We’ve got a much cooler day today – as I write this, it’s coming up on 1pm, and it’s still only 6C/39F, with a high of 13C/55F by about 6pm expected. I took full advantage of the cooler temperatures to get some things done! We’re supposed to start getting rain tomorrow, have more rain, off and on, over the next few days, so the more we can get done out there, the better!
The first job, of course, was to feed the yard cats. I counted 28 in total, I think. Knowing that we have kittens in the junk pile, I now put food out under the shrine, and even on the bench nearby. Which the Blue Jays appreciate… 🫤
Stinky, Hypotenose and Syndol were all pushing each other around, trying to get at pets!
I spotted Broccoli at the food bowls, so I interrupted my usual morning rounds and dashed to the garden shed.
I started taking out as many things as I could think to grab – garden stakes, hoses, netting, etc. I had to get under where the kittens were, so I lifted them all up in the self heating mat and set them on the ground as I worked. Once I got the stuff I thought I would need right away, I returned the tarp and the felted grow bags Broccoli has made her nest in, made sure it was flattened in such a way that no kittens would accidently roll off and get stuck somewhere, then carefully put them, still half snoozing, back in in their soft, fuzzy and warm mat.
By this time, Broccoli had come around the house and was watching me. When I was done and continued my rounds, she followed me around the garden. I’m hoping she will be okay with what I did, and not take her kittens away and hide them. By removing the stuff I did, I’m hoping we won’t need to open the door and disturb her and her babies for a while. I’ll still check on the, of course, but will try to do it only when I know Broccoli isn’t in there with them.
That done, I started doing garden related stuff. While rain may be on the way, we can’t count on it actually reaching us, so I did the watering. It looks like we finally have carrots sprouting, so I’ve moved the protective boards off of them. The German Butterball potatoes got the grass clipping mulch returned. I’m still putting the cover with the plastic on it over them, to keep the cats out. The garlic also got their mulch returned, now that they’re bigger, and watered.
After all the watering was done, I checked on the grapes. The false spirea growing nearby is trying to spread into them again, so I got some pruners to cut them away. Normally, I’d try to pull them up by the roots, but I can’t do that when they are right in with the grape vines.
Then I started clearing other spirea to clear more space around the grapes.
Before I knew it, I’d gone through the entire corner, clearing away dead false spirea, trimmed dead branches and last year’s flower husks, finding and clearing around a perennial flower that gets buried by the bushes every year, and really opening things up and cleaning them out.
The cats are very happy with this! They like to go under there. When they are in full leaf, it’s a shady spot they can hide in, and now it’s nice and clear of dead branches and twigs.
While the false spirea is leafing out, and the grapes are showing leaf buds, other things are further along. The “Mr. Honeyberry” haskap is in full bloom right now. I even saw a bumble bee among the flowers! The “Mrs. Honeyberry”, however, might have some leaves, not no flower buds yet. There’s no way proper cross pollination can happen, which means no berries.
*sigh*
The plum trees are blooming; they always bloom before they get their leaves. Quite a few tulips are showing flower buds, which is pretty awesome. The trees are also getting very green. So nice to see!
I look forward to getting back to work, when I get back from running errands!
Well, it seems we blew away the high that was forecast for today. My app says we are at 31C/88F out there, and it sure feels like it!
We kept an eye on the sunroom to see if Broccoli would find her kittens. They slept peacefully the entire time, so she had no reason to go in there, though she did show up briefly at the kibble house.
In this heat, the cats don’t have much appetite! They sure appreciated having the water bowls refilled with nice, cold well water!
After a few hours, though, I decided to give them a light feeding, making sure to make lots of noise when the kibble hit the metal food trays in the kibble house. The kibble house provides some shade, so those trays were empty, while there was still food out in other, more exposed, spots.
Broccoli did show up, but wouldn’t go to the kibble with us there. She ended up running behind the storage house, instead, and just sitting under a tree. Eventually, she came around the front again. We even brought the carrier with the kittens out, and made sure she could see them.
She behaved indifferent to them.
We left the top open on the carrier and put it in the shade by the kibble and water bowl shelters, then watched from the sunroom. She did eventually go for the tray under the water bowl house and eat for a while. While other cats were curious about the cat carrier and peaked inside, she did not, and eventually left for the back of the house, where the old garden shed is.
We tried moving the carrier into a shady spot there but, again, she ignored it. She then disappeared behind the garden shed, where I know the hole in the wall is, hidden by junk that needs to be hauled away.
