Author: Re-Farmer

Things I’m thinking about

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First up, thank you to those who wished me well after my last post. I ended up lying down for a while, and the pain was much reduced when I got up again. It’s still there, but it’s more of a stiffness than pain now. I still have no idea what caused it, but it’s getting better.

Which made things much less uncomfortable while helping my mother run her errands this afternoon. Since I had her car, she took advantage of it and we went to several places. Before heading home, I stopped to fill the gas tank. Talk about sticker shock!

A couple of days ago, gas prices had gone down to 117.9/L for regular gas, and now it’s 128.9/L!

For those in the US, 1 US gallon is 3.78L (1 Imperial gallon is 4.55L, so there’s quite a difference). So this about $4.87/US gallon in Cdn dollars, or $5.90 in US dollars, at today’s exchange rate. And that’s just for regular gas, not premium!

As I understand it, this is still a low price compared to UK prices! Granted, we’re a lot more spread out, and have fewer alternative options to driving.

So…

Ouch!

At times like this, we are thankful my husband no longer has to commute to the city, as he did when we last lived in this province.

Overall, shopping with my mother went very well. A few days ago, she called me with concerns about pains in her chest and wanted me to make an appointment for her with the doctor. In the end, he ended up doing a telephone appointment with her – and instead of talking about her chest pains and other symptoms, she talked to him about the pain in her knees! *sigh* Still, she got a prescription for a topical painkiller to try on her knees for a couple of weeks. The last couple of times I helped her shop, she had some near falls as her knee gave out. That didn’t happen today, but she did get tired very quickly. Thankfully, when I do these trips with her, I don’t have anything I need to rush off to, so I can give her all the time she needs.

There was one thing that had me shaking my head, but before I describe it, some background is needed.

My mother had asked us to move out here a few times, and one of the “perks” she dangled in front of us is that we could grow a garden and never have to spend money on groceries.

Which doesn’t make much sense. Even when she had her big garden, plus we had chickens and butchered our own cows, we still had to buy some groceries. But that was the carrot she dangled in front of us. We’d be saving all that money by having free food.

When we did move out here, and didn’t immediately put in a garden in our first summer, she was furious. Like, actually furious. She was also angry the we let it go to “weeds”, as if we were doing it deliberately, rather than because it was so badly plowed, we couldn’t mow it until one of the push mowers was fixed the following summer. We would have destroyed the riding mower my brother got for us (because the one that was here disappeared while the place was empty.) In fact, it got so bad that, at one point, we were starting to look at rental listings because we thought she would “evict” us and, frankly, we didn’t need the abuse. It calmed down, but took a lot of concerted efforts from my siblings and I.

Then, when we finally did have a garden last year, my mother have very little so say, and what she did say was all negative. She had never heard of mulching before, so that was bad. We didn’t get it plowed or use a tiller (none of the tillers here work), so that was bad. And so on. But, overall, she just didn’t bring gardening up as much.

This year, with our plans for a much larger garden, she was once again furious, because we are going to buy soil. She has even finally started to acknowledge that the soil is not the same as when she had my dad to plow it, 5 kids to help pick rocks, and manure for a herd of cows to fertilize it. However, she had nothing much to say about the fact that we are planning to have a large garden, even though she harangued us about it for our first two years here. I would tell her about the seeds we got, and she would chastise me for spending money on seeds. During one attempt at a conversation about it, she was giving me a hard time for now “allowing” her to have the garden plowed, when she offered to pay someone, but when I told her that if she were still offering, we were ready to say yes, she just said she would think about it. It hasn’t been brought up, since. (But I’m still not supposed to spend money to buy soil…)

So that’s where we’ve been at for the last while.

Today, while at the grocery store, we were looking at some canned goods and I mentioned that we now had the supplies needed to do both water bath canning, and even do pressure canning, so we will be able to do things like can soups and things like that, safely.

Her response was to make snarky comments about spending so much money, spending, spending…

???

