May 18-24, 2026

Weather | 5/18, cloudy, 0.63" rain, 61°, 67° | 5/19, cloudy, 0.58" rain, 51°, 61° | 5/20, p. cloudy, 46°, 68° | 5/21, cloudy with sprinkles, 50°, 69° | 5/22, cloudy, 57°, 71° | 5/23, p. cloudy to 0.16" rain, 59°, 75° | 5/24, sunny, 54°, 80° |

• Monday, 5/18: Hockey
  • We experienced rain in the morning that quit in the late morning hours. We were cloudy in the afternoon. A severe thunderstorm roared through right when we went to bed, giving us wind and heavy rain.
  • There was a wet baby robin in the middle of the lane next to the Sargent crabapple tree. It sat in the same spot all day. I used a leash on Cooper to keep him away from the bird. The baby robin was moving around in the late afternoon with an adult robin chirping from a nearby tree, so the baby bird's parents are feeding it. We didn't see it after dark.
  • I watched Game 7 of the Montreal Canadiens/Buffalo Sabres NHL series. Montreal won in overtime, 3-2, advancing to the third round of the playoffs. Buffalo dominated in the second and third periods, but Montreal's goalie, Jakub Dobeš, kept the Canadiens in the game. The overtime goal was by the same guy, Alex Newhook, who scored the Game 7 winning goal in the earlier series, featuring Montreal against Tampa Bay. Bill texted me that Dobeš played high school hockey in St. Louis. I looked it up and Dobeš is Czech and moved to St. Louis at age 16 and lived with a family friend while attending De Smet Jesuit High School and playing for the St. Louis AAA Blues youth team. The family friend was Ľuboš Bartečko, a former St. Louis Blues forward. It's interesting how St. Louis is becoming more and more of a hockey magnet of former NHL players who help to develop new talent.

   

• Tuesday, 5/19: Wine Inventory
  • Light rain fell throughout the day, keeping us inside.
  • Mary tossed a dead sweet potato that she used for creating slips. She has three others that are moving along very nicely, so there will be plenty for planting in the garden. Instead of developing roots and new shoots, this one just started rotting.
  • Mary cut a several more garlic scapes. These plants are nice and big this year. 
  • I did a new inventory of all of my wine, since I discovered recently that I somehow missed writing down on the inventory chart in the pantry the results of a big cherry wine bottling that I did this past winter. Here are the numbers of bottles of some of the larger collections of wines that we have: cherry-80, blackberry-23, jalapeño-35, pear-44, parsnip-24, garlic-22, and various apple wines-29.

   

• Wednesday, 5/20: Shopping
  • I went shopping in Quincy, IL. The stores were very quiet with a minimal number of shoppers. The cheapest gas in both Missouri and Illinois was at Sam's Club in Quincy at $4.19 a gallon.
  • Katie sent photos of her trip to Italy (see below) for the Air National Guard. It sounds like she's having fun. The food is great. Her team is in Venice.
  • Mary watched the baby phoebes take off flying from their nest inside the woodshed. She said they did pretty well on their first attempt at using their wings to fly. Fortunately, we've been cool this spring. Some years the phoebe nest gets too hot where its located, just under the woodshed's Quonset hut metal roof. The nest falls down every autumn, but phoebes always built a new nest each spring. It worked for them this year.
  • Mary checked all of the fruit trees. All pear trees are absent of any fruit. There's maybe a dozen cherries on all of those trees. Some apples are developing on the Empire, Granny Smith, and the Liberty apple trees. Single digit temperatures on fruit blossoms killed off most fruit this year. However, wild blackberry and raspberry plants are putting out abundant numbers of green berries. That crop looks promising.
  • I watched Game 1 of the NHL Western Conference Final, where the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2, in Denver. 

Katie took a shot of the Alps from the jet's window.

Katie (front, left) and her fellow Guard members with a toast.

