Month: August 2022

Morning harvest, and changes of plans

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We got another first, this morning!

I harvested our very first green zucchini!

It’s also the only green zucchini. There are very few flowers at all, never mind the male and female flowers not blooming in sync. 🙁

I finally grabbed the nice, big sunburst squash, and have left some others to get bigger. I’ve been hand pollinating them, too.

There were a few ground cherries that ripened enough to fall off. Most of the green ones still on the plants are much bigger. It should be awesome when those ones are fully ripe!

While doing my rounds, I switched the memory card on the new trail cam, but it didn’t come with its own card, so I don’t have a spare to switch out the card in the old camera facing it. I’ve just gone through the files and realize that I will have to mount it differently to get a proper view of the area in front of the sign. It’s a bigger than the other camera, and the post itself is in the way. The solar power source also makes it top heavy, and the post is leaning over, so it wants to fall over.

I also noticed that, while I was sure I had set the 24 hr time correctly, it is 12 hours behind for some reason. The set up and menu controls are not as intuitive as with the other cameras we’ve used.

Later on, I’ll head over and do what I can to fix it. I’d do it now, but… well, plans for the day have changed.

I got a call from my mother last night, asking what I was going today. I told her I was planning to mow the lawn. Which is when she informed me that my sister was coming over to her place today, with more cucumbers for my mother, and that she was bringing some for me, too. She wanted to swing by our place with the cucumbers – and my mother!

I greatly appreciate that my mother called me about it last night, because my sister never did. Not even an email after she got home from her night shift, nor has she answered my own email about the visit.

Which means the girls and I have just spent the last while cleaning and prepping for company, while knowing full well that it will never be good enough. That’s assuming they even come into the house. I figure they’ll at least want to use the bathroom, at which point my mother will probably go searching through the drawers and cupboards again.

Once I was done my rounds, I continued the clean up the girls had been doing in the kitchen (because the kitchen is never, ever, done. *sigh*) and baked some corn bread. My mother has never had corn bread before, so she might refuse to eat it. Or I’ll get lectures about how I should have baked it with whole wheat flour or something. As with everything else, nothing will be good enough. I rather envy that the girls are still up at night and sleeping during the heat of the day.

My mom didn’t know when my sister had planned to come out here, and had suggested it would likely be after lunch, so I said that works – come in the afternoon. Hopefully, they’ll phone first, so I can unlock the gate ahead of time for them.

*sigh*

After so many years in the city and being really involved with so many things, I’ve discovered I really like being a hermit. I have no real desire to be around people. Add in less than stellar family relationships, and this is a whole lot more stressful than it should be.

I just want to mow the lawn, do yard work or putter in the garden, surrounded by yard cats. That’s it.

Ah, well. Maybe it will turn out to be a good visit!

Ha!

The Re-Farmer

Who’s watching the watcher

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Our new trail cam came in today. I was going to set it up tomorrow morning, but after unboxing it and setting up the date, time, etc., I figured I’d just go ahead and set it up.

Then, because the old camera was already there and actually working again…

Yeah.

I now have a camera on a camera.

The old camera is behind the sign and not really visible from the road, except at specific angles. So if someone tries to steal the new camera, they won’t see the old one unless they happen to look behind the sign, while standing by the new camera.

The only problem is that the old camera is facing the main road. It gets quite a bit of traffic, so the motion sensor is going to be triggered frequently. It is, however, set to stills, not video, so that shouldn’t take as much power.

It should be interesting to see the files on the new camera, tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: yellow pear tomatoes

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First!!

While doing my evening rounds, I checked on the ripening yellow pear tomatoes to see how ready they were. I touched one, and it fell off!

Checking on the other brightest tomatoes, and they all easily came off the vines.

I gave them to my daughters, asking them to let me know how they tasted. 😊

It’s rather funny how excited I get about ripe tomatoes, when I can’t even eat them myself, without processing the heck out of them first. 😂

The Re-Farmer

Late morning kitties

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For some reason, I just could NOT sleep last night. I didn’t finally fall asleep until around 5am, and even then, I woke up several times before I finally gave up.

