July 31-August 6, 2022

Weather | 7/31, 60°, 83° | 8/1, 70°, 90° | 8/2, 70°, 88° | 8/3, 0.26" rain, 72°, 83° | 8/4, 69°, 88° | 8/5, 63°, 91° | 8/6, 70°, 94° |

• Sunday, 7/31: Attending Trees
  
  • We had a light, misty rain in the morning, a phenomenon that never showed on weather radar, but was very welcome.
  • I sharpened the blade and changed oil in the mower.
  • Mary made a venison General Tso dish for our main meal.
  • I cleaned grass and weeds from around the 2 new apple trees, the south apple trees, and the big pie cherry tree.
  • The cherry tree is pouring sap down its trunk. I looked it up and cherry trees do this after an injury, which in this case is the result of a carpenter ant intrusion into a crack between branches in the tree. Another fact I discovered is carpenter ants don't eat wood, they just take advantage of hollow cavities. In other words, rot happened in this tree, first, then the ants arrived. I don't see them now, though. Draining sap also leads to yellowing leaves, which is something else we've noticed on this tree this summer. It's slowly dying. We need to look for a new tree to take it's place. This one was probably planted by Herman in 2009.
  • A bunch of downy mildew was in the shoots growing from the rootstock of the large Liberty apple tree, which I sprayed.
    
  • Mary raked grass and put the mulch on the ground under the dripline of 3 of the 4 trees I worked on. 
  • While mulching the skinny tree south of the house, we discovered it had aphids on new leaves. I sprayed a gallon of Dawn/water solution on the entire tree to try to kill aphids. Brown ants are also on the tree. I need to treat the trunk with Tanglefoot. 
  • This tree has green apples. Based on its pink blossoms, it might be a golden delicious apple tree. It's identity has been a mystery ever since we got it from Arbor Day. It was labeled as a Sergent crabapple tree, which it definitely is not. Based on its pink flowers, we first identified it as a Stayman's Winesap. Then, we called it the skinny Liberty. This year was the first time it produced fruit which are green, so it's not a Liberty. The mystery continues!
    
  • Mary watered the far garden, while I sprayed for aphids. Then, I watered the near garden, enabling Mary to search for hornworms and their eggs on tomato/tomatillo plants. She found 4 eggs.
  • While walking dogs at night, I spotted eyes in the McIntosh tree. We put the dogs inside and I went back to the tree, but nothing was there. We suspect a raccoon.
    
    
• Monday, 8/1: Garden Really Kicks In
  
  • I drove to Quincy, IL, to pick up a package. FedEx, the pretend shipping company who never finds our home, disallowed me online from redirecting the package to the Quincy Walgreens store, like we usually do, so I called on Friday to have them hold it at their Quincy receiving location, which they did on Saturday. While in town, I bought pet food, chick food, and a few other items. Bullets for my 30:30 rifle might be hard to find this year. Everyone is always out of them.
    
  • Meanwhile, back home Mary picked a handful of cucumbers, 4 zucchinis, 5 hot peppers, 8 tomatillos, and 1 tomato.
  • She also put small boards under 7 muskmelon and 21 watermelon fruits.
    
  • Mary also did some housecleaning.
  • We both watered the far garden.
  • A quick look at the skinny apple tree south of the house indicates the Dawn soap solution was too harsh. It killed aphids, but also turned green leaves partially brown. DAMN!
    
  • I picked strawberries and a some blackberries for tomorrow's breakfast. Mary watered the near garden and picked 4 hornworm eggs off tomato plants.
  • It was extremely hot and humid. A thunderstorm developed over us and moved into Illinois.
    
  • We watched the 1934 movie, It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. It was good.
    
    
• Tuesday, 8/2: Camping Indoors Until Garden Watering Time
  
  • Heat and humidity cools our jets about going outside.
  • I wrote up voting cheat sheets and we drove to Lewistown, MO, and voted in the primary election.
    
  • I updated and balanced the checkbook.
  • Mary baked a cherry pie from this year's cherries. We ate part of it in the evening. It was really amazing.
    
  • Mary watered the far garden while I watered the near garden and small fruit trees. I picked a cucumber and a zucchini. Mary found 2 small hornworms and 2 hornworm eggs.
  • Critters are leaving apple bits all over the ground under the McIntosh apple tree. It's sort of our sacrificial fruit tree. I'd have to camp out there day and night to defend it.
  • I send an birthday ecard to Bill. His birthday is tomorrow.
  • Katie is in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park on military building training.
    
