I spotted a mystery while checking the trail cams today!
Watch closely, behind the deer.
We have a mystery critter!
It’s too big to be a squirrel, and squirrels are not out at night, anyhow. It seems too small to be a raccoon or a skunk. Those are large enough that they would be identifiable, even with the infrared flash.
About the only thing we are pretty sure of is, it’s likely a rodent of some kind. :-D
Any guesses?
The Re-Farmer
Since I neglected to get any kitten pictures to share yesterday, I’m making up for it today!
Here are some furry smiles for you to enjoy. :-)
In the end, I needed to be rescued by my daughter, who was able to de-kitten me, so I could leave!
Kitten therapy was exactly what I needed. :-)
We got our monthly shop in the city done. After last month, I was quite dreading it. We didn’t know what restrictions were still in place, or how things would be, and I certainly didn’t want to put up with snarly customers again, so we ended up skipping Costco entirely.
It does mean we couldn’t get some of the stuff we normally do, nor as much of some things. We did, however, manage to get pretty much everything on my list. Except printer ink. There wasn’t any of the type I needed, in stock. :-/ At this point, I think I’m just going to order it online. I need it to make posters of the kittens to try and adopt them.
Only one of my daughters came along, since as far as I know, Costco is still allowing only 2 people per membership, and when we left that was still part of the plan. We were well on the way to the city when I suggested to skip it and try going to Superstore, instead.
After hitting a drive through, then having breakfast sitting in the van in a parking lot, we started at the Walmart. We don’t buy anything that needs to be kept cold or frozen there, so our purchases and stay in the van without concern.
Much to our surprise and appreciation, there was no line up outside at all. There was a very short one when we left, but that was it.
We got most of the cat supplies there; we’d have had to use two carts, if we’d got all that we needed. This time, we also picked up a case of the type of cat food Beep Beep and the kittens like so much.
We had no issues finding paper products, and if we’d needed any, we could have picked up all the disinfectant cleaners we wanted. :-D I was even able to pick up some much needed work clothes.
Then I got real wild and crazy, and picked up a new garden hose, and long handled, ratchet pruning sheers. I’m so excited to use the sheers! They are going to go a long way in saving my back!
It’s the little things that make me happy. :-D
Next on the agenda was Superstore. We don’t normally stock up there, and I was rather surprised by how expensive some things have become. Particularly beef. I’ve been spoiled by Costco prices, that’s for sure.
It was very confusing when we checked out, though. After scanning everything, the cashier indicated towards the other belt, telling me to “take that”. There was a bunch of stuff, most of it packaging material, but there was also something in a long, blue fabric case. She told me I could take it, but she had to scan it first. It was free.
The whole thing was so out of context, it took me a while to figure out what she was telling me. It turned out we’d spent enough money to earn a freebie. I couldn’t even tell what it was! My daughter ended up handing the tag end over to the cashier, and could see on the label that it was a folding camp chair.
I’ve never spent that much money at a Superstore before, and had completely forgotten they had giveaways for larger purchases. :-D It turned out to be a rather nice chair, too. It will certainly be put to good use!
Once we finished at the Superstore, we went to an international grocery we really like, for the last few things, then got some Dim Sum for the drive home. That has become a much-looked-forward-to treat, if we can swing it!
While we were pretty exhausted by the end of everything, it was a much better trip than last time. Things are slowly getting back to normal. Some people are still wearing masks. Some were even wearing them properly. Not very many, but some. ;-)
The check out lines at the Walmart and Superstore are still organized with the 2 meter circles on the floors, in one long line, with a staff member telling people which tills were open. I rather hope this stays, because that is working out to be very efficient. I’ve seen some stores that, years ago, had checkouts redesigned specifically to work with one line up for all cash desk. No staff needed to run back and forth to see which tills would open next. It does make things go much more quickly! The smaller grocery store doesn’t really have a layout that would allow for it, but things still went smoothly there, too.
Normally, we would have gone to this particular Walmart, then driven a fair distant to the Costco, then back to the same area the Walmart we like is in, to go to the international grocery store. While there are other branches of these stores closer to the Costco, we find they’re not as good, to the point it’s worth the extra driving. I have to admit, though, it made for a less stressful and tiring day, with all the places we needed to go being all along one major thoroughfare. It probably took about 45 minutes of driving time out of the equation, too.
We might try Costco again, next month, though. We shall see.
