Sept. 11-17, 2022

Weather | 9/11, 1.93" rain overnight, 55°, 73° | 9/12, 53°, 74° | 9/13, 47°, 77° | 9/14, 51°, 85° | 9/15, 59°, 83° | 9/16, 59°, 84° | 9/17, 0.16" rain, 68°, 80° |

• Sunday, 9/11: Salsa Day...La Dia de la Salsa
  
  • We were surprised at the rain gauge, this morning. We knew it rained through the night. I was up at 5 a.m. for a tinkle and rain dripped off the roof, then. But we didn't realize it rained just under 2 inches. There was hardly any standing water, due to several weeks of dryness. The overnight rain was very welcomed.
    
  • Today was Salsa Day, Round 1. Mary canned 14 quarts and 1 pint of salsa. A sip from a spoon told us it tastes wonderful.
  • I mowed part of the trail to Bass Pond. I bagged the grass and dumped clippings into the trailer on the tractor. This time, I put the trailer hitch on the ball at the front of the tractor. It allows me to push the trailer down the trail in front of the tractor, making it easier to dump into the trailer. I used the grass clippings to mulch the 2 maple trees planted in the north yard.
  • Once the trail swung east from the north yard, it was filled with tall tickseed flowers, or Cereopsis tripteris (see photo, below). I took the photo before I had to mow them all down for the trail. This trail goes to 3 deer hunting locations in November.
    
  • Mary did most of the evening chores, since I was mowing the trail.
  • Bill texted that watching the Minnesota Vikings is fun. "The new offense is crazy," he said. They beat the Packers 23-7 for the first game of the season.
    
  • Katie called after dark. She flew from Hawaii to Anchorage, yesterday. She said Anchorage is pretty in fall colors. Katie goes to Venetie, AK on Wednesday. She's there on-and-off through the winter until February heading up Phase 2 of work on the school. It involves a new sprinkler system that didn't get approved by the school district until August. Katie was off tonight to Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience.
    
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of delicious 2021 blackberry wine. After decanting it in the glass pitcher I got from Salvation Army, we drank it chilled, with ice. It's extremely tasty, with a blackberry essence. Mary said the tannin of the blackberry is tasted on the back of the tongue. "It's like an expensive grape wine," Mary said, "but we know better." This tastes like dessert in a glass.

  

  Tall tickseed flowers in the Bass Pond Trail.

• Monday, 9/12: Slumgullion & Purple Paint
  
  • Mom texted this morning that after Karen arrived on Thursday, they've harvested items from Mom's garden and gathered a walker, cane, and shower chair in preparation for Mom's hip surgery that starts tomorrow morning. She'll be kept overnight at the Glendive Medical Center, then released on Wednesday afternoon. Mom said they start therapy right away.
    
  • Today, Mary turned tomatoes, onions, and green bell peppers into slumgullion. She uses it for spaghetti sauce and as a base for macaroni casserole. Mary canned 13 quarts of it.
  • Thursday, 9/15, is the start of archery deer hunting season, so I repainted trees and fence posts with purple paint along the west and part of the north sides of our property. I ran out of paint, or I would have finished the north side. In Missouri, purple paint means no trespassing and no hunting. I haven't purple painted property boundaries on the west and north property edges since spring of last year, nor the east property line since fall of 2019. 
  • The owner of the land west of us has a deer stand right on the property line and just beyond our west field. Rich, who is SW of our property, has 3 deer stands just a few feet from our property line. Gee whiz, talk about getting close! I feel like rolling into those places with a tractor and a chainsaw and cutting up firewood while they're trying to hunt. It's just common sense to give a neighbor's property line a little space. 
  • The folks north of us cut trees and bushes that were covering the fence. Green leaves on the cut trees indicates the chainsaw work took place recently. I suspect in years past, deer hid behind trees and bushes along that fence. I spotted a trail camera that has an antenna sitting on a fence post and aimed to the north, into their property. I suppose it's there to monitor deer walking by in their cow pasture. There's a deer stand next to a pond just north of there, so I suspect that a deer cam with an antenna enables a hunter at that deer stand to watch the trail cam on a cell phone.
  • When I got home, I was really hungry, so we ate a ripe muskmelon from the garden. It was heavenly!
  • Mary checked hazelnuts and picked about 1/3 of a bucket. She said more need picking.
  • Katie sent several photos and videos from the Van Gogh experience she visited last night. Full length paintings filled the walls and even the floor and changed, and swirled, to the accompaniment of music. It was obviously an interesting experience.
    
