July 24-30, 2022

Weather | 7/24, 72°, 85° | 7/25, 63°, 76° | 7/26, 0.96" rain, 60°, 75° | 7/27, 69°, 85° | 7/28, 65°, 81° | 7/29, 54°, 80° | 7/30, 54°, 83° |

• Sunday, 7/24: Catching Up With Relatives, Cookies & Electric Fence Work
  
  • Katie called while we were eating breakfast. We talked with her for a long time. With her job project, they're coming along nicely on replacing the huge water tank in Point Hope, AK. She attends 3-day military construction training at Shenandoah National Park in the next couple weeks. The manager of the second phase of construction at Venetie, AK (where Katie worked last summer) isn't working out, so her boss is sending her there to take over. She goes to Hawaii for National Guard work at the end of August. Katie gets all of October off. Towards the end of that month, she's on a tour to Morocco.
  • I spoke with my cousin, Margie, via Messenger, throughout the day. She recently visited Scandinavia, then returned to the high heat and humidity of Philadelphia. Her daughter is a clinical psychologist at a VA facility in La Jolla, which is north of San Diego. Her son is working on a Masters in Public Health and works for a non-profit. Margie is visiting her folks in Clarklake, MI on Aug. 25-29.
  • Mary made wonderful chocolate chip cookies.
  • I hunted squirrels for 20 minutes and saw nothing.
    
  • I cleaned up grass and weeds around and under the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree. I found several half-eaten apples on the ground (see photo, below). I added 2 more wires to the electric fence. They are close to the ground, in case raccoons or ground hogs are the culprits (see photo, below). I also solidified 2 steel posts by pounding in brick pieces with a spud bar next to the base of these posts. I noticed apple blotch on some of the fruit. That tree needs fungicide spray.
  • Mary watered the gardens.
  • I picked strawberries and blackberries for breakfast oatmeal (see photo, below). The blackberry patch west of the house near the woods (see photo, below), is still full of unripe, red berries.
  • We watched the 1971 movie, Fiddler on the Roof. We got the DVD for $3 from Salvation Army on our last shopping trip to Quincy, IL. It hearkens back to Mary's ancestry, because her grandfather left Ukraine around 1917-21. He just wasn't Jewish, but he knew when to get out. This movie takes place in 1905-07.
  • During our last dog walk, a bat dropped into my flashlight beam and picked off a moth. It was really cool.

Green apples chewed by animals.

Two wires added to Esopus fence.

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Blackberries & strawberries. Picking strawberries
in the morning doubles that berry amount.

West blackberry patch is still full of unripe berries.
This spot contains poison ivy, so Mary avoids it.

Monday, 7/25: Fresh Homemade Bread!

• Rain predictions moved some activities inside, today.
• Mary baked 4 loaves of bread and did some cross stitch while guarding cooling bread from cats.
• I knocked down tall grass between the electric and chicken wire fences in 2 places in the gardens and threw downed grass over the electric fence. Light rain kept me from continuing.
• No new chewed apples under the Esopus tree indicates my new low-to-the-ground wires on the electric fence surrounding that tree kept raccoons or opossums out. 
• I noticed a huge pile of raccoon scat on the chicken coop roof and an animal (probably a raccoon) chewed on the chick's exterior door.
• Katie sent a photo of 2 sailboats anchored off Point Hope. Their owners are French. She says their goal is to get to Barrow. I think they need to move quickly, prior to freeze-up.
• We ate the last of the chicken tortellini soup and slices of fresh bread, which was wonderful.
  
  

Tuesday, 7/26: Weed Whacking Electric Fences

• Mary processed 12 packages of half a quart, each, of zucchini to be used in future venison General Tso meals.
• She made venison stroganoff for our main meal.
• I took out weeds and poison ivy around our mailbox and the neighbor's mailbox at the end of our lane. While walking there, a deer and what once was a fawn, but is now the same size as the doe, ran off to the west.
• I ran the trimmer under the electric fence in the near garden. The job took a couple hours, because weeds and grass were so high and thick. I also cleaned up under the Esopos Spitzenburg apple tree electric fence and on the cattle panel fence around the Grimes Golden apple tree.
• Bill reports that other than record rainfalls in St. Louis, his apartment and his place of work didn't flood. He usually travels I-70 to work, but took a different route this morning, which made him late for work. I-70 was under water (see photo, below). St. Louis set an all-time high rain record overnight. Both Katie and Mom texted, asking how Bill was doing.
• The squirrels are back in the McIntosh apple tree, leaving about a dozen half-eaten green apples under the tree. That's what happens when you let your guard down for two days!

Flooded I-70. Bill drives through this exact spot, daily.

