Author: Re-Farmer

Plans changed… and I’m not surprised

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First, the more pleasant stuff!

It’s a wonderfully cool morning today. The entire time I was doing my morning rounds, it was gently misting instead of raining. And would you look at this!

We still have strawberries, blooming and ripening! Recovering from being eaten by deer has resulted in very late production. I’ll take it! 😄

I wasn’t able to get pictures, but I did have a small harvest today. I wasn’t expecting to, so I didn’t bring my colander and ended up using my shirt. I really ought to keep at least one of our harvesting colanders by the sun room! I was actually able to harvest some ripe looking Black Beauties today, as well as a few Indigo Blues. I left the Romas for later. There were some more summer squash to hand pollinate, as well as a couple large enough to harvest.

In looking over the winter squash and the melons, I just have to shake my head. The melons have been blooming like crazy, with both male and female flowers, but there are only 3 melons forming that I can find. This morning, however, there are suddenly a plethora of female flowers! Too many to even try to hand pollinate. With the size of the flowers, I’d have to use something like a cotton swab, anyhow. Hopefully, the insects will take care of it, though to be honest, it’s coming up on the end of August, so not much time for any fruit to reach maturity. Our first average frost date is Sept. 10, but with the strong El Nino this year, we might actually have a chance.

As for the winter squash, there had been two new Honeyboat Delicata forming, then one shrivelled up. The remaining one is getting noticeably bigger, every day. This morning, however, one of the other plants suddenly has a whole bunch of female flowers! Until now, it’s been all male flowers. One was open enough that I could hand pollinate it. The others should open over the next few days. Will they have a chance to mature? During a typical year, no. It would be way too late in the season. But if the frost holds off… we might just have some.

On a slightly more frustrating note, I saw Junk Pile again this morning. This photo is from last night.

That is one round belly.

I saw Caramel walking by this morning, too, and she’s looking pretty round.

More kittens at the end of August/beginning of September?

Crap.

Junk Pile has had a strange year. She had a litter of kittens extremely early and lost them. For a short while, she would follow me as I trudged through the snow to do my rounds and allow me to pick her up and carry her. She was clearly upset about losing her babies. After a few days of that, though, she went back to making strange. She will sometimes allow me to pet her when she’s on the cat house roof, eating, but that’s about it.

I’m sure she had another litter, but not being able to tell her and not-Junk Pile (now Two Toes Tony) apart, it was hard to tell. Once we saw not-Junk Pile/TTT with scratching wounds behind her ears, we could tell them apart, so I could see that it was TTT had a litter of six, though by the time we found her with the broken leg, it seems she was down to three. I would sometimes see that Junk Pile had active nips, but I never saw her with kittens. If her kittens are here at the house now, I don’t know which are hers, and the creche mothers – mostly Adam and Beep Bop – will nurse any and all kittens by the house that want to. Beep Bop is often seen nursing Caramel’s three – so I guess it’s no surprise that Caramel is pregnant again, too, even though her kittens are not old enough to be weaned.

*sigh*

Now, on to the main change of the day.

I’m not going to my mother’s.

I was indisposed when the phone started ringing, and it wasn’t even 7:30 in the morning yet. We get only two types of calls before 8am. Scammers, or my mother! 😄 I found a message from my mother, sounding very conciliatory, saying I didn’t need to come over. I could go to my appointment. She would be all right. (As if I needed her permission to go to my appointment??)

So I called her back. She told me she would take the shuttle bus for her errands. I could go to my appointment. She’d be fine. It’s only $6. She absolutely insisted I did not need to come over.

Which is fine, but between yesterday’s call and her attitude this morning, my suspicions are almost confirmed. She didn’t want me to come at all, because she had plans for my sister. She can talk my sister into taking her places that I can’t – or won’t! – take her. Considering the things she’s been saying about my brother lately, I have a very good idea of what that would have been, and there is no way I would have had the time to drive her around for that. Also, even if I did, there are things she can talk my sister into doing that she can’t talk me into. I sometimes worry about my sister’s cognitive abilities, to be honest, because she got talked into helping my mother stab my brother in the back, and she still seems to have no understanding of the harm she’s done, among other odd things.

Well, whatever. My day just went back to my original plans.

Sort of.

A nap is now part of those plans.

I didn’t get much sleep last night. With TTT not using the litter, and peeing on my pillows, I think I found something suitable to block her preferred area. My husband got a wedge for his knees, years ago, but with his hospital bed, he no longer needs it. I brought it down from it’s storage spot and have it on my bed. I considered she might just decide to pee next to it or something, but she really seemed to be wanting to use my pillows, so I hoped it would work.

After being awakened many times by either the kittens running wild, or Snarly Marlee growling and snarling at them – even when they were nowhere near her! – I am pretty sleepy right now! I was, however, awakened yet again, shortly before my alarm was supposed to go off . A distinctive rustling sound.

Sure enough, TTT was under my desk. She’d dug around the puppy pads and took a dump, right next to the litter box.

At least it was on a puppy pad.

There was no puddle, however. I couldn’t find a puddle anywhere, which had me concered that she’d found some hidden corner to use that we can’t get at.

Then I sat in it.

I keep a towel on the seat of my desk chair. It’s fake leather and the surface has been peeling off, with more than a little assistance from cats. I have the towel so that I don’t have little pieces of fake leather stuck to my butt when I get up.

TTT had jumped onto my chair and peed on the towel.

