Month: August 2024

Our 2024 Garden: a little harvest, and a little friend!

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Today turned out very different than I expected, but I’ll cover that in my next post.

My morning routine was pretty much the usual, and I even got a little harvest in.

I have what have become the usual beans – all three kinds – G Star patty pans and Forme de Couer tomatoes, but today I picked the largest of the purple Dragonfly peppers. There are quite a few more, but I’m giving them more time to ripen.

Of course, I also fed the outside cats and, as I was going around the sun room door, I found a little green friend.

This little guy was not much bigger than the top of my thumb! He was above the rain barrel, where I have a board for the diverter to rest on, this rock, and a brick on the other side, to hold it in place.

In yesterday’s sudden, severe storm yesterday morning, the brick actually got knocked right off, and the diverter almost did, too!

Gosh, I love these little tree frogs! I like all the frogs, but these ones are just too adorable!

That was about all that was usual about today, but the update will need its own post, next!

The Re-Farmer

A bit of storm damage, and checking the venturi

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I headed out this afternoon to check on the yards and gardens, to see what damage, if any, the storm caused.

Thankfully, the garden is all fine, and the only damage I found was a broken branch.

A very large branch, mind you!

I almost missed it! It had fallen into the “living fence” my mother had planted, which was holding it up.

Getting it down was a bit risky, though. I had to get right under a hawthorn to be able to pull it out. After I managed to get it far enough I could move further away, I took a look and realized just how close I came to getting my back impaled by many very sharp thorns! Those things are deadly!

You can see more clearly, in the second photo of the slideshow above, just how large the branch turned out to be. I dragged it out closer to the fire pit, where there’s more room to break it down, but left it for now. I don’t know what the humidex put us at, but we were at 30C/86F at the time. As I write this, we’ve cooled down to 28C/82F, and with the humidex putting us at 32C/90F. That little bit of exertion was enough to leave me almost as soaked with sweat as I was when I got caught in the storm!

Before I checked the yard, though, I went to check on the septic expeller. Normally, I’d go through the barn to do this, but my brother’s tractor is in the way! I tried to go around, but there’s just too much junk in the old cow stalls on either side. So I had to make my way through the tall grass – I swear, some of it is as tall as I am! – to the vehicle gate. It has both a chain across it, and the renter’s electric fence wire, to keep the cows out. The cows have been rotated out, though, so the electric fence is off right now.

This is what I found when I pulled the pipe out.

In the first two photos, you can see black part way up the pipe, where it then ends abruptly. Which means that the greywater has been going up into the outer pipe, but only so far. It’s not overflowing.

I brought the pipe to the yard and hosed it off, then ran water through both ends of the pipe.

There is no clog in the pipe at all.

So… what does this tell me?

It could be that the venturi was simply not seated properly at the bottom of the pipe. Rather than going through the venturi and being expelled out the top, the greywater was going into the outer pipe, but then draining into the soil around it fast enough that it never overflowed at the top.

Or there is something wrong at the bottom of the pipe that prevents a proper seal once the venture is set in the bottom.

I’ve sent the images to my brother, in hopes he has a better idea. He would remember the actual installation of all this, and probably helped do it. I was just too young. All I remember is the trench dug from the well towards the barn. I don’t even remember the pipes being laid down in the trench.

My hope is that it’s just the pipe wasn’t seated properly when I cleaned up around there, back in early July. I’d taken the pipe out to check it, but I was sure I’d set it back in properly. You can actually feel when it pushes into place.

I’m leaving it out for now and will take it back tomorrow, and see what I can see inside the outer pipe. With the inner pipe removed, the outer pipe should fill up faster when the pump runs, and actually overflow. If it does, I should see signs of that.

It would be really awesome if all it is, is the pipe not set properly! If that’s at, and water is flowing through the expeller properly again, that means we don’t need to call anyone and possibly need to get it excavated!

I’m just glad we are finding this problem now, and not in the winter!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first black cherries

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While checking around the yard and garden beds for storm damage, I noticed a whole lot of the black cherry tomatoes were looking dark, so I picked a few.

I honestly don’t know if how ripe they are, but these are indeterminate tomatoes, and with so many of them on the clusters looking like this, I thought some of them had to be ripe. I’ve asked my family to let me know after they’ve tried them!

This image is from the T&T Seeds website, where I bought them from, and it is supposed to be what they look like when ripe. Not quite there, I guess! I only picked the four, though. There’s almost a dozen that looked the same as the ones I picked, so we’ll see over the next day or two, if they get dark like in the company’s photo or not.

It should be interesting to see just how many we get of these! We have only 6 plants, but they have grown so incredibly tall, up into the lilac branches about. High enough that if things start ripening near the top of the vines before frost hits, I’d need a stool or something to be able to harvest them!

