June 27-July 3, 2021

Weather | 6/27, 0.03" rain, 66°, 82° | 6/28, 0.77" rain, 69°, 81° | 6/29, 1.03" rain, 69°, 85° | 6/30, 0.16" rain, 70°, 78° | 7/1, 0.12" rain overnight, 68°, 83° | 7/2, 60°, 82° | 7/3, 60°, 83° |

• Sunday, 6/27: Week Old Chicks
  
  • Our chicks are a week old, today (see photos, below). They're growing nicely. We now think we have an entire bunch of Buff Orpingtons, which means I'll be spitting feathers while butchering in 14-15 weeks.
    
  • When Mary plugged in the heat lamp, after turning it off during the hot part of the day, the light blew. I suspect the issue to be the clamp lamp fixture, which I "fixed" last fall after it blew bulbs while I worked on the house roof. I tore it apart. Connections are too rusty. I resurrected another clamp lamp fixture, which has a smaller reflector minus the bulb guard, but possesses a ceramic base. I installed an old heat lamp bulb into the fixture, and we hung it at the correct level above the floor of the chick's side of the coop. We need to get a replacement fixture, soon, since the current one is without a bulb guard.
    
  • Mary picked a large bowl of spinach leaves, processed them, and froze 5 quarts of spinach for future minestrone soups.
    
  • She also picked a half a quart of black raspberries.
  • Mary removed the row of spinach plants in the near garden.
    
  • I finished transplanting strawberries and pinning new runners. There were 17 original buckets of old strawberry plants. I added 16 new buckets, each holding a strawberry plant. I now have 49 Styrofoam cups of potting soil with runners pinned into the soil. There are only 3 buckets of soil left that once held apple tree rootstocks. Once they're filled with strawberry plants, I'm going to plant strawberries in plastic tubs or old galvanized metal stock watering tanks.
    
  • While pulling spinach plants, Mary found a yellow woolly bear caterpillar. She looked it up. It's the larvae of the Virginian tiger moth. The brown and black woolly bear caterpillars that we usually see in the fall turn into Isabella tiger moths.
  • We first heard, then saw a whippoorwill on our front porch railing after dark.
    
  • We hit the hay at a normal human bedtime, instead of our night owl going-to-bed time, so that I could get up early enough to drive 45 miles west and pick blueberries...weather permitting.

Our chicks are one week old.

Chicks at the feeder. These are Buff Orpingtons.

• Wednesday, 6/28: No Blueberries Today or Tomorrow
  
  • At 5 a.m., I checked outside. Rain was pouring down and I heard thunder in the distance. A quick check online showed thunderstorms approaching from the SW. I decided to forget blueberry picking for today and went back to bed.
  • I called Roberts Garage. Our truck is done, so we drove to Roberts to pick it up.
  • Instead of driving east, we went north and bought a new brooder light fixture at Davis Hardware in Lewistown.
  • The owner of Roberts told me GM pickups have rusty brake line issues and they replaced all of the brake lines with a stainless steel kit. The air conditioner issue involved a bad controller and fan motor, which were replaced. The distributor cap and rotor were replaced, and the engine received a tuneup. While driving home, about a mile west of Ewing, the pickup's front started bouncing. I stopped and smelled hot brakes from the passenger front wheel. We turned around and went back to Roberts. They figure rusty brake calipers aren't releasing. I asked them to look at all 4 calipers and replace them, if needed. We don't know the bill, since it wasn't calculated, but we guess it will be high, especially with the added work on brake calipers. We went home without a pickup.
  • Mary made 2 pizzas, that we had for lunch and supper.
  • Garden tours indicate that recent rains are really boosting plant growth. I nipped 4 strawberry runners and re-pinned an unruly runner trying to rise out of the potting soil.
  • Mary moved fabric from the upstairs south bedroom built-in drawers to drawers in our bedroom and sorted it all.
  • I changed out some gas can spouts with faulty gaskets to newer spouts I recently bought. I also replaced the brooder light fixture for our chicks in the coop.
  • Rain fell about every hour in short spurts. I tried to knock down poison ivy next to our lane, but every time I started to get the grass trimmer ready, it started raining, again.
  • With a 90% chance of rain predicted for Brashear, MO, near where the blueberry farm is located, I decided against trying to go blueberry picking in the morning.
  • Mary heard chimney swift chicks at head level on the second floor stairs landing through the bricks of the chimney. We purposefully don't use the chimney through the summer. These birds winter in the upper Amazon River basin. Mary also saw an indigo bunting and a blue grosbeak at the same time in the west yard. A sassy house wren follows me around the gardens, mouthing off as I inspect garden plants.
    
    
• Tuesday, 6/29: Work Between Rains
  
  • I woke up at 5 and walked downstairs. Rain was pounding on the roof and on the air conditioner metal boxes. I went back to bed.
  • Rain showers tracked through our area all day. Weather radar shows them starting in mid-Texas and traveling into Ontario...SW to NE. Rains approaching from the SW tend to materialize, whereas rain clouds approaching from other directions often dry up. Soils are saturated and water stands everywhere. The chicken yard is a muddy, slippery mess. We're not complaining. Blackberries ought to be plentiful, once they ripen.
    
  • Instead of knocking down poison ivy along the lane, like I want to do, I worked on the porch, where I can quickly move tools inside at the start of rain showers. The deck boards on our porch were installed with drywall screws. They're green treated boards, so these metal screws rusted and quit holding. Walking across that decking was like traversing several mini teeter-totters. After removing screws, I drilled new holes, followed by drilling countersinking holes, and installed new stainless steel square-head screws. The countersunk screws makes winter snow and ice removal easier. Snow shovels always hit screw heads in the past. Rain stopped me from finishing, but most of the porch now feels solid, underfoot.
  • A female hummingbird kept buzzing me as I cooked smoked eggs for our midday meal. Mary saw the doe with her fawn. Her small fawn is growing quickly.
    