 
• Thursday, 5/21: Big Wild Turkey
  • Around noon while Mary was picking scapes off garlic plants in the far garden, she heard what she describes as a "whop, whop" sound and looked up to see a huge wild turkey flying away to the east of her. She said it was big, with a bronze coloration, rather than the normal darker brown color that we usually see. Mary guesses that it probably weighed at least 25 pounds.
  • I walked down to Wood Duck Pond because I thought I could cross the "dry creek bed" and look at our east property line. That area is still flooded from high water in Wood Duck Pond and my deer blind continues to be in flood waters (see video, below). We heard engine noise to the east and wondered if our neighbor was ripping out the fence between our properties. After getting back home, I drove east. There was no activity at the fence line. The engine noise was from a neighbor about a mile east of us who was mowing his postage stamp lawn with a big zero-turn lawnmower.
  • A fledgling American robin is still moving around on our lane near the Sargent crabapple tree. We have to be careful walking past that area, or driving a vehicle through there.
  • I watched Game 1 of the NHL Eastern Conference Finals. The Montreal Canadiens won by the score of 6-2, over the Carolina Hurricanes. The Canes scored 33 seconds into the game and then Montreal scored 27 seconds later. I think the main TNT game announcer, Kenny Albert, is horrible, so I turned off the sound on the TV and listened to the game via the NHL app on my cell phone while watching the video on TV. It was a much improved experience. I mentioned it to Bill and my son texted back that he does the same trick, often.
  • I watched 35 minutes of a board meeting for the folks who supply us with water. A video of their meeting is almost two hours long. They have a new board member who is raising a stink over how they operate. The rest of the board is full of old fuddy duds (Mary says be careful...old fuddy duds might be the same age as me!) who are obviously upset with this younger upstart who is questioning everything that they do. It's interesting.
  Stagnant flood waters fill what once was the dry creek bed.
  
  

• Friday, 5/22: Mowed Lane
  • With Bill showing up tomorrow for Memorial Day Weekend, I mowed the lane and the place where he parks his car.
  • Mary is starting to see rows of onions. Garlic scapes are coming to and end, which means garlic harvest is soon. 
  • Katie sent several photos and videos while sightseeing in Italy. Most were from a World War I memorial. 
  • On every venture out our door, you see a hummingbird flying off from the clump of comfrey flowers near the basement entrance. If you don't look up, you can sometimes hear hummingbird wings buzzing away.
  • The baby robin we saw in the middle of the lane near the Sargent crabapple tree for the past few days is nowhere to be seen. It obviously fledged and is flying around. 
  • The swamp dogwoods midway down the lane are full of all kinds of pollinators.
  • I watched Game 2 of the NHL Western Conference Finals. The Colorado Avalanche led 1-0 for most of the game. The Vegas Golden Knights scored three goals in the final period to win, 3-1. They lead the series, 2-0.

   

• Saturday, 5/23: A Cooper Scare Turns Out Okay
  • When I walked Cooper down to the mailbox, I let him off the leash too early when coming back home. He chased after the smell of rabbits that ran into the bushes to the east. There is still a bit of barbed wire fence near that location. I called Cooper and he bounced off the inside of that barbed wire fence...OUCH! When I called him a second time, there was no response. I ran home and told Mary that Cooper ran off. She took off down the lane calling for him. I drove the pickup down the lane, then east on the gravel road. I drove further east and turned around in the turnoff into the neighbor's field. When I turned into our lane, there was Mary with Cooper. He stayed inside the corner of the fence around the field and never budged or barked or whined. Mary saw a flash of tan, then the bright orange of his collar, walked around and guided him out of the field. He was soooo happy to see her! It all ended well.
  • Bill arrived around noon.
  • I cleaned and installed the air conditioner into the upstairs north bedroom window to give Bill some comfort while sleeping in that room. I worked at cleaning this old Haier AC better than I did last year, when it first smelled weird after I started it up. This is an excellent unit. We bought it in 2009 and it still runs well.
  • I installed foam board rain guards on the outside of the the window that the AC sits in when rain started falling. This turned into a thunderstorm that gave us about a fifth of an inch of moisture. 
  • When Mary and Bill walked Cooper on an afternoon walk, they heard our first, ever prairie warbler. The Merlin app on Bill's phone indicated that this bird isn't suppose to be in northeast Missouri. It's more of a southern bird.
  • We watched a big doe deer meander to near our south orchard apple trees. Mary opened a sunroom window and scared it away. We also saw a summer tanager in a mulberry bush east of the house.
  • Bill picked out Fiddler on the Roof from our DVD collection that we watched while enjoying popcorn. After the movie, we each ate a piece of pumpkin cake that Mary baked earlier, today.

