June 10-16, 2024

Weather | 6/10, sunny, 53°, 75° | 6/11, sunny, 52°, 85° | 6/12, sunny, 63°, 88° | 6/13, sunny to thunderstorms, 0.15" rain, 68°, 92° | 6/14, sunny, 65°, 88° | 6/15, p. cloudy, 59°, 88° | 6/16, p. cloudy, 71°, 91° |

• Monday, 6/10: Chicks Sent Today
  
  • Cackle Hatchery emailed us that our order of chicks was in the mail this morning, with an expected arrival in the Ewing Post Office of Wednesday morning.
    
  • Mary mowed around the compost bins and in the south end of the far garden. She collected grass clippings and mulched rows in that same garden.
  • I hung the heat lamp in the chick side of the coop and put chick feeders inside. I used the Stihl trimmer and the loppers to cut a path through mother wart and rag weed plants to the outside west end of the coop. Using three old license plates and screws, I covered holes developing in that wall. I filled small cracks with pieces of hemp twine. This will get us by until after we butcher chickens. After that point, I need to replace the wood covering that west wall of the coop. It's OSB installed in 2010 and painted once. Fourteen years in the outdoors is way beyond the lifespan of that type of wood. When I checked from the inside while putting the chickens to bed for the night, I noticed I have one more crack to fill.
  • Vines are slowly enveloping our house (see photos, below). Virginia creeper vines are inching into view of our second-story bedroom window and hops vines are also marching up the wall. I guess we're growing sun protection for our house. It's turning into a "green" home.
    
  • I watched Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals, where the Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-1...boo!, hiss!!! My son might be happy. In the past, he's mentioned he likes several players on the Panthers' team.

A Virginia creeper vine appears in upper left corner of
our upstairs bedroom window.

Hops vines (left) & Virginia creeper (right).

• Tuesday, 6/11: A Wienie Roast With Apple Cider
  
  • I mowed inside and around the near garden, putting mulch on rows in that garden. All we do this spring is mow gardens, instead of growing things in them. There have just been too many projects, like getting junk mowers, tractors, and cars, out of here, to get to gardening.
    
  • Mary mowed the west yard, finishing off mulching the near garden rows and adding to far garden rows.
    
  • I used the small chainsaw, cut more stakes off the downed Kieffer pear branch, and staked down more sections between rebar posts on the chicken wire fence in the near garden. I finished the south and east sides and started down the north side.
  • We paid attention to postal service tracking of our chicks through the day. Yesterday, they made it to Kansas City. By tonight, they were en route to St. Louis. From there, they'll head north to us.
    
  • I built an outside fire and we enjoyed turkey hotdogs that we recently bought at Aldi. They're a lot cheaper than pork or beef hotdogs and they taste good. After eating them, we enjoyed a bottle of 2023 apple cider on ice. It tasted delicious and is a great, refreshing summer drink, especially served cold. We saw lots of dragonflies, one bat, and then a multitude of lightning bugs as darkness fell. Tree frogs and crickets grow louder as stars started appearing. We also heard, robins, a wood thrush, a summer tanager, and a barred owl. I spotted bright yellow eyes reflecting off my hat light as I took buckets of water out to douse the fire. By the speed in which that critter took off, I'm assuming it was a raccoon.
    

• Wednesday, 6/12: Chicks Arrive
  
  • We received a call just after 7 a.m. from the Ewing Post Office that our chicks arrived, so after walking puppies, I drove to Ewing to pick them up and take them home. We got three extra, or a total of 28, and they're all quite healthy (see videos, below). We detect four varieties. They mugged the water fount immediately, then slowly started eating. By midday, the chicks were running all over their side of the coop, investigating everything. Outside temperatures were close to 90°, enabling us to turn off the heat lamp and open three windows.
  • Higher temperatures meant we weren't thrilled with going outside and baking in the sun, so we stayed inside, today.
  • More and more, we're seeing dead cicadas in the grass. We're also noticing cicada twig damage on most all deciduous trees.
  • We saw an indigo bunting for the first time this season. In the evening, we watched a great blue heron fly north with the south wind at its tail. It was really zipping along, quickly.

Lively chicks pecking on the coop floor.

Chicks bellying up to the bar for a drink.

• Thursday, 6/13: Hot With Storms
  
  • Today was a hot and muggy day, with temperatures into the 90s, so when we went outside, we were out for a short stints and back inside, quickly. I ended up opening all windows wide open in the coop for the chicks. It's their temperature (see photos, below).
    
