Month: September 2020

The cute, the creepy and the awesome

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First, the cute!

Lately, when I open the doors to the sunroom to get the cat kibble during my morning rounds, I have had company.

Little Braveheart has been dashing in and out as I load up on kibble. Even Tabby has been coming closer, but not quite as close as Braveheart.

Right now, I’ve put several of the kibble bowls by the old dog house shelter, to encourage the cats to go into it, but I do still have one near the sunroom door. This morning, Little Braveheart was eating at that container – and I was able to gently pat her back! It took her a few moments to decide she didn’t like it after all, and moved away.

Awesome progress!!!

Then there was the creepy.

Part of my rounds includes switching out the memory card on the trail cam. Something weird started happening with our first one, where it the motion sensor would get triggered, but it wouldn’t stop. So I’d come by the next day to find the red light blinking, the batteries almost dead, and nothing on the memory card. So the newer camera is now set up near that same area. It has a wide angle lens, which is great, because it not only picks up the gate, but the fence on both sides, too. I did end up moving it to a fence post instead of the tree it was on, since the wide angle was blocked by other trees on one side.

Since it’s on the post, I don’t need to go through the trees to reach the camera, and can use the driveway. Since our vandal had glued our locks, before vandalizing the gate itself, over the months, I make a point of checking the lock to see if it’s glued, or for anything else that might be vandalized.

When I got to the gate this morning, the lock was on the wrong side of the gate. As I locked the gate behind me yesterday, the lock was left on the inside of the gate, and the excess chain was wrapped around the bars so as not to dangle. This morning, the chain was turned to the outside of the gate, and the extra length was dangling under the lock.

When I checked the files, sure enough, there was our vandal. In one video, he was just standing right at the gate on one side, looking down the driveway and from side to side. At a couple of points, he seemed to be looking at the camera. In the next video, he had moved to the middle of the gate and was moving the chain around so he could look at the lock. Then he let it go and walked away.

Creeper was creeping again.

Of course, it’s the weekend. As he has been repeatedly told to stay away by the police, I would normally call the non-emergency number to talk to someone about it. The RCMP offices are closed on the weekends, though, and I’m not about to call 911 for this, so it will have to wait until Monday.

*sigh*

I really don’t get why our vandal is so obsessed with this property.

I did make sure to pass on the files to my brother before we headed out to visit.

Which brings me to the awesome.

It was a fantastic visit! We were able to just relax and chat. When he comes here, it’s usually because there is something that needs to be fixed or, as most recently, for a family gathering, so we don’t really get much chance to just be with each other. It was just fantastic. He and his wife are some of my favourite people, and I don’t spend anywhere near as much time with them as I would like!

On top of that, my mother’s car handled the drive very well! No more alarming noises, coming from anywhere! :-D It’s amazing how quiet that car is, now that everything’s fixed! :-D Plus, it has working fans and air conditioning, too! Rather nice to not have to drive with the windows open. :-)

My brother has helped my mother with this car for many years, so before we left, he popped the hood to show me some things. I’m glad he did, because I was wondering about some of it. I knew he had a trickle charger as well as the block heater attached to an extension cord. It also has a battery warmer. He had the extension cord all neatly laid out so that it was tucked safely aside, all three could be plugged in, and the plug for the extension cord could be left hanging outside the hood to plug it in, in the winter. It seems that every time the car was worked on, even from when I’d taken it to the garage near my mother’s place, things got moved around. Only the trickle charger was still plugged in but, of course, the clips were no longer on the battery, since it had been pulled out to be charged, just a few days ago. I don’t know when the extension cord was first moved to where it is now, but when I popped the hood to take the end out so I could plug it in in the garage, prior to last winter, I found a loop of it was touching the serpentine belt, and was starting to get worn. It never got put back under the hood before I left it at the garage, several months ago, for the mechanic to check it as he was able. My brother had tucked it away, so I showed the worn out part to my brother. As we looked closely in the sunlight, we could see the layers had broken and we could see exposed wire. !! So I will have to replace that (along with a burnt out bulb in one headlight) before plugging in and tidying up all the cords again.

