Author: Re-Farmer

Rough night and new kitten mama identified

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I was finally able to connect with my mother last night and, as expected, she needed a grocery shopping trip. So we made plans for that, and I headed to bed early.

I even fell asleep!

Then, in the wee hours of the morning, I rolled over and got hit with a Charlie horse. After much pain and difficulty, I finally managed to reach my phone and send a voice to text message to my daughter, asking for help.

I love technology.

She was able to give me a hand, bring me some ibuprofen, etc., until the cramps finally eased off. When I was finally able to walk, she stayed close while I made my way to the bathroom and back, ready to help me get back into bed if I needed it. Thankfully, I did not, but the muscles kept threatening to cramp up again. I finally got up and made myself something to eat. By the time I was done and able to get back into bed, I slept so hard, I never heard the thunderstorm and heavy rains that swept over us! I didn’t know we’d had a downpour at all until morning. My leg was still unstable, so I asked the girls to do the outside stuff and water the garden, but the garden didn’t need it this morning.

My mother and I had plans to go out for lunch before I did her shopping, so I intended to be there on the early side. While the girls did the outside stuff, I still wanted to check on things before I left, which reminded me to take pictures of the garden beds to show my mother.

One of the first things I saw as I headed out from the sun room were the new kittens – and their mama!

It is now confirmed: their mama is Sprout. I knew she must have had a litter somewhere, but this is the first time we’ve seen her with kittens.

The orange kitten looks so fluffy!

Unfortunately, Sprout is one of the more feral of the yard cats. She is even aggressive to the other cats, snarling, growling and hissing at them if they come too close. That might make it harder to socialize those kittens!

Then, as I was heading to the truck to head to my mother’s, I spotted Brussel’s last kitten.

She and her baby still like to hang out in and around the garage, much like Broccoli and her babies prefer to hang out by the garden shed.

The visit with my mother went okay. When I got there, she told me she was not up to going out to eat, so she’d made lunch, instead. I wish I’d known in advance, or I would have brought food. I don’t like eating her groceries! It did give us a chance to talk, and I showed her the photos I took of the garden (those will be in my next post), then we went over her shopping list, which included a stop at the pharmacy.

There were a couple of things I forgot to pick up when I went to the grocery store for ourselves, yesterday, so I did both our shopping at the same time. I even picked up a few extra things for my mother that weren’t on her list, but the prices were good, and I knew she could use them. Other things, I found substitutes, because the prices were too high. Still, she’s now well stocked for the week, and that’s the important part.

The visit did have its down sides. After I’d put everything away, she had the local paper out and open. Our vandal has made his annual “in memory” listing about my late brother, with a colour photo of him with my late father. This impressed my mother greatly, because he does it every year, and it costs extra to include a colour photo. The fact that the content is passive aggressive and misleading – even outright false, in one thing – she is totally impressed by it. I told her I’d already seen the listing online, and she was all “and you didn’t tell me?” My response was, why would I? He does this every year, and it’s not like he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart. She then launched into making excuses for him and how he’s doing such great things, like volunteering to cut grass at the cemetery. Which I’m sure he made sure she knew about. Well, I visited the cemetery, too, but I don’t tell her about it, or about the flowers I added at the family graves, etc. Coming from me, she would find ways to either tell me how I am doing it wrong, or find a way to turn it around and start saying how great our vandal is.

Then I found out, he’d come by her place recently.

I told her, he shouldn’t be doing that.

She, of course, tried to turn it around on me, because that’s what she does. It took me a while to figure out what she was saying, because she phrased it so oddly, but she essentially said, if my daughters did what our vandal did, would I cut them off entirely? I told her, if they did what he did, yes! I would hold them responsible and accountable. I then called her out on making excuses for him the way she does, pointing out that he’s stolen 10’s of thousands of dollars of stuff from her that was on the farm (heck, his taking stuff was one of the biggest reasons she asked us to move here!), but that’s okay because he put a colour picture in the paper? He does this stuff because people have been letting him get away with is for years. I’m the first person to stand up to him, and he ended up vandalizing the place, we have to keep the gate locked, and worry that he’ll suddenly show up and try to burn the house down or something.

She changed the subject after that.

That was pretty much the only real downside of the visit. Mostly, I think she was just too tired to be as difficult as she usually is.

I didn’t stay too much longer after putting things away, since I did have my own few purchases getting hot in the truck, so I headed home soon after.

Once at home and settled, I gave the outside cats their lysine enhanced kibble. Since it’s the more granular type of lysine, I have been making sure the kibble bowls get some water in them, so it’ll stick to the kibble. With some of the bowls, I add extra water, as the kittens seem to prefer it, and this way they are getting more hydration in this heat, and the lysine will be dissolved in the water. Some of the kittens are getting leaky eyes and noses, including Button, and I want to make sure they get their lysine! It helps strengthen their immune systems.

No sign of the new kittens this time, though.

Then I went into the garden, but I’ll talk about that in my next post.

