Sept. 29-Oct. 5, 2019

Weather | 9/29, 1.36" rain, 65°, 70° | 9/30, 69°, 87° | 10/1, 70°, 87° | 10/2, 0.07" rain, 73°, 83° | 10/3, 2.71" rain, 53°, 60° | 10/4, 43°, 61° | 10/5, 0.01" rain, 49°, 65° |

• Sunday, 9/29: A very enjoyable day. Drove to Quincy 2 hours early, so we could gas up the Caddy and buy dog food and chick food at Farm & Home. Then, attended the Quincy Symphony Orchestra "Disney in Concert Around the World." It was in the Quincy Junior High School Auditorium, which when built in 1933, was the high school auditorium. It's a big place, probably 4 stories high with immense seating that includes balcony seating. They had a big screen above the orchestra showing Disney movie scenes while the orchestra played. It was really good. While driving to and from Quincy, we listened to an audio book from my iPhone, played on the car speakers. It was Brave Companions: Portraits in History, by David McCullough, the guy who narrated the Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. The chapter we listened to was about Alexander von Humboldt...very interesting. In the evening, we watched a BBC documentary on the re-creation of Victoria and Albert's royal wedding. They remade the wedding cake...it was 9 feet in circumference and weighed 300 pounds...11 quarts of Brandy went into it...you'd probably get drunk on that cake. They said parts of it were kept as souvenirs and can still be found and can still be eaten today, because it was so preserved in spirits. I kept falling asleep during that. I guess I was tired. After the movie, we heard a coyote howling in the yard, just west of the house.
• Monday, 9/30: I put purple paint on trees and fence posts along the west and north borders of our property, which in Missouri means "No hunting, no trespassing." The loggers removing trees in the property west of us went on our property in some cases, since we always stepped in from the property line to ensure our purple paint was always on our side of the property. In some cases, they mowed down trees with purple paint on them and in other cases they came right up to our purple-painted trees. I'm going to look into the cost of getting someone to survey our property and then look at fencing the west side of our land. I also found a trail camera strapped to the top of a fence post on the north side of our property aimed into our property. Plan on putting a "No Hunting" sign immediately in front of that camera...bastards!!! Mary peeled and froze 11 quarts of apples. There's a little over half of box left. She also strung up a bunch of hot peppers to dry, and harvested some comfrey leaves to dry.
• Tuesday, 10/1: I purple painted the south and east boundaries of our property. The east fence has several sections completely covered in growth, such as mulberry bushes and cedar trees. Jumped the fence halfway down the east side and walked in the neighbor's corn field. A lot of smut in that corn, plus gobs of ears eaten by raccoons and deer. The east fence just north of Wood Duck Pond has the top wire cut or broken in a few places. I got into chiggers. I must have sweated the bug dope off my forearms...15 bites on my right arm, 8 bites on my left arm, and 1 on my right knee. Mary brought in the house plants after pruning them and flushing ants out of the pots, and picked more tomatoes. Texted Katie and she was leaving SeaTac Airport around 11 PM our time for Alaska.
• Wednesday, 10/2: I was itchy from chigger bites, so I spent time online while dabbing comfrey on them. We got a lot of rain. Mary peeled, processed, and froze 17 quarts apples, for a grand total of 28 quarts in the freezer. She also froze 3 gallon bags of tomatoes. We need 3 more gallons to get all we need for the year. Mary made a shopping list. We watched 8 common night hawks fly over.
• Thursday, 10/3: We left by 9:30 to get to the Quincy Library book sale that opened at 10:30. Bought 42 inches of books for $21. Listened to McCullough's book with a chapter on Louis Agassiz while enroute to Quincy. Did some shopping...bought some mortar mix at Home Depot for fixing the chimney, some chick food and transmission/hydraulic fluid for the 8N Ford at Farm & Home, then groceries at Walmart and Aldi. Ate pizza and reviewed the books we bought. Mary and Bill texted back and forth about some beer Bill is making.
• Friday, 10/4: Updated bank transactions in our checkbook. Looked up recipes for making pear wine in 6 books we have. I dug into the closet that holds bottles and wine making stuff and determined that all I need is yeast. Found the best yeast for pear wine in several websites. Ordered 3 packages of yeast from Midwest Supplies in the Twin Cities for about $4...shipping was higher at $10. Mary took down all of the garlic that was hanging in the Machine Shed, pulled out 66 bulbs from each garlic type for seedstock and filled two 30" long grapefruit bags with garlic to eat. She got stung by a wasp in her left pinky finger. Doctored it with baking soda paste. It swelled to about double its size. Mary also picked an eighth of a cat litter bucket of green and ripe tomatoes and 23 acorn squash from the garden. I spooked up 3 deer when I got mail. We watched the movie, Dave.
• Saturday, 10/5: Mary's finger was hurting from the wasp sting, so we spent the day inside, hibernating.