Critters

Morning rounds

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We’ve got ourselves a lovely – and windy! – day today. It made doing the morning rounds quite pleasant.

The routine started, of course, with babies. :-)

One of the down sides of not being able to do stairs very well is, even with my daughter at the top of the stairs to help keep the other cats away from the door, kittens manage to run across the length of the basement and up the stairs before I can get far enough down to close to door behind me.

Having a door that opens over the stairs doesn’t help, either.

Of course, while kittens are being wrangled, other cats try to take advantage of the confusion. David got into the basement, which we’re okay with, since he’s very good with the babies. I think Two Face got in, as well, but I’m honestly not sure if I remember that correctly. My daughter was dealing with the adult cats after we got the escaped babies back down.

Eventually, all the adult cats were herded upstairs, and the kittens got to have some wet cat food.

These guys have very hearty appetites!

After a while, we let Beep Beep down again, so she could have some, too. If she’s around when the wet cat food is first set out, she’ll push her own kittens away to get at it, no matter how much we spread it out!

Among the things I look out for when doing my rounds is fallen branches. Thankfully, between what we’ve been able to clean up ourselves, plus what the arborists were able to take down, there are far few of those than there was when we first moved here.

Usually, we’re just picking things up like the willow branch you can see in the photo. Willows are always dropping branches, but after having the power lines cleared, there are a lot less of those in the south yard. Recent winds did bring down one of the larger dead branches we can’t get at to clear. Even as I stood to take this picture, I could hear the winds knocking branches together, above my head.

Dead branches sound distinctively different from live ones.

Speaking of which…

The crab apple trees are not the only ones that are struggling. This plum tree seems to be mostly dead. There is one section that leans off to the right that is still alive, but it looks like the other two are completely dead. What few leaves there were, just weeks ago, have shriveled and died. It looks like another of the plums, behind it, is also dead or dying.

Other trees and bushes are doing just fine, though.

The pollinators were having a hard at my mother’s white roses, in the wind! I believe these are called Cherokee roses, and they have just exploded with flowers! Between these, the honeysuckle that is still if full bloom, and the double lilac that is nearing the end of its blooming period, this little garden is just a riot of flowers!

While the more common varieties of lilacs are finishing their blooming period, the dwarf lilac will soon be a mass of flowers!

I had cleaned up in this bush, taking out a maple that had been allowed to grow in the middle of it, cutting away dead wood and pruning things back. Now, even the new growth shooting up from below is showing masses of flower buds!

There is one more variety of lilac that blooms later, but I notice it is struggling, too. There is another maple that had seeded itself and was allowed to grow, near it. I think that maple is what’s killing the lilac. It’s keeping the lilac in shade for most of the day. I don’t think it gets any direct sunlight at all, really.

I’m going to have to choose: keep the healthy maple while the lilac slowly dies off, or take down the maple and hopefully save an unusual variety of lilac, that we have only one of.

The decision would be a lot easier, if I could only be sure that taking out the maple would save the lilac.

Meanwhile, while checking the sunflowers, I found we are down a couple more. I really wish I knew what is doing this. Then we could know how to stop it!

When I got back to the house at the end of my rounds, I had a lovely surprise.

Rolando Moon came back for a visit! I haven’t seen her in ages. The last time couple of times she came here, Creamsicle and Potato Beetle chased her up into a tree. My daughters could see her, but I never did spot her. The boys were away, though, so I got to say hello to Rolando. :-) She, Beep Beep and Butterscotch are the only yard cats remaining, that were here when my father was still alive. I have some photos from when we made the trip out to visit him, back in 2015. He did love the yard cats – and they loved him right back! Me, not so much. :-D After we moved here, it took a while to socialize them, to varying degrees. Most just sort of disappeared. Especially the males. Rolanda Moon has always been an ornery cat, aggressive with the others, but she seemed very happy for the attention, today! It was very good to see her. :-)

Today, being Sunday, is my day of rest. No unnecessary work. So the most I’m doing outside, really, is setting up the sprinkler to water the squash and potatoes. We’ve had some rain, off and on, but not very much, and these winds are really drying things out!

