Follow the path!

The path of least resistance…

I just had to giggle at the fresh cat path, long the ridges left behind when the driveway was cleared. So many paw prints. Probably made during the rush to the kibble house, when my husband came out with food, this morning! We had blowing snow all night, so these are definitely recent tracks.

The cats aren’t the only critters who appreciate the driveway being cleared, and the paths we’ve made! Along the driveway, I could see deer tracks showing where they jumped fences, then used the driveway before jumping the gate.

The cats are handling the snow very well. They all have their dense winter fur. That’s a relief. Fenrir became an inside cat because she doesn’t have the undercoat, and would not have survived her first winter, if we hadn’t brought her in. I don’t know where she came from, but our local stock are well adapted to the cold!

They are definitely eating more, now. Though I husband had fed them not long before I headed out, I still ended up topping up some of the kibble trays. Which is good. They need those calories!

Agnoos was more interested in trying to trip me up! :-D

I’m not completely sure which of the ‘icouses this one is. Thadicous, most likely.

He was having a blast, rolling around in the snow!

We ended up having a storm blow through last night. I was keeping an eye on the garage cam live feed, and it was frequently blinded by snow. Over the hours, I saw the snow ridges on the sides of the driveway slowly disappear, so I had some trepidation as I came out this morning. Thankfully, it was just due to blowing snow that drifted against them, making everything look level in the infrared light. We won’t even need to shovel! I also kept an ear out on road conditions, and lots of people were reporting them as being very dangerous, due to ice and blowing snow. The temperature reached a low of only -4C/25F, and we’re still at that temperature as I write this. My weather apps had the wind chill last night at -15C/5F, but I have no doubt it felt a lot colder at times.

This morning, I dug out a waterproof cord protector and plugged in the cats’ house, even though temperatures are still relatively mild. It was more about still having access through the snow. The timer the heat bulb is plugged into is set to operate from dawn to dusk. As long as there is enough light coming in through the window, it won’t turn on. Which means we won’t have visual confirmation that it’s working until it’s dark, and we can see the red on indicator light through the window. The girls did check it when they cleaned the cats’ house out, so it should be fine.

While doing my rounds, I could hear the sound of heavy equipment, so the roads are being worked on. Mostly, they need to be sanded, but that won’t get done until any drifting gets cleared, first. The main road that goes past us gets cleared quickly, but side roads like the one past our driveway might not get done until tomorrow, depending on how quickly they can do the main roads. Thankfully, things are supposed to stay calm and relatively mild for the next couple of weeks. I don’t mind the snow, though. Any snow we get will go a long way to helping restore the level of our water table, after this past summer’s drought. The Old Farmer’s Almanac predicted a mild wet winter for our region, and I do hope they are right! We really need the break from the bitter cold of the past two winters, in particular. It may make getting around harder, but snow is a good thing.

The Re-Farmer

Ginger Bug, on the Rocks

Okay, I finally got a photo that didn’t totally suck!

Here is our very first Ginger Bug pop.

Our very first attempt at making fermented pop, using a Ginger Bug.

We used a house brand, cranberry raspberry cocktail for the base, which also contained other types of juice in it. The predominant flavour was actually apple.

The juice and ginger bug mixture stayed at room temperature in a plastic bottle for a week. Every day, we would give the bottle a squeeze to see if it was getting harder, which would show that fermentation was happening and gases were starting to expand. Then one morning, I walked past and saw the bottle looking like it was about to tip over! The bottle was rock hard, and the indented base had been pushed outwards under the pressure, causing it start tipping!

I immediately put it in the fridge to stop the fermentation process, but not before I opened the bottle enough to relieve some of the pressure!

When we taste tested it the next day, there was quite a bit of pressure release when I opened the jug, but in pouring it out, there was surprisingly little fizz. It’s more like a barely noticeable effervescence, with a light tingle on the tongue.

Honestly, it really just tastes like juice. None of us noticed much of a ginger flavour in there, and the predominant flavour is still apple. I found it very sweet, so when I had another glass the next day, I watered it down, about 50/50. I found it to be nicer that way.

In researching how to make this, one of the things I’d read was that, after moving it to the fridge, it needed to be drunk within a few weeks, because it loses its fizz. So far, that has not been true! Every time I’ve taken the bottle out, it’s been rock hard again, and there’s no lessening on the sound of gas being released when it’s opened!

As for the glass in the photo, I admit, this is an adulterated drink. I poured it over quite a bit of ice, rather than watering it down.

