Author: Re-Farmer

Frosted!

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Thanks to my dear brother and his wife, I had plenty of kibble to feed the kitties this morning. I would have emptied the bin this morning, otherwise.

Ginger was out and about, and covered in frost!

While the tips of their fur makes them look chilled, when I pet them or pick them up (at least the ones that allow me to!) feel surprisingly warm. Their winter undercoats are doing the job of keeping them somewhat insulated.

Once again, the heated water bowl was almost completely frozen over! I made sure all the water bowls were filled with warm water, before doing the kibble. Their food bowls are full, but even dry kibble must get pretty hard in these temperatures, as they definitely prefer the new kibble, which would be slightly less frozen! :-D The thermometer in the sun room has shown it to be typically half the outside temperature or warmer, so when we are in the -30’s C outside, it’s at about -15C. (-22F and 5F). So everything in there is definitely frozen, but the cats seem to find it better.

While filling the water bowls, I made sure to look into the cat house.

There had been at least three cat in there, but only Nostrildamus is socialized enough to not run off when I come near. I got the picture of him in mid meow! :-D

In the upper left of the photo, you can see the timer the heat bulb is plugged into. It had been propped against some screws in the joist, so that the light sensor faced the window, but it keeps falling half off one of them. I have not tried to put it back, since it just means it will turn on earlier than if it was facing the window, and warm things up. The cats do love sitting in the sun of that one window! What I’d love to do before next winter is find a way to make another shelter for them that takes advantage of passive solar heat. I was thinking of making a smaller version of the kibble house to hold the water bowls. I’m sure we have some old windows in the barn that can be used as a roof and maybe even a back wall.

As I was coming back from putting feed out for the deer and birds, I found Creamsicle Jr had shown up in the kibble house. I only got a brief look at his injured eye, and while the fur is still dirty around it, the eye itself is looking almost normal again.

I did not run the van or my mother’s car this morning, as the cold was already getting to me. I wasn’t up to having to open up both sets of garage doors so I could run the vehicles, in a wind chill of -46C/-51F I’ll bundle up again and head out after I finish this.

Check out our long range forecast!

Look at that!!! Not only are we supposed to consistently keep warming up over the next while, but by the 22nd and 23rd, we’re supposed to be around 0C!! (32F) Things will actually be melting!

Assuming the weather actually cooperates, and this polar vortex doesn’t decide to just hang out even longer. It has messed up the forecasts a few times, now.

I’ve been thinking warm thoughts in response. Which has meant looking at the websites of seed companies. I’ve gone so far as to start an account with Heritage Harvest Seed, and have been filling my Favourites list! We don’t need more seeds, and much of what I’ve added are sold out, anyhow. It’s still fun to look. I love the little write ups that come with each item. Half the time, the thing that convinces me to add something to my Favourites is the words “extremely rare!!” I love the idea of keeping rare varieties going. We’ll have the space to do it, as we clean up and prepare more of the property and eventually expand into the outer yard. Even if we don’t necessarily grow things for our own use, they won’t go to waste, and we’ll have the privilege of space to grow them for their seeds. With this company, I can be sure that they will grow in our climate, too, since they are even further North than we are, though we’re in the same zone. From other cold climate gardeners I’ve been hearing from, the company has an excellent reputation.

I will just have to resist the temptation of ordering more seeds when we already have so many, and more on the way!

Our internet connection repeatedly cutting out should make that easier. Most of the time, it means pages don’t load well, or don’t load completely. Oddly, the most common thing that will not load, no matter how many times I try reloading a page, is the “like” button. !!

Now it’s time to see if I’ll be able to publish this post now, or have to try again later! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Awesome!

/ Re-Farmer / 14 Comments

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

I have the best brother in the world! And the best sister-in-law!

We were looking over our options on how to get some of the supplies we needed. I even put feelers out to see if there was someone local who could give me a ride or something. No responses.

The grocery store in town had begun offering delivery service when the shut downs started. Was that still happening? And would they deliver here? I looked it up and discovered they do deliveries 3 days a week, including Fridays – today. Unfortunately, orders have to be called in before 11am, and it was past that when I found that the service was still available, so I didn’t bother to call to see if they’d deliver as far away as us.

After failing there, I headed outside and started up my mother’s car, hoping to be able to use it to make at least a short trip to the general store/post office. Even before I started it, when the key was turned part way and the console fan turned on, it immediately started making horrible noises! The car did start, with all sorts of nasty, frozen belt and fan noises, and the engine revved itself way too high.

I shut it off.

In my head, I know I probably should have just let it run for a while and warm up, but every time I thought of doing that, I’d remember an engine block cracked from the cold, and dying on the side of a highway, all those years ago. At these temperatures, it’s just too dangerous to risk a breakdown and not even know if I’d have cell phone reception to call for help.

