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.