Today was another day of off and on rain, though more off than on, thankfully. The last storm did a lot of damage in areas, including at least one tornado touching down at the edge of the city. We have much to be thankful for.
While doing my rounds this morning, I was able to harvest some more scapes. The largest one yet, which you can see in the first to images in the slide show below. There will be only one more small harvest after this, unless I find some I missed. The girls and I have already talked about dehydrating whatever we won’t use fresh, and my plan to grind the dehydrated pieced into powder, and that should get started soon.
While checking the old kitchen garden, I can’t help but be amused by the dwarf peas. They are incredibly tiny – I don’t know how big they are supposed to get, but I’m sure it’s supposed to be a lot bigger than these! – and yet they are producing pods! You can see some of them in the last image of the slide show above. The plants themselves are less than 6 inches high.
I’m glad I planted other peas, and am thinking of where I can succession sow more in the next little while. The Spring Blush peas are producing pods, too, and the super sugar snap peas I sowed not long ago are growing nicely. One more succession sowing would not go amiss.
Today is Canada Day, and it was a big deal for us for a change. It has been so long since all four of us went out together! It meant clearing out the back of the cab so we could put down the rear seats in the truck. I was able to put our emergency supplies in the box, along with the cane collection and other items, and secure it all on one side, so there would be room for my husband’s walker on the other.
We went to the cottage of my husband’s brother, in a little town on the lake. Talking to my SIL about how I don’t think we’d ever been there before, and she was pretty sure we did – though it would have been about 25 years ago! As an added bonus, their adult children were able to join us, as did my husband’s sister and her significant other. It has been so long!
We had a fantastic visit. Their cottage is very close to the lake, and the girls and I had a chance to walk to the pier, finding it had a set of steps to the shoreline.
The views from above the water level were gorgeous.
The area has a lot of large rocks set in place to reduce erosion, but there are a few tiny beaches in this area of the lake.
My BIL BBQd, though he had to check on the meat with an umbrella a few times when it started to pour rain. We had a great meal and great company, with lots of catching up to do. Thankfully, my husband thought to bring his “as needed” painkillers, though, as that’s the only reason we were able to stay for about 5 hours, plus driving time of about an hour in total. My husband usually can only manage about 2 hours, including driving time.
We had made sure to feed the cats before we left. When we got home and the girls helped get my husband inside, I stayed out to do my evening rounds. The outside cats were acting really hungry, even though some of the outside kibble dishes still had food in them. I topped up the empty ones, and they were still running around, like they were expecting more.
They were waiting for the cat soup I’ve been making with the freeze dried cat food and cat milk included with the hot water.
So I made some up for them. I’ve been making more than I had been, before, and pouring it around more food dishes besides the one in the isolation shelter.
No sign of Sweetie anywhere. I feel so sad for her! I hope she finds her way back, even if she does remain feral. She must be so scared.
The inside cats were also swarming around and I figured they wanted their wet cat food, too, even though they still had plenty of kibble. I decided to make them some cat soup with the freeze dried mix, too. They keep trying to dig into the boxes to get at the bags inside, so you’d think they’d be happy with that.
Nope.
They sniff at it. I sometimes see a cat taking a few licks, and that’s it.
If the cat soup is still there in the morning, I’ll just take the trays outside. The outside cats can’t get enough of the stuff. They’ll finish it off right away!
The inside cats are so spoiled that they can be fussy like that! 😄
Anyhow.
Tomorrow, it looks like we’ve got a rain free day. We should be able to get the corded electric chain saw out to clean up that big piece of maple tree that broke in the storm, It’s going to be cut to lengths for the fire pit. Maple is an excellent wood for cooking over. We’ll also need to go around the yard with the wagon or the wheelbarrow to pick up all the smaller branches that came down with the storms and high winds, before we can mow the lawns.
I’ve also got the first market day coming up soon, so I want to prepare for that, too. I wasn’t able to find the straight legged canopy/market tent, but we do have a splay legged one, so that’s what I’ll be using. I’ve also been crocheting small things to add to my inventory from when we used to do the markets every summer, back in the day. It should be interesting to see how the market goes. If it goes well, the large animal rescue will extend the market dates into August, too.
All in all, I’d say this is the best Canada Day we’ve had in a long time, simply because the entire family was able to get out, and my husband was able to see both is brother and sister again.
Being broken sucks, but when there are good days, we sure to appreciate them more for it!
Today’s stock up shop was very strange, and quite small. Doing the Costco trip first made a big difference.
I had picked up a 40 pound bag of kibble after going to the post office, to activate my replacement debit card, so that was just over $50
Once in the city, my first stop was Canadian Tire. I looked around a bit, but only got two 40 pound bags of litter pellets. That totaled $18.88 after taxes. After that, I hit a gas station on the way to the Walmart and got $40 in fuel.
I had decided to go to Superstore after the Walmart, so there really wasn’t much to get there. I was only after one thing, specifically. I had decided it was worthwhile to get the straight sided 10’x10′ gazebo tent to use for the market days I’ll be doing in July, instead of using the splay legged tent we have now. I couldn’t find any in the nearer Walmart, which is still under renovation, but I’ve been seeing displays of these for months. I didn’t think I’d have trouble finding one in the city.
I was wrong.
Normally, I see them in aisle displays, but there was nothing. I did find the shelf section it would have been in, in the camping tent section, but there wasn’t even any empty shelves with price labels for it.
I finally found a staff member. I started off saying that I knew this was not her department, but was there someone that could help me? She asked what I was looking for and I told her.
She seemed very confused by it. She thought I was talking about one of the gazebos in the seasonal section. I told her, it’s the kind you can fold up. Still very confused. Did I want he to page someone to seasonal? This is an evergreen item, not seasonal, but I said yes. I figured someone in seasonal would have some idea.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Finally, I picked up some distilled water and sugar pills for my husband, which was right next to the seasonal section. Still no one.
So I found another staff member and, when she was no longer up a ladder, asked if there was someone in the camping section that could help me. She asked, and I told her want I was looking for.
She was confused. Not her area, but as she started walking with me, she saw someone else and called her over.
