March 27 - April 4, 2022

Weather | 3/27, 22°, 43° | 3/28, 29°, 46° | 3/29, 34°, 58° | 3/30, 0.62" rain, 51°, 39° | 3/31, 0.31" rain, 31°, 36° | 4/1, 23°, 52° | 4/2, 0.02" rain, 36°, 57° |

• Sunday, 3/27: Cleaning Cupboards & Hauling Branches
  
  • When I set the woodstove ashes out on the front porch, four deer scampered about in the north yard and then ran into the north woods.
  • We uncovered strawberry plants that we put blankets over to protect them from frost. Temps in the 20s didn't affect fruit tree buds, although they're stalled out right now.
    
  • Mary cleaned kitchen cupboards, cleaning both the contents and the shelves. A few items were sorted out to donate.
  • I hauled branches all day to the gully east of the house. I trudged down and up the hill all day. First went the last of the heavy black walnut branches, then light elderberry branches, and very heavy autumn olive branches, and finally load after load of sawed-up rose branches. I used a pitchfork to load these thorny sticks onto an old kids' plastic toboggan, then towed them down the hill. It took many trips. Next, I need to saw up persimmon poles into 4-foot garden stakes, and put fishline fences around the two apple trees.
    
  • We watched a low-flying and large V of cackling geese go overhead while doing evening chores.
  • We watched the Downton Abbey movie, and the extras on the disc, the last of our Downton multi-week binge.
    
    
• Monday, 3/28: Asparagus Bed & Fishline Fence
  
  • I asked Lisa Gross, the personnel director at Mid-Rivers Communications in Glendive, MT, about paperwork I need to sign related to the pension. One option had a higher monthly dollar amount than what we currently get. Lisa explained our current option involves Mary getting a 100% monthly pension amount, in the case of my death, whereas the other option listed for a higher monthly payment is for a 50% pension after my death. We'll stay with what we have.
  • I weedwhacked a path in the high grass to and around the asparagus bed in the east yard.
  • Mary removed all dead asparagus stalks, cow parsnip greenery, old weeds, and grass from the asparagus bed. She removed a side of steel roofing from the compost bin containing 2-year old compost and added a generous helping to the asparagus bed. It's now ready to grow new shoots. YUM!
    
  • Mary also gave the garlic a batch of fish fertilizer.
    
  • I cut persimmon saplings larger than an inch in diameter into 19 four-foot long stakes for holding up chicken wire fences to hold out rabbits from getting into the gardens. The small Stihl chainsaw does this nicely. I hauled off persimmon sapling tops to the edge of the dry pond east of the gardens.
  • I then took the small chainsaw and cut down 2- to 3-foot persimmon saplings that grew from stumps of larger saplings I cut down last year. In some cases, a dozen quarter-inch in diameter sticks grew from one 2-inch in diameter stump. Persimmon trees are extremely aggressive reproducers! I meant to clean up sticks all over the east yard and all I did was make more work for myself. It's a long slog fighting against Mother Nature's work.
  • Mary filled all outside lines with 2 big loads of laundry.
    
  • I removed the 2 cow panels that were around part of the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree, cut down tall grass that grew up next to these panels with the grass trimmer, pounded in 4 steel fence posts, then tied 3 strands of 100-pound test fishline around the posts to form a deer barrier to that tree. A east wind blowing with temps below 40° meant I went inside a few times to warm my numb fingers. The fishline trick really works. Deer reaching for leaves or fruit feel this unseen resistance and shy away, not knowing what that weird feeling is all about. It's cheap and effective deer repellent for fruit trees.
  • Mary did most of the evening chores, since I finished the fishline fence right at sunset.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/29: Low-Flying Jets
  
  • During the morning hours, we had 4 different instances when low-flying fighter jets went over the property, from east to west. We think they were practicing under-the-radar maneuvers with a strong east wind blowing while flying over variable fields and woods.
    
  • Mary cleaned ceilings in the sunroom and the bathroom. She also vacuumed bugs over and over, again.
  • Mary made a very fine tasting apple pie.
    
  • I picked up sticks in the east yard, including small branches knocked off persimmon and black walnut stalks, thousands of short persimmon stalks, and 4 piles of old branches from persimmons I cut down last year that were buried in tall, dead grass. It took all afternoon, as I hauled several wheelbarrow loads to the dry pond.
    
  • We tried some cherry wine with slices of apple pie, as an evening treat. This is wine that I recently bottled (see photo, below). It's still in a raw state, with a strong alcohol taste, even though a tart sour cherry taste peeps through. Aging will help this wine.

  

  Cherry wine from cherries off our trees.
  

• Wednesday, 3/30: New Apple Trees Shipped
  
  • We got an email that Fedco is shipping our 2 apple trees to us. One is a Liberty apple tree and the other is a Porter's Perfection, a cider apple, or crabapple tree.
    
  • Cold and rainy weather kept us inside for most of the day.
  • I gave Mary a haircut.
  • Mary made a shopping list and planned the location of plants in this year's gardens.
  • We enjoyed baked chicken with sweet potatoes for our midday meal.
  • Mary and I took turns vacuuming armies of Asian ladybugs.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/31: Two Feet of New Books
  
  • We went to the spring book sale for Friends of the Library in Quincy, IL. We purchased a couple stacks of books that are a total of 2 feet high for 50 cents an inch, or $12. We also picked up some food items.
  • At Salvation Army, Mary spotted a set of dishes called Raspberry Social that she really liked. So we bought it for $40 to replace the ugly dishes Mary bought at a dollar store in Glendive, MT, 23 years ago (see photo, below). Mary looked online and a set of eight of these dishes costs $260. We got 10, instead of 8 dinner plates. We're missing 5 salad plates. Everything else is there. It's a nice improvement.
    
  • It rained light mist, with occasional sleet, that came down with gusto at times while we were in Quincy.
    
  • Mary and I enjoyed an indoor wienie roast by opening the door of the woodstove and cooking the hotdogs inside the stove over the burning logs. It was yummy.
  • We looked over all of our 2' of books. Several were American Heritage hardcover magazines to further fill up Mary's collection. I remember looking at them when I was a student librarian for Mrs. Jane Cason at Homer High School in the '70s.
  • When we drove to town, we saw a tom turkey try to ram through the panels of a sheep/hog fence along the gravel road. Finally, it flew over top of the fence. It was a huge one, with a big beard.
  • While reviewing our new books, Mary heard what sounded like little song birds. She looked out the south living room window and saw a mama rabbit inching up to the house. The sound was coming from a nest of baby bunnies...more food for coyotes, hawks, and owls.

  

  Our new dishes, called Raspberry Social.
  

• Friday, 4/1: Fruit Tree Spraying
  
  • An 4-year old hen died overnight. We called her Crook, because her comb always fell over sideways on top of her head. She was always ornery, pecking all of the younger hens. We now have 10 hens and 1 rooster.
    
  • Mary mopped floors, dusted, and put away recently purchased books.
  • Mary spent an hour to vacuum bugs. I did an end-of-the-day bug vacuum.
    
  • I sprayed Immunox, a fungicide, on all of the cherry trees, the mystery apple tree, the Sargent and prairie fire crabapple trees, the Esopus, and the Mac apple trees. This was the second Immunox spray for the Mac and Esopus trees. It took 3 hours and 3 gallons of tank mix. There is an ever so slightly movement on tree buds. This morning was ideal for spraying. It was sunny with hardly any wind and I finished spraying well before the start of the next rain, predicted for 5 a.m., tomorrow.
    
  • At one point I was on the step ladder spraying the top of the prairie fire crapapple tree when I thought the tree was hissing at me. I got off the ladder and realized a whirlwind went through and oak leaves were dropping in all of the trees just north of me, creating that sound. That was an odd sensation.
  • I checked an old pile of soil made from piling up sod removed when we made garden strips in 2009. It's too laden with deep grass roots, so forget that! I harvested 2 buckets of rotten wood from a downed oak tree in the north woods. I'll use it beyond the root zone of the two new apple trees that we'll soon receive.
  • After dark, we heard coyotes howling just outside our south living room window. They're getting a little too brave and close.
  • While on our last dog walk, we heard a lone snow goose calling. It's late for a snow goose.
    
