Nov. 17-23, 2025

Weather | 11/17, p. cloudy, 31°, 54° | 11/18, 0.05" rain, cloudy, 43°, 57° | 11/19, foggy cloudy, 42°, 51° | 11/20, 0.06" rain, foggy cloudy, 44°, 50° | 11/21, 0.46" rain, fog, 45°, 49° | 11/22, p. cloudy, 29°, 50° | 11/23, fog, sunny, 33°, 57° |

• Monday, 11/17: My First Deer Hunting Session
  • I went deer hunting from the Boys' Fort Deer Blind in the north woods. A deer stepped away from me as I walked the trail to the blind, then I heard a deer walking to the northwest of me that also snorted a couple times. I could tell by the loud foot falls that it was a large deer...probably a big buck. I caught glimpses of several other deer, but they were always covered partially by tree trunks or heavy brush, so I couldn't get off a good shot. No bullets were wasted this morning. Another deer snorted at me from the bottom of the hill west of the blind. I saw the head of that deer for only a second or two. Leaves were falling in the woods like snow with a strong southeast wind blowing my scent into the deer. Easterly winds make the Boys' Fort a poor choice, as I learned today.
  • Meanwhile, Mary took a photo (see below) through the storm door of our house of a young deer eating grass about 20 feet away.
  • Mary startled a barred owl in the lawn during predawn chores. I saw a barred owl fly across the lane in front of me while I was getting mail this evening. About that same time, Mary watched a juvenile barred owl chasing an adult barred owl. The young owl was screeching like they do when they're asking for food.
  • I took husks off 36 black walnuts, let them dry in the sun, then stored them in an old milk crate.
  • I split some ash firewood. It's not dry enough, so I stacked it in the machine shed. Some hickory firewood I stacked in the machine shed a couple weeks ago is now dry and I took a wheelbarrow load to the house. The inside north wall of the machine shed is an excellent location for drying wood. There's always a breeze through there that helps dry wood quickly.
  • Mary picked up more pecan nuts. It's hard to break that nut-picking habit when you hear them cascading out of trees and hitting the tin on top of the grain bins.
  • Today's high temperature was too hot and tomorrow morning low temperature will likewise be too warm for easily handling venison meat, so I didn't hunt this evening and I decided against hunting tomorrow morning. We're shopping on Wednesday, so no hunting tomorrow evening, either. A St. Louis TV station had a report that the opening weekend's deer hunting numbers were low, this year, due to temperatures averaging statewide at 70°, which is 20° warmer than the normal Nov. 15th temperature. Deer aren't moving around as much, plus hunters going after venison meat are concerned with high heat spoiling the deer carcass.
  • I finished the 14th book in Alexander Kent's nautical series entitled A Tradition of Victory.

  

  This young deer, a button buck, was feeding on grass
  just outside our door while I was hunting this morning.

• Tuesday, 11/18: 2nd Racking of Pear Wine
  • Mary heard three great horned owls hooting when she walked Plato this morning.
  • I cleaned up several winemaking items that were in the west room. I used alcohol to clean up several airlocks. A 5-gallon carboy with dried-on residue took a lot of elbow grease to remove the crud.
  • I racked the pear wine for the second time. The specific gravity was 0.999 and the pH was 3.3. A huge amount of fines were in the bottoms of the 5-gallon carboy and the 1-gallon jug. The remaining liquid went into a 5-gallon carboy, a half-gallon jugf, and a 12-ounce Jarritos bottle. I added one gram of Kmeta. The black raisins I used in this pear wine gives it more of a yellowish orange pear color. I used golden raisins in the past. The darker raisins add a nice flavor to this pear wine. Mary and I really liked the wine when we tasted the leftovers.
  • Mary and I picked over 100 pecan nuts off the ground under the pecan trees.
  • Mary worked up a shopping list for our visit to Quincy, IL, tomorrow.
  • Some idiot tied a dog to a post to the west of us. It barked from late afternoon until dark. Hopefully it wasn't a coyote snack. Mary heard six shots in succession north, northwest of us. Either a hunter missed the mark several times, or the result was a mass of venison hamburger.

