Critters

Our 2021 garden bed prep, and dealing with the heat

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

The weather forecast said that we would be cooler today.

They lied.

When I did my morning rounds, it was already above 20C/68F, and we easily hit 28C/82F this afternoon, with a humidex above 30C/86F. Which meant that we spent as much of the day indoors, out of the heat, as we could. Thankfully, the way things are oriented, we can keep certain windows open to allow a cross breeze without heating the house up.

The cats appreciate that.

Yes, we leave the little step ladder at the door, just so they can look out the window! It was so funny to watch these to, with their matching positions, heads turning and tail tips twitching, in unison! Hard to believe that little Layendecker is now just as big as Cheddar! With the smaller cats, three of them can fit up there, but these big boys fill up the whole stop step! :-D

I did have to make a run into town, as we ran out of kibble for the outside cats. While I was there, I picked up some ingredients for my daughters. Yesterday, they finished off one of the giant bowls of spinach to make a spinach soup.

We’d already finished off one giant bowl, mostly through dehydrating (using the screens in the sun room didn’t work, so we did batches in the oven). When making the soup, that huge bowl cooked down to a remarkable small amount in the stock pot! :-D With my trip into town, the girls have enough to make a huge batch of baked spinach dip, which we plan to enjoy while watching watching Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett and David Burke.

It’s going to be a late one, though. We didn’t get back from working on the garden until past 10pm. I had tried going out a bit earlier to start prepping the spinach beds to plant in again, but those beds are in full sun. I wasn’t interested in getting heat stroke! It didn’t get cool enough to head out again until past 8:30pm.

The girls did the evening watering while I worked on the beds.

The logs were added after we’d started making the beds, so once I’d cleared away the remains of the spinach plants and the weeds, I took advantage of the situation to level the beds out, and create a bit of a ridge around the edges, to help keep the water from draining down the sides – and taking the soil with it. I used a garden fork to loosen the soil, to more easily pull the roots out. I was most pleased with how keep the tines could go, without any sort of resistance. This bed would handle root vegetables very well!

I had “help” while I was working.

Nutmeg could not get enough attention! :-) While I was pulling out roots and weeds, he kept getting under me, demanding pets, and rolling around in the freshly turned soil, sometimes rolling right off the edge of the garden bed – just like his brother does on our beds, indoors! Unfortunately, when I was using the garden fork, he had a terrible habit of suddenly lunging at the fork to “catch” it, even as I was stabbing it into the soil.

This bed was surprisingly different from the first one. When pushing the fork into the soil, I would quickly go through the raised part of the bed – about 8 inches – then hit solid. I wasn’t hitting rocks. Just rock hard soil! The last bed was much the same, though not as bad as this one. There is a difference between them. The first bed I worked on had been a squash bed, mulched with straw, last year. These two beds were a last minute change. When I’d prepped the area last fall, I’d made three smaller beds oriented East-West, where three pumpkin hills had been. This spring, I decided to make these two larger beds, oriented North-South. The soil beneath would be a mix of soil that had been turned in the fall, and walking paths. It’s remarkable what a difference that one season of use the previous year has made in the soil of that first bed.

All three beds are now prepared and ready for planting! We will be planting lettuces in succession along one side of each bed.

Since the radishes we interplanted with the corn all disappeared, and I ended up picking up more. Three different varieties to try, though I couldn’t find a daikon type that my daughter likes. They are fast maturing, so we should be able to grow some radishes, and still be able to grow more spinach in these beds for a fall crop.

We’re not actually fans of radishes in general, so we won’t be planting many. I do want to leave some to fully mature. I’ve read that radish pods are very tasty, but it’s not something available in stores, and I’d like to try them. From what I’ve read in the past, radishes used to be grown for their pods, not their roots, and the pods can be canned as well. It should be an interesting experiment. I’m still disappointed that none of the ones we planted earlier survived, even though they did germinate so quickly. I had specially ordered those varieties for my daughter. :-(

We’ll just have to try them again, next year!

Well my other daughter had just swung by to inform me that the baked spinach dip is ready! I am really looking forward to it! :-)

The Re-Farmer

New babies!

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While heading out to start the evening watering, I spotted Butterscotch’s babies coming out to play.

