Jan. 16-22, 2022

Weather | 1/16, 2°, 27° | 1/17, 21°, 33° | 1/18, 25°, 47° | 1/19, 5° in evening, 35° at 12:30 a.m. | 1/20, -6°, 10° | 1/21, -10°, 18° | 1/22, 18°, 37° |

• Sunday, 1/16: Katie & Pets Fly New Orleans to Anchorage
  
  • The first thing I did upon waking was to open the bedroom curtains. A tiny bit of fog meant ice crystals were floating in the air and glistening in the shaft of sunlight penetrating the fog. What a beautiful sight!
  • Our dogs love the snow. They both run around like kids through the white stuff.
  • Yesterday was the end of the last deer season, this being archery. Deer foot prints in the snow, along our lane, indicate the deer population is thriving on our property.
    
  • We watched cedar waxwings and bluebirds fluttering just off the edge of the grain bin roof while drinking water dripping off the icicles hanging on the roof edge. It's quite a sight. You don't realize how yellow the breast is of a cedar waxwing until you see one in front of pure white snow.
  • Mary made a chicken dinner, complete with potatoes covered with shallots and acorn squash.
  • We should change the name of the machine shed to the drying shed. Firewood I split on Dec. 22nd that was heavy with moisture is now dry after sitting in a criss-cross stack for over 3 weeks. All of the east end of that building is open, as is about a quarter of the south side (wide enough to drive a combine in out of the weather when Herman, Mary's uncle, built it in the 1980s). Winter winds are usually out of the east and south, which is perfect for drying firewood sitting in the machine shed. Hanging garlic from the rafters in the summer has a similar drying effect.
    
  • Katie texted around 5 p.m. that she and her pets were loaded and about to leave New Orleans. We learned this morning (1/17) that maneuvering through the different floors of the New Orleans airport with 4 crates, 4 pets, luggage, all while carrying DeSoto, a Catahoula Leopard Dog who is afraid of crossing hard-covered floors, was an extreme chore. Katie's plane was late getting into Seattle, but she said Alaska Airlines was extremely professional and assured her that her second plane wouldn't leave until her pets were transferred from the New Orleans to Seattle airplane. All landed in Anchorage with the only mishap being urine-soaked puppy pads in DeSoto's crate. Surprise! They're sleeping after that trip (see photo, below).
    
  • We read through the evening while I checked every so often on the Kansas City Chiefs/Pittsburgh Steelers wildcard play-off game. The Chiefs won 42-21. Good!

  

  Dora, one of Katie's cats, sleeping on top of Prancer, one
   of her dogs, after flying from New Orleans to Anchorage.
  

• Monday, 1/17: Pizza, Movie, & Wine
  
  • Mary made 2 pizzas. We ate one for our midday meal and the other in the evening.
    
  • Our monthly cellular bill increased in December, so I checked online. We're on a plan where if we stay under 3 GB of data on each phone, we are credited up to $20. Mary usually makes it and I usually don't. The plan for the router maxes out at 20 GB. We always hit the router's maximum about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way into the month. At that point, I use my phone as a hotspot to gain access to the internet. Since I already use the phone's hotspot capability, I did a chat with U.S. Cellular to see if we can cut out the router and save money. We can and we did that and updated our cellular plans to include 30 GB per month of hotspot access on each of our 2 phones. In December, we used 30.89 GB on 2 phones and a router, so we should be fine with 60 GB between the 2 cell phone plans. By eliminating the router, our monthly wireless bill drops by $35.
  • Katie got ball joints replaced on her Jeep, today.
    
  • We watched the 2018 movie, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a DVD Katie gave Mary for Christmas. We also viewed the extras. Several actors in Downton Abbey are in this movie. Tom Courtney, who plays the Guernsey postmaster in this movie also played Pasha/Strelnikoff in the 1965 movie, Dr. Zhivago. Mary and I liked it so much, we watched it twice. 
  • We split a bottle of jalapeño wine through the movie. The wine is mellower after aging since it was bottled on 11/26/21. This wine possesses a deep gold color.
  • After the movie, on a whim, I looked up vizsla cross dogs up for adoption. We don't need more pets, but it's fun to look at them.
    
    
• Tuesday, 1/18: A New Soup, Burning Old Boxes
  
  • Warm temperatures melted some of the snow we received last week. Mary finally freed the rain gauge and found that the last snow amounted to 0.62 inch of moisture.
    
  • Mary did some house cleaning. She made a new, very yummy, venison vegetable soup. It includes sliced up pieces of venison meat, Merlot wine, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, chili powder, black pepper, beef bouillon, water, tomato paste, Amish egg noodles, frozen mixed veggies, carrots, celery, and onion. It is very, very good.
    
  • I burned paper and cardboard items for 3 hours. The last time I burned was April 16 of last year, so there was quite a stack of cardboard boxes in the machine shed. At one point, while lifting off more boxes, a bedraggled bunny ran out from under those boxes, stopped behind the tractor trailer, looked back at me as if to say, "What's up, Doc?"
    
  • I called Mom and talked with her for over an hour. Since Jan. 2nd, she's been battling a bad flu bug that's going around the community. Patty, Mom's boss, who runs the Circle (MT) Senior Center, is retiring at the end of January, so the center is having a retirement party for her. Mom will continue to drive the senior van, because she likes that job. Mom's friend, Hank, is coming down from Glasgow, MT, for the Circle Chamber's annual dinner, which this year features a comedian.
  • All cell phones in Missouri were alerted about a vehicle to watch out for in Gotham City, MO. It was a mistake and was only supposed to be an inter-department test to the highway patrol. Because of the mention of "Gotham City," it became a big joke about the Joker in Batman. It even made the news on WGEM in Quincy.
    
    
• Wednesday, 1/19: Cold & Windy
  • The high for the day was just after midnight, with temperatures dropping throughout most of the day. There was only a little upturn in the early afternoon. Strong NW winds made it feel exceptionally cold.
  • On our morning dog walk, we watched 2 bald eagles zip by, heading north, into the wind.
    
  • Mary cooked the largest pumpkin we raised last year. We guess it was around 20 pounds. She had to cook it in quarters. A half section of that pumpkin wouldn't fit on a regular cookie sheet. Four full gallon bags of pumpkin meat were frozen from that one pumpkin.
  • Mary popped up 5 pots of popcorn and stored them away for future snack food.
    
  • I read a huge Medicare handbook that arrived in yesterday's mail. 
  • I reviewed our 401K and the notices that came with the change Mid-Rivers took from moving it from Wells Fargo to Principal. It's taken a recent nosedive since Jan. 1st, but we've been through that in the past. The best approach is to leave it alone.
    
  • I investigated potential doctors around the area in an effort to select a family doctor. I'll probably go with the one who visits Lewistown, who's with the Quincy Medical Group. Once Medicare kicks in for me, I want to initiate some medical checkups.
    
  • Katie texted that she was invited to an app, indicating that a year's worth of monthly rent involves $75 less per month than her current rent. She talked to the new landlord of her apartment to make sure the $75 per month rent reduction was true, and said it's genuine. She added, "Sounds like nothing is going to change, and the pets are good." Her dogs enjoy the Russian Jack trail system (see video, below).
    
  • Bill texted, "Had some more people out for COVID reasons. My headcount has gone from 12 to 2 in about a week." His boss tested positive for COVID and Bill was in contact with him. Bill is without symptoms, so he continues to work.
  Prancer & DeSoto on Russian Jack trails.
  

• Thursday, 1/20: Cold Temps & Racking Garlic Wine
  
  • Temperatures were very cold for here...subzero and single digits. We're burning up the red oak I split a few weeks ago. It burns nice and hot, like coal, but without the coal smell.
  • Two eastern bluebirds sat on a mulberry bush outside our south living room window this morning and picked emerging flies off the upstairs south window.
  • Mom called to give me a medical update.
    
  • Mary made a turkey rice meal, dusted books and rearrange them, did some sketching practice, and some cross stitching.
  • I called the Missouri State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) for Medicare help. I want to know if I qualify for state help in paying for Part D Medicare. They will call back.
  • I gave the garlic wine its third racking, getting rid of a bunch of fines. The specific gravity is 0.996, giving it a 13.6% alcohol content. After adding 11 ounces of spring water to top off the 5-gallon carboy, and adding a sanitized airlock, I set it back in the pantry for another month of aging. I ought to be bottling it on Feb. 20th.
    
  • An interesting article in the Feb./March issue of Fine Homebuilding gives details about how to construct plywood slab-on-grade flooring. I asked "Mike, the Pole Barn Guru," at Hanson Pole Buildings, about this concept. He email back that it was a good idea and it could be built into a pole-style building. You build up gravel layers, add foam insulation boards, and a plastic vapor barrier, similar to concrete slab construction, but instead of concrete, 2 layers of tongue-and-groove 3/4-inch plywood goes down. It's cheaper than using concrete, kinder on your knees, yet keeps out bugs and vermin that get into a crawl space. I like the idea.
    
    
• Friday, 1/21: Waffles, Stew, & Passwords
  
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
  • While in the kitchen, I saw the wings of a big bird in the distance to the NE, through our east kitchen window. It was a barred owl sitting on a fence post. While Mary and I were both watching it, the owl lifted off, took two wing flaps and pounced on something in the snow and grass, then returned to the top of the post. Barred owls have huge wings.
  • Mary dusted books and made venison stew and biscuits for our main meal.
  • I've been keeping passwords in an Apple Pages (their equivalent to Microsoft Word) file stored in iCloud. I investigated how safe that is. It's not safe. I found a free database called KeePass, pronounced kē-pass, not kēp-ass. I downloaded it, put all my passwords into it, then deleted the password list off iCloud. We have tons of passwords. This project took all day.
    
  • What started out as a very cold morning, at -10°, ended up warmer, at 18°. We stayed inside for most of the day.
  • When I went down our quarter-mile driveway for the mail, two great horned owls were hooting while some coyotes howled. Mary guessed the owls were a mated pair. They should already have a nest and eggs. Both owls hooted the same call, except one call was always a higher pitch than the other call.
    
    
• Saturday, 1/22: Critter-Chewed Buick
  
  • Mary dusted books in the upstairs north bedroom. She also did some crocheting on a new blanket.
    
