Feb. 26-March 3, 2024

Weather | 2/26, sunny, 30°, 75° | 2/27, sunny, 30°, 77° | 2/28, skiff snow, 0.01" moisture, 13°, 33° | 2/29, sunny, 16°, 53° | 3/1, cloudy, 35°, 49° | 3/2, sunny, 29°, 63° | 3/3, sunny, 47°, 78° |

• Monday, 2/26: Marking Out Future Trees
  
  • While letting out chickens this morning, we watched more snow geese fly overhead. The wind was relatively calm at that moment, but we watched them getting pushed north as they flew west, indicating a strong south wind aloft.
    
  • We walked the dogs around the west field and by Frog Pond (see photo, below). It's a small pond dug out years ago with a tumble bug pulled behind horses.
    
  • The Eurasian collared doves obviously don't like us and have moved on to a new home. We're back to hearing mourning doves. I heard meadowlarks throughout the day.
    
  • I measured 25 feet from existing apple trees in the south field and marked where I want to put the three apple rootstocks after grafting McIntosh scions onto them. Mary and I also looked at where I'll install an electric fence around this developing orchard.
    
  • Mary finished breaking up sticks in the machine shed for kindling, then picked up more downed branches in the yard.
    
  • The gooseberry plants are starting to leaf out.
  • We were really warm, probably breaking record high temperatures for today. We had strong south wind gusts making the towels on the line dry within an hour.
  • I've become more like Grandpa Willis Melvin. I wore dark blue coveralls outside today and the 75° heat felt good. I remember visiting my grandparents in Maryland in 1977 when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. After years in Alaska, temperatures in the 60s in Maryland felt really hot and I couldn't believe it when my grandfather sat out in the sun wearing a black wool sweater and black pants. Now, I'm like he was, but only to a certain extent. Later this afternoon, I was walking around outside in shorts.
    

  

  Frog Pond, with our house in the background.

• Tuesday, 2/27: Heat, Followed by Cold
  
  • Skies just above the horizon looked smokey this morning. Later in the day we experienced a southwest wind. Then at night, Mary read about a big Texas Panhandle grass fire, which probably contributed to our morning smokey appearance.
    
  • We walked puppies on an eastern loop that included Wood Duck Pond. Mallards flew off when we approached the shoreline, a first for us this year. I took a photo of Dove Pond (see below), which sits close to Bass Pond.
    
  • I used the steel blade on the trimmer and whacked down dead grass in trails and circles to plant three future apple trees once I graft them.
    
  • During evening chores, we saw a Cooper's hawk. It can be identified by a long tail.
  • We had a record high for today of 77°, then a northwest wind started blowing with gusts to 45 mph, dropping our temperatures after dark. Mary and I covered the winter greens with plastic and blankets. By our nighttime dog walk, the outside temperature dropped 47°, to 30°. It's a shock to the system when it was 77° a few hours earlier.

  

  Dove Pond is spring fed. Just beyond this photo is Bass Pond.

• Wednesday, 2/28: Better Knife Sharpening
  
  • We saw six deer walk next to the west side of the far garden this morning.
    
  • Temperatures were cool and it was very windy, today. We kept chickens in the coop and the winter greens covered.
    
  • Due to the possibility of branches or trees falling, we stayed out of the woods and just let the dogs meander around in the north yard. A big tree branch cracked, putting the tips near the ground, where rabbits chewed the bark off several small branch tips (see photo, below).
    
  • There were several dozen robins in the north yard today, looking for worms and bugs.
    
  • I sharpened knives for the second day in a row. I used to rub knives on the sharpening stone in a circular motion. I read in the How to Sharpen Anything book by Don Geary that it's best to pass the knife with the sharpened edge moving away from the stone's surface, instead of into it. He writes to give the knife 20 strokes on each side of the blade on each grit surface, moving from the course grit to the fine grit. Using this method, our knives are the sharpest they've ever been. I remember watching Grandad Melvin sharpening knives this way and his knives were always super sharp.
    
  • I adjusted our new house layout in the east yard to align with true north, shifting the house location so that the southeast corner moved away from the line of walnut trees at the edge of the east yard. This new layout fits better in the yard.
    
  • Mary practiced drawing and worked on a cross stitch project.

This oak branch cracked, sending the tips to the ground.

Rabbits then chewed bark off all of the branch tips.

• Thursday, 2/29: Removing East Fenceline Trees
  
  • Mary made a really yummy batch of chicken noodle soup.
  • Mary and I cut up five trees along the east property fenceline . They were all growing through the barbed wire fencing. The fence leans to the east and in some places it extends over a foot of ground area. Two were cedar trees and three were honey locust trees. You have to tenderly work with honey locust branches that are filled with long thorns. One honey locust tree was severely thorny. It had foot-long thorns at the base of a branch division. I carefully dropped branches and then gingerly tossed them over the fence where Mary carefully picked them up and stacked them on our side of the property line, but away from the fence. We noticed some growth rings that were almost an inch wide. Our neighbor's fertilizer really boosted growth in these trees. The large-thorned locust tree slowed us way down. Mary said she'd take down an entire forest of cedars rather than tackle another honey locust like that one. I painted all honey locust stumps with triclopyr, an herbicide that targets woody plants, since locust trees are famous for sending up multiple shoots once cut.
  • We have a walnut forest growing near a huge cottonwood tree that Mary walked by. Mary planted walnuts in that area in 2012. It worked.
    
