March 3-9, 2025

Weather | 3/3, p. cloudy, 35°, 63° | 3/4, 0.80" rain, 43°, 53° | 3/5, 1/2" snow, 0.15" moisture, 29°, 31° | 3/6, p. cloudy, 21°, 45° | 3/7, sunny to cloudy, 34°, 60° | 3/8, sunny, 23°, xx° | 3/9, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 3/3: Four Tied Flies
  • When we walked Plato this morning, we heard footsteps near Bluegill Pond. Then, Mary saw the tail of a deer as it headed to the west forest.
  • We heard and saw snow geese, off and on, throughout the day, but not as many as in past days.
  • I raked leaves in the north yard and put four wheelbarrow loads of leaves on the active compost pile. I also fluffed up the grass covering the strawberry plants.
  • I attended the second Webex fly tying class put on by the Missouri Department of Conservation. We tied a Glo Bug, a San Juan Worm, a Foam Beetle, and a Crappie Jig (see photos, below). The Glo Bug is supposed to resemble a salmon egg. It sinks and is floated over rocky stream beds to attract trout. The San Juan Worm also sinks, resembling a small earthworm. The Foam Beetle is easier to make than it looks. It floats on the surface. Giving it an occasional bump with the tip of a fly pole makes it look like a struggling bug on the water's surface that attracts bluegills, crappie, and bass. The crappie jig is fished on the bottom.
  • After making the crappie jig, I realized that the marabou used for the tail is exactly like the downy lower part of a chicken feather. I have lots of free marabou in the chicken coop. I just need to figure out how to dye chicken feathers if I want a color other than white.
  • I ordered more fly tying stuff, including a better pair of hackle pliers (these are non-skid), chartreuse and black crazy legs (used to make the foam beetle legs), and black, brown, yellow and red 3mm thick fly foam (for making the foam beetle body).
    

A Glo Bug fly resembles a salmon egg.

The San Juan worm looks like an earthworm.

The Foam Beetle fly.

A Crappy (the fish, not excrement) Jig.

• Tuesday, 3/4: First Big Rain/Thundershowers
  • We experienced our first thundershowers of the year, giving us a nice amount of rain. It was also the first major rain of the year.
  • Mary cut Aida cloth for future cross stitch ornaments and dyed four pieces with tea, leaving them with a rosy brown color.
  • I practiced using the fly tying whip finish tool. It took a long time for me to get that technique down correctly. I also divided up four strands of bright red fly tying thread into one strand and put it on a thread spool that Mary gave me.
  • I researched how some companies, especially in Texas, chemically inject solutions into clay soils to alter their ion/cation relationship so that they don't swell during wet times, or shrink during dry periods. One company uses a mild sulfuric acid solution. Often, agricultural lime is used to alter the expansive and shrinking properties of clay soil..
  • I did a bunch of online research at night on various impact socket sets.

• Wednesday, 3/5: Snow & High Wind Gusts
  • A little snow storm hit us, mainly in the morning. It only dropped about a half-inch of snow. Northwest winds gusted to 57 mph, really rocking all trees. All area schools were closed today.
  • Right after sitting down to breakfast, the guys who are cleaning brush and trees away from the electric co-op's right of ways drove up in front of the house looking for the owner of a stray dog that they found. Mary directed them to the neighbors in the house southeast of us. The neighbors always let their dogs run free. The tree cutters showed up pulling a large equipment trailer, which they then backed down our driveway. When I walked the lane later in the day I noticed by the tire tracks that the driver backing that trailer did a very good job at keeping to the main paths of the lane.
  • A package of a DVD that Katie ordered a couple days ago showed up in the early afternoon, so I went down to pick it up. UPS delivered it to our neighbor's trailer across the gravel road from us and when I started looking for it, Alma jumped outside, hollered at me, while waving the UPS package in her hand. I ran across the road and got it from her. As I was in the neighbors' front yard, about a thousand snow geese flew overhead, struggling in the fierce wind. They all saw water to the southwest of them and swooped down to that location over the treetops. It was quite a sight to see.
  • Fifty pounds of oatmeal showed up that we recently ordered. The FedEx driver roared in with his dual-wheeled panel truck, putting more wear and tear on our soggy driveway.
  • Mary and I watched the four episodes of the BBC 2004 TV miniseries, North & South. Katie saw it recently and asked Mary if we've seen it, then ordered up the DVD to sent to us, which arrived today. While the final credits were running, Katie texted to ask us if we liked it. She had remarkable timing!

• Thursday, 3/6: Geese, Eggs & Birds
  • This morning, we saw a flight of snow geese that recently lifted off and were heading west over our house. All of a sudden, the leading geese veered back to the east. Then, we saw two bald eagles flying south to north right under the flock of geese. One was a mature bald eagle and the other was an immature bald eagle. All birds then went on their way.
  • We heard lots of snow geese southwest of us on the ground, both in the morning and in the evening.
  • I drove to Quincy to pick up a couple items and print off some paperwork.
  • We're now getting about four eggs a day from our hens. Mary looked up that the average price of eggs nationwide as of March 5th is $7-$9 a dozen. Our last bag of feed was $12, on sale, which lasts about a couple weeks. Two weeks of our eggs at four eggs per day at the nationwide average prices would be $32 to $42. So, our eggs are really cheap, in comparison.
  • I listened to a Missouri Department of Conservation webinar about birds in Missouri. The biggest point I got out of it was that we live in a great place to see all birds, even ones that she said you're really lucky to see, right here on our property.
  • Mary heard the first eastern meadowlark of the season, today.
  • I looked at insulation ideas for post frame houses online in the evening.

• Friday, 3/7: Pickup Is Immobile Until Fixed
  • I did a bunch of paperwork related to money...checkbook related.
  • I drove the pickup to Lewistown and got gas. From the stop light at Lewistown to just a few feet up our lane, the pickup's right rear brake made a horrible noise. To play it safe, I let the momentum of the vehicle slow down as I rolled up the hill on our lane, then carefully alternated between drive and neutral of the automatic transmission, so I didn't need to use the brakes. Later, when I walked down the lane to get the mail, I found a worn chunk of rusty metal and a worn out brake pad laying on the ground near where the noise quit on the pickup as it rolled up our lane. Obviously, we won't be driving the vehicle until I replace the rear brakes, because they're shot.
  • Mary removed grass mulch on emerging garlic plants in the far garden. She noticed earthworms in that mulch. When Mary started, the temperature was 58°. An hour later, the temperature 50°, after the wind switched from the southeast to due north. Her hands were blue. The temperature dropped throughout the rest of the day.
  • Mary heard a chorus frog when she was outside uncovering the garlic. We heard one spring peeper frog as we walked Plato at night.
  • We saw a barred owl beyond the southwest corner of the house. It was there for a couple hours. At dusk, the owl moved closer to the house, perching on a branch of a cherry tree nearest to the house.
    

Feb. 24-March 2, 2025

Weather | 2/24, p. cloudy, 39°, 61° | 2/25, sunny, 37°, 60° | 2/26, sprinkles to p. cloudy, 41°, 60° | 2/27, sunny, 33°, 55° | 2/28, sunny, 35°, 67° | 3/1, p. cloudy, 21°, 37° | 3/2, sunny, 12°, 45° |

• Monday, 2/24: A Woolly Bugger
  • Katie tracked the two Home Depot birthday gifts that she ordered for me. By the end of the day, both were in at the Quincy Home Depot location.
  • We saw something parked along the gravel road and Bill said he saw it there when he arrived on Saturday. Today, the crew cleaning the right-of-ways for the Lewis County Rural Electric Cooperative started up that Bobcat and trimmed small trees and grass on our side of the property and inside our fence line along the gravel road. It's not the best time of the year for this work, when the ground is soft due to warming temperatures.
  • We see a few honey bees out in the sunlight, today.
  • Bill took a walk and spotted a raccoon skin, including its tail, hanging from the top of a tall wood snag of a dead tree near Wood Duck Pond. We suspect a hawk or an owl got it.
  • I attended a Webex fly tying class put on by two guys from the Missouri Department of Conservation's August A. Busch Shooting Range and Outdoor Education Center in Defiance, MO between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. Half the time involved a slide presentation and the rest was spent tying a woolly bugger fly. My version is sloppy, but it might catch fish (see photo, below). This instructor is good, because he goes slowly through the steps and you see the work from his prospective, making it easier to follow along. It's actually better than viewing it all in person, where you are on the opposite side of the work being accomplished.
    
