Author: Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting shallots, zucca melon, and other progress. Plus, septic problems again!

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I got a late start to the day, unfortunately. I just didn’t get to sleep until sometime past 3am.

What got me going was nothing pleasant, though. The septic pump was running and not shutting off again. I checked the filter, and it was running dry, so I shut it off. After priming the filter and turning it back on again, it just drained the filter and kept running dry.

We’ve got an old garden hose with a missing male coupling set up in the basement, just for times like this. It’s hooked up to the cold water tap that the washing machine used to be hooked up to, before the laundry set up got moved upstairs. Every now and then, I run it through the drain in the floor, towards the septic tank. There is a bottleneck it always hits, roughly under the basement wall. It takes some wiggling and shifting before the end of the hose can get through what opening is left. Usually, from there, it’s clear to the tank. Lately, though, it’s been hitting another barrier. This morning, I wasn’t able to get through it with the hose. When testing out the septic pump, though, it was working as normal again, so I left it.

I’ll get back to that, later!

Once outside (and after playing with any kittens that would let me!), I started on transplanting shallots with the peppers in the high raised bed. I kept forgetting to do that, and I didn’t want it to be forgotten again!

I considered doing the yellow onions, instead – none of those have been transplanted, yet! – but decided against it. They will form larger bulbs than the shallots, and I figured they would do better with more space than the shallots need.

One thing about the cover being sized to fit the box beds in the east yard: the frame is narrower, but longer, than the high raised bed. Which means there’s contact with the logs in only 4 small spots. This meant I didn’t have to worry about squishing any of the transplants when I put it back on. This cover has fencing wire on it, and a larger mesh. I am hoping that, as the peppers get taller, they can grow into the fencing wire arch, which will support them, while their growing habit should still leave enough light and air for the shallots to grow.

We’ll see if this actually works out!

With those done, the next priority was getting the Zucca melon in, and for that, I had to set up the kiddie pool as a garden bed.

We used it to grow melons last year, so it already has drainage holes in the bottom. I added a fairly thick layer of grass clippings on the bottom. This should act as a bit of a sponge to hold water, before it finally drains out, as it breaks down.

For the soil, I “stole” several wheelbarrow loads from the last bed that needs to be shifted over. The alternative was to push my way through the overgrown grass to the pile of garden soil in the outer yard with the wheel barrow, and sifting each load.

The soil in this bed just needs weeding, not sifting, and most of the weeds had deep tap roots. Aside from the tree roots and a bit of crab grass, it didn’t take long to weed the soil after it was loosened with a garden fork, then shoveling it into the wheelbarrow, where I could get any other weeds and roots I might have missed.

I had to remind myself not to fill the wheelbarrow as much as usual. The soil is still quite moist, making it a lot heavier than usual. All that meant was that it took three loads instead of two, to fill the kiddie pool deep enough.

Finally, the zucca melon could be planted! These can grow melons up to 60 pounds in weight. If they actually grow this year, they should need take up a lot of space! Last year, they were in the bed where the bare root strawberries went last year. The plants never thrived, and what melons began to from, started to rot and die before getting more than 6 or 8 inches long. After prepping the bed for the strawberries, I now know that bed was being choked out by elm roots, too. This won’t happen with the kiddie pool as a raised bed. Last year, the pool was set up and the end of one of the beds I’ve been working on, quite close to the elms and maple. When I cleaned it up in the fall, there were no tree roots in it at all, unlike the fabric grow bags! So hopefully, this year, the Zucca melon will actually have a chance to grow and thrive!

Once that was done, it was time to go inside for lunch. As I was eating, I realized I was hearing the septic pump … and it wasn’t shutting off!

So I hid my food from the cats and headed for the basement. After priming the filter a few times, and it would still run dry, I tried pushing the hose through the floor drain again.

It did not work out very well at all.

First, I couldn’t get past the nearer bottleneck. After much fighting, I finally got it through the opening, but then it hit the second bottle neck, and that was it. It would not go past and into the tank.

