April 11-17, 2021

Weather | 4/11, 41°, 62° | 4/12, 41°, 61° | 4/13, 35°, 58° | 4/14, 33°, 53° | 4/15, 32°, 54° | 4/16, 35°, 57° | 4/17, 0.19" rain overnight, 0.15" in afternoon, 42°, 61° |

• Sunday, 4/11: Haircut Day
  
  • I gave Mary a haircut...her first of this year, so there was a great deal of chopping and hacking. She said the scissors kept saying, "Wucka, wucka, wucka!" I keep telling Mary that she needs a haircut like mine. She says she doesn't want to look like a cancer patient.
    
  • I racked the grapefruit wine. After pulling the wine off the fines, a gallon and a beer bottle's worth reduced down to just a gallon jug. There is still a tiny essence of sulfur, but it's a lot better. It possesses a good grapefruit flavor. The specific gravity is 0.994, the same as it was a month ago, which means yeast production is stopped. I'll let it sit another month, when it might be ready for bottling.
    
  • Mary baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. YUM!
    
  • I changed the air filter on the Cadillac.
    
  • Mary made a shopping list for tomorrow's trip to Quincy.
    
  • On a nighttime dog walk, we could hear toads singing near Bluegill Pond.
    
    
• Monday, 4/12: Shopping Day
  • Mary and I went on an 8-hour shopping trip to Quincy involving 12 stops. It was tiring. 
  • We bought a Stihl MS 170 chainsaw, a 2nd chain, a sharpening file/guide and 3 additional files, a carrying case, and a package of 2-cycle engine oil from Farm & Home. Now, I have a small saw for cutting limbs that weighs 8.6 pounds, versus my other chainsaw, an MS 361, that weighs 12.3 pounds. The heavier saw becomes a burden when I'm raising it up to cut branches that are shoulder high. It's also a saw that maybe Mary could handle, if she so desires.
  • We got our money back from Menards on the order I made on March 3rd for shelf brackets. My order was out of stock and they had no idea when any would be available. I won't order through Menards, again. 
  • A sign at Sam's Club's door indicated they were administering COVID shots. I asked at the pharmacy and Missouri residents can get it. Shots start tomorrow. After midnight at home, I set appointments for us for 4/14 and canceled our appointments in Kahoka, MO. Later, the next day (4/13), we received a call from Sam's Club that the appointments were canceled. CDC canceled all Johnson & Johnson shots, due to blood clot issues. This would have canceled the vaccinations in Kahoka, too, since they were also Johnson & Johnson shots.
  • We ran into Emily Stollberg, who I worked with at Petco, while shopping at the Salvation Army store. She quit Petco and got a manager's job at Salvation Army. She said Petco changed for the worse as a place to work. I'm glad I left when I did.
  • We watched the 2006 movie, The Queen, that we bought at Salvation Army earlier.
    
    
• Tuesday, 4/13: Katie's Birthday
  • Twenty-nine years ago today, our daughter was born in the hospital at Crookston, MN. Kathryn Elizabeth was 9 lbs., 6 oz. I was editor of the Red Lake Falls Gazette. Keith Axvig, my boss, let me drive the company station wagon back and forth from Red Lake Falls to Crookston to visit Mary and Katie in the hospital. It was a happy (and exhausting) beginning of our family.
  • Mary received a call that our COVID shot reservations are canceled, due to concerns with blood clots caused by the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
    
  • Mary froze and put away food that we bought yesterday. She also cut several new asparagus spears and fertilized citrus trees.
  • I transplanted 6 more strawberry plants with a grand total of 19 in 4-gallon buckets. There are 4 more strawberry crowns with green leaves yet to be transplanted, but more might wake up that are without greenery at this moment.
  • While I was inspecting my coveralls for ticks on the porch, about 75-100 white pelicans flew right over the house. I heard this weird sound, then looked up and there they were. The sound was their wing beats. They settled down into Wood Duck Pond for the night.
  • Blossoms are showing on most all of the apple trees and the large pie cherry tree.
  • I got migraine headache during dinner and then slept for an hour after eating. My headaches aren't what they were when I was younger.
    