Time to go shift the sprinkler off the squash and give the potatoes a good drenching. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Carving with kittens: a story in photos

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So, today wasn’t a very productive day. I managed to get some watering and weeding, but just didn’t have the spoons left to do more outside.

In an attempt to get at least something done today, I decided to continue practice carving on the spoon blank that came with my carving kit. After my husband was able to sharpen the curved blade of the sloyd knife, I had been able to test it out a bit, but not much more.

Today, I actually got some real progress today.

My husband came down with me and kept the kittens busy as much as he could, before he had to leave. The kittens, however, were much more interested in what I was doing.

Especially Leyendecker.

Then Saffron.

Okay, not so much interested in what I was doing, as they were in getting onto the front of me. In between trying to eat my hair and wrestling with each other on my shoulder.

Eventually, the forced their way into my arms, and that was it. No more carving.

They absolutely exhausted themselves, climbing all over me, it turns out. Here, Leyendecker is using Saffron as a pillow, while Big Rig was busily licking the inside of my ear. !!!

That really, really tickles.

And it’s really, really exhausting for kittens, too, it seems…

Big Rig slithered her way onto the pile and eventually settled under Saffron.

It wasn’t long before Turmeric joined them, and I had four kittens in my arms.

Turmeric’s head is actually visible in the above photo. It’s just hard to see it against Saffron’s belly.

Nicco came to check things out, but she was more interesting in Beep Beep, who was in aggressive grooming mode.

Then Beep Beep jumped onto the pile, and lay down.

Right on top of them.

Before I knew it, I had this…

Yup. They squirmed out from under her, and started nursing.

In my arms.

It was all I could do to keep my arms held in angles to keep them from sliding right off.

Thankfully, I already had my phone in my hand to take pictures, so I was able to use voice to text and message the girls to come rescue me.

Beep Beep heard them coming, so she jumped down, but the babies stayed.

My daughter was able to get a few photos, and that is the only reason why I have any pictures at all of the carving progress! LOL You can see the underside of the spoon on the table. The bowl has been carved out and now I am shaping it. The handle is intended to be a swoopy stem for the mushroom at the end.

With the girls’ help, I was de-kittened, the sharp stuff got put away, and I was able to escape. :-D

My arms are shredded.

It was worth it. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties

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Some smiles to share with you!

My daughter joined me this morning, to help with crowd control. Leyendecker promptly scaled her and settled on a shoulder.

Saffron, on the other hand…

… claimed her spot, getting her way with sheer adorableness. :-D

Turmeric and Nicco, meanwhile, had themselves a wrestling match!

Big Rig settled down to eat and be completely non-photogenic, this morning. LOL

What a great way to start the day.

The Re-Farmer

Oh, what a day. Already

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Today started off very well, so I’ll start with that, too!

I’m happy to say that the new bed has made a huge difference. There must be something about no longer being so close to the floor, because I slept like a rock – for almost 11 hours!

Which meant I got a late start to doing my morning routine.

The kittens were in fine form this morning!

They found perfectly kitten sized places to hang out, about it all!

These little nooks exist only because the area under the entryway was walled off to make the root cellar. The ceiling there is slightly lower than the rest of the basement, so the top ledge there is actually level with the entryway floor, while below is the root cellar wall.

The upstairs cats wanted to play, too.

In the one photo, you can see David’s nose – and the glowing eye of another cat!

I’m going to have to delay doing the kitten stuff until there are others available to come down at the same time. Saffron and Turmeric got upstairs before I could close the door, while David, Cheddar and Two Face made it downstairs. While wrestling her kittens downstairs, Beep Beep went up and stayed there. I only saw three kittens, though, so I started looking around for Leyendecker and Big Rig. I realized Leyendecker had also snuck upstairs, when I saw tiny little black and white paws going past – right about where you can see David’s nose in the above photos. :-D So I got him down, but I still couldn’t find Big Rig. I feared she may have gotten into the old part basement, but after some searching, my daughter found her curled up asleep, under the bed frame. The box my husband’s computer came in had a cardboard divided that fits under there perfectly, and they use it to sleep in. I’d pulled it out, but apparently not enough, and never saw her. I felt no weight, and didn’t think to pull it out all the way! It was a relief to find her. Once we managed to get the adult cats out, we were able to treat the babies with some wet cat food, then persuade Beep Beep to come down again.