  • We watched the last three episodes of Genius: Einstein. 
  • Mary and I smelled a skunk while walking Plato at night. We kept him close to us.

  

  My woolly bugger fly. It's okay, but I'll get better.
  

• Tuesday, 2/25: Pruning Trees & Fixing Tire Tracks
  • While Mary and I were letting out the chickens and feeding them, we saw snow geese flying so low from east to west that we could hear their wing beats. Now that temperatures are warmer, we're seeing more snow geese.
  • The crew that is cleaning the electric company's right of ways drove a large machine wielding a buzz saw out the front of the machine on a long retractable pole to north of Bluegill Pond and sawed up tree branches intruding into space near the power lines. Behind that large machine was the other machine that we witnessed yesterday, which munches up smaller trees and branches dropped by the first machine.
    
  • Bill left around 2 p.m. for his St. Charles apartment. He's busy studying materials procurement, since that is what is future job involves.
  • Mary pruned 13 small fruit trees and five blueberry bushes.
  • I drove the 8N Ford tractor up and down the lane to push down marks made in the soft soil on either side of the lane by the large vehicle that cut down tree branches at Bluegill Pond. At the end of the lane, I talked to the guy driving the muncher vehicle. It's a track vehicle with a big set of blades on the front that rotate and slice up wooden matter. He was very polite and talked about how they try not unnecessarily to drive over trees. His machine not only takes out small trees that have the potential of growing to tall threats for overhead power lines, but pulverizes branches dropped by earlier work. I wish I had that machine to handle lespedeza. He said the attachment alone costs over $150,000. I checked out Bluegill Pond. His machine completely eliminated branches dropped earlier in the day.
  • I did a bunch of online research at night on various impact socket sets.

• Wednesday, 2/26: Owl Webex & Birthday Presents
  • I attended a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) webinar on owls that was broadcast from Joplin, MO. It was good. Owls aren't really wise. Nighttime vision for owls means their eyeballs take up a huge percentage of their skulls and there isn't as much room left for a brain cavity. Human eyes would need to be the size of tennis balls to take up a similar percentage of our skulls.
  • I drove to Quincy to pick up two gifts from Home Depot that Katie ordered for me for my birthday. They were 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" socket adapters and a modular storage case with a 100-piece impact driver bit set made by Milwaukee. I'll be able to drive any screw or socket of most any type or size.
  • While in Quincy, I also picked up two sets of DeWalt impact sockets, each containing seven sockets. One has metric sizes and the other has SAE sizes involving inches and fractions.
  • The on and off ramps from Highway 6 to Highway 61 are blocked while the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDot) rebuilds the overpass of Highway 61 at Taylor. Two summers ago, an oversized trucker hit that bridge two times in a week and damaged it. The detour on Highway 6 takes you through windy roads through Maywood, an tiny village and adds several miles and minutes to the trip. On the way back home, I took a shortcut from their detour that was much faster. It involves rough pavement, so I'm guessing that officials decided to use the long route for a detour so roads wouldn't get further trashed.
  • While I was gone, Mary went through the root crops stored in the back porch closet. She was surprised how well everything is surviving. The only casualties were small sweet potatoes with dry rot and some garlic.
  • Mary vacuumed a lot of bugs and flies. This is the worst year we've ever seen on bugs invading inside our house through the whole winter.
  • We saw the first red-winged blackbird of the season in the yard. I heard the first American woodcock this evening. Plus, Mary watched as a red-tailed hawk use her as a scarecrow. Crows were pursuing the hawk. The hawk dropped lower in the sky and flew right over Mary. The crows spotted Mary and veered off to the east. That was a smart hawk, who continued north, unmolested.

• Thursday, 2/27: March Winds Come Early
  • Mary and I took Plato on a walk on our north loop trail. He loves sniffing in wild areas. With only one dog, we can go as slow or as fast as he wants to move.
  • We saw snow geese struggling to fly west against a strong west, northwest wind. In the evening, we noticed many snow geese were flying back east with the wind at their backs. At one point, we saw a pair of smaller Ros's geese leading a group of snow geese.
  • I undid all of the new tools that Katie gave me, cleaned oil off them, and sorted them into spaces in the new case that came with them.
  • I spent the evening digging into online information about a concrete slab versus a crawl space for a post-frame house, along with termite and carpenter ant information.

• Friday, 2/28: Labeling Garlic Wine
  • Strong west winds blew, today. They changed to northwest wind gusts with the arrival of a cold front. Wind was blowing so hard at noon that Mary witnessed a flock of snow geese totally stalled overhead as they tried to fly westerly.
  • Mary and I walked Plato around the west field and down Bobcat Trail. Walking through the woods involves very crunchy leaves over the top of soft forest soil.
  • I labeled the 25 bottles of garlic wine and then sorted the bottles into available coolers for storage.
  • Mary and I both spent a long time vacuuming bugs from inside the house. Will they ever stop?
  • After watching an excellent example of kindergarten diplomacy exhibited by our weak-minded president and vice president in yelling at the president of Ukraine, Mary and I watched the 1994 film, I.Q., and the 1996 TV series, Nova: Einstein Revealed.

• Saturday, 3/1: Racked Spiced Apple Wine, Batch 2
  • We started the day with a stiff northwest breeze, but it dropped off by nightfall.
  • Mary and I had an indoor wienie roast.
  • Yesterday, Bill signed his final paperwork for his new job. His first day is Monday, March 3rd. Bill received a tour of the office. "It's the nicest office I've ever seen," he said. "The office has its own fitness center, like with showers and everything." It will be a big step up from working in an non-air conditioned warehouse in 100 degree summer heat.
  • Mary chased four deer out of the hazelnut patch at dusk.
  • I racked the spiced apple wine, batch 2, for the fourth time. The specific gravity was 0.999 and the pH was 3.0. There was a tiny bit of fines even though the wine is still cloudy. Similar to batch 1, I added 0.5 grams of K-meta and 4.36 teaspoons of pectic enzyme. After racking, I was left with two one-gallon jugs, a half-gallon jug, and a 1.5-liter bottle of liquid. Mary and I tasted the wine and it was similar to batch 1, but not quite as spicy. It's quite good. We even drank the wine left with the fines.

• Sunday, 3/2: Cutting Up New Firewood
  • Temperatures were quite cool in the morning, but it warmed up throughout the day.
  • Mary saw a bald eagle and a red-tailed hawk circling one another overhead.
  • We noticed lots of snow geese flying east to west. Several flocks were dropping in elevation as they flew over our property.
  • Mary and I went to the southwest corner of the west field and cut firewood from oak branches that fell out of dead trees. We loaded up the wagon. A few pieces were large enough to put next to the woodsplitter in the machine shed, but the majority went directly into the woodshed.
    
  • I tied another woolly buggar fly. It wasn't a very good job, again. I probably need to blunder through several to get better. Mary cross stitched while I muddled through fly tying.
  • At dusk, I cleaned the small chainsaw and greased its clutch needle bearing.
    
  • My evening was spent looking up building techniques required in termite country.

Feb. 17-23, 2025

Weather | 2/17, 1" snow, 0.06" moisture, 3°, 19° | 2/18, cloudy, -3°, 11° | 2/19, cloudy, 1°, 13° | 2/20, sunny, -7°, 17° | 2/21, sunny, 0°, 26° | 2/22, sunny, 10°, 38° | 2/23, sunny, 23°, 53° |

• Monday, 2/17: Bottling Garlic Wine
  • Snow filtered down ever so slowly throughout the day.
  • We saw a barred owl sitting on the nearest clothesline post this morning. His feathers were all fluffed out so that he looked like a dust mop.
  • I racked and bottled the garlic wine. At the third racking, this is the fastest I've had any wine clear, and it was crystal clear (see photo, below). One difference with this wine is cool temperatures kept it from moving quickly while in the brew bucket on the initial fermentation stage. Maybe slow fermentation allows it the clear faster. The pH was 3.1 and the specific gravity was 0.998. The alcohol content of this cooking wine is 13.62 percent. I added 2/3rds (0.6 grams) of the full amount I'd normally add of K-meta to the wine, since I added a full amount on the second racking a month ago and usually none is added on the third racking. I corked 25 bottles, leaving me 200 ml that I added to an opened bottle of garlic wine in the refrigerator.
    
  • While I was filling bottles, Mary saw a deer herd of six to eight animals out the north windows. Once they were past the far garden, they bucked and jumped out in different directions. Mary suspects that they were playing.
  • I watched the Sweden/USA game of the NHL Four Nations Tournament. Sweden won 2-1.

