While doing my rounds this morning, I found a few tomatoes to pick. We have enough in the house now, that we can start looking into makes sauces or soups, or other ways to process and preserve them.
My initial thought was to make a big batch of tomato soup, and freezing it in individual portions. With that in mind, I picked our first onions of the year.
We planted a lot of onions, but we’re not going to get much out of them, as far as size goes. So many of them have already had their stems broken, like the ones I picked this morning. Most look like they got rolled on by cats or something. I’m not sure, when it comes to the bed that’s almost all onions in the main garden area. The ones planted in the old kitchen garden were definitely flattened by cats. They actually seem to enjoy napping on the onions! The ones planted around the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area have been crushed by the tomato branches.
My plans to make tomato soup, however, changed rather quickly. I found out my brother was on his way, along with the guy with the triple axle trailer. I ended up spending most of the day outside, and got quite a bit done in between loads.
The tomato soup will have to wait for another day. With the way things are going, I might have to get my daughters to do something with the tomatoes, instead.
We shall see.
Meanwhile, we’ve got our very first Frontier yellow bulb onions harvested.
The larger ones are the Albion Everbearing strawberries that have recovered remarkably well after getting eaten by a deer. I’ve had the odd ripe strawberry every now and then, but this is the first time there was more than one to gather. There were actually more than what’s in the photo, as I left behind a couple that were slug damaged.
The little ones are from the strawberries in the wattle weave bed that were grown from seed last year. They are still blooming, too, and there are lots of little green berries still developing. It’s a shame they don’t taste any better.
Once back inside, my younger daughter and I started getting ready to head out. My older daughter wasn’t going to make it. She’s been burning the candle at both ends, working on new commissions, and was not feeling well today.
The general plan was for us to have a sit down restaurant lunch with my mother, then go to the nature reserve. My daughter was hoping we could do a picnic instead. With my mother, it all comes down to how she feels, and what she is up to.
I remembered to bag up a few slicer tomatoes for her. Just enough for a taste, really. She’s not supposed to eat acidic foods, but small amounts, early in the day, don’t bother her. My sister usually brings my mother large amounts of tomatoes, forgetting completely that my mother isn’t supposed to eat them. This year, however, she mentioned her tomatoes did not do well, so she doesn’t really have any to give. We have so many of the Forme De Couer tomatoes, there is plenty to spare.
We packed supplies we’d need to eat outside, if we did end up doing that. Then my daughter made lots of noise, topping up the outside cat food, to lure kittens away from the truck. There was one kitten that just did not want to get out from under there! We managed to get them away, though, and soon we were off.
We left early enough to stop and pick up a birthday cake for my mother. Or, in this case, a variety of cheesecake slices! We still got to my mother’s early.
We didn’t stay for long before heading out. My mother needed to stop at her bank, first. They merged with another and she said she needed to order new checks. She’s sent a check and said it was rejected, because of the old company name.
Getting in and out of the truck was difficult for my mother, though. She tires so quickly now, too.
Once at the bank, the teller was confused about a check being returned, since all the key information was unchanged. It took a while to get the rest of the store out of her. It turns out, she did not get a check returned. She had sent the check to a grandson for his birthday. He had come over to see her, and told her it was rejected, apparently because of the date. It’s possible my mother wrote the date out in her usual mix of Polish, English, numbers and Roman numerals.
This grandson is one that never contacts her, nor returns her calls, and hasn’t since he turned 18 and got his inheritance from my late father. Now, suddenly, when there was a problem with a check she sent him, he shows up at her door? He also never returned the check, but just told her there was a problem. It seems the name being an issue was something my mother “figure out” herself. My guess is, with him there, she just gave him cash. My mother has a terrible habit of pandering to those who treat her the worst, while treating those who help her the most, quite badly.
The more the story came out, the more the teller seemed concerned. She checked, and no one had tried to cash a check in the last 3 months. She did assure my mother that she did not have to order new checks. The ones she has now are perfectly fine.
From there, she decided she was still up to a sit down restaurant. We did bring up the idea of getting take out and going on a picnic, but she acted as if she never heard.
We had an excellent lunch. My mother insisted that she would pay for it, but she never tips, so I snuck ahead and paid for it. By the time we were done eating, my mother decided she was up to going to the nature reserve. That got amended to her staying in the truck while my daughter and I explored. Not that we’d leave her by herself, but that’s what she pictured in her mind.
When we got there, I was going to just follow the roads to parking lots and we could see what we could see. I did end up taking a sign road, which turned out to be exclusively for people with disabilities. This allowed us to see parts of the sanctuary we had never seen before.
As we were going home, though, I was hit by exhaustion. The sleepy kind. It just came out of nowhere and slapped me upside the head!