I also added about an ounce of our hard crab apple cider!

My goodness, that does work rather well!

The ginger bug drink is very sweet, while the hard crab apple cider is a bit on the sour side, and the two balance each other out quite nicely.

I now have a new bottle of cranberry raspberry cocktail mixed with the ginger bug starter. That’s the last of the juice I got for this. I think next time, we’ll try making a fruit syrup out of what we’ve got in the freezer and see how that works out!

This is definitely something we’re enjoying.

The Re-Farmer

Seventeen? Eighteen?

My husband and been able to feed the outside cats this morning, so it wasn’t until I went out to top up their kibble trays that I was able to see a lot of them.

Since the newcomer – whom the girls call our Distinguished Guest – showed up, we have been up to 20 yard cats.

I think I see seventeen, here.

Or is it eighteen?

We have four orange cats right now. Rolando Moon is in the foreground. Toesencrantz is in the middle of the kibble house. Creamsicle Baby is against the back. I took several photos and, even zooming in on the full sized files, I can’t quite make out if there’s a Nutmeg mashed between Creamsicle and the back wall!

Well, if he’s there, he would be number 18. I’d dashed out without bothering to put on a coat, so I wasn’t about to hang around too long to get a head count!

The Re-Farmer

Finding more storm damage

With our temperatures hovering around freezing, we’re getting things melting in some areas, and freezing in others.

Which leaves us with this, in front of the sun room. :-D

We have one of those extended pole shovels designed to remove snow from a roof while standing at ground level, and I used it to try and clear the heaviest snow where the two roof sections come together. Like an idiot, I didn’t take the ice pillar out, first. It fell against the window. Thankfully, the window didn’t break! These are dual pane windows, and the pane on the inside is already cracked, so if the outer pane got broken, we’d be in a pickle!

The other downspouts seem to be clear, but this is the only south facing one, so it gets the most temperature fluctuations, and it feels like it’s solid ice, all the way to the eaves! Trickles do make their way through, but that’s about it.

While doing my rounds, I tried to see if we’d lost any more trees in the spruce grove. I didn’t see any newly fallen trees, but it looks like one of them – a live one, not one of the dead ones – lost about 15 feet off the top. It’s in an area that’s hard to get to even in the summer. With this much snow on the ground, it’s completely inaccessible right now.

Not so much the other piece of tree I discovered on the ground.

I was able to make my way over to the broken canopy tent. From a distance, I could see movement under it, showing that that cats are still able to use it for shelter, so it’s going to stay for the winter. This piece of tree looks like it landed on the corner of the tent and broke it even more. I can’t check on the BBQ under it. At this end, it has a shelf with a handle. There are S hooks on the handle for BBQ tools, and you can see one of them on the ground. Hopefully, it just got knocked about, and not damaged.

This is where it fell from. If I remember correctly, this was not a dead part of the tree, either. This is a group of three very large maples, and they do have a lot of dead sections that we would have to hire someone to safely remove.

Eventually, we will clear a path to the nearby fire pit and might be able to, at most, cut up and clear it away the broken piece or, at least, just move it aside so we can access the area.

There are still quite a few areas we can’t get at, with some we won’t even try to until the snow is gone, but in those that I can actually see, the broken branches we found before, plus what I saw today, are the extent of the storm damage. With all the dead branches we’ve been cleaning up these past four years, there are very few smaller branches on the ground that we’ll clean up when the snow it gone, but that seems to be leaving the really big things to fall!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the snow

We’re supposed to get pretty warm today, with a predicted high of 2C/36F, and a combination of rain and snow. It was already just under freezing overnight, which should have meant a pleasant morning to do my rounds. I wasn’t expecting those winds, though! It was warm enough that snow on the roof is melting, and immediately freezing again. The downspouts are full of ice, so it’s dripping all along the eaves-troughs. I broke icicles, just opening the sun room door! :-D

The kitties were very happy for food and warm water!

I only counted 17 again, but they move around so much, I can’t tell which three were missing, which means even if they came around by the time I finished my rounds, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

There are deer tracks crossing all over the inner yard, and here you can see where they milled around the crab apple trees. Sadly, there are no crab apples for them this year. At least they’re getting a bit of food from the black oil seed we put out for the birds. This is just our first snowfall of the winter, though, so they are not at all in dire straights.

They did appreciate the sunflowers I left behind for them! There isn’t a single leaf or underdeveloped seed head left.

I just love this corridor along the spruce grove, created when we cleared away the lowest branches (many of which were dead). It makes for such a nice, sheltered walkway. As you can see by the tracks, the deer seem to prefer it, too!

