Month: June 2024

Some kittens, and a day of rest

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I can’t say it was a good start to the day. I was awakened about about 3am, and the cats kept me from falling back asleep again. I finally got up around 7 to feed the outside cats, have some breakfast, then go back to bed for a few hours of real, honest to goodness, restful sleep.

I did the rest of my rounds quite late, and did get a few things done. As always, I checked on the garden beds. I remembered to bring along the Seychelle green pole bean seeds, to replant them because the Crespo squash. Since so few Carminate purple pole beans germinated, I planted some Seychelle in the gaps. We’ll see if there will be enough growing season left for pole beans! Assuming they germinate at all.

The Royal Burgundy beans that I replanted have quite a few sprouting right now – but only in one row. I’d planted two rows, on either side of the original single row, and there’s just a couple of those that survived. Now, there’s at least half a dozen sprouts coming up, but they area all in the row closer to the outside of the bed. The row closer to the middle has nothing. Very strange!

While going in and out of the sun room for my garden tools and whatnot, I got to see many babies.

The puffy one that’s asleep while through the cube wall is one of Adam’s tinies, and just too cute for words. It won’t let me near it. When it sees me, it immediately runs and hides. This tiny little fluff ball bouncing into the sun room. I want to scoop it up, so badly! 😄

Before heading inside, I gathered a bunch of rhubarb. This has been the best year for rhubarb we’ve had since moving here. The chives are looking amazing, too. We have quite a bit of cream cheese right now, and my daughters are talking about making a chives infused cream cheese spread. That sounds really good!

I’m trying to think of some way to put a barrier around the eggplant and hot pepper bed again. The plastic was completely destroyed by the wind, but I’m thinking what they might actually need is a bit more shade! They don’t seem to be growing much at all, and I think they’re getting baked. Which is odd, considering these are heat loving plants, and they’ve got plenty of heat. Both had done quite well int he wattle weave bed last year, and that bed is heavily shaded by one of the ornamental apple trees – both of which need more pruning, to open them up and let more air and light through. Honestly, I’d take them out completely, if they weren’t a food source for birds in the winter.

Anyhow, that’s pretty much the extent of my “work” today, and that was more fun than work. Sunday is supposed to be my day of rest, but it hasn’t worked out that way lately. We had to do as much as we could outside when there was a break in the rain, no matter what day that fell on. Now that those beds are shifted, and all the transplanting and direct sowing is done, I can get back to taking a regular day of rest. I seem to be really needing it, too. I had been planning to work on editing a video today, but for all that I did get solid sleep this morning, it’s been all I could do not to crawl back into bed all day! Even now, I can feel myself falling asleep at the keyboard. I don’t want to mess up my sleep cycle too much, though, and end up awake all night.

Anyhow.

The video editing will probably wait. It requires more mental focus than I can manage right now.

We’re supposed to get rain starting at about noon tomorrow, and continuing on through to 6am the day after. That would be as good a time as any to work on the video editing.

For today, I’ll take a break.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: direct sowing chard and summer squash

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What a gorgeous day today!

We didn’t get too excessively hot – our high was 19C/66F – which made a huge difference. As I write this, we’re at 17C/63F, with a “feels like” of 15C/59F. That’s more my kind of weather!

Best of all, we had a break from the rain. We should have another break tomorrow, and then it’s supposed to rain for another two days.

Still, we got enough sunshine to dry some things out.

Today, I wanted to get some direct sowing done – finally!

I decided to plant chard where the spinach is done. That required first removing the netting I set up that turned out to not be long enough to go all the way around the bed. Once that was cleared and put away, I pulled the sad little remaining spinach plants – I wish I knew why they did so poorly! – and weeded the bed. We don’t have a lot of carrots, unfortunately. The cats would go in where there was no netting to keep them out, and use that corner of the bed as a litter box, digging up quite a few carrots in the process. I’d hope to plant more, but it’s too late in the season for carrots, now. Of the overwintered onions that had been transplanted at one end, there are three that survived the transplanting, and they are starting to go to seed!

Speaking of seed, I had both Bright Lights (a rainbow variety) and Fordhook Giant seeds. The cats had gotten into them and chew through the packages, so now they’re all mixed up in the a Ziplock baggie. These are not new seeds, so it will be interesting to see how well they germinate.