They went to the tent section I’d already gone through, looking confused. I kept describing what I was looking for, in detail. When I realized they thought I was talking about a “tent” tent, I described it as a market tent.
They both looked confused.
Once thought I had seen it online and started telling me that they don’t have everything that’s on the website, and I said no. I’ve been seeing them for months. Usually in an aisle display.
She then started saying that the aisle displays are not things they order, but what the company just sends them. She repeated that a few times and I let it slide. In the end, neither of them could remember ever seeing what I was describing and acted as though this was something they had never carried. Ever.
We’ve gone through three of these over the decades, all bought at Walmart. I have never seen them NOT carry this style of tent.
I finally gave up, thanked them, and bought my husband’s stuff. It cost a whole $33.38 in total.
Then I went to the Superstore.
This is what $190.82 looks like.
This has got to be one of my smallest “stock up” trips. ever.
This is what I got – the receipt is very hard to read!
From the top, under “grocery”, there is a small jar of whole grain dijon mustard. Then a 6 pack of facial tissues. I got a case of 24 small water bottles, as something to keep in the truck.
Next is a large jar of stuffed olives, then a cold Monster for the road home. I was excited to see they stocked Beaver Buzz again, so I got 6 cans in two flavours – Citrus and Saskatoon – for my daughters and I.
Under Dairy, Frozen and Produce are a couple of pounds of no-name salted butter, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, a 5 lb bag of carrots, a bag of yellow onions, bananas and finally a 20 pound bag of russet potatoes.
Under meats, there is a bag of chicken nuggets for a quick heat and eat, and a frozen pork roast. Under seafood is a bag of seafood mix for my daughters, and a fresh, whole steelhead trout for the girls.
Bakery is next. I got a caramel apple pie and a rhubarb strawberry pie. Those are our contributions to the Canada Day BBQ we hare having at my BIL’s cottage tomorrow. I also got two big bags of torpedo buns.
I love those torpedo buns! I got one for fresh eating and one for the freezer.
Under deli is a pack with green and red grapes along with cubed cheddar and mozzarella cheese. I was feeling pretty hungry by then, not realizing it was past 3pm by then, and I’d forgotten to eat lunch! I chose it as something that would be easy to eat while driving.
So, that was my shop today. The gas and litter pellets went under a different budget from the Walmart and Superstore purchases. All of it together totaled $202.80
Not much of a stock up trip at all, but enough to make it worth the trip to the city.
I do wish I’d gotten that tent, though! I have the splay legged one that will be fine, but market spots are usually 10’x10′ for a basic spot, and I don’t want to crowd out other people with the splay legged design.
I do hope the market works out. Not only because every little bit I can bring in is going to help pay down all those vehicle and plumbing repairs we had to put on credit card, but for the large animal rescue that is hosting it. They are not charging for spaces or anything, but the more people who come for the market, the more will be willing to pay for a tour of the rescue, and those admission fees help pay for the care of the animals a lot.
Not as bad as in other areas. Especially to the north and south of us. It was also quite brief but, for the time in where here, it hit hard.
The first sign of things was losing our internet. Thankfully, we did not lose power, though I later learned my brother did, briefly. Then I started hearing a lot of footsteps rushing around upstairs. A leak started at the window. This leak has been a problem in the winter, where an ice dam would form. It has never leaked during a rain storm. The roof is still under warranty, though, so we’ll be able to contact the company and see what they can find. That portion of the roof cannot be seen from the ground, and none of us are able bodied enough to climb up there to look.
Even I started having a leak in my bedroom window. The one that did not get replaced by a new window before we moved out there because my mother suddenly decided she was not going to pay for that one last window. This is an original window from my childhood, but I don’t know if it’s original from when this portion of the house was built in the 30’s. I know the molding around it is more modern, but when it installed.
When it started to develop problems, as did pretty much all the other windows, instead of fixing or replacing them, my parents installed panels of what is probably Lexan, not Plexiglass. This window is two parts, side by side. One side has a screen and a handle that could be turned to open the window, while the other side is just a plain double paned window, and each side has its own panel. Once the panels were installed inside, the screen side of the window could no longer be opened. In the last couple of years, I discovered that when the rain was driven from the north, a drip would start from the frame between the panel and the glass window, on the side without the screen. Last fall, I used spray seal around the entire window frame. It hadn’t leaked again until last night – and the leak was on the inside of the room, not between the window and the panel! It wasn’t much, but it was also a first.
Checking the sun room critter cam at one point during the night, I saw both a skunk and a raccoon at the kibble trays. They were both so completely soaked, I didn’t have the heart to chase them off! There were quite a few cats in their shelf at the window, sheltering from the storm, and none of them were the least bit bothered by each other.
When the storm passed by, we still had high winds all through the night, and through all of today.
When I came out to do the cat feeding this morning, I was very saddened to find this.
That is one of the sliding panels that forms both a window and a door on one side of the isolation shelter.
Sweetie is gone.
My guess is that, during the storm, the thunder and lightening scared her enough that she blaster herself into the window. The panel is flexible, and it would have bents and popped off the tracks completely.
Poor Sweetie!
There was no sign of her, anywhere, but there are many places she could hide, too. I put the panel back on, then opened the ramp door and the other sliding window a few inches while adding some kibble to the bowl. Then I made sure to mix up some cat soup and leave some in there. I’m hoping Sweetie will find things familiar, and remember that the house is where there is safety, comfort and delicious food she doesn’t have to hunt for.
Once the cats were fed, I did extended rounds, looking for storm damage – the first of which was really, really obvoius.
The first two images are of the West yard. The dead portion of a huge maple finally broke.
I was not surprised. If anything, I was surprised there wasn’t more. This tree is part of a row of three. The one in the middle is already dead and, when it broke in the winter, the piece fell on my market tent we had set up by the fire pit. Part of it embedded itself into the ground, and I wasn’t able to clear it until spring, when the ground thawed enough. The third three in this group is at least half dead, and I am fully expecting the dead parts to fall in high winds, too.