  • I put a new serpentine belt on the Buick Park Avenue's engine. Critters chewed the old belt into 2 pieces a couple years ago. After connecting the battery, I started it. The engine ran roughly with a major miss and didn't improve as I let it run. I also noticed the brake pedal went to the floor, even though the brake fluid reservoir was full. I turned off the engine, took off the plastic engine cover and found 2 spark plug wires severed in half, along with other wiring chewed completely off. Much of the insulation on the firewall and the hood is chewed off. Inch-long hair is throughout the chewed insulation that contains brown tips. I smell squirrels. I've got a lot more work than I thought in getting the Buick back in operation. I set 4 mouse traps on the floor of the Buick, since I also saw mouse chewings inside the car. Wildlife really loves munching on the Buick. It has a long history of animal chewings. I once had part of the donut spare tire chewed off while it sat in the trunk of that car.
    
  • During evening chores, Mary watched a small falcon hovering above the field, SE of the house. It was absolutely parked in the air. Consulting bird books, she identified it as an Amercian kestrel.
  • We watched 3 episodes the 2008 HBO series, John Adams, a Christmas gift from Bill to Mary.
    

Jan. 9-15, 2022

Weather | 1/9, 13°, 21° | 1/10, 15°, 23° | 1/11, 9°, 49° | 1/12, 31°, 49° | 1/13, 0.01" rain, 31°, 48° | 1/14, 27°, 37° | 1/15, 3" snow, or 0.62" moisture, 20°, 23° |

• Sunday, 1/9: Auto Stuff, Cooking, & House Planning
  
  • A strong NW wind blew in the morning, but by sunset, the outside air was calm.
    
  • I brought the tire pressures up on the pickup and the Buick. Everything, including the spare tire of the pickup, was low. The driver's side front Buick tire was flat. It's been over a year since we've moved the Buick. With the Cadillac gone, it's time to get the Buick back on the road. I also took steel wool to a bit of rust on the pickup's jack, and put it and the jack handle away behind the seat. A suitcase tool kit and the air pump went behind the pickup seat, too. It's amazing how much room exists, there.
    
  • Mary made an apple pie, flour tortillas, and venison fajitas for our main meal. For some unknown reason, Mary wanted off her feet in the evening.
  • I went into floorplanner.com, a program I used 10 years ago to work up a house plan, deleted that old stuff, and added the house plan I taped together from graph paper last month.
  • Mary and I both read a bunch in the evening.
  • Mocha nailed 2 mice...one in the late evening, and another after we went to bed. At 2 a.m., after a trip to the bathroom and while checking the thermometer, there was Mocha with a light gray mouse in her mouth. She's an effective mouse killer.
  • Katie made it back to Gulfport from her Air National Guard drill in Florida. She has veterinarian appointments for her 2 dogs and 2 cats during the next couple of days, in preparation for flying them north next weekend.
    
    
• Monday, 1/10: Mask Fix & Pickup Oil Change
  
  • Mary did a load of laundry and dried it on racks inside.
  • Mary took old elastic out of my mask and sewed in new elastic, adjusted it so the mask fits snugly to my face.
  • I changed oil and the oil filter on the pickup. King Kong put the oil drain plug in when oil was last changed at some oil changing joint in Quincy before we bought the truck. I tried adding a pipe to my socket wrench, but the ground prevented me from turning the wrench. I moved the pickup to a location whereby adding blocks under the front tires elevated the front of the truck, yet kept it level, to give the wrench with a cheater bar enough room to turn off the oil drain plug. Once I got the drain plug off, the oil change went fine. The engine sounds better while running, after the oil change. There are only 91,557 miles on this vehicle.
  • Mary did housecleaning.
  • I cleaned up 4 wine bottles and a beer bottle, which contained mold inside the bottle. I added an OxyClean solution to these bottles on 12/29/21. They rinsed out perfectly clean after a 12-day soak. I also removed labels and cleaned 10 wine bottles that soaked in soda water since 12/18/21. I tossed the brown-colored soda water. After adding used corks to keep dust out, I put dried wine bottles into my wine closet. I have over 50 clean wine bottles ready for filling and dozens more to clean.
  • While reading in the evening, Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2020 pear wine. It really has a good, strong pear flavor and it's very smooth after over a year of aging.
    
    
• Tuesday, 1/11: Spitting Firewood
  
  • Temperatures raised above freezing and the snow and ice laying on the ground and our roof is thawing.
  • Mary and I split firewood logs that were left next to the splitter, making 2 nice piles. A larger pile is dry wood, with a smaller one that's slightly wet wood.
    
  • Mary did a load of laundry and dried it outside on the line.
    
  • I tried finding a receipt for 5W30 oil I bought. I couldn't find it.
  • Katie called. Her procedure is still on at Harborview Burn Center in Seattle. Her veterinarian tested positive for COVID, so she had to scramble to find another vet to get health certificates, etc., for her pets, which she accomplished. She flies out for Quincy in the morning, via Charlotte, NC, and St. Louis. I pick her up at 2:03 p.m. at the Quincy Airport, if all goes well.
    
    
• Wednesday, 1/12: Katie's Procedure is Canceled, She Flies Back to Gulfport
  
  • Katie left Gulfport around 7 a.m. There were plane problems in Charlotte, NC, so she was ushered off one plane and onto another. While in the air to St. Louis and just before I left for Quincy, a voicemail was left on Mary's phone that Katie's procedure was canceled, due to a COVID surge, and the woman at Harborview in Seattle couldn't get in touch with Katie (probably because Kate was in the air at the time). We forwarded the voicemail to Katie via a text. 
  • I went ahead and drove to Quincy, in case Katie eventually flew there. As I walked into Walmart, Katie texted the news I already knew...that her appointment in Seattle was canceled. I asked if she could catch a flight back to Gulfport. Her answer was, "I still need to get off of this plane and find out."
  • Back home, Mary was talking to Katie on the phone. Mary suggested Katie try to fly from St. Louis to Gulfport, and not come north to Quincy, because our weather forecast calls for 3-7 inches of snow Friday afternoon and night. Chances are high that Cape Air might not fly in or out of Quincy in a couple days. Katie was put in line for surgery in the future at Harborview. She told Mary to heck with that. She'll just stay itchy instead of the nonsense of flying around the country in one day. Katie secured a flight from St. Louis back to Gulfport via a layover in Atlanta. She is due to get into Gulfport at midnight. Katie said she gets reimbursed for the COVID test she had to take, plus her return flight to Gulfport. Katie texted me, "Luckily, I just ate a free hot dog at the St. Louis USO to make up for some of the costs. Or, you could view it as one of the most expensive hot dogs, ever."
  • I got a few items in Quincy and returned home. And, home, I'll stay, without worrying about getting COVID after a trip to Seattle and back.
  • Mary washed 2 loads of clothes and dried them on the line outside.
  • Robins and cardinals are thick in our yard, today. Mary said she's never seen so my yellow-rumped warblers. One hopped onto the outside edge of the east-facing bedroom window and looked in with a fly hanging out of the edge of its beak.
    
  • We ate nachos and rewatched 3 episodes of Keeping Up Appearances that I slept through last time.
    
    
• Thursday, 1/13: Warmth Before Expected Snow
  
  • The temperature rose to just below 50 today, so almost all snow and ice melted. The U.S. Weather Service predicts we'll get 5-9 inches of snow Friday night.
    
  • Due to a NW breeze and warm conditions, Mary did 3 loads of laundry. It all dried halfway outside. We brought the laundry inside to finish drying on racks and over the woodstove.
    
  • I cleaned under the work bench in the machine shed in preparations of putting strawberry plants in that location until spring. It's an area neglected since before we moved here in 2009, so the detritus is deep. The definition on Wikipedia..."Detritus typically includes the bodies or fragments of bodies of dead organisms, and fecal material," describes pretty well what I removed. I only cleaned about 6 feet, with several more feet to shovel and sweep.
    
  • Katie texted that she slept in until 10 a.m., a rare event for her, since she's an early riser. She had a long day, yesterday.
    
    
• Friday, 1/14: Strawberry Prep, Cinnamon Rolls, Snow
  
  • Fog filled the air to start the day. Mist started falling mid-afternoon. By nightfall, rain fell. Around 8 p.m., rain turned to wet, heavy snow that thoroughly covered everything by the following morning (see photos, below).
    
  • We heard the telltale sounds of coyote hunters through the morning fog...dogs baying, a group of coyotes howling south of us, followed by gun shots to the east.
  • While doing morning chores, we heard several crows mobbing a young red-tailed hawk that was making a call in the woods east of the house.
    
  • Mary moved 2 wheelbarrow loads of hay into the chicken coop.
  • I helped Mary move firewood that was left just inside of the west entrance to the machine shed. Water from future snow melting was sure to run under that wood, so I helped Mary stack wetter wood in a criss-cross pattern on the north side, inside the machine shed. Mary stacked dry wood into the woodshed.
  • I shoveled and swept the rest of the area under machine shed bench. One item under there was an old electric fencer that looked similar to what I remember as the electric fencer unit to keep dairy steers in the barnyard, when we lived in Carlyle, Minn., in 1965.
  • I broke the 4 plastic tubs containing strawberry plants loose from the frozen ground in the far garden and moved them to under the machine shed bench. Then I filled the area above the potting soil in the tubs with grass we had stored in a plastic barrel in the machine shed. Finally, I covered all tubs with a piece of 1/2-inch hardware cloth and weighed it down with several bricks. This should keep rabbits away from the strawberry plant crowns.
    
  • The 4-gallon buckets containing strawberry plants in the near garden are too deep into the ground, so I couldn't break them loose from the frozen soil. Consequently, I simply added a layer of grass clippings to the top of all 36 buckets, thereby emptying the blue plastic barrel of grass. A covering of freezing rain, followed by snow, will give these plants a natural blanket of insulation. Our chicken wire fence keeps rabbits from this area.
    
  • Mary made fridge dough, then cinnamon rolls,  for evening pleasure. She also did some cross stitching.
  • I cut the 21-foot long by 2-inch diameter pipe in half with a hacksaw. This pipe once held the TV antenna for Mary's Uncle Herman. It's been laying outside the machine shed since the roofing job and I wanted to get it put away before the next snow. The 2 newly cut pieces were stowed away inside the machine shed.
  • I hooked up the small DVD player that Bill gave Mary for Christmas, which plays all region DVDs, not just North American disks. Then, we enjoyed 2 pots, each, of China Yunnan loose leaf tea and freshly baked cinnamon rolls while watching 4 episodes of BBC's The Great War and The Shaping of the 21st Century. In Great Britain, where this set of DVDs came from, it was called 1914-1918.
  • Bill texted us. He said his employer started weekly testing of non-vaccinated employees and he is missing half of the people in his department.
  • On the last dog walk, we crunched through heavy, wet snow that covered our black winter coats with big, white, melting snowflakes.