Once the planting and weeding was done, I grabbed one of the new nets I picked up at a dollar store and set it up around the bed. I added a couple more support posts around the perimeter. These are salvaged from the frame of a canopy tent a tree fell on, so they all have screw holes in them. Very handy to string line through, to hold the netting in place and keep it from just sliding down the supports! The netting is wide enough that it can reach the trellis netting in the middle, as well as to the ground outside the raised bed. I didn’t bother fastening the netting to the middle, since it’s mostly to keep the cats out. Once the netting was in place, it got some ground staples to hold it down, since it kept wanting to creep back up!

That done, it was time to go to the main garden area, and the last bed that got shifted over. The empty space between the shallots and the yellow bulb onions needed something in it!

The white patty pan and Magda squash that was planted in pots in front of the house did not germinate, so I replanted them there. I also grabbed the G-star pattypan seeds, and planted all three varieties between the onions and the shallots. I used broken bamboo stakes to mark were I’d planted pairs of seeds. I hadn’t pre-soaked them or scarified them, so I made sure they got a deep watering. Then I raked up some of grass clippings and used it to mulch around where the seeds were planted. Then I dampened the mulch, too!

I completely forgot that I wanted to replant the Seychelle pole beans by the Crespo squash. I can do that tomorrow. It’s really late for pole beans, but I’m going to take the chance.

Aside from that, the garden is now finally all in! There are no other beds to plant things in. That will be our next focus: build more beds for next year! Especially the trellis beds. Plus, of course, harvesting more dead spruces to frame all the beds.

Once that was done, I tended to the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden. I didn’t bother taking pictures, since it’s hard to see. They’re starting to get big and bush, and starting to flop. So I grabbed some jute twine and wove it around the pairs of bamboo stakes at each tomato plant, and the tomato stems in between. That was more finnicky work than I expected! The leaves are so dense the jute twine is mostly hidden, but it’s doing its job, and holding the vines up between the support stakes.

I also took some video of the raised beds that got shifted over. I’m planning to do a progress video. I was going to do it tonight, but I’m falling asleep at my keyboard, so I think I’ll call it a night, and work on it tomorrow.

All in all, it turned out to be a decently productive day! Not bad for it starting out as such a bad pain day, this morning. Not bad at all!

The Re-Farmer

Rough start to a good day

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I woke this morning to way too much pain and stiffness, so I asked my daughters to do both the outside and inside cat feeding, so I could take some painkillers and sleep in a bit.

Then I saw my younger daughter come in to do the food bowls in my room, and she’s still using a cane! Damn. We’re quite the household of gimps!

I’ll cover the garden stuff I got done today in a different post, but besides that…

First on the to-do list was a trip into town. Our expected prescription delivered on Wednesday is going to be delayed, as their driver isn’t available on the usual day. With most of my husband’s medications, he has ample supply, but not his new painkillers. So that got ordered, and was ready for pick up today. That gave me a chance to pick up some antihistamines for myself as well. I don’t know what I’m allergic to outside – likely a tree pollen – and it’s very annoying.

Since I was going to be in town anyhow, I grabbed our two empty 18.9L (5 gallon) water jugs to refill at the grocery store.

I forgot.

This is Canada Day weekend.

Town was so incredibly busy and crowded! We definitely need to avoid it until after Canada Day.

There were, at least, some really good sales on at the grocery store. I only took advantage of two; one brand of salad kits were almost half off, so I ended up getting 12 bags; 4 of three different mixes. Then I saw nacho chips were on sale, so I grabbed some of those. We already have cheese and olives, so my husband could have some nachos for a treat.

Once back at home and after I had lunch, it was outside to get some work done, while the weather was good. In the process, I got to see a whole bunch of kittens, of course.

We can now confirm that the white and grey mama has brought her four white and grey/black kittens back to the sun room! I spotted her on the critter cam, nursing some of them, while others – white and and greys from Adam’s litter – played nearby. I counted six kittens with her at the time. That makes 12 kittens in 3 litters now using the sun room.

I do wish Broccli would bring hers over. They are starting to get big! I’m going to stop leaving food by the old garden shed, so they have reason to come to the house for kibble, instead.

Towards the end of the day outside, I just had to pause and get a picture of the mock orange under the clothes line.

It is in full bloom right now, and a mass of white flowers. Just gorgeous!

The only downside of the day was finding the racoon back – with two very big, round babies (more like teenagers!) in tow!

Racoons make the strangest snarling, barking noise.

I saw some skunks around, too, but they are not as destructive or greedy as the racoons, and easier to chase away.

Still, I was able to get quite a bit done outside, in just a few hours, so I’m happy.

More on that, in my next post!

