Author: Re-Farmer

Broken Baby

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This morning, while doing my morning rounds, the kitties all came out to say hello.

Then I saw Ginger.

Walking on three legs.

His right front leg was dangling and swinging in a most unfortunate way.

I tried to go to him, but he “ran” away. I didn’t want to risk losing track of him or hurting him more, so I went inside. My younger daughter was handy, so I told her about it, and she went outside with the cat carrier to try and catch him, while I called the vet clinic.

The doctor was in surgery at the time, so we were told to bring him in for 3pm. My daughter had caught Ginger, and we had a few hours, so we set him up in the sun room, where he would be safe and we could check on him through the bathroom window.

It was encouraging to see that he had jumped up onto the swing bench to nap in a sun spot. Also, his injured leg is not visible in the photo. He’s lying on that shoulder.

I had hopes that it might not be too bad. After all, he wouldn’t be lying on the injury if it was really bad, right?

So we brought him to the vet and my daughter went in, because she can wear a mask. She texted me updates whenever she was able. At first, the doctor thought there might be a dislocation, but they had to sedate him to take x-rays. He is the friendlier of the litter, but he’s not fully socialized, by any means, so it took a bit longer for them to examine him.

What the x-rays revealed was a badly broken elbow. What the doctor thought was a dislocation was a broken bone, sitting on top of another bone.

Not only was it a very bad break, but in a very bad spot.

We were presented with two options. One was a surgical repair. The last time the doctor had gone that route, it ended up costing $2200. The other option was amputation. My daughter texted me while they looked up the cost of that, but my immediate reaction was that an amputation would be far less traumatic.

For the amputation, we got two estimates. Which it would be depends on if it takes 2 or 3 hours to amputate, and how difficult things turn out to be. The price range was just over $1300, to just over $2000.

Ouch.

At that point, they woke him up to give him more pain killers so we could take him home and talk about it. Once in the vehicle, my daughter was able to give me more information. The surgical repair is something they couldn’t even be sure would work, largely due to the placement of the break and how bad it is.

Oh, and we did ask what they thought might have caused the injury. He clearly had not been in any sort of fight. They think it was most likely a really bad fall. :-(

The problem isn’t deciding what action to take, but how to pay for it. Even the money set aside for the garden soil and the emergency fund together would cover the lower amount, but that would screw us over for all our gardening, repair and maintenance plans over the summer. I don’t think I’ll even tell my family about it. Their response would be to have him put down – and not necessarily having the vet do it, for the gun owners.

We’re not going to do that.

In fact, what we’re likely going to do is have him fixed and, after the surgery, turn him into an indoor cat.

Hopefully, the vet will let us make monthly payments. However, I have also done something I have had quite a few people recommend I do over the past several years. I’m loath to do it, but for the kitties, I will.

You may have noticed a new button at the top of the column on the right. We now have a donation page set up with Ko-fi. Anyone who would like to support taking care of the kitties can click and donate any amount they wish.

Currently, I’ve got a fundraising goal of $1300. If it costs more, we should be able to cover it. If we raise more than the goal, it will go towards getting Ginger fixed so we can bring him inside. My older daughter tells me she’s planning to open up to more commissions to raise funds, too. There are only so many she can take at the same time, though.

Tomorrow, we call the vet back and talk about setting up the amputation and payment options. Until then, we’ve set up the sun room for Ginger’s convalescence, and he is there now. In fact, my daughter just have him the first of the treat flavoured painkillers we brought home with him, which he is to get every 24 hours.

Because the swing bench is a favourite place for the cats to nap, we moved it around and set up “stairs” for him to use, so he doesn’t have to jump up onto it, as he had in the earlier photo I took.

The poor broken baby! He’s being remarkably calm and stoic about the whole thing.

Pretty soon, we might have to consider changing his name from Ginger to Tripod! ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: The Pressure is On!

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As we acquire the tools and supplies we’ll need to preserve the bounty we hope to have from our garden this year, we have been picking up canning supplies and the materials do to water bath canning.

We also want to can low acid foods, and were on the lookout for a pressure canner.

My family found something we thought we could use, but alas, it was not to be. We did decide to keep the pressure cooker, though. It’ll still be useful!

As I posted about our conundrum, I had some wonderful people leaving comments and helping me along with something we have never done before, which was greatly appreciated.

Then one wonderful person – you know who you are! – went above and beyond.

Today, we got a large, very well packed box in the mail.

We have been gifted with a pressure canner!

The only thing that’s missing is the instruction manual, which can be downloaded online.