Unfortunately, to do this, I was absolutely killing my left arm. Yes, I’m mostly ambidextrous, but if I need to do anything that requires a higher level of control or strength, I use my left arm. It was absolutely brutal on my damaged elbow.

I finally gave up, left septic pump off, and headed back upstairs. The fact that I hadn’t finished eating and was still very hungry did not help!

After cleaning myself up and finishing lunch, I went back at it, this time with a daughter. I still couldn’t get the hose through at the floor drain, and neither could my daughter. We ended up getting the tool kit so we could open the access pipe, instead. Normally, these can just be opened with a special screw cap – bronze, in our case – but that is fused in place. The entire top needs to be removed, and that’s held in place with screw clamps around strip of rubber and… some kind of finely corrugated metal that I think is aluminum.

So we got that pulled off and tried again with running the hose through. It worked much better, this time! We got through the first bottleneck fairly easily, and it was only a bit more effort to get through the second bottleneck. Finally, we were able to push the hose all the way into the tank!

At which point I went outside and opened the lid to take a look.

Do you know that it’s very hard to see anything when looking into a dark tank in bright sunshine? Meanwhile, I was being totally paranoid and holding my glasses against my face every time I tried to lean over and see. Finally, a cloud passed over the sun, and I could see!

But what did I see?

Well, I could eventually figure out where the float was. There’s a lot of gunk floating at the top, but I could see a couple of spot with flowing water in them – that would be water from the weeping tile, since no one in the household was using water at the time. I got my daughter to try wiggling the hose around, but I still couldn’t see it. It was somewhere under the gunk.

What I think is happening is, as the pump runs and the liquid level drops, the float is probably getting hung on something. Something that running the hose through manages to knock loose, finally allowing the float to drop and trigger the pump to stop running.

As I closed up the tank and went back inside, my daughter kept working with the hose. She could actually feel when she managed to knock something out of the way. I turned the water on, and she kept at it for a while. The septic pump turned on while she was doing this, and we could see water flowing through the filter, so this was now running as normal.

After she was done with that, I took over and ran the hose in the floor drain, towards the weeping tile under the new part basement floor. We know the weeping tile in the north corner is somehow messed up. Plus, we get tree roots growing through. We could see the water turn silty while I pushed the hose, with the water running, as far as it could go.

Once that was done, I decided to not bother tightening the cap on the access pipe again, since we will likely be running a hose through there, instead of the floor drain, regularly. So my daughter put away the tools and headed out while I closed things up and hung the hose back up where we store it. There’s quite a bit of water on the floor, with all the rain we’ve been having, the floor is damp or flooded in places, even with all the fans and blowers running.

Our electric bill is going to be brutal. With the equal payment plan, I won’t be surprised of the monthly payments don’t jump quite a bit, and not just because they’re increasing the price per kw, either.

That all took way longer than it should have, and I was very frustrated.

My husband, meanwhile, helped the only way he could… and I’m torn about it.

He used his Amazon credit card to buy me a commercial level drain auger, so we won’t be fighting with a hose. I don’t know that it will clear the nearer bottleneck, though. I fear that is the cast iron pipe collapsing, and that running an auger through would damage it more. That would really mess us up, since repairing that would probably require breaking through the concrete floor in the basement, and excavating between the basement wall and the septic tank outside, to replace it.

*sigh*

I don’t even want to think of it.

That done, and the water flowing through properly again, I needed to destress.

For me, that means manual labour! Yay!

I headed back outside (topped of the cat food for the evening, played with a kitten…) and to the garden.

We had reached the hottest part of the day by then, and I realized I’d forgotten about the melon bed. We have a few small piles of straw mulch from last year that I raided.

That gave me some nicely damp, cool, partially decomposed straw to lay around the melons.

Then I mulched the newly transplanted Zucca melons, too.

