When visiting the kittens this morning, I was viciously attacked!
By a Nicco! :-D
Saffron has one eye that is a bit gooby, so I took the time to clean and medicate it. Then, after they’d all had a chance to devour some wet cat food, they all went after my legs!
They are tearing my clothes to shreds. :-D
Also, they really, really like my shoelaces.
Even Beep Beep got in on the action!
For a cat that has spent her entire life outdoors, she is really taking to this “inside” thing – and having access to people to cuddle!
Later on, while checking the trail cam files, I found a lovely surprise.
Other than discovering that FedEx made a delivery after we got home yesterday, and left a package shoved into the gate. I never even saw it, when I did my rounds! If I hadn’t seen the video, I would never have known until this afternoon. I was expecting it to come in the mail, tomorrow.
No, it was this surprise that really made me smile.
That baby is so adorable!!!
They found a spot in the fence where they can both squeeze through the barbed wire, without the mom having to jump it.
The baby can fit through any part of the fence, just by ducking its head. :-D
So sweet!
Also, there’s a package in the middle of that gate. It was shoved into the chain.
Even while walking up the driveway this morning, knowing it was there, I couldn’t see it until I was almost right at the gate!
It’s barely evening, but I think I’m done for the day! :-D
We had plans to go into the city so the girls could get some shopping done that we never quite get to when we do our monthly stock up. With that in mind, I started my morning routine early, starting with visiting the kittens.
Beep Beep dashed up the stairs when I opened the door to the basement, so I let her be and made sure no other cats came down. This way, the babies got to have the wet cat food, without having to fight over it with their mom! :-D
Except for Saffron, who was much more interested in me…
I think they did leave some behind for Beep Beep, when she finally came down. :-D
Doing my rounds outside is getting so gorgeous right now!
I noticed that the cherry tree by the house is blooming now.
Just the cherry trees by the house. The ones near the new garden plot are not blooming yet. Both areas get the same amount of light and rain. The only difference is the micro-climate created by the house itself.
I also found some surprise blooms.
When cleaning up along the south side of the spruce grove, I found a row of crab apple trees. While I still have much to do in cleaning up dead wood and thinning out the trees, what I managed to do so far, made a difference. Last summer would have been their first summer with more light and space. Like the row of crab apple trees I uncovered when cleaning up the maple grove, they had no flowers at all last year. This year, there is one tree, with one branch, that is blooming!
It should be interesting to see how things develop here over the years. I will be taking at some of these trees, and hopefully the remaining ones will have better conditions to grow and produce.
The lilacs are starting to open up, scenting the entire yard!
The chokecherries growing among them seem to be doing well this year.
I also checked the sunflowers, and even more of them are sprouting. These are the Early Russian sunflowers, which can grow 6-8 ft tall. The others are Giganteus, which can grow 10-12 ft tall. I hope to see Giganteus seedlings within a few days. The package info says it can be 10-14 days to germination.
When the girls and I headed out to the city, we had a wonderful surprise, just half a mile from home!
I pulled over and my daughter tried to zoom in on my phone as best she could, but zoom really sucks on my phone’s camera.
What you are seeing is a dozen sandhill cranes! They had been near the road when we startled them. These are really huge birds!! Seeing a dozen of them taking off at once was really something!
The drive to the city is about an hour, but along the way we made sure to stop at the medical clinic. The town our doctor is in is about 2/3rds of the way to the city. After not being able to get through yesterday, I wanted to ask about getting renewed prescriptions. Especially for my husband. Given he has the kind that requires a hand written, in triplicate, prescription that needs to be delivered to a pharmacy within 3 days of being written, I said I could come back for them after we were done in the city, rather than waiting until the doctor was off the phone with a patient.
Then it was off to the city, where we had several places to do to. Thankfully, they were not all that far apart, but not only has traffic increased substantially again, but so has construction. Most of the stores had no real restrictions or line ups. At least not the ones we needed to go to. We did drive past a few places that had long line ups outside. Even Walmart didn’t have any line ups for the cashiers, never mind outside.
I really feel for the people lining up outside in this heat we’re having right now!
Still, we got what we needed to do, done. There was some temptation to do more with “while we’re in the city anyway…”, but it was just too long, too hot and too draining! If it wasn’t necessary, we skipped it.
On the way home, we stopped at the clinic again. The doctor ended up asking me to come in to see him about the prescriptions.