    
• Tuesday, 9/13: Cutting Hay, Purple Painting & Mom's New Hip
  
  • Mary sharpened up her scythe and cut tall grass in the front lawn, along the near garden, and in the middle of the far garden. With expected higher temperatures, she will let this hay dry, then store it in the second grain bin for hay to use in the chicken coop through the upcoming year. Swinging a scythe takes a bit of effort, so she took a big break to freeze 4 quarts of muskmelon.
  • I purple painted most of the south edge of our 160-acre property, all of the east edge and the rest of the north side. All that's left is the south side of our property, from our lane, along the gravel road, to the southwest corner of our property.
  • While painting the south side of our property near the southeast corner, I took photos of sawtooth sunflowers that were well over my head (see photos, below).
  • Right after taking those photos, Karen called. Mom went through surgery just fine and got a new hip. The doctor told Karen that cartilage was gone and the joint was starting to deform. Later tonight, Mom texted me that she had a new hip. She was up walking this afternoon and expects to go home tomorrow. 
    
  • Back along our property lines, we have a couple places on the northern stretch of the east fence where trees fell and smashed the wires. Fortunately, property to the east is just woods without any cattle. That entire east fence needs replacing.
  • Right before I got to the northeast corner of our property, a turkey flew from above me across Wood Duck Pond. I crawled through the fence into the neighbor's pasture and spotted a couple dozen turkeys running in the grass, heading for the woods. They didn't like my looks.
    
  • I scared a wood duck off Wood Duck Pond. That's why we gave it that name. Wood ducks live there. It's also full of bull frogs. As I walked along it, hundreds of bull frogs made an "eeping" sound as they skittered from the shore into the water.
    
  • I was wrong about the neighbors to the north. They are replacing that fence. I found new strands of barb wire from Wood Duck Pond going west. I walked by another trail camera with 3 different antennae on it. About where I ended purple painting yesterday sat a Bobcat skid steer with a bucket sitting next to it. They're obviously using it to grub out trees and brush that they're cutting away from the fence. Since we've lived here, that fence was badly in need of repair. Maybe there are new property owners to the north. They're doing a good job.
  • Mary picked a large bowl of strawberries. Cooler weather gives them a better chance to develop. I fixed waffles. It's a good thing we had strawberries. I was so hungry that I forgot to put baking powder or salt into the waffle batter. All I put in was flour, ground flax, and water! They were rather flat. But, the strawberries made them taste great.

Sawtooth sunflowers (Helianthus grosseserratus).

Honey bees love these very tall flowers.

• Wednesday, 9/14: Mom is Home After Hip Replacement
  
  • Mom did a bunch of physical therapy at the Glendive Medical Center this morning after yesterday's hip replacement surgery and was released later. She had strong pain once she got home, thinking she might have overdone it with morning exercises at the hospital. She has pain medication to take. Karen said the incision is only 4 inches and the doctor does robotic surgery, which is supposed to be less destructive.
    
  • I finished purple painting by doing the piece from the end of our driveway to our southwest property corner. In the 45 minutes it took me to paint it, seven semi tanker loads of dairy cow liquid sewage went by on the gravel road. The drivers rolled by doing about 45 mph, kicking up an amazing amount of dust. I think the dairy is chisel plowing the cow sewage into a field southwest of us.
    
  • Today, Mary spread hay that she dropped yesterday in the far garden.
    
  • She also vacuumed spiders in our house.
  • Mary picked a half a bucket of hazelnuts.
  • I checked the green apples on the skinny apple tree south of the house. They aren't ripe, yet. Some of these apples have a slight pink tinge on top.
  • I cleaned the bathroom.
  • The winter greens started sprouting.
  • Katie flew to Venetie, AK, today.
    
