Oct. 18-24, 2020

 

Weather | 10/18, 0.02" rain, 37°, 43° in morning | 10/19, 35°, 40° | 10/20, 0.01" rain, 36°, 46° | 10/21, 0.37" rain, 41°, 49° | 10/22, 45°, 80° | 10/23, 0.58" rain, 37°, 42° | 10/24, 33°, 41° |

• Sunday, 10/18: Today's relaxation:
  
  • The high temperature for the day was this morning. We had some rain and then temperatures dropped a little throughout the day.
  • I bottled the worst wine I've made, which is the watermelon wine, and the best wine I've made, which is the blackberry wine (see photos below). The watermelon wine smells bad, but tastes sort of okay. Mary hates it. She calls it the limburger cheese of the wine world. The blackeberry wine tastes smooth, tart, without any strong alcohol taste. It's a real winner and it has no aging in the bottle, yet. Both wine types have an approximate 12% alcohol content. 
  • I also added pectic enzyme to the pear wine, activated yeast with 95° water, then throughout the afternoon and evening, added quarter cups of pear must to the yeast mixture. I pitched the yeast into my pear wine brew bucket at midnight, 24 hours after this batch was first made.
  • Mary cleaned the upstairs north bedroom walls and ceiling.
  • After I was done playing in the kitchen with my wine, Mary made a venison General Tso meal.

Bottling blackberry wine.

Blackberry (left) and watermelon (right) wine bottles.

• Monday, 10/19: Happenings:
  • Temperatures continue to hang lower than weather predictions, making chimney/roof work difficult. I nailed ridge caps from the chimney's edge to the south and north on the peak of the roof. Some of the asphalt shingles broke, due to being brittle from cold temperatures. My solution was to put them under the electric heater in the house, keep the lift engine running and to transport each piece outside in a plastic shopping bag to the roof, then bending the warm shingle into place on the roof ridge and nailing it. It took longer to do it this way, so I never got to brick and mortar work, today. But, all shingling is done around the chimney.
  • Mary made flour tortillas and venison fajitas.
  • I checked the pear wine. It's bubbling along, nicely. The specific gravity went up to 1.084. We're guessing that the mesh bag filled with pear and raisins released more sugar into the must.
  • We watched the first Harry Potter movie, a good Halloween item.
  • I checked with Katie and she flew from Anchorage to Nuiqsut this morning.
    
    
• Tuesday, 10/20: When weather knocks your plans awry, it's maddening. Such is the case, now. A week from today, I need to return the lift. Wind and rain keeps delaying me from accomplishing 3 jobs I want to get done while using the lift. I can't seem to get job number 1, the chimney, done, let alone the other two, removing an old gas furnace vent while shingling over that spot, and cutting down the weeping willow tree. Mary needs to clean up the garden so she can plant garlic. Rain halted that today. We're late at getting chickens butchered. It's been too cold for that. Ugh! On the other hand, it's not snowing, like it's been doing in the northern states.
  
  Today's fun:
  
  • Rain was predicted after 1 pm, but I wanted to proceed on the chimney, so I took an old canvas tarp covering a table saw that belonged to Mary's Uncle Herman and tested it as a cover for the chimney. It worked, so I went ahead and laid 4 bricks to put the chimney top at 23" above the roof peak. Heavy mist cut the job short around 2 pm, so I couldn't lay the other 2 bricks of that course and had to cover the chimney to keep rain water from washing out today's mortar.
  • Mary started taking down the chicken wire of the rabbit fence in the far garden. The 4' long small persimmon trees I used as stakes for that fence rotted in the ground, so Mary broke them off. 
  • A great horned owl hooted all day long in the north woods, just NW of the chicken run. We never saw it, but heard it throughout the day.
  • The specific gravity of the pear wine dropped 10 points from yesterday to today to 1.074. The yeast is fizzing along nicely, emanating a fruity aroma from the pantry into the kitchen.
  • We watched the second Harry Potter movie.
    
    
• Wednesday, 10/21: Today's events:
  
  • Rain halted our actions, again. I laid 2 bricks to finish a course, but ran out of mortar on the last brick. After quickly slamming together a quarter of a batch of mortar and filling gaps on the last brick where I ran out of mortar, I used the leftover mortar to hold nails at an angle in the holes that are pre-made in the center of the bricks. These nails will be covered with cement to help hold the crown on the top of the chimney.
    
  • Meanwhile, Mary rolled up the chicken wire that was in the far garden, then cut down and removed the corn stalks.
  • While eating lunch, I saw that rain was coming while looking at online radar. Since I had nail heads sticking up on top of the chimney, I found a Styrofoam packing piece that came with an air conditioner about 4 inches deep and roughly the size of the chimney top that I put on top of the chimney. I then covered the chimney with the old tarp and tied it down. Mary and I did a couple of chores until thunder persuaded us to go inside.
  • I drove to Quincy and bought a bag of chick feed, since we're not getting to chicken butchering. I also picked up pork loin on sale at HyVee.
  • The specific gravity of the pear wine dropped 24 points to 1.050 and the yeast beasties are fizzing along happily (see video, below). I'll probably need to rack the wine into a carboy and add an airlock tomorrow morning.

• Thursday, 10/22: Our day:
  • The pear wine's specific gravity was 1.028, so I racked it into a 5-gallon Big Mouth. Instantly, foam went through the airlock, so I rigged up a blow-off overflow with tubing and a Mason jar half filled with distilled water. The CO2 gas from the yeast is constant (see video below). I now wait 3 weeks to rack it again.
  
  
  • Today was hot with a strong SW wind, gusting up to 30 mph. In the past, I wouldn't have used the lift, due to the wind, but the lift's rental days are limited and we need to get jobs done, so I went above, anyway. I felt like I was in the mast of an old sailing ship.
    
  • I built a crown of sorts on the top of the chimney (see photo below), with about 4 batches of sand concrete. It's not perfect, but it isn't bad for my first, ever, attempt at working concrete. A true crown would cover the opening from rain and let smoke out of gaps in the 4 sides under it. This is more like a cap on top of the chimney bricks.
    

  

  Concrete crown on the chimney top.
  

  
  
  • Next, I put stucco on the east side of the chimney and started a 4-inch square of stucco on the north side. Darkness was closing in while finishing my last stucco batch.
  • Mary washed all the clothes. They dried quickly in the wind, today.
  • She also froze 3 gallons of tomatoes, and picked about a quart of very ripe persimmons from under the large persimmon trees.
  • Mary mowed most of the far garden where garlic will be planted.
  • The moon was in a triangle with Saturn and Jupiter after sunset...very pretty.
    
  • We watched the 3rd Harry Potter movie.
    
    
• Friday, 10/23: More rain:
  
  • Weather continues to play havoc with accomplishments. A flash of lightning woke me this morning. Sure enough, it was raining. It rained until noon.
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
  • In the afternoon, I finished applying stucco to the north side of the chimney and got to within 1 brick height of finishing putting stucco on the south chimney wall. Due to cool temperatures, I'm using hot water in my stucco mix. The result is a fast set-up time, requiring me to make smaller batches and to hurry once a batch is made to get it in place and smoothed out with a trowel. After an afternoon and crawling in and out of the lift's basket many times, I'm rather worn out.
  • Mary did some cross stitch, all of the evening chores, and picked some more ripe persimmons that blew out of the trees (see photo, below). They look horrible, but Mary makes a pudding out of the meats of these, which is very good.
    
  • Oh, a north wind blew with gusts to 25 mph, today...the adventures of roof work. I'm now calling the chimney, my crow's nest.
    

