Month: June 2024

Our 2024 Garden: next bed’s progress, and squished!

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Part of my morning rounds now includes checking on all the garden beds.

With the kiddie pool planted with Zucca melon, near the strawberries, I made sure to check them out.

One of them was squished!

The mulch around it was flattened, too, in an almost perfect circle. It looked like a cat took a nap on it!

I lifted it up and found that it did not seem to be damaged. I found some short support posts that used to be part of a canopy tent frame that a tree fell on a few winters ago. I set one beside each melon. A cat could still lie on the mulch beside in between, but not on a melon plant – at least not without being right up against a stick!

Yesterday, I’d turned the raw sod on the next raised bed that needed to be shifted. I’d hoped the exposed roots would get to back in the sun, but instead, they got watered by the series of storms we got. I was going to my mothers, so I didn’t do any weeding, as it would have been too messy. Instead, I used the thatching rake to break up some clumps around three sides and level them a bit, then set out boards to mark where the logs will go.

Then I just used a garden fork to turn the soil from the bed in it’s old location, piling it into the new location. Against, I didn’t try to weed, so it went really fast. This bed was in so much better condition than the last one, with all that creeping Charlie in it! Once the soil was moved, I used the rake to level the edge, as well as the area where the bed was that would become path, before adding the last of the boards to frame around it.

Then I had a few things to do, before doing to my mother’s and helping her with her groceries. These days, she just gives me her list and I do the shopping for her, and put it all away. It was actually a pretty good visit, until just before I left. She’s started to talk about coming here to the farm for a visit. The problem is, she behaves so badly here, especially towards my family, they don’t want her here. She also has no interest in seeing what we’ve done here at the farm. She want to see reasons to tell us what we’re going wrong, tell me how terrible I am at taking care of the place (because I’m doing things differently than she did), and rag about what a terrible parent I am for keeping the girls tied to my apron strings (the idea that they chose to out here to help with the property, and their disabled father, just doesn’t sink in with her), and so on. I tried to explain to her about the problems with her behaviour. The truth is, I’d love for my mother to come and visit. I’d love to be able to show her the progress we’ve made, and talk about our plans. But that is not anything my mother has any interest in.

One of the things I’d showed her on my phone was some video I’d taken of the tree that fell on the outhouse, then of the swaying of the trees. She commented on all the “dry” trees (the dead spruces), and I said we need to cut them down. She asked if I’d talked to my brother about this and I told her, yes (I’d already told her I’d sent him the video), and that we’d be cutting down the dead trees. Then I corrected myself and said that it would mostly be my younger daughter doing that.

At which point, my mother started saying that using a chain saw was a “man’s job”, and she can’t do that. I told her, Mom, anyone can use a chainsaw. But that’s a man’s work! I should get my brother to do it!

So… we aren’t doing enough, because we’re not doing things the way she wants them to be done, but we’re also not supposed to be doing any “men’s work” because we’re female.

Well, at least this time, she didn’t go on about how sorry she feels for me, not having a man around the house.

I guess, because my husband is disabled, he’s not a man anymore?

She says awful stuff like that all the time, but when I tried to explain that people don’t want to be around her because of this, she twisted things around to make herself as the victim and me as the big meany.

Not a good way to end the visit.

I did have somewhere else to go, though. I’d made arrangements with a homesteading friend to buy some eggs. She wasn’t going to be home, so they were going to be tucked into a safe spot outside, where I could also leave the payment. I didn’t want the eggs to be outside in this heat for long – when I started writing this, we were at 23C/73F, with the humidex putting it at 28C/83F, and it was hotter where my mother lives than here – so I wanted to leave as soon as I could. I actually got there before my friend had left, so we even got to catch up for a bit – and she gave me extra eggs, because she needed the room in her fridge! 😄

I was considering whether or not I could continue on the bed once I got home, but there’s no way I can do that kind of work in this level of heat and humidity. It will wait until the morning.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter by the afternoon, and we’re supposed to get more rain in the evening.

*sigh*

I’d really like just a few day’s break in the rain, so the ground and dry up a bit and we can try mowing some lawn again. At least the parts we managed to do, previously, since the taller stuff is just too wet. We’d need probably a week without rain before we could do anything about those areas.

Or a couple of cows to graze the outer yard for a week or two!

We really need some grazing animals! As long as we could keep them out of the garden beds, I’d be letting them graze in the main garden area. That would be good for the soil, too.

My daughter wants sheep, for their fleece, as she wants to spin her own yarn. I would like a couple of milk goats. That would be on top of the chickens I want to get!

We’ll get there. It might take a while, but we’ll get there.

For now, building up the garden beds is the main focus.

