We actually got rain some time this morning! Not a lot, but enough to raised the level in the rain barrel, and for the ground to still be moist when I was doing my rounds.
This morning’s harvest was pretty good.
There are some green and yellow beans on the bottom. The bush beans aren’t producing a lot anymore, but there’s still enough for a meal coming off of them, every couple of days. The tomatoes are mostly Romas, of course, but there is an actual ripe Black Beauty in thee! Plus a green one that broke off when I was looking through the vines. The others are Indigo Blues. There’s just a couple of patty pans, with more ripening, including some yellow patty pans I hand pollinated. With rain collecting in the cups of the flowers, no insects were going to do it, that’s for sure!
Finally, there is a Sweet Chocolate pepper. It looks pretty green in the photo, but it’s just one little patch; the rest is deep, milk chocolate brown.
On a completely different note…
TTT got her last doses of medication last night. That’s going to make feeding the cats in my room so much easier! No more wrestling kittens to keep them away from the bowl of wet cat food while it’s being medicated, or keeping TTT from eating the kitten distraction wet cat food and becoming too full to eat her medicated food.
I’m happy to say that, so far at least, TTT has not left me a big, wet gift at my pillow since yesterday morning. I was awakened during the night by odd noises that I thought might have been her finding somewhere else not-a-litter-box to use, but the kittens were active, so I couldn’t tell what the noise was. I couldn’t see TTT anywhere for quite some time, but eventually she crawled her way out of my closet. I have some boxes stacked in there and the cats sometimes use the top as a very hidden away bed. I now think the noise that woke me was her scrambling up to this prime napping cave.
The puppy pad I put on the new litter box was wet, but I still couldn’t say it was TTT, or a bunch of kittens using it. I thought it might be safe to remove it, though, and expose the litter pellets below.
Eventually, I was able to get back to bed, though it was past 5am by then. When I got up for the day, sure enough, there was a “gift” under my desk for me – on a puppy pad right next to the litter box.
*sigh*
No sign of puddles, though. Anywhere. So maybe she’s at least peeing in a litter box now?
Tomorrow, she goes in to have her staples removed. I’ll see if I can get some advice at the clinic while I’m there. She’s not seeing the vet; just a technician, but I’m sure there will be someone I can talk to.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering what else I can leave on my bed to dissuade any possible puddles!
That white and grey kitten Beep Bop is nursing is not one of hers!
It took a while for me to even see the grey tabby beside her!
The second picture is of a pair of kittens I found in Baby Jail. I’m glad they’re comfortable going in there, because if we ever need to hang onto some kittens until the cat lady can pick them up, it will make things much easier!
Though I suppose we’ll need to buy another litter pan. 😄
The black and white one has been socialized enough that I can usually walk up to it and pet it, and even pick it up for a cuddle.
The white and grey one is among those I’ve never been able to get close to before. Today, however, I was able to reach in, and it stayed. I got hissed at, then my fingers got sniffed. After that, I was able to do ear skritches, and they were accepted! Yay!!! I couldn’t reach very far through the “door”, but it was far enough. 😊
One of the things I got done was to finally clean the eavestroughs on the garage. I was planning to do it after we pick up the small scaffolding we’re looking to buy second hand after next pay period. Far more stable and safe than the ladders we’ve been using. However, I could see all sorts of green leaves growing out of them, and on one side of the garage, it was starting to fall away from the eaves.
So, I got out the step ladder and managed to get it done. On the far side, where the trough was starting to fall away, I actually found worms in there! As for all those green leaves I was seeing, no surprise that it was almost all Chinese elm seeds that had germinated. There was a veritable forest starting in there!
We haven’t cleaned those eavestroughs since we moved here, which is almost 6 years now. I didn’t realized until today, just how long it’s been since they’ve been cleaned. As I was scraping the bottoms of the troughs, I realized the granular material on the bottom was from the original roof shingles. When I was a kid, the garage and the house had the same colour shingles. I used to play up on the house roof, so I remember the mix of grey, with a bit of blue and green, granules quite well. I even found the remains of a package of spare shingles, some of which we could even use on the kibble house roof.
The garage has a metal roof now. I don’t know when it was installed, but I know it was well before the youngest of my brothers passed away, so I’d say it has been around 20 years. Maybe 25.
I’m having a really hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that no one cleaned those eavestroughs out since before the metal roof was put on! My three brothers were all doing what they could to help my parents maintain the place. Surely at least one of them thought to clean the eavestroughs on the garage at least once since the metal roof was done! But there was no mistaking what I was seeing, or how much of it was there.
As for the sagging part of the trough, in one area the wood it’s attached to is so rotten, it can’t hold anything, but that’s not where it was sagging the most. I was able to just hammer things back in again. It was the sheer weight of all the composted material in there that was dragging them down. It should be just fine, now.
Now we just have to make sure we don’t let them sit for another… 20? 25??? … years before cleaning them again!
