Yesterday was a day where the weather lurched from pouring rain to brilliant sunshine! Things had cleared up enough that I even turned my computer back on again for a while. The weather radar looked like we would be getting rain, but the more severe parts of the system would miss us, again.
Then, part way through a phone call, I began to see the lightning. It didn’t take long for the sky to turn completely black. Off went the computer, and I’m glad I did. Not only did we loose internet a couple of times (something we now expect, whenever the weather gets wild), but the power flickered out enough to shut everything down. Thankfully, not enough for my husband to notice his CPAP had stopped!
We were supposed to go into town this morning, so he could get some blood work and an ECG done. Unfortunately, pain had him up at 2am, and by the time I was getting ready to do my rounds, he was more than ready to try and sleep again, having completely forgotten about the tests, and couldn’t remember if fasting was required (it wasn’t; these tests are for the cardio clinic). Normally, blood work is just a drop in, but with an ECG as well, we’ll double check to see what has changed with the pandemic restrictions. Not that it’s an issue where we are. Our province never got hit hard, and there haven’t been any new cases of the virus in over a week.
Without that trip into town, I got to spend more doing my rounds, while the temperatures were cooler. On Sunday, I’d watered the garden plots with a fertilizer attachment, and yesterday morning, the squashes were looking noticeably less yellow!
These ones in particular are much bigger than the others.
Since the transplants got all mixed up when the trays got knocked over, I don’t know what type of squash these actually are, but I’m pretty sure these are green zucchini from the summer squash mix (which had 3 types of zucchini in it), only because I remember my mother’s zucchini from when I was a kid. But then, I have no idea if the other types of zucchini in the mix look any different, so really, it could be any of them. They are definitely not the patti pan squash, though. I’ve grown those in a balcony garden, and remember their leaves never got that big.
I don’t think I’m going to bother with trellising this bed at all, either. I might still do the long row in the back, if only because they are closer to the row of trees. This year is my learning year, so I’m willing to change plans and use the results to make decisions next year.
Some of my mother’s flowers are still coming up, in between the apple and chokecherry trees at the sound end of the area we put the squash beds in.
This butterfly was just sitting there, kindly letting me get a picture. :-)
While checking on the various plots, I find myself kind of torn. On the one hand, things seem to be coming up well enough. Granted, some of the squash will probably never reach full potential, between the lateness of planting and damage from that one last frost, but others look like they are doing well. Then I read from people talking about how they are already seeing little squashes starting to form in their gardens. The carrots, beets and parsley are growing well (only 3 khol rabbi sprouts survived), and we’ll be able to use the plants we thin out in salads and such. Then I talk to my mother, and she mentioned how my sister has been bringing her fresh vegetables. I have no idea what she would have in her garden that’s ready to harvest already! Lettuces and spinach, maybe, but my mother never refers to those as vegetables. So is my garden doing well, for our region, or not? I didn’t plant things that late, for this area, and my sister is in the same climate zone we are in.
Oh, dear. I was just informed by husband that our washing mashing stopped working. The breaker has not been tripped, and there is no obvious reason why it stopped.
So let me just quickly share these fun photos with you, and then I have to see what I can figure out is going on with our washing machine!!
I know I’ve said this before. I’ll probably say it many more times.
I have the best brother!
He and his wife are just amazing. Yesterday, we had a wonderful surprise from them. I got a message from my SIL that my brother would be coming over with their old dog house, for us to use as a cat shelter!
They have always had large dogs. When their last one passed away, they decided not to get another dog. With a new grand child in another province, and prospects of retirement and selling the property in the future, it just wasn’t something they wanted to do.
This left them with a large dog house in their yard that wasn’t being used.
And they know we’ve been using the sun room to provide shelter for the cats over the winter, leaving the doors propped open slightly.
What they didn’t know is that we were looking into building a larger shelter with a roof that could be lifted up, for easy access and cleaning.
Their dog house not only has such a roof, but it’s wired for electricity!
My brother, saint that he is, ended up taking several hours not only to move the heavy shelter (using tools like a come-along, and good old physics!) onto their trailer – something my SIL could not help with at all, having had surgery not long ago – but to replace part of the roof and paint it, too!
