Month: July 2024

Dealing with heat, and surprise losses

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It’s not even 8:30am as I start this, and I’ve already spent a couple of hours outside. It was already 19C/66F, and I don’t think we got any cooler than that overnight. Right now, we’re at 23C/73F, but at least the wind is making it feel a bit cooler.

We’re still expected to reach 29C/84F as a high today, so I wanted to make sure the garden got a watering before the heat hit. Most of what we’re growing this year is stuff that needs a lot of water to begin with, but they also like heat, so this should work out, I think.

After I was doing the last beds in the south yard and dragging the hose back to the house, I spotted something dark in the grass.

It was stillborn kitten, completely encased in its amniotic sac. I was surprised to find it, since I’d gone past there with the hose earlier. It wasn’t until I collected it to bury it that I realized how wet it still was. This happened while I was out watering!

After I buried it, I started looking around in case there were anymore. I found one just around the corner of the house.

This one was not in its amniotic sac.

Then it moved.

There was no mother in sight, and it had clearly been left there, likely before the first one I found was stillborn.

Sadly, I had to dispatch it, because there was no way it was going to survive.

I’d messaged a daughter about it and she came out to join me. We walked around the house looking, in case there were more, but we found none.

I think this might be the mother.

This is one of the more feral cats from last year’s late litter of eight kittens. That would make her just over a year old. While I’ve been able to sneak pets now and then, as soon as she realizes I’m touching her, she runs off in a panic. Otherwise, she does stay close to the house in general.

I tried to see and she did look a bit damp under her tail, but not enough that I could be sure – she could just as easily have gotten wet sitting in the damp grass. And she still looks rather round. Which means either it wasn’t her, or it was and… there’s more in there? Good Lord, I hope not.

While my daughter and I were walking around, she updated me with her own situation. She is absolutely stressed out and exhausted. Her computer has been dying for a while, and she’s picked out a replacement system at Memory Express that meets her needs. Unfortunately, that’s when she discovered her credit card expired last year – and they never sent her a replacement. She used it to buy her current computer, at least 10 years ago. The card was paid off and she wasn’t using it, and never noticed that it was expired until now. So that was going to delay her purchase.

The problem is, in this heat, her computer is not wanting to boot up anymore. She had a couple of completed commissions that need to be sent out, plus she needed to buy more online storage to use as a backup. She has the free storage available, but it’s not enough. She managed to get the computer working long enough to send out the completed commissions, but her computer crashed again while she was in the process of paying for the online storage.

So she’s been spending most of the night with her computer covered in ice packs wrapped in towels, fighting with it. She got the commissions sent out and finally got to the point where she is backing up the one essential folder she needs to protect, to start with. Once that started uploading, she couldn’t use her computer anymore. It’s still backing up as I write this. She has tried going to bed earlier, so as not to be hovering over it, but she keeps getting up to check it. With good reason, considering how often her computer has been crashing lately.

We talked about finding a way to set her up in the living room, where the air conditioner is, but she doesn’t think she needs to. Part of the problem with her computer (besides its age) is the physical case. It just can’t cool itself down enough. Newer desktops, like the one I had to get, have much better cooling systems, and the boxes allow for more air circulation.

She noticed a selling feature on the desktops she’s been looking at often includes their improved cooling systems!

Meanwhile, she’s been transferring funds from her PayPal, which can take several business days to process. If worse comes to worse, she’ll pay us to get it for her. Chances are she won’t be able to purchase her replacement computer until the middle of next week. Worst case scenario, it will have to wait until next month. Most of her clients are repeat customers, so it’s unlikely she will lose any commissions in progress, but it will certainly delay things.

Meanwhile, she’s stressed to the max.

It’ll work out. It’s just that in between stage that is making things difficult!

This will make the third desktop in our household that’s being replaced, and we’re still paying off my husband’s.

Ouch.

At least she can claim hers as a business expense!

So that was what I got updated on while we were walking around the house. Thankfully, we did not find more remains. When I head out later in the day, I’ll have to look again, just in case.

What a year this has been.

And it’s not even the end of July, yet!

The Re-Farmer

[Update: *sigh*  we just found 2 more, scattered about.  Confirmed the mom.  She completely ignored her kittens. 

