Every now and then, I’ll walk into the bathroom and find the sink looking back at me.
While there are several cats that like to drink from the tap, David likes to sleep in the sink.
Is that the most adorable face, or what? What a sweetie!!
The outside cats were in full cuteness mode, too!
Also, I have been able to confirm that Tuxedo Mask is, indeed, a male. I was able to confirm one of the ‘icouses, too, but I’m not sure which one it was. It wasn’t Bradicous, with his (her?) distinctive white tail tip, and it wasn’t the one ‘icous that has mostly white hind legs. That’s the one next to Junk Pile in the kibble tray on the far right, inside the kibble house. The others can be told apart mostly from their faces, and… well… it wasn’t the face I was seeing at the time! ;-)
It was a very wet morning, but I’m hoping things will dry up this afternoon. The weather forecasts have changed, and it looks like we’ve got just today and tomorrow to get work done before we start getting rain and snow over the next several days.
With our goal of stocking up as much as we can for the winter, on the assumption that we will have a month or two where we cannot get out to buy necessities, our monthly shop is being split up into multiple trips, so as not to overload the van.
Also, I hate shopping, so… babying the van is a handy excuse to keep it shorter. ;-)
I was heading out on my own for this trip, so I made the smaller Walmart trip, which let me make a shorter trip to the nearer, smaller city. The main thing I wanted to stock up on there was the cat kibble. They have more variety than Costco does.
Well. Most of the time.
Almost all the dry cat food was out of stock!
At least they still had the big bags of the cheap stuff – which even got restocked while I was there.
Yikes!
With six bags of dry cat food in the cart, there wasn’t much room for people food, but I got enough to tide us over until we can make the Costco trip. I even remembered to pick up a couple of shelf brackets for the second shelf in the outhouse, but I had no luck finding the battery operated LED switch plate I want to put on the wall across from the mirror.
Once I got what I needed there, I then went across the street to a Canadian Tire. Normally, we’d pick up more of the wood pellets we use for litter there, but I didn’t have room for more big bags in the van, so that will wait for the big trip. I got a quart sized can of paint to do the lettering on the sign I’m making, to replace the one that was stolen. We still have some of the bright blue we used to paint the picnic table left, but I decided to go with something darker for the sign.
The person in the paint department that knew how to use the machine to tint the paint was on break, so I used that time to find the heavy duty rope, and some hooks, so we can finally pull that stuck tree down. I also looked for the LED switch plate light I wanted for the outhouse, but there was nothing. It’s a novelty light, so I’m not too surprised they haven’t been restocked. Ah, well.
Canadian Tire is a dangerous place for me to be, with money!
Of course, I found a few other little things we needed, but then I found my new toy.
Yes, I bought a chain saw!
It was on clearance. I decided it was worth going into my seed budget to buy it – and I still have half my seed budget left!
Yes, it’s just a house brand, and yes, it’s electric. I figure I can realistically at least get a couple of years out of it before I wear it out completely. ;-)
It will, however, save me massive amounts of time and labour! Now that we have what we need to pull that stuck tree out, it’ll be much faster to break it down into the lengths I need to finish the high raised bed. Heck, I’m even thinking of taking it apart so I can tidy up the notches and make it fit together, better! No more using the baby chainsaw until the batteries are dead, then using a hammer and chisel for the rest! No more bucksaw to cut the lengths I need! Heck, with a 14″ blade, I might even be able to get more of the dead trees down this fall! If the weather holds – dare I consider it? – I might even be able to make at least one more high raised bed. Gotta clean up the existing beds, first, however, there is one bed left the girls didn’t get to clean up in the main garden area, yesterday. We might be able to “clean up” that bed, by making a second high raised bed there, instead! We’d have to cut down at least one, maybe two, more dead trees to do it, though.
Oooo… Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here!
We shall see. Today, we got rain. Lots of rain, so it’s a write off for working on the garden beds. We should have two or three days to get work done before we get a day with rain and snow. After that, it’ll get chilly, with possible snow, but the long range forecast tells me we will remain above freezing during the day, well into November.
With the chain saw and the wood chipper, we should be able to get a lot more done, in a much shorter time. Meanwhile, while I was working on this post, my husband securely attached the new hooks to the new rope I got, which means I can pull that tree out tomorrow, and get to work!
Gosh, I’m all excited, just thinking about it.
So the trip was very productive, though I was more than glad to be done. Half way down an aisle at Canadian Tire, one of my knees decided to try and dislocate, making me VERY glad to have a shopping cart to lean on!
