I woke up this morning, surrounded by cats, including one curled up on my belly.
It was this one.
She barely woke up as I got her off, and was more than content to join a sleeping Susan, who’s paws you can see on the side of the photo. :-D
Another kitty had a harder time of it.
Turmeric had been peacefully sleeping on a box in my shelf, when Two Face jump up and tackled her. :-D
Turmeric is not pleased.
The Re-Farmer
While doing my evening rounds, I decided to check the pump shack to see if Rosencrantz’ kittens were still there. I have not seen them since that first time.
I didn’t see them, but Junk Pile was following me around – growling the whole time.
Then, as I passed the junk pile, I saw Junk Pile – and her three kittens!
Two went and hid among the pallets before I could take a picture.
Junk Pile was growling at me while staring me down! :-D
This was also the closest I’ve had Junk Pile come near me since she was a kitten herself!
Eventually, little Braveheart went down and out of sight. I ended up going around the back of the rotten pallets and could see two kittens – including the bravest one – looking up at me.
I started playing the finger wiggle game, and Braveheart was more than willing to stalk and tackle them!
You can see the second kitten as a blur, slinking away below.
While playing with little Braveheart, I noticed a face staring at me from inside a pallet.
I saw the second one and tried to get a photo, which didn’t work, but when I uploaded this photo, I was thrilled to see I got them both!
They were intensely curious, but not quite willing to tackle the wiggling fingers.
I’d have stayed out longer, if I weren’t being eaten alive by mosquitoes!
I am so thrilled. We were never able to socialize Junk Pile, but maybe we’ll be able to socialize her babies!
The Re-Farmer
What a lovely day today turned out to be!
The area we have the picnic table set up for painting is near where the cucamelons are planted. After painting last night, the girls checked them out and spotted baby cucamelons! When I’d checked them earlier, they weren’t even blooming.
Of course, I had to check them out, this morning.
The tiniest cucamelons on the tiniest of flowers! There are lots of them, and they are all barely visible. :-D
I had another smile waiting for me when I got back in the house. Our feline matriarch has laid claim to the base from under the washing machine; she likes the Styrofoam. Before heading outside, I took the piece that was inside the drum of the washer and set it on the floor.
She took the bait.
She’s been in it pretty much all day – and if she hasn’t, one of the other cats was in it! :-D
I think we’ll keep it, just for her. :-)
The girls and I planned a cookout today. Usually, we do these later in the day, when it’s cooler and the fire looks great as it gets dark. The girls have plans for the evening, so we did it earlier than usual.
Though we bought a big bag of potatoes while stocking up for the month, I ended up getting some from the store that were already wrapped and ready for grilling or baking. What can I say. The price was really good, and I didn’t feel like fussing with foil.
Along with the potatoes, I put together something we’ve never gone before, based on a recipe I’d found online. Ground beef meatballs, stuffed with cheese, encased in onion rings, then wrapped in bacon. I have a cooking sheet that’s designed to do things like vegetables on a BBQ, and I used that as my base. I lined it with heavy duty aluminum foil and made “sides” around the edges after the meatballs were set up, then covered with another sheet of foil. I also prepped corn on the cob by peeling off only a couple of the other husks, pulling back the rest so I could remove the silk, covered the cobs with the husks again, then let them soak in a giant bowl of water.
Once everything we ready, I got a fire going and built it up until I got a good, solid base of coals. While I was doing that, the girls painted one last coat on the picnic table.
Since the picnic table wasn’t ready to use, and we needed a table of some kind, we ended up bringing a pair of saw horses and a couple of 3×4’s that we’d been using to hold things near the picnic table. The sheet of high density plastic that I’ve been hanging on to (I think it was used to cover the basement window for the winter at some point) was brought over as a table top.
Once I had a decent amount of coals, pushed them to the back, then set up one of the oven racks from the broken stove over them. Sitting on the concrete blocks, the rack is still pretty high above the coals, so I used an old roaster lid to cover them and keep the heat from above, like a sort of oven.
After about 20 minutes, I set up the other rack and put on the meatballs. My daughter had added a baking sheet over it, just in case the cats decided to go for them, and I ended up leaving it on to serve a similar purpose as the roaster lid.
I’m not used to cooking thick hamburger like this over fire, and we had some concerns about getting them cooked all the way through (the cheese in the middle would help with that, at least), but within moments of putting the pan over the fire, I could hear it sizzling!
