April 20-26, 2026

Weather | 4/20, sunny, 32°, 66° | 4/21, sunny, 54°, xx° | 4/22, xx°, xx° | 4/23, xx°, xx° | 4/24, xx°, xx° | 4/25, xx°, xx° | 4/26, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 4/20: Mowing, Mowing, Mowing...Keep Those Mowers Rolling!
  • There was widespread frost on the ground this morning, with a low of 32°.
  • I noticed an oak tree that blew down near the beginning of Bobcat Trail that would make good firewood.
  • Mary and I both mowed. I mowed the lane, the east yard between the house and the lane and most of the south yard. Mary mowed between the sheds and the west yard.
  • Mary put grass mulch around the two new bushes, the rhubarb, and the raspberry transplants. I added grass mulch to the south row in the near garden.
  • I noticed rabbit chewings on the new strawberry plants, so Mary added old laced curtains over the strawberry containers and held them in place with several clothes pins.
  • We heard a wild turkey gobble to the east northeast in the late afternoon. Today is the first day of spring turkey hunting season. 
  • I watched Game 1 of the Edmonton Oilers/Anaheim Ducks NHL game. The Oilers won 4-3.

April 13-19, 2026

Weather | 4/13, p. cloudy, 61°, 81° | 4/14, 0.15" rain to cloudy, 65°, 86° | 4/15, 0.09" rain to cloudy, 60°, 76° | 4/16, 0.85" rain overnight, sunny, 58°, 80° | 4/17, sunny to thunderstorms, 1.96" rain, 58°, 81° | 4/18, sunny, 39°, 55° | 4/19, sunny, 34°, 55° |

• Monday, 4/13: Ongoing Issues
  • Today is Katie's 34th birthday, so we wished her a happy birthday online.
  • Fedco answered my email. We'll send the plants back to them, after we repair their box. I asked how to handle the label, but didn't hear back from them, today.
  • Mary turned over a bit of the near garden soil and weeded the garlic plants that were filled with wild buckwheat.
  • A guy from the Lewis County Rural Electric Co-op showed up and did nothing, because he says they need to bring in a bucket truck and the ground is too wet to move the heavy truck onto our lawn in order to be close enough to the pole. They could climb the pole, but he said he would let one of the younger guys do that. "Call us back if there are any changes," he said. I guess we wait until the pole and the transformer catches on fire before they actually fix the issue!
  • I ordered new checks from walmartchecks.com about 10 days ago. Unfortunately, I forgot that a central Illinois banking company bought our bank and the routing number changed. We were allowed to use our checks until they ran out. I failed to put the new routing number on my order for new checks. When I called the, I was put on a holding pattern at about 12:30 p.m. and they would call me back. The call-back came in at 3:30 p.m., but I had the sound off on my phone and missed the call. I'll try again, tomorrow.
  • I picked four dozen dandelion flowers. I'm at 50.1 grams and need 270 grams of dandy blossoms for a one gallon batch of wine, so I've got a long way to go! 
  • The new o-rings and air filters for the old lawnmower came in today's mail. These o-rings fit and oil and gas caps of the big Stihl chainsaw perfectly.
  • Bill called. He's doing well at his new job. He was invited to a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game that was against the Boston Red Sox. Boston won. Bill's friend from high school, Craig, has a job where the office is just one block away from Busch Stadium. So, they drove to the parking lot where Craig works, then walked to the stadium, which was nice. Bill said the Cardinals have a big guy who looks huge when seen with the rest of the team. This guy hit a home run on his first up-to-bat.

   

• Tuesday, 4/14: Transplanting Plants We Didn't Order
  • We woke at 3:15 a.m. with the sudden loud cracking of thunder overhead. Mary and I jumped out of bed and unplugged appliances.
  • While walking Cooper around the north field around noon, I noticed that water was puddled up everywhere.
  • The dog ends up sloppy after splashing through all of the puddles on trails, so Cooper gets a complete wash down on the front porch each time he goes outside. Today is the three-month anniversary of driving up to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, to get Cooper.
  • I successfully called walmartchecks.com and changed the routing number on our check order. Calling first thing in the morning helped. When you call during midday hours, it takes forever to get through.
  • An email from Fedco came with a label to print out and directions that a FedEx truck will pick up the package tomorrow. The problem is that we don't own a printer. I sent an email back that I'll drive to Quincy and have FedEx print out the label and asked if they could compensate me. A return email told us to keep the contents of the box and plant everything. That news totally changed our plans for today. 
  • Mary and I planted three Blue Moon woodland phlox plants in woods north of the machine shed near a pond that only fills when we get big rains. We also planted three corms of Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants at the same location. I marked each planting with tall sticks. We planted a Frances Red Basket willow in the north yard between the Four Brothers (two pin oaks, an American Elm, and a pecan tree) and the McIntosh apple tree. We don't care if deer eat it, so we're not putting a fence around it. We planted a Miss Canada lilac near other lilac bush in the west yard. Finally, we planted yellow coneflower roots west of our livingroom's west window, near where we have a yearly stand of purple coneflowers that Mary planted in 2010. Not including dahlias that are planted later, we have four more items to put in the ground. Cloudy conditions and nighttime rains mean you couldn't ask for better transplanting weather. We hope the plants survive. Most all have pale yellow leaves. They've been in a dark box too long.
  • I found two morel mushrooms in the woods where we planted the phlox and Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants. We left them behind. These mushrooms are very treasured by locals who bread and deep-fry them. We know that years ago, people grabbed them out of these woods, so we want to leave them alone to build up their population.
  • All of the strawberries that we planted on Sunday are looking very good, with nice green leaves.
  • Mary harvested several asparagus spears. Some shoots were already too large to eat and she left them to grow. She lightly cooks them in garlic wine...very yummy!
  • With a high reaching 86°, it's a bit hot for living without an air conditioner. However, we have predicted lows in upcoming days in the 30s, so it's still too early for running an AC. We cooled the house down like my grandfather used to do in Maryland, with open windows and a big fan.
  • Before any AC goes in, we'll need to insist on the electric company fixing the short at the transformer, which we heard and saw at night while walking the puppy.

   

• Wednesday, 4/15: Yellow Violets & More Transplanting
  • I walked Cooper around the west field and down Bobcat Trail, where the yellow violets have really multiplied (see video and photos, below). Mary got seasick watching my video and went back to take the photos.
  • I picked blossoms off eight dozen dandy flowers. I have a grand total of  75 grams and I need 270 grams to make a gallon of wine. Is it any wonder that I hate this time-consuming job?
  • Mary transplanted most of the rest of the plants we didn't order, but received on Saturday from Fedco. She put the Old Fashioned Bleeding Heart in middle of the four brothers trees in the north yard. I need to add protection around that plant. Mary planted the Wild Columbine in a pot located in the shade next to the woodshed. She also put the Victoria heirloom rhubarb in a large pot. It will be there until we can dig up a place for it in the middle of the far garden. The five Royalty Purple Raspberry plants went into ground south of the far garden, near the compost bins and next to other wild raspberry plants. The only set of plants yet to put in the ground are three different kinds of dahlia bulbs. Mary plans to plant them after May 1.
  • A thunderstorm rolled through after dark, with a strong downpour of rain, giving us 85 hundredths of an inch of precipitation.

Yellow violet close-up taken by Mary.

Spring Beauties along our Bobcat Trail.
 

Yellow violets and an active puppy dog on Bobcat Trail.