Just look at this thing!
He even brought the pallets that were under it.
With three of us working together, we got it unloaded and set up in only a couple of hours. We had to set up a fence post, at an almost 45 degree angle, to have something to attach a chain for the come-along to. The shelter itself is on top of a skid. Once that reached the edge of the trailer, my brother and I levered up the ends of the skid to go over the lip and clear the board he’d put on the ramps. The ramps were designed for wheels, with recesses in the middle to prevent them from going sideways. The skid would have fallen right into those, but he had boards wide enough to fit right in there.
The chain for the come-along had to be adjusted a couple of times before the shelter was at the end of the ramps, but at that point, the fence post was now in the way. My brother unhitched the truck from the trailer and, while I removed the post, drove the truck around to the other side and used it to pull the shelter off the rest of the way. He then had to move the trailer out, back the truck up to where the trailer was, then haul the shelter to where we had decided it should go.
Which is pretty much where one of the old doghouses, now set up near the outhouse, used to be!
There were three possible places we could put the shelter, and have easy access to an outlet. There’s the outlet on the side of the house, but with the fancy lilacs and cherry trees right there, that wasn’t really an option. We could have put it near the back of the garage, but it gets very wet there when the snow melts. So that brought us to the spot in front of the sun room. We should be able to run a cord through, and still close the doors, in the winter.
Check it out!
You can see an outlet that the light it plugged into. The light has a pool-grade cover over it, so nothing it getting at that bulb. It’s a 100 watt bulb, so it will also provide a bit of warmth. There is a second outlet just on the other side of where the cord goes through the wall. They had had a pet safe warming blanket plugged into there. My brother tested them out before bringing it over, and it all works. We will be able to plug in the heated water bowl in there. It has a long enough cord to be plugged in and still be outside.
The main part of the doghouse turned out to be too small for when they had two dogs, so my brother added the “porch” at the end – which now has a fresh new roof. The flax inside was still clean, so they left that.
Though my brother brought the pallets it was on, I wanted it on bricks. I’ve cleaned up way too many rotten pallets to go with wood directly on the ground again! And we just happened to have a stack of bricks I’d cleaned up from various places that we could use.
We will continue to add bricks for both support, and to level the shelter more. You can see the patch of dirt where the previous doghouse had been sitting. We went further out, where the ground was more level, but it’s still not flat.
Do you see that beam sticking out, with the decorative cut at the end?
The roof of this is very heavy, and my brother had included this with the thought to add a counter weight, or maybe a spring – anything to make it easier to open the roof up. He never got around to adding anything, though. It’s something we might do. Or not. We’ll see.
With the skid under the main body of the doghouse, the “porch” just sort of floats above ground. The top is starting to pull away from the main section, though – despite the many deck screws holding it in place! – so I intend to add bricks to support that, too.
There are two layers of shredded carpet over the opening to keep the weather out, while still letting critters in.
The skid is starting to look kinda rotten, even though it had always been on top of pallets, not directly on the ground, and I find myself looking at it and thinking…
Is that about the same size as the long frames we made for the goat catcher? If I cut the ends at an angle, one of those would make a very strong replacement skid!
Switching those out would be a huge job, but it would be worth it.
Aside from little things like that, and some minor repairs to old wood, we are now set for a winter shelter for the yard cats! One with warmth and light.
I hope the cats enjoy it!
On a completely different note, while going around and deciding where best to put the shelter, I decided to dig out the hose attachments and fertilizer and give our garden beds a good feeding. I was moving the hose at the front of the house, so I could reach the carrots and beets, when I suddenly lost water.
The hose end snapped off, right at the tap!
I hadn’t even pulled on it. The hose was just moving. It’s designed to rotate freely, and you can see the piece that was there to keep it from bending.
I bought this hose last fall. It’s less than a year old, and has seen hardly any use!
The more inconvenient part, though, is that the tap at the front of the house needs a new seal. We can’t turn it off, because it just sprays at the tap. Which meant that, when I discovered what happened, there was water flowing at full pressure right at the house, and while shutting the tap off did slow it a bit, I still had to yell for a daughter to dash into the basement and shut the water off from there. Thankfully, the pipes to the outside taps do have their own shut off valves, unlike the pipes supplying water inside the house.