For now, we are pretty much stocked up for the month again, and I am glad to have the trip over and done with!
The Re-Farmer
Well, when it came to the mad dash to get the lawn mowing started, it was mosquitoes 0 : rain 1 :-D The bug spray actually worked this time. :-D Thankfully, I didn’t have to charge the battery on the riding mower, and could get started on that right away. I got rained on a bit, but it wasn’t until I was using the push mower to get the edges that the rain started falling heavily enough I had to put the equipment away.
I’m also happy to say that the lawn mower bag we found in the basement and moved to the barn is for this push mower, rather than one of the many broken ones lying about. It’s a rear bag, and normally I would have closed the cover of the side opening, but that wasn’t an option. Someone built a sort of shield of wood that holds the flat up, while also preventing clippings from spraying towards whomever is pushing it, and the shield is bolted to the body of the mower. I don’t mind it being open, since most of the clippings goes into the bag anyhow. I kept the folding wagon close by to empty the bag into, and was able to fill it before I had to stop due to rain. This will make it so much easier to have grass clippings for mulching and composting! :-)
Later in the evening, before I headed outside to do my rounds, I paused to check the indoor plants. Particularly the aloe that has started to bloom.
It had a surprise for me!
Not only has one of the flower spikes reached the ceiling, it’s pressing against it, and looks like it has more growing to do!
Outside, there were more blossoms emerging. The crab apples are starting to bloom.
This is from one of the trees in the West yard.
You can really tell that these ones get more light than the ones planted North of the spruce grove.
Earlier in the month, I had spotted some fungal growth on one of the apple trees by the spruce grove. Now that the leaves are in, I can see that the entire section of that tree is dead. There are still two sections of it growing, and seem to be healthy, so far, so we’ll see how it fares after I remove the dead section. (update: after taking a closer look, the living sections aren’t going that well, after all. :-( )
Of course, I visited the kittens, and got thorough and viciously attacked by little critters!
Big Rig looks even bigger when she’s next to Saffron, who is the teeniest of the bunch.
Now that they’re bigger, and occasionally stay still long enough for me to check, it looks like we’ve got three females and two males. Big Rig, Turmeric and Saffron seem to all be female; it’s a bit surprising, since orange tabbies are usually male. Leyendecker and Nicco both appear to be male. With Leyendecker being black, it’s even harder to tell with him! :-D
If all goes well, tomorrow, I’ll be able to get either the rest of the mowing done, or the rest of the planting done. Maybe even both, weather willing.
I completely forgot about the pumpkin seeds my mother gave me. It’s quite late for direct sowing pumpkins, but I’ll give them a try. Checking the seed trays, some of the gourds are most definitely emerging! After the trays were knocked over, they’re all mixed up, but none of the gourds had sprouted at all yet, so the new ones can’t really be anything else.
I used more of the soil mix for the sunflowers than I expected, so I think I will pick up more, the next time I’m in town. We still need to get those chimney blocks outside, to use as planters for the cucamelon transplants. The plan had been to take them through the new part basement, and up the stronger stairs, but with the kittens down there now, and always under foot, we’ll have to find a way to get them up the more rickety old basement stairs.
Once again, I am thinking of how great it would be to convert the old chimney for the wood burning furnace into a dumbwaiter! :-D
Once the blocks are in place, I plan to fill the bottoms with grass clippings and straw, then top it with a soil mix. With more squash to transplant, I don’t have enough of the soil mix left for it all.
It’s all coming together rather nicely, I think. I look forward to seeing how everything does.
I spoke to my mother today, and was telling her about what we’ve planted and where. Of course, she had to start telling me what I should be planting, none of which is what I am planting. She is currently fixated on onions. I should be planting onions. Also, I should be using the chives (which are coming up nicely) in salads. Also, I need a tiller. Because digging holes for the sunflower seeds is… and she stopped herself before saying it, though I could still here the word “stupid” hanging in the air. :-D I had told her about my wanting to go with no-till methods, and the use of straw, and she told me that she’d never seen anyone do that before. Straw is only for strawberries, not for anything else. It’s rather funny, how she is so convinced that the way she did things is the ONLY way to do things! Nobody else ever did anything different. :-D As for the old garden area, I reminded her of the conversation we’d had about planting trees there, and how we were intending to plant fruit and nut trees. She started telling me I should get hazelnuts from the bush, for free. The problem with that is, I have no memory of where those hazelnuts are. I was little more than a toddler when I went with her to gather nuts. They may not even be there anymore. So many trees and bushes have died, over the years. So she reminded me of one place we know for sure there is a hazelnut bush. The cemetery my father and brother are buried in!
