Father’s Day and my younger daughter’s birthday are just days apart. They have mutual interests in some things, so this year, they got a joint gift.
My husband has been trying to do leatherworking as something to keep his mind occupied and his creativity fed. So far, everything has been by hand. He did get a stitching pony, but it broke. Some of the leather he’s working with is pretty thick, so he was interested in getting a sewing machine that can handle heavy leather.
My daughter, meanwhile, has been interested in learning traditional skills. Blacksmithing is one of them, but making shoes is another.
So they got a manual cobbler sewing machine (not an affiliate link). Manual because, not only is it quieter, but it allows for more control.
It didn’t really come with assembly instructions, but I did fine one – just one – video of a similar model being unboxed and assembled. It must have been enough, because in the morning, I found it assembled.
It hasn’t been tested out yet, but it did some with thread and needles. He also has lots of other tools and supplies. The only thing they don’t have is a lot of leather.
Leather is shockingly expensive.
But, they have enough to start, and learn how to use the machine!
Well, Decimus and her babies had a very quiet first night indoors!
One thing that has always been distinctive about Decimus is her teeny, tiny quiet meow. Which really isn’t much louder than her kittens!
When I did the wet cat food last night, she absolutely devoured her share. She has been allowing head pets – we can’t reach much else in the cage – and enjoying them. We’ve been handling her babies, and she’s been okay with that, too. At one point, I even found her in another part of the baby cage, while her kittens were asleep in a pile, enjoying a bit of a break. I could tell that the litter had been used, as well. So she is settling in and figuring things out.
When I did the outside cat food this morning, I checked through the cat house window, and could just make out the two kittens sleeping inside. The mother was outside, eating, at the time. So far, so good, with them.
The only trouble I’ve been having lately is with Nosencrantz. The cat that refuses to leave my room has increasingly tried to claw her way out the window. This morning, I was awakened by the noise and found her somehow behind the box fan that blocks the window andthe extra screen I’ve got to cover a gap on one side and the piece of cardboard to help keep the screen in place. Thank goodness we replaced the window screen with cat proof screen! So far, it seems to be holding up. My main concern right now is that she’ll simply pull the mesh right out of the frame.
Things have really cooled down. Last night, it was almost chilly! We’re coming up on noon as I write this, and we’re still at only 15C/59F. It’s gorgeous! Now, if the wind could just die down a bit. I’ve actually moved all the transplants off the picnic table under the old market tent and put them back on the laundry platform set up. The tent sheltered them, but they weren’t getting enough sunlight for too long. Some of the Spoon tomatoes were so gangly that, when Gooby decided to be really, really friendly while I was setting the trays down, two of them ended up breaking off at the stems. I just replanted them. They’ll probably be fine. We have so many, though, and may not get enough space to plant them, so we can afford to loose a few, if it comes to that.
Yesterday’s transplants are looking good. No sign of transplant shock, so far.
Well, I got them in, before things got too windy out there!
The winter squash were planted in the small Jiffy Pellet trays, six of each type. Of those where not all of them germinated, I still planted the empty pellets with ones that had germinated. They may not have had visible seedlings, but some of them did have roots showing through the pellet’s casing.
In the northernmost row, there are two Boston Marrow, two Winter Sweet and two Lady Godiva.
There were four Honeyboat Delicata seedlings to tranplant, but only two Little Gem/Red Kuri.
The North Georgia (I just noticed the typo I made when labeling the photo!) had the most seedlings, with five to transplant. There were three Pink Banana. That left four empty mounds. I’ve decided to fill one more row tomorrow, to direct sow summer squash in. We have four varieties, and I want to have at least two plants of each.
While I intend to mulch the rest of the patch with wood chips, I’ll be gathering grass clippings to mulch around the mounds of soil.
But not today.
Tomorrow is supposed to be cooler, with a predicted high of 21C/70F, which will be much more pleasant to work in. Especially since I plan to have enough soil brought over to fill grow bags.
Weather willing, we should be able to get quite a bit done tomorrow.
It looks like Decimus was not the only yard cat to have babies today!
While putting kibble out this evening, I saw the white and grey cat with spots that are more black than grey, and she’s suddenly looking skinny compared to last night. I have no idea where she had her kittens.
