April 15-21, 2024

Weather | 4/15, sunny, 51°, 80° | 4/16, T-storm with hail, 0.33" rain, 42°, 75° | 4/17, cloudy, 57°, 69° | 4/18, 1.59" rain, 49°, 53° | 4/19, p cloudy, 35°, 57° | 4/20, sunny, 32°, 46° | 4/21, sunny, 29°, 57° |

• Monday, 4/15: Asparagus, Mulching Trees & Blueberry Planting
  
  • I walked puppies to Wood Duck Pond and back. Honey locust leaves are emerging and dark blue violets are blooming in the east woods (see photos, below).
    
  • Mary first picked them and then we tasted our first asparagus shoots of the year. She sauteed them in garlic wine and sliced garlic. They're so tasty.
    
  • I mowed the east yard and half of the area south of the far garden and mulched the three newly planted apple trees with grass clippings.
    
  • Mary planted her new Elizabeth blueberry plant where other blueberries and the two Bartlett pear trees are located, west of the chicken coop. When this blueberry plant arrived, the leaf shoots were white. They slowly greened while in a pot. Mary said soon after transplanting the blueberry into its final location, the leaves turned very green. She put a tomato cage around the plant and then wrapped a piece of chicken wire around the tomato cage to keep gnawing bunnies out.
    
  • Mary also cleaned up sod pieces from planting apple trees and moved them to fill a hole near the blueberries.
    
  • Mary noticed a batch of juncos in our yard that came through on their way north.
    
  • On the final dog walk at night, we heard tree frogs singing.

New leaves emerging from a honey locust tree.

Violets blooming in the east woods.

• Tuesday, 4/16: Aw, Hail?
  
  • I walked our puppies through a little piece of the north woods on a short outing.
  • Thunderstorms rolled through in the early afternoon. The first dropped marble-sized hail. A couple leaves per fruit tree were on the ground, afterward, and there was no vehicle damage. Of course, hail dents might be hard to detect on our old beaters. Around 5-6 p.m., storms developed right over us and moved northeast to dump in Illinois.
  • Grass that we recently cut is growing leaps and bounds. Most all trees are showing green.
  • I labeled and stored 18 bottles of parsnip wine that I corked on April 4th. Wine is supposed to stand upright for two to three days after corking it, allowing surplus air to seep out. Then, the bottles are stored on their sides, allowing wine to soak into the cork and expand, thereby sealing the bottle. I guess 12 days really, really let excess air escape.
  • Mary started a cross stitch pattern called Moonlight (see photo, below).

  

  Mary's latest cross stitch project.

• Wednesday, 4/17: Service Berries are Blackhaw
  
  • In a text to her mother, Katie said she slept for 12 hours once she got home to Anchorage.
    
  • We noticed two first-for-the-season birds: a Henslow's sparrow, and a rose-breasted grosbeak.
  • On a walk to Bobcat Deer Blind with the dogs, we noticed several white blossoms on bushes through the understory of the north woods (see photos, below). Mary identified them a blackhaw bushes. They are what we first thought were shadbush, or a type of service berry. Blackhaw are of the viburnum family and native to the eastern U.S. Mary also took photos of yellow violets, emerging white oak leaves, hickory leaves, and bluebells (see photos, below).
  • Mary mowed the north yard and reported that she saw apples developing on the McIntosh tree. We also notice cherries developing.
    
  • I took down the chicken wire fence in the near garden and rolled it up. Some fencing ripped up as I removed it, due to grass growing over lower portions of the fence for the past couple years when we didn't remove it. I see volunteer onions and parsnips growing in the near garden.
    
  • We watched the 1965 movie, The Sound of Music.

Blackhaw blossoms as seen north of Bobcat Deer Blind.

More Blackhaw blossoms, but west of the blind.

Yellow violets.

New white oak leaves.

Emerging hickory leaves.

Bluebell blossoms.

• Thursday, 4/18: Thunderstorms
  
  • We received over an inch and a half of rain with thunderstorms that rolled through all day. We kept appliances, including our modem, unplugged during times of thunder and lightning.
    
  • Mary made four loaves of bread and was able to bake the bread in the oven during a lull in the thunderstorms.
    
  • I checked the persimmon wine that was bottled over a year ago. It has a blah taste. Mary says it tastes like whiskey, or very alcoholic, with a slight autumn olive flavor. I tried sweetening it with a quarter teaspoon of sucralose and found the sweetened version to taste tolerable. Mary says she won't drink it.
  • We heard our first whip-poor-wills singing to the nighttime stars as we took dogs on their final walk, prior to bed.
    