    
• Saturday, 4/2: Bill Arrives
  
  • Bill arrived during the noon hour for a 4-day visit. He received a bonus and a 7% raise this week at work.
  • Mary and I took turns vacuuming bugs. They never end, it seems.
  • I collected up a wheelbarrow load of soil from mounds dug in the north yard by moles. I'll use it to build up soil for the 2 apple trees we'll get, soon. According to FedEx, the trees arrived in Quincy, today. I'll drive to Quincy on Monday to pick them up.
  • I also took the small chainsaw to a twig pile and sawed up another wheelbarrow load of sticks that I'll use as ramial wood chips to put just beyond the driplines of the 2 new trees.
  • While I had the chainsaw in hand, I sawed down 4 small trees, a maple, an elm, and 2 mulberry trees, that have grown in and around the lilac bushes, sapping them of nutrients and water. I also cut them up into firewood chunks. Then, I cut down 6 tall coppice branches of a pecan tree that grew out of an old stump and into the McIntosh apple tree branches in the north yard. I also cut down another small tree growing close to the apple tree. I cut all of these up into firewood lengths and left them all on the ground. I'll pick them all up and stack them, tomorrow.
  • We ate nachos and watched 2 movies selected by Bill. They were the 2019 movie, Midway, and the 2011 movie, Super 8.
    

March 20-26, 2022

Weather | 3/20, 34°, 69° | 3/21, 50°, 71° | 3/22, 0.54" rain, 44°, 59° | 3/23, 0.16" rain, 39°, 41° | 3/24, 0.18" rain, 31°, 42° | 3/25, 36°, 53° | 3/26, 29°, 46° |

• Sunday, 3/20: Fruit Tree Cleanup & Spraying
  
  • I used several tanks of gas in the weedwhacker to clean tall grass and brush from under and around the rest of the fruit trees on this mostly sunny day. This included the 2 Bartlett pear trees, 2 apple trees south of the house, 5 small cherry trees SW, west, and SE of the house, and the large McIntosh apple tree in the north yard. On the small trees, I unwired and moved out the circled cow panels, grubbed out the grass, pulled dead weeds and grass from right next to each tree, then reinstalled the cow panels. I also whacked down a trail between cherry trees SW of the house, to the sweet cherry tree, by the lilac bushes (which are showing green leaf buds), and to the east end of the clothesline.
    
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry, spent a bunch of time sucking bugs, and did some housecleaning.
  • A south wind blew all day, but it died enough at dusk, with just a slight SE breath of air, for me to put copper spray on the 2 Bartlett pear trees, the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree, and the Grimes golden apple tree. I used a hat light to view where I sprayed. A hatch out of small moths flew through the Esopus tree as I sprayed. Coyotes howled all around me and a great horned owl hooted to the west. I finished at 8:30 p.m.
  • Bill texted that he tried the November 2021 autumn olive wine and said it is really nice and light and tasted "polished," even though it's not a year old. So, we tried a bottle (see photo, below). It's very good...better than past autumn olive batches. I think the difference is lower amounts of Campden tablets and no potassium sorbate prior to bottling, which isn't needed for making a dry wine.
    
  • We watched 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's 6th season.
  • The yeast in the blackberry wine is lasting a long time. It still bubbles, but the foam on top is dwindling.

  

  Two glasses of very good Nov. 2021 autumn olive wine.
  

• Monday, 3/21: Bugs & Old Electric Fence
  
  • It was national bug day for Mary. It's not how many times she vacuums bugs, but how many hours spent at it, which was over three hours, today. Outside, flies by the thousands are all over the exterior of the house.
  • A tour of all of the fruit trees with Plato and Amber revealed that green tip buds are showing on the Bartlett pear trees and the McIntosh apple tree. Silver tip buds (the first swelling) are on the Esopus Spitzenburg and the Grimes golden apple trees. Cherry trees and the south apple trees are still dormant. The Sargent crabapple is the furthest along, with about 3/8" of green showing on buds.
    
  • I cleaned up old electric fence wires of a big area in the east yard that I once put up to guard the asparagus bed and strawberry beds. We've since discovered that deer and rabbits don't harm asparagus. Invading grass, mold, and rodents nail strawberries on the ground. Plus, persimmon saplings took over that area, so an electric fence is unnecessary. Three very long strands of wires were buried under years of tall grass growth. They had to all be pulled out from under dead tall grass, which was quite a chore. I rolled all of the wires up on an empty spool that once held new wiring, completely filling the spool. I recovered a dozen steel fence posts from the fence. I moved four poles to the Esopus apple tree. They will be four corners of a fish line fence for that tree. Four more went to the Grimes apple tree and the final four went to the skinny mystery apple tree south of the house.
  • High-stepping through the dead grass and the small persimmon trees, I noticed several dead persimmon saplings, all with a black band of bark about a foot above the ground. Some disease killed them. I suspect fire blight, except that usually starts at branch tips. We don't want these little trees there, anyway, so I'll be cleaning them out.
  • Rain started falling just after dark. It was a light rain, but steady.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/22: Mist & Walnut Coppice Removal
  
  • Intermittent rain or mist fell throughout the day. Mini ponds are everywhere.
    
  • Mary cleaned cabinets in the west room. She also made flour tortillas.
  • A tour of the fruit trees: the big Bartlett pear is showing green tipped buds, none on the small Bartlett, thorough green tip buds on McIntosh apple tree, gray going to green on Esopus Spitenburg apple tree, gray tip buds on the Grimes golden apple tree, 1/2" green on Sargent crabapple, dormant on skinny mystery apple tree, green tip on Liberty apple tree, small pie cherry trees are dormant, sweet cherry and large pie cherry are showing bud swelling.
    
  • I took down 5 tall coppice branches that grew out of an old black walnut stump resulting from when I cut down a lightning-damaged tree about 10 years ago. They were interfering with growth and the well-being of 2 apple trees in the east yard. They were about 20 feet high. There's one more to remove, but it leans northerly and without the help of Mary on the end of a long rope, it will hit the Esopus apple tree when I cut it down. I sawed up all branches larger than an inch thick into firewood lengths and stacked them behind the woodshed. Long skinny branches are stacked in a pile, ready to be hauled off. It rained hard at the end of me hauling off firewood-length pieces in a wheelbarrow, soaking me down a bit. It wasn't a downpour...more like thick mist.
  • Katie texted great news. She went through a job evaluation and received a 10% pay raise, which boosts her salary, considerably.
  • The blackberry wine keeps bubbling, but at a slightly diminished rate.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/23: Spring Showers
  
  • Mucky, rainy, mist weather continues. The U.S. Weather Service puts our area in a drought. I invite any one of those dart boys (the way they forecast seems like they're throwing a dart to determine results) to sit anywhere on our "dry" lawn. The result would be an instant very wet backside.
  • Mary sorted her cross stitch patterns.
  • I ordered a birthday gift for Katie, directing it to be sent to her Anchorage address.
  • I ordered a whole bunch of winemaking stuff with the use of a gift card to The Home Brewery in Ozark, MO, that I got for my birthday from Katie.
  • We watched the last 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's final season, plus the extras.
  • Fruit tree budding is stalled.
  • Yeast in the blackberry wine is giving off the longest acting fermentation I've experienced. There's a little less CO2 release, but it's still bubbling.
  • Mary and I each drank a small aperitif glass of jalapeño wine. With aging, the wine is mellow and not as hot. It's quite good, especially accompanied by a glass of water or tea.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/24: Marshy Land, Spraying Trees
  
  • Another mooshy day started with wet snow falling. That led to mist with periods of rain that ended around 3 p.m.
  • We saw a raccoon print in the chicken yard mud this morning. 
    
