July 26-August 1, 2020

Weather | 7/26, 73°, 92° | 7/27, 0.09" rain, 71°, 85° | 7/28, 61°, 85° | 7/29, 0.10" rain, 63°, 89° | 7/30, 1.90" rain, 65°, 79° | 7/31, 67°, 76° | 8/1, 62°, 79° |

• Sunday, 7/26: Bill and I started a batch of blackberry wine. The recipe calls for 4 pounds of blackberries, which amounted to 5 quarts. It also called for 2 1/4 cups of sugar, but we had to go to 3 cups of sugar to take the specific gravity to 1.090, which is the specific gravity that the recipe suggests. We figured that our wild blackberries aren't as sweet as homegrown berries. Mary picked a bowl of blackberries and said it was extremely hot on Bramble Hill. The 5 quarts in the wine dropped our freezer total to 24, but Mary's picking added 2, bringing our total up to 26. We enjoyed smoked scrambled eggs with pork meat added for flavor. We watched 2 movies selected by Bill...Galaxy Quest and The Proposal.


• Monday, 7/27: Something new...I picked more blackberries, adding 3 more quarts for an updated grand total of 27 quarts. Bill made 3 very delicious pizzas. A census taker showed up, even though we sent in information electronically months ago. Mary talked to her. She was an old hag, no teeth, smelled of cigarette smoke, had a cigarette hacker cough, and wasn't wearing a mask...what a dingbat! I added yeast to the blackberry wine must and it started fermenting immediately. The specific gravity dropped a point to 1.089 in the 24 hours since we first made it. I take an extra hour when starting the yeast and add a quarter cup of wine must heated to 95° to the yeast after it sits 20 minutes once the powdered yeast is added to water and that really gives the yeast a kick-start when added to the must in the bucket.


• Tuesday, 7/28: Bill did his laundry in the morning. Mary made a 2-bird chicken dinner. Bill left to go back to St. Louis around 4:15 pm. The blackberry wine is bubbling away, with a specific gravity of 1.080. I picked another batch of blackberries. They're showing signs of dwindling, but I still got a full bowl, which equates to another 3 quarts, giving us a grand total of 30 quarts in the freezer. I heard a deer snorting while picking berries. Mary also saw a bright red doe running north to south, east of the house. It might have been the same deer. Mary made a food menu for the upcoming month and created a shopping list. We watered plants in both gardens. We have the start of a pumpkin, tomato plants are blossoming, and a few hot peppers are showing up. We went to bed extremely tired.


• Wednesday, 7/29: It rained in the afternoon, something we really need. I caught up on my wine dairy, entering information on the watermelon wine and the blackberry wine. We made a decision that remaining unpicked blackberries we will let Mother Nature have. At 2 pm, the specific gravity of the blackberry wine was at 1.055. By 11 pm, it was at 1.042, just 0.002 higher than the mark for the first racking, so I decided to go ahead and rack it. The wine must was filled with what looked like pink cottage cheese, or as Bill said, "It looks like after someone drank way too much wine while eating chunky soup." YUM! I got Mary's help and we strained the wine through a wire strainer, covered with a flour sack towel into my 5-gallon wide mouth carboy. Next, I siphoned the wine into a 1-gallon jug, added spring water to "top off" the wine level to the neck of the jug, and added an airlock. When I went to bed, the wine looked fine (see photo below), but there was no fermentation and I saw white spots on the top of the wine, which worried me that it might be starting to mold. We went to bed real late, or really, early in the morning.

Blackberry wine after 1st racking.

• Thursday, 7/30: We had heavy rain throughout the night. I woke 5 hours after putting the blackberry wine and myself to bed, and looked at the wine. Foam filled the airlock and even started showing on top of the airlock (see photo below). I texted Bill, asking how to make a blow-off airlock. He didn't answer right away, so I looked it up, started making it, then compared texts with Bill on what I made (see video below). I reviewed the blackberry wine recipe. It advised to fill the carboy to the first curve of the jug's shoulder and then only top off to the jug's neck when the threat of foaming stops...OOPS! It helps to read wine recipes, thoroughly. Last night's white spots were obviously the restart of fermentation. It tastes wonderful, even with a strong yeast taste, which goes away with aging. By 2 pm, the specific gravity on the wine was 1.032. Mary found small, immature apples that are red with yellow/green color near the stems on what was supposed to be a crab apple tree from Arbor Day Foundation. It's planted south of the house. After a bunch of internet research, Mary determined that tree is a Stayman's Winesap apple tree. They are supposed to be very good. Who knew! Thank you, Arbor Day. It was a free apple tree.

Foam pushing through airlock with blackberry wine.



• Friday, 7/31: It was shopping day, today. Prior to going, I spotted a 2004 GMC half-ton pickup with a V-6 engine for sale in Quincy. I messaged the owner and arranged a 2 pm meeting time. We shopped at Aldi, ate burgers, pulled cash out of our bank, then checked out the pickup. It has rust around rear wheel wells and the back bumper that I wasn't going to accept in a pickup. But a test drive proved it is mechanically sound. It has 89,000 miles, year-old Michelin tires, new fuel lines, new heater fan motor, a month-old new battery, and a new drive shaft. We bought it for $3200 (see photos below). The pickup's pluses, more than outweigh the rust issue. I can fix rust. Shopped at 8 stops. The Cadillac was stuffed. I drove the pickup, with Mary following in the Caddy, and the former pickup owner behind her. In Illinois, you can move plates from one vehicle to another. Once we crossed the Mississippi, we pulled into the Ayerco gas station in West Quincy, MO, and he removed the pickup plates...didn't want to meet a Barney Fife Quincy Police squad car while driving through Quincy. We discovered that the guy I bought the truck from went to Truman State the years Bill went there, that he majored in accounting, and that he heads the business department at Culver Stockton University in Canton, MO. On the drive home, the pickup handled excellently. We ate nachos and watched the 2001 movie, Ocean's 11. 

