June 23-29, 2025

Weather | 6/23, sunny, 73°, 91° | 6/24, sunny, 72°, 91° | 6/25, sunny, 73°, 92° | 6/26, sunny, 75°, xx° | 6/27, xx°, xx° | 6/28, xx°, xx° | 6/29, xx°, xx° |

• 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.

June 16-22, 2025

Weather | 6/16, sunny, 64°, 87° | 6/17, sunny to T-storm, 0.63" rain, 63°, 87° | 6/18, 0.42" rain, 65°, 75° | 6/19, sunny, 58°, 83° | 6/20, cloudy to sunny, 67°, 87° | 6/21, sunny, 74°, 90° | 6/22, sunny, 75°, 91° |

• Monday, 6/16: Hannibal Trip & Snow Peas
  • We decided we aren't planting melons, pumpkins, or corn this year, so a drive to tame the far far garden isn't so urgent. It's overgrown with tall weeds, grass and head-high persimmon saplings that need removal by September, when garlic goes in that area a couple months later.
  • I checked online and called Tractor Supply in Hannibal to located chick grit, which they have on hand. So, I drove to Hannibal. I got the wrong spark plugs for the riding mower's engine when we were last in Quincy, so I exchanged them for the right plugs at the Farm & Home store in Hannibal. It's a much better store than the one in Quincy, which is odd, since their headquarters is in Quincy. I picked up oranges, lemons, and ginger, ingredients for pea pod wine, at Walmart (it's better than the Quincy Walmart store) and bought gas for 2.56 a gallon. I grabbed chick grit and then I picked up two foot-long subs at Subway. On the drive home, I noticed a lot of traffic on Highway 61.
  • Mary picked snow peas and strawberries while I was gone. She also mowed part of the west yard and started mulching another row in the near far garden. 
  • I changed the spark plugs on the riding mower.
  • After dark, I picked stems and flowers off the snow peas Mary picked today. It came to just under three pounds. I need four pounds to make a gallon of pea pod wine.
  • Each evening we hear the call of a wood thrush in the north woods. It has such a wonderful multi-note sound. HERE is their call.

• Tuesday, 6/17: Rain Stops Outside Work
  • The house wren is back stuffing branches on top of our fencer unit. I removed sticks two times today.
  • Mary mowed more in the west yard and mulched into the far garden until an approaching thunderstorm halted outside activities.
  • I disassembled an air conditioner for the upstairs north bedroom and was in the middle of cleaning it out when the same thunderstorm forced me to stuff all parts into the back of the pickup and quit for the day.
  • We received another good rain. Blackberries ought to thrive this year. 
  • A quick text to the local welder in LaBelle, MO, revealed that he can weld the crack in the riding mower deck and I can take it to him anytime.
  • After our rain, bees were busy visiting the motherwart blossoms in the chicken yard. They must hide under the leaves during a rain, then flip to the top as soon as the rain drops stop falling. 
  • The Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup for the second consecutive year beating the Edmonton Oilers, 5-1, in Game 6. Professional hockey is over for another season.

• Wednesday, 6/18: Rain & Two Wines
  • We had rain throughout most of today, but the stars were shining when we walked Plato on his final outing.
  • Mary picked strawberries and several blueberries (see photo, below). We'll enjoy them tomorrow on top of waffles.
  • Mary picked the last of the snow peas. This year's snow pea crop was the best, ever, due to cooler temperatures and plenty of rain.
  • I took stems and flowers off enough snow peas to get 4.18 pounds of pods, which is enough for making a gallon of pea pod wine. 
  • I racked the dandelion wine for the third time. The pH was 3.2 and the specific gravity was 0.994, which is about the same as a month ago during its second racking. By using a narrow 1/4-inch hose, I was able to leave just a trace of liquid and put the remaining must into exactly the same size containers (see photo, below). The leftover fines were minimal.
  • I started a gallon batch of pea pod wine. I zested two oranges and two lemons. Afterwards, I juiced the fruit. I thinly sliced 1.7 ounces of ginger root after peeling it. I washed four pounds of snow pea pods in the sink, brought a gallon of water to a boil, then added the pea pods and the fruit zest to the pot and maintained a low boil for 30 minutes. Mary helped me scoop out mushy pea pods that became compost fodder. Mary held a mesh bag open while I poured the pea pod liquid through it to catch more pea pods, peas, and fruit peels. Added to the bucket was another quart of water, a one pound, 12 ounces of sugar, the fruit juice, 1.5 teaspoons of acid blend, and 0.2 grams of Kmeta. I put the sliced ginger in a mesh bag and added that to the brew bucket. The specific gravity was 1.085 and the pH was 3.1. A weird odor of peas and fruit filled the house. I hope the final product tastes better than that smell! But, the parsnip wine also smells weird while making the must, yet parsnip wine is really good. After covering the bucket with a flour sack towel, it sits in the pantry for 12 hours.

