June 29-July 5, 2026

Weather | 6/29, sunny, 75°, 91° | 6/30, sunny, 75°, 90° | 7/1, sunny, 73°, 89° | 7/2, sunny, 73°, 91° | 7/3, smokey skies, 75°, xx° | 7/4, xx°, xx° | 7/5, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 6/29: Blackberries & Fixing Fence
  • Mary picked more blackberries. She finished the first quart of the season and it's now in the freezer. Some locations are very sparse of ripe berries. Her final berry picking session took her west, south and east of the house and yielded just 19 berries. "That's a lot of heat for just 19 berries," she said.
  • Mary said that wild bergamot (beebalm) is flowering on the edge of the north yard. Mountain mint is flowering between the ponds. Chicory and dayflowers are also blooming.
  • A field sparrow always flies out of the blackberry plants in the north yard. Mary suspects it's nesting in those brambles, so she's not picking berries from that small patch.
  • Mary says all of the staghorn sumac is blooming. We thought it was dead from deer eating it down to below our kneecaps last winter, but now it's chest high in some places and bearing berries, which is great.
  • I ran supports to three of the four corner posts of the far garden. I have several short metal posts that once had about a foot of their bottom sections broken off. I drove them into the ground at an angle, then ran 4-5 strands of wire from the slanted posts to the top of the corner posts and wound the strands to tighten the tension until the corner posts were solidly in the ground. I didn't do this on the southwest corner, since it's still holding fast in the earth.
  • My thigh muscles are really sore, due to too much of pulling wire tight while walking while doing deep knee bends, yesterday.
  • We have a routine dog. If we get out of our daily routine of activities, things just aren't right with Cooper. While taking a rest from the outside heat and looking at my laptop in the late afternoon, Cooper was nudging my hand to remind me that we were overdue on his before-dinner walk and ball-fetching fun time.
  • I did more online powder paint research. I found a guy via YouTube that mixes his own powder paint colors and has an insane amount of materials. Through him, I learned of a company in Texas that only sells lure making supplies called Barlow's Tackle.

   

• Tuesday, 6/30: A Day Off
  • We decided to take the day off from going outside. My body hurts. Mary wants a day off from stomping through the heat. So, we enjoyed the cool of air conditioning indoors. 
  • Mary cross stitched.
  • I put away a fly tying order that came in yesterday's mail. It doubled my thread supply with several new colors that I put away in new plastic thread boxes that Mary didn't want. It's amazing how fly tying and cross stitching share similar items. I also got cool new sparkly dubbing and crystal flash. I put several new sheets of foam away for tying bugs and dragonflies. I cleaned up my roll top desk giving me more storage space for my fly tying hobby.
  • Mary added up that we got a total of 10.15 inches of rain in June. That's a lot of rain and it is why our ground is mighty soggy.
  • I read that Saharan dust that blew across the Atlantic Ocean was then blown up the Mississippi River these past few days and is in our air. That explains why I see such murky air while looking off to the distance when I get mail at the end of our lane. It's also why we saw a blue moon at night.
  • When we went outside for chores, we heard chimney swifts chattering as they flew about while catching bugs.

   

• Wednesday, 7/1: Two Dead Chickens
  • When I opened the chicken coop's human door, a dead Buff Orpington hen was on the floor next to the roost. It wasn't a surprise. That chicken was acting lethargic for the past four month. Mary said it would stand on the top roost staring straight ahead while all of the other chickens pecked at sunflower seeds that Mary threw on the coop's floor. The surprise was a dead chick under a bucket in the chick area of the coop. Mary left the light off last night, due to the heat. That freaked out the chicks. They panicked and a couple got behind some feed buckets. One live chick was still there in the morning. The other one dived under a bucket and died.
  • Mary picked several nice bunches of blackberries. She finished a second quart and filled two-thirds of another quart. Lots of berries are ripening and if we get a little more rain, we will have even more. There are several green berries yet to ripen. Mary took breaks between going to each blackberry patch. It's too hot to pick blackberries in one long session.
  • Mary never saw it, but she heard deer stomp, then run off. Later, she heard it snorting to the east of her. It was laying down in a north blackberry patch before Mary arrived.
  • I mowed the lane, performing only two round trips with the lawnmower at a time, then taking a cooling down break. It takes more time to accomplish when you need to cool down after each mile of mowing, but it's absolutely essential while working in humid heat.
  • I saw a large Viceroy butterfly on the lane. It was flying about very quickly.
  • While on the very first cut with the mower, a large doe deer ran off and then appeared a few feet further down the lane. She looked very healthy in her summer reddish-tan colored coat. The deer really didn't like that noisy machine I was pushing.
  • On our moonlit nighttime outing with Cooper, we could hear four types of frogs yelling loudly from Bluegill Pond.

   

• Thursday, 7/2: Feathers
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation online session on plumology, or the study of feathers. Some interesting facts...1) There are 30 million chickens in the world, making them the largest population of bird varieties; 2) Birds see UV light, so black feathers might appear different to them; 3) Black feathers are stronger than white feathers, so the black feathers on a white pelican's wings are stronger; 4) Blue colored feathers aren't actually blue, but black, and their color is due to a structural feature that makes them appear blue.
  • Mary picked blackberries to the northeast and the north areas of our property. She's almost done filling the fourth quart of this year's berries in the freezer. It was another hot day out on the berry trails.
  • Mary saw a buck deer that was sporting a nice pair of developing antlers. It knew how to hide. The buck snorted, then trotted to a bush to hide itself and looked at Mary. When she didn't move, the buck jumped the fence dividing the north woods from the north field and disappeared into the north woods.
  • Mary discovered five Shrubby St. John's Wort plants growing in the north field. They're in full bloom. "They're the prettiest things," she said. 
  • I mowed around the near garden and between the electric and chicken wire fences. Mulch went under the Granny Smith tree. I noticed that all of the elderberry leaves growing under the cedars south of the near garden were eaten by deer.
  • We received two solar panels that are part of our new solar generator. The generator hasn't shipped, yet.
  • I finished 24th Alexander Kent British Navy novel entitled Second to None.

June 22-28, 2026

Weather | 6/22, 0.02" rain, cloudy to sunny, 57°, 74° | 6/23, sunny, 53°, 79° | 6/24, p. cloudy, 60°, 80° | 6/25, 0.11" rain, cloudy, 65°, 80° | 6/26, 0.76" rain, 63°, 67° | 6/27, 0.02" rain, 64°, 75° | 6/28, 0.16" rain overnight, sunny, 69°, 89° |

• Monday, 6/22: Near Garden Planting is Done
  • I mowed the exceedingly tall grass growing around the compost bins. Then I mowed outside of the electric fence on the east and north sides of the far garden. Two passes were required in tall grass.
  • Mary planted 17 pepper plants, 10 hills of sweet potatoes, and four hills of cucumbers to finish all planting in the near garden. She planted in an industrial method...dug all holes at once, added all compost, all wood ash, then planted to finish it up. It makes planting go faster.
  • She reported that there are lots of earthworms in the near garden.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation Webex about butterflies in Missouri. The naturalist presenting this piece is Austin Lambert, from the Runge Conservation Nature Center in Jefferson City. I've listened to him before. He's very good. He had a little test at the beginning of the talk in identifying whether different specimens were butterflies or moths. Some were very tricky. From my elementary school years, when I delved into entomology in 4-H, I remember the difference between moth and butterfly antennae, so I got a perfect score. Austin showed how numbers of certain types of butterflies have dropped in recent years. He then outlined how to boost numbers, such as being a lazy gardener by leaving plants after they die. We're really good at that! It was a good session.
  • After the webex, I went outside with Cooper to put the mower away. Three bunnies took off in three different directions at the machine shed. He didn't know which way to go. When he saw the tip of a fallen tree branch on the ground that still had leaves on it, Cooper was so worked up he pounced on the branch, thinking it was a live animal.
  • I had a small glass of autumn olive wine made in 2022. It once had a strong alcoholic taste. It's quite good, now, after aging for four years. Mary had a small glass of jalapeño wine. She likes it as a slow sipping wine.
  • We heard a barred owl calling from the electric pole just southeast of the house while reading books, tonight.

