March 25-31, 2024

Weather | 3/25, 0.58" rain, 48°, 59° | 3/26, mist, 36°, 37° | 3/27, sunny to cloudy, 26°, 45° | 3/28, sunny, 27°, 63° | 3/29, cloudy, 37°, 75° | 3/30, sunny, 50°, 65° | 3/31, cloudy, 47°, 71° |

• Monday, 3/25: High Wind
  
  • There were 45 mph southeast gusts, plus mist and rain, so outside work was out of the question, today.
  • All of the fruit tree buds have slowed down on opening. There are just a few pear blossoms open. The Kieffer pear tree, that I thought was a goner due to the high amount of fire blight damage, is now filled with leave buds. It has an amazing ability to hang on and live.
    
  • We played around online for a bulk of the day.
  • We watched The Book Thief and Babe movies.
    
  • After walking dogs on their last outing, my coveralls fell from the hook onto the concrete floor and Gandalf immediately made them into his bed (see photo, below). He was comfy there for several minutes until he went upstairs to sleep at the foot of the bed, near my feet. He seems to like me.

  

  Gandalf, after making a bed with my coveralls.

• Tuesday, 3/26: Apple Talk Gibberish
  
  • I partook in an Apple Talk webinar at 8 a.m. that was promoted by the leader of a Facebook group I belong to called Backyard Apple Growers. It was put on by University of Wisconsin folks and the main speaker was horrible. If you removed all of the times he said "Ah" and "Um", his one-hour talk could be condensed into 15 minutes. He went through exactly one item of the outline presented at the beginning of his discussion. I won't repeat listening to that gibberish!
    
  • We had a windy and misty day...not nice, outside.
  • When I took the dogs on a walk, we only got to the north yard when Amber said, "I'm getting wet, so I'm going back inside." I let her in. Then, Plato and I took a walk to Bass Pond and back. He's more of water dog than Amber.
    
  • In the afternoon, I drove to Quincy and picked up our package of Kinder's Japanese BBQ spice. That should set us up for a some time with popcorn topping.
  • On the way, I bought gas for $3.29 a gallon.
    
  • I covered the winter greens with plastic and blankets, since the predicted overnight low temperature is in the 20s.
  • Mary is still feeling punk with bad congestion, although she says it's getting slightly better.
    

• Wednesday, 3/27: Fruit Trees Surviving Frost
  
  • I walked the dogs on the north loop and found two new blackberry patches at the north end of the north field. Blackberry brambles are invading...yum, yum!
    
  • When I removed the blankets and plastic off the winter greens, I noticed that the Winterbor Kale jumped to twice its height since I removed some leaves off the plants last week.
  • I burned the rest of the shoddy cardboard stored in the machine shed. I only had two instances when burning cardboard floated off the top of the burn barrel and lit dead grass on fire. That's why we only burn after a rain and with reduced wind. I beat both fires out, quickly. An old tree-shipping box and chick box showed 2022 ship dates on them. Cardboard cleanup was overdue.
  • Mary and I took an evening tour of the fruit trees. Flower buds are plentiful. The only opened flower buds are on pear trees. Leaves are showing on pears and some of the young apple trees. We saw a tiny bit of frost damage on the small Bartlett pear tree. Otherwise, everything else looks untouched by frost. Poor old Kieffer, the ancient pear tree that we thought we'd lose to fire blight, is loaded with flower and leaf buds.
    
  • Mary's condition is improving, but it's a slow process.
  • After walking dogs at night, I checked the new house layout against the North Star, which easily showed in the nighttime sky. The northwest corner is off by just a few degrees to the east. My old layout, which put the southeast corner too close to a row of black walnut trees, was closer to aligning north, south, east, west. But, the adjusted layout better fits the yard and avoids trees. The old house is way off, but the woodshed is aligned perfectly. It was put up by Herman, Mary's uncle and a 20-year U.S. Navy veteran. He knew his navigational bearings well.
    

• Thursday, 3/28 - Saturday, 3/30: We Have COVID
  
  • Mary came down with the symptoms, first, and then I got it. Our COVID home tests confirmed we both have the virus. I mainly sleep, day and night, with a very sore throat, occasional fever, and congestion. Mary has had the same symptoms.
    