When we got to my mother’s my daughter and I were going to leave right away, but my mother insisted we stop for tea and some of the cheesecake. She asked about the bill at the restaurant, and I showed her the slip that did not include the tip. She gets very angry when she sees us tip! She was very… parsimonious, shall we say, about paying me back, and actually underpaid me. Then she declared that my driving her was my birthday gift for her, as her reason for not contributing anything for gas this time. Which I normally wouldn’t care about, if I hadn’t found out she’s been practically throwing her money at people that have disowned her again. My daughters have joked that maybe we should start being mean to her, too, and she’ll start throwing money at us, too. Not that we could ever do that, but the sad thing is, it is probably true.
Overall, we managed to keep things okay during this visit. We were able to cut away from her usual racist rants, and she was only moderately insulting to my daughter about her appearance. As for why my other daughter didn’t make it, when we told her she wasn’t feeling well, my mother flat out said she didn’t believe it. 🫤 Ah, well.
She started showing us pictures and newspaper clippings that are her typical segues to more racist rants, so we cut things short, then made our escape. I could see she was getting very tired, anyhow.
Which I could completely understand.
Before we left, she gave us a couple of cards for the girls, and it turned out she was at least as generous to them, as she had been with the grandson that only shows up when money is involved.
My daughter drove us home, and I’m so glad she was there do to it. I was able to close my eyes for a bit during the drive home, at least!
Not enough to get some rest, though, so that’s what I’m about to do. Even though it’s late afternoon. I have been drifting off, time and again, just working on this blog post!
In the first photo, a support is being added to the back of the catio. The catio is sitting on one end, and I was able to reach inside through the open space in the back that was soon to be covered with wire mesh. I found a scrap piece of wood I cut to fit snuggly between the the middle of top and bottom frame pieces – snug enough that it stayed in place, even while the catio was on its side. Once it was centred, it was attached with screws. This will prevent any potential sagging in the middle – because I know that cats will be jumping on top! – as well as giving something extra to secure the wire mesh to.
,The catio is 5′ 3″ long. The roll of quarter inch wire mesh I got is 5′ long. Taking into account the width of the frame pieces, that meant I could cover the back of the catio, with half an inch on each side with which to secure it to the frame. In the second picture, you can see that I stapled the wire mesh in place.
You can also see, there is no way those staples were going to hold. However, stapling the new piece to the frame kept it where I needed it until I could secure it properly. I was also able to staple both old and new wire mesh to the new support in the middle, which kept things from wobbling around too much.
I then went nuts with pieces of wood lath, which you can see in the third image.
With the metal corner braces screwed onto the bottom of the catio, it now had metal bits that were not flush with the wood. I didn’t want to be dragging screw heads on the ground, or getting grass caught in the metal, if we had to move it. For now, I’ve added pieces of wood lath – which are exactly the same width as the frame pieces – to the bottom, flush against the metal braces. Eventually, we want to add something to the corners, over the metal braces, so that there is no gap for a cat to potentially reach under and dig its way out. We haven’t figured out what do use for that, yet. All in good time.
Once the bottom pieces were nailed in place, the catio got flipped onto its front. The wood lath comes in 4′ lengths, and the catio is 4′ high, so that worked out perfectly. The new vertical support inside the back of the catio is wider, though, so I centred two pieces to go over that.
It wasn’t until I’d already attached the pair of them to the frame at one end, that I realized one of them was shorter than the other by almost 2 1/2 inches! That was okay, though. When I added the horizontal pieces at the top and bottom, they were each marked and cut to individual lengths, so the gap was filled that way. Last of all, the vertical pieces attached to the frame.
Framing the mesh on the back had to be done rather carefully. There’s only that half inch of mesh attached to the frame, and I wanted to make sure there were plenty of nails that were inside the mesh squares, so that if something pulled or pushed onto the mesh, the nails would keep it from getting pulled out from between the wood. At the same time, the nails couldn’t go too close to the edge, or the wood lath would start splitting. Plus, the nails I was using were finishing nails I’d collected from what the cats had knocked onto the floor over the winter. I’d sorted out all the finishing nails from the rest, but only by type, not by size. A lot of them were thicker nails that would also split the wood, so I had to pick through the lid I was using as a tray to hold them, selecting those that weren’t too thick or too long or too short… there don’t seem to be a lot that were juuuuust right.
The main thing, though, is that the mesh is now securely attached to the frame. There is enough overlap between old and new wire mesh that I don’t think it also needs to be “sewn” together, but if it does, the wire that was used to keep the roll of mesh together was set aside for this, just in case.
That done, there were still a couple more areas to patch up. On each side, the bottom corner near the back was rusted out. You can see the larger rusted out area in the next photo of the slide show.
I didn’t have to break open the second roll of quarter inch wire mesh, though. I had a small amount left over from when I made the soil sifter, a couple of years ago. The rusted out areas of mesh were cut out. After determining how large the mesh needed to be to cover the holes, I made sure to cut them so that the two sides that would not be attached to the frame had the lengths of wire ends sticking out. When the new mesh was lined up with the old mesh, those ends were twisted around the old mesh to secure the patch in place. Then pieces of wood lath were cut to extend beyond the patches and nailed into place to secure them.
