March 18-24, 2024

Weather | 3/18, p. cloudy, 19°, 36° | 3/19, sunny, 26°, 60° | 3/20, p. cloudy, 25°, 47° | 3/21, cloudy, 27°, 51° | 3/22, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 29°, 43° | 3/23, sunny to cloudy, 28°, 49° | 3/24, 0.03" rain overnight, cloudy, 35°, 55° |

• Monday, 3/18: Hard Freeze
  
  • On the dogs' early morning outing, we heard our first turkey gobble of the year to the northwest.
    
  • We checked a number of emerging flower and leaf buds on fruit trees after nighttime temperatures dipped below 20° for a hard freeze. We found that most were just fine. We only saw some wilted forsythia flowers and a couple leaves hit on the small Bartlett pear tree.
  • Inside, our friendly canines soaked up the woodstove heat (see photo, below).
    
  • We took the puppies on an east loop walk and a vulture kept flying low overhead, checking us out. They're always curious, like flying cats. Mary says that's a scary thought.
    
  • Today was another day of not doing much, since outside there was a strong northwest wind that made cool temperatures feel even colder.
  • We finished watching season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, including all of the extras.

  

  Amber (above) and Plato (below) behind the woodstove.

• Tuesday, 3/19: Departing Birds
  
  • Mary and I walked the dogs to Wood Duck Pond and back. Mary spotted a tiny frog near the pond's edge. She didn't bring binoculars and there were tiny birds flitting about, so when we got back home, she grabbed the binoculars and we walked back to the pond. Mary spotted a pair of purple finches and lots of juncos. They are all probably massing to start their migration north.
    
  • I checked all of the fruit trees. There are still lots of blossom buds that are near opening.
    
  • A strong west, southwest wind blew for the first half of the day, but subsided in the afternoon, allowing Mary to hang out a load of laundry. Laundry hung out in the morning might have resulted in a sock adorning the head of Leo, our rooster.
  • I mowed the lawn between the house and the lane, plus around all fruit trees south of the house. The new mower works like a charm.
    
  • I watched a couple of deer run to the west across the south field in the evening as I was finishing up chores.
    

• Wednesday, 3/20: Bud Grafting Decision
  
  • Mary saw a northern harrier hawk while walking dogs in the evening. Then, I saw one when I got the garbage can from the end of our lane.
    
  • Mary baked a black raspberry crisp and made a shopping list for tomorrow. Natural berries with lots of oatmeal keeps my blood glucose numbers low and is better than fast food. It's also cheaper.
    
  • I read about different types of grafting and decided to use the bud graft, since it's the most successful of all grafting techniques on apple trees. It's performed from mid summer to early autumn. So, I'll plant the three apple rootstocks in their permanent locations and do the grafting later. The good thing about bud grafting is that if it fails, a whip graft can be performed the following late winter to early spring on the same rootstock.
    
  • I packaged up more cardboard from the machine shed to leave at the recycling place in Quincy tomorrow. The only cardboard left is deformed and dirty with mouse nests, requiring burning.
    

• Thursday, 3/21: Shopping Trip
  
  • Mary and I went shopping in Quincy on what turned out to be a sunny day.
  • We're noticing that the Salvation Army store has mainly new stuff at discounted prices. For instance, we got 12 dish wash rags that are nice and thick for $1, each. We checked out the Goodwill store in Quincy and found more secondhand items. I found a Dixieland jazz and two Statler Brothers vinyl records. We bought a 1500-watt oil filled radiant electric heater for $25 and a Plano box that I plan to use to store tools for $5. We nicknamed the toolbox, "Stinky." It's new with original stickers on it. Obviously, someone stored catfish bait in it. When opened, a strong essence of barf erupts from within. It needs massive cleaning and airing.
    
  • After returning home and eating dinner, I didn't feel well. Something didn't sit well in my stomach and I ended up vomiting. I went to bed tired, but feeling a little better.
    

• Friday, 3/22: Quiet Day
  
  • I laid low, today. I made waffles for brunch.
    
  • Yesterday, we noticed that Sam's Club didn't have our favorite seasoning we use on popcorn, which is Kinder's Japanese BBQ rub. Today, I checked online and it's unavailable at every Sam's Club in St. Louis, but we can order it online, with a limit of 10 per Sam's Club member. WE HAVE TO HAVE IT!!!! So, I ordered 10 bottles. I noticed on the Kinder's website that they are repositioning supply sources, so orders are delayed until April 1. If we don't get the order, we'll just have to conjure up our own recipe for this flavor.
    
  • Right before darkness set in for the night, I spotted eight deer in our west yard. They got close enough that they two were munching on the lilac bush. I opened the window and they ran to behind the Kieffer pear tree. Then, I walked outside and they ran to the west. They all seemed like they were last year's fawns.
    
  • We watched two movies. The first one was the 1998 movie, Goodnight Mr. Tom. The second was the 1992 film, Sister Act.
    

• Saturday, 3/23: Electric Fence Construction
  
  • A strong northeast wind blew throughout the day.
  • Some pear blossoms are opening, especially on the small Bartlett pear tree. They won't get pollinated. No respectable bee is buzzing about in this weather.
    
  • Mary fixed a taco salad that we topped it off with kale that survived in the winter greens tubs. I only took one leaf from each plant.
    
  • I stepped off future electric fences I want to install around the south apple and cherry trees and around the Bartlett pear trees and blueberry bushes west of the chicken yard. Everything needs deer protection. I need eight wooden corner posts and 30 steel fence posts for the two fences.
  • I started finding metal posts left behind from other projects and located 24 of them...just six more to find. The wooden posts I'll need to dig up from existing fencelines that we're eliminating.
  • Mary finished reading Hiroshima: The Autobiography of Barefoot Gen, by Keiji Nakazawa, who as a six-year old, survived the atomic blast. Mary says it's a good book. She recently picked it up at the Salvation Army store in Quincy.
    

• Sunday, 3/24: Digging Up More Fence Posts
  
  • Mary felt ill and took a long nap in the afternoon.
  • I found three more metal fence posts along the east side of the north yard that once held out cattle in the east field. This fence is all overgrown by cedar trees. I wound up four strands of barbed wire and removed stiffeners between fence posts. Some of the wire is under dead rose bush branches. Between that and dodging stickery cedar boughs, this is a rough job. I now have 27 posts, needing only three more for my two electric fences around fruit trees.
  • Of the eight eggs collected today, one is huge (see photo, below).
  • Bill and I touched bases on when I should show up for the NHL game between the St. Louis Blues and Edmonton Oilers on April 1st.
  • While we're looking at green grass and white pear blossoms, Mom is looking out her window at snow and the prediction of subzero temperatures in Montana.

  

  Today's center egg is too big to fit in an egg carton.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

March 11-17, 2024

Weather | 3/11, sunny, 37°, 67° | 3/12, p. cloudy, 45°, 73° | 3/13, p. cloudy, 45°, 73° | 3/14, 0.67" rain overnight, sunny, 49°, 65° | 3/15, sunny, 37°, 60° | 3/16, sunny, 38°, 63° | 3/17, p. sunny, 29°, 40° |

• Monday, 3/11: Pruning Granny & Sergeant Trees
  
  • Mary said she heard the first song sparrow of the season while returning from the chicken coop this morning. She also saw it through the binoculars from the living room window.
    
  • Mary took photos (see below) of the red maple that we planted in 2011 in the north yard.
    
