One of the things about leaving the sun room doors slightly open for the kittens is that sometimes, other critters get in, too.
Usually skunks.
Last night, the girls went to see the kittens and work on socializing them, when they saw a strange critter running around. If looked kinda like a squirrel, but the we have red squirrels around here, and it wasn’t one of those. Possibly a chipmunk? Seeing it run around some more, they thought it looked like it might be a flying squirrel, which couldn’t be possible. Could it?
I tried to get a picture, but this was the best I could manage.
We did get a better look at it as it tried to climb the walls and around the tops of the windows.
There were very few yellow beans to pick this morning. The bush beans seem to be winding down. There were more of the green pole beans to pick, though – and our first purple beans!
There are still a few peas on the first planting, while the second planting of peas are getting into their prime. I found more cucumbers than expected. Enough to make a decent size cucumber salad.
I finally picked the one Sophie’s Choice tomato that was looking like it could have been picked a while ago. It didn’t seem to be getting any redder, so I went ahead and grabbed it. I also grabbed the reddest Cup of Moldova tomatoes. The one that fell off while I tried to get the clip loose has ripened indoors, so there are two of them for my husband and the girls to taste test later on.
I picked what seemed to be the largest of the turnips to taste test as well. They are not a large variety and golf ball size is supposed to be when they have the best flavour. I also pulled a couple of the largest looking beets, to see how they are, and… they’re not doing well at all.
But we have something. And something is better than nothing!
I had done some recordings to make another garden tour video in the morning, but after going over them, I went back out to re-record most of them in the early evening. The final video will have a mix of both. I have this terrible habit of using the wrong words for things and not even noticing. Like saying “purple corn” when I meant to say “purple peas”. That sort of thing. I might have time to work on editing it this evening, but I’m not sure just yet. It depends on how things go after I get back from my mother’s, this afternoon.
My husband took the compost bucket our for me last night, leaving the sun room door open behind him. When he got back, the sun room was full of kittens, so he left the door open.
I went out last night to close it, and there was at least half a dozen kittens on the swing bench, and others running around, freaking out because I’d walked into the room.
The kibble was out, so I topped up all the trays, including the one in the sun room. I didn’t want to risk trapping kittens in there overnight, so I left the inner and outer doors slightly open, so they could go in and out still.
Before heading out this morning, I looked out the bathroom window and there were so many kittens on the swing bench, I could hardly see the seat.
Of course, the more feral ones ran off as soon as they heard the old kitchen doors as I started heading out, but not all of them disappeared.
The calico ran off a moment after I got the shot, then the black and white one ran into the mini greenhouse shelf. The third one is one of the two that are the most socialized. I was able to pick it up and cuddle it. The other black and white that lets us hold it was nearby, and for a while, I was sitting on the bench holding both of them.
So it looks like we won’t be able to close the sun room door for a while! I’ll have to put the rope/knob system back. Basically, the knobs for the two doors are tied to each other, with the rope going through the arm bar in the door frame. This allows me to have the doors almost closed, and the wind (or rough housing critters) can’t open them all the way.
Hopefully, their curiosity about the sun room will also have them getting more used to our presence, and help with socialization.
I’m happy to say that I’ve been seeing Potato Beetle around. He joined me while I was tending things in the garden, yesterday evening.
The cats do like the cardboard mulch around the silver buffalo berry!
Unfortunately, he’s a bit too spry and back to normal. He went after Rolando Moon. Then I saw him and Sad Face stalking each other. I broke that up before it became an actual fight, only to later see him stalking The Distinguished Guest!
I dissuaded them from fighting, but Potato Beetle is looking like he’s wanting to reestablish his top spot in the pecking order.
Aren’t they supposed to be less aggressive after losing their nibs?
Well. At least he’s staying close to home.
He showed up this morning, while I was putting kibble out, but he had no interest in the other trays. He wanted his personal food dish in the sun room! So I let him in and left the door open, so he could come and go as he pleased.
While doing my morning rounds, I took recordings for a new garden tour video. I’ll be working on editing it later today.
I also had a chance to pick cherries.
