Month: June 2023

First day of summer

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Well, here it is! The longest day of the year, and the first official day of summer. It’s going to be another hot one, though not as hot as yesterday, thank God. We’ve had thunderstorms blowing past us through the night. Here, we did get a decent amount of rain. The rain barrel by the sun room is now about 3/4 full, which is roughly double what was already in there.

While feeding the outside cats, I spotted a wound on one of the mamas.

I thought it might be the cause of all the blood I found in the kibble house a few days ago but, to be honest, it doesn’t look bad enough for that. Though I suppose if it was from more than one wounded cat, it’s possible. We can’t get near her, so we can only monitor from a distance.

The bitties under the cat house are now gone. I’m actually surprised it took Caramel so long to move them. It’s a very high traffic area, and where she had them was where many other critters would squeeze under, so she probably had to face down other cats, kittens and the odd skunk while there. She was waiting for me with the other cats when I came out with kibble in the morning. I hope that means here babies are close by. I’m seeing far fewer cats at the same time these days – typical for this time of year. This morning, I counted only 14 in total.

The rainfall seems to have been enough to make the garden beds very happy. I posted a few photos on Instagram (I keep forgetting that exists!).

The flowers on the Irish Cobbler potatoes are starting to open, and I’m starting to see flower buds on the Red Thumb potatoes. More of the Sweet Chocolate peppers are starting to bloom, and the one that bloomed a while ago has the tiniest of peppers forming. The zucca melon continues to bloom, and now one of the Caveman’s Club gourds has started to bloom. Still male flowers only. The peas have started to bloom as well! In the main garden area, I spotted more Roma VF tomatoes developing, while the Black Beauty and Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes are still just blooming; no developing tomatoes yet.

In the old kitchen garden, I found a surprise. Quite a number of things come up around the side of the garden, where the tiny raised bed and step stones are, some of which I have been keeping, like the dill and the poppies. There were a couple of tiny plants next to some old asparagus ferns, very similar looking to dill, that suddenly shot up flower stalks. I swear, they weren’t there last night, when I weeded the shallot bed! One has pink flowers, the other purple. I’ve never seen them before. I guess with weeding everything else, they finally had a chance to grow and bloom!

Temperatures are supposed to stay pretty high over the next while – slightly above average for this time of year. As uncomfortable as I find it, it’s great for the garden – as long as we keep getting a decent amount of rain! So far, so good, at least.

I’m looking forward to when the tax assessor comes and goes, tomorrow morning. We delayed the joint Father’s Day, birthday pizza night my older daughter planned out, so that’s going to be done tomorrow, too. Then it’s time to get back to work.

Of course, my mother phoned this morning. Even though she told me my sister was able to get groceries for her recently, she suddenly wants me to go over and help her with groceries. BUT she says she doesn’t want me to be in a hurry. In other words, she wants me to stay with her for a long time. I’d just told her we were going to be busy for a while, and had plans, including celebrating my daughter’s birthday (which was already postponed) but she told me we should postpone it to Sunday, so I could spend time with her, instead.

She brushed past the whole “birthday” part as if it wasn’t there. She’s never cared about any of her grandchildren, other than expectations for them to be always sending her cards or phoning her or visiting her. And when they don’t, because she treats them like crap, she starts talking about how, “oh, if they only knew that if they would come to visit me, I’d give them money.”

Okay. I have to admit. I’m still irritated by her phone call. When I called her on it, she started making “joking” comments about how she only thinks about herself, and that she’s my biggest “baby”. I simply said, yes. She has zero respect for other people’s time or priorities. While it has gotten worse as she’s gotten older, this is not a new thing, by any means. It’s one thing when she does it to me. It’s quite another when she does it to my kids or my husband.

Bah.

Anyhow.

When she found out I’d gotten my eyes tests, she asked me to make an appointment for her, but things have been busy and I kept forgetting. So when she brought it up, I told her I’d call the clinic, make the appointment, then call her back.

Well, it went to machine, and now I’m sitting here, waiting for a call back, when I should be doing other things. At least it’s giving me a chance to write this post.

I think, however, I will call them again, in case they simply haven’t checked their messages.

I have stuff to do.