The Zucca got watered after transplanting, of course, but after the mulch was laid down, I gave that a good soaking, too. I had considered putting a jug in the middle for watering, like with the pumpkins and drum gourds, but using the kiddie pool as a raised bed, with the grass clipping base, makes that unnecessary. It will take a while for water to drain, so the Zucca roots should find all the water they need before it finished draining.

I soaked down the mulch on the other beds, too.

Last of all, I started working on shifting the next low raised bed. That meant breaking new ground where the bed will be shifted over, and turning the sod, first.

I didn’t get very far. It was just too hot!

So I’ve left it for now.

My current plan is to try going to bed early, and hopefully actually falling asleep, so that I can get an early start tomorrow. This bed should go much faster than the last one, as it’s nowhere near as weed filled. I want to get at least a few hours in, in the morning. It’s supposed to get a lot hotter than today, in the afternoon. Which makes it a good time for us to do our combined birthday/father’s day pizza night, courtesy of my older daughter.

Based on the current forecasts, we’re supposed to get hotter every day until Monday (it’s Wednesday, today), but not get any rain until Saturday evening. After Monday, it will cool down a little, with no other rain in the 10 day forecast.

We shall see.

We’re in the final stretch to get things in the ground! For transplants, it’s just those last few San Marzano tomatoes, the yellow onions and a few shallots, and the Orange Butterfly Flower. Those have to go somewhere where they can be treated as a perennial, and I’m not sure where that will be just yet!

For all the garden plans we made over the winter, we’re basically flying by the seat of our pants right now.

The Re-Farmer

One of the mamas

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Before I get into the progress for today, here is some cuteness for you to enjoy!

Seeing three of four siblings with their mama is adorable enough. Seeing mama giving kisses to a kitten that showed up just yesterday just melts my heart!

The only down side is, the mother seemed to be leading the kittens (including the grey one!) away from the house.

The kittens, however, seem to really like the sun room and keep going back there on their own, to nap or have a bit of food.

Still, today I’ve only seen two kittens from the grey litter. I think the mama might be Junk Pile, but I’m not sure.

As I was finishing up for the day outside, I spotted Broccoli’s two, playing by the garden shed. They run away and hide when I come near, with is sad. I’d hoped handling them when they were smaller would have made them less anxious. At their size, if I do manage to pick them up, I’m taking them to the sun room, too. They are large enough and old enough that they might just leave and go back to the shed on their own. Or they might decide soft beds and easy access to food, plus other kittens to play with, is much preferable to the shed!

While giving the outside cats a light afternoon feeding, several mamas were on the cat house roof while I pet the boys. It looks like Caramel has at least three active nips. I could only see two on Adam, but she doesn’t give me much chance to see. Junk Pile also has at least two active nips. Slick (aka: Octomom) also had two that I could see.

We will probably have more kittens showing up by the house over the next few weeks!

The Re-Farmer

Animal adventures

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This afternoon, my daughter came to let me know what she found, when going outside to stop a cat fight.

Kittens! She saw two of them, and showed me a picture she managed to get of one of them, in the shelf shelter.

Of course, I went outside to look.

I spotted one as it dashed between the shelf shelter and a couple of bins next to it. That was the one my daughter got a picture of. Looking in, I could just see a second tiny set of ears and eyes behind it.

I also saw a third kitten dash along the side of the house and under the rain cover over the basement window.

I was able to grab the first ball of fluff. It didn’t fight me off too much, either! I very quickly and carefully put it in the cat cage with the other litter. Their kibble bowl was empty so I got some for them. The new kitten started eating almost immediately!

Then I went to get the other kitten. It was quite far back, and I couldn’t reach it. There was a tarp on one of the bins, so I lifted it out of the way…

… and found another kitten!

I was able to quickly grab that one, and put it with its sibling.

After little bit of finagling, I was able to get the kitten that was out of reach. It joined its siblings in the cat cage, both of whom were eating.

By this time, my daughter was able to come out and join me. I wasn’t sure of the kitten I found under the tarp was the same one I’d seen run under the basement window rain cover, so my daughter and I went to take a look.

A little face looked back.