Damn.]

Off topic: talking fire (video)

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Hearing what’s going on in Jasper right now is pretty mind blowing. It’s almost surreal to see, and brings back memories of Fort Mac.

The weather app on my computer includes fire maps and, when I zoom out, it’s amazing to see just how many fires there are right now. All along the west coast and the west central US states, there are fires, and the line of fire continues through BC and into Alaska. The fires spread across the north through the territories and the northern areas of the prairie provinces, reducing somewhat across northern Ontario, but increasing again in Quebec.

In other words, the boreal forest that covers much of Canada.

Of course, you’re going to hear an awful lot about why fires happen, as happens every year during fire season. This video looks at the data, and makes some very good points.

In another lifetime, before my husband became permanently disabled, he was an IT guy and part of a team contracted with Alberta’s Sustainable Resources department (I don’t even know if it exists anymore). He worked on the software used in forest management, and got to talk to a number of the scientists involved directly, to know what they needed out of their software.

They were very aware of the need for prescribed burns, and continually recommended them. That they weren’t being done was cause for a great deal of frustration.

As is mentioned in the video, it isn’t a matter of if this would happen, but when.

Unfortunately, a lot of forest management practices are not allowed because of ignorance within the powerful environmentalist lobby. In the end, they cause more problems, more damage, and too often, cost lives. Thankfully, not in Jasper. However, this is going to keep happening until the powers that be get serious about reducing the fuel levels. That is going to mean more prescribed burns, but also allowing more logging. These are incredibly important to maintaining a health forest, but also to reduce the risks of forest fires.

Where we live, we are in a transition zone between boreal forest and open prairie. It’s open though that we are more likely to be threatened by wildfires rather than forest fires, but have just enough pine trees to make forest fires a risk, too. We have a spruce grove right in our yard, and spruces are basically big resin filled torches. Clearing out the dead trees and underbrush around us it not just about aesthetics. It’s a matter of safety. Wanting to have grazing animals for the areas we can’t mow is another part of that. While we have had issues with flooding in the past, and excess rain this spring, drought is the more normal state of things.

Something we keep in mind as we work on clearing up and improving the section of the property we are responsible for.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: morning in the garden and NOOOOooooo!!!! *sniff*

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I headed out early this morning, while it was still relatively cool, to do the watering and make use of the grass clippings that had been collected and spread out on the black tarp.

I was getting near the end of watering in the main garden area, about to move on to the strawberry bed, when I realized…

I wasn’t seeing any strawberry plants.

At all.

Noooooooo!!

Yup. A deer got to them!

I have to admit, I was complacent. I’d seen a deer around the garden area a few times, but it never went to any of the beds and stayed in the tall grass. We’ve got spinners and flashy things and other distractions all over. It seemed they were making a difference…

Now, this.

Obviously, it’s late in the game, but I put a net around the bed so it won’t happen again. The plants will recover, and the runners are still there and rooting themselves. The main thing with the netting is to be able to lift it, as needed, to tend the bed. It’s held down with ground staples in the corners

*sigh*

The next time I can get to a Dollarama, I will see if I can pick up more of those green, plastic coated support posts. They are very handy!

The netting was put up last of all, though. Before that, as soon as the watering was done, I started filling the wheelbarrow with grass clippings and mulching things.

First I laid a pretty thick layer around the edges of the tomato and onion bed. Then I did the onion, shallot and summer squash bed. Setting handfuls of grass clippings between every onion took a while!

These two beds took up most of the grass clippings, but there was maybe half a wheelbarrow left, so I mulched around the onions going to seed, and around some melons at the end of the bed where the bush beans are trying to recover.

After that, I just had to get some photos of the huge vines we’ve got now!

The pumpkins are blooming enthusiastically, and I even hand pollinated a couple more. There’s one pretty large pumpkin developing, plus a few smaller ones. I got a picture of just the largest one.

There are lots of drum gourd flowers, but no female flowers, yet.

The winter squash that are developing right now are getting so big, so fast! So far, the only one I can identify – I think – is what is likely a Turk’s Turban squash. It will probably be a while before we can identify the others – two of which I think are the same variety. I was able to hand pollinate a couple of winter squash, too.