Changing that light bulb is going to be so much easier than our van. You can just reach in and pop it out. With our van, we have to unscrew and unfasten the entire headlamp unit, and pull it out completely.

I’m so glad to have my brother to turn to for advice and information! When we moved out here, we were just sort of plunked into the middle of things. We would be pretty lost, without him!

I have the best brother! <3

The Re-Farmer

Appreciate the beeauty

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Let’s start by enjoying this lovely photo I was able to get this morning.

There were two bees on this sunflower, busily pollinating!

A nice, cheerful burst of sunshine.

I feel like I need it right now.

I had intended to use my mother’s car to run some errands in town today, just to get it on the road. Then my mother called me in the morning, asking for help to do her shopping, so I did my errands at her town, instead. Plus, I got to surprise her with her own car, which is easier for her to get in an out of than our van.

So that worked out rather well.

Of course, it was a visit with my mother, and all that this entailed. It was a pretty good visit, overall, but as usual, it left me drained. As an example of just one of the things that came up, apparently we did our celebration on Sunday all wrong. Not only was she still upset about the ceiling fan, but apparently we each, individually, were supposed to give her cards, there was supposed to be a tablecloth and candles, and after dinner, we were all supposed to make speeches.

???

Never mind that we were originally supposed to have a cookout and be eating outside, or that two other people’s birthdays and an anniversary were being celebrated at the same time. She had an expectation, and we didn’t meet it, therefore it was all wrong.

So is everything about our gardening this year, and the fall planting we’re intending to do later this month.

And so on. Everything is all wrong, because it’s now how she would do it, or the way she thinks it used to be, or how she thinks the “proper” way to do something is.

*sigh*

But that’s okay. Tomorrow, I get to recharge. We are taking my mother’s car out for a longer highway drive, and finally visiting my older brother at his place. He has come out here so many times, yet since we’ve moved in, we’ve managed to go to his place only a couple of times.

It’s going to be really great to see them!

For now, it’s back to recovering from visiting my mom, and appreciating the beauty of bees and sunflowers! ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Potato beds put to bed

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Today, we took advantage of the warmer weather and dug up our two potato beds.

The first one got done fairly early in the morning, before we headed to the city. Having already dug up a few of them earlier, I had some idea of what to expect, but I have zero experience with growing potatoes the “Ruth Stout” way.

I first pulled up the potato plants, then carefully used my potato fork to lift off, then “rake” the mulch away. Here, you can see some of the potatoes I uncovered in the process.

I also uncovered several chilled little frogs! I carefully moved them to the mulch by the squash, where they could warm up in the sun.

I also uncovered slugs.

I did not rescue them. ;-)

Almost all the potatoes I found were just sitting on top of the soil! Some took a little more raking away of the mulch to find, but not much more.

What had been rock hard ground when we started, the mulched soil was so much easier to work – even with all the rocks.

I took advantage of the situation and dug up the entire plot, so I could pull out as many weed roots as I could. The crab grass came out pretty easily. Then I hit a solid mass of roots near the surface, with a tap root of some kind that continued deep into the ground. I could not get it out with the fork! If I’d had the spade handy, I might have been able to cut through it, but since it seemed to be dead, I left it. It will be buried.

I did find a couple more potatoes in the process!

The end result looked like a 4×8 foot grave! :-D

When I finished pulling up as many roots as I was able, the mulch all went back – along with the potato plants that had been pulled up.

These are all the potatoes I got out of the one bed.

Also, note the one slightly darker potato with the arrow pointing to it. I’ll explain that, below!

When we got back from the city, I continued working on the second bed.

Once again, I was finding most of the potatoes on the surface of the soil as I pulled away the mulch.