I got to see a whole bunch of irregulars this morning, and even catch and cuddle one!
Octomom brought her babies over for breakfast, though I only saw four of them. Three are at the tray under the water bowl shelter, with the tuxedo. There’s one that ran out of sight around the corner of the cat house.
I was able to catch and pick up the two black ones at the same time, but one got loose. I was able to hold and cuddle the other one long enough that it started to relax in my arms. When I put it down in the food tray again, it did not run away.
Unfortunately, so many kittens were trying to hide out in the same space under the entry to the cat house that they started to growl, hiss and scare each other. The other black one ended up running off to the spirea in full “I’m gonna make myself big” mode. Which made it’s gait rather … bouncy!
As I headed to the gate to switch out the trail cam memory card, I spotted this “stranger”. It’s very shy, so I had to zoom in quite a bit to get its photo.
This is one of Brussel’s kittens. I’ve seen two of them a couple of times, around the shed with the collapsed roof. Lately, I’ve seen only this one, skulking around the garage. Brussel has never tried to bring her babies to the kibble by the house, and they are among the oldest of the kittens. That they haven’t even come out on their own is pretty unusual, too. I’m hoping they are at least eating the kibble I’m still leaving inside the garage. That was originally for Octomom, but I kept doing it when I realized Brussel’s kittens were in the area.
Oddly, I’ve not been seeing a lot of cats outside lately. At least not all at the same time. When I came out with the food this morning, I counted a dozen, and only 3 of them were adults. More showed up later, but it just seems like there are a lot fewer cats than I would expect. Usually, when I first come out, they are swarming. Especially if I come out later, which I’ve been doing lately. I’ve been waiting until after we’ve given TTT her medications at 9am. Not only were there no cats swarming around, but there was still kibble in the food trays! Not much, but enough that I thought someone else had done the morning feeding, but no one had. Usually, if the cats don’t finish the kibble, the skunks and racoons clean out the trays by morning.
Not that I’m complaining. I would rather not be feeding skunks and racoons!
Oh, and while I was working outside this afternoon, I saw Caramel go by. She looks pregnant. Her kittens aren’t even weaned yet!!!
As for the inside kitties, I’m getting beyond frustrated.
Before going outside, I tried to find a way to discourage TTT from peeing on my bed. I found a huge spot on my bed last night. With the help of a daughter, I soaked up as much as I could with the puppy pads (I’m going through those fast, but they do a great job of soaking up the pee) before covering it with a fresh one, absorbent side down. Then we put fresh sheets on and rotated the mattress, so I wouldn’t be sleeping right on top of the absorbent pad. Then I started the laundry, which my daughters set in the dryer for me during the night.
She always pees in the same area, so this morning I ended up taking a larger skull Halloween decoration I had on a shelf and putting it there. I couldn’t find anything else that looked like it would work.
I came in from working outside just a little while ago, to take a break, upload photos and start writing blog posts. TTT was laying on my bed with a kitten, on their favourite folded up blanket and I pet her for a bit. I found the skull was knocked over because the kittens were playing in it (one kitten can fit in it, with room to spare!), but it was still in the same spot.. I looked around and everything was dry, so I straightened it out and went to my desk. I’d put a puppy pad over the new litter box under my desk, in hopes she would use that, since she crapped on a puppy pad right next to the litter box, instead of in the litter box.. I could see it had been peed on, but that could have been the kittens. I changed it out for a fresh pad. As I started settling down and uploading pictures, I could hear some noise and looked over to see the kittens rolling around in the skull.
TTT was hopping across my bed.
Yup.
There was a new pee spot.
Right next to where the skull was.
At least this time she didn’t get my pillow, but she did get my pajamas.
I didn’t even get my sheets from the drier from last night, yet!
My husband got those for me while I started taking off the sheets and soaking up the pee spot. I do have a mattress cover and, while it is pretty water proof, it’s not 100% waterproof, so I took that off for washing, too. There were already two other spots on the cover with puppy pads on them, and even the older one was still damp. I ended up finishing off a box of “Pet Fresh” carpet powder that I have for under my desk, directly on the mattress. I’m glad I ended up getting two of those, during my last shopping trip! The spots on the mattress aren’t soaking wet, thanks to the cover, but they are slightly damp and stained. I now have my fan going on full power to help get it dry.
It’s getting to the point I’m seriously considering going into the storage shed and finding that bag of mattress pads that belonged to my late father that I remember packing away. If I can lay some of those under my sheets, that would help save my mattress. The problem is, there are a LOT of bags, plus boxes blocking the way, to dig through.
I suppose I can understand why she didn’t go for her usual spot under the desk, since I was sitting at it at the time, but I’m flummoxed as to why she won’t use any of the other litter boxes. They even all had fresh litter in them! She won’t even go near them.
I ended up picking Roma tomatoes yesterday evening (more on that later), so there weren’t that many to pick this morning. Here is today’s morning harvest.