   

• Sunday, 5/24: Free Totes
  • I spotted used totes for sale for $1, each, on Facebook Marketplace and the seller was only five miles southwest of us at Steffenville. I drill holes in them, cover the inside of the holes with quarter-inch hardware cloth, fill with soil, and plant greens or strawberries in them. The seller once was an auctioneer. They often handled estate sales for people who didn't want totes returned to them, so they collected several over the years. When I told them what I used the totes for, I was led to behind their garage, where several totes without lids were stored that they were going to throw away and told me they were all free. I dumped water and dead Asian ladybugs out of them and filled the back of the pickup with 46 totes...enough for a lifetime of plantings for us.
  • After loading the totes, I talked to the husband for awhile. He said online sales sites put him out of business as a licensed auctioneer. So, he restarted his former carpentry remodeling business and is now booked a year and a half in advance. He and his wife are from Liberty, Illinois. Through his auctioneer work, he discovered a former church in Steffenville for sale on an acre of land for $12,000. Charlie Sharp, who once owed the dairy a mile west of us, owned it and converted it into a location to make candles. After buying it, this guy took the roof off, built a second story for a bedroom, and added a garage on the back. He said the place sits on clay and once you dig six feet down, the clay is so hard you need to chip it out. It's probably the same clay that's on our place, which is good information to know.
  • Mary and Bill found three ripe black raspberries. 
  • They also found a female painted turtle, with a leach on her back, moving across the west yard. They eventually moved it to the shade in southwest corner of that yard and pointed it toward Frog Pond.
  • Mary and I mowed the west yard so we could enjoy a wiener roast without wading through tall grass.
  • Bill took the phone app, Merlin, on a walk, and discovered the call of an eastern wood pewee, which is the first for this year.
  • Mary opened her Birthday presents, early, since Bill leaves tomorrow. He gave her a big fine mesh row cover for vegetables, two decks of cards, and a tray for dice games. I gave her a Pflueger President spincast reel. The cheap plastic Zebco closed-faced reels that Mary has been using just don't cut it for longevity.
  • While throwing the ball for Cooper, I tossed it into thick bushes two times. After the second time, Cooper grabbed the ball and headed straight for home, as if to say, "You're done, buddy!"
  • Bill, Mary, and I enjoyed a wiener roast around an outside fire in the west yard. Before and after eating, we played several games of washers. We saw a handful of bats overhead catching bugs after the sun set.
  • When we went inside, we found that Cooper chewed up and spit out parts of the rubber mat just inside of the door. Hopefully, he didn't swallow any rubber bits. We left him inside for most of the afternoon and into the night. It was too much for him to bear.
  • On the last Cooper walk, we saw an amazing lightning bug display. A recent hatch revealed a type of firefly that flashes less often, glowing for several seconds, while hovering near the tops of grass in the fields. They were very plentiful.

May 11-17, 2026

Weather | 5/11, sunny, 46°, 78° | 5/12, sunny, 53°, 80° | 5/13, sunny, 51°, 71° | 5/14, sunny, 45°, 74° | 5/15, p. cloudy, 55°, 84° | 5/16, cloudy, 0.12" rain, 63°, 74° | 5/17, cloudy, 0.14" rain, 65°, 84° |

• Monday, 5/11: Turned On Electric Fence
  • Mary heard the deep buzzing sound of the wing beats of a ruby-throated hummingbird when she took the tomato starts outside. She knows that distinct sound from past years of hummingbirds flying nearby. It was the first of the season.
  • Mary started cutting garlic scapes. She cut four. More to come
  • Mary weeded half of the strawberry plants in the near garden.
  • A couple days ago, gnats started appearing. They really love me. Mary says she doesn't notice them until I show up next to her outside. I'm wearing a headnet, now. 
  • I checked all fence posts in the near garden. I thought they would be loose, but they were solid. I replaced one gate wire that was rusty. I then pulled the 11 electric fence wires tight, cutting off lengths of excess wire in each case. I plugged in the electric fencer unit, made a couple small adjustments, and saw the unit go to full strength.
  • I watched Game 4 of the Avalanche/Wild playoff series. Colorado won 5-2. They now lead the series three games to one. I rooted for the losing team, again!

