August 31-Sept. 6, 2026

Weather | 8/31, sunny, 72°, 93° | 9/1, sunny, 71°, 95° | 9/2, sunny, 74°, 95° | 9/3, sunny, 76°, 95° | 9/4, sunny, 74°, xx° | 9/5, xx°, xx° | 9/6, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 8/31: Heavenly Baked Bread Aroma
  • It's stinking hot! Mary reports that today was our hottest temperature for the month of August.
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread and killed us with the amazing aroma.
  • I drove to Monticello, MO, our county seat, and got new pickup license tags. We're good for another two years.
  • Mary has collected chicken feathers for the past two weeks and threw them in a pile just under the movable closure of my rolltop desk. When I opened it today, it looked like a very large bird recently died, due to all of the feathers heaped in a pile. I sorted the feathers into various sizes and shapes and put them into appropriate ziplock sandwich bags. 
  • I also put all of the larger fly tying materials into the under-the-bed plastic container.
  • One item I bought Friday at the Salvation Army's thrift store was a plastic sack full pink yarn. I thought it was yarn. It's actually chenille in three different diameters. I started to mess with it, but it was kinking up as I unwound it off old soldering reels. Mary took over and rewound all of the hot pink chenille into manageable-sized skeins. She said it was about half a mile of chenille. I have enough for making thousands of hot pink flies and lures.
  • We drank a bottle of 2024 cherry wine to celebrate finalizing work on the pickup and getting new license plate tags. The wine tasted great, as usual. We've decided that in order to open a bottle of wine, we have to have something to celebrate...this is today's excuse!

   

• Tuesday, 9/2: 52 Hornworms!
  • We experienced another really hot day. Cooper's ball fetching only lasted for about six throws and he took the ball and headed for the front porch.
  • While letting out chickens in the morning, we noticed that several smaller persimmon trees in the west yard are covered with hops cones.
  • Mary picked bell and hot peppers, along with zucchinis.
  • In the morning, I joined Mary as we watered the near garden.
  • Mary cut up green peppers and froze 10 sandwich bags of these bell peppers. She also strung up hot peppers to dry.
  • Mary made sliced and pickled jalapeño peppers that filled a quart canning jar. They taste good on bean burritos.
  • I cut two pickup side window shades out of reflective bubble insulation and put them into place.
  • The new pickup battery tray came in today's mail. I left it in the mailbox all afternoon and joked about walking down to get the "hot plate."
  • I added new tags to the pickup's license plates.
  • Mary picked nine hornworms towards evening and decided to wait until it was dark to look for more. She used the UV flashlight and found several more (see video and photos, below). Altogether, she found 52 hornworms. Most of them were quite large. The recent high summer heat has increased their numbers. Unfortunately, one tomato plant was nearly decimated by six worms. 
  Crickets sound off as Mary uses UV light to find hornworms.
   

Mary waving UV light to find hornworms.

Lighting up a tomato plant with a UV flashlight.

 
• Wednesday, 9/2: High Heat & First Squirrel
  • It's still stinking hot outside with continuous drying conditions. We're not seeing morning dew. It's too hot for outdoor activities.
  • While moving filled waterers to the chickens this morning, we heard nut shells dropping on the top of the grain bins under the pecan trees. I walked under the trees while loudly clapping and scared off one young squirrel. Another kept on chewing on a nut, ignoring me. So I got the .22 rifle and shot the first squirrel of the season.
  • I helped Mary water the near garden in the late morning.
  • I pulled together a two-month to-do list. 
  • While Mary watered the far garden, I watered trees that were planted this year and last year. I couldn't determine if the Carpathian walnut tree was still alive, because there are so many tall foxtail grass plants growing around the tree. I need to clean out the grass to find out if it's survived this summer's heat.
  • During a nighttime search with the UV flashlight, Mary found 42 hornworms in the tomato and tomatillo plants. The number is a little less than yesterday, but they're still thriving.

   

• Thursday, 9/3: More Heat
  • We were inside for most of the day, because it's still so hot outside. One of the weather apps on our phones indicates that our high temperatures are 15 degrees hotter than normal for this time of the year.
  • I shot a squirrel this morning after hearing shells drop on the grain bin roof while hauling fresh water to the chickens. There were four other squirrels that ran to the north from the pecan trees after the deed was done.
  • After every late afternoon walk with Cooper, we throw a ball in a game of fetch. Today, I tossed the ball to the west and noticed that Houdini, our escape artist barred rock hen, was in the west yard. Cooper grabbed the ball, took a quick look at the chicken and immediately headed back to me. Houdini continued eating grass. I threw the ball in a different direction.
  • Mary's UV flashlight session in the tomato patch yielded 39 hornworms. Only two were large. Most were small to medium in size. She started picking worms earlier than previous days, in order to avoid swarms of bugs flying into her face.
  • I mowed part of the lane, starting right when the sun set and the outside temperature was in the 80s, instead of 95. I used a hat light in order to see on the last two passes with the mower. There were bugs flying into the light above my eyes, but my speed was fast enough to mostly avoid them. I didn't dare stop or slow down. I'll finish mowing the lane tomorrow evening.

August 24-30, 2026

Weather | 8/24, 0.03" rain, 56°, 73° | 8/25, p. cloudy, 59°, 81° | 8/26, sunny, 65°, 83° | 8/27, sunny, 63°, 80° | 8/28, sunny, 56°, 82° | 8/29, cloudy, 60°, 83° | 8/30, cloudy, 68°, 89° |

• Monday, 8/24: A Bird's Gift
  • Light rain started falling in the late morning hours and continued for a couple hours. It was never in the forecast and never acknowledged by various weather products.
  • While it was raining, I spotted a squirrel heading for the pickup. I jumped outside as it looked like it would jump under the front of the pickup and hollered at it, so it ran to the north.
  • I decided to hunt squirrels from the east end of the machine shed. I sat for two hours watching trees grow and listened to an eastern wood-pewee the entire time. Right before I left, the bird dropped a perfectly aimed bomb on the bill of my cap. I wiped the bird pooh off on the grass, went inside, and washed the hat. I guess it didn't like my presence!
  • Mary took a photo of a pearl crescent butterfly (see below). 
  • Mary picked a few worms and eggs off garden plants, but had a hunch she was missing several. She went back out as darkness fell armed with the UV flashlight. She found 31 small worms of various types. Altogether, she picked off 40 worms and three eggs.
  • While Mary was out in the dark, she saw a lone firefly. We thought they were all finished for the season, but that's not the case. 
  • The wiper motor arrived via regular mail exactly one week after I ordered it.

  

  A pearl crescent butterfly on grass in the near garden.

  
  
  

• Tuesday, 8/25: Pickling & Wiper Motor Replacement
  • Mary picked a few more cucumbers, along with hot and bell peppers.
  • She canned six quarts of pickles. This gives us 12 quarts of pickles canned this year. She says there are several quarts of pickles from previous years that need tossing.
  • The extra sliced cucumbers left over from pickling went to the hens. They loved them.
  • I replaced the wiper motor in the pickup with a new one. Prior to the actual work, I wrote down steps as outlined by a video created by A1 Auto. I'm glad I labeled all nuts, bolts and parts. Everything went together well and the wipers operate correctly through all settings.
  • There was a clicking sound in the blower assembly when I turned on the air conditioning in the pickup. I removed the blower and found the sound was a maple leaf stem in the fan that came in with a bit of rainwater, due to a missing plastic cowling under the wiper blade arms. It's fine now.
  • Mary watered a little bit in the garden and picked two hornworm eggs off the tomato plants.