You can see the finished larger patch in the next photo – with Syndol on top! He was very curious about what I was doing, to the point I had to be careful not to hammer a paw!
So the wire mesh is now all patched up were needed!
That was where I stopped for the day, but there is still some repair needed. Along the hinge side of the door, some of the staples have popped off, and some of the wire mesh at the edges have become detached from each other. The easy way to fix it is with more wood lath, but the hinges have to be kept clear. The door also swings all the way open, and any wood lath added would prevent that. I need to come up with an alternative that is super thin. I do have some metal strips that I used on the raised bed covers, but the holes in that are larger, for screws, not nails. I don’t want to use screws for this, as I’d have to put in quite a few to secure the mesh, and I don’t want to be making that many large holes in the frame. The metal is soft enough, I might be able to nail through it, though. I’ll have to test that out, when I next get a chance.
Which won’t be tomorrow.
Meanwhile, with things as secure as they are now, I set the catio upright again and opened the door wide.
Syndol immediately found the door and started exploring. I lifted him onto one of the shelfs, and he promptly settled in the cloth hammock that is still secure. It took a bit longer for several kittens to find the door and explore as well.
I got rained on a few times while working on this, and we’re supposed to get more rain tonight, so I found a sheet of plastic and set up a temporary roof. This way, the cats can go inside and hang out on the shelves or the one secure hammock, and take shelter from the rain. In the last picture, you can see Syndol inside the covered catio.
There are a couple of fixes I’m going to have to get my younger daughter to do. I’m too broken to be able to go inside the catio to do them.
One is to add more corner brackets to reinforce the top corners of the frame, as has already been done in the bottom corners. We won’t be adding the flat plates on top of the corners, like the underside of the frame has, since the top will be covered with roof panels, and that will add its own layer of stability to the frame.
The other fix is to replace the torn cloth hammock. Those are stapled in place, but we’ll figure out some other way to attach the new cloth.
This won’t be done any time soon, but the very last thing we want to do is pain the whole thing – especially the new wood that was added – black. The wire mesh will be painted black as well, so that it’s easier to see through. We could probably get away with just a quart of paint for this job, too, which should be in budget.
For now, I’m happy with the progress made. With the last little fixes, we can use it as an isolation shelter right now, until the real one is finished. We don’t have to rush that job, now.
I’m so very thankful that the rescue was able to pass the catio on to us!
I’ve actually been working on fixing up the donated catio today. I’ll cover that in another post, but at one point I had to wait for a board I had to scrub clean to dry. That gave me time to work on a scratching post/ramp for inside the lower level of the cat isolation shelter.
In the first photo of the slideshow above, you can see the piece of scrap lumber I cut to fit into the space. It had started out as a 2×4 but had been cut in half at some point.
Once I determined it was long enough, I used the vertical supports it would be set against to determine what angles to cut off, so it would be flush. You can see the bottom cut in the second photo. I cut that one first then, once it was set in place, could mark off the angle for the top cut.
In the next photo, you can see the materials I used. I had picked up some hemp cord from the craft section of a dollar store. Usually, sisal cord is used for scratching posts but 1) I wasn’t finding any that was a good thickness for a scratching post without buying online and 2), the hemp cords price for the amount in the hank was right.
One of my frustrations with scratching posts is that, once the cats tear through a strand, the whole thing comes undone. With that in mind, I dug out a can of spray glue I’ve hung on to for years. This actually came out with us when we moved here, almost 7 years ago. This is the first time I’ve used it, since.
Sometimes, being a pack rat, has advantages!
I sprayed the board in sections of about 6 or 8 sections. The first few inches of the cord was secured under the initial wraps, and making sure to press the cord against the spray glued surface, I’d wrap until I was a couple of inches from the end of the sprayed section, spray the next section, then keep on wrapping. The final few inches of the cord was secured with a couple of large headed roofing nails. That end will be the bottom of the scratching post.
In the last photo, you can see how it will be set up in the isolation shelter. As a ramp, it’s really more for any kittens we might had to keep in there. Larger cat would be able to jump straight up the large opening, or use the shelf “step” in the front to get to the small opening.
There will still be room for a litter pan under there, and even an insulated shelter box as well.
By the time this was done, I could start working on the catio again. After my daughter came out and we took care of supporting the tomatoes together, she mentioned that she was going to be making herself a breakfast. That made me realize I was feeling hungry. I was a bit surprised. I’d had a large breakfast. Why was I hungry already?
Then I realized, more than 5 hours had passed!
Uhm… yeah… time for food! I’d say lunch, but it’s past 3pm, sooo…. lupper? 😄
Once that’s done, I’ll head back to continue on the catio. I want to get as much done as I can, since it’ll be a day or two before I can work on it again.
Which means I should probably stop writing blog posts, and finish eating!
