Since we had to go into town today to pick up prescriptions, we added in as many errands as we could think of, so we wouldn’t have to come back any time soon.
Which would have been a moot point, since one of my husband’s prescriptions can’t be filled until tomorrow (one of the highly regulated drugs he’s on). I will be taking my mother to a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, though, in a different town. Thankfully, my husband has enough that it can wait for my daughter to pick up when she’s at work on Saturday.
I knew the seeds we ordered were waiting for us at the post office, so we swung by a hardware store, where I hoped to pick up a soil mix specifically for vegetables. I couldn’t find any, so I picked up a couple of trays and extra Jiffy pellets. When I asked about the soil, I expected to hear the inventory wasn’t in yet. Nope. They’re sold out!
My daughter was a sweetheart and picked this up for me.
A mini greenhouse kit! I’ve wanted one of these for years. ❤
Cheddar decided he would help me put it together.
In looking at the seeds that have come in, and deciding which ones we’ll want to start indoors, and which we’ll seed outside, I finally went and looked up when our last frost date is. Since the seeds say to start them X number of weeks before all danger of frost is past, I figured I should probably confirm when that is! For most people here, it’s traditional to get their gardens in on the May long weekend.
It turns out that, for our area, the frost date is June 2nd. !! In the city, an hour’s drive south of us, it’s May 28th.
Which means the earliest we would need to start seeds indoors is May 5th! I was expecting to be starting them in mid-April, at the latest.
Hhhmmm. I think we’ll still start some of them in mid-April anyhow. Particularly the cucamelon, which needs at lot more warmth and longer growing season compared to anything else we’ve picked up.
I had something else come in the mail that needed to be assembled. Unlike the mini-greenhouse, this did not come with assembly instructions.
Along with our seeds order (minus the gourd seeds, which were back ordered but should be in very soon), we got the bottle cutter I’d ordered. I chose this one specifically because it can cut square as well as round bottles. While it came with instructions for use, I had to use a photo on the other side of the sheet to figure out how the back plate was supposed to be put on.
While I plan to test it out and make some practice cuts, I don’t think I’ll start making the bottle bricks yet. The plan for our first cordwood practice building is to build on a base of 8x8x16 concrete blocks.
Which has been strangely hard to find in the flat ended type I want. Most that I’m finding are 8x6x16, or 8x8x16’s with shaped ends. I hope to find what we are looking for at the salvage place I found (which, I found out, my brother has been to a few times), but inventory there is based on whatever the demolition crews happen to bring in. If I can’t get enough in the size I’m after, we might have to change the thickness of the walls. So I while I might make a bottle brick or two for practice, until we know what dimensions we’re working with, we will just continue to collect bottles and get them cleaned out and ready. If I can find some polishing paper and polishing paste, I could try cutting some bottles to make vases or something in the mean time.
So now that we have almost all our seeds, the seed starting supplies, the mini-greenhouse, the lawn mower blade sharpener and the bottle cutter, we’ve got the tools and materials to get quite a few things accomplished in the next while!
Doing my rounds this morning is, for the most part, getting easier as the snow melts. There are just a couple of shaded areas where sheets of ice and formerly hard-packed snow suddenly giving way under my feet, have made walking somewhat more dangerous!
It also means that, while the water between the house and the garage has gone from “lake” to ” large muddy puddles”, there is a lot more water in other areas, too.
I noticed this while going past the outhouse this morning.
The outhouse door has a piece of plywood in front of it, with a rotted out hole. I’d had a metal… something I don’t know the name of, but it’s used as steps on large vehicles… over the hole, but while it’s there, the outhouse door can’t be opened. It had been set aside during our septic troubles (not that we used the outhouse; it’s too disgusting in there!) and not put back yet. This allowed me to see that the hole under the door is getting bigger – and the pit is full of water! I checked the access area at the back, and could see the water there, too. That pit is completely filled.
The outhouse is sitting on what is probably beams of pressure treated wood, which look like they have sunk into the ground. It really should have been on concrete or something, and raised slightly above ground level. I doubt any of the outhouses that have ever been here were done that way. Which would explain why they have been replaced so many times over the years. I know of at least 3, not counting the one that was there that we used before we got running water in the house.
Another reason why we want to build a new outhouse, without a pit and on a proper base! Composting toilets have their own issues, but I’ll take those over dealing with a pit, thankyouverymuch. 😀
I also had something I could really appreciate while doing this morning’s rounds.
I was able to do them without needing a cane.
Yesterday evening, after all the walking around with the wheelbarrow I’d done earlier, was a difficult one. I definitely over did it. My hip gave out again, and it didn’t recover as it had earlier. Thankfully, we keep canes around the house, including one of my dad’s canes that we’ve left hanging on an arm bar between the old and new parts of the house. I had to get my daughter to bring it to me, because I couldn’t walk from my desk chair to get it. Even my left hip was becoming more of a problem. Both hips have mild osteoarthritis, but my left hip hurts pretty constantly, due to bone spurs. Typically, it’s a level of pain I can ignore, but that was getting hard to do, yesterday evening. When my right hip was X-rayed, it showed mild OA, but also fragments basically floating around, and I think that’s what’s causing my problems. I think fragments are getting into the joint, causing pain until they get worked out of the joint again.
I will have to get myself to a doctor again to check it out.
I got very little sleep last night, due to the pain and discomfort, even though I’d taken pain killers. It’s better now, in that I can walk without a cane and put weight on my right leg again, but even with painkillers, it’s still hurting quite a lot. I also needed to use my husband’s bath chair while I showered.
