Sept. 9-15, 2024

Weather | 9/9, heavy haze, 44°, 79° | 9/10, heavy haze, 48°, 80° | 9/11, heavy haze, 53°, 85° | 9/12, heavy haze, 58°, 87° | 9/13, cloudy, sprinkles, 63°, 73° | 9/14, cloudy, 63°, 87° | 9/15, p. cloudy, 64°, 87° |

• Monday, 9/9: Purple Painting Property Lines
  
  • I hunted in the morning and got one squirrel that was in the paper pecan tree, closest to the house.
    
  • I planted spinach seeds in the remaining tub. Hopefully, it's not too hot for them to germinate, unlike last year.
    
  • I applied purple paint on trees and fence posts along the west, north, and part of the east property lines to indicate no trespassing. Most all old paint was faded and needed refreshing. I painted from the northeast corner to the south end of Wood Duck Pond on the east property line. South of that is opposite of our neighbor's field of soybeans, which doesn't see any hunting traffic. 
  • Ben Woodruff, our neighbor west of us, still has a salt/mineral block on the ground just west of our property line with a remote trail camera aimed at it. As of this hunting season, our county is under CWD (chronic wasting disease) guidelines, which outlaws any deer baiting, such as salt blocks. If he keeps that in place, he will be violating hunting laws.
  • From our west field, north along our west property line, the woods is an absolute wilderness. In some places, it's very difficult to maneuver through the thick brush.
    
  • As I crossed the Wood Duck Pond dam to get to our northwest property corner, I saw five blue-winged teal ducks fly to the south end of the pond. The water's edge was jammed full of frogs. The dry creek bed nearest the pond's edge was stirred up with lots of deer tracks.
    
  • I saw three deer on my property line journey. Two were near the deepest gully on our west property line, one of which was a buck. It had the darker brown hair color of autumn/winter. During the summer, deer hair is buckskin red. I also saw a small doe running south along the east edge of Wood Duck Pond.
    
  • Mary cut down more hay in the east yard.
    
  • She also watered the gardens, giving plants in the far garden a deep watering. She looked for worms after dark and found nine, all in the far garden.
  • While Mary went on a worm hunt, I checked the jalapeño wine. It's specific gravity was 1.040, so I'll probably need to rack it tomorrow. The pantry smells really nice, because of the active yeast.
    

• Tuesday, 9/10: Plato Gets an Appetite
  
  • Plato is eating much better. It started yesterday and continued today. He now eats a little bit in the morning at at noon, then at least half a dish in the evening and before going to bed. I now add only half a can of wet food to about 3-4 handfuls of dry kibble, let it soak up juices in the fridge, then feed him by helping hand him pieces from the bowl. Twice today he dove his nose into the bowl to eat, too. He still has a limp from when he hurt his right front ankle on the staircase, but he oftentimes walks faster when he's outside.
    
  • I shot one squirrel in the morning. Three were in the pecan trees when I first arrived.
    
  • Mary turned hay in the east lawn.
    
  • I checked the jalapeño wine twice. The first specific gravity reading was 1.029. The second reading late at night was 1.022. I'm sure I'll rack it tomorrow.
    
  • On our first morning dog walk, we saw a red-headed woodpecker flying in formation with about four wood ducks. After sunset, we saw a barred owl on a power pole just north of Bluegill Pond.
    
  • We watched the Harris/Trump presidential debate. Harris put in a solid performance. Trump stunk.
    

• Wednesday, 9/11: Getting Plato More Canned Dog Food
  
  • Two more squirrels aren't invading our pecan trees after this morning's hunt. The squirrel armies continue to march in from the woods.
    
  • The jalapeño wine's specific gravity was 1.014, so I racked it into a 3-gallon carboy, one 750-ml and one 375-ml wine bottle (see photo, below). CO2 gas came out of this wine throughout the day (see video, below).
    
  • I drove to Quincy to buy more wet dog food for Plato, along with other pet and chicken supplies.
  • Plato is eating like a champ. I cut the wet food down to a quarter of a can per dog food bowl. Each bowl also gets four handfuls of dry kibble and a couple spurts of warm water. I stir it all together and let it sit in the fridge and then feed it to him. He went through two bowls of food, today. He's still limping, but moving a little better.
    
  • Mary washed jackets and coats, in preparation for cooler temperatures. She also turned the hay in the east yard.
    
  • Mary picked a bucket of tomatillos and peppers from the gardens.
    
  • Our evening worm hunt revealed only one culprit. Mary says we'll drop down to checking for worms every three nights, instead of every other night.

  

  2024 jalapeño wine after 1st racking.
  

  
  

  CO2 production in the jalapeño wine.
  

• Thursday, 9/12: Pickled Jalapeños
  • I got two more squirrels during my morning hunt.
    
  • Today, Plato ate the amount of food that he eats in a normal day.
    
  • Mary made a quart jar of pickled jalapeños for the refrigerator, which used up 25 out of the garden. They make a tasty treat to put on top of bean tortillas. She also cut up and froze green peppers that amounted to 26 sandwich bags for meals. She froze four tomatillos. Tomatoes and tomatillo plants are stalled out in the gardens.
    