So I was a bit late with my morning rounds.

I managed to get a decent photo of this fuzzy cutie.

Yup. We most definitely have another “David” here. This is going to be an equally long haired cat. I do hope we can socialize him (or her), because if we can’t get at him when he’s an adult, he’s going to end up with all sorts of mats in his fur.

Last night, I made a final push and got the rest of the silver buffalo berry mulched. It was too dark and I was going to get a photo this morning, but completely forgot. The cardboard is mulched. Once we get more cardboard, we’ll fill in the gaps between the saplings in the second row, the mulch that, too. Until then, the next area to work on will be the Korean Pine in the outer yard.

While I was working, I had Rolando Moon hanging around and keeping me company. She was enjoying sitting on the wood chips next to one of the saplings! As long as she wasn’t rolling on the saplings, I don’t mind.

While I was putting food out for the kitties this morning, Rolando Moon came by – and she was limping! While she will let us pet her, within limits, there is no way she’ll let me look at her paw to see what’s going on. I think I see some swelling, but I’m not sure.

Mostly, she hung around the yard, watching the other cats while they ate, waiting her turn. Including Rosencrantz and her five babies (one of the grey and whites ran off when I came close, so there’s only four in the picture). Junk Pile photobombed me while I was taking pictures. She is not a happy kitty, and will hiss at any of the other cats – including her own cat-tens – and us. I know she’s had a second litter, and the one time I saw her rolling on the ground, she is definitely nursing, and I don’t think she’s impressed with the situation.

Meanwhile, after my morning rounds, I had to make a trip into town. With the raccoons knocking over the kibble bin, we did have some spillage. Not much, thankfully, but enough that we weren’t going to have enough to last until our big shopping trip. If I hadn’t been so late with my morning rounds, I could have stopped at the post office before it closed for lunch, and I would have been able to pick up our new trail cam, to replace the one that disappeared. I’m quite looking forward to trying it out. We did put the old, original trail came up at the sign and, amazingly, it’s actually working all right. It’s set to stills, not video, and is aimed at the area in front of the sign, but it’s not a wide angle lens, so it’s mostly picking up the road.

It always amazing me how much traffic we have on our little road.

So right now, I’m just waiting for the post office to open, and I’ll head out again to pick up the camera.

Meanwhile, I’ve set up a painting job under the canopy tent. When we moved here, there was a platform bed frame that turned out to have been left for us by my brother, until our stuff came in. For the last few years, tt had been in the basement until I brought it out this spring to use as a platform to hold seedlings out of cat reach, to harden off.

This spring, that basement got very wet, and things started to mold. It’s dry now, and my younger daughter has been spending her nights slowly cleaning it. One of the things we now want to do is raise all the litter boxes off the concrete floor. That end of the basement had the most dampness. Thank goodness we use the stove pellets for litter, because if we were still using clay, that would have been so difficult to clean up!

To prevent this from happening again, we’re going to use the old bed frame, which is twin size and only about 6 or 8 inches high, as a platform for the litter boxes. It’s just raw wood, so we’re going to paint it, first. That way, it can be cleaned more easily. The only paint we have right now is the red exterior paint I used on the bench and the stairs, which should be just fine.

Over the next while, I’ll be slowly picking up paint for the basement. The girls want to paint between the floor joists to lighten things up, make it more visible, and easier to clean. I’ll also pick up a mold and mildew resistant primer, then regular interior paint for the walls.

It’s very handy having two daughters who worked in a hardware store and were both paint trained. They can tell me exactly what we need for the job. :-)

That will be a winter long project, though, working on a little at a time!

Oh, look at the time!

I’m off to pick up a new trail cam!

The Re-Farmer

There be dragons, here

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This handsome fellow landed on my arm while I was watering the garden.

What a beauty!

We’ve seen almost no dragonflies this year, until recently, and we’re still seeing far fewer than I would expect. With so many mosquitoes this year, I would have expected a corresponding increase in dragonflies, but not this time. I suspect our long, cold spring and subsequent flooding had something to do with it, just as it did with so many of our pollinators that are in short supply this year.

