June 19-25, 2022

Weather | 6/19, 56°, 87° | 6/20, 60°, 87° | 6/21, 67°, 93° | 6/22, 0.33" rain, 67°, 83° | 6/23, 61°, 88° | 6/24, 65°, 78° | 6/25, 0.04" rain, 69°, 88° |

• Sunday, 6/19: Father's Day
  
  • Mary raked up grass she mowed yesterday. She also mowed a patch between the woodshed and the machine shed left to grow tall, due to a downed elm tree yet to be cut up that's in that area. She weeded around all of the tomato plants in the far garden and put mulch around each plant. That took a lot of time and effort. Mary felt weary after dark.
    
  • I fixed 2 shorts in the positive electric fence feed wire where insulation was punctured, due to the weight of driving a lift over the lawn last fall. I used thick double-sided tape that Dad once had in his electrical connection tool box. That box is an old aluminum Umco fishing tackle box, bought in the mid-1960s. I wrapped that tape with 6 layers of electrical tape, then covered the area with a piece of old garden hose, thoroughly taping each end to repel water. After reburying the wire, I tested fences around both gardens. They register a full 7,000 volts, a good jolt to any varmint trying to munch our garden veggies.
  • I cut weeds and grass from the south-facing porch to the SE corner of the house, where the electric fence energizer sits, then to the main entrance near our home's NE corner. It looks cleaner, now.
  • The main reason to clean weeds was to drive in galvanized pipes for a better electric fence ground field. I decided against that idea. These grounds are working well, with the electric fence up to full capacity. The cut weeds and grass went around the 2 south apple trees as mulch.
    
  • Mary and I picked more black raspberries. We're almost to 4 quarts of these berries in the freezer.
    
  • Bill & Katie called me for Father's Day. Bill enjoyed the AC in his apartment, after enduring temperatures over 100 at work last week. He picks up his new car late this week. Katie was reminded by her superiors to take some time off, so she flies back home to Anchorage on Thursday, returning to work via Kotzebue on the following Monday.
    
    
• Monday, 6/20: Last Day of Spring
  
  • Our chicks are a week old, today. We have one Australorp chick that's a lot smaller than the rest of the chicks. It has a pasty butt. Mary cleaned that off this morning and in the evening. It's not eating, or moving much. We don't think it will live very long. All of the other 30 chicks are doing great.
    
  • Mary made venison General Tso. It contained snow peas from the garden, which were quite good.
  • She also did 2 loads of laundry.
  • I strung a new wire at deer head height on the far garden's electric fence to help discourage deer from jumping the fence.
  • I took a rake and tried to find an electrical feed wire that once ran from the far garden to an electric fence we had around the asparagus and an old strawberry beds years ago. I could not find it. Where that once was is a jungle, today. I'm trying to find that wire so I can feed the electric charge from the near garden a fence to build around the Esopus apple tree. I had 6 Ziplock sandwich bags on apples on that tree. Three are gone. I hope some deer has indigestion!
    
  • Mary started and I later helped her pick more black raspberries. We have close to 5 quarts, now.
  • A daylily Katie gave Mary years ago is blooming (see photo, below).

  

  Blossoms on Mary's daylily.
  

• Tuesday, 6/21: Summer Solstice
  
  • Katie sent me the following text, "Happy solstice. I haven't seen the sun set in six weeks!"
  • The pasty butt chick died overnight. It never developed wing feathers. The remaining 30 chicks are running around and looking fantastic with secondary wing feathers.
    
  • Mary mowed part of the north yard.
  • She also cleaned out all of the snow pea plants and mulched that row in the near garden. Mulch was added to cucumbers, zucchinis and new strawberry plants.
  • I watched about 5 videos on how to change the carburetor and adjust it on the Stihl trimmer. Then I changed it and adjusted the carb. I switched to the steel blade and cut tall grass, weeds, and even trees growing on the Swim Pond trail. It was 93° when I did this. A tank of gas lasts longer with the new trimmer carburetor. It still hesitates midway through a tank. I'm now convinced I have bad gas. I whacked half of the trail when the fuel ran out. I ran out of gas, too. The inside air conditioners are fantastic when you're hot and beat tired.
  • Mary went into chores and watering gardens as I picked another bowl of black raspberries, adding another quart to the freezer. A curious hummingbird visited me while I picked berries on the west edge of the west lawn.
    
  • We finished up with everything outside after 9 p.m., taking full advantage of the longest day of the year.
  • When we went to bed, lightning constantly flashed, thunder roared, and rain beat down on the roof. We fell fast asleep.
    
