Aug. 11-17, 2025

Weather | 8/11, sunny, 69°, 87° | 8/12, 0.33" rain, p. cloudy, 67°, 83° | 8/13, p. cloudy, 67°, 83° | 8/14, sunny, 59°, xx° | 8/15, xx°, xx° | 8/16, xx°, xx° | 8/17, cloudy, xx°, xx° |

• Monday, 8/11: Cherry Wine Goes Bonkers
  • We ate an oatmeal breakfast filled with food from our property, such as pecan nuts, black raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, and Empire apples from our tree. 
  • Bill left for his apartment by mid-afternoon.
  • The cherry wine yeast is fizzing along very nicely. A citrusy yeast aroma fills the house and a fizzing sound is heard outside of the closed pantry door. Specific gravity for the day was: Batch 1, 1.066, and Batch 2, 1.067 at around noon; Batch 1, 1.054, and Batch 2, 1.056; at about 11 p.m.
  • Mary checked for hornworms in the far garden and found 15 hornworm eggs, two cucumber beetles, one army worm, and one large snail.
  • I picked 16 apples off the ground under the Empire tree and threw away four of these apples.
  • A thunderstorm rolled through around midnight, giving us a brief bout of strong winds and a third inch of rain. We receive regular rains this summer, which is perfect for all growing green things.

• Tuesday, 8/12: Onions Harvested, Cherry Wine Racked
  • I went through all of the coolers of wine bottles in the upstairs north bedroom, counted wine, and compared it to my running totals. In many cases, my inventory was off. I also found two lost wines. One was four bottles of 2022 persimmon wine and the other was four bottles of 2021 pear wine. Occasionally I cleaned out the insides of coolers, along with dusting off a few bottles.
  • Mary finished harvesting all of the onions in the near garden. We now have three full milk crates of onions in the back porch closet. It smells like a burger joint inside that closet right now.
  • Mary picked a tiny bit of strawberries, one zucchini, 12 hornworm eggs, and one small worm that held onto a tomato leaf and looked like a stem.
  • I found 17 apples under the Empire tree and threw away four of them. We're eating these apples in our morning oatmeal. All seeds are black, so they're ripe and ready for picking off that tree. 
  • The cherry wine had a specific gravity of 1.032 in Batch 1 and 1.033 in Batch 2 around noontime. By about 8 p.m., the specific gravity of both brew buckets was at 1.020, so I racked the wine for the first time. It took several minutes to squeeze the four nylon mesh bags full of fruit in both brew buckets, which gave me an additional gallon of juice per brew bucket. That makes a total of 12 gallons of wine. I racked the liquid into three 5-gallon carboys, which gave each one a nice amount of headroom for foam (see photo, below). Now I wait for the yeast activity to settle down. Mary and I tasted a bit of the liquid left in the bottom of the bowl where I put the squeezed mesh bags. It was amazing, with a strong cherry taste.
   

  

  Three 5-gallon carboys of foamy cherry wine.
  

• Wednesday, 8/13: Picking Empire Apples
  • I grubbed out big weeds and tall grass from under the Empire apple tree and in the process, I found more apples that fell from that tree. Some of the poke berry plants were so big that when I pulled them out, the branches were tangled in apple branches and apples fell with their removal. Poke berries are deep purple and can be used as a permanent dye. Some poke berry juice got on my pants, so I'll have a few permanent blotches on the leg of those britches!
  • I picked apples off the Empire tree where I could reach from the ground and collected a little over three milk crates full of apples. There are even more apples that I'll need to get with step ladders. I'm trying to get them all collected before high temperatures in the 90s are predicted starting on Friday.
  • Mary picked seven hornworm eggs off the far garden tomato plants.
  • A tree frog enjoyed a daytime nap on the hand rail next to our steps (see photos, below). 
  • The cherry wine was foamy all day until nighttime. The yeast in this wine is still very active.

A tree frog resting on the hand rail near the steps.

Tree frogs, such as this one, sing to us every night.

Aug. 4-10, 2025

Weather | 8/4, sunny, 56°, 80° | 8/5, p. cloudy, 63°, 83° | 8/6, p. cloudy, 65°, 87° | 8/7, 0.45" rain, T-storms, 67°, 80° | 8/8, sunny, 69°, 88° | 8/9, 0.59" rain, cloudy, 74°, 87° | 8/10, cloudy, 73°, 83° |

• Monday, 8/4: Mowing and Mulching
  • Mary harvested more onions and a few tomatillos.
  • She also watered all gardens. Some of the plants looked like they needed more moisture.
  • Mary mowed part of the west lawn, adding mulch to the small Bartlett pear tree and the youngest cherry tree. High grass means mowing goes slower than usual.
  • I cleaned out tall weeds and grass around and under three cherry trees, giving Mary and I places to put mulch. I also used the steel blade on the Stihl trimmer to clean out tall weeds and grass on the path between the small cherry trees and around several of them.
  • I mowed the east and south sides outside the near garden, and then between the fences of that garden. I changed the trimmer to the string attachment and scrubbed out vegetation under the electric fence of the near garden. The orange string line kept breaking off, which it does when it's all dried out. I was three-fourths completed when the last of the string shot out of the trimmer, so I quit for the evening.
  • The apples on the Liberty apple tree significantly enlarged once the poke berry weeds were removed from around the tree (see photo, below). This is the first year that we're seeing apples on this tree.
  • We're hearing the call of a wood thrush in the north woods.

The Liberty apple tree with fruit developing.

A nicely sized Liberty apple.

• Tuesday, 8/5: Circling Peregrine Falcon
  • Mary mowed most of the rest of the west yard and put grass clippings as mulch around nearby fruit trees.
  • I replaced line in the trimmer head and whacked down weeds and grass on the rest of the wire under the electric fence around the near garden.
  • While at the porch, we noticed birds on the power line, so Mary ran inside to get the binoculars. While she was gone, I noticed the birds flying up into the air. They attacked a larger bird that was circling. Through the binoculars, Mary identified the larger bird as a peregrine falcon and the smaller birds as eastern king birds. The falcon easily dodged the kings birds and kept circling. It got so high in the sky that we eventually lost sight of the bird. 
  • I helped Mary and we watered the far garden. Plants are all healthy and thriving.
  • When I dumped the waste water left over from washing chicken waterers on one of the south apple trees, a young deer bounced off to the southwest and into the woods.
  • For two days in a row, we hear the crop duster flying over fields well after the sun sets when it's essentially dark outside. He's taking too many risks. We hope that when he plows that airplane into the ground, it isn't on our property.

• Wednesday, 8/6: A Thousand Ticks!
  • We experienced the worst tick situation with Plato. The poor pup got into a big nest of tiny ticks during his morning outing. After the noon walk with him, we noticed multitudes of blown up seed ticks all over his legs. We started pulling them off outside. There were so many that I partially filled a bucket with water and added a big amount of Dawn soap to kill them. Plato was getting hot in the sun, so we moved inside. Mary kept running a flea comb over Plato while I picked the tiny seed ticks off the floor. We literally collected hundreds of ticks. We're guessing at least a 1000 ticks came off that poor dog. One of his front legs was turning red and slightly swelling. But, he was very patient. After two and a half hours, we gave Plato some Benadryl and he slept some in the afternoon. He was just fine by the evening. We're now taking him south, down the lane, because there's only regular-sized ticks there, and no seed ticks, like he picked up somewhere in the yard.
  • We watched a fledgling hummingbird feed on comfrey just outside our west living room window. It was chased away by an adult male hummingbird.
  • With Bill arriving in a couple days, I mowed the lane.
  • Mary watered the near garden and harvested more onions.
  • I finished reading the fourth of the Alexander Kent British Navy novels, Sloop of War. 

• Thursday, 8/7: Long Thunderstorm
  • An unexpected series of thunderstorms ran through us between 8:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. With the storms, we got just under a half inch of rain. There are two nice aspects about the rain. We get a respite from watering gardens and a break from laboring outside in high temperatures.
  • I finished changing passwords. Altering the password on the social security website took the longest time, because of all the hoops you have to go through, including a photo of the front and back of a driver's license, along with a photo of yourself.
  • We still notice an occasional firefly out at night. This is by far the latest for the season that we've noticed fireflies on our property.
  • Mary texted with Bill. He will be here sometime tomorrow morning for a four-day break from work. 

