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.