Aug. 25-31, 2025

Weather | 8/25, sunny, 51°, 70° | 8/26, sunny, 47°, 74° | 8/27, p. cloudy, 54°, 79° | 8/28, sunny, 53°, 83° | 8/29, sunny, 57°, 84° | 8/30, sunny, 61°, 84° | 8/31, cloudy, 63°, 79° |

• Monday, 8/25: South Orchard Weeding
  • When I stepped outside with Plato for his morning walk, I saw the legs of three small deer that were under the Sargent crabapple tree as they zoomed off through the cedar trees to the east. At first I thought I saw dogs, but by the way those legs moved, they were deer.
  • We tasted a couple apples that were under apple trees. They were Goldrush and Porter's Perfection apples. Mary said the Goldrush tastes like an old fashioned Golden Delicious, but not like what you get in today's grocery stores. The Porter's Perfection was bitter, the way we like apples. It's astringent taste is supposed to vastly enhance apple cider flavor.
  • I moved four large dead weed piles surrounding the Empire apple tree, then cleaned weeds under and around seven small apple trees in the south orchard. I discovered all kinds of issues that were hidden under thick weeds. The Goldrush tree had two apple-filled branches on the ground. I found the tubular mechanism of a folding camp chair in the machine shed and propped it between holes in the surrounding cow panel to hold the branches off the ground. The Calville tree was leaning, so I found an old pipe in the machine shed and used it as a stake, then ran a wire through a chunk of old garden hose and pulled the tree upright. I cut two branches growing from the rootstock area of the Roxbury Russet tree and painted tree tar on the cuts. The Antonovka tree grew so tall that two branches were rubbing on the top of a hardware cloth tube encircling the tree. I removed the hardware cloth cage and painted the rub marks with tree tar. I installed the hardware cloth cage around the small transplanted Sargent tree. The ground is very hard where I pounded a rebar stake into the soil to stabilize the hardware cloth tube.
  • I saw a white wooly worm, which Mary identified as an Isabella tiger moth larva. Folklore says that spotting this worm signifies a winter with heavier than average snow, or even blizzards...aha!...more firewood.
  • There is now a huge pile of weeds where I dumped what I removed from trees. It's about 8' by 8' by 5' high.
  • I looked up and wrote down apple ripening dates. There is a wide variance from various websites and I notice that we're earlier than what most people list as ripening dates.
  • Mary picked a few more beans and watered the near garden.
  • During Mary's hornworm hunt, she found 16 worms and 14 eggs.
  • With a cooler nighttime temperature predicted, I closed the chicken coop windows to help keep the chickens warm. It's the first time in months that we closed coop windows.

• Tuesday, 8/26: Stairs Fix & Watering
  • While Mary went up the stairs, the top board of the step came loose and tilted up and out. Fortunately, she had hold of the rail in one hand and the top of the landing in her other hand and didn't fall. I removed that loose board, knocked out broken nails, drilled four holes and countersunk the holes, then installed long screws on both sides of the board. When Herman built the steps, he used finish nails. They're pulling out or breaking in half and aren't appropriate for stair steps. I'll eventually need to replace all of these finish nails with screws.
  • I watered all of the small fruit trees, which involves two pear trees, seven cherry trees, four blueberry bushes, and seven apple trees. All trees were pretty dry. 
  • During that same time, Mary watered the far garden. Tomato plants are finally setting fruit. The extreme hot weather in past weeks set them back in fruit production. We aren't seeing any tomatillos and green beans are very skimpy. On the plus side, we're seeing a lot of acorn squash and the sweet potato plants look healthy. We have all of the zucchinis that we need.
  • Yesterday, I killed a bunch of aphids on the top young leaves of the Antonovka apple tree. Today there were even more aphids. With Mary's help, we doused the leaves with Dawn soap spray and rubbed out aphids until our fingers were yellowish green. Then I poured water on the leaves to wash off the soap. Mechanic's soap that removes grease and oil wouldn't take the yellow aphid stain off our fingers.
  • Mary picked 27 worms off the tomato and tomatillo plants while using the UV flashlight after dark. I visited her after cleaning chicken waterers. She was on the last row of tomatoes. I watched satellites fly by in the night sky as stars slowly appeared after the sun set, which was really cool.

