April 4-10, 2021

 Weather | 4/4, 47°, 77° | 4/5, 52°, 78° | 4/6, 55°, 79° | 4/7, 0.84" rain, 57°, 67° | 4/8, 0.08" rain, 45°, 53° | 4/9, 45°, 69° | 4/10, 2.06" rain, 43°, 45° |

• Sunday, 4/4: Easter Sunday
  
  • We enjoyed an Easter Sunday dinner outside, roasting pork loins on an open fire. Mary and I shared a bottle of 2020 pear wine...it matched excellently with pork. After eating, we brought the dogs outside. Once they sniffed, play-fought with one another, they rolled out in the grass and enjoyed the sun. We then ate some deviled eggs Mary fixed up before we did our roasting outside. Later in the evening, we had slices of an apple pie Mary baked in the morning. All of the food was amazing.
  • I set up a sheet of plywood on top of the wagon in the machine shed as a place to transplant strawberries, but our extended Easter meals got in the way of getting anything done.
  • Katie texted that she was at Hoover Dam.
  • Mom enjoyed Easter dinner at Patti Schipman's ranch. It's very dry in Circle, MT.
    
  • We heard a brown thrasher for the first time this morning. 
  • Today was the warmest day so far this year, so I wore shorts while outside, today.
    
  • I found hyacinths blooming next to the north woods. I want to mark them with old wire border fencing, so I can transplant the bulbs in the fall to better locations. We see them easily in the spring, but by fall, the plants are buried in weeds and brush.
  • The pear trees are showing tinges of white with emerging blossoms.
  • I finished Patrick O'Brian's 18th novel in his Aubrey/Maturin series of stories called The Yellow Admiral, and started the next novel, entitled The Hundred Days. Mary found an accompanying atlas and another book, a historical guide, in Thrift Books that I might get.
    
    
• Monday, 4/5: Purple Paint
  
  • Tree trunks marked with purple paint means no trespassing in Missouri. So, once a year I walk the property borders with a can of cheap purple paint and a brush, dabbing trees along the way. Since I'm covering old purple marks, I thin the latex paint with water, so it goes further. Mary does the south border in the fall prior to deer hunting season. After a summer of fading sun, it brightens that paint to give illegal road hunters a "NOT HERE, YOU DON'T" warning. Today I painted from the SW corner to the end of our west field, which is half of our west property border. I'm doing this now, because we have a 2-day youth turkey hunting season this weekend. I was surprised at how the spring beauties (small flowers on the timber floor) weren't blooming like they usually are right now. I guess the late winter coldness contributes to the slow start.
  • After a midday meal, I transplanted strawberries. We have several shoots which Mary pinned into Styrofoam cups of potting soil last summer. Last year, I got "sand" from a north woods creek bottom to mix into soil for buckets holding strawberry plants. It was more clay than sand and several strawberry plants didn't survive the brick-hard soil. I'm dumping out these bricks, reassembling the quarter-inch hardware cloth covering holes in the bucket bottoms, collecting the nicely decayed wood chips that were under the "clay bricks" and putting them back over the holes in the buckets, then adding better soil, compost, wood ashes, with potting soil on the top. Last year, I planted 3 strawberry plants per bucket, but this year I'm planting a single plant per bucket, since last summer, the most berries came from single plants in one bucket. I transplanted 7 plants. There are 15 more to transplant, but there might be more, because each day former dried up plants awaken with tiny green leaves.
  • The Kieffer and Bartlett pear trees are snow white with open blossoms.
  • My Samba amaryllis is now in full bloom (see photo below).
  • Besides laundry and housecleaning, Mary planted hot and bell pepper seeds. 
  • Mary weeded the garlic beds in the far garden and gave them all a fish fertilizer treat. She said they perked up immediately. Our below freezing temperatures put yellow on the garlic leaf tips.
  • We're hearing pileated woodpeckers and Eastern Towehes for the first time this year.
  • Amber, the wonder dog, rolled in nice gooey 'possum poo. She got a cold bath delivered by the outdoor hydrant.

  

  The Samba Amaryllis in full bloom.
  

• Tuesday, 4/6: Pear Blossoms
  
  • Bees are collecting nectar and pollen from our 2 pear trees, which are blossoming (see photos below). The forsythia bushes are blossoming, too, but bees don't like their yellow flowers.
    
  • I finished painting purple on trees along the west and north borders of our property. All that's left is the east border, which isn't as crucial, since it mainly is opposite of a corn/bean field.
    
  • While walking and purple painting the north property line, I spotted about 50 American white pelicans floating overhead. They never flapped their wings. Instead, they rode the southerly wind. They flew south over our property, then swung around to the NW and dropped into Wood Duck Pond.
    
  • Mary weeded the 2 blueberry plants near the Bartlett pear tree, then fertilized all blueberry plants, including 3 in plastic tubs.
  • She also weeded and fertilized the asparagus bed. Mary weeded the top of old compost bins.
  • Mary saw a 5-foot prairie king snake stretched out on the lane that just looked at her as she walked by pulling the garbage can. We also saw a mouse on the lane when we walked the dogs on their last walk of the night.
  • We watched 2 movies, Little Women (1994), and The Darjeeling Limited (2007), a Wes Anderson-directed movie that's really weird and I like it. Mary said if I want to watch it again, she'll do something else (ha, ha, ha).