   

• Tuesday, 5/12: Near Garden Work
  • Mary finished weeding the strawberry containers. She found a walnut that sprouted in one of these buckets. The strawberry plant had one leaf that touched the walnut plant. It was yellow and crispy, as if it was slightly burnt. It's from the power of walnuts. They give off a chemical that kills other plants.
  • Mary mowed the east yard for grass mulch, which she put around all of the strawberry plants.
  • I mowed up the tall dead grass and weeds that I pulled and cut next to the chicken wire fence of the near garden and then mowed inside and outside of that garden.
  • I also cleaned tall grass and weeds from around all of the strawberry tubs and buckets.
  • Mary watched the arrival barn swallows that were playing around in the wind. She then turned south and saw a turkey hen looking at her from near the Sargent crabapple tree. When the turkey realized she was spotted by Mary, she flew up and over the hazelnut bushes and to the west.

   

• Wednesday, 5/13: Mowing & Mowing
  • Mary mowed the chicken yard. It was a dusty mess. We're drying out. The clay soil is either soggy, with water sitting on top, or cracked and dusty. There is no in between.
  • I mowed the lane. A quarter-mile lane plus six roundtrips with the mower equals a three-mile hike. The newer mower I operate has its own power, which makes mowing easier.
  • We both mowed down emerging poison ivy plants. Each mowing drops back the number of plants until they are finally killed off.
  • I watched the Colorado Avalanche beat the Minnesota Wild, 4-3, in overtime, knocking the Wild out of the playoffs. The Wild led 3-0 at the end of the first period, but that was the end of their energy for the rest of the game. The winning overtime goal was scored by a former Edmonton Oiler, Brett Kulak. Right after the game ended, Bill texted, "Well, poop." If you want a team to lose, just let me root for it. I can kill off any team's chances.

   

• Thursday, 5/14: Mowing, Again
  • I originally was planning on going to town, mainly to buy apples that we slice up and put on our oatmeal breakfast, but then I realized that we have frozen applesauce made from our own apples. I decided to stay home.
  • Mary mowed the north yard and the trails to the gate at the top of Bramble Hill. Mary reports that the blackberry patch between Bass and Dove Ponds is full of blossoms.
  • I mowed the south yard  and the south orchard, collecting grass clippings that went around three smaller apple trees. The south orchard's ground is extremely bumpy. Mowing it feels like bouncing across a newly plowed field full of huge lumps. Actually, I plowed that area in 2010 with the Ford Jubilee tractor that we no longer own and the plow ridges are still showing...what was I thinking?
  • The swamp dogwoods along our lane are blooming early. They're usually blooming in June.
  • Mulberry fruits are starting to turn pink, which will be appreciated by the birds. 
  • Only three cherries are showing on the big cherry tree, which normally is filled with fruit. Absolutely no fruit is on the sweet cherry tree. All blossoms froze at 3° on March 17th.
  • Mary spotted the ruby-throated hummingbird defending his comfrey territory, which is too big for the frenzied bird to patrol.
  • The bleeding heart plant that we put under the Four Brothers trees in the north yard is growing big and beautiful. It has no bug bites and no animal munch marks. It's perfect for the location, where the insects and the nasty bunnies roam (see photos, below).
  • I viewed multiple images on Facebook showing the horrible dust storms throughout the Hi-Line of Montana. 

The first of the bleeding heart blossoms.

The bleeding heart plant fits right in under the trees.