Strawberries & blueberries picked today.

Fines (left) & newly racked dandelion wine (right).

• Thursday, 6/19: Bunny 1, Robin 0
  • Mary watched a rabbit run over a robin on the lane while we were walking Plato this morning. The poor robin was literally flattened!
  • I added a half teaspoon of pectic enzyme and 0.8 grams of diammonium phosphate (DAP) to the pea pod wine after eating breakfast. Through the day, I worked up a starter batch of Red Star Premier Classique, or Montrachet, yeast. When I pitched the yeast at night, the specific gravity of the wine was 1.082 and the pH was 3.3. The yeast gave off an instant aroma, so I think this will be a very fast acting fermentation. It smells very nice.
  • We ate wonderful tasting waffles covered with strawberries and blueberries for our midday meal.
  • I finished cleaning the air conditioner for the upstairs north bedroom and assembled it. I'll install the AC in the room's window tomorrow.
  • Mary mowed most of the rest of the west yard and mulched more in the near far garden.

• Friday, 6/20: Heat Increases With Start of Summer
  • On the first day of summer, we saw an increase in outside temperatures. Summer is here right on schedule.
  • I installed the air conditioner in the upstairs north bedroom, packing taped the inside, installed pieces of vinyl siding on the outside sill and flexible foam board on the outside on both sides of the unit to shed rain water. I noticed moisture condensing on the side and underneath the outside of the AC. In past years, I covered the outside bottom of the housing with aluminum tape to keep bugs out. With moisture condensing in that area, it's a poor idea, so I left it open. Instead, I covered gaps where you see light around the unit through clear packing tape from the inside with masking tape. Hopefully, blocking light from blasting through clear tape will keep nighttime bugs away. A second AC running upstairs keeps that level nice and cool.
  • I also put flexible foam board into both sides on the outside of the AC in our bedroom and masking taped the inside to block light and keep nighttime bugs away. 
  • While I had the extension ladder up, I chopped off Virginia creeper and hops vines that were starting to cover both windows to our bedroom. Our house is starting to look like a hobbit home with all of the green vines growing up the east side (see photo, below).
  • Mary started sweet potato slips that will soon be ready to plant.
  • She also picked strawberries, which are slowing down, and a meal's worth of snow peas to add to tomorrow's General Tso dish. Temperatures in the 90s predicted for this week ought to halt snow pea production and make all lettuce bolt. We might wilt, too! Thank goodness for air conditioning.

  

  Our vine-covered Hobbit house.
  

• Saturday, 6/21: First Racking of Pea Pod Wine
  • While doing our morning chores, a hackberry butterfly landed on Mary and took a ride to inside the house. She first noticed it in the kitchen and escorted the butterfly outside, where it continued to land of either Mary or me. The Missouri butterfly book indicates that this is a very friendly butterfly.
  • I checked the pea pod wine to discover that the fermentation was faster than I thought. It took only 36 hours for the yeast to run a full cycle. The specific gravity was at 0.998, so I racked the wine into a gallon jug and a wine bottle, leaving a good 3-4 inches for head room, since the must was fizzing and developing foam. This wine has an unexpected smell of grape Kool-Aid. I'm sure I'll be racking this wine for a second time real soon, since it seems to be moving along very quickly.
  • I removed all plastic and rubber parts off the mower deck of the riding lawnmower, getting it ready for welding. The push cap holding the front roller in place was very hard to remove and I damaged it while taking it off the roller pin. I'll just drill a hole in the roller pin and use a cotter pin in front of a washer, instead of a useless push cap. Once I removed the belt, I noticed I have another broken spindle. So, I need to order one more spindle assembly. Damn!
  • A strong south wind and the outside high temperature of 90° really dried out the wet ground from recent rains, forcing Mary to water several garden plants.

