June 24-30, 2024

Weather | 6/24, p. cloudy, 66°, 95° | 6/25, p. cloudy to thunder, 80°, 93° | 6/26, cloudy to sunny, 1.23" rain overnight, 65°, 83° | 6/27, sunny, 62°, 82° | 6/28, 0.02" rain, cloudy, 71°, 75° | 6/29, 0.03" rain overnight, p. cloudy, 75°, 82° | 6/30, sunny 59°, 77° |

• Monday, 6/24: Second Racking of Cherry Wine
  
  • Katie texted a photo of a black bear she saw when she went to work this morning (see photo, below).
    
  • I racked all of the cherry wine for the second time, due to large collections of fines at the bottom of containers. Each batch fit into a 5-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon jug. By nighttime, the wine turned a dark red color (see photo, below). The specific gravity of batch 1 was 0.993, giving it an alcohol content of 11 percent. Batch 2 had a specific gravity of 0.994 for an alcohol content of 10.2 percent. Both batches received 1.1 grams of Kmeta. I had to add eight ounces of distilled water, split between the two containers of batch 2, to bring the levels of liquid to the top.
    
  • Mary picked about a couple handfuls of blackberries. She spooked up a deer in the west field. It was really hot, so she took a break midway through trudging around the property. There are a lot of unripe berries. High heat means they must be checked daily.
    
  • I watched Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. Florida won, 2-1, and earned the 2024 championship. They were the better team in the final game. I was rooting for Edmonton...maybe next year.
  • While we sat in the living room, prior to bedtime, we heard chimney swift chicks peeping from our chimney.
    

A black bear visiting apartments in Anchorage.

Dark red color of cherry wine after 2nd racking.

• Tuesday, 6/25: Picking Blackberries in the Heat
  
  • Mary and I picked blackberries on what turned out to be a very hot day. Our clothes were soaked with sweat after each of our two forays seeking wild fruit. We filled the first quart of 2024 blackberries in the freezer. The first picking venture started at Bramble Hill, where blackberry plants are drastically diminished, to a march across the north end of the north field, where several new blackberry patches are emerging. We startled a deer at the northwest corner of the north field. It was laying in the shade under a small oak tree. The second venture starts in the west field, proceeds around Frog Pond, down the west side of the south field, then southeast of the house to several blackberry patches in that area. Blackberry picking in the heat wipes you out, so long breaks in the air conditioning are necessary.
    
  • I found huge turkey feather in the southwest corner of the north field (see photo, below). I'm guessing it came from a really big tom turkey.
    
  • Mary made pizza for our main meal. We marvel at the high cost of pizzas advertised from chain pizza joints in flyers we get. We create pizzas for a fraction of that cost, and they're better, made with a whole wheat crust. My blood glucose reading reflects the better food. My nighttime reading was 121, which is good for me after a meal.
    
  • I made three online orders today. One was for 25 pounds of textured vegetable protein (TVP), made from soybeans, and 50 pounds of regular rolled oats. Both are much cheaper purchased this way, compared to buying them in a grocery store, even with shipping. I ordered the outer container of a good rain gauge made by an occupational development center in Fergus Falls, MN, that gives physical and mental handicap folks a place of employment. We first got this first-rate rain gauge from the Glasgow, Montana U.S. Weather Service when I did a story on them while working for Mid-Rivers Telecom in Circle, MT. This will be only the third replacement since getting the first one over 15 years ago. I also ordered four chicken waterer tops from an animal and vet store in Alabama. Little Giant plastic waterer tops go bad after a couple years in the summer heat and winter freezes. The bottoms last longer. So, it's nice that I found a source for just the tops.
    
  • We noticed lots of thunder in the afternoon and storms developed around us or even overhead of us. We received nothing but a couple drops of rain. After dark was different. An evening storm developed west of us and headed our way, giving us over an inch of much-needed rain.

  

  An 18-inch turkey feather, the largest we've ever found.

• Wednesday, 6/26: Cleaning Out the Suburban
  • Katie texted that she saw the black bear again, after hearing one of her dogs and cats growling.
  • Mary picked blackberries from all around our property and filled a half quart for the freezer.
    
  • She saw two deer. The first was a fawn that was lying down in the tall grass along trail to Cherry Deer Blind in the north part of our property. The second deer was in the west field.
  • We saw a third deer tonight. It was a small doe near the apple trees south of the house. You could tell she's been nursing a fawn. She walked off into the west woods.
    
  • I emptied the '84 GMC Suburban. We've been using it as a storage place since 2014. I pulled 25 Styrofoam coolers out of the vehicle that I saved while working at Petco. Tropical fish were shipped in them. I kept them with the idea of insulating the chicken coop, which I still want to do. There were a lot of other items in there, like mouse traps, blankets for covering garden plants, a tire iron, old weed trimmer parts, two 80-pound bags of Quikrete concrete mix, and lots of mice pooh. 
  • Here's Mary's eulogy to the old Suburban: "Dick emptied the old 1984 GMC Suburban today, in preparation to handing it over to the junk guy this weekend. The Suburban has a lot of family history tied up in it. We bought it in 1993, the year Bill was born, in Roseau (MN). We've been through northern Minnesota blizzards with it, as well as trips to Winnipeg, the Northwest Angle of Lake of the Woods, Saskatchewan, and the Montana Rockies. For a few years, we drove the Suburban around Roseau at Christmas as official Christmas decoration judges. This vehicle moved us from Roseau to Circle (MT), to Richey (MT) and back to Circle, and finally to here. I drove the kids to Glendive (MT) a few times a week for baseball and softball games. On one of these trips, I drove it into a microburst on the edge of Glendive and felt the tire leave the road slightly, making me glad I was not driving a car. Wherever we traveled, we had Molly and Klondike, our golden retrievers, and Doc, the Basset, roaming in the back, because traveling anywhere meant a long trip and they were happier with us than left at home for hours on end. We haven't used the Suburban for anything but storage for years. It is old and worn out, and the time has come to let go. But, the memories surrounding that old vehicle will live on."
  • I also emptied three Styrofoam coolers and lots of flat Styrofoam pieces out of the pickup box that were once in the Buick. We need the pickup for shopping, tomorrow.
    
