Jan. 26-Feb. 1, 2026

Weather | 1/26, sunny, -10°, 13° | 1/27, sunny, -2°, 25° | 1/28, cloudy, 9°, 31° | 1/29, cloudy, 6°, 25° | 1/30, sun to clouds, skiff snow, -3°, 15° | 1/31, sunny, -2°, 20° | 2/1, cloudy, 5°, 27° |

• Monday, 1/26: Deer, Fly Tying & Texts
  • When we opened curtains on our bedroom windows this morning, we saw more the six deer wandering around in the east yard.
  • I took the pup on a walk to the Wood Duck Deer Blind. While down near the dry creek bed, I saw a Cooper's hawk flying about in the tree tops and looking at us. Cooper, the dog, and I noticed a great deal of coyote tracks in the snow.
  • Mary and I watched bluebirds drinking water that was dripping off the roof on the south side of the house. They were all fluffed out, due to the cold temperatures.
  • I practiced fly tying in the afternoon, making a scud and a hare's ear nymph fly (see photos, below). I used an orange seed bead ordered through 123stich.com, an online cross stitch company that Mary gets supplies from. It is the head of the scud fly. I viewed several online videos on how to apply dubbing to the thread, since I was failing miserably at dubbing the flies.
  • I also attended the sixth online fly tying class between 5:30-8:00 p.m. We learned to tie three flies and a jig. I also got tips on dubbing techniques from the instructors.
  • Mom texted that the storm missed her in Montana, but they went through a couple nights with lows of -22° and -25°. 
  • Karen texted that the electricity came on in the early evening hours.
  • Katie texted that she's camping in a tent in Florida and loving the sunshine with temperatures in the 40s while everyone else is freezing.

Scuds tied in class (left) & tied today (right).

Hare's Ear Nymph tied in class (left) & tied today (right).

• Tuesday, 1/27: Wood Splitting & Tying Flies
  • I took Cooper on a long walk along the west side of the north field. It was the first time that he stopped for long periods while looking into north woods. In the past, he just zoomed along without stopping to look. We're debating decreasing his food intake, again, since he's beefing up. We no longer see an ultra skinny dog with a backbone and ribs showing. His neck is getting thicker requiring us to loosen his collar.
  • Mary dusted books in the upstairs north bedroom.
  • I split firewood, moving a wheelbarrow load into the house and three loads into the woodshed. I also moved a load of ash firewood into the house.
  • I tied two flies that we learned to create from Monday's class. They were the Pheasant Tail Nymph and the Brassie (see photos, below). TJ, one of the instructors, tied an abbreviated version of the nymph in class, so I watched some videos on how to tie a complete nymph on YouTube and used those instructions for today's fly. It's supposed to be a major one for fly fishing in western states. The brassie resembles a worm. It is formed by wrapping thin red wire around the hook.
  • Mary finished reading Kenn Kaufman's Kingbird Highway and I finished Alexander Kent's 17th British Navy novel, Honor This Day.
  • We saw four types of waterfowl, that generally flew east over our place. They were cackling geese, snow geese, Canada geese, and trumpeter swans. We are located under a major east/west waterfowl flyway. 

Pheasant Tail Nymphs tied in class (left) & tied today (right).

Brassies tied in class (left) & tied today (right).

• Wednesday, 1/28: A Repeat: Wood Splitting & Tying Flies
  • Cooper and I walked on a loop of the south field and saw several places where deer bedded down in grass under cedar trees. In the bed-down areas, snow is absent and the tall grass is flattened. We also saw dog tracks. I think neighbor dogs regularly range into the woods next to the gravel road.
  • Mary did a big load of laundry and finished dusting books in the upstairs north bedroom.
  • I changed oil in the woodsplitter engine, split firewood, and moved four wheelbarrow loads into the woodshed. The individual pieces of firewood from the base of a red oak tree that Bill and I cut and moved home make for a full wheelbarrow load once each one is split.
  • I tied two more types of flies that we learned to tie in Monday's class (see photos, below). They were the San Juan Worm fly and the Wire Charlie jig. The instructor said a brief touch with a cigarette lighter on the ends of the worm keep the chenille from unraveling and gives it a realistic look. I don't smoke, so all I have is a gas grill lighter we use to light fires in the woodstove. When I used it on the San Juan Worm I made in Monday's class, the entire piece went up in a puff, turning it into black char. I cut off the mess and made a new one. On a new worm, I also used frilly hot pink UV chenille material for what I call a Psychedelic Hippy Worm.

San Juan Worms and Psychedelic Hippy (bottom).

Wire Charlie jigs tied in class (top) & today (bottom).