    
• Wednesday, 8/3: Bill's Birthday & Rain
  • A nice rain fell in the morning, and then off and on throughout the day. It meant we didn't have to water gardens...YAHOO!!!
  • Bill was born 29 years ago, today, in Roseau, MN.
  • Mary made fajitas for our midday meal.
  • Mary picked one medium hornworm and 2 hornworm eggs off the tomatoes and tomatillos. I harvested a zucchini and several strawberries, while Mary found a hot pepper (see photo, below).
  • I found 2 squirrel-chewed green apples under the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree. There are so many chewed apples under the McIntosh tree that the ground looks like applesauce. The carnage continues.
  • Mom texted that she visited Hank on his birthday. She drove up to Glasgow, MT on Monday morning and drove back home to Circle Tuesday morning. She added that morning driving hours are better, because of less traffic and fewer grasshoppers hitting the windshield. She says hoppers are bad this summer in eastern Montana.
  • We talked to Bill after dark. He renewed his apartment rental lease. It rose $150 per month. Bill looked around for a better deal, but rents are high everywhere, so he decided he was better off staying put. There are several advantages to his current apartment. In the recent St. Louis flood, his apartment was dry. His utilities are low. Plus, his location in St. Charles is away from the tornado alley path of other parts of the St. Louis metro area. He's driving north to our place on Saturday, Aug. 6th, for a 9-day visit. We talked about the critter-apple-eating situation. Bill's solution is that we should build a dome similar to an artist's concept of humans living on Mars to block animals from eating our apples. Sure thing, William! We'll get right on it. We also discussed that since we put a lock on the water hydrant, we don't see a big puddle surrounding the outdoor hydrant. For the longest time, we thought we had an underground water leak. We suspect someone marches through and regularly gets a drink while pouring water out on the ground. Bill suggested we ought to install a trail cam to identify who is stealing our water.
  • Mary noticed that we have so many hops vines on the west side of the house that we might consider making hops wine. We looked up recipes and found a couple. Most times, hops are added late in the winemaking process to put a unique taste into white wine.

  

  From the garden - strawberries, a zucchini, & a hot pepper.

• Thursday, 8/4: Putting Away Tomatillos
  
  • Mary washed 3 loads of clothes.
  • She also froze 10 hot peppers, 68 tomatillos or enough for 1 batch of salsa (see photo, below), and 2 tomatoes.
  • Mary also paid the bills.
    
  • I took the carburetor off the trimmer, put new gaskets on either side of it, readjusted the linkage to the carb, adjusted the high and low fuel mixture settings on the carburetor, changed the spark plug gap after cleaning the plug with a wire brush, and installed a new air filter while cleaning the air cleaner that I took out. It runs a little better, but still not at top speed.
    
  • I cut down the tall grass around the compost bins with the steel blade on the trimmer and raked the grass up into a pile.
    
  • We both watered gardens. Mary found 3 hornworms and 1 hornworm egg.
  • When I took dogs out for their nighttime outing, we smelled a skunk north of the vehicles, so I kept the dogs near the yard and close to the house. Skunks might be another animal eating apples, since they can climb trees.
     

  

  Tomatillos, freshly picked (front), husks (middle),
  and freezer-ready fruit (in sink).

• Friday, 8/5: Mowing & Cleaning
  
  • Mary cleaned the house, including vacuuming, cleaning sinks, and mopping floors. She also did 2 loads of laundry.
  • I mowed the lane so Bill's car won't have an issue with tall chicory plants smacking the undercarriage. I did it in 15-25 minute increments, due to the heat. I'm yearning for cold winter days.
    
  • Mary watered most of the garden plants. I did some of the near garden and picked strawberries.
  • Mary found a spring peeper frog (see photo, below). We hear them every spring, but never see them. This one is living in the bean row, which gets watered daily.
  • After chores, we spotted 3 bats flying in the sky at dusk. Maybe the bat population is rebounding.
    
  • I replaced the toilet seat.
  • We wrapped Bill's birthday gifts. In May, Bill wrapped a birthday gift to his mother in Christmas wrapping paper, so we returned the favor. On the last gift, we used 2 types of paper and part of a recent newspaper front page. Sometimes it's fun being silly.

  

  Spring peeper on grass blades in bean row.

• Saturday, 8/6: Bill Arrives
  
  • Bill arrived in his car that he bought last month. It's a nice looking vehicle.
  • We celebrated Bill's birthday, which was on Wednesday. He opened our presents to him. We gave him a Mr. Coffee tea maker and two 1-gallon pitchers, among other things. He said he will use it a lot.
    
  • I added a mothball to each of the mothball plastic Gatorade bottles I use to keep critters out of engine departments of vehicles and moved 11 mothball bottles to Bill's vehicle.
    
  • In the middle of working on mothball bottles, I heard the chickens loudly squawking, so I ran to the chicken yard. I arrived just in time to have a hawk swoop over the chicken coop roof right at me. It was only about 2 feet above my head. I clapped my hands and hollered at it to get out of there. It flew high and circled overhead as I yelled at it. There were 2 hawks in the sky, circling, and they eventually moved off to the east. I checked chickens. Both sets of birds, the older hens, and the young chicks, were well hidden under tall weeds and trees. The older birds were yelling and the young chicks heeded their warning calls and tucked under the weeds.
    
  • Mary made flour tortillas and a pistachio tort. The tort is Bill's favorite and for his belated birthday.
    
  • Mary and I watered all garden plants very deeply, due to the high temperatures. Mary found 11 hornworm eggs and 2 hornworms. Mary had 2 juvenile hummingbirds at her elbow as she looked for hornworms and their eggs in the tomato patch. The little hummingbirds fed on tomato flowers and tried to perch on the corn leaves. These corn leaves bent down with the birds' weight and dumped them back into the air. She said it was funny to watch as they tried to perch on corn leaves repeatedly.
    
  • We watched 2 episodes of 2008 HBO miniseries, John Adams. Bill picked it out.
  • In a series of texts to Katie, I learned that she's back in Anchorage and will be flying out to Venetie, AK, where she headed a school reconstruction project last year. She's now going to take charge of the rest of Phase 2 of that project. She flies out either on 8/10, or a few days later.