Month: October 2019

Stalled

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Things have been pretty hectic, the past couple of days. First, with our trip to the city hospital for the angiogram, which went very well (and my husband is recovering very well, too, though he’s still not supposed to lift anything heavier than 5 pounds for a while longer), then we took advantage of what seems like will be our last day of warm weather for the rest of the year, and got stuff done outside.

Which means I have lots of photos to up load and several posts to write.

I have not, however, been able to upload photos. For some reason, my uploads are failing, and I’ve been trying repeatedly, for hours. One two different accounts and two different browsers.

I can’t eve blame it on our internet connection, which seems to be fine. It may be a WordPress issue. I can’t tell.

Meanwhile, the severe weather predicted has been increasing in severeness, and the timeline has been shortening. We went from predictions of snow tomorrow (Thursday), to snow starting tonight and blizzard conditions for Friday and Saturday, to getting weather alerts right now saying to expect up to 25cm (almost 10 inches) of snow tonight. However, when I look at the local forecasts, it says to expect 3cm tonight and up to 4cm tomorrow, with a mix of rain and snow.

One thing is for sure, we’ve got the winds!! As I’ve looked out my office window throughout the day, I’ve been watching the maples getting stripped of their leaves.

Whatever snow we do get, if any, it’s still early enough that we could expect it go be gone soon. I certainly hope so, because I still need to get some straw to cover our septic tank before it freezes. Technically, for the type of tank we have, it isn’t necessary, but I’m not about to take any chances! At least we got it emptied yesterday, so we’re set for another 6 months.

So if posts are a bit light over the next while, it’s because I still can’t upload my photos, or the weather has kicked out our internet! I’ll just have a lot of posts to make up for it, when I’m able. :-)

Wherever you are, I hope you’ve got better conditions than we do right now! :-)

The Re-Farmer

All is well

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It feels like it should be much later than it is, but it’s only just past 10am as I write this. My husband and I started our day early, so we could leave by 4am for his angiogram.

All went well. He is currently in recovery and monitoring, on a real hospital bed and everything! We got the lowdown on aftercare, and a nurse is coming by regularly to check his wound and his vitals.

We are looking at a mid afternoon discharge. The one thing that is a bit of a wringer is that he can’t use the arm at all for 48 hours. That means he can’t use his walker. He always has a cane handy, though (it just happens to be my cane at the moment! 😄), so he can use that.

Getting in and out of the van will be … interesting.

The doctor was able to let is know right away that they found no blockages. Which is good news. We just still don’t have an answer as to why his heart got so weak. Our guess is, it’s all the medications he is on, and for so many years.

He has to see his doctor for a follow up in 2 weeks, but we will have to find a new doctor ASAP, since the doctor, with another doctor, is leaving the province at the end of November, and the clinic has no idea when, or even if, they will get new doctors. We might be going to another town, 40 minutes from home, to get a new doctor. We shall see.

One step at a time.

The Re-Farmer

Mystery critter: what are you?

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

It’s been another very wet day today (I’ve read that, last month, we got triple the average amount of rain for our region; it doesn’t seem to be letting up this month, yet). We did manage to get a dump run in. Because of when it closes on Saturdays, and when my younger daughter gets off work, we left it to near closing time, then just continued on to town. After running some errands, we had time enough to hit the beach and look for interesting things.

Along with fascinating bones and interesting rocks, we found a tiny surprise.

What follows are pictures of a dead creature, so for those who don’t like seeing that, I’ll post it after the jump.

Continue reading →

Newcomer

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

We just got visited by a new cat today, outside our living room window, so of course we went a little overboard with the pictures! :-D

My daughter spotted him and got the first few photos through the lilac bushes.

He was lurking where we leave food for Junk Pile kitten still, even though he now regularly goes to the house, and even into the sun room, for food. Because I usually have 3 or 4 cats following me as I put food out, I spread it out, including on this log I brought over for a seat. I don’t know how much food was left around there, but it looks like our visitor found at least a little to eat!

