Month: June 2020

Catch up, and kitties!

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I’m happy to say that, yesterday evening, when things started to cool down a bit, we got a couple of big jobs finished.

The first was to finish cleaning up the pile of branches pruned from the apple trees.

My awesome daughters actually finished the job by cutting up the largest pieces. Except that one big stump piece. We’re not going to bother with that.

It’s going to take a while to burn this away, but at least it’s neatly stacked, and I can mow around it.

Speaking of which, that was the other big job I finally got done. I finally got into the west end of the old garden area, and into the maple grove. The new mower is just awesome, getting in between the trees. I turned on the “health” app that my phone came with, for the pedometer, and according to that thing, I walked about 7 km (4.34 miles), just mowing in the trees.

I’m glad that got done last night, because when I did my rounds this morning, it was already 24C/75F, and the dew wasn’t even dry yet!

These flowers will soon be a riot of purple, all along the south fence by the spruce grove. :-)

Since manual labour outside was not going to happen yet, I decided to spend some time working with the basement.

The kittens had already escaped when I first came down to tend to them in the morning, and I couldn’t get them all back. My husband was sweet enough to supervise them while I did the outside part of my rounds (more to make sure the adult cats didn’t hurt any of them), then helped me get them back into the basement, so I could give them some wet cat food.

When I tried to go back down later, I opened the door and found 4 kitten heads at the top step – the door just clears them when it opens! – and that was it. They were gone. All five of them ended up upstairs, running around.

I let them be. They’d done all right earlier – only Fenrir is a concern for aggressiveness – and I decided to take advantage of them being out of the basement. I brought down a long corded power bar, and some large cup hooks (among other things). I attached the cup hooks into one of the floor joists running across the ceiling of the basement. Two of them are now holding the cord for the power bar, with the plug ins hanging down. It even has USB ports, if I need to charge my phone. Three other hooks are now there to hold whatever else is needed.

With the kittens away, I used my wood burning tool, with the knife blade attachment, to cut a couple of 5 gallon water jugs in half, then cut the necks off the top. The halves are now available to use as covers for plants, if needed, and the necks I left as cat toys. ;-)

I was then able to let the tool hang from one of the hooks to cool down, completely safe from kitties, until I could take off the knife blade and put it away in its case.

Then my daughter helped me bring the babies back down again.

Once that was done, I started working on my carving practice. I had kittens crawling all over me until they got bored and left me alone.

How adorable is that!!!

Beep Beep had been persuaded to come down, too, and she decided to join her babies.

That lasted until I started using my Dremel tools and scared them all away. :-(

After I was done with the noisy tools, and continued to work on the spoon, I started hearing a very tiny, very wet, slurping noise.

Yeah. That’s Leyendecker, nursing!

What a silly kitty! Even Beep Beep is looking at him funny. :-D

I am quite happy with how the spoon progressed today, but I’ll post about that later.

We’ve finally reached the high of the day for today (27C/80F), so things should start cooling down now. I’m hoping that, after supper, it’ll be cool enough to get stuff done outside. The next couple of days are supposed to be even hotter, with thunderstorms expected tomorrow, so anything I can get done tonight is bonus.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up progress

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I had originally been thinking of working in a different area today, to remove more dead and damaged trees in the West yard. That pile of apple branches, however, was bothering me.

So I started breaking that down, instead. Here are the before and after pictures.

This is as far as I got, before it started to rain.

I’ve been breaking it down to firepit sized pieces, to make it easier later on. I have to admit, as I cut some of the larger pieces, I find myself thinking that … some of them look pretty good … maybe I could salvage some of them… It seems like such a waste to burn this beautiful apple wood! I wouldn’t even want to use it for a cookout, since I don’t know how the fungal disease would affect the smoke. But gosh, apple is a beautiful wood!

I made very good use of the new long handled pruners I got not long ago. It was going through nice thick branches like nothing! I used to have to use a saw for a lot of these. I noticed, however, there was a rattling noise that seemed to increase. And was that anvil supposed to rotate with the cutting blade like that?

Nope.

At some point, we lost a bolt. There is no nut at the other side. It looks like a proprietary shape, too. Or at least not something I have seen when perusing the section at the hardware store.

It has a lifetime warranty, though, so I looked up the website and sent an email with the above photo and another of the bar code (because, of course I don’t have the receipt anymore… LOL) as proof of purchase. We’ll see how that goes. I might just zip tie it in place for now.

