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.