  • Katie called Thursday. She's starting to pack up in preparation for a mid-April departure to return home. She gets two weeks off, plus, Katie has 16 days of accrued leave that she also plans to use. She's thinking about taking a trip to Patagonia.
  • On Friday, I told Bill I wasn't going to make it to the Blues/Oilers NHL game in St. Louis on Monday, April 1st. I transferred the tickets to him. He asked his friend, Mike, if he wanted to go, and Mike said yes. I'm glad the tickets get used. I didn't want to spread COVID to Bill.
  • Yesterday, Mary reported seeing several small native bees and an occasional honey bee in the pear blossoms. She thinks the small Bartlett pear tree might produce fruit. I walked to all fruit trees yesterday afternoon. A ton of blossoms are coming, soon. The Kieffer pear tree is amazing. Despite rotted-out heart wood in the trunk and severe fire blight last year, it still marches on with fruit production (see photos, below).
  • Butterflies are showing. I saw a mourning cloak. Mary's noticed sulfur and admiral butterflies.

The heart of the Kieffer tree's trunk is gone.

But, it still kicks out blossoms.

• Sunday, 3/31: Feeling a Little Better
  
  • Today was the first day I didn't sleep all day.
  • We walked the pups down the Bobcat Trail and saw lots of spring beauties (see photos, below).
  • For the first time, we saw several honey bees in the fruit blossoms, especially on the Sargent crabapple tree.

Tiny spring beauty flowers at the base of an oak tree.

Pink spring beauties.

March 18-24, 2024

Weather | 3/18, p. cloudy, 19°, 36° | 3/19, sunny, 26°, 60° | 3/20, p. cloudy, 25°, 47° | 3/21, cloudy, 27°, 51° | 3/22, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 29°, 43° | 3/23, sunny to cloudy, 28°, 49° | 3/24, 0.03" rain overnight, cloudy, 35°, 55° |

• Monday, 3/18: Hard Freeze
  
  • On the dogs' early morning outing, we heard our first turkey gobble of the year to the northwest.
    
  • We checked a number of emerging flower and leaf buds on fruit trees after nighttime temperatures dipped below 20° for a hard freeze. We found that most were just fine. We only saw some wilted forsythia flowers and a couple leaves hit on the small Bartlett pear tree.
  • Inside, our friendly canines soaked up the woodstove heat (see photo, below).
    
  • We took the puppies on an east loop walk and a vulture kept flying low overhead, checking us out. They're always curious, like flying cats. Mary says that's a scary thought.
    
  • Today was another day of not doing much, since outside there was a strong northwest wind that made cool temperatures feel even colder.
  • We finished watching season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, including all of the extras.

  

  Amber (above) and Plato (below) behind the woodstove.

• Tuesday, 3/19: Departing Birds
  
  • Mary and I walked the dogs to Wood Duck Pond and back. Mary spotted a tiny frog near the pond's edge. She didn't bring binoculars and there were tiny birds flitting about, so when we got back home, she grabbed the binoculars and we walked back to the pond. Mary spotted a pair of purple finches and lots of juncos. They are all probably massing to start their migration north.
    
  • I checked all of the fruit trees. There are still lots of blossom buds that are near opening.
    
  • A strong west, southwest wind blew for the first half of the day, but subsided in the afternoon, allowing Mary to hang out a load of laundry. Laundry hung out in the morning might have resulted in a sock adorning the head of Leo, our rooster.
  • I mowed the lawn between the house and the lane, plus around all fruit trees south of the house. The new mower works like a charm.
    
  • I watched a couple of deer run to the west across the south field in the evening as I was finishing up chores.
    

• Wednesday, 3/20: Bud Grafting Decision
  
  • Mary saw a northern harrier hawk while walking dogs in the evening. Then, I saw one when I got the garbage can from the end of our lane.
    
  • Mary baked a black raspberry crisp and made a shopping list for tomorrow. Natural berries with lots of oatmeal keeps my blood glucose numbers low and is better than fast food. It's also cheaper.
    
  • I read about different types of grafting and decided to use the bud graft, since it's the most successful of all grafting techniques on apple trees. It's performed from mid summer to early autumn. So, I'll plant the three apple rootstocks in their permanent locations and do the grafting later. The good thing about bud grafting is that if it fails, a whip graft can be performed the following late winter to early spring on the same rootstock.
    