• Thursday, 4/16: Ticks & Dandelions
  • We picked a lot more ticks off Cooper after his noontime walk. It amounted to about 40 ticks. We've entered the height of the tick season right now. 
  • The conditions on the north loop trail are very wet with water in the trail about everywhere. The silly National Weather Service has us in a moderate drought. I beg to differ with their assessment! We've had 5.32 inches of moisture since April 1st.
  • Mary sorted and tossed bad items from stored acorn squash and garlic bulbs. She reports that they are storing amazingly well. She tossed six squash and about a bucket and a third of bad garlic bulbs. Squash should only last three months after picking. They were picked in October, so they should all be bad by January. Garlic should last six months after harvest. They were harvested around May/June. We always get some of our garlic to last until July of the next year, or 13 months.
  • I picked dandelion blossoms. I'm noticing low numbers of dandelion flowers this year. I now have just over 100 grams of blossoms. I'm contemplating making just a half-gallon batch of dandelion wine this year.
  • I changed a magazine subscription away from Fine Homebuilding to The Journal of Light Construction. The former magazine is all about high-priced ideas for construction companies and doesn't fit my interests.

   

• Friday, 4/17: WOW! The Thunderstorms
  • I picked dandelion blossoms and now have a total of 122.6 grams. I only need to get 12.4 grams to get enough for making a half gallon of wine.
  • We did chores very early in the mid-afternoon with severe thunderstorms arriving.
  • I was throwing a ball for a game of fetch with Cooper when thunder was banging in the west. Needless to say, our game didn't last long.
  • When I put Cooper inside, skies were very dark to the west and I watched seven turkey vultures riding the currents and circling right over the house. They always ride the wind currents ahead of an approaching storm. 
  • Mary took a few things out of the freezer in case power went out with our poor transformer connection and we didn't want to open freezer doors and lose cold temperatures in the freezers. Our power stayed on.
  • From 4:00 until 11:30 p.m., a long chain of thunderstorms rumbled through us. At times, the skies were green with dark clouds. Funnel clouds were recorded west and north of here. One-inch hail fell in Lewistown, just five miles north of us. We only had a little bit of marble-sized hail. We experienced very strong winds and a continuous roar of thunder. Our total rainfall was almost two inches. We now have 7.28 inches of moisture this month.
  • When we walked Cooper for his last outing, we were sloshing through water everywhere. It's a good thing we haven't planted seeds, because they would drown in our present swampy conditions.
  • A big, yet thin, tree frog parked on our east-facing kitchen window when we finally went to bed around midnight.

   

• Saturday, 4/18: Flooding Wood Duck Pond
  • In a check of the new plantings from the Fedco box of plants that we never ordered, Mary discovered that the wild columbine is dead. I noticed that three of of the five Royalty Purple Raspberry plants are greening. The basket willow and pink lilac bushes have leaves that are a bit greener.
  • Meanwhile, all of our newly planted strawberry plants are growing nicely. The garlic took a big jump in height. All of our fruit trees look great. There are new green leaves on the top of the newly planted Carpathian walnut sapling.
  • We walked Cooper to Wood Duck Pond around noon. It's flooding and the dry creek bed is very wet and under water (see photos, below). I'll have to rebuild my deer blind after the floodwaters subside.
  • I picked enough dandelion blossoms to get a total of 137 grams, which will make a half gallon of wine. I'm guessing that this spring's 3° low, along with some days in the 80s, reduced the dandelion blossoms. All that's out there are tiny flowers.
  • I watched Game 1 of the Minnesota Wild/Dallas Stars playoff hockey game. The Wild won, 6-1. That's who I was rooting for.
  • When Mary put the chickens to bed for the night, she discovered that the west fence of the north chicken yard blew down overnight, yet all of the chickens stayed inside of their yard, even though they could have marched right over the fence into the west field. They're good chickens! 
  • Mary and I read books in the evening hours.

  

  Wood Duck Pond flooding the dry creek bed and the forest floor.

  
  

Wood Duck Blind on 4/2/26 with slight flooding.

The same blind in today's higher floodwater.
 

• Sunday, 4/19: Fixing Mary's Mower
  • There was spotty frost in shady places when I walked Cooper down the lane this morning.
  • We repaired the west chicken fence by pounding into the ground a couple metal fence posts at the base of fallen wooden posts and then leaning up the chicken wire fence and securing the wooden posts to the metal posts. I also drove two rebar stakes in the ground and tied a tomato cage surrounding a blueberry bush to the stakes. That cage keeps falling down in the wind, allowing rabbits to chew on the blueberry branches.
  • I made a guard out of a piece of three-foot high half-inch hardware cloth and put it around the newly transplanted Bleeding Heart plant to protect it from rabbits. 
  • I fixed Mary's push mower. I removed the air filter housing and used a small screwdriver to dig out oily dirt built up around the throttle mechanism and linkage. I changed the air filter. The old one was smelly with gas. I think it was choking down the engine. I removed the recoil pull starter assembly from the Kohler engine on a mower that died a few years ago and installed it on this mower. The recoil on the old mower we use wasn't retracting the pull starter rope all of the way. There was a nut missing of the three nuts that holds the recoil assembly on the mower we use, so I borrowed a nut off the dead mower. Once everything was put together, the mower started with just one pull, a new event for this mower. I tested it by mowing the lane to the rain gauge. It worked great. Mary is back in business for mowing the lawn, which is good, because the grass is now tall.
  • Mary dusted books to get rid of leftover dead ladybugs. Fortunately, they've finally dwindled down from invading the inside of our house windows.
  • Mary did a tour of recently transplanted plants. Most are doing well. So far, all that we've lost is one blue phlox, a wild columbine, and two of the three yellow coneflowers.
  • Mary says that the garlic plants doubled in size from the last deluge of rain.
  • A house wren showed up and is doing its "yickity, yack" song, claiming every bush and tree in our yard. A Carolina wren is telling the house wren to scram. We heard a screech owl when we walked Cooper on his nighttime outing, along with two barred owls to the east. 

April 6-12, 2026

 

Weather | 4/6, cloudy to sleet, 39°, 55° | 4/7, snow to rain, 0.35" moisture, 30°, 47° | 4/8, p. cloudy, 40°, 73° | 4/9, p. cloudy, 49°, 77° | 4/10, 0.51" rain to cloudy, 45°, 53° | 4/11, cloudy to 0.05" rain, 43°, 61° | 4/12, cloudy to 0.21" rain, 58°, 75° |

• Monday, 4/6: Dandy Wine Collection & Near Garden Prep
  • I looked online whether using whole dandelion flowers that included the green base (calyx) of the blossom is okay for making dandelion wine. It's not, because too much green makes the wine too bitter. However, a tiny bit of green improves the wine's taste. So, I don't need to be so touchy about keeping absolutely any green parts out of dandelion petal collection.
  • I picked six dozen dandy flowers in about an hour's time. Several more days of picking are in my future, but it goes a little faster, now.
  • I cleaned dead weeds and grass out of part of the chicken wire fence line that keeps rabbits out of the near garden. It amounted to about a third of that fence. I then mowed the weeds up and threw them away...too many weed seed heads to compost that stuff.
  • While Mary was hanging out laundry to dry, she heard the tapping of a yellow-bellied sapsucker. Today's Cornell Ornithology online newsletter showed how to identify woodpeckers by their tapping rhythm as they peck tree branches, giving Mary the opportunity to identify this bird that migrates through our property.
  • For a portion of this afternoon, weather websites showed that we had the worst air quality of anywhere in the world. I looked up where testing sites are located and for us, the nearest facility is a lake north of the Iowa/Missouri border. Our air was just fine. Maybe someone idled a diesel truck next to the sensor's air intake. 
  • Mary heard turkey gobbles in property west of us when she walked Cooper around the west field.
  • Every spring, narcissus flowers bloom north of the machine shed near the north wood's edge. They were planted by someone who lived here before we arrived on this property. Mary took a photo of one of the blossoms (see below). The brown tips of the leaves indicate when our low temperature hit 3° on March 17th.
  • When I walked Cooper at night, rain and sleet were falling. Fortunately, Cooper walks very fast, so time spent walking him goes quickly.

  

  An old-fashioned Poet's Narcissus blossom.