These are all the potatoes I found, before I did any digging at all. Unfortunately, quite a lot of them had holes eaten into them. :-( After digging, I found maybe 5 more.

Speaking of 5, do you see those 5 darker potatoes on the side?

Those are the original seed potatoes! The other bed had only one. While they had stems and roots that I broke off of them, they are just as hard as the day I planted them. I found the remains of some other seed potatoes, all mushy and used up like one would expect at the end of the growing season.

I got two 3 pound boxes of seed potatoes, which gave me 3 row of 6 potatoes in one bed, and 3 rows of 5 potatoes in the other, plus an extra. That’s 34 potatoes – and 6 in total never grew more potatoes!

As with the previous bed, I dug it all up, finding a few more potatoes, a whole lot more slugs, and pulling out weed roots.

Would slugs be the cause of those holes in the potatoes?

This bed had quite a few more rocks near the surface that I got rid of, too. My fork was hitting many more as I dug down, but I didn’t try to get them out, since we will continue to build these beds up. The mulch and old potato plants went back over the soil.

I then took all the harvested potatoes and laid them out on the dry straw mulch between squash beds, so they can cure (is that the right word for it?) in the sun. Except for the tiniest ones, which will be cooked and eaten right away. :-)

I then had the 6 original seed potatoes. What to do with those??

Yeah. I planted them, almost the same way they were planted in the original beds. The only difference is that I did loosen the soil a bit, first. Not to bury the potatoes – there are so many rocks along this end, I could barely do more than scrape away the mulch on top! No, it was so I could push in the bamboo poles to mark where they are. Even then, I don’t think the poles will be able to stay up for long. I could barely get them into the soil at all. No matter how I shifted and searched, I kept hitting rocks just inches below the surface.

What will most likely happen is that the potatoes will freeze over the winter, and nothing will come of them. Another possibility is that they will be protected by the mulch and, as soon as it gets warm enough next spring, they will start growing and we’ll have early potatoes started.

We’ll find out next year!

As for now, the potato beds are put to bed for the winter. I don’t know what we will plant in those spots next year. We do intend to do potatoes again, but in a different location. We don’t want to entice the Colorado potato beetle by planting in the same location again. We didn’t see a single one this year, but one of my neighbours a mile up the road mentioned that his potatoes had been decimated by them! My parents always planted lots and lots of potatoes, and I well remember going through the rows, picking off the beetles or their larvae, and hunting for the eggs to crush. Even with several of us doing that every day, some years my mother had to resort to using a poison powder of some kind, to get them under control.

I’d really rather not have to deal with them at all, if I can avoid it!

As for the squash, for now I have stopped harvesting any more of the sunburst squash, though there are a couple of zucchini that are almost large enough to pick. I prefer them when they are quite small, but with the sunburst squash, I want to give them as much of the remaining warm weather as I can for them to grow. As I write this, past 6pm, we are still at 21C/70F. We are supposed to stay fairly warm over the period covered by the long range forecast, with no more frosts expected overnight. That should give our produce a bit more time before we have to harvest what we can, then prep for the winter – and next year’s gardening! :-)

Our first year gardening since moving here has been quite interesting, and quite the learning experience. We will, for sure, continue using the Ruth Stout method until we are able to start making the accessible raised beds that are the ultimate goal. The extensive use of mulch is making a very noticeable, positive difference in the soil, even after just one year. My mother may be disappointing in our gardening, compared to what she had here, years ago, but I’m happy with our progress so far! :-)

The Re-Farmer

New bird feeder support, and adventurous kittens

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The girls and I made our trip into the city. While I didn’t need anything myself, I did take advantage of the trip – and summer clearance prices.

While we had cleaned and painted the old wooden bird feeder and replaced it on its metal post, not a lot of birds are using it. I believe it’s just too crowded by the novelty lilac, next to it. I’ve seen some of the smaller birds around it, but the larger birds, such as the mourning doves, are still trying to find seed on the ground by the old platform feeder (where we stopped adding bird seed, since our supply filled the newly painted one).