  • Mary cleaned more ceilings, this time in the kitchen. She also made turkey pot pie.
  • A tour of the fruit trees resulted in no change on bud growth.
  • Dwindling wind and rain in the late afternoon, with the promise of high winds tomorrow, made me decide to spray trees. I filled the sprayer with water, set it outside, and rain fell, again, so I dumped the sprayer. After waiting, then walking the dogs, I decided to spray Immunox, a fungicide for killing apple scab, on the McIntosh and Esopus apple trees. The wind stayed light and rain skirted by to the north. One and a half gallons covered both trees just right. I finished before darkness fell.
  • The blackberry wine still burps, 2 weeks after yeast was added, which is a very long time.
    
    
• Friday, 3/25: Sunshine & Blackberry Winemaking
  
  • The sun shines bright on our old Missouri home! Northwest winds blew with gusts to 40 mph. The double whammy dried ground very nicely.
  • Mary worked on cross stitch projects, because she couldn't mop the floors.
  • She couldn't mop floors, because I racked blackberry wine for the second time. Wine drops aren't nice on newly mopped floors. Specific gravity was 0.994, producing a 12.576% alcohol content. The must is extremely reddish purple. It tastes tart with a yeast flavor. The blackberry taste will improve with aging. Lees were an inch deep in the 6.5-gallon carboy and 1/2" deep in the gallon jug. I added 6 crushed Campden tablets, dissolving 3 at a time in 2 ounces of heated distilled water, then adding the solution to the must. The must, minus the lees, went into a 5-gallon carboy and a gallon jug. A little distilled water topped up both containers. It now sits for a month, or two, prior to bottling.
    
  • Juncos are still bee-bopping around. They should be leaving in the next week. Each evening, our trees are stuffed with red-winged blackbirds. They, too, should be leaving, soon.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/26: Cleaning, Inside & Outside
  
  • Mary swept and mopped all of the linoleum floors in the house.
    
  • I used the large Stihl chainsaw and cut down the last black walnut coppice near the east yard apple trees. With the help of a step ladder, I tied a lengthy nylon rope to this coppice, that had a 4- to 5-inch base. Mary pulled on the rope while I cut the base, so it wouldn't fall on the Esopus apple tree. I sawed it up and hauled firewood chunks away.
    
  • I used the same chainsaw and cut up a huge multiflora rose bush. It stood about 7' high and had a 3-inch base. The bush involved several different plants. It was invading the space of Esopus apple tree. I also took down several nearby persimmon trees, a autumn olive bush, and an elderberry bush. The whole idea is to give the apple tree air space.
    
  • I hauled off 4 big bunches of black walnut branches. They went into an expanding gully about an eighth of a mile east of the house. I trudged them off by foot, because a tractor would leave deep ruts in the soft ground right now.
  • While I was piling up branches for my second haul, I heard pounding horse hooves approaching from the south. I ran to the lane and there were our neighbor's 3 horses next to the Sargent crabapple tree. I raised my arms and said, "Nope, you're going home." Instantly, they galloped back down the lane and to their home. They even ran into their paddock, but promptly moved out to the front lawn of that house. I walked over to tell the neighbor his horses were out. As I walked up to the house, he came outside, saying he just noticed horses walking by the window. We talked for awhile. His name is John. Nice enough of a guy, but not the one we talked to last summer when the horses invaded our property. John is a mechanic. I think his fencing is wimpy. We now have a few deep horse prints in the grass alongside the lane.
  • Near bedtime, some coyotes howled about five feet outside our living room window. All cats and dogs intensely listened to them. On our last dog walk, Plato was very tentative. He usually sleeps downstairs in a living room chair, but not tonight. Plato slept the whole night on his dog blanket in the upstairs north bedroom.
    

March 13-19, 2022

Weather | 3/13, 20°, 54° | 3/14, 37°, 63° | 3/15, 45°, 64° | 3/16, 38°, 69° | 3/17, 43°, 72° | 3/18, 1.04" rain, 41°, 43° | 3/19, 34°, 54° |

• Sunday, 3/13: Winemaking & Woodcocks
  
  • All of our snow melted with much warmer temperatures. Every step now comes with a solid wet gushy sound.
    
  • The blackberry wine is getting very red (see photo, below). Bill viewed the photo of the cylinder of wine and said, "That's some radioactive Kool Aid!" The specific gravity is 1.085, so the yeast is barely moving.
  • Mary did some house cleaning, baked a chicken dinner, did some cross stitch work, and vacuumed bugs twice.
    
  • I measuring handles on the back lift gate of the pickup topper, since I need to get new lockable handles due to rust. I figure I need to call a company in Ohio, in order to get the correct replacements. I checked the pickup's serpentine belt, because I thought it was shot after hearing squeaking under the hood last summer. The belt looks good, with no cracks.
  • Mary heard at least 6 American woodcocks after sunset. They continue to multiply from year to year. She heard 2 squabble with one another.
  • Mary worked up a shopping list.
    
  • I put labels on the 25 bottles of cherry wine and stored them on their sides in a couple coolers. There is a little bit of residue in the bottoms of the bottles, so I probably should have racked the wine a 5th time, instead of bottling it on the 4th racking. Oh well. We aren't entering the wine in a contest and a little stuff at the bottom of the bottle won't hurt us a bit.

  

  Brightly red blackberry wine in the making.
  

• Monday, 3/14: Shopping Trip
  
  • A strong south wind blew all day. In the evening, it switched to the NW and died down.
    
  • Mary and I took the pickup to Quincy, IL, and shopped. We're stocking up on food reserves, such as flour and sugar. We picked up a package from Home Depot that I ordered of Immunox, which contains the fungicide, myclobutanil, a killer of apple scab that is prevalent on the large McIntosh tree and a couple other apple trees.
  • While going back home and crossing the Mississippi River, Mary spotted about 40 American white pelicans circling above the river to gain altitude. She also spotted a couple of bald eagles and a horned grebe.
  • Gas was still $3.79 a gallon at Fastlane in Taylor, MO. I'm keeping the tank full, so I don't have to buy a huge amount at once.
  • I didn't get to do a hydrometer test on the blackberry wine, but the yeast is fizzing and gurgling along, nicely.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/15: Fruit Trees & Garlic
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • Garlic shoots are appearing, so Mary fertilized them.
  • Dastardly bugs fill the inside of our windows, so Mary vacuumed them three times throughout the day.
  • I gave all fruit trees a dose of dormant oil spray. I filled the 2-gallon sprayer five times. The larger trees each took one tank of spray. This spray smothers and kills bug eggs and larvae on and in the tree bark. The job took all afternoon. There were times when I climbed a step ladder to spray higher branches when the ladder's feet would sink, tilting me to one side. The ground is super soft these days.
    
  • While cleaning up from spraying, three Vs of snow geese flew over us very high in the sky. A squadron of blackbirds filled the trees east of the house. It sounded like every blackbird that spends the summer in Iowa and Minnesota were nearby. We heard several woodcocks after dark.
    
  • Mary put away oil sunflower seeds and potting soil that we bought yesterday.
  • Brent Sass won the Iditarod, arriving in Nome at 5:38 a.m. My high school classmate, Alison, is happy. She always roots for him. Brent was born in MN and went to UAF as a cross-country skier.
  • We watched 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th year.
  • The blackberry wine's specific gravity was 1.076, today. It's still chugging along.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/16: Wind, Firewood, & Spring Birds
  
  • A strong south wind blew today, which is why I knew I needed to finish my dormant oil fruit tree spraying yesterday, while winds were calm.
    
  • Mary made 2 quiche pies and coleslaw.
  • We took turns vacuuming flies and Asian ladybugs as the armies of bugs march through our impeccably sealed home. Air exchange is not an issue in our humble abode.
  • The blackberry wine rumbles along, with the specific gravity at 1.064.
  • I split firewood logs left next to the woodsplitter. Most of them were wet.
  • Bill texted that he's asked to take April 4th off, so he can visit for an extended weekend.
  • We watched a group of cackling geese fly overhead.
  • I watched a male meadowlark with a bright yellow breast literally dance on a tree branch while singing its song to a nearby female meadowlark.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/17: Firewood Harvesting
  • As usual, a massive bug collection continued to amass in our Shop Vac.
  • Mary made a pumpkin cake. The New England long pie pumpkins make a very good cake. We'll have to plant more of them.
    
  • The blackberry wine's specific gravity is 1.046, making the pantry smell amazing.
    