With a litter box RIGHT THERE and easier to get to.

*sigh*

I’ll be sure to talk to someone at the clinic today about it, but to be honest, I suspect we won’t solve that problem until the kittens get adopted out. Too many kittens using all of the litter boxes.

I’d really like to adopt out TTT, too. She’s new to this indoor life thing, but I’m sure she would be better in a household with far fewer cats in it!

We’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Use Watcha Got Creamy Chicken and garden vegetable soup

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One of the odd things about our garden plans not panning out this year is that, while we are harvesting more of some things faster than we can conveniently eat, it’s not enough to make it worth canning or freezing.

Today, I decided to take most of what’s been slowly building up to make a large soup. We roasted a couple of chickens yesterday, so that was my main protein.

Since I was using whatever was on hand, I measured nothing. I just chopped everything so that they would finish cooking at about the same time.

So here’s my not-a-recipe.

First, a couple of shallots and a small onion that got accidentally harvested while weeding, were sautéed in butter along with some Uzbek golden carrots and a few Gold Ball turnips, and the one tiny Honeyboat Delicata squash that got accidentally harvested when the stem broke off while in was checking on it. All of those needed the longest time to cook. A small handful of Spoon tomatoes went in, then green and yellow beans, and finally some green and yellow patty pan squash. A whole bulb of garlic went in, too – all 2 cloves that were so big, I was able to dice them. After those sautéed for a while, I took the pan juices from the chicken roasting pan and ran them through a sieve into the pot, along with just enough water to barely cover all the vegetables, bringing it to a boil, adding a big spoon full of chicken stock powder as well. I didn’t need to add any other seasoning. Last of all went some Irish Cobbler potatoes. These were the small ones I’d brought in, leaving the larger ones to continue curing, that had gotten a thorough scrubbing last night. I picked out the smallest ones, most of which didn’t need any chopping at all. More water was added until it seemed like enough, and it was brought to a boil.

At that point, my daughter too over for me so I could make a quick run to get more kibble. With the running around I have to do over the next while, I wanted to get more while I had the time.

My daughter simmered the soup until the potatoes were soft, then added some diced roasted chicken. For the final creamy touch, she also added an 8oz block of cream cheese and took the immersion blender to the whole thing!

It definitely went over well. By the time I got home, there was just over a bowl of soup left for me to try!

It was delicious.

Even the parsley I sprinkled on top was dehydrated from our own parsley we grew a few years ago. We dehydrated so much, we still have some!

I had it with a couple of slices of bread. The girls have been making at least a loaf every day, then sometimes starting another one during the night. I’m really glad we picked up that bread machine!

Meanwhile, on a less cheerful note…

I got an email from my sister letting me know she wasn’t going to be able to visit my mother tomorrow as planned, asking me to go over instead, as her car is in the shop. Turns out that knocking noise in the back was a loose wheel! TTT is getting her staples out tomorrow, but not until 3, so I would be able to go, but earlier than I normally do. I called my mother and the first thing I asked was if she’d talked to the pharmacist about the T3s she’s refusing to take. She said no; my sister was coming over tomorrow, and she was going to get her to drive her to the pharmacy so she could talk to the pharmacist in person. Not just any pharmacist, though, but the new store manager. I told her about my sister’s email about her car, and said I could come in to drive her around, but since I had an appointment, it had to be earlier. I suggested 11. In reality, 10 would have been better, but I didn’t think my mother would accept that. Well, she didn’t like 11, either, and asked if we could make it 12. I said no, I wouldn’t have time for that. Oh, so I’m always in a hurry…

???

Long story short…

I’m always in a rush and never spend time with her. My sister’s car troubles were just an excuse she made up, and now my mother’s entire day’s plans have to change (as if ours didn’t change as well!) Also, my brother is dropping the responsibility of taking care of her on me and my sister. None of us call her or spend enough time with her, we’re all terrible people who don’t go to church and don’t know right from wrong, my brother should practically be her slave because she “gave” the farm to him, and she paid for “everything”, so we should all be doing whatever she wants us to do, no matter how badly she treats us, because she needs our help. Oh, and I don’t allow her on the farm anymore, but when I do, I don’t serve her tea.

When I finally said, if I’m so bad, maybe I should stop coming over to help her completely. Did she still want me to come over tomorrow? Of course, she twisted that around and said that, if I didn’t want to come over, she would just find a way to walk over.

To the bank, the pharmacy and the grocery store?

I called her on the manipulation and guilt tripping, then simply told her I’d be there for 11, while she kept insisting she would walk. Her knees are so bad, she is starting to have trouble navigating her tiny apartment, never mind the half block to the grocery store. The pharmacy is something like 6 blocks away.

Of course, she’d have an easier time of it if she would take the T3s, but she sure as heck wouldn’t want that!

Do I sound a bit frustrated?

Yes. I’m frustrated.

I’m especially ticked off over how she is about my brother. No one has bent over backwards for her more than he has. Now he has the burden of this property on his shoulders – we are helping him by being here, but the place has problems well beyond either of our abilities or finances to fix, plus he still has the headache of dealing with property taxes and insurance for a place companies don’t even want to insure! She has no understanding that she didn’t do him a massive favour in signing the property over to home now, rather than in her will, but saddled him with a white elephant. Then she turned around and stabbed him in the back, and still can’t understand how badly she hurt him. He has pulled her butt out of the fire so many times over the decades, with zero gratitude or appreciation, it’s mind boggling he hasn’t cut her off completely.