• Wednesday, 11/19: Shopping
  • One of our four cats, I don't know which one, landed on the side of my face and the base of my right hand last night with claws fully extended. I woke up for a second, but immediately fell back asleep. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror first thing in the morning, I had dried blood down my face in several spots. I cleaned it off with running water and a wet paper towel. Then I thoroughly dabbed hydrogen peroxide on all of the wounds. Everything healed nicely. 
  • We went shopping in Quincy, today. The highlight of the day was purchasing three over-20 pound turkeys for 84 cents a pound. Our freezer now stores four turkeys to help with our yearly meat supply. Of course, one is destined for our Thanksgiving dinner.
  • Stores were real busy with shoppers. You'd swear it was a day before a major holiday.
  • We picked up five movies at two thrift stores.
  • After getting home, emptying the pickup, and doing evening chores, we worked up a big batch of popcorn and watched one of the movies we bought today. It was the 2007 film, The Jane Austen Book Club. This is a good movie.

• Thursday, 11/20: Foggy Grey Day
  • We had heavy fog all day. It was really thick during the mid- to late-afternoon. Right before darkness fell, I couldn't see the Kieffer pear tree from the west living room window.
  • We heard two flocks of snow geese flying overhead this morning. 
  • Mary cleaned the inside of the fridge.
  • I cleaned carboys and winemaking items. Two carboys that once held apple wine had dried residue near the top. They're made with ridges that indent the inside of the carboy and when these areas are filled with gunk, it's very hard to clean. I ended up using hot water and OxiClean and let the carboys lay on their sides with the dried junk sitting in the solution for several minutes, then scrubbing that same area with a bent bottle brush pushing a washcloth into the grooves. It took a long time.
  • I watched a Missouri Department of Conservation Webex on how to identify winter sparrows. It was excellently done.
  • Mary ran into a doe and two grown fawns at three different times while doing evening chores. Conditions continue to be poor for handling venison meat, so I haven't hunted except for one morning this deer hunting season.
  • I ordered a Carpathian walnut sapling from Fedco, along with a seed catalog and 50 strawberry plants.

• Friday, 11/21: Cleaning, Labeling, & Storing Wine
  • We received rain for most of the day. 
  • One of my two blood glucose monitors has a loose button battery that sometimes gives me an error message. Last night while trying to fix it, I lost the battery down the bathroom sink drain. This morning I fished the battery out of the S trap under the bathroom sink. I cleaned the trap with a bucket of water out on our lawn, put it back in place and cleaned the sink, counter and mirror.
  • Mary swept floors and cleaned the kitchen sink.
  • I put on rain gear and slogged down our lane in the rain to get the mail. Partway down the lane, a UPS truck met me and drove on up to the house to deliver a package, then left. Rain was really pouring while I was outside.
  • I made waffles for our midday meal.
  • We got evening chores done real early.
  • I labeled five pea pod wine bottles and 56 cherry wine bottles. I shuffled other full wine bottles into various coolers to free up space and gained three empty coolers that I used to store these new bottles of wine. While I did all this, I listening to music on the record player.

