April 17-23, 2022

Weather | 4/17, 0.12" rain, 31°, 40° | 4/18, 29°, 48° | 4/19, 23°, 53° | 4/20, 0.73" rain, 40°, 51° | 4/21, 0.07" rain, 47°, 67° | 4/22, 59°, 81° | 4/23, 61°, 81° |

• Sunday, 4/17: Easter
  • A gray day brought a few drops of rain, sleet, and occasional snow flurries.
  • While Mary was bringing in some firewood, mid-afternoon, the chickens were in a big fuss and Mary heard a hawk in the north woods. She ushered the chickens into the coop and closed the door, where they were protected. We don't need to lose more chickens to hawks.
    
  • We wanted to move weeping willow branches before ground became mushy, so Mary finished gleaning kindling wood from the brush pile. I moved larger branches into the machine shed, so they'll stay dry, then moved 3 trailer loads of small branches and leaves to the ravine east of the house. It feels good to have that large pile of willow branches removed from the yard, even though it delayed dinner to late evening.
  • While waiting for Mary to finish the kindling chore, I pounded 2 steel fence posts for a gate and 4 wooden posts into the ground in the near garden. About 25 more posts are needed prior to putting up the chicken wire fence.
  • We had a wonderful chicken dinner, complete with red potatoes, turkey gravy, and a bean casserole, topped off with a bottle of 2020 pear wine.
  • We watched the 1985 movie, The Goonies. It's stupid. We'll donate this DVD back to the Salvation Army.
    
    
• Monday, 4/18: Wind & Wine
  
  • A strong NW wind, with gusts to 40 mph, was good at keeping all wildlife and people under cover. It probably was tough on hunters. Today is the opening day of spring turkey hunting season.
    
  • Mary dusted books in the north bedroom.
  • She made a venison stew with biscuits for our main meal.
    
  • I cleaned 3 coolers I bought months ago with bleach. Then, I labeled 37 pumpkin wine and 5 parsnip wine bottles and stored them on their sides in my newly cleaned coolers.
    
  • We covered the strawberry plants in 36 4-gallon buckets and 4 plastic tubs with a large sheet of plastic ahead of predicted frost. We also covered the 3 tubs of radishes with blankets.
  • I got up-to-date on the wine diary and fruit tree spraying records.
  • Katie sent photos of her flight north (see photo, below), related to her work.

  

  Katie flying over sea ice in northern Alaska.
  

• Tuesday, 4/19: Spraying, Fertilizing, Mowing, Raking
  
  • There was only a slight breeze, so I sprayed fruit trees. I put Immunox (fungicide) on all of the apple trees, except for the 2 newest ones. I also sprayed it on all of the cherry trees. Sulfur went on the Sargent and prairie fire crabapple trees and the Esopus and McIntosh apple trees. Mac is showing a few opening blossoms. I was planning on spraying Fertilome (streptomycin) on the pear trees, but I spotted honey bees in the blossoms, so I held off.
    
  • Mary put fish fertilizer on the garlic, strawberries, some herbs, and the daylilies. The garlic plants were looking pale, probably due to several subfreezing mornings.
    
  • Mary mowed the north yard. I helped her rake that area. We put several wheelbarrow loads of grass/leaves into the compost bin.
  • We heard our first northern bobwhite quail, today.
  • I ordered kaolin clay, which is sprayed on fruit trees to protect the fruit from insect damage, and dissolvable wine bottle labels.
    
    
• Wednesday, 4/20: Rain & Autumn Olive Wine
  
  • It was a rainy, windy, and cold day, so we stayed inside. The ground is back with a standing water everywhere.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, chimichangas for our main meal, and developed a shopping list.
  • I racked autumn olive wine for the 2nd time. The specific gravity was the lowest I've ever seen, at 0.990. The pH was 3.2 with my favorite litmus paper and 3.6 on the crummy wine litmus paper. I added one crushed Campden tablet after draining the must off about 3/4" of lees in the 3-gallon carboy and about 1/3" in the half-gallon jug. The cleaner wine must went back into a sanitized 3-gallon carboy and a 330 ml beer bottle. We tasted leftovers. This has a stronger autumn olive taste. It's amazingly smooth, considering it's yet a green, raw wine. This is a very tasty batch.
  • In the evening, we noticed that buds are swelling on our 2 new apple trees.
    
    
• Thursday, 4/21: Shopping
  • It was a nice, sunny day.
    
  • We heard our first Henslow's sparrow of the season, this morning.
    
