It was a very photogenic morning today!
Here are some kitten pictures for you to enjoy. :-)
That one lighter orange kitten even let me pet him a bit, and the calico snuffled my fingers. :-)
The bigger kittens wouldn’t let me come anywhere near them, but it was good to see them all chowing down with Junk Pile cat.
The Re-Farmer
Today has been one of those write-off days.
Yesterday, we hit 27C/80F. An unexpected result of that is, all number of house flies and other flying insects emerged from wherever they were slumbering in the previous cool, and got into the house.
Which meant a night of cats making a ruckus while chasing bugs all over the house.
I got very little sleep.
Today was much cooler, but rather than being outside, taking advantage of it, I ended up passed out for a couple of hours.
Cuddled by a couple of cats, of course. The buggers! It’s a good thing they’re so cute.
Anyhow.
While puttering about the house, trying to get at least some productivity in, I was in the old kitchen and checked on the apple cider vinegar. It’s been a couple of weeks since I started – or should I say, restarted – them, so I figured it was time for a progress report.
For my new followers (welcome! Happy to see you here. :-) ), you can visit our first making of apple cider vinegar with our crab apples here. This year, we decided to make a larger quantity, with some experimentation. You can read about our first attempt here, and after discovering I made a really silly mistake, the reboot is written about here. (All links will open new tabs, so you won’t miss your place. :-) )
Here is how the jars look now.
The old kitchen is a very dark room. The south facing window has the sun room in front of it, so it doesn’t get any direct sunlight. The west window, which would normally provide a lot of light at the end of the day, is covered with aluminum foil (which predates our moving here), so there is zero light coming through there. The north facing window is what’s providing what light you can see in the above photo. Without turning the light on in the room, it was too dark to get a photo without moving to the window side of the jars.
This is a good thing. The instructions said to put the jars in a cupboard, and we just don’t have any with the space for these jars, so a room that never gets bright works just fine. The concern I had was how cold this room is. Fermentation requires warmth.
As you can see, there is no activity in the airlock at all. If there had been, the plastic cap on the inside would have been pushed to the top as it filled with CO2.
However, this is not the same as fermenting alcohol, so not seeing activity in the airlock does not necessarily mean nothing is happening.
And things are most definitely happening in there!
Both jars look the same. At this point, I see no difference between the one with the airlock and the one with the cheese cloth. Both have this layer of bubbles at the top, and when turning the jars to check them, more bubbles enthusiastically make their way up the jar. There most definitely is active fermentation going on.
One good thing about doing this in the larger jars like this: it’s nowhere near as messy as our first attempt! The fermenting vinegar had bubbled up enough to reach the coffee filter covering it and leaked a bit, inviting all sorts of fruit flies to check things out. This year, had I not had to throw away the first batch, with the its very full jars, it may well have bubbled up, and the one with the cheese cloth, at least, would likely have had a mess. There may be more headspace than needed in these jars now, but it seems to be better that way.
There also doesn’t seem to be any sign of mold or rot or anything of concern. The glass canning jar lids being used as fermentation weights are doing the job of keeping the floating apple pieces submerged.
So far, everything is looking good!
Next week we’ll hit the 3 week mark and, according to the instructions I’m following, that’s the time to strain out the apple pieces, return the vinegar to the jars, and let them sit for at least another 3 weeks.
I’m very curious to see if there will be a noticeable difference between the two jars.
The Re-Farmer
Last night, I came out of the house to find I had an audience, watching me. :-)
Very attentively!
When I came out this morning to refill their food containers, Braveheart came running right up to me – but not enough to let me pet her! :-D
Her brother, on the other hand, actually let me pet him!
His fur is soooo soft. :-D
Now, it would be because I had the scoop of food in my hands, and had just added some to the container – he was far more interested in the food than in me! When he did finally seem to notice I was petting him, he sort of moved away, but then went right back and let me pet him some more.
I honestly expected this level of progress with Braveheart, not Tabby!
The Re-Farmer
I needed to make a run into town today, and by the time I came back, my daughter had selected a place to start planting, and gotten started.
She had selected Eye of the Tiger Iris, and I must say – Vesey’s really missed an opportunity for a punny name! :-D Eye-ris of the Tiger? Eye of the Tigris? :-D
But I digress!
These needed to be planted in a location with plenty of sun and good drainage. She decided they would make a good border on the south edge of the old kitchen garden. She had been digging holes with a trowel for each of the 15 bulbs in the bag. She had forgotten that I found a good spade, buried in the garden shed! Things went much faster when I could just dig a trench for her, instead.
She just had to contend with a few rocks, instead!
We should now have a border of irises extending from the laundry platform, to the chives at the edge of the retaining wall corner.
The only thing left to plant now (until the back ordered items come in) are the Bulls Eye Tulips. These are a little more complicated. They need hard winters (we’ve got that), hot summers (we usually have that) and full sun (we can find that) but they also need to be in a dry location and NOT watered or fertilized in the summer. So we can’t plant them around anything we will be watering or fertilizing. One of the areas we were talking about planting in was by the stone cross, but that’s an area that collects water when the snow melts, so that’s out.