  

  Persimmons picked today.

• Saturday, 10/24: A FINISHED CHIMNEY!!!
  • I finished putting stucco on the south and west sides of the chimney, ending a project that has lasted nearly a month. I still have to remove the plank and brackets from the roof, and fill nail holes from the 6 nails that currently hold down the brackets, but the main work is over.
  • First thing this morning, I labeled blackberry and watermelon wine bottles and laid them down sideways in dark boxes in the upstairs north bedroom so wine soaks into the corks and for them to age.
  • I took apart all of the stove pipe pieces for the woodstove, cleaned soot out from inside of them with a wire brush, cleaned their outsides, and put them back together between the stove and the base of the chimney. Mary helped me with the installation, holding stove pipe as I added silicone sealant and screws to tie all the sections together. We decided to let it sit overnight, but tomorrow we'll be able to heat with wood. Our electric heaters are fair, but nothing compared to the deep heat of a good woodstove fire.
  • Mary removed the seeds, picked a few more, and froze 3 quarts of persimmons.
  • She cleaned up the walls and floor where we put firewood throughout the heating season, brought in the firewood rack, and filled it with wood.
  • Mary did all of the evening chores, since I was on the roof, finishing the chimney.
    

Oct. 11-17, 2020

 

Weather | 10/11, 55°, 81° | 10/12, 0.01" rain, 55°, 67° | 10/13, 43°, 73° | 10/14, 45°, 82° | 10/15, 47°, 57° | 10/16, 32°, 55° | 10/17, 39°, 65° |

• Sunday, 10/11: What we did:
  
  • I laid 5 bricks to completely mortar in all flashing pieces that I put into place yesterday, then cut and bent the aluminum sheeting for the head counterflashing that faces the east side of the chimney, sprayed lacquer on it, temporarily carpet taped it into place, then laid 3 bricks to mortar it permanently to the chimney. I added a little bit of caulking on this final piece of flashing when the sun was setting. Below is a photo from the ground of today's work. Please disregard my sloppy mortar work. I'm an amateur and I'm going to cover all of the bricks with stucco. All I have left is laying several courses of brick and applying stucco to finish the chimney. I also have some ridge caps north and south of the chimney to nail into place.
    
  • The forecast is for rain tomorrow between 4-8 am, so we'll see if my waterproofing of the chimney works. It's also supposed to blow with NW gusts to 35 mph. If it blows that hard, I won't be on the roof.
  • Mary did another firewood tree marking adventure, this time into the north woods. There are some trees close by, but further north the dead trees are covered with poison ivy. Mary had a deer run ahead of her and all she saw was a rump that was about 2-foot wide...a big buck.
  • Mary froze 3 more gallons of tomatoes. We have 20 gallons in the freezer. One more gallon and Mary has all she needs to make 3 batches of salsa and 1 batch of slumgullion. The rest of the ripening tomatoes we'll just have to eat, fresh...darn!

  

  Head flashing & counterflashing on chimney,
  looking at it from the east on the ground.

• Monday, 10/12: Grandad Melvin used to say, "It really stinks getting old." I also remember asking him how old he was on a visit to what later became Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota. He answered that he was 65 and I said, "Boy, that's old." He suggested I wait and see how I felt about it when I turn 65. I'm a year and a little over 4 months away from that age and I surely don't feel old. My body sometimes reminds me that it stinks to get older. For days, I've been doing the limbo as I climb out of the lift's aluminum cage onto a 2x10 plank on the roof. Now my right knee aches like the dickens. Somehow, I've stressed it. I'm fine, but just achy in the knee.
  
  Today's events:
  
  • Rain fell while we walked dogs this morning, but it only lasted for a few minutes.
  • Since a NW wind was howling, we declared today as a day off from chimney repair. I suggested going shopping, but since my knee hurt, a day on concrete wasn't smart.
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
    
  • Mary defrosted our largest freezer. It's now ready for new chicken and deer meat. We have to start butchering chickens, soon. The chicks are now big and 13 weeks old, today. Fourteen weeks old is the outer limit.
    
  • I called Sunbelt Rentals about renting the lift for another week. It's been $1000 a week. I've had it for 2 weeks. If we had a flatter roof, I wouldn't need the expensive gizmo. Expecting to have to commit another $1000, I was told that for another $174, I hit the monthly rate and I can keep it until Oct. 27th, which I approved. That was great news.
  • Mary brought out 2 strings of orange lights and I helped put them into the branches of the ficus tree in the living room. She added decorations, including miniature witch's brooms, 4 cross stitch ornaments Mary made, an old cauldron, and a witch's hat (see photos below).
    
    

The orange glow of our lit tree.

Our Halloween tree.

Cat with ghosts cross stitch ornament.

Pumpkin Pi cross stitch ornament.

The Pumpkit cross stitch ornament.

Kitty on pumpkin cross stitch ornament.

Miniature broom ornament.

Witch's hat on an old cauldron.

• Tuesday, 10/13: Today:
  
  • Mary canned 12 quarts of slumgullion. In a big pot, she put in 5 gallons of tomatoes, 8 medium white onions, 6 huge sweet peppers, a bit of salt, and 3/4 of a cup of Real lemon juice. Then, she brought it to a boil and let it simmer for 10 minutes and then canned it. Mary's story about slumgullion is that her grandparents weren't the richest people, and they had a lot of kids, but Mary's Grandmother Hutton had a hard time turning down hobos who would ask for a meal during the Great Depression. A hobo stopped by one day and she didn't have anything to feed him. He asked, "Do you have some tomatoes, onions, peppers, and corn bread?" She said, "Yes." He said, "You make the corn bread and give me the vegetables and I'll show you how to make slumgullion." The dish was so popular that it became a standard in the Hutton family, ever since.
  • Mary also froze 29 small packages of chopped sweet peppers.
  • I laid 11 bricks on the chimney. Bricklaying is going faster, now that I don't have to make those infernal flashing pieces. Of course, my all-time high achievement of 11 bricks in a day is probably what a pro bricklayer can do in 15 minutes. After I laid 3 bricks to finish the course that covers the last flashing, I calculated that I need to lay 6 more courses of 6 bricks per course to get to the required height that the chimney needs to reach. By nightfall, I had 2 bricks at the second course of 6 courses to get to the top.
    


• Wednesday, 10/14: My maternal grandfather, Jack Robison, had a bulldog approach to living. He was famous for getting a cast on his leg and spending hours in an irrigation ditch, essentially melting it away. Mom says he would enter the house and my grandmother would say, "Now, what did you do?" But, that tenacity was a good thing. When doctors told him a stroke meant he wouldn't walk again, his response was to get up and start walking, even if it meant his walk was a little bit teetering. No problem, he carved 2 canes from diamond willow we found in Alaska, marching about a mile every morning with his beautiful canes to support him. Would my grandfather have worn a mask if he were alive today. Even though he had a reckless streak, I think he would. He didn't go to college, but he was smart. I bring this up, because on our visit to Quincy today, we saw most everyone wearing masks. It's changed from months ago, when many weren't doing so. You might smash forward in life, like Grandad Robison did, but you still need to be smart about it. Wearing a mask right now is smart.
  
  Our day:
  
  • We had NW gusts up to 40 mph, so no roof-time for me. We went shopping in Quincy, IL. Prior to leaving, I drilled a hole in a bolt, put the bolt through a hole in the hitch coupler of the lift, and padlocked it, to detract from someone stealing it. Besides shopping for needed items, we dropped off a couple items I didn't use on my chimney project.
  • We ate nachos and watched the 1998 movie, Practical Magic.
    