He’s a much better man than I am, that’s for sure!

Well, we’ll see how it goes. She may act as if nothing happened at all. Or she may decide to be vindictive. Either way, she’s going to be ticked off that I will have to leave early enough to drive back home, pick up TTT and take her to the vet in time for her appointment to get her staples removed. I certainly didn’t tell my mother is was an appointment for a cat. She would have completely lost it, if I did. She’s always hated having pets in the house (my father loved them), and cats in particular. Dogs were accepted only because they helped with the cattle. They never took a dog to a vet. Not even when one of them got kicked in the heat by a horse and lost its eye. That dog lived to a grand old age, with a very messy, untreated eye. As a child, I had no understanding that this was not a good thing. Heck, I didn’t even understand that there was such a thing as a vet when it happened. So you can probably imagine that she would not be happy that we took a cat to a vet at all, even if it meant the cat living outdoors with a dangling broken leg. For us to be taking a cat to a vet on a day when she wanted me to devote my time entirely and slavishly to her would be just that much worse.

*sigh*

We’ll see how it turns out.

I’ll go back to thinking about how good that soup turned out!

Well. Try, to, anyhow.

The Re-Farmer

Morning harvest, and follow up

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We actually got rain some time this morning! Not a lot, but enough to raised the level in the rain barrel, and for the ground to still be moist when I was doing my rounds.

This morning’s harvest was pretty good.

There are some green and yellow beans on the bottom. The bush beans aren’t producing a lot anymore, but there’s still enough for a meal coming off of them, every couple of days. The tomatoes are mostly Romas, of course, but there is an actual ripe Black Beauty in thee! Plus a green one that broke off when I was looking through the vines. The others are Indigo Blues. There’s just a couple of patty pans, with more ripening, including some yellow patty pans I hand pollinated. With rain collecting in the cups of the flowers, no insects were going to do it, that’s for sure!

Finally, there is a Sweet Chocolate pepper. It looks pretty green in the photo, but it’s just one little patch; the rest is deep, milk chocolate brown.

On a completely different note…

TTT got her last doses of medication last night. That’s going to make feeding the cats in my room so much easier! No more wrestling kittens to keep them away from the bowl of wet cat food while it’s being medicated, or keeping TTT from eating the kitten distraction wet cat food and becoming too full to eat her medicated food.

I’m happy to say that, so far at least, TTT has not left me a big, wet gift at my pillow since yesterday morning. I was awakened during the night by odd noises that I thought might have been her finding somewhere else not-a-litter-box to use, but the kittens were active, so I couldn’t tell what the noise was. I couldn’t see TTT anywhere for quite some time, but eventually she crawled her way out of my closet. I have some boxes stacked in there and the cats sometimes use the top as a very hidden away bed. I now think the noise that woke me was her scrambling up to this prime napping cave.

The puppy pad I put on the new litter box was wet, but I still couldn’t say it was TTT, or a bunch of kittens using it. I thought it might be safe to remove it, though, and expose the litter pellets below.

Eventually, I was able to get back to bed, though it was past 5am by then. When I got up for the day, sure enough, there was a “gift” under my desk for me – on a puppy pad right next to the litter box.

*sigh*

No sign of puddles, though. Anywhere. So maybe she’s at least peeing in a litter box now?

Tomorrow, she goes in to have her staples removed. I’ll see if I can get some advice at the clinic while I’m there. She’s not seeing the vet; just a technician, but I’m sure there will be someone I can talk to.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering what else I can leave on my bed to dissuade any possible puddles!

The Re-Farmer

Outside bebbies and, how long has it been?

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After I finished with the potatoes, I did some other stuff outside, then headed in through the sun room, where I found these guys.

That white and grey kitten Beep Bop is nursing is not one of hers!

It took a while for me to even see the grey tabby beside her!

The second picture is of a pair of kittens I found in Baby Jail. I’m glad they’re comfortable going in there, because if we ever need to hang onto some kittens until the cat lady can pick them up, it will make things much easier!

Though I suppose we’ll need to buy another litter pan. 😄

The black and white one has been socialized enough that I can usually walk up to it and pet it, and even pick it up for a cuddle.

The white and grey one is among those I’ve never been able to get close to before. Today, however, I was able to reach in, and it stayed. I got hissed at, then my fingers got sniffed. After that, I was able to do ear skritches, and they were accepted! Yay!!! I couldn’t reach very far through the “door”, but it was far enough. 😊

One of the things I got done was to finally clean the eavestroughs on the garage. I was planning to do it after we pick up the small scaffolding we’re looking to buy second hand after next pay period. Far more stable and safe than the ladders we’ve been using. However, I could see all sorts of green leaves growing out of them, and on one side of the garage, it was starting to fall away from the eaves.

So, I got out the step ladder and managed to get it done. On the far side, where the trough was starting to fall away, I actually found worms in there! As for all those green leaves I was seeing, no surprise that it was almost all Chinese elm seeds that had germinated. There was a veritable forest starting in there!

We haven’t cleaned those eavestroughs since we moved here, which is almost 6 years now. I didn’t realized until today, just how long it’s been since they’ve been cleaned. As I was scraping the bottoms of the troughs, I realized the granular material on the bottom was from the original roof shingles. When I was a kid, the garage and the house had the same colour shingles. I used to play up on the house roof, so I remember the mix of grey, with a bit of blue and green, granules quite well. I even found the remains of a package of spare shingles, some of which we could even use on the kibble house roof.