With the beans winding down, I might start picking them every three days, instead of every other day. It’s nice to be able to pick at least a couple of the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes almost every day now.
Our volunteer sunflower has started to bloom, so went to take a picture. Just as I did, a bumble bee landed on it. It ended up under a petal, so I waited until it worked its way out before taking some photos.
It was not until I uploaded the photos that I spotted the tiny little spider!
Yesterday evening, when things cooled down, I got out the riding mower my brother spent so much time and effort to fix for us. For all the rain we’ve been having, most of the grass doesn’t actually need cutting. The south yards needed to be done. One half never got done last time, because of the weather, and the main garden area was also missed. Even then, things weren’t anywhere near as overgrown as it got in the spring.
I got the south yards done but skipped the west and north yards completely. Even the grass between the crab apple trees and the spruce grove didn’t need to be done, though around the trees themselves the growth is taller. I’ll probably do that with the weed trimmer, as well as the really rough section west of the squash patch.
When doing the old main garden area, I was taking it very slow and careful. There are a couple of more level areas where I can put the speed at the second slowest, but for the most part, I was going as slow as the mower can go. I’d done a fair bit of it when I reached a point where I stopped to shift from 2 to 1.
Nothing happened.
The mower simply stopped moving.
Previously, this happened when the drive chain would fall off, but the chain has been replaced. Also, there was no change in the sound that might have suggested there was a problem. It was running fine.
Then it wasn’t.
I’ll have to go back and see if I can get a better look under there. Maybe with my phone camera. My brother had sent me pictures of everything while he was working on it, but apparently I did not save them to my computer. I’ve been going through our old messages to find them and see what things are supposed to look like again, and it turns out we message each other a LOT. The farther back I go, the longer it takes for things to load.
Anyhow, I messaged my daughters for assistance, and got help pushing the mower to the garage. Pushing it isn’t a problem. Pushing it and trying to steer at the same time is rather awkward!
Then I got out the push mower and finished mowing the old garden area. I was also able to mow some areas the riding mower can’t fit into, including around the garden beds a bit. The rest will have to wait for the weed trimmer.
After I finished mowing, I checked on the garden beds and noticed some Romas were starting to fall off the vines, so I ended up picking quite a few of them, after checking on the rest of the beds.
Alas, I found that we have lost one of our two Boston Marrows.
We only had two surviving seed starts to transplant, and only one squash on each of them. I have no idea why the one died like that. The other seems okay, but I ended up putting a piece of broken pottery under it to get it off the mulch, making sure the curve of the pot would drain any water away from the squash.
As for the rest of the garden beds, both the Irish Cobbler and Red Thumb potato plants have completely died back. Time to dig them up and set them out to cure for a few days. We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow, so it’ll have to be under the old market tent. We just have to set them up so that the cats will stay off of them! 😄
As I was finishing up and putting things away around the house, I suddenly saw Adam go running towards the corner where the old basement window is, on high alert. At first I thought she was responding to Cheddar, meowing in my husband’s bedroom window, but then I saw she was laser focused at the stucco wall beside it.
All I could see was what looked like a leaf or something, splattered against the wall, so I went to take a closer look.
What an adorable little frog! I’m curious about how it got there. It was easily over 6′ above the ground when I saw it, and it looks like it was on its way down.
I love frogs. I’m so happy we have so many of them this year. They are good garden friends!
Last off all, I just have to share this adorable photo I got of a couple of the kittens last night.
At first, I thought it was Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, but I don’t see an all pink nose, which is the main difference between them. Which means one of them – the bottom one, I think – is Shadow in the Dark.
Gosh, they are so cute!
They are also very cuddly, and love to sleep on me when I’m in bed. They’re so tiny, sometimes I can’t even tell they’re there, until either they or I move! I love it. :-)
I’ll still be happy when they are adopted out, though! So will Decimus. She spends as little time with them as possible now! I hope to adopt her out, too.
In other things, TTT is still doing very well in her recovery. There is only one major problem with her.
She refuses to use a litter box.
Any of them.
Last night, as I was getting into bed, I found my elbow in a puddle. She’d peed on my pillow again! Thankfully, I have a mattress cover – and those puppy pads do a great job of soaking up the puddle. I still had to leave one over it, absorbent side down, and rotate my mattress, so I wouldn’t be sleeping on it.
Then, at about 5 am, I was awakened by the rustling of puppy pads under my desk. I caught her before she made a mess and put her in a litter box, but she wouldn’t use it. I tried her in a different litter box, in case she didn’t like the covered one, and she still wouldn’t use it. I didn’t dare go back to bed, knowing she would go under my desk as soon as I was asleep, so I shoved the cat carrier under the desk, then went to bed.
This morning, I found she’d left a “gift” under the chair I keep my laundry basket on.