As for how things are now, my leg is still feeling like it’s about to start cramping up on me. More so as I’m sitting down then while I’m walking around. I’m going to be feeling downright nervous, getting into bed tonight! I’ve been looking into the various possible causes. One was the lawn mowing in the heat, but I didn’t do anywhere near as much as I have in the past. Lack of electrolytes is a possibility. I’m already taking B12 and Magnesium supplements, but it looks like I might be low on potassium and sodium, too. At least, those are the only possible causes I can be proactive about. Others include things like “getting older”. 😄

Well, we’ll see how it works out tonight!

The Re-Farmer

Unexpected stock up shop: this is what $115 looks like

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When I went into town, I just had a few things on my list for the grocery store. Once I got there, though, I found they had some really good sales going on and I ended up doing a bit of a stock up shop!

This is what $115.78 looks like.

Yeah. Even with the sales, it doesn’t look like much!

I did get some treats this time. The multipack of Coffee Crisp is for my husband. The Kit Kats multipack were for my daughters and I. The ketchup was actually on my list. So was the whipping cream, which is for some no-bake cheesecake we want to make.

I just noticed it says low sodium for the ketchup. I hadn’t noticed that on the label! Ah, well.

I got a couple of boxes of cookies on sale for us to try. I can’t remember if we’ve ever had them before.

There was a good deal on the red grapes, and large clamshells of blueberries. I think the blueberries would go very well on top of a no-bake cheesecake!

Hot dog buns were on sale, so I got a couple of bags, then picked up a large package of wieners to go with them. I got 300 grams of sliced Montreal Smoked Meat from the deli; it was on sale, though still expensive. When it comes to deli items, they don’t show the “you saved” line.

I got some French bread and marinated artichokes so the girls and I can do a charcuterie with the fancy cheeses and salami that I picked up during previous stock up trips. The marinated artichoke is for that, as well.

I was really happy with the sliced bread that was on sale. They were so fresh, the loaves were still warm when I picked them up off the shelves!

Last of all is a poppyseed roll. It’s been years since I’ve had some! My mother used to make then when I was a kid, using poppies we grew ourselves. I don’t see them regularly at the grocery store, so I made sure to grab one.

Looking through the receipt, it shows I got almost $35 in savings on this trip. Had these been regular prices, the final bill would have been a little over $150.

So… yea? I mean, I’m glad I got the sale prices, but I remember when, not too long ago, those would have been the regular prices!

Gotta take advantage of the sales and stock up when we can, though – and that includes a few treats. Those are always a good psychological boost when it’s near the end of the month but still a ways away from when pay comes in. I like to reserve something special for times like that, whether it’s a sweet treat, or some high end steaks. That’s something I learned to do back when we were way, way tighter, financially, than we are now. The morale boost of having something like that to enjoy when the fridge is otherwise empty, or the money ran out before the month did, is just as important as keeping to bellies full!

The Re-Farmer

New babies, and some morning progress

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The plan for today was to get at least the south yards mowed this morning, before things got too hot.

It almost happened.

Things started out awesome. It was 14C/57F when I got up this morning! What a relief that was!

The expected high was 27C, though. With the high humidity, everything was soaking wet with dew, but the garden still needed to be watered.

While watering the luffa, I saw the dew had condensed and was collecting on the very edges of each leaf. Very pretty!

Once the watering was done, I headed in for a quick breakfast, then headed back out. The grass was still so very wet, but I wanted to get at least some of it done.

I had brought over the lawn mower and getting it ready when I spotted the new kittens.

The orange kitten and the baby Hypotenose I’d found in the outer yard were in the inner yard! I’m hoping that meant they found the kibble.

Unfortunately, I had to scare them off once I started mowing.

I kept the bag on the mower to collect the clippings, emptying into the wagon as I worked on a section of the south yards. The grass was so wet, the opening into the bag kept getting jammed, so I was having to empty it a lot more often. One wagon load of clippings went into the compost heap, around the opportunistic tomatoes, potatoes and onions growing in there. The summer squash in pots got their mulch topped up, which was just a few handfuls of clippings. The rest of the clippings got spread out on the black landscape cloth/tarp in the main garden area to dry in the sun.

The other side of the south yard has a lot of creeping Charlie in it, so I won’t be able to use most of the clippings for mulch. That will just get piled somewhere else. Fresh green grass clippings – especially when they are wet like this – get insanely hot very quickly, and the middle of a pile starts to turn black and slimy in short order. That should kill off any creeping Charlie. I’ll probably dump it on top of the litter pellet compost pile. Normally, in the summer, we’d be burning the litter pellets together with any burnable garbage we have, but first the area was too wet, and not it’s just too hot to stand outside, tending a fire! So we’re still dumping the litter behind the outhouse, as it normally reserved for the winter. It’ll break down, but won’t be anything we’ll use as compost in the garden. The damp, creeping Charlie infested grass clippings should help it break down faster.

But that will be for tomorrow!

By the time I finished the section of yard, it was already 25C/77F. I wanted to go into town today, so I called it for mowing, and will continue tomorrow, when it’s supposed to be a bit cooler.

