Author: Re-Farmer

Cat isolation shelter progress: looking good!

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When I first started thinking about the plans for a smaller isolation shelter, one thing I did not think about was painting it. That’s always been something we dealt with after the build. Paint, however, is going to be needed, to protect the wood and keep it from rotting too quickly. This is especially important, considering that I’m using salvaged wood that already had damage to it.

Given that this build is going to have a lot of stuff going on on the inside, I decided it would be much easier to paint the parts and pieces before assembly, rather than trying to reach inside to do it.

In going through our leftover paint, the can that felt like it had a decent amount in it was the peacock blue used on the floating benches (benches built on tree stumps that aren’t painted, so they’ll look like they’re floating when things grow back under them) and the folding table we cobbled together. The can of red seemed to have some weight to it, plus I also found a quarter can of white that was used to make our sign for those trying to find our address that doesn’t exist on any online maps.

I know we’ll need a decent amount of paint, so why not mix them together? They are all water based exterior paints, so mixing them would work fine.

I started off by setting up the frame pieces that are already cut.

They all needed a bit of a cleaning of dust, dirt and debris, first. Once that was done, I opened the cans to see what we had.

The blue was about half full, but there wasn’t much left of the red or the white.

I had a very pleasant surprise once they were all mixed together. I really like the resulting colour! When it’s time to buy more, which I expect to need to do before the project is done, I definitely want to colour match this!

I had looked for paint rollers and trays, and I did find the roller frames and a tray, but no rollers. I know we have some. I even remember finding one still in its package. Where they ended up, I have no idea.

So, paint brush it was.

With the frame pieces, they were pushed close together so the tops could be painted all at once. The cut ends were done, and part of exposed sides of the row, but that’s it. After they were painted, I spread them out for air circulation as they dried.

I really like that colour!

Once that was done, it was time to put the wheels on the pallet.

My original plan had been to cut away part of the slats at each corner, so the wheels could be attached to the solid wood below. They were far too damaged to bother, though. These pallets were used by the roofers. While they were working, I have a fire going to burn the branches and wood that were too big for the commercial wood chipper used when we got the branch pile cleaned out, a couple of years ago. It was cold and snowing while the roofers were working, and they would sometimes go to the fire to warm themselves. When they were done, they tossed the pallets to the still-hot ashes. So what you’re seeing on the bottom of the pallet is ashes and a bit of scorching. The pieces at each long end got the most damage, so it was easier to just break them off and pull the nails. The slats were so cracked, it was easy to break them off by hand!

The ends were also a bit too damaged, so when I used the wheels to mark off where the pilot holes needed to be drilled, I butted them up against the next slats in.

Then I had to dig through our collection of wood screws to find ones suitable to attach the wheels. The ones I’d already brought to the garage were for attaching the frame pieces together, so there are a lot of really long screws, but no shorter ones. After digging around in the sun room, among the boxes of screws that cats hadn’t managed to spill all over the floor, yet, I found some that would do. Thanks to the new cordless drill and driver set, and the set of driver tips my husband got me for Mother’s Day, attaching the wheels took almost no time at all!

My husband is such a sweetheart.

Once the wheels were on, it was time to flip the pallet over and test them out.

Oh, they are going to make moving this thing SO easy!! They might have some trouble going through the grass in the yard, but that should be manageable. I love that they all rotate 360°, too.

That done, the top got brushed clean, and it was time to paint!

Have I mentioned, I love that colour?

I plan to do just one coat of paint, and will not be painting the underside. I did make sure all the edges were well coated, though.

Once that was done, I went and took garden tour video, then checked on the frame pieces. They were still too wet to flip, so the other sides will be done tomorrow, then the edges. In between painting, I’ll be measuring out and cutting other pieces, so by the time those are painted and dry on all sides, I’ll have more cut pieces ready to paint.

So that is progress on the cat isolation shelter, so far.

Next, I need to work on the garden tour video.

Oh, I’ve just been getting messages from my brother. They’ll be coming over tomorrow, early in the morning, to bring stuff to store in the barn. They do know we haven’t been able to mow a path to the barn, but I hadn’t told him yet that we have no working lawn mowers at all. He knows, now. They won’t be staying long or making much of a visit. My SIL is allergic to cats, so they can’t come into the house, really.

