Critters

It’s done – and we still have an outhouse!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My brother and his wife are amazing. Incredible. Awesome. Especially my brother, who took on a very physical, long and dangerous job that took about 6 hours.

Wow.

As for me, I wasn’t much help this time, even if I had been physically up to doing more. It really was a mostly one person job, but I was still recovering from a very rough night. I over did it yesterday, so my plans to start digging holes to plant the walnuts went out the window. I always take painkillers before bed, just to be able to sleep, but I also made sure to treat my legs and hips with Tei Fu lotion, and got a daughter to do my left arm, shoulder neck and back.

It wasn’t enough.

Aside from the usual stiffening of joints that happens whenever I am sitting or lying down for any length of time, I got hit with a Charlie Horse. I had just gotten up to go to the washroom when it hit. My left thigh went completely out of control. Very painfully so. I had no choice, though; I had to walk on it. I did manage to grab the tube of Tei Fu lotion, though. Thankfully, the way the house it laid out, I had a lot of things I could use to support myself as I made my way to the bathroom. The girls must have heard me struggling, because I soon heard a knock at the as my older daughter asked if I was okay. At that point, I was very carefully massaging the while sitting on the toilet – there are body parts you really don’t want this stuff to come in contact with! I told her what was happening, and she waited at the door for me.

As I was struggling to walk out of the bathroom, my thigh muscles suddenly released. Like some sort of spring giving out. It only lasted a few moments, but those few moments of relief were amazing. Then it was right back to struggling my way back to bed, this time with my daughter helping me along, then helping me get more painkillers – I couldn’t take any more of my prescription ones, so it was just extra strength Tylenol – before helping me get back into bed. She even made sure I have my phone close to hand so that I could message her for help, if I needed to. Thankfully, by then, the cramping had pretty much stopped. My left leg is still feeling weak from it, though, and it’s been almost 20 hours. Short but vicious! The rest of the night was heavily disrupted, but at least no more cramping.

Which meant any plans involving physical exertion today went out the window.

I still found myself getting up early, because the inside cats were getting rambunctious. So they got kicked out of my room so I could feed them, then feed Butterscotch and Freya separately in my room.

I wasn’t the only one who had a rough night. We have discovered another food that makes my daughter sick, but we can’t figure out why, since none of the ingredients are problematic. It’s just stuff chicken breasts. We’ve tried different fillings, and every one of them make her sick. So she was up all night in pain and wasn’t able to finally fall asleep until about the same time I was getting up – and she usually gets up earlier than I do!

Anyhow, I very slowly did my morning routine, which included lots of attention from these guys.

Kohl has forgiven me for the bad haircut!

My morning rounds now includes splitting a can of wet cat food between the extra little food and water bowls I got for the traps and setting them where the kittens can reach them. Even the bitty baby has started to eat, though I think she would much rather be nursing! Brussel has been leaving them more often, even if it’s just to hide on top of the cat cage, under the platform. The white and grey mama still hangs around, but won’t go in if I’m around – and we still have no idea where her third kitten is. Or if it’s even still alive, to be honest. I’m just assuming it is hidden away somewhere, and mama’s dividing her time between her secret next and the sun room.

While putting the transplants into the portable greenhouse – and leaving the door tied open, as it was already getting quite hot in there – I figured I could use the black garbage can heat sink to refill the watering cans.

Well, I now know why the heat sink wasn’t been working much.

There was just a couple of inches of water left in the can.

I don’t know where the leak it, but it’s obviously a very slow leak. I refilled the garbage can, along with the watering cans, then checked it later in the day, and it was still looking full.

Once my rounds outside were done, I managed a breakfast, and that was it. I knew my brother and his wife were planning to come out, but I just couldn’t stay awake. I figured I could lie down for an hour and be good.

Two hours later – just past noon – I finally woke up. I found a message from my SIL, letting me know they were here. I still needed to do a dump run, but made sure to go over to their trailer to say hello. My brother was already bringing tools and supplies to the tree on the outhouse.

I had one bit of a surprise, though. Before heading outside, I decided to test the septic ejector again. (I noticed we have water seeping into the old basement, and the sump pump reservoir is getting full. Time to set the fans and blowers up again, soon!) I turned the pump on manually and it seemed as if the fluid was swirling actively in the filter, as if it was actually draining. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, though, so I shut it off (making sure to set the valve back to the diverter) and went to check the ejector. I figured if it did start draining, it would be wet on the sheet of metal we have to divert the flow towards the low area.

What I found was the cap completely off of the ejector! Did it somehow get blown right off? I was sure my brother had screwed it back on after he’d added the thawing fluid.

Then I found them sitting on the old oil drum he’d set up nearby, so use as a table.

As I was heading back to the house, I saw my brother carrying a ladder from the barn and he came over. He told me he’d poured more of the thawing fluid in – after confirming the stand pipe and venturi pipe were still full of ice – and had left the cap off so the sun could warm it more. The fluid level had dropped from when he’d poured it in, though, which was a surprise. He topped it up again.

After that, he returned to setting up by the tree on the outhouse, while I brought the truck to the yard and loaded it up for a trip to the dump. I also grabbed our empty water jugs, so after going to the dump, I then went to town to refill them and pick up a few groceries, including the ingredients I needed to make a chili.

By the time I got back, they were both at the outhouse, setting up straps and trying things off around the tree. My brother wanted to cut the top of the tree free high enough above the roof that it wouldn’t hit the roof as it feel. It was secured at the top, so it wouldn’t hit the ground, either. He still had lots of set up to do, though.

After unloading the truck, I headed back out in time to see my brother was in the process of using a chainsaw to cut loose the top of the tree. This required cutting wedge shaped chunks out. There were ratchet straps and ropes all over to ensure the tree couldn’t fall onto the house, couldn’t roll to the side, and securing his ladder. Once he reached a certain point, the job was finished by pulling on some ropes to get it to crack the rest of the way, before it was finally free.

We did pause in between things for something else entirely, though. While I was in town, my brother got a carrier message notification. There’s only one person that this message could be from; someone who’s phone number is blocked on my brother’s phone.

Our vandal.

We took a break so my brother could play the message back for me.

Wow. Just… wow.

He had some new ones in this message. Apparently, my brother has broken some sort of dude code by letting us live here and not allowing our vandal to come onto the property. The code! He broke the code!!

He just wants to walk on the property, he said. Because he spilled his blood taking care of the place… Then he went on a rant about me and my daughters. He won’t use our names, even, but just calls us the “fatties”.

