Critters

The heat continues, and the FB saga continues

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Not a lot of progress outside, today, and only partly because I went out this afternoon.

It’s past 5:30pm as I write this and, according the the weather apps, we’ve cooled down to around 27C/ 81F or 29C/84F, though we most certainly reached higher than 30C/86F today. The high predicted for today was “only” 27C/81F

When I got home, just a little while ago, I saw this reading.

Since we are no longer bringing the transplants indoors overnight, I’ve been leaving the sun room doors wide open, to keep it cooler. There’s a ceiling fan helping things out, too. The thermometer is reading 38C/100F, and it really did feel cooler in the sun room than outside!

We’ve been feeding the outside cats earlier in the evenings, so they can get the food before the racoons clean everything out at night (though a skunk or two will show up any time of day), so I did that after unloading the car by the house, then parking it in the garage.

I tried to get a picture of Adam, but he was camera shy, so I caught him as he was jumping off the cat shelter roof. (It may be hotter up there, but the skunks can’t climb to it.) I haven’t seen Driver in Ages, but Adam has been hanging around, and I’ve been trying to pet him. I’ve managed to touch him, but he really doesn’t like it and goes away to eat somewhere else.

The problem is, I’m starting to think Adam is female. With the long fur, it’s hard to be certain without being able to cop a feel, which none of us has been able to do, but I would expect to at least be able to tell if there are some boy parts under that fur.

*sigh*

Which means that two of the white and greys we were unsure about turned out to be female, and now the two remaining black and white’s that we thought were male are female (I was able to confirm with Decimous, but she has not allowed me to touch her, since that one day I was able to scritch her neck and ears). One of the grey tabbies we couldn’t get close to also turned out to be female.

We may be getting a lot of humidity with our heat, but still no rain. The predicted storms either never materialize in our area (my mother’s town got quite the deluge, though!), or the predictions get pushed back another day or two. It never really cools down during the night, either. I’m glad I got a deep watering done this morning, including the Korean pine planted in the outer yard. We’re getting no rain at all.

This afternoon I went to town to meet up with a friend from high school who is in the area for a few days. We ended up having lunch in the shade by the beach. It was so much more pleasant with that breeze coming off the lake! There were even a few sail boats out, and one brave soul in the water, which would still be quite cold this time of year. We had a fantastic visit – and I got to update her, in person, about what happened with my stolen Facebook account. My thief has recently changed my profile name, so at least people won’t be getting confused about that anymore. My profile picture also got changed; apparently, I’ve lost 30 years, about 150 pounds and now dress like a skank.

I’m still bashing my head on the wall with Facebook’s recovery process, which is just broken. oftne, literally. Of all the ways to try and recover my account, there is one that should actually accomplish it effectively. The steps are to first find my old account while logged out of any other accounts I might be using. Then, since I can’t log in using the thief’s email address, I select “try another way”. Then there’s a screen where I can say I cannot access the thief’s email address that is now associated with my original account. It then goes to a screen that explains they will ask for an email they can reach me at, send me a code to that email, then get me to submit proof of ID, which would be checked by a human, to recover my account.

The first time I went through this process, I got the code, but when it was time to confirm my ID, it went to a broken page. I’ve gone through processes that took me to that page many times, and it is usually broken.

Only once did I get to input my email, though. Now, when I get to that instructions page and hit next, it takes me straight to the “submit ID” part – which should be the last step, not the first. I’ve submitted my ID before, and the next page says to expect an email from them… but what email would they be using? I’m logged out of any account. I’ve told them I cannot access the email that shows up with the login for my original account. Would they still be contacting the thief’s account, anyway? I have no idea, because none of this seems to go through a human (even though this part is supposed to be done by both a program, and a real human).

So I continue to report my old account every day. I can’t report it as “imitating me” anymore, but I can report it as a fake account. And I know people still on my original friends list continue to report the scam posts the thief is making from my account. It’s rediculous.

It also makes it so hard to reconnect with people. They have every reason to ignore my friend requests (if I can even find them, or am able to send a request when I do) and the messages I try to send, explaining why they are getting a friend request from me. The friend I met with today told me she had been talking to other mutual friends about the strange posts coming from my account, and these are people I’d sent friend requests to. Requests that must have been declined, because when I find their pages again, I no longer have the option to send a friend request. Hopefully, now that my friend and I have been able to talk in person, she’ll be able to pass on to our mutual friends, which account is really me now. I was also able to explain to her exactly what happened that lead to my account being stolen, rather than hacked, because I did something stupid while distracted, and thinking I was helping a friend.

Facebook’s tech support is such a disaster.

I think scammers count on FB being so useless at recovering accounts, and users giving up because of it, rather quickly. From what I’ve hear from others who have lost their accounts, they basically just started new accounts and moved on after a very short time. I’m thinking that, at some point, I’m going to wear the system down and get some action taken – even if it’s to delete my old account, which would be preferable to having my thief using it to scam people! If it weren’t for that, I would have moved on from trying to recover my account, but… well… it’s not like I have a name that is shared by a lot, or even a few, other people. My married name is one of a kind. I’ve done curiosity searches on my name, and the only things that come up are directly related to me. So someone out there doing scams under my name is causing more direct harm to me than if I had a more common name.

What a pain.

Bah. Enough of that!

Time to go back to coping with this sticky, humid heat we’ve been under!

The Re-Farmer

I have the best brother

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And he has the best wife.

It’s coming up on 4pm as I write this. We’ve actually started to cool down slightly. We’re now at 31C/88F, and the “feels like” is down to 34C/93F My daughter was keeping an eye on the temperatures, and she saw us at 32C/90F, and feeling like 38C/100F while we were still working outside.