• Saturday, 11/22: Harvested a Button Buck
  • I hunted in the Boys' Fort Deer Blind, arriving at about 6:15 a.m. It was calm. Soon after getting settled, a pack of coyotes howled all around me. Some were just through the trees north in a field. About 15 minutes later, I saw the white flash of a tail as a deer ran away to the west of me. Immediately after that I watched an animal with a blunt nose run into the woods northwest of me. I think it was a bobcat. Finally, I caught glimpses of two deer walk north quite a ways west of me. I heard several flocks of snow geese flying overhead.
  • As we ate a late breakfast, we watched up to four deer eating rotten pears that are now under the Kieffer pear tree. They left and returned several times. Apparently slightly alcoholic pears are addictive to deer.
  • I hunted at the Wood Duck Deer Blind in the afternoon/evening, showing up around 3 p.m. A southwest wind blew right down the dry creek bed and out onto Wood Duck Pond. I noticed several big squirrels and often heard them chewing on nuts. About 15 minutes after the sun set, three deer walked out of the woods just a few feet south of me. I aimed, click, and no discharged bullet. I repeated two more times as the deer walked towards me, stamping their front hooves. Finally, I realized that the safety was on in my rifle. I turned off the safety, aimed, and shot a button buck in the heart. The other two deer didn't run off right away. I aimed at a second deer, but decided that one deer was enough to butcher in one session, and didn't shoot a second time. I texted Mary that I got a button buck and walked home. On the way home, several turkeys flew out of the tops of cedar trees next to Bramble Hill.
  • Mary was waiting for me when I got home. She'd already gathered knives, a saw, and several pairs of latex gloves. I changed to sloppy clothes while Mary walked down to the deer to help with field dressing. Her flashlight went dark as she first saw the blind. I told her the deer was just a few feet south of the blind, so she went to the blind, then moved south through the brush until she stumbled onto the deer. She said howling coyotes were approaching. Mary isn't frightened by them, but wanted to guard the deer from gnawing teeth, so that's why she hurried to it. They left with the sound of me approaching on the tractor.
  • After field dressing the button buck, Mary and I hauled him through the east woods and loaded him in the wagon behind the tractor parked at the bottom of Bramble Hill. At a resting spot while hauling the deer, I pointed out a buck rub that was on a 10-inch diameter cedar trunk. A huge buck must have rubbed his rack against that tree. With a lit hat light, I walked Mary through the cut in the fence next to the north field where she could make it home, then walked back to the tractor and drove it home. We wash out the deer's cavity with a garden hose and hung the deer in the machine shed. A lone coyote was howling west of us. We'll be busy tomorrow handling venison meat.
  • After eating a late supper, we enjoyed a bottle of 2024 cherry wine. It has a beautiful red color and tastes great.

• Sunday, 11/23: Processing Venison
  • We noticed a great blue heron flying overhead when we were outside with Plato.
  • Mary and I processed venison meat from the button buck deer that I got yesterday. Overnight temperatures were perfect at just above freezing. I skinned off the hide and noticed that my shot entered the deer's right shoulder and existed higher the deer's neck. So, one shoulder was no good. This was a deer with a long body and patches of black hair. The meat seemed quit tender as we deboned it. We froze 36 packages of venison, which is very good for a yearling deer. We decided that I'll try to get another small deer. I can foresee the text now..."I got a deer and it's kind of big!"
  • Rain is predicted tomorrow and the next day, with a chance of snow in the forecast. We decided to wait until after Thanksgiving before considering going hunting, again. 
  • When I drove the deer carcass and hide to the north woods in the wagon behind the tractor, I saw three deer bounding away. Our property is messy with deer, especially yearlings. I think it was an excellent year for baby deer.
  • There is reduced hunting pressure from nearby properties. The nephew of the owner of the land east of us isn't there anymore. His cinch straps that were permanently holding the stand to a honey locust tree killed the tree. When the tree fell down it took the stand down with it and bent the stand up in a rusted heap. I never hear shots from the trailer parked just north of our property line, nor do I ever hear guns going off from the stand just west of our west property line. Rich, who owns land adjacent to our southwest property corner, didn't hunt this year. I think most everyone is hunting for racks instead of meat and does and young deer aren't hunted at all. I saw a recent survey that in 2008, over half of Missouri hunters sought meat. Today, only 17 percent hunt for food. That explains why deer don't run after a gun goes off. They're unfamiliar to the sound of a rifle.