It turned out that he had already faxed the refills to the pharmacy. Including my husband’s triplicate prescriptions. Because of the pandemic, they’ve waived the requirement for the pharmacy to have the physical prescriptions. Which no one told me about. They probably assumed I already knew.
My husband’s meds were ready for pick up on the 29th – a Friday – but he forgot to tell me about it until after the pharmacy was closed. So I picked them up on Saturday morning, after dropping my daughter off at work. When I picked them up, the pharmacist told me he could only fill so much, because of the need for renewals.
They must have faxed the clinic when my husband called his refills in, because the doctor faxed the renewed prescriptions …
… on the 29th.
Which means that, when the pharmacist gave me 1 week of bubble packs and told me he couldn’t do more (usually it’s 4 weeks) without a renewed prescription, they already had the renewed prescriptions come in, the day before.
:-/
Meanwhile, I’d been out of my own prescription for some time. When I went to get a refill and they couldn’t, they sent a fax to the clinic right away. I came back a couple of days later, and they still hadn’t received a returned fax.
That had gotten done on the 14th.
No one called me, so I assumed they never got a response. I’ve been without my meds for about 3 weeks. That was part of why I wanted to go in to the clinic in person, since we couldn’t get through by phone.
My doctor clarified all that for me, and even printed out copies of the prescriptions for my own records. Once we were done there, we headed to the town our pharmacy is in.
It turned out my prescription was filled and waiting in the drawer.
*sigh*
Thankfully, my prescription is nothing particularly urgent.
I did ask for my husband’s refills to be done, since he’ll be out in a few days. The bubble packs take more time, so I’ll be coming back tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I picked up something for myself.
After helping my brother patch the shed roof, I felt okay, but by the end of the day, my right wrist started to hurt. I have no idea what I did to injure, or even if it was any one thing that did it. I was able to manage well enough yesterday; mostly, I was reminded of it as a problem when I tried to do something like turn a door nob.
I am considered left handed, because I write with my left hand. With most things, I’m ambidextrous. Some things, I’m right handed.
Like when I open door knobs.
When driving around today, it was more of an issue. Just turning the ignition to start the vehicle was painful. Turning corners, hurt.
So I now have a brace to keep me from over taxing my wrist (though I had to take it off to type) and give it a chance to heal. It’s a bit on the small side, but I got the largest size available.
My and my big, manly hands! :-D
Thankfully, I have two strong daughters who can lug things around for me.
When we unloaded the van, we also brought the pieces of tree in, since it’s supposed to rain. Getting the big one was an issue; we did have to cut one of the branches off.
So far, it hasn’t rained here, but from the looks of the weather radar, we should get at least some, though a rather large rain system has already bypassed us entirely. Some rain would be wonderful. :-)
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to get that wrist brace back on!
Oy, what a day. We’re already at 27C/80F (feels like 29C/84F), and we haven’t even reached the hottest part of the day, yet! Hard to believe we had frost, just a few nights ago.
Speaking of which, it looks like the frost damage to the squash was worse than it originally looked like. I think we’re going to lose most of the one bed.
The new transplants, on the other hand, are looking great!
Before I headed into town this morning, I took the time to use water from the rain barrel to water the new garden plot with the carrots and beets. Things are growing rather well in there, too.
Once in town and after I dropped off the van, it was still cool enough to make walking around town quite pleasant. When I had the chance, I tried calling our doctor’s clinic, as we need to get prescriptions renewed, but the call went to “this customer is not available” messages. That surprised me, as it usually means a number is no longer active, so I called the hospital the clinic is in, and talked to the nursing station. I told her what happened, and after confirming I was calling the right number, she tried transferring me. It didn’t work! It turns out the clinic is just really busy with doctors making calls. They are still only doing telephone appointments now, and I don’t think they have very many phone lines available. We will have to keep trying, because my husband got only a week’s worth of meds. For his pain killers, they can’t be faxed to the pharmacy, so the fastest way for them to be delivered is if I drive to the clinic, then deliver them to the pharmacy myself.
I stopped trying after getting a phone call from the garage, saying now was a good time to come and discuss the van and my mother’s car.
That never sounds good. :-D
I had three things I hoped to get done on my van. Only one was done.
The lift gate now lifts. No more pole!
The AC is shot. The compressor isn’t even working. To fix it would cost well over a thousand dollars, and he basically said it wasn’t worth it.