*sigh*
I’ve never had to teach an adult cat to use the litter box before. I mean, Nosencrantz had been bad about making messes elsewhere, but she knew how to use a litter box. She just preferred to go elsewhere, until I eventually blocked off all the spots she would go in. Even the kittens have been trained to use them now. Every cat we brought indoors was able to figure the litter boxes out right away. But not TTT. She just doesn’t seem to know that that’s what they’re there for!
Hmm… We still have that new litter box in the cat cage in the sun room. Cats are going in and out of it at will, but none have used the litter box. I wonder if she’ll use it, if I put it under my desk?
I’ll just have to watch my feet! Which I’m already having to do, with the carrier under there now, so I may as well try it!
I was absolutely sure yesterday was Saturday. Right up until I told the girls I would finish something, then go get the car to load it for a dump run, and my daughter asked, are they even open today?
Well, they’re open on Saturdays.
Not Fridays!
I still had to go to town yesterday and refill a couple of water jugs, then run a couple extra errands since I was out, anyways.
I did the dump run this morning. 😄
I was so absolutely sure yesterday was Saturday, I still feel disoriented!
I got an adorable picture of Decimus last night that I just have to share.
Would you look at that pile of kittens! 😄 They are quite enthusiastic about nursing when she comes in, but she doesn’t let them stay for long. She’s there for food for herself. She knows we feed the cats in my room at different times than the girls do the cats in the rest of the house. She’s the only one allowed to have “extra” by coming in here. 😁
We feed all the cats with wet cat food at the same time we do Two Toes’ medications. We still have to watch closely as TTT gobbles down her little dish of medicated food, because there’s usually at least Nosencrantz and two of the kittens just fighting to get at that little dish while my daughter is measuring out doses.
I also find it funny how Decimus’ one eye just disappears in the black fur!
What’s not funny is getting this picture – after many attempts to get a closer look – this morning. Warning for those who might not want to see a messed up eye. You might want to just scroll right past.
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This is NOT the tuxedo with the gummed up eye we’d been trying to catch but never succeeded. That kitten is older, and everything cleared up on its own. I was sure that one’s eye was lost, but it looks just fine now.
This kitten showed up later, and I never saw it with gummed up eyes. Just really red around one eye. It’s one of those kittens that sees us and runs away immediately, so a glimpse of a red rimmed eye was about all we could get. Today, it happened to be hiding out near the food trays and I was finally able to zoom in to get a shot. This photo is the best look of that eye we’ve been able to get.
We have to somehow catch it and get it to the vet to have the eye removed, but we’ve already had several expensive vet bills in the last few months. It’s going to be a while before we can scrape the funds together for another surgery. Considering how hard it is to get near the kitten, I think we’ll get the time for it.
On a more pleasant note…
These two were watching closely as I was doing my morning rounds!
We still can’t get near that white and grey one, but I’ve been able to sometimes pick up the orange tabby and pet it. Yesterday, it was because the wind was making so much noise while it was eating outside, I was able to walk up behind it and it never heard me coming! He (not confirmed, but statistically more likely, with an orange cat) did hiss a bit and half-heartedly tried to jump out of my hands, but didn’t fight too much, and enjoyed the cuddles at least a little bit! His orange and white sibling – confirmed male – is comfortable enough that I can just walk up to him and pet him now, and he doesn’t run away. They have a fluffy white and grey sibling that I can also sometimes catch and pick up. More often than the all orange one, but not by much!
In other things, I’m happy to say that the new bread machine has been working well, and the girls have been setting it up regularly. It only does one loaf at a time, so they’re trying to build up a supply! 😁
We were all amused by the French labeling on the box. Where English says bread machine, the French says bread robot! The girls, however, have come up with their own name for the machine.
Doughregard.
Ahahahaha!! I love it!
We need to go over recipes and see what ingredients we need to make something other than basic white bread. My daughter has been using a favourite French bread recipe when she bakes, whereas I like to use a basic bread recipe and modify it to include things like oatmeal, flax seed, chia seeds, or whatever else we might have on hand. The machine came with a variety of recipes, but their oatmeal bread, for example, is in their sweet bread section, and includes oat bran, which we don’t normally buy.
Today, we’re looking at a high of 25C/77F. It’s already 23C/73F. The humidity is at 58%, though, so even while doing my rounds earlier, I was just dripping. I was able to finally cut away a branch that broke some time ago, getting stuck on another branch, that has been blocking part of our security camera’s view of the driveway. It took the telescoping pruner at maximum length to reach the broken branch and reach and get almost half of it cut off. The other half will just have to stay there! It had been sitting on the lower branch for so long, that one was growing at a downward bend, so I took about half of that one off, too. I can now see the gate clearly again on my live feed! 😊 Anyhow, even that little bit of work had me sweating in the humidity. When I got back from the dump, I dragged the branches away, and by then it was even worse.
