Author: Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye, and some surprises

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

Well, it’s done. Our Wolfman is gone off to new adventures.

His eye actually looked a lot better today – he just really hates it when I try to take his picture! – but we could now see something different about it. Where, before, there seemed to be a dent in the eye, the eye no longer looks shriveled but now has a spot sticking out, like a little pimple. You can see it in the photo.

The Cat Lady took one look, and said that it’s a hematoma, and that this is not from a scratch, but blunt force trauma. One of her own cats had the same thing. What likely happened is that, while horsing around with the other cats, Wolfman ran into something.

Which wouldn’t surprise me, considering how often we’ve tried petting a cat, only to have it poke itself in the eye with one of our fingers!

He’ll be kept somewhat isolated in a kennel (there will be other cats in the room), and then see the vet tomorrow. Depending on how things he, there’s a free special eye clinic happening on Monday that she may take him to.

As we talked, I discovered I was wrong about how many permanent cats they have. It isn’t 17.

It’s 21.

Plus another 8 that are up for adoption, so Wolfman puts them at 30 in total!

He will be an easy one to adopt, though.

We ended up talking about some of the other “problem cats” they haven’t been able to find homes for, including at least one other that was adopted out but returned, repeatedly, just like the one from us. We never named him, and weren’t even going to pass him on to the rescue, as he was so sick we didn’t think he’d survive. He wouldn’t have, either, were it not for them! They’ve named him Leo.

They were told repeatedly that he wouldn’t last long. They tried to have him fixed twice, and his heart stopped when they put him under. They resuscitated him and the final time they tried to get him fixed, they didn’t put him under at all, but used a local anesthetic. He’s had other times when he’s stopped breathing. Yet, he keeps recovering! He’s become a big muscular brick of a cat, too. That doesn’t surprise me. He would be one of Shop Towel’s progeny, like Tissue and the Printer Babies. Tissue is also solid muscle, and so are several of the white and greys outside.

The Cat Lady also had some donations for us, including some surprises.

I knew she had kibble for us, and then she said she had some litter boxes for us, but wow! There is so much!

The funny addition is that round litter box you can see in the back. That was Leo’s litter box, barely used. He would go into the box, but then couldn’t figure out how to get out of it. Instead, he would just go around in circles.

She jokes that he’s the dumbest cat they’ve ever had.

Along with what turned out to be three litter boxes, there was 8 bags of kibble, 15 cat milks, and more than a dozen bags of fancy, high end treats. She’d actually bought the treats for her own cats, but they wouldn’t eat them. In fact, Cabbages stole a bag, put it in a litter box and tried to bury it!

I already gave some to our cats, and they went bonkers for them! Totally love them!

The cat milks are going to come in handy for our elderly Freya. She needs the extra calories!

There’s also a little cat scratching tower with a couple of dangly toys, which is now an upstairs cat toy. There was even a little litter scoop hidden among the stuff!

This was an incredibly generous donation, and really helps us out a lot! Especially the extra litter boxes. The smallest one will be tucked away to be used for those times when we have to isolate a cat. In time, we hope to replace most, if not all, of our litter boxes with covered ones.

While transferring all this stuff from her vehicle to ours, the Cat Lady said that she’ll have more for us, next month! Which is totally amazing! I’m just to thankful for ever bit of it.

After we parted ways, I took advantage of being in town to do some errands, but that will be for my next post.

The Re-Farmer

Finally!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment
Why aren’t you petting me?

No, not finally petting this cat, though that did happen (I counted 30 yard cats this morning).

No, not finally the snow is almost gone, or the moat around the garage disappearing, or even large sections of the main garden area accessible again.

No, what finally happened was our tax returns finally got deposited!!!!

I’ve already called and left a message with the septic guy about replacing the pill switch in our septic tank.

Just a little bit longer, and we won’t be having to manually turn that thing on several times a day.