A couple more things to add to the fix-it list!
For now, however, it’s time to shut down the computer. I’m seeing thunderstorm warnings flashing on my task bar! I expect the storms to miss us again, but we’ll likely loose internet, and possibly get power flickers, too.
That, and my daughters are taking me into town to pick up Chinese food for my birthday. They are so sweet! :-)
Today is Sunday, which I try to keep as a quiet day of rest, but of course, the morning rounds must be done.
After putting kibble out for the yard cats, I paused to enjoy some of the flowers that have come up in the old kitchen garden.
Though we covered the entire area with cardboard and mulch, some things have managed to come through. Like there cheerful yellow flowers that have come up near the rain barrel.
A whole bunch of these white ones have come up near the sun room window.
Then I got joined by a beautiful, furry flower!
Who insisted in being carried for most of my rounds! :-D
While one of the goals of mulching this area was to kill off some of the more invasive plants my mother had introduced, I’m not too worried about what’s coming up now. The weeds and quack grass are much easier to pull out, with such a deep layer of mulch, and the flowers have been coming up very strong and healthy. The other goal for this area is to level it off to the retaining wall, so we’re focusing on adding material at the end furthest from the house, and leaving all these flowers to grow. Eventually, this will be a kitchen garden, for herbs and vegetables that we tend to use the most, but there is no hurry on that. It’ll be done in stages, and as I figure out what flowers are there, and which I want to keep, I can transplant them to other areas.
For now, we will enjoy the flowers where they are. :-)
Including furry ones that follow me around and give love and cuddles!
The kittens have taken to napping under the couch regularly. Beep Beep can just barely squeeze under there, herself. A little while ago, my daughter saw her squeeze part way there, then start wiggling oddly. Moments later, some sleepy kitties came out. She then flopped on the floor for them to nurse. She actually woke them up for lunch! :-D They’re more than old enough to be weaned, but it’s still great bonding time. :-)
My daughter got the broken flexible pipe replaced. She did just the one for now.
The other has been left for now, partly to make sure the cold water is working fine and there are no leaks. With the hot water, there is at least a shut off valve at the hot water tank. When we replaced the tank shortly after moving here, the plumber added one on for us. When it’s time to replace the other piece, only the hot water to the house will need to be shut off, and not all the water.
For some reason, the copper pipes are painted, including the end of the flexible hose. My daughter tells me the pipes to the old sink in the entry way, which now supply water to the washing machine, were also painted.
Why paint copper??
As for me, I headed outside for a last bit of mowing.
That’s 4 days of mowing, now, and I’m skipping some places!
I did do an extra bit, though.
I mowed a path to and around the old Farm Hand tractor. Next, we’ll be going in there with the weed trimmer. Once we can access the tractor, we need to cut away the trees that are growing through it. We aren’t able to maintain the tractor itself, but we can at least prevent some types of damage to it!
For the last couple of summers, I’d been able to keep an area to the back gate mowed, large enough to drive through. This year, between the rain and the heat, I just never made it that far.
Today, after mowing the area in front of the storage shed, I decided to mow a path to the back gate. It’s our “emergency exit”, so I don’t want to leave it entirely.
A path, however, is all I was up to!
I cranked the mower up as high as it can go – which is higher than the riding mower can go – and only managed a path twice the width of the mower itself. I actually took 8 passes, just to get it as good as this! The first pass, I had the front wheels up almost the whole way, just to get the height down enough to not choke out the mower.
My daughter suggested it would probably be easier to use the old scythe in the garden shed, instead of a mower, for this stuff! She’s probably right. This is hay that’s being cut! Heck, if we had the equipment (well… working equipment), we could probably get a couple of large round bales just in this section! :-D
I’m hoping to at least keep up a path to the back gate. I don’t expect to make the wide “driveway” I’d kept clear last year. I’d hoped to do more, since the area becomes quite the fire hazard, but we just can’t keep up with it all. More time is being spent on the lawn than anything else right now. As much as I love mowing the lawn, there are other things that need to get done! Ultimately, the goal is to have less lawn, with trees in some areas, and raised garden beds in others. Maybe even a greenhouse or two. Other areas, I hope to replace the grass with moss.