  

  An extremely clear garlic wine sample.
  

• Tuesday, 2/18: Cold, So We're Inside
  • It's quite cold for us...in the subzero single digits. But, Mom is seeing much lower temperatures in eastern Montana. She said today was the fourth day of below zero temperatures. It was -30 at her house this morning and it didn't get above zero yesterday and it's not expected to do so, again, today.
  • I looked at birthday gift ideas for myself.
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread and worked on a cross stitch project.
  • I read the Whizbang Apple Grinder & Cider Press book that I bought at Christmastime of 2023 and looked up where to buy HDPE plastic to make into a basket for the press. I found an inexpensive source on Amazon.
  • I'm finding online that foam board insulation, which is advocated for placing under slab on grade floors, outside of basement cement walls, or as exterior insulation, is an excellent source for carpenter ant nests. They like its softness. It resembles decaying and rotting wood. It would be a poor item, along with spray foam insulation, for us to use with woods throughout our property. Pest control companies are starting to nullify any guarantees to homeowners who have foam board insulation installed on the outside of their buildings.
  • Katie asked me what to do in case volcanic ash falls in Anchorage. I told her about my experience at WSU in Pullman, WA, when Mount St. Helens blew. Mary and I looked online and Mt. Spurr, near Anchorage, is having recent seismic activity and they're suspecting it might erupt sometime soon.
    

• Wednesday, 2/19: Gift Ideas
  • I looked into making a basket for an apple cider press. It can be made out of wood or 1/8-inch thick food safe plastic and it appears that wood will be cheaper than the HDPE (high-density polyethylene) plastic.
  • I followed deer tracks into the north woods just north of the machine shed. The deer walked down the trail to my new deer blind, looked at it, then turned north and walked right by it.
  • Mary made a venison General Tso dish for our midday meal.
  • On potential birthday presents to buy, I think I decided on purchasing a set of precision screwdrivers made by PB Swiss. Reviews online state that this Switzerland-based company makes top-ranked screwdrivers with tips that never wear out. I'm also looking at some gun cleaning items that assist in removing rust from the inside and outside of rifle barrels.
  • I recently listed hobbies I enjoy, along with hobbies I once enjoyed. When I was a kid, I loved flying kites. I mentioned it to Mary and she dug out a kite I once bought at a Washington, D.C. Smithsonian gift shop which is a stunt kite that was never used. On a warmer spring day, I'm going to try it out. Mary also dug up a Golden Press book on kites that has several interesting plans for building unique kites. That looks like fun.
  • We watched the 1993 film, Medicine River, starring Graham Greene, from Dances With Wolves fame. We rented this movie years ago, when we lived in Roseau, MN, and liked it. YouTube has a copy of it that was rerecorded from a VHS tape. It's a rough video in spots, but at least the film is viewable. It's not available for purchase, anywhere. The movie was fun to watch, again.
    

• Thursday, 2/20: Family Birthday Wishes
  • We saw a barred owl twice today. The first time it was on a tiny branch in a maple sapling in the east yard as I opened the bedroom curtains after waking up. Owls are so light for their size that they can sit on a twig similar to what a small song bird can perch on, which looks odd. The second time we saw a barred owl was in the late afternoon. It was perched on a cow panel wrapped around a cherry tree southwest of the house. Maybe it was the same owl we saw this morning.
  • Mary heard a cardinal's spring song at sunrise when the temperature was at -7°. It proves that the height of the sun is a determining factor for spring activity in birds, not warmer temperatures.
  • Four deer tried to munch on apple trees south of the house at 10:45 a.m., but Mary pounded on the living room window and waved the curtain, scaring them away.
  • I'm 68 years old today. It sounds a heck of a lot older than I feel.
  • We received a call from Katie this morning, wishing me a happy birthday. She was at the airport in Anchorage, catching a flight to Fairbanks, where she was to represent her company today at a job fair in the student union building at the UAF campus.
  • Bill called with birthday wishes. Today was a big day for him. He had a third interview with the CEO of a company he applied to for a job. A couple hours later, Bill announced that he was hired. He will start March 1st. His position is listed on the original job advertisement as data analyst/project coordinator. The company is McBride Homes. They construct homes throughout the St. Louis region. He will assist a purchasing manager who works with suppliers for the company's home construction efforts. She was one of the most recent hires by that company and she's been with them for 10 years, which indicates that McBride Homes is a stable employer. The job means a step up in income for Bill.
  • Mom called with birthday wishes. Yesterday when she looked out the window at her thermometer, she thought it was broken. After calling around town, Mom realized her outside thermometer was correct. The morning temperature really was -40° in Circle, MT.
  • Mary and I watched the championship game of the Four Nations NHL tournament. Canada won in overtime, beating USA, 3-2, on a shot from Edmonton Oilers Captain Connor McDavid. Canada's goalie, who is in the goal for the St. Louis Blues, Jordan Binnington, was amazing in overtime, stopping several extremely good shots on goal by the USA team. It was a fun game to watch.
    

• Friday, 2/21: Dragonfly Webex
  • I watched a Missouri Department of Conservation Webex presentation about dragonflies. It was interesting. Dragonflies were around 100 million years prior to dinosaurs. A pond with dragonfly larvae indicates unpolluted water. They live three to five years underwater in the larval stage, then a few weeks to a few months as adults. They can fly up to 35 mph. Some are migratory and can travel as much as 1200 miles. Their four wings allow them to maneuver in any direction through the air.
  • The chickens were outside for the first time in several days. They enjoyed themselves dusting in the mud on the south side of the chicken coop.
  • I walked Plato to between the ponds. Snow hasn't melted on that part of the trail, where we saw coyote tracks of a very large canine. The tracks were as wide as Plato's tracks and much longer. Deer tracks are everywhere.
    

• Saturday, 2/22: Turkey & TV
  • Bill arrived between 11 a.m. to noon. Plato mugged him like he always does...he loves Bill.
  • We watched NHL hockey. First was the Minnesota Wild and the Detroit Red Wings. The Wild came from behind 3-1 to win 4-3 in overtime. The second game was boring. Washington beat Pittsburgh 8-3.
  • Mary baked a 21-pound turkey, with mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans. It was very good. We also enjoyed a bottle of 2024 parsnip wine. It was also good. Bill says it has the most complex flavor of any wine I make. The earthy flavor that also includes a citrus taste is very unique.
  • A 60-piece case of Milwaukee impact drill and drive set of attachments were delivered via FedEx today (see photo, below). They are part of a birthday present from Katie. They look really nice.
    
  • After chores, we watched three episodes of Genius: Einstein, which was something Bill requested viewing.
  • We ate turkey sandwiches and part of a cherry crisp that Mary made for my birthday.
    
  • The stars were very bright and steady when Mary, Bill, and I took Plato outside on his nightly walk.

  

  Impact drivers & drill bits for my new impact wrench.
  

• Sunday, 2/23: Using New Tools
  • We saw a barred owl at the top of a cedar tree south of the house this morning. Near sunset, a barred owl was on the insulator on the side of a power pole near Bluegill Pond. It might have been the same owl.
  • When Mary and I walked Plato around noon, we spotted a bald eagle circling way above our property. It caught an uplift and soared higher. At the same time, we spotted a red-shouldered hawk circling near the bald eagle. The hawk shows off as an extreme orange bird when the sun is shining through its feathers against the deep blue sky.
  • I used some of my new impact drivers and bits to attach strips of half-inch plywood to cover cracks in the tongue and groove siding on the north end of the woodshed. The impact driver works very well at driving screws into tough wood. The design of the chuck is nicer than old chucks on electric drills requiring a key to tighten or loosen them. You just push the tools into place and release them by pulling a retaining ring outward. It means I can change bits with one hand while holding a piece of wood up with the other hand. The biggest advantage is I don't need to run an extension cord to the tool, since it's powered by a lithium battery.
  • Bill and I saw a flock of mallard ducks fly over the house, followed by a big flock of snow geese that ventured to the southwest. Because the sun was setting, the geese were dropping in elevation and getting ready to land for the night.
  • We watched four episodes of Genius: Einstein.

