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.