   

• Wednesday, 8/26: Freezing Bell Peppers
  • Mary froze 16 sandwich ziplock bags of bell peppers. Before she processed them, I took a photo of the washed peppers (see below). She also froze enough hot peppers for a batch of salsa. She strung up some hot peppers to dry.
  • Mary picked three zucchinis.
  • She also watered the gardens.
  • Mary saw a giant swallowtail and a tiger swallowtail feeding on some tall thistle (the actual name of a native Missouri thistle) flowers.
  • I took in a virtual session by the Missouri Department of Conservation about crayfish. It was a very poor presentation. I think the presenter was just out of college and doesn't belong in front of a camera and a microphone yet. After that was done, we ordered a book entitled The Crayfishes of Missouri, by William L Pflieger.
  • I checked for leakage in the pickup's window washer reservoir by pouring water into it and putting a board under the truck to show water dripping from above. It's a slow leak until I run the windshield washer, then it's a gusher. The tank is definitely bad, so I ordered a new tank. Included in the order is a new battery tray, since the current tray is extremely rusted, and inner wheel well retainer push pins, since these plastic gizmos are often destroyed when removed.
  • I finished reading Chris Ingraham's book about moving to Red Lake Falls, MN. It's a good read, especially for former residents, such as Mary and I.

  

  Washed bell peppers ready for packaging and freezing.

  
  
  

• Thursday, 8/27: Pickup Passes Inspection
  • Mary watered all gardens, picked a zucchini, and found 10 worms, and four worm eggs. 
  • I drove to Lewistown Tire to get a vehicle inspection, but they were too busy. I need to make an appointment, but Travis Fleer, the owner, told me I could return at 4 pm. I asked him if the windshield of the pickup would pass inspection. He looked at it and said it would pass. I guess my repair job on that window was adequate. I returned at 4 and got the inspection and a new sticker on the windshield. It was too late to get new license tags, since that office closes by 4 pm. I'll need to get the tags on Monday, because we're shopping in Quincy tomorrow.
  • I took in a session called "all things hackle," by Pat Rigby, from Kirksville, during the Virtual Vise Missouri Department of Conservation online presentation. A chicken cape or neck skin full of hackle feathers costs around $70. I like my price...collecting feathers from the chicken yard for free. There are two kinds of hackle feathers called furnace or badger hackles. These have a black center. When wrapped around the shank of the hook, the black part makes the fly appear larger. Most of Leo's (our rooster) hackle feathers have this dark center. Another interesting point is that rooster hackles possess stiffer fibers that resist soaking up water, therefore helping to create a dry fly that floats. 
  • Mary and I watched tonight's lunar eclipse gradually appear. It was cool.

   

• Friday, 8/28: Shopping
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL. The pickup's air conditioning was divine and blasted cold air on us better than it's ever done.
  • I bought weird wigs at the Salvation Army's thrift store that are intended to be worn as Halloween costumes (see photo, below). I plan on using fibers from these hair pieces to make fishing flies and lures. Mary found quite a large selection of Aida materials, which stitchers use. We also bought an under-the-bed plastic container often used to store wrapping paper that we'll use to store fly tying materials.
  • When we crossed the Mississippi River while on the way back home, we noticed how thick with humidity the air was while looking west into Missouri.
  • While driving to Quincy, a buck with partially developed antlers ran across J Road in front of the pickup. Mary watched a fawn goofing around in the west yard when she was putting chicks away for the night.
  • We watch two movies. The first was This is the End (2013), which was by far the worst movie we've ever seen...vulgar, gory, and so horrible that we threw the DVD away in the trash. The second movie, The Aviator (2004), about Howard Hughes, was good, but extremely long at almost three hours.

  

  I will use the synthetic hair from these wigs for tying flies.

  
  
  

• Saturday, 8/29: Relaxing Day
  • We are anti-shoppers. Mary and I don't like shopping. We took today off from doing much after shopping yesterday.
  • On Cooper's morning walk, I saw a doe deer with a fawn that was at shoulder height to Mama. They were on the lane near Bluegill Pond and ran off to the west.
  • After breakfast, Mary and I watered the gardens.
  • Mary spotted small bumblebees on some thistle blossoms that had pollen baskets stuffed with light lemon yellow pollen. She identified them as Two-Spotted Bumblebees. 
  • Mary picked strawberries. Adding them to strawberries she picked yesterday and we had enough to add to nearly all of the waffles I made for our midday meal, which were exceptionally yummy!
  • Weather predictions were for a high temperature near 90, but clouds kept our temperature down, and that's just fine with us. 
  • In the afternoon, Mary looked for worms and worm eggs and found several of both. We're in the height of the hornworm season.
  • Fedex delivered a new pickup washer reservoir. It looks perfect. I won't install it until I get the new battery tray and the new push pins for the inner front wheel well.
  • We think we have four pullets from this year's chicks. That's what I counted as we put them to bed tonight.

   

• Sunday, 8/30: Swallowtail Larvae
  • I washed the under-the-bed plastic container that we bought on Friday. I thought old age turned it tan, but now I think it came from a house of a smoker. It's nice and clear now. 
  • I chatted online for awhile with my cousin, Marjorie, who is working to wrap up handling her parents' belongings at Clarklake, MI. She showed several camera shots of great photographs from some scrapbooks that she's going through. Several were of our Grandad and Grandma Melvin.
  • I removed the cow panel around the Goldrush apple tree and took out the weeds and tall grass growing next to that tree. Some were over my head in height. Cooper was with me. I looked up once while tossing greenery aside and there was the pup right next to me with his head covered in roots and grass. He likes to stay close by.
  • Mary looked for worms and worm eggs and watered both gardens.
  • Parsnip leaves are covered with swallowtail butterfly larvae (see photo, below).  
  • I mowed around the Goldrush tree and then various lanes through the tall grass of our lawns. Clippings went around the Goldrush and Granny Smith apple trees.
  • Mary harvested half a grocery sack of hot and bell peppers and a few tomatillos. We're entering several days involving a high heat warning, so Mary is harvesting peppers that might scald in the intense sun.
  • After adding up our jalapeño wine numbers, we decided that I didn't need to make any this year. The jalapeño pepper plants are struggling, limiting the number of peppers in production.

  

  A swallowtail butterfly larva on a parsnip leaf.

  
   

August 17-23, 2026

Weather | 8/17, p. cloudy, 63°, 81° | 8/18, cloudy, 63°, 81° | 8/19, cloudy, 1.89" rain, 69°, 80° | 8/20, p. cloudy, 63°, 80° | 8/21, sunny, 63°, 84° | 8/22, sunny, 62°, 80° | 8/23, sunny, 57°, 77° |

• Monday, 8/17: Canning Pickles & Removing Pickup Wiper Motor
  • Mary picked more cucumbers from the near garden. She then washed and prepared all of the cucumbers, except for a few that we ate in an evening salad.
  • Mary canned six quarts of pickles. All jars sealed perfectly.
  • She collected 12 worms and six worm eggs off the garden plants.
  • I drove to Lewistown and bought a package of 25 amp mini spade fuses.
  • I tore open the cowling under the wipers to gain access to the wiper motor. It's a drawn out exercise, but with the help of some YouTube videos, I knew appropriate steps required. An old battery cable puller that Dad owned worked perfectly for removing the wiper arms. The wiper motor wiring cannot be unplugged without first removing the entire wiper mechanism, called the wiper transmission...nice GM engineering!
  • Once I had the wiring disconnected, I turned on and off the wiper switch, then checked the new fuse. It didn't blow, which probably indicates a faulty wiper motor, not a short in the wire harness to the wiper motor. I then labeled all of my bolts, clips, and parts with masking tape, putting like parts into sandwich bags.
  • The missing plastic cowling puts a huge gap at the base of the pickup's windshield, so I moved three mothball bottles into that area. I also added two moth balls per plastic bottle stored in the pickup to dissuade mice from fooling around. I put two mothballs in the area under the air filter, which makes for a total of 66 new mothballs in plastic bottles in and under the pickup. It makes for a strong smelling truck, but helps to back up vermin.
  • In the evening, I ordered a new wiper motor for the pickup. Mary helped me find a new one that will be sent from New Jersey. It was through eBay and at half the price of those on the RockAuto website.
  • We haven't had the pickup's windshield washer for over a year, due to a leak. I looked into how to remove the windshield washer container in this pickup. It's a mess, because it's crammed under the battery tray on the inside of the driver's side front fender. To get to it, you first remove an engine compartment brace, the battery, the battery tray, the driver's front tire, and then that tire's plastic wheel well. Gee...could GM bury it any deeper in the vehicle? The windshield will stay dry a little longer.