Not long ago, I found one of the Summer of Melons Blend melons had turned yellow and was looking misshapen. When I picked it up, it fell of the vine. Technically, that should have meant it was ripe, but it didn’t look ripe. We haven’t cut it open yet, though. Too much other stuff going on.
Just a little while ago, my daughter and I did a sort of Florida weave to support the rest of the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area. That didn’t take long at all. My daughter’s been working on commissions, still mostly at night, lastly, so she hadn’t seen the garden in a while. As we were looking at the melon bed near the tomatoes, I noticed one of them had turned yellow, and fallen off the brick that was keeping it from direct contact with the ground. I went to put it back, and discovered it had fallen off its vine completely!
How handy, that my husband’s giant self healing cutting mat is still on the dining table. 😄 You can see that it’s about 8 inches long.
In the next photo, you can see the stem end. That’s how it’s supposed to be with melons, when they are fully ripe.
We haven’t cut it open yet. We’ll probably do that – and the little one – this evening, so we can compare.
I can hardly wait to try it! Being part of the Summer of Melon’s blend, we have no idea what variety it is, but if we like it, I want to save some of the seeds.
I tried going to bed early last night, which actually worked for a change, so I was able to get out and in the garden early. We were getting warnings for a possible thunderstorm (which never happened), so as soon as my morning rounds were done, I wanted to work on my tomatoes.
The first of the Instagram slideshow photos is as far as I got with the San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area.
I was even able to pick a few tomatoes, first. They were so tightly packed in with the vines, a couple were weirdly misshapen, having had to grow around stems and even one of the bamboo supports.
With this bed, though, only the main stems were supported by the stakes. These weren’t pruned, so they all have suckers on them. The three southernmost plants (in the foreground) had suckers spread out and lying on the ground like a thick, green spider’s web! You can see a bit, how I added support to those vines.
For most of them, I couldn’t reach the stake in the middle, so I loosely tied jute twine to the stem I wanted to support, under a leaf stem, or the nub of one, if it was one that was broken off. I did prune some of the bottom leaves away, awhile back, as they were crushing the onions planted around them. The twine was then wrapped around the stem, with extra wraps near the base so it wouldn’t pull upwards. I didn’t skimp on the wraps all the way up, and made sure that any branches with clusters of tomatoes on them had wraps above and below. Once near the top, the whole thing was gently lifted, and the top tied to the support.
With so many of these branches splayed out around the main stem, I alternated sides as I worked, to more evenly distribute the weight. I also moved the metal posts that were marking the corners of the bed, as I was shifting it over. Those were brought closer in and pushed deep into the soil, so they – hopefully! – wouldn’t be pulled over. I then anchored the stake at the end of the row onto them.
As I worked on the next two tomato plants, I also straightened stakes that were being pulled down by the weight of the main vine, and secured them to the previous stake. With one plant, I could access the stake as I worked, so the jute twine was anchored to the stake at the bottom, rather than the base of the stem I was working on. A couple of vines were even anchored to the stake about half way up, as they were being wrapped. Not too close against the stake, though, but with space for air flow.
The three at the south end got done, but it took so long, I had to move on. The others don’t look like they will need individual wrapping like this. I’ll see, when I get back to them.
The second photo in the slideshow above is of the Black Cherry vines in the Old Kitchen Garden. They are getting so big and heavy, the lilac they are climbing is bending from the weight! These are already tied off and supported as much as can be, though.
Note for future reference. Find a way to incorporate stakes into the wattle weave to support things like this! The lilac can handle supporting the luffa vines just fine, but these tomatoes are just too big and heavy, and those branches are not near the main stems of the lilac.
It was the bed with the Forme de Couer tomatoes that needed help. I had to post this photo separately on Instagram, because it’s oriented differently. It was the bamboo stakes that had to be helped.
Each plant has a pair of stakes to support it. The pair in the bottom right corner of the photo were so heavy, the stakes were twisted around and starting to lean into the bath between this bed, and the wattle weave bed with the Black Cherry tomatoes. You can even see a bit, just above where the jute twine is tied, that one of them had started to split and bend. If there hadn’t already been some twine holding the pairs of stakes together, there’s no doubt the whole thing would have broken and fallen into the path.
That one got attention first. I was able to carefully pull the stakes upright again, then anchored them to the opposite corner of the raised bed. More twine was added to the pairs of stakes along one side, anchoring them to each other, then to the corners of the raised bed at the other end, before being tied off on the last pair of stakes on the opposite side. The other stakes on that side had already had support added to them and did not need more.
Once that was done, it was time to clean up and head into town. My friend from out of province had time to meet for lunch, one more time before she had to go home.
I left early so that I could stop at the dollar store, first. With one of the yard cats going in for a neuter next week, we have to start deciding which one we’ll be trying to catch. The friendliest ones have already done, but one of those is really hard to tell apart from others, now that the wound on his front leg is completely healed, without even a scar visible through is fur.
What I’ve decided to do is to try and put break-away collars on the four that have already been neutered, then another to add onto whichever cat we manage to catch and bring in next.