• Wednesday, 7/27: Quick Chick Food Shopping
  
  • Chick food is almost out, so I drove the pickup to Quincy, IL, to buy more, plus a few other items.
  • We have chicks this year who just shovel food out on the floor inside the coop, instead of eating it. They're mainly buff orpington cockerels, who will be the first butchered, since they're also the largest of the chicks.
    
  • Gas is down to $3.97 a gallon at Sam's Club in Quincy.
    
  • Mary mowed the center and west sides of the lane. I mowed the east side after returning from Quincy, since it is full of poison ivy and affects Mary if she mows it.
  • On the garden check, Mary says muskmelon, watermelon, pumpkins, tomatoes, and tomatillos are all developing fruit. We're starting to see white buds on the beans.
  • I saw 2 chimney swifts bop down the chimney after sunset. Usually, they are gone by now, heading back to the Amazon rain forest. We think they are tending to a late hatch of chicks.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/28: Mowin' and a Whackin'
  
  • Mary mowed the west yard.
  • She also made 2 pizzas...one for our midday meal and another for our evening meal.
    
  • I weed whacked under the electric fence in the far garden. It took all day. There were lots of thick grass, tall weeds, and a few persimmon saplings.
  • There are 3 chewed up green apples under the Esopus apple tree!!! It must be squirrels. One recommendation online is to start with hardware cloth or chicken wire at the base of a fence, then proceed with electric wires. That way the critter is thoroughly grounded on the fence when it touches the electric wire and really gets a good shock. This idea works especially good with squirrels. I might have to try it.
  • This year's chicks are big food wasters. About 80% of the food is shoveled onto the floor. We've started to scoop it off the floor and pour it back into the feeder.
  • Mary and I watered the far garden. Then, I picked strawberries and blackberries for tomorrow's waffles while Mary watered the near garden.
    
    
• Friday, 7/29: Hunting, Waffles & Fertilizing
  
  • I woke up at 4:55 a.m., got dressed, and went outside to hunt squirrels. I didn't see squirrels. They were smarter than me. They stayed in bed. The sun is rising a little further to the south. At sunrise, it once hit the spot where I hunt from, but now I'm in shadows when it rises.
  • I made waffles for breakfast. Blackberries and strawberries taste great on waffles.
  • Mary checked the cucumbers. She didn't pick any, because a significant number will be ready in 2-3 days. She picked 5 zucchinis, 15 tomatillos, and 1 big tomato.
  • I drove to Lewistown, MO, which is 5 miles north of our home, and bought gas for mowers and the trimmer. We own three 5-gallon cans for gas, but I only filled one, because filling all three costs too much money.
    
  • Mary mowed most of the north yard.
    
  • I took a nap, since I only got about 5 hours of sleep last night.
    
  • Mary watered the gardens. She found 5 tomato hornworm eggs on tomato/tomatillo plants yesterday and 2 eggs today.
  • I mowed the rest of the north yard, where the McIntosh tree grows. I think it might be leaning more to the north. It's an old tree and possesses a hollow trunk.
    
  • I sprayed my fertilizer spray, plus neem and karanja oil (natural pesticides) on the 2 newest apple trees, all cherry trees, the prairie fire crabapple, and the Grimes golden apple tree. Then I sprayed fertilizer spray on all garden plants. I added spinosad to the mix when I sprayed the corn, to kill corn earworms, and on the sweet potato plants, to kill a small green worm putting holes in the leaves. I started spraying at 6 p.m. and ended after 10 p.m. I used a hat light after dark. I saw a huge hawk moth laying eggs on the underneath side of tomato leaves. They are hornworms in the larval stage. Hawk moths move very quickly, about the same speed as hummingbirds.
    
  • We enjoyed a bottle of cherry wine. I poured the wine through 2 layers of paper towels to filter solids out. The filtered wine fell into the glass pitcher recently bought from Salvation Army. Then I poured the wine back into the rinsed-out bottle. This is my way of decanting, or oxygenating the wine. It tasted wonderful. There's a strong cherry flavor. It tastes so good, you can drink it too fast, which tips your turvy at a 12% alcohol content.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/30: Mowing & Fixing Chick Things
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • She also mowed the south, east and part of the west yards. I moved vehicles so she could mow there.
    
  • Since our chicks this year dish most of their feed onto the floor, I took a piece of quarter-inch hardware cloth and filtered most of the feed dumped on the floor back into the chick feeder. I almost filled it with used feed.
  • I removed the chick door, since I saw a second mound of raccoon poo on the chicken coop roof and this door shows signs of raccoon chewings. I found a half-inch piece of plywood with 5 plies, sawed it down to the correct size, installed hardware removed from the old door, and installed the new door on the coop's north wall. The latches had pieces of wood under them that needed changing to make the door close tighter, which took extra time. Curious chicks wandered up close to me to see what I was doing.
  • I sprayed Immunox on the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree to try to get rid of the apple sooty blotch, a fungal disease, that is on these apples. Internet research revealed that potassium bicarbonate, an ingredient put in fire extinguishers and used in some brewmaking, is an effective organic fungicide for killing this fungus and another that causes fly speck on apples. I'll have to try it in future years.
  • Mary watered gardens and picked strawberries. She found 2 hornworm eggs and one very dead hornworm. We suspect it got into the spinosad I sprayed on the corn, yesterday.
  • We're not hearing chimney swifts in the evening, so we suspect they left for their winter home in the Amazon rain forest.
    