The garage has a metal roof now. I don’t know when it was installed, but I know it was well before the youngest of my brothers passed away, so I’d say it has been around 20 years. Maybe 25.

I’m having a really hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that no one cleaned those eavestroughs out since before the metal roof was put on! My three brothers were all doing what they could to help my parents maintain the place. Surely at least one of them thought to clean the eavestroughs on the garage at least once since the metal roof was done! But there was no mistaking what I was seeing, or how much of it was there.

As for the sagging part of the trough, in one area the wood it’s attached to is so rotten, it can’t hold anything, but that’s not where it was sagging the most. I was able to just hammer things back in again. It was the sheer weight of all the composted material in there that was dragging them down. It should be just fine, now.

Now we just have to make sure we don’t let them sit for another… 20? 25??? … years before cleaning them again!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: two potato types harvested

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Well, the second bed of Red Thumb potatoes did better than I feared. Only a few surface potatoes had slug damage.

In the first picture, the potatoes from the wattle weave bed are on the far left. I hadn’t planned on planting potatoes there, and had just shoved the last seed potatoes that didn’t fit in the other bed in there. This bed was different in that, when it was prepared in the fall, it was topped with a mulch of wood chips. I just dug holes for each seed potato through the mulch, leaving most of it undisturbed. Then, a straw much was added on top. To harvest them, I removed the straw mulch and dumped it on the other bed I’d just emptied, but the wood chip mulch got brushed aside. After harvesting all the potatoes I could find, the wood chips and soil got pushed back and levelled off, all mixed together. The wood chips had already started to compost pretty well since last fall, and should break down even faster, now that it’s mixed in with the soil and all the worms and insects I was finding!

The second picture is of all the really tiny potatoes I was finding, plus a few slug damaged ones. They actually look far bigger in the picture than they actually are!

For now, they’re just sitting in their little piles on rhubarb leaves. I’ll figure out what to do with them later!

The Purple Peruvian potatoes should be much easier to harvest. We just need to dump them out of their grow bags and onto a tarp or something. The first time we had potatoes in grow bags, we dumped them into the kiddie pool we had, but that’s got melons growing in it right now. 😄 It’ll be a while before we harvest those. They are only just barely starting to die back right now.

We already knew we liked the Purple Peruvians. So far, we’ve only had one meal with the Irish Cobbler and the Red Thumbs, and we enjoyed them, too. They were cooked together, though. We’ll try them each on their own next, and see how we like them. At this point, though, I’d say both varieties are ones we’d be willing to grow again. When we’re at a point that we can grow enough potatoes to last us the winter, we’ll have tried enough different varieties to decide on two or three to stick to and save our own seed potatoes from.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: more potatoes!

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It’s a beautiful cool day! The weather apps can’t seem to make up their mind if we’re supposed to get rain or not in our area, which means we probably will not, so I worked on harvesting potatoes in the old kitchen garden again.

But first, I sorted through last night’s potatoes.

In the first photo above, I sorted the largest potatoes out for curing. The smaller potatoes are the smaller ones, which I brought in for immediate eating.

Not very many left, that’s for sure!

The Red Thumb fingerlings are split between two beds, and I started on the long, narrow one at the retaining wall. The first thing was to remove the mulch, and as you can see by the second picture, there were quite a few potatoes right on the surface, hidden by the straw.

I was also uncovering lots of frogs! With the cooler temperatures, they were pretty sluggish and snoozing under cover.

In the third photo, you can see all the Red Thumb potatoes I harvested from that bed (almost). They are fingerling potatoes, so I would expect them to be small, but they somehow seem smaller than they should be, for this variety. The yield is very nice, though. My guess is that, with better soil conditions, they would have been larger. Later on, we’ll go back to them and separate out the largest ones, and taken the smaller ones inside to eat right away.

What I didn’t get a picture of, but intend to later, are the ones that didn’t make it to the curing screen. I kept finding the tiniest of potatoes! Maybe the other potatoes had tiny ones that that, too, but I just didn’t see them. These potatoes are so red, I couldn’t miss them! I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them. They’re too tiny for eating. Just washing them would be very difficult. I don’t want to just toss them on the compost. I’m considering finding some out of the way spot and just burying them in the fall. Who knows. They might start growing in the spring, like some of our volunteers, this year! 😁

Once the retaining wall bed was done, I removed the mulch from the others in the wattle weave bed. As with the first bed, there were potatoes right on the surface, too.

Holey potatoes.

Some still had slugs on them.

After throwing away the first few I uncovered, I realized this bed was hit by the slugs quite badly. So I took the ones I’d already harvested and laid them out, then took a break. I’ll be getting back at it after I’m done this post. I hope it’s just the surface potatoes that are so badly damaged, but I don’t have high hopes for that bed’s harvest at this point.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties and afternoon frustration!

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I got to see a whole bunch of irregulars this morning, and even catch and cuddle one!

Octomom brought her babies over for breakfast, though I only saw four of them. Three are at the tray under the water bowl shelter, with the tuxedo. There’s one that ran out of sight around the corner of the cat house.

I was able to catch and pick up the two black ones at the same time, but one got loose. I was able to hold and cuddle the other one long enough that it started to relax in my arms. When I put it down in the food tray again, it did not run away.