• Sunday, 6/22: Fixing Mowers & Mowing
  • Mary complained about a dull blade on her push mower. It was sharp. I looked under the oldest push mower with a shot engine. That blade is in better shape. So, I took it off, sharpened it, and replaced the blade on Mary's mower with that blade. It did a much better job. The old blade was just whipping grass, instead of cutting.
  • I removed the three blades off the riding mower deck. At first I used a two-foot cheater bar pipe on the socket wrench, but nothing budged. I added Liquid Wrench and used a five-foot pipe on the end of the wrench and finally broke the nuts. Paint from the blades came up on these nuts, which proves that these blades were never removed to be sharpened. It's not hard to imagine, since they look like they were used to mow a rock quarry. I removed the spindles. When I compared the third spindle, or the best one, to a spindle I recently bought, I noticed it had a distinct rubbing sound, compared to the new one. So, I'm replacing all spindles on this deck.
  • Before I got the blade nuts to budge on the deck, a small 2x4, blocking the blade from turning, gave way and I gashed skin off the top of my right hand. Immediately, I thought, "You stupid idiot," as I looked at my leather gloves sitting in plain sight, but not on my hands. A trip inside to apply some cayenne powder to the wound, then some antibiotic ointment, and a bandage, and all was fine.
  • Mary mowed more of the north yard and put mulch on the near far garden.
  • We saw a bright green dragonfly while walking Plato this evening. It was startling how well it blended in with the green background. Mary identified it as a young male common pondhawk dragonfly. HERE is a photo of one.
  • While I was cleaning chicken waterers, I had lightening bugs dancing all around me in the shadow of the house before sunset. Wind was blowing hard out of the south and they were staying within three feet of the lawn. It was quite a sight to see.
  • I ordered two more spindles and eight bolts to install them. These self-tapping bolts are famous for breaking off when removed. Of the 12 bolts I removed, only three didn't break.

June 9-15

Weather | 6/9, sunny, 51°, 77° | 6/10, sunny, 50°, 80° | 6/11, sunny, 56°, 84° | 6/12, cloudy, 57°, 77° | 6/13, 0.40" rain, cloudy, 68°, 73° | 6/14, cloudy to sunny, 61°, 80° | 6/15, cloudy, 63°, 83° |

• Monday, 6/9: Cleaning Chicken Coop
  • I cleaned chicken manure from the coop, hauling about 12 wheelbarrow loads to the compost bin. I also installed the wall between the chicks and the hens, with Mary's help on erecting the 2x4 studs and the door. It's now ready for chicks, which left today in the mail from Cackle Hatchery in Lebenon, located in southwest Missouri.
  • Mary picked strawberries, raspberries, and snow peas.
  • She also mowed grass and mulched the onions.
  • We're noticing more monarch butterflies this year.
  • I watched the last half of Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Florida won, 6-1, and lead the series, 2-1. Edmonton was in a continuous fight, racking up a Stanley Cup Finals record number of penalty minutes. I thought the Oilers played stupid goon hockey and will continue to lose if they keep punching, instead of playing.

• Tuesday, 6/10: Shopping
  • Mary and I shopped in Quincy. We visited the new R.P. Lumber store, which is in the old ShopKo building. It's a nice store. I picked up some pins for the mower deck and a file for sharpening mower blades. Chick grit was nowhere to be found.
  • After unloading when we got home, we watched the 1996 film, Down Periscope.