July 17-23, 2022

Weather | 7/17, 0.73" rain, 66°, 84° | 7/18, 61°, 87° | 7/19, 63°, 89° | 7/20, 66°, 88° | 7/21, 63°, 89° | 7/22, 61°, 93° | 7/23, 72°, 93° |

• Sunday, 7/17: Blackberry Picking & Fertilizing Garden
  
  • Overnight, we received a beautiful rain.
    
  • Mary and I picked more blackberries, adding 5 quarts to the freezer. We now are 9 quarts away from our 80-quart grand total goal, which includes 30 quarts from last year.
    
  • I mixed up three 2-gallon batches of fertilizer and sprayed all garden plants. I also sprayed the 2 newest apple trees, all small cherry trees, and 3-4 hazelnut bushes. I added Spinosad to the gallon I sprayed on corn, to kill corn borers and corn ear worms. We noticed some early damage on one hill of corn plants. All garden plants look wonderful (see photo, below) and show significant growth since my last fertilization, which was last Saturday.
  • All of our large apple trees show a lot of leaf defoliation from Japanese beetles. The large and medium cherry trees really look bad (see photo, below). I hope they survive.
    
  • Mary made a venison General Tso dinner that included a freshly-picked zucchini and this year's snow peas. It tasted great. She now uses my garlic and jalapeño wine while making this dish.
  • I tasted the end of the bottle of the jalapeño wine. It isn't as hot and tastes good. I noticed quite a bit of residue in the bottle. I need to use more time and add a 5th racking to my wine in order to eliminate this final residue. So far, cherry and jalapeño wines show extra stuff in the wine after it ages.
  • Several trips, with the .22 rifle in hand, to the McIntosh tree revealed no squirrels.

Beans (back, left), 3 rows of tomatoes (center), and
corn (foreground, right) in the south end of far garden.

Defoliated leaves on medium (foreground, left) and
big (background, right) cherry trees.

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• Monday, 7/18: Blackberries & Chimney Swifts
  
  • We had a very berry breakfast with 15 blackberries, each, and several strawberries on our breakfast oatmeal. The strawberry plants are back kicking out several berries each day.
    
  • Mary made a wonderful midday meal of venison biscuits.
  • She also washed a big load of towels, did some cross stitch work for pleasure, and checked the gardens. All plants look good.
    
  • Mary heard chimney swift chicks from the top of chimney while she was hanging towels on the line.
    
  • I picked 3 quarts of blackberries from Bramble Hill and that surrounding area. We only have 6 quarts of blackberries left to pick to get to our quota of 80 total quarts of berries.
    
  • I see more Mac apples on ground, so I need to do more squirrel elimination. I hunted in the evening. I heard 2 squirrels in the woods, but they ventured into the north woods.
    
  • Mary saw a Baltimore oriole male and female pair when she got mail. They must have a nest near Bluegill Pond.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/19: Squirrel Hunting & Blackberries
  
  • I woke up just after 5 a.m. and went squirrel hunting next to the Mac apple tree. Then, I hunted in 2 locations in the north woods between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. At 5-7 p.m., I hunted north of the chicken yard, then at the Bobcat deer blind. I never saw a single squirrel. During deer hunting season, in the fall, squirrels are everywhere. Now, they only sneak out to take a bite out of apples and tear them off trees. Oh well, I did spend time in the woods. It's a nice place to be on a hot day, because temps are cooler under the shade of trees. I saw several huge swallowtail butterflies throughout the woods.
    
  • Mary did 3 loads of laundry and cleaned house.
    
  • Mary and I both picked blackberries. We are now less than 2 bags shy of reaching our 80-quart quota. Mary says she's done picking fruit off those spiny bushes, although she is willing to pick for breakfast oatmeal and a blackberry pie.
    
  • Mary created a shopping list.
  • A Japanese beetle was munching on corn...damn!!!
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/20: Shopping Trip
  
  • We shopped in Quincy today. Once we got into town, we were slowed by 2 car accidents within 2 blocks of one another on Broadway, the main drag through the town. I found a glass pitcher at Salvation Army that I can use for decanting wine. We bought an Old Timer 3-knife set that was marked way down at Farm & Home. I also picked up some hunting trail reflective marking tacks. They're always sold out by hunting season time. We also purchased hen and chick food, chicken grit, and basic groceries.
    
