I just found out that, this afternoon, our rural municipality, among many others, was declared in a state of emergency. People were informed where to pick up sand and sand bags, if they need it, and where to muster if they need to evacuate.
Where we are, things are not so dire. One of my neighbours drove the roads in the area, including the one past our place that I’ve been checking. It is nowhere near the worst if them. He drove through all the washed out areas, as he has a truck that can handle it, but I wasn’t sure he would make it through some!
Around our home, however, the water continues to slowly recede. The rain has stopped, though we did see a few snowflakes. The water seeping into the old basement has not increased, though it hasn’t decreased, either. One corner of the new basement is damp, so I put a fan on it. Before we moved here, my brother had found that corner full of water, with mold all up the wall. It was a huge job to clean up. A rain barrel had been left unattended outside that corner, during a rainy summer. It overflowed right at the wall. We now believe the weeping tile, at least near that corner, is filled with sand and soil, which I see washing through the drain to the septic tank, because of this. That corner now still gets damp occasionally, and we need to keep an eye on it.
We are very fortunate where we are. We aren’t much higher than other areas, but it’s enough to make a huge difference. I’ve been seeing other photos people are sharing on Facebook, and it is pretty devastating.
After checking on the road conditions, I continued checking areas of the inner yard we can now access again. I also checked on the old kitchen garden. It just happened that the sump pump was running, and I was quite amused by what I saw.
Along with the water coming out the end, there was water spraying like fountains out of the hose! There are three areas with holes in them. Once I saw the two smaller holes next to the rain barrel, I pulled up the slack a bit, so that they will hopefully spray on the paving slabs, instead. Once things dry up a bit, I’ll just patch it with some electric tape. We do have spare hose, but I’m still considering adding it to the end of this one, to send the water further away from the house. The ground does slope away from the house rather well, here, so I really don’t need to, but it does give us more options.
Walking through the old kitchen garden, I could see deep hoof prints in the garden beds from the deer. Which made a good indicator of how thawed out the ground is!
Going into the maple grove, I noticed an area was clearer of snow that I wanted to get a closer look at.
Between these two rows of trees is where we planted crocuses. About a quarter of it is still too covered with snow, but I wanted to see if there was any sign of them, where it was clear.
Yes!!! In one section, I found so many little crocuses coming up! Including the one you see here, that has pierced its way through a leaf. :-D
I am just thrilled that they survived the winter. I went to check the area we planted the grape hyacinth in, but it’s still too covered with snow.
With the crocuses coming up, I was curious. Was it possible? I had to check.
YESSSS!!!!!! We have tulips coming up! Just look at them all! I put arrows pointing to the ones I could find. It’s entirely possible there are more, camouflaged among the leaf litter.
There are even a few visible in a section my daughters planted fewer, more unique, tulips. Only a couple are visible in this photo, but there were more.
This is just so exciting! After the deer and other critters decimated the tulips last year, we thought they were done for. It was their first growing season, and we didn’t think they had the chance to establish themselves.
My daughter is so happy. She was heart broken when all her tulips were eaten! One of the things the girls had done was make sure the bulbs were buried extra deep, as recommended on the package to keep them as perennials. A lot of people buy and plant tulips and other bulbs every spring. If they’re buried closer to the surface, they can’t survive our winters. We didn’t want that, so my daughter made the extra effort. It looks like all their hard work paid off!
Now I’m wondering if my daughter’s irises and daffodils, planted along the edge of the old kitchen garden, will come up, too. One type did show some leaves last year, but never got to the point of sending up flowers. Another type didn’t come up at all, that we could see.
Aside from some leaf buds starting to show, this is the first major sign of spring growth we’ve had this year!
Oh, and we have more exciting growth, this time indoors. We’ve got melons sprouting! Two types; the Halona melon, plus one of the grocery store melons I lost the name for.
Flowers and food, there’s lots to look forward to in the gardens this summer!
This morning, while switching out the trail cam memory cards, I found a new sign on the main road past our place.
That is not where I expected to see a road closed sign! This road has a lot of traffic, as it’s the main road to get to quite a few farms. I wasn’t surprised that there might be a problem, though. The municipal drainage ditch that washed out the road I’ve been checking crossed the main road about a half mile up from here. I just would have expected the road to be closed further to the east of this intersection.
I saw a large excavator going by our place yesterday, so I decided to walk to the washout and see what, if anything, was done there.
It turns out, nothing. I could see the tread marks continue past the washed out area.
This is the section that’s too deep for me to try and cross with my short rubber boots. The third area I saw yesterday that was starting to wash out has gotten bigger, but overall, things have not gotten much worse. During my walk up, it seemed that the water had receded in a few places in the fields, too.
I did get some video; this is raw from the camera, with no editing.
The winds from the north were quite high – enough to make me glad I wore my winter parka this morning, as I was walking back against the wind!
With the amount of snow that has melted away, and the water around the inner and outer yards somewhat receded, I went over to check on the septic field (which, as my brother pointed out when I called it that, isn’t actually a septic field, because we have an ejector. It’s the area where the grey water and, this spring, at least, runoff collects) and the sheds that I could get at. There was enough snow gone that I decided to check our back gate.
I’m glad I did!
It’s completely torn loose! The other end is held up by the chain and lock. You can see the U nails/staples in the gate post. The wire mesh of the gate was torn right off. Considering there is snow on top of the mesh, this happened quite some time ago, but we haven’t been able to get over this way to see it.
My guess: deer on the road got startled and plowed their way through the gate.