He hasn’t seen my daughters in years.

He had plenty more vile things to say about us. Nothing new in that part.

What caught all our attention, though, is his comment about my brother having sold their property. According to our vandal, that makes my brother a millionaire now. ???

The question is, how did our vandal find out about the property sale? The only person that could have told him is my mother – and we know he’s been dropping by her place unannounced a lot more frequently. It now seems like he goes there after every chemo session in the city? Which would explain some of the horrible things my mother said about my brother, the last time I was with her. Our vandal is poisoning her mind, and she’s letting him do it.

He brought up that he was dying of cancer, of course – then said that he was going to beat the cancer, and there would be retribution.

*sigh*

My SIL thought he sounded drunk again. Which wouldn’t surprise me. His mental state seems to be getting worse in general, though.

After that listening to the message, it was back to work. For me, that meant going inside and getting a chili going in the Instant Pot. It’s the first time I’ve used it that way; usually my daughters use the rice cooker function. Once it was set up, I was able to go out and give what little help I could. My brother had cleared away a number of branches, so I dragged those over to the burn pile – which we can’t burn, because of the seasonal fire ban. In the process, I found he’d cut away some of the poplar saplings that had sprung up since I’d last clear the area.

Some nice, straight and flexible lengths. I’d actually been eyeballing them before, and had intended to harvest them to use in wattle weaving.

I set those aside. After I’d cleaned up the rest, and there was nothing I could help my brother with, I pruned off all the twigs, trimmed them, then sat down with a knife to debark them. I noticed some of the poplar we used in the wattle weave bed actually started to grow, so I wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again!

I didn’t finish stripping the bark on off of them, though.

By this time, my brother and his wife had gotten the top of the tree free, and it was hanging from the straps holding it near the top, where it was stuck on another tree that kept it from crushing the outhouse entirely. He had been trimming things and working to lower it down to fall in a certain directly, only for it to slip a bit – and catch the chain saw. It’s just a little battery operated chainsaw, so it stopped running on its own right away.

Getting it free, however, took at least another hour, a stack of old tires with their rims, and a jack-all to lift the weight.

Eventually, though, he got it free.

During this time, they did stop for a meal and hydration, at least, after they had gotten the bottom of the tree down to the ground.

A frustrating thing while doing on this is, we’ve spent the last year + dumping the stove pellet litter behind the outhouse to compost. I chose that location because it was out of the way and mostly out of view behind the outhouse. The tree that the fallen spruce was caught on is basically coming out of the middle of the pile. An older part of the pile, at least, so it was more compacted and starting to decompose, but it still meant my brother had to walk over, set ladders over, and work over, a big pile of sawdust full of cat mess.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after much effort, many trips up and down ladders, and much trying to figure out how to safely get things done – and this really was quite a dangerous job – it finally got done.

The tree is down.

The first photo above is the part of the tree that was handing and took so very long to get safely down. It’s actually the middle of the tree – last weekend, my brother was able to cut the very top off, and it’s still standing on its end, leaning against another dead tree. Basically, it was brought down in roughly thirds.

In the second picture, you can see the bottom of the tree. That section alone probably weighs about 300-350 pounds.

The last picture is what the inside of the trunk looks like. This tree has been dead for many years, so there was time for this rot to start hollowing out the trunk from the base. It took two very wet springs, which standing water flooding the area behind the garage and all around the outhouse, for it to weaken enough to get blown over in the wind.

Of course, now I’m thinking, what can I do with it? There must be something useful that can be done!

The trunk does have a crack running the length of it, though, so that limits things.

My original plan had been to have this tree taken down, leaving a stump tall enough to use to support a table and seats, like some of the stump benches I’ve already made. As we were cleaning up, my SIL and I took a break and found ourselves sitting on the trunk and I realized, having a bend there really would be very handy. I could use the wood to make a rustic bench. I’ve seen some photos of benches made from logs that might actually work. It depends on how bad that crack is, really.

All in good time, though.

I’m just to happy the tree is finally down – and we didn’t have to sacrifice the outhouse! We had intended to repair the roof before this happened, anyhow. Considering I was basically going to remove the moss covered and rotting shingles, then laying plywood down directly over the original roof surface to make a larger roof with more overhang, not a whole lot of my plan needs to be changed.

By the time they were done, it was coming up on 8pm, and they still had lots of packing up to do before heading home.

There are so many things they could have been doing on their weekend, but instead, they spent the last two weekends working on getting that tree down, without destroying the outhouse.

They are just so awesome!!!

I am so glad they are out “landlords”. 🩷🩷🩷

The Re-Farmer

Kitty update and… what heck, WP? This can’t be real!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

First, the cuteness – and something to keep an eye on.

The kitties are definitely enjoying being outside of the cat cage, though only the tiny adopted kitty wasn’t getting out of it very easily. They are often found piled up on or near the self warming mat – and all over each other!

Brussel is often found with grublings sleeping all over her!

In the second photo, you can see she is quite the creche mother, nursing any or all of the babies that want. She does have a permanently angry expression, though!

She is not, however, the only creche more anymore!

The next photo shows the mystery mother. I was able to get the picture through the bathroom window, as she avoids going into the sun room if we are around. Later on, as I was going through the sun room, I spotted her actively nursing several kittens, not just her own! I made a point of getting through the sun room as quickly as possible, so as not to scare her off, so no picture possible.

Not long ago, I noticed that the calico had developed a sore on her leg. It looked a lot like the one Ooofus The Brave had on a back leg, that is now all healed and the fur growing back. Today, however, I had my daughter check a clump of fur on her back leg. As she tried to wash it out, she discovered it was another wound. We weren’t able to do much at the time, but we’ll have to make sure to put some cat-safe antibiotic cream on both wounds, in the morning. If you watched her running around, you wouldn’t know the wounds where there at all. She is not favouring the injured legs at all. When Oofus had his on his back leg, it seemed to me it was the result of over grooming, likely because I’d accidentally dripped some squeeze treat onto him while feeding it to Brussel while he was nursing. It’s possible that same thing has happened to the calico, but it’s hard to know for sure. Hopefully, she will heal up as thoroughly as Oofus has.

On a completely different note, I have a WordPress mystery. It has to be some kind of glitch. I got a “you’re being noticed” increased traffic notification, but when I finally actually checked my stats… honestly, it has to be some kind of error. This is a small blog, with a small but steady flow of traffic – both views and visitors. As of right now, my stats are telling me I’ve had a whole 49 visitors today – and almost 5,300 views! That many views is a good month for this blog, not one day! Over 1,500 of these views are to the Home page/archives link. The next highest is a food related post that is typically at the top, with 40 views.

