Sept. 21-27, 2026

Weather | 9/21, cloudy, 61°, 67° | 9/22, 0.03" rain, 60°, 63° | 9/23, cloudy, 51°, 69° | 9/24, cloudy, 53°, 67° | 9/25, cloudy, 57°, xx° | 9/26, xx°, xx° | 9/27, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 9/21: Baking Cookies & Shopping Trip
  • I shot at two squirrels that were in the pecan trees this morning and missed.
  • Mary noticed cardinal parents that were taking care of a yellow-billed cuckoo youngster. She discovered from online sources that cuckoos occasionally parasitize during years of very abundant cicadas, moths, and caterpillars, but it doesn't happen often. We had huge numbers of caterpillars this year.
  • I drove to Quincy because we're almost out of chicken food. I picked up a couple other items.
  • Mary made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies to have as snacks while we butcher chickens.
  • She picked half of an ice cream bucket of tomatoes.
  • After Mary put the chickens to bed, I asked if she heard any squirrels rummaging around in the pecan trees. She said she heard a barred owl hooting from within one of the pecan trees, so there probably were no squirrels in those trees. 
  • I added mothballs to all of the plastic pop bottles in the pickup's engine compartment that lacked mothballs, due to them drying up over time. The last batch of mothballs we bought were faulty. They dry up in less than a week. Usually, they last longer. I removed a mouse nest under the air filter in the air filter housing. Effective moth balls would inhibit mouse nest activity.
  • We originally planned to butcher chickens tonight, but decided not to start, due to a chance of rain. Killing chickens is never fun. Doing it in the rain is even less enjoyable. It was misting at nightfall. We made the right decision.
  • I learned from online videos about better methods of cleaning the Marlin 39A .22 rifle by disassembling the lever action and barrel, similar to how bolt-action guns are cleaned.

   

• Tuesday, 9/22: Big Monarch Butterfly Campout
  • Today was a misty, drizzly day...so much so that we decided to postpone butchering chickens for one more day.
  • I set six mouse traps inside the bed of the pickup. 
  • Mary froze more tomatoes. She finished filling a second gallon ziplock bag and started a third bag in the freezer.
  • Heath asters are starting to bloom along our lane. They are white with a slightly purple center.
  • I shot a squirrel that was high in the pecan trees northeast of the machine shed. 
  • While I was hunting and sitting next to the burn barrel on the garden stool, I noticed monarch butterflies flitting about above me. When Mary came out to get a wheelbarrow to move some chicken feed, I told her to look up. She noticed hordes of monarchs nestling onto pecan branches. The tree was alive with hundreds of butterflies settling in for an overnight sleep (see video, below...this is a 35 MB file, so it may take awhile to download). These monarchs were pouring into the tree from all directions. We have never seen this many monarch butterflies since we moved here in 2009.
  • When we put the chickens to bed for the night, a fawn and a doe deer were moving about west of the chicken coop and eating forbs. A few minutes later, I walked Cooper south down our lane when we saw Mama and her youngster, again. A few steps later, we saw two more deer running away near Bluegill Pond.
  • On Cooper's last walk of the night, we spooked up a dove that was parked right in the middle of the lane...silly bird...owls and coyotes are out there who would love a dove dinner.
  Mary counted 43 monarch butterflies within this group.
   
  
  

• Wednesday, 9/23: First Night of Chicken Butchering
  • Right after letting chickens out this morning, Mary and I stood below the pecan trees and watched monarch butterflies leave for their travels south.
  • Mary picked a few more tomatoes.
  • I weeded the six totes north of the woodshed and planted winter green seeds, which involved three varieties of kale in five totes and some tote of arugula. We're not planting lettuce this year. It dies off immediately when temperatures get below freezing. Kale survives frosty weather.
  • Mary saw three rose-breasted grosbeaks feeding on giant ragweed seeds next to woodshed. They enjoyed a good season raising young.
  • I saw an American kestrel flying west to east. 
  • I filled buckets with water and scattered them around where we needed them for butchering chickens.
  • After dark, we butchered seven chickens. We have 13 to go after tonight's efforts. I skinned them and Mary cleaned them in the kitchen sink, cut them up, and froze them. An added part to this year's process was collecting hackle feathers for supplying my fly tying hobby.
  • Besides hearing and seeing scurrying mice in the machine shed, Mary and I listened to a large group northern flying squirrels as they made bird-like calls all night long in the pecan trees. We could also hear them eating pecan nuts. Between gray and fox squirrels eating pecans in daylight hours and flying squirrels eating them at night, it's amazing there are any left for us.
  • I also heard coyotes howling from just east of the far garden. Barred owls hooted to one another. At one point, a barred owl was sounding off from just above one of the grain bins. I heard the growl of a raccoon while I was skinning the sixth chicken, with the seventh chicken carcass hanging just outside the east end of the machine shed. I loudly stomped on old chicken feed bags, walked to the edge of the building, and yelled at it to get lost. I asked Mary to come out momentarily to help move it along. It was long gone by the time she walked around the grain bins. Our property is a Wild Kingdom.