  • We got back home around 4 p.m., in time to see a crop dusting plane roaring about. Spreading poisons from the air is hitting an all-time high. It isn't working. We notice many area crops that look poor with fields that are full of weeds. The old-fashioned way of running a cultivator through fields resulted in cleaner crops.
    
  • I picked breakfast blackberries and did some evening chores while Mary watered gardens.
  • We watched the 2019 movie, Men in Black: International, that we picked up today. We liked it.
  • Bill called. He loves the cherry wine. Since Monday, he's been wearing a fan that connects to his belt and blows air up his shirt. Bill says it's wonderful to wear while working in a hot warehouse. He's going to a diaper party. It's a party celebrating the future birth of a friend's baby, where everyone has to bring diapers to get into the party.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/21: So Now It's a Raccoon!
  
  • Mary mowed the east yard.
  • I created a spot to sit at the edge of the woods, hidden by rose bushes and aromatic sumac, and overlooking the McIntosh apple tree. I can look straight up into the overhead trees for little dastardly squirrels from that spot. I left an overturned bucket with a small piece of board on top of the bucket to sit on.
  • I picked 2 quarts of blackberries to fill our quota of 80 bags in the freezer. Bugs are infiltrating the berries. I kept only about a third of all I picked today. I'm glad we're done...no more thorns in fingers and knees.
  • While picking berries SW of the house, I first chased away deer that I could hear in the west woods, then I saw a tiny fawn with spots run west and into the woods.
    
  • I helped Mary water the gardens. All plants look wonderful. I ate a ripe sungold tomato...how delightful!
  • While walking the dogs at dusk, I spotted a branch moving in the Mac tree, so I walked over. At the top of the tree was a big raccoon. After putting the dogs back inside, I chased the apple-steeling bugger away. It seems every critter imaginable likes unripe, green McIntosh apples!
    
    
• Friday, 7/22: Squirrel Hunting, Yummy Waffles & Mowing
  
  • I woke at 5:45 a.m. and hunted squirrels from the spot I fixed up yesterday. An east breeze blew at sunrise that switched to a SE wind, blowing my scent into the north woods. A deer snorted at me, followed by a squirrel chattering at the deer. I never saw anything but birds.
  • We had a marvelous waffle with berries breakfast.
    
  • I moved vehicles to the lane. Then I sharpened the lawn mower blade.
  • Mary mowed where vehicles are parked and then the yard immediately north of the house. I mowed the near garden and a swath around the outside of the electric fence of that garden. I bagged the clippings and put the grass mulch around the base of the 2 south apple trees.
    
  • Mary watered all gardens while I finished mowing. She also picked blackberries and strawberries for tomorrow's breakfast.
    
  • Today was extremely hot and humid. Clothes are soaked after working outside in this weather.
  • ARGH!!! I saw chewed apples under the McIntosh tree. I'm about ready to blast squirrels from a military tank!!!
    
    
• Saturday, 7/23: Too Much Heat
  
  • Mary laid low for the day. She was sick to her stomach overnight, getting only 3 hours of sleep. We think she overdid working outside, yesterday, in the heat. I fed her half a bowl of oatmeal and few strawberries. She made a nice batch of chicken tortellini soup, midday. By afternoon, she felt much better. That's the power of homegrown chicken!
    
  • Mary watered the gardens in the late afternoon, going outside for 15 minutes, then taking a break inside. She also picked 4 zucchinis. The 2 zucchini plants in the near garden are huge.
    
  • I raked up all of the grass Mary mowed two days ago. I removed old grass stored in the second grain bin, put it in the compost pile, swept the tarp under that grass, and put the dried grass I raked up on top of the tarp in the bin. It smells wonderful.
  • I picked 50 wild blackberries for tomorrow's breakfast. Blackberry season is almost over in the patches near the house.
  • Chimney swifts were circling about overhead while we did evening chores. Three of them chatter while taking tight turns in the sky. We also heard a wild turkey hen calling to the east of the far garden.
    
  • After dark, I found a photo of my great-grandfather's grave in Havre de Grace, MD on ancestry.com and a photo of him. Also listed were his parents, who moved from Durham, England. It got me to thinking about relatives, so I left a Messenger text with my cousin, Marjorie Rose, asking how her folks are doing.
    

July 10-16, 2022

Weather | 7/10, 60°, 85° | 7/11, 65°, 89° | 7/12, 60°, 84° | 7/13, 61°, 88° | 7/14, 63°, 90° | 7/15, 0.27" rain, 65°, 84° | 7/16, 69°, 83° |

• Sunday, 7/10: Picking Ripe Blackberries
  
  • Mary and I picked blackberries pretty much all day. There are now 5 quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. We notice that there are different types of blackberries...some are small and some large, in both the berries and the size of plants. With so many red and green blackberries out there, we decided that if both of us pick at the same time, we'll never get anything done in the next few weeks. So, starting tomorrow, one of us will pick as the other works on other projects. 
  • One point in walking throughout our property is we now are home to many milkweed plants and with that, we're noticing a ton of monarch butterflies.
  • A flower we've been calling bee balm, which is now blooming in the north yard, we misidentified. According to a Missouri Conservation flower book, it's actually called horse mint, or wild bergamot (see photo, below).
    