We’ve certainly learned to recognize the signs of when it needs to be done, before things start backing up into the basement!

We were having a problem with it yesterday, though. One of the things that was modified on our system was the addition of a pool filter. Greywater from the tank goes through the filter before it reaches the pump, which then sends the water out to the field by the barn. Hang on… I should have some photos. That will make it much easier to explain!

There they are!

These go back to 2020, in February, when things backed up into the basement, and my brother helped get things unplugged – at least until we had the roots professionally augured out of those floor drains!

This is what it looked like, before the filter was installed.

This is what it’s like now.

The filter needs to be primed for proper flow, but once that’s done and closed up, it should run fine. If, however, we turn on the pump, but the greywater side of the tank outside isn’t full enough to be drained, the filter reservoir drains out the bottom, and that’s it. So we need to open it up and fill it to above the inflow opening to prime. We can even keep an eye through the clear lid and see what’s going on, which I find very useful.

You can see the white handle of the filter basket inside. We have two of them, so that when it needs to be cleaned, we can just quickly switch in the second one, then let the dirty one soak in detergent for a while before scrubbing it out. Typically, we only need to do this a couple of times a year.

That got switched out when the septic tank was emptied and it was really bad, so I switched out the detergent water it was soaking in a few times, and it was still soaking, as of yesterday.

Yesterday, we could tell that the tank needed to be drained, but every time I tried to run the pump, the filter would drain, but no greywater from the tank would come in. I’d prime the filter, but it would happen again.

So I decided to switch the filter basket, but the other one was still soaking. The detergent got most of the gunge off, so I gloved up and started scrubbing the basket with brush that we have, just for this job.

What I found myself doing was pulling out wads and wads of cat hair! Enough that it was blocking the mesh of the filter basket from the inside.

Once I got that clear and clean, I took the other filter basket out and set it to soak. I also made a point of cleaning the inside of the reservoir, the threads and the parts and pieces of the cover. I even scrubbed the inside of the clear cover as best I could. Over time, grease and grime can build up under there and make it harder to see inside.

It was a very disgusting job, but it needs to be done!

Once everything was cleaned up, I popped the newly cleaned filter basket in, primed the filter, then turned on the pump.

It ran fine! I could see the inflow splashing through, and the water level remained high.

While that ran, I started cleaning the other filter basket…

… and started pulling out wads of cat hair!

There was enough cat hair lining the inside of the basket to prevent proper flow and mess with the vacuum seal.

I got the cat hair out, but left the basket to soak in detergent longer, since the other scunge that was already accumulating wasn’t going to come off well, otherwise.

When living on a town or city sewage system, we don’t really think about what goes down the drains. Sure, we know about flushing toilets, baths, showers and draining washing machines. How often, though, do we think about the bits of food and grease from washing our dishes? Or all the different types of cleaners, getting all mixed up together? Or how much HAIR gets in there! We already have to regularly clear the drains in the tub and bathroom sink because of the hair that gets caught – both human and cat – but I never imagined that so much cat fur was making its way into the septic system that it would clog that filter basket after only about 10 days. The Septo-Bac and the bio pipe maintenance stuff both include bacteria and enzymes to break down grease and hair. It just needs more time to do it!

It would be getting in through the washing machine, mostly. Every time we do the laundry, and I clean out the lint trap on the drier, it’s got a thick layer of cat hair on it. It gets everywhere. What we need to get are some air filters for various rooms, but even that would reduce the problem, not get rid of it. We just have too many indoor cats!

Well, by the end of today, we’ll be down by one, as I deliver the Wolfman to the rescue for vet care and adoption. I’m happy to say his eye is looking SO much better today. Hopefully, that will mean a much smaller vet bill for the rescue, though the vet was willing to give them samples of that super expensive medication.

Talking about the Wolfman with my husband today, he joked that he’ll put money on them deciding to keep him permanently. I hope not! They already have 17 permanent cats, plus the ones up for adoption that have their own space, and 4 or 5 (or is it 5 or 6?) of their permanent ones are from us!

