May 28-June 3, 2023

Weather | 5/28, 50°, 81° | 5/29, 52°, 85° | 5/30, 53°, 86° | 5/31, 61°, 87° | 6/1, 62°, 90° | 6/2, 63°, 87° | 6/3, 60°, 90° |

• Sunday, 5/28: Garlic Harvest Begins
  
  • Mary cut scapes from the garlic. It's all drying out and ready for harvest.
    
  • She pulled the Music Pink and German Extra Hardy garlic varieties from the far garden. All of the bulbs look very good. These two varieties go bad early, so they're the ones I use to make garlic wine, which we use for cooking.
    
  • Later in the day, we hung the garlic in rafters of the machine shed, where they'll dry throughout the summer.
    
  • I whacked, mowed, and mulched really tall grass in the eight-foot wide strip east of the far garden. The grass mulch went into the newly dug row where Mary removed garlic, today (see photos, below). Sweet potatoes will go into that row.
    
  • Jeff Olsen keeps sending me editorials I wrote and letters to the editor attacking me when Marvin Windows tried to move the county seat from Roseau, MN to Warroad by offering $4 million to Roseau County to build a new courthouse. It's ancient history to me. Jeff seems enamored with it.
    
  • I found Uncle John's obituary online. I didn't realize he was in the military during World War II, but it makes sense, accounting for his age at that time.
    
  • Bill sent Mary a video link detailing LeVar Burton's Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony. It's quite good.

Area I mowed east of the far garden.

Mulch on row where Mary pulled garlic.

• Monday, 5/29: Memorial Day
  
  • Mary pulled two more garlic varieties...Siberian and Georgian Crystal. So far, not a single garlic bulb is bad and they're all bigger than they were last year. In the evening prior to sunset, we hung them from the rafters of the machine shed.
  • I whacked down grass/weeds around the Grimes and Esopus apple trees. New thistle plants are extremely juicy. They splattered my face with green goo dots.
    
  • I culled small fruit from the Grimes Golden apple tree, then sprayed it three times with kaolin clay. It's now very white. Mary says it looks like a fake white Christmas tree.
    
  • I finished whacking and mowing the east side of the far garden, while continuing to put grass mulch on a former garlic row.
    
  • The ratty pull cord on the mower finally broke, today. I repaired it with a stout piece of cord.
  • We watered the near garden plants and small apple trees ahead of heat into the 90s expected for later this week. The Illinois extension agent in the Quincy newspaper says the region is in a drought.
    
    
• Tuesday, 5/30: Spinach Harvest
  
  • When Mary opened the living room curtains for the morning, she saw a pair of fighting male hummingbirds.
  • Mary harvested spinach before it bolted and processed seven small bags for the freezer. She'll use it for minestrone soup. She said wasps were very friendly with her as she picked spinach leaves. They are probably the reason why cabbage worms aren't eating up leaves in the near garden.
    
  • I smashed aphids, aphid eggs, and a couple ants on the tip of emerging leaves on the Porter's Perfection apple tree.
  • My second tub of radishes are all leaf and not much root. It's too hot for them and they're starting to bolt.
    
  • I whacked, mowed, and put grass mulch on former garlic rows in the far garden. Today, I finished outside of the north end and started up the west side of the garden.
    
  • Mary pulled the last two garlic varieties, which were Samarkand and Shvelisi. These are the best tasting varieties and they store very well. In the evening, we hung these in the machine shed.
    
  • Jeff Olsen called and told me he screwed up. He delved too much into the Roseau County Courthouse battle in the 1990s in the story about me and the newspaper's owner, who gets a half-page ad every week from Marvin Windows, told him that she didn't want to print the article. He's going to take all of the Marvin Windows stuff out and redo the article. He sent me the longest text in history...copy of that entire write-up.
    
  • I sprayed the bottom third of the Granny Smith apple tree with three coats of kaolin clay. It looks odd (see photo, below).
  • Elderberry flowers are in bloom (see photo, below).
  • Mary picked five cherries. It's a sparse beginning, but many more will ripen, soon.
    
  • Mary and I watered the small cherry trees and near garden plants.

Elderberry flowers next to the lilac bush.

Kaolin clay on bottom third of Granny.

• Wednesday, 5/31: The Raccoons That Roared
  
  • I picked cherries and collected about a half of a quart bag for the freezer.
    
  • I can't reach the ripe cherries high on the big cherry tree. Remembering online directions I saw last year for making a fruit picker out of a plastic pop bottle attached to a long pole, I drove to Lewistown and bought two small diet Cokes for the bottles. I also bought two 5-gallon cans of mower gas.
  • We could use rain. The last rain we received was on May 16th. We only saw 1.64 inches, when we usually get 5-6 inches in May. Our ground is parched and the gravel road is very dusty. I watched rain fall southwest of us and even heard thunder from that small storm. But, the rain went on by us to the west, heading south to north.
  • We had an evening meal of a large salad featuring lettuce, spinach, and radishes from the garden and sliced up hard boiled eggs from our hens...a very economical meal. Afterwards, we enjoyed a bottle of blackberry wine bottled a year and a day ago. It's extremely good.
    
  • On the last dog walk, we heard a growl north of the house, so after putting the dogs inside, we investigated. As we walked to the chicken coop and I shined a flashlight about, snarling and growling came from the trees near Frog Pond. There were even loud grunts and sharp squeals that raised our hackles. It kind of reminded me of bear noises. We closed all chicken coop windows. I looked up the sound that fighting raccoons make and that's what we heard. They make over 50 vocalizations. I'm glad we have a stout chicken coop.
    
    
• Thursday, 6/1: Mowing & Cherry Picking
  
  • Mary mowed about half to two-thirds of the inside of the far garden. She finished mulching the near garden and worked on far garden mulching.
  • I carved out a hole and slices in a 12-ounce plastic pop bottle and taped it on the top of a peeled persimmon pole. Now, while on the eight-foot step ladder, I can reach to the top of the big cherry tree. At first, I sliced up a cherry while removing it from the tree. So, I taped all cut edges with black electrical tape, making it work much better.
  • I picked cherries all day. There are now three quart bags of pitted cherries in the freezer.
  • Mary and I heard chimney swifts all day.
  • HERE is a link to a WGEM story about how the Lewis County (where we live) ag community is concerned about the effect of our spring drought on crops.
    
