July 27-August 2, 2026

Weather | 7/27, p. cloudy, 77°, 95° | 7/28, p. cloudy, 75°, 91° | 7/29, hazy, 68°, 85° | 7/30, p. cloudy, 63°, 83° | 7/31, 0.82" rain, cloudy, 67°, 81° | 8/1, 0.23" rain, 62°, 70° | 8/2, sunny, 62°, 81° |

• Monday, 7/27: Doctor's Visit
  • During today's semi-annual doctor's visit, my doctor told me that the six-month glucose reading numbers were excellent. Lab results from the blood sample they took were available by mid-afternoon. My A1C is 7.2, up from 6.5 a year ago, but down from 7.4 in January. All of the other items they check for are within the normal ranges.
  • I ordered three bags of coffee beans and 100 tea bags of Stash green tea. I like green tea. It ought to last for quite some time.
  • Mary made bread. After we paid $5 a loaf for two dinky loaves of bread in Walmart, Mary said, "Never again," and decided to go back to baking our own bread. She let the four loaves cool and then sliced them up. Then she packaged two slices at a time in sandwich bags, put those bags in two layers of two-gallon freezer bags, and froze them. Done this way, we only use what we need on any giving day. There was waste in the past with freezing whole loaves of bread when some would grow mold, due to us not eating them up soon enough. We ate sandwiches made from her bread as an evening meal. The bread was incredibly delicious.
  • Today was another episode of high heat. Twice we watched thunderclouds approach from the north, but fade to nothing as soon as they reached us. When the sun was low on the western horizon and the temperature was slightly lower, we watered the gardens. Plants are doing fine, but our daily strawberry numbers are drastically reduced.

   

• Tuesday, 7/28: Mesh Tube Minnow
  • The high heat continues. We stayed inside until late in the day.
  • I built a Mesh Tube Minnow similar to what Ginger Miller demonstrated in the last Virtual Vise online session I took in (see photos, below). It's rather goofy and I don't know how it will fish. The materials I used in this big fly are lead wire for weight, fluorescent green mesh tubing and thread, light green chenille, and a #2 streamer hook. I goofed up on the first attempt with too big of a wad of chenille for the belly, making it impossible to fit the mesh tube over the chenille. The second attempt was better. I might add some google eyes, but I need to test out glues on mesh tubing to see what works and if various glues melt the plastic of mesh tubing.
  • We watered gardens. We're seeing several developing peppers. The plants are surviving the heat. I gave the Carpathian walnut a half bucket of water. Tall foxtail grass surrounds the sapling and probably protects it from intense solar heat. We have the same phenomenon occurring with onions.
  • While putting chickens away for the night, we heard a wood thrush. 
  • We can't believe it, but we're still seeing a few fireflies at night.
  • I watched several how-to fly tying videos by InTheRiffle on YouTube. 

A Mesh Tube Minnow.

Most materials used in making this large fly.

 
• Wednesday, 7/29: Mowing, Solar Generator & Laundry Detergent Stink
  • Mary mowed the lawn between the machine shed and the woodshed, putting most of the grass mulch around tomato plants in the far garden. We haven't mowed through high-heat spells, so our lawns look like hay fields.
  • I washed the three fuzzy items I bought last week from thrift stores. All garments coming from thrift stores are washed with a heavy dose of stinky laundry detergent. I don't want to make lures from items that reek of manmade stinkum. Some time on the clothesline will help dissipate the odor. 
  • I set up the solar generator with the two solar panels on the trailer, pushing the stored energy from 60 to 99 percent. I read in the manual that it's best to take the generator to full capacity, then drop it to 60 percent for storage. So, I used the generator to provide power for my laptop in the evening, dropping it to 96 percent.
  • I mowed the lane. I had to go slower than usual, in order to knock back the chicory stalks. 
  • Black walnut trees have leaves that are turning yellow early. The tall grass is yellowing. There is just too much heat this summer!
  • Mary and I enjoyed a bottle of 2023 pear wine. It has great flavor, but a healthy kick. Pear wine requires at least a year of aging. Three years is even better.

   

• Thursday, 7/30: A Mowing Blitz
  • I sharpened the blades of both push mowers.
  • Mary and I both mowed the lawn just north of the house and to the west, which were knee-high in grass, tall chicory stalks, and cherry/persimmon saplings. We added grass mulch to all existing plants in the far garden. It was cooler today, so we took fewer and shorter breaks in order to get this area cleaned up. It looks much better. Bill is interested in enjoying an outdoor fire when he visits this weekend, which was an incentive to mowing down these hay field lawns.
  • Bill's current job allows him to take his birthday off. So, his weekend visit will include Monday, August 3rd, which is his 33rd birthday. 
  • Mary keeps picking up the call of a mockingbird on her Merlin app. The app indicates that it is an unlikely resident. Mockingbirds usually reside further south in the summer. Mary thinks it has taken up summer residence on our property.
  • My three items I bought for fly tying aired in today's sun and wind. Only the infant garment still has a fake laundry soap odor. The two blankets smell normal. I hung them over interior room doors for further airing, just in case residual odors exist.