   

• Tuesday, 4/7: Ordering Clothes
  • Mary and I ordered some clothes. We're finding the best prices by ordering directly from the manufacturers. For instance, I bought my current Dickies coveralls in 2009 from JCPenney. Today I ordered from Dickies for significantly less money than the price quoted at Penneys.
  • Mary cross stitched while I looked for socks online to no avail. I refuse to pay $30-$60 for one pair of socks!
  • I checked the water meter, since our water bill has been exactly the same for the past three billing cycles and unusually high for this time of the year. Since I checked it the first week in February, we used about 5,000 gallons over two months, yet we're being charged for using 4,000 gallons each month. The rural water folks obviously don't read their own meters and just estimate usage on the high side. I'm calling them tomorrow.
  • Every spring, a phoebe builds a nest in the wood shed, which is a metal Quonset hut. Summer heat from sun hitting the metal is usually too hot for young chicks. The bird nests fall down each winter, yet each spring a new one appears. For the past few days, mud and moss were brought in to build this phoebe nest. It's located lower on the angle iron roof support, so maybe it will miss the heat from the metal surface above it.
  • We watched two movies that we haven't seen in years. They were Hidden Figures (2016), and Men in Black: International (2019).

   

• Wednesday, 4/8: Water Agreement
  • Southwest wind gusts blew to over 40 mph, today.
  • I called the Knox County Public Water District #1 office. They supply us with our water. They are fine with us calling in the meter reading each month. They determine bills on the 24th of every month, so I'll call in the reading on the 23rd of the month.
  • I picked only two dozen dandelion blossoms today.
  • The o-rings I ordered a couple days ago arrived in today's mail. When I replaced the o-ring on the oil cap of the large Stihl chainsaw, I discovered that my new o-rings were too small. I ordered the wrong size, so I reordered the correct size.
  • I ordered two new air filters for older push lawnmower.
  • Mary is pretty sure that a bluebird is nesting in a hole that was drilled into the weeping willow tree stump by a downy woodpecker this winter. 
  • With Cooper, I can point and say "We're going this way," after walking out the front door and he runs off in the correct direction. He's the first dog to understand directions with the pointing of my finger. Former pups that we owned would go off in any direction. Klondike was almost certain to run in the opposite direction.
  • Mary prepared a shopping list for tomorrow's visit to Quincy.

   

• Thursday, 4/9: Interesting Books
  • We shopped. The highlights are:
  • The Quincy Friends of the Library held their semi-annual book sale. Mary had to attend, of course. We only filled two canvas bags with nine books and paid $4 at 50 cents an inch. Most books were very large and heavy.
  • I made copies of the application to Florida for my birth certificate at Staples. Later in the day, we sent it out at Quincy's main U.S. Post Office.
  • On our Walmart visit, we noticed that they are making additional changes, which seem to be good improvements. For instance, they've expanded their crafts area and the sporting goods department. There are also more pet supplies. It's a better store, now. 
  • Today was a test for Cooper. We left him alone at home for just over six hours and he didn't destroy anything. He did move Mary's hand cream container kept under the chair near our bed, but he didn't bite into it and only moved it to the hallway just outside our bedroom. He was a good boy. Although Gandalf was swatting at Cooper at dinnertime. We're guessing that Cooper ran around the house all day in a fuss while looking out windows and by evening, Gandalf was sick and tired of the dog.
  • We heard loud music to the south, this evening. We also heard four-wheelers roaring around. The city folks from St. Louis are here and David Marquette, who lives to the south of us next to where the visitors camp, is playing his music loud to annoy them. This weekend is the youth turkey hunting season. 
  • During the evening, we looked at the books that we bought today. A book about canoes looks very interesting, as does the Heritage of America Cookbook. Mary spotted a recipe in it for a black walnut filling bread called potica that her father's mother used to make. Mary says it tastes wonderful. Two other interesting books were Wildflowers of Illinois Woodlands and the Missouri Breeding Bird Atlas: 1986-1992.

   

• Friday, 4/10: Bug Bite & Katie at Palmer Career Day
  • Mary was bit four times on her left arm by a small assassin bug. She immediately took Benadryl and put ice on the area. The bites raised a big welt on her upper arm, putting her out of commission for the day. She repeated the Benadryl and ice treatment in the evening hours.
  • On my walk with Cooper around the north field, we stopped at Bass Pond where a little blue heron took off. Cooper acted different today. He came back to me regularly, checking to make sure I stuck around, a result of leaving him home alone with four cats, yesterday. Cooper ran a squirrel up a tree when we returned home and then looked up several trees to try to find the squirrel.
  • I make waffles every Friday, which was great today, because it meant Mary didn't have to spend time in the kitchen.
  • I picked blossoms from four dozen dandelion flowers. 
  • Mary and I watched the Artemis II splashdown.
  • Katie was at the Palmer Career Day and was filmed by two news organizations. She said that she was demonstrating how to operate a circular saw in the KTUU News video (1st video, below) and she was showing how to lay out studs on the top and bottom plates for framing in the Alaska News Link video (2nd video below). Here are the video links:
    
    • https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2026/04/09/alaska-construction-career-fair-introduces-900-students-trade-opportunities/?outputType=amp
    • https://www.youralaskalink.com/news/education/anchorage-students-explore-construction-jobs-at-palmer-career-day/article_2f9e43a4-f780-4038-bb85-baa51057631a.html 

 

• Saturday, 4/11: A Down Day
  • The assassin bug bites that Mary received are still bothersome. There's enough heat coming off her arm to melt a sandwich bag of ice cubes in about 15 minutes. The bite area on her arm is red and swollen. Mary is laying low, today.
  • I had a migraine in the morning. These days they come without much of a headache, but I felt bum and didn't do much, except to diddle online.
  • A new pair of Dickies brand coveralls arrived. I'm glad I paid attention to comments online, which indicated that they're sized on the small side. I ordered a size XL in regular and they fit perfectly. I like coveralls to be large enough to get a jacket under them. This pair has brass zippered pockets and snaps on the cuffs, making it nicer than the last coveralls I owned.
  • After a brief rain, we noticed a long box that was bent over and left on the trailer that's parked next to our pickup. The ditzy mail carrier left it without telling us it was there! It is from Fedco and contains 12 items worth $202.50 that we didn't order. Some of the items, like raspberry plants, Jack-in-the-pulpit plants, and yellow coneflower plants, are pretty expensive. The tip of the lilac sapling inside was bent at an almost 180-degree angle, since the box broke on three sides and was bent over. We itemized what was in the box. Mary misted the woody plants and put everything in our dark and cool back porch closet. I sent an email to Fedco asking what they want us to do with these items, since we didn't order them. The mailing sticker on the box had a tracking number of a package that we received from Fedco on April 1st. The Fedco shipping department really screwed up!

   

• Sunday, 4/12: Strawberries Planted
  • We planted 51 strawberry plants in the containers at the east end of the near garden. Mary cleaned out old plants and added compost to the buckets and tubs while I dug earth from mole hills in our front yard. I added the earth to the containers. Mary stirred all contents of the containers, then planted the strawberry crowns. I mowed inside and outside of the near garden to collect up grass mulch, then added it to the tops of all containers. It was a perfect day for transplants, since clouds kept bright sun from harming the newly planted items and later a nice rain watered everything.
  • It rained in the afternoon.
  • While waiting for the rain to quit, I worked at bagging up chicken feathers that we saved a few years ago for fly tying purposes that were in a plastic bin. I separated all of the bags of feathers according to how I would use them, such as hackles used to make fuzziness on a fly hook, feathers shaped like bug wings, large wing feathers used for straight fibers, and fluffy feathers used as dubbing. 
  • Meanwhile, Mary sewed blocks of fabric together for a future quilt.
  • We kept waiting for the rain to quit. It didn't, so we went out in the rain to do evening chores.
  • I started reading the 21st of Alexander Kent's British Navy novels entitled For My Country's Freedom.
  • On Cooper's final walk for the day, stars were shining and we noticed an electrical short near our electrical transformer, again. Mary has been hearing sizzling sounds near the power pole for the past few days.