I’m not sure what she expects me to do about that. :-D But hey; at least we are in agreement on the planting of food trees!
All in all, I think it’s been a decently productive day! :-)
The Re-Farmer
First up, here are your smiles for the day!
I wasn’t able to get decent kitten pictures this morning, so here are some from last night.
I picked up some wet cat food, just for Beep Beep and the kittens, and they were in heaven! Leyendecker is an enthusiastic eater, while the others are still figuring out that whole eating and chewing thing. Once he had his fill, he crawled into my arms and began grooming himself, my arm, licking my fingers, rolling around in my arms and generally being the most adorable thing ever!
Nicco, on the other hand, is more into the water bowl than the solid food thing. He also demanded “up” from my daughter, but once he was there, he wasn’t too sure he liked it!
This morning, I was enthusiastically tackled, climbed and squealed at, by the entire bunch! They definitely enjoy people attention. :-)
While doing my rounds this morning, I started to prep a bit for working on the lawn. With the rain we’ve had, and more to come, soon, there is only a small window to get the job done. Unfortunately, it will be while fighting off squadrons of mosquitoes. The last couple of years were so dry, we didn’t really have a lot of mosquitoes. This year, we have more normal moisture levels, which means we also have more normal mosquito numbers.
The area we are in is infamous for mosquitoes. And wood ticks. I recall, when living in a different province, a co-worker of my husband shared a story. They, too, had moved from another province not long before, with the husband moving ahead to start a new job, and his wife following some time later (we’ve had to do that a few times!). She drove through several provinces. After driving through the province we’re back in now, she said the front end of their white car was black and fuzzy, from all the mosquitoes stuck to it! My husband just nodded and said, yeah. That sounds about right!
So my focus for today is going to involve girding my loins, covering myself in insect repellent, and getting as much of the lawn done as I can before getting driven back indoors by either the bugs, or rain! That includes getting the mowers checked over, making use of that mower blade sharpener I got, and likely needing to charge the battery on the riding mower, first.
Wish me luck!
The Re-Farmer
It’s not even noon yet, and my day is already completely out of whack! It’s my own fault, too. :-D
My daughter got her new work schedule, which had 1 whole extra shift on it, beyond another month of 1 shift a week.
It was today.
I diligently added it to my calendar, then completely forgot about it until my husband came to me this morning, saying, “So [our daughter] has a shift today, and it’s just after 8…”
Which meant we had to leave in less than half an hour. It took me about that long, just to shift mental gears. LOL If I’d remembered and set my alarm as I normally do when she has a shift, I would have completely finished my rounds and been at my computer, almost finished checking the trail cam files by then.
No worries. My husband had already fed the outside cats, and topped up the food for the inside cats, except Beep Beep and the babies. He can’t do stairs very well, and we’re still keeping the other cats out until the kittens get a bit bigger.
When visiting Beep Beep and the kittens last night, I noticed they weren’t using the crate under the chair that used to be part of their nest. They are really liking the set up on and under the platform bed frame. So I decided to see what would happen if I put the crate on the frame.
This happened.
I barely put it down when Beep Beep jumped right in!
When I visited them this morning, they were all running around so much, I couldn’t get any good pictures.
So here are some crappy ones. :-D
I’m pretty sure this is Turmeric, teething on the basket I made. When the two orange ones aren’t close to each other, it’s kinda hard to remember which is Turmeric and which is Saffron. :-D
I had not intended that basket to be for the kittens, but they really seem to like it!
There were a couple of noticeable achievements this morning. I had already seen Leyendecker, at least, eating the cat kibble. This morning…
… Nicco was figuring out how to drink water from a bowl.
The major achievement (especially after having to clean up a mess on the foam mats we laid out on the concrete for them) is this…
Yes. I took a picture of a kitten taking a dump. But it was in the litter box, not the floor, so this is a milestone! :-D
Anyhow.
