April 16-22, 2023

Weather | 4/16, 0.03" rain, 37°, 43° | 4/17, 33°, 61° | 4/18, 39°, 66° | 4/19, 51°, 77° | 4/20, 0.11" rain, 57°, 72° | 4/21, 37°, 55° | 4/22, 32°, 43° |

• Sunday, 4/16: Rain, Mist, Wind Outside, Warmth & Turkey Dinner Inside
  
  • Light rain and mist filled most of the day. A nice, warm wood fire made all humans, dogs, and cats happy in our house. The only time we saw sun was at sunset, when tree tops were gold (see photo, below).
    
  • High winds are tough on fruit blossoms. Below is a photo and video of pear blossoms last week.
    
  • Mary fixed a turkey dinner. It was an extra turkey we didn't eat last year, because we thought we needed to save one in the freezer due to bird flu creating a possible turkey shortages. Well, we found turkeys in November, so this was an extra one. It tasted great, even though it was purchased November 2021.
  • I spent the day reviewing fruit tree disease and insect spraying schedules. I started a spraying diary, a spraying time table that includes limits and mixing amounts of each item, and a sheet listing trees that are susceptible to fireblight, apple scab, and cedar apple rust.

Golden tree tops from a setting sun.

Last week's Kieffer pear blossoms.

Kieffer pear blossoms taken Tuesday, 4-11-23. The tree is green, now.

• Monday, 4/17: Bug Traps With Switchel
  
  • I made gallon jug bug traps and hung them in the four main apple-producing trees. An upper portion is cut out opposite the handle. In goes water, vinegar, and molasses. I added sugar. It's an old-fashioned way to capture and kill codling moths and other bugs that fill apples with worms. The first jug I made I cut the hole too close to the bottom of the jug. I'll have to make a different one to replace that jug, that is in the Granny Smith tree. 
  • Mary and I took a tour of all trees in the evening. Apple blossoms are everywhere and seem to survive recent wind gusts. At dusk, several small flies were all over the jug trap hung in the McIntosh tree. That tree, which is big, needs more traps.
    
  • An interesting fact about the concoction in these traps. It tastes rather good. Mary looked it up. It's called switchel, a high-energy drink from the 18th Century given to farmers at harvest time, known as the original electrolyte drink. The switchel recipe was one gallon water, 2 cups raw or dark brown sugar, one cup molasses, one cup apple cider vinegar, one teaspoon fresh ginger.
    
  • All four corner fence posts of the near garden fence received broken chunks of brick that I punched into the ground near their base with a spud bar to solidify the posts. Spring thaws really soften the clay soil around them, making corner fence posts lean.
    
  • A strong west wind died at sunset, allowing me to spray trees. I dispersed a tankful of streptomycin on the two Bartlett pear trees, along with the Grimes, Esopus, and Granny Smith apple trees. Several tiny pears are showing in the big Bartlett tree. Coyotes howled a couple times while I sprayed.
    
    
• Tuesday, 4/18: Springtime Pleasures
  
  • The house wren came home. I heard it through our open bedroom window this morning.
    
  • I sharpened the lawnmower blade, using the bench grinder, followed by a hand file.
    
  • Mary mowed the lane.
  • I checked the switchel bug traps. They're full of fruit flies, so they seem to be working very well. I transferred distilled water into one of my glass jugs used for brewing wine and  made a new trap for the Granny Smith tree.
    
  • I sharpened two knives after Mary said there's be no more food cooked in this house if she didn't get sharp knives while hacking away on turkey meat two days ago. Plans are to work on a knife or two each day until they're all sharp.
    
  • I made a new batch of maple syrup using Mapleine extract, which is far superior to McCormick maple extract. I used an entire two ounce bottle of McCormick extract on the first tasteless batch. This time, I used just a half teaspoon of Mapleine. The new syrup tastes better and has a deeper color (see photo, below).
    
