June 3-9, 2024

Weather | 6/3, sunny, 65°, 84° | 6/4, cloudy, 65°, 83° | 6/5, 0.43" rain overnight, sunny, 60°, 79° | 6/6, sunny, 60°, 80° | 6/7, sunny, 54°, 86° | 6/8, 0.12" rain overnight, cloudy, 65°, 83° | 6/9, p. cloudy 57°, 83° |

• Monday, 6/3: Out Goes the Junk
  
  • I moved all nine of the junk mowers and tillers to one location on the east side of the machine shed (see photos, below). The junk dealer showed up just after 10 a.m. with a young son in a pickup pulling a dual-axle trailer. He and his 19-year old son partner in fixing old equipment. He's strong. After putting a strap around the front of the lawn tractor, he hoisted it up on the trailer, then lifted the back end into place. He and I lifted the Gravely onboard, which was a strain, at least for me. I asked if he took vehicles and tractors. He indicated an interest. After he left, he asked for photos of the '84 Suburban and said he's interested in buying that and the Jubilee Ford tractor. Mary says lets get rid of the Buick, so I asked if he wanted it, too, and he said yes. We agreed on a price of $350 for all three items. We could get a little more at a junkyard, but there's a huge advantage with him hauling it all away with his trailer. We're on a mission of getting rid of old junk! I now have to empty stuff out of the Suburban and the Buick, that we've been using as storage locations.
    
  • Mary and I mowed our quarter-mile lane. She said that with both of us mowing, it took a third of the time it usually takes for her to mow it, alone.
    
  • I picked a few more cherries and ate them for an evening dessert. I'm only picking cherries from the middle of the tree. Those at the top are turning dark, or beyond ripe. Birds can have them.

A lineup of junk mower and tillers.

Uncle Herman's lawn tractor.

• Tuesday, 6/4: Mowing, Raspberries & Garden Stakes
  
  • I mowed in and around the near garden, putting grass clippings on the south row. We're almost finished mulching that row.
  • Mary finished mowing the north yard. It's full of little poison ivy plants and small ragweed, so we don't keep clippings from that lawn.
  • Mary picked several more black raspberries. She has two full quarts in the freezer and started a new quart.
  • The pickup heater/air conditioning fan was real loud the last time we drove the vehicle. I attempted to fix it. On this model, the fan motor is under the dash on the passenger side. There are no bolts. It just clicks into place. Trying to turn it out was impossible and I didn't want to break it while getting the motor out. I must have jiggled something out of the way of the squirrel cage fan, because when I turned on the air system, the noise was gone.
    
  • I used the small chainsaw to cut stakes for between posts holding up the chicken wire in the near garden. I'm cutting them off a Kieffer pear branch that fell this spring. Pear wood is probably the toughest of all the wood growing on our property. I pounded 19 stakes in the ground, making it more than halfway down the south side of that fencing.
    
  • A couple barred owls were loud in the west woods as we walked the dogs at night. Prior to going out, we heard a squalling raccoon close to the house in the west yard.
    

• Wednesday, 6/5: Ants in the Mailbox
  
  • Rain fell overnight, after we went to bed. Mary couldn't fall asleep right away and heard the front come through with a strong wind blast.
  • This morning, we saw big raccoon tracks in the trail to the woodshed, just past our porch. It looked like tracks from a big bore raccoon.
    
  • I noticed about 100-200 small ants inside our mailbox, yesterday. Mary took a brush along when we delivered bills to the mailbox and brushed out the ants. Along the way, we heard a couple Bob White quail calling and saw several fly away.
  • I gave Mary a haircut. She feels human, again.
    
  • I weighed all 39 bags of 2024 cherries in the freezer to determine how much cherry wine I can make. I picked 61 pounds, 3.8 ounces of cherries (Bill helped pick several of them). That weight is without pits. I figure I can make two 5-gallon batches of cherry wine and we'll have several bags left for baking purposes.
    
  • Mary figured out a shopping list. She also baked a cherry crisp from last year's cherries. We have four quarts left from last year.
    
  • I balanced the checkbook while Mary picked more black raspberries. She got another big batch. She says some raspberry patches are expanding. Mary also said a growing number of cherry pits in a big semi-circle is near the Keiffer pear tree.
    
  • I picked more cherries to eat as a supper dessert. Those near the top of the tree, or on outer branches, are turning black and too ripe for eating. Most of the cherries in the center, away from intense sunlight, are still good. They sure taste great.
  • After walking the dogs on their last walk around 10 p.m., Mary and I walked into the north yard and gazed at blinking lightning bugs. Numbers are increasing and they put on a nice show as they fly through branches high in the trees. It's like Christmas out there.
    

• Thursday, 6/6: Shopping
  
  • We shopped in Quincy. On the way there, about two miles away from our house on State Highway J in a dip in the road, we saw a doe deer and her newborn fawn (see photo, below). They were right in the middle of the highway, so I stopped and put on the four-way flashers. Eventually, and with coaxing from Mama Deer, they departed west into the woods. Just after that, a goonball driving a motorcycle zoomed through driving very fast.
  • I found five pairs of pants at the Salvation Army that fit me better. I've gone from a 36" to 34" waist, so I'm tossing old pants in favor of better fitting ones. Besides picking up food, we got chick feed and other items to set up for baby chicks that arrive next week.
  • I received a message from the junk dealer asking if he can drop by Sunday to pick up the Jubilee tractor and the 2000 Buick Park Avenue. I agreed. He wants to drive the Buick and asked if it can make it. I think it can, but warned him about its issues. I started it to make sure it runs, and it started right up.
    