   

• Friday, 7/31: Trimming Electric Fence
  • I used the Stihl trimmer and whacked down grass and weeds under the electric fence of the near garden, a task I'm accomplishing for the first time this year. I only got the north side cleaned up. Needless to say, it is very thick with vegetation and takes additional time to accomplish.
  • Initially, while using the trimmer, I was breaking off nylon string about every three to four feet. After two or three years, that string is brittle. Once I soaked it with WD-40, the string stopped breaking. Apparently, I should buy trimmer string on an annual basis.
  • Rain squalls forced me to quit my trimming work. Mary started chores earlier than normal. I had to wait for rain to subside prior to starting my evening chores.
  • When Mary put the chickens to bed, she was missing a hen. She started walking Cooper and suggested that the hen might be on that nest under the cedar tree next to the woodshed. I spotted five eggs there yesterday while I was mowing. I looked. Sure enough, our Houdini who escapes the chicken yard daily was sitting on that nest. A few minutes later, Mary grabbed Houdini, who put up a big squawking fuss, while Mary carried her to inside the coop.
  • Mary noticed a brown thrasher for the first time since spring. It was out enjoying the freshly cut lawn.
  • I'm chasing woodpeckers out of the Empire and Granny Smith apple trees. That probably means some of the apples are getting close to ripening.

   

• Saturday, 8/1: Bill Arrives
  • It rained intermittently all day to give us just under a quarter inch.
  • Bill arrived around noon.
  • I added dragon eyes to the mesh tube minnow I made on Tuesday (see photo, below). They are attached and covered with UV gel. While shining the UV flashlight to harden the UV gel, the tinsel of the mesh tubing was purple.
  • Mary finished three Halloween ornaments (see photo, below). They are named Mod Cat, Autumn Silhouette, and Ghoulish Glow.
  • We gave birthday gifts to Bill two days early so cats wouldn't eat them. One of the presents was a bar of dark chocolate.
  • Bill took a photo of milk weed tussock moth larvae (see photo, below). I've noticed several of them on milk weed plants next to the lane. Touching them gives a person a nasty rash.
  • The upper part of a dead ash tree fell into the north chicken yard and scared chicks so that when Mary put them to bed for the night, all chicks were huddled inside a corner of the chicken coop.
  • Bill took a photo of Gandalf crawling out from a kitchen cabinet (see below). 
  • We watched two movies. The first film was a DVD we gave Bill for this birthday entitled A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), about Fred Rogers. The second film we watched was Dave (1993).

Dragon eyes on the mesh tube minnow.

Mary's cross stitch Halloween ornaments.

   

Two milk weed tussock moth larvae.

Gandalf emerging from a kitchen cabinet.

 
• Sunday, 8/2: Wiener Roast
  • I cut up the ash tree that fell across the north chicken yard with the small battery-powered Stihl pruning saw. Our chicks sure live strongly by the name chicken. They stayed inside the coop the whole time I was cutting up the tree. Then I took the big chainsaw and cut up the trunk on the east side of the chicken yard fence. It was actually three pieces of trees...the ash tree, an old oak tree, and an ash limb. I noticed later in the day that the top of a live tree was gone. It maybe blew down in the wind and tilted old dead trees over.
  • Mary used her scythe to cut down part of the lawn between the house and the lane for hay to use through the winter on the floor of the chicken coop. It was deep, tough, and wet, which made for grass that flopped over and hard to cut.
  • Bill helped me move firewood from the chicken yard by opening and closing gates. He helped Mary move hay in a wheelbarrow and spread it out on shorter grass to dry.
  • We lit an outdoor fire and roasted wieners. We also played washers. Bill won most of the games. We watched the sky as darkness revealing stars. There are several more satellites moving across the nighttime sky compared to past years. We saw several shooting stars.
  • Before it was dark, we saw a couple common nighthawks. Mary saw a bat fly only five feet above our heads. Mosquitoes were really chewing on Bill. Mary and I noticed them, but they weren't biting us...probably because we're old coots with no blood. 

July 20-26, 2026

Weather | 7/20, sunny, 69°, 93° | 7/21, 0.12" rain to sunny, 71°, 83° | 7/22, sunny, 60°, 79° | 7/23, p. cloudy, 60°, 79° | 7/24, 0.02" rain, 60°, 72° | 7/25, 0.11" rain, p. cloudy, 65°, 89° | 7/26, p. cloudy, 74°, 95° |

