July 1-7, 2024

Weather | 7/1, p. cloudy, 57°, 73° | 7/2, sunny to thunderstorms, 65°, 92° | 7/3, 2.40" rain overnight, cloudy, 70°, 79° | 7/4, 0.29" rain overnight, p. cloudy, 70°, 80° | 7/5, p. cloudy, 64°, 77° | 7/6, smokey, 60°, xx° | 7/7, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 7/1: Doctor's Visit
  
  • Mary mowed the lane. It took longer than normal, due to several chicory stalks that were waist high on the second half of the lane. She had to drive over them several times.
    
  • I had a doctor's appointment at 10 a.m. in Lewistown. He was fine with my blood glucose numbers, so there's no change in medications. He lined up an appointment for me to have a colonoscopy (what fun!) and a diabetic eye checkup. They took blood for a battery of tests, which the doctor orders twice a year. I like the thorough job of this doctor. My A1C result was 6.8. The number for a controlled diabetic is below 7.0, so I'm doing fine.
    
  • I dropped by the Lewistown Post Office to get stamps. Someone lost control and hit the front of the post office, putting a crack into the concrete block wall, knocking off some bricks, and putting the door off kilter. Everyone has to go through the back door for post office business until things get fixed.
    
  • I mowed inside the far garden and between there and the compost bins. Grass clippings went on the last row in the near garden.
  • At sunset, I chased a deer away from our hazelnut bushes.
    

• Tuesday, 7/2: More Heat
  
  • Katie forwarded a copy of an article showing results of a swim/bicycle/run race she was in over the weekend. HERE is a link to the article. She placed 11th overall.
    
  • It was real hot and humid today.
    
  • I called and got appointments for an eye exam on July 17 and a colonoscopy on August 30.
    
  • Mary picked more blackberries. We now have 5.5 frozen quarts.
  • I cleaned the big chick feeder and we put it in the coop for the chicks this evening.
    
  • I mowed the east lawn between the house and the lane and part of the south lawn. I finished mulching the near garden. Dark clouds rolled in from the west, which stopped my mowing.
    
  • We had a long series of thunderstorms roll through with lots of thunder and lightning after dark. Over two inches of rain fell and it all soaked into the ground, due to our dryness.
    

• Wednesday, 7/3: Bill Here For July 4th
  
  • Bill showed up around noon. He's visiting until Sunday, July 7th.
  • I clipped bushes and tall weeds from around the Suburban, getting it ready for the junk guy to pick it up.
  • Mary has a poison ivy reaction on her right arm and thigh, due to berry picking. I picked blackberries where she missed, or where she doesn't go, due to massive poison ivy growth. I collected 1.5 quarts. We now have seven quarts in the freezer, although they might be equivalent to 14 quarts, because this year the bags are overstuffed compared to how we packaged them in past years.
  • Mary had five chimney swifts zoom by her head just two feet away while she was doing evening chores. It was the entire family. "They're a friendly lot," Mary said.
  • Mary, Bill, and I played Azul. It's a fun game. We also enjoyed a big bottle of 2023 peary, or pear cider. We tried it iced and at room temperature. The cinnamon came out more when iced and the pear flavor was stronger when drunk at room temperature. It's very nice.
  • On the final dog walk, frogs were sounding off everywhere. We have a lot, based on their nightly performances. A couple rain drops fell. We got more rain overnight.
    

• Thursday, 7/4: Katie Runs Mount Marathon
  
  • Katie ran in Seward's Mount Marathon race. It's a three-mile run straight up a mountain and back. She placed 202nd out of 285 women racers with a time of 1:33:01. She was camping with her dogs and friends in Seward overnight, prior to the race. HERE is a link to race results.
    
  • Mary picked blackberries, and ticks, of course. We now have just under eight quarts.
    
  • I donned my respirator and swept mice poop out of the Suburban's seat areas. Wasps zinged about when I was near the driver's door, signifying at a wasp nest is probably underneath that area.
    
  • I whacked with the Stihl trimmer, and hacked with the long-handled loppers, to take out tall weeds surrounding the compost bins and the ash pile. This is so Mary can easily access both spots for transplanting purposes.
  • Rain this past week revived the mushrooms growing on an elm log next to the woodshed (see photos, below). Bill noticed that if you watched closely, clouds of spores are seen slowing drifting away from the mushrooms.
    
  • Bill picked out two movies that we watched. They were the 2022 film, The Lost City, and the 2005 movie, Hitch.

These unidentified mushrooms appeared, again, on an elm log.

Bill noticed spores drifting from them.

• Friday, 7/5: Gardening, Washers Game & Wienie Roast
  
  • Mary transplanted 16 pepper plants into the near garden. Each hole received a big helping of compost and wood ashes. After a big drink of water, all plants looked great in their new homes.
    
  • Mary also made a pumpkin cake.
  • Bill mowed in the west yard around the concrete circle where we have outdoor fires and under the clothesline.
    
  • Bill was a huge help in weeding the strawberry buckets and tubs. Since planting the strawberries on April 9th, we kept them covered with old lacy curtains and didn't touch them, due to a delay in getting the near garden electric fence operating. They were full of weeds and grass. Each container required carefully pulling unwanted weeds and grass without disturbing strawberry plant roots. We only lost a couple plants choked out by weeds. I added grass mulch. A few buckets also received persimmon bark chips. I moved all containers to the east end of the near garden and watered them.
    
  • We played washers and had a wienie roast over an outdoor fire. The washers game is similar to pitching horseshoes, only you're throwing big washers instead of horseshoes and instead of hitting a stake, you try to plunk a washer into a container. Bill is the best at this. Bill and Mary played the last washers game into darkness. They couldn't see their target and could only listen to tell where the washer landed...a dull thud meant the washer hit the grassy lawn and a higher pitched bang meant they hit the target. They needed a flashlight to find all of the thrown washers. 
  • After roasting turkey hotdogs, we settled in next to the fire and enjoyed some wine. Bill and Mary drank 2021 grapefruit wine. Mary says it's okay, but wouldn't recommend making future batches. Bill thinks not adding grapefruit rinds would make it better. I drank some persimmon wine, another wine I don't plan on making, again. It's too harsh for my taste. 
  • We heard a raccoon making a racket close to us, near the machine shed. We saw several satellites and a couple meteors. We heard a continuous tree and wood frog chorus. Coyotes howled to the south. We went inside around 11:30 p.m.
    

June 24-30, 2024

Weather | 6/24, p. cloudy, 66°, 95° | 6/25, p. cloudy to thunder, 80°, 93° | 6/26, cloudy to sunny, 1.23" rain overnight, 65°, 83° | 6/27, sunny, 62°, 82° | 6/28, 0.02" rain, cloudy, 71°, 75° | 6/29, 0.03" rain overnight, p. cloudy, 75°, 82° | 6/30, sunny 59°, 77° |

• Monday, 6/24: Second Racking of Cherry Wine
  
  • Katie texted a photo of a black bear she saw when she went to work this morning (see photo, below).
    
  • I racked all of the cherry wine for the second time, due to large collections of fines at the bottom of containers. Each batch fit into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug. By nighttime, the wine turned a dark red color (see photo, below). The specific gravity of batch 1 was 0.993, giving it an alcohol content of 11 percent. Batch 2 had a specific gravity of 0.994 for an alcohol content of 10.2 percent. Both batches received 1.1 grams of Kmeta. I had to add eight ounces of distilled water, split between the two containers of batch 2, to bring the levels of liquid to the top.
    
  • Mary picked about a couple handfuls of blackberries. She spooked up a deer in the west field. It was really hot, so she took a break midway through trudging around the property. There are a lot of unripe berries. High heat means they must be checked daily.
    
  • I watched Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. Florida won, 2-1, and earned the 2024 championship. They were the better team in the final game. I was rooting for Edmonton...maybe next year.
  • While we sat in the living room, prior to bedtime, we heard chimney swift chicks peeping from our chimney.
    

A black bear visiting apartments in Anchorage.

Dark red color of cherry wine after 2nd racking.