Pretty much the entire West yard is quite dry, though. We might plant them in where the crab apple and plum trees are, south of a row of lilacs. One end of that area does get full sunlight.
We have to decide soon, though. Those bulbs need to get into the ground!
The Re-Farmer
Beep Beep seems to enjoy her retirement to indoor life. This is how I found her this morning.
She just loves this corner of the couch, so my husband has been making nests for her.
Because we’re not sucks when it comes to the cats. Not at all!
/sarcasm…
The kittens were out and about this morning, so I made sure to get some photos. These are for you, Silk! A bit of virtual kitten therapy. :-)
Rosencrantz sharing breakfast with a grandbaby!
I was going through some old photos last night and found photos of a cat I had forgotten about completely. They were taken last October. We were getting sudden visits from a white and grey tom. He didn’t hang around long, but I think he must still be around somewhere. He and Little Braveheart look very much alike!
Rosencratnz with… another grandbaby (or baby?)
I wasn’t able to get good pictures of Rosencrantz’s baby with the orange spots, but she was out this morning, too. :-)
I had to zoom in to take this photo, with the cherry tree between us, so as not to startle Butterscotch’s babies away from the food.
Seeing Susan watching them from the window is just too funny!
Gosh, these guys look so small compared to the other kittens!
Little balls of fluff is all they are! I was eventually able to sit on a step near them, without them running away, but the calico and and the orange and white one stayed hidden in the mock orange beside me.
This little guy seems very suspicious of me!
What a cutie!
I’m curious abut Tabby’s mark on her nose. I thought it was a scar, but there is no sign of an actual wound. It’s an unbroken line of white fur.
I just love the patterns or grey in her fur.
Kittens are always a great way to start the day. :-)
The Re-Farmer
While I was working in the yard during the day, I saw Butterscotch, but not her kittens. So it was a lovely surprise when I was doing my rounds in the evening, and saw what turned out to be the little calico.
On the landing in front of the main entrance!
Unfortunately, I startled her away, but this is the first time I’ve seen the little kittens on that side of the house. Of course, I had to go and check, making sure to quietly go around the other side, and sure enough, Butterscotch had finally brought her kittens to the food and water bowls by the sun room!
Two of them hung around while I was there, including Creamsicle Jr. who made his way up one of the ornamental apple trees.
Best of all was seeing this…
The little kittens, playing with the big kittens!
This is very encouraging. I hope they discover the cat house and find it a nice, warm, soft place to spend the nights in. They were already playing around and under it! :-)
The Re-Farmer
While tending the garden beds where we have the beets and carrots, I was looking into the area behind it. It had been part of the plan for this past summer to clean up further into there, and I was thinking of what I might still be able to manage this year, while we have some co-operative weather.
Of course, with the leaves turning, I was seeing all sorts of yellow and reds and…
… reds?
Those aren’t leaves. Those are apples!
Yup. I found another crab apple tree!
It is easily the tallest of any of the crab apple trees we’ve got, including the ones that aren’t buried by other trees. I honestly can’t remember if I’d noticed anything blooming here in the spring, but if I did, I probably thought it was another cherry tree, since there are so many in this area.
It’s not like I could get closer to see. There are at least 3 dead trees that have fallen by it (the leaves in the foreground are cherry suckers, grown from the bases of dead cherry trees). Through the matting of crab grass and various other undergrowth, I can see wood from other dead trees, but not well enough to tell if they are separate trees, or pieces of the ones that I can see more easily.
There is even a big fallen dead branch, stuck in the apple tree! I suspect this one fell during our more recent high winds, though, and was not part of the fallen trees at my feet when I took this photo.
I was able to get around one side and reach a single apple to pick and taste. I notice the apples are a pretty decent size for crab apples. It was sweet, but the texture wasn’t very pleasant. That could be due to the recent frosts, though.
Well, if I do get a chance to start doing some clean up this fall, I know where I plan to work! I want to clean out up to and around this tree, and get that dead branch out. That will open things up and give it more sunlight and space to branch out.
I suspect I will be finding little surprises like this for a few more years as I continue to clean up further into the spruce grove. :-D
The Re-Farmer
Of all the stuff that we ordered for fall planting this year, the garlic and the grape hyacinth were the two things I wanted. The rest were chosen by my daughters. Especially my younger daughter, who is really interested in flower gardening.
No surprise that she was eager to get out there today, and plant the snow crocuses!
This is the area we worked on today.
The first thing we needed to do was rake and clean up the space.
When I cleaned up in this area, two summers ago, I had to take out a lot of dead trees. I deliberately left really tall stumps, after discovering (the hard way!) what a tripping hazard they were if I didn’t. This year, I have a reciprocating saw, which does a great job of cutting level to the ground.
