July 9-15, 2023

Weather | 7/9, 58°, 81° | 7/10, 56°, 85° | 7/11, 62°, 94° | 7/12, 0.04" rain, 68°, 85° | 7/13, 67°, 89° | 7/14, 1.08" rain, 63°, 93° | 7/15, 65°, 85° | 

• Sunday, 7/9: Chopping Chicken Yard Weeds
  
  • Today our chicks are one month old. We need to get them outside, so I took the Stihl trimmer with a steel blade and chopped down tall ragweed, aster plants, and grass in the north chicken run. As I was tossing tall ragweed over the north fence, Leo, our rooster, and half of the hens investigated the newly cut grass and weeds. I still need to take nippers to weeds growing through the gate. We'll try to get the chicks out tomorrow.
  • Mary picked blackberries all day. I helped by picking berries in the two patches filled with poison ivy, which involve the hollow west of the house and the thick patch on Bramble Hill. We added over five quarts of blackberries to the freezer. The grand total is 30.
  • Our mama deer with her two fawns visited the north and west lawns right after sunset. They liked the clover growing on places where we once piled weeping willow branches. As they moved to just west of the clothesline, I popped off the porch to watch them. The fawns stood and stared at me for a little while until I moved, then they dashed off to under the Kieffer pear tree and beyond.
    
    
• Monday, 7/10: Saddle-Shaped Fawn Spots
  
  • Mary watered and weeded all plants in both gardens. Watering took 90 minutes. Weeding involved the rest of the day. There was a lot to weed. Her next step is to add mulch that seems to be quickly disappearing.
    
  • It was my day for picking blackberries. Ripe blackberry numbers are dropping a little bit, but I still picked four very stuffed quarts for the freezer. Our grand total is 34 quarts of blackberries. I found a new berry patch at the west end of the west field.
    
  • Tick numbers are expanding, especially in berry patches located in open fields where deer and coyotes move through. Another tick hideout is the old metal Quonset huts that were once used as hog housing when Mary's Uncle Herman lived here. They are in the middle of Bramble Hill. Every return from berry picking involves searching clothing for ticks. At the end of the day, I had 46 ticks of various sizes stuck to a circle of packing tape...what a hideous site!
    
  • I chased two squirrels out of the McIntosh apple tree. I give up trying to defend that tree. It's in the wrong location. Surrounding trees allow squirrels to sneak in and out with ease.
  • A setting sun forced me to quit picking at Bramble Hill. Upon returning home, I spooked the doe with her twin fawns away from the base of the McIntosh tree. No doubt, they were eating green apples dropped by dastardly squirrels.
  • At the time I chased the deer away, Mary was watching them through binoculars from the house. She noticed that one fawn has a unique pattern of spots on it's back in the shape of a saddle.
    
    
• Tuesday, 7/11: So Hot!
  
  • It was extremely hot, today, which made outdoor activities harder to accomplish.
    
  • We watered all garden plants. They were slightly wilted, but looked good.
    
  • Mary picked blackberries between Bass and Dove Ponds, then picked berries in the southeast patch. It was too hot to get to all berry patches. She picked up the usual squadron of ticks, although it was even too hot for mass quantities of ticks.
    
  • I knocked out weeds that were growing through the gate between the south and north sections of the chicken run. Then, I added bricks along the fence and beyond that gate, where hens dug mortar holes while dusting. Finally, I opened the north chick door to let them free to the outside. After an hour, several poked their heads out the door. Finally, two chicks ventured out to the soil just below the door. This is a shy group of chicks.
    
  • I helped Mary pick blackberries by picking ripe berries at the big patch on Bramble Hill. Together, Mary and I picked four quarts today. We now have a total of 38 quarts in the freezer.
    
  • Mary encountered the doe, our pet lawn deer, but this time without her twin fawns. She wouldn't move until Mary finally got too close for comfort. Then, she rambled off.
  • Japanese beetles are mounding up on fruit tree leaves and munching them like they're eating potato chips. I nailed several beetles with Dawn/water spray at dusk that were on the Liberty apple tree and one of the smaller pie cherry trees. I see on Facebook where it's a common problem throughout the country right now for fruit tree growers.
    
  • Bill called. He's excited because he purchased a Celestron SkyMaster 20x80 binoculars via Amazon. We talked for over an hour.
  • It's fun keeping up with Margie and Alison, the travelers. Marjorie, my cousin, just finished visiting Ireland and is now in Finland. President Biden is visiting Helsinki today (7/12/23), where she is, and security is so tight, they even bolted down manhole covers. Alison, a Homer High School friend, is with her husband traveling from their home in South Carolina to Alaska. Today (7/12/23), they are on the Alaska Highway after entering the Yukon Territory.
    
    
• Wednesday, 7/12: A Tiny Bit of Rain
  
  • We received a little bit of rain in the morning and then again in the early afternoon. Mary photographed a rainbow on the edge of clouds (see photo, below). She saw it twice. We looked it up and it's named rainbow clouds, or fire rainbow. An online search indicates it's a rare event to witness and it's officially called a circumhorizon arch.
    
  • I drove to Quincy, IL, and picked up one of my meds, a couple food items, and powdered milk that we ordered a few days ago.
    