I also got some photos of the Forme de Coure tomatoes.

I think having the sump pump hose draining at one end of the bed is making a difference. A lot of the water does end up flowing down one of the paths, but the bed itself is benefiting from being watered indirectly like this. The tomato plants are lush and bushy, and the tomatoes seem to be growing much faster than other varieties.

It was about 17C/63F when I headed out to water the garden beds, at about 6:30-7am. It’s now coming up on 11, and we are at 24C/75F with the humidex putting us at 27C/81F. We are expected to reach a high of 29C/84F, with highs of around 30C/86F starting tomorrow and staying at or near that range into August.

Which means I’ll be out watering the garden in the cool of the morning pretty regularly.

Most of the prairies are under heat warnings and/or air quality warnings. We’ve got an increase in wildfires up north, but really, we’re doing all right, all things considered. Alberta is being hit hard, and Jasper had to be evacuated and seems to have mostly burned down! Thank God, there don’t appear to be any injuries or loss of life. The most recent article I can find, as of this writing, is here. (link will open in a new tab)

And that is why having a “bug out bag” is a good idea! As well as having emergency supplies in your vehicle, if you have one.

So we will do what we can with our own heat, and be thankful that it’s all we have to deal with!

The Re-Farmer

Morning babies

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Adam is such a good mama!

Button is in there, with her own babies.

This picture of domestic bliss was interrupted when suddenly she, and two other mamas, drove off Rolando Moon! Rolando doesn’t like the babies, nor any of the other cats, really, and I guess they see her as a threat.

Just a little bit longer, and Button will be off to his forever home!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: grass clippings are gold!

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I’m going to be feeling this tomorrow, but I got what I wanted to do, done – and then some!

I just finished mowing the area of the outer yard that I’d been able to mow previously. I had considered mowing until I finished a tank of gas at first. Since this area had already been done before, even with the constant stopping to empty the bag, that would have meant expanding the area I was able to get done last time. In the end, though, I just filled one last wagon load and stopped. I finished at about 3:30 or so, and we’re at 25C/77F, with the humidex at 28C/82F, and we’re not even at the hottest part of the day, yet.

I spread out only a couple of wagon loads on the black tarp I’ve got over the previous year’s squash patch. The rest, I used right away.

I did the eggplant and hot pepper bed first, because it was closer. These have not been doing well, and I’m hoping the extra layer of mulch, on top of the paper and cardboard mulch, will help. That took most of a wagon load, and what was left went into the compost ring next to the eggplant and peppers bed.

Next I did the bed that needed it the most: the bell peppers and onions in the high raised bed. They are pretty crowded in places, so it was a bit more difficult to keep the mulch away from the stems and bulbs, but I was still able to get a good layer down. There was just enough left in the wagon to mulch the surviving bush beans, which I didn’t bother taking a photo of.

The last wagon load was used to mulch the chocolate cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence. I also added some supports to the tomatoes that didn’t already have cages around them; I only got two cages, as these are dollar store cages and I wanted to test them out before getting more. The Goldy yellow zucchini by the gate got a bit more mulch, too.

There was just enough left in the wagon to lay a deep mulch down at other chain link fence bed, by the vehicle gate. This is where there are just two Purple Caribe potatoes growing, and where I’ve started kohlrabi. Since everything is so sparce at that end, there is a ridiculous amount of weeds. So the two potato plants are now mulched, as is each side of the tiny kohlrabi seedlings, and the empty space in between.

After putting everything away, I also rolled up the mosquito netting still attached to the chain link fence, and just left the rolls fastened at the top of the fence sections.

By then, the heat and humidity was really starting to get to me, and I was more than happy to finally get inside!

Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter, so I want to make use of the clippings I’ve laid out on the black tarp to finish mulching around the San Marzano tomato and onion bed, and then lay more mulch down around the onions, shallots and summer squash. If there’s any left over, I’ll see if I can mulch the rest of the bed with the melons, bush beans and onions going to seed. That will be done early in the morning, before things start getting hot. Depending on how I find the soil, I might do another watering.