So today is going to be a day of recovery for me. Aside from heading out to the pharmacy this afternoon, to pick up prescriptions, I’m going to have to focus on giving my body a break to heal up. I figure this is a good time to catch up on some more crochet projects. 🙂 I’ll have to remember to get the mail today, too. My order from Vesey’s is ready for pick up. The girls and I will go over what we want to start indoors. Almost everything we got can actually be sown outdoors after danger of frost is past, which would be about mid-May, but getting a head start on some of them would also be good.
I’m really looking forward to being able to garden this year!
My goal for today was to start getting things out of the basement and into the barn or junk pile, as appropriate. My daughters were doing a whole bunch of baking, but we were able to coordinate a time when we could work together on that.
I didn’t get as much done in the basement as I wanted, but there was still a lot of progress.
The first thing to do was shovel a path to the barn and get one of the doors clear enough to open.
There were a couple of problems. The first was that, having worked my way to the barn door, my hip suddenly did it’s thing. From one step to the next, I became unable to put any weight on my right leg, due to pain and instability.
I was, however, able to work on my left leg, so as long as I could just pivot around, I could finish clearing the barn door, moving my right leg around just enough to try and work out whatever was causing the pain in my hip joint. By the time I did, my hip was back to normal, and I could deal with the second problem.
There was a ridge of ice right at the door. The doors sag in the middle, and it was just high enough to prevent the door from opening. The plastic snow shovel couldn’t clear it away, but a steel shovel could chip away enough for the door to finally open.
These doors are feeling very fragile.
Once inside, I had to figure out where I could clear out a space to put things.
My goodness, what a terrible picture. My hands must have been shaking like crazy, after the shoveling! Normally, I take multiple photos, just in case, but not today. Ah, well.
So I’m in the middle of the barn at this point. The old cattle stalls in the front half were all full of things, but further back were some that might be workable. Of course, the hall in the middle needed to be cleared, too.
There was also the lean to on the side of the barn, which has more space, but…
When a metal roof was put on the barn (right on top of the rotting original roof), the lean to was skipped. As you can see, there is a lot of water in there. Water from the melting snow is dripping straight through a number of areas.
There was a stall that I could at least partially clear. In the process, I found…
… old trusses that are rotting where they touch the concrete. (That’s my gloved finger messing with the photo, there. LOL)
Those metal screens in the back are interesting, though. I might find a use for them.
This grabber was hanging at one end. This is not something I remember from when I was growing up here. I have no idea where it came from. Looking at the size of the handle, this is meant for two people to use. One of these days, I’d love to restore it.
After clearing some space, I also cleared away some stuff that was in the gutter in front of the old stall. Some pieces of wood had managed to fall under the lid of the cistern, so I opened it up to get them out.
I didn’t bother getting the rest of the junk out. I do wonder why these are hear. They couldn’t have fallen in with the lid in place.
This, btw, is a urine drain. When the cows did their business, most went into the gutters, and the urine would flow into the pair of cisterns on either side of the hallway. Once they were full, we just emptied them with a bucket.
This is how things looks after clearing things out.
I could now get through the hall to access the space I’d cleared.
There is a whole lot of stuff all over the barn. Including lots and lots of windows.
Like this one, which looks like something we might be able to use in a future cordwood practice building. After the outhouse, which will have strategically placed bottle bricks instead of windows, we’re thinking of making a garden shed, which will have windows.
With that in mind, I went looking at some of the other stuff lying about.
I rather like this steel, exterior door. If it’s not too water damaged, I think it would be fantastic for our outdoor bathroom. There aren’t keys, of course, so the deadbolt and probably the door knob would need to be replace. Likely the hinges as well. It looks like there’s only half hinges on there right now. 😀
There are also these huge pieces of window glass. Too big for any project we’re thinking of now, but perhaps usable for something else.
I also checked out a shed near the barn. I’ve actually been poking about a few places, as the snow melts enough for me to be able to access them, looking for the drawknife I know I saw, some time ago. I can’t remember where, though! So far, I have not been able to find it. 😦 I was hoping to get it sharpened for use as we debark wood for the cordwood building.
The shed has more windows, including one that looks like it would work well in the deep walls of a cordwood building.
Why are there so many windows all over the place? Many of them are quite old, made before the more energy efficient double and triple pane windows were invented.
It may not look like much, but this aluminum double sink is still quite sturdy. I am thinking of cleaning it up and bringing it into the old basement, to go under the set of taps where the washing machine used to be.
Ah, there’s the table saw! I was hoping it wasn’t one of the things that grew legs and walked away while this place was empty.
Which makes me think it might now be in working order.
If it is, I’m going to be very happy! It will come in very handy for future projects.
I kinda sorta found a second one.
I spotted a blade in between the stacks of flooring. It seems to be a table saw, without it’s table!
Speaking of tables…
There’s a round table top, minus its legs (which might be lying about somewhere else, for all I know), next to yet another stack of windows.
I wonder if that big blower on the counter works? It looks like a larger version of what we have in the old basement.
They’re hard to see, but there are stacks of glass blocks under the counter. I was seeing some at the salvage yard website I found, and at salvage prices, blocks of this size were selling for $8 each. There’s probably about 30 or 40 of them under there.
At one end of the shed are more doors. That wooden door with the big glass window is probably an exterior door. The lock on it would be for a skeleton key. They certainly don’t make doors like this anymore – with reason!