   

• Tuesday, 8/18: Gun Scope Virtual Lesson
  • We took the day off from outside activities.
  • Our new air conditioner in the living room is significantly quieter compared to the one it replaced. We find it hard to tell when the compressor is on based on sound. It's also better at blowing cool air into the kitchen.
  • Mary found one worm and three hornworm eggs in the gardens.
  • I sorted and stored chicken feathers away in various ziplock bags. The chickens are molting, so now is the time to collect feathers for fly tying. Mary and I grab good ones as we see them in the chicken yard and store them in my rolltop desk. Today, when I rolled that top open, it looked like a chicken died on my desk.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation virtual session on how to install a gun scope and learned a great deal. I asked about the 30:30 rifle with the shorter barrel I own. It seems to make no difference after making scope adjustments on target results. It might be because I'm sighting it in at distances shorter than 100 yards, when scope adjustments need to be multiplied several fold. A scope I thought was bad probably is just fine. I've harvested several deer with that rifle and scope.
  • An email came in related to the new wiper motor I ordered for the pickup. It's not coming from New Jersey. Instead, it's originating from China. This probably means getting tags for the pickup will be late...after the end of this month.

   

• Wednesday, 8/19: Bookshelf as Cat Litter Box
  • I put a piece of quarter-inch plywood across a lower bookshelf in the sunroom. I made the bookshelf unit out of particle board when we lived in Circle, MT. The bottom shelf got wet a few years ago prior to when we fixed the roof of this house. Mary pulled all books off and never put them back, since the wood particles in that board expanded. Gandalf, who is sometimes an ass of a cat, decided that it made a good alternative for a cat litter box. The board received multiple layers of cleaning fluids. Recently, Cooper started eating cat pooh left there. Why do dogs love to eat cat feces? I found a chunk of plywood in the machine shed with the exact height between shelving boards and cut it down to the four-foot width, then screwed it into place over the outer edges of the shelving. Nothing is getting in there, now!
  • Mary vacuumed the refrigerator coils. Our old fridge gets loud while the compressor is running when it's dirty. After sucking dust and pet hair out of the coils, it sounds normal.
  • I mowed the lane.
  • Mary performed her daily worm/egg patrol and found a handful of tiny worms. 
  • Mary spotted where the electric company sprayed under the electric line that runs to our house. They did a better job this year of not bothering our hazelnut bushes. In past years, they sprayed some of those bushes, which have since recovered. 
  • Around 9 p.m., a heavy rain fell after a couple intense cracks of thunder from a thunderstorm. After about 40 minutes of rain, we got almost two inches of moisture.

   

• Thursday, 8/20: Quiet Times
  • Mary and I were bums and stayed inside a bulk of today, enjoying my homemade waffles with fresh strawberries as our midday meal. After last night's big rain, grass was way too wet to attempt any mowing.
  • Mary noticed the first goldenrod blooming just east of our lane. It's our initial indication of autumn and cooler temperatures.
  • When I took Cooper on his late afternoon walk to check the mail, his nose took him under the Sargent crabapple tree, where he found a snake skin hanging on lower branches (see photos, below). Mary says it's from a western rat snake. It's exactly five feet long. Online research tells us they eat mice, voles, rats and full-grown squirrels. They obviously climb trees. They are non-venomous.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's 26th novel, Man of War, and started the 27th book, Heart of Oak.

Cooper found this snake skin on the Sargent tree.

Me with the skin that is five feet long.

 
• Friday, 8/21: Even 84° Seems Hot
  • When I looked at the package tracking from Yun Express of the wiper motor that I ordered, I noticed for the first time that it's not shipping from China, but it's coming from the U.S. east coast and departed Glendale Heights, IL, a Chicago suburb, yesterday.
  • I removed the pickup's wiper motor from the wiper motor transmission. It was a quick job. I also took a garden hose and scrub brush to the plastic cowling that sits below the wiper arms.
  • I raked up dead grass on the lane in front of the house just before a 50 pound bag of oatmeal arrived via FedEx. We're ordering 50 pounds of oatmeal every 2.5 months from Webstaurant.com.
  • Mary moved the onions that finished drying in the upstairs south bedroom. All of this year's onions and shallots are in two milk crates in the back porch closet.
  • Mary picked a half of a plastic grocery sack of hot and bell peppers and a bag of cucumbers. 
  • At 84°, it's feeling too hot outside. We can't stand the heat as we're getting older. It's probably due to the high humidity.
  • We're seeing more monarch butterflies all of the time. Mary says it's the most we've seen since 2009.
  • We watched two movies. The first was the third session of the 2002 British TV series, Foyle's War and the second film was White House Down (2013).

   

• Saturday, 8/22: Google Tour of Former Residences
  • When we opened the chicken door to the coop this morning, a Rhode Island red hen walked down the ramp, collapsed on the ground and died. It's the last of that breed that we bought in 2020.
  • Our chicks aren't chicks anymore. They're almost the size of our full-grown hens.
  • The wiper motor I ordered reached the U.S. Postal Service's St. Louis distribution center and we should see it by Monday.
  • Mary heard some Canada geese calls for the first time since May 5th.
  • The far garden is full of small frogs.
  • I started reading the book written by Christopher Ingraham entitled If You Lived Here You'd be Home by Now. He wrote an article in the Washington Post that the worst place to live in the U.S. was Red Lake Falls, MN. That town invited him to visit. He did and moved his family from D.C. to Red Lake Falls.
  • Mary and I took a Google Maps tour of Red Lake Falls, then Roseau, MN, then Circle, MT and looked at images of places where we once lived. The old house we rented in Red Lake Falls is gone. Grain bins were added to the land where our mobile home once sat northwest of Roseau. We were startled by the absence of trees outside of Roseau. Farmers have cleared a lot of land of trees. We also looked at Circle's changes since we lived there.

   

• Sunday, 8/23: Taking Out Weeds
  • Mary picked more cucumbers and reported that some of those plants are dying back.
  • She took a photo of a tiny gray tree frog that was on a persimmon leaf near the far garden (see photo, below).
  • I put the steel blade on the Stihl trimmer and whacked down tall horse weeds in the east lawn between the house and the lane. I also got tall weeds south of the house. Then I took out about a third of the gangly sweet clover in the south orchard. Finally, I used a pitch fork to remove the weed mess and toss it to the east edge of the south orchard.
  • I enjoyed reading Christopher Ingraham's book this evening about moving from Baltimore to Red Lake Falls, MN. He had a four-hour roundtrip commute from his home in Baltimore to his job at the Washington Post in D.C. He was so impressed with the friendly people in Red Lake Falls that he decided to move his family there and work remotely. Their new home was down in the river bottom, not that far away from where we once lived in Red Lake Falls. In digging around online, Mary discovered he had a cancer health scare at age 42, is fully recovered, and moved to New York state, to be near family. He's a good writer and is no longer with the Washington Post.

  

  A small gray tree frog on a persimmon leaf.