Until then, though, there’s an awful lot of grass to cut!
One of the things that is quite visible when the grass is tall, is a path through the grass, worn down by cats, leading from the yard to under the storage shed. While I was working on the path to the back gate, and was turning to make another pass, I noticed Junk Pile cat, sitting in the newly mowed grass in the shade of the shed, watching me. I think her kittens might be under there. When I told my daughter about it, she said she saw them this morning! Junk Pile cat had brought them to the house for food. :-)
I look forward to seeing them more often and, hopefully, being able to socialize them at least a bit. And their mom, too!
After our incident with the kitchen pipe, yesterday, I headed into town as early as I could. Of my morning rounds, the only thing I took the time to do before I left was to make sure the outside cats had food.
There is an employee at the hardware store that I was very happy to see. Quite a few times now, I’ve been able to get help from him that went above and beyond. For all the times I’ve talked to him, he’s becoming aware of the state of the house we’re in, so he makes the effort to ask extra questions and give extra information.
This morning, I told him about what happened last night (I am extra glad I bought that box fan yesterday, because that was set up last night to dry the floor under the sink!), then showed him a piece that had come off my daughter had given me, just in case there were other types and sizes.
He’s never seen that part broken off like that before!
So he went over the different types of flexible pipes available, and I ended up getting a pair of 24 inch ones with built in shut off valves. We’ll just go ahead and replace them for both taps. He then asked if we had copper pipes, which we do, so he brought me over to a display sample in another aisle that had copper pipe in it, describing to me how to cut off the end, while popping the display piece apart to show me how it should look after abrading it…
Cut off the end. Of course, we have no cutter!
He found one for me.
Once I had the necessary bits and pieces, I picked up some other things my daughter put on the list for me – some of it are for the next time something like this happens! :-D
The down side is having to go into our contingency fund, to pay for all this. :-( But at least we have one!
Now, it’s up to my more able bodied girls to do the installation! They’re just going to wait until everyone is done using the water for a while, before shutting water for the whole house down again.
Once home again, I finished my rounds outside which, today, included using more of that anti-wasp stuff. I’d found a wasp nest in a corner of the house. We’d found one there last year, too. I’d hosed it away, and I thought they were gone, but last night I hosed it one more time, just in case.
Wasps started coming out again.
Somewhere in there is a crack, and I think they’re getting into the roof above the old kitchen.
When I checked it this morning, there was no sign of wasps, and no sign that the nest was being rebuilt, but that’s what I saw last night. I sprayed it anyway. Sure enough, wasps started falling out of… somewhere.
Thankfully, this stuff will contact kill, so any wasps that are somewhere in the crack would not be able to get out without coming in contact with the spray. I made sure not to use up the whole can so that, if I need to, I can spray again. At least a little.
Of course, in my rounds, I checked on the garden plots.
More squash are blooming. :-)
The size difference between some of these plants is rather remarkable! Some are still so tiny. I don’t know how much of that is due to the different types of squash, or to any health problems or weather damage. The first squash bed has just a few survivors, struggling to grow. This is the one that got frost damaged, even though we covered them for the night. The rest were all transplanted at the same time, so it’s more likely the differences there are due to type, not damage.
It should be interesting to see what we get out of these.
Not too long ago, I wrote about my daughters installing a new kitchen faucet. One of the issues was, we have no shut off valves. There is one main shut off valve that shuts off water to the entire house.
Today, that became a problem.
One of my daughters had gone into the basement to clean out the litter boxes, when she discovered water dripping from the cold water pipe leading to the kitchen sink.
No, the pipe was not leaking. The water was coming from above, and from the damp state of the floorboards above, it had been leaking a while.
My younger daughter started clearing out under the sink to see what was going on, while her sister and I started cleaning up in the basement.
Suddenly, the drip started dripping even faster!
Which is when the water for the house had to be shut off.
My daughter had tried to tighten the flexible pipe between the copper pipe and the tap, and it started spraying all over.
Did I mention there are no shut off valves for the sink?
It ended up falling apart, and try as they might, the girls couldn’t even rig something up to hold overnight, so we could turn the water back on.
