While eating a midday meal of cheese on crackers, David Marquette showed up on a dilapidated 2N Ford tractor to see how we were doing. He's such a mess...almost subhuman. He burned down the barn at his place by first putting an outdoor wood stove in it, then sticking a bucket of tar right next to the hot stove.
    
  • In the middle of David babbling his B.S., an electric co-op lineman showed up to unplug our electric meter and to make sure we weren't running a generator. I grabbed my coat and followed him back down the lane, discovering that David made a big mess of our driveway by skittering back and forth getting through the snow with his winky tractor. The worker I followed pulled the downed electric line up to near the gravel road to repair it. They added four splices and a fresh 23 feet of cable to a badly broken wire. Two of the bucket trucks were from an electric co-op in Columbia, MO, and a third truck was local. One of the workers said he got four hours of sleep early this morning. He also said we were the last outage that they fixed in Lewis County. 
  • Power was back on at 3 p.m. and we were super happy. We take electricity for granted until we are without it. We only lost a partial quart bag of blackberries that were in the refrigerator freezer...not bad.
    
  • Bill texted that his next visit to us is Feb. 17-20.
    

• Thursday, 1/11: Shoveling the Lane
  
  • Below zero temperatures are predicted for us in a few days, so top priorities are to wrap up any job hindered by subzero weather.
    
  • I tightened up the chicken coop. Using strips of old chicken feed bags, I filled cracks around the bottoms of south-facing windows and a crack in the west wall of the coop. I cut bag parts that covered both northern coop windows. Finally, I put old dog bed stuffing to the inside of the north chicken door and screwed on an inside partition to seal air from entering that area. I also hung an electric heater up in the center of the coop. Mary said she could feel the difference when entering the chicken coop this evening.
    
  • While I was working in the coop, Mary started behind the vehicles and headed south, shoveling the lane. The main concern was to knock down the massive amount of snow in the center of the lane prior to tonight's freezing rain and upcoming subzero temperatures. She was at the halfway point when I started helping. She took a break and did several evening chores while I continued where she left off. Before darkness fell, we finished shoveling what amounted to three-fourths of our quarter-mile lane.
  • While shoveling, I noticed ice falling off trees surrounding Bluegill Pond and tinkling as it hit the ground. A flock of snow geese flew overhead and landed in the east field. Mary and I watched two trumpeter swans land in the pond across the gravel road from us. When we checked for mail, they flew away.
    
  • We had all kinds of muscle aches and pains. Mary commented on how she was obviously not in shape. I said there aren't too many folks our age that can shovel 10 inches of snow from a quarter-mile lane in two days.
  • Mary made a large batch of chicken noodle soup that was exceptional.
  • We watched the 2022 movie, Marry Me.
    

• Friday, 1/12: All Firewood Split
  
  • Light snow fell throughout the day...a few times it was heavy snow (see photo, below). Also, strong northwest winds blew. The high of 31 was in the morning. Temperatures fell throughout the day.
    
  • Mary and I split the rest of the red oak firewood. At first, we thought it wasn't much, but it took most of the day to split it and the resulting stack of today's split wood is about three feet high and eight feet long. I'll move it to the inside north wall of the machine shed and stack it in criss-cross stacks when I have an inclination and time. A few of the whole trunk pieces of this oak tree were tough to split. Several unsplittable pieces went in the outdoor fire pile for later meat roastings.
  • Around 4 p.m., Mary kicked on the heater in the chicken coop. Chickens were inside all day. The coop is warmer and the birds are happy. We even got three eggs from them, today.
    
  • There are tons of bunny tracks over the snow.
    
  • Winds really kicked up after dark for a couple hours. On a positive note, there's a good draft pulling smoke out of the woodstove.
  • We tried to read after eating more homemade chicken noodle soup for supper, but heavy eyelids make reading difficult. We really need a day of rest.

  

  Heavy snow falling as seen through west living room window.

• Saturday, 1/13: An Unexpected Visitor!
  
