Well, the predicted thunderstorms did hit us last night! What a light show, too. Once I started seeing the lightning out my window, I went into the sun room to tie off the doors, then drop a bit of kibble around the room to attract the cats indoors. We got quite a deluge.

Some time later, I started hearing someone going through the old kitchen doors, which was rather odd for the time of morning, so I went to see what was going on. It turned out that one of my daughters heard what sounded like a kitten in distress through the bathroom window and went to check.

There were plenty of cats and kittens, but the creature in distress turned out to be a young racoon. It had jammed itself on top of the table and miter saws, which are stored between the counter shelf and the door, under a built in shelf between a pair of windows. There’s not a lot of room, there!

Thinking it might be stuck, a daughter managed to move the table saw away from the wall a bit. They also untied the doors and opened them wide. There were so many cats and kittens milling about in the doorway, the raccoon would have had a hard time getting through the tied off doors. Even when they were open, there was a lot of cat traffic. I watched on the critter cam for a while, then finally got up and put out some kibble, both inside and out, to lure the cats away from the doorway. The raccoon squished itself as small as it could, while watching me and giving the odd warning growl.

I monitored the critter cam for a while, but the raccoon was out of frame, so I couldn’t tell what it was doing. It was gone by morning, though, so that’s good.

While today is at least a little bit cooler than yesterday, we’re at 77% humidity, making our 24C/75F feel quite unpleasant, even though the humidex is only at 26C/78F. As I was coming back from the post office this afternoon, and got out of the truck to close the gate, I was surprised by the sudden fog.

Then I realized the fog was on my glasses, which were cold from being in the truck’s AC. 😄😄

As for my trip to the post office, I got a new toy!

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Yes, that’s a cat’s tail under the box.

We picked up a grass whip. I’ve seen them in use in one of the YouTube channels I follow, and am quite excited to try it out.

I had plenty of attention as I attached the blade to the bottom of the handle, then used the thread glue before screwing on the top of the handle.

Then I took the blade off and put it back on again, facing the right way… 😄😄

The thread glue needs 24 hours to cure. After that, I can test it out!

This thing is very reasonably priced and has good reviews, and will be able to clear areas that are too much for our weed trimmer or lawn mower – and be much faster than working by hand or using loppers! It should even cut through small trees, like the poplars that keep trying to take over, everywhere. I should be able to clear a path to the barn with this. Just a path will be enough to allow us to mow – assuming it gets dry enough. More importantly, it can be used to clear in the main garden area, when it’s time to continue building more raised beds.

Which, given the heat and humidity and rain we’ve been having, is going to be a slow job!

It will also allow us to clear the underbrush to access the dead spruces we need to cut down, much more easily.

I’m really looking forward to testing it out! Twenty four hours from now, however, we won’t have reached the hottest part of the day, yet; that’s supposed to happen around 6pm. Which means I probably won’t test it out until the next morning. The lowest temperature of the night is actually supposed to be at 6am or so. We’ll have, at best, a 2 hour window of pleasant coolness before it starts getting hot again.

At least with this thing, it shouldn’t matter if everything is wet with dew or rain!

The Re-Farmer