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.