My older brother planted these trees, sometime in early 70’s, I think. I would have been just a wee one, and don’t remember them ever not being there, but I do remember being able to climb some of them with my late brother, when we were little. :-) There was one tree that had branches lined up so that I could lounge on them like in a reclining chair. My late brother, on the other hand, could climb trees like a monkey, could climb any tree he wanted and go so much higher than I could, with or without branches handy! Of course, in my memory, they were absolutely huge. They would have been a fair bit smaller than they are now, but in my memory, they seemed bigger! :-D

Once I was done my rounds, I quickly checked the trial cam files, then headed out. I wanted to hit the post office, then to into town to refill our big water jugs and get a flat of eggs. By the time I headed out, however, the winds had picked up even more, and it was raining. Though the gravel roads had been plowed, they were still in rough shape, and driving on them was like driving on a wash board! The paved roads didn’t seem much better, so decided to pick up what I could when I picked up the mail. It’s in a tiny little general store, and they don’t have a lot of selection, but manage to have a good variety of groceries, at least. They do carry the big jugs of water, so I asked about that. Normally, one would pay a $10 deposit for the jug, then $6 for the water. After that, it’s just an exchange of empty jugs for full, for just the cost of the water. I checked, and they looked the same as our own jugs, and the store owner ended up calling the company about it. They were okay with taking another empty, as long as it was clean and the same size/type of jug. So I traded one of our empties that didn’t have a label on it and just had to pay for the water, and not a deposit. It’s more expensive than if I’d gone into town to refill them myself, like I usually do. Likewise with the cartons of eggs I got (we really need to get chickens!), but that’s a small trade off to avoid making the drive on rough, icy roads in the rain and gusting winds.

The closer I can stay to home, the more content I am! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Growing Saffron?

I spotted the most adorable furry spice girl in a plant pot this morning.

When I walked past the living room and saw Saffron in there, watching the birds out the window, I just had to sneak off and get my phone for some pictures!

I’d dug up this old plant stand – I remember my mother had a massive Christmas cactus in it, when I was a child, which means it’s probably older than me – for one of our re-potted aloe vera, hoping the cats would be deterred from digging in the dirt. I was wrong. The plants are now safely in the aquarium greenhouse, but I hadn’t put the plant stand back in storage yet.

I think I’ll leave it.

The Re-Farmer

My family is silly, and court update

First, the fun stuff!

My family is silly.

Yesterday, I roasted some chickens for the next few days and, since I had to get up earlier this morning, I had and early supper. I set out a bowl for the “bones and oogy bits” and labelled it before going to bed.

This is what I found this morning.

My younger daughter asked if “oogy” was a technical term, so which my husband said yes, while my older daughter added the headless chicken carcass.

What a great thing to find in the morning, when I was so dreading heading out!

I made sure to feed the cats before I left, but I was gone so long, the outside cats needed a top-op.

They were very appreciative! Another cheerful sight. :-)

As for my court date… it went as well as could be. It’s on our vandal to respond now, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

The session was booked for 9am. I planned to leave by 7am, if not earlier. I took the time to actually eat breakfast, which I normally never do that early in the day, before heading out, and when I started the van, the clock read exactly 7am. The drive to the town my mother lives in, where I stopped for gas, was not too bad, though there were parts of the highway that had been blown over and covered with ice and snow. Bad enough on their own, but it was starting to melt a bit, too, which added another level of “gotta be careful!”

Once back on the highway after getting gas, I thought things would be better, as that part of the highway is busier, but nope. It was quite a lot worse, which made for slow driving for a while. By the time I reached the divided highway, though, it finally cleared up… just in time to hit the construction zone, where four lanes with a ditch in between bottle necked into two lanes on one side.

Still, by the time I reached the city, I was making good time. While I knew where to go from checking on the map, I had my phone’s map on navigator, so I had a voice telling me when and where to make my turns, just to be on the safe side.

That worked well, right up until I reached the street the court offices were on, and I was to make a left turn. As I reach the lights, I see a sign under them.

No left turn.

Okay, I’ll just go to the next intersection and drive around the block.

As I drive through, the navigator auto adjusts and tells me to make a right turn at the next street. Which I can’t do, because I’m in the left lane during rush hour, and changing lanes was just not an option, never mind trying to move 3 lanes over.

Next intersection?

The sign says, no left turn.

No left turn.

No left turn.

No left turn between 7am and 9am.