The Re-Farmer

New wheels

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My daughter and I had our trip to the city today. Feeling very thankful for air conditioning! The city is even hotter than we are right now. Here at home, we reached 34C/93F, and while the city hit 37C/99F. It’s also incredibly muggy. Like walking through soup. My daughters have a friend in Texas, who is apparently having the same conditions we are right now!

One of the things my daughter had on her list of things to pick up was a new set of wheels. Of all the bikes we have around the farm, including the mountain bike I got at a garage sale for $10, it would cost more to fix them up than to buy a new bike. At least the sort of bike that meets my daughter’s needs. We still plan to fix up the garage sale bike; basically, the only thing good on it is the frame and the seat. !! My husband says it looks like someone had scavenged it for parts. A new bike like it, however, would be very expensive so, for my husband, it would be worth fixing. He’s also the only one tall enough to ride it!

We went to Walmart, and this is the bike my daughter chose.

Image belongs to Walmart.ca

It’s a Huffy “Beach Cruiser”. It’s single speed, with a rear coaster brake. You pedal backwards to stop. Since we have no hills out here, a single speed bike is adequate. It has a very comfortable seat, according to my daughter. The pack on the handle bars is an insulated bag that has a weather proof cell phone holder on the top of the lid. Apparently, the clear plastic is touch screen enabled. Plus it has mesh pockets on the sides. The bike was also on sale, making it under $200, so that made it easy on her budget.

She got herself a helmet, too. There are bike helmets here, but they’ve been sitting in the barn and we have no idea how old they are – or how many spiders have made their home in them!

After we finished the rest of our shopping, we discovered a problem.

Getting it into the car.

The handle bars kept getting in the way. We finally figured we’d have to remove the handle bars, but didn’t have the tools for it. So while my daughter finished bagging up our other shopping, I dashed back into the store to find a tool. They had a single bike multi-tool in stop, so I snagged it. When I got back to the car, though, I discovered my daughter had managed to get it in! It took some twisting and turning, but she was able to work around those handlebars and get it in with room to spare.

It’s amazing what we can fit in the back of my mother’s little car!

My husband had picked up some bike tool kits so that he can work on cobbling together the garage sale bike, so now my daughter has her own bicycle multi-tool she can keep in one of those pockets on the insulated bag.

Once we got home and unloaded, my daughter rode it around the house a few times. It’s been years since any of us have ridden a bike. Testing out the garage sale bike doesn’t count. She and I both tried it out and basically fell over immediately. 😆

For now, we’ve set aside the makeshift table we used for the transplants to make room to store it in the sun room. Eventually, it’ll get stored in the garage. She wants to be able to take the bike into town and explore; something that’s more convenient to do with a bike than a car.

Hmm… According to the weather app, we’re raining right now. Except, we’re not. I’m seeing blue skies and a lot of wind out my window. Interestingly, the updated weather app that came with my computer now has a “Seeing different weather?” link on the mini-map. I was able to actually submit what we’re seeing here, rather than what their weather stations are reading. None of those weather stations are near us.

A large part of our province is currently under a severe thunderstorm watch, though much larger areas to the north and east of us are under extreme thunderstorm watches. It’d be nice if this system went further north of us, first, with rain to help quell the forest fires up there, but it’ll move out of our province well below where most of them are.

Meanwhile, we’ve got fans going all over the place, including in some of the windows, blowing air out of the house, rather than pulling hot, muggy air into the house! Even at night, the girls are really struggling upstairs with the muggy heat. We’ve got to find some way to get an air conditioner set up for them up there! It would have to be a portable one. The problem is, figuring out how to set one up with the types of windows we have. The other problem is, those things are frikkin’ expensive! Especially one powerful enough to cool down the entire upstairs. Maybe, at the end of the summer, we’ll be able to pick one up on clearance or something. Just in time for when the upstairs turns into a freezer for the winter. 😕

Ah, well. We’ll get it worked out, one of these days.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: a morning harvest!

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I’m really impressed with this variety of spinach we tried this year. The plants are finally starting to bolt, but the leaves have not become bitter at all!

I picked some spinach to use for today, but the whole bed will need to be harvested. We can dry the excess leaves, and plant something else in the bed.