If I could get that metal post out of the ground without having to dig, I’d transfer it to the other end, where the platform feeder and bird bath are. It seems the better location for it, plus we can see them from the living room. We can’t see the metal post set up from inside the house.

The platform on the platform feeder, however, is in really bad shape. So today, when I spotted supports for bird feeders or hanging baskets on clearance, I grabbed one.

I’ll… go back and straighten that out, later. :-D

It’s a lot shorter than the platform feeder. Perfect for short little me to reach!

The old one was constantly being blown over in the wind, until we stopped actually hanging a bird feeder on its hook. One of the hanging feeders hit the ground so often, it no longer holds together very well. The base wasn’t very stable and, as you can see, where it was touching the ground is rotting.

The platform is also a complete loss, but the hook itself, and the pressure treated 2×4, are just fine.

I am thinking of removing the rotted platform, the pieces on the bottom, and cutting off the rotten end. If I can figure out a way to make it more stable, it might be worth making a new platform and setting it up again. Having hanging feeders is good, but some types of birds prefer the platform to feed from. Plus, with two hangers, we can have the suet feeder out again, too.

We shall see.

Meanwhile I wanted to share a really terrible, zoomed in photo I took this morning, before we headed to the city… :-D

The kittens were playing on the steps at the other door! I had started to move their food bowl further from the junk pile, to encourage them to come closer to the house, but Butterscotch beat me to it. :-D

Ultimately, I’d like the kittens to start coming around to the south side of the house. I’ve started to place food bowls near the entrance to the old doghouse my brother brought for them to use in the winter. It would be great if the whole little family would just move into there. As this litter is so much younger than the other kittens, they are more at risk when the cold weather hits. There is enough room in there that all of the yard cats can fit in there and be nice and warm, just like they used to all pile up together on the swing bench in the sun room. Petty differences between the cats seemed to disappear when it came to staying warm!

It was very encouraging to see the kittens playing by the house. What an adventurous bunch they are! They were just loving those stairs. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Broken. Like our system

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Okay.

I think this is going to be a difficult post to write.

To recap for our new followers (Welcome! Thanks for joining us!); about a year and a half ago, my husband ended up in the emergency room for what turned out to be pulmonary edema. He spent the night in the hospital, was sent home with a prescription (without being told what it was for) and told to follow up with his regular doctor. He had a week’s worth of what turned out to be water pills, but the earliest he could get an appointment with his doctor was almost 2 weeks later.

While he had been feeling a bit better for a while, once he ran out of the pills, he started to crash again. When we got to his appointment, he was in such bad shape, I had to ask for the use of a wheelchair to help him come in.

The clinic was part of a hospital building, but there was only 1 bariatric wheelchair. I can’t even remember right now if they ever found it. I think he ended up using a regular wheelchair. The nurse that wheeled him into the exam room was looking very alarmed, and was saying my husband would probably be going straight to the emergency room. Sure enough, the doctor basically took one look at him and sent him over. They were wondering why he hadn’t been followed up on after his time in the emergency before, and we told them that this was the follow up!

He ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks. In that time, along with almost killing him by giving him too much insulin and not checking his blood sugars before deciding on the doses, they managed to drain over 100 pounds of fluid out of him. His pulmonary edema was actually peripheral edema, and he was diagnosed with heart failure.

Since then, my husband had been expected to go into the city once a month or so, as they tried to determine the cause of his heart failure and decide on courses of action. There is only one cardiac clinic serving the entire province so, as you can imagine, it’s pretty busy.

These trips have been incredibly hard on my husband, his back injury and his pain levels. It’s one thing to be sitting in the van for the drive (about 3 hours driving in total). It’s another to be sitting in the waiting room for such a long time, then waiting again in the examination room, only to be seen for maybe half an hour.