    
• Friday, 6/2: The Sting
  
  • I made waffles, the first of which we enjoyed with strawberries. Prior to making waffles, I made a half pint of my syrup. It took 10 minutes. By making smaller batches of syrup, we avoid mold issues.
    
  • I spent all day picking more cherries, adding two and a third bags to the freezer total of a little over five bags. Bug-infested and bird-chewed cherries are fewer this year. At one point a woodpecker lit in the tree above me. I hollered, "Get out of my tree," and it flew away. My homemade cherry picker works well (see photos, below). I'm getting more fruit high on the tree with it.
  • I picked a handful of ripe cherries off the sweet cherry tree. Mary and I each tried one. It was marvelous.
    
  • Mary mowed in the far garden, but got rained out. The rain was unmeasurable, but enough to dampen the grass when it's collected in a lawn mower bag.
  • We had several thunderstorms all around us, but not much for us. Lewistown, just five miles north, received 0.6 inches of rain, but not us. We watched two storms dumping rain just north of us.
    
  • Mary stepped out of the chicken coop after putting chickens away this evening and got hit in her left hand with a bumblebee sting. She never saw the bee, but it left a big hole and felt like someone stabbed her with a knife and broke every bone in her ring finger. Her whole hand swelled up so much she couldn't bend it. She rushed inside, put baking soda paste on the sting, and took three Benadryl pills.
    
  • I finished cherry picking, then ran around to get all of the remaining chores done, which mainly involved watering garden plants and small cherry trees.

Reaching into the tree with my cherry picker.

The other end of the cherry picker at work.

Cut out of plastic bottle wrapped in electrical tape.

The result: a pie cherry and a safe body.

• Saturday, 6/3: Bees, Butterflies, & Cherries
  
  • Persimmon trees are blooming and their blossoms are full of bees and butterflies. Several butterflies visited me while I played monkey in the top of the big cherry tree.
    
  • Except for some evening chores, Mary stayed in for most of today. Her bee-stung hand swelled up into her forearm. Sometimes it itches. She's using Benadryl, Tylenol, and ice to keep it at bay. Get outside and use it while watering the garden and it swells back up. Online research this morning (6/4) revealed that the most painful bee sting in the world is from a female carpenter bee. We have lots of them. Mary thinks that might be the bee that stung her.
    
  • I built a shorter cherry picker, using my second plastic pop bottle and an old broom handle. It worked for a little while, until the electrical tape holding it on the handle gave way. I need to narrow the end where the bottle gets jammed onto the handle.
  • I picked and pitted five quarts of pie cherries. We now have 10 quarts and a third of 2023 cherries in the freezer. Today, I used the orchard ladder and got high inside the top of the big cherry tree. I broke a top branch at its crotch in the process...bo-o-o!
  • Mary ordered eight books for her birthday, which was May 27th. We held off for a month on buying anything other than basics, since there was a chance Social Security checks might not go out in June if a debt reduction deal wasn't worked out, but legislation went through and President Biden signed the bill today.
    

May 21-27, 2023

Weather | 5/21, 41°, 77° | 5/22, 49°, 79° | 5/23, 48°, 83° | 5/24, 55°, 83° | 5/25, 55°, 77° | 5/26, 45°, 75° | 5/27, 46°, 79° |

• Sunday, 5/21: Bill Leaves
  
  • Mary found the first monarch butterfly of this year on the morning dog walk.
  • We haven't seen our resident farm cat, Sherbert, for a couple weeks, but while Mary was checking Plato for ticks, he growled, Mary looked up, and there was that cat trotting across the lawn.
  • I found fire blight in the top of the Esopus apple, the Sargent crabapple, and in some new growth on the Granny Smith apple trees. It's always a struggle. I should have sprayed fruit trees today, but I was too tired for crawling up and down ladders.
    
  • Bill left around 2 p.m. for his apartment in St. Charles, MO. He still has to shop, clean up his apartment, then head to work early tomorrow morning to wade through the hundreds of emails he expects to see after a week away from work. I took the below photo of Bill before he left.
    
  • Mary picked scapes from the garlic. This year's garlic crop looks really great.
    
  • I helped Mary water all garden plants.
    
  • We read into the evening. I started reading Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume I: Fort Sumter to Perryville. I'm only in the Prologue and it's quite good at explaining details about Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln.

  

  Bill, before leaving for his St. Charles apartment.

• Monday, 5/22: Quiet Southern Breezes
  • Weather is sunny, with southern breezes. High wispy clouds decorate the light blue sky.
    
  • We heard, then saw a Carolina wren fly from the forsythia bush to the near garden. We notice them in the winter, but not so much in the summer, even though they are with us year-round.
    
  • I did online research related to my toes. I have what's called Morton's toe, where the second toe next to the big toe is the longest. It's why the right ball of my foot hurts. Toe separators are the answer to solving my pain. I tried making some out of soft foam ear plugs cut lengthwise. They sort of work, but I need to hold them in place, somehow. I'll probably end up buying real toe separators from a drug store.
    
  • Mary cut scapes from the garlic. She figures garlic harvest will start next week.
    
  • I helped Mary water the near garden. Several parsnips are growing. Some sprouted well over a month after seeds were planted.
    
  • We read into the evening. Mary finished Sinbad and Me, a young adult book that see likes. I'm reading more of Shelby Foote's Civil War book. Lincoln's 1860 presidential inaugural speech was very eloquent.
    
    
• Tuesday, 5/23: 2023, The Year of The Fire Blight
  
  • I assessed all of my fruit trees. There is major fire blight damage on the big Bartlett and Kieffer pear trees. I thought Kieffer doesn't get fire blight, but a University of Missouri (MU) website indicates it's less susceptible, not immune, from the disease. Big sections of the Esopus Spitzenburg apple tree are infected with it, even on shoots coming off the trunk. That tree might be history. I'm seeing it on new sprouts on the Granny Smith apple tree. The MU website says Granny might get fire blight, but it doesn't harm it extensively. The streptomycin I sprayed this spring seems ineffective against this year's bout of fire blight.
    