  • I walked the dogs on the north loop trail. We spooked up a deer. After returning, I picked 10 ticks off Amber and eight off Plato. Tick season is now official. Rubber boots and plenty of bug dope meant zero ticks on me.
    
  • Mary reports three peas popping through the ground and one radish sprouting in the near garden.
  • Mary and I toured the fruit trees. We saw several tiny pears on both Big Bart and Mr. Kieffer. Leaves are showing on Calville d'Hiver, a newly planted tree. Green buds are on Gold Rush, another new apple tree. Cherry blossoms are blasting open. Both crabapple trees are in bloom. Empire shows a nice amount of pink blossoms. Grimes Golden has the most blossoms since we planted it several years ago. Esopus is in half bloom. McIntosh has a healthy compliment of white blossoms. Spring is a pretty time when you own fruit trees.
  • I looked online and wrote down wildlife ideas for carving 3-D images into leather. Some include a mouse sitting next to a bluebell, mouse in toadstool house, mouse with mushroom umbrella, tree frog on a leaf, raccoon with an apple or eating a cherry, a mama deer licking a fawn, squirrels with acorns, ladybugs, dragonflies, and butterflies.

  

  Homemade syrup...old on left, new on right.

• Wednesday, 4/19: The Great Opossum Event
  
  • While returned home from walking dogs down the lane this morning, an opossum came sauntering toward us. Mary got both dogs to sit and we waited. Amber was shaking. Opossums don't see much further than 10 feet. It gnawed on a plant and slowly waddled from one side of the lane to the other. I walked up to it and persuaded Mr. Opossum to get to the side of the lane. Mary walked both dogs by and we were good. Plato and Amber obeyed Mary's commands so well that they both received two treats, each, for being such good puppies!
    
  • The newer syrup tasted much, much better on this morning's waffles. I used up the old stuff, then started on new syrup.
  • Mary started mowing the east lawn while I sharpened another knife. When she came inside and ate, because her own body ran out of gas, I went out and mowed. We bagged the grass and put mulch around the Esopus apple tree. After Mary finished the east and south lawns, she mowed the immediate north lawn.
  • While mowing around the Granny Smith and Empire apple trees, Mary caught whiffs of the bug traps. She said they smell sour, now.
  • I walked pups to the west. While going across the west field, I found a deer antler shed.
    
  • The wheel of the lawnmower ran over a small pie cherry plant east of the big cherry tree. Since the mower blade didn't chop it and because it is in a perfect location, she placed a tomato cage that's wrapped in chicken wire over the little tree. We don't have to transplant that tree.
  • I got out the small chainsaw and cut branches off several small persimmon trees that I cut a couple weeks ago near the blueberries and big Bartlett pear tree. The straightest persimmon poles I put in the machine shed. Crooked ones became firewood. I cut down a couple more persimmons to give us more room to run a tractor through to the west and I cut down a mulberry that was just west of the southwest corner of the chicken run. Firewood pieces went into a green wood stack in the machine shed. Poles went on the machine shed dirt floor and I moved branches to a pile that exists north next to the north woods. The next chore will be building an electric fence around blueberries and the Bartlett pear trees.
  • Mary made a shopping list, since we're shopping in Quincy tomorrow (4/20).
    
    
• Thursday, 4/20: Shopping Trip
  
  • We woke to an approaching thunderstorm, but we finished morning chores before it hit. After the front went through, strong wind gusts blasted the area.
    