After trying a few other options that didn’t pan out (made more challenging with our continued internet connectivity problems), I finally sent an email to my older brother and his wife. Long story short, I emailed them a shopping list and, after my brother got home from the office, they went back into the city to pick the stuff up, then drove to our place to drop it off, tonight!

They are so awesome!

Then, because my brother wasn’t done being awesome, he checked on my mothers car.

Of course, when he started it, it wasn’t making the noises or revving like mad for him, like it did for me! We popped the hood and he checked things out. It still ran rough, but he assured me everything was okay. He told me to leave it running for about half an hour, and it should be fine. Then they left, unable to stay for longer. By the time I went out again to shut the car off, it seemed to be running smoothly again.

So I guess I should make it a habit of starting both vehicles and just letting them run for a while, as I do my morning rounds. At least for the next few days.

*sigh*

While my brother and I were fussing with the car, the girls put away the groceries, so I didn’t see what they got until later. They did get everything on the list I sent them, but more of it! So we – and the cats – are going to be just fine for the next while. Plus, because they were able to go into the city to get it all, their getting more than I asked for, still cost less than if I’d made the trip into town. When I sent an e-transfer to pay them back, I made sure to add extra to cover the cost of gas, and we still have an ample budget left to buy locally, when we are finally able to emerge from our frozen cave and do things like refill our water jugs.

I am just to grateful that they were able to do this for us, and willing to do it so late in the day (waiting until tomorrow would have been just fine!), making the long drive and even taking the time to check on my mom’s car.

My brother and his wife are the best!!!

The Re-Farmer

ps: as an aside, as I write this, we’ve dropped to -37C (-35F), with a wind chill of -45C (-49F). All the forecasts telling us when things are supposed to start warming up seem to keep getting pushed further ahead, as this polar vortex stubbornly hangs around!

Really?

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

We weren’t supposed to be getting even COLDER!

This is what we were at, when I would normally be heading outside to feed the critters. -40C/F At least the “real feel” was a bit warmer, though when I did go outside, there was enough of a wind to prove that wrong!

As I write this, several hours later, my phone’s app has us at -33C (-27F) with no wind chill. The app on my desktop has us at -36C (-33F) with a wind chill of -44C (-47F). Thankfully, what wind we do have is from the North, and our door faces South. As long as we’re sheltered by the south, it’s not too bad, but once I went around to the feeding station, what a different story! Even a slight breeze is brutal at these temperatures.

That cats were out and about, though! Mostly to sit in the sun, curled up like Nosy over here.

Last night, I was prepping a turkey for the crock pot (I’ve never done that before; I hope it turned out!) and made sure to keep some bits as a treat for the outside cats. It was probably about 10:30-11pm when I popped out to scatter it among the food bowls in the kibble house. I could see through the window of the cat house, the red light on the timer showing that the ceramic heat bulb was on. I also saw some white fur moving around, so there was at least one cat actually using it last night. When I came out this morning, I saw Junk Pile in there, and I think Nutmeg was in there, too. Ginger and Nosy were out by the house, and even Butterscotch popped up from somewhere while I was tending to the food and water. I saw Creamsicle Jr, too – he ran off just before I could catch him in the above photo. I was later able to see that his eye is looking almost normal again.

They’re active, they’re eating and drinking, and it’s too cold to fight, so they’re good.

We’ve been seeing a pair of deer showing up at the feeding station during the day, so I’m hoping we’ve got some good pictures. I think it’s a mom and her baby, though they are very close to the same size. Their fur is so dense right now! I know we have deer coming by during the night, but it’s nice to actually see them.

Meanwhile…

We got the call from our doctor this morning. After going over my husband’s file and the pain clinic recommendations, etc., he’s changing things up slowly over the next few months. So he’s got a change in one medication for this month, it’ll be changed again for the next two months, and then another medication the pain clinic talked about will be added. There will be no change to the opioids right now. All of this has already been faxed to the pharmacy, though he suggested we call them later, just to make sure they got it. They would be ready to pick up today, if we could get there.

As it is, I’m going to see if I can get my mother’s car going and try to make a trip to the post office/general store this afternoon. We’re almost out of cat food. :-(

The Re-Farmer

It’s wicked out there! (updated)

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Nostrildamus is not impressed.

Once again, none of the cats were in their cat house, and I wish I knew why. They were all looking like poor Nosy, here, covered in frost and looking miserable!

Amazingly, though, Nosy is in a warm spot, here. When I picked him up, his fur actually felt warm, from the sun. I took a scraper to the packed snow and cleared the front step so the mat and concrete is exposed. They’ll absorb warmth from the sun at least a little bit, and be more pleasant on the kitty toes.

After such a mild winter, nature is really giving us one last wallop! When I got up during the night, I checked the weather, and this is what we were at, just before 3am.