Grass clippings are gold!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: hot peppers and first corn silks!

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We’re looking at another hot day today, so I made sure to give the garden a good watering while it was still cool.

We have a couple of hot peppers developing, just on one plant so far. I also spotted our first corn silks this morning!

I found some new female winter squash and a pumpkin blossoming and hand pollinated them. Today was the first time I found a female squash blossom in the squash bed with the corn, which got transplanted after the ones with the peas and beans. The area around the pumpkins and winter squash is getting hard to walk through to water, the vines are getting so big! I need to find a way to set up supports for the hose above ground at each bed, so it doesn’t get dragged on top of the vines. I really should have set up the soaker and sprinkler hoses around the beds before they got so big.

Quite a few things that were looking wimpy and behind are starting to perk up, too, like the last onion transplants and the melon bed. Most of the tomatoes are getting big and bushy. I have not been on top of the pruning this year and, at this point, don’t really intend to do much of that. I’ll take off some of the lower leaves, but the stalks that grow out of the leaf “elbows” just got away with me. I figured I may as well leave them, since they will produce fruit. The black cherry tomatoes are vining so tall, the double lilac bush with branches above them is actually helping to support them! That group will need extra support around them, though.

The tomatoes growing in the concrete blocks, both at the chain link fence and the retaining wall, are not getting bushy, though. They are starting to produce tomatoes, but the plants themselves are not as strong and bushy as the others.

I’m going to have to rethink what we grow in those blocks. Perennials like the mint and chives are doing great. We did successfully grow cucamelons in the retaining wall blocks, though their vines remained spindly. They did not do well at the chain link fence. Onions and shallots don’t seem to do well in them, either, which is odd considering how well the chives are doing.

So it looks like we should be looking at saving the blocks for things like perennial herbs. The old kitchen garden is meant to eventually be a combination herd garden and kitchen garden, for both annuals and perennials. Basically, mostly things that we’d want to harvest as needed throughout the summer. I want to see if we can grow things like rosemary (which would be an annual, in our short growing season), sage or savory, which we tend to use quite a lot. We know now that chamomile will self seed nicely. We’re not using the thyme we have right now, as we don’t have a lot of it, and I want to see if it will either self seed or survive the winter, if it gets mulched well enough. In the fall, I want to find someplace to transplant those “wild” strawberries out of the wattle weave bed to where we can just let them do their thing.

Ah, the fun thing about gardening. I’m always thinking years in advance!

I rather enjoy that.

The Re-Farmer

Testing the grass whip

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The thread lock on our new grass whip has had its 24 hours to set, and we had a lovely cool morning to test it out in. We actually dropped to 14C/57F by this morning! It was awesome!

I was originally going to test it by starting a path to the barn through the tall grass, but changed my mine. We have a branch pile started that needs to be burned, and there were some large burdocks growing around it. So I decided to make a path to the branch pile and start taking out the burdock before their burrs develop and start causing problems.

I started off just swinging it back and forth, double handed, like a golf club. Which did okay at the edge, but the further in, I had to resort to chopping with it in one direction, then the other.

I discovered a potential problem, but not the one I was warned about.

The warning was that using it was pretty rough on the hands, until you get used to it. Which I would expect, really. It wasn’t my hands that were the problem, though.

It was my messed up left elbow.

When cutting in just one direction, I could use my right hand and chop away at the tall grass – which was incredibly wet at the bottom – well enough, for it being my non-dominant hand. When I switched to my left, however, my elbow did not like it at all. I could only manage a few swings before I had to switch hands again.

Obviously, this is not a problem of the tool, but a warning for anyone else with joint issues of any kind.

The grass I was chopping through was really tall and, between how wet it was and how some of it was already pushed flat to the ground, it took some doing to cut it. I just wanted a path, though, not a clear area, so that wasn’t a problem.

The burdock was the real test. Did the whip have trouble cutting through it?

Absolutely it did. Of course! This is burdock, after all!

What I found worked best was to first use the whip vertically, to cut away the leaf stems at the stalk. It cut through that quite easily. It could also cut through the higher, more tender, portions of the stalks easily, too.