Feb. 10-16, 2025

Weather | 2/10, cloudy, 11°, 36° | 2/11, cloudy, 21°, 29° | 2/12, 1" snow, 0.17" moisture, cloudy, 19°, 23° | 2/13, sunny, 0°, 16° |2/14, cloudy, 7°, 33° | 2/15, cloudy, 21°, 36° | 2/16, sunny, 13°, 23° |

• Monday, 2/10: Mary's Wrist Improving
  • Mary's left wrist is better, but not perfect. She can bend it just a little bit and she can loosely clench a fist. It's still swollen and sore, but Mary can bend her fingers on her left hand and touch the thumb with her fingers, which is something she couldn't do yesterday.
  • Mary saw a small group of snow geese fly overhead at a fast rate with an east wind pushing them to the west.
  • I sawed more firewood in the north woods. I mainly sawed up oak and honey locust branches that fell along the fence line. I also sawed up an eight-inch in diameter red oak tree that landed on branches when it fell, enabling most of the trunk to stay above the ground and therefore not rot from the wet soil. I took a full wagon load home and unloaded most of it into the woodshed. The firewood stack now tops out at chest height. I also have several thick chunks to split next to the woodsplitter.
  • In the evening, I reviewed pickup brake job videos, specifically related to replacing the rear dust plates.
    

• Tuesday, 2/11: Part Arrives - No Part
  • Mary is able to bend her wrist a little more. She doesn't bruise, yet her wrist is bruised. She loaded firewood into the house, which doesn't require bending her wrist. Mary just can't do most things that require the manipulation of two hands.
  • I drove to Quincy because when I ordered my chainsaw parts last week, I was told they should be in by today. The guy at the Stihl counter in Farm & Home said the computer shows it came in, but he couldn't find my parts. He said he will call me tomorrow. I left there mad. I got some cat food, rolled oats for us humans, and hand warmers for me. I filled the gas tank in Lewistown, where gas is cheapest at $2.73 a gallon.
  • We watched two movies, which were the 1995 film, A Little Princess, and the 1993 movie, The Secret Garden.
  • We noticed a dusting of snow on the ground and a strong northeast wind when we walked Plato before going to bed.
    

• Wednesday, 2/12: Snow, Rabbits, & an Owl
  • It snowed all day, but very lightly. We got an inch...maybe an inch and a half. Of course all schools were closed. Snow is a hideous thing in these parts, even when it's not enough to cover all of the dead grass.
  • There are tons of bunny tracks left in the snow. We should call our place the bunny farm.
  • Mary saw some bird swoop by the living room window, looked out the south window, and saw a barred owl parked in a cedar tree with a broken top just southwest of the house (see video, below). It sat there for quite some time, shaking its head occasionally to remove snowflakes.
  • Mary cross stitched for an hour while I washed dishes. An hour is all she could tolerate with her hurt wrist. It's slightly better, but still sore and difficult to bend all the way.
  • I have various hockey feeds that I receive from social media sites. I noticed that the Minnesota Wild NHL team congratulated two team members who are on the Swedish team in the Four Nations Face-Off. Of course, most of the message was in Swedish, since many Minnesotans know the language and can understand it.
  • I'm considering renting a car when I do a rear brake job on the pickup, in case I need to run to get additional parts in the middle of the job. The rust is severe under the truck and chances are great that some nut will strip or a bolt will break and I'll need to buy more parts.
  Zero into the center cedar tree to watch the barred owl turn its head.
  

• Thursday, 2/13: Taxes
  • Predicted temperatures are way off for us. This morning, we were 11 degrees colder than what the weather reports said we'd get down to, meaning it was 0° for a low.
  • I figured out the federal and state income taxes and sent them in.
  • I called Farm & Home and asked about the chainsaw part I ordered. It's on backorder and might be in by the end of this month.
  • I walked Plato to just beyond Bass Pond. There were either fox or coyote tracks left in the snow on all trails. Plato had a good sniffy time on the walk.
  • While doing evening chores, several robins were in our yard.
    

• Friday, 2/14: Mississippi Mud on Valentine's Day
  • Bill called. He's visiting us next weekend.
  • Mary made a Mississippi Mud dessert for Valentine's Day. We ate huge pieces as a between the movies snack at night. We added cherry wine to our decadent menu, which was a very nice combination.
  • We did evening chores early, because we saw bad weather approaching via online radar. All we got were sleet balls and a bit of freezing rain. It blew hard all day from the southeast.
  • After a pork loin dinner, we watched two movies. They were the 2018 film, Crazy Rich Asians, and the 2017 movie, Beauty and the Beast.
    

• Saturday, 2/15: Helping Mary
  • We experienced a very windy day, first blowing from the south, then west, then northwest as a cold front came through us.
  • I helped Mary with some inside chores, such as washing dishes and vacuuming bugs. Mary's wrist is slowly improving, but it still aches, especially with use. She wears a wrist brace at times, which helps.
  • Eastern bluebirds and yellow-rumped warblers were on the south side of our house this afternoon. They like to pick off bugs that come out from under the siding.
    
  • We watched the Canada/USA Four Nations NHL game. USA won 3-1. It was fun to watch.
  • Katie sent a photo of wine glasses that she painted with cherry blossoms and branches, today (see below).

  

  Cherry blossoms painted on wine glasses by Katie.
  

• Sunday, 2/16: Splitting Firewood
  
  • We had a strong northwest wind that blew all day, but died off come nightfall. A full day of sun was nice, though. Most snow melted with the sun's heat, even though the high was just 23°.
  • I split eight wheelbarrow loads of red oak firewood. I'm amazed that the small Stihl chainsaw can cut such thick pieces of tree trunk. In a couple instances, the split pieces from just two round chunks of the red oak trunk filled the wheelbarrow. The last load went into the house. Red oak burns for a long time and kicks off a vast amount of heat.
  • I looked online at insulation ideas for post frame houses.
  • Mary is using her wrist more, which is good.
    

Feb. 3-9, 2025

Weather | 2/3, p. cloudy, 39°, 65° | 2/4, p cloudy, 23°, 34° | 2/5, freezing mist, 23°, 30° | 2/6, sunny, 28°, 43° |2/7, cloudy, 18°, 38° | 2/8, cloudy, 30°, 38° | 2/9, cloudy to sunny, 19°, 34° |

• Monday, 2/3: Bill Heads South
  
  • We experienced an extra warm day. Local news reports indicated they had a record high in  Quincy of 66°. We were just one degree below that mark. By sundown, a cold front blew in with a strong north wind.
    
  • Bill left for his home in the St. Louis region around 2 p.m. after eating a noon meal.
    
  • The spiced apple wine turns out to be somewhat clear, but not crystal clear. I guess I have pectin haze that I need to work on.
    
  • I moved four wheelbarrow loads of tall dead grass from the new garbage burn location to the cage surrounding the strawberry buckets and tubs. The grass I originally put there squeezed flat with snows that fell earlier. I fluffed up grass above the containers and then added this new dead grass to the area between the buckets and the circular fence surrounding the strawberry plants. Next, I mowed the dead grass down to a very short length at the new burn barrel spot.
    
  • Two days of near summer temperatures meant we vacuumed lots of bugs from inside the windows. The bug situation inside this leaky house is relentless this winter.
    

• Tuesday, 2/4: Small Shopping Trip
  
  • We had a massive amount of snow geese flying overhead, going east to west.
  • A call came in from Farm & Home in Quincy that my chainsaw parts arrived.
    
  • I went shopping in Quincy. I picked up a big pork loin at Neimann's (used to be called County Market, but they changed back to their original grocery store name) on sale for $1.88 a pound. I got a few other food items at Aldi and HyVee, then picked up my chainsaw parts and two bags of hen food at Farm & Home.
  • I looked at deep impact sockets. I read online that a pro brand of sockets at Harbor Freight was good. Handling them up in the store resulted in black crud coming off on my hands...no way am I going to buy that cheap junk. The DeWalt sockets didn't look as well built as the Milwaukee tools that I finally decided on in the Home Depot store. I'm looking forward to seeing how they work on my new impact wrench.
  • I got home after dark and when I pulled into where I park the pickup, a squadron of bunnies hopped away through the persimmon saplings beyond the west yard.
  • When I told Mary about my impact socket purchase, I called the Milwaukee tools "Old Milwaukee" sockets. Mary corrected me, saying, "That's a beer company!"
    
  • While driving home, I wore the nighttime driving glasses that I got as a Christmas gift. They are really wonderful for knocking down the glare of extreme headlights.
    

• Wednesday, 2/5: Ordered Chicks
  
  • Freezing mist put a nice sheen of ice on trees and the ground, making walking outside a slow and steady process. Local schools canceled classes today and there were online reports of vehicles sliding off slippery roads throughout the area.
    
  • We watched a red-shouldered hawk fly very low and right by the house.
    