We were at -38C/-36F! While there was no wind chill at the time, the warnings are for wind chills between -40C and -50C. That’s -40F and -58F. And we’re not in southern Manitoba or southern Saskatchewan. We’re north central.

I stalled going outside, and yet even later in the morning, we were still at -36C/-33F, with a wind chill at -40C

The Dust and Dander rating was “extreme”, though. ??? What are they measuring for, and where, to get that rating, in these temperatures?

It’s hard to believe right now, but by Monday – just three days from now – we’re going to be hitting -16C/3F. We’re expected to stay in that range for about a week, and then we’ll be above -10C/14F and staying in that range. I’m even seeing a -2C/28F, in the long range forecast!

Of course, there’s always one last spring blizzard, but after these few days, that should be it for extreme cold for the season.

When it warmed up to -32C/-26F, with the “real feel” being warmer rather than colder, I finally headed outside.

The cats had no interest in food. There is still plenty out there. While there was still water in the heated water bowl, and it wasn’t completely frosted over, it was the warm water I was bringing out that they wanted!

In talking to my husband about it later, mentioning that the vehicles would be frozen, he commented “I guess you won’t be going in to pick up my prescriptions tomorrow.”

!!!

No. I won’t.

They do deliver to our area, but we don’t have a credit card and their wireless debit won’t work out here. I’ll have to phone them and see what we can arrange. I should ask to make sure they have my husband’s new prescriptions, too. If he’s off the opiates, we won’t be forced to wait until the last minute to get refills all the time.

This is another time of extra frustration. After we moved here, we talked to my brother a lot about what should be here, and what’s missing.

There used to be a heater in the garage. It was a kerosene heater. I believe it was my late brother that brought it out here, and I think all my brothers used it so they could work in the garage in the winter and not get frost bite. It is, of course, gone. Along with the huge, heavy compressor that had been in the garage (and, I’ve learned, two other large compressors that were in the barn are gone). If it were still here, we could have used it to warm up the garage enough to keep the vehicles from getting so frozen that driving them is a risk. As it is, there is nothing here that is capable of warming up such a large, uninsulated space.

There’s really only one person who would have taken it, even if that person may not have it in his possession, now. He’s done things like take furniture and given them away to others, so who knows where it’s at now.

I don’t waste my energy getting angry over all of this, but it does get frustrating, knowing that we are having a harder time over the oddest things, because of other people’s greed.

Ah, well. It is what it is. It’ll work out in the long term. We’ll just have to use it to become stronger and more resilient.

The Re-Farmer

Update: well, at least I’ve got some good news!

I talked to the pharmacy about my husband’s prescriptions, telling them that he had got a call from the pain clinic to follow up on his new medications. They had nothing on file for new prescriptions. I explained that when we saw the doctor after the pain clinic visit, they hadn’t called him yet, but he had assured us that if they recommended different medications, he would send the new prescription directly to the pharmacy, so we wouldn’t have to come back or make other appointments. So the call from the pain clinic was a surprise. They will call our doctor’s clinic and look into that.

Then I mentioned that our van is frozen and asked about delivery, and payment methods. It turns out that they can now do debit Visa! So we can pay for the meds and they will be delivered. It won’t be until Tuesday, because Monday is a holiday, but that’s still faster than if we had to do it ourselves!

If all goes well, not only will we have our prescriptions delivered here at the farm – with directions on how to find us – but they should include the new medications. If there’s any problem getting the prescriptions updated, I know they’ll call us and let us know.

So we at least have one less thing to deal with! Whoot!

Guess what didn’t happen?

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Yup.

We stayed home.

With my concerns about the drive, my older daughter was willing to take time off from working on commissions to go with me. Her sister is my back up driver, who would be able to take my mother’s car to come get me, if it ever came to that, so she had to stay home.

image source

I had gone ahead to start the van and give it time to warm up. The first time I started it, it immediately stalled. It started again, and I could hear the fan and belts screaming from being so frozen, and the idle was way too high.

It’s just cold. It’s entirely possible that, if I just left it running for a few minutes, the engine would have warmed itself up and been just fine.

Memories of a rental car’s engine block cracking from the cold, many years ago, were enough to convince me not to push our luck.

My daughter barely had time to get out of the house by the time I was closing up the garage again.

At least we have a garage! It may be completely insulated, but at least the vehicles are getting hit by the winds and snow; just the temperatures. Even when we were living in the city, we just had an outdoor parking spot, and our old home has been hit with the same bitter cold we have.

Which means it will be at least a week before we can do any sort of major shopping. I should be able to take my mother’s car (which has a battery warmer and trickle charger, as well as a block heater, and that part of the garage does actually have a bit of insulation) to the post office/general store. We can at least get some basic groceries, cat food and (I think) litter, if we need to.

For now, my younger daughter and I have been doing some bread baking, and I whipped up some mayonnaise. Making mayonnaise is easy, but it takes a lot of oil. Thankfully, the last time I picked up a few groceries, I did get a large jug of basic cooking oil, so we’ve got plenty.