• Thursday, 10/15: Events today:
  
  • A NW wind was gusting hard this morning, so I stayed away from the chimney until afternoon, when the winds decreased.
  • I texted Katie. She was in the Atlanta airport, getting on a flight to Seattle. After Seattle, she'll fly to Anchorage.
    
  • Mary and I looked at all of the Bartlett pears wrapped in newspaper in a chest of drawers on the upstairs landing. Out of 116 pears, we only had 15 that went bad. Still, I have to make pear wine very soon.
  • Mary picked 40 Kiefer pears.
  • Mary picked 25 jalapeno peppers after I mentioned the possibility of making jalapeno wine. She also picked red or yellow hot peppers of other varieties. Mary picked a full bucket of absolutely ripe tomatoes and a half of a bucket of green tomatoes. She froze 5 more gallons of tomatoes. Mary picked the last of the comfrey leaves to dry.
    
  • I laid 8 bricks on the chimney, finishing the 2nd course and putting 4 bricks on the 3rd of 6 courses left to lay. The top of the chimney is now 17.5 inches from the roof peak.
  • We celebrated October 15th, just 'cause, with a bottle of pear wine. It's very good, now...extremely smooth..
    


• Friday, 10/16: Happenings:
  
  • Late last night, Katie texted that she made it to Anchorage. She stays there until Monday, in order to quarantine and pass covid tests.
  • Morning winds were gusting to 30 mph, so I delayed working on the chimney until afternoon. I laid 8 bricks, finishing up the 3rd and 4th courses and raising the height of the chimney to 20.5 inches. 
  • I sharpened the lawn mower's blade.
    
  • Mary used a scythe to cut down grass on the path to the chicken killing cone, then raked it up to use it as an organic cushion in a new compost bin.
    
  • Mary added 2 sheet metal pieces to metal fence posts to start a new compost bin and added grass to about 2/3 full.
    
  • We saw hundreds and hundreds of robins flying south today. Online, we noticed it's snowing in northern Minnesota.
    


• Saturday, 10/17: Today we did:
  • I moved vehicles to the lane, SE of the house, due to SW wind gusts to 50 mph, and to avoid any weeping willow branches hitting the vehicles. It's not a day for chimney work.
  • I removed 2 air conditioners on the ground floor level and stored them on the bench in the machine shed. I also moved a stack of asphalt shingles to inside the machine shed.
    
  • I went to Quincy and bought a 3-pound bag of lemons, a needed ingredient for pear wine that I forgot to pick up when we shopped on Wednesday.
    
  • Mary moved garden tools, shovels, and tar paper back into the first grain bin that I left on the grass when getting to asphalt shingles.
    
  • Mary mowed the trail to the chicken killing cone, did some cleaning, and strung hot peppers.
  • We made pear wine. Mary chopped up 3 pounds of golden raisins while I juiced out 10 lemons. Then, Mary peeled, while I cored, and quartered about 96 Bartlett pears and 12 Kieffer pears. It's a messy job, especially when the Bartlett pears are so ripe. I put the pear quarters in 2 big bowls containing water and Real lemon, a solution that prevents the pear meat from turning brown. Then, we put alternate layers of pear pieces and raisins into a large mesh bag, squeezing after each layer was added to release pear juice. Next, I added 5 crushed Campden tablets, 5 teaspoons of acid blend, 5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient, and 2.75 gallons of water to bring the must level to the 6-gallon mark in the brew bucket, with the bag also in the bucket. Next, I measured the specific gravity. Starting at 1.030, I added sugar until it was at 1.080. This is much lower than last year's pear wine starting point. I'm trying to make this year's pear wine at a lower alcoholic content, to keep our ears from curling when we drink it. Now, I let the must sit for 12 hours, to let the crushed Campden tablets kill any wild mold on the fruit. For roughly $16, we get about 2 dozen delicious bottles of pear wine. We started this project at 7 pm and ended it at midnight. Below is a photo of the pear must in the brew bucket.

  

  Measuring specific gravity in pear wine must.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Oct. 4-10, 2020

 

Weather | 10/4, 0.08" rain overnight, 37°, 57° | 10/5, 34°, 63° | 10/6, 47°, 76° | 10/7, 59°, 79° | 10/8, 48°, 77° | 10/9, 55°, 80° | 10/10, 58°, 81° |

• Sunday, 10/4: Happenings on a bright, sunny day:
  
  •  After studying how to correctly put metal flashing on chimneys, I couldn't see how it would work on our chimney. So, this morning, I stacked up poor quality bricks I wouldn't use anyway on a sheet of plywood tossed over the trailer behind the tractor, using pieces of lathes as stand-ins for mortar thickness, to mirror our chimney. I leaned a board on a bucket next to this fake chimney and got it at a 45° angle, representing the roof. Then I played around with additional bricks and a piece of aluminum flashing to determine what I needed to do, then wrote down the steps. It took all morning, but I now can visualize the steps of this project.
    
  • Mary dug up carrots. It's the last crop from the garden. It's supposed to frost tonight, so all that we needed to harvest is now removed. There are still some green tomatoes out there, but we have so many tomatoes ripening that we don't need any more.
  • Mary marked dead trees with fluorescent orange paint while walking SW and east of the house. It's easier determining dead trees now, when most leaves are still on trees, than later in the fall, when leaves are gone, and we're cutting firewood.
  • While wandering east looking for dead trees, Mary took photos of blooming New England asters (see photos below).
  • I finished putting tar paper on the roof where I took asphalt shingle off around the chimney. Then, I added new shingles up to the base of the chimney. Finally, I snipped and bent into shape the first of many pieces of flashing, the apron, and nailed it to the bottom front of the roof in front of the chimney. Prior to nailing it in place, I spray painted it with lacquer to prevent the aluminum from corroding when it comes in contact with mortar.

These New England asters are 1" in diameter.

Honey bee on a New England aster.

• Monday, 10/5: Activities:
  
  •  We woke to spotty frost. Some tomato and pepper plants were nipped, along with squash and pumpkin plants. It's okay. We've harvested all we need.
    
  • Our chicks are 12 weeks old, today.
  • I called up Sunbelt Rentals and rented the lift for another week.
    
  • Mary made 4 loaves of bread.
  • I made a batch of mortar and practiced laying bricks on a piece of plywood laying across the trailer, because Katie said I should practice. I had some mortar left, so I laid 3 bricks on the chimney and ran short when trying to lay the 4th brick, so I scooped the mortar off and threw it away. I made another batch to mortar and laid 2 more bricks, and then threw away a larger batch of mortar. I'll need to get better at estimating my mortar to brick count, so I don't waste so much mortar. The Type N mortar I'm making is 1 part Portland cement, 1 part lime, and 6 parts sand. I'm going to need more sand.
  • While reviewing online chimney flashing information, I realized I need to alter my plans of going 2" up the side of the chimney with step flashing and increase it to 4". Also, I'll need to go with taller counter flashing, the second flashing anchored by bricks, which sits on the outside of the step flashing and the chimney.
    


• Tuesday, 10/6: Events:
  
  • Mary did 3 loads of laundry. She also froze 3 more gallons of tomatoes. We now have 15 gallons in the freezer.
    