  • I packaged up more cardboard from the machine shed to leave at the recycling place in Quincy tomorrow. The only cardboard left is deformed and dirty with mouse nests, requiring burning.
    

• Thursday, 3/21: Shopping Trip
  
  • Mary and I went shopping in Quincy on what turned out to be a sunny day.
  • We're noticing that the Salvation Army store has mainly new stuff at discounted prices. For instance, we got 12 dish wash rags that are nice and thick for $1, each. We checked out the Goodwill store in Quincy and found more secondhand items. I found a Dixieland jazz and two Statler Brothers vinyl records. We bought a 1500-watt oil filled radiant electric heater for $25 and a Plano box that I plan to use to store tools for $5. We nicknamed the toolbox, "Stinky." It's new with original stickers on it. Obviously, someone stored catfish bait in it. When opened, a strong essence of barf erupts from within. It needs massive cleaning and airing.
    
  • After returning home and eating dinner, I didn't feel well. Something didn't sit well in my stomach and I ended up vomiting. I went to bed tired, but feeling a little better.
    

• Friday, 3/22: Quiet Day
  
  • I laid low, today. I made waffles for brunch.
    
  • Yesterday, we noticed that Sam's Club didn't have our favorite seasoning we use on popcorn, which is Kinder's Japanese BBQ rub. Today, I checked online and it's unavailable at every Sam's Club in St. Louis, but we can order it online, with a limit of 10 per Sam's Club member. WE HAVE TO HAVE IT!!!! So, I ordered 10 bottles. I noticed on the Kinder's website that they are repositioning supply sources, so orders are delayed until April 1. If we don't get the order, we'll just have to conjure up our own recipe for this flavor.
    
  • Right before darkness set in for the night, I spotted eight deer in our west yard. They got close enough that they two were munching on the lilac bush. I opened the window and they ran to behind the Kieffer pear tree. Then, I walked outside and they ran to the west. They all seemed like they were last year's fawns.
    
  • We watched two movies. The first one was the 1998 movie, Goodnight Mr. Tom. The second was the 1992 film, Sister Act.
    

• Saturday, 3/23: Electric Fence Construction
  
  • A strong northeast wind blew throughout the day.
  • Some pear blossoms are opening, especially on the small Bartlett pear tree. They won't get pollinated. No respectable bee is buzzing about in this weather.
    
  • Mary fixed a taco salad that we topped it off with kale that survived in the winter greens tubs. I only took one leaf from each plant.
    
  • I stepped off future electric fences I want to install around the south apple and cherry trees and around the Bartlett pear trees and blueberry bushes west of the chicken yard. Everything needs deer protection. I need eight wooden corner posts and 30 steel fence posts for the two fences.
  • I started finding metal posts left behind from other projects and located 24 of them...just six more to find. The wooden posts I'll need to dig up from existing fencelines that we're eliminating.
  • Mary finished reading Hiroshima: The Autobiography of Barefoot Gen, by Keiji Nakazawa, who as a six-year old, survived the atomic blast. Mary says it's a good book. She recently picked it up at the Salvation Army store in Quincy.
    

• Sunday, 3/24: Digging Up More Fence Posts
  
  • Mary felt ill and took a long nap in the afternoon.
  • I found three more metal fence posts along the east side of the north yard that once held out cattle in the east field. This fence is all overgrown by cedar trees. I wound up four strands of barbed wire and removed stiffeners between fence posts. Some of the wire is under dead rose bush branches. Between that and dodging stickery cedar boughs, this is a rough job. I now have 27 posts, needing only three more for my two electric fences around fruit trees.
  • Of the eight eggs collected today, one is huge (see photo, below).
  • Bill and I touched bases on when I should show up for the NHL game between the St. Louis Blues and Edmonton Oilers on April 1st.
  • While we're looking at green grass and white pear blossoms, Mom is looking out her window at snow and the prediction of subzero temperatures in Montana.

  

  Today's center egg is too big to fit in an egg carton.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

March 11-17, 2024

Weather | 3/11, sunny, 37°, 67° | 3/12, p. cloudy, 45°, 73° | 3/13, p. cloudy, 45°, 73° | 3/14, 0.67" rain overnight, sunny, 49°, 65° | 3/15, sunny, 37°, 60° | 3/16, sunny, 38°, 63° | 3/17, p. sunny, 29°, 40° |

• Monday, 3/11: Pruning Granny & Sergeant Trees
  
  • Mary said she heard the first song sparrow of the season while returning from the chicken coop this morning. She also saw it through the binoculars from the living room window.
    