The door hinge is going to wait. It wasn’t the easy thing. It’s a welding job. The holes are starting to become ovals. It is, however, just starting to happen. While there is a little bit of play in the door, it is still fine and not a concern. He recommended we wait the door dropping becomes and issue, then bring it back.
So only one out of three jobs got done.
Then there is my mother’s car.
He was able to find a second hand differential, but the total cost would be just over $950, plus taxes. We talked about it for a bit, and I asked about the possibility of making payments. Since I’d budgeted for 3 jobs and only had to pay for one, I offered to make a deposit of $300 now (which kept me under budget), then make another deposit next month. After that, he’ll start working on the car, and I can pay it off in full the month after.
The down side is, this is money that would have gone towards things like what we’ll need to purchase to build the cordwood outhouse. The payments are low enough to still have some left over that can go towards that, but not as much as I’d like. Ah, well. There are still things we can do that don’t involve any money at all. Like clearing away the sod, cutting wood to size, and making bottle bricks.
That done, I made a quick trip to the hardware store. I was looking for another garden hose. Thanks to a sale, instead of one, light duty 100′ hose, I got a pair of medium duty 80′ hoses.
We now have enough hoses (that don’t leak!) to be able to reach all the sunflowers!
When I got home, the girls were mostly done with stuff in the yard, including getting out the weed trimmer and cleaning up around the edges of the inner yard.
That lawn already needs to be mowed again, and I haven’t even finished with what I’d started!
We have a lot of lawn.
That done, I was able to use the grass clippings I’d collected while mowing in the outer yard. Only 2 days, and the core of the grass pile was already composting and getting so hot, I was almost burning my hands! We used up almost the entire pile to continue mulching around the sunflowers.
There’s only about 8 left to mulch, but I don’t have enough grass clippings to finish. My daughter followed along and dampened the mulch.
I’m happy to say, we are seeing sunflower sprouts!
It looks like the ones that have sprouted are all from one variety; the ones that grow to “only” 6-8″ in height.
I’m so glad I got these hoses. With how far we can now reach, we can be safer when we burn out the apple tree stumps that are infected with a fungal disease. Now is the time to cut out the diseased branches, before spores become a concern. The winds are so high, though, it might be a while before that gets done.
Meanwhile, the work outside has stopped for now, as it’s just too hot out there. I just checked the weather app, and we’ve got up another degree.
My husband had been trying to get through to the clinic for 5 hours, and has given up. Tomorrow, one of my daughters and I will be making a bonus trip to the city. I will try swinging by the clinic and talking to someone in person. My prescriptions can wait. My husband’s cannot.
Oh, and one last thing.
Here is your smile for the day!
None of them stayed still long enough for me to get a decent picture, but Big Rig almost co-operated. :-D
This evening, I headed back to the shed my brother and I patched up, so clean up the maple I had cut away to make it safer for him to get to the ladder.
Normally, I would have just dragged the whole thing over to the still growing pile of wood we plan to have chipped.
I do, however, now have carving tools, and I’ve been reading some articles about the difference in carving with green wood.
Now, when I looked at that tree coming down, I saw it in a completely different light!
I saw cups and small bowls, and spoons, and other such useful things.
So I went back to salvage as much as I could.
It also gave me the opportunity to finally test out my new long handled, ratchet pruners.
Oh, those things were a dream to work with! I easily cut through thicknesses I’d had to use a saw for, previously.
After trimming away and cleaning up, I brought the pieces I wanted to keep to the house.
I had one large piece, and a couple of smaller ones.
With the wood so fresh, I wanted to debark the pieces right away. I wanted to get that done right away, as I figured even waiting until tomorrow, they would be harder to debark At this point, the bark came off so easily, I used mostly just my fingers, with a knife to get the odd bits started.
When I got to the big piece, my daughters came out to give me a hand. :-)
That wood is just so beautiful!! It’s incredibly smooth, and such a lovely colour. I look forward to figuring out what to do with them.
The pieces will sit outside overnight, and then will be moved to the basement. On days when I can’t work outside, I’ll see what I can come up with!
I have an old friend that has been carving for 30 years. He carves things like faces onto walking sticks, and the most wonderful, life-like birds, he later paints. After he found out I got a carving kit, we talked shop for a while, and one of the things he recommended was to start with basswood.
That would be the smart thing to do.
Starting with a hard wood like maple is certainly not recommended!
Aside from the spoon blank that came with my kit, though, I have no basswood, and my reason for wanting to take up carving is to use the wood we have.