My trip into town ended up being an unexpected stock up trip, though! I’ll do another post about that, later.

Among my stops in town was a lumber and hardware store I tend to forget exists. It’s near the edge of town, and I don’t usually go that way. I had completely forgotten there is a huge festival in town, starting tonight, though I think some events have been already on for awhile. It’s a long weekend with Terry Fox Day on Monday, though this festival has been around far longer than that. I used to enjoy going to it when I was a kid, and it was still rather small. Now, it’s gotten much bigger. Enough people come out for it that this one traffic light town sets up temporary traffic lights at the intersection next to the hardware store I went to. It wasn’t until I was on my way home that I found they’d set up another set of temporary lights at the other end of town. That’s a first.

I no longer try to go to this festival. I just don’t have the patience for the crowds.

Anyhow; I ended up getting some replacement hose connectors, as I’ve got a couple that I’ve replaced that are leaking, then ended up getting some 4′ lengths of wood lath. I had to ask about it, as I didn’t remember the name of them. It’s basically just some cheap lumber that might be handy with some of our smaller building projects.

From there, I went to the dollar store and found a number of odds and ends we needed, then headed to the grocery store. I had only three items on my list, but found there were some really good sales and ended up getting stuff I’d intended to pick up later in the month, plus some treats.

So I guess it was a sort of productive day, even if I didn’t get as much of the mowing done as I’d hoped. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish it off, tomorrow, except…

I came home to a message from my mother. She just said “this is your mama” and that’s pretty much it. I called her back, but got her answering machine. My guess is, she’s going to want me to go over tomorrow and help her with grocery shopping.

We shall see, once I finally connect with her!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons, squash, pumpkin progress – and it’s crazy hot out there!

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According to my weather app, we’re still at 31C/88F, which “feels like” 33C/91F

Well, this evening (it’s coming up on 6pm as I start this), I got photos of our thermometers.

The thermometer in the sun room was reading 39C/102F. This thermometer is against the west wall, about 3/4 of the way up to the ceiling. It does not get direct sunlight on it.

The thermometer outside my husband’s bedroom window was as high as the needle could go. If the numbers went that far, it would be about 60C/140F. This thermometer get blasted with the full sun for most of the day, in a mostly sheltered corner of the house. No shade and rarely any breeze.

The last thermometer is stored in the top of a cat shelter shelf. The shelf is in full sun, but the thermometer itself was in shade inside. It was reading 43C/109F. Of all the thermometers, I’d say that one is the most accurate to how it felt while walking around the garden beds.

Wow.

Honestly, I’ll take that over matching temperatures on the other side of freezing. Not that we see -60C/-76F, but we do see -40C/F at times, and that is far more deadly.

A couple of evenings ago, I took photos of our squash, pumpkins and melons, using my hand for perspective. Today, I did it again – but this time, I found more to take photos of! Since Instagram allows “only” up to 10 photos in a slideshow, I split the squash and melon photos up by beds.

Yes, I was able to find melons in the second bed this time! I had spotted one before, but today I moved the leaves around and found others.

First, there is our single Crespo squash.

I’ve spotted some tiny female flower buds, but so far, there is only one successfully germinated Crespo squash among the three vines.

Next up is the bed with just the Summer of Melons mix melons.

I dug around in the leaves and found some “new” ones, too. In one photo, there are two melons, but the leaves and vines prevented me from getting a photo of them both, individually, so one of them is only half in the frame.

They’re getting big enough that they are starting to look like distinctively different varieties, too.

The next bed is the pumpkins.

The smaller ones are getting noticeably not-small anymore!

The pumpkin vines are getting intertwined with the drum gourd vines. Those have many male flowers, but I have yet to find a female flower anywhere. It’s possible I can’t see any under all the leaves, but I think that’s unlikely. I’m wondering if they are getting enough water? These have a buried gallon water bottle buried next to their bases, so they get watered slowly and deeply, but a gallon of water might not be enough for something like this. I don’t know. It seems to be sufficient for the pumpkins, though!

The next bed is the winter squash interplanted with shelling peas and pole beans.

The biggest squash at the corner of the bed had a friend on its stem!

The next bed is the winter squash interplanted with corn.

Still not very many among these, but they were also transplanted a fair bit later than the first bed.

Finally, there is the second melon bed.

The first and largest one is among the few Summer of Melons mix transplants that were left over. The others, I’m not sure. They look like they are the same variety, but one was on the far side of the single surviving Cream of Saskatchewan water melon, which I know for sure are not from that mix. That would make them Sarah’s Choice melons. We grew those last year, but they were grown in a bed next to two other varieties and the vines were so mixed up, we lost track of which were which. The other melons in this bed would be the Pixie melons.

Oh, wow. I just linked those to where I bought them, and my goodness, the prices have sure gone up!!! Especially for the Pixies!

If you want to compare how fast these have been growing, you can check out the comparison posts I made on July 30 and July 28.

We may not have anything to harvest on a daily basis this year, but we sure to have a lot growing!

