Well, I am currently waiting around in a Walmart, as 4 males are being neutered, courtesy of the Cat Lady and her rescue.
This morning was rough, though.
Before seeing what cats we could catch, I went to bring the truck into the yard. I heard a strange noise, and something dark in the grass.
It took a moment to identify it. It turned out to be a baby raccoon.
Unfortunately, it was still alive. And suffering. I had to dispatch it. This is not something I have never done before, but this one left me crying. I don’t know what got to it, but I’m guessing another racoon.
Nature can be so cruel.
After moving the truck, I had the distraction of helping my daughter get 4 males into the carriers.
I was left with a bloody arm and the need to change my shirt, but we got them.
We got Stinky and Syndol, which I expected. Nosey was a bit of a surprise. I think the last one is Collin.
Today was not one of the cheap spay days (where they will also do neuters), but a regular clinic day. The rescue still got a very good price. The Cat Lady also passed on some donated cat trees, a cat cave, a couple of cones and some blankets. She has kibble for us, too, but it was to be delivered later today.
Since I am hanging around until pick up time – for the time and cost of gas, it is not worth driving home and back – we talked about meeting up again, so she could pass on the kibble donation.
Well, that changed.
She got home and discovered their dog had a medical event and had to rush him to a vet.
They just can’t catch a break!!!
We did get a generous cash donation, though, so I was able to pick up three 9kg bags of kibble. We still have some from our monthly shop, so we are good for a while.
For now, I’m just hanging out in the Walmart area, checking different stores out. I want to scope out some traps. The rescue will lend us one, but it would be good to have our own.
It would be good to get a raccoon trap, but those are a lot more expensive. With good reason. We might be able to get one of those on loan from the municipality. Yesterday, I found that we have at least one raccoon in the pump shack. I didn’t see it, but I heard it barking and snarling and went looking. When I opened the door, I heard movement in the back. I don’t mind the mama and her 3 babies (or is she down to 2 now?), but I think the big one is a male, and they can be a real problem.
Crud.
I need to think about something else. I’m getting weepy again.
Anyhow.
The clinic knows I’m hanging around town, so they will try to fit the boys in as early as they can. Hopefully, it won’t be too long.
I think it will be a while before they trust us or the carriers again!
The kittens are getting very comfortable around the sun room and the house, running and playing together. Even the smallest ones are rough housing with the older kittens. Then they all pile together, sometimes in one big group, sometimes in several smaller ones, and nap.
It’s so flippin’ adorable.
Back to the less adorable stuff.
We closely monitored the septic pump all night. I went to bed early, since I wanted to get up very early to drive to a bank machine and take out cash to pay the septic guy. Before I went to bed, I heard the pump start running, so I went down to keep an eye on it. At the end, it did the thing again; the filter suddenly emptied of all liquid, but the pump kept running, dry. Thinking of what the septic guy told me on the phone, about how it sounded like we had an air leak somewhere, I shut it off manually, primed the filter, and turned the pump back on again, making sure to check if anything seemed to not be sealed properly. As soon as I flicked the switch, the pump started running, drained the filter, and kept running. So I repeated the process a couple more times until I flicked the switch, and the pump stayed off. I saw no sign of any leaks, and when I opened the top of the filter, there was most definitely a tight seal.
Everything worked the way it should, for the rest of the night.
I know this because every time the pump started running, I went back down to check. My intent to get to sleep early went right out the window. My daughters were going to check on it regularly during the night, but I’m the only one that can actually hear when the pump starts running, so I ended up checking anyhow. The girls still checked on it, too. That basement saw more traffic in and out in one night than it has in years! 😄
Which means I got no sleep last night. I didn’t finally get an hour or two of sleep until past 5am.
Oh… the pump just turned on. Gotta keep an ear out on it…
Okay, so I couldn’t do that. I had to go down and keep an eye on it.
It worked perfectly.
Anyhow. Where was I?
Oh, yes.
By about 7:30, I was on the road to my nearest bank branch, in the town my mother lives in, took out some cash and put some gas in the tank, since we’ve got a trip to the vet tomorrow, with whichever four males we can get into the carriers before we feed the outside cats.
Once back at home, I made sure the gate was left open, then did some work around the house until he arrived.
When he got here, he stopped in front of the garage, then got out to check the conditions. We still have standing water at the vehicle gate into the yard. There are ruts in the entry just from driving through with our truck. Walking through where he would be backing up together, we could see there could be problems. He did NOT want to back into the yard with that super heavy truck, and get stuck!
So, he first did a visual check on the tank. The pump had clearly run fairly recently. Everything looked the way it should.
Next, he wanted to check the pump itself.
When I checked on it earlier, I remembered his questions about vibrations and the possibility of a crack at the fittings. With that in mind, I grabbed a brick and a thin piece of Styrofoam that was no longer being used for something else, and set it under the filter. The filter basically floats above the concrete, held up by the pipes. I figured the weight of the water in there might be a possible contributing factor, so it is now supported. When he saw that and I explained I’d just added it this morning, he said it was a good idea.
He checked all the fittings and connections, then we opened up the filter to check that. He examined the condition of the O ring, while I topped up the water in the filter reservoir. It was an inch or so lower than it had been, but not so low that the inflow opening at the top was exposed. We put the cap back on, and everything looked fine.