  
   

August 10-16, 2026

Weather | 8/10, p. cloudy, 73°, 89° | 8/11, p. cloudy, 74°, 91° | 8/12, 0.16" rain, 73°, 83° | 8/13, cloudy to sunny, 72°, 87° | 8/14, cloudy, 72°, 83° | 8/15, 0.70" rain, 72°, 87° | 8/16, 0.65" rain, 73°, 80° |

• Monday, 8/10: Chicken Feathers & Baked Bread
  • Today was another day of hot and swimmingly humid conditions outside, so we stayed inside for most of the day. At least we aren't getting as hot as some weather websites announce as our high temperatures. I saw the Weather Channel listing us at 91°, when we were in the upper 80s. I think they get Lewistown's temperatures from some low-lying town filled with asphalt and concrete, such as Quincy or Hannibal. Our greenery keeps us a little cooler in the summer.
  • Mary baked four loaves of bread, putting an amazing aroma throughout the house.
  • I stored away several chicken feathers. The hens are molting, so every evening while putting chickens to bed, we collect nice-looking feathers. They get dumped into my roll-top desk. I store them in labeled ziplock bags according to how I'll use them for tying flies. For instance, some will resemble bug wings. Large wing feathers become bug bodies or tails. I also sort them according to color and size. 
  • Mary and I watered gardens. Abundant grass mulch is keeping the ground around garden plants moist during this high heat cycle, so all plants look great.
  • Mary found 22 hornworm eggs and one hornworm.
  • Cooper loves chasing bunnies every evening when he's with me as I dump water used to clean chicken waterers around south orchard trees.
  • I reviewed mouse issues related to our vintage of pickup by viewing videos online. Mice get into the cabs of these GMC and Chevy trucks by entering drainage spots on each side of air inlet grill panel under the wiper blades. A solution is to cover these areas with quarter-inch hardware cloth held by self-tapping screws with washers. Cleaning mouse nests out of air ducts in the dash is quite a disassembling ordeal.

   

• Tuesday, 8/11: Cooper, The Bird Dog
  • We've got horrible humidity and heat, so it was another day inside.
  • I assembled a two month to-do list.
  • I put away more chicken feathers. 
  • We watered gardens in the evening. Mary found nine hornworm eggs. She noticed that she needs to pick cucumbers.
  • Cooper is a bird dog. On our daily evening visit to the south orchard for me to dump dirty water after washing chicken waterers and for Cooper to look for bunnies, he spotted a dove on the electrical power line and gave it the hairy eyeball. Past dogs in our lives ignore birds perched high on power lines, but not Cooper. He takes in everything.
  • On our nightly outing for Cooper's final walk, we spotted two Perseid meteors in the matter of a couple minutes. Tomorrow is the height of that meteor shower.

   

• Wednesday, 8/12: Replaced Pickup Parts
  • Right after morning chores and fixing breakfast, a thunderstorm came through, giving us a nice bit of rain that meant we didn't need to water garden plants today.
  • UPS delivered an order from Rockauto, if you call dumping a cardboard box onto wet poison ivy plants under our mailbox delivering a package. Our UPS driver is lazy!
  • I replaced the wiper blades and the blower fan on our pickup. Once I removed the old blower, I discovered about a dozen pecan nuts inside the squirrel cage fan...no wonder the fan made such a racket! The fan's motor had an obvious looseness. It was made by Continental, which is more of an economy part. The new GM Genuine fan is built bulkier and feels tight when you spin it. Once installed, it is whisper quiet through all of the five settings. Unfortunately, it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't spin. So, I still need to order a blower motor control module/resistor. Based on the records I keep on a card in the glove box, the wiper blades are six years old and the blower motor is five years old.
  • Mary picked a plastic shopping bag of cucumbers about six hot peppers from the garden.
  • She also found four worms in the garden. One was a hornworm. She removed 14 hornworm eggs.
  • Mary's Merlin app on her phone identified the call of a Bewick's (pronounced buick) wren in our yard. It's not supposed to be here, but we've occasionally noticed it here in the spring. She produced the Merlin app to identify an unfamiliar bird call, which turned out to be that of a Carolina wren. It turns out Carolina wrens possess all kinds vocabulary. She also noticed the sound of a yellow-breasted chat, according to the Merlin app.

   

• Thursday, 8/13: Onions Harvested & Work on the Pickup
  • Mary harvested the rest of the onions and shallots. There were a bunch of bigger ones.
  • She picked nine hornworm eggs and three worms off the tomato, tomatillo and pepper plants. Two of the worms were hornworms eating on the hot pepper plants.
  • A couple days ago while looking at the crack in the pickup's windshield, I noticed a bumpy surface. It's sap coming out of a black walnut tree above the truck. Today I noticed that black mold is growing on that sap, so I washed the entire pickup and moved it to a nearby parking spot. The old white wash rag I used turned pitch black, as did the water. The pickup is shiny, now.
  • I cleaned out the air vents in the cab with a small winemaking brush I have that's usually used for cleaning out the inside of tubing. Afterwards, I cleaned the brush with bleach so I could use it again.
  • I tried adding air conditioning refrigerant to the pickup for several minutes in full sun with a running engine blowing heat on my face. Nothing seemed to transfer. Online searches revealed that newer refrigerant cans use a self-sealing technology, which requires a different type of refrigerant transfer connection and hose. I need to buy a new setup.
  • I fixed the crack in the windshield. After carefully reading of the directions, I realized that the package's wording that it handles a "1 1/4" hole or crack" meant it can cover one nick that's a quarter inch in size, not 1.25 inches in size. So, I didn't follow their directions to cover my crack that's a half circle and covers about 1.25 inches. Instead, I put a small amount of resin on the crack, covered it with clear plastic, and used the UV flashlight to harden the resin, instead of the directions suggesting sitting it in the sun. It worked. Mary says the crack is much less visible. I'll see of it passes a vehicle inspection. If not, we'll need to get a new windshield. At least I tried.
  • A quick check of the horn, which I never use, failed to make a sound. I checked the horn's fuse. The 15 amp fuse seemed to have corrosion. Above it in the fuse box was another 15 amp fuse for fog lights. Our pickup is without fog lights, so I swapped fuses and now have a horn.

   

• Friday, 8/14: Cooler But Muggy!
  • We have slightly lower temperatures, but extremely high humidity, so the end result is it still feels horrible while doing anything outside. With this humidity, it felt like storm-producing weather all day.
  • Mary picked 11 hornworm eggs and seven worms from garden plants.
  • On the trip to the mailbox, I noticed brown leaves on saplings due to the electric company spraying under the power lines that are in the right-of-way along the gravel road. Unlike past years, there is no evidence of spraying on our property, which is just fine with us.
  • We watched the second installment of the 2002 British TV series, Foyle's War and the 1989 film, Field of Dreams.
  • On Cooper's last outing, we stayed in the yard, due to lightning and thunder close by.

   

• Saturday, 8/15: New Large Window AC
  • When I opened a new container of blood glucose test strips this morning, I realized that they were the wrong variety and didn't fit my glucometer.
  • Our largest air conditioner's compressor quit operating correctly. I turned it off twice, and got it running, but the compressor turns off eventually. I shopped online for the best price, which is Menards, where we purchased our current 8000 btu unit in May, 2019.
  • While I drove to Quincy, Mary cleaned our fans.
  • She also picked about two-thirds of a plastic grocery bag of cucumbers. It's time to make pickles. We had a cucumber salad as part of our evening meal...YUM!
  • Mary found nine hornworm eggs, a tiny hornworm, and an army worm.
  • I bought a new 8000 btu air conditioner in Quincy that was on sale, some auto AC refrigerant (on sale, too), a modern automotive AC recharge hose with a gauge, the correct test strips to match my glucometer, plus dog, cat, hen, and chick foods. It was hot and sunny in Quincy. Look to the west and I could see it was cloudy back at home, therefore cooler.
  • When I returned home, The living room AC was just blowing warm air, even though Mary said the compressor was on the entire time I was gone. We just used our big fan in the living room this evening with the two small ACs on upstairs.
  • Mary and I shared a bottle of 2023 pumpkin wine. I left this wine on the lees too long when I made it, so it's a tough wine to drink. It goes down after you swallow it with a clunk! Plus, it has an alcohol content close to 13 percent, so it's a bit harsh. We're trying to use it up, because it is stored with poor corks. We'll just soldier through!