Even last night, it never really cooled down much. I have a box fan in my window, but it makes little difference. The way things are oriented, the fan blows air straight over my bed. The window is high enough, and the bed frame low enough, that I’m not being blasted directly, but even with the fan on its highest setting, I can barely feel the air moving. Once it gets hotter, I flip the fan to blow hot air outside, but my desk is in a corner that feels like it gets no air movement at all. Once the fan it blowing hot air out, that corner with my computer gets much hotter, almost immediately. Enough that I finally went and got the tiny fan we use on our seed starts when they’re in the various greenhouse set ups. It’s a very gentle fan, but it makes a difference.
So I’m not sure what I’ll be able to get done outside today. It might be a good day to get out with the riding mower. I’m loath to terrify all the kitties, but the grass is overdue for a cut. I’ll just have to keep an eye out for fallen branches! The bigger ones are easy enough to spot, but lots of little pieces are coming down, too, and disappearing in the tall grass.
In other things, I got an unfortunate call from my mother. I had taken her to the interim doctor to renew my mother’s prescriptions, only to have her assure my mother that she will take her on as a patient. My mother didn’t say anything, but she’s not happy with having a black doctor. And a woman, no less! She did ask about another doctor whose name is still on the list (along with other doctors that have been gone for years) that saw her once, before we even moved out here, that she likes. He’s white and male, so she would have preferred him, but it turns out he only comes out 3 times a week, and has his primary practise elsewhere. Anyhow, when my mother brought up that she wanted to talk about her knees, the doctored examined her briefly, then wrote her up for x-rays. We’ll come back another time to go over those. Until then, she added T3s to my mother’s prescriptions, to try instead of the usual Tylenol she’s taking now. If those don’t help, the next possibility is steroid injections. At my mother’s age, surgery is not an option.
After taking my mother home, I brought all the paperwork to the pharmacy, and arranged to have the new prescription filled and delivered the next day.
Which was yesterday.
The person who delivered it explained some things to her, then said if she had questions, she talk to the pharmacist. My mom said she would read the papers that came with it.
Which she did.
Which is the problem.
Of course, the law requires that all possible side effects get listed. Now, my mother is terrified and refuses to take it.
Her problems with it, aside from all those possible side effects that she interprets as “will happen” rather than “might happen”, include…
The doctor and I had talked about Tylenol, but the person who delivered it never used the word Tylenol, so it’s not Tylenol. (I explained, that’s what the T in T3stands for)
The person used the word narcotic. It’s a narcotic, which my mom understands only as deadly illegal drugs. I explained that narcotic is just a descriptive word, and that lots of medications are narcotics. My husband is on opioids. Those are much, much stronger than the T3s. I tried to explain that a lot of illegal drugs that are killing people, like fentanyl, are medicines that are being used wrong. But she won’t use them wrong. She will follow the directions.
So she said, if this is Tylenol, there’s stronger Tylenol than what she usually uses at the drugstore. She could take that, instead. I told her, those are narcotic, too, and the whole point is that those are not strong enough for her pain. This is just to try and see if they help with the pain. Then she got angry again, saying she wants something that will heal her, not take the pain away. She doesn’t understand that this is not something that can just be fixed.
Then she wanted to know how I know all this stuff. I told her, I I’ve dealt with it before, before we moved out here. Not for myself, but I know lots of people who have been on them. This stuff is bottom level for prescription pain medication. Not even close to what my husband is on.
My mother didn’t like that I was giving her this information, instead of being all upset like she was, so she started to get angry with me. She wanted me to validate her fears. Then she said maybe she should talk to the pharmacist. I said that was a good idea.
There were a few odd things she tried throwing out at me. For example, she talked about her one knee is “just” sideways. I said, there is no “just” sideways. Knees aren’t’ supposed to do that! So why do both knees hurt the same? I explained that one knee had to work harder to make up for the injured one. Then I reminded her (again) that she was in a car accident, where she hurt her knee. She dismissed that (she doesn’t like to be reminded of an accident was was totally her fault). Instead, she tried to suggest that it was because, when she was a child in Poland, she didn’t have proper shoes, and her feet got so cold! I said, we’re talking about her knees, not her feet. Well, her feet hurt, too!
She has massive bunions and bunionettes on her feet, not to mention arthritis. But no. It’s because she didn’t have good shoes as a child, in pre-WWII Poland.
Then, out of the blue, she started saying, I wonder why [my brother] doesn’t phone me or visit anymore?
I just took her out to visit them on Sunday.
I asked, where did this come from, since we were talking about something else entirely.
She said, she gave my brother $40 to cover the long distance charges.
What she did was hand my brother some cash and say “for long distance”. We though she meant for his previous calls. Nope. Turns out she was paying him to call her. I told her, we had no idea that’s what she gave him the money for.
She’s the one that doesn’t like to call him, because it’s long distance. She also doesn’t understand that he’s incredibly busy. Especially right now, because they’ve got a trip of a lifetime planned for their upcoming 40th anniversary. She wants him tending to her now, before they leave. It’s a massive control thing. She’s mostly giving up trying to control me and what we do at the farm. She’s shifted her attention to my brother, instead, because she “gave” him the farm. Meanwhile, every time she’s talked to him on the phone lately, and she asks him why he doesn’t call more often, he tells her point blank; it’s because he’s tired of her abuse. She usually launches into something within 30 seconds of a call.