I took advantage of that.
It took more than a year longer than planned, but most of them are now trimmed. There are just a few further out that I didn’t bother with, yet.
While I was working on that, my daughter finished off the raking, then started scattering the bulbs.
Some of them are so tiny! Like little hazelnuts.
The snow crocus mix my daughter chose included Dorothy, Blue Pearl, Tricolour, Snowbunting and Spring Beauty.
Interestingly, when I looked up the mix on the Vesey’s website, it now has 4, not 5, varieties. It no longer includes the Snowbunting.
After the were all planted, my daughter watered all the areas we planted in, including the grape hyacinth, while I placed more logs to border where we planted.
Here is how it looks now.
It’s too windy to burn the debris from the first rake, which is mostly dead leaves, so that will wait for another day.
This section will have a walking path on both sides. Further north, it’s so shaded under those trees, almost nothing grows under there. Even the row of crab apple trees I found buried under the branches is still struggling – though one branch on one tree did get enough sun to produce some apples! :-/ Anything we end up planting there has to be able to handle a lot of shade, and not much moisture. But that is probably still years from now.
So for this area, we are done with planting for the year. Everything else we’ve got, plus the stuff on back order, will be planted elsewhere. We’ve got another week, at least, of warmer weather, so we will work on keeping these areas well watered.
All of the crocuses are supposed to bloom very early in the spring. I look forward to seeing them! I expect they will be rather spotty for the first few years, until they naturally begin to spread. Until they do, we’ll have to make sure they don’t get overtaken by other things. We can also think about what we might want to plant with them and the grape hyacinth that have different blooming seasons, once we get a good grasp on how they are doing.
At the same time, we’ll be looking into a ground cover in the pathways. By the time this area is done, it should have almost no grass and need no mowing.
One thing we do have to keep in mind as we fill these areas, though, is that we still need to have at least some access into them. If nothing else, we’ll need to pick up fallen branches or remove dead trees!
The Re-Farmer
I was able to spend some time, yesterday evening, working on socializing Junk Pile’s kittens.
Well. Two of them.
The mystery kitten watched from a distance, clearly curious, but would not come anywhere near us.
Little Braveheart – my daughters call her Tissue, because when she runs across the yard, she looks like a tissue blowing in the wind! – even snuffled and batted at my fingers a bit.
I wasn’t able to get photos, since my hands were occupied, but Tabby not only snuffled my fingers, but tried to eat them! I did wash my hands after being in the kitchen, but I guess they still smelled of food. :-D
I so want to snuggle these two!
Okay. Let’s be honest. I want to snuggle all of the kittens. :-D
Gotta work on that socialization thing more!
The Re-Farmer
The girls were sweethearts; by the time I got outside, they had already planted at least half of the second bag of grape hyacinths. One daughter was still using the broken trowel to dig the holes! It’s really unfortunate that the auger couldn’t be used. :-( That would have made the job must faster and easier!
I did find another trowel among the odds and ends we found while cleaning out the sun room, but it was so cheap, and the soil so hard, it kept bending. I used a weeding tool to loosen the soil, first, then I could gently dig a tiny little hole for each tiny little bulb. :-)
Then, while one daughter watered both sections we planted the bulbs in, my other daughter and I used pieces from the trees that were cut away from the power lines to mark things off.
At the far end it where a walkway will be. Eventually, there will be a sort of V shaped pair of walkways leading from the fire pit area to the broad path that runs down the middle of the grove. At the dead tree, near where the rolling seat is, we marked around a spot where wild strawberries are growing. There are more of them near a tree to the left of that spot, but with the bulbs planted on either side, we didn’t bother going in to mark them. At some point, I’d like to transplant those strawberries to somewhere they won’t be choked out by grasses and wildfowers, but wild strawberries are not the sort of thing that takes to being handled well. It does make me wonder how they ended up here! I used to find them only deep in the bushes, during very damp years, when I was a kid.
This is the next section we will be working in.
We have 20 bulbs each of 5 different types of snow crocus. This area is very narrow, so it should be quite enough to plant the length of this. These were my daughter’s choice, so I will leave it to her, whether we will plant each type separately, or mix them all together.
The crocus bulbs are even smaller than the grape hyacinth! They need to be only 3 inches deep into the soil.
Weather willing, we should be able to get this done tomorrow. After that, we might be done in this section for this year. We still have a double tulip collection on back order, with a total of 58 bulbs, but I’m not sure where they will be planted. I think they will need more sunlight than they can get in this area. The product info says “partial sunlight”, while the further we go in this area, the more “full shade” it gets! They might do quite well in the old kitchen garden, as long as they are planted closer to the house and away from the ornamental apples.
Something we still have time to think about!
Meanwhile, we will work on keeping these well watered while it’s still warm out, to make sure they are established before winter sets in.
I do hope the back ordered items come in soon. I really want to get the garlic in!
The Re-Farmer