All this, because our van started acting up and needed repairs at a time when we should have been using it to stock up! Frustrating, but our habit of stocking up in general means that we will manage okay, even if we do run out of a few things. It’ll be inconvenient, but we’ll be okay.

The Re-Farmer

Kitty status, and do I dare?

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When heading out this morning, I was on the lookout for Creamsicle Jr., hoping to get as much of a look at his eye as I can.

Much to my surprise, the cats that showed up this morning all came from either around the house, or the outer yard. Not a single cat was in the cat shelter!

Ginger came running up, right away, after the jug of warm water. Even Nutmeg almost came close. Nutmeg does let me pet him, every now and then, but not today. Ginger likes to drink right out of the jug (he’s more careful about it, after knocking it over once!), so I left him to it while I kicked the frozen water bowls out of the snow and knocked out the ice. The heated water bowl was mostly frozen over, but not as much as yesterday. I tried looking in the windows into the cat’s house, but could see nothing to explain why they weren’t using it.

While I was taking care of the bird and deer feed (yesterday, we saw five deer come to the feeding station!) I was happy to see Creamsicle Jr.

I had to walk past him to go back to the sun room after putting bird and deer feed out, which he didn’t like, but that warm water was tempting enough that he didn’t run away completely. I tried to move slowly and carefully to get these pictures, trying not to scare him away.

It half worked.

He did not like me coming close.

You can see some frost on the tips of his fur. All of the cats that came out had frosted tips! I don’t know where they were sheltering instead of their cat house, but wherever it was had enough humidity to get them frosty.

The one eye does seem to be more open now. The dark whatever-it-is under his eye and next to his nose is actually something stuck and dangling from a bit of fur.

The poor thing looks so miserable! It’s frustrating, that we were not able to socialize him more over the summer. I really want to get a closer look at that eye and maybe give it a wash, but not even Ginger is socialized enough for that. Hopefully, whatever is wrong will heal up faster as we get warmer.

At the time I headed out, we were still at -34C, though the “real feel” put us at -32C (-29F/-25F). As I write this, the app on my desktop, from The Weather Network, has us at -33C with a “feels like” of -38C (-27F/-36F). It also says our high of the day is expected to be -24C with a “feels like” -33C (-11F/-27F). My Accuweather app on my phone, however, has us at -29C and a “real feel” of -27C (-20F/-16F) with a high of -21C (-6F) with the “real feel” expected to be -31C (-24F).

It’s supposed to get colder again for a few more days, then slightly milder for another couple of days. After that, we’re basically hitting spring and temperatures are expected to keep getting warmer and warmer. By the end of February and into March, we should be hovering just under freezing. So in the week after this polar vortex is finally gone, we’ll be warming up by about 30 degrees from what we’re at right now. It’s going to feel positively tropical. We’re going to be breaking out the shorts and t-shirts! :-D

So I’m going to have to take advantage of this relatively warm day and head into town. Making our monthly bulk shop is out the window for this month. Buying locally, little by little, has really wrecked our budget. It’s the things like cat food and litter that is so much more expensive here that messes up our numbers. I know a lot of people hate on Walmart, but it’s places like that, and their prices, that allow us to have the room in our budget to care for the cats, and ourselves, at the same time. At Walmart and Costco prices, we easily spend about $300 a month on cat food and litter. Buying the same quantities locally would be closer to $600.

My original plan had been to head out late this morning to hit the post office before the general store it’s located in closes for the afternoon, as they do every Wednesday. However, the mail can wait. I’ll head out in the afternoon, instead. I’ll be heading into town, first. The package my husband was supposed to get turns out to be with Purolator, not FedEx, and now they’re saying we’re not in their delivery zone. They never said that when they first phoned him about it. It has been delivered to a depot in town and we’ve got 5 business days to pick it up. Fair enough. I can take advantage of that side trip to fill our gas tank (at a non co-op gas station, so we don’t end up with more than $400 in damages again) along the way. I’ve already gone over my planned route with a daughter. I’ll be going to the Walmart in a smaller city. They don’t have as much available there, but my sister lives not too far from there, so if the van breaks down on the road, I can call her for help.

I’ll be taking a route that will take longer, but the highway runs through a number of small towns. I know I’ll have a cell phone signal along there, too. My usual route would be first to the town my mother lives in, and the cell phone dead zone covers most of that drive. There’s nothing but isolated farms in between. From that town, I would cut across to a different highway, take the highway to another cross road before finally reaching the highway that goes to the city I am aiming for. The entire route is basically open land with a few farmhouses tucked away behind shelter belts, well away from the roads. The only towns I would go through, between home and this city, is the town my mother lives in, and the village near my sister’s farm.