Keiffer (left) & Bartlett (right) pear trees.

Keiffer pear tree in full bloom.

Bartlett pear tree in full bloom.

The large forsythia bush in bright yellow flowers.

• Wednesday, 4/7: Thunderstorms
  
  • We woke to thunder. The morning dog walk was shorter than brief. Claps of thunder overhead spurred the dogs inside. A series of thunderstorms rumbled through in the late afternoon.
    
  • The past 2 days of hiking around while purple painting property lines put pain into my left ankle, so I took the day off from activities. Being a bum meant my ankle was painless by nighttime.
    
  • Mary cross stitched a lot, while I snored.
    
  • Katie called. She's been doing a bunch of hiking and visiting surrounding national parks on her days off from training. Gambling doesn't interest her, so she's seeing other sites within the region. She sent photos of the machine she's learning to use and resulting buildings. Katie's national guard training ends tomorrow, then she flies to Gulfport and then drives to Florida to do make-up drill assignments for months she missed this year. Then, she returns to Gulfport and flies to Alaska to restart her construction job at the middle of this month.
    
    
• Thursday, 4/8: Mist/Rain
  • A steady stream of mist and rain blew through all day. We haven't had a let-up in wind, both day and night, for 2-3 weeks.
    
  • I balanced our checkbook.
  • I also investigated getting a small chainsaw for trimming branches and small 1" to 2" saplings. Hoisting the big Stihl chainsaw gets cumbersome while trimming small stuff.
    
  • Mary made a turkey dinner. For a salad, she picked tender dandelion leaves and volunteer kale from the near garden. That kale was planted in 2009 as a winter green. It volunteers every spring in the same place, even though it consistently gets pulled, yearly.
    
  • We enjoyed movie night by watching Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Crazy Rich Asians (2018).
    
  • We got emails 2 days ago that on 4/9 we could get appointments for COVID vaccines, so after midnight, I made an appointment online for the closest mass vaccination site for us, which is in Kahoka, MO, about 40 miles north of us. It's on 4/16 at 1 p.m.
  • Below is a video and photos from Katie of the gizmo that makes National Guard buildings that she is being trained to operate.
    
    
   
  Video of a machine that creates metal building pieces.
  
  
  

End wall of buildings.

Small K-span building with 1' panels.

Large K-span building with 2' panels.

• Friday, 4/9: Gardening Activities
  
  • Mary removed the chicken wire fence that encompassed most of the near garden. Once sisal twine ties were cut, the chicken wire pulled from grass and weeds, then rolled up, the 4' long persimmon stakes were pulled out of the ground. The soil is mushy from spring rains.
    
  • Mary also did some quick housecleaning.
  • I transplanted 6 more strawberry plants for a total of 13 newly transplanted in 4-gallon buckets. I put 4-5 crowns into a tub with potting soil and dead grass that may or may not be alive. Any of these that show greenery, I'll move to a full bucket. I have 11 more plants to transplant that have leaves showing.
    
  • In the evening, Mary and I walked around the north lawn and woods. A redbud tree is starting to show blossoms. We also checked cherry trees and admired the violets blooming next to the west side of the house (see photo below). When we moved here, there were just a few violets. Now, they've taken over the yards around the house. Green is starting to show behind the pear blossoms on the trees.
  • I used a rubber mallet and hit the trunk of the big McIntosh apple tree, just above the huge hollow spot at ground level, to see if bees lived in that hollow area. None emerged. I hate the idea, but I'm going to have to cut down that tree, because it's full of scab and only grows stunted and scabbed apples, passing disease to other apple trees.
  • We saw a 5' long black racer snake at the SW corner of the house (see photo below). Just off that SW house corner are a few rhubarb leaves. I must build a bed and transplant those soon.
    
  • I checked out how to build an orchard ladder, since purchasing one involves driving to Washington, Oregon, or Maine.
    
  • Katie graduated from her National Guard building school (see photos below).

Violets, that were sparse in 2009, are thick, now.

Full-grown black racer snake.

Katie graduating in Las Vegas.

Katie's certificate.

• Saturday, 4/10: Turn Off the Faucet!
  
  • We received over 2" of rain. It fell all day and night. Lakes of water are standing everywhere, creating a sloshy mess. The wind continues to howl, day and night. Today is the first of a 2-day youth turkey hunting season. They better wear a wet suit and flippers to hunt in this weather.
    
  • Around noon, a lone coyote wondered through just south of the house (see photos below). I put a video of it on Facebook. We think it was looking for mice.
    
  • I racked the 3 containers of autumn olive wine into the brew bucket, added crushed Campden tablets and potassium sorbate to stop yeast reproduction, and then bottled it into 19 750-ml bottles. The specific gravity is the same as a month ago, at 0.994, giving it an alcohol content of 12.21%. We drank the strained fines and about 2/3 of a bottle that was left over. It's got an initial taste of raisin, with after-finish taste of apricot...quite good. Aging will make it even better.
    
  • Mary created a garden plan for where everything will be planted this year.

A coyote viewed from south living room window.

The same coyote, looking at me.