Our "new-to-us" 2004 GMC Sierra 1500 pickup.

Rear fender and bumper rust that needs replacing.

• Saturday, 8/1: With several of the onion greens bent over and drying out, Mary harvested all of the onions and shallots. First, she pulled them, then cut off the greens and laid onion bulbs on the ground in the shade of the house to dry (see left photo below). I went into the cobweb-filled basement to get more old plastic milk crates for onion storage. First, I swept debris off the stairs, including a snake skin. Several minutes with a shop vac took care of dead and alive spiders and their webs. After removing 10 milk crates, I cleaned them all with a brush and the hose connected to the outdoor spigot. We ended up with 88 pounds of onions and 13 pounds of shallots stored in milk crates (see right photo below). My blackberry wine is still fermenting.

2020 onion and shallot crop after cutting off tops.

Left to right, Ed's Reds shallots (a cross from Montana),
Patterson onions, Red Bull onions, and White Wing onions.

July 19-25, 2020

Weather | 7/19, 77°, 85° | 7/20, 65°, 85° | 7/21, 1.23" rain, 63°, 79° | 7/22, 67°, 85° | 7/23, 63°, 83° | 7/24, 67°, 89° | 7/25, 68°, 90° |

• Sunday, 7/19: Mary picked 3 quarts of blackberries, which brings us to 11 quarts of blackberries in the freezer. There are still many red, unripe blackberries left out there. She noticed several deer snorting at her and several Bob White quail. I checked my watermelon wine. It's fermenting nicely (see video below), with a specific gravity of 1.074. After balancing the checkbook, I was a bum all day. I asked Katie when she was heading north and she called from the Dallas airport, saying she was flying to Anchorage today. She landed in Anchorage just prior to midnight, their time. She stays a few days at an airbnb in Anchorage, gets a few things for her boss, then flies north to Prudhoe Bay, then west to Nuiqsut. She doesn't know many details about her new job, yet. I asked Bill and he confirmed he's visiting us July 25-28. The chicks doubled their size overnight. They are a week old, today.

• Monday, 7/20:

• Tuesday, 7/21: Mary saw a fawn in the west yard in the morning while on her way to let out chickens. She made a shopping list for me. I checked the watermelon wine and the specific gravity was at 1.000, so I racked the two 1-gallon jugs into a wide mouth 1.4-gallon container and added potassium sorbate to stop fermentation (see photo below). I've never had yeast act so fast...only 2 days to get to the desired specific gravity. It usually takes a couple weeks. I shopped in Quincy for some food items. Most everyone is wearing masks and several stores require masks prior to entering. Mary picked 4 quarts of blackberries, bringing the total in the freezer to 15 quarts. She saw a buck, with a velvet-covered 6-point rack, snort, crash through the bushes, jump a fence, and run off through an old cow pasture. We ate nachos in the evening and watched the 2013 movie, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Strawberry wine must (right) with leftover yeast fines (left & center).

• Wednesday, 7/22: In texts to Katie, she said she will fly north once she gets her COVID-19 test results. Mary mowed the west yard, made a big batch of tortellini soup, figured our monthly savings amounts, and weeded the far garden. We are still battling voles that now have eaten 4-5 tomatoes. I picked 4 quarts of blackberries, bringing our grand total for the year to 19 quarts. After nightfall, we looked for and saw the comet NEOWISE just below the Big Dipper. It's interesting, but hard to see with the naked eye. Binoculars help to see it better. 


• Thursday, 7/23: Mary mowed the lane. I picked 4 quarts of blackberries, bringing our total to 23 quarts in the freezer. It's a really good blackberry year. This time, I delved deep into the thorns on Bramble Hill to get to some big, ripe ones, resulting in a few hand wounds (see photo below). The end result is worth it, though. We watered both gardens in the evening, taking only 35 minutes, a new time record! The coronavirus is hitting hard, locally, so we'll stay on our property as much as possible. There are 302 cases in Adams County, IL, home to Quincy; 13 for us in Lewis County, MO; and 68 cases with an additional death today in Marion County, home to Hannibal, MO. Via emails, I talked to John Hendrix, whose son recovered from COVID-19 in Las Vegas. John is going to Homer, AK, this weekend to fish for red salmon in China Poot Bay. He owns property on the north side of China Poot and said I should visit so we can see my old haunts in Peterson Bay.

Four quarts of blackberries and 2 wounded hands.

• Friday, 7/24: Mary washed 3 loads of laundry, did some house cleaning, and made a batch of flour tortillas. I picked another batch of blackberries, adding 4 more quarts to the freezer, with a grand total of 27. I also collected up a few more chigger bites.
  


• Saturday, 7/25: Bill showed up around 12:30 pm. Mary made him his favorite dessert, pistachio tort. We celebrated Bill's birthday, even though it's really on August 3rd, because he won't be here on that date. I picked blackberries to the west and south of the house, adding 2 more quarts and bringing the grand total to 29. We built a fire outside and enjoyed a pork loin cookout. It was fun to sit around the fire, watch the stars, and talk.
  

July 12-18, 2020

Weather | 7/12, 64°, 86° | 7/13, 61°, 86° | 7/14, 64°, 89° | 7/15, 0.89" rain, 69°, 79° | 7/16, 62°, 83° | 7/17, 65°, 90° | 7/18, 73°, 90° |

• Sunday, 7/12: Except for watering gardens twice, we took the day off. Mary made a chocolate pudding pie. I ordered another watering can, so we'll have a total of four 2-gallon watering cans, allowing both of us to water at the same time. We watched the 2012 movie, The Hobbit, An Unexpected Journey in the evening and ate pie.