The Re-Farmer

Stock up shopping: Canadian Tire, Walmart and Superstore total of $378

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Well, I’m really, really glad I pushed to get so much of the mowing done yesterday. All the usual areas are under water again! We’ve got a bit of a break in the rain right now, but in a few hours, it’s supposed to start up again.

We didn’t even get the worst of it. The further south I drove, the heavier the rain. I’m most definitely not complaining!

For today’s trip, I went to our usual Canadian Tire and Walmart locations, but instead of the international grocery store I like to go to, I ended up hitting a Superstore in the same area. There really wasn’t anything on my list for the international store I couldn’t get elsewhere – or so I figured at the time. Turns out I was wrong about one thing.

My first stop was Canadian Tire, which had a few extras I normally wouldn’t get.

The litter pellets were my usual purchase.

This trip, I also picked up a new headlight and license plate light bulb for the truck. I also got a new tire gauge. On the way out, I got a low tire warning, so I stopped at a gas station to pump up. (One of the gas jockeys was a sweetheart and pumped the tires for me. Less time in the rain!) I checked all the tires while I was at it. At one point, I had to turn the truck around, as the hose wouldn’t reach. I put the tire gauge down on the console between the front seats. As I turned, it rolled off and in between the console and the driver’s seat.

And disappeared.

Thankfully, I did have another in our emergency kit, but it’s a cheap one. After the tires were pumped, I went into the convenience store to get another gauge, but the only one they had was for the big rigs. I liked the idea of having a dial, but the cost was not worth it. I did find similar at Canadian Tire that were not dual valve and cheaper, but in the end, I got just another plain one of a higher quality than was in the emergency kit. I do hope we find and dig out the other one, though. We got it as a freebie from somewhere, years ago, and it’s one of the best tire gauges we’ve ever had!

Last of all, I got a can of bug spray, since we were running low and the mosquitoes are insane, with all the rain we’ve been having. I’m glad I remembered to get it while at the Canadian Tire, because when I looked at the display in the Walmart, they didn’t have the powerful stuff, and the cans they did have, which were smaller, cost just as much!

One thing on my list that I did not find: a new filter for our push mower. None in stock.

Total damage at Canadian Tire, after taxes, was $72.74

The main thing on my list for Walmart where those XXL puppy pads, as we were running out of that size.

I got more raw pumpkin seeds that will be ground into a powder for adding to the cat soup. The canned cat food was not on my list, but they’ve actually gone down in price! We were going to need more, eventually, so I picked them up now.

The personal products were on my list, but the air freshener was not. I got lavender scent, which is supposed to be calming, and some of the cats could really use some calm! The coffee was on sale, so I grabbed one for the pantry.

I also added a donation to the children’s hospital.

Grand total and Walmart, after taxes and including the donation: $119.57

The next stop was Superstore. For this one, I had some specific things on my list, but mostly, it was “see what’s good”, or “see what’s on sale”.

While at the Walmart, I completely forgot to look for toilet safe drain cleaner, so I looked for that at the Superstore. The only ones they had specified not for use on toilets. I was also going to get Beaver Buzz energy drinks – the one thing I would have gotten at the international grocery store. Since I found some at the Superstore I went to after my Costco shopping, while stopping for road food, I figured I’d just get it here.

Well, it seems this location doesn’t carry Beaver Buzz.

They did have cases of Monster with a regular price that was a cheaper than the sale price, locally, so I got that, instead.

One thing that was on my list was canola oil, requested by my daughters. I also got paper towels, a flat of Coke Zero, and a case of tomato soup, among the larger items.

I got some frozen fish for the girls, as well as frozen perogies and frozen pot stickers. For fresh meat, I got ground beef and ground pork, plus a bag of cheese hoagies that were on sale.

I decided, as I was shopping, that I will be making a chili, so I got some canned mixed beans and some crushed tomatoes. Which is silly, considering how many tomatoes we have in the freezer, but they are whole and we really need to process them! They got buried, though, so I keep forgetting about them!

For fruit, I got bananas and cherries. The cherries were really cheap; $2.99 a pound. Usually, they’re $8.99 a pound locally, or $4.99 a pound elsewhere in the city.

Let’s see… what else did I get. There’s a large jar of olives for the pantry – those are going up in price! I remembered to grab a small jug of apple cider vinegar, as we are out completely right now. There was a good sale on whole wheat bread. I got torpedo buns, plus a round sourdough loaf.

Last of all, I got myself some fresh sushi and a cold Monster to have for lunch in the truck, before heading home.

The grand total at Superstore, after taxes, was $185.87. I accidentally cut the total off in the above image!