I thought I would be picking the last of the garlic scapes, but a couple more showed up overnight that should be ready to pick tomorrow. I don’t know if two scapes could be considered a harvest, though. 😄

Several of the strawberries I was expecting to pick this morning were gone. I found their remains on the mulch nearby. There were a few others that I could pick. They clearly did not get fully pollinated and are misshapen, but my goodness, they are tasty little morsels!

Once these are done, there won’t be anything that can be harvested for some weeks, or even months, and there are still things that need to go in the ground. The squash – including the mystery squash I transplanted near the rose bush – are finally looking like they’re getting stronger. I keep having to remind myself, we’re still in the middle of June. We’re actually ahead of the game a bit. It’s the heat that’s messing with my perception. Well, that and on some of my local and Zone 3 gardening groups, there are people sharing pictures of their huge gardens and the things they are already harvesting. !!!

It’s the delay in building things that’s really eating at me, though. It’s driving me absolutely bonkers So very frustrating!

Ah, well.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

So many bebbies!

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Early this morning, we were already at 20C/68F, and I don’t think we got any cooler overnight. We did have a series of thunderstorms pass us by during the night. Plenty of lightning visible. Here, we got some rain, thankfully! Enough to noticeably change the level of water in the rain barrel, at least.

By the time I headed outside, it was already 25C/77F. With the heat yesterday, and today expected to be even hotter, I mowed the inner yard last night, starting quite late. By the time I was done, there was barely any light left. This morning, I could see the parts I missed in the dark! 😄 No matter. At least the main areas got done. Around the main garden area and the rest of the outer yard still need to be done.

I am so appreciating the loan of that riding mower!!!

No mowing today, though. We’re supposed to reach 33 or 34C/91 – 93F today. More storms are supposed to come through, so hopefully we’ll get more rain. My younger daughter and I will be going to the city today, and they are supposed to reach 36C/97F today. Thankfully, the AC in my mother’s car works!

I just got interrupted by some alarmed squeaking.

From these guys.

We put the cat cave into the cat cage, but the kittens don’t want to be in there. They can crawl out, but can’t get back in, anyhow. Last night, I heard alarmed squeaking, and when I checked, Decimus had moved two of them into the cat cave, so I quickly put the other two with her.

Just now, I checked the cage and saw three squeakers, but heard another squeak from somewhere else.

My closet.

I have boxes at the bottom of one end to protect the floor, because Nosencrantz kept pooping there. Decimus discovered she could get into one of them and had moved a kitten into it! This is not a good place for them, so I took it out and put it back in the cat cage. Decimus was in the cave again, with one of her kittens, so I put the remaining three in with her.

One cat has not moved her kittens, though.

So far, Caramel is keeping her babies under the cat house.

I have no idea what Adam is trying to do to her in the photo, but it’s funny looking, and I’m glad I caught the moment!

There are at least three kittens under there. Looks like an orange and white, a tortie or muted calico, and a grey tabby. There’s a leg on the orange and white’s head that I can’t figure out, so there is probably a fourth kitten in there, somewhere.

They are so close to the opening, I’m seriously considering pulling them out and putting them in the cat carrier. Caramel would likely go in with them – I’ve actually been able to pet her when she’s on the cat house roof! – but then what would we do with them? We can’t put them in baby jail with Decimus. There’s not enough room. We have no other space for them. The Cat Lady isn’t able to take in more cats or kittens, either.

So, they stay where they are, for now. At least they’re still close to the house, nice and dry, and protected from the heat.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: so many things!

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Yesterday was hot, and today is supposed to be a hotter, so I made sure to give the garden a thorough watering last night. I think it really appreciated it!

The mock orange next to the laundry platform is just exploding with flowers. Even the smaller one against the east side of the house that I keep forgetting to water is starting to bloom (we really need to move both of them!).

I found a few surprises this morning.

We have ripening strawberries. The ones in the photo look like they had some pollination issues, but it looks like all the plants are producing.

The big surprise was finding Roma tomatoes! They’re not the first to start blooming, and where the third variety to be transplanted, so for them to be the first to have developing tomatoes was very unexpected.

Some, but not all, of the resown green beans have germinated. Even some of the summer squash have started to germinate. With the winter squash, while transplanting Jiffy pellets with sprouts in them, I also transplanted the pellets that didn’t germinate. At least one of those has sprouted with big, strong seed leaves emerging. All of the squash seem to be recovering from transplant shock, little by little.