My brother and I were both saying how we don’t remember there ever being so much water in the yard before. Even when it flooded, a couple of springs ago, it didn’t get this bad. Yes, the flooding was more severe in places, but the ground didn’t get saturated right up to the house, and stay saturated for so long, like it is now! Every time it rains, the standing water returns, because the ground it just too saturated to absorb it. This, even though we have high drainage in our soil, what with it being basically gravel with a few inches of top soil.

Oh! I found an excellent picture of what our soil is like, at this web site.

This image belongs to Joselito (Lito) M. Arocena, UNBC and was taken in Edmonton, Alberta, but it’s exactly what we’ve got here, too. If there is any different I could find, it would be that we have more small rocks in between the second and third layers.

I keep hitting them with the garden fork or spade, while shifting the beds!

Yet another reason why raised beds are the way to go for our gardening!

For now, I just want to get these last two beds done, and get the last of the transplants in. If there’s room for direct sowing, that would be bonus, at this point.

The Re-Farmer

Still there

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While feeding the cats this morning, I was very relieved to see all four of the grey kittens.

I like to scatter handfuls of kibble all over, and two of them came to eat right next to the sun room door. The other two were in the sun room, hiding under the counter shelf, so I left some in a bowl for them there.

It was a relief to see them. I haven’t seen any of the white and greys, though. I see their mother (I still don’t know who the mother of the greys is) around, but no babies. I’m hoping the mama has simply moved them. After what the racoons did to the newborns in the sunroom, I’m afraid they might have found other kittens, too.

I’ve been seeing the black and white cat with the black nose around more. I even saw that she spent the night in the sunroom, with a few other cats. The more I see her, the more I get the sense that she might have been the mama, but there’s no way to know for sure. For all I know, she may actually be a he.

I have also been seeing Broccoli’s two, playing around the old garden shed. Now that they are bigger and more agile, I can’t get anywhere near them. With how wet it’s been, the mosquitoes are really bad right now, so I barely stay long enough to leave kibble for them. The problem with using bug spray to help with the mosquitoes is, I’m covered in bug spray and don’t want to handle any kittens!

Hopefully, they will find their way to the front of the house, soon, and join the other babies.

I do hope we see the white and greys again. They did like being in the sunroom, until the newborns showed up, and all the cats got a bit freaked out over it. Some of them are still skittish about going in, too.

We need to do something about those racoons.

The Re-Farmer

Nature is brutal

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What a crazy, mixed up day.

A warning, for those who don’t want to read about just how nasty nature can be.

Earlier, I posted about our morning surprise; a new litter of kittens in the larger cat carrier in the sun room.

We kept watch on the sun room, staying out as much as possible. No other kittens were around; I don’t know where their mothers moved them. Other cats stayed out as well. Every now and then, in the critter cam, I’d see a cat go in, sniff at the carrier, then run off. There was one short haired black and white that kept coming back, but it did not go in with the babies, and would run off again. We found the black kitten outside the cage a couple of times, and I put it back. It, and its siblings, were cold and damp and crying, but non mama came.

At one point, I ended up in the basement, clearing the pipe to the septic tank again, and was away from the critter cam for quite a while. When I checked on it next, I could see a black and white kitten on the floor in front of the carrier, and it wasn’t moving. My older daughter and I went to see what was going on.

My first surprise was noticing some blood under the kittens nose. When I picked it up to look at it, and its lower jaw was gone. Something had started to drag it out or eat it or something.

The other three were still in the carrier. While I went outside with the tiny body, my daughter closed up the front door of the carrier and opened the top, so the kittens couldn’t get out, but the mama could get in. We had also shut off the ceiling fan and tied off the door, so the room would warm up for the babies, but they were still way too cold.

We decided to bury the kitten under one of the crab apple trees in the old kitchen garden. I quickly dug a hole and laid the kitten down.

It moved.

Much to my shock, the poor thing was still alive.

Yes, I swiftly euthanized it. I was not going to let it continue to suffer, and there was no way it was going to survive.

All we could do is keep monitoring the sun room.

Before my younger daughter and I had to leave in the afternoon, I could see the kittens moving around in the cat carrier. They even seemed to be stronger and drier. Could we have missed the mama come in and tend to them? We weren’t going to risk going into the sun room and scare her away.

The forecast of no rain today turned out to be quite wrong. Before my daughter and I headed out, we were hit by two quick and dirty thunderstorms, and our area was under a severe storm watch. Our first stop was at my mother’s town to pick up a Purolator parcel. We drove through downpours a couple of times along the way. I thought the parcel was our bucket of lysine, but it turned out to be something else – something Amazon still says has been shipped, but won’t arrive until the 25th! The lysine still says an expected arrival of the 20th – today – but only that the carrier has picked it up.