  • I mixed up a batch of fertilizer that included neem and karanja insecticide oil and sprayed the newest Porter's Perfection and Liberty apple trees, all of the cherry trees, and the Grime's Golden apple tree. With the sprayer, I blasted several Japanese beetles munching on leaves in the top of the large pie cherry tree. We noticed several of them on lespedeza sericea weeds on our property while picking berries, today. Obviously, the Japanese bug recognizes a plant that originates from its part of the world.

  

  Horse mint or wild bergamot in the north yard.
  

• Monday, 7/11: Blackberry Picking & Chicken Yard Clearing
  
  • Mary picked blackberries, adding 2.25 quarts to the freezer.
  • I took the trimmer and the steel blade to the chicken yard, which was really grown over with weeds. At one point, I was knocking down sedge grass, tall ragweed, asters, and maple saplings. I used a pitchfork to move weeds and grass I cut into 9 piles that I need to remove (see photo, below). In front of the coop was a thistle tree taller than me, with several branches. I moved pieces of it out of the yard at the end of a pitchfork. I still need to mow the north chicken yard to get it ready for small chick feet. The chicks are a month old, today, and need more space.
  • Mary watered all gardens and herb plants. All plants are showing significant growth.
  • I filled my 2-gallon sprayer with Dawn soap and water. Japanese beetles thought the neem oil I sprayed yesterday on the big cherry tree was a nice salad dressing. I doused hundreds of them and watched them keel over and die. I also sprayed the rest of the cherry trees and the 2 apple trees south of the house. Japanese beetles are bad and getting worse each year.
  • The crop duster is roaring through the sky above our house, again, drenching area fields with poison. We're really tired of the constant noise. Ag spraying is way up, this year.
  • We were going to go blueberry picking, today, but a Facebook note by the Lost Branch Blueberry Farm indicated they were swamped over the weekend and they're closing Tuesday and Wednesday to help berries ripen for Thursday. We'll pick Thursday morning.

  

  North chicken yard with 9 weed piles to cart off.
  

• Tuesday, 7/12: Gardens & Berries
  
  • Mary mowed part of the north yard and inside the fences of the far garden. She put mulch on bean and corn plants, which look great. Mary also watered all gardens. She was really tired after a full day outdoors.
    
  • I picked blackberries all day, adding 6 quarts to the freezer, which gives us 13 for this year. There are a ton of ripe blackberries out there right now. We added up the various spots where we look for blackberries on our property. It involves 19 locations. There might be more, but those of the productive spots we visit. Some of the blackberry thickets that I visit also grow tall poison ivy plants. I stomp them down to pick berries. Mary avoids those spots.
  • I walked by the doe with her 2 fawns. One was only 20 feet east of the lane, looking at me as I walked by with the garbage can. They're familiar with us and not afraid.
  • I'm seeing half-eaten apples under the McIntosh tree. By the size of the teeth marks, I suspect squirrels. Squirrel season is on right now, so it's time to bring out the .22 rifle with the scope.
  • Today was the third consecutive day of crop duster airplane noise. He started at 7 a.m. and went until sundown, or about 9 p.m. He flies over our house constantly. 
  • The dairy west of us is grinding up corn silage. We hear them north and NW of our property.
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/13: Bad Beetles & No Blueberries
  
  • Mary picked blackberries, adding 3 quarts to the freezer, for a grand total of 16 quarts of 2022 blackberries.
  • I moved all of the mounds of weeds and grass in the chicken yard to the north end and threw them over the north fence. I then mowed the yard, added a chicken wire patch to the north chicken yard gate, and trimmed some branches out from just inside the main gate into the chicken yard. It was too late to let the chicks out in the yard when I finished. We'll let them out tomorrow.
  • Mary watered all gardens. Onions are a real struggle this year. They aren't growing much. The same is the case with strawberries. We now are only seeing tiny ones.
    
  • I sprayed Dawn soap and water solution on Japanese beetles on the McIntosh, the 2 south apple, all of the cherry, and the weeping willow trees. These beetles went from bad to worse to insane. They're turning tops of some trees into brown netting. They're absolutely terrible.
  • I found a bunch more half-eaten apples on the ground under the McIntosh tree. Damn squirrels are making me mad! Tomorrow, I break out the rifle!
    