I had actually checked everything else, including around my brother’s stuff, when I came back into the inner yard through the gate by the fire pit. That’s when I noticed Colby sitting in a maple and paused to take a picture.
Which is when I realized, the tree he was on was freshly broken.
When I cam closer, I found it had come down in two large pieces. One of them landed mostly on the branch pile we have as fuel for the fire pit, and both where mostly hidden by the tall grass and weeds in that area. I simply couldn’t see them, earlier!
I checked the garden beds, of course. A branch and partially fallen on the tomato bed in the east yard. That bed has the box frame on it, which protected the bed and the branch fell mostly into the path, instead.
The Spring Blush peas have quite a few pods on them. They are underdeveloped, still, but they already have the pink blush on them.
Everything else in the garden held out fine.
I made sure to update my brother about the damage. He has all the paperwork for the roof.
By late morning, I started to head out to the city, making sure to stop at the post office, first. My husband’s forms to renew his Disability Tax Credit was ready to mail. I also picked up our mail and found my replacement debit card was in – the one they mailed a month before my old one was supposed to expire still hasn’t arrived. The card could be activated by a purchase, so I bought a 40 pound bag of kibble that I wanted to pick up, anyhow.
From there, I went into the city and did our shopping, which will be covered in another post. While I was gone, I was kept updated by the family on the continued severe wind conditions.
After I got back, the truck unloaded and parked, I stayed out a bit longer. The girls had already fed the outside cats, but I used some of the freeze dried cat food mix to make a cat soup. I put most of it in the isolation shelter, in hopes of luring Sweetie, and poured the rest into the sun room trays. The cats were very excited for the treat!
I did see a skittish tabby in the white lilacs when I came back from parking the truck, but I wasn’t sure if it was Sweetie or another tabby. Possibly Flopsy.
I so hope she is doing okay, and learned to come back to the house for food and water!
In the time since I did the damage check this morning, quite a few smaller branches came down – especially the willow – but there was no other large drops like that section of the giant maple that came down last night.
One thing I can see I am very happy about it the chicken coop. One of our concerns was that it would blow over. It did not. It was well sheltered from the wind by botht he house and the surrounding trees.
The last thing I checked was the old kitchen garden, where I found sprig.
This morning she was among the cats eating on the cat house roof. I was able to put my hand on her back and even rub her shoulders a bit! Then she ran off. Not far, though. Just to the next pile of kibbled on the roof.
Progress!
This evening, she was in what seems to be her favourite place, now that the netting here has been redone.
She really, really loves to be on or near the garden netting!
While I was gone, my older daughter got some good news. A call from a doctor. She now has a pre-op consultation with a referred doctor.
In a clinic in the city, of course. Not a close one, either. No matter! Surgeries can take years to happen here in Canada, so if this is being expedited, we are thankful!
The consultation is in the second half of July, so we have time.
After this consultation, it’s a guessing game to know when she will actually get her surgery. I don’t know what kind of waiting list this procedure has. It could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years. Canada is a place where people die on waiting lists. Thankfully, her condition is not life threatening anymore, now that she knows what is happening and can take medication for it. The surgery is the alternative to being on medication for the rest of her life!
A couple of the volunteers from the rescue dropped Sweetie off today. The isolation shelter was ready for her. She will be there for a few more days – she’s 10 days post spay, but mostly to get used to being back in a familiar place and get special food while she’s there. She was with the foster for a couple of months and was terrified the entire time. Even bit the foster again! The same foster has Frank and Sir Robin. Frank had a really hard time, too, but is now completely socialized and ready for adoption. They’re even giving discounted adoption fees for anyone taking them both. Sweetie, unfortunately, never settled at all.
When I checked on her later, she had moved to the bottom of the shelter. The next image in the slide show above was when I came out to do the evening feeding.
The rescue also brough over nine cases – NINE!! – of donated cat milk. With so much, we can give both the inside and outside cats some as a supplemental treat. When I mixed up some of the freeze dried cat food for Sweetie, plus extra for the rest of the cats, I used a cat milk as well as hot water to rehydrate the food.
It went over very well.
With the evening feeding, I did allow other cats into the shelter. Cats Sweetie would have been familiar with. I did let them out again later, as she didn’t seem ready for more just yet. We’ll have to keep checking on her, but will also keep allowing these other cats that she used to cuddle with in to visit every now and then. After a few days, I hope to be able to open up the shelter so she can come and go as she pleases. It’s been a couple of months, but she should still remember this place.
Poor thing. I so hoped she would be able to get adopted and get to enjoy the indoor life. That’s two, now, that have had to come back. I’ve heard that Blot is also having trouble adapting, too, though not to the point of attacking people.
Today, we’ve had rain off and on throughout, with a brief period where the sun actually came out. As I write this, we are under a severe thunderstorm alert, which is a whole lot better than the tornado alerts other areas were getting. Large swaths to the south and west of us got storm damage and at least one tornado touching down. We are very fortunate in our location. Even today, I could hear thunder, but all the storms went around us. Our weird climate bubble has protected us again!
I did get a chance to do my morning rounds, if a bit on the late side, in between rain. I was able to harvest more scapes.
At this rate, I’ll have enough to dehydrate a bunch, which will then be ground to a powder. I did that last year and it was the handiest thing ever!
Some time back, I had moved the seed tray of winter squash, melons and cucumber off the portable greenhouse frame and set it in the open on our front steps. I don’t know why I bothered, and yet…
The first image is of a Golden Hubbard seedling from the second sowing that finally germinated. The second image is a Canary Yellow melon.
Yes, I’ll transplant them somewhere, even though the chances they will produce fruit that reaches maturity is very low. Especially the Hubbard squash, which needs 95-110 days for maturity. The melon needs 80 days. We have maybe 70 days before our average first frost. Still, we have had years where we didn’t get frost until well into November. This year is supposed to have a Super El Nińo which, in our region, usually translates into heat waves and drought.
I actually poked around in the seed starting mix in the tray, and it looks like we will actually have more things popping up!
Yes, I will transplant anything that does. Chances of them reaching maturity may be low, but possible. I’d rather give them the chance. It certainly doesn’t hurt to try.