 
• Friday, 5/15: Birds & Fireflies
  • I have achy leg muscles and pecan tree pollen is raising heck with Mary's sinuses and eyes, so we took the day off from working outside. It was a lazy indoor day.
  • I ordered items for Mary's birthday...hint, you read these items.
  • Mary removed a grocery bag of scapes from the garlic bed. They're maturing quite well and look great. Strawberries are forming and there are several blossoms on these plants. Lettuce and radishes are fully sprouted in the tubs. Onion and parsnip seeds get watered twice a day. Plants in the tubs get watered once a day. The rest get watered as needed.
  • I took Cooper on a walk on the newly-mowed trail to the ponds. A Baltimore oriole greeted me as the dog and I walked across our lawn. Keeping our property relatively wild attracts several birds. 
  • We enjoyed a firefly display on the final dog walk of the day. Several were flashing across the top of grass in the south field. Mary and I closed windows of the chicken coop, in case of rain, and saw a multitude of lightning bugs flashing just above the west field. We think this will turn out to be a big firefly year.

   

• Saturday, 5/16: Nasty Thunderstorms Missed Us
  • Around noon, we experienced a thunderstorm that gave us a little bit of rain. Then a steady stream of thunderstorms started around 5:30 p.m. that lasted through the rest of the night. Some real nasty storms with huge hail hit in the west and central part of northern Missouri. Radar showed them moving west to east and aimed right for us. They stalled well west of us, then veered off to the northeast into Iowa and missed us.
  • Today was Day 2 of indoor hibernation, due to thunderstorms.
  • Karen sent a photo of her blooming roses (see photo, below). With azaleas and roses, she's mirroring in growing what were some of our Grandmother Melvin's favorite flowers.
  • On a walk to the mailbox with Cooper between rain periods, he spooked up a Bob White quail. Near the gravel road, I saw a tiny lump in the grass, which ran off when we were five feet away. It was a tiny bunny. I was glad to have Cooper on a leash at that moment! 
  • We saw a pair of Baltimore orioles in a small black walnut tree near the west living room windows.
  • An indigo bunting, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and northern cardinals were hitting green mulberries in a bush just outside of the south living room window.
  • I finished reading Alexander Kent's 22nd British navy novel, Cross of St. George.

  

  A nice bed of roses grown by my sister, Karen.

   

• Sunday, 5/17: First Window AC Installed
  • Mary cut a big bag of scapes from the garlic plants.
  • I took apart the small air conditioner that we use in our bedroom and cleaned it with a garden hose, a toothbrush, and an old wash rag. I then assembled it and installed it in one of our bedroom windows. Prior to installation, I climbed an extension ladder and cut Virginia creeper and hops vines from the sides, tops, and bottoms of both bedroom windows. I taped all sides around the AC with packing tape to hold out air and bugs, then installed foam boards on the outer sides of the unit to repel rainwater. Finally, I used masking tape on the inside to cover any place around the edges where light shone through the packing tape, stopping bugs from trying to go to the light at night. After a few hours of the air conditioner running in the evening, the bedroom was in the 70s and comfortable. The past two nights were rather hot for sleeping in our bedroom. That was not the case this night.
  • At one point while up the ladder trimming vines, I asked for Mary's opinion on where to trim. At that moment, a female hummingbird flew to within a foot from Mary's face, looked her over, then flew off. She was just curious. 
  • I noticed that the bleeding heart plant has more and larger blossoms.
  • Most all of Mary's pepper, tomato, and tomatillo seeds sprouted and are growing. Outside, the lettuce and radishes are looking good in the tubs, as are the strawberries, that have several blossoms and green fruit.
  • While working on the air conditioner, a couple of gnats worked over my right ear. While reading a book this evening, my ear felt itchy and hot. Gnats just love me. Mary won't notice them outside until I show up next to her. I even had one trying to gnaw on my ear while we walked Cooper tonight.
  • We closed up the chicken coop windows after walking Cooper on his last outing with thunderstorms approaching from the west. After that, Mary and I stepped around the front of the south chicken yard to watch several lightning bugs dance across the west field. There are more and more showing up every night.