In the end, we finally decided to put the kittens back, though we did lay out the self warming mat, first, so they couldn’t roll in between the grow bags and tarp that she had made a nest onto. I’ve got a timer on, and we’ll check them later. If they are still there, but look like they have not been tended to, we’ll probably bring them inside, get some kitten formula and start bottle feeding them. Unfortunately, at this point “good news” would be to find them gone. That would mean she has taken them to a new nest somewhere, and it caring for them. If she’s not there and they’re just peacefully sleeping, that hopefully means she nursed them and left them after they fell asleep.
*sigh*
It was worth a try, I guess. Broccoli is one of the cats that does sometimes let us pet her, while she is eating. We hoped that would make her easier to lure with her babies to where we can fully socialize her and care for her and her babies.
We shall see how it turns out.
In other things, we had ourselves a strange mystery that was solved late last night. A mystery that had us worried about plumbing issues again!
My daughter went into the kitchen, and discovered a large puddle of water on the floor between the sink and the fridge. Our floors are not level, so that is where any spilled liquid pools. We had no idea where it came from, and thought maybe a pot that was soaking in the sink, but was not on the side counter, had been knocked over. My husband was the last person in the kitchen. He had emptied the pot and set it aside so he had room to use the tap, but there had been no water on the floor. This was maybe 20 minutes before my daughter found the puddle.
We cleaned it up with a towel and my daughter checked under the sink, but it was all dry.
Not long after, I went into the kitchen, and there was another puddle. So I cleaned that up, too.
While going to the washing machine with the wet towel, however, I walked past our big bottle of drinking water. It has one of those syphon pumps to get at the water. When we took the old dishwasher out of the kitchen, we set it in front of the counter that is a divider between the kitchen and the dining room, intending to add it to the junk pile. We put shelves under the counter on the dining room side, and the dishwasher covered the one that had storage cubes filled with winter hats, scarves, gloves, etc. The cats were determined to tear the cubes apart and dig into them, and the old dishwasher blocked it almost perfectly. Some more determined cats still managed to claw in behind it, but for the most part, it does the job. This dishwasher it the kind that you attach to a kitchen tap when in use, then unhook and store to the side when not in use, so it has a fake butcher block top. That turned out to be perfect to hold our jug of drinking water.
As I walked past it, I found a big splash of water on the floor, under the spout. It was as if someone – or something – had pushed down on the pump, with nothing under the spout. We try to make it inaccessible, but it’s possible a cat had decided to get onto the counter and then jumped on it? Another mystery!
So I cleaned that mess up, too.
Some time later, I went into the kitchen again, and sure enough, another puddle was forming. This time, however, I could see that the water was leaking out from under the counter. This counter, like the ones on either side of the oven, can be moved – at least it could be moved, if it didn’t have a sink and water pipes running through the bottom, and a drain pipe that goes to one side, before going down to the basement.
I checked the pipes in the basement.
Everything there was dry. If there were a leak in the pipes between the bottom of the cupboards and the floor, there would be water dripping through at the pipes. There was nothing.
So where was the water coming from?
The only way to know for sure would be to look under the floor of the cupboard. The only way we could think of was to cut a hole through the floor of the cupboard, and we sure didn’t want to do that.
I cleaned up the new mess and this time, left a towel on the floor.
With there being a solar storm and the expectation of incredible Northern Lights, I decided to take a couple of hours nap, then get up around 11 or so to go out and see the lights. By the time I got up, my younger daughter had gone to bed, but her sister was just gearing up for a night of working on commissions. She wanted to go out with me to see the Northern Lights, first.
As we were getting ready to go out is when we discovered a cat had gotten onto the dining table and knocked my bowl of pea seeds over. We found as many as we could and those got tucked away. My daughter checked on the wet area in the kitchen floor. The towel I’d left was quite wet, but it kept another puddle from forming.
I was getting a tripod ready at the dining table when I happened to look towards the entry…
… and spotted another big splash of water on the floor.
I told my daughter that I’d already cleaned a similar mess up earlier, and couldn’t figure out how the water was splashing like that.
She asked if it was possible this was where the water in the kitchen was from.
There was nowhere near enough water on the floor for that.
What if we move the dishwasher?
As I was fussing around the water bottle to see, I checked the mat under it. We have it resting on one of those microfiber absorbent dish drying mats.
It was soaking wet!
We moved the dishwasher and, sure enough, there was water under it.
The water jug had a leak. I’m guessing a split in the seam from the mold that formed it, but we couldn’t actually see a hole. I guess once the mat was saturated, it started dripping onto the floor, creating the splash I was finding. Then, because the floors on this old house are so uneven, the water drained under the counter until it pooled in the middle of the kitchen floor.
Which was honestly the best possible reason for the water we were finding! Not a plumbing issue at all.