• Friday, 8/8: Bill's Birthday Celebration
  • Bill arrived around noon. Plato saw him through the front door's storm door, while whining and wagging his tail.
  • Mary made a pistachio tort for Bill's birthday, which we're celebrating late. He opened presents wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper (it's what we have on hand). Mary wrote a message within each snowman on the wrapping paper, such as "Don't pet otters, they bite," and "Pass the hot sauce." Bill immediately started reading a book entitled Gastro Obscura: A Food Adventurer's Guide. Later, he added magnetic side window sun screens to his car. He also sampled a couple of the large chocolate bars.
  • Mary picked a nice bowl of strawberries. We enjoyed them on waffles that I made.
  • The tail light parts came in today's mail. With Bill's help, I removed the old rusty screws and the push-in clip nuts, then installed the new ones. I added a stainless steel washer with each screw, plus a dab of Permatex Anti-Sieze Lubricant to the screw threads. We checked all tail lights after installation to make sure all was well.
  • Bill brought a six pack of Gosling's ginger beer and we tried it. This non-alcoholic brew is extremely good.
  • We watched two movies that Bill picked out, which were Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves.

• Saturday, 8/9: A Big Winemaking Day
  • Bill and I racked the snow pea wine for the third time. I transferred the liquid into a different gallon jug and left a minuscule amount of liquid in the original gallon jug. Then we added only an ounce or two of distilled water to bring the level into the neck of the jug. The specific gravity was 0.990, which is very low. The pH was 3.1.
  • Next, Bill and I made 10 gallons of cherry wine must. I thawed frozen quarts of cherries on the trailer bed outside. The bags thawed quickly in the outside temperatures. Bill wore out his finger muscles while he squeezed 12 pounds of mandarins. He got about 32 ounces of juice in each of the two measuring cups. I zested two oranges per batch and saved the orange fruit. Batch 1 got 332 ounces, or 20.74 pounds of cherries, while Batch 2 received 321 ounces, or 20.1 pounds of cherries. The first batch had two quarts of 2023 cherries and the rest were 2024 cherries. Batch 2 involved 2025 cherries. Each batch received 7 pounds of sugar, 3.5 gallons of water, and 0.9 grams of Kmeta. The specific gravity of Batch 1 was 1.073 and it was 1.072 in Batch 2. The pH of Batch 1 was 3.0 and it was 3.1 in Batch 2. Liquid level in Batch 1 was a little over 5 gallons and it was a little under 5 gallons in Batch 2. We let them sit in the pantry overnight.
  • Mary harvested another big bunch of onions. After removing their tops, she stores them in milk crates in the back porch closet. She's started her third milk crate of stored onions.
  • Around 6:30 p.m., a thunderstorm came through and dumped a nice bunch of rain on us. Along with it were high winds. The weather service issued tornado warnings for areas west of us and we saw online that lightning struck the metal dome on the roof of the Villa Kathrine, a historic house on the Mississippi bluffs in Quincy, and started a fire in the attic that the Quincy Fire Department put out right away.

• Sunday, 8/10: More Winemaking, Pizza & Yahtzee
  • Bill and added the following to the two 5-gallon batches of cherry wine: 3.75 teaspoons of pectic enzyme, 4.1 grams of diammonium phosphate (DAP) to Batch 1 and 3.9 grams of DAP to Batch 2. I worked up two batches of Red Star Côte des Blanc wine yeast using 5 grams of yeast for each batch from my 500 gram bag of yeast I bought a couple months ago. Through the day, I added liquid from each brew bucket to the two yeast cultures to eventually get full quart Mason jars of bubbling yeast. Late at night, before pitching the yeast, the specific gravity of Batch 1 was 1.070. It was 1.071 in Batch 2. A nice smell emanated from the pantry after pitching the wine yeast.
  • Mary found 18 hornworm eggs in the tomato, pepper, and tomatillo plants in the far garden.
  • She also picked four zucchinis from the near garden.
  • Midway through the day, we saw an immature bald eagle circling overhead.
  • I picked 19 apples off the ground that blew off the Empire tree during the wind from yesterday's thunderstorm. I left one apple that was mostly chewed by bunnies and threw a small, rotten apple away.
  • Mary made three pizzas that we enjoyed with a bottle of 2023 apple wine while playing Yahtzee. Bill won through the seven games that we played. He had a grand total of nine yahtzees!

July 28 - Aug. 3, 2025

Weather | 7/28, sunny, 73°, 91° | 7/29, 0.03" rain overnight, sunny, 72°, 91° | 7/30, 0.48" rain, cloudy, 69°, 81° | 7/31, cloudy/mist, 66°, 77° | 8/1, smokey/sunny, 56°, 77° | 8/2, smoke/p. cloudy, 61°, 76° | 8/3, p. cloudy, 55°, 75° |

• Monday, 7/28: Knocking Back Mother Nature's Growth
  • During blackberry picking season, the lawn went nuts with growth. I used roughly three tanks of gas in the Stihl trimmer to whack open trails in the tall grass and weeds. This included paths to the clothes line and under it, to the chicken coop, to the machine shed, to all of the apple trees south of the house, and to the far garden and around the compost bins. This task took me all day.
  • Mary cleaned the refrigerator coils, running the shop vac for about a half hour. It scared Juliet, one of the cats. When Mary shut the vacuum off and peered around the edge of the fridge, there were two big blue eyes staring at her.
  • Mary scythed the tall chicory stalks and common plantain seed heads in the north yard. This makes it easier to mow. Chicory is like wood and takes several passes with a mower to knock it down.
  • Mary picked a nice bunch of strawberries, along with some blackberries. She also harvested 44 onions, adding to the collection of onions stored in an old milk crate in the back porch closet (see photo, below). Most of the harvested onions are of the white wing variety.
  • We went through another really hot day with high humidity. Work outside got a little too hot for Mary. She felt poorly in the evening from too much heat.
  • We still have chimney swifts. Mary saw one drop into the chimney during Plato's noontime walk, then I saw and heard two of them flying about in the evening right after sunset. We thought they left early, but obviously they're still raising their youngsters.

  

  Onions harvested from our garden, so far.
  

• Tuesday, 7/29: More Heat & Humidity
  • Mary picked up the rest of the chicory stalks she knocked down recently with the scythe and hauled them away in roughly five wheelbarrow loads.
  • I whacked down and then mowed half of the outside of the electric fence around the near garden. The electric fencer barely puts a pulse through the wires when the existing high grass and weeds are wet with dew in the evening. Mulch from the mower went around the base of the Porter's Perfection apple tree just south of the chicken yard.
  • It is still very hot and humid outside, which means we spend more time inside cooling off in front of the air conditioner than outside working. It also means we can only do a fraction of the work we normally accomplish when outside.
  • We saw a chimney swift, again, today.
  • While putting the chickens to bed, we noticed that our chicks are really growing quickly.

• Wednesday, 7/30: Rain & Password Enhancements
  • A nice morning downpour gave us just under a half inch of rain. Along with it came cooler outside temperatures, which is a nice relief.
  • Mary read a Moneywise article about an online security breach where 184 million passwords were exposed. I changed online passwords we use, starting with bank websites. Where I could, I enabled two-part verification. I use a free password manager called KeePass and through it I went from websites starting with Abe Books and ended with MoreWine. KeePass can generate random large passwords and keep them in a record. Several websites we haven't dealt with in years deleted our passwords. I still have to get to the end of the alphabet (took all day to get from A to M). I also added a free authenticator app to my cell phone that generates time-based, one-time passwords that are used along with the regular password when signing into sites that allow the authenticator.
  • The pickup's tailgate hinge parts from RockAuto came in the mail and I startled a covey of over a dozen Bob White quail when I walked to the mailbox. They had a good year of producing young quail in 2025.
  • Mary picked a nice big bunch of strawberries and announced that I was making waffles tomorrow, so we can enjoy these berries. That's fine by me!
  • I noticed that one of the Sargent crab apple transplants died in the recent extreme heat. The other one is growing new branches and leaves, so it took to the transplanting quite nicely.

• Thursday, 7/31: Smoke, Passwords & Tailgate Hinges
  • Along with a northern wind and cooler temperatures, our air quality tanked with an influx of Canadian wildfire smoke. Little did we know that back when we were boiling, we had good air, even if it was humid. Mary stayed inside. Poor air harms her breathing and makes joints ache.
  • Dusting books while inside was Mary's job for the day. 
  • I changed more online passwords. Today I did changes to websites starting with letters M through Q.
  • I changed the tailgate hinges and the latch pins. The tail light assemblies must be removed to get to the nuts holding the latch pins. They are held on with two small Phillip's head screws. The head of the bottom screw on the passenger side stripped out. I was able to wiggle the light assembly out enough to get a box wrench on the nut. I'll need to buy a replacement screw and an extractor to remove that screw. The hinges were really bad. It's amazing that the tailgate didn't fall off. The new hinges didn't allow me to get the tailgate back into place. Then I remembered a filler plate behind the left hinge that I removed. With some rubber mallet persuasion, I got the tailgate on. I adjusted the hinge pins so that the tailgate closes nice and tight...so much better than before.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2023 parsnip wine in the evening while reading books. It's very smooth and tangy with a great taste. Parsnip is one of the best wines I make.