While they were fighting with that, I went hunting in the basements. There are so many parts and pieces around, surely there must be something we could use to at least plug the pipe, so we could turn the water back on?
When we were cleaning out the basement, some things never made it to the barn. Including a box I’d shoved under the stairs. It’s full of parts and pieces of taps and faucets and pipes…
… and balls, and parts of shower heads that have never been used, and other unidentifiable things.
I also found this.
Actually, I found the box with an eyedropper and what appears to be the instruction sheet inside. I found the bottle that should have been in it, buried in the bottom of the box.
You’d think, by now, I’d no longer be surprised by the things I find in the strangest of places, but … really. Why? Why was this here??
I’ve since tucked it into a place the cats and kittens can’t get into.
Meanwhile, the girls were able to seal up the top of the cold water pipe in the kitchen, allowing us to turn the water back on to the house.
Tomorrow, I’m off to the hardware store, as soon as it opens!
I figure, we may as well replace both of the flexible hoses, which I’ve seen in kits for both hot and cold water.
Last night, while heading out to do my evening rounds, I had a little surprise – a stinky friend coming out of the sun room!
I wanted to use water from the rain barrel, but Stinky had other ideas! :-D
He is not, however, the furry friend I was alluding to in the title.
While mowing the outer yard today, I saw a little dark shape, running across from the deep grass to the pile of junk that needs to be hauled to the dump.
Then a mostly while shape followed.
Two little kittens! About the same size as the inside kittens.
I am guessing they are Junk Pile cat’s babies, but they might be Rosencrantz’s, too. I saw no mom around.
This means we might start seeing kittens show up at the food bowls soon!
Which reminds me. I noticed, a couple of days ago, that Butterscotch is no longer pregnant. After what happened with her last litter, it’s hard to guess how many will survive. :-(
Also, this evening, I won lawn mower chicken! I was doing the very last patches of grass for the night, when the mower started to stutter. I just managed to back it up over the last bit of grass when it coughed and died, completely out of fuel! :-D
While I was finishing up with the lawn (though I still have the area in front of the storage shed to do – tomorrow!), the girls tended to the gardens, including thinning out the carrots. We now have lots of little, bitty carrots to snack on. They are all new varieties for us and, so far, they all are quite tasty! :-)
This morning, before I headed into town, I had a conversation with one of my daughters. Later, when I was at the hardware store, that conversation had me looking extra hard at the display of 20 x 20 inch box fans. We need at least a couple, including one for the old basement to replace the one that disappeared.
I finally broke down and bought one.
Plus a package of 20 x 20 furnace filters.
We now have a poor-man’s air filter! :-D A furnace filter is attached to the back of the fan with a few little strips of duct tape. For now, it’s sitting on my husband’s leather working desk as we test out how it works, before deciding on a final spot to put it. This one will stay in the living room, though. Depending on how things go, I hope to pick up another when we’re in the city, for the basement window. For now, I want to see how well it does in keeping the levels of cat hair down! :-D
I also had to pick up a round file while in town. I still haven’t been able to put on the second latch on the screen window. I did find a round file in one of the miscellaneous drawers in the basement, but it’s the wrong type, and was doing absolutely nothing as I tried to enlarge the opening for the new latch post. Hopefully, this new one will do the trick.
The cats and kittens have, of course, been exploring the counters and shelves in the basement, and I’ve been finding a few things knocked to the floor. Yesterday, I found a piece of wood with a rose design carved in relief into it, lying on the floor. Today, I found another piece of wood on the floor; this one had floral designs on one side, and my late brother’s name carved on the other. I don’t recall seeing those when we cleaned up the basement before bringing Beep Beep and Butterscotch indoors. I’d forgotten my brother had tried his hand at wood carving, too, and you can see quite a skill improvement between the two pieces.
While looking for a round file, I also found a small carving tool. I recognize it as part of a set we had, when I was quite young. There were at least a dozen different types of blades in the set. In fact, I’m pretty sure the wood box it came in is what’s now under my computer monitor, raising it up to a more comfortable viewing height. That box now holds my late father’s hair cutting supplies. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the wood carving tools. Considering how long ago we had them, I’m surprised to have found the one that I did!
