Month: September 2021

Well, it’s a good thing we cleaned up the outhouse

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Oy vey.

It’s past midnight as I write this, and it has suddenly become a rather unpleasant night!

I was returning from the bathroom when, while walking past the old basement door, I heard a splashing sound I should not have been hearing, so I went down to take a look.

The septic backed up again.

The pipe with the P trap was full to the top, and water backed up into the laundry sink to the point of overflowing. Thankfully, we don’t really use this basement much, because the water has spread pretty far. Thankfully, whatever caused it to back up happened relatively recently; the last major use of water was a load of laundry, and greywater seems to be most of what I was looking at down there.

I’ve already arranged for the septic guy to come over tomorrow morning. Getting that done was actually in the budget for next month, which means we would have had it done at the next of next week, when my husband’s disability payment came in on Thursday.

Once the tank is empty, I can see what I can do about unclogging the pipes. I am guessing it is the same sort of thing that happened last time. If that turns out to not be it, we’ll have to call in a plumber.

*sigh*

The last time this happened, we were able to set up a honey pot in the bathroom until we could use the toilet again. We don’t have it anymore; I took it over to my mother’s when we found out she was having mobility issues getting to the bathroom at night. We did, however, get the outhouse cleaned up, and made the entry safe to use. So we do have an alternative.

There’s a bit of a new issue, though.

Once we determined that we would have to use the outhouse, I grabbed the flashlight, some cleaning supplies and toilet paper to set it up. It’s been a while since I’ve gone in there, so I wanted to sanitize the seating area. When I opened the toilet lid to clean it, however, things looked… different. When I was cleaning it out before, I made a point of checking underneath, and saw the contents were composted and level from being flooded out by melting snow over the years. It needed to be emptied, but not in any urgent way.

It’s now full.

Of gravel.

After shining the flashlight around, I was able to spot a small hole.

It looks like a groundhog made a den entry leading under the floor boards, filling much of the space under the seat with gravel.

*sigh*

So that’s going to have to be all dug out. It can be accessed from the back of the outhouse, but not very easily.

*sigh*

It’s been a while since we’ve seen the groundhogs; I’ve seen one, once, a couple of weeks ago or so, and that’s it. They no longer visit the bird seed, and we no longer see them around the yard. It seems early, but they seem to have gone into hibernation already.

I suppose it’s good to find this out now, and not in the middle of winter or something.

I am not looking forward to having to clean up the mess in the basement.

Again.

The Re-Farmer

Giant puffballs done, and an unexpected autumn

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This morning was the day!

After sitting in water, with some molasses and a touch of salt, for a couple of days, our Giant Puffball spores were ready to be used to inoculate an area.

The instructions just said to pour over grass, but I did do two things to prepare the area we decided on. First, I pulled up the tall grass. There was barely any, and I didn’t try to pull them up by the roots or anything. Mostly, I figured I wanted the spores to be on the ground, not on tall blades of grass! :-D Then, I wet the area down with a hose. I wet down the morel bed, too, since the hose was handy.

When pouring the slurry out, I just swung the jug back and forth while walking backwards, paying more attention to spreading it evenly than to how large of an area I covered. It ended up being just enough to cover from end to end between the trees, from the morel box, down.

The temperatures have been just lovely, and we’re even getting passing showers, fairly regularly.

It’s been mild enough that, even with the first Ozark Nest Egg gourds withering away from last of pollination, new gourds are forming!

Looking at the long range forecast, I am just amazed.

We’re supposed to hit 28C/82F in a few days! With a humidex of 32C/90F! I thought we already seen our last days of temperatures this high. It’s the warm overnight temperatures that make the big difference, though. The app on my phone has long range forecasts to 24 days. Of course, the farther out they predict, the less accurate they can be, but even so, there are no frost nights predicted! It’s like we’re getting the weather we normally would have got, earlier in the year, instead of the drought. In fact, even with the few showers we’ve had, it looks like we still need to water the garden! We will still be getting beans and summer squash, more and more of the late sown peas are growing pods, more sunflowers are opening their seed heads, and even the Tennessee Dancing Gourd is producing more flowers and gourds. Of course, the beets and carrots are still growing. I was planning to leave those until around first frost, and it’s looking like they’ll have plenty of time to keep developing. The tomatoes are dying back, but still prolific, and the lettuce and surviving chard are thriving. I’m almost tempted to plant some more lettuces!