  • I finished stacking ash firewood to dry in the machine shed.
    
  • Mary fertilized the blueberry bushes and put wood ashes around the sugar maple tree, since our clay soil is naturally acidic and sugar maples prefer a more basic soil. Mary discovered the wood ash trick in a 1960 edition of the Audubon Nature Encyclopedia about sugar maples.
    
  • Mary and I pruned the Granny Smith apple tree and the Sergeant crabapple tree. Our prune job on the crabapple tree was minimal, since its green buds are well advanced.
    
  • We watched several flocks of snow geese and Ross's geese fly overhead. A strong southwest wind blew them northerly.
    
  • I saw deer, of course, while closing the curtains in windows facing west this evening. They were eating brush at the edge of the west woods.
    
  • Mary and I tried a bottle of 2023 spiced apple wine (see photo, below). Besides the beautiful color, it tastes great, despite the fact that it hasn't aged long. Mary says you taste the apple flavor on the tip of your tongue, the cloves at the middle of your tongue, the cinnamon flavor at the back of your tongue and the tartness as this wine goes down your throat. "It's a sipper wine, otherwise, you miss out on all of the flavors," Mary explained.

Buds on the red maple tree.

Close-up view of red maple buds.

2023 spiced apple wine.

• Tuesday, 3/12: Sandstorm Images from Katie
  • Katie sent photos and a video of a sandstorm (see below). She says the sand penetrates all living quarters and that it's tough on everything.
    
  • Mary and I pruned the big pie cherry and the big Bartlett pear tree, where we could reach with an six-foot step ladder. We pruned less off the pear tree than we expected. Branches obviously hit by fire blight have new buds sprouting all along them. We dabbed Tree Kote on new and old pruning cuts. I still want to prune higher up that tree while using the big step ladder, but today wasn't a good day for that activity, due to high southwest wind gusts.
    
  • I received a call, then I called back to Farm & Home. My chainsaw part is in, so I need to run to Quincy and pick it up.
    
  • We received a thunderstorm in the nighttime hours that gave us less than a trace of rain.

An approaching sandstorm.

Sand infiltrates everything.

In the middle of a sandstorm.

• Wednesday, 3/13: Quincy Trip
  
  • Mary and I saw a spring azure butterfly during our daily dog walk, in which we took the puppies on north loop excursion. The azure butterfly is usually the first we see in the spring. Mary saw a white cabbage butterfly later in the afternoon.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up the chainsaw part. I also bought five 20-foot lengths of 3/8" rebar that we'll use as chicken wire posts in the gardens. I cut them up with a hacksaw to eight-foot lengths, so they'd fit in the back of the pickup. On the way home, I got chainsaw and lawnmower gas for $3.09 a gallon.
  • During our nighttime dog walk, lightning was flashing all around us and we were starting to hear thunder. Nothing hit us until the next morning. I read online that softball-sized hail fell around Kansas City, and closed Interstate 70.
  • Some plants are amazing. Winterbor Kale, that went through -20° this winter, is now green and thriving (see photo, below).

  

  Kale, after going through subzero temperatures.

• Thursday, 3/14: Chainsaw Fix
  
  • We woke to thunder and lightning around 6 a.m. and went back to bed. We received a nice rain.
    
  • When we walked the dogs on the lane, huge earthworms were squiggling across the gravel.
    
  • I checked Antonovka apple rootstock. The largest is showing green on buds and the other two are not. I might just go ahead and plant the largest one without grafting it.
    
  • After reviewing on ArboristSite.com whether to grease the roller bearing under the clutch hub (those who fix saws advocate doing it while know-it-all types who occasionally use chainsaws say no), I took the large plastic face piece surrounding the big Stihl chainsaw's clutch off, removed the chain brake band, and cleaned gunk out from around the saw's clutch. I shook it several times, in case loose roller bearings were still lodged inside. After putting a light touch of Stihl grease on the inside of the new bearing with a toothpick, I assembled everything. I installed a new spark plug and cleaned the air filter with two washings of Dawn soap. I tried the saw out on a few long sticks of firewood and a thick piece of a downed elm tree. It works like new, again. It makes me feel good when I can perform a cheap DIY fix, instead of spending hundreds on new equipment.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine to celebrate the chainsaw fix. The wine was good, until the end, when it seemed harsh. Maybe an extra month in the carboy will help the next batch age better.
    

• Friday, 3/15: Final Big Bartlett Pear Prune
  
  • I set up the 10-foot ladder next to the big Bartlett pear tree and pruned fire blight damage out of the top of the tree. Most of the tree top, with several water sprouts that grew extra tall over the years, was hit with fire blight last year, so I took it out. I sawed about a 2.5-inch cut. I started sawing it with an old rusty pruning saw that we inherited from Herman, Mary's uncle. The weight was binding the saw, so I switched to a keyhole saw and was able to complete the cut. There were a few green buds, but it only amounted to about five percent of that section. Removing the top changed the tree's profile from a from a columnar to a round shape. I cleaned several other fire blight dead pieces off the tree's other top branches and covered all cuts with Tree Kote. Hopefully, I can keep fire blight to a minimum this year.
  • When Mary walked by to put the chickens to bed for the night (the pear tree is just west of the chicken coop), I watched a peregrine falcon fly west to east at a very fast speed as it descended in elevation. While collecting cut pear branches to toss deep in the north woods, I watched a Cooper's hawk fly to the west.
    
  • There is a frog sound that we hear and then say, "The Gollum frogs are calling." Mary watched to a Missouri Dept. of Conservation movie about different frog calls and determined that it's the call of a leopard frog. They started calling today from Frog Pond.
  • We watched the 2008 movie, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. We picked up the DVD at the Salvation Army store in Quincy recently. It's an excellent movie that takes place in 1939 England and is based on a fictional book written during that era.
    

• Saturday, 3/16: Coyotes & Racking Garlic Wine
  
  • We walked the dogs around Rose Butt Field, the open field, east of Bass Pond. As we walked down the north edge of that field, two coyotes jumped out of the weeds and ran ahead of us. Plato started to bound off after them, so we both yelled at him and he stopped. But, the coyotes really took off with our raised voices. One went south across the field and one ran into the forest north of that field. They were small, about the size of Amber. 
  • On the way back, we spotted two Bradford pear trees blooming near Bass Pond. After taking the dogs home, I went back and tied a blaze orange ribbon around one of those pear trees. The other one is already marked. I plan to girdle them once they're done blooming. Honey bees are in their blossoms right now. Bradford pear trees are an invasive species.
  • We're starting to find ticks on dogs after daily walks.
    
  • I racked the garlic wine for the third time. I thought I'd lose enough liquid with the lees to gain less than the starting five gallons in the carboy. But, when finished, I filled a three-gallon carboy and two one-gallon jugs. Obviously, the five-gallon carboy I pulled the wine out of is larger than five gallons. The pH was unchanged at 3.0 and the specific gravity dropped slightly, from 0.997 to 0.994. I added one gram of K-meta, which is the full dose for five gallons. When finished, the whole house smelled garlicy, but in a good way. The aroma resembled a good Eastern European sausage, or salami.
  • We talked with Bill for over an hour in the evening. A couple days earlier, he noticed a tornado siren blaring as he left for work. At a stoplight on the way to work, another tornado siren sounded. He didn't see anything, but several co-workers had hail damage that destroyed car windshields. His employer might implement work on Saturdays, as they're clearing out inventory with the eventual shutdown of the St. Louis branch of business.
    