  • Pears are ripening...pear winemaking is around the corner.
  • I spent the morning studying my fake chimney and redid my chimney building plan based on what I discovered online last night. I then laid 5 bricks with 1 batch of mortar resulting in zero waste. Next, I made a half a batch, laid 2 more bricks, and again, no mortar waste.
  • I went to Quincy as the sun was setting and bought 3 more 55-pound bags of mortar sand, 12 pre-bent step flashings, a roll of 20" flashing for making higher counterflashing pieces, and a couple ingredients Mary needs to make piccalilli.
    


• Wednesday, 10/7: We did:
  
  • Mary washed 2 loads of laundry.
  • She also made 9 pints of piccalilli. It contains green tomatoes, cabbage, sweet & hot peppers, onion, garlic, horseradish, mustard seed, celery seed, vinegar, and sugar (Mary replaces sugar with Splenda). It's an end-of-the-season garden relish.
  • I cut and bent 2 corner step flashings, lacquered them and all of the other step flashings, then installed the corner step flashings. I alternately nailed down asphalt shingles and installed pairs of step flashings until I reached the top of the chimney. It takes time to cut each shingle and weave it into existing shingles on the roof. 
  • The autumn Asian ladybug invasion started today, which made it especially fun on the roof. They always sound like a Hercules helicopter when they fly near your head. Brush them off and they stink to high heaven. And, contrary to what the experts say, they bite.
    


• Thursday, 10/8: It's a good thing I don't do chimney work for a living, or I'd be canned on the spot for taking too long. Of course, I'm not a professional chimney dude, so I'm learning as I go, which is why I'm doing this job in glacial speed.
  
  Today's events:
  
  • Mary washed rugs and cleaned our bedroom. She also froze 2 gallons of ripe tomatoes. We now have 17 gallons in the freezer, with more coming. Mary did all of the evening chores, since I had my nose in the machine shed doing my chimney thing.
  • I cut and bent aluminum sheeting all day. I made a front counterflashing piece that will go on the west side of the chimney, two first level counterflashing pieces for the north and south sides, and two second level counterflashing units, again for the north and south sides of the chimney. I was up and down on the lift several times to get measurements and to check that sections fit properly. I sprayed them all down with lacquer and secured tabs where needed with aluminum tape. The sun set, so I quit for the day. Below is a photo of some of them loosely attached to my fake chimney replica in the machine shed.
  • Mary says I have a weird sunburned crescent shape on the back of my head from wearing a hardhat that's open on the back while up on the roof. She says, "It looks like the back of your head is smiling."
  
  

  

  Some of the flashing pieces I made today displayed on my fake chimney
  (the hard board represents the roof). It'll look a lot better on the actual chimney.

• Friday, 10/9: Today was hot, with a strong SW wind. Being high in the air on a lift, I noticed gusts immensely. It's sort of like riding out high seas in rough water, you have to concentrate hard with the task at hand and try to ignore surrounding factors. Still, sudden gusts make you slow down and become extra cautious. I laughed at one gust, when to the north, a bunch of blue jays squawked as the wind blasted through.
  
  Happenings:
  
  • Mary washed towels. She also made quiche and coleslaw, since I bought too many cabbages the last time I went shopping.
    
  • I installed the 5 counterflashing pieces I made yesterday on the chimney, held them temporarily in place with carpet tape, then mortared them into place and added 5 bricks to the chimney. I cut and bent 2 top step flashing pieces, nailed them into place, then cut 2 asphalt shingles lengthwise and nailed them at the top of the roof. I sealed the joints of all counterflashing pieces installed today with aluminum tape. Below are 2 photos of my work so far.
  • Mary mowed the lane.

North & west sides of chimney.

South and west sides of chimney.

• Saturday, 10/10: Happenings:
  
  • Mary continued her house deep cleaning, this time hitting the bathroom.
  • I cut some asphalt shingles lengthwise and added these half-shingles to the east side of the roof, then cut, bent, and created what's called the head flashing, then coated it in lacquer and nailed it to the top, or east side of the chimney, right at the peak of the roof. Next, I made 2 versions of the third counterflashing for the north and south side of the chimney, taped and lacquered them, then used carpet tape to temporarily put them in place. I laid 4 bricks to mortar these counterflashings permanently. I have just one more flashing to make tomorrow and then it's all brickwork.
  • A SW morning wind died to calm and then the Asian ladybugs came out. 
  • Mary hiked to the NE, marking dead trees for potential firewood. She found several near Wood Duck Pond. She spooked up 2 deer and said at one point there was a bright red oak tree in front of several bright yellow hickory trees for an amazing contrast in fall color.
    

Sept. 27-Oct. 3, 2020

Weather | 9/27, 64°, 73° | 9/28, 0.51" rain yesterday & overnight, 46°, 61° | 9/29, 0.01" rain, 47°, 61° | 9/30, 51°, 68° | 10/1, 43°, 57° | 10/2, 37°, 59° | 10/3, 0.13" rain, 43°, 53° |

• Sunday, 9/27: Activities:
  • Mary moved the garlic and 2 pumpkins from the back porch closet to the upstairs south bedroom.
  • She then raked up recently mowed grass, picked a half bucket of tomatoes from the garden, and froze 3 more gallons of ripe tomatoes.
  • I cleaned the inside of the Cadillac, where lime, sand, and concrete dust leaked out from paper bags. The pickup bed would be a better transportation device.
  • I checked the 7-prong trailer plug-in on the pickup. It tests out fine, but the hanger attaching it to the rear bumper is rusted, so I wired the plug-in to the bumper, thereby transforming the pickup to a true baling wire farm truck. I also changed the pickup's air filter right when it started raining.
  • We had bacon, shallots, tomatoes, and eggs for our main meal.
  • I reviewed applying flashing to a chimney that has one side right at the peak of the roof, like our chimney is built. From several photos, I figured out what I need to do.
    
  • I used Messenger with Katie to find out she's flying south out of northern Alaska tomorrow to take in 2 months of Air Force Guard monthly stuff that she does (can't remember the lingo).
    


• Monday, 9/28: We did:
  
  • Mary finished cleaning the upstairs south bedroom.
  • It was rainy outside, so I was inside researching methods of laying brick and building chimney flashing.
    
  • I looked for bricklaying tools, found several that once belonged to Mary's Uncle Herman, and cleaned up several of them with an electric wire brush.
    


• Tuesday, 9/29: Events:
  
  • I drove the pickup to Quincy, got the manlift, and towed it home (see photo below). While in Quincy, I also bought chick & hen food, plus other items I need for fixing the chimney.
    
  • Once home, I hooked the tractor to the manlift and backed it into place on the west side of the house. It took a lot of time to do this, since the 1950 8N Ford tractor is a piddly thing with as much power as a chicken scratching dirt.
    
  • Mary froze the last of the corn, picked and froze more tomatoes, and made a 3-day supply of tortellini soup.

  

  The towable manlift behind our pickup.

  
  
• Wednesday, 9/30: Today we did:
  • I figured out how to operate the manlift. After getting it running, I went up to the roof and right away decided that the manlift wasn't close enough to the house, so I spent an hour putting chains on the tractor. Then, Mary helped me as we worked to back it further to the house.
  • I went up on the manlift a second time and determined that the chimney exposed to the outside was really shot, with bricks that were wobbly and about ready to fall. I still wasn't as close as I wanted to be, so I decided I would run to Quincy and get brackets, so I could place a plank to stand on nearer to the chimney. I made one piece of flashing, and determined I needed more flashing material. I went to Quincy as the moon was rising, bought brackets, more flashing, and gas for running the manlift and the tractor.
    
  • Mary made Mississippi mud, an intensely chocolate dessert, did some cleaning, picked more tomatoes, and harvested the 6 hills of sweet potatoes (see photo below).