For what I got at Superstore, I probably could have just done the grocery shopping at the Walmart. Walmart doesn’t have those torpedo buns, though. 😄

By the time I was done, the rain had almost completely stopped, but the wind picked up. While sitting in the truck in the parking lot, eating my lunch, the truck was actually being buffeted, hard!

On the way out, I filled the gas tank, which cost another $56.

So the shopping was a grand total of $378.18. Add in the gas, and I spent $434.18 today.

Considering we got extras like the headlight, I suppose that’s not too bad.

On the way home, I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel that was supposed to arrive today. It wasn’t there. The website says “arriving by 10pm tonight”. Which means we’ll get it on Tuesday, since Monday is Canada Day.

I pulled the truck up to unload, as usual. Before driving it to the garage, I made sure to feed the outside cats to get them away from the vehicle.

I still had to chase one off the hood!

I made sure to put food out for the kittens by the back of the garage, the tarp covered wood pile, and the old garden shed, along with the usual places. Last of all, I put food in the sun room for the kittens in there – then had to chase out the crowd of adult cats that left the food outside, to come in and eat the kitten’s food! Adam’s kittens dive under the counter shelf as soon as I come in (I’m so glad we put that up on bricks!) so I make sure to scatter some on the floor under there a bit. That way, they don’t have to fight off the adults for food!

As I was walking back to the house from the garage, I spotted a little ball of fluff under the shrine, and was able to grab a picture.

The one kitten in the junk pile was enjoying some kibble under the shrine, with its mother.

So, from what we are seeing now, we have 8 kittens (2 litters) in the sun room, 4 behind the garage, 2 under the tarp covered pile and 2 in the old garden shed. The 4 white and greys that were the first to show up in the sun room are still gone, and I’m starting to think they were victims of the racoons, along with the newborns. There wasn’t enough… evidence… left behind for me to be able to say one way or the other. How many others there are, beyond the inner yard, we have no way of knowing until they start showing up at the kibble bowls. As for the adults, I haven’t even tried counting them lately. They come and go so much. I did see Sad Face this afternoon, though, and he’s got a wound of some kind under one cheek. He won’t stay still long enough for me to see it. Considering he’s been actively stalking and attacking other cats lately, it doesn’t surprise me. He’s getting on in years and looking more and more beat up. He tends to win those fights, though!

Which reminds me. Syndol’s limp is getting much better. Driver showed up yesterday, and he was limping, too, though not as bad. I haven’t seen the white and grey with the puncture wound on his front leg, so I can’t say how he’s doing.

A few more days, and we’re bring 4 males to the vet, courtesy of cheap spay/neuter day and the rescue. By next month, the kittens should all be weaned, so grabbing some females to be spayed is the goal. We should have a trap loaned to us by then.

Anyhow.

We are now stocked up for the month, except for the usual local purchases.

The Re-Farmer

I’m feeling totally wasted!

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It has been a looooong day!

Of mowing.

My hands are shot, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write, and I’ll probably have typos all over the place. This would normally be a post loaded with photos, but I don’t feel like embedding Instagram photos.

So… this was my day.

Doing my morning rounds I, as always, checked all the garden beds after feeding the cats…

… and the kittens. Much kittens. Adam and her kittens have been in and out of the sun room all day, and I’ve seeing the four behind the garage playing around all day, too. Those ones, it turns out, are Slick’s! (aka: Octomom). I thought they were Brussel’s, but nope. I saw Slick mothering them.

I’m glad she had only 4 kittens this time, and not 8!

Also, it turns out the dark grey kitten with the white eyeliner is NOT the sunroom kitten. We have two of them!

I was quite happy to see the first scapes appearing in our garlic. We are so looking forwards to eating scapes again!

All the strawberries – the older ones with the asparagus, the ones in the wattle weaves we started from seed last year, and the everbearing ones we got as bare roots this spring – are developing berries. Now, if we can just keep the birds and deer from eating them first, we might have a decent amount to enjoy this year!

Quite a few of the first bed of winter squash we transplanted are blooming now. All male flowers for now. I even saw a few tiny flowers on some melons!

Quite a few of onions that overwintered and got transplanted into the first trellis bed are developing seed tops. I look forward to being able to collect our own onions seeds for next year!

The Crespo squash is also blooming quite a bit. There’s some sort of small weed that’s showing up in almost all our beds, but there’s a rather surprising amount around the Crespo squash . Since I was able to do some mowing yesterday, I gathered up grass clippings to mulch around the Crespo squash, leaving space where the beans were plants. There’s still just 3 or 4 beans growing on one side, and I plan to reseed them, though it’s getting pretty late for pole beans right now. The grass clipping mulch should help take care of those weeds and, with more rain on its way, get the squash vines off the wet soil.