After getting the package, we drove to the nearer city, with a stop at a grocery store first. While my daughter ran in with her shopping list, I stayed in the truck. I could still check the critter cam from there, so I did that a few times – and spotted a couple of racoons! I was able to use the microphone to chase them out. When I messaged my husband and other daughter about it, my daughter told me she’d already chased a racoon out, earlier.

I could, however, still see the kittens moving around in the carrier. Even zoomed in, though, I couldn’t see if there was a cat in with them.

Once my younger daughter was done her shopping, we went to pick up the birthday pizzas. We were early, so I checked the critter cam a few more times. I could no longer see any movement, so maybe they were asleep?

Once we got our order, we drove home, which took about 45 minutes. We pulled into the yard to unload. As my daughter took in the last back, I went through the sun room to get some kibble and distract the cats away from the truck while she went to park it. As I quickly went through, I looked into the carrier.

There were no kittens.

No cats or kittens in the sun room at all.

After putting kibble out, I stopped to look around more closely.

That’s when I found … evidence, shall we say.

The racoons got the kittens.

All I can tell myself is, at least it would have been quick.

Since then, we’ve seen the black and white cat – it turned out to be the one with a black nose I sometimes saw around – go in and out of the sun room. We are thinking she is most likely to have been the mother. The makeshift table we had for the transplants has been put away, and the cat cage is now in the corner. I’ve put a cat bed and blankets on it. The last I checked, I saw this cat, and a couple others, lying on top of the cat cage. The other cats seem to be returning to the sun room.

I’d been chatting with the Cat Lady throughout the day, so she knew about the kittens, and the end result. The reality is, as much as we hate that this happened, it may have been for the best. The more kittens there are, the more likely there will be illnesses and other problems. Last spring was a devastating example of that.

When we are able to connect again, she will be lending us a trap for a few months. We won’t have a problem getting most of the males to the vet, but the females will need to be trapped.

It’s getting to the point where we seriously need to look into a cull. Especially with not being able to socialize or catch the females. With the way prices have been going up, we are now spending more on cat food, than food for ourselves. Of course, the more cats there are, the more fights there are.

Messaging with the Cat Lady, she tells me all the shelters are full, and the Humane Society is overwhelmed. People just can’t afford to feed their pets anymore, never mind actually adopting any.

They will try and help us as much as they can, but of course, donations for everything are going down, whether it’s for animal rescues, or food banks.

For folks like us, out in the boonies, we get to see a whole different side of the population issue, and sometimes that side gets rather bloody.

Nature is a b*** sometimes.

Meanwhile, I can see another thunderstorm coming through on the garage cam, with lots of lighting.

Maybe I should take that as a hint to shut down the computer and go to bed. It’s almost 11pm, anyhow.

What a crazy, messed up day.

Meanwhile, we’re trying to celebrate Father’s Day and my daughter’s birthday, combined, this week.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Low raised bed progress

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I was able to get some progress on shifting the next low raised bed, while it was still cooler, this morning.

My focus was on breaking raw ground and flipping sod in the area the bed will be shifted to. I’d only done about a foot at one end, last night. I was able to turn all the sod in the marked off area with only a few interruptions, like breaking up a cat fight! I was hitting a lot more rocks with the garden fork in this bed, compared to others! With so many, I only took the time to toss out the larger ones.

By the time it was done, things were starting to get hot, so I stopped there. The next step will be to move enough of the soil from the bed’s current location to be able to set out the boards marking where the logs will be. Then the soil will be moved to the permanent location.

For now, however, the turned soil will be left for the feed roots to bake in the sun. I’ll pull out the biggest ones as I continue, but most of the smaller roots should get killed off just from being exposed to heat and drying out.

I’m hoping to get this bed done and the last tomatoes transplanted, fairly quickly. This afternoon, we’ll be heading out to get birthday pizza. Along the way, we need to go to the Purolator drop off in my mother’s town. Our 4 pound bucket of lysine is in! Tomorrow (Friday), I’ll be going to my mother’s to help her with groceries, which usually takes up most of the day. The forecast now says rain on Saturday, but not until the evening.

Still lots to get done!

The Re-Farmer

ps: I was about to publish this, when I saw movement on the critter cam. Was it the mama going to the babies?

No!

It was a racoon, looking for kibble!

I used the critter cam to shoo it out, only to see a skunk run past the sunroom door after the racoon ran out.

Still no mama visiting the babies.

😢

Morning surprise

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Well, I got one heck of a surprise this morning!

Our bathroom window faces into the sunroom, so we can often hear, even if we can’t see, the cats and kittens.

This morning, I started to hear the mewing of kittens.

Mewing that began to sound increasingly distressed!