I sometimes think I’m being ridiculous about this. I grew up there, and I’ve moved back to this area with my own family a couple of times over the decades. At one point, we lived in a house my parents owned, maybe 3 miles away from where we are now, and my husband was one of the many people who made the commute to the city. We are not strangers to these temperatures and road conditions, and didn’t think twice of packing the kids into the car and making a trip to the city just to see a movie. Back then, however, we had a car that was only 3-5 years old, and we were all younger and able bodied.

The van we have now is almost 15 years old and has well over 400,000km on it. We depend on that van more than we’ve depended on any vehicle before. Partly because, with his disability, it’s the vehicle my husband can get in and out of, and has room for his walker. Partly because it allows us to do those monthly shops that would never fit in any car we’ve ever owned.

Thankfully, we do have my mother’s car as a back up vehicle. It’s a couple of years newer than ours and has half the mileage, but has had a remarkable number of problems with it, and not just because of my mother’s terrifying driving habits. After discovering what happened with our van, I’ve already asked the mechanic about checking it over when we bring her car in for an oil change. My mother bought her gas at the co-op gas stations, too, so it may well be pretty clogged up. It would explain things like the terrible mileage. It’s still a relief to have it. We may not use it much, and the registration and insurance costs more than for our van, but being as much in the boonies as we are, it’s worth that expense to have access to a second vehicle, just in case.

Bah. I’m rambling right now. Nerves. I really don’t want to make this trip, but we just can’t afford to buy what we need locally. They often don’t even have any inventory left for things like the bigger boxes of cat litter (almost half the size of what I can get at Walmart or Costco, but almost double the price!). Other things, we just can’t get locally.

But hey! In the time it took to write this, it has warmed up a degree! :-/

Time for another cup of tea.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: First seeds started! Also, I couldn’t resist. Again.

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After having to get creative to prepare our first tray of seed starts, we left the tray overnight to give the peat in the K-cups more time to absorb the water.

I didn’t check it until late morning, and the peat was still dry in the middle! The water was basically staying on top. It was better than before, though, so I went ahead and planted our first seeds of the year!

I used a skewer to make holes for the seeds and sprayed more water into the holes in the K-cups (the peat pellets were fully saturated). Then I poured some of the seeds into a small dish and used the dampened, flat end of the skewer to pick up seeds and transfer them into the pots and lightly cover them. Using the skewer works really well! I ended up using only about half the seeds in the package to fill the tray, and that’s with 2 or 3 seeds each! Then I sprayed the tops with more water – especially the K-cups – before getting a daughter to help me transfer it into the big aquarium.

I am not going to use the tray’s dome to cover them, as the high humidity can promote mold growth. Instead, we will be checking them every day, and probably spraying them daily. The tray is designed to water from below, to encourage the roots to grow downward, so we won’t keep up the spraying for too long. It’s mostly the dry peat in the K-cups that concerns me. I will also be leaving the light on all the time until the sprouts are emerged for a few days, then reduce it to about 16 hours a day. Hopefully, we will soon have a tray of shallots in here, too! Before filling any pots (if I can’t get more pellets), I’ll have to make sure to use a container to saturate the peat in, first, then fill the pots.

Meanwhile…

I’m a suck.

I’ve mentioned that a few times, usually in the context of cats, but it turns out I’m a gardening suck, too.

Last night, the girls and I were pouring over a satellite image of the property. We marked out the current garden beds, and we have been using it to figure out where we are going to plant various things.

One thing is for sure. If we aren’t able to get a load of soil this spring, we’re lining ourselves up for some back breaking labour, and probably a lot of failed growth. Last year, we basically dug small holes for everything we planted, filled the holes with a soil mix, then planted or transplanted into these in-ground “pots” we created. That’s fine for the small garden we had last year, but not so much for this year! The soil is so hard and filled with rocks, it’s difficult to use a spade or hoe. Even sticking wire flags into the ground left me with several bent flags from hitting rocks. We have so few tools here, we don’t want to break what’s left of what we’ve found! My mother still goes on about how we could get one of the tillers fixed and using it, but I’m pretty sure we’d just break a tiller, trying to use it! I couldn’t even use the soil auger drill attachment when we planted all those bulbs in the maple grove last fall. The original plan had been to slowly build up areas and increase our garden size over several years, but… well, then the world went crazy.

We have so many more things we’re planning to grow compared to last year, it’s going to be a huge job. Especially the area where we want to plant the tallest things – 3 of our corn varieties, and the giant sunflowers. We’re wanting to start going into an area that has never been part of the garden before, and has only had grass on it. Two of the reason we grew giant sunflowers last year was for a privacy screen and wind break. We’re still keeping that in mind for this year. Between tall plants, using trellises, and whatever we come up with to keep the deer out, we should be able to make a pretty decent privacy screen. We may be in the boonies, but the main road goes right by the garden. Aside from vehicles slowing down to watch the deer at the feeding station, through the lilac hedge, we’ve got our vandal and his creeping about to contend with. :-/

As we talked about what seeds we have now, and what will be shipped in time for spring planting, we ended up talking about other things we’d like to plant, and I showed the girls some things I’d found on the Baker Creek website. We have a lot of things that are purple (corn, potatoes, sunflowers, beans, carrots…). We had a blast looking up other purple things, and talked about having a purple themed garden. So, of course, I was adding all sorts of things to my wish list.