• Friday, 8/1: Smoke Fills the Air
  • Canadian smoke prevailed today.
  • I drove to Quincy and did a little bit of shopping, including buying screws and an extractor kit for working on the pickup's tail lights, and ingredients for cherry wine. Most importantly, I bought two 50-pound bags of food for the chicks, since they're growing and eating very heartily. From downtown Quincy, a view of the Mississippi River was very smokey and vague.
  • Mary cleaned house while I was gone. The cleaned and rearranged pantry is vastly improved.
  • She also harvested another big batch of strawberries, a number of onions, and a few shallots. The white wing onions are almost done. Blossoms are on the tomato plants and some small cherry tomatoes are developing.
  • In the evening, I finished reading the third Alexander Kent novel about the fictitious British naval officer, Richard Bolitho, entitled In Gallant Company, and started reading the fourth novel, Sloop of War.

• Saturday, 8/2: Truck Tail Lights
  • After letting the chickens out of the coop this morning, we heard the first crow from one of the young roosters. They're developing quickly.
  • The air was still smokey from Canadian wildfires, but it was a little less smokey, today.
  • Mary watered the near garden.
  • I used my new screw extractor kit to remove the stripped bottom screw holding the pickup's right tail light in place. It took the cap of the screw off, but the shank remained. I tried the screws I bought at Lowes in the top location of that tail light. It didn't work very well. The threads were the wrong size. I found on ebay and bought four new screws and four push-in clip nuts to replace all screws and nuts on both tail lights. These are GM parts. Once I get the right parts, I'll use needle nose pliers to bend the clip nuts off the plastic tabs of the tail light assemblies and put on new nuts and screws. I put the tail light back together.

• Sunday, 8/3: Apple Tree, Lawn, & Garden Work
  • We tried an Empire apple in our morning oatmeal. The apples from that tree are still not ripe. The apple was tart and tasty, though. The Empire tree is loaded with fruit this year (see photo, below).
  • I sharpened blades on both push mowers, cleaned air filters, and brought fluids up to correct levels.
  • I removed the cow panel surrounding the Liberty apple tree and tore out all of the tall grass that was surrounding the bottom couple of sections of the panel. That grass was feeding on rotten wood and mulch we add above the tree roots. Over a few years of adding things, the soil under the tree is about 4-5 inches higher as the mulch rots. I then cut down huge poke berry stalks and an apple shoot growing from the root stalk of the tree.
  • Mary mowed the lawn between the woodshed and the machine shed, putting grass mulch under nearby fruit trees.
  • She discovered that the seckel pear is alive. Green leaves are growing from branches where other leaves died just a few weeks ago...yahoo!
  • I mowed the north chicken yard, where poison ivy was starting to reappear. I also mowed the west and north sides, between the fences, in the near garden. The grass is very high. 
  • We had a wayward chick, a buff Orpington pullet, that was in with the adult hens and our rooster, Leo, in the south chicken yard when we went to put the chickens away in the evening. She apparently was frightened by me mowing the chick yard and either flew over the fence or found a hole in the fence between the two chicken yards. After putting all chickens in the coop, we coaxed her through the gate and into the north yard, then through the chick door into the chick side of the coop. 
  • We called Bill on his 32nd birthday. Back a few weeks ago, Katie called him and asked him what present he wanted for his birthday. He answered, "A pony." So, one of the gifts she sent him was a toy Palomino pony with a pink polka dot ribbon called a "HollyHOME Stuffed Animal Pretty Plush Toy." Bill asked his friend, Mike, if his preschool daughter would like the toy for her upcoming birthday. The answer was yes.

  

  The Empire apple tree is filled with fruit this year.

  
   

July 21-27, 2025

Weather | 7/21, 0.01" rain, cloudy, 71°, 87° | 7/22, sunny, 73°, 91° | 7/23, sunny, 76°, 91° | 7/24, cloudy, 73°, 87° | 7/25, 0.67" rain, 69°, 84° | 7/26, 0.73" rain, 71°, 84° | 7/27, p. cloudy, 71°, 91° |

• Monday, 7/21: Still Picking Blackberries
  • Last night we couldn't find a white hen named Jasmine. We looked all over the woods outside the chicken yard. This morning, she popped out the chicken door from the chick side of the coop. We guessed that she was hiding when we put the chicks to bed last night. We should rename her Houdini.
  • Mary has poison ivy rash showing up on parts of her body. I suggested that she stop picking blackberries, which always involves wading through poison ivy plants. She took me up on that suggestion and stayed home, cleaning some of the house and watering the gardens. Most plants are fine on water, but with high temperatures predicted in upcoming days, she wanted to give the garden plants some help.
  • I picked blackberries from between the ponds and Bramble Hill, gaining 3.5 quarts of berries in the freezer for the day. We now have 25 quarts frozen. I picked 34 ticks off my clothes from two berry-picking outings. 
  • Mary's goal was 24 stuffed quarts in the freezer for morning additions through the year to our breakfast oatmeal. I'm going to add a few more quarts, just to give us extra. If temperatures get as high as they're predicting, the last berries will dry up, so I want to get as many as I can before that happens. I checked blackberry wine numbers and I have over 20 bottles made in 2023. I think I'll skip another year without making blackberry wine. With all of the other wine varieties on hand, we have plenty.
  • We're noticing that at the base of ash trees that were dead due to an invasion of emerald ash borers, new ash saplings are appearing. The ash borers killed the main tree, but not the roots, which are pushing up new shoots.
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2023 cherry wine after supper. It was very good. The cherry flavor is strong, plus it has a kick without an alcohol taste.

• Tuesday, 7/22: Humid Heat Turning Berries to Mush
  • The outside temperatures are getting stinking hot. A tiny bit of time outside results in soaked clothes, due to sweating. For the first time this summer, we kept the bedroom air conditioner on all night, because when we went to bed, the thermometer was still in the low 80s.
  • Mary mowed and mulched part of the near far garden. Grass was still wet at mid-afternoon.
  • She found that some kind of bug larvae were eating the leaves of one tomatillo. Mary doused them with Dawn spray and killed them. They were close to taking out the entire plant.
  • I picked 1.5 quarts of blackberries from the patch in the persimmon trees west of the house. It gives us a total of 27 quarts in the freezer. Today was probably the last time I'll pick berries. Intense heat and extreme humidity is turning ripe berries into mush, quickly. I threw away over half of the berries I picked. The persimmon saplings block most of the sunlight from hitting the ground. I saw stretches of white mold on the ground that were a foot wide by five or six feet long. Is it any wonder berries start to go bad immediately after ripening with all that mold nearby?
  • The seckel pear tree that we planted this spring is dead. All of the trees we ordered this year came to us with white leaves. They leafed out, but were kept in the dark too long. It was a poor job done by Fedco. They blamed it on employee issues. The two apple trees came out of it and grew new leaves. This pear tree had a few tiny leaves, but they've all dried up.
  • The good news is the two Sargent crabapple transplants I did this spring, which had nothing but a single root that was about one inch wide by four or five inches long, are alive and producing new leaves. I didn't think they'd make it, but they're growing strong.

• Wednesday, 7/23: Trimming Weeds & Watering Gardens
  • I decided to halt blackberry picking. We have enough and temperatures at night are too hot for ripening berries to stay viable.
  • I used the extension ladder and trimmed Virginia creeper vines that were growing across our bedroom windows. I cleaned poke weeds and mulberry branches from in front of the electrical plug in for the electric fencer unit. Tall poke weeds were knocked down by wind and rain, then grew stalks upward from the main trunks. Layered in between were mulberry branches. It was an amazing thicket of growth. I hauled away four large loads of vegetation. Some poke weed stalks were two inches in diameter.
  • I hauled water while Mary watered all of the gardens. Some of the onion plants have greenery that's bent over. Mary plans on harvesting those onions tomorrow.
  • I took videos (see below) of pollinators in the bee balm. Even though the blossoms are almost spent, bumblebees, butterflies, and hummingbird hawk-moths frequent the flowers. 
  • Bill called in the evening, and we talked with him for awhile.
  Bumblebees, a skipper butterfly, and a hummingbird hawk-moth in bee balm.
   
A bumblebee in the bee balm blossoms.