  • I moved "winter" greens out of the machine shed. I put them there prior to Bill and I going north to see the NHL Winter Classic in Minneapolis on Jan. 1st, since I failed to construct a greenhouse. The 2 tubs of kale and the tub of spinach survived. The tubs of winter lettuce, Fun Jen, and arugula all died. Before darkness fell, we covered the live plants with a mesh cloth, to keep out bugs, and anchored it down with bricks.
  • I also moved the 4 tubs of strawberries out of the machine shed and pulled the layer of grass clippings off the top of the tubs. These were munched down by deer last fall. Several plants are showing green.
  • Mary and I uncovered grass clippings from atop the buckets of strawberry plants in the near garden. They all look marvelous, with several green leaves showing.
    
  • Mary put wood ashes on the sugar maple in the north yard.
    
  • We heard and saw the first eastern phoebe for the season.
    
  • We also saw this spring's first butterflies. The are called commas or hop merchants. Apparently, they love hop plants. They were in the north woods.
    
  • With rain predicted, we were in the north woods cutting and collecting dead and dry firewood. The ground is too mushy for driving a tractor, so we selected the north woods, because we can move firewood from the edge of the north yard to the woodshed very easily with wheelbarrows. I used 2 tanks of gas in the small Stihl chainsaw. Mary and I moved 10 wheelbarrow loads of firewood to the machine shed.
    
  • Bill texted that he is taking Monday and Tuesday, April 4-5, off for his upcoming visit.
    
    
• Friday, 3/18: First Racking of Blackberry Wine
  
  • We experienced a very wet day. Rain fell until noon, followed by a heavy mist that existed all afternoon and into the dark. Standing water lies everywhere.
  • The specific gravity of the blackberry wine is at 1.029, so I racked it. Roughly 5.75 gallons went into a 6.5-gallon carboy and I put about 3/4 gallon in a gallon jug, which allowed for foam expansion. I squeezed a once-stuffed nylon mesh bag of blackberries down to about a quarter bag of pulp. These berries gave me an additional 1.5 gallons of juice. The CO2 off-gassing continues. A glup, glup, glup sound of this off-gassing, with rain coming down, made us jump up more than once to look for a new non-existent leak in the roof. The must is very dark red. It ought to be a good wine.
  • Mary made venison General Tso for our main meal.
    
  • When I got the mail, I spotted 5 deer on a knoll west of our driveway's end, near where the neighboring dairy has a feed bunker that once fed steers. One of the deer spotted me, spooked, and ran off to the woods north of where it was eating grass. That made all of them wander off to the north.
  • We watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's 6th season.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/19: Fruit Tree Stuff; Katie Takes 5th Place
  
  • A sunny day dictated outside activities for me. I serviced the Stihl trimmer by changing the spark plug, cleaning the air filter, and cleaning the exhaust screen. It ran significantly better after the changes.
  • I knocked down weeds and tiny persimmon sprouts, using the trimmer with the saw blade attached, under and around the prairie fire crabapple, the Esopus Spitzenburg apple, and the Grimes golden apple trees. I also knocked down a trail in the tall grass to the Grimes tree, and between it and the Spitzenburg tree. I started under our mystery apple tree south of the house, but ran out of gas and quit.
    
  • Mary cleaned kitchen appliances and scrubbed the living room ceiling.
  • She also made venison in gravy on biscuits for our main meal.
  • Katie called. She placed fifth in her 18-29 age group in a 5K Shamrock Shuffle race in Anchorage. Check out her race results and photos HERE. There are a couple village water tank projects that Katie will head up this spring/summer. One involves an emergency repair of a collapsed water tank and the other is a water tank demolition. They are at Point Lay and Point Hope, both in the North Slope Borough on the NW coast of AK.
  • In the evening, I figured out the start of a fruit tree spraying schedule.
  • The blackberry wine keeps bubbling along.
    

March 6-12, 2022

Weather | 3/6, 31°, 43° | 3/7, 1" snow, 0.54" moisture, 25°, 32° | 3/8, 15°, 41° | 3/9, 25°, 40° | 3/10, 4" snow, 0.34" moisture, 17°, 21° | 3/11, 15°, 33° | 3/12, 3°, 25° |

• Sunday, 3/6: Bugs & Firewood
  
  • We both vacuumed bugs at 2 different times. Any infinitesimal bit of outdoor heat brings hundreds of Asian ladybugs and flies to our inside windows.
    
  • Mary made venison General Tso for our main meal.
  • She also figured bills and savings monies, enabling us to knock another monetary chunk off our credit card bill left from doing the roof last fall.
  • I moved split wood from the machine shed to the woodshed. A few days of warm temperatures and strong south winds dried it quite well while it was in the machine shed.
  • Two bird firsts for this year...we heard an eastern meadow lark in the morning, and heard and saw the first 3 American woodcocks at dusk.
    
  • Katie texted and put images of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race start from Wasilla on Facebook and Instragram. One of Katie's photos is below.
    
  • We enjoyed 2 pots of China Yunnan tea, each, and watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th season.

  

  Start of the 2022 Iditarod (50th year) in Willow, AK.
  

• Monday, 3/7: Bottling Cherry Wine
  
  • On the morning dog walk, I saw 6 bluebirds on the power line. It's snowy, again. It snowed less than an inch overnight, but it was really wet snow, resulting in over a half of an inch of moisture.
    
  • Mary did house cleaning, some cross stitching, and sorted new floss that she received in today's mail.
  • I racked the cherry wine for the 4th and final time. Prior to racking, I cleaned and sanitized bottles. Specific gravity is 0.992, up 2 thousands from the last racking. Alcohol level is 12.05%. Tartaric acid level is 0.825%, which means it contains a high acid content, giving it a tart taste. The highest reading of white wine should be 0.75%. The pH is 3.0, further proving high acid. It's no surprise, considering pie cherries are quite tart. Correcting it involves diluting the wine with distilled water. We decided we like the tart taste, so I'll leave it alone. I filled 25 bottles (see photo, below). Bill is usually around for bottle filling, so he's become an expert. I overfilled a couple bottles, which proved the case when I corked a couple bottles, felt wine drops on my arms during the corking process and noticed no air gap after the cork went into the bottle. This time I only dunked corks in a solution of a bit of crushed Campden tablet and distilled water for about 10 seconds. The wonderful floor corker that I got from Katie for Christmas plunged the corks in beautifully. We drank about 400 ml left after corking. The wine tastes neutral until it hits the back of your throat, then the cherry taste pops in your mouth. Aging is going to make this another big hit on the wine parade.
    
  • In the evening, we heard coyotes calling just outside our living room windows.

  

  25 bottles of 2022 cherry wine.
  

• Tuesday, 3/8: Shopping & Wild Critters
  
  • Two FedEx shipments redirected to the Quincy Walgreens store needed picking up, so I drove the pickup to Quincy to get them. While there, I got some herbicide concentrate containing triclopyr for killing lespedeza, and a 3-gallon sprayer dedicated to herbicide usage. I bought a pork loin for $1.88 a pound, cat and dog foods, and other human food items. When I went to town, gas was $3.69 a gallon. When I drove home and bought gas, it was $3.79 a gallon. Lesson learned...buy gas earlier in the day, because it will probably increase in price.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, then cooked up the last of the pumpkins we grew last year. She added 6 more quarts of pumpkin meat into the freezer.
  • Birds were plentiful. Mary spotted wood ducks and some common golden eye ducks. We heard several woodcocks in the evening. A towhee sat in the forsythia bush, not 5 from where Mary was walking by while carrying firewood, and sang the entire time.
  • We heard a coyote howling at night just NW of the house. It makes us glad chickens are sleeping in a securely shut-up wooden chicken coop. 
  • A raccoon walked on the trail to the chicken coop just a few feet from the house. The raccoon tracks weren't there during evening chores, and the ground froze overnight, so it walked through just after the sun set (see photos, below).
     

Raccoon tracks left in trail near our house.

Raccoon tracks over boot print proves the
animal left these tracks in early night hours.