Did I mention it was well packed? :-D

There are even extra parts and pieces!

Also, the cats were very curious. Especially about those packing peanuts. Even after I boxed them up and closed up the flaps, I caught Susan sneaking a paw in and stealing a peanut. Twice!

The internet can be rather unpleasant, especially with all the crazy going on right now, but then something like this happens, and it reminds me that there are some very wonderful people out there, quietly making the world a better place. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: starting tomatoes, and onion follow up

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Yes! We managed to resist temptation, and not start the tomatoes too early. :-D

After a fair bit of research, plus an evaluation of our cat-safe spaces, I chose to start our tomatoes using the “double cup” method.

I’d already picked up a large package of the red beer cups, and those were the types recommended. The first thing to do was to make drainage holes in half the cups we’d be using.

These will later be used to start our squash and gourds, so I didn’t mind putting drainage holes in extra cups. I’ve got a bag of 250, so we’ll be putting holes in at least 125! :-D

These are the seeds from one packet of Spoon tomatoes from Baker Creek. They are so tiny!!! And we didn’t even end up using them all!

Now, we’ve considered quite a few options for starting our seeds, including peat or similar pots, Jiffy pellets, starting trays of various types, and even looking at the pots of various sizes we found while cleaning out the basements. I settled on these cups for a few reasons. They are the size I want, you can get a LOT of them for a very low price, and I expect to be able to reuse them for many years. In some of the gardening videos I’ve watched, there are people who have been reusing these cups for as long as 10 years.

If I had the budget, I would prefer to use coir pots. I like the idea of those, or peat pots, as they can be put right into the soil with the transplants to break down, resulting in far less root disruption. The problem is, for the sheer volume of these that we would need, they’re just completely out of budget. Peat pots are fairly easy to find, but coir or any other biodegradable pots are things we’d have to seek out, and are far more expensive. :-/

The double cup method has added benefits. I can water them from below, using the outer cup, and not have to have them sitting in trays. That makes them more flexible for our spaces. Particularly since we’re using fish tanks as makeshift greenhouses. Using double cups means we can fit them inside the big tank, along with the trays of bulb unions and shallots.

Another benefit to using these cups for starting tomatoes is that we won’t need to “pot up” the tomatoes.

We filled the cups only half way with peat. The loose peat we’re using takes a long time to moisten, so I made sure to set some up in a container with water to saturate overnight, first.

As a bonus, the double cups hold the labels in place very well!

Once the seedlings reach a size large enough that we would be potting them up, we can just add more of the peat around the stems. No disruption of the main root, and the “hairs” on the stems will become new roots, making them hardier for when they finally get transplanted outside.

We planted 4 seeds in each cup. We shall see how many germinate, and how many make it to the transplant stage! The goal is for a total of 8 plants, but if we have extra… well, we’ll figure it out when the time comes. With the Mosaic Medley, it is a mix of cherry and grape tomatoes, so we will hopefully have several different varieties from the seeds that were planted, but I really don’t know how we’ll be able to tell until they start fruiting, really. There are plenty of seeds left in that packet, too.

Here they are, all in a row along the front of the big tank. Once they start sprouting, if it seems they aren’t getting enough light, we can place the extra aquarium light over the tank above them.

At which point, I call your attention to the onions, behind them.

The bulb onions (Norstar) in the self-watering tray are doing all right. The K-cups are actually doing better than the ones in the Jiffy pellets, which was a surprise for me. In fact, so many seeded pellets didn’t germinate, I reseeded many of them (plus a few K-cups), and they seem to be doing better now. The K-cups dry out much faster, and don’t water from below as well as the pellets. Unfortunately, watering the taller K-cups without also over watering the pellets has been a challenge. In the future, I would not want to mix the two again.

As for the shallots in the egg trays… Hmm.

I had thought that the wet cardboard of the egg trays might help the plugs stay moister, longer, but they seem to have done the opposite. They seem to be drying them out faster, and with this set up, I don’t have the space to put trays under them, to be able to water them from below. I’ve been using a spray bottle to water them from above, but … well, they really seem to be struggling. And I can’t even plant more, because all of the shallot seeds were used up in these trays.

Then there are the bunching onions, in the small tank.

*sigh*

The cat damage didn’t just wreck a lot of plugs, but it looks like the peat was contaminated, too. On one tray, a white mold has started to grow, while on the other tray, there is what looks like a more yellowish mold. Lack of air circulation in the tank certainly wasn’t helping matters.