    
• Wednesday, 4/14: More Pelican Sightings
  
  • While drinking our morning coffee, we spotted white pelicans circling out our south living room window and ran outside to watch them (see photos below). They were circling to soar higher. They are very large birds. Mary read that their wingspans are 95-120 inches, almost 8 to 10 feet wide.
  • I labeled and stored the 19 bottles of 2021 autumn olive wine. We now have 56 bottles of wine, with more on the way. I need to build wine racks for storage.
    
  • I finished transplanting strawberries by adding 7 more in single 4-gallon cat litter buckets, for a grand total of 26. There are also 9 crowns without leaves in a tub of potting soil to allow any that might be alive to wake up and start growing.
    
  • Mary did some housecleaning.
  • We had venison stroganoff with asparagus spears sauteed in homemade garlic wine with sliced garlic cloves. The garlic wine is lighter and nicer than the cheap chardonnay wine Mary has used in the past.
    
  • We talked to Katie, since we missed calling her on her birthday. Besides making up future Air National Guard drills, she's taking a class usually reserved for officers on how to organize a construction project. She'll be in Fort Walton Beach, FL through Friday, then off to Alaska, when her employer tells her to fly north later this month.
    
  • I ordered molasses, vitamin pills, and loose leaf tea from online sources.

American white pelicans circling to gain altitude.

Pelicans & a jet trail, not a bird afterburner!

• Thursday, 4/15: First COVID Shots
  
  • I called the Lewis County Health Department. They weren't giving COVID vaccinations, but took our names for a future session. I looked online and Moderna shots were available today at Hannibal's Walmart pharmacy, so I signed us up for 3:40 p.m. appointments, then we drove to Hannibal, MO, and got our first of 2 shots. Our second shots are set for May 13th. We bought a couple things and went home. The shots affected Mary to where she's feeling woozy. I just have a sore arm.
  • We saw 17 more pelicans circle to gain altitude in the morning wind.
    
  • We watched 2 movies: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Sweet Home Alabama (2002).
    
    
• Friday, 4/16: COVID Vaccination Resting
  
  • We stayed quiet for most of the day. Mary has a low fever, aches, dizziness, and a sore throat after yesterday's COVID vaccination. I have a sore left arm where the shot was administered, which grew progressively worse through the day. By bedtime, it felt like someone drilled a nail in my shoulder. I now realize that I use my left arm a great deal.
    
  • I burned all of the cardboard boxes we had in the machine shed, along with 2 cat litter buckets full of bag worms picked off cedar trees.
  • I reviewed online dandelion wine recipes.
  • Mary and I walked around and viewed all of the fruit trees. Blossoms are on cherry and apple trees. Several hops vines are showing at the NW corner of the house and near the Keiffer pear tree. These hops are purely volunteer plants. We never planted them.
    
  • While we were reviewing the Bartlett pear trees, a great blue heron flew over, squawking loudly. Mary saw 2 bald eagles in the early afternoon.
  • It was calm for the first time in weeks, today, but predicted nighttime rain means no fruit tree spraying. Besides, my arm isn't up to hoisting around a spray tank.
    
  • We watched 2 episodes of the TV show, Star Trek: The Next Generation.
    
    
• Saturday, 4/17: Blossom Abundance
  
  • The Sargent crabapple tree looks like a huge snowball, with its full complement of blossoms (see photo below).
    
  • Mary felt a little better from the COVID shot, but still not perfect. My arm is better, but I felt it more in the evening.
  • Mary did some cross stitch.
  • I picked dandelions for future wine. I pluck them in the lawn and freeze the blossoms. From my reading I learned that a quart equals 90 grams. I need 3 quarts, or 270 grams, to make a gallon of dandelion wine.
  • A thunderstorm blew up while I was picking, so I picked some whole dandelion flowers and took them inside to finish.
    
  • More green leaves are showing up on previous barren strawberry plants. Now, only 3 plants are without leaves.
  • We heard the first Henslow's sparrow during the final dog walk of the night.

  

  The Sargent crabapple in full bloom.