  • Mary took photos (see below) of the red maple that we planted in 2011 in the north yard.
    
  • I finished stacking ash firewood to dry in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary fertilized the blueberry bushes and put wood ashes around the sugar maple tree, since our clay soil is naturally acidic and sugar maples prefer a more basic soil. Mary discovered the wood ash trick in a 1960 edition of the Audubon Nature Encyclopedia about sugar maples.
    
  • Mary and I pruned the Granny Smith apple tree and the Sergeant crabapple tree. Our prune job on the crabapple tree was minimal, since its green buds are well advanced.
    
  • We watched several flocks of snow geese and Ross's geese fly overhead. A strong southwest wind blew them northerly.
    
  • I saw deer, of course, while closing the curtains in windows facing west this evening. They were eating brush at the edge of the west woods.
    
  • Mary and I tried a bottle of 2023 spiced apple wine (see photo, below). Besides the beautiful color, it tastes great, despite the fact that it hasn't aged long. Mary says you taste the apple flavor on the tip of your tongue, the cloves at the middle of your tongue, the cinnamon flavor at the back of your tongue and the tartness as this wine goes down your throat. "It's a sipper wine, otherwise, you miss out on all of the flavors," Mary explained.

Buds on the red maple tree.

Close-up view of red maple buds.

2023 spiced apple wine.

• Tuesday, 3/12: Sandstorm Images from Katie
  • Katie sent photos and a video of a sandstorm (see below). She says the sand penetrates all living quarters and that it's tough on everything.
    
  • Mary and I pruned the big pie cherry and the big Bartlett pear tree, where we could reach with an six-foot step ladder. We pruned less off the pear tree than we expected. Branches obviously hit by fire blight have new buds sprouting all along them. We dabbed Tree Kote on new and old pruning cuts. I still want to prune higher up that tree while using the big step ladder, but today wasn't a good day for that activity, due to high southwest wind gusts.
    
  • I received a call, then I called back to Farm & Home. My chainsaw part is in, so I need to run to Quincy and pick it up.
    
  • We received a thunderstorm in the nighttime hours that gave us less than a trace of rain.

An approaching sandstorm.

Sand infiltrates everything.

In the middle of a sandstorm.

• Wednesday, 3/13: Quincy Trip
  
  • Mary and I saw a spring azure butterfly during our daily dog walk, in which we took the puppies on north loop excursion. The azure butterfly is usually the first we see in the spring. Mary saw a white cabbage butterfly later in the afternoon.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up the chainsaw part. I also bought five 20-foot lengths of 3/8" rebar that we'll use as chicken wire posts in the gardens. I cut them up with a hacksaw to eight-foot lengths, so they'd fit in the back of the pickup. On the way home, I got chainsaw and lawnmower gas for $3.09 a gallon.
  • During our nighttime dog walk, lightning was flashing all around us and we were starting to hear thunder. Nothing hit us until the next morning. I read online that softball-sized hail fell around Kansas City, and closed Interstate 70.
  • Some plants are amazing. Winterbor Kale, that went through -20° this winter, is now green and thriving (see photo, below).

  

  Kale, after going through subzero temperatures.

• Thursday, 3/14: Chainsaw Fix
  
  • We woke to thunder and lightning around 6 a.m. and went back to bed. We received a nice rain.
    
  • When we walked the dogs on the lane, huge earthworms were squiggling across the gravel.
    
  • I checked Antonovka apple rootstock. The largest is showing green on buds and the other two are not. I might just go ahead and plant the largest one without grafting it.
    
  • After reviewing on ArboristSite.com whether to grease the roller bearing under the clutch hub (those who fix saws advocate doing it while know-it-all types who occasionally use chainsaws say no), I took the large plastic face piece surrounding the big Stihl chainsaw's clutch off, removed the chain brake band, and cleaned gunk out from around the saw's clutch. I shook it several times, in case loose roller bearings were still lodged inside. After putting a light touch of Stihl grease on the inside of the new bearing with a toothpick, I assembled everything. I installed a new spark plug and cleaned the air filter with two washings of Dawn soap. I tried the saw out on a few long sticks of firewood and a thick piece of a downed elm tree. It works like new, again. It makes me feel good when I can perform a cheap DIY fix, instead of spending hundreds on new equipment.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine to celebrate the chainsaw fix. The wine was good, until the end, when it seemed harsh. Maybe an extra month in the carboy will help the next batch age better.
    