That will not be as much of a problem now, at least. The window screen I found in the shed to replace the lid seems to be working, even though it is bigger than the tank. The frame along one side juuuuussssttt fits in the narrow gap between the tank and the wall, which means the tank itself helps hold the screen in place. A couple of 5 pound hand weights on the back, and it seems to actually be working. Yes, we did have a cat knock it off by going on the overhang, but since the weights have been added, that seems to have solved it.

On removing the light fixture from the lid, I had a slightly different issue. There is no “back” to the light bars, and while the waterproof tubes the lights are in have a dark strip along where it would have been against the lid, there was still a lot of light in every other direction. For now, I’ve simply placed the fixture on top of the metal mesh of the screen, then placed a somewhat-cut-to-size piece of rigid insulation, wrapped in aluminum foil, on top. All that “wasted” light is now being reflected downwards. It seemed darker in the tank, possibly because of the mesh itself, so I put aluminum foil around the sides of the tank, too. The foil wrapped “backing” for the light seems to be working well, so I plan to attach the light fixture to it, rather than just have it sitting loosely on top. I had intended to mount the light to the underside of the screen, but it actually seems to be working okay, sitting on top. As long as the cats leave it alone. They don’t seem to like the overhang of the screen, though, and only a couple of the kittens have been willing to make the effort to get past it.

We have a very small, light fan that can sit right on the screen and provide air circulation in the tank. For now, we’ve been switching the little fan back and forth between the tanks, until we feel it’s time to start using the oscillating room fan that’s on a stand.

I’m pretty sure those bunching onions are a lost cause, though.

So we had two things to deal with; the too dry shallots, and the dying bunching onions.

The girls took care of the shallots for me, while I made a run to the post office. They had to get creative, because… cats.

They put the seedlings into baking pans with water in them, to water the seedlings from below. That needed time, but they found that the under-bed storage container that we’ve been using to contain our potting mess was large enough to cover and protect both trays.

They successfully foiled the cats!

There was room for three more cups in the big tank, though, and we still had seeds for the bunching onions. So when I got back from my errands, I decided to plant more of them.

The shallots were well dampened by then, so I slid them back onto the pieces of insulation we’re using tho carry them, and put them back in the tank. Then I filled three double cups with peat and put about a dozen seeds, at least, in each cup. The seeds are all about half an inch apart, so I’ll be able to easily thin them, if necessary, or separate them for transplanting, later on.

And I still have seeds for the bunching onions left over!

So that is done. Tomato seeds have been planted, shallots have been, hopefully, rescued, and new bunching onion seeds have been planted.

The next batch of seeds that we will need to start are the gourds.

But not for another month or so.

Hopefully, by then, it will be warm enough even overnight, that the onions and tomatoes can be safely transferred to the sun room, so we can use the fish tank aquariums for the next batch of seed starts.

A little more garden progress, done! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Leaving their mark, and planning ahead

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With the temperatures staying warmer, and the days getting longer, I’ve been starting to bring back my evening rounds. I was all ready to head out the door yesterday evening, when I saw three deer, running and jumping through the outer yard, from the direction of the barn!

Then they stopped and seemed hesitant.

I had a suspicion as to why.

I was right.

There were other deer!

These two were already hanging out at the feeding station.

I was able to open the inner door without startling them, so I could see them better. I could tell they saw me and were watching me, but they didn’t run off. So awesome!

The three made their way into the inner yard, but eventually left rather than joining the two at the feeding station.

There they go, all in a row! :-D

I was losing light fast, so I took the chance and went outside. They actually watched me for a bit, before running off.

As I was checking things out in the outer yard, and making my way to the back gate, I had to pause to take these photos.

I was in the path I mow to the back gate, half way between the fences for the inner and outer yards. The line of snow is what was hard packed from so many hooves, it left their mark in snow that’s taking longer to melt away.

Last winter, they seemed to prefer to jump the gate by the old garden area, where it is more open, but this winter, they definitely seemed to prefer going through the maple grove, then jumping the fence near the massive old willow.

Every time I see them making their way through the trees, or along the spruce grove, it makes me glad we were able to clear the trees out so much. It’s not only much easier and more pleasant for us to be able to go through the trees, but the deer prefer it, too!

While doing my rounds this morning, my daughter joined me as I took a closer look into the spruce grove, where we have SO much clearing to do. I had earlier identified 6 dead spruce trees that we’d like to cut down, on top of the 3 that are closer to buildings that we plan to hire someone to take down. We were able to go further into the grove and look more closely.