  • Bill's gift of arm protectors that you wear to keep thorns from nailing your forearms while picking berries arrived via UPS, today, and Mary tested them out. They work nicely.
    
  • Mary picked more black raspberries. She finished filling a fifth quart in the freezer and started a new bag.
  • I cut 16 pear branch stakes and pounded a few in the ground on the chicken wire fence in the near garden.
    
  • At 4:30 p.m., a darkening west sky pushed us into attacking evening chores. Mary got the mail and heard thunder on the way back home from the mailbox. At 5:30, thunderstorms hit. There was continuous thunder and lightening for 2.5 hours, while the storms went through. Trees and power poles were down throughout the county with damage all around us, but we witnessed only a little downpour of rain. Reports of golfball, ping-pong sized, and 2.5-inch hail came from as close as a mile away from us. Mary looked online and 840 Lewis County Rural Electric Co-op customers were without power. Again, we maintained power throughout the storms. It's amazing how our geography diverts storms around us.
  • Mary took photos (see below) of spectacular mammatus clouds above us after the thunderstorms went through. A setting sun gave them a red glow for an amazing appearance.
    
  • I watched the last two periods of game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Florida won 4-3. It's the third loss in a row for Edmonton. The only team to win after being down 3-0 was the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1942, who lost the first three games, then won four, straight, over the Detroit Red Wings. Can the Oilers repeat that feat?

Chicks enjoying the sunlight's heat.

A little fuzzy chick.

Mammatus clouds viewed above our porch.

More mammatus clouds after today's thunderstorms.

• Friday, 6/14: Another Day, More Garden Stakes
  
  • On a trip to the chicken coop to check on chicks (see videos, below), Mary and I watched a rose-breasted grosbeak gobbling down mulberries in the mulberry bush in the west yard.
    
  • I cut more pear stakes and pounded them into the ground along the chicken wire fence in the near garden. It's almost done.
  • There is a lot of twig damage from cidadas all over our property. They love maple trees and any smaller tree. I'm glad they only appear every 13 or 17 years.
  • My extra fly tying tools came in the mail from J. Stockard. They look like good fly tying equipment. Now, I just need to dive in and enjoy.
    
  • We watched the 2005 movie, Goodnight, and Good Luck, about Edward R. Morrow. It's a good one.

Sleepy chick after getting a full belly of food & water.

Run, chickie, run!!!

• Saturday, 6/15: Near Garden Almost Ready
  
  • We have the heat of July in June. Ugh!
  • Almost daily, a deer runs away from behind the machine shed. It was there, again, this morning.
    
  • I finished pounding stakes along the chicken wire fence in the near garden. This time I cut down persimmon saplings that were leaning over so we had to duck while walking on the trail to the far garden. I cut the saplings into stakes.
    
  • After finishing with stakes, I weedwhacked under the electric fence wires of the near garden. Several mole or vole diggings along the soil under the bottom wire that dried in the sun made for intense dust stirred up by the string trimmer. Often, I had to stop the Stihl trimmer in order to see my work. This garden is almost ready. I just need to power up the electric fence.
    
  • Mary picked more raspberries, filling six quarts in the freezer. They are turning bad within an hour, due to the increased daily heat. So, picking raspberries is over.
    
  • Mary mowed between the sheds and mulched more of the far garden.
  • Several common milkweed blossoms in the east yard are full of pollinators (see photos, below).
  • I watched Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, where Edmonton won, 8-1. They just need to win three more straight games to defeat the Florida Panthers.

A hummingbird clearwing moth on common milkweed.

A great spangled fritillary butterfly on a milkweed blossom.

• Sunday, 6/16: Heat!
  • It's hot outside, so we stayed inside today. Thank goodness for air conditioning. The heat lamp for the chicks stays off with daytime temperatures into the 90s. We're only turning it on as the sun sets. Planting seeds in the garden is also delayed. We'll probably need to water trees, soon. Strong south winds are drying them out.
    
  • Bill called and we talked with him. He's counting down to when his job ends on June 28th. Temperatures in St. Louis are expected to be in the high 90s the upcoming week. He's visiting us July 3-7.
    
  • Katie asked to call right when we were heading to bed. Maybe we'll talk in the future.
  • I checked on bulk prices for TVP and old fashioned rolled oats.
  • I'm reading the book, Wolf, The Lives of Jack London, by James L. Haley. It's fascinating. He was very driven throughout his short life.