August 21-27, 2022

Weather | 8/21, 60°, 82° | 8/22, 58°, 83° | 8/23, 60°, 82° | 8/24, 60°, 85° | 8/25, 63°, 88° | 8/26, 61°, 85° | 8/27, 63°, 89° |

• Sunday, 8/21: Liberty Apple Tree Picked & Final Green Bean Processing
  
  • I woke before the sun rose and sat on the south-facing porch, just a few feet from the Liberty apple tree. I soaked several woodpeckers with my water cannon. One flew first to the apple tree, and then to the top of the power pole in the yard. "Ahah," I cried. I can reach there with my water cannon. That bird received a double shower. I also sorted the apples I picked yesterday into 3 groups...apples pecked by woodpeckers, those with blemishes, and perfect apples ready to eat.
  • While sitting there, a hummingbird grabbed nectar from nearby comfrey blossoms. It suddenly spotted me and hovered a couple feet from my face while looking me over, then flew away. That was neat!
    
  • Mary finished all green bean processing for the season and put 22 servings of plastic sandwich bags of beans in the freezer. It took most of the day.
    
  • Mary also picked a half a bucket of tomatoes and tomatillos.
  • I picked all of the apples off the Liberty apple tree. They were ready. The apples slipped off the tree, easily. I sorted them as I picked the apples. The chore took all day. This will stop my constant daytime defense of apple trees. Neighbors won't hear cuss words followed by the bang of firecrackers exploding. I won't bore Mary with woodpecker/apple conversation. Most importantly, I'll get more than 5-6 hours of sleep.
  • We watered gardens. Mary did the far garden while I watered the near garden and all small fruit trees and blueberry bushes. Mary found 4 hornworm eggs and no worms. Lower temperatures might be slowing down the moths that lay these eggs.
    
  • We're seeing raccoon sludge that we shovel off our driveway every morning. It's raccoon dung after they're finished eating the farmers' field corn.
    
    
• Monday, 8/22: Tomato Freezing, Apple Processing & Onion Harvest
  
  • I woke up after a full 8-hour sleep, went outside and was greeted by absolutely no woodpecker calls. "Oh, what a wonderful morning, oh, what a wonderful day!"
    
  • Mary cut up and froze 2 gallon bags of tomatoes and one gallon bag of tomatillos. She is just one bag shy of enough tomatoes to process a batch of salsa and just a bag shy of enough tomatillos for our yearly supply of 4 batches of salsa.
    
  • I handled all of the apples I stored over time in the refrigerator that I cleaned up after birds pecked them. We have 3 buckets of pecked apples that I recently picked, but those in the fridge were from prior to my recent apple picking. Processing the fridge apples involved a lot of shaving off oxidized and brown parts, quartering each one, carving out seeds in the core, removing any bug damage, then slicing and dicing them into small pieces. From advice on an online WineMaker Magazine article about making apple wine and hard cider, I used 3/4 teaspoon of pectic enzyme (this breaks down apple chunks into liquid) and 1 Campden tablet (restricts fruit browning) per gallon of apple chunks. I went through all pecked apples and culled out 6 of the worst, processed them and added good chunks to the container. I wound up with 5 quarts of apple pieces I put into the fridge (see photo, below). I'll either use these in a mesh bag to make wine or cider, or use a press to turn them into juice.
  • Mary pulled the onions. Two small ones were eaten by voles, so it was time to harvest them. She cut the tops off and they are all curing in the back porch closet. Open that door and it smells like an old-fashioned hamburger joint.
    
  • Mary watered all gardens and did all of the outdoor chores while I chopped away on apples. She found no hornworms and 7 hornworm eggs. "Maybe I'm finally having an effect out there," she said. The tomato patch would be devastated if not for her daily hornworm and worm egg pickings.
  • Four different times I walked to the iron scrap dump at the end of the north yard and threw out scrapes from slicing and dicing apples. Each time, the previous scrapes were all gone. Bunnies, raccoons, opossums, deer, or whatever critter was out there, ate them up, quickly. They've also cleaned out every apple that was on the McIntosh tree. It's impossible to defend that tree. It's too close to squirrel-laden trees and too far away from the house, so I've designated it my sacrificial apple tree. I also noticed a recent deer bed-down spot in the tall grass next to the iron scrap metal dump. We're just visitors in this game preserve we live in.

  

  Approximately 5 quarts of apple chunks.

• Tuesday, 8/23: Apple Slicing and Dicing & Garden Watering
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas. She also watered all gardens. Mary killed 3 hornworm eggs and 1 worm.
  • I checked out a couple hand-crank grinders we own that I might use to grind up apple slices prior to putting them into the fruit press Katie gave me for last year's Christmas.
    
  • I cut up another 5 quarts of pecked apples, taking out bad parts, of course. I'm getting faster at it, but I still have a long way to go. Each of these 5-quart amounts weigh just a couple ounces over 7 pounds. Various apple wine recipes call for 7 to 20 pounds of apples per gallon of wine, so I have enough to make a gallon right now. I'll keep slicing and dicing to get the pecked apples cleaned up, then see where I go from there. I need to act soon, because the fridge is filling up with apples and Mary says garden produce is coming in to be refrigerated, soon.
  • I finished apple duty in time to help Mary with the end of garden watering and final chores.
  • The National Weather Service says we're abnormally dry. That's why we water gardens daily.
    