I’m looking forward to seeing them! That will be a great start to the day!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: First baby zukes

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Well, it finally happened! Almost half way into August.

The first female flowers have shown up on the green and yellow zucchini plants.

Whether or not they’ll be properly pollinated and actually form zucchini, we have yet to see. In fact, one of the green zucchini flower buds already looks like it’s going to whither away, as it’s more yellow than green.

I was talking to my mother on the phone last night. After telling me about all the wonderful things about my sister’s garden, she asked me about mine. I know better than to believe she’s actually interested – she does this as an opening to find ways to make sure I know what a failure she thinks I am. Still, I told her about how we planted so many squash and melons, we didn’t have room to plant things like the lettuce my sister brings her, or cucumbers, etc. I even told her about the squash we ended up having to harvest because it broke its own stem.

As we were talking, she started say, in a disapproving tone, how she never grew “quash”, that was something she never did. Meanwhile, she’d already told me about how she used to have so much zucchini. I told her, yes, you did grow squash. Zucchini is squash. She didn’t grow winter squash (though, now that I write this, I think she did eventually grow spaghetti squash at some point), but she did grow summer squash. Then I reminded her of the year she let the zucchini get big, and we had so many giant zucchini harvested, when we stacked them against the wall in the basement, they covered the entire wall in the corner. She laughed as she remembered. As a child, I remember that year very well. We had so many giant zucchini, we eve used some to make Jack O Lanterns that Halloween!

As we talked a bit more about the garden, I mentioned that I had to find a way to support the corn because gusts of wind had blown them flat. She started saying how I’ve had sooo many problems with the garden. Which is sort of true, but I reminded her, she had problems with her garden, too. Did I? she asked, sounding shocked. I told her, she had things fail, too (in fact, some of the times I’ve mentioned a thing that didn’t grow for us, she dismissed it by saying, “oh, that happens sometimes… I’ve had that too…”), and then there were the potato beetles.

Oh, the potato beetles!

I remember, year after year, picking off potato beetles!

My parents grew a LOT of potatoes. Enough to last the winter with 7 of us, plus have enough left to plant in the spring. The potato beetles were absolutely brutal. Some years, my dad even went so far as to buy poison to dust onto the plants to save them, because there were too many for us to be able to pick them off.

Funny. When I mentioned the potato beetles, my mother just laughed – and changed the subject! 😄

Today we’re supposed to reach 24C/75F. As I write this, just past noon, we’re at 21C/70F, with the “real feel” at 25C/77F. I did end up watering the garden this morning, even though it’s not going to be exceptionally hot. Most of it, anyhow. We have so many things growing that need a lot of water. I’m not watering the garlic, though. Those are looking like we can finally start harvesting them. Maybe not today, but soon.

One thing I do want to do today is take some garden tour videos. It’s a bit early, but today is one month before our average first frost date, which is Sept. 10.

Yup. We technically have only 31 days left in our growing season.

I’m still holding out hope that we won’t get frost until later in September, but as I look at the long range forecast, I see it has changed again, and we’re looking at temperatures possibly dropping as low as 3C/37F, even before the 10th.

At the very least, we’ll need to be prepared to protect some things from frost. Most things, like the melons and squash, are just too large to cover, but we should be able to protect the high raised bed, the pepper and eggplant bed, and maybe some of the tomatoes, if it comes to that.

*sigh*

I look forward to when we have a greenhouse.

Meanwhile, I need to get back to working on the cat isolation shelter. The rescue has us booked for some September spays or neuters (depending on what cats we manage to trap), so we’re going to need it. I got nothing done yesterday. While on the call with my mother, I found myself feeling ready to fall asleep. After the call, I quickly finished the blog posts I was working on. I was falling asleep at my keyboard! Once done, I went for a nap, crashed for 3 hours, then woke up still feeling completely groggy and drained. So I made it a day of rest.

Not that I had much choice.

Today’s goal with the isolation shelter: painting and wheels. I’ve gone through our paint cans to see what we have left. Mostly, it’s the bright blue I used to paint the folding table and floating benches.