• Wednesday, 8/27: Mowing & Wienie Roast
  • Mary picked beans, zucchinis, cucumbers, and a handful of cherry tomatoes. She decided it is time to remove the bean and zucchini plants, since the green beans lost production to flea beetles and we have enough zucchinis.
  • Mary watered what's left of the near garden and two rows in the far garden.
  • I cleaned out the poke berry forest under the Granny Smith apple tree. This time, I was careful to lop off branches of the poke berry stalks and carefully move them to the wheelbarrow, putting permanent poke berry stains on the wheelbarrow, instead of on my pants. They grow to heights above my head and into the apple tree. I then mowed under Granny Smith.
  • Both Mary and I mowed the west yard, so we'd have cut grass around the area where we enjoy a wienie roast fire. We put mulch around a couple of small trees.
  • As the sun set, we enjoyed an outdoor wienie roast with a fire that I lit on the cement pad next to the mulberry tree in the west yard. It's always fun to notice changes in sounds and sights as it goes from daylight to darkness. Birds eventually quit singing, then you hear crickets and tree frogs. After stars appear, you start to watch satellites moving across the sky overhead. While watching one satellite, we also saw a falling meteorite. Bats occasionally flitted in and out of site. It's amazing how relaxed you get while simply gazing into an outdoor fire. We saw a firefly...they're still around.
  • I burned up a large stick that we've used for over a decade to poke logs about in an outdoor fire. After moving a chunk of wood into the fire, that poking stick stayed lit, like a fireworks punk. So, I decided it would be safer to toss it into the fire. It burned hot with blue flames.
  • We enjoyed some 2023 apple wine and a bottle of 2024 spiced apple wine. Apple wine is a perfect companion taste to crispy hotdogs. This time, I didn't filter the spiced apple wine. The cinnamon taste was much stronger and it tasted better. I won't filter it in the future.

• Thursday, 8/28: Watering During Dry Conditions
  • Mary and I both watered for two hours in the afternoon. She watered the rows of tomatoes in the far garden while I watered all of the small fruit trees and blueberry bushes. I discovered two more blueberries that I didn't know existed, because they're all covered with tall grass and weeds. Mary showed them to me.
  • This summer is tough on green living plants, due to the two periods of high heat without any rain. There are several trees, especially mulberry trees, that show dried up leaves. Garden plants, like tomatoes, tomatillos, and strawberries, didn't set fruit during the bouts of 90+ heat. We'll see if anything comes on now that temperatures are lower.
  • Mary found 14 eggs and six hornworms in her worm hunt.

• Friday, 8/29: Black Snake & Preparing Winter Greens Soil
  • In a morning check of the near garden, Mary spotted a long black snake crossing her path. Later, she identified it as a western ratsnake.
  • I removed weeds in the winter greens tubs. The soil in the tubs was very dry. Some big weeds had immense roots. After shaking off all soil, I had a large wheelbarrow full of dead weeds. I broke up the soil with a triple claw hand cultivator and threw out a lot of small roots. One of the tubs was split on one side in the middle. I found a hardwood board in the machine shed and screwed it into place at the top of that side of the plastic tub to give it a straight shape.
  • Mary knocked down grass just north of the house with her scythe and piled the tall grass near the compost bin.
  • Mary watered the near garden and two rows in the far garden. All soil is very dry. The chicken yard is full of deep cracks, due to clay soil drying out and developing crevasses.
  • I found a perfect Goldrush apple under that tree.
  • I looked up possible online locations that sell parts for our woodstove and found two entities. One is in Columbia Falls, MT.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's book 7, Passage to Mutiny. These British Navy novels are hard to put down.