• Monday, 7/20: Creating a Mesh Tube Darter
  • Any time we went outside, the temperatures were just too hot and the air was orange with wildfire smoke. We stayed inside. At 93°, we hit our hottest temperature of this year.
  • Mary worked on her cross stitch project called "Mod Cat," a Halloween ornament.
  • I spent all afternoon online trying to find a fly tying pattern to help me understand the poor notes I took during a web session with Missouri Department of Conservation Educator Matt Murray describing how to make a Mesh Tube Darter. He used a rabbit fur piece called a "zonker strip" by fly tyers. Using that term, I found similar fly tying recipes. 
  • Mary watered the far garden twice and the near garden once. It was a very hot job. Three tomato plants look like they're dying. Some are growing nicely.
  • Bill sent some images and texts about a Mediterranean House Gecko in the support room at his place of work. He released it outside.
  • At roughly 8 p.m., Mary shut chicken coop windows with thunderstorms approaching from Iowa. It was entertaining with all but two chicks piled into three open windows. She moved 29 chicks. We only have 24 chicks. Once set onto the roost, several chicks flew back to the window sills. When she finally got all of them on the roost, she completely closed the lower parts of windows and opened the upper halves to a 3" crack.
  • I built a mesh tube darter (see photos, below). I got the mesh tubing at Dollar Tree for next to nothing. The rabbit fur died in a rust color pushes down the tubing to make it resemble a fish belly. I used two feathers from our Silver Wyandotte hen we call "Silver" (very original) for pectoral fins. Unfortunately, one is longer than the other. I used a plastic fish mask with holographic fish eyes covered with UV gel preservative, which hardened nicely after three minutes exposed to a UV flashlight. I need to buy more colors of rabbit fur to make future versions of this unique lure.
  • On Cooper's last walk, the setting moon backlit clouds in the southwestern sky while lightning flashed to the northwest. We fell asleep to thunder.

Side view of a Mesh Tube Darter.

The same lure viewed from underneath.

 
• Tuesday, 7/21: Two More Quarts For Blackberry Wine
  • We received just a little over a tenth of an inch of rain overnight while we slept.
  • When I walked Cooper around noon, a big turkey, which was probably a female, and two turkeys half her size, most likely her offspring, flew off to the west from near the lane.
  • I picked blackberries before and after our midday meal. I got just four berries from the east patch, but I hit the mother lode in the southeast patch located just south of the far garden through the cedar trees. In two berry picking sessions I gathered two quarts of blackberries, giving me a grand total of six quarts for winemaking. I weighed all six bags and I have 7.59 pounds, which is very close to the eight pounds needed to make two gallons of wine.
  • Mary thinks she has more tomato plants that are dying. Yesterday's 93° didn't help.
  • Temperatures were better today. A north wind meant we only got to 83°. 
  • Mary created a shopping list for our trip to town, tomorrow.
  • While washing chicken waterers, I still see fireflies at dusk. This is the latest in the summer that we've ever noticed fireflies.

   

• Wednesday, 7/22: Shopping
  • We went shopping in Quincy, IL. At Goodwill, Mary bought a solid oak frame with some sappy words about family inside it that she'll throw away, but use the frame to replace an old frame around a cross stitch piece she once made of a mallard duck pair. I bought a Savannah Banana baseball team T-shirt. At Dollar Tree, I bought three skeins of chenille yarn and some Crazy glue for fly tying. For $1.50 a skein, a got the equivalent of about 100 cards of chenille purchased from a fly tying site. These cards are worth about $4, each.
  • Cooper was a good puppy while we were gone from home for five hours. I gave him extra time outside while I hauled garbage down the lane, got mail, and did evening chores.
  • Mary watered the gardens. Temperatures were lower, so the plants looked better.

  

  Chenille from Dollar General (left) and from fly tying shop (right).

  
  
  

• Thursday, 7/23: Outside of the Box Fly Tying Session
  • A general "blah" feeling by both Mary and I meant we mostly stayed inside today.
  • When I walked Cooper on his noonish outing, we encountered the remains of a rabbit in the grass along the east side of the lane near the gravel road. Probably a hawk had a bunny dinner.
  • I called in our water meter reading. About two hours later, a couple guys from the water district showed up to read the meter. Initially, they couldn't find it. Usually, it's near the gravel road. Ours is near our house, a quarter mile up our lane from the gravel road. They called, left a voicemail, and I called back to tell them to drive north on our lane. We were amazed that water district employees didn't know where their meter was located. When the older of the two guys read off what the meter number was, the younger guy reading it said, "That's not the correct number." I don't think they have very accurate records. I said to the older guy that I keep reading about the water district online and added, "Someone doesn't like you." He said it's all false information and one-sided, adding that one guy doesn't like the water district, along with the editor of the Edina Sentinel newspaper. Before he left, he said, "Say good things about us."
  • I took in a monthly "Virtual Vise" fly tying session. This time it was "thinking outside of the box." Ginger Miller, the presenter, bought her fly tying materials from a couple dollar stores. She had the exact chenille yarn that I purchased yesterday! She said Family Dollar has mesh tubing on sale for 50 cents a package. Ginger tied three large flies. One involved ribbon material stripped of lengthwise fibers to resemble hackle feathers. She used floral wire as a lead wire substitute and adhesive diamond wrap as fish eyes, with the help of a marking pen. All kinds of cheap fly making ideas came from this online session.