There was an empty water jug set aside to dry, so my daughter and I emptied the leaking jug into it and cleaned things up.
We also put another towel behind the dishwasher and pushed it back in place. We can’t not have it there, without finding some way to protect the things in the shelve it’s covering. I’m seriously considering getting storage bins for the stuff, then leaving the shelf empty for the cats to climb in!
Once that was all taken care of, my daughter and I finally went out to see the Northern Lights.
We didn’t even try to bring out the old DSLR, and just used my phone, on “pro”, and played around with the settings. To the naked eye, the Northern Lights basically just looked like whitish light to us. My daughter could see hints of pinks and green. The camera, with different ISOs, shutter speed, etc., could pick up the colours we couldn’t see – all sorts of greens and purples and pinks. It was very dramatic! I’m glad we did it. The last time we had a major light show like this, I slept through it.
I’m glad I was out to see them, but it meant for a very short night, since my younger daughter and I were set to be outside early to get work done. It’s coming up on 6pm as I write this, and I’m trying very hard not to fall asleep at my computer! We’ve cooled down to 29C/84F and could that be thunder I’m hearing out my window? Why yes! Yes it is!
Oh, darn. I just checked the weather radar. There are lots of scattered little storms out there, and they are all missing us.
I’m sure hearing some nice, loud, thunder right now, though!
Meanwhile, as I was working on this, my timer went off and my daughter and I went to check on the kittens. They are still in the garden shed, sprawled all over the blanket we left with them. I spotted Broccoli some distance away, loafed on a pile of logs, watching us. So she does seem to know they are there. I’ve reset my timer, and we will check on them again.
The inside cats have been particularly messy and destructive for the past couple of days. The outside cats did some damage, too but, at least with them, it wasn’t on purpose (more on that in another post).
While doing my rounds this morning, I caught this little bugger.
There’s Syndol, using the tiny raised bed’s cover as a hammock again!
I’m actually impressed on how well it’s keeping him suspended above the garlic!
My daughter and I were working in the garden this morning, before it got too hot. The weather apps seem to change the forecast every time I check them, but we’ve had predicted highs ranging from 26C/78F to 29C/84F! We’re already at 22C/72F as I write this, and it’s not even noon, yet. I had to go into the garden shed, where I thought Broccoli might have her babies – the cats can get in through a hole in the wall in the back. Sure enough, I startled her when I opened the door, but I didn’t hear or see any kittens. It wasn’t until I went back again later that I saw them – and they were not actually all that hidden, either!
Broccoli was not around at the time, but we knew that, with our needing to go in and out of the shed, that she would end up moving her babies to who knows where. So we took a big risk. While my daughter kept an eye on the babies, I brought the big cat carrier from the sunroom over. It already had a blanket inside, but I added the self warming mat for the babies.
As we were moving them into the carrier, I could see Broccoli at the corner of the house in the old kitchen garden, watching us. Before we were done, I saw her dashing through the maple grove on the far side of the shed.
The carrier is now set up in the sunroom, and I’ve even more the critter cam so I can see it from my phone. My daughter is also monitoring the house from across the yard. It’s pretty normal for the mamas to leave their babies to sleep while they go hunting or whatever, so it might be hours before Broccoli comes back to the shed to nurse her babies, then figure out where they are. As I write this, the kittens are peacefully sleeping, but when the get hungry, they will start calling for her, so she should find them all right. If we can get her with them in the sunroom, we can close the door. She can stay safe with her babies in there, with her own food, water and litter box, and we should finally be able to socialize her! We’ll be able to give her some wet cat food, which we normally don’t give to the outside cats, which should help. I’ve already sent pictures to the Cat Lady. If all goes well, we’ll be able to finally get Broccoli spayed when the kittens are older, and be able to socialize the kittens as well.
It all hinged on whether or not we can lure her into the sunroom and keep her there!
Her two calicos, we assume, are female. I didn’t even bother to check. As we were moving them, I could see the black and white is a male.
They are so flippin’ adorable.
This does mean we will need to avoid going into the sunroom as much as possible, until we’ve lured her in and closed the door. The sunroom is where we keep a lot of our tools and supplies. Hopefully, it won’t be long before we can close the door with mama in with her babies. After that, we’ll just have to do things like go in only through the old kitchen. Unless we can move her and the babies into the baby jail cage under the plant table, and close her in with them briefly, while we go in and out of the sunroom. Whatever it takes to get her with her babies and not hide them somewhere else!
There are no food bowls in the sun room right now. I checked the critter cam a few times during the night, and would sometimes see a cat wandering around where their platform and cat beds used to be, seeming lost! This morning, there was a whole crowd of them, milling about, waiting for their breakfast. They were all over the baby jail, inside and out, but there are no beds or blankets inside it right now, either.