I finished up as quick as I could and headed into the sunroom.

Of course, the first thing I checked was the cat cage.

It had one grey kitten in it.

Where was the mewing coming from? Was a kitten trapped behind a shelf of something? Hurt somewhere?

Then I heard the mewing again and realized it was coming from the bigger cat carrier. The one that opens from the top.

So I opened the top…

… and found four newborn kittens.

I had no idea we even had a pregnant cat! As far as I could tell, they all already had their kittens, weeks ago.

It seems one of the more feral cats – one of the ones we don’t even know the gender of – had her kittens in the carrier last night.

The problem is, there’s no sign of her. I’ve been keeping an eye on the critter cam as I write this, and there are no cats – or other kittens – in the sun room.

It looks like the white and grey litter has been moved out. I only saw two of the greys this morning, and the last time I went by, I only saw one.

I currently have the app for the critter cam in the sun room running. I have not seen any cat going to them. In fact, I’ve only seen one short haired black and white, just as it was leaving the sun room, and I don’t think it was the mama.

Sometimes, I have to turn the sound off on the camera, because they start mewing and it just breaks my heart to hear them, but not see a mama.

Now, out in the wild, so to speak, this would not be unusual. The mamas have to leave their babies for hours as they go hunt (or come to the house for food). They come back when they are ready to feed the babies. But with them being in the sunroom, I’m concerned they have been abandoned, or will be abandoned. We are currently going to avoid using the sun room for the next while, so the mama won’t be scared off. While working outside this morning, when I needed to go into the sunroom, I’d check the camera first to make sure it was empty before going in.

This mama found a really safe “cave” to have her babies, though. You’d think that would mean she will come back to tend to them.

Right?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting shallots, zucca melon, and other progress. Plus, septic problems again!

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I got a late start to the day, unfortunately. I just didn’t get to sleep until sometime past 3am.

What got me going was nothing pleasant, though. The septic pump was running and not shutting off again. I checked the filter, and it was running dry, so I shut it off. After priming the filter and turning it back on again, it just drained the filter and kept running dry.

We’ve got an old garden hose with a missing male coupling set up in the basement, just for times like this. It’s hooked up to the cold water tap that the washing machine used to be hooked up to, before the laundry set up got moved upstairs. Every now and then, I run it through the drain in the floor, towards the septic tank. There is a bottleneck it always hits, roughly under the basement wall. It takes some wiggling and shifting before the end of the hose can get through what opening is left. Usually, from there, it’s clear to the tank. Lately, though, it’s been hitting another barrier. This morning, I wasn’t able to get through it with the hose. When testing out the septic pump, though, it was working as normal again, so I left it.

I’ll get back to that, later!

Once outside (and after playing with any kittens that would let me!), I started on transplanting shallots with the peppers in the high raised bed. I kept forgetting to do that, and I didn’t want it to be forgotten again!

I considered doing the yellow onions, instead – none of those have been transplanted, yet! – but decided against it. They will form larger bulbs than the shallots, and I figured they would do better with more space than the shallots need.

One thing about the cover being sized to fit the box beds in the east yard: the frame is narrower, but longer, than the high raised bed. Which means there’s contact with the logs in only 4 small spots. This meant I didn’t have to worry about squishing any of the transplants when I put it back on. This cover has fencing wire on it, and a larger mesh. I am hoping that, as the peppers get taller, they can grow into the fencing wire arch, which will support them, while their growing habit should still leave enough light and air for the shallots to grow.

We’ll see if this actually works out!

With those done, the next priority was getting the Zucca melon in, and for that, I had to set up the kiddie pool as a garden bed.

We used it to grow melons last year, so it already has drainage holes in the bottom. I added a fairly thick layer of grass clippings on the bottom. This should act as a bit of a sponge to hold water, before it finally drains out, as it breaks down.

For the soil, I “stole” several wheelbarrow loads from the last bed that needs to be shifted over. The alternative was to push my way through the overgrown grass to the pile of garden soil in the outer yard with the wheel barrow, and sifting each load.

The soil in this bed just needs weeding, not sifting, and most of the weeds had deep tap roots. Aside from the tree roots and a bit of crab grass, it didn’t take long to weed the soil after it was loosened with a garden fork, then shoveling it into the wheelbarrow, where I could get any other weeds and roots I might have missed.

I had to remind myself not to fill the wheelbarrow as much as usual. The soil is still quite moist, making it a lot heavier than usual. All that meant was that it took three loads instead of two, to fill the kiddie pool deep enough.

