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!