It’s not 9 dead trees. It’s a full dozen.

And that doesn’t include any others further into the grove, but just along the Western edge, where we need to work on cleaning things out first. It also doesn’t count the dead trees that have already fallen, and are either on the ground, or leaning on other trees, that need to be cleared away.

Looking in the area behind the garlic beds, it’s almost all little poplars, and those cherry trees that aren’t right for our climate. They bloom beautifully, but produce almost no cherries. They’re all relatively small, so I will be taking them right out. The little bendy poplars will be used to build trellises and arches, among other things. The cherries… they don’t look all that good. They have been killed off by late frosts, then regrowing, so often, none of them are particularly big, and are growing in clumps around whatever parent plant had died off in the middle. They might just end up being really nice wood to cook over.

The size of this area that has no large trees in it is pretty significant. Any spruces that used to be there have died off long ago – I expect to uncover more stumps as we clear back there. It also gets quite a bit of sunlight, so this will be a good area to plant some of the food trees and bushes we are planning on.

Once it’s all cleaned up and cleared away, I expect to see a lot more deer cutting through the spruce grove, rather than skirting around it!

As for the additional trees we identified as being dead and in need of removal, I noticed a couple of groups of three. Depending on the condition of the stumps, they might work well to use as the supports, to make a table with a bend on each side. We are wanting to create pleasant little seating areas throughout, where we can sit and enjoy the wild roses and red barked dogwood that we plan to leave as undergrowth, along with the Saskatoons we are finding (we’ll be taking out the chokecherries, though), and the other trees and bushes we intend to slowly plant in the area.

Like the mulberry tree that will be shipped late in the spring, so we’re going to need to get those dead trees out sooner, rather than later!

Plus, in other areas of the grove, we intend to transplant more spruce trees, into the spruce grove!

This whole area is going to be completely transformed over the next few years.

If all goes well, it will be a haven for both humans and deer. :-)

The Re-Farmer

I have awesome daughters!

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When we moved out there to take care of the property for my mother, our adult daughters could have stayed behind. Instead, they chose to give up their jobs and move out to the sticks to help me in caring for their father, as well as the property. They gave up a lot, though considering what’s going on in the world right now, it turns out to have been the right decision on a level no one could have expected.

One of the things I love about them is their sense of humour. Especially when it comes to mundane things.

Like descaling the kettle.

Our well water is very high in iron and minerals, so it doesn’t take long for the bottom of the kettle to get thickly coated. I decided it was time to do the vinegar treatment. After scrubbing out as much as possible by hand, the kettle is half filled with a vinegar water mixture and brought to a boil. The mixture is left to sit until the water has cooled down to safely give it another scrub. Rinse and repeat. It had been way too long since we did this, so I planned to leave the vinegar to soak overnight.

With that in mind, when I started the process, I make a sticky note to leave on the counter for the other household members to know what was in the kettle.

I decided to get cute about it.

Did I mention our water is high in iron and minerals?

As the vinegar mixture came to a boil, the liquid turned a very nasty rusty-orange colour, and was completely opaque.

The girls came down to use the kitchen while it was in the cooling down stage.

They added to the note.

Too funny!!!

The daughter that added the hilarious doodle is having a birthday this month. We don’t tend to celebrate birthdays on the actual day, but prefer to do things for the birthday person throughout the months, so she got her gifts from my husband and I already.

Her younger sister has been spending the last several weeks working on a gift for her. Today, she finished it, and it is amazing!

Who doesn’t want an octopus for their birthday!

I just love the eyes!!!

Also, she made this completely herself, including the pattern.

She taught herself to sew about a year or two ago, and starting making plushies using patterns she could find for free online, as well as clothes for herself.

Me; I baked a cake from a box.

At least the icing was home made. :-D

The Re-Farmer

The things we find, and a whole new level of mystery!

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Over the past couple of months, we’ve been finding cats – usually Tissue – batting around something metallic sounding on the floor. On checking to see what was making the unusual sound, we have been finding all sorts of nails and screws! The cats (probably just Tissue, but we’re not 100% sure) have been digging into the various containers in the basement, taking out a single nail or screw, and carrying them upstairs to play with.

Yes, we did place these in locations the kittens couldn’t reach, but they’re almost adults now, and they can get into a lot more trouble!

We keep taking away the nails, but it usually isn’t long before a new one gets dragged up from who knows where. Tissue does not like having her toys taken away, and it is most amusing, if annoying, to see her pick up a nail and running off with it in her mouth.

Last night, I heard that familiar metallic noise.

