- Sunday, 7/19: Mary picked 3 quarts of blackberries, which brings us to 11 quarts of blackberries in the freezer. There are still many red, unripe blackberries left out there. She noticed several deer snorting at her and several Bob White quail. I checked my watermelon wine. It's fermenting nicely (see video below), with a specific gravity of 1.074. After balancing the checkbook, I was a bum all day. I asked Katie when she was heading north and she called from the Dallas airport, saying she was flying to Anchorage today. She landed in Anchorage just prior to midnight, their time. She stays a few days at an airbnb in Anchorage, gets a few things for her boss, then flies north to Prudhoe Bay, then west to Nuiqsut. She doesn't know many details about her new job, yet. I asked Bill and he confirmed he's visiting us July 25-28. The chicks doubled their size overnight. They are a week old, today.
- Monday, 7/20:
- Tuesday, 7/21: Mary saw a fawn in the west yard in the morning while on her way to let out chickens. She made a shopping list for me. I checked the watermelon wine and the specific gravity was at 1.000, so I racked the two 1-gallon jugs into a wide mouth 1.4-gallon container and added potassium sorbate to stop fermentation (see photo below). I've never had yeast act so fast...only 2 days to get to the desired specific gravity. It usually takes a couple weeks. I shopped in Quincy for some food items. Most everyone is wearing masks and several stores require masks prior to entering. Mary picked 4 quarts of blackberries, bringing the total in the freezer to 15 quarts. She saw a buck, with a velvet-covered 6-point rack, snort, crash through the bushes, jump a fence, and run off through an old cow pasture. We ate nachos in the evening and watched the 2013 movie, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
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| Strawberry wine must (right) with leftover yeast fines (left & center). |
- Wednesday, 7/22: In texts to Katie, she said she will fly north once she gets her COVID-19 test results. Mary mowed the west yard, made a big batch of tortellini soup, figured our monthly savings amounts, and weeded the far garden. We are still battling voles that now have eaten 4-5 tomatoes. I picked 4 quarts of blackberries, bringing our grand total for the year to 19 quarts. After nightfall, we looked for and saw the comet NEOWISE just below the Big Dipper. It's interesting, but hard to see with the naked eye. Binoculars help to see it better.
- Thursday, 7/23: Mary mowed the lane. I picked 4 quarts of blackberries, bringing our total to 23 quarts in the freezer. It's a really good blackberry year. This time, I delved deep into the thorns on Bramble Hill to get to some big, ripe ones, resulting in a few hand wounds (see photo below). The end result is worth it, though. We watered both gardens in the evening, taking only 35 minutes, a new time record! The coronavirus is hitting hard, locally, so we'll stay on our property as much as possible. There are 302 cases in Adams County, IL, home to Quincy; 13 for us in Lewis County, MO; and 68 cases with an additional death today in Marion County, home to Hannibal, MO. Via emails, I talked to John Hendrix, whose son recovered from COVID-19 in Las Vegas. John is going to Homer, AK, this weekend to fish for red salmon in China Poot Bay. He owns property on the north side of China Poot and said I should visit so we can see my old haunts in Peterson Bay.
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| Four quarts of blackberries and 2 wounded hands. |
- Friday, 7/24: Mary washed 3 loads of laundry, did some house cleaning, and made a batch of flour tortillas. I picked another batch of blackberries, adding 4 more quarts to the freezer, with a grand total of 27. I also collected up a few more chigger bites.
- Saturday, 7/25: Bill showed up around 12:30 pm. Mary made him his favorite dessert, pistachio tort. We celebrated Bill's birthday, even though it's really on August 3rd, because he won't be here on that date. I picked blackberries to the west and south of the house, adding 2 more quarts and bringing the grand total to 29. We built a fire outside and enjoyed a pork loin cookout. It was fun to sit around the fire, watch the stars, and talk.
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