Unfortunately, so many kittens were trying to hide out in the same space under the entry to the cat house that they started to growl, hiss and scare each other. The other black one ended up running off to the spirea in full “I’m gonna make myself big” mode. Which made it’s gait rather … bouncy!

As I headed to the gate to switch out the trail cam memory card, I spotted this “stranger”. It’s very shy, so I had to zoom in quite a bit to get its photo.

This is one of Brussel’s kittens. I’ve seen two of them a couple of times, around the shed with the collapsed roof. Lately, I’ve seen only this one, skulking around the garage. Brussel has never tried to bring her babies to the kibble by the house, and they are among the oldest of the kittens. That they haven’t even come out on their own is pretty unusual, too. I’m hoping they are at least eating the kibble I’m still leaving inside the garage. That was originally for Octomom, but I kept doing it when I realized Brussel’s kittens were in the area.

Oddly, I’ve not been seeing a lot of cats outside lately. At least not all at the same time. When I came out with the food this morning, I counted a dozen, and only 3 of them were adults. More showed up later, but it just seems like there are a lot fewer cats than I would expect. Usually, when I first come out, they are swarming. Especially if I come out later, which I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been waiting until after we’ve given TTT her medications at 9am. Not only were there no cats swarming around, but there was still kibble in the food trays! Not much, but enough that I thought someone else had done the morning feeding, but no one had. Usually, if the cats don’t finish the kibble, the skunks and racoons clean out the trays by morning.

Not that I’m complaining. I would rather not be feeding skunks and racoons!

Oh, and while I was working outside this afternoon, I saw Caramel go by. She looks pregnant. Her kittens aren’t even weaned yet!!!

As for the inside kitties, I’m getting beyond frustrated.

Before going outside, I tried to find a way to discourage TTT from peeing on my bed. I found a huge spot on my bed last night. With the help of a daughter, I soaked up as much as I could with the puppy pads (I’m going through those fast, but they do a great job of soaking up the pee) before covering it with a fresh one, absorbent side down. Then we put fresh sheets on and rotated the mattress, so I wouldn’t be sleeping right on top of the absorbent pad. Then I started the laundry, which my daughters set in the dryer for me during the night.

She always pees in the same area, so this morning I ended up taking a larger skull Halloween decoration I had on a shelf and putting it there. I couldn’t find anything else that looked like it would work.

I came in from working outside just a little while ago, to take a break, upload photos and start writing blog posts. TTT was laying on my bed with a kitten, on their favourite folded up blanket and I pet her for a bit. I found the skull was knocked over because the kittens were playing in it (one kitten can fit in it, with room to spare!), but it was still in the same spot.. I looked around and everything was dry, so I straightened it out and went to my desk. I’d put a puppy pad over the new litter box under my desk, in hopes she would use that, since she crapped on a puppy pad right next to the litter box, instead of in the litter box.. I could see it had been peed on, but that could have been the kittens. I changed it out for a fresh pad. As I started settling down and uploading pictures, I could hear some noise and looked over to see the kittens rolling around in the skull.

TTT was hopping across my bed.

Yup.

There was a new pee spot.

Right next to where the skull was.

At least this time she didn’t get my pillow, but she did get my pajamas.

I didn’t even get my sheets from the drier from last night, yet!

My husband got those for me while I started taking off the sheets and soaking up the pee spot. I do have a mattress cover and, while it is pretty water proof, it’s not 100% waterproof, so I took that off for washing, too. There were already two other spots on the cover with puppy pads on them, and even the older one was still damp. I ended up finishing off a box of “Pet Fresh” carpet powder that I have for under my desk, directly on the mattress. I’m glad I ended up getting two of those, during my last shopping trip! The spots on the mattress aren’t soaking wet, thanks to the cover, but they are slightly damp and stained. I now have my fan going on full power to help get it dry.

It’s getting to the point I’m seriously considering going into the storage shed and finding that bag of mattress pads that belonged to my late father that I remember packing away. If I can lay some of those under my sheets, that would help save my mattress. The problem is, there are a LOT of bags, plus boxes blocking the way, to dig through.

I suppose I can understand why she didn’t go for her usual spot under the desk, since I was sitting at it at the time, but I’m flummoxed as to why she won’t use any of the other litter boxes. They even all had fresh litter in them! She won’t even go near them.

I don’t get it.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Irish cobbler potato harvest

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I headed out this evening, intending to harvest all the potatoes in the old kitchen garden.

Instead, I ended up watering things. The peppers and luffa in the wattle weave bed were all drooping. The ground was so wet this morning, I thought it rained during the night, but it turns out it was just dew! Everything was bone dry by the end of the day.

By the time I got to the potatoes, I had time to just do the Irish Cobblers before losing light.

This is our entire Irish Cobbler harvest.

We did harvest some earlier, for our own use and for my mother. I still hoped for a higher yield, but at least we harvested more than we planted, this year!

For now, the box of them are on the picnic table under the old market tent. We are no longer getting predictions for rain tomorrow morning, but might get some by noon, the day after. Tomorrow, I’ll bring out a couple of the screens we have and lay the larger, undamaged potatoes out to cure for a while. The rest will go inside for us to eat right away.

I should be able to harvest the Red Thumb fingerling potatoes tomorrow, too. The Purple Peruvian potatoes in the grow bags still aren’t even dying back yet, so it’ll be a while for those.