• Wednesday, 3/9: TVP, Stroganoff, & Tree Spraying Research
  
  • Mary divided up the 25-pound bag of textured vegetable protein (TVP) that I picked up yesterday into 120 one-cup amounts in sandwich bags and froze them. We use this soybean item in the place of hamburger. Each bag is the equivalent of a pound of cooked hamburger. Mary figured out that we save over $500 by using 25 pounds of TVP in the place of hamburger.
    
  • She also split up the pork loin into 6 meals and froze it.
  • Mary made venison stroganoff.
  • I researched the timing of spraying all of my various fruit tree sprays. It gets very detailed, based on what stage leaf buds of the trees are showing in the spring.
  • I took the dogs on a walk on our old east loop trail. Deer trails follow the old trail that I need to further clear. We scared up a flock of wood ducks that were swimming on Dove Pond. We also spooked 2 deer that I saw running through the east woods.
    
  • We set 23 quart bags of 2021 blackberries out to thaw. They equaled 20.5 pounds of fruit that I'll make into 5 gallons of blackberry wine tomorrow.
    
    
• Thursday, 3/10: Christmas in March
  • Snow fell all day. It started as very light snow. By evening, grass still showed through the white stuff. After dark, bigger flakes fell, so that by the last dog walk, we were wading through about 4 inches.
    
  • Mary saw 2 northern harrier hawks while doing evening chores.
  • I made a 5-gallon batch of blackberry wine by first squishing 23 quart bags of blackberries and dumping them into a nylon mesh bag. After adding 3.75 gallons of spring water, I put in 5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and 5 crushed Campden tablets. Nine pounds of sugar went into the must, giving it a specific gravity of 1.089, and bringing the liquid level up to 5 gallons. The pH was 3.5, so I didn't add acid. I covered the brew bucket with a flour sack towel and set it into the pantry to soak overnight.
    
  • Mary did some cross stitch, since it was wintry outside.
    
    
• Friday, 3/11: Blowing Snow, Pizza, & Wine Yeast
  
  • A strong NW wind blew snow out of trees and across the fields all day. It was a cold wind, so we stayed inside. Online news indicated that people crashed and smashed cars throughout Missouri, Illinois, and Iowa, both yesterday and today.
    
  • Mary made 2 pizzas. We ate one for a midday meal and one in the evening.
    
  • I stirred up the blackberry wine must, then added 2.5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme. A specific gravity check gave a 1.082 reading, so I added a pound of sugar to raise the level to 1.090. The pH is now 3.2. As the blackberries break down, even more acid is going into the must. I began a yeast starter with Lalvin RC 212 yeast, adding 2 ounces of must heated to 95° every hour. The yeast starter went into the brew bucket 12 hours later. A specific gravity test gave a 1.086 reading, so I added 8 ounces of sugar to take it back up to 1.090. Now the brew bucket sits, covered with a towel, while the yeast breaks sugar down into alcohol in the next few days.
    
  • During evening chores, we saw 2 batches of snow geese fly very low over the house. Their white breasts were the color of cantaloupes in the setting sun. Normally, we don't see snow geese that close.
    
  • We watched 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's 5th season.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/12: Blackberry & Pumpkin Winemaking
  
  • I made breakfast waffles.
  • The blackberry wine was quiet when I checked it around 1 p.m., but the specific gravity dropped to 1.088 and there was a strong wine yeast smell in the pantry. In the evening, the top of the brew bucket was covered with what I call a purple cottage cheese lava bed (see photo, below). Occasionally, a bubble pops out from under the curds. When I sent this image to Bill, he texted back with an image of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein saying, "It's alive!"
  • I racked the pumpkin wine for the 3rd time. About of 1/2" of fines were at the bottom of the 6.5-gallon carboy and roughly 1/8" in the gallon and 1/2-gallon jugs. Cleaning this yeast poop out was interesting, because it was like sticky toothpaste. And, it stunk like sulfur. Specific gravity is still 1.000, as it was a month ago. The pH is 2.2, which is way too acidic. It needs adjusting prior to bottling. The wine is clearer, but still needs time to clear completely. The taste was good, but tart. The pumpkin and cinnamon flavors come through loud and clear. If I tame the acidity, it will be even better. After racking, I have 7.5 gallons...a 5-gallon carboy, two 1-gallon jugs, and a half-gallon jug (see photo, below).
    
  • A strong westerly wine and single-digit temperatures kept outside wildlife quiet.
     

7.5 gallons of pumpkin wine after 3rd racking.

A weird foam next to mesh bag atop blackberry wine.

Feb. 27-March 5, 2022

Weather | 2/27, 21°, 47° | 2/28, 29°, 57° | 3/1, 25°, 64° | 3/2, 33°, 71° | 3/3, 29°, 45° | 3/4, 25°, 55° | 3/5, 0.15" rain, 53°, 69° |

• Sunday, 2/27: Apple Tree Planting Ideas
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas, then chimichangas for our main meal. She also sprayed all of the house plants with Dawn to kill scales.
  • I downloaded an iCloud app for Windows onto my laptop after adding to do items to the "Reminders" feature of my phone. It didn't work. Reminders is unreadable on the laptop, since it doesn't contain the software to view it. 
  • I split some of the logs next to the wood splitter for firewood. Most of the logs are wet, so I'm splitting them into small pieces, enabling better drying.
    
  • A large flock of Canada geese, containing multiple Vs, went over us quite low, flying west to east, during our evening dog walk. We were somewhat concealed by the trees around Bluegill Pond.
  • By reading apple growing books and online info, I gathered these ideas when planting trees in clay soils: 1) Dig a hole 3x the width of the root ball...don't go too far down, but more outward. 2) Scar the hole with a pick ax, spud bar, or shovel to crack clay soil, giving roots a starting place to grow. 3) Build up soil to add an additional foot of height to the planting area. 4) Stretch out all roots and don't wind them around the dug-out hole. 5) Plant tree so the ground at the trunk is higher than edge of roots, so there isn't a sunken area to collect water. 6) Add wood chips and small branches a foot beyond planted root ends, encouraging tree roots to grow to nutrients settling into the ground in this area. 7) Use pea gravel immediately around tree trunk to discourage grass growth that competes with young tree roots.
  • I started a To Do list on a Pages (Apple's version of Microsoft Word) on iCloud.
    
    
• Monday, 2/28: Planning & Good Soup
  
  • Mary made a huge batch of minestrone soup. It is delicious. She also did laundry.
  • A quick check of the garlic showed that nothing much is happening. There are only a few tiny sprouts.
  • Mary vacuumed a huge collection of Asian ladybugs and flies. She also made a shopping list.
    
  • I finished a master To Do list and also made a list of maintenance items to accomplish on the GMC pickup. 
  • I used a gas tank full in the trimmer with the blade on it and whacked down more lespedeza weeds in the south field. I'm about halfway down that field.
  • Mary heard the first killdeer of the season. She also saw a bald eagle circling above our property. For some reason, several Vs of snow geese are flying the wrong way, from west to east. Mary thinks so many geese are west of us and the geese we see are heading backward to find feed. I think there's too much snow north of us in Iowa & Minnesota and they're just milling about. Maybe we're both right.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/1: All Hail the March Lamb!
  
  • March entered our world with a very warm and calm day. Geese are flying in all directions. Conditions are very nice.
  • We took the pickup to Quincy and shopped. For the first time in a couple years, we didn't wear masks. It helped that stores were quiet. Prices are significantly higher. A 25-pound bag of flour was $3 higher. We found canning lids and bought some to boost our supply. I found a 16-pound bag of fruit and citrus tree fertilizer for $5 at Farm & Home...a great price. We picked up 4 sweet potatoes to grow slips to plant. At Salvation Army, Mary found a book written Sigurd Olson, who writes about Ely, MN and the canoe country of that area. I bought 2 coolers for storing wine. We also got a 20-movie collection of comedies from 1934 to 2009. We topped the pickup's gas. It was $3.25 a gallon. The pickup's fuel economy is 19.81 mpg...which is good for a full-size half-ton.
  • We returned home by 4 p.m. After chores, we enjoyed nachos and watched the last 2 episode's of Downton Abbey's 4th season.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/2: Pruning and Sawing
  
  • Mary pruned 7 fruit trees and 2 maples. She added wound sealer to cuts she made on the fruit trees. Each year the growth of these trees means pruning takes longer.
    