  • Mary mended some clothes. She also trimmed suckers off the bay trees. She sprayed citrus trees with Dawn soap and baking soda to kill scales and powdery mildew.
    
    
• Wednesday, 6/30: Katie to Venetie, AK
  
  • Katie texted that she was flying into Fairbanks and we could call midday (her time), while she was in Fairbanks, so we did call her. Katie and 2 carpenters were flying into Venetie (pronounced VEEN-i-ty) with Wright Air in the afternoon. While Katie readies for an arrival of a C-130 Hercules freight plane, the carpenters will rebuild an old teacher housing, what Katie calls a dry building, into housing for construction workers. The Herc airplane won't carry all of their supplies. Additional smaller airplane flights are needed, since a larger telescopic boom had to be rented, due to the unavailability of a smaller unit. The new boom eats up 75% of the aircraft's weight capacity, requiring additional payloads of other airplanes. She has other concerns to handle, like sweet-talking the Venetie school into using their internet service this summer for communicating back to the main office in Anchorage. If she can get an internet connection worked out, she will take a break the first week of August for National Guard duty in Florida. Katie said she was running around acquiring supplies and tools for this summertime job in Venetie, fixing their school. On another topic, she hasn't secured her Alaska residency. One problem is the U.S. Postal Service returned all of her mail, since she wasn't at her Anchorage apartment through the winter, including utility bills and bank mail. Consequently, she had to reinstate her online banking and ensure utility companies that she was still living in her apartment. She filled out a postal card this morning, telling the postal service she lives in her apartment. It all means she doesn't have documents, yet, proving her Alaska residency, due to the mail mess.
  • I decided prior to calling Katie that I wasn't driving west to pick blueberries, due to storms moving in from the west shown on weather radar.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • I knocked down chicory stalks with the trimmer's saw blade, then cleaned up poison ivy forests behind our mailbox and halfway the east side of the lane. Poison ivy loves our recent rains.
    
  • Mary did evening chores in the afternoon while I whacked poison ivy, with more rain arriving from the west.
  • Rain fell off and on through late afternoon and evening. Mary spotted a leopard frog that took up residence in what we call Lake Cadillac, a large puddle behind the car.
  • I'm enjoying a book that Mary ordered through Barnes & Nobel, using a gift card my mother gave Mary on her birthday. It's a 2017 book entitled The Great Quake, by Henry Fountain, an excellent write-up about the 1964 Alaskan Earthquake. It contains interesting history. I wish I knew some of the information in this book about Valdez and Thompson Pass when I drove tour buses through there in the '70s and '80s.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/1: Blueberry Day
  
  • A morning online check indicated that the Lost Branch Blueberry Farm changed to being open every day this week and next week, due to huge numbers of berries becoming ripe, so I drove west to their location, which is only 8 miles shy of Kirksville, MO.
  • Their hilly location is nice. There are 3 large blueberry patches. The section I was in held the oldest bushes (see photos, below). Some are over head-high, but loaded with heavy, large berries, so their tops bent to the ground. I picked about 6 pounds an hour and came away with 12.8 pounds of blueberries. In talking to the young couple that runs the place, I discovered they hail from western Oregon. They once lived deep in the woods in Oregon. They were quite happy to be here, since the Pacific Northwest is currently in unheard of 110-degree heat.
  • After driving home, Mary packaged up the blueberries into sandwich bags of 40-50 berries per bag, that we'll use in wintertime breakfast oatmeal. I then put 10-12 sandwich bags of berries in quart freezer bags and we froze 61 bags of blueberries. They will be a nice winter treat.
  • Mary said she cleaned out several strawberry runners while I was gone blueberry picking. I picked 3 runners in a morning check. She also saw where voles nipped off corn leaf tops, so she put chocolate generic Ex-Lax pieces into vole holes in the far garden.

A bush overloaded with ripe blueberries.

Looking down the hill along 2 blueberry rows.

An entire hillside of tall blueberry plants.

Two hours of picking and 12.8 pounds of blueberries.

• Friday, 7/2: Blackberry Harvest Starts
  
  • Mary picked blackberries and dew berries while hoofing around the property. She found berries SW of the house, then beyond Swim Pond and Dove Pond in an area we call Bramble Hill. I helped her pick on that hill.
  • A plant we see on Bramble Hill that we thought was a type of milk weed turns out to be Indian hemp, also known as dogbane. It's actually in the same botanical family as milk weed. Native Americans used its bark as cordage. It's all over Bramble Hill. That hill also grows shrubby St. John's wort, partridge peas, and a plant we call mimosa, which is really named sensitive briar.
    
  • Mary found some of the tops of our pepper plants eaten, leaves eaten off a third of our sweet potato plants, and one muskmelon leaf eaten. The culprit could be deer, rabbits, but probably voles. Mary found and blocked a 1.5" tunnel under the chicken wire fence with brick pieces and added Ex-Lax into any vole hole she could locate.
    
  • Mary also weeded a third of the east row on the south end of the far garden.
  • I finished replacing rusty sheetrock screws with stainless steel screws on porch boards. In the process, I removed 5 galvanized nails and replaced them with countersunk screws, since I always hit those nail heads with snow shovels in the winter. I ran out of screws...still have to replace 48 screws in step boards, 8 screws on the porch, plus add more screws on the south and north end boards. I also want to change the railing on the steps, eliminating balusters under each handrail, which also get in the way of shoveling snow in winter.
    
  • I have 7 chigger bites on my right ankle, and 2 on my left ankle, probably because I didn't shower in bug dope when I mowed down poison ivy a couple days ago. I soaked the bites with a paper towel filled with comfrey/rosemary tea, as prescribed by Mary. It effectively stopped the itch.
    