  • After spotting an online headline about high egg prices boosting backyard chicken purchases, I ordered chicks from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO. We bought three barred rock hen chicks and 25 frypan special chicks. They will ship on June 9th.
  • Mary found four eggs in the chicken coop today. The girls are back providing us with eggs after taking time off for a winter break.
  • Online research showed that I need to double or triple the amount of pectic enzyme normally used in wine recipes in order to eliminate pectin haze in wine after fermentation ends, since alcohol tends to kill the enzyme. Extra time is also necessary to clear up pectin haze.
    

• Thursday, 2/6: Chainsaw Maintenance & Racking Spiced Apple Wine
  • Mary saw five deer out the west living room window this morning. She watched a young deer in this herd grab a mouthful of dried comfrey leaves and immediately spit it out. It probably is a good deer deterrent to plant around fruit trees.
  • Yesterday's freezing mist put an amazing glint on all tree branches that were uniquely highlighted by the morning sun (see photos, below).
    
  • I attended a Missouri Department of Conservation webinar about flying squirrels. They have a cartilage off their front wrists that they extend outward during flight to turn the flaps of skin along both sides of their body into an aerodynamic form. Their flat tail acts as a rudder, enabling them to do amazing aerial acrobatic moves, especially when chased by owls. Nut shells partially eaten at one end are from flying squirrels. I've seen these under pecan trees and on the floor of the grain bins, thinking they were from mice, but they are a sure sign of flying squirrels.
    
  • I worked on the big Stihl chainsaw. A 19mm socket on my new DeWalt impact driver easily removed the saw's clutch. It's nice to own the right tool for the job. After cleaning out a bunch of oily crud, I found a broken piece of cast iron, left over from when the clutch bearing went out. I spotted pit marks where loose metal parts binged around under that clutch. I pulled the oiler worm gear and compared the spring (what I've called a wire in the past) to online photos and it's tip is definitely worn off by about 2mm. The plastic face of the worm gear was all chipped up. I called Farm & Home in Quincy and ordered another worm gear and spring. It should be in by Tuesday. I installed three new clutch springs. The old springs were easy to remove and the new ones were stiffer and hard to install, but I got it done. I'm sure the new springs will help keep the chain from turning when the chainsaw is running on idle. I also installed a new clutch drum, rim sprocket, washer and e-clip (new parts I recently bought).
    
  • I racked the spiced apple wine, batch 1, for the fourth time. The clearing agents I added last Saturday are a waste of time. This wine is still cloudy. The fines were plentiful and extremely fluid, so I lost more liquid than I expected to leave behind. After racking the 3-gallon carboy, I was left with 11 liters, or 2.906 gallons. The specific gravity is 1.000 and the pH is 3.1. I added 0.5 grams of Kmeta and three times the normal amount of pectic enzyme, or 4.36 teaspoons to match the liquid amount. The wine went into two gallon jugs, a half-gallon jug, and a 1.5-liter bottle. Mary and I drank the 200 milliliters that were left over. By golly, it tastes very good.

Two cherry trees and SW woods shine with ice on branches.

Sunlit icy branches of the Empire apple (left) & cherry tree (right).

• Friday, 2/7: Splitting Firewood & Thoughts on Eggs
  • I split seven wheelbarrow loads of firewood and stacked six loads into the woodshed. The last load went into the house.
  • Every time I turned off the woodsplitter to move a load of firewood, I heard snow geese and several times I saw them flying east to west. I also spotted a flock of about a dozen Canada geese flying right over the house heading east.
  • We enjoyed an indoor wienie roast using the woodstove.
  • Mary and I had two pots, each, of  Harney & Sons Tippy Yunan loose leaf tea and watched two movies. They were the 2016 film, The Finest Hours, and the 2010 movie, Despicable Me.
  • My cousin, Marjorie, reposted an item that the national wholesale average for a dozen eggs is $7.29. Aldi, in Quincy, IL, has them for $6.05. If our hens give us two to three dozen eggs in 2.5 weeks, they pay for their feed at today's egg prices. That's only two eggs a day. We're getting at least that daily, and sometimes more. Plus, our girls are outside most days (not on days cooler than 20°), scratching the ground and happy. They get sunflower seed treats every morning and evening, which helps train them to go inside the coop when we shut them up for the night. It also makes for brilliant orange yokes, something you don't see in eggs from the store. It's a good deal for us.
    

• Saturday, 2/8: Soup & Vegetable-Loving Plato
  • Mary made a huge batch of vegetable soup and biscuits for our midday meal and future soup meals. She was helped by the accompany of a veggie-loving dog. Plato adores all kinds of vegetables, such as carrots and celery. Mary slipped him a cabbage leaf that he snarfed it down immediately. He probably likes vegetables over meat. Plato is also extremely fond of oranges.
  • I split four wheelbarrow loads of firewood and stacked them in the woodshed, thereby finishing all of the larger chunks that were next to the woodsplitter.
  • While splitting wood, I noticed that the gravel near an old cement mixer in the machine shed is all mounded up. Who knows? Maybe we have a ground hog living in a hole under the machine shed. It would make for a warm and cozy spot and only loud when I start the eight horsepower Briggs engine on the splitter.
  • I compared the pricing from various locations online for parts I need for fixing the rear brakes on the pickup. Pricing varies considerably between various online locations.
  • In the process of looking for parts, I bought two pickup repair manuals specifically for our 2004 GMC Sierra 1500. Hopefully, they should show up next week.
    

• Sunday, 2/9: Firewood Gathering & Mary's Sprained Wrist
  • I sharpened the small chainsaw. It only took two strokes of the file on each tooth.
  • We went to the far end of the north field to cut firewood out of the north woods. I cut down some prickly ash to form a path to walk firewood out of the north woods to the tractor and trailer, but didn't cut the sapling stumps low enough to the ground. Mary tripped on them and landed on her left wrist, badly spraining it. She went home and promptly iced it with a two-pound bag of broccoli, because she couldn't manipulate the ice cube trays. Gandalf, our largest cat, would lean into Mary and sniff the bag of broccoli, because he loves frozen broccoli. Mary was in pretty solid pain throughout the day and donned a wrist brace in the evening.
  • I cut up a fairly large red oak tree that was down on the ground for firewood. The base was about 16 inches in diameter, which is pretty much the capacity of the small chainsaw with an 18-inch bar. I also cut several oak branches. I loaded and drove back a full wagon load of wood, then stacked most all of it into the machine shed, next to the splitter.
  • We watched the Super Bowl where Philadelphia trounced Kansas City, 40-22. The Eagles deserved to win. The Chiefs stunk up the field for over three quarters and finally played well when the other team was so far ahead that they didn't care. I think Kansas City got too tied up in their own three-peat nonsense.
  • When you don't watch live television for months at a time, you realize how empty-minded the ads appear. It's all quick, flashy junk created for those with attention spans of gnats. We feel like we wasted 3-4 hours of our life watching that entire football game. I'm more into watching a 12-minute recap of game highlights. That way, you eliminate stupid ads.
    
  • There was a huge ring around the moon when we walked Plato at night. Thin cloud formations were in an even larger ring. We heard several coyotes yipping and howling just north of the machine shed.
  • Mary slept on the couch in the living room, since her throbbing wrist felt worse while laying flat on the bed. The only good thing about all of this is she didn't break her wrist, because she can still move it.

Jan. 27-Feb. 2, 2025

Weather | 1/27, sunny, 15°, 43° | 1/28, sunny, 22°, 49° | 1/29, sunny, 28°, 53° | 1/30, 0.02" rain, fog, 30°, 45° | 1/31, 0.11" rain, cloudy, 30°, 41° | 2/1, p. cloudy to cloudy, 23°, 44° | 2/2, p. cloudy, 35°, 58° |

• Monday, 1/27: DeWalt Tools Arrive
  
  • We noticed the sparkling jewels of ice crystals on the lane when we walked Plato last night. This morning I saw frozen ice crystals that were almost a half an inch in diameter as I marched the wood ashes to the dump pile just beyond the far garden.
    
  • The DeWalt power tools were delivered today. The UPS driver left the package at the front door of our neighbor's trailer across the gravel road from us.
  • I charged the two batteries that came with the tools and pulled the trigger of both of them to test them. They seem very nice. I read up on all of the documentation that came with them.
    
  • I went down an internet rabbit hole of searching for impact sockets to fit the new impact driver. Then I went down another rabbit hole investigating how to get larger capacity batteries for the two new tools.
    