Hmmm… I should see what is left of the red paint. They are the same type of paint. Maybe I can combine what’s left. I like purple… 😄 It’ll be a while before I can buy more paint, so if I can stretch what we have, all the better. We’re not after winning any beauty contests here!

I’m thinking of painting the cut pieces before putting the shelter together, since it will be difficult to paint it once assembled. Especially on the inside. I plan to start painting one side of the cut frame pieces first, then putting the wheels on the base while the paint dries. Once the wheels are on, I plan to paint the base. By then, it might be long enough that I’ll be able to paint another side of the cut pieces. I know we have paint rollers and pans somewhere, so I’m hoping to use that and make the job get done faster.

Time to go digging around the basement to see if I can find some paint rollers and pans!

Or the sun room…

It’s really hard to keep track of the stuff that we found while cleaning up this place. 😁

The Re-Farmer

Breakfast for the babies

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Hungry babies!

That’s Button in the background. I was able to pet the kitten in the foreground, while it was eating!

I put out more food in the mornings, since the raccoons are less likely to show up. Several skunks showed up, though!

There were also some late commers, including the mostly black cat that had such a messed up eye, months ago. The eye still looks off, but it seems to have healed up as much as it will, and he seems to still be able to see through it, fine. Thanks to the skunks, there was no kibble under the shrine, where the nervous cats usually eat, which means he had to slink his way over to the kibble house. I saw him eating in there later – with a skunk!

The little stinkers!

The Re-Farmer

Solar powered, motion sensor lights: product review so far

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Yesterday, the 2 pack of solar lights I ordered came in. I chose these ones specifically because the solar panels and the lights are separate. This way, I could put the lights inside the kibble and water bowl shelters, where it’s consistently in shade, and the solar panels could be installed on the roofs.

In the package were the two solar lights, with motion sensors. On the back (under the cable of the one that’s turned over, in the photo) is a mode button that is also an on/off switch.

Each solar panel comes with a generous length of cable. The lights and the panels use the same type of mount, held in place with a knob that also allows for the angles to be adjusted. They also came with the teeniest remote controls!

Before setting them up, I went through the instructions, which starts be saying to test them first. The solar panels are connected, but placed face down, then the mode button is pressed to turn on the lights and go through the modes. The batteries in the lights already had a charge in them, so they work without being connected, too.

After testing them, I set the first light up under the roof of the kibble house, while the second light was set up on the side of the water bowl house (which is reversed in the Instagram slideshow).

After mounting the solar panel on the corner of the kibble house roof, I ran the cable through the frame and wound it around one of the horizontal supports, to the light. There was still plenty of cable, which was bunched up and held with the twist tie they came with, and it could be tucked on top of a beam under the roof. No hangy bits for critters to catch on!

With the water bowl house, the cable runs along the side, held up in one spot by a hanger I found. There’s already a eye-hook that is supporting a power cord for the water bowl, so the solar panel cable is help up in two places, before the excessed was wrapped up.

The solar panels are shaded in the photo, but the roofs of the shelters all get full sun for most of the day, so that’s not an issue.

What is an issue is, they don’t work.

The lights work hust fine, on their own, but as soon as a solar panel is attached, they turn off. Like a switch. Cable on, light is off. Cable off, light turns on.

I have no idea why.

For now, I’ve left them as they are. I looked up where we got them from, but can’t find contact information (I could easily just be missing it). I ended up leaving a comment in the review section. I’ll see what happens from there. We have 30 days to return for a refund.

I would much rather have working lights, though!

For now, I’ll wait and see what sort of response I get. Otherwise, bye bye lights! We’ll try again, from a different supplier

I like the lights. They are doing the job! Right up until the solar panels are hooked up. They worked when I tested them, so I have no idea what went wrong!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first Purple Beauty

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Just a little harvest this morning.

My apologies for the out of photo picture. 😢

On the left is our very first Purple Beauty pepper! The peppers on the right are the Dragonfly peppers.

It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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Gosh, they’re adorable.

