May 22-28, 2022

Weather | 5/22, 38°, 68° | 5/23, 42°, 69° | 5/24, 52°, 70° | 5/25, 1.66" rain, 57°, 73° | 5/26, 0.40" rain, 55°, 75° | 5/27, 0.37" rain, 51°, 69° | 5/28, 49°, 79° |

• Sunday, 5/22: New Strawberry Plant Starts & Shopping
  
  • Mary sorted through all stored garden produce and threw away bad ones. Items, such as squash, onions, and garlic, last a lot longer than predicted with Mary's system of storing.
    
  • She weeded parts of the near garden, and checked garlic scapes. Our garlic plants are a week behind the usual grow dates.
  • Mary started 12 strawberry plants from shoots that are showing.
  • I cleaned out the Buick. Old Styrofoam fish shipping coolers from Petco filled the interior. After vacuuming out mice poop, I scrubbed the inside with Lysol. The bucket of water I used to clean outsides of windows was black once I was finished. Despite the look of mange, from peeling clear coat on top of the car's paint, it looks much better. The battery didn't work, again, so I charged it.
    
  • I shopped in Quincy, driving the Buick. Shopping on Sunday is a poor idea, but we needed pet food. Stores were packed and several items were out of stock. Prices are much higher. I filled the Buick's brake fluid reservoir 3 times. It leaks. A ton of things need fixing on that car. But, it got me there and back. I got a new battery from Sam's Club for the car. From AutoZone, I bought new wipers and an air filter. Gas is $4.19 at Fastlane. It's $4.89 in Illinois. I hate shopping, especially by myself, and driving a wreck. I was glad to be home at the end of the day.
  • While unloading the car, Mary experienced a hummingbird buzzing the back her head, under her hat's brim...rather unusual.
    
  • We had nachos and watch the 2018 movie, Crazy Rich Asians.
    
    
• Monday, 5/23: Mowing and Whacking
  
  • Mary mowed the south and east yards.
  • I fixed the Stihl grass trimmer's spark arrestor, according to directions from guys behind the Stihl desk at Quincy's Farm & Home store, and it works better than ever before.
  • I took down tall grass around the near garden with the trimmer fit with the blade. I also went halfway around the near garden, whacking down grass between the electric and chicken wire fences.
  • I helped mow when Mary took a drink break. Mary raked up all of the grass into piles and moved clippings to mulch the last row in the south end of the far garden. I helped her move clippings.
  • A quick check of fruit trees shows that bug damage is halted and several apple trees need fruit thinning. The big cherry tree is loaded with growing fruit. The sweet cherry has wounded fruit. Something went wrong. I can only count 11 developing pears on the big Bartlett tree.
  • Bill and I texted about maybe changing the brakes on his car when he visits Memorial Day weekend.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine (see photo, below). It's very tart, because I went overboard on the acid blend, but it tastes great. It's really smooth. Mary says, "You can drink it like water." I wouldn't recommend doing that, though. The taste of pumpkin and raisins is strong, yet cinnamon taste is weak to nonexistent. Perhaps the higher acid amount knocked out the cinnamon.
    
  • We saw fireflies for the first time this year while walking dogs after dark.

  

  Our first taste of 2021 pumpkin wine. It's good.
  

• Tuesday, 5/24: Whacking & Mulching
  
  • I ran the weedwhacker with the steel blade to knock down grass under fruit trees south and west of the house.
  • We found weird, white, fibrous material on suckers at the base of the big Liberty apple tree. Mary looked it up and it's downy mildew. She has a spray bottle of baking soda, Dawn dish soap, and water, that she uses to kill powdery mildew. She sprayed this downy mildew with it and the mildew instantly vanished.
  • Mary picked up hay from tall grass I cut yesterday and today. She used it to mulch the 2 bigger Liberty apple trees.
  • I took the trimmer back to the near garden and cut down more grass. Rain stopped my progress.
  • I picked our first strawberries of the year. I also pulled 2 dozen large radishes from the near garden.
  • Mary made 2 pizzas. We ate one midday and the other in the evening.
  • Bill sent texts about tools he bought to use while changing his brakes this weekend.
  • We watched 2 movies...the 2017 movie, Beauty and the Beast, and the 2013 movie, Whitehouse Down.
  • We noticed over an inch of rain in the rain gauge on our last dog walk.
    
    
• Wednesday, 5/25: Studying a Brake Job & Racking Autumn Olive Wine
  
  • Even though we received over 1.5" of rain overnight, most of it soaked into the ground. Still, light rain or mist fell throughout the day, so going outside was wet.
  • I studied details of replacing brakes on a 2010 Hyundai Sonata (Bill's car). I watched 3 videos on the topic and listed needed parts. Bill and I texted a few times, about it.
  • Mary made a venison General Tzo meal.
  • The part I ordered for the pickup came in today's mail.
  • With an evening break in the weather, Mary picked strawberries, while I picked radishes. 
  • A deer nimbled some branches and green berries off the best producing blueberry bush. DAMN!!!
    