    
• Wednesday, 8/24: Processing Apple & Garden Produce
  
  • I washed and then set up a hand grinder. I ground up apple chunks that were in the fridge to make applesauce and ran them through the apple press (see photos, below), processing a few ounces over 14 pounds of apple slices.
  • Mary picked nearly a full bucket of tomatillos, another bucket of tomatoes, a full bucket of bell peppers, some hot peppers, and some cucumbers. She washed, cut, and froze a gallon and a half of tomatoes. She also froze a gallon bag of tomatillos. We now have enough tomatillos. We don't need to water them, anymore.
  • I asked and Katie texted back that she flew out of Venetie, AK, today. She flies to Hawaii for a military job on Saturday.
  • Mary and I watered gardens. It goes faster, now that we're not watering beans, onions, and tomatillos. She found 7 eggs and no hornworms.
    
  • I sliced up between 2-3 quarts of pecked apples, while removing bad parts. After working the hand-crank grinder, I realized that I don't need to slice them so thin, which will save time by making just 3 long slices in each quarter of an apple. I finished all of the pecked Esopus apples and now have half a bucket of pecked Liberty apples to handle.
    
  • Bill called. Because he used Pell Grants for college, Biden's student loan forgiveness policy announced today has a chance of knocking $20,000 off his student loan debt. Details are forthcoming. We talked about apple wine and cider that I'm making. He is visiting us over Labor Day weekend.
  • On the nightly dog walk, we heard raccoons fighting near Bluegill Pond.
    

Grinding apples into sauce.

Turning applesauce into juice with fruit press.

• Thursday, 8/25: Mom to Get New Hip
  
  • Mom called. She decided to get her right hip replaced. A recent X-ray shows considerable wear from a year ago. It's a bone-on-bone situation. Shots only help for a few days and high-dosage Tylenol for just a couple hours. Her doctor, who has a practice in Cheyenne, WY, is from Glendive, MT, and also works in Glendive. She comes highly recommended. Mom's surgery is Sept. 13th. Karen arrives on Sept. 8th and is visiting until nearly the end of the month, which will help Mom. Based on others in Circle who went through hip replacement with that same doctor, Mom thinks she will be back to normal, soon. She's getting her place ready for recovery by installing handrails in certain places and lining up the use of a cane and a walker. In other news from Circle, MT, the weather has been hot. Grasshoppers are thick and chewing up plants. Mom recently dug up potatoes that the grasshoppers ate all of the plants' leaves. The McCone County Board decided she has to wait a year from January before she can drive for the Senior Center, again. Mom said she's gotten over being mad about that decision.
  • We're out of chick food, so I went to Quincy to buy more. With the pickup's license due at the end of this month, I got the pickup's required state inspection at Lewistown Tire. I was told that the truck's front end is very tight...good news. I got new license plate tags in Monticello, our county seat. Then, I bought animal food at Farm & Home and a couple things at Aldi in Quincy.
  • Meanwhile, Mary chopped up and froze 23 meal packages of green bell peppers. She also put 1.5 quarts of hot peppers in the freezer for making salsa. She used up some old eggs to make 2 quiche pies, one of which we ate when I returned home.
  • We both watered gardens, since a thunderstorm went by south of us dropping absolutely nothing on us.
  • Katie sent a photo taken from the air of Mount Denali's summit surrounded by clouds (see photo, below). She's back in Anchorage.
  • After dark, I chopped up 2-3 more quarts of apples, while removing pecked or bug-ridden parts.

  

  Katie captured this photo of Mount Denali from the air.

• Friday, 8/26: More Apple Gulag Work
  
  • FedEx delivered a package to our doorstep addressed to Alma, who lives in the trailer across the gravel road from us. Mary and I walked it over to them. We think it was a backpack that holds a baby, since they have a 2-month old baby girl. They thanked us for walking it to them.
    
  • Mary washed 2 loads of laundry and enjoyed some cross stitching.
  • I refrigerated the best apples in my collection, free of blemishes. Then, I sliced 8 more apples, and ground up another 6 quarts of apple slices. I now have an ounce shy of 21 pounds of applesauce. After dark, I cleaned up and sliced up 16 more apples. I started keeping some of the better blemished Esopus apples that I'm calling seconds and refrigerated them. I still have three 4-gallon buckets of apples to go through.
  • Mary and I both watered gardens. Mary found 7 hornworm eggs and no worms.
    
    
• Saturday, 8/27: Slicing Apples & Buckets of Tomatoes
  
  • On our morning dog walk, we saw a double-crested cormorant flying south. It definitely flew a little further west to avoid us.
  • Mary picked 2 full buckets of tomatoes, one of which was primarily cherry tomatoes. After sorting them, she put 3.5 gallon bags of tomatoes in the freezer. Another half a gallon of tomatoes and we have ingredients for 2 salsa batches.
  • I slogged away at slicing apples, filling one 6-quart container and starting a new container. I'm almost done with all pecked apples.
  • While watering gardens with Mary, I had a tan tree frog climb out of a watering can. It jumped off the can once I filled the container with water. It sat on the grass for the longest time. Once, when Mary approached, it jumped deeper into the grass, then changed color to a dark green to match the color of grass at ground level. I watered small trees. Mary found 3 eggs and 1 hornworm.
  • Right before going to bed very late (more like early morning), I asked Katie where she was and she texted back that she was in Anchorage. She is to report to the military base at 7 a.m. tomorrow, then she takes a 6-hour flight to Hawaii on a C-130 cargo airplane.