So… I’m supposed to grow a large vegetable garden, but I’m not supposed to buy seeds, not supposed to buy soil, and I’m somehow supposed to preserve the harvest without buying canning supplies and equipment (her water bath canning supplies also disappeared before we moved here)

I pointed out to her that when she canned things, she spent money, too. She had to.

She promptly dropped it.

It is so strange that, with how big a deal she made over us not gardening over our first two summers here, now that we are gardening, and very excited about it (I even mentioned how excited we are about it!), she can’t see anything positive about it. Even when I mention that we’ve started seeds indoors, she expressed surprise (yes, she did start some things indoors, too, so this isn’t even doing something different than she did), but doesn’t want to talk about it. And yet, she had been constantly going on and on about my sister’s garden, and how wonderful it is, and bragging about it every time my sister brought her some fresh produce. My sister has been gardening on their farm for somewhere around 40 years, but you’d think it was all a new and wonderful surprise or something.

So very strange.

But not as strange as the phone messages I listened to.

Yes, our vandal had called her again, a couple of days ago. For the first call, it was an unfamiliar number, so she answered it. She told me about it later, but neglected to mention that he had called her three more times, leaving messages!

He’s changed his story again. Now he’s saying he doesn’t want her money (which is hilarious, since for years, he was constantly after her to pay for things for him), but only wants to “walk freely” on the farm.

Why on earth would he even want to walk around on someone else’s property? It’s one thing to have come here to “take care” of the place, when it was empty (though he was helping himself all sorts of things at the same time). It’s quite another to want to just pop over any time, while there is someone living here, just to “walk freely”.

He obviously has no idea just how creepy that sounds.

Well, his messages were all sorts of rambling diatribes about how my mother has given the whole farm to me (she hasn’t), and why did she do that, when he worked so hard here, and we didn’t do anything at all, ever (he’s including my brother on that one). Then wailing about how we’re trying to put him in jail and have ruined his life.

Oh, and apparently, I go by, waving at him and laughing at him. Laughing!

Also, we’re fat. FAT!!!!

I think the funniest one was his claiming my daughters are holding parties. *snort*

There were some new ones in his messages, though. Now, we’re apparently ruining the lives of my late brother’s children, too. How, I have no idea. He’s also claiming I’m responsible for putting him into almost $200,000 of debt by charging him. Which I’m not doing, because when I tried that after he broke the gate, the courts stayed the charges after he went through some sort of program. I’m applying for a restraining order. How any of that resulted in him going into such massive debt, I have no idea. More likely, he incurred debt in the belief that he would coerce the farm out of my mother and sell it to pay off his own bills.

But that’s just a guess on my part.

Which leads me to the other new thing.

He actually offered to buy the farm from my mother (who doesn’t own it anymore, and he knows that) for…

…

drum roll please!

…

$500.

Which is what he says my parents paid for the farm (which would be the two quarter sections we’re caring for now, not the third quarter section the younger of my brothers got as an early inheritance).

In 1952.

Which I think might be before my parents were even married. Certainly before any of us kids were born, and only my late brother and I were born after the moved her from the city. I believe my parents bought the property in the early to mid 1960’s, and they certainly paid more than $500 for it! Even the quarter section my younger brother lives on cost them more than that when they bought it!

So where did he even get those numbers?

And what on earth was he thinking, to even suggest buying the property for the price he thinks it was purchased at, almost 70 years ago? Was he trying to be insulting? If he was, it didn’t work.

As my mother put it, he’s just making things up!

The oddest thing (among many odd things) is that I can submit these messages to the courts, both in my application for a restraining order (whenever that finally makes it to court), and in my defense against his vexatious civil suit against me, which still has a court date in July, and he knows this. He’s said as much in some of his past messages.

So why does he keep doing it?

And why is he so obsessed with this property? Particularly since he already has his own farm?

And why does he keep going after my mother, as if she still owns it?

None of it makes sense.

Interestingly, when my mother updated her will, the lawyer commented that he sees lots of people doing stuff like this, so he has lots of experience in making wills that can’t be contested by such people.

How very sad.

Ah, well. We deal with what we have.