These for were all snuggled up in the cat bed, so I made sure to scatter some food near them. That way, they don’t have to fight off the grown up cats for kibble! A couple of the adult cats, both male and female, just don’t like the littles. Oddly, Shop Towel – who has been quite violent with some of the other cats – is excellent with the littles. Some nights, looking out the bathroom window, we can see him in the cat bed behind the kittens in the photo above, asleep and half buried in babies!

As for the four in the photo, while they were eating, I was able to pet three of them. The tabby on the right would not allow pets, but at least he/she didn’t run away!

The Re-Framer

Our 2024 Garden: squash and melon progress

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I’ve got my days so mixed up right now!

I have been aiming to get photos of the developing squash, pumpkins and melons every couple of days, with my hand in the shot for perspective. I was sure I’d last done this a couple of days ago, but once the photos were loaded onto my desktop, and I started doing the Instagram slideshows, I realized the last ones I did were three days so.

Oh, well. Not a big deal!

One thing I did not bother with, this time, was take photos of the drum gourds. There’s been basically no change in those, which suggests to me they’ll probably just dry up and fall off.

Which has happened, and is happening, to some others.

Oh! I just realized I forgot about the Crespo squash again. The bed it’s in is in the East yard, and nowhere near the others. Out of sight, out of mind! I did check it today, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much, but there’s a reason I include my hand in the shots!

We might be seeing a slowdown in the garden for a bit, anyhow. The last couple of nights have actually been cold, and it rained for much of today. As I write this, we’re at 15C/59F, and our high was only 18C/64F. It’s going to start warming up again, starting tomorrow, and get fairly hot over the next week. Nothing like the heat we were dealing with before, but hot enough that the garden should recover from the recent chilly nights! Wind gusts have been a problem, though. A lot of the corn stalks were blown over, some flat to the ground. I added twine supports around the bed, but I don’t know just how badly damaged they were. I’ll find out for sure if the stalks start turning brown and drying up! We’re so close to being able to harvest corn, too.

Anyhow…

If you want to compare with previous photos, you can check out these posts. (Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place!)

July 28
July 30
August 1
August 3
August 5

Once again, we start with the Summer of Melons mix in the Easternmost bed, East facing side.

We actually lost one of the melons on this side, but I did include a new one that is getting big enough I’m pretty sure it’ll make it. There’s a few others that are getting bigger, but I’m still not sure about them, yet.

The West facing side doesn’t have as many melons growing on it… yet? I’ve been letting the vines sprawl among the onions on this side, and there may well be some I haven’t found under the leaves.

Next is the pumpkin and drum gourd bed – but no pictures of drum gourds this time.

The one pumpkin that I figured was dying off is now officially dead. I broke it off and could see it was starting to rot underneath.

I’m surprised by how quickly the oldest and largest pumpkin is turning orange!

Next is the winter squash interplanted with peas and beans.

Yes, one of those that looked like it was drying, finally broke off its stem. There’s one other that I think might be a loss, but we shall see.

The unfortunate thing was the large, round blue squash. It had a board under it, and was leaning against the log frame. When I found it, it had rolled onto its top and was sitting completely upside down. I went to flip it over, and the stem broke right off. I’m pretty sure it was already partially broken from when the squash rolled onto it.

We do seem to have another of the same variety in the other bed, though, so maybe we’ll still get one that fully matures before it’s harvested!

The squash with the corn was harder to check on.

Not only was I pushing back leaves to try and get clear photos of the developing squash, but I also had to carefully lift the corn stalks that had been blown over, on top of them!

Last of all is the second melon bed, East side first.

In the second photo, you can just see the yellow end of a smaller melon that has died off behind a larger one.

On the West facing side, the single Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon hasn’t even dropped its blossom yet. I’m not seeing any other female flowers developing.

The rest seem to be doing quite fine and getting bigger.

Looking at the long range forecast, it seems that August will continue to be comfortably hot, right into the beginning of September. We might get away with no frost until the end of September. One can hope! I’ll take very frost free day we can get.

While driving around today, though, I heard on the radio that we are coming into a La Nińa winter. Which, for our area, translates into a cold and rainy fall, and a bitterly cold winter.

Like we need another one of those.