   

• Sunday, 8/16: Air Conditioning Work
  • The early morning hours were filled with thunderstorms. A 1:30 a.m. storm with a brief bout of thunder woke Mary. She unplugged appliances and plugged them back in when it all quit. Then at 3:30 a.m., we both woke to a crack of thunder directly overhead and pulled the plugs, again. There was another thunderstorm at noon and rain in the afternoon. Mary found a tiny bit of hail damage in the tomato plants. She thinks it was from the 3:30 storm.
  • I mentioned this morning that I haven't seen deer for several days. Just moments later, a doe and two fawns with fading spots appeared near the east end of the near garden. They walked through the base of the cedars south of the garden. We saw the doe a bit later on. It was on our lane. 
  • I installed a can of refrigerant into the pickup's air conditioning system. The new recharge hose worked perfectly and now cold air blasts out of the ducts. Mary and I did a check of all lights, which were fine. However, I discovered we have no wipers. The wiper fuse was blown. I put a a second fuse in and it instantly blew. I'll need to track down the problem and fix it before I can take the pickup in for an inspection prior to getting plate tags. They always check to see if the wipers work.
  • Online research revealed that a circuit board involved with the wiper motor located just under the plastic cowling under the wipers gets affected by the elements and is notorious for going bad and shorting out on 2002 to 2005 GMC and Chevy pickups. That might be our problem. 
  • Mary helped me swap out the air conditioners in the living room. The new 8000 btu AC is more compact and considerably quieter. It's good to be back with air conditioned coolness on the first floor of our home.
  • Mary found 13 hornworm eggs and nine worms. Most of the worms were in the hot pepper plants and some were large. 

August 3-9, 2026

Weather | 8/3, sunny, 60°, 84° | 8/4, sunny, 63°, 87° | 8/5, 0.56" rain, 69°, 74° | 8/6, 0.08" rain to sunny, 67°, 75° | 8/7, sunny, 66°, 85° | 8/8, hazy, 68°, 85° | 8/9, hazy, 70°, 87° |

• Monday, 8/3: Long Line at the License Bureau
  • Bill left for his St. Charles apartment around 1 p.m.
  • Before leaving our county, Bill drove to our county seat of Monticello to get his driver's license. All licensing offices have Monday through Friday hours similar to when he works, plus long wait times in St. Louis, so he thought it best to try his luck here. When he arrived in the Monticello office, there were 11 people waiting in front of him. I've never witnessed that many people in that tiny office! He was done and leaving for home at 3:30 p.m., which was an extremely long wait period. But, he got his renewed driver's license. 
  • Mary turned the hay she cut yesterday in the front lawn. It's looking good.
  • I finished draining the solar generator to 60 percent by trying it out on the refrigerator. The manual suggests to fully charge it, then drain the charge to 60 percent for long-term storage. I linked it to our wifi modem and downloaded the latest firmware update. With that update came an improved link from my cell phone to the unit. I also changed some settings on the unit.
  • I investigated linking the two solar panels in parallel, compared to in a series and learned that one needs a fuse on the positive side after each panel. Otherwise, a panel can turn to toast. Additional cables are needed for the parallel connection. I decided against using that type of a connection.
  • Mary put extra hay into the chicken coop.
  • While adding new bags of feed to the chicken coop, we discovered a young white cockerel escape artist outside of the chicken fence. We got him into the coop, then searched the fences for a possible hole. We noticed an area at the bottom of the east side of the north chicken yard where the chicken wire fencing was lifted up. We figured that some cement blocks or bricks could block that hole until I do a major fence reconstruction.

   

• Tuesday, 8/4: Missouri Primary Election Day
  • While Mary fed and watered chickens this morning, I moved eight bricks and put them in spots in the east fence of the north chicken yard where the bottom of chicken wire curled upward. When I went to leave, I watched a white cockerel on a low cedar branch that reaches out into the yard. It was hopping up the branch and was only a few inches away from leaping down over the edge of the fence to the other side. I chased him off the branch, then got my Stihl pruning saw and cut off four cedar branches that chickens might climb on. I threw them beyond the north end of the chicken yard...enough of that nonsense!
  • We did some voting research online, then drove to Lewistown and voted in the Missouri primary. The governor put two measures on the primary ballet with the intention that a lower voter turnout might allow them to pass. One was to halt the state income tax and allow legislators to boost sales taxes as they see fit, which might result in up to 16 percent in sales taxes. Another was a way to restrict voters' ability to admen the state constitution. Mary and I wanted to make sure and vote no on both of these measures, which we did.
  • I finished weedwhacking under the electric fence of the near garden. It was super humid outside, especially in the late afternoon.
  • Mary picked up the new hay that she cut and was drying for two days. She stored it in the second grain bin.
  • She also harvested a handful of white wing onions that had flopped over.
  • I heard, but didn't see, two birds that were flying overhead. They were making a loud, raspy sound. They turned out to be two great egrets. Verification came from Mary's Merlin app on her phone.
  • Thunderstorms developed to our northwest and went by just five miles north of us this evening.
  • Election results told us this evening that those two measures that we voted against failed miserably. The income tax to sales tax measure vote was 84 percent against versus 16 percent for it. The other measure failed, also. We learned that Greg Sharpe won the Republican side of our state senate race. That's good. The other two losing candidates filled our mailbox with cards telling us how rotten Sharpe and each other were. Sharpe never stooped to their level of throwing rotten eggs and he won...good for him!

   

• Wednesday, 8/5: Rainy Day
  • The ass who flies a crop dusting airplane from the dairy's airport a mile west of us buzzed over our house early in the morning. He was spraying a nearby field with huge black thunderstorm clouds rolling in from the west. Minutes later, we received a big rain, which wiped out any spray he put down. Following herbicide directions is not part of his agenda.
  • We experienced rain throughout the day.
  • Mary saw a juvenile red-headed woodpecker on the power pole just outside the north window.
  • She cross stitched on the Red Fox Profile pattern.
  • I practiced fly tying skills demonstrated on intheriffle YouTube videos. One video detailed tying on goose and turkey biots. A biot is the fiber on the leading or shorter edge of a wing feather. We have both turkey and goose wing feathers, so I have free biots collected from wild birds. Biots are usually used to resemble insect tails.
  • I finished reading the 25th Alexander Kent novel, Relentless Pursuit.
  • Prior to bedtime, we kept hearing thunder to the southwest. Looking online, the nearest thunderstorm was at Shelbyville, which is 27 miles away. That's quite a distance away to be hearing thunder. On our last outdoor walk, the humidity level was extremely high.

   

• Thursday, 8/6: Dusting Books & Weed Whacking
  • Mary dusted all of the books and bookshelves in the living room.
  • I weed whacked under the far garden electric fence. It involved two sessions and always takes a few hours, due to the large size of that garden. The electric fencer unit is still not going to the top. I suspect it's because of mud plastered from the trimmer onto fence insulators that are grounding out wires. I'll work on fixing that issue, tomorrow.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation black bear webinar. Surprisingly, on a  map showing recent black bear sightings, our Lewis County is included. Black bears are mainly in the southern third of Missouri, moving up from Arkansas, where they once were transplanted from Minnesota.
  • Mary stitched on her red fox pattern for about an hour.