Before they arrived, I did a bit of cleaning up of dead lilac, as the branches would be in the way as we mowed.

This corner of the storage house is usually hidden by the lilacs. It’s looking quite naked right now! Not a lot survived last year’s flooding, but there is plenty of new growth at the bottom, so it will recover soon enough.

This pile is just the lilac I cut away, none of the other trees trying to grow against the storage house. I did cut a few live branches. One was by accident. Other, much smaller, ones got cut because it was the only way to reach the dead ones they were next to.

When they arrived, I was surprised to see they brought two riding mowers. I didn’t know they even had two riding mowers! One has two blades on it, and that was the one I was expecting to see. It turns out they don’t use the smaller one much, but have it because it fits in between trees the bigger one can’t get through. They also brought a push mower and, as usual, my brother loaded the back of his truck with all sorts of tools and equipment. After many years coming out here, once a week, to help our late father with stuff, my brother learned he could not count on the tools and equipment he needed to still be on the farm. Even then, our vandal was “borrowing” things and not returning them. Of course, now, we’re about one step ahead of the stone ages, so he comes out loaded for bear!

Once the mowers were unloaded, I went to finish using the weed trimmer around the house, then switched to their push mower to do the tighter spaces while they worked on the inner and outer yards. Even their big mower, however, couldn’t do much in the area in front of the barn, where we had no been able to mow at all last year. That layer of thatch hidden under the fresh grass is just too thick. Enough was done, however, to leave me with a generous amount of dry clippings to use as mulch!

They were also able to mow the sides of the driveaway right to the fence lines, and continues the lane past the pump shack, all the way to the warehouse shed. Then my brother even mowed a path past some of the Korean Pine we planted in the outer yard, nearer the fire pit, all the way to the secondary gate.

I kept on using the push mower in the tighter spaces, and almost ran over this surprise.

I haven’t seen a Lady’s Slipper orchid in years! I certainly would never have expected to find one in the maple grove!

Once the push mowing was done, my brother got me to show him which 4 trees I wanted to have cut down, before showing me how to use the smaller riding mower. My SIL and I worked on the old garden area, which is really rough, while he worked on bringing down the trees.

That turned out to be a bigger deal than expected!

First, he brought out his gas powered weed trimmer – yes, he brought one of those, too! – to clear around the base of the dead trees a bit. Then he tried to first use his gas powered chainsaw. It hasn’t been used in a while, but it started.

Then it stopped, and would not start again!

He had a back up, of course. He brought out his battery powered chainsaw. With that, he was able to finish cutting down the first tree, then two more. The battery died while cutting down the 4th one. It was almost all the way through, so he went and got his extended pole chainsaw, which has only a 10 inch blade. It was enough to finish cutting the tree.

It didn’t fall.

The very tip of it was hung up on another dead tree.

By this time, my SIL and I had finished mowing. I had even manged to get a bit more done near the barn, but when even doing just a few inches at a time got to be too much for it and it died, I stopped. The rest is going to have to be done with the push mower.

It would have taken me days to get even half of all this done, without their help!

Of course, we did stop for breaks, hydration and food. Sitting in the shade with a breeze, it was actually quite nice out. The moment the wind stopped, or we stepped into the sun, though, it was like being in an oven!

After one of our breaks, we all went to see what was going on with the stuck tree. My brother ended up using a ladder to tie a rope as high as he could on it, and we tried to pull it loose. No go. We eventually brought out our electric chain saw, and he was able to free it up a bit more, and then we could finally get it moving.

Only for it to get stuck on another tree.

That was it, though. I have enough to start with.

It was while we were dealing with this when I started hearing a strange meowing sound from the lilac bush behind me. A bit of searching, and I found a familiar looking pair of ears above the deep grass.

Judgement was back!

I haven’t seen Judgement since the day before we got the email response from the vet, about how to bring him in without an appointment. After all this time, I was sure a coyote had got him.

He is not limping, either.

He seemed a bit standoffish at first, but eventually let me pet him. Then he followed me around for a while.

Before packing things up, my brother serious considered taking down the dead spruce tree closest to the house. That tree finally died just a couple of years ago. In the end, though, he didn’t dare take it down. There wasn’t much of a wind, but it would have been pushing against the direction the tree needed to fall. He considered having it fall the other way, but then it would have landed on top of a huge maple branch leaning over the north yard.

So that tree was left alone for now.

They still had one more surprise for me before they loaded the riding mowers onto the trailer and left.

They realized how ridiculous it would be for me to keep up on the lawn with just a push mower. Between the weather and all the other, higher priority jobs that need to be done, it would be near impossible for me to keep up just what was mowed today.

They left the smaller riding mower for us to use, and my brother took the Bolens they bought for us our first summer here, and will see if he can fix it.

The shop I’d taken it to basically told me it wasn’t worth the cost to fix it, because it would be expensive, but would not be a permanent fix. We have neither the equipment, nor the knowledge, to do it ourselves. Heck, we don’t even have a safe way to work under it.

So we now have a riding mower, about the same size as the old Bolens mower, to help keep up on the lawns!

Did I mention, my brother and his wife are the best?

They are totally the best.

Meanwhile, the storms the weather apps said we might have, did not come even close to materializing. We’re going to have to do some deep watering this evening!

As for me, I can’t barely keep my eyes open as I write this.

I think, however, I will go cut myself an aloe vera leaf and make good use of the gel before I give in to the heat!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Roma tomatoes, mystery squash and other non-gardening stuff

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It’s barely 3:30pm right now, and I could easily call it a day and go to bed right now!