• Sunday, 3/17: Quiet St. Paddy's Day
  
  • Mary and I took the day off from doing much of anything. Temperatures are cool outside and a strong northwest wind makes it seem even cooler.
  • We walked the dogs around the west field. There is a four-foot diameter water hole at the northwest corner of that field. It usually contains clear water. For several weeks, the water has been muddy. We think a turtle is in it and stirring up the mud. I'm not testing the waters by wading through it, in case it contains a snapping turtle.
  • I covered the winter greens with plastic and blankets before darkness fell, due to a prediction of temperatures dipping into the low 20s, tonight.
    
  • Mary made what she calls an English Tea. We enjoyed two pots, each, of China Yunnan loose leaf tea, boiled eggs, corn bread topped with jelly, and an orange. We watched three episodes in season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.
    

March 4-10, 2024

Weather | 3/4, partly cloudy, 0.15" rain, 45°, 75° | 3/5, cloudy, 39°, 49° | 3/6, sunny, 32°, 57° | 3/7, cloudy to 0.79" rain, 37°, 53° | 3/8, misty, 0.03" rain, 45°, 47° | 3/9, sunny, 27°, 47° | 3/10, sunny, 23°, 51° |

• Monday, 3/4: It Rained!
  
  • Mary watched a bald eagle fly low over the south field near the house this morning.
    
  • Katie texted that she's considering reenlisting in the Alaska National Guard.
  • I took the dogs on a walk around the west field. Mary stayed home, confining herself to inside, due to pollen pouring out of the cedar trees in huge yellow clouds with strong south winds.
    
  • Mary identified a tree we found last year on our property bordering the gravel road that has purple berries (see photo, below). It's called a shad bush, also known as service berries. It's known to make excellent jelly and wine...mmm!!! We hope to propagate this tree into several more, but closer to our house.
    
  • Speaking of tasty things, Mary made a cherry crisp using two packages of our homegrown pie cherries. It's amazing.
    
  • While Mary did some house cleaning, I packaged rags into five cat litter buckets and moved them out into the machine shed. Mice don't chew through those four-gallon buckets, so we can keep rags safely out of the house, giving us more room inside. In the process, I sorted through an UMCO fishing tackle box of Dad's old electrical connections, fitting some of mine into it.
    
  • The survey transit kit that I tried to buy on Facebook Marketplace was cancelled. The old guy in New York selling it thought he was only advertising locally and didn't realize his ad went out nationwide.
    
  • We enjoyed game night while thunderstorms went through and gave us some much-needed rain (we only got 0.30 inch of rain in February). We played Azul while drinking two pots, each, of China Yunnan tea and getting a taste of the cherry crisp. We didn't keep track of scores.

  

  Shad bush or service berry.

• Tuesday, 3/5: Cardboard Box Day
  
  • We experienced a cloudy day.
  • While Mary paid the bills, I balanced our checkbook.
    
  • We took a hike along an old tractor trail deep into the north woods. When it was time to cross the steep banks of a dried up creek, Amber refused, sat down, and watched us climb the opposite hill. I went back and led Amber back up the tractor trail and home. Mary and Plato meandered through the woods and got home later. Mary says, "I never get lost, but I was a bit confused." We noticed the starting leaves of spring beauties pushing through the timber floor.
    
  • I broke down cardboard boxes stored in the machine shed. Some were distorted and dirty, so I burned them, along with other items, such as a bag of Christmas wrapping and four cornstalk baskets that Mary tossed (they burned hot). At dusk, I tied up three large bundles of cardboard that we'll leave at the recycle location in Quincy, tomorrow. There's more cardboard and junk to clean up in the machine shed.
    
  • Bill texted us. He gets weekends off from work, these days. He used to work on Saturday.
  • Mom texted that service berries grew wild where she grew up at Lolo, Montana. Her mother never made anything out of them, because they were bland and without taste. I never tasted ours, since I don't eat anything until I identify it. We got to thinking, since they mature in June, the same time as cherries, and birds really love them, service berries might make a good trap crop for attracting birds away from ripening cherries.
    

• Wednesday, 3/6: A New Mower
  
  • While walking our pups this morning, we watched nine deer cross our lane in front of us, heading west. Plato ran towards them and gave them a "woof, woof" send off.
    
  • We went shopping in Quincy.
    
  • A stop at Farm & Home with my large Stihl chainsaw indicated good news. They didn't have the chainsaw's clutch hub pinion bearing, so they ordered it in. It will only cost $10. The guy who services Stihl chainsaws thought the unknown metal part I shook out the saw was part of the pinion bearing. We bought a Cub Cadet push mower with a Kohler 173 cc engine. Our old mowers had the same size Kohler engines and we feel they're real work horses. An old mower bought in 2010 is shot and the other that was bought 2011 is starting to smoke. We were told this new machine is a professional-type mower.
    
  • After emptying the pickup and doing evening chores, we watched two movies we bought today at the Salvation Army store. They are the 1994 film, The Lion King and the 2016 movie, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I never saw the first movie, even though Mary and my kids saw it several times when we lived in Circle, MT. The second one is weird, of course, because it's a Tim Burton film, but it is quite good.
    

• Thursday, 3/7: Katie Makes History
  
  • Katie sent the below photo yesterday morning, stating she took part in an historical moment with the following information: "I got to go to the first USAF/RSAF women’s engagement event. Women have been allowed in RSAF for less than three years. The women pictured are the first “CE” women; they are technical engineers (similar to PMs)." 
  • I walked the dogs on an east loop. There were no deer tracks in the sand of the dry creek bed.
  • I downloaded the Kohler service manual for our newly purchased lawn mower. This engine has an oil filter similar to those on motor vehicles, plus an air filter and a prefilter. It's built to last. The best oil for it is 10w50. The only place selling that is O'Reilly Auto Parts in Quincy at a mere $12-13 a quart. I'll stick with the label on the engine, which calls for 10w30 oil, that I can get a whole lot cheaper.
    
  • We experienced a really nice rain that started right after we did evening chores, which we did around mid afternoon, due to the weather forecast. A steady rain fell until after we went to bed.

  

  Katie with her female Saudi Arabian cohorts.

• Friday, 3/8: Income Taxes & Splitting Firewood
  
  • It was a dark and misty day. Sometimes there were clouds of mist floating by on the wind.
    
  • Mary saw an eastern phoebe in the early afternoon, the first of the year. It was parked in mulberry bush just outside sunroom window.
  • I did the federal and state income taxes and sent them in, electronically. They were both accepted within just a couple hours.
    
  • I ordered 25 chicks from Cackle Hatchery. We'll get them in the mail between June 11-13.
    
  • I split the equivalent of two wagon loads of firewood and sorted the split wood into dry, wet, and green piles. Ash is much easier to split when it's green.
    
  • We saw our resident deer moving around in the west field in the morning. In the evening, the twin deer born last summer were at the edge of the woods west of the house.
  • Coyotes were howling close to us while we walked the dogs for their final outing of the night.
    

• Saturday, 3/9: Pruning Small Trees
  
  • This morning, Mary ran back to the house with our two pups while walking the dogs, because she heard baying hounds approaching through the southwest woods. Then, while letting the chickens out for the day, four large hounds that were probably sniffing out coyotes, ran right past the chicken yard. Mary hollered for them to leave, which they did. Locals don't have any problem with letting their hounds run all over your land.
  • I moved firewood into one pile in the woodshed, then cleaned up bark and scraps of wood from the floor and dumped them around two small trees south of the house.
    
