May 20-26, 2024

Weather | 5/20, p. cloudy, 67°, 86° | 5/21, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 64°, 83° | 5/22, sunny, 57°, 73° | 5/23, sunny, 46°, 81° | 5/24, 0.22" rain, 60°, 73° | 5/25, sunny, 48°, 77° | 5/26, 0.47" rain, 59°, 73° |

• Monday, 5/20: Ripening Sweet Cherries
  
  • Mary mowed the lane. Midway through mowing, she came stumbling down the lane to the house with a stitch in her side. Sitting down inside in air conditioning and having a drink of water fixed the problem.
  • Mary also cut garlic scapes. The garlic plants are starting to turn yellow. Harvest is nigh.
    
  • I toured all of the fruit trees. Sweet cherries are ripening (see photos, below). I don't see any pear fruitlets, even on the the Kieffer pear tree. It's a good aspect to the Bartlett pear trees. They took a beating with fire blight last year. They both look healthy this year and can recover without putting energy into growing fruit. Granny Smith is full of fire blight. There are plenty of growing fruits on the Empire and McIntosh trees, although Mac has dying branches, as does the Kieffer pear tree. I saw slight leaf curl, probably from leaf roller insects, at the top of the Gold Rush apple tree. All other trees look great.
    
  • I finished putting the chicken wire bunny fence up and installing a chicken wire gate. Next, I need to stake the bottom of the chicken wire sections into the ground, then turn on the electric fence.
    
  • There is a noticeable pulsating cicada noise in all of the trees. Mary heard several black-capped chickadees singing in the trees. They were probably happy with all of the tasty bugs to eat.
    
  • In the evening, I listened to Game 7 of the Oilers/Canucks playoffs. Edmonton won 3-2 and advance to the NHL Western Conference Finals against the Dallas Stars. Vancouver scored their two goals at the end of the game in an exciting finish.

The sweet cherries are ripening.

This tree is spindly, but produces lots of fruit.

• Tuesday, 5/21: Weather Skipped Us
  
  • Today was hot and very humid, with 40 mph south wind gusts, so we didn't feel like being outside.
  • Mary cut more garlic scapes while I picked sweet cherries (see photo, below). We pick cherries, even when they're slightly orange, or near ripe, before the birds bite into them. If we didn't pick them early, we wouldn't get any cherries. I noticed a few cherries nearing a ripe stage in the large pie cherry tree. Picking cherries is hard when blasts of wind blow branches helter-skelter.
    
  • My cousin, Marjorie, sent word that her daughter had a baby girl. She sent photos, including a video of her son showing Dorothy a picture of the baby. They were visiting Dorothy when news of the baby came through.
    
  • We were in a Level 4 of 5 from the National Weather Service for severe weather risks, today. Twice, we noticed big thunderstorms on the radar that looked like they might hit us, but in each case, the edge of the warning area was just a mile or two northwest of us. The last storm was constantly roaring with thunder. When it was nearest to us to the northwest, it was like someone flipped a switch, and there was no more thunder at all. There's something about our location that turns off a lot of thunderstorms. Later, on the last dog walk of the night, we saw lightning to the southeast, somewhere in Illinois, and to the south, probably near St. Louis.

  

  The first cherries picked this season. All are sweet cherries.

• Wednesday, 5/22: First Quart of Cherries in Freezer
  
  • The loudmouthed wren discovered our bedroom air conditioner and perched on top of it to yell at us, this morning. He woke Mary for good. I heard it, but fell back asleep.
  • When we opened the chicken coop this morning, ripe mulberries were on the ground from last night's strong wind. The hens loved them and gobbled them up, pronto.
    
  • Mary mowed the south end of the far garden and started mowing the middle area. It's hard going, since that grass is well established and tough.
    
  • I picked cherries from the large pie cherry tree and filled a quart freezer bag. The large ladder I purchased last fall is excellent. There is no part of that tree that I can't reach, especially with my homemade pickers. These are plastic Coke bottles that have long holes sliced into one side of them and taped to an old broom handle and a long, peeled persimmon sapling.
    
  • We watched the 2018 film, Black Panther. We liked it.
    