I was able to grab it and take it to the sun room, while she looked around for more, just in case!

It was just the four of them.

All of them, enjoying the kibble.

After awhile, they joined the other litter of kittens in a big snuggle pile!

They are still very nervous, of course, and tend to squeeze themselves against the corner walls of the cat cage. They don’t seem to have found how to get in and out of the cage, yet. Either that or they are just really enjoying a soft, warm cat bed! Even when we checked later, and the other kittens were running around and playing in the sun room, the new kittens were staying on the cat bed.

We don’t know who the mother is. The only female cat I’ve seen going to the kittens in the sun room has been the white and grey that is mother to the four white and grey kittens. My daughter wondered if maybe their mother is Slick (aka: Octomom) but I really couldn’t guess.

Whoever the mother is, she can easily find them in the sun room, and the kittens will be able to go in and out themselves, once they figure out where the opening in the cat cage is.

Meanwhile…

As we were all inside, we suddenly heard a most unusual noise – at least for here.

The loud barking of a dog!

This sent me running outside, because the last time a strange dog showed up here, we found it in the sun room, after it had already killed one of our cats.

I have no idea what breed this dog is, but it was incredibly friendly! The cats aren’t used to dogs, though, and there wasn’t a single cat in sight, anywhere.

From the smell of it, he scared off a skunk, too!

I hoped he had enough training to obey “go home”, but nope. He kept running around and coming back for pets, and running around. After a while, my daughter came out and we led him to the gate, hoping someone was looking for him. We did see several cars go by, but none stopped.

We even tried walking on the road in different directions, trying to figure out the most likely direction the dog would have come from. The problem is aside from the younger of my brothers, who lives a quarter mile up the road, everyone else is at least a mile away!

I took some photos and tried posting them on Facebook, as well as directly Messaging a few of our neighbours. Unfortunately, I had next to no signal. We tried walking down the road in different directions, and I found a few pockets with enough signal strength to send text, but not photos. So we headed back to our place and I went into the yard, where I could get Wi-Fi, while my daughter continued down the road. After I got some messages and photos sent, I grabbed the keys to the truck to catch up with my daughter, as it was getting dark by then. My thought was that I could pick her up, and we’d keep driving in the direction she had been walking. The next intersection is quite “populated”, with several occupied houses quite near each other. We figured, it was the most likely place the dog could have come from. What we couldn’t do was keep it at our place, because of the cats. It was just too high energy of a dog, and we couldn’t be sure it was okay with cats, which were slowly coming out of hiding.

So I picked up my daughter, who had to really fight to keep the dog from jumping into the truck with her, and then we drove off, leading it towards the corner with the houses, with the dog following. We then drove around the quarter section to back-track to our place.

We were coming up on the last quarter mile or so when we could see odd lights that looked like they were at our road. It turned out to be lights from the side of a truck that turned towards us and drove very, very slowly.

It was a guy, looking for his dog! He had seen one of my Facebook posts. He’d actually sent me a message, but I hadn’t received it. No signal. We told him which way the dog was headed, and he doubled back, after we gave him our land line number.

We thought for sure that he would have found his dog soon after, but I got a phone call after I started writing this post. It was from a neighbour in one of the houses in that corner we’d hoped the dog belonged to. She had a dog and didn’t know whose it was. She’d heard of a message about a dog I’d posted on Facebook – she’s not on the group I posted in, though, and didn’t see it herself – so she called me, in case this was the dog I was talking about.

I told her I’d met up with the owner, but I didn’t have his number. Instead, I got hers, then went to message him – and found he’d already messaged me! He was letting me know he didn’t see the dog, and would come back to look, tomorrow. It was full dark by then. I told him where the dog was and passed on the number.

They should be reunited by now!

I’m so glad we connected with the owner. We were concerned that the dog had been dumped.

So that was our big adventure today! Finding more kittens, and reuniting a dog with its owner!

The Re-Farmer

Good grief!