• Tuesday, 6/25: Picking Blackberries in the Heat
  
  • Mary and I picked blackberries on what turned out to be a very hot day. Our clothes were soaked with sweat after each of our two forays seeking wild fruit. We filled the first quart of 2024 blackberries in the freezer. The first picking venture started at Bramble Hill, where blackberry plants are drastically diminished, to a march across the north end of the north field, where several new blackberry patches are emerging. We startled a deer at the northwest corner of the north field. It was laying in the shade under a small oak tree. The second venture starts in the west field, proceeds around Frog Pond, down the west side of the south field, then southeast of the house to several blackberry patches in that area. Blackberry picking in the heat wipes you out, so long breaks in the air conditioning are necessary.
    
  • I found huge turkey feather in the southwest corner of the north field (see photo, below). I'm guessing it came from a really big tom turkey.
    
  • Mary made pizza for our main meal. We marvel at the high cost of pizzas advertised from chain pizza joints in flyers we get. We create pizzas for a fraction of that cost, and they're better, made with a whole wheat crust. My blood glucose reading reflects the better food. My nighttime reading was 121, which is good for me after a meal.
    
  • I made three online orders today. One was for 25 pounds of textured vegetable protein (TVP), made from soybeans, and 50 pounds of regular rolled oats. Both are much cheaper purchased this way, compared to buying them in a grocery store, even with shipping. I ordered the outer container of a good rain gauge made by an occupational development center in Fergus Falls, MN, that gives physical and mental handicap folks a place of employment. We first got this first-rate rain gauge from the Glasgow, Montana U.S. Weather Service when I did a story on them while working for Mid-Rivers Telecom in Circle, MT. This will be only the third replacement since getting the first one over 15 years ago. I also ordered four chicken waterer tops from an animal and vet store in Alabama. Little Giant plastic waterer tops go bad after a couple years in the summer heat and winter freezes. The bottoms last longer. So, it's nice that I found a source for just the tops.
    
  • We noticed lots of thunder in the afternoon and storms developed around us or even overhead of us. We received nothing but a couple drops of rain. After dark was different. An evening storm developed west of us and headed our way, giving us over an inch of much-needed rain.

  

  An 18-inch turkey feather, the largest we've ever found.

• Wednesday, 6/26: Cleaning Out the Suburban
  • Katie texted that she saw the black bear again, after hearing one of her dogs and cats growling.
  • Mary picked blackberries from all around our property and filled a half quart for the freezer.
    
  • She saw two deer. The first was a fawn that was lying down in the tall grass along trail to Cherry Deer Blind in the north part of our property. The second deer was in the west field.
  • We saw a third deer tonight. It was a small doe near the apple trees south of the house. You could tell she's been nursing a fawn. She walked off into the west woods.
    
  • I emptied the '84 GMC Suburban. We've been using it as a storage place since 2014. I pulled 25 Styrofoam coolers out of the vehicle that I saved while working at Petco. Tropical fish were shipped in them. I kept them with the idea of insulating the chicken coop, which I still want to do. There were a lot of other items in there, like mouse traps, blankets for covering garden plants, a tire iron, old weed trimmer parts, two 80-pound bags of Quikrete concrete mix, and lots of mice pooh. 
  • Here's Mary's eulogy to the old Suburban: "Dick emptied the old 1984 GMC Suburban today, in preparation to handing it over to the junk guy this weekend. The Suburban has a lot of family history tied up in it. We bought it in 1993, the year Bill was born, in Roseau (MN). We've been through northern Minnesota blizzards with it, as well as trips to Winnipeg, the Northwest Angle of Lake of the Woods, Saskatchewan, and the Montana Rockies. For a few years, we drove the Suburban around Roseau at Christmas as official Christmas decoration judges. This vehicle moved us from Roseau to Circle (MT), to Richey (MT) and back to Circle, and finally to here. I drove the kids to Glendive (MT) a few times a week for baseball and softball games. On one of these trips, I drove it into a microburst on the edge of Glendive and felt the tire leave the road slightly, making me glad I was not driving a car. Wherever we traveled, we had Molly and Klondike, our golden retrievers, and Doc, the Basset, roaming in the back, because traveling anywhere meant a long trip and they were happier with us than left at home for hours on end. We haven't used the Suburban for anything but storage for years. It is old and worn out, and the time has come to let go. But, the memories surrounding that old vehicle will live on."
  • I also emptied three Styrofoam coolers and lots of flat Styrofoam pieces out of the pickup box that were once in the Buick. We need the pickup for shopping, tomorrow.
    
  • We didn't hear any cicadas, today. Yahoo!
    

• Thursday, 6/27: Shopping
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy. The buy of the day was a bag full of material that Mary picked up at Goodwill. There are many pieces she plans to use for cross stitch ornament backing. The price was $11.87 and Mary thinks it was worth $75-$100, considering the quality of the material.
    
  • We watched the Biden Trump debate and turned it off once all of the talking heads started telling us what we already saw.
    
  • The junk guy texted that he might not be showing up this weekend. He's having difficulty locating a tow bar to use in towing the Suburban to his place.
    

• Friday, 6/28: Blackberry Picking & Wheelbarrow Tires
  
  • Bill called. His last day at work was Wednesday, instead of today. They kicked him out early. He received a substantial amount of severance pay. Bill is working on self-education related to computer programs. He will visit us July 3-7.
    
  • I decided to get an eye exam. Coatings are flaking off of both pairs of glasses for Mary and I. If my exam goes well, Mary will follow when funds are sufficient. I also have hazy vision in my left eye. I suspect a cataract.
    
  • Mary picked more blackberries. We now have  2.5 quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. I picked a handful of blackberries that are surrounded by poison ivy west of the house. Mary avoids heavy poison ivy places. It doesn't bother me as much as it does for Mary.
    
  • I replaced wheelbarrow tires on two of our three wheelbarrows. We now have flat-free tires on all of our wheelbarrows. I had to cut and fit spacers to fit the wheels on the axles of both wheelbarrows out of plastic electric conduit.
    
  • While ending evening chores, I heard and then saw five chimney swifts flying over the house. It must mean some of their babies are out flying about.  They usually leave a week, or so, after the young ones start flying. At the same time I spotted the chimney swifts, I saw about a dozen nighthawks gliding overhead at a higher altitude. They looked like they were just playing in the air currents.
    

• Saturday, 6/29: Hunting Changes
  
  • The Missouri Conservation Department announced that Lewis County is in the CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) zone. That means that during the first weekend of regular hunting season, deer hunters must take their deer to a station where every deer is checked for the disease. It also means there is no restriction on hunting bucks. In past years, you couldn't shoot any mature buck with antlers containing fewer than four points on one side. They want to eliminate more animals, so the limit is off. Also, CWD counties get an extra season, again, to eliminate more deer. So, there are quite a few changes this deer hunting season.
    
  • Mary packaged and froze the TVP. A 25-pound bag of textured vegetable protein turned into 108 one-cup bags, which will last us for a couple years. One bag, plus 1.5 cups of water is equivalent to a pound of meat. We use TVP in taco bowls, chimichangas and Mexican dishes. The one-cup sandwich bags of TVP fit into four two-gallon bags in the freezer. Mary also put the 50-pound bag of oats in the freezer. After a week, it goes into four five-gallon food grade buckets, complete with Gamma seal lids. We eat oatmeal with pecans, apple slices, and blackberries for six breakfasts a week.
    
  • I removed the '84 Suburban license plates...not an easy task on that rust bucket. Actually, the front plate came off nicely with the handy ratchet wrenches that Mom gave me on my birthday. I took a cold chisel to the rusted bolts on the rear license plate.
    
  • I sprayed several Japanese beetles that were on apple trees and on the Virginia Creeper plants surrounding the house entry door. We went from cicadas to Japanese beetles eating on our fruit trees, this year.
  • A chimney swift flew by my ear, twittering away as it winged along. They are very sociable birds.
    

• Sunday, 6/30: Blackberries & Gardening
  
  • Mary picked blackberries all day. We now have four quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. She picked 53 ticks off her clothes. Most are seed ticks. Packing tape works wonderfully at taking them off clothing.
    