As I fed them, I counted only 17, though.
With yesterday’s high winds, while checking around the yard, I was surprised to find just a couple of fallen branches, and just one broken tree.
The trunk of a poplar snapped off and will need to be cleared out. There’s also a live spruce tree nearby that has been slowly falling over, but it’s been doing that for years now. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. The only reason it’s not on the ground already it because it’s leaning against another tree. The dead trees around it, however, are all still standing straight!
It looks like we won’t be getting any haskaps again this year. The one “Mr.” haskap is leafing wonderfully, and even showing flower buds. The “Mrs.” haskap that was purchased and planted the same year is barely showing leaf buds. The smaller “Mrs.” haskap that was planted the following year is actually further ahead, but is really small compared to the other two. There’s just 1 year’s difference between them, so it should be much closer in size.
We’ll see how they do this year. I keep saying we need to transplant them to a better location, but every time I talk about it with the girls, they are concerned that moving them would damage them too much. Considering how poorly they are doing now, I don’t see what difference that makes. For the length of time we’ve had them, we should be getting plenty of berries every year by now, but there’s just no possibility of proper cross pollination to happen.
Of course, I checked the bed with the peas, carrots and spinach planted. I think I might, maybe, possibly be seeing a carrot sprout or two, and there are no peas coming up yet, but we’re finally seeing spinach!
The garlic, meanwhile, is seeing an absolute growth spurt, in all the beds they are planted in!
Syndol was following me around this morning, and he is frustrating me to no end! He kept going into the garden beds as I was checking them. I’ll have to put something around the bed with the spinach to keep him out! We can’t put a cover back on it, because of the T posts set up inside, which will have netting set up for the peas to climb, later on. The tiny raised bed that has its own cover is closed at the ends, so cats can’t get inside. Instead, Syndol climbs on top and uses it like a hammock! He’s the only cat I’ve seen that does that, but I’m sure there are others. I have to put another support hoop in the middle, plus a cross piece at the top, because there’s no way we’ll be able to keep the cats from climbing it.
But not today.
Today, the focus is back on the sun room. First, the windows in the plant corner need to be cleaned, then the second light hung back up over where the makeshift table will be set up. After that, we can set up the plant table over the baby jail, and bring the cat beds and blankets back.
Washing those was quite the thing! We split them all into two loads, and both loads had to be washed twice. Actually, I think my daughter washed the second load a third time, during the night. The amount of debris that had to be cleaned out of the washing machine’s tub was rather shocking, too. Some of the bedding needed a lot of mashing and bashing, as the layers inside got all messed up and bunched up. There’s one large cat bed that was donated to use that I’ve just not been able to get flat and even again. I’m serious considering opening up a seam so I can reach inside and break up the filling. The cats hardly even use it, because gets so lumpy after being washed.
So that’s my main goal today. Getting the plant side of the sun room done. Then the tools and storage side can be worked on.
That side, I’m afraid, it probably going to have a lot more messes hidden among the stuff they’ve knocked about. Now that everything’s thawed out, there’s an unfortunate smell, and it has to be coming from somewhere on that side.
At least it’s got a concrete floor that makes it much easier to clean!
Taking a break from manual labour yesterday seems to have done the trick. My right arm is feeling find again. So fine, in fact, it makes me suspicious! 😄
Today, I was thinking to use the amended soil pulled from the bed the potatoes are now in and starting on the chimney block planters along the other section of fence. Once I got outside, however, I remembered that getting the sun room cleaned out and set up for the transplants is a higher priority.
The outside cats are not happy with me!
When we set it up for them for the winter, one side of the room was set up for them, the other side was set up to store our gardening supplies and tools. I did put a sheet of rigid insulation on the top of the counter shelf – the top is metal and would get quite cold on their little toe beans – and left them space to sit on the shelf between the two windows on the storage side.
They, of course, trashed everything. They even managed to knock the sheet of insulation off the counter and get it stuck between the counter and the broken and now single pane window it’s covering. Boxes of screws scattered all over the floor, plant pots and garden supplies knocked out of the shelf opposite the window… just a disaster.
Getting the room cleaned out is something that needs to be done in sections, as we can’t empty everything outside. The only thing that physically can’t be removed is the baby jail that used to be in my room, when we had Decimus and her kittens. We might be able to squeeze it through – I honestly can’t remember if we had to partly dismantle it to get it from my room to the sun room, which would take it through three sets of doors.