• Thursday, 1/29: Plentiful Deer
  • Today was a quiet day for Mary and I.
  • I walked Cooper around the west field and took in Bobcat Trail. We noticed tons of deer tracks in the snow. I saw the remains of a bird that was eaten by some wild thing.
  • We did an indoor wienie roast and Cooper was good about not tray surfing for goodies.  
  • Nine deer showed up in the evening to munch on grass and weeds under the Kieffer pear tree. Some were also nipping buds off saplings. When Mary went to the chicken coop to retrieve the chicken waterer for the night, most of the deer ran off, but one deer stood just southwest of the big Bartlett tree and watched Mary for a long time as she walked to the coop. Some deer seem to know us and are not afraid.
  • I took in the seventh fly tying class while Mary worked on a cross stitch project. The flies we learned to tie were the Gray Hackle, Dragonfly, and Meat Whistle. The last one was hard to tie. It resembles a crawdad.

• Friday, 1/30: Dog Walks, Popcorn & Movies
  • When I walked Cooper first thing this morning, I saw a deer crossing the lane near Bluegill Pond that first ran west, and then north. It was a big one.
  • Mary and I took Cooper on a noon walk up the west edge of the north field. I now take him along each evening when I walk our quarter-mile long lane to get the mail. The longer walks, two times a day, is helping to build up his muscles. Exercise and an adequate daily food supply means Cooper's initial skinniness is waning. In just two weeks, he's looking more like a normal dog. 
  • We had a snow flurry right at dusk. It just amounted to a skiff of snow.
  • I watched several videos on how to fold a feather in making a class of fishing flies that possess sweeping fibers at the front of the lure. I found a black tail feather from Leo, our rooster, with a dark green iridescence to it and used the feather to make a Gray Hackle fly (see photo, below). This fly pattern originates from over 100 years ago.
  • Mary and I enjoyed popcorn and watched two movies, which were Chicken Run (2000) and Corpse Bride (2005). Gandalf, Mocha, and Cooper also like an occasional piece of popcorn.

  

  Gray Hackle flies tied in class (left) and today (right).

• Saturday, 1/31: French Onion Soup & Katie Returns to Her Home
  • Mary noticed rabbit tracks in the light dusting of snow on the porch this morning. A bunny hopped onto our porch sometime overnight to view its surroundings.
  • Mary made French onion soup, using several of our homegrown onions and a whole bottle of Merlot wine. With former French onion soup meals, she's baked French bread. This time, she baked biscuits, which worked great. We'd just take a bit of biscuit in a spoon, fill the rest of the spoon with soup...yummy! It was exquisite.
  • J. Stockard, a fly tying company that I use, has a hook sale that ends today, so I spent most of the day working up an order from them. First, I went through all of the flies we tied in the recent classes and ordered various hooks. The order's total cost was way too high, so I pared it down. Then, I added other items I wanted. I decided against buying any hackle feathers. Entire bird skins of hackles can run as high as $100. I've got chicken feathers that are free to me which will work just fine. I finalized the order at 7 p.m. It will be a happy early birthday to me.
  • We thought we saw an otter track while walking Cooper, yesterday. When Mary walked him this evening, she revisited where that track crossed our trail to the ponds and investigated it. It's definitely the track of an otter. In flat snow-covered spots, it slid on its belly across the field. Anywhere there were high dried plant matter, it bounded through the snow. 
  • Mary got several texts from Katie on her trek from Panama City, FL to Anchorage, today. Winter weather changed things. She learned in the morning that her original flight was canceled. She was rebooked on later flights. They all connected, but she had very quick layovers in Atlanta and Seattle, resulting in only airplane snacks through the day. She sent a message from her home at 2:32 a.m., our time, that she arrived in Anchorage, ate food, and was laying in a pile of pets. Just prior to dusk, she sent images from her airplane indicating that her flight was directly over us (see photos, below). 

Simulation of Katie's plane location over us.

Shot out plane window of our area at the same time.

• Sunday, 2/1: Racking Pear Wine
  • I walked Cooper at noon on a loop around the north field, following a well-worn game trail across the north end of the field. A stout southwest wind made the last leg of that trip very cold, even though temperatures are higher today. 
  • Mary did some house cleaning chores. I helped a tiny bit by cleaning bathroom and kitchen sinks.
  • I racked the pear wine for the fourth time. I was two weeks late on this wine racking. The specific gravity was 0.998 and the pH was 3.2. I added a gram of Kmeta. Mary and I tasted leftovers. This is the best pear wine I've ever made. Using black raisins, instead of golden raisins, gives pear wine an improved taste. This is great, since black raisins are cheaper.
  • A big flock of cackling geese flew over the house while Mary walked Cooper on his second long walk of the day. Cackling geese seem to be staying here this winter. In past years, we'd only see a cackling goose flying with a flock of Canada geese.
  • I watched fly tying videos on how to make a foam dragonfly and a meat whistle fly, both that we learned to make in Thursday's fly tying class. The videos demonstrated better methods for tying both of these flies than what we learned in class, so I decided I'll wait on making additional copies of these two flies and make them at a later date while using these better methods.
  • We need to move out of this house before it breaks apart while we're in it. The last drawing of a new house that I worked up a couple years ago involved an L shape and three different builds. To heck with that. We decided to develop a plan with one rectangular shape built all at once.