There was Tissue, under the dining table, batting at something.

The noise was … different, somehow.

Of course, I went to take latest nail from Tissue and…

… this is what I found.

!!!

Now, there has not been a gun in this house since years before we moved here, and while I’ve found spent cartridges in the barn, in all our clean up of the house, I don’t recall ever finding bullets like this.

I tucked it away into a container on a shelf, only to have a daughter bring it to me, a couple of hours later. Tissue was playing with it again! So I put it in a slide lock baggie and tucked it onto a shelf the cats can’t get at.

Then my other daughter found Tissue playing with another one.

When she brought it to me and I realized it wasn’t possible for the cats to have retrieved the one I’d just hidden away, I went and looked… Sure enough, the bullet I’d found was still in the container I’d left it in.

The cats had dragged out a total of three bullets from… somewhere.

My daughter and I went digging around the basement, trying to see where they could have come from, to no avail. I did find a higher caliber bullet in a container that I remember seeing when we were cleaning out the basement, so I grabbed that to tuck away with the others.

We still have no idea where the cats found those three bullets. The only place we could think of was the top of the closet in the entry. We’ve never been able to clear it out, but the cats have started to find their way up there, knocking things about. We rescued a couple of more fragile objects that we could reach, but there is more we can’t reach at all. My husband – the tallest of us – did use our little step ladder to try and see, but there’s too much clutter up there. Still, if anyone had stored bullets there, back when my late father’s guns were still around, they wouldn’t have been tucked in the back, but have been near the edges, where they could be reached. Even so, they would have been in their boxes, not loose.

So we have a mystery on our hands!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: solution found… maybe?

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As the temperatures have gotten warmer and the snow melts away, I’ve been able to expand my morning rounds. Today, I was able to reach the barn and a shed near it, for the first time in months.

I had a purpose in mind.

One of the things we have found all over the place, beside mirrors and tires, are windows. All kinds of windows.

If there are windows, could there be… ??

… yes there could!

I found a fairly large screen at first, then found at least three like this one. It has an aluminum frame, and a very strong metal mesh.

This may work as a “lid” for the small fish tank greenhouse. It’s much bigger than the tank itself, but if I can secure it safely, I should be able to use it, even with the amount of overlap there will be at the front and sides. I can remove the light fixture from under the lid of the tank, and attach it to the underside of the screen – unlike the light on the big tank, this one can’t handle the weight of even one of our skinny cats on it. There is even a space I can use for the power cord from the light.

The screen itself is probably strong enough to hold even Dah Boy and Cheddar’s weights! As long as no jumping is involved. They don’t tend to try and get on the tanks in general, so I’m not too concerned about them.

The screen has been scrubbed and sanitized and is now set aside to dry. I have time to figure out what I can use to secure it to the tank, while still being able to open it easily to get at the seedlings inside.

Here’s hoping it works!!

Also, there are a LOT of old windows in the barn and shed. Some are broken, but others are still intact. I took a closer look at some in the barn. I am continually amazed by one group of reclaimed windows. They are so filthy with years of dust and grit, I actually didn’t realize they were windows until my brother told me that’s what they were! While some sort of canvas was draped over the middle one, to keep them from touching each other, they are thoroughly stuck to each other at the ends. I estimate them to be about 7 ft by almost 5 ft, and they are at least double pane. Possibly triple. There are a couple of others about 4 ft square that are double pane.

I am sure we will be able to find some use for these. Especially the big ones, if we can manage to separate them without breaking them. I see potential cold frames and mini greenhouses in them! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Fun stuff and catalogue review

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Today has been one of those days of getting things done that were also enjoyable. Like a morning spent converting feed bags into grow bags while watching/listening to videos about crossbow safety. More listening than watching, since I was, after all, hand stitching the bag bottoms into shape. :-D

I also got to enjoy watching deer through my window, making their way to the feeding station.

I saw a couple, earlier, but that early in the day, our East facing living room window is so full of reflections, I can’t get any good shots, but I could get some shots with my phone through the North window. At one point, I was seeing 4 deer, and I think there was a fifth hidden away in the maple grove.

I made a quick trip into town to refill a couple of our 18.9L water bottles, then pick up prescription refills. I timed it so that I could hit the post office on the way home. My husband had been expecting a parcel all week, and today we found out why it hadn’t come in earlier. The padded envelope it came in was sealed in a plastic bag with “apologies from Canada Post” on it. I had no idea what my husband had ordered, so seeing oil stains on the package was a bit alarming.