Wolfman is such a sweet cat, though. We’re going to miss him!

What can’t we adopt out the a****e cats, instead?

Oh, right. Because they’re a****s. 😂

Anyhow.

It will work out.

Later today, I will deliver the Wolfman, then take advantage of the trip to pick up a few necessities. Hopefully, I’ll hear back from the septic guy before then, and will know how much cash to take out to pay him, and a date for when he can replace the pill switch.

Finally!!!!

The Re-Farmer

Saying goodbye, soon!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Well, the ball is rolling.

I got a call from the Cat Lady this morning.  We will be meeting tomorrow afternoon, so I can drop off this handsome dude.

He even has an appointment with the vet, the next day.  I keep thinking the eye is looking better, but then the light hits it, and it starts glowing a horrifying red.  I hope it won’t take much to get him healed up.  The Cat Lady and her family are already afraid they might end up keeping him.  He’s such a beauty, and so very sweet!  I told her, just post a picture of him with that tail, and they will have people lining up for him!

I learned something interesting during our conversation.  They have a cat from us that got adopted out – and returned! – three times, so they’re now keeping him permanently.  He was so very sick when they took him in, and still has returning health issues, which people had said they understood and were willing to work with, but then, didn’t. Their daughter that took such good care of Cabbages has been taking care of this one, too, and they adore each other. She’s excited to know that one of his cousins is soon to join them! When she leaves for school, he will sit at the window in the door all day, waiting for her to come back. Even the dog adores him.

It turns out, he’s a Down’s Syndrome cat.

I didn’t even know cats could have Down’s Syndrome.

He was seeing a different vet one time when the vet took a closer look and told the Cat Lady, this is a Down’s Syndrome cat. She had no idea, either, but he explained what he was seeing that identified the diagnosis. It does explain quite a few things, both with his health issues, and behavior.

The Wolfman, however, should be a much “easier” cat for them. He is already fixed – she was happy to hear that, as she was already planning ahead to get that done – and once the eye is taken care of, that should be it.

I’m so grateful that they’re willing to do this. We’re still waiting on my tax return, so who knows when we’d have been able to get him to a vet – or even if my return would be enough to cover the bill. We absolutely must get that pill switch replaced on the septic tank once the money comes in, so whatever was left after that would have been it.

So we’ve got one more day to enjoy the Wolfman’s company. He’s such an easygoing cat, he will handle things quite well, and will make some lucky family very happy!

Meanwhile, I brought up the idea of doing some sort of fundraiser for the rescue in the summer. There isn’t much we can do to help out, but we can at least help with something like this!

The Re-Farmer

Stroganoff on a smoker?? (video)

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Just watching a few videos with breakfast this morning and found a new cooking video from Quick Dick McDick.

Oh, my. He doesn’t go half way, that’s for sure!

Having to pause near the end to help deliver another calf was a nice touch. 😄😄

I seriously want a smoker.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: it’s a start, and surprise onions!

/ Re-Farmer / 12 Comments

Today is turning out to be such a gorgeous day! The outside cats are very happy and spending more time outside, rather than in the sun room.

Unfortunately, the skunks are out, too. I went into the sun room from outside and found one in there, eating the cat kibble. At least the skunk doesn’t bother the cats any, and the cats generally stay in the sun room while the skunks are there. The racoons, on the other hand, usually come in groups and tear the place apart, digging for stray bits of kibble, and they’re easily twice the size of any of the cats. Expect maybe Shop Towel.

As I write this, it’s coming up on 4pm, and we’re at 13C/55F, with a “feels like” of 15C/59F. I couldn’t resist! I had to get out there and get some work done!

So I decided to work on the low raised bed that runs along the chain link fence between the people gate and the vehicle gate. It needs to be narrowed for better reach, but we didn’t get a chance to work on it before the ground froze.

