Nov. 15-21, 2020

Weather | 11/15, 0.19" rain, 38°, 72° | 11/16, 29°, 58° | 11/17, 26°, 43° | 11/18, 31°, 61° | 11/19, 50°, 71° | 11/20, 47°, 57° | 11/21, 0.34" rain, 37°, 45° |

• Sunday, 11/15: Mom's 86th Birthday
  
  • I woke up at 4:30 am with a noise that at first I thought was thunder. It was a very strong west wind, so I moved the Cadillac to the driveway, then let the dogs out while it was raining. Wind I can take when hunting, but a strong wind with rain, forget it. We were wide awake, so we got up.
  • After morning chores and breakfast, I went to the Bobcat Deer Blind. On the way, I took photos of the trail to this blind, and then at the blind, I took a 360-degree video of the view from this spot in the north woods (see below). In the video, I start filming to the south, span west, then north, which is where the big oak tree is that I sit behind, then east, and finally back to the south, again. This blind is relatively bare, now. When I first made it, I wove grass and cedar branches into the fencing. I've found if you're absolutely still, deer usually don't see you, so I quit putting dead vegetation in the fencing at this blind. I've shot many deer at this location. When I first arrived at the blind today, 4 deer ran off to the west.  I saw a large coyote on the hill to the west.
  • I went back home around 11 am and we ate venison sandwiches.
  • I returned to the blind after dinner. At one point, I saw the feet of an animal, but not the body, running down the hill NE of me into the creek bed. By the way it ran, I think it was another coyote. Later, 2 deer ran down that same hill. One ran east, below me, and stopped for a second. I had him scoped in, but he had about a 6-inch spike for horns. It needs to be 3 inches or less, so I let him go. The second deer ran up the hill toward me. I took a left-handed shot and got it in the heart. It dropped instantly...no suffering. It's a small doe, which is good eating. I got Mary. We drove the tractor pulling a wagon down the trail to where I could turn around. Mary and I field dressed the deer, took it back home, cleaned out the body cavity with water from a garden hose, and hung it in the machine shed. Tonight's temperature is going down to 30°, so we're going to let it hang for the night, and butcher it first thing in the morning.
  • I talked to Mom. Her boss at the Circle (MT) Senior Center, Patty, took her out to a noontime dinner for her birthday. She's doing well.

1. Start of West Trail, with clothesline post right.

2. A few feet later, Frog Pond left, West Field ahead.

3. Next, trail goes through 8-year old oaks.

4. Next, trail goes halfway down west field.

5. Right turn, then cross field, & enter north woods.

6. Halfway down Bobcat Trail, once entered woods.

7. Bobcat Stand: cow panels, posts, & a bucket to sit on.

• Monday, 11/16: Our Deer Sanctuary
  
  • I pulled the curtains back after waking up and there were 3 deer in the far garden munching on frozen tomatoes and plants. We debated about me taking a shot out the bedroom window, but several head-height persimmon trees were between me and the deer, making it a poor shot. I let them go. They jumped the electric fence around the garden easily. After walking dogs, we spotted a 9-point buck looking at us from Frog Pond. Through binoculars, I watched him limp off to the west, probably wounded by a hunter's poor aim. So far, I've spent 4 bullets to sight in my rifle and one bullet to harvest one deer as humanely as possible. Hunting involves thinking ahead about your shot and aiming wisely, not spraying bullets indiscriminately from your AK-15, a poor hunting rifle in the first place. I hear them going off in neighboring properties...a first shot...a couple seconds...a second shot...then another shot...all sounding different as a hunter swings the rifle to follow a running deer and misses on each shot. I wish there was a button I could push that remotely slapped each of these poor hunters in the face with a prickly ash branch.
  • After breakfast this morning, I sharpened knives and skinned the deer hanging in the machine shed. We took the hind quarters off and deboned everything. This gave us 22 packages of meat. Then we got shoulder meat, loin, and tenderloin cuts from the carcass. Altogether, we made up 31 packages of meat from this deer. She had a long body, and such deer yield more meat.
  • I hunted the SE deer blind starting at 3 pm. I took photos of the trail to this hunting location (see below). When I turned off the East Trail to the trail to the SE Blind, a barred owl approached overhead followed by several crows that were harassing it. The owl saw me and landed in a tree directly above me. The crows saw me, too, scattered, and flew away. The smart owl obviously used my presence to persuade the yelling crows to leave. 
  • Even though I never saw them, I heard several deer run north, opposite from some cedar trees, as I approached this blind. A large midge insect hatch was out this afternoon, with hundreds of them dancing in the sunlight. About 20 minutes after sunset, I heard, but couldn't see, a deer stomping around north of me. It was dusk and dark in the woods. I saw a form for a little bit, but couldn't tell if it was a buck or a doe. A check of the time indicated it was 5:19, the end of legal hunting for the day. I unloaded bullets out of my rifle, grabbed my things, dropped something, and with those sounds, the deer bounded off to the north. A crescent moon was setting to the west as I walked up the hill to home.
  • Mary did all of the evening chores by herself as yours truly sat on his duff in the woods.
  • Katie enjoyed a blizzard today in Nuiqsut, Alaska, with sustained 30 mph winds.
  • Mom was at the Circle (MT) Senior Center, where she works part-time. She and her boss, Patti, baked 10 pumpkin pies for tomorrow's Thanksgiving meal served by the senior center.

1. East Trail start, garden fence left, compost bins right.

2. Later down the hill, Dry Pond right.

3. Next, trail switchbacks down steep section.

4. After long walk east, trail turns north.

5. Trail turns back east, with woods on right.

6. Trail drops with left higher than right.

7. Leave East Trail, follow ditch carved in forest floor.

8. After a few steps, jump the ditch, here.

9. Trail turns south a short jaunt through woods.

10. Turn east, jump deep ditch.

11. Trail turns NE, after leaving woods.

12. SE Deer Blind. Yes, another bucket.

• Tuesday, 11/17: "Your Deer Hunting is Over!"
  