  • I mowed inside, outside, and between the fences of the near garden, which was an adventure with all of the tall grass. Mulch went on the far garden.
    
  • We harvested all fully-grown radishes. I pulled them from a tub and Mary yanked them from the near garden, then cleaned them.
    
  • I cleaned cabbage worms out of lettuce growing in a tub, which was too bad, because it's ready to harvest. Somehow, a sulfur butterfly got under the tulle covering the tubs and I didn't discover the worms until today. They wiped out about 75% of the lettuce. Dumping worm-filled lettuce over the fence made for very happy chickens. Two buff Oprington hens learned quickly that my approaching footsteps meant good food. While other hens ran away, they rushed the gate to gobble up wiggly green worms.
    
  • Mary weeded part of the near garden, revealing several emerging onions and a lot of parsnips.
  • Gandalf and Mocha really liked the freshly dried towels, deciding that the clean laundry makes a great cat bed (see photo, below).

  

  Gandalf (left) & Mocha (right) in the laundry.

• Wednesday, 5/24: Weeding, Whacking & Spraying
  
  • Katie sent me some construction photos (see a couple of them, below), then I forwarded family photos to Jeff Olsen for his article about me in the Roseau Times-Region.
    
  • I weed whacked an area between the fences in the near garden that is too tight for a mower to venture. Then I took down tall grass growing in the chicken wire fence using the trimmer at a low rpm. Finally, I trimmed grass/weeds under the electric wire.
    
  • Mary finished weeding parts of the near garden she wanted to accomplish.
    
  • Earlier in the day, I spotted a squirrel next to the nearest pecan tree. Then, while checking the McIntosh apple tree in the late afternoon, a big fox squirrel jumped onto the trunk. I cornered it near the top edge next to an oak tree. I threw a stick at it. The squirrel tried to jump, missed, and hit the ground at my feet. I stomped and shouted while it scampered off. The little bastard is eating apples that are the size of marbles. It's legal to shoot squirrels on Saturday. Bwah, Ha, Ha!!!
    
  • Starting at sunset, I sprayed the following on these fruit trees:
    
    • Copper to battle fire blight on both Bartlett pear trees, Calville, Esopus, Granny, Grimes, and Sargent apple trees.
    • Captan for killing apple scab on Calville, Empire, Esopus, Granny, and Roxbury tree.
    • Immunox against cedar apple rust on Calville, Esopus, Gold Rush, Roxbury, and Prairie Fire apple trees.
    • Spinosad to kill bugs and worms on Calville, Empire, Esopus, Gold Rush, Granny Smith, Liberty, Porter's Perfection, Prairie Fire, and Roxbury.
      
  • While spraying, I heard whip-poor-wills, barred owls, Henslow's sparrows and something growling at me when I ran clean water through the sprayer when I was finished. I'm guessing the growling was from a nearby raccoon. They aren't the cuddly creatures some people like to think. I finished spraying fruit trees around midnight.

Katie (right) in a UIC photo.

Katie on a roof job in Alaska's Bush.

• Thursday, 5/25: The Quincy Heat Sink
  
  • We enjoyed our first strawberries of this year in our oatmeal breakfast.
  • I went shopping in Quincy, since I'm running out of one med this weekend. Quincy is a heat sink, with noticeably hotter temperatures on all of the asphalt and concrete. On the way in, I dropped off aluminum cans at the recycle joint and learned that if I dismantle air conditioners and hand in separate parts, I get paid more than if I just hand over whole AC units. Sam's Club Pharmacy still has me jumping through hoops to get prescription glucometer strips and lancets. I bought two 20-foot long by 3/8" thick rebar at Menards and hacksawed them into eight-foot lengths to fit in the pickup bed. They will become chicken wire reinforcement posts around the gardens.
  • I counted fewer cattle in our east neighbor's lot. He must have permanently lost some in their last flight through his single strand of electric fence wire. I almost ran over the neighbor's stupid lab pup that came out chasing the pickup as I drove by. I rolled down the window and hollered, "GO HOME!" and it instantly stopped and trotted back.
    
  • Back home, Mary mowed around vehicles and the east yard while carefully placing grass mulch around onions and parsnips in the near garden, along with piling it on an empty row.
    
  • We ate delicious taco salad with fresh lettuce. There were more worms in the lettuce, ruining what was left in the tub. Mary found worms in garden lettuce, too. It must be a bad cabbage worm year. I plan on spraying remaining lettuce with Bt, which nails worms.
    
    
• Friday, 5/26: Mowing, Cookies & Wine (Not at the Same Time)
  
  • Original plans were for me to make cookies for Mary's birthday, tomorrow, and for Mary to mow the lane. Poison ivy has really taken over the east side of the lane, where we mow, so I mowed it, instead.
    
  • Mary baked a nice batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. Of course, we had to test a few to make sure they were good. They were delicious.
  • Jeff Olsen sent several pdf files of old Roseau Times-Region editorials and pro/con pieces that he and I authored from 1992-96, when I was editor of the paper. He called and we talked for 30 minutes. I didn't remember a lot of things that he remembers from that time frame.
    
  • In the evening, after putting the chickens to bed, I saw a big raccoon scampering its butt into the weeds just west of the chicken yard. Right after that, the chickens put up a fuss that lasted quite awhile. Silver, a silver Wyondotte hen, who is one of the survivors of the last time we had a raccoon attack inside the chicken coop, was the ring leader of all of the racket. I'm guessing the big raccoon I saw crawled on the outside of the hardware cloth covering chicken coop windows. Silver remembers the death and destruction of the last raccoon attack and started yelling. Mary closed all chicken coop windows and we did double checks to make sure all was clear inside the coop.
    