Mostly, though, it’s because of the weather. The wind is insane right now, and we’re expecting rain. There is a large system blowing towards us and, from the weather radar, it does look like we’ll actually get some heavier rain, though the worst of it looks like it will miss us.
The first thing to do was get the floor mats out, hose them down and scrub them as best we could. They’re not hanging on the chain link fence. I think they’re heavy enough to not blow away!
Then some of the cat bedding on the floor got moved out before I could detach the heat lamp and remove the platform we made for them. The platform was basically a way to store the screen door we made to fit the old basement doorway, which allows us to have cool air circulating from the basement during the summer, while keeping the cats out. That had a sheet of insulation attached under it, then we had another small piece on top, along with a couple of cat beds, so they weren’t trying to walk on the half inch hardware cloth.
Both the frame and the sheet of insulation got a hose down and a scrubbing!
More cat bedding was removed from out of baby jail. All the food bowls were taken out, as well as the heated water bowl. The extension cord to the cat house was also pulled in and wrapped on its hooked on the wall for storage, as we no longer need to heat the cat house or the other heated water bowl outside.
Bins that were knocked out of the shelf at the window had to be cleared our. Plant clips, tent pegs, trays… all sorts of things they pushed off the shelf, so they could sit at the window, had to be picked up. I’d dragged the folding table we made a while back, over, and a number of things are now stored under it to be protected from any rain.
After finally being able to clear the shelf away from the window, I could move the baby jail, and take the interlocking mats out from under it. Those also got a hose down and a scrubbing on the lawn, just in time for some rain to rinse them off. 😄
Of course, there were cat messes to clean up, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it has been in previous years!
Still, the concrete floor did need some mopping up in a corner. We’re now at a point where we have to let that dry before we can continue.
For now, I’ve put the shelf back at the window, but we’ll need to pull it out again to clean the glass before we finish setting things up. I’ll also take the second shop light that’s in the living room right now and hang it back next to the one that’s in the sun room.
I moved the two trays of plants off the window shelf. The poor tomatoes. It looks like the cats have been walking all over them, to get to the open spot I left for them to sit in, instead of walking in the space next to the trays! We’ve lost a few, for sure, and they’re not doing anywhere near as well as the ones still inside. We had to move them out of the living room, but the overnight temperatures in the sun room were probably still to chilly for them, I think. The gourds, peppers and eggplant seem to be fine, though!
Since the interlocking floor mats are still outside and likely to get rained on again before they can finally dry and be brought in, this is likely as far as we can get for today. Last year, we rigged a table on the sawhorses using an old folding closet door we found in a shed somewhere, and we’ll be using that again this year. The saw horses are tall enough that it’ll clear the baby jail, so we’ll be able to leave that under it. Last year, we did allow the cats into the sun room while the plants were there, and they left them alone.
All the cat beds and blankets are currently being washed right now. When the time comes, we’ll set some up inside the baby jail for them. Who knows. We might even have a mama decide to have her kittens in there! Unlikely, but you never know!
After I took this photo, I gave the cats a light feeding, with no food or water bowls in the sun room at all right now. We also brought the mulberry saplings out of the living room and into the sun room. They really need to be in bigger pots, but they also need to be transplanted soon. We need to start hardening them off, and they could probably go into the ground, now. They are supposed to be a zone 3 tolerant variety.
It will be good to get the transplants out of the living room and into the sun room! We’re not starting anywhere near as many seeds indoors as we did last year – we were expecting to have a lot more growing space ready for them! – but it’s still pushing the limit as to what we can fit in the cat free zone inside. Unlike the cats outside, some of the inside cats would quite happily destroy all the seed trays, just for fun!
We definitely made good progress in setting things up on this side.
The other half of the room, however, is not going to be this easy, that’s for sure!
Ah, well. That’s what we get for being such sucks for the cats!
It rained steadily through most of yesterday, and continues today. No downpours, but constant enough that we’re getting quite a bit of standing water in the usual places.
Also, the rain is light enough that the cats don’t mind being out and about in it!
I think I counted 30 or 31 this morning, but they were milling around too quickly. Then something startled them and they exploded in all directions, at which point, I gave up trying! 😄 Sad Face was in the sunroom when I first came out, and I was even able to pet him briefly while he was outside.
I haven’t seen Judgement in a while. Hopefully, he’s just out exploring his territory and will be back soon. I also didn’t see Broccoli. She would be somewhere with her babies. Hopefully, there will still be kibble left when she does finally come to eat!
While doing my rounds, I was joined by Syndol. While petting him, I spotted what looked like blood in a patch of white fur. He let me check, and it looks like he got into a fight and a tuft of fur was pulled out at his neck.
While checking that out, I also found a wood tick, right next to the bald patch!