According to the stats, virtually all of these 5000+ views are from the US, with almost 2000 from Michigan and over 1000 from California. The Michigan views are almost all from Lansing – and almost all these views are from a desktop, not hand held device or laptop, which is also unusual these days. Even then, the devices information is odd. The browser is listed as “other”, and so is the OS.

How on earth did I get such a huge jump in views? It has to be some kind of glitch. It doesn’t even seem like it’s from a traffic inducing bot; I got hit with one of those a couple of days ago, when several dozen “like” notifications came through at a rate of almost 2 per second.

I would not be at all surprised if, a few days from now, my stats get “corrected” to something more usual!

The Re-Farmer

Moving Grublings – and a new tenant???

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was in and out through the sun room a lot today (more on that in another post), which meant many opportunities to check on the kitties.

I ended up having to move the tiny one.

The girls had needed to pull the cat cage further from the wall to access kitties, and now Brussel likes to hang out in that space. The older kittens have no problem getting to her, but Caramel’s tiny baby can barely climb out of the cat bed she spends most of her time in. A few times going by, I saw her crying for mom – or at least some nip! – but Brussel kept behind the cat cage.

So I took the little grubling out. With the wet cat food we’ve been giving them, I’ve sacrificed a larger mixing spoon from the kitchen to be able to put it into the cat cage and not get attacked by Brussel. I ended up using it to hold the kitten to get it to the back of the cat cage, closer to Brussel. It worked well enough – she was able to get the rest of the way on her own!

The last I looked, two of the white and grey foundlings were snuggling in the cat bed. There is still no sign of the third one anywhere.

In the next picture, you can see the calico and her adopted sister snuggled together. The cats had knocked the self warming mat off the platform and I decided to leave it where it fell, and the kittens are making full use of it.

Oofus the Brave had been snuggled with them, too, but when he heard me moving about, he came over to say hello.

There were some issues with the new set up.

There was a skunk stuck in the corner, in the bottom of the shelf there. It couldn’t get out the usual way – behind the cat cage – because Brussel was there. It couldn’t get out in the only other direction, because it was blocked by the door of a cat carrier, and bundles of kittens.

There were two cat carriers stored there. I took one out completely, then move the other one aside, so the skunk could finally get out.

Except, it didn’t.

In fact, it seemed to be comfortably taking a nap in the corner!

The cats don’t seem bothered by it at all, in general.

I really hope it hasn’t decided to move in! We’ve already got one that keeps hiding under the counter shelf instead of leaving the sun room. It does eventually leave, but still…

The skunk wasn’t even there eating the cat kibble. There isn’t any, where it was sitting. It was just hanging out in the corner.

I want the sun room to be a safe place for the yard cats. Not the skunks!!

The Re-Farmer

Grubling update, and a near disaster

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Before I get into today’s stock up shopping post, I wanted to share an update on the grublings. Here are some video clips I took just a little while ago.

In the first video, we have the three kittens that don’t really leave the cat cage. The calico has, and has even figured out how to get out at the bottom, rather than climb out the “doorway”.

In the second video, we have Brussel’s black and white, who insists on climbing up the inside of the cat cage to clamber out the second level height doorway. This, even though he knows there is a kitten sized opening under it. He’s even used it. He just prefers to climb! He not clambers out as soon as we go into the sun room and wanders about. We really need to watch our step!

Oh, and he has a name, now. Oofus The Brave. 😄

The next video is of another brave baby that is constantly leaving the cat cage and wandering around. These two are also very much into eating solid food, which I’m sure is giving Brussel a break!

We haven’t seen the third foundling in a while. I have to assume the mama found a “nest” somewhere, and her baby has stayed with her. The other two seem content to stay with Brussel.

Last of all are Caramels other two little grublings. They seem so small compared to the others!!! I do wish we had a small door into the cat house in that back wall. That way, we could check on the babies, but also reach in to give them wet cat food. Right now, the only way into the cat house is by lifting the roof, and it’s definitely showing its age when we do that!

On another note, we had a near disaster with our transplants yesterday. Our first time using the portable greenhouse, and we almost lost and entire bin of tomato seedlings!

It’s possible the bin was knocked over by a cat – the door was tied open to keep it from getting too hot inside. It was also really windy, and that bin had been tucked into a corner on a top shelf. It’s possible the wind pushed the plastic enough to knock the bin right off.

My daughter helped me gather up the soil and repot the seedlings that had fallen out entirely. Some cups had very little damage. One seedling was completely buried in soil and it took some careful searching by my daughter to spot it. We lost a fair bit of the soil, as there was no way to scoop it all up out of the grass without getting too much debris, but I’ve got that bucket of reconstituted coconut fibre in there, and we were able to use that to top up the cups.

Once these were repotted, everything went back into the old kitchen for the night. Before I headed out this morning, the greenhouse has warmed up enough to move them back in. I even left the doorway partially unzipped so it wouldn’t get too hot. Happily, everything was fine when I got back! It was also warm enough that I opened the door all the way and tied it off. It’s nice enough today that we don’t need to move them back into the old kitchen for quite a while. I still don’t dare leave them in there overnight.

It’s too early to tell with the potted up seedlings, but the squash transplants show significant improvement after just a couple of days in the greenhouse. In the basement, when the true leaves started coming in, they were pale and almost on the yellow side. They needed better light. Looking at them today, there is no sign of yellowing in the leaves, and the plants are even looking more robust and slightly bigger! The luffa were really struggling, and we lost one of the three seedlings. A second one was just not growing, and still had only its seed leaves. Now that they are in the greenhouse, the one that had its first true leaves is showing definite signs of growth, and I think I’m even seeing the beginnings of true leaves showing up in the other one! The melons are going to do a lot better in there, too. Even the chitting potatoes hadn’t been showing any real growth while in the basement, and a few pieces simply shriveled up. Now, they’re starting to show some signs of growth, too. It would have been so much better if we could have put them into the greenhouse earlier! Ah, well. It’s our first time using it, and I’m happy with it so far!

Looking forward to calling an early night tonight, after the transplants are brought back inside. Doing the stock up shopping always wipes me right out. I’m glad I got it done, though. I’ll post about that, soon – after I have the supper my daughter has made for me!

She’s such a sweetie.