  • The Lost Branch Blueberry Farm shut down for the season. We didn't make it there to pick blueberries. They opened June 30th and the last day they were open was July 11th. They were closed for two Tuesdays/Wednesdays, July 4th, and Sundays, so they were open for only 7 days. They say birds got too many berries and there aren't any left. Last year they bragged about some revolving red light that kept birds off their plants. Obviously that didn't work. We decided we better pick as many blackberries as we can find. They're plentiful, available, and free.
    
    
• Thursday, 7/14: Chicks Outside & Squirrel Hunting
  
  • We let chicks outside for the first time. It took until around 2 p.m. before they ventured out the door. When we went to put them back in for the evening, all chicks were already inside the coop.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • Mary weeded the near garden.
  • Japanese beetles are munching up Virginia Creeper leaves (see out-of-focus photo, below). They've never been worse than we're seeing right now. Mary hit them with Dawn/water spray.
    
  • I picked blackberries for most of the day, adding 6.5 quarts to the freezer, for a grand total of 22 quarts this year.
  • Upon returning from one of my berry pickings, a squirrel was in the McIntosh apple tree. I ran home, grabbed the .22. When I returned to the tree, a deer snorted at me through the woods. The squirrel was heading into the woods. I took a shot at the moving squirrel and missed. It really high-tailed it out of there after the rifle shot. I also hunted for about 30 minutes in those same woods, but without seeing a squirrel.
  • Bill called. He's going to visit us Saturday, 8/6, through Sunday, 8/14. At his work, they received well over 100 pallets of items. He's happy to have a full compliment of help in his department. His work place was really hot, well over 100, for the past several days.

  

  Several Japanese beetles on Virginia creeper leaves.
  

• Friday, 7/15: One Squirrel Gone
  
  • Mary picked 4 quarts of blackberries.
  • I hunted squirrels all day. I shot at 2 squirrels that were running away in the morning and missed. A deer snorted at me midday, then ran off to the north. Around 5 p.m. I killed a squirrel that jumped onto the trunk of the McIntosh apple tree, then stopped. That's one less apple muncher.
    
  • We watched 2 movies after dark...To Kill a Mockingbird and Little Women.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/16: Two Squirrels Gone
  
  • I woke after 6 a.m. and wondered outside with the .22 rifle. It was a pretty morning, with lots of birds and rabbits moving about. After about an hour sitting on a bucket near the McIntosh tree, a squirrel appeared on a elm branch high above me. I shot and it hit the ground with a thud. Now, there are 2 fewer apple eaters. Those 2 squirrels must have been my main culprits. I didn't see a squirrel the rest of the day at that apple tree.
    
  • Mary and I both picked blackberries. Together, we picked 9 quarts. There are a total of 34 quarts from this year in the freezer. We have 30 quarts from last year. I counted about 250 berries per quart. For winemaking, breakfast fruit, and pies during a year, we decided we need a total of 80 quarts. That's only 16 quarts to go, then we'll quit picking, except for breakfast oatmeal munching on our part.
  • I squirted 2 gallons of Dawn/water mix on Japanese beetles in the 2 apples trees south of the house and all of the cherry trees. They're defoliating the fruit trees. Sometimes, a dozen bugs will be on one apple leaf. You can almost hear them munching away. Several leaves are gone on the big pie cherry tree. In the evening, I looked up ways to kill them, because I think we need to employ stronger methods, or we won't have any fruit trees left.
  • I found about 10 apples under the Esopus apple tree. The apples look like they were chewed on by squirrels. Next, I'm going into the timber to hunt those damn tree rats!
    

July 3-9, 2022

Weather | 7/3, 57°, 89° | 7/4, 70°, 95° | 7/5, 76°, 97° | 7/6, 0.98" rain, 69°, 87° | 7/7, 2.04" rain, 65°, 79° | 7/8, 0.54" rain, 70°, 81° | 7/9, 63°, 83° |

• Sunday, 7/3: All Garden Plants Are Mulched
  
  • Weather forecasts reveal expected high temperatures of nearly 100 in the future, so we went back to slogging through garden work to better protect our plants. I mowed the west lawn, bagging the grass and filling wheelbarrows while Mary hauled off the grass clippings and mulched the rest of the plants that needed ground covered near them. This included the remaining tomato plants, beans, onions, peppers, cucumbers, zucchinis and sweet potatoes.
  • After finishing mulching, we watered all gardens.
    
  • I killed another squadron of Japanese beetles. The low-level bugs were tapped into a bucket of soapy water. The high-fliers were hit with soapy solution flying from a squirt bottle. It's fun nailing these bastards until one crawls down your shirt. They have spiny legs. After I peeled one out from under my T-shirt, Mary came out of the house and said, "I saw that!" I guess I was jumping around a bit.
  • We were going to roast pork loin meat on an outside fire, but after a day sweating in the heat, that idea didn't sound appealing. We ate inside. Along with pork loin smothered in homemade barbecue sauce, we enjoyed baked potato and frozen watermelon. We finished the last bottle of 2020 pear wine. It tasted marvelous, with a strong pear flavor that had a bit of tang to it. Aging wine for a year or more definitely improves its taste.
    