  • I mowed inside and outside of the near garden.
  • I trimmed cedar branches on the south side of the near garden. Some were starting to touch the electric fence wires. They're now about 8-10 feet back from the fence edge. I moved several wheelbarrow loads of branches down the lane and threw them into three big piles just east of the lane.
  • After pounding down earth next to near garden corner posts to solidify them, I tightened a few wires and turned on the electric fence unit. A check of the hot wires showed it was running at full strength.
    
  • We had the windows open all day, since outside temperatures were cooler. We heard crickets chirping. It sounds more like September outside, not June.
  • In the evening, I made a chart of my blood glucose numbers from 1-1-24 to now, so I can hand it over to my doctor on a visit scheduled for tomorrow.
    

June 17-23, 2024

Weather | 6/17, p. cloudy, 75°, 91° | 6/18, sunny, 70°, 89° | 6/19, sunny, 73°, 89° | 6/20, sunny, 66°, 91° | 6/21, sunny, 68°, 91° | 6/22, sunny to thunderstorm, 73°, 92° | 6/23, 0.42" rain overnight, sunny, 68°, 89° |

• Monday, 6/17: Watering Trees & Starting Cherry Wine
  
  • A strong south wind and high heat is drying out the land and plants.
    
  • Mary spent most of the day watering fruit trees and blueberry bushes. Due to high heat, she'd haul water for a short while, then take an indoor air conditioning break. We have a lot of trees and bushes to water and they need it in this intense heat.
    
  • I made a five gallon batch of cherry wine. Thawing eight packages of cherries that collectively weighed 17.8 pounds was quick and easy in the sun on the porch. I juiced two bags of mandarin oranges to put 32 ounces of juice into the brew bucket. I used two nylon mesh bags to hold the cherries. Zest from two navel oranges also went into the bags, along with the mandarin and orange pulp. The following were added to the bucket: 3.5 gallons of water, 7 pounds of sugar, a cup of strong tea brewed with two Red Rose tea bags, and 1 gram of Kmeta. The specific gravity was 1.074 and the pH was 3.4, so I didn't add acid blend. I let it sit overnight in the pantry.
  • Katie called to wish me a good belated Father's Day. She was in the middle of a visit to care for a cat as part of her part-time pet care work she does through rover.com. She talked about hosting dogs for a couple days, such as a pair of doodles and a cane corso. It sounds interesting. In her main job, she's working on a school build for Kaktovik, which is on the north shore of Barter Island on the Beaufort Sea and near the Alaska/Yukon border. The Kaktovik school burned down in 2020. Katie said the new-to-her Mazda is a nice vehicle. She got it on a regular maintenance schedule and foresees a few mechanic fixes once she builds back her savings that were drained for purchasing this rig. Nice summer weather, with temperatures into the 70s, is rolling through Anchorage.
    

• Tuesday, 6/18: Cherry Wine Batch 2
  
  • It's still hot, but not quite as bad by a couple degrees from prior hot days. We have a strong south wind blowing day and night.
  • I made a second five-gallon batch of cherry wine. The ingredients were almost identical as the first batch made yesterday, except today I used nine packages of cherries with an accumulative weight of 18.28 pounds. The specific gravity was 1.075 and the pH was 3.2.
  • In the morning, I added 3.75 teaspoons of pectic enzyme to cherry wine Batch 1, then worked up a Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast starter. Prior to pitching the yeast late at night, the specific gravity read 1.070. I added a half pound of sugar for a grand total of 7.5 pounds of sugar, which raised the specific gravity to 1.077. I also added 3 grams of diammonium phosphate (DAP) to the brew bucket. DAP is the main ingredient of yeast nutrient and I was told that several winebrewers prefer it, because less is needed to boost yeast production. Immediately upon pitching the yeast, a flowery aroma wafted from the brew bucket in the pantry.
  • The chicks have been with us for a week and they've grown a bunch in just seven days (see photos, below).
    
  • I watched Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals, where the Edmonton Oilers won, 5-3. The Florida Panthers lead the series three games to two, but the Oilers won the past two games. Game 6 is Friday in Edmonton.

Chicks pictured from one week ago.

A chick as of today with wing feathers appearing.

• Wednesday, 6/19: A Blackberry Check
  
  • Mary walked around our property to check on blackberries. She says there are lots of green berries, a few ripe ones, and a bunch of red berries. There are fewer plants this year, probably due to dry conditions.
    
  • She startled up a young buck deer on Bramble Hill. Mary thinks it was resting in one of the old hog buildings. Its antlers were about eight inches tall.
  • Mary spotted a very large leaf of a plant in the southeast corner of Bass Pond. She identified it as lotus. We don't know if it's Asian or American lotus. Unfortunately, lotus is invasive and can take over an entire pond. We'll probably have to beat it back if the muskrats don't beat us to it. She adds that there are lots of bass in the pond.
    
  • I worked on cherry wine (see photo, below). Batch 1 is fizzing with yeast activity. I squeezed the mesh bag and stirred it twice, today. The morning specific gravity reading was 1.070 and the nighttime reading was 1.063. Batch 2 received strong tea and 3.75 teaspoons of pectic enzyme in the morning. I worked up a starter of Red Star Côte des Blancs yeast for Batch 2. I added three grams of DAP prior to pitching the yeast. The specific gravity was 1.072, so I didn't add any sugar, then dumped in the yeast.
    
  • I chainsawed multiflora rose vines that covered the electric fencer power unit and a massive mulberry bush that grew to completely shade the south windows of the sunroom. Behind the mulberry were several poke berry weeds that extended above the roof eve. They're all down, now, putting better sunlight into the sunroom. I cut up mulberry branches to make stakes for fencing in the far garden.
    
  • There are dead branch tips on the ground, everywhere, which is the result of cicada damage. They lay eggs in these branches, causing them to die back and fall to the ground. Our small cherry trees were hit hard by cicadas.

  

  10 gallons of cherry wine...Batch 2 (left) & Batch 1 (right).

• Thursday, 6/20: Picking First Blackberries
  • When Mary opened the gate into the chicken yard this morning, she saw a juvenile prairie king snake, about 15" long, attempting to capture two mice. The snake was coiled around one mouse. The second mouse was caught by the end of its tail and was dragging the snake wrapped around the first mouse in an attempt to escape. Once it wedged the heavy weight behind a weed, the second mouse broke free. Mary scooped the snake wrapped around the first mouse into a shovel and moved it to outside the chicken fence, so our feathered dinosaur chickens wouldn't eat it. After attending to chickens, she noticed it was eating the mouse. Later, the snake was gone.
    
  • Mary also noticed baby wood frogs hanging out in the bedding plants that she placed on the north side of the house, where it was damp and shady. They're tiny at about a half inch long.
    
  • We picked a handful of ripe blackberries. During a quick check upon returning home, we found we picked up more ticks (about 45) than berries.
  • Winemaking took up part of my day. A morning specific gravity check returned a 1.047 reading for Batch 1 and 1.068 amount for Batch 2. A nighttime check registered 1.029 for Batch 1 and 1.057 for Batch 2. Additional liquid from cherries melting away due to yeast activity is pushing the mesh bags into the flour sack towel covering the brew bucket of Batch 2, putting a red/pink stain on the cloth. I'll be racking wine tomorrow morning.
    

• Friday, 6/21: Racking Cherry Wine Batch 1
  
  • When walking the dogs this morning, a squirrel jumped on the south side of our house. We went down the lane with the puppies. Returning home, there was the squirrel, again, so I reached up with a shovel. It leaped over my head, ran up the power pole in our yard, and sassed at us.
  • I racked about 5.33 gallons of cherry wine, batch 1, for the first time (see photo, below). The specific gravity was at 1.012. The pH was 3.0. Since cherry wine has a history of foaming, I filled a five-gallon carboy and two 1-gallon jugs to where they start to curve in, leaving lots of head room for foam.  Once that was done, I cleaned the largest brew bucket, ran sanitizer through it, and moved batch 2 into this larger container. This allowed more room for increasing juice that floats fruit in mesh bags upward and was touching the towel covering the smaller brew bucket and getting it wet. I washed the flour sack towel in OxiClean and hung it on the line outside. After drying in the hot sun, the red stain was gone in a pure white towel. The early specific gravity reading on batch 2 was 1.039. Before bed, it was 1.022.
    