The stalks closer to the ground, though, are very woody and more than an inch thick. Those required a fair bit of hacking! Loppers would have been easier, and in the future, I’ll make sure to have them handy for that point of the clearing, but the whip did do the job eventually.

It also made short work of the other weeds that were growing with the burdock.

The larger burdock pieces got set aside, on top of the branch pile – still barely visible through the tall grass! – to be burned with the branches.

As for now, it’s just past noon and we’re at 23C/73F, with the humidex at 27C/81F. The predicted high for the day is 26C/79F, which we’re supposed to reach at around 4pm, and stay that hot through to about 8pm. It’s still damp out there, but I’m thinking of getting the push mower out, with the bag attached. We were never able to rake up the grass clippings from before, either because of the weather or other things going on. With the grass needing to be cut again, but still a reasonable height, I can use the mower to pick up the old clippings at the same time, and the wagon to haul them to the main garden area. I’ve got the black landscape cloth/tarp/whatever it is that we salvaged from around the old wood pile, years ago, laid out over where we had a squash patch last year. I want to spread the clippings out on that to dry out in the sun a bit, before using it as mulch. We may not be getting rain for a while, but with our high humidity, the ground stays wet for hours.

Another reason to mow the lawn before it gets too tall, even if it’s still wet! The taller it gets, the more it will clog up around the blade.

As for the grass whip, it was just a small test, but so far, I’m happy with it. It’ll do the jobs I got it for, and it seems it will do it well.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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I have to admit, going outside in the mornings has gotten a bit nerve racking. My daughters fed the outside cats early this morning, and it’s much the same for them, now, too. We keep looking around, wondering what we fill find.

Happily, this morning, all we found were active, playful – or napping! – kitties.

Finding Rolando Moon chilling in the wheelbarrow was quite funny!

While I was watering the garden this morning, ahead of the upcoming heat, I was watching the cats and noticed that only one kitten was with Brussel. Which sort of confirms to me that three of the recent losses were from her litter. The one remaining kitten, at least, looked very strong and healthy.

As for the new litter that was brought to the junk pile, I am thinking there is two kittens in the litter, but that I’m sometimes seeing other white and greys playing with them. I saw the two of them lying in the open together, with Mama nearby, and they seem a bit older than I originally thought, too. I was entertaining the possibility that Button was part of this litter and had been brought over ahead of the others or something, but I still think that’s unlikely. Possible, but unlikely.

One of the things we are talking about doing is building a larger, outdoor cat cage. Something like a catio, but self contained and moveable. When we get to the point of trapping females to get them spayed, we will need somewhere to isolate them for 2 weeks. We can’t use the sun room for that anymore; I don’t think we can fully close the doors, due to shifting. Mostly the outer door. I think the inside door can still close.

I was talking to the Cat Lady about it and asking if her husband had any construction sites in the area, and the possibility of scavenging building materials that would otherwise be doing to the landfill. He’s an engineer and doesn’t typically deal with that side of his contracts, but there aren’t any builds in our area, anyhow right now. She promised to bring it up with him, and maybe he can throw some castoffs into his truck when visiting a work site. Most of the building projects we have in mind are pretty small, so we could manage with castoffs. It would be a win-win, since it would mean at least a little bit less going to the dump.

They are in the process of having a catio being custom built at their new house – something to make it easier to keep the cats up for adoption separate from their house cats. They have a catio from their previous house that doesn’t work where they are now. They will try to get it to us. That would make things a lot easier, I think. Depending on what it’s like, we might just need to do some modifications. If that doesn’t work out, we can use the parts and pieces for something that suits our space.

We are such sucks for the cats.

Anything we can do to make it easier to catch and fix the outside cats will be a huge help, too.

The Re-Farmer

Good news, sad news

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I’ll start with the good news!

Yesterday, as I was heading back inside through the sun room, I spotted Button and his blue, blue eyes. I’ve been trying to capture just how blue they are and, this time, the light was hitting them just right. The camera was even able to capture the colour very well, too!

Freman baby!

I was able to get a few pictures and even a short video. When I had the chance, I shared them with the Cat Lady (and others! 😁), just so she could see the colour.