• Friday, 3/15: Final Big Bartlett Pear Prune
  
  • I set up the 10-foot ladder next to the big Bartlett pear tree and pruned fire blight damage out of the top of the tree. Most of the tree top, with several water sprouts that grew extra tall over the years, was hit with fire blight last year, so I took it out. I sawed about a 2.5-inch cut. I started sawing it with an old rusty pruning saw that we inherited from Herman, Mary's uncle. The weight was binding the saw, so I switched to a keyhole saw and was able to complete the cut. There were a few green buds, but it only amounted to about five percent of that section. Removing the top changed the tree's profile from a from a columnar to a round shape. I cleaned several other fire blight dead pieces off the tree's other top branches and covered all cuts with Tree Kote. Hopefully, I can keep fire blight to a minimum this year.
  • When Mary walked by to put the chickens to bed for the night (the pear tree is just west of the chicken coop), I watched a peregrine falcon fly west to east at a very fast speed as it descended in elevation. While collecting cut pear branches to toss deep in the north woods, I watched a Cooper's hawk fly to the west.
    
  • There is a frog sound that we hear and then say, "The Gollum frogs are calling." Mary watched to a Missouri Dept. of Conservation movie about different frog calls and determined that it's the call of a leopard frog. They started calling today from Frog Pond.
  • We watched the 2008 movie, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. We picked up the DVD at the Salvation Army store in Quincy recently. It's an excellent movie that takes place in 1939 England and is based on a fictional book written during that era.
    

• Saturday, 3/16: Coyotes & Racking Garlic Wine
  
  • We walked the dogs around Rose Butt Field, the open field, east of Bass Pond. As we walked down the north edge of that field, two coyotes jumped out of the weeds and ran ahead of us. Plato started to bound off after them, so we both yelled at him and he stopped. But, the coyotes really took off with our raised voices. One went south across the field and one ran into the forest north of that field. They were small, about the size of Amber. 
  • On the way back, we spotted two Bradford pear trees blooming near Bass Pond. After taking the dogs home, I went back and tied a blaze orange ribbon around one of those pear trees. The other one is already marked. I plan to girdle them once they're done blooming. Honey bees are in their blossoms right now. Bradford pear trees are an invasive species.
  • We're starting to find ticks on dogs after daily walks.
    
  • I racked the garlic wine for the third time. I thought I'd lose enough liquid with the lees to gain less than the starting five gallons in the carboy. But, when finished, I filled a three-gallon carboy and two one-gallon jugs. Obviously, the five-gallon carboy I pulled the wine out of is larger than five gallons. The pH was unchanged at 3.0 and the specific gravity dropped slightly, from 0.997 to 0.994. I added one gram of K-meta, which is the full dose for five gallons. When finished, the whole house smelled garlicy, but in a good way. The aroma resembled a good Eastern European sausage, or salami.
  • We talked with Bill for over an hour in the evening. A couple days earlier, he noticed a tornado siren blaring as he left for work. At a stoplight on the way to work, another tornado siren sounded. He didn't see anything, but several co-workers had hail damage that destroyed car windshields. His employer might implement work on Saturdays, as they're clearing out inventory with the eventual shutdown of the St. Louis branch of business.
    

• Sunday, 3/17: Quiet St. Paddy's Day
  
  • Mary and I took the day off from doing much of anything. Temperatures are cool outside and a strong northwest wind makes it seem even cooler.
  • We walked the dogs around the west field. There is a four-foot diameter water hole at the northwest corner of that field. It usually contains clear water. For several weeks, the water has been muddy. We think a turtle is in it and stirring up the mud. I'm not testing the waters by wading through it, in case it contains a snapping turtle.
  • I covered the winter greens with plastic and blankets before darkness fell, due to a prediction of temperatures dipping into the low 20s, tonight.
    