Hmmm… It looks like the rain has already passed. I might be able to finish breaking down the pile today, after all. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Crab apple pruning

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The down side of using what clear weather we’ve had to keep on top of the mowing is, lots of other things aren’t getting done.

Today, we tackled one of those jobs (though I could easily have spent a couple of hours mowing).

We worked on pruning the dead wood out of the crab apple trees. This first one was losing the most.

Honestly, I think this one is probably a lost cause. It has a fungal disease, and much of it is already dead, but if we can save it, that would be great.

This next one is already completely dead.

Last year, the stems that were growing out of the base were still alive, so we left it. Not a sign of any life at all, this year.

Unless you count the ant hill that appeared at the base, or the fungus growing on it, we discovered last fall.

This last one is not too bad.

The main trunk of this tree – which my brother tells me was grafted on by my late father – has died, but the suckers that grew out of the base produced very well last year. They were decently larger, for a crab apple, and while it took quite a while for them to ripen compared to the other trees, once they did, they were the tastiest of them all.

Mind you, last year was not a good year for apples.

I had help, while doing this, and not just from my daughters…

What a silly boy! :-D

Here is how the trees look now.

There is not a lot left on that first one. On the stump we cut short, you can see little dots – those are ants! The last one is looking pretty good.

The pile of branches next to the first tree is what we cut away from these three areas.

After that, we decided to cut away the dead wood from the other trees.

I’d actually done a major pruning of dead wood on all the trees, our first summer here, and kept it up a bit last year, so I wasn’t expecting to remove all that much. Which is why I didn’t thing to take a before picture.

I was really amazed by how much dead wood we got out of these, and how much more open the trees looked! They were hard enough to clear on their own, with how much apple branches twist around each other, but with the trees planted so close together, they were also entangled in neighbouring branches! The biggest tree, in the middle of the photo, had a really surprising number of dead branches. This also makes it more dangerous to take them down. They catch on everything on the way down, and time and again, we’d bring down a branch that turned out to be much bigger than we’d expected it to be. They’d get caught on the other branches, and were quite difficult to remove.

Here is the final pile of branches.

All of this needs to be burned, due to the fungal infection. No salvage to be had, here. What a shame. While we did get a few dying branches with leaves still on them, this was almost all dead stuff. We did not actively try to prune any of the live branches.

Since we also have to burn out infected stumps, we’re leaving these branches here. When the conditions are right, I’ll be bringing a metal ring we’ve got to place over each stump and start a small fire. We need to burn out the stumps, but they are also under live branches, so we have to take care to keep the fire small enough not to affect those. While these will need to be done on separate days, weather willing, this pile will be used partly to feed the small fires, but also broken down and we’re just going to burn it in the garden. We’ll be able to have a slightly bigger fire, but not by much. Thanks to the rain we’ve been having, there would be no complete burn ban right now. So no controlled burning of fields, but yes to fire pits and burn barrels.

It was good to get this done! With how much more open the trees are, this should help increase yield quite a bit – though I think all the lovely rain we’ve had so far will play a much bigger part!

As an aside, we got some unexpected entertainment while working. At one point, we heard a tractor go by on the road. It was our vandal. Some time later, he made his return trip. I could just see him through the lilac hedge and something seemed… odd. It took a while to see him clearly, but the entire time he drove past us, he had one arm out, giving us the finger! :-D

So juvenile!

Which reminds me. Before we started on the trees, my daughter and I planted new sunflower seeds in the spaces that either didn’t sprout, or the sprouts got … eaten? Of the seeds we originally planted, we’ve got about a 50% loss, in total, between the two varieties. I found another variety in the grocery store that is supposed to be a large head, eating/bird seed type. It’s so late in the season, it’s hard to know if they’ll reach full growth, but even if they don’t, I’m hoping they’ll fill the gaps to be part of the wind break/privacy screen we also planted them for.

While we were putting things away, I spotted a pleasant surprise.

We put this up to encourage local pollinators last year, and not a single tube got used, so I was very happy to see some of them have been filled. It’s only in this one area, but hopefully, that means we’ll see more of them, over time.

I’m really glad to have gotten this job done. Now we just have to get rid of those branches, before things get overgrown again! :-D

The Re-Farmer

They do make life interesting!

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Today is looking to be a slightly warmer, hopefully drier, day. One of my goals is to finally get some outside work done that had to be delayed. We shall see how that works out.

Yesterday evening, I was able to spend some time with the kittens.

That was an adventure!