Or should I say, my daughter spotted them. I’d gone out to help my mother with errands, then did a few of my own, so I pulled up to the house to unload the car. My daughter later parked it for me, and spotted them while returning to the house. She plunked herself down on the ground with a long stick to wiggle at them, and they were very interested! :-D Not enough to come close, though, but she’s working on it!

While we were finishing up the evening watering, I happened to see movement in the junk pile by the chain link fence.

Rosencrantz had brought her babies!

I didn’t dare get too close, so zooming in with my phone was the best I could do.

It looks like she only has the two of them. They are so adorable! I don’t know where she has her “nest”, other than it was not in the junk pile, so I am glad that she is starting to bring them closer to the house.

So this is now two litters accounted for. I know Junk Pile cat has had a litter, and from the looks of her teats, I’d say she has a litter of six. Until she starts bringing them to the yard, we won’t know if she has six surviving kittens. There’s also Ghost Baby, who is too feral for us to even know if she’s female. We’re just assuming she is, and that there is another litter somewhere for us to discover.

I suspect we will be finding out fairly soon!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: first harvest!

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Today, we harvested all three spinach beds!

Looking at them this morning, I thought we could just harvest the plants that had started to go to seed and leave the smaller ones, but when we were ready to start, we realized that the smaller ones were going to seed, too!

We ended up using our three biggest baskets to hold it all.

Yes, these are our Easter baskets, and one of them still has its decorations. The flower garland is woven through the basket, so it doesn’t come off. :-D

Each of those baskets is filled with a different variety of spinach, though to be honest, I can’t tell any difference. They were even supposed to mature at different rates, but between the deer, the heat and the lack of rain, they all matured at the same time.

Nutmeg was hanging around while we were working, and my daughter noticed he was playing “cat and mouse” with something. It turned out to be a frog!

She rescued it.

We see frogs fairly regularly in the garden beds. That makes me happy. More frogs means less bugs eating our produce! :-)

We used shears to cut the spinach, so all the roots, along with the plants that weren’t suitable to harvest (like the teeny ones the deer got to), are still there. The beds will get a thorough clean up, probably tomorrow, so we can plant lettuces, next.

We dragged out the screen “door” that fits at the top of the old basement stairs, and covered it with the mosquito netting we’d been using to protect one of the beds. We also brought out a couple of our largest bowls. The spinach got washed in the bowls in batches, which also gave us a chance to start taking out any weeds that came along for a ride, and removing some of the yellowing or damaged leaves. After being washed, they got dumped on the mesh and got another rinse with the hose.

Then it was time to start picking over the spinach and destemming them. I set up the wagon to hold the screens I’d washed earlier, to dry spinach on.

My daughter and I then started going over the whole pile, picking out the best ones for dehydrating or into bowls, and dropping the rejects with the snipped stems for composting. We worked for about an hour, hour and a half, before my daughter went in with a filled bowl, to start supper while I kept working on the rest of the spinach.

The filled screens were left on the roof of the kibble house to drain for a while. They went into the sun room when it started to rain a bit, though we never got more than a smattering.

After about three hours, here are two of the three bowls that were filled. They are all really big bowls. Big enough to mix a 6 loaf batch of bread dough.

I’m hoping to be able to set up more batches to dehydrate out of this, but it depends on how well it works in the sun room. I’ve got the light I used to keep transplant trays warm on for the night, plus the ceiling fan. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get really hot, which means the sun room will be even hotter. I’m hoping that means they will dehydrate fairly quickly, and I can set up at least one more batch.

As for the rest, we might blanch some for freezing if we can’t use it up fast enough, but mostly, we plan to just eat it. :-D The girls have been looking of recipes for things like spinach soup to try, or maybe make another batch of their modified palak paneer sauce. We don’t have paneer, though.

I’m rather happy with our first garden harvest – and with being able to have one so early in the season!

While it may have taken a long time to clean it all, we were most entertained.

By skunks.

We had a whole parade of them, coming and going, including the mama and her babies.

All SIX of them!

I don’t know where she’s getting them all from! She started coming by with two. Then we saw her carrying a third. Today, she showed up with five – or so we thought. I took some video and, after I uploaded it and watched it, I realized there was six.

If you wish to see the video, click here. :-)

Gosh, they are so adorable! They came back several times, including just to run around an play.

As for the other skunks that showed up, I did end up stopping to take a hose to them. From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see them in the kibble house, but I could hear them, and they were not getting along. It turned out that only one of the containers had kibble left in it, and they were all trying to get at it. Then there was the one greedy guts that just wouldn’t stop eating.