   

• Tuesday, 6/23: More #@%! Mowing
  • Mary mowed the east yard just beyond the lane and used the grass clippings to mulch what she planted yesterday. Now the near garden is ready for the heat, which is predicted starting on Sunday.
  • Mary ran into a lot of poison ivy on the east edge of the east lawn that has moved further into the lawn. She dumped those clippings around the Granny Smith apple tree, where we won't be rifling through it with our hands to plant or pick anything. If we mowed more often (ha, ha, ha...what a funny thought), the poison ivy would die back in all of our lawns.
  • Mary kept seeing "Houdini Hen" in the west yard.
  • I clipped tree branches and some small saplings that were invading into the path between the near and far gardens and along the west side of the far garden. I took about six wheelbarrow loads away and piled the branches just south of the compost bins. 
  • I mowed the west area outside of the electric fence of the far garden. Then, I mowed between the electric and chicken wire fences at the north end of that garden, or what we call the far far garden. This is an area that wasn't mowed yet this year, so the grass was tall and thick with old dead grass from last year. It also has areas where the chicken wire fence is leaning outward, requiring me to hold that fence up with one hand and push the mower forward with the other hand...a sure method for gaining sore and tired muscles. The next order of business is fence work, activating the electric fence, and tightening up the chicken wire fencing.

   

• Wednesday, 6/24: A Hair Cut for Mary
  • I cut Mary's hair, today. It was overdue. Her last haircut was in February.
  • I straightened the southwest and southeast corner posts of the far garden. The southwest post only needed a new brace wire, because the old one rusted off at the bottom. The southeast post needed all new brace wires and repositioning of the support poles. The ground is extremely wet. When I wiggled the metal posts, a squishy sound came from the earth.
  • I noticed that the small Sargent saplings that I transplanted last year into the south orchard are booming with new growth.
  • When we walked Cooper on his final outing, the tree frogs in the oak trees around Bluegill Pond were in full chorus.
  • Mary put together a shopping list for tomorrow.

   

• Thursday, 6/25: Shopping in Quincy
  • On Cooper's first walk of the day, we saw a doe and fawn deer run off across the south field and into the west woods. Cooper also flushed a Bob White quail from under a cedar tree.
  • Mary and I left for Quincy, IL, around 10:30 a.m. to go shopping. We got back around 4:30 p.m. and not a single thing was disturbed in the house. Cooper was a good boy while we were gone, so he got three treats.
  • I bought more more fly tying stuff...some popsicle sticks from Walmart to help me make transparent dragonfly wings, and several colors of mesh tubing from Dollar Tree to make mesh tube darter flies. At Aldi, we were stopped and told we can't buy more than one case of canned beans, because they are limited on quantities from their supplier. The Aldi store was our second shopping stop. Before leaving town, I dropped back into Aldi and bought a second case of beans. I'm a bad boy.
  • A vast improvement in Quincy is a newly paved stretch of Broadway. Quincy has some exceedingly rough streets. The latest mayor of Quincy campaigned on fixing street potholes and beat the then incumbent mayor. She's fulfilling her promise, making for a much smoother drive around town.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) Virtual Vise online class on tying jigs. This was taught by Sarah Gaines, a new MDC employee in the Ozark area. She's been tying flies since she was a teenager and showed three very simple jigs she makes commercially and sells to fly fishing people who fish the trout streams in the Ozarks. The initial part of her discussion detailed how to use powdered paint in coloring jig heads. Fishing lures and jigs painted with powdered paint is more durable than those painted with liquid paint. Her jigs were extremely simple. Sarah says they're proven as excellent at attracting fish. She had simple descriptions for fly tying actions, such as the initial wrapping of a bed of thread on the hook shank in a clockwise direction. Sarah would say, "put the thread on like you're eating a bowl of cereal," in other words, use the same clockwise motion as you're lifint a spoon to your mouth. It was a great session.
  • There was more moisture in the air while walking Cooper on his final outing, so more fireflies were dancing in the trees.

   

• Friday, 6/26: Fishing Jigs
  • It rained all day, giving us about 3/4 inch of moisture. Outside is soggyville. The chicken yard is a mud pond. Mushrooms are sprouting. Weird gray shoots are sprouting atop the compost pile. It's swimmingly nice.
  • Mary cross stitched for about two hours.
  • I dug around in all of the lure materials I own and came up with some jigs. Most of mine have an extended lead collar to help hold a plastic tail. For fly tying a jig, I need the type without a collar...o-o-h...more things to buy! I used the wrong type of jigs, anyway, and tied the three fishing jigs that Sarah went through in yesterday's class (see photos, below). They were fun to create. I can fish these with a light spinning rod and reel.
  • The Antonovka apple tree in the south orchard was flopping around in the wind, so just before nightfall, I tied it back up in three places. The baling twine wears off against the rough rebar stake. I probably need to use wire covered with a rubber hose instead of that twine.
  • After some research, we bought an EcoFlow non-gas battery-powered solar generator that comes with two solar panels. Due to Amazon's Prime Days, it was on sale for 61 percent off. We bought it directly from the manufacturer's website. This gives us a way to power up various appliances, such as freezers and the refrigerator during extended power outages. I can also use it for operating corded power tools without running miles of extension cords. Plus, there is no worry of carbon monoxide poisoning by running a gas or diesel fuel generator.
  • When Mary walked to the rain gauge to get the rain amount with Cooper, a doe was on the lane and approached her and the dog. Mary whistling softly and she started stomping her front feet at Mary. The deer ran off to the east when Mary whistled louder.

  

  A marabou jig with an unpainted head.

  
   

A tinsel jig using Kreinik thread I bought from JoAnn.

A rubber legged jig. The legs flutter out behind the jig in water.

 
• Saturday, 6/27: First Day of Picking Blackberries
  • Mary picked blackberries. She put about a third of a quart into the freezer. There are lots of red berries everywhere that are going to ripen all at once. A new berry patch now exists north of Bluegill Pond. Blueberry patches in the north field have expanded into one big patch. In years past, you walked long distances between the various berry patches in that field. Mary said in many places she had to go through poison ivy plants that were up to her hips. There are lots of different wild flowers, but not many pollinators. She thought she stepped on a yellow jacket nest in the south field. She heard buzzing and decided she wasn't sticking around to find out what she stepped on.
  • Mary reported that the American lotus plants are blooming in Bass Pond and they're quite beautiful. The water level is within a foot of our canoe parked on the south side of the pond. Water hasn't been this high in several years.
  • I straightened the north corner posts of the far garden that were leaning way inward after a winter and spring of deer marching into the electric fence wires that weren't hot. The ground is very wet and squishy. I had to install four new guide wires on each of these two posts. I pounded a third of a brick into the ground just inside of each post. I loosened all of the wires surrounding the garden at the garden's southwest corner ahead of time and noticed that after I was done, all of these wires pulled out the donuts at that corner post and were on the ground. My next job is tightening up all 11 of these wires surrounding the garden and securing them.
  • Recently planted cucumber seeds sprouted, today. 
  • Mary spotted a big doe and its fawn on the south side of the near garden at dusk. She chased them into the cedars. They were too close to the garden.
  • I investigated making a powder paint pot, which is the device hooked to an aquarium air pump that aerates the powder. When you dip a heated fishing jig into the powder with air bubbling through it, the paint coats the jig head equally, giving it a uniform covering. Most pots range from $25-$50. They're just made out of 2" PVC pipe, a PVC pipe union, some PVC caps, and a three-way aquarium valve. Homemade, they cost about $3.50-$5.00. I'm going to make some.

   

• Sunday, 6/28: Damn Garden Corner Posts!!!
  • We have really steamy hot temperatures. Outside conditions are like a sauna. It means that you can only stay outside for a short amount of time before requiring an inside break in an air conditioned room.
  • Mary picked blackberries in the heat. She collected another third of a quart for the freezer. It's necessary to keep up with berry picking in order to catch them when ripe. In this steamy heat they can go bad quickly. Mary said there are lots of green and red unripe berries.
  • I tightened the 11 electric wires running around the far garden. I did two at a time, then went inside for breaks. When I was all done in the late afternoon, the top two wires were sagging, so I retightened them. On the last trip around the garden I noticed that the northwest corner post was sagging inward and the bottom of that post was coming out of ground. The earth is too soggy to hold corner posts. I took a partially broken steel post and jammed it into the inside of the post to keep it from falling over to the inside. It was a very disappointing end to several days of work. This clay soil holds nothing at all when it's soupy wet.
  • I have really sore legs at the end of the day, which comes from walking around the the outside of that big garden several times. Bottom wires require me to walk bent way over while pulling them tight. Extreme heat makes it even worse. I hate this job and it looks like I'll have to do it again. I'm not happy. 
  • I did more online powder paint research. Most guys powder painting their own jigs are southerners with strong accents. One guy suggested buying white powder paint from Harbor Freight. It's significantly cheaper. He then puts nail polish over the white paint. A different guy on Virginia's sea coast heats the jigs for 30 minutes in a toaster oven that he bought at a second hand shop. After telling Mary about this, she said we need to build a bigger house for all my hobbies.
  • Mary informed me right before bed that two chicken yard posts fell down. She didn't tell me about it earlier because I was so bummed out about the far garden posts. We had a quick laugh. 