After about 10 minutes, we checked how they were doing.
Wow! The cheese just exploded out of them! :-D There was quite a bit of liquid, so I left the baking sheet off and just loosely covered it with foil again.
The potatoes were ready by then, so I moved them to a corner away from the coals, and covered them again to stay warm.
We kept a close eye on them and, after a while, flipped them.
Sort of.
They kept wanting to fall apart, and the bacon was sticking to the foil!! My daughter managed to get it done, though. :-D
Once they were done, the pan was moved to the other corner, and the corn was put on.
The corn cooks very quickly, compared to most things. Still, after flipping them, I ended up using the roaster lid to cover them.
My husband wasn’t able to join us, so when the food was ready, I prepped a plate for him.
The plate was too small for both of his cobs of corn. :-D
The husks make a great handle to use while eating the corn. :-)
It all turned out absolutely delicious! I don’t know that I would do the meatballs again – at least not over a fire. They were quite difficult to get off the foil. Still, they were so tasty, they’re worth the fuss.
It was so nice, sitting outside then enjoying a delicious meal. We were serenaded by cicadas. Two of them. LOL (Cicadas are not really a thing in our area.) There was a constant snapping and crackling as caragana seed pods exploded in the sunlight, while we played “chase the shade” with our chairs. LOL We had feline company too, of course. Potato Beetle demanded attention, and kept steeling our chairs for naps!
While waiting for the fire to burn down, the girls (who had missed breakfast) had brought out hot dog fixings and toasted a couple of dogs early on. They left the supplies behind (in an insulated back with ice packs, of course) when they had to leave. Once the cooking was done, I started to build up the fire again and began working on the pile of branches against the old log cabin. I was out there so long, I ended up having hot dogs for supper, too! :-D
I found another smile waiting for me on our makeshift table.
Of all the places he could lay down for a nap, he chose the picnic backpack, and used the cutlery as a pillow. What a silly boy!
I’m not sure when this happened, but I noticed it after I had started to rebuild the fire again.
The half-block cracked in the heat! I pushed it back into position after the photo was taken and I moved the piece of wood off of it.
I check the other blocks, when the fire died down a bit, and can see that one of them has cracks, too. Only on the top of the brick, though.
Eventually, the piece on the half block fell right off. As I moved it to one side, I noticed this.
One of the bricks under it has not only cracked, but when I tapped it while moving the ashes around, chunks broke off.
Well, they still do the job, so I don’t mind!
Meanwhile, I’m already thinking ahead to what I want to try cooking on the fire pit next!
The Re-Farmer
I started another load of laundry in the new machine, just before I went outside for my evening rounds.
This is what I found when I came back.
I was wondering which of the cats would be first to discover the window!
Also, there are two things that really stand out about this new machine.
The first is, what a huge difference not having an agitator makes on how much can be put into the machine! The drum itself is only slightly bigger than the old one, but a full laundry basket barely filled it half way. I actually had to add more to the first load to help keep it balanced. According to the manual, the “fill line” is the top of the drum, right under the lip of the opening. I don’t think our dryer can even hold that much, and it’s a large dryer!
The second thing is, how much quieter this machine is!! What a difference!
The test run on the machine was finishing when the girls came into the room. Just in time for us all to hear the little victory music the machine plays, to let you know it’s finished! Too funny! The tones it make when it’s powered on and off are hilarious, too. None of us expected it to be so musical. ;-)
Having the old machine break down wasn’t fun, and it put a major dent in our savings, but I’m glad we got this machine. The technology has really improved! Granted, I could do without the fancy electronics; the more there is, the more there is to break down! But the mechanical function of it is quite the advancement.
Who knew laundry could be so much fun?
At least for now..
The Re-Farmer
I was a bit late doing my rounds, so it was starting to get a bit dark. Which made finding this, that much more dramatic!
It was NOT blooming this morning!
When checking the squash beds, I have been keeping an eye on the back row, trying to decide with of the surviving plants are gourds. I noticed 3 of them (with possibly a 4th) sending up tall flower stalks. Completely different from all the others!
Now, two of them have these dramatic white flowers!
Not knowing for sure what is what, after the starter trays were knocked over, sure makes checking the squash beds much more exciting than one would expect! :-D
The Re-Farmer
When I got back from the city with our new washing machine, I just had to go around back to see how the painting went for the girls.