I really ought to know better. :-D

Yeah, you guessed it.

I made another order this morning!

Thankfully, seeds are still cheap.

When I placed the order, there was a highlighted note telling people that, because there are so many more orders this year, things are taking longer to process. For us in Canada, that means it could take up to 3 months for our seeds to arrive. That would be too late for anything that would require starting indoors, but that’s okay. I’d rather order them now, while they are still available.

So, this is what we’ve ordered (all links will open in a new tab, so you don’t lose your place. :-) ).

Spoon Tomato: this is the one that I really wanted to show the girls – and then we got sucked into the vortex! We are not big tomato eaters; my older daughter enjoys eating them, and we have ordered a mix of cherry and grape tomatoes for her, but when I saw these “micro mini” tomatoes, I just had to show them to her. While they are incredibly small (possibly the world’s tiniest tomato), they’re supposed to be big on flavour. They’re adorable!

Chinese Pink Celery: this is a new variety for Baker Creek, and one that was already on my wish list. I was thinking for next year, but I went for it. These are supposed to be easier to grow than other types of celery, and seem to be well suited for our climate. Hopefully, we’ll get them early enough to plant them this year.

King Tut Purple Pea: This was another one already on my wish list, and since we’re going with a purple/pink theme, I included them. We only have 1 variety of peas right now, anyhow, and I felt it wasn’t enough. I’d resisted ordering more, since we already have so many other things, but… it’s peas. Can you have too many peas? I don’t think so. I highly recommend checking out the link and reading the story included about them. :-D

Merlot Lettuce: lettuce is one thing I had not included in previous orders for various reasons. We’ve tried growing lettuce before, in our balcony gardens, and never had much luck with them. Plus, they just seem to go bad quickly. But as we were looking at the purples and dark reds, these stood out. Not only do they have an amazing colour (they are well named!), but they are bolt resistance and cold tolerant.

Lunix Lettuce: Every time I see the name, I want to say “Linux” instead of “Lunix”. LOL These have such deep, dark red leaves! Bolt resistant, and apparently great for hydroponics and off season low tunnel growing. We’ve been looking at ways to use poly-tunnels to extend our growing season, so it would be good to test these out.

Lollo Rossa Lettuce: This is a very dramatic looking head lettuce! Also noted for its great flavour. I’ve had no luck growing head lettuce before, but maybe now that we have the spaces that we do, we can make it work.

Dishcloth or Luffa Gourd: this one’s for me! We have so many squash already, the last thing we needed was one more but, like I said, I’m a suck! Chances are, we won’t be able to start them this year, but they seem to be having a surge in popularity, so I figured I should get the seeds now, while I can. Young squash are edible and tasty. Left to fully mature, the gourds are dried, peeled, the seeds shaken out, and the remaining sponge is great for washing with. I don’t think I’d use something that size as a dishcloth, but in the shower, they are great for exfoliating the skin. You’ve probably seen them in stores, along with the back scrubbers and such.

Along with these, we will also be getting some free mystery seeds that Baker Creek always includes with their orders.

This really should be the last of the seeds we order, but I’m pretty sure I said that after our first two orders for this season! :-D

I’m pretty excited about it all!

The Re-Farmer

It’s actually a bit warmer…

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The deep freeze continues, though today we are actually a bit warmer. As I write this, we have reached -24C, though the wind chill puts us at -36C (-11.2F/-32.8F).

If I were not waiting for a phone call from my lawyer, I would have gone at least to the smaller city in the area, to do the bulk shopping we have yet to manage this month. Tomorrow is supposed to be much the same as today, then temperatures will drop again for a few more days, so I am shooting to make the trip tomorrow.

I really wish I could trust our vehicles more. Perhaps I’m being over cautious, but we’ve had so many vehicle problems over the years, I can’t help it! By the middle of the month, things are going to warm up quite a bit again, and I’d rather wait until then, but there are things we will run out off, before then. Mostly cat food and litter.

The heated water bowl was almost completely frozen over. That hole was kept open by the cats themselves, as they drank!

Creamsicle Jr’s eye seems to be stuck completely shut. Zooming in with the camera is the best I can do to see it, as he takes off if I come any closer. The poor thing. This winter has been rough on him!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: February seed tray prep

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For our Zone 3 area, quite a lot of things will need to be started indoors. While most things won’t need to be started until April, onion seeds are supposed to be started up to 10 weeks before the last frost date. For us, that means late March.

