Month: September 2018

Bonus kitty and… not a kitty

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I try to do a walk around the yard every evening, while there’s still light enough to see, and just check on things.  The inside cats tend to different windows as I do.  The mama cat likes to sit in windows and meow at me, while DahBoy likes to sit quietly and just look at the other cats.

Last night, I got to see this. :-D

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Doom Guy, checking out DahBoy.  He hung out there and played at the bottom of the door for a while, but wouldn’t let me do much more than touch him, while I was sitting on the concrete and he went under my legs.

Tonight, I was away for much of the day, meeting with my older brother and his wife in the town where my mom is in the hospital, driving to the airport to see our relative off as he returns to Poland, then going to see my mom at the hospital.  She was asleep, so we let her be.  She is healing well and, if they can get home care worked out, we expect her to be going home on Monday.

So it was pretty late before I got home.  After supper, I took a walk around the yard again.  Butterscotch came out and started following me, trying to rub against my legs as I walked, so of course she got kicked in the head a couple of times.  :-/

It looks like the kittens have been sheltering in where the old wood pile used to be, and where Butterscotch took her kittens for a while.  As I came around the house, I could see some kittens by the old dog house there.  Doom Guy, the tuxedo, was barely visible in the half light.  Much to my delight, he came right up to me, and not only accepted pets, but seemed to want to be picked up.  So I did, and he started to purr and enjoy being petted.  He was even okay with me continuing to walk with him in my arms!

I was so thrilled!

Eventually, I let him down near the food bowls, then sat in the chair by the sun room.  The other kittens had come out and were running around, climbing the arm rail by my mother’s white rose bush, and generally being very entertaining.  I took lots of photos, but the light was just too low for any of them to turn out.  I hoped some of the other cats would maybe come by, so I just stayed in the chair with my phone handy.  Only the tuxedo would come up to me, but not for pets.  He tried to climb up my leg a couple of times, and another, jumped up can clawed my butt through the back of the chair!  I’m glad he’s more comfortable around me, but I didn’t expect it to be so painful! :-D

Then I heard a noise and looked over to see…

… that’s…

… not a cat.

Nope.  It was a skunk, ambling towards me as if I wasn’t even there!

Doom Guy started hissing at it, and the skunk stopped and lifted its tail.  There I sat, trying to take pictures (they didn’t really turn out), thinking, “I’m about to get sprayed…” over and over!

The skunk, of course, won the battle of wills, the kittens all ran off, and the skunk continued to amble over to the food bowls.

As soon as it started eating, it was a confirmation for me.  Many a night, I’d hear a strange crunching sound outside my office window.  It was not the same noise the cats make when they eat, but any time I looked, I could see nothing.  I thought it might be a skunk, and now I know for sure.

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It’s so cute!

Which means that those shallow holes I’m finding in the yard, that I thought might be a skunk digging for grubs, were probably made by this little guy.

I’ve read that skunks can be very friendly, make good pets, and are very cat like.  We’re not about to make a pet out of this one, but I certainly don’t mind it being around.

As long as the cats don’t bother it and cause it to spray! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Pretty, but …

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With autumn making itself felt for a little while now, the changes in the leafs is sometimes showing us things we couldn’t see when all was green.

Like this beautiful splash of red.

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This spruce tree is probably 50-60 feet high, and entangled in the beautiful, horrible, invasive vine I’ve been digging up and tearing out all over the place.  It looks so gorgeous, but from some of the trees I’ve found, is probably killing the spruce it is climbing.  Whether or not it is why this spruce has branches only on the south and east sides of the trunk, I can’t say.

We’ve lost a lot of spruces in the spruce grove already.  When I get to clearing in there next year, I will hopefully be able to cut the vine at its base – no chance of being able to get it off the tree without special equipment, but I’ll pull down as much as I can.  Who knows.  It might end up like the dead spruces on the north side of the house, and come right off as one giant triffid.

Once things are cleared and cleaned more in there, I will likely transplant new spruces into the spruce grove.  Like the two my mom planted right against the chain link fence around the inner yard! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Not moving for anything…

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While coming out of the house through the sun room, I startled a whole bunch of kittens that were at the food bowls.

All but two ran off, and I just had to laugh at what I saw.

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Corvo was lying IN the food bowl, looking at me, before going back to eating.  Then he cousin joined him.

Too funny!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, more progress, part two

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After working my way through the first section, I realized the stuff I’d cleared away had hidden quite a bit.  So here are some before photos of the next section. (click on them to see them better)

The little spruces were far enough from the fence that I found myself wondering, should I take them out, or should I just prune them clear of the fence?  When I’m in that situation, I try to think ahead 10, 20 or more years.  What will they be like if I leave them?

