Oh, what a day it’s been! I’ll cover that in another post, though.

When I got home, my daughter was doing a walkabout, checking the yard for fallen branches and whatnot. We are supposed to get rain today but, so far, it’s just been sprinkles. I hope we get more, because I’ve been holding off watering the garden for it.

Instead of rain, we’ve been getting gusts of high winds. The catio Gouda is still in for 1 more night just has the temporary plastic roof over it, and the wind was tearing it loose from the cord that’s tying it down. We ended up putting a large floor mat on top to weigh it down, then added weights to that, to keep it from being blown off. I’m so glad we did, because that plastic would have been blown right off, not long after we did it!

Gouda, however, seems to be doing okay in the catio. He’s not too pleased about being stuck in there – and the other cats are not pleased about not being able to go in and steal his wet cat food! He only has to be in there for one more night. The catio’s walls are all mesh, but he does have his box nest with a blanket in there, and is using it. The catio is also sheltered by the house on one side, and a tree on the other, and branches above.

I’ll still be much happier when the isolation shelter is done, with a fully enclosed top level.

After we took care of that, we went through the garden beds and ended up picking another melon that had fallen of its stem, and a handful of the purple pole beans.

Then we started on the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden.

They haven’t been harvested for the last couple of days.

My daughter ended up bringing over the basin from the old kitchen to hold them all!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Re-Farmer (@the.refarmer)

In the basin is a few San Marzano tomatoes, a whole lot of Forme de Couer tomatoes, and Black Cherry tomatoes.

In the second photo of the slide show, I was able to zoom in for a picture of a newly blooming female luffa flower. There is one other that I spotted, but there are no male flowers at all, anywhere. The male flowers bloom in clusters, making them easier to spot. I supposed it’s possible there are some way up high and hidden among the lilac branches, but it seems unlikely.

We have a whole bunch of things we will be doing with tomatoes over the next while; one of them is going to be using the slow cooker to make a sauce. It’s big enough that we should be able to use most of the tomatoes we’ve got waiting to be processed, along with a few other vegetables we have that can be included.

I won’t be starting on that for a while, though. I need to just sit and decompress for now. Much progress has been made in getting my mother into supportive living, as she has been wanting for some time now, but my goodness, am I ever mentally exhausted right now!!

I’ll cover that in my next post. Just writing about it, as much as I can on a public blog, will be very therapeutic!

The Re-Farmer