If the warmth keeps up, though, we might actually be able to have things to harvest. The bush beans first had to survive the slugs. Then they had to survive the deer. Amazingly, there are some that have recovered enough that they are starting to bloom! So Royal Burgundy bush beans are a possibility.

There aren’t a lot of pole beans, either, but they are also starting to bloom, so we might be able to harvest both the green Seychelles and the purple Carminate beans at some point. Which isn’t going to be easy, with all those winter squash vines growing around them! The shelling peas seem to be very prolific, with lots of flowers and developing pods, but it will probably be at least a couple more weeks before any of those can be harvested. The corn is also going to be a bit longer; they are sure releasing a LOT of pollen right now!

We also have green tomatoes developing, but nothing is even close to ripening, yet. Then there are the summer squash. I have no idea if we’ll get any green zucchini, Magda, Goldy zucchini or White Scallops, but I think we’ll definitely be getting some of the G-Star patty pans to harvest at some point. They’re not blooming yet, but there are buds starting to form, at least.

What a strange, strange gardening year. That rain we had in the spring really messed things up and set things back. We had Saskatoons blooming, but there are no berries – it was probably too wet for the pollinators. The cherry tree by the house isn’t going to have many berries, though there are some that are ripening. One chokecherry tree in the spruce grove is showing berries, but the one next to the main garden area has almost nothing on it. Even among the crab apples trees, there are a couple of trees where I’m not seeing any apples! These are the ones that have small apples the birds like to eat. The ones with apples that we like to eat do have apples on them, so the timing of blooms and pollinating seems to have been just right for those trees, but not the others.

We have plenty of pollinators, though. I don’t usually see them, but when I’m going through the garden, I can hear them buzzing. I will still hand pollinate the squash if I spot a female flower, but the melons have so many flowers that are so small, hidden among so many leaves, it’s all on the pollinators for those!

With the spring set backs, we can only pray to have a long and mild fall to make up for it!

As my SIL once told me some time ago; if we depended on our garden for food, we’d be starving! 😄

I’m working to change that, though! 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

Melting

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Well, we reached our predicted high of 31C/88F, with the humidex putting us at 33C/91F, and we’re not expected to start cooking down until well into the evening.

I had a much interrupted night, so the girls took care of the outside stuff for me, including watering the garden, so I could try and get some more sleep. Which is rather difficult when, every now and then, a cat will suddenly get the zoomies and parkour off my body while careening across my room. What a way to be awakened!

I did make my trip into town, late this morning. It was slightly delayed when I stopped at the post office to pick up a package, and found my daughter’s computer was in a day early! I’d even checked the tracking this morning, and it was still saying tomorrow, by the end of day. Once I had that, I went back home to drop it off, then headed into town. My daughter hasn’t tried to take it upstairs yet. Her old computer is still chugging away, backing things up onto online storage – a very sloooooow process. She’ll start getting the new machine set up during the night.

I had intended to see what errands I could do while I was in town after sanitizing and filling our water jugs (it’s a different grocery store than where I usually go to, that has a sanitation station with their refill fountains), I got a message from my husband asking if I could swing by the Greek restaurant and pick up a couple of gyros for him. I found out this morning that my husband had eaten almost nothing all day yesterday – he just didn’t have any appetite – and his blood sugars dropped dangerously low. He had to pop glucose tablets to get himself back up again. The water refill station at the grocery store happened to be next to their pharmaceutical section, and they had some of the glucose tablets in stock, so I grabbed a bottle. With his Ozempic dose being doubled, the danger of his blood glucose levels dropping are much higher. Which ticks me off because I am 100% certain that is his chronic pain could be brought under control, he blood sugars would normalize. However, there’s no fix for his back, and so far, no pain killers tried have been able to get it under control. At best, it become more bearable. It’s like when he was diagnosed diabetic the first time. After that he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and started using a CPAP. Almost immediately, his blood sugars normalized and he lost about 100 pounds. I suspect the increase in dose for the Ozempic is more for the potential side effect of weight loss, but he’s been on this stuff for years now, and it has had zero effect on his weight. Plenty of other side effects, like losing much of his sense of taste, a loss of appetite, loss of muscle mass and intestinal distress, but his weight just won’t change.

Needless to say, when he asked for the gyros, my other plans went out the window, got his food and headed straight home with it, and skipped the other places I was going to check out.

I had been thinking of going to the dump later today, when it opens for the evening, but we really don’t have enough garbage and recycling to make it worth burning the gas in another trip.

My other plan had been to try and get some lawn mowed this morning, before it got hot, but that didn’t work out. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little bit cooler, so I will see if I can get it done then. In fact, our entire 10 day forecast has changed and, after tomorrow, we’re now supposed to be closer to 20C/68F instead of in the 30C/86F range.

I just got back from refreshing the cats’ water bowls outside, and adding frozen water bottles in a couple of them to help keep them cooler. The cats are just splattered all over, trying to keep cool

Except for these ones.

She’s nursing six kittens.

She only had four kittens in her litter.

So happy to see Button in there, getting some nip!