I’ve been making sure to take photos and videos that will be put together in a video later on, but there was one thing I found I just had to share now.

After removing the mulch to get started, I found onions!

Last year, after transplanting onion seedlings in various places, I still had lots of teeny, tiny onions left over. I also found onion bulbs in various places, from the year before, that had survived the winter. Most of the seedlings got transplanted just inside the bricks framing the bed – and most did not survive. The bulbs I found from the previous year’s onions – Oneida onions, if I remember correctly – all got transplanted at one end of this bed, plus there was a single surviving shallot that survived the previous year’s flooding that I just left to grow. It tried to go to seed, but didn’t quite make it. I didn’t harvest any onions out of here in the fall, because there was nothing to harvest.

Well, those previous year onions actually survived the winter, and I uncovered a bunch of them! Even the shallot at the opposite end was starting to show green!

Where they were growing was part of the bed I had to move to make it narrower, so these had to go.

The largest bulbs in here are the yellow onions that I think are Oneida. The shallots had two bulbs growing against each other, plus there were a few little onions that I think may have been survivors last year’s transplants. There is a pair of bulbs that look like yellow onions that I think might be a different variety of shallots, but I’m not sure.

These got transplanted in the raised bed we will have peas planted all down the middle. I haven’t quite decided what I will plant on either side of the peas but, at one end, it now has these onions. If they survive, they should go to seed, which would be awesome. Onion seeds are viable for only a year, but once the plants go to seed in their second (or, in this case, third) year, I believe they go to seed every year. We could potentially have our own annual onion seeds to collect.

We shall see!

After the onions were transplanted, I went to work on the end of the bed next to the people gate. That’s where I’d found there were broken pieces of sidewalk blocks and bricks, buried under the soil. You can read about that here.

Unfortunately, the ground it still too frozen. I got one broken piece loose that can be left in place, as it will not be under the bed. I was able to remove another broken piece, but found the edge of yet another chunk. I tried pouring water over it do make it more visible, and possibly thaw the soil a bit, too, but eventually had to stop. Depending on where it extends under the soil, I might be able to leave it for now.

When I realized I was just chipping through soil that was frozen rock solid, I set that job aside and started working on pulling up weeds along the edge of the bed, and moving the soil away from the path and closer to the chain link fence. In some places, it worked out okay, but for the most part, the ground is just too frozen.

With the mulch removed and the black soil now exposed to sunlight, it should start thawing out faster. Hopefully, we’ll have that bed reworked and ready for planting, soon. It’s one of the areas thawing out fast enough that we will be able to direct sow things that can be planted before last frost.

Gosh, it felt good to be working out in such a beautiful day!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: pre-germinating seeds (videos)

/ Re-Farmer / 9 Comments

Talk about making a difference!

Recently, I was going to start some new seeds in pots, but at the last moment, changed my mind. We had such trouble with these last year, and these seeds were anywhere from 2 to 4 years old. I decided to try pre-germinating them, and if some of the seeds turned out to be dead, I’d know right away. Plus, I could avoid our situation last year, where so many seeds didn’t germinate, or died soon after.

Here is a video from Maritime Gardening about the planting process.

Typically, pre-germinating seeds is done in slide lock baggies, but he does it in reusable plastic containers, and I liked that idea better. The take-out container I used was big enough to hold all the seeds I wanted to start, and they are all so different there was no concern about getting them mixed up.

Today – after only 4 days, with only a couple of those on the heat mat (I had the container elevated, so the wouldn’t get too hot) – they germinated! When I turned the lights on this morning and checked them, I saw a few little roots poking out. By the time I was ready to put them in pots this afternoon, every seed either had a root emerging, or just visible.

Before I got to that, though, I saw this new video from Gardening in Canada. Excellent timing.