This was made easy today, by looking at the large spruce that’s already there, even closer to the fence.

What tree, you might be asking?

This one.  In the during and after photos.

Yup, those little spruces were completely hiding a huge spruce, right at the fence.

Also, another little spruce that grew under the fence line and even wound its way back and forth around them.

Reaching that big spruce was my goal for the day.  If all goes well, the next time I work here, I should reach the gate.

In that after photo, note the red Christmas light bulb.  Look for it in these next photos.

The first of these three photos was taken from outside the fence line, where I went to clear some of the trees growing there.  There are many more, closer to the ditch, that need to be cleared, but those will wait for now.

If you look closely, you can see that red Christmas light bulb in the first and third photos.

Did you notice something else in the after photos?  Take another look at the top fence wire.  What you can see of it, anyhow.

I found a temporary fix for the broken wire.

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Once I cleared this area of the fence line, I found that when I pulled on the end with the loop in it (on the left of the above photo), it could almost touch the broken end (on the right in the photo, now with its own loop).  I don’t know when I’ll be able to fix it properly, but I didn’t want to leave it broken and hanging, either.  So I went to the garage and grabbed some zip ties, created a new loop on the broken wire end, and joined them by linking 4 zip ties loosely together.  Once they were all linked, I tightened all the zip ties as much as I could, then trimmed the ends with the pruning shears.  Now, the top line that was broken is tighter than the middle line, which got stretched when the tree fell on it, but didn’t break.  :-)

While making my way to the garage, I found this.

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Another bench, made out of logs with a board across the top.  I’ve gone through here a few times, but had to practically step on it before I saw it!  I tried to pick it up, to see if it was usable, but it is so rotten, it started to fall apart, so I left it for now.  It will be cleared out when we get to taking out all the deadwood and continuing to clean up the spruce grove, next year.  Though on this end, it’s not really a spruce grove any more.  Closer to the garage, and the south fence line, it’s more poplar, elms and oak.  The elms and oak are in rows, so those were planted deliberately.  The poplar looks to have sown itself.  There are even what might be some apple trees in here.

Once I’ve cleared the East fence line to the gate, I will work my way down the south fence line, along the driveway, just enough to clear it.  There are poplars growing right at the wires, and while the south fence line has good posts, just like the East line does, many of them are falling over.   Especially right next to the garage.  It is along this fence line that the power cord from the garage runs.  We might not get to straightening them out this year, but if there’s going to be electrical cord supported by this fence, I want it to be able to stay upright!

We shall see how far along there we will be able to get, before the weather turns.

Looking ahead to the future, I hope to have a number of seating areas scattered about – with seats made of materials that won’t rot or degrade as quickly as the wooden benches I’ve been finding.  The goal is to clear this area enough to give it a park-like feel, plus I want to be able to see through the trees from the house to the driveway.  At the same time, I do want to leave some of the undergrowth, too.  Dogwood.  Wild roses.  False spirea. Junipers.  I look forward to planting shade loving plants and flowers in areas where they can naturalize, and ground cover that can be walked on.  Over time, I want this yard, including the spruce and maple groves, to be a sanctuary, not only for us humans, but to shelter some of the native wildlife, and to provide food and shelter for native pollinators as well.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove fence line, more progress, part one

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The chilly weather we’ve had for the past few days has really got me wanting to finish this fence line along the spruce grove!  As long as I can clear to the driveway gate before winter, anything else is gravy! :-)

I took a whole bunch of photos, so I’m splitting them into two posts again.  Here is the first section I worked on.  With how I was finding things, I decided to go with before, during and after photos.

This is where I left off, last time.  I was able to leave the oaks, just pruning them a bit, for transplanting next year.  They are really leaning towards the fence, where they would have been getting the most light, but once they are planted somewhere more open, they should start growing straight again.

Over the years, I could see that someone had trimmed branches back from the fence line.  A lot of those have died, but are high enough and short enough that I will leave them for now.  I pruned the undergrowth only as much as I needed to, to clear the fence and access things.

That meant cutting away some of the things growing in the juniper, as well as some of the dead juniper branches.

The ground cover (I am not 100% certain that they are juniper, but that’s what I’m calling them for now) stayed as well.  I had to walk all over them, but they can handle it.  They did make working in the area more treacherous, though!

I know these have been growing here for a long time, but seeing this stem really shows just how long.

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It takes a lot of years for these to get such thick stems!

Clearing this first section revealed enough that I took before and after photos of the next section, too.  Which will be in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Luring kittens

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One of the things we like to do is leave the inner doors open, so our cats can look outside.  The outer door at the main entry has a window almost all the way to the bottom, at the perfect height for them to sit and look out.  The step outside, however, is lower than the floor, so the cats outside have to make more effort to look in.