It turned out he’d ordered honing oil, and the bottle leaked! No harm done, thankfully. :-)

I was excited to see a catalogue I’d ordered had arrived. This is from a company I had included in my list of cold climate seeds sources, which also included nurseries. Whiffletree Farm and Nursery. They specialize in “Cold hardy, disease resistant, fruit trees, shrubs, vines and canes.”. I love how the back page includes phone numbers, a physical address (in Ontario), a map, plus their latitude and longitude!

How very… rural Canadian. :-D

I actually went through the Irrigation Instructions insert, first. They’ve got add on kits designed for new plantings, mature plantings and tree plantings. I found it a lot more informative, both textually and visually, that most of the kit sources I’ve been looking at. Though we don’t plan to plant our fruit and nut trees for a while, yet, where we are extending the garden to this year is well away from the house, and an irrigation system would be well worth the investment, even if we have to McGyver something cheap for the first couple of years.

As for the catalogue itself, I was very impressed.

First off, it’s just plain beautiful. It is printed on the heaviest paper of any catalogue I’ve seen. More than sturdy enough to withstand cats clambering all over it, demanding my undivided attention! Even how the photographs are lined up with the write ups is the best I’ve seen. There is a also LOT of extra information included.

The range of products they have available is amazing. After just a few pages, I started over again with a highlight marker, marking off everything that was Zone 2, Zone 3 or Zones 2/3. I didn’t bother marking Zones 3/4 or higher, because there were SO MANY Zone 2 and 3 choices, it wasn’t necessary. The only exception I made was for a mulberry tree that was Zone 3/4.

Did I mention how informative it is?

I learned something new that really caught my attention. There is a section on Buffaloberries, Peashrubs and Autumn Olives.

I was curious about what Peashrubs were, but it turns out that we already have some! They are caraganas! In our clean up, I’ve had to cut away and cut back a lot of caraganas that were either dying or overtaking other trees and shrubs. It’s been a balancing act between clearing them away and keeping them.

Though I am familiar with the shrub, I discovered that the seed pods are actually edible! At least the Siberian Peashrub (caragana arborescens) are. They have two other varieties. The Siberian variety is “A multi-stemmed upright growing shrub covered with delicate yellow flowers in spring, followed by small edible seedpods which can be eaten as a vegetable. By late summer the dried seedpods snap open, dropping the seeds which are 36% protein and make good chicken feed. So it is sometimes planted in poultry yards.”

Who knew?

I also learned that they are good nitrogen fixers, and wind breaks. We should see if we can figure out what variety we have here!

The catalogue also displays an excellent sense of humour. As an example, in the section on edible lilies and high bush cranberries, there is this write up for the Common Snowball.

“Okay, we admit it – this plant is neither edible nor medicinal to the best of our knowledge. In fact, it produces no fruit at all, not even for the birds. Our only excuse for offering it is for the nostalgic memories is evokes for many folks. Every year in early summer, these old-fashioned, carefree bushes become covered with fleecy, white pompoms. The ‘snowball’ name is visually very fitting, but that’s not all. Perhaps we should market it as a weather prognostic – according to a local, time-honoured adage, there is always a brief, unseasonably cool spell when the snowball bush begins to bloom. Like many weather maxims, you can count on it, it always holds true – except when it doesn’t!”

Ya gotta love it! :-D

While we are not in a position to start ordering food trees for this year, we are shooting to do so as soon as possible, given how long it can take for trees to mature enough to start producing fruit. And let’s face it; at my age, pretty much any fruit or nut tree we plant is for our daughters and future generations, because my husband and I will probably be long gone by the time some of them reach maturity!

There is so much information in this catalogue, we can use it for planning purposes. Especially when it comes to their orchard growing equipment and supplies.

With that in mind, these are some of the things that interest us, that also grow in Zones 2 or 3.

Apples: there are many varieties suitable for our zone, including larger eating apples, edible crab apples and cider apples. They have columnar varieties, dwarf varieties and varieties that are good for espalier training. When it comes to apples, they are not something we tend to eat a lot of, on their own, but we would be using them for things like apple cider vinegar, hard apple cider, or freezing them to use for baking later on. We will have to take into consideration that we need to cut down a lot of our crab apple trees due to fungal disease. It may be worthwhile to get rid of the diseased trees, then wait several years before planting new varieties, or planting new varieties in locations well away from where the diseased trees are.

Plums: This is one of those things that we almost never eat, but if we had them, we would eat them. We do have plum trees, but they are not an edible variety – more stone than fruit – that my late father used to make wine, but having larger, fleshier plums that can be eaten fresh would be really nice.