• Saturday, 8/30: Calville Apple Tastes Wonderful
  • Mary watered all gardens. She said the plants looked as if they never received water at all. We need rain.
  • Mary saw a velvet ant (a female wasp without wings) that is very pretty. It was walking down the path to the gardens. 
  • I added to the soil in the six winter greens tubs. First I collected soil from mole mounds in the front lawn and added a wheelbarrow load to the tubs. Then I added a half wheelbarrow load of compost. Finally, I added over two 4-gallon buckets of potting soil that Mary didn't want anymore. When we bought it last year, it was extremely wet and it seemed to harm plants, rather than help them. It worked in nicely with the extremely dry soil in the tubs after I thoroughly mixed all of the levels of soil.
  • Mary picked seven eggs and three small worms from the gardens.
  • We saw three common nighthawks flying overhead in the evening when we put the chickens to bed. They're migrating and were flying southeast. 
  • One of the Calville Blanc d'Hiver apples was under that tree. The name translates from French to white winter Calville. I cleaned it up, cut out bad sections, and Mary and I tasted it for the first time, ever. Oh my! Even green, this is an excellent tasting apple. It's touted as the best culinary apple in the world and I believe it. Unfortunately, that small tree leaned over in a wind this summer and the top was trimmed by nibbling deer. I'm going to have to work at helping this tree along so we can get more fruit from it.

• Sunday, 8/31: Small Number of Green Beans
  • Mary processed and froze 20 sandwich-sized bags of green beans. This is about a fourth to a third of the amount that she normally processes from the garden. The weather and flea beetles changed that this year.
  • I sowed seeds for our winter greens, covered the tubs with tulle fabric, and watered them. There is one tub of Winter Bloomsdale Spinach, one big tub of Winterbor Kale, a tub of Astro Arugula, one of Red Tinged Winter Lettuce (2024 seeds), another of the same lettuce (2025 seeds), and one with Red Fire Leaf Lettuce.
  • Hops climbed over the Virginia Creeper vines on the east side of our house and are putting on cones. We see them out our bedroom window and from the outside near the peak of the roof (see photos, below).
  • Mary picked a few more worms and worm eggs on her garden worm hunt.
  • I suspect a squirrel or a raccoon is climbing the Porter's Perfection apple tree and knocking off leaves and apples. I collected three apples that were on the ground when we put the chickens to bed this evening.
  • The tick switch clicked off for the summer. We're now not picking any ticks off Plato after his walks down the lane.
  • We had popcorn and parsnip wine while we read books after dark. The earthy and tart taste of parsnip wine is impossible to describe, other than it's amazingly good.

Viewing hops cones out our bedroom window.

Hops cones (light green) on the east side of our house.

Aug. 18-24, 2025

Weather | 8/18, sunny, 72°, 91° | 8/19, p. cloudy, 72°, 87° | 8/20, p. cloudy, 67°, 87° | 8/21, p. cloudy, 63°, 78° | 8/22, fog to p. cloudy, 64°, 82° | 8/23, cloudy to sunny, 64°, 81° | 8/24, sunny, 54°, 75° |

• Monday, 8/18: Heat, Watering Garden, & Apples
  • Mary watered the near garden. The plants were very dry. The sweet potato leaves were severely wilted, but sprang back to life after a thorough soaking. Mary, on the other hand, returned inside several times and was very wet, due to the heat.
  • On Mary's worm patrol, she found 10 worms. They were mainly tiny army worms. She also found four hornworm eggs.
  • I was on the apple detail and processed another milk crate of Empire apples. I have 2.5 crates left to handle after today's work. I'm mostly through filling the tenth gallon of applesauce in the freezer. Wow, I'm really going to be in the apple winemaking business. I added 20 unblemished apples to the refrigerator, giving us a grand total of 104 to eat.