Nov. 10-16, 2025

Weather | 11/10, cloudy, 17°, 35° | 11/11, cloudy, 25°, 51° | 11/12, sunny, 35°, 62° | 11/13, sunny, 35°, 64° | 11/14, sunny, 47°, 74° | 11/15, p. cloudy, 58°, 71° | 11/16, sunny, 30°, 53° |

• Monday, 11/10: Wood Duck Blind is Ready & Bottling Peapod Wine
  • We had a real hard overnight freeze. Leaves dropped off most of the trees, except the oaks. Whole collections of leaves tumbled out of the pecan trees at almost every second.
  • Mary picked a lot of pecans off the tree nearest the house. Those pecans are larger and possess thicker husks, which squirted juice with every squeeze. "Man, was that messy!" exclaimed Mary.
  • I weedwhacked the rest of the Wood Duck Trail, cleaned leaves out of the Wood Duck Blind, stuffed grass in gaps in the hog fence surrounding the blind, wired a lauan wood roof to the blind, and put several oak branches with leaves over the roof and weighed them down with heavy sticks. That blind is ready for deer hunting season.
  • On the way to the blind, I saw eight wild turkeys walking on the trail near the north field. They flew in several directions once I got too close to them.
  • At twilight, three deer were looking over the south orchard apple trees while smacking their lips. I ran outside and clapped loudly to send them running.
  • I racked the peapod wine for the fifth time and bottled it. The wine is still a little hazy. The specific gravity was 0.990 and the pH was 3.2. The alcohol content is 12.445, which is rather high, caused by the very low final specific gravity level. I corked five bottles. Mary and I tasted the remaining wine. This wine needs a lot of aging. Right now it has a strong alcohol flavor. It's actually a complex taste. It's flowery, with a citrus accent, along with an essence of grape Kool-Aid, which is odd! The color is yellow/green (see photo, below). I'll hide it for a year and then give it another taste.

  

  2025 peapod wine in a clear bottle.

• Tuesday, 11/11: Bottling Cherry Wine
  • A strong southwest wind blasted through most of the day.
  • Mary picked pecans from on the ground and off the tree nearest to the house. She used a ladder to get up higher on limbs of the tree. She said she's officially done picking pecans.
  • I racked and bottled 11 gallons of cherry wine. It amounted to seven hours of work, ultimately corking 56 bottles. The specific gravity was 0.995 and the pH was 3.0. The alcohol content is 10.15 percent. I added 1.1 grams of Kmeta to the wine from the 6-gallon carboy and 1 gram to the wine from the 5-gallon carboy and the 750-ml bottle. Mary and I drank the leftovers, which was an amount just shy of 750 ml. It has the strongest cherry flavor of any cherry wine I've ever made. It's also very smooth, which is amazing for a newly bottled wine. This will be a great wine, well worth the effort of picking all those cherries and making the wine.
  • Bill called with dates of when he's visiting us for the two upcoming holidays, which are Nov. 26-28, and Dec. 24-26.
  • Katie and Mary sent texts back and forth in the nighttime hours. Katie showed several photos of the aurora dancing above Anchorage.

• Wednesday, 11/12: Pears, Begone, & Cleaning Guns
  • Mary tossed all of the remaining Bartlett pears out of two drawers in the chest of drawers on the upstairs landing. It was just too many pears for us to eat before they went bad. Fortunately, Mary put plastic down on the bottom of each drawer.
  • Mary raked mulberry leaves near the entrance to the chicken yard and put 12 wheelbarrow loads into the compost bin, covering rotten pears.
  • Mary watered the dry rows of garlic in the far garden.
  • She also poured a 40-pound bag of sunflowers into buckets that stay inside the chicken coop.
  • I used the loppers to clip tree branches and autumn olive saplings along the gravel road that were hiding purple paint, which indicates no trespassing to hunters. The Asian ladybugs were so thick that on some tree trunks, I counted 100 bugs in a one foot area.
  • I cleaned the two 30-30 rifles. In the process, I broke my cleaning rod and bent the 30 caliber gun cleaning brush. It's an aluminum cleaning rod I got from Mary for Christmas back in the 1990s when we lived in Roseau, MN, so it lasted a long time. Fortunately, I cleaned the rifle with the longest barrel first before it broke. The two remaining sections of the rod were long enough for me to clean the rifle with the shorter barrel.
  • I measured from the corner of the trail to the ponds where it first turns east and then whacked tall grass and weeds for just over 100 feet to get me the total 100 yards I need for sighting in the two 30-30 rifles.
  • In the evening, I finalized my Christmas wish list and sent it to Katie and Bill. I also ordered a gun cleaning kit for myself for Christmas. I just can't look at it or open the package until Dec. 25th. 
  • We heard flying squirrels talking to each other in the pecan trees when we walked Plato on his last outing before bed. They sound like squeaky birds.