Then there’s a sections of a fence, that was clearly cut apart with a saw. And more windows. Because there are windows, everywhere!
Hopefully, we’ll be able to find most of the materials we need to build our first cordwood practice building in all of this!
Then there was this thing.
I have no clue what this thing is. If anyone knows, please leave a note in the comments, because I would love to find out!
I also found these.
Just… tucked away, under a shelf.
I really don’t think these go back to when my dad worked in a shoe factory. They are newer than that.
So many things… so few explanations! 😀
With the space cleared in the barn, it was time to get stuff out of the basement.
Which… didn’t go as well as I had hoped. My hip did its thing again, part way through, and we ended up stopping sooner than I’d hoped.
That shopping cart has been coming in very handy, including as an impromptu walker!
We did get a decent amount out, though.
At this point, we just needed to get the stuff out of the house, so my daughter put the stuff in organized piles. Glass and regular garbage in one area, the water damaged shelf, riddled with nails, for burning, hazardous materials, including mystery liquids, and stuff to go to the barn for storage, or the junk pile.
Once my hip was working again, the girls went back to baking and I got the bigger wheel barrow and started hauling things away.
I also grabbed a cane from our collection to keep handy, just in case! 😀
Then, since I was hauling things into the barn anyhow, I cleared a few things from the garage, too.
It’s still a disaster, but I was able to clear out more batteries, paint cans, and some jugs and 5 gallon pails of mystery liquid.
I discovered that this wheelbarrow can handle only 2 batteries at a time. Those things are heavy!!
Gosh, there is a lot of junk to sift through in there. 😦 Somehow, we have to separate out the junk from the stuff worth keeping. I see some sort of little compressor under there.
After many trips back and forth to the barn (I had my phone in my pocket, and walked far enough to hatch 3 Pokemon Go eggs! That would make it at least 2 kms of walking, probably more), this is the result.
I’ve got the hazmat mystery liquids and paint in one area, a total of 11 car, truck and possibly tractor batteries (there are at least two more in the side of the garage where we keep the lawn mower, and probably more in the basement) and a couple of old sump pumps. My brother tells me that at least one of them works, as it was used as an emergency pump at some point. There are others that will make their way in here, too. I’m hoping to get the old door from the van into the barn as well, and there are quite a lot of other things that I’d like to get out, including what appears to be a collection of motors. If we run out of space here, there is another section that can be cleared out for more.
Then, at some point, we’ll take all the old paint cans and mystery liquids to the landfill for proper disposal, and the batteries will be taken to a scrap yard to be sold for their lead, along with the bags of aluminum.
By the time all this was done, it was almost evening. There were still loaves of bread rising, with some in the oven, so no one had been able to start supper.
My husband was a sweetheart and ordered pizza! I didn’t mind the trip into town to pick it up. Since I’ll be going into town again tomorrow, to pick up prescription refills, it gave me the opportunity to park the van in front of the house. That way, I won’t have to walk through the lake of melt water to get to the garage!
Usually, my daughter works a short shift on Sundays, so I spend time in town as part of keeping Sunday as a day of rest. It feels weird to not be doing that, but the pharmacy is now closed on Sundays. It’s also totally messing with my sense of time! 😀
When my husband called in his prescription refills, he was asked to get our daughter to pick them up during her break, so we figured she was getting another weekday to make up for the loss of Sundays.
We were wrong.
Her hours have been cut back to just 3 shifts every 2 weeks. The pharmacist must have assumed she’d be in. I’ll just have to make a special trip in to town for the refills.
I just checked the government website. An $82 Billion aid package was recently passed to help people who are struggling financially due to the Wuhan virus shut downs. Last I saw, people who lost more that 8 hours a week could get aid, but that was before the bill was completed and passed. That is gone now. She’s have to lose all hours completely, in order to qualify for aid. Thankfully, she’s okay with that.
Once again, I am so incredibly thankful for my husband’s excellent private insurance disability payments. That and living here on the farm, where we pay “rent” by taking care of the place.
Last night, I managed to find a Canadian Orthodox Lutheran church service for this 5th Sunday of Lent to watch this morning. Celebrating Easter this year is going to be another strange one. No blessing of the baskets at church this year!
One of the things I decided to do to recharge my batteries today was finish a small crochet project; a yarn basket. I’ve made three slightly different versions of them so far, and am quite enjoying the process.
Here is the first one I made. (click on the images to see them better)
I used 2 strands of Handicrafter Cotton yarn, which holds structural shapes quite well. (I can get the little skeins of this yarn at a dollar store in town, but have to go to the city to be able to get the large skeins it also comes in.) I had no pattern, but saw one on Pinterest and realized it was just a simple bowl shape with an opening for the working ends of yarn.
This is the one I just finished.
This is actually the third one I’ve made, and the first where I added an extra colour. I wanted to use up some of the little balls of yarn I had left over from other projects.
I like to reball my yarn into centre pull balls, and the first yarn bowl I made was large enough to hold two full sized and one little centre pull ball of yarn. Having the yarn threaded through the opening in the bowl helps keep it flowing smoothly – especially when using multiple strands at once.
It also helps protect my yarn from cats! 😀
The second one I made used one strand of solid gray and one strand of variegated yarn that included the same shade of grey in its colours. My daughter picked that one for herself. 🙂 Each bowl is slightly different in size and shape as I experimented with the design.
I’m quite happy with how these are turning out. They are great to work on while watching a movie or something, since they’re made almost entirely with one stitch, and require very little counting.