  • I didn't go hunting in the morning, because I wanted a rest from it.
  • We had a mid-day chicken dinner with coleslaw and potatoes.
  • In the afternoon, I started to go hunting at the Wood Duck Deer Stand, but the SE breeze was blowing my scent over the dry creek bed where deer usually show up, so I moved to the Cherry Deer Stand, where a SE breeze is perfect. I took photos walking to both these hunting locations, but I'll put them on here some other day.
  • I was there all afternoon. I had a tufted titmouse land on a branch above me. It had an acorn nut in its mouth. Chickadees would land on seeded-out goldenrod. It bent almost to the ground as they tore seeds out and ate them. The sun set to the west at 4:43. It was after 5 when I watched a deer approach from the west. It stopped to eat grass from my trail. I tried to rest the rifle against a dead cherry branch, but it made a loud sound from raised bark on it. The noise spooked the deer, and it started running back to the west. It then turned north, giving me a full profile. I took a left-handed shot. It bounded off to the west. After 3 hops, I didn't see it, so I used a tall oak tree on the west treeline to mark where I last saw it from the deer stand, got down and tried to find it. I couldn't find it, so I texted Mary that my shot missed. When I got back to the tree stand to get my stuff to go home, I realized that I walked too far to the SW, so I went back and looked again and found the deer (see photo below). It is a very large doe.
  • I walked back home and Mary, after seeing the photo, said, "Your deer hunting is over!" We both laughed. It's over for this year, because we have plenty of meat with this deer for another year. I changed to my dirty field dressing clothes, fueled the tractor, then we drove back north. Earlier, I put my seat cushion in a high branch of an elm tree to mark where the doe was laying, but we couldn't find it in the dark, mainly because I kept telling Mary, who was walking ahead of me as I drove the tractor, that she was veering too far west. She wasn't. When I retraced my way from the deer stand, I discovered the deer was further west. I won't know until I skin it, but I think I hit its lungs and it dropped after running out of oxygen. We field dressed it, took it home, hosed down the cavity, then hung it from a rafter in the machine shed. We think it weighs 150-175 pounds without the guts. She's a big mama. The predicted low is 32° and it was 35° when we hung up the deer...ideal meat cooling temperatures. We'll butcher it tomorrow morning. Two bullets and two deer taken, although, at first this evening, I thought I was like the play, Alexander Hamilton, and I missed my shot. I was wrong, thank goodness. We're in the venison, now.
  • While I got a sore butt from sitting all afternoon on a deer stand, Mary cleaned the refrigerator's inside, other appliances, and the silverware. She also did all of the chores.
  • Mom texted that they served 67 Thanksgiving meals at the Circle Senior Center. Since it was a curbside delivery, Mom was very busy.

The 2nd & final doe of this hunting season.

• Wednesday, 11/18: Done With Meat Season - Each fall, we first go through chicken butchering, then deer butchering. It's not a fun chore, but it gives us inexpensive meat, especially with venison, since the only money spent is for ammunition, some plastic wrap, Ziploc freezer bags, and our time. On the final butchering day, which was today this year, we give out a sigh of relief, and a thought of thanks that the meat processing job is done for the year. Most people don't butcher their own meat. Even most local hunters take their deer to a butcher shop, who does the work for them. Butchering your own meat gives you more respect for all that is involved with providing this food staple. For us, I don't think we gobble up as much meat, since we possess a higher regard for the amount of work involved and for the gift of the animal, itself.
  
  • I sharpened knives, then skinned the doe hanging in the machine shed this morning. The deer meat was nice and cool. This big doe was extremely fatty...about an inch of fat on her back. 
  • While I skinned, Mary washed a load of laundry.
  • I singed any loose hair left on the body with a propane torch turned down low. Mary laid down 3 large plastic garbage bags on the kitchen table and taped them in place. We cut the big hind quarters off and hauled it into the house. I cut the hind quarters in half with a meat saw. Mary carved excess fat and silver skin off each haunch. I boned out sections of meat with a filet knife. Mary took each meat piece, cleaned off fat, sinew, and silver skin, then cut them into approximate meal sizes. Mary washed each piece, covered it in plastic wrap, then I put 3 or 4 of these pieces into a Ziploc bag, which is labeled, per the Missouri Conservation Dept., with my name, address, date deer was harvested, and the hunting verification number I get via my phone when I telecheck the deer in after shooting it. Today, we processed 37 packages of meat. With 31 from the first deer and 12 left over from last year, we have 80 venison meals in the freezer, which is plenty. Besides, this deer was large, so our meal sizing was likewise larger.
  • While I disposed of the carcass, skin, fat and gristle waste, Mary washed dishes and knives, and did the chores. I also put away lights and extension cords used for butchering that were strung up in the machine shed.
  • Katie texted that sunrise at Nuiqsut, Alaska is now at 11:37 am. She said what really surprises her is how incredibly long dusk lasts, which is common throughout Alaska.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/19: Fix-it Day
  
  • I fixed things today. First, I fixed it so Mary didn't have to cook breakfast...we had Waffle Friday on Thursday and I made waffles.
  • Mary washed jeans and towels, while I washed my hat.
  • I put a recyclable cloth bag filter in the place of a paper filter in the Shop Vac. It seemed to run better while I cleaned up flies and Asian ladybugs in our bedroom windows. It failed to start after I moved it to another room. It might have a faulty switch.
  • We haven't had a coffeemaker since the third night of chicken butchering, when Mary, who was obviously really tired, forgot to put the carafe into place, the basket that holds the filter and coffee grounds flooded, and filled the water reservoir with grounds, blocking coffee from going into the carafe on later tries at making coffee. Today, I tried to remove the bottom plate, but it's got weird 3-slotted Phillips head screws, known as tri-wing screws, and I don't have a tool for that screw type. I filled the coffeemaker several times with water and just dumped the water out with fewer and fewer grounds coming out each time. Then, I ran half vinegar and half water through the machine, as if I was making coffee, and then ran 2 more batches of plain water through the machine to clear out the vinegar. We're back in coffee tomorrow morning!
  • A couple days ago as I started a fire in the woodstove, a cat started scratching on a couch, so I grabbed the only broom we have that doesn't look like a scraggly Fu Manchu beard, swung it down hard on the floor to get the cat's attention, and broke the handle off the broom. Today I jammed a screwdriver in and removed the cheap plastic fitting that broke in half, found a Fu Manchu bearded broom in the machine shed, removed its handle and screwed it into our good broom head. Since that old broom was once our chicken coop broom, I cleaned the handle with ammonia cleaner.
  • Mary made a shopping list, since we're going to Quincy, tomorrow. 
  • She also swept and mopped the main level floors of the house.
  • Mary took a photo of a walking stick insect on our screen door (see photo, below).