• Thursday, 11/13: Sighting in Rifles
  • Mary mowed part of the front yard and mulched a row and a half of garlic in the far garden.
  • I used a 100-foot measuring tape to accurately measure 100 yards on the trail to the ponds. Yesterday's measuring was nine feet off, so I whacked down another 10-12 feet of tall weeds. Then, I set up a target clamped to a saw horse at the 100 yard mark and my rifle rest on a Workmate portable work bench. I loaded the rifle rest with several boxes of shotgun shells. The lead in these old shells gives the rest plenty of weight to keep it from moving. I sighted in both 30-30 rifles. The adjustments of the scope on the short barreled rifle doesn't seem to change the end result. I made no adjustments on the long barreled rifle...it was spot-on.
  • I watched a fly tying Webex detailing scuds and midges. Scuds are tiny freshwater crustaceans and midges are tiny flies, but spend most of their life in water. They had a camera that needed an update which was discovered immediately prior to going live, so they tried using a cell phone's camera to show tying details. It didn't work very well, so they verbally described how to tie the fly. Interestingly enough, two hairs from moose mane are the best material for making these tiny flies. They will present a series of beginning fly tying classes starting in January. Sign up starts on Nov. 17th and they limit it to 20 participants. I'm going to attempt to get in that online class.
  • Mary and I got Santa's elves lined up to make presents for Christmas.

• Friday, 11/14: Making Salsa & Finishing Deer Blind Prep
  • Mary made salsa, canning 14 quarts. One pint of unprocessed salsa went into the fridge. I tried a little of it and it's quite yummy. With warmer outside temperatures, she had some windows open to let out the moist air from steam coming off the the canner, that boils water for 90 minutes.
  • I took the small chainsaw east to the dry creek bed and cut out several willow trees that fell over and blocked the way. It helps open up a walking area for deer. There are a ton of deer tracks in the sand of the dry creek bed.
  • After whipping up waffles so Mary didn't have to cook a meal, I took the trimmer east and cleaned up a trail to the dry creek bed, then walked south on that bed and cleaned up a trail from it to the East Woods Deer Blind. I wired some chunks of wood into the east wall of that blind and replaced old cedar branches at its entrance with oak branches with leaves attached that I cut a few days ago on the Wood Duck Trail. The East Woods Deer Blind is now ready for the deer season, thereby finishing all deer blind preparations.
  • Tomorrow is the start of the main rifle deer hunting season. I noticed a bunch of traffic on the gravel road at twilight. The head hunters (those who are only after a big rack to hang on their wall) have arrived. 
  • I watched a Webex session on identifying waterfowl in Missouri. It involved extremely basic information. Again, a software update made things difficult for the presenters.
  • Mary and I did more encouragement to Santa's elves during nighttime hours. They're getting slightly testy with us.