I tried to get out early to beat the heat, but by 7:30, it was already feeling hot and muggy. The humidity is very high, and the uncut grass is covered with dew. Which means that, when the outside cats come over for breakfast, they tend to be completely soaked!

Like this bedraggled beast.

Decimous is so matted and full of burrs! Today, however, for the very first time, I got to give him ear and neck skritches – and he let me! He even started purring. He wasn’t sure about the situation, but he did let me reach out to give skritches – not pets – a few times. His fur is so full of lumps, burrs and mats, I’m sure petting him would be somewhat painful.

I was even able to confirm something.

He is a she.

Yup. Decimous is female.

She doesn’t look pregnant, though. I’m trying to think of how we can catch her and bring her inside, so we can lavish her with love (and wet cat food) and socialize her enough to get those mats cut out of her fur!! The problem, of course, is we already have too many cats in the house. I’d have to bring her into my room and have her in baby jail for a while. That is Marlee’s favourite hangout, though, and Marlee typically isn’t too keen on other cats.

We’ll figure it out.

My priority for this morning was to get as many of the Roma VF tomatoes transplanted in the last available bed as I could.

I focused on getting the largest ones in, first. I didn’t want to do three rows, since it’s harder to reach the middle, but … well, it is what it is. I’m sure I planted them closer together htan they should be. I staggered the rows to use the space more efficiently, and was able to get 41 transplants in It took a couple of hours. I didn’t have time to transplant tomatoes around the perimeter of the bed, nor mulch it right away. My daughter shredded more of our collected fliers and other garden safe paper while I was doing this, and brought out a couple of bags. As I write this, I honestly don’t know if she was able to get back outside to lay the shredded paper around the tomatoes. After that, they’d just need to be dampened, because the tomatoes were deeply watered while being transplanted.

Speaking of which…

These are the mystery squash that showed up with two of the tomatoes. I’d reused seed starting soil from pots where things did not germinate at all, and somehow missed that there were still viable seeds as I pulled out the sticks and rocks I was finding in the mix. We’ll see if they survive. If they do, I’ll find somewhere to plant them, after we get more beds ready. Right now, aside from a couple of scattered spots, we have nowhere left to put any transplants – including the more than 20 Spoon tomatoes, none of which are out, and another 20 or so leftover Romas!

So much work to do!

Today is our average last frost date, but in some places, we’re breaking 30 year heat records. I took some garden tour videos yesterday that I’ll put together and upload later. Lots of heat warnings and warnings for thunderstorms, with possible hail, etc.

The question is, will any of that rain reach us?

Once the transplants were in, I headed out early to my mother’s, stopping to pick up some Chinese food, which was my breakfast. Previously, my mother has started to say not to get rice, because rice makes her cough. She said to get her just lemon chicken. Unfortunately, the timing was off, and I was at her place on the one day of the week they closed. Then she mentioned some of her neighbours would get just onion rings from the restaurant; they have a small North American menu along with Chinese food menu. After that, she started saying she wanted onions rings. So today, I picked up both lemon chicken and onion rings for her, and a combination platter for me.

When I arrived with the food, she was first taken aback that I came early, but I told her I’d been working in the garden, and hadn’t and breakfast. I came early so we could eat together. Then she chastised me for not calling her first, because she’d had a large breakfast (she later mentioned what she had, and it was not a large breakfast. Just not typical breakfast fare). I hadn’t planned to do this, though, so calling ahead was not an option. After I set out the food, setting hers aside on the table while I sat down with my breakfast, she started nibbling on the onion rings anyway, then suddenly demanded to know why I got the lemon chicken, too, instead of just the onion rings. I reminded her that she’d talked about wanting lemon chicken in the past, and she didn’t have to eat it all at once if she didn’t want to . She then started talking about how it’s a “temptation” for her, and if there’s food in the fridge, she eats it…

…

I’m pretty sure that’s what food in the fridge is meant for.

I think she was trying to say that she had little self control when it came to food, but had a hard time coming up with the words for it!

After I’d eaten, and she nibbled, I suggested we head out earlier. She didn’t seem to want to go out and procrastinated. It wasn’t until we were in the car and on the road that she mentioned that, next time, she would give me a list and let me do her errands for here. Her knees are increasingly giving her grief. There’s one errand I can’t do, though, and that is to go the bank for her.

So we got her errands done and her groceries put away. She wanted me to take a couple of trees home with me, along with her vegetable peelings and a plant she’s decided is blocking her window too much (it isn’t).

I did have a bit of a surprise while checking on her air conditioner, next to her plant table. For some reason, it was set to go off at 26C, which is just way too hot. I lowered that, and it turned on and starting cooling things down, but for some reason, I was also feeling heat.

Yes, her heat was also on!

I checked her thermostat.

It was set to about 26C.

So she was heating and cooling her apoartment at the same time.

I turned that right down for her!

I didn’t take any plants from her, because I didn’t want them baking in the car while I did my own errands after I finished with hers. I had to ask her where the trees came from. Basically, she’s got a little maple and an elm in the pot together, and it looked odd. Turns out she’d found them in the few feet of garden space where she has some garlic growing – pretty much the only “gardening” she does right now – so she decided they should go to the farm and stuck them in a pot.

*sigh*

She has also been gathering linden seeds and is trying to get them to grow. She’s got at least a dozen that I could see, scattered at the top of a pot of soil. Something else she has in pots and plans to send to the farm.

This from the person that was laughing at me when I showed her pictures of the garden, because I had some herbs in a pot.