   

• Thursday, 9/24: Tarred Railroad Tie
  • I shot at two squirrels in the pecan trees in the morning and missed.
  • I cleaned up all of the buckets involved with butchering chickens. When I dumped chicken feet in the woods, I saw a squirrel running up a log, of course, since our woods seem to be loaded with squirrels.
  • When I washed up the killing cone, I noticed two tears in the aluminum sheeting that it's made from, which if not attended to, will mean that the cone with break free from the upright railroad tie that its attached to while in the middle of killing a chicken...NOT GOOD! Mary helped me fix it. At first I tried driving a roofing nail into the railroad tie, but the aluminum nail started bending, so I removed it. Then I drilled holes prior to pounding in four roofing nails. The railroad tie is extremely well tarred. I had to go in and out several times with the drill bit. We applied aluminum tape over the nail heads and the splits in the aluminum sheeting. Mary knows that her Uncle Herman got the railroad ties from the dismantling of the railroad spur from Quincy to Kansas City that ran through Lewistown. Online research shows that spur was built in 1871, when Lewistown, MO was created. It's probably the date of this railroad tie.
  • Mary picked a half of an ice cream pail of tomatoes. 
  • I saw a small deer near the southwest corner of the chicken yard while I was doing evening chores.
  • Since we were dead tired, we decided that bed was a better option compared to a second night in a row of butchering chickens. That job will wait until tomorrow night.

Sept. 14-20, 2026

Weather | 9/14, 0.15" rain to p. cloudy, 55°, 79° | 9/15, p. cloudy, 74°, 89° | 9/16, 1.92" rain, 65°, 80° | 9/17, sunny, 68°, 89° | 9/18, foggy to sunny, 70°, 84° | 9/19, cloudy, 71°, 85° | 9/20, 0.12" rain, 68°, 75° |

• Monday, 9/14: Red Sky at Morning
  • We saw a brick orange color all across the sky as the sun rose behind clouds east of us. It was a good indicator of the saying, "Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."
  • I shot at one squirrel. It hurried down the tree trunk and ran away. After that, there were no more squirrels. They knew that weather was arriving.
  • It rained this morning as thunderstorms rolled through.
  • Later in the day, I mowed around the compost bins and dumped clippings into the middle bin in order to build up a carbon cushion where future chicken carcasses will go. It's now about a foot deep. I have a ways to go to get it to the three-foot height of the metal roof panels that make up the sides of the compost bin. Grass is extremely tall, since it wasn't mowed during several bouts of high temperatures. About five lawnmower passes are needed to get it all mowed up.
  • Mary picked tomatoes and hot peppers. 
  • She strung up the hot peppers to dry and put jalapeño peppers in the fridge. She made jalapeños picked last week into refrigerator pickles.
  • Mary picked 39 worms off the garden plants, 35 with a UV flashlight after darkness fell. Six came out of the pepper patch. Too bad we're not harvesting and selling worms. It would be a bumper crop!
  • While in the pepper patch tonight, Mary heard the churring sound of a raccoon not far away. She made a racket that silenced it.