    
• Thursday, 9/15: Archery Hunting Starts & Piccalilli Making
  
  • Today is the start of archery hunting season for both turkey and deer. At 9 a.m., I heard Rich, our neighbor to the southwest of us, drive his pickup pulling a trailer with a 4-wheeler on it while going back home on the gravel road. That trailer rattles on the gravel. He needs the 4-wheeler to drive about 50 yards into the woods. No wonder he had a heart attack while in his 50s. I'm sure there are several human monkeys hanging out in trees with their expensive archery outfits and hunting clothing, today. With temperatures in the 80s, it's too hot to be field dressing deer. I'll wait for cooler temps in November.
    
  • Mary turned the hay she dropped a few days ago, to allow it to dry further.
    
  • Today was an all-day episode of making piccalilli for Mary. It's also known as green tomato relish made from green tomatoes, cabbage, onions, hot and green peppers, vinegar, and several spices. It started with Mary picking 65 green tomatoes, 10 jalapeño peppers, and 5 bell peppers. Using the food processor, she ground up cabbage, with Plato's help. That crazy dog loves vegetables and gobbles up cabbage! She also ground the other stuff, cooked it up, added salt, let it sit, then spooned off liquid. Because it sits for several hours, she canned it after dark, resulting in 14 pints.
  • I did little things through the day, because my left elbow's tendon is hurting. I removed downed weed and saplings cut from a few days ago, and tossed them in the woods. I moved bricks that once held down cover over winter green tubs, and moved mulch out of the wagon to the large maple tree planted in the north yard. I also watered strawberries and winter greens.
  • Mom said she still hurts from her hip surgery.
    
  • Katie sent the photo (see below) of autumn colors along the Yukon River.

  

  Photo of Yukon River while Katie flew to Venetie, AK.

• Friday, 9/16: Mowing & Hay Storage
  
  • I mowed the grass around the Esopus and Grimes apple trees, collecting the grass and putting some under the Empire apple tree, and back under the Esopus tree. I was going to mow more of the trail to Bass Pond, but approaching weather curtailed that plan.
    
  • After eating a midday meal and wasting time online, Mary checked weather radar and said, "I've got to go!" A storm was closely approaching, so we quickly picked up the hay she had drying in a couple places and moved it with wheelbarrows to inside the second grain bin. It was some of the fastest hay pickup and storage we've ever accomplished. Later, it sprinkled just a little bit, but not enough to get anything very wet.
    
  • Karen said that therapy went well for Mom and that they have exercises for Mom to do at home.
    
    
• Saturday, 9/17: Bad Western Alaska Storm
  
  • Mary made a second batch of salsa for the season and canned 15 quarts.
    
  • I hunted squirrels for most of the day. I shot 4 of them. Their front paws and mouths are dark brown, from husking pecan nuts.
    
  • We had a Cooper's hawk land on the power pole just southeast of the house. I jumped outside and chased it away.
    
  • Mom texted that she's getting better each day and getting around with a walker. She said that Hank, Mom's boyfriend, showed up to take in events at the Circle Town & Country Day. Karen drove Mom's car downtown and parked it so Mom could watch the parade. Hank then took Mom and Karen to lunch. They had dessert at the senior center. "I did quite a bit of walking," Mom said. She also wrote that her leg is swollen some, but hurts less.
  • I followed online about the flooding during a bad storm that hit Alaska's west coast. Ellen Napoleon, an old UAF college friend, who grew up in Hooper Bay, but now lives in Scammon Bay, said she overnighted at the school, where she works, in case things turned bad overnight. There was flooding, but her home is fine. She's concerned for friends and relatives in Hooper Bay, where flooding was bad enough to move a house off its foundations. Another hard-hit town is Golovin, near Nome, on the Seward Penninsula. DeAnn Lincoln Gardner, another UAF friend, now lives in Fairbanks, but grew up in Golovin. Houses not on the hill were flooded and moved off foundations in Golovin.
    
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine, in celebration of the halfway point of making salsa. Pumpkin wine is really wonderful in a glass with ice.