   

• Friday, 8/7: Electric Fence Short
  • I spent most of the day investigating electric fence issues. By isolating sections of the fencing, I discovered that the short wasn't at the fencer unit or around the near garden. Large amounts of dried dirt and dead grass accumulated in the lower insulators on all posts of the far garden from yesterday's weed whacking, so I took a whisk broom to them. I switched two inch diameter PVC pipe used to insulate tops of rebar posts with pieces of garden hose. The PVC pipe often blew off in the wind. I think pieces of half inch hose will stay on the rebar. I still had a low reading at the fencer unit. Mary joined me as we went around all fences. She dusted more dirt from lower fence insulators. Still no change. I turned on the fencer while Mary was between gardens and she heard a snapping noise. A bit of bare wire of the piece feeding the far garden from the near garden was shorting out on the wire connecting an insulator to the metal post at the southeast corner of the near garden. I rerouted that connecting wire, giving me full strength at the fencer unit.
  • Humidity levels are high. A few minutes outside and you're dripping.
  • Retrieving a ball is more important than food, according to Cooper. After a late afternoon walk, I grabbed the ball and even though cats were eating and food was waiting in his bowl, he was eager to go right back outside to chase and retrieve the ball. He's now getting to where he watches for it in the sky and catches it either while the ball is coming down, or on the first bounce.
  • We watched two movies. The first was the initial show of a British period drama called Foyle's War (2002), depicting a police detective in 1940 wartime England. It's very good. The second movie was Ticket to Paradise (2022). We liked it...critics didn't...patooyee on the critics!

   

• Saturday, 8/8: Onion & Apple Harvest
  • Mary harvested 80 percent of the onions. Their tops were bent over and ready, even though several of the bulbs were small. High heat of earlier days curtailed onion bulb growth, plus we'll soon experience more hot days. After cutting off tops, she laid the onions out on plastic in the upstairs south-facing bedroom we call the "room of requirement," temporarily named the "room of onions." The smell coming from that room reminds us of eating homemade hamburgers.
  • Mary emptied a 40-pound bag of sunflowers into three cat liter buckets, which are stored in the chicken coop. Hens get a few handfuls every morning and evening, a trick that makes it a cinch in putting them to bed in the evening.
  • Mary also cleaned up giant ragweeds that were growing just outside of the living room air conditioner.
  • She watered both gardens and found the start of hornworm eggs on various garden plants. Mary killed four army worms and a cabbage worm.
  • There are three-inch cucumbers growing in the cucumber patch.
  • I harvested all of the Empire apples. It didn't take long. We're lucky to get anything after a morning of 3° back in March when buds were developing. That temperature completely wiped out this year's pear crop. I picked 19 apples that weren't drilled with holes from woodpeckers. Since the apple crop was so low, I didn't spray apple trees for bugs this year. Several apples got wormy, which attracted woodpeckers. They did in about two-thirds of the Empire apples. I picked all woodpeckered apples and tossed them into the woods.
  • I chopped up the good apples, put them through the food processor and made 16 sandwich baggies of what Mary calls apple slush. Each baggie holds about five tablespoons of apple slush that we freeze. When winter storms prevent us from buying Granny Smith apples that we like putting on breakfast oatmeal, we grab an apple slush baggie per bowl of oatmeal to use instead of the real thing. It tastes great and makes for an easy way to preserve apples.
  • Cooper watched each section of apple core drop from the paring knife into a bucket on the floor in front of the kitchen countertop. He snarfed an occasional "oops" moment when an apple piece slipped off the counter and onto the floor...sometimes on purpose. He intensely studied the apple processing.
  • I started reading three books. One was Alexander Kent's 26th novel, Man of War. I read that his last books are not as good as earlier writings...predictable with similar themes as in earlier books. Hence, the reason to read something else at the same time. The other two books are The Finest Hours, by Michael J. Tougias, about a Coast Guard sea rescue in New England, and Where the Pools Are Bright and Deep, by Dana S. Lamb, featuring fly fishing essays.

   

• Sunday, 8/9: Ordered Trees & Pickup Parts
  • We are under a heat advisory until Wednesday, so we're staying inside as much as possible.
  • I balanced the checkbook after two months of neglect. It balanced to the penny.
  • We received word that Fedco now has Porter's Perfection apple trees, so I ordered two trees. We really like this variety, but unfortunately, our Porter's tree died this spring after winds snapped off the tap root. When we get the new trees next spring, we'll plant them in the south orchard, which is better protected from strong westerly winds. 
  • Mary watered gardens and picked worms and worm eggs. She found two small hornworms and three worm eggs.
  • I ordered a new blower motor and wiper blades for our pickup. We cannot turn the fan speed beyond setting two without it sounding like a howling banshee. I purchased a GM Genuine fan motor, even though it was twice the price of other motors. It's a part replaced in 2021 and has run poorly for over a year. The old fan motor was new when we bought the pickup in 2020. Obviously, cheap fan motors aren't lasting very long, hence the reason for the more expensive model.
  • Late at night, we tuned into Max Velocity on YouTube with live coverage of tornadoes touching down in Illinois, near where Mary once lived near Grand Ridge, north of Streator. One tornado moved in a 360-degree circle and then disappeared, which is an oddity.

July 27-August 2, 2026

Weather | 7/27, p. cloudy, 77°, 95° | 7/28, p. cloudy, 75°, 91° | 7/29, hazy, 68°, 85° | 7/30, p. cloudy, 63°, 83° | 7/31, 0.82" rain, cloudy, 67°, 81° | 8/1, 0.23" rain, 62°, 70° | 8/2, sunny, 62°, 81° |

• Monday, 7/27: Doctor's Visit
  • During today's semi-annual doctor's visit, my doctor told me that the six-month glucose reading numbers were excellent. Lab results from the blood sample they took were available by mid-afternoon. My A1C is 7.2, up from 6.5 a year ago, but down from 7.4 in January. All of the other items they check for are within the normal ranges.
  • I ordered three bags of coffee beans and 100 tea bags of Stash green tea. I like green tea. It ought to last for quite some time.
  • Mary made bread. After we paid $5 a loaf for two dinky loaves of bread in Walmart, Mary said, "Never again," and decided to go back to baking our own bread. She let the four loaves cool and then sliced them up. Then she packaged two slices at a time in sandwich bags, put those bags in two layers of two-gallon freezer bags, and froze them. Done this way, we only use what we need on any giving day. There was waste in the past with freezing whole loaves of bread when some would grow mold, due to us not eating them up soon enough. We ate sandwiches made from her bread as an evening meal. The bread was incredibly delicious.
  • Today was another episode of high heat. Twice we watched thunderclouds approach from the north, but fade to nothing as soon as they reached us. When the sun was low on the western horizon and the temperature was slightly lower, we watered the gardens. Plants are doing fine, but our daily strawberry numbers are drastically reduced.

   

• Tuesday, 7/28: Mesh Tube Minnow
  • The high heat continues. We stayed inside until late in the day.
  • I built a Mesh Tube Minnow similar to what Ginger Miller demonstrated in the last Virtual Vise online session I took in (see photos, below). It's rather goofy and I don't know how it will fish. The materials I used in this big fly are lead wire for weight, fluorescent green mesh tubing and thread, light green chenille, and a #2 streamer hook. I goofed up on the first attempt with too big of a wad of chenille for the belly, making it impossible to fit the mesh tube over the chenille. The second attempt was better. I might add some google eyes, but I need to test out glues on mesh tubing to see what works and if various glues melt the plastic of mesh tubing.
  • We watered gardens. We're seeing several developing peppers. The plants are surviving the heat. I gave the Carpathian walnut a half bucket of water. Tall foxtail grass surrounds the sapling and probably protects it from intense solar heat. We have the same phenomenon occurring with onions.
  • While putting chickens away for the night, we heard a wood thrush. 
  • We can't believe it, but we're still seeing a few fireflies at night.
  • I watched several how-to fly tying videos by InTheRiffle on YouTube. 