  

  This year's sweet potatoes from just 6 hills.

  
  
• Thursday, 10/1: Work today involved:
  
  • I took off extremely loose bricks that were just about ready to fall from the chimney. Then, I nailed 2 brackets to the roof and nailed a 5' long 2x10 to the brackets. After that, I detached and removed chimney bricks down to close to the roof. Next, I removed piles of dried up tar, aluminum flashing, and shingles around the chimney. Uncle Herman's roofing job included vast amounts of nails, both into the shingles and into bricks of the chimney, which cracked the bricks. At one point, there were 5 nails that I removed from a 1" square area! I cleaned up the worksite, then washed up 15 bricks, of which I have many, many more to do. Below are photos that Mary took of me on the roof.
    
  • They are predicting frost for Sunday night, so Mary was busy getting garden items. She harvested and hung a bunch of comfrey. She picked 2 buckets of sweet peppers and a bucket of hot peppers. She froze most of the hot peppers and strung up and hung the ripe hot peppers to dry. She picked 7 pumpkins, 24 acorn squash, and 4.5 buckets of tomatoes. The upstairs south bedroom is loaded with garden produce.

Removing bricks from the chimney.

Leaving roof with a load of bricks.

Up in the sky.

Old bricks from the chimney.

• Friday, 10/2: Why is it that every project takes so much longer to accomplish than the time I figure it will take? And, I don't seem to get better at estimating time allocations with age. I'm nearly halfway through my rental of a lift and I'm no way near halfway through my chimney project, let alone getting another roof issue, a leaky roof where an old gas heater exhaust pipe exists. The other problem is the "Persnickety Dicky Syndrome," when I have to get everything "just so." I'm afraid I inherited that from my grandfather, Willis G. Melvin. He was the ultimate in being precise.
  
  Happenings today:
  
  • I took a few more loose and split bricks off the chimney. It's down to 3 bricks high on low side of the roof and a brick or 2 below the roof peak on the high side of the roof. Then, I used a mortar chisel and hammer and ever so lightly tapped at old mortar and stucco to remove it from remaining bricks. Most of the 100-year old mortar is impregnated with black soot, but it's twice as strong as the stucco that was put on by Mary's Uncle Herman. Still, Herman's stucco job helped fill recesses in the original mortar job.
  • Mary made flour tortillas and chimichangas for our midday meal.
    
  • In between 2 loads of laundry, Mary scrubbed bricks all day...a total of 82 bricks. That was a lot of work for her.
  • I decided to call the rental place and reserved the lift for another week, just in case I don't finish by next Tuesday at 1:30 pm, when the week's rental is due. 
  • I carefully removed more asphalt shingles to a point where I can put new ones back into place. In several places, I carefully cut them, making sure cuts will be overlapped by new shingles. While doing this, I noticed how warm it felt while working above old black tar paper. The temperature was only in the upper 50s, but it felt like it was above 70. I would hate to be working on a roof at 90°.
  • Next, I put stucco on the existing bricks exposed to the outside of the roof. Finally, I added tar paper to the left and right roof sides of the chimney.
  • After cleanup and chores, I went back up with a sheet of plastic, stuffing edges under shingles, tar paper, and the board I stand on, to guard against tomorrow's expected rain. I noticed a lot of warm air coming up the chimney. When I returned inside, I asked if the damper was open. "I don't know," said Mary. Then, we both looked in the living room. Of course, I took the stove pipe off the stove on Monday to remove soot at the bottom of the chimney prior to working on the chimney, and I didn't put the stove pipe back. Mary asked, "How the hell are we supposed to shut the damper?" There we stood, looking at thin air. We both laughed until our bellies hurt.
    


• Saturday, 10/3: Today:
  
  • We woke up to rain. It lightly rained until noon, then heavy mist started in at dusk. Crawling around on a 2x10 wet plank on our 45° angle roof was not an option today for me. Instead, I contemplated my next moves on the chimney project with bricks and flashing. 
  • Mary froze 3 gallons and most of a 4th gallon of tomatoes. We now have 12 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer. We also have a dump truck (not really) of green tomatoes ripening in the upstairs south bedroom. Any tomato with a tinge of ripening color is put in 2 large bowls and an ice cream bucket that Mary stores in the microwave when it's not in use. Somehow, the enclosed environment inside the microwave speeds up the ripening process. A pale green/yellow tomato ripens in about 4 days in the microwave. The same tomato on the kitchen counter might take a week to ripen, or not ripen at all. It's an amazing discovery.
  • Mary made a venison General Tso Chinese midday meal.
  • While walking down to the gravel road to get the mail, we saw a nighthawk zipping by, and then 7 wood ducks flying around looking for a place to land.
  • I took the manlift up to the chimney to take measurements and stuff plastic that blew out today into the cracks between the chimney and the roof that are open right now, since the prediction is for an 80 percent chance of rain tonight.
    

Sept. 20-26, 2020

 

Weather | 9/20, 43°, 76° | 9/21, 43°, 74° | 9/22, 53°,78° | 9/23, 53°, 77° | 9/24, 55°, 78° | 9/25, 53°, 79° | 9/26, 60°, 83° |

• Sunday, 9/20: What we did:
  
  • I crawled up the 45-degree of the NE valley of our roof to the chimney and measured distances for putting together scaffolding for a chimney repair job. It would be extremely difficult to construct. The chimney is in desperate shape, with 2-inch splits at the top on the north and south sides through several layers of brick. I was hoping to cinch it back together and patch if up, but it probably needs to be replaced with newly laid bricks. Mary and I talked about our options for quite some time.
    
  • I picked 2 more quarts of autumn olive berries.
  • Mary baked bread.
  • She also picked and froze 27 ears of sweet corn.
  • We both picked tomatoes.
    


• Monday, 9/21: Today:
  
  • Our chicks are 10 weeks old today.
  • I was online for most of the day, looking up bricklaying details and where I can rent a manlift in Quincy for helping me to get safely on our roof for chimney repair. Three locations exist in Quincy and one has a towable 34-foot articulating manlift. One of the businesses also is a masonry contractor that covers 40 miles around Quincy, which would include us.
    
  • I measured heights to our rooftop...it's 22.5 feet and 9 feet in from the west side of our house to the peak. The 34' manlift would work. I checked the angle of the roof peak. It's at 90 degrees, so our roof slope is 12/12, or for every 12" out, it drops 12" down.
  • While I was going up the ladder for roof measurements, I spotted 4 pelicans high overhead, riding air currents while floating eastward. 
  • At one point in the afternoon, I heard chickens raising a stink, then Mary hollered and I went running outside. She saw a big red tailed hawk fly off and we had a dead chicken, a buff Orpington cockerel, in the north chicken run. The hawk ate most of the bird...feathers were spread out in a 2-foot square area, and the mostly-eaten carcass about 10 feet away. Most all of the young chickens were in the coop, but a few were hiding in the weeds along the fence lines. 
  • Later, when we put the chickens to bed, we had a barred rock cockerel outside of the fence on east side of the north chicken run. He must have flown over the fence when the hawk struck. I had to wade through head-high ragweed and stickery cedar branches to chase it south to the human gate, where Mary drove it into the chicken run. Then, we chased it out of inside the fence line of the south chicken run, where hens stay, through the gate separating the north and south chicken runs, and then through the north coop chicken door to where he and his mates roost safe inside the coop. What an ordeal!
    