  • Mary dusted books in the north bedroom and pulled several to donate.
    
  • Plato's right rear leg buckled under him as I let him inside after an outside whittle. We moved his blanket from upstairs to the kitchen floor in the sunroom doorway. Then, he was off the concrete, laying on softer material, and he didn't have to go upstairs. Mary gave him one aspirin, based on his body weight. He seemed a little better by the nighttime walk.
    
  • I watched the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers, 5-1, and force a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals, which will be in Florida on Monday. Bill and I texted each other throughout the game. While Oiler's Defenseman Mattias Ekholm (see photo, below), who is Swedish, was interviewed at the end of the second period, Bill made me laugh with this comment: "Mattias Ekholm's ancestors raided English fishing villages, I mean look at him."

Cherry wine, batch 1, after its first racking.

Mattias Ekholm plays defense for the Oilers.

• Saturday, 6/22: Racking Cherry Wine Batch 2
  • Mary picked a handful of blackberries. She found a number of new blackberry patches across the north field, all with green berries. She picked in the morning, when it was not so hot.
    
  • Mary spooked up four deer in various places throughout our property while picking berries. One, a buck, and the only one she clearly saw, was bedded down near a tree in the west field.
    
  • Right after breakfast, I racked cherry wine batch 2 for the first time. The specific gravity was 1.011 and the pH was 3.0. The temperature of both batches prior to racking was 80°. Ten gallons of wine is now racked and settling down in the pantry (see photo, below).
    
  • Mary saw a crow attacked by one small bird as it flew over our place, The little bird would hit the crow on the back, making the crow drop a bit in the sky.
  • We enjoyed our first bottle of 2023 perry, or pear cider. It's a very light wine with a low alcohol level (5.63%), perfect for a summer drink. It tastes good with a tangy cinnamon flavor and a hint of pear.
    
  • On our last dog walk, a big, bright moon was shining on southeastern horizon with lightning flashing across the sky from the west.
    
  • We received an intense downpour from a thunderstorm right before midnight.
  • Plato is getting a lot better. Some good sleep and a little pain relief seems to improve his leg.

  

  10 gallons of cherry wine settling down in the pantry.

• Sunday, 6/23: Fresh Bread, Fixed Pickup Fan, & New Outdoor Electric Cover
  
  • It's Karen's 66th birthday. I left my sister a couple messages.
  • The junk dealer who picked up a bunch of mowers, the Buick, and the Ford Jubilee tractor, texted me that he will pick up the '84 GMC Suburban from us next weekend.
    
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread.
    
  • I looked up prices on an air conditioner/heater blower fan for the pickup. Prices ranged from $30 to $122 at RockAuto to $216 at AutoZone. Then I learned that the blower motor resistor usually is replaced at the same time as the fan, which is another $40-$50. I went out to check which resistor I have and discovered a plastic tang to bend slightly which allows the fan motor to come out with ease. In the squirrel cage fan mechanism was a pecan shell and a desiccated bird's skull. I removed these items, cleaned dust out of the place the fan fits into, and reinstalled the fan. On a test of the fan with the ignition on, it sounded much better. Online research tells me that the cab's air intake is under the plastic shroud beneath the windshield and the window wipers. At a later date, I'll remove wipers, that shroud, and vacuum any debris out of this air intake. It's a famous place for mice to leave stuff.
    
  • Mary hauled away mulberry branches and rose bushes that I cut down and left on the lawn while uncovering the electric fencer unit and the sunroom's south windows.
    
  • I installed a waterproof outdoor electrical receptacle cover where we plug in the electric fencer. I also replaced the outlet. Breakers aren't marked in the main breaker box, so I plugged a trouble light into the outside plug in and turned breakers off and on until I found the right one. I also discovered that breaker not only involves the outside electric plug in, but also the one in the living room that an air conditioner is plugged into and the one in the upstairs north bedroom that another air conditioner is plugged into. The electric circuits in this house are a nightmare. I applied silicone caulking around the edges of the waterproof cover.
    
  • All 10 gallons of cherry wine is turning dark red as particulates settle out. The airlocks stopped burping. It's time to rack the good liquid off the fines.
    
  • We watched the 2017 film, Darkest Hour.

June 10-16, 2024

Weather | 6/10, sunny, 53°, 75° | 6/11, sunny, 52°, 85° | 6/12, sunny, 63°, 88° | 6/13, sunny to thunderstorms, 0.15" rain, 68°, 92° | 6/14, sunny, 65°, 88° | 6/15, p. cloudy, 59°, 88° | 6/16, p. cloudy, 71°, 91° |

• Monday, 6/10: Chicks Sent Today
  
  • Cackle Hatchery emailed us that our order of chicks was in the mail this morning, with an expected arrival in the Ewing Post Office of Wednesday morning.
    
  • Mary mowed around the compost bins and in the south end of the far garden. She collected grass clippings and mulched rows in that same garden.
  • I hung the heat lamp in the chick side of the coop and put chick feeders inside. I used the Stihl trimmer and the loppers to cut a path through mother wart and rag weed plants to the outside west end of the coop. Using three old license plates and screws, I covered holes developing in that wall. I filled small cracks with pieces of hemp twine. This will get us by until after we butcher chickens. After that point, I need to replace the wood covering that west wall of the coop. It's OSB installed in 2010 and painted once. Fourteen years in the outdoors is way beyond the lifespan of that type of wood. When I checked from the inside while putting the chickens to bed for the night, I noticed I have one more crack to fill.
  • Vines are slowly enveloping our house (see photos, below). Virginia creeper vines are inching into view of our second-story bedroom window and hops vines are also marching up the wall. I guess we're growing sun protection for our house. It's turning into a "green" home.
    
  • I watched Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, where the Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-1...boo!, hiss!!! My son might be happy. In the past, he's mentioned he likes several players on the Panthers' team.

A Virginia creeper vine appears in upper left corner of
our upstairs bedroom window.

Hops vines (left) & Virginia creeper (right).

• Tuesday, 6/11: A Wienie Roast With Apple Cider
  
  • I mowed inside and around the near garden, putting mulch on rows in that garden. All we do this spring is mow gardens, instead of growing things in them. There have just been too many projects, like getting junk mowers, tractors, and cars, out of here, to get to gardening.
    
  • Mary mowed the west yard, finishing off mulching the near garden rows and adding to far garden rows.
    
  • I used the small chainsaw, cut more stakes off the downed Kieffer pear branch, and staked down more sections between rebar posts on the chicken wire fence in the near garden. I finished the south and east sides and started down the north side.
  • We paid attention to postal service tracking of our chicks through the day. Yesterday, they made it to Kansas City. By tonight, they were en route to St. Louis. From there, they'll head north to us.
    
  • I built an outside fire and we enjoyed turkey hotdogs that we recently bought at Aldi. They're a lot cheaper than pork or beef hotdogs and they taste good. After eating them, we enjoyed a bottle of 2023 apple cider on ice. It tasted delicious and is a great, refreshing summer drink, especially served cold. We saw lots of dragonflies, one bat, and then a multitude of lightning bugs as darkness fell. Tree frogs and crickets grow louder as stars started appearing. We also heard, robins, a wood thrush, a summer tanager, and a barred owl. I spotted bright yellow eyes reflecting off my hat light as I took buckets of water out to douse the fire. By the speed in which that critter took off, I'm assuming it was a raccoon.
    

• Wednesday, 6/12: Chicks Arrive
  
  • We received a call just after 7 a.m. from the Ewing Post Office that our chicks arrived, so after walking puppies, I drove to Ewing to pick them up and take them home. We got three extra, or a total of 28, and they're all quite healthy (see videos, below). We detect four varieties. They mugged the water fount immediately, then slowly started eating. By midday, the chicks were running all over their side of the coop, investigating everything. Outside temperatures were close to 90°, enabling us to turn off the heat lamp and open three windows.
  • Higher temperatures meant we weren't thrilled with going outside and baking in the sun, so we stayed inside, today.
  • More and more, we're seeing dead cicadas in the grass. We're also noticing cicada twig damage on most all deciduous trees.
  • We saw an indigo bunting for the first time this season. In the evening, we watched a great blue heron fly north with the south wind at its tail. It was really zipping along, quickly.