The Re-Farmer

Mystery babies! Plus, this and that

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night, my older daughter started hearing kittens outside, meowing loud enough for her to hear them over her headphones. So she went to see what was going on.

She found three mostly white kittens wandering around in the yard, crying. No mother in sight.

So she scooped them up and put them into the cat cage with Brussel.

Brussel was quite okay with the new additions.

What a good mama she is!

The image and video above were taken last night.

They were still there this morning, and my daughters kept an eye on them while I was away.

I admit, when I did my morning rounds, I was on the lookout for bodies. If there were more to the litter and they were outside during last night’s cold, they would not have made it. When I checked the thermometers, it was about -10C/14F inside the greenhouse and the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. Happily, I found nothing.

Brussel’s black and white kitten has been really working at climbing out of the cat cage and, this afternoon, he finally succeeded. One of the new babies discovered the opening under the door. So when I got back, there were two kittens I had to be really careful about not stepping on when I got home!

In the above slideshow, you can see the two most active kittens outside the cat cage. The last image in the series is the possible mother.

As of this evening’s feeding, there are now only two of the white kittens in the cat cage. It looks like Mamma has come for them.

Usually, the mamas bring their babies to the house when they are old enough to be weaned. They bring them here and basically leave them where the food is. This doesn’t typically start until late June, at the earliest, July or August. These babies are definitely NOT old enough to wean, so it’s strange that they should show up like this. The Cat Lady and her rescue have been updated. After last night, things should warm up enough for it to be safe to start trapping and hopefully getting more ladies spayed before we have more kittens!!!

As for me, I am totally exhausted. I went to my mother early, to be there for her doctor’s appointment. The confusion about her puffer was cleared up. She showed me the bottle she was talking about.

It was the spray for dry mouth.

She thought it was an inhaler.

I’m not going to get into all the stuff about her visit; it would just be too much. Suffice to say, this was note on of her good days, and she went off about my brother and how terrible he is, and even admitted that our vandal “was right”; she believes all the lies and slander he has said about my brother. It blows me away that she trusts the person that is the most abusive towards me, while treating the person who has given and sacrificed so much for her like crap.

On the plus side, the home care aid showed up while I was there. She was new to the schedule; it turns out the regular person was away today, so she was the substitute.

My mother recognized her. She provided home care for my late father. She even remembered him and the farm, and had the nicest things to say about him. I told her that, at the time, I was living in another province, but when I phoned my dad, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him and what excellent care he was getting. He was definitely a favourite of all the home care workers.

My mother is very, very different.

After the telephone medical appointment was done, I stayed long enough to get laundry going, then did some grocery shopping for her. She also had stuff to pick up at the pharmacy, which gave me a chance to talk to them about things discussed with the doctor this morning. After I got home, I called home care and left a message about relevant things they needed to know.

Speaking of medical appointments, my husband FINALLY has an appointment at the new pain clinic.

In June.

He doesn’t expect them to be able to do anything at all for him, though. After all these years, he’s gone though all the options and has given up on anyone being able to help him just control the pain, never mind improve.

On a less pleasant note… I hate being right sometimes.

Last night, as I predicted, Marx Carnage was installed as our new Prime Dictator. The media has been priming us for that result from the start. Yes, there were plenty of shenanigans. The election was called before ballots were even counted.

The ballots from the advance polls get counted after the regular polls. There were 7 million votes cast at the advance polls, but the election was called before they were counted. Video has surfaced of people taking the sealed ballot boxes out of their secure locations – one person was even seen rifling inside a ballot box – and taken to someone’s private home. Vote counting is not supposed to stop until it’s done, but they stopped at 9:30pm, after ballot boxes had been unsealed, then starting up again in the morning. Etc.

Then there was this.

This is a ballot from CPC Leader, Pierre Poilievre’s riding. Over 20 years of him serving that riding, there was never a ballot like this before, nor was there another like it anywhere in Canada. That’s 90 names running against him. He lost in his own riding because of it. Most of the people on there are listed as Independents. Most of them apparently didn’t even know their names were on the ballot. To be listed as an independent in this riding, it costs $1000, and only 50 signatures needed, per potential candidate. Now picture that process, 100 times, with 90 making it to the ballot. Somehow, Elections Canada didn’t question this. As the party leader, Poilievre can run in a bi-election elsewhere, but this seriously needs to be investigated. It won’t be, of course.

Dozens of ridings have results with less than 1% between the top two candidates. Normally, that would trigger an automatic recount. I doubt it will.

About the only good news is that the NDP lost so many seats, they lost official party status. Sellout Singh lost his riding and resigned.

The Liberals got a minority, but the Bloc, which is in Quebec only, got enough seats that they can form a de facto coalition with the Libs, just like the NDP did, and they will essentially get the majority government they were after. Another dictatorship.

There are a few things that can happen from here. The Libs already put out a report promising… er… predicting that people are going to be so desperate in a few years, they will be forced to resort to hunting, fishing and foraging on public land (people are already doing that), among other things. They plan to do things like tax the equity on people’s homes, along with their capital gains tax and layers of carbon taxes. They want to ban vehicles with combustion engines, and phase out the energy industry, phase out meat, etc. Basically, Canadians are about to see some very hard times.

I see a few possible options. Some have predicted that things will fall apart so fast, we’ll have another election within the year. I don’t think so. Another possibility is, Alberta will finally separate. Thanks to Quebec threatening to do this for decades, the process is actually easy. A referendum is held with a clear question, and a simple majority wins. So if AB holds a referendum and 50.1% votes in favour of separating, the results must legally be accepted. If they go, SK will soon follow. MB and BC won’t be far behind, though both have NDP premiers right now, so that will stall things.

If AB goes, Canada’s biggest cash cow is gone. Quebec will go bankrupt in no time at all, since they depend almost entirely on equalization payments to pay for their socialist paradise. The Western provinces and probably the territories will combine to form a new republic (this has been in the works for years, and there is already a draft constitution, among other groundwork). Without having the federal government and the Eastern provinces sabotaging everything, this would easily become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Just as Canada could have been already.

Or, the provinces could separate and join the US. Which I think is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but it would still be loads better than continuing under a corrupt Liberal government, and a system designed to favour one part of the country at the expense of another.

Well, we’ll see how it pans out.

For us, it’s doing more of the same; trying to be as self sufficient as possible, grow and produce our own food as much as possible. It’s something we’ve been working towards anyhow. It has just become more urgent to get there.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up, and protective covering

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Okay, we got some useful garden things done!