The Re-Farmer

I didn’t expect this … again

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I forgot to mention something in my last post!

Since I got caught in the rain while topping up the cat kibble outside, I was soon back in the old kitchen, replacing the container onto the kibble bin.

Which is when I started hearing something I should NOT have been hearing!

There was water leaking from the wood stove chimney!

This had happened before, earlier this year, but that was just a drip. Nothing like what’s in the video!

Last time, I let my brother know and someone from the roofing company came out to check it out. He found the roofers hadn’t sealed around the chimney very well, so he applied tar, not just where he found a leak could be getting in, but all around the base of the chimney, at the shingles, and even up the sides, along the seams of the chimney pipe. He even check the chimney cap, to make sure no more leaking.

Yet, here we are!

If you have the sound on, on the video, you can hear the drumming sound from the drips hitting the spare litter pan I set to catch the drips.

When I head outside next, I’ll take a look at the chimney (safely from the ground!) and see if there is any obvious damage. With the sudden and severe winds we got, that wouldn’t surprise me. If there isn’t any obvious damage, someone’s going to have to climb back up there with tar and try and find where the leak got in.

I’m not sure the roofer’s warranty would cover that again!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a harvest before the storm!

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I was in a world of hurt this morning, after all the stuff done yesterday. The girls took care of feeding the outside cats. We gave eye baby her medication and a modified bottle feed last night, but then she went back outside. She’s getting too active to keep her in a cat carrier all night. Since we can’t wash her eye anymore – it’s not leaking, but is still insanely swollen – and no longer have eye drops, we didn’t take her in this morning. She seems to prefer kibble, anyhow. We’ll bring her in for her antibiotics in the evening, then let her back out again.

I tried to get more sleep, but got messages from my brother and couldn’t fall asleep after that. I’ll get to that part, later.

It was late morning before I got outside to check on the garden and see what could be harvested. We were supposed to get storms last night, but only got a brief rain. We were now being told to expect thunderstorms in the late morning, but very briefly. While I was in the garden, I could hear thunder in the distance.

This is what I was able to gather today.

That big G Star patty pan squash grew so much, just overnight! Yesterday, it wasn’t much bigger than the other one!

I finally picked our first yellow zucchini.

Those are all Forme de Couer tomatoes; no others were ready to pick. The beans are mostly the Royal Burgundy bush beans, which I did not pick at all, yesterday, with maybe a half dozen Carminat pole beans.

I do have to share about the enameled tub the harvest is in. It has been hanging on the wall behind the warming shelf of the wood cookstove for I don’t know now many decades. I brought it out and washed it, thinking we might need to use it for sponge baths, if we couldn’t get the septic going again.

I actually remember my mother bathing me in that, when I was a wee one. She had it on the table in the kitchen, close to the stove, with its reservoir of warm water handy. It was probably used for my late brother, too. Which would make it older than I am!

I hadn’t brought a container with me while going through the garden, and just used the bottom of my shirt to carry the produce. As I was transferring them to the tub, I could hear the thunder and figured I would top of the cat kibble outside, but just in the kibble house and sun room, so the cats would be sheltered next to food. I was in the process of putting the kibble out when the storm hit.

Hard.

We went from basically hot and muggy with no wind, to driving rain and winds strong enough for things started to get blown around, and I was half expecting branches to start breaking off! I got completely soaked in seconds!

Once back in the sun room, I made sure to tie off the outer door and partially close the inner door – normally, during the day, both are kept wide open. Cats where running all over the place, trying to find shelter. A number of kittens that normally run away from me ran into the sun room, saw me there, and panicked – but didn’t run back outside into that driving rain!

The storm has already passed, though. The system is continuing to the north east, and it looks like we got it pretty mild, compared to other places.

I’ll still be waiting a while before going back outside!

I need to go check out the expeller for the septic, out by the barn. I remembered that the septic guy had suggested that, if we still had problems, to take the cap and inner pipe of the expeller out completely, and leave it off for about a month. The grey water would build up in the outer pipe and overflow it, eventually, clearing out any collected gunk from inside the pipes that might be clogging the pipe. I was thinking of taking it out and seeing if there was any outflow.

My brother had had the same thought, and messaged me this morning about it. I’d told him about the septic guy suggesting leaving it out for a month, but my brother wasn’t too keen on that idea; that cap is there for a reason. But it might we worthwhile to do it for a few days, at least.

I was going to do that after topping up the cat kibble, thinking I had time before the storm hit.

I was wrong.

😂😂

So I will have to go out there later today, and see what there is to see!

The Re-Farmer

There’s good news, and bad news

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My brother and his wife have come and gone. It took them more than 7 1/2 hours to make what is normally a 1 1/2 drive! I didn’t realize it, but the tractor my brother was driving had no cab, so he was driving in full sun and 30C/86F temperatures, the whole way! They did make at one stop along the way, at a gas station for a break – and to use the facilities!