  • We watched the 2022 movie, The Lost City, that we picked up today, starring Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, and Daniel Radcliffe. It's really funny. We liked it.

  

  A tiny fawn behind Mom on Highway J.

• Friday, 6/7: Four Quarts of Raspberries
  • When Mary opened the chicken coop this morning, she saw the flash of a deer as it ran off from behind the machine shed. It was laying down prior to running off.
    
  • The horde of cicadas is noticeably less. They still are loud during the heat of the afternoon sun. We're starting to see their damage on trees and bushes. They lay eggs toward the tips of branches and areas beyond this egg-laying site die.
    
  • I inflated both front tires and the left rear tire of the '53 Jubilee tractor. The right rear wouldn't inflate, probably because it's too far gone with severe cracks. I didn't want to put undo wear on the small air inflation machine, so I ran it for just a minute at a time, then gave it a break. It took a long time to get the big rear tractor tire inflated. 
  • During the in-between times of tire inflating, I sharpened the blade on Mary's mower, and changed the tire on our oldest large wheelbarrow to a solid rubber one that will never go flat. The axle is long on this wheelbarrow, requiring spacers to keep the tire centered. I tried to make spacers out of a piece of PVC water pipe. That didn't work, since the pipe wasn't thick enough, so I used washers, instead.
    
  • Mary picked another big batch of black raspberries, which was enough to fill a quart freezer bag. She has four quarts in the freezer of this year's raspberries. She says they emit a wonderful aroma as she picked them.
    
  • With the $35 I had leftover from Christmas/birthday money, I ordered more fly tying tools from J. Stockard. They held a one-day anniversary sale, today, where their own name brand tools were 50 percent off, so I got a bunch of them.
    

• Saturday, 6/8: Cleaning Coop, Buick & Tractor
  • Mary cleaned the chicken coop. It was really dirty. She moved seven wheelbarrow loads and filled the compost bin to capacity with chicken pooh, old hay, and dried mud. After she finished, Mary and I put up the wall that divides the chicks from the hens inside the coop. Mary added hay to the floors of both sides of the coop. Mary said a Rhode Island Red hen was burrowing under the hay as she put it down, she liked to so much. Other than fixing a small hole in the west outside wall and hanging a heat lamp, we're ready for the arrival of chicks. They should be in Wednesday's mail. Mary was very tired after finishing that chore.
    
  • I cleared stuff off the '53 Ford Jubilee tractor, then sorted through several bags of sheets and blankets that we had in large garbage bags stored on the tractor. I threw away two-thirds of them, due to mouse infestation. Amongst the bags were more lace curtains, which we use at times to protect young plants from seed-eating birds and harsh sunlight.
    
  • I cleaned out the 2000 Buick Park Avenue. What a mess!!! I swept up a lot of mouse poop.
    
  • I wrote up bills of sale for the car and the tractor for us and the junk dealer to sign, tomorrow.
    
  • I watched Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The team I'm rooting for, the Edmonton Oilers, lost 3-0 to the Florida Panthers. Panthers Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, was out of this world on the 32 saves he made through the game.
    

• Sunday, 6/9: Jubilee Tractor & Buick Park Avenue Are Gone
  
  • I looked online about where to find the serial number on a Ford Jubilee tractor and found the number. I couldn't quite read it, so I got Mary's help. She dug out a magnifying glass and I wrote it down on the bill of sale. I also put the Buick's mileage on the other bill of sale, after connecting the battery. I used one of the wrenches Mom gave me for my birthday, which worked real nicely at tightening the battery cable nut.
    
  • The junk dealer arrived at 10:15 a.m. with his eldest son. I pulled the Jubilee tractor with the 8N Ford tractor while his son steered the Jubilee. The 8N easily pulled the Jubilee up a couple wimpy aluminum ramps that bent into curves as I slowly eased the 8N forward and pulled the Jubilee into the trailer. Using my small air pump, we aired up the driver's front tire on the Buick and removed the blocks. They put fluid in the brake master cylinder. Brakes were spongy, but they thought they could drive it to their place, which is 45 miles west of us. The junk dealer told us he will be back to get the Suburban toward the end of the month, after his kids get done with 4-H projects in county fairs. With his son driving the Buick, they left around 11:30. I texted later and they made it to their home without any mishap.
  • Mary and I wandered through the machine shed. We're starting to see more and more empty space in there.
    
  • Mary and I were both tired, so we spent a rather lazy day inside. Mary decided to quit cross stitching after falling asleep a couple times...not ideal with a needle in your hand. I was also falling asleep, so I went outside and put stuff away left out after this morning's junk dealings.
    
  • Mary watched a catbird enter the forsythia bush with a feather in its mouth that covering the bird's head so it had to dodge from side to side to see. It was probably a chicken feather.
  • The first purple coneflowers are blooming out the west living room window.
  • Mary picked almost a quart of black raspberries.
    
  • I noticed that most all of the over ripe cherries are gone. Then, I saw the results of an overzealous opossum (see photo, below). It ate too many cherries and upchucked them, their pits, and a couple mulberries onto the grass mulch under the Liberty apple tree.

  

  Yup, you're looking at 'possum puke, after it ate over ripe cherries.