• Saturday, 11/15: Salsa Batch #2 & Tractor Maintenance
  • Mary made the second batch of salsa, resulting in another 14 quarts. The push is on to finish three batches prior to my deer hunting, when spending all day whipping up a batch of salsa is out of the question. Three salsa batches is enough to keep us supplied for one year.
  • I did maintenance on the 8N Ford tractor. First, I cleaned up battery clamps with a wire brush, then attached the clamps and tested starting the tractor. The new battery spins the motor over quicker than the last battery. Next, I cleaned the four spark plugs and reset their gaps. I was startled to discover three of the four plugs weren't tight. I'm sure that decreased engine compression. Again, on the test start up, the engine ran much better. Tractor engine maintenance at this time of the year helps it start when it's needed to help move a deer and the temperatures are colder.
  • I set up lights in the machine shed in preparation to butchering deer.
  • Today was the first day of the main rifle deer hunting season and it was extremely quiet in the morning. We heard three shots right after sunset. One involved four shot, three of which were quick shots to the northwest. That usually indicates someone trying to shoot a running deer, which usually doesn't work. 
  • Mary and I watered the garlic. We're hoping the rain predicted for us in the next couple days results in actual moisture.
  • I called Mom on her 91st birthday. Hank drove in from Glasgow, MT, to help her celebrate with a nice cake. She and three other November birthday folks celebrated birthdays at the Circle Senior Center. Hank took her out for dinner before leaving for his home due to snow mixed with rain coming down on the highways. Mom and some other friends were off in the evening to a Glendive Community Concert.
  • Mary and I ordered the final Christmas presents. We like to get it done early enough for items to arrive before the Christmas shipping rush.

• Sunday, 11/16: Salsa Making is Finished
  • We must be home to hundreds of blue jays. We saw a continuous supply of them out all of our living room windows this morning.
  • Mary finished making salsa by cooking up another 14-quart batch. This time, one quart jar didn't seal, so it went in the fridge to be eaten, soon. She was very happy to be done with this chore.
  • Mary also finished mulching all of the garlic by mowing the rest of the front lawn and moving grass clippings to the far garden.
  • I sharpened eight knives that we'll use for field dressing and butchering deer.
  • I collected 85 black walnuts to add to our supply. The nuts under walnut trees between the gardens grew to a very large size this year.
  • The spider balloonists were plentiful while we were outside, today. 
  • I got items, such as outdoor garments, ready for hunting deer tomorrow morning.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of spiced apple wine.

Nov. 3-11, 2025

Weather | 11/3, p.cloudy, 34°, 61° | 11/4, p. cloudy, 39°, 68° | 11/5, sunny, 49°, 60° | 11/6, sunny to T-storm, 0.02" rain, 30°, 62° | 11/7, sunny, 46°, 67° | 11/8, cloudy, 0.06" rain, 36°, 52° | 11/9, sunny to cloudy, 25°, 33° |

• Monday, 11/3: Ladybug Invasion Begins
  • We picked more pecan nuts. Mary gathered several in the morning and in the evening. I grabbed some from above the first bin roof during our morning collection.
  • I cut down a medium-sized hickory that had bark shedding, so I knew it was dead. The big Stihl chainsaw did fast work at sawing it up. Six pieces went into the machine shed next to the woodsplitter. The rest went into the woodshed. It amounted to two wheelbarrow loads.
  • Mary finished popping the last two varieties of garlic in preparation to planting it.
  • The Asian ladybug invasion of our house began (see video, below). It's a yearly event that starts on the first warm day in autumn after a killing frost. 
  • I moved tall cut grass with a wheelbarrow to the Boys' Fort deer blind and filled holes in the hog fence surrounding it with handfuls of grass to block a deer's view of me.
  • Mary spread compost on the three future rows of garlic in the far garden and turned all of the soil in the western first row. 
  • I used a pitchfork to move weeds I cut yesterday off the trail between the ponds and weedwhacked head-height lespedeza weeds on the Wood Duck Trail. I got to Bramble Hill.
  • I checked the pear wine and squeezed the nylon mesh bags. The specific gravity was 1.048.
  • We saw the twin deer that hang around the house on the lane during our evening walk with Plato. Several minutes later, while walking to the compost bins, I heard deer thundering away on the other side of the cedar trees. That was probably those same two deer.
   
  Asian ladybugs on the south living room window.
  