  • We cooked up some smoked scrambled eggs. This time, my outdoor fire was very smokey, making the eggs extremely tasty. Mary also make a lettuce/spinach/radish salad, which was amazing. All ingredients were homegrown.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2021 parsnip wine (see photo, below). It's extremely good. Upon opening the bottle, the cork has a wonderful floral aroma. There's an earthiness to the wine, that suggests a root vegetable, but it doesn't taste or smell like parsnip, at all. The taste is earthy and tangy, with a good floral flavor. It's supposed to age two years. This wine is 13 months out from when it was bottled and it's really good.

  

  The golden color of parsnip wine.

• Saturday, 5/27: Quiet Birthday
  
  • With it being Mary's 57th birthday, we took the day off.
  • I saw a doe running north just beyond our west yard near the edge of the woods. Then, I looked further north and there was another deer munching persimmon tree leaves and heading toward the blueberry bushes. I stepped outside and it ran off. We think we have several doe deer with fawns that are living close to our house.
  • Since we bought Mary's cell phone five years ago, it's been on the same iCloud link as mine. It means that every time one of us takes a photo, it shows up on both of our phones. When I load an app on my phone, it shows up on Mary's phone. When I'm driving in Quincy, Mary could look at her phone and see when the driving block occurs. I created a new iCloud account for Mary and changed her phone over to her own system.
  • Today is the first day of squirrel hunting. I took the .22 rifle to the McIntosh tree and into the woods, nearby, but saw nothing. I did, however, collect three seed ticks...UGH!!!
    
  • A quick check of fruit trees saw no change, but ants are populating aphids into the leaf buds on the Porter's Perfection apple tree.
  • We watched two movies that Mary selected...Young Victoria (2009), and Emma (1996 TV movie).
    

May 14-20, 2023

Weather | 5/14, 0.22" rain, 67°, 84° | 5/15, 0.15" rain, 55°, 66° | 5/16, 0.09" rain, 54°, 73° | 5/17, 51°, 77° | 5/18, 50°, 81° | 5/19, 3 drops rain, 60°, 66° | 5/20, 43°, 71° |

• Sunday, 5/14: Planting Seeds & Phone Calls
  
  • We woke to thick fog, which made all outside surfaces very wet. Rain started falling around 2 p.m. The recent moisture means watering the garden isn't necessary. It's slowly washing kaolin clay off my apple trees.
    
  • Mary weeded the lettuce in the near garden.
    
  • I planted radish and lettuce seeds in the last two tubs.
    
  • Mary and I both pulled radishes. I pulled them from the first tub I planted and Mary pulled some from the near garden. Together, we trimmed and cleaned them.
  • Bill made three pizzas. We ate two and put the last one in the fridge.
    
  • I was interviewed by Jeff Olsen for a future article in the Roseau Times-Region, where I was an editor between 1992-96.
    
  • I called mom for Mother's Day. She's visiting Hank in Glasgow, MT. It's sunny today, after several days of over an inch of rain.
    
  • Katie called her mother. She's in Anchorage for the summer. Recently, she went through a second laser treatment in Seattle for her burns. She hopes this is the final treatment.
    
  • Bill gave Mary her birthday presents from him, early, since he won't be here on May 27th. He gave Mary a paring knife and DVD of season one of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. We watched three episodes. I slept through the last two.
    
    
• Monday, 5/15: Old Fart Visits Town for Meds
  
  • Rain has fallen for five consecutive days. We don't get a lot of rain, but it means we aren't watering the garden, which is nice.
  • I drove to Quincy and picked up medications, one of which ran out today. I also got a couple grocery items, including dog and hen food.
    
  • Mary made minestrone soup, which tasted good.
    
  • Mary picked scapes off the garlic, an activity that started yesterday. Scapes are developing quickly.
    
  • In the evening, Bill and I watched the end of Game 7 of the Seattle Kraken/Los Vegas Knights NHL playoffs. Vegas won and advanced. We then set up our smart TV to download and play PBS and YouTube content. Bill connected to a 4K video of underwater coral reef sea life and we marveled at the clear images. Then, Bill pulled up the 1980 U.S./Soviet Olympic hockey game, and we watched a 43-year old event...the whole game. It was interesting, fun, and we were very late at getting to bed!
    
  • We saw lightning bugs for the first time this year in the late night super moist air.
    
    
• Tuesday, 5/16: Pumpkin Wine
  
  • Bill and I started a 6.5-gallon batch of pumpkin wine. We thawed 35 packages of pumpkin meat, weighing 33 pounds. Bill chopped up four pounds of raisins. We placed the pumpkin meat, raisins, and 24 cinnamon sticks in two nylon mesh bags. Each bag went into separate brew buckets. Five gallons, one cup of water was split between the the two buckets, as was 12 pounds of sugar, to bring the liquid level up to 3.25 gallons in each bucket. The specific gravity was 1.090 and the pH was 3.5 in both brew buckets. Other ingredients split between the two buckets included six tablespoons of acid blend, 6.5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient, and 1.1 grams of Kmeta.
    
  • Mary mowed the north and west yards.
  • Katie is recovering from Lasik eye surgery that she went through this morning. Not wearing glasses or contacts during her construction work will be a big plus. 
    
  • A great-crested flycatcher came home for the summer. Mary watched a robin use the mulberry bush as a bird bath, because it was very misty in the morning and everything was extremely wet.
    
    
• Wednesday, 5/17: Wine, Mowing, & Cleaning AC
  
  • I split 3.25 teaspoons of pectic enzyme between the two brew buckets of pumpkin wine, then activated two batches of Lalvin D-47 wine yeast. I added must from the brew buckets to each yeast culture throughout the day and pitched them just before midnight. The specific gravity of the tall bucket was still at 1.090 prior to pitching the yeast. The wide bucket's specific gravity was 1.094. It must have sweeter pumpkin meat.
  • Mary received a birthday gift from Katie via UPS. It is a nice gardening stool with padding and storage bags.
    
  • I cleaned our large air conditioner, after taking it apart. A large amount of dried bug guts poured out of it.
  • Mary raked yesterday's mowed grass while I sharpened the mower's blade. Bill finished raking.
    
  • Mary mowed the south half of the far garden and put the grass mulch on rows in that garden.
    