• Thursday, 7/24: First Onions Harvested
  • Mary harvested about a dozen onions that had bent-over tops. They look good.
  • I mowed our lane in three shifts. I can't stay outside too long with the high humidity. The lane looks nice, but our lawn is an overgrown disaster. Didn't someone buy a riding mower? Yup, but it's still in the fix-it-up mode.
  • We tested an empire apple that I plucked off the tree. It wasn't quite ripe, tasted tart, but good.
  • Our FedEx driver arrived with a package yesterday by backing all the way up our quarter-mile driveway. It meant he didn't need to turn around in our yard with his big rig. When he opened the side door of his vehicle, he said, "I trimmed your trees for you," meaning his truck knocked some low-hanging branches off some black walnut trees. I said, "Thank you," and we both chuckled.
  • We experienced thunderstorms from 6 pm, onward into the night. It made for a comfy time of hot tea and a good book.

• Friday, 7/25: Ordered Pickup Tailgate Parts
  • We had well over a half inch of rain in the morning. There was brief sunshine in the afternoon, then clouds after dark.
  • Close inspection of the pickup's tailgate revealed that I need new tailgate hinge parts, since the old hinges are rusting away. I ordered new tailgate parts from RockAuto. I included ordering two new tailgate support cables, but they would be coming from a different location, so shipping was $23. When I dropped the support cables from the order, shipping reduced to $10. I'll clean up existing cables and rust proof them, instead.
  • I greased the gear box of the Stihl trimmer with the new one-handed grease gun I bought last week. I probably ought to grease that gear box again this fall.
  • After dark, I finished reading the second Alexander Kent book, Stand Into Danger. It's hard to put down these books once you start reading them.
  • Rosemary's life is fading away. She's our oldest cat. She was living in the machine shed when we first moved here in 2009, so she's at least 16 years old and probably even older than that. Mary grabbed her that fall and she gave birth to kittens under our Christmas tree in 2009. Nick, our white and gray cat, was one of those kittens. Tonight, we stayed up well into the morning hours, just to be with her when she died, but she remained alive, although with shallow breathing. At 3:30 a.m., we were too tired to stay awake, so we went to bed.

• Saturday, 7/26: Rosemary Passes Away
  • Our oldest cat, Rosemary, died in her sleep sometime between 3:30 a.m. and when we woke up at 8:00 a.m. For several months, she couldn't eat the dry cat food kernels, so I would grind it up with a mortar and pestle, put one egg in a glass bowl (she loved egg), add the ground cat food powder, stir it, cook it for 30 seconds in the microwave, mash it up into small pieces, and feed Rosemary. Often, I'd add a small bit of wet food to pique her appetite. Rosemary was our indoor feral cat. She survived outdoors before we captured her, because she was all gray and blended into the shadows very well. Rosemary was also very smart and hid under boards in the machine shed, instead of parading outside at night, when coyotes and owls were nearby. She hated getting touched. Pet Rosemary and she'd run away. She was a tiny pixie. Rosemary would often grab a toy mouse, toss it in the air, and jump in the air. She loved heat, often sitting behind the woodstove right next to Plato. That way, she'd feel heat from the stove and heat that bounced off the side of the dog. In the evening, she'd snuggle into the inside corner of Mary's couch and stay there, as long as Mary didn't touch her. She was the tiniest cat that grew even thinner with age. She now lies under the ground next to some aromatic sumac near the love of her life, Merlin, who passed away nine years ago in June of 2016. Below are a couple photos that include Rosemary.
  • We had a long thunderstorm in the morning that gave us nearly 3/4 of an inch of rain.
  • We buried Rosemary after the storm. Since she was so tiny, it was a pretty easy job. 
  • Mary harvested more onions showing greens that were bent over. She also picked some strawberries and blackberries to add to tomorrow morning's oatmeal breakfast.
  • Activities were low, due to a lack of sleep. 
  • We watched the 1993 movie, Dave.

Rosemary (left), then Juliet, Gandalf, Mocha & Nick.

Rosemary (back), Holly (left) & Juliet (front).

• Sunday, 7/27: Huddling Around the AC
  • It is just stinking hot outside. The high heat is exacerbated by wet blanket humidity. There are several outdoor jobs to do, but we stayed inside for practically the entire day. Mary commented that hot summer days are similar to cold winter days. In both cases, we stay inside, only instead of huddling around the woodstove, we huddle in front of the air conditioner.
  • I labeled and put away the six bottles of dandelion wine. 
  • Since I only have a dozen labels left, I ordered 750 more dissolvable labels from a company entitled Brewing America. I used their labels a few years back and they're the best. The last batch of cheap Chinese labels I used aren't so good. Lettering written in pen fades over time on those labels, plus a box of 500 came with 106 fewer labels than promised...CHEATERS!
  • I pulled another apple off the Empire tree to see if they're ripe, yet. An indicator is black seeds. The seeds in this apple were brown. It isn't quite ripe, but close. It tasted tart, yet good, and was quite juicy. I might be picking apples by the end of this week. 
  • We are still seeing fireflies each night. In other years, these bugs aren't around by this time of the year. Damp conditions are keeping them flying about.
  • Muggy nighttime air in our atmosphere amplified light so that we saw flashes from a thunderstorm that was approaching Springfield, Illinois, which is 144 miles east of us.

July 14-20, 2025

Weather | 7/14, sunny, 63°, 88° | 7/15, p. sunny, 67°, 87° | 7/16, cloudy to sunny, 72°, 86° | 7/17, 0.14" rain, cloudy, 69°, 81° | 7/18, sunny, 67°, 85° | 7/19, 0.02" rain, cloudy to sunny, 73°, 85° | 7/20, 0.17" rain, 73°, 79° |

• Monday, 7/14: Berries, Weeds, & Dead Hen
  • Mary picked more blackberries. She put two more stuffed quarts in the freezer. We now have a grand total of nine quarts of this year's frozen berries.
  • I finished whacking down the incredibly tall weeds in the north chicken yard, leaving three big windrows of downed vegetation that I now need to move. Chickens love grabbing seeds knocked out of motherwart plants. The last half of the stretch I took down next to the east fence of the north chicken yard with the Stihl trimmer was filled with poison ivy plants. I told Mary to avoid that area. She gets itchy just being near newly cut poison ivy. Luckily, it doesn't bother me.
  • We lost a hen a few days ago when three birds refused to go inside the coop in the evening and hid in the south chicken yard motherwart plants. I found the mostly-eaten hen under the north chicken yard weeds. We suspect it was killed by a raccoon. With weeds gone, rounding up hens is much easier.
  • The chicks are five weeks old, today. Their old enough to venture outside. That's why I'm working hard to get their outside area ready for them. We now count five pullets among our chicks. We ordered three barred rocks. The other two pullets are buff Orpingtons, which must be hard to sex as newborn chicks, because we always seem to get a few pullets out of the group that is supposed to be just cockerels.
  • The wild bergamot, or bee balm, has expanded in our north yard (see photo, below). It is a great attraction for giant swallowtail butterflies, monarch butterflies, and hummingbird hawk-moths.
  • Before sunset, we watched a flying circus above our house. Eastern kingbirds, barn swallows, and purple martins were swirling around, apparently catching bugs. At times, two kingbirds would meet in midair, exchange bugs while fluttering for a few seconds, then swoop down and start flying, again. What an amazing sight!

  

  Wild bergamot, or bee balm, in our north yard.
  

• Tuesday, 7/15: The Raccoon Returns
  • When we let the chickens out this morning, we saw bits of paint peelings on the ground under the southeast corner of the chicken coop. It looks like a raccoon was messing around, trying to find a way into the coop. It's probably the one that grabbed a hen a couple days ago. Fortunately, all chickens were inside and we have hardware cloth over all open windows.
  • Mary noticed a crab spider munching away on a metalic green sweat bee in a Gerbera daisy (see photo, below). The spider is camouflaged with the same color as the middle part of the flower.
  • A tour of the gardens revealed that two pepper plants and one tomatillo plant died. A couple hills of squash only have one or two seeds that sprouted and one hill of zucchinis failed to germinate any seeds. All other plants look great. I picked two tiny strawberries and we noticed several blossoms showing on all strawberry plants. Onions are developing big bulbs. Mary picked a shallot that tasted divine in our midday smoked scrambled eggs.  
  • I moved weeds with a wheelburrow and threw them over the north fence of the north chicken yard. It took all day. The humidity makes temperatures in the upper 80s feel extremely hot. I took several breaks that were longer than my time outside.
  • Mary picked blackberries in this humid heat in patches that receive no wind and intense sun. She got another two quarts, bringing our grand total in the freezer to 11.
  • By the end of a day in this heat, Mary and I are both tired. We both yearn for cool white snow.

  

  A yellow spider eating a green bee on our Gerbera daisy.
  