June 15-21, 2026

Weather | 6/15, sunny, 50°, 75° | 6/16, p. cloudy, 0.01" rain, 58°, 73° | 6/17, cloudy, 57°, 83° | 6/18, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 60°, 75° | 6/19, sunny, 56°, 80° | 6/20, p. cloudy, 60°, 80° | 6/21, 2.16" rain, 59°, 70° |

• Monday, 6/15: 
  • Katie called and talked to us for about an hour. She made it back to Anchorage. Katie enjoyed her trip to Italy.
  • Mary hoed out the weeds in the second row from the west in the near far garden.
  • She then mowed the west yard, putting grass clippings on the row she hoed.
  • Using a ladder and a pole with 8' and 10.33' cuts into it, I cut walnut and cedar branches that were intruding into any place in the lane that was in a space of 8' wide by over 10' tall. These branches grew inward so that even our pickup was hitting them. My measurements equaled the width and height of a UPS or FedEx delivery van. Some cedar branches were big and heavy, requiring me to use the small Stihl pruning saw.
  • I mowed the lane. I keep beating back small poison ivy plants growing in the grass on the east side of the lane.
  • Mary ran into enough poison ivy plants while mowing to produce a slight red rash with bumps on her neck that started to move to her face. She soaked infected areas with a comfrey-laden cotton ball that greatly decreased these symptoms. I walked Cooper alone on his final outing of the night, giving Mary a reprieve from walking down the lane where I cut several poison ivy plants with the mower.
  • During a couple breaks from mowing, we noticed online that a major fire broke out at a gas station in West Quincy, MO. It completely burned down the building. HERE is a WGEM report. We drive by this location when we go to Quincy. The Missouri side of the Mississippi River in West Quincy is full of gas stations with cheaper prices than in Illinois.
  • Each evening I wash chicken waterers, then dump the wash water around apple trees in the south orchard. Cooper sniffed up a rabbit while I dumped water today and chased it into tall grass. Once in the tall grass, Cooper leaped high in the air with each stride, looking like a kangaroo dog.

   

• Tuesday, 6/16: Chicken Yard Poison Ivy
  • I clipped a huge bunch of poison ivy vines that have been climbing the east chicken yard fence for years. This year's spring rains made the vines climb way above the old wooden posts and sway down to the ground like so many snakes, getting too close to your face when mowing the chicken yard. I probably snipped off 50-100 vines with the big loppers, then tossed the poison ivy over the north chicken yard fence with a pitchfork. Once finished, I cleaned the loppers with soap and water, then wiped it down with alcohol.
  • While cleaning out the poison ivy, I smelled a skunk. The whiff arrived on the west wind, but I never saw the skunk as it probably passed through the west field.
  • I mowed the chicken yard. Again, I eliminated a bunch of new poison ivy starting on the ground inside the east fence. Mowing helps to keep the weeds and grass low. Otherwise, we lose chickens in the thick and tall growth.
  • Along the lane and in tall growth of the east yard is the great aroma from common milkweed blossoms (see below). They don't look like much, but they smell wonderful.
  • In the evening while picking strawberries, Mary heard a yellow-billed cuckoo. This is the last of our spring bird arrivals. 
  • We watched two movies, which were Justice League (2017) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2017).

  

  Common milkweed blossoms add great aroma to the air.

  
  
  

• Wednesday, 6/17: New Modem
  • I installed the new T-Mobile modem that arrived yesterday when the UPS delivery driver ceremoniously dumped the package into poison ivy leaves at the base of the mailbox post. The sticker on what T-Mobile calls a gateway (fancy name for a modem) announces a set up in just 15 minutes. Ha, ha, ha...that was really funny. It took hours. We're rural, so what happens in a city is slower out here in the country. Plus, one isn't supposed to use the old modem to start the process. Instead, you take the old US Cellular modem offline, power up the new T-Mobile modem, then follow their directions. Unfortunately, the instructions on their sticker reads to just use the QR code. It takes your phone to a T-Mobile app that gives you a constant whirling circle and gets you nowhere. When I ventured online on my laptop, I figured out my mistake and powered on the new modem and started getting somewhere.
  • The 5G equipment T-Mobile uses involves signals off their towers that reaches out at greater distances, which helps us immensely. Websites that took ages to download are popping up instantaneously. We now have very good internet service.
  • This afternoon, I cut downed a tall, but skinny, mulberry sapling that fell onto the lane after I cut away cedar tree limbs yesterday that held it into place. I also cut out some autumn olive trees blocking our view to the east when we pulled to the end of our lane.
  • Our chicks grew about four times the size that they were since arriving a week ago. We have never operated a heat lamp so much for baby chicks in our history of raising them. It's been cooler than usual this past week, so the heat lamp that usually gets turned off during the day is on most of the time.
  • A line of thunderstorms developed just south of us and rolled into Illinois and beyond (see video, below). After dark, I watched live coverage of tornadoes throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. This is where the seeds of tornadoes are planted, and they move on.
  • Mary discovered the sound of two new birds while using the Merlin app on her phone. They are a yellow-throated warbler, and a white-eyed vireo. The Merlin app is a product of Cornell University and identifies the photos and sounds of birds.
  • Mary also saw a summer tanager. It was picking off insects from its perch on an electric wire in the north yard. The sunlight off dark storm clouds caught its feathers in such a way that they seemed fluorescent orange. 
  • Even though there were fewer fireflies tonight, we saw more than in recent days. A big squadron of lightning bugs were swarming near the forsythia bush just before dark.
  Thunderheads developing south of us and moving east.
   
  
  

• Thursday, 6/18: Oh, Deer!
  • I put a new flag on our mailbox. The old one was jury-rigged together several years ago after it fell off the side of the mailbox. We'll see how long this new flag lasts! The parts that hold the aluminum flag in place are made of plastic...not so great for something that sits out in the weather full-time.
  • Mary watered the garden for the second day in a row. We haven't been watering gardens until recently, due to consistent rains.
  • I sharpened a hoe we've had since we lived in Red Lake Falls, MN, in 1991. Our elderly neighbors there gave it to Mary. He took the wooden handle of a Christian Brothers hockey stick thrown out at the ice arena just next door and made it into a handle for the hoe. Mary loved the feel of that hoe and borrowed it so many times that our neighbor gave it to her.
  • I hoed the western row of the near far garden. There were lots of vole tunnels along the edges of that row.
  • Mary washed the sheets she uses to cover couches and stuffed chairs. When she put the newly cleaned sheet back on the chair in the living room that Cooper lays on, he wagged his tail. He liked the idea that she was fixing his bed. He has interesting traits. Cooper hoots each time that Mary dishes up his food, so she calls him a "hooter hound."
  • We have one hen, a barred rock chicken, who hops over the fence near the gate to peck fresh clover in the yard. She is the our only "escape" chicken. She often returns to the chicken yard on her own. Mary calls her "Houdini Hen." Today, Mary noticed that she was in the brush between the chicken coop and the machine shed. Mary decided to handle her when she finished putting the chicks to bed for the night. When done with the chicks, Mary got all of the adult chickens inside the coop and counted them to discover all chickens were present and accounted for. Houdini jumped into the chicken yard while Mary's back was turned.
  • We watched a nice buck through the house windows browsing on green vegetation in the east yard (see photo, below). It munched on horse weed along the near garden fence until it touched an electric wire and received a shock. The deer jumped a couple steps away and looked around to try to see what nipped him. Then, it wandered off to the northeast.
  • When I went to look at the chicks through the coop's south windows prior to going to bed, I aimed the flashlight to the west while walking to the coop. A deer standing next to the Porter's Perfection crabapple tree jumped and ran into the west field. Mary thinks it's the mother to the twins she saw a few days ago.

  

  A buck deer showing his velvety antlers in our east yard.

  
  
  

• Friday, 6/19: Mowing & Mulching
  • Mary mowed grass in the west yard in a thicket of white clover. She said it never dries. Houdini Hen kept her company. Mary watched her pop in and out of the chicken yard throughout the day. Mary added new grass mulch to the onions and parsnips in the near garden, which took a lot of time.
  • I mowed inside, between the fences, and outside of the electric fence of the near garden. Together, Mary and I mulched about half of the row that I hoed yesterday.
  • The first purple coneflower is blooming in the west yard.
  • I saw a corn snake on the lane while walking Cooper around noon. I spotted its tail in front of me, so I stepped to the right to avoid it. The snake pulled its head out from under grass in the middle of the lane and coiled back in a strike mode. I walked on. Corn snakes are quite colorful. 
  • I let Cooper out with me when I wash chicken waterers in the late evening. I noticed today that he watches early-emerging fireflies. He is a very observant pup.
  • There are fewer fireflies at night. It's probably because it's cooler and dryer.

