July 11-17, 2021

Weather | 7/11, 2.55" rain, 63°, 67° | 7/12, 0.14" rain, 63°, 68° |7/13, 63°, 81° | 7/14, 65°, 85° | 7/15, 1.06" rain, 70°, 83° | 7/16, 0.14" rain, 65°, 80° | 7/17, 61, 80° |

• Sunday, 7/11: Really Wet!
  
  • Between midnight and 9 a.m., we received almost 2.5 inches of rain. In the last 2 days, we've seen 3.93" of rain. We're up to your eyeballs in water. This should put berry production over the top.
  • After I wrote the above bullet point, we went over 2.5 inches of rain, with a heavy mist, interspersed by rain, throughout the day. We experienced dryness for the first half of June. Since June 19th, we have received 11.93" of rain, or close to a foot of rain in 3 weeks. Is it any wonder that frogs are singing just outside our front door?
  • The SE part of our roof is failing, with shingles disintegrating and getting blown off by the wind, because they were put on without tar paper under them. Rainwater drips into the sunroom through the ceiling. Right after I sent a video (see below) of rain running off that portion of the roof to Mom after she asked in a text to send rain her way, part of the plaster board on the ceiling collapsed and was precariously propped from falling to the floor by a bent light fixture. I used several long sheet metal screws and zipped it back up into place. It will need replacement, but not before I redo the roof to stop the leaking.
  • On our morning dog walk, a doe deer ran from our yard, across the south field to Bluegill Pond.
  • Katie called around noon, our time. She had to do Air National Guard work on her day off, so she was up early today to get that accomplished. Some supplies came in on C-130 Hercules and DC-3 airplanes. More supplies, such as paint for the teacher's quarters, where the workers will live, is yet to arrive. Removing rugs in that building revealed squalor from old cat urine, requiring scrubbing and paint, which she ordered. They've deconstructed most of the school building's utility corridor. Removing roofing revealed rotten roof structural damage, requiring additional blueprints to be drawn up and approved before moving forward. A lift station, probably full of sewage, is held up with floor jacks, that will require structural repair. Katie, as the boss, starts work early each day, around 6 a.m., and ends work around 6 p.m., or later, so she doesn't have much spare time. The first sunset at Venetie, located north of the Arctic Circle, was yesterday. She's experiencing mild weather, which is helpful.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, followed by venison fajitas. They were amazing. Amber loves licking the balsamic vinegar juice leftover on the plates...silly dog!
  • We enjoyed a bottle of blackberry wine in the evening. Even though it was bottled on May 30th, it has an excellent smooth taste.
  • Mary is enjoying Under the Sea Wind, by Rachel Carson. I'm reading The Great Quake, by Henry Fountain. I remember parts of what he describes about the Good Friday Quake in Anchorage, where we lived at the time. He goes into details about Valdez and Chenega, which are amazing. It's an excellent book that I highly recommend reading.
  Rainwater falling off the SE corner of our roof.
  

• Monday, 7/12: In the Heart of Blackberry Season
  
  • I picked blackberries. They are large and plentiful, so much so that I was only able to partially pick in two of the four areas we find blackberries on the property. Two deer snorted at me through the trees when I was on the top of Bramble Hill. I ended up putting 4 quarts in the freezer, with another 3/4-full bag in the refrigerator freezer.
  • Mary cleaned house and made 2 quiche pies.
    
  • A doe was on the lane when I got the mail. She wandered to the west and watched me go by, but was gone when I returned. They're a deep red/brown color, now.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/13: Picking Berries, Picking, Picking, Berries, Berries
  
  • I picked blackberries. The only berry patch I didn't get to was the thickest patch on Bramble Hill. I added 5 more quarts to the freezer, giving us a grand total of 16 fat quarts for the year. With ever-expanding freezer contents, Mary said if I pick a whole lot more, I'll either have to buy her a new freezer, or go instantly from picking to winemaking. There are many red blackberries that haven't ripened, yet, on our property. Berries are ripening fast. Several places I picked yesterday revealed new ripe berries today. A hike to the south showed that blackberry bushes extend pretty much along the entire area just east of the trees of the south woods. Our blackberry patches have expanded.
  • Mary weeded several rows of the far garden. Some corn is getting munched up by worms and most of it is bent over from last weekend's storm. Onions aren't looking keen...too much moisture. All melon types are looking good. There are several green strawberries. Carrots and parsnips are thriving. Potato plants are starting to die back, indicating they'll need digging in the near future. Tomato plants are starting to bloom.
    