  • Mary pruned small trees, while I applied Tree Kote on all newly cut surfaces. Flower buds are already appearing on the small Bartlett pear. We found some small Prairie Fire crabapple starts under the parent tree. I want to transplant them closer to some of our other apple trees so they can enhance pollination. A strong northwest wind blew, so pruning big trees was out of the question.
    
  • Grass is greening up everywhere...good thing we got a new lawnmower!br />

• Sunday, 3/10: Pruning the Empire Tree
  
  • We enjoyed a perfectly sunny day.
  • Red dust in the center of cherry wood resembles wetness, so when I split this wood two days ago, I stacked it all in the wet pile. Today while moving firewood to the woodshed, I realized my mistake. Besides a nice start of firewood for next fall/winter/spring, I got halfway through a cross-cross stack of green ash firewood on the inside north wall of the machine shed.
  • Mary and I pruned the Empire apple tree. She pruned branches reachable from the ground while I painted cut surfaces with Tree Kote. Then I pruned and painted top branches atop a step ladder. Last year, we didn't use Tree Kote, a latex wound covering, because the "experts" say it's not good for trees. Unfortunately, we saw fire blight damage like never before, due to open pruning cuts on trees. We aren't making that mistake, again.
    
  • We saw a big flock of snow geese glide by to the west, very high in the sky, while pruning the tree.
    
  • After the sun set, we watched 13 deer meander across the south meadow. It's the most deer we've ever seen at one time. Mary watched three separate occasions when a deer would lay its ears all the way back and raise the tail halfway up with all white hair sticking straight out. It would raise up and strike another deer with its forelegs. This was the first time she's ever seen a deer get angry at another deer. Below is a photo of one of the 13 deer that was close to the house.

  

  One of the 13 deer roaming the south meadow.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Feb. 26-March 3, 2024

Weather | 2/26, sunny, 30°, 75° | 2/27, sunny, 30°, 77° | 2/28, skiff snow, 0.01" moisture, 13°, 33° | 2/29, sunny, 16°, 53° | 3/1, cloudy, 35°, 49° | 3/2, sunny, 29°, 63° | 3/3, sunny, 47°, 78° |

• Monday, 2/26: Marking Out Future Trees
  
  • While letting out chickens this morning, we watched more snow geese fly overhead. The wind was relatively calm at that moment, but we watched them getting pushed north as they flew west, indicating a strong south wind aloft.
    
  • We walked the dogs around the west field and by Frog Pond (see photo, below). It's a small pond dug out years ago with a tumble bug pulled behind horses.
    
  • The Eurasian collared doves obviously don't like us and have moved on to a new home. We're back to hearing mourning doves. I heard meadowlarks throughout the day.
    
  • I measured 25 feet from existing apple trees in the south field and marked where I want to put the three apple rootstocks after grafting McIntosh scions onto them. Mary and I also looked at where I'll install an electric fence around this developing orchard.
    
  • Mary finished breaking up sticks in the machine shed for kindling, then picked up more downed branches in the yard.
    
  • The gooseberry plants are starting to leaf out.
  • We were really warm, probably breaking record high temperatures for today. We had strong south wind gusts making the towels on the line dry within an hour.
  • I've become more like Grandpa Willis Melvin. I wore dark blue coveralls outside today and the 75° heat felt good. I remember visiting my grandparents in Maryland in 1977 when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. After years in Alaska, temperatures in the 60s in Maryland felt really hot and I couldn't believe it when my grandfather sat out in the sun wearing a black wool sweater and black pants. Now, I'm like he was, but only to a certain extent. Later this afternoon, I was walking around outside in shorts.
    

  

  Frog Pond, with our house in the background.

• Tuesday, 2/27: Heat, Followed by Cold
  
  • Skies just above the horizon looked smokey this morning. Later in the day we experienced a southwest wind. Then at night, Mary read about a big Texas Panhandle grass fire, which probably contributed to our morning smokey appearance.
    
  • We walked puppies on an eastern loop that included Wood Duck Pond. Mallards flew off when we approached the shoreline, a first for us this year. I took a photo of Dove Pond (see below), which sits close to Bass Pond.
    
  • I used the steel blade on the trimmer and whacked down dead grass in trails and circles to plant three future apple trees once I graft them.
    
  • During evening chores, we saw a Cooper's hawk. It can be identified by a long tail.
  • We had a record high for today of 77°, then a northwest wind started blowing with gusts to 45 mph, dropping our temperatures after dark. Mary and I covered the winter greens with plastic and blankets. By our nighttime dog walk, the outside temperature dropped 47°, to 30°. It's a shock to the system when it was 77° a few hours earlier.

  

  Dove Pond is spring fed. Just beyond this photo is Bass Pond.

• Wednesday, 2/28: Better Knife Sharpening
  
  • We saw six deer walk next to the west side of the far garden this morning.
    
  • Temperatures were cool and it was very windy, today. We kept chickens in the coop and the winter greens covered.
    
  • Due to the possibility of branches or trees falling, we stayed out of the woods and just let the dogs meander around in the north yard. A big tree branch cracked, putting the tips near the ground, where rabbits chewed the bark off several small branch tips (see photo, below).
    
  • There were several dozen robins in the north yard today, looking for worms and bugs.
    
  • I sharpened knives for the second day in a row. I used to rub knives on the sharpening stone in a circular motion. I read in the How to Sharpen Anything book by Don Geary that it's best to pass the knife with the sharpened edge moving away from the stone's surface, instead of into it. He writes to give the knife 20 strokes on each side of the blade on each grit surface, moving from the course grit to the fine grit. Using this method, our knives are the sharpest they've ever been. I remember watching Grandad Melvin sharpening knives this way and his knives were always super sharp.
    
  • I adjusted our new house layout in the east yard to align with true north, shifting the house location so that the southeast corner moved away from the line of walnut trees at the edge of the east yard. This new layout fits better in the yard.
    
  • Mary practiced drawing and worked on a cross stitch project.

This oak branch cracked, sending the tips to the ground.

Rabbits then chewed bark off all of the branch tips.

• Thursday, 2/29: Removing East Fenceline Trees
  
  • Mary made a really yummy batch of chicken noodle soup.
  • Mary and I cut up five trees along the east property fenceline . They were all growing through the barbed wire fencing. The fence leans to the east and in some places it extends over a foot of ground area. Two were cedar trees and three were honey locust trees. You have to tenderly work with honey locust branches that are filled with long thorns. One honey locust tree was severely thorny. It had foot-long thorns at the base of a branch division. I carefully dropped branches and then gingerly tossed them over the fence where Mary carefully picked them up and stacked them on our side of the property line, but away from the fence. We noticed some growth rings that were almost an inch wide. Our neighbor's fertilizer really boosted growth in these trees. The large-thorned locust tree slowed us way down. Mary said she'd take down an entire forest of cedars rather than tackle another honey locust like that one. I painted all honey locust stumps with triclopyr, an herbicide that targets woody plants, since locust trees are famous for sending up multiple shoots once cut.
  • We have a walnut forest growing near a huge cottonwood tree that Mary walked by. Mary planted walnuts in that area in 2012. It worked.
    