  • I used the small Stihl chainsaw to cut dead branches off the large McIntosh tree in the north yard (see photo, below). This ancient apple tree has a great deal of dead wood that I removed. I hope to finish cutting off dead wood tomorrow and proceed with some light pruning on green growth.
    
  • Thousands of snow geese flew from east to west throughout the day. A warm day with calm air produced multiple Vs of geese heading out. We saw some cackling in the morning. Smaller Ross's geese flew in with the snow geese...they're much smaller than the snow geese.
    
  • We heard the first spring peepers (small frogs), today. Mary heard a pileated woodpecker in woods.
  • We ordered powdered milk, coffee beans, textured vegetable protein (TVP), and a 1200 Red Rose tea bags. When stores fail to supply items you want, the online shopping commences.
  • Mom texted that upon visiting with a vascular surgeon in Miles City, MT, she learned that her arteries are good and are not the cause of her passing out. She has a cardiologist visit on April 11.

  

  McIntosh apple tree with cut dead branches in foreground, left.
  

• Thursday, 3/3: Pruning Continues
  
  • Mary and I pruned more trees. Mary pruned 4 fruit trees and 3 blueberry bushes. There are 2 more trees to prune, which are the large pie cherry and the large Bartlett pear trees. I finished pruning the large McIintosh tree. More large, dead branches came out of the tree, along with several tall shoots. The orchard ladder I bought last fall is really great at getting me to the top of this tree. This old McIntosh tree needs more pruning, but I don't want to kill it by cutting off too many branches, so I'll wait for another year to continue its haircut.
    
  • Mary baked a large pumpkin, gaining 5 quarts of pumpkin meat for the freezer.
  • She also started 4 sweet potatoes to grow slips for the garden by putting them partway into Mason quart jars and filling the jars with water.
    
  • We heard and saw an eastern towhee. I've heard that bird call for several days around the yard, but this was the first time we actually saw it.
    
  • Several Vs of snow geese flew east to west overhead. With an east tail wind, they were often flying too high for us to to see.
    
  • In the evening, I researched the best chemical tree sprays for our three tough fruit tree diseases, which are cedar apple rust, apple scab, and fire blight. Captan is the best fungicide for killing scab, but it's a known carcinogen, and it lingers on fruit surfaces, so I opted out of that product. Copper spray and neem oil work against scab and we already have those two on hand. I ordered 3 different tree spray chemicals. Two are coming through Home Depot, which are Sevin sulfur dust for apple scab and Spectricide's Immunox, which contains the fungicide, myclobutanil, that controls apple scab and cedar apple rust. I also ordered Fertilome's fire blight spray, with the active ingredient of streptomycin sulfate, that controls the bacterial fire blight infection. Fire blight infected several branches of the large Bartlett pear and a couple branches on the Sargent crabapple tree last year.
  • I redirected two recently ordered packages shipped via FedEx to the Quincy Walgreen's store.
    
    
• Friday, 3/4: Aerial Pruning
  
  • Mary and I finished fruit tree pruning. While I moved 2 wheelbarrow loads of dead McIntosh apple tree branches, which I call Corpse Bride branches, to the machine shed (they'll make great smoke on a future outdoor meat roasts), Mary pruned at ground level on the large pie cherry and large Bartlett pear trees. Then, I used ladders to prune higher level branches while Mary steadied the ladders. At one point, I was sawing a pear branch above my head while standing high on the orchard ladder. It felt like I was up with the birds. All trees look better. We still have pruned branches to cart away.
  • Another east wind helped push snow geese Vs west above our heads.
  • We watched the 1940 black and white movie, The Philadelphia Story. It's good. Watching Jimmy Stewart play the part of a drunk was unique. He and Katharine Hepburn won Oscars in this movie.
  • Karen messaged about all of the birds she sees around their new home. She also sent a photo of spring daffodils that are blooming (see below).

  

  Daffodils blooming at Karen & Lynn's house in Georgia.
  

• Saturday, 3/5: First Thunderstorm
  
  • Strong south winds blew throughout the day and into the night. At one point, after dark, we kept hearing banging on the roof. A check on our final dog walk showed everything in place up there. Around 8:30 p.m., a thunderstorm blasted through, the first of the year. Most of the lightening and thunder was high in the sky.
    
  • Mary vacuumed the usual squadron of  bugs from the insides of windows. She made venison fajitas for our main meal, and did some cross stitch.
  • I picked up pruned branches from the big McIntosh apple tree (a total of 5 wheelbarrow loads of dead branches), the large cherry tree, and the large Bartlett pear tree. Episodes of light mist slowed me down on this chore, but it always subsided, so I was able to finish. Some of the dead McIntosh branches were covered with what looks like black soot. Is it any wonder apples off that tree are stunted and scarred with disease?
  • I updated my wine diary and updated my calendar. Next week, I have two wines to handle. I rack and bottle cherry wine on Tuesday and do the third racking of pumpkin wine on Saturday.
  • Karen messaged a photo of tulip tree blossoms from a tree in her yard (see below). We see such trees in Quincy, where they're not battered by country winds.
  • Mom texted a photo of her amaryllis (see below) with 17° winter weather just outside the window. I sent back a photo (see below) of our amaryllis, with its second set of blossoms, along with newly started sweet potatoes.

Tulip tree blossoms from Karen & Lynn's place.

Mom's amaryllis with wintry background.

Our amaryllis & sweet potatoes in water.

Feb. 20-26, 2022

Weather | 2/20, 32°, 57° | 2/21, 36°, 58° | 2/22, 0.03" rain, 15°, 42° | 2/23, 4°, 19° | 2/24, freezing mist to snow, 0.02" moisture, 15°, 25° | 2/25, 15°, 27° | 2/26, 9°, 30° |

• Sunday, 2/20: My 65th Birthday
  
  • While dumping ashes in the morning, I heard, then saw, two huge trumpeter swans flying west to east above the north field. They've been hanging around here the past few days.
  • We had four red-tailed hawks in west yard at same time. Mary and I went outside and chased them off.
    
  • I talked to Mom on a birthday call. Her health tests came back and she has 50 percent blockage of carotid arteries. She also has a heart valve that's not closing all of the way. Mom is to see a vascular specialist, who is based at St. Vincent Healthcare in Billings, on an appointment in Miles City, MT, on March 2nd. We'll see what comes from that visit, plus she is to see a heart specialist once an appointment is established.
  • Katie called. She's busy at work. Her dogs like running with her on Russian Jack trails in Anchorage. Snow, followed by rain, created several avalanches that closed the Seward Highway, the old Glenn Highway, and the road to Hatcher Pass. It means she's staying put in Anchorage, instead of driving to areas outside the city.
    
  • Mary washed sheets and a few clothes.
  • Mary also made 2 cherry pies. They're amazingly great. Today is Cherry Pie Day. How appropriate! The filling, coming from cherries picked off our trees, is brown. Canned cherry pie filling sold in stores is filled with red dye, because red is not the color of natural pie cherries, which are frozen, then thawed. Ours tastes better, too.
    
  • Bill and I racked, then bottled the garlic wine. First, I cleaned 27 wine bottles with OxiClean, while Bill sanitized them. Then we racked the wine into a brew bucket. The specific gravity is 0.998, a bit higher than 0.996 from a month ago, probably because I added 11 ounces of spring water last month. That makes alcohol at 13.36%. We used a new ampule test for SO2 and it gave an erroneous 100 ppm test result. This was because wine with ascorbic acid or tannin produces false high test results. Well, garlic contains tannins. We added a crushed Campden tablet, just to be safe. A tartaric acid test gave us 0.85% tartaric. The highest level should be 0.65%, which means it's quite acidic. A check with the wine litmus papers gave a pH of 3.4. A check with the litmus paper I use for making tree spray indicated a 2.9 pH, or high acid. We decided not to alter the wine, since garlic is a cooking wine. Acidity is more of a taste aspect of the wine. Other flavors are mixed with the cooking wine, so high acid content is acceptable. Bill filled 25 wine bottles and one beer bottle. I corked the bottles, using the floor corker that Katie gave me for Christmas (see video, below). It works wonderfully. As Bill said, in 15 minutes I finished what it would take 2 people to do in 45 minutes with a handheld corker. We soaked the corks for an hour in a Campden tablet solution. The corks wanted to rise slightly out of the bottles, once corked. In future corkings, I will dunk corks for a few seconds and let them dry, just to sterilize them. Soaking is unnecessary with the floor corker. Bill drank remaining the garlic wine and liked it.
    