Oh, and a question I had was answered. In the mornings, when I would go to refresh the cats’ water bowls, I would find one of them with kibble half dissolved in the water. It was always the bowl closest to the kibble house, but they’re far enough away that it couldn’t fall in by accident, as I had assumed was how it got into the heated water bowl, when we were still using that. The skunks, of course, use the water bowls, too. This evening, I saw one of the skunks come up to a water bowl, drink some water, then basically pick its teeth with its claws before drinking some more.

The reason it isn’t good for skunks to eat kibble is because of how their jaws are hinged. But they’ve got that figured out. The skunk was getting kibble stuck in its teeth, and was using water to get it out. The kibble would then fall into the bowl it was drinking from, for me to find in the morning.

They’re smart little buggers!

They also made what could have been a long and dreary job quite fun. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Criminal!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Just look at this criminal beast!

I was just heading out to do my morning rounds, when I discovered crime had happened, and the criminal was watching me. Nicco, this time!

I let my daughters know, and when one of them came down to the old basement, she found FOUR cats had gotten through! Once the Spice Girls figured out how to unblock the top of the screen, all the other smaller, lighter cats are following their lead. :-(

I really wish we could find a way to stop this. There are just too many fragile and dangerous things in the old basement. So far, they have managed not to cause destruction, but I’ve found stuff on the floor showing that they are climbing the shelves. Shelves full of glass bottles, vintage canning jars and cleaners. And I’m always concerned that one of them will knock aside the cover to the sump pump reservoir. At least it’s dry in there right now, but still…

As I write this, I hear noises from the basement… The top is blocked off again, but I suspect we will find a cat in the old basement again.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

There was a strange man out my window!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

A strange, furry man.

I’ve seen a racoon twice on the trail cam. Once was just a tail tip when it was set over the tulips to see what was eating them. The second time, it went by after the camera was moved to face the sunflowers to see where the deer were coming from.

To be sitting on the couch and suddenly seeing this creature climbing up the pole to the bird feeder was almost surreal!

My daughters and I watched if for a while before I finally tapped on the window to make it stop eating the bird feed. I do wish I still had my phone out, because it went down the pole, head first!

What a remarkable experience!

I wonder if he’s been stealing bird seed before, when we haven’t been around to see it?

The Re-Farmer

Edit: I was able to upload some video I took onto Rumble. WordPress doesn’t seem to handle Rumble well, so please let me know if you have any problems viewing it. :-)

Protecting the jade tree, and critter capers

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So… we’ve had problems with the more recent additions to our cat colony indoors. They’ve decided our plants are for them to play with and dig in.

One of the pots we’ve been trying to protect is has the parent jade trees that we brought with us when we moved. During the drive out, it got cold enough to kill some of the plants in the back of the van, and most of the jade tree died off, but it amazingly did recover and has been doing very well.

Now the cats are trying to kill it.

Mostly Cabbages, and her dirt digging, but the other cats have discovered that jade tree leaves make good toys. We’ve done a number of things to protect the plants but, with this particular pot, some cats – and we’re not sure which ones – have managed to knock aside the things we’ve used to protect it, and get right into the middle of the pot. Along with the soil being dug up, the stems of the plants were being bent outwards, with some getting snapped off.

Yesterday, I engaged in a bit of a rescue.

You can see cat toothmarks on a number of leaves!

I was able to get the pot outside – a job that required one daughter with a spray bottle to keep the cats at bay, while the other opened the doors for me.

The pipes that you see are the spare uprights from one of the shelves we put up in the old basement. The basement is too low for the full height of the shelves, so we never added on the top self. In trying to protect the several jade trees in this pot, I shoved 4 of the unused uprights from the shelf into the pot, and used them and some cotton yarn as supports.

I discovered they also work really well to water the pot. I can just pour water into a pipe to water from below. The pot is actually a self-watering pot, but the opening to the reservoir on the bottom is small and hard to get at.

In their efforts to get at the middle of the pot, the cats ended up pushing the yarn down the pipes, and they were no longer supporting the plant stems. All the stems were bent and spread outwards, like a massive spider. So I redid it, this time making sure to loop around some of the bigger stems. It should not slide down anymore.

I’m amazed by how resilient jade trees are!