Almost all plastic containers have that triple arrow reduce-reuse-recycle symbol, with a number in it. She goes through all of them, from 1 through 6. All the plastic containers she looked at are considered food safe, but some are better than others, though the green tray sets with the LED lights, which I now have, too, have no number on them at all.

When it was time to plant, I made sure to check the bottoms of the pots I’d bought for these, and was happy to see a number 5. Discovering that the Red Solo cups (which have a 6 on them) are made of a plastic that is among the worse for shedding was a bit of a surprise. I still have a lot of those!

Honestly, though, I’m not too worried about it. If I worried about all it all, I’d never do anything. Still, if I am in a position to choose one over the other, I now have the information to made an educated decision.

Thanks, Ashley!

So here is my little video of today’s progress!

The seeds had already been soaking for a while when I decided to take clippers to them and scarify the outer shells. Normally, I’d have used sandpaper. All the emerging radicles found their way through the clipped openings. It likely would have taken several more days for them to break through, otherwise, and even longer if they’d gone straight into pots.

I’m quite impressed that every single seed sprouted. The luffa are the oldest seeds of them all, so I was really expecting to have at least a couple of duds.

So now they are on the heat mat, and I expect to see them emerge from the soil in a few days. Theoretically, I should have given each seed its own pot, but we’ll see how they do, first.

Before I was able to get started on this, though, I had to finish cleaning up after my near disaster with the San Marzano tomato tray, yesterday. The remaining soil spilled onto the floor had finally dried enough to vacuum, though I was actually able to salvage some of it, first. As everything was put back in front of the window, I made sure to top up the soil on the onion tray that got knocked over. Mostly, it was filling in around the edges, since the roots held the soil together in the middle.

I’m really at a loss as to how I’m going to set up more seed trays as they get moved out of the big aquarium greenhouse. We won’t be able to do the same set up as we did last year. Hopefully, things will stay mild enough that I can start using the sun room, early. The outside cats won’t be happy, though. They’ll be losing their lounging spaces! We’ll probably have to start closing the sun room door completely. At least for the night.

If the door can close all the way. Things are still shifting, and I recall having trouble getting the outer door to fully close because of it.

The sun room certainly gets warm enough during the day – today, I saw the thermometer at about 25C/77F – but it loses pretty much all that heat, overnight, and that would be cold enough to kill seedlings. It’ll be a few weeks before we’re going to need the space, though, so it might be warm enough overnight, by then. We shall see.

For now, I’m really happy with how pre-germinating these seeds worked out. When it comes time to start things like the melons and winter squash indoors, I think it would be worthwhile to do it again!

The Re-Farmer

The gathering… plus a celebration

/ Re-Farmer / 11 Comments

We’ve got another beautiful day today. It was already above freezing by the time I got outside to feed the kitties and do my morning rounds. I counted 28 yard cats this morning.

I was coming back from the outer yard when I spotted the gathering…

Sorry for the shakiness. I was zoomed in from across the yard! If you turn your volume up, you’ll hear a noise right at the start. That’s actually ice crackling! You’ll also hear the Canada Geese flying overhead. There were a lot of them this morning. We’re at that time of year where the cats are preferring to drink melt water instead of the warm water I’m still leaving for them in the heated water bowls. Here, though, I think they were mostly just playing. The water is receding quite a bit – which is good, because it’s actually being absorbed by the ground, not washing away. In some areas, though, that means there is a top layer of ice, then a gap over the water level, with another layer of ice. It’s that sort of top layer of ice cracking that you’re hearing in the video.

Enough snow has melted away that I was able to start adding areas back into my rounds, and even start doing a bit of clean up. It’s still too early for the snow crocuses, but the area they are in is mostly clear of ice and snow. I was even able to check on the Korean pines. I think we lost one of them. There’s four left altogether, and I’ll be happy if even just one survives. We shall see!