  • We watched a DVD Bill picked out...the 1994 movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral.
  The new floor corker is fast and efficient.
  
  
  
• Monday, 2/21: First Snow Geese
  
  • Those 2 trumpeter swans were flying south to north over the west side of our property during our morning dog walk. Mary looked up that they are 60 inches long and their wingspan is just under 8 feet. They look like monsters in the sky.
    
  • We saw the first movement of snow geese. Several Vs of geese went over us, today.
  • We also heard the first of red-winged blackbirds, today.
  • Bill washed a big batch of clothes.
  • Mary broke kindling sticks into correct lengths, then she picked up sticks around the yard and moved them into the machine shed to dry for future kindling.
  • I fired up the Stihl weedwhacker with a blade on it and took down lespedeza stalks in the south field. It's the best tool we have for this job. A better tool would be a sickle bar on farm tractor, which we don't have. A tank of gas took me about a third of the way down the south field from the house.
  • In the evening, Bill, Mary, and I played 3 games of Atlas Adventures. Each of us won a game. We enjoyed pots of tea, while playing the game.
    
    
• Tuesday, 2/22: Bill Returns to St. Louis
  
  • Around 6 a.m., I woke up with lightning flashing, but I couldn't hear thunder. Even so, Mary went ahead and unplugged appliances. The high of the day was in the early morning. Temperatures dropped throughout the day.
  • We enjoyed our last leftover turkey dinner, with the last of cherry pie dessert, before Bill left for his St. Charles, MO, apartment. He said he had to do some grocery shopping, and cook up something that he can heat up for this week's dinners, because he is expecting a lot of extra hours of work to try to catch up at his place of employment.
  • Mary and I were kind of slugs in the afternoon and evening. Mary read over 100 pages in her new book about Teddy Roosevelt. I stopped an online newspaper subscription, added a less expensive one, and halted an online ecard subscription. We need to save money in order to pay off the credit card debt for renting a lift to fix the roof last fall.
  • A birthday card from Katie to me came in today's mail. She gave me an electronic gift card of $65 for 65 years to The Home Brewery. They're based in Ozark, MO (SW part of the state). I spent time looking through their website for future purchases.
  • Shopping was in our plans, but with frozen, hard ground forecast for tomorrow, we decided to get firewood, instead. Frozen ground means easier mobility with the tractor to haul firewood out of the woods.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/23: Firewood
  
  • One big group of snow geese flew over while we did morning chores. They lifted off nearby and were forming Vs as they flew. A strong north wind blew them to the SW.
    
  • Mary and I ate our midday meal early, in the late morning, so we could go out and cut  firewood.
  • I walked to the woods just west of the house and cut some pieces of small downed trees. A tree wedged between live trees that I spotted a couple days ago turned out to be a honey locust with poison ivy growing along most of it, so I left that tree. I dropped a large dead white oak, sawed it up, then sawed several smaller dead trees. Mary and I collected all of the wood and stacked it in the tractor wagon, producing an overfilled load. We unloaded large pieces next to the wood splitter and smaller firewood into the wood shed. Even though the ground was hard where I drove the tractor, we walked on soft, mushy places in the woods. It felt good to be back doing physical work, again.
  • When I got the mail, three trumpeter swans flew by just above my head and headed into the setting sun. These huge white birds are amazing.
  • The Russian military invaded Ukraine, today. Will humans ever quit killing one another over land?
    
    
• Thursday, 2/24: Freezing Mist
  
  • We experienced freezing mist all day until after dark, when it snowed just a little...about 1/2 inch. According to news sources, vehicles went sliding all over the place. Most area schools shut down by late morning. In northern regions we've lived, this would have been an average day, without mishap. Here, the conditions result in shutting down schools and hiding inside. When you witness how they drive, you can understand this.
    
  • I chased the neighbor's dog away, a big lab, as it trotted down the path next to the near garden. It really took off when I yelled for it to go home. Every neighbor who ever shows up in the house across the road doesn't possess enough sense to keep dogs home. Maybe it's time to invest in a paintball gun.
    
  • Mary made venison General Tso using up the beer bottle full of garlic wine. It was exceptionally yummy.
  • I looked at several online drafting programs. Nothing is as good as floorplanner.com, which I already use.
  • As I walked home from getting mail, I heard several turkey calls to the east. Mary and I both listened as we heard them to the NE, east and slightly SE. The birds were moving around all over the place, eastward, and talking to one another.
    
  • We enjoyed 2 pots of tea, each, and watched the last 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 3rd season, plus the extras.
    
    
• Friday, 2/25: House Considerations & Cinnamon Rolls
  
  • Mary made fridge dough, followed by cinnamon rolls, which we ate in the evening.
    
  • I looked at the size and distance between posts in the machine shed, in consideration of making a pole barn house. Herman, Mary's uncle, used 4x6 posts, except for 6x6 posts on the 4 corners. I determined the bookshelf girt size (horizontal framing) of 2x6s. I determined the outside wall depth from the outside cladding to the inside drywall to be 7". I figured out the house section sizes need to be divisible by 3 feet, to match 3-foot sheet metal widths, so the pantry/bedroom/mudroom section will be 18' wide, instead of 16' wide. I restarted the house plan draft with these alterations in mind.
    
  • When Mary let the dogs out for a walk during evening chores, there was the neighbor's black lab. Plato roared out the door barking and started chasing it. Mary hollered. Plato stopped. The lab tore off for home. 
  • I saw a deer run across the north field, from west to east, as we did evening chores.
    
  • Katie texted that one of the employees where she works is from Ukraine and shows everyone in the office videos and tells stories.
    
  • We watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's 4th season while enjoying cinnamon rolls and pots of tea.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/26: House Drafting Plans & Wine Stuff
  
  • Mary did house cleaning.
  • I worked on drafting plans for a new house, finishing the 36'x18' west end that is the pantry, bedroom, safe room, and mud room of the building.
  • Labels went on 23 bottles of garlic wine, then I stored them on their sides in 2 of the plastic coolers I have in the upstairs north bedroom. I did an inventory of existing wine varieties to discover I have 2 more 2020 pear wine bottles and 2 fewer 2020 autumn olive bottles compared to numbers recorded on my inventory list.
    
  • Two weeks ago I accidentally shot parsnip wine back into the 330-ml beer bottle while trying to move clear liquid out through a large plastic tube, all of which made the wine cloudy, again. Today, I successfully racked the clear wine off the fines of the beer bottle (see photo, below). This is the 3rd racking of the wine in the beer bottle. In 6 weeks, I should be able to rack all of the parsnip wine for the final time, then bottle it.
  • We enjoyed a second batch of cinnamon rolls, pots of tea (this time China Keemun), while watching 4 episodes of Downton Abbey's 4th season.

  

  Parsnip wine fines (left) & clear liquid (right).
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

Feb. 13-19, 2022

Weather | 2/13, 14°, 23° | 2/14, 14°, 46° | 2/15, 20°, 49° | 2/16, 45°, 58° | 2/17, rain, 5" snow, 1.10" moisture, 9°, 20° | 2/18, 1°, 34° | 2/19, 11°, 39° |

• Sunday, 2/13: Firewood Move
  
  • Mary made French toast for our midday meal. She also did some cross stitching.
    
  • A north wind blew all day. I was going to cut more firewood, but didn't feel like going out with temps in the teens and a north wind blasting through the timber. Instead, I moved firewood that was drying in the machine shed to the woodshed.
  • We spotted a red-tailed hawk land on the electric line to the house, that was swinging back and forth, balancing on the line. He flew low over the south field into the edge of the west timber to dodge out of the way of the wind.
    