• Wednesday, 7/16: North Chicken Yard Ready for Chicks
  • I mowed the north chicken yard to cut down sedges and grass that evaded the weed trimmer. I then trimmed some tree branches with the loppers that were growing into gate areas. I propped up two posts at the north end of the north chicken yard that were leaning. I repaired the gate into the north yard and the upper latch at that gate. I put bricks along the bottom of the gate to block chicks from crawling under it. All that's left is to open up the chick door tomorrow to let them outside.
  • Mary went between the ponds to pick more blackberries. When I was done with the chicken yard, I went into the persimmon sapling forest west of the house and picked blackberries. Together, we got just over two quarts. There's now 13 total quarts in the freezer. There are many green and red blackberries yet to ripen.
  • Mary heard the bleating sound of a fawn deer calling down the hill to the east of her while she was picking blackberries. She thinks it caught her scent and was panicking.
  • I watched a doe and a fawn run away from the lane when I walked down to get the mail.
  • Bill sent us a link and we both watched a PBS American Experience episode entitled Nazi Town, USA, which is about the Nazi movement in this country in the 1930s.
  • After we went to bed, thunderstorms rolled through and gave us some rain.

• Thursday, 7/17: Chicks Venture Outside
  • I unscrewed the board on the inside of the door for the chicks and let them outside. They were shy at first, like all chicks are, but by evening, most chicks were outside exploring.
  • I checked the grease fittings I bought recently for the spindles of the riding mower to determine that they have 27 threads per inch. The quarter inch taps I have are either 28, or 20, so I'll need to exchange these grease fittings to fit my taps.
  • I joined Mary on picking blackberries. Together we froze four quarts of berries for the day. The grand total in the freezer is now 17.

• Friday, 7/18: A Shopping Trip
  • Mary and I went shopping in Quincy. All was quiet and traffic was low. We think a hot summer day prior to the weekend kept everyone away from shopping in the stores.
  • While driving down the lane to leave, we scared up a male and female Bob White quail. They are very pretty birds. Along the way to Quincy in many Missouri lawns, we noticed Destroying Angel mushrooms just like the ones in our lawn.
  • At Dollar General, I bought a silly pillow shaped like a pumpkin (Halloween stuff is out in stores). It's perfect for the small of my back while sitting on the couch. Besides exchanging grease fittings at Menards, I bought a tiny grease gun made by Oregon Tools, designed to grease chainsaw bar sprockets. I'll use it for greasing the gear head of the Stihl trimmer. We grabbed six cans of Repel insect repellent. We use it a great deal when we go marching around picking blackberries, or any outdoor activity.
  • Throughout the shopping trip, we marveled at how well the pickup shifted in and out of gear and how good the brakes worked on sudden stops. Inconsequential vehicle actions that normally go unnoticed are big events after you repair parts and work on the vehicle. 
  • After getting home, unloading, and doing evening chores, we watched a 1995 DVD that Mary picked up at Goodwill entitled Persuasion. We enjoyed a bottle of 2023 apple wine. It was very good and matched quite well with the cheese and crackers we ate while watching the movie.
  • When we walked Plato on his last outing, coyotes were yipping from the bottom southeast of the house. Plato wanted to go back inside pretty quickly.

• Saturday, 7/19: A Berry Picking Record
  • Mary has a collection of old cookbooks and recipes. One is a 1917 Knox Gelatin recipe. She   moved them from loose-leaf binders and into a plastic covered box for better protection.
  • I went through a bunch of instruction manuals, threw out several outdated ones related to items we no longer own, and moved the remaining manuals into a new accordion folder.
  • Mary and I went back on the blackberry picking trail and picked five quarts, a new daily berry picking record for this year. We now have a total of 22 quarts in the freezer.
  • We're noticing more monarch butterflies as we move about while picking berries.
  • I finished reading the Alexander Kent book, Midshipman Bolitho.
  • The outside humidity is extremely high. On Plato's last outing, we noticed a foggy appearance when viewing the light through our kitchen window while just a few feet away. A quick check showed the relative humidity at 96 percent! Tree frogs love it. They were singing loudly from surrounding trees.

• Sunday, 7/20: Racking & Bottling Dandelion Wine
  • I saw glimpses of a deer in the brush between the gardens when I looked out the bedroom window this morning.
  • It rained a little bit in the afternoon. There was a lot of rain threats in the forecast, but most of the weather went around us. Still, it was too wet to do much outside, so we stayed indoors.
  • Mary worked on a cross stitch project. 
  • I racked the dandelion wine for the fourth time. The liquid was clear, so I bottled it into six bottles. The specific gravity is 0.994 and the pH is 3.1. The alcohol level is 12.18 percent. Mary and I tasted some leftover wine. It's got a touch of citrus and a flowery aftertaste. It also has a strong alcohol taste. Aging should tame the alcohol flavor. The wine has a deep amber color, probably due to the abundant pollen amount in this year's dandelion flowers.
  • Mary's iPhone 5 SE is getting old and giving her fits. I looked up cell phones and texted with Bill a few times about phone ideas. We haven't made up our minds, yet.

July 7-13, 2025

Weather | 7/7, sunny, 70°, 87° | 7/8, 0.16" rain, cloudy, 69°, 87° | 7/9, sunny, 69°, 85° | 7/10, sunny, 70°, 89° | 7/11, sunny to thunderstorm, 1.56" rain, 65°, 92° | 7/12, cloudy, 0.06" rain, 67°, 85° | 7/13, cloudy, 0.02" rain, 67°, 80° |

• Monday, 7/7: Pickup Steering Cable Installed
  • Work on the pickup's steering cable is finished. Attaching the two halves of the steering cable together went smooth and effortlessly. A quick check indicated I had all gears with the shift lever behind the steering wheel. More time was spent attaching the cable to the underside of the pickup. One tie close to where the cable goes through the cab floor popped into place with ease. Another tie connected to the new cable doesn't fit anything related to my pickup. I pulled an old plastic tie out of the undercarriage and deformed it in the process. I used a new zip tie through the deformed tie and glued it to the undercarriage using some Loctite construction adhesive. Since this glue requires clamping, I propped a forsythia twig between a pickup frame member and the tie to put pressure on the glue joint and left it. Road movement will bounce that twig out of there soon enough (the ultimate in shade-tree mechanics).
  • Mary did her first blackberry picking tour of 2025 and picked just a handful of berries. A blackberry patch in the north field is down in production, with several of those berries infested with worms. The largest potential is between the ponds and in the small persimmon trees west of the west yard. There are a lot of red black berries out there yet to fully ripen.
  • Mary noticed that the acorn crop from oak trees will be huge this year. 
  • She scared away a turkey hen and two poults from the blackberry patch in a hollow just southwest of the house. There's a big difference between the size of the hen, at three feet, and the poults, at 10 inches. The hen and one poult flew away, while the second poult ran away.
  • Mary reports that lotus flowers are blooming in Bass Pond. She said they smell identical to common milkweed flowers. 
  • After Mary's blackberry ventures, she picked 72 ticks off her clothes. It's the worst tick season we've witnessed.

• Tuesday, 7/8: Blackberries & Shopping
  • Mary picked more blackberries. She wondered if she should skip a day, but while picking ripe berries between the ponds and on Bramble Hill, she collected a little over a half a bowl full (see photo, below), which is a big difference from the piddly few she got just yesterday. They're ripening quickly. 
  • Mary spotted her first Carolina praying mantis of the season trying to get away from her in the tall grass. These brown praying mantis types are native to our area. 
  • I drove to Quincy to get a few supplies that ran out while our vehicle was getting repaired by me. When I went to leave, the pickup's battery was dead, so I charged it and decided to replace the battery, since we've owned the truck for five years, which is longer than the life of a modern auto battery. The shifting mechanism works very well...so much so that I blast the shift lever from park to second gear while trying to just get the pickup into reverse. I'm used to a much stiffer shift, so with the new shift cable, I overdo the motion.
  • Besides a few food items, I got an AC Delco battery, and hen and chick food.
  • Once home, I changed out the pickup's battery and recorded my blood glucose numbers off my monitors for the doctor's visit, tomorrow.

  

  Blackberries picked by Mary, today.
  