Right now, that’s maple!
My brother visited our mom on his way home, and filled her in on what we did here at the farm. She was quite excited about it and phoned me later on. As we were talking, I mentioned having to cut away part of a tree that’s growing out from under the shed, telling her that I hoped to use it for carving, rather than letting the wood go to waste. She asked what I planned to carve, and I told her maybe some small bowls or cups, etc.
She requested a mushroom! :-D
So when I next have a chance to practice carving, I will try and carve a morel mushroom for my mother. :-)
My brother, being the wonderful person that he is, came over to remove the rusted out screws on the trailer frame with an angle grinder.
I told him about the box for an angle grinder I’d found in the garage. The one with human teeth in it. He figures that is probably the strangest thing we’ve found, since moving out here! Though I admit, there are some things that are still competing for that top spot.
I had to pop over to the house while he was working on the trailer frame, and he was done by the time I came back! I did find one that he’d missed, though, so I was able to get a picture of him working on it. :-D
He also removed the remains of old lights at the end, and cut the bolts of a piece in the corner that had been twisted completely around. That corner that you see? Where those squarish marks are? There used to be a sort of bumper there, with a piece on the frame below the bolt hole at the very end. The piece is still there. It’s just now on the inside, instead of the outside.
Some of the old screws he took off still had their heads on them. They were hex screws. Totally the wrong kind of screw for the job.
After he was done, he showed me how to use the self drilling screws I picked up, and we took measurements. Exactly 2 sheets of plywood will fit on there, but we will need to cut openings for the tires and make some sort of fenders.
It is now ready for cleaning and rust removal and, if all goes well, painting.
Then he surprised me.
He had ulterior motives for coming out. He didn’t drive all that way just to take off a few screws for me.
The shed next to the barn, where we found the table saw, has holes in it. I believe it was last year, or maybe our first year here, I’d helped him cover holes on one side, but we weren’t able to do more at the time.
It’s been bugging him, ever since.
We still have sheets of metal roofing in the barn, left over from when the barn itself, and other buildings, had them installed.
Note the piece of equipment with the board leaning on the tank. I’ll have more to say about that, later.
On the left is what we put on last year. We actually dragged them out from a pile outside the barn, and one of them had a piece cut out of it.
On the right, my brother has already covered one hole with a short piece. None of the pieces we had were long enough to cover the whole length, so he put short pieces along the bottom, first, so there would be an overlap.
The scary part was having to go to the peak of the roof and unscrew that top cap, so he could slide the panels under it. He screwed a scrap of plywood we found in the barn down first. There was no way he could have climbed to the top without it.
This was interesting.
There are three types of shingles on here, and so much of one type has blown away, we can see what are likely the original shingles.
What an interesting diamond shape! That roof must have looked great, when it was new!
Here is how the roof looked, at the end.
Bits and pieces, cobbled together, but who cares what it looks like? No more gaping holes!
My brother is just screwing down some pieces of metal we found in the barn that could be used as top caps. After that, he put in more screws as far as he could reach from the ladder, so the winds won’t catch and blow them off.
It was very, very dangerous up there. That ladder on the right was the best place to get up there, but there were tree branches in the way, making it even more dangerous. Once he was safely at the top, I went and grabbed a saw and cut away almost half the tree (one tree at the base, two trunks up the sides).
I’m keeping that wood for future carving!
My brother is really, really awesome. We spent hours out there, working on it, and I couldn’t do much more than pass him things, and hold the ladder for him.
Remember that piece of equipment by the building?
Thanks to ladder holding, I was looking at it from angles I hadn’t, before. I asked my brother if he knew was it was. It belonged to our late brother, and has been sitting there for at least 10 years.
After looking it over, we figured it out.
It’s a boiler system for steam cleaning.
The boiler itself is pretty amazing.
There should be a cover on that round opening.
Just look on the date on that thing!
It had to have been salvaged from somewhere. I wonder if my late brother built it? He certainly had the skills to do it.
The fuel tank is actually part of the trailer frame! On the left, you can see the fender over one of the tires.
Both tires are flat, which is why this end is resting on the ground.
The white tank in front would have held the water. It was most likely used to steam clean culverts or something like that.
That boiler isn’t the only old object of interest we talked about.
As we were putting everything away and getting ready to leave the barn, my brother pointed at a metal object on the floor and told me to make sure to keep that. I had no idea what it was.