  • Katie texted how she can send, but not receive Messenger texts, but she has 2-way capabilities with her phone's text app, so I sent her a link to this blog via a text and asked her how things are going in Venetie. Here is her response: "It's going. Lots of coordination, still. Hiring local help. Getting housing set up. Still waiting on supplies."
  • We have a Rhode Island Red hen with a green leg band that we call Greenie. She runs out of the coop while Mary feeds sunflower seeds, hides under the coop, and refuses to go inside at closing-the-chicken-door time. She's now spent 2 nights under the coop. When we saw feathers on the ground this morning, we thought she was gone. However, while Mary fed morning sunflower seeds, Greenie appeared. She had feathers missing on her back. Either something tried to grab her and failed, or she accidentally tore feathers off while going under the floor joist on the edge of the coop. Tonight, I helped Mary and shut the chicken door the moment after Greenie went inside the coop. Various tactics are needed to help these birds stay alive when dealing with chicken brains!
    
    
• Saturday, 7/3: Garden Crisis
  
  • We discovered more far garden plants eaten. This time, almost all of the corn tops were bitten off, as were all but one tomatillo plant. Fortunately, all of these plants can recover. Something went right down the NW row and munched every plant. We decided it has to be an animal bigger than a vole...something probably going through the electric fence, which isn't activated, and over the 2' chicken wire fence. We haven't turned on the electric fence, due to wire strands taken out by a deer last winter in the near garden, and major weeds growing up along all fence lines. It's time to change all of that and get the fence powered up.
    
  • We decided to split into night shifts and watch the garden for intruding critters. Mary took the first shift, from dusk to 2:30 a.m., and I took the second shift, from 2:30 into the daylight hours.
  • Mary saw several flashes in the sky from fireworks going off. With extremely liberal fireworks rules (as in none), neighbors love to spend hundreds of dollars and blow things up. She heard coyotes south and east around 1 a.m. A deer snorted just south of her on the other side of the cedars around 1:30. Then just before 2:30, an opossum walked to the south edge of the garden, right in front of her. Mary turned on the flashlight and it put 2 paws on the chicken wire, readying itself to crawl over the fence, then changed its mind and skirted the garden fence. Mary chased it around the garden and to the north. I walked out as she returned. She thinks that was our garden plant eater.
    
  • Earlier in the day, Mary and I picked blackberries, freezing 2 quarts, for a grand total of 3 quarts after 2 days of picking berries.
    

June 20-26, 2021

Weather | 6/20, 0.72" rain, 67°, 83° | 6/21, 59°, 72° | 6/22, 47°, 79° | 6/23, 65°, 81° | 6/24, 0.29" rain, 65°, 77° | 6/25, 1.87" rain, 65°, 83° | 6/26, 0.37" rain, 67°, 81° |

• Sunday, 6/20: Father's Day
  • Bill called me in the morning to say, "Happy Father's Day." He's visiting us on July 23-25. People are quitting work at his place of work like flies, making his job a challenge. He and his friend bottled a new batch of beer.
    
  • We got about a third of an inch of rain from an 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. thunderstorm. We got more rain in an 8:30-10 p.m. thunderstorm. It was a great day for rain.
    
  • Katie called after the first storm. She and 3 other people fly to Venetie, AK for a sight visit tomorrow. It's the first time UIC, her employer, has worked in Venetie, so an HR representative from UIC is going to try to do some worker recruiting. Also, the contractor involved with rebuilding the school's boiler is in attendance. They'll take measurements, photos, and check out potential housing, which is a damaged teacher's residence. They fly in on Monday and fly back to Anchorage on Tuesday. Katie hopefully starts work there on June 28th or 29th. UIC will charter a C-130 airplane from Lynden Transport, an Anchorage-based freight company, with equipment and supplies, to Venetie. Katie will be taking a break around August 1st, for Air National Guard drill in Florida.
    
  • Mary developed a shopping list and trimmed walnut trees at the beginning of our lane that have grown inward to the lane, closing off the area we drive through.
    
  • I performed a tuneup on the grass trimmer, cleaning the spark plug, air filter, and screen on exhaust port. Then, I took out tall shoots of chicory down the length of our quarter-mile lane with the trimmer.
  • Mary took photos of purple milkweed filled with butterflies north of the machine shed (see photos, below).

A purple milkweed flower.

A fritillary butterfly on purple milkweed.

• Monday, 6/21: Shopping
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy, and for probably the first time, ever, we found everything on the shopping list. The Cadillac drove marvelously, with quiet and strong brakes that didn't screech when applied. Roberts Garage did a great job.
    
  • Driving by Roberts, we noticed that our pickup wasn't sitting outside, so they're working on it.
  • Around 5:30 p.m., we got notice that our chicks were shipped from Cackle Hatchery in Lebanon, MO. They should be at the Ewing, MO post office on Wednesday morning or Thursday morning.
    
  • In today's mail was a Father's Day gift from Katie, an art print (see below) depicting the mountains across the bay from Homer, AK, done by a Homer artist. I also got the 21st unfinished book of the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian.
  • Katie sent photos of flying over the Chena River when landing in Fairbanks, while on her way to Venetie.
  • It was quite cool for here as the sun set.
  • Fledgling house wrens are skittering around the yard, attempting to fly, and making loud wren noises.
  • While doing chores, we saw flocks of red-wing blackbirds fly overhead. It's a phenomenon we usually see in March, not June.
    
  • After evening chores, we ate nachos and watched a DVD we bought today from the Salvation Army, a 2004 film called In Good Company. It's a good movie.

  

  Across the Bay art print, Katie's Father's Day gift.
  

• Tuesday, 6/22: Chicken Coop Cleaning
  • Chicks are in the mail, so I cleaned the coop. It was last cleaned in December, giving me 6 months of chicken poo to move out. I moved 8 wheelbarrow loads. Then, I installed the inside wall, separating adult chickens from baby chicks. I finished by stapling old plastic feed bags to the top part of the wall. Two sheets of lauan wood are screwed into place for the bottom of the wall. I was running late, so Mary helped by moving new hay onto the floor of the coop.
  • At 4:30 p.m., we learned that our chicks already made it to St. Louis, meaning they'll be into the Ewing, MO post office by tomorrow morning.
    