I’ll be needing to head into town again a couple more times. I’ll be meeting my daughter for lunch and taking advantage of that to try and find some self-drilling screws my brother is looking for, to use on that trailer frame we now have wheels on and has been sitting in the barn all winter. Then again to pick up my daughter at the end of her shift. So getting more of the squashes transplanted will wait another day. The ones already planted have grown noticeably, as have the carrots in the new garden plot. That’s encouraging, at least. :-) There are plenty of other tasks to do that can handle interruptions.
I’ll just have to remember to use lots of insect repellent before I do anything outside. Aside from the squadrons of mosquitoes, I’ve been seeing lots of wood ticks already. :-( Ah, well. Such is life in the sticks! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Today has been a lovely, cool day! Perfect to get those sunflowers done.
I had assistants.
When I started filling the holes with the soil mixture, the Potato Beetle decided to sit his butt over one of the next holes! My first thought was that he was taking a dump and I went to push him away. He just flopped onto the ground and looked at me as if to say, “Yes. Rub my belly. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
Then he moved over to the next hole and sat over it, watching me. When I moved to fill that one, he went to the next one and lay down.
With his butt over the hole.
What a weird cat. :-D
Creamsicle was also fascinated by the holes.
I have no idea what he was seeing down there that was so interesting! :-D
The soil mixture in the little pool got quite a lot of rainwater, along with the water I’d already put into it, so it was quite saturated. I was still finding pockets of dry peat, though! Still, this was perfect, as it meant I didn’t have to drag buckets of water over the very rough ground to water the soil mix, first. I could just go straight to planting.
I decided to alternate the two varieties. The row still marked with flags starts and ends with the variety that can grow 10-12 feet high, while the other row starts and ends with the variety that can grow 6-8 feet high. The varieties ended up lining up with each other where the two rows overlap.
And that will be it for today, with it being Sunday. I just did what had to be done, before we got more rain (if we get more rain; we’ll see if the forecasts are right for a change).
Next, for this area, we will be adding a straw mulch, little by little, as well as taking the opportunity to dig up the burdock that’s starting to come up, as well as the self-sown trees that are showing up.
Tomorrow, weather willing, the priority will be to get more of the squash transplants in. Quite a few more are ready, now. And I might even be seeing some of those gourds finally emerging, too!
Putting in a garden this year is really changing what is being worked on outside. The original plan was to spend the first 2 years cleaning up the inner yard, the next year or two working on the outer yard, and moving beyond the outer yard as we could, after that. With my husband ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks last year, and many trips to the city to see specialists, things got more focused. Which worked out, since we ended up focusing on cleaning up where the old wood pile used to be, and finding that wonderful soil we have planted the carrots in. For this year, we will continue to work on cleaning up the spruce grove, but will also have to get things done in the outer yard, and now keep up on the garden beds. Oh, and build that new outhouse as a cordwood practice building, too.
First, the garden needs to be planted.
Then, we can mark out where we want to put the cordwood building and start clearing the space and removing sod. Cleaning up the spruce grove, etc., will continue in between stages of building. I’m hoping I can borrow my brother and his trailer, and visit a salvage yard for materials to use as a floor/base. I’m thinking along the lines of pavers, but who knows what else we might find! :-)
Little by little, it’ll get done!
The Re-Farmer
We’ve got all sorts of things growing right now.
Of course, the kittens are growing into ferocious little ankle biters.
They also love climbing on and clawing the grandpa slippers. :-D
Once outside, I checked the new garden bed and discovered carrots!
Unfortunately, there are also plenty of other things sprouting. At least the thistles are easy to pull out.
These carrots were done using a method found on a YouTube video, where the seeds were sprouted in water first, then put into a cornstarch gel in baggies, to be piped into the ground like icing.
These, along with the parsley, were planted on May 17. It is now the 24th. It took only 1 week for the sprouted seeds to break ground. Direct sown, they could take anywhere from 14 to 21 days.
Not only was the parsley also starting to show, but I think I’m even seeing some of the beets, which were planted 2 days later. I didn’t do anything special with them, other than cover the plots with plastic. Beets can take 7 – 14 days to sprout when direct sown.
It seems things are doing quite well in this location! I was able to remove the plastic on all the little plots. Even the kohl rabi. I just looked those up and they can germinate anywhere from 3 – 10 days.
I’m quite pleased with this!
Yesterday’s downpour has really revived everything! While doing my rounds, I found more blooming trees!
