March 21-27, 2021

Weather | 3/21, 39°, 65° | 3/22, 46°, 69° | 3/23, 0.15" rain, 50°, 59° | 3/24, 0.37" rain, 47°, 52° | 3/25, 0.32" rain, 37°, 42° | 3/26, 40°, 57° | 3/27, .01" rain, 45°, 65° |

• Sunday, 3/21: Strong South Winds
  
  • South winds were strong enough to call off doing laundry. Mary said something about our rooster, Leo, enduring our undergarments covering his head if she put them on the line to dry. Burning cardboard boxes in the burn barrel was also a banned activity.
    
  • I helped Mary move strawberries out of the machine shed. Several are perking up, nicely. Mary hauled them back inside at dusk.
    
  • Mary made venison General Tso for our main meal.
    
  • I vacuumed Asian ladybugs for hours and Mary took over in the late afternoon. They're terrible and in some rooms, roaming about on all walls by the hundreds. I read online that lemon-scented cleaners keep them away...HAH! We have so many that gasoline lit on fire wouldn't keep them back.
    
  • I studied a couple grafting videos to decide which method of grafting I should use for scions (the top part of the graft) that are significantly smaller than the rootstock. It looks like the cleft graft is best. A cleft graft involves a straight cut to take off the rootstock's top, then a 1-1.5" slice down the center, followed by whittling 2 scion's bottom ends into a V and pushing those Vs into either side of the slice on the rootstock, then covering the work up with stretchable grafting tape (a paraffin-based tape). 
  • Online research revealed that grafting knives are sharpened only on one side to produce a clean cut. I have a stainless steel Gerber pocket knife that was given to me by Patse Hansen after seeing me struggle opening cardboard boxes during a Lewistown, MT brat feed I organized while working at Mid-Rivers Telephone. I ground the blade to one side on the power grinder, then sharpened it on our tri-stone knife sharpener. 
  • I practiced the cleft graft, using branches saved after Mary pruned all trees a couple weeks ago. It creates a gap I was concerned about, which was traditionally filled with a combination of bees wax and paraffin called orchard wax. A modern version is made flexible by the heat of your hands. I discovered a YouTube video of a guy in Seattle who advocates cheap grafting, using a box cutter, black electrical tape that must be removed in a month or two, and rain gutter sealant. Since I don't have orchard wax, I might try the cheaper alternative.
    
  • A specific gravity check of the blackberry wine showed it was already at 1.002, so I racked it to the brew bucket, added crushed Campden tablets and potassium sorbate to halt yeast reproduction, then racked the wine to a 5-gallon glass carboy, a half-gallon glass jug, and a beer bottle (see photos below). It's deep purple. I filtered the remaining liquid with the fines through two paper towels in a wire sieve, which took out the solids. We drank the sieved wine. It tasted good, but it'll be better once it ages.
  • On the last dog walk, we had American woodcocks following us as we walked down the lane and back home. We heard coyotes singing in the woods. There was a huge ring around the moon, that reached from overhead to below the west tree line.

Blackberry wine in 5-gallon carboy & half-gallon jug.

Setting airlock on the top of a beer bottle.

Aging Wine...Mary put me on winemaking probation until jugs leave the pantry.

• Monday, 3/22: Cedar Pollen
  
  • Last night, while wearing a bright hat light, I noticed fine particles floating in the air. This morning, Mary brushed a couple cedar branches on the lane and pollen flew out of them. Cedar pollen is floating in the air. As a result, our rubber boots have a yellow ting to them.
    
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry and vacuumed tons of Asian ladybugs from all of the windows.
    
  • Mary made turkey pot pie for our midday meal.
    
  • I researched additional info about tree grafting. The side graft might be better with the size difference I have between the rootstock and the scion pieces I'm grafting to the top.
  • We keep hearing wood ducks making a racket while swimming on Wood Duck Pond.
    
    
• Tuesday, 3/23: Rain & Thunderstorms
  
  • A classic low on the online weather maps showed a line of wet weather streaming from the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi River, through us, into Iowa and curving through Topeka, Kansas. Not only did it drop rain, but we had thunderstorms roll through at dusk.
    
  • I did more online review of tree grafting techniques.
    