I am hoping we will start seeing more of these, soon! More dragonflies means less mosquitoes!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: morning harvest, and a survivor

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Here is today’s morning harvest. 😊

I found a little round cucumber lying on the ground and picked it, leaving the others to get a bit bigger. There were a few peas to pick, as well as some carrot thinnings. I would have thinned more of the purple carrots, but they are a very long variety, and our soil just doesn’t want to give them up!

I grabbed some of the smallest Red of Florence onions for today’s cooking, and decided to grab a few little turnips, too. There was one Magda squash I went ahead and grabbed. There was also a single green zucchini, and one large-ish sunburst squash, that I left to get a bit bigger.

The yellow bush beans are almost done. I couldn’t see very many developing pods left as I picked these. The purple Carminat beans are very prolific! There are so many more of them, compared to what’s on the green pole beans.

In that pile of green pole beans, however, there were two extras.

They are from this one little bush bean plant, grown from a leftover seed of our first planting of green bush beans under the sweet corn. The second planting of green bush beans are starting to develop pods, while this lonely original had a couple ready to pick.

I’m happy that this year, we at least have plenty of these two varieties of beans. The Red Noodle beans still show no signs of blooming, though they are at least starting to climb the trellis more. I’m curious about how the shelling beans will turn out, given how incredibly small and fragile the plants turned out to be. There are a lot of pods developing, too.

We planted so much this year, with hopes of having lots of food, in many varieties, to have over the winter. I always expect to have at least some losses. I didn’t expect to have so many total, or near total losses! Which makes me extra thankful to have what we do have.

The Re-Farmer

So many kitties!

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It was still nice and cool when I headed out this morning. It’s been really humid lately, though, which means everything is completely soaked with dew.

Including…

… poor Ghost Baby!

I don’t know where her “nest” is, other than somewhere in the outer yard. Wherever it is, she clearly goes through a lot of tall – and wet! – grass to get to the kibble. She looked so miserable, too, and was hissing at me or any cat that came close.

Most of them were content to give her a wide berth.

Shortly after, I spotted Rosencrantz with the newest kitties under the shrine – which confirms for me that this is, indeed, her second litter. The mostly white ones were with her, but I spotted some movement and waited until the dark one came out. Unfortunately, with its siblings climbing right into the kibble bowl, he couldn’t get at the food! Then he saw me and ran off. So I got another scoop of kibble and spread little piles around the shrine platform.

Now that I have a better look at the dark kitten, I have to wonder. What would you call a cat with a pattern like that? Is this a tortoise shell? Do they normally have grey? There is orange on its face, but I can’t see orange anywhere else. Any ideas?

Later, I heard some distressed meowing and went to check. For a moment, I thought one of the white and grey kittens had got its foot caught in the rotten wood of the platform. It wasn’t, but I did see a third grey and white kitten, running away from the shrine and through the chain link fence! Which makes this a litter of five.

I also spotted the older grey and white kitten that looks so much like Junk Pile, but isn’t hers. It comes here alone, and I’ve yet to see it with any of the adults. I think I saw another older “stranger” coming through, but couldn’t be sure.

The main thing is that they are learning that the house is a safe and reliable place to get food and water. Come winter time, they’ll be more willing to discover and enjoy the heated cat house.

And winter is not that far off. September is just around the corner!

The Re-Farmer

Spotted

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I “spotted” something very exciting!

A leopard frog!

I’ve read they used to be common in our area. I have only ever see one, once before, when I was in my teens, and it wasn’t even here. It was at a mini golf course in a lakeside town about half an hour from here.

I have seen a lot more frogs – mostly wood frogs – this year, which always makes me happy. Seeing this handsome fellow is a real treat!

The Re-Farmer

Afternoon in the garden

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I wasn’t feeling very well this morning, so the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before heading to bed for the day. I didn’t start the rest of my morning rounds until late afternoon.

Tomorrow is expected to be a hot one, so I wanted to make sure the garden got a deep watering. I set up the soaker hose on the tomato bed and left it running while I did a dump run, then used the warm water in the rain barrel by the trellises and the Styrian pumpkins, to water everything at that end.

