Month: April 2022

Morning finds

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As I write this, we are still getting weather alerts for another Colorado Low that might sweep up our way. Maybe. For now, we’re at 4C/39F, with an expected high of 6C/43F, and a small amount of rain.

We’re checking the old basement regularly, sweeping the water collecting on the north side into the drain. The big blower fan makes a difference in keeping that under control, too. The south side of the basement is seeing more damps spots, as moisture is seeping through the concrete in patches. I noticed the water level in the sump pump reservoir had gone down quite a bit, so it looks like it got triggered during the night and actually worked this time. No blockages! We’ll have to keep that in mind next fall, and insulate the pipe where it comes out of the house for the winter. Meanwhile, I’ve set up a pedestal fan in the south side of the basement to help dry things out. Normally, we’d take the block of foam insulation out of the window, then switch from the winter window to the summer screen window we built, to help with air circulation, but it’s still too cold for that.

This sort of dampness in the old basement is normal; the dryness that we’ve had since moving out here is what was unusual. My brother had all sorts of things set up to help keep it under control, including having a box fan on a platform he built under the window. That fan is one of the things that disappeared before we moved in, but there is still an old dehumidifier. The reservoir for it disappeared, which is odd, because the girls had to use it upstairs when they painted. High humidity was causing the fresh paint to slough off. Somehow, when it got put back into the basement, the reservoir disappeared and we simply cannot find it. Thankfully, I discovered that the drip valve has standard threading on it. I could hook up a short hose and have it drain directly into the sump pump reservoir. Which is much more convenient than having to remember to empty the reservoir regularly! Now that it seems the sump pump is working fine, we know we can turn the dehumidifier on to help keep the basement drier, if we need to.

For now, the fans are still enough.

Then it was time to head outside and feed the critters.

There are the 11 in the photo, plus Rolando Moon was circling around for some breakfast. :-)

While Junk Pile was busily eating, I refreshed the water bowls with warm water, then quickly shoved my phone right up against the window to try and get a photo of her babies.

There are at least 4 kittens, though I wouldn’t be surprised of there was actually 6. I’ve noticed that she moves them away from the window when she’s with them, and worried that she might move them somewhere else. However, I see that the timer is knocked down, which means the light sensor is always in shadow. The heat bulb, which you can partially see at the top, would be on all the time.

She left her babies in the warm spot while she went to get food!

For those who may be wondering, you can see part of the protective aluminum heat shield on the side. It continues up and above the ceramic heat bulb. There is also a smoke detector installed inside.

I’ve been seeing Rosencrantz around a lot, lately. She is no longer meowing at me while trying to pull me places. I suspect she has lost her litter. Even if she had moved them somewhere else, I would expect her to quickly eat and go, like Junk Pile and Ghost Baby are doing. She just hangs around, and even followed me a bit, while I was doing my rounds. There is still no way we can get into the old freezer where I think she had her litter. It’ll take a few more days of thawing out, at least, before we can move some of the stuff out of the way.

The box nest set up I’d made showed no signs of use, so I moved it out. It probably won’t be used, but I set it up against the house by the sun room window, barricaded on one side with a garbage can to ensure it can’t be moved, and pieces of rigid insulation strategically placed around and over it, so ensure no water or wind can get in. If nothing else, some cats might use it as a safe and cozy spot to sleep.

I made sure to check the old kitchen garden.

Good to see at least some of the snow is melting away. The hose end if from the sump pump, and it does indeed look like water had been pumped here. I’ve got it aimed at the straw, so the water won’t erode the soil away or get too muddy.

It’s going to be a while before we plant in here. :-/

It looks like the honeysuckle got chewed on by the deer! Just the one big stem. We’ll see if that one survives, since it wasn’t chewed all the way around.

I was able to access the old garden shed and took a peek inside. Critters can get into it, and things look rather knocked about. The old scythe is no longer hanging where I’d put it. There’s too much in the way to bother trying to reach it. The blade looks quite rusted, but we might be able to restore it.

Once things melt away in the main garden area some more, I want to dig out the black plastic tarps/landscape fabric (not sure what it started out as, originally) that we salvaged when cleaning up the old wood pile. The plan is to lay it out on the ground where we will be making new, temporary garden beds for the potatoes. Those should arrive around the end of May. The black plastic will help warm the soil up faster, while also killing most of the grass and weeds. We’ll be using straw to grow potatoes using the Ruth Stout, heavy mulching method. This time, we have the wood chipper and can put the straw through the shredder chute, first. I think that will work better than using the straw as is.

While heading up the driveway to switch out the trail cam memory card, I saw something unexpected.

A sunk disappearing under a garage door.

Not the main roll up door, which we don’t close all the way because the latches on the sides get stuck. Not the doors to where my mother’s car is parked, which has a larger gap under one of them, created by critters continually squeezing their way in and out. No. It went under one of the doors to the side where the lawn mowers and chipper are kept.

Critters have never been able to get into that side with the door closed before.

That hole in the ground wasn’t there, yesterday.

I opened the door to look, but saw no sign of the skunk. The back of the room has a lot of stuff just shoved into it to make room for the equipment we use, so it was likely somewhere in that area.