  • We noticed green tip and bud break on the Sargent crabapple tree, which is way too early.
  • I watched two Vs of snow geese glide over our property while cleaning the small chainsaw.
    
  • We watched the 2009 movie, Leap Year, since it's Leap Day, today.
    

• Friday, 3/1: 11 Deer!
  
  • While I made breakfast waffles, Mary let out the chickens and fed them. In the process, she saw 11 deer in the west field.
  • I assessed unwanted items that we own, several of which we inherited when we moved here. Some, such as a lot of three-point hitch small farm implements, we can sell. Others we can sell as iron scrap. My scrap list contains 35 items. The to-sell list includes 19 items.
  • Amber, our vizsla/pitbull cross, always tries to chew up bits of wood from the wood rack in the living room when we're both outside. She does it so often that Mary says her name should be Termite.
  • One of our amaryllis plants bloomed today (see photo, below). This one, called Samba, bloomed the first two years, but hasn't bloomed for the past two years.

  

  A Samba amaryllis blossom.

• Saturday, 3/2: Cutting Firewood
  
  • A strong south wind started blowing around 11 a.m., and continued for the rest of the day.
  • We walked the dogs in the south field and checked out potential dead trees to cut up for firewood.
  • Mary and I took the tractor/trailer to the edge of the woods on the west side of the south field and got a load of firewood. I took down an ash tree that looked dead, with emerald ash borer marks on the bark. All of our ash trees are showing this problem. After cutting it up, we realized that some green shoots were growing out of the top of the tree, so it's green wood. But, after we split it and let it dry over the summer, it will be ready this fall. I cut up two other dead trees that were on the ground that were very good and dry. We spotted two large trees deeper into the woods that are down, but mostly above ground, that will make great firewood.
  • All of the wild Missouri gooseberry bushes that I cut to make paths for hauling out firewood are popping with new green leaf sprouts.
  • The big chainsaw ran poorly. I had to rev the engine to keep it running. It would jump and stop cutting while I was going through thick logs. Plus, it smoked after a bit of cutting. In the evening, I cleaned it, removed gas and ran the engine without the bar and chain to run all gas out of the carburetor. While doing this, sparks flew from the clutch assembly under the sprocket drum. I'll take it into a Stihl dealer to see if I can get parts, or if I need to get a new chainsaw. We bought this one on Black Friday in 2009, so it's getting old. A new one of comparable size costs around $900...YIKES!
    

• Sunday, 3/3: Diagnosing the Chainsaw
  
  • We experienced south wind gusts to 43 mph. When we took dogs on their final nightly walk, someone pulled the plug on the wind fan and it was dead still. On big gusts during daylight hours you could see yellow cedar pollen filling the air...cough, cough, cough!
  • We hit another new record high temperature for the day.
    
  • A Carolina wren sassed us as we did the morning chores. Mary saw the first chipping sparrow of the year. We heard snow geese flying over on our nighttime dog walk.
    
  • I took the big chain saw apart and found that the housing holding the roller bearings under the chain brake hub evaporated. Fortunately, I found all eight roller bearings and they weren't ground to smithereens. The hub shows a blue hue near its center where it overheated. It might need replacing. Looking online, all of the symptoms I experienced when I last used the saw is indicative of a faulty chain brake. Unfortunately, I also found a tiny bit of cast iron when I shook out the last two roller bearings. I need to ask someone who takes Stihl chainsaws apart to identify that piece of iron and determine if it's significant. If possible, I'd like to keep this chainsaw going. Stihl makes three classifications of chainsaws and this one is the smallest of its professional series. Several parts in this saw are identical to larger chainsaws used by foresters.
    
  • David Marquette, our skinny hippy neighbor to the south, drove in on a four-wheeler with his shaggy Australian shepherd. He was driving on the trails in the woods to the west of our property, got onto our property, then decided to let us know he was there. I told him I heard a big gun go off to the south a couple evenings ago and asked if it was him. Yes, he said. He's shooting muskrats with a 30:30 rifle. He says he eats them. There would not be much left after a 30:30 bullet hits a muskrat. It's like taking a cannon to a gunfight. David wants to buy chicken eggs from us, because he has egg incubators, but can't find anyone who has a rooster with hens to get fertile eggs. Mary told him our rooster is old and isn't doing anything with hens. But, David talks so much that he doesn't hear what other people say. When I told him that I cut down an apple tree that was filled with fire blight, he then asked if the tree is doing okay. Um, no...it's all cut up into pieces! He did hear Mary when she told him to keep his dog home. We don't want fleas, ticks, or diseases transferring to our pets. "Okay, yes ma'am," David replied to Mary.
    

Feb. 19-25, 2024

Weather | 2/19, sunny, 22°, 53° | 2/20, sunny, 29°, 59° | 2/21, p. cloudy, 40°, 71° | 2/22, p. cloudy, 43°, 64° | 2/23, sunny, 29°, 59° | 2/24, sunny, 23°, 45° | 2/25, sunny, 29°, 68° |

• Monday, 2/19: Removing Deer Stands
  
  • Bill did two loads of laundry, which is cheaper for him at our place. While outside hanging clothes, he saw a flock of snow geese.
  • Bill, Mary and I took the dogs east on a walk. We startled up some Canada geese at Wood Duck Pond.
    
  • Bill helped me take down two deer stands. I don't use them anymore, since I started hunting from blinds with my two feet firmly on the ground. The Wood Duck Deer Stand was very heavy. After taking off cinches, I tied a rope to the top, wrapped it around the tree, then we gradually lowered it to the ground and hauled it up the hill to the tractor, then drove it home. The Cedar Deer Stand in the northeast of our property was easier to take down. I still have to dismantle both of them.
  • Mary pruned 13 small trees and bushes. She reports that everything looks in good shape.
    
  • We watched two movies that Bill picked out. They were Master and Commander and Crazy Rich Asians.
  • We heard a pair of great horned owls while taking the dogs on their nightly walk.
    

• Tuesday, 2/20: I'm 67
  
  • It's my 67th birthday, today. Right before going to bed last night, I noticed a birthday greeting from Katie and a gift card to a fly tying store.
    
  • Katie called right at noon. It was 9 p.m., her time, in Saudi Arabia. She described some of the work she's doing. They experienced a strong sand storm a few nights ago. It blasted a tent and moved it 30 feet. Fortunately, no one was in it at the time. Her bedroom is an 8'x8'x20' container with a small window, not a tent. She looks forward to heading back to Anchorage in April.
    
  • Bill left for St. Charles a little after 1 p.m.
    
  • I took apart the smallest deer stand and stored salvageable pieces of wood in the machine shed. I started working on disassembling the larger deer stand. It takes time, since there are several double-nutted carriage bolts used in it that are spinning around in rotten wood.
    
  • I heard several snow geese flying high to the west overhead. I saw one flock. They're up where the wind can whisk them along.
    
  • I talked to mom on the phone. The Barbulas are doing a good job at managing the grocery store. Nicole Barbula was a high school DECA student who worked for me when I was at Mid-Rivers Telephone in Circle, MT. Mom said Jerry Curtiss is erecting a huge steel building where Community Auto once stood. Where we used to walk dogs that once was a campground of sorts, is now the home of a Dollar General store and an unfinished car wash building. Mom volunteers at the senior center as a way to stay active and visit with everyone.
    