• Wednesday, 6/11: Chicks Are Here
  • Our chicks arrived. We got a call at 7 a.m. from the Ewing post office. Mary plugged in the heat lamp. The bulb blew and she replaced it with a new one. I left around 7:15 and met several highway trucks on Highway J. They are seal coating the road, today, and one of the highway crew members suggested I return via Lewistown, which I did after picking up the chicks. A lit sign in Lewistown posted that J Road was closed between June 9-12, which is news to us. A state highway truck driver at J Road and 250th Street told me to hurry, because they were pouring down tar and getting close to 260th Street. I turned onto the gravel in time.
  • Mary and I counted out 30 chicks. We ordered 25 mixed cockerels and three barred rock hens. Cackle Hatchery always throws in extras. They were lively and running around right out of the box, quickly finding food and water. A couple hours later, they were settled in (see video, below).
  • Mary couldn't find the thermometer we bought this spring. I looked all over the place and actually cleaned up a chair near the outside door that became a storage dumping ground. Finally, Mary suggested it might be in the "rat's nest" of a mess on a coffee table next to the couch I sit on in the living room. Sure enough, it was in a Farm & Home plastic bag. I hung it in the chick area of the coop. It showed 95°, so I shut off the heat lamp and cracked open a window.
  • Mary picked snow peas and froze 16 bags of peas. Most of the peas came from today's harvest.
  • She also picked and froze 2.5 quarts of black raspberries, which was a big haul. Mary picked strawberries, too.
  • I picked pie cherries off two small trees near the south apple trees. I almost filled the 18th quart of this year's cherries.
  • I sharpened the blades of the two push mowers with the new file we bought yesterday.
  • I mowed between and outside of the fences of the far garden. Grass clippings went on two rows of the far garden.
  • Mary moved a queen yellow jacket out of the house. Later, that queen visited her while she was picking raspberries in the west patch. She landed on a leave near Mary and looked at her for about 30 seconds, then moved on.
  Two-day old chicks that arrived today, after settling into our chicken coop.
  

• Thursday, 6/12: Picking & Mowing
  • Mary picked strawberries, snow peas, and raspberries. All are producing huge numbers, so this gets to be about all she can get accomplished during the day.
  • Mary captured an image of a tree frog resting on a stick in a raspberry patch (see photo, below). 
  • I picked the last of the pie cherries from small trees. We put 18 quarts of this year's cherries in the freezer.
  • Ticks, ticks, ticks...this year is a massive tick season. Mary is really getting hit by them. Every venture outside is followed by a huge search and destroy session. Bug spray helps, but you still must do a thorough clothing and body search. 
  • I mowed the lane. The rear drive on the Cub Cadet push mower means I can mow our quarter-mile lane in half the time it used to take Mary to mow it with the old 83-pound lawnmower.
  • I watched Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals. Florida led after one period, 3-0. After three periods, the game was tied, 4-4. Edmonton won in overtime, 5-4. WOW! What a game! The series is tied at 2-2.

  

  A tree frog in one of the raspberry patches.
  

• Friday, 6/13: Rain & Ordered Mower Deck Parts
  • Rain fell in early morning hours, then we experienced light rain all afternoon. It's nice for all plants.
  • After three days of online sleuthing, I ordered riding lawnmower deck parts. At first I thought I'd order from a Michigan company called 8Ten, but it always helps to read reviews. The pulleys they supply with their spindles are too small. Plus, I saw pictures of spindles broken from decks after 10-12 hours of use due to wimpy bolt-on tabs in the aluminum base. I went with an Ohio-based MTD-authorized parts dealer. MTD owns Cub Cadet, the brand of our lawn tractor. Prices are higher than 8Ten, but the parts are original for our mower.
  • Rabbits bit off flowers and leaves from two potted flowers left on the deck of our porch the past two nights, so I found two pieces of 3-foot high, 1/2-inch square hardware cloth and "sewed" them together with thin wire I saved that is wrapped around chicken wire rolls. Mary put this guard just outside of the flowers pots to keep dastardly wabbits away.
  • Katie sent a YouTube link to a video summarizing the all of the projects done in 2024 by her employer. It's impressive. Katie is in a group photo near the beginning of the video. HERE is a link to that video. 
  • Chicks have settled in nicely to their home in our coop (see photo, below).

  

  Sometimes you're just too tired to continue running.
  