Being old and broken kinda sucks. ;-)
Once at home, after the girls unloaded the van and I changed a burnt out bulb in one of my headlights, I took the time to top of the kibble for the outside cats. It was still raining, so the cats were… well, check it out!
Hilariously adorable, is what they were!
They love that space under the kibble house! I’m sure they love having that sheet of insulation to keep their toes warm, too. :-)
One of the things I hoped to do was build smaller version of the kibble house for the water bowls. I don’t think we’ll be able to build it this year; from what I’ve seen in the barn and sheds, we don’t have the materials to complete it. They really like having a nice shelter from the rain, for their food, though!
For some reason, I just couldn’t sleep last night, so I much appreciated my husband being able to feed the outside cats for me and let me get what little sleep I did. Usually, that means I don’t really see the yard cats when I do get out, but he hadn’t been up to giving them water. We’re regularly giving them warm water in the mornings now, so I took care of that when I headed out. There were no cats around at first, but as soon as the warm water was available, a whole bunch of them came out of the cat’s house to indulge!
Agnoos was the only one who was willing to pose for a photo.
Oh, the cuteness!
I am very happy to see the kittens are making full use of the cat’s house. It’s become common, now, for me to walk past it and find several kitten faces watching me through the window. The shelf in front of the sun room, where the bottom two shelves were modified to make insulated shelters for them last winter, is also being used regularly.
I totally get why my later father loved the yard cats so much! <3
Just look at who I got to say hello to, this morning!
The beautiful Nosencrantz let me pet her, but wasn’t too happy about me coming any closer, so I let her be.
While this handsome gentleman (yes, we have been able to confirm Agnoos is male – and I may as well spell his name phonetically! LOL) was the opposite. He started off stand-offish, letting me pet him, but moving away, letting me pet, moving away… Then I straightened up and was about to move, then I felt a cat winding around my legs. Yup! Agnoos actually came over for more pets, and I was even able to pick him up and cuddle him!!! Yay!!!
I had a bit of a change in plan today. I had called my mother last night to see if she needed any help with grocery shopping. She said no, but then mentioned the heat wasn’t turning on at her place, and it was very cold. She had just been talking to my brother and he had said something to her about it, for me to check. She couldn’t repeat what he had said, and I couldn’t figure out her paraphrase. But it wasn’t a big deal, she insisted. I didn’t have to come over. She would wait until my brother came out to check it. *sigh* It was a short call, as her program was about to start, so I called my brother immediately after I got off the phone with her. It turned out he wanted me to check the breakers. Which I could never have been able to figure out from what my mom had said! I mentioned her saying she would wait for him to check it, which just left us shaking our heads. Why make him drive almost 2 hours after work, when I’m less than half an hour away and can do the same thing?
So this morning, I did a short version of my rounds, then called my mother up about coming over. It turned out she’d had a sleepless night, so she asked me to come in the afternoon. That gave me enough time to finish my rounds and grab a quick lunch, then I headed over.
The breakers were fine. She though she’d turned her thermostats up to 25C, but it was only at 20C, and wasn’t turning on. So I turned them up. Then, since she knew I would be coming this afternoon, she asked if I could help her with grocery shopping.
I had used her car, just in case that would happen!
So we did that, but as I was folding up her walker in and out of the car, I noticed the seat was falling off. Once back at her place and the groceries were put away, I checked it out. The seat is attached to the frame with a pair of loops, so it’s like a hinge. I could see both screws were getting loose, but one was falling out completely. I flipped it around to look at the other side, and discovered that both loops were already missing their screws on the other side!
Of course, these aren’t ordinary screws. For starters, they needed a hex key to tighten them, which I didn’t have, but I did have a screwdriver with Robinsons tips (square tips: it’s a Canadian thing), which worked well enough.
While I was working on that, my mother made tea, so of course, I had to stay for a visit. ;-) I don’t mind, since I know she is lonely will all the social activities still banned in her building. Still, by the time I was leaving, I had to rush to get to the post office before it closed, to pick up a package.
Oh, and I remembered to turn her thermostats down before I left. When we got back from grocery shopping, the apartment was way too warm, so I turned it down just a few degrees. Hopefully, she will be happy with that!
By the time I got home, I noticed that, while we have a nice, warm and sunny day, the wind has picked up a lot. I had intended to be working outside today, but have missed the best hours for the work. Ah, well. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some of it done before it starts getting too dark, and the weather holds over the next while. In fact, now that I’ve finished grabbing a quick supper, I’ll be heading out now!