   

• Tuesday, 9/15: Rifle Cleaning & Picking Hazelnuts
  • I cleaned the .22 rifle I like to use. It's a Marlin Golden 39A that Mary's uncle Herman once owned. Mary looked up the serial number. It was made in 1964 and is extremely sought after. I like it because it's very accurate.
  • I sharpened two knives. They were very dull and took 40 strokes on each of the three stones to produce a sharp edge. There are only 12 more knives to do to catch up on sharpening all of the main knives that we use. Mary was about to go on strike in cooking meals, due to super dull knives. Plus, we need several sharpened for chicken butchering.
  • Mary picked an overflowing four-gallon bucket of hazelnuts. There are still many more nuts left on the bushes.
  • I shot squirrel at the same time Mary was putting the chickens to bed. I was inside the machine shed, shooting out the open east end of the building at a squirrel in the pecan trees. Even a shot from a small caliber .22 rifle really is loud when you're shooting from inside a metal building!
  • A little later, as I stepped out of the woods on the trail between the two gardens, I saw two great blue herons flying north to south just above the far garden. The nearest bird let out a squawk when it saw me and was flying so low that it barely cleared the cedar trees just south of the garden. Herons have a very ratchety call.
  • Thunderstorms arrived after dark and rain was pouring down by bedtime.

   

• Wednesday, 9/16: Big Overnight Rain
  • Thunderstorms rolled through us all night long, resulting in almost two inches of rain. There was no puddling of water on the ground, so the soil was able to soak it all in, which is good for all plants.
  • Mary and Cooper went outside before I did this morning. As I stepped outside, Mary told me to walk her direction, southeast of the house, where Cooper treed a squirrel while Mary made noises to freeze the animal. Hazelnuts in its mouth revealed that it was eating nuts off the nearest bush. I shot the squirrel while Cooper watched. The gun shot didn't make Cooper flinch. He's a natural gun dog with a long memory. For the rest of the day whenever he went outside, he immediately ran to that tree, sniffed the base around the tree, and looked up to try to find another squirrel. 
  • Mary husked the fourth four-gallon bucket of hazelnuts...what a big year for them!
  • I sharpened another knife.
  • I cleaned my Ruger Model 10/22 Carbine .22 rifle. I looked up the serial number and it was made in 1977. Dad gave it to me as a Christmas present about then. It's not worth quite as much as the Marlin .22 gun.
  • I hunted a little bit as the sun set and saw only one squirrel. There are fewer, lately. I think they're getting wise to my ways and formed a Squirrel Preservation Society. "Don't go near that weird guy with the thunder stick in his hands."
  • Mary found 12 worms with the UV flashlight. We both hunt in our own ways.

   

• Thursday, 9/17: 30-30 Rifle Info & a Canine Beatles Critic
  • Today was hot and humid, with a light breeze that didn't cool at all. I thought this month was hotter than usual. Mary looked up in her records. We always get streaks of high heat in every September.
  • I sharpened two more knives.
  • I looked up details of our two 30-30 rifles. 
    
    • The shorter barreled gun is a Marlin 30AS. This is a lower cost rifle made to be sold by department stores. It has a cross-bolt safety indicated by the letter S. The stock is birch, a cheaper alternative to the traditional walnut stock. The barrel is 20 inches long with micro-groove rifling. This gun was made in 1988. It has a JM stamp on the barrel, which improves it's value. It means the rifle was made prior to Marlin's purchase by Remington and then when it was taken over by Ruger. The gun's value is $550-$750.
    • The longer barreled 30-30 is a Marlin 336 rifle that is known for accuracy in hunting deer. It has a walnut stock and a 24-inch micro-grooved barrel. This rifle was made in 1976. It also has the JM stamp. The value is $650-$800. 
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation Virtual Vise webinar featuring Matt Murray, a St. Louis employee, showing how to make poppers. The first fly he demonstrated how to make was a simple foam popper. He laminated yellow and black craft foam with contact cement and then sharpened a large bullet casing to punch out perfect cylinders of multi-colored foam. Some feathers, thread, stick-on eyes, and super glue finished the project. The second demonstration involved deer hair spinning where bunches of deer hair are splayed out in a cylinder shape around the hook shank, then carefully trimmed into a popper shape with an old-fashioned razor blade. It's a messy project, with bits of deer hair falling everywhere, but very fascinating to experience. UV resin is added to the face to give it a solid surface that plops the water when pulled with a fishing rod. He used deer hair dyed green. I'll have to try it sometime.
  • Cooper hates the Beatles. I played a couple Beatles songs on my laptop in the evening and with each song, Cooper moaned.