  

  A walking stick (head is on the top).

• Friday, 11/20: Shopping Day
  
  • We shopped in Quincy, faithfully wearing masks and wiping our hands with alcohol-soaked paper towels (the cheaper hand sanitizing method) after each trip into a store. The Quincy Herald-Whig's top headline today is how their county, Adams County, reached 4,000 COVID cases. Yet, we still saw people in stores without masks. Shopping highlights...we got 3 turkeys, 1 for Thanksgiving and 2 for other times in the upcoming year; we found a Porter Cable vacuum, since our current Shop Vac stops after a few minutes of use; I found a small tool kit with several bits, including one that fits the weird tri-wing screw on the coffeemaker; we bought enough food for the return of "The Great Mastication Team," of Bill and Katie.
  • After Reuben sandwiches this evening, Mary and I wrapped all of the Christmas presents we have, so we don't have to do it later when kids are visiting.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/21: Bill Arrives
  
  • I tried out our new canister vacuum. It works great.
  • Mary did a bunch of housecleaning. 
  • Bill arrived around 12:30. Our dogs yipped and wiggled all over him. 
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry. 
  • After chores, we had nachos and watched 2 movies, Sense and Sensibility and 2015 James Bond film, Spectre.
    

Nov. 8-14, 2020

Weather | 11/8, 52°, 72° | 11/9, 60°, 73° | 11/10, 0.50" rain, 35°, 73° | 11/11, 25°, 51° | 11/12, 28°, 57° | 11/13, 21°, 42° | 11/14, 0.46" rain, 34°, 54° |

• Sunday, 11/8: More deer hunting garlic planting prep:
  
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry.
    
  • I finished weedwhacking and mowing the trail to the Cherry Tree Deer Stand. As usual, I was greeted at the top of that stand with a hairy raccoon or opossum poop. It seems to be my award for leaving a deer stand up all year. Every stand's top, so far, has had at one poop reward.
    
  • Mary turned over soil in the NE strip of the far garden. No matter how much organic matter Mary puts into that area, it still turns over into large hard clay clods. Consequently, she was unable to finish that strip.
    
  • I burned a tankful of gas in the weedwhacker on the east trail that leads to the SE deer blind. It's the toughest trail to clean, because grass and weeds grow the highest of anywhere in that area just east of the far garden. I also ran the mower over that portion of the trail. After today, I have just 5 days to get everything ready for deer hunting.
  • Mary raked 6 wheelbarrow loads of maple leaves from under the tree next to the woodshed and put them on the compost pile.
    
    
• Monday, 11/9: Garlic Planting Done:
  
  • Mary overturned the rest of the soil in the NE strip of the far garden and planted the last 2 garlic varieties. They were Siberian and Georgian Crystal. The garlic planting is finished.
  • I removed the remaining 2 window air conditioners. Hundreds of Asian ladybugs moved out when I removed the AC in our bedroom. The Shop Vac made quick work of cleaning them up.
  • I tried starting the pickup, but quickly quit when it only coughed, once. I charged the battery for the rest of the day.
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry, mowed more of the lawn, and raked more maple leaves.
    
  • I weedwhacked and mowed the rest of the trail to the SE deer blind. It's a healthy distance down the east trail, then ends with a short jaunt through the woods, jumping 2 ditches that cut through the timber floor. Deer continue to use the trail, even when it's not mowed.
  • Katie called while we were watching the 2003 movie, Love Actually. She was going to have a long wait in the St. Louis airport and wondered when Bill was leaving at the end of the Thanksgiving break. The answer is Sunday (11/29) and she flies out on Monday (11/30), so it wouldn't work.
  • Later, Katie texted her flight schedule...departs Anchorage via Delta on 11/24 at 10 pm, gets into Chicago at noon on 11/25,  after a 4.25-hour layover in Minneapolis, then Cape Air getting into Quincy at 6:45 pm, after 5 hour layover at O'Hare in Chicago. Return is Cape Air, Quincy to Chicago, 7:00-8:38 am on 11/30; then Delta from Chicago to Minneapolis, 10:30-noon; and Minneapolis to Anchorage, 5:45-8:39 pm.
  • I texted Katie back and forth about Christmas presents she's getting for Bill.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/10: A windy, rainy day:
  
  • Prior to all of the adverse weather, and while walking dogs first thing in the morning, we saw 3 bald eagles fly south to north over our property. The first one was quite large. The next 2 were calling one another and flying very close together, as if they were playing in the wind. All were adults with white heads and tails.
    