He asked me a number of questions, wracking his brain, trying to figure out what was going. Then he asked about the outflow. Did we have an expeller or a septic field?
We have an expeller.
Was the pipe white or black?
White.
That got his attention, and he wanted to see where the water gets expelled.
This is just past the fence around the outer year, in the area the renter rotates his cows over to graze. They aren’t here, yet, so the grass is really tall. Of course, the grass in the outer yard is tall, too, since we can’t mow it. We made our way through and went to where the pipe was.
Or, should I say, where the pipe should have been.
The grass was so tall, it was hard to see, but we made our way to where it should have been, and couldn’t find it! I was having a bit of a heart attack, thinking it had been knocked over some how (it would have take a LOT for that to happen), but it wasn’t even lying on the ground.
Then he spotted it, hidden not only by the tall grass, but over handing willow branches.
The willows are fuller than I’ve ever seen them!
Unfortunately, the expelled water isn’t flowing in the direction it should, as there is too much debris, so there we had an area full of water we couldn’t get through. We were, however, able to go around from the other side.
When we got there, and he was checking out the pipe, water started flowing out. The pump was running. He popped the cap off, with the narrow, inner pipe attached, and pulled it out.
I commented that I had no idea that came out so easily.
It shouldn’t he told me. !!!
He started examining the bottom of the pipe he’d pulled out. Meanwhile, the larger, outer pipe filled with water and began overflowing, as it should. He’d brought along a long screwdriver and used that to poke into the bottom of the inner pipe, and I could see debris falling out. He popped it back on place, and water started flowing through it much better than before.
This clog was most likely the source of our problems!
As we walked back to the house, he told me that gunk inside the pipe running from the house to the inner pipe he’d just cleared would be breaking loose in chunks and getting stuck at the bottom of that inner pipe. He mentioned a chemical product with enzymes that they use. I told he, we do use the SeptoBac (which is specifically for the tank), as well as a product for maintaining the household pipes. This commercial stuff they use is much, much stronger, and designed specifically to clear these pipes that run underground.
He told me that if it gets clogged again, to take that inner pipe and cap off completely, and leave it off for about a month. The water will overflow the outer pipe, like it did while we were there, and that would give it a change to wash out the gunk in the pipes. He said this is a pretty common problem, too.
We checked the pump again and everything was fine. He took off the ring holding the clear cap in place, but the seal was so tight, he couldn’t take the cap off. I’m used to it, so I was able to pop it off. The water level was just a bit lower than before, so I topped it off (I keep a bucket of water in the old laundry sink, just for this) and we closed it up again.
He said to keep an eye on it over the next few days, and if we have a problem, to call him again. With it working, he was not going to empty that tank; there was no need, and no need to risk getting his truck stuck in our yard!
I asked him what we owed him, and he said nothing! He did not charge us for his time! I know he, technically, didn’t do any repairs, but he still spent at least half an hour, figuring things out.
He is so awesome! I’m glad to be having the septic guy checking all this out, too. Normally, we would have called a plumber, but who is going to know a septic system better than a septic guy? Especially an old and more uncommon system like ours.
So we are now on monitoring duty, and hopefully things will be back to working the way they should.
Plus, a nap.
I really, really need a nap.
I might even be able to sleep through the sound of the pump running, now!
This morning, I harvested our first garlic scapes! Not a lot, but enough to enjoy today.
The strawberries in the wattle weave bed had one ripe berry to harvest.
It was quite tasty. 😄
I also saw our first female winter squash blossom! That was quite a surprise, since they don’t usually show up until later. The flower was oddly closed, though. It wasn’t until later that I saw why. One of the vine’s tendrils had wrapped itself around the petals before they opened! So when the outer edges of the petals did open, they were “strangled” and there was no access to the inside for pollinating. I did take off the tendril which, unfortunately, broke off most of the petals. We’ll see if the remaining parts of the petals will finish opening up to allow pollination.
When coming back inside after doing my morning rounds, I saw an adorable sight.
Brussel and her sprouts were snuggled in the tall grass! This is the first official, confirmed sighting of her with her babies.
I am not sure if any of them have shown up in the sun room or not. I couldn’t even see how many there were. Two, for sure, but if there was more, I couldn’t tell.
The final “first” of the day was…
… using our new drain auger.
I’d gone to check on the septic pump, when I realized it was running, but no one had used any water recently. I hadn’t heard it earlier, because I have the fan going in my room, and my room is pretty much the only place where it can be heard.
— major interruption as I fought with the septic pump and tank, again —
Oh, man.
Where was I…
Right… I checked the pump’s filter, and it was running dry. No liquid flowing through. I shut off the pump manually, primed the filter with fresh water then turned it on again. Sometimes, that’s enough. The pump, when it first turns on, shakes a bit, so before turning it on, I like to grab the outflow pipe to hold it steady.
The pipe was hot.
The pump was running dry for so long, and got so hot, the pipe itself was hot!!
That is NOT a good thing!