  • Mary picked tomatoes and 15 ears of corn. We both watered the gardens. I transplanted 2 strawberry plants into 4-gallon buckets. These plants were once shoots off our existing strawberry plants. I've got 12 more prior strawberry shoots that are now plants to transplant.
    
  • Mary washed and dried half of our fall and winter jackets and coats.
  • On the way to get the mail, I saw a doe and a yearling deer midway down our driveway. They trotted off to the west, but just watched me walk by, then went back to munch clover on our lane. Then, a cooper's hawk flew overhead.
    
  • We watched QBVII, a television 3-part series about a London trial between an American playwright and author of a WWII holocaust book and a Polish doctor who practiced in a German concentration camp. It was quite a moving series about forced sterilization of Jews. It hits home with recent reports of hysterectomies of Hispanic immigrants in ICE facilities in this country...an eerie example of history repeating itself.
    


• Tuesday, 9/22: Undertakings:
  • Before letting chicks outside, Mary said, "I hope today is a better day...nope, there's a red tailed hawk!" It was sitting in a tree just NW of our north chicken run. It flew off to the south. Mary walked to where it flew, made some noise with a plastic tree guard, and walked back while I released the chicks. We kept a keen eye out for hawks all day long, but didn't see any.
  • Mary picked and froze most of the ears of corn remaining in the garden. She also picked more tomatoes. They are slow to ripen, this year.
    
  • Mary mowed grass in the west yard in front of the chicken coop and south chicken run.
    
  • She also picked the rest of the hazelnuts, which amounted to a large full basket. We both husked them in the evening, while dinner was cooking.
    
  • I picked another 3 quarts of autumn olives. We now have 16 quarts from this year in the freezer.
    


• Wednesday, 9/23: I read a piece of news today that quite literally put terror in my heart. Our president says he will have to see whether he will peacefully transfer power if he loses the election. This guy is teetering on the brink of dictatorship. I don't like anything at all with the tone of his comments. My only hope is that all elected members of our government demand that the oath of office and the U.S. Constitution be implemented to the fullest extent.
  
  In other activities:
  
  • Mary checked the woods for hickory nuts. They don't exist, just like black walnuts are nonexistent this year. We're guessing that the snow we got this April nailed tree blossoms. Then, we got several weeks of dry weather, which didn't help. It might be tough on squirrels this winter.
  • Mary watered the gardens and picked some tomatoes. 
  • I picked a quart of autumn olive berries to raise our total from this year to 17 quarts.
    


• Thursday, 9/24: Today's events:
  
  • Mary cut down, sorted and put away our crop of garlic. Six varieties of garlic filled 3 old grapefruit bags that once held 18 pounds, each, of grapefruit. She also put away 6 boxes of the largest bulbs to be replanted in November for our next garlic crop. Only 4 garlic bulbs were thrown out. One was bad and three were chewed by mice, although Mary thinks they didn't develop a taste for garlic.
  • Mary also finished washing coats and jackets, and made a turkey pot pie for dinner.
  • Mary and I picked several more tomatoes and Mary found 3 more small ears of corn. She froze another gallon of ripe tomatoes, giving us 4 gallons in the freezer.
    
  • I balanced our checkbook.
  • I found old bricks and laid them on a sheet of plywood to determine their configuration to make our chimney that is 17.5" on the outside and about 8" on the inside. Each course of bricks includes 6 bricks.
  • I then dug out bricks stored behind the machine shed and sorted them according to size and condition. I came up with enough good bricks for 17 courses of 6 bricks each, way more than I require to redo the top of our chimney.
    


• Friday, 9/25: Merchandise packaging is stupid. In an attempt to disguise higher prices, stuff is packaged into diminishing sizes, plus volume amounts are all over the place. I checked out prices for stuff to use to fix our roof and chimney today. Blackjack tar is sold in 10.1-ounce tubes, when it once was in 12- or 16-ounce sizes. You can find mortar in 80-pound, 75-pound, 70-pound, 65-pound, 60-pound, 55-pound, and 50-pound bags. Want to buy a can of roof cement? It's not in a gallon can, but in a 0.90-gallon can. I wish merchandisers would be honest in their efforts to squeeze more money out of our wallets. Just raise the price. Don't squish the quantity down in size!
  
  Events:
  
  • Mary washed and dried sheets and blankets, figured 2 months of our savings funds, and stored hay that she cut several days ago in the 2nd grain bin.
  • I read books on laying bricks, then went to Quincy, shopped for a few groceries, and items to fix the chimney. The manlift isn't available through the weekend, because it's rented out. I reserved it for a week to be picked up on Tuesday at noon, which is perfectly matched to weather predictions of rain on Sunday through Monday. I found prices for mortar and other supplies at Lowes, Home Depot, and Menards and bought Portland cement, lime, and sand at the last place. My kids would have loved this trip...hours staring at bags of cement at 3 different home supply stores. It's kind of a standing joke in our family. I added 2 bushels of potting soil and a bag of chick feed, then drove my loaded Caddy home.
  • Meanwhile, Mary mowed 2 sections of lawn.
    
  • Mary and I picked tomatoes. I unloaded the car as Mary watered the gardens.
  • We ate nachos and watched a horrible movie call The Heartbreak Kid, starring Ben Stiller. We'll donate that DVD back to the Salvation Army. It's garbage.
    


• Saturday, 9/26: My sister has been posting autumn colors on Facebook as Karen and Lynn drive their pickup and camper trailer through northern states. I remember driving tour buses in late August along the Alaskan Highway between Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory, and Tok, Alaska, with brilliant yellow fall colors in aspen trees along the highway. We start seeing fall colors here in mid-September. First, it's yellow goldenrod flowers. Then, ash trees turn red to dark purple. Virginia creeper, a vine in trees, turns a bright red. It's beautiful right now. Next, shagbark hickory trees turn yellow. We're just starting to see the first tinge of that, now. Finally, deep dark shades of red and purple show as oak trees turn, which is a few weeks away. I love how our autumn in Missouri evolves over several weeks. It gives you time to enjoy the fall colors.
  
  Our day:
  
  • Mary did partial cleaning of the upstairs south bedroom...what we call the room of requirement, from the Harry Potter movies. It's one place in the house where we can block cats from marauding through our stuff. With freezing temperatures expected next week, it's where green tomatoes will be put to ripen. That's why Mary is trying to free up space in the room.
  • She also re-potted several of the house plants and moved them into the house. Tin foil covers the tops of pots, to keep cats out, which works well. We now have a large ficus tree in our living room (see photo below).
  • I transferred sacks of mortar materials into 4-gallon plastic cat litter buckets, giving the Portland cement, lime, mortar sand, and old Rapid Set mortar mix a drier place to be and it gets it out of the house. I labeled all 11 buckets and stored them in the machine shed. 
  • I found an old roll of aluminum flashing, left over from when we re-roofed our house in Circle, MT. It's 15' long, which is enough for putting new flashing on our current chimney.
  • Mary and I picked half a bucket of tomatoes, the most we've collected so far this year.
  • It was almost dark when I got the mail. A quarter of the way back from the mailbox, I mumbled something to myself and a deer that was probably only 10 feet away snorted. I watched 2 white tails bob up and down as they ran off to the west.
  • We watched the movie, Darkest Hour, one of our favorites.
    

Ficus tree in living room.