These are the cherries that I could reach without a ladder. I could pull some branches down, but there are still plenty higher up that need to be picked. The gallon bucket was about 3/4 full. These have been laid out in a pair of trays in a single layer, and are in the big freezer. Once they’re frozen, we’ll bag them up. I wouldn’t mind trying to make wine with these. It’s bee a long time since we’ve tried to make wine. The problem is having a cat-safe space for the carboy. There just isn’t any. 😕😒
After washing off the cherries with the hose, I starting into the sun room, only to find the netting I’d put on the swing bench, on the floor in front of the door.
The bench was occupied.
The sun room was just crawling with kittens! These three, and their mama, were relaxing, but you can just see the tail tip of the one that ran between the window and the bench. Some of the big kittens were in there, too. My presence was panicking them, though. One ran into a window, and another into the back of the inner door, trying to get out. *sigh* So I was careful to skirt around and make sure they could access the door as I picked up the netting, then brought the cherries inside. The mama ran off, too, but the three kittens in the photo, stayed.
That mama has this permanent angry expression on her face. 😄
Today is looking to be a really nice day for work outside, so I’m going to see what I can catch up on. Maybe say hello to the cows. I can see them on the security camera’s live feed, at the fence along the driveway. 😊
Mostly, though, I need to finish mowing. After working in the old garden area last time, though, I had better check the blade and see if I need to sharpen it, first!
There is some lovely growth happening in the garden right now.
While we have lots of Cup of Moldova and Sophie’s Choice tomatoes ripening on their vines, these Yellow Pear tomatoes are looking to have a good crop, too. They are actually turning out larger than I expected for this variety. It should be interesting when they finally start turning colour!
These Carminat bean pods are getting so very long! I love their gorgeous dark purple.
With the purple pole beans, we can see quite a few pods developing, though the vines are still trying to extend their reach, and blooming all the way. The green pole beans (sheychelles) have wispy little pods forming, too.
Then I started weeding and discovered a hidden surprise.
There are ripe pods hidden among the greens! It turns out these beans start developing right near the ground, unlike the Carminat, which have no flowers or pods at all near the ground.
Awesome!
After finding these, I made a point of looking more closely at the Blue Grey Speckled Tepary beans – the shelling beans – too. They’ve been blooming for a while, but are still such tiny and delicate plants.
Sure enough, I found time tiny pods starting to form. Since these beans are for shelling only, they’ll just get weeding and watering until the pods are all dried.
We actually have yellow zucchini this year! Last year, I was sure we had at least one germinated, but after transplanting, all we got were green zucchini. So I am happy to get some this year. Especially since we still don’t have any green zucchini developing! We did have female flowers, but there were no male flowers blooming at the same time to pollinate them.
We are finally getting more Sunburst patty pan squash, too. There was also one Magda squash ready to harvest.
All the squash are SO far behind. The squash patch, which is mostly winter squash, and the summer squash bed should be enveloped in plants. It’s unlikely we have enough growing season left for most of them, but we should still get something from the smaller varieties.
Here is this morning’s harvest!
Yes, the peas are still producing! There was only a handful to harvest from the second planting, but it’s the most I’ve been able to pick in one day, this year. We have both the yellow bush beans, and the green pole beans.
With the lettuce, we normally just go in and grab however many leaves we want. This time, I harvested the plants in one area of the L shaped bed in the old kitchen garden, so that the space can be used again.
I was planning to plant fall spinach elsewhere in the main garden area, but changed my mind.
It’s just a small area for now. As more of the bed gets cleared, I’ll plant more.
We got another harvest in this morning, too.
This is the garlic from the bed in the main garden. There isn’t a lot, but they are much larger than last year’s drought garlic!
The other garlic is quite behind, so it might be a while before we can harvest those.
The freshly picked garlic is now strung up under my daughter’s old market tent, where it can get plenty of air circulation as it cures, and we won’t have to worry about it being rained on.
I was a bit later with the kibble today – after yesterday, I allowed myself to sleep in! So there were plenty of mamas waiting for me outside the sun room door.
I was very happy to see Ghost Baby was back. She is so hungry, she almost doesn’t run away while I put the kibble out. In the background, you can see Broccoli’s Mini Me with the black and white.