Almost.

This does mean we won’t be broadcasting the wildflower seed mixes we have for quite some time; they aren’t going to go out until there is no chance of germination.

What a strange year it has been!

The Re-Farmer

Morning fur babies

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Whenever I head out to feed the yard cats these days, I do a head count! :-D

There are “only” eight kittens in the photo, with Nosencrantz and Toesencrantz eating at the kibble tray under the shrine. I was happy to see Nutmeg still around. He’s the one Rolando Moon is hissing at. :-D There are four adult cats in the above photo, including Butterscotch running by, just visible in the gap between kibble house and cat house. I even saw Ghost Baby this morning! That made five adult cats I saw this morning, though I think I saw Rosencrantz later on.

I do wonder what has happened with Junk Pile Cat.. Her babies are all hanging around the yard, but I haven’t seen mama in quite a while. Which is unusual with the female cats. Particularly while their kittens are still around.

Last night turned out to be a very calm evening, so my younger daughter and I got the fire pit going and were finally able to clean up and burn the remains of the diseased crab apple tree we’d recently cut down. Nutmeg joined us and stayed the entire time, getting in the way while we were cutting the branches smaller, and even going right on top of them as I was setting them up the fire pit. Once the fire was going, I spent much of the evening trapped in a camp chair with Nutmeg in my arms, cuddling for all he was worth, and even going for a nap!

I was telling my daughter how unusual I found this, considering he barely let me pet him before he disappeared for the summer, and that Ginger was the one that was more friendly. It turns out that, for her, it was the other way around! Nutmeg would let her pick him up and carry her around, while Ginger was the one who was more skittish. Funny how they can behave so differently with other people. I’m rather glad Nutmeg is now okay with me giving him cuddles. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Spice boy is back!

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I headed outside for a bit this afternoon, and as I was puttering around, there were – of course – kittens all over the place. Usually, they are pretty quiet, but I started to hear a plaintive little meow from over by the shrine.

Looking over, I saw an orange kitty and went over to check if there was food in the tray under the shrine, for Rosencrantz, Nosencrantz and Toesencrantz. As I came closer, Toesencrantz kept meowing, and didn’t run away, so I decided to try and come closer.

Much to my surprise, that orange kitty actually came over for pets.

Which is when I realized I was petting Nutmeg!

Nutmeg had disappeared when Potato Beetle came back.

Seeing Nutmeg again was a pleasant enough surprise, but the other surprise was how friendly he was! Between Nutmeg and Ginger, Ginger was the one that was more socialized. Which is good, because otherwise, we would have had a much harder time catching him when he was injured. Nutmeg rarely let us touch him.

Today, Nutmeg couldn’t seem to get enough attention! He let me pick him up, and cradle him, and when I sat on the steps to the storage house (which gave Ghost Baby a chance to get some food from the tray under the shrine), he was all over me. He would go on the steps behind me and hug me around the neck, climb on my shoulders and snuzzle into my braid, and just wanted pets, pets and more pets!

Unfortunately, every now and then, he would start to hiss, and I would find a kitten passing, nearby. He may be friendlier than ever with me, but wherever he’s been for the past few months, he’s become much less friendlier with other cats!

Just look at that boi!!

He is very thin, but I’m not sure it’s so much from hunger, as from him being a much slighter cat. He has a build more like Saffron and Turmeric. Very small and light, and looking very kittenish. While I was out, Toesencrantz came by, and I could compare. Toesencrantz is not quite as tall as Nutmeg, but is already looking burlier. Toesencrantz has got a build more like Ginger or Keith.

Now I’m on the lookout for Nostrildamus to return, too! :-D

The Re-Farmer

So much colour

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The sunflowers are so cheerful looking!

This is the Hopi Black Dye sunflower that has the one seed head that I think will have time to fully mature – and it has four more bright and cheerful seed heads opening!

I don’t know why my phone’s camera blew out this shot, but you can still see what a deep, dark purple is developing as the seeds mature.

When my mother found out I was planting sunflowers, she immediately mocked me, telling me that the birds would eat them all. This is the first sign of birds eating them I’ve seen this year. :-D

Not too long ago, while working on supper, I decided to dig into the potato bags and see what I could find.