  • Mary heard American toads trilling after nightfall.
  • I racked the autumn olive wine for the 3rd time. The specific gravity was still 0.990 and acid content was also unchanged. I added 2 crushed Campden tablets, cleaned the 3-gallon carboy and refilled to capacity. We had just shy of 300 ml left over, so we drank it. The wine is clear and has a solid autumn olive taste. There's an alcohol taste, but it will go away with aging. It's a very good, smooth wine.
    
    
• Thursday, 5/26: Rain & Little Green Apples
  
  • The moment I finished this blog, writing about no puddles from recent rains, we got a third of an inch of rain in about 10 minutes. Water stood everywhere, including under the pickup, where I'd have to lay to fix the electrical connection on the engine...so much for accomplishing that job! We've received 2.43 inches of rain in 3 days.
    
  • Mary baked 4 loaves of bread.
  • I thinned small apples on the Esopus, the large, and the skinny Liberty apple trees. It looks like deer are not frightened anymore by fish line, because a lot of the Esopus lower branches are munched.
  • Some online fruit growers advocate bagging growing fruit by slicing corners off a zippered sandwich plastic bag, cutting a slice in the center of the zippered part and placing it over the small fruit. It's supposed to protect the fruit from bugs and disease while it grows. We question whether summer heat will fry the fruit. I'm experimenting with the idea. I put 6 sandwich bags on the Esopus and 6 on the big Liberty apple trees. We'll see what happens.
  • Mary finished weeding the peas. She also filled a plastic grocery bag with scapes cut off the garlic, while I picked strawberries and radishes. Big black clouds developed and Mary got wet at the start of the cloud burst.
    
  • After an evening meal and washing dishes, I cleaned 18 wine bottles to get enough to bottle an upcoming batch of blackberry wine.
    
  • Katie sent Mary a video of angry ravens after she disturbed their nest. She also sent a photo of whale baleen. She texted about Project Chariot, a plan of using nuclear bombs to create a harbor at Cape Thompson, which is near Point Hope, where Katie is currently working. In 1962, that idea was squelched, so instead they buried nuclear waste to measure its effects on native plants and ground water. In the 1990s, documents were uncovered by a University of Alaska researcher about the project. High radioactive levels were recorded at the burial ground. Point Hope residents raised a stink, since their community was experiencing high levels of cancer, and demanded that the contaminated soil be removed. It was. Here is a Wikipedia article about it and a Bureau of Indian Affairs pamphlet about it.
    
    
• Friday, 5/27: Mary's Birthday
  
  • Mary cleaned house and made a blackberry crunch for her birthday, which is today.
    
  • I thinned apples off the McIntosh apple tree to where I can reach with an 8-foot ladder. A few deer are helping me thin fruit and leaves off lower branches. It took all day to do this job.
    
  • Bill arrived around 8:30 p.m. He drove here from his work place. The dragging rear brakes of his car means his fuel economy is lower and at every stop, heat pours off his back wheels.
  • Bill gave Mary a hori hori knife. It's Japanese for "dig, dig." It originated with bonsai trees, but it's become the gardening "go-to" tool. Both Katie and Bill gave Mary fabric-related gift cards for her birthday.
    
  • I sprayed Bt insecticide on all apple and crabapple trees, except the Sargent crab. I started after supper and ended around 1 a.m.
    
    
• Saturday, 5/28: Brake Follies
  
  • The south wind howled today.
  • Bill and I worked on the rear brakes of his Hyundai Sonata. After opening up the passenger rear brake, we discovered that Rockauto sent Bill the wrong brake rotor, because his new rotors are too big. Bolts holding the caliper in place are too rusty and need replacement. 
  • We drove the Buick to Quincy and bought the correctly sized rotors, bolts and washers from Autozone. 
  • After returning home, we easily removed the driver's side rear rotor, but the passenger side rear rotor was stuck on with rust. I beat the bejeebers out of it with a ball peen hammer. After a couple soakings of penetrating fluid and a ton of hammering, it finally broke free. We closed everything up for the night.
    
  • While Bill and I drove to and from Quincy and removed brake rotors, Mary mowed the west yard and the yard immediately north of the house. She moved cut grass to finish mulching the south side of the far garden, then started mulching the north side of the garden.
    
  • I lit an outdoor fire and we roasted pork loin over the campfire. We enjoyed some beer from the Melvin Brewery in Alpine, WY, that Bill brought with him...no kidding...Melvin beer! We watched satellites and lightning bugs until around 11 p.m.