Finally, the zucca melon could be planted! These can grow melons up to 60 pounds in weight. If they actually grow this year, they should need take up a lot of space! Last year, they were in the bed where the bare root strawberries went last year. The plants never thrived, and what melons began to from, started to rot and die before getting more than 6 or 8 inches long. After prepping the bed for the strawberries, I now know that bed was being choked out by elm roots, too. This won’t happen with the kiddie pool as a raised bed. Last year, the pool was set up and the end of one of the beds I’ve been working on, quite close to the elms and maple. When I cleaned it up in the fall, there were no tree roots in it at all, unlike the fabric grow bags! So hopefully, this year, the Zucca melon will actually have a chance to grow and thrive!

Once that was done, it was time to go inside for lunch. As I was eating, I realized I was hearing the septic pump … and it wasn’t shutting off!

So I hid my food from the cats and headed for the basement. After priming the filter a few times, and it would still run dry, I tried pushing the hose through the floor drain again.

It did not work out very well at all.

First, I couldn’t get past the nearer bottleneck. After much fighting, I finally got it through the opening, but then it hit the second bottle neck, and that was it. It would not go past and into the tank.

Unfortunately, to do this, I was absolutely killing my left arm. Yes, I’m mostly ambidextrous, but if I need to do anything that requires a higher level of control or strength, I use my left arm. It was absolutely brutal on my damaged elbow.

I finally gave up, left septic pump off, and headed back upstairs. The fact that I hadn’t finished eating and was still very hungry did not help!

After cleaning myself up and finishing lunch, I went back at it, this time with a daughter. I still couldn’t get the hose through at the floor drain, and neither could my daughter. We ended up getting the tool kit so we could open the access pipe, instead. Normally, these can just be opened with a special screw cap – bronze, in our case – but that is fused in place. The entire top needs to be removed, and that’s held in place with screw clamps around strip of rubber and… some kind of finely corrugated metal that I think is aluminum.

So we got that pulled off and tried again with running the hose through. It worked much better, this time! We got through the first bottleneck fairly easily, and it was only a bit more effort to get through the second bottleneck. Finally, we were able to push the hose all the way into the tank!

At which point I went outside and opened the lid to take a look.

Do you know that it’s very hard to see anything when looking into a dark tank in bright sunshine? Meanwhile, I was being totally paranoid and holding my glasses against my face every time I tried to lean over and see. Finally, a cloud passed over the sun, and I could see!

But what did I see?

Well, I could eventually figure out where the float was. There’s a lot of gunk floating at the top, but I could see a couple of spot with flowing water in them – that would be water from the weeping tile, since no one in the household was using water at the time. I got my daughter to try wiggling the hose around, but I still couldn’t see it. It was somewhere under the gunk.

What I think is happening is, as the pump runs and the liquid level drops, the float is probably getting hung on something. Something that running the hose through manages to knock loose, finally allowing the float to drop and trigger the pump to stop running.

As I closed up the tank and went back inside, my daughter kept working with the hose. She could actually feel when she managed to knock something out of the way. I turned the water on, and she kept at it for a while. The septic pump turned on while she was doing this, and we could see water flowing through the filter, so this was now running as normal.

After she was done with that, I took over and ran the hose in the floor drain, towards the weeping tile under the new part basement floor. We know the weeping tile in the north corner is somehow messed up. Plus, we get tree roots growing through. We could see the water turn silty while I pushed the hose, with the water running, as far as it could go.

Once that was done, I decided to not bother tightening the cap on the access pipe again, since we will likely be running a hose through there, instead of the floor drain, regularly. So my daughter put away the tools and headed out while I closed things up and hung the hose back up where we store it. There’s quite a bit of water on the floor, with all the rain we’ve been having, the floor is damp or flooded in places, even with all the fans and blowers running.

Our electric bill is going to be brutal. With the equal payment plan, I won’t be surprised of the monthly payments don’t jump quite a bit, and not just because they’re increasing the price per kw, either.

That all took way longer than it should have, and I was very frustrated.

My husband, meanwhile, helped the only way he could… and I’m torn about it.

He used his Amazon credit card to buy me a commercial level drain auger, so we won’t be fighting with a hose. I don’t know that it will clear the nearer bottleneck, though. I fear that is the cast iron pipe collapsing, and that running an auger through would damage it more. That would really mess us up, since repairing that would probably require breaking through the concrete floor in the basement, and excavating between the basement wall and the septic tank outside, to replace it.

*sigh*

I don’t even want to think of it.

That done, and the water flowing through properly again, I needed to destress.

For me, that means manual labour! Yay!

I headed back outside (topped of the cat food for the evening, played with a kitten…) and to the garden.

We had reached the hottest part of the day by then, and I realized I’d forgotten about the melon bed. We have a few small piles of straw mulch from last year that I raided.

That gave me some nicely damp, cool, partially decomposed straw to lay around the melons.