   

• Friday, 7/24: Done Picking Blackberries!
  • We experienced light bits of misty rain during parts of the day.
  • While walking back from the chicken coop this morning, we heard an unusual bird song. Mary grabbed her phone, turned on the Merlin app, and it identified the song of a blue grosbeak, a new bird for the year.
  • I picked almost another quart of blackberries from the south and southeast berry patches. It gives me almost 8.5 pounds of berries, enough for a two-gallon batch. We are all done with picking blackberries for the year. We've been at blackberry picking for over a month. There are still a lot of red blackberries yet to ripen. It gives birds some food and as berries fall to the ground, the seeds replenish berry plant growth for another year.
  • I made waffles that we topped with strawberries fresh out of the garden. We keep getting a healthy amount of strawberries every single day...the best strawberry yield we've ever witnessed.
  • The dingbat crop duster who has buzzed over our house each and every day for well over a month was delivering herbicide over fields while a light misty rain was coming down. All herbicide labels I've ever read warn against spraying 12 to 24 hours before a rain. This guy is wasting farmer's money while spraying during a rain. What a complete idiot!
  • I'm watching one-minute long videos on fly tying tips from the tightlinevideo YouTube site, where Tim Flagler offers fantastic tips for better tying techniques. His stuff is excellent!

   

• Saturday, 7/25: Fly Tying Materials & Katie's Fishing Trip
  • I drove to Quincy only to discover that I forgot my wallet. I drove back home and got it. I went to the Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift stores and picked up yarn and three garments that I can tear down to make into fishing flies. One is an infant's sweater in light pink with hot pink hearts on it. Cut into small strips, it might substitute for rabbit fur. The other two items are really fuzzy lap blankets in deep red and dark purple that I can cut up in strips. The blankets are big enough to give me materials for thousands of flies.
  • I also picked up two prescriptions and two bags of chick feed. Forgetting my wallet meant I put in two round trips for about 120 miles.
  • Mary mopped the floors and finished cross stitching the Halloween project called "Mod Cat."
  • Katie sent several photos (see below) of a red salmon fishing trip on the Kenai River. She won a charter boat excursion and reached her limit in two hours. She's excited to taste the new meat in her freezer.
  • The humidity was amazing when we walked Cooper before bed. It felt like you could swim through the foggy air. Humidity level was at 91 percent!

Several red salmon on a stringer.

Katie with her fish on the Kenai River.

Nice-sized red salmon filets.

Katie thinks it's time to buy a bigger freezer.

 
• Sunday, 7/26: Very Quiet Day
  • It was too hot to do much outside, so we stayed indoors.
  • I fiddled with fly tying stuff I bought yesterday and put it away.
  • Mary covered tomatoes stems that were lying on the ground with grass mulch, where possible. When tomato stalks are horizontal on the ground, this intense heat cooks them and they die. Once tomato plants grow vertically and gain stems with leaves, they survive. Mary finds that by covering these horizontal stems, they soldier through the heat and survive.
  • I worked up a chart of daily glucose readings from Jan. 1st through today for my semi-annual doctor's visit, tomorrow.
  • I talked with Mom. Outside temperatures are well over 100° in Circle, MT. 

July 13-19, 2026

Weather | 7/13, sunny, 63°, 87° | 7/14, sunny, 68°, 88° | 7/15, sunny, 68°, 89° | 7/16, sunny, 69°, 90° | 7/17, sunny, 69°, 89° | 7/18, sunny to 0.17" rain, 73°, 91° | 7/19, cloudy, 71°, 87° |

• Monday, 7/13: Cooper With Us For Six Months
  • Mary picked two more quarts of blackberries. We have a grand total 21.5 quarts in the freezer, including last year's berries, so Mary has gathered 16.5 quarts of this year's blackberries. She's hoping to be done picking blackberries by the end of tomorrow.
  • Mary saw a red-tailed hawk fly overhead. They are rare to see on our property these days since our land is not as open as it was when cattle grazed on it. 
  • Mary saw a wheel bug that was 1.5" long...YIPES!!! 
  • I did fence work involving pulling up deer-trampled chicken wire fencing and staking down the bottom of that fencing. I made it down 2.5 sides of the far garden. I have 1.5 sides yet to go. There are several tick and chigger bites on my right hand in which I removed a glove to feel for chicken wire fencing that wasn't touching the ground.
  • We have upper atmosphere smoke in our air as of today. It's probably from wildfires in other states, such as Minnesota due to our north breeze.
  • We have had Cooper for six months. Below is a video of our silly puppy. He's a happy soul (see video, below).
  We've had our Cooper around for six months.
   