• Saturday, 6/14: Flooded With Produce
  • Mary picked strawberries, snow peas, and black raspberries. All of the incoming produce is amazing...a huge bowl of strawberries, two grocery bags of snow peas, and 2.25 quarts of black raspberries. She picked stems and dead flowers off the snow peas in preparation for freezing them tomorrow.
  • There are tons of bees of all kinds in the persimmon blossoms above where Mary picks raspberries at the west edge of the west lawn.
  • I picked 19 more pie cherries from two small cherry trees.
  • I changed the air filter in the Cub Cadet riding mower tractor. The inside of the air filter housing was full of encrusted dirt and the filter was filthy...not recently serviced, which is what I was told.
  • I straightened up three of four corner posts in the far garden and untangled all of the electric wires.
  • I watched the Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-2, in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Florida was a much better team. The Oilers are duds every other game.

• Sunday, 6/15: Snow Pea Harvest Done, Now Pea Pod Wine!
  • I got a call from Katie wishing me a happy Father's Day. She's busy coordinating two future construction projects related to her job. She did some biking yesterday. Temperatures are nice, lately, in Anchorage. Katie will be working an Air National Guard construction job on Hawaii's island of Kauai for two weeks in August.
  • I also received a call from Bill for Father's Day. At work, he's trying to recruit professionals (plumbers, electricians, etc) in Rolla, Mo, for a future construction job the company he works for is doing in that community. It's located halfway between St. Louis and Springfield, MO. Bill will visit us around July 4th.
  • Mary picked strawberries and 1.5 quarts of black raspberries. She also processed 43 packages of snow peas, for a total 59 in the freezer. She's done freezing peas, so I can use the remainder in the garden for making a pea pod wine...four pounds of snow pea pods makes a gallon.
  • Mary heard a summer tanager for the first time in a month. 
  • I changed the gas filter on the riding mower tractor. The name on the gas filter I removed turned out to be a Chinese company that makes filters for air compressors. I suspect the original owner of this tractor, the father-in-law to the guy who sold me the tractor, used an air compressor filter that he had on hand. It's not designed for filtering gasoline!
  • I straightened the last corner post of the far garden and restrung baling twine around the top of the fence.
  • Mary and I watched the BBC TV series, North and South. 

June 2-8, 2025

Weather | 6/2, sunny, 57°, 84° | 6/3, 0.25" rain, cloudy, 67°, 81° | 6/4, 1.29" rain, 59°, 63° | 6/5, p. cloudy, 55°, 75° | 6/6, cloudy, 59°, 77° | 6/7, 0.29" rain, 58°, 67° | 6/8, sunny, 0.03" rain, 56°, 77° |

• Monday, 6/2: New-to-us Riding Mower
  • I drove to Quincy with the trailer to get the riding mower and ran into construction everywhere. Just a few miles down the paved road was a road surfacing crew. The driver of a dump truck told me the road was closed. I turned around (fun with a trailer behind the pickup) and drove north to Lewistown, where I finally saw the "Road Closed" sign. If you enter the road anywhere in the middle, like we do from our gravel road, you have no clue it's closed!
  • After getting cash from our bank, I followed Google Maps to the mower owner's address. When I got near the location, a construction fence loomed across the street, due to a new bridge going in nearby. I stepped through the fencing, found the house, looked at the mower, and gave the guy the money. Then I turned the pickup/trailer around, again, and drove several blocks around the neighborhood to get to the correct location. 
  • I mentioned that there was a clatter when the mower deck was on and he admitted that his wife told him the blade was hitting the deck. I thought the tractor's 25 horsepower Kohler engine seemed sound and I could fix the deck. He gave back $100 due to deck issues, so we got it for $900. We loaded it on the trailer. The tilt feature of the trailer works nicely. Two straps secured the lawn tractor. I checked and retightened the straps three times on the way home. 
  • I returned home via 260th Street all the way from Highway 6, which involves several miles of gravel, to avoid the closure of J Road. Still, I had to drive about an eighth of a mile on J right when they were resurfacing that exact stretch. The guy driving the grader told me to wait until he graded fresh gravel over the tar. A few minutes later, I drove on it, then to home.
  • Mary froze 12 quarts of spinach while I was gone.
  • After that, she finished weeding the onions, which isn't easy when pulling grass from around small onion plants.
  • After unloading the riding mower and parking it in the machine shed, I picked more cherries, adding 3.75 quarts for a grand total of 14 quarts of this year's cherries in the freezer.
  • Mary said she heard a red-bellied woodpecker throughout the day in the ripe mulberries growing in the cedar trees next to the near garden. These berries sort of keep birds out of our cherries. Though, I still see bird-pecked cherries under the tree.