   

• Friday, 9/18: Freezing Tomatoes & No Hickory Nuts
  • I used the Stihl trimmer with a steel blade and made two passes to cut down tall grass in the east lawn. It amounted to about half of that lawn. I gathered up the grass with a pitchfork and added it to the middle compost bin to build up an organic sponge. The cut grass is about halfway up the sides of that bin.
  • Mary picked tomatoes and peppers. She froze about a half gallon of tomatoes. There's over a gallon of this year's tomatoes in the freezer.
  • Mary looked for hickory nuts in the west woods, but didn't find any. We thought that the absence of squirrels in the pecan trees the past couple days meant they were after hickory nuts in surrounding woods. Such is not the case. Hickory nuts might still be high in the trees.
  • I hunted next to the pecan trees after Mary spooked a squirrel away from that area. All I did was chase one away with a couple bullets. 
  • I noticed several monarch butterflies settling into tree branches for the night. We're seeing more monarchs than in past years.
  • Two batches of Canada geese flew overhead at sunset. One was a perfect V of about 15 mature geese. The second group involved four youngsters. They were low enough for us to hear their wing beats.
  • Mary looked for worms on garden plants and found 11 worms of all varieties.

   

• Saturday, 9/19: Chicken Butchering Preparation
  • I shot one squirrel this morning. It first appeared on the machine shed roof. Later, it was on a small tree next to the machine shed's north side. I moved so a bullet wouldn't go through the metal siding and was amazed how a squirrel that's still and against a tree trunk blends right into the tree. 
  • Mary picked an overflowing fifth bucket of hazelnuts. There are more, but they're finally dwindling.
  • She also picked and froze more tomatoes.
  • While using the Merlin app on her phone, Mary heard a tree frog and the app told her it was a Caspian tern. It goes to show that sometimes the Merlin app is wrong! She saw two new birds for the year. One was a Tennessee warbler and the other was a yellow-throated warbler.
  • I whacked down two more passes in the east yard and filled the middle compost bin to the top of the metal sides with grass. A tiny bit of tall grass still exists in this yard, but after two days in a row of using the weed whacker, my joints and muscles told me it stays in place for now.
  • I moved lights out to the machine shed that we'll use to illuminate the building for butchering chickens. I also backed up the 8N Ford tractor and trailer to give us an adequate area inside for butchering.
  • I mowed the trails we use at night while butchering chickens and trimmed some tree branches and saplings intruding into these trails.
  • Bill sent us a text that he attended a St. Louis Blues preseason hockey game tonight with free tickets from work. He told us later that there were lots of teenagers fighting on the ice. 
  • Lightning flashed in the west sky as we walked Cooper on his last outing. A heavy rain fell as we went to bed.

   

• Sunday, 9/20: Impressive Hazelnut Harvest
  • Mary made a big batch of minestrone soup that was very yummy. 
  • She also husked her fifth bucket of hazelnuts. The stacked flats of hazelnuts drying in the upstairs south bedroom is quite impressive (see photo, below). Mary says that even though there are more nuts on the hazelnut bushes, her fingers are sore enough for her to call it quits, but she says, "I know I won't."
  • I ran extension cords and installed the five lights we use while butchering in the machine shed. One is hung in the rafters. Two are clamp lights situated on each side in high positions and the last two are freestanding tripod work lights, each with two LED bulbs that replaced halogen bulbs.
  • I also added some aluminum tape to the killing cone and trimmed tree branches near it and to the entrance to the chicken yard.
  • I sharpened five more knives and resharpened three knives sharpened a few days ago, but used recently for cooking duties.
  • We're now ready to butcher chickens. As of tomorrow, the chicks are 15 weeks old. Plus, weather forecasts show lows for us in the low 50s, which are good temperatures for handling this job. 
  • I hunted off and on throughout the day, but saw no squirrels. A couple times I heard husks falling north of the machine shed. I finally spotted movement extremely high in the top of a big oak tree. It involved bluejays that were ripping acorns from the branches that would then fall through branches down below and to the ground.
  • I'm seeing more monarchs as I'm out hunting. We're also noticing that the goldenrod flowers, which usually die off after one week of blooming, are continuing for several weeks this year.

  

  Boxes and boxes of drying hazelnuts...what an amazing harvest.