   

• Saturday, 6/20: Mowing & More Fireflies 
  • When Mary opened the living room west window's curtains, the robin that's been on a nest in a maple tree at the southwest corner of the house flew in several circles around the west yard, then stood on the edge of the nest for most of the rest of the day. Mary thinks chicks are hatching out of eggs today.
  • A chicken chick was on the first rung of the roost this morning, so they're getting big enough to reach that height. Mary noticed that the two black chicks aren't barred rocks, but Australorps, due to the raven black color of their wings. Barred rock chickens have spotted wing colors. 
  • While walking Cooper on the lane around noon, a deer snorted from the other side of the trees on the east side of the lane. After a bit, Cooper and I watched it run off to the east. It was a doe.
  • Mary finished mowing the west lawn and then mowed a major chunk of the north yard.
  • I mowed paths in the east lawn and then mowed inside the far garden and the areas between fences in that garden. We finished adding grass mulch to one row. I started adding additional mulch to another row.
  • Black flies were out en mass, chewing on us, despite the fact that we doused ourselves with bug dope! 
  • While reading books after dark, we heard coyotes howling from the west field.
  • We saw more fireflies flashing in the trees on Cooper's last walk of the day.

   

• Sunday, 6/21: Father Day Calls & Online Shopping
  • After Mary and I did our morning chores prior to breakfast, it rained a deluge of water. We got 2.16 inches of rain this morning.
  • Bill called to wish me a happy Father's Day. He talked about the fiasco of trying to purchase cheaper ink for the postage machine at work. The ink cartridge he ordered won't work in the machine. His place of work is under a contract for a mailing machine that they lease and are forced to buy ink at three times the cost of the price that he can find. He told his boss that if yearly postage drops below a certain amount, they should drop the lease. Bill got July 3rd off and will visit us.
  • Katie called on Father's Day. Her, dog, DeSoto, was bit in the face by another dog while at an Anchorage primitive dog park. Katie took DeSoto to a 24-hour vet emergency room and was there until 2:30 a.m., because other more urgent cases kept coming in. DeSoto's bite wounds were fine. Katie only had breakfast several hours earlier. The only place open was Taco Bell. She waited in a drive-through line, but that Taco Bell had to close because they didn't have enough employees, so Katie went to a different Taco Bell. She got home and had to feed hungry pets. Bedtime was 3:30 a.m. for Katie and she was up at 8 a.m. to call me.
  • Mary saw a handful of ants on a sunroom window sill, so she put out ant bait. Later, that bait was crawling about 100 ants. Mary refilled ant bait twice more throughout the day.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. It paired wonderfully with pork loin and barbecue sauce that Mary made for our midday meal. This wine tastes so much better when it ages for a few years. This was the last of the 2022 vintage of my blackberry wine.
  • I spent most of the day deciding what fly tying materials to order with a couple gift certificates that I've received from Katie. I ended up getting 25 items.
  • It was cooler tonight, so I closed the chicken coop windows for the hens. There were not as many fireflies tonight.

June 8-14, 2026

Weather | 6/8, cloudy, 0.46" rain, 71°, 83° | 6/9, p. cloudy, 0.02" rain, 71°, 87° | 6/10, 1.21" rain, 67°, 83° | 6/11, 4.19" rain, 65°, 85° | 6/12, sunny, 57°, 80° | 6/13, cloudy, 0.02 rain, 58°, 79° | 6/14, 0.04 rain overnight, sunny, 58°, 71° |

• Monday, 6/8: Backwards Meat Whistle Fly
  • We received an email that our chicks shipped out today from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO. We should see them on Wednesday morning.
  • We've come to the end of gnat season and we are now in the middle of deer fly season. They swarm around you the instant you venture outside. Sometimes they come in on us or the dog. You'll notice one in the window, but it isn't wise to swat them on the glass, because the end result is blood spattered on the inside of glass. Fortunately, a squirt of Dawn dish soap solution kills them quickly.
  • Our forecast calls for rain throughout the day. While washing dishes after the noontime meal, I looked out the window and said, "It's not raining at all." The very next second, a downpour drenched our property. It made Mary laugh.
  • I made a meat whistle fly (see photo, below). Unfortunately, I put the rabbit fur backwards on the hook. We'll see if my mistake works when I try it on the end of a fishing line.
  • Mary was working on a cross stitch pattern when she declared that she did two froggings in a row. Frogging is cross stitch speak for "rip-it, rip-it," meaning you have to tear some stitching out due to a mistake. She decided on setting that pattern aside for later.
  • We decided to celebrate two straight days of hobby activities and enjoyed a bottle of 2025 spiced apple wine. It was really good.
  • We had the best night yet on the numbers of fireflies lighting off after dark. Their numbers keep on growing, making all of the trees sparkle with their flashes.

  

  My backwards rabbit fur Meat Whistle fly.

  
  
  

• Tuesday, 6/9: A Clean Chicken Coop
  • Mary and I cleaned the chicken coop, which took a big chunk of the day. I worked inside the coop shoveling out old hay and chicken manure while Mary moved and emptied wheelbarrow loads into the compost bin. She and I installed the wall the separates the chicks from the hens. While I stapled plastic bags to the top of that wall, Mary hauled in wheelbarrow loads of new hay. We hung the heat lamp and added unfilled chick feeders. Everything is ready for tomorrow's arrival of chicks.
  • During the time I swept dust from the inside ceiling and walls of the coop prior to digging out chicken manure, Mary trimmed tree branches at the chicken run gate and around the forsythia bush. That bush had branches reaching out and partially eating the pickup.
  • Mary checked the blackberry bushes at Bramble Hill. The berries are all very green.
  • We saw the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter in the eastern sky after sunset.

   

• Wednesday, 6/10: Chicks Arrive Along with Big Rains
  • After eating breakfast, we received a call from the Ewing Post Office that our chicks arrived. I drove to Ewing and brought them home.
  • We have 26 new chicks. Two are Barred Rocks and the rest are either Buff Orpingtons or some kind of white chickens. They were all slow to move and huddled under the heat lamp for about 15 minutes, then slowly warmed up and started feeding and drinking water. Through the day they seemed very fine.
  • A thunderstorm started banging away at 11 a.m. Over several years of raising chickens, this was the first year we received a thunderstorm on Day 1 of the arrival of new chicks. This storm lasted until 3 p.m. We just at a snack around noon to stave off hunger, then ate our midday meal around 4 p.m.
  • After chores and while Mary picked black raspberries, we heard thunder rumbling to the west. We had a train of thunderstorms travel through us starting in the late afternoon that continued until 1:30 a.m.
  • We watched quite a bit of live weather material online, such as Max Velocity on YouTube, as tornadoes, hail, and high winds were evident west, north and east of us. We didn't get hail or tornadoes, just a lot of water.
  • After the thunder finally quit, I checked the chicken coop. The chain link fencing at the gate was leaning slightly to the south, due to a thick post breaking at the ground. Small maple trees growing through that fence held it from falling all of the way to the ground. I looked through the coop window and the chicks were fine. Standing water was everywhere. We really got a huge dumping of rain, making frogs and fireflies really happy.

   

• Thursday, 6/11: More Rain
  • First thing this morning, I used several strands of baling twine and tied the top of the section of chain link fencing, which includes the gate to chicken yard, to a maple tree branch, to hold it upright. It's a temporary fix until I do some permanent work on the fence. The chicks look great, even though the west wall of the coop got enough rain to soak through to the inside.
  • Local media sources reported flooding and washout areas on several area roads. HERE is a video from WGEM in Quincy of flooding in our area, including Highway 156, the route we take to drive to Quincy. 
  • On the noontime walk with Cooper down the lane and back, I noticed that some of the gravel at the end of the lane washed away. Gravel even washed away on the gravel road.
  • We did evening chores around 3 p.m., due to weather radar that showed a thunderstorm front on its way to us. Fortunately, the white section of the radar, which usually involves hail, moved by to the north of us. We just received another downpour of intense rain, amounting to 0.75" of moisture. With 3.44" from the night before, we got a total of 4.19" today.
  • We watched online as severe tornadoes ripped through towns in Illinois where Mary lived when she was young, including Streator, Dwight, and Wenona. Later in the night, tornadoes were seen in South Bend, IN and into southern MI.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's 23rd British Navy novel, Sword of Honour, and started the next book, Second to None. 
  • Right before we went to bed, Mary spotted a horsehair worm on the kitchen floor near cricket legs. Apparently, a cat ate a cricket. The worm looked like a nightmare. HERE is information about a horsehair worm.