  
  

• Tuesday, 7/14: Blackberry Picking is Over for Mary
  • Mary performed her last blackberry picking of the year. She got 2.75 quarts with today's collections. It makes for a grand total of 23.75 quarts in the freezer, including last year's berries. She looked it up in her records and she picked blackberries since June 22nd, missing only six days in the beginning when they were slowly ripening. It's been a long haul. I now pick for a winemaking supply.
  • Purple prairie clover is now blooming in the north field.
  • Mary was almost hit by two great crested flycatchers that were chasing each other through the northeast berry patch.
  • She also saw a cat bird stealing berries out of that patch.
  • I finished tapping in stakes and pulling up the chicken wire of the far garden's bunny fence. One section trounced by deer and then hopped over by rabbits had a rip in the chicken wire that I mended. The stakes all came from persimmon saplings in the area between the south and north sections of that garden. I noticed as I cut them down that animals are bedding down under the protection of these saplings.
  • A new hatch of fireflies hover over tall grass at twilight. I recently walked Cooper down the lane and was amazed at all of the blinking lightning bug flashes over the surrounding fields.
  • We took out the chick's red heat lamp light. It's too hot for that nonsense and they're big enough to tough out nighttime darkness.
  • We celebrated Mary's last blackberry-picking chore by enjoying a 2025 spiced apple wine. I drew two clouds on the label of this bottle to indicate that it was very cloudy. We've discovered that cloudiness in apple wine equals enhanced flavor, so I don't mess with filtering out the particulates. It was tasty, as usual.

   

• Wednesday, 7/15: Tomatoes Are Transplanted
  • Mary cleaned tall grass out of the top of the compost bin that we're pulling compost from this year. Earlier rains gave grass seeds on the top of that bin incentive to grow big and tall.
  • Mary transplanted 27 tomato plants into the far garden. Actually, there are more, because she puts two seeds in every Styrofoam cup, often resulting in two plants per cup. She also transplanted four tomatillo plants. All transplants received a big hunk of compost, some wood ash, and bone meal. Mary watered both gardens. 
  • I strung baling twine around the top of all fence posts surrounding the far garden. We think the orange string resembles electrified cord some farmers use and keep some deer who have experienced an electric shock from that product from venturing over our fence. It doesn't work all of the time.
  • I hooked up the electric fence from the near garden to the far garden and tested it's potency after I untangled two spots where rabbits jumped through and wrapped wires around one another. It's now up and running.
  • I picked a third of a quart of blackberries. I'm a rookie at picking berries this summer. Patches are so different compared to previous years that I don't know where to go. After returning and listening to Mary describe all of the locations where she picked berries, I realized I missed several spots. Another factor is that vegetation grew so much that winter paths are invisible, making it harder to determine where to go. Plus, I was wearing glasses so I could see fruit quality close up. I felt like a blind man marching across the north field.
  • When I entered the top of Bramble Hill, three turkeys flew off. One was smaller than the other two. I heard them while picking berries between the ponds. 
  • Mary found a dead chick this evening. They're not eating their food. These white chickens are the dumbest lot we've ever raised. We don't determine breed types when we order the Frypan Special from Cackle Hatchery. This year all but two are white stupid chickens!

   

• Thursday, 7/16: Thorough Watering & Berry Picking
  • Mary gave me a morning tour through the north berry patches. I definitely missed a couple of them. She has a nice system down to get through all of the berry bushes.
  • As we were taking a shortcut through the woods just north of the machine shed, a covey of quail burst out just in front of Mary. They never fly off as a group, but burst out one at a time. It's best to stop moving until all of them are finished flying off.
  • Mary thoroughly watered all garden plants. The tomato plants that were transplanted yesterday were suffering with shock from today's heat, with some new growth shriveling in the intense sun.
  • I picked a quart of blackberries in the north field. It took me two hours meandering through all of the thorny plants at 90° temperatures, which is about double the time it takes Mary to do the same job. She grew concerned about how long it was taking me, so as I ended, there she was, looking at me. In her words, "I decided to go out and collect your carcass. I figured I'd have to scoop up a puddle on the ground." I'm labeling the blackberries I pick as "wine berries" on the freezer bags.
  • While I picked berries, a doe deer ran by just south of me. I also saw a low-flying red-shouldered hawk.
  • I spotted two young turkeys on the lane while taking Cooper on his late afternoon walk. They were the size of crows, smaller than adult turkeys. At first I couldn't identify them. When turkeys fly, their wing tips touch with a smacking noise. I heard that sound and then realized they were turkeys.

   

• Friday, 7/17: Chicks Let Outside
  • Mary pulled a bunch of tall grass and weeds from the third row of the far garden. She planted two hills of zucchinis and six hills of acorn squash.
  • Mary watered the near garden once and the far garden twice. We're now in a dry cycle.
  • I mowed the chicken yard.
  • Two of the old wooden posts at the north end of the far garden rotted at their bases and fell over. I installed two metal posts in their place and wired the four-foot high chicken wire fence to them.
  • I opened the door from the coop to the north chicken yard for the chicks. These guys are always in a major fright. As I was unscrewing the inside board off that door, they were all in the corner behind the metal garbage can that holds chicken feed, jumping on each other in a major panic. Even so, by the time Mary put the chickens to bed in the late afternoon, about six chicks were outside. Some years, no chicks venture outside on the first day.
  • I picked one quart of blackberries from the northeast and west berry patches. It sure is a hot job. After returning from each trip, my clothes are soaking wet from perspiration. 
  • The solar generator arrived today via FedEx three weeks after we ordered it.
  • Mary picked a big bunch of strawberries. She's been doing this for most of this week. There's nothing better than homegrown strawberries.