Once outside, I was joined by Creamsicle and Butterscotch.

Lots of things are blooming now.

More wild roses are blooming now.

I also checked on, and counted, the sunflowers.

I counted 30 this morning, with some having just broken ground. We also lost more; in one spot where I was sure there was a seedling growing, I checked more closely, and found the remains of a stem. :-(

I was very happy to find this. Last year, I spotted two little bunches of red berries on this bush. Using the magic of the internet, it turns out to be a cranberry bush.

It was not planted there deliberately.

This is another of the things that are getting more light, after I cleared away trees from the fence line. Last year, that resulted in this bush having just a few berries. This year, it is covered with clusters like this! I am thrilled to see them!

These are tiny wild strawberries growing at the base of a dead tree in the maple grove. We need to be weeded with great care, as the other growth is so close, it’s hard to pull them up, without also pulling up the strawberries.

This will require a lot of time set aside (after being liberally covered in bug spray) for delicate weeding. At some point, I’d like to transplant them to a better location, but transplant wild strawberries is another delicate thing!

I don’t know what these flowers are, but I really like them! Near them are some lilies that are full of buds.

The hawthorn my mother planted as a “living fence” bloomed so fast, I missed it! Berries are starting to form now.

I’ve read that hawthorn berries are edible. We might try something with them, one of these days.

My mother’s white roses and double lilacs planted near the old kitchen and sun room as looking good. The lilacs are almost done their blooming time, but the roses are just covered with buds!

After making sure it was okay with my mother first, checking to make sure there was nothing she wanted saved, I completely covered and mulched the old kitchen garden, two years ago. You can see what it was like when we started here (back when I thought the ornamental apple trees were cherry trees, because that’s where the original cherry tree had been planted, years before). As I cleaned up, you can see in this post, just how much the above flower had spread all over. I got it to the point where I could lay down a layer of cardboard, and finally cover it all in mulch. The idea was to basically kill off what was already growing there (especially the invasive vines we were finding all over the place!), and eventually use the space to grow vegetables and herbs that we use most.

After I finished all that, my mother suddenly started talking about some blue flowers that were there that she wanted me to keep, because they reminded her of flower that grew in Poland, when she was a child. I reminded her that she’d given me the okay to get rid of everything! Still, some things have worked their way through the mulch, including her little blue flowers, so she was happy to see them and asked me to save some. Which I can do. :-)

After I’d finished my rounds, I called my mother, then went to help her do a grocery shopping trip. That went quite well, and I was happy to be able to help her stock up on the bigger items she would normally have to pay to get delivered.

It was when I got home that things started to go wrong.

I had just driven through the gate and stopped the van so I could close it again, when I saw someone in my rear view mirror.

It was our vandal.

He’d seen me go by and came over.

He then proceeded to yell verbal abuse at me – all while recording me closing and locking the gate – from where he stood. I just ignored him while taking care of the gate, and he eventually just walked away, but he was yelling loud enough that the girls came out to see what was going on.

Based on past experience, from long before we moved out here, I knew I had to sit down and write down exactly what happened to record it. While I was in the middle of that, I got a call from my brother. It seems our vandal went straight from hurling verbal abuse at me, to calling my brother – who was at work – and verbally abusing him. There were things he said to both of us, though, that got us wondering about a triggering event. Once I had the chance, I called my mother.

Sure enough, it went back to her. He had left another abusive message on her answering machine, and she made the mistake of calling him back. She’d left a message, basically asking what he wanted from her, and they ended up speaking in person. He told her that he wanted to sell the farm and split up the money, part of which he believes he is entitled to. The farm, however, is supposed to stay in the family name, and that’s why she transferred the ownership to my brother. We had been trying to keep that quiet, but it’s public knowledge now. We have the same arrangement with my brother that we had with my mother. We are taking care of the place for him. So now we know, by his own words, that our vandal was pressuring my parents to change their wills for years, just so he could sell the farm to line his pockets.