Then I mulched the newly transplanted Zucca melons, too.

The Zucca got watered after transplanting, of course, but after the mulch was laid down, I gave that a good soaking, too. I had considered putting a jug in the middle for watering, like with the pumpkins and drum gourds, but using the kiddie pool as a raised bed, with the grass clipping base, makes that unnecessary. It will take a while for water to drain, so the Zucca roots should find all the water they need before it finished draining.

I soaked down the mulch on the other beds, too.

Last of all, I started working on shifting the next low raised bed. That meant breaking new ground where the bed will be shifted over, and turning the sod, first.

I didn’t get very far. It was just too hot!

So I’ve left it for now.

My current plan is to try going to bed early, and hopefully actually falling asleep, so that I can get an early start tomorrow. This bed should go much faster than the last one, as it’s nowhere near as weed filled. I want to get at least a few hours in, in the morning. It’s supposed to get a lot hotter than today, in the afternoon. Which makes it a good time for us to do our combined birthday/father’s day pizza night, courtesy of my older daughter.

Based on the current forecasts, we’re supposed to get hotter every day until Monday (it’s Wednesday, today), but not get any rain until Saturday evening. After Monday, it will cool down a little, with no other rain in the 10 day forecast.

We shall see.

We’re in the final stretch to get things in the ground! For transplants, it’s just those last few San Marzano tomatoes, the yellow onions and a few shallots, and the Orange Butterfly Flower. Those have to go somewhere where they can be treated as a perennial, and I’m not sure where that will be just yet!

For all the garden plans we made over the winter, we’re basically flying by the seat of our pants right now.

The Re-Farmer

One of the mamas

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Before I get into the progress for today, here is some cuteness for you to enjoy!

Seeing three of four siblings with their mama is adorable enough. Seeing mama giving kisses to a kitten that showed up just yesterday just melts my heart!

The only down side is, the mother seemed to be leading the kittens (including the grey one!) away from the house.

The kittens, however, seem to really like the sun room and keep going back there on their own, to nap or have a bit of food.

Still, today I’ve only seen two kittens from the grey litter. I think the mama might be Junk Pile, but I’m not sure.

As I was finishing up for the day outside, I spotted Broccoli’s two, playing by the garden shed. They run away and hide when I come near, with is sad. I’d hoped handling them when they were smaller would have made them less anxious. At their size, if I do manage to pick them up, I’m taking them to the sun room, too. They are large enough and old enough that they might just leave and go back to the shed on their own. Or they might decide soft beds and easy access to food, plus other kittens to play with, is much preferable to the shed!

While giving the outside cats a light afternoon feeding, several mamas were on the cat house roof while I pet the boys. It looks like Caramel has at least three active nips. I could only see two on Adam, but she doesn’t give me much chance to see. Junk Pile also has at least two active nips. Slick (aka: Octomom) also had two that I could see.

We will probably have more kittens showing up by the house over the next few weeks!

The Re-Farmer

Animal adventures

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This afternoon, my daughter came to let me know what she found, when going outside to stop a cat fight.

Kittens! She saw two of them, and showed me a picture she managed to get of one of them, in the shelf shelter.

Of course, I went outside to look.

I spotted one as it dashed between the shelf shelter and a couple of bins next to it. That was the one my daughter got a picture of. Looking in, I could just see a second tiny set of ears and eyes behind it.

I also saw a third kitten dash along the side of the house and under the rain cover over the basement window.

I was able to grab the first ball of fluff. It didn’t fight me off too much, either! I very quickly and carefully put it in the cat cage with the other litter. Their kibble bowl was empty so I got some for them. The new kitten started eating almost immediately!

Then I went to get the other kitten. It was quite far back, and I couldn’t reach it. There was a tarp on one of the bins, so I lifted it out of the way…

… and found another kitten!

I was able to quickly grab that one, and put it with its sibling.

After little bit of finagling, I was able to get the kitten that was out of reach. It joined its siblings in the cat cage, both of whom were eating.

By this time, my daughter was able to come out and join me. I wasn’t sure of the kitten I found under the tarp was the same one I’d seen run under the basement window rain cover, so my daughter and I went to take a look.

A little face looked back.

I was able to grab it and take it to the sun room, while she looked around for more, just in case!

It was just the four of them.

All of them, enjoying the kibble.

After awhile, they joined the other litter of kittens in a big snuggle pile!

They are still very nervous, of course, and tend to squeeze themselves against the corner walls of the cat cage. They don’t seem to have found how to get in and out of the cage, yet. Either that or they are just really enjoying a soft, warm cat bed! Even when we checked later, and the other kittens were running around and playing in the sun room, the new kittens were staying on the cat bed.