Snow scene out our east storm door. The near garden
is left of big cedar trees. Virginia Creeper twigs in foreground.

Snow fills in chain link fence at the chicken yard.

• Saturday, 1/15: Winter Wonderland
  
  • Evidence of winter is stuck to east sides of everything this morning. Wet snow and an east wind put a wall of white onto trees, bushes, and buildings. Winter white is pretty when you sit back and look at it, instead of trying to drive through it.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, followed by chimichangas.
  • I took the shop vacuum and a small brush to the back of the fridge that was full of dusty dog and cat fuzz. After removing the back cardboard vent, I cleaned in and around the fan.
    
  • Mary made a second batch of cinnamon rolls from half of the fridge dough that she whipped up yesterday. We enjoyed freshly baked cinnamon rolls, 2 pots, each, of China Keemun loose leaf tea, and watched the last 4 episodes of The Great War and The Shaping of the 21st Century.
  • Karen mentioned that they didn't have snow, yet, in NE Georgia, where she and Lynn live, but they should see something overnight.
  • Katie sent photos of her pets' crates that she's preparing for their flight from New Orleans to Anchorage, tomorrow. They depart on an Alaska Airlines flight at 4:48 p.m. There's an hour layover in Seattle. They get into Anchorage around midnight. The entire way north, Katie's pets are in heated cargo hold of a 747 airplane. She rented a vehicle today to drive from Gulfport, MS, to New Orleans, LA, tomorrow, with her pets.
  • On the last dog walk, Plato roared down the driveway a little ways, barked, then wagged his tail. It probably was a deer, since that's all we saw for tracks in the snow the next morning.
    

Jan. 2-8, 2022

Weather | 1/2, -2°, 11° | 1/3, 2°, 30° | 1/4, 21°, 39° | 1/5, 8°, 17° | 1/6, 1°, 9° | 1/7, -3°, 18° | 1/8, 15°, 36° |

• Sunday, 1/2: Driving Home, NO, to Clear Lake, Iowa
  
  • We woke up in Minneapolis around 8 a.m. The temperature outside was -17. By 9:45, we headed south. At noon, we pulled into Clear Lake, Iowa and fueled up. Upon starting the Cadillac, a growing groan from the front of the engine when it first started turned into a severe engine miss and a weird smell from the exhaust. I put in a can of STP gasline water remover...nothing changed. I bought 2 cans of Heet, poured them in...still nothing. I got information from the guy inside the gas station on local motels and mechanics. Unfortunatly, no mechanic was at work the day after New Year's Day.
    
  • We limped the car through the parking lot of a Chevrolet dealer, then limped to an AmericInn hotel. I called Wells Fargo, asking about the credit card, which is still on its way in the mail to our home. I was told I could access it through a Wells Fargo app, load it into Apple Pay, and use it from my cell phone. But, upon checking in, AmericInn doesn't accept Apple Pay, so Bill used his credit card. We checked in just before 3 p.m., after several calls to Mary. The temperature was 1 at that time.
  • Plans are to limp the car back to the Chevy dealer when they open at 8 in the morning and see what's wrong with the engine.
  • At home, Mary did a bunch of housecleaning and developed a list of floss she needs to do cross stitch projects.
    
    
• Monday, 1/3: Dead Caddy Engine...Towed It Home
  
  • I woke at 4 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep. Bill and I ate the hotel's continental breakfast, packed our stuff, started the Cadillac with a badly missing engine at 8 a.m., and drove a couple blocks to the Prichards Lake Chevrolet dealership in Clear Lake.
  • The mechanic took our car in immediately. They diagnosed it for just over an hour. It has a broken timing chain/gear and in their hands, it jumped a few more teeth on the gear and won't start at all. The bill was $130. We used Bill's credit card, since nobody in northern Iowa is set up to take Apple Pay. I called a Clear Lake, Iowa U-Haul dealership, which is at a truck wash business. I was told there isn't a car-hauling trailer anywhere in northern Iowa, but he had trucks. We were within walking distance of that business, so Bill and I walked to it.
  • This dealership was really hokey. The guy who rented us a 10-foot truck really didn't know what he was doing. He said there were no U-Haul dealers in Quincy, IL. There are several. We rented the truck, which is really a GMC van with a box on the back, at 11 a.m.. Again, we used Bill's credit card. We drove to an Ace Hardware store in Clear Lake. That guy said their other store, in Mason City, was a U-Haul dealer. I called that store and their U-Haul employee went home, earlier, for a family emergency, and I needed to call the U-Haul 800 number.
  • I rented a car dolly, via my phone call, from a tire company in Manly, Iowa. Bill and I drove the U-Haul van there, which was 9 miles north on I-35, then 7 miles east. Bill's credit card was used, again. With the dolly hooked on the van, at 12:30 p.m., we drove back to the Chevy dealer in Clear Lake. About 6-8 dealership employees helped push the Cadillac out of the garage and onto the dolly. I asked how much of a job it was to replace a timing gear and chain on this engine. A mechanic said he did it once on a Northstar engine and the first step is to remove both the engine and the transmission. The head bolts are 10 inches long and there's not enough room to work on it while the engine is in the car. Furthermore, these all-aluminum engines are known to blow head gaskets, so it's really better to just replace the engine, which at GM prices, runs over $8,000. Bill and I did a couple laps around their new car lot to make sure everything towed correctly (see photo, below).
  • Bill and I first filled the van with gas, then drove to a McDonalds and grabbed something to eat. While eating, we called Mary. We decided to junk out the Cadillac and be rid of its problems. We decided that Mary would call B&W Truck in West Quincy, MO, to check on how to move the title over to them, when we haven't switched it back to us after the bank relinquished the lien on the car. We left Clear Lake after talking to Mary. It was 3:15 p.m.
  • Bill and I stopped after 20 miles and 50 miles down the road, a suggestion by the mechanic at the dealership, to check the tightness of the straps holding the front tires of the Cadillac on the car dolly and only tightened them at the first stop. The straps were tight at the second stop, so we drove steady, making good time.
  • Mary texted us that the woman at B&W told her just to bring in all of the paperwork and it will be fine to turn over the car title to them. Whew...that saves us from the cost of switching over the title. 
  • We decided to park the U-Haul and the Cadillac at the Fastlane truck stop and have Mary drive Bill's car there to pick us up. But, Mary couldn't get Bill's car to move, due to a lack of traction with 2 inches of snow/ice on grass. So, Bill and I parked the van/towed car at the intersection of the gravel road and State Highway J, then walked a mile west, to our house. Bill and I stepped through the door around 9 p.m. Mary had shoveled down the lane a short distance.
  • Bill ate a spaghetti meal. I backed the pickup up on the east lawn to get in front of Bill's car and got stuck. I loaded 5 concrete blocks into the pickup's bed. Bill and Mary pushed and I loaded Bill's pants with snow and grass and got ahead of Bill's car. Then, Mary pushed Bill's car with Bill in it and got his vehicle rolling. Bill and I drove back to the U-Haul rig and unloaded his belongings out of it. Bill left for his place around 11 p.m. He texted that he got home at 12:58 a.m.

  

  Cadillac loaded on car dolly behind the U-Haul van in Clear Lake, Iowa.
  

• Tuesday, 1/4: Cadillac is Gone
  • I drove the pickup to the van/Cadillac around 10 a.m. and pulled everything out of the Caddy, including floor mats and license plates. In Missouri, you keep license plates and transfer them from one vehicle to the next.
  • At 11:15 a.m., we tried moving the van/towed car, but an empty rental van with highway tires equaled no traction. A highway snow plow stopped and added a bit of sand in front of the van, which was very nice. After digging out snow, and a lot of cussing, I backed the van up on tractor tire chains laid out behind the van's rear tires, got the van moving forward, but spun out, again, while turning. The draw bar on the dolly was at an extreme angle, so I jacked it up with the pickup's jack, and unhooked it from the van. We dug more snow, this time on gravel, and I eased the van out on asphalt, then carefully backed it onto the gravel road's turnout onto the Highway J. Next, I drove home and got the draw bar with our 2-inch ball for the pickup and a better jack. After returning to the end of the gravel, I backed the pickup up to hook up the car dolly. The wimpy jack on the car dolly's draw bar started tipping, so I got the better jack under it, hooked the car dolly onto the pickup, then carefully backed the Cadillac up the gravel road. We unhooked the pickup, backed the van and hooked up the dolly. At 3:15 p.m., we headed off to West Quincy, with Mary behind me in the pickup.
  • The narrower highways were horrible, with deep slush and ice. Mary said while following me, she saw me slide right at one point. It was as scary for me as it was for her to see it. We proceeded slowly and once we were on Highway 6 at Ewing, roads were clear and dry.
  • I signed the title over at B&W, the salvage yard. They removed the car with a big front-end loader, lifting it up with long forks. Goodbye, Caddy. We got $315 for it.
  • I dropped off the rental van/car dolly at Haymaker's, a gas station in West Quincy. We were charged $15 more for extra mileage and they didn't refund anything for getting it in early. I was told to call U-Haul to see if I can get a refund. 
  • Mary and I got home in the pickup around 5 p.m., with enough daylight to get evening chores done.
  • Mom texted, wondering about our trip status. I texted back a brief synopsis.
    
  • I made a batch of waffles and we watched 3 episodes of Keeping Up Appearances, although I slept through them all. For some unknown reason, I'm very, very tired.
    
    
• Wednesday, 1/5: R&R Day
  • Mary figured out how much money to put in our various savings accounts and paid bills.
  • I sat around a lot and stayed indoors, since it was nasty outside with a strong NW wind.
  • Our new credit cards came in today's mail. It's too bad I didn't have them prior to the recent trip north.
  • Once receiving the cards, I immediately ordered a package of 10 KN95 respirator masks.
    