One way only.

No left turn between 7am and 9am.

One way only.

By this time, I’ve crossed the river and the navigator is telling me to make U turns, which I could not do.

Finally, I found a street I could turn left onto – with my phone telling me to take a U turn again – drove around the block and made my way back. When I got to the street the court offices was on, I saw a parkade just up the block and went straight there, as I no longer had time to search for parking.

By the time I parked, walked back to the street I needed and found the building, it was just before 9am. I also just managed to get into the doors to stand at the back of the line to pass through security.

Thankfully, I had the phone number for our vandal’s lawyer, so I called him and told him where I was, and he said he would pass that on to the judge for me.

Thankfully again, the line moved quickly.

Our province is in an odd situation right now. With the pandemic response, emergency status was lifted a while ago. The mandates, as far as I know, expired as well. But the province is still enforcing mask rules (there were signs for distancing all over, which were being ignored by everyone). Also, as many expected, they brought in more restrictions after Remembrance Day, but most apply only to churches in the south of our province (where not a single case of Schrödinger’s Virus has been traced to) and kids from 12-17 who want to play hockey. There are others as well, that make just as little sense.

I expect them to implement another illegal full lock down before Christmas.

Anyhow, I didn’t have the energy for a hassle, so I wore my Mingle Mask and hoped for the best.

No one said a thing to me while I was in line.

As the line was moving forward, I remembered I had a pocket knife in one of my parka’s pockets, so when I got to the security station and put my things into a bin, I started reaching into my pocket to give it to them. The security guard, who didn’t bat an eye at my Mingle Mask, started to tell me I didn’t need to empty my pockets, my parka would go through Xray, until I pulled out the pocket knife and told him I’d forgotten about it. He was quite happy with that and took it aside while I went through the metal detector (none of this procedure is in the court offices we’d been going to in the smaller city!).

I fully expected to lose the knife. I’ve been through court security in another province before moving here, and they even confiscated the metal travel chopsticks a friend of mine had in her purse. Happily, I was wrong. When I got to the other side, another security guard had a Ziplock baggie with a form on it, got my name and got me to initial it, then told me where to go as I left, to retrieve it! I was quite pleased by this, as my husband gave me that knife, and it is a very good one. It got quite a few admiring glances from the security guards.

After getting directions, I found my way to the courtroom our session was going to be in. Just the lawyer and court clerk was there, and the court clerk left, probably to let the judge know I had arrived. It was about 10 past 9 when I got there, and it took another 5 or 10 minutes before the judge came in, so the lawyer and I had a chance to talk.

The first thing I asked was if our vandal was there. He didn’t actually answer, but started asking me about what conditions I might be willing to agree to.

Smart man, not having our vandal there. He would not have been able to shut up.

I actually feel sorry for the lawyer. Nice guy. Doing his best for our vandal, of course, but I think he’s figured out his client is a problem.

Then the judge came in and things got started.

He wasn’t wearing a mask. I could actually see his expressions! It was wonderful!

I think we spent about an hour in this session, and covered a lot of ground. The judge started by asking the lawyer about where our vandal was, and he explained that he’d told our vandal he could stay home, since the lawyer was there to represent him. The judge then began grilling the lawyer, before having a lot of questions for me. Much time was spent clarifying things like what our role was on the property, who actually owned it, when the ownership was transferred from my mother to my brother, and so on. Our vandal’s civil suit came up, even though it is a federal matter, not a provincial one, but the two files are so connected. The lawyer brought it up briefly and tried to move on, but the judge had a lot of questions. His expression when he clarified that the suit was against me – who doesn’t own anything here on the farm – and not my brother, was something to see. The lawyer is not representing our vandal on this case, but he did make a comment on how this was not the wisest of moves on the part of our vandal. Civil law is not the specialty of either of them, though, so they couldn’t say much else.

After much discussion, what I was willing to accept was a no-contact order, coupled with a restriction on drinking; our vandal (who does not believe he has a problem with booze) can drink all he wants at home, but he can’t leave his property while under the influence. The lawyer got an extra week to have time to bring the proposal to our vandal, so two weeks from now, he will have to show up in court. The lawyer had the option of calling in. If he accepts the conditions, we have a de-facto “peace bond”. A court order that expires in a year. If he does NOT accept it, it will go to trail. The judge made sure to explain that, if it goes to trial, then I take on the role of prosecutor and have to present evidence to justify my application. That would be a year from now, at the earliest. Of course, I have to give copies of any evidence I want to present to our vandal’s lawyer. The only issue is that, if I want to use the phone messages my mother got, my mother has to actually be there in court to confirm that yes, these are from our vandal and yes, these were from her answering machine.