  • When I walked into the machine shed this morning, I heard a clicking noise I thought was coming from the roof. It was from an immature turkey vulture walking on the tractor's hood. We think it swooped into the machine shed during a morning snow flurry to get in out of the weather. I walked into the machine shed a couple times during the day to see it on a folded up canvas tarp on the old Jubilee Ford tractor with its head tucked under a wing. When we started evening chores, I found it on the ground near the northeast side of the machine shed. It flew out of the open east end of the building and flew off to the southwest. By this time of year, vultures are way south of here.
    
  • I cut down the foam from an old tent trailer camper seat pad to fit into the 23" x 9" hole that is the south chicken door. The wooden chicken door is slightly warped, leaving an air gap when closed. I stuffed the new sized foam pad back into the denim cover, then stuffed the pad into the hole from the inside, thereby sealing air gaps into the chicken coop.
    
  • The chickens were kept in the coop all day with the heater on, which was necessary. A strong west wind blew all day. The chickens seemed fine in the coop.
  • During evening chores, we noticed several flocks of Canada geese flying southeast.
    
  • After dark, we watched four episodes to finish the 1997 PBS documentary, Liberty! The American Revolution.
  • The outside temperature sank substantially. By bedtime, -14 registered on the thermometer. We walked to the coop and switched the heater in the coop to a higher setting.
    

• Sunday, 1/14: Coldest We've Witnessed in Missouri
  
  • We saw -20 as an outside temperature this morning, which is the coldest we've seen since we moved to Missouri in 2009.
  • Mom experienced a similar circumstance. It was -37 in Circle, MT, this morning. In the years we lived there, the coldest we saw was in the -31 or -32 range.
    
  • This is not a warm house, especially on the floors, when it's cold outside. I spent time online, today, investigating flooring ideas. Black bunny boots were on my feet all day.
    
  • I fixed up a batch of waffles for our noon meal.
  • While doing evening chores, we watched two deer browsing on twigs near the McIntosh apple tree in the north yard. One was a healthy buck that still had antlers.
  • I checked for mail, in case mail was delivered late yesterday. It wasn't. There were two sets of deer tracks crossing the lane and small wild canine tracks, which I think belonged to a fox. Dog tracks were at the end of the lane. I wore my down parka with the coyote fur ruff pulled forward. It works perfect against a stiff northwest wind.
  • We read books into the night. Both Mary and I have about 4-5 books we're each reading. I also watched NHL game highlights and a recap of the Kansas City Chiefs vs. Miami Dolphins NFL Wild Card game played last night, in which the Chiefs won. GO CHIEFS!!!
    

Jan. 1-7, 2024

Weather | 1/1, cloudy, 25°, 31° | 1/2, p. cloudy, 19°, 41° | 1/3, cloudy, 21°, 38° | 1/4, p. cloudy, 22°, 39° | 1/5, cloudy, 21°, 36° | 1/6, 0.03", cloudy, dusting of snow, 28°, 35° | 1/7, 0.01", cloudy, snow dusting, 29°, 33° | 

• Monday, 1/1: New Year's Day
  
  • For about 15 days, we're now seeing eggs from our chickens. Several are small, an indication that our three pullets are now laying.
  • We are now adding pecans, instead of hazelnuts, to our breakfast oatmeal. It also includes a sliced Granny Smith apple and blackberries. Mary adds cinnamon, nutmeg, and a half tablespoon of Splenda brown sugar. It's very tasty.
    
  • Mary fixed up a very delicious hot venison sandwich with acorn squash for a midday meal.
    
  • I spent most of today collecting six months of blood glucose morning and evening readings  from the two meters I use for such measurements. Then I created a chart on one sheet of paper and listed the readings from July 5th to now. I'll hand it over to my doctor during a visit to him in two days.
    
  • Mary and I took a hike with the dogs northeast to the Cherry Deer Blind. We noticed lots of deer tracks and trails that weren't there during hunting season. On the way back home, I saw a deer with a black coat veer into a cedar grove. The dogs sniffed the air for quite some time.
    