   

• Friday, 6/12: Damn Squirrel & Yummy Berry Waffles
  • It was cooler outside, with a deep blue sky above us, as we sloshed through water in various places in the grass. There are a lot of photos online of flooding throughout northeast Missouri with several rivers going over roads in the region.
  • While eating breakfast, we heard the robin that's in the nest outside the southwest corner of the house raising a stink. Mary looked out the window to see a squirrel near the nest. She banged on the window and I ran outside. The squirrel ran up the tree and onto the roof. It was gone, but Mama Robin told me off, so I left. She went back on the nest.
  • Mary picked black raspberries. It was a smaller amount. Some have dried up with hotter temperatures. She's currently working on the fourth quart of raspberries.
  • Mary had an Eastern Towhee land two feet away from her as she picked raspberries. They looked at one another, then the bird flew off. 
  • I made waffles for our midday meal. We had fresh strawberries and blueberries on them. Wow! What a wonderful flavor!!
  • I used an extension ladder and cleaned Virginia Creeper vines away from the upstairs bedroom air conditioner. I'm trying to keep dead leaves from falling into the AC and clogging up the escape of water that collects in it.
  • While I was on the ladder, I cleaned the other west-facing window in our bedroom, and then cleaned the kitchen window.
  • Mary is receiving photos from Katie on her visits throughout Italy. She was in Rome and sent images of the Coliseum (see below).
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation virtual session on fireflies. It was interesting, even though it was extremely difficult to hear this presenter, due to her sing-song pattern of speaking when her volume went way soft on the low notes. Online presenters ought to go through a public speaking class. Missouri has about 200 types of fireflies. There are 2,000 varieties throughout the world.
  • T-Mobile bought U.S. Cellular, our cellular carrier, last year. They made the final switchover to T-Mobile equipment today. Our cell service for our phones drastically improved. We were informed that a new cellular modem for our online service was shipped out today. I spent time online reviewing their emails and texts sent today. They look like a better company.

  

  Katie took this photo of the Rome Coliseum.

  
  
  

• Saturday, 6/13: Katie's Last Day in Italy
  • Despite predictions of bad weather, it never came our way. We did get a little bit of rain. 
  • We were all-day bums.
  • Katie called and I talked with her for a little bit. She was on a high-speed train. Katie visited Pompeii and said it was very impressive (see photos, below). She leaves for home tomorrow and spends all day traveling. Katie said when she learned that the National Guard portion of the trip was mandatory, her boss suggested she might as well take time and see the sites, since she would already be there. Katie has been in Italy for a month.
  • While Mary was shutting chicken coop windows in the evening due to a chance of oncoming rain, a pair of fawns ran past her in the west yard. One stopped 10 feet from her and stood for about a minute before moving on.
  • In the evening, I spotted the score of the NBA Finals Game 5. The San Antonio Spurs were ahead by 11 points in the first quarter. Later, I saw that the New York Knicks won and took the championship. Today (6/14/26), I read that the Knicks were behind in the fourth quarter of all five games...pretty amazing.
  • I've been checking the chicks every night before going to bed by peering through the front windows of the chicken coop. Most are sleeping. A few are moving, eating, and drinking. They've doubled in size since we received them Wednesday morning. They are a week old, today.
  • While walking back from the chicken coop I noticed a rather artistic scene. Fireflies were blasting away with their twinkling lights in the trees while lightning flashed from storms north of us in Iowa, showing the outline of the pecan trees. It was a beautiful natural light show. 

Amazing preservation inside a Pompeii building.

Intricate artwork of a Pompeii wall.

 
• Sunday, 6/14: South Orchard Chores
  • We enjoyed cool air going through the house with our windows open for most of the day.
  • Mary cut all of the starts off the sweet potatoes to create 28 slips. Once roots develop on these slips, they will be ready to plant in the garden.
  • I cleaned the windows of the main entrance storm door. Since we never open the glass part to let air into the house through that door, I removed the fiberglass screening that was ripped the first year after we installed the door by Merlin, our big tuxedo cat at the time.
  • Two small apple trees in the south orchard were slightly leaning after recent strong winds during thunderstorms, so I added bracing by tying doubled up baling twine between the surrounding cow panels and the tops of the rebar stakes supporting the trunks of the Antonovka and Black Oxford trees. I cut small lengths of an old garden hose and placed them to the tops of the rebar stakes to protect tree bark when wind blows the trees onto the rebar stakes.
  • I trimmed mulberry branches and tall grass from the southeast corner of the house that were starting to cover the electric fence energizer and the outdoor electrical plug in.
  • I removed tall weeds and grass from inside the enclosures to the small Sargent trees I transplanted last year. Now that we can see them, they look like they're thriving.
  • I cleaned thistles and wild, spiky horse nettle plants from the inside and around of the cow panels on all of the south orchard trees.
  • In the late afternoon, Mary heard a bird with a unique song that was similar to a catbird, but more repetitive. She grabbed her cell phone and brought up the Merlin app, which identified it as a yellow-breasted chat, a first time bird. HERE is information about it.
  • While on the late afternoon walk on the lane with Cooper, a wild turkey hen burst out of the bushes on the east side of the lane and flew to the end of the hazelnut bushes while squawking at us.
  • I watched the last NHL game of the year where the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights by a score of 3-0 to win the Stanley Cup Finals.
  • Before going to bed, we shut all of the windows of the chicken coop. It was cool, so there were fewer fireflies out in the nighttime air.

June 1-7, 2026

Weather | 6/1, sunny, 0.04" rain, 66°, 87° | 6/2, hazy, 57°, 81° | 6/3, sunny, 57°, 81° | 6/4, p. cloudy, 56°, 85° | 6/5, 0.70" rain, cloudy, 67°, 79° | 6/6, p. cloudy, 71°, 87° | 6/7, 0.12" rain, cloudy, 71°, 83° |

• Monday, 6/1: Gardening
  • Around 6 a.m., water dripped off the house roof. We got a tiny bit of rain in the early morning hours.
  • You can smell garlic while standing inside the chicken coop. This year's garlic crop is exceptionally aromatic.
  • At noon, while walking Cooper on the lane, we had a doe deer walk toward us, then run away. I wear a head net if I haven't sprayed bug dope on myself when walking the pup to keep gnats from bugging me. I think the doe was curious as to what that human with no face was all about.
  • Mary finished weeding the onions and then weeded half of the parsnips.
  • I sharpened the blade of my mower and then mowed more of the far garden grass. I chased a small bunny inside the near far garden. Peter Rabbit squeezed through the one-inch chicken wire, but my name isn't McGregor.
  • Mary saw a red-headed woodpecker while walking Cooper in the late afternoon. It's the first of the year.
  • We saw even more lightning bugs this evening. Venus and Jupiter are closer together in the western sky.

   

• Tuesday, 6/2: Gardening & AC Repair/Cleaning
  • Mary saw a deer at the southwest corner of the west yard when she took waterers out to the chicken coop at around 6 a.m. Later in the morning, while walking to the raspberry patch in the east yard, she heard hoof sounds of a deer crossing tin roofing left on the ground in that area. We are living with deer that are within 50 feet of the house.
  • I sharpened the blade to Mary's mower.
  • I cleaned and repaired the large air conditioner. A mouse chewed a hole in the filter and in the side of the interior solid foam. When I opened up the foam, there was a live mouse and a mouse nest under the interior fan. It left. When I poked the nest out with a stick, another mouse fled the AC. I washed everything down, then cleaned surfaces with a bleach solution. I repaired the hole in the white foam by cutting a plug out of a sheet of Styrofoam and taping it in place with aluminum tape. I cut screening out of an old AC filter and aluminum taped it over the filter hole. A soft foam air seal near the inside of the unit decayed and was falling apart. I removed it and used aluminum tape and foil to create a new barrier. This work took all day, so I didn't have time to install the unit.
  • Mary weeded the rest of the parsnips.
  • She mulched all of the onions and all but a foot of the shallots with grass mulch.
  • Mary also mowed the inside of the near garden.
  • She picked about half of a quart bag of black raspberries.
  • We noticed even more lightning bugs on Cooper's last walk of the day. There are so many that they make the oak trees look like they're filled with Christmas lights.