• Wednesday, 7/9: Good Doctor's Report
  • I drove to Lewistown for my biannual doctor appointment. It went well. My doctor thinks my average blood glucose readings look good. They drew blood. The Lewistown Clinic is tied to the Quincy Medical Group. The blood work was done by the end of the day. My A1C is 6.5. A reading of 7.0 or lower is good for a controlled diabetic, so my number is good. All other numbers are within good averages. Besides the normal prescriptions that he sent in, he asked that I get a shingles shot. He had a horror story of one of his patients who ignored shingles for three weeks, got an infection in his eye that went to his brain, causing encephalitis. He nearly died. 
  • Mary picked more blackberries. We now have nearly two fully stuffed quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. She also picked 69 ticks off her clothes upon returning home.
  • For a second day in a row, I drove to Quincy, this time to pick up medications, since I'm almost out of a couple of them. I got a shingles shot at Sam's Club. The pharmacist said my arm will ache and I might develop a low fever.
  • I dropped off the old pickup battery to get back a $10 core charge. I got grease fittings for the three new spindles on the riding lawnmower and a new rubber hose to replace the old breather hose running from the top of the gas tank to the carburetor on the riding mower. I picked up gas for the pickup, plus I filled two five-gallon gas cans and one gallon of high-octane gas for the trimmer and chainsaws. The price was $2.75 a gallon.
  • When I left for the doctor's office, I saw a deer at the end of our lane, and another deer down the gravel road. Mary saw an immature bald eagle.
  • On the way back home, I saw more wildlife. There was David Marquette, one of our neighbors, driving his 2N Ford tractor and pulling a converted pickup box trailer down the gravel road. It's probably his only transportation for going into Lewistown. He's the epitome of a backwoods hillbilly.
  • By evening, my arm ached and I was cold...probably a slight fever...just like the doctor and the pharmacist predicted, due to the shingles shot. Two acetaminophen pills and off to bed I went. Things were better the next morning.
    

• Thursday, 7/10: Blahs From Shingles Vaccine
  • My left arm, which received the shingles shot, hurt all day...enough that it was hard to lift. Anytime I was hungry, I also felt sick. I stayed inside. This shot affected me a great deal.
  • Birds were plentiful on our morning outing for Plato. They including a yellow-billed cuckoo, a red-bellied woodpecker, a rose-breasted grosbeak, a red-shouldered hawk, a house wren, and a cardinal, all first thing in the morning.
  • Mary mowed part of the yard just east of the house and mulched the beans.
  • I balanced the checkbook and did a ton of dishes, so Mary could get some outside items done.
  • We switched to a hanging feeder for the chicks and to all flock feed for them after their 50-pound bag of chick feed emptied out. Past experience tells us that they grow bigger and faster on the all flock feed compared to keeping them on chick feed. We also took out the heat lamp and switched them away from chick grit to adult-sized grit.
  • A few weeks ago, I thought one of my Sargent crab apple saplings was dead. Today, I noticed new growth on both saplings. Timely rains are helping them along.
    

• Friday, 7/11: Blackberries, and a Good Rain
  • Reports of thunderstorms hitting us in the afternoon prompted me to help Mary pick blackberries. We first went to the patch between the ponds. I took a quick trip to Bass Pond. About half of the pond is filled with lotus plants. Some have yellow flowers the size of dinner plates. On the second outing, Mary went to the southeast berry patch while I picked berries in the hollow southwest of the house and to the berries in the persimmon thicket west of the house. Mary and I went down the west field, which finished our berry picking. We now have four stuffed quarts in the freezer, with a fifth quart started.
  • On our first outing, Mary picked 26 ticks off her clothes and I found 20. After the second berry trip, I plucked 503 ticks off my clothes! At first I thought tiny seeds collected on my pant legs. Then Mary and I saw those seeds moving. I used four sections of tape to snatch them off my clothes, then used a black marker to help count them (see photo, below). I've never seen so many ticks all at once.
  • We got chores done early, then ate a meal of waffles. Rain start falling from a thunderstorm around 8:30 p.m. It turned into a heavy downpour, giving us over 1.5 inches.
  • Mom texted to me that Dianne Sukut died today at age 72. She was the executive secretary while I worked at Mid-Rivers and a very good friend.
  • I viewed photos from my 50th high school class reunion in Homer, AK. I identified some of the people, but there were several who I didn't recognize at all. Everyone looked old. I'm not that old, am I?
  • Sine we had the internet router off because of lightning strikes, I started reading the first Richard Bolitho book, written by Alexander Kent. It's called Midshipman Bolitho. I read a few of these British Navy novels when I was in high school. They make for a fun read.

  

  503 ticks collected from my clothes after picking blackberries.
  

• Saturday, 7/12: Cutting Motherwart Plants
  • While getting the rain gauge amount this morning, a buck deer walked to the lane from near Bluegill Pond, spotted us, then spun around and ran off. It was very healthy looking and sported a reddish brown summer coat.
  • I sharpened the blade I sometimes use on the Stihl trimmer. 
  • I started cleaning weeds out of the south end of the chicken yard where the hens and Leo, our rooster, hang out in the summer. It's full of motherwart plants that have grown above head height. Flowers that were once filled with bees are dwindling and in their place are thorny seeds. I only whacked down a few plants at a time, so falling plants wouldn't send the sharp seed heads into my rubber boots. Then I moved them down the hill to the north and piled them near the edge of the woods.
  • Mary went to between the ponds to pick blackberries.
  • A sudden downpour, that no weather service predicted, pounded rain on us. I waited inside the machine shed, expecting to see Mary arriving from berry picking. She never showed, so I replaced the fuel tank vent hose on the riding lawnmower's engine. I added a hose clamp to keep the new hose from falling off the nipple under the air cleaner housing.
  • Mary showed up while I was finishing working on the mower. Needless to say, she was really soaked. She waited out the rain from under a cedar tree, then inside an old metal Quonset hog shed. She finished picking berries from that patch after the rain quit. We now have over five quarts of this year's berries in the freezer.
  • I left a pile of motherwart plants just outside the chicken yard gate.
  • The outside air was very thick with moisture after the rain. While giving Plato his final outing of the night, the moon shined with an orange tint, due to the humid air and what we suspect is a slight bit of Canadian wildfire smoke.
  • Bill texted that his friend from Circle High School, Cole McCloy, was recently in Great Britain to replace the mounted King's Life Guard, only the third time in history that a foreign group had this distinction (see photo, below). Cole is a member of the Lord Strathcona's Horse, which is part of the 1st Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group of the Canadian Army, based in Edmonton, Alberta. HERE is a story about the event that Bill sent to us. Also, HERE is a video about their visit to England.

  

  Bill's friend, Cole, is in the middle with the guidon.
  

• Sunday, 7/13: Berries & Weeds
  • We had a small rain shower around noon.
  • Mary took in another berry picking session. She picked blackberries for three hours and added two more quarts to the freezer. We have seven quarts frozen and we're starting the eighth quart of this year's blackberries.
  • Mary flushed up a Bob White quail from the southeast blackberry patch.
  • I moved and finished clearing motherwart plants from the south chicken yard. Carrying six-foot high motherwarts that are full of stickery seeds on a pitchfork isn't very fun. They weigh a lot, so it's best to move small amounts. I also cut about a five-foot wide trail through the weeds in the north chicken yard. Giant ragweed was the plant growing in the north chicken yard in past years. Not so this year. It's all repopulated with tall motherwarts. They grow like giant redwoods with chicken manure at their roots. Once I have all of the north chicken yard clear of weeds and the gate between the south and north yard repaired and in place, we can let the chicks out during the day in the north yard.
  • We have a big, beautiful mushroom growing in our east yard (see photo, below). Mary identified it as a Destroying Angel mushroom. It's quite poisonous. We'll just look at it.

  

  A 5-inch wide Destroying Angel mushroom.

  
   

June 30-July 6, 2025

Weather | 6/30, 0.11" rain, cloudy, 68°, 85° | 7/1, sunny, 65°, 83° | 7/2, sunny to sprinkles, 64°, 85° | 7/3, sunny, 67°, 57° | 7/4, sunny, 69°, 88° | 7/5, p. cloudy to 1.03" rain, 73°, 85° | 7/6, cloudy, 69°, 85° |

• Monday, 6/30: A Little More Rain
  • Mary trimmed forsythia branches that shot out this spring into walking and parking areas. She also cut back some Virginia creeper vines that are trying to capture our legs as we walked up the porch steps.
  • We waited for oncoming rain that finally arrived in the late afternoon. We got just over a tenth inch of rain.
  • I walked down to the mailbox to get shifting cable clips that arrived in the mail. Our mail delivery person can never seem to close any mailbox door. She always leaves them open by about an inch, so if rain or snow is eminent, the mail gets wet. What a doofus!!!
  • A recommended fix that I've found on several videos dealing with riding mower spindle bolts that break when they are removed is to tap threads into new spindles. I checked and I have the correct tap to make those threads. My attempt to start tapping threads was detoured due to oncoming rain that required doing evening chores early.
  • With rain starting to fall, we could only get nine hens and Leo, our rooster, into the coop. We got tired of playing chicken games and left the remaining six hens out to get soaked by rain. At sunset, Mary opened the chicken door and six bedraggled, wet hens went into the coop, one by one.
  • Mary discovered that there is a cardinal nest in the forsythia next to our main door. A cat bird followed Mary into the woodshed and kept picking up odd bits off the woodshed floor and throwing them around, like Leo, our rooster, does when he's protecting his flock of hens.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2023 pumpkin wine after dinner. It's much improved with aging. This wine once had a strong sulfur taste. It has floating stuff in it, so I filtered the wine through some paper towels and into the glass pitcher. Drinking it chilled is delightful. The taste includes a cinnamon spice element and pumpkin flavor. It's nice and refreshing.