Tomorrow, it’s back to work. The girls plan to do baking, so I plan to head out and shovel away the drift in front of the barn doors, so we have someplace to store the things we will be taking out of the basement. Then it’s time to start clearing things out, so that we can clean it and turn it into …
A maternity ward. From the looks of her, Butterscotch is pregnant, and may have kittens before things melt away and dry up enough to empty and clean out the sun room, so we can use it as a maternity ward like we did last year. Plus, we have to get Two-Face indoors as quick as we can. She’s booked to be spayed in mid April, but there’s a risk of her going into her first heat before then.
*sigh*
So we’ll have inside cats, outside cats and basement cats!
During our trip to the city, I was able to pick up a couple of cheap plastic utility shelves for the old basement. Due to lack of space with all our other shopping, I ended up getting one at Costco and one at Walmart. They were the same size and type, but different brands.
Today, I wanted to start setting them up and grabbed the one from Walmart.
The basement stairs are steep with narrow treads, so I tried sliding it down the stairs in front of me. Like an idiot. This set of shelves were held together with nothing but a single strap (the Costco shelves were shrink wrapped). One of the shelves came loose form the others, and the next thing I knew, I was balancing precariously at the top of the stairs, one shelf in my hand, the rest almost at the bottom of the stairs, no way to close the door behind me, and a sudden crowd of cats wanting to check out the sudden stream of blue language.
Thankfully, my husband was able to rescue me. All I really needed was for him to keep the cats away and close the door.
I look forward to when the basements are safe enough that we don’t have to worry about them getting down there.
I decided the other shelf could wait until I was done with this one.
Both of these are 5 shelves tall. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t fit at that height.
I was right.
Even if that support was all the way in (I had to use the flat side of a hammer to get the others in), it would still be too tall.
Which is fine. Four shelves is good enough.
I focused on replacing the sorter shelf, with its many glass jars, first, since it was the most unstable.
A perfect fit! Except…
My apologies for the out of focus picture, but you can see how much space is under the leg, when I leveled the shelf.
So I needed to put something thin under the front legs, while still staying away from wood or metal. What did we have that I could use?
I started looking around in the new part basement when I remembered the stack of old floor tiles I’d moved from the bottom of one of the shelves while cleaning up.
Perfect!
Nice and stable, too. The other leg ended up needing a couple more tiles than this one.
That floor is remarkably uneven!
It didn’t make sense to put all those filthy jars back into the nice new shelf, so I made use of the old laundry sink.
In between soaking and washing batches of jars, I got my husband to bring over the other shelf.
Which was much, much easier to get down the stairs. Amazing what a difference a bit of shrink wrap can make!
Once I got it open, however, and starting looking between the shelves for the parts and pieces, something seemed… off. There seemed to be an awful lot of supports in there. And what was that, stuck under one of the shelves? That’s an odd shape…
So, according to the part list, there should have been 4 top caps, 4 legs, 16 support poles, 5 shelves and 3 wall brackets.
There were 5 shelves, 20 support poles, no top caps, no legs, no wall brackets, and 2… whatever those things are in the picture. I think they’re legs from a completely different style of shelf.
Well, I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I may not have legs, but I still have bricks!
I also used more of those tiles to level the shelf at the front.
I found an email address on the information sheet for this company’s customer service department, so I’ll email them about the parts issue later. This Costco one was a tiny bit more expensive (worth it, just for the shrink wrap!), but also seems to be a higher quality, too. I want to get more of these, and would get more Costco ones, if I had to choose, but not if they’re all messed up like this! 😀
Here is a before and after.
Cleaning the jars gave me a chance to look for chips, and I did end up taking out about 5 large canning jars and another 4 or 5 quart sized ones. Some of the ones I kept did have teeny chips I could just barely feel, but these will never be used for food again, so I was okay with keeping them. The ones with larger chips have the potential to cut someone, so I will probably find a way to use them for something else, where it won’t be an issue. Like bottle bricks.
As we start going through the collection of bottles in the new part basement, we’ll add more to the ones being set aside here, for potential use as bottle bricks. There are also lots more jars in the old kitchen that will come down here, so more of these shelves will be needed just for those.
The wooden shelves will be moved into the new part basement and put into use there, since we don’t have to worry about the wood getting wet in there.
A nice little bit of progress down there for the day. 🙂 I’m quite happy with it!
After all the snowmelt yesterday, we had ourselves a few skating rinks around the yard! The ice wasn’t quite thick enough to hold my weight as I did my rounds.
Boy am I glad I found those rubber boots. Even if I had to cut the tops. Wider would have been nice, too, but at a size 12 men’s, I could at least get my feet in them. 😀
So, there is definitely a reason the south fence posts are not doing very well.
When we first tried moving on the driveway side of this fence, there was a really rough area along the fence line that we couldn’t use the riding mower on without risking damage (now that we’ve got a working push mower, I should be able to get in there). When I asked my brother about it, he said it was a drainage ditch.
Hhhmm. It looks like someone took a tiller along the fence line. Not much of a ditch at all.
At the end of the fence, there is an actual trench leading to the ditch along the road; deep enough that I’ve had to make a “bridge” to cross it with the riding mower when I used it to drag the top of a tree away.
The posts in the south fence are all rotting on the bottom, and some are only being held up by the barbed wire they are supposed to be holding. Even the ones that are still holding out, I could probably break them out of the ground easily.