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Our forecast had changed to rain starting last night, continuing though today and tonight, no rain during the day tomorrow, but rain again at night.

Well, all of that seemed to just hit us at once, last night!

It started off gentle enough, to I left our remaining transplants out, but let my daughter know they were out there. When she heard the downpour, she ran out to bring them in.

She also found kittens in the sun room again.

All of them.

They were still there, this morning. The mama may have wanted them in the cat house, but they definitely prefer the cat cage in the sun room!

It was looking like I wouldn’t be up to working on that next bed today, last night. I had to get someone else to put the bath chair in the tub so I could take a shower. Then, as I got up from my office chair and walked across the room, I got hit with a Charlie Horse. I ended up needing one of my daughters to assist me for the next while, until I could finally crawl into bed.

In the end, it’s a moot point. There is no way we’re going to be doing much of anything in the yard or garden today.

The paths around the garden beds are all full of water, including around the beds that still need to be shifted. The melons I planted last night seem to have handled the battering just fine, as did everything else, which I am most thankful for. In fact, of the stuff that got planted earlier, just about everything is growing really well. The only exception is the struggling spinach, really, and that is a different issue completely. Spinach has been really hit or miss for us. Either it does really great, or not at all.

So we shift our goals for today.

With Father’s Day and my younger daughter’s birthday being in the same month, my older daughter is planning to treat us to a pizza night, later this week. We were also going to do an extra trip ahead of that, as she has other things she wants to get (like heat and eats for those hot days when no one is up to cooking), and I’m planning to get a cake of some kind. Probably a cheese cake, as that’s the birthday girls’ favourite. 😊

So we will be doing that trip, today. We’ll be heading to the nearer city, so I’ll be taking advantage of that to combine errands.

We are supposed to get a bit more rain this evening, then on rain for three days, then rain all day on Saturday. Hopefully, those three days will be enough for us to get more done in the garden, and get those tomatoes and Zucca melon transplanted!

Since moving our here, we’ve had drought, heat waves, flooding, and now spring so wet, we’ve now got more water in the yard than we did the spring we flooded! At least roads are being washed out.

As far as I know, anyhow!

Well, it is what it is. We’ll just have to deal with things as they come. What else can we do?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: bed done and melons in – almost

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Well, the low raised bed from hell is finally done. At least as done as can be, for right now.

And it’s planted in!

I don’t know why Instagram now cuts the sides off my photos, even though I select the wide image function.

I got about half way through the bed, sifting the soil, when I stopped for a break that ended up taking longer than I intended. Which is okay. It gave the soil I needed to move time to dry out a bit. Sifting damp soil is a lot harder and heavier. I’m amazed my home made soil sifter is still surviving the abuse!

By the time I was done fighting with my garden tour video and getting it uploaded, it was quite a bit later before I could get back at it. Thankfully, today has been cooler, with a pleasant breeze. I was greatly appreciating that!

The last bit of soil that needed to be worked on was the worst. This was the section full of creeping Charlie, and I was digging up and tossing large clumps of it. In the end, by the time I finished sifting the last of the soil from the old bed location, there wasn’t enough left to finish the new bed location. I ended up “stealing” soil from the last bed that will be worked on.

By then, it started to rain, but it was just a gentle shower, so I kept at it. Once the bed was done, I brought over the melons. I’d already gone through them and sorted them by type. I kept the Zucca melons aside, since they get huge. I’m thinking of using the kiddie pool as a raised bed, just for them, and setting it somewhere where they can spread.

There were a total of 16 melons to transplant, and I decided to dedicate the entire bed to them. I don’t know that we’ll be able to trellis them, since they will need stronger trellises than what we’re setting up for the beans and peas. If we end up not being able to add trellises, they should have room to spread on the ground and into the paths, if need be.

So this bed now has two rows of eight melons in it. As with the other squash and melons, I planted them slightly below grade and made hills of soil around them, so water would flow towards the plants rather than run down the sides of the bed and take the soil with it. The rain had pretty much stopped by the time that was done, so they got a good watering, too.

