August 22-28, 2021

Weather | 8/22, 57°, 85° | 8/23, 65°, 89° | 8/24, 70°, 92° | 8/25, 72°, 89° | 8/26, 67°, 93° | 8/27, 67°, 92° | 8/28, 72°, 89° |

• Sunday, 8/22: Mary Haircut
  
  • I gave Mary a haircut.
  • In the morning, I noticed that the electric fencer wasn't lighting up lights to the very top, which meant wet weeds and grass were growing into hot wires on the electric fence. That's not good with corn nearing ripeness and raccoons wandering around. So, it's time to clean weeds.
  • I mowed around the near garden, which took a bit, since the grass was knee-high. 
  • After starting to knock back grass and weeds on the outside of the electric fence around the near garden, I found the grass trimmer engine sputtering. I removed the exhaust outlet and the screening just inside the outlet was blocked with carbonized oil residue. I cleaned it with carburetor cleaner and a wire brush and it then worked like a charm. I finished whacking weeds on the outside of the near garden, then eliminated grass/weeds on the inside and outside of the far garden's electric fence. I finished as the sun was setting.
    
  • Mary processed and froze 2 more quart bags of muskmelon, 4 quarts bags of shredded zucchini, and finished off a gallon bag of tomatoes for the freezer.
    
  • She picked 3 more New England long pie pumpkins, a green pepper with a hole in it, a handful of green beans, several tomatoes (include 2 of the first large tomatoes), and strawberries.
    
  • Mary also watered all garden plants.
  • She took a photo of a pretty milk snake she found on the north side of the house (see below). The dried willow leaf next to the snake is about 2" long, so this is a small snake.

  

  A milk snake next to the house.
  

• Monday, 8/23: Muskmelon Ripening
  
  • We picked 10 muskmelons. Some are ripening within an hour after looking at them when they were fine. Our pantry has an amazing smell.
    
  • Mary froze spoon scoops out of 3 melons. She also picked tomatoes, beans, and strawberries.
    
  • We watered all garden plants.
  • Mary made a shopping list.
  • I finished weedwhacking the inside of the near garden.
    
  • We're noticing weird seasons this year. For instance, we still see lightning bugs at night and there are still deer flies biting. Usually, both of those bugs' life cycles end by mid-July.
    
  • A new hat I ordered from Bass Pro arrived. It's nice. Also, a Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue that Mary ordered arrived.
    
  • We ordered a 6-quart Revere ware pot. The old one Mary got as part of a pot set from her mother when we married has a faulty bottom, even though we still use it. Revere Ware doesn't exist, but their pots are very popular, and for sale, used, online.
    
    
• Tuesday, 8/24: Shopping in the Heat
  
  • We drove to Quincy in the Cadillac and shopped. We saw very few masks on people in Quincy, even though their hospital is full of COVID patients. It was 95° in Quincy...too damn hot.
  • Shopping and driving in Quincy with little minded people bustling around in an all-fired hurry always makes us appreciate our quiet and in-the-country home, once we arrive back from the shopping trip.
    
  • After we got home, we found 1 rotten muskmelon in the garden. It smelled like fruity whiskey. We picked 3 more muskmelons. We watered all garden plants in just 45 minutes. We were both walking fast and panting.
    
  • Bill called. He's tired of work...not much advancement and too hot working in an non-air conditioned warehouse. He's visiting us for Labor Day week.
  • We had thunderstorms skirting by us to the next county north of us after dark. We shut chicken coop windows and went to bed late, after waiting to see if it would hit us. It didn't.
    
    
• Wednesday, 8/25: We Are Garden Slaves!
  • Mary and I picked produce out of the gardens just after noon. The heat was brutal! We collected 4 muskmelons and 1 big New England long pie pumpkin. Mary picked a plastic shopping bag of green beans. Together, we picked several tomatoes and Mary got a bunch of tomatillos.
  • After an hour of scooping out the insides of 15 muskmelons (see photos below), Mary froze 13 quarts of muskmelon meat. She also froze 3/4 of a gallon of tomatoes, and 1.5 gallons of tomatillos.
  • I picked the first of autumn olives (see photo below) and froze 2 quarts of these berries.
    
  • Mary and I watered the gardens.
  • When I walked down to get the mail after sunset, coyotes were howling in the north woods and I saw the doe deer with her 2 fawns run across the neighbor's lawn across the gravel road from our mailbox. The fawns are now almost the size of Mama.
  • The humidity is high enough to condense water on our windows, due to the fact that we keep the inside of our house cooler than outside air with air conditioners.
    
  • We watched the 2013 movie Star Trek Into Darkness that Mary bought from the Quincy Library book store for $1 on our last shopping trip.

15 muskmelons, long pie pumpkins in background.

Scooping muskmelon meat for freezing.

An autumn olive tree filled with berries.