We were spoiled by last winter’s mild El Nińo winter, that’s for sure!

Well, we shall see what we get. I just really, really want the cold to hold off long enough for all these melons, pumpkins and squash to fully mature, after having such a late start this spring!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: unplanned harvest!

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I didn’t realize I’d skipped a day with the squash and melon progress photos, until I started uploading them to Instagram. Ah, well.

While I was taking the photos this evening, I got to the lovely round, blue squash. I believe it had reached its full size and was just finishing it’s maturing on the vine and hardening its shell.

When I got to it, I found it had rolled over onto its top. I went to move it and… well…

… it broke off at the stem!

From how dry the broken end looks, it was at least partially broken off before I moved is.

So, we now have a winter squash that is too young for storage. We’ll just have to eat it!

I’ve looked through Vesey’s winter squash, and they don’t anything like this sold on its own. The closest to it is the Winter Sweet, and that one is more grey than blue-green like this. The colour is like a blue Hubbard squash, but not the shape. The stem is completely different, too. I’ve done image searches, and nothing quite matches.

Anyone know what this is?

As for what to do with it, the simplest thing would be to just roast it like any other winter squash, and give it a taste.

I am, of course, open to suggestions!

The Re-Farmer

Unplanned stock up: this is what $144 looks like

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Today I needed to hit a Walmart and a Canadian Tire, and took advantage of a city trip to pick up a few more stock up items, while I was there.

This is what $144.48 looks like.

*sigh*

And I was picking up the cheap stuff, for the most part.

For my husband, I got some Coke Zero and distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. The girls were out of soy milk, but so was Walmart. I got two 2L cartons of lactose free milk instead, which was on a two-for sale, plus a 1L carton for my own use.

Wait a minute…

I got charged for three 2L of lactose free milk. I don’t see a 1L of regular milk in there.

Crud. I wish I’d noticed that before I drove all the way home! Not worth the cost of gas to go back and fix it.

The hot dog wieners were also on a two-for sale, but I got only one package of hot dog buns. My husband and I prefer to have them cut up and added to other foods.

I got two bags of kibble; a 9kg of Whiskas and a 7kg of the Walmart brand. I also got some wood glue for the isolation shelter that’s being worked on right now.

I spotted an Annie’s pasta and cheese sauce display, and they were 97¢ a box, so I got 4 of two different flavours for the pantry, plus a couple of loaves of rye bread for the freezer. I picked up a bottle of lemon scented cleaner – the girls have noticed that when they used it to clean up the cat messes, the cats seem to avoid the area for a while, and we’re thinking they don’t like the lemon scent. We’ve tried using citrus scent to repel the cats from places, but it never worked. I guess generic “citrus” isn’t as useful as lemon. They certainly don’t object to orange scent at all.

Last of all, I picked up a bottle of magnesium for myself.

That’s it. That’s all I got for $144 and change.

Next I crossed the street and went to the Canadian Tire. One of the things I was after there was a new power bar to replace one I have in my room. They had a clearance sale on a couple of bars that have the plugins turned sideways, with one type having USB ports. With the power bar I have now, I have two things plugged in that take up four spots. With the new bar’s design and the USB ports, I freed up three plug ins. I got a second non-household one that has the plug ins spaced out in two rows, and a built in cord storage, for the same clearance price.

I also found some inexpensive outdoor wheels for the isolation shelter’s pallet base. They rotate 360°, so that will make it easier to move the finished shelter. I didn’t find the right size hose clamps I was after, though. They had one size bigger and one size smaller, but not the size I needed! There wasn’t even a space on the shelf for them.

I just looked them up at a local hardware store. They have the size I need – and in stock!

Looks like I’ll be making a side trip after I go to the dump!

Which will be opening soon, so time to get things together and start heading out again.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: another first

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We’ve had our purple Dragonfly peppers – after picking the last ones, I can already see more ripening! Now we have our first Purple Beauty pepper ripening!

We tried growing this variety a couple of years ago, with little success. Nothing grew well in that bed at all, that year, nor the year after, so I’m quite happy to see a developing Purple Beauty, this year!

The Re-Farmer