  • Even though it was sunny, we had to go shopping in Quincy, because we ran out of cat food. Everyone else had the same idea of shopping today. Traffic was high and stores were full of people. At one point, I had enough of pokey people and blasted down the Walmart aisle with a shopping cart. Mary was struggling to keep up and a woman said to Mary, "He's leaving you behind," to which Mary replied, "I know! Have you got a lasso?" The woman laughed for the longest time. Mary calls that my road rage incident. I bought another cooler for wine storage at the Salvation Army store. We found parsnip seeds at the Burpee Seed display in Menards. Gas was $3.69 a gallon, 20 cents less than the high last month. Spotting our pickup in a parking lot is easy, since the topper sits higher than most. We just look for the maroon color on top of a rusty green truck and "voilà," there it you have it.
    
  • We watched a movie we bought for $3 at Salvation Army, today. It's the 2011 movie, The Big Year, starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson. It's about 3 guys trying to see the most birds in North America in one year. It's unique, funny, and quite good. Critics didn't like it and it bombed at theaters. We like it.
    
    
• Friday, 4/22: Weeding, Dandelion Picking, & Garden Stake Pounding
  
  • The winds are howling yet another day, preventing me from spraying fruit trees.
  • Higher temperatures brought out more Asian ladybugs that Mary vacuumed several times.
  • Mary weeded the asparagus and garlic beds.
  • Mary saw the first giant swallowtail butterfly of the season.
    
  • We checked fruit trees. Sixty percent of Big Bart is blossoming. Hundreds of native bees are in pear blossoms of that tree and the Kieffer pear tree. Our honeybee numbers are low. Mary and I each saw one bumblebee, so those numbers are down, too. Pink buds are on several trees that were in the silver bud stage for weeks. About 5-10% of the Mac blossoms are open. There is nice bud swell on our 2 new apple trees.
  • I picked dandelion blossoms for an hour and froze 9.6 grams of dandy petals. I had to pick a dozen flowers at a time, then go inside to strip petals from the flowers, due to the wind. I need 270 grams at 90 grams a quart, for the 3 quarts to make a 1-gallon batch of dandelion wine, so there's lots of picking in my future.
  • I pounded all of the 4' persimmon posts into the ground in the near garden. Next is installing the chicken wire fence.
    
  • Mary and I looked up parsnip growing information...Mary's source was an old Rodale book on gardening and my sources were online.
    
    
• Saturday, 4/23: Planting Snow Peas
  
  • A healthy deer crossed the lane and ran west as we went with the dogs on their morning walk.
  • Southerly winds gusted to 50 mph, today.
  • Mom texted that while I talk of blossoms and bees, she and folks in eastern Montana have blizzard warnings, snow drifts, and temperatures barely above freezing.
  • Wind blew pear blossom petals away, today. Blossoms are on a couple cherry trees, Sarge, Esopus, and the McIntosh apple tree is really filled with blossoms. Tiny native bees are all over the Mac blossoms.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas and fajitas for our main meal.
  • I picked about 9 dozen dandelion flowers and plucked 34.9 grams of blossoms for a total of 44.5 grams in the freezer. I have only 225 grams to go to make a gallon of dandy wine.
  • I mowed the near garden, again, setting the mower low. The blade edge sucked into a mound of wet soil and bent it down. It's a replacement blade made from cheap Chinese steel...good riddance! I took down the old blade hanging on the machine shed wall, which is made of better steel, worked the edge on the grinder, sharpened it further with a file, then finished mowing the garden.
  • I unwrapped the chicken wire fence around most of the posts in the near garden, then started tying the chicken wire to the posts with sisal twine. I'm 3 posts away from the halfway point of going around that garden.
  • Mary weeded all of the near garden, using a hoe in some places to take out tiny weeds.
  • She then planted 2 rows of snow peas in the near garden. She was going to plant spinach, but  threatening storm clouds ended garden work. These clouds just looked nasty and fell apart by the time they got to us.
  • Mary picked about two dozen asparagus shoots that we ate as an appetizer for supper. She sauteed them in garlic wine with garlic slices. The clear wine changes to a pink color and tastes different...quite delicious. We need to create more and larger asparagus beds!
    
  • Katie called. Prancer, her German shorthaired pointer, is sick with stomach issues. Prancer is scheduled for a vet visit on Monday. Next week, Katie flies north, again, in prep of work on village water tank repairs. She's getting ready for being away most of the summer, which starts May 9th.