Just out of curiosity, I peeked through the cat house window and spotted a wiggly worm on the pillow in a box at the back wall. Looking again later, I spotted a second kitten that looks completely black. By the time I came back to take a photo, the mama was with them.
The window is dirty on the inside, so I tried to clear the photo up as best I could. This mama is one we can’t get close to, but she’s been hanging out in the cat house for a while. She did not look pregnant at all. Seeing only two kittens, that would explain why. She just wasn’t very big.
I don’t know if we’ll be able to get this mama and her babies. Right now, I just want to make sure she doesn’t get spooked and move them.
Meanwhile, the oldest litter showed up this afternoon, and I saw them running around the yard. Later, I saw them at their kibble bowl by the grape vine, though not all at once.
They have been transferred to baby jail and seem quite content. Decimous (or Decimus, as my daughter spells it) has been very quiet and attentive to her furry little worms.
My daughter has been staying in my room to supervise the family (the babies are so small, they could potentially squeeze through the openings of the cave) and keep an eye on how the other cats behave around them.
She fell asleep on my bed. I think she had a sleepless night last night, too!
Meanwhile, I headed outside and broke out the weed trimmer. I cleared around the pile of garden soil and then, since I had the trimmer out already, as much as I could reach around the burn barrel. I didn’t fell like adding another extension cord, so that area isn’t quite done, but close.
Then it was time to start hauling soil. I didn’t bother to sift it, though I did pause to pull out the biggest roots.
Where the sticks are, marks where we had squash growing last year. In each spot, we dug out the sod, then added fresh soil. Each squash got cardboard layers around them (we didn’t have enough to do the paths with cardboard, too), then mulched with straw, grass clippings, scythed hay – anything we could get our hands on. It took much of the summer to have enough material to mulch all the paths, too.
So now, each pot is getting more fresh garden soil and, now that we have so much of it, the rest of the area will be mulched with wood chips.
There are still two rows that I did not add soil to. They get a lot more shadow, so I won’t do those unless we really need the space. Instead, I will work on filling grow bags, next. Those will likely get peppers in them.
After I took this photo, I removed all the sticks marking the spots. Then I went around with the spade and flattened each hill and spread them a bit. Finally, I went around with the hose and used a higher pressure setting to drill water into the middle of each mound of soil.
I’ve left them to absorb the water while taking a break from the heat and the sun. Later today, I’ll go back out and start transplanting what winter squash we have that’s ready. We’ve got some melons to transplant, too, but they’re still pretty small, so they can wait. With what space I have left, if there is any, I want to sow summer squash.
We seem to have reached our high for the day – we’re at 25C/77F and pretty windy – and things are supposed to cool down slightly from now on. Tonight, we’re supposed to have a low of 12C/54F. That is going to feel glorious! My goal is to get as many of the transplants in that we can right now, so we can start dragging out those trees my brother cut down for me and begin working on the permanent trellis beds. If we can manage to get those done over the next while, we might still have time to direct sow things into them, as long as they have a short enough growing season.
This gardening year isn’t quite working out as planned, but it’s getting done, little by little!
I had a sleepless night, so the girls took care of feeding the outside cats for me this morning. It wasn’t until much later that I headed out to try and get some work done. Before I did, I paused to top of the water bowls, when I heard a little squeak.
Decimous had a litter in the shelf shelter!
I wasn’t even sure she was pregnant, with her long and matted fur.
We always put some kibble in the shelf shelter, and it’s her favourite place to eat, so I’m not too surprised she had her kittens there. I’m so glad she didn’t have them in some secret place, like the other cats do.
My daughter brought out the cat carrier and, between the two of us, we got the four kittens in. They are just hours old! Decimous, who normally runs off, was definitely feeling maternal and enjoying scritches. She wasn’t too keen on being pulled out of the corner of the shelf, even though her kittens were already in the carrier. It took both of us to gently get her out and lift her into the carrier. There was a moment of struggle until we got the top closed, and she basically just stopped.
We got the carrier into the house, and it’s now sitting next to the baby cage. Marlee is going to have to give up her favourite place! For now, though, my daughter put a food bowl into the carrier. Decimous ate a bit and, then settled down to nurse.