The Norland (red skin, white flesh) and Yukon Gem (light brown skin, yellow flesh), we have picked before, but this is the first time I tried to find any of the fingerling potatoes, Purple Chief (purple skin, white flesh) and Purple Peruvian (purple skin, purple flesh). I did not find a lot, but I’m hoping it’s because I just wasn’t digging around in the right places.

I currently have them roasting in the oven with our own onions, both red and yellow, three types of summer squash, and purple beans. The only thing in there we didn’t grow ourselves was celery. Oh, and the dill we got from my brother. :-) I’ve got three chickens roasting, too, so we shouldn’t need to cook for the next couple of days! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden, fall tour video

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This is an “almost” first for me. I’ve made a few little videos now and then, with minimal editing, to post here on the blog. Years ago, I used to make videos on DVDs of photos for my parents, set to music and with chapters, etc. Since we were so far away, I thought it would be a fun way to share lots of photos of their grandchildren with them in a way that would be easier for their declining mobility. When I found out they never watched any of them (and in cleaning out their possessions in the house, I never found them), I stopped.

Yesterday, instead of making another long, photo heavy post, I would try doing a narrated, fall garden tour video. I have very little equipment; I recorded the audio using a headset with a microphone, and the video software I used is the same old one I used back when I was making DVDs for my parents! It took a long time to make, and a long time to upload. Thankfully, we didn’t loose our internet in the process. :-D Anyhow, in the wee hours of the morning, I finally got it done!

It is WAY longer than I would have normally done a video. Usually, I try to stay under 5 minutes, but this ended up being just over 47 minutes. I did try to explain some of the how’s and why’s of things, and I hope I did all right with that.

So please feel free to grab a cuppa, settle in, give it a watch, and please leave some feedback. I’d like to know how you liked it, if you found it informative and useful in any way, and if you would like to see more (I would NOT be making such long videos on a regular basis, but I might make some little 5 minute ones). I’d love to hear your questions, suggestions and anything else you’d like to share.

Enjoy!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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Look who was willing to come an eat, while I was still close by!

Little Toesencrantz normally won’t come to the food until I’ve moved away. Nosencrantz was letting me pet her and was purring, so that might be helping.

This evening, my daughter was thrilled to let me know that when the topped up the kibble trays, Nosencrantz was willing to be picked up and held for several minutes!!! So awesome!

On a another note, I am working on something different that I hope to post tonight, though more likely tomorrow, and it’s taking quite a bit of time, hence the lack of posting today. I’m hoping to get feedback on what you all think, when it’s up, to know if it’s worth doing again! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Mmm… puffball slurry!

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Okay, I should have done this yesterday, or at least earlier today, but too many other things kept distracting me away. So now I finally have it started.

Puffball slurry.

The spores in the packet are done the same way as the morels were; as little grains.

The package instructions said to put water in a gallon glass jar. I don’t have a gallon sized glass jar available, so I ended up using one of the gallon sized jugs from the distilled water we get for my husband’s CPAP humidifier. It’s food grade plastic, so that should be fine.

The instructions called for distilled or any other non-chlorinated water, so well water it was. Then they called for a pinch of salt (?!?!) and a small spoonful of molasses, which was then to be mixed with a clean wooden spoon until the salt was dissolved.

Such a strange mix of precise and imprecise instructions! :-D

Well, there was no way to use a spoon in the jug I was using, so after adding a bit of salt and a pouring in a blob of molasses, I put the cap back on and shook it until the molasses was dissolved. The salt dissolved pretty much right away, so that wasn’t an issue.

The instructions then said to “brush” the spores in, but since the spores were in those handy pellets, I just dumped them in. Now it is supposed to sit, undisturbed, for two days.

Actually, the instructions said to place the slurry “… where it will be disturbed…” :-D I suspect translation issues!

Anyhow.

Two days would actually be Saturday night, but since I’m not going to go pouring puffball slurry around in the dark, Sunday morning it is!

Like the morels, it could be a couple of years before these fruit, and it’s entirely possible they won’t take at all. No loss in trying, though, and if it works, we could find ourselves with puffballs big enough to cut into steaks! :-D Much easier than the little ones we normally get around here. :-)

Meanwhile, I have taken today as a break from heavier manual labour to give my body a chance to recover a bit. My husband, darling that he is, has been treating my hands with his zapper (needle-less acupuncture). One hand is pretty much back to normal now, but the ring finger on my right hand is still a problem. I may have actually injured it, somehow, aside from the usual arthritis. Whatever I did to it, I can at least say with confidence that nothing is broken, and I can at least still type. It’s a good thing I’m left handed in most things, too.