  • We didn't hear any cicadas, today. Yahoo!
    

• Thursday, 6/27: Shopping
  
  • We went shopping in Quincy. The buy of the day was a bag full of material that Mary picked up at Goodwill. There are many pieces she plans to use for cross stitch ornament backing. The price was $11.87 and Mary thinks it was worth $75-$100, considering the quality of the material.
    
  • We watched the Biden Trump debate and turned it off once all of the talking heads started telling us what we already saw.
    
  • The junk guy texted that he might not be showing up this weekend. He's having difficulty locating a tow bar to use in towing the Suburban to his place.
    

• Friday, 6/28: Blackberry Picking & Wheelbarrow Tires
  
  • Bill called. His last day at work was Wednesday, instead of today. They kicked him out early. He received a substantial amount of severance pay. Bill is working on self-education related to computer programs. He will visit us July 3-7.
    
  • I decided to get an eye exam. Coatings are flaking off of both pairs of glasses for Mary and I. If my exam goes well, Mary will follow when funds are sufficient. I also have hazy vision in my left eye. I suspect a cataract.
    
  • Mary picked more blackberries. We now have  2.5 quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. I picked a handful of blackberries that are surrounded by poison ivy west of the house. Mary avoids heavy poison ivy places. It doesn't bother me as much as it does for Mary.
    
  • I replaced wheelbarrow tires on two of our three wheelbarrows. We now have flat-free tires on all of our wheelbarrows. I had to cut and fit spacers to fit the wheels on the axles of both wheelbarrows out of plastic electric conduit.
    
  • While ending evening chores, I heard and then saw five chimney swifts flying over the house. It must mean some of their babies are out flying about.  They usually leave a week, or so, after the young ones start flying. At the same time I spotted the chimney swifts, I saw about a dozen nighthawks gliding overhead at a higher altitude. They looked like they were just playing in the air currents.
    

• Saturday, 6/29: Hunting Changes
  
  • The Missouri Conservation Department announced that Lewis County is in the CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) zone. That means that during the first weekend of regular hunting season, deer hunters must take their deer to a station where every deer is checked for the disease. It also means there is no restriction on hunting bucks. In past years, you couldn't shoot any mature buck with antlers containing fewer than four points on one side. They want to eliminate more animals, so the limit is off. Also, CWD counties get an extra season, again, to eliminate more deer. So, there are quite a few changes this deer hunting season.
    
  • Mary packaged and froze the TVP. A 25-pound bag of textured vegetable protein turned into 108 one-cup bags, which will last us for a couple years. One bag, plus 1.5 cups of water is equivalent to a pound of meat. We use TVP in taco bowls, chimichangas and Mexican dishes. The one-cup sandwich bags of TVP fit into four two-gallon bags in the freezer. Mary also put the 50-pound bag of oats in the freezer. After a week, it goes into four five-gallon food grade buckets, complete with Gamma seal lids. We eat oatmeal with pecans, apple slices, and blackberries for six breakfasts a week.
    
  • I removed the '84 Suburban license plates...not an easy task on that rust bucket. Actually, the front plate came off nicely with the handy ratchet wrenches that Mom gave me on my birthday. I took a cold chisel to the rusted bolts on the rear license plate.
    
  • I sprayed several Japanese beetles that were on apple trees and on the Virginia Creeper plants surrounding the house entry door. We went from cicadas to Japanese beetles eating on our fruit trees, this year.
  • A chimney swift flew by my ear, twittering away as it winged along. They are very sociable birds.
    

• Sunday, 6/30: Blackberries & Gardening
  
  • Mary picked blackberries all day. We now have four quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. She picked 53 ticks off her clothes. Most are seed ticks. Packing tape works wonderfully at taking them off clothing.
    
  • I mowed inside and outside of the near garden.
  • I trimmed cedar branches on the south side of the near garden. Some were starting to touch the electric fence wires. They're now about 8-10 feet back from the fence edge. I moved several wheelbarrow loads of branches down the lane and threw them into three big piles just east of the lane.
  • After pounding down earth next to near garden corner posts to solidify them, I tightened a few wires and turned on the electric fence unit. A check of the hot wires showed it was running at full strength.
    
  • We had the windows open all day, since outside temperatures were cooler. We heard crickets chirping. It sounds more like September outside, not June.
  • In the evening, I made a chart of my blood glucose numbers from 1-1-24 to now, so I can hand it over to my doctor on a visit scheduled for tomorrow.