Oh, I let Potato Beetle out of the sun room yesterday, as he was doing so well. I saw him happily making his way through the outer yard soon after. Today, no sign of him. Hopefully, he won’t have the urge to wander too far, since he won’t be sowing any wild oats anymore.
The little kittens came around later on. I am so happy about these two! They don’t run away unless something has made them nervous. They let me pick them up and pet them. I was even able to pick them both up at the same time, after taking this photo!
At least we are managing to socialist two kittens so far!
My awesome, wonderful, lovely husband bought me a new toy that arrived in today’s mail!
Isn’t it beautiful?
I know, shortly after we moved here, I saw a draw knife in one of the sheds. I remember using it when I was a kid, stripping bark off of spruce logs. It was old and rusty when I found it, but I’m pretty sure it was still solid.
Now, I can find no trace of it. It’s just gone. I’m still positive I saw it, though. I just can’t remember where!
So my husband bought me a new one!
It’s really solid and wonderfully sharp. My husband made a quick and dirty leather sheath for the blade. Just a strip of heavy leather wrapped around it with snaps to hold it in place. He says he’ll make me a prettier one, later.
When I went to unlock the gate, the renter’s cows (and bull) were in the old hay yard. The grass is too high to see, but it looks like there is still water in the low spot where you can see a bunch of them gathered. They did seem to be drinking, rather than grazing.
I just love the renter’s cows. They make me smile!
I left very early for my court date with our vandal today. I did forget on detail until I went over the paperwork again last night. He’s not suing me for $10,000. He’s suing me for $13,000.
I’m glad I left as early as I did. Aside from stopping to get gas on the way out, when I got to my usual route to a place I knew I could park without time limits, I found the road was torn up. There was only 1 lane of traffic, away from where I wanted to go, and it was several blocks before I was able to take a turn back to the main road and go around another way.
When I got there, I did have a bit of a heart attack when the security guard told me there was no court today. ???!!! The court office was open, though, so I went in to ask. At first, it was confirmed: no court today. Then I showed her my case file and she said, “oh, yes. There’s court for you.”
🤯
Because this was a civil suit, it’s Court of Queens Bench – a federal court, not a provincial court. When I filed for a restraining order against our vandal, it was all provincial, and in a different court room. The court rooms are just down the hall from each other, though. There are some benefits to small city courts!
After some time, I could hear our vandal’s voice, talking to the security guards at the door. When he and his witnesses came around the corner, they saw me sitting by the doors and just stopped, taking seats at the other end of the hall.
He had said he would have two, then four, witnesses, but three were there. His wife, of course. A mutual friend whose voice I recognized, and another guy whose voice I could not recognise at all. They had bright windows behind them, so I couldn’t see him. In the end, it turned out to be a neighbour of ours that we both grew up with. Not someone I would have expected to be there, though.
No matter.
Because he was the claimant, when we finally got before the judge (about 15-20 minutes past the scheduled time), he got to talk first, with an opening statement, then calling in his witnesses, one at a time.
The first thing the judge asked him, though, was how he came up with the $13,000 he was after. He rambled about how much he thought things were worth, and that some things had sentimental value, but in the end it came down to “that’s what I think it’s worth”.
As for his opening statement, my goodness, he rambled on. Then stopped. Then rambled some more. Then stopped. Then rambled some more. The judge was good at keeping a poker face, but even she was starting get that “are you done yet?” look.
In a nutshell, everything is my fault. I am the “ringleader” in trying to destroy his life. I have cameras because I want him in jail. I locked the gate because I want to keep him from his stuff. I call the police on him, over and over and over, and the police came to see him, like, THREE times, and he was fingerprinted and everything. I pressed charges for no reason (his vandalizing the gate was him “opening” the gate). I applied for a restraining order for no reason. I was using the police and the courts against him because I’m so very mean and don’t want him to have his stuff. The farm’s ownership went to my brother “behind [his] back” and “in secret”. He still seems to think he has some sort of claim to the land itself, not just the stuff he claims is his. Lots of rambling about how he and my late brother did SO much to take care of the farm, and how he went to auctions and stuff to buy things that were stored on the farm because he didn’t have room out of the elements to start it, etc. My other siblings did nothing. It was just him and my late brother. And I’m mean for not letting him onto the property.