• Wednesday, 2/21: Wood Ducks, Blackbirds & Woodcocks Arrive
  
  • While opening the chicken coop door this morning, we saw a deer in the west field staring at us. Then, three deer ran off to the west.
  • On walking the dogs to Bass Pond, we saw three pairs of wood ducks fly off from under the cedar tree branches on the west shore of that pond. It means they've arrived.
    
  • I finished taking apart the large deer stand, then stored all salvageable lumber in the machine shed.
    
  • While working on the deer stand, I saw and heard several flocks of snow geese flying west.
    
  • Mary checked the garlic plants. She reports that they are looking very nice. They are dark green and growing.
  • We heard the first "con-ga-ree" song of blackbirds, so they've arrived. We also heard the "peenting" sound of American woodcocks, which means they also arrived.
  • Today was exceedingly warm for the end of February, with temperatures reaching the 70s.
    

• Thursday, 2/22: Raking & Collecting Scions
  
  • Mary spotted two deer (see photo, below) out the west living room window at 7:30 a.m. They were chewing on new green grass sprouts growing next to the mulch surrounding the Porter's Perfection crabapple tree. We think they were last year's twins that basically grew up in our yard.
    
  • I raked pecan leaves and put four wheelbarrow loads into the compost bin.
    
  • While outside, I chased away a circling red-tailed hawk that was giving our chickens the hairy eyeball. Two hawks were then circling and calling over the east field. At the same time, I heard another hawk to the north. I think my presence finally chased them away. Our chickens were huddled outside the coop under cedar branches. They're smart and know their enemies.
    
  • I cut several water sprouts off the McIntosh tree to use as scions for grafting onto my three apple rootstocks that I grew from Antonovka seeds last year. I rubbed the cut ends on the wax of a toilet bowl ring that I bought just for that purpose. Then I wrapped each end in plastic wrap and put the scions in a cooler that I stored on the cement in the middle of the machine shed, where it's even cool on a hot summer day.
    
  • We own a compass. I checked it against the compass on my cell phone and there's a difference. According to The Solar House, by Daniel Chiras, true north for northeast Missouri is 6° east of magnetic north. I looked at the stakes marking corners of a future house and I'm off by about three feet at the northwest corner of the future house from true north. This is good, because when adjusted to true north, it swings the southeast corner of the home away from the line of black walnut trees between the east yard and the far garden. I'll have to establish new corner locations to make things right.

  

  Deer next to the Porter's Perfection crabapple tree.

• Friday, 2/23: Making Kindling & Removing Fence
  
  • While drinking morning coffee, Mary spotted a red-tailed hawk landing on the big Bartlett pear tree, so we both ran outside and chased it away. It flew to the north. Consequently, we decided to walk the dogs around the north field. We didn't see a hawk, but it was a nice warm sunny day for a walk.
    
  • Mary made kindling for a couple hours in the machine shed by breaking up or sawing up branches that once fell in the yard and dried in machine shed.
  • I dismantled the five-strand electric fence around the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree, including removing the eight metal fence posts and associated insulators. This tree was completely infected by fire blight last year (see photo, below), so I'm going to saw it down.
  • We watched two very excellent movies. The first one was the 2019 film, Harriet, about Harriet Tubman. It's a very impressive movie. The main actor, Cynthia Erivo, sings the song during the ending credits and it's excellent. The second was the 2020 western movie, News of the World, starring Tom Hanks. The 12-year old (in 2020) actor, Helena Zengel, is really good.

  

  Fire blight scar on Esopus apple tree trunk.

• Saturday, 2/24: Sawing Down Unwanted Trees
  
  • I watched a low-flying V of snow geese fly over our property this morning. I suspect they recently took off from a field somewhere due east of us.
    
  • Mary and I took a nice, quiet walk on the east loop with the dogs.
    
  • I used the small chainsaw to cut down the Esopus and Grimes apple trees. I cut all branches into eight-foot lengths and loaded everything in the wagon behind the 8N Ford tractor. Every branch of the Esopus tree had fire blight. When I cut through a blighted area, the entire circumference of the wood was dead. After eating our midday meal, I drove the cut-up trees to the east edge of our property and threw them in a gully. It's sad, but these trees had to go.
    
  • On the trip east, I took the small chainsaw and cut up two fairly large cedar trees that were growing into fence. I also started cutting branches off a third cedar along the fence. It takes a long time to take these trees down, because you first need to remove branches to see the trunk. Then, cuts across the tree trunk must be carefully made, so the moving chain of the chainsaw doesn't bump into barbed wire. In one instance, two branches grew to completely envelop a barbed wire strand. The last time I spoke with Mr. Neisen, who owns the land east of us, he said trees along the fenceline are growing into his property, preventing him from plowing and harvesting crops along that edge of his field. He said he once took them out with a dozer and Herman, Mary's uncle, rebuilt the fence. We don't want him or his bulldozer near our property, hence the reason to work at cleaning up the fenceline. Cutting down the large honey locust trees possessing three-inch long spines will be interesting!
  • Mary and I both watched four wood ducks fly over the lane heading for Bass Pond, which is ideal for them, because they can swim to the west shoreline and hide under cedar boughs.
    

• Sunday, 2/25: Surveying Kit Purchase
  
  • More low-flying snow geese zoomed over our property this morning.
  • On our daily dog walk, while meandering by Bluegill Pond (see photo, below) and the south field, we heard our first eastern meadowlark of the year.
    
  • Mary heard the first frogs calling near Frog Pond while hanging clothes on the line.
    
  • I bought a used Dewalt survey transit kit from Facebook Market Place. I want it to accurately measure elevations while leveling ground and a gravel pad prior to building a new house. An online check into doing this without a transit revealed hokey ideas. Renting one in Quincy costs $65 a day or $140 for a week. A new one costs $400-$2000. I'll need to use one on multiple occasions. Here's a LINK to the one I found. It will come in handy.
    
  • Mary and I played Michigan Rummy in the evening. Mary won by 22 points in a very close game. There were a lot of firsts, such as collecting all of the paying cards in different games and Mary shutting me out of discarding cards in the final game.
    

  

  Our dogs sniff around Bluegill Pond. Our lane is just beyond here.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Feb. 12-18, 2024

Weather | 2/12, sunny, 21°, 45° | 2/13, cloudy, 28°, 56° | 2/14, sunny, 27°, 55° | 2/15, 0.07" rain, sunny, 31°, 43° | 2/16, 2" snow, 0.22" moisture, 25°, 33° | 2/17, sunny, 5°, 26° | 2/18, sunny, 20°, 43° |

• Monday, 2/12: Gathering Firewood
  • Our daily dog walk took us to the strip of woods south of Bluegill Pond, where we found the primary feathers of a great blue heron laying in an opening in those woods. These feathers were roughly a foot long.
    
  • Mary and I cut a wagon load of oak firewood from the east edge of the southwest woods. Small pieces went into the woodshed and we stacked large pieces next to the splitter in the machine shed. At the end of a downed red oak tree that I cut up was a collection of acorn shells, probably left by a squirrel.
    
  • I cleaned up both the small and large chainsaws, since they've been neglected after several firewood cutting missions over the past months.
    
  • The garlic wine is still burping. It's now letting go with a CO2 bubble every four seconds.
    

• Tuesday, 2/13: 2nd Racking of Garlic Wine
  
  • Our daily dog walk took us on an east loop down Black Medick Hill, north on the dry creek bed to Wood Duck Pond, then up Bramble Hill to Bass Pond (see photos, below), then home. Four giant Canada geese flew off when we approached Wood Duck Pond. They're really huge.
    