May 4-10, 2026

Weather | 5/4, 0.16" rain, p. cloudy, 57°, 78° | 5/5, 0.06" rain, cloudy, 47°, 53° | 5/6, p. cloudy, 43°, 58° | 5/7, sunny, 37°, 65° | 5/8, cloudy, 011" rain, 45°, 63° | 5/9, sunny, 49°, 78° | 5/10, sunny, 45°, 68° |

• Monday, 5/8: Gardening, Day Two
  • When I walked Cooper around the west field, I saw the bright blue of an indigo bunting at the end of Bobcat Trail. The north woods is wide open through the winter, but now, leaves on bushes fill the woods so that you can't see far. Some oak saplings have huge leaves that are 9-10 inches long.
  • I mowed the inside and the outside of the near garden and deposited grass clippings on the south row of that garden to finish mulching it.
  • I pounded persimmon stakes in the middle of 12 sections of the north chicken wire fence of the near garden to secure it to the ground. There are 10 sections left of that side of the garden, then all of the east, south, and west sides. I also used soil from an old ant hill and filled a few holes under the chicken wire fence.
  • Mary planted lettuce and radishes in tubs where we normally plant winter greens. I guess we should call them summer greens, not winter greens tubs. This will hopefully be a way for us to have salad makings all summer long. Then, we'll plant winter greens in those tubs in the late summer.
  • At evening chore time, Mary heard a summer tanager, so she reached for the Merlin app on her phone that identifies bird calls. From it, she identified an eastern kingbird, a red-eyed vireo, a rose-breasted grosbeak, and a northern mockingbird. These are all new birds for the season.
  • We had thunderstorms briefly roll through after dark. On Cooper's last walk, we really noticed a continuous show of lightning flashing south of us.

   

• Tuesday, 5/5: A Day Off
  • Mary wrote checks for outstanding bills and we marched them down the hill to the mailbox. Then, I balanced the checkbook.
  • We took the day off, since we had a prediction of rain for today.
  • We received a tiny dribble of rain equaling 0.01 inch.
  • I watched Game 2 of the Avalanche/Wild NHL series. Colorado won, 5-2, and lead the series, 2-0. This year, every team is root for seems to be on the losing side...BOO...HISS!
  • When we walked the puppy, Mary and I saw a firefly, which is early and odd. For for the next couple of days, we will experience cool temperatures. According to weather information, we're 10-15 degrees colder than normal temperature averages for May.

   

• Wednesday, 5/6: Mowing, Fence Repair & Deer
  • Mary and I saw a female Baltimore oriole trying to grab fish line that we once used to surround the a small cherry tree in the west yard.
  • Mary mowed between the woodshed and the machine shed and the west yard. Grass mulch went under two pear trees and four blueberry bushes.
  • A great blue heron flew over Mary's head in the mid-afternoon. Usually these birds dodge away from us when they spot us. This one didn't seem to care.
  • I cleaned grass and weeds from the two-foot high chicken wire fence and staked down middle sections, reaching the halfway mark of the near garden.
  • Several deer arrived in our yard this evening and decided to run around and play (see videos, below). We think they were young bucks, since doe deer are busy with newborns right now.
  A deer spooked a rabbit next to the near garden. 
   
  Several deer playing through the trees near the far garden.
  
  

• Thursday, 5/7: Woodpecker & Wren
  • Mary mowed just north of the house. Grass mulch went under blueberry bushes to finish them off, under two apple trees, and a cherry tree.
  • I cleaned grass and weeds at the chicken wire fencing of the near garden and staked down eight more sections of that rabbit fence. There are 19 sections left to finish.
  • I took in a Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) Webex on orioles. It was good. We have an ideal location for these birds, which is why we see them regularly through summer months.
  • Mary and I watched a red-bellied woodpecker dig wood bits out of a hole in the weeping willow stump. After a short time, a house wren perched on a nearby branch to cuss out the woodpecker (see video, below). The woodpecker ignored the wren and kept on "pat-hooing" sawdust out of the hole. It was an interesting activity to witness. (Tap the square box at bottom of the video to bring it to full size.)
  Female woodpecker (middle, left) removes sawdust as wren (upper, right) yells at it.
  