  • I saw 2 deer today. The first was a large buck with a big rack full of velvet that burst out from behind a hog Quonset hut at the top of Bramble Hill. The second was a small doe that roared through the gate of the fence just beyond the north yard when I was walking dogs in the evening.
  • We figured out a bird riddle. There is a bird call we hear in the north woods that sounds like a flute playing multiple notes at once. I used to hear the same sound in Homer, AK, while going to sleep in a tent. I did a search for "bird call like a flute with multiple notes" and found it was a wood thrush. But, these birds don't summer in Alaska. I probably was hearing a hermit thrush in Homer.
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/14: Berries and Weeding
  
  • I picked blackberries in all areas except the south field and put 4 more quarts into the freezer. A yearling deer ran away when I got near Swim Pond. It was especially humid and hot on the top of Bramble Hill. I came away with itchy arms. I thought it was from poison ivy, but after bathing, I'm pretty sure the itching is from chigger bites. They love heat and picking blackberries on top of Bramble Hill involves delicately high stepping around a jungle of spiny blackberry stalks, some that are over 6 feet high.
    
  • Mary finished weeding the far garden. There is no lack of moisture. Several weeds left the ground with a gushing sound as water filled the hole left behind by the plants. Mary fertilized the south end of the far garden, which includes all melons, pumpkins, cucumbers, and squash, along with the corn at the north end of the far garden.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/15: Swampy Times
  • Over an inch of rain fell, today. We've had 7.14 inches so far in July. We got 5.87 inches in June and the rain started falling on June 19th. So, in about a month, we've received 13.01 inches of rain. July is usually our dry month, but not this year.
  • Mary checked the garden. Where she fertilized, the plants that were starting to yellow are deep green. More beans are sprouting and 8 acorn squash plants are up.
    
  • Mary made turkey pot pie. She also sewed backings on Halloween ornaments. Mary did all of the chores, since I was gone.
  • Free asphalt shingles were advertised in Quincy and a response to my request to pick them up came in around 5 p.m., so I drove the pickup to Quincy and loaded them (see photo below). They job leftovers from a roofer called Be Dry Roofing. I don't yet know how many I have, but it's a good start on getting shingles to redo the SE corner of our home's roof. It will be a multi-colored roof, but we don't care. Free is always a good price.
  • While in Quincy, I picked up our rubber boot order at Home Depot. Now Mary can walk outside in dry boots. I also got a couple grocery items at Aldi.
  • I drove through a couple of massive downpours of rain. The pickup handled very well. It was still nice and level, without sinking in the rear, with asphalt shingles level to the top of the wheel wells.

  

  A pickup load of free shingles.
  

• Friday, 7/16: More Rain & Blackberries
  
  • Clouds covered us until after dark. We got more rain. Water lays everywhere, which prevents mowing, so all of our lawns look like hay fields, with grass as high as our knees.
    
  • Mary and I picked blackberries in all areas except the west field. We put an additional 6 quarts into the freezer, for a grand total of 26 quarts of 2021 berries. With all of the rain, blackberries are plentiful.
  • While I was picking berries near Swim Pond, I kept hearing big fish jumping. I looked and they were attempting to catch dragonflies getting close to the pond's surface.
    
  • When we walked dogs in the evening prior to sunset, we saw close to 50 dragonflies dodging about on the lane.
  • A crop duster has been taking off from the air strip at the dairy a mile west of us for several days. Heavy rains and winds fail to stop him. Pesticide and herbicide labels and spraying recommendations mean absolutely nothing to this guy. It was raining hard at one point while he took off with another load of spray to kill plants. All it means is Roundup gets washed off into the waterways. Thanks, Jackass!
    
  • I finished The Great Quake, by Henry Fountain, a good read.
    
  • We watched the 2014 movie White House Down.
  • Fireflies are almost done for the year.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/17: Kindling & Shingles
  
  • Mary broke up and hand sawed dried branches in the machine shed into kindling. She then collected downed branches in the yard and moved them into the machine shed to dry.
  • While collecting sticks, Mary heard chimney swift babies from near the top of the chimney. They'll be flying around, soon.
    
  • I took the 1-inch plastic round caps off Grip-Rite nails, and added them to the sheet metal screws holding sheet rock up on the sunroom ceiling in order to give the screws a better hold. I added more screws, too. Next, I cleaned the ceiling with a bleach/water solution to kill mold and swept up the floor.
  • I backed the pickup to the east end of the machine shed and started moving asphalt shingles to a dry location on a cement pad in the shed. Several of these shingles are slammed on top of one another and when pealed apart, the tar strip peals granules off the underlying shingle. I carefully added plastic in places where it was missing and stacked the shingles so that this sticking won't occur, again. It's meticulous work that takes time. I'm working on several brown architectural shingles and have 30 of them in a nice stake. There are another 11 with some granules pealed off. I also have 42 good hip shingles and 43 bad ones with pealed granules. There are a lot more shingles to get out of the pickup.
  • We picked 10 nice strawberries out of the garden. We keep nipping off strawberry shoots to encourage fruit production. Mary says all existing garden plants are growing nicely. Acorn squash hills have sprouts, some hills with as many as four. Beans are another story. Whole stretches are bare. But, there is cracked soil, so more might emerge.