The store had only one style with breakaway snaps on them, so that’s what I got. They all have bells, which will need to be removed. These are outdoor cats, and they earn their keep by keeping the rodent population down. Having a bell would defeat the purpose, plus make them easier targets for coyotes.
After that, I hung around and enjoyed the day until my friend and I met up and went for lunch in the fish ‘n chips place that reopened not long ago. They’d been closed for many months, repairing and renovating after a fire (when I first saw the boarded up building, I actually thought they’d been vandalized). It’s the same owners using their same recipes, and their food was every bit as delicious as before. We quite enjoyed our lunch – and the portions were generous enough that both of us got take out containers to bring the leftover home!
My friend still had some time left before she had to go, so we got to walk on the beach for a while – a nice quite beach, now that the summertime crowds are done, and it’s the middle of the week! Then she had to head back. She’s leaving very early in the morning, and has a long drive ahead of her, so she had lots to do to get ready. Including a grocery shopping trip for her mother.
That sure sounds familiar! 😁
While I was in town, I got a message from my husband, letting me know the feed store had called, and the lysine they’d ordered for me was in. So, after we said our goodbyes, I headed to my mother’s town to pick it up, along with more kibble for the outside cats.
This morning, I tried to do a head count of just kittens. That’s a bit of a challenge, as some of the adult cats are pretty small, and the older kittens are almost as big as they are!
I counted twenty.
I think.
In the photo above, with the kittens, you can see the bright white granular type lysine on the bottom of the kibble tray. That is why I was wanting to have a finer powder, like I had been able to get before, but is no longer available.
If you look at the second picture of the slide show above, you’ll see the lysine I got today. I opened one of the tubs right in the store, as soon as I paid for it.
This bulk lysine is sold for horses, so I guess they don’t bother bleaching it white, like for human consumption! It’s still granular, though. Lysine is lysine, though, so it is otherwise the same.
I think what I’ll just have to do is use that Magic Bullet set we were gifted with, and just process the granules into a fine powder. This will coat the kibble better, and the cats are more likely to actually get a dose of the stuff. Thankfully, aside from eye baby, there don’t seem to be any sick cats out there right now. Just a little bit of crusty bits visible in the corners of some of their eyes, but nothing major. None need to have their eyes washed. Even eye baby’s messed up eye isn’t leaking much. It’s just really… gross.
No, I will not inflict you with a photo!
Anyhow.
Along with the lysine (I got two 1 pound tubs, which cost just under $20 each), I got the bag of kibble I’d paid for last time, but they turned out to have only two bags in stock, not three. Then I got one more on top of that.
Once done at the feed store, I headed home.
I don’t know what’s been going on with me lately, but during the drive home, a wave of tired just hit me. I don’t mean physically tired, or even mentally tired. I mean sleepy tired!
I did get a good night’s sleep! Honest!
Once I was at home, I unloaded everything but the 40 pound bags of kibble in the box of the truck, then went for a nap. When I woke up after a couple of hours, I was feeling even more groggy than when I lay down in the first place!
So I just did my evening rounds, but let my daughter that was going to help me, know that I wasn’t up to finishing with those last San Marzano tomatoes. They will be fine for another day.
Meanwhile, the writing of this paused just had a pause to it, as I dosed and fed eye baby, while my daughter held him, wrapped up like a purrito – and there was much purring happening!
Gosh, I wish all cats took their meds as well as this little guy!
I gave his face a bit of a wash around the eye, and just laid a warm, damp cloth over the eye itself, before giving him some saline drops. I wish I knew what I was looking at with that eye. All I can say for sure is, it’s getting better – as in, it’s not sticking out as much, and not leaking like it had been, when we first started treating him. He even seemed to enjoy the cleaning.
That is now done for the night, and that’s as much as I have energy for. I’m done for the day. My younger daughter and I have plans to watch Columbo together tonight.
I hadn’t planned on harvesting anything while doing my evening rounds.
My garden had other plans!
I ended up using the bottom of my shirt to carry everything, because I didn’t have my usual giant colander that I use for harvesting and washing the produce.
My shirt got very loaded down!
Before I got to that point, I spotted these seed heads.
While shifting and preparing the low raised beds, I spotted a small plant I recognized as a flower that shows up in our main garden area. Rather than tossing it with the weeds, I decided to transplant it into the log framed bed, with the onions I’d been finding. I had no idea if it would survive a transplant.
Well, not only has it survived, it has thrived! It has become quite large and, while the flowers are not particularly large, the seed heads are amazing! Each one of those puffs in the photo are bigger than the palm of my hand.
I don’t want it to seed itself in the raised bed, so whenever the seed heads open like this, I gather the seeds and let them loose in an area just north of the beds. I figure at least some of them will manage to germinate, in the spring.
While checking on this bed, I also spotted one of the larger melons starting to look a bit yellow. I went to pick it up and it fell off its vine, so I included it in my harvest.