I managed to get the conversation back to her new prescription and encouraged her to tall the pharmacist, but for now, she’s refusing to take the painkillers.
*sigh*
As someone who doesn’t like or trust many prescription medications very much myself, it was strange to be defending them to my mother.
When it comes to my mother’s knees, she has had several braces given to her over the years that she has refused to wear. If she had worn those, it would have saved her other knee and kept the bent one from bending so much! Now, she’s even refusing to take painkillers for them. At that point, I was even saying that if she won’t do anything herself for her own knees, she’d better stop talking to the doctor about it, because there’s no point. I didn’t get to finish saying it, through, because she started talking right over me, as if I wasn’t saying anything at all. Also very typical.
Ah, well. We’ll deal with whatever comes of it.
It does get very frustrating, though. She causes so many of her own problems.
We’re getting high winds again today. Last night, I saw there was an expected high of 29C/84F by this evening, but now they’re saying a high of 26C/79F. At the moment, it’s a much more pleasant 18C/64F
Which made doing the morning rounds quite pleasant. Especially since the smoke is gone.
Here is what I picked this morning.
There are green and yellow beans on the bottom. Those seem to be winding down. There’s also an accidental onion that got pulled up while I was weeding!
The Romas are steadily ripening, and I got a few Indigo Blues this morning, too. I did pick some Black Beauties, too. The small one with the green was found on the ground. The others, I picked because they were starting to split.
I ended up picking a couple of Montana Morado corn, but the rest did not seem ready. From how the cobs feel when I check them, we had some pollination issues. We need some serious soil improvements before we can grow good corn in the main garden area again. I should probably pick a Tom Thumb popcorn cob, just to see how they look. They are being left to get completely dry on the stalks, but I’m still curious.
As for yesterday’s harvest that I picked for my mother, the reaction I got was pretty much exactly what I expected. The only thing she seemed happy to see was the garlic. Also, tomatoes should be red. Only red. When I reminded her she had actually asked for some of the others, she told me, “just to see!” Never mind that she told me to give some to her when they were ripe, while she was getting a tour of the garden and looking right at them. Of course, she waxed poetic about all the wonderful produce my sister gives her. When she saw the zucchini, she told me she thought she would be giving me zucchini, because someone had left some in the common area for people to take. While putting things away, I saw the zucchini she was talking about. They were huge, and looked like the hybrid zucchini we were gifted with last year. As for the brown pepper, she just laughed derisively. At least she didn’t have anything bad to say about the potatoes.
Ah, well. I tried.
I guess we’ll just have to keep our harvests to ourselves. 😉
Anyhow.
Where was I? Ah, yes. Morning rounds!
Kittens are, of course, running around all over the place. I got a picture of this teeny tiny unit.
For perspective, that’s a piece of paracord on the ground, next to it. This is one of the two kittens that were in the junk pile. It’s sibling is black with a tiny white patch on its chest.
It’s sibling is also easily twice the size.
This one does not appear to be sick in any way. Not even a little bit of leaky eyes. It’s just really, really tiny.
I’ve been trying to get close to it to touch it, but it won’t let me. All in good time. We’ll be keeping an eye on it.
For now, it’s time to bring the car over to the house and load it up for a trip to the dump. After that, we’ll be grabbing our empty water bottles for refilling.
Oh! I almost forgot! We had our first successful loaf of bread in the new bread machine yesterday. This morning, the girls got it going again. There should be fresh bread, ready to eat, by the time we’ve done our running around. It seems I guessed right; that first time, a cat much have climbed on it and accidentally shut it off. The machine is working just fine. 😊
We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow morning, but I’m not counting on the forecast. The garden needed watering. So, while I had a sprinkler going in the main garden, I took off the diverter on the full rain barrel in preparation to water the south garden beds.
Look what I found hiding under the down spout!
I just love these tree frogs! They’re so adorable!
Between the smoke and the heat, I decided to work on a semi-indoor job today. The inner sun room door is not meant to be exposed to the elements the way it is, when we have both doors wide open as we do for most of the summer. Since we’ve got outdoor paint left over from doing the stump bench and table, I decided to use it on the door.
I’ve got inside and outside shots starting after I’d scrubbed the door down and removed the loose bits of veneer, then after using masking tape on it. I made sure to cover the hinge plated, door knob roses and the latch.
One of the things I noticed as we cleaned and cleared stuff shortly after we moved here is that any doors that got painted, no one taped off anything. Which is almost painful to see, when the antique door knob/skeleton key plates, and even the knobs themselves, were painted over. Unlike the door I’m painting now, which is a modern, hollow core door, these are solid wood doors, too. I’d love to strip the paint off and maybe stain or varnish them, but that’s a project for well into the future!