  • Back home, Mary picked blackberries in the south berry patch and between Bass and Dove Ponds. She noticed darkening clouds with increasing wind speeds. The moment she stepped inside the house upon returning from berry picking, there was a crack of thunder outside and a spattering of rain.
    
  • After I returned home, I opened the door for the chicks and about eight immediately came outside. They're getting a little braver.
    
  • I picked berries in the west field and the hollow near the house. I heard deer snort at me two times. I discovered several ripe berries hidden in head-high branches of small persimmon trees. We added three quarts for a grand total of 41 quarts in the freezer. Mary says that's enough for morning breakfasts for the next year. Now we pick for blackberry wine.
    
  • During evening chores, I witnessed a deer running away from me that was in east yard persimmons and walnut trees, a large rabbit in the south end of the far garden that easily bounded over our two-foot high chicken wire fence (DAMN!!!), and a fawn in the west yard near the blueberries.
  • I looked at last year's blackberry records. Based on numbers of bags versus weight to make the last blackberry wine, last year's average bag weight was 15 ounces. Measuring a few of this year's bags gave me an average of 19 ounces. To get 20 pounds of blackberries needed for five gallons of blackberry wine, we need 17 more bags. At 3-4 bags a day, we should reach that goal in five days. Then we let the birds and wildlife enjoy what's left in the spiny berry patches.
    
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of pumpkin wine. The tart flavor is nice on ice after a hot day outside. So much for a fall/winter wine!

  

  A rare circumhorizon arch.

• Thursday, 7/13: Berry Picking Break on the Horizon
  
  • We watered the garden around midday. It perked up plants that were starting to wilt from the heat. A marauding rabbit is raising hell with sweet potato plants. The thought of rabbit stew is becoming more enticing.
  • Bean seeds have sprouted. They're still covered by old mesh curtains to keep birds from picking sprouts and carrying them away.
    
  • Mary and I both hit the blackberry picking detail. She got a full bowl out of the southeast patch and I got another full bowl from between the ponds and the major patch on Bramble Hill. Then, Mary got the rest of Bramble Hill and the north patch while I picked the west field, around Frog Pond, and in the hollow. Mary picked more berries between Bass and Dove Ponds, which proves a point we always suspected...that some berries ripen within two hours. That's an area I picked just two hours prior to Mary going through and picking, again. We put 4.5 quart bags in the freezer. I'm weighing them now, since we're now picking for wine and need 20 pounds for a five-gallon batch. Today, we picked six pounds. Fourteen more pounds of picked blackberries and we quit...YAHOO!!!
    
  • We identified bird's-foot trefoil growing on the trail to the north berry patch.
  • I picked tub-grown lettuce that we had for a salad. The leaves came from a two-foot stalk. This red sails lettuce variety tastes fine, even when it's bolting. The top leaves had a texture similar to kale. Mary added the last of this spring's radishes and snow peas to the salad.
    
    
• Friday, 7/14: Blackberry Picking Nearly Finished
  
  • The heat was intense. Garden plants were wilting when we added water to them. The added moisture helped. We were wilting after watering the gardens.
  • After cooling off inside, Mary and I went back out and picked more blackberries. Mary went southeast and south. I went northeast to between the ponds and Bramble Hill. We filled four more quart bags and have 10 pounds, 7.4 ounces of berries for winemaking, pushing us over the halfway mark for enough blackberries for five gallons of wine production. We hope to be done picking blackberries in two more days. There are still lots of red berries yet to turn ripe out there.
  • Mary watched a doe walk by while she was picking in the southeast blackberry patch. I heard a deer snorting at me while I was in the big berry patch on Bramble Hill.
  • Japanese beetles are everywhere. I killed several that were munching fruit tree leaves. They were especially thick on the Granny Smith apple tree.
  • Mary and I ate a green apple that fell from that tree. The seeds were white, so it wasn't ripe. It was tart, but had a distinct Granny Smith apple taste and much tastier than those we buy at Aldi.
  • Ominous clouds formed to the southwest as I finished evening chores. Then it really poured, giving us over an inch of rain in about 30 minutes...a welcome addition to much needed soil moisture.
    
    
• Saturday, 7/15: Seven Pounds of Berries
  
  • Mary and I hit the blackberry patches again and it's surprising how well they keep producing. We missed two patches, yet put away over five quarts in the freezer. Today's berry pickings weighed seven pounds, 2.5 ounces, for a total of 17 pounds, 9.9 ounces in winemaking blackberries. We're very close to finishing up the 20 pounds we need to make blackberry wine, then the birds, deer, and raccoons get the rest of the berries. Of course, ripe berries fall to the ground and grow into canes that produce berries in two years.
  • Smoke is back filling our air. The sky was hazy all day and we could occasionally smell the Canadian forest fire smoke. By evening, the sun grew redder and it finally disappeared on the western horizon behind a thick veil of smoke. The smoky outside air makes us cough occasionally and puts excessive amounts of tears in the eyes.
    
  • Mary saw a cardinal on a branch in the yard. Cardinals are very bright in regular light, but it was almost iridescent in smoke-filled daylight.
  • Mary handled the "Great Chick Escape," wishing I was helping her. Instead, I was finishing berry picking by topping off a bowl. Four chicks snuck under the fence between the north and south chicken yard gate and were in with the big hens and Leo, our rooster. Mary used a long stick to shoo them through the gate as she held up the bottom of the gate. "In other words, I did yoga," Mary explained.