However, all the experienced Zone 3 gardeners that grow onion from seed have been saying onion seeds MUST be started much earlier. They started theirs in January!

Do I go by the seed packet, or by these gardeners?

I have decided to listen to the gardeners, at least as much as I can.

The problem is we don’t really have supplies, and with the polar vortex we’re under right now, I do not consider it safe to drive. I just don’t trust that our van, or even my mother’s car, can handle it. In these temperatures, breaking down on the road is life threatening.

So, I can only start with what I have.

We have two seed starting trays that fit the Jiffy Pellets. We found a box of Jiffy Pellets while cleaning up the house. Unfortunately, there were enough pellets to fill only half of one tray.

K-cups to the rescue!

We used to have a Keurig, but when it finally died, we found ourselves left with boxes of product that expired. Rather than throw them all out, I emptied the contents into the compost and kept the cups, specifically to use them for starting seeds. :-)

Their bottoms fit in the trays, but the flared tops needed more space, so I put the pellets in alternating spaces, then punched drainage holes in all the K-cups with an awl.

We’ve still got peat from last year, so that was used to fill the cups.

They fit rather well, this way.

I have enough K-cups to fill another half tray, with a few left over, but no more peat pellets to fill the spaces in between.

We’ll figure it out.

The tray went into a shallow storage bin, where I filled the bottom of the tray with water. Then, to keep it safe from cats, I put both the dome and the other tray, upside down, over it, then put more stuff on and around it. The cats really wanted to get at that peat!

Remembering how difficult it was to fully dampen loose peat last year, I added more water to the top, the left it sit for a while. I used that time to cut label markers out of a 500g size plastic container.

We have three different types of seeds; bulb and bunching onions, and shallots. I can only start one variety right now, so I decided on the bulb onions. The shallots will be next, and I figure the bunching onions can wait until we can figure things out and maybe get more supplies.

The tray got checked several times, more water was sprayed onto the top, and I finally ended up leaving it overnight. The above photo was after soaking for several hours, and I’d just sprayed more water to the top.

This morning, I took a skewer and checked the status.

The centres of the K-Cups were still dry!

I ended up using the skewer to make holes in the peat of each cup, then used the stream setting on my spray bottle to direct water directly into each hole.

Before anyone suggests that I should be using a potting mix, or a seed starter mix, there are two reason why I’m using straight peat. One: one of my information sources is a soil scientist living in the same zone was we are, and she recently did a video on exactly this. Since every seed has all the nutrition it needs to support itself until the true leaf stage, sterile peat and water are all they need. I would have preferred coconut coir over peat, but we don’t have any. Two: we don’t have any seed starter mixes, nor the supplies to make our own. Some stores are starting to have them in stock, however many of these places do not accept medical exemptions to mask wearing, so I am essentially banned from them. Of those that don’t discriminate against people with medical mask exemptions, they’re a long drive away and I won’t be going to any of them until this polar vortex passes and it isn’t so dangerous to go out. Even curbside pickup is not an option; I’ve already heard from many people who can’t wear masks and have tried to do curbside pick up, only to be refused service because the staff refused to bring their orders to them, outside, unless they wore a mask. Not even shields are being accepted. As for ordering online, shipping costs rule out that option, as well as the current delays in shipping. They’d never get to us in time to use them, assuming they even find us. Which reminds me. We never did get my husband’s FedEx delivery (for something he ordered online in November). As far as we know, the package is still somewhere in the city. We can’t get it ourselves, and they won’t deliver it to us, even with detailed instructions on how to find us. So… yeah. Ordering online is not an option, either.

So we make do with what we have. It will work out.

At this point, I’m just hoping to be able to get the one variety of seeds in today!

The Re-Farmer

Hearing

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Well, it’s done. I had my teleconference court date this morning.

What a waste of time.

I figured we would have one of two results. Either the judge would look at our vandal’s claims against me and my defense, and throw the whole thing out, or we would get another court date.

I don’t think a judge was even on the call. Just a moderator, going through the docket. She first went through those files that had lawyers, then the employer related ones, then finally the rest. Our vandal’s suit against us was top of the third list, so we were done relatively quickly.

We have a hearing date in July, in person.

Well, at least they think we won’t be locked down anymore by next summer, but who knows if that will change before then.

Among the things the moderator told counsel for the previous files, that applied to everyone else as well, was instructions on what to bring for the in person court dates. This included all documentation, including printed out photographs (no bringing a laptop for a photographic slide show), in triplicate – one copy each for themselves, the judge and the opposing party. Which means nothing gets filed in advance, as would normally be the case. Which means no one gets to see the documentation in advance and respond, or prepare, appropriately. Even the judge will be seeing this documentation for the first time, in session. For those with audio or visual presentations, they were asked to bring the equipment necessary to play or display the files.