For the last while, when this happens, I would run a hose through the access pipe in the floor. I can tell where there are some bottlenecks and, by the length of hose pushed through, can generally tell when it’s all the way into the solids side of the tank. With the water turned on, I can usually push through any blockages and eventually get it so that, when the pump it turned back on, it no longer runs dry. Which means the float has dropped far enough.
I know. This shouldn’t work. The hose is in the solids side. The float is in the liquid side. But it works.
This time, it didn’t. Instead, I basically hit a wall, and the hose would go no further.
Worse, fluid was backing up the access pipe enough to start overflowing the floor drain.
Well, there’s a reason we got that drain auger. Now we just had to get it down the stairs.
The problem is the stairs. These are steeper than usual, with narrower steps. Just going down them, I basically turn myself sideways, using both the hand rail and the wall, and go down one step at a time.
With the help of my husband, though, I was able to get it part way down, and then I could carefully maneuver it the rest of the way on my own.
Then I spent some time reading over the manual again.
Unfortunately, the schematics in the manual did not show how the belt was supposed to be attached. The photos looked like colour photos that had been photocopied as black and white, so I couldn’t even see where a belt might be. As far as I could tell, there was only one way for it to go, and that was around the drum that the cable is rolled up in. I finally just went on my computer, looked up the order and the colour photos. There, I could actually see the belt around the drum.
The tips are secured with a screw and tightened with an Allen key that came with the auger.
It was missing.
I know it was there when I unpacked it, but it was not where I put it.
Someone will probably find it with their feet at some point, wherever the cats left it.
*sigh*
I do have a tool kit with Allen keys in both metric and imperial, so I was able to use that.
The next hour or so was spent using the different tips to clear the pipe. The water didn’t drain, though – until I remembered the pump was still off! That got turned on, and things cleared. Yay! All done!
Right?
Wrong.
The pump ran for a while, then started running dry again. So that got shut off.
I tried pushing the hose through and there was still that bottleneck a couple of feet past the wall. I ran the auger through again, then the hose. Eventually, I could determine that the pipe itself was clear; the problem was in the tank. With the pump running properly again, though, and so much well water being used to clear things up, the pump and the outflow pipe were so cold, there was condensation on them.
However, things were working again, so everything got cleaned up and put away… and there was much cleaning up to do. I had expected to find tree roots blocking things, but nope. No sign of roots. Just… solids, shall we say.
I just can’t seem to wash up well enough to feel clean again.
After I started writing about all this, I realized I had the fan going, and was I hearing the septic pump running or not? I shut off the fan, and yes, it was running.
I went to check, and discovered it had been running dry, long enough for the outflow pipe to be starting to get warm again.
This time, in pushing the hose through, I hit that barrier again, far enough from the basement wall that it had to be in the tank itself.
WTF?
This time, I got my husband to be in the basement while I went to check the tank.
After putting on a latex gripper thing I don’t know the name of, that attached to the ear pieces of my glasses and goes around the back of the head, to ensure they don’t fall off. I am forever paranoid that when I look down from a height, my glasses will fall off, and that last thing I want is for them to fall off into the septic tank!
Now, with the pump running dry, I expected to find it drained and the float visible at the liquid side of the tank. From above, you can see a larger opening over the liquid side and and a smaller opening over the solids side. A few feet above is the pipe that the float’s cord runs through from the basement, directing it over the solids side and above the liquid side.
When I opened the tank, it was over full, and just a foot below the pipe the float’s cord runs though.
This is not a good thing. Not at all!
I got my husband to the pump on.
No change. I could see some sort of bubbling on the solids side, but that’s it.
That would have been from water running through the hose at the time.
When there was no sign of the contents being pumped out, I covered the tank again, then headed back to the basement. The pump was still running, but it was running dry! At that point, I was able to relieve my husband from duty. 😉
Not only did the pump not drain the tank (we shut it off manually again), but water was backing up to the basement again.
It turned out the hose was still on.
With the hose off, I kept pushing it back and forth. It was definitely moving easier. After a few minutes, I turned the pump back on and…
It started training the tank!!!
So I hung around like a mother hen as it ran, until the filter suddenly emptied and it started running dry again. I still had the hose handy, so I primed the filter again, then ran it through and turned it the water on. After pushing it through a few times, I turned the pump back on. It started running for about half a second, then shut itself off.
Once that was done, I went back out to look into the tank. I could once again see the top of the tank, with the two openings. I could see the float on the one side…
It seems to be sitting on something.
I really don’t know what it was I was looking it. It just seemed to me like there was something in the tank.
We’re going to have to get it emptied. Especially since it overfilled the way it did.
So I called the septic guy. As I was explaining what was going on, he was quite perplexed. My using the hose like I do should not make a difference, because it’s in a different part of the tank.
After more descriptions and questions from the septic guy, he does have one theory. Because the pump does shake when it first turns on, he thinks we have an air leak. Most likely, the shaking has caused a crack, probably on the underside of where the pipe from the tank is attached to the filter. He won’t know until he sees it, though.
He’ll be coming out late tomorrow morning. A basic pump out will be $160. He won’t know if it’ll cost more than that until he sees what’s going on, and if he is able to do any repairs.
My older daughter, bless her, will be able to cover the cost. It’ll just take a few days for the PayPal funds to be transferred. (While I was doing all this, she was a sweetheart and did the cooking, etc., too)
Which means tonight, I should probably head to my bank and take out some cash to at least pay for the pump put. If it costs more, I can pay him the rest later.