Now, we deliberately leave early for these appointments. It takes an hour to reach the city, under normal circumstances. Getting to the hospital, if traffic is light and we get nothing but green lights, takes maybe 10 minutes. Most of the time, though, it takes about 20 minutes. That gives us another 10 minutes for me to pull in, unload his walker, leave him to find his way in, then search for someplace to park.

However, we don’t leave things to chance and leave 2 hours early, and today is a good example of why this is necessary. On the way to the city, we hit a section where cracks in the road were being patched. A two lane highway was reduced to one lane, and they were alternating each direction of traffic to let through. So we spent some time driving very slowly through the construction, then just stopped on the road as we waited for traffic from the other direction to pass through. Then, once in the city, we were delayed by more lane closures bottle necking traffic. That one area has been under construction for as long as we’ve been out here, so more than three years! I really would have expected them to be done by now. :-/

My point being, we respect their time and go out of our way to ensure we will be there before the scheduled appointment, so he can be checked in and ready when they are.

There was one day, however, that – after waiting for 1 1/2 hours – he was in so much pain he walked out. It was that day that we discovered they built in a half hour waiting period. So while he was told in to come in for a certain time, they had his appointment for half an hour later. We’d already come in 15 minutes early. Even with the built in waiting period, they were still 45 minutes late when he left. Who knows how much longer he would have had to wait if he hadn’t. They certainly didn’t seem like they were going to bring him in anytime soon.

He talked to the clinic on the phone after that, and for his next appointment, they had a stretcher for him. It helped, but the trips still wiped him out.

To make things worse, they have not been able to figure out why he has an ejection fraction of only about 20% (I think it’s up to 22% now). They can’t find anything to explain it. There is no reason that they can find, for him to have heart failure.

Then the pandemic shutdowns happened.

He was supposed to have an appointment in April, when they called in March. After interviewing him on the phone, it was decided to continue with phone appointments until they could start rescheduling. It was a surprise to be called back for a June appointment. We were expecting July or August.

He ended up having having to cancel due to pain.

He was rescheduled to July and had an appointment then, but with the pandemic measures, I couldn’t go in with him. It was a short appointment.

He had an appointment in August. Pain was a major issue again, so he called to ask if they would be able to accommodate with a stretcher again. I’m not sure what exactly they said, but he was made to feel like he was imposing on them significantly, so he cancelled the appointment.

Today was the rescheduled appointment. One of the things they want to see him for, is to decide if he is a candidate to have a defibrillator implanted.

With all the delays, I was still able to drop him off almost 15 minutes early, then found a place to park some 5 blocks away. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go in with him, so I just walked around to play Pokemon Go.

The high winds that broke our tent had clearly hit the city, too! This tree was in a park near the hospital, and I was seeing broken branches all over the place.

My husband was able to text me to keep me updated, so I knew when he was able to get checked in. Some time later, I got another text from him.

He was still in the waiting room.

Alone.

There was absolutely no other patients waiting. Not only that, but I found out later that at 12:30, which is he was told his appointment was for, he saw and heard a group of doctors, leaving. They were going for coffee.

Did they book in a half hour waiting time again? Without any other patients???

Finally, after he’d been waiting half an hour, and he was already telling me he was ready to leave, he was brought into an examination room. By that point, I was starting to meander back to the van.

Then I got a text simply saying “I’m out.”

So I rushed to the van. When I got there, I quickly texted him to let him know I had reached the van, so he would have an idea of how much longer I would be.

That’s when I noticed the time stamp on his last text.

There was no way anyone had seen him.

So off I went to pick him up at the main entrance. This is supposed to have a patient loading zone in front, with enough room for several cars, or a couple of handi-vans.

Of course, people were just parked there. The vehicle in front of me didn’t even do that. He just sort of half pulled in and stopped. I ended up having to drive around him, then stop in the lane – thankfully, there was no traffic behind me – to pick up my husband and load the walker into the van.