Between the three varieties, we should have a decent amount of potatoes to store. It’s nowhere near enough to last us the winter, which is the ultimate goal, but we don’t have the prepared space to grow that many potatoes, yet.

It isn’t much, but I’m happy with them!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, and… not again!

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I ended up picking Roma tomatoes yesterday evening (more on that later), so there weren’t that many to pick this morning. Here is today’s morning harvest.

With the beans winding down, I might start picking them every three days, instead of every other day. It’s nice to be able to pick at least a couple of the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes almost every day now.

Our volunteer sunflower has started to bloom, so went to take a picture. Just as I did, a bumble bee landed on it. It ended up under a petal, so I waited until it worked its way out before taking some photos.

It was not until I uploaded the photos that I spotted the tiny little spider!

Yesterday evening, when things cooled down, I got out the riding mower my brother spent so much time and effort to fix for us. For all the rain we’ve been having, most of the grass doesn’t actually need cutting. The south yards needed to be done. One half never got done last time, because of the weather, and the main garden area was also missed. Even then, things weren’t anywhere near as overgrown as it got in the spring.

I got the south yards done but skipped the west and north yards completely. Even the grass between the crab apple trees and the spruce grove didn’t need to be done, though around the trees themselves the growth is taller. I’ll probably do that with the weed trimmer, as well as the really rough section west of the squash patch.

When doing the old main garden area, I was taking it very slow and careful. There are a couple of more level areas where I can put the speed at the second slowest, but for the most part, I was going as slow as the mower can go. I’d done a fair bit of it when I reached a point where I stopped to shift from 2 to 1.

Nothing happened.

The mower simply stopped moving.

Previously, this happened when the drive chain would fall off, but the chain has been replaced. Also, there was no change in the sound that might have suggested there was a problem. It was running fine.

Then it wasn’t.

I’ll have to go back and see if I can get a better look under there. Maybe with my phone camera. My brother had sent me pictures of everything while he was working on it, but apparently I did not save them to my computer. I’ve been going through our old messages to find them and see what things are supposed to look like again, and it turns out we message each other a LOT. The farther back I go, the longer it takes for things to load.

Anyhow, I messaged my daughters for assistance, and got help pushing the mower to the garage. Pushing it isn’t a problem. Pushing it and trying to steer at the same time is rather awkward!

Then I got out the push mower and finished mowing the old garden area. I was also able to mow some areas the riding mower can’t fit into, including around the garden beds a bit. The rest will have to wait for the weed trimmer.

After I finished mowing, I checked on the garden beds and noticed some Romas were starting to fall off the vines, so I ended up picking quite a few of them, after checking on the rest of the beds.

Alas, I found that we have lost one of our two Boston Marrows.

We only had two surviving seed starts to transplant, and only one squash on each of them. I have no idea why the one died like that. The other seems okay, but I ended up putting a piece of broken pottery under it to get it off the mulch, making sure the curve of the pot would drain any water away from the squash.

As for the rest of the garden beds, both the Irish Cobbler and Red Thumb potato plants have completely died back. Time to dig them up and set them out to cure for a few days. We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow, so it’ll have to be under the old market tent. We just have to set them up so that the cats will stay off of them! 😄

As I was finishing up and putting things away around the house, I suddenly saw Adam go running towards the corner where the old basement window is, on high alert. At first I thought she was responding to Cheddar, meowing in my husband’s bedroom window, but then I saw she was laser focused at the stucco wall beside it.

All I could see was what looked like a leaf or something, splattered against the wall, so I went to take a closer look.

This is what the “leaf” turned out to be!

What an adorable little frog! I’m curious about how it got there. It was easily over 6′ above the ground when I saw it, and it looks like it was on its way down.

I love frogs. I’m so happy we have so many of them this year. They are good garden friends!

Last off all, I just have to share this adorable photo I got of a couple of the kittens last night.

At first, I thought it was Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, but I don’t see an all pink nose, which is the main difference between them. Which means one of them – the bottom one, I think – is Shadow in the Dark.

Gosh, they are so cute!

They are also very cuddly, and love to sleep on me when I’m in bed. They’re so tiny, sometimes I can’t even tell they’re there, until either they or I move! I love it. :-)

I’ll still be happy when they are adopted out, though! So will Decimus. She spends as little time with them as possible now! I hope to adopt her out, too.

In other things, TTT is still doing very well in her recovery. There is only one major problem with her.

She refuses to use a litter box.

Any of them.

Last night, as I was getting into bed, I found my elbow in a puddle. She’d peed on my pillow again! Thankfully, I have a mattress cover – and those puppy pads do a great job of soaking up the puddle. I still had to leave one over it, absorbent side down, and rotate my mattress, so I wouldn’t be sleeping on it.

Then, at about 5 am, I was awakened by the rustling of puppy pads under my desk. I caught her before she made a mess and put her in a litter box, but she wouldn’t use it. I tried her in a different litter box, in case she didn’t like the covered one, and she still wouldn’t use it. I didn’t dare go back to bed, knowing she would go under my desk as soon as I was asleep, so I shoved the cat carrier under the desk, then went to bed.

This morning, I found she’d left a “gift” under the chair I keep my laundry basket on.

*sigh*

I’ve never had to teach an adult cat to use the litter box before. I mean, Nosencrantz had been bad about making messes elsewhere, but she knew how to use a litter box. She just preferred to go elsewhere, until I eventually blocked off all the spots she would go in. Even the kittens have been trained to use them now. Every cat we brought indoors was able to figure the litter boxes out right away. But not TTT. She just doesn’t seem to know that that’s what they’re there for!