Or maybe tomorrow morning. I really don’t want to go anywhere right now.
It took all day, with many interruptions, but I finally finished editing a video.
Then I had to figure out how to export it in a file size that was reasonable, without losing too much quality. A 16 minute video should not be 12 gigs!
I hope I found a happy medium.
Today’s video is actually sort of a part two. I posted a progress video a month ago. This one.
Today’s video shows the continued progress, getting all the beds shifted over, and the final plantings.
This job took so much longer than it should have! I am, however, happy with things as they are right now. It meant we finally got the last of the transplants in, and even did a bit of direct sowing.
Broccoli has finally brought her two babies around the house! I spotted them in the old kitchen garden while in the sun room, after I’d finished up outside, and they were looking very nervous. I made a point of not hanging around so as not to scare them away from the kibble.
Today has been a quiet day, overall. We’re not getting rain as heavily as the weather radar seems to think we are. It has come and gone, all day, and will continue through to tomorrow morning. Plus high winds, of course. Areas to the south of us, however, are getting hit with more severe weather, including thunderstorms. We have nothing to complain about. I’m taking advantage of the time inside to finally work on the video I’m editing. It’s slow going, with many interruptions – I just got back from chasing a skunk out of the sun room, and it wasn’t leaving because of the racoon blocking the doorway!
I’ve been able to pick up and cuddle one of Adam’s little fluff balls. One that looks like it’ll grow up to look a lot like mama! I think the only reason I’ve been able to get it is because it’s the time to freeze rather than run away immediately, not because it’s any more socialized than the other kittens!
I really hope we can get more of them socialized this year, so we can get them fixed more easily. It would be a lot easier if the mamas could be socialized!
Well, time to get back to editing. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready to upload to YouTube tonight – and not have the weird situation where the video ends up a ridiculously huge file for some reason, like the last one!
I can’t say it was a good start to the day. I was awakened about about 3am, and the cats kept me from falling back asleep again. I finally got up around 7 to feed the outside cats, have some breakfast, then go back to bed for a few hours of real, honest to goodness, restful sleep.
I did the rest of my rounds quite late, and did get a few things done. As always, I checked on the garden beds. I remembered to bring along the Seychelle green pole bean seeds, to replant them because the Crespo squash. Since so few Carminate purple pole beans germinated, I planted some Seychelle in the gaps. We’ll see if there will be enough growing season left for pole beans! Assuming they germinate at all.
The Royal Burgundy beans that I replanted have quite a few sprouting right now – but only in one row. I’d planted two rows, on either side of the original single row, and there’s just a couple of those that survived. Now, there’s at least half a dozen sprouts coming up, but they area all in the row closer to the outside of the bed. The row closer to the middle has nothing. Very strange!
While going in and out of the sun room for my garden tools and whatnot, I got to see many babies.
The puffy one that’s asleep while through the cube wall is one of Adam’s tinies, and just too cute for words. It won’t let me near it. When it sees me, it immediately runs and hides. This tiny little fluff ball bouncing into the sun room. I want to scoop it up, so badly! 😄
Before heading inside, I gathered a bunch of rhubarb. This has been the best year for rhubarb we’ve had since moving here. The chives are looking amazing, too. We have quite a bit of cream cheese right now, and my daughters are talking about making a chives infused cream cheese spread. That sounds really good!
I’m trying to think of some way to put a barrier around the eggplant and hot pepper bed again. The plastic was completely destroyed by the wind, but I’m thinking what they might actually need is a bit more shade! They don’t seem to be growing much at all, and I think they’re getting baked. Which is odd, considering these are heat loving plants, and they’ve got plenty of heat. Both had done quite well int he wattle weave bed last year, and that bed is heavily shaded by one of the ornamental apple trees – both of which need more pruning, to open them up and let more air and light through. Honestly, I’d take them out completely, if they weren’t a food source for birds in the winter.
Anyhow, that’s pretty much the extent of my “work” today, and that was more fun than work. Sunday is supposed to be my day of rest, but it hasn’t worked out that way lately. We had to do as much as we could outside when there was a break in the rain, no matter what day that fell on. Now that those beds are shifted, and all the transplanting and direct sowing is done, I can get back to taking a regular day of rest. I seem to be really needing it, too. I had been planning to work on editing a video today, but for all that I did get solid sleep this morning, it’s been all I could do not to crawl back into bed all day! Even now, I can feel myself falling asleep at the keyboard. I don’t want to mess up my sleep cycle too much, though, and end up awake all night.
Anyhow.
The video editing will probably wait. It requires more mental focus than I can manage right now.
We’re supposed to get rain starting at about noon tomorrow, and continuing on through to 6am the day after. That would be as good a time as any to work on the video editing.
We didn’t get too excessively hot – our high was 19C/66F – which made a huge difference. As I write this, we’re at 17C/63F, with a “feels like” of 15C/59F. That’s more my kind of weather!
Best of all, we had a break from the rain. We should have another break tomorrow, and then it’s supposed to rain for another two days.
Still, we got enough sunshine to dry some things out.