We don’t know who the mother is. The only female cat I’ve seen going to the kittens in the sun room has been the white and grey that is mother to the four white and grey kittens. My daughter wondered if maybe their mother is Slick (aka: Octomom) but I really couldn’t guess.

Whoever the mother is, she can easily find them in the sun room, and the kittens will be able to go in and out themselves, once they figure out where the opening in the cat cage is.

Meanwhile…

As we were all inside, we suddenly heard a most unusual noise – at least for here.

The loud barking of a dog!

This sent me running outside, because the last time a strange dog showed up here, we found it in the sun room, after it had already killed one of our cats.

I have no idea what breed this dog is, but it was incredibly friendly! The cats aren’t used to dogs, though, and there wasn’t a single cat in sight, anywhere.

From the smell of it, he scared off a skunk, too!

I hoped he had enough training to obey “go home”, but nope. He kept running around and coming back for pets, and running around. After a while, my daughter came out and we led him to the gate, hoping someone was looking for him. We did see several cars go by, but none stopped.

We even tried walking on the road in different directions, trying to figure out the most likely direction the dog would have come from. The problem is aside from the younger of my brothers, who lives a quarter mile up the road, everyone else is at least a mile away!

I took some photos and tried posting them on Facebook, as well as directly Messaging a few of our neighbours. Unfortunately, I had next to no signal. We tried walking down the road in different directions, and I found a few pockets with enough signal strength to send text, but not photos. So we headed back to our place and I went into the yard, where I could get Wi-Fi, while my daughter continued down the road. After I got some messages and photos sent, I grabbed the keys to the truck to catch up with my daughter, as it was getting dark by then. My thought was that I could pick her up, and we’d keep driving in the direction she had been walking. The next intersection is quite “populated”, with several occupied houses quite near each other. We figured, it was the most likely place the dog could have come from. What we couldn’t do was keep it at our place, because of the cats. It was just too high energy of a dog, and we couldn’t be sure it was okay with cats, which were slowly coming out of hiding.

So I picked up my daughter, who had to really fight to keep the dog from jumping into the truck with her, and then we drove off, leading it towards the corner with the houses, with the dog following. We then drove around the quarter section to back-track to our place.

We were coming up on the last quarter mile or so when we could see odd lights that looked like they were at our road. It turned out to be lights from the side of a truck that turned towards us and drove very, very slowly.

It was a guy, looking for his dog! He had seen one of my Facebook posts. He’d actually sent me a message, but I hadn’t received it. No signal. We told him which way the dog was headed, and he doubled back, after we gave him our land line number.

We thought for sure that he would have found his dog soon after, but I got a phone call after I started writing this post. It was from a neighbour in one of the houses in that corner we’d hoped the dog belonged to. She had a dog and didn’t know whose it was. She’d heard of a message about a dog I’d posted on Facebook – she’s not on the group I posted in, though, and didn’t see it herself – so she called me, in case this was the dog I was talking about.

I told her I’d met up with the owner, but I didn’t have his number. Instead, I got hers, then went to message him – and found he’d already messaged me! He was letting me know he didn’t see the dog, and would come back to look, tomorrow. It was full dark by then. I told him where the dog was and passed on the number.

They should be reunited by now!

I’m so glad we connected with the owner. We were concerned that the dog had been dumped.

So that was our big adventure today! Finding more kittens, and reuniting a dog with its owner!

The Re-Farmer

Good grief!

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Our forecast had changed to rain starting last night, continuing though today and tonight, no rain during the day tomorrow, but rain again at night.

Well, all of that seemed to just hit us at once, last night!

It started off gentle enough, to I left our remaining transplants out, but let my daughter know they were out there. When she heard the downpour, she ran out to bring them in.

She also found kittens in the sun room again.

All of them.

They were still there, this morning. The mama may have wanted them in the cat house, but they definitely prefer the cat cage in the sun room!

It was looking like I wouldn’t be up to working on that next bed today, last night. I had to get someone else to put the bath chair in the tub so I could take a shower. Then, as I got up from my office chair and walked across the room, I got hit with a Charlie Horse. I ended up needing one of my daughters to assist me for the next while, until I could finally crawl into bed.

In the end, it’s a moot point. There is no way we’re going to be doing much of anything in the yard or garden today.

The paths around the garden beds are all full of water, including around the beds that still need to be shifted. The melons I planted last night seem to have handled the battering just fine, as did everything else, which I am most thankful for. In fact, of the stuff that got planted earlier, just about everything is growing really well. The only exception is the struggling spinach, really, and that is a different issue completely. Spinach has been really hit or miss for us. Either it does really great, or not at all.

So we shift our goals for today.