• Thursday, 8/26: A Pickin' and a Grinnin'
  
  • We were back in the heat right after noon and picked 5 muskmelons, 4 ears of sweet corn, several more tomatoes, a few green beans, and a few strawberries.
  • Mary froze another 5 quarts of muskmelons, giving us a grand total of 25 quarts in the freezer. We determined that the best tasting muskmelon is Golden Gopher, developed by...you guessed it...the University of Minnesota.
    
  • As usual, we watched a line of thunderstorms drop down from Iowa, split just north of us, and go right by us. Thunderstorms and high winds took out electricity outside of Quincy, IL, east of us.
  • We watered all gardens.
  • Divergent light from the sun setting and shining through and into thunderstorm clouds gave our property a weird orange glow.
  • We stepped out on the porch to look at the odd lighting and several night hawks flew over top of us, heading east.
  • We had an evening meal of omelets, corn on the cob, piccalili, cherry tomatoes, and rye toast. It was really a cheap meal, because we raised everything except the rye toast and the margarine that went on it.
    
    
• Friday, 8/27: Packing Away Food
  
  • We washed 4 food quality buckets and Gamma seal lids and filled them with flour. A 25-pound sack of flour fits perfectly into a 5-gallon bucket. Mary also put various types of pasta into a large tote, freeing up space in the pantry. The tote went into the upstairs north bedroom.
    
  • Mary pulled all of the quart bags of autumn olives out of the freezer and put them on the front porch to thaw. We had some dating back to 2018. We need to reduce items in the freezers to make room for incoming garden produce.
    
  • I made a 5-gallon batch of autumn olive wine. Twenty-four bags gave me the 20 pounds of fruit needed for 5 gallons. After tying off a full nylon mesh bag, I poured 2 gallons of boiling water over the bag of fruit. While it cooled in a sink filled with cold water, I added 8 pounds, 12 ounces of sugar to get specific gravity of 1.084...perfect for just under 12% alcohol. Yeast nutrient (6.25 teaspoons) and 5 crushed Campden tablets went into the brew bucket. I let it sit overnight, covered with a flour sack towel. I tossed 6 bags of 2018 autumn olives after using 3 bags in the wine.
    
  • Mary picked 33 cobs of corn, 4 watermelons, 3 muskmelons, a bunch of tomatoes, and a few green beans. It's too hot for beans to set on the flowers.
  • Mary watered the far garden. I got to watering late, due to winemaking, but helped her by watering the near garden.
    
  • After baths and eating, Mary processed corn and froze the corn (see photo, below).
    
  • While walking our lane to get the mail, I heard a whip-poor-will to the west. A night hawk flew just 5-6 feet above my head. I think it was looking for a place to roost for the night. When I check the garbage can that still wasn't picked up since I took it down Tuesday night, a big praying mantis was looking at me from atop the garbage can lid.

  

  Mary wraps ears of corn with plastic. About 13-14 go into
  a 2-gallon freezer bag, then they're frozen. Taste great later.
  

• Saturday, 8/28: More Garden Harvest
  
  • I picked about a third of a bucket of tomatoes. Mary picked a few tomatillos. She checked corn and what's left isn't ready. Mary picked several green beans. I picked 3 and Mary collected 1 muskmelon. Mary found 16 hornworms, 7 army worms, and some completely unidentifiable worm drilling through a green tomato.
    
  • The first Pride of Wisconsin muskmelon ripened, so we ate it. We're not impressed. It's fine, if that's all you grow, but a couple others we grew this year are better. Golden gopher is the very best. The second best is Hannah's Choice. We got honey rock muskmelon seeds from a Burpee stand in Home Depot. These seeds grew into tiny melons with meat as hard as a rock. We once got honey rock seeds from Pinetree Seeds...much better, but expensive, now.
    
  • Mary froze 1.5 gallons of tomatoes, and 4 quarts of muskmelons for a grand total of 29 quarts in the freezer. With one more quart, we have our muskmelon quota for the freezer and we'll have to suffer and eat the rest out of the garden. The tomatoes we grow come in several colors (see photo, below).
    
  • I put 5 teaspoons of pectic enzyme in the autumn olive wine, then for 12 hours, worked up a starter of Lalvin Bourgovin RC 212 yeast for the wine. This yeast starter was bubbling nicely (see photo, below), right before I pitched it into the autumn olive wine must. Before adding yeast, I checked the specific gravity and it was still at 1.084. A pH check gave me a reading of 4.0, which is the same as my last autumn olive wine batch at this stage. Now I wait a few days.
  • I texted Katie and then she called us. Her crew has about finished up most of the project that they can finish. She put in 90 hours last week. School is back in session. COVID has greatly pushed back their order of roof metal, so it won't arrive to Venetie, AK before sometime in October, when the crew will have to return and finalize its installation. Katie caught a stomach flu bug from returning school kids. Yesterday, the village had a cookout of hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, and such. Katie ate to be polite. A few hours later, it all came back up. She can only keep down saltines and water. She's looking forward to a day off, tomorrow, so she can rest.

The multiple colors of our tomatoes.

A robust quart jar of wine yeast.