I set it aside for sharpening. It has a flat tip, like a very fine chisel, that I think I will find useful.
Funny how, after being here for more than 2 years, we’re still finding things like this! :-D
After taking yesterday to recover, I was feeling well enough to continue working outside today.
But first, I got to release the kitties!
:-D
They now know they are allowed to be upstairs when I open the basement door, so they and Beep Beep are all at the top step, waiting for me. As they all go rushing up, there’s an equal rush from the adults cats, going the other direction!
For now, we’re still going to keep them in the basement over night, during days when we’re not around to keep an eye on them, or if we have to go in and out of the house a lot. Keith and Fenrir in particular are not happy about the babies, so we have to keep an eye on them.
The kittens have discovered a safe place to chill out, where the big cats can’t get at them.
Well. Almost.
“If I can’t see them, they can’t see me, right?”
They are certainly entertaining!!
Once I was done my morning rounds, I headed outside to continue mowing around the old garden area.
This time, I remembered to wear my wrist brace. Much to my surprise, it was my wrist that was hurting the most, yesterday. I guess stopping to empty that clippings bag so often was just too much for it.
I really ought to get a doctor to look at that. Knowing me, I probably broke something back when I was helping my brother with patching the shed roof. :-D
One of the things I’ve noticed this year is Saskatoon bushes in places I had not noticed them before. This year is looking to be a really good year for Saskatoons. At least it would be…
I found this large Saskatoon bush among the lilac hedge while mowing. There were no Saskatoon berries here in the last two summers.
This summer, the bush is just full of berries!
None of which I’d be willing to pick and eat.
While some of the bushes have their leaves infested with insect eggs that are weakening them, this one actually looks diseased. A few of the berries look great, but most are smaller, kinda wizened looking, and some have the same spots that are on the leaves.
Such a shame.
Still, while doing my rounds this morning, I was able to gather berries from other trees that are just fine! I will have to try and remember to bring a basket or something with me for the next while, to gather them as they ripen. I’ve been lifting up the bottom of my shirt to make a pouch to hold them, which works fine – right up until I need both hands to switch out the memory cards on the trail came or something. ;-)
Once again, while mowing, I made ample use of the grass clippings. Since I was working close to them, I worked the clippings around the sunflowers.
The clippings are doing triple duty. For the smaller, late planted sunflowers, it’ll help keep them from being overgrown by grass and weeds. The mulch is part of our larger plan to build up and amend the neglected soil here, but for this area, it’s also being used to help level out the poorly plowed area.
The poor lawn mower. No matter how careful I was, I still ended up hitting lumps of rocky soil, hidden by the grass. Other times, the wheels would slide into ruts, dropping the blade onto furrows, leaving me to manhandle the machine out. I must say, I was very happy to see my daughter coming out, letting me know she had finished work for the day and could take over for me! The old garden area is the most difficult area to work on. At some point, we’re going to have to go out there with garden hoes and break apart the worst of the hills the bad plow job left behind. It would be better to use heavy equipment to level the whole area out, but we make do with what we can.
For now, the inner yard is done. Tomorrow, I’ll be checking the blade on the mower and probably giving it a sharpen, before I start working on the outer yard!
That poor little mower is really getting a workout! :-D
It was a sleepless night last night. Even with painkillers, I still hurt all over. That, on its own, would have been fine. What made it difficult is what I could only describe as a total rebellion of m body! You’ve probably heard of restless legs syndrome? That’s when you’re lying in bed, trying to relax and go to sleep, but your legs just can’t stay still. Now, imagine that, but with the whole body. It didn’t matter how tired I was, or how much pain the moving around caused, I just couldn’t stop. I think I finally fell asleep somewhere around 5am.
What I found odd, though, is that there was NO storm last night! I’d been keeping an eye on the weather radar, because there was a wide swatch of a storm system coming for us, including areas of heavy and severe weather. There was no way it was going to miss us.
And yet, it did. At one point, I checked the weather radar, and the system had passed us, and all I could think was, what happened? We didn’t even get rain or winds!
Today is looking beautiful, though. During my morning rounds, I took extra time to check on different areas, do a bit of weeding among the carrots, parsley and beets, and visit the MUCH taller sunflowers!