First up, the transplants.

In the first image, you can see the seedlings that need potting up. They all should be much bigger than this, but it’s just not warm enough, even with using the heater and the heating pad, in the basement.

With concerns about the outside cats potentially knocking the transplants over when we moved them out, I decided to use some storage bins to hold the Red Solo cups I was going to re-use to pot up into. They’ve been stored in the sun room all winter, so they had to get a cleaning of cob webs and whatever other debris managed to get on them. Thankfully, the old basement is where the laundry used to be, so we still have the old laundry sink that I could soak them all in, then scrub the ones with drainage holes in the bottom to transplant into. I also pre-soaked the seed starting mix with hot water, so it still be at least not cold, by the time the cups were filled and the seedlings transplanted.

These bins hold only 9 cups in them, so that basically became my default for the maximum number of transplants to pot up into. Which worked out really well. With the Black Beauty tomatoes, there were only 4 large and strong enough to pot up. With the Chocolate Cherry, there was only 5 to pot up, so they got to share a bin. The Spoon tomatoes and the Sub Arctic Plenty both filled one bin each. The Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and the Turkish Orange eggplant both got one bin each, too, with almost zero “extras” that didn’t get transplanted.

In the second photo, you can see them after they were all potted up, before I topped them with vermiculite. The potted up seedlings are small enough that I could use the lids on the bins, but I had only 2 of them handy at the time. The next photo is after the vermiculite was added. Then I got more lids for the bins from the sun room and my daughter helped me get them out of the basement. Which was actually quite dangerous. We started with me taking them through the old basement and up the stairs to where my daughter was waiting at the door, one bin at a time. She would grab the bin at the door (keeping the cats from dashing downstairs) and take it to the old kitchen, while I went to get the next bin.

The old basement stairs are narrow; each step is about half the width of a typical step. It is also steep than most stairs are, and there is very little space at the door. Which means I could only go to the third step from the top before I ran out of space. Even going sideways and carrying the bin on one arm, I couldn’t reach the door knob, so having my daughter open the door was an essential. Once she had the bin, I could go higher and close the door, but just going up and down these stairs is simply not good. I go down them backwards, like on board ship or using a ladder.

After a few bins, my daughter kicked me out of the basement and we traded places. Apparently, I sounded like I was in a lot of pain. Which I was, but I wasn’t going to say anything, since I know it’s not any better for her!

In the last picture, you can see all the bins and trays now set up on the freezer in the old kitchen. I was so tempted to put them into the portable greenhouse. The thermostat in there was reading more than 40C/104F! Pretty impressive, considering we never got above 4 or 5C today (39 or 41F). And that wind!! Yikes! The problem is that we’d just have to take them back inside after a couple of hours, and I didn’t want to do that today. We’re still forecast to have -6C/21F tonight, though we’re not expected to reach those temperatures until 6am tomorrow, and I know it will drop below freezing inside the greenhouse, even with the heat sink. They will go into the greenhouse tomorrow, after I get back from running around.

Once that was done, I grabbed a late lunch, then headed to the post office to pick up a parcel. On the way back, my cell phone started ringing. I don’t have hands free, so I couldn’t answer it. When I got home, I found a message from the home care coordinator asking about something strange my mother had told the morning home care aid about her puffer, and having already taken it in the hospital.

???

I called back and left a message telling her as much as I knew, then called my mother. I hadn’t gotten through to her this morning about her telephone doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, so I told her about that, first. She wasn’t impressed that it was in the morning, but it’s at about the time she gets her morning meds, so she’ll be up, anyhow – and I intend to be there, too. I then asked her about the puffer. She told me a completely different thing from what the apparently told the home care aid. She also seems confused about the type of puffer they used with her while she was in the hospital, and the original type she was using before then – which she has started using now. She had an unopened refill from before she went to the hospital, and the other type was done, so she started taking it on her own. I have no idea where she had it stashed away. Then I found out she’d already taken it three times today. I told her, she’s only supposed to take it once in the morning, then again before bed. Not several times throughout the day. Plus, we already talked to her doctor about it. This was an experiment to see if it would help with her breathing at night. It didn’t, and she turned out to be developing pulmonary edema, which she no longer has after being in the hospital for a couple of weeks.

Things were still confused, but we agreed we would talk about it when I’m there tomorrow, and she could show me what she had. I then called the home care coordinator back and got her right away. We talked for a while and confirmed my mother told different things to them than what she told me. I then found out they were giving her two puffs in the morning, but not in the evening (with the disc type of puffer, a dose is one puff, while the other puffer, a dose is two puffs, which is why the pharmacist and I decided to fill the prescription for the disc type). So there’s a mix up right there, too. Not that the puffer has been helping her in any way, but a neighbour of hers has asthma, so she decided she needed a puffer, too, and the doctor was willing to test it out with her rather than go through the years it would take to refer her to a specialist and get all the respiratory testing done.

Hopefully, we will get that straightened out tomorrow.

After I was done on the phone, it was time to get out and see what I could do to protect the winter sown raised bed.

I have a cover for the bed, but it needed some maintenance work first, so I brought it closer to the garage, where my tools where. One of the things that needed to be done was secure two sections of the mesh. The jute twine it had been tied together with before had degraded and broken apart. I’d already had to replace the twin in the other join and used paracord for that, so I did the same thing again.

The hoops supporting the mesh are sections of pipe that turned out to be rather too strong. They are held in place with strips of metal strapping, but would get pushed downwards – usually because of a cat jumping on it! So I wanted to get those nice and snug, then screw them into place.

I had helpers.

Syndol and Judgement decided the mesh was a night place to sit!

After the hoops were secured, I brought the cover over to the raised bed, but had to get a daughter to help with the rest, because of the wind. We got the cover on the bed, then opened one of the 8’x12′ plastic I’d picked up to cover it.

It was a lot thinner than I expected. Definitely not 7mm, which is what the guy looking up the information for me said it was. I suspect he didn’t quite understand what I was asking for.

Still, it will work for now.

We made sure to water the bed before putting the cover on (and I had to fix yet another hole dug into it). I noticed there are more sprouts coming up, so getting it covered to protect it from tonight’s cold will be a good thing!

After unfolding the plastic, we rolled and tucked the excess under the frame as best we could, but that wind was still threatening to blow it off. After looking around, I found a couple of sticked I’d joined with twine threaded through sections of a hula hoop to create a support for ground cherries flattened by the wind, a couple of years ago. That did well to drape across the top of the cover. We also found some lighter old boards to set on top as well; you can see the end result in the last photo above. Hopefully, it will be enough, but with how strong the winds are, I’m not entirely sure!