   

• Wednesday, 6/3: Last Air Conditioner Installed
  • I installed our largest air conditioner into the west living room window and sealed it in place with foam boards on the outside and screws, packing and masking tape on the inside. The filtered and cooler air is a vast improvement on our main floor. We've been keeping cool so far with a big fan in the living room, plus our two ACs upstairs. The AC air felt so good, we spent the afternoon inside soaking it up.
  • Prior to installation, I trimmed two branches from a maple tree near the southwest corner of the house. I noticed a nest in that tree where three branches emerge. Mary noticed that a robin made that nest and is using it. Later in the year, when the bird vacates the nest, I'll cut the whole tree down. It's too close to the house and rubs against the outside walls during high winds. I also trimmed some giant ragweed from below where the AC is located.
  • Mary is noticing that several of the black raspberries are drying up. We need rain. She also noticed that birds are eating them up. She is constantly getting cursed by catbirds. Mary had a Bob White quail fly out from under a walnut tree near our compost bins while seeking raspberries.
  • Mary worked on a shopping list. She found a good sale price on whole pork loins on the Niemanns (one of the grocery stores in Quincy, IL) online flyer. The sale starts on Friday, therefore, a planned shopping trip for tomorrow is postponed until Friday.
  • The lightning bug extravaganza continued tonight with even more flashing. Jupiter and Venus are very bright near the Gemini constellation in the western sky.

   

• Thursday, 6/4: Oil Change, Mowing & Mulching
  • I changed the oil, oil filter, and air filter in the pickup. I reset the oil change reminder in the vehicle's computer memory for the first time since we've owned this pickup, so now I won't get a reminder that I have to change the oil each time I start it up. The last oil change was March 2025 and we drove just shy of 4,000 miles in 15 months...we don't drive much.
  • Mary finished a shopping list for tomorrow.
  • She mowed the yard north of the house and trails through tall grass just east of the house so we don't have to walk with grass heads touching our knees when we take the pup out at night.
  • Mary mulched the rest of the parsnips in the near garden and started putting down grass mulch on a row in the far garden.

   

• Friday, 6/5: Shopping, Fawn & Playing Bunnies
  • When we woke, rain was heavy, shooting huge volumes of water off the metal valley flashing off the southeast section of the roof. Mary postponed letting the chickens out until the thunderstorm let up.
  • We discovered that a package of rolled oats was scheduled to arrive via FedEx, today, so Mary stayed home to make sure the package didn't sit out in the rain or the heat. I went shopping, alone. Cooper was very happy after watching me drive the pickup away and then seeing Mary walk into the house. He doesn't like being away from his people.
  • Quincy was flooded with shoppers. I found several good deals.
  • We spotted a tiny fawn on the trail next to the near garden this evening. It was maybe two feet tall. Mary thinks it was the creator of the sound of hooves she heard running across roofing tin on Tuesday. We also watched bunnies playing in a clover patch in the east yard. Two rabbits would all of a sudden jump straight up in the air at the same time.
  • At nightfall, there are more and more lightning bugs. They really are a mesmerizing and an amazing sight.

   

• Saturday, 6/6: Picking Berries & Adding Chicken Wall Supports
  • Mary had a close encounter with a squirrel at the chicken yard gate first thing this morning. While going to open up the chicken coop and let the birds outside, she saw a squirrel bounce to the ground at the big mulberry tree south of the chicken yard. It ran to trees at the south fence of the chicken yard. As Mary stepped through the gate, the squirrel scooted by just inches in front of her.
  • Mom won a cordless DeWalt power drill at the McCone Electric Cooperative's Annual Meeting. She and Hank attended the event. He worked at the co-op for 44 years. 
  • Mary froze the two pork loins that she cut into 12 packages of medallions. I got these loins for $1.69 a pound in Quincy, yesterday.
  • Mary picked black raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries.
  • I glued up supports on the inside of the west wall of the chicken coop. This 16-year old coop is made of 2x4s and half-inch oriented strand board (OSB). The OSB is severely weathered on the outside, yet strong on the inside. I removed staples from hardwood removed years ago from an old overstuffed chair, applied Liquid Nails adhesive, and stuck the hardwood supports to various locations on the inside of the wall. We have chicks probably arriving on Wednesday and I did this to ensure that the wall gets us through to September, when I'll remove the old wood and rebuild decayed sides of the chicken coop.
  • The air is very humid outside, which makes for optimum firefly conditions. The lightning bug display gets more dramatic each night. Tonight topped everything we've seen so far this year. Even Cooper stops to view the flashing of these bugs on his nighttime outing.

   

• Sunday, 6/7: A Hobby Day
  • We started the day with rain and also ended the day with rain. Mary and I spent most of the day inside doing crafty hobbies.
  • Katie sent Mary photos of her tour of Florence, Italy (see photo, below).
  • Mary finished cross stitching an ornament entitled "Autumn Silhouette," (see photo, below). It was a tedious project, due to backstitching all of the leaf veins. She says she won't tackle this ornament, again. 
  • I made another foam dragonfly (see photo, below). This time I made it out of thinner foam and tried to copy a photo in Kenn Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America of an Eastern Forktail Damselfly (see photo, below). We see a lot of them here. I used two feathers from Leo, our rooster, for the fuzzy legs. I tied in light plastic for wings.
  • Mary picked a large amount of strawberries, plus two blueberries.
  • We keep Cooper on the lane in an attempt to attract fewer ticks. They are really thick right now. We take a dozen or two off him after every trip outside.

Michelangelo's David in Florence.

Mary's "Autumn Silhouette" cross stitch project.

   

A photo of an Eastern Forktail Damselfly.

My latest foam fly copying a damselfly.

 

May 25-31, 2026

Weather | 5/25, sunny, 54°, 84° | 5/26, sunny, 56°, 84° | 5/27, sunny, 59°, 86° | 5/28, p. cloudy, 61°, 86° | 5/29, cloudy, 63°, 84° | 5/30, cloudy, 67°, 82° | 5/31, cloudy, 67°, 84° |

• Monday, 5/25: Bill Leaves
  • Bill spooked a deer while walking our lane and checking for birds on the Merlin app on his phone.
  • Bill left around 2 p.m. for his apartment in St. Charles.
  • I pulled all of the totes (I call them tubs) that I got yesterday out of the back of the pickup. There are actually 50 of them. I dumped out all of the dead Asian ladybugs in them and let several dry in the sun. I stacked similar sized tubs together to form three high columns and moved them with a hand truck to the machine shed, where I stored them out of the sun.
  • I watched Game 3 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals. Carolina won 3-2 in overtime. They lead Montreal two games to one.
  • Mary received several photos from Katie of her visit to northern Italy. Below are a couple photos from the mountains.

Katie with the Italian Alps in the background.

Another photo of Katie in the mountains.

 
• Tuesday, 5/26: Gardening & Butterflies
  • Mary cut the last of the garlic scapes and announced that all of the garlic plants are ready to be harvested. She plans to start that chore tomorrow.
  • Mary weeded about 3/4 of the onion plants in the near garden.
  • I mowed the inside of the near far garden where the garlic grows. It was full of very tall grass and required at least two passes to effectively cut it. Mulch went on the eastern row that is currently empty.
  • We now seem to be in a dry cycle with no rain predicted in the next 10 days. The air almost felt tropical while working outside.
  • We're seeing several Tiger Swallowtail butterflies. Mary took a photo of one in a comfrey plant (see below).
  • We heard the first green frog while walking the puppy at night. HERE is their call.

  

  A Tiger Swallowtail butterfly on comfrey flowers.

   

• Wednesday, 5/27: Garlic Harvest Begins
  • I mowed areas outside of the near garden.
  • Mary harvested two garlic varieties. They were Music Pink and German Extra Hardy. They were all in great shape, with large bulbs. Growing conditions were perfect for garlic this year. This amounts to a third of the garlic, based on variety types.
  • Mary and I hung the garlic in the machine shed rafters to dry.
  • We're noticing that the Porter's Perfection crabapple tree is dying. It's leaves are turning brown. The bark around its trunk was excessively chewed this spring by either a ground hog or rabbits. We want to replace it, because the apples from it are tart and very tasty.
  • I watched Game 4 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals. Carolina won, 4-0, and lead the series, 3-1. It was an extremely one-sided game. Montreal didn't get a shot on net in the third period until the last three minutes of the game.
  • When I walked Cooper for his last outing, fireflies were putting on a great show over the tops of grass seed heads in the south field.
  • Mary turned 60 today. I told her she now gets to see mail in the next decade trying to sell her hearing aides. She said, "WHAT?!?"