  • Mary picked more hazelnuts.
  • We both picked up the hay and stored it in the second bin. Recent dry weather means it's in excellent shape.
  • I switched trash pickup providers. We haven't had garbage picked up in over two weeks. It's not the first time this took place. The old company, Community Trash, has a voice mail box filled to capacity, so you can't leave a message, and they never answer their phone. Several recent Google reviews indicate they aren't picking up trash and cannot be contacted. Unfortunately, we just paid for September. The new company, Cedar Ridge Disposal, has a website with listed business hours and someone who answers the phone. It will cost $12 less per month and they'll start picking up on Aug. 19th.
    
  • Mary and I toured the north woods for new places to install deer hunting blinds/stands. I'll dismantle the Bobcat Blind and create a new blind next to a double trunk tree behind the machine shed and the chicken yard overlooking gullies to the north, west, and south. A game trail runs right by it. I'll move the aluminum ladder stand to further north in the north woods, just beyond the first gate in a shagbark hickory tree near where I first erected a stand when we moved here in 2009. The idea with both of these locations is to get away from west and north edges of our property, where deer hunting pressure is high.
  • The jalapeño wine continues to release CO2, which means the yeast is still very active.
    

• Friday, 9/13: Squirrel Hunting Day
  
  • I pretty much hunted squirrels all day and wound up getting five. They are really thick this year.
  • Mary and I watered gardens. I watered the far garden while Mary made tortillas, then she watered the near garden while I hunted.
    
  • We both husked hazelnuts that Mary picked yesterday.
    
  • Plato had a bad morning. He barely moved and wouldn't eat his morning or noon meals. Then, he got lots better and ate his last two meals with gusto. By nighttime, Plato was doing very well.
  • In the evening prior to sunset, I saw a doe deer, who had her dark brown winter hair coat, munching on shrubs about 15 feet southeast of where I'm going to put a deer blind north of the machine shed. It proves the point that it's a good deer hunting site.
    
  • Karen texted me about meeting somewhere close to us for a visit tomorrow and over several texts I learned that they were camping tonight at the Army Corps of Engineer's Frank Russell Campground at Mark Twain Lake, which is just a bit over 50 miles south of us. Karen and Lynn are on their way to Circle, Montana to visit Mom, then to Forsyth, MT to visit Lynn's brother, then to Colorado to visit their son, Kevin. I told Karen I'll drive to their campsite tomorrow morning for a visit. Mary has to stay back, because of Plato.
    

• Saturday, 9/14: Visit With Karen & Lynn
  
  • I left at 8:30 a.m. to drive to Karen and Lynn's campsite, stopping at Fastlane for gas. I got there around 10 a.m. and we had a very nice visit for over a couple hours. Hopefully, they can visit us in the future. Before I left, Lynn took a photo of Karen and me (see below). They had to get going up the road to make it to a reservation at a campground near Des Moines, IA.
    
  • I picked up chick feed at the Farm & Home store in Hannibal. After getting another $20 of gas (the pickup's gas tank was very low), I grabbed two foot-long sandwiches at Subway and got home around 2:30.
    
  • I got two more squirrels while Mary watered gardens.
  • Plato is eating very well and moving around more, even though he's still limping.
  • A thunderstorm developed over Mark Twain Lake, according to online sources, right at dusk. We watched lightning to the south, but never had anything close enough to hear thunder. While looking at the lightning, Mary saw a wood duck, a great blue heron, and a common nighthawk fly over the house.

  

  Karen and I at Mark Twain Lake, MO.

• Sunday, 9/15: Yummy Chicken Soup
  
  • Today is the start of archery seasons for deer and turkey. Guns were going off to the distant west this morning. It's people going after the marble-sized taste of dove breast meat.
  • Mary heard a summer tanager this morning. It sings, "pick-a-chuck," or "a-chuck." I've been hearing that call every morning while hunting for the past several days.
    
  • I got one squirrel this morning. There weren't anymore squirrels in the pecan trees for the rest of the day. Maybe I'm making a slight dent in their nearby population.
    
  • Plato ate great this morning, but digressed and didn't touch his food on the next two feeding attempts. He ate half his food during the nighttime feeding. Today was a down day for Plato.
    
  • I checked firewood that we accidentally cut in the spring that was partially green. It's nice and dry after a summer in the heat inside the machine shed, so we're good for a small supply of fall morning firewood to fuel the woodstove.
    
  • I cut down thistles that were going to seed along the path between the gardens. I got really hot while working that job.
    
  • The spinach seeds I planted several days ago have sprouted.
  • Mary picked a full basket of hazelnuts and I helped her husk them.
  • Mary made chicken soup out of a 2022 frozen bird. It had a lot of fat on the meat. The soup really tastes great.
  • We both watered the gardens. Green beans are developing.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2023 apple cider. It tastes excellent on ice, with a nice apple flavor. At just six percent alcohol, the cider has a light touch on the palate.