March 30-April 5, 2026

Weather | 3/30, sunny, 57°, 83° | 3/31, sunny, 62°, 83° | 4/1, 1.20" rain, 41°, 45° | 4/2, 1.65" rain to sunny, 43°, 73° | 4/3, cloudy to 0.27" rain, 43°, 73° | 4/4, cloudy, 41°, 49° | 4/5, sunny, 35°, 59° |

• Monday, 3/30: Mowing South Yard & Orchard
  • I mowed the south yard. This is an area we neglected to mow last year, so it had tall dead grass with a few bits of green grass poking through. When I mowed around the Sargent crabapple tree, I stopped to pick up black walnuts. I tossed several walnuts between the crabapple and a neighboring walnut tree that were on our lane last fall. Now there are hundreds of them in one patch east of the lane.
  • Once finished with the south lawn, I mowed all of the triangles of tall dead grass between the paths in the south apple orchard so that the whole area is mowed. It was tough going and my muscles tell me I'm an idiot. It looks nice, though.
  • Meanwhile, Mary cleaned in the house and vacuumed more ladybugs.
  • I played fetch with Cooper. His rear leg wound broke open, again, so he will be off from fetching a ball for several days. This time, the wound was not as bad as the last time. It comes from him chewing on his hind leg while in the shelter before we got him.
  • Mary took down the second stalk of amaryllis blossoms, because the flowers were drying up. It was a bright color countering the dull browns of late winter and early spring.
  • Mary briefly heard the song of a white-throated sparrow, so we still have winter birds floating through on their way north.

   

• Tuesday, 3/31: Garden Prep & Violets
  • We were back vacuuming ladybugs, which seems to be a daily constant.
  • I mowed dead grass inside the near garden, then mowed around the outside of that garden.
  • Mary hoed weeds out of the near garden.
  • She also took hay and a bag of food to the chicken coop.
  • We heard wild turkeys gobbling to each other to the north. They weren't too far away.
  • Thunderstorms were rolling through to the north after dark. Rain didn't get to us until very early the next morning.
  • Violet blossoms are popping all over our yard. Mary took photos of them (see below).

Close-up of a violet blossom in our yard.

More violets...one of Mary's favorite flowers.
 

• Wednesday, 4/1: More Rain
  • It was raining when we woke up. We got well over an inch of rain overnight.
  • The green grass has erupted with all of the rain.
  • An English walnut tree, and 50 strawberry plants arrived in today's mail. We also got 1200 Red Rose tea bags, which is enough for a full year of tea drinking. 
  • I put off digging a hole for the tree, or dealing with strawberry plants. There's too much rain predicted in the next few days and I don't want to drown the tree or the strawberry plants.
  • It started raining again when we finished chores early at about 4:30 p.m.
  • We watched two movies that we haven't seen in several years. They were The Martian (2015) and Angels & Demons (2009).
  • Thunder and lightening started right when we ended the second movie, then buckets of rain poured down. Windows in the sunroom were originally installed incorrectly, overtop of the outside siding, so extreme rains allow water to pour in through the tops of the windows. Mary pulled the table away from the wall in the sunroom.

   

• Thursday, 4/2: Big Rainfall, Dead Hen & Fly Fishing Equipment
  • We experienced a significant amount of rain overnight and this morning. In 24 hours, we had just under three inches of rain.
  • When we let the chickens outside this morning, we found a dead barred rock hen under the east roost inside the chicken coop. That brings our numbers down to 17 hens and one old, retired rooster.
  • I noticed that the Seckel pear tree leaves look great. Last year it arrived with yellow leaves and looked like it might not make it as hot weather always crisped leaves off as they developed. This spring it looks like it wants to live.
  • We walked Cooper down to Wood Duck Pond, which is flooding into the nearby woods (see photos, below). My deer blind, which is usually quite a distance away from the pond's shoreline, has standing water next to it. When we first arrived, about two to three dozen mallard ducks flew off to the north.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation fly fishing equipment Webex. It was brief, but I learned a little bit about sizes of fly poles and reels, along with fly line requirements.
  • After the webinar, I looked at my fly pole and reel. We bought this beginning fly fishing rig at a sporting goods store in Billings, MT, around 2003-04. A good thing is the nylon backing and the fly line on the reel usually don't go bad. Unfortunately, the reel seat foot doesn't fit under the rod's rear moveable hood, which means I either need to file down one reel seat foot, or replace the rod's entire reel seat mechanism. A good point is Bill gave me a four-piece rod that can act as both a light spinning rod, or a fly rod. I will need different fly line to match that heavier spinning/fly rod.
  • Tornadoes developed north of us in Iowa late this afternoon. I saw a big mushroom-shaped thunderhead to the east of us in Illinois. We were sunny. 
  • When I walked Cooper around the west field and down Bobcat Trail, I noticed that gooseberry bushes are blooming, as well as an abundant number of spring beauty flowers. 

Wood Duck blind, minus a roof, next to standing water.

Wood Duck Pond flooding onto the forest floor.
 

• Friday, 4/3: Native Bees & More Showers
  • A couple days ago, Katie sent a video showing her trying out a pair of skates that she recently bought (see below).
  • The big cherry tree is loaded with white blossoms and therefore, filled with several pollinators. We are lucky to have a multitude of small native bees that help in pollinating fruit trees. 
  • I did a quick round of vacuuming bugs. There are fewer, which is good.
  • We looked at ordering some clothes for both of us.
  • When I took Cooper on a walk around the west field, I saw 8-10 deer run off to the northwest right after we turned onto Bobcat Trail. Based on the size of the deer tracks I saw crossing the west end of the west field, I'm guessing they were all bucks.
  • We did evening chores early, due to approaching thunderstorms.
  • After a brief afternoon shower, we then experienced several storms rolling in from the southwest after darkness fell.
  • Mary came up with an interesting rain comparison. For the first three months of this year, we got 3.89 inches of moisture. The first three days of April gave us 3.11 inches of rain.
  Katie trying out some new-to-her hockey skates.
  
  

• Saturday, 4/4: Planting a Carpathian Walnut Tree
  • Everywhere you look around here, it's turning green. Grass is bursting with growth. Understory trees in the woods are emerging with spring leaves. Pear and apple trees are also green with leaves.
  • On our noon walk with Cooper, Mary and I walked around the south field. Cooper loves this walk, because he can run all over the place in an open field. Sometimes he forgets how far ahead of us he's roaming. Mary and I hid behind a big cedar tree at one point. Cooper noticed we weren't behind him and came running back to find us. This was a trick Grandad Melvin suggested he used to do with his Irish Setter. At the time he told me, I owned Clancy, a Bassett hound. It never would have worked with that hound. He would just follow his nose forever and never care where anyone else was located. It's much different with Cooper.
  • I planted the Carpathian walnut tree in the open area of the northeast lawn in a line with black walnut trees. It should get wind pollinated well in this location. After removing sod and digging a hole, I added four shovels of compost and bunch of shovels of wood chips and dirt from under the firewood splitter, then mixed it up. I planted the tree and added sod, placed upside down on top of the soil surrounding the tree. Then I pounded an 8-foot rebar stake in the ground and installed a 4-foot x 5-inch light plastic blue tube around the tree, wiring the tube to the rebar stake. This is to protect the sapling from chewing animals, along with giving a sapling that was in a dark box filtered light.
  • We ordered Katie's birthday gifts. Hopefully, they arrive before her April 13th birthday.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. Of all of the wild wines I make, it's the closest to grape wine in flavor. It was exceptionally good. There's only one bottle left of that vintage of blackberry wine.
  • While walking Cooper on his last outing on a clear, moonlit night, we heard an American toad calling from Bluegill Pond.