Pears: I remember we had a pear tree when I was a child. It was a variety that produced small, hard fruit that needed to be exposed to frost before they could be eaten. They are another type of fruit we rarely buy, mostly for budgetary reasons, but would eat more of if we had our own trees, so having cold hardy varieties that can be eaten fresh would be enjoyed, and this catalogue has several such varieties that can grow in our zone.

Cherries: the variety of cherry are from a tree from Poland, which has a warmer climate than we do. They bloom wonderfully, but in the time we’ve been here, produce almost no fruit. Their bloom time doesn’t match when the pollinators come out. So getting a variety or two that is good for our zone is something I would like. They do tend to spread through their roots, though, and can become invasive, so we would have to carefully plan where they would go. Some varieties make good hedge trees, wind breaks and privacy screens, so that’s an option, too.

Nuts: there are only two types of nuts suitable for our zone; several varieties of hazelnuts, and butternuts. We are still looking into planting other varieties. They may not have a long enough season to produce edible nuts, but the trees themselves are an investment.

Rugosa Roses: we already have wild roses growing in the spruce grove that we will be encouraging, as other types of underbrush will be cleared away, but these varieties are specially noted for their large hips, and high nutrient contents. These are for the “apothacary” plants we will also be adding, over time.

Kiwis, grapes, gooseberries and currants, saskatoons, haskaps, raspberries and blueberries: we already have some of these, but will be adding more over time. Some are poorly situation and need to either be taken out, starting over with new, or transplanted.

Companion plants and wildlife packages: they’ve got a number of different plants that are beneficial to plant near trees, for various reasons. Some because they attract pollinators, or attract predator insects that will eat nuisance insects. Others because they are good to plant in paths instead of grass, can handle foot traffic, but don’t need to be mowed. There are even seed mixes to provide grazing for deer and other wildlife, and even have wildlife tree packages, made up of a mix of excess trees, or trees that didn’t make the grade for orchard/yard use, which may not even be labelled. They would be useful for a food forest or permaculture set up to feed both humans and wildlife. These are all things that fit in with our long term goals.

All in all, I am very excited by this catalogue, and look forward to being able to order from this truly unique company as soon as possible!

The Re-Farmer

Getting Mouthy

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One of the things about visiting my mother is, she tends to … pass things on to us.

Basically, she is foisting off things she doesn’t want or need on us, because there’s lots of room on the farm, right?

Four decades, friends in the city doing that to my parents. A lot of that stuff is still lying about in various places. Now she’s doing it to us! :-D

Most of the time, it’s not an issue. I just got a bag full of plastic containers that will be just fine for putting leftovers in the fridge (some of them are what I used to bring meals to her! :-D).

Previously, we got a bag full of odds and ends that included small flashlights so old, the batteries were on the verge of leaking.

We just never know what to expect!

One thing she has been pretty consistent in including has been sweets. She “can’t eat” sweet things (yes, she can. She knows enough to limit herself, but she has her preferences, and that’s just fine).

Most of the sweets are little baggies of candies the social workers have been including in little gift bags they’ve been giving to people in my mother’s building, since they aren’t allowed to have bingo or coffee nights or any of the other many social events they used to organize.

Someone, however, has been giving my mother Polish chocolates!

The last box she passed on to us was around Christmas, and they were quite excellent.

Today, she gave me these.

Wawel (VAH-vel) is a place. Czarny Las (CHArny Laas) means Black Forest (and is the site of the WWII massacre of 250-300 Poles by the Gestapo). Czekolada Nadkiewana (Che-ko-lada Na-jye-vana) means stuffed chocolate. The info in the back says this is from Krakow, which is not all that far from where my mother lived during WWI until the province was turned over to the USSR after the war, and Poles were expelled.

I find myself curious as to who is finding these Polish chocolates for my mother, and where are they finding them! The only place I can think of is the city, which has a substantial Polish community my parents used to be a part of, but I just don’t know of anyone in her building would even know the area exists, never mind knowing where to buy Polish products.

When I got home, I opened the box, discovering that it had already been opened. My mother had tried them before passing them on to us. :-D

Unfortunately…

… they were not stored properly! :-D

It looks horrible, but it’s just a bloom that happens when the chocolate gets exposed to temperature extremes, instead of being in a consistent cooler temperature.

I was not expecting to see all those mouths when I unwrapped the chocolate!

Yes, I did try a piece.