This revelation explains why he started showing up recently on the trail cams, giving us the finger. He thinks something has been taken from him. I’m still a target, since we live here, and he believes the things that are here belong to him. Of course, he’s got his own place, so there is no reason anything of his should be here. He’s also the reason so many things disappeared over the years, and especially while the place was empty for 2 years.

Now that he knows about the transfer of ownership, it’s hard to say how he will continue his harassment. At least when it came to ownership of the farm, there was some predictability. Now that he knows the farm belongs to my brother, not my mother, he’s going to be coming up with something new. The only thing we can be sure of, is that he won’t stop. He’s become obsessed with this place, and my family living here.

*sigh*

Ah, well. It’s still better than what we left behind by moving here. We just have to worry about one crazy person, now. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties – plans interrupted

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While doing my rounds this morning, I had some company.

Butterscotch looks downright malevolent! :-D

While checking things during my rounds, I found we have fewer sunflowers today, compared to yesterday. It’s possible I missed a couple, but it seems that something has been eating them. One or two at a time.

I visited the kittens again, after my rounds.

They really love that box of wood bits!

…

So, my morning posting got interrupted today. I am not continuing this almost 12 hours later!

My daughter happened to ask me about a bed frame I was looking to get. When we were prepping to move out here, one of the things we discovered was that the two twin sized box springs under our king size mattress were broken. No idea when that happened. We figured we could get new ones after the move.

Well, the move being the fiasco that it was, that didn’t happen. Instead, my husband and I had the mattress directly on the floor.

Which is not good for someone with a back injury. It was, however, the best of our mattresses. Also, the other mattresses were all twin sized.

When my husband ended up needing a hospital bed, we had to set the king size mattress aside and I used the spare twin. The king size ended up stuck behind the couch in the living room. It was just too big to put anywhere else. The cats, of course, discovered they could climb it and take naps up by the ceiling.

Which would have been fine, until they started using it as a scratching post.

Nothing we did would stop them. Of course, when we were asleep, we weren’t there to stop them. They were slowly destroying it. The only way to stop the destruction was to start using the mattress.

On the one hand, that was great. The twin mattress was a cheapy, and painful to sleep on, so the better quality mattress was much better on my body. On the other hand, my knees, feet and hips are pretty shot. Getting up and down from so low to the ground was taking its toll.

Eventually, we found the frame I wanted at Ikea; one that did not need box springs, and with 6 drawers underneath. We just had to save up for it.

Of course, other things kept popping up that was priority on the budget. Like repairing vehicles. This year, however, we finally got some decent tax returns, and were able to set some aside.

Just in time for Ikea to have a sale on the bed frame I wanted.

Which was out of stock.

Also, Ikea was closed because of the pandemic, and only doing online purchases. We would have an arranged time to pick up. So after a few days, when I tried again and saw 1 frame in stock, I tried to buy it.

Before I could finish going through the checkout process, it was gone.

So I signed up to be notified by email when it was in stock again.

Today was the last day of the sale, and when my daughter asked about it, I told her I hadn’t received an email saying they restocked. I decided, however, to check again. Just in case.

There was 2 in stock! They never contacted me.

I tried to buy it online, so we could pick it up later.

The website was having technical difficulties. When I tried to check out, it told me it was out of stock, but when I looked at the item directly, it still said there were two.

Their customer service web chat wasn’t working and when I tried phoning, there was no answer. Not even an automated one.

I did notice, however, that the store is now open to customers.

I decided to go for it. One of my daughters and I headed out within minutes. We couldn’t be sure there were any in stock – with a 2 hour drive to get to the location, at the far end of the city, even if they were in stock, that didn’t mean they still would be when we got there. We figured it was still worth it, and we could use the trip to go elsewhere, while we were at it.

I had the item number so when we finally got there, we made our way straight to the pick up area, but there was no aisle number. After asking around, we ended up at an information kiosk. The woman looked it up for me and…

Yes, there was indeed two left in stock.