Then, since I was gathering grass clippings nearby, anyhow, I mulched around the strawberry and asparagus bed. That one is almost impossible to weed properly. I made it to fit the spacing the asparagus needed, but that left it too wide for me to reach without stepping right inside the bed.

I did some weeding in the spinach, snap pea and carrot bed. I ended up pulling some of the larger spinach. Even the tiniest ones are bolting, but a few had leaves large enough to actually use. I’ve been using them in sandwiches all day today.

Soon after I was done my rounds, I went to town with the 20L jerry can to get premium gas for the mowers. At the last minute, I decided to hit another store and pick up a bunch of artificial flowers. Then I went to a hardware store and found small engine oil for our push mower, before finally getting the fuel for the lawnmowers. On the way home, I swung by the cemetery and left flowers by the stones for my father, my father’s uncle, my brother, my grandmother, a cousin and her baby. I’ll have to come by another time with some soap and water and give the stones a wash. Birds are no respecter of persons! Later, I want to grab the cross with a solar powered light in it, that I got for my MIL’s grave, and set it out with flowers. I’ve never actually seen her grave. When my daughter and I went to tend to is, and my FIL’s request, since he can no longer make the trip out, we couldn’t find it. We did find a sign saying a number of markers have been removed due to flooding, and would be repaired and returned. I would hope it’s been replaced by now!

Once I got home and fueled up the push mower, it was time to start mowing! We’re expecting rain starting tonight, and all day tomorrow, so I wanted to get as much done as I could. I didn’t even try using the riding mower. I tried using it yesterday, but it just can’t handle the tall, wet grass very well.

For the first while, I worked on the south yards. These were the worst, even though we’d actually been able to mow parts, previously. Unfortunately, these yards are also where all the kittens are! The area behind the garage was just brutal to work on. There is no longer standing water, but the ground still squelches when I walk on it. I scared off the garage kittens quite a few times, but after a while, they did start to get used to me and the noise, and would come out and play more often, ducking to hide only when I got close again.

The south west yard is where the kibble and water bowl houses are. That corner needs to be done with the weed trimmed, but I got as close around the cat shelters as I could.

The cats and kittens were not happy.

I even had time to do the west yard, around the fire pit area, though I didn’t even try to go behind the storage house, where there is an open area between rows of trees. It got so full of water there, so it’s bound to be really wet. However, it gets very little light, so the grass there is so sparse, being overground there isn’t really much of an issue.

At that point, I finally stopped to have lunch. It was past 3pm by then, and today the dump is open from 2-6pm Once I finished lunch, I brought the truck into the yard and my older daughter helped me load the garbage and recycling.

I had quite a nice surprise when I got to the dump. My cousin-in-law was there! He was with the attendant dealing with electronics garbage and didn’t seem me, so I just got rid of our recycling, then drove to the pit. I was just finishing up when he drove to the pit, too, and we finally got to say hello. It’s been a long time since we chatted.

After we said our goodbyes and I was getting ready to leave, I spotted something very strange on the ground beside the truck I hadn’t noticed when I first got out. It was so strange, I had to call my cousin over to see!

I found a foot.

It had just enough flesh on it to hold the bones together, but it was most definitely a foot.

Then I found another one, a few feet away.

Then I found a “hand”.

The “hand” did not have an opposable thumb.

My guess is, they were from a bear. A hunter probably processed one, tossed the unused bits and pieces in the pit, then some animal dragged them out.

Not something I ever expected to see in my life, that’s for sure!

The dump run done, as soon as I got home, it was back to mowing.

I was able to finished off the north and east yards, much to the discomfort of Caramel, who dove under the tarp covered pile of boards she has her two kittens in. I saw no sign of Broccoli’s two, around the old garden shed, though I did see them this morning.

When I got those done, I kept pushing the mowing further into the area between the spruce grove and the garden beds. This is an area we’re going to be dragging trees through, and part of it is where the trellis beds will be built, so I wanted to get as least some of it done, in the more level areas.

I also finally mowed a path through the maple grove. Just enough that we can walk through from near the old kitchen garden, around to where the main garden area is. This took me near where the old tap and its part and pieces are lying on the ground, waiting for when we can set it up again. That will happen after we get the pipes we want to run the hose through, to protect it, before burying it in a trench.

All this means we have FINALLY been able to mow the entire inner yard. Not between the trees, but at least the higher traffic areas!