    
• Monday, 7/4: A Working July 4th
  
  • Mary figured our savings funds and wrote monthly checks for bills.
  • Mom called. The countryside is green, due to constant rains in eastern MT. Lightning struck the fiberglass siding of Hank's son's home in Glasgow MT. Hank is Mom's boyfriend. She was curious about Katie. I told her more. Mom said a rumor went around Circle that she was packing up to leave town. She got on the microphone at a Circle Senior Center dinner and announced that the rumor was false. Everyone clapped. The Circle Banner newspaper sold, so it's not closing down. The hardware store is up for sale. Someone bought the grocery store, so it's not going away. The Round Town restaurant building across from the Wooden Nickle is for sale, as it's been for years. The Corner Bar is for sale. Karen is visiting Mom for 3-4 weeks toward the end of August. Mom is patiently waiting for Patti Wittkopp, the Physician Assistant (PA) in Circle, to write a note stating that Mom's health is fine, so Mom can drive the senior van. People are already lined up to go with Mom in the senior van to Miles City at the end of this month. Mom wondered aloud to Patti Schipman if maybe the county board thought Mom was too old to drive the senior van and Patti responded with, "You've never acted your age." They laughed after that comment. Mom visits Hank at his home in Glasgow a couple times a month and Hank visits Mom in Circle with about the same frequency.
    
  • Mary watered garden plants in the morning. We both gave all garden plants a thorough soaking in the evening, due to the higher heat. All plants are thriving with their new grass mulch. I watered the 4 east and south apple trees. We are now in a dry spell.
    
  • I spent a couple hours killing Japanese beetles. The Sargent crabapple tree is a good beetle magnet.
    
  • Mary mowed the north yard.
    
  • Bill texted that his new car runs great, has superb brakes, and gets better gas mileage than he experienced with his last car. This 2019 Sonata averages 30 mpg in city driving. He thinks it might reach 36-38 mpg with highway driving.
  • We heard what probably was a $1,000 worth of fireworks going off into the evening. With temperatures in the 80s after dark, we stayed inside.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/5: First Blackberries
  
  • Mary marched all around the west, south and just east of the far garden and picked just a handful of ripe blackberries. There are some places where blackberries once grew that have none, now. Several red berries are everywhere, so we need to check daily. Red blackberries turn black very quickly.
    
  • I used the Stihl trimmer with the blade to cut down tall grass on the trail from Bass Pond to Bramble Hill and about a third of the way down Bramble Hill to Wood Duck Pond.
    
  • Mary and I then picked just a few more blackberries. We watched small fish jump clean out of the water at Bass Pond. It has an algae and pollen bloom occurring around its edge. We ventured down to Wood Duck Pond, where we saw tons of small bull frogs and bull frog tadpoles. A great blue heron flew away. There are tons of deer and raccoon tracks in the sand on the pond's shore. Today's heat was super intense on Bramble Hill.
    
  • I killed another big bucket load of Japanese beetles.
  • Mary and I watered garden plants and fruit trees. Plants in the gardens are growing fast.
    
  • I have no plastic bags left on small apples on the Esopus apple tree. Deer are munching apples and bags right off the tree.
  • While getting the mail, I spooked up a doe and her twin fawns. The fawns that were about half the size of the doe just a month ago are now almost the same size at the doe. Probably our apples help them grow fast.
    
  • Bill texted that he is tuckered out from a very hot day at work.
  • After we went to bed, several thunderstorms moved through and it rained almost an inch overnight. That's great! We needed the rain.
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/6: Tree Branch Trim & Esopus Electric Fence
  
  • I woke at 4:30 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and went outside. A doe and  a fawn snorted at me just 30 feet east of the lane, then ran away. They were bedded down. I watched another deer walk by NE of the far garden, then follow our trail to Bass Pond. I watched an adult red-headed woodpecker feed a grub to a younger bird. Both birds were on top of an electric power pole in our yard. I killed Japanese beetles, since they were all over the Sargent crabapple tree.
    
  • Mary picked another partial handful of blackberries, reporting that several red and green blackberries are out there.
  • She spent a couple hours trimming branches from the large forsythia bush and from trees along our quarter-mile lane. Now we can walk by the forsythia without getting a branch smacking our heads and the UPS truck can drive our lane without knocking mirrors out of kilter.
    
  • Our chimney is now squeaking. Every time a chimney swift adult goes down the chimney with a bug, a bunch of little babies raise a ruckus. This chimney swift nest is next to the stove pipe entering the chimney, so they essentially sound like they're in our living room.
    