The bed still needs a mulch added to it, but it’s getting late, so that will be done tomorrow, when I will also started working on the next bed. That one needs to be shifted a lot, too, but it’s not as weedy and isn’t infested with creeping Charlie like this one was, so it should go somewhat faster. The hard part will be breaking the sod in the new location – and I don’t have anymore carboard that can be put over it, before shifting the soil on top.

This bed is where the last of the San Marzano tomatoes will finally be planted. There aren’t a lot of those left to transplant, so there will be room for other things.

Hmm… I should probably set up the kiddie pool and fill it with soil for the Zucca melons, first. They need to be transplanted more urgently than the tomatoes. That means sifting several loads of soil from the pile in the outer yard.

Once the transplants are in, I hope to be able to do some direct sowing, still. It’s getting really late for that. Our first frost date is September 10, so we’ve basically got July and August for things to grow, since if I plant things within the next 7-10 days, they will take the rest of June just to germinate.

What we don’t have a lot of is stuff that can be harvested throughout the summer. I’ve got three types of beans planted, and the very first Seychelle bean was sprouting this morning. The sugar snap peas are going to be awhile before there’s anything to harvest from them. The spinach is doing so poorly, I’m thinking of taking them out completely, and planting some chard or something, instead. I think it’s getting too late to plant more carrots, but I’ll check the information on my packages to be sure.

What I will likely do is direct sow more summer squash, since right now we just have some in pots. They haven’t germinated yet. Since summer squash gets harvested while still quite small, planting them in late June should be okay. As long as I can keep the slugs away! I haven’t actually seen slugs yet, so hopefully, we won’t have a bag year of them, like we did last year.

We shall see how things work out! Hopefully, we’ll even get weather that will allow us to harvest more dead spruces and build the frames around these beds, and maybe even continue the trellis beds, by fall.

Much work to be done.

It’s a good thing I love this kind of work! Even if I do have to pain killer up for it.

Speaking of which… time to do that, before this broken old body starts to seize up! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: June video tour

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I apologize for the image quality. I had to reduce it to get a reasonable file size. Even so, it took way too long to upload. When I first started, it said it would take 35 minutes, so I lay down and closed my eyes.

Two hours later, I checked on it, and it said 88% and 5 minutes left. Half a minute later, it said 89% and 19 minutes left… wtf??

But, here it is! A tour of our garden, such as it is so far.

The Re-Farmer

We have four again! Also, how did that happen?

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I’m just taking a lunch break from working on that garden bed, and first wanted to share some adorable news.

We have four kittens again!

There is one white and grey with a distinctive line of darker colour beside one eye. That one is more comfortable with contact, and I was able to pick it up and cuddle it. I was seeing the other two – one that has markings that are more black than grey, and another white and grey.

I turned to do something, with the one kitten in the sun room with me, when I turned back to the cat shelters and noticed three kittens playing around! The mama brought over her last baby! I didn’t see the mama, but I had heard her calling to her kittens, distracting the one I was paying attention to at the time.

After all this time, I was sure we’d never see that fourth kitten again, yet there it is!

Working on the garden bed later one had a different distraction, and one that I quite enjoyed. I heard a utility vehicle driving around beyond the outer yard and, when it sounded closer, I went over to see. The renter was checking the fence line in preparation for rotating their cows to this quarter section. I had a nice chat with her, and even showed her around the inner yard to see what we’ve been doing – and the tree that fell on the outhouse! She told me she found some trees fallen on the fence line, but nothing she wasn’t able to just move aside, herself.

The weather we’ve been having has made things difficult for them, too. Normally, they would have planted in the field on our quarter section by now, but they’ve missed the window of opportunity because of the rains, and how muddy the field is. They might just leave it fallow this year or, possibly, plant some sort of cover crop.

After our bit of a visit, it was back to sifting soil. I got about half way done when I stopped for lunch.

Before I’d gone outside, I’d restarted my June Garden Tour video upload. I figured it would be done by the time I got back inside.