It turned to be part of an antique hand pump for a well. A wooden handle would have been attached to it. I was told there was another one, but my mother had sold it to a scrap dealer, years ago.
*sigh*
After all this, my brother couldn’t even stay for lunch. Our mother was expecting him, and by the time we were done, he barely had time to come into the house and say hello to the rest of the family!
Have I mentioned my brother is amazing?
I don’t know what we would do without him! No one living knows this place better than he does! And certainly no one else in the family has the tools, skills and knowledge – not to mention physical ability – to do stuff like this. It’s been many years, since I was physically able to go up on a roof like that! Of course, being a woman of ample proportions, I would have gone straight through a roof in that condition, with or without a sheet of plywood to climb on!
So that was a whole lot of hours in the sun, but the job is done. My brother figures, this probably added about 10 years to the life of the building.
Well. On this side, maybe. The other side probably won’t last that long, and I think we’re out of metal roofing material to do that side, anyhow! It doesn’t get the brunt of the weather, though, the way the side we covered did.
What a job!
While I may not need to do it this year, I should cut the rest of that tree down. It would be a shame to work so hard to preserve the shed from the top, only to have it wrecked from the bottom. The tree is growing right out from under a wall!
Also, I’m really going to pay for it tomorrow. But I don’t care. It was worth it!
The first order of the day, after dropping my daughter off at work and picking up prescription refills for my husband, was the transplanting. I combined the 3 bags of soil mix, plus a bunch of peat, together with water in the kiddie pool (that thing is coming in really handy!), then left it to give the peat a chance to absorb water.
It had warmed up enough by then to uncover the squash. Unfortunately, there was some frost damage.
We might lose a few, but I think most will recover.
I decided not to put the new transplants near the previous ones. My initial thought was to have the two beds near each other, with a walking path in between, but I decided to put the new ones at the opposite side of the area we mulched last year. That left a wide open space in the middle.
I was able to measure, and mark with flags, where the transplants would go before I headed back into town to meet my daughter for lunch. Before coming home, I broke down and picked up something I’d spotted at the pharmacy this morning, but hadn’t picked up. A Pulse Oximeter. My husband has severe obstructive sleep apnea (on top of everything else), so being able to measure his blood oxygen levels at home is a good thing. I’d looked for them about a month ago, but none were in stock. When I saw them this morning, there were two. I wasn’t sure I could justify the cost in the budget, but figured if I didn’t get it today, who knew when I’d find one again.
Of the two that I’d seen in the morning, the less expensive one was already gone.
We now have a pretty high end Pulse Oximeter. :-D
Once back at home, I added the wet soil mixture to the flagged spots, then transplanted the squash. I ended up with another 18 plants in.
There are still some left that are not ready to transplant, and it is looking like most of them are the gourds! Whatever is left will go in one long row along the north side of the area we mulched last year.
I mulched the new transplants with straw, and remembered that I still had those pumpkin seeds my mother gave me. Three little packets.
And there was this wide open space between the squash beds…
I used some of the wet soil mixture to create three mounds and planted several seeds in each. It is really late in the season to be planting pumpkins from seed, but we’ll see how they do!
The pumpkin mounds got mulch around them, too. :-)
That done, I had time to uncover the other garden bed (no sign of frost damage there! :-) ) before heading back into town. I left early, so I could stop at the grocery store and refill a couple of our big water bottles.
While there was no line up outside the store, but by the time I was ready to go to the checkout, the line up was all the way to the other end of the store, and heading up the freezer aisle! After searching for and finding the end of the line, a guy carrying one item came by and ended up behind me. Thankfully, the line was moving rather quickly, but he and I ended up chatting with each other.
The topics ranged all over, but after a while it got closer to home as he talked about what he did. He ended up asking where in town I lived, and I told him I didn’t live in town, but in our little hamlet.
He got a very interested look on his face, and asked where I lived there. I told him, more or less, where the farm is.
It turned out he knows my family. He went to school, and was friends with, my late brother!
Well, that got us talking to each other like we’d know each other for years! :-D
Then I found out that he is a scrap dealer, and also hauls junk.
Yes!!!!
When we were done in the store, I followed him over to his truck so he could give me one of his fliers. He says it’s not worth trying to get rid of scrap metal right now; nobody is buying. That is a longer term thing for us, though. In the shorter term, I now have someone I can call to get the junk pile hauled away! Someone with a family connection, too.
That was awesome!