   

• Thursday, 5/28: Mesh Tube Darter Fly
  • Mary and I took the day off from doing outside work, to let our bodies heal. We ain't the young pups we once were!
  • We watched barn swallows flying to within a foot of the west living room window this morning. 
  • While watering the onions in the near garden at noon, Mary heard a wild turkey gobble to the east of her.
  • She found our first ripe strawberry. I had the pleasure of eating it...what a wonderful taste! 
  • Tiny parsnip plants are popping through the ground.
  • In the evening, while walking Cooper back from the mailbox, I noticed that Cooper was stalking something. Then I saw a big turkey fly from the lane and to the west.
  • I took in a monthly fly tying session on making streamer flies, featuring Matt Murray, a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) educator from the St. Louis region. Streamers are used to catch larger fish, such as bass. He tied a Clouser minnow and a Mesh Tube Darter. The second fly involves several steps that results in a very realistic minnow. Flashy dubbing goes on the hook shank in a football shape. It's covered with 3/8" wide white mesh web tubing (HERE is a link to it) that is usually used by crafty folks to make wreaths. A strip of rabbit fur goes over the top, pushing the webbed tubing down to resemble a minnow's belly, with the mesh looking like fish scales. The rabbit fur is fluffed up to resemble the dorsal fin of a fish. Two small round feathers are tied at the front to resemble pectoral fins. A plastic fish mask (HERE is a link to one), which resembles a fish head, is glued to just behind the hook's eyelet. Fake fish eyes are glued to fish mask. I bet a bass would gobble it up!
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2024 parsnip wine while we read books tonight.

   

• Friday, 5/29: Half of Garlic Harvested
  • Mary harvested the Siberian garlic. It was a long row that filled the wheelbarrow with garlic plants and huge bulbs. After she was done and we took a drink break, we hung that batch of garlic in the rafters of the machine shed. Half of the garlic plants are harvested.
  • I made a noontime meal of waffles and added mothballs to all of the bottles we keep in the pickup, riding lawnmower, and wood splitter...not at the same time, of course!
  • I watched NHL hockey for last time this season. The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens, 6-1, to win the Eastern Conference Championship. The Canes play the Vegas Golden Knights in the championship series. I don't care who wins that matchup, hence the reason NHL hockey won't be on our TV, now.
  • The Porter's Perfection crabapple tree is definitely dead. All of its leaves are brown. We wonder if wind from one of our thunderstorms didn't break off major roots underground. Of course, critter chewings on the trunk didn't help.

   

• Saturday, 5/30: Two More Garlic Varieties Harvested
  • We had a FedEx package of vitamin pills coming from Swanson in Fargo, ND, today, so I cut a dead tree and branches hanging out on the lane. One is an old, thin ash tree that died and is covered with a wild grape vine that was slowly pulling down to about head height over the east side of the lane. There were also dead walnut branches that I dodge when I mow the lane, along with two green elm branches. They're gone. FedEx, who didn't use to deliver on Saturdays, arrived today.
  • When I walked Cooper around noon, we encountered a snapping turtle near Bluegill Pond that was in the middle of the lane. It had a shell that was about a foot in diameter. I put Cooper on a lease immediately. On the way back home, the turtle was gone.
  • Mary picked eight nice ripe strawberries...yum, yum! She's also picking black raspberries every day.
  • Mary harvested two varieties of garlic. They were Georgian Crystal, and Samarkan. These are both varieties that last a long time and taste good. Mary threw away the first bulb of the whole harvest, which is amazing. Some years, she throws away four or five bulbs. This year, there are huge bulbs with all varieties. Mary and I hung them in the machine shed rafters. There is just one more variety to pull out of the ground and we're done harvesting garlic.
  • I mowed tall grass partway down the east side of the far garden, adding grass mulch to the eastern row of the near far garden. It takes two passes to completely knock down this tall grass.
  • Rain clouds came and went away all day, without a drop ever falling on us. We're in the dry cycle, now, when predicted rain just dries up before getting to us.
  • Beautiful birds, such as Baltimore orioles, summer tanagers, rose-breasted grosbeaks, cardinals, and various woodpeckers, are eating mulberries and stealing what little we had this year of cherries. We really have a ton of colorful birds raising their young this year. Plus, three chimney swifts are heard and seen chittering about as they catch bugs in the air.
  • Speaking of bugs, I noticed gnats hitting my head net while walking Cooper. Then, a dragonfly showed up to catch the bugs. Good for it!

   

• Sunday, 5/31: Last of Garlic Harvested
  • I heard a deer snort at us when I walked Cooper on his first morning outing. It was just a few feet away through the bushes east of the lane, I'm guessing, based on how loud and close it sounded.
  • Mary harvested the last garlic variety. It's Shvelisi, which is the best tasting and longest lasting garlic. We hung it in the machine shed rafters. We are all done with the garlic harvest.
  • Mary has been picking raspberries every day for the past five days. Today, she finished filling up a quart bag in the freezer. We don't get many black raspberries, but they taste great.
  • I mowed more of the far garden area. I started between the fences on the east side, but saw a tiny bunny run into the grass ahead of me. I didn't want to chew it up with the mower, so I moved to the west side and mowed the long strip outside of the electric fence.
  • Mary mowed the chicken yard. She's working to keep the motherwart plants at a low height. If left unchecked, they grow to six feet tall so that chickens get lost in the giant stalks.
  • In the evening, we celebrated harvesting all of the garlic by drinking a bottle of cherry wine. Harvesting garlic is part one of growing garlic. Next is, sorting and storing the garlic after it dries in September. Part three is planting garlic the first week of November.
  • We watched an amazing display of fireflies in the trees before we went to bed. By walking to the north and standing near the grain bins, we were hidden from the bright moonlight and could better view them as they filled the trees with blinking lights. It's spellbinding to view all of these flashing lights in the tree branches. Occasionally, we noticed a flash in the sky from thunderstorms way across the state, well west of us, so we shut the chicken coop windows before going to bed.

May 18-24, 2026

Weather | 5/18, cloudy, 0.63" rain, 61°, 67° | 5/19, cloudy, 0.58" rain, 51°, 61° | 5/20, p. cloudy, 46°, 68° | 5/21, cloudy with sprinkles, 50°, 69° | 5/22, cloudy, 57°, 71° | 5/23, p. cloudy to 0.16" rain, 59°, 75° | 5/24, sunny, 54°, 80° |

• Monday, 5/18: Hockey
  • We experienced rain in the morning that quit in the late morning hours. We were cloudy in the afternoon. A severe thunderstorm roared through right when we went to bed, giving us wind and heavy rain.
  • There was a wet baby robin in the middle of the lane next to the Sargent crabapple tree. It sat in the same spot all day. I used a leash on Cooper to keep him away from the bird. The baby robin was moving around in the late afternoon with an adult robin chirping from a nearby tree, so the baby bird's parents are feeding it. We didn't see it after dark.
  • I watched Game 7 of the Montreal Canadiens/Buffalo Sabres NHL series. Montreal won in overtime, 3-2, advancing to the third round of the playoffs. Buffalo dominated in the second and third periods, but Montreal's goalie, Jakub Dobeš, kept the Canadiens in the game. The overtime goal was by the same guy, Alex Newhook, who scored the Game 7 winning goal in the earlier series, featuring Montreal against Tampa Bay. Bill texted me that Dobeš played high school hockey in St. Louis. I looked it up and Dobeš is Czech and moved to St. Louis at age 16 and lived with a family friend while attending De Smet Jesuit High School and playing for the St. Louis AAA Blues youth team. The family friend was Ľuboš Bartečko, a former St. Louis Blues forward. It's interesting how St. Louis is becoming more and more of a hockey magnet of former NHL players who help to develop new talent.

   

• Tuesday, 5/19: Wine Inventory
  • Light rain fell throughout the day, keeping us inside.
  • Mary tossed a dead sweet potato that she used for creating slips. She has three others that are moving along very nicely, so there will be plenty for planting in the garden. Instead of developing roots and new shoots, this one just started rotting.
  • Mary cut a several more garlic scapes. These plants are nice and big this year. 
  • I did a new inventory of all of my wine, since I discovered recently that I somehow missed writing down on the inventory chart in the pantry the results of a big cherry wine bottling that I did this past winter. Here are the numbers of bottles of some of the larger collections of wines that we have: cherry-80, blackberry-23, jalapeño-35, pear-44, parsnip-24, garlic-22, and various apple wines-29.