  • I knocked down weeds, grass, and hip-high persimmon shoots in and around the fences guarding the Esopus and Grimes Golden apple trees. I found 5 partially-eaten small apples inside zippered plastic bags at the base of the tree and buried under weeds and grass. There were also 3 other apples torn from the tree and dropped to the ground. I suspect munching deer. I added 4 more metal fence posts to the Esopus fence, bringing the total to 8, and better encircling the tree. I removed the fish line, then added insulators, 3 lines of electrical wire, and a gate. I then buried an electric fence feed wire from the near garden to this new fence. After connecting the fences, the fence energizer went to full strength and I measured a full 7,000 volts at the new fence. I paper clipped 2 pieces of tin foil on the east side of the new fence, where I saw a deer trail coming through the persimmon trees to the apple tree. Then I smeared peanut butter on the foil. Try that on for size, you dastardly apple eating deer! The electric fence fortress looks good (see photo, below).

  

  New electric fence around the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree.
  

• Thursday, 7/7: Moisture Arrives & Plants Are Smiling
  
  • We're no longer dry. Buckets of rain poured down overnight. We woke to falling rain, which ended late morning. Over 3 inches fell in 2 days. We're under a flood watch.
    
  • Tours of the gardens show fast plant growth.
    
  • I gave Mary a haircut. It took about 1.5 hours to accomplish.
    
  • Mary made a turkey pot pie.
  • I killed more Japanese beetles.
  • Plans to go blueberry picking are delayed with predicted thunderstorms.
  • Thunderstorms started banging around us when we went to bed.
    
    
• Friday, 7/8: 100 Years at the License Office!
  
  • We drove to Monticello, MO, our county seat, to renew Mary's driver's license. I thought it would only take a few minutes. I was very wrong. We were gone for over 2 hours. There were several people ahead of us. One young guy was trying to get his commercial driver's license. He was past his deadline to get it and he received a traffic ticket since taking his written exam, so his name wasn't in the state's computer system. He was also getting tags for just about everything he owned, including a watercraft! There was a guy sitting in front of us who probably hasn't bathed this year. Layers of grime showed under his arm revealed through a scrap of a shirt in which the sleeves were torn off...a variation of a dickey. An elderly lady 2 people ahead of us obtained a car license of a vehicle in a trust and that took several minutes. On the way home, we stopped in Lewistown to get a 5-gallon can of gas and their internet was down, thereby rejecting credit or debit cards. I was tired of waiting, so we went on home without the gas.
    
  • Mary and I picked a bigger amount of blackberries, compared to previous pickings. We now have 2 quarts in the freezer.
  • We suspect a chimney swift tragedy occurred. There was a strong smoke odor in the living room for about 45 minutes in the morning. Plus, we don't hear baby chimney swifts, or see adult chimney swifts flying about outside. We think that the skanky willow wood we burned at times last winter put a thicker-than-usual soot layer inside the chimney. We think that the heavy dumping of rain the past couple of days loosened the soot and it all collapsed at once, smothering all of the chimney swifts. When I clean out the chimney this fall, I'll be able to verify our assumption.
  • Katie sent photos and a video of snowy owls (see video, below), taken at Point Hope, AK. She also said she saw some long-tailed jaegers.
  A snowy owl at Point Hope, Alaska.
  

• Saturday, 7/9: Shopping, Weeding, & Fertilizing
  
  • We ran out of chick feed this morning, so I drove the pickup to Quincy. Besides pet food, I got a few grocery items and a windshield sunshade for the pickup. Walmart sunshades were either black or with a red skeleton image...HELL NO!!! I got a good one at AutoZone for the same price as the Walmart garbage. I'm always amazed at the piggyness of people in Quincy while shopping. They're not worried about showing off their mounds of flubber as they slowly waddle about store aisles. That entire town needs to start running. Gas was a little cheaper at $4.34 a gallon.
  • Mary did 2 loads of laundry and weeded rows in the far garden.
  • After returning home and eating, I mixed up two 2-gallon batches of liquid fertilizer (essential micro-nutrients, molasses, fish hydrolysate, liquid kelp and a bit of dish soap), which I sprayed on all garden plants. I ended spraying after dark with the help of a hat light.
  • Mary picked some blackberries, starting a third quart in the freezer.
  • We heard and saw a chimney swift, so there is at least one surviving member of the chimney swift family.
  • Two things I forgot to mention yesterday. First, my cousin, Denise, died. She's my mother's sister's daughter. Second, we enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine. It's very good.
  • Purple cone flowers are blooming just west of the house (see photo, below). They were planted in 2010 and continue to grow and spread in the area, battling it out with comfrey, that was also planted in 2010.
  • Mom sent a photo of her winning the grand prize at the McCone Electric Cooperative Meeting last month (see photo, below).

Purple cone flowers just west of our house.

Mom pictured in McCone Electric magazine.