With Father’s Day and my younger daughter’s birthday being in the same month, my older daughter is planning to treat us to a pizza night, later this week. We were also going to do an extra trip ahead of that, as she has other things she wants to get (like heat and eats for those hot days when no one is up to cooking), and I’m planning to get a cake of some kind. Probably a cheese cake, as that’s the birthday girls’ favourite. 😊

So we will be doing that trip, today. We’ll be heading to the nearer city, so I’ll be taking advantage of that to combine errands.

We are supposed to get a bit more rain this evening, then on rain for three days, then rain all day on Saturday. Hopefully, those three days will be enough for us to get more done in the garden, and get those tomatoes and Zucca melon transplanted!

Since moving our here, we’ve had drought, heat waves, flooding, and now spring so wet, we’ve now got more water in the yard than we did the spring we flooded! At least roads are being washed out.

As far as I know, anyhow!

Well, it is what it is. We’ll just have to deal with things as they come. What else can we do?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: bed done and melons in – almost

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Well, the low raised bed from hell is finally done. At least as done as can be, for right now.

And it’s planted in!

I don’t know why Instagram now cuts the sides off my photos, even though I select the wide image function.

I got about half way through the bed, sifting the soil, when I stopped for a break that ended up taking longer than I intended. Which is okay. It gave the soil I needed to move time to dry out a bit. Sifting damp soil is a lot harder and heavier. I’m amazed my home made soil sifter is still surviving the abuse!

By the time I was done fighting with my garden tour video and getting it uploaded, it was quite a bit later before I could get back at it. Thankfully, today has been cooler, with a pleasant breeze. I was greatly appreciating that!

The last bit of soil that needed to be worked on was the worst. This was the section full of creeping Charlie, and I was digging up and tossing large clumps of it. In the end, by the time I finished sifting the last of the soil from the old bed location, there wasn’t enough left to finish the new bed location. I ended up “stealing” soil from the last bed that will be worked on.

By then, it started to rain, but it was just a gentle shower, so I kept at it. Once the bed was done, I brought over the melons. I’d already gone through them and sorted them by type. I kept the Zucca melons aside, since they get huge. I’m thinking of using the kiddie pool as a raised bed, just for them, and setting it somewhere where they can spread.

There were a total of 16 melons to transplant, and I decided to dedicate the entire bed to them. I don’t know that we’ll be able to trellis them, since they will need stronger trellises than what we’re setting up for the beans and peas. If we end up not being able to add trellises, they should have room to spread on the ground and into the paths, if need be.

So this bed now has two rows of eight melons in it. As with the other squash and melons, I planted them slightly below grade and made hills of soil around them, so water would flow towards the plants rather than run down the sides of the bed and take the soil with it. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time that was done, so they got a good watering, too.

The bed still needs a mulch added to it, but it’s getting late, so that will be done tomorrow, when I will also started working on the next bed. That one needs to be shifted a lot, too, but it’s not as weedy and isn’t infested with creeping Charlie like this one was, so it should go somewhat faster. The hard part will be breaking the sod in the new location – and I don’t have anymore carboard that can be put over it, before shifting the soil on top.

This bed is where the last of the San Marzano tomatoes will finally be planted. There aren’t a lot of those left to transplant, so there will be room for other things.

Hmm… I should probably set up the kiddie pool and fill it with soil for the Zucca melons, first. They need to be transplanted more urgently than the tomatoes. That means sifting several loads of soil from the pile in the outer yard.

Once the transplants are in, I hope to be able to do some direct sowing, still. It’s getting really late for that. Our first frost date is September 10, so we’ve basically got July and August for things to grow, since if I plant things within the next 7-10 days, they will take the rest of June just to germinate.

What we don’t have a lot of is stuff that can be harvested throughout the summer. I’ve got three types of beans planted, and the very first Seychelle bean was sprouting this morning. The sugar snap peas are going to be awhile before there’s anything to harvest from them. The spinach is doing so poorly, I’m thinking of taking them out completely, and planting some chard or something, instead. I think it’s getting too late to plant more carrots, but I’ll check the information on my packages to be sure.

What I will likely do is direct sow more summer squash, since right now we just have some in pots. They haven’t germinated yet. Since summer squash gets harvested while still quite small, planting them in late June should be okay. As long as I can keep the slugs away! I haven’t actually seen slugs yet, so hopefully, we won’t have a bag year of them, like we did last year.

We shall see how things work out! Hopefully, we’ll even get weather that will allow us to harvest more dead spruces and build the frames around these beds, and maybe even continue the trellis beds, by fall.

Much work to be done.

It’s a good thing I love this kind of work! Even if I do have to pain killer up for it.

Speaking of which… time to do that, before this broken old body starts to seize up! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer