June 7-13, 2020

Weather | 6/7, 67°, 86° | 6/8, 67°, 85° | 6/9, 1.94" rain, 67°, 77° | 6/10, 0.03" rain, 61°, 73° | 6/11, 55°, 79° | 6/12, 60°, 85° | 6/13, 59°, 80° |

• Sunday, 6/7: Mary opened the living room curtains this morning just in time to watch a catbird pick a cherry off the pie cherry tree, so we picked ripe, or nearly ripe, cherries prior to eating breakfast. I moved the cars. We haven't moved the Buick for months. I had to inflate the driver's side front tire and noticed that mice totally devoured the thin sound insulation on the engine-side of the firewall...we need more owls, hawks, coyotes, and snakes to clean up on rodents. Mary washed all of the clothes, then mowed where the cars usually sit. I weedwhacked 2 more gas tanks worth on the far garden fence, then mowed the lane. Mary bagged mowed grass and added mulch to the far garden. She cut garlic scapes and decided that we need to pick garlic soon. We then both mowed grass between the woodshed and the machine shed and left it lay. We're trying to take down as much tall grass as possible before a predicted tropical depression is supposed to hit us.


• Monday, 6/8: We picked more pie cherries after breakfast. I was on a step ladder, reaching as high as I could go, but still unable to get the top ripe cherries. We filled a quart bag and started another for the freezer. Mary noticed that a close-by mulberry with ripe fruit helps keep marauding birds from nailing all of the red cherries. I weedwhacked 2 more gas tank's worth of grass along the far garden fence. Mary and I both mowed and raked tall grass in the west yard, putting mulch into the far garden until almost dark. I asked Mary if we should pick more cherries and she replied, "I'm not doing one damn thing, more!" We were both tired. Mary saw a 3-foot long prairie king snake with a lump in its gut while wheeling a wheelbarrow load of grass to the far garden. There are lots of mice for a snake to eat on our property.

• Tuesday, 6/9: HELLO CRISTOBAL (the earliest tropical depression to affect MO in weather history). It depositing torrential rainfall for hours. We're rejoicing while sitting inside, since we don't have to handle grass outside. Regretfully, the recently-mowed grass is greening up, yawning, and getting ready for new growth spurt. By mid-afternoon, the rain quit. Ponds of water were everywhere, including under the 8N Ford tractor inside the machine shed. Mary and I picked pie cherries, freezing 2 more quarts. Mary found a tree frog in a green bucket in the woodshed. It seems to go there every day. She moved it to a weeping fig tree sitting under the weeping willow tree, like she does every day. It'll be back in the bucket tomorrow. We ordered an iced tea maker, 2 movies, and some bank checks online. Mary and Katie texted one another about Katie's aloe vera pups. I talked to Bill right before we ate supper. He's making strawberry wine and had some winemaking questions. We had lightning and thunder just to the east as we walked the dogs for their last outing. It was a very short walk.


• Wednesday, 6/10: The sun rose to a smoky, fog look on all horizons. Then a heavy mist settled in until mid-afternoon, when it returned to sun, but with strong NW winds. I went to Quincy to pick up 2 packages shipped via FedEx. Anymore, it's better to have FedEx hold packages at Walgreens, instead of never getting them after FedEx tries...or doesn't try...to deliver them. I  bought a few other items. Mary baked 4 loaves of bread, started a cross stitch project, picked snow peas, cut garlic scapes, and sucked up house spiders with the Shop Vac. I bottled my grapefruit wine, yielding four 750-milliliter bottles and 2/3 of a 5th bottle that Mary and I worked on through the evening. It's improved with age. I experimented by adding Truvia, which contains erythritol, derived from wood sugar, and stevia, both of which are good for diabetics, like me. I liked the sweeter grapefruit wine taste. Mary didn't. It's okay, because she can stick to the dry wine taste and I can enjoy a sweeter taste, without boosting blood sugar. I texted with Bill for awhile about winemaking ideas.


• Thursday, 6/11: Clear northern air today brought on a vivid blue sky and a nice, sunny day. Bill texted me this morning that his strawberry wine was bubbling, sounding like pop rocks. I updated my winemaking diary. The grapefruit wine finished out at 13.12% alcohol, down from 14.02%, when I last racked it, which is just about perfect. We participated in a pie cherry picking gulag, picking cherries most of the day. We froze 6 quarts and started another quart bag, which gives us a total of 9 quarts of pie cherries. We easily reached Mary's goal of 6 quarts for the season. There are still several ripe cherries beyond my reach atop the step ladder. It was too windy to attempt to back the trailer behind the tractor into position and put the ladder on the trailer, but if it's calmer tomorrow, I'll give that a try. An adult and juvenile Red-Bellied Woodpecker flew into the cherry tree throughout the day as we harvested cherries. We'd either clap or holler to chase them away. I have to do my utmost to preserve future cherry pies. We also saw several bluebird adults and fledglings flying near the cherry tree. I checked and we need 4 pounds of pea pods to make a gallon of wine, so I weighed the snow peas Mary picked yesterday and they came to 2 ounces. I will never have enough from this year's crop, so we decided to freeze them for Chinese meals. We'll plant a lot more next year, in order to have enough to make pea pod wine. Mary picked a our first strawberry out of the garden, cut it in half and gave me a piece. It tasted amazing. While doing the chores, we spotted a new daytime moth flying around the Virginia creeper vines on our front porch (see photo below). Mary looked it up in our Butterflies and Moths of Missouri book and it's an Eight-Spotted Forester. They are quite striking when they fly. We ate garlic toast, hard-boiled eggs, and a huge garden lettuce salad that also had spinach, radishes, and green onions in it...almost all homegrown food. After dark, we heard a chimney swift come down the stovepipe. Mary turned the damper open and it settled into the stove. We'll try to remove it in the morning. We hope it's old enough to fly, because we don't know what we'll do with a hatchling.

An Eight-Spotted Forester on Virginia Creeper.

• Friday, 6/12: After the morning dog walk, I shined a flashlight as Mary grabbed a young chimney swift from just inside the woodstove door, took it outside and opened her hands. It flew off right away and was joined by 2 other swifts in flight. They all circled around the house, twittering. We picked 5 quarts, and a major part of another quart, of pie cherries. We now have 14 quarts in the freezer. I didn't get to the high part of the tree. I drove to Quincy, IL, and picked up the iced tea maker and 2 movies that arrived at Walgreens. I also bought 2 rolls of chicken wire for keeping little wild rabbits that make it through electric fences out of garden crops, and a couple grocery items. I found organic white grape juice that is free of preservatives in the HyVee brand. It's often a winemaking ingredient and hard to find. I'm amazed at how many people bustle about without taking any coronavirus precautions. Bought gas ($1.79 a gallon) while driving home and I was the only one wearing a mask in the entire place. The infection numbers are going up, too. I feel like we're advancing into the second stage of the Dark Ages when science is discounted. Back home, Mary mowed the rest of the lawn near the woodshed. After chores, we ate nachos and watched the 2007 movie Enchanted. While we were watching the movie, we heard more bird noises of a silly chimney swift coming down the stove pipe. Mary turned the damper open to let it drop into the inside of the stove. For some reason, they can't seem to stay attached to the inside of the chimney this year. Hundreds of fireflies and bright stars, including the Milky Way, made for an amazing last dog walk. You couldn't tell where the sky ended and the trees began.


• Saturday, 6/13: We did our morning dog walk, then proceeded to what's become our morning ritual chimney swift removal, except this time there were 2 baby chimney swifts in our stove. Each time Mary opened her hands, the birds flew up, joined their parents, and twittered by circling around the house. I serviced the 2 lawnmowers (changed oil, cleaned air filters, sharpened blades), while Mary pulled 2 types of garlic out of the far garden (Music & German Extra Hardy) and laid them in the shade. I picked, pitted, and froze 5 quarts of pie cherries, giving us a grand total of 19 quarts. There are a lot more on the tree. Cat birds kept sassing at me while I picked and I noticed them swarming into the top of the tree after I left. Mary picked snow peas, watered the garden and strawberries, added acid soil amendments to the blueberries, and cleaned the radish patch in preparation for seeding with parsnips. She told me that there are several strawberry buds and a runner that will be a future plant. Mary and I tied garlic bundles using plastic baling twine and hung them to dry in the machine shed rafters. Upon returning from our nightly dog walk, we spotted a tree frog running across the outside of our screen door. Such is the life of residing in this zoo.