• Tuesday, 11/4: Planting Garlic & Racking Apple Wine
  • Mary picked pecan nuts off the ground in the morning and evening.
  • I racked the apple wine for the third time. It had a specific gravity of 0.998 and a pH of 3.0. I lost a wine bottle's worth of liquid and put the must into a 3-gallon carboy and a half-gallon jug. Mary and I tasted the leftovers. It had a lemon flavor and was very tart. The apple taste will come out with aging.
  • Mary planted the Siberian and Georgian Chrystal garlic varieties in the first row of the far garden and turned over the third row's soil.
  • The battery was dead, again, on the 8N Ford tractor. I set up the charger, then marched east with the big chainsaw and eventually reached the cedar forest prior to what Mary calls the Banana Field, a clear cut area just west of the dry creek bed. Dead trees I thought were there have all decayed, so I walked north, then west along a gully. Finally, close to the old cow barn, I found and cut a dead cherry tree. I walked back, started the tractor, then drove it to the cherry tree, loaded the trailer with firewood, hauled it home, unloading seven trunk pieces next to the woodsplitter, with the rest in the woodshed. I NEED TO BUY A NEW BATTERY!
  • I saw an American kestrel fly overhead as I was at the cherry tree. It eyeballed me, then flew on. 
  • Mary vacuumed Asian ladybugs from inside the house for the second day in a row.
  • I moved downed weeds out of Wood Duck Trail that I cut yesterday.
  • While I was near Dove Pond, I heard whistling sounds from duck wing beats as they took off. Mary looked it up and that's probably the sound of common goldeneye ducks that are migrating through here. 
  • I checked the pear wine. The specific gravity was 1.039, so it's brewing along, slowly. This is good. Slow brewing produces a better taste.

• Wednesday, 11/5: Firewood & Garlic Planting
  • Mary picked up more pecans with morning and evening nut searches.
  • I removed the air conditioner in the upstairs north bedroom.
  • The oven baking element came via UPS and I installed it. The old element really looked fried where it burst into flames.
  • Mary planted two more garlic varieties. They were Music Pink and German Extra Hardy.
  • I drove the tractor and trailer to just east of the old cow barn where a large dead ash tree stands that has six trunks and cut down one of the trunks. After loading the firewood, I ended up with a three-quarters full trailer of wood. Several big pieces went to near the woodsplitter in the machine shed, while the rest was stacked in the woodshed.
  • Today, the 8N Ford tractor started, probably because I never shut the engine off once I got it running yesterday, thereby fully charging the battery. I'm still getting a new battery, so I can depend on starting it when I need to when cold temperatures arrive.
  • The rising full moon was huge this evening. Mary took a nice photo of it (see below).

  

  A large full moon viewed from our east yard.

• Thursday, 11/6: Eye Exam & All is Well!
  • I went to Quincy for an annual eye checkup. I have 20:20 vision in my right eye and 20:25 vision in my left eye. After a thorough look, the doctor said there are no signs of macular degeneration or glaucoma, so how I'm dealing with diabetes is working. It was a quick visit.
  • Mary found more pecans, several of which are falling as husks open in the trees.
  • She turned the soil over in the last garlic row of the far garden and planted garlic cloves. Today the Samarkand and Shvelisi varieties went into the ground, finishing all garlic planting.
  • Mary threw out the Halloween pumpkin. She usually cooks the meat up and freezes it, but due to the oven mishap, cooking pumpkin meat was delayed several days and it was too late, even with the pumpkin stored in the refrigerator.
  • After my eye checkup, I bought a new battery for the tractor from Farm & Home, a 2.5 gallon jug of glysophate for killing autumn olives and lespedeza, and a few other food items, such as a turkey for 89 cents a pound.
  • A check of the pear wine gave me a specific gravity of 1.026. This is a slow brewing batch of wine.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. It's very good.
  • We had a brief heavy rain from a small thunderstorm that rolled through right after we walked Plato for his last outing before bedtime.
    