• Thursday, 5/23: Mowing & Picking Cherries
  
  • I sharpened the old mower blade and Mary mowed most of the east lawn. She used a bag to collect grass and mulched most of the longest row of the south end of the far garden.
  • I picked a little over three quarts of pie cherries off the large tree, only making it two-thirds of the way around the tree on the tall ladder. A continuous supply of cicadas equates to fewer birds eating cherries this year. 
  • Occasionally, I chased cicadas away during my cherry picking session. They're really noisy when you send them off branches. They sort of squawk at you. Cicadas look like creatures from outer space. They're black, with gold wings and red eyes. Together in nearby trees, they sound off in a throbbing noise. Collectively, from surrounding timber, the cicadas sound like the continuous release from an aerosol can.
    
  • Mary startled a rose-breasted grosbeak and an eastern phoebe off the top of the big cherry tree, so I guess some birds are getting to the cherries. The grosbeak flew to a nearby mulberry tree, where berries aren't ripe, yet.
  • When Mary came back from retrieving mail, she noticed that the swamp dogwood blossoms are filled with large butterflies, such as tiger swallowtails, giant swallowtails, and monarchs.
    
  • I listened to Game 1 of the Oilers/Stars Western Conference NHL playoffs. Edmonton won 32 seconds into the second overtime by a score of 3-2.
    

• Friday, 5/24: A Little Rain, More Gnats & Cherries
  
  • We had clouds, with a thunderstorm in the morning, spits of rain in the afternoon and a tiny afternoon rain. The sun shone at sunset.
  • I picked about a quarter of a quart shy of five quarts of cherries. I went back to the halfway location around the big cherry tree that I reached on the big ladder yesterday and only got another third around the tree. I found three bird-bitten cherries today, mainly at the very top. About a quarter of a quart of cherries came out of the sweet cherry tree. Mary and I tried one, each. They're tart, but very good.
  • The tiny bits of rain gave the nasty gnats a rejuvenated boost. Bug dope didn't faze them. I wore a head net to keep them at bay. About 50 of the tiny buggers buzzed my head as I picked sweet cherries. Atop my big ladder, they weren't quite as bad, but I kept wearing the netting on my head. I got a few bites on my wrists.
    
  • Mary did some housecleaning and made a huge pile of flour tortillas.
    

• Saturday, 5/25: Third AC In, Mowing, Cherry Picking
  
  • Mary spotted a common yellowthroat warbler out the west living room window. The bird seems to like the coppiced black walnuts that are on the west side of the house.
    
  • Mary did a major houseclean.
    
  • Mary mowed the south lawn, part of the north yard, and inside the near garden. She put grass clipping mulch on the south row in the near garden.
    
  • I gave our third air conditioner a fast wash with the garden hose and installed it in the upstairs north bedroom. I taped it into place on the inside, then went outside and installed pieces of vinyl siding and aluminum tape to keep water and bugs out. This Haier unit was bought in 2009 and still works like a charm.
    
  • I picked three quarts of pie cherries in only two hours. The top of the big cherry tree is loaded with red, ripe cherries and once I get high in my tallest ladder, I'm right in the middle of them, along with my screaming buddies, several red-eyed cicadas. They yell whenever my arm or hand gets close to them and fly away. Their surging call in the trees sounds like they're singing, "Day-yo, Day-yo," but they never finish the rest of the stanza of that song.
    
  • I listened to the NHL Game 2 between Edmonton and Dallas. The Stars won, 3-1. Boo! The Stars played better than the Oilers, tonight.
    

• Sunday, 5/26: Bill Arrives
  
  • A turkey hen showed up at the east end of the near garden right as Bill arrived in the late morning. It dodged into the bushes. Later, as Bill was unloading his car, it burst up into the air and flew north.
    
  • Bill and I picked cherries for just a little while, filling three quarts for the freezer.
    
  • Bill helped get a streaming version of ABC on our TV and Bill and I watched the New York Rangers/Florida Panthers playoff game. The Rangers won 5-4 in overtime.
    
  • Mary mowed the north and part of the west yard and put more mulch into the near garden.
    
  • We watched two movies...Harriet and News of the World.
    
  • A little bit of rain fell while we were watching movies.