• Tuesday, 8/19: Apples & Hornworms
  • I started the day by throwing out poor fruit in the remaining 2.5 milk crates of Empire apples and tossed two four-gallon buckets. After days of slicing apples, it's easier to tell bad ones from good apples. It reduced the remaining apples to 1.5 crates. I processed one crate of apples today. There are now almost 14 gallons of applesauce in the freezer. I added only nine unblemished apples to the fridge, giving us a grand total of 113 to eat. Today's apples came from the top of the Empire tree, where more bug and bird damage occurred. They also caught more sunlight, resulting in a dark red color. I should be done processing Empire apples tomorrow.
  • Mary watered the far garden and picked three zucchinis.
  • Mary found a bunch hornworms in the tomato, pepper, and tomatillo plants. She found 22 during her evening search. After darkness fell, she returned with a blacklight flashlight in hand and got another 38 worms, for a grand total of of 60 hornworms. She also found two hornworm eggs.
  • During her daylight stint of worm patrol, Mary heard a rattly sound, looked up and watched a great blue heron fly overhead. It was on its way to Bass Pond. 
  • We noticed an immature hummingbird looking into house windows twice during the day.

• Wednesday, 8/20: Last of Empire Apples & Wasp Battle
  • I finished processing Empire apples by sorting through half of a milk crate. There are now 15 gallons of applesauce in the freezer. I saved out another 14 unblemished apples for a grand total of 127 for us to eat.
  • There were 65 apples in this last half crate load. With that number I estimated that I picked 875 to 900 apples off that single tree. Whew!
  • Mary picked the first green beans from the near garden. Bean leaves are almost white due to flea beetles eating on them, so this year's bean crop is looking small. She also picked two zucchinis.
  • Mary watered the near garden and checked for hornworms in the far garden. Her hornworm numbers were greatly reduced after yesterday's big worm collection.
  • While putting a bucket away in the woodshed, I was stung by a wasp on my right shoulder blade. I ran inside, put baking soda on a wet paper towel, then zipped out to the far garden to get Mary's help in applying the baking soda-filled wet paper towel to my back, since I couldn't reach it. I stood bent over for awhile in the garden as the magic of the baking soda eased the sting. I returned to the woodshed armed with a squirt bottle of Dawn soap and water and killed wasps. I received another wasp sting on my neck. It was a glancing blow, but I nailed a ton of wasps. They die quickly once hit with Dawn soap spray. After Mary finished her hornworm hunt, she joined me in the woodshed and took a shovel to knock down five wasp nests. She tossed them into the tall grass south of the house. I bet I'll be feeling those two wasp stings for awhile.

• Thursday, 8/21: Shopping Day
  • My two wasp stings were itchy, today.
  • We shopped in Quincy, which was rather uneventful.
  • Mary picked more green beans and one zucchini. She also checked for hornworm eggs and got just a few.
  • We watched two movies: the 2007 movie, Enchanted; and the 2022 film, The Lost City.
  • After nine days of sitting in the pantry, the cherry wine has changed to a deep red color.
  • While walking Plato after dark, we heard coyotes howling to the southeast and we looked at a beautiful night sky, due to extremely clear air.

• Friday, 8/22: Second Racking of the Cherry Wine
  • While walking our puppy, we noticed that dew made spider webs stand out in the morning sunshine. The field east of the lane is full of them.
  • I helped Mary water the near garden, then Mary watered the far garden by herself. All plants were very dry, so those in the far garden each received a two-gallon load of water. It meant watering took almost all day for Mary.
  • I gave the cherry wine a second racking. After pulling the liquid off the fines, I had 11.69 gallons of wine in two large buckets. I added 2.1 grams of Kmeta to the wine. The pH was 3.1 and the specific gravity was 0.995. There was about a third to a half an inch of fines at the bottom of the three 5-gallon carboys. I miscalculated carboy sizes to hold the resulting wine. At first, I filled a 6.5-gallon carboy. Then I filled a 3-gallon carboy, but realized I had more than enough to fill a 5-gallon carboy. So, I emptied the 3-gallon into a 5-gallon carboy and filled the latter, along with a 1.5-liter wine bottle. Mary and I tasted the tiny bit of remaining wine. It's strong on the alcohol taste, but tart and with a full body feel in the mouth. After aging, this will be a good wine.  
  • Mary hunted for hornworms in the gardens after dark with a UV flashlight. She found 19 of them. Some were quite large.
  • While doing her nighttime worm search, Mary heard an unknown call from a cedar tree just southwest of the far garden. She then recognized it as the call of a yellow-billed cuckoo. Mary thinks she startled the bird.