  
   

Sept. 7-13, 2026

Weather | 9/7, p. cloudy, 65°, 84° | 9/8, p. cloudy, 64°, 93° | 9/9, 0.74" rain, 67°, 71° | 9/10, 0.85" rain, 67°, 75° | 9/11, dense fog to sunny, 62°, 80° | 9/12, sunny, cloudy, take your pick, 63°, 81° | 9/13, p. cloudy, 0.09" rain, 57°, 77° |

• Monday, 9/7: A Laborious Labor Day
  • I shot a squirrel in the morning. Mary heard pecan shells rattling off the grain bin roof and urged me to grab the .22 rifle instead of helping her with morning chicken chores.
  • I hunted squirrels around noon and in the late evening. Both times I saw squirrels running away from the pecan trees, but then didn't see any while watching with a rifle in hand.
  • Bill left for his St. Charles apartment around 1 p.m.
  • I glued the trim on the bottom edge of the pickup topper that was coming loose on the passenger side from the wheel well to the backend.
  • I mowed the trail to the chicken killing cone. Some horse weeds were above my head. I had to run over the trail with the lawnmower several times to get the vegetation all cut down.
  • A more thorough check of the Carpathian walnut tree indicated no leaves on the sapling. 
  • Mary picked a full cat litter bucket of hazelnuts (see photo, below) and reported that there are many more in the bushes. She also saw where the guys who sprayed saplings under the electrical lines actually painted herbicide on autumn olive saplings that were right next to hazelnut bushes. They did a very good job.
  • Using the extension ladder, I cleaned Virginia creeper vines away from our bedroom windows.
  • I helped Mary water gardens by filling watering cans. I watered all of the small cherry trees.
  • Mary picked 28 worms off tomato and tomatillo plants. Four worms came off during daylight hours, along with two worm eggs. The remaining 24 worms were removed while using the UV flashlight at night. Mary steps on the worms with her right foot. She looked at the bottom of her boot after removing it, shined the UV light on it, and the boot sole looked like nuclear waste.

  

  A full 4-gallon bucket of unhusked hazelnuts.

  
  
  

• Tuesday, 9/8: Quincy Trip
  • I shot a squirrel this morning. Several were in the pecan trees. I also hunted close to the noon hour and didn't see anything.
  • Mary picked hot peppers and a few tomatoes.
  • She also moved the Halloween tree from the north woods to the machine shed. It's the top of an old dry cedar tree.
  • Mary watered garden plants and hunted for hornworms. She found 26. All but one were found during darkness while using a UV flashlight. About half of the worms were huge. They are growing so fast in the high heat. 
  • Today's high temperature was 93°. Plants were flopped over and limp in the heat, despite watering them.
  • I drove to Quincy to get Cooper's NexGuard PLUS medication and a few other items.
  • After returning home, I watered six small tree saplings.
  • Mary heard a summer tanager calling in the evening. She thought that they all were gone and thinks this bird must be moving through.
  • We received a package from my cousin, Marjorie, today, which contains photos and items related to her going through her parent's belongings in Clarklake, MI.

   

• Wednesday, 9/9: Wonderful Rain
  • We saw rain pretty much all day until late afternoon. That means there is no need for watering our plants or fruit trees, which is a nice relief. The rain is also good for trees and plants in the woods, where recent heat severely dried the ground.
  • I shot four squirrels today and shot at many more.
  • I worked at building a door into entering the freezer room. We have two cat litter pans in there and to keep the dog out, we use a plastic baby gate that we bought in 1991. We position it six inches above the floor, allowing cats to crawl underneath. It's old and not staying in place, plus, it's a hassle for us aging humans to ease over the top. To replace it, I'm building the lower half of a dutch-style door that we can swing open and close, but does the same trick as our old baby gate.
  • I cut a 36-inch wide interior door to 27 inches high. It's hollow, so I found a one-inch wide board and cut it to fit along the hollow edge of the cut door. I found old hinges and used a circular wire brush on a battery-powered drill to clean off old pink paint. I also used a power sander to smooth all door surfaces.
  • Occasional squirrel-shooting interruptions slowed down making this door. Twice, a squirrel scampered across the machine shed's roof while I quickly grabbed the .22 rifle in time to shoot it after it hopped on the maple tree trunk at the northeast corner of the building. 
  • Mary hung a large bunch of hot peppers to dry. She threads them on heavy sewing thread and hangs the bunches in the upstairs south bedroom.
  • Mary spent the afternoon husking hazelnuts. They are a pretty good size, for the native hazelnuts that we grow.
  • Mary didn't find a single worm in the garden. She thinks they're buried under leaves, due to the rain we received today.