Which my mother is willing to do, but she’d be 91 by then, and who knows how mobile she might be in that time?

I have no doubt the lawyer is going to impress on our vandal, the wisdom of accepting the conditions.

Whether our vandal is smart enough to do it is another thing.

The judge even knew where we live, more or less, so when he started to explain to me how to get a copy of the order (if our vandal accepts), he stopped and said he would just get them to send it to me, and made sure to have my mailing address to do it.

Once an order is in place, things then fall into the jurisdiction of the RCMP.

Which is about the best outcome we could have gotten out of this session.

So that is done for now. The lawyer will inform me of what our vandal decides.

After that, we’ll just have the civil suit to deal with, and the court date for that is in the summer. Unless our vandal is smart enough to drop that one, but I highly doubt it. I don’t know what he thinks he can accomplish. Not only do I not claim ownership of anything he says is his, but I told him long ago that he could take his stuff, if he could prove ownership. He never responded, and didn’t file suit until after he was served in regards to our restraining order application, more than two years later. He has no case, and just doesn’t seem to understand that.

Ah, well. All we can do is hope for the best and prepare for the worst!

As for me, I’m going to go debone some chickens, so my daughter can make some stock for a nice chicken soup later on. :-) Life goes on!

The Re-Farmer

Snow critters, and brief Ginger Bug update

Yesterday was a recovery day for me, so some things waited until later, and the girls took care of others for me – like shoveling the snow boulders from the driveway clearing out from in front of the garage. :-D I’ve asked the renters how much we owe them for the awesome driveway clearing jobs, and was told to just forget out it! They are so sweet. It also snowed lightly for most of the day, so when I headed out this morning, I did some more shoveling.

But not here! At least, not yet. This is our feeding station, and you can see that the deer have dug into the snow to get at the sunflower seeds. We haven’t started buying deer feed yet, so the next time we pick up feed, I think we’ll get a couple of bags of deer feed, instead of the black oil seed we get over the summer months. The deer feed we get locally is basically just grain and sunflower seeds, though if we went into town, we could get feed that includes more stuff in it, including corn. The deer – and birds – seem to be happier with the simpler mix. The fact that it’s also cheaper is just bonus. ;-)

My husband was a sweetheart and had already given the cats food and water. He had used plain tap water, however, and with ice already in the bowls, by the time I came out, the surface was frozen over already, and the cats were licking ice, even though it was only -9C/16F I had started a kettle going before I left, however, just in case, so my husband was able to bring out a jug of water – half tap water and half boiling water – for me.

Since the water was still pretty hot, I didn’t knock the ice out of the bowls completely before topping them up. The cats were drinking it before I could finish pouring! I even added some to the bird bath. I’m not doing like I did in the past; chopping the ice out with a hatched and filling it with water. The basin is already cracked and I’m amazed it hold any water at all, anymore, though we do now keep a smaller metal basin in it, and that’s what I’m putting the warm water in.

When I came back later, there was even more of kitties, taking turns drinking!

They really do seem to appreciate the warm water.

With so much deep snow, my morning rounds are less extensive, though it now includes trekking to the corner of the property, by the new sign, to make sure it’s still there and undamaged, and switch out the memory card on the trail cam. This morning, I also worked on clearing some of the walking paths, including the one to the kibble tray under the shrine.

As anyone with glasses knows, working in these sorts of conditions means working mostly blind, as the lenses fog up and then freeze over. So I was mostly looking over my glasses, and not seeing a whole lot. Even so, I could see something… odd… near the base of the shrine. A strange dark patch in the snow.

This was not there when I topped their kibble up, last night!

Something has dug a new burrow under the shrine!

I don’t know what digging critter we’ve got around here that isn’t hibernating right now. I’ve seen a little skunk in the kibble house recently (we usually just see the one big one, these days), so maybe it was a skunk? I don’t know.

Making my way back to the kibble house, I spotted our newcomer. I’d seen only flashes of her yesterday. I’m happy she weathered the blizzard all right, wherever she was at the time.

Then, because I am a suck when it comes to the cats, after I shoveled all around the cats’ house, including opening up gaps so the cats can get under it, and a path to where they go under the laundry line platform, I dug the cat path to the storage house, which is what they are in, in the above photo.

