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.