A Mesh Tube Minnow.

Most materials used in making this large fly.

 
• Wednesday, 7/29: Mowing, Solar Generator & Laundry Detergent Stink
  • Mary mowed the lawn between the machine shed and the woodshed, putting most of the grass mulch around tomato plants in the far garden. We haven't mowed through high-heat spells, so our lawns look like hay fields.
  • I washed the three fuzzy items I bought last week from thrift stores. All garments coming from thrift stores are washed with a heavy dose of stinky laundry detergent. I don't want to make lures from items that reek of manmade stinkum. Some time on the clothesline will help dissipate the odor. 
  • I set up the solar generator with the two solar panels on the trailer, pushing the stored energy from 60 to 99 percent. I read in the manual that it's best to take the generator to full capacity, then drop it to 60 percent for storage. So, I used the generator to provide power for my laptop in the evening, dropping it to 96 percent.
  • I mowed the lane. I had to go slower than usual, in order to knock back the chicory stalks. 
  • Black walnut trees have leaves that are turning yellow early. The tall grass is yellowing. There is just too much heat this summer!
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2023 pear wine. It has great flavor, but a healthy kick. Pear wine requires at least a year of aging. Three years is even better.

   

• Thursday, 7/30: A Mowing Blitz
  • I sharpened the blades of both push mowers.
  • Mary and I both mowed the lawn just north of the house and to the west, which were knee-high in grass, tall chicory stalks, and cherry/persimmon saplings. We added grass mulch to all existing plants in the far garden. It was cooler today, so we took fewer and shorter breaks in order to get this area cleaned up. It looks much better. Bill is interested in enjoying an outdoor fire when he visits this weekend, which was an incentive to mowing down these hay field lawns.
  • Bill's current job allows him to take his birthday off. So, his weekend visit will include Monday, August 3rd, which is his 33rd birthday. 
  • Mary keeps picking up the call of a mockingbird on her Merlin app. The app indicates that it is an unlikely resident. Mockingbirds usually reside further south in the summer. Mary thinks it has taken up summer residence on our property.
  • My three items I bought for fly tying aired in today's sun and wind. Only the infant garment still has a fake laundry soap odor. The two blankets smell normal. I hung them over interior room doors for further airing, just in case residual odors exist.

   

• Friday, 7/31: Trimming Electric Fence
  • I used the Stihl trimmer and whacked down grass and weeds under the electric fence of the near garden, a task I'm accomplishing for the first time this year. I only got the north side cleaned up. Needless to say, it is very thick with vegetation and takes additional time to accomplish.
  • Initially, while using the trimmer, I was breaking off nylon string about every three to four feet. After two or three years, that string is brittle. Once I soaked it with WD-40, the string stopped breaking. Apparently, I should buy trimmer string on an annual basis.
  • Rain squalls forced me to quit my trimming work. Mary started chores earlier than normal. I had to wait for rain to subside prior to starting my evening chores.
  • When Mary put the chickens to bed, she was missing a hen. She started walking Cooper and suggested that the hen might be on that nest under the cedar tree next to the woodshed. I spotted five eggs there yesterday while I was mowing. I looked. Sure enough, our Houdini who escapes the chicken yard daily was sitting on that nest. A few minutes later, Mary grabbed Houdini, who put up a big squawking fuss, while Mary carried her to inside the coop.
  • Mary noticed a brown thrasher for the first time since spring. It was out enjoying the freshly cut lawn.
  • I'm chasing woodpeckers out of the Empire and Granny Smith apple trees. That probably means some of the apples are getting close to ripening.

   

• Saturday, 8/1: Bill Arrives
  • It rained intermittently all day to give us just under a quarter inch.
  • Bill arrived around noon.
  • I added dragon eyes to the mesh tube minnow I made on Tuesday (see photo, below). They are attached and covered with UV gel. While shining the UV flashlight to harden the UV gel, the tinsel of the mesh tubing was purple.
  • Mary finished three Halloween ornaments (see photo, below). They are named Mod Cat, Autumn Silhouette, and Ghoulish Glow.
  • We gave birthday gifts to Bill two days early so cats wouldn't eat them. One of the presents was a bar of dark chocolate.
  • Bill took a photo of milk weed tussock moth larvae (see photo, below). I've noticed several of them on milk weed plants next to the lane. Touching them gives a person a nasty rash.
  • The upper part of a dead ash tree fell into the north chicken yard and scared chicks so that when Mary put them to bed for the night, all chicks were huddled inside a corner of the chicken coop.
  • Bill took a photo of Gandalf crawling out from a kitchen cabinet (see below). 
  • We watched two movies. The first film was a DVD we gave Bill for this birthday entitled A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), about Fred Rogers. The second film we watched was Dave (1993).

Dragon eyes on the mesh tube minnow.

Mary's cross stitch Halloween ornaments.

   

Two milk weed tussock moth larvae.

Gandalf emerging from a kitchen cabinet.

 
• Sunday, 8/2: Wiener Roast
  • I cut up the ash tree that fell across the north chicken yard with the small battery-powered Stihl pruning saw. Our chicks sure live strongly by the name chicken. They stayed inside the coop the whole time I was cutting up the tree. Then I took the big chainsaw and cut up the trunk on the east side of the chicken yard fence. It was actually three pieces of trees...the ash tree, an old oak tree, and an ash limb. I noticed later in the day that the top of a live tree was gone. It maybe blew down in the wind and tilted old dead trees over.
  • Mary used her scythe to cut down part of the lawn between the house and the lane for hay to use through the winter on the floor of the chicken coop. It was deep, tough, and wet, which made for grass that flopped over and hard to cut.
  • Bill helped me move firewood from the chicken yard by opening and closing gates. He helped Mary move hay in a wheelbarrow and spread it out on shorter grass to dry.
  • We lit an outdoor fire and roasted wieners. We also played washers. Bill won most of the games. We watched the sky as darkness revealing stars. There are several more satellites moving across the nighttime sky compared to past years. We saw several shooting stars.
  • Before it was dark, we saw a couple common nighthawks. Mary saw a bat fly only five feet above our heads. Mosquitoes were really chewing on Bill. Mary and I noticed them, but they weren't biting us...probably because we're old coots with no blood. 