I suspect there is a nest with baby skunks in there now! I certainly wasn’t going to dig around and find out, though. ;-)

I was going to just change the memory card on the driveway cam, since access to the sign cam has too much snow and water to get to it right now. Then I remembered that I could access it from the road side of the fence. Having the camera right at the fence like that is a bit of a risk, since it would be easy for anyone to reach it and steal it, however it does mean I can still get to it. With trees all along the fence line, the snow didn’t get as deep, so there is a corridor all along the fence line that can be walked on, right next to the drifted snow, and the piles left by the snow plow in the ditch. This area doesn’t accumulate any water, like on the garden side of the fence.

I look forward to seeing if the wildflower seeds I broadcast there in the fall will grow. :-)

Speaking of growing things, I got to spend some time tending the seedlings in the sun room, too; rotating trays, watering where needed, etc. They are handling being in there pretty well. I’m a bit concerned about the kulli corn we planted. The sun room can get very warm during the day – it was about 25C/77F in there, when I got back from the city! – but drops to just above freezing at night, even with finding a way to set up a bit of heat in that corner overnight. I’m able to have the warming lamp directly under where the larger bin of seeds are, but the smaller bin is on the highest shelf, which may not be getting much warmth.

One of the first things I do in the morning is turn on the lights for the seedlings in the living room. Last night, I could just see a Yellow Pear tomato trying to sprout. :-) Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more of those today.

We need to start more seeds today. It looks like we’ll have to start using the small aquarium greenhouse for those. There’s an open shelf in the mini-greenhouse, but there aren’t any seedlings in the big aquarium greenhouse ready to be moved into it yet. We’ll be having to move the larger tomato plants currently in the mini-greenhouse to the sun room before then.

We’ll figure it out.

We kind of have to! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Cha-ching! … Ouch

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I’m going to try something different.

With all the stuff going on, prices going up, and so many looking to stock up, I figured I would share a detailed post about what we got during our trip to the city today, and how much things cost. Because we get paid at the end of the month only, we budget to do a major shopping trip in the city (which saves us hundreds of dollars compared to buying many things locally) to stock up for the month, plus a bit extra for our stash. Let me know in the comments if this is something that interests you, and if you’d like me to keep doing these.

Before I get to it, I want to add a few notes about what will not be on the list, or not much of.

Beef: we now buy our beef direct from a local (ish) farmer, and recently got a large freezer pack. We won’t buy beef unless there is a spectacular sale of some kind. Our freezer is pretty full right now, so we didn’t get a lot of meat for the freezer this trip.
Fresh fruits and vegetables: there will be some on the list, but with a few exceptions, we buy fresh produce locally.
Personal hygiene and household items: the girls buy their own, and we’ve already stocked up on a lot of the basics, so we don’t need any on this trip.
Stuff that will have to wait for another trip: because we get so many heavy items, and our van is a delicate old thing, we can no longer do all the city shopping on one trip. We’ve had to split it into at least two trips. Sometimes three, if things are out of stock or we have to go to a different city.

With that said, here is today’s shopping, starting with fuel!

On the way out, I stopped to put $30 gas in the tank, so I wouldn’t go below half a tank before reaching the city. I headed out at about 10am so that I could pick up some parcels at the post office, and didn’t have breakfast before I left. I normally would have picked up some fried chicken at the gas station, but they didn’t have any yet, so I got some drinks (including an extra for the cooler we keep in the van) and some pierogi for the road. I also got a lottery ticket, for a total of $54.93 Before heading home, I filled the tank at Costco, which cost $51.87.

Grand total of fuel and a bit extra: $106.80

Once in the city, we start with where we get the least perishable times first. Today, that was Canadian Tire.

This is where we get our hardwood pellets that we use for cat litter. We still have a couple of unopened bags at home, and these last a LONG time, but I wanted to stock up. They’re only $6.99 per 40 pound bag. I also picked up a case of canning jars. We usually pick up 500ml or 750ml sizes, but this time I got quart jars (1L). I like the wide mouth jars better. I’ve also been picking up extra lids every now and then, but I did that at our last Walmart trip, so for this one, I got more jars. We have lots more seeds to plant, so I got a couple of square fibre pots that fit into the trays we have, and can be planted directly into the soil. I also picked up a BBQ lighter that was on sale; I’ve been picking those up whenever I see a good price, as they are very handy for lighting the burn barrel or fire pit. I also finally found an LED light with a switch. It runs on AAA batteries and can be hung or adhered to a wall with self adhesive Velcro strips. This is what I’ve been wanting to have for the outhouse, but hadn’t found until today. Not that we can get to the outhouse right now to install it, but I grabbed it while I could. They’re a novelty item, and not always in stock.

My major splurge was the syphon pump. That cost $39.99. I got it in case our sump pump has issues again. The last two times this happened, we had to manually empty the reservoir using an old ice cream pail with a wire attached to the handle. I’d drop the bucket alongside the pump, then push it under the water with a broom handle to fill it, lift it out with the wire, then empty it into larger buckets that my daughters would haul outside, assembly line style. With this, I can just stick the syphon pump into the reservoir, have the hose go into the large bucket, and pump it out that way. Much easier! Hopefully, we’ll never need to use it for that, but even if we don’t use it there, I can see using it to, say, get water from the bottom of a rain barrel to fill a watering can or something.