In other things, today is our anniversary. Thirty six years ago, while my husband was in “X platoon” in Basic Training (Basic Officer Training Course, to be specific; it’s an option that I don’t think exists anymore) due to an injury, he flew home for about a week. He arrived late on a Thursday, before Easter weekend, which meant all government offices were closed from Friday to Monday. On Tuesday, we bought our marriage license, then waited the requisite 24 hours before getting married on Wednesday. We had two days together, then he flew back to Chilliwack.

The powers that be were not impressed. Apparently, he was supposed to get their permission before getting married!

We didn’t see each other for another 3 months. That’s when his parents and sister were able to fly in from Africa, where they were living at the time. My husband was still in X platoon, so he was able to fly out for a few days, and our two families gathered together here at the farm to celebrate our marriage. After he returned to Chilliwack, we didn’t see each other again for another 3 months, when I took the train and moved out to join him, just in time for him to officially leave X platoon and be part of the next BOTC start date. We didn’t actually live under the same roof until after he was done the 13 week course, and we moved to Victoria, BC, where he had his first posting as a very green naval officer.

Of course, we had all sorts of people making assumptions about why we eloped like we did, but it really came down to, it was the only time slot we had. It was either do it then, or wait a couple of years. The entire wedding, including my dress (I bought it earlier because I was able to get an employee discount on top of a warehouse clearance discount – it only cost me $10! I never thought I’d be getting married in it!) and rings (I got those with my employee discount, too! 😄) cost about $100. My BIL paid the $40 or whatever it was for the license fee, and my brother and his wife took us out to dinner after the wedding. My brother and his wife were the only family members to know what we planned to do in advance, and my SIL walked me through what I needed to do and where I needed to go to get it all arranged before my husband (fiancé) flew out.

I highly recommend eloping. Very stress free!!

My mother had been okay with it at first; just surprised. Then she talked to the local priest, who told her we weren’t really married, because we didn’t get married in a church.

*sigh*

That priest didn’t last long. He replaced a well loved priest that retired early for health reasons. The new guy was a terrible, angry and bitter man who should never have gone into the priesthood in the first place. So many people complained about him, the bishop moved him somewhere else (hopefully, to either get some counselling, or leave the priesthood!). Which says a lot because, even then, there were very few priests, and it was a long time before they found someone to stay as parish priest.

But I digress.

My husband and I were both 19 when we eloped, so of course, we had all the predictions of how it would never last. Interestingly, our marriage has outlasted many others that did things “right”.

It was no fairy tale wedding, but I’ve never been big on fairly tales, anyhow. I wouldn’t have it any other way!

As for celebrating, my husband is in no condition to go out, so I headed into town and got take out to celebrate, instead.

It doesn’t take much to make us happy!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023/24 Garden: no carrots this time!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It’s been a while since we could get to the bed with the carrots in it. Previously, we had no issues harvesting them, and the bed did have a nice thick layer of mulch.

Not thick enough!

Here are the progress shots for these three beds.

Rolando Moon lost her favourite sun spot hangout!

One of the first things I did was detach the arched cover from the box cover in the centre, and switch it to the bed on the left. This way, we could put the cover on the carrot bed onto the box frame, making it much easier to attach the plastic.

The painter’s cover sheets I got are 12’x8′. My daughter and I folded them in half to make them 12’x4′. Once we had the plastic over the arched cover, she went to start removing the mulch for me while I attached the plastic to the frame. This is temporary, so I just stapled it down. The staples didn’t want to go in all the way, though, so I had to go around and hammer them in.

I can see wind is going to be a problem with the plastic.

As for the carrots, I had a bin all ready to collect the last of them, but it was not to be. Not only was the soil frozen solid, so was a lot of the mulch! My daughter got off as much as she could, then we put the cover, now with plastic over it, back on the bed.

We then took the other arched cover and set it back on the box cover. The mesh on this one is temporary. The chicken wire I used is too bendy and easily misshapen, so it will be replaced with stronger welded wire or something, later on. For now, though, it’s enough to hold some plastic. It went faster this time, as I went around stapling the plastic down, and my daughter followed with a hammer, tacking the staples down so the were actually holding the plastic in place. Very frustrating.