It was at only 53%.

???

What the heck?

I left it running as I had my lunch and checked again.

56%

My husband came by around then and I expressed my frustration. It’s only a 26-27 minute long video. I’ve uploaded videos, with the same quality settings, before and had no issue. I even did a speed test, and saw no reason why my upload would be taking so long.

He asked about the file size, which I didn’t know exactly. I figured it would be about what my other videos were. I did some looking and comparing.

It was 20 gigs.

The last garden tour video I uploaded wasn’t as long, and it was just over 1 gig.

I exported the draft again. According to the software, the exported file size could range from 740 mb to 2.7 gigs, based on the default settings I use.

It saved at 20 gigs again.

So I’m trying again. This time, I went into the advanced settings and lowered the quality. The software now tells me the exported file should be between 530 mb and 1.89 gigs.

I’m trying to think of reasons for this. About the only thing I can think of is that I used my current phone to make the recordings that went into the video. When doing videos where I set up the tripod, I use an older phone of my that is currently being used just for recording on a tripod. The newer phone allows for higher quality images and video, hence larger file sizes. Which would make sense, except that I use this phone to record hand held video. Plus, the software goes by the file sizes in the draft video, as well as the quality settings, when it gives an estimate for the finished video being exported. The size range it gives is pretty wide, but the final file size shouldn’t be almost 10 times the high end of the estimate!

I also deleted, rather than overwrote, the previous file this time. It’s now taking longer to export than when I tried it earlier. The export is taking longer this time, so maybe that will also make a difference.

Well, we’ll see what we get this time.

I hate having to reduce the quality of a video like that, though.

If this worked out, I’ll set it to upload again, and hopefully will actually be able to share a video with you, soon!

The Re-Farmer

(oh! It just finished exporting. The new file size is just over 3 gigs now. Time to actually watch it and see how much quality was lost!)

Well, that’s frustrating

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I put together a garden tour video last night, then set it to upload to YouTube and went to bed. This morning, I was expecting to be able to include it in a blog post – but it was at only 59% upload! The video is about 26 minutes and “good” rather than “high” quality. This shouldn’t happen. Plus, we’ve got StarLink, which means we should have the same upload speeds as anywhere else.

Which means the problem is local.

I closed my browser to stop the upload, then tried again.

My browser opened the upload at exactly the same place.

I’ve never had that happen before!

I ended up closing it again, and am now trying to upload it with a different browser. It’s already at 12%

I don’t think it’s the browser that made the difference.

Ah, well.

It’s just past 7am, and a lovely 12C/54F out there right now. I’m planning to do my morning rounds, then stay out to get back at working on that garden bed, so I’m having my breakfast now (I don’t usually eat breakfast until after I’ve done my rounds, at the earliest). I can monitor the upload at the same time.

We’re supposed to hit 20C/68F today, but not until about 3pm, so I should have a few hours of decent temperatures for manual labour this morning. It’s supposed to start raining again during the night, no raid during the day tomorrow, then rain during the night again. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 17C/63F! That’s going to be awesome to work in!

Best of all, the winds have died down.

We might actually have some productive days over the next while.

The Re-Farmer

Wow, we are so fortunate!!

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The winds are still blowing like crazy right now. I headed outside to check on things. I hoped to do a bit on that garden bed, but the soil is still just too wet to sift.

The plastic on the box frame was starting to blow loose and I was trying to find ways to fix it when I heard a cracking noise.

The dead tree by the back of the garage was blown over, right on top of the outhouse!

Thank God the wind wasn’t blowing the other way, or it would have landed on the garage!

Looking at the base, there’s basically no roots left! I don’t know how long this tree has been dead. Just that it was already dead when we moved here. My guess is, many years of water pooling behind the garage and around to the outhouse simply rotted away the roots until there was next to nothing to hold it in the ground. At least, not with winds like we’re having right now!