In the mean time, I think building nice taaaaalll deer fences around the perimeter of the yard sounds like a very good idea. Something that also gives us privacy from anyone going slowly by on the road and peering through the bushes… :-/

We may live in the boonies, but sometimes I think it’s not quite far enough in the boonies. There are still people around. ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Getting brave, and why do I hurt?

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The outside cats were, as usual, very excited about that whole “food” thing. ;-)

The super shy one was even down to “shy” instead of “super shy”. :-D

Usually, she’ll peek in between the shelters, see me and run off. Not this morning!

She actually joined the buffet while I was still there!

Then she ran off as soon as I moved.

Ah, well.

Mornings get very noisy this time of year. :-) While I was doing my rounds, I was hearing SO many Sandhill Cranes, as well as Canada Geese. Then a palliated woodpecker showed up, moving from tree to tree as I walked around, making sure I couldn’t possibly get a photo! :-D They have such a raucous call. I’d heard it before but this was the first time I saw one actively making it. I had no idea that noise was from a woodpecker until now! :-D

We’re supposed to have a warm one today, with a high of 11C/52F. Normally, I would be outside, doing more clean up and making use of our newly sharpened little electric chain saw. It’s got a 10″ bar, which is just enough to use on some of the downed trees nearer the house that have to be cleaned out.

Instead, I will be heading out this afternoon to help my mother with some grocery shopping. Which is probably a good thing, because I have been strangely hurting. I always have aches and pains, of course, but yesterday I started feeling the oddest chest pains. Mostly around the sternum, but also in the muscles in front of my shoulder joint. The “clavicular head”, according to the anatomy charts. It makes reaching for things much more limited. It’s the sort of pain I would normally associate with having overdone it with heavier physical labour, or pulling a muscle or something. I haven’t done anything that would explain it, though. The closest thing was to load the lawn mower in and out of the van, and there was nothing taxing about that.

Whatever caused it, I’m still feeling it today, and it seems unaffected by the pain killers I take daily for my osteoarthritis. It’s more annoying than anything else. I only really notice it when I stretch to reach for something and discover my range of motion suddenly limited.

Bah.

We have a few cooler days coming. Hopefully, it’ll pass by the time things warm up again, and I can get back to cleaning up in the spruce grove.

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: luffa, Crespo squash, decisions made, and we have sproooooots!!!

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My daughters and I regularly check the areas we planted things in the fall. Especially where we planted so many corms and bulbs.

For those new to this blog (welcome! I’m very happy you’re here!), last fall we planted 200 grape hyacinths in one area (day one, day two). In another, we planted about 100 snow crocuses. My daughters also planted some Iris, Bulls Eye Tulip, plus a variety pack of other tulips, in other areas. We also planted three varieties of hardneck garlic. (all links will open in new tabs, so you won’t lose your place. :-) )

Today, we actually found sprouts!!!

This is a snow crocus. We found one other sprout a few feet away, too. We were so excited!!!

There’s still no sign of anything else, but it’s the crocuses that are supposed to be the earliest to emerge, so this is pretty awesome! We probably won’t see any of the others for some weeks, yet.

We also found…

… a garlic emerging through the mulch!

It wasn’t until I uploaded the photo and was resizing it that I realized there was a second one in the back, the tip just barely visible! I had been checking the garlic beds every now and then, since we took the plastic off, pulling the mulch back to see if there were any sprouts. I had done that earlier, but in a different spot and completely missed the bit of green poking through! Even when my daughter pointed it out, it took a while for me to see it.

These ones are Purple Stripe. After finding them, I checked in the Porcelain Music bed, pulling back the mulch, and I did find a sprout there, too. I put the mulch back. The overnight temperatures are still too cold to take the mulch off.

We are really, really excited to see these!! We have sprooooooots!

*doing the happy dance*

Meanwhile…

After putting some seeds to soak for 24 hours, we planted some Crespo squash seeds.

We planted only 2 seeds in each of 3 double cups. We’ll see how many germinate. They went into the small aquarium greenhouse, along with the more recently planted gourds (still no seedlings sprouting there, yet), and the light fixture that’s there to keep the tank warm.