  

• Friday, 5/8: Thoreau Documentary
  • While drinking our morning coffee, my phone sounded off with a message that a UPS package was delivered. It turns out the package was a Mother's Day DVD gift to Mary from Katie of Ken Burn's documentary on Henry David Thoreau.
  • While walking down to the get the UPS package left next to our garbage bin in a plastic bag under the big cedar tree, Mary heard the call of the first common yellowthroat warbler of the year.
  • I walked Cooper around the west field and down Bobcat Trail. Below is a photo of a huge leaf on an oak sapling along that trail. Each spring, it's amazing how fast a wide-open forest transforms into a very enclosed woods with the emergence of all of the leaves on trees, saplings, and shrubs. What was once sunny and open becomes closed-in and intimate. 
  • While I walked Cooper, Mary took another video of the red-bellied woodpecker performing more excavation work on the weeping willow stump (see below).
  • After I made a midday waffle meal, rain began falling, thereby halting our outdoor plans. Oh, darn!
  • We watched the Thoreau documentary. It's quite good.

  

  A huge oak leaf on a sapling along Bobcat Trail.

  
   
  Our woodpecker friend excavating a bigger cavity in the weeping willow stump.
  
  

• Saturday, 5/9: Chimney Swifts Return
  • Mary was loading a bag of hen food into a wheelbarrow to take to the chicken coop when she heard the twitter of chimney swifts. She looked up and saw one flying above our house. In the afternoon, she saw two of them. Mary ran inside to tell me that the chimney swifts are back home. She was worried about them, since we saw other birds that return about the same time as swifts, but that was several days ago. She was very happy! 
  • Mary mowed the thicket of grass in our front lawn. Grass mulch went on two cherry trees, and she started putting mulch on a third one. A path east of our house gains access to these trees. Runaway comfrey plants fill this area of our property and they're filled with purple blossoms that are in turn buzzing with bumblebees.
  • I continued on cleaning grass and weeds from the chicken wire fence in the near garden and adding new stakes to anchor the bottom of that fence. I did 11 sections today, with eight left to finish this garden. I had to cut new persimmon saplings from the far far garden to use as stakes.
  • Mary noticed the first green shoots of a couple radishes and few lettuce plants starting in the tubs. 
  • I watched Game 3 of the Avalanche/Wild NHL playoff series. Minnesota won, 5-1. Colorado leads the series, two games to one.

   

• Sunday, 5/10: Mother's Day
  • Mary planted tomato and tomatillo seeds in Styrofoam cups. She always does this late, so that the transplants aren't tall and spindly.
  • Mary also planted onion, shallot, and parsnip seeds in the north row of the near garden.
  • I finished cleaning weeds and grass from the chicken wire fence and anchoring it down with stakes in the near garden. Next chore will be straightening corner posts, tightening wires, and turning on the electric fence of that garden.
  • Both Katie and Bill called to wish Mary a happy Mother's Day. Bill will be here on Memorial Day weekend. Katie finished from Air National Guard training in Fargo, ND. She will be traveling to Italy, soon, for additional Guard training and plans to spend extra tourist time traveling around Italy with a female friend of hers. In September, she travels to Montgomery, AL, for leadership training related to the Guard.
  • I called mom. She is in Glasgow, MT, over the weekend, spending time with Hank. It's extremely dry in Circle, MT, with high winds predicted for tomorrow (5/11/26). Mom picked up some plants from a greenhouse in Glasgow that she's planning to put in pots.
  • The eastern phoebe chicks have hatched in the woodshed. Hopefully, temperatures stay cooler so that they survive. The nest is just under metal siding, which gets too hot when temperatures get into the 90s.
  • I read that on this day, Winston Churchill became prime minister of the UK in 1940, so we watch the movie, Darkest Hour, depicting those events in history. We enjoyed last year's wonderful cherry wine while watching the movie.
  • Today was the last day of turkey season. The only shot we heard throughout the season was one north of our property, so we think the supply of turkeys on our property is in good shape.