Cheddar has a thing about invading my butt spots. Usually, he takes over my office chair. At night, he tends to jump onto the bed and WHOMP himself down against my butt. I’m so used to it, it doesn’t even wake me up anymore.
One morning, however, I found he was not alone!
Nosencrantz was managing to snuggle both our butts!
They seemed so perplexed that I got up.
The Re-Farmer
I saw one good thing when heading into town with the cats this morning. The gas prices dropped 10 cents per litre, overnight. At 169.9 cents per liter, it’s still higher than it should be, but every little bit helps.
I was going to fill the jerry can after dropping off the cats, but the cats didn’t get dropped off. On deciding to head into the city, that will just have to wait again.
Before hitting the Costco, I went to a Canadian Tire to pick up a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. I also picked up some ant traps. I would prefer not to kill off ant hills, since ants are also pollinators, but there are a couple of hills that are large enough to damage some garden plants, plus we’re seeing more of them in the house.
We’ve hardly used the van this month at all, and the gas tank was almost full when I left home. Costco gas prices were 159.9 cents per liter for regular. A considerable difference! So I topped up the tank, anyhow.
I had expected doing a Costco shop in the middle of the week would be quite, but nope. It was insanely busy! At least I wasn’t fighting a flat cart around crowds of people. With the other stock up shopping done already, I didn’t need to get more dry cat food. I was able to just just a regular cart for a change!
In the end, I didn’t get much at all.
With reason.
This is what Cdn$350 looks like. Plus change.
Under the cart is a package of Kirkland brand toilet paper, a package of 60 eggs, and a case of the cheaper canned cat food. 48 cans in that size.
I also got 10 pounds of butter (at $5 a pound, that’s at least a dollar cheaper than other no-name or house brand butters, but higher for Costco prices), a package with 3 whole chickens, a triple pack of all-beef wieners, and a pork tenderloin. There’s a 6 pack of canned chicken, mayonnaise, peanut butter, cooking oil, AAA batteries, 2 packages of tortilla wraps, and a 2 pack of hot dog buns. Oh, plus a package of white button mushrooms and a big block of marble cheese.
That’s it.
This is one of the smallest Costco shopping trips I’ve done, but it still came out to pennies over $350
That’s just painful! There aren’t even any fruits or vegetables in there, either.
I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if our own garden was producing, but it just barely is. Most things are, if not a complete loss, at least a month behind in growth and development.
Ouch.
The Re-Farmer
This morning was our date with the vet, to get Potato Beetle, Big Rig and Tissue spayed and neutered, as arranged by the Cat Lady.
I had a chance to text with her last night, as she reminded me to have them fasting. She herself was going back to the hospital today. The poor thing has been in and out of hospital all summer, and yet she still manages to help with cats. She just brought home a couple more because they were sick, and no one else was willing/able to take care of them. She is so awesome!
She did warn me that there is a shortage of vets, and there was a possibility of cancellation. So when my phone started ringing while I was driving with the three cats, I had a sinking feeling. Of course, I couldn’t answer while driving. It started ringing again, then I suddenly started getting notification noises, one after another. *sigh*
The calls were from one of the staff from the clinic – but she was calling from home! When she couldn’t get through to me, she called the Cat Lady, and both of them were trying to text me at the same time, letting me know that the vet wasn’t coming in today. All surgeries were being cancelled.
I got all these when I parked in front of the clinic.
After responding to both of them, the lady from the clinic said she would call me when she got into the office to reschedule, then I headed home.
The cats were not happy with all this. I was concerned about Potato Beetle. He’s already been stuck in the sun room for over a week. Yes, he has cool places to lie down, and we make sure there’s a frozen water bottle in his water bowl, the ceiling fan is going, and the small box fan I found the the garage is set up. Still, it gets quite warm in there and, as much as we try to go over and pay attention to him, he’s mostly all on his own.
Thankfully, the clinic was able to reschedule us for this Friday, so tomorrow night, we do the fasting again.
Since we no longer to dash to and from town to deal with the cats, I took advantage of the change in plans and decided to do our Costco trip today, instead of next week.
But first, I had to do my morning rounds, switch out the memory cards in the trail cams, and check the garden beds.
The Carminat pole beans finally have pods forming!
The one giant pumpkin is growing so fast!
I looked around and finally saw another pumpkin forming. Just to be on the safe side, I hand pollinated it. The vines of the two plants are overlapping each other, but as far as I can tell, this one, plus another female flower I found that is still just a bud, is on the same plant as the pumpkin that’s growing so big. The second plant has lots of male flowers, but I can’t see any female flowers on it.
I’ll keep checking and, as I find them, I’ll hand pollinated them, just to be on the same side.