The first coat of paint is done!
You know, when I first picked up this shade, I was afraid that once it was on large surfaces like this, it would be too much. I’m happy to say that, now that I see it, I’m loving it even more!
The bird feeder had also been started.
Since these photos were taken, the girls were able to go back and do another coat on the picnic table, then flip the bird feeder to finish the rest of the top side and give the roof a second coat.
I might have to get another can of this paint! The window frame for the basement screened window didn’t get done, but that’s okay. There is no rush on that. We’re also going to wait for the paint to fully cure before we add the spray on rubber stuff for the bottoms of the picnic table legs. Since they’ve already been painted, there’s no rush on that, either.
These are going to look great, once they’re done and set up in the yard!
The Re-Farmer
With all the lovely rain we had yesterday, I could see the squash really appreciated it!
This is one of the recovering squashes that recovered after frost damage to our first transplants.
We’ve got baby yellow zucchini!
This is the first of the summer surprise squash mix that we can actually see what it is. :-)
I’m happy that some of the damaged ones have recovered so well. We won’t be getting anywhere near as many squash as I had originally expected, but that’s okay. We’ll still have lots!
The Re-Farmer
Yes!!!
Our new washing machine is now here!
Which is quite a surprise, since we got a call from the shipping company a couple of days ago, letting us know they didn’t have it, and that they’d call when they did. Home Depot gets weekly deliveries, so we were expecting to get a call next Thursday.
Then, I got a call today.
It was an automated survey to determine delivery satisfaction.
Delivery?
What delivery?
So I hung up on the survey, then phoned the store. It’s been a while, so while I got the guy who sold it to me, he didn’t remember the details of our particular order. He was just as confused about the survey call as we were. Once I mentioned we thought the store itself might have it, and he realized it was supposed to be delivered to them, he said he would check and call me back.
Sure enough, it was there!
So I basically dropped everything and headed out! :-D The girls prepped the entry for dragging the box through, then worked on painting, while I was gone.
Once the washing machine was loaded in the van, I took advantage of the situation and found some of the spray rubber stuff, for the bottoms of the picnic table legs.
Like the stove, it juuuuuust fit through the doorway – and because of the arm bar, we had to pull it in on its side. This time, I was able to back the van up so that the bumper was over the steps, which made getting it to and through the door that much easier!
Getting it open was easier, too. The bottom piece was not attached to the box, so once the straps were cut off, we could just lift the whole thing.
Then we set it up where the old machine was, while my younger daughter stayed squeezed in the back to hook it up.
We found one potential problem. The drain hose is shorter than the old machine’s. It just barely reaches the stand pipe. If we could have the machine with its back to that wall, it would be fine, but then we wouldn’t be able to use the machine.
So it is not tight against the side wall, and right up against the step leading into the dining room. It should be fine, but there is no wiggle room on that.
Thankfully, now that the old kitchen and sun room are done, my husband’s walker is now in the sun room. This way, he doesn’t have to do any stairs to get to the walker, nor does he have to lift it up and down the steps to the main entry. Being a larger than average man, he’s got a much larger walker than typical, making it heavier, too. Not something a person with a back injury should be struggling with! We used to keep it folded up right in front of the washing machine, but now that the machine has to be so far forward, there’s no room for his walker.
Once it was hooked up, we leveled it.
It turns out the floor sags a fair bit towards the middle, but my daughter was able to adjust the legs on one side. Then she squeezed out and we pushed the dryer back, moving it forward to line up with the washer.
There is now quite a lot of space behind the machines.
I’m sure the cats will enjoy it. :-D
While going through the manual, I found that it has a “test before using” function. So I tried that.
I don’t know if it worked.
The manual said to turn the power on, then push the spin and soil buttons simultaneously, until a particular letter/number code showed up on the screen.
The code never came up. A number did. I tried hitting start anyhow, and the machine started doing things, but I wasn’t sure if it was doing what it was supposed to!
In the end, I ended up powering it off. I noticed that the machine only uses the HE type of detergent. The detergent we have isn’t HE.
So I headed off to town to pick some up.
Once the water is no longer needed for anything else, I’ll try again, then start some laundry.
I’ve never been this excited to do laundry before!!!
Woo Hoo!!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 