Aside from running some errands, we’ve been working on processing that big bag of dill my brother and his wife gave us. Our entire dining table is covered with towels, and my younger daughter and I have been working it in batches, as we’ve had the chance. There are a lot of mature seeds in there, and we’ve been talking about what to do with them. We want to basically set aside an area for the dill where they can self-seed to their heart’s content, and we don’t have to worry about them popping up when we’re trying to grow something else. We seem to have settled on the area next to the low raised beds that are being set up. It has been partially cleaned up, and because of various old tree stumps and roots, as well as spreading roots from those cherry trees that are not right for our climate, it’s not like we’re ever going to expand garden beds further in. If, for some reason, that spot doesn’t work out, I can think of another area where it might work to have a dill jungle. :-)

I am hoping to get back to taking down more dead trees and breaking them down for the high raised beds we will be building over the next while. I also want to do a thorough weeding of the empty beds, and letting them sit to allow any missed weeds to start growing, so I can pull them when it’s time to actually move the top soil and build the beds. We don’t have a lot of material left to use when refilling the bottom layers of the beds, but we will soon be able to start raking leaves, which will be good to use. Plus, we should be able to get another lawn mowing in before the end of the season, and have fresh grass clippings as well. So for now, the more dead trees we can cut and process, the better.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, and another one down

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Well, so much for trying to support the sunflower in the old kitchen garden.

We had high winds again this morning, and the last of the three flower stalks on the remaining sunflower in the old kitchen garden finally broke. It was actually still upright when I came out this morning, but by the time I came back to the house, it was lying on the ground.

Sadness.

While checking the garden beds, I did get a little bit of a harvest this morning.

It all could fit in my pocket! :-D

This is the largest I’ve ever let a pattypan squash get. Any bigger, and they start developing their seeds. One of these days, I should try letting some fully mature. At that point, when the seeds are removed, they leave a cavity that can be stuffed for roasting, which I do want to try. We just really like them at this stage, though. :-) For next year, I plan to try other varieties of pattypan squash, and hope to grow some to save seeds, too. Since I accidentally bought three summer squash collections for this year, instead of one, we don’t actually need to buy more squash seeds, but I like to try new varieties.

That is definitely one of the biggest benefits of having a garden. There are so many varieties that are just never in the stores!

The Re-Farmer

Counting kittens, and bonus Cabbages

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When I start my morning rounds by putting kibble out for the outside cats is when we see the most cats and kittens all at once. I made a point of trying to count all the kittens this morning. Yesterday, I counted twelve. This morning, I counted eleven.

I caught a baby, over on the far right, in mid meow! :-D

They are a bit easier to see in this photo. Over on the left, beside Potato Beetle, Broccoli, with Caramel next to her. The orange tabby is Toesencrantz, and on the right of the kibble house is Tuxedo Mask and Bradicous, with his distinctive white tail tip. Outside the kibble house is the Junk Pile Jr., the grey and white that looks so much like her mom.

Sharing a bowl with Caramel is another of Junk Pile’s kittens. I believe that one has been dubbed Sadicous. LOL Of the two other greys inside the kibble house, I believe the one looking at the camera is Chadicous, and the one standing up in the back, with the white legs, is Junk Pile’s fourth baby, tentatively named Tadicous.

That leaves the grey kitten with the white chest, outside the kibble house, as the mystery kitten. Either that, or that one is Chadicous, and the one inside the kibble house, looking at the camera, is the mystery kitten.

The mystery kitten that made number 12, yesterday, did not have any distinctive colours or markings, either. It had to be one of the grey tabbies, or the more muted calico types, like Caramel. It’s really hard to tell, when they run around so much.

Nosencrantz, at least, is nice and easy to spot! :-D

This morning, not only did Nosencrantz let me pet her after taking this photo, I was able to pick her up and hold her for a few moments! This makes her officially more socialized than her mother, who will sometimes let us pet her, but that’s about it.

Nosencrantz has such very, very soft fur!!

So does this bonus baby.

Cabbages is so adorable!

It is still somewhat startling to go outside and see what I at first think is Cabbages, only to remember that I’m looking at Broccoli. :-D

The Re-Farmer