  • A strong westerly wind, a thunderstorm, and rain arrived today. Our rain amount is only an estimate based on online weather reports, because the wind blew our rain gauge so it hung upside down, prior to the rainfall. 
  • We don't have rain pouring onto the ceiling of the sun room or down the sides of the chimney, like we used to have during a heavy rain. There were a couple drips we could hear on the sun room ceiling, probably due to blown off asphalt shingles and no tar paper on the roof above that portion of the house. Still, it's a vast improvement. In the past, it felt like we were living in a leaky canvas tent during a heavy rain.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas...26 in just a half hour, a new record...just before the thunderstorm hit.
  • I weedwhacked a tankful of gas to clean grass and weeds on the west trail, in order to get to the Bobcat Deer Blind. Rain started falling when I ran out of gas.
  • I moved the Buick and Cadillac into the driveway, away from where weeping willow branches might fall on them, due to strong west winds.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up a package that Katie sent to our address, but I changed to being delivered to the Wahlgreens store in Quincy, since it was a FedEx shipment, and FedEx never finds us. It is a Christmas present. I got a few things at Aldi.
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch ornament and did all of the evening chores.
  • We ate nachos and watched the 2002 movie, Nicholas Nickleby, based on the Charles Dickens novel by the same name, and staring Christopher Plummer, Anne Hathaway, and many more well known actors. It's a good movie.
  • I got my 3 free deer hunting tags via the Missouri Dept. of Conservation website. Property owners who own land of at least 20 contiguous acres get free deer tags in Missouri to only use to hunt on their own land. We own 160 acres. We're allowed 3 tags per person. If we wanted, we could get 6 tags, but, depending on the size of deer that I get, we only need one or two, so 3 tags is enough.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/11: Veteran's Day:
  
  • Mary washed and ironed curtains. She also washed the inside of all of the house windows.
  • I weedwhacked and mowed half of the west trail and the trail through the north woods to Bobcat Deer Blind. I left the last several yards of the trail unmowed, so I can hear deer walking through the leaves when I'm in the blind. I cut a new path across the west field, making for a direct path from the south leg of the west trail to the start of the trail through the woods. In past years, when I'd walk the north leg of the west trail, deer would spook up in the north woods. Maybe by walking on the leg across the field from the north woods, I won't scare so many deer.
  • We ordered several Christmas gifts. 
  • Katie was obviously doing the same thing, because she called asking questions about potential Christmas gifts. She told Mary that it was -2° yesterday, with 30 mph wind. Today, she dug a hole in the frozen ground, using a shovel, a spud bar, and a drill. She said there are still a few things to be done before the construction project can work inside, but they're getting close to inside work.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/12: Deer hunting stands/blinds prep finished:
  
  • I went down all of my trails to each of the deer hunting stands and blinds, sawing branches and several small cedar trees that protruded into the paths, cleaning up branches and growth at each hunting location, and tightening cinch straps holding up stands. I replaced the rotten OSB top on the Cherry stand with a piece of half-inch plywood.
  • While walking to the SE deer blind, a doe roared across the trail in front of me, closely followed by a 10- or 12-point buck that was grunting continuously, like a pig. I walked forward after they ran through and right where they crossed the trail was a squirrel, looking dazed, as if to say, "What was that?" Then, behind me went the doe, followed by the buck, in the opposite direction. The doe saw me, but I don't think the buck ever noticed me. 
  • At the cow barn, I never saw it, but a deer stomped out of the brush behind the building.
  • While walking on the trail to the Wood Duck deer stand, a deer ran down the little ditch in the cedar woods to the north of where we pick blackberries in the summer.
  • In the middle of removing the OSB off the top of the Cherry Deer Stand, I spotted a deer eating twigs in the woods to the east. It never noticed me, thanks to a steady wind and the fact that I was using a quarter inch socket wrench to remove screws, which hardly made any noise. It was a doe and a few minutes later, a yearling walked through the same area.
  • When I walked down to the mailbox in the evening, a doe loped off to the west. I hope I see as many deer when I'm hunting in a couple days.
  • Mary put purple paint on trees and fence posts along the south border of our property, which is along the gravel road. In Missouri, purple paint means no trespassing and hunting by others is not allowed on the property. I decided to not worry about repainting purple on the west and north property borders, because the purple paint doesn't fade out on those edges of our property, compared to the south, where it's exposed the most to the sun.
  • We finished 99% of our Christmas shopping with several online purchases in the evening. We texted Bill several times about Christmas gift questions.
  • A local TV station reports that Quincy is near the top of nationwide Coronavirus hotspots, and that according to the New York Times, Quincy is 18th in the nation as a COVID-19 hotspot and 14th in the nation where new cases are rising the fastest. It's no surprise. Any visit to Quincy and you'll see several people wandering around without a mask, or masks worn as chin straps, and "Pritzker Sucks" signs, signifying displeasure with the Illinois governor's COVID-19 restrictions. These signs are usually next to trumpence political signs.
    
    
• Friday, 11/13: Hunting Day Eve:
  
  • It was Waffle Friday, so I made waffles for breakfast.
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread.
  • I made another online order for a couple more Christmas gifts. Two of Katie's gifts to others came in today and we texted to her about them.
    
  • I cleaned the spark plugs in the 8N Ford tractor. They get sooty over a year of use and taking a wire brush to them makes the old beast start better...always a good thing if you need to haul a deer in from the woods.
  • I sighted in my favorite 30:30 rifle on the first leg of the north trail, which is straight for more than 100 yards. Before I started, while looking through the rifle's scope, a harrier hawk flew away from me in the vision of the scope. Immediately after that, an 8-point buck stepped onto the trail. Jiminy Christmas, the deer are like lice, lately. He stared for a long time at my target propped up against a small sawhorse to the east of us. Then he turned his head and looked at me, then walked slowly off to the north. I took my first shot at the target, stood up, and saw the deer staring wide-eyed at me. Then he bounded off to the north. I put 2 bullets through the target, changed the scope's settings, shot again, changed the settings back to my starting point, then put a bullet close to the bullseye. That's close enough for me.
  • After dark, I gathered up the gear I need in the morning for hunting. Deer season starts 30 minutes prior to sunrise, tomorrow, or at 6:23 am. There's a 30% chance of rain starting at 6 am, a 40% chance at 4 pm, then a 100% chance at 7 pm, so we'll have to see how well opening day of deer season pans out. Mary told me tonight how happy she will be if we're field dressing a deer in the dark and in the rain.
  • Mary did most of the chores while I put stuff away after sighting in my rifle.
  • The Quincy mayor declared a state of emergency this afternoon, due to COVID case increases. Here's what WGEM reported.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/14: Opening Day of Hunting Season...A Dud
  