  • Mary and I went on a long shopping trip to Quincy, IL. We left home at 9 a.m. and returned at 6 p.m. Our puppies bounced with joy when we got home.
  • We bought a new Stihl trimmer with a bike handle. I put a carb in the old trimmer last year and it still runs poorly. The estimated longevity is 10-12 years. We bought it in 2010, so we bit the bullet and got a new one. 
  • We also bought a new 3M respirator. I use it while cleaning the dusty chicken coop and we cannot find filters for the old one, whereas 3M filters are readily available.
  • Of course, we attended the Friends of the Library book sale at the Quincy Public Library. The place was packed with people...no book banning problems, here! We bought 32 inches of books at 50 cents an inch. It will come in handy when we downsize to a smaller and newer home. I contributed greatly to the new book finds.
  • We stopped at U.S. Cellular and changed our cell phone plans away from their highest plans to a cheaper fixed plan and added unlimited internet. It means our total bill goes down a few dollars, we stop using my phone as a hot spot, and we start using a router that can be accessed by phones, tablets, and the television. The router, which is usually $400 but is part of a soon-to-expire free promotion, is the size of a pencil case.
  • After evening chores, we settled down to several hours of reviewing the books we brought home.
    
    
• Friday, 4/21: Annoying St. Louis Neighbor Visit
  
  • Since flour tortillas contain so many carbs that they send my blood glucose levels skyrocketing, Mary experimented with making fajita bowls, similar to what we've ordered in the past from Qdoba. Of course, it was really good, quite filling, and didn't zonk my evening blood glucose reading.
    
  • Mary watered the near garden twice, due to strong west wind gusts that kept drying it out.
  • I checked my fruit trees. This year we have a lot of cherry blossoms on most all of our trees, even some of the small cherry trees. McIntosh is finishing up blooming and I'll soon need to spray it for bugs. All of the three new apple trees contain leaves, or buds. There are tons of tiny pears developing on Big Bartlett and the Kieffer pear trees.
    
  • I made another bug trap out of a plastic gallon jug and hung it in the McIntosh tree, so that tree holds two traps. Fruit flies and some moths are dead in the traps. Mary and I looked up coddling moths and I think I've trapped some in the Granny Smith and Esopus tree bug traps.
    
  • The neighbor who owns property west of us, Ben Woodruff, visited us to ask us one more time if we wanted to sell our land. He's obnoxious and continues to ask every year. Ben bought land northwest of our northwest corner, southwest of us and way south on Highway 156, where he's building, because as he put it, "I couldn't wait any longer to buy your property." He's proud of how there are no longer any "outfitters" putting out-of-state hunters on surrounding land. Mary explained to him that we welcomed the "outfitter," because having him and his hunters on land west to us eliminated the wild west show during deer season we experienced when we first took possession of our land. It's amusing that Ben and his friends are from St. Louis, while the "outfitter" is Travis Fleer, from Lewistown. Travis owns Lewistown Tire and is a county commissioner. Who is the outsider, here?
    
  • I set up the modem that we got from U.S. Cellular. It's high on the bookshelf above the TV. Internet service is excellent and fast. I watched part of PBS News Hour and several hockey highlights.
    
    
• Saturday, 4/22: Cold Gray Day
  
  • Strong west wind gusts and clouds kept temperatures down. After experiencing temperatures in the 70s and 80s, highs in the 40s seem downright cold for our southerly adapted blood.
    
  • Mary made cornbread with omelets for our midday meal. I had beans with just one flour tortilla in the evening, along with a big helping of fresh asparagus shoots from the asparagus bed. Blood glucose readings were in the 80s, so my diabetes meds and revised meal plans are working perfectly.
  • While Mary dusted books upstairs, I had a trial and error day getting things working on our TV connected to the new modem. It's taking a bit of time, but I'm figuring it out.
  • Due to predicted overnight frost, we covered outside garden items. A large sheet of plastic went over the winter greens bins, anchored by bricks. Mary put blankets over the strawberries and sheets over emerging sprouts in the near garden. I hauled several bricks in the wheelbarrow to Mary, who used them to anchor sheets.
  • A check of fruit trees indicated they all look great without any sign of disease. I almost stepped on a tiny bunny sitting on the trail between the cherry trees. I'm due to spray on a calm day Monday through Friday. We are too cold and windy right now for trying to spray trees.