Dec. 2-8, 2024

Weather | 12/2, cloudy, snow, 19°, 27° | 12/3, cloudy to sunny, 15°, 31° |12/4, sunny, 15°, 47° | 12/5, sunny, 7°, 21° | 12/6, sunny, 15°, 36° | 12/7, sunny, 25°, 53° | 12/8, sunny, 40°, 63° |

• Monday, 12/2: First Snowfall
  
  • We started the day with a gentle light snow, the first full snowfall of the season for us. There wasn't enough to even measure, but without a wind, the snowflakes slowly settled to the ground in slow motion. When you don't have to go anywhere, falling snow is beautiful.
  • We don't have to wear hunter orange when we go outside. Yesterday was the last day of a five-day CWD (chronic wasting disease) hunting season. Saturday (12/7) is the start of the anterless deer hunting season, which lasts until 12/15. There's no one hunting on our 160 acres. Our freezer is full.
  • We didn't do anything outside, except walk puppies. It was kind of a slow day.
  • Mary and I watched the 2003 film, Under the Tuscan Sun.
    

• Tuesday, 12/3: Sucking Bugs & Splitting Firewood
  
  • Since Asian ladybugs continue to roam through the house, Mary postulated that there might be several hiding behind books in the sunroom, so she vacuumed bugs while dusting books in on those shelves. She estimates that she sucked up about 125 bugs and seven spiders.
    
  • I changed oil in the woodsplitter's engine and split several wheelbarrow loads of firewood. Most of the firewood went into the woodshed, but about a quarter of what I split was wet or green wood that I'll stack in the machine shed to dry. We have a lot of ash trees that are dying, due to being attacked by the emerald ash borer. They look dead, but they actually still are partially alive, hence the green firewood that we now have to dry out. It will be ready to use next fall.
    
  • I heard a helicopter and when I stepped outside to look, a bald eagle flew by just north of our house. We get regular flyovers by the emergency helicopter from Blessing Hospital in Quincy, IL.
  • At sunset, I heard and then saw a flock of red-winged blackbirds. They sound off with what I call popcorn popping calls as they fly about. We also notice new robins in the trees. We think snowfall north of us is sending these birds into our area. These robins are darker than those we see in the summer.
    
  • Our microwave doesn't cook as well as it used to, so I looked up pricing of a new one. Next, I checked fixing a microwave. They normally go bad due to a faulty magnetron, which converts electrical and magnetic currents into heat via microwave frequencies. A new magnetron for our microwave costs about $130, which is better than close to $300 for a new microwave oven.
    
  • A sliver of the moon was in the southwest sky near Venus just after sunset...very pretty.
    

• Wednesday, 12/4: Winter Arrives
  
  • While we were walking the dogs this morning, we first heard then saw trumpeter swans flying east to west to the south of us. They have a very distinct call that is loud and rings out over the land. Then, on our last dog walk, we heard Canada geese that were flying in the very turbulent night air.
    
  • I took apart the aluminum ladder deer stand. I first built it in 2009 and have used it in multiple locations throughout our property in the past 15 years. Yesterday, Dave Parmeter (a high school classmate) said his motorcycle trip around the country was cut short last spring when "I crashed my bike in Texas and my son had to drive us home so I could be put back together." He had several broken ribs and had surgery to repair his collarbone. I replied that four solid wheels are a better idea and that I use the same thinking about deer stands vs. deer blinds. I prefer to have my feet on solid ground.
    
  • I started to tear apart a bed frame Mary's Uncle Herman built to store his guns in. It's been in the machine shed propped up against his lawn tractor. When we got rid of the tractor this summer, I moved it to where we stack wet firewood. We need to stack more firewood in that location, so I decided to take the frame apart. I mistakenly thought it was a quick disassemble job. He built it with 1x8s, 1x3s, lauan, finish nails, hundreds of drywall screws, and glue. The lauan plywood is off and most of the screws are out, but I'm still not done knocking that mess apart!
    
  • Katie sent two photos (see below). She made Christmas ornaments to decorate the Sitka spruce tree that was sent from southeast Alaska to become the 2024 U.S. Capitol Christmas tree. One of her ornaments is now on that tree in Washington D.C.
    
  • I watched a PWHL game between the Minnesota Frost and the Boston Fleet on youtube.com. Minnesota won 2-1.
    
  • Tonight we had 50 mph gusts out of the northwest. After walking pups, we removed waterers from the chicken coop so they wouldn't freeze and discovered that the wind blew the plastic off our winter greens. The temperature was 21° and dropping (next morning's temperature was 7°). We pulled the plastic back onto the greens and put down additional bricks thoroughly weighing all edges of the plastic. Winter has arrived.