This afternoon, during that brief period we had sunshine, I got out the shake and feed fertilizer we picked up during our Costco trip. The instructions say to work the granules into the top couple of inches of soil, but that’s not really an option. Especially with the mulched beds. So I just scattered it. This stuff can also be applied in water. Between the rain we’ve been having and watering the garden in between, the plants will get something out of it. The granules are supposed to be a slow release over 3 months. Every little bit will be a help.
We shall see soon enough, I guess!
Meanwhile, I finally got around to editing the garden tour video I took on the last day of spring. I got one of my daughters to watch the video when I was done to check for any errors I missed or let me know if anything should be fixed or changed. When I messaged them to ask if one of them could come down, my older daughter was able to do it.
Apparently, it’s hilarious. She burst out laughing several times. Mostly because of the cats, but a few other things, as well. I wasn’t trying to be funny, which is probably why it actually was. It just finished uploading onto YouTube, so here it is now!
According to the app on my phone, we’re expecting to have rain and thunderstorms for the rest of the week. The app on my desktop shows a more moderate forecast, with today’s threat of thunderstorms already over (it’s not yet 11am as I write this) and rain off and on through to tomorrow, then no rain for the rest of the 10 day forecast. If I had to choose, I’d say my desktop weather app is more accurate than the one in my phone. I think the app in my phone is using weather stations further to the south of us.
While doing my morning rounds, I did get rained on a little bit, but just barely. That gave me time to get a few things done in the garden.
In the first image of the slide show above, you can see I finally mulched the high raised bed, around the bush beans and onions.
We don’t have a lot of bush beans. The ones I sowed in the square raised bed are coming up, so there will be more, but it’ll be a while longer before we can see how many made it. We do have pole beans, but I am still concerned we’ll have the same thing we had last year, where they only got a few inches tall and then stagnated. You can actually see them in the background of the above photo, beside the much larger turnip leaves. They are looking way too yellow.
In the trellis bed, I checked on the carrots and they are starting to germinate, so I moved the boards aside. I’m leaving them leaning against the inside of the walls to act as both a weed suppressant and a place for the frogs to shelter under. More than a few times, I’d lift the boards to check on the carrots, and as many as three frogs would come jumping out at once!
The is no sign of the Uzbek Golden carrots germinating in the other bed. I would not be surprised if none make it. They were old seeds. Carrots are one of the things I can still sow again, though, even in July, which I might do.
The last image is of one of the Spring Blush pea flowers. The peas are very sparse; they should be bushier and have more foliage, but they are pretty much just long stems. Still, they are blooming (well; the ones that didn’t get chomped by deer, at least), and they have the pretties flowers!
I also got a couple of first harvests this morning! I’ve been eyeballing the garlic for a few days now, and today I had my first harvest of scapes.
I also harvested our first Golden Boy celery. Yes, it’s on the small side for harvesting, but they are fairly crowded, and thinning by harvesting will be helpful.
As you can see through the netting under the scapes and celery, the purchased cabbage transplants are doing well. I can’t say the same for the nearby melons, though. They are definitely struggling. *sigh* While my daughter was at her blacksmithing workshop yesterday, I checked out one of the nearby garden centres. They don’t have much left at this stage. For edibles, I saw they still had lots of cabbage, pepper and tomato transplants, plus some herbs, but zero melons or winter squash left, which are the only things I’m after at this point.
Today, I had been thinking of visiting my mother. She called a couple of days ago and, right from hello, she was on me about how none of us have been visiting her. She just got out of quarantine. She was really laying it on thick, to the point I was ready to hang up on her. She just can’t seem to understand how much her behaviour drives people away from her. I told her I might be able to visit her on Sunday (today), but now I don’t know that I will be up to it. I’ll phone her, instead. Rainy and overcast weather like this always makes me feel ridiculously sleepy, and I don’t want to drive in it if I can avoid it.
Today has turned out to be a fairly hot and muggy day. Depending on which weather app I look at, we’re either supposed to be raining right now (it isn’t) through to tomorrow, and then thunderstorm warnings for the next two days. Or, we will get scattered rain today, with more rain for a few hours, now and then, for the next two days. Once again, it looks like the more severe weather systems will go around us.
Our day started early, as my younger daughter and I needed to get to her blacksmithing workshop for 8am. We left an hour early, and just made it on time, partly due to skirting road construction and areas still damaged from the flash flooding. The road to the blacksmith’s acreage had visible damage, some of which has been repair, some still waiting to be patched. There were a couple of areas I could tell had been completely under water, with standing water and flood damage in the fields on either side.
When we got there, I started getting messages from the rescue about Sweetie. She is not doing well and bit someone again. They wanted to know when she can come back to us. After going over what we’ve got going on over the next while, it was worked out that someone will bring her here on Monday (today is Saturday). They did manage to get her spayed a week ago, so we will keep her in the isolation shelter for only a few days, so she can get used to the idea that she is back in familiar territory again.
My daughter’s workshop didn’t take as long as originally expected. There weren’t as many people signed up for this date, which is their only “build your own forge and take it home” workshop of the season, and only one person added the extra of including an electric blower to take home as well. My daughter wants a manual blower. In the end, the workshop was only about 2 hours instead of 4. When it was done, we loaded the table portion into the back of the truck and strapped it down, removing the firepot portion and putting that in the cab with the air duct for the blower. Then we headed to the smaller city nearby for a quick lunch and to pick up a few small things we would run out of before we do our next stock up shop on Tuesday.
Once we got home, we made some space for the forge in the side of the garage with my brother’s big riding mower and other equipment. Now, we need to build a structure for her smithy so set it up in permanently. In between, she wants to find a blower, and then get fuel.
With rain apparently on the way, I asked her to give me a hand with some maintenance in the garden. Plus, I had one Butterneck squash seedling to transplant.
The first bed we worked on was the summer squash. It was time to remove the protective collars. The finnicky part is lifting the netting high enough, without getting tangled up, to work in the bed. The “funnels” in between the groups of summer squash remain, as they get watered through those.