• Monday, 7/13: Upon checking newly transplanted tomatoes in the far garden, we saw one chewed off at the base. A hole in the grass mulch indicated a possible vole chewing. I also spotted where the chicken wire was above the ground about an inch in the NW corner of the far garden fence. Mary put an outdated and generic version of Ex-Lax in the vole hole. I added chicken wire pieces to the NW corner and secured them with 3 stakes. I also added a 2"-thick stick in the gate to close up all possible rabbit entries. Mary noticed that we have several carrots sprouting. Since our chicks are supposed to be shipped today, we cleaned out the coop, and installed the interior wall and door that separates hens and rooster from new chicks. I did most of the wall installation, while Mary hauled in new hay for the floor. We watered, twice. We didn't get an email that the chicks were shipped.


• Tuesday, 7/14: Checked emails first thing this morning and our chicks (25 Frypan Special cockerels and 3 Rhode Island Red pullets) were shipped out yesterday evening. By 12:16 am they were in Kansas City. They are due into our post office Thursday morning. Mary worked up a shopping list, since I have to buy chick food, anyway. There were many more people wearing masks in Quincy. Adams County, IL, in which Quincy is the county seat, went from 61 coronavirus cases to 204 in 2 weeks. I got everything I needed, getting in and out of stores, pronto. Back home, Mary replanted a few bean seeds, put fertilizer on blueberries, watered, then mowed and put mulch on all of the south row of the near garden. Mary says some corn is popping through the ground. I noticed field corn is tasseling. After returning home, I put 2 large sacks of potting soil into six 4-gallon cat litter buckets, a 40-pound bag of oil sunflower seeds into 3 cat litter buckets, put all of the buckets away, and moved chick feed into the metal garbage can in the coop. We ate nachos and watched the 1995 movie French Kiss. We went to bed with lightning flashing in a thunderstorm NW of us in Iowa.


• Wednesday, 7/15: Woke to thunder, lightning, rain, and our dog, Plato, walking into the bedroom. He doesn't like thunder. I went downstairs, grabbed my cell phone and the dog bed for Plato. While looking at weather radar, a call came in. It was the Ewing Post Office with the message, "Your chicks are here." I woke Mary. We hung and turned on the heat lamp, filled the chick feeders, and I drove to Ewing and picked up the chicks, while Mary added chick water. I'm so, so glad I got chick food yesterday. The U.S. Postal Service was fast this year. What usually takes 3 days only took 2 days to mail chicks from Lebanon, MO, to us. We got a total of 32 chicks, so they added 4 extra chicks. There was 1 dead chick...not bad. They are very lively (see video below). Other than attending to chicks, we were rather sluggish.

• Thursday, 7/16: Karen texted that she's retiring from teaching. I told her it was a good idea, that it's better to stay alive. I picked 3 quarts of blackberries, today. Raccoons or opossums are pulling down blackberry plants to get to ripe berries. I found several big, ripe blackberries next to the swim pond and many more beyond there on what we call Bramble Hill. A crop duster flew overhead all day. Mary baked 4 loaves of bread. The acorn squash is starting to show, along with carrots, and most all of the corn. Another tomato plant was chewed at its base by a vole, so we laced all vole holes in the far garden with chocolate Ex-Lax, which has worked in the past for killing voles.


• Friday, 7/18: I made a 1-gallon batch of watermelon wine. By starting with a specific gravity of 1.087, this wine should end up at between 11-12% alcohol, mellower than previous wines I've made. The must is a pretty red color (see photo below). The recipe calls for a 6-8 pound watermelon. I used 9 pounds of watermelon meat, zest and juice of 2 lemons, and 64 ounces of white grape juice that's preserved with vitamin C, instead of potassium sorbate, which is the item I use to stop yeast production. Now I wait to add pectic enzyme tomorrow morning and yeast tomorrow evening. Mary picked 1 and 3/4 quarts of blackberries from south of the house and Bramble Hill. We watered all of the gardens in the evening. It's muggy and hot outside. There were no chewings on our garden plants. The chicks are snarfing 2 cups of food a day, growing and thriving. Our current summer heat means we only turn a heat lamp on at night. Area stores always sell chicks in March, a ridiculous time, since we often see snow, then. We prefer getting chicks mid-summer, when outside temperatures are prime for growing chicks to butchering size.

Watermelon wine must with white nylon bag in 7-gallon bucket.

• Saturday, 7/18: We continue to get really hot, muggy weather, but the chicks love it. They've doubled in size in just a couple days. Mary did housecleaning, 2 loads of laundry, and watered all garden plants. Corn doubled in height and several potatoes are coming through the ground. I picked blackberries, putting 3 more quart bags in the freezer. Poison ivy tends to grow where blackberry canes grow. Mary avoids it, because being near it causes her irritated skin. As long as I don't touch it, poison ivy bothers me less than it does Mary, so I stomp it down with my boots to get to the berries. We still have several red, unripe berries out there. I added pectic enzyme to the watermelon wine in the morning, then added yeast after dark. This time, I used a trick suggested by my son, Bill, which is to add some of the wine must after the powdered yeast is added to 95°-100° water. I heated the must in the microwave for 10 seconds to bring it to that same temperature, added it to the yeast/water mixture and waited for over an hour, then stirred it into the wine must. There was near instant yeast bubbling in the bucket, whereas in the past, it took 3-5 days prior to seeing fermentation. Thanks, Bill!