So much work to go, so few daylight hours to do it in!
Lately, while doing my morning rounds, I’ve find myself being watched and followed. Today, I had a whole crowd interested in what I was doing, while fixing up the fallen window to the storage house.
So. Many. Kitties!
I’m rather surprised that Junk Pile has been following me around more often, and coming closer. Not enough for me to pet her, but almost.
She may not be willing to let me touch her, but she’s comfortable enough to flop on the ground and start rolling!
She made some maternal noises while she was rolling about.
They got answered!
Her boy, Tuxedo Mask, came running, meowing away!
Then one of the tabbies showed up. I believe this is Chadicous, one of Butterscotch’s two tabbies.
Chadicous wasn’t willing to come any closer, but Nosencrantz sure was!
Such a cutie!
The kitties do love that picnic table!
I’m not sure which of the ‘icusous is on the table, but it’s one of Junk Pile’s babies.
I got distracted by a Caramel going by and suddenly…
… two kittens at the picnic table became five!
I believe that’s Chadicous under the table. The other four look to be all from Junk Pile’s litter.
Then I heard the strangest little beeping noise and found…
… Toesencrantz, checking out the replaced window set up!
I was not the only one curious about the beeping noise.
His cousins came to check him out, too!
Meanwhile, Caramel was checking out her… brother? Cousin? One of the ‘icouses, anyhow. :-D
Oh, look! I’m being watched from above, now! :-D
The cats just love climbing all over these huge old maples.
Even Toesencrantz tried his hand (claw? paw?) at climbing an elm.
While I was working on the garlic, my daughter did a whole bunch of clean up!
She pulled the Dorinny corn stalks that were next to the squash tunnel, then pulled all the squash, gourds and melon. Aside from the sunflowers, which we will be leaving for the deer to nibble on in the winter, we just need to weed and prep the beds that will be used next year, and put away things like the bin we keep tools and supplies in, empty the rain barrel and put it away for the winter, and take down the last of the critter barriers.
Then she pulled all the purple corn stalks, removed the three layers of barriers we had around the Crespo squash, and pulled those, too. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with the corn block. There’s some very good soil there. It would be good to plant some sort of legume there, next year, to replace the nitrogen the corn used up. As for the squash hill, that’s something else I’m not sure what do do with. When we plant squash again next year, I want it to all be on the other side of the main beds, where they get more hours of sunlight.
What a sad sight. The Crespo squash had recovered so well from the critter damage! I definitely will be trying these again – with critter barriers, right from the start!
Once I finished with the last garlic bed, I pulled the frozen chard and the remaining radishes we’d hope to grow for pods.
All those radishes we planted, and these are the only ones that survived the grasshoppers!
It’s a shame we don’t have chickens. They would have loved all the greens we pulled today! Not that they will go to waste. They will get buried in the beds as we prepare them for next year. There are still four more beds in the main garden area, including the one with lettuce still in it, to clean up. The lettuce is handling the overnight cold very well, but they have become very bitter tasting, so they will be pulled. Of course, there is still the high raised bed to work on.
I had company while I worked on the garlic. The cats do like the high raised bed. I’m sure the wood is much warmer on their toes than the ground. :-)
My daughter was able to help with the high raised bed this time. She finished making the notches on the next end piece, in the background, while I cut another 9′ side piece from the last tree we cut down. She does not like using the baby chainsaw, and much prefers a hammer and chisel, so I started on the notches on the end piece in the foreground, until the second battery on the baby chainsaw ran out. By then, it was starting to get dark, so my daughter finished up the end piece she was working on and we called it a day. You can’t see the cuts I made on the end piece in the foreground, as I rolled the log onto them. They make it less likely to roll around, should the cats decide to climb all over it again.
The side pieces that are waiting are from higher up in the tree trunk, and quite a bit thinner than the other logs. Almost too thin. Since we will probably make this bed four logs high, I am thinking I should wait until I have thicker logs to use, and save the narrower ones for the top row. The tree that’s still stuck on the branches would give me logs that are just the right size – if we could get it the rest of the way down! :-D It’s either that, or find another dead tree to cut down. The problem with that is, most of the trees that need to be cut down are all really huge. They might be too big!
As glad as I am to have so many dead trees available that are still solid enough for this project, I’m a bit sorry to be using them. These are the trees we intended to use for the walls of the cordwood shed we plan to build as an outdoor bathroom. It’s possible, however, that we will be able to get a load of cast-off electricity poles. These are the remains of poles that broke in storms or had to be replaced for some reason, and we’re on the mailing list with the electric company. They don’t come available often, and not always in our area, but these are cedar poles and would be much better to use for cordwood walls than spruce. So maybe it’s for the better, that the dead spruces are being used to build high raised bed gardens!