  • Mary made what she calls an English Tea. We enjoyed two pots, each, of China Yunnan loose leaf tea, boiled eggs, corn bread topped with jelly, and an orange. We watched three episodes in season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
    

March 4-10, 2024

Weather | 3/4, partly cloudy, 0.15" rain, 45°, 75° | 3/5, cloudy, 39°, 49° | 3/6, sunny, 32°, 57° | 3/7, cloudy to 0.79" rain, 37°, 53° | 3/8, misty, 0.03" rain, 45°, 47° | 3/9, sunny, 27°, 47° | 3/10, sunny, 23°, 51° |

• Monday, 3/4: It Rained!
  
  • Mary watched a bald eagle fly low over the south field near the house this morning.
    
  • Katie texted that she's considering reenlisting in the Alaska National Guard.
  • I took the dogs on a walk around the west field. Mary stayed home, confining herself to inside, due to pollen pouring out of the cedar trees in huge yellow clouds with strong south winds.
    
  • Mary identified a tree we found last year on our property bordering the gravel road that has purple berries (see photo, below). It's called a shad bush, also known as service berries. It's known to make excellent jelly and wine...mmm!!! We hope to propagate this tree into several more, but closer to our house.
    
  • Speaking of tasty things, Mary made a cherry crisp using two packages of our homegrown pie cherries. It's amazing.
    
  • While Mary did some house cleaning, I packaged rags into five cat litter buckets and moved them out into the machine shed. Mice don't chew through those four-gallon buckets, so we can keep rags safely out of the house, giving us more room inside. In the process, I sorted through an UMCO fishing tackle box of Dad's old electrical connections, fitting some of mine into it.
    
  • The survey transit kit that I tried to buy on Facebook Marketplace was cancelled. The old guy in New York selling it thought he was only advertising locally and didn't realize his ad went out nationwide.
    
  • We enjoyed game night while thunderstorms went through and gave us some much-needed rain (we only got 0.30 inch of rain in February). We played Azul while drinking two pots, each, of China Yunnan tea and getting a taste of the cherry crisp. We didn't keep track of scores.

  

  Shad bush or service berry.

• Tuesday, 3/5: Cardboard Box Day
  
  • We experienced a cloudy day.
  • While Mary paid the bills, I balanced our checkbook.
    
  • We took a hike along an old tractor trail deep into the north woods. When it was time to cross the steep banks of a dried up creek, Amber refused, sat down, and watched us climb the opposite hill. I went back and led Amber back up the tractor trail and home. Mary and Plato meandered through the woods and got home later. Mary says, "I never get lost, but I was a bit confused." We noticed the starting leaves of spring beauties pushing through the timber floor.
    
  • I broke down cardboard boxes stored in the machine shed. Some were distorted and dirty, so I burned them, along with other items, such as a bag of Christmas wrapping and four cornstalk baskets that Mary tossed (they burned hot). At dusk, I tied up three large bundles of cardboard that we'll leave at the recycle location in Quincy, tomorrow. There's more cardboard and junk to clean up in the machine shed.
    
  • Bill texted us. He gets weekends off from work, these days. He used to work on Saturday.
  • Mom texted that service berries grew wild where she grew up at Lolo, Montana. Her mother never made anything out of them, because they were bland and without taste. I never tasted ours, since I don't eat anything until I identify it. We got to thinking, since they mature in June, the same time as cherries, and birds really love them, service berries might make a good trap crop for attracting birds away from ripening cherries.
    

• Wednesday, 3/6: A New Mower
  
  • While walking our pups this morning, we watched nine deer cross our lane in front of us, heading west. Plato ran towards them and gave them a "woof, woof" send off.
    
  • We went shopping in Quincy.
    
  • A stop at Farm & Home with my large Stihl chainsaw indicated good news. They didn't have the chainsaw's clutch hub pinion bearing, so they ordered it in. It will only cost $10. The guy who services Stihl chainsaws thought the unknown metal part I shook out the saw was part of the pinion bearing. We bought a Cub Cadet push mower with a Kohler 173 cc engine. Our old mowers had the same size Kohler engines and we feel they're real work horses. An old mower bought in 2010 is shot and the other that was bought 2011 is starting to smoke. We were told this new machine is a professional-type mower.
    
  • After emptying the pickup and doing evening chores, we watched two movies we bought today at the Salvation Army store. They are the 1994 film, The Lion King and the 2016 movie, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I never saw the first movie, even though Mary and my kids saw it several times when we lived in Circle, MT. The second one is weird, of course, because it's a Tim Burton film, but it is quite good.
    