  • I woke at 4:45 am (rather late for going hunting) and checked the online radar. A large front of clouds was one county away and approaching. I went back to bed. A half an hour later, big drops of rain were hitting the east-facing bedroom window. Another half hour later, lightning and thunder was approaching. We unplugged freezers and the refrigerator. Dripping started on the sunroom ceiling, so we moved books and set up buckets, then went back to bed. Needless to say, I'm never going up a deer hunting tree stand tied to a tree that's anchored with deep roots into the ground with a lightning rod metal gun in my hands during a thunderstorm. I prefer the life of the living, so I'll let other deer hunters perform that trick.
  • After morning chores and breakfast, I went to a milk crate next to Wood Duck Pond that I put there a few years ago. It's nestled in a willow tree grove. When I first built that blind, I mounded up branches to partially hide me while I sat on the milk crate. The branches have long since floated away. When the pond water is high, it floods a few feed over that milk crate. Water is low right now, so the pond's edge is 50 feet north of the crate. I can easily see my Wood Duck Deer Stand from SE of there. I went there because SE wind gusts to 35 mph made sitting up in a stand a nasty affair, and the wind direction blew my scent out over the pond. Unfortunately, I didn't see a single deer. A dozen wood ducks flew off the pond at one point. They give themselves away, because female wood ducks have a unique, high-pitched squawk, almost a squeal, when they take off. 
  • I was going to leave after 3 hours at the blind, due to predicted rain. Ten minutes prior to that time, someone else fired a shot and I heard the bullet ricochet through the tree tops above me. I got out of there pronto. After several more shots, I was texting Mary about it and she said it was coming from south of her. When I got home, Mary and I walked down to get the mail. Neighbors at the house south of our property were firing across the road, which is illegal in Missouri, into our land, also not right. As we walked down our lane, these 2 individuals went inside the house. I still had my rifle with me and decided not to go over there with a gun in my hands and with those 2 holding a rifle, too. If it happens again, I'll contact the county sheriff. I shouldn't need to dodge bullets on my own property.
  • Mary dusted bookshelves in the living room, where the Christmas tree will hide books for a few weeks.
  • Mary spotted a belted kingfisher for a second time this week.
    

Nov. 1-7, 2020

Weather | 11/1, 35°, 47° | 11/2, 25°, 57° | 11/3, 40°, 70° | 11/4, 47°, 70° | 11/5, 50°, 71° | 11/6, 51°, 73° | 11/7, 51°, 70° |

• Sunday, 11/1: Chicken Butcher Day II
  
  • Mary made a chocolate pie.
  • I added more mothballs to containers under cars and in engine compartments of vehicles, adjusted cattle panel guards around trees that were altered when moving the lift around the yard, and cleaned up a few things related to butchering.
  • I sharpened knives and we started the 2nd night of chicken butchering at 7 pm, 3.5 hours earlier than 2 days ago. It was cooler, but with no wind. We processed 8 chickens. Mary timed me at 20 minutes to skin each bird, which is good, considering how big they are this year. A full moon means you can see quite well outside. I still use a hat light for certain instances. Upon entering the chicken coop for Number 3, the batteries died in my hat light, requiring a quick change. We had a coffee and pie break halfway through and an additional piece of pie at the end. After baths, we hit the hay at 3:30 am, better than the last time. Standard time helped us.
  • Katie says she can come home for Thanksgiving, but wonders if we want her to show up, due to COVID issues. We still need to talk with her about details.
    
    
• Monday, 11/2: Chicken Butcher Day - The Finale
  
  • Our remaining chickens are 16 weeks old today...the outer limit in our chicken butcher world. Mary watched the 8 remaining cockerels chasing each of the 6 new pullets, giving them no rest, this morning, while I put feed in the young birds' feeder. So, whether we're tired or not, WE WILL BUTCHER TONIGHT!!! It needs to happen just to give the poor girls some peace. This will finish 2020 chicken butchering.
  • I cleaned up from last night's chicken butchering, sharpened knives, and took a nap.
  • We looked up ballot information for tomorrow's election. 
  • Starting at 6:20 pm, we butchered our last batch of chickens. It was another nice night with the moon shining, but slightly warmer. No wind meant I could hear the tiniest of creatures rustling about. Occasionally, I'd look up to see a mouse scurrying away. On cue, at midnight the barred owls started calling. Several coyotes howled off and on. We finished the last chicken at 1:30 am, took baths and went to bed, glad to be done with that chore.
  • Katie texted an impressive list of COVID prevention procedures that she and her company go through daily. There is no coronavirus in the village where she's working. We got the text right after finishing butchering...too tired to discuss it. We'll attempt to talk to her soon.
    
    
• Tuesday, 11/3: Election Day:
  
  • We drove to Lewistown and voted in the late morning. There were only 2 people ahead of us, but the poll workers said they were busy...we just timed it right. Bill texted us that he waited 2 hours to vote.
    
  • Once back home, we propped up 3 wooden posts with steel posts on east side of the north chicken run and took down the temporary chick wall inside the chicken coop. While I stored the chick wall sections in the machine shed rafters, Mary started removing old manure and hay bits from inside the coop. After big chunks were removed, I donned the respirator mask, then shoveled and swept the coop clean. Mary moved in hay while I cleaned the metal garbage can where we store feed, the nest boxes, artificial eggs, and sunflower seed buckets. 
  • Convincing our 6 young pullets it was time to go into the coop for the night was a 30-minute rodeo. They ran screaming all over the place. The last pullet to go in, a buff orpington we call Buffy, but temporarily renamed "The Jackass," was chased north, south, busted through the bottom of a fence, flew upward and scratched Mary's ear, then was caught by Mary, moved into the coop, and gently placed on the roost.
  • At one point, Mary watched Leo, our rooster for the past 2 years, march into the north run, surveyed the young chickens, realized no cockerels existed, said, "All is well in my domain," and walked back to the older hens.
  • After watching election returns online for awhile, we called Katie. Since she and her company follow stringent COVID-reducing protocols, which she continues when away from her jobsite, or she'll lose her job, we decided to have her visit on Thanksgiving. We'll also do a mini-Christmas celebration for her while she's here, since she'll be in Alaska during Christmas. I'll check out flights into Quincy via either Chicago or St. Louis, so I don't have so far to drive to pick her up. I'll also look into COVID testing locally, a requirement she needs prior to flying back to Alaska. We'll also exchange Christmas gift lists. When we called, she was working newly poured concrete that was freezing on one edge, but warmed in another area and setting nicely, but mushy in the middle, making concrete finish work concerning, due to varied temperature conditions. She said sun is rising after 10 am and setting around 3 pm.
  • Mary texted Bill, letting him know about Katie visiting us during Thanksgiving, since he'll be here, too.
    