  • Bill informed us that he's visiting us this weekend.
  • Katie reported that there are extremely icy streets in Anchorage today (see photo, below).
  • Last week, Katie sent us a photo of her recently acquired business card (see below).

Anchorage streets of ice.

Katie's new business card.

• Tuesday, 1/28: Scouting Firewood Trees
  
  • I put Ethanol Shield into the two-cycle gas can for chainsaws and the weed trimmer and into one five-gallon gas can, along with the gas tanks for the wood splitter and the two lawn mowers. I started and ran both lawn mowers for about five minutes to circulate Ethanol Shield through the carburetors.
    
  • Plato and I took a walk to the southeast, so I could scout for standing dead trees to cut for firewood. I found a few in a couple gullies. At one point, we spooked up a barred owl that flew only a few feet away and looked at us. I backed us out to leave it alone. There is a great deal of new small oak tree growth into the field and near big oak trees. Plato really enjoyed sniffing for wild things while on the walk.
    
  • After sunset, I watched 35 trumpeter swans fly east to west in the sky south of us. I also heard coyotes howling from the north field.
  • Warming outside temperatures signify an increase in Asian ladybugs and flies inside the house. Mary and I both sucked bugs with the shop vac throughout the day.
  • For years I've tucked Amber into bed in the chair in our bedroom and now, every night before going to bed, I step to the chair and then turn away, realizing once again that she's no longer there.
    

• Wednesday, 1/29: Firewood Fiasco of 2025!
  
  • Immediately after waking up, we saw five deer grazing on shrubs west of the house (see video, below). They all looked very healthy.
  • I greased the clutch needle cage bearing on the small chainsaw and checked the chain. It's still sharp.
  • Plato and I walked north, giving me a chance to look for standing dead firewood trees. I found several.
    
  • Mary and I drove the 8N Ford tractor and trailer to the east edge of the north woods, where I cut down four red oak trees that grew from the same stump. I cut two of them up into firewood chunks, along with a cherry branch. Mary loaded the trailer. We'll have to go back tomorrow for the other two trees.
  • On the way back home, I drove the tractor on the old trail. I don't know what I was thinking, because the new trail that I made last fall is much easier to navigate. The tractor spun out on frozen ground on a hill in that old trail. Mary was back home to get some evening chores done. I walked home to let her know the news. After loading tractor tire chains in a wheelbarrow, I went back to the tractor. I unloaded the firewood out of the trailer, unhooked it from the tractor, and then pushed the trailer by hand down the hill. Without installing tire chains, I backed the tractor down the hill, hooked on the trailer, and then drove it over to the new trail and up the hill. Next, I loaded firewood into the wheelbarrow and pushed it through the snow to reload the trailer. Partway through the reloading, Mary showed up to help. I drove it home and we unloaded the firewood. We were very tired after loading and unloading a few times!
  • Mary vacuumed flies and bugs while I cleaned the chainsaw. Our insect house is insane with bugs when outside temperatures rise above freezing. On the positive side, Mary and I both spotted a honey bee while outside today.
  • On our nighttime walk for Plato, we had coyotes howling to the west and south of us, simultaneously.
    
  Deer viewed through our west living room window.
  

• Thursday, 1/30: More Firewood Collection
  
  • Mary and I tried to get outside right after breakfast to get more firewood, but a steady light rain prevailed, so we stayed inside until around 11:30 a.m.
  • We went back to our two remaining red oak trees that I took down yesterday. Fog swept through the woods and moisture dripped from tree branches. I sawed the two trees into firewood chunks while Mary loaded the trailer. I also found a couple oak limbs and I sawed them up. We unloaded the trailer after we ate our midday meal. I now have a bunch of red oak firewood to split.
    
  • Mary found the remains of two giant puffballs in the field near where she loaded the trailer. They are dirty greenish/yellow and resemble old rotten sponges.
  • Back in my days working for Mid-Rivers Telephone in Circle, MT, I took yearly trips to Washington, D.C. for the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) annual meetings. This involved flights in and out of the Reagan National Airport in D.C., so the airplane and helicopter crash that occurred last night really gets my attention. Landing at Reagan involves swooping down over the Potomac River and setting down right smack in the middle of the city. It's in tight quarters, compared to landing in Denver, where you're out in the country. Besides, that city is a very busy place.
    

• Friday, 1/31: It's "Tator, Tator, Tator" Nearly Spring
  
  • We woke to fog that turned to mist. Clouds broke while the sun set. During our nighttime walk with Plato, heavy frost crunched under our feet.
  • Mary heard the springtime "tator, tator, tator" song of a tufted titmouse this morning.
    
  • I didn't clean up the small chainsaw that I used yesterday, so I did that today.
  • Mary did a major housecleaning.
  • I heard several trumpeter swans while they flew by to the north of the house. I never saw them. Swans are amazingly loud.
    
  • I checked online about a chainsaw trying to quit when you first start it, a phenomenon that the small saw is doing, and it's possibly a clogged muffler screen or a dirty air filter. I'll check both in the near future.
  • After noticing that a Lear jet crashed in a Philadelphia neighborhood tonight, I checked to see if my cousin, Marjorie, was okay. The crash site is about six to eight miles north of her, so she's fine.
    

• Saturday, 2/1: Racking Spiced Apple Batch I
  
  • Bill arrived around 11 a.m. from his apartment in St. Charles. Plato is always very happy to see Bill and greets him with enthusiasm.
    
  • Bill and I worked on the two batches of spiced apple wine. 
  • We added a clearing agent called Super-Kleer K.C. to batch I. It involves a two step process. First, an item called Kieselsol, also known as silicon dioxide, is added to the carboy. It is negatively charged and attracts positive ions. After an hour, Chitosan is mixed with an ounce of warm water and added. It has a positive charge and attracts negative particles. I removed some wine to add the second part. Chitosan is a shellfish derivative. It is suppose to clear the wine in 12 to 48 hours by settling out particles. This will not work if too much pectin is in the wine, which is possible with an apple product.
  • We racked spiced apple batch II for the third time directly into a second carboy. No Kmeta was added. The specific gravity was 1.000 and the pH was 3.0.
  • Mary, Bill, and I tasted both batches of spiced apple wine. It was very tangy. The spices rang out loud and clear, especially with batch I. They were both very delicious.
    
  • Mary cross stitch on a black moon cat ornament.
  • We watched the 2023 film, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. We also watched the 1994 movie, Maverick. Bill picked out both movies.
    

• Sunday, 2/2: Chainsaw & Trimmer Maintenance
  
  • I cleaned up both chainsaws and the trimmer. Upon removing the small saw's muffler, I discovered the muffler screen was installed incorrectly, so that it only partially covered the exhaust port. I burned the carbon out of it with a torch and installed it the right way. I also cleaned the air filter, which is rather unimpressive with twinky engineering. I changed the spark plug in the small chainsaw, too. I cleaned the air cleaner element in the big chainsaw and in the grass trimmer.
    
  • Growth of what once was a small oak tree near the burn barrel means we need to find a new location to burn, so I whacked down dead grass east of the north yard where I'll move the burn barrel once I've cleaned out the old barrel. It's actually three huge rims for a military vehicle that were once welded on top of one another and not a barrel.
    
  • Bill took a hike around our property. He saw some bobwhite quail on our lane and lots of snow geese flying overhead.
    
  • Mary made three pizzas that we ate while we played Michigan Rummy throughout the evening. There were many missed attempts where a player went out before money cards could be played. Bill took a photo of two remaining hands of cards on one such event (see below). On one occasion, I had a hand of a straight sequence from the five of spades to the Jack of spades. It was a fun time.
    
  • Mary, Bill and I shared a 1.5-liter bottle of pear wine while we played cards.
  • My spiced apple wine clearing experiment is showing some clearer liquid, but it's not crystal clear, as advertised. It takes 12 to 48 hours and the longest amount of time ends tomorrow at 4 p.m.

  

  Unplayed cards in a game of Michigan Rummy.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Jan. 20-26, 2025

Weather | 1/20, sunny, -5°, 16° | 1/21, sunny, -11°, 7° |1/22, cloudy, skiff of snow, 7°, 32° | 1/23, sunny, 9°, 20° | 1/24, p. cloudy, 1°, 28° | 1/25, p. cloudy, 23°, 43° | 1/26, p. cloudy, 19°, 34° |

• Monday, 1/20: Cold Day & Racking Garlic Wine
  
  • We experienced another cold morning. As it warmed up, the northwest wind picked up, making it feel chilly.
  • When I emptied the wood ashes this morning, I spotted a deer in the east field looking at me. At first I thought it was a wooden stump, but then I saw a distinct head and ears. It never budged.
  • We kept chickens inside their coop. A heater and the sun keeps the inside of the chicken coop in the 30s when it's quite a bit cooler outside.
    