What a cutie she is!
We finally got her.
Now that she’s got her kittens, it should be easier to socialize her, then finally get those mats cut out of her fur!!!
We’ve set up the baby cage a bit better. There’s a bin in there with litter pellets already, that the other cats ignored. A water bowl is set up, and the food bowl will be moved over once we’re ready to transfer the little family. For now, though, we will leave them in the carrier to calm down. Other cats have come over to sniff at them and moved on.
I’ve messaged the cat lady about them. Hopefully, she will be able to find a foster for them and get them adopted out.
For now, my daughter will be hanging out in my room to supervise, and I’m heading outside to get some work done.
Okay, so I managed to get a bit done in the garden this evening. Also, I had a wonderful surprise. Rolando Moon appeared! I haven’t seen her in at least a month, maybe two. At her age, we just never know if she’ll disappear and not return anymore.
I was also happy to see The Distinguished Guest wander into the north side of the property. Happy, that is, until I heard a cat fight and discovered he had attacked Pinky, and I had to chase him off. *sigh*
I had some squash that were getting too big for their pots that needed to go in, so I focused on the hill we grew pumpkins in last year.
This is how it looked after taking a weed trimmer to it, after the mowing around it was done. Those bricks had been placed under the developing pumpkins to keep them off the ground. The round thing is an ant trap. There was two of them, but one disappeared when it got caught by the push mower, last year.
They didn’t work. The ant hill is still there.
Thankfully, the bug spray I used seems to do a good job of deterring ants, too. I dug up the bed with a garden fork and pulled out as many weeds and roots as I could. The ground was crawling with ants, but while I had them on my boots, that’s about as far as they went.
Before, this hill had only ever had two plants transplanted into it. After weeding it and working the last of a bag of sheep’s manure into the surface, I raked it out into a flattish square.
I fit 6 transplants in. The row of three on the far right are Zucca melon, from a second seed start. In the middle row, the two in the foreground are African Drum gourd, also from a second seed start. The other four were in an unlabeled pot. I restarted both the Zucca melon and Drum gourd at the same time, but one unlabeled pot got mixed up. I think they are also drum gourds, but I’m not sure. At this stage, the leaf and stem shapes look almost identical.
We’ll figure it out soon enough, if they survive.
I then filled in the last of the space available in the wattle weave bed.
I had removed the protective plastic from the Sweet Chocolate peppers, and they now all have support stakes. I left the protection around the one Classic Eggplant, though it did get its own support stake, as did the luffa in the corner.
I transplanted one of each variety of pepper seedlings we had waiting. Between the luffa and the eggplant is Dragonfly. The three around the curve are the Cheyenne, Early Summer and Early Sunsation. I wanted to get at least one of each type transplanted, just in case we aren’t able to get things ready early enough to get the rest into the ground.
To the left of the luffa is the largest of the 3 mystery squash that germinated with some Roma tomatoes. I think they might be luffa, but I’m 100% not sure.
As I write this, it’s coming up on 8:30pm, and we’ve finally started to cool down a bit. What I got done wasn’t a lot, and certainly didn’t involve much physical exertion, but it still left me dripping with sweat. The next few days are supposed to be every so slightly cooler, and then things are supposed to heat up again. And physical exertion is going to be the main work, because we have to start hauling garden soil over to the squash patch, so we can start transplanting. We can’t even start that until I take the weed trimmer to the tall grass around the pile that couldn’t be mowed.
It’s going to be hot, sweaty and disgusting work, but we’re running out of time. It’s not just prepping spots for the transplants. This year, I was going to try direct sowing the summer squash, and those seeds should be in the ground already.
I suspect that by the time we finish building the permanent trellis beds, it’ll be too late to direct sow a lot of things. I might try, anyway. We could find ourselves with a long, mild fall again.
There’s only so much we can do, though. None of us area handling this heat well.
… when I dreamed of living on a tropical island somewhere. A place where “winter” didn’t involve air so cold it hurt your face and snow measured in feet instead of inches, or whiplash seasonal temperature extremes.
As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve changed my mind. Oh, sure, I could do without the extreme cold temperatures in winter. However, my tolerance for heat has dropped considerably. We’ve got a somewhat cooler day today, at 25C/77F right now, compared to the last few days. Still above average, but not breaking any records. Yet I still can barely tolerate it.