    
• Wednesday, 11/4: Today we did:
  
  • I researched flights by Cape Air into Quincy for Katie. There are 3 flights a day from Chicago and St. Louis. I relayed info to Katie about it. 
  • On COVID tests that Katie needs to return to Alaska, the Hannibal Clinic is best, because they don't require a referral, don't limit the test to only people with symptoms, and don't require an appointment. I called them, then relayed information to Katie.
  • I research several gift ideas for Katie and developed links and a Christmas list for me and sent it to both Katie and Bill.
  • I balanced the checkbook, after 2 months of neglect. 
  • I made waffles for our midday meal.
  • Mary turned over soil where the corn grew this summer in preparation for planting garlic.
  • I tidied up after chicken butchering.
    
    
• Thursday, 11/5: Activities:
  
  • I weedwhacked and mowed the trail to the Wood Duck deer stand and deer blind, which is one of the longest trails on our property. The dry sand bed of the creek that empties into Wood Duck Pond is plastered with deer tracks of all sizes. About a dozen wood ducks lifted of of the pond when I walked down to the water's edge.
    
  • Mary planted Shvelisi and Samarkand garlic after finishing turning soil in the far garden.
  • She also did 2 loads of laundry and made flour tortillas.
  • We researched more Christmas gifts for Katie, since we need to order soon in a need to have them by Thanksgiving, when she visits us.
    
    
• Friday, 11/6: What we did:
  
  • Mary turned over soil in the NW strip of the far garden and then planted Music Pink and German Extra Hardy garlic varieties. She then watered all planted garlic.
    
  • I weedwhacked and mowed the trail from near the beginning of the north trail east to the old cow barn. It was tough going, due to thick lezpedeza (a noxious weed) and scrub elm. The Stihl trimmer with a metal blade on the end does a good job buzzing off these knee-high trees, but while cutting down a tractor-wide trail that's thousands of yards long, it's a slow process.
    
  • I thought my pear wine was going bad, because I saw something floating on the surface in the carboy. After bringing it out of the pantry into bright light, I noticed that little bits of yeast residue shoots to the surface, sits there for a few seconds, sinks, and leaves behind this residue. It's not mold, like I originally thought. I'll let the wine sit for several more days.
    
    
• Saturday, 11/7: Presidential Election Called:
  
  • Joe Biden was predicted by AP to win the presidential election in the late morning hours, after days of counting mail-in ballots. It was a very tight election. Observations:
    
    1. Pollsters stink. In 2 presidential election cycles, they're dead wrong. Caller ID on cell phones means no one answers when a pollster calls. 
    2. Demonstrative politicians attract voters. 
    3. Sometimes, nice people win elections.
    4. Ignoring a pandemic is not the way to an electoral victory. 
    5. Extremist tactics don't win elections. They aren't working for either political party. "It's my way or the highway" didn't work for several House Democrat incumbents. It didn't work for a Republican president. We need to compromise and get along better.
       
  • I sharpened the mower and Mary mowed most of the lawns.
    
  • I took chains off tractor tires. They were used to give the tractor more traction while moving the lift. These chains are large and cumbersome, taking an hour to remove them.
    
  • I drove the tractor to where I had the aluminum ladder deer stand and moved it to the front of the cow barn. From that building's roof, I can see east, north and south across a vast area.
    
  • I started weedwhacking the north trail on the way to the cherry deer stand.
  • We did a wienie roast after dark, in celebration of Biden's win. We despise Trump.
  • After baths, we watched the 1993 movie, Dave.
    

Oct. 25-31, 2020

Weather | 10/25, 35°, 42° | 10/26, skiff of snow or 0.08" moisture, 29°, 33° | 10/27, 29°, 42° | 10/28, 30°, 49° | 10/29, 36°, 43° | 10/30, 26°, 53° | 10/31, 37°, 63° |

• Sunday, 10/25: Second roof job completed:
  
  • I opened curtains in the living room this morning to watch a young buck with 6-inch spikes walk around the south side of the house.
  • I started today by removing the plank and the 2 brackets on the roof under the chimney, then patching the holes left by removing 6 big nails that held the brackets on the roof.
  • Meanwhile, Mary made a batch of flour tortillas.
  • I light a fire in the woodstove. Goodbye, weak electric heat. Hello, deep warming wood fire heat.
    
  • While I switched chains on the chainsaw, Mary loaded up bricks we had in various places and stacked them behind the woodshed.
    