Today, I wanted to get some direct sowing done – finally!
I decided to plant chard where the spinach is done. That required first removing the netting I set up that turned out to not be long enough to go all the way around the bed. Once that was cleared and put away, I pulled the sad little remaining spinach plants – I wish I knew why they did so poorly! – and weeded the bed. We don’t have a lot of carrots, unfortunately. The cats would go in where there was no netting to keep them out, and use that corner of the bed as a litter box, digging up quite a few carrots in the process. I’d hope to plant more, but it’s too late in the season for carrots, now. Of the overwintered onions that had been transplanted at one end, there are three that survived the transplanting, and they are starting to go to seed!
Speaking of seed, I had both Bright Lights (a rainbow variety) and Fordhook Giant seeds. The cats had gotten into them and chew through the packages, so now they’re all mixed up in the a Ziplock baggie. These are not new seeds, so it will be interesting to see how well they germinate.
Once the planting and weeding was done, I grabbed one of the new nets I picked up at a dollar store and set it up around the bed. I added a couple more support posts around the perimeter. These are salvaged from the frame of a canopy tent a tree fell on, so they all have screw holes in them. Very handy to string line through, to hold the netting in place and keep it from just sliding down the supports! The netting is wide enough that it can reach the trellis netting in the middle, as well as to the ground outside the raised bed. I didn’t bother fastening the netting to the middle, since it’s mostly to keep the cats out. Once the netting was in place, it got some ground staples to hold it down, since it kept wanting to creep back up!
That done, it was time to go to the main garden area, and the last bed that got shifted over. The empty space between the shallots and the yellow bulb onions needed something in it!
The white patty pan and Magda squash that was planted in pots in front of the house did not germinate, so I replanted them there. I also grabbed the G-star pattypan seeds, and planted all three varieties between the onions and the shallots. I used broken bamboo stakes to mark were I’d planted pairs of seeds. I hadn’t pre-soaked them or scarified them, so I made sure they got a deep watering. Then I raked up some of grass clippings and used it to mulch around where the seeds were planted. Then I dampened the mulch, too!
I completely forgot that I wanted to replant the Seychelle pole beans by the Crespo squash. I can do that tomorrow. It’s really late for pole beans, but I’m going to take the chance.
Aside from that, the garden is now finally all in! There are no other beds to plant things in. That will be our next focus: build more beds for next year! Especially the trellis beds. Plus, of course, harvesting more dead spruces to frame all the beds.
Once that was done, I tended to the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden. I didn’t bother taking pictures, since it’s hard to see. They’re starting to get big and bush, and starting to flop. So I grabbed some jute twine and wove it around the pairs of bamboo stakes at each tomato plant, and the tomato stems in between. That was more finnicky work than I expected! The leaves are so dense the jute twine is mostly hidden, but it’s doing its job, and holding the vines up between the support stakes.
I also took some video of the raised beds that got shifted over. I’m planning to do a progress video. I was going to do it tonight, but I’m falling asleep at my keyboard, so I think I’ll call it a night, and work on it tomorrow.
All in all, it turned out to be a decently productive day! Not bad for it starting out as such a bad pain day, this morning. Not bad at all!
I woke this morning to way too much pain and stiffness, so I asked my daughters to do both the outside and inside cat feeding, so I could take some painkillers and sleep in a bit.
Then I saw my younger daughter come in to do the food bowls in my room, and she’s still using a cane! Damn. We’re quite the household of gimps!
I’ll cover the garden stuff I got done today in a different post, but besides that…
First on the to-do list was a trip into town. Our expected prescription delivered on Wednesday is going to be delayed, as their driver isn’t available on the usual day. With most of my husband’s medications, he has ample supply, but not his new painkillers. So that got ordered, and was ready for pick up today. That gave me a chance to pick up some antihistamines for myself as well. I don’t know what I’m allergic to outside – likely a tree pollen – and it’s very annoying.
Since I was going to be in town anyhow, I grabbed our two empty 18.9L (5 gallon) water jugs to refill at the grocery store.
I forgot.
This is Canada Day weekend.
Town was so incredibly busy and crowded! We definitely need to avoid it until after Canada Day.
There were, at least, some really good sales on at the grocery store. I only took advantage of two; one brand of salad kits were almost half off, so I ended up getting 12 bags; 4 of three different mixes. Then I saw nacho chips were on sale, so I grabbed some of those. We already have cheese and olives, so my husband could have some nachos for a treat.
Once back at home and after I had lunch, it was outside to get some work done, while the weather was good. In the process, I got to see a whole bunch of kittens, of course.
We can now confirm that the white and grey mama has brought her four white and grey/black kittens back to the sun room! I spotted her on the critter cam, nursing some of them, while others – white and and greys from Adam’s litter – played nearby. I counted six kittens with her at the time. That makes 12 kittens in 3 litters now using the sun room.
I do wish Broccli would bring hers over. They are starting to get big! I’m going to stop leaving food by the old garden shed, so they have reason to come to the house for kibble, instead.
Towards the end of the day outside, I just had to pause and get a picture of the mock orange under the clothes line.
Well, I’m really, really glad I pushed to get so much of the mowing done yesterday. All the usual areas are under water again! We’ve got a bit of a break in the rain right now, but in a few hours, it’s supposed to start up again.