Which I am also doing with the Red Kuri (Little Gem) squash, in the south yard. These are doing really, really well here. I have hand pollinated several female flowers already, and I can see more budding. I’m happy that these are doing so well, because these may be the only winter squash we get this year!
The cherry tree by the house is doing well, too. This is the most we’ve seen on this tree since moving here. The other trees at the edge of the spruce grove have nothing. Being close to the house seems to be providing the microclimate it needs. I don’t know the name of this variety; only that the original tree was from Poland, which has a longer growing season than we do.
The cherries at the very top look ripe, or close to it. We’ll have to bring over the step ladder and start picking them!
Speaking of picking things…
This is this morning’s harvest. Along with the bush beans, there was a single pea pod from the row that was planted first. That row is almost done, but the ones that were planted later have quite a few pods that should be ready to pick in a few more days.
I also picked our very first two cucumbers! I picked this variety as it is supposed to be good for both fresh eating and pickling. Whether or not we’ll have enough to make pickles, I’m not sure yet, but we at least have these ones to taste test now!
There was also a few raspberries to pick. Maybe 3/4’s of a cup in total.
It’s not much, but it’s enough to enjoy with a meal. Certainly better than nothing at all!
That done, I was off to the city to do the last of our monthly stocking up, but that will get it’s own post. 😊
The Re-Farmer
This morning, my plan was to head out early to do my morning rounds, then go to my mother’s to help her shut down her sleep test, get it all together, then bring it to the city.
Of course, that meant I got almost no sleep at all.
Since I was going to my mothers, I was actually wearing normal people clothes while doing my rounds, instead of my usual grubbies. I didn’t want to be stinking of bug spray while at my mother’s, since she does have respiratory issues, so I didn’t use any when I headed out.
I have never been attacked by such swarms of mosquitoes before – and being eaten alive by the buggers is par for the course these days!
Where are all the dragonflies? They usually show up in droves to eat the mosquitoes, but I’ve only seen one so far, this year! I suspect they, too, were negatively affected by our horrible spring.
I practically ran through my rounds, and it wasn’t until I was in the safety of my mother’s car and on the road that I realized I was leaving more then half an hour earlier than planned.
No matter. It gave me time to top up her gas tank and pick up one of those 5 Hour Energy thingies. I was going to need it. I was still early, but my mother was more than happy to be unhooked.
We finished off the questionnaire that came with the tester. These were questions on how easy or not it was to use the machine, how comfortable or not it was to sleep with, and so one. Once she was set up last night, my mother was quite fine with it, though the pulse oximeter did come off her finger, even with the tape, once during the night.
Getting the tape off was not easy. In hindsight, when I put it on, I should have deliberately folded under a corner to have something to grab onto. The tape is very light and flexible, the adhesive works quite well, and my mother’s skin is very loose and stretchy!
That done, I encouraged my mother to go back to bed after I left, then headed for the city. Once I got to the place, it was just a quick drop off with the most cheerful and friendly employee I’ve seen in ages. 😁
Since driving over an hour to take less than a minute to drop off the kit would have been quite the waste of gas, I took advantage of the situation. I am rarely in this area of the city, so I headed to a liquidation centre that was on my way back out.
With this place, there is no way of knowing what will be available at any given time. On this trip, if I’d had the budget – or counter space – for it, I could have gotten a great deal on all kinds of Cuisinart kitchen appliances. I didn’t even bother looking at the clothing section. I did go through a section where they have things like household linens, tools, paint supplies, hunting and fishing gear, etc. I was very tempted by some heavy duty interlocking floor mats to put over our horrible kitchen floor, but it just wasn’t something I could justify picking up this time around.
I didn’t get a lot while I was there, but what I did get was mostly for our “stockpile.” I got a couple of big boxes of granola type bars. I used to get them fairly regularly at Costco, where they used to cost about $15 a box. The prices have gone up, but I haven’t look at them in ages. Here, they were at $9 a box, so I got two. I didn’t bring any ice packs along, so I wasn’t going to get a lot of refrigerated stuff, though there wasn’t a lot to choose from this time, but I did pick up some farmer’s sausages and the like. The AC works in my mother’s car. 😉 Some extra toothpaste made it into the cart, as well as a nice big box of English Breakfast tea. 😊
The big savings on this trip was on two items. The first was canned beans. The same brand name I have been getting at Costco in 9 packs, where they used to be just under a dollar a can, but the prices have gone up even at Costco. I haven’t been there this month yet, so I don’t know by how much, but at the local grocery stores, they are at just over $2 a can now. Even at Walmart, they’re at just under $2 a can. I found them at 89 cents a can. The cases were open, but they held 18 cans. I filled a case with two different flavours, though there was a third flavour available, too.