There was one transplant I did not expect to survive. There was a squash of some sort that sprouted in the wattle weave garden bed, between a bell pepper and some shallots. I did not plant it there, and it would have to go, since a squash plant there would completely envelop the shallots and peppers. So I transplanted it to an open space next to the pink rose bush, where we grew leftover lettuce seeds last year. As I tried to gently dig up the squash plant, I discovered that it was far, far deeper than I expected. I’m guessing the seed came with the garden soil, which has compost in the mix. When I pulled it up, it was basically all long, buried stem, but I did see a hint of a root just under what had been the soil level, so I transplanted it anyway. When I saw it the next day, drooping on the ground, I figured it didn’t survive, but included it when watering, anyway. This morning, it was looking perked up and much stronger! So it might actually survive, and we’ll find out what kind of squash it is.

I also got a harvest this morning! We don’t have a lot of garlic this year, and one variety is a soft neck garlic, so even fewer will develop scapes. I’d noticed scapes starting to show up recently, so it was a surprise to see they were ready to harvest, this morning! I picked almost all of them. There are a few remaining that should be ready tomorrow or the day after. Then they will be done.

Next year, we have to make sure to plant a lot more hard neck garlic, and protect the bed over the winter more thoroughly.

In other things, when I came out with the cat food this morning, I saw Caramel out and about, looking very hungry. She even let me pet her, though I think that was more because she wanted food. I dropped a handful of kibble at the opening where she had her kittens. It wasn’t long before she eating it, and was back under the cat house. I could hear the squeaking of kittens. She may have let me pet her while she was on the cat house roof, but when I tried to use my phone again to look under the cat house, she was back to growling!

There was one unpleasant surprise this morning, though. When I got to the kibble house with food, I found blood all over the place! On the floor, in the empty trays, and even against the walls in a couple of places! I’ve seen blood around before. The cats do fight pretty violently at times. Never this much, though. While doing my rounds, I kept an eye out for an injured cat, but saw nothing. Not even blood on the grass to show me where an injured cat might have gone. I’m assuming it was from a cat, though it’s possible it came from a racoon. Definitely not a skunk, since there was no smell.

The weird part is, no one heard any fighting last night. My daughters have a window facing that way that is kept open all night. My older daughter was working all night, as usual, and she didn’t hear a thing. My husband’s window is closer, but between the fans and his CPAP, he would only hear something if he’s up and about already. It would take a lot of noise outside to wake him from all the white noise he’s got going around him, inside.

It is a mystery.

The kittens inside are getting more active. In fact, I found one crawling around on the floor! I don’t want to risk stepping on one during the night while going to the bathroom or something, so with the help of a daughter, we move the cat cave, with the whole family inside, into baby jail. One of my daughter has put strips of carboard around the bottom few inches, so if any of the kittens get out of the cat cave, they won’t be able to get through the cage openings. They’re still small enough to squeeze through!

So far, they seem to be okay with the new arrangement.

New squeakers

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Squeaking was all I had to go by!

I popped outside briefly through the sunroom, and heard quite a bit of loud squeaking. It was most definitely coming from under the cat house. On my return, there was no more squeaking, so I decided to stick my phone’s camera at one of the spots the cats have worn down as they go in and out from under there.

All I saw was this.

Then the phone got attacked by a claw, and much growling ensued.

I’d say Caramel just had her babies under there. It’s probably quite cool, compared to the inside of the cat house right now. I had been wondering if she were going to have her litter soon. I think she was the last pregnant looking mama at this point.

I’m extra glad we put bricks under the skids to try and level it off on the lightly sloped ground. This corner would have more room under there because of them.

I hope mom and babies do all right. Unfortunately, she’s right where the skunks also scoot under when we try to startle them away. I don’t expect her to keep them there for long.

The Re-Farmer

Happy and sad, and things to be thankful for

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First, the happy.

Would you look at these little grublings?

Decimus has been more comfortable leaving the babies to sleep and spend her time away from them, but the kittens are now also getting more active! While Decimus and the other cats were meowing for their evening wet cat food feeding – she has already caught on to the routine! – the bitties started squirming around and making their way out of the cat cave!

