August 14-20, 2022

Weather | 8/14, 66°, 80° | 8/15, trace rain, 61°, 78° | 8/16, 0.10" rain, 61°, 80° | 8/17, 58°, 82° | 8/18, 54°, 84° | 8/19, 60°, 84° | 8/20, 63°, 82° |

• Sunday, 8/14: Bill Leaves
  
  • A check of the blackberry wine must showed a 1.086 specific gravity, so there was no need to add sugar. I worked up a starter of Lalvin RC 212 yeast all day and pitched it into the brew bucket at midnight. The must turned very dark purple through the day.
    
  • I made a batch of waffles for our midday meal.
  • Bill left for his place around 2:30 p.m.
    
  • Mary and I watered the garden. She found 10 hornworm eggs and & 10 hornworms.
  • I removed 4 apples ruined by woodpeckers. They drilled right through the zippered sandwich bags.
    
  • We now have a barred rock cockerel that's crowing. The bigger cockerels are growing fast.
    
    
• Monday, 8/15: Green Bean Work Day
  
  • In the morning, I sat for about an hour in a camp chair tucked into the persimmon saplings east of the Esopus apple tree. While looking at online news on my phone, I waited with my water cannon for dastardly apple-nibbling woodpeckers. One swooped in from the south. I nailed it with a stream of water and it flew off in a hurry in a northerly direction. There were no more woodpeckers after that incident. Damn, this water cannon is fun!
    
  • Several hummingbirds flew near me. One even checked the bottom corners of bags on apples for moisture dripping out of them.
    
  • We noticed rain coming with online radar, so Mary picked beans, while I picked tomatoes and tomatillos.
  • Mary processed what amounted to 18 quarts, and 3 individual servings in sandwich bags of green beans (see photo, below). The time-consuming part, which Mary performed, was cutting off tips and stalks of each green bean. I helped by washing some of the beans. Green bean processing took most of the day.
  • With speckles of rain, we didn't water. Mary did find 10 eggs and 5 hornworms.
    
  • We have wasteful chicks. About a third to half of their feed is dished out on the floor. A daily chore is sweeping up feed, pouring it through 2 pieces of quarter-inch hardware cloth, and putting the sieved feed back into the chick feeder. The next chick feed purchase is going to be pellets!
  • We enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine after dark. This time, we chilled each glass with 5 ice cubes. Drinking it like this made it taste like apple cider.
    
  • Sweet potatoes are blooming (see photo, below). Their flowers distinguish them as part of the morning glory family.

Just part of the green beans processed today.

A pretty sweet potato blossom.

• Tuesday, 8/16: Barn Swallows Fill the Sky
  
  • We had a big barn swallow explosion. There were dozens of them swooping through the air. We figure they're migrating through and cleaning up on bugs over our property.
    
  • I made waffles for a noontime meal.
    
  • I also guarded apple trees from woodpeckers. They're even attacking unripe pears in the Kieffer pear tree, which is an occurrence we've never seen in prior years. Something is amiss. Maybe there are too many woodpeckers. Maybe their food is diminished in the woods. It's an odd year.
    
  • Mary picked some more green beans.
  • We both watered the gardens. A significant rain would help.
  • I checked the blackberry wine. The specific gravity is 1.068.
    
    
• Wednesday, 8/17: Shopping Trip
  
  • I shopped in Quincy, IL, and in Hannibal, MO, today. I went to Hannibal to buy firecrackers to use as a way to keep woodpeckers away. There's a huge fireworks store south of Hannibal. I now own 1280 more firecrackers. It was only $8. I looked for 30-30 ammo in 2 places in Quincy and 3 places in Hannibal, but it doesn't exist. I found gas at $3.17 in Hannibal. It's $3.51 a gallon where I usually buy fuel. The new chick feed is in pellets. It was a long day of shopping.
  • Mary guarded the apple trees at home, while I was away. She said her war cry and a water cannon are quite effective. When I got home, I saw 3 woodpeckers in 5 minutes. Mary says it's because of me that they show up.
  • Mary picked and processed some tomatoes and tomatillos.
  • We watched the 2017 movie, Wonder Woman, that I got from the Walmart $5 bin, today.
    