Somehow, my mother has got it in her head that, because the trees around her building drop seeds, she MUST gather then, give them to me to grow, or start growing them herself, so the trees can go to the farm, because they are “free”.

I’m getting a better understanding of why we have so many problem trees right now.

Also, we have GOT to get rid of the Chinese elms. There are millions of seeds drifting everywhere, and every bit of bare soil where I’ve planted seeds or transplanted something is getting filled with them. They have very deep tap roots, even as tiny seedlings, and are so hard to get rid of! There are other elms here that don’t do this, and they’re just fine, but the few Chinese elms are just horrible to deal with!

A job for another time, though.

Anyhow.

Even though my mother basically abandoned the farm a decade ago, she still wants to control what happens here, including giving me trees to plant that are basically weeds out of her own garden space.

She brought up when we can bring her out to the farm to see things – she still has seen only photos of the new roof. I told her that, weather willing, my brother and his wife are hoping to come out this weekend with their lawn mowing equipment to do the lawns. Right now, she wouldn’t be able to get through the grass with her walker! After that, we’ll see.

Once done at my mother’s, one of my errands was to go to the egg lady’s place. While driving out there, I went through several sections of driving rain! It was so good to see! There were a few times I was sure the car was being hit with hail. It wasn’t raining at the egg lady’s homestead, though, and they sure could have used some! She just finished processing 40 chickens, and was dying in the heat!

My next errand was back at my mother’s town, and I drove into rain again. It was awesome! The temperatures dropped about 10 degrees almost instantly, from 31C/88F (“feels like” 34C/93F!), to 20C/68F. It was still coming down so hard when I was ready to come home, I sent a message to let the family know it might be slow driving. And it was.

For a little while.

Then I drove out of the rain, and the closer I got t home, the drier it got.

As of this writing, we still have had no real rain at all. There might have been a few drips here and there, but nothing more.

*sigh*

Looks like our climate bubble is back in action.

We’ll see how things turn out. If it stays dry and keeps cooling down with the wind, I might be able to get more weed trimming done. I need to focus around the garden beds, and where we need to build up the squash patch and where the permanent trellis beds will be built.

Meanwhile, my poor daughter has been busting her butt, cleaning the kitchen and trying to catch up on the dishes, in this heat!

I think I need to shut down my computer, though. It’s starting to act up in the heat. It’s a good thing I know how to touch type, because I’ve been typing entire paragraphs, without anything actually showing up on the screen for almost a minute.

So if there are a lot of typoes or strange sentences in this post, it’s because I’m typing blind right now!

The Re-Farmer

First sighting!

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I was out again this evening, when it cooled down a bit (as I write this, it’s past 10pm, and we’ve finally cooled down to 26C/79F, from a high of 31C/88F), to do more transplanting. I was able to fit 13 Black Beauty tomatoes into one row in a second bed, which leaves another 13 extras I can give away.

After putting the rest of the Black Beauties in the sun room, I started to get the rest of the transplants from the picnic table, when I spotted not-Junkpile sitting rather strangely beside the storage house.

Then parts of her moved and turned out to be…

… bitty bebbehs!!

It was getting dark and I zoomed in so as not to disturb them because, of course, they ran away as I skirted around them to get the trays of plants. My daughters came out to help, and we saw them dashing about, hiding in the lilacs.

Later, I saw the mama up on the cat house roof, looking for kibble and growling at me. I’d already given them their evening feeding – early, so avoid feeding the skunks and racoons – but she wasn’t the only hungry mama around. I set out about half what I usually do, putting most of it on the cat house roof, where the skunks can’t get it. The racoons can get up there, of course, but they’ll go for the trays in the kibble house, first.

There are more very round cats wandering around. Junk Pile, who lost her first litter that she had so incredibly early in the year, looks like she’s about to explode. Caramel and one of the grey tabbies that we can’t get near are looking round, too.

And I can now confirm that least one, maybe two, of the white and greys are female. One of them, simply because I’ve seen her getting some action with the males. The other – the one with the distinctive almost black spots – is starting to look round.

*sigh*

Hopefully, they will all have small litters like this one, instead of the usual four or five.

Tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 28C/82F, but by the time that happens, I should be on the way back from my eye exam. My daughter is coming along as a back up driver, in case they do that eye dilation test. I haven’t had my eyes tested since several years before we moved out here, so… 8 years? Nine?

If all goes well, though, I’ll be able to get some work done outside during the cooler hours.

Assuming my body is up to it. I just had to get my daughter to clean the litter boxes in my room for me, when I could barely bend over to put my inside shoes on – and I was sitting down! 😄

Getting old sucks.

The Re-Farmer

A garden preview, and kitty video

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Much of today has been a total waste. I got almost no sleep last night, and it was basically all because of the cats! First, there was the constant stream of cats wanting in and out. I swear, even the cats that are outside the door have a sense of when I’m finally lying down and comfortable in bed, because that’s when they start scratching at the door again! As the ladies have been able to tolerate more of the other cats, that means more scratching at the door to be let in or out.

All that, because we’ve got two cats that always go after Nosencrantz, forcing me to keep the door closed to keep them out!

The other cause of interruption was Nosencrantz.

I have one small window I can open – a window with a deep sill the cats like to sit on. The screens on all the new windows are high quality, but the cats have still managed to damage all of them. With mine, I tried to have most of it blocked off with a window fan, a salvaged metal mesh window screen and a hunk of Styrofoam insulation, to protect the screen, but even when the fan was put away for the winter and the window kept closed, the screen would get clawed at. I finally removed it completely – then had to hide it behind the metal mesh screen – because Nozencratnz still wanted claw at it!