  • Bill mowed the north yard.
  • Mary heard a summer tanager, the first for the season.
  • We watched a DVD that Bill brought with him, the 2019 movie, Plus One.
  • On our last dog walk, a deer snorted east of us, a coyote howled to the west, and then a dog from across the lane barked loudly, then howled. It was a loud night.
    
    
• Thursday, 5/18: Mowing, Another AC & Outdoor Roast
  
  • Mary mowed the east and south yards while putting grass mulch into the far garden. Bill helped by hauling mulch in wheelbarrows and placing the grass into the garden.
  • Bill changed oil on his car.
    
  • I whacked down tall grass on a narrow path to the outside of the west living room window, then cleaned up grass with the trimmer around the three new apple trees west of the house, around cherry trees, on the paths between trees, and around the Liberty and Porter's Perfection apple trees.
    
  • I washed the outside of living room windows, then installed the large air conditioner into the west living room window. I then used packing tape to seal up cracks around the AC. After turning it on, we noticed better air on the first floor of the house. We've experienced a slight bit of smoky air outside during the past two days, due to forest fires in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
    
  • We enjoyed an outdoor pork loin roast until midnight. Mary made several deviled eggs that we also ate. Mary and Bill drank several beers that Bill brought with him. I had a little more than a bottle of homemade apple cider. We saw a night hawk, several bats and lightning bugs. Coyotes howled and resulted dogs barked at them. Otherwise, it was a quiet, nice night filled with conversation and stars.
    
    
• Friday, 5/19: Michigan Rummy
  
  • We experienced a cloudy day, with threatening rain that only amounted to a couple raindrops every few hours.
    
  • I cut and installed vinyl siding, flexible foam board, and aluminum tape to close off light and bug access around the living room air conditioner.
  • The pumpkin wine's yeast is fermenting very quickly, creating a loud fizz. The specific gravity at noon was 1.050 in the tall brew bucket and 1.044 in the wide bucket. By 8 p.m., it was 1.030 in the tall bucket and 1.025 in the wide bucket. It will need racking tomorrow.
    
  • Bill, Mary and I played Michigan Rummy for five hours. Mary won. Bill took second and I was in last place. Partway through, we enjoyed bowls of popcorn. It was fun.
    
    
• Saturday, 5/20: Racking Pumpkin Wine & Fishing
  
  • Bill and I racked the pumpkin wine into two 5-gallon carboys after I squeezed the nylon mesh bags, gaining about nine gallons of must. Both carboys have less than a gallon of headroom left. The specific gravity in both brew buckets was 1.000 and the pH remains at 3.5. There is an orange oil slick around the edges of the carboys. We think it's from the cinnamon sticks.
    
  • Mary, Bill and I went fishing for bass in Bass Pond. We took home nine fish and threw four back. Bill was the master fisherman. He caught fish on every lure he tried. Sizes included two at 9", three at 10.5", one at 10.75", four at 11", one at 12", one at 12.5" and one that was 14.5". I filleted them, then Mary fried them up. The meal included garlic toast and a spinach and radish salad. YUM!
    
  • Blackberry blossoms are thick, everywhere. We have a ton of black raspberries growing, too. A good rain will help both of these berries.
    
  • We watched the 2000 movie, Finding Forrester, which Bill picked out.
    
  • Marjorie texted this morning (5/21) that my Uncle John, her father, died today in MI. He was 96.

May 7-13, 2023

Weather | 5/7, 0.04" rain, 63°, 89° | 5/8, 0.68" rain, 57°, 75° | 5/9, 55°, 75° | 5/10, 58°, 81° | 5/11, 0.10" rain, 59°, 79° | 5/12, 0.08" rain, 65°, 81° | 5/13, 0.24" rain, 64°, 82° |

• Sunday, 5/7: July in May
  
  • I woke to wren racket prior to daybreak. Our springtime house wren was singing once every two seconds and with the bedroom window open, I couldn't go back to sleep. So, I moved to the north bedroom easy chair and slept there for a few winks.
    
  • We experienced a hot day with high humidity. It felt more like July, than May.
    
  • I cleaned the air conditioner for our bedroom. It took time to wash dried bug jerky out of the insides after disassembling it. I replaced four rusty screws, put it back together and installed the AC in our upstairs bedroom window after washing the outside of both bedroom windows. Then, I used packing tape on the inside to keep out bugs and air, along with packing foam in between the window panes.
    
  • Mary swept the house and washed the inside of all windows, washed the curtains, took the wood rack out to the machine shed, and baked a pumpkin cake.
  • I washed the outside of the kitchen window, including both sides of the storm window.
    
  • We enjoyed hard boiled eggs, toast, pots of loose-leaf tea, slices of a pumpkin cake while watching two movies...Thor: Ragnarok (2017), and Sabrina (1995).
    
  • Thunderstorms arrived as we went to bed. I fell asleep right away, but Mary, who stayed awake for awhile after we went to bed, said it rained very hard after we turned out the lights.
    
    
• Monday, 5/8: Spraying Fruit Trees
  
  • I sprayed the following items on these trees:
    
    • Copper on the two Bartlett pear trees to battle fire blight. I found two more branches on the big Bartlett tree with classic fire blight symptoms of black and curled leaves. I clipped them, threw them away and disinfected the clippers.
    • Immunox, a fungicide that best battles cedar apple rust, on the three new apple trees and Esopus. After the latest rain, the orange cedar apple rust goo is on most all cedar trees.
    • Captan, a fungicide good for apple scab, on the Empire, Esopus, Granny Smith, and McIntosh trees.
    • Bt, or Bacillus thuringiensis, an organic pesticide for insect larvae, on Empire, Granny Smith, Grimes Golden, Esopus, and McIntosh.
  • I noticed larger tiny pears on branches where I culled pears off the big Bartlett tree. Thinning really helps.
  • Grimes Golden has developing apples, the first time, ever. Esopus and Empire are filled with tiny apples and need thinning.
  • I removed the bug traps to clean them and refill them, but ran out of daylight. I put them in the back of the pickup to keep marauding raccoons and opossums out of them.
  • Mary weeded the garlic and put fish fertilizer on the garlic, strawberries, and herbs.
  • Blossoms on black raspberry plants north of the Esopus apple tree and the west end of our clothesline are filled with all sizes of bumblebees.
  • We heard, for the first time this spring, songs of the common yellowthroat warbler, wood thrush, and catbirds. I also spotted a common nighthawk at dusk.
    