• Thursday, 3/7: Katie Makes History
  
  • Katie sent the below photo yesterday morning, stating she took part in an historical moment with the following information: "I got to go to the first USAF/RSAF women’s engagement event. Women have been allowed in RSAF for less than three years. The women pictured are the first “CE” women; they are technical engineers (similar to PMs)." 
  • I walked the dogs on an east loop. There were no deer tracks in the sand of the dry creek bed.
  • I downloaded the Kohler service manual for our newly purchased lawn mower. This engine has an oil filter similar to those on motor vehicles, plus an air filter and a prefilter. It's built to last. The best oil for it is 10w50. The only place selling that is O'Reilly Auto Parts in Quincy at a mere $12-13 a quart. I'll stick with the label on the engine, which calls for 10w30 oil, that I can get a whole lot cheaper.
    
  • We experienced a really nice rain that started right after we did evening chores, which we did around mid afternoon, due to the weather forecast. A steady rain fell until after we went to bed.

  

  Katie with her female Saudi Arabian cohorts.

• Friday, 3/8: Income Taxes & Splitting Firewood
  
  • It was a dark and misty day. Sometimes there were clouds of mist floating by on the wind.
    
  • Mary saw an eastern phoebe in the early afternoon, the first of the year. It was parked in mulberry bush just outside sunroom window.
  • I did the federal and state income taxes and sent them in, electronically. They were both accepted within just a couple hours.
    
  • I ordered 25 chicks from Cackle Hatchery. We'll get them in the mail between June 11-13.
    
  • I split the equivalent of two wagon loads of firewood and sorted the split wood into dry, wet, and green piles. Ash is much easier to split when it's green.
    
  • We saw our resident deer moving around in the west field in the morning. In the evening, the twin deer born last summer were at the edge of the woods west of the house.
  • Coyotes were howling close to us while we walked the dogs for their final outing of the night.
    

• Saturday, 3/9: Pruning Small Trees
  
  • This morning, Mary ran back to the house with our two pups while walking the dogs, because she heard baying hounds approaching through the southwest woods. Then, while letting the chickens out for the day, four large hounds that were probably sniffing out coyotes, ran right past the chicken yard. Mary hollered for them to leave, which they did. Locals don't have any problem with letting their hounds run all over your land.
  • I moved firewood into one pile in the woodshed, then cleaned up bark and scraps of wood from the floor and dumped them around two small trees south of the house.
    
  • Mary pruned small trees, while I applied Tree Kote on all newly cut surfaces. Flower buds are already appearing on the small Bartlett pear. We found some small Prairie Fire crabapple starts under the parent tree. I want to transplant them closer to some of our other apple trees so they can enhance pollination. A strong northwest wind blew, so pruning big trees was out of the question.
    
  • Grass is greening up everywhere...good thing we got a new lawnmower!br />

• Sunday, 3/10: Pruning the Empire Tree
  
  • We enjoyed a perfectly sunny day.
  • Red dust in the center of cherry wood resembles wetness, so when I split this wood two days ago, I stacked it all in the wet pile. Today while moving firewood to the woodshed, I realized my mistake. Besides a nice start of firewood for next fall/winter/spring, I got halfway through a cross-cross stack of green ash firewood on the inside north wall of the machine shed.
  • Mary and I pruned the Empire apple tree. She pruned branches reachable from the ground while I painted cut surfaces with Tree Kote. Then I pruned and painted top branches atop a step ladder. Last year, we didn't use Tree Kote, a latex wound covering, because the "experts" say it's not good for trees. Unfortunately, we saw fire blight damage like never before, due to open pruning cuts on trees. We aren't making that mistake, again.
    
  • We saw a big flock of snow geese glide by to the west, very high in the sky, while pruning the tree.
    
  • After the sun set, we watched 13 deer meander across the south meadow. It's the most deer we've ever seen at one time. Mary watched three separate occasions when a deer would lay its ears all the way back and raise the tail halfway up with all white hair sticking straight out. It would raise up and strike another deer with its forelegs. This was the first time she's ever seen a deer get angry at another deer. Below is a photo of one of the 13 deer that was close to the house.

  

  One of the 13 deer roaming the south meadow.