   

• Saturday, 7/18: Hiding Inside From Heat
  • It was too blasted hot outside at 91°, so we stayed in air conditioning for a good part of today.
  • Mary happily worked on a cross stitch project.
  • I worked at understanding the ins and outs of our new solar generator by getting manuals online, reading them, and charging it via a house plug in. I tested it by plugging a big fan into it and then powered the refrigerator with it. The generator works nicely. I'll test charging it with solar panels on a day when it's not so hot outside.
  • When I checked chicks around noon, I discovered a white chick had escaped into the hen side of the chicken yard. It was an Olympic sprinter, so I got Mary to help round it up. Mary crawled into a tight triangular area on the hen side where two fences come together. Cedar and mulberry branches made it a tight cubby hole, making it tough for any human to get in or out of there, even though Mary did it. We eventually urged the chick up the ramp into the hen side of the chicken coop, then through the human door that separates that side from the chick side. I used the small Stihl pruning saw to cut several branches and threw them over the north chicken yard fence. It's now easier for venture into that spot. 
  • Mary watered gardens in the same sequence...two times in the far garden and once in the near garden. Tomato plants are looking better, some with a darker green color.
  • I picked just a shy less than another quart of blackberries from two of the north field patches. There are three quarts in the freezer. I did this in the late afternoon. When I left for home, the sun was about to set behind oncoming clouds. It was cooler than a midday picking.
  • Around 9:15 pm, we noticed thunderstorms on the radar moving into us, so we lowered chicken house windows to a four-inch gap. To our surprise, 22 chicks were stacked on one another in three windows. Some were piled three deep! One by one, we moved the chicks to the roost so we could lower the windows. This is sure a dingy collection of chicks!
  • A slow moving cold front gave us 0.17 inches of rain in a thunderstorm, which was nice for garden plants and the wild blackberry crop. 
  • I watched the online recap of the England/France World Cup soccer game for third place. England won, 6-4. It was an amazing game.

   

• Sunday, 7/19: Charging with Solar Panels
  • Mary watered the garden just once, due to yesterday's rain.
  • I figured out how to hook up the two solar panels in a series and charged the new generator while we ate our midday meal. I surveyed the activity with an app on my phone. The highest input from the solar panels was 400 watts. It dropped to under 100 watts when a cloud covered the sun. Both panels and the generator fit nicely on the bed of the tilt trailer next to the pickup. In about two hours, the battery of the generator went from 40 to 60 percent. It's a cool way to store electricity.
  • A noonish check of chick waterers revealed that a barred rock chick was in the hen side of the chicken yard. I easily scooted it through the gate. When Mary did a mid-afternoon check, two white chicks were in the hen side next to the west end of the chicken coop. I tried moving them with a long stick when they snuck around a fence post to the correct side. A bottom bit of chicken wire fencing was bowed out at the base of the pole, allowing for easy passage of the smaller chicks from their part of the chicken yard to the hen side. That solved the mystery of how they were always moving over to the hens area. I folded the chicken wire and tacked it against the post with a fence staple. When Mary put the chicks to bed, two of them tried to jump through what once was the route through to the hen side of the yard, but this time they just bounced off the chicken wire fencing...the little bastards! 
  • Mary spotted some purple martins that joined cliff swallows and our resident chimney swifts in their zinging across the sky above our house. Her Merlin app verified what Mary thought were martins. It's a first of the year.
  • I picked another quart of blackberries. I did it in the evening, again, when the temperature is lower. I now have 4.25 quarts in the freezer. According to my records, four pounds of blackberries make each gallon of wine. The average weight of the quart bags is 19.6 ounces, so I'm at 5.2 pounds of berries, or 1.3 gallons of wine. I'd like to pick enough berries to make at least two or three gallons of wine.
  • Mary collected about a half a pound of strawberries today.
  • While walking home from picking berries, two fawns jumped up in front of me as I approached the woods north of the machine shed. One still had spots. As I walked through the woods, I looked to my left and saw one fawn looking at me. 
  • After finishing evening chores, which were late for me due to berry picking until dusk, I noticed the electric fencer was shorting out. In a check for crossed wires, I spotted a Carolina wren fledgling sleeping on an upper fence wire of the far garden. The little bird didn't wake as I walked by just a foot in front of it with my flashlight blaring in its face.