What we’ll have to decide on is whether or not we should dig a better drainage ditch along this fence. I want to get rid of it completely, but we might not do that for some time. At the very least, I’ll probably take out the two bottom strands of barbed wire, so I can duck through the fence more easily, but the top one is holding the power cable. Having an outlet on the east fence is very useful, and not just for the lights. I’d like to bury the line instead but, as you can see, if I bury it along the current fence line, it’ll end up having water over it. Yeah, I’d make sure to run it through protective tubing, but still… water and electricity don’t mix! Plus, we might decide to run it through a different location, instead, so I don’t want to do anything as relatively permanent as burying it just yet.
Today is supposed to be another warm one. At this rate, I’ll be able to start accessing the barn easily in just a day or two. That will be a big help in getting the new part basement cleared out of stuff!
Having received shipping confirmations for the seeds we ordered, the girls and I have been talking about just where we are going to plant what we’re getting, and what we need for what we’re getting.
In the two years we’ve been here, we’ve been working at reclaiming neglected spaces before we could even consider planting anything. The area where there used to be a huge garden has had more and more trees planted into them – without adequate planning, unfortunately, and causing a lot more shade areas I remember used to get much more sunlight. We currently have some spots here and there that we will be able to plant in, rather than one big vegetable garden, like my parents had for so many decades.
This is what we’ve come up with.
At the top of the sketch is the area we mulched over, then covered with tarps, last summer. This is where we will be planting the varieties of squash we’ll be getting, and the birdhouse gourds. The two giant varieties of sunflowers will be planted in a part of the old garden that I was finally able to mow last year. It’s more lawn than garden now.
The house is where the happy little gardener is standing. On the left is the old kitchen garden. This had been mostly a flower garden, though my mother did plant some onions there. The trouble with this location are the two ornamental apple trees. Still, we’ve already got chives and onions planted overwinter in the chimney block retaining wall. In the rest of the blocks, and in the area against them where I’d been able to add some soil to try and reduce the slope away from the house, is where we will plant fennel, and some of the varieties of carrots and beets we’ll be getting (we’re getting three varieties of each). The other area carrots and beets will be added is in the soft, deep, loose soil uncovered when we cleaned up the old wood pile area.
We’ve decided to set up the remaining chimney blocks along the chain link fence, between the fence and the white lilac bushes. Right now, there is an area of lawn just wide enough to get a mower through, but it would be great to not have to squeeze through there with a mower at all, and use the space to grow cucamelons. The chain link fence will be the trellis for the cucamelons, which need full sun. We chose the lilacs side of the gate, as they will not be affected by the shade created once the cucamelons cover the fence (assuming the grow successfully!), whereas the section of fence on the other side of the gate has flowers and haskap berries, and they’re already shaded too much from an elm, a maple and another variety of lilac.
What isn’t anywhere on the sketch is potatoes. We’ve ordered 6 pounds of Yukon Gem potatoes, but they are back ordered. These would not be shipped until the right planting time for our area, so they can go into the ground right away, so I hope they were get more stock before then. We weren’t billed for them, though. The gourds were back ordered, too, but we were billed for those – and I got a shipping confirmation for those the day after I got one for the other seeds. This suggest to me that they may not be expecting to get more of the Yukon Gem variety of potatoes. Depending on how that goes, we might end up buying some Yukon Gold, locally. We shall see.
We ended up buying quite a few plants that are climbers, so we will be building trellises, too. We will have to go through the barn to see what materials are left that are suitable to build with. When we do build them, we will keep in mind that they will need to be moved after the growing season. These are temporary planting locations, and very much experiments, as there are quite a few plants we have never tried to grow before.
With all the crazy stuff going on right now, with the Wuhan flu, shelter in place recommendations and grocery stores in many places being cleaned out of inventory, I’ve noticed quite the increase in people interested in growing their own food, so I thought I’d talk a bit about our decision making process.
For us, we’ve long sought to increase our level of self sufficiency as much as possible. When it came to gardening, this was not something we could do much of. Partly due to moving so frequently, but also because we usually lived in apartments with no real space to grow in. When we did find ourselves living in homes with nice, big south facing decks, we did container gardening, with varying levels of success.
Now that we’re back on the farm I grew up on, we finally have the space for all kinds of things, but with all the clean up needed first, we can only do a bit at a time, so we have to be quite selective on what we choose to grow.
When it comes to choosing what to grow, there are two ways you can go. You can look at the things you buy the most of and, if they can be grown in your climate zone, grow those, thus reducing your grocery bill. Or, you can look at the things you don’t buy, or buy rarely, either because they are too expensive at the grocery store, or hard to find. The grocery budget may not change, but you’ll have a greater variety of produce, and more “treat” foods, which has substantial psychological benefits, too.
We’ve done a combination of the two.
Carrots, beets and potatoes, for example, are things that are easy to find in the stores. At least the plain ones. It wouldn’t really be worthwhile for us to, for example, grow Russet potatoes. They are still pretty cheap at the grocery store, and common. What we’ve ordered are common foods in uncommon varieties.
Fennel is one of those things we buy as a rare treat. They’re not significantly more expensive, but enough that when the budget is considered, it’s more economical to buy more of the cheaper produce.
The squash varieties are similar. We like them, but rarely do. Some, like the pattypan squash, are pretty rare in stores, and more expensive.