Final tally for this purchase, after taxes, was $103.18

The next stop was an international grocery store we really like.

I forgot to get a picture before I packed it all. :-D We keep a variety of reusable bags in our van and usually pack our items there, rather than in the store.

Here we have bananas (normally we get those locally, but they looked really good today), Ambrosia apples (they were on sale), Beaver Buzz (a Canadian brand of energy drinks that we like, but few places carry; we got citrus, mango-pineapple and Saskatoon flavours), traditional yeast (I prefer it over the quick acting yeast), frozen udon noodles, a 2 pack of chicken (it had a sale price that made it cheaper than Costco), Maple Latte creamer (my daughters are coffee drinkers and like their creamers), a case of Kraft dinner (it was almost half price, and my daughters like it for a quick meal), instant milk (for our emergency stash), coarse salt (I got 2, because we use it more than we use regular table salt), a brand of soy sauce from the Philippines that my husband likes, a local brand of uncut smoked bacon; one piece plain smoked, one piece Applewood smoked (no difference in price), rooibos tea (for me!) and 2 packages of old fashioned rolled oats (which we prefer over quick oats). They happened to be on a really good sale, so I wanted to stock up on those.

Then, because I’d had such a small “breakfast” on the way out, I picked up from fresh dim sum at the hot food counter for “lunch”.

Grand total for this trip, after my loyalty card discounts and taxes: $135.39

Those were the small trips.

Next was Costco.

It was flat cart time! :-D

I did not get everything on this trip, but I did get most of it.

There are four 9kg bags of cat kibble – less than half what we need for the month – plus a case of wet cat food. The yellow plastic container that looks like laundry soap is dish detergent; not the brand we usually get, but it was a bit cheaper, so I decided it was worth a try. Just one package of toilet paper; we’ll get more on the next trip. Basmati rice (my husband’s preferred type) and a 9 pack of beans. At $10.99 for the case, they’ve gone up in price since our last trip, but are still a lot cheaper than at the regular grocery store. There is 10 pounds of butter (we don’t use margarine or shortening). Butter has also gone up and is now $4.99 a pound at Costco, which is cheaper than the regular grocery store. There is olive oil, but I didn’t get vegetable oil on this trip. We got a gallon sized plastic container of popcorn. Popcorn is our primary snack, plus the containers are very sturdy, food safe plastic, so we keep those. (We’ve got several of them with the bottoms cut off that make great scoops for the outside cat kibble and bird/deer feed.) There’s also mayonnaise, baking powder (a 2 pack; one for the kitchen, one for the stash), vinegar (another 2 pack, both for the stash), peanut butter, a 2 pack of butter chicken sauce, 2 packages of tortilla wraps, one for the freezer, a large block of extra old cheddar, and a smaller block of mozzarella. I normally would have gotten a large block of marble as well, but they were out of stock. There’s a 3 pack of hot dog wieners, plus a couple of bags of hot dog buns, for our next wiener roast. A pork loin, pork chops and a package of tilapia – the fish is for the girls. My husband and I are not fish fans. Frozen wontons, Saskatoon berry jam, canned chicken (the only canned meat we buy; it’s just too expensive!), a couple of containers of sour cream, whipping cream, icing sugar, brown sugar, a package of prosciutto, chocolate chips, a 5 dozen pack of eggs (nowhere near enough for the entire month), yellow flesh potatoes and red potatoes.

Finally, on top of all this was my Costco Executive membership renewal fee of $120. The grand total, including the fee and taxes was $784.29. Minus the fee, $664.29.

Then, because it was getting late and I wanted to treat the family, I swung by a McDonald’s drive through on the way home and picked up 4 double quarter pounders with cheese, plus bacon. Which came out to pennies over $45.

*choke*

Oh, I almost forgot.

I had another splurge when I got home. This one came out of the “unallocated funds” part of the budget. One of the YouTube channels I follow, Maritime Gardening, mentioned the software he uses to make his videos; Movavi. I got the trial version and was incredibly happy with how quickly I could figure out how to use it and make my first, simple video. However, because it was a trial version, it had a watermark on the final, exported version. When I downloaded the free trial version, the software had been on sale, but when the trial time was done, it offered a steeper discount to purchase. They had several options, including a cheaper yearly subscription version, but I opted for the next level up, one time purchase. After taxes, it cost $114.95

I’ve made a few videos using (much!) older software I have and posted them on YouTube and Rumble, but have been considering making videos of more than just deer, or the occasional video of me walking around the property. Please let me know if you would be interested in seeing Re-Farmer videos on top of blog posts. :-)

So, including the video editing software, the grand total for the day is: $1244.61

Ouch.

This is higher than typical. It’s not unusual for us to find things we’ll need, like the pump or the case of canning jars, so those “extras” are not out of the ordinary. However, even taking that into account, as well as the extra we’re getting for our stash, and taking out the 1 time software purchase and the annual Costco renewal fee, a total of $1009.66 is higher than typical by at least $100. That would be due directly to increased prices. It would be a lot higher, if we weren’t able to direct-purchase beef, and hadn’t already stocked up on things like laundry detergent or bars of soap.

