Today has, somewhat surprisingly, been a day of progress.
Surprisingly because I was dealing with the pains on and off today. I was fine when I went to bed, then got awakened by the pain in the wee hours of the night. I managed to finally fall asleep and it was gone by the time I got up, but was back again after I did my morning routine and was having breakfast. Then it went away.
There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind it. I really, really hope the surgery next week puts a stop to this!
This morning, I did a head count and there were 12 cats showing up for breakfast. When I counted again at the second feeding of the day, there were 14, plus the kitten showed up later.
I did contact the rescue about needing to adopt the cats. They recommended I contact other rescues as their resources are stretched really thin right now. I wasn’t asking for fostering. Just if we could post them on their website, but it doesn’t look like they can even do that right now. The problem is, I’ve tried contacting other rescues before and they don’t cover our area. The only one that did turned out to have… issues. The only good thing that came out of that is we connected with The Cat Lady, who helped us so much while she ran her own little rescue.
I already know none of the rescues are doing intakes right now. Everyone is full. So… we need to figure things out.
Anyhow…
As usual, after feeding the cats, I went through the garden. I am just so happy with how the Arikara squash is doing!
I’ve got my hand in the second picture as a size reference. We’ve got one squash that’s growing. A couple others have withered away, and there’s one that I’m not sure is going to make it. It’s bigger that the size of the others that withered, but it doesn’t seem to be growing. There are some female flower buds visible, too.
The winter squash at the chain link fence are looking good, with lots of male flowers blooming. There was one that had a single female flower that dropped before it ever opened. Currently, I see a different winter squash with a female flower that will hopefully blossom and at least have a chance to get pollinated.
The Super Sugar Snap peas that were planted later at the chain link fence bed are blooming and forming pods now.
I picked a small harvest this morning.
The yellow bush beans had matured faster but are winding down now, yet are still just as prolific as the green and purple beans that are pretty much at their peak right now. There are fewer green and purple bean plants, too.
Next year, I hope to remember to try using the wire tomato cages on the bush beans, like I do now for peppers and eggplant. They seem to need that extra support.
Bush beans do great in the high raised bed, but it isn’t big enough. We have enough beans for eating fresh, but not enough to freeze or can. We definitely need to grow more beans. Normally, I’d be starting to harvest pole beans as the bush beans are winding down, but the Red Noodle beans seems to be struggling. Not as much as last year, where they only reached 6-8 inches high then stagnated. The first year we tried growing them was a drought year and they barely grew at all. It wasn’t until I was cleaning up at the end of the season that I found a single, skinny bean pod that was about the size of a worm. This year, they are bigger but, again, they seem to have stalled. There’s next to nothing climbing the trellis, and the leaves are a yellowish green, like last year, instead of the darker green I see in pictures of mature plants. I don’t know if we’re going to get any pole beans at all this year. We do have the bush beans planted later, with the Arikara squash, and I’m seeing pods starting to form there, so we’ll have at least a bit more beans to harvest from there, soon.
I harvested a couple of green scallop squash, deciding to leave the golden zucchini to get a big bigger before picking them. There are still a couple of varieties of summer squash that barely have flower beds, even.
On coming back to the house through the sun room, I could hear noises through the door. As I came closer, a little raccoon ran out, but I could still hear noises.
I found two more raccoons, “hiding”.
Of the two you see in the first image above, the top one eventually ran by me and out the door. The one below it, however, ran to another corner, and just sat there. I even tried to persuade it to leave with an old broom handle I’ve got in the sun room for times like this. I was going to just sort of push it from its back, to convince it to move.
It didn’t move.
I ended up “petting” it with the broom handle while it just sat there, frozen, staring at me, which is what you see in the second picture.
I tried leaving for a bit and tapping on the other side of the window. Nothing. So I puttered around outside some more before coming back. It was still there. I moved in closer do to something else and all it did was turn around and stare at me some more, which you can see in the last picture.
The little thing looks so sad and adorable. The most tragic of expressions! 😄
It did eventually leave, some time after I was back in the house.
Once my morning routine was done and I was making breakfast, I used some of the fresh beans I picked this morning. I ended up making the fanciest breakfast I’ve ever made for myself, ever. 😄
My daughter had roasted the marinated pork belly last night, so I used some of that. I cooked up a couple of packages of ramen noodle soup, boiling the cut up beans in the stock for a few minutes before adding the noodles. Then, once the noodles were softened, I added a couple of eggs to poach for the last couple of minutes. We have some very ripe avocados that need to be eaten quickly, so I sliced one up.
The noodles and soup liquid didn’t all fit in the bowl, though, so the last of it went into a mug to be added to my bowl once there was room.