You can see the little, late planted, one in the foreground. :-D
I really look forward to seeing how big these guys get.
While checking the fence line along the garden, I found these.
I don’t know what these little shrubs are, and had no idea they bloomed until today! We have quite a few of them in the area.
There are also a few Saskatoon bushes in the area. We’d done a bit of clean up in the area, two summers ago, and they have gotten noticeably stronger since then, and actually producing berries now.
Breakfast! :-D
While doing my rounds, I had an internal battle going on. On the one hand, my brain was saying, “oh, the weather is so nice today! It’s a perfect time to get out the weed trimmer and clean up around the mowed areas. Then mow the old garden area. There’s also lots of Saskatoons to pick near the house.” The list went on. Meanwhile, my body is saying, “Ow. Ow. Ow. Are you kidding me? Sleep. That’s what’s on the to-do list. Sleep.”
I think my body is winning this fight.
We have, however, opened the new part basement door, which means there is an army of kittens (the 5 kittens seem more like 15! :-D ) tearing around the house – and especially my bed! – playing with the adult cats that will tolerate them, and discovering cat toys the others have long gotten tired of.
I am in so much pain right now. Chances are, I’ll hardly be able to walk tomorrow. But it was worth it!
Let’s back up a bit.
This morning, I got a call from the pharmacy, letting me know my husband’s painkillers were ready to pick up.
Oh, what wonderful news to start the day!
I skipped my morning routine, which my daughters were kind enough to do most of for me, and headed to the garage.
The first thing I did was hose down the area the wasp nest was in. They were still hanging around, but I was able to get the door open and drive out.
I left the door open. :-D
Once in town, and the prescriptions were picked up, I swung by the hardware store to look at what they had for wasp spray. I basically had only two choices: a foam type and a non-foam type. They were also both designed to be used on the nests themselves. I talked to a staff member and ended up going with the non-foam type, as it was also supposed to contact kill for some time after use. Since the next itself was already destroyed, I needed to spray the area to keep them from coming back and building a new one.
Once at home, I made sure to park in the yard, then headed for the garage with the wasp spray. I couldn’t see any wasps, though I could hear some. I closed the garage door from the outside…
… and there they were! They were bouncing right off of me. I moved away and headed for the house, figuring I would give them time to calm down, but they followed me!
I’m glad I happened to be wearing a golf shirt, with thicker fabric. At one point, I looked down and there were two wasps on my boob, stuck in the fabric, trying to sting me! I was able to pull the fabric away from my body and blow them away.
It was only later than I realized, I did get stung! Right on the boob. I never really felt anything. It took a while, but I realized why it didn’t hurt. Some 20 years ago, I had breast reduction surgery. With the amount of tissue removed, it was basically a complete reconstruction. I was warned in advance that, since nerves were being cut, I would lose some sensation, and that it might never return. I did regain most of it, but I do have areas where I don’t feel anything at all. It looks like the wasp stung me in one of those areas!
Which is… good? LOL
Since I didn’t want wasps around the house, I went back to the garage and went in through the back door. I could see some of them going through the opening in the wall, but not as many as I was hearing.
I then proceeded to spray the heck out of the area where the nest was, up to the underside of the roof peak, and along the beam on either side of where the nest was above the door.
What I didn’t count on was how quickly I’d run out. I had intended to spray the opening from the outside, but by the time I went out there, the can was pretty much empty.
When I was done spraying, I went to switch out the trail cam memory cards, which was the only part of skipped morning routine left for me to do.
I had company.
She is not meowing at me in this picture. She is hissing! Oh, what a mean kitty she is! :-D
I checked on it the garage throughout the day. I only ever saw one dead wasp on the ground. From the inside, I could see wasps land in the opening, start to come in, then leave. So they could tell that something was amiss.
By the end of the day, when I had to put the van back in the garage (we’re expecting more storms tonight), I was no longer seeing or hearing any wasps. So I hope this took care of the problem!!
Today was another hot one, but there were a few things that just needed to get done. One of them was to finally put those latches on the new basement window. With the distraction of the wasp nest, I never did get it done yesterday.