  • While I cleaned the coop, Mary mowed around the far garden fence, raked it, and almost finished mulching the NE row of the far garden. 
  • Mary also transplanted the tomatillo plants into the far garden.
  • It was growing dark when we got chickens into the coop. We counted 11, so one was missing. I found it in the NE corner of the chicken run. I chased it back to the coop, whereupon it ran under the coop. We put things away. The hen was back in the NE corner. Mary chased it back to the coop and it jumped under the coop, again. We went in, then returned. It was darker. We heard it, but the hen sounded like it was in the woods beyond the chicken run. Mary took the flashlight into the woods, but didn't see it. Then, I saw it running back to the coop. It refused to go into the open chicken door and ducked under the coop for a third time. We went inside and ate some grapes. When we returned, Venus was setting to the west and the hen was still under the coop, so we left it there for the night. Hopefully, a raccoon won't visit.
  • Before going to bed, we learned the chicks left St. Louis for Ewing. We set the alarm for 6 a.m., so we'll be ready for a call from the Ewing post office in the morning.
    
    
• Wednesday, 6/23: Karen's Birthday
  
  • Karen, my sister, is 63 today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KAREN!
    
  • When we let the chickens out, the hen under the coop joined the flock, so raccoons never visited her overnight.
    
  • We got a call at 7 a.m. from the Ewing post office that our chicks arrived. Mary and I installed the heat lamp. I drove to Ewing and picked them up. They are the loudest and liveliest chicks we've ever received, chirping and pecking all the way home. While I was gone, Mary moved the chick feed into the coop, cleaned chick waterers and feeders, and added new water and feed stations. We got 28 healthy chicks (ordered 25). They're all yellow (see photos, below), so they're probably Rhode Island Reds and Rhode Island Whites. In a couple months, we'll know for sure. They all found water and feed, immediately.
  • Mary and I planted the rest of her bedding plants into the far garden. She dug initial holes. I followed behind with a wheelbarrow of compost, adding a healthy couple of shovel loads into each hole. She followed that with 2 scoops of wood ashes, transplanted each plant, and added grass mulch. I followed that with a gallon of water sprinkled on each plant. Twenty-nine tomato plants filled the NE row. Fifteen pepper plants and 14 hills of sweet potatoes went into the SW row. We finished around 8:45 p.m.
  • I called Katie. She's working long hours trying to pull together the start of the school project in Venetie. They are trying to get supplies ordered quickly in order to have them in hand when the cargo plane flies into Venetie at the end of this month. They discovered the old pre-construction drawings UIC was using didn't have correct dimensions or roof pitch amounts. The villagers were very friendly. Why not? UIC is coming in to fix their school. The school's maintenance man told Katie to bring a fishing pole and some grayling hooks and he will take her fishing. Katie said it's a peaceful place. She forgot to get mosquito spray. Katie said she's seen worse swarms of mosquitoes at other Alaska construction sites, but the interior Alaska mosquitoes bit and stung harder. They were drilling through tough work pants in the middle of an 80-degree day. I remember skeeters like that!
  • Nature Notes: A doe and her fawn were in the lane while we walked dogs on their morning walk. Mary heard baby red-tailed hawks in the woods to the east of the far garden. She also watched a Cooper's hawk fly south to north over the far garden. Mary's buddy, the eastern king bird, landed on a nearby fence wire and watched Mary transplant plants. Ticks are atrocious. We pick an average of a dozen off the dogs after each outdoor venture. Lavish coats of bug dope keep them off us (to a point).
  • I swear that a nighttime check of the chicks showed that in 12 hours, they doubled in size.
    

Two-day old chicks.

All the chicks are adapting well to their new home.

• Thursday, 6/24: Inactivity For Us Bums!
  
  • We took the day off. We stared at the garden (transplanted bedding plants are looking great). We looked at the growing chicks. We did the dishes. It was a very dead day of activities.
  • Our rain came in the morning. Then, late at night, thunder and rain started in, again. I moved the Cadillac, since a very strong south wind was blowing.
    
  • I got a Facebook friend request from Kathe Rich. I couldn't remember her, noticed she was a Facebook friend with Alison, and asked Alison who she was. Alison said she was a resident of Wickersham Hall at UAF. She now works for UAF's Geophysical Institute at Poker Flats involved with northern lights rockets, which is pretty cool. I looked on her Facebook page until I got to an old college day's photo, and then I recognized her immediately. I obviously have more of an image memory, then a memory of names.
    
    
• Friday, 6/25: Rain Interruptions
  
  • Every time I started to try to do something outside, lightning, thunder, and rain meant I went inside. We're on a continuous wet cycle, which is good, because it's saving our blackberry crop. An added plus, the wet is stomping back tick numbers while on walks with the dogs.
    
  • Chicks are very healthy, running around in the coop, eating and drinking well, and growing.
  • Katie texted that she's working hard. She wrote, "I'm flying out Wednesday, with two carpenters and the Herc (Lockhead C-130 Hercules cargo airplane) gets there Thursday. I was busy all day ordering camp supplies and food and gathering up tools."
  • We had tortellini soup, which was really tasty. Mary says it's her way of squeezing 5 meals out of one chicken...3 meals of soup and 2 meals of chicken pot pie.
    
    
• Saturday, 6/26: We're Back in the Garden, Again (to the tune of Back in the Saddle, Again)
  
  • Mary weeded the far garden, where bedding plants are thriving after our timely rains. She even weeded part of the near garden, and pulled going-to-seed radishes. Mary fertilized all of her small citrus trees, and put iron on the blueberry bushes.
    
  • Since our blueberry crop is minuscule (we ate 2 yummy berries), I chatted with an owner of a self-pick blueberry place about 45 miles west of us called Lost Branch Blueberry Farm. They're open 8-noon on Monday and Tuesday, so I'll try going on one of those days, if weather permits.
    