And we will have to make another trip in a couple of days to get the rest, while still keeping a budget for fresh foods for the rest of the month to buy locally.

*sigh*

I headed out at 10 and didn’t get home until about 5:30.

Ugh.

At least the next trip won’t involve running around the city so much, and will likely be just to one place.

And that’s what our big monthly shopping trip is like. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Is this for real??

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While I was in the city today, I got an alert on my phone.

A weather alert.

Can you believe this?

We’re nowhere near the border, so it is unlikely to affect us, but my goodness, we could really use a break! Yeah, we still need the moisture, but not all at once!

The city is largely snow free right now, other than the hills from clearing the roads. The river is about as high as I’ve ever seen it, except during one of those “flood of the century” events that happen rather more often then that. Some fields on the outskirts of the city were completely flooded as far as I could see.

The potholes were merciless.

Coming home, there was a rather dramatic, if gradual, change from open fields and water, to more snow and ice and water. The worst part of the drive, though, was the main gravel road from the highway. It was bad in the morning, but so much worse by the time I got home. With so much weight in the van, I was slowing down to a crawl, trying to avoid potholes as much as possible. Which really wasn’t possible. It ware more like navigating a path that was the least destructive to my suspension! From the tire tracks in the muck, I could tell many other vehicles had done the same. I had seriously considered taking a different route, but it would have added an extra mile of gravel road, and I wasn’t sure if one particular spot was washed over or not. I didn’t want to take a chance.

The sad part is, I’m going to have to do this again in a couple of days. I didn’t get everything we’ll need for the month. Too many heavy things.

But I will talk about that in my next post. :-)

The Re-Farmer

New kits, new cats?

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Well now!

I just have a bit of time before I head to the city, but I just had to share this first!

While putting kibble out, I heard the distinctive sounds of cat asserting their dominance, somewhere in the outer yard. So as soon as I was done putting kibble in the tray under the shrine, which is nearest the gate to the outer yard, I went to look. A quick pause to check the box next I put near where Rosencrantz has her kittens showed it untouched, which did not surprise me – though she already surprised me by teleporting next to me while I was putting kibble in the tray near the kibble house! Which makes me think she may have moved them already, though I have no idea where.

Once in the outer yard, I could see The Distinguished Guest and Rolando Moon by the pump shack, looking very, very tense. Both had their fur all puffed out. I headed over to chase The Distinguished Guest away and realized…

That wasn’t Rolando Moon.

That’s a long haired ginger.

We don’t have any long haired gingers!

Well, I guess we do, now!

Given their behaviour, I’m just going to assume this is a male.

Then I went back to put warm water out for the cats and saw movement inside the cat’s house window they are under.

Much to my surprise, I saw little squirmy wormies in the sunlight, and a Junk Pile coming up to them.

Since I was already so close, when I was finished with the water, I tried to take a photo through the very dirty window. I didn’t want to step right in front of it or do anything to startle Junk Pile.

Coming back from the rest of my rounds, I tried again, because I could see them so clearly in the sun spot through the window. I stayed well away and zoomed in.

There is at least one, maybe two, tuxedos in there!

I’m amazed any cat would have her kittens in here. This is a large space and a lot of cats use it.

I notice she is about as close to directly under the ceramic heat bulb as possible in there. :-) With the sun shining in so brightly, it would be off right now, but as soon as the sensor on the timer is in shadow, it’ll turn back on again.

I do hope the other cats leave her alone! I saw several of them in there when I was doing my evening rounds. These babies are so new, they look like they’re still a bit damp!

This will be Junk Pile’s second litter. Agnoos and Tuxedo Mask, both her babies from last year, have not been seen in quite a while. Likely, they are out expanding their territory and finding themselves some lady cats. Two of the ‘iccuses are hers, but I’m not sure which ones, other than not Bradiccus (who is still around) or Chadiccus (who is also AWOL). Those two are Butterscotch’s. There is one ‘iccus that has more white on him and looks a lot like Junk Pile, and I think that one is hers. We have no way to know for sure, but I think at least one of them is Ghost Baby’s.

I know we’re about to have a population explosion that is going to make things a bit more crowded out there, but I can’t help but be excited for kittens. We’ve never been able to socialize Junk Pile, but with her kittens in there, we at least have a chance with them – as long as she doesn’t move them! If we can socialize them, there’s a better chance of adopting them out.

The Re-Farmer

Melting

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We’re at -1C/30F right now, with no wind chill. Which is weird, because while my app says -1, when I go to the Weather Network website, it says we’re actually at 2C/36F. Yesterday, they were forecasting a high of 0C/32F, which is what my phone app says we are. Whatever. It’s bright and sunny and warm, and there’s a whole lot of melting going on, so I suspect the website is the accurate one.

Nutmeg was quite enjoying the sun!

I headed out to tend the sun room so it wouldn’t overheat – the thermometer in there was just under 20C/68F. I’d already left the inner door to outside open, so air could get in through the partially open window in the outer door. I opened that window all the way. As I did, I could hear all sorts of cats meowing at me.

Their kibble trays were completely empty.

When I first came out, I was going to walk past to check something else, but Rosencrantz grabbed me by the ankle with both front paws and yanked, while meowing angrily!