We didn’t even get the worst of it. The further south I drove, the heavier the rain. I’m most definitely not complaining!
For today’s trip, I went to our usual Canadian Tire and Walmart locations, but instead of the international grocery store I like to go to, I ended up hitting a Superstore in the same area. There really wasn’t anything on my list for the international store I couldn’t get elsewhere – or so I figured at the time. Turns out I was wrong about one thing.
My first stop was Canadian Tire, which had a few extras I normally wouldn’t get.
The litter pellets were my usual purchase.
This trip, I also picked up a new headlight and license plate light bulb for the truck. I also got a new tire gauge. On the way out, I got a low tire warning, so I stopped at a gas station to pump up. (One of the gas jockeys was a sweetheart and pumped the tires for me. Less time in the rain!) I checked all the tires while I was at it. At one point, I had to turn the truck around, as the hose wouldn’t reach. I put the tire gauge down on the console between the front seats. As I turned, it rolled off and in between the console and the driver’s seat.
And disappeared.
Thankfully, I did have another in our emergency kit, but it’s a cheap one. After the tires were pumped, I went into the convenience store to get another gauge, but the only one they had was for the big rigs. I liked the idea of having a dial, but the cost was not worth it. I did find similar at Canadian Tire that were not dual valve and cheaper, but in the end, I got just another plain one of a higher quality than was in the emergency kit. I do hope we find and dig out the other one, though. We got it as a freebie from somewhere, years ago, and it’s one of the best tire gauges we’ve ever had!
Last of all, I got a can of bug spray, since we were running low and the mosquitoes are insane, with all the rain we’ve been having. I’m glad I remembered to get it while at the Canadian Tire, because when I looked at the display in the Walmart, they didn’t have the powerful stuff, and the cans they did have, which were smaller, cost just as much!
One thing on my list that I did not find: a new filter for our push mower. None in stock.
Total damage at Canadian Tire, after taxes, was $72.74
The main thing on my list for Walmart where those XXL puppy pads, as we were running out of that size.
I got more raw pumpkin seeds that will be ground into a powder for adding to the cat soup. The canned cat food was not on my list, but they’ve actually gone down in price! We were going to need more, eventually, so I picked them up now.
The personal products were on my list, but the air freshener was not. I got lavender scent, which is supposed to be calming, and some of the cats could really use some calm! The coffee was on sale, so I grabbed one for the pantry.
I also added a donation to the children’s hospital.
Grand total and Walmart, after taxes and including the donation: $119.57
The next stop was Superstore. For this one, I had some specific things on my list, but mostly, it was “see what’s good”, or “see what’s on sale”.
While at the Walmart, I completely forgot to look for toilet safe drain cleaner, so I looked for that at the Superstore. The only ones they had specified not for use on toilets. I was also going to get Beaver Buzz energy drinks – the one thing I would have gotten at the international grocery store. Since I found some at the Superstore I went to after my Costco shopping, while stopping for road food, I figured I’d just get it here.
Well, it seems this location doesn’t carry Beaver Buzz.
They did have cases of Monster with a regular price that was a cheaper than the sale price, locally, so I got that, instead.
One thing that was on my list was canola oil, requested by my daughters. I also got paper towels, a flat of Coke Zero, and a case of tomato soup, among the larger items.
I got some frozen fish for the girls, as well as frozen perogies and frozen pot stickers. For fresh meat, I got ground beef and ground pork, plus a bag of cheese hoagies that were on sale.
I decided, as I was shopping, that I will be making a chili, so I got some canned mixed beans and some crushed tomatoes. Which is silly, considering how many tomatoes we have in the freezer, but they are whole and we really need to process them! They got buried, though, so I keep forgetting about them!
For fruit, I got bananas and cherries. The cherries were really cheap; $2.99 a pound. Usually, they’re $8.99 a pound locally, or $4.99 a pound elsewhere in the city.
Let’s see… what else did I get. There’s a large jar of olives for the pantry – those are going up in price! I remembered to grab a small jug of apple cider vinegar, as we are out completely right now. There was a good sale on whole wheat bread. I got torpedo buns, plus a round sourdough loaf.
Last of all, I got myself some fresh sushi and a cold Monster to have for lunch in the truck, before heading home.
The grand total at Superstore, after taxes, was $185.87. I accidentally cut the total off in the above image!
For what I got at Superstore, I probably could have just done the grocery shopping at the Walmart. Walmart doesn’t have those torpedo buns, though. 😄
By the time I was done, the rain had almost completely stopped, but the wind picked up. While sitting in the truck in the parking lot, eating my lunch, the truck was actually being buffeted, hard!
On the way out, I filled the gas tank, which cost another $56.
So the shopping was a grand total of $378.18. Add in the gas, and I spent $434.18 today.
Considering we got extras like the headlight, I suppose that’s not too bad.
On the way home, I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel that was supposed to arrive today. It wasn’t there. The website says “arriving by 10pm tonight”. Which means we’ll get it on Tuesday, since Monday is Canada Day.
I pulled the truck up to unload, as usual. Before driving it to the garage, I made sure to feed the outside cats to get them away from the vehicle.