July 5-11, 2020

Weather | 7/5, 67°, 89° | 7/6, 69°, 91° | 7/7, 69°, 92° | 7/8, 71°, 93° | 7/9, 72°, 93° | 7/10, 65°, 88° | 7/11, 67°, 91° |

• Sunday, 7/5: Bill changed the spare tire out for his fixed tire on his car and got things together to go back to his place in St. Louis. Bill and I went fishing at the Swim Pond in the late morning. Mary stayed back and built framing with willow sticks to put white sheer curtains over the pepper plants that were suffering in the intense sun. Bill started with a small translucent, light green plug that was once his grandfather's and caught a bass with every cast. We kept 7 fish, but threw back loads of small bass. I caught a big one on a Hula Popper...man, that was really fun! Bill and I filleted the fish and Mary cooked it up. Freshly caught bass is really good tasting. Bill took a 45-minute nap, then left around 4 pm. We dozed while trying to read news online, then did chores and watered the garden. As we watered, we could hear the call of a great horned owl to the east as it slowly got closer. 


• Monday, 7/6: It's extremely humid and hot. I could only stand about 15-20 minutes at a time outside, today. Thank goodness for air conditioning. Mary washed 3 loads of clothes, figured our monthly savings monies, and watered the near garden. The sweet potato and pepper plants are thriving under the sheer curtains in the garden. I made 4-foot posts and small stakes to hold chicken wire to the ground out of remaining persimmon trees I cut a few days ago. Chiggers and ticks are in full bloom right now. We keep bug dope companies in good business. Literally thousands of lightning bugs were dancing across the grass during the dogs' evening walk. They like the high humidity and nighttime heat. 


• Tuesday, 7/7: Mary mowed the lane. I laid out posts around the far garden where I want to pound them into the ground. Then, I cut down some more persimmon trees and made additional posts. A total of 26 posts are needed for the far garden, the same number as the near garden.


• Wednesday, 7/8: Mary made turkey pot pie. I made chicken wire base anchors out of persimmon tree branch Y's. Then, Mary and I picked a quart of blackberries from throughout our property (see photo below). There are several almost red berries out there that need to turn a black, ripe color before we pick them. Upon returning home, we picked several ticks off us. Packing tape works great for pulling tiny seed ticks off clothing. We gained a few tick and chigger bites, which is the unpleasant cost of picking berries.

A quart of our first blackberries of 2020.

• Thursday, 7/9: I pounded all of the posts into the ground for the far garden chicken wire fence. After the first 4, which took some serious pounding to get in the ground, I got smart and first poured water on the ground where I was placing each post in order to soften up the hard, dry clay I was driving posts into. With the water trick, I could put in 5 posts in the same time it took me to pound in 1 post without first softening up the hard ground with water. I then attached 70' of chicken wire fence. Mary first hoed weedy areas in the far garden, then mowed, and finished mulching rows in that garden.


• Friday, 7/10: I finished attaching the final 100' of chicken wire fence in the far garden, then made a gate for the chicken wire far garden fence. Mary planted corn, and acorn squash. It's very late on planting, but with the longer Missouri growing season, we might see produce prior to the first frost. Katie texted me that she was offered an Alaskan carpentry job that she's accepted. Pay is $60-$70 an hour. She said it will be a major ordeal for her to go to Alaska, because she must take her temperature twice daily for 2 weeks and take COVID-19 tests prior to flying north. The job is at Nuiqsut, which is west of Prudhoe Bay. The construction job lasts until February.


• Saturday, 7/11: Since Mary planted pumpkins in the far garden, the plants grew upward, filling the 4-foot high by 2-foot wide tomato cages that we put on each of the 2 hills to protect the plants from bunnies eating them, since the cages are surrounded by chicken wire. We carefully released pumpkins from these tomato cages this morning. It was tricky, and had to be done slowly as to not damage pumpkin leaves. I put stakes in between far garden posts to hold down the bottom edges of the chicken wire. Often, 3 stakes were required for every 8 feet of chicken wire fence. With about 175 feet of fencing, many stakes were needed. Mary planted potatoes, and transplanted tomatoes, tomatillo and 2 squash plants into the far garden. We're finally done with garden planting...probably the latest we've ever finished this task. So far, 2-foot high chicken wire is successfully blocking out ravaging bunnies. We finished outside chores at 9 pm...happy, but very tired.

June 28-July 4, 2020

Weather | 6/28, 0.17" rain, 65°, 85° | 6/29, 71°, 89° | 6/30, 0.14" rain, 65°, 79° | 7/1, 0.43" rain, 67°, 80° | 7/2, 0.14" rain, 66°, 85° | 7/3, 70°, 85° | 7/4, 69°, 87° |

• Sunday, 6/28: We still were sluggish and were slow to get outside. Mary is still feeling the effects of white clover pollen. I decided that with Mary's obvious allergy to clover, I'm not going to make clover wine. Mary made 2 egg quiche pies. We ate one. She started 3 strawberry runners. She also clipped 22 sweet potato slips off tubers. They were very slow to grow this year, so we're extremely late at getting them in the ground. Mary also trimmed tree branches along our lane, to allow vehicles to drive without getting brushed. I tied the chicken wire to 5 more posts in the near garden. We're hearing fireworks erupting to the south every night. Mary discovered online that the largest fireworks store in the world is just outside of Hannibal, MO. We've been in that warehouse. If you've got the money, you can buy almost anything, as long as you're 14, or accompanied by an adult. So, I could take a 5-year-old in there and let the kid lay down a few thousand dollars to buy something that would create a deep crater. We don't care. We're the "Show Me" state.


