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.