If it does hold out, it will protect the sprouts from tonight’s cold – and I plan to leave it on to also protect the bed from the cats! When it’s less windy, I’ll see if I can find a better way to secure the plastic, too. It’s meant to be temporary, though, so we’ll see. When the plastic is no longer needed, I have to find a way to close up the ends of the cover, so it can still be used to keep the cats out.

Since the coldest time of the night will be around the time I’ll be feeding the outside cats before heading to my mother’s, and then I’ll have to hit our own pharmacy in a different town when I’m done there, I’ll have to get my daughters to keep an eye on things and, when it starts warming up, move the transplants into the portable greenhouse. We’ll probably need to leave the door tied at least partly open so it doesn’t get too hot in there. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 9C/48F, but if it could get as hot as it did in there at our current temperatures, it’ll get even warmer tomorrow. By the weekend, we’re expected to get highs above 20C/68F. Hopefully, before then, we’ll be able to get more progress on the trellis build. We’ll also have our Costco stock up trip in a couple of days.

Things are going to be busy over the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Chilly

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today is definitely working out to be a chilly day. Depending on what app I look at, we are at either 1C, 0C or -1C! (34F, 32F or 30F). We’re supposed to reach a high of 5C/41F by early evening, but that’s also when the high winds are supposed to hit us, too.

Yesterday’s high pain day did lead to a high pain night, and these fluctuating temperatures sure don’t help. Part of the problem is that a lot of my pain actually gets worse after I lie down. Particularly with my hips. Along with my prescription pain killers (which are working even less than the first ones my doctor tried me on), I had to get my husband to slather on the Tei Fu lotion before I could finally fall asleep. With the cool and overcast conditions we have now, I feel like I could crawl back into bed right now and sleep for another week.

*sigh*

While doing my morning rounds, I tried to get a picture of the littles in the cat house.

It’s through a window, zoomed in and cropped, so a pretty terrible picture, but you can at least see the two littles in there, in the cat bed under the ceramic heat bulb.

In the sun room, the little black and white kitten almost managed to climb all the way out of the cat cage! I managed to snag him for cuddles before he did, then distracted him with wet cat food pieces I’d put into their cat bed. Once he figures out he can get out on his own, it’ll be pretty hard to keep them in there! At that point, I’ll unblock the opening under the doorway, so they can get in and out freely. There is currently a stuffy in front of the opening, and the “door” is hanging down over it on the outside. I’ll set something to hold the door panel away from the opening.

With the cooler temperatures, we’ll be staying inside for the most part, but I really want to get the one garden bed with the sprouts covered. When I checked on it this morning, there were fresh signs of digging in it. Not in areas where sprouts are coming up, thankfully, but seeds are spread out pretty evenly in this bed, so any digging at all is potentially killing things off.

My goal for today is now to pot up the peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. I am thinking we may have to start using the portable greenhouse, as even with the lights, the basement set up is just not cutting it anymore. The thermometer in the greenhouse was at just below freezing when I checked it this morning.

In theory, we could put things in the portable greenhouse during the day, then bring them into the sun room overnight. We do have the platform and shelves. The problem is, it’s still set up for the cats to use. We could move things around, but I still think the cats would end up knocking things about, or even walking right over them. They don’t deliberately try to get at the pots. It’s more a matter of them getting from point A to point B, and just going through whatever is in their way at the time. We’ve got to figure something out, though.

But first, we’ve got to get the seedlings transplanted.

In other things, I remembered to book a telephone appointment for my mother with her doctor to go over the blood tests and Xrays results. I was surprised when the receptionist asked if I wanted to book the call for today, but that would have been way too short notice for my mother. So I booked it for tomorrow morning. I then called to let my mother know, but it went to machine. She might have been out voting. Today is election day, and they set a mobile poll up in her building for people like my mom, who can’t get to the regular polling station. We voted at the advance polls, already, just in case something came up today. Of course, we’re already hearing about all sorts of election shenanigans going on. Ballot boxes from the advance polls are supposed to be kept sealed at a secure location. Just this morning, I was watching a video someone took. The guy happened to go shopping at a store next to the polling station and surreptitiously recorded ballot boxes being loaded into personal vehicles. One guy had opened the ballot box and was rifling through it. The guy taking the recording ended up following the vehicle, and the boxes were taken to someone’s home. He even questioned the people doing in, but thinks they figured he might be recording. They claimed they were moving the boxes to a secure location, which was obviously not true.

Meanwhile, in BC, people working in remote locations are told they are not going to be able to vote. For these jobs, people get flown in to work for 2 weeks, then flown out for 1 week off. They come from all over the country to work these very high paying jobs in the energy sector. Normally, they would be bussed to the nearest town to vote on election day. It’s been done this way for many years. Only a couple of days ago, they were told that, because they didn’t live in that town, they wouldn’t be able to vote there.

A lot of people going to advance polls told of polling stations running out of ballots (which should never happen), and being given blank pieces of paper and told to write in the person they wanted to vote for. This morning, I watched an interview with a couple of seniors that had a mobile polling station, like at my mother’s building – but it came on Thursday (the advance polls closed on Monday night). They didn’t have ballots, and the “scrutineers” offered to write in the names of who they wanted to vote for, for them. The women even saw them “help” one of their neighbours vote, and this was someone with cognitive decline that they knew would not have had any idea who she was voting for. Another example of shenanigans was in the riding for Opposition and CPC leader, Pierre Poilievre. The ballots had 90 candidate names running against him! There are only 16 registered parties for the federal election, and most of those do not have enough candidates to be in all ridings. The candidates are listed in alphabetic order by surname, so Poilievre’s’ name would have been in the middle somewhere. All this is on top of the RCMP report that the CCP has been actively working to influence the election results (the guy the Libs installed as the new leader and, by default, the current PM, has borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from the CCP). The Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the Crown, and was chosen by the Liberal party) approved millions of dollars to the Libs not long ago, even though Parliament is shut down for the election, so there was no debate to approve it and no one knows what the money was for. Etc. We’ve got the most corrupt government in Canada’s history, and now what is obviously the most corrupted federal election in our history. The only thing we can do is hope enough people get out and vote, to make it too big to rig. It’s blatantly obvious, in spite of the government paid polls saying otherwise, that the Libs can’t win. If they do, Canada will fall apart; everyone knows it would not be a legitimate win. Alberta has been ready to separate for years. Thanks to Quebec threatening to separate for so many decades, this is one thing that is relatively simple. A referendum is held, and all that’s needed is a simple majority. If AB goes, SK will soon follow. BC and MB would, too, except both currently have NDP leaders, and they are hand in glove with the Libs, so as much as the population would want to, the leadership is unlikely to actually act on behalf of their own citizens. Unlike other parties, there’s no real separation between provincial NDP and federal NDP. Even Ontario is talking referendum. Northern ON is getting very tired of being screwed over by more populous southern regions.