The second arched cover’s wire is a bit smaller than the first one we did, so there was more excess plastic to tuck under at the ends, and a bit more on the sides. This one went onto the bed next to the compost ring, which still has quite a bit of snow on it. It also did not get weeded or reworked as thoroughly as the one in the middle, before things got too cold.

So now we have two beds with plastic “greenhouse” covers on them. We’ll need to check on the carrot bed regularly over the next few days. As the ice in the mulch thaws, we’ll remove more of it, until the soil itself can finally start thawing out – and we can finally harvest those carrots!

Note for future reference. If we use this method to store carrots again, we need to either use a lot more mulch, or have it covered in plastic like this – or both!

It’s 10C/50F right now, making for a gorgeous day to work outside.

This is what it was like, a year ago today!

We were having to dig ourselves out and were still expecting a blizzard.

It’s not at all unusual to have at least one last blizzard in April. We aren’t expecting anything but warm days and mostly sunny skies for the rest of April, this year. In fact, if the long range forecast is at all accurate (ha!), May will be chillier than April.

Gosh is feels good to be able to work outside right now! Yes, I know, we need more snow, and we’re expected to have drought again this summer, but I will enjoy what I can, when I can!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Noooo!!!!

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

Okay, it could have been worse, but I had a bit of a disaster this morning.

While trending the seedlings and doing a tray rotation, I topped up the larger cell tray of San Marzano tomatoes with more soil. I’d deliberately half filled the cells to start, and now I’m “potting up” the seedlings this way.

After carefully putting the soil around the seedlings, tamping it down gently, then gently top watering to settle the soil around the stems more and avoid air gaps, I went to put the tray back into the mini greenhouse frame at the window. I had to rotate the peppers and eggplant tray back to the top, as they’re getting too tall to be anywhere else, so the tomatoes needed to go one shelf down. I’ve got the LED lights set up above the lower shelves, but I did move the cables around to get them out of the way.

Well, not enough.

Between getting caught on a cable and the uneven bottom of the tray catching on one of the wire squares on the shelf itself, the entire tray ended up sliding off the far side. There is a gap between the shelf and the wall, because of a baseboard heater (these are never used and the breakers are off. I don’t remember them ever being used when this part of the house was built!). The tray, however, landed against the window sill, rather than sliding all the way down to the floor.

In the process of falling, it knocked one of the onion trays on the shelf below, off in the other direction.

What. A. Mess.

I was able to retrieve the tray, but a lot of the soil – and water! – was all over the window sill, down the wall, and on the carpet below.

The shag carpet.

*sigh*

I think they’ll survive, though.

Once the tomato tray was cleared away, I had to pick up the onions before I could reach anything else. They are in four sections of a vegetable tray, and the roots actually held everything together pretty well, but some soil was lost. The bundles could be popped back into the tray. I think they’ll survive, too.

The mini greenhouse frame had to be cleared of everything else before I could move it and reach the biggest mess. I was able to save some of the spilled soil, but most of it will have to be vacuumed up.

I fixed up the tomato seedlings as best I could, and had to add more soil to a few of them.

For now, I’ve got the trays spread out in various sun spots, though those will be gone soon. We have a fan going in the room for the seedlings all the time, so that will help dry things out faster. Once the mess can be vacuumed, we can put the frame back and return the seedling trays.

It could have been worse.

Well. I suppose it still could be. Let’s see how the seedlings survive over the next little while!

The Re-Farmer

What a beautiful day!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I am so loving these longer days. Not only is it beautifully warm out, at 7C/45F (yeah; I know – in a couple of months, this is going to feel cold!), but it’s 6pm as I start this, and still bright and sunny out!