  • We watched the last 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 2nd year, plus the extras.
  • In past years, Super Bowl Sunday brought out coyote hunters who sat in pickups on the gravel road and aimed their tracking devices out the window to follow their hounds. That wasn't the case today. Oh, by the way, the Rams beat the Bengals, 23-20, this year. Our Super Bowl participation was me looking up the score before going to bed. It takes up less time, that way.
    
    
• Monday, 2/14: Valentine's Day
  • Mary made a zucchini chocolate cake for Valentine's Day. It tasted wonderful.
    
  • She also vacuumed Christmas cross stitch ornaments and put them away. Mary did some cross stitching, too.
  • We have acres and acres of sericea lespedeza that at this time of the year, stands as 3- to 4-foot stalks. We got out Mary's scythe, sharpened it, and tried to cut some lespedeza. It's blade is too thin for effectively cutting through the woody, quarter to 3/8-inch thick stalks. I tried the small chain saw and used a tank full of gas in the saw to knock down an area east of the far east garden. It's not really the right tool. I'll try the Stihl trimmer with the saw blade, next. There's a great deal of shattering bits and dust from cutting the lespedeza stalks and mixed with chainsaw oil, creates quite a mess on the chainsaw surface that I discovered once I cleaned it.
    
  • Mary made a big dinner of pork loin, sweet potatoes, and green beans. 
  • Mary also did a large load of laundry.
  • Katie texted an image of a creation of northern lights that she made using felt (see photo, below). It will be future artwork for the wall of her apartment.
  • Mary ordered 2 books with Christmas money sent from Mom. One is a Guide to Historic Artists' Homes & Studios and the other is Mornings on Horseback, about Teddy Roosevelt, written by David McCullough.

  

  Katie's northern lights felt artwork.
  

• Tuesday, 2/15: Prescribed Burn Instruction
  
  • One of the several steps in eradicating lespedeza is with prescribed burning. It makes more seeds germinate and results in a more thorough herbicide kill. The Missouri Department of Conservation holds several prescribed burn workshops throughout the state. The closest one is in Unionville, which is about 100 miles west. It's held on Feb. 26th. I signed up for it and was sent an access code to an online course needed prior to the field event in Unionville. 
  • I added 2 more clamps to hold down the pickup topper, so that each side has 4 clamps.
  • We watched 3 episodes of Downton Abbey's third season.
  • Mary packed the clothesline with several loads of laundry. She also made a chicken pot pie for our midday meal and vacuumed another army of flies and bugs.
    
    
• Wednesday, 2/16: Bread & Driver's License
  
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. We ate the last batch quickly.
    
  • I drove to Monticello, our county seat, and renewed my driver's license. It expires on my birthday and a strong snow storm is expected to arrive tomorrow. I didn't get the kind required to fly on an airplane, since you need to bring a certified birth certificate and a bunch of other items in order to get one. I look like an escapee from the state penitentiary in the photo on my new driver's license.
  • I drove from Monticello, east to Canton, MO, to buy a couple things at the County Market store and to fill the pickup with gas. The price of gas is $3.19 per gallon.
  • On the way back home, I took a different route, on Highway BB, that runs from Monticello to Ewing. This very nicely paved road is in great shape and covers some pleasant country in our county. Most of the county is relatively barren of trees. We're lucky to own so much timber.
  • Mary heard a mallard duck, but didn't see it.
  • Rain started falling as we finished evening chores. We heard rain hitting windows through the evening and when we walked dogs for the last time, the ground was wet and mushy. Expected dropping temperatures might give us freezing rain, overnight.r Super Bowl participation was me looking up the score before going to bed. It takes up less time, that way.
    
    
• Thursday, 2/17: Another Snow Dumping
  
  • When we got up around 7 a.m., a fine coat of ice covered everything. An hour later, snow started falling. Then, it really came down with a strong NW wind that produced very low visibility. Around 1 p.m., snow stopped. We received about 5 inches of snow, although in some areas it's drifted to deeper snow levels. The northerly wind must have blown the gravel road shut. We didn't get any mail and there were no tire tracks on the gravel road when I checked the mail around 5 p.m. The snow-clogged road might prevent Bill from arriving on Saturday, as planned. It's interesting that since Jan. 1st, we've seen 3 snows. Each time the snow is mostly melted, we get another snow that covers the ground with more white.
  • Stretches of area highways were closed, due to windblown drifts and accidents. Highway 61, from Palmyra to Hannibal, was closed. A semi was stuck on the hill in Quincy after going over the Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi River, thereby backing up traffic for about 3 miles into Missouri. There was a 100-car pile up south of Normal, IL, which about 188 miles east of us. It was a great day for staying home and watching the snow go by while nestled near the warm woodstove.
    
  • There's a $25 fee for taking the online prescribed burn course. Gas in the pickup to drive 200 miles, roundtrip, to attend the field event will be nearly $40. It's just a little too costly for us right now, so I canceled taking the Missouri Dept. of Conservation prescribed burn course.
  • I ordered chicks for this year. The order to Cackle Hatchery is for 3 barred rock pullet chicks and 25 cockerels in what they call the Fry Pan Special. The shipment will be on Monday, June 13th. Based on past years, they should be at the Ewing post office the morning of Wednesday, June 15th.
  • While walking down to the mailbox, I first heard, then saw, two trumpeter swans fly east to west. They have an extremely unique honk as they fly. It resembles the ah-ooga sound of a Model T horn.
  • Mary saw 3 mallard ducks while doing morning chores, before the snow fell.
    
  • Mary made a batch of flour tortillas.
  • We watched 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's 3rd season.
    
    
• Friday, 2/18: Plan to Fix Boat Seats
  
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
    
  • Mary cleaned the house.
  • We both walked to the end of our quarter-mile lane and shoveled snow to make it easier for the postman.
  • After reviewing options, I decided to take Christmas and birthday money and buy plywood and paint to redo the wooden seats in the 16-foot Lund boat. I repainted them when we lived in Circle, MT, but the wood is shot, now, and needs replacing.
  • I got Mom's birthday card in today's mail.
    
  • Mary saw 8 pelicans flying over the north woods, going east to west. She saw them while doing our evening chores.
  • I drove the pickup down our lane, picked up the mail and drove it back home, then drove east to where the gravel road meets the asphalt at State Highway J. A road grader went through and knocked back drifting snow, so it's relatively clear.
  • I texted Bill, suggesting that when he gets to Ewing, tomorrow, on his way here, he texts me, so I can meet him at the intersection of the gravel road and J road and lead interference with the pickup through any drifting snow on the gravel road. He responded that he thought he'd be there around noon.
    
  • We watched 2 episodes of Downton Abbey's third season.
    
    
• Saturday, 2/19: Bill Arrives & Turkey Dinner
  
  • Bill called a little after 12 p.m., while going through Ewing. I smashed down snow where he can park behind the Buick and the Suburban, then drove to the end of the gravel road. A small drift of snow crossed the road near there, so I drove over it about 4 times, tramping it down so Bill didn't get high centered in his Hyundai Sonata. It worked.
  • Bill is tired. Employees are leaving his place of work. His department, which was him and 4 other employees is down to him and 1 employee. Their starting wage is low, so employees leave like flies. He puts in 10-hour days and gets tired. After talking a bit, he took a nap.
    
  • Mary made a turkey dinner. It was great, as usual. Mary and Bill had most of a 2020 bottle of pear wine. I only had a little bit. I've been having stomach issues for the past week, so I'm laying off of wine and coffee. Mary said that the pear wine is so mellow, all you taste is the pear. She adds that it's really great wine. Bill says it's fruity and pairs well with any food...ha, ha. He adds that it's very good.
    
  • One of my amaryllis plants is blooming (see photos, below). The stalk is 26" high.
    
  • We watched 2 movies that Bill picked out. The first was the 1999 movie, October Sky. The 2nd movie was Men in Black 3.

One of the amaryllis blossoms.

Two more Red Pearl Amaryllis blossoms.