  • I went to thin apples on the McIntosh tree. They're all gone. Our guess is the tree dumped all of its apples while going through the few weeks of dryness. The tree looks great, as a result of my spraying.
  • I transplanted 12 strawberry runners with roots into buckets. It then pinned 21 newer runners into Styrofoam cups of potting soil. There might be another 20 or so runners to pin down. Is it any wonder we aren't seeing too many berries...the plants are only producing runners. Soon, we'll just clip runners to get more berries.
  • Katie texted that she hiked O'Malley Peak (see photo, below) next to Anchorage.
  • We saw a doe and a very young fawn on our lane while walking dogs in the evening. This is a different pair from the doe/fawn we saw days earlier, because this fawn is almost newborn.

  

  Katie's hike to O'Malley Peak, under the clouds.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

June 13-19, 2021

Weather | 6/13, 58°, 87° | 6/14, 65°, 88° | 6/15, 57°, 88° | 6/16, 59°, 87° | 6/17, 65°, 91° | 6/18, 76°, 94° | 6/19, 0.62" rain, 67°, 91° |

• Sunday, 6/13: Garden Things, Again, Ugh!
  
  • Mary mowed the east lawn between the house and the lane, raked it into piles, and mulched another row in the far garden.
  • She made flour tortillas.
  • Mary picked another nice batch of black raspberries.
  • Water melon, muskmelon, and 2 kinds of pumpkin seeds are all sprouting.
  • I tied another 42' section of chicken wire to the end of the north end far garden fence, attached the chicken wire to all posts, and made a gate and installed it. The north end is now fenced in, something we didn't accomplish last year. I just need to anchor down each chicken wire section between posts and add stiffeners.
    
  • We celebrated fencing in the north far garden with a bottle of 2020 pear wine. It's really good wine. Since we were so thirsty from sweating outside in the heat, we also drank 64 ounce glasses of iced tea with half a lemon squeezed into each glass.
  • We watched the 2003 movie, Love Actually. We decided since Australia witnesses hot summer Christmases, watching a Christmas movie during summer heat is appropriate. See! You can justify just about anything.
  • Lightning bugs are really intense after dark. The pecan trees just NE of our house pulsate with flashes in the dark of the night.
    
    
• Monday, 6/14: Flag Day
  
  • I read that China and Russia are joining for space exploration efforts, which will start a new space race with the U.S. We humans are still tribes trying to fight one another. As Mary says, "We're still monkeys flinging dung at each other."
  • Mary mowed the east yard, raked up 19 piles of grass, and almost mulched the NW row of the far garden, the longest row of our gardens.
  • I pounded upside down Y-stakes into the middle bottoms of chicken wire sections and added stiffeners to the north end of the far garden fence. The clay ground is dry and hard, requiring me to pour water down where I pound in stakes to ease getting stakes into the earth.
  • Mary picked more black raspberries. 
  • She encountered a large prairie king snake and a garter snake in the near garden. Good! They eat voles and baby bunnies, who in turn, eat our garden plants.
    
  • Katie emailed me an interesting 1988 Anchorage Daily News article about how Venetie (pronounced VEEN-a-tye) became a dry Athabaskan village in 1972. It's where Katie is working the remainder of this summer. Because the airport is privately owned by the tribal government, Venetie (which means "Plenty Game Trail" in Kutchin, the local language) village residents can and do legally inspect all incoming luggage, packages, and mail, in order to intercept liquor. The article details how Venetie developed into a nice place to live.
    
    
• Tuesday, 6/15: A Day Inside
  
  • We decided to take a day away from outside activities.
  • Mary did housecleaning, moved some furniture around, did some cross stitching, and made a turkey and rice dish.
  • On a venture outside with the dogs, I watched a luna moth fly into the yard from the cedar trees (see photo, below). Part of its wings were damaged.
  • I racked the dandelion wine from a gallon jug and a beer bottle into the 3-gallon carboy, added a crushed Campden tablet, then transferred the remaining clear liquid into a gallon jug (see photo, below). We tasted the leftover wine after racking. It had an initial citrus taste, with a flower aftertaste. It's really good. In another month, it should be ready to bottle.
  • Mary and I watered gardens. We are drying out. With predicted highs in the mid-90s later this week, we might not see a wild blackberry crop. I plan to start watering fruit trees, tomorrow.
  • On the dogs' morning walk, a tiny bunny sat at the edge of the lane, refusing to move. The tactic worked. Our dogs never noticed it. During our garden watering detail, we heard a shrill shriek of a rabbit, saw grass moving very quickly, and watched an adult rabbit stand on its hind feet facing the commotion. I checked out the tall grass, afterward, and found a dying small rabbit. We think a mink nailed it, since the movement in the grass was much quicker than a bunny hopping along.
    
  • I finished the 20th book of the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novels, called Blue at the Mizzen. It was published in 1999 and the author, Patrick O'Brian, died in 2000. He worked on a 21st novel in this series and the unfinished manuscript was published in 2004, called The Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey. I ordered it from Thrift Books. I also ordered Harbors and High Seas: An Atlas and Geographical Guide to the Complete Aubrey-Maturin Novels of Patrick O'Brian from Alibris. I plan to go back and read all of these novels a second time with that latter book in hand. Mary says I'm nuts. I'm a happy nut. Mary, the book nut, was my enabler, and encouraged me to buy the atlas.
    
  • The lightning bugs are a marvel each and every night. It's as if we have summer Christmas trees in our yard, complete with flashing lights. I need to figure out how to photograph them.

A luna moth with damaged wings.

Racked dandelion wine (left), fines (middle & right).

• Wednesday, 6/16: Name Misspelling
  
  • Katie texted about how often her name gets misspelled. While getting an airline ticket, the agent received an email with her name correctly, K-A-T-H-R-Y-N, then booked a flight for Catherine Melvin. It happens to even common names. Mary's name sometimes gets altered to Maisy or Macy. My name often is switched to Melvin Richard.
  • Katie said she's visiting Venetie on Monday and Tuesday for a site visit.
    
