August 6-12, 2023

Weather | 8/6, 0.13" rain, 65°, 83° | 8/7, 0.11" rain, 63°, 81° | 8/8, 61°, 83° | 8/9, 0.83" rain, 63°, 73° | 8/10, 61°, 85° | 8/11, 0.01" rain, 68°, 89° | 8/12, 0.52" rain, 64°, 83° | 

• Sunday, 8/6: Apple Harvest Starts
  
  • Since Empire apples are falling from the tree, I started processing them (see photo, below). I took the 25 Empire apples I've collected from under the tree so far, washed them, cored them, cut them up, ran them through the food processor I bought last year, and froze them. Once chopped up with the food processor, all 25 fit into a gallon freezer bag. The food processor is a huge improvement over the hand-cranked grinder I used last year. Using lemon juice and water in a large bowl as a way to keep the apple slices from browning is also better than the Kmeta I sprinkled on the apples last year. I used too much then and I think it harmed the taste of the wine. I also have much better quality apples this year. All 25 apples were good, without imperfections. Last year was a completely different story. It all equals faster processing. I expended only two hours on 25 apples. Plans are to pick 25 at a time to process each day until I have enough for winemaking, then freeze the rest for our own use.
    
  • I found five apples under the Esopus apple tree that were chewed on. I thought squirrels worked them over, so I did a little squirrel hunting next to that tree. I also spent 30 minutes at the east end of the machine shed with a .22 rifle. I didn't see a thing. The chewed apples were probably from small bunnies.
  • Mary worked on a Halloween ornament cross stitch project.
  • Bill texted that he saw the Oppenheimer movie. He wrote, "Oppenheimer is incredible! Just a master class in storytelling."
  • We were under a tornado watch in the afternoon. Storms developed to the east of us after a front went through. Nothing came of it for us. We got a little rain after dark and in the morning.
    

  

  Empire apple pieces (left), in food processor (center), and ground up (right).

• Monday, 8/7: Harvest Time With Several Items
  
  • I processed another 25 apples from the Empire tree. I now have two one-gallon bags holding over 10 pounds of course applesauce in the freezer. Last year, 23 pounds made 2.25 gallons of apple wine, so I need several more apples. The tree still looks full, despite recent pluckings.
    
  • Mary harvested several cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatillos, hot peppers, and onions. She also put pieces of wood under 11 muskmelons and watermelons to keep them from rotting while they develop.
  • Mary mowed the west lawn and between the woodshed and the machine shed.
    
  • I removed fire blight from the big Bartlett pear tree where I could reach from the ground. Black branches filled two old laundry baskets. I also took a long branch off the small Bartlett tree infected by fire blight. All pear trees were horribly infected by this disease this year. I still have a great deal of ladder work to get all of the fire blight in the large Bartlett tree.
    
  • I saw five deer while walking the lane to get today's mail. The doe and her two fawns, along with the young buck, were part of this deer party.
    
  • The mushroom kits that Katie gave me for Father's Day are growing (see photos, below). Some will be ready for harvest, soon.

Pink oyster mushrooms.

Lion's mane mushrooms.

• Tuesday, 8/8: No New Taxes!
  
  • I processed another batch of 25 Empire apples and put a third five-pound bag of coarsely-ground apple sauce into the freezer. I'm now about an ounce shy of 16 pounds ready for apple winemaking. I picked another 26 apples for processing tomorrow.
    
  • Mary made minestrone soup. It was yummy.
  • We drove to Lewistown and voted. The local school superintendent tried sneaking through a tax increase on an off-year special election vote. We voted against it. The last time taxes went up after a successful vote for the school district, the high school installed a huge LED billboard that is on 24-7. Publicity by the school in support of the measure this year was minuscule. Mary discovered the school was trying to raise taxes during a mention at the bottom of another story last week on WGEM. She dug online and finally found an article in the Hannibal newspaper describing it. Today's election had 12 percent voting yes and 88 percent voting no. Asking for a tax increase didn't work this time.
    