As we drove, he told me the rest of what happened. After waiting, in pain, for so long, he finally struggled to get his shirt back on, then simply left. As he was leaving, a tech was coming in with the EKG machine, and she called out to him, but he kept going. As he went through the waiting room (which finally had one other patient in it), the woman behind the counter started chasing him down. By this point, he had no tolerance left and simply said that next time, make the appointment for the actual time, and kept going.

We both realize that he is probably viewed as a problem patient right now. What we can’t figure out is how a cardiac clinic in a hospital can be so oblivious to accommodating the needs of disabled patients. I mean, besides heart conditions. After a year and a half, and his pain being an issue in the past so often, you’d think they’d at least have notes on his file or something, about his extenuating circumstances.

I don’t know.

My husband plans to write to the clinic with a letter of complaint – though he’s going to give himself time to calm down, first! I suggested that he send a copy of it to our new doctor, too.

At this point, he doesn’t want to go back. At all. He sees no point. They’re not finding why his heart is doing what it’s doing; everything else related to his heart is checking out healthy. He’d already been doing most of the things they recommend, and the things he isn’t doing, he can’t because of his back injury and pain levels. They did acknowledge this issue.

He is hardly the only patient they have with multiple health issues beyond a heart condition. How many other patients are going through the same problems he is, but aren’t confident enough to simply get up and walk out? How many are just meekly accepting being treated like afterthoughts, because they are too scared of their condition to speak out? I guess that’s one “benefit” for my husband; he’s been through so much over the last while, developing a heart condition is just another thing on the list, and not even near the top.

At this point, I don’t know what steps will happen next. For my husband, getting the pain under control is the greater priority. And that is waiting for the doctor at the pain clinic to talk to our new doctor. Which doesn’t seem to have happened yet.

This is all so incredibly frustrating.

The Re-Farmer

Frosted carnage, and we’re back to 1 1/2

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After seeing how great the sunflowers did, after last night’s first frost, it was time to see how the squash beds looked after a day of relative warmth.

You can see how all the leaves that got hit with frost have shriveled and darkened.

There is some hope, though…

For many (not all) of the larger plants, the leaves underneath are looking just fine, as are the little squashes. Even the pumpkins look like they’ll make it.

On the one hand, I’m encouraged. On the other, it shows that if we’d been able to cover them, they probably would have fared much, much better.

Ah, well.

In other things…

Our trip to the cardiac clinic in the city turned out to be a waste of time, but that did result in us coming home earlier.

Yesterday, my younger daughter and I had gone into town. Since she needed to go to the grocery store and I didn’t, I popped across the road to the garage to see about my mom’s car.

It’s done!

In fact, he had stayed late on Friday to do it. However, the car had been sitting there for so long, the battery was dead! He had it on a charger and said it would be ready for pick up this morning. Since we were heading to the city this morning, I told him I could come in tomorrow morning.

With today’s changes in timing, we were able to zip into town before he closed for the day. We were going to pick up something else half an hour before he closed, so we went to the garage first. I paid the bill and got the keys, and we would come back later. It’s a good thing we did it that way, because by the time we were done, the garage was closed!

So we are now, once again, a 1 1/2 vehicle family (since I own half of my mother’s car! :-D ).

This is a relief, as we now have a back up vehicle if something ever happens to the van.

The guy at the garage did warn me, though, that the car might make some noises for the first while. Not only did the battery die from sitting so long, but the discs on the brakes are all rusted up again! He advised we drive it as much as we can, which I was already planning to do.

I don’t think I’m ready to drive it to the city quite yet, though. I want to take if for a few spins locally, first. Even if it’s just to the post office and back.

So glad to finally have that done!

The Re-Farmer

In the sun

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I just couldn’t resist sharing these photos!

I’m happy to say that last night’s frost seems to have had no effect on the sunflowers at all.

The only leaves with frost damage that I saw were leaves that had first been broken by the high winds we had a few days ago.

Right now, we’ve got seed heads at pretty much all stages of opening and ripening!