Since this from the Summer of Melons mix, I have no idea if this is a variety that turns yellow like this at maturity. I suspect not, to be honest. Still, we’ll crack it open and see what it’s like inside. So I’m not sure if this is a “first” for the melons or not.
You may notice something else different in the photo.
A bright red Cheyenne hot pepper! Red from stem to tip! There was another, next to it, that is about half red. We grew these previously, in grow bags, but they stayed green. When we had frost predictions, we tried to protect them, but were late covering them up one nice. The next morning, I harvested all the green peppers that weren’t frost damaged, and we set them up in the living room. They did turn red as as they dried, eventually, but they didn’t look very palatable. So I’m very happy to have some ripening while still on their plants!
I think I could have harvested several Dragonfly peppers. Some are quite large and so dark a purple, they look black. I will wait a bit, though. I think we’d end up with too many to use quickly, so I want to be prepared to dehydrate some of them, before I bring them in.
As for the cherry tomatoes, they got all mixed up while I was carrying them in my shirt. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the Chocolate cherry and the Black cherry! I’ll have to ask the family if they can tell the difference by taste.
I’m really quite happy with the harvests we’ve been getting. I had been so sure that we’d have almost nothing to harvest regularly this summer, except maybe tomatoes, since we have four varieties. Granted, this is the sort of harvesting we should have been getting in July and early August, not in September, but I’m just so happy to have anything at all!
If the temperatures stay mild enough, though, we should have a pretty awesome harvest of winter squash and melons! I’m quite looking forward to it!
After helping my brother unloading equipment yesterday, I was still in a lot of pain this morning. My daughters were sweet enough to do the morning feeding of the outside cats, so I didn’t see them until much later. That is when I spotted this surprise.
I had to slowly, carefully walk around to be able to confirm what I was seeing.
That kitten is actively nursing.
That cat is not a mama.
This is the cat that dropped her litter around the yard and abandoned them. She never nursed any newborns. Which means she shouldn’t have a milk supply.
Yet there she was, with one of the older kittens attached to a nip, and actively nursing.
Which can happen, of course, but for her to have any milk now, she would have had to be allowing at least one kitten to nurse, right after she lost her litter, and we saw zero evidence of that until today.
Very strange!
I did end up having to give the outside cats a small feed – mostly making lots of noise to lure them away from the truck, so I could leave!
I wanted to go back to the feed store to pick up more kibble, including one bag that I’d already paid for, and the lysine they ordered for me. I didn’t know when their delivery truck was supposed to arrive today. Just that it was supposed to arrive, today.
I called my mother shortly before lunch time and asked if she wanted me to do her grocery shopping for her, since I would be in town, and could do it before running my own errands. So that was my first stop.
We had started a list, but as we went over it, she remembered more. I ended up rewriting the list, partly due to her increasingly creative spelling. Even her little doodles are getting harder to identify.
She is now all stocked up, though. I’m glad I called her ahead to do this, because she has a terrible habit of waiting until she is out of lots of things before calling me to shop for her.
On this day of the week, there are social activities in her building, and those had already started when I got back with her groceries. We visited for a bit after I put it all away, but she still wanted to join the group for coffee, at least, so that worked out.
I went to the feed store but, unfortunately, their delivery hadn’t arrived yet. I spoke to the guy that ordered the lysine for me, and he couldn’t be sure when they would come in. We confirmed that they had my number, and he said he would call me.
My next stop was at the hardware store. I wasn’t expecting the clear roofing sheets to be in yet, but I asked, anyhow. When I ordered it, I knew it was past their order cut off time, but sometimes the supplier has them in stock. If so, it would arrive this week.
I guess they didn’t have it in stock, because when the cashier went to ask for me, she was told it will be 2 weeks.
Which is fine.
What they DID have in stock was hardware cloth/welded wire mesh!
I had gone through the store and never saw any, but when I was asked if I needed help and told what I was looking for, the cashier took me into a part of the store I didn’t think customers were even allowed in! I always thought it was one of their inventory storage areas.
They had quite a bit of wire mesh, and the quarter inch mesh I was looking for came in 3′ x 25′ rolls!
Unfortunately, it was well out of budget.
There was, however, 3/4″ mesh, also in 3′ x 25′ rolls – and it was almost half the price!
This size would still be small enough to keep cats or kittens from getting through. I decided to get a roll.
Thinking about it as I was driving home, I decided that the 3/4 inch mesh will be used on the cat isolation shelter I’m building. The donated catio is already enclosed in 1/2 inch mesh. I have two 5′ rolls of 1/2 inch mesh that are 3 feet wide. I had intended to have one longer piece, covering the space where I’d removed the old mesh with openings in it, plus wrapping around one side to cover a corner of damaged mesh.
The length of the opening that needs to be covered is over 5′ long, but the width is only 20 inches.
So my plan now is to cut lengths of about 24 inches, to overlap the remaining mesh on the catio. I’ll need to “sew” the pieces together with wire to make sure there are no gaps a cat, or other critter, could get through.