• Monday, 6/29: It was an extremely muggy day, making nearly 90° feel much hotter. Mary mowed the far garden and mulched a part of a row in it. She has half a row left to finish mulching all of that garden. White clover pollen is still bugging her. I installed chicken wire on 9 posts in the near garden. The wind was blowing from the south, meaning that big cedars on the south of the near garden blocked it, so I could only stand about 20-30 minutes working there before I had to take a break in the air conditioned house. I really don't do well in this heat. Mary picked a bowl full of raspberries and even found 2 ripe blackberries. We read magazines in the evening and I looked up watermelon wine recipes online. Another storm went by us to the south and stalled out in Quincy, after dark, giving them more flooded streets as depicted by this WGEM report. Quincy has also seen their COVID-19 numbers double in 2 weeks, which is no surprise, considering how lackadaisical Quincy residents are about taking precautionary steps in dealing with the virus. 


• Tuesday, 6/30: Rain fell while we ate breakfast and it was mostly cloudy, so the day was cooler than past days. Damp grass meant Mary mowed, but didn't collect it for mulch, and was able to finish mowing most of the lawns. I finished installing the chicken wire on posts in the near garden and made a gate. Then, I used hemp twine to cinch up some of the wire that appeared to be sagging. Two young mourning doves were pecking at gravel just behind our cars while Mary walked dogs. They even walked over to Mary and the dogs, then walked back to peck, again. Mary took a photo of them (see below). While walking dogs at night, thin, low clouds swiftly moved NE to SW across the moon, creating an eerie scene. I shined the flashlight into the garden and caught the glint of an eye. While walking down the north side of the near garden, I heard electric fence wires clang together. I'm sure it was a rabbit, proving that the chicken wire worked. That bunny is jumping through the electric fence, but didn't make it beyond the chicken wire. Rabbit season starts Oct. 1. Bunny stew will be on the menu!

Two young mourning doves.

•  Wednesday, July 1: Thunder woke me, so I unplugged appliances. It rained all morning. I took a hatchet and made several stakes out of persimmon branch Y's, then pounded them into the ground at the bottom and the middle of 8-foot stretches of the chicken wire fence in the near garden. Depending on changing ground levels, I sometimes used up to 3 of these stakes. This makes it harder for rabbits to push the bottom of the chicken wire fence in to get to garden plants. Mary did a bunch of house cleaning and made a shopping list for tomorrow's shopping trip to Quincy. We decided that I'll shop and she'll stay home to work on the near garden.


• Thursday, July 2: Muggy and hot seems to be our daily weather and today was no exception, with more rain at late morning. I cleaned up persimmon branches and leaves left in our lane immediately outside the near garden gate from my stake-making activities yesterday, loaded them into the tractor trailer and dumped them at the dry pond east of the far garden. Then, I left in the morning and shopped at Quincy. We normally don't shop on Fridays, because factory workers who work four 10-hour days have Fridays off and fill stores on that day. With the upcoming July 4th weekend, most had today off, so today was like a Friday. The stores were packed with idiots who cannot move. In Walmart's toothpaste aisle, there might still be 2 women standing there staring at the shelves, as if they're counting dust particles collecting on the product. In Aldi, I kept waiting for this older woman with a long, white-haired mop (heck, she was probably younger than me) who couldn't make any buying decision. After going through the register, there she was standing in the middle of the out door, blocking all traffic, looking at a flyer! I got home at 7, glad to be back in peace and quiet. Mary completely weeded the near garden, taking out shoulder-high lamb's quarter and volunteer tomato and tomatillo plants. In her words, "That was a chore!"


• Friday, July 3: I woke at 5 am, couldn't get back to sleep, then woke Mary up at 5:55. I looked out the east window and there was Bill at our porch. He said he couldn't sleep, so at 2 am, he decided to drive north from St. Louis. He had been at our porch for 20 minutes. When he first stepped out of his car, he heard the hissing of his driver's side rear tire going flat. He changed his tire to the doughnut spare tire and spotted a nail driven into the tread of the flat tire. I fixed waffles and afterward, called Sam's Club to discover that if we got the tire in soon, they could fix it yet today. So, I drove Bill and his tire to Sam's Club in Quincy. Fixing a tire is free to all Sam's Club members. Nine customers were ahead of us, so we drove home. I fueled up on the way home, and filled 3 cans of gas for home use. While eating lunch, Bill got a call from Sam's Club. Unfortunately, his Verizon cell service stinks at our house, so he didn't talk with anyone, but we drove back to Quincy and got his tire. Meanwhile, Mary did more cleaning, made a cherry crisp, and then planted the sweet and hot pepper plants, sweet potato slips, and green bean seeds into the near garden. She then covered bean seeds and sweet potatoes with curtain sheers, to protect them from marauding birds. Once I was done driving, I used the saw blade on the weed whacker to trim waist-high plants in the chicken yard. Bill got some much-needed sleep. In the evening, we enjoyed smoked scrambled eggs, sweet potatoes, and pear wine. Then we watched The Hunt for Red October and had some beer that Bill brought with him. Katie texted Mary about her house plants. She can only find succulents, so Mary keyed her in on Logee's. Then, Katie picked lots of plants, then reduced her cart from $150, down to $70.