After picking up my daughter, it was back outside for me. I wanted to get a path mowed to the barn. We are expecting my brother to come over tomorrow and work on the trailer frame. Knowing him, he will be loading his truck with everything but the kitchen sink – and the only reason he doesn’t pack a kitchen sink is because, while all the useful tools may have disappeared from this place, we have plenty of kitchen sinks all over.
Also, bathroom sinks.
And laundry sinks.
I guess they go with the toilet collection. :-D
The grass in front of the barn is incredibly dense. The riding mower struggles to get through it, and the clippings left behind make it even harder. Now that I can collect clippings with the push mower, that’s what I was using today.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I really enjoy mowing. Whether it’s a push mower or a riding mower, I just love it. It’s almost a meditative thing, and I get a great sense of satisfaction from it. It was one of my favourite chores when I was a teen, and one my parents never needed to ask me to do.
Once I started mowing, I just couldn’t seem to stop. I kept trying to see how much further I could go, beyond the limited areas I could do with the riding mower. Since it will be easier to move the trailer out the back door of the barn, bring it around the barn and pull it through the “gate” on the side, I wanted to make sure that area was clear. Then, I decided to see how much further I could go along the fence. On the other side, I decided to clear a path to the shed.
By the time I was done, I’d reached the collapsing log building near the old chicken coop, was working my way along the fence to the hay yard, and was even starting to go down the driveway.
Every loop I did, I stopped the mower to empty the clippings. I’m not finished, but when I could no longer pull the cord hard enough to start the mower after emptying the bag, I figured that was enough for the day! :-D
I am so loving how it is looking.
I’m going to pay for this tomorrow. Big time.
It was so worth it!
Also, I now have a lovely, huge pile of grass clippings to help build up our garden beds!
With the sun rising so early this time of year, much of it was already melting away, but there was certainly plenty in the shady areas.
It made the weeds look very dramatic! :-D
Butterscotch took advantage of my checking on the mulched sunflower rows.
She is no longer stand-offish, but now revels in snuggles and wants me to carry her around when I do my rounds!
What a mercurial cat.
Of course, I visited the babies first thing, this morning. Beep Beep was waiting at the door when I opened it, and dashed straight through. I let her be, and allowed David to come down with me for a while.
The kittens were happy to see a human to climb!
At point point, David settled himself down under the worktable, and his doppelganger came over to check him out!
After a while, I managed to catch him and put him upstairs, so I could give the babies some wet cat food. David is a real greedy guts, so there was no way I could do that with him still downstairs! This was also why I was okay with Beep Beep going upstairs for a while; the kittens got a chance to eat some wet cat food before she came back to finish it off.
I think Beep Beep is realizing she’s got a sweet deal going on right now. She hasn’t been trying to get outside at all.
She’s been living pretty rough for most of her life, and was pretty lean and hungry when we moved out here. I think she’s due a spoiled retirement. She’s one of the few yard cats left that my dad used to take care of, so she is also a connection to him, for me. My dad really enjoyed the yard cats. :-)
Hopefully, my day of rest has been enough, because there is lots to get done. I’ll need to stay in town for a while, after dropping my daughter off at work, most importantly to pick up prescription refills that had been ready, yesterday! I had no idea. :-( A dump run is way overdue, too. By the time I get home, it should be warm enough to uncover everything in the gardens. The cloches certainly did their job; they still had frost on them on the outside, while the insides had condensation that was not frosted at all. The new garden bed with the carrots and beets is still in shade, but should be warmed up nicely in just a couple of hours, if not sooner.
Along with prepping to continue with transplanting, I’m going to have to switch priorities on the mowing, and at least get the area to the barn done. We will need access to the doors, and it’ll be easier if the grass there is mowed, first. If things go to plan (which is never a sure thing! :-D ) my brother will be coming over tomorrow to help me with the trailer frame. Specifically to deal with these…
Most of the old screws still stuck in the frame are just bits of metal sticking out. I simply don’t have the tools to take care of it. My brother has an angle grinder he plans to use. I had hoped I found on in the garage, where the lawn mowers and snow blowers are stored, not long ago but it turned out to just be the box for one, full of teeth.
I was able to pick up some drill attachments to clean the rust off. I was hoping we’d be able to paint it, too, but won’t be able to pick up more of the paint we need for a while. We’ll see what’s left in the budget after the van is done on Monday and, hopefully, my mother’s car gets fixed. That can be done after the trailer frame has a bed added to it, which I believe my brother has got what is needed to do that.