• Tuesday, 7/1: Near Garden Planted
  • The shift cable parts arrived via UPS. A check with the old shift cable revealed that the new one is the exact same length, which is great. There are two lengths and I need the smaller one, which was hard to determine on the Rock Auto website. I got it right. I'll get to pickup fixing as soon as I get the far garden fortified against bunnies, deer, and various munching critters.
  • Mary planted green and wax bean seeds, zucchini seeds, and sweet potato slips in the near garden. It's now done with this summer's planting. Next will be to plant in the far garden.
  • I finished mowing the area outside of the far garden's electric fence. Then, I tightened all of the far garden electric fence wires after pounding in more rocks to solidify the corner posts. Tightening fence wires requires walking along the fence line, pulling one wire tight at each insulator as you progress along the fence. There are 11 wires, with one length of baling twine at the top of the fence. I had to stoop while walking along for the five bottom wires. Afterwards, my legs were very stiff and sore...like doing hundreds of deep knee bends. The fence is tight. Before turning it on, I need to run the weed trimmer along the bottom to eliminate grass and weeds growing into the wires. After that, I need to work on the chicken wire rabbit fence.
  • Plato started the day eating only a tiny bit. Mary baked chicken for our midday meal and all pets get tidbits peeled off bones after we eat. After I fed my meat bits to the pets, Plato seemed eager to eat more, so I offered him his breakfast dog food that he ate with great gusto. He also snarfed the evening meal. Plato is on the mend!
  • As I washed chicken waterers on the front porch at sunset, lightening bugs slowly emerged from the grass and flew to waste level. It's a cool sight to gaze across the lawn and see glistening lights going on and off.

• Wednesday, 7/2: Mowing & Whacking
  • Mary mowed part of the north yard. It's so full of poison ivy and ragweed that she just cut it and left it lay. The cut ragweed makes it hard to breathe.
  • I trimmed weeds and grass under the electric fence in the far garden. Well established plants contributed to the job taking all day and several tankfuls of gas in the trimmer. A positive feature was wet soil, so I wasn't kicking up dust with the trimmer.
  • My leg muscles were extremely sore by evening, due to deep knee bends while pulling fence wires tight, yesterday. I pulled a muscle or ligament in my right ribs while working under the pickup's dash a few days back and today's weed whacking exacerbated that sore spot. In Grandpa Melvin's words, "It stinks getting old."
  • Plato thoroughly ate all meals, like a good puppy should!
  • We have always walked dogs down our lane and back home, because in past years, the lane was relatively free of ticks. It's not the case this year. Plato's recent downtime meant he didn't have the energy to walk the lane, which kept us in the yard. As a result, we're seeing fewer ticks on him. Our lane is a major thoroughfare for wild animals that drop off ticks. For now, we'll just stay with yard outings for Plato.

• Thursday, 7/3: Bunny Fence Cleaning
  • We're seeing a slight drying trend, so Mary watered the garden. Parsnip plants are huge. Onions are starting to put on bulbs. There were no strawberries. High heat has stopped their production.
  • I started cleaning out grass and weeds growing through the chicken wire fence in the near far garden. I cleaned up half of the north side and half of the west side of that garden's bunny fence made of chicken wire. Cleaning out the grass gives us a chance to discover any bunny burrowing holes underneath the chicken wire.
  • I mowed the lane, since Bill arrives tomorrow and I don't want the chicory spikes growing in the middle of the lane taking out the headlights of his car...just joking!
  • I dump excess water from chicken waterers under the two west yard apple trees. On this evening's water dumping, three bunnies ran away from under the tree. We saw bunny remains partway down our lane. Some bird or coyote had a rabbit feast.

• Friday, 7/4: Bill Arrives
  • Bill showed up for his July 4th visit around 11 a.m. Plato turned himself inside out with happiness. He loves Bill.
  • Mary weeded the onions and noticed they were dry, so she watered the near garden.
  • I sharpened the old pruning shears and used them to clear weeds and grass growing in the chicken wire of the rabbit fence around the near far garden. I made it to the to the northwest corner of that garden.
  • Any time outside right now requires at least a 20-minute inside time to cool off. The heat and humidity makes for uncomfortable outside conditions. 
  • Bill saw two small corn snakes in the woodshed.
  • After dark, someone south of us blew off several hundred dollars worth of fireworks.
  • Bill picked two movies that we watched. They were Star Trek: Voyage Home and Miss Congeniality.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2023 cherry wine and a bottle of 2025 spiced apple wine. They were both very good.

• Saturday, 7/5: Garden Planting Finished
  • I checked all areas of the chicken wire bunny fence in the near far garden for holes along the ground and found one area on the east side, so I cleared the tall weeds and grass from that spot. I counted rotten stakes that hold that chicken wire solid at ground level, cut a persimmon sapling, and made six stakes that I pounded into the ground. I rechecked the electrical fence around the far garden and connected wires at the near garden to activate electricity to the far garden's electric fence.
  • Mary planted six hills of acorn squash and three hills of cucumbers. She moved all pepper, tomato, and tomatillo plants to the near far garden and started digging holes. Bill helped by filling the wheelbarrow with compost,  then adding compost to each hole, followed by wood ash, and bone meal for the tomatoes. He then stirred the mixture in each hole. Mary followed Bill by transplanting all of the plants. I followed them both by watering everything. The heat and humidity made for hot work (see photos, below). We transplanted 19 pepper plants, 33 tomato plants, and four tomatillo plants. This was a grand total of 56 transplants.
  • After a much needed rest inside, we did chores early, due to thunderstorms moving our way. As I walked back from the mailbox, thunder was rumbling west of us. It rained very hard, giving us just over an inch of moisture, which was perfect for newly transplanted garden plants.
  • We ate pizza and played Michigan Rummy on a new playing surface that Bill gave Mary for her birthday. Bill won. I came in second and Mary was third. She had very bad luck, this time.
  • We enjoyed a bottle of 2023 pear wine. It seemed slightly strong in alcohol taste for a wine made two years ago. Mary thought it was smooth, compared to the strong alcohol taste of the recent pea pod wine.

Bill (left) & Mary (right) transplanting.

A newly transplanted row of 19 pepper plants.

• Sunday, 7/6: Working on the Pickup
  • I worked on the pickup shift cable by first setting up to work under the vehicle by sliding a sheet of old plywood underneath it and covering the plywood with a canvas tarp. Then I replaced the shift lever with a new one. When I checked the bolts holding the shift bracket in place at the transmission, the heads were smooth. An online check revealed they are covered with caps and underneath are torx head bolts that are hard to get to, since they're on top of the transmission. One entry in a forum referenced an urge to pull fingernails out of the hands of the engineer who designed this mess. I decided to leave the old bracket in place.
  • Bill left for his apartment around 2 pm. He ran into spotty rain, but when he got to his apartment, he saw downed trees and large tree branches. A branch of a tree that shielded sunlight from entering a skylight window broke off (see photos, below). We're guessing a microburst hit his apartment complex, because he didn't see downed trees until he turned on the street to get to his apartment.
  • I texted my cousin, Margie, about her mother's death the morning of July 5th. Margie said her brother, Johhny, said Aunt Dorothy declined physically after a March visit for a late celebration of her 95th birthday.
  • I went back outside and worked on the pickup. Installing the section of steering cable under the dash was difficult, as expected. After three unsuccessful attempts, I carefully attached the wire keeper to the shift cable and slowly worked it into place, attached the top of the keeper, then the bottom, and snapped the cable onto the shift knuckle. I got all of the cable into place inside the pickup's cab, along with all dash pieces installed. The other half went in nicely at the transmission. Now, all that's left is hooking the two halves together correctly, tying it up under the pickup, and testing the shifting mechanism. If I can't get the shift lever into all gears, additional adjustments are necessary where the two halves come together. That's for tomorrow. 

Bill's skylight to a broken tree branch.

Downed trees at Bill's apartment complex.

