August 7-13, 2022

Weather | 8/7, 72°, 92° | 8/8, 77°, 81° | 8/9, 58°, 81° | 8/10, 56°, 83° | 8/11, 56°, 87° | 8/12, 61°, 83° | 8/13, 61°, 87° |

• Sunday, 8/7: License Plate Holder for Bill
  
  • I saw a hawk diving toward our chicken coop, while looking out the living room window, so Mary and I ran outside. The hawk slowly circled upward and drifted to the northeast. We watched little birds chase it. Mary identified it as red-shouldered hawk.
    
  • I did internet research for a front license plate holder for Bill's car, then we ordered one through RockAuto. It should arrive by Thursday and we can install it, here. Since his car came from Florida, where they don't require a front license plate, and since Hyundai doesn't build one into their cars, Bill needs to get a holder for a required front license plate in Missouri.
    
  • Mary picked veggies, including cucumbers, zucchinis, peppers, a couple tomatoes, and some tomatillos (see photo, below).
  • She also processed zucchinis and got enough in the freezer for the upcoming year.
    
  • I removed the 4 zucchini plants from the near garden (see photo, below). They were huge.
    
  • Mary and Bill found 13 hornworm eggs and 1 worm.
  • We watched 2 episodes of the John Adams miniseries.
    
  • I now have woodpeckers pecking the Liberty apples. It's the one tree that hasn't been attacked by critters, up until now!

Produce from the gardens.

8-feet of removed zucchini plants.

• Monday, 8/8: Bagging Liberty Apples
  
  • I spent all day putting zippered plastic sandwich bags on Liberty apples after noticing that the 6 bagged apples aren't being touched by woodpeckers. About 2/3rds of the tree's apples are bagged. Before that, I cut up a disposable aluminum roaster pan into strips and hung them on the tree. They somewhat keep birds out of the tree, particularly when bright sun shines. The tree looks weirdly decorated (see video, below). Each bag gets the 2 bottom corners cut out, for drainage, and a cut put in the middle of the zippered closure, for the apple stem. That, plus installing the bags on the apples, takes quite a lot of time. While installing bags, I'm removing bird-pecked and bug-infected apples. We definitely have plum curculio bugs, which leave an identifiable mark on apples. I need to improve my spray schedule next year to prevent these little bastards from infecting apples.
  • Mary made venison stroganoff for our main meal.
    
  • She also picked the first of our green beans, and propped boards under several muskmelons and watermelons.
  • Bill and Mary watered the gardens, and found 32 hornworm eggs.
  • We watched 2 episodes of the John Adams miniseries. I watched it through closed eyelids.
  New anti-woodpecker glitter & bags on Liberty apple tree.
  

• Tuesday, 8/9: Tree Frog Antics & Apple Bagging
  
  • Mary made flour tortillas.
  • She picked beans out of the garden.
  • Bill and Mary watered all gardens. They found 12 hornworm eggs, 2 hornworms, and 2 army worms.
  • Bill watched a tree frog crawl out of a watering can. Mary and Bill took it to the forsythia bush. Twice, when Mary tried to put the frog on a branch, it crawled up her arm to her shoulder. Mary said she could almost hear it say, "NO! Don't put me on that bush." Then they took it to the Sargent crabapple tree. The frog happily hopped onto a branch.
    
  • I finished bagging apples on the large Liberty tree. I put bags on about 145 apples today and about the same yesterday. I probably removed about 75-100 pecked or bug-damaged apples, so that tree had about 400 apples on it...and that was after I thinned the apples out a couple months ago. It's very shiny, with all of the plastic bags gleaming in the sunlight. Mary and Bill named it the Hall-Thanks-mas Tree. Bagging the apples works. Woodpeckers aren't in the tree. Instead, they're hitting the Esopus tree's uncovered apples. Obviously, that's my next piece of work.
  • We're seeing new growth on our newest apple trees. Since the Porter's Perfection crabapple was planted, all we saw were tiny leaves on the ends of branches. Within the past couple days, new light green leaves are appearing in several locations.
    
  • We watched the last episode of the John Adams miniseries.
    
    
• Wednesday, 8/10: Outdoor Cookout
  
  • Mary mowed part of the west lawn. Bill finished mowing that lawn and the far east lawn.
    
  • Mary and Bill watered the gardens.
  • I put plastic sandwich bags on 23 apples in the skinny, mystery apple tree just south of the house. I also started cleaning up apples on the Esopus apple tree.
    