We ended up getting what is supposed to be cat proof window screen, and have replaced the screens on several windows, mine included.

Yes. It’s supposed to be cat proof. However, I don’t think even cat proof window screen can withstand a cat sitting up on its hind end and going at it with both front paws! Even if the screen managed to survive the attack without getting holes, chances are it would get yanked right out of the frame, eventually.

That’s what I was trying to stop all night. Nosencrantz is fixated on clawing on that screen! I even jammed the salvaged screen in front of it. It’s narrower than the window, and Nosencrantz would just reach around the metal mesh screen, to claw at the window’s screen! There aren’t even any bugs or blown in fluff that she’s after. She’s just after the screen!

So that was another thing that had me getting up repeatedly. Oh, and also the sound of cats using the carpet as a scratching post, instead of the scratching post… 😕

I’ve now stolen my husband’s box fan, which fills the window almost completely. I just had to stick some cardboard between the wall and a shelf to cover a gap on one side. Hopefully, at least that problem is solved.

The whole thing left me feeling awful by morning. A sleep repeatedly interrupted is far worse than simply being up all night. It’s not even feeling physically sleepy that’s the problem, though I was so physically tired, I felt ill. It’s the affect on mental acuity that really knocks me out.

The girls took care of feeding the outside cats and taking the transplants out so I could sleep in, but I still found myself constantly awakened and having to open and close my door. I finally gave up and tried to leave it open, cat fight or no, only to have the breeze from my open window slam it shut, over and over!

Yeah. I was pretty miserable this morning, and finally gave up.

The afternoon, at least, was better after indulging in my last energy drink. 🙄 I finally went outside to see how much work I could manage to get done.

Which turned out to be far more than I expected.

I took a significant risk today.

I did some transplanting of squash and gourds!

Normally, these would not go in until about the middle of June, but some of them were getting quite large. I didn’t want to keep potting them up, and they were getting so big that taking them in and out of the sun room to harden off was damaging them.

I took photos of the progress and will put together a small video later, but here is a preview.

Four of the transplants were climbers, so I cleaned up the blocks and transplanted them here. Because they all can potentially get quite large, I put them in every other block. In the foreground is the Zucca melon. I put it there so it has room to expand away from the others.

I thought the next one was also a Zucca melon, but when I took out the label, it said African Drum gourd. We have extra, much smaller, seedlings of both. The next two are the Caveman’s Club gourds.

All of them are long enough that I was able to get their tendrils wrapped around the chain link fence and start training them up it or, with the Zucca melon, away down the side. These all are supposed to have fairly large fruit, though with the Caveman’s Club, they are more about length than girth. If any of these reach the point of developing fruit, we’ll figure out how best to support them.

The next thing that had to go in were the Crespo squash.

Then went into the bed we had a hulless pumpkin variety in last year, near the old squash/bean tunnel. This will likely be the last year we use this spot for gardening, and hopefully we’ll be able to plant something for our food forest here, next year. We shall see.

The Crespo squash plants can get really huge, which is part of the reason they went in this far away bed. The old rain barrel I filled yesterday is nearby – but it was only about a quarter full when I got to it today! I couldn’t see if it developed a new crack, or if the seal on one of the old ones gave out.

We really need more rain barrles.

I’m quite glad I found that one last hose in the old garden shed, so I could give this area a thorough watering. I’ll have to keep that up for at least a few days to make sure it’s damp through the new mulch, all the way down through the layers we put here, least year.

I’m reeeeaaallllyyy hoping I didn’t jump the gun by transplanting these so early. There is no sign of frost in the long range forecasts. In fact, June is looking like it’s going to be quite hot, and rainy. If, however, we do find ourselves with a frost warning, I think we’d be able to add covers to protect things fairly well.

After I was done and putting things away, I fed the outside cats for the evening (and chased away a couple of skunks eating their kibble!). Judgement is still limping, and the foot seems to be bothering him more. He still won’t let me look at it, so I tried seeing if I could sneak a look through my phone’s camera.

It didn’t really work, but I did get this video!

I did not get a response to my email to the vet, asking about being able to bring him in as we are able to catch him, without an appointment. I’ll have to remember to phone them, tomorrow.

So I did get at least something useful done today. If the weather holds, this early planting will make a big positive difference for things like the drum gourds and Zucca melon.

I’m not sure what I will plant in the empty blocks. Ideally, it would be some other climber, but since I expect the fence to eventually get completely engulfed by what just got planted, perhaps it would be better to choose a shade loving plant, instead. We’ll see.

I’m just happy to have gotten at least a bit of productivity in today!

The Re-Farmer

This and that

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I can’t say today was a very productive day in the usual sense, but I’ll talk more about that later.

I was able to get a picture of Decimous this evening.

I had to zoom in, because he still won’t let us come near him. His fur is so matted! I can see some bald looking spots, which would explain the tufts of white and black fur I’ve been seeing around the yard.

Judgement has us concerned. My daughter saw him a couple days ago and he was limping again, but when we saw him last night, he was fine. This morning, he was limping again! As friendly as he is, he does not like to be handled or picked up, so we’ve been having a very hard time getting a look at his paw. It took three of us before we could finally catch a quick glimpse of the problem. There’s something wrong with one of his toes, at the claw. There is no blood or even visible swelling, but it’s messed up somehow and obviously hurting him.

Getting him to a vet would be a challenge. He now tends to disappear for a day or two, so we don’t know when we’d be able to catch him. We can’t isolate him in the sun room – even if we weren’t using it as a greenhouse, it gets too hot in there now – and with the ladies refusing to leave my room, we no longer have a place in the house we could isolate him in. Which means we can’t make an appointment, since we have no idea if we’d be able to keep one.