The sunflower seeds are intended to play several roles. These varieties are good for eating in general, but we’re going to be planting a lot of these to use as bird feed in the winter. The large size and strength of the plants themselves will act as wind breaks, as well as privacy screens. Plus, we’ll be planting them in an area that the leaves will hopefully shade the ground enough to prevent the grass and weeds in the area from growing. (This is where we’re going to need more hoses; the area is quite parched, and there is no nearby source of water.) The straw bale we have now will be used as mulch, though it won’t be enough on its own for such a large area. We’ll likely use most of that up when we get and plant potatoes. I’m hoping to get more straw or old hay over the summer. I’m planning to contact the renter of the rest of the farm, whom we have been buying our straw bales from, to see if he has any – and maybe some well composted manure, as well!
You’ll notice one of the things we don’t have on our list are lettuces. These are often recommended for new gardeners, as they produce relatively quickly, and with successive sowing, you can have 3 seasons of lettuce. We’ve tried growing lettuces in our container gardens before but, ultimately, find they are not really be worth the hassle. We’ve found them to be fragile produce, both as a plant to grow, easily killed off by too many things, and as produce to buy at the store, which inevitably go soggy before we can finish them. We just don’t eat enough lettuce to make it worthwhile.
Cabbage, on the other than, will be something we’ll grow in the near future. We use them more than lettuce, and they store very well over winter.
So a lot of what we’re going to be doing for gardening this summer is pretty experimental for us. How things work out will do a lot to help us decide what we’ll do next year.
Meanwhile, we will continue to clean up, reclaim space, and work out where we want to plant the things that will continue to feed us, year after year; berry bushes, fruits trees and, hopefully, nut trees.
It’s going to be a fun (and, hopefully, tasty) learning experience!
Or perhaps I should now call it our bi-monthly shop, since we will have to go into the city again to get more of the big, heavy stuff we got only half of what we normally do.
Yesterday, I had hoped to get some more progress done in the new basement, so we can use it to quarantine some outside cats. Unfortunately, the biggest set back in accomplishing this is getting things completely out.
After setting up, gloving up and looking around at where to start (a very depressing thing to do), I decided it was a burning day.
We have not been using our burn barrel for quite a long time. While cleaning up the old wood pile area, it was my intention to burn the old, nail filled half-rotted pallet pieces. I even set up a larger metal ring for just that. I think it got used only once, before the full burn ban came into effect, and that was it for the year.
What I managed to do yesterday was drag out the old cardboard packaging for products no one has anymore, decades old catalogs, phone books and stacks of musty old Polish newspapers. That cleared up a very noticeable amount of space!
Paper sucks to burn.
I think I spent at least 2 hours, standing in the snow, adding more and more to the fire. There was some old cardboard in the fire pit from last year, as well as the roots of some invasive vines I found, covered in snow. These eventually did dry out enough to burn. I snagged some wood from the burn barrel that we were never able to burn, all dried out by the sun, just to give the fire something better than paper to consume (and to keep the really thin pages from blowing away after being burnt). I kept having to dig up the ashes to uncover more partially burned pages so they could burn completely.
It was surprisingly windy out there. We will definitely be taking that lack of wind break from the south into consideration when we start working on the outer yard.
By the time I was done there, I had no energy left to work on the basement. My daughter was all set to help me, but we instead discussed what we are going to do with the stuff we need to take out. Besides the shopping cart of old wood for the fire pit, and stuff for the landfill.
We’re going to have to start using the barn.
It’s got so much stuff scattered about in there, though. If we can clear out one of the old cattle stalls to make space, we can store things in there until they can be properly disposed of. Like the collection of car batteries, old sump pumps and cans of old paint. In fact, the more we can get out of that basement completely, the better.
In the end, I got nothing else done in the basement at all. 😦
Meanwhile… notice the amount of snow around that fire pit?
It was much like that this morning, when we left for the city.
This is what we came back to.
You can see the path through the snow I’d made to get to the burn pit, over on the centre left. My foot prints are full of water, and there’s water all around the fire pit. Trying to walk around the giant puddle only revealed more water under the snow. There was no way to get to the house without walking through either deeper snow, or water!
When I checked the weather shortly after we got home, we were at 7C. The sun room, however, was much, much warmer!
And that’s with just a couple of feet of uncovered window creating passive solar heat in there!
But I digress…
The trip to the city was very productive and actually went very smoothly.
We decided to hit the Costco before breakfast (which we ended up having at lunch time…), in hopes that we would get there before all the toilet paper sold out.
When we drove in, we noticed two things at the same time. First, the massive line up and second, the relatively sparse parking lot. We were able to park fairly close to the entrance, which is unusual.
There was a small army of staff in high viz vests keeping the line organized and sanitizing cart handles. The line went from the doors at one end of the store, along the building to the opposite end, across the lane into the parking lot, up one of the concrete dividers, looping around and back to the lane, then up the lane almost as far as the entrance before turning into one of the parking lanes. The end of the line happened to be near where we parked the van, but we had to walk further from the store to get in line.
Employees walked back and forth, telling people to stay 6 feet apart (with one guy helpfully adding that this was the length of 2 shopping carts), to stay to one side (for cars to get by) and reminding people to have their Costco membership cards ready. They also answered questions, which is why we heard that there was no toilet paper to be had. The delivery truck didn’t show up this morning!
As long as the line was, it moved very quickly. The staff at the exits kept count of how many people left, then let the staff and the entrance know, so let that many people in.