We would never have found it in the pick up area, though. It turned out that the king size version of this bed frame was only available through their loading/pick up area. She called it in, gave me a print out with the bar code and order number so I could pay for it, and instructions on where to go to have it brought to us.

It was a bit confusing and frustrating, but it finally got done. Not only did I finally get a bed frame, but I was able to get it while it was still on sale.

Yay!

We took advantage of being in the city and made a couple more stops, then when we got home, the girls spent the next couple of hours assembling it.

I helped.

A little.

:-D

Once it was done, of course we all splayed out on it.

I love having a king size!

Then, I did something amazing.

I got up.

Then I sat down.

Then I got up and sat down and got up again.

Because I can do that now! Effortlessly!

The unplanned trip blew away any plans we had for today, but it was so worth it!!

This is going to be so much better on my knees!!!

I’m so excited! :-D

Yes, it’s the little things that make me happy. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Well, that didn’t quite work out

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Today, I finally made it down to the basement to do some practice carving, using the spoon blank that came with the carving kit.

While talking to one of my daughters about my mother’s request to carve her a mushroom, she had a brilliant suggestion.

Make a spoon with a mushroom at the end of the handle.

Well, that sounds like a great way to get my practice carving in!

The first problem was, kittens.

All of the kittens. :-D

Plus Beep Beep, of course.

It took several minutes just to open the storage box, and probably another 15 or 20 before I de-catted myself enough to get started.

The first thing to do was mark off the spoon blank.

Pretty basic.

It’s typically recommended to carve out the inside of the bowl, first, which meant I could finally break out the curved sloyd knife.

While fighting off kittens.

That… didn’t quite work out.

I realize I got a cheap kit, but I was quite happy with the other two knives when I first tested those out. The sloyd knife, however, seemed to be completely dull.

At one point, I figured maybe it was because I was using a different wood. My previous practice carving was on lilac, which I’ve read is really great to carve. So I tested one of the other knives on the handle.

It cut beautifully. You can see where I made a few quick cuts to start removing excess material on the handle. What little I got out of the bowl took a surprising amount of effort. Mostly, the curved blade wanted to just slide across the surface.

The kit came with a leather strop, suede on one side, smooth on the other, and a polishing compound. Which doesn’t work too well on a curved blade, at all, and certainly isn’t enough to create an edge, when there barely is one.

I have since brought it to my husband, and his significant collection of sharpening tools. He did some research on how to sharpen a sloyd knife, and while he was able to get an edge on it, it would be a lot easier to make sharpening tools out of dowel.

After I gave up trying to carve with a dull knife, I let the kittens go wild. The basement is nice and cool, but I think the kittens were enjoying the warmth of a human to crawl all over and snuggle into.

Until, that is, there was a mom available…

And what a good mom she is! Here she is, loving on Nicco.

As you can see, Leyendecker decided to get in on it, as I was taking the above photo!

He had ulterior motives, though. Nicco was blocking access to Leyendecker’s nip! LOL

Big Rig joined in, too!

While all that was going on, Saffron and Turmeric were crawling all over my shoulders and attacking my hair.

David had come downstairs with me and had jumped to the top of some shelves to get to one of the windows.

Then he fell into the giant plant pot I’ve got waiting for our umbrella tree.

I’m pretty sure his getting in was an accident, but he seemed to like it in there!

Even when I took the pot down so he could jump out, he wouldn’t! I had to tip him out. :-D

So, anyhow. That was my attempt at using the curved knife to practice carve a spoon. Hopefully my next attempt will go much better!

The Re-Farmer

The crazy and the calm

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Heading down to visit the kitties was certainly a wild and crazy ride, this morning!

The kittens were waiting for me.

First, I had to shoo away the cats from the door in the entryway. Then, when I opened it, Beep Beep was ready to rush through, which would have been fine, except Leyendecker dashed through, too. Turmeric was at the top of the stairs, too. She was just a bit more hesitant about actually going through, so I was able to keep her at bay.

Leyendecker managed to get through the door three times before I could finally close it. Meanwhile, Beep Beep had run back down, with David and Two Face making a dash for it, too. By this time, all of the kittens were on the stairs, and with the door closed, they decided my feet and legs were fair game.