July 6-12, 2026

Weather | 7/6, sunny, 65°, 85° | 7/7, sunny, 65°, 85° | 7/8, sunny, 63°, 87° | 7/9, cloudy, 68°, 87° | 7/10, cloudy, 66°, 88° | 7/11, 0.81" rain, cloudy to sunny, 65°, 83° | 7/12, sunny, 62°, 87° |

• Monday, 7/6: Berry Picking & Mowing
  • Mary picked 2.5 quarts of blackberries. We now have a total of 7.5 quarts of this year's blackberries in the freezer. The north field berry patches are developing into a big berry producing area.
  • Mary noticed today as the first day of dog day cicadas, or annual cicadas, that come out at the start of the dog days of summer.
  • Mary heard chimney swift babies peeping as she walked by the chimney on the second floor landing.
  • Mary's Merlin app on her cell phone picked up a great-tailed grackle call. She said it's rare for this bird to be here.
  • Blue vervain is blooming in the north field.
  • I mowed up a bucket of clover and poured it out over about half of the floor in the chick side of the coop. By late afternoon, the chicks polished off all but a couple leaves of that green clover. 
  • I mowed between the far garden and the compost bins, outside of the far garden, and between the far garden fences. My next chore is trimming grass under the electric fence wires so I can turn on the far garden electric fence. Mary has tomato and tomatillo plants that are turning into vines and need to be planted. Grass mulch went around the planted raspberries and under the Empire apple tree.
  • A small fawn, which could barely look out over the grass, jumped up just east of the far garden when I first starting mowing. It looked at me for a few minutes, then bounced off to the east.  
  • Every evening Cooper is outside with me when I wash up chicken waterers. We walk to the south orchard where I dump the waste water around apple trees. Cooper loves tagging along and usually finds a bunny to chase.

   

• Tuesday, 7/7: Berries & Frustrated Trimming
  • Mary picked more blackberries, which is a hot job. She froze an additional 1.5 quarts, giving us a total of 8.75 quarts in the freezer.
  • Mary counted 15 Shrubby St. John's Wart plants in the north field. It's going to be quite an area of bushes.
  • Our sky was bright blue today.  
  • Mary heard a wood thrush in the north woods. It's the first of this year.
  • I used the string trimmer to take down weeds and grass under the far garden electric fence. When the nylon string sits all winter in the trimmer, it dries and becomes brittle. I restrung the trimmer several dozen times, only getting about three-fourths around the outside of the fence. At one point I only moved six inches between string breaks. In frustration, I quit after several cuss words. I read online that the nylon trimmer string is hygroscopic and should be stored in a sealed bag with a wet sponge. I threw the coil of trimmer string in a bucket of water to soak.
  • The stars were brilliant when we walked Cooper on his last outing. The Milky Way looked like steam in the night sky.

   

• Wednesday, 7/8: Shopping, Picking & Whacking
  • Mary picked about 1.5 quarts of blackberries from four of the five locations on our property. We now have 10 quarts of new blackberries in the freezer.
  • She saw a doe deer in the south field. Mary said wild petunias and partridge peas are now blooming.
  • I drove to Quincy, mainly to pick up two of my prescriptions. I bought a few other supplies that were running low.
  • I worked on the Stihl trimmer. I had to rev it all of the time to keep it running yesterday. I checked the spark plug. It looked fine, but I cleaned it with a wire brush, nonetheless. I removed the spark arrestor screen in the muffler. It was clogged with carbon. I cleaned it with a torch and a wire brush. After I greased the head, I added new nylon string that soaked overnight in a bucket of water. The trimmer started and idled like normal. It ran much better. The string only snapped of four times, which was much better than the 24 times it broke off yesterday.
  • I whacked more of the weeds and grass from far garden's electric fence, finishing all of the outside and trimming the inside of the south end and halfway down the east side.
  • Bare ground is cracking everywhere. We're drying out. It means daily watering is required to sustain garden plants.
  • A new hatch of fireflies flashed just overhead of grass as twilight fell.
  • Cooper can count. He loves any orange product. Mary and I each ate two mandarins this evening for dessert. Cooper usually gets one slice per mandarin. After Mary tossed the second slice to the puppy, he came right over to me. I only gave him one slice, because I was a pig and ate all of the first mandarin. Cooper stared at me for the longest time. I finally laid down in his stuffed chair with a big sigh.

   

• Thursday, 7/9: Berries & Whacking
  • Mary was back on the berry trail and picked an additional quart of blackberries. There are now 11 quarts of 2026 berries in the freezer.
  • While picking berries near the ponds in the northeast berry patch, Mary heard the sound of great blue herons, then she saw two of them flying low over her head. "I've never seen one land in a tree," Mary said. It did quite a balancing act before the tree top settled down under its weight. The other one flew real low over Mary's head.
  • Contrary to what we see in all of the news reports, we are not seeing as many ticks as during other summer seasons. On Mary's first berry-picking venture today, she came back with no ticks, even though she heard nearby deer.
  • I whacked the rest of the tall weeds and grass under the electric fence wires in the far garden. The trimmer's nylon string broke about 10 times, usually when taking out thick stalks on plants such as thistles. I also mowed the inside of the near far garden and dumped those grass clippings under the Empire apple tree. Empire is a very wide tree, so a large amount of mulch is required to cover the ground under it.
  • Rabbits are taking over our yard. Everywhere you look, you see two or three bunnies at once.
  • I watched a video of a meeting in Hurdland (35 miles west of us) of concerned users of the water district we get our water from. Hurdland residents are mad. The water district acquired the Hurdland sewer system with the promise of upgrading it to proper standards. They received grant funds, moved that grant money over to help pay for water district needs, and have never performed Hurdland sewer upgrades in the past 10 years. When the residents asked for financial records, they were denied. A newly-elected board member was also denied financial records access. The Hurdland group is gathering signatures to petition the state auditor for a complete audit of the water district. They're also complaining about bills that are guesses on water usage, a practice that we've suspected for a couple years.