They’ve taken to launching themselves at my legs as I walk past them, so in the space of a few steps, I’ll find myself with 2 or 3 kittens hanging off my pant legs. Then they’ll start climbing! :-D

These kittens are thoroughly socialized. :-D

Once I settle at my work table, they are all over me. Then things like this happen.

Turmeric settled right into my elbow and was ready for a nap!

Mostly, though, they were clambering all over me, but eventually I was able to get out my carving supplies and continue on my practice spoon.

They love the protective glove.

Saffron and Leyendecker were particularly cuddly.

Generally, though, I am able to continue carving while they clamber around me without too much trouble. Sometimes, it can be a problem. At one point, I had a kitten on my shoulder, eating my hair and tackling my ear. Another jumped up and they started to tussle. One fell off, but managed not to fall to the floor by dangling on a single claw.

From my ear.

Thankfully, kittens are very light. It didn’t even bleed. Having a kitten swinging off the side of my head was still rather uncomfortable! I didn’t even really do anything about it right away, since I had a spoon in one hand, and a knife in the other.

Eventually, though, I paused for kitten cuddles, which is when Beep Beep decided to get in on the action, by jumping directly on her kittens.

They retaliated by immediately starting to nurse. :-D

Just look at Saffron’s face!!!

I’m happy to say that, in the middle of all this, I did get some decent progress on the spoon. I’m slowly managing to get the bowl deeper and the handle in the rounded, swooping shape that I want. I also started cutting details into the morel at the end. Thankfully, the “holes” in morals are very random in shape and location, so I can put them wherever I feel they will create the overall shape that I’m after. Because the spoon blank already had a handle rough shaped out the way it did, the mushroom was very flat on two sides. As I cut in the details, it’s starting to look rounder, and more like an actual morel.

I plan to cheat, though.

The holes I’m making are pretty ragged on the inside, partly due to the small spaces I’m trying to work a knife tip into. There’s no way sandpaper can be used to smooth it out, so once the details are all roughed out, I plan to use a Dremel to smooth things out inside the holes. The last thing I plan to do, before oiling the wood, is take a lighter to the cap of the mushroom, to darken it like the real thing.

It’s slow going, but I’m rather pleased with how it’s turning out so far.

Later in the evening, while my daughter and I were chatting, she had a chance to cuddle with Keith.

What a face! :-D

Meanwhile…

When tending the kittens this morning, they were just as eager to climb me.

With the kittens now waiting at the top of the stairs before we can even open the door, and the upstairs cats trying to get down, all while I’m juggling things like a pitcher of water and a bucket of cat litter, my daughter has been trying to come down and help whenever she can. That usually involves using a spray bottle to keep the adult cats away, while I struggle down the stairs, trying not to step on kittens. Sometimes, she even manages to get down the stairs right after me, though this morning we had to close the door first, and she couldn’t come down until I was able to come back and carry away the 3 kittens that were on the top step, waiting for her. :-D

Having her there did mean she could get this picture for me. :-D

While walking across the basement, I had a couple of kittens making their flying leaps at my legs and hanging on while I walk, like I’m some sort of carnival ride. At one point, I had a kitten on each leg, and another hanging off my butt. :-D I believe that was Saffron, who made her way up to my head, soon followed by Leyendecker, attacking her tail. :-D

Once I got outside to do my rounds, I had Junk Pile cat and Rolando Moon already waiting for me.

I think Rolando spent the night in the tree outside our kitchen! The other cats are really after her, for some reason. :-(

Butterscotch and Rosencrantz were already quick to show up for food. Once I started going around the yard, much to my surprise, it was Rolando that followed along.

Butterscotch did start to head my way, but as soon as Rolando spotted her, she started growling. Which is what is happening in the photo above.

Rolando can be pretty mean herself! I’d be petting her and she’d be all happy with it, then suddenly turn and attack my hand. Even when I paused to do some weeding in the garden, she came over, just to attack my hand!

Nasty girl.

Ah, cats. We have way too many of them, but they do make life fun!

If sometimes painful, too. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Growth

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So the series of severe storms that looked like they were going to head right over us… didn’t. They passed to the East of us, instead, though we did get some nice rain.

I’m good with that.

I headed out to check on things this evening, and was greeted by a Rolando Moon!

She seemed quite happy to see me and let me pet her in the tree. Right up until she decided to grab my hand with her paws and try to bite me.