  • I chatted online with a U-Haul representative. We didn't receive a refund for getting the rental units in early, like Bill and I were promised when we got the rental van. U-Haul figures the price and turn-in date based on the estimated mileage. They don't refund for turning the rental in early. I asked that they explain their policy to the U-Haul rental place in Clear Lake, Iowa, since they're lying to customers at that location.
  • Bill, Mary and I all agreed on an amount to reimburse Bill for the use of his credit card on the trip. I'm sending Bill a check in tomorrow's mail.
  • Mary made a large amount of venison General Tso. She asked me when the garlic wine is ready, because she said it's better than store-bought cooking sherry. I'll be bottling the garlic wine on my birthday, Feb. 20th.
  • We drank 2 pots, each, of loose leaf China Keemun tea and watched 2 episodes of a 2008 HBO mini-series called John Adams, a Christmas gift from Bill. The show is very good. We also watched the extras, one of which keyed in on David McCollough, the author of the book that this mini-series is based upon. McCullough received a Pulitzer prize for this book, and his biography on Harry Truman. I've already read McCullough's Truman book. Now, I'll need to read John Adams. Naturally, we have the book, since Mary makes sure we have an abundance of books in our home. No library card needed in this household! I fell in love with David McCullough's writing shack. I told Mary that I need to build one just like his.
    
    
• Thursday, 1/6: Indoors Day
  
  • This is Day 2 of a strong NW wind, so it's also Day 2 of a day inside.
  • Mary made a chicken midday meal with sweet potatoes and a green bean casserole.
    
  • I balanced the checkbook after sending Bill a check for his credit card charges on the trip.
  • I put a bunch of items away from the trip.
  • I shifted the car insurance from the Cadillac to our 2000 Buick Park Avenue. When it warms, I'll work to get the Buick ready for an inspection and update the plates on it.
    
  • Our garden seeds came in from Fedco in today's mail.
    
  • I asked Mom about Montana temperatures. She had -29° at her house, this morning. It warmed up to -1°. She said yesterday was even colder and with a wind. She added that her house stays warm and cozy. She's stayed home all week, due to a dry, raspy throat, but it's getting better.
  • I noticed that the snow cover between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa is between 7-12 inches, which means it's significantly higher than when Bill and I drove through the area just a couple days ago. Bill texted, "Beat the bullet on that, gheez."
    
  • Katie called. She did CPR and first aid training at work and gets Jan. 17th off. That means she has a day off after she gets back to Anchorage, flying her 2 dogs and 2 cats north from Gulfport, MS. She flies out of Anchorage for Gulfport tonight with a 10:25 p.m. departure. She gets into Gulfport at 3:52 p.m., tomorrow (1/7).
  • Mary and I did a bunch of reading.
    
    
• Friday, 1/7: Pear Wine Labeled
  
  • I'm finally feeling somewhat rested, after returning from the north 3 days ago.
  • Mary made 2 quiche pies. We ate one.
    
  • I cleaned up the tractor tire chains, jacks, and jack handles out of the back end of the pickup. They had a half inch of ice stuck to their bottoms, so I set the newest jack just inside the door on our entry room floor to thaw.
    
  • I read 4 more chapters of the book that Bill played over the speaker while we drove to and from Minneapolis. It's Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper. We only got to the end of chapter 8 with the audio book.
  • An online check showed several N95 masks available at Home Depot. For 2 days, my online order for KN95 masks was in a replenishing mode. I canceled the order. The masks at Home Depot are made by 3M and have several positive reviews.
    
  • I labeled the 31 bottles of 2021 pear wine and stored them on their sides in 2 coolers in the upstairs north bedroom.
  • The cherry wine emits a bubble once every minute or so. It's full of fines on the bottom of the carboy and the half-gallon jug, so I need to rack it to a new carboy, probably tomorrow.
  • The weather prediction is for freezing rain, tomorrow. We're staying home.
    
    
• Saturday, 1/8: Freezing Mist
  
  • Freezing mist in the morning and evening made road conditions slick. The Quincy Airport is 7 miles east of the east side of Quincy. Halfway to the airport, a 5-car accident resulted in a death and 2 severely injured children. The Quincy Sheriff told residents to stay home. We're fortunate that we don't have to go anywhere.
    
  • I racked the cherry wine for the second time, this time from one 5-gallon carboy to another 5-gallon carboy (see photo, below), due to Christmas gifts from Bill of two 5-gallon carboys. The cherry wine must looks like pink lemonade. The specific gravity is 0.994, resulting in an 11.8% alcohol content. I read online about SO2 content in wine and decided to forgo using the SO2 testing kit and estimated that I needed to add 1.69 Campden tablets. I crushed 2 tablets, mixed them with about 2 ounces of cherry wine must heated to 95°, stirred the mix thoroughly, added it to the must, then stirred the must in the carboy. Over a half-inch of fines were in the carboy and half-gallon jug. I filled the new carboy to within 3/4-inch from the top and had about 175 ml left, which we drank. The wine has a slight cherry taste, it's tangy, with a strong yeast flavor. I think with aging, as it clears, the cherry flavor will get stronger.
  • I finished Susan Cooper's book, Over Sea, Under Stone. It's a very good book.
  • Katie is in the Florida panhandle, doing her military things. She's hoping this is her last visit and she gets to transfer her Air National Guard assignment to what used to be called Elmendorf Air Force Base, but is now known as Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson (JBER) at Anchorage.
  • After dark, we heard our first owls for 2022. A great horned owl and a barred owl called from the woods just west of the house.

  

  Racking Cherry Wine into a new carboy.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Dec. 26, 2021-Jan. 1, 2022

Weather | 12/26, 27°, 45° | 12/27, 41°, 53° | 12/28, 0.46" rain, 31°, 43° | 12/29, 20°, 30° | 12/30, 2 or 3 snowflakes, 27°, 34° | 12/31, 29°, 53° | 1/1/22, 2" snow, sleet, or 0.58" moisture, 9°, 19° |

• Sunday, 12/26: Cherry Wine, Bill Leaves
  
  • I made a double batch of waffles for breakfast.
    
  • Bill and I made a 5-gallon batch of cherry wine. He juiced 2 bags of mandarin oranges while I made waffles. Bill also took zest off 2 oranges. After breakfast, Bill and I squished 24 quart bags of cold, and in some cases, partially frozen cherries and dumped just over 17.5 pounds of fruit into a new nylon mesh bag. About 12 pounds involved 2020 cherries and 5.75 pounds were 2021 cherries. We added the orange zest to the mesh bag. Into the brew bucket went a mug of strong tea, 3 gallons of water, 5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient, 5 crushed Campden tablets, and 8 pounds of sugar to get a specific gravity of 1.084. The pH is 3.6, so no acid is needed. We covered it and moved the brew bucket to behind the woodstove in the living room, since the cold, cold must is at 47°. The must tastes like sugar water.
    
  • Bill packed his car and left for his apartment in St. Chargles around 2 p.m.
    
  • During evening chores, Mary saw a flock of snow geese.
  • Katie ran on the gravel road to Highway J. The neighbor's dog, a young Lab, followed her east to the stop sign, then all the way back to our house. He was playful and just bounced around when she told him to go home. I light 2 fire crackers, then chased the dog down our lane. He ran back to its home.
    
  • We played Yahtzee. Mary won, because she kept playing to allow someone else to get a yahtzee, which Katie eventually accomplished. In the meantime, Mary got 3 yahtzees in that final game. It was fun. We shared a bottle of 2021 dandelion wine, which is very good, with a fruity taste from the 2 lemons and a lime I added, a flower taste, plus a little zing from the ginger root.
    
    
• Monday, 12/27: Katie Leaves, More Firewood
  
  • Katie left around 9:30 a.m. She dropped off a return of the doubled-up gift at the Ewing Post Office.
    
  • Mary and I cut another wagon load of firewood from dead trees in the woods south of the west field, then stacked wood next to the splitter and in the woodshed.
    
  • We received texts from Katie as she got to Lambert Field in St. Louis, flew to Chicago, and landed at O'Hare. She called to say that after realizing she couldn't get into the secure area of the airport until 4 hours prior to her flight, which was 18 hours later, and after seeing homeless people sleeping in the public part of the airport, she got a hotel room, so she could eat a decent supper, take a shower, and get some sleep.
    
  • I added 2.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme to the cherry wine 24 hours after making the must. The specific gravity was still 1.084, indicating these sour cherries are low in sugar content. The temperature is 69, the must is redder in color, and it tastes like cherries, instead of sugar water. I worked up a starter of Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast that I added heated must to every couple of hours. I pitched the yeast 12 hours after adding pectic enzyme. Immediately, a nice yeast aroma emanated from the brew bucket in the pantry.
    
  • We watched the first year, or 6 episodes of Keeping Up Appearances, a gift from Katie to Mary. It is really funny.
  • While watching these episodes, I got a text from Wells Fargo that our credit card was charged over $900 with Aero Mexico. I checked to make sure the number listed was legitimate. It is the 24-hour credit card number listed on our bills and on the Wells Fargo website, so I called. They canceled our card and issued new credit cards, which we'll see in 4-5 days. Thank goodness for their fraud alert system.
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/28: Anchorage Return for Katie, Christmas Tree Comes Down
  
  • Katie got up at 5 a.m. in Chicago, checked into the airport, got on her Alaska Airlines flight, and flew 7 hours to Anchorage, starting at around 7 a.m. CST.
  • Rain fell through the morning, ending around noon. It was our first major rain for the month.
  • Mary took ornaments off the Christmas tree, dusting each one before putting it away in various plastic totes. I helped remove the strings of lights. Mary wrapped small-bulb strings on cardboard rolls. I put the 2 strings of large-bulb lights into their original packages. We took down the Christmas tree, packed branches away in bags, then into old computer screen boxes. We had the tree up from Nov. 26th until today, or for 32 days. It's good to move on.
  • I reviewed KN95 surgical masks to use during the trip with Katie to Seattle and back home on Jan. 12-15. Since we're without a credit car for a few days, I saved the website and I'll order once we receive a new credit card.
  • The cherry wine yeast is bubbling. The specific gravity is 1.081, down just a little bit from yesterday's 1.084 starting point. There is now a significant cherry taste to the must. I gave Mary a sample to taste and her response was, "Wow, that's really good."
  • Katie called. Her apartment building is soon going to be sold. Eviction is possible and rent might go up significantly with new owners, her current building manager told Katie. She was bummed with the news. I told her to get looking right away. I made a quick online check, found 7 Anchorage apartment rental groups on Facebook's Marketplace and 147 apartment rental listings on the Anchorage Craig's List. I forwarded that info to Katie. She messaged back with a link to an inexpensive house for rent that was recently listed. I urged her to contact them immediately. She did. We'll see what happens. There are several rentals on the market in Anchorage. I wonder if recent heavy snows have pushed some former Anchorage residents not used to "normal" wintertime weather to move to the Lower 48 states.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/29: 31st Anniversary
  
  • Mary and I have been married 31 years, as of today. It was a really cold day in Red Lake Falls, MN. We had a mob of people in the little white house we were renting at the time. The high for the day on 12/29/90 was -29. Snow was falling, too. Ruth, Mary's mother, left the next morning for her home in Hannibal, MO. Mary and I have been together ever since then. We never fight or squabble. Okay, that's a big, fat, hairy lie. We yell at each other when she's a miserable hard head, or when I'm an old nose-out-of-joint toad, which happens about once every other month. Other than that, we live in perfect harmony. Ha, ha, ha! (Mary just threw a pillow at me.)
    