In the next image in the slide show above, you can see the fennel and chicory bed we worked on. The fennel was getting too tall for the netting, so we took it off, then added one more rod and connector to each hoop. The netting had been folded in half, but with the new height, we unfolded it before setting it back. There is still slack with the new height, but not very much.
In the next image, you can see the turnip, pole bean, daikon radish and onion bed we worked on next. The turnips and onions were getting crowded, so all the hoops here got on more rod and connector, too. We also took the opportunity to do some weeding, and add some straw for a mulch.
Once thing I’m concerned about with this bed is the red noodle beans. When I tried to grow them last year, they got to about the stage this year’s beans have reached now, and then… stopped. They never really got any bigger, and I never figured out why. I’m hoping that a different bed and consistent watering and fertilizing will help them grow. Once they get to when they can start climbing, we’ll take off the net set up a trellis. For now, though, there’s just no need.
This netting had also been folded in half and needed to be unfolded to fit over the new height, then secured. A job made much easier with my daughter to help!
The next image is something I’d actually done last night – I finally added a mulch in between the cosmos, marigolds and nasturtiums. The nasturtiums are quite small. They didn’t get very big last year, either, and I know they should be larger and fuller. No sign of any self-seeded memorial asters (I’m still unhappy that the seeds I saved indoors have disappeared), so the spaces are now all mulched.
In the last image, we have progress on the chain link fence bed. My daughter helped me raise the bottom half of the netting from end to end, securing it up so that I could work under it. After that, I could manage it on my own.
In one of the empty protective collars, I transplanted the single Butterneck squash seedling. Then I mulched with straw tightly around the collars, and carefully around the sunflowers. I also made sure not to cover the furrow I’d planted the super sugar snap peas, from our own saved seed. There are seedlings appearing now!
After the straw was in place, I carefully removed the protective collars. The mulch will protect them from the elements now. Last of all, the netting was set back down and reset nice and snug.
Once that was done, and everything was cleaned up and put away, I checked on some of the other beds. The high raised bed needs a straw mulch, too, but I’ll do that later. Hopefully, tomorrow. The short season corn is getting tall enough to mulch, too, I think. I checked on the more recent sowing of carrots. No seedlings yet, but the frogs do love hanging out under the boards protecting the carrot seeds! I didn’t notice any cucumbers coming up, yet. I checked the garden beds in the east yard, too, and was happy to see my last sowing of bush beans, in the small square raised bed, have started to germinate.
I really hope things start catching up soon. Staples like carrots, peas and beans all seem to be under the weather. The winter squash and melons aren’t doing well, either, but they’re not quite staples in the same way. The garlic is doing great, and scapes have started to form. I expect to be harvesting some in the next day or two. I’m really looking forward to those! The potatoes are starting to develop flowers, with one variety developing faster than the other. We should be able to start harvesting baby potatoes soon, if we wanted to.
So that is garden progress today. Mostly just maintenance. I’m really liking the flexibility of the hoop kits. I still plan to build more covers for the raised beds, but for now, these are doing just fine. Being able to make the hoops higher as needed really helps.
The surreal thing of the day has been the time. When my daughter and I were starting for home, it felt like 2 or 3 in the afternoon, but it was just coming up on noon. When I finished in the garden and did the outside cat feeding, I was sure it was well past 5. Maybe even 6. Instead, it was just barely 3 when I got in! Meanwhile, I can see outside my window, the sky getting darker and the wind blowing the maple branches, and I feel like it’s almost bed time… and it’s not even 4:30 as I write this!
My younger daughter and I headed out at about 10am for the city. We made a stop at a gas station in the town along the highway for some drinks and some sort of snack. It was too early for their hot food, so we just got a couple of small pastries to tide us over. I was thrilled, however, to discover they now carry Beaver Buzz energy drinks! I haven’t seen these in years! I made sure to tell the staff how happy I was to see them. I got a couple of cans of Citrus – one for the road and one for home. We’ll have to go back specifically to stock up on more, in all the flavours. My daughter paid for this stuff, though, so it’s not part of today’s spending for me.
We went to the new Costco this time (I’m happy to say, Damocles behaved the whole way. No break downs), with our first stop at their gas station. I remembered to grab our 20L jerry can to fill with Premium for the lawn mowers. Premium at Costco was $1.699/L When the can was filled, we filled the truck with regular at $1.449/L Regular gas at the stations we saw along the way were $1.649 and $1.639 The can cost $35.02 for a tiny bit over 20L, and filling the truck cost $73.20, so we spent $108.22 before we even walked in the doors.
Before we started shopping, we had brunch so we wouldn’t be shopping while hungry. I got the Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich and my daughter had the chicken strips and fries. Those, plus drinks, were another $20.12
Then it was time to grab a flat cart do the shopping. This is what $789.74 looks like.
Some of this, my older daughter sent funds for, and my younger daughter will be covering a couple of impromptu purchases later.
That’s still a pretty empty flat cart.
At least we got more meat this time.
This is what we managed to get today.
We try to make a point of putting the refrigerator and freezer stuff on the belt first, but the staff scanned a lot of stuff right on the cart that normally wouldn’t be, so that was nice.
Starting from the top, we have two panini packs for sandwiches, mild Italian loose sausage meat, tilapia filets for the girls, pork belly, pork blade and pork loin. There’s a three pack of oat milk for the girls and two nigiri platters that my older daughter covered, then a case of frozen perogies and frozen Pizza Pops.
On the cart, they scanned a shaker of slow release fertilizer that my daughter said she would cover for me, a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I, a large jar of mayo, a shaker of Parmesan cheese, a 6 pack of canned chicken and a case of Monster energy drinks for my daughters and I, which my older daughter helped cover the cost of as well.
Then there’s a large jar of peanut butter, a large container of peppercorns, some AAA batteries, and a case of XL puppy pads. There’s a container of ice tea mix that was on sale. I also picked up some higher quality olive oil, as we will be making chive blossom oil again soon. The chive blossoms are getting into their peak right now.