  

  Our dust-covered riding mower parked in the machine shed.
  

• Tuesday, 6/3: A Nice Rain
  • Rain fell around 9:30 a.m. and lasted for an hour. High humidity prevailed for the rest of the day with heavy rain starting again at 4:30 p.m. Rain fell throughout the night. We've been dry enough that puddles don't exist from quite a bit of rain. In a 24-hour period, we received 1.54" of rain. The moisture should help future raspberry and blackberry crops.
  • I meant to finish picking cherries, but never got to it. Just as well, because aching muscles tell me I've gone up and down ladders too much, lately.
  • Elderberries are blooming, which is about three weeks early.
  • Mary keeps picking full bowls of strawberries. They make our morning oatmeal taste exceptionally great.
  • I did a bunch of online research related to the riding mower we purchased yesterday.
  • After spotting an 80% off sale at L.L. Bean, we ordered four T-shirts for Mary and a chamois shirt for me.

• Wednesday, 6/4: Lawn Tractor Seller was a Fibber
  • Mary and I spotted a brown thrasher fledgling in the lane this morning while walking Plato. It looked miserable and cold. We turned around and left it alone with its parents.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) Webex presentation featuring chanterelle mushrooms. They never grow on wood, so the orange mushrooms growing on an elm log in our yard cannot be chanterelles.
  • I downloaded three lawn tractor manuals for our riding mower...an owner's manual, engine manual, and an illustrated parts manual. Then I checked maintenance parts on the tractor to discover that the guy who sold me the mower was full of BS. The existing air filter is dirty, so it wasn't changed five mowings ago. One spark plug is super clean and the other is fouled, so that's also not a recent job. I think whoever serviced the plugs only changed one, but not both spark plugs. The oil filter is an off-brand version sold by O'Reilly Auto Parts, proving that Farm & Home didn't change oil in it, like the seller said, since they have and sell Kohler products and would use a Kohler oil filter on an oil change. The oil on the dipstick is black, so not a recent oil change. Kohler filters and spark plugs are expensive, so I found alternative items online and available in Quincy stores. I also looked up prices of decks, discharge chutes, and blades. Of course, all are expensive.
  • Throughout the day, I saw a rose-breasted grosbeak and several cardinals eating berries in a small mulberry bush outside the south living room window.
  • Mary identified wood ear mushrooms growing on a weeping willow root on the path to the chicken coop. HERE is a link to an MDC webpage about these mushrooms.
  • Mary spotted the first ripe black raspberries after we put the chickens to bed for the night. We ate one, each. DAMN! They're really good.
  • I watched the Edmonton Oilers beat the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals with a 4-3 overtime win. It was fun to watch.

• Thursday, 6/5: Cherry Picking (Almost) Completed
  • When Mary and I walked down the lane to mail out bill payments, we found a horde of ants in the mailbox. For the second time this year, I killed them with a Dawn soap solution and wiped the inside of the mailbox out with paper towels. The war is on.
  • I finished picking cherries in the big pie cherry tree and have a grand total of 17 quarts in the freezer. There are still just a few yet-to-ripen cherries in small trees. This year, the sweet cherry tree produced very well. Cherry picking was interrupted today by a few sprinkles. I finished around the top of the big tree in the waning twilight after supper.
  • Mary picked the first raspberries of the season, collecting about 10 berries. She collects a bowlful of strawberries every evening.
  • Mary thinned apples on the Granny Smith apple tree. Just the tippy top is left to thin on that tree.
  • While working in the Granny Smith tree, Mary heard the bleating sound of a deer fawn from down the lane. They make a sound similar to a lamb, but louder.
  • High humidity and heavy dew brought out fireflies that we noticed while walking Plato on his nighttime outing. We walked to the north yard and watched them in the trees. They were exceptionally bright. While watching, we noticed a bat fly over our head a couple times.