  • I called Roberts Garage. The Cadillac is done, so I poured brake fluid into the pickup's master brake cylinder, drove to beyond Ewing, MO, and swapped vehicles, so Roberts can work on the pickup. The Cadillac received new front brake calipers, pads, and rotors. They also put in the power steering pressure hose. When I first stepped on the brakes, I almost put my head into the windshield. I'm not used to such responsive brakes. They used to be like, "Throw out the anchor and let's wait 'til it sticks!"
  • While driving our lane to get the Caddy, I had 5 woodcocks standing in the middle of the driveway, dipping up and down. They would not move. I think they were kids. I stopped the pickup, and got out. Then, they jumped to the side of the lane. Once I drove by, they flew away.
    
  • Mary mowed the west yard. Then, she mulched all of the onions.
  • With a predicted high on Friday of 99°, I cleaned our last window air conditioner. It was new last summer and not too mucked up, so I cleaned it quickly without taking it all apart.
    
  • Roberts Garage is a huge building surrounded by a vast gravel parking lot. Sparrows roost in the building's eaves. The Cadillac was extremely dusty with multiple bird poop gifts all over it. So, I washed the car and cleaned the windows inside and out. Several weeks of pouring power steering fluid through it put a film on the interior windows. We need rain, so maybe a combination of a clean car and a newly graded gravel road might induce the rain gods to let loose. We can only hope.
  • After walking dogs on their last walk, we stood in the north yard and watched fireflies for several minutes. They are really amazing.
    
    
• Thursday, 6/17: HEAT
  
  • It's hot! We're not only hot, but humid. Spend time outside and you return with soaking wet clothes. YUCK!
    
  • Mary made 45 flour tortillas.
  • She also weeded the carrots and parsnips. She mulched the carrots, parsnips, and potatoes in the near garden. She also mulched the rest of the NW row and a third of the NE row in the far garden.
  • I installed the last air conditioner in the north end of our home's first floor, applying packing tape on the inside and foil and aluminum tape on the outside. It took all afternoon, because I was fighting wind while forming aluminum foil into place.
  • I watered almost all of the fruit trees. I used a wheelbarrow to move buckets of water around. All together, I poured 46 four-gallon buckets of water onto all but the largest trees: the McIntosh apple and the Kieffer pear trees.
  • The last fruit tree spray I did with copper spray really helped the Grimes Golden apple tree. It's growing new leaves that look excellent.
  • I helped Mary water the gardens. We have pumpkin sprouts showing secondary leaves. Some cucumbers are sprouting. 
  • While walking dogs in the evening, we had a doe deer on the lane walk toward us, then veer off to the east. The deer are very reddish tan right now. They turn to darker gray in fall and winter.
  • After dark, I looked up how to perform bridge grafts in order to save trees with bark stripped bare from rabbits, which is something that happened to the Grimes Golden apple tree. It must be done in the spring and only if 50% of the bark is eaten off. I'll need to do a closer inspection. This spring, I thought that tree was going to die, but recent growth says otherwise.
    
    
• Friday, 6/18: Planted Sweet Corn
  
  • Mary planted 162 corn seeds in 27 hills in the NW row of the far garden. Each hill got a healthy dose of compost and wood ashes.
  • An eastern kingbird lives just east of the far garden. At one point, Mary threw some hard clay dirt clods over the east fence of the far garden while making hills for corn and immediately, that bird landed on the fence wire and squawked, as if to say, "Don't do that!" From that moment on, Mary threw clods over the north fence.
    
  • She also picked about a half of a quart of black raspberries.
  • I cleaned most of the weeds and tall grass from the chicken run with the saw blade on the Stihl grass trimmer. I left some blooming motherwort plants for the bumblebees that love them so much and tall weeds along fence lines, which help chickens hide from hawks.
    
  • I assessed the west chicken coop wall. There's a little bit of rot in a square foot where 2 OSB boards meet, but the same area is solid inside. I'll let it be for now, but I plan on replacing the west wall before winter sets in.
    
  • I helped Mary water garden plants. Zucchini and cucumber sprouts are popping through the ground.
    
  • Thunderstorms rolled through from west to east in Iowa, the lightning of which lit up the northern sky while walking the dogs after dark. 
  • The fireflies were even more impressive then ever before, because of the humid air. Hundreds were in the trees and the north yard, creating a magical, twinkling feast for the eyes against the nighttime darkness of the woods.
    
    
• Saturday, 6/19: We Get Rain, Then Faucet Turns Off
  
  • I awoke to loud rain drops on the air conditioner in our bedroom window. A walk downstairs revealed lightening and thunder in the distance, so I unplugged appliances. Later, we heard loud cracks of thunder, followed by a heavy rain around 6 a.m. It was great to get a much-needed rain.
  • Throughout the rest of the day, big billowing clouds developed overhead, moved off to the SE and drowned areas south of us. We didn't see a drop, yet in the county south of us a flood warning was issued.
    
  • Mary made 4 loaves of bread, and picked black raspberries (see photo, below).
  • I balanced our checkbook.
    
  • Mary mulched the watermelon, muskmelon, and pumpkin plants
    
  • I helped Mary with far garden weeding.

  

  Roughly a half quart of freshly-picked black raspberries.
  

  
  
  
  
  
  

June 6-12, 2021

Weather | 6/6, 61°, 85° | 6/7, 0.01" rain, 67°, 83° | 6/8, 61°, 83° | 6/9, 63°, 86° | 6/10, 65°, 86° | 6/11, 69°, 93° | 6/12, 69°, 88° |

• Sunday, 6/6: Garlic Harvest Complete
  
  • Mary dug up the last 2 garlic varieties, which are Samarkand and Shvelisi. These 2 garlic types last the longest...well into June of the following year.
    