When they got here, it was past 8, and the light was starting to fade. My brother immediately started using the rotary mower in front of the barn, then went around to another area where they will be storing large equipment. Then they could back the trailer up to the barn for unloading.

Before that, though, my brother and I went over to where the septic expeller is. One quick look and his response was, call so-and-so and get it excavated.

I don’t think this person even does plumbing related stuff anymore, and the only excavating he does that I know of is in cemeteries!

Plus, we have no way to pay for anything like this.

We had to work quickly to unload the trailer as we were losing light. Then the trailer was moved out while my brother stayed in the barn to move things and make room to back in the tractor and rotary mower.

By the time that was done, it was fully dark. They packed up the truck to get ready to go, then my brother and I went into the basement to see what was going on with the pump. I turned the power back on and the pump started running, but nothing was happening (thank God we have the filter and can actually see this!). The filter reservoir had partially drained, though, so I popped it open and primed it again. We turned the pump back on again, and we could see some gurgles, but then those stopped, and nothing flowed.

We kept watching as we talked, when suddenly we could see more gurgles. Then the filter drained. At first, it ran dry, but we kept watching, because there was just a dribble of water coming through the intake, near the top of the filter.

You couldn’t believe how exciting it was to see greywater from our septic tank suddenly start flowing through that filter.

It was working again!

For now.

The main problem remains, at the expeller out by the barn. I’ll go check in the morning, but as long as the grey water isn’t flowing out the expelled, but instead seeping into the ground, we’ve got a major problem on our hands.

While it was running, my brother showed me the emergency back up.

They’ve had to use it before.

Tucked into the rafters was some pipe, with a right angle at one end, and another short length of pipe.

The long end gets attached to the septic pump, in place of the outflow pipe that runs out the basement and to the expeller. He then showed me, hidden between floor joists for my bedroom above, a hole in the wall that’s filled with spray foam insulation. The short section of pipe goes through that hole, to the outside. Once outside, an extension can be added, and the greywater can be sent off somewhere towards the maple grove or the old garden area, depending on how long of an extension we can find.

This would at least give us something we can use if it stops working again, or while the expeller is being serviced. Especially if we can’t get it done right away. They don’t have the funds for this, either.

So, I have some phone calls to make on Monday.

The first will be to find a company that specializes in septic systems – including old ones like ours – to come out and take a look. There is still the possibility that there’s just a block at the bottom of the expeller pipe, and no excavating is needed. I have no idea, but we can get a confirmation and an estimate for the work needed.

Then I think we’ll be calling the scrap company again and see about getting rid of some of those old vehicles appliances, along with the aluminum and batteries we’re already expecting them to pick up. Hopefully, we’ll get enough to pay for the work.

*sigh*

We have had so many things break down or need to be replaced in the past year, but this? This is one of our worst nightmares when it comes to living here. The other is losing our water.

On top of that, this is something we would have to get fixed before winter, because once the deep freeze hits, we’d really be in trouble!

For now, at least, it’s started working again!

The Re-Farmer

Oh, no.

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Oh, this could be bad.

Very bad.

I just got back from checking the septic outflow pipe, out by the barn.

I had gone out there to clean and fix things up, back in July, which you can read about here.

I laid down a piece of scrap metal roofing to divert the outflow away from the pipe, replacing the badly rusted out one that was there before. All I did after the photo was taken was add some dead branches I found to weigh it down, so the wind wouldn’t blow it away.

It looks almost exactly the same, now.

There is no sign that any septic outflow has ever run down it.

There is, however, a saturated area of ground beside it, where those bullrushes are in the photo.

Which might mean that, for the past 6 weeks, our septic has been draining into the ground, not out the pipe.

If that is true, that means the underground pipe will have to be excavated for repair/replacement.

At this point, it’s all on my brother, because this is way beyond any for of work we can pay to have done.

Which means we can’t use our water. At least not allow water to drain. I guess we can set the honey pot up again, but we’ll probably have to start doing things like sponge bath in the tub, using a bucket or bin, so we can toss the used water outside. We’ll have to start doing dishes in a bin, too.

This is not good.

Good grief, this place is a money pit.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: potato harvest, and here we go again??

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Okay, first the pleasant stuff.

My brother and his wife are still on their way here. My brother had estimated the tractor could average 20km/h. Now that they’ve been on the road for a while, my SIL thinks it’s more like 12km/h

It’s going to be a while for them to get here, still!

Before I got the messages about this, I’d gone outside to open the gate and get things done out there, so I’d be there when they arrived. One of the first things I did was harvest potatoes at the chain link fence.

On the right, in the photo, are the last of the red thumb fingerling potatoes that I could find. There were some surprisingly large ones in there, for the type of potato! Especially considering we planted the little potatoes that were left from last year, out of the bin we’d been going into throughout the winter.