Yay!!!

My next area to do was in the outer yard. I’d already cleared part of it in front of the chain link fence, between the vehicle gate and the people gate, so we could actually access the people gate again. Today, I cleared a path to access the burn barrel to the electricity meter, then back to the people gate. Once that triangle of paths was made, I worked on clearing the grass inside the triangle.

Not only had this area not been mowed yet this year, but it’s one of those areas that’s really dense and had different, tougher, grasses in it. Which means, for most of this area, even with the mower on its highest setting, I had to go forward with the wheels up first, drop the mower and back up over the same area, then go forward again normally. Basically going over the same sections, three times. I had to do this in the inner yard, too, but not as much as this one section. It was almost as difficult as going over the wet area behind the garage.

I had just a small triangle left when I ran out of gas again. It was actually worth refilling the mower to get that little triangle. 😄

And that was it. I was done. The temperatures are really nice right now, there’s still light out, and I probably could have kept going, but I was DONE. I’m going to need someone to put the bath chair in the tub for me later on, so I can shower.

I was working on that last bit when my daughters came out. The ground is finally solid enough that they can set up the ladder against the house, and it won’t sink into the ground. They were finally able to clear the eavestroughs. My older daughter just came in and updated me. Since her sister was up on the roof, anyhow, she cleared away some of the elm branches from the tree in front of the kitchen window that were overhanging the roof, while my older daughter hauled the branches away to the burn pile. That would have been quite a big job, and rather precarious in places.

I’m going to be so much more comfortable when we can get rid of that tree!

I’ve also been informed, we need to get more bug spray. The mosquitoes are insane, and we’re running out. At least it isn’t horseflies anymore. When I was moving the back hose over so I could mow, I heard buzzing like there was another wasp next back there. There wasn’t. It was hundreds of horseflies, all in that corner of the house!

I’m heading into the city tomorrow for our second shop, so I’ll make sure to add that to the list!

I definitely will need to pain killer up tonight. I’m going to be paying for all that mowing. It was worth it, though. Everything looks so much better and, now that it’s done, it’ll be so much easier to keep up. We’ll even be able to use the riding mower on it!

Plus, we now have lots of grass clippings to use as mulch in the garden!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shop: this is what $808 looks like

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It was a remarkably busy day at Costco, for the middle of the week. I didn’t get everything I had on my list, and still broke $800.

This is what $808.34 looks like.

It really doesn’t look like much at all. 😞

I put the cat food on a separate bill again.

It was just cat food, too. I didn’t get their puppy pads again, as we still have more than half a case, though I will be getting more of the larger size when we hit Walmart in a couple of days.

At first, I got eight 9kg bags of the Kirkland brand, because I didn’t see the 11.6kg Whiskas bags. Those turned out to be moved to the end of the aisle. When I saw they were on sale, I put back 4 of the Kirkland bags and replaced them with the Whiskas. At $8 off, I considered replacing all of them, but decided against it, so the cats would have a variety.

I got two cases of the wet cat food, which has gone up in price by a dollar since last month.

Then there was the stuff for us.

When the cashier confirmed my butters, it turned out I’d accidentally got both salted and unsalted. I took them out of the same box, so they should have been all the same! I’m glad he caught that.

For other dairy, we got marble and Old cheddar cheese, plus cream cheese and sour cream.

I didn’t get a double flat of eggs, like I usually do, since we still have lots of eggs we got from my homesteading friend.

We got our usual Kirkland brand of TP, plus a case of facial tissue that was on sale.

Among the things we don’t always get every month was a case of toothpaste, a case of toothbrushes, extra strength ibuprofen, lactase and Vit. B12. I also got a 6 pack of baking soda; we finally got near the end of the last 6 pack I got!

In breads, I just got four packs of tortilla wraps and a 2pk of rye bread.

For meats, I got a bit of a treat; a panini variety pack of sliced meats. I got a package of large breakfast sausages, pork belly, a 3 pack of whole chickens and a chub of ground beef. I also grabbed a 3 pk of Spam for the pantry.

Then there was the mayonnaise and peanut butter, and a bag of potatoes.

That’s it.

I didn’t even finish going through all the aisles, as my budget for this shop was about $800.

Aside from this, I picked up $30 of gas on the way into the city, at $1.389/L That put me back above half a tank. I filled the tank at Costco. At $1.299, it cost me $66.22 to fill the tank.