  • Mary worked on her cross stitch kit named Golden Dreams, which is something she picked up when we owned Golden Retrievers.
  • Since we put off Saturday Game Night on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we took it up tonight. We played Acey Deucey, a variant of Backgammon. Mary taught me how to play with 2 practice games. In this game, if you roll a 1 and a 2 with your two dice, you move your play pieces one and then two spaces, then you get to move pieces as if you rolled a double. I rolled four acey deuceys in a row. Mary said she's never seen such a feat accomplished in her years of playing the game. I won the 2 practice games (with Mary giving advice), then Mary won the rest of the games (when I was on my own). It's a fun game.
    
    
• Wednesday, 3/24: Intermittent Mist
  • Even though we didn't get any measurable rain, we experienced mist every so often throughout the day.
  • Like several days in the past, we vacuumed gobs of Asian ladybugs.
    
  • Mary made tortellini soup for our main meal. She also cross stitched on her Golden Dreams project and dusted the DVDs.
  • I measured my rootstocks and scions with electronic calipers. The rootstocks average half an inch and the scions average a quarter inch. I found old cuttings of equal sizes and practiced grafting both the cleft graft and the side graft (see photo below). Due to the smaller rootstock diameter that I'm dealing with, the side graft is easier to perform.
  • While putting the lid on the water-based tree seal, the side of the plastic can collapsed, spilling some of it onto the wooden outdoor porch. I put the remaining tree seal in an air-tight container and cleaned up the spilled tree seal with buckets of water and a stiff brush.
  • We watched the 2018 movie, Green Book, and the 2010 movie, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
    

  

  Practice cleft grafts (left) and side grafts (right).
  

• Thursday, 3/25: Rainy Day
  
  • Rain started at 11 a.m. and continued to right before dusk. Water is standing everywhere.
    
  • Mary made a pumpkin cake.
  • I read a couple chapters in an orchard book.
    
    
• Friday, 3/26: Clouds to Sunny Day
  • The shelf brackets we ordered through Menards were due to arrive at the store this week. I called the Quincy Menards and was told they're scheduled to arrive today, but that the computer information is never accurate, so arrival will probably be in a couple days. I ordered them on March 4. They aren't speedy.
    
  • Mary finished dusting books in the living room.
  • I read more of my orchard book and vacuumed beetles that continue to pour onto windows.
  • A trip around to various apple, pear, and cherry trees indicates that green buds are starting to pop. I should do my grafting. You're not supposed to graft when temperatures dip below 40° and next week's predictions are for lows in the 30s and even 29° on Wednesday night. Things aren't working out very well.
  • We walked the dogs west to the end of Bobcat Trail. A big oak fell over, blocking passage at the end of the trail. It looks like good firewood for the future.
    
    
• Saturday, 3/27: Creepy Crawlers!
  
  • I remember for Christmas of 1965, when we visited Aunt Dorothy's house in Jackson, MI, I received a Creepy Crawlers set. After putting "Plasti-Goop" in molds that resembled bugs, the molds were heated on a hot plate that came with the set. After cooling, you peeled out brightly colored plastic bugs. I don't remember Mom or Dad being upset about me playing around with an open-faced hot plate, but I bet today's hover mothers would have an absolute fit with such an idea. I thought of Creepy Crawlers as I vacuumed hundreds of live creepies: Asian ladybugs. Mary and I took turns sucking them off windows and walls. I took the first shift and Mary did the late afternoon stint.
  • We startled and saw a woodcock fly away from the lane while walking dogs in the morning.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas and chimichangas for our main meal. She also worked on her cross stitch Golden Dreams pattern for an hour, and did some house cleaning.
    
  • I practiced grafting, specifically slicing practice on fruit tree stems. The Gerber pocket knife is poor. It doesn't hold an edge and makes wavy cuts. Grandad Melvin's old Herter's hunting knife is better, but Mary's old Rapala fillet knife is best. I discovered an online video demonstrating how to do a saddle graft, by Stephen Hayes in the UK. It looks easy, compared to other grafting methods. I'll do it with my 2 existing Esopus Spitzenburg and Grimes Golden apple trees.
    
  • We played the board game, Senet. It's become a favorite. I won the first 2 games, Mary won the next, then I won, then Mary won the final 3 to reign as grand champion for the night.