• Friday, 4/19: First Spraying of Fruit trees
  • On our first dog walk, Mary spotted a Cooper's hawk that took a swipe at flying cow bird over the south meadow. The hawk missed and perched in a tree on the edge of the south woods.
    
  • After walking dogs on the north loop after breakfast, Mary and I pulled 10 ticks off Plato and eight off Amber. Ticks are thicker than thieves.
  • I checked online for fruit tree spraying, outlined different sprays for various trees, then developed a tree spraying plan. Mary helped look details up online.
    
  • Around 2-3 p.m., I did the following spraying:
  • Copper to battle fireblight on the two Bartlett pears, Sargent crabapple, Calville, Granny Smith, Porter's Perfection, Gold Rush, Empire, and Liberty apple trees.
  • Captan & Immunox to go against apple scab on Calville, McIntosh, Empire, and Antonovka apple trees.
  • Immunox for apple scab on Granny Smith and Roxbury, since these two apple trees also got sulfur in their mix and it cannot be mixed with Captan.
  • Sulfur to deter cedar apple rust on Gold Rush, Roxbury, and Granny Smith apple trees and on Sargent and Prairie Fire crabapple trees.
  • I saw lots of small developing fruits on the Empire apple tree.
  • I used a hat light once the sun set in the west to spray the three Antonovka saplings and the McIntosh tree. A couple whip-poor-wills were doing their version of dueling banjos in the north woods not too far west of me. I finished spraying at 9 p.m.
    
  • The 10-foot step ladder I bought last fall was very handy, helping me get higher for better spraying of the larger fruit trees. The only downfall is it is very heavy to haul around.
  • Mary cleaned house and did all of the evening chores, since I was spraying.
    

• Saturday, 4/20: Bill Visits
  • We noticed spotty frost in shaded areas of the lawn and along our lane, this morning.
    
  • Bill showed up for a weekend visit just after 10 a.m.
  • Bill and I took the dogs on a walk to Wood Duck Pond. The water level is high and the creek is full of water. We saw fish in Bass Pond.
  • Mary picked a large batch of asparagus that we ate after she sauteed them in garlic wine and added some bulbs of garlic. It was really good.
  • I started an outdoor fire and we cooked pork loin pieces over the flames (see photo, below).
  • After putting out the fire, we went inside and ate part of an apple/blackberry crisp that Mary made this morning.
  • Mary and I covered the strawberries with blankets, like we did last night, due to an overnight frost prediction.
  • Bill picked out two movies that we watched. They were the 2001 movie, Life as a House, and the 2001 film, My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

  

  Mary (left) & Bill (right) roasting pork loin over an open fire.

• Sunday, 4/21: Gone Fishin'
  
  • Bill, Mary, and I spent a couple hours fishing in Bass Pond. We all caught fish and kept nine of them for a midday meal. Bill's favorite lures were a Tasmanian Devil and a spinner in front of a plastic yellow grub with a bright red tail. Fish chewed up his plastic grub so bad that he had to throw it away after fishing. Mary's favorite lure was a Firestick, which is a skinny minnow replica with hot pink and black racing stripes. My favorite was a Panther Martin spinner with a yellow and black body and a fluorescent red spinner that resembles a bumble bee. I woudl cast it, let it sink for several seconds, then bring the lure in. The bass were biting softly, like walleyes, in that you'd feel a heavy weight, set the hook, then feel a fighting fish.
  • Mary noticed that one of the bass that she caught had bright red, segmented worms in it's mouth and an overstuffed belly full of these creatures. She looked it up and the Missouri Department of Conservation's WEBSITE describes them as midge fly larvae, a major spring food source for bass. Now we know why our bass look so well fed in the spring.
    
  • It took me an hour to fillet the nine fish. I guess I'm out of practice. Mary cooked them up, along with corn-on-the-cob, and garlic toast for an excellent meal. Bill scrubbed up the fish cleaning mess while I doctored my little finger that I nicked with the fillet knife. It was a tiny nick of the outside last joint on that finger that just wouldn't stop bleeding. Again, I'm out of practice on filleting fish.
  • Bill left around 3:30 p.m. for his St. Charles apartment.
  • After evening chores, I checked the fruit trees. They're all just fine, despite an overnight frost.