Looking at the temperature map of North America right now – and not even looking at the tropics – I’ve come to the realization that this old dream of mind is something I probably don’t want anymore! I mean, even the hottest areas in the screen cap above are just a few degrees hotter than we are right now, in the prairies.
If it weren’t for the even shorter growing season, I’d be more interesting in going further north, rather than south!
I just got back from picking up packages, and it is just insane out there. Insane with horse flies! I don’t remember ever seeing so many of them before.
When I go outside, they start flying around me in clouds. This morning, I had them getting stuck on my hat somehow, and when I took my hat off to wave them away, they got stuck in my hair!
While backing the car out of the garage, they are bouncing off the windows. As I drove up the road to the intersection, I could see clouds of them outside my window, keeping up – they can fly really fast – and still bouncing off the window! When I got out of the car to open or close the gate, in the few moments the door was open, there were several stuck inside, bouncing against the inside of the windshield.
The sun room, though. Oh, my goodness! This is the down side to leaving the doors open. There are hundreds of them in there, bouncing off all the windows and crawling around the frames. The buzzing noise is so loud! There was one butterfly stuck in there and bouncing off a window, but I was able to get it out. The horse flies? Some might rediscover the open door, but most will most likely bounce themselves off the windows until they drop dead.
Usually, it’s mosquitoes we have problems with. Especially with the wet spring we had, and how moist things still are, even without rain. We do have them, but not especially high numbers of them. It’s all horse flies this year, instead!
We always have horse flies in the summer, but I wonder why we have so many of them this year? The poor cattle and other farm animals around us. Not to mention the wildlife. Horse flies like to be around bodies of water, but much prefer livestock – or anything else they can get blood from! They seem to be leaving the cats alone, thank goodness. They certainly had an extra level of discomfort when trying to work outside!
I headed out to do the morning rounds a bit earlier than usual. We’ve finally been able to arrange for our septic tank to be emptied (usually we try to get it done in April or May, or as soon as the snow is gone). The truck is coming some time this morning, so I wanted to make sure the gate was open.
While continuing my rounds, I checked out the Crespo squash, and they are looking great! They are all getting increasingly robust, and I’m seeing roots forming all along the main vines. Two of the vines have started blooming already!
I’m quite happy with how these are doing.
This early in the morning, everything was feeling wonderfully cool, and everything was still very wet! For all the rain we got, it did reduce the humidity, but not by all that much, really.
Which might explain this.
I don’t know where Gooby was when I first came out with the kibble, but he was there when I got back to the house, and completely soaked! Only Decimous had wet fur like him, but only on her lower half, not all over, like he was. All the other cats managed to stay almost completely dry!
We really, really need to get ahold of Decimous. She is so badly matted, I can see burrs stuck in her fur, there are some mats starting to dangle, I see bald patches and I’ve even found some of them in the yard. I’m guessing she’s been scratching at them. While I’ve managed to give her neck and ear scritches a few times, she mostly moves away before I can get close. Aside from trapping her (which is more likely to get other cats, first), if we even had a trap, trying to socialize her is the most we can do. It would be easier if we could offer her wet cat food, but if we did that, we’d have all the friendly cats crowding in for a treat.
Oh, and either she’s got a whole lot of mats around her belly, or she’s pregnant.
*sigh*
Well, we do what we can.
I now await the arrival of the septic truck. I want to be around when the septic guy gets here, mostly to make sure the cats stay away from the open tank while it is being worked on, and at some point I’m going to have to go out to pick up some packages. It seems that for one of them, Purolator decided not to leave the package at the store our post office is in, as they have been lately, but at the depot in the down my mother lives in. We’ve got two packages that are supposed to be in right now. When I check the tracking, it says that Canada Post had issues with delivery. Neither says they were to be shipped by Purolator, so I don’t know what’s going on there. What I really want to do is go back to bed. I got almost no sleep last night. It was finally a relatively cool and pleasant night, but I didn’t get to bed until late, and then got hit with busy brain. It wouldn’t be any better to get my daughter to drive, because I think she had an even worse night than I did.
The Re-Farmer 