They continued to attack my feet, jump up my legs, and try and eat my shoelaces, as I very, VERY carefully made my way around.

Once I started taking care of the food and water, they started to get distracted by other things, thankfully.

Not one stayed still long enough to get a decent picture! :-D

I was eventually able to get all the adult cats upstairs, which meant I could give the kittens some wet cat food, and they’d actually get some!

By the time I was done, I was more than ready for the relative calm of doing my rounds outside.

I just had to deal with hordes of mosquitoes. Which was an improvement. !!

Checking the garden plots, it looks like more cat damage to the one plot of carrots. We won’t be getting a lot of rainbow carrots this time around. :-(

The grape vine I accidentally clipped is starting to look at bit droopy, higher up, but the lower leaves still seem quite strong and healthy. Fingers crossed that it will survive.

While walking around the spruce grove, switching out the memory cards on the trail cams, has been interesting. I didn’t do a lot of clean up here, yet. Mostly, I just focused on clearing the fence itself.

The improved like has resulted in all kinds of things popping up.

These are Saskatoon berries, and there are SO MANY little tiny bushes growing, all over the place.

I will be keeping an eye on these new ones. When I was cleaning up, a lot of the larger ones were not looking very healthy. The drought certainly didn’t help. We do plan to buy Saskatoon bushes at some point, and plan out where to put them, but if these are strong and healthy, we might end up also transplanting some of these to better locations.

I had cut back the wild roses along with all the other undergrowth, quite a bit as we cleaned things up. I know they will grow back, so I’m not too worried about them. After we’ve cleaned things out, the wild roses and the dogwood are the two things I want to encourage as undergrowth in some areas.

Even with what little clearing we’ve done so far, we’re already getting more wildflowers.

There are a few of these Lily of the Valley, scattered about, in between another one with sprays of white, star-like blossoms. My attempt at getting a photo failed, though.

The goal for the spruce grove is to open it up, get rid of the dead trees, plant some new spruces to replace some of them, have paths we can walk through, with grass or moss, areas of wild roses and dogwood, and lots of wildflowers. Here and there, I’m planning to put various types of seating around. Not boards nailed to logs, like I’ve been finding all over! Those don’t do well, over time.

But first, it needs to be cleaned out, and that’s going to involve a lot of hard physical labour!

And chainsaws. Definitely chainsaws. There are some pretty big trees that need to be cleared out of there.

I probably won’t be back at that today, though. It’s cooler, if not any less humid, and still insane with mosquitoes, but my husband is encouraging me to take a day off, and give my wrist more time to recover. The problem is, it feels pretty good. Right up until I start using it. I shouldn’t need two hands to pick up a glass to take a drink. :-/ His concern is that I’ll just keep re-injuring it. He has a point. We are both notorious for that sort of thing. I just hate wasting the time. :-(

We shall see how it goes.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: very little progress, but gosh, that’s cute!

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I headed out to see how much I could do for clean up, before the weather drove me indoors.

This is the area we decided we will put the outhouse we are planning to make as a cordwood practice building.

The double ended arrow is a dead spruce that will need to come down, before it falls down. There is another spruce we’ve identified as a risk, near it. It’s still alive, but already starting to fall, with roots on one side torn loose from the ground. Likely from high winds. Getting rid of those before we build is on the to-do list. The last thing we need is to build what is intended to be basically an emergency outdoor bathroom (because we discovered a need for this!), only to have a tree fall on it.

The other arrows point to tree stumps hidden among the underbrush. The ones I’ve spotted so far, at least. I’m sure that, as we clear things away, we will find more. Hopefully, the roots of these trees will not be an issue when we start clearing away sod to a depth of 6 – 8 inches.

This is all the progress I managed to do.

Basically, I cleared a bit of an old tree stump. Some of the stuff I cleared last year was starting to grow back, so that had to be gotten rid of. Then there were some cherry trees that are spreading. The cherry trees in this area have still not started to bloom yet, unlike the one near the house, which has already completed it’s flowering stage. I did keep some larger pieces of cherry.