Then his witnesses came in, one at a time, and basically said the same thing. He did lots of stuff on the farm. He helped my dad a lot. He had lots of stuff on the farm. My dad wanted the farm to go to him. !!! He should be able to go onto the farm and take “his” stuff at any time. His wife even tried to make it sound like he brought his own tools over here and left them, if my father didn’t have a particular tool. Which is hilarious, because when we moved here, all the functional tools and supplies were gone.
Funny. Other than passing mentions, it was as if my mother, who actually owned the land when we moved here, didn’t exist.
The witnesses really didn’t make his case. But then, he doesn’t have one.
When I finally got to respond, it was pretty basic. I don’t claim ownership of the property or anything on it. It was my mother’s, and now it’s my brothers. He has submitted additional documentation that I wasn’t able to go over in full until later, but it didn’t add to his case. I submitted the Statement of Declaration, sign by myself, my brother and my mother, explaining why we moved out here and what my role here is – and that includes keeping things from disappearing. Because of some of the things he said, I included the transcript of a phone message he left with my brother that basically admitted he took all that stuff, and that he was going to keep suing us, even if it meant he had to sell his farm and be homeless. With lots of swearing. I also had a transcript of my dad leaving a message with my brother, shortly before he died, saying he wanted my brother to take over the farm.
My affidavit included an old email I’d sent back in 2018 to our vandal and my family where, among other things, I’d told him that if he could take stuff if he could provide proof of ownership. He never responded.
I also had the chance to say what he actually did to the gate, and that I had cameras because we found locks glued shut and the barn doors boarded up. I mentioned I have a disabled husband, and if we needed to suddenly go to the hospital, that would be a major issue. I also had the chance to mention I have no income; we live on my husband’s disability, so what does he think he can get from me?
There was lots more, of course. As expected, without someone there to keep him on a short leash, he stepped in it a few times. One of them was when he said I was using the police and courts against him and got away with it with a sob story that had the “judge wrapped around [my] fingers”. That was one moment where the judge’s poker face broke, ever so fleetingly.
Oh, one other time I think he stepped in it. He started rambling on about how this farm is apparently “worth a fortune”. And the house, too. Ha! The numbers he threw out wouldn’t even buy a “handyman’s special” house in the city. His own place, and all the stuff he’s got on it, is probably worth three times as much, if not more.
Also, apparently I have ruined him financially, because I pressed charges against him and riled a restraining order, and he had to pay a lawyer $4000. But he’s “financially ruined” because of me? Even on his pension, not to mention the golden handshake he got, he’s probably bringing in more than my husband’s disability payments, and if it isn’t, his wife’s job certainly is. But he was clearly very obsessed with the monetary value of this property, and that fact that I “control” it.
We used to be so close, years ago, but now his hatred of me is palpable. It’s remarkable.
What’s done is done, though. It’s now up to the judge. She will make her decision and we will get it in the mail within 30 days.
I am glad for that, as it means she’ll have a chance to go over all the documentation. Even after going over the stack of papers he submitted (and it was quite a stack, though mostly of photos), he still doesn’t have a case. It all comes down to the fact that 1) I don’t claim ownership over any of it and 2) he had plenty of opportunity to take his stuff, and he didn’t. It’s not like I gave him a time limit on that.
She explained at the end that if she rules in his favour, it would be for the $13,000 plus potentially the court costs, and did he want to include that? He asked what that meant, and it could be up to $500 more.
If she rules in my favour, she asked about court costs, and I said yes, too. So I might get awarded up to $500 if she rules in my favour.
It should be interesting to see what her ruling will say. Whichever direction she goes, if we don’t agree with it, we have up to 30 days to file an appeal.
*sigh*
I find myself wondering how it ever got to this point, but then I see how he still sees himself as a victim, taking no responsibility for the consequences of his own actions, and realize… it got here because for the first time in his life, someone actually stood up to him, and he can’t handle it. So he escalated it.
I think the judge could recognize that, though. We shall see.
The Re-Farmer 