    
• Tuesday, 5/9: Onions & Spraying Surround
  
  • Mary weeded the onion bed and in the process, she discovered some onions that were planted three weeks ago are sprouting. She planted more onion seeds and announced that either we'll see onions coming up with uniform spacing, or we'll see a big thick mass of onions.
  • Mary also mowed, adding mulch to the far garden.
  • I sprayed Surround, or kaolin clay, on the apple producing trees (see photos below). The liquid Surround looks just like milk when mixed with water. After spraying it on in a 7-9 mph breeze, I looked like I was spraying white paint. I only had time to apply one coat on the Granny Smith, Empire, Esopus Spitzenburg, and Grimes Golden trees. Initially, it's supposed to go on in three coats. Predicted wind and rain might stretch the three coats out over extended days. That's fine. After a day of crawling up and down the step ladder while spraying, I could use a rest.
    
  • Mary made a big batch of chicken soup that tastes great.
  • Mary saw a Baltimore oriole that only had black on the wings. All the rest of the bird was bright orange. Most have black on the body, too. This one was exceptionally orange and quite noticeable.
    
  • We heard a bird call while walking dogs on their last outing that is a yellow-billed cuckoo, the first of the season. They're in danger of ending up on the threatened list. These birds love tent caterpillars and can eat 100 at a time. Our acreage creates a perfect home for them, but they're finding our kind of habitat hard to locate. We're lucky, because we notice them every year.

Granny (left) & Empire (right) coated in Surround.

Grimes (left) & Esopus (right) white with kaolin clay.

• Wednesday, 5/10: Mowing Lane & Surround on Trees
  
  • Mary weeded the parsnips. They keep popping through the ground, even though they were seeded over three weeks ago.
  • Mary mowed the lane. It was hot work, so she had to take a break in the middle of mowing.
    
  • I cleaned the fruit tree bug traps, refilled them, and hung them in the trees. In the past, high winds tossed and sloshed them about, so I went looking for some kind of weight to anchor them down. I found it in the form of old railroad spikes. They're probably from when Mary's Uncle Herman got railroad ties he used for fence posts. The ties came from a dismantled railroad built in 1878 that once ran through Lewistown. These spikes vary in length and were probably forged by hand. They are the perfect size for fitting across the bottom of a plastic gallon jug and heavy enough to keep the jug steady in the wind and useless enough that I don't know what the hell else to do with them!
    
  • Our cats were looking straight down through the north windows, so Mary peered out to see what they saw. There were two male white-crowned sparrows and an American goldfinch sharing a meal of dandelion seeds.
  • I sprayed the four producing apple trees with another coat of Surround. Grimes, the smallest tree, received two more coats for a total of four. I also put a third layer around the bottom of the Esopus tree. They're even whiter, now. This white kaolin clay not only keeps bugs away, it helps trees prosper during the high summer heat. While spraying, I noticed five dead caterpillar worms, probably nailed from the Bt insecticide I sprayed on Monday.
    
  • The owners of the land across the road are using a big backhoe to tear out all of the large oak trees surrounding that pond. They're hauling the wood off in a large wagon behind a farm tractor. Why does everyone hate trees so much?
    
    
• Thursday, 5/11: A Chat (Bird) & AC Cleaning
  
  • When Mary opened the west living room curtain, there sat a new bird, a yellow-breasted chat. Sitting next to it was a house wren that was constantly yelling at the chat. We have two house wrens that are usually yelling continuously. The chat is a pretty bird.
    
  • Mary did some cleaning and oiled the indoor stove pipe, running from the stove to the chimney in the living room.
    
  • I cleaned the upstairs north bedroom air conditioner. Rain started falling when I finished, so I didn't install it.
    
  • I rained in the morning, then in the afternoon, and again after dark. 
  • I was really depressed when I saw mostly green on the newly sprayed apple trees, thinking all of the kaolin clay was washed away. My spirits lifted after the trees dried and I saw white, again. The clay has amazing sticking properties, even though some of it gets washed away.
    
    
• Friday, 5/12: Loose Yearling Cattle to the East
  
  • Mary swept and mopped all of the floors in the house. 
  • She also took some house plants outside, gave them a trim, and put them in the woodshed for summer.
  • I checked fruit trees. There might be fire blight in the top of the big pear tree. Since it's at skyscraper level, I'm going to wait and see if it isn't just from strong wind gusts bashing the tips around. There are a ton of pears, cherries, and apples developing on all trees. I've got a big job ahead of me in culling small fruits. I noticed signs of deer or rabbit eating the lower branches of the sweet cherry tree and one branch sticking out of the new Calville apple tree was bit off by a bunny.
    
  • I jawboned with the neighbor to the east for awhile. He showed up to feed his this morning and said that all 13 of his yearling cattle were gone. His electric fence was strung out several feet on the ground where they stampeded through it. He found five of them about a mile south along Highway 156. When he got them home, it took an hour to get them back into his fenced area, because they were too spooked to go back in. He thinks the four dogs from the house southwest of us is the source of his problems. I agree. He searched all over trying to find the rest of his cattle and asked for me to contact him if I see them.
    
  • I found holes in one of the lettuce plants in my tubs. It's probably worms. I sprinkled diatomaceous earth on the lettuce.
  • I installed the air conditioner in the upstairs north bedroom and packing taped it into place. I started waterproofing the outside. I'm cutting up unused vinyl siding to form the outside water and bug barricade. I only got partway into that project. Finishing is high priority, since Bill is visiting for a week, starting tomorrow.
    
  • On a dog walk prior to the sun going down, we spotted a red slider turtle crossing the lane between the cedar trees and the Sargent crabapple tree.
    