A wall of pallets was made to separate the entry side from the exit side. Once inside, but not through the inner entrance, we had time to read the very handy white board lists of things they were out of (toilet paper, Lysol products, etc.) and stuff they did have in stock that, I’m guessing, were things they’d run out of before, like flour.
Once inside, we found the shelves well stocked of pretty much everything else, including pallets and pallets of flour. We didn’t find bread yeast, and they didn’t have as many types of rice as usual. They were not allowing people into the room where the dairy and eggs were kept. Instead, they had people at a table who got what we needed. We usually get the double flats of eggs, but they only had singles left – not that unusual, with Easter coming soon.
Everything went very smoothly and efficiently, including the checkouts. We didn’t bother bringing our bags in, like we usually do. Instead, we packed the stuff ourselves at the van. That worked out so much better, I think we should keep doing it that way.
I had intended to buy a couple of big bags of cat kibble, but it turned out they were allowing only 1 per person of the Kirkland brand. I’m sure there was a sign to say that, but I missed it completely.
By the time we were done, though, we had actually got most of what was on our list!
That done, we got gas – at 59.9 cents per litre!! I haven’t seen prices that low since probably 2004. I worked at a gas station that summer, and I remember being told that I should fill my tank at the end of my shift because the gas prices were about to go from 61.9/L to the astronomical amount of 68.9/L (For my readers from the US, 4L is about 1 gallon.)
We can finally afford the gas to go out more often, but there’s no place for us to go!
That done, we decided to hit a drive through near the Walmart we were going to. It happens to be across the street from a new Bulk Barn that I hoped to go to. I wasn’t sure how a store like that would be able to stay open. We couldn’t see if they were open, so when we got our food, we decided to drive over and look. Either they were open, and we would eat in the parking lot there before going in, or they were closed and we would continue to the Walmart, and eat in the parking lot there. 😀
We still couldn’t tell from the outside if they were open – there were no signs that we could read from the van – but my daughter could just see through the tinted windows that there were people walking around with shopping carts.
So we had our breakfast… er… lunch… in the van, then headed in.
To a very unhappy staff member at the door.
As we came in, the first thing we saw was a barrier directing the flow or traffic. There were two signs on posts facing the door, and two others down the lane people were directed to. As we were grabbing a cart, this poor woman at the first pair of signs was dressing down a couple of customers that were shopping together. They had gone right into the store and started shopping, and she was telling them that they had to wait by the door, get gloves, and wait until a staff member got them. Only staff were allowed to scoop the products out. “Oh, I didn’t know” one guy responded. “No one said anything.” Which was when she pointed out the FOUR signs they walked right past.
All that for a bag of pistachios.
After dealing with the customers that ignored all the signs, she held out a box of these really thin, one-size-fits-all plastic gloves for us and asked us to wait until someone came to help us.
Normally, I would have liked to have wandered up and down the aisles to see if anything caught my eye, but since we were shopping Edwardian style, we just told the guy what we wanted and how much, and he got them for us. He had a shopping cart that was lined with plastic, and a pile of scoops to use for each item.
I got stuff for making meals in a jar. I did that last month, and they’ve really been working out well, so I wanted to be able to make more.
Oh, I just realized. I completely forgot to get dehydrated vegetables for that.
Ah, well.
That done, our next stop was Walmart.
Oh, dear.
Like at Costco, they were letting people in, a little at a time, as other customers left.
The line outside wasn’t anywhere near as long as at Costco (thank God for warmer weather!), but it moved much more slowly. People tend to linger at Walmart, more than at Costco.
On top of that, a fire truck arrived as we were walking to the store. Shortly after, and ambulance arrived, and we eventually saw someone being taken out in a stretcher.
Sadly, this is not really that unusual to see. Medical emergencies can happen any time, any where! I do hope the person recovers quickly from whatever happened.
Once inside, we started working on what was left on our list. YES!!! There was toilet paper! One package per household. It’s not the amount we’d usually buy for the month, but it will tide us over until we find some more.
We also got another big bag of cat kibble.
The main thing I was looking for, however, was rubber boots.
Now, I have a problem with getting footwear in general. I have always had very wide feet, but after injuring them many, many years ago, they are now even wider. My normal shoes are men’s size 9, triple wide.
None of the rubber boots came in wider sized.
I do have another problem, though. Rubber boots are made to cover the calves.
I have very little cartilage left in my knees and the balls of my feet. The metatarsals in my feet have a habit of suddenly dislocating. My patella also tend to pop out of place every now and then, and my knees tend to want to bend backwards or sideways. I compensate for all this through my leg muscles. As a result, I have highly developed calves. Weight lifter type calves.
Which means that the tops of rubber boots are far too tight.
After trying several sizes of one style, I ended up settling on a men’s size 12 (I don’t even bother trying on women’s shoes). They were still tight at the calves, but I figured I would just cut them.
My daughter, however, spotted some that were a shorter style. They were also lined winter boots, but I could live with that.
The size 10s seemed to fit very well, but just in case, I tried some size 11s.
They were even more comfortable to put on! Awesome! these would be perfe…
Then my heel rocked and I almost twisted my ankle.
What the heck?
Unlike all the other styles of rubber boots, which had very flat heels, these boots had rounded edges on their soles. This meant that the flat part of the heel was narrower than the boot itself.
An absolute recipe for turned ankles!! And I know myself well enough to know that I would do it, too.
So we settled on the taller style.
At least they were cheap.
Once done at Walmart, we had one last stop to make at our favourite grocery store.
We just had to check, and their toilet paper section was completely wiped out!
Everything else, however, was fully stocked.