Syndol was patient about letting me get a grip on it and pulling it out. Not easy, in that long fur!
While going through the maple grove I paused at an old willow that is half dead. Something about it looked… different. I’m not entirely sure what the change was, but it was enough to make me grab hold of it and give it a shake.
I was easily able to pull that dead trunk down with one hand. I honestly don’t know how it stayed up for so long!
This was basically two willow trunks against each other, and the other trunk also has some rot on it. I’m not sure if it’ll keep going for a few more years, of if it will come down, too. It leans quite a bit already. With willow, though, you just never know. The big willow nearby has been slowly dying for years, and it’s center, where it splits off into several trunks, is fully rotted out. Yet, year after year, it keeps going!
I could see more snow crocus flower buds this morning, and the tulips are growing nicely. I’m seeing more garlic coming up, too, which is a bit of a relief. I was starting to think most of them hadn’t survived the winter.
Once again, it’s too wet and muddy to do the outside work I need to do. This afternoon, I’ll be making a trip to the post office. Yes, more packages for my husband to pick up, but also one to return. He had picked up a video card for his desktop computer, in hopes of getting it working again.
He had the tower open to work on it, when a cat came in and knocked it to the floor, and onto his foot. No injury, thankfully, but … well … he now has a big, expensive paperweight.
He is not a happy camper.
The video card is not much use now. I’m not sure he even finished getting it out of the packaging.
*sigh*
As much as we need this rain, it’s really doing a number on the gravel roads. The road running past our driveway isn’t too bad. It gets a bit more maintenance, since it gets a lot more heavy traffic than some of the other side roads. A lot of dump trucks, tractors and heavy equipment use this road to get to the fields to the south of us, including our own that is rented out. I was talking to the guy who delivers our prescriptions, and he was telling me some of the gravel roads he has to take are in really bad shape. Some of them even have grass growing on them! Nothing can really be done about it right now, though. If the roads are too wet and muddy, the graders can’t go down them without causing more damage.
The main gravel road that runs past us, which we take to go to town, is constructed for heavy traffic, and is considerably wider than any of the side roads, but there are still patches of it that break up, every year. It’s actually in worse shape than the section of road that goes past our driveway!
All in all, we’re doing pretty good, while getting some much needed moisture. Which will continue for a couple more days! When I looked previously, we were supposed to get a break over the weekend, then a couple more days rain. Now, that rain is expected to hit us over the weekend, instead. We’ve got some decidedly cool days in the upcoming week, too. [update: the forecast has already changed! Now we’re not supposed to get rain over the weekend again. LOL]
Meanwhile, my brother is coming out tomorrow, to set up my mother’s air conditioner. I’ll get joining him to help out – and enjoy his company. She won’t be needing to use in for a while! Still, it’s good to get that done now.
There is no hurry at all in getting the AC they gave us set up. We’ve got the living room set up for transplants right now, so the outlet is blocked. Once we no longer have seedlings in the living room, we can move the shelves away again, and hook it up. It should be interesting to see how much of a difference it will make in the household, come summertime. When he set it up for us last year, the summer was almost over, so it didn’t get much use before being set aside for the winter. I suspect the living room is going to become a favourite place to hang out this summer! Especially for my husband. I would not be at all surprised if he ends up linking his laptop to the TV to use. His south facing bedroom gets pretty warm in the summer, and he does not tolerate heat well, at all.
We’ll find out in about a month or so!
I’m still wrapping my brain around the idea that we’re in May already. This year is just flying by.
I was a bit later than usual when I came out to feed the yard babies, so there was quite a crowd.
I immediately noticed Broccoli’s back end was looking bedraggled. As she milled about, eating ravenous, I could confirm.
She has had her litter. Possibly just hours before.
She has her “nest” somewhere in the outer yard, so we likely won’t see them until they are old enough to bring them to the kibble houses.
*sigh*
This would be the first litter of the year. Out of the 33, at most, that we see, I have been able to spot possibly 5 in total that look pregnant, including Broccoli, with one tuxedo I think might be female and is probably pregnant, plus the tiny fluff ball that hangs put in the sun room that I think is female, but is from the youngest litter from last year. I’m working on socializing her, but have had little success.
Why are the ladies all the most feral ones?
We are also getting a regular stinky kitty visiting. A very small skunk, too, and only by itself. The cats are completely indifferent to its presence!
On a different note, while doing my rounds this morning, I’m see8ng more snow crocuses blooming… but not very many plants. Hopefully, more will cone up.