The dump is open today, so I took advantage of the gorgeous weather to do a dump run – hopefully, we’ll be able to do these a lot more regularly again! – then headed into town. We had a couple of the 18.9L/5 gallon water bottles to refill, so I took advantage of that, too, and took advantage of some sales at the grocery store, too. Then, icing on the cake, I had enough loyalty points to bring the bill down by $20. My husband’s claim for his CPAP supplies may have been reimbursed, but every little bit still helps.

When I got home, I drove into the inner yard to unload and saw this.

Rolando Moon was in there when I drove in to load the truck for the dump, and still there when I got back!

After we were done unloading the truck and parking it, I did a few tasks outside while I still had my rubber boots on, including checking the outhouse. The water in front is so deep, I got my pantlegs wet, even though they were rolled up. While I managed to find rubber boots with wide enough tops that they fit over my calves, they don’t fit over my pantlegs as well. Which gets amusing. One of my calves is a bit larger than the other, so the boot is very snug against the skin. As a result, when I walk around, it makes farting noises.

*snicker*

It doesn’t take much to entertain me.

As expected, the pit under the outhouse is quite full of water. We’ll have to give the outhouse a spring cleaning, soon, if only to get rid of the cobwebs under the seat! Hopefully, this year, we will finally be able to do something about the roof and give the outside a scrape and paint, thanks to the small scaffolding we were able to buy last summer. This outhouse will have to do until we can build the outdoor bathroom we have in mind, and it will probably be at least another year before we can start on that, in the location we have planned for it.

Speaking of things to do, there’s one thing we should be able to manage soon. Take care of that raised bed that Rolando is lounging in! I’ll have to snag one of my daughters to help me move the cover off and set it aside. We can then remove the mulch and harvest the last of the carrots in there. I want to pick up some metal corner reinforcements for all the raised bed covers I made. With this one, I want to add horizontal supports across the middle, at the top of the arches. I’ll need to do that with the tiny one in the old kitchen garden, too. The hoops hold the mesh up fine on their own, but I didn’t count on the cats jumping on them and lying on them quite so much!

Whether I get the extra supports done right away or not, the main thing I want to do is put plastic over it, then put it back on the bed, to make a little greenhouse and heat the soil up faster. The bed next to it, where the corn was last year, has the box cover plus with the third arched cover I made, stored on top of it. I’m quite pleased with how the arched covers fit on the box cover so well; that will come in very handy for when we have taller crops that need to be protected. For now, though, I want to separate them and put plastic on that arched cover, too, and get a second bed warmed up. The first arched cover I made, using strong fence wire, is on the newest raised bed in the main garden area and, at the moment, we won’t be able to get at it. The snow there is still too deep.

Still, if we get at least a couple of the raised beds in the east yard warmed up faster, that means we can do some direct sowing earlier, too! Of course, I can just lay the plastic directly on the top of the third bed in there, and it’ll warm things up just like that, too.

Oh, that reminds me. This morning, I was checking on the seeds I decided to sprout before planting. The container they’re in was just on the coffee table in the cat-free zone (aka: the living room). I keep forgetting how cold that room gets. The damp paper towels were way too chilly. So I reversed how they were in the container, putting the damp paper towel with the seeds on the semi-transparent lid, then covering it with the black plastic base, before putting the whole thing on the heat mat in the big greenhouse aquarium. They need warmth, but not light. Hopefully, that will help. I’ll have to check them more often, since the warmth will also dry out the paper towel.

Meanwhile, we can expect things to get very messy out there for the next while. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to start getting highs in the double digits (Celsius), and even the overnight lows are supposed to stay above freezing! It’s also supposed to stay nice and sunny, too. As mild as our winter was last year, it is still a huge psychological boost to finally have sunshine and warmth!

I just have to post this picture, taken one year ago today.

Yeah, we’re pretty ahead of the game, this year! 😂😄😂😄

Gosh. I still miss Pointy Baby so much.

The Re-Farmer