I ended up sending an email to the vet, explaining the situation, and asking if we could bring him in on a “walk in” sort of basis. Basically, if we can get him in the carrier, we’d take him in right away, phoning ahead to let them know, and hope that he doesn’t injure himself more, trying to get out of the carrier. I have not yet had an answer. We’ll see how that pans out.

As for today, I went into town to take part in a Freedom Rally, in response to the many things our Prime Dictator and his cohorts have been doing. It actually started in the city and people came in a parade of vehicles to the beach in town, where activities and speeches commences. There was a good turn out, and even people who just happened to be at the beach, enjoying the weekend, showed an interest.

Town and the beach were quite busy for this first day of our long weekend. The lake is ice free now – at least at our end of it – but no one was going into the water, that’s for sure! At home, we were at 27C/81F at the time, with town reading at 25C/77F. The weather station, however, is just outside of town, not near the lake. I’d say we were closer to 22 or 23C/72 or 73F so close to the ice cold water.

Knowing it was busy, I headed into town early to have “breakfast” before the lunch crowd started. I was going to go to a particular fish and chips place – one of the few restaurants on that strip that stays open all year – but they were closed. During the winter, they’d had a break in, and the door is still boarded up. It looks like they are closed permanently! Such a shame, if the are. I don’t particularly like fish, but they have a fish and chips dinner I actually crave at times.

There was another place nearby that is now open for the summer, so I went there. While waiting for my food, I went into the bathroom, where I found this sign.

I love it! So much detail on the plugged toilet and the plunger, but the dude is just a stick man – yet even the stick man has such lively little details on the face. Adding the (me) after “sad employee” is perfect.

It does make me wonder about the need for such a sign, though. Nothing that would surprise me, though. I’ve worked housekeeping at a resort hotel. I’ve seen how nasty people can be!

I also had time to check out a shop I haven’t been to in years. I was looking for something specific, and I found one! Just one…

This isn’t it. I bought this frog the last time I was in that shop. My younger daughter admires it, so when I found one, I got it for her. It is identical to this one.

She was very happy to receive it! I’d considered saving it as a birthday gift, but her birthday is still a month away, so I just gave it to her now. 😊

After spending too much time outdoors in the sun, even with the cooling effect of the lake nearby, once I got home I stayed in the relatively cool indoors for awhile. When I headed out to do my evening rounds, I did quite a bit of watering. I took the floating row cover off the spinach bed. It was getting torn up, and tore up even more as I took it off! The spinach is still quite small. With the heat we’ve been having, they could really use some shade. I am seeing more carrot sprouts, which is good. I still don’t know that the bed will end up full of carrots, but if what I’m can see so far survives, we’ll have a pretty full bed.

I’m seeing a very few more purple asparagus showing up. This is their third year, but last year’s flooding right around them easily set them back. In fact, I think we may have lost two crowns. The strawberries, however, are doing well, and a couple are even starting to bloom!

The peas are coming up quite nicely. It looks like almost all of them have germinated. Still no sign of poppies, though. The peppers and thyme that were transplanted last night are still alive. 😄 The bed with the Montana Morado corn is doing okay, but something has gotten in and spread some of the thick grass clipping mulch around the edges, so I had to put that back.

I dug our last garden hose out of the shed and set up the old rain barrel near the new raspberry plants. They got a deep watering while I set up, and then I used a watering can to do the sea buckthorn and the highbush cranberry, while filling the barrel. I didn’t water the silver buffalo berry as there are just too many of them, and I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes!

So things are looking good. I was quite sore after reworking the bed the corn was planted in last night, so I made sure to take it easy today. I didn’t want to overdo it and render myself useless for several days. There is still much work to get done, before it’s time to put in our transplants and do more direct sowing!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: Red Thumb potatoes are in

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Gooby tried to help.

He was not a very good helper!

The Red Thumb fingerling potatoes had to get into the ground, so they went into the beds that were ready.

I have no doubt I was crowding them a bit too much, but these are fingerling potatoes, so I hope that will make a difference. I still couldn’t fit them all in the bed along the retaining wall. The last of them went into the short end of the L shaped bed, where you can see the straw mulch. I was able to add straw mulch to the rectangular bed with the Irish Cobbler potatoes in it, too.

The extra height added to the bed along the retaining wall came in handy. I did work in some of the composted sheep’s manure first. The bed was already starting to compact! The height of the soil is almost as high as the retaining wall (it is settling a bit, still). The logs are high enough to hold the straw mulch in place.

Unfortunately, the cats seem to think that straw is there, just for them! Especially Gooby.

It started raining by the time I was ready to add the straw, but I gave all the straw a thorough watering, anyhow. They’ll get more deep watering, even with the rain. I’ve noticed that, if the straw doesn’t get saturated first, the top will get wet, but the bottom stays dry, so the moisture never quite gets to the ground. I want to get these beds soaked down through all the layers. Once that’s done, the beds will hold the moisture for quite a long time before they will need watering again.

The whole point of our wanting to use grow bags this year was because we have such a problem with slugs. I’m hoping that, by planting these in raised beds, it will be less of a problem. I suppose we could leave out some beer traps for the slugs, but I have no doubt the cats would be getting into them! I’d rather encourage garter snakes or toads and frogs.

Meanwhile, we’re also seeing peas starting to break ground. Just barely visible! We’ve got carrots sprouting, too, but they are very small and it doesn’t look like we have a high germination rate. They really should have had the plastic right on the ground until they germinated, instead of on hoops, but the hoops were as much to keep the cats off as to keep the moisture in. Hopefully, the heat inside didn’t kill off too many seeds. We do still have 2 other varieties of carrots to sow, so we should be able to make up for any losses.