Hmm… We still have that new litter box in the cat cage in the sun room. Cats are going in and out of it at will, but none have used the litter box. I wonder if she’ll use it, if I put it under my desk?

I’ll just have to watch my feet! Which I’m already having to do, with the carrier under there now, so I may as well try it!

The Re-Farmer

My sense of time is a little off!

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I was absolutely sure yesterday was Saturday. Right up until I told the girls I would finish something, then go get the car to load it for a dump run, and my daughter asked, are they even open today?

Well, they’re open on Saturdays.

Not Fridays!

I still had to go to town yesterday and refill a couple of water jugs, then run a couple extra errands since I was out, anyways.

I did the dump run this morning. 😄

I was so absolutely sure yesterday was Saturday, I still feel disoriented!

I got an adorable picture of Decimus last night that I just have to share.

Would you look at that pile of kittens! 😄 They are quite enthusiastic about nursing when she comes in, but she doesn’t let them stay for long. She’s there for food for herself. She knows we feed the cats in my room at different times than the girls do the cats in the rest of the house. She’s the only one allowed to have “extra” by coming in here. 😁

We feed all the cats with wet cat food at the same time we do Two Toes’ medications. We still have to watch closely as TTT gobbles down her little dish of medicated food, because there’s usually at least Nosencrantz and two of the kittens just fighting to get at that little dish while my daughter is measuring out doses.

I also find it funny how Decimus’ one eye just disappears in the black fur!

What’s not funny is getting this picture – after many attempts to get a closer look – this morning. Warning for those who might not want to see a messed up eye. You might want to just scroll right past.

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This is NOT the tuxedo with the gummed up eye we’d been trying to catch but never succeeded. That kitten is older, and everything cleared up on its own. I was sure that one’s eye was lost, but it looks just fine now.

This kitten showed up later, and I never saw it with gummed up eyes. Just really red around one eye. It’s one of those kittens that sees us and runs away immediately, so a glimpse of a red rimmed eye was about all we could get. Today, it happened to be hiding out near the food trays and I was finally able to zoom in to get a shot. This photo is the best look of that eye we’ve been able to get.

We have to somehow catch it and get it to the vet to have the eye removed, but we’ve already had several expensive vet bills in the last few months. It’s going to be a while before we can scrape the funds together for another surgery. Considering how hard it is to get near the kitten, I think we’ll get the time for it.

On a more pleasant note…

These two were watching closely as I was doing my morning rounds!

We still can’t get near that white and grey one, but I’ve been able to sometimes pick up the orange tabby and pet it. Yesterday, it was because the wind was making so much noise while it was eating outside, I was able to walk up behind it and it never heard me coming! He (not confirmed, but statistically more likely, with an orange cat) did hiss a bit and half-heartedly tried to jump out of my hands, but didn’t fight too much, and enjoyed the cuddles at least a little bit! His orange and white sibling – confirmed male – is comfortable enough that I can just walk up to him and pet him now, and he doesn’t run away. They have a fluffy white and grey sibling that I can also sometimes catch and pick up. More often than the all orange one, but not by much!

In other things, I’m happy to say that the new bread machine has been working well, and the girls have been setting it up regularly. It only does one loaf at a time, so they’re trying to build up a supply! 😁

We were all amused by the French labeling on the box. Where English says bread machine, the French says bread robot! The girls, however, have come up with their own name for the machine.

Doughregard.

Ahahahaha!! I love it!

We need to go over recipes and see what ingredients we need to make something other than basic white bread. My daughter has been using a favourite French bread recipe when she bakes, whereas I like to use a basic bread recipe and modify it to include things like oatmeal, flax seed, chia seeds, or whatever else we might have on hand. The machine came with a variety of recipes, but their oatmeal bread, for example, is in their sweet bread section, and includes oat bran, which we don’t normally buy.

Today, we’re looking at a high of 25C/77F. It’s already 23C/73F. The humidity is at 58%, though, so even while doing my rounds earlier, I was just dripping. I was able to finally cut away a branch that broke some time ago, getting stuck on another branch, that has been blocking part of our security camera’s view of the driveway. It took the telescoping pruner at maximum length to reach the broken branch and reach and get almost half of it cut off. The other half will just have to stay there! It had been sitting on the lower branch for so long, that one was growing at a downward bend, so I took about half of that one off, too. I can now see the gate clearly again on my live feed! 😊 Anyhow, even that little bit of work had me sweating in the humidity. When I got back from the dump, I dragged the branches away, and by then it was even worse.

Even last night, it never really cooled down much. I have a box fan in my window, but it makes little difference. The way things are oriented, the fan blows air straight over my bed. The window is high enough, and the bed frame low enough, that I’m not being blasted directly, but even with the fan on its highest setting, I can barely feel the air moving. Once it gets hotter, I flip the fan to blow hot air outside, but my desk is in a corner that feels like it gets no air movement at all. Once the fan it blowing hot air out, that corner with my computer gets much hotter, almost immediately. Enough that I finally went and got the tiny fan we use on our seed starts when they’re in the various greenhouse set ups. It’s a very gentle fan, but it makes a difference.

So I’m not sure what I’ll be able to get done outside today. It might be a good day to get out with the riding mower. I’m loath to terrify all the kitties, but the grass is overdue for a cut. I’ll just have to keep an eye out for fallen branches! The bigger ones are easy enough to spot, but lots of little pieces are coming down, too, and disappearing in the tall grass.