The potatoes on the left are the purple caribe. These are the ones that most of them did not come up at all. Just a few in the middle of the bed, and a couple at one end. I’ve left the couple at one end, and just harvested the ones in the middle.

There aren’t a lot but, under the circumstances, it’s actually better than I thought it would be. There are some decent sized potatoes in there! Unfortunately, I damaged some with the garden fork. The soil had become quite compacted, so I had to use it quite a bit. All that means is, we have to use the potatoes right away.

No hardship there!

After harvesting the potatoes, I set the bin in the sun for now. I was going to start weed trimming around the house, in preparation for lawn mowing soon. Next to the house is a row of lilacs with the cherry trees in the middle. The cherry trees keep trying to spread through their roots, so I decided to cut those away, first.

There turned out to be a lot more than I expected!

When I got the messages about the delay, a paused for a while and had some supper.

Which is a good thing, because I was inside to hear that the septic pump was running and not shutting off again.

This happened earlier today. The filter was empty and the pump was running dry, so I shut off the power switch, primed the filter, then went outside to check the tank. I used the hose to spray the float free, and when I turned the power back on to the pump, it did not turn on.

I was expecting the same thing this time, but when I opened the tank, I could see that it was full enough to trigger the float. The pump was running, because it needed to.

I went back to the pump and turned the power on. The pump started running, but nothing was happening in the filter. It didn’t even drain through the outflow at the base. The pump was running, but nothing was happening.

I opened up the access pipe in the floor and ran the hose through – it was pretty clogged in places – but I didn’t want to run too much water through there with the tank already so full and not being emptied. It made no difference, anyhow.

I’ve left it off and sent a message to my brother and SIL, letting them know about it. I hate to even bring it up, considering how hot and exhausted my brother is going to be by the time they get here. No AC in the tractor! I heard back from them while I was writing this post. They’ve arrived at a gas station in the town my mother lives in and have stopped for a break.

After the update, I went to check on the pump again, and found the filter reservoir had drained. It shouldn’t do that. I topped it up, and started seeing … gurgling? … from the outflow at the bottom.

It shouldn’t do that, either.

Turning the power on, the pump ran, but again, no flow. The tank is not draining.

This is not good.

Once I’ve posted this, I’m going to head out to the outflow pipe near the barn to see if anything has happened there. I think the renter’s cows have been rotated away again. I haven’t seen them in a while. Which means the electric fence should be off.

We have had so many problems with this septic system! Especially this year.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: today’s little harvest

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While doing the watering this morning, I could see a few things that were ready to harvest.

Oh! I just realized, as I wrote this, that I forgot to harvest the patty pan squash!

Ah, well. They’ll just be a bit bigger, tomorrow. 😁

This is what I gathered today.

We’ve got Forme de Couer tomatoes – and from the looks of the plants, we will soon be inundated with ripe tomatoes! There’s just two San Marzano tomatoes, and I wasn’t seeing any others that looked like they were starting to ripe. There were just a few Seychelle and Carminate beans to gather this morning, but we got plenty yesterday, so that’s not surprising. I gathered more corn than I expected to. Especially considering I’d picked some yesterday, too.

Not too shabby!

Seventeen days left to average first frost date.

The Re-Farmer

Snoozy Lady

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As usual, our weather forecast has changed. We’re still expecting the heat, but now the storm warnings are back, too. Today, we’re expected to have a high of 30C/86F with a humidex of 38C/100F, and tomorrow is supposed to be much the same, temperature wise. At around 3am tonight, storms are supposed to reach us, continue all through tomorrow, and into Monday night.

Which means I was out in the garden early to give it a watering before things get too hot. Yes, we’re supposed to get rain tonight, but that won’t help the garden any during the day. With the soil we have, it’s almost impossible to over water – it drains very quickly through all that sand and gravel.

I have company when I do the watering.

Usually, it’s Syndol, following me around everywhere, wanting attention in between trying to catch frogs.

Today, I got to see this bit of cuteness overload.

Rolando Moon, the grand old lady, loves the grass clipping mulch. Apparently it makes an excellent bed!

Meanwhile, I got a message from my SIL. With the upcoming storms, they will be bringing more equipment to store here at the farm. My SIL will be driving the truck with the loaded trailer, but my brother will be driving the tractor with the rotary mower. They need to clear the overgrown areas they will be storing things on.

It’s going to take four hours to drive out here with the tractor.

My SIL will stick close to my brother on the tractor, just in case. Problems are unlikely, but you never know.

It’s past 10am as I write this, and they haven’t even left yet. They would still be loading the truck and trailer, most likely. My brother knows we have next to nothing out there, so he always makes sure to bring any tool he thinks he might possibly need.

It’s going to be a long, hot day for them!

The Re-Farmer