   

• Sunday, 4/5: Spring Mowing
  • We had an Easter dinner of turkey franks cooked over the fire in the woodstove. It gave Mary time to do outdoor stuff, rather than spending a bulk of the day fixing food.
  • After picking up dead branches on the ground, I mowed up leaves and dead grass in the north yard under some pecan trees and started to move wheelbarrow loads to the compost bin.
  • Mary tried to mow the east yard, but the old push mower died on the first try at mowing. I need to investigate. I suspect a fuel issue, like perhaps water in the gas. She helped move  grass that I cut to the compost bin and fluff up old grass and leaves with a garden rake so that I could do a second cut with the mower.
  • I mowed without using the collection bag to knock down old grass and weeds under and around the old McIntosh apple tree that has more dead branches on it.
  • We watched two red-shouldered hawks performing a mating flight over the north woods.
  • After dark, I finished Alexander Kent's 20th novel, The Darkening Sea.
  • On Cooper's last walk, we saw an orange moon rising on the southeast horizon. It looked like a pumpkin with the top cut off. 

March 23-29, 2026

Weather | 3/23, p. cloudy, 29°, 51° | 3/24, cloudy, 33°, 57° | 3/25, cloudy, 45°, 80° | 3/26, 0.40" rain, p. cloudy to thunderstorms, 47°, 86° | 3/27, cloudy to sunny, 35°, 50° | 3/28, sunny, 22°, 53° | 3/29, cloudy to sunny, 45°, 65° |

• Monday, 3/23: Pruning is Done!
  • On the morning walk on the lane with Cooper, a wood duck pair lifted off Bluegill Pond. They can easily be identified by the female wood duck squawk. HERE is the sound.
  • Mary and I walked Cooper on the north loop around the north field at noon and he was off the leash the the whole way. He looked back at us many times to make sure we were still with him. He returns to us with a quick whistle. He's a good boy!
  • We identified a location south of the clothesline to plant a Prairie Fire crabapple sapling and another spot in the east lawn to plant a Carpathian, or English walnut tree that we've bought from Fedco and should arrive this month.
  • I finished pruning the big Bartlett pear tree using the 10-foot step ladder. I took out several water sprouts, but also left several, because when pruning, only a third of the tree branches should be removed. From atop the big ladder, I noticed lots of white buds, which means blossoms are coming. It's an advantage with pear trees. They blossom over a long stretch of time, so if some blooms are nailed by a freeze, future blossoms will survive.
  • There was no game of fetch for Cooper. His rear leg wound needs to heal. Instead, we let him loose for extra running around the yard. I did take him down to the mailbox at the gravel road and noticed that our Hispanic neighbors have moved out. The last time I spoke with Juan, he said smell from mice under the mobile home was too much for his wife, Alma, to live with and that they were looking to move.
  • We celebrated the end of pruning fruit trees with a bottle of cherry wine...how apropos! It sure is good stuff!

   

• Tuesday, 3/24: Foam Dragonfly
  • We decided to have a quiet day inside without physical exertion after I spent time yesterday crawling up and down a high ladder. I always tense up leg muscles while pruning trees from heights. I would have made a very poor sailor a couple centuries ago.
  • During our morning walk with Cooper, four deer ran off in the north woods beyond the end of Bobcat Trail.
  • We watched an unusual low-flying airplane go over our property several times today. It has a long probe off the rear of the plane. A recent WGEM article explains that it belongs to the U.S. Geological Survey. They are surveying Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri for minerals. HERE is the article. 
  • While Mary did some cross stitching, I made a big foam dragonfly lure. Below is a photo of a green one I made in the fly tying class and a video of the large red foam dragonfly I tied today. I used a YouTube video from an Italian who demonstrates tying flies to help build the red foam dragonfly.
  • Mary and I played fetch using a fast-running dog. Mary was on the porch and I was at the machine shed. I'd call Cooper. He'd run to me. Mary would call him and Cooper ran to her. We did that several times to burn excess energy from his puppy body.
  • In the middle of all of this, Mary spotted a peregrine falcon that flew east to west over the machine shed.

  

  A simple green foam dragonfly made in the fly tying class.

  
   
  Today's red dragonfly. Fuzzy body parts made with feather from our rooster, Leo.
  
  

• Wednesday, 3/25: Servicing Push Mowers & More Bugs
  • Mary heard the first brown thrasher of the season while walking Cooper first thing this morning.
  • When I walked Cooper around the south field at noon, I saw two deer run off to the west.
  • While Mary made tortillas, I serviced the two push lawnmowers...wire brushed spark plugs, blew out air filters, and scraped under the decks. Oil was clean and the blade was fine on the new mower. I changed oil and sharpened the blade on the old mower.
  • Using the new mower, I mowed all of the paths around the small cherry trees west of the house and all of the trees in the south orchard.
  • Mary vacuumed bugs over and over and over, again and again and again.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's 19th novel, Beyond the Reef. It was a good one.
  • We tried a bottle of 2025 peapod wine. It had a nice smell after opening the bottle, but tastes strongly of alcohol. This wine needs much more time aging. I believe snow peas are better eaten, rather than made into wine.

   

• Thursday, 3/26: Bugs & Fly Tying Webinar
  • We experienced a very hot day with strong southwest to northwest gusts of wind. Our high of 86° in March is extreme.
  • We vacuumed Asian ladybugs all day. I started with several tours around the house. Mary took over in the afternoon. There are fewer bugs in the windows on the second floor, so we might be getting to the end of this invasion, which is the worst, ever! Today, you couldn't keep up with the crawling masses of bugs until temperatures cooled off in the late afternoon.
  • All of the yards are filling up with violet blossoms.
  • I attended a virtual fly tying class that featured a Missouri Conservation Department (MDC) educator, Sam Stewart, who works out of southwestern part of Missouri. His presentation was on tying big articulating flies that swim with a serpentine action. These range from muskie and steelhead flies to flies used to catch bass. He uses big hooks and "buck tail" hair, which is simply the hollow, therefore floating, fibers off the tail of a deer. He washes deer tails, treats them in borax so they turn all white, then dyes them when color is needed. Sam tied what he calls a Cotton Candy Double Deceiver. It's mainly white, but has light blue and pink in it. These colors shine off minnow scales when the sun hits them in shallow water. HERE is a photo from his Instagram site of this fly that he uses to catch smallmouth bass. This was a very interesting class.
  • Fast-moving thunderstorms rolled through us after dark, giving us a nice amount of much-needed moisture.

   

• Friday, 3/27: Firewood & Sweet Potato Slips
  • Cooper and I walked on the north loop around noon. An ash tree fell across our trail north of the machine shed that I need to remove. We stopped and looked at Bass Pond. The water in it is now clear.
  • Mary started four sweet potatoes by putting them in water suspended by toothpicks in quart canning jars. She gains about 35-40 slips off these sweet potatoes to plant in the garden. We've been using our own sweet potatoes to create slips that we plant outside for the past three years. That saves us about $100, based on prices for sweet potato slips that we notice in seed catalogs.
  • I stuck stakes in the ground to indicate tentative locations for planting a couple trees. One is a Carpathian walnut tree that was shipped today from Fedco. The other is a Prairie Fire crabapple sapling from under the large tree.
  • I drove the tractor to a mulberry tree near the gravel road that's been dead for years and cut it into firewood. I kept all of the small branches for kindling, since they are very dry, making for excellent fire starter. I also cut up two small dead ash trees. Mary and I unloaded all of this firewood and stacked it in appropriate locations.
  • Mary checked all of the garlic plants in the far garden. They all recovered from the hard freeze that occurred last week.
  • An idiot cropdusting airplane pilot was landing and taking off from the airport at the dairy a mile west of us. We had wind gusts over 20 mph all day. All pesticide and herbicide labels say not to spray in high winds. Need I say more?!