As for the hearing date, our vandal was asked if he would have witnesses, and he said he would have two. ??? When I was asked, I said I had no idea that was an option, but that I could bring up to two witnesses. I probably could bring three, but that would include my mother, and it would be just too much for her.

And that was it. Our part of the call was done.

Once I finished with the call, typed up my notes and printed them off for my files, I sent an email to update my siblings, then phoned my mother to update her. She was frustrated, too. She also asked if she could be there in July. !!! I told her that yes, she could be present as an observer if she wanted, but that would depend on what restrictions are still in place. It would also depend on her own health and mobility, and if she physically feels up to making the trip, but she acknowledged that from the start.

Then I made a call to my LegalShield office and am expecting a return call from my lawyer either today or tomorrow. Unfortunately, the office is not in this province. If I did want to have a lawyer representing me in court, they would find a local one for me, but we don’t have the money for a lawyer. All of our “un-allocated funds” in our budget has been going into improving things around here (including trying to set aside funds for a new roof), or fixing vehicles!

It blows me away that our vandal is going through with this, and has found people willing to go along with it. I can make a pretty good guess as to who his witnesses are, and I am guessing that it has to do with my defense that included a list of all the things we know (or that my brother could remember) he’s taken from the farm, totaling over $45,000 in estimated value. Which is fine. I’m not counter suing him, since he didn’t take those from me. He took them from my mother. If he wants to waste his time trying to prove any of it belonged to him, all that does is bolster my own defense. Which, simply put, is that I don’t own, nor claim to own, anything here, and that I had already told him that he could take what was his, if he could prove ownership. Of the stuff he listed that he claims are his, which he thinks is worth $13,000, he’s claiming things that aren’t his, and of the stuff that he actually does have some claim to was abandoned here so long ago, they have rotted away to the point that they’re barely worth anything even as scrap metal. Especially right now, when the scrap metal prices are so horrible. Other things he’s claiming are his (they aren’t) are just plain petty squabbling. He was also claiming things that he’d never claimed were his until I saw them on his list.

All this because I filed a restraining order against him after catching him trying to break the gate again.

I look forward to any advice my lawyer gives me.

With the cold we’ve been having, I have been negligent in switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, but after this call, I figured it needed to be done.

Though it was later than usual, it was still about -32C with a wind chill of about -42C (-25.6F/-43.6F).

The heated water bowl had a thick layer of frost and ice on top!

The kitties were out and about, including Creamsicle Jr., but I was unable to get a look at his face to see how his eye was doing.

I very quickly realized that, in my rush to get outside, I forgot to wear two pairs of pants. There wasn’t much of a wind, but at these temperatures, it was still brutal!

I brought the cameras inside, one at a time, to change out their batteries and switch the memory cards. I knew the old camera’s batteries were already getting low, so they were due. The status bar on the new camera had showed full, the last time I switched out the memory cards and had to use my hands to warm it up so I could see the screen inside. With this cold, however, I decided to switch the batteries, anyhow, and just hang on to the used ones to switch back again the next time I have to do this.

Even with being able to warm up by bringing each camera inside, by the time I finished putting the new camera back up, the cold was really hitting me! Butterscotch had joined me while I was putting the new camera back, and was just begging to be picked up! I carried her back to the house and she was just rubbing her face all over my chin, loving the ride! The poor things are so chilled – and yet, they’re still going out in the cold, and not just for food and water!

Though the temperatures are still expected to be extremely cold for a few more days, after the call this morning, I would not be surprised if our vandal still decided to show up and cause problems, so I felt it was really important to have the cameras in good working order.

I had a surprise when checking the files, in that there actually were files! :-D The old camera died after a day, which I expected, considering the batteries were already so low. Much to my shock, the new camera, which has stopped working outright in colder temperatures before, actually kept on going and even recorded files while I was carrying it to the house! All in hues of pink. When the camera gets cold, all the files are overcast in pink! :-D It even got some night shots, though with a bright red low battery warning. Stills only, no video. Which is better than nothing, that’s for sure!

So I’m increasingly happy with the new camera again. Some of the files showed an internal temperature of -25C/-11F which is well below when the camera stopped working completely, before. Interestingly, when I switched memory cards, this time it did NOT ask me to reformat the new card. Which makes me suspect that it might have nothing to do with the card needing formatting (I’ve tried using different settings when formatting the cards on the desktop, to no avail) and more to do with the cold making it harder for the camera to read the card. Once inside and starting to warm up, it could read the card fine.

We shall see how things go. Hopefully, the cold will keep our vandal indoors. I would not be surprised if he starts calling my mother and siblings again, like he did after he saw the defense I’d filed.

As my mother put it when I talked to her this morning, “we need this like a whole in a bridge” (translated from Polish). At least we could get a laugh over the Polish and English versions of conveying the same frustration!

For now, it’s time to move on to more pleasant things. Which my next post will be about!

The Re-Farmer