Sept. 13-19, 2020

 

Weather | 9/13, 0.02" rain, 52°, 73° | 9/14, 52°, 73° | 9/15, 53°, 79° | 9/16, 57°, 80° | 9/17, 53°, 74° | 9/18, 49°, 70° | 9/19, 42°, 68° |

• Sunday, 9/13: Today:
  
  • We experienced an electric outage between 5:30-11:09 am, which made us realize we're low on propane for using a campstove and the Coleman lantern.
  • Mary did laundry.
  • She also picked hops, tomatoes, and tomato hornworms.
  • I cleaned filters and inside covers on our 4 air conditioners.
  • I checked autumn olive trees throughout our property. They are ready to be picked, which means our plans for the week are altered. While marching around our property, I spotted a new wild flower, a rough blazing star. I also saw lots of monarch butterflies, and tons of honey bees in the goldenrod flowers that are now blooming.

Freshly picked hops.

A rough blazing star wildflower.

• Monday, 9/14: Yesterday, I couldn't get photos to load correctly, but I got the above photos related to the prior day's blog to load today, so there they are.
  
  Happenings:
  
  • Mary washed 2 loads of laundry and cut another area of tall grass with her scythe, laying it out to dry.
  • I picked autumn olive berries from one tree, then Mary joined me after lunch and together, we picked berries off 3 more trees to give us 7 quarts of autumn olives that we froze.
  • We picked several more tomatoes. Mary found just 1 army worm.
  • Our chicks are 8 weeks old and growing big, fast. We hear several half-baked attempts at crowing from cockerels every morning. We might be butchering at 12 weeks, rather than the normal 14-week stage, due to fast growth.
  • We had bacon, then shallots browned in bacon grease, then over-easy eggs dropped on the shallots, all with fresh tomatoes and toast...a truly amazing meal. It's the first time we've had bacon in about 10 years. We found smoked bacon at Aldi, instead of nitrate-treated bacon, so we gave it a try...the best!
  • Katie called. She is the foreman of her job site, constructing an electrical generation building in Nuiqsut, AK. There are 5 workers, so she does everything. The job superintendent is gone right now, so she's the acting job superintendent, too. Katie's also in charge of maintenance on the 3 Caterpillar generators currently providing electricity for the village. She procures construction items. And, she cleans and disinfects rooms once subcontractors leave. The steel subcontractor arrived today. Steel walls and roofing is going up, soon, with the building enclosed by Oct. 1. She said it was warm today...got into the mid-40s, which she says is about average for there, at this time of the year. It freezes at night. She'll be leaving on Sept. 28 to handle Air Force National Guard drill in Florida, returning to AK on Oct. 14, but her return flight to AK was just cancelled, so she has to figure that out. Her Christmas break is Dec. 18 through Jan. 14, but we don't know, yet, if she'll be visiting us, due to her many travels and this pandemic. While I was on the phone with her, one of her co-workers who also lives in the village gave her 2 boxes full of fresh produce, a rare commodity in Alaska's bush country. She was oohing and aahing over the contents at that moment. Katie told her mother that the villagers are friendly to her.
    


• Tuesday, 9/15: We did the following:
  
  • I went to Quincy and bought chick feed, along with picking up a package of coffee beans that we ordered through Sam's Club.
  • Mary checked an ear of corn that's furthest along in development. It's not ready, yet, but close.
  • She made and canned 9 pints of dill pickle relish (see photo below). She kept one pint out, which would have been the 10th pint, to refrigerate and use. She modified a recipe, adding garlic, extra dried dill, and additional onions. It tastes great. The canning process ended at 11 pm.
  • She also picked tomatoes, froze tomatoes and tomatillos, shredded and froze summer squash, and watered apple rootstocks and strawberry plants.
  
  

  

  Nine pints of dill pickle relish.

• Wednesday, 9/16: There's an inherent advantage to owning several acres of land. We own 160 acres. Probably 60-70 acres are wooded...might be more, because we're letting trees develop on land where pastures once stood. We saw up dead trees for firewood, which is our main heating source. I shoot 1 or 2 deer each hunting season, which adds meat to the freezer. We gather hickory nuts from trees in our timber. We pick raspberries, blackberries, and autumn olive berries every year, that we freeze and make into food and wine. Large gardens give us even more food. Most importantly, our 160-acre land provides home to a wide variety of wildlife that we enjoy anytime we take to the outdoors. Added to that, we enjoy hundreds of wildflowers, feeding thousands of bees (see videos below), native pollinators, and butterflies.
  
  Events:
  
  • I picked 3 quarts of autumn olives, mainly from a tree close to the gravel road and opposite from our neighbor's house, about a third of a mile SE of where our house sits. I drove the tractor cross-country on a beeline from there to our house and spotted a couple more autumn olive trees loaded with berries. Some parts I picked from had berries completely surrounding a branch of the tree.
  • After removing a plastic spigot from a glass 1.4-gallon widemouth bubbler fermenter for winemaking, I discovered a crack developing in the glass near the hole cut in the side of this container. I looked it up online and others have experienced this same flaw. I decided I don't want a replacement. It's poorly made, because the glass is too thin. Since I mainly use it to put wine in right before bottling, all I need is a bucket with the spigot installed. Food grade buckets, that were out-of-stock, are now available at Menards. They are $4, versus $20 from brewing suppliers. We decided to go buy 1 or several, tomorrow, since the stock went from 30 to 26 in a few hours at the Quincy Menard's store (obviously a hot commodity).
    
  • Mary did a load of towels.
  • She also picked and husked a big batch of hazelnuts.
  • We had a weenie roast at dusk and into the night. We tried Mary's newly-made dill relish. It's really, really good. When we started, skies were heavy with high-level smoke from fires in the Pacific NW. Clouds arrived and the wind switched to the NW, clearing the skies and allowing stars to twinkle with more brilliance. We finished around 10:30 pm.
  
  

• Thursday, 9/17: Our day:
  
  • We went to Quincy to get food grade buckets at Menards. There were only 2 left. We checked with a store employee. They didn't get the full pallet of buckets as stated on their shipping invoice, and 4 were sold to someone just prior to us arriving. We'll keep looking. 
  • We bought a nice couch for $40 at Salvation Army. They saved it for us, so we can drive the pickup in tomorrow to take it home. Mary bought a large square basket with a lid that originally was a picnic basket. She transformed it into a sewing basket.
  • We picked another bunch of tomatoes. Mary found a hornworm.
    


• Friday, 9/18: Events:
  
  • We drove the pickup to Quincy, bought 4 food grade 5-gallon buckets and 5 Gamma Seal bucket lids at Lowe's, then we picked up our new-to-us couch at the Salvation Army. I picked up another bag of chick feed that I put on top of the couch cushions. It rode very nicely in the pickup bed to home. We also bought 4 extra couch pillows at $2 each from the Salvation Army. With those and the 2 couch pillows that came with the couch, Mary looked like a stuffed pillow hugger on the way home.
  • We moved a cabinet from the living room to the west first-floor bedroom/storage room, moved my old chair to where a dog bed once was in the living room (it's now a chair for a dog), then moved in the couch. It fits perfectly and is more comfortable than the chair.
  • Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg died today.
  • We moved house plants, that are outside all summer, into the wood shed, due to a cold low temperature prediction. It went down to 42° overnight.
    


• Saturday, 9/19: Happenings:
  
  • Mary and I picked 116 pears off the Bartlett pear tree. I used a step ladder and an extended handle fruit picker to get those at the top of the tree. We got all but a couple that were high and above criss-cross branches. Several were quite small, with some so small, we threw them out. I have enough to make a big batch of pear wine after they fully ripen. At night, I wrapped all of them in quarter-sheets of newspaper and put them in 2 drawers of an old chest of drawers on the upstairs landing.
  • Mary picked 16 ears of sweet corn. She processed and froze them after dark.
  • Mary also picked another bunch of tomatoes. She froze more. We now have just over 2 gallons of tomatoes. When we have 5 gallons, she'll make a batch of salsa.
    