After the truck was loaded, I swung by a Superstore to get some sort of lunch I could eat while driving. I ended up getting a ham sandwich and a bottle of water, but while looking for something more interesting to drink, I found they had Beaver Buzz in stock, and Citrus – my favorite flavour – was on a “buy three” sale, so I got three of those. I’m not sure what happened to the receipt, but that totaled $17 and change.

Which means I spent over $900 in total today.

It feels like there isn’t much to show for it.

The Re-Farmer

New babies!

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I did my Costco shop today, and pretty much as soon as everything was put away, I headed outside to do as much mowing as I could. We were expecting a prescription delivery today, so I had the gate open. I took advantage of that to mow the driveway. Not just the sides of the driveway, but the driveway itself! It’s got so much grass and weeds coming through the gravel.

One of the areas I tried to mow through was behind the garage. This is where we have had water more than ankle deep for so long. There isn’t open water right now, but it’s still very wet. I really should have waited before trying to mow, but I just can’t trust the forecasts about when the next rain will hit us again.

The mowers – both the push mower and the riding mower – are having the hardest time cutting the grass. it’s so wet and slippery, it just bends rather than cuts. I end up having to set the mower blades as low as possible, and with the riding mower, I still even up having to reverse repeatedly.

Which means I was spending quite a bit of time behind the garage.

Which also means, I finally got to see the garage kittens, for the first time!

I just assumed that Adam or Brussel (or both) had a litter in there, because that’s sort of where I see them hang out the most. The kittens were out and about behind the garage, and I saw them dash behind some metal sheets we have leaning against the back, when I came by with the big noisy machine. I never got photos of those ones – but I did see one of the sun room kittens playing with them!

The white and grey mama that I think is mother to the white and grey kittens that have disappeared from the sun room (we have so many white and grey cats, it gets hard to tell them apart at times) has seriously attached herself to Adam. Every time I see Adam walking around, this white and grey is right beside her, pushing against her, rubbing her face against her, and generally being exceedingly affectionate. Adam, on the other hand, seems to just tolerate her. 😄

At one point these two were crossing the yard when I had to shut the riding mower off briefly – followed by a puffy white and black kitten! I had to get the mower started again and continue. The mamas ran for the back of the garage, but the kitten went for the chain link fence and ended up running around the garage.

I didn’t finish the mowing I hoped to do; the riding mower just couldn’t handle it anymore, and I was getting too tired to continue with the push mower. Plus, I’ll been going to town to get more gas, tomorrow. As I was putting things away, I saw Adam again, heading towards the house – being followed by one of the sun room greys! This one has a distinctive dark grey coloring, with white around “eyeliner”, so there was no mistaking it.

When everything was put away, I was going to go into the house through the sun room.

The door was blocked!

One of the greys was loafed in front of the door, while Adam nursed her babies, just inside.

It looks like she has four babies.

Meanwhile, I’d seen at least three more when I checked behind the garage before heading to the house!

I have no idea how many different kittens I actually saw today, but I’m glad that Adam was willing to bring hers to the sun room. Hopefully, the others will be brought over, too. Especially Broccoli’s two, from the old garden hedge, and Caramel’s two, from under the tarp covered pile of boards beside the house.

It will probably be a few more weeks before we have an idea of just how many kittens there are.

It would be awesome if we could actually socialize them, and adopt them out!

The Re-Farmer

My new toy

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Today, I finally opened the box with our new drain auger. Given the weight of it, I just went ahead and cut the box apart at a couple of corners. The box was made of very heavy duty carboard, yet it was pretty beat up during shipping!

The auger, however, was well padded and protected, and completely unharmed.

Pretty much as soon as I lowered the sides of the box, Ghosty was inside it, checking things out!

In pulling out the various items packed with the auger, included a pair of work gloves, I found the instruction manual and paused to take a look.

The manual was for a different model. One with a different frame supporting the auger, and two large wheels at the back, so it could be pushed around like a hand truck. This one has a frame that’s more compact, and four wheels that need to be attached. Two of them have brakes on them, so those would go onto the back. There are no instructions on how to attach them. I assume that’s what the Allen key is for.

I didn’t have time to fuss with it right then, so it’s been left for now. Once the wheels are on, we need to figure out how to get it safely into the old basement. My husband suggested using a rope, which might actually work out and allow us to take it down the old basement stairs securely, instead of taking it to the new basement stairs and going down that way. The old basement stairs are oddly narrow and steep, to fit in the space, and I don’t have a lot of confidence in how strong they are. The new basement stairs, however, have a door that swings over the stairs, blocking access to the hand rail, instead of into the entry. You wouldn’t believe how unsafe that makes it. When I was a kid, I never saw a problem, but now that I’m old and broken, and have a problem with stairs, it’s really noticeable.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out, one way or the other!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting DONE! onions and shallots

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Yes!!!