• Saturday, July 4: Mary planted carrot, parsnip, and cucumber seeds in the near garden (even though the parsnip is probably planted too late). She watered garden plants and seeds and when she was watering the onions, she saw something move. It was a baby bunny that she grabbed and hauled off to the trail between the Swim Pond and Dove Pond. On the way, she noticed that blackberries are getting close to ripening. Bill washed a couple loads of clothes...he doesn't have to pay to use our washing machine. I stayed inside while researching watermelon wine recipes and writing down a procedure for making that wine in my book. Bill helped me bottle the dandelion wine. The hydrometer gave me a 0.995 reading, so it has a 17.7% alcohol content. We corked 4 bottles and I put 7/8 of another bottle in the fridge. The wine tastes smooth with a hint of lemon and flowers. It should improve with age. I dumped some ancient half and half that was in the fridge at the dry pond and on the way back, remembered that I didn't spray myself with bug dope...sure enough, I got 2 chigger bites, one on my belly and on the top of my left foot. We built a fire and ate hot dogs, with freshly chopped up green onions, and chips, and some of IPA homebrew that Bill's friend, Mike Push, made. Then, we had the partial bottle of dandelion wine. Several neighbors fired off fireworks. Our fireworks were fireflies. We saw 2 bats zipping hunting bugs. The moon rose over the house. Bill gave me glasses on my birthday and, remembering what was etched into them, he held the glass into the moonlight and took the photo below. It was a nice, calm evening. We didn't get to bed until after 1 am.

Moonlight through a moonlight glass with dandelion wine in it.

June 21-27, 2020

Weather | 6/21, 68°, 88° | 6/22, 0.03" rain, 69°, 83° | 6/23, 0.02" rain, 56°, 77° | 6/24, 57°, 80° | 6/25, 57°, 86° | 6/26, 66°, 90° | 6/27, 0.01" rain, 67°, 85° |

• Sunday, 6/21: Mary picked a handful of raspberries, then weeded part of the near garden. She announced that 6 pumpkin seedlings sprouted. Bill called to wish me a happy Father's Day. He didn't get an extra day off, but since where he works is taking Friday off, he has 3 days off and plans to visit over the July 4th weekend. His strawberry wine's yeast is settling down. The NW corner post of the near garden was loose in the soil, so I pounded in more gravel around it and its 2 supporting posts. Then, I re-figured the electric wire locations on the corner posts, found an old piece of 3/4-inch quarter round trim, and marked the height of each wire on that length of wood as a measuring stick for all of the electric wire locations on all posts of both garden fences. Then, I changed wire locations on the rest of the corner posts of the near garden. I changed the wires holding several doughnut insulators on corner posts. We had thunderstorms form to the south, east, and north of us that never dropped rain on us. A couple of them merged together, moved into Quincy, IL, and stalled. They had immense flash flooding. Here are some photos put on Facebook of the flooding in Quincy. Katie called twice, then left a text. I called her back. On her days off, she's working doing other spare jobs. She said a friend who lives in Anchorage got a bush construction job that lasts only a month and the virus testing prior to going to the worksite was a long ordeal and a hassle. Katie said she was the designated driver for the recent Alan Jackson Drive-In concert she attended. It was a real concert, except people watched it from the back of their pickups. We took the dogs for their last walk and the lightning bugs were pulsating from all surrounding trees, making for a spellbinding, mesmerizing sight. There are literally thousands of them showing off at night.


• Monday, 6/22: I've been reviewing pickups for sale online every morning for a year. A few days ago, I found a '97 1/2 ton Chevy with a V6 that looked pretty good. I finally got a message back from the owner this morning and we scheduled to meet the owner in the Macomb, IL Walmart parking lot at 1 pm, tomorrow. Macomb is 99 miles NE of us. Hopefully, it's in decent shape. If it is, we'll drive it home. If not, we will have had a good outing. We want a pickup to haul things...don't want a junker, but we're not interested in a behemoth, monster, fuel-guzzler, that's expensive, either. I looked up the Kelley Blue Book valuation for it, in case we care to dicker pricing. Mary sewed herself a mask, so she can be out in the public for tomorrow's trip. I moved all electric wire insulators to their correct position on metal posts in the near garden according to my measuring stick and added 3 doughnut insulators on 1 corner post. More thunderstorms developed south of us and dumped rain across the Mississippi River in Illinois, today...just a few sprinkles for us. Yesterday's flooding in Quincy, IL, tore up asphalt of some streets to where old bricks under the pavement were washed out, according to news reports.


• Tuesday, 6/23, Karen's Birthday: I sent a birthday ecard to Karen and she sent a thank you ecard back, saying, "We're heading to Big Horn Mountains (WY) today, for a mini two-night camping, trail riding, fishing excursion." The trip to Macomb, IL, to buy a pickup was a fizzle. There was rust that I didn't see on the online photos, I could see through the floorboards to the pavement, the engine had a slow response when the accelerator was pushed, and something in the gearing sounded way too loud. He wanted $2700. I don't think it's worth $300. Oh well, the drive to Macomb for some burgers was nice. I pulled money out our bank this morning and then put it right back in this afternoon. We did notice almost 100% face mask usage when we walked into the Macomb Walmart. Not so in Quincy, where crumb bums live. When we got back, the dogs went bananas, then we relaxed, then did chores. Right after watering the 8 pumpkin plants that are growing, we saw 2 rabbits run from the middle of the near garden and escape through my "solid" electric fence. It just isn't working against the bunny hordes this year. My electric fence tester reads that the charge is at maximum. Mary and I reviewed it and decided to build chicken wire fences around all of the rows in the near garden and half of the rows in the far garden. It will take several rolls of chicken wire that we'll have to buy and wooden posts I'll make from small persimmon trees in the east yard. I have some work cut for me. Electric fence repairs will have to happen later, and they will be needed to keep raccoons out of corn. We got an electronic kitchen scale in today's mail that we ordered a few days ago. It looks nice. I finished Patrick O'Brian's 11th historical novel, The Reverse of the Medal, set in the early 1800s about the British Navy Captain Jack Aubrey, and his medical doctor friend, Steven Maturin. Now onto book 12!