I got the hint.

I left the door open behind me while getting the kibble. Rosencrantz went into the sun room and cautiously went for the kibble bowl that still had some food in it. Then Rolando Moon came in, and Rosencrantz attacked her!

Rolando Moon did not do well in that, and orange fur was flying. I broke them up, put food out, and they settled down, though Rosencrantz was still hissing at all the cats.

She is not a happy mama.

I checked the nest box I left out and moved it closer to where her kittens are. We’ll see what happens with that. For all the melt that’s happening, it’s not not enough to clear access to where she is.

I did do a bit of shoveling to clear the drift partially blocking driveway at the gate, as well as clearing the half of the gate that was blocked with snow. We can now close the gate again.

The deer will not be happy. ;-)

Tomorrow, we are supposed to reach a high of 4C/39F. By Saturday, we’re supposed to reach 10C/50F, with some rain and snow, and yet… we are actually getting warnings of ANOTHER potential Colorado Low forming, that would hit us on the weekend.

Which would be insane.

By the time spring finally gets here and stays, it’ll almost be summer!

The Re-Farmer

Morning adventures?

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First, though, I want to share a photo I took last night.

Doesn’t she look so malevolent? :-D We’ve still been keeping the cats out of my office/bedroom most of the time, because too many of them go after Nosencrantz and Butterscotch. Cheddar is the only one that is allowed in any time he wants, because he’s also the only one that gets along with them. Every now and then, I’ll let others in and see. Fenrir had a habit of laying across my chest and sleeping while I was on my computer. When I let her in, she took advantage of that and made it impossible for me to get any work done. :-D

Then she started to stalk Nosencrantz, and pick fights with Butterscotch, so I had to kick her out. She can be such a mean one!

Anyhow.

While we are a few degrees below freezing right now, it’s a bright, clear, sunny day, with no wind to speak of, and it feels much warmer outside. So when Potato Beetle showed an interest in going outside from the sun room, I let him out.

He was quite happy, until The Distinguished Guest spotted him and immediately went on the attack!

There wasn’t much of an altercation, as the lure of kibble was much stronger. Potato Beetle had no interest, since he had access to kibble in the sun room, any time he wanted.

In the photo, there are the eight cats in the kibble house, plus Rosencrantz hidden from view at the tray on the ground. Rolando Moon had tried to go in to eat, too, but Rosencrantz started fighting with her, and I had to break them up. Rolando ended up going into the sun room to eat Potato Beetle’s kibble, in peace.

Rosencrantz was behaving very oddly this morning. I did a burn this morning, and after covering up the burn barrel and heading in, she came right to me, wanting attention, but not wanting attention, but wanting attention… It was like she wanted something from me.

What I did get to see was a whole lot of wet fur at her back end, and realized she had just had her kittens.

So I started to follow her.

That was what she wanted. She kept looking back to make sure I was behind her, then disappeared into the junk pile. She took me to where her kittens are!

More specifically, into the back of the big old chest freezer we’d dragged out of the inner yard, and is now waiting to be hauled away with all the other junk.

We’ve been putting smaller junk inside it, so it wouldn’t blow away or otherwise be an issue. The broken old large tire planter is leaning against it, and there are things like the old broken door from the sun room, and the broken stove and washing machine, all waiting to be hauled away, in front of it.

She really did seem to want me to do something for her, but what? Help with her kittens? I tried to get at the freezer, but everything is too frozen to be moved.

She wasn’t happy with me knocking about, though, and I could hear her growling.

After a while, I tried to rig up a sheltered box nest and set it up as far into the opening of the freezer (which is on its side) as I could, hoping she would move her kittens into it, and then we could move them all into the sun room. Unfortunately, the hard plastic bin I used to shelter the box nest from the elements was too large to fit into the space. Too much frozen stuff I couldn’t move out of the way. I left for a bit and she was out when I came back. She veered from wanting me to pet her, to attacking my hand, from moment to moment. I had to move the box nest out, because it seemed to be blocking her too much. We’ll have to check it again later, but I think it’s jut too exposed for her to try and use now.

Crud. If there is a problem with her kittens, we have no way to help her until things thaw out enough to get in there. That will take days.

While I was fussing around the junk pile, I heard another altercation, and saw Sad Face – he’s still around! – chasing a tabby up a tree. I’m pretty sure it was one of the ‘iccuses. I at first thought it might be Potato Beetle, but he’s not big on climbing trees right now. He’s still favouring that leg.

I spotted him later on, blissfully rolling in the snow – and had to chase away The Distinguished Guest, who was stalking him!!

I do hope Potato Beetle will go back into the sun room again for the night. There are just too many cats wanting to beat on him!

While doing my rounds, I was able to get at the trail cams and switch memory cards. Getting to the sign cam meant breaking a trail through some new drifts blown over the low spot where water was accumulating. The water under the snow was deep enough to overflow my (short) rubber boots, which means it was at least about a foot deep – with another foot or so of snow drifted on top! Aside from the drift, though, most of the path to the sign was blown clear.