I still had to chase one off the hood!
I made sure to put food out for the kittens by the back of the garage, the tarp covered wood pile, and the old garden shed, along with the usual places. Last of all, I put food in the sun room for the kittens in there – then had to chase out the crowd of adult cats that left the food outside, to come in and eat the kitten’s food! Adam’s kittens dive under the counter shelf as soon as I come in (I’m so glad we put that up on bricks!) so I make sure to scatter some on the floor under there a bit. That way, they don’t have to fight off the adults for food!
As I was walking back to the house from the garage, I spotted a little ball of fluff under the shrine, and was able to grab a picture.
The one kitten in the junk pile was enjoying some kibble under the shrine, with its mother.
So, from what we are seeing now, we have 8 kittens (2 litters) in the sun room, 4 behind the garage, 2 under the tarp covered pile and 2 in the old garden shed. The 4 white and greys that were the first to show up in the sun room are still gone, and I’m starting to think they were victims of the racoons, along with the newborns. There wasn’t enough… evidence… left behind for me to be able to say one way or the other. How many others there are, beyond the inner yard, we have no way of knowing until they start showing up at the kibble bowls. As for the adults, I haven’t even tried counting them lately. They come and go so much. I did see Sad Face this afternoon, though, and he’s got a wound of some kind under one cheek. He won’t stay still long enough for me to see it. Considering he’s been actively stalking and attacking other cats lately, it doesn’t surprise me. He’s getting on in years and looking more and more beat up. He tends to win those fights, though!
Which reminds me. Syndol’s limp is getting much better. Driver showed up yesterday, and he was limping, too, though not as bad. I haven’t seen the white and grey with the puncture wound on his front leg, so I can’t say how he’s doing.
A few more days, and we’re bring 4 males to the vet, courtesy of cheap spay/neuter day and the rescue. By next month, the kittens should all be weaned, so grabbing some females to be spayed is the goal. We should have a trap loaned to us by then.
Anyhow.
We are now stocked up for the month, except for the usual local purchases.
My hands are shot, so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to write, and I’ll probably have typos all over the place. This would normally be a post loaded with photos, but I don’t feel like embedding Instagram photos.
So… this was my day.
Doing my morning rounds I, as always, checked all the garden beds after feeding the cats…
… and the kittens. Much kittens. Adam and her kittens have been in and out of the sun room all day, and I’ve seeing the four behind the garage playing around all day, too. Those ones, it turns out, are Slick’s! (aka: Octomom). I thought they were Brussel’s, but nope. I saw Slick mothering them.
I’m glad she had only 4 kittens this time, and not 8!
Also, it turns out the dark grey kitten with the white eyeliner is NOT the sunroom kitten. We have two of them!
I was quite happy to see the first scapes appearing in our garlic. We are so looking forwards to eating scapes again!
All the strawberries – the older ones with the asparagus, the ones in the wattle weaves we started from seed last year, and the everbearing ones we got as bare roots this spring – are developing berries. Now, if we can just keep the birds and deer from eating them first, we might have a decent amount to enjoy this year!
Quite a few of the first bed of winter squash we transplanted are blooming now. All male flowers for now. I even saw a few tiny flowers on some melons!
Quite a few of onions that overwintered and got transplanted into the first trellis bed are developing seed tops. I look forward to being able to collect our own onions seeds for next year!
The Crespo squash is also blooming quite a bit. There’s some sort of small weed that’s showing up in almost all our beds, but there’s a rather surprising amount around the Crespo squash . Since I was able to do some mowing yesterday, I gathered up grass clippings to mulch around the Crespo squash, leaving space where the beans were plants. There’s still just 3 or 4 beans growing on one side, and I plan to reseed them, though it’s getting pretty late for pole beans right now. The grass clipping mulch should help take care of those weeds and, with more rain on its way, get the squash vines off the wet soil.
Then, since I was gathering grass clippings nearby, anyhow, I mulched around the strawberry and asparagus bed. That one is almost impossible to weed properly. I made it to fit the spacing the asparagus needed, but that left it too wide for me to reach without stepping right inside the bed.
I did some weeding in the spinach, snap pea and carrot bed. I ended up pulling some of the larger spinach. Even the tiniest ones are bolting, but a few had leaves large enough to actually use. I’ve been using them in sandwiches all day today.
Soon after I was done my rounds, I went to town with the 20L jerry can to get premium gas for the mowers. At the last minute, I decided to hit another store and pick up a bunch of artificial flowers. Then I went to a hardware store and found small engine oil for our push mower, before finally getting the fuel for the lawnmowers. On the way home, I swung by the cemetery and left flowers by the stones for my father, my father’s uncle, my brother, my grandmother, a cousin and her baby. I’ll have to come by another time with some soap and water and give the stones a wash. Birds are no respecter of persons! Later, I want to grab the cross with a solar powered light in it, that I got for my MIL’s grave, and set it out with flowers. I’ve never actually seen her grave. When my daughter and I went to tend to is, and my FIL’s request, since he can no longer make the trip out, we couldn’t find it. We did find a sign saying a number of markers have been removed due to flooding, and would be repaired and returned. I would hope it’s been replaced by now!