I checked the weather about an hour after coming inside, and it was 26C/79F, with a “real feel” of 32C/90F, and a humidity of 62% – and it would have started to cool down by the time I checked!

They’re predicting thunderstorms again. Go figure.

While trying to clear around the old stump, some grasses pulled away much easier than I expected.

It turns out that there is an ants nest in it. We have two common types of ants here (though I don’t know what their proper names are). Black ants, which build their nests in the dirt and in open areas, like lawns, and red ants, which like to build their nests of spruce needles and in trees. These ones are NOT carpenter ants. That much, I do know. But they will take advantage of a dead tree stump, if it’s rotting enough.

The other thing I was able to do was clear away the piles of old boards we’d used to mark out the garden beds and hold down the protective plastic. I didn’t want to just stack them on the ground, where they will just rot, but where to put them that will keep them off the ground?

Well… there are these two old dog houses by the old outhouses, that we will cover in the fall again, so little critters can use them for shelter.

May as well use those!

We are going to need to clean up the rest of the wood in the junk pile, so I figure we can add more of the better boards onto here, to create a sort of roof. Who knows if they’ll stay here, but it’s one way to keep them off the ground, and that’s all I’m really after, right now.

Once I got inside with my chunks of cherry wood, I went into the cool of the basement to debark them, and keep the babies company.

I misjudged my ability to work with them around.

This would be Big Rig, under Leyendecker, both of whom got all sleepy on me. As I was trying to maneuver my phone to take this picture, Big Rig’s head just flopped over like this as she feel asleep!

Then Beep Beep climbed up, waking them both up, so she could curl up on my chest and demand attention. !!

For I while, I had Saffron perched on my shoulder, just watching the world go by, Big Rig, Leyendecker and Beep Beep, curled up on my arm and chest, snuggling and falling asleep, while Turmeric climbed my leg and tackled the tip of Big Rig’s tale. Only Nicco left me alone, preferring to explore the table behind me, then curl up for a nap on the platform bed frame they like to sleep under.

Thankfully, since I was able to reach my phone, I was able to let the girls know about my predicament, and they came down to assist me after they finished making supper. I did manage to detach most of the cats off of me – temporarily. Saffron was just sitting on my shoulder, so I left her be, but even as I worked on a piece of cherry with a large knife, I soon had kittens back on my lap to watch!

Thanks to the girls distracting the kittens, I did manage to debark two pieces completely – and even get the bark off in one piece!

The thicker, shorter section was only partly done; more than half of it seems to have been in the process of dying or something. You even see where the colour changes in the photo, from fresh to dry wood. The bark just would not come off, and with my wrist still giving me grief, using the knife to take off the bark was not a good thing!

My daughter looked it up, and it turns out cherry is poisonous to cats (except the pulp of ripe berries), so all the little bits and pieces went into my sawdust bin, which has a seal-able lid. The pieces of wood are now drying in the rafters, and the bark I was able to remove all in one piece are now laid out on a shelf in the sun room, drying next to my seed trays (where a single squash of some sort has germinated!).

I do hope it we finally get a solid rainfall, instead of having the systems swoop right past us again! It’s not like we’re dry right now, but it would be wonderful for that humidity to finally be reduced! I would love to be able to work outside for longer! There is just too much to get done out there.

The Re-Farmer

Morning battles! and, a rescue?

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

The kittens now being able to climb to the top of the stairs makes visiting them in the morning rather treacherous!

Getting into the basement is difficult enough as it is, with the door opening over the stairs the way it does. Doing it while juggling a pitcher of fresh water, a bucket for the old water, while dodging kittens who want to climb my legs or dash into the entryway before I can close the door makes it that much more challenging! :-D

The cats upstairs, and the kittens downstairs, have discovered the space under the door.

Oh, and to make things even more challenging, I had Beep Beep trying to climb me, too!

Thankfully, the lure of wet cat food was enough to draw them away, so I could leave safely! :-D

While doing my rounds outside, I had to check out the grapes.