I’m just looking back at some of my garden posts from a year ago. At this time, our garlic was all harvested and curing, and I tried planting beets, radishes and spinach in the empty bed (they did not do well at all). I was also harvesting bush beans, turnips and G-Star pattypan squash. Not a lot, but at least something! I was even getting some yellow zucchini and the odd green one from the plants that survived getting eaten by slugs. We had Black Beauty tomatoes getting so big and heavy, we had to add extra supports. Our Spoon tomatoes were turning red, and our Sweet Chocolate peppers were covered in developing fruit. We even started harvesting some Indigo Blue tomatoes, and our Pink Banana and Georgia Candy Roaster had so many huge squash developing!

I’ll be doing another garden tour video in the middle of the month. Hopefully, things will have progressed between now and then! It should be interesting to compare the two.

For now, though, the main priority is to keep things protected from the heat.

Including us!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 garden: No, it’s not too early

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Today the last day of July. We’ve got about a month and 10 days before our first average frost day, though if we’re lucky, that won’t happen until much later. We haven’t even harvested our garlic yet, but when we do, we need to think about what to do with the empty beds. I’ve been considering planting some very short season crops, but there just doesn’t seem to be much point. Not with only about 40 days of growing season left, as of today, never mind from whenever any beds are harvested and open.

Which means I’m thinking about getting the garden ready for next year, rather than extending the harvest for this year.

No. It’s not too early! 😄

This timely video from Gardening in Canada talks about one option I was considering. Growing a cover crop.

Given the state of our soil, I am considering planting tillage radishes. I actually got the seeds a couple of years ago.

There are a lot of seeds in that bag! There are a few places I want to use them to help break up compacted soil, in preparation for expanding our garden space. Instead, we ended up unintentionally reducing garden space!

The idea is to plant them and leave them. As they grow, they “till” the soil, then add organic material as they decompose.

The only hesitation I have is our Dark Grey Zone soil, with its thin layer of top soil over gravel, sand, clay and rocks.

So. Many. Rocks.

This type of soil drains quickly and leaches nutrients. The tillage radish might increase how quickly water drains in the soil… or it will reduce the drainage by adding organic material in the sand/gravel/clay below, and act as a sponge.

If nothing else, it’s worth a try. I’ve got the seeds, after all. May as well use them before they get too old!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shopping: this is what $717 total looks like

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According to my weather app, it’s “only” 26C/79F out there, with no humidex change.

I’m pretty sure they’re lying. 😄

We barely cooled down last night at all. Usually, during the day, I have the box fan in the window facing the screen and blowing hot air out, then at night a reverse it to blow cool air in. I actually had to get up during the night and set the fan to blow the air out again, it was so hot!

The forecast for today had been a high of 31C/88F, but that’s now what we are expecting tomorrow, and today’s high is supposed to be 27C/81F, which we have not hit yet – at least not according to the weather app!

I was out early again to water the garden. I’d say, in the cool of the morning, but having never gone below 20C/68F during the night, it really wasn’t that cool. Still, it would help reduce the heat stress, at least.

Once the morning routine was done, I made sure to grab the ice packs out of the freezer, once again double insulating them, so they would last until I needed them, then headed out. Today is election day for our municipality, so I made a stop at the polling station first. That took longer than expected, as my name wasn’t on the list. My brother’s was, though, which explained why. My brother owns the property and pays the taxes on it, so even though he doesn’t live near here, they would have his name on the roster. Since we’ve been living here long enough, I was able to just sign a form the scrutineer filled out for me and vote.

I remembered to avoid the highway I normally take, since it’s still being resurfaced in sections, and crossed over to the next highway, stopping to put in $20 in gas along the way. Just enough to put me back above half a tank.

My only goal for today was Costco, so there were no side trips this time. I was going to fill the tank first, but the lines at the gas pumps were pretty long, so I decided to do it later. It was really busy, but was I able to find a parking spot near the gas pumps, and right next to a cart corral, so I was happy.

The shopping was… okay. As usually, I loaded up with the larger and heavier cat supplies, first, then did the rest of the shopping. With things as busy as they are, it was frustrating. What is it with people who don’t think twice about cutting off a flat cart? I can’t stop on a dime with that thing! I did have one person going past me pause to compliment me on how well I handled the flat cart, though! That was certainly appreciated. Lord knows, I was doing my best!

Anyhow, this is what $717.12 in total looks like.

*sigh*

As usual, I put the cat supplies on a separate bill.

I got four 9.1kg bags of Kirkland cat food, two 11.6kg bags of Whiskas, two cases of wet cat food and a box of puppy pads.

Nine items, and it came out to #325.60

I suppose this as good a time as any to post the Ko-fi donation button, if anyone is able to contribute!

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

As always, all donations go towards care and feeding of the cats. With my husband on disability payments, we have to be really, really careful about that!

Then there was the stuff we got for ourselves.

There’s a flat of Coke in there, that is 30 cans at about the same price as a flat of 24 cans, locally. I got a case of water bottles this time. We used buy these all the time and kept water bottles in a cooler in the van. With the truck, the cooler doesn’t really fit with the other stuff we keep in the cab. So we’ll just bring water bottles to the truck before heading out, as needed.