The circled ornament is on the tree in D.C.

The Forest Service sign asking for ornaments.

• Thursday, 12/5: Chicken Noodle Soup on a Cold Day
  
  • Northern air arrived overnight and we saw single digits on the thermometer this morning.
    
  • When Mary walked to the mailbox, she turned around and there was a flock of tufted titmice, cedar waxwings, and a family of four eastern bluebirds. They all followed her down the lane to the gravel road.
  • Due to the cold temperatures, we were inside most of the day. The woodstove heat is penetrating and nice.
  • Mary made a huge pot of chicken noodle soup. This isn't Campbell's chicken noodle soup where a chicken briefly walks through the water to give off faint flavor. Mary used the meat of an entire chicken from last year in this soup. It's a perfect meal on a cold day.
    
  • Our live chickens were inside their coop, today. Sun beaming through the south windows of that coop warm the inside up nicely. When Mary put the chickens to bed, it was 33° inside the coop.
  • We watched the 1994 movie, Little Women and enjoyed a heaping helping of popcorn with our hot tea.
    

• Friday, 12/6: Red-Shouldered Hawk
  
  • I drove the pickup into Lewistown to drop off and mail some bills and then fill up the truck's gas tank. We figured with colder temperatures we better keep gas topped up in the pickup to avoid gas line freeze-ups.
  • A red-shouldered hawk sat on one of the corner fence posts of the far garden while we watched it through binoculars. It flew off the second Mary opened the door to let dogs out for a midday walk. They live here throughout the year. Mary found an online file of their call. We've been hearing that call almost daily since spring.
    
  • I wrestled with Uncle Herman's bed frame and broke it down into pieces. I'm glad that job is over! There were screws and nails driven in from all angles. Next, I put the wood pieces to the inside chicken coop wall in the machine shed rafters and moved other pieces of lumber to totally clear our wet firewood stacking area.
  • When we walked pups for the last time of the day, the stars were shining very brightly.
    

• Saturday, 12/7: Leaves, Bugs, Firewood, and Movies
  
  • Mary racked up three wheelbarrow loads of leaves and put them in the compost bin.
    
  • She also vacuumed bugs throughout the day. Warm days push flies and Asian ladybugs through the walls and onto the inside of windows in our house. It's so nice to live in this sieve of a house!
  • While Mary vacuumed the upstairs north bedroom window, a white-breasted nuthatch was busy grabbing flies from the crack between the outside house wall and the roof over the north addition. It didn't care about the noise from the shop vac.
    
  • I split the remaining firewood. Most of it was nice maple wood. It's dry and is easy to split.
    
  • I moved all wet and green firewood to the inside north wall of the machine shed and stacked it in two different criss-cross stacks.
  • When I came back from the mailbox this evening, I heard footsteps near Bluegill Pond. Just beyond the pond, I heard footsteps behind me and looked. A doe deer was tip-toeing its way to three cedar trees in the southeast field.
  • I heard a couple rifle shots from deer hunters to the south of our property right at dusk. Today was the second day of the anterless deer season, which lasts until Dec. 15th.
  • We watched two movies after dark...Olympus Has Fallen and The Big Year.
  • Mary and I drank a bottle of 2023 peary. "It's a quiet drink," Mary said. "Sort of like drinking flavored water." Pear wine is better tasting than peary made from Bartlett pears.
    

• Sunday, 12/8: Bugs & Fixing Doors
  
  • Mary watched a red-headed woodpecker fly by the west living room window this morning. Those birds have usually flown south by this time of the year.
    
  • The amounts of bugs and flies in this house are the worst they've ever been. There were times today when the vacuum was running at least once every half hour. Mary and I traded off on the sucking bugs chore. It lasted until well after dark. The problem is that we live between a large dairy a mile west of us and a confined hog operation a couple miles southeast of us. Both are probably large fly creators. Then, with woods all around us, the Asian ladybugs are close to our house. Finally, temperatures into the 60s make them all very active. We need a long cold spell and a new house that bugs can't walk right through!
    
  • I changed the doorknob to our main entry door. The locking mechanism on the old doorknob has been hard to turn for a year. I changed the location of the doorknob's strike plate by first plugging the screw holes with wooden match sticks and wood glue, then chopping out a larger latch bolt hole with a wood chisel. Mary's Uncle Herman filled the hole with wood filler and made a small hole, too small for the entire latch bolt to fit. The new doorknob works much better.
  • I also tightened the gap at the bottom of the exterior door in the sunroom, which has been a main source of cold air entering that room during a strong south wind.
    
  • While we're warm, Mom in Circle, MT is expecting a blizzard warning overnight. She recently helped with Santa Day at the Circle Senior Citizens Center.