I will just have to maintain awareness so as not to overdue things. This time, I only needed the one day to recover after unknowingly pushing myself too hard. There have been times I’ve needed several days.
I’m happy to say, that a day of rest seems to be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, I felt so good, and it looked so beautiful outside, I decided to see if there was something I could get started on today.
Because I’m an idiot like that.
The beautiful looking day lied! :-D It was still cold and windy out there! Those lilacs are looking gorgeous, though.
When I went to check the forecast, though, I found a weather alert. We’re supposed to get frost tonight.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get those transplants done!
The girls and I headed out to make sure everything was covered.
The squash bed was a challenge. I didn’t have very many of the plastic containers I was keeping to use as cloches for exactly this purpose. We did, however, still have the five gallon size water bottles from when I did a complete water change of the fish tank (which, I am happy to say, shows no signs of turning cloudy or that mass of algae growing back; it was definitely our well water that was the problem!). I cut a bunch of them in half, and we got all the squashes covered!
I don’t know that the bricks balancing on the necks of bottles will do much good, but it’s worth a try, to make sure the cloches don’t get blown away.
The girls covered the new garden bed with plastic, as well.
The plastic row covers are sandwiched between pairs of boards, so the sprouts won’t get flattened too much.
We didn’t bother doing anything with the potato beds, since the straw mulch will insulate them just fine.
Based on the long range forecast, this should be the last frost of the year. We’re going to start getting hot again, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here are some more smiles for you! :-)
The girls went to visit with the kittens for a bit, but only Big Rig stayed still long enough for a decent photo. :-D
As David does so well with the kittens, the girls let him come down, too.
For those who are not yet familiar with the Spoon Theory, visit this link.
Today has been turning out to be a very non-productive day. Right from the start.
The first issue was waking up in pain. Particularly in my hands. Every joint in my fingers, stiff and sore. I know osteoarthritis is setting in (inevitable, given some of the jobs I’ve had in the past), but most of the time, they’re fine. Some days, however… well… let’s just say they’re “not fine.”
I woke up fairly early and started getting ready to do my usual routing, which now starts with bringing fresh water for the kitties. My husband was using the kitchen, so I sat down on the couch for a bit to let him finish.
I basically passed out for nearly 4 hours.
It felt more like a few minutes.
My entire body is feeling achy and sluggish, I’m in a snarly mood, and I’m in a brain fog.
Definitely a reminder that I am not really all that able bodied. I didn’t feel like I’d been overdoing it over the past few days, yet I clearly have, and my body is making sure I know it.
Well, at least it’s a good day to go into recovery mode. It’s too wet to finish mowing, and too chilly to finish transplanting. Manual labour outside is not going to be much of a thing, today.
And so, I will share some smiles with you, instead! :-)
I’ve been posting so many photos of our adopted cats and kittens, I rarely get photos of the two that moved out here with us. Last night, DahBoy got to entertain us!
One of my daughters was in my doorway when DahBoy demanded up.
He did not want up on her, though. She was just a way to get to his real goal.
No, not the top of the door, either!
He wants the top of the linen closet. He knows there’s space up there, and he wants in!
Will a human assist him? No? So how is he to get down, now?
Oh, look! A handy human.
I got that last shot a split second before he leapt onto my shoulder, then vaulted the rest of his way to the ground. :-D
This morning, while visiting the kittens, I had to very carefully step my way around kittens that were determined to climb my legs. They didn’t stop until I gave them some wet cat food.
Even during the feeding frenzy, Saffron and Turmeric were more interested in me than the food! They’re not as into the solid food thing, yet. Especially Saffron, who would much rather climb a table leg. LOL
Once outside, I had another cat I had to dance around. Potato Beetle was quite determined to walk in front of my moving feet and flop onto the ground. That is, when he wasn’t doing this…
What a goof!
At least they’re entertaining. ;-)
Ugh. It feels like such a wasted day, today, and it’s only mid afternoon!
Hopefully, a day of recovery means I can get things done tomorrow. I really need to get those transplants in.
I spotted a mystery while checking the trail cams today!
Watch closely, behind the deer.
We have a mystery critter!
It’s too big to be a squirrel, and squirrels are not out at night, anyhow. It seems too small to be a raccoon or a skunk. Those are large enough that they would be identifiable, even with the infrared flash.
About the only thing we are pretty sure of is, it’s likely a rodent of some kind. :-D
The Re-Farmer 