    
• Saturday, 5/13: Early Mother's Day Flowers
  
  • Mary spotted a bluebird that flew out of a cherry tree next to the Empire apple tree with a two-inch long caterpillar. She also saw the orange flash of an oriole.
  • Katie sent two bouquets of flowers that arrived via FedEx Express. They look very nice. Each bouquet has a hen and chicks plant in the center. Mary went ahead and planted the hens and chicks in pots.
    
  • Bill showed up around noon. He was tired after a 55-hour work week. There are a lot of inventory projects at his workplace. He noticed three dead armadillos while driving north. They're inching closer to us. The furthest north one he saw was south of Bowling Green, MO, which is only 72 miles south of us...UGH!!!
    
  • Rain fell right after Bill arrived. We received almost a quarter inch.
    
  • Bill gave his mother an orchid. One of the many books she planned to donate involves how to handle orchids. She dug it out of the donation box and spent time reading up on orchid care. She discovered the orchid Bill gave her is a moth orchid.
  • Mary picked some spinach that she put on a taco dish that Mary calls taco bowls. It tasted great.
    
  • I spent the day building a rain and bug deflector for the upstairs north bedroom air conditioner. I cut pieces from old white vinyl siding, cleaned the pieces with a brush and a bucket of Lysol and water, shaped them with tin snips, and connected them with aluminum tape. It's more permanent and hopefully I can reuse this in the future.
  • Bill tried the apple cider and liked it. He says it's very lemony. We split a bottle of pumpkin wine.
  • We watched Encanto, a 2021 movie that Bill brought with him. We also watched Marry Me.
    

April 30-May 6, 2023

Weather | 4/30, 35°, 52° | 5/1, 40°, 63° | 5/2, 37°, 63° | 5/3, 35°, 66° | 5/4, 38°, 75° | 5/5, 0.01" rain, 45°, 72° | 5/6, 0.03" rain, 57°, 79° |

• Sunday, 4/30: Lots of Wind
  
  • We're getting high wind gusts day and night. Some of the northwest gusts are over 40 mph. Tree blossoms are getting blown out, though a few are still present in the Empire and Esopus apple trees and the top of the big pie cherry tree.
    
  • Mary made four loaves of bread. We had wonderful jam on freshly baked bread for our nighttime meal. My glucose reading was a little high, but the fresh bread was the finest!
    
  • I finished putting together the Stihl whacker. I had to move the carrying ring several times to get the machine to balance while I was wearing the harness.
  • After starting the trimmer, I removed grass and dandelions from under the bottom wire of the electric fence around the near garden. The new whacker is vastly better than the old one, which is obviously shot. The bike handle gives you much more control. It took about 2-3 hours to trim the near garden electric fence, with a break between cleaning the outside and the inside of the fence.
    
  • I hooked up feed wires from the electric fencer unit to the near garden. Then I unhooked wires going to the electric fences around the Esopus apple tree and the far garden and started the fencer. There was only one short. Once it was fixed, the fencer lights went to the top. It's now electric fence education time for chewing bunnies and deer. The snow peas are growing too high, green, and enticing for the rabbits.
    
  • There is a double strap harness available for the Stihl trimmer that is more comfortable than the single strap harness I currently use. I might get it.
  • I reviewed truss construction ideas online. I also watched game updates on nhl.com. The Seattle Kraken knocked out the Colorado Avalanche in Game 7 of the playoffs. Yay! Seattle now plays Dallas (who defeated Minnesota) in the second round. The Florida Panthers beat the Boston Bruins. Boo! Florida now plays Toronto...go Leafs!
    
    
• Monday, 5/1: Endless Wind
  
  • Strong wind keeps howling through the trees, 24 hours a day. The same west winds blowing through here kicked up newly tilled fields south of Springfield, IL that resulted in a big vehicle pileup on I-55. It was in all of the national news sources. The bug trap in the Granny Smith apple tree is all brown, because the thin branches of this tree makes it dance in the wind and splash the molasses-filled mixture all over the inside of the plastic gallon jug. All new fruit tree leaves are getting a multi-day battering in these intense winds.
    
  • Mary mowed the lane. She said the mower kicked up a ton of dust near the gravel road at the end of the lane.
    
  • I used the new Stihl trimmer and whacked down grass, weeds, and small maple saplings in and around all fruit trees. This new trimmer, with just the trimmer line, munches right through old dead grass, new tall grass, and even thin saplings. I ran out of the second tanke of gas halfway around Esopus. All that's left is that tree and around Prairie Fire and McIntosh. My muscles say it's time for a rest for at least a day.
    
  • On a late afternoon dog walk, we saw several barn swallows playing in the wind blowing through the oaks surrounding Bluegill Pond. It's the first of these birds this season.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2022 Kieffer pear wine. This is tangier, with a sharper pear flavor, compared to Bartlett pear wine. Bottled Jan. 10th, this wine is too young and needs more aging. It's going to be quite good, though. Kieffer pear wine has a distinct orange color, compared to the lighter yellow color of Bartlett pear wine.
    
    
• Tuesday, 5/2: Yes...Even More Wind
  • Northwest wind blasts hit us throughout the day. I removed the bug trap from the Granny Smith apple tree that was brown from dried molasses splashes. Right at dusk, calmness reigned for a little bit. It was breezy after dark.
  • Mary baked two quiche egg pies, in an attempt to use up eggs. It didn't work. While closing up the hens, she collected 10 more eggs.
  • I nipped down persimmon saplings around the big Bartlett pear tree, two blueberry bushes, and the Prairie Fire crabapple tree. Cut a persimmon tree down with a one inch diameter trunk and by the next spring, five saplings are growing from that one stalk. Each big persimmon tree sends out hundreds, maybe even thousands of shoots in a huge radius. They're weeds.
  • Next, I trimmed grass growing up trunks and around protective cow panels of 10 fruit trees and a couple blueberry bushes (see photos, below). The trees look better than they have in years.
  • Mary dusted, cleaned, and sorted books, creating stacks of donated books. In the evening, I went through some books in the donated stacks and kept a couple.
  • On each nighttime dog walk, we hear whip-por-wills calling. It's a nice addition that we haven't heard in recent years.

Bartlett pear trees and blueberry bushes.

Liberty (right) and cherry trees (left).