  • Next, we cut down the mulberry tree that grew the past several years right outside the south windows of the sunroom. I sawed up larger pieces into firewood size. Mary hauled branches west to near the woods and stacked the green firewood pieces on top of the newly-stacked bricks behind the woodshed. Most branches came down easy, but one hit the railing of the south porch and bounced back toward my head. I dodged it. The final branch reached as high as the second story windows. When I notched it's base, it wanted to lean into the house. I tied 2 lengths of 50-foot long half-inch nylon rope together and had Mary pull it away from the house as I made the final cut. It worked.
  • We moved the lift from west of the house to the SE corner of the house, outside the sunroom. We had to move it closer once I discovered I couldn't reach the old gas heater exhaust pipe when the lift was in its first position. 
  • I then went through a crawl space in a small closet in our bedroom and disconnected the gas heater exhaust pipe. I had to vacuum spider webs, first. Nests of hay are just above the sunroom ceiling in this crawl space area and a big snake skin was shed and now drapes across a couple roof joists. We suspect the nests were made by squirrels. Ice cream buckets are sitting in there, so Herman, Mary's uncle, had leaky roof issues prior to us living in this house.
  • Next, I took the lift to the roof and pulled the exhaust pipe out. Then, I removed the boot that it went through. I discovered that this SE corner of the roof was never covered with tar paper prior to nailing on asphalt shingles. WOW! Below this pipe, the plywood was wet and nail heads in the plywood were rusty...a good indication of our leak issue into the sunroom.
  • It was getting dark, but with snow predicted tomorrow, I decided to finish this project. I rigged up 2 clamp-on lights on the lift's basket. A plug-in receptacle is at the basket of the lift with a place to plug in at the base, so I ran a cord from where we usually plug in our electric fence unit to the lift's base. I had excellent lighting that I could redirect where I needed it and continued working.
  • While I kept working on the roof, Mary cleaned up the mess I made by emptying out our bedroom closet to get to the roof crawl space to disconnect the gas heater exhaust pipe. Prior to that, she brought in all chainsaw-related tools. She kidded me that her whole day was spent cleaning up after me. 
  • After removing several horribly rotten shingles, I squeezed 2 laps of tar roofing cement around the foot-square aluminum and OSB patch I bought last year to patch this mess and nailed it into place. Then, I ran 2 more laps of tar on either side of the seam, laid down 4-inch wide fiberglass/tar screening, ran a wavy line of tar over that and ran a nitrile glove covered finger over the tar to fully impregnate the screen. Next, I nailed new shingles over everything. I finished around 10:30 pm. I was beyond exhausted.
  • Nailing shingles below you at 35° with a north wind blowing chimney smoke in your face while leaning over an aluminum bar in a tiny lift basket is hard. At one point, I stepped one foot on the roof to better position myself for using the hammer and stepped right into fresh tar. I guess I wanted to be a Tarheel. It gave me an excuse to throw away old Walmart tennis shoes that were shot, anyway.
    
    
• Monday, 10/26: Our first snow:
  
  • We woke to our first snowfall of the season...just a skiff. Our soon-to-be freezer chickens, who are 15 weeks old today, didn't know what to think of the white stuff. For me, today is going to be a day of doing abso-bloomin-lutely nothing. My muscles and joints are telling me I'm a nut!
  • Around 5:30 pm, I started the lift and got it ready to transport, since it's due back tomorrow by 1:30 pm. I tried to start the pickup and it wouldn't start. I put the charger on the battery, since I cranked the engine quite a bit. I did some online research. It could be a weak fuel pump, or moisture in the distributor. I'll try again in the morning and if it doesn't start, I'll call Sunbelt Rentals to determine my options. If I can't get a pickup from them, I'll see if I can rent one from Home Depot. The timing of our truck not starting stinks.
  • It snowed all day, but it melted as it hit the ground throughout the day.
  • Bill called. He will visit us the entire week of Thanksgiving.
  • We saw 16 wood ducks fly off of our tiny Bluegill pond. We also saw a small doe and a barred owl while walking to the mailbox to get our mail.
    
  • Below are photos of the results of the past month of work.

SE corner of chimney, my worst stucco job
and what people will see.

NW corner of chimney, my best stucco job
and what deer will see.

Lift, mulberry stump, & roof job (light color).

Newly stacked bricks & green mulberry firewood.

• Tuesday, 10/27: I'm tired of things not going our way. It has to turn around. We had a week of really poor weather, both wet and windy. The newly purchased pickup won't start. As a result, we didn't get the lift back on time and probably incurred more charges. Our only vehicle that remains running has a front passenger-side brake that is scraping metal on metal. We're past due on butchering chickens. It's freezing at night and our garlic isn't planted. I'm dedicated to taking the bull by the horns and doing something about all of this...better vehicle maintenance, earlier garden plantings, a dedication and timeline for getting out of this 111-year old squirrel, snake and bug infested house and into a new house. I'm mad and I plan on doing something about it.
  
  Today:
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread.
  • I tried removing the distributor cap on the pickup. It's crammed against the firewall. The head of the front hold-down screw started to strip, so I stopped. We tried starting fluid, but my can was so low, I couldn't get any to spray down into the throttle body. 
  • I called Sunbelt Rentals 3 times. The first time, I was told they'd try to get someone out to pick up the lift. The second time, I was told a sales rep might get out to us to get the lift. The third time, I was told no one was coming.
  • I drove to Lewistown and bought a new can of starting fluid from McKenzie Auto, squirted it in and the pickup still wouldn't start. I looked for chewed wiring, but didn't find any. I removed the number 2 spark plug. It was rough looking and soaked with gas, so the gas supply is good. I'll need professional help to get into the distributor, so I decided to stop.
  • I called Home Depot. They rent pickups, but not for towing. I called U-Haul in Quincy. They have a pickup that can be used for towing. I reserved it for picking it up tomorrow morning. On my third call to Sunbelt Rentals, I told them I'm renting a pickup and will have the lift into them around noontime tomorrow.
  • We're out of chick feed and an order of powdered milk came in, so I drove to Quincy and got the milk, bought cat, dog, chick, and hen food, and various staples for us. 
  • While driving home, someone hit a deer just prior to me coming around a corner of the highway. Then, on State Highway J, about 2 miles from the house, I saw 4 deer on the edge of the road eating dried soybeans. They're out and about, now.
  • Mary did some cross stitching and all of the chores while I was in Quincy.
    
  • The house is nice and warm and our reconstructed chimney is pulling a good draft through the woodstove. That makes me happy.
    
    
• Wednesday, 10/28: Driving Day:
  
  • Today I drove to Quincy, rented a pickup from U-Haul (it was a 2019 Chevy), drove home, hooked up the lift, drove to Quincy, dropped off the lift at Sunbelt Rentals (they didn't charge extra), dropped off the pickup at U-Haul, then drove back home. The pickup was a gas hog, but it towed the lift well. It road like a tank. Our pickup, when it's running, rides better and gets better mileage. I'm glad that's all done.
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch ornament and did house cleaning.
  • We had smoked scrambled eggs, fresh bread, and tomato slices for a meal.
  • Mary took a photo (see below) of a deer buck rub on a 6-inch in diameter walnut tree right next to our driveway and the house. It had to be a big buck. It certainly didn't fear being next to our house last night.