I keep catching Saffron lying on the screen cover, directly over the light! The little bugger has discovered it’s even warmer than sitting on the light fixtures of the big tank. At least she’s tiny and light!

As you can see in this image from Baker Creek, Crespo squash can get quite large! The only information I can find about these is from the Baker Creek site, and it’s new for them, so there isn’t very much information, and there are no reviews at all. There isn’t even a “days to maturity” available. The package just says to harvest when the skin is very hard. ??

These are from Peru and Bolivia, which do have areas that are the equivalent of our Zone 3 climate, but I have no idea if these are from any of them. Probably not. :-D

Still, I couldn’t resist these amazing looking edibles!! It would be really something, if we could grow these to full maturity.

The luffa have joined the tomatoes and onions in the big aquarium greenhouse. They are big enough now that I’m not as concerned about keeping them extra warm.

I really hope these work out!

Thinking ahead, while the girls and I were walking around, we went by the other area we are considering to put our permanent garden beds and talked about it.

We have decided that this will be it. Our future permanent, accessible raised bed garden.

One of the hesitations about this spot is that it’s always been a high traffic area – that’s why it’s so flat that I’ve been able to mow it! There is a gate to the old hay yard next to the shack by the barn. On the other side of the shack is the ramp that was used to load cattle onto trucks. The gate, however, has had other wire placed across it and it can no longer be opened, and even if that old cattle ramp wasn’t rotting and falling apart, we don’t plan to have cattle. At least not so many that we’d be sending them off to auction. We still drive through parts of it, to access the garage, the barn, etc., but that still leaves a huge area that no one drives through anymore.

In our shorter term plans, we were talking about putting a temporary fence up in the old hay yard, where the remains of another fence still sits.

It’s marked in black in the above photos. This would allow us to remove part of the main fence (marked in orange) and still keep the renter’s cows from getting through.

But if we’re going to put permanent raised beds by the old hay yard, we will want to plant a wind break even sooner, and that was going to be along a permanent fence.

Which would be about where the black lines are in these photos.

If we do that, we can get rid of a lot more of the fence around the old hay yard, much of which is in terrible shape, anyhow. That, in turn, will open up more of the hay yard area to other options. Right now, with that gate blocked off, the only way we can get into the old hay yard that doesn’t involve clambering over a wire fence is either through the barn, or through the electric wire fence at the gate by the barn, then go around the back of the barn, and through the collapsed rails of an old corral.

We will have to do some work on the fence around the outer yard, though, to fill in any areas the renter’s cows can get through, if his electric fence fails again. It wasn’t an issue before, because we could close up the gates to the inner yard, but if we have a garden out there, the cows would make shorter work of it than the deer!

The advantages of this area compared to the others – mostly that it’s already nice and flat – also means that we will probably be able to build the permanent garden beds here sooner than in any of the other locations.

On top of everything else in favour of this area, it’s visible in live feed from the garage security camera. We will be able to see if there are any deer getting into the garden.

Well. Not when we’re asleep, of course, but it’s a start! :-D

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Looking for water

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It was a very gorgeous 9C/48F outside, so I took advantage of it to check some things out, beyond the outer yard. More specifically, I wanted to check out the dugouts.

But first, I got accosted by a very affectionate – and still very round – Butterscotch. She really wanted attention, and even got me to pick her up. Which tells me she has a bit longer before she has her kittens, since she doesn’t want to be picked up when she’s closer to her due date.

For all the snow we got and what’s still on the ground, things are still on the dry side.

In this photo, I’m standing in the deepest part of the dugout in the old hay yard. There isn’t even any mud. This time of year, this should be a small pond. This is the area we hope to excavate deeper, a few years from now, in hopes to have water there all the time.

This dugout has even less water than the last time I came out here, a few weeks ago. This should be a large pond right now.

Finally, some water! This is the old gravel pit, and you can see by the lumpy ground from the renter’s cows, how high the water would usually be. This is deep enough, and there’s enough clay under it, that it is very rare for this spot to have no water at all. There is a low, marshy area that runs from this spot, towards the dugout in the previous photo, and there’s no water in there at all. Just mud in a few places. I could hear frogs, though, so that’s encouraging.