Once I got home and fueled up the push mower, it was time to start mowing! We’re expecting rain starting tonight, and all day tomorrow, so I wanted to get as much done as I could. I didn’t even try using the riding mower. I tried using it yesterday, but it just can’t handle the tall, wet grass very well.
For the first while, I worked on the south yards. These were the worst, even though we’d actually been able to mow parts, previously. Unfortunately, these yards are also where all the kittens are! The area behind the garage was just brutal to work on. There is no longer standing water, but the ground still squelches when I walk on it. I scared off the garage kittens quite a few times, but after a while, they did start to get used to me and the noise, and would come out and play more often, ducking to hide only when I got close again.
The south west yard is where the kibble and water bowl houses are. That corner needs to be done with the weed trimmed, but I got as close around the cat shelters as I could.
The cats and kittens were not happy.
I even had time to do the west yard, around the fire pit area, though I didn’t even try to go behind the storage house, where there is an open area between rows of trees. It got so full of water there, so it’s bound to be really wet. However, it gets very little light, so the grass there is so sparse, being overground there isn’t really much of an issue.
At that point, I finally stopped to have lunch. It was past 3pm by then, and today the dump is open from 2-6pm Once I finished lunch, I brought the truck into the yard and my older daughter helped me load the garbage and recycling.
I had quite a nice surprise when I got to the dump. My cousin-in-law was there! He was with the attendant dealing with electronics garbage and didn’t seem me, so I just got rid of our recycling, then drove to the pit. I was just finishing up when he drove to the pit, too, and we finally got to say hello. It’s been a long time since we chatted.
After we said our goodbyes and I was getting ready to leave, I spotted something very strange on the ground beside the truck I hadn’t noticed when I first got out. It was so strange, I had to call my cousin over to see!
I found a foot.
It had just enough flesh on it to hold the bones together, but it was most definitely a foot.
Then I found another one, a few feet away.
Then I found a “hand”.
The “hand” did not have an opposable thumb.
My guess is, they were from a bear. A hunter probably processed one, tossed the unused bits and pieces in the pit, then some animal dragged them out.
Not something I ever expected to see in my life, that’s for sure!
The dump run done, as soon as I got home, it was back to mowing.
I was able to finished off the north and east yards, much to the discomfort of Caramel, who dove under the tarp covered pile of boards she has her two kittens in. I saw no sign of Broccoli’s two, around the old garden shed, though I did see them this morning.
When I got those done, I kept pushing the mowing further into the area between the spruce grove and the garden beds. This is an area we’re going to be dragging trees through, and part of it is where the trellis beds will be built, so I wanted to get as least some of it done, in the more level areas.
I also finally mowed a path through the maple grove. Just enough that we can walk through from near the old kitchen garden, around to where the main garden area is. This took me near where the old tap and its part and pieces are lying on the ground, waiting for when we can set it up again. That will happen after we get the pipes we want to run the hose through, to protect it, before burying it in a trench.
All this means we have FINALLY been able to mow the entire inner yard. Not between the trees, but at least the higher traffic areas!
Yay!!!
My next area to do was in the outer yard. I’d already cleared part of it in front of the chain link fence, between the vehicle gate and the people gate, so we could actually access the people gate again. Today, I cleared a path to access the burn barrel to the electricity meter, then back to the people gate. Once that triangle of paths was made, I worked on clearing the grass inside the triangle.
Not only had this area not been mowed yet this year, but it’s one of those areas that’s really dense and had different, tougher, grasses in it. Which means, for most of this area, even with the mower on its highest setting, I had to go forward with the wheels up first, drop the mower and back up over the same area, then go forward again normally. Basically going over the same sections, three times. I had to do this in the inner yard, too, but not as much as this one section. It was almost as difficult as going over the wet area behind the garage.
I had just a small triangle left when I ran out of gas again. It was actually worth refilling the mower to get that little triangle. 😄
And that was it. I was done. The temperatures are really nice right now, there’s still light out, and I probably could have kept going, but I was DONE. I’m going to need someone to put the bath chair in the tub for me later on, so I can shower.
I was working on that last bit when my daughters came out. The ground is finally solid enough that they can set up the ladder against the house, and it won’t sink into the ground. They were finally able to clear the eavestroughs. My older daughter just came in and updated me. Since her sister was up on the roof, anyhow, she cleared away some of the elm branches from the tree in front of the kitchen window that were overhanging the roof, while my older daughter hauled the branches away to the burn pile. That would have been quite a big job, and rather precarious in places.
I’m going to be so much more comfortable when we can get rid of that tree!
I’ve also been informed, we need to get more bug spray. The mosquitoes are insane, and we’re running out. At least it isn’t horseflies anymore. When I was moving the back hose over so I could mow, I heard buzzing like there was another wasp next back there. There wasn’t. It was hundreds of horseflies, all in that corner of the house!
I’m heading into the city tomorrow for our second shop, so I’ll make sure to add that to the list!
I definitely will need to pain killer up tonight. I’m going to be paying for all that mowing. It was worth it, though. Everything looks so much better and, now that it’s done, it’ll be so much easier to keep up. We’ll even be able to use the riding mower on it!
Plus, we now have lots of grass clippings to use as mulch in the garden!
The Re-Farmer 