August 2-8, 20208

Weather | 8/2, 61°, 79° | 8/3, 60°, 75° | 8/4, 45°, 75° | 8/5, 54°, 76° | 8/6, 0.02" rain, 58°, 79° | 8/7, 59°, 86° | 8/8, 0.04" rain, 69°, 89° |

• Sunday, 8/2: We didn't do much today. I checked the blackberry wine. The specific gravity is at 1.021 and it needs to be at 1.000 before I can halt fermentation. It now tastes yeasty, but with a tang of wild fruit. We had smoked scrambled eggs with bits of pork loin meat on an outdoor fire. Mary watered gardens. I ordered windshield wipers for the GMC pickup.


• Monday, 8/3: I sharpened the blade on Mary's mower. She noticed its engine was smoking, while she mowed part of the lawn. I looked at the GMC pickup. It looks like the muffler and tailpipe are relatively new. The rim of the spare tire that's stored under the bed is rusted badly. Shocks need replacing. Fluids look good. I have a chigger bite on my inside left ankle that blistered up to the size of a nickle. It wasn't looking healthy, so I cleaned it with soap and put hydrogen peroxide on it, twice, then soaked it in Mary's comfrey tea, and finally put antibiotic ointment on with a big Bandaid over it. It's quite sore, but looking better. I HATE CHIGGERS!!! We talked to Bill on his birthday and chatted for quite awhile.


• Tuesday, 8/4: I reviewed our primary election ballot to determine who to vote for and then we drove to Lewistown and voted. Mary mowed a tankful of gas. Her mower smoked and when she finished, oil spots covered her mower. It must be blowing oil past the piston ring in the engine. Mary also did some garden mulching. Due to my ankle, I stayed inside and washed the dishes. The various candidates we voted for won their primary contests...a first for us. The constitutional amendment to allow for an expansion of Medicaid won.


• Wednesday, 8/5: I sharpened the blade on my mower. I checked Mary's mower and there is no oil showing on the dipstick. I'll need to put new rings in that mower. The pickup's wiper blades came in today's mail, so I installed them. Mary watered the gardens, washed 2 loads of laundry, and made flour tortillas. I checked the blackberry wine. The specific gravity is at 1.012, and it's still fermenting nicely. I did the dishes.


• Thursday, 8/6: Due to just a couple of cups of chick feed left in the bottom of the bag, I went to Quincy to get a few items, including chick feed. While en route, I stopped at the Lewis County Electric Cooperative's drive-through annual meeting. Workers flagged attendees to drive around their equipment building and then stop where you voted, with an employee punching your choice onto a tablet. They offered $20 off next month's electric bill, so we thought since I was going to Quincy, I might as well go to Lewistown, too. I forgot to put a quarter in my pocket for getting a shopping cart at Aldi, so I went to our bank's branch at Walmart to take $0.25 from our account. The bank teller grabbed a quarter from her purse, saying, "I got this quarter for free when shopping at Aldi, so it's your quarter, now." When I went to hand that quarter to a woman rolling a cart back to the store in the Aldi parking lot, she said, "Keep your quarter. I got this cart for free." There are good people everywhere. I still saw people not wearing masks while shopping in Quincy. They usually are old men. COVID-19 cases are at 486, with 5 deaths, in Adams County, home to Quincy. Our county, Lewis County, has 37 cases and 1 death. Marion County, the next county south of us and home to Hannibal, MO, has 171 cases and 1 death. It's not a time to slack off on precautions. Mary mowed the lane and did 2 loads of laundry while I was gone. We had evening nachos and watched the 2017 movie, Beauty and the Beast.

• Friday, 8/7: Mary did 2 loads of laundry. She also mowed inside and outside of the near garden and outside of the compost bins. I did a bunch of online research on Mary's mower issue of burning oil and throwing oil out of the exhaust. Turns out it could be a plugged crankcase breather and I can get a replacement for that mower for around $10 from RepairClinic.com. I weedwhacked part of the near garden, changing over to 50-pound test nylon fish line in the trimmer to try next to the chicken wire. It works nicely at trimming grass, without tearing the chicken wire apart. I know the regular trimmer line would demolish the chicken wire. It isn't any good with tall grass or thick weeds, so I'll have to come up with other alternatives to remove them. Oncoming darkness forced me to quit. Mary investigated and found an army worm, a cabbage worm, and a tomato worm, and 3 worm eggs on various garden plants. Received several texts late at night from Homer H.S. classmates meeting at Land's End on the Homer Spit in Alaska (see photo below). People I recognize include John Hendrix (2nd on left), Karen (Babcock) Delaney (3rd, left), Marie Fitz (4th left), Arn Johnson (end of table), Roger Toci (7th, right), and Mary Lambe (6th, right).

Class of 1975 Reunion at Land's End.

• Saturday, 8/8: While Mary was vacuuming spiders, the old Shop Vac died. We thought it would keel over 10 years ago, when I bought a different one, so she switched over to that one. There's frugal, and then there's us! The newer vacuum works much better. The old vacuum was bought at a 2008 auction in Circle, MT, for $9. We got our money's worth out of it. I finished whacking weeds around the electric fence of the new garden, and then started cleaning out tall grass just inside the chicken wire fence. After clearing some, I suddenly realized I was in the carrot and parsnip patches of the garden. I destroyed tops off several plants...damn! I quit after that. Mary checked appropriate plants for tomato worms. She found 7 tomato worm eggs and destroyed them. Mary took a photo (see below) of myself hoisting a glass of pear wine that I sent to the Homer H.S. Class of '75 on Facebook and got a few reactions back from it. 

A toast!