    
• Wednesday, 6/22: Mowing & Whacking
  
  • I drove to Prairieland FS, between Lewistown and LaBelle, to buy gas for the trimmer. I need at least 90 octane. They don't sell it. I went from there to LaBelle and again, Casey's in LaBelle sells only 87 octane gas. So, I drove back to Lewistown's BP station and bought 1 gallon of 91 octane gas. When we first moved to Missouri, we had bad gas from that BP station, but that was 13 years ago. Maybe it's better, now.
  • Mary mowed parts of the lane where poison ivy doesn't grow. I mowed the east side of the lane, where it looks like we planted poison ivy on purpose.
  • I finished taking out tall grass and weeds on the Swim Pond trail. The pond is high with murky water.
  • While Mary watered the garden, I cut down Styrofoam coolers that were once used to ship tropical fish to the Petco store in Quincy. They just threw these coolers away, so I kept several when I worked there. I heated the end of a foot-long piece of heavy wire and made cuts with the hot wire, holding it with vise grips and grasping the pliers with welding gloves. Eventually, I want to use the foam as insulation in the chicken coop. The Suburban and the Buick were filled with these old Petco fish coolers. While using the Buick, I put the coolers that were in that car into the pickup bed. We're using the pickup tomorrow for shopping, so I had to break several down and fit them back into the Buick.
  • One of our barred rock 10-day old pullets has already figured out how to hop onto the lowest rung of the roost. The chicks are developing nicely.
  • Mary picked another quart of black raspberries.
  • In the evening, Mary drew up a shopping list for tomorrow's trip to Quincy.
    
    
• Thursday, 6/23: Quincy Shopping & Mexican Baby Shower
  
  • We shopped in Quincy. In several cases, prices are double what they were a few months ago.
  • Once we got back home, we did evening chores.
  • A few minutes after 6, we went to the baby shower party for Alma and Juan at the trailer across the gravel road from us. It involved several Hispanic families, several kids, and one chihuahua dog...about 20-30 people. The common denominator were workers at the dairy, a mile west of us. They had loud Mexican music playing on huge speakers. They served a spare rib stew and were serving Modelo Especial beer. We sat across from a young couple. Daniella was born in this country and her boyfriend, Ferdinand, was born in Mexico. She spoke fluent English and Spanish. He only spoke Spanish. He is the primary inseminator at the dairy. He said they have 5000 milk cows and 2000 heifers. Last Thursday, he inseminated 130 animals in one day. His daily record is 150. They live in Quincy and he drives here to work, every day. There were several fun games. The funniest involved blind-folded women serving their husbands or boyfriends baby food. What a mess! The evening ended with an amazing tres leche cake, made of soft cake with layers of strawberry jelly, frosting, sweetened sour cream with sliced strawberries. Mary and I were the oldest and the only non-Hispanic people in attendance. Everyone at this party was super nice, polite, and friendly. We walked home around 10:30 p.m.  
  • Karen messaged that she went to a winery on her birthday, today, and enjoyed several fruit wines.
    
    
• Friday, 6/24: Bill Arrived
  
  • Bill arrived here around 11 a.m. We were in the middle of cleaning and finished that up after he got here.
  • I planted squash seeds, since not all of the seeds came up.
  • Mary planted sweet potato plants and covered them with old lace curtains to protect them from the sun.
  • I drilled holes in 8 more Gatorade bottles to turn them into holders for moth balls, then gave them to Bill to put under his care and inside the engine compartment. I also added several moth balls to existing plastic bottles.
  • Bill and Mary picked more black raspberries. We now have 8.5 quarts in the freezer.
  • We ate nachos and watched 2 movies picked out by Bill. They were The Big Year and U-571. Mocha, our youngest cat, intently watched The Big Year, a movie about birdwatching. She keyed in on scenes depicting birds, especially closeups of a hummingbird in flight. Mary says she thinks Mocha has been sassed by ruby-throats more than once.
    
    
• Saturday, 6/25: Bottling Wine & Michigan Rummy
  
  • Mary and I saw a hawk attack a bald eagle directly above our house. The eagle, with superior wingspan, glided to the south and easily moved away from the hawk.
  • Bill and I racked the 3 gallons of autumn olive wine and bottled it into the equivalent of 14 bottles (one was a big 1.5-liter bottle). It's specific gravity was 0.990, the same as the last 2 rackings, which gives it a 12.314% alcohol content. The pH is now at 3.4. It tastes really fruity. It will be the best autumn olive wine yet made, once it ages and the stronger alcohol taste diminishes.
  • Mary watered the garden and Bill and I picked black raspberries. We now have 9.25 quarts in the freezer.
  • Mary made pizza that we enjoyed with a couple varieties of beer that Bill and his friend, Mike, made over the past couple of months. We played Michigan Rummy. Mary won, of course. For good luck, we adopted ratty-looking cat toys. We named them as we adopted them. A chewed-on green rat we called Mange. A little Booda dog became Road Kill. A sparkly little mouse was named Reno. Another sparkly mouse became Vegas. The scruffy brown rat was named Punk Rock Poop Rat. Bill would say that name real fast and for some reason, I got the giggles each time he rattled off the name. We played for 4 hours. A great time was had by all!

  

  Our good luck cat toys, from left to right, are Mange,
  Road Kill, Reno, Vegas, and Punk Rock Poop Rat.