If I can find a piece the right size, I’m thinking of adding a center support on the back of the catio. That will give me something else to attach the mesh to, making it even stronger.
We shall see.
As for the 3/4 inch mesh, I will use that on the isolation shelter.
I have time to get these done, though. The Cat Lady confirmed with me a date for a neuter, not a spay, this month. This means we will not have to isolate a cat for a 2 week recovery period. The males just need time to recover from being under anesthetic, and they can do that in a carrier.
So that’s the plan.
For now!
By the time I was heading home, the post office had reopened for the afternoon, so I made sure to stop and get the mail – just in case my Amazon order of lysine came in early.
It did.
So we at least have lysine again! We have a bit left, but where saving it to use in eye baby’s cat soup feeding. Now I can start dosing the outside cat’s kibble again.
Once at home, I didn’t stay long. Today was our day to order in my husband’s birthday dinner from the Chinese food place. Everyone had already marked off what they wanted on the take out menu, so I just confirmed those, called the order in, then headed out.
We got enough to last us for two or three days! This is a real treat for us, so we save up and don’t go half way on it!
I must say, the drive home from picking up the food was pure torture. I was getting really hungry by then, and the food smelled soooo good! We’ve already had our celebratory dinner.
I’m just going to do my evening rounds now – and then go for seconds!
In the first photo of the slideshow, you can see how the corners were done. The shelter is upside down in that photo. I added the angled brackets to the inside of each corner. I found I had the flat L shaped plates left over from when my daughter and I reinforced the raised bed covers, and they were perfect for further reinforcement of the corners at the base.
I want to add angled brackets to the inside of the top corners, too, but I’m too broken to go inside the catio to reach. I’ll have to get a daughter to do that for me.
While moving it around, I found that there was some damage from when it fell out of the truck while they brought it to us. In the second photo, you can see where a part of the frame had cracked. Ideally, I would have reinforced it with a metal plate, but I couldn’t find anything I could use, so I went through my scrap wood. I eventually found a piece that would work, and attached it with a combination of wood glue and 1 1/2 inch screws. Part of the piece of wood sticks out beyond the frame piece, but I can saw that off later.
The mesh on the back of the shelter had two holes in it, which were the openings that allowed cats to get into it from a basement window. There were also the remains of a couple of long screws that were used to attach it to the house. The heads were deep in the wood, so it was easier to just break off the pointed ends. Then I used wire cutters on the mesh, just a bit beyond the largest hole.
The mesh is held in place with staples, and I used pliers to pull those out. Quite a few of them were so rusted, they broke off, instead. The wire mesh was pretty rested out in some places, too.
Once the section of mesh was removed, I measured how much new mesh I would need. There was a corner of the mesh rusted out as well, so I want the new wire to wrap around the frame far enough to cover the hole. In total, 6′ of mesh would do.
The rolls I got are only 5′ long.
I don’t want to be cobbling together lengths of mesh from the two rolls. Not only would that leave me with almost nothing to use on the isolation shelter, but any sort of overlap creates a potential escape point, or a weak spot the racoons could get through. The rolls of hardware cloth that I got are wide enough that there will be a decent amount of overlap, horizontally. I don’t want to also have overlap, vertically.
Which means, I need to find longer rolls of hardware cloth, and that starts to get expensive.
*sigh*
So for now, the repairs need to wait.
Meanwhile, back to the load that came this morning!
It took them about an hour to get here, and the hired guy arrived first.
There were two tractors on his trailer. One was a small tractor with a front end loader. The other was a McCormick that looked very, very familiar.
Yes, it was the one I remembered from my childhood! When I asked about it, I was told that something had broken down on it and my dad told my brother, if he could fix it, he could keep it.
He fixed it, and it’s been working ever since.
The McCormick was very carefully loaded directly over those triple axles!
My brother and his wife had their trailer loaded, too, but the first order of business was to unload the tractors. The front end loader, which had its bucket resting on the gooseneck of the trailer, had to be pushed forward first, then the McCormick pushed towards the front of the trailer, until the fold out ramps were clear. Once that was done, it was a relatively easy thing for my brother to drive it off. The tractor with the front end loaded took a bit more work, though. Partly because it turns out there’s a trick to getting it started and staying running. It also needed to be driven off in reverse, which got tricky over those ramps!
Once that was done and the tractors parked by a shed near the barn, my brother’s trailer needed to be unloaded. One of the things they unloaded was a snow blower attachment for the tractor they brought over last time.
Do you hear that sound?
That’s the sound of my heart going pitter patter.
We might not have to try and keep the driveway clear with little Spewie this winter!
For those new to this blog, Spewie is a 20′ electric snow blower. Actually, I believe it’s marketed as an electric snow shovel. Either way, it’s very small, and we’ve really put it through a lot over the last few winters!
Not that any of us would be setting up and using my brother’s tractors and snow blowers. At some point, he might be able to take the time to show us how, but none of this stuff is straightforward when it comes to using them!