It’s official! I am done with the transplants.

Except the Orange Butterfly Flowers. I have no idea where to put those. I might just stick them in a pot or something.

I was very happy for a pleasant breeze to cool me down while I was working. I got the last of the bed turned and weeded, the boards laid out to mark where the log frame will go, and the soil evened out and leveled off as best I could.

Since I was wanting to finish off the onions and shallots, I decided to work in a grid instead of rows. I marked off 5 rows lengthwise first,, about 3 or 4 inches apart, then made cross rows, also every 3 or 4 inches apart.

Once the lines were marked out, I used the jet setting on the hose to drive water into all the marked lines. It makes it messier to transplant into, but it evens out the soil and gives deeper moisture for the roots to reach for.

After that, I just laid out the transplants where the lines crossed, starting with the yellow bulb onions at one end. I got to about half way down the bed, maybe a little more, before I finished them. Then I planted the shallots at the opposite end. Last of all, I used the grass clipping mulch I’d removed earlier today, to scatter a light mulch around the transplants.

I was very happy to see that this left me an open space where something can be direct sown. I’ll go through my seeds to see what I’ve got that will mature in less than 2 months, since we basically just have July and August left for a growing season.

This is really late for onion transplants. My intention had been to interplant them with other things, but that doesn’t really work out with the winter squash and melons, since those will get bigger and overshadow the onions. At least I got some in with the tomatoes.

We shall see if the weather holds long enough for all these onions to fully mature!

I’m now going to let my self breathe for a bit. I have some direct sowing to do, including where the spinach was planted, and that’s about it. After a break, I’ll get back to working on the trellis beds. Hopefully, we’ll dry out a bit and the winds will die down, and we’ll be able to harvest more logs for the raised bed frames. The forecast of rain to start this evening and continue for about 4 hours has changed. Now it’s saying we’ll get some rain for about an hour, around 10pm. On Friday, though (today is Tuesday), they’re still saying rain all day, starting about 5am Friday morning, through to 1am on Saturday morning. Aside from the brief rain we’re supposed to get tonight, though, we’re not supposed to get any rain at all until Friday.

I might actually be able to do some mowing! How exciting!

The Re-Farmer

Garden bed progress

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Well, I got some done this morning…

In starting on the last bed that needs to be shifted, I broke up and somewhat leveled the ends and one side, so I could lay out the first boards. The bed that is being shifted had quite a lot of grass clipping mulch around the edges to try and keep the weeds at bay – or at least easier to pull. In the previous bed I’d done, I worked the grass clippings into the soil as it was shifted, but this one had enough that I removed most of it, instead.

Then it was time to start loosening the soil that needs to be shifted, weeding as I went along. It has been taking longer than I expected. I’m shocked by how far from the trees I’m fining elm roots. They have reached pretty much all the way to the end of the bed! I’m not trying to pull them all out, since the bed it going to be raised higher than before, but I could get some of it. Particularly the roots that would get caught up in my garden fork as I loosened the soil!

I suppose it would have been better if the soil in this bed got sifted, but it’s still too wet for that and would just clog up the hardware cloth.

I got maybe a third of the bed weeded and partially shifted before I had to stop for breakfast and hydration. I’m not looking forward to going back out. It’s about 9:30am, and we’ve already reached our expected high of 19C/66F. While my weather app says the humidex is also 19C, when I’m out in the full sun, it sure feels hotter, even though the morning sun is just barely reaching above the spruces while I’m out there! The winds are picking up again, too, and I swear I heard thunder in the distance. There are no storms in our forecast. We’re expecting showers starting around 7pm. It’s actually supposed to start cooling down a few degrees from now on. I think I’ll actually give myself a couple of hours before heading outside again. Now that I’ve got the big stuff done around the bed, the rest shouldn’t take long, and I should be able to get most, if not all, of those onions transplanted when it’s cooler, and before the showers start.

The rest of the garden seems to be holding out well. I’ve removed the mosquito netting that was over most of the melons in the first trellis bed. They are starting to get big enough that they need the extra room. All the other transplants seem to have gotten over any transplant shock and are starting to grow noticeably bigger and stronger. That zucca melon that I found looking smushed, however did not survive, so we’re down to just two of those, and they both look strong and healthy.

I still feel like I’m behind on everything in the garden, but things do seem to be managing all right so far.

The Re-Farmer