We’re still working on a spring cleaning in the house, with the tax assessor coming in next week as our motivation (I’m sure the assessor has seen far worse!). One of the things I seriously need to get done is vacuum my carpet. It gets so bad, so quickly, but with Decimus and the babies in the room, I’m not about to start the vacuum and scare the bejeebers out of them. We’ll be putting them in the cat carrier and keeping them in the living room, which is still the plant room and barricaded from cats, unless under supervision, so it will be a safe place for them. Today, however, we’ve been washing all the blankets, towels and mats set out for the cats to use, including from inside the carrier. So my floor is a job that will wait until tomorrow!

I did have an unexpected and sad surprise, though. While gathering the garbage and recycling together for a dump run, I passed through the sun room and found a white and grey kitten on the floor. A dead kitten. It was bigger than Decimus’ babies, but I don’t think it was old enough for its eyes to be open yet. Oddly, its lower jaw was missing. It’s as if a cat brought it into the sun room for us to do something about it. Of course, I looked around for other kittens, but there was nothing. No clue as to who the mother was, either.

So I quickly buried it with Keith under the white lilacs. We still have the boards and the concrete pedestal over the grave, but I just moved the pedestal aside, and moved one of the boards – though I had to pull up a lot of greenery just to access it – then put it all back after burying the little one.

That done, I got the rest of the garbage and recycling together, loaded it up on my mother’s car, and headed to the dump. My husband had asked me to pick something up for him at the grocery store, so when I got home, I grabbed the newly emptied 18.9L water jug to refill and headed out again. Before I did, he quietly told me he’d changed his mind. Instead of picking something up for him, he asked me to pick something up for our younger daughter as a surprise treat. She has been doing the bulk of the cleaning while I’ve been mostly doing the running around. Her sister is still working at night (when her computer and drawing tablet are less likely to overheat and stop working), so her contributions are limited to things that won’t wake the rest of us up. My younger daughter is a great lover of cheesecake, so that was one thing I looked for. I ended up getting her a caramel chocolate cheesecake. Then, as an extra surprise, I picked up a couple of trays of sushi. Yeah, it was just grocery store sushi, but it’s still a treat!

There was a time when none of us would touch sushi (my husband still won’t). Years ago, when we were still homeschooling, I’d take the girls to a weekly park day with other homeschoolers. For years, we didn’t have a vehicle and took public transit. Between the bus and LRT connections, it took about a 1 1/2 hours to get there, and we often got to the park about 45 minutes before anyone else did. It was either that, or be almost an hour later than everyone else. Then it took another hour to get home. Same busses, same connections. It just happened to take less time, later in the day.

Yeah, transit sucked. When we did finally get a vehicle, the same trip took only 10 minutes.

In between connections, we would sometimes stop to pick up food. One day we were looking at the sushi displays, and they looked so beautiful and delicious, we decided to buy some to have for lunch before the other homeschoolers showed up. California rolls, if I remember correctly. We were quite eager and had high expectations.

We each had one piece, and that was it. I couldn’t even finish mine.

The killer was the cold rice. We just couldn’t handle eating cold rice.

So there we were, with a mostly full tray of sushi, when another transit dependant mom and her son showed up. When we found out they liked sushi, we offered it to them. They very enthusiastically accepted.

It was years before we were willing to try eating sushi again. I’m not sure what changed, but this time we liked it. Even grocery store sushi! Cold rice no longer bothered us. Very odd.

Now that we live out here, the only sushi places are in the city, and we have yet to have the opportunity to try one. So grocery store sushi remains our only option! I know grocery store sushi is treated as a bit of a joke, but we like it just fine.

Today, the grocery store happened to be freshly stocked with several larger combo trays, and I picked out two of different ones. Before leaving for home, I messaged my daughter to let her know I was on my way and would be pulling up to the house to unload. Then I told her that after unloading, we could stop for her treat! She was quite surprised and very happy with both the cheesecake and the sushi, and I made sure to tell her how much her dad and I appreciated her hard work. I know how hot, sweaty and miserable it can get, and I wanted to make sure to thank her!