I got the first coat of paint on, and I figure this is going to need at least three coats. We might end up finishing off the gallon of paint on this! It would have been nice to use the same blue as the outer door, but we use what we’ve got. That outer door isn’t going to last too much longer, anyhow. Like the one it replaced, it’s already starting to come apart in places.
Depending on the weather, I hope to get another coat done tomorrow. I’ll be heading out tomorrow morning on some errands, then the next day I’ll be taking my mother to her medical appointment. My younger daughter is feeling better now – she was actually able to eat! – so maybe she’ll be up to doing a coat or two while I’m gone, and if it doesn’t rain. We shall see. With the first coat on, at least the door won’t be getting any worse while waiting for more coats!
I didn’t head outside to do my morning rounds until after TTT got her morning medications. Somehow, I managed to not look out a window until then, so it was quite a surprise to see how hazy everything was. There’s smoke everywhere. I’ve just checked the live fire maps, and all the fires are well to the north of us. Air quality warnings say the smoke is coming from the territories and northern areas of the prairie provinces. Looking at the live feed on the security camera as I write this, I can see the smoke in the trees of the old hay yard, and my younger brother’s field across the road just sort of disappears.
I didn’t do much of of harvest this morning. I didn’t have a container, so I didn’t try to pick beans. I might come back this afternoon, but will likely leave it to tomorrow.
While pruning the Roma tomatoes, I knocked three off their vines, and found a fourth one already on the ground. I’d put them in my pocket as I found them and kept working and, unfortunately, squished one while bending over! So that went into the old compost pile. There was only one zucchini ready to harvest, and I grabbed the last two of the Sweet Chocolate peppers that had matured the earliest. My daughters had picked the third one a couple of days ago. I can certainly see why they are called “chocolate” peppers!
It feels strange to be half way through August and be harvesting so little. The peas are still having their second production, but there’s only enough that I pick a few pods and eat them while doing my morning rounds. We have yet to have a good year for peas. I think it’s time to harvest the potatoes in the old kitchen garden. They’ve almost completely died back. The purple potatoes in the grow bags are still lush and green, though.
The Roma tomatoes are ripening steadily. I could have picked more, but I want to leave them to ripen on the vines longer. The Indigo Blue and Black Beauties are still rock hard. I suppose I could be harvesting carrots and turnips, but I want to leave most of them to harvest for the winter, not for casual summer eating. With our garden turning out to be so much smaller than planned, there just isn’t much to harvest on a regular basis.
Wow. In the time it took me to write that, I can see on the security camera that the smoke has gotten even denser!
In other things, TTT is doing incredibly well after her surgery. The vet clinic called yesterday to follow up on her, and we made an appointment for her to get her staples removed. This will be just with a tech, not a vet, unless we see some sort of problem that needs to be checked.
We did have a surprise last night.
She actually nursed Tin Whistle for a while! Until now, she’s shown no interest in nursing, nor have the kittens shown an interest in her. Considering that one time, when we let Cheddar in, the kittens tried to find nip on him, I am slightly surprised. They are very close to weaning, though. In fact, Decimus has taken to batting them away when she’s done with them. She comes in just long enough to nurse for a minute or two, and that’s it. She wants out again, and spends almost no time with them at all now!
TTT, on the other hand, it quite okay with them. I’ve seen them grooming each other and now, she actually got nurse. I don’t know that she’s producing milk anymore. While she was rolling around, we could see only two active nips – possibly three. I know I saw her nursing 6 kittens one time. Did she have losses that we never saw? I know her kittens are hanging around the house now, but we’ve got other little ones from other litters, and all the moms nurse all the kittens, so we just can’t tell which kittens belong to which mother!
As for TTT and the inside kittens, so far, there have been no other attempts to nurse, but we’ll see.
There is one major downside with TTT being in my bedroom/office isolation ward.
She hasn’t figured out the litter boxes yet.
With the kittens, I had to put puppy pads under my desk, but it does seem we’ve been able to train them to stop going there. I’m not finding little puddles or tiny turds anymore.
No. Now I’m finding big, adult sized puddles and turds.
At least the puppy pads make it easier to clean up. It’s obviously TTT. Last night, I even caught her peeing on my pillow, and we had to strip the bed and do laundry. I had grabbed her and dropped her into a litter box, but she was so startled, she just ran off. With so many litter boxes to choose from, you’d think she’d figure it out, but nope. She wants the puppy pads! She waits until I’m out of the room, since it means I’m no longer at my desk, so I come back to find the results, and she’s back to napping somewhere. Frustrating!
Another, different sort of frustrating, is in sympathy with my younger daughter. She got sick yesterday evening, and is still stick now. So far, she doesn’t feel bad enough to go to a hospital. She’s trying to think what she might have eaten that could have done it to her, but she didn’t eat anything different than the rest of us, and no one else is sick. During the night, she tried to eat a piece of bread, and that didn’t stay down. She’s so hungry, but doesn’t dare eat. At least she’s feeling a bit better, but that’s not saying much right now.