Not a fan of the cherry filling. I’ve never been a fan of fruit in chocolate, really, so that’s not a surprise. I suspect the temperature fluctuations that caused the bloom also affected the texture of the filling.

I can see why my mother decided to “pass it on”.

:-D

The Re-Farmer

This and that, and… why have my fonts changed?

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I did some unexpected running around yesterday and didn’t have a chance to post. Now that I am, I’m seeing that the title font in my editor has changed. I did not change the default font. I’m not even sure how I would do that!

Well, we’ll see if anything is different after I hit “publish”. So far, it looks the same as always when I hit “preview”.

WordPress gets weird at times!

Anyhow.

For the last couple of mornings, I have been happy to see that the outside cats are using the cat house again. When I head out, I’ve been seeing a big mass of orange in the window and, as I come closer, three heads will pop out to look at me! Unfortunately, when I try to get closer to get a picture, Creamsicle Jr. gets spooked and runs off.

I’m still heating up water for them, which they really seem to appreciate!

Yesterday, the plan was to drive my husband to the clinic to get some blood work done. Unfortunately, he had another really bad pain day, and could not handle the trip. I should see if they will fax the requisition to the lab in the town closer to us. I think he would better handle a 15-20 minute drive, over a 40-45 minute drive!

I still wanted to take the van out on the highway, though, and see about blowing more carbon out of the lines at highway speeds. So I headed out to the Walmart in the small, nearer city to finally pick up the rest of the month’s supply of cat litter and dry kibble.

You can tell that spring is in the air, though, when you start seeing birds in the Walmart!

This little guy was checking out the bird seed aisle, and finding stray seeds to eat! :-D

While there, I hoped to pick up more 750ml canning jars, but there weren’t any. I’d picked up the last one, previously, and it doesn’t look like they got more. So I got more wide mouth 500ml jars (2 cups/half a quart). I think these are the two sizes that will be the most useful for us. The plan is to pick up a case or two every month over the summer, so that we’ll have a good stock available by the time we are harvesting from the garden. Assuming everything goes well and we actually have enough to preserve. I usually go with “hope for the best, plan for the worst” but in this case, we’re also planning for the best!

The van, I’m happy to say, ran well. I even loaded the heavy stuff in the back, rather than the middle, and didn’t feel any of the issues I’d noticed before, that had us splitting our trips and loading the heaviest things in the middle of the van.

Later on, I made sure to call my mother to arrange a grocery shopping trip for her. That was set for this afternoon.

If all had gone to plan, I’d be on the road to her place right now.

Does anything go to plan? :-D

It was quite late when I got a call from my mother. She had suddenly developed pain in her bones. Especially her already damaged knees.

My mother had received the vaccine for Schrodinger’s virus a couple of days before.

She was obviously quite concerned, but as we talked I suggested it might also be because of the fluctuating temperatures. That calmed her down, and she decided she would take some Tylenol, bundle up for the night, and keep the cordless phone by her bedside, just in case.

I’m happy to say she was feeling better today. When she got the shot, she had the usual adverse reactions everyone seems to be getting; her arm was sore, redness and swelling. Fatigue, as well. No allergic reactions, but I wouldn’t expect any from her. She has an iron constitution. Muscle and joint pain, nausea, diarrhea, fatigue, vomiting are all on the list of adverse reactions that are being reported. We will have to keep an eye on her after the second shot, as reactions are reportedly worse after that one.

Though she was feeling better, she wasn’t up to actually going out, so I was going to do her shopping for her. We had a bit of a snow storm happening this morning; not unusually cold, but colder, with blowing snow, low visibility, etc. It was supposed to get worse in the afternoon, so I headed out in the morning. I popped in to go over her list with her and be really clear on what she wanted. I noticed things that were not on the list and asked her about them. It’s always hard to shop for someone else. Especially when shopping is often a “see what’s good” or “whatever’s on sale” situation.

There were a few things on her list she would have picked up at the pharmacy, but the pharmacy kicked me out because they don’t honour medical mask exemptions, so she said she would get those items, later. She’s not willing to pay the grocery store prices for the same things. :-D

Just me and her list did make for a very quick trip! I was even able to stay for a short visit, which I haven’t been able to do for a while.

So she is doing all right, but is very tired and will be getting lots of rest for the next while. My siblings and I are going to have to watch not to pester her with phone calls to check up on her! :-D

Thankfully, the local weather has actually improved; whatever was being forecast for this afternoon seems to be missing up.

I’m good with that.

:-D

The Re-Farmer