  • We were rather lazy throughout the day.
  • Katie texted that the inexpensive house was a scam.
  • Bill called after dark and said that Mike, his friend, who was going with him to the NHL Winter Classic in Minneapolis, tested positive for COVID, today. Mary suggested I go with Bill. He felt immediately relieved. Bill didn't want to go up there, alone. He will overnight at our home on 12/30. We'll leave the morning of 12/31 in the Cadillac. It's a better car for winter driving than his Hyundai Sonata. We overnight in a bed and breakfast in Minneapolis. The game starts 6 p.m. on 1/1/22 outdoors with subzero temperatures predicted. That ought to be toasty. Meanwhile, at home, a winter storm is supposed to drop 5-7 inches of snow. Mary figures she will be shoveling out on 1/2/22. We leave the morning of 1/2/22 for home. Bill then drives from our house to his apartment in St. Charles, MO, since he works the next morning. Interesting times are coming!
  • The specific gravity of the cherry wine is 1.070, so those active yeast beasts are eating up sugar and fizzing profusely. A quick taste test indicates this will be a yummy wine.
    
  • I cleaned labels off 10 wine bottles that were soaking for over a week in baking soda water. Four had stubborn mold inside, so I pour a liberal amount of OxyClean into them, added water, and set them aside to soak.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/30: Shopping & Trip Prep
  
  • I got in the Cadillac to start it up this morning. The battery was dead. After half an hour on the charger, the car started. Then, we headed for Quincy to do some shopping. Upon pulling into Ewing, about 10 miles away from our house, Mary realized we didn't have face masks, so we turned around, went home, let the dogs out for a quick leak, picked up the face masks, and headed out, again.
  • While shopping, we noticed that everything costs a lot more. Some items are double what they were just weeks or months ago. We had a new battery put in Mary's cell phone. Stores were packed with about as many shoppers as 2 days before Christmas. We were glad to go home.
  • Once home, Mary unloaded the car while I changed oil and the oil filter in the Cadillac. After bringing all fluid levels up, I inflated the tires to appropriate levels.
  • Mary made a chicken pot pie that will make 2 meals for Bill and I while we're in Minneapolis.
  • Bill showed up just after 6 p.m. We ate nachos soon after he arrived.
    
  • I moved the winter greens to inside the machine shed and covered them with plastic, since 3-7 inches of snow is predicted for New Year's Day and another inch that night. I was going to move the strawberries, but ran out of time. Mary says if it snows, she'll mound snow on them to protect the plants.
  • Mary and I hung the heater in the chicken coop.
  • I got a text from Mom that her grandson, Kevin, who is Karen and Lynn's son, lives near the area in Boulder, CO, where there are wildfires, tonight.
    
  • I made a list of things to pack in the morning for our trip to the Winter Classic. Bill and I tried on clothes to make sure we could sit down in them. We can.
  • The cherry wine's specific gravity is 1.050. It's fizzing like crazy. Bill and I are going to try to move it into a carboy tomorrow morning, prior to leaving.
  • Dense fog is predicted for tomorrow morning both here and in eastern Iowa. The fog advisory ends at 10 a.m., so that's when we'll leave. I estimate about an 8-hour drive from here to Minneapolis.
    
    
• Friday, 12/31: Driving to Minneapolis
  
• We woke at 6 a.m., ate breakfast, then Bill and I moved the cherry wine must from the brew bucket to a 5-gallon carboy and part of a half-gallon jug. The specific gravity was 1.040, the highest amount to safely move it to a carboy. We put a overflow airlock on the large carboy and a regular airlock on the half gallon. It only took an hour to do this job, complete with clean up.
• Bill and I packed up and left at 10 a.m. We encountered light fog until Iowa City, Iowa, then it rained lightly. Snow was on the ground shortly before Iowa City and all the rest of the way to Minneapolis. We stopped at Walmart in Iowa City for some oil, gas at Cedar Falls, IA, and got into our B&B in the Twin Cities at 7 p.m. We ate half of the chicken pot pie Mary made for us and watched TV until after midnight.
• Back home, Mary had a nice, lazy time, watching TV, besides doing chores.
  
  
• Monday, 1/1: NHL Winter Classic
  
  • Bill and I were up by 9 a.m. (it was -11), fixed a bacon and egg meal, lazied around, ate a bean burrito meal at 2 p.m., then got $10 in gas, drove to Target Field, got lost while trying to park and ended up on Highway 394, heading west. We finally found a parking garage, walked around a bit, then stood in a line to enter Target Field. Luckily, it was Gate 6, where we were supposed to go to get to our seat. It opened at 4 p.m., just minutes before we got in line.
  • We found our seats with hardly anyone there (see photos, below). But, in the next 2 hours, the entire place filled up. It was a capacity crowd of 38,600. The temperature was -6. The game started at 6 p.m. At the end of 1 period, my feet were getting cool. At the end of 2 periods, it was 6-2, with the St. Louis Blues leading the Minnesota Wild. I couldn't feel my right toes. The Wild pulled their goalie with 6:30 left in the game. They scored 2 more goals. I thought they were going to tie the game, the way the came on so strongly. Time ran out. Mr. and Mrs. Beer, to my left, drank at least a 6-pack. The whole place was dancing anytime the loud "boom, boom" music played. While walking to the car, our feet warmed. When we got back to the B&B, we were pretty warm. It was -14.
  • We watched Crash Course: US History on Bill's tablet via YouTube, after texting with Katie and talking to Mary.
  • Back home, Mary worked out her plans for 2022 and got them written down.

Our view of crews on the rink.

When people stood, we looked left to this.

Dec. 19-25, 2021

Weather | 12/19, 18°, 35° | 12/20, 22°, 43° | 12/21, 15°, 42° | 12/22, 16°, 39° | 12/23, 33°, 57° | 2/24, 41°, 67° | 12/25, 0.05" rain, 41°, 47° |

• Sunday, 12/19: Four Bald Eagles at Once
  
  • I spotted a bald eagle out the west living room window. Mary and I both looked and then saw 2 bald eagles circling one another, with one aggressively chasing the other one. Then, we saw a second pair doing the same thing. There were 4 bald eagles in the sky. That's a first!
    
  • Today is Nick's 12th birthday. He was born under the Christmas tree during the early morning hours of 12/19/09. He outlived his sister, Holly, who died in September. His mother, Rosemary, still bounces around like a kitten.
    
  • Mary made minestrone soup. This way, she doesn't have to fix a main meal for 3 days and can spend time making Christmas treats.
  • She also cracked several hazelnuts that will go into tomorrow's batch of lime zinger cookies.
    
  • On a dog walk to the cow barn, I moved the deer stand from the south side of the building to inside the structure. Upon checking an old maple log of a tree south of the cow barn that I cut down a couple years ago, the wood is still fine. I'll need to get back and saw it up.
    
  • While searching for dead hardwood to cut up for firewood, I spotted a metal deer stand just 6 feet west of our property line, off the NW corner of the west field. It's facing west, but if someone in that stand took a shot to the east, the bullet could reach our house, yard, and chicken coop. There's firewood to cut just 10-20 feet east of that stand. Alternative (muzzleloading 40-caliber rifles & handguns, pistols, 40-caliber air-powered guns, longbows, compound bows, recurve bows, crossbows, and atlatls) deer hunting season runs Dec. 25 through Jan. 4. Except for Christmas Day, I'll be cutting and gathering firewood in that area. I guess it's typical of a city dude to crowd your property.
    
  • I cut up a large white oak a few feet in the woods south of west field. Parts of it were too large to move, so I cut those chunks in half and stacked it all in the wagon (see photo, below), which made for a large load. The high wind a few days ago brought down a lot of dead wood in the forest. I'll be going back there for more, some of which I cut, but was unable to load.
  • David Parmeter (Homer High School classmate) texted me that he's driving through Missouri, tomorrow, on his way to Virginia (D.C. area) to see grandchildren. With a photo he sent, I can see he's driving a pickup, pulling a camper/trailer.

  

  Big white oak firewood pieces overfilled the trailer.
  

• Monday, 12/20: Garlic Wine & Lime Zinger Cookies (Not at the same time!)
  
  • Flipping and hoisting around huge white oak logs strained a few body parts, so I decided not to do firewood work, today.
  • Katie texted, asking whether to go with studded, or non-studded snow tires. I recommended studs for driving around Anchorage in the winter. She's considering a Toyo tire. I told her it looks like a good choice.
    
  • Mary washed towels.
  • I racked the garlic wine for the second time, due to a half inch of sediment in the bottom of the carboy. The yeast was still fizzing when I started, but ended after racking. The specific gravity is 0.999, dropping just one-thousandth from 1.000. I added 3.75 crushed Campden tablets. We didn't taste it this time. 
  • While I did winemaking, Mary finished a cross stitch Christmas ornament (see photo, below). She did the evening chores while I washed up winemaking stuff.
    
  • Mary made lime zinger cookies (see photo, below), my request for Christmas goodies. Crushed hazelnuts, lime juice and zest, among other ingredients, go into these cookies. They taste wonderful with pots of loose leaf tea.
    