Personally, I am going to ignore the media for the day as much as possible, and not check in until evening. With our first past the post system, the election will be decided by the East well before the polls close in the West. Another frustration. Canada needs something like the US Electoral College. It’s one thing to vote for your local representative. Is should be something else to vote for the PM. Right now, leader of whatever party gets the most elected MPs because leader by default. No one votes for the PM in Canada. We currently have 343 ridings, so what we really have is 343 independent elections, all on the same day. I fully expect that the Conservatives will win by a landslide, but that Marx Carnage will somehow get reinstalled as PM anyhow. Lord knows, the media has been priming us for a Liberal “win” for weeks now. The psychological manipulation and behavioural modification has been out in full force. What gets me is that it’s so blatant, and so few people care. They seem quite happy to be manipulated.

Well, what happens, happens. We’ll figure it out when the time comes.

I’m going to go tend to my seedlings now.

The Re-Farmer

Trellis build progress

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I wasn’t sure how much we could get done on the trellis build today, and it turns out to be just two vertical supports. Which is actually pretty good, all things considering!

Here’s the start.

I selected and de-barked logs for the verticals something like a year ago, and that was about as far as things got for quite some time. Having been sitting out over the bed like that all winter, I went over them and took one out completely, as it cracked too badly to be used. After going through the others, I debated whether I wanted to do four or five verticals, and decided to go ahead and with five. The two largest would go on each corner.

We had debated various ways of setting these up, including digging holes and sinking them, but decided to just attach them directly to the frame of the raised bed. The one last minute decision we made was to set them on scrap bricks, so that the bases wouldn’t be in contact with the soil. We went through the pile of bricks from the old chimney that was removed when the new roof was done and found several chunks that seemed suitable.

The first thing to do was to trim all the bottoms so that they’d be straight. Then, we needed to create flattish, straight-ish surfaces on the sides where they would come in contact with the frame.

With the first corner, the bottom log of the end cap got trimmed a fair bit. With the brick in place, we worked out where we needed to trim the vertical. We still ended up needing to cut extra out near the bottom to fit over that bottom end cap log. Once it was snug enough, we used 3 inch screws to secure it. For now, there’s just two of them. We’ll secure it more, later in the build.

The opposite corner needed a lot more work. We had to cut away more from the frame itself, to create more of a surface to attach to. Then there was cutting away the excess on the vertical. In the end, though, the vertical log was still too thick for our 3″ screws, and we didn’t have anything longer, so we used metal strapping to hold it in place. After using shorter screws to secure the strapping in place, we used a few 3″ screws to tighten it up even more at the gaps.

We weren’t after perfection, by any means. Which is good, because cutting away the excess wood was quite a pain. We mostly used the mini-chainsaw (a Stihl pruning saw) until we drained both batteries, as well as using whatever other tools we had on hand, including a hatchet, a chisel and even the draw knife.

We had “help” while we were working!

Syndol was especially eager to “help” any time I bent over, wanting to jump onto my back! Then, while using the drill or driver, he kept trying to get in on things. My daughter and I had our hands full either of tools or holding the vertical post, and he took full advantage of the fact that we couldn’t really stop him from getting in the way!

In the end, it took us about 2 hours to get just those two verticals up. This is how it looks now.

We reached our high of 16C/61F today, and we were working in full sun, so it got really hot out there.

After this, we’ll measure out where to put the remaining three verticals, with each on top of a piece of brick. They are not as thick, so it shouldn’t take as long. They can only be attached to the top log, though, as the bottom one bows inward quite a bit.

Once those are in place, we will measure and mark the tops and trim them to all the same height. One those are leveled, horizontals will be put across the top. I’m still not decided on whether I want to put the horizontals directly on top, or on what will be the inside of the trellis tunnel, when the matching bed is built. Probably directly on top. Once that’s in place, support pieces at 45° angles will be added.

With the end posts, I am thinking to add angled posts reaching from the opposite corners of the raised bed to the top of the verticals to secure them more.

Eventually, more horizontals will be added – much thinner horizontals – from vertical to vertical, near the bottom. For now, we will probably use plastic trellis netting, but these will eventually be used to create squash tunnels. They will eventually need to hold quite a bit of weight, so more durable material will be used over time. At this point, I just want something up and useable! It will probably be used to support pole beans or peas this year.

We still have a pile of posts meant for verticals as we build more of these beds and, eventually, join them in pairs to create trellis tunnels. Many are completely hidden in the tall grass! We’ll have to dig them out and see how many are still usable. There was more cracking and splitting in these ones than I expected.

I’d gone walking out to the gravel pit and pond beyond the outer yard the other day and one thing I noticed was that there are a lot of nice, straight poplars that we can potentially harvest for projects like this. It’s the “straight” part that’s harder to find. It was good to see that, if some of the logs I’d already cut for posts are too weather damaged, I can replace them fairly easily.

For now, I’m happy with what we got done today. I’m not sure when we’ll be able to work on it next. Tomorrow there is a homesteader’s show near the city that my daughter and I want to go to, and we might be able to do our first stock up shopping trip at the same time. CPP disability is due to come in on a Monday this month, which means it might show up in our account tomorrow, instead, so if I can save a trip by doing both tomorrow, I will! I doubt either my daughter and I would be physically up to working on the trellis for 2 days in a row, anyhow. I’ve already started to stiffen up quite painfully, and I’m sure she is, too. I don’t plan to work on it on Sunday, since I try to keep that my regular day of rest, but Monday is supposed to be much colder and very windy, so Sunday might be my only chance for quite a while.

Working around our physical limitations, plus the weather, can get complicated at times!

I’m going to go take some pain killers now, while I can still move.