We’re getting air quality warnings right now. There is a cold front moving in, so the temperatures will drop quite a bit, tomorrow (though not low enough for frost), and with it will come smoke from the many fires in Alberta. Rain is desperately needed, though with so many of the fires being started by people, more than rain is going to be needed to get these under control!

Along with rain today, we’ve also got a fair bit of wind. Nothing exceptional, but too much to take the transplants out. We have no way to protect them from the wind on the various surfaces we use to lay them out. So they remain in the sunroom, which isn’t much warmer than outside right now, with the fan and the lights, for today.

I’m glad I got the potatoes in right away. Rainy, grey weather like this always makes me incredibly sleepy. If I’d delayed it, I probably would not have been able to get it done. As it is, I think I’m going to have to lie down for a bit. I can barely keep my eyes open, as I write this!

So… all three varieties of potatoes are planted. Which means I can finally turn my attention to taking down the trees we’ll be needing to build the trellis tunnel. That should have been done, long ago!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden transplant status, and good car news

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But first, the cuteness!

I counted only 18 this morning.

Today has turned out to be a MUCH more pleasant day than yesterday. We did officially reach of high of 30C/86F, which makes the current temperature of 20C/68F feel downright cool! It was very refreshing while I was going my morning rounds and taking the transplants out for continued hardening off.

I took the folding set of closet doors I found in the shed and set it up on the hand rails of the laundry platform. It’s almost enough to keep the cats off!

You can’t really see them, but the squash and gourds in the bins on the left are getting huge! In the foreground, in the centre, you can see some new Zucca melon coming up enthusiastically. I’d planted more, since so few germinated the first time I planted them, but it’s taken this heat for them to finally get growing.

After I took this picture, a cat jumped up and nearly squashed them, but they seem to be okay!

I’ve got things set up on the kibble house roof to support one end of the trays, making them almost level. The metal baking sheets work very well for that. I should have picked up more of them before Costco ran out! I didn’t expect them to disappear entirely.

I’ve started to take the trays with the most recently planted seeds out, too. A few are showing germinated seeds, and there’s no reason not to harden them off at the same time.

I might actually start planting some of the larger tomatoes and the first peppers this weekend. We’ve got one chilly night expected between now and then and, after that, even the one colder day forecasted has no risk of frost. I want to plant these peppers in the wattle weave bed, which will also give them more protection, as well as the full sunlight they need, plus they would be relatively easy to provide protection for there, in case the long range forecast into June is wrong and we do actually get frost.

The priority today, though, is getting the last of the potatoes in.

My daughter and I took my mother’s car into town to be checked out. All they were going to do was see why the check engine light was on. My eyes have been going wonky at times, so my daughter came along just in case I needed her to drive. We dropped the car off and I explained what was going on, then I took her for lunch. Well. Lunch for me. Breakfast for her. She hadn’t eaten yet! We basically just had to wait until I got text saying the car was ready to pick up.

There really wasn’t anything wrong. A couple of codes came up, but nothing of concern. His guess is that at some point, when we started the car, it got a low pressure reading on the oil, which was changed fairly recently. Once the light was on, it stayed on. He cleared it, but had no work to recommend getting done. He didn’t even charge me for the reading.

I talked to my husband later on about my not being able to use the OBDII reader he got me. It didn’t work before, because of a known Blu Tooth issue on my phone at the time. We traded phones, because his worked, but I’ve since gotten a newer phone. I didn’t expect to have the same issue with the new phone. When he realized the phone simply would not pair with the OBDII reader, he remembered that it works with his table. So if the check engine light turns on again, I’ll have to remember go use his tablet to try and get a reading. Meanwhile, the light has stayed off so far. Hopefully, it will stay that way!

It wasn’t a wasted trip, though. I got to spend some relaxed time with my daughter. 😊

I’m just glad there was nothing wrong with the car. Confirming that at the garage was also well worth the trip.

Well, things are going to start cooling down. Time to get to work!

The Re-Farmer

Look who followed me! Plus, car trouble. Again.

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I spent some time just sitting outside before going to bed last night, enjoying the cool of the evening. Having the swing bench outside, to make room for the transplants in the sun room, is really nice.

Of course, Gooby was all over me, wanting lots of attention!

It was starting to get pretty dark when I heard what sounded like the beginnings of a cat fight in the outer yard, so I went to investigate. I never found the cats I was hearing, but the sound of frogs from the pond and gravel pit was so loud, I decided to go the outer yard fence and try and capture it on video. The grass from last year is still tall, but now has new growth in it, so it took some effort to get through!

I was in the middle of taking a short video when I could hear something in the grass behind me, coming closer and closer.

Then my legs got attacked.

In a loving way!

Make sure your speakers are on, to hear all the frogs!

I made sure to carry him back with me. I wouldn’t want an owl to make off with him!

Gooby just can’t seem to get enough attention from humans.

In other things, I made a quick trip to the post office to pick up a parcel this morning, and the check engine light turned on in my mother’s car.

*sigh*

My daughter did the driving yesterday and it had turned on then. I heard the ding when it turned on, but didn’t know what it was. She assumed I already knew about it, but it had not turned on before. I tried hooking up my OBDII reader, but it won’t connect with my phone. I had the problem before, and it was a problem with the phone’s BluTooth, not the reader. I have a new phone now and this is the first time I’ve tried to use the reader with it.

So I contacted our mechanic about it. I can drop by any time tomorrow afternoon and they’ll check it out.