There’s a 15 pound bag of potatoes in there, since our larger potato varieties in the garden aren’t ready to harvest yet. I got a big case of ramen noodles, paper towels and toilet paper.

I didn’t get any sliced bread this time; just two packs of tortilla wraps. The chicken taco is a meal kit that I picked up for supper, so we don’t have to cook in this heat. There’s a package of fresh sausages, plus a 3pk assortment of cured sausages. There’s 5 pounds of butter, a 6pk of cream cheese, and a 2 pk of sour cream (they no longer carry the 500ml containers, but packs with two 250ml containers, instead). I got a block of mozzarella and a block of marble cheeses. I picked up two hot rotisserie chickens, frozen perogies (the box has 4 bags in it), a bag of basmati rice, and a 60 count of eggs.

I got a 2pk of baking powder, 3pk of Spam, a large jar of peanut butter, a 2pk of butter chicken sauce and 2 large jars of mayonnaise for the pantry. Normally, I get the Hellman’s mayo, but they’re getting more expansive, so I got the Kirkland brand this time.

And that’s it.

That’s all we got for $391.52

There’s hardly any meat in there at all, and meat is usually where I get the best prices at Costco, but the budget just wasn’t there for it, this time. That will change, later in the month, as my daughter pays us back for what we covered to get her new computer, which should arrive in a couple of days.

After I paid for this, I did grab a chicken and fries meal with a drink for the ride home, which was almost $9. I ended up not eating most of it, though. The seasoning on the chicken is a bit spicy for me; I have almost no tolerance for spicy heat in food, unfortunately. That’s okay, though. My husband got to enjoy it when I got home.

Once the truck was loaded up, I had some issues getting to the gas pumps to fill my tank. Someone decided to get in the line right behind me, and I didn’t have room to back out and turn. They would not move at all – even when other lanes cleared and they could have gotten to a pump faster!

Filling the tank cost me another $69 and change. Between the gas and the food, that made for a total of about $815 and change spent today.

*sigh*

After messaging my family to let me know I was on the way home, the girls made sure they were up and able to help me unload, then put everything away. While they took care of that, I made sure to put food out for the yard cats, to get them away from the truck, before parking!

Oh, that reminds me. I’ve had good news from the Cat Lady. Her son it already out of the hospital! In fact, he’s feeling well enough, he’s wanting to go to a local event this weekend. If that works out, she’ll let me know, so we can work out where and when to connect, and Button will finally be on his way to his new forever home!

All in all, I guess it has been a productive day, even though I wasn’t able to get everything that was on my shopping list this time. I’ll have to go out again, tomorrow, but this will be to make a dump run, then head into town to refill our 18.9L water jugs.

What I’d like to be doing right now is mowing the inner yard, but it’s way too hot and humid. It’s not supposed to cool down to a decent temperature until 6am. I think I’ll try to get to bed early tonight, so I can do the watering earlier, then get some mowing done before it gets too hot. Once I get the inner yard mowed, I want to park the truck in the shade of the inner yard, so we can use the garage to start building a cat isolation cage. I want to move the folding table we made into there, then set the miter saw up on it, then start gathering whatever materials I can find in the sheds and barn. I have a basic design in mind but, in the end, it’s just going to be cobbled together with what we have! It will be much better to work in the shade – and more level floor! – of the garage.

Oh, I also want to remove things from inside the outhouse, including the shelves we installed, so we can use them again. The yard is solid enough that we can use the truck to pull the tree off of it. I expect the outhouse will be destroyed in the process, but we might still be able to salvage parts of it. We shall see.

But first… the lawn needs to be mowed. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: winter squash, melons, pumpkins – and our first Crespo squash!

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I just got back in from taking comparison photos in the garden. It’s just past 7pm now, and we’re just barely starting to cool down. We most definitely broke 30C/86F today, though I don’t know by how much, or what the humidex was. As I write this, we’re down to 28C/82F, with the humidex putting us at 30C/86F – which I think is off by a few degrees! It certainly feels hotter than that out there to me!

But, everything is looking good in the garden. The morning watering is keeping everything from wilting away in the heat. The corn has reached pollination stage, but we don’t have much wind today, so I’ve been shaking them to pollinate the silks, and can see clouds of pollen coming off the tassels! I am so looking forward to trying this variety of corn. Such a short growing season isn’t worth much if we don’t like the corn! 😄 I see some potential problems with growing them in with the winter squash, though; some of the vines have started to climb the corn! The stalks will not be strong enough to hold that kind of weight!

I did not do any comparison photos of the developing melons, squash, etc., using my hand as perspective, yesterday. So we’ll be looking at two days growth from the photos I last posted.

Except for this one!

This is our first Crespo squash! I hand pollinated it, and it took, so I put a brick under it to keep it from potentially getting a rotten spot on the grass. I would love to get even just one fully grown Crespo squash, but it’s the end of July, so chances of that are pretty low, unless September ends up another warm one without frost – which may be possible, this year.