Then I found a display of bouillon cubes. In the local grocery stores, they are about $1.30 for a box, which isn’t a bad price at all. I like to keep a selection of them handy in the cupboard; chicken, beef, vegetable and mushroom. They had all but the mushroom, and at a very good price, but the vegetable cubes were on a limited time “4-for-” deal that worked out to 49 cents a package.
I picked up eight.
Once done there, my next stop was a Walmart, where I got mostly cat food. We should now have enough dry cat food for the month (for the amount we get, stocking up for longer than a month is very difficult), but I still want to pick up one more Costco sized case of wet cat food. For the pantry, I picked up a couple of big cans of iced tea mix. They’re cheaper at Walmart than Costco, and in the summer, my husband and I go through them pretty fast. Our daughters prefer iced coffee. 😄
They also had good supply of the large bottles of hydrogen peroxide, which we use to shock our hot water tank, so I got a couple more of those, as well as adding to our supply of painkillers.
All in all, a productive trip. After this, we’ll need to go over our supplies and make a final Costco shopping list. I should finally be able to use the van, so I’ll be able to stop at Canadian Tire and get more stove pellets for the litter boxes. Those bags last a long time! I likely won’t be able to make the trip until next week, though.
Tonight, we have three cats to put on fasts. Potato Beetle, Tissue and Big Rig have their date with the vet tomorrow morning. Potato Beetle is still in the sun room, so he’s easy enough to take care of, but we’ll have to keep Tissue and Big Rig with me overnight, as I have a door to close. Unfortunately, Tissue in particular has been aggressive towards Nosencrantz and Butterscotch – both of whom still refuse to leave the room.
I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.
Ah, well.
In other things, on seeing predictions for rain on the horizon, my daughters moved the bench I built under the market tent for me. There isn’t much room under there with the picnic bench, but it should at least stay dry enough that we can finally paint it. Which I was hoping to do this afternoon, except now we’re under a tornado watch. 😮 I don’t think it applies to our specific area – the watches are very general – but we do have high winds right now. Perhaps tomorrow, after dropping the cats off at the vet, we’ll be able to finally start painting that bench!
Funny how much of what we can or can’t do depends on the weather.
Anyhow. I’m just glad I got the trip to the city done, and was able to add a bit more to our supplies!
The Re-Farmer
The kulli corn was starting to get restricted by the protective netting, so my daughters re-wrapped the bed for me this morning. It no longer has a “top”, so the corn can reach its full potential height of 8 ft now. They also did it in such a way that it is now easier to reach under the netting and into the bed. I was able to do a more thorough weeding. With the bush beans under the corn growing so vigorously, there wasn’t much to weed, though I definitely wanted to pull out the burdock that had managed to start growing in there!
In the process, I realized that there were actually some beans ready to harvest!
There it is! Our very first harvest of bush beans!
I suspect these yellow beans will be the only bush beans we will have a chance to harvest. I don’t think we’ll get anything from the green bush beans planted near the sweet corn. Though they were a second planting, after the first ones did not germinate at all, they had more than enough time to reach maturity, but I don’t think they will. They are just not thriving.
Hopefully, I’m wrong on that.
The pole beans at the A frame trellises are blooming, but no pods are forming yet. The shelling beans are blooming and trying to clime the tunnel trellis, but are very tiny. The red noodle bean plants are much bigger, but they aren’t even blooming yet – and the tunnel trellis was planted before the A frame trellis was ready!
At least we’ve got these yellow beans. They are doing great in that new low raised bed!
The Re-Farmer
The scything done near the main garden didn’t get me very far.
It was enough to mulch 5 out of 6 squash in a new row. That leaves one, plus three more rows of 6 to do.
And this is just focusing on around the plants themselves. The paths in between are not fully covered. As you can see between the rows previously done, grass and weeds will still get through, but at least those won’t be competing with the squash for nutrients as much.
While I was working in this, I was hearing the sound of cows that were a lot closer than usual. Usually, I hear them from the property across the road. Not this time! The renter has rotated his cows onto our quarter section! By the time I got out to take a look, they were back in the bushes by the gravel pit, so I couldn’t get any pictures.
We’ll have to keep an eye on the outer yard now. Especially at the “gate” in the fence by the barn. I noticed while I was scything there that one of the big gate posts is leaning way over. With all the water we got in that area this spring, anything already rotting at ground level would have been weakened considerably. The renter has an electric fence going around, but it does fail every now and then. The renter had been looking to replace the fences (responsibility for the fences is part of the rental agreement), but with this spring being such a disaster, I would not be surprised if they won’t be able to do it this year. They weren’t able to even plant anything in the field on this quarter, either. The other quarter they are renting is just hay and pasture, and much of that would have been under water this spring.
At least grazing and haying will be good this year!
The Re-Farmer
I got a rare photo of the Ginger Bug!
He takes his ear scritches very seriously!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 