  • We enjoyed an outdoor cookout in the west yard under the mulberry tree. The meal consisted of a cucumber/tomato salad and pork loin roasted over an open fire.
    
  • After the sun set, we saw a large bat flying, along with several other bats. The moon and Jupiter rose to the east. It was a very enjoyable evening.
    
    
• Thursday, 8/11: Bagging Esopus Apples
  
  • Mary raked grass that was mowed yesterday. She mulched our two youngest apple trees.
  • I installed plastic sandwich bags on over 100 apples on the Esopus Spitzenburg tree. I never got on the ladder, because I was covering low-hanging fruit, first.
  • Bill and I took his car, drove to Lewistown, where I bought 120 sandwich bags from Dollar General. He let me drive his car. It's a really nice vehicle, rides nice and has plenty of power for a 2.4 liter four-cylinder engine.
    
  • Bill and Mary watered all gardens.
  • They looked for worms and found 15 hornworm eggs and 5 hornworms.
  • Katie flew to Venetie, AK, today.
  • After supper, I cut bad parts out of several Esopus apples that I pulled off the tree and we sampled them. These apples weren't quite ripe and still a little hard, but very delicious.
    
    
• Friday, 8/12: Fishing Day
  
  • We all went fishing at Bass Pond, formerly called Swim Pond. Mary's first fish was a 2-foot long bass. Since we want to keep fish multiplying in the pond, we returned this bass back into the water. It might be a source of future fish eggs. We all caught several fish, but kept 8 for eating. They were slow to bite. I fished most of the time with a Panther Martin spinner that resembles a bumblebee. I'd let it sink after casting, reel it in slowly, feel for soft bites and set the hook after feeling a couple nips. The tactic was very effective. I filleted the fish and Mary cooked them up. They tasted great.
    
  • I finished putting sandwich bags on apples on the Esopus Spitzenburg tree. I bagged a total of 134 apples on that tree. Various animals and birds probably did in over 100 apples. Today, I removed over 20 punctured by woodpeckers. Without covering them, all apples were doomed.
  • Bill's license plate holder and a massive squirt cannon that Bill ordered for me came in today's mail. I tried the big squirt gun out at a flying woodpecker. My aim was in front of the bird. It saw the large stream of water and took a 90-degree turn in the sky and headed east.
  • Mary picked an overflowing bowl of beans of mostly wax beans.
    
  • Mary and I watered the gardens, while Bill picked 15 hornworm eggs and 4 hornworms off various plants.
    
  • We watched a movie that Bill picked out, Men in Black: International.
  • Katie tested a text from Venetie, AK. Last year, she couldn't text using her personal phone from there. Not so, this year.
    
    
• Saturday, 8/13: Winemaking
  
  • Bill and I made 5 gallons of blackberry wine. We thawed, then squeezed 22 quart bags of blackberries, equaling 20.3 pounds, into juice and dumped them into the large brew bucket. We added 3.75 gallons of water, 9 pounds of sugar to bring the specific gravity to 1.085, 5 teaspoons of yeast energizer, and 5 Campden tablets. The pH is 3.1, quite acidic, so we didn't add acid blend. We covered it and set the brew bucket in the pantry.
  • We also racked the gallon of dandelion wine for the fourth time. It's very clear. We added 1 Campden tablet and bottled it into five 750-ml bottles. Mary, Bill, and I tasted the leftovers. Bill says it's aromatic and tart. Mary says it's warm and flowery. This is definitely my best dandelion wine that I've made...well worth the multiple hours spent plucking dandelion petals, but only for one gallon's worth.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas, then fajitas for our main meal. She used a freshly picked bell pepper that was very good.
  • Mary picked several tomatoes, some tomatillos, and several beans. She also did some house cleaning.
  • Mary and I did the watering dance. She watered most of the far garden. I watered small fruit trees. She and I did the near garden. Bill picked 2 hornworm eggs and 4 worms.
  • I screwed Bill's new license plate holder onto his car's front grill and added 2 screws into the right locations that he can use when he gets his new license plate. My recommendation to Bill is to replace those screws with stainless steel screws before winter highway salt spray starts flying.
  • A woodpecker attacking a bare apple that I missed covering in the top Esopus tree turned wet after I blasted it from the water gun. It flew to the top of a tall persimmon tree, east of the apple tree, then immediately flew to the east. This water cannon is fun!