  • I brought my wine diary up-to-date with the 3 wines I'm working on right now, which are pear, parsnip, and garlic. The pear wine will be bottled on Friday and cherry wine will be started on Saturday. I guess I'm a real wino...maker!

Mary's newest ornament, called Bunnies in the Snow.
To the left is a loon ornament & to right, a puffin.

Lime zinger cookies, ready for the oven.

• Tuesday, 12/21: Winter Solstice
  
  • Several of my old Alaskan friends mentioned that today is the winter solstice. In Alaska, this day is a big deal, because each future day until summer solstice is a day of more sunshine.
  • Mary made a triple batch of butterscotch oatmeal cookies. They're yummy!
  • She also finished her cross stitch Christmas gifts.
  • I split dried wood, stacked it in the woodshed, then started splitting wood from the large white oak tree I cut up 2 days ago. The wood, inside, is wet, so I'll need to stack it in the machine shed to dry. Only less than a quarter of the wood from the white oak tree is now split. It's a big tree.
  • From 5 sources, I put together and wrote a sour cherry wine recipe in my wine diary.
    
  • Eight more bottles are without labels, as I keep chipping away at wine bottle delabeling.
  • Katie felt an earthquake while at work in Anchorage. The Anchorage Daily News reports that it was a 5.9 earthquake centered near Mt. Illiamna, across the Cook Inlet from Ninilchik.
  • Mom texted that she helped serve at the Circle (MT) Senior Citizen Center's Christmas dinner. They served 65 people.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/22: Firewood & Kid's Tires
  
  • Mary cleaned the house and made flour tortillas.
  • First I stacked firewood that I split yesterday and then split all of the rest of the firewood that I cut up from the large oak tree. It took 3 hours to perform this firewood splitting. The wagon is filled with split wood. Because these trunk pieces are wet, the entire machine shed smells like the inside of a whiskey oak barrel.
  • Katie and I were on the phone and texted throughout the day. She got new studded snow tires on her vehicle. She said her vehicle has a much greater grip on the road. Katie also said most people told her she'd be fine driving around Anchorage with all-season tires. That proves something I've always thought...Anchorage residents are crackpots about Alaska winter weather and it's why so many crash and burn each winter. 
  • The place she went to performed a vehicle inspection and replaced some burned out light bulbs. She thought her brakes needed replacing, but they found them to be adequate. Her vehicle has worn out ball joints. I did some online research for her vehicle, a 2010 Jeep Liberty. Ball joints on that rig are notorious for failing. Replacements have grease fittings, while originals don't. The mechanic informed her that they were over-greased, the rubber caps broke, water leaked in, and they're failing. The fact there is a grease fitting says they aren't original. A ball joint coming apart at highway speeds is catastrophic. I looked up pricing on RockAuto, and the replacement cost of all 4 control arms and the 4 ball joints is about $40 more than what she was quoted. I recommended Katie should go ahead with replacing them. She plans on doing that next month.
  • Katie will be boarding her flight to here in Anchorage after 4 a.m. on 12/23. She has a 13-hour layover in Seattle. Her flight gets into St. Louis around 10ish on 12/24. It's worse going back, when she has an 18-hour layover in Chicago.
  • Bill texted that he had glass embedded in a tire on his vehicle. He held his breath while running on a donut spare tire for 2 days and got it replaced with a new tire, today.
  • Mom informed me that I got her post office address off by one digit on a Christmas gift I'm sending her. We're hoping the small size of Circle, MT means the post office will put it in the correct mailbox.
    
  • The garlic wine is now changing from its eggnog color to a clearer, more golden shade.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/23: Getting Veggies on Christmas Eve Eve Day
  
  • We think we saw a peregrine falcon dipping down over the west woods this morning. Robins and cedar waxwings are flying all around the yard, today.
    
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry. Wind gusts to 30 mph from the SW dried clothes fast. 
  • She also made black raspberry bars (her Christmas snack choice), pistachio torte (Bill's Christmas snack choice), and 2 pumpkin pies (Katie's Christmas snake choice). The house smelled wonderful.
  • I drove to Quincy and bought Christmas smorgasbord veggies used with Ranch dip. Quincy city traffic was fierce, as were the crowds in all stores. I only made 2 stops. Bought two 5-gallon cans of gas for the tractor and wood splitter engine. Gas is $2.94 a gallon.
  • Our neighbor east of us is trenching more pipe to drain onto the gravel road. His field drain tile project already washes gravel off the road and produces gullies we have to drive across. I feel like asking the county board if a ferry system is planned after Farmer Turd-Butt drains more water across the gravel road.
  • After returning home, while Mary did evening chores, I stacked the firewood I split yesterday into criss-cross stacks in the machine shed. These stacks dry wood in the fastest manner. I was wrong. After splitting the wood, I can see it was a red oak, not a white oak tree. Two huge 1.5" black beetles with big mandibles came out of that firewood.
    
  • Mary washed, sliced, and bagged up all of the Christmas veggies, which are green onions, baby carrots, radishes, cauliflower, broccoli, and celery. She made Ranch dip earlier, today. We're now ready for Christmas eating. Now, we just need eaters. Katie and Bill will be here, tomorrow. Bill will show up around 10 a.m. and Katie is due in at roughly 2 p.m.
    
    
• Friday, 12/24: Christmas Eve, Kids Arrive
  • Mary and I got the north and south upstairs bedrooms ready for Bill & Katie.
    
  • Bill arrived around 10:30 a.m.
    
  • Bill and I bottled the pear wine after transferring it to a brew bucket and adding 4 crushed Campden tablets. The tartaric acid is 0.65, which is perfect for white wines. The specific gravity is 0.998, giving it 11% alcohol. It tastes marvelous, even though it hasn't aged at all. This is the best pear wine I've made. It's incredibly smooth, with not any taste of alcohol. This pear wine tastes like a pear cider, due to a slight bit of tang in the taste.
    
  • Katie arrived at 2:30 p.m. She was smart and slept for a little bit in Hannibal while drive north from St. Louis in her rental car.
    
  • Mary started the 2 amaryllis bulbs in a couple pots.
    
  • Katie wrapped her presents and discovered she had 2 of the same gift for her mother, because one that she ordered from Walmart arrived in an Amazon box. We weren't opening her gifts as they arrived to our address.
    
  • After evening chores were done, and cleanup after bottling pear wine finished up, Mary cut up salami and various cheeses and we had a smorgasbord of food.
    
  • Mary saw a of flock cackling geese during chores.
    
  • We played Michigan rummy for 6 hours. It was a blast. We shared in drinking a bottle of jalapeño wine and a bottle of autumn olive wine. Katie said she had a glass of wine at an airport restaurant while flying south from Anchorage, but it wasn't as good as the wines I make. Brownie point for her!
    
    
• Saturday, 12/25: Christmas Day with Katie & Bill
  
  • We had a bacon and eggs breakfast.
  • We opened presents from late morning into the early afternoon.
    
  • When Katie opened a present from Mary and I that was a Verilux happy light, there was a surprise. The box contained not one, but 6 happy lights. At first, Katie asked if we got 2 lights. As she pulled one out she laughed, realizing several were inside the cardboard box. We never opened it when the package arrived, figuring it was just a big light. A Walmart employee who can't read didn't see that a case of 6 lights was sent to us, instead of just 1 light that we ordered. She gave a light to Mary and one to Bill, then packed 4 lights in her plastic tote to take back with her to Anchorage.
    
  • Mary made venison stroganoff for our Christmas dinner. A side dish of frozen muskmelon added to the flavor. We shared a bottle of blackberry wine with this dinner.
    
  • While walking dogs during evening chores, Mary and Bill spooked up 5 wood ducks off Bluegill Pond.
    
  • Because it was calm and warm, I decided to fix the loose shingle on the roof. I was going to put the extension ladder on the roof to climb up to that shingle. Katie stepped up onto the roof to help pull the ladder up, then proceeded to march around on the roof like a monkey and said she could fix it without a ladder. She expertly removed 3 nails, pounded in 6 new nails once she pulled the shingle into place, then applied some strips of tar in appropriate locations to help hold down shingle edges. I told her she did a nice job and she replied, "Well, I do this for a living."
    
  • I called Mom. It snowed several inches, which she finished shoveling. It was -5° in Circle, MT, when I called. She talked to Bill and Katie for quite a bit, then to me. We were on the phone with her for over an hour.
    
  • We watched the movie, Leap Year. We've all seen it several times, which is a good thing, since there were some closed eyelids during the movie. We shared a bottle of 2020 pear wine while watching the movie.
    

Dec. 12-18, 2021

Weather | 12/12, 29°, 55° | 12/13, 33°, 53° | 12/14, 34°, 58° | 12/15, 55°, 71° | 12/16, 29°, 45° | 2/17, 0.03" rain, 21°, 37° | 12/18, 29°, 37° |

• Sunday, 12/12: A Quiet Sunday
  
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry after I dumped all of my various hunting clothes into the basket. She also made a venison General Tso meal and did some cross stitching.
  • I set 2 buckets up to soak labels off wine bottles in a baking soda/water solution.
  • I also went through this blog and updated my wine diary for wines I made this year, especially comments about how wines tasted after they were bottled and aged. It's educational and fun recounting the making and enjoyment of various wines.
  • Today is the last day of the anterless rifle deer hunting season. We aren't hearing rifle shots close to us...only shots far away. There is an alternative season, from Dec. 25th to Jan. 4th, when you can use spears and black powder guns, but hunting numbers are greatly reduced. Who wants to hunt a deer with an atlatl on Christmas Day? (Atlatls are a rod or board-like device used to launch, through a throwing motion of the arm, a dart 5 to 8 feet in length.) The end of regular deer hunting season means we can walk around without blaze orange vests outside of our coats and without the fear some idiot trespasser might be lurking in our woods with a high-powered rifle.
  • I saw 2 bald eagles fly over our house just above treetop level.
  • The garlic wine still bubbles profusely. Its yeast is taking a long time to settle down.
    