Lively chicks pecking on the coop floor.

Chicks bellying up to the bar for a drink.

• Thursday, 6/13: Hot With Storms
  
  • Today was a hot and muggy day, with temperatures into the 90s, so when we went outside, we were out for a short stints and back inside, quickly. I ended up opening all windows wide open in the coop for the chicks. It's their temperature (see photos, below).
    
  • Bill's gift of arm protectors that you wear to keep thorns from nailing your forearms while picking berries arrived via UPS, today, and Mary tested them out. They work nicely.
    
  • Mary picked more black raspberries. She finished filling a fifth quart in the freezer and started a new bag.
  • I cut 16 pear branch stakes and pounded a few in the ground on the chicken wire fence in the near garden.
    
  • At 4:30 p.m., a darkening west sky pushed us into attacking evening chores. Mary got the mail and heard thunder on the way back home from the mailbox. At 5:30, thunderstorms hit. There was continuous thunder and lightening for 2.5 hours, while the storms went through. Trees and power poles were down throughout the county with damage all around us, but we witnessed only a little downpour of rain. Reports of golfball, ping-pong sized, and 2.5-inch hail came from as close as a mile away from us. Mary looked online and 840 Lewis County Rural Electric Co-op customers were without power. Again, we maintained power throughout the storms. It's amazing how our geography diverts storms around us.
  • Mary took photos (see below) of spectacular mammatus clouds above us after the thunderstorms went through. A setting sun gave them a red glow for an amazing appearance.
    
  • I watched the last two periods of game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Florida won 4-3. It's the third loss in a row for Edmonton. The only team to win after being down 3-0 was the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942, who lost the first three games, then won four, straight, over the Detroit Red Wings. Can the Oilers repeat that feat?

Chicks enjoying the sunlight's heat.

A little fuzzy chick.

Mammatus clouds viewed above our porch.

More mammatus clouds after today's thunderstorms.

• Friday, 6/14: Another Day, More Garden Stakes
  
  • On a trip to the chicken coop to check on chicks (see videos, below), Mary and I watched a rose-breasted grosbeak gobbling down mulberries in the mulberry bush in the west yard.
    
  • I cut more pear stakes and pounded them into the ground along the chicken wire fence in the near garden. It's almost done.
  • There is a lot of twig damage from cidadas all over our property. They love maple trees and any smaller tree. I'm glad they only appear every 13 or 17 years.
  • My extra fly tying tools came in the mail from J. Stockard. They look like good fly tying equipment. Now, I just need to dive in and enjoy.
    
  • We watched the 2005 movie, Goodnight, and Good Luck, about Edward R. Morrow. It's a good one.

Sleepy chick after getting a full belly of food & water.

Run, chickie, run!!!

• Saturday, 6/15: Near Garden Almost Ready
  
  • We have the heat of July in June. Ugh!
  • Almost daily, a deer runs away from behind the machine shed. It was there, again, this morning.
    
  • I finished pounding stakes along the chicken wire fence in the near garden. This time I cut down persimmon saplings that were leaning over so we had to duck while walking on the trail to the far garden. I cut the saplings into stakes.
    
  • After finishing with stakes, I weedwhacked under the electric fence wires of the near garden. Several mole or vole diggings along the soil under the bottom wire that dried in the sun made for intense dust stirred up by the string trimmer. Often, I had to stop the Stihl trimmer in order to see my work. This garden is almost ready. I just need to power up the electric fence.
    
  • Mary picked more raspberries, filling six quarts in the freezer. They are turning bad within an hour, due to the increased daily heat. So, picking raspberries is over.
    
  • Mary mowed between the sheds and mulched more of the far garden.
  • Several common milkweed blossoms in the east yard are full of pollinators (see photos, below).
  • I watched Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, where Edmonton won, 8-1. They just need to win three more straight games to defeat the Florida Panthers.

A hummingbird clearwing moth on common milkweed.

A great spangled fritillary butterfly on a milkweed blossom.

• Sunday, 6/16: Heat!
  • It's hot outside, so we stayed inside today. Thank goodness for air conditioning. The heat lamp for the chicks stays off with daytime temperatures into the 90s. We're only turning it on as the sun sets. Planting seeds in the garden is also delayed. We'll probably need to water trees, soon. Strong south winds are drying them out.
    
  • Bill called and we talked with him. He's counting down to when his job ends on June 28th. Temperatures in St. Louis are expected to be in the high 90s the upcoming week. He's visiting us July 3-7.
    
  • Katie asked to call right when we were heading to bed. Maybe we'll talk in the future.
  • I checked on bulk prices for TVP and old fashioned rolled oats.
  • I'm reading the book, Wolf, The Lives of Jack London, by James L. Haley. It's fascinating. He was very driven throughout his short life.
    

June 3-9, 2024

Weather | 6/3, sunny, 65°, 84° | 6/4, cloudy, 65°, 83° | 6/5, 0.43" rain overnight, sunny, 60°, 79° | 6/6, sunny, 60°, 80° | 6/7, sunny, 54°, 86° | 6/8, 0.12" rain overnight, cloudy, 65°, 83° | 6/9, p. cloudy 57°, 83° |

• Monday, 6/3: Out Goes the Junk
  
  • I moved all nine of the junk mowers and tillers to one location on the east side of the machine shed (see photos, below). The junk dealer showed up just after 10 a.m. with a young son in a pickup pulling a dual-axle trailer. He and his 19-year old son partner in fixing old equipment. He's strong. After putting a strap around the front of the lawn tractor, he hoisted it up on the trailer, then lifted the back end into place. He and I lifted the Gravely onboard, which was a strain, at least for me. I asked if he took vehicles and tractors. He indicated an interest. After he left, he asked for photos of the '84 Suburban and said he's interested in buying that and the Jubilee Ford tractor. Mary says lets get rid of the Buick, so I asked if he wanted it, too, and he said yes. We agreed on a price of $350 for all three items. We could get a little more at a junkyard, but there's a huge advantage with him hauling it all away with his trailer. We're on a mission of getting rid of old junk! I now have to empty stuff out of the Suburban and the Buick, that we've been using as storage locations.
    
  • Mary and I mowed our quarter-mile lane. She said that with both of us mowing, it took a third of the time it usually takes for her to mow it, alone.
    
  • I picked a few more cherries and ate them for an evening dessert. I'm only picking cherries from the middle of the tree. Those at the top are turning dark, or beyond ripe. Birds can have them.

A lineup of junk mower and tillers.

Uncle Herman's lawn tractor.

• Tuesday, 6/4: Mowing, Raspberries & Garden Stakes
  
  • I mowed in and around the near garden, putting grass clippings on the south row. We're almost finished mulching that row.
  • Mary finished mowing the north yard. It's full of little poison ivy plants and small ragweed, so we don't keep clippings from that lawn.
  • Mary picked several more black raspberries. She has two full quarts in the freezer and started a new quart.
  • The pickup heater/air conditioning fan was real loud the last time we drove the vehicle. I attempted to fix it. On this model, the fan motor is under the dash on the passenger side. There are no bolts. It just clicks into place. Trying to turn it out was impossible and I didn't want to break it while getting the motor out. I must have jiggled something out of the way of the squirrel cage fan, because when I turned on the air system, the noise was gone.
    
  • I used the small chainsaw to cut stakes for between posts holding up the chicken wire in the near garden. I'm cutting them off a Kieffer pear branch that fell this spring. Pear wood is probably the toughest of all the wood growing on our property. I pounded 19 stakes in the ground, making it more than halfway down the south side of that fencing.
    
  • A couple barred owls were loud in the west woods as we walked the dogs at night. Prior to going out, we heard a squalling raccoon close to the house in the west yard.
    

• Wednesday, 6/5: Ants in the Mailbox
  
  • Rain fell overnight, after we went to bed. Mary couldn't fall asleep right away and heard the front come through with a strong wind blast.
  • This morning, we saw big raccoon tracks in the trail to the woodshed, just past our porch. It looked like tracks from a big bore raccoon.
    