Lilac flowers (right), trail, and sweet cherry (left).

A cherry chewed by a bunny that's now showing leaves!

Two cherry trees, Empire & Sargent (behind pole).

Three new apple trees.

Lots of leaves on Calville d'Hiver.

Granny Smith (left), Empire (right).

• Wednesday, 5/3: Planting, Mowing, Whacking & Nipping
  
  • Mary planted tomato and tomatillo seeds in Styrofoam cups filled with potting soil.
    
  • While she did this a ruby-throated hummingbird was attracted to her bright yellow shirt and buzzed just above her ear. It's the first hummingbird of the season.
    
  • Mary mowed the rest of the far garden and put grass mulch down in three different rows.
    
  • I cleaned the cooler that holds some blackberry and Kieffer pear wine, since I noticed a mold odor when I recently grabbed a bottle from it. I returned the bottles in the evening, layering newspaper between the bottles. Newspaper is good at soaking up funky odors.
    
  • I whacked grass and weeds surrounding the Esopus, Grimes, Mac apple trees and nipped grass growing around their trunks with the hand shears. All trees look like someone cares about them (I decided to spare everyone the chance of seeing more green tree photos).
    
  • Wind turned calm in the evening. I did a spray assessment. The only trees without blooms are pears, McIntosh and Grimes. It's eight days since the last fungicide spray and five days since the insecticide spray, which is too soon when the interval is 10-15 days on most sprays, so I decided to wait, even though wind conditions are perfect.
    
  • A deer snorted at me from the east as I stepped out on the porch this evening.
    
    
• Thursday, 5/4: Serbert, or Sherbet, the Cat
  
  • The small Porter's Perfection apple tree developed a lean after three days and nights of excessive northwest wind gusts, so I added a tie from the cow panel to the rebar steel stake to give the tree a more upright position.
  • After walking dogs to Wood Duck Pond, I picked 27 ticks off Amber. It's time to restrict dog walks to closer to home. Tick season is now in full bloom.
  • Mary mowed south and east lawns and put mulch in both gardens.
  • I culled tiny pears off the big Bartlett pear tree (see photo, below). There are a ton of pears and if left to grow, branches will break off the tree once the pears are fully developed. By dropping pear and apple numbers down to a fruit every six inches on each tree branch, it ensures bigger, fully-developed fruit and a crop every year, instead of every other year.
  • Since sometime last winter, a white and yellow cat took up residence in our machine shed. We see it everyday this spring. We decided to call it Serbert, if it's a male, and Serbet, if it's a female. Mary thinks it's a boy cat, due to its size. A lot of mice live in the machine shed, so the cat is probably well fed. It also might be knocking out small bunnies and maybe even hatchling birds. No, we're not adopting this cat. It stays outside.
  • The Mississippi Grill burned in West Quincy, MO. The restaurant closed in 1993 when the levy broke holding back the Mississippi River and all of West Quincy flooded. It's been used as storage for a limousine company. HERE is a link to a story of the fire.
    
  • Mary noticed that white-crowned and white-throated sparrows are still in our yard, even though they usually leave for the north long before now.
  • On our nighttime dog walk, a barred owl hooted just east of the lane from the tops of maple trees.

  

  One of two ice cream buckets of culled tiny pears.

• Friday, 5/5: First Fishing of 2023
  
  • I made a morning waffle breakfast.
  • I filled a five-gallon and a two-gallon can of gas in Lewistown and dropped off the health clinic payment while Mary filled out bills and figured another month of savings.
    
  • Mary and I went fishing at Bass Pond. We decided that the cooler temperatures predicted for today were better than hot temps predicted over the weekend. It was a tough day for Mary, who caught one 8.5-inch bass that was thrown back. I caught four fish that we kept (9, 10, 11.5 and 12 inches). I tried one of the flies I made at a fly tying clinic in January, but it was too light for me to do much on a spinning rod. The largest fish I caught hit a Hula Popper...that was really fun!
    
  • Rain started falling at the end of our fishing adventure and it rained while I cleaned the fish. Mary cooked up an amazing fish feast.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of blackberry wine while doing evening reading. The wine was really good.
    
    
• Saturday, 5/6: A Day Bookended by Storms
  
  • We woke to a storm approaching from the southwest. It only rained for a little bit this morning.
  • Mary made a chicken dinner with sweet potatoes for our midday meal. It was one of last year's barred rock chickens and it tasted wonderful. The sweet potato was a foot long, enough for the two of us, and in perfect shape. They store well. 
  • Later, Mary dusted and sorted books. We keep eliminating books, with over 100 winnowed out so far.
    
  • I culled more tiny pears off the big Bartlett pear tree. I'm about 3/4 to 7/8 around the tree at the eight-foot step ladder height. After I'm done with the step ladder, I will try the higher orchard ladder. There was one short branch that had fire blight on the end leaves. I trimmed it out and cleaned the tools with alcohol. As soon as I can spray, the pear trees get sprayed with copper.
    
  • I heard, then spotted a bird with a bright red breast and incorrectly identified it as an oriole. Mary got out the binoculars and tracked it down near the McIntosh apple tree. It was a rose-breasted grosbeak. They are striking. While putting chickens away, it tried attacking Mary through the hardware cloth covering the small northwest window of the chicken coop...silly bird!
    
  • We experienced the weirdest storm after dark. On the radar it possessed an ominous white center as it tracked across the state from above Kansas City. At dusk, we could hear thunder and the storm was about 110 miles away. It split west of us, creating two parts that looked like they were going around us. Then, Lewis County was put into a tornado watch. Around midnight the southern section took a 90-degree turn to the northeast and marched right for us. Loud and big, fat raindrops hit the south windows, but it was short-lived. On the last dog outing, the moon was out to the southeast and big clouds billowed up to the northeast silhouetted by a very active lightning display.
    
  • I looked at pricing for building a 10x10 foot shed. Siding pricing is stupidly high. An LP Smartside 4x8 foot sheet at a wimpy 3/8-inch thickness is $45. A 35"x8' sheet of metal siding is $28. It looks like the sheds will be metal, not wood.