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.