The birds seem to have finally discovered this one. Based on what I researched, I should be able to cut this seed head off and set it up to dry, but in the video I saw that demonstrated this, the guy was able to easily brush off the flower heads from the seeds. That isn’t happening on this seed head at all! The ones that haven’t already fallen off on their own are still attached quite well.

The girls and I will be heading into the city tomorrow, but I might harvest this seed head after we come back. If not then, then the day after. I’m planning to dig up the potato beds as well. We’ll see how the timing of things goes.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s trip to the city will be more productive than today’s – but that will get it’s own post later!

The Re-Farmer

Frosted

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My husband has an appointment at the heart clinic in the city today, so I was out a bit earlier to do my rounds this morning.

As I write this, it’s still only 1C (33F), with a “real feel” that has warmed up to -2C (28F) since I last checked. Our high today is supposed to reach 15C (59F), which is warmer than the last few days. We’re then supposed to go above 20C (68F) for a couple of days, before dropping back to the mid-teens, which is more typical for this time of year.

We don’t have what we need to be able to cover plants as large as our squash right now, so this morning was more about surveying the damage.

I will check them again, after we get back from the city. Some look like they’re completely killed off, but others might still make it through the rest of the season.

I’m pretty sure the pumpkins are a total loss, though.

This is the largest of them, and you can see where the frost was on the pumpkin itself.

This pumpkin hill is the one that’s the furthest South – which means that it gets more shade from the trees than the others. It isn’t much, but as you can see by the plant, it doesn’t take much, either. This plant still had visible frost on it.

The other two hills were pretty much clear of frost. The developing pumpkins don’t show signs of direct frost on them – but from the state of the plants, I think they’re likely complete losses, too. We shall see.

Remember this little birdhouse gourd, bravely blooming just yesterday?

This is how it looked this morning.

*sigh*

Well, this year was our year to figure things out, and we’ve learned a lot.

We will have to work on finding different ways to cover and protect our plants from late and early frosts. Especially since we do want to keep growing squash, which are more easily damaged by the cold. The beets, carrots and parsley are just fine. Even the cucamelons showed less frost damage than the squash, which surprised me.

Altogether, though, we did far better with our gardening this year than I expected. It really has been a successful year, for the circumstances!

You’d think, having grown up here and helped my mother with the gardening for my entire childhood, I would already know what is needed, but everything is really quite different than the garden of my childhood. Especially with my parents planting or allowing so many trees to encroach into the garden.

While we will continue to have garden plots in this area, my mind is already starting to look at the outer yard, towards the barn, for possible raised beds, polytunnels or greenhouses for vegetable gardening.

But that is still years into the future!

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Cryptid kitten

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For a few times now, when going about the yard, I would see a cat among the trees. First glance, and I would think it was Junk Pile cat, only to realize that this cat looked slightly different. More white in the fur, and more the size of her own kittens – though they are almost as big as she is, now!

Last night, all possible doubt about whether or not this cat was really Junk Pile cat were cast away. While walking around the house, I startled a cat away from the food bowls by the sun room. It dashed off towards the storage house and disappeared under the lilacs at one corner – just as Junk Pile and two of her kittens came out from under the spirea at the other corner.

This morning, I finally got photographic proof of our cryptic cat’s existence. :-)

I stayed well back and zoomed in as much as I could, so this was the best my phone’s camera could do.

The kitten on the steps is Junk Pile cat’s tabby kitten, and they are very much the same size. Another kitten – possibly Junk Pile’s third kitten that is so very shy – had already run off.

This mystery kitten is most likely one of Rosencrantz’ kittens, but I honestly don’t know where it is from.

I’m glad that the shy ones are at least getting some food.

The Re-Farmer

The kittens disapprove

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Butterscotch’s kittens disapprove of me.

Or maybe they disapprove of the dropping temperatures!

Especially this one.

We get quite the giggle over how all four of Butterscotch’s kittens – including the camera shy calico – have these matching expressions!

The Re-Farmer