• Saturday, 8/23: Zucchini Processing & Really Good Baked Apples
  • We watched a goldfinch feeding on cone flower seeds out of our west living room window. The bright yellow bird showed up nicely in front of deep green comfrey leaves.
  • I investigated the weight of the fruit that I last used when making apple wine versus what's called for in recipes. It was 28 pounds for a two-gallon batch. A recipe in Jack Keller's Home Winemaking book calls for 18-20 pounds of fruit per gallon of wine produced. Since I'm overrun with applesauce for making wine, I'll increase the amount in the next batch of apple wine.
  • The cherry wine has a super red color (see photo, below).
  • Mary processed 27 packages of sliced zucchinis. She is getting close to enough for a year of upcoming meals. Our fruit bat dog, Plato, likes raw zucchini slices.
  • Mary picked green beans. She says, "Thank goodness for wax beans," because they are producing through the stress of high heat and a flea beetle invasion. She also picked a tiny amount of strawberries. We've decided to buy new strawberry plants for next year. 
  • I put away winemaking items, which included seven empty milk crates, and straightened out the west room and the its closet where I store winemaking things.
  • I vacuumed spiders throughout the house.
  • I helped Mary water the near garden.
  • On Mary's hornworm hunt in the tomato patch, she found nine worms and nine hornworm eggs.
  • When we put the chickens to bed for the night, we found a dead buff orpington cockerel on the chick side of the chicken yards. There was no sign of something attacking it, so we can only guess that it died of natural causes, such as a heart attack.
  • Mary fixed up baked apples that we ate after our evening meal. Wow!!! They were very yummy! 
  • While walking Plato, we heard several coyotes calling from north of our property.
  • I finished reading the sixth book of Alexander Kent's British Navy series, Command a King's Ship.
   

  

  The cherry wine has a very deep red color (snow pea wine is on the left).
  

• Sunday, 8/24: Watering, Weeding, & Mowing
  • We're enjoying cooler weather, which beats the 90+ temperatures that were prevalent earlier this week. We even wore jackets at night while walking Plato. Fifty-degree temperatures feel downright nippy after you experience highs in the 90s.
  • The pickup's rear bumper is rusty with holes in it. I reviewed the price of new beefier rear bumpers for pickups and they're too costly. The best prices seem to be from people parting out their pickups with ads on Facebook Marketplace.
  • Around noon, Mary went to the far garden to pick a few tomatoes to add to our midday meal. She scared up two turkey poults that flew from the edge of the far garden east into the field.
  • Mary watered the far garden in the afternoon.
  • I cleaned weeds from under and around four small cherry trees. I had to remove cow panels surrounding the trees, chop down big weeds, then run a push mower under each tree. After mowing, I replaced the cow panels around each cherry tree. I also mowed all of the paths between fruit trees in the south orchard, between the small cherry trees, and to a brush pile just beyond the south orchard.
  • After dark, Mary used a UV flashlight and found 31 hornworms in the tomato and tomatillo plants. I joined her on the last half of the worm search. Hornworms gleam as bright green masses under the beam of a blacklight and are very easy to spot.
  • Mary and I read books and enjoyed a bottle of 2021 pear wine. It has a deep gold color and tastes marvelous. The wine is very smooth with a strong pear flavor.
  • I started Alexander Kent's seventh British Navy novel. It's entitled Passage to Mutiny. 