• Friday, 6/6: L.L. Bean Scam
  • During an online check of our credit card, I found that what we thought was a purchase from L.L. Bean was instead from a company called Prolific Market.com in London. The purchase was an obvious scam. I called our credit card company to dispute the charge. A later email from Wells Fargo asked that I contact the company to ask for a refund. There is no contact for that company. I called L.L. Bean. They have no record of me, nor are they doing an 80% off sale, so I called the credit card company to let them know.
  • I removed the deck from the riding mower and discovered another fib the former owner told me. The blades aren't recently sharpened. They look like they were used to mow a field of gravel and are extremely worn. One spindle has bearings so worn that I can tilt it from side to side. That's why the blade under it rubs on the deck. There's also a one-inch crack in the deck. I've got a bunch of work to do to get this in operational shape. I guess we're push mowing for awhile longer.
  • When we put the chickens to bed, two hens refused to go into the coop. Head-high blooming motherwart plants filled with bees make it impossible to chase chickens into the coop. When we tried to coax a hen to the coop door, the bird would walk deep into those weeds. Frustrated, we left them outside. I checked after dark and didn't see them. They probably spent the night under the coop. The next morning (6/7), they were still there and one met Mary at the gate. 
  • I watched hockey. Florida won, 5-4, into the second overtime, evening the series at 1-1.

• Saturday, 6/7: More Rain
  • Rain fell between noon and 5 p.m. It was a nice, steady, slow rain. All plants are saying, "Thank you!" The air was thick with moisture as you looked to the distance. The junk mail I pulled out of the mailbox was soggy just from soaking up damp air.
  • A cooler and slightly wetter spring means better crops. Snow pea blossoms are very plentiful in the near garden. We see tons of green raspberries and blackberries. Tiny pecans and black walnuts are showing. We've never seen a strawberry crop like the one we're getting this year.
  • Before it rained, Mary picked a bowl of black raspberries. She saw lots of bumblebees in the persimmon tree blossoms near the large raspberry patch in the west yard.  
  • I looked up costs of mower deck parts. They are quite high. I found a new mower deck in Indiana that is minus the discharge chute and spindle guards for $500. I might go with that, if shipping isn't too wild. It is shipped to the nearest Fastenal location, which for us is in Quincy, IL. I'll know more on Monday.
  • While Mary cross stitched, I did some checkbook updating and balancing.
  • The two wayward hens that spent last night outside of the coop were right there tonight when it was time to put them all to bed.
  • I heard a wood thrush in the north woods while we handled chickens this evening.
  • Low-level fog was hovering over the grass as we walked Plato at night. Dew was thick on all grass.

• Sunday, 6/8: Picking Fruit & Mowing
  • After doing more online research I learned that our riding mower's deck has a GT, or fabricated, designation. That means it has thicker steel that is welded together. The deck I'm looking at in Indiana is stamped out of thinner steel. Stamped decks are how most push mowers are made. It's something we need to consider in buying a new deck versus fixing the existing deck.
  • Mary picked black raspberries and finished a quart bag in the freezer, while starting another quart bag.
  • She also picked strawberries, and snow peas. She has enough for three bags of peas.
  • I picked a third of a quart bag of cherries from the sweet cherry tree and a small pie cherry tree that is next to the Empire apple tree.
  • Mary and I both mowed. I mowed the inside of the near far garden and the near garden, along with between and around the fences of the near garden. Mary mowed the east lawn between the house and the lane. Grass clippings went on a row in the far garden and Mary started a final mulching of the onions.
  • Our mowing was stopped by rain.
  • We saw a mourning cloak butterfly. 
  • Mary was buzzed by a hummingbird that brushed against the side of her head. She had another hummingbird do a zigzag flight in front of her while Mary was picking peas. Her bright blue shirt is a real hummingbird magnet.