This secondary driveway accesses the main road. Since the gate was down anyway, I decided to walk up the road and see why it was closed.
I found out what the excavator was doing, yesterday!
It patched a section of road that had been washed out completely, at a culvert that drains into our quarter section. As you can see, the patch is already starting to wash out!
I didn’t try to walk any further (I’d already walked about 2 1/2 miles by then), but looking further down the road, I thought I could see another area that was washed out, maybe a quarter mile up the road. I’m thinking at, or near, the municipal drainage ditch.
Just look how far that new gravel has been washed down!
This culvert is not part of the municipal drainage ditch system. I believe it’s been here since before my parents acquired the farm. I remember playing in the culvert when I was a kid and, from what I can see of it, I think it’s still the same culvert, and hasn’t been upgraded or anything like that. No need to fix what ain’t broke!
Not far beyond the fence line is an area that I remember being just a really rough spot across the low area. There is water flowing here only during spring melt, or in excessively wet years. When the cows walked through it, their hooves would sink into the mud, squishing the soil into hills and holes. At some point while I was living in other provinces, a pair of narrow culverts were buried here, to create a sort of low driving lane. The washed out gravel is actually starting to go over this “lane”, and you can see just beyond it, where water is flowing through the small culverts. This seasonal “creek” continues on to the field the renter has been growing corn in the past two years, and eventually connects with the municipal drainage ditch. Which means that this water is contributing to the flooding that has washed out the other road.
On the way back, I freed up the gate from the remaining snow on it, and make it look like it’s fixed. :-D
It’s actually being held up by a single barb on the lower strand of barbed wire. We’ll have to come back with tools to fix it properly. For now, it’ll likely come down again with a stiff breeze! :-D What I should probably do is find a post to wrap the wire mesh around, then affix it to the gate post in a way that’s more flexible. Maybe even add hinges. We’ll see.
On the list of things we want to do is extend the main driveway all the way to this secondary driveway with gravel. It came in handy the first time we found our gate’s lock glued shut, and we had to go out this way to get to town – and buy bolt cutters! Once we get past the collapsing log building in the inner yard, it gets very bumpy. At some point, someone had driven through when it was muddy, leaving deep ruts all over an area of it. We’ve tried to keep at least a lane mowed, so we can see where we can drive through without hitting rocks, or who knows what else that’s hidden in the grass and thatch.
When I have the chance, I want to make my way through the fence around the outer yard and check the gravel pit that the renter dug out last year. It should be very full of water, right now!
After checking out the road conditions, I also checked out newly accessible parts of the inner yard and found some things that got me very excited – but that will be for my next post! :-D
Well, I got quite a lot of walking done this morning, checking road conditions out. It was also another late night, partly to keep checking the old basement and sweeping the water into the floor drain and to the sump pump, partly because… well. I’m a suck for the kitties. I noticed Broccoli had been using the shelf shelter just outside the sun room, because every time I came through the door, she (and sometimes several other cats) would explode out of there and run off. She has been so bedraggled, and is still very pregnant, I wanted to do something to help keep her warm and dry. So I stole some of my husband’s yarn (my own stash doesn’t have much plain yarn in it) and crocheted a bed for her. I used 4 strands on my hook, to make it night and thick, and the base is a double thick, with low sides. So newborn kittens can’t accidentally roll out of it if she decides to give birth in it. By the time I was done and went out to put it in the shelf shelter (I neglected to take pictures), it was about 2 am.
Alas, when I came out this morning, a couple of pieces of the rigid insulation used to create the shelf shelter was on the ground. Since I made the openings narrower, when the cats get startled and run out, they’re more likely to bash into the sides now, and it looked like they finally knocked some pieces off. With the shelf shelter so open, there were no cats using it at all.
After putting out food and warm water, I took the time to fix the shelf shelter and, hopefully, made it more secure.
Broccoli wouldn’t let me get her in any of the pictures I took this morning! Junk Pile didn’t even come out, staying with her kittens in the cats’ house. The cat you see at the entry is her baby from last year, that looks so much like her.
After feeding the critters and switching out the memory cards, I went on to check the road conditions – more on that in another post. I was also able to check areas we haven’t been able to access for a while. More snow has melted away in the rain, but the standing water in the inner and outer yards has actually receded in most places.
One of the areas I checked out was the shed where my parents’ belongings are stored. There are several abandoned cars near is, one of which has a window that’s partly open. As I got closer, two cats exploded out of the window and ran off.
I could see another cat – I’m not sure if it’s Nutmeg or Toesentcrantz, but considering it didn’t run off, I’m guessing Nutmeg – watching me from the back window.
Then I saw Broccoli climb up onto the front seat!
So there were at least 4 cats in that car. I saw The Distinguished Guest sitting on the trunk of another one, so maybe he was in there, too, and I just didn’t see him leave. The car must be nice and toasty on days like today. I’m glad they are able to use it.
Once we’re finally able to get a scrap dealer to haul away all the junk cars, we’ll have to make sure there are alternative shelters available for the cats! No chance of that happening until our vandal’s civil suit against us is done. As you can see by the spray paint on the windshield, this car is one of the things he tagged and thinks he’s entitled to. Or at least entitled to $10,000 from me for it, and all the other junk he’s claiming are his. So for now, the cats can enjoy the shelter!
This area has a lot of burdock growing around it. I saw Potato Beetle in the area, too. This would explain all the burrs stuck in his tail!
Oh, I see my video uploads have just finished. I’ll include those in my next post!
The Re-Farmer 