  • We noticed green tip and bud break on the Sargent crabapple tree, which is way too early.
  • I watched two Vs of snow geese glide over our property while cleaning the small chainsaw.
    
  • We watched the 2009 movie, Leap Year, since it's Leap Day, today.
    

• Friday, 3/1: 11 Deer!
  
  • While I made breakfast waffles, Mary let out the chickens and fed them. In the process, she saw 11 deer in the west field.
  • I assessed unwanted items that we own, several of which we inherited when we moved here. Some, such as a lot of three-point hitch small farm implements, we can sell. Others we can sell as iron scrap. My scrap list contains 35 items. The to-sell list includes 19 items.
  • Amber, our vizsla/pitbull cross, always tries to chew up bits of wood from the wood rack in the living room when we're both outside. She does it so often that Mary says her name should be Termite.
  • One of our amaryllis plants bloomed today (see photo, below). This one, called Samba, bloomed the first two years, but hasn't bloomed for the past two years.

  

  A Samba amaryllis blossom.

• Saturday, 3/2: Cutting Firewood
  
  • A strong south wind started blowing around 11 a.m., and continued for the rest of the day.
  • We walked the dogs in the south field and checked out potential dead trees to cut up for firewood.
  • Mary and I took the tractor/trailer to the edge of the woods on the west side of the south field and got a load of firewood. I took down an ash tree that looked dead, with emerald ash borer marks on the bark. All of our ash trees are showing this problem. After cutting it up, we realized that some green shoots were growing out of the top of the tree, so it's green wood. But, after we split it and let it dry over the summer, it will be ready this fall. I cut up two other dead trees that were on the ground that were very good and dry. We spotted two large trees deeper into the woods that are down, but mostly above ground, that will make great firewood.
  • All of the wild Missouri gooseberry bushes that I cut to make paths for hauling out firewood are popping with new green leaf sprouts.
  • The big chainsaw ran poorly. I had to rev the engine to keep it running. It would jump and stop cutting while I was going through thick logs. Plus, it smoked after a bit of cutting. In the evening, I cleaned it, removed gas and ran the engine without the bar and chain to run all gas out of the carburetor. While doing this, sparks flew from the clutch assembly under the sprocket drum. I'll take it into a Stihl dealer to see if I can get parts, or if I need to get a new chainsaw. We bought this one on Black Friday in 2009, so it's getting old. A new one of comparable size costs around $900...YIKES!
    

• Sunday, 3/3: Diagnosing the Chainsaw
  
  • We experienced south wind gusts to 43 mph. When we took dogs on their final nightly walk, someone pulled the plug on the wind fan and it was dead still. On big gusts during daylight hours you could see yellow cedar pollen filling the air...cough, cough, cough!
  • We hit another new record high temperature for the day.
    
  • A Carolina wren sassed us as we did the morning chores. Mary saw the first chipping sparrow of the year. We heard snow geese flying over on our nighttime dog walk.
    
  • I took the big chain saw apart and found that the housing holding the roller bearings under the chain brake hub evaporated. Fortunately, I found all eight roller bearings and they weren't ground to smithereens. The hub shows a blue hue near its center where it overheated. It might need replacing. Looking online, all of the symptoms I experienced when I last used the saw is indicative of a faulty chain brake. Unfortunately, I also found a tiny bit of cast iron when I shook out the last two roller bearings. I need to ask someone who takes Stihl chainsaws apart to identify that piece of iron and determine if it's significant. If possible, I'd like to keep this chainsaw going. Stihl makes three classifications of chainsaws and this one is the smallest of its professional series. Several parts in this saw are identical to larger chainsaws used by foresters.
    
  • David Marquette, our skinny hippy neighbor to the south, drove in on a four-wheeler with his shaggy Australian shepherd. He was driving on the trails in the woods to the west of our property, got onto our property, then decided to let us know he was there. I told him I heard a big gun go off to the south a couple evenings ago and asked if it was him. Yes, he said. He's shooting muskrats with a 30:30 rifle. He says he eats them. There would not be much left after a 30:30 bullet hits a muskrat. It's like taking a cannon to a gunfight. David wants to buy chicken eggs from us, because he has egg incubators, but can't find anyone who has a rooster with hens to get fertile eggs. Mary told him our rooster is old and isn't doing anything with hens. But, David talks so much that he doesn't hear what other people say. When I told him that I cut down an apple tree that was filled with fire blight, he then asked if the tree is doing okay. Um, no...it's all cut up into pieces! He did hear Mary when she told him to keep his dog home. We don't want fleas, ticks, or diseases transferring to our pets. "Okay, yes ma'am," David replied to Mary.