When I dropped of the lawn mower for servicing earlier today, the guy I was talking to mentioned predictions of up to 7 inches of snow on Sunday. I don’t know where he heard that, because when I look at Environment Canada and Accuweather, there are no such predictions. We might get some rain and snow tonight, but there’s very low chance of snow on Sunday, and no other rain predicted.

At least we got what we have so far. It will be a huge help.

The Re-Farmer

Ginger Squid and general update

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Last night, I introduced Ginger to a new toy.

I’d crocheted an amigurumi squid, years ago, trying out a new pattern. When I realized we’d closed the other cats out for the night and Ginger had no toys in the room, I decided to see if he would like it.

He did.

Squidly is now Ginger’s favourite toy! The other cats like it, too. :-D

Speaking of other cats…

His sister, Cabbages, and Keith were pretty adorable, cuddling together! :-)

This morning, as I put kibble out for the outside cats, most of them eventually made their way over.

I did not see Butterscotch.

I have my suspicions that she’s tucked away with somewhere, with new babies.

If my suspicions are correct, I hope her nest is nice and cozy, because they’re now predicting another 7 inches (almost 18cm!!) of snow on Sunday! We’ll have more snow in April than we’ve had the entire winter.

The slow melt we’re having now is perfect, except with the overnight temperatures going below zero, the freeze-thaw cycle is destroying the roads! I had to run some errands today, picking up our newly sharpened and tested electric chain saw while dropping off a lawn mower for servicing, then going to another town to drop some stuff off, and the gravel roads in particular are just awful. The paved roads and highways are going to be crumbling even worse than usual in the next while.

I don’t mind the snow while we’ve got these milder temperatures. I think most people on the farms out here will happily put up with rough roads, if it means they will have enough moisture when planting their crops.

I must admit, though, it’s rather disjointing to read other people’s blogs where they talk about all the stuff growing in their gardens, or their latest transplants. :-D

Speaking of which, we did decide to start one of the squashes we’ve got now, rather than later. The Crespo squash is the only one of them that grows large fruit. In trying to find the “days to maturity”, all I can find is “harvest the the skin is very hard”. Which doesn’t tell me much at all! I’ll just assume large fruit means longer time needed to grow them, and will give them a bigger head start. I set the seeds to soak last night, and will plant them later today.

I’m not finding a lot of information about this specific variety at all, so I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens with these.

And now I have to de-cat myself (hello, Susan) and get some work done! :-D

The Re-Farmer

What a crowd!

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This morning, I walked into the living room and found seven deer outside our window!

That is the most we’ve seen, all at once, since our first spring here. :-)

Then I spotted them on the trail cams!

I never saw all seven on the trail cams at once. They kept streaming across the road from my brother’s place. :-)

I love the action shots! :-D

The Re-Farmer

It’s crowded out there!

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I found quite a surprise at our gate when I checked the trail cam files!

Four deer, hanging out on the driveway and road! They stayed there long enough that I found about a dozen files (stills and video) of them!

Looking at the time stamps, they came to the driveway after visiting the house.

They weren’t very nice to each other!

One of them stayed in the trees and never came to the feeding station. What I found interesting as I watched it, is that it completely avoided the area closer to the feeding station and went around to the side.

The area I cleaned up recently.

They definitely prefer to go through the cleaned up areas in or under the trees, rather than out in the open.

This next image from the trail cam isn’t very good, but it is dramatic!

I almost didn’t see it at first!

In the next few files, I could see that there were actually two deer out there, just on the edge of the infrared flash.

Very cool!

Also very cool was having Rolando Moon show up yesterday, and still being here this morning when I went out to feed the outside kitties. It almost gives me hope that Nostrildamus and Potato Beetle might still show up again, though I realize the chances of that are very low.

Their food bowls were completely empty again – even the heated water bowl was completely dry – which suggests the skunks came to visit, too.