    
• Monday, 12/13: Watching Geminid Meteor Shower
  
  • Mary washed coats, including blaze orange hunting gear. She also did some cross stitch work, and evening chores. 
  • I cleaned labels off 6 wine bottles, 3 of which were big 1.5-liter bottles. I rotated 8 more bottles into a bucket of baking soda/water solution.
  • After driving the 8N Ford tractor and trailer to the SW corner of the north field, I chainsawed up a red oak tree that fell over the corner post of the fence around that field. That gave me just over a half a wagon load of firewood, so I cut down another small dead red oak (base was about 7-8" in diameter), and filled the rest of the wagon. I unloaded small firewood pieces into the woodshed. The remaining larger firewood chunks, about a third of a wagon load, I'll split tomorrow.
    
  • Mary fixed baked chicken, corn on the cob, and potatoes covered with turkey gravy she froze and reheated from our Thanksgiving dinner.
  • After the nighttime dog walk, when deer stomped off while snorting at us, we stood in the lawn to watch the sky during the height of the Geminid Meteor Shower. We were out there for an hour and saw several bright streaks in the night sky. To the east of us were 2 barred owls who were really talking. They were almost making a cat purring sound. Mary says now is the height of their mating season. We also heard a coyote howling session.
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/14: High Temperatures, Hoofing Out Firewood, & Trumpeter Swans
  
  • "It's beginning to feel a lot like Easter," is my new song. Local news sources are predicting that we will break a record high tomorrow, which is 70° in Quincy, IL, set in 1948.
    
  • I sharpened the mower blade and Mary mowed the lane.
  • After unloading large firewood logs out of the trailer, I drove the tractor/trailer to where I was yesterday and cut another load of firewood from small dead hickory trees, parts of a downed red oak and a dead white oak that I dropped. I found a large turkey feather and stuck it in my hardhat. I hauled the entire wagon load, an armload at a time, up a hill in the forest and dumped the wood over the fence, then loaded the firewood in the wagon. It's the best exercise plan on earth. When I drove home, darkness was falling. Mary told me we weren't getting rain until tomorrow night, so instead of unloading firewood, I just parked the tractor/trailer in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary made a week's supply of popcorn, then did the evening chores. 
  • While doing chores, she heard trumpeter swans in the neighbor's field east of us. Then, they lifted off and 15 trumpeter swans flew over our lane. Mary was walking dogs at that moment and Plato and Amber thought loud, flying swans were very interesting.
  • We watched the 2006 movie, The Holiday.
  • Katie texted me asking for our dog's height and length measurements. She's guessing that her dogs are the same size and needs the numbers to fly them from New Orleans, LA to Anchorage, AK, which she plans to do on Jan. 16th.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/15: Crazy Winds
  • A southwest wind blew hard all day, but after dark, gusts shook our house enough that floor boards in the kitchen were vibrating. Ventusky, a weather app we use, indicated gusts to 63 mph. We checked the roof prior to going to bed and one shingle in the tan-colored area is hanging loose, attached by only one end. That's a result of putting on shingles in cooler weather. The tar under the tips of the shingles doesn't get a chance to melt and stick in summer heat, resulting in the chance of high winds to flip them up. I'll have to try to use ladders to get to that shingle and repair it. Thankfully, it's lower on the roof and not on top.
  • On our last dog walk, we smelled a strong whiff of grass smoke on the wind. It made us stay up into the early morning hours, concerned a out-of-control grass fire was close. I walked down to the gravel road, but couldn't see anything to the west, which was the direction of the wind by 1 a.m. As I walked back to the house, I sensed a wind change to the NW and the smoke subsided. This morning, we read online that fires in Kansas were making Kansas City residents call 911 to complain about smelling smoke. Maybe that was the smoke we were smelling.
  • Quincy set a new high temperature record of 75. We were lower, at 71. Flies loved the heat and swarmed all inside windows. Mary vacuumed flies twice, today.
  • Mary also cross stitched and made a shopping list. Since we were up very late, we decided we'll go shopping on Friday.
  • I cleaned labels off 11 wine bottles and added more bottles to the baking soda water soup in 2 buckets. I also balanced the checkbook.
  • Katie texted that she purchased airline-approved crates for her pets and her 2 dogs and 2 cats are officially confirmed on a flight to Anchorage, mid-January.
  • Bill is game for helping me bottle pear wine Christmas Eve, as long as it doesn't hinder the traditional Christmas Eve smorgasbord that we do. Mary texted him that he has his priorities straight.
  • Opossums must roam on high-wind nights. I almost stumbled on one that was just in front of the porch steps after dark. We saw one while walking the dogs midway down the lane and Mary and I saw a big, roly-poly one when we checked the chicken coop for wind damage. The coop was fine.
  • We saw a juvenile bald eagle zip over the house around noon.
    
    
• Thursday, 12/16: Haircut, Firewood & Bottles
  
  • Mary received a haircut from her favorite hair dresser, her husband. She feels human, again.
  • She also worked on a craft project.
  • I unload firewood from the wagon into the woodshed, and put large pieces next to the splitter. I also rinsed winemaking mesh bags to clear bleach from them and hung them out on the clothesline. I took the bleach water and cleaned 2 coolers to make sure old mold was completely killed and set them in the woodshed to air out.
    
  • I cleaned labels off 7 wine bottles and put more labeled bottles into the baking soda water. Some of the wine bottles I recently purchased are from Spirit Knob Winery, located in Ursa, IL, just north of Quincy. Nobody rinsed out those bottles, so a dark line of dried sweet wine lines the inside bottom edges. I'm glad that I'm cleaning these bottles, first.
    
    
• Friday, 12/17: Shopping
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL. Lots of shoppers, everywhere. Maybe 1 in 20 people wore masks. We found everything we wanted, except for tangerines for future cherry winemaking. Instead, I bought 2 bags of Clementines. A quick online lookup indicates that clementines, sometimes called "cuties," are a type of Mandarin orange, as are tangerines. So, I got what I needed! We also picked up the last 2 gifts Katie ordered for Christmas and sent to our address, but I diverted for a Quincy Walgreen's store pickup.
  • We watched 2 movies after unloading the car. They were The Seeker and The Polar Express.
  • On our last dog walk of the night, we heard a call that we couldn't identify. At first, we thought it was a coyote howling, but the sound was different. Checking online, it was either a bobcat in heat, or a fox during mating season. The sound was more like that of a bobcat.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/18: House Cleaning, Firewood & Bottles
  
  • Mary baked up 4 more New England long pie pumpkins, then froze 3 packages of pumpkin meat. She washed sheets and did a bunch of house cleaning.
  • Katie called me. The company that gets airline tickets for Worker's Comp still hasn't purchased them for her mid-January laser burn work in Seattle. She's contacted them, asking for some action and received an email back promising answers soon.
    
  • I split all of the big firewood logs that were next to the splitter, then stacked a wagon load of wood into the woodshed (see photo, below). The first stack of firewood is about halfway up the building and it goes down a little each day as about 4 armloads go into the house. I need to stack to about 6 feet, then fill up 2 more rows and there is enough wood for the rest of the winter.
    
  • I took labels off 10 wine bottles and cleaned them up, which finished up old bottles that we've saved. I'm now starting to work on bottles I recently bought. I threw away a bottle that had brown paint on the inside of it. Ten more bottles were added to the baking soda water soup in the large bucket.
  • While Mary did cross stitch and I worked on bottles, we celebrated...something...that required drinking a bottle of autumn olive wine I made in January. It tastes like cranberry raisins, which means it's really good.
    
  • Mary and I watched cedar waxwings in the maple tree above the woodshed pass a maple bud back and forth between them until one finally ate the bud. It's a trick they often perform.
  • A deer snorted at us when the dogs and I walked for the last time down the lane under a full moon. It was near Bluegill Pond and snorted for a long time as it went off to the SW of the pond.

  

  Stacked firewood of 1st row in woodshed.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Dec. 5-11, 2021

Weather | 12/5, 31°, 59° | 12/6, 25°, 33° | 12/7, 17°, 33° | 12/8, 25°, 38° | 12/9, 35°, 57° | 2/10, 0.14" rain, 29°, 55° | 12/11, 29°, 43° |

• Sunday, 12/5: Food Planning & Hunting
  
  • Mary did some planning, including making a food menu that better encompasses our own homegrown garden produce, chicken and venison meat. She also did some cross stitching, cleaned the house, made a turkey/rice casserole, and accomplished all of the evening chores.
  • I hunted at a new location. Wind blew out of the west, so I went east, across the dry creek bed, to an old cottonwood tree that leans almost perpendicular to the ground. Years ago, I had a deer stand on it. I thought I'd go up the hill, east of there, next to our east property line, but cedars have grown up so you can't see very far. There are lots of game trails and bed-down spots at the base of these cedars. I ventured a little bit to the north of there, just into the woods where I could see further, and leaned up against a wide oak tree. At 4:10 p.m., I saw the legs, belly, and rump of a deer walking north to south in the grass on the west side of the dry creek bed. I think it was a buck. About 20 minutes after sunset, a small deer walked north to south up the hill from me in the woods. I couldn't see whether it had antlers or not, so I didn't try to shoot. Then, a bigger deer stepped into the woods where the first deer exited. It slowly walked in a semi-circle to the north, then west of me, turned around, and retraced its path out of the woods. Both of these deer should have smelled me, because they were downwind from where I sat. The last deer stepped with sharp and loud foot falls, like deer do when they know you're there. I'm wondering if they know my scent, were wary, but not enough to snort and run away. I only want to bag a small deer, so I never shot at the large one. Besides, it might have been a buck, and antlered deer are illegal to shoot, now. Other animals...lots of squirrels...one that barked at me for a full 20 minutes. I also had 2 big Canada geese fly right over my head.
  • Wind switched to the NW after dark and really picked up with a steady 22 mph blast, and gusts to 38 mph.
  • Yeast is bubbling along nicely in the garlic wine. A quick test and bag squeeze in the evening gave a 1.092 specific gravity, a drop from 1.100. The house smells like a bad Italian restaurant.
    
    
• Monday, 12/6: Got COVID Boosters
  
  • From the living room's south window, I spotted a large bird flying above the trees. Mary grabbed the binoculars and identified it as a golden eagle. We only see them this time of the year as they migrate through our region.
    
  • On a call to the pharmacy at the Quincy, IL, Sam's Club, I discovered we can get COVID booster shots as Missouri residents and appointments aren't necessary, so we drove to Quincy, got the shots, and bought a few things. The young woman administering the shots was very good. More people are wearing masks in Quincy.
    