  • Mary and I hung these last 2 garlic varieties in the machine shed rafters (see photos, below). All of the garlic will stay there until September, where breezes blowing through the building dry them to perfection.
    
  • I spent most of the day picking cherries, adding 6 quarts to the freezer. A broken upper branch of the large pie cherry tree and a glob of half-eaten cherries at the base of the tree told me that either a raccoon or an opossum ventured too far out while gobbling cherries and broke the tree branch. The wind blew hard, so I didn't try the step ladder in the tractor trailer stunt. By the time I made a full revolution around the large pie cherry tree on the ladder, additional cherries ripened on ground level. That tree looks the best it's ever appeared, so the micro nutrient/neem oil sprays work.
    
  • Last fall, the GMC pickup's engine wouldn't start. I let it sit through winter. On a whim, I tried starting it and, POW, it started. The V6 engine ran rough, at first, but after the second start, it settled down. I'm suspecting water in the gas. I'll try driving it tomorrow to get needed lawnmower and chainsaw/weedwhacker gas.
    
  • I put more mothballs in the holey plastic Gatorade bottles, which I put in engine compartments and behind vehicle tires to repel wire-chewing critters.
    
  • In the evening, I studied disease-resistant apple tree varieties, which is what we should plant, here. I also looked online for how to make Japanese tripod ladders.
    
  • Today, we saw white pelicans flying south high in the sky. Maybe they found it too dry further north and are heading south for wetter surroundings.

Garlic hung from machine shed rafters.

Cloves from the largest bulbs become the next "seed."

• Monday, 6/7: More Cherries
  
  • Mary picked cherries until thunder from above forced her inside. She didn't think standing on a metal ladder under a tree was a good place to be with thunder booming.
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
    
  • I drove the pickup to Lewistown and bought a can of Heet for its gas tank. I learned that Junior McKenzie wasn't working at McKenzie Auto, because he's at home, full-time, providing care for his wife. That explains why their shop is empty. Junior, who's in his 80s, knows all the latest in computer diagnostics with vehicles. Without him around, the mechanics side of the business is bust.
  • I drove to Roberts Garage and Towing, on the east side of Ewing, and set up an appointment to get the Cadillac fixed...replace power steering line and brakes.
  • I drove to Fastlane at Taylor, filled the pickup after putting in Heet, filled three 5-gallon cans of gas, and a 2-gallon can with 93 octane gas for the chainsaws and trimmer. I was smelling burnt brakes at various stops and noticed heat emanating from the driver's side rear wheel while fueling gas cans. Obviously that brake isn't releasing. On the way home, I stopped at Ewing to let the brakes cool.
  • I drove through downpours of rain, but there were only sprinkles at home. Such is life on our property. Mary blames me for complaining about too much rain in the past for us not receiving much rain today.
  • After thunder dwindled, I picked cherries where Mary left off. Together, we put 7 more quarts of pie cherries into the freezer...4 by Mary and 3 by me.
  • Mary harvested all but 2 radishes. We have a gallon bag of radishes in the fridge.
  • Mary also watered the near garden.
  • We have a blue grosbeak that's claimed our house as his home. He sits on a mulberry bush outside the living room window, eats green mulberries, and sings to us.
    
    
• Tuesday, 6/8: Vehicles, Planting, & More Cherries
  
  • We dropped the Cadillac off at Roberts Garage. Mary drove the car and I drove the pickup. Before leaving home, a check of fluid levels revealed that the pickup's brake fluid level was nearly empty. I half filled the reservoir with what I had left in brake fluid. We dropped by McKenzie's auto parts store in Lewistown, where I bought more brake fluid to top it off. I also bought a serpentine belt for the Buick Park Avenue. Critters chewed the last one off the car. Plus, even though plates on the Buick are outdated, we might need it if both the Caddy and the pickup are at a mechanic. The pickup's right rear brake was not overheating, today, which meant we could get by driving around with that vehicle, short term. Plans are to let Roberts work on the pickup's brakes once they're done with the Cadillac.
  • Mary planted pumpkin, muskmelon, and watermelon seeds in the far garden.
  • I picked more pie cherries, adding 4 more quarts to the freezer, for a grand total of 21 quarts.
  • I sieved my comfrey/garlic scapes concoction through an old Mid-Rivers Cable TV T-shirt. I couldn't think of a better way to get rid of that old piece of clothing. 
  • Mary watered the near garden. We had a second day of watching thunderheads develop and skirt around us. Twice, we saw rainbows east of us, but witnessed no rain.
  • Mary created huge salads, 10 deviled egg halves, and a couple rye toasts for each of us for an evening meal.
    
    
• Wednesday, 6/9: Last of Cherry Harvest
  
  • Mary picked what is probably the end of the cherries, adding 3 more quarts, for a grand total of 24 in the freezer. We also have 26 quarts from past years. I see the creation of cherry wine in our future.
  • Mary checked ripening black raspberries surrounding the yard and picked about 8, for the beginning of raspberry season.
  • She also mowed the deep grass in the north yard.
    
  • I finished installing chicken wire fencing on the south end of the far garden. I made about 25 Y-stakes from small persimmon trees I sawed down last month and pounded them into the ground between the 4' stakes to hold down the bottom of chicken wire. I also dug 14 fence stiffeners that we took off old barbed wire fences years ago from the near grain bin. I installed them in places where the top of chicken wire was sagging. It helped hold the wire upright.
    
  • I started a small fire and we cooked up smoked scrambled eggs. While stirring the eggs, we saw both a male and female rose-breasted grosbeak eating green mulberries from the tree immediately above us. There was also a blue jay and an American goldfinch. The male grosbeak is quite handsome.
    