   

• Friday, 7/10: Blackberries, Bobwhite & Cleaning Fence
  • It was another blackberry day for Mary. We now have 12.5 quarts of new berries in the freezer.
  • About 12 to 15 northern Bobwhite quail youngsters flew out of the tall grass near the Macintosh apple tree in the north yard when Mary walked back home from picking her first round of berries. She said they burst from the grass like popcorn, flying in all directions. Mama was calling them back immediately.
  • The Merlin app on Mary's phone picked up the song of a cliff swallow and blue-gray gnatcatcher. These are the first of these two birds for the year.
  • Ironweed is starting to bloom. 
  • I sharpened a pair of old pruning shears that I use for cutting grass, weeds, and persimmon saplings. The shears must be completely disassembled in order to use a file on the blade, then put together in the correct order. I goofed up on assembling it initially and had to take it apart a second time before I got it right. 
  • I cleaned weeds and grass from the inside and outside of the rabbit fence made of chicken wire on the south end of the near far garden. By cleaning this all up, I can prop up sections of this fencing that were stomped down by deer and add stakes to keep the bottom of the fence tight to the ground. Without this fence secured, rabbits invade and eat garden plants.
  • Rain started falling at around 5:30 p.m., when we ended our evening chores. It's the first rain we received in July.

   

• Saturday, 7/11: Christmas Tree Ornament Fly
  • On Cooper's early morning walk, he sniffed something on the lane, so I looked. It was the wings of a luna moth. Something ate the body and left the wings. It was maybe a bat.
  • Mary picked another quart of blackberries, giving us a total of 13 quarts in the freezer.
  • A ruby-throated hummingbird buzzed Mary and followed her partway on the path to between the ponds. She thinks her gold shirt attracted the hummingbird.
  • I cleaned weeds and grass from the chicken wire fence on the east side of the near far garden. There are several old rabbit or mice nests under that stuff, along with a few praying mantis egg casings. Some of the grass is extra tough. It's almost the strength of wooden saplings. At one point, that fence is stomped down very low by deer, which makes it easy for bunnies to jump into the garden. After getting weeds and grass removed from the entire fence, I'll pull this back up to the correct height.
  • We had a circus of barn swallows flipping through the air for two hours over our house. They'd let out little peeps as they flew about. They sure are happy birds.
  • We switched the chicks to pelleted food that they don't want to eat, so the chicks didn't get any clover until they start eating their own food. By this evening we noticed that they're starting to eat the new food.
  • I have a new online passion called soccer. I watch the recaps of the FIFA World Cup games. They're interesting and fun to watch. 
  • I also watched a fly tyer make a foam dragonfly tail stiffer by hiding a piece of a plastic pop bottle between foam layers. Another fly tyer named Svend Diesel in Salt Lake City showed how to make a Christmas tree ornament on a fly hook that looks like a Christmas tree. He also showed how to make bent insect legs from either pheasant tail feather fibers or rubber leg material by just tying knots while using tweezers.

   

• Sunday, 7/12: Even More Berries & Weeds!
  • Mary picked another quart of blackberries. She's really getting tired of picking berries in the heat. We now have 14.5 quarts of new blackberries in the freezer. Her goal is 24 quarts. With 2025 blackberries already in the freezer, all we need is another 4.5 quarts to reach her goal. If I want any for winemaking, I'll have to take over picking them once she reaches her goal.
  • What we thought were barn swallows flying over our house turned out to be cliff swallows, according to the Merlin app on Mary's cell phone. They're bee bopping around again today.
  • I finished cleaning weeds from both the inside and outside of the far garden chicken wire fence, which involved the north and west sides of that garden. I found some places on the west side where small bunnies could crawl under the chicken wire. I'll pull up stomped parts and tack down bottom portions of the chicken wire fencing tomorrow.
  • Outside work was easier in the heat today, because of a nice northeast breeze.
  • The thermometer reached 110° at Mom's house in Circle, MT, today. I saw online that it reached 118° in Forsyth, MT.
  • Mary and I decided we're going to shorten the far garden. For several years, we haven't used the north end. We just can't get to it and it's growing wild. Taming it back is just too much. We'll shorten the electric fence and maybe plant a weeping willow at the northeast corner of that area.
  • I saw a fly tying pattern online for a blue darner created by Barry Ord Clarke, author of a fly tying book I recently bought. It involves a dacron string tail and white rooster hackle feathers for wings.