   

• Saturday, 3/28: Gathering Firewood
  • Cooper and I walked on his noontime outing to Wood Duck Pond via Black Medic Hill. There were several deer tracks going up and down that hill. The pond's water level is still high. On the way home, we stopped at Bass Pond. The water was back in a murky state. 
  • Cooper is the best dog we've owned at coming back once you call or whistle when he ventures too far afield. Plato used to lag way behind on any walk. Amber would beeline for home and leave you in the dust. Churchill would go off the trail, sniffing, and seek out bird nests to eat...not a happy incident is you like birds. Klondike was horrible at snarfing up deer dung. Molly was a wild child that once literally jumped down a cliff to go after a squirrel at Medicine Rock State Park north of Ekalaka, MT. Our most recent puppy always wants to be nearby, which is a very nice aspect while the dog isn't on a leash during a walk.
  • I changed the O-ring in the gas cap on the large Stihl chainsaw to prevent it from leaking gas. The old O-ring had expanded and was leaking. I also mixed fuel for the chainsaws and added Ethanol Shield to the five gallon can of gas I bought before gas prices skyrocketed.
  • After driving the tractor to just north of the closer portion of north woods, I sawed up an ash tree that fell over our trail through those woods. Mary helped me load the firewood into the trailer. I drove home a full wagon load of firewood that we unloaded into various places. Most of this firewood needs drying time and is destined for the next firewood season starting in the autumn.
  • When I walked Cooper on his evening outing, we spooked several Bob White quail off the end of our lane where it meets the gravel road. Eleven wood ducks flew out of Bluegill Pond.
  • There were several mourning doves calling from all around the house in the evening.

   

• Sunday, 3/29: Garden Clean Up & O-rings
  • We're noticing that leaves are starting to show on all of our apple trees. Flower buds are appearing on the Liberty apple and Sargent crabapple trees. Sargent lost a bunch of emerging buds during our hard freeze a couple weeks ago, yet there will still be a few blossom.
  • Mary cleaned half of the dead plants from the near garden.
  • While working the garden, she saw a few more honey bees. She also spotted spicebush swallowtail, mourning cloak, and painted lady butterflies.
  • Mary heard and then spotted a large flock of snow geese way up in the sky. She said, "You could barely see them, heading due north."
  • I filled out an application for an official copy of my birth certificate from the State of Florida's Department of Health. I need to print it out, sign it, include a copy of my driver's license, and send it in, along with a $10 check. What I currently have is a blurry photocopy, which isn't accepted by anyone. I might need the real McCoy in order to vote. I also need it for getting a Real ID-compliant driver's license that allows one to fly on an airplane.
  • The packet containing the O-ring I used on the big Stihl chainsaw's gas cap indicated its metric size. I investigated online and ordered O-rings for the oil and gas caps on this chainsaw, since they seem to wear out in about 2-3 years. To withstand gas and oil, they need to be nitrile rubber, which is what I bought. From the Stihl dealer in Quincy, they cost $2, each, plus $10 for shipping. On ebay, they're as much as $15, each. From oringsandmore.com, they are 10 cents each, plus $7.30 shipping. I got a minimum order of 10. 

March 16-22, 2026

Weather | 3/16, p. cloudy, 9°, 25° | 3/17, clear to snow dusting, 3°, 30° | 3/18, clear to cloudy, 25°, 63° | 3/19, clear to p. cloudy, 43°, 72° | 3/20, clear, 49°, 83° | 3/21, clear, 51°, 87° | 3/22, cloudy, 39°, 69° |

• Monday, 3/16: Single Digits in March
  • We had a cold day with a low of 9° and a high of 25°. The newly emerged forsythia blossoms turned to a dull brown/orange color from their original bright yellow tint. We have a thorough coating of snow to keep temperatures low.
  • A good thing about cold temperatures is that there are fewer bugs in the house. I only vacuumed once.
  • A large number of bluebirds were hanging around the willow stump this morning.
  • The sun has lots of power. It melted snow down to bare ground in some spots, despite the cold.
  • While Mary cross stitched in the sunroom, I put away all of the rest of my fly tying goodies that were hidden under the rolltop desk. An advantage with a rolltop desk is you can hide all of your stuff. A disadvantage is once you slide the rolltop cover open, your heap falls out onto the floor. Now, I don't have a heap!
  • I called the Lewis County Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) to let them know that we saw a spark above our transformer during last night's blizzard. I told the woman I talked to that we still have electricity, so there was no huge rush to come fix it. Within a couple hours later, two REC trucks rumbled up our driveway. The worker driving the bucket truck used a thick plastic yellow stick that expanded upward. It had a hook on top of it that he connected into a loop at the bottom of the clamp holding the lead wire onto the incoming electric cable. He checked the clamp's tightness by trying to loosen it. He said it loosened very easily, so he tightened it up by twisting the pole clockwise. What an ingenious device! We're all set, now. 
  • Cooper had a hard time seeing a white lacrosse ball in the white snow, so during our game of fetch, I sought out melted trail patches and threw it underhanded, so it landed on tan grass, instead of white snow.
  • We had a crystal clear night sky when we walked Cooper on his last outing.

   

• Tuesday, 3/17: Cold Morning
  • It was quite cold this morning, at 3°. It warmed up to 30° and melted more snow. I'm pretty sure emerging pear buds are shot, along with forsythia and lilac blossoms. I hope other trees that showed a bit of green before this cold snap survive.
  • I used a big chunk of today to work on federal and state income taxes and forwarded all forms electronically.
  • While Mary cross stitched on a pattern called Red Fox Profile, I put thinner in the bottle of head cement to make it viable and applied some on threads of a foam dragonfly and a meat whistle fly. I looked for online instructions for making a more realistic foam dragonfly pattern, didn't find it on my cell phone, but then found a good one I notice a couple weeks back on my laptop. The video instructions were created by an Italian fly tying specialist.

   

• Wednesday, 3/18: Freeze Assessment
  • When we took Cooper on his big noon walk, 13 wood ducks flew out of Dove Pond.
  • Mary and I toured all of the fruit trees and garlic plants to assess freeze damage. There probably won't be any blossoms or fruit from the pear trees. Small Sargent crabapple trees might not make it. The crab apple trees probably won't blossom. Several of the garlic plants were hit hard by freezing. There was a strong garlic odor coming off the garlic plants. Most all of the apple and trees haven't started to bud, so they'll be fine.
  • Mary fertilized the garlic plants. They were standing upright after our initial check, so Mary decided they needed a little boost of nourishment. They looked better.
  • I made a phone call to Birkey's Farm Store. My Stihl chainsaw parts are in.
  • I pruned where I could reach from ground level on the big Bartlett pear tree and covered all new cuts with tree wound dressing. Pear trees are the king of water sprouts, which are tall shoots that grow straight up. Some water sprouts on this tree are 6-8 feet long.
  • I also cut persimmon saplings growing around this tree and in the path I use to drive the tractor into the west field.
  • During Cooper's last outing, we heard barred owls and the first southern leopard frog. They sound like they cackle like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies.