When switching the driveway cam, I also tended to the gate. One side is clear – I could even see it being blown back and forth by the winds on the garage cam live feed, so I wanted to check on it. The other side is still stuck in snow. There’s a hard packed drift across the driveway, right at the gate posts. Other than that, though, the driveway is passable. The only concern I’d have right now is how soft the gravel is, and whether or not we might get stuck in it. There’s one lower spot, about half way to the gate, that’s full of water, but I think we could get through it okay if we had to.

We’ll see how things are tomorrow, which is when we would be making the big shop in the city.

While we are doing all right where we are, quite a few people are having much more to deal with. I’ve seen local photos people are sharing, showing ice and snow covered highways, ditches and fields filled with water and, in some areas, washed out roads. Where my brother lives, closer to the city, one of the highways he would normally take as part of his commute is completely undermined. The asphalt looks fine on the surface, but the road materials around the culvert have been washed away, so it’s basically just hovering. The road is closed but, amazingly, people have been moving the roadblocks aside and driving right over it, anyway! The water below is flowing at a very high rate of speed, so if anyone ever broke through, their vehicle could easily be swept away. What are people thinking when they do stuff like that? I don’t get it. It’s not like there aren’t ways to detour around it.

Things are warming up, starting today, so all this snow is going to melt and add to the water levels. The ground is still too frozen to absorb all the water, so I’m actually hoping for cooler temperatures and a slow melt. Still, I expect we will soon have even more water seeping into our basement to tend to. The gravel roads around our place were already in rough shape from the daily freeze/thaw cycle we were having, and it will be a while before the municipality will be able to do anything to fix them. We were also already avoiding travelling south on the road past our driveway, because I know there are low spots that would be trouble in these conditions. Instead, we take the main gravel road. It means driving past our vandal’s place, but I’m not worried about that. I’d be too busy watching out for deer running across the road, anyhow!

Once the snow is going and the water has receded, we’re going to have a fair bit of cleanup to do.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: gourds and pumpkins

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Another batch of seeds were started today: the last of the gourds and pumpkins we will be planting this year.

We are trying three varieties of hulless pumpkins. I really love pumpkin seeds, but they are quite expensive, so hopefully we will get lots of seeds to eat from these. We’ve got Lady Godiva, Kakai and Styrian. We’ll see which variety grows and tastes best to save seeds from. Or we might just save seeds from all of them. The Styrian pumpkin seeds are a good oil seed, and getting an oil press is on our wish list. The Kakai are supposed to be really excellent, roasted, while the Lady Godiva are supposed to be really excellent eaten fresh out of the pumpkin, as well as roasted. Three varieties with three different ideal ways to use them.

The remaining gourds we will be planting this year are Apple and Yakteen. Both are edible when young, and apparently Apple gourds are very healthy. I’m growing the Apple gourds for crafting purposes. We’ll try them both. Then we’ll decide whether the Yakteen gourd will be used as an edible, as well as for crafting. The Yakteen gourd is listed as very rare, so we’ll be saving seeds for those, regardless. If we succeed in growing them! We do have two other varieties of gourd seeds from last year, but we’re skipping them this year.

The Baby Pam pumpkins are a small, short(ish) season variety that is supposed to be an excellent eating pumpkin, especially good for pies. Veseys doesn’t seem to carry them anymore, though, so I’m glad to still have these seeds from last year. We had none germinate last year, but I think that has more to do with the troubles we had with our starting medium, rather than the seeds themselves. This year, we’ve bought soilless seed starting mixes, and I think that’s working out much better.

I decided to just plant two pots with three seeds for each of these. The gourds and Baby Pam pumpkin seeds got scarified and soaked for a while before planting. Depending on how well they germinate and how strong they are, we might thin by dividing to get more to transplant in June. My daughter did the planting while I cut up and wrote out more labels.

The ground cherry seedlings got moved to the mini-greenhouse, and now the warming mat is under all pumpkins and gourds right now.

Yes, I added water to the tray after the photo was taken. LOL

Here’s what’s in the mini-greenhouse right now.

I’d rotated all the trays before taking photos. Here are the ground cherries, just added to the tray with second planting eggplants, peppers, luffa and Crespo squash, along with one Canteen gourd that was thinned out from one of the pots now in the sun room.

There is one empty shelf below, ready for when we need to move more things out of the big aquarium greenhouse to make room for more starts.

Here we have the second planting Sophie’s Choice tomatoes, plus the first planting eggplant and peppers that survived the Great Cat Crush.

Here we have the Cup of Moldova tomatoes that were smaller and didn’t need to get moved to the sun room yet. They’re getting quite tall, so we’ll likely have to move them to the sun room fairly soon.

For the next batch of starts, in a couple of days, we’ll be moving on to the winter squash. Particularly the larger varieties that need a longer growing season.

I’m really looking forward to those, and will be looking to start more of each, if we can find the space. These were selected to be a major part of our winter food storage, so I’m aiming to plant quite a lot of each variety, if possible.

We are starting so many seeds indoors this year, but I’d much rather be planting more. Partly because we just don’t know how many will actually make it. Even if they all germinate, the cats don’t manage to destroy any more of them, and we transplant them all, they could still die of transplant shock, a late frost, critters, insects… Gardening is really a touch and go endeavour. As the poem says, one for the rook, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow. I’m also reminded of a “prepper” saying I’ve recently come across. Two is one, and one is none. Redundancy is a good thing, whether it’s how many bags of rice to store, how many can openers to have handy, or how many seeds to plant!