I’m so glad our daughter chose to move out here with us. Taking care of this place turned out to be a much bigger job than any of us expected. We did not have any illusions that the place would be “perfect”, as my mother kept saying it was, but were still unprepared for just how neglected it had become. My brothers did their best, but there was no way they could even know about some issues, without actually living here, and my mother was in complete denial. Since my husband cannot physically do a lot, it would have been just me, and it would have been beyond what I could keep up with. My daughters gave up quite a bit to come out here with us, and I am grateful.

The Re-Farmer

Well, that didn’t take long

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Would you look at this lady?

Snarly Marlee, taking a break from snarling at Decimus!

She’s doing quite well, actually. She’s been sleeping with me more often, and has even been making like she wants to leave the room, though when I open the door for her, she tends to back off.

As for Decimus, the other cats are getting used to her. I’ve seen her and Nosencrantz, both on top of the cat cage, next to each other. They were eyeing each other, but not being aggressive in any way. Even Butterscotch seems to have accepted her presence.

When other cats try to come into the room, though, they are not sure what to make of the new family! Leyendecker has come over to the cat cave, sniffing at Decimus, only to leap in astonishment and run away when the kittens started mewing. Other cats dash in ahead of me, see Decimus, freeze, then run out of the room again.

Very strange!

Meanwhile, today we continue to catch up on house stuff. One of my daughter’s goals is to mop the kitchen floor (a difficult thing, since the lino is worn down to the subfloor in places) before we put the interlocking foam mats down in front of the sink and the stove.

Last night, I came into the dining room to find this.

*sigh*

It’s not even out of the packaging yet, and already it’s being torn up by the cats! I’m hoping it will at least last until the next Costco trip. I believe they still have the heavy duty shop mats in stock. The cats shouldn’t be able to claw those up. At least, not right away. If Costco doesn’t have them in stock anymore, I did see them at a local hardware store, though that was months ago, and I don’t know if they regularly stock them.

There is just something about these mats that the cats can’t resist!

The Re-Farmer

Morning of kitties!

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How squee is this?

I couldn’t even see the other two, wrapped up in Decimus. She now leaves the cave more often and wanders around the room, much to Snarly Marlee’s dismay! Poor Marlee. She’ll be sitting on her stool next to her own cat cave, snarling away; Decimus just ignores her and keeps coming up to her, curiously.

Usually, this happens around 2 or 3am.

I finally took the time to look up Decimus. Turns out it’s a very old name, going back to ancient Rome, and means “tenth” or “tenth born”, so the tenth son born into a family would be named Decimus. It’s also a character in Warhammer, and the name of a famous Victorian architect, Decimus Burton. I should remember to ask my daughters where they got the name from. I don’t think they’ve ever played Warhammer, but they probably know about Decimus Burton.

Along with the adorable kitties inside, we’ve been seeing the outside kitties around the house! They hide under the cat house when we come out, but after my daughters watered the garden yesterday, my younger daughter was actually able to touch one before it hissed and ran off. As I was getting the kibble ready this morning, I could see three of them playing in the water bowl shelter. After I put kibble out and put away the container, I turned around to see one of the mostly white kitten eating at the tray under the water bowl shelter, with Brussel. I saw another little head pop out from under the cat house, only to back off when it saw me, so I delayed refreshing the water bowls under after I finished my morning rounds.

I’m really glad they are starting to come close to the house. They are much safer here, and the chances of socializing them increases as well.

We’re starting to run low on kibble, so I’ve decided that I’ll head to Walmart today to pick up more, as well as Canadian Tire to get more litter pellets. Work outside is going to be delayed a bit, though. I found out last night from my brother that an assessor will be coming out next week. She’ll be going through and measuring every room in the house (with a laser measurer, so it’ll be fast). We’ll, we’re not exactly good at that “housekeeping” thing, so this is an excuse to finally do some major cleaning over the next 4 days. Which is not easy to do with so many cats! The girls are going to focus on the upstairs and the basement, while I start on the main floor. Hmm. This would be a good time to rearrange my husband’s bedroom. That room is so small, it would involve moving half the furniture out completely. Mostly, I want to make it so that, when we finally get the plumber in to work on our bath tub faucet and taps, he can access it from the other side, if necessary. We should have had him in long ago, but getting ear mite medication for 16 cats took up the budget, and then some, even with my daughter helping pay for the vet bill.

Well, we’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, it’s time for me to go stock up on some more cat food. Mamas and babies need to be fed!

The Re-Farmer