The cat bed is an unplanned purchase that my younger daughter will also be covering. It’s a combination of a tunnel that runs in a circle around a bed in the centre, and the outside wall is a scratch pad. I have it set up on the cat bed side of my bed right now. A few cats have explored it already. Hopefully, none of the bigger cats will try getting into the bed from the outside, rather than from the openings, because it will definitely get crushed! 😄
There are two ll.6kg bags of kibble, one for the inside cats and one for the outside cats. We did not get more wet cat food because of the generous donations we got.
Next on the list are two 2 packs of rye bread, a case of ramen noodles, two 2 packs of tortilla wraps and a bag of flour.
Back to what went onto the belt, there’s a 2 pack of lemon juice, a block of Old Cheddar cheese and another of Mozzarella. We got a container of popcorn, a 9 pack of variety noodles, and two rotisserie chickens.
What we didn’t get were things like eggs, butter and the cream cheese I was looking for but never found. We can get those elsewhere. We still have another stock up shop to do when the main disability pay comes in on the last business day of the month, but my daughter has her blacksmithing workshop tomorrow, and that’s just a short drive to a Walmart, so we might pick up a few things earlier.
By the time we were done, my lower back was giving out and I was really needing to use that cart as a walker. We were both more than happy to be heading home. I did remember to stop at the post office on the way, though, to pick up this.
I have it pre-charging as I write this. I’ll need to figure out how to get it set up and how to use the remote. The last thing I want is for it to go off while I’m working in the garden. It has the hardware to install it against a building or post, but I’ll be using the ground stake. I’ll set it up beside the pea trellis to test it out, since that’s where deer have already been going in and munching.
So… there we have it. $789.74 If I take off the cat supplies and batteries, $584.17 of that was human food and drinks, before any taxes or enviro fees.
The stock up shop, plus gas and lunch, totaled $918.08
It took a while, but it looks like we’re going to be having hot days consistently for the next while, with warmer nights than the cold that has been setting back the garden.
I was able to spend most of the day working outside. Even with the heat, it felt good!
I started off by finishing the weed trimming around the cat shelters and the south and west yards.
The down side is that the weed trimmer is loud enough I didn’t hear the message my husband sent me, letting me know the prescription delivery was almost here. Before putting the weed trimmer away, I stopped to clear around the step to the electricity meter. When that was done, I was hearing some strange metallic noises and could not figure out where they were coming from.
It was the delivery driver, squeezing through the gate with my husband’s prescription!
I met up with him and I let him know, the gate isn’t actually locked. It’s just a carabiner. We chatted for a bit – he lost some of his tomatoes to all the rain we’ve been having – while I opened the gate for him so he could see how it works. I explained that we’re making sure it stays closed right now, in case the renter’s cows get through the electric fence, so they don’t end up on the road.
After putting away the weed trimmer, I popped in to give my husband his meds, hydrate, then break out the riding mower. The south-west and west yards haven’t been done recently; my SIL did the south-east, east and north yards on the weekend.
One thing about the south west yard is, the grass is very dense there. The other thing is, it has not been infested with creeping Charlie. Which means the grass clippings were thick enough that they could actually smother the grass below, and that I can use these clippings as mulch.
When I was done with the mowing, I headed in for lunch. By the time I came out again, the heat and sun had already dried almost all the clippings! I was able to rake up and cram all of it into the wagon.
I had a single Arikara squash the germinated, and it was getting too big for the tray’s cells. I had a place prepared for it in the square raised bed, so I transplanted it there, gave the whole bed a good watering (no sign of the beans, yet), mulched it would grass clippings then, after I got the second photo in the slide show above, watered it again partly to moisten the grass a bit.
That done, I moved to the next bed.
This is the bed that we resown with spinach, chard, Hedou tiny bok choy from saved seed, and the last of our Uzbek Golden carrots. This bed already had strips of card board in between the sown rows, plus a strip over the carrot seeds to help keep them cool and damp until they germinate. If they germinate. There are old seeds.
I was very impressed when I got the cover off the bed.
There were SO MANY little bok choy seedlings! I think I even saw some spinach and chard trying to break ground. No sign of carrot seedlings yet, though. Too soon to expect to see any of those.
I very carefully laid the grass clipping mulch on top of the cardboard. Then everything got a watering before I put the cover back on, which is what you see in the second image..
Then it was time to move to the next bed, with the purple savoy cabbage. This one needed some extra work.
I’d pulled as many of the self seeded radishes as I could, finding more cabbage seedlings than I expected. There was still a lot of empty space, though. I used my little hand cultivator to clean up the gaps and weed, then thinned by transplanting some of the larger and stronger cabbage seedlings. The first image above is after the clean up and transplanting. I left some of the groups of seedlings, in hopes they will grow stronger and can handle transplanting,
That got a grass clipping mulch, too, doing my best not to bury the cabbages! Once mulched and watered, the cover was returned.
There was just a bit of the grass clippings left after this, so that got tossed onto the compost ring.
This all took a fairly long time so, when it was done, I headed back in for supper before getting back to it, this time to do the watering with the fertilize applicator. With our Dark Grey Zone soil, all this rain would have washed away quite a lot of the nutrients.
All together, these jobs took up most of the day, and the old bod is really feeling is right now. Just waiting on the pain killer to kick in!
I’m glad I got it all done, though. I’ll be out with our first stock up shopping trip in the city tomorrow, and then there’s my daughter’s workshop on Saturday, so I won’t be getting much done at home! I do need to visit her soon, though. She is no longer in quarantine. It will have to wait. With all the driving around I’ll need to be doing, I won’t be getting much else done over the next while.
I still have to edit the garden tour video I took. I’m just too tired to work on it today, though. I’m actually having a hard time writing right now, deleting partial sentences because I forgot what I was writing and I’m falling asleep at the keyboard.
You can click through for a short video I managed to take while doing the evening feeding. Being in the isolation shelter means cat soup treat. Curtis had spent the night in the shelter, came out after the morning feeding, then right back in again later. Then Havarti scrambled his way up to the window. Domino is back with her cuddle buddies, and that helps. She definitely still wants to go out the windows when I do the food and water, but when she can’t get through, she is willing to accept the pets. I know that, once she is out of isolation, I’ll probably never be able to touch her again, but in all the time she was with the foster, she hid and never accepted pets like this.