    
• Thursday, 6/10: Animal Food Shopping Trip
  
  • We drove the pickup to Quincy. While putting brake fluid in at Fastlane in Taylor (on the way to Quincy), I saw that the pickup has a major leak from brake lines just under the driver's side door. Our Cadillac hasn't budged where we parked it at Roberts Garage. They are quite busy. We bought dog, cat, hen food, black sunflowers for chicken treats, cat litter, chick grit, a gallon of brake fluid, and a few groceries at the newly remodeled Aldi store. The pickup is perfect for multiple bags of animal food.
    
  • When we got back home, it was hot. Mary watered the garden seeds while I unloaded the pickup. We ate nachos and watched the 2017 movie, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. It's good.
    
  • After our midday movie matinee, we watered the garden.
  • Mary fertilized citrus trees and picked more black raspberries.
  • I stirred crushed Campden tablets into the garlic scape/comfrey liquid to curtail the development of wild yeasts and molds.
    
  • Via online radar, I saw a storm approaching Circle, MT. Mom texted that wind blew about 75 mph, they got about an inch of rain, power was out for a couple hours, limbs blown everywhere, and a cottonwood tree went down from her neighbor's yard onto her white, wooden fence. Karen and Lynn's camper trailer was unharmed.
    
  • I spent the evening, online, looking at apple tree disease information.
    
    
• Friday, 6/11: A Biting Bug's World
  • Deer flies are quite abundant, requiring us to bathe in insect repellent before working outside. Dogs only get short daytime walks. If they're out too long, they come inside with welts on their heads and backs.
    
  • Mary hoed weeds in a far garden row, then raked the grass she cut in the north yard on Wednesday, resulting in several large grass piles. She moved the grass in several wheelbarrow loads and mulched the row she hoed earlier.
  • I made waffles for breakfast.
  • I mowed the north end of the far garden, then pounded stakes leftover from some I cut from persimmon trees last week. These went into the ground around the north end of the far garden. The ground is dry and hard, so I had to pour water where I drove stakes to soften up the earth. I chainsawed down 3 more persimmon trees, cut them up into 4' stakes, and pounded them into the ground. The far garden's north end has longer rows, requiring more stakes, but I'm almost done with the stake portion of this job.
  • We have house wren babies chirping in a nest above the electric fence unit just inside a wooden protector box at the SE corner of the house. They heard me getting the small chainsaw ready nearby, thought their mama was near, and started squawking.
    
  • Mom texted that McCone Electric has 50 damaged transmission poles and 250 distribution poles down from yesterday's storm. Some rural customers will be without electricity for days. She added that Circle, MT residents missed some wicked hail.
    
  • Katie texted that she was offered a supervisor position on a project in Venetia, AK (NW of Fort Yukon). She's in Bethel, on her way back to Anchorage. Katie wrote, "I left Monday to go to Mertarvik to replace exterior doors and coordinate the demobilization of remaining CONEX boxes (steel container boxes shipped on boats and semis) and equipment onto a barge to Anchorage. I got back to Eek yesterday afternoon. I've been traveling a lot." She added that she will be in Anchorage for at least a week, helping to develop a project schedule.
    
    
• Saturday, 6/12: More Gardening
  
  • Mary hoed 3 rows in the far garden, handling all rows that once grew garlic. She also picked several black raspberries, trying to get enough for raspberry bars at Christmastime.
  • Mary planted 6 hills of cucumbers and 2 hills of zucchini.
  • I chainsawed a few more persimmon trees into 4' lengths and pounded the remaining stakes into the ground for a northside far garden chicken wire fence. Then, I stretched out 250' of chicken wire around posts and tied chicken wire to 9 of the 31 total posts.
  • A check out local stores online and I discovered 5' metal T-posts at Tractor Supply in Hannibal. In the future, I could use them as more permanent chicken wire posts.
    
  • We received a call from Bill. He has issues at work with employees who don't want to wear masks. His employer's policy is workers can go maskless if they're fully vaccinated. He has to enforce the rules. Bill said he's tired of "babysitting giant toddlers." Bill said the worst are semi truck delivery drivers, who he has to argue with about the mask rules. He also has new employees who quit within hours. A temp agency sends new workers without explaining work details and some leave without telling anyone they're quitting. One woman asked to go to the bathroom and disappeared without a trace. Bill is planning to visit us the end of July.
    
  • Katie called. She's in Anchorage. Katie slept most of today. She was working from 7 a.m. until 10 to 11 p.m. for several days, straight, at Mertarvik. She's also reviewing plans for her supervisor job in Venetia, AK. It involves repairing a school roof and installing new roofing tin, replacing a boiler, and fixing a utility corridor. Her employer, UIC, just got the bid. The school needs to be able to use it by the last days of August and UIC needs to be totally finished by the last days of September, so it's a quick job. Katie said it's a big opportunity for her. She added that she's nervous about it. Mary told her to just follow her gut instincts. Katie's GCI (cell provider) card wouldn't work in her cell phone, so she had poor coverage. Back in Mississippi, her 2 dogs were fighting through a fence at other dogs. Prancer, her German shorthaired pointer, accidentally bit a part of DeSoto's ear off. DeSoto is a Catahoula leopard dog. The dog caretakers tried calling Katie, to see if she wanted a vet to do cosmetic surgery on the dog's ear, but couldn't get in touch with her. Katie felt bad about the whole thing. She probably wouldn't have gone with cosmetic surgery. The good news is her dog is fine and doing well. Katie wants to get them moved north, but hears horror stories about people driving through Canada with severe COVID restrictions on U.S. citizens moving through. You can only stay at certain hotels and only buy food from drive-through restaurants. Heck, just finding a drive-through in Ft. Nelson, B.C. on the Alaskan Highway might be hard. (I just looked online...Ft. Nelson has an A&W and a Quiznos Sub...ha, ha, ha...not the Ft. Nelson of the '70s and '80s, OF COURSE!). Katie is better off waiting to move. Besides, she's going to be busy through the summer.
  • While finishing chores, Mary and I dined on the few pie cherries left on the tree. They were dead ripe and tasted amazing.