  • Mary drew an acorn and cross stitched.
  • I started reading This is Chance!, by Jon Mooallem, describing the woman who announced messages between dislocated family members on KENI radio immediately after the 1964 Alaskan earthquake. I remember hearing her after the quake. I was in first grade.
  • Our pets like to cozy up together in the living room, where woodstove heat is warmest (see photo, below).

  

  Mocha and Gandalf snugged up on living room couch.

• Tuesday, 1/2: Racking Parsnip Wine
  
  • A pink eastern sky greeted us as we walked puppies around 6:45 this morning. I noticed black flashes of deer running in the east field. Plato saw them, too, and was bounding up in the air about two feet high. It was a very unusual sight because he usually has his feet on the ground.
    
  • I racked the parsnip for a third time. There was about 3/8 of an inch of fines in the bottom of containers. I lost 750 milliliters of liquid, mostly left behind in the 3-gallon carboy. I used the auto-siphon in the carboy and just a quarter-inch hose to move liquid out of the half-gallon jug and 1.5-liter bottle. I was able to leave hardly any liquid while using the hose, so maybe I should try using it even on carboys. The specific gravity was 1.000 and the pH was 3.4. I don't normally add K-meta on the third racking, but with a higher pH, I decided to add 25 percent of my normal amount, or 0.2 grams. Remaining liquid went into a 3-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jug, and a 750-ml bottle. The taste is citrusy, with earthy undertones. It's much better than the last batch of parsnip wine at this stage.
    
  • Mary walked dogs on the east loop, which is down Black Medick Hill, along the dry creek bed in the east woods, then up the Bramble Hill Trail. Dogs loved the walk. Mary found a foot long piece of furry rabbit skin about 10 feet high in an ash tree in front of the old cow barn. She looked online and determined it was probable put there by a mature red-tailed hawk while it ate a bunny. These hawks can lift upward of five pounds with their strong talons.
    
  • I split two wheelbarrow loads of firewood. One load went into the woodshed and the other load went inside, next to the woodstove.
    
  • We watched three episodes of first season of Star Trek: Picard. Bill gave us the entire Picard series, or all three seasons, for Christmas.
    

• Wednesday, 1/3: Good Doc Visit
  • The 8:30 a.m. doctor's visit resulted in good news. My blood pressure was 110/70...really good. Dr Abueg thought my six-month blood glucose numbers looked good. He suspects with my numbers, my A1C level might be below 6. If so, he will remove one of my diabetes medications. They took blood and gave me a flu shot. 
  • This shot made my arm more sore as the day wore on. I decided to stay inside, as a result.
    
  • I picked a bowl full of winter greens (lettuce, kale & arugula) that Mary put on top of chimichangas that she made.
  • Mary and I walked the dogs on a north loop around the north field. We spotted some excellent downed firewood next to the north woods fence.
    
  • After chores and in the middle of washing dishes, we counted 11 deer out our west and south living room windows. Most were does, with youngsters. One was a buck with one antler missing. A big doe didn't like Mary's looks through the window and stomped her front hoof several times. She leaped high in the air and all of the others ran a few feet south with her. They stopped just a little ways later and meandered off into the west woods.
  • A flock of about a dozen trumpeter swans has flown south of the house every evening for the last two days. Mary said that tonight the sunset oranges and pinks lit up their breasts beautifully.
    
  • We celebrated my good medical news by sharing a bottle of cherry wine tonight that was made in December 2021. Mary says, "It is fabulous. You can't buy anything better."
    

• Thursday, 1/4: Cutting Firewood
  
  • While Mary washed two loads of laundry and walked bills down the lane to mail them, I sharpened a chain for the big chainsaw.
  • Mary and I took the tractor/trailer to the edge of the north woods where we spotted a downed tree yesterday. It's a red oak. I cut it up while Mary loaded about 3/4 of the trailer. The bottom five pieces involving the trunk of the tree I sawed in half so we can lift them easier. Mary left early to start evening chores while I loaded the rest of the trailer. We have at least another wagon load of firewood that's still sitting in the woods. I drove the tractor home and unloaded most of the wood, stacking it next to the woodsplitter. The rest went inside.
    