Digging around in the leaves, I found at least one more Summer of Melons Blend melon developing. There are lots more female flowers and probably more developing melons hidden by the leaves, but these are the largest ones that I can find, so far.

In the pumpkins, where I’d put a board under two smaller ones, you can see that the smaller one is turning yellow and withering away. Pollination didn’t take on that one.

I’m really impressed by how many pumpkins we have from just these two vines!

Among the winter squash, I found one that looks like it took and put a board under it. I also got shots of a couple that may have taken, but they haven’t dropped their flowers yet, so I might be jumping the gun to include them here.

I’ve been looking through the Vesey’s squash selection to try and determine what the varieties are, but it looks like the seeds in their Wild Bunch Mix are not sold separately! At least not all of them.

This is the image from their website for this product. I recognize Red Kuri in the photo, which we’ve grown before and really like. The image includes a squash I know is called Turks Turban, which is one of the squash we’ve got developing, but that one isn’t sold separately.

Oh! I just realized I forgot to get a photo of one large one! Excuse me while I go back out and fix that…

Done…

I can’t believe I forgot one of our largest developing winter squash! It is completely covered by leaves, so getting to it, and getting a photo, is a challenge. I think I can see which it is in the product image, but I don’t see that one among the seeds they sell individually.

Well, once they are ripe, I’ll have to look around online to see if I can identify the other varieties. The main reason we got this mix was to see which ones we like the most, so we can buy just those in the future. Eventually, I want to get ourselves down to just a couple of varieties – three at most – that grow well here, and that we enjoy eating – so that we can save seeds. That’s sort of the goal for most of the things we are growing, really, including the Summer of Melons mix.

Anyhow. I’ll probably take these comparison photos every couple of days, even though some of them show visible growth just from one day to the next. Especially when they are smaller. I like being able to go through the photos later on and really see how much they’ve grown in such a short time!

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be doing the early watering again, before heading to the city for our Costco shop. It’s also local election day for our municipal council, so I’ll be sure to vote before heading to the city.

As an aside, I’ve been playing with the AI assistant function on WordPress. The “generate feedback” keeps telling me I need to break up my long paragraphs. So often, I’ve taken another look at my posts to see if my paragraphs are really that long. I don’t think they are, in the posts I’ve done this with, but the AI sure seems to think so! It also keeps telling me to use subheadings to break things up. I’m not that kind of blog! It suggests adding images, too, though a few times it does recognize that I’ve used Instagram to include images.

What’s really funny is using the AI to generate images based only on the content of the posts. The AI does not know what a vegetable garden looks like. Or strawberry beds. Or a grocery store! At least the cat and kitten images look not too bad. 😄😄 The post I wrote about the washing machine being somehow turned on by the cats and flooding our entry was probably the funniest. I wrote about draining the water with a hose extending through the door.

It decided we had a washing machine sitting outside the door, with decorative nic nacs on top. 😂😂

None of them have been useable for my posts, though. I haven’t tried to tell it what to make for an image manually since I tried to get it to create an image of a mosquito some time ago.

The AI doesn’t know what mosquitoes look like, either.

Too funny!

The Re-Farmer

[Ahahahaha!!! I just tried the feedback option for this post, and it suggested I use the AI to generate images for it. 😂😂😂]

Morning strangers!

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The temperatures are supposed to increase again today; we’re looking at a high of 30C/86F in the forecast. As I write this, in the late morning, we’re already at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F

We’re supposed to stay in this range for the next while, too.

Just out of curiosity, I checked my app’s global temperature map and found our expected high of the day is almost the same as temperatures around the equator right now.

Fun stuff.

So I was out watering the garden again this morning. A job that was made easier today, too. Yesterday, I’d gone to the town north of us as the hardware store in that location carries the septic friendly bio stuff for drain and pipe maintenance.

I got three bottles.

Since I was there anyhow, I looked around other departments, including the section for hose repair and the like.

Which was right next to the display of various nozzles, some of which were at half price.

I ended up getting a spray wand, and a spare nozzle. We’re down to the two nozzles that are on the hoses now. I got these at Costco last year, as a two piece set. Once is the usual nozzle with several different spray options. The other lets you change the spray by turning the tip of the nozzle. I really dislike that one, because the finer spray just spreads out like an umbrella and wastes a lot of water.

I put the wand on the main garden hose and moved the good nozzle onto the front yard hose. We now have two spares.

I really like the new wand sprayer! I like being able to get in under the leaves and vines, and being able water more directly – and be less likely to step on vines in the process!

It was while I was watering in the south garden beds, at the chain link fence, that I met some strangers. I was collecting grass clippings to mulch around the self seeded tomato I transplanted last night, when I hear a cat meowing in the tall grass towards the pump shack. So I went to investigate.

I never found the cat I heard, but I did see a strangely orange … something… on the wooden box under one of the old fuel tanks.

Orange and… fluffy?

Of course, I had to go look.

Yup. It was an orange kitten!