  • I cut more fire blight branches out of the big Bartlett pear.
    
  • Mary picked several onions and tomatoes.
  • Mary raked dried grass from the west yard and mulched the blueberry bushes and the Porter's Perfection apple tree.
    
  • After evening chores, I let the pups out and watched a bat fly over Plato's head into the the light from the kitchen window.
    
  • A orange-red crescent moon rose to the northeast as we walked the dogs for their final outing. We stood and watched two bright Perseid meteors light up the sky above us after the dog walk.
    
    
• Wednesday, 8/9: Apple Munching For All!
  
  • Wildlings are enjoying too many apples off the Empire tree. Low-hanging fruit on the west side of the tree were stripped off and I found seven chewed apples under the tree, along with several green leaves. I also found two more Esopus apples under that tree with tiny teeth marks. I suspect deer, bunnies, and squirrels.
    
  • Apple processing continued. I did a total of 54 apples, freezing two more gallon bags of course applesauce. I now have 27 pounds, 6.6 ounces in the freezer, which is probably enough for a five-gallon batch of apple wine.
    
  • The pink oyster mushrooms, part of the mushroom growing kits that Katie gave me, were ready for harvest, so I removed them (see photos, below). Mary cleaned them up and cooked them in olive oil and homemade garlic wine. They were divine! Now I need to work on growing more of them and the other varieties.
    
  • Mary dusted living room books.
  • We got another big bunch of rain. We haven't watered gardens since Bill left after a visit on Monday, July 31st.
  • I picked 78 apples off the Empire tree that are destined for processing into frozen apples to be used in apple pies and apple crisps. In the process, I chased a woodpecker away. I guess it's time for those dastardly bastards to start wrecking apples. What I need is force fields, like shown in space movies, to keep wild things away from our fruit trees.
  • A revealing quote in WGEM news by the local school board president indicates the school's thinking in yesterday's special election. He said, “There was a lot more voter turnout than I thought there would be.” They were trying to sneak this tax increase through with as few voters as possible. It didn't work.

Harvested pink oyster mushrooms.

Sliced mushrooms ready for cooking.

• Thursday, 8/10: Freezing Apples
  • Mary and I washed, peeled, and sliced up 77 apples. Mary then blanced them in hot water and froze 16 quarts, the minimum she wants on hand until the next apple season. It means we don't need to buy apples to freeze from Edgewood Orchards in Quincy.
    
  • I'm starting to find apples under the Empire apple tree with holes drilled in them from woodpeckers. There were seven apples like this under the tree this morning.
    
  • Mary picked tomatoes, tomatillos, hot peppers, cucumbers, and a big bunch of onions. Today's onions filled a four-gallon bucket. We now have 2.5 milk crates full of onions. Some are very large.
    
  • There will be no pumpkins this year. The plants only have male flowers and it's too late for any pumpkins to develop and ripen prior to frost. A baby bunny that we think was born in the garden is eating sweet potato leaves. But, the good news is we have lots of squash developing. Mary propped up more melons.
  • I cut more fire blight branches out of the big Bartlett pear tree. I'm over halfway done with when I can reach from an eight-foot step ladder. 
  • I took breaks from cutting out fire blight by lighting off fire crackers any time I heard woodpeckers nearby. They scatter after I bang a couple of fire crackers that echo off the timber.
  • We saw the normal amount of resident cattle...I mean deer. I saw several while walking down the lane to get the mail. I saw a young owl near the mailbox.
    