Yesterday, it was plum blossoms. Today, it’s Saskatoons. :-)
Of course, the grass is also growing like mad. Time to break out the lawn mowers! :-)
The Re-Farmer
I’m going to have to try getting outside to work on things much earlier in the day. It’s getting too hot, way to fast!
I’m not sure I’m up to getting out there when it’s cooler at 5 am, though. :-D
Anyhow…
Today, I dismantled the kitty pool and brought it out to be dirty pool. ;-)
This is two bags of garden soil, two bags of compost, and the remainder of our bale of peat; about 1/3. The pool was just enough for all that, plus room to mix in water.
Which Creamsicle found absolutely fascinating.
The peat takes quite a while to absorb the water, so after spending some time mixing, adding more water, mixing, adding more water and mixing again, I decided to let it sit for the peat to fully absorb as much water as it could. Considering the hottest part of the day was still to come, I figured I would continue when it got cooler in the evening.
Which didn’t happen. :-D
I went into town to meet my daughter for lunch, then took advantage of the time to stop at a hardware store to pick up a few things, including a small coping saw and a file to sharpen our other saws that saw so much use in the last couple of years. It was hot and sunny when I went into the store. When I came out a few minutes later, it was still sunny, but the ground was wet. It had just started to rain.
On the way home, I seemed to drive out of the rain, only to drive straight into a massive downpour and thunderstorm! It wasn’t too bad while I was still on the highway, but a little more than a mile away from home on the gravel road, the deluge came down. I had to slow to a crawl and could barely see past the front end of the van! The rain was hitting hard, but… was that hail, too? I couldn’t tell.
It slacked off a little bit by the time I got to our driveway. I still got soaked as I unlocked the gate. I ended up just leaving it open and, after parking in the garage, left the garage door open, too, as I ran for the house with my bags. By the time I reached the house, I was completely soaked!
The storm didn’t last long, but one thing is for sure. That peat mixture is going to be plenty saturated! :-D
Later, I saw someone in our municipality posting pictures on Facebook, showing the lawn furniture in their back yard that had been blown around, and the marble sized hail that had drifted into corners of the building. !!!
By the time I drove back into town to pick up my daughter, it was down to a light rain. Just this one downpour made a huge, visible difference! It’s like every growing thing just perked up. For all that we still had standing water in ditches and ponds, we still needed that rain!
We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow afternoon, too, but if I can get to it early enough, I should be able to get the soil mix into the holes we dug, and the sunflowers planted, first.
Meanwhile, we have been making a point of visiting the kittens and Beep Beep as often as we can throughout the day. It was my turn to do the litter tonight, so I spent some extra time with them in the process.
Here we have Leyendecker, sampling the cat kibble in the container he’d knocked over, while Beep Beep is eating the kitten kibble. :-D
They seem to quite like all the run around space, even if they do tend to stay close to the bed frame/platform, and their little nest underneath!
I had some interlocking foam squares, like the kind sold as yoga mats or children’s rooms, that I used for blocking crocheted projects. I decided to give them to the kittens. The girls were kind enough to set them up on the concrete in front of the bed frame.
Because I’m a suck. That’s why.
Thankfully, for all the rain we had, the fan is still keeping the floor in the corner nice and dry.
It’s so nice and cool down there!
The Re-Farmer
I checked on the kitties this morning, of course, as part of my a.m. routine.
Of all the possible nests they could have chosen, they went back to their original nesting box, now shoved under the platform bed frame. The frame itself has something under it, so it’s not directly on the concrete, and there are several boxes with soft, comfy things to lie on, on top of it. But noooo… They go for this crowded space, instead! Even Beep Beep squeezes her way into it!
I was pleased to find that the fan did its job. There is only a tiny bit of wet in the very corner left.
Also, we have our first trees blooming! The plum trees. This variety of plums are very small and more pit than flesh, so not particularly good to eat, but if we get a lot of them this year, we can use them to make some sort of condiment, or even a wine, if we wanted to go that route. We shall see.
It’s turning out to be a lovely day to get some work done outside, though already very hot. As I write this, 23C/73F, with a “real feel” of 25C/77F. We’re supposed to hit 27C/80F, and feeling like 30C/86F for a high this afternoon, with a potential thunderstorm this evening. The forecasts are constantly changing, though, so it’s hard to say. Either way, I’ll be heading outside as soon as I can, to continue working on the sunflower plantings before it gets too hot out there!
But first…
Breakfast. :-)
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 