My brother did have something for us in the back of this truck, though.
He brought us a hose that we can use as a diverter for when the septic expeller is being worked on, so we can still use the plumbing in the house. The septic guy was supposed to swing by this evening, and I was going to talk to him about that – they might be able to hook up the pipe in the basement and get it through the foam filled opening in the wall. Once that’s through, it can be set up to this, and drain into the maples.
It’ll stink, but that’s a trade off we’re quite okay with!
Meanwhile…
There was other equipment that needed to be unloaded then, as soon as they were done, they rushed off again. The guy they hired was hoping to do three loads today!
They didn’t manage three loads.
The second load on the triple axle trailer included a square baler, larger than the one that was brought over before, and a hay cutter. Those two things filled the entire trailer!
A tractor was needed to pull the baler off, and they ended up strapping the hay cutter to the bucket on the front end loader, to lift it off the side.
Once that trailer was unloaded, the hired guy and his assistant left. On this trip, my SIL wasn’t able to come along, so it was just my brother and I to unload their trailer.
This trailer was why it was the last trip of the day. It took a lot to get the stuff on – and it was just three things! The hired guy had to use a Bobcat to load it.
We don’t have a Bobcat here. Our vandal still has that and has no intention of returning it, even though there are still parts and attachments, here.
One thing on the trailer was pretty easy to unload. My brother and I could lift it off together. The others needed to be dragged off with a tractor. One of them had to be pulled off sideways, and sections of it got caught on parts of the trailer, requiring another tractor to be used to pull it back again. The front end loader was once again pressed into action, to try and lift it off the end of the trailer, since there was no way it was going to slide down the ramps.
When it finally came off, the same parts that were getting caught on the trailer slammed into a corner of the tractor, punching straight into the radiator.
It’s going to have to be replaced entirely.
Considering how old this tractor is, that’s going to be a challenge. My brother is very good at hunting down parts that aren’t made anymore, though, so I hope it won’t be too difficult to find.
There was still one more piece of equipment on the trailer that had to be taken off. It was a bit easier, but this was a very old piece of equipment, with old and partially rotted wood, with parts attached, that broke off completely in the process. Still, my brother was able to get it off and parked. All of this equipment is being tucked away where there is space. Once the biggest of the items is here, which won’t be until next month, my brother will move things around in an organized way.
It’s a shame so many things were broken or damaged in the process, though.
Meanwhile, we can expect another load on the triple axle trailer next weekend, too!
My poor brother, though. I helped as much as I could, but some things, I just physically can’t. Plus, at one point, he tripped and, while he didn’t fall, I think he did hurt himself. He never complains, though.
All this took so long that, once it was finally done, he had to rush off home again.
I did manage to finally get a hug in, though!
I think he really needed one by then, too!
I don’t know how much more they will be bringing out here. I had thought they might sell off some of the equipment, but I’m starting to think they’re keeping it all, and just bringing it here!
This will actually be of great help to us, in the long term. A lot of this is the sort of equipment my parents had here before, that disappeared. Maybe not so many tractors, though. At least, not that I know of.
The outer yard is going to get very crowded!
More reason to get the scrap company out here to take out the junk vehicles and the old threshing machine.
I have got to remember to call them back tomorrow. It’s not too much of a rush. There are some things I know can go now, but with others, I need to go looking at them with my brother, first, so he can confirm with me, what can go and what stays.
As part of my morning rounds today, I checked on the grapes, got a bit of a harvest, and did some watering, as we were expecting to get very warm today.
The first picture above shows how dark some of the grapes are starting to get. There are still more green than purple grapes, but they are coming along!
Though I’d picked quite a lot yesterday, I still was able to pick some beans and Forme de Couer tomatoes this morning. We are at that stage with these tomatoes where a lot of people pick them to finish ripening indoors. We don’t have the space for that, but I try to pick as many as I can, just to reduce the weight on the vines. I’m going to have to snag one or both of the girls tomorrow morning to help add more supports to some of the vines and stakes. We were actually supposed to do that today, but other things happened, instead!
That will be a topic for my next post, though.
Yesterday evening, I did go through the tomatoes that I could reach (not very many, among the Black Cherry vines!) and the trellised melons and pruned their tops. This should trigger the plants to focus more on ripening their fruit, rather than trying to grow more of them. I probably should have done that a while ago.
Only 7 more days (not counting today) before our first average frost. There are people in one of my zone 3 gardening groups that are expected to get frost tonight!
We have no way to cover the squash, trellised melons or tomatoes. The only beds we’d be able to cover is the eggplant and hot pepper bed, and the bell peppers in the high raised bed. We just might be able to cover the melon bed that isn’t trellised, too, but anything we use would be resting directly on the plants.
We’ll have to watch the forecast closely. If it comes down to the wire, we might have to just harvest everything early. I pray it doesn’t come to that!
The Re-Farmer 