   

• Thursday, 3/19: Shopping
  • I shopped in Quincy, today. First, I picked up the Stihl parts I ordered last month at Birkey's Farm Store, which mainly involved items to accurately sharpen chains. Six items came to close to $100. Prices are really high. Shopping in the Quincy Walmart is a nightmare. Not only did they move everything all around the store, they also discontinued several items, like Ultrabright toothpaste. I bought it at Dollar Tree. There's no book now in Walmart to look up a vehicle's air filter number. Instead, you use the Walmart app, which gave me a number for a filter that fits a Toyota. I bought the air filter at the new NAPA store in Quincy.
  • While I was away, Mary cleaned floors in the house and did the daily vacuuming of Asian ladybugs. She vacuumed the whole house four times. After dark, I vacuumed two times.
  • Bill called. He loves his new job. His immediate boss is giving him free reign to fix procedures of how processes are handled related to shipping and receiving. For instance, the warehouse area has two garage doors, one of which couldn't be used, because boxes of office paper were stacked just inside the door. Today he swapped the paper to the back of the warehouse and moved relocatable carts to inside the door. Now, instead of unloading paper through the other garage door and hauling it through an indoor door to further block the second garage door, it can be unloaded correctly. Bill decided to nix the idea of moving to a different apartment. Rent is too high to obtain a decent apartment and he's better off to stay where he's living right now.
  • We heard an American woodcock while walking Cooper tonight. They were quiet during the recent cold snap.
  • I have three tick bites on me. It's time to spray bug dope in order to avoid ticks.

   

• Friday, 3/20: Bugs!!!
  • Mary watched seven deer cross the lane at Bluegill Pond when she walked Cooper this morning. Bob White quail were calling.
  • On our noon walk with Cooper, we went to Wood Duck Pond and scared off several mallard ducks. On the way there, we also scared off wood ducks that were on Dove Pond. We also looked at Bass Pond. I saw one fish swimming by at Bass Pond. It's water is still murky and hasn't quite finished turning over. All ponds have slightly higher water levels.
  • We noticed a bit of smoke from the Nebraska fires brought in with a west northwest breeze.
  • Mary and I took turns vacuuming bugs all day. There are times when one sweep with the end of the vacuum nozzle on the top end of a window collects close to a hundred bugs at once. This is the worst it's ever been! If we didn't spend all day sucking up bugs, no creature could stand being in this house. We would have a crawling orange mass of bugs everywhere.
  • I fixed loose drywall on our bedroom ceiling. Above the bed is a ceiling that sits at a 45-degree angle. Herman, Mary's uncle, used masonry nails in predrilled holes to nail 3/8-inch drywall to the roof rafters. The original dried oak rafters are so hard, drilling is required to put in any nail. They were coming loose. Not worrying about aesthetics, I used 2.5" hex head roofing screws and 1" washers to refasten the drywall to the angled ceiling. Now we won't worry about a big chunk of drywall falling on our heads while sleeping. We really need to get out of this house!!
  • Mary checked garlic plants and pear trees. Some garlic plants are dying with too much stress from extreme cold and hot temperatures just a few days apart. She saw some green flower buds among the damaged pear buds. We're hoping something good comes from them. 
  • We noticed a tiny bit of redness from northern lights on the northern horizon when we walked Cooper on his last outing at night.

   

• Saturday, 3/21: More #*@! Bugs!!!
  • Mary heard a wild turkey and a Bob White quail sound off at the same time while walking Cooper first thing this morning.
  • It was another full day of vacuuming bugs. I started the morning shifts. Mary did the later shifts. They never seem to stop. When Mary emptied the vacuum in the morning, there were more bugs in the shop vac in one day compared to what normally is there after one week of vacuuming bugs during earlier months of the winter.
  • In an attempt to get out of this leaky bug-infested home, I staked out the rough area for our new house design in the east lawn with half-inch rebar stakes. I tied fluorescent orange survey tape to the tops of the four stakes, in order to see them better. I didn't worry about getting it square. I simply used due east, west, north, and south on the compass app on my cell phone to get the walls to line up with map coordinates. 
  • Mary heard an eastern towhee for first time of the season, today.
  • We checked out garlic plants. Some are dying, but most of the plants seem to be pulling through.
  • Violet blossoms are showing where we laid down bricks on the ground under where water pours off the southeast roof's valley during heavy rains (see photo, below). There are violet leaves sprouting all over our lawns, indicating future flowers.
  • Blossoms are opening on a second amaryllis stalk. 
  • We went to bed with the window open and the fan blowing 70° air into the bedroom. Just four days earlier, the outside temperature was 3°. It's absolutely nutty weather!

  

  The first violets of spring! 

• Sunday, 3/22: Helping Fruit Trees
  • A titmouse bird teased Juliet at the open bedroom window this morning. It was perched two inches from her nose on dead hops vines.
  • Mary and I saw our first spring beauty flower in the woods on the morning walk with Cooper on Bobcat Trail.
  • We experienced a strong north wind from noon and into the afternoon and after darkness fell that brought down our temperatures.
  • I checked the small Sargent crabapple trees I planted last fall. Both seem to be alive. 
  • I cleaned out more tree saplings near the big Bartlett pear tree.
  • Mary pruned the Prairie Fire crabapple tree. We spotted four small crabapple saplings underneath the main tree that could be transplanted. We cleaned out persimmon and mulberry saplings that were too close to this tree. Climbing false buckwheat vines filled these neighboring saplings and traveled into the Prairie Fire tree last summer. We're hoping that by cleaning out these saplings, the vines stay away from the crabapple tree.
  • I untied cow panels surrounding the Liberty and Porter's Perfection trees in the west yard so Mary could put tree wound dressing on the recent rabbit or ground hog chewings on trunks of these two trees. The plastic tree guards are old and falling apart, allowing tree trunks to show.
  • I made tree trunk protectors out of quarter-inch hardware cloth by cutting the hardware cloth down to fit under the lowest branches of the trees. Then I formed them around the trunks and stitched the two sides together using tarred twine, along with half-hitch and clove-hitch knots, the same technique used to put netting on a shrimp pot. Finally, I attached each of these small protectors to a rebar stake to keep them in place.
  • Mary played fetch with Cooper while I worked on the tree guards. After she let him inside, she went in a little later to discover blood all over house floors. He lands with both hind legs skidding on the grass when he grabs the ball while playing fetch. In his former life at the animal shelter, he chewed on his hind legs. It was a nervous habit that he no longer does. Today's injury involved reopening his old wound. There will be no game of fetch for awhile to let the wound heal up.
  • I vacuumed bugs in the morning, and Mary did a round of vacuuming after evening chores, but by nighttime, after outside temperatures dropped significantly, there were a lot fewer bugs.
  • Each of the last couple nights when we walk Cooper, the stars shone brightly. Tonight a crescent moon was setting to the west.

March 9-15, 2026

Weather | 3/9, sunny, 45°, 76° | 3/10, sunny to thunderstorms, 55°, 83° | 3/11, 1.42" rain, 37°, 55° | 3/12, sunny to cloudy, 25°, 53° | 3/13, p. cloudy, 44°, 55° | 3/14, p. cloudy, 34°, 56° | 3/15, cloudy, rain to 3" snow, 23°, 63° |

• Monday, 3/9: Cooper's Vet Visit
  • Wood ducks flew out of Bluegill Pond when I walked Cooper down the lane this morning.
  • We took Cooper to the vet at Petco in Quincy, IL. He was very good, but we could tell that he knew that he was in a veterinary clinic. At first, he was very weary of the vet, but after some coaxing and massive rubbing by this vet, Cooper relaxed. Overall, the vet pronounced him healthy. Cooper has a big wax build up in his ears. Dr. Andrew, as the vet calls himself, showed us an easy way to remove ear wax from a dog's ears. We're to do it each day for 10 days. We really liked this vet...Andrew Perrine. We'll use him again. We left with a NexGard Plus prescription and a bottle of ear wash. We picked up a handful of treats in the Petco store.
  • I went into Sam's Club while Mary and Cooper stayed in the pickup. It was a hot time for them, with temperatures in the 80s over the black asphalt of parking lots in Quincy. Six months of NexGard Plus costs $206.43 after a Sam's Club discount. It's expensive, but we feel it's needed. This stuff handles fleas, ticks, intestinal worms and heartworm in one medication that's simply a chewable, instead of gloopy slop smeared between shoulder blades. With a wiggle wart like Cooper, picking off ticks absolutely won't work.  
  • We also got gas at Sam's Club for $2.89 a gallon, significantly cheaper than the national average. I got a couple things at Walmart and we drove back home. The front seat of the pickup is now a dog hair mess.
  • When we got home, the inside of the house was crawling with thousands of Asian ladybugs. Mary handled chickens, then emptied about 5-6 inches of dead bugs out of the shop vac  from yesterday's bug evacuation and started sucking while I did evening chores, including playing fetch with Cooper. I took over after I was done with chores. We sucked bugs well after darkness fell. What a mess!
  • The red amaryllis is blossoming (see photos, below). It's a joy to see.