Since the meat was already cooked, the whole thing took hardly any time at all. I think waiting for the water to come to a boil was the longest part.
It was quite delicious, too!
Unfortunately, by the time I finished cooking, the pain was coming back. When I finished eating, it was bad enough that I had to take some pain killers and try lying down for a couple of hours. By the time the pain eased, it was long enough that I’m pretty sure it went away on its own, and the painkillers didn’t actually do anything.
Still, I was feeling well enough that I headed for the basement, sneaking past my daughter as she was mopping the floor before she got to that part. 😄 My brother is wanting to haul away the hot water tank collection, and I wanted to at least move them from the old basement to the bottom of the stairs in the new basement, as there is more room around them and they are stronger.
The modern tanks were pretty easy to move, though one of them turned out to still have a fair bit of water in it. I had it tilted over the little trench in the concrete floor that drains to the sump pump reservoir for a while. The water coming out was thick and deeply orange from rust!
With the tanks being round, it was quite easy to “walk” them across the old basement, though the space at the bottom of the old basement steps is so narrow, I had to drag them through there. Once in the new basement, I could mostly just roll them along a bottom edge.
Then there was the original tank. The one I thought I could make lighter by removing the outside of it. That inner tank is way heavier.
I tried rolling it back and forth at first, testing the weight, and could hear all sorts of things rattling around inside. There must be so much scale in there! I stood it up, and almost immediately, noticed some water leaking from the outflow valve. I started rocking it a bit and more water started spurting out. I ended up walking to over to the drainage trench in the concrete and held it there, at an angle, for a while.
The light isn’t good there, so I was using my phone’s flashlight to check the outflow pipe and could see it was threaded at the tank. There was an old pipe wrench handy in a nearby shelf so I used that, at the “tap” end of the outflow, to try and unscrew it. It was coming loose quite nicely when I realized it wasn’t coming loose from the tank. The “tap” was coming off – I couldn’t even see that it was threaded, earlier! After a while, a white pipe was visible and I was able to pull the whole thing out by hand. By then, most of the water had already drained and it was just a slow trickle. I ended up dragging something over to lean the tank against, so I didn’t have to sit there holding it at an angle the whole time.
Once it was down to a drip, I continued moving it to the other basement steps. Which was way easier than I expected. With the outer shell removed, it was narrower than the modern tanks, making it easier to get past the bottom of the old basement steps. Once it was on the smooth concrete of the new basement, I was able to just push and slide it most of the way!
So we now have three hot water tanks at the base of the new basement steps, waiting to be hauled out.
Then I went and got the old door from our last vehicle. It’s been leaning against a wall off to the side for years now. That turned out to be an easy move. The concrete floor in the new basement is nice and smooth, and it slide across quite nicely.
So that’s all ready to drag up the stairs and outside to the junk pile, which the girls and I were thinking of doing today.
It won’t be done today.
Once everything was moved, I cleaned up where the tanks had been, then grabbed the very handy old garden hose we keep for clearing the pipes to the septic tank to clear the drainage trench to the sump pump of all the thick, rusty sludge still sitting in it. Ew.
That done, it was about time to feed the outside cats, so I headed back outside. After feeding the cats, I broke out the push mower to FINALLY get a job done that I’ve been meaning to get to for weeks.
I cleared the two overgrown spaces in the main garden area, and around the fallen tree by the old squash tunnel we still haven’t taken down. These areas both needed to be mowed twice. The first time with the mower as high as it can go. The second time, a few notches lower. The old garden area is still so insanely rough from the botched plow job done before we moved here, I can’t really mow it as short as I’d like. I was able to mow in between the silver buffalo berry, though. Those need more wood chips mulched around them, eventually, too.
It looks so much better now!
After I put the mower away and headed back to take the above photos, I spotted little Bug in the north yard, behaving strangely. Like something in the grass had her full attention…
Our little Buglette is a might huntress!
That mouse is about half the size of her skull. Such a good little Bug, earning her keep! 😁
I had intended to water the garden after I finished with the mowing, but I was at my limit for the day. My older daughter was able to do it for me, while I was working on this blog post.
As I write, I can start to feel that I may have pushed myself a bit too far with moving those tanks, though. My shoulder and neck muscles are starting to stiffen up.
Time to be pro-active with the painkillers, I think. Maybe some Tei Fu lotion on my legs before bed, too, since I can’t take my magnesium supplements until after my surgery.
An early bed time is definitely in order, tonight.
For all that I ended up having to lie down due to pain for several hours, I glad I was able to get things done.
Hopefully, I won’t be paying for it, tomorrow!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 