If we had the space, I would be planting double what we’re doing for our indoor starts.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, and more digging

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The snow continued to fall all night, with more wind than snow, and we’re still supposed to get the odd flurries today. The winds have died down a bit. I haven’t been able to do my usual walk-around to see how many downed branches there are. It doesn’t look like we’ve lost any more trees in the spruce grove.

I saw about 8 outside cats while putting their kibble out, than at least a couple skulking around the yard, heading towards food while trying to avoid me. Thanks to the shoveling done yesterday, their paths and feeding areas were clear enough to put food out without having to redo them.

The water accumulated near the storage house has frozen over, which I’m actually happy to see. It covers the path the cats use to get under the storage house for shelter. Yesterday, I saw cats running over it, and the meltwater was all slush they were splashing through. Getting wet in these temperatures is not a good thing. Thankfully, the space under the storage house seems to stay completely dry, except maybe around some of the edges.

It’s almost noon and -8C/18F as I write this, which is colder than our overnight low. I did find a way to set up the ceramic heater bulb in the sun room, and it does seem to be enough to keep the temperatures in there above freezing. All the seedlings are looking fine.

Warm enough that Potato Beetle has no interest in leaving! :-D Thankfully, he also had no interest in where I’ve got the heat bulb set up, on a small plant stand to keep it elevated off the floor, just in case water gets in. I had some concerns he might knock it over, but he’s completely ignoring it. With his favourite spot on the plant shelf now filled with a bin with kulli corn (it would be too cold for those to germinate, but hopefully, they’ll just remain dormant until it’s warm enough), he’s using the swing bench a lot more. :-)

Gotta love that tongue blep!

I was just able to take a quick peek at his leg, and everything seems okay there. I am amused that after escaping the sun room and disappearing for a few days, he just waltzed back in again on his own, and now doesn’t want to leave! Silly boy. :-)

I did a bit more shoveling this morning, clearing the sidewalks and patio, and a path to the burn barrel. I started a path to the garage, but stopped when I hit water. The path to the compost pile was mostly clear; just a couple of drifts needed to be broken through. The feeding station and the east side of the house was almost completely blown clear, so no digging was needed there. I ended up leaving extra feed out for the birds and the deer – who were already in the yard, waiting and watching while I cleared a path on the south side of the house, so I could bring the feed out.

We still have water seeping into our basement. I’d set the blower fan facing more towards the new part basement, and the seepage there was slow enough that most of that area was able to dry out. I adjusted the fan so it’s now aimed more towards the opposite corner, where the sump pump is. Any standing water gets swept into the floor drain. Meanwhile, our septic pump continues to be our acting sump pump, getting triggered often with all the water seeping through the drain from the weeping tile under the new part basement. With the old basement regularly getting wet, when we cleaned it out, we made sure elevate everything, or otherwise protect it from water. That has come in handy a few times, with the septic problems we’ve been having. It’s kind of nice to be dealing with clean water instead, for a change!

For those who are newer to this blog, getting the basements cleaned up was a HUGE job. If you’re interested, you can read about it at the following links. All links will open in new tabs.

Clean up: old basement. It begins!
Clean up: old basement. Day 2 progress
Clean up: old basement. Day 3 progress
Clean up: old basement. Mopping and scrubbing
Clean up: old basement progress, and finding things
Clean up: both basements, progress and things we find!
Clean up: old basement progress
Shelving it

Wow. I forgot how long it took to get that job done. And that’s just the old basement. We still had to do the new basement after that.

This place was such a disaster when we moved here. Mind you, it still is, but at least now it’s our disaster, and not 40 years+ of my parents’ disaster. ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Recommended: City Prepping

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Welcome to my second “Recommended” series. Here, you’ll find various sites and channels that I’ve been enjoying and wanted to share with you. With so many people currently looking to find ways to be more self sufficient or prepared for emergencies, that will be the focus for most of these, but I’ll also be adding a few that are just plain fun. Please feel free to leave a comment or make your own recommendation. I hope you enjoy these!

I hemmed and hawed over including this on on my Recommended list. Not because it isn’t a fantastic resource, but because “prepper” sites tend to include a lot of stuff that is well beyond what the average person can, or even should, do.

This one is a bit of an exception, though. City Prepping is, as you can probably guess by the name, geared more towards those living in urban environments. I’ll just quote a portion from their About page.

This channel’s goal is to help everyday people learn the basics of survival in times of crisis. With over 80% of Americans living in an Urban/Suburban environment, many lack the basics to ensure they have the necessary food, water, medical skills, and security in the event of a catastrophe. City Prepping’s chief aim is to help provide survival basics for everyday people that are practical and easy to implement to be prepared should calamity strike.

The YouTube channel has been going since 2015. If you visit the About page, you’ll find links to their other social media and Odysee pages. They have a website, where you can read articles on their blog and shop for supplies.

Their focus is geared towards emergency preparedness, without the sort of “doomsday, the world is about to end” cloud over it that others have. Oh, they do address “doomsday” scenarios. I just find the entire attitude is far more realistic. In fact, that’s one of the first things they address in this older video of theirs.