   

• Thursday, 9/10: Another Nice Rain!
  • We experienced another morning of heavy rain that quit in the early afternoon. In the past two days we received 1.59 inches of much needed moisture.
  • Two does and fawn were eating on the leaves of the Empire apple tree in the rain this morning. Mary chased the deer away. 
  • I shot two squirrels and chased several away with missed shots. I am seeing so many swallowtail butterflies as I hunt for squirrels.
  • Mary picked enough strawberries yesterday to warrant my production of homemade waffles for our noontime meal today.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation online presentation on identifying ducks. The biggest aspect I got from it was that identifying ducks is difficult and binoculars are essential. Duck stamps are needed to hunt waterfowl. Ninety-eight percent of funds from the sale of duck stamps pays for developing waterfowl habitat. They cost $25 at any post office. 
  • There were several large dragonflies hawking in the east yard in the afternoon just after the sun came out. Hawking is when they're zooming after bugs in the air.
  • Mary picked worms in the tomato and tomatillo plants and found six that were all different kinds of worms.
  • When we walked Cooper on his final nighttime outing, we heard a young barred owl.

   

• Friday, 9/11: Squirrel Battle Continues
  • Dense fog filled the air with moisture in the early morning. I guess squirrels don't like fog, because I saw and heard fewer squirrels with thick fog. Moisture from the fog showed off spider webs. They were everywhere, from hanging between trees to all over the ground.
  • Big flocks of Canada geese flew over us just above the trees, both in the morning and during the evening.
  • I shot four squirrels. They're brash. While working on my half door just below and west of the pecan trees, I'd often hear a squirrel munching on a nut.
  • I glued and screwed the one-inch boards into place along the the cut part of the hollow door that I'm working on. I also attached the hinges to the door. For the second day in a row, work on the door was constantly delayed by grabbing the .22 rifle to hunt squirrels. 
  • Mary picked a few tomatoes and a four-gallon bucket full of hazelnuts. She saw where some hazelnuts were pulled to the ground and husked, probably by squirrels.
  • After dark, Mary found 26 worms with the UV flashlight of all kinds and sizes in the tomato/tomatillo plants.
  • Coyotes howled to the east while Mary picked off worms.
  • There is a unique smell of honey in the air. It's coming from goldenrod blossoms.

   

• Saturday, 9/12: Biggest Hazelnut Year
  • Light fog filled the morning air.
  • Two squirrels showed up, then ran away after I shot at them. Then I didn't see any through the rest of the day. I'd like to say I scared remaining squirrels away, but I know better!
  • Mary froze what little bit of tomatoes she's picked so far. Between lateness in planting, high temperatures, and armies of worms, they aren't doing so well.
  • Mary husked a four-gallon bucket of hazelnuts and put them into cardboard flats in the upstairs south bedroom to dry (see photo, below). I helped Mary finish husking these hazelnuts.
  • I sanded the bottom of the half door I'm building. I attached hinges already screwed on the door to the door jamb and screwed on all of the gate latch hardware. The door works great and we now don't have to crawl over the 35-year old baby barrier.
  • Mary picked another four-gallon bucket of hazelnuts. It's the third full bucket load of nuts to come off the hazelnut bushes and there are several more nuts remaining. This is by far the best hazelnut year we've seen since we planted the bushes in 2010. 
  • I yanked an eight-foot stretch of old hog fence from between hazelnut bushes closest to the house. We stuck the fencing between bushes after we first planted them to detour deer from grazing. The bushes are now big enough that it doesn't matter if deer take a nibble. The hazelnut bushes are invading outward from our initial planting line.

  

  Drying two buckets of hazelnuts.

  
  
  

• Sunday, 9/13: Squirrel Army Arrives
  • I shot a squirrel this morning. There was a whole platoon of squirrels in pecan trees that scattered once the bullets started flying. It seems cooler morning temperatures brought on more squirrels.
  • I took down sides of two sections of the compost bin and transferred compost from the middle bin to the easternmost bin. This was three-year old compost that was about a foot deep. We'll start using the middle compost bin section for the upcoming year. The old compost I transferred today will decay further over winter and be ready for use next spring. I wired the two roof metal sides back into place and hosed off shovels and the bottoms of my boots.
  • Mary defrosted the larger chest freezer to make room for freezing chickens that we'll butcher in the near future.
  • She also husked another bucket of hazelnuts.
  • I mowed grass on the south and east sides of the compost bins and added mulch inside the middle compost bin until it started raining. As I ran the push mower to inside the machine shed, Mary rescued some tools I left on the porch to inside the house and out of the rain.
  • Mary discovered 23 birds on the Merlin app on her phone today. Some are winter residents and some are birds that are passing through. A northern yellow warbler's call was identified by the Merlin app...a first of the year. 