After replacing the dug out soil in the middle, I had the thought that using some of the grass clippings and garden soil mix I had left over from “hilling” the potato bags might help keep the cats out of it. Then I gave the whole thing a nice shower with the hose, with water that had been warmed by the sun.

When it was brought back inside, one of the first things that happened was several cats going over to investigate.

Then start chewing on the grass clippings.

*sigh*

They were so determined to get at it, I ended up trying to put a leftover piece of wire mesh around the bottom. It wasn’t big enough, so I tried protecting the rest with a transparent recycling bag. We still had to make liberal use of the spray bottle to keep the cats away!

Of course, we couldn’t stay in the living room all evening, monitoring a plant pot. Coming back a couple of hours later, we found some determined cat had managed to get under the plastic and spread grass clippings all over the place.

And our vacuum cleaner is broken, with no budget to replace it until next month.

*sigh*

In the end, with the assistance of a daughter keeping the cats at bay while opening doors for me, we moved the pot into the sun room to keep it safe.

In the process, I discovered a piece of the jade tree had been broken off, so I stuck it into another jade tree pot; a smaller one with a plastic ring cut from the top of a Costco corn puff container to protect it.

That was yesterday.

This morning, I was awakened by the noise of cats trying to get through the screen between the basements again. There’s nothing I can do about that, so I tried to ignore it.

Then I heard the big thump.

Going into the living room, I found one of the pots with an aloe vera in it, on the floor.

Thankfully, between the dense plant and the plastic protector around it, it didn’t actually fall out of the pot and virtually no soil was lost.

As I put it back on the shelf, I saw the dirt.

The smaller jade tree, with its protective collar, had been dug into. Some small, determined cat managed to reach through the opening and get at the soil.

I moved the pot to the dining table, went back to clean up a bit, returned to the dining room, just in time to discover Susan – SUSAN!! – on the table, trying to get into the pot.

*sigh*

I ended up shoving some mesh fabric around the opening, but it looks like this pot is going to have to go into the sun room, too.

A while later, I went to do my rounds outside and found two cats on the platform under the basement window, looking at me. Possibly Turmeric and Susan. Or Saffron and Big Rig. It’s a bit hard to see through the two layers of mesh on the window.

*sigh*

I let the girls know they were there. The last time I tried to go into that basement to get cats out, I popped a kneecap on the stairs.

So… that was my start to the day. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Morning cuddles

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a picture of Ginger!

Every morning and evening, at the sound of me getting my vitamins from my night stand, Ginger comes running for cuddles! This morning, I actually had a free hand to get a photo. :-)

I don’t know why he has decided “pill bottle rattling” equals “time to cuddle the human”, but since it’s pretty much the only time he is so cuddly, I don’t mind at all!

The Re-Farmer

Some critter surprises

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I got to see the kittens again this evening, but this morning, I had quite the critter surprise!

To top up our potato grow bags, I headed to the outer hard with the wheelbarrow, with the tools needed to rake up some grass clippings for much, and get a load of garden soil from the pile.

As I headed passed the big branch pile, I saw movement at the garden soil. Two furry creatures, right where I needed to go to shovel soil!

When they saw me, one of them dashed under the branches, but the other froze in place.

Watching me.

Even as I came closer, it didn’t move.

Which means I finally got a good picture of our mystery critter!

It didn’t move away until I picked up the shovel and started walking right up to it! Then it dashed under the branch pile, too.

I have no idea what they were doing on the dirt pile. They weren’t digging or anything. They seemed to be just looking around. Maybe playing?

As I came back several times to get more soil or rake up more clippings, I had to pass the branch pile each time. A couple of times, the branch pile screamed at me! Of all the names these guys have – woodchuck, groundhog, marmot, etc. – whistle pig seems the most appropriate to the noise they make!

Gosh, it’s so cuty.

Speaking of cute…

As I finished the evening watering and came around to the front of the house to put things away, I saw a skunk running out of the kibbled house and towards the storage house. As I went to the sun room, I saw the mama skunk peek out at me, her babies tucked close against her. When she saw me staying by the house, she decided it was safe to head towards the kibble house.

With her THREE babies!

Three! I hadn’t seen the third one before!

Though they went for the kibble house, when I came around the other side to look at them, they all ran off again, this time leaving the yard completely.

While going back and forth to put things away, I paused for a while to say hello to the kittens, who were with Butterscotch at their food and water bowls.