The number of cats lurking around the house has dropped quite a bit over the last while. Of the visiting toms, only Nicky the Nose has been showing up once in a while, and he quickly leaves. I haven’t seen Slick or Not-Slick in a month or two. Even of our own adult cats, most seem to have moved on; I haven’t seen Guildenstern, Jim, Bob or Rolando Moon in a long time. Rosencrantz comes by, but not often; Beep Beep and Butterscotch both tend to chase her off! Doom Guy is the only adult male still hanging around, and he hasn’t been well. We did get medication for him and he has gotten better, but he still prefers to spend most of his time in the sun room or near the house.

We shall see who starts showing up again in the winter, when food and shelter will be more reliable.

We will be keeping an eye out for our newcomer, too!

The Re-Farmer

Bonus Photo of the day: a chunk of my childhood

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While cleaning up yesterday, under where the last chimney block had been sitting, having picked up the broken glass and other garbage I could see, I walked over the area and stepped on something buried in the dirt.

I figured it was either a rock or a brick, so I pulled it out.

As soon as I saw the distinctive colour through the dirt, I knew exactly what it was, and childhood memories came flooding back.

I brought it in and gave it a good scrubbing, but after probably 3 or more decades in the dirt, it will need more. The main part of the stone is a surprisingly bright greenish blue colour, and the layer on one end is a bright, creamy white.

This was one of those things that was found around the farm; probably in a field somewhere. I don’t know what type of rock it is, but it is completely different from any other rock typically found in the area. I remember, as a child, holding it and admiring the colours, textures and the abrupt contrast between the white and green portions. It absolutely fascinated me!

I was quite into rocks when I was a kid.

I still am! :-D

The Re-Farmer

More winterizing

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We got one more area done for the winter today.

The old basement window.

We take advantage of the shelter over this window as a place to put the outside cat food containers, out of the rain. It isn’t much shelter, but it at least keeps their food mostly dry.

One of my plans for this summer was to dig up the dirt under the overhang and line it with bricks.

I noticed, however, there was thick plastic at the window, so I took advantage of having a daughter to hold the “roof” up and dug out the dirt to see just how far the plastic extended.

It turns out, there is no need to brick the area.

Continue reading →

Clean up: no more pile of stuff!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We were able to use all the chimney inserts that were piled behind the house, and even the last chimney block, while winterizing around the house. That meant I could finally clean up that area once and for all!

This area has taken me two years to clean up.

Here is what it was like when I first started working on it, back in May of last year.

Continue reading →

Winterizing – and a blast from the past

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today, things warmed up and got rather pleasant out there, so I took advantage of it to do the annual winterization around the house.

The situation was quite different, last year!

I was amused to look back at old posts and find we put the insulation around the house exactly a year ago today!

Just in time for the weather to turn. Raining ice pellets? I’d forgotten about that!

By the end of the day, we had tree damage and the power had gone out, and I was going around knocking ice off what I could reach, to prevent more damage.

20181003.drooping.lilacs
Continue reading →

Making mead, part 5: bottling and results

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Okay, here we go!

Yesterday, we were finally able to pick up some bottles and bottle our first attempt at making mead.

Here are the previous posts of the process. Each link will open in a new tab.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The mead was left in its second fermentation for longer than 4 weeks, but it seemed to have stopped fermenting much earlier. It’s really hard to see the airlock where we kept it – we basically had to shine a light at it – but there didn’t seem to be any bubbles in the water.

This being our first attempt, we didn’t want to mess with it and just let it be.

Before going in to town to pick up 3 cases of bottles, however, we did take the carboy out to check it.

Continue reading →

Step-by-step: making fermented vegetables

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

The following is based on the recipe for sauerkraut that I got from my friend who, in turn, modified it from a recipe she found through Dr. Mercola.

As with the sauerkraut I wrote about yesterday, this is something I’ve never made before, so it’s a total experiment.

Here are the ingredients.

Continue reading →