Looking at the 5 day forecast, we are supposed to reach a high of -1C/30F tomorrow, with a bit of snow, then 2C/36F with rain and snow, the day after. Which means all the areas we are digging out should melt down to the ground, or close to it. It also means that when I drive into the city, early tomorrow morning, to the courthouse for Case Management in regards to our restraining order against our vandal, it’s going to be potentially dangerous driving. The van has good snow tires, though, so that should help, but I’m really not looking forward to the drive at all.

On the plus side, when I checked the trail cam files this morning, I saw the snow plow go by twice, so I know our gravel roads are completely cleared.

Oh, I just remembered a recent conversation I had with my brother, when we were scrambling to get things done before the snow came. Particularly the garden beds. I’d mentioned wanting to get some manure, when he brought up the manure pile that used to be behind the barn. I remember that pile. We used to have a pig pen beyond it, too. The pile is gone, and there is no evidence of the pig pen, with its shelter for the pigs in one corner, left. Not only that, but there are hollows in the area, where the ground has been dug deeper, that has had me wondering. I’d say they were made with a small front end loader, like what would fit on a small tractor or the Bobcat that was here. It’s all grown over now, so it’s been like that for a long while, but… it looks like our vandal even stole the manure pile! Probably for his own fields or garden, but… who steals manure??? Of course, we don’t actually know who took it, when or why, but there’s no one else that would have done it.

On a completely different topic, we finally got to try our first Ginger Bug Pop last night! It took a week to fully ferment, in our fairly chilly dining room. We all gave it a try, and all of us found it quite tasty. It definitely worked, though I found it really sweet. I haven’t been able to get a good photo of it, yet, but I’ll make a separate post about it when I finally do.

The Re-Farmer

Cleared!

Oh, it was so nice to see how the driveway looked in daylight!

There is more than enough room to back out of the garage and turn around – and even room for other cars to pull in and park. So awesome!

Though we do still have a bit of clearing to do in front of the garage. It’s just a small job, now!

This picture is taken from the road. Even the cats are loving the lovely, snow free driveway!

The road has been partially plowed. It looks like someone went through with a plow attachment on their truck or something similar. When the municipal plows come through, the clear from ditch to ditch, and there’s room enough for 2 vehicles to pass each other.

Notice the pole of snow pushed into the ditch? Because he cleared so far on that side of the driveway, when the plow does go by, we won’t have a ridge running across the end of our driveway!

I was able to make my way to this fallen branch. You can see where it broke off, above. I was not able to move it. Not only is it really heavy, but it’s frozen to the ground!

While making my way to switch out memory cards on the trail cams, I cold see where the deer are passing through, too.

As expected, there wasn’t much on the trail cams. It was funny to see some of the files from the camera by the new sign. The snow covered the camera lens before the motion sensor covered it, so they were basically just out of focus snow.

Though there is more shoveling to do, especially in the inner yard, I think I’m going to have to leave it to the girls today. My body is definitely telling me I need to take a break! Time to pain killer up and go for a nap!

The Re-Farmer

Kitty count and plant prison

I notice the cats outside have been really appreciating the digging of paths around the yard!

I counted “only” 17 in total this morning. I did not see the newcomer. Hopefully, they are all doing fine in their little shelters all over, when they’re not using the ones in the yard.

Rolando Moon had been posing like an adorable loaf, but in the time it took me to dig my phone out of my pocket, she decided to come over for pets.

I’ve had some frustrations with the indoor cats and the repotted plants that are finally inside. Though they have been liberally – even excessively – doused in cayenne pepper, we seem to have one cat that is not at all bothered by it. I think it’s Cabbages, but I’m not sure. They do their dastardly deeds when we are not around to see them. Yesterday morning I into the living room and found two of the aloe vera had been thoroughly dug into, with soil scattered all over. My daughters cleaned that up while I was outside, thankfully.

Last night, our vulnerable pots went into plant prison.

The big aquarium greenhouse set up has been repurposed to house the aloe. The two on the right were the ones that got dug up. We’ll see if they survive! My daughter’s orchids will be going in here, too, because the cats keep going after them, even though they are all hanging kokedama.

We brought in the aquarium lights yesterday evening, but I didn’t turn them on until today. They had been in the sun room and were pretty cold.

It didn’t take long for Saffron to rediscover her favourite butt warmer!

It’s a good thing she is such a tiny little thing. :-D

We’ll be using the aquariums as greenhouses to start our onion seeds in a couple of months. Hopefully, by then, the aloe will be well established in their pots, and we’ll be able to move them out to make room.

The Re-Farmer