I was never able to get a picture with the calico, though.

I left a camp chair near the food bowl, so we can sit comfortably while letting the kittens get used to us. This kitten was very fascinated by the wiggling toe of my shoe!

I just managed to get a picture of her when she decided to stand up on her hind legs and bat at her mother. :-D

Gosh, they are cute.

We got cute critters all over the place, today!

The Re-Farmer

Butterscotch Babies!

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Today, we finally saw Butterscotch’s kittens!

They were in the junk pile by the house. Her favorite kitten spot. Whether they’ve been there this whole time, or if she recently moved them there, I don’t know, but the girls spotted them today. There are four of them.

My younger daughter had gone out to check on some new flowers blooming and spotted them. She sat on the ground and they came up to her. She was able to touch three of them. They were pretty chill about it.

When I came by, I could see movement among the spirea, but both of us being there seemed to be too much for them, so I went back to what I was working on.

Butterscotch was pretty chill about me being there! Which was a bit of a surprise. She has been very stand-offish of late, and most of the time, won’t even let me pet her. This evening, she was downright cuddly.

When I had the chance, I brought over some kibble and water near the junk pile, wetting down the kibble a bit so it would be soft for the babies.

The kittens got their first taste of kibble today.

In the low light, plus trying to zoom in, it was hard to get decent photos. The one next to Butterscotch’s head REALLY loved the kibble! It got right in the middle of the pile of food and stayed eating almost the entire time I was there.

The little calico had a bit, then went off to play.

Unfortunately, the girls are already talking about snagging the kittens and bringing them inside! At least the calico, since it’s most likely to be female. We still need to adopt out cats we already have inside, never mind bringing more in.

I’m not impressed that they’re even considering it.

Me, I’m happy to see the kittens, happy to work on socializing them, and happy to let them stay outdoors!

The Re-Farmer

One of “those” days

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You know the kind of day.

The kind where things start going wrong from the start, and nothing goes to plan.

Today was one of those days.

Thankfully, it ended on a more positive note.

Things started very early, with hearing noises from the basement and discovering Saffron had somehow found her way into the old part basement, discovering another cat had gotten into a plant pot and scattered dirt everywhere in the living room, to my daughter trying to vacuum the carpet and our vacuum cleaner suddenly starting to smoke and no longer creating a vacuum. I was planning to head to the smaller city to get a new air filter for the push mower, but my sleep had been interrupted so much, I felt too tired to be safe to drive. I figured I’d get a nap in, and go later. Of course, that got interrupted a few times, too, with scam phone calls about credit cards we don’t have, cats getting into the old basement again (my daughter found where they were getting through and blocked it), and so on. When I finally got up – which was disorienting, because it was still morning – my daughters convinced me to save making the trip for another day. I must have looked a sight for them to do that!

So basically, it was a pretty wasted day. I got nothing useful accomplished until evening, when it cooled down enough to do the evening watering. It was so windy today, the sawhorse the garden cam is attached to was knocked over, and I had to do some repair work on one of the stakes and lines over a row of sunflowers that had blown apart.

Also, the sound of wind going through the wire mesh on the squash tunnel is very musical!

I was quite happy to see a few of the summer squash are starting to bloom.

When I was finishing up watering at the front of the house, and was moving the hose out of the way, I heard an odd noise coming from the kibble house. I was behind it, so I couldn’t see, but figured there was a skunk inside. So I carefully walked around it and…

… it was empty.

But I was still hearing that noise.

So I ducked to look under the kibble house, where there is still a sheet of rigid insulation on the ground. There I saw a little black critter, and the noise was claws making warning scratches on the insulation. It was one of the baby skunks, all by itself!

It ended up dashing under the cat’s house. On seeing there was no food at all left in the kibble house, I topped things up a bit, then went to sit on the stairs to the storage house, where I had a view of the back of the kibble house and cat shelter. Sure enough, after a while, I saw the little guy come out, then make a run for the storage house. I did get a short video, but apparently, I can’t upload anything right now, or I’d include it here! As I walked away from the storage house, I just caught sight of the skunk family, ducking under the chain link fence and out of the yard. I’m glad the little one was reunited with its family!

So I guess that was a cute end to an otherwise miserable day.

For now, I’m hoping to get some decent – uninterrupted – sleep, so I can make the trip I was supposed to do today.

The Re-Farmer