  

  Buck rub on 6" walnut tree.
  

  
  
• Thursday, 10/29: A slow day:
  
  • It was cloudy and cool outside, so we put in a quiet day.
  • I gave Mary a haircut. Her last one was on Feb. 8th. She prefers short hair. It wasn't prior to the haircut.
  • The pear wine slowed way down on bubbling out CO2, so I cleaned up the overflow tubing and put in a regular airlock. The silicone seal on the cap of the Big Mouth vessel is poor, so I tried the screw-on cap from the small 1.4-gallon Big Mouth that cracked. That was even worse, so I went back to the silicone cap and tied it down to the milk crate that the 5-gallon Big Mouth Bubbler sits in with laces that once were on old hockey skates I owned. That works, but it looks like I'm trying to hold down a demon (see photo, below). I read online that this type of brewing carboy breaks easily, so I tried not to get it too tight. The specific gravity of the wine is at 1.000, which is perfect.
  • While putting chickens away for the night, Mary saw an 8-point buck and a doe just west of the chicken run. 
  • Katie texted Mary that she will be staying at her job in Alaska through Christmas. She said that temporary power for the village that needs to be babysat during the Christmas break. Since she figured we were leery about her visiting us, due to COVID issues, she volunteered to stay and babysit the temporary power generators.
    
  • After our evening meal, Mary popped all 6 garlic varieties into individual cloves for her garlic planting in a few days.
  • Prior to going to bed, we put rings on the legs of all 6 of our hens from this year's chicks. We start butchering cockerels tomorrow night.

  

  Skate lacing tie-down to keep silicone top in place.
  

  
  
• Friday, 10/30: If you want to notice wildlife in action, spend a night outside. The wild critters are abundant and loud. During chicken butchering that we did between 9:30 pm on 10/30/20 and 5:30 am on 10/31/20, we encountered an opossum, heard barred owls, great horned owls and coyotes, and chicken feet theft. The opossum came right at us while we were knocking off our second chicken at the killing cone. The smell of chicken blood must have attracted it. I had to poke it with a long black walnut branch to get it to move on. I heard foot steps on the machine shed's metal roof while working on a chicken. After a coffee and toast break, midway through butchering, all of the chicken feet were missing. We think a coyote was our thief. Needless to say, one of us is always near dead chickens that we hang on a spud bar rigged between two step ladders, or we'd notice even more theft.
  
  Happenings:
  • Mary made huge batches of popcorn to give us inexpensive snacks.
  • A young raccoon walked down our lane next to the house in the afternoon.
    
  • She filled the coffee maker half-full of vinegar and the rest with water to clear sodium residue out of it. Prior to doing the cleaning, it would take an hour to make coffee. Now it takes 12 minutes.
  • Mary also raked leaves and put them in the compost pile.
  • I picked up tools, leftover asphalt shingles, and mortar, cement, lime, and mortar sand buckets that were scattered outside, in the woodshed, and in the machine shed, and put everything away.
  • I fixed a big clamp light fixture that shorted out when I used lights on the roof job. Hot and ground bare wires twisted together inside of the ceramic fixture. I soldered new eyelets on the end of newly bared wires, added heat shrink, put it together and used it as a light hanging from the rafters for chicken butchering in the machine shed. 
  • I also set up the machine shed for butchering, with 4 other lights aimed to the center from north, east, south, and west. After repositioning a come-along hanging from a rafter, I added an aluminum meat hook below it and put 2 old Mid-Rivers Telephone wall calendars on the floor below it. The killing cone got a couple new pieces of aluminum tape to smooth over rough edges. Buckets of water were added where needed. Then, I sharpened 9 knives.
  • We started by killing 4 cockerels, then I skinned one at a time and Mary thoroughly cleaned each one, cut them into pieces, put each chicken in a zipped gallon freezer bag, and put them in the freezer. We then did a second batch of 4 chickens. By doing them at night, it's easier collecting chickens off the roost. We prefer skinning chickens, because of the slick way that feathers, skin and excess fat comes off altogether and instead of round chicken bodies, we get compact flat ziplock packages in the freezer. This year, the chicken food was much better than in past years, so these birds are bigger and more developed, thereby considerably slowing down our butchering speed. We were hoping to get 12 done tonight. We only got 8 chickens butchered, so it's going to take us 3 nights to butcher all 24 cockerels.
    
    
• Saturday, 10/31: A Day of the Walking Dead:
  
  • After finishing butchering chickens at 5:30 am, we took baths, crawled under blankets on couches in the living room, and slept an hour and a half. A woodpecker banging on the side of the house woke me. Plato jumped off an easy chair, came over wiggling his tail so hard his butt swung back and forth, and smiled at me. I talked about it. Mary bitched about me talking. We were up for the day.
  •  On what was a very windy day, we saw several raptors and bluebirds. We counted 16 bluebirds eating fruit from the Sargeant Crab Apple tree. At noon, we watched a golden eagle sail into the wind while some other bird chased it. Several hawks flew overhead through the day. Mary saw a peregrine falcon. Our chickens were very aware of these birds, calling out and hiding.
  • I cleaned up blood and gut buckets from chicken butchering.
    
  • We had a wiener roast on a small fire, since it was windy. Mary's relish is amazing on hotdogs. We ended it with a quarter cup of 2019 pear wine.
  • I smelled wine around the seal of the Big Mouth Bubbler holding this year's pear wine, so I racked it into my 6.5-gallon glass carboy, added 2 crushed Campden tablets, to kill any harmful mold that might have entered with the faulty seal, and sanitized and added an airlock. Instantly, the airlock was burping, which wasn't happening with the bubbler. Obviously, correct action was taken. 
    
  • Mary did chores while I handled wine duties.
  • Mary baked 4 small apples, each, which we enjoyed while watching the 1993 movie Hocus Pocus.
    
  • We turned in early, extremely tired.
    

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.