• Wednesday, June 24: Mary mowed 2/3 of the lane, leaving the east side that has poison ivy growing in it for me, which I mowed, plus a patch of thick poison ivy growing right next to the lane at the midway point. The clover pollen that flew up while mowing gave Mary extremely red eyes, so much so that she couldn't see very well in the evening. I found an old chainsaw chain and the old bar, sharpened the chain with a file and installed it on the chainsaw. While sharpening, I noticed how the grinding wheel puts a straight cut into the teeth, whereas the file creates a curve, which is needed to carve wood chips out of the logs. I cut down several small persimmon trees at the west edge of the far garden that I'm going to use as posts for chicken wire garden fences. By using the old chain, I can cut right on the ground without messing up my new chains. Dirt severely dulls chainsaw chains. Mary mowed inside and outside of the near garden and mulched far garden rows. A good-sized prairie kingsnake came out of a mole hole right under the near garden electric fence, wrapped around the hot wire and died. That's too bad. They eat moles that tear up the garden. Mary watered the garden in the evening. There was a pileated woodpecker in the north yard. Mary calls them the Tarzans of the hardwood forest, because they're so loud. We ate one ripe blueberry, each. It was yummy, but not enough.


• Thursday, June 25: While walking dogs along our lane first thing in the morning, we saw 2 deer staring at us from the field west of Bluegill Pond. Mary mowed and mulched all day and finished mulching a row in the far garden. Her eyes were red again with what must be an allergic reaction to clover pollen, because, as she said, "This whole property is one big white clover farm." I cut 30 four-foot stakes from some of the small persimmon trees that I cut down yesterday and pounded 26 of them into the near garden at 8-foot intervals, which will get surrounded by 2-foot high chicken wire. I checked online for area stores with larger quantities of chicken wire. Menards in Quincy is my best and cheapest answer.


• Friday, June 26: We found a torn up east wall on our chicken coop when we did morning chores. Two things saved our chickens from being killed by a raccoon. The first was a mouse nest in the wall, in which the raccoon probably ate the occupant. The second was double-sided bubble insulation that it couldn't tear through, even though we saw plenty of claw marks. Just on the other side of that were our chickens on the roost. Out went our plans for installing garden fencing. It was chicken coop reconstruction time. While Mary cleaned up dead branches stored on top of several 4'x8' sheets of plywood and OSB and sawed them into kindling, I drove to the Quincy Menards store and bought 300' of 2' high chicken wire. I also picked up a few groceries at Aldi. Then, Mary and I tore down about 2/3 of the east wall of the coop. It was a mess. Mice chewed up much of the inch-thick Styrofoam insulation in the wall and built several mouse nests, complete with foam beads and chicken feathers. In the rotten wood were several small ant nests. Even large grubs were in the rotten wood. And, yours truly used enough nails (especially to attach roofing tin) to secure a large house. Eventually, we got it torn apart, then replaced it with sheets of plywood and OSB. Once, while Mary went on break to get a drink of water, she saw a young woodchuck near the steps to our house. In the evening, after baths (MUCH NEEDED), and nachos, we watched the 2019 movie, Knives Out, which is really great. 


• Saturday, 6/27: We both were tired from several days of outdoor work, so we rested today. I made waffles and we ate the yummies with strawberries and blueberries. Mary baked 4 loaves of bread and did some cross stitch. I started installing chicken wire in the near garden, tying it onto 3 posts...only 23 posts to go in this smaller garden. Mary helped me install the east roost in the coop, and I installed in the eye screw to hook a tarp strap to hold the human door open. While I was sawing off a small piece of 1/4-inch lauan plywood to use as backing behind the hinges of the roost, Mary noticed that all she could hear was a house wren singing and carpenter bees buzzing, signifying how rural and peaceful our property is.

June 14-20, 2020

Weather | 6/14, 57°, 79° | 6/15, 58°, 80° | 6/16, 56°, 79° | 6/17, 59°, 83° | 6/18, 58°, 85° | 6/19, 0.54" rain, 64°, 83° | 6/20, 0.55" rain, 64°, 84° |

• Sunday, 6/14: Mary processed the snow peas, freezing 5 bags. Together they weighed 12 ounces. She planted Tom Fox pumpkin seeds in the far garden and put tomato cages covered with chicken wire over the planted hills to keep rabbits out until I get the electric fence up and running. She also anchored a strawberry runner into a Styrofoam cup full of potting soil. Mary pulled 2 more types of garlic from the far garden. They were Georgian Crystal and Siberian. So far, all of the garlic is coming out of the ground in really good shape, with several large bulbs, unlike last year, when they were small. Before sunset, we hung these garlic in the machine shed rafters. I ran a tank of gas through the grass trimmer to clean out more grass along the far garden fence...I just have 2 more sections of fence to finish the job. I picked, pitted and froze 3 and 3/4 quarts of pie cherries. We now have 22 quarts in the freezer. In the past, we've only seen a maximum of 9 quarts, so this year is producing a bumper crop of cherries. There are still more cherries, but soon I'll have to quit to get other chores done. It's just so hard not to leave those red beauties hanging in the trees. My wife is beating me with a rolled up newspaper (not really), because she wants the garden fence done. Mary mowed the final part of the lawn that still held knee-high white clover. While mowing, she spotted some ripe black raspberries, so when she was done, we went around to our known raspberry spots. Most were not ripe, yet, but Mary picked a few. We laughed when we saw her 7 pitiful raspberries in a freezer bag (see below), and she said, "This is my bag of hope." Hopefully, we'll get more to fill the bag. We had strawberries I bought a few days back that needed using up, so I made waffles for supper...strawberries on waffles with honey...what decadence!

Mary's "Bag of Hope," or 7 black raspberries.