I sent the video to the rescue chat group we have and they were so happy to see her accepting pets.
They also told me, it looks like Sweetie might be coming back, too. She has not settled in at all. They can pet her, but she is constantly anxious. They sent some photos and video. In the video, she is being petted but not responding at all, other than moving her head, watching with giant, terrified eyes. Poor thing! They are going to try and give her more time, but if she can’t accept the indoor life, she will be coming back here.
After feeding the outside cats, I did my evening rounds, and finally had a chance to go into the fenced off area where the tulip patch is, and the saffron crocuses. For all the mulch I added, the weeds have taken over, and I couldn’t even see the saffron crocuses anymore. I pulled handfuls of weeds until I got close to where I knew they were, then had to be extremely careful. After pulling up the tallest stuff, I had the creeping bellflower leaves covering everything. With those, I basically had to grab a single leaf, carefully follow it down to the ground, then pull it out. Pulling from higher on the stem usually resulted in it breaking.
I couldn’t get everything, but the crocuses are no longer buried. Those are the thin, grass-like leaves in the above photo.
I also cleared enough to access the crocuses and a couple of nearby tulips, but that was all I was able to do, today. I’ll have to go in again and clear around the tulips. That is going to take a while!
My older daughter came out while I was putting the “gate” back and showed her some of the progress in the garden. Then we gathered some fresh herbs for the fish she was about to cook for her sister and herself ( my husband and I don’t like most fish) for supper before I continued with my rounds – pausing to check out the pink rose bush.
The white rose bushes are almost done blooming, and the mock orange is looking like it’s about to explode into flowers any day now. Some buds at the bottom are already starting to show white petals.
I was heading towards the barn to take a peek inside, walking past a couple of my brother’s trucks, when I heard a noise coming from one of them. As I went to check one of them, I heard the noise again, coming from behind me. This truck has a home made plywood cap on it that extends over the cab of the truck. For a moment, I feared a cat had somehow got locked inside, though I didn’t think my brother had opened the doors while they were here least weekend.
I opened the door and found this, looking back at me.
I would say this is one of the four that had been in the garden shed until my taking things out finally scared them off. The other three and the mama are probably under or in a shed somewhere. I looked around to try and see how it got in and realized the entire wall of the cap by the rear windshield wasn’t there. 😄 There are just small panels on either side, but there is more than enough space for critters to get in.
So no trapped critters. Just curious ones! I was actually happy to see it. I miss them being in the garden shed!
Now to how this morning went.
My daughter and I headed out 2 hours before her appointment, which should have gotten us there almost half and hour early. We did stop briefly at a gas station in the one town along the highway to pick up some drinks for the road and to get the maps app up. If we get it going from home, the app links to our wifi, then basically doesn’t like to switch to data once we’re on the highway, and the app doesn’t work right. I didn’t actually need it until we were well into the city, but it was ready for my daughter to be my Nav O once we got closer.
Along the way, there was a section that we needed to slow down at – the section of highway that got washed out during the storms not long ago. With all the rain we had yesterday, the gravel patch job was a real mess. I noted that they did install double culverts where the highway washed out, so this shouldn’t happen again, once they finished fixing and paving it.
We had to make one more stop at another gas station shortly after reaching the city, but neither stop took particularly long. It was the traffic and road conditions that set us back. Then, once we found the place (the streets being every bit as broken up as I expected) we found the parking lot I’d seen on the satellite map.
The entrance was through a back lane and partially blocked by a truck unloading cargo.
With all the one way streets, it too a bit for me to be able to drive around and back track. I did manage to get past the truck. From the signs, we saw they did have visitor parking for the clinic – a whole three spots. One of them was occupied. Another was “small car only”, and meant it. The third required me driving to the other end of the lot to turn around and drive back the other way so I could pull in, because there wasn’t room enough for me to drive right in, then straighten out, without hitting a parked car – and my truck isn’t particularly big!
As we walked around the building to the doors, the first red flags appeared. This is NOT a safe neighbourhood. We were maybe 10 minutes to my daughters appointment time at 10am, and there were already several people listing about. This is the sort of area that I wouldn’t want to be walking around in broad daylight without something I could use to defend myself.
No surprise, the entry doors were locked. No signs. I finally saw what looked like a possible intercom with a keypad and pushed a button I hoped was to someone inside.
No one answered, but a Purolator guy came through and let us in the first doors, and a staff member saw us and opened up the second set of doors.
They had a sign in sheet for the visitor parking that I filled out so we wouldn’t get towed, then my daughter checked in. Being a first visit, she was given a clip board with a form to fill out, and we sat in the first waiting room. When she handed that in, we moved to a second waiting room. My daughter was called in soon after.
Given what happened the last time she saw a specialist in the city, I offered to go in with her, as a sort of body guard. She said she would be okay. I will say now, from the start, that she was very happy with this appointment. It was an intake appointment, and she came out with a date for a follow up appointment near the end of next month.
Her appointment went quite long, so I had a lot of time to sit there and look around.
This place is a “community health centre”. Being downtown and in a sketchy area, there are some things I would expect that is different from other clinics. Still… there were significant difference that I could see.
All clinics have a few larger posters on the walls, giving health information about specific things. Or with information for people in abuse situations, telling where they can reach or for help. These are clean looking and informative as much as the space allows for.
This place was splattered with small posters all over the place, and they sent out more red flags. A poster about fentanyl, for example, wasn’t giving information on the dangers of fentanyl, but was about the “myths”, suggesting that using it was not all that dangerous. Another poster, instead of, say, giving information on how to get help for sexual exploitation, or cautioning about the dangers of promiscuous sex (plenty of other signs showed they have out free STD treatment kits) instead directed the reader to an app on… how to engage in promiscuous sex “safely”. Other posters basically pandered to all the current identities and ideologies currently trending, written like they were aimed at people with the cognitive development of kids in elementary school. None of them were about how to get healthy or avoid health problems. They were all basically enabling self destructive behaviour. The focus on race in some of them was both creepy and paternalistic.