Speaking of which, my daughter’s tulip patch has lots coming up, including a surprise. I found some working their way through the mulch I moved aside from the saffron crocuses. I planted them there because the tulips planted nearby didn’t make it. At all. Now, after at least 2 years, there are tulip leaves visible! These should be the Bull’s Eye tulips, with their unique blossoms. Hopefully, they will actually bloom, and we can confirm that.
We had lights rain, off and on, yesterday, and should be getting more, today and tomorrow. The weekend should be clear-ish then a couple more days of rain. Which would be great, if it were more than just a fine mist that just makes surfaces damp. We could really use some good downpours. We are still being affected by the strong El Nino, though, so our area is unlikely to get much.
Today, my main goal is to plant the summer mix melon seeds. I gave them a extra day in their containers. In checking the others last night, I saw my first watermelon seed germinating.
If the seedlings remain as successful as the pre-germination, after transplanting, we will have a massive amount of winter squash and melons this year!
I counted 31 yard cats this morning! Likely because it’s a rather chilly and damp morning – and I was a bit later than usual for bringing food out!
With the chill and that damp, I don’t expect to get much done outside, but I might get some seeds planted into cells this evening. I might wait another day, but when I checked the mixed melon seeds when shutting down the lights last night, I saw a whole bunch of radicles peaking out! None of the other seeds are showing them yet, but almost all the mixed seeds were sprouting. I checked again this morning, and it looks like we’re at not quite 100% germination with the mixed melons, already! This was the packet that had 21 seeds in it. The large celled trays I am trying out this year have 21 cells, so that works out, if they all make it. I don’t want to put them in soil too quickly, though. A bit more time in the warmth and dampness above the heat mat will be good for them.
Speaking of dampness…
While checking the status of the basement, I was able to shift the new blower fans to focus more on the stairs. The space under the stairs is looking pretty dry, as well as most of the concrete floor, but it’s going to take longer on the steps.
We should probably remove that carpet that’s nailed to the stairs. Most likely, it’s scrap carpet salvaged from somewhere that my parents acquired and added during the years we lived out of province. Likely to make them less of a potential slip hazard? Or just because they felt like it. I don’t know. I think, in the near future, we should pick up a gallon of durable paint, get rid of the carpet, and paint the stairs as soon as possible, so there aren’t any exposed holes in the wood. The girls have plans for fixing the basement up a bit, including painting the ceiling – the exposed floor beams and joists – white, to brighten up a really dark area. I’d like to get more of those shop lights that we are using as grow lights. I prefer them to the lights that are already down there and, to be honest, I’m not too keen on replacing the existing wired in fixtures just yet.
But those are plans to slowly work on over time.
I checked the root cellar floor as well, and it’s mostly try, so the box fan remains. The hydrometer I’ve got in there was at 60% humidity still!
We might later need to move the new blower fans to the counter shelves. The pedestal fans are still aimed at them, and there is significant improvement, but there’s a lot of stuff blocking air flow. We’ll probably need to move some things out – and it’s a good excuse to finally drag out the old door from our old van that my brother was able to replace for us, shortly after we moved out here. Yeah, it’s been sitting there all these years, just in case parts were needed. Now that we no longer have the van, there is no reason to leave it there.
Other than the weight and how awkward it would be to get it up the stairs and out the door!
Anyhow.
After I did my rounds this morning, I called my mother. She sounded better, but she told me she was preparing to head out to the clinic. I asked how she was feeling, and yes, the Pepto seemed to really make a difference. We talked a bit about that, and then she went back to talking about going to the clinic today.
Why, if she’s feeling better?
She kept jumping back to my brother telling her that she needed a doctor to say she could move to the nursing home, and I eventually figured out that she believed she could just show up at the clinic, have a doctor say she needed to move to a nursing home, and basically start getting ready to move.
She has gotten really eager to move out of where she is and into the nursing home! Specifically, the one in town, where her sister and my father spent their final time, as well as many old friends and neighbours of hers.
Once I figured out why she still wanted to go to the clinic, I told her it doesn’t work that way! I told my mother she would need to make an appointment, then told her I would call the clinic about it right away, and get back to her.
Which I did, and had a great conversation with what turned out to be an unusually knowledgeable receptionist on the topic. It turns out she also does home care and is quite familiar with the process.
One of the things she told me is that we need to give the doctor a “top 3” of nursing home choices, not just the one my mother wants to live in, and they all have to be in the same region.
My mother’s doctor, however, is on holiday for most of May, so the earlier appointment I could get for my mother was at the end of May. She booked my mother for a longer appointment, since it is for a long term care assessment, and made sure the appropriate forms were attached to the appointment file.
I really like the people in this clinic!