• Monday, 6/15: Mom sent me a text. She started back working at the Circle (MT) Senior Center on Thursday after being furloughed with pay for 3 months, due to the coronavirus. Mary made flour tortillas. She watered garden plants, picked snow peas and more raspberries. She also pulled the last 2 varieties of garlic, which were Samarkand and Shvelisi, the 2 tastiest of all the garlic we grow. They were growing in heavy clay soil, so it took Mary longer to pull them. All of our garlic is now drying in the machine shed (see photo below). There was not a single bad garlic bulb this year, probably due to a healthy amount of moisture in the spring and not too much rain prior to harvest. I finished weed whacking all of the tall grass under the electric wire in the far garden. I also finished picking pie cherries, gaining enough for a quart and a third, giving us a grand total of 24 quarts in the freezer, which will make a dozen cherry pies (YUM!). Birds decimated the cherry crop out of the upper fourth of the tree. It's OK. We got enough and the birds were well fed, too.

Our 2020 garlic crop drying in the machine shed.

• Tuesday, 6/16: I took it a little easier today. Mary mowed the far garden, putting mulch in the NE row in that garden. I racked the dandelion wine for the third time. The yeast residue was thick on the bottom of the old gallon jug, but when I pulled wine out to test its specific gravity, it was quite clear (see photo below). It had a yeasty alcoholic taste, but was very smooth. I think with aging, it will be good tasting. We had a weenie roast in celebration of finishing garlic harvest. It was a perfect night...clear, windless, and temps in the 60s. We saw several large bats flying around after sunset. We noticed several satellites flying by and we saw 2 meteorites. Coyotes started howling at one point to the south and east, when a lone coyote howled nearby. It was probably on our lane between the house and Bluegill Pond. By the time I threw 4 buckets of water on the fire, walked the dogs, and went inside, it was 11:30 pm. Fireflies lit up all of the trees, from top to bottom, making the night seem magical. There were thousands of them. You haven't seen anything until you've seen a 100-foot tall oak tree lit up naturally, like a Christmas tree. It was a very nice evening.

Dandelion wine in cylinder and gallon jug.

• Wednesday, 6/17: Mary washed dog bed blankets and towels. She watered garden plants and finished mowing inside and outside the electric fence of the far garden. She also mowed the east front yard. She said she has 1 more wheelbarrow load of mulch to finish mulching the NE row in the far garden. I drove the tractor and wagon to the gravel pile below the Swim Pond dam and got a couple partial buckets of gravel. Partridge peas and Deptford Pink flowers are blooming on the trails that are getting overgrown. After getting gravel, I drove the tractor on the entire north trail. Then I used a spud bar to pound gravel alongside the corner posts in the near garden, in an attempt to solidify them into a permanent upright position. Sagging electric fence wires are allowing rabbits to jump through the fence, into the garden, and munch on plants. The snow peas are decimated by bunnies. The SE corner post had a cutoff, rotten wooden post inside of it, making it impossible to punch gravel into the ground, so I used the spud bar to pry out about 2' of the rotten post, then removed all the plastic doughnuts holding wires on the steel corner post and pounded it into a newer location, then placed the 2 corner bracing posts, and attached the twisted cross wire bracing. Next, I installed the 13 existing wires to the post. With each wire, I'd start at one end of the fence, run the entire distance, tightening as I walked, then secure each wire at the other end of the fence. Bottom wires require me to be bent over while walking around the entire fence. I got sore after several wires. It got dark before I could finish. On the last wire, I discovered I wired the doughnuts in the wrong order on the SE corner post, making 2 wires cross one another. I went inside. It was 9:30 pm. We ate, then I went back out, fixed my mistake and finished the fence in a blizzard of tiny gnats that buzzed into all ears, up my nose, and into my mouth. I was sure glad to finish that job. Except, I'm not done. I still need to add more wires to keep older rabbits from jumping through the higher wires of the fence. They're leaping 2.5 feet off the ground. Mary texted with Bill. His strawberry wine is progressing nicely (see photo below). Mary invited him to visit during July 4th weekend. He's interested. Katie sent a photo of her associate's degree from Community College of the Air Force.

Bill's strawberry wine.

• Thursday, 6/18: Mary washed and dried clothes. She also mowed and poured mulch into the far garden rows. She picked a handful of raspberries. Birds are nailing them. I inventoried electric fence parts and what I need for adding electric wires to both gardens. Then, I added T-post and rod insulators to all of the posts around the near garden in order to add 3 new electric wires around that garden. 


• Friday, 6/19: It was a very sticky and hot day. We were tired, so we stayed inside most of the day. Mary and I watered garden plants, and then waited for a storm to develop, which it did in mid- to late-afternoon. The wind blew extremely hard, knocking down some small branches and lodged a lot of tall grass. A nice robin nest was on the ground near the weeping willow tree.


• Saturday, 6/20: It rained in the early morning hours. When we walk the dogs the last several days, we take along a shovel and bust off sprouting shoots from chicory plants in our lane. It means we have our eyes to the ground. This morning, Mary looked up about a third of the way down the lane and said, "Look at that." There stood a big bunch of pink, wild roses to the east of our lane. They've probably been there for days, but us hounds with our noses to the ground never noticed them. Mary cleaned the house today. I measured garden fence distances to determine electric fence wire to buy. Then, I drove to Quincy, IL, to pick up a Sam's Club package of dry milk that we recently ordered, pet food, and electric fence parts. I'd say an eighth of everyone was wearing a mask...that with virus infection numbers increasing in that county. I swear, people are nuts! Picked up food items at Aldi, even though several customers in there moved at glacial speeds. One woman in her 30s took 5 minutes inspecting every melon before I could get to the fruit section. I got home, stepped out to peace and quiet, and thanked the forces that be that we live where we do, away from people and traffic.