Ah, Rolando. She doesn’t change. :-D

I took the opportunity to take the grass clippings I’d left beside the carrots and beets and use it to mulch in between the plots. Creamsicle joined me and did his rolling around thing to get me to pet him. Unfortunately, he decided to roll around on the baby beets! What a bad boy. :-D

I completely forgot to take any pictures, though, as I started to hear growling from Rolando Moon in the tree. It took me a while to see which cat was after her and, much to my surprise, it was Butterscotch! A quick spritz with the hose got her away, but then Creamsicle went after her!

Creamsicle got a thorough soaking before he took off!

Other things have gotten a good soaking, and are thriving for it. Like my mother’s lilies.

The flowers are so big, they’re starting fall over!

The maple grove is looking absolutely lush.

When we first moved here, this area was full of tall crab grass, like you can see in the background, broken branches and dead trees. Once the big stuff was cleared away, all I had at the time to cut the grass was the weed trimmer. Under the grass, it was pretty sparse, and mostly covered with dead leaves.

Last summer I was finally able to mow in here and, again, it was pretty sparse with lots of dead leaves. Some new growth was starting to show in patches, but not much. I had to be careful mowing in there, as so much debris was being thrown out and blown around – usually right back at me! :-D

Now… well, you can see it’s changed quite a bit!

I don’t know about the shorter plants; I think they’re a flower, but I’m not sure. Sprinkled throughout are taller ones that I know a flowers. You can’t really tell them apart in the picture, though!

While there, I noticed some other new growth.

Willow is just amazing. This tree is full of rot and dying. This section of it broke in a blizzard last October (you can read about it here). Yet now, this almost completely rotted out section is throwing out new growth! There are small bunches of branches like this in several places. (Read most about the storm damage here, and here, and how it was before, here.)

It is not the only storm damaged tree that is showing new growth.

The elm tree in front of the kitchen had lost a couple of large branches, including one that had broken, but still needed to be cut. (Click here to see the clean up process.) When I cut loose the broken part, the remains of the branch, free of the weight, sprung up much higher than it was before.

It’s hard to see, but that arrow is pointing to the cut end of the branch.

It had no smaller branches around there at all when it was cut. Now, it’s absolutely bushy!

It’s amazing how resilient some trees can be.

The Re-Farmer

Gotta be quick!

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Taking advantage of a break to quickly post!

My attempts at getting kitten pictures has been a failure today. Those little buggers move fast! :-D

So do flowers, actually. At least with the winds we had when I was doing my rounds this morning!

These delicate little wildflowers have burst into bloom now. It’s interesting how there always seems to be some wildflower blooming, one after the others.

These wild roses are almost completely engulfed by the spirea!

One of our goals is to pull up most, if not all, of the spirea from here. The junk pile, in general, needs to be cleared so we can get access to it and start cleaning it up. I’m hoping the wood pile that makes up the bulk of it will still have some salvageable wood in there. One of the things I want to build is a box to put our garbage bags into, so the animals can’t tear them apart.

I noticed in the area around the stone cross, which had been full of spirea, now has what looks like flowers coming up. If they are what I think they are, they won’t bloom for a while yet, but I’m seeing them pop up all over, in areas that have been cleared up. Especially where I’ve also been able to finally mow. It seems once the grass (or, in this area, the spirea) was no longer the dominant plant, all sorts of greenery is now able to grow. When I get to mowing in the maple grove, there are some paths I plan to deliberately leave alone, just to see what is there.

After my morning rounds, I got back outside as quick as I could, to finish mowing around the old garden area.

I was almost done when I ran out of gas, so I took a quick rest and hydration break. The Potato Beetle came over for cuddles. I’m rather surprised, considering how covered in bug spray I was!

I’m happy to say, I managed to finish the old garden area, including the section I hadn’t been able to get to at all, yet. After this, I can start going into the maple grove.

But not today.

For the last half hour or so of mowing, there was a whole lot of thundering happening, so I was really happy to get that last bit finished before putting away the mower.

Since then, we have had a quick storm pass by, with a heavy downpour. We also lost internet for a while, and then we momentarily lost power. Just enough to cause the computers to restart, and the security camera to reset its position.

I love power bars.

Looking at the weather radar, we seem to be in the path of several small but severe thunderstorms for the rest of the day.

Which means it’s time to quickly get caught up, then shut down the computer, in case we lose power again. No doubt, once the winds pick up again, we’ll lose internet again.

It’s going to be an interesting day!

The Re-Farmer

Found the problem!