Aside from all that, the longer I sat there…. Well. Let me put it this way. In my years, I have been stalked, threatened, harassed and physically attacked by a drunk person who wanted to kill me. I’ve walked through downtown city streets in the wee hours of the morning, when the bars were closing down and the drunks were staggering about. I lived in high crime areas. Then there was the situation with our vandal. Not once, in all these years, did I fell as unsafe as I did in the waiting room of this clinic. Everything around me triggered red flags. Even the times I got smiles from the staff felt… wrong.
Part of safety issue was how the staff had to use security key cards to go in and out several doors. Clearly, it wasn’t just the people outside the clinic that was a security threat. From one of these doors I saw two women come out, talking loud enough for everyone in the waiting room to hear. The older (white) staff member was quite angry as she demanded to know how the younger one knew that there was a laptop. The younger (not white) woman said she’d seen the older woman use it for a presentation. As they walked down the hall, I could see the anger in the older woman as she was first silent about being seen using it, then declared that there were two laptops, but only certain people were allowed to use them. This younger woman was clearly not one of them. The conversation, such as it was, continued as they went down the hall.
Shortly after, the older woman came back down the hall alone. I made eye contact with her and she gave me a friendly smile, totally at odds with how she behaved towards the other woman.
I had found news articles about an investigation and report about this place, released last summer. Among the things they looked into were problems of racism and a “toxic work environment”.
I just saw an example of that. Clearly, firing three board members didn’t fix anything.
By the time my daughter was done – looking quite happy – I was feeling my skin starting to crawl from the skeevy creepiness of the place.
We didn’t talk about it right away. Just getting out of the parking lot and avoiding people staggering in front of the truck, was an issue and I had to focus on driving. It was around 11 by then, and neither of us had had breakfast, other than sharing a bag of beef jerky from the truck snack stash during the drive in. My daughter wanted to buy us breakfast and I remembered that our route took us past a mall that was convenient to get into. So that’s where we ended up going. We found the food court and the first thing I spotted was a bento place I knew was good, even though I’d never been to this location specifically, before. On seeing the menu, we both ended up ordering the exact same thing. A salmon bento – normally, I would have gotten chicken, but it was tempura salmon – and a taro bubble tea.
It was amazingly good. That is one thing I do miss about living in the city. Having access to such a variety of fast meal choices from all over the world.
While there, I mentioned to my daughter about how I felt while at this clinic, that it wasn’t safe, and that I never wanted to go back there again. She was really surprised, because she’d had such a good appointment. I tried to describe what I was seeing with the posters, which she hadn’t had time to look at herself, and she just sort of … made justifications for them. She didn’t see what I saw and, chances are, she’s not going to get what the problem with them was.
This is going to be an issue.
Her next appointment is going to be more on the medical side rather than the intake side, and seeing what surgeons she needs to be referred to. Hopefully, she’ll be referred to actual good ones.
As for the drive, I was very happy to be getting out of the city – and that Damocles didn’t drop the sword again. The truck behaved. I needed to get gas, but the prices in the city were $1.649/L instead of the $1.599 we saw when we’d stopped at a station in the town along the highway. I had decided we would be getting gas along the way, but there was one last gas station, just outside the city, that was at $1.579, so we stopped there. I am planning to do a Costco run on Friday and will be filling the tank there, so I just needed to top up a bit. I’m glad I did, because when we drove through the town again, the gas prices there had gone up to $1.649 while we were gone!
Once at home, I was curious and looked up reviews for this clinic.
I wish we’d done this before.
Yes, there were some glowing 5 star reviews with comments like “best place ever!” But there were just as many 1 star reviews – and virtually nothing in between. These gave more information. At least one other person commented on how unsafe it felt in the clinic – especially for women – while others commented on the unsafe neighbourhood. People who had been going there for years commented that things had gone down hill so badly, they would not be going back. Some would say the doctors were great, but the nurses were horrible. Others would say the complete opposite. A lot of people talked about not getting the care they need, including being turned away from the walk in clinic, being denied mental health help (counseling and therapy are among the services provided), being pushed to go “trans” instead of getting help with their mental health, and some talking about wanting to take their own lives after going there. Plenty finished their comments with “don’t go. Just, don’t.”
Yes, I tried to bring it up with my daughter.
It just got her back up.
This is going to be a problem. I truly do not think she is going to get the care she needs there. I’m reminded of when my husband tried to be the “good patient” for so long, while his real problems not being addressed, and by the time that was looked at, it was too late and he was permanently disabled.
So… I don’t quite know how to deal with this right now. I just know, down to my bones, that this place is not good.
*sigh*
Anyhow. That’s where we’re at right now.
Tomorrow, I’ve got a day at home, and then we’ll be doing the usual end of month running around, plus my daughter has her blacksmithing workshop. When I have the chance to work around the yard, I have a new thing to focus on. My brother and SIL will be having a large bin delivered about half way through July, and it will be picked up again after 10 days. This will be for hauling away the non-scrap metal junk. My brother will take the metal to a scrap yard himself – he has the trailer and equipment needed to do it – for cash.
They’ll have it dropped off near our current junk pile, which actually has quite a bit of metal stuff in it, so anything we want to have hauled away can be brought over to that spot.
I’ll finally be able to clear stuff away from around the garden shed. I hadn’t wanted to do it yet, because there is so much in the junk pile already. Anything we add to the pile now will be hauled away by the end of July. Judging from the size of the bin they’re having dropped off, my brother has identified a lot of stuff in the outer yard that needs to go!
What a difference it’s going to be, with my brother and SIL able to come out so often now, and with the resources, tools and equipment they have. Night and day, really!! There was only so much we could do on our own and, with all the health issues showing up, it’s getting harder just to maintain what we managed to get done in our early years here. I’ve been feeling like we haven’t been able to hold up our end of the bargain for living here anymore.
Well, it’s certainly going to be a very different summer, this year!
The Re-Farmer 