  • I noticed about 100-200 small ants inside our mailbox, yesterday. Mary took a brush along when we delivered bills to the mailbox and brushed out the ants. Along the way, we heard a couple Bob White quail calling and saw several fly away.
  • I gave Mary a haircut. She feels human, again.
    
  • I weighed all 39 bags of 2024 cherries in the freezer to determine how much cherry wine I can make. I picked 61 pounds, 3.8 ounces of cherries (Bill helped pick several of them). That weight is without pits. I figure I can make two 5-gallon batches of cherry wine and we'll have several bags left for baking purposes.
    
  • Mary figured out a shopping list. She also baked a cherry crisp from last year's cherries. We have four quarts left from last year.
    
  • I balanced the checkbook while Mary picked more black raspberries. She got another big batch. She says some raspberry patches are expanding. Mary also said a growing number of cherry pits in a big semi-circle is near the Keiffer pear tree.
    
  • I picked more cherries to eat as a supper dessert. Those near the top of the tree, or on outer branches, are turning black and too ripe for eating. Most of the cherries in the center, away from intense sunlight, are still good. They sure taste great.
  • After walking the dogs on their last walk around 10 p.m., Mary and I walked into the north yard and gazed at blinking lightning bugs. Numbers are increasing and they put on a nice show as they fly through branches high in the trees. It's like Christmas out there.
    

• Thursday, 6/6: Shopping
  
  • We shopped in Quincy. On the way there, about two miles away from our house on State Highway J in a dip in the road, we saw a doe deer and her newborn fawn (see photo, below). They were right in the middle of the highway, so I stopped and put on the four-way flashers. Eventually, and with coaxing from Mama Deer, they departed west into the woods. Just after that, a goonball driving a motorcycle zoomed through driving very fast.
  • I found five pairs of pants at the Salvation Army that fit me better. I've gone from a 36" to 34" waist, so I'm tossing old pants in favor of better fitting ones. Besides picking up food, we got chick feed and other items to set up for baby chicks that arrive next week.
  • I received a message from the junk dealer asking if he can drop by Sunday to pick up the Jubilee tractor and the 2000 Buick Park Avenue. I agreed. He wants to drive the Buick and asked if it can make it. I think it can, but warned him about its issues. I started it to make sure it runs, and it started right up.
    
  • We watched the 2022 movie, The Lost City, that we picked up today, starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe. It's really funny. We liked it.

  

  A tiny fawn behind Mom on Highway J.

• Friday, 6/7: Four Quarts of Raspberries
  • When Mary opened the chicken coop this morning, she saw the flash of a deer as it ran off from behind the machine shed. It was laying down prior to running off.
    
  • The horde of cicadas is noticeably less. They still are loud during the heat of the afternoon sun. We're starting to see their damage on trees and bushes. They lay eggs toward the tips of branches and areas beyond this egg-laying site die.
    
  • I inflated both front tires and the left rear tire of the '53 Jubilee tractor. The right rear wouldn't inflate, probably because it's too far gone with severe cracks. I didn't want to put undo wear on the small air inflation machine, so I ran it for just a minute at a time, then gave it a break. It took a long time to get the big rear tractor tire inflated. 
  • During the in-between times of tire inflating, I sharpened the blade on Mary's mower, and changed the tire on our oldest large wheelbarrow to a solid rubber one that will never go flat. The axle is long on this wheelbarrow, requiring spacers to keep the tire centered. I tried to make spacers out of a piece of PVC water pipe. That didn't work, since the pipe wasn't thick enough, so I used washers, instead.
    
  • Mary picked another big batch of black raspberries, which was enough to fill a quart freezer bag. She has four quarts in the freezer of this year's raspberries. She says they emit a wonderful aroma as she picked them.
    
  • With the $35 I had leftover from Christmas/birthday money, I ordered more fly tying tools from J. Stockard. They held a one-day anniversary sale, today, where their own name brand tools were 50 percent off, so I got a bunch of them.
    

• Saturday, 6/8: Cleaning Coop, Buick & Tractor
  • Mary cleaned the chicken coop. It was really dirty. She moved seven wheelbarrow loads and filled the compost bin to capacity with chicken pooh, old hay, and dried mud. After she finished, Mary and I put up the wall that divides the chicks from the hens inside the coop. Mary added hay to the floors of both sides of the coop. Mary said a Rhode Island Red hen was burrowing under the hay as she put it down, she liked to so much. Other than fixing a small hole in the west outside wall and hanging a heat lamp, we're ready for the arrival of chicks. They should be in Wednesday's mail. Mary was very tired after finishing that chore.
    
  • I cleared stuff off the '53 Ford Jubilee tractor, then sorted through several bags of sheets and blankets that we had in large garbage bags stored on the tractor. I threw away two-thirds of them, due to mouse infestation. Amongst the bags were more lace curtains, which we use at times to protect young plants from seed-eating birds and harsh sunlight.
    
  • I cleaned out the 2000 Buick Park Avenue. What a mess!!! I swept up a lot of mouse poop.
    
  • I wrote up bills of sale for the car and the tractor for us and the junk dealer to sign, tomorrow.
    
  • I watched Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The team I'm rooting for, the Edmonton Oilers, lost 3-0 to the Florida Panthers. Panthers Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, was out of this world on the 32 saves he made through the game.
    

• Sunday, 6/9: Jubilee Tractor & Buick Park Avenue Are Gone
  
  • I looked online about where to find the serial number on a Ford Jubilee tractor and found the number. I couldn't quite read it, so I got Mary's help. She dug out a magnifying glass and I wrote it down on the bill of sale. I also put the Buick's mileage on the other bill of sale, after connecting the battery. I used one of the wrenches Mom gave me for my birthday, which worked real nicely at tightening the battery cable nut.
    
  • The junk dealer arrived at 10:15 a.m. with his eldest son. I pulled the Jubilee tractor with the 8N Ford tractor while his son steered the Jubilee. The 8N easily pulled the Jubilee up a couple wimpy aluminum ramps that bent into curves as I slowly eased the 8N forward and pulled the Jubilee into the trailer. Using my small air pump, we aired up the driver's front tire on the Buick and removed the blocks. They put fluid in the brake master cylinder. Brakes were spongy, but they thought they could drive it to their place, which is 45 miles west of us. The junk dealer told us he will be back to get the Suburban toward the end of the month, after his kids get done with 4-H projects in county fairs. With his son driving the Buick, they left around 11:30. I texted later and they made it to their home without any mishap.
  • Mary and I wandered through the machine shed. We're starting to see more and more empty space in there.
    
  • Mary and I were both tired, so we spent a rather lazy day inside. Mary decided to quit cross stitching after falling asleep a couple times...not ideal with a needle in your hand. I was also falling asleep, so I went outside and put stuff away left out after this morning's junk dealings.
    
  • Mary watched a catbird enter the forsythia bush with a feather in its mouth that covering the bird's head so it had to dodge from side to side to see. It was probably a chicken feather.
  • The first purple coneflowers are blooming out the west living room window.
  • Mary picked almost a quart of black raspberries.
    
  • I noticed that most all of the over ripe cherries are gone. Then, I saw the results of an overzealous opossum (see photo, below). It ate too many cherries and upchucked them, their pits, and a couple mulberries onto the grass mulch under the Liberty apple tree.

  

  Yup, you're looking at 'possum puke, after it ate over ripe cherries.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

May 27-June 2, 2024

Weather | 5/27, 0.03" rain, sunny, 54°, 77° | 5/28, 0.10" rain, sunny, 53°, 76° | 5/29, sunny, 47°, 73° | 5/30, sunny, 52°, 78° | 5/31, p. cloudy, 57°, 73° | 6/1, 0.38" rain, cloudy, 60°, 73° | 6/2, cloudy, 59°, 80° |

• Monday, 5/27: Cherries Galore on Mary's Birthday
  
  • It's Mary's birthday, today. She turns 58.
    
  • Katie called. She's doing pet sitting in her spare time. Her vehicle's engine died, so she's looking for new wheels. She and I texted about a potential vehicle after the call.
    