My younger daughter came out to see what the noise was and we talked about it for a bit. There’s nothing we can do about the tree right now. Once things have dried up enough, we can tie a rope around the trunk and pull it off with the truck. Waiting for the ground to dry is going to be important, since we’ll otherwise just be spinning tires in the mud and tearing up the yard.

Dragging it off will totally demolish the outhouse.

Well, so much for our “second bathroom”. We won’t need to patch up that roof and give the outside a paint job anymore, though the inside looks real nice. 😄

We still plan to build an outdoor bathroom with a composting toilet, rather than a pit, and it was going to go in a higher area. An area we are now having to walk through standing water to get to. The spot I was thinking would be good to build in is basically in an open area leading into the spruce grove, near where the compost pile is right now. It is very wet, but the plan had been to build up a pad of packed gravel, first, so it would be build on a raised and level foundation that drains real well. I didn’t realize at the time I was considering this, just how much that would be necessary!

But first, we need to cut down the dead trees, as some of them need to be felled into where the outdoor bathroom will eventually be.

Now I’m wondering if we’ll be losing any more trees today!

The Re-Farmer

Wet, wet, wet – but the babies are okay!

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We had short, fast downpours throughout the night. It never really cooled down, though. I was hoping to get out early again but, at 5am, it was already 18C/64F, and still blowing like crazy. Things have calmed down a bit – still very windy, but the sun is out. All the areas that had finally become just wet, rather than filled with standing water, are once again filled with standing water. I’m glad we got as much mowing as we did. It’s going to be a while before we can try again.

When I came out this morning, there were plenty of cats eager for food, at least. The poor long haired cats are just soaking wet. I didn’t see any kittens at the time, though. When I finished my rounds and was coming around the laundry platform, when a single, wet little kitten climbed out from under the platform and onto a step. I’d left a bit of kibble there, and it seemed to be sniffing for it.

This is the kitten that has been the most willing to be cuddled, so I picked him up and did just that, so warm it up. He was a bit nervous about being carried around until I set up a small bowl of kibble in the cat cage and put him beside it, at which point he started chowing down!

Over the next while, I kept looking for the other kittens. Yesterday, it seems the litter was down or 3, so I was concerned it was now down to one. He was okay with running around and playing in the sun room, at least, and I kept an eye open for any others.

With the soil being far too wet to continue working on the garden bed, I decided to make recordings for a garden tour video, in spite of things looking a mess and being half done. After I finished that, I paused to pull some burdock coming up from under the cat house – and startled a baby! The two other kittens were inside the cat house! That makes me so happy. The cats haven’t been using it much, lately – it probably gets pretty hot and muggy in there at times like right now. The kittens were happily playing in the entrance, though, so I brought the other one over and they immediately started all horsing around together.

As I write this, we’re now at 21C/70F, with an expected high of 22C/72F. The winds are supposed to die down this afternoon. We should get a break from the rain for today and tomorrow, though we’re supposed to get more the next evening. Hopefully, that will give use the time we need to finish those beds and get the last transplants in.

Either that, or I’ll have time to put the garden tour video together, at least.

Looking out the window right now, we definitely aren’t getting the break from the wind, yet! I’m honestly amazed I found only a couple of fallen branches. The box frame over the eggplant and hot peppers is tied down and holding, but even the plastic around it is still there, though the bottoms keep getting pulled loose and need to be weighted down again. I’ve given up tacking down the mosquito netting at the chain link fence. They are well secured at the top, to the fence itself, but the ground staples keep getting yanked out, and most have disappeared. Bricks used to weigh the bottoms down just get flipped off. This netting lets water through, but the weave is still fine enough that they are more like sails than nets. They still do the job of keeping the elm seeds off. Those, at least, are almost done their season.

On the plus side, our water table may finally be recovered from all those years of drought that started before we moved out here! I’m not sure where to find that out. Plus, this is normally fire season. I’m quite liking not having to deal with smoke for weeks at a time!

There’s always a trade off of one kind or another, both good and bad. We just hope to have more good than bad!

The Re-Farmer