As I walked past this morning, I heard DahBoy making some noise at the door.  He was batting at the bottom of the window, where I could just see the top of a head and front paws of another tuxedo, batting back!  :-D

Seeing this, I decided to grab some cat treats and see if I could convince some kittens to come close.

With the rain we’ve had lately, my usual places to sit are on the damp side, so I opened up the sun room, leaving a trail of treats, to see if any would come in.

Of the kittens that did come out, all but one of them eventually came into the sun room!

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Doom Guy, the tuxedo, was quick to go inside, though he was not willing to let me pet him today.  While I saw the bigger orange tabby around, only the teeny tabby stuck around.  Only one of the calico-tories showed up.

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This is the closest Rosencrantz or Gildenstern has come near me in ages!

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Corvo, the grey, came in, but was more about checking things out than having treats.

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He was the only one to actually start climbing around, going up onto my dad’s chair.  It’s a rocker, so I’m a bit surprised he’d go onto something that moves.  He also started to push his way into the cube shelf, knocking out a spare insect zapping racket in the process, and scaring himself out of the room! :-D

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Even the teeny tabby came in, but not much farther than the doorway.

I’ve left the outside doors to the sun room open for now.  There were still treats on the floor, and I figure my not being there would let the shier kittens have more of a chance to get some.

I want to snuggle them so much!

:-D

The Re-Farmer

They’re BaaaAAAaack!

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We’ve had ourselves an afternoon of kittens and cows! :-D

My daughter and I had to head into town this afternoon, but as we left the house, we got distracted by a Doom Guy.

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Who is starting to get used to this whole “being held” thing, and enjoying head scritches.  Oh, was he purring up a storm!

The girls had gone out to see the kittens this morning, too, and he allowed himself to be picked up.  It has been quite chilly, so I think he is appreciating the body heat that comes from being held by a human! :-D

I think this is having an effect on the other kittens, too.  They’re starting to come closer, even if they don’t let us come near them.  Though they also seem to be begging for treats, too.  More on that, later! :-D

When we got back from town and pulled up to the gate, we found cows!  Just a few of them in the outer yard, while others were in the old hay yard.  There was no surge of the entire herd coming in like last time.

The vehicle and people gates to the yard were open, as was the garage door, when we left.  !!

Thankfully, no cows were in the garage.  While I closed the vehicle gate to the inner yard, my daughter got her stuff from the van and closed up the garage.  Then I went to check the electric wire gate by the barn, because I could see that the insulated wire holders were still upright.  I found the wire broken and dragged into the outer yard, so I paused to move it aside, so no cows would get tangled in it. As I did that, one of the cows came walking past me, through the gate.

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This immediately concerned me, because she was limping very heavily on a front leg.  I followed her a bit and managed to get a picture of her looking back at me on her right.  This allowed me to zoom in on the photo and read the number on her ear tag.

I then went in (making sure the people gate was closed up) and phoned up the renter to let him know his cows had come through again.  We both think the recent rains (another thunderstorm came through last night) has been causing problems with his electric fence.  I let him know the tag number on the injured cow, though with how heavily she was limping, she would be hard to miss.

After I called him, I went to walk around the yard, just in case a cow got in and no one noticed.  We do have a couple of gaps in the fence by the old log building that a determined cow could get through, even if the gates were closed.

Walking around was much more challenging than expected!  Butterscotch came over and kept winding herself around my legs as I walked.  As much as I tried to avoid it, I still ended up kicking her in the head, at least twice.  Do you think that stopped her?  Not a chance!

Beep Beep and several kittens followed along, too!

They were most definitely begging for treats. :-D

Even the shy kittens were following me along.

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Rosencrantz, or Gildenstern, came along, then the bigger orange tabby came running, too. :-D

Even pausing to take the photo was an unexpected challenge. :-D

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Butterscotch may not like being picked up, but she was certainly willing to try climbing my leg!

About an hour later, I could hear an engine, letting me know the renter was here, so I went out again.  The cows were nice and co-operative about getting back to the barn side of the fence.  We stopped to talk for a bit, and it now looks like I’ll be buying a round bale of straw from him. :-D  I had made arrangements to get 6 small square straw bales delivered a few days ago from someone else.  I only need enough to cover the top of the septic tank, then plan to layer the rest on the smaller garden by the Old Kitchen.  Unfortunately, the person never showed up, and hasn’t been answering my messages, so I don’t know what’s going on.  I asked if he could recommend someone I could buy from, and after asking what I needed, he said he could sell me one.  A round bale will have much more straw than we need, but it won’t go to waste, that’s for sure.  When things dry up later, he’ll deliver one into our yard for us.  Unlike smaller straw bales, there’s no way we’d be able to get it into the yard ourselves!