In other things, I got an unfortunate call from my mother. I had taken her to the interim doctor to renew my mother’s prescriptions, only to have her assure my mother that she will take her on as a patient. My mother didn’t say anything, but she’s not happy with having a black doctor. And a woman, no less! She did ask about another doctor whose name is still on the list (along with other doctors that have been gone for years) that saw her once, before we even moved out here, that she likes. He’s white and male, so she would have preferred him, but it turns out he only comes out 3 times a week, and has his primary practise elsewhere. Anyhow, when my mother brought up that she wanted to talk about her knees, the doctored examined her briefly, then wrote her up for x-rays. We’ll come back another time to go over those. Until then, she added T3s to my mother’s prescriptions, to try instead of the usual Tylenol she’s taking now. If those don’t help, the next possibility is steroid injections. At my mother’s age, surgery is not an option.

After taking my mother home, I brought all the paperwork to the pharmacy, and arranged to have the new prescription filled and delivered the next day.

Which was yesterday.

The person who delivered it explained some things to her, then said if she had questions, she talk to the pharmacist. My mom said she would read the papers that came with it.

Which she did.

Which is the problem.

Of course, the law requires that all possible side effects get listed. Now, my mother is terrified and refuses to take it.

Her problems with it, aside from all those possible side effects that she interprets as “will happen” rather than “might happen”, include…

The doctor and I had talked about Tylenol, but the person who delivered it never used the word Tylenol, so it’s not Tylenol. (I explained, that’s what the T in T3stands for)

The person used the word narcotic. It’s a narcotic, which my mom understands only as deadly illegal drugs. I explained that narcotic is just a descriptive word, and that lots of medications are narcotics. My husband is on opioids. Those are much, much stronger than the T3s. I tried to explain that a lot of illegal drugs that are killing people, like fentanyl, are medicines that are being used wrong. But she won’t use them wrong. She will follow the directions.

So she said, if this is Tylenol, there’s stronger Tylenol than what she usually uses at the drugstore. She could take that, instead. I told her, those are narcotic, too, and the whole point is that those are not strong enough for her pain. This is just to try and see if they help with the pain. Then she got angry again, saying she wants something that will heal her, not take the pain away. She doesn’t understand that this is not something that can just be fixed.

Then she wanted to know how I know all this stuff. I told her, I I’ve dealt with it before, before we moved out here. Not for myself, but I know lots of people who have been on them. This stuff is bottom level for prescription pain medication. Not even close to what my husband is on.

My mother didn’t like that I was giving her this information, instead of being all upset like she was, so she started to get angry with me. She wanted me to validate her fears. Then she said maybe she should talk to the pharmacist. I said that was a good idea.

There were a few odd things she tried throwing out at me. For example, she talked about her one knee is “just” sideways. I said, there is no “just” sideways. Knees aren’t’ supposed to do that! So why do both knees hurt the same? I explained that one knee had to work harder to make up for the injured one. Then I reminded her (again) that she was in a car accident, where she hurt her knee. She dismissed that (she doesn’t like to be reminded of an accident was was totally her fault). Instead, she tried to suggest that it was because, when she was a child in Poland, she didn’t have proper shoes, and her feet got so cold! I said, we’re talking about her knees, not her feet. Well, her feet hurt, too!

She has massive bunions and bunionettes on her feet, not to mention arthritis. But no. It’s because she didn’t have good shoes as a child, in pre-WWII Poland.

Then, out of the blue, she started saying, I wonder why [my brother] doesn’t phone me or visit anymore?

I just took her out to visit them on Sunday.

I asked, where did this come from, since we were talking about something else entirely.

She said, she gave my brother $40 to cover the long distance charges.

What she did was hand my brother some cash and say “for long distance”. We though she meant for his previous calls. Nope. Turns out she was paying him to call her. I told her, we had no idea that’s what she gave him the money for.

She’s the one that doesn’t like to call him, because it’s long distance. She also doesn’t understand that he’s incredibly busy. Especially right now, because they’ve got a trip of a lifetime planned for their upcoming 40th anniversary. She wants him tending to her now, before they leave. It’s a massive control thing. She’s mostly giving up trying to control me and what we do at the farm. She’s shifted her attention to my brother, instead, because she “gave” him the farm. Meanwhile, every time she’s talked to him on the phone lately, and she asks him why he doesn’t call more often, he tells her point blank; it’s because he’s tired of her abuse. She usually launches into something within 30 seconds of a call.

I managed to get the conversation back to her new prescription and encouraged her to tall the pharmacist, but for now, she’s refusing to take the painkillers.

*sigh*

As someone who doesn’t like or trust many prescription medications very much myself, it was strange to be defending them to my mother.

When it comes to my mother’s knees, she has had several braces given to her over the years that she has refused to wear. If she had worn those, it would have saved her other knee and kept the bent one from bending so much! Now, she’s even refusing to take painkillers for them. At that point, I was even saying that if she won’t do anything herself for her own knees, she’d better stop talking to the doctor about it, because there’s no point. I didn’t get to finish saying it, through, because she started talking right over me, as if I wasn’t saying anything at all. Also very typical.

Ah, well. We’ll deal with whatever comes of it.

It does get very frustrating, though. She causes so many of her own problems.

The Re-Farmer