An open amaryllis blossom.

The other opening amaryllis blossoms.

• Tuesday, 3/10: Pruning Apple Trees, Then Thunderstorms
  • We had another big bug day with Mary and I trading off on vacuuming them.
  • Mary pruned all of the small apple trees in the south orchard and the big Empire apple tree. I followed behind her and applied tree wound dressing on all of the cuts. It got hairy at the end as increasing southwest winds blasted me while I stood on a step ladder to cover cuts high in the tree.
  • We noticed the first blossoms on the forsythia bush. 
  • Mary performed the first ear cleaning job on Cooper. A smaller amount of wax came out as compared to what the vet removed yesterday.
  • While Mary did this, a deer tick crawled across Cooper. She grabbed the flea comb and out it came. Later in the evening, I saw a tick march across the right leg of my shorts. I disposed of it immediately. Today's hot temperatures brought out the ticks.
  • On Cooper's late afternoon walk, he flushed out two bob white quail from the east edge of Bluegill Pond. He's a natural hunter. Our fetch session was cut short. Cooper tired quickly after just a few throws, kept the ball and headed home. 
  • Thunderstorms started rolling through us at about 9 p.m. A tornado touched down in the county just north of the Missouri/Iowa border, two counties away from us. Big tornadoes hit further east in Illinois. Softball size hail fell in that state. We waited on going outside with the puppy until thunder died down a little bit and let Cooper out after 1:30 a.m. It was still thundering to the east well beyond 2 a.m., when we finally made it to bed.

• Wednesday, 3/11: Rain, Molly Rubs, Woodcock Whistles & Labeling Wine
  • After last night's thunderstorms, it rained while we slept and rain was falling when we woke. This was nice moisture that helps plants and trees. The grass is greening up and flowering plants are starting to show green leaves in the woods. Frog Pond, which was dry just yesterday, now has water in it with spring peeper frogs singing.
  • Our high temperature was at midnight and the low was in the early evening.
  • When we lived in Circle, MT, Molly, our golden retriever, would welcome the day by rubbing against the sofas with a smile on her face and a wag of her tail. Molly has returned in the form of Cooper. Each morning he rubs along the edge of our bed. When he does this, Mary says, "Hello, Molly!"
  • While walking Cooper around the west field at noon, I heard the flight of an American Woodcock. They emit a whistle through their wings when they fly. It sounds like THIS.
  • I put labels on the 25 bottles of the pear wine, but didn't get them into a cooler, yet.
  • One of the four blossoms broke off the amaryllis plant, so Mary put it in a bowl of water. It's very nice have it on the kitchen counter top. Below is a photo as the light of the setting sun reflected off the petals.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle 2023 apple cider. It tasted good and is quite tangy. As with all wine, it's better with aging.

  

  Amaryllis blossom reflecting soft light of the setting sun.

• Thursday, 3/12: Wine Inventory & Dog Fuzz
  • Mary and I walked Cooper to Wood Duck Pond. The water level is higher, with water backed up into the once dry creek bed. Water is also up in Bass Pond. It looks like the water in that pond just turned over. It's cloudy water on the surface. We saw where water was extremely cloudy near the south bank where either a catfish or a muskrat did some underwater digging into the bank.
  • I did an inventory of all of the stored wine. Through all of the coolers, I have 321.5 bottles. The half bottle is a 375-ml bottle of cherry wine. It's half the size of a regular 750-ml bottle. The largest selection of wine is cherry, at 90.5 bottles. Next is a tie with 38 for various apple wines, and 38 bottles of jalapeño wine. Next is 25 bottles of garlic, 24 bottles of blackberry, and 23 bottles of parsnip wine. Through this process, I identified two varieties with bad corks that I bottled in 2023, which are apple cider and pumpkin wines. I also consolidated some wine varieties, thereby emptying one cooler. 
  • I put away the recently bottled 2025 pear wine into the empty cooler.
  • Mary clean the house and removed all of the dog hair (I call it dog down) off the floors. We used to blame cats for all of the loose hair on floors. For the month and a half that we went without a dog, we saw no hair on the floors. Now we know that it's the dog to blame for drifts of hair.
  • Three new birds arrived for the year, which were the white-throated sparrow, field sparrow, and the American goldfinch.

• Friday, 3/13: Pruning Fruit Trees
  • Mary pruned where she could reach with a six-foot step ladder on the big cherry tree. She says that the very top of that tree looks good.
  • I pruned the Granny Smith apple tree using the other six-foot step ladder. I just have two branches at the very top of this tree to prune, then collect up all of the cut branches and cover cuts with tree wound dressing.
  • The U.S. Weather Service is calling for a low of 7° for us on Monday night. We have opening buds and leaves showing on pear trees, the forsythia, and the lilac bushes. We might loose something if it gets as cold as they're predicting.
  • I looked up cement formulas and calculated amounts of Portland cement, sand, and gravel needed for a future concrete pad under a home.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's 18th British Navy novel, The Only Victor. This started out very slow, but the last third of the book was good.

• Saturday, 3/14: More Pruning
  • I walked Cooper on a loop around the north field. I heard hounds used for hunting coyotes. They were baying to the east, so I snapped a leash on Cooper to walk him most of the way home. Later, Mary and I heard the hounds baying to the north. Coyote hunters disobey all private property laws while hunting from the roads, which is all illegal. 
  • Mary pruned the huge expanse of the Sargent crabapple tree while I pruned the narrow top reaches of the Granny Smith apple tree. She used a six-foot ladder. I used the other six-foot ladder, plus the 10-foot ladder. We both painted on tree wound dressing and collected up cut sticks. The work took all day to accomplish. We have two more trees to prune.
  • Meanwhile, Cooper fussed around while watching us from inside the house. Mary's couch took a beating with him jumping on it to look at us out the south living room window. He can't stand that we're outside and he's in the house. His velcro attitude gets old, but it shows how attached he is to us.
  • Mary spotted a rough-legged hawk flying east to west over us. Looking up the bird in books, she learned that it nests way up in the north arctic region.
  • We saw a low-flying great blue heron.
  • To save on meal prep, we had a wienie roast inside over a fire in the woodstove. A combination of cherry and oak firewood made for a very hot fire with blue flames. Hotdogs cooked very quickly.

• Sunday, 3/15: Wild Weather
  • Today was an interesting weather day. At noon, the temperature was 63°, and light rain started falling. Temperatures dropped significantly through the afternoon. By evening chores, sleet was falling. Around 6:30 p.m., snow started falling and strong northwest gusts blasted us. When we walked Cooper around midnight, it was snowing, gusts to 47 mph and 23°. There were times while walking north on the lane when you couldn't see due to the blizzard conditions.
  • In the morning, we watched a ground hog walk east across our west yard.
  • Mary and I vacuumed another herd of bugs from the inside of the windows, walls, ceiling, and the floor. As it got colder outside, the Asian ladybugs stopped migrating into the house.
  • We watched two movies that Mary and I picked out as our favorites as the wind howled outside after dark. They were Master and Commander (2003) and Beauty and the Beast (2017).
  • When we walked Cooper on his last outing, we noticed a sparking wire on the lead between the incoming power line and the transformer. It explains why we've noticed drops in electrical power at times. Wind probably exacerbates the electrical short.