    
• Thursday, 8/18: Whip-poor-will Farewell
  
  • I checked the blackberry wine midday and before bed. Its specific gravity was 1.037 at noon and 1.027, later. Tomorrow it goes into a carboy.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, then chimichangas for our main meal.
    
  • I was going to harvest apples off the Liberty tree, but when I checked, they wouldn't release after lifting them up on the branches, so they're not ripe. I'll leave them. Instead, I found slightly pecked ones, cut off bad parts, washed and wrapped them in plastic, put them in Ziplock bags, and stored them in the fridge.
    
  • Mary picked more green beans.
  • Mary and I watered gardens. She searched and found 8 hornworm eggs and 6 large hornworms. This after-sunset search was aided by a blacklight flashlight. She said the worms glowed vividly with this light.
  • I learned today that Marilyn Weaver Wythe died. Marilyn was in my Homer High School graduating class. She was airlifted to Anchorage for an operation, put in an induced coma and never recovered. I remember her as a really nice person.
  • We heard a whip-poor-will in the evening. We haven't heard one for quite some time. It's probably time for it to head south.
    
    
• Friday, 8/19: Guarding Trees, Picking Produce, & Racking Wine
  
  • I woke up after 6 a.m., went outside and sat in a chair near the Esopus apple tree where I could also see the Liberty tree. I shot the water cannon at woodpeckers and lit off several firecrackers. I soaked one bird. They're persistent, but so am I.
  • We tried small slices of our homegrown apple on oatmeal with a little bit of cinnamon and nutmeg. WOW!!! It's very good.
  • The blackberry wine's specific gravity is 1.020, so I racked a little over 6 gallons of must into two 5-gallon carboys. This wine foams profusely, so I figured 2 gallons of air space is enough to handle foam and it is.
  • Mary picked green beans, tomatoes, tomatillos, hot peppers, and cucumbers. It took 2 hours. I took a couple plastic shopping bags of old cucumbers out to the hens, sliced them up, and fed them to the chickens.
  • I cleaned etch and scratch marks off a glass pitcher with Brasso while guarding apple trees from woodpeckers in the afternoon.
  • We watched storm systems go by to the north of us, so we watered gardens...AGAIN!!! Our watering is keeping garden plants productive. Mary found 13 eggs and 2 hornworms.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of autumn olive wine made in November 2021. This wine tastes better at room temperature, as opposed to chilled.
    
    
• Saturday, 8/20: Pickle Day
  
  • Mary made 12 quarts of dill pickles. The cucumbers that were made into pickles were bright green this year (see photo, below). I fed unused cucumbers to the chickens and we ate a cucumber salad in the evening.
    
  • Mary picked the last of the green beans. She also took a close look at the onions and decided that they will be harvested tomorrow.
    
  • I chased woodpeckers by first emerging outside at daybreak with my trusty water cannon and a pocket full of firecrackers. I continued chasing them all day. I discovered on a University of New Hampshire website that woodpeckers hit apples more during dry periods. We've seen 0.36 inches of moisture in August and since 8/1, woodpecker apple eating increased drastically. At the end of the day, my cousin, Margie Rose, sent me a funny Far Side cartoon related to woodpeckers.
    
  • We pick pie cherries before they are completely ripe so that birds don't ruin them. Mary and I decided we'd do the same trick with the apples. So, I picked all of the apples off the Esopus Spitzenburg tree.
  • While I was picking apples, Mary started watering gardens. All of the rain clouds developing over or near us, today, moved into Illinois to water them, not us. I joined her on the garden watering detail once I finished apple picking. I watered the near garden while Mary searched for worms. She used the blacklight flashlight, again. Mary found 9 eggs and 7 hornworms.
  • The blackberry wine quit foaming, but the airlocks are still burping CO2 gas. Over an inch of fines line the bottoms of both carboys, so racking the must off the fines is imminent.

  

  Freshly washed cucumbers ready for pickle making.