  • Bill and I picked a bunch of cherries. The large cherry tree is really producing fruit. It's loaded with red, ripe cherries...the best year, ever. I picked high on the tree and Bill picked on the ground and from a three-step ladder. We put away a little over six quarts, today. The grand total in the freezer is 19 quarts from this year. There are a lot more cherries still on the tree (see photos, below).
    
  • Mary made a Mississippi Mud cake. It's amazing. 
  • She received a yearly renewal subscription to International Artist magazine from Katie, a unique washers game and a cross stitch project called Black Moon Cat from Bill. She says the cross stitch pattern will be a large ornament. Mary started that project, today.
    
  • The elderberries are already blooming, which is really early in the year.
    
  • Bill helped get TNT on our TV and we watched the Edmonton Oilers/Dallas Stars playoff game. The Stars won 5-3.

Bill's photo looking up the big cherry tree.

The top of the big cherry tree is loaded with fruit!

• Tuesday, 5/28: A Fun Game
  
  • Bill and I picked five quarts of cherries. We now have 24 quarts in the freezer.
    
  • We had a thundershower and more rain later in the afternoon.
  • Katie and I texted back and forth about various vehicles she's looking at.
    
  • Bill, Mary and I played a game of Rummy, enjoyed pots of Yunan loose leaf tea, a very yummy 1.5-liter bottle of 2023 cherry wine, popcorn, and some Mississippi mud cake. Bill wrote down weird things I said while playing the game and rattled them all off after the game was over. We laughed so hard it hurt.
    

• Wednesday, 5/29: Bill Returns to His Apartment
  
  • Bill left for his apartment in the early afternoon.
    
  • Mary mowed between the two sheds and a bit of the west lawn, adding grass clipping mulch to the near garden's south row.
    
  • I picked another five quarts of very ripe cherries from the top of the big cherry tree. There are now 29 quarts of new cherries in the freezer.
    
  • Katie and I had more texted discussions about vehicles.
    
  • I watched the Edmonton Oilers beat the Dallas Stars 5-2. The series is tied at 2-2.
  • We went to bed early for us...normal time for most people. Mary wants to pull all of the garlic tomorrow and I still have gobs of cherries to pick.
    

• Thursday, 5/30: Cherries & Garlic
  
  • I woke up right at daybreak and watched a fat opossum walk by the house on the lane. I'm guessing all of the cicadas are wonderful snacks for an opossum as it crawls along branches in nighttime hours, eating them. I also spotted a small deer crossing the lane just south of the house.
    
  • I picked just over six quarts of cherries. We now have 35 quarts of this year's cherries in the freezer. I used a new method. Two tarp straps secured the tall orchard ladder to the 10-foot step ladder. By carefully slipping branches between the rungs, I'm able to move this ladder combination near the center of the tree and pick ripe fruit in the tree top. These are cherries just donated to the birds in past years. Abundant cicadas are keeping birds away from ripe cherries that I'm able to pick this year. Plus, our cooler springtime temperatures mean the ripe cherries aren't going bad. There are many more ripe cherries left in that tree.
    
  • Mary pulled all six varieties of garlic from the far garden and laid them out to dry in the shade of the pecan trees. This is the best looking garlic that we've ever grown. Nice helpings of our compost prior to planting and sufficient, but not drowning, rains helped produce a great garlic crop. Mary and I hung several bundles of garlic from the rafters of the machine shed, where they'll dry through the summer. Mary says when garlic is all hung to dry, it's a great time of the year.
  • Mary picked two bowls of ripe pie cherries that we ate as dessert, tonight. They're tart, but tasty.
    

• Friday, 5/31: Cherries & Katie's Vehicle
  
  • While walked dogs on their morning outing, I noticed they were keenly aware of something with their noses in the air. Then, a deer snorted at me just a few feet east of us and ran away.
    
  • I picked more cherries. We're running low on quart freezer bags. I checked Dollar General online, since that's the only grocery store in Lewistown, and discovered that 19 bags in a box costs $5, which is insanely high. So, I'm opening existing bags from the freezer and stuffing them to maximum capacity. I probably picked the equivalent of another five quarts. Some cherries are becoming too ripe.
    
  • Mary made pizza and did all of the evening chores while I pitted cherries.
    
  • Katie bought a used vehicle (see photo, below). HERE is the Marketplace listing of it, which is a 2010 Mazda CX-9. She negotiated the price down by $500. It is an AWD, which should help in the winter. It's powered by a Ford 3.7-liter V6 engine, built by Mazda. Owners give it high marks. Katie needed wheels, since her Jeep's engine died.
    
  • I watched Game 5 of the Oilers/Stars NHL series. Edmonton won 3-1.
  • Mary watched the Beauty and the Beast film while I watched hockey.

  

  Katie's new wheels, a 2010 Mazda CX-9.

• Saturday, 6/1: All Day Picking Cherries
  
  • Rain fell overnight. We woke to light mist that turned to a cloudy day.
  • After deciding this was the last day for picking cherries, I picked all day and stored bowlfuls of unpitted cherries in the fridge. There are still cherries in the top center of the big cherry tree that I'll let birds eat. Or, I'll grab some to eat out-of-hand. After an evening meal, I pitted cherries until 3 a.m. At the end of pitting cherries, I was eating a bunch of them, just so I could get through them faster. The extra ripe ones are real yummy. Since I'm filling formally frozen bags to a stuffed capacity, I don't know exactly how much I picked today, but I'm guessing it was 10-12 quarts. That puts us at 50+ quarts of this year's cherries, which is a new record. The best year in the past was 2020, when we froze 29 quarts.
    
  • Mary noticed that a brown thrasher and a catbird are sharing nursery duties in the forsythia bush outside our east door. She said the catbird enters from the top of the bush and the brown thrasher enters from bottom.
    
  • Mary performed an egg experiment. She sprayed cooking spray in a 12-cup muffin tin, placed an egg into each individual cup, dropped a pinch of salt on top and stirred each egg gently, then froze the tin of eggs. Our eggs are larger than most, so freezing expanded them up and slightly out of the cups. Plus, the muffin tin tilted slightly, since our chest freezers contain mounds of frozen food. Consequently, it was a bit messy. After three hours, she popped each one out by pushing on one edge with a spoon, put them in a gallon freezer bag and ran them back into the freezer. This might be a way to store eggs, now that we have an abundance of them, so we have some through winter months, when egg output is low. Frozen like this, they are only good for baking or scrambled eggs.
    
  • I answered an ad in Marketplace from someone who lives two counties west of us and is asking for old mowers, tillers, and trimmers with motors. We have nine items that fit this category that we want out of here and I said he can have them for free. He's showing up late Monday morning with a trailer to haul them away. It will be nice to clear up room in the machine shed, which often seems like a collection of old junk.
    

• Sunday, 6/2: Collecting Junk & Picking Raspberries
  
  • While filling waterers prior to letting the chickens out of the coop, we spotted a baby bird walking around under the forsythia bush and along the house foundation. It had absolutely no fear of us and was eating greens. Mary looked it up and it was a wild turkey baby. We think it was lost, but was hopefully found by its mother, since we didn't see it later on.
    
  • Mary heard chimney swift nestlings in our chimney while sitting in the living room this morning.
    
  • I pulled out old mowers, tillers, etc., swept them off, and lined them up just inside the machine shed openings. I put air in the tires of Uncle Herman's riding mower and rolled it near the east opening. Next to it went the old Gravely mower, which is too heavy to maneuver. Getting rid of nine pieces of junk opened up a lot of space inside the building.
    
  • Mary found several wild black raspberries and picked a little over a quart. They look and smell amazing.
    
  • While picking raspberries, Mary found a bunch of cherry pits on the ground just north of the Kieffer pear tree. She thinks the summer tanager picks them off the big cherry tree, flies to his favorite perch and eats them. There goes my notion that birds aren't eating cherries!
  • I picked some ripe cherries, but this time, I ate them.
    
  • In the evening, I watched the Edmonton Oilers beat the Dallas Stars 2-1 and advance to the Stanley Cup Finals. They play the Florida Panthers to try to win the cup.
    