The Re-Farmer

Huge progress this morning!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

The last thing I do before doing back into the house after doing my rounds, is give Brussel a squeeze treat. For all that Brussel still hisses and scratches, she has picked up on the routine. While I feed the other cats their dry kibble, she goes into the cat cage and starts nursing her babies, waiting for her wet cat food. I go that after all the other cats are fed and watered, so that the sun room tends to be empty and she doesn’t get disturbed by cats wanting her treat. I do my rounds, giving her time to eat – and her black and white kitten! – then give her a squeeze treat. This usually involves me having to reach into the cat cage while she’s nursing or standing guard over her babies. Lots of growling involved, and she typically finishes her treat by attacking my hand!

Brussel has been out of the cat cage and away from her babies a lot more often as they get bigger. Today, as I was finishing up, she didn’t go back into the cat cage like she usually does. She just hung out in front of the door to outside.

So I went ahead and tried to give her her squeeze treat, anyhow.

She let me, and that right there was a huge step up.

Then I tried to pet her.

She wasn’t too keen on it, but the lure of the squeeze treat was greater than her desire to run away. I was able to keep petting her while she licked at the squeeze treat tube.

Then Stinky started pushing his way in to get some, too. She kept looking at me as if to say, “why aren’t you getting him away from me???” Which I tried to do a bit.

When the treat was done, she didn’t attach my hand, probably because Stinky was in the way. She also let me keep petting her. Not only that, but she allowed me to give her thorough, two handed neck skritches.

She even started to purr!

I was able to pet enough of her to identify where she has mats in her fur. I feared she would be as bad as Kohl was, but thankfully, no. Just a few lumps and bumps in her fur.

After a while, she did finally try to attack my hand again, but by then, I was already moving away. I did try again later, as she was heading towards the cat cage again, but she wasn’t happy with that and ended up sitting out of my reach at the window (third photo of the slide show above).

Her babies need names.

Any suggestions?

I also got to pet the tuxedo hanging out on one of the cat beds on the platform. Today, he was quite cooperative, and even rolled onto his back so I could pet his belly.

I’m about 95% sure he’s one of ours, but he’s so friendly, and he’s not a cat that hung out in the sun room during the winter. We have a whole group of males that have been super friendly, and he hasn’t been part of that crowd. Even now, when I put kibble on the cat house roof, where I usually get a mass of friendly males pushing and shoving for attention, he’s not among them. So I wonder if he’s from somewhere else? One of the neighbouring colonies? A drop off? Either way, he is much more like a pet than a semi-feral cat.

On a side note, watching his behaviour, I find myself wondering if he has vision problems. Something just seems a bit… off, and I can’t quite put my finger on it.

I’ve sent all the above photos and video to the Cat Lady. Hopefully, she can put the word out about them and we’ll get some adoptions happening! That would be awesome.

The Re-Farmer

How things went today – we got her! Mostly

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today was a lovely day out, though we will dropping to freezing temperatures tonight. We’re supposed to get more rain in a couple of hours, but I’ll believe that when I see it.

When I headed out this afternoon, a number of cats came over to say hi, including Kohl. While petting her, I decided we really needed to take a chance and break out the clippers. Not only was the matting on her back really bad, but it was looking like sections were starting to get torn up from scratching.

So we got the clippers out and I held her, while my daughter very carefully denuded Kohl’s back. I think Kohl was noticing a difference and put up with it a lot longer than I expected, and even licked our fingers at times. As soon as we got the big mat off, though, we let her go.

She looks very strange, now!

You can see the patterns of her fur colour in her skin, but some of the white lines that you see are the result of her skin being pulled into folds by the mat. You can see the mat itself in the next two photos. That thing is SOLID!!

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get her again to trim off more mats. There is one on her right front leg that was under my hand as I held her. I could feel the burrs that are caught in her fur there.

Then, since the clippers were out anyhow, we got Ginger. Ginger is a short haired cat, but he’s basically all undercoat. We just can’t seem to brush him enough! He does love to be brushed, at least. Part of the reason I got the mat cutting combs we got before was to get mats out of his and David’s fur. As we trimmed him – he was very cooperative! – we actually did find mats we hadn’t felt while petting or combing him.

He seems to be quite happy with his hair cut! There were some areas we couldn’t get at. With his missing leg, he doesn’t like to be held in certain ways, so there are patches of untrimmed fur that we’re just going to leave. They aren’t in problem areas.

I still haven’t been able to get a good pictures of David with his hair cut. He still hasn’t forgiven me. 😄

Once we were done, I headed back outside and, of course, had to check on the kitties. That little black and white one is so eager for attention! Brussel is leaving them more often, and they’re exploring all over the cat cage. I’m so glad they are safely in there right now! I kinda dread them getting big enough to climb to the second level. Some of the walls here have 2″ square openings instead of 1″ square openings, and they could fit through. If they get to being able to climb to the second levels, they’d be able to climb out the entry, too.

For now, though, they are happy to play in the cat catch, or catch a few Zzzz’s in the sun spot.

I love how the black and white and his adopted sister are so cuddled up in the second image above.

The little one’s siblings are starting to get more active, too.

Such squirmy little grublings!

Aside from tending to kitties, I went around to find and gather some of the supplies I’ll need to work on the garden beds and raised bed covers, then did my usual checks. I was happy to see more snow crocuses blooming.

There still aren’t a lot of them, and they start blooming at the East end of the area they are planted in, then more slowly emerge and bloom Westward. With how the trees and pathways are, the East end gets sunlight and warmth earlier in the season than the West end of the bed.

One of the things I worked on for a bit was gathering and breaking away branches from the fallen willow, in preparation for when we get in there with a chain saw to cut up the trunk and clean things up.

Which may not work out as originally planned.

Willows are truly remarkable. This tree is probably a hundred years old or more, and has been slowly dying since before we moved out here. Yet even a broken off section like this is somehow still able to have fresh growth!

The top of this broken section landed next to another smaller broken and dying willow nearby. At the base of that willow are a whole lot of larger canes that will do quite nicely in wattle weaving!

Thankfully, the bed I want to add wattle weaving to only needs maybe half a foot added to it. While I’m finding all sorts of potential material to use for that, it takes a whole lot to make a decent weaving. I discovered that when making the L shaped bed in the old kitchen garden. I gather long branches to weave in, thinking I had plenty, but kept running out!

That project will wait a little longer, though. I’ve been talking with my daughter about working on the trellis bed, tomorrow. That’s something I’ll need a second person for. Well… I suppose I could get it done on my own, but a second person will definitely make it easier!

Hard to believe we’re coming up on the end of April. Just a few more weeks, and we’ll be planting outside!

The Re-Farmer