  • I racked the garlic wine for a second time. Fines in the carboy were over an inch deep. The specific gravity was 0.098 and the pH was 3.2. I lost more than a wine bottle and a beer bottle worth of liquid, most of that in the form of fines. I added just a smidgen less than two cups of water to the five-gallon carboy to bring the level up into the neck of the container. It won't lesson the wine's flavor much. This wine has a very strong garlic smell. The wine now sits for a month in the pantry.
  • Mary and I watched the 2003 movie, Lord of the Ring: Return of the King, while enjoying two pots of Tippy Yunan loose leaf tea and big buckets of popcorn. Through these movies, our cat, Gandalf, occasionally watches the screen as they keep mentioning his name.
    
  • The outside temperature was -3° when we went to bed, so I stoked the fire and added more firewood.
    

• Tuesday, 1/21: Cordless Drill Purchase
  
  • I woke at 4:30, saw that it was -10° outside, and opened the woodstove door to discover a few red, glowing coals. After adding four chunks of red oak firewood and waiting as the fire took off, I went back to bed after 15 minutes of fire babysitting. When we got up a couple hours later, the living room was warm even though it was -11° outside.
  • Our midday and afternoon high was 5°. Besides chores, my only outside adventures were walking trips down to our mailbox where a UPS package of cross stitching material, a USPS package of cross stitch floss, and a USPS package of waterproof cold weather gloves were waiting.
  • While emptying wood ashes this morning, I heard two pileated woodpeckers, one to the south and the other to the north, pounding on trees like dueling banjos. It seemed like they were communicating with one another.
  • Mary made a wonderful venison stew with biscuits four our midday meal, which is perfect for a cold winter day.
    
  • Katie texted that she was in Prudhoe Bay today and the temperature was 14°, when we were -5°.
  • Mary took photos of a sunlit Christmas cactus blossom (see below). It's an uplifting vision when it's cold outside.
    
  • Mary spotted a 40 percent off deal on a DeWalt 20-volt cordless drill and impact driver, plus two batteries and a storage bag on Amazon that was written about in Popular Science. I texted Katie asking her if it was a good deal. She said it was an amazing deal, even though the batteries were small. I ordered it. I'll get larger batteries in the future. There are many, many times when I need this for when I'm too far away to stretch an extension cord.
  • I had a couple small glasses of 2023 persimmon wine. It's pretty good when chilled and much improved from a year ago. I just might have to make it, again, but let it age for at least one year.
    
  • A southeast wind picked up after dark, moving outside temperatures upward so that by midnight we reached our high of the day of 7°.

A Christmas cactus flower backlit by the sun.

A closeup of the same blossom.

• Wednesday, 1/22: Haircut & Snow
  
  • A pair of red-shouldered hawks flew past the west window of the living room this morning.
  • I gave Mary a haircut in the living room, near the woodstove, or the warmest spot in the house.
    
  • We ate a completely homegrown dinner for our midday meal (see photo, below).
    
  • A great horned owl pair called to each other from the southwest woods, so they've probably mated and eggs are on the way. HERE is the neat call they make.
    
  • Just before darkness settled in, a skiff of snow fell on us. We decided to delay our shopping trip to Quincy until Friday. The snow wasn't much, but we don't want to deal with zooming traffic in potentially slippery conditions.

  

  A homegrown meal of chicken, green beans, and sweet potatoes.
  

• Thursday, 1/23: Working Inside on a Windy Day
  
  • We experienced a very windy day with blasts out of the northwest. It all died at sunset.
    
  • Mary cross stitched on a Halloween ornament called Witch Silhouette that she started on New Year's Eve. She's just a few hours away from finishing it. When she does, I'll show a photo of the ornament.
    
  • I worked on the big Stihl chainsaw, but didn't get anywhere. I attempted to remove the clutch. The nut that you use to remove the clutch is so short that there's barely enough height to put a socket or regular box wrench on it, so it wants to strip out. I tried several combinations, but to no avail. I'm taking it into Quincy, while we shop tomorrow, to see if I can get some answers. I'm sure the wire that drives the oil pump is missing and the clutch must be removed to access the oil pump. I'll either get a 19mm deep impact socket to fit the new impact driver I'm getting in the near future, or have a Stihl mechanic work on it.
    
  • Katie sent her mother a bunch of pictures from her recent two-day visit to Prudhoe Bay related to a project with her job. I'll put a couple photos on here each day until I use them up. Today, these (see below) are of an arctic fox and the first sunrise/sunset of the year.
    
  • I ordered a bottle of Ethanol Shield Fuel Stabilizer that I'll pick up curbside, tomorrow, from Walmart. It's never on the shelf, but I noticed recently that it can be purchased this way. I'll find out tomorrow if this works.

An arctic fox.

First 2025 sunrise/sunset in Utqiagvik
(formerly Barrow), as seen from an airplane.

• Friday, 1/24: Amber Died
  
  • Amber passed away at 9:40 p.m. Her death was a huge surprise to Mary and I. She had some issues eating this past week, but yesterday she was back to her old self, eating with gusto and zipping down the lane on walks. When we returned from shopping today, she was laying on the cement floor and wouldn't get up. I pulled her up and onto her feet and she stumbled out the door, down the steps and laid down on the grass. Mary and I hauled her back inside. She refused food and drank only a few laps of water. Then we carried her into the living room next to the woodstove's heat. She tried to get up at one point to get on her chair, but stumbled and laid down on the dog blanket, then slowly passed away. We think she had a stroke while we were gone. She leaves a huge hole in our life. We got her in 2017 as a two-year old dog. She died at 10 years. Below are two photos of Amber.
    
  • We shopped in Quincy. Mary found a book about weeds published by Cornell University. I got three winter shirts and a Craftsman toolbox. We picked up groceries. I was going to make cranberry/apple wine with the last bag of applesauce, but not a single cranberry can be found in Quincy.
  • The Stihl parts guy at Farm & Home spotted the oil pump wire. He thought the clutch drum on my big chainsaw was warped from overheating, so we ordered a clutch drum kit. I explained how the chain rotates when the saw is at idle speed, so we also ordered three new clutch springs. I was also told that an impact wrench easily removes the clutch nut. I have one on order that shipped out today, so that should solve the problem of removing the clutch. My parts should be in Quincy in a little over a week from today.
  • I heard a fox bark at me from the north when I opened the tailgate of the pickup to unload groceries.

Amber (front) & Plato (back) on Feb. 20, 2023.

Amber on Oct. 31, 2022.

• Saturday, 1/25: The Burial
  
  • Mary and I dug a hole and buried Amber. I tested ground in three places after Mary tried test digging in a couple locations. The easiest spot was on the west side of the north yard next to the woods that was covered with leaves and vegetation. Using a mattock, I easily worked my way through six inches of frozen ground. Then, we proceeded down through clay. I broke up the ground with the mattock, then rested as Mary dug out the lumps and put them on tin that I laid out nearby. We finished the job in about three hours. I thought this task would be bad, due to the recent subzero temperatures we experienced, but it was much easier than I estimated. Mary joked that the next time we plan a pet funeral, it needs to be in May.
  • Amber was an active being. We notice that now that she's gone, all pets nap soundly and aren't greeting us at the door if we've been outside for an extended time. It seems calmer in our house, now.
  • We had an indoor wienie roast and enjoyed some 2023 spiced apple and 2023 cherry wine. Everything tasted excellent.
  • Mary counted a flock of 57 snow geese heading west, our first of this year. A ton of robins are in our yard. We heard the first cardinal "purdy" spring song of the year.
  • Below are a couple more photos that Katie sent us.

A photo Katie took of the frozen Arctic Ocean.

Barter Island, as seen from an airplane.

• Sunday, 1/26: Resting Sore Muscles
  
  • Mary and I stayed inside and rested our weary grave digging muscles.
  • Mary finished her Halloween cross stitch project called Witch Silhouette (see photo, below).
  • After a little online research, I discovered I need to get some impact sockets for the impact wrench that arrives tomorrow.
  • Mary and I watched a red-shouldered hawk enjoy the sun while it sat on a black walnut branch and looked out on the far garden and beyond. It stayed in the same place for over a half an hour. These hawks have a front that's similar in the color to a robin's breast.
  • We listened as the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Buffalo Bills by a score of 32-29 to advance to the Super Bowl. It was a very close game.
  • We ate popcorn after the game. I'm noticing many times Amber antics that are now gone. She always came into the kitchen while I popped popcorn to catch any kernels that happened to fall on the floor.