May 20-26, 2024

Weather | 5/20, p. cloudy, 67°, 86° | 5/21, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 64°, 83° | 5/22, sunny, 57°, 73° | 5/23, sunny, 46°, 81° | 5/24, 0.22" rain, 60°, 73° | 5/25, sunny, 48°, 77° | 5/26, 0.47" rain, 59°, 73° |

• Monday, 5/20: Ripening Sweet Cherries
  
  • Mary mowed the lane. Midway through mowing, she came stumbling down the lane to the house with a stitch in her side. Sitting down inside in air conditioning and having a drink of water fixed the problem.
  • Mary also cut garlic scapes. The garlic plants are starting to turn yellow. Harvest is nigh.
    
  • I toured all of the fruit trees. Sweet cherries are ripening (see photos, below). I don't see any pear fruitlets, even on the the Kieffer pear tree. It's a good aspect to the Bartlett pear trees. They took a beating with fire blight last year. They both look healthy this year and can recover without putting energy into growing fruit. Granny Smith is full of fire blight. There are plenty of growing fruits on the Empire and McIntosh trees, although Mac has dying branches, as does the Kieffer pear tree. I saw slight leaf curl, probably from leaf roller insects, at the top of the Gold Rush apple tree. All other trees look great.
    
  • I finished putting the chicken wire bunny fence up and installing a chicken wire gate. Next, I need to stake the bottom of the chicken wire sections into the ground, then turn on the electric fence.
    
  • There is a noticeable pulsating cicada noise in all of the trees. Mary heard several black-capped chickadees singing in the trees. They were probably happy with all of the tasty bugs to eat.
    
  • In the evening, I listened to Game 7 of the Oilers/Canucks playoffs. Edmonton won 3-2 and advance to the NHL Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Stars. Vancouver scored their two goals at the end of the game in an exciting finish.

The sweet cherries are ripening.

This tree is spindly, but produces lots of fruit.

• Tuesday, 5/21: Weather Skipped Us
  
  • Today was hot and very humid, with 40 mph south wind gusts, so we didn't feel like being outside.
  • Mary cut more garlic scapes while I picked sweet cherries (see photo, below). We pick cherries, even when they're slightly orange, or near ripe, before the birds bite into them. If we didn't pick them early, we wouldn't get any cherries. I noticed a few cherries nearing a ripe stage in the large pie cherry tree. Picking cherries is hard when blasts of wind blow branches helter-skelter.
    
  • My cousin, Marjorie, sent word that her daughter had a baby girl. She sent photos, including a video of her son showing Dorothy a picture of the baby. They were visiting Dorothy when news of the baby came through.
    
  • We were in a Level 4 of 5 from the National Weather Service for severe weather risks, today. Twice, we noticed big thunderstorms on the radar that looked like they might hit us, but in each case, the edge of the warning area was just a mile or two northwest of us. The last storm was constantly roaring with thunder. When it was nearest to us to the northwest, it was like someone flipped a switch, and there was no more thunder at all. There's something about our location that turns off a lot of thunderstorms. Later, on the last dog walk of the night, we saw lightning to the southeast, somewhere in Illinois, and to the south, probably near St. Louis.

  

  The first cherries picked this season. All are sweet cherries.

• Wednesday, 5/22: First Quart of Cherries in Freezer
  
  • The loudmouthed wren discovered our bedroom air conditioner and perched on top of it to yell at us, this morning. He woke Mary for good. I heard it, but fell back asleep.
  • When we opened the chicken coop this morning, ripe mulberries were on the ground from last night's strong wind. The hens loved them and gobbled them up, pronto.
    
  • Mary mowed the south end of the far garden and started mowing the middle area. It's hard going, since that grass is well established and tough.
    
  • I picked cherries from the large pie cherry tree and filled a quart freezer bag. The large ladder I purchased last fall is excellent. There is no part of that tree that I can't reach, especially with my homemade pickers. These are plastic Coke bottles that have long holes sliced into one side of them and taped to an old broom handle and a long, peeled persimmon sapling.
    
  • We watched the 2018 film, Black Panther. We liked it.
    

• Thursday, 5/23: Mowing & Picking Cherries
  
  • I sharpened the old mower blade and Mary mowed most of the east lawn. She used a bag to collect grass and mulched most of the longest row of the south end of the far garden.
  • I picked a little over three quarts of pie cherries off the large tree, only making it two-thirds of the way around the tree on the tall ladder. A continuous supply of cicadas equates to fewer birds eating cherries this year. 
  • Occasionally, I chased cicadas away during my cherry picking session. They're really noisy when you send them off branches. They sort of squawk at you. Cicadas look like creatures from outer space. They're black, with gold wings and red eyes. Together in nearby trees, they sound off in a throbbing noise. Collectively, from surrounding timber, the cicadas sound like the continuous release from an aerosol can.
    
  • Mary startled a rose-breasted grosbeak and an eastern phoebe off the top of the big cherry tree, so I guess some birds are getting to the cherries. The grosbeak flew to a nearby mulberry tree, where berries aren't ripe, yet.
  • When Mary came back from retrieving mail, she noticed that the swamp dogwood blossoms are filled with large butterflies, such as tiger swallowtails, giant swallowtails, and monarchs.
    
  • I listened to Game 1 of the Oilers/Stars Western Conference NHL playoffs. Edmonton won 32 seconds into the second overtime by a score of 3-2.
    

• Friday, 5/24: A Little Rain, More Gnats & Cherries
  
  • We had clouds, with a thunderstorm in the morning, spits of rain in the afternoon and a tiny afternoon rain. The sun shone at sunset.
  • I picked about a quarter of a quart shy of five quarts of cherries. I went back to the halfway location around the big cherry tree that I reached on the big ladder yesterday and only got another third around the tree. I found three bird-bitten cherries today, mainly at the very top. About a quarter of a quart of cherries came out of the sweet cherry tree. Mary and I tried one, each. They're tart, but very good.
  • The tiny bits of rain gave the nasty gnats a rejuvenated boost. Bug dope didn't faze them. I wore a head net to keep them at bay. About 50 of the tiny buggers buzzed my head as I picked sweet cherries. Atop my big ladder, they weren't quite as bad, but I kept wearing the netting on my head. I got a few bites on my wrists.
    
  • Mary did some housecleaning and made a huge pile of flour tortillas.
    

• Saturday, 5/25: Third AC In, Mowing, Cherry Picking
  
  • Mary spotted a common yellowthroat warbler out the west living room window. The bird seems to like the coppiced black walnuts that are on the west side of the house.
    
  • Mary did a major houseclean.
    
  • Mary mowed the south lawn, part of the north yard, and inside the near garden. She put grass clipping mulch on the south row in the near garden.
    
  • I gave our third air conditioner a fast wash with the garden hose and installed it in the upstairs north bedroom. I taped it into place on the inside, then went outside and installed pieces of vinyl siding and aluminum tape to keep water and bugs out. This Haier unit was bought in 2009 and still works like a charm.
    
  • I picked three quarts of pie cherries in only two hours. The top of the big cherry tree is loaded with red, ripe cherries and once I get high in my tallest ladder, I'm right in the middle of them, along with my screaming buddies, several red-eyed cicadas. They yell whenever my arm or hand gets close to them and fly away. Their surging call in the trees sounds like they're singing, "Day-yo, Day-yo," but they never finish the rest of the stanza of that song.
    
  • I listened to the NHL Game 2 between Edmonton and Dallas. The Stars won, 3-1. Boo! The Stars played better than the Oilers, tonight.
    

• Sunday, 5/26: Bill Arrives
  
  • A turkey hen showed up at the east end of the near garden right as Bill arrived in the late morning. It dodged into the bushes. Later, as Bill was unloading his car, it burst up into the air and flew north.
    
  • Bill and I picked cherries for just a little while, filling three quarts for the freezer.
    
  • Bill helped get a streaming version of ABC on our TV and Bill and I watched the New York Rangers/Florida Panthers playoff game. The Rangers won 5-4 in overtime.
    
  • Mary mowed the north and part of the west yard and put more mulch into the near garden.
    
  • We watched two movies...Harriet and News of the World.
    
  • A little bit of rain fell while we were watching movies.