June 23-29, 2025

Weather | 6/23, sunny, 73°, 91° | 6/24, sunny, 72°, 91° | 6/25, sunny, 73°, 92° | 6/26, sunny, 75°, 92° | 6/27, 0.47" rain overnight, partly cloudy, 68°, 87° | 6/28, sunny, 69°, 89° | 6/29, 1.48" rain, cloudy, 69°, 77° |

• Monday, 6/23: Pickup Problems
  • Mary and I moved the riding mower deck to the back of the pickup. When I went to drive off in the pickup, I could not get the vehicle into drive. Later, I hooked the 8N Ford tractor to the front of the pickup with a chain. Mary put the pickup into neutral and steered it as I pulled it back into its parking spot with the tractor.
  • Right after I discovered the pickup wasn't moving forward and I was starting to look online for answers, the welder called. I already texted him that I wasn't moving the pickup. He told me that he will be at the dairy tomorrow, doing a welding job, and will drive here to put the weld on the mower deck. That was very nice of him.
  • I did a bunch of online research. I think my problem is a worn out shifter cable. RockAuto.com has them from $39 to $113. I'll need to order one.
  • Mary watered all garden plants and smaller trees. She reports everything is doing well.
  • Mary mowed more and mulched to the near the end of the row she's filling in the near far  garden. I mowed the lane so when the welder visits tomorrow, our lane looks like someone lives here. 
  • Mary checked a patch of blackberries south of the house and discovered that most of that patch is gone, but what is there has green blackberries.

• Tuesday, 6/24: A Free Weld
  • On our morning walk with Plato, we saw a doe with twin fawns on the lane ahead of us. Plato was great at just watching them and not barking or running towards them. The fawns still had spots. All three deer looked very healthy.
  • Hudson Welding showed up around 9:30 in a pickup. They had a big Lincoln welder in the back of their pickup powered by a portable generator. Tony, the eldest, who welded our trailer a couple weeks ago, stood by as his son and grandson did the work. A quick rust clean up with a grinder and a 30-second weld was all it took. When I asked how much I owed, Tony said I didn't owe a cent...they did it for free. That was really nice. Prior to showing up, they just left the dairy west of us, after doing some welding. The dairy gives them regular work. After they left, Mary and I moved the riding lawnmower deck to the wagon behind the 8N Ford tractor inside the machine shed.
  • I jacked up the driver's side front end of the pickup, installed a jack stand, and removed the underneath half of the pickup's shift cable. Once I disconnected the cable, I grabbed the lever on the side of the transmission and easily moved through all of the gears, thereby verifying that the problem isn't inside the transmission, but probably in the cable. Prior to removal, I took several photos of the cable's routing underneath the pickup. 
  • I had to take frequent breaks, due to hot, humid conditions. While removing a tiny C-washer that holds the two halves of the cable together, the canvas tarp under me got wet just from sweat dripping off my arm. Mary also had to take several breaks from the heat.
  • Mary performed more of her mowing/mulching dance. The near far garden is now mulched and only requires additions here and there where older mulch has decayed.
  • For a second day in a row, Mary added a couple loads of green clover leaves to the hens and chicks. All of it gets gobbled up by all chickens.
  • In the evening, we enjoyed a bottle of 2022 blackberry wine. It's very mellow with a good berry flavor. Aging greatly helps enhance the taste of homemade wine.

• Wednesday, 6/25: Pickup Shifting Problem Found!
  • Mary made a big batch of chicken noodle soup. Somehow a dinner of salty liquids seems right after sweating outside in hot, humid conditions.
  • The riding lawnmower parts arrived, but were delivered to the trailer across the gravel road from us. Alma, the Hispanic woman who lives there, drove her pickup to us and delivered the two packages, which was very nice. She doesn't speak English, but her two infant daughters smiled at me and said, "Hi!" 
  • I successfully removed the upper half of the pickup's automatic transmission shift cable. Once I uncovered the floor mat, I found the culprit that hindered correct shifting of the transmission (see photo, below). The outer sheathing of the cable deteriorated to the point that the cable moved sideways instead of up and down the inside of the cable's wrapping. Based on YouTube videos, rotten cable sheathing on the floor and inside of the cab is a common breaking point of these shift cables. I was tickled that I guessed what the problem was, based on symptoms of a rotten shift cable. Up until today, my prognosis was only conjecture.
  • There is a bugger a clamp wire (see photo, below) under the dash that wraps around the shift cable and keeps it above a steering column knuckle. Most videos skip the difficulty of removing this beast, but there's plenty of online chatter about how tough it is to deal with this scummy thing. I battled with it for a couple of long sessions, interspersed with online searches trying to figure it out. I finally got the idea from watching a guy lay on the pickup floor, enabling the ability to push up on the wire to remove it. I copied the technique and got it out. I'm not looking forward to installing the "beast".
  • My body tells me that it doesn't like twisting around a pickup seat on the pickup's floor and reefing on parts deep under the dash. I have sore muscles and joints in weird places.
  • I ordered all of the parts needed to fix the shift cable, including brackets and pins. It's predicted to be here by July 1-2. Meanwhile, we'll keep feeding cut clover to the chickens in an attempt to stretch hen and chick feed.

Bad shift cable that was above pickup's floor.

This clamp wire was difficult to remove.

• Thursday, 6/26: Quiet Day
  • We took a day off from going outside and cooking in the heat and humidity. Our bodies needed a rest.
  • Strawberry production is dropping way back with the onslaught of high temperatures.
  • The pickup parts that I ordered were shipped today.
  • We watched the 2001 film, The Wedding Planner.
  • Lightening flashed across the sky from an approaching thunderstorm from the west as we walked Plato on his nighttime outing. After we crawled into bed, heavy rain pelted the roof, giving us nearly a half inch of moisture.

• Friday, 6/27: Removing Old Garden Plants & Other Vile Weeds
  • Mary cleaned snow pea, radish, spinach, and lettuce plants out of the near garden in preparation for planting new garden plants. Radish plants had flowers and seed pods on them. Snow pea plants were turning brown. Lettuce plants were pure slime. Mary would remove a group of lettuce, then wipe her hands on the grass.
  • I did a bunch of weed whacking, taking out tall grass and weeds surrounding the compost bins and then walking down to the mailbox and removing tall weeds and grass growing around it and our neighbor's mailbox. Some of the weeds there were poison ivy vines.
  • Plato feels a little low, today. I think he got too many tick bites, recently. We found nine ticks in his ears yesterday! 
  • We got sidetracked on a YouTube severe weather site called Max Velocity late at night. A 22-year old and recent college graduate of meteorology, Max Schuster, runs this site and is quite good. He was covering live a tornado outbreak near and south of Bismarck, ND. He points out active radar indicating tornado developments and has live video from three different storm chasers as they're spotting tornado activity. Watching his feed is so addictive that we didn't get to bed until the wee hours. I looked at his YouTube site this morning (6/29) and he does a tremendous daily job in a 10-minute weather forecast for the entire country.

• Saturday, 6/28: Mow, Mulch, Mow, Mulch, Mow, Mulch
  • Mary finished cleaning old plants out of the near garden.
  • She mowed the east yards and mulched where the snow peas were in the near garden. This row will be planted with sweet potatoes and two hills of zucchinis.
  • I mowed inside the near far garden, then between the fences and outside the electric fence on the south and east sides of the entire far garden. I added more mulch on rows already mulched in the near far garden. Mary wanted to finish mulching her future sweet potato row, so I switched to putting down mulch on that row in the near garden. Together, we finished it.
  • After bathing, we were back viewing Max Velocity on YouTube. We're hooked! Tonight, there were tornadoes near Clear Lake, SD. That weather traveled across Minnesota and then hit the west side of the Twin Cities with tornadoes and winds to 80 mph.
  • Plato is eating very little and not venturing very far when outside.

• Sunday, 6/29: Second Racking of Pea Pod Wine
  • Thunderstorms hit us today and dumped almost 1.5 inches of rain. The first storm started right after we finished morning chores. Then it stormed off and on until 2 p.m. It was cloudy for the rest of the day. 
  • I racked the pea pod wine for the second time. The pH was 3.1 and the specific gravity was 0.990, which gave it a 12.45 percent alcohol content. The fines were rather solid and looked like a moonscape. The liquid is still cloudy. Mary and I tasted it. The wine has a strong alcohol essence, which hopefully fades with aging. There is a nice flowery flavor, with a hint of a snow pea taste. The fines dumped into the sink at first looked like cottage cheese, then congealed into a slime as it seemed to grow. I flushed it all down the sink before a monster emerged!
  • Mary saw a male Baltimore oriole. We watched two cedar waxwings chase one another around in the cedar trees east of the house. An eastern towhee sang from those same cedar trees all afternoon.
  • A quick march around to blackberry brambles close to the house revealed mostly green berries, but we did see one red berry in the north yard.
  • Plato ate last night's meal today around noon, with Mary hand feeding him. He's gradually getting better.
  • On our last walk with Plato, frogs were singing from everywhere...a big frog night.
  • Our chicks ended their third week of life today and are starting to look like gawky teenagers with patches of feathers growing here and there. Their side of the coop was cooler (in the 80s) today and they seemed happy.