Oh, my goodness, I feel so totally drained today. It’s all I can do to stay awake, and my body aches from top to bottom. Especially my fingers. Especially that one finger that I thought I might have broken at some point, but now I’m thinking it’s “just” arthritis. It feel different than arthritis pain, though.

I still managed to get some things done today. I’m testing out a Boston Baked Beans recipe for the slow cooker. We’ve never been big bean eaters, but it’s been handy to have canned beans on hand, for a quick meal. Those little cans are getting expensive, though, so if we can start making our own and like it enough, it’s something we could start canning ourselves. I set beans to soak overnight, and got the rest going this morning, while my husband was a sweetheart and fed the outside cats for me. His pain levels have been really high for a long time, now, but he can usually at least manage to feed the cats.

This baked beans recipe is cooked on low for 10-12 hours, so it’s going to be a while before we get to try it out!

Once the slow cooker was going, I headed out to do the rest of my morning rounds.

Today, I was followed by a Nutmeg! At least for part of the morning. Rolando Moon took over following me, later one.

I did remember to take a closer look at what the girls have been doing.

So many of the holes they’re digging to plant the bison berry are not only filled with water, but roots as well. It’ll be easier to come back with some pruning shears and cut them all clear at once.

It was pleasant enough that I finally got a burn going in the barrel. I usually try to get it done after the girls have cleaned out the cat litter sawdust, but with all the rain we’ve been having, I haven’t been able to, and it was getting pretty full. I get a good fire going with branches from the huge pile not far from the burn barrel, then cover it and let it smolder. The cat litter sawdust slowly dries out and burns over several days.

While I was using the loppers to cut some branches from the pile, I was very surprised to hear a kitten meowing! I thought the mamas had moved their kittens out of there!

It wouldn’t stop meowing plaintively, but there is no possibility of reaching it. The branch pile is just too huge. After a while, though, the mamas did show up and go into the pile, but the meowing didn’t stop. I finally covered the barrel and left before I was done, hoping the mamas would calm the kitten down and maybe move it to wherever it was they moved the other kittens.

No such luck. I came back some time later and got the barrel going again, and the meowing started again. When I got too close to the entrance, though, I also heard growling, so at least there was a mama in there, with the baby.

Among the other things I managed to do was get the transplants outside to continue hardening off. Then, after seeing quite a bit of traffic going by, I decided to make a quick run into town to pick up a few things. I was just leaving, when I got an alert on my phone.

A frost warning for tonight.

*sigh*

Looking at the long range forecast, which now extends beyond our average lost frost date, it does look like things are finally warming up at least somewhat. Hopefully, it won’t be long before we can start transplanting things. It’s a long weekend right now, and a lot of people traditionally put their gardens in this weekend, but for us, we’ve got another week and a half, at least. We should still be able to direct sow some of the hardier seeds, but even that is touch and go right now.

Huge gardening goal is to accumulate what we need to protect our beds and extend our growing season.

We are, at least, able to cover the high raised bed. With the hoops lowered as much as I have, I was able to fold the sheet of plastic in half and still cover it, so that will help, too.

For now, however, it’s time for the girls and I to bring the transplants back inside for the night.

What I really want to do is take some pain killers, crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

The Re-Farmer