  • Mary made peanut clusters, our homemade Valentine's Day candy. It's easy to make. A jar of roasted peanuts goes into 1.5 bags of melted dark chocolate chips. Then dollops are put on wax paper on cookie sheets and put in the freezer. You eat them frozen and they're tons cheaper than store-bought candy sampler boxes. We paid $6.40 and there is still half a bag of chocolate chips left over.
    
  • Mary mopped floors, since after today, I'm done for awhile with winemaking messes.
    
  • I racked the garlic wine for the second time. The specific gravity was 0.997 and the pH was 3.0. There was over 1.5 inches of fines in the bottom of the carboy. I had to add three cups of distilled water to top off the 5-gallon carboy after racking the wine.
  • The garlic aroma of everything was so strong that I went through a major clean up. Containers went outside and were thoroughly washed with a hose and Dawn soap. Bleach cut the garlic smell, followed by three water rinses. The plastic brew bucket still smells of garlic. Several days in the outdoor sun MIGHT knock it back.
    
  • We're getting lots of eggs from our hens, with an average of five to six per day.
  • The silver maple tree buds are turning red and expanding. They are the earliest tree to bloom, here.

Bass Pond from the south shore looking west.

East view of Bass Pond's dam area. Water is low.

• Wednesday, 2/14: Recycling Books & Magazines
  
  • The dog walk took us to the west end of the west field and into the north woods, where we found several large dead standing and fallen oak trees. All of the trees in this area are tall with big diameter trunks (see photos, below). There's also a medium cherry tree that recently fell on the trail to Bobcat Deer Blind that will make great firewood.
    
  • Mary drew up a shopping list.
  • She also sorted through magazines to recycle, removing articles of interest. Mary also went through books to donate. She reviewed her cookbook pamphlet collection.
  • I reviewed one bookshelf of home construction and repair books and reduced them by two-thirds to add to the donated books pile. Several are just too old with outdated information, including a Science and Mechanics Handyman Encyclopedia involving 25 books.
    
  • While doing evening chores, we saw several flocks of snow geese at high elevations. A good southeast wind helped scoot them west. A lot of the time, they weren't beating their wings and just gliding along, pushed by the wind. There should be millions of geese at the Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Missouri. From there, they go north.

Looking at tall oak trees in the north woods.

Plato next to a thick oak tree trunk.

• Thursday, 2/15: Shopping
  
  • The first rain of February fell overnight.
  • All was quiet on our shopping trip to Quincy. I got two brand new stocking hats at the Salvation Army store for $2. At JoAnn, I bought three containers of Diamond Dotz, tiny pieces of shiny plastic usually used to embroider pictures, that I plan to use to embellish fishing lures and flies. Here is a LINK to what they look like. We dropped off three large boxes of books at the Salvation Army and several bundles of old magazines at the City of Quincy recycling bins in the Home Depot parking lot.
  • Each time we crossed the Mississippi River on our shopping trip, we saw bald eagles flying across the river.
    
  • While doing evening chores, a large flock of snow geese flew over our heads. They changed from flying west to southwest and seemed to drop in altitude. When that happened, their wing beats resembled the sound of a jet. A few seconds later, as their wings came down with each stroke, there was a bright flash due to the angle of the setting sun. It was quite spectacular.
    
  • We watched the 1987 movie, The Untouchables, that we bought at the Salvation Army today. It was a DVD sold from Walmart in 2006 and never opened.
    

• Friday, 2/16: Snow
  • Sometime in the night it started snowing. Snow was falling when we woke and it continued until 1 p.m., resulting it two inches on the ground. We left chickens inside their coop, today.
    
  • Mary made lime zinger cookies for my birthday, which is on the 20th. I helped her with a couple cleaning chores around the house.
  • We had plastic over the winter greens last night. This evening, I put blankets over the plastic, with the prediction of cold temperatures through the night.
  • When I walked down to get the mail, a hundred, or so, robins poured out of the cedar trees on the east side of the lane.
    

• Saturday, 2/17: Bill Arrives
  
  • I took the dogs into the north woods for the daily walk. There were lots of deer tracks through the snow, which was very bright with a full sun shining down. I heard a lot of bluebirds, but  couldn't see them.
    
  • While washing dishes, we saw a broad-winged hawk sitting in a walnut tree northeast of the house. It moved to a different walnut tree just east of the kitchen and sat there for several minutes, looking in all directions. Suddenly it was gone. We also saw an American kestrel out the south living room window.
    
  • Bill arrived around 1 p.m. He said he followed a sailboat for several miles and national guard troop convoys were on the highway near Palmyra, MO.
    
  • Bill said he had a birthday present that he couldn't wrap, so he gave it me today. At first I thought it was a huge tent. Instead, it's a big and tall camp chair that is really huge.
    
  • Mary made three pizzas and we ate one and part of another. We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine, a perfect addition to pizza.
    
  • The chickens were in their coop all day. It was cold with a strong west wind blowing. Mary reported that they were very happy and gobbled up all of the new hay that she put in coop a couple days ago.
  • We enjoyed pots of tea and played Trivial Pursuit. Mary won the first game and Bill won the second game. We all helped the person answering questions by posing the question in a such a way as to elicit the right answer. We sort of cheated.
    
  • There was a strong west wind blasting outside as we went to bed.
    

• Sunday, 2/18: Turkey Dinner
  
  • Bill and I took the dogs on a walk to the Bobcat Deer Blind and then around the west field. We saw lots of deer tracks in the snow on the south side of the west field.
    
  • Mary baked a turkey dinner. It was very good. We all enjoyed a bottle of 2021 parsnip wine during and after the meal. Without food, several tastes are evident in this very excellent wine, such as a pineapple undercurrent, along with a mollases, caramel taste. These are flavors you would never dream could come from parsnips. It's also very golden in color. The parsnip wine currently in the carboy in the pantry possesses a darker color.
    
  • We saw the broad-shouldered hawk in the walnut tree northwest of the house, again. Mary and I chased starlings away twice during the day.
    
  • We watched two movies that Bill picked out. The first was Children of Huang Shi, a 2008 movie about an orphanage during the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s. It's an intense movie. Then, we watched the 2003 movie, Johnny English, which is pure silliness.
    

Feb. 5-11, 2024

Weather | 2/5, p. cloudy, 27°, 53° | 2/6, sunny, 25°, 56° | 2/7, cloudy, 31°, 55° | 2/8, sunny, 45°, 66° | 2/9, p. cloudy, 38°, 58° | 2/10, sunny, 26°, 46° | 2/11, sunny, 25°, 41° |

• Monday, 2/5: Laying Out a New House
  
  • I removed one-gallon jugs that held switchel in the apple trees. This is a job that I should have done last fall. Last spring, I secured the jugs on branches using a clove hitch knot that sunk into the bark as the trees grew through the summer. With a filet knife, today I carefully cut the twine in these knots. Deep grooves are left in the branches. A loose connective knot must be used in the future.
  • The trunk of the Esopus apple tree that was infected by fire blight is now showing rotting wood. I need to take that tree out and burn the wood to eliminate further fire blight contamination of other trees.
    
