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°, xx° | 9/20, xx°, xx° |

• 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.

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. 

August 3-9, 2026

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

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

   

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

   

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

   

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

   

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

   

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

   

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