I also let him know how much we are enjoying his cows, and made sure to let him know we didn’t mind them getting through the gate.  My only concern is that, with all the stuff around, they’ll get hurt.  Which I’m hoping is not what happened to the limping cow.  It could just be a rock in her hoof, but until he gets a look, there’s no way to know.  There was visible sign of an injury other than her limping.  We did joke about how curious they are, and get into everything.  Do they ever!  They are so interested in the cats, too.

A unexpected bonus with the cows breaking through the fence.  I’m getting to know the renter more, and he’s a really nice guy. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Home canned chili

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Last night, I made up some chili in the slow cooker, for ourselves and my mother when she gets home form the hospital.  You can see my recipe here, though I slightly modified it this time.  I added a rutabaga with the vegetables, an extra can of beans, and used two cans of crushed tomatoes, instead of one, plus tomato paste.  I also skipped the cream.  Lots of fibre and iron in here, which my mother will need for the next while.

This morning, I put up 12 pint sized jars of the chili.

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I don’t have the equipment to pressure can these, but these are not intended for long term storage.  Done this way, they should last 6 weeks or more, in the fridge.

I found a flat bottomed, rectangular roasting pain with rack while cleaning the Old Kitchen.  It was the perfect size to hold all the jars.  I put the jars on the rack and, after setting kettles to boil water to scald them, added hot tap water to the roasting rack, so there would be no chance of anything cracking.  I scalded the lids and rings in a stainless steel bowl, then poured boiling water into all the jars to disinfect them all.  I scalded my jar funnel, too.  I am so glad I picked that thing up!!

Once the jars were scalded and emptied, I could use the roasting pan to carry them all together to the crock pot.  I left the hot water in the pan.  To fill the jars, I would put some chili in, then use a (scalded) fork to poke at it and get out any air pockets, fill it the rest of the way (with a half inch head space) then poke at it again to get rid of the air pockets.  After removing the funnel, I popped a lid in place, then moved on to the next one.  Using the roasting rack made it much more organized.

Once filled, I put on the rings, but did not tighten them all the way, then moved them all onto some paper towel to cool slowly.  Once fully cooled, I’ll tighten the rings the rest of the way.  Not too tight, though.  I don’t want my mother to have a hard time opening them!

This took up about half of our 8 quart crock pot of chili.

So I had chili for breakfast. :-D

The Re-farmer

Kitten Heaven!

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The kittens have been tearing around all over the place!

Last night, I spent some time outside with them, tossing out cat treats in various directions.  The tuxedo was once again the only kitten that would come near me, and even allowed me to pet him.

This afternoon, while heading out to go pick up some prescription refills, they heard as and all came out – even the ones that wouldn’t come near us.  My husband has been putting food out for them in the mornings, but they didn’t all come out until later.

So of course, my daughter and I paused to say hello.

Beep Beep’s kittens now have names.  Meet Doom Guy, the tuxedo.

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Who loves my daughter’s new purse!

While we were out, we started to hear some plaintive meowing from… somewhere.

It turned out to be one of the inside cats, at the kitchen window.

Beep Beep’s tabby went to take a look.  Meet Corvo (why yes, my daughters are gamers… why do you ask? LOL)

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He had even stretched up, with his paws on the wall, trying to get closer to the window, but I wasn’t able to get a picture.  Too cute!

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Butterscotch, three of her babies, and Beep Beep, at the food bowls.  The larger orange tabby made a showing, but I wasn’t able to get a picture of him.

Then, something amazing happened.

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Doom Guy allowed my daughter to pick him up.  He not only stayed (though he wasn’t quite sure how to handle being held) and let us pet him, but even started to purr!!

So awesome!

Just before we left, my daughter had to rescue her bag again. :-D

Well, okay. He’s not quite comfortable around us, yet. :-D

In other things; it had been my plan to work along the fence line today, but it was much chillier than I expected.  So it was a morning to do some crochet.  Later on, I’ll be making a big batch of chili in the crock pot, and setting some aside in jars for my mother, for when she comes home from the hospital.  Between my siblings and I, she will hopefully not have to cook for quite some time, and can focus on recovery.  Though there has been come discomfort for her, everything has been going very well with her.  At the moment, she’s expected to come home on Saturday, and my older brother plans to stay with her for a few days, to help her out.  We should know by then if she will need home care or not, too.  I hope she does get it, just to make sure she doesn’t over do things too early.  My family is notorious for ignoring pain or injury and pushing ourselves through it, even when we shouldn’t! :-D

The Re-Farmer