Except bread yeast. *sigh*
Ah, well. We can just use the sourdough!
This is the store we pick up some international foods we can’t find anywhere else, and smaller quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables than what we’d find at Costco. Those, we keep topped up locally. We also picked up more stuff for our Easter basket, including fresh herbs. We’re going to make marinated goat cheese again. We also picked up jarred beets, so we can use the liquid for pink pickled eggs. There isn’t a lot that we need to pick up here, but enough to make the trip worthwhile.
What was interesting about all this running around is that I was not anywhere near as exhausted as I normally am by the end of the day. I really dislike crowds. While there certainly were plenty of people around, but people did try to keep physically distant from each other, so it wasn’t that madhouse jostling. Everything went so smoothly and efficiently that even the waits in line were not at all taxing.
Once at home and the groceries were put away, I broke in the rubber boots to go and change the batteries in one of the trail cams, which now involves slogging through a hug puddle in the yard.
Yeah, I had to pull my pant legs up to get my legs into the boots.
Also, it turns out one of my calves is bigger than the other. By the time I was done, I had to get one of my daughters to pull the boot off of me, because it was stuck to my skin!
I have since cut them another inch or so, which will hopefully solve that problem.
I expect to be getting a lot of use out of these!
So we are now stocked up and set for at least a couple of weeks for some things, the rest of the month for others.
The shopping went much better than expected.
Oh, and I was also able to get a couple of plastic utility shelves for the old basement.
I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow! 😀
Trying not to kill myself, bringing them down the stairs… 😉
While doing my rounds this morning, I was able to take a closer look at the bird bath.
Throughout the winter, when chipping ice out to add water, I’ve been very careful not to touch the bird bath itself. It already had cracks showing on it, and now that the ice is melting away again, I can see that at least one has gotten worse. I’m sure my ice chopping didn’t help. 😀
Yeeeaaahhh…. I’d say the bird bath is toast.
The kitties still like it! 😀
Since completing my rounds outside, it has started to snow. A gentle snowfall, just enough to start coating the trees again. It won’t last long. Looking at the long range forecast, we’ll be staying above freezing every day. By Sunday, we’re even supposed to hit 10C (50F)! It’s going to get muddy out there, but I’m looking forward to the warmth, and the snow melting away enough to be able to extend my rounds again.
The girls and I have decided it’ll be worth heading to the city to try and do our monthly shop, though I expect we’ll split it again, make a smaller trip and go back again later in April.
I should try and find some rubber boots again. Last year, I couldn’t find anything that would fit over my burly calves. 😀
Looks like the deer found something to snack on, as the top of our compost pile thaws out! There would be all sorts of vegetable and fruit peels there right now.
If there were deer at the compost, I figured there might be some at the feeding station…
There certainly were! Along with Pump Shack cat and Two Face. 😀
As I was watching, the two in the back of this photo wandered behind the house. Then they suddenly came running back into view, clearly startled by something.
There turned out to be a big pick up truck coming up the road. It was slowing right down as it neared the intersection – far more than usual – then continued to drive slowly after it turned, until well after it passed our driveway. By then, all the deer had been startled away. Going back to the window I first saw them at, I could still see them in the trees, with a couple already crossing the road. Not long after, I saw the truck returning and driving just as slowly. At that point, I figured the driver was watching out for any deer that might come running onto the road, rather than trying to watch them in our yard. 🙂
It makes me so happy to see our furry visitors. 🙂
On a completely different subject, we got the call I was wondering about this morning. The heart clinic phoned my husband.
There was a rather long and detailed interview, checking on his status. As far as his heart condition goes, he’s been doing awesome, but he did have to qualify some of his answers by explaining that he was dealing with the pain of his disability.
By the end of the call, after making sure he wasn’t in an urgent situation, his two appointments next week were cancelled. He was told they were looking to reschedule in June. He was also told they’re cancelling all their appointments, due to the Wuhan flu, to reschedule in June. They have no idea how they’ll re-book everyone for June, so it’ll more likely be July or August.
I can’t say I was expecting this, but I wasn’t not expecting it, either.
So that’s off the calendar.
My mother’s medical appointment is still on, though it’s already been rescheduled once. We shall see how that goes.
I did call my mother to check on her yesterday. I woke her from a nap! Oops! 😀
She assured me she had been able to get to the grocery store. It’s just a couple of blocks away, and she does the distance well enough with her walker. She’s been told to try and get exercise, so this is one of the ways she does it. The only downside is that the main doors of the building are now kept locked, so outsiders can’t get in without a resident letting them in, which makes is harder for her to get in and out with the walker. Those doors are the ones with the button to push to open automatically. She manages okay, though. As for her supplies, the grocery store delivers to her building regularly, so she has no problem buying as much as she needs and getting it home. Apparently, the only things they were out of stock on (that she noticed, anyhow) were bananas and garlic! 😀
She had also gotten a call from my sister the day before, and even the social worker had called to check if she needed anything. With all the social events now cancelled and people told to stay at home and not have visitors unless they absolutely have to, I think my mom is getting a bit bored! She does still go to the lobby just to sit for a while, for some “fresh air” and sit in at sunny window. The walk down the hall counts as her exercise, too. 🙂
The main thing is that she’s doing okay and is not running out of any necessities.
As for her appointment, I’m not expecting a cancellation call, but again, it wouldn’t exactly be unexpected, either.
And more windows. Because there are windows, everywhere!
The Re-Farmer 