The outside cats have been downright spoiled by my husband coming out to feed them really early in the mornings! He wasn’t driven out of bed by pain this morning, so I did it later, when I did my morning rounds. As soon as I came into the sun room, I could hear a cacophony of meows at the door, outside!
They were so excited about eating, I actually got to pet Junk Pile Jr and Tuxedo Mask! My husband has been able to pet Tuxedo Mask, too, and I think he is getting used to this whole “human contact” thing. :-D
They are also really enjoying having warm water in the mornings, too! :-)
While doing my rounds, I started a bit more cleanup around the garden beds, removing some of the rope and noise makers to keep the deer away. I also checked the Dorinny and Montana Morado corn beds, to see if there were any cobs left with potential corn seeds.
There was nothing. Not a one! I did find a few cobs that looked like they might have had the corn eaten by birds, but mostly, there were no cobs at all. There weren’t many left to begin with, but what few there were seems to have been eaten completely.
Ah, well. I didn’t have high expectations with them anyhow, just from the drought conditions.
By the time I was starting to head back into the house, I got distracted.
We have snow!
There is just barely enough snow falling to even see it. As I write this, with the live feed from the garage security camera near me, I see the odd flash of white as the camera manages to catch some larger flakes going by. :-D
That’s about the extent of it. :-D Anything that hits the ground, melts immediately.
I know other areas have had some snow before, but this is the first I’ve seen here, this season. We’re actually supposed to get showers, later in the day. Maybe.
We’re supposed to warm up over the next while, with three days of potential rain, before things start cooling down again. That should be when we can sow the wildflower seeds, with no risk of early germination.
I’m really enjoying all this extra time to get work done outside!
Well, it finally happened. We had a lasting frost, and temperatures were still below freezing when I came out to do my morning rounds.
My husband has still been up to feeding the outside cats earlier in the mornings, and has included putting warm water out for them, too, which they are really appreciating! It’s still not cold enough to plug in the heater in the cat’s house or use the heated water bowl, though.
While there was frost still on the ground everywhere else, this area was already warm and sunny. The kittens enjoyed that while watching me do my rounds!
It does show why what we planted along the chain link fence lasted so long. The tomatoes and gourds are finally done for, though. We can now start pulling them and prepping the beds for next year.
While we will be pulling everything else, the sunflowers can stay for a while longer. They sure are a cheerful sight on a chilly morning!
The chard was still quite covered in frost, as these beds are shaded longer in the mornings. We’ve never grown chard before, but from what I’ve read, getting hit with frost can improve their flavour. I don’t know that we’ll grow chard again. They did well, but none of us really ate them much.
I was already planning on pulling the lettuce. That last batch I gathered was so bitter, it went straight to compost instead of the salad I was intending to make with them.
A bit of a surprise was walking by the purple corn, the remains of which we were leaving to go to seed. They were pretty dry by now, yet most of the stalks were eaten last night! They had been left alone for quite a long time, so this was unexpected. Odd that, with so much fresh food still around, and even with the lettuce and chard uncovered, the deer would go for these dried up stalks.
We are going to have a lot of work to do over the next couple of weeks. We’re supposed to warm up again next week, so we do have time. The sweet corn blocks and, eventually, the sunflowers will be pulled, but nothing else will be done in that area until we get the berry bushes we intend to plant there. My daughter has been researching the ones we were looking to get, and Autumn Olive has been taking off our list; apparently, they are considered invasive! The Buffalo Berry and Sea Buckthorn are still on the list. Sea Buckthorn is also considered invasive in some areas, but not our climate zone.
The bean beds, pea trellises, squash tunnel and summer squash areas will all be used again next year, but mostly we need to focus on preparing the main garden beds closer to the house for next year. Once we get our straw bale in, we’ll start mulching some areas for new beds. We are already making lists of what we intend to plant next year, and will start buying seeds and trees over the winter, month by month. We will use that to help decide where to prepare new ground for planting next year.
At the same time, we are making lists of things to stock up on. Though things are looking mild, we’ve been either snowed in or had our vehicles freeze for two winters in a row now, so we want to be prepared in case something like that happens again. With food prices increasing so much over the past few months, and expected to get higher, it’s getting more difficult to buy those few extra things every month. Particularly since so many other people have realized that “prepping” is a really, really good idea, too!