Soon after, she was asking me questions about Button, and telling me she was going to share the photos around. She knew some people that had lost their elderly cats and was hoping they’d be willing to adopt a kitten.

Well, I don’t know about the ones that lost elderly cats, but she did find someone that was very interested!

Best of all, this person is a vet!

For all his tiny size and blue eyes, we know Button is likely at least five weeks old, based on things like how much he’s eating solid food, compared to how often he nurses on the creche mothers. The vet knows that he is a foundling, and that we know little else about him. We also just assume he has ear mites.

The Cat Lady will pick him up, most likely on the weekend when they are in the area again. He’ll be with her for about a week before going to the vet. The vet is even taking on the expenses that the rescue would normally take on before a cat is adopted out.

Now, we’ve had way too many of these things fall through in the past couple of years, so I’m not holding my breath on this, but as it stands now, Button’s gorgeous blue eyes seems to have found him a forever home!

Now for the sad news.

The girls had fed the cats outside quite early in the morning, so when I went out to do my rounds, I topped up the kibble a bit, then did my usual routine.

There is one black and white kitten – one of the Squashes (kittens that like to sit in the pots with my summer squash) – that we’ve been keeping our eye on. He (she?) did not seem overtly sick, but was definitely not thriving. Yesterday, I honestly thought he was dying, like the other black and white Squash kitten I’d found a few days ago. However, when I picked him up, he perked up, got active, wanted down, and started behaving normally.

I was keeping an eye out for him while I was outside and, by the time I was ready to head in, I had not seen him anywhere. This kitten was one that always stayed close to the house, with several favourite places to hang out, and he was in none of them.

*sigh*

So I started looking for him, knowing I was likely looking for a body. But where could he be? If anything, this is one kitten I would have expected to find out in the open, like some of the other kittens we’d found passed on.

Once all the obvious places where checked, I started looking for the less obvious places he might have gone into.

Which is when I saw the tail, peaking out from under the back of the kibble house.

An orange tail.

This year, we’ve had one orange fluffy kitten, and one orange and white kitten. The orange and white kitten was in the sun room, enjoying himself in the cat cage.

Which is when I realized, I hadn’t seen the orange fluffy one in a while.

I will not go into detail but, let’s just say, the orange kitten had been under there for quite some time. It took some creative effort to get him out and bury the remains under a rose bush.

I made sure to hose down under the kibble house after. There is a sheet of rigid insulation on the ground that fits perfectly under the floor of the kibble house, and a lot of the cats and kittens will hang out under there, or hide under there if they feel threatened. The back wall of the kibble house is just a few inches above ground; too low for an adult cat to squeeze under. The front is more open, with just the 2×4 supporting the floor of the kibble house for them to squeeze under. It’s hard to see anything under the kibble house without basically getting down on the ground. When I retrieved the remains of the orange kitten, I did make sure there were no other remains.

Which means I still had the black and white kitten to find.

With the condition of the one kitten, I really wanted to make sure the black and white wasn’t in the sun room for us to find by the smell or something. After looking all over, I found myself eyeballing the counter shelf. The kittens like to hide under it, and go between it and the window.

Then one of the other cats moved out from under the table saw, and I could see a little black.. something.

It turned out to be a barely visible tail tip.

*sigh*

This one got buried under the honeysuckle.

So that’s two more gone, and we don’t know why. The Cat Lady says it’s most likely lung issues. I suspect she’s seen a lot more of this than we have!

But still, this is 5 kittens I’ve buried in less than a week, and only one of them looked like it was having issues. I can’t say for sure about the orange one, since it ran from us all the time, but the other two had seemed hale and hardy, until they weren’t.

It just occurred to me; this black and white and the orange kitten were both Brussel’s babies. That’s at least two out of her litter of four she has lost. Possibly three, as the other black and white might have been hers, too.

I just went looking through my photos. There is one of her kittens that has a distinctive black splotch over its nose, and I’ve been seeing that one around the house. Looking at the others in the photo, I am now more convinced that the other three from her litter are now gone.

Wow.

So…

What a start to the day.

At least we have the good news of Button soon to be going to his forever home with a vet!

I’ll take what I can get.

The Re-Farmer

The state of things, and unboxing my new toy!

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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!

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