July 1-7, 2024

Weather | 7/1, p. cloudy, 57°, 73° | 7/2, sunny to thunderstorms, 65°, 92° | 7/3, 2.40" rain overnight, cloudy, 70°, 79° | 7/4, 0.29" rain overnight, p. cloudy, 70°, 80° | 7/5, p. cloudy, 64°, 77° | 7/6, smokey & sunny, 60°, 83° | 7/7, p. cloudy to thunderstorms, 0.91" rain, 67°, 87° |

• Monday, 7/1: Doctor's Visit
  
  • Mary mowed the lane. It took longer than normal, due to several chicory stalks that were waist high on the second half of the lane. She had to drive over them several times.
    
  • I had a doctor's appointment at 10 a.m. in Lewistown. He was fine with my blood glucose numbers, so there's no change in medications. He lined up an appointment for me to have a colonoscopy (what fun!) and a diabetic eye checkup. They took blood for a battery of tests, which the doctor orders twice a year. I like the thorough job of this doctor. My A1C result was 6.8. The number for a controlled diabetic is below 7.0, so I'm doing fine.
    
  • I dropped by the Lewistown Post Office to get stamps. Someone lost control and hit the front of the post office, putting a crack into the concrete block wall, knocking off some bricks, and putting the door off kilter. Everyone has to go through the back door for post office business until things get fixed.
    
  • I mowed inside the far garden and between there and the compost bins. Grass clippings went on the last row in the near garden.
  • At sunset, I chased a deer away from our hazelnut bushes.
    

• Tuesday, 7/2: More Heat
  
  • Katie forwarded a copy of an article showing results of a swim/bicycle/run race she was in over the weekend. HERE is a link to the article. She placed 11th overall.
    
  • It was real hot and humid today.
    
  • I called and got appointments for an eye exam on July 17 and a colonoscopy on August 30.
    
  • Mary picked more blackberries. We now have 5.5 frozen quarts.
  • I cleaned the big chick feeder and we put it in the coop for the chicks this evening.
    
  • I mowed the east lawn between the house and the lane and part of the south lawn. I finished mulching the near garden. Dark clouds rolled in from the west, which stopped my mowing.
    
  • We had a long series of thunderstorms roll through with lots of thunder and lightning after dark. Over two inches of rain fell and it all soaked into the ground, due to our dryness.
    

• Wednesday, 7/3: Bill Here For July 4th
  
  • Bill showed up around noon. He's visiting until Sunday, July 7th.
  • I clipped bushes and tall weeds from around the Suburban, getting it ready for the junk guy to pick it up.
  • Mary has a poison ivy reaction on her right arm and thigh, due to berry picking. I picked blackberries where she missed, or where she doesn't go, due to massive poison ivy growth. I collected 1.5 quarts. We now have seven quarts in the freezer, although they might be equivalent to 14 quarts, because this year the bags are overstuffed compared to how we packaged them in past years.
  • Mary had five chimney swifts zoom by her head just two feet away while she was doing evening chores. It was the entire family. "They're a friendly lot," Mary said.
  • Mary, Bill, and I played Azul. It's a fun game. We also enjoyed a big bottle of 2023 peary, or pear cider. We tried it iced and at room temperature. The cinnamon came out more when iced and the pear flavor was stronger when drunk at room temperature. It's very nice.
  • On the final dog walk, frogs were sounding off everywhere. We have a lot, based on their nightly performances. A couple rain drops fell. We got more rain overnight.
    

• Thursday, 7/4: Katie Runs Mount Marathon
  
  • Katie ran in Seward's Mount Marathon race. It's a three-mile run straight up a mountain and back. She placed 202nd out of 285 women racers with a time of 1:33:01. She was camping with her dogs and friends in Seward overnight, prior to the race. HERE is a link to race results.
    
  • Mary picked blackberries, and ticks, of course. We now have just under eight quarts.
    
  • I donned my respirator and swept mice poop out of the Suburban's seat areas. Wasps zinged about when I was near the driver's door, signifying at a wasp nest is probably underneath that area.
    
  • I whacked with the Stihl trimmer, and hacked with the long-handled loppers, to take out tall weeds surrounding the compost bins and the ash pile. This is so Mary can easily access both spots for transplanting purposes.
  • Rain this past week revived the mushrooms growing on an elm log next to the woodshed (see photos, below). Bill noticed that if you watched closely, clouds of spores are seen slowing drifting away from the mushrooms.
    
  • Bill picked out two movies that we watched. They were the 2022 film, The Lost City, and the 2005 movie, Hitch.

These unidentified mushrooms appeared, again, on an elm log.

