Month: August 2018

A visible difference

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While walking around the maple grove with my daughter (and finding mushrooms growing on trees!  Will post those later…), I found myself looking at the lonely little Colorado Blue Spruce near the main garden.

Here is how things looked about a month and a half ago.

This first picture was taken at the very end of June.

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On the left, you can see three sad looking trees, grouped together.

This next photo was taken on July 2.

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I cut away two of the three trees, and pruned the dead branches on the remaining one, hoping it would survive, and maybe even thrive.

Well, this is how it looks now.

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As you can see, the new growth filled in vigorously!

It’s even looking blue. :-D

Here’s a closer look at one of the branches.

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Here, you can really see the older, greener, needles contrasted with the new, bluer, growth.

It is already becoming a happy little tree, instead of a sad little tree. :-D

This is exactly what I was hoping to see – and faster than I expected!

This is a tree with the potential to grow 65 ft tall, with a width from 10-20 ft, though I have read they can reach 135ft high and 30 ft wide. They can grow anywhere from 12 – 24 inches in a single growing season.  This is a tree that needs space!  It’s unfortunate that the three of them had been planted so close together.  There are others that I hope I can clear up around and salvage.  This one, at least, might actually make it!

This makes me happy. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up; west fence line, moving north

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It’s been a much cooler day today, so I took advantage of it and continued working along our west fence line.

In all, the before and after photos below represent about 2 1/2 hours work.  This includes pausing to take some video, and also pausing to drag away the branches and tree trunks I took down.

What a job!

Let’s start at that group of three maples, where I left off last time. Continue reading →

It’s a bit hot out there…

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2018-08-12.heatwave

And getting hotter.

For those in the US, 34C = 93.2F
43C = 109.4F

By 4pm, we are expected to hit 36C, or 96.8F, but it’s supposed to feel like 44C, or 111.2F

I hope we do get that storm tonight, even though it’s still supposed to be 32/40C (89/104F).

Thankfully, even though we don’t have air conditioning, we’ve been able to keep the house fairly cool.  Closing the windows before it starts heating up (except the kitchen window, because of the frog), and having the basement door open, makes a difference!

The Re-Farmer

Plums and kittens and more…

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Yesterday evening, while walking around the yard, I was followed by a little beast!

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I was even able to pick him up and pet him for a bit.  I dragged the end of a stick on the ground that he and his mother had a blast trying to catch, and I caught him (her?  still don’t know).  He was tense about it, but not freaking out, which is progress!

I found that the plums are now ripe.

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These tiny little plums are almost all pit.  If I were to do something with them, I would be harvesting them now.

I might just leave them for the birds this year.

I can think of a number of things to do with them, Continue reading →

Chokecherry Vinegar Drink

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I finally got some photos of a drink mixed using the chokecherry vinegar I made not long ago.

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I have been using it for other things already.  One of the things I like to do is put some frozen mixed berries in container to thaw out over night and enjoy them with breakfast.  Usually, I sprinkle a bit of vanilla sugar over them while they are still frozen.  I tried it with a drizzle of chokecherry vinegar, and it worked out very well!  It made plain, ordinary toaster waffles really something!

I’ve drizzled some over fresh cantaloupe, which was also really nice.  It would work just as well over any melon or fruit salad.  The vinegar adds just the right tang.

For a drink, we spooned some over some ice (about 3-4 tablespoons for a large glass), then added ginger ale.20180811.chokecherry.vinegar.gingerale

Give it a bit of a stir, and that’s it!

Very refreshing.

I don’t actually enjoy ginger ale as a drink on its own, but I do like it as a mix.  Half and half with orange juice or cranberry juice, with frozen berries instead of ice, is a favorite of mine.  This chokecherry vinegar would be right at home in any drink like that!

Perfect for a 34C day!

Original recipe here.

The Re-Farmer

A photogenic morning

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The beach was quite lovely this morning. :-)

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Someone’s sand castle looks like part of its wall has already been claimed by the waves.

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I played around with the settings on my phone’s camera and was happy to get more true-to-life photos.

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The closer to the marina, the rockier the beach.  I find the beach much more interesting, the rockier it gets.

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These boulders are right at the wharf.  It’s not unusual to see someone sitting on them, reading a book or something, and just enjoying this quiet little spot.

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There is a little cove on the other side of the marina.  The lake shore here is lined with boulders to protect from erosion.  The entry/exit through the breakwater into the marina is near here, and the yacht club is nearby as well.

A beautiful day for a sail.