Because I may have killed one. :-(

Now that they are leafing out, a couple of evenings ago, I took the pruners to cut away the old, dead growth that should have been pruned away last fall. A piece I cut away twisted as it fell, and I suddenly realized that a fresh vine I thought was growing from behind and below, was actually growing out the back of the piece I’d just cut.

I was so upset with myself. This was a strong, healthy vine I’d just killed.

Could I save it?

I cut the live vine from the stem and tried to see if I could bury the end, so it would root itself. Attached to the trellis as thoroughly as it was, I couldn’t pull it down far enough.

Well, there’s a tire planter right there, with a giant insulator I’d used as a shallow planter last year, in the middle of it.

I attached the vine to another piece to hold it in place, then added soil from the planter to the bottom. Once the cut end was buried, I watered the whole thing, thoroughly.

Can you tell which vine got cut?

I came by, fully expecting the cut vine to be drooping and dying, but it’s looking as fresh and green as the others!

It’s the one on the far left of the trellis.

Here is the base of it. There are even fresh new leaves, still strong and healthy looking.

Could I have actually have managed to salvage my mistake?? Does anyone reading this know much about grape plants? Will this root itself and survive?

I certainly hope so!

The rest of my rounds included checking the garden plots, and I was disappointed to find one area of carrots looked like something had dug them up. It turned out a cat had used it as a litter box. :-(

It also looks like we lost at least one more sunflower to something, but in total, there are more seedlings today than yesterday.

My rounds, however, were very fast this morning. The mosquitoes were insane! While we did not get the predicted storms – they swooped even further south than I thought they might, and we didn’t even get much rain – it is hot and muggy and perfect conditions for mosquitoes.

Once the morning rounds and chores were done, I had to make a quick run to the post office, then into town for some errands, so I’m a bit behind on things I intended to do outside. I’m going to have to start on clearing away where we’ve decided to build the cordwood outhouse, and since it’s too wet to continue working on the lawns, today would be a good day to get into that.

I will have to slather myself in bug spray, first, and hopefully not sweat it all off in the first few minutes. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Today’s roundup: they want out!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I’m glad we got as much of the mowing as we did, yesterday. It has been raining on and off since last night, and today they are predicting thunderstorms, with possible hail and tornadoes (?!?!) this evening and overnight.

We may get high winds, but tornadoes are not an issue where we live. Water spouts on the lake, maybe, but these weather systems tend to move to the south of us. I checked the weather radar and it looks like we’ll probably get hit by the edges of the system. So I am expecting rain and high winds, but the main body of the system looked like it’ll hit the city. Which means my brother and sister’s places will likely get hit harder than us.

While doing my rounds this morning, I spotted a Rosencrantz.

We think she has a litter of kittens, somewhere, but so far have seen no sign of them. She comes here for food, then disappears.

I had both Creamsicle and Potato Beetle joining me this morning, but they were not happy with each other. Moments after I took this picture, Creamsicle attacked Potato Beetle! I actually had to break up the fight. :-(

I checked the gardens, and the sunflowers. There are now about 26 sunflowers sprouting, that I can see.

The one on the left is an Early Russian, the one on the right is Giganteus.

Then there is this one.

Deadeus.

Looks like something just bit the top off!

Back in the house, I had to help my daughter with the kittens.

They can climb to the top of the stairs, now, and they want out!

So we spent some time, distracting them.

Dave came down to babysit, while Beep Beep went upstairs. :-D

They really like the lilac branches, and my box of wood chips. This, it’s okay for them to get into. I have a separate, sealed, container for sawdust.

So it looks like today will be an inside day. Time to catch up on little projects I need to finish. Maybe even spend some time with the kitties, and practice carving on that spoon blank that came with the carving kit. :-)

And mabye playing a bit of Civ VI. I used to play Civ II, years ago, but didn’t like the newer ones. Loved Alpha Centauri. Then I moved on to Age of Empires, and others in the series. I stopped playing completely for a while, because the games user interfaces changed so much, I couldn’t figure out how to to the most basic things. The tutorials were no help at all. Civ VI became available for free recently, and I am finding it has become user friendly again, and actually fun to play. Perfect for a rainy day.

Well. Until it starts storming, and we shut all the electronics down! :-D

The Re-Farmer