Hopefully, whatever it is, will pass quickly and completely!
As for me, I’m going to see if I can escape my room, without any kittens escaping, and try and get something useful done today!
I seem to still be in recovery mode today, even after taking yesterday as a day of rest. I tend to forget just how draining it can be after spending time with my mother, even when she’s having one of her better days!
It’s also working out to be a hotter day. We’ve got a high of 26C/79F for today and tomorrow and, depending on what app I’m looking at, we’ll be hitting either 29C/84 or 31C/88F by the end of the week.
I did get at least one thing accomplished – finally! I cut away the web of roots and got the water pipe out from where I’d tried patching it, to the tap.
It took more digging and cutting to find the bottom of the tap and cut it free!
The only thing holding it upright was the web of roots, and that length of conduit pipe.
The short sections of rigid pipe were filled with dirt and roots. A couple of them had to be blasted with water before I could get them off the water pipe.
I did find where water can been coming out, when I did the patches and tested the tap. Quite a split in the pipe!
How the ground pipe was joined to the tap pipe was not what I expected. I thought there might be some sort of threaded connector. The metal pipe is jammed into the water pipe – and it is still very water tight, and very secure! I’ll probably have to cut it off, if I bother to at all.
I would like to use the original tap again. Even parts of the original metal pipe, too, if I can. However, my intended replacement for all this is to use an ordinary, heavy duty garden hose that can be easily removed, as needed. The dirt and roots in the short sections of pipe reinforce my plan to have a long pipe, from house to tap, to protect the hose.
For now, however, I will not remove the rest of the pipe, to the house. There are going to be much larger roots to cut through, plus it runs through a higher traffic area that gets regularly mowed, so I don’t want to dig a trench until I’m ready to put in the new system. I’m very interested in seeing how that hose end that comes out of the ground is attached to the water pipe!
So, for this project I need to get a long enough heavy duty hose, enough pipe, with drainage holes, to fit together and reach from house to tap, angled fittings for the ends that will get a removeable seal around the hose to prevent water, dirt or critters from getting in, and appropriate pipes and fittings to attach the hose to the tap assembly. For the tap itself, I want to build a box for the vertical pipe with the tap mounted on the garden side. I liked the original post’s little roof over the tap and will probably expand on that, to double as a shelf or something. The box will have a door at the back to access the hose and pipes, with room enough to store a few things, like the cord that will be used to pull the hose through the underground pipes, should it ever need to be removed, repaired or replaced.
Once this is installed and complete, I plan to make a vegetable washing station under the tap, using salvaged materials I’ve found around the property.
Hopefully, by the time it’s done, it’ll be good enough to last another 50 years or so.
After I finished up with the tap and hose set up, I headed towards the house and checked out the old kitchen garden. I was finally able to get a photo of one of the developing luffa.
I’ve been able to spot three of these. Hopefully, they have been pollinated and will develop into mature luffa gourds before we get frost. These are so high up, there’s no possibility of hand pollinating!
Before heading back to the house, I had an adorable surprise.
Tiny, familiar kittens.
Octomom had brought them to the house!
I only saw 4 of them, including this one.
They still can’t move very fast, so I was able to catch this one and hold it for a little while. This one is completely black. I saw the other black one, and it appears to have a white patch on its chest. I also saw the brown and the grey tabbies. Where the other 4 are, I could not see. Eventually, Octomom came around for them, but only two followed her across the yard. The rest were still hiding under the storage house.
While I was outside, I started to get some messages from the Cat Lady. She was at the vet with the kittens, and the prognosis is not good. They would have died within the week, she was told. As it is, they have a cat virus (calci), herpes, low glucose, low oxygen, pneumonia, infected ears and sores in their throats. The kittens have been at the vet all day, and the bill is getting high. I feel so bad about this. We were only going to pass on the one kitten, so now it’s double the expense for her, and we have no way to help out.
Priority is going to be spaying and neutering, because a lot of this is exacerbated by the sheer number of kittens.
Oh, wow!! Something just happened while I was writing this!
Two Toes is letting Tin Whistle nurse!
I had been expecting the kittens to at least try to nurse on her, since Decimus leaves the room once she’s done with nursing, and batting them away when they want to nurse more. They had not been trying, though, nor did Two Toes, until just moments ago!
Two Toes is doing really well. She seems quite happy, loves head pets, and gave me kisses today!
Whatever fight she was in that left her with a broken leg, the fur on her face and head is full of scabs that are healing well.
The only down side is poor Snarly Marlee! She does NOT like the kittens. The girls try to bring her into the living room for a while, so she can get a break, while they are there.
Hopefully, it won’t be for much longer. It would be fantastic if we could adopt them all out!
The Re-Farmer 