  • I picked what amounted to a little over another quart of autumn olive berries for the freezer.
  • Mary picked more hazelnuts and took the husks off. There are still more green hazelnuts on the bushes.
  • When walking to the tractor to go autumn olive picking, the chickens were putting up a stink, so I ran to the chicken yard. I dropped my picking bowls when I saw a Cooper's hawk fly up and then down to a post on the west side of the chicken run. Once I hollered, it flew off into the north woods. All chickens, both young and old, were hiding in the tall weeds that I leave in place in a 3-foot swath next to all fencing. They're smart birds. We didn't lose any, but they were greatly disturbed.
  • Mary saw 30-40 pelicans flying in formation from the west. Once they got over our north woods, they caught updrafts, circled for a bit, then streamed off to the east.
    

Sept. 6-12, 2020

 Weather | 9/6, 70°, 87° | 9/7, 68°, 79° | 9/8, 0.01" rain, 57°, 61° | 9/9, 0.72" rain, 53°, 60° | 9/10, 0.17" rain, 52°, 59° | 9/11, 0.15" rain, 58°, 70° | 9/12, 2.66" rain, 60°, 77° |

• Sunday, 9/6: Happenings:
  
  • We had high SE winds throughout the day, so we stayed inside during the day. 
  • We watered gardens. Bill and Mary picked worms and worm eggs. 
  • I took a video of a native bumblebee on a thistle blossom (see below). 
  • We lit a campfire on our cement pad in the west yard after the wind died down. I filled 4 buckets with water and took our big fire extinguisher and laid them all near the fire, as a precaution. We roasted pork loin pieces on long weenie roasting forks. We had to use flashlights to determine if the meat was done. We were there for 2-3 hours. 
  
   
• Monday, 9/7: I don't know why, but catching fish is an absolute joy. First, you try to use a lure that matches something fish are eating on that day, at that time. Then, how you show off the lure helps entice fish to bite. For instance, I love flipping a surface lure into waters occupied by bass. A Hula Popper is my favorite. I discovered today that 2 pops with that lure, followed by slowly reeling it in a couple feet, often resulted in a big bass gulping it up. Bill caught a bass on a lure he recently bought. It's a generic lure that we always name a "Walmart Special." It's cheap and always catches fish. You can guess where he bought the lure. He also used a lure he bought me for my birthday, and caught another fish. Mary, Bill, and I caught several bass, threw back little ones, and kept 5 large fish. It was really fun. Fishing photos are below.
  • After we finished fishing, Mary cooked a fish dinner that included a cucumber salad and garlic toast.
  • Bill left  around 4 pm to go back to his place in St. Louis.
  • Mary and I picked about a half of a bucket of tomatillos, hot peppers, and tomatoes.
  • In the evening, thunderstorms passed us to the north, again, as usual!

Bill with a bass caught on his new lure.

Dick with a bass caught on a Hula Popper.

• Tuesday, 9/8: Rain is such a pleasant event, especially when it's been absent for several days. Rain clouds are marching through, from the SW to the NE, which is a prominent moisture-producing direction at our property. Today, it was mainly mist, but future weather forecasts predict higher possibilities. Rain gives garden plants needed sustenance. Rain swells cracks in our clay ground shut and puts a sponginess underfoot. Rain gives us a chance to hibernate inside without remorse. Rain is soothing, really.
  
  In other events:
  
  • Mary did her worm and worm egg picking early, happily reporting that the gardens didn't need watering.
  • She made flour tortillas and fajitas for our main meal, using 2 large bell peppers and onions from our garden, venison meat from last year's hunting, and salsa generated from our garden.
  • I did a bunch of chimney fixing research online...yikes...I'm still not looking forward to that job.
  • I replaced the wheels on a hand truck that we use to haul the big plastic garbage can down our quarter-mile gravel lane.
  • I finished Patrick O'Brian's The Thirteen Gun Salute, his 13th book of the Aubrey/Maturin series.
  • We had a sudden crack from a thunderstorm in the late evening.
    


• Wednesday, 9/9: Happenings:
  
  • Mary thawed, removed ice, and cleaned our oldest deep chest freezer. She tossed outdated packages of blackberries, corn, strawberries, and a 2010 package of pear butter.
  • I drove the pickup to Quincy, mainly to get another bag of chick food...picked up a few other things. Bought gas for $1.79 a gallon on the way back home.
  • We watched the 1998 movie, You've Got Mail.
    


• Thursday, 9/10: We did:
  • Today was a drizzly day, with a lot of mist outside...a good day for hibernating.
  • It was the first of several times when we froze garden items. Mary froze her first bag of tomatoes. I helped her husk several tomatillos, which turned into almost 3 bags in the freezer.
  • I helped Mary husk some hazelnuts. It was only a fraction of nuts still out on the bushes.
  • We ate nachos and watched the 2007 movie, Stardust.
  • Katie texted that she was going to try the taste of whale.
    


• Friday, 9/11: Nineteen years ago on this day, our family woke up in a campground in southern Saskatchewan. The day prior, we left our home in Circle, MT, heading to Besnard Lake in northern Saskatchewan. At the U.S./Canadian border, a very nice Canadian border patrolman leaned in our pickup's window and chatted with us for several minutes. As we drove north on Sept. 11th, car after car passing us, honking as they went by. We didn't have a radio in the 1989 Chevy 1-ton crew-cab pickup, so we didn't know what was happening. We stopped at the Prince Albert (SK) Visitor's Center and the woman at the desk said, "I was hoping people like you wouldn't come in today." We asked why and she said, "It's World War III out there. Oh, you don't know, do you?" Then she pointed to the TV screen and explained. The borders were closed. We stayed at a campground on the edge of Prince Albert. That evening, we walked around the campground peering at TV screens viewed by other campers, seeing the horrific images played over and over, again. We didn't know how long we'd be in Canada, but decided to get on with our vacation. While the world was scared, we camped, fished, and enjoyed our vacation, including an evening watching an amazing northern lights display. We were about the only campers in the campground. It was great. After a few days, we headed home. The U.S./Canadian border was open just a few hours prior to us arriving. A team of about a dozen U.S. Border Patrol personnel met us, asked questions, and checked us out. They even looked underneath the boat trailer and the pickup, using mirrors on handheld extensions. Even so, we went through the border in just a few minutes. A husband and wife with 2 kids and 2 Golden Retrievers don't look like terrorists, I guess.
  
  In today's happenings:
  
  • I racked the blackberry and watermelon wines. The blackberry wine was still at 1.001 specific gravity and the watermelon was at 0.998, or a little stronger. The blackberry tastes amazing, while the watermelon still smells bad, tastes a little better, but not great. I removed a quarter of the lees out of the watermelon wine, reducing it to a full gallon.
  • Mary made venison stew and biscuits.
  • She also picked some tomatoes and tomatillos before an expected rain.
  • It rained in gushers throughout the evening. We kept adding buckets into the sunroom, catching drips in the ceiling and decided to stay up overnight.


• Saturday, 9/12: Events:
  • The rain ended at 4:30 am, so we ate breakfast, did chores at daybreak, then slept for a couple hours.
  • I burned boxes, an old foam pad, and an old boat tarp, all piled up in the machine shed.
  • Mary picked hazelnuts. I helped her husk them.
  • We went to bed early.