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°, 82° | 8/15, sunny, 68°, 91° | 8/16, sunny, 73°, 93° | 8/17, sunny, 74°, 93° |

• 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

• Thursday, 8/14: Cutting Hay & Picking All Empire Apples
  • Mary watered all of the plants in the near garden.
  • She also used the scythe and cut hay down from tall grass growing in our front lawn. Mary will let it dry over a couple days and then store it in the second grain bin.
  • Mary found 14 hornworm eggs, a fuzzy caterpillar, a small hornworm, a Japanese beetle, and one tick on tomato plants in the far garden.
  • I finished picking apples off the Empire apple tree by using step ladders and reaching the fruit high in the tree. There were times when I was in the tree with tree branches poking me in the butt and apple leaves in my ears. It's a twisty and turny time of it while picking from high in an apple tree. We now have seven milk crates of apples. Three of these crates are heaping full, with the apple level well over the top of the crates. Picking the apples was the easy part. My future will be quite busy in slicing, grinding up, and then freezing bags of applesauce for making apple wine. Of course, we'll save good ones for eating.
  • I finished reading the Alexander Kent British Navy novel, To Glory We Steer, the fifth in his series of books.

• Friday, 8/15: Processing Zucs & Empire Apples
  • Mary spread out the hay today that she cut yesterday from the tall grass in the front lawn. It's drying nicely and smells so good.
  • We are back into hot temperatures in the low 90s. YUCK!
  • Mary watered most plants in both gardens. She saw an acorn squash the size of a softball. Tomatoes and peppers are developing.
  • Mary processed and froze 26 packages of sliced zucchinis. 
  • I processed about a milk crate of Empire apples, which equaled 2.5 gallons of applesauce in the freezer. I set aside 14 apples without blemishes for future eating and put them in the fridge. I've only got six more milk crates of apples to process. EGADS!!!
  • Mary picked a Liberty apple that we tasted. It's nice and crunchy, but without any apple taste...just sour and rather disappointing. Hopefully, more time ripening on the tree will improve the taste of this apple variety.
  • I started the sixth novel written by Alexander Kent entitled Command a King's Ship.
  • We continue to see fireflies on nighttime walks with Plato. It's so late in the year to still see these. Usually, fireflies quit flying about around the end of June.

• Saturday, 8/16: More Apple Processing
  • Temperatures are still stinking hot outside. I stayed inside for most of the day. Mary ventured out for short stints.
  • Mary turned the hay in the front yard.
  • She also watered the near garden. She picked off hornworm eggs in the far garden.
  • I processed a milk crate of Empire apples. There are now 4.75 gallons of applesauce in the freezer. I saved out 27 unblemished apples, so we now have 41 in the refrigerator.

• Sunday, 8/17: Apples, Apples, Apples
  • Mary picked up hay off the front yard and hauled four oversized wheelbarrow loads to the second grain bin. While walking by that grain bin later at night, I could smell the new hay.
  • Mary watered the far garden as it was getting dark. Temperatures are cooler at that hour of the day. She said that she noticed the squash leaves waving, when suddenly a big bull frog landed on her knee cap, then jumped off and headed out the garden's gate. The frog was about six inches long, including it's legs, and it weighed a lot.
  • Mary also did a hornworm patrol of tomato and pepper plants.
  • I processed 1.5 crates of Empire apples. There are now seven gallons of course applesauce in the freezer. I added 43 unblemished apples to the refrigerator, giving us a grand total 84 to eat. I'm starting to see apples in my dreams.
  • I used my hat light to do evening chores, since by the time I was outside, it was dark. Moths seem to love parking on the chicken waterers at night. As I was cleaning the waterers, I'd look down to grab another one to clean and see 6-12 moths sitting of the white plastic waterer tops. In the night, when a hat light shines light on them, the eyes of moths reflect back in vivid red, which at first seems a little frightening.

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!