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Near the frog fountain are a couple of mountain-ash trees, aka rowan.  They are gorgeous trees.  We had a couple, around where our plum trees are, when I was a kid, but I have no idea what happened to them.  These trees are of similar size.  When we first moved to the city we were in for the past 14 years, one of the things that amazed me was how many mountain-ash trees there were, and how HUGE they were, compared to here.  When we first moved into the housing co-op, we were in a townhouse on the second and third floors at the end of the row, and there was a mountain-ash right outside the third floor bedroom windows.  Every spring, it would fill with waxwings, eating the remaining berries.  Gorgeous birds, though it didn’t take long for their incessant fee-fee-fee! noise, that would start at about 3 a.m. and continue for hours, to get very annoying. :-D

While in the area, I saw some gazebo tents set up and remembered that it was Saturday – Farmer’s Market day.  This was the first time I was able to take it in, since our move.  It was still early, to I walked for a while before coming back to the market and seeing what was there.  I even had a bit of cash on hand, for a change.  I normally never have cash and use my debit card for everything, but I had decided to take some money out this morning, just in case.

Then I found my cousin’s honey booth.

I no longer have any cash on hand, but I now have a big bucket of creamed honey!

That should last us through the winter. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Red Sun

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It was smokier today than yesterday.  Oddly, when I tried to go online and find local smoke advisories, I kept getting hits from 2014 and 2015, but nothing recent!  Strange.

From what I’ve been able to figure out, the smoke seems to be coming from the fires in California and BC right now.

When I headed back from locking the driveway gate, I found myself looking at the most amazing red orb in the sky.  The smoke had dimmed the sun enough that I could look right at it – it wasn’t even as bright as a full moon!

I tried to get some photos to capture the colour.  This first photo shows how much daylight there still was as I took the photo.

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I then played around with the white balance and ISO (who would have thought a phone camera would allow that, when they first came out? *L*) and got the sun to match the red I was actually seeing.  So imagine the daylight in the above photo, but with the sun as red as this…

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I expect we will have red suns like this every evening for some time, from what I’m reading about the fires out west. :-(

My reason for going out to lock the gate was at least a good one; it was after my electrician friend came over, with his daughter, with the new motor for our bathroom fan.  We now have a working bathroom fan again!  And didn’t have to pay to install a new one and cut things up to fit it.  The new fan will wait for when we install a second bathroom.

When they first got here and I went outside to great them, we heard the sound of kittens.  When his daughter commented, I told her about the two litters, and how we hadn’t yet been able to really touch them.

As I was at the bathroom door, talking to her dad, suddenly there she was – with the tuxedo in her arms!  She had meowed at it and it came over, then went for her toes.  She was able to pick it up!  It was obviously not too happy, but was also not freaking out and clawing, either.

My younger daughter ended up taking it out, along with a can of wet cat food, as a mollifying treat. :-D

Any day that involves cuddling kittens is a good day! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Smoke on the water

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My daughter had a slightly later shift today, so the sun was well up by the time I got to the beach.

During the drive in, we could see the haze of smoke, everywhere.  The lake was no exception.

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Normally, I’d be able to see at least a bit of the other side of the lake from here.  Especially when the water is so calm.

(I believe there is an advisory against going into the water right now.  The birds are pretty, but their fecal matter can result in E. coli problems.)

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The camera on my phone automatically “clears up” images taken in fog or haze.  The trees in the distance were not actually as visible in real life as in the photo!

While walking along the beach, a splash of colour caught my attention.

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Someone left a bit of cheer for others to enjoy. :-)

I hung around town long enough for the post office to open, and for the postmaster to put out the mail, so I wandered over to the marina and sat by a fountain (and added a Pokemon into the gym that is there, which was controlled by my team at the time. :-D ).

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It still feels weird to see the bright green frogs.  They used to be just the brass, which developed a natural patina.

I still like them.  Because they’re frogs. :-D

I headed home shortly after this and was able to stop at the post office.  Sadly, my husband’s CPAP has not come in yet.  The company could only guarantee speed of delivery within the US.  Once in Canada, they have no control over how quickly something gets delivered.  Usually, packages get processed quickly.  Much faster than envelopes, anyhow.

Usually.

The Re-Farmer

 

 

Evening antics

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Yesterday evening, I went out to rake out the leaves and twigs where I had cleared away earlier.  There are too many twigs and pieces of wood to use to layer onto the garden by the house, so I got the fire pit going.

I also discovered the Butterscotch has moved her babies to the log shed by the fire pit.

I was watched, but none came near!

Later on, I did a walk around the yard and noticed the setting sun was an incredible red colour.  I wasn’t able to capture it adequately in this photo.

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Imagine the deepest red you can see was the entire ball of the sun.

The redness was because of the smoke of fires burning.  There are none burning near us.  The smoke may well be from another province!

That pile of wood in the foreground is part of what I’d cleared away earlier.

As I headed back into the yard, I discovered one of Butterscotch’s kittens in the area I had raked, dancing around.

I don’t think it ever did catch the moth. :-D

I raked up 3 wheelbarrows full out of that area.  I’m going to have to clear the ashes out of the fire pit again!

The Re-Farmer