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°, 95° | 9/5, sunny, 73°, 97° | 9/6, p. cloudy, 70°, 86° |

• 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.

   

• Friday, 9/4: Zucchinis Processed
  • I shot another squirrel after hearing nut shells falling while walking waterers to the chickens this morning. I noticed a extremely green pecan nut on the ground near the grain bins. The jerks are decimating nuts that aren't close to being ready to eat. I HATE SQUIRRELS!
  • I watered small cherry trees while Mary watered the near garden this morning.
  • Mary processed and froze 30 ziplock sandwich bags of zucchini slices. She puts them into the venison General Tzo dish she makes after we run out of snow peas.
  • Cooper diligently sat next to Mary as she sliced up zucchinis, so she tossed a slice to him. He chewed it a couple times, then spit it out on the floor and looked up at Mary as if to say, "You actually eat this?" Zucchini is the first item he doesn't like to eat.
  • I sat at the east end of the machine shed in the afternoon for three hours in a hunt for squirrels in the pecan trees. It was very hot, but I was in the shade. I only heard one squirrel run across the machine shed's metal roof. Squirrels probably sensed me, since wind was blowing from the south and moving my scent into the north woods.
  • At sunset, I mowed the rest of the lane. I started earlier than last night, so there was no need for a hat light.
  • Mary picked just 16 hornworms of all sizes with the help of a UV flashlight.
  • She saw a firefly while she was finishing up watering the far garden at dusk. When we walked Cooper on his final outing we noticed that the grass on the lane was covered with glowworms.

   

• Saturday, 9/5: Baby King Snake in Living Room
  • First thing this morning, I took a shovel and banged on the side of the metal grain bins while yelling and scared four squirrels from the pecan trees. Then I looked down at Cooper, who stared at me with a scared look like he thought I turned loco. I gave him pats on the head and we went on with his early morning walk.
  • Blackie, our oldest barred rock hen, died this morning. She was a chick in 2018. Blackie was such a nice, easy-going hen that we decided to buy barred rock hens the following years.
  • Bill arrived around noon. He's here for the Labor Day Weekend
  • Today was the hottest day of the year at 97°.
  • While Mary watered the near garden, I watered the young trees.
  • I made waffles for our midday meal. They were covered with lots of strawberries from our garden.
  • Mary and Bill picked 17 worms and two worm eggs from the tomatoes and tomatillos.
  • Bill selected two movies that we watched. They were Pride and Prejudice (2006), and Galaxy Quest (1999).
  • Partway through the second movie, cats were scratching at something under the bottom bookshelf in the living room. It turned out to be a baby prairie king snake. Mary grabbed it up with a broom into a dust pan and escorted it outside. This reveals the tightness of our 114-year old house!

   

• Sunday, 9/6: Good Movies
  • I chased 3-4 squirrels away from the pecan trees by beating on the grain bins with a shovel when I started to walk Cooper on his morning outing. The puppy just wagged his tail at me this time.
  • Squirrels were back munching up green pecans around noon, when I shot a squirrel. After that I  sat for a half hour on the garden stool with my .22 rifle in the shade between the pecan trees with a cool east wind blowing. It felt nice after all of the heat we've experienced. I didn't see any squirrels, but witnessed several swallowtail butterflies flying through the branches.
  • I saw two deer running to the east in the north woods. 
  • Mary made venison stew with biscuits for a very yummy midday meal.
  • Mary spotted an eastern wood pewee feeding bugs to two fledglings on the lowest branch of the Granny Smith tree. Later, I noticed that Mama Bird sat on the power line near our house, then flew up to catch a bug, which she fed to her babies at the apple tree.
  • Mary watered all garden plants while Bill and I filled and walked watering cans to her. I watered the intermediate-sized apple trees and blueberry bushes. Bill hunted hornworms on the tomato and tomatillo plants. He found nine worms and one worm egg.  
  • We watched two films picked out by Bill. They were Amistad (1997) and Monsters Inc (2001). The first Steven Spielberg movie was really good. The second one is always fun.

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.