July 20-26, 2026

Weather | 7/20, sunny, 69°, 93° | 7/21, 0.12" rain to sunny, 71°, 83° | 7/22, sunny, 60°, 79° | 7/23, p. cloudy, 60°, 79° | 7/24, 0.02" rain, 60°, 72° | 7/25, 0.11" rain, p. cloudy, 65°, 89° | 7/26, p. cloudy, 74°, 95° |

• Monday, 7/20: Creating a Mesh Tube Darter
  • Any time we went outside, the temperatures were just too hot and the air was orange with wildfire smoke. We stayed inside. At 93°, we hit our hottest temperature of this year.
  • Mary worked on her cross stitch project called "Mod Cat," a Halloween ornament.
  • I spent all afternoon online trying to find a fly tying pattern to help me understand the poor notes I took during a web session with Missouri Department of Conservation Educator Matt Murray describing how to make a Mesh Tube Darter. He used a rabbit fur piece called a "zonker strip" by fly tyers. Using that term, I found similar fly tying recipes. 
  • Mary watered the far garden twice and the near garden once. It was a very hot job. Three tomato plants look like they're dying. Some are growing nicely.
  • Bill sent some images and texts about a Mediterranean House Gecko in the support room at his place of work. He released it outside.
  • At roughly 8 p.m., Mary shut chicken coop windows with thunderstorms approaching from Iowa. It was entertaining with all but two chicks piled into three open windows. She moved 29 chicks. We only have 24 chicks. Once set onto the roost, several chicks flew back to the window sills. When she finally got all of them on the roost, she completely closed the lower parts of windows and opened the upper halves to a 3" crack.
  • I built a mesh tube darter (see photos, below). I got the mesh tubing at Dollar Tree for next to nothing. The rabbit fur died in a rust color pushes down the tubing to make it resemble a fish belly. I used two feathers from our Silver Wyandotte hen we call "Silver" (very original) for pectoral fins. Unfortunately, one is longer than the other. I used a plastic fish mask with holographic fish eyes covered with UV gel preservative, which hardened nicely after three minutes exposed to a UV flashlight. I need to buy more colors of rabbit fur to make future versions of this unique lure.
  • On Cooper's last walk, the setting moon backlit clouds in the southwestern sky while lightning flashed to the northwest. We fell asleep to thunder.

Side view of a Mesh Tube Darter.

The same lure viewed from underneath.

 
• Tuesday, 7/21: Two More Quarts For Blackberry Wine
  • We received just a little over a tenth of an inch of rain overnight while we slept.
  • When I walked Cooper around noon, a big turkey, which was probably a female, and two turkeys half her size, most likely her offspring, flew off to the west from near the lane.
  • I picked blackberries before and after our midday meal. I got just four berries from the east patch, but I hit the mother lode in the southeast patch located just south of the far garden through the cedar trees. In two berry picking sessions I gathered two quarts of blackberries, giving me a grand total of six quarts for winemaking. I weighed all six bags and I have 7.59 pounds, which is very close to the eight pounds needed to make two gallons of wine.
  • Mary thinks she has more tomato plants that are dying. Yesterday's 93° didn't help.
  • Temperatures were better today. A north wind meant we only got to 83°. 
  • Mary created a shopping list for our trip to town, tomorrow.
  • While washing chicken waterers, I still see fireflies at dusk. This is the latest in the summer that we've ever noticed fireflies.

   

• Wednesday, 7/22: Shopping
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL. At Goodwill, Mary bought a solid oak frame with some sappy words about family inside it that she'll throw away, but use the frame to replace an old frame around a cross stitch piece she once made of a mallard duck pair. I bought a Savannah Banana baseball team T-shirt. At Dollar Tree, I bought three skeins of chenille yarn and some Crazy glue for fly tying. For $1.50 a skein, a got the equivalent of about 100 cards of chenille purchased from a fly tying site. These cards are worth about $4, each.
  • Cooper was a good puppy while we were gone from home for five hours. I gave him extra time outside while I hauled garbage down the lane, got mail, and did evening chores.
  • Mary watered the gardens. Temperatures were lower, so the plants looked better.

  

  Chenille from Dollar General (left) and from fly tying shop (right).

  
  
  

• Thursday, 7/23: Outside of the Box Fly Tying Session
  • A general "blah" feeling by both Mary and I meant we mostly stayed inside today.
  • When I walked Cooper on his noonish outing, we encountered the remains of a rabbit in the grass along the east side of the lane near the gravel road. Probably a hawk had a bunny dinner.
  • I called in our water meter reading. About two hours later, a couple guys from the water district showed up to read the meter. Initially, they couldn't find it. Usually, it's near the gravel road. Ours is near our house, a quarter mile up our lane from the gravel road. They called, left a voicemail, and I called back to tell them to drive north on our lane. We were amazed that water district employees didn't know where their meter was located. When the older of the two guys read off what the meter number was, the younger guy reading it said, "That's not the correct number." I don't think they have very accurate records. I said to the older guy that I keep reading about the water district online and added, "Someone doesn't like you." He said it's all false information and one-sided, adding that one guy doesn't like the water district, along with the editor of the Edina Sentinel newspaper. Before he left, he said, "Say good things about us."
  • I took in a monthly "Virtual Vise" fly tying session. This time it was "thinking outside of the box." Ginger Miller, the presenter, bought her fly tying materials from a couple dollar stores. She had the exact chenille yarn that I purchased yesterday! She said Family Dollar has mesh tubing on sale for 50 cents a package. Ginger tied three large flies. One involved ribbon material stripped of lengthwise fibers to resemble hackle feathers. She used floral wire as a lead wire substitute and adhesive diamond wrap as fish eyes, with the help of a marking pen. All kinds of cheap fly making ideas came from this online session.

   

• Friday, 7/24: Done Picking Blackberries!
  • We experienced light bits of misty rain during parts of the day.
  • While walking back from the chicken coop this morning, we heard an unusual bird song. Mary grabbed her phone, turned on the Merlin app, and it identified the song of a blue grosbeak, a new bird for the year.
  • I picked almost another quart of blackberries from the south and southeast berry patches. It gives me almost 8.5 pounds of berries, enough for a two-gallon batch. We are all done with picking blackberries for the year. We've been at blackberry picking for over a month. There are still a lot of red blackberries yet to ripen. It gives birds some food and as berries fall to the ground, the seeds replenish berry plant growth for another year.
  • I made waffles that we topped with strawberries fresh out of the garden. We keep getting a healthy amount of strawberries every single day...the best strawberry yield we've ever witnessed.
  • The dingbat crop duster who has buzzed over our house each and every day for well over a month was delivering herbicide over fields while a light misty rain was coming down. All herbicide labels I've ever read warn against spraying 12 to 24 hours before a rain. This guy is wasting farmer's money while spraying during a rain. What a complete idiot!
  • I'm watching one-minute long videos on fly tying tips from the tightlinevideo YouTube site, where Tim Flagler offers fantastic tips for better tying techniques. His stuff is excellent!

   

• Saturday, 7/25: Fly Tying Materials & Katie's Fishing Trip
  • I drove to Quincy only to discover that I forgot my wallet. I drove back home and got it. I went to the Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stores and picked up yarn and three garments that I can tear down to make into fishing flies. One is an infant's sweater in light pink with hot pink hearts on it. Cut into small strips, it might substitute for rabbit fur. The other two items are really fuzzy lap blankets in deep red and dark purple that I can cut up in strips. The blankets are big enough to give me materials for thousands of flies.
  • I also picked up two prescriptions and two bags of chick feed. Forgetting my wallet meant I put in two round trips for about 120 miles.
  • Mary mopped the floors and finished cross stitching the Halloween project called "Mod Cat."
  • Katie sent several photos (see below) of a red salmon fishing trip on the Kenai River. She won a charter boat excursion and reached her limit in two hours. She's excited to taste the new meat in her freezer.
  • The humidity was amazing when we walked Cooper before bed. It felt like you could swim through the foggy air. Humidity level was at 91 percent!

Several red salmon on a stringer.

Katie with her fish on the Kenai River.

Nice-sized red salmon filets.

Katie thinks it's time to buy a bigger freezer.

 
• Sunday, 7/26: Very Quiet Day
  • It was too hot to do much outside, so we stayed indoors.
  • I fiddled with fly tying stuff I bought yesterday and put it away.
  • Mary covered tomatoes stems that were lying on the ground with grass mulch, where possible. When tomato stalks are horizontal on the ground, this intense heat cooks them and they die. Once tomato plants grow vertically and gain stems with leaves, they survive. Mary finds that by covering these horizontal stems, they soldier through the heat and survive.
  • I worked up a chart of daily glucose readings from Jan. 1st through today for my semi-annual doctor's visit, tomorrow.
  • I talked with Mom. Outside temperatures are well over 100° in Circle, MT.