   

• Wednesday, 5/20: Shopping
  • I went shopping in Quincy, IL. The stores were very quiet with a minimal number of shoppers. The cheapest gas in both Missouri and Illinois was at Sam's Club in Quincy at $4.19 a gallon.
  • Katie sent photos of her trip to Italy (see below) for the Air National Guard. It sounds like she's having fun. The food is great. Her team is in Venice.
  • Mary watched the baby phoebes take off flying from their nest inside the woodshed. She said they did pretty well on their first attempt at using their wings to fly. Fortunately, we've been cool this spring. Some years the phoebe nest gets too hot where its located, just under the woodshed's Quonset hut metal roof. The nest falls down every autumn, but phoebes always built a new nest each spring. It worked for them this year.
  • Mary checked all of the fruit trees. All pear trees are absent of any fruit. There's maybe a dozen cherries on all of those trees. Some apples are developing on the Empire, Granny Smith, and the Liberty apple trees. Single digit temperatures on fruit blossoms killed off most fruit this year. However, wild blackberry and raspberry plants are putting out abundant numbers of green berries. That crop looks promising.
  • I watched Game 1 of the NHL Western Conference Final, where the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2, in Denver. 

Katie took a shot of the Alps from the jet's window.

Katie (front, left) and her fellow Guard members with a toast.

 
• Thursday, 5/21: Big Wild Turkey
  • Around noon while Mary was picking scapes off garlic plants in the far garden, she heard what she describes as a "whop, whop" sound and looked up to see a huge wild turkey flying away to the east of her. She said it was big, with a bronze coloration, rather than the normal darker brown color that we usually see. Mary guesses that it probably weighed at least 25 pounds.
  • I walked down to Wood Duck Pond because I thought I could cross the "dry creek bed" and look at our east property line. That area is still flooded from high water in Wood Duck Pond and my deer blind continues to be in flood waters (see video, below). We heard engine noise to the east and wondered if our neighbor was ripping out the fence between our properties. After getting back home, I drove east. There was no activity at the fence line. The engine noise was from a neighbor about a mile east of us who was mowing his postage stamp lawn with a big zero-turn lawnmower.
  • A fledgling American robin is still moving around on our lane near the Sargent crabapple tree. We have to be careful walking past that area, or driving a vehicle through there.
  • I watched Game 1 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals. The Montreal Canadiens won by the score of 6-2, over the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes scored 33 seconds into the game and then Montreal scored 27 seconds later. I think the main TNT game announcer, Kenny Albert, is horrible, so I turned off the sound on the TV and listened to the game via the NHL app on my cell phone while watching the video on TV. It was a much improved experience. I mentioned it to Bill and my son texted back that he does the same trick, often.
  • I watched 35 minutes of a board meeting for the folks who supply us with water. A video of their meeting is almost two hours long. They have a new board member who is raising a stink over how they operate. The rest of the board is full of old fuddy duds (Mary says be careful...old fuddy duds might be the same age as me!) who are obviously upset with this younger upstart who is questioning everything that they do. It's interesting.
  Stagnant flood waters fill what once was the dry creek bed.
  
  

• Friday, 5/22: Mowed Lane
  • With Bill showing up tomorrow for Memorial Day Weekend, I mowed the lane and the place where he parks his car.
  • Mary is starting to see rows of onions. Garlic scapes are coming to and end, which means garlic harvest is soon. 
  • Katie sent several photos and videos while sightseeing in Italy. Most were from a World War I memorial. 
  • On every venture out our door, you see a hummingbird flying off from the clump of comfrey flowers near the basement entrance. If you don't look up, you can sometimes hear hummingbird wings buzzing away.
  • The baby robin we saw in the middle of the lane near the Sargent crabapple tree for the past few days is nowhere to be seen. It obviously fledged and is flying around. 
  • The swamp dogwoods midway down the lane are full of all kinds of pollinators.
  • I watched Game 2 of the NHL Western Conference Finals. The Colorado Avalanche led 1-0 for most of the game. The Vegas Golden Knights scored three goals in the final period to win, 3-1. They lead the series, 2-0.

   

• Saturday, 5/23: A Cooper Scare Turns Out Okay
  • When I walked Cooper down to the mailbox, I let him off the leash too early when coming back home. He chased after the smell of rabbits that ran into the bushes to the east. There is still a bit of barbed wire fence near that location. I called Cooper and he bounced off the inside of that barbed wire fence...OUCH! When I called him a second time, there was no response. I ran home and told Mary that Cooper ran off. She took off down the lane calling for him. I drove the pickup down the lane, then east on the gravel road. I drove further east and turned around in the turnoff into the neighbor's field. When I turned into our lane, there was Mary with Cooper. He stayed inside the corner of the fence around the field and never budged or barked or whined. Mary saw a flash of tan, then the bright orange of his collar, walked around and guided him out of the field. He was soooo happy to see her! It all ended well.
  • Bill arrived around noon.
  • I cleaned and installed the air conditioner into the upstairs north bedroom window to give Bill some comfort while sleeping in that room. I worked at cleaning this old Haier AC better than I did last year, when it first smelled weird after I started it up. This is an excellent unit. We bought it in 2009 and it still runs well.
  • I installed foam board rain guards on the outside of the the window that the AC sits in when rain started falling. This turned into a thunderstorm that gave us about a fifth of an inch of moisture. 
  • When Mary and Bill walked Cooper on an afternoon walk, they heard our first, ever prairie warbler. The Merlin app on Bill's phone indicated that this bird isn't suppose to be in northeast Missouri. It's more of a southern bird.
  • We watched a big doe deer meander to near our south orchard apple trees. Mary opened a sunroom window and scared it away. We also saw a summer tanager in a mulberry bush east of the house.
  • Bill picked out Fiddler on the Roof from our DVD collection that we watched while enjoying popcorn. After the movie, we each ate a piece of pumpkin cake that Mary baked earlier, today.

   

• Sunday, 5/24: Free Totes
  • I spotted used totes for sale for $1, each, on Facebook Marketplace and the seller was only five miles southwest of us at Steffenville. I drill holes in them, cover the inside of the holes with quarter-inch hardware cloth, fill with soil, and plant greens or strawberries in them. The seller once was an auctioneer. They often handled estate sales for people who didn't want totes returned to them, so they collected several over the years. When I told them what I used the totes for, I was led to behind their garage, where several totes without lids were stored that they were going to throw away and told me they were all free. I dumped water and dead Asian ladybugs out of them and filled the back of the pickup with 46 totes...enough for a lifetime of plantings for us.
  • After loading the totes, I talked to the husband for awhile. He said online sales sites put him out of business as a licensed auctioneer. So, he restarted his former carpentry remodeling business and is now booked a year and a half in advance. He and his wife are from Liberty, Illinois. Through his auctioneer work, he discovered a former church in Steffenville for sale on an acre of land for $12,000. Charlie Sharp, who once owed the dairy a mile west of us, owned it and converted it into a location to make candles. After buying it, this guy took the roof off, built a second story for a bedroom, and added a garage on the back. He said the place sits on clay and once you dig six feet down, the clay is so hard you need to chip it out. It's probably the same clay that's on our place, which is good information to know.
  • Mary and Bill found three ripe black raspberries. 
  • They also found a female painted turtle, with a leach on her back, moving across the west yard. They eventually moved it to the shade in southwest corner of that yard and pointed it toward Frog Pond.
  • Mary and I mowed the west yard so we could enjoy a wiener roast without wading through tall grass.
  • Bill took the phone app, Merlin, on a walk, and discovered the call of an eastern wood pewee, which is the first for this year.
  • Mary opened her Birthday presents, early, since Bill leaves tomorrow. He gave her a big fine mesh row cover for vegetables, two decks of cards, and a tray for dice games. I gave her a Pflueger President spincast reel. The cheap plastic Zebco closed-faced reels that Mary has been using just don't cut it for longevity.
  • While throwing the ball for Cooper, I tossed it into thick bushes two times. After the second time, Cooper grabbed the ball and headed straight for home, as if to say, "You're done, buddy!"
  • Bill, Mary, and I enjoyed a wiener roast around an outside fire in the west yard. Before and after eating, we played several games of washers. We saw a handful of bats overhead catching bugs after the sun set.
  • When we went inside, we found that Cooper chewed up and spit out parts of the rubber mat just inside of the door. Hopefully, he didn't swallow any rubber bits. We left him inside for most of the afternoon and into the night. It was too much for him to bear.
  • On the last Cooper walk, we saw an amazing lightning bug display. A recent hatch revealed a type of firefly that flashes less often, glowing for several seconds, while hovering near the tops of grass in the fields. They were very plentiful.