  • I called Lisa at Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative in Glendive, because we were supposed to get directions in October, then in November, on steps to take regarding the pension that Mid-Rivers is dropping. I'll still get it through an annuity. Lisa said they still haven't finished figuring up pension totals for everyone. That job was supposed to be done last week, so she said hopefully this week the job will be complete and letters will go out. I asked how she likes her job. Her response was that it's quiet, with not a lot to do. They've gone from 190 employees to 120, with a goal of reducing down to 90 employees. They're automating everything, so eventually customer questions will be answered without a customer ever needing to talk to a person. That's a 180-degree turn from when I worked there. I predict that eventually Mid-Rivers won't exist.
  • Since it was below 40° outside, I checked the foundation vents I recently bought from Lowe's. They closed within minutes when I took them outside. Great! They work. Brought them in and they opened right away. They will vent a future greenhouse.
  • Katie called us regarding Christmas gift packages sent to us. She was diagnosed today with a corneal ulcer. She got antibiotic drops and artificial tears, and might get a steroid prescribed to her. She bought a 2010 Jeep Liberty as transportation in Anchorage. She was delivering a proposal from UIC to Soldotna for a potential construction job, today.
  • I called FedEx once we got home. One of Katie's packages has been in Quincy since Saturday and they've failed to deliver it for 3 days, straight. A sign is up on State Highway J stating that the road is closed 5 miles from the Highway 156/Highway J junction. Our turn-off is a mile up that road. When I explained the sign to the guy at the FedEx Ground office in Quincy, he figured the temporary drivers running this route don't realize they can still get to our location, and aren't delivering the package. He put a hold on the package, so I can pick it up tomorrow at their Quincy facility. There's another package that was delivered according to USPS tracking, but we never saw it. I'll have to see what happened with that one. You'd think we live in the middle of a desert they way packages can't get to us!
    
    
• Tuesday, 12/7: Package Chasing
  • I spent daylight hours chasing packages and came home empty. First, I asked the Hispanic couple across the road from us if they saw a package. They didn't. Next, I drove to the Ewing post office. Kathy, the post mistress, told me the tracking number I gave her was for someone else's package, which was delivered yesterday to an address east of Ewing. She suggested Katie contact whomever she purchased the item from to get the correct tracking number. I sent Katie a text to this effect. I then drove to Quincy to pick up the package from FedEx Ground. Even though the guy at FedEx I talked to yesterday said they'd pull the package out of the truck, they didn't do that. It's still on the truck running around to be delivered. The woman I emailed directions to couldn't find my directions on her computer, even though the guy I talked to yesterday on the phone saw my directions. So, I wrote out directions, again, this time adding to ignore the sign indicating Highway J is closed. I doubt they'll deliver the package, but I'm sick and tired of wasting my day. This happens every year and it's ending right now! Either items arrive at our home, or they're lost. I don't have time for this nonsense.
    
  • We aren't feeling perfect, due to the COVID booster shots. It's like you're just entering, or just leaving, a sickness. Mary feels worse than me, achy with a headache. My arm hurts, too.
  • A check of the garlic wine showed a specific gravity of 1.067. The yeast is fizzing, nicely.
    
  • I cut out room sizes to scale on graph paper for a new house. Then, Mary and I tried different configurations with our graph paper rooms and came up with a similar arrangement to our original rough draft sketch of a few months ago. The only difference is we will build in 3 stages, making the project hopefully more affordable.
    
    
• Wednesday, 12/8: Harvested 2nd Deer
  
  • Mary cross stitched and did the chores.
  • I got a text from Sandy, the woman who runs a business staging events in Quincy, IL. She has 12 cases of wine bottles for me, and all are bottles that take corks. She'll sell them to me for $70. That's $5.83 a case, or 49 cents a bottle. I said I'd buy them. I pick them up on Friday at 11 a.m.
  • I scrubbed up the 4 coolers I bought last week for $15. They'll be perfect for storing wine.
  • I walked to the Cherry Tree Stand in the NE section of our property at 3 p.m. I heard what seemed like chewing just beyond the cedar trees in front of me the whole time I was in the stand. I saw lots of woodpeckers. Right at sunset (4:41 p.m.), a doe walked through the cedars and up the hill, just below me. I took a right-handed shot and she dropped like a rock. It was a neck shot that hit her in the spine. Other deer ran off that were behind this doe. Mary told me to get a small deer, due to limited freezer space. I failed. She says this is the grandmother of Bambi, not Bambi. It's a large doe (see photo, below). I walked home and got Mary. She and I unloaded firewood out of the wagon, then I fired up the 8N Ford and drove it to the deer. We field dressed it...lots of fat. Deer on our property eat well. We drove it home, cleaned out the body cavity with the garden hose, then hung it in the machine shed. We must get at butchering early tomorrow morning. The forecast calls for 48° by 10 a.m. We now have more than enough venison, so deer hunting ends for me. Missouri's anterless firearms season ends on Sunday.

  

  The doe I harvested today. Lot's of good venison meat!
  

• Thursday, 12/9: The Final Butchering of the Year
  
  • Late last night I labeled the 21 bottles of jalapeno wine and stored them on their sides in a cooler.
    
  • We butchered the doe, today. Before going to bed, last night, the temperature was at 30°, which was great for cooling off the meat. Throughout today's butchering, that meat stayed cool. My shot wiped out all of one shoulder and half of the other. Even so, 35 packages of venison meat came from this very long-bodied deer. We have lots of venison to eat for a year. We feel happy to be done with the yucky job of butchering animals for the year.
    
  • Prior to me finishing up skinning the deer, Mary washed a load of laundry. 
  • She also moved packages of watermelon from the largest freezer to the smaller freezer, which had room after she did two batches of salsa last week, thereby using up several frozen bags of tomatoes, tomatillos, and hot peppers. By moving watermelon, we had room for new venison meat. 
  • Mary also set the kitchen table up for butchering and prepared several freezer zippered bags with necessary wording. The Missouri Department of Conservation requires venison to be labeled with the hunter's name, address, the date the deer is harvested, and the confirmation number sent back to the hunter after the deer is telechecked via a cell phone.
  • Mary swept up a mostly tan wooly worm, then looked up online "wooly worm winter predictions," which told her that this colored wooly worm means we're going to have a very mild winter.
    
  • After butchering clean-up, Mary did chores, and raked leaves, while I moved firewood logs to the splitter and split the wood. I finished after sunset and got my hat light. Mary helped me load the split firewood into the woodshed.
  • FedEx delivered Katie's package that arrived in Quincy on Friday to the neighbors across the gravel road, even though taped to the outside of the box was my emailed directions that included turning north (right) and driving up our lane to our house. The neighbors drove it up to us. We could tell from the outside of the box that it wasn't the item that Katie ordered. Katie talked to the seller, who is sending out the correct item and emailed a prepaid FedEx return shipping label. She forwarded that email to me. I'll send it out when I go to Quincy tomorrow to get my 12 cases of wine bottles.
  • Tonight, the garlic wine's specific gravity is 1.033, dropping from 1.050, when I checked it last night. It should be ready to move to a 5-gallon carboy tomorrow.
    
    
• Friday, 12/10: Wine Bottles & Tornadoes
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. She also did some cross stitching.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up 12 cases of used wine bottles. Rain started to fall right when I loaded the wine bottles. All 12 cases fit in the Cadillac's trunk. Next, I printed out the FedEx label and Katie's invoice at Staples, wrote a note on the invoice and slipped it inside the package containing the fancy bottle capper that must be returned, since it is the wrong item ordered. I taped the package up thoroughly, then added the label on the top. I drove to the FedEx Express office on the north edge of Quincy, and dropped the package off, then drove home, filling the car with gas on the way home.
  • I left the wine bottles in the car after getting home, since rain was falling. It's so nice to be inside and next to a warm woodstove with not a single drip coming through the roof. The new roofing works wonderfully. While doing chores, I stood at the SE corner of the house for several minutes and just smiled, because it looked so nice watching rain run off that roof.
    
  • We watched the 1989 movie, Christmas Vacation.
  • We tried our first bottle of jalapeño wine with omelets for dinner. The wine has mellowed and tastes very good. It tastes best while eating something. I munched on carrots while finishing off the wine.
    
  • Tornadoes swept through St. Charles, MO, in the evening, where Bill lives. He went to a main floor bathroom/laundry area in his building. Nothing happened where he lives. Across the river in Edwardsville, Illinois (an east St. Louis suburb), a tornado hit a large Amazon warehouse and took walls and part of the roof off. As of this morning (12/11/21), two died in that building. The National Weather Service reports that 37 tornadoes touched down in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Fortunately, all of that occurred about 100 miles south of us.
    
    
• Saturday, 12/11: A Hobby Day
  
  • Mary cross stitched all day.
  • Winemaking filled my day. A specific gravity of 1.013 on the garlic wine was close enough to 1.010 that I moved the wine into a 5-gallon glass carboy, a 750 ml wine bottle, and a 330-ml beer bottle. It is this wine's first racking. We tasted a little of it and the wine was surprisingly good, kind of semi-sweet, as it would be with still some sugar for the yeast to burn up. There is a fruity, floral taste to it. The 3 containers continue to burp CO2 gas, because of the still-active yeast.
  • I moved the 12 cases of wine bottles into the house and checked all of them. Some have labels removed and are cleaned. Most require label removal. All need cleaning. I was able to fit them all into the ground floor, west room closet under the stairs, where I keep winemaking stuff. There are several winter inside days worth of bottle cleanup in my future.
    
  • I racked the parsnip wine from a gallon jug and a wine bottle to a gallon jug and a beer bottle. The process removed a great deal of fines. The specific gravity is exactly 1.000. The wine with fines tasted earthy. We also tasted it without the fines. It had the tang from the lemon, a floral essence, and still a slight earthy taste, but mellow. This is going to be an interesting wine when its done. The wine must went into a brew bucket, where I added one crushed Campden tablet, then into the glassware for its second racking.
  • I put away cleaned, dried, and empty wine bottles and carboys in the west room closet.
  • We heard snow geese flying west to east in the dark as we walked the dogs. They are smart to fly at night. No hunters are shooting are around, then.
  • We read online news accounts and watched a few videos of tornado destruction in the St. Louis area and in Kentucky. Debris from the Amazon building in Ewardsville, IL, was discovered 3 counties away. It all makes me more determined to build a safe room in new house construction.