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While putting away the push mower yesterday, I was going to take the time to start up the riding mower and see what I could see. I always push the mower out of the garage before starting it, but I never got it all the way out. I could hear a different sound, like something was dragging underneath. I pushed it forward again, and it was still there.

I did not notice the sound when I pushed the mower to the garage, but there were plenty of other noises that would have drowned it out.

So I let it be for now.

This morning, I found an email from my brother. He had emailed me an electronic copy of the user’s manual. Having looked over it first, he wrote that – based on my description of what happened – he figured the drive chain either broke or fell off, then asked if I could get photos from above and below.

As soon as I read “drive chain”, I knew that was what I was hearing.

When I finished my rounds, I went in to try and get some photos. There’s nothing to see from above, and from below, it was a matter of sticking my phone under, and various angles, and using voice commands to take pictures. I’m not able bodied enough to get onto the ground to see. After the first few pictures, though, I could figure out where I needed to concentrate on.

Yup. There it was.

The manual had information about how the chain can become loose over time, and how to tighten it.

Which we have no way of doing.

I mean, theoretically, someone could get down on the ground and do it by feel, but if I’m going to do something like that, I want to be able to see. Not just the chain, but to know if there are other potential problems under there.

One of the things we’re going to need to build is a platform we can roll the mower up onto, so we can get under to work on it. We could certainly use various things we have to lift it, but there’s safety to take into account, too. Whatever we use has to be able to hold the weight and keep things from rolling around. We do have jack stands that could be used, but… well, my late brother was killed when the car he was working under, fell on him after a jack stand failed. So, I’m a little more paranoid about such things these days. :-/

I’ve already told my brother he’s not allowed to come fix it. LOL He’s got so much going on, I don’t want to be another burden for him.

So it will wait until we can take it in to the shop as I was already planning to do, later in the month.

At least the chain does not look broken, and it seems like it will be a relatively easy fix.

The Re-Farmer

Morning roundup, and I’m a tree!

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After the heat we’ve had for the past while, it actually got remarkably chilly last night.

It was great!

I had some concern about how it got for the kittens, but the basement is pretty good at remaining a constant temperature.

This morning, I took one of the long boxes that held pieces of my new bed frame and lay it out on the floor for the kittens to play in.

They just loved it!

Leyendecker, however, got distracted by something that was apparently much more interesting.

Me.

He climbed me like a tree! All the way up to my head, where he began to tackle my ear and try to eat my hair.

What a silly boy!

The outside cats were eagerly awaiting me when I got outside. Their food bowls had been completely cleaned out. By them, or other animals, I’m not sure.

Butterscotch allowed my daughter to check her out yesterday, and it seems she is pregnant again. Considering how it went when we tried to bring her in before, that is just not something we can do again.

I’m happy to say that, when both Butterscotch and Creamsicle joined me while checking out my mother’s flowers, there was NO fighting, at all.

When checking out the squash beds, I’d found a pleasant little surprise.

Some pumpkins are sprouting!

These two hills had 3 seeds each planted in them. The other one had 5 seeds in the package, but so far, none have sprouted.

Most of the more recently transplanted squash are noticeably growing bigger, though they have also gotten pretty yellow. One of the possible reasons I’ve seen is a lack of iron. Which means we likely should supplement the soil with bloodmeal. I just haven’t been able to find any!

More potatoes are starting to show up through the straw mulch. When mowing last night, I moved out the wooden frames that were around the beds. They are no longer needed, and taking them out makes it easier to mow around the beds. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish the mowing today; we might be getting showers this afternoon.

This evening, we’re planning to get all wild and crazy. Father’s Day and my daughter’s birthday fall on the same day this year. Knowing how busy things are likely to be on Sunday, we’ve decided to celebrate today. Our favorite Chinese restaurant is open again, so we’re planning on ordering a whole lot of take-out!

It’s going to be such a treat!! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Didn’t Make It

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One of the things I’ve been keeping an eye on has been the grape vine I accidentally cut, then hoped to root.

It didn’t make it.

The rest of it seems to be doing just fine, though.

Just look at those adorable baby grapes! :-)

Things have cooled down quite a bit, after we got some rains. It would be absolutely fantastic out there, if it weren’t for the insane amount of mosquitoes. Unfortunately, the same weather that cooled things down is ideal for them.

I don’t know if things will dry up enough to continue some of the projects that need to be done outdoors, but if it does, I’ll have to make sure to absolutely engulf myself in bug spray!!

The Re-Farmer