Part way through watering the trellises, I decided to set up one of the spray hoses I found while cleaning up around the junk pile. I set up the first one in the summer squash bed, then through the zucchini and some of the Teddy squash in the squash patch nearby. After hooking up the water and seeing that it was working out all right, I tried adding on the second spray hose, only to find it had a large crack near the connector. Well, at least I could get some of the squash watered while I continued using a watering can by the trellises. By that time that was finished, the spray hose had had enough time to do it’s job, and I could continue watering the rest with the hand sprayer.

I was quite pleased to see this fuzzy fellow.

One of the bird-seeded sunflowers by the carrots has at least 5 seed heads opening up, and there were several bumble bees buzzing around.

I love the bumbles!!!

The yellow pear tomatoes are finally starting to turn yellow!

I had some help by the chain link fence.

They were trying to pull out some of the crab grass that was growing through the netting. 😁

It’s about time to lift the net and to a thorough weeding under there.

There are quite a few nice, big (relatively speaking) Red Kuri squash developing here, and every couple of days or so, I’m finding new female flowers ready to be pollinated. I’m quite happy that we’ll have at least one type of winter squash to store for the winter!

Speaking of pollinating, while watering the corn and squash patch, I spotted our very first female Boston Marrow flower! I made sure it was pollinated and checked the other plants but, so far, they only have male flowers. I also spotted our first G-Star green pattypan squash, though it’s at the stage where it just dropped its flower. Over the next few days, I’ll be able to see if it got pollinated, or if it just falls off.

Still praying for a long, mild fall. So many things in the garden are suddenly starting to grow, bloom and produce fruit but, as of today, there’s only 3 weeks to our average first frost date.

I was surprised to have company while I was watering the grapes! Normally, she would have run away when I came this close. Instead, she just stayed all curled up and napping in the shade.

I got photos from my sister in law, yesterday. Their grapes are almost ready to harvest. Ours are still very small and green.

Hmm… I keep forgetting about that cross. I found it while uncovering the grapes from the spirea. I later learned my sister had put it there as a support for the grape vines. We should scrub off the rust, give it some sort of protective coat, and set it up somewhere permanent. I don’t know where it came from, but it would be a safe guess that my late brother salvaged it from one of this demolition jobs, like the stone cross by the spruces, for my parents. So I definitely want to hang on to it.

I topped up the kibble trays before going inside, including the one near the grape vine. Earlier, I’d seen the newest group of kittens playing around the shrine, so I made sure that container had plenty of kibble, too.

Pouring dry kibble into metal trays can be pretty loud. The sound is like ringing a lunch bell. By the time I was putting kibble in the last tray, I could see cats swooping in from all directions, heading for the kibble house! 😂 Unfortunately, the skunks have learned that sound means food, too! Ah, well.

Hopefully, I’ll be feeling good tomorrow morning. I want to get out while it’s still cool and continue putting wood chips around the saplings. I also plan to collect a harvest tomorrow morning, too. I’m just loving that we have so many fresh beans to harvest – the last batch did end up in the freezer, so we’re getting quite a few bags by now!

Every little bit helps!

The Re-Farmer

Closer

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I went to check out some distressed sounding mews, and found Broccoli Baby in one of the elm trees by the sidewalk. She seemed to not like the “getting down” process.

I was able to walk past her on the sidewalk, and she just watched me from here, ready to run off in a moment. Which is progress!

I also caught sight of a couple of kittens in the big junk pile, with Rosencrantz nearby. I saw the white one with the mostly orange head, and behind it I clearly saw the kitten I’d only seen shadows of, earlier. Just it’s head, really. It looks like we have another tortie.

I am guessing that they are Rosencrantz’s second litter. We never did find out what happened with her first litter, but whatever it was, with everything still frozen, their chances for survival were low from the start. Now, she has four more, and they are looking strong and healthy. At their small size, and having them coming to the kibble tray under the shrine already, I’m hoping we’ll have better luck socializing them, than we’ve had with Broccoli Baby and the other older kittens!

The Re-Farmer