  • We watched two episodes of the 1997 PBS documentary Liberty!, that Bill gave Mary for Christmas. It's quite good with new information never taught in American history class in school.
    
  • I got a call this morning from the Lewistown Clinic. My A1C is higher than six months ago, but not by much. On July 5, 2023, it was 6.3. Yesterday, it was 6.8. The message from the doctor was that we'll keep on the same medications and see what it's like in six months.
  • While finishing evening chores, I watched two big trumpeter swans fly over the west field, just above tree tops. They're very large birds!
    

• Friday, 1/5: Shopping, Hauling Firewood
  
  • Mary and I took a light shopping trip to Quincy in an attempt to stock up in case of winter conditions predicted next week. Highlights: 1) got a nice pork loin at $1.88/lb. at HyVee; 2) purchased half of my meds in a 90-day prescription at Sam's Club, so I don't have to visit every dang-blasted week; 3) visited Petco and talked to Molly Brown, who is the new Quincy store manager (new store, same problems) and discovered that new employees knew who I was by comments Molly has made about me working circles around other employees (her words). Her assistant asked if I wanted a job. I ignored her request. The guy checking us out at Petco started in 2019, a few months after I left. I mentioned that the newer computers/registers were a vast improvement from the old store. He said the computers running registers in the old store were old enough that you could play Oregon Trail on them. When they crashed, he said he'd tell others that he just died of dysentary, one outcome depicted in that game that Katie and Bill played ad nauseum.
    
  • On the way home, Mary counted 22 swans in the disced-up corn field east of our property.
  • Mary unloaded the pickup and did the evening chores while I drove the tractor north and loaded the remaining pieces of the oak tree we cut up yesterday. The halves of the trunk pieces were heavy and the whole pieces were really heavy. This wood filled the trailer. I unloaded the pieces into the machine shed, which is now really stuffed with wood ready for splitting (see photo, below).

  

  Machine shed: splitter (middle, background) & new wood (foreground).

• Saturday, 1/6: Splitting Firewood
  
  • Cedar branches were highlighted with snow dust this morning, making for a beautiful scene. Fog, mist, and an occasional snowflake infiltrated the rest of the day.
    
  • Mary and I split firewood most of the day, moving 10 wheelbarrow loads. Six loads went to the woodshed and four loads of wet wood were stacked in criss-cross fashion to dry along the north wall of the machine shed.
  • Carpenter ants are amazing. Honey locust wood is extremely hard, yet we found hundreds of these ants inside two chunks of locust firewood. Fine dust from carpenter ant chewing turned Mary's dark blue coat red.
    
  • After dark, we played a long game of Michigan Rummy, ate the last of the lime zinger cookies, and drank two pots of China Yunan loose leaf tea. My luck stunk in the opening hands of the game. I was left with 14 cards in my hand with Mary going out at one point. She won. It was fun.
    

• Sunday, 1/7: More Firewood Stacked Away
  
  • Mary saw a snow geese flock heading west this afternoon that included over 100 birds.
    
  • We saw and heard trumpeter swans off and on all through the day. Mary saw 22 swans fly by this evening and heard even more to the east.
  • Mary and I split wood all day. Seven wheelbarrow loads went into the woodshed and five loads of wet wood was stacked to dry inside the machine shed's north wall. Most of the red oak wood is damp. It should be ready in 2-3 weeks. We split about half of the oak firewood. We'll try to split the rest tomorrow.
  • Our weather forecast is calling for 6-12 inches of snow, with 40 mph winds, from Monday afternoon through Tuesday night. That's a main reason we're concentrating efforts on firewood gathering and splitting.
  • Since we need dry wood, Mary marched east in search of potentially dry firewood. She found a tall standing ash tree with all the bark gone and a beautiful silver color, indicating it's well cured wood. First thing tomorrow morning, we'll drop that tree, cut it up, take it home and split any large pieces.