  • I plotted out corner locations of a future house at the north end of the east yard. It took repeated efforts to get the rectangle squared with 90-degree corners. When I showed Mary, we realized that if a large pecan tree fell, it could crash on a future house roof. Mary suggested moving the house location southward and closer to water and electricity. We looked at it and decided to relocate where we'd put the house. I moved my rebar corner pieces. After several attempts at squaring up the rectangle, I quit for the day. A fresh outlook and some Pythagorean theorem applications might speed my work.
    
  • Last weekend, I sent a message to the owner of coolers for sale in LaBelle, but received no response. Today, I sent a message to guy in Quincy who is also selling old coolers. He wants $20 for a couple of them. He will get back to me on when to pick them up. It's for additional full wine bottle storage.
  • Our garden seeds arrived in today's mail. The package ping-ponged between U.S. Postal facilities in St. Louis for several days before coming north to Ewing, MO.
  • The garlic wine's fermentation is very slow, but the smell hits you like a ton of bricks, especially after coming in from outside. I stirred the must and squeezed the bag prior to going to bed, and that increased the smell even more!
    

• Tuesday, 2/6: Small House Footprint Isn't Small
  
  • Mary and I walked the dogs to Wood Duck Pond and back. On Bramble Hill, we spooked up some turkey. On the way back home, one of those turkeys flew right over top of us. They're really big birds. Water in the pond is up to normal levels. During hunting season, it was much lower. There is still ice on the middle of the pond. We watched a big ripple as something swam away from us once we walked up to the pond's shoreline.
    
  • Mary dusted books in the north bedroom and picked more books out to donate.
  • I finished flagging the house layout in our east yard. It was interesting going while stepping around small persimmon trees that are over my head and prickly rose bushes. Marked out on the ground, it looks small, but altogether, it's 2,136 square feet and our current house is 1,981 square feet. The asparagus bed has to move. The front edge of a new house smothers it.
  • While outside, I heard and saw swans flying around in our neighbor's field east of our property.
    
  • More foam and bubbles indicate yeast is starting to ferment in the garlic wine. I squeezed the bag and stirred the must twice, today. The specific gravity is 1.094, so it's got a long way to go before I rack it into a carboy. At bedtime, fizzing increased, boosted by higher yeast activity.
  • Below is how I feel some mornings. This came from a blog that Mary follows.
  

• Wednesday, 2/7: Buying a Cooler
  
  • Mary and I walked the dogs west to the Bobcat Deer Blind and then around the west field. Muddy places in the trail were filled with deer tracks. Several branches and dead trees are blown down in the timber.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2021 pear wine with turkey pot pie and corn on the cob. Both the midday meal and the wine tasted good.
  • I drove to Quincy and bought a cooler for full wine bottle storage for only $10.
  • I counted 315 bottles of homemade wine currently stored for future consumption.
    
  • While Mary was at home doing chores, she saw a Ross's goose leading a flock of snow geese. It's white, like a snow goose, but about half the size of a snow goose. Mary also saw a red-tailed hawk parked on an elm tree alongside the trail to the ponds. On the way to Quincy, I saw about 2-3 dozen trumpeter swans in the disked corn field east of our place.
    
  • I squeezed and stirred the garlic wine twice, today. Fermentation is more robust and it's loudly fizzing. The specific gravity is 1.081.
    

• Thursday, 2/8: Winds & Snow Geese
  
  • I cleaned up the cooler I bought yesterday. Coleman imprinted the name of the company it came from on the front of the cooler. There was a sticker inside that said additional charges would incur if the cooler wasn't returned. I looked up this company, based in Peoria, IL. It's a company that tests groundwater, waste sites, sewer sites, and building sites for various harmful chemicals, including PCBs. The guy I bought the cooler from works for an engineering firm. He got the cooler from work. It looks new.
    
  • On a walk around the north field with the dogs, we saw several Vs of snow geese struggling against a strong southwest wind as they flew westerly. Geese would fly into the wind for awhile, then glide to the west, northwest. Gusts were to 45 mph.
    
  • By late afternoon, wind blew the old catfish pen off the apple rootstocks and into the chicken wire rabbit fence in the near garden. I tied rootstock tops together with a piece of baling twine and put the old catfish pen back over the rootstocks, then weighed it down with three metal fence posts that I had on the south porch.
    
  • Grabbing the fence posts made me realize that the south storm door was so shot that the sliding window in it was about to fall out, especially with the strong wind. Today's storm doors contain cheap chipboard covered in white vinyl. When water gets into the board, it disintegrates to sawdust. I removed the window and all metal trim to possibly use in a homemade storm door. I bet I can make a better door than the cheap chipboard garbage available today for $210 and up. 
    
  • We watched the 2002 BBC series, Prehistoric Planet.
  • I squeezed the bag and stirred the garlic wine. The fermentation is very robust. The specific gravity is 1.054. The aroma is flowery, now.
    

• Friday, 2/9: An Oil Change
  
  • We walked the dogs to the east, down Black Medick Hill, down the dry creek bed to Wood Duck Pond, then up Bramble Hill and home (see photos, below). It was a beautiful day for a nice walk.
    
  • Mary noticed two first-of-the-year birds. One was a white-throated sparrow. This bird goes up into Canada and is here on its winter vacation. She also saw an American kestrel. It flew from one black walnut tree to another and then was scolded by a squadron of blue jays.
  • I cleaned up the mounds of sawdust left on the south porch by a crumbling storm door. I peeled vinyl off still-intact particle board, then threw all of the wood away in the southwest timber.
    
  • I changed oil and the oil filter on the pickup. Some seals are starting to leak, since there's more oil on the bottom of the engine.
    
  • In the evening, a check of the garlic wine showed that the specific gravity is at 1.027, which means I will probably be racking it tomorrow morning. This wine started as very clear. Now, it's cream colored.

Wood Duck Pond from the south shore looking north.

Our puppies on the Bramble Hill Trail.

• Saturday, 2/10: First Racking of Garlic Wine
  
  • On our daily dog walk, we darted off into the north woods from the north yard and meandered around shrubs and large trees, walking west and north. There are several standing dead trees, or dead branches, with holes bored into them. These become homes to several types of birds and rodents.
  • Mary cross stitched and finished a small project.
  • I racked the garlic wine for the first time after getting a specific gravity reading of 1.009. The pH was 3.1. Liquid filled a 5-gallon carboy, a 750-ml wine bottle and part of a beer bottle. The yeast is so strong that I had several foam overflows after placing the wine in a carboy. I was forced to siphon out liquid and then install an overflow airlock, an occurrence uncommon to my past garlic winemaking. All through the night, gas bubbled into a quart canning jar (see video, below).
  • We enjoyed three pots, each, of China Yunan loose leaf tea, and played the board game, Azul. The game is fun. We played for six hours and time passed quickly. Mary won several games in the first hours. I started winning more games in the second half of the evening.
    Robust garlic wine fermentation. Sorry for sideways tilt at the end.
    
    
    

• Sunday, 2/11: Chiefs Win Super Bowl
  
  • We startled six deer as we walked across the west lawn this morning.
  • Our daily dog walk took us on a jaunt through the southwest woods, where we found some good dry firewood.
  • Mary did some cross stitching while I did some online research about gravel depths under slab on grade construction. I also sorted through home repair books to determine several to donate out of our collection.
    
  • The garlic wine is still belching CO2 gas with one burp every second.
  • We spent the evening listening to the Super Bowl. The Kansas City Chiefs pulled it out with three seconds left in overtime to win 25-22 over the 49ers. It was quite a game! Our state team won...YAHOO!