Bill noticed spores drifting from them.

• Friday, 7/5: Gardening, Washers Game & Wienie Roast
  
  • Mary transplanted 16 pepper plants into the near garden. Each hole received a big helping of compost and wood ashes. After a big drink of water, all plants looked great in their new homes.
    
  • Mary also made a pumpkin cake.
  • Bill mowed in the west yard around the concrete circle where we have outdoor fires and under the clothesline.
    
  • Bill was a huge help in weeding the strawberry buckets and tubs. Since planting the strawberries on April 9th, we kept them covered with old lacy curtains and didn't touch them, due to a delay in getting the near garden electric fence operating. They were full of weeds and grass. Each container required carefully pulling unwanted weeds and grass without disturbing strawberry plant roots. We only lost a couple plants choked out by weeds. I added grass mulch. A few buckets also received persimmon bark chips. I moved all containers to the east end of the near garden and watered them.
    
  • We played washers and had a wienie roast over an outdoor fire. The washers game is similar to pitching horseshoes, only you're throwing big washers instead of horseshoes and instead of hitting a stake, you try to plunk a washer into a container. Bill is the best at this. Bill and Mary played the last washers game into darkness. They couldn't see their target and could only listen to tell where the washer landed...a dull thud meant the washer hit the grassy lawn and a higher pitched bang meant they hit the target. They needed a flashlight to find all of the thrown washers. 
  • After roasting turkey hotdogs, we settled in next to the fire and enjoyed some wine. Bill and Mary drank 2021 grapefruit wine. Mary says it's okay, but wouldn't recommend making future batches. Bill thinks not adding grapefruit rinds would make it better. I drank some persimmon wine, another wine I don't plan on making, again. It's too harsh for my taste. 
  • We heard a raccoon making a racket close to us, near the machine shed. We saw several satellites and a couple meteors. We heard a continuous tree and wood frog chorus. Coyotes howled to the south. We went inside around 11:30 p.m.
    

• Saturday, 7/6: Garden Planting & Berry Picking
  
  • I got a text from the junk dealer asking if he could show up tomorrow and get the '84 Suburban. I said yes.
  • I swept out the back end of the Suburban with a whisk broom while wearing a respirator. I looked for my keys to the vehicle, which I never found. We have Mary's keys, so that will work. The Suburban is now ready to go.
    
  • Mary planted 24 sweet potato slips into 10 hills in the near garden. She also planted four hills of cucumbers and six hills of acorn squash. All that's left to plant in the near garden is corn.
    
  • I picked nearly two more quarts of blackberries from just two places...the patch south of the compost bins and the one in the persimmon saplings near Frog Pond. There are just under 10 overstuffed quarts of 2024 blackberries in the freezer.
  • Bill washed and dried a load of laundry and a load of bedding.
  • We watched the 1996 movie, Independence Day, that Bill picked out.
    

• Sunday, 7/7: Suburban is History
  
  • After breakfast, I drew up two copies of a bill of sale for the Suburban.
  • The junk dealer showed up at 10:15 a.m., with is eldest son. He backed up his trailer to in front of the Suburban, then rolled his pickup's rear tires onto ramps to put the trailer's rear end closer to the ground. His son added their wimpy aluminum ramps to the back of the trailer. They hooked a long chain around the Suburban's front leaf spring hangers, attached a heavy come along and hand cranked the Suburban onto their trailer. It was a very tight fit, with the bulge of the tires squeezing between the trailer's railings. Both the trailer and the rear tires of the Suburban are 77 inches wide. The width of the Suburban's front tires isa little bit wider than 77 inches. They readjusted the chains and the come along four different times before it was fully on the trailer. The job took 1:45 hours. While we finished the paperwork, he told us that Herman's old lawn tractor had a cracked head and that's why it blew so much oil over. He replaced the engine. He also said he bought points and plugs for the Ford Jubilee tractor, emptied the aged gas, but hasn't got it running, yet. He asked us to let him know if we ever have any additional junked engine items and left around noon.
    
  • We had smoked scrambled eggs for the midday meal, then Bill packed up and left for his St. Charles apartment around 1:30 p.m. Every day of his visit, he studied his data software programs. He writes up flash cards that he studies, daily. Eventually, he has several tests to pass to become certified in the material he's studying. Next weekend, friends of his invited him to Six Flags, St. Louis. They paid for his entry. He will cover the parking fee.
  • Around 3:45 p.m., thunderstorms rolled in from the west. We got a good rain of nearly an inch, which was wonderful for the newly planted and transplanted garden items. It ended just prior to darkness. We mostly read books while the thunder roared.