A lot of the videos are very practical; how to store water properly and safely, how to make a family bug out bag, and …

… how to cook after a disaster.

That’s one we’re working to keep on top of, based on what situations we are most likely end up in, such as losing power.

They also look at and compare various equipment, from freeze driers to solar generators, and much more. You’ll even find videos on gardening, bee keeping and easy meals to cook, should you find yourself in an emergency situation.

They even cover growing vegetables, if you live in an apartment.

Part two

Other topics include medical and health considerations, financial concerns and the spectre of economic collapse, and how to form mutually beneficial communities. Many videos deal with current events and situations, and discuss what to look out for, in an uncertain future. They even cover the importance of things beyond the physical.

One of the major differences with this resource is that it comes from a place of experience. This is someone who has lived through some pretty extreme SHTF experiences.

Part two.

They are also very response to comments and their online community. Shortly after I discovered the channel, they put out a survey that I took part in, asking about what areas we felt were important to address. They also realized that, with so many videos scattered over so many years, it would be difficult for anyone to find the information they need. Especially for people just starting out. To address that, they created a course: The Prepper’s Roadmap.

From the website:

With 18+ hours of video trainings housed inside a private members area, teaching you step by step how to prepare for ANY disaster.

Holding your hand every step of the way, as we move from creating your 3 day “bugout bag”, to storing 3 weeks of supplies – Enough to survive 95% of potential disasters…

To bringing it all together into a 3 month SHTF survival plan that builds your prepping foundation and helps you become self-sufficient for longer and longer time horizons.

And what sets this course apart from every other course out there, is it isn’t just some data dump about how much water, food, and supplies you need…

Instead, it’s customized to your specific situation, with checklists, exercises, and guides for you to follow along with me as we help you reach 3 months of preparation.

Which I think is really fantastic, and would go a long way to keep from becoming so overwhelmed with all the things we “should” be doing, or getting, should some disaster take place.

After the past couple of years, a lot of people are realizing that it really is a good idea to be prepared for emergency situations, whether is it a natural disaster, a job loss, or even the quintessential doomsday event. Even if it’s just to put a few things away for a rainy day, City Prepping is a good resource to get started, and just good a recourse for those who’ve already been working on their preps for years. I highly recommend them.

The Re-Farmer

Passed by

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It looks like the storm is finally passing by – at least in our area! Right now, we’re just dealing with high winds. Ontario and Quebec continue to be hit with snow and rain, though.

The winds are coming from the north, so I was able to shovel out the nearest cat paths wearing just my reading jacket (a sort of cross between a shrug and a cardigan), with the house sheltering me from the wind. The cats were very happy with a kibble top up. Funny how, with 4 trays in the kibble house, they still crowd together like that. I saw several cats inside the cat’s house, and The Distinguished Guest, who is looking like a wet rat right now, came out of the shelf shelter against the sun room window. I’m glad I put those pieces of rigid insulation back, and made the opening smaller. A much cozier spot for weather like this.

Potato Beetle, meanwhile, remains happily in the sun room, which is just under 10C/50F. I was able to take a peak at his leg, and it seems to be healing up quite nicely. I couldn’t tell if he was favouring it or not, though.

Nosencrantz seems to have an idea of how good she’s got it right now! :-D

As for the storm, we are still getting rainfall alerts, and there is a long list of regions with either overland flooding or high water levels. None near us. As crazy as the weather seems to be, I think we all tend to have short memories. I was looking at the 30 year average and records for today, and the record low of -7C/18F was set in 2021 – just a year ago – while the record high of 23C/73F was set in 2000. I think we like to remember the warm and pleasant times better than the cold and snow. The average high for today is 11C/52F, and the average low is 0C/32F. As I write this, we are at -3C/27F. Which made finding this article timely. (click on the headline to read the rest of the article)

Reality check: April is never really that ‘nice,’ Canada
Digital Writers
The Weather Network
Thursday, April 21st 2022, 5:41 am – Spring – the season the breaks the hearts of Canadians year after year, when in reality, it shouldn’t.

We do it every year, Canada. The calendar flips to spring and the country immediately awaits the chirping birds, budding blossoms, and early trips to the beach. When in fact, more often than not, Canada spends the entire spring actually waiting for it to be…spring.

“It’s the season that most often breaks our hearts,” says Tyler Hamilton, a meteorologist at The Weather Network. “We have that expectation of the spring and the beautiful picturesque weather, beautiful sunshine and temperatures into the 20s, but the reality is, it’s a season that can bring everything from snow to hail and cold, cold lake breezes.”

This month as a whole as been the perfect reminder of just that.

It certainly has!

Oh! The “rainfall alert” just went away. We’re still looking at isolated flurries and blowing snow for the next couple of days. Power outages are also a possibility.

One thing I’m really appreciating.

We still have internet.

Looking at the StarLink app, it showed we had dozens of outages, last night and through the morning, yet we’ve had no noticeable disruption in service. The longest outage was for about a minute. Most were mere seconds. With our previous satellite internet, we would have lost our internet repeatedly, and for long periods. What a difference!

The Re-Farmer