We’ve had only two orange kittens in the yard. Brussel’s almost all orange one died, and Caramel’s orange and white one hangs out close to or in the sun room, most of the time.

I’m kinda happy to see another orange kitten. When we first moved here, the yard cats were almost all orange tabbies. Now, we’re down to one orange tabby adult, an orange and white adult, and an orange and white kitten. Having lost an all orange kitten already, it’s cheering to see another one.

Plus, orange cats are more likely to be males.

I managed to zoom in and get a picture, but as I tried to quietly move closer, a different kitten appeared in the same spot!

When I was able to get it to turn my way, I discovered it was a baby Hypotenose!

From what I could see, there are just the two kittens. Where they’ve been hiding out until now, or who the mother is, I have no clue. I don’t even know how many female cats we have anymore.

They are looking big enough and active enough that I expect them to start at least showing up at the food bowls under the shrine, soon.

At this point, we still don’t have a kitten count. They move around too fast and hide out in various places too much to get a firm number. Plus, as today has shown, there may still be more unknown litters that haven’t starting coming to the kibble, yet. On top of that, we may be having more losses, too – ones that I’m not finding and having to bury. It will probably be some weeks before we start to get an idea of how many survivors there are.

For now, whatever the number is, it just went up by two this morning!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first substantial harvest! Well, almost. Plus, good news

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With our garden not having the usual things that could be harvested throughout the growing season, the most we’ve had this year has been pretty small. The only real exception to that was the garlic scapes which, a much as there were and how much we enjoy them, is more of a flavouring than anything else. Aside from that, we’ve had handfuls of sugar snap peas, strawberries and raspberries. Much enjoyed, but not very substantial.

Today, I decided I wanted to cook with potatoes and carrots.

We don’t have any potatoes or carrots in the house at the moment.

A good excuse to see how the Red Thumb fingerling potatoes turned out! These are the ones we planted using potatoes from last year. They were small, even for fingerlings, and had been sprouting in the box they were hidden in (for some reason, the cats love playing with them!) for way too long. I shoved in as many as would fit in the leftover space, then dumped the rest in the compost heap. I honestly wasn’t sure they would grow.

Well, grow they did, and all of the, from the looks of it, unlike the Purple Caribe in the other 2/3rds of the bed.

The ones in the compost pile started growing later, are looking huge and are blooming right now. We’ll probably get more and bigger potatoes out of the compost pile than in the garden bed!

It’ll be a while before we can dig them up and confirm that, though.

I wanted just enough for tonight, so I only dug up a few at one end of the bed. There was a self seeded tomato in with them so, as soon as I had the space for it, I dug it out with a large amount of soil, so the roots would have virtually no disruption, then transplanted it at the very end of the bed. As I dug around for more potatoes, I built the soil around the stem a bit, then made the mound so that water would flow towards the stem rather than down the sides, where it would wash away the soil. I’ll put a mulch around it as soon as I have the materials to do it.

I ended up digging out three plants altogether, then went and harvested some carrots.

I had been wondering about the Uzbek Golden carrots. There’s lots of leaves, but there are no “shoulders” of carrots sticking out of the soil. Last year, they grew quite large, and we could see the carrot tops much earlier in the season.

Well, I found out why.

All the carrots I pulled up were still quite small!

Which is okay for a day’s meal. Still, what I harvested was almost a quarter of the carrots we planted, since we never had the space to plant more.

That’s what we get for starting ALL the mixed variety packs for winter squash and melons, and having an almost 100% germination rate. Plus extra melons! Plus transplanting all those overwintered onions for their seeds.

After harvesting these, they got hosed down a few times to get the big dirt off. Since they are so fresh, they just need to be scrubbed clean and the carrots trimmed, before being cooked unpeeled. Otherwise, I would never have kept some of the really tiny potatoes and carrots.

I did harvest the one ripe Purple Dragonfly pepper last night, but I don’t eat peppers, so the girls get to enjoy that.

I haven’t quite decided what I’ll be making with the ingredients I have right now. It’s still too hot to cook, so it’ll wait for a while!

On another note, my daughter’s transfers went through today, so she was able to etransfer to her father so he could use his credit card to buy her new computer. We were willing to drive to the city to pick it up at the local location, but it turns out they only have one location with pick up, and it’s in Toronto! So it will be mailed to us, by express post. Which means my daughter should have her new computer by the end of the week. Canada Post tends to be pretty good for that, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually arrived by Wednesday. Which would be awesome. I’m amazed my daughter has been able to keep her computer running at all! I don’t know if she got any sleep at all today, as each step of getting the funds transferred until the purchase could finally be made took longer than usual. But, it’s finally done. She still needs to keep her old computer functioning until the new one arrives, plus the time to set up the software she uses, make sure it can connect with her drawing tablet (that probably needs to be replaced soon, too) and both monitors, get the drivers updated, etc. until she can finally use it for work.

Even so, it’s a huge weight off her shoulders, just having it purchased and on its way!

I’d say today has been a pretty good day!

The Re-Farmer