Katie entitled this photo, "When you tell
your child that they'll grow into it."

The Witch Silhouette Halloween ornament.

Jan. 13-19, 2025

Weather | 1/13, sunny, 3°, 22° | 1/14, sunny, 15°, 17° |1/15, sunny, 0°, 27° | 1/16, sunny, 23°, 42° | 1/17, sunny, 26°, 49° | 1/18, sunny, 15°, 27° | 1/19, sunny, 0°, 7° |

• Monday, 1/13: Dr. Visit & Seeds, Trees Ordered
  
  • We got a text that Katie's electrical power came back on at midnight. There is a great deal of damage in Anchorage due to high winds and flooding. Katie sent us photos and there are articles in the Anchorage Daily News about it.
    
  • We had a low temperature of 3° at sunrise.
    
  • I attended a doctor's appointment in Lewistown at 9:30 a.m. My doctor wondered whether it was time to change one of my diabetes medications, based on my blood glucose numbers for the past six months, but test results that showed up in the afternoon indicated an A1C of 6.7, so I am to stay on current medications. My blood pressure was high, so he asked that I return in a couple days to get another reading before altering any medication to correct hypertension.
    
  • While the nurse took initial readings of me at the examination room, she suddenly walked to the far wall and removed a sticker that read "awesome." She said probably a kid stuck that to the wall on a previous visit. Later, while waiting for the doctor to show up, I spotted another sticker near the examination table in the room that read "game over." That's not the best message to see in such a room. I chuckled when I saw it.
    
  • Mary saw a perfect fox footprint in the snow along the path to the chicken coop. I noticed a huge deer hoof print in the snow near the far garden. Snow is great at revealing the past trek of wild animals.
    
  • Mary and I ordered 24 packages of seeds, three fruit trees, a pair of waterproof insulated gloves, and some cross stitch Aida cloth, all online. I used up a gift certificate from Katie to help pay for the fruit trees.
    
  • We watched the 2011 film, War Horse.
    

• Tuesday, 1/14: Fixing the Range Top
  
  • The high for the day was our morning and afternoon temperature. The mercury dropped at nightfall.
    
  • UPS delivered the parts to our kitchen range top, so I put the new parts in the appliance. The Y-bracket that supports the element coil on the new part was wimpy, so I removed the Y-bracket from the old element and put it on the new one. After removing the old terminal block where the element is inserted, I saw where it is very cracked and decayed. I yanked the old wiring out of the back of the old terminal block and it was very black with hardened wire insulation. Tonight, when I did two batches of popcorn on that burner, it popped up in half the time it's been taking to do popcorn. I'm glad I replaced the parts.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas and then some fajitas for our midday meal, using frozen green peppers. She's always bought fresh peppers in the past. The frozen peppers worked fine, which is better, since they're raised in our garden and we know they are handled right.
    
  • Mary watched the moon rise to the northeast. It looked like fire when it first emerged over the horizon, because it was so orange. There were also two planets in the night sky, they were Mars and Jupiter. Then, she watched the space station fly overhead. It was a busy time looking out the east door window.
    

• Wednesday, 1/15: Maintenance on Chainsaws
  
  • I greased the clutch bearing of the big Stihl chainsaw and put the new E-clip on the end of the crankshaft and outside the chain sprocket. The old missing E-clip was obviously sprung and that's why it departed, because this new E-clip is tougher to get on the end of the crankshaft. Tougher is better. It will stay. I can't find the wire underneath the clutch that drives the oil pump. I think it's gone. I need to remove the clutch to determine the oil pump status.
  • I also put the second chain on the small chainsaw. The first chain has bent drags preventing it from fitting into the slots of the bar. I'll need to try filing down the sides of these drags. If that doesn't work, I need to buy a new chain.
    
  • We saw an immature bald eagle fly over our house.
    
  • The two solid clamshell eyeglass cases that I recently ordered for my cheater glasses arrived in today's mail.
    
  • I did online research on removing a Stihl chainsaw clutch. I've been trying to obtain a piston stop, which is a device inserted through the spark plug hole that restricts the piston, enabling the removal of the clutch or the flywheel. They only exist in metal form for my big Stihl chainsaw. Metal piston stops can damage the tops of pistons. A better approach, outlined online, is using a length of synthetic rope inserted into the spark plug hole. It's softer and doesn't dent the top of the piston, yet stops the engine from turning over so the clutch can be removed.
    

• Thursday, 1/16: More Firewood
  
  • I sharpened the small Stihl chainsaw chain. It's so much easier than sharpening the big saw. The teeth are thin and fewer teeth are on the chain. Just three strokes with the file per tooth and it was very sharp.
  • I marched around in the woods on either side of the west field looking for standing dead trees that weren't too large to cut down for firewood. I found three perfect trees near the Bobcat Trail on the north woods side of the west field. Snow was marked with several deer tracks.
    
  • After driving the tractor and wagon down the west field and parking on the north side, we cut down three red oak trees. I cut up an oak limb and those three trees into firewood chunks while Mary started loading the wagon. Mary says she's the mule on this chore. I helped load wood into the wagon once I finished cutting up chunks. The small chainsaw did a great job. The largest trunk was about 10 inches thick. Ground near the wagon turned mushy as our boots dug into the thawing earth. The tires of the 8N Ford tractor were spinning in the snow a little as I drove back home. We emptied a full wagon load. Most of the firewood needs to be split.
  • When we walked the puppies at night, we noticed that Mars was lined up with the stars Castor and Pollux, which are at the top of the constellation Gemini. Plus, Jupiter was with Aldebaran, the red star that is the eye of constellation Taurus, the bull.
    
  • I tried the Harney & Sons green tea. It's great.
    

• Friday, 1/17: Splitting Wood
  
  • Today was a melting day and most of the snow disappeared. The ground became very soft, so it wasn't a day to go get more firewood.
    
  • Bugs, bugs, bugs meant the shop vac was very busy inside the house.
    
  • I split all of the firewood that we brought in yesterday and created two large temporary stacks in the machine shed (see photo, below). I'll move that wood to the woodshed tomorrow when the ground is frozen, making it easier to maneuver a wheelbarrow.
    
  • I saw a small deer approaching the lane at the south end of Bluegill Pond when I walked to the mailbox for the mail. It spun around and walked back into the woods. Mary and I saw three cackling geese fly over our house. With the help of an north wind, they were flying very quickly to the south. We recognized them by their call, which sounds like THIS. They're from Alaska and far northern Canada and are about the size of a mallard duck.

  

  Red oak firewood that I split today.
  

• Saturday, 1/18: Moving Firewood
  
  • A virtual fly tying course is offered by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC). It involves two-hour sessions that are for four Mondays between Feb. 24 and March 17. I signed up for it. This will be a good way to get back into learning the basics, since I haven't done a darn thing with fly tying since I went to a one-day class put on by MDC in Kirksville on 1/14/23.
  • Indoor chores meant I didn't get outside until mid-afternoon. On the walk to the mailbox, a flock of robins flew over me...probably about 50 birds. They live here through the winter and hid out in cedar groves on our property.
  • I moved 11 wheelbarrow loads of firewood into the woodshed. Toward the beginning, I used the hat light that Katie gave me as a Christmas gift. It works extremely well. The newest red oak firewood burns with maximum heat for a very long time. I got the stack in the woodshed up to shoulder height.
  • We watched the 2001 film, Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring.
    

• Sunday, 1/19: Slug Day
  
  • Today was a single digit day outside, only getting to a high of 7°. Mom, in eastern Montana, was colder with -15° at her house. I see where Roseau, Minn., where we once lived, is predicted to get to -28°. Meanwhile, snow levels are so low in Alaska that they're canceling sled dog races.
  • Mary and I were indoor slugs, today. And I was more sluggish than Mary. At least she did some drawing and cross stitch work. I barely moved off the living room couch.
  • Rather than watching TV advertisements ad nauseam, I find it better to look at football game recaps on YouTube. For 10-15 minutes, you get to see the highlights and skip all of the boring nonsense. It frees up time to be a sloth in some other form.
  • Nighttime dog walks of late include spectacular star viewing. Tonight an orange moon rose to the east that was beautiful.
  • We watched the 2002 film, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.