I only gone one side done, though. When I went to do the other side, I discovered the hole for the post to go into was just a bit smaller than the first one. New latches of this time all have a standard size post, no matter what size the rest of the latch is. I’ll have to find – or buy – a round file to enlarge the hole just the tiniest bit, before I can put on the new latch.
So that’s only half done.
I then had to start mowing the lawn. Between the heat and the rain, the yard had gotten really over grown. With another storm looking like it will hit tonight, decided to go for it.
For the first time since getting the new mower, I kept the bag on to keep the grass clippings for the entire time I mowed. The grass was so tall and thick in the first area I worked on, I had to empty the bag about every 50 feet or so!
In the end, I got only a small section done before I had to stop, go inside and cool down.
The best place to cool down is the basement! It was a great excuse to check on the old basement.
What a difference! The area the dehumidifier is in is almost completely dry. I checked the hose and, to be honest, I couldn’t really tell if water was dripping through there, but I’m assuming it is. The water that was all over and around the well pump, from condensation, is almost completely dry.
The section under the window is also noticeably drier, though it still had big wet patches. There are still damp spots under the furnaces, so I changed the angle on the blower fan to face the floor under there. The last thing we need is for the new electric furnace to start rusting!
My making a commotion in the old part basement attracted attention, of course. I had a whole bunch of kitties at the divider, watching me and wanting to play!
So I went around to the new part basement and joined the kitties for a while. Though I’d washed up after coming inside, my clothes probably still smelled of bug spray, so they actually left me alone a fair bit.
A few days ago, I’d started another hair pin using lilac wood. I’d roughed it out to the sanding stage, so I finished it off today.
Given the size and shape of the piece of branch I used, there wasn’t a lot of options for what to do with it. I still wanted to highlight the colours inside, so I made a simple spiral cut. This picture is after it was completed and oiled.
My daughter is ecstatic with it! :-D It’s longer than the first one I made, too, which is much better for her mass of curly hair.
By the time I was done with that, I found the kittens were all done, too!
I had hoped in this time, I would have gotten enough rest so I could go back outside and continue mowing, but it wasn’t. I ended up needing to nap! This meant I was going back outside at the hottest part of the day 28C/77F, with a real feel of about 32C/90F! Thankfully, though, the sun was low enough that the areas I needed to work on were mostly in the shade. After moving the van to where I’d already cut, the grass, I then spent several hours working on the lawn, with many, many stops to empty the grass bag.
I now have plenty of clippings to mulch the new garden area where the wood pile used to be. I added a lot around the grape vines, to help keep down the things that are trying to encroach on them. The old kitchen garden has piles all over, which the girls will spread out for me, tomorrow. When working on the north yards, I added the clippings to the compost pile already there, and it’s now full.
We need to start a new compost pile.
I love this new mower. With the frequent stops to empty the bag, it got harder and harder for me to pull on the cord to restart it. No matter how rubber my arm got, though, it started every time! With the old push mower, I would have had to stop long before finishing.
I’m so glad to finally get that done. Everything looks so much better now! I still need to go around the old garden area, then the garden area itself – today, I just mowed around the potatoes, which are coming up quite nicely – but that can wait for another day! I got the main parts done, and the rest can wait a bit longer, if the weather doesn’t co-operate.
It’s been a bit frustrating this year. As much as I appreciate the rain, between that and the heat waves, the lawn is about all we’ve been able to keep up with. I’ve barely managed to do any clean up near where we plan to build the cordwood outhouse, and we certainly haven’t been able to start on clearing where we will be building it. This year, I was supposed to continue clearing the spruce grow – I even have a working chain saw to make that job easier! We’ve done nothing.
With my husband being in the hospital for 3 weeks last spring, and so many follow up medical appointments, it’s no surprise we fell behind on this stuff last year. It’s now feeling like we’re going to lose another year, this time to weather!
Maybe we’ll have a long and mild fall to make up for lost time. Here’s hoping!
I’m just happy I managed to get done as much as I did today. I expect that tomorrow is going to be a major pain day because of it, but it was worth it to finally get this stuff done! The yard look so much better now. It’s more of a psychological boost than anything else, but those are important, too!
The Re-Farmer 