• Friday, 11/7: Pickled Jalapeños & Clearing a Trail
  • Mary made four quarts of refrigerated pickled jalapeños. 
  • She also did a bit of mowing under the maple tree next to the woodshed to clean up leaves.
  • Mary picked pecans off the ground under the trees.
  • I removed the last air conditioner, which was in our bedroom. There were lots of bugs that emerged from it...both Asian ladybugs and flies.
  • I used a full gas tank in the Stihl trimmer and whacked weeds and grass from the Wood Duck Trail. I also mowed where I'd whacked weeds on the trail in order to catch pieces sticking up. Finally, I trimmed overhanging branches so I don't have to duck while driving the 8N Ford on the trail. Any autumn olive saplings were left standing. I want to hit them with glyphosate weed killer this year, so I don't have to continue trimming them out every single year. I reached the cut through the fence just prior to entering the east forest.
  • We covered the tubs of autumn greens with blankets before going to bed. We noticed that a north wind dropped temperatures when we walked Plato, so we figured it best to cover the plants.
  • Katie was visiting Mekoryuk, a native village on Nunivak Island, near Bethel. While watching the Native Youth Olympics at the school, Katie texted about various achievements by winners in specific events. It was fun to read how well the athletes performed and to look up the different events.
    

• Saturday, 11/8: First Racking of Pear Wine
  • Mary picked up another nice batch of pecans off the ground. She got several off the tree nearest to the house, which is more of a commercial tree, as compared to the others that are native Missouri pecan trees.
  • I racked the pear wine for the first time. The specific gravity was 1.013 and the pH was 3.4. I got just under 6 gallons after I squeezed juice out of the two nylon mesh bags. Liquid went into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug with an ample amount of room at the tops of both containers to handle foam expansion. We didn't taste any, but the aroma is marvelous.
  • I split firewood and stacked four wheelbarrow loads into the woodshed. The splitter's engine runs very nicely, now that I updated a few things on it.
  • I cut a new sheet of plastic to cover the greens. Mary helped me anchor it down over the tubs of greens with bricks and a couple large chunks of old firewood.
  • A brief bit of rain swept through in the afternoon. After dark, a strong northwest wind started blowing. 
  • We watched the first half of the Ken Burns' documentary on Mark Twain while we enjoyed two pots, each, of hot cinnamon spice tea, made by Harney & Sons.
    

• Sunday, 11/9: Winemaking Day
  • We woke to colder temperatures and witnessed a couple snow flurries today. We kept chickens in the coop with a strong northwest wind blowing and subfreezing temperatures prevailing. We also kept the greens covered with plastic.
  • While dumping ashes this morning, I heard quiet honking sounds, looked up and watched six trumpeter swans fly overhead, heading south.
  • I racked two wines for the second time today, which were jalapeño and parsnip:
    
    • Jalapeño - The specific gravity was 0.992 and the pH was 3.1. I added 0.6 grams of Kmeta. Made from mainly ripe red peppers, the fines had an orange pumpkin moon crater look to them. The liquid filled a 3-gallon carboy and a 750-ml bottle. Mary and I tasted leftovers. It's warm, but not overwhelming. This will be a good drinking wine.
    • Parsnip - The specific gravity was 1.000 and the pH was 3.5. Fines were quite flowable and the racked liquid is cloudy. I added 0.8 grams of Kmeta. I filled a 3-gallon carboy, a gallon jug and a 375-ml half bottle. Mary and I tasted leftovers. It is amazingly good, considering how young it is, with an earthy, citrus flavor.
  • Mary and I picked pecan nuts off the ground in the morning and she did another collection in the evening prior to darkness. Several nuts are falling from husks left in the trees.
  • Mary added blankets to the outside of the plastic covering the greens, then put the old plastic cover over the blankets. It sort of gives them a double pane effect of plastic, plus insulation. We'll see how well it keeps the greens warm in subfreezing weather. 
  • One of our two white hens met its demise today after Mary witnessed it landing on top of a young pullet and ripping at the pullet's comb. This has been an ongoing issue. We can't have a hen that we didn't order, which was an extra from last year's chicken shipment, trying to kill young pullets that we ordered and paid for this year. Mary killed that chicken tonight. Instantly, the coop was settled down without so much fussing. 
  • We watched the second half of the Ken Burns' documentary on Mark Twain.