    
• Friday, 8/11: Empire Apples Picked
  
  • With about eight chewed apples under the Empire tree and predicted temperatures to 90, we decided to pick all apples off that tree. I picked 377 apples that filled four milk crates. The grand total of apples picked off that tree is 589 and that doesn't include about 25, or more, chomped up by bunnies and deer. It did really well this year.
  • Mary picked garden produce, including all the rest of the onions. It's the most onions we've ever raised, with a little over three milk crates full.
  • Mary made a batch of pickles. One jar broke just as it went into the water bath, so she stopped it at just four jars. We have an abundance of pickles from previous years and she has a strong hankering for cucumber salads, so that's where the rest of the cucs are destined.
  • I drove to Quincy to pick up meds and other food items. The new Target store in Quincy is open. I popped in for a fast look. It's a vast improvement over the Kmart store it replaced. I had a hard time finding whole cloves that I want for a spiced apple wine recipe I want to try. I finally found some at Niemanns, formerly called County Market. That store is remodeled and looks great. Most all grocery stores in Quincy rebuilt and look better, due to the new Target store that came to town.
  • When I got home, the air was so humid that condensation was forming on vehicle windows where the AC blasted air onto the glass. The setting sun turned the sky a vivid orange color.
  • David Marquette, Ansel Marquette's son, visited us, along with his shaggy Australian shepherd dog. He just fixed up his father's old three-wheeler and was driving it. With a dirty bandana around his head and tennis shoes without laces, held together with duct tape, he looked the part of a Missouri hillbilly. He's fixing up a 1960's mobile home on Ansel's land south of us as he lives in it. After Ansel dies, he inherits the property. David checked bringing water to the property and the local water district wants $12,000 to trench in a water line. He's decided to rebuild an old cistern and haul pond water into it. Ansel said to David that Ansel and his father fixed that cistern, so it should be fine. David responded with, "Grandpa died in 1973!" He commented on all of the junk he hauled out of the place, like hundreds of empty plastic motor oil bottles. "Why keep all those oil cans?" he asked his father. Ansel told him he might need one someday. David told his dad when he needs one, dig it out of the trash, because he's throwing them out. He talked forever. It was almost dark when David left.
  • By bedtime, a very strong thunderstorm with a ton of lightning, dumped more rain on us. The U.S. Weather Service has us under a severe drought. It was that way a couple weeks ago, but not so, now, thank goodness.
    
    
• Saturday, 8/12: 12 Hours of Apple Processing
  
  • Mary and I decided to put a massive effort into processing all apples in one day. Mary is faster at coring and chopping up the apples, so she did a bulk of that chore. I did some of that, but also ran the food processor and packaged course applesauce into gallon bags for the freezer. Mary also kept out 70 apples that went into the fridge to eat and make into baked apples. Empire apples don't keep long, so we need to eat lots of apples over the next couple weeks. Mary also cored, sliced, and blanched 32 apples into eight more quarts for the freezer destined for future pies and apple crisps. Twelve hours after we started, we packed our smaller freezer with 14 one-gallon bags full of future apple winemaking sauce. I now have a grand total of 78 pounds, 10.7 ounces of course-ground, frozen applesauce.
  • The used food processor I bought last year did fine at chopping up all those apples, but I'll have to progress to a different method if and when we get more apples. Mary says if I don't, she's officially on strike! We need an apple grinder that handles whole apples in a hurry, which eliminates steps and saves time in processing large numbers of apples into juice.
  • Mary picked more tomatoes and found another small bunny in the north end of the far garden. I helped her find and capture the little guy. We hauled it down the lane and released it. Mary watched a large brown rabbit in the south end of the near garden bounce off the four-foot high fence I created on the north end, then easily jumped over the two-foot high fence on the east side. I guess I need to put four-foot high chicken wire around all gardens, since adult bunnies have learned to clear two-foot high fences. DAMN!!!
  • Katie texted me a photo of her with an award (see photo, below). She won first overall out of seven racers in the Mineshaft Grinder, her first-ever half-marathon at Hope, AK. It included a 1,783-foot elevation gain for the first five miles with rainy and muddy conditions. Katie said most people rode the race on bikes.
  • Mary and I watched the Perseid Meteor Shower and saw several. Some meteors left smoking trails as they streaked across the sky. Night sky conditions were perfect.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of blackberry wine in celebration of finishing chopping up apples to make even more wine. It's really good.

  

  Katie, the Mineshaft Grinder Half-Marathon winner!