Then I called my mother back with her appointment, and explained things to her, including how this just puts her on a waiting list, so the whole thing can take months, and she might not end up where she wants to be. We talked about other towns with nursing homes, and even the smaller, nearer city, which is in the same region (the bigger city is its own region, by itself). When we’d talked about assisted living previously, she was adamant she never wanted to live there, but now that we’re talking nursing homes, she actually seemed quite okay with the idea of living there. Particularly since it puts her closer to both my brother and sister. It’s roughly half way between us and my brother’s, so our trips to see her would be about the same length of time. My sister would be only maybe 15 minutes away, at most.
But, who knows? We have to get her assessed first, and we now have an appointment to get that ball rolling.
My mother updated, I then updated my siblings. While we can all help out, ultimately, it’s on my brother, as Power of Attorney for my mother, to finalize things on her behalf.
After all that, I was finally able to take a breather, have breakfast and start this post – at lunch time! 😄
I’m glad to have gotten that done, but I’m also glad to NOT be making a trip to the clinic with my mother, nor anywhere else. I don’t even have to go to the pharmacy; my husband’s refills are going to be delivered today.
Between all the phone calls and writing, and the cool, damp weather, what I’d really like to do now is go for a nap. Weather like this always makes me so sleepy!
I counted 28 yard cats this morning, and Driver was really wanting attention, following me the entire time I did my rounds. I even picked him up a couple of times, though he didn’t like it much and quickly jumped back down – then demanded more pets!
Of course, I’ve been checking the garlic beds daily. I spotted what might have been our very first garlic, maybe 2 days ago, in the tiny raised bed. It’s now big enough that I can be sure that it is, indeed, a garlic sprouting. Today, I could finally see more emerging.
This one is in the long, rectangular bed closer to the house. The last garlic cloves were planted all down the middle of it. The first ones in the bed along the retaining wall are starting to show, and I think I even saw one or two in the short part of the wattle weave bed. In the long part of the bed, I’m seeing fresh green leaves from some of the strawberries we started from seed, too.
Of course, I checked on the trays and bins of transplants that spent their first night in the sun room. They are all exactly as I left them; no cats (or racoons, or skunks) have gotten into them. While the outside temperatures dropped to just below freezing, the sun room’s thermometer stayed hovering around 10C/50F. Our living room, where they were moved out from, typically stays around 15C/59F during the day, so while the overnight temperatures may be cooler in the sun room, they’re going to get a lot warmer during the day. I’ll have to remember to turn the ceiling fan on for at least a few hours.
Doing a quick look and video channels I follow while having my breakfast, I enjoyed this new one from MI Gardener, about hardening off transplants.
I’ve been doing it wrong, of course. 😄
Actually, what I’ve been doing is closer to how he describes in the video, mostly because it’s such a pain timing things to bring them in and out. The main problem I have is that the only accessible and level space we have that also allows us to keep the cats out, is right outside the sun room. Which means the transplants are getting that peak period of sunlight in the middle of the day, and are at risk of getting sunburned – something that happened to quite a few tomatoes transplants, last year. We did make use of the old market tent to keep some of them shaded at the hottest part of the day. Ideally, we’d put them on the East side of the house, but it slopes quite a bit on that side. The West side has the old kitchen garden. The North side gets no sun. So that leaves the south side.
This year, though, I might be able to set things up across the yard, so the transplants can be shaded by the willows and white lilacs during peak sunlight hours.
We’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile, I was just informed that a package is in at the post office, so I’m off to get it, before they close for a few hours at lunch time.
You might need to click through to Instagram to see the above video. Some of the boys really fight for attention! Broccoli decided to get in on the action, which was nice. Still not to the point that we’d be able to get her into a carrier and to a vet. I’m trying to think of some way we can isolate her before she has her kittens. She has her nest somewhere in the outer yard, or possible across the road, so we don’t see her kittens until they’re old enough to follow her to solid food. In the past, we’ve used the basement for this, but the set up down there has changed and is going to change some more, so that’s not an option anymore.
I counted at least 21 tulips coming up. Some, I can’t quite be sure if what’s poking through the leaf litter is a tulip plant, or something else.
I can see something has been digging in the leaves, but not into the soil. Skunks will dig for grubs, but there are no divots of soil pulled up, so I’m guessing it’s cats. They can get in and out of the fencing around this patch fairly easily. That’s not much of a problem. We just need to keep the deer out!
As for the day, I forgot something I should have picked up for my husband at the pharmacy yesterday, so I’m going to have to go into town again, after they open at noon. I checked on the remaining pre-germinating Wild Bunch squash seeds, and there are more ready to pot up. Time to get some of the melon seeds pre-germinating, too, and maybe some other winter squash that need the extra time.
The Re-Farmer 