Having grown up here, as a subsistence farm, I am very familiar with a lot of “self sufficiency” and “prepper” habits. That was just what everyone did, because there was no other option, really. So I’m no stranger to the lifestyle. At the same time, I am always wanting to learn new information and more about how to do it better, so I spend quite a bit of time researching. Which means I’ve lately been seeing a lot of homesteading resources – “subsistence farming” just isn’t a term that’s used anymore! – and “prepper” sites. Lately, it’s been feeling downright weird to go to them, as they are increasingly focused on giving information to people who are totally new to the concept, due to current circumstances. For us, this is just stuff we need to do. We are isolated just enough that we know we have to rely on ourselves if things go wrong, and there are always thing that can go wrong. The power could go out. We could get snowed in. We might have to evacuate due to wildfires. At least flooding isn’t a concern where we are, but running out of water is. We can’t just hope over to the corner store if we run out of things, like we could while living in the city. We can’t even assume we will have telephone (meaning the land line; we already can’t rely on getting a cell phone signal here) or internet for communication. The land line is pretty reliable, at least, but our internet starts kicking out as soon as there is a stiff wind, or if there are storms to the south of us. Of course, on top of all that, we have my husband’s health issues. He and I were just talking this morning about his prescription refills. He gets his daily meds in bubble packs now, including those that are restricted. For the longest time, he couldn’t get refills for his restricted medications until he was, at the earliest, 3 days away from running out. Now, his bubble packs aren’t even done locally. They’re done in the city and shipped to the local pharmacy, and with how crazy things have been, they’ve actually lifted some of the red tape surrounding restricted medications. Which means we should be able to get a couple of months of refills, instead of just one month. He just got his refills recently, so we’ll be trying to get an extra month of refills, next time.
Anyhow. It’s just been really strange to go looking stuff up for ideas and inspiration. So many people are now doing the same thing, with absolutely zero background in it. In one way, it makes me feel thankful for how I grew up. On the other, it’s frustrating, when people start panic buying, without any sort of planning or organization in mind, and it ends up causing problems for everybody.
Ah, well. People need to learn somehow. We just do what we can!
And right now, that means cleaning out the last of this year’s garden, and preparing for next, and making sure we are stocked up for the winter.
I may have missed the kitties when my husband fed them this morning, but I got to see them this afternoon, when my daughter topped up the kibble containers! :-)
Even Ghost Baby made an appearance!
My daughter was happy because, once they all came running to eat, she was able to pet a whole bunch of baby butts, and they didn’t run away! Too interested in the food to notice they were being pet. :-)
My daughter had come out to take care of something for me. I had earlier been working on the high raised bed and, since I was right next to it, decided to dig up some carrots from the abandoned bed.
I am totally amazed that after the greens being munched down to the ground at least three times, then getting overgrown with weeds, we STILL have decent sized carrots! Certainly not their full potential, but far better than what I expected. Which was nothing! These are the Napoli carrots we ordered from Veseys, and I must say, I’m impressed by their resilience! I picked maybe 1/3rd of the bed’s carrots. It’s hard to judge, with it being so overgrown.
Then one of my daughters came out to hose them off (and feed kitties!) while I did other stuff outside. My other daughter then used them with a roast vegetable dish she made to do with supper. I finished up outside while she was working on it, and we decided to include our tiny winter squash.
The tiny halves in the background are the little Teddy squash. By the time I took out the pulp in the seed cavity, there wasn’t much flesh left! Like the immature Kuri squash in the foreground, their seeds were not at all developed.
I have no idea how edible they are at this immature stage, but we’ll find out!
It’s been a while to see deer in the trail cams, but this morning, I saw a whole bunch!
These were the first to come by.
It’s really hard to tell, but there is a third deer on the other side of the fence. They like to slip between the barbed while in this spot.
The little one nearer the fence, which would have been born this spring, went through, but the adult in the foreground ended up waking off towards the driveway.
Then this guy showed up…
A handsome three point buck!
What a catch! I rarely use image enhancement on my photos (mostly because I don’t know how and don’t care enough to learn), but I did use the auto fix in my software on these ones, so you could better see the deer jumping the fence.
The “light” behind him is actually a reflection. That’s our driveway marker, which shows up in the infrared flash looking like a bright light.
In previous years, we would be buying deer feed and including it with the bird seed at the feeding station outside our living room window, but with our mild temperatures this year, there has been no need. We’ll probably start supplementing them once there is snow on the ground that stays. Which may not be until mid-November, if the long range forecasts are right!
The Re-Farmer 