It gets pretty busy with critters out there! :-)

The Re-Farmer

The Adventures of Ginger

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Yesterday, Ginger discovered the joys of bedding being changed!

The cats tend to react two ways when the sheets get changed. About half the cats see what’s happening, and are all “YAY!!! IT’s party time!” and promptly make it very, very difficult to make the bed.

The others go into a panic and run away like the world is coming to an end.

Ginger, it turns out, is the party type.

There turned out to be three cats in this picture. :-D

Time to cover the freshly washed blanket in fur again!

Time to defend territory!

No worries about Beep Beep. Every now and then, she gets in a bad mood and goes after whatever cat happens to be nearby. Ginger handles himself just fine!

I should put the freshly washed blanket into the shelf, but I’ve discovered the cats love a folded up blanket on the corner of the bed, as a bed of their own. Ginger is no exception!

We’ve been closing the other cats out of this room at night, just so Ginger can get a break from the crowd and get some sleep on the good spots. ;-) The other cats are not happy with this. As I write this, there are currently 7 cats sprawled all over my bed! :-D As soon as I open the door in the morning, they all rush right in. Next thing I know, my bed is covered, they’re circling Ginger’s food and water bowls as if they didn’t have oodles of them elsewhere in the house, and take their turns using his litter box – also as if there weren’t several others on different floors available for them! LOL

As promised, here is a picture of David for Leenda. :-)

David is just as hefty as is brother, Keith, but looks like he should be all light and fluffy.

Well. He is fluffy… ;-)

Also, he has pants. Thick, fluffy pants. When he walks by, his tail is like a huge banner with wiggling pants below.

Which is a much better view than what all the short haired cats insist on giving us, every chance they get! :-D

Well now! I was hearing the sounds of a cat playing behind me as I wrote this, so I took a look. It’s Ginger, running around and batting a cat toy around! Yes, he’s found a way to run and bat at a toy with his one front leg, at the same time!

He has adapted so well, so quickly. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Ginger and his big sister!

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Ginger finally got cooperative enough for me to get some photos of him. :-)

He was very squirmy.

He’s like a weird, twisty rubber band!!! How the heck did he get his front leg like that?? :-D

Nicco wasn’t too sure what to make of him. :-D

Can you believe she’s about 2 months older than he is? She looks so tiny in comparison!

:-D

The Re-Farmer

Now for the slow warm up

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The weather system has finally weakened and moved on. Over the next while, we’ll be slowing warming up, with a bit more snow predicted on the weekend (depending on which app I look at! LOL). With temperatures hovering only a few degrees above freezing during the day for the next while, we should have a nice, slow melt. We’re not expected to get into the double digits (in Celsius) until May. Which means no flooding, and no washing away of soil, and the still frozen deeper soil will thaw out slightly faster.

If things actually turn out as forecast, it will be pretty much perfect.

The outside cats are doing just fine in all this! When I came out this morning, I saw Butterscotch coming out of the bottom of the shelf by the sun room that we put rigid insulation in, adding more to the front to create a shelter for them. Creamsicle Jr. was in the middle shelf, sitting like a loaf in the opening, watching me as I changed out there water. I’m really glad that little shelter is working out for them.

The weather at least seems to have kept away the skunks, as there was still some kibble left in their food bowls.

Rosencrantz (in the foreground) has the densest, fluffiest fur! All the cats have their dense winter fur, but hers is so incredibly fluffy! :-D She would not let me pet her this morning, though.

Butterscotch, on the other hand, is looking rounder and rounder.

*sigh*

We’ll just have to assume that Rosencrantz and Junk Pile cat are also pregnant, but they don’t look any bigger than their winter fur would normally make them.

:-/

Anyhow.

In total, I would say we got about 6-8 inches (15-20cm) of accumulated snow in our area. The snow is so heavy and wet, it actually made shoveling the sidewalk a challenge, because the snow kept sticking to the shovel!

Meanwhile, we don’t need to actually go anywhere until tomorrow, so we’ve got another quiet day at home to catch up on things indoors. :-)

The Re-Farmer