Right now, we’re not using the van at all until we can get it to the garage to get a noise checked out. We won’t have the budget for that until next month. My mother’s car, however, is a higher priority right now. If there’s something that needs to be fixed, we’ll have to dip into the money being set aside for a down payment on replacement van. Which would really suck. Hopefully, it will be something minor.

Today is not going to be a very productive day outside. In fact, I’m not even taking the transplants outside to harden off today. As I write this, we are already at 27C/81F, and may reach as high as 30C/86F by the evening, depending on which app I look at. We don’t have a shady spot to set out the transplants, and I don’t want them to get sunburned or bake in their pots.

It also means, no one is going to be doing things like sifting the garden soil and hauling wheelbarrow loads over, to fill the bags we’ll be planting the potatoes in, until things start cooling off. Looking at the forecast for the day, that likely won’t be until tomorrow morning. We’re supposed to reach our hottest temperatures at about 4pm, and stay hot for several hours. The days are getting longer, but not that long!

Still, I’m hoping to get at least some things done. We need to break out the wood chipper, so we can run straw from last year’s deep mulch beds through the shredder, as well as some of the wood chips from the pile. The big commercial wood chipper the tree guys have did a great job of breaking down the branch piles that our wood chipper can’t do – mostly because they are too crooked to fit into the chipper! – but the resulting chips are quite course. That’s fine for mulching around trees, or to add among the layers filling a new raised bed, but is a bit hard to work around when used as mulch on the top of a garden bed. Plus, breaking the straw or wood chips down finer means they will break down into the soil faster, too, and our soil really needs that organic matter.

We are also going to have to break out the lawn mower! Especially in the outer yard, in front of the barn, where we were unable to mow last year. If we don’t get that under control quickly, it’s going to be a lot more difficult later on. Plus, grass clippings are gold, and we’ll need a lot of it for the garden beds! I don’t even bother putting on the grass catcher. It fills too quickly. Plus, I find that if I let the clippings sit for a couple of days to dry, then rake it up, it’s easier to work with.

Tomorrow we’re supposed to reach “only” about 18 or 20C/64 or 68F, and then get some rain the day after, so I hope to get at least the area around the pile of garden soil mowed, so I’m not fighting the wheelbarrow through tall grass with every load.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Brothers, and some progress

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It’s not often I’m able to get these two brothers in one shot so well!

We’ve got Gooby, with one gooby eye, then Adam and Driver. Gosh, those two look alike! When the girls named them, the patterns in their fur hadn’t finished growing out, and they were really hard to tell apart. It’s easier now, only because Adam has enough white fur to not be a tuxedo.

Then there are the two white and greys in the picture. They are among the unnamed ones, because we can’t tell them apart well enough to give them any! In the morning light, the one next to Gooby looks like it has an orange ear, but nope. It’s grey fur.

I got a decent amount of progress this morning. I started taking the transplants out to harden them off. The onions are still out right now, as they’ve been taken out for a while now, but the others were just for an hour. We weren’t able to make a dedicated surface for them, so the trays got laid out wherever I could find stable space. The laundry platform was covered and, with a couple of boards to support one side, others were put on the kibble house roof. The angle of the roof is pretty steep, so the cats don’t usually go on it.

The smallest trays went onto the shelf shelter by the sun room door. Only the more recent seed starts stayed inside – and I can see one Lady Godiva hulless pumpkin working on germinating!

Alas, while I was bringing things out, one of the white and greys went into the sun room and jumped up on the table, knocking things about, including the mini tray with the Classic Eggplant. Those were already struggling, and it looked like only one was surviving, and now even that one has been damaged. So frustrating! But we have so many things to grow this year, the loss will not be a problem, and we still have the Little Finger eggplant seedlings.

The good thing about starting to harden off the transplants is that it allowed me to arrange the trays more efficiently in the sun room when bringing them back.

Once they were back inside, I started the next big job, which I’ll be making another video of. The area around my daughter’s tulips has had the chicken wire fencing removed, the dead, dying and non-productive trees removed, and the new apple tree has been transplanted. I planted it closer to the lilacs, which will shelter and protect it from the north, while it will also get full sun – and be close enough to the ornamental apple trees for the cross pollination it needs for better production. Of course, it’ll be a few years before we get any apples from it!

By then, it was 22C/72F (as I write this, we’ve reached our predicted high of 23C/74F), and way too hot to keep working outside. Later on, the girls will clean up the branch pile for me, and we have to figure out how to put the fence wire back up, to protect the tulips and new apple tree from the deer. The wire had been held in place by the trees and stumps that I removed, so we’ll need to set up posts. We do have wooden fence posts, but they are being used to keep things from blowing away right now. There are also T posts we’ve found, but I have other plans for those. It’s not like we’re putting up permanent fencing, here, so that gives us some flexibility on what we can use. We’ll figure it out.

For now, though, we’re staying in the cooler indoors – even the sun room feels cooler than outside right now! – and staying hydrated, until it’s time to make a dump run and pick up a package at the post office. Things are supposed to start cooling down by then, so we can continue working around the tulips when we get back.

My daughter and I were also talking about the mulberry trees. Because they are so tiny, they should probably be kept in pots until next year, but we’re pretty terrible at keeping trees alive inside. The question is, would we be any better at keeping them alive outside?

Meanwhile, we need to get those potatoes planted soon!

Lots of work to do. The problem, aside from the heat we’re not used to yet, is that we’re all pretty broken, and can only work in short spurts to avoid hurting ourselves more, and rendering ourselves useless for days. Frustrating.

Well, we do what we can and adjust!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer