Gardening

What a day!

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… and it ain’t over yet.

First up, today has been the smokiest day we’ve had yet, and it hasn’t let up. It’s absolutely insane out there. It was also really hot and muggy, right from the get-go. We did get rain last night – enough to fill the rain barrel from half full, at least – but you’d never know it other than from the odd puddle in areas heavy with clay.

I did have a tiny little harvest this morning.

Just a handful of bush beans. Barely. The purple pods are from two of the three surviving Royal Burgundy plants. The one that got et by a deer is still recovering.

When I first headed out with the kibble, I was very happy to see that one of the feral kittens – the white and grey one – was INSIDE the sun room! All four of them, plus their mom, were near the house and shelters, and they even started eating from the trays by the house instead of running away to the shrine feeding station. Huge progress there! The garage kittens are still keeping their distance, though.

As I was doing my rounds, I spotted the four ferals again, on my late father’s car.

I had to zoom in from quite a distance. The faces on the white and grey and the calico as they stared at me… too funny! That white and grey has a very interesting shape to its face. I noticed fluffy Colby tends to be on his own, away from his siblings, more often than not.

My rounds done, I brought out my late father’s wheelchair that my daughter had dug out of storage for me. I took the plastic cover off and cleaned off the dust and cobwebs. I was going to lubricate it, too, but couldn’t find my cans anywhere. So I did as much as I could, then loaded it into the truck.

When I got back in, I found the girls were busily cooking as much as they could, before the power was to be shut off at 9am. I left them to it and called my mother to let her know I would be bringing the wheelchair over for her to try out, as we had discussed.

I have to admit, I was really angry at my mother by the end of the call.

She started off with saying, why so soon? I reminded her of our conversation. Then she kept throwing up more excuses, one after the other, about why I shouldn’t be bringing the wheelchair over. She wanted us to talk about it. I explained again, we need to know if she can handle a manual chair or not so we have something to discuss. At point point, she even tried to say that she only wanted it for if she fell down. As in, it would help her get up?? It made no sense.

Long story short: What she had really wanted was for my siblings and I to have some sort of meeting to talk about her wanting a wheelchair and what to get her. However, even that broke down to, she wants my brother to be doing it. She wants him to be at her beck and call at all times. She’s becoming increasingly obsessed with trying to control him and especially to get him away from his wife. Both of whom have never been anything but beyond kind to her.

When it became clear what she was really after, and she was starting to go on about, why doesn’t he call her, I told her flat out that she treats him like s***. Oh, and how does he treat me, she responded.

Like a queen, I told her. Of all of us, he treats her the best. No one treats her better than he does. And she hates him for it.

Yes, I used those exact words.

It blows me away, how her mind has become so twisted when it comes to my brother. We have a theory. As my brother ages, he’s looking more and more like our dad, so she’s treating him like she treated my late father. Which was not good. Our vandal has been abusive towards her for years, and she goes out of her way to defend him, but my brother helped her so much for so many years, making sacrifices, giving so much of himself to her, and she constantly stabs him in the back and makes more demands of him. Nothing he does is ever good enough.

When it comes to how my mother treats me, I don’t care. It took me many years of healing to get to this point. She can’t hurt me anymore. But she can, and does, hurt my brother, and that angers me.

I cut that conversation off and simply told her, I was coming over with the wheelchair for her to try. If she didn’t like it, I could take it back, but we needed to know if she could actually use it.

By the time I was on the road, it was not much past 8:30am. As I was turning onto the main gravel road, I could already see an electric company vehicle about a quarter mile up, parked across from our side of the road. I had to wait for another huge company vehicle to go by before I could continue. In the couple of miles to the highway, I passed a convoy of electric company vehicles, of all shapes and sizes, going the other when. The junction at the highway as a transformer station next to an off ramp, and there was practically an army of more company vehicles and staff milling about!

These folks were loaded for bear!

Later on, I got a message from my daughter. The power went off at 9am, on the nose.

I got to my mother’s shortly after 9. One of her neighbours happened to be by the main doors and was kind enough to open them for me as I brought in the wheelchair, and we chatted along the way. She, too, commented that it’s unlikely my mother has the arm strength to use it.

When I had called my mother, she was eating breakfast, so I was surprised to find she had gone back to bed. She started off saying that the home care aids hadn’t shown up to do her meds yet, but she was scheduled for 9:30, so it was still going to be a while. I had to move things around to make space for the wheelchair while my mother sat on her bed. She said she was really tired and ended up lying down again. I reminded her that this was for her to try out and see. Her apartment is not wheelchair friendly. If she did get a wheelchair, we would have to remove several pieces of furniture, at least, for her to be able to get around. I actually sat in it myself and tried moving around, and it’s incredibly easy to move. However, I’m not almost 94 years old with hardly any arm strength left.

In the end, I was done and heading out with still another 15 minutes before the aid was expected to arrive! My mother was like a completely different person than how she was on the phone.

Since I was in town anyhow, I decided to go to the home care office and see if I could talk to the case coordinator. There were things I wanted to update her on, in regards to the long term care panel. This morning’s phone call being a big one. Thankfully, she was in and able to take the time to see me.

I filled her in on some of the behavioral and cognitive changes I’ve been seeing. She was very surprised when I told her I’d just dropped off a wheelchair. The home care aids hadn’t noticed any changes in my mother’s mobility. They wouldn’t, though. They’re only there for 5 minutes, and my mother is usually sitting at her table, waiting for them.

I was happy to hear that there have been no complains about how my mother treats the home care aids, after a particular racist incident some time ago. I told her, my siblings and I had all had a talk with her about that, and that this sort of behavior would go against her being able to get into a nursing home, like she wants. So far, it seems to have worked!

My mother has an appointment with her doctor next week, so she suggested I ask the doctor for another mental health assessment. It’s been over a year since her last one, and some cognitive delay was noted, but not “enough” to get her into a nursing home. I brought up that I think her vision is also getting worse, but getting her into the special clinic in the city for treatment is just too much for her.

We did both agree that, with all the stuff she’s going going on, my mother is doing really amazing for someone who’s almost 94! Between her messed up knees, her feet, her hands, her vision, etc. the fact that she’s still doing as well as she is is amazing. Which, unfortunately, is the problem. She doing too “well”.

It’s so bizarre that we have someone that actually recognizes she needs to be in long term care, and actually WANTS to be in a nursing home, and they can’t approve her because she hasn’t fallen and broken a hip or something. So frustrating!

That done, I took advantage of being in town to pick up a few things at the grocery store, then another 40 pound bag of kibble at the feed store before heading home. In the last mile before our place, I was seeing guys up one of the power poles, but only one company vehicle on the road, well past our place.

As we were expecting a prescription delivery, plus my brother and SIL coming out with their new “house”, so I had left the gate open when I left for my mother’s. Much to all of our surprise, the power came back on just before 11:30, instead of the scheduled 2pm! That army of workers really got things done fast!

The phone rang almost immediately. It was the delivery driver letting us know we was almost at our place; something we’ve asked him to do, since we usually keep the gate locked. So I headed out to meet him, only to find an electric company truck driving in! They drove up to the main power pole, then reversed their way out the driveway again. As they were passing me, I let them know that there was a delivery about to arrive, just so they’d know a vehicle was on the way. They had just enough time to go to the driveway in the unoccupied property across from us when the delivery driver arrived.

That done and my husband newly supplied with medications, I got my computer going and started checking the trail cam files. For the gate cam, which also takes video, I’ve got a 32 gig card. For the sign cam, which is set to take only still shots, I have a 16 gig card.

I uploaded the sign cam first, then started on the other, only to discover the second card was empty.

It was also a 16 gig card.

I’d put the wrong card into the sign cam!

So, off I went to switch the cards to the right ones, then uploaded the files from the 13 gig card, transferring any new files from the sign cam into the appropriate folder, and started checking them. Which is when I realized that the electric company people had come to the closed gate several times yesterday, with someone climbing over the gate to get in to check the power pole in our yard.

Then I checked the new sign cam files, which were recorded after I made the mistake in switching them out this morning.

What I discovered was a whole bunch of files of our vandal on his ATV, going back and forth.

I went and switched out the gate cam’s card again, to see what was going on.

In that short time, I saw the electric company vehicle going in and out a few times. What I also saw was our vandal stopping on the road to stare down our driveway, several times. Not just while the electric company guys were there and there was something to see, but even while they were gone. There was even a recording time stamped *after* I’d switched out the sign cam cards, so after I’d already done out to meet the prescription delivery.

I was about to update my brother and SIL when I got a message that they had just arrived. So I headed out to talk to them while guy they’d hired to haul it out got unhitched. Then I went and closed the gate! I didn’t lock it, as the electric company guys might still have needed to come in, but it was at least closed. Then I opened and closed it for the driver as he left. I’ll go back later to chain it again.

In the end, my brother end up moving their new abode – which will be a permanent set up – to a different spot. One that can’t be seen from the driveway, and not very visible from the back up driveway, either.

They’re still here and setting up. It’s going to be great to have them as “neighbours”! I just wish we didn’t have to constantly be thinking of what our vandal might end up doing.

Do we really want to go through all the hassle of trying to get another restraining order? It’s such a pain to go through that, and having to drive so far to go the court office. And yet, he is escalating.

Also, for someone who is supposedly dying of cancer that he says we caused, he’s pretty darn mobile and active.

*sigh*

Looks like we need to get more cameras.

On a more ordinary note…

We’re still insanely smokey out there. Our ongoing air quality warning now also includes reduced visibility warnings. It’s also hot and muggy. We’re supposed to get a bit more rain this evening, then again tomorrow morning, but not in any significant amounts. Those thunderstorm and tornado warnings we were getting yesterday didn’t affect us, but apparently there was a possible tornado touch down south of the city. There were also insanely severe thunderstorms that caused lighting strikes as much as 20km away from the heart of the storms themselves!

If we could just get some rain. Just rain. Lots of it. We need it so badly!

With that in mind, I need to decide if I’ll trust the forecast, or go water the garden anyhow, after supper.

I’ll probably be watering anyhow.

The Re-Farmer

Garden firsts, tiny harvest, long morning

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Today, I headed out early to feed the outside cats and do my morning rounds, since I needed to go to my mother’s fairly early.

There is actually some progress in the garden today!

The first of the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes is starting to develop a blush. As with so many other things, these tomatoes have stagnated in growth, but there are a few tomatoes developing at least. The rest are still very green.

In the next photo, we have our first open female pumpkin flower. I made sure to hand pollinate it, just to be on the safe side!

Last of all, I had a teeny, tiny harvest. A whole four of the yellow bush beans growing among the corn. It is odd to pick them when there were so few (from two plants, too!), but picking them will encourage more production.

I also picked the most Spoon tomatoes at one time for this year. There was maybe half a cup’s worth. This time, I washed and bagged them up to bring to my mother as a little treat. She’s not supposed to eat acidic foods like tomatoes, but loves them. These are so small and there are so few, they shouldn’t be an issue.

I headed over to my mother’s, getting to her place at around 9am. That’s when the lab opens, but she was scheduled for her morning med assist for 9:30. (She laughed in delight when she saw the teeny tomatoes!) So I helped her out with a few things and rubbed the Volataren on her back for her – something that the home care aid would have done, if I weren’t there. Then as she was getting ready to put on her slippers, I saw her toes needed some serious work! She had hired a foot care person to do her feet a while back and my mother told me she didn’t do a good job. As near as I can figure, though, it wasn’t a good job because her toenails are now long again. ???

I tried to do her feet, but it turned out she doesn’t have toenail clippers. Just fingernail clippers. Some of her toenails were so thick, they couldn’t fit into the clippers. Even scissors just slid off. She had a nail file I tried using, but it was so old, it was practically smooth.

Now on the shopping list for my mother: proper toenail clippers, and one of those callous grinders. There are special toenail grinders, but that would have to be an online purchase. I might order one for ourselves, actually. My husband needs help with his feet at times, too.

[side note: I sent a link to my husband to see what toenail grinder caught is attention and he came over to talk about it. He noticed that these grinders are basically just Dremels for toes – I had noticed that, too, and we both got a laugh over it. He has a variable speed Dremel and was suggesting we just buy the tips and use that. Which wouldn’t work too well for my mother! 😄)

While I was working in my mother’s feet, the home care aid arrived so I paused to let my mother take her meds. Normally, she would be having her breakfast with it, but she was fasting for one of her blood tests. She mentioned that to the aid, who said that she was going for blood tests herself, too.

After checking to make sure my mother’s back was treated, the care aid left. It took a while for my mother to get organized before we could leave. She decided she wanted to go to the bank today, too. Normally, she makes out a list of how many of each denomination she wants, but hadn’t done that, so she was looking all over for an old list. It took a while to redirect her away from that and assure her, she could still get the variety of denominations she wants, even without her list.

Thankfully, my mother was feeling better today than she was yesterday. She has to use a stool to get into the truck, with me lifting her slightly to help out, and she was concerned about whether or not she could do it today. She managed like a champ, though! Once at the lab, there was someone else at the counter, so I got her seated while she looked for her health care card. While waiting our turn, who should show up, but the health care aid we saw this morning! 😁

After my mother was checked in and the forms dropped off, we waited again. It turned out that they were short two people today. At the check in counter was an Asian guy that we’ve seen a few times. My mother prefers the girls, and they weren’t in today, so he was doing it all. At one point, he was at the counter and my mother was staring at him, then started crossing herself, repeatedly. Like she was trying to protect herself from the scary non-white person. *sigh*

The last time I brought her in for her monthly blood test, she asked me to make sure I was in the room with her while her blood was being drawn. It turned out that a while back, when I went to get an EKG done while she was getting her blood drawn, it was this guy that had drawn the blood, and she was convinced he faked it. She was positive that no blood was actually drawn, because she didn’t see any go into the vial.

The when she asked me to be there, it was one of the girls that drew her blood, but this time, it was the guy. As he was drawing her blood, with me sitting nearby, she actually spoke up, asking if he got the vein or not, because there was no blood going into the vial. Meanwhile, from where I was seeing, I was watching the vial fill. She had an extra test done this time, so I saw both of them fill. But my mother said she couldn’t see it.

I am now thinking this is related to her macular degeneration. Parts of her vision is obstructed so, because the guy drawing her blood wasn’t white, that must mean he was faking drawing her blood.

…

He was absolutely sweet with her, though, but sadly, that means nothing to my mother.

*sigh*

After her samples were drawn, we headed out and stopped at the bank. She hasn’t gone in ages and my brother has been getting her monthly cash for her, because it’s so difficult for her now. With his work hours, he’s only been able to take out smaller amounts through an ATM, and not all in the denominations she wants. This time, since she didn’t have her list, she asked me to go to the counter with her and make her requests as she had instructed me in the truck. This is a first. I usually go along to be available to help her with things, physically, but this time she actually wanted me to talk to the teller for her. The teller, of course, confirmed with my mother after I passed on the instructions, that it was what she wanted. My mother asking me to do something like this, especially involving money, is a really big shift.

The banking done, my mother was really hungry from her fasting, so she suggested we go somewhere to eat. It was early enough we still had to wait for the restaurant to open at 11. While there, someone else showed up to wait for the doors to open. My mother, being my mother, had her usual complaint every time we go to this place. The sidewalk to the door has broken edges on the concrete. She constantly rants about how they need to fix it, it looks bad, it makes the entire town look bad, it’s bad for business, etc. In reality, though, she just doesn’t like the look of it and demands it gets fixed for her. It really isn’t that bad. She started going on about it to the guy that was there, too, and we were both commenting that this would be very expensive to fix, and I pointed out that special permits would be needed. Plus, part of the area wouldn’t even belong to the restaurant, but to the town, so it would be the town’s responsibility to fix about half of it. All of which she angrily dismissed.

Then the poor guy came to unlock the door.

He held the doors open for my mother and her walker. My mother, meanwhile, didn’t miss a beat and went from complaining to us about the state of the sidewalk, to yelling about it at the poor guy. He did give an apology for it and said that it would be fixed when they could afford it, but my mother just kept being really rude and angry at him. I apologized, of course, but he seemed to take it in stride.

We had ourselves an excellent lunch, though, with my mother ordering a medium pizza for herself, so that she could take half of it home for her supper later on. Even with ordering, though, my mother was so impatient. She was hungry, which probably explained some of the behaviour, but she seems to think that if she tells the waitress how hungry she is, they will somehow magically produce her order instantly. Almost immediately after placing her order, she was complaining about how long it was taking! Once she got her food, though, she was very happy with it.

My mother insisted on paying for the meal, but she doesn’t believe in tips, so when she gave me just barely enough cash to cover the bill, I snuck a tip to the waitress. The last time my mother saw me leave a tip, she actually yelled at me on the way home over it.

That was our last stop, though, and my mother was more than happy to get home. Getting in and out of the truck is so difficult for her, but she manages it! Still, she had to stop and rest on her walker several times, just to walk the short distance to her apartment.

One of the things she was telling me to talk about with my brother (as her PoA) is about getting her a wheelchair. I tried asking her some questions about it, but she just said she needs a really comfortable wheelchair, and she can pay for it.

Now, we still have my late father’s folding wheelchair. That’s not what she’s asking for, though. She wants something “comfortable” (which is so subjective!). The problem is, I don’t think she has the arm strength to wheel herself around in a manual wheelchair. I tried to explain that to her, but it took several times for her to understand what I was getting at. Once she did, she tried to say that if she could stand at the counter and cook her own food, she could operate a wheelchair. I told her that there is a big difference between doing stuff at a counter or stove, and trying to move around her own weight. At which point she asked, what’s the alternative.

*sigh*

Several times now, my brother has tried to provide her with motorized mobility devices. Including a motorized chair that took up less space than her walker does. She refused to use it. When I brought it up, she said she didn’t like how jerky it was and she was afraid she would run into things. I told her, it was just a matter of getting used to it and learning how to use it.

In the end, I told her I would bring it up with my siblings but, in the mean time, I would bring my father’s wheelchair over. She could try it out and see just how well she can handle a manual chair. If she can, then we can look into getting her a “comfortable” wheelchair. Otherwise, we’d have to look into a power chair.

Our province does actually have a program that provides manual and power chairs on loan. On looking into the details, though, my mother doesn’t qualify, as she is in the process of being paneled for a nursing home.

The other problem I didn’t even bother bringing up is, my mother’s apartment is not wheelchair friendly. We would have to get rid of some of her furniture for her to be able to get around.

Well, we’ll be seeing my mother’s doctor next week. Perhaps there is something the doctor can do to expedite getting my mother into some sort of supportive living or long term care. As far as how the home care system paneling goes, they’re basically waiting for my mother to have a fall or something and end up in the hospital before she qualifies for anything. Which, of course, we’re doing everything we can to avoid!

In the end, I spent about three hours helping my mother get around and do the things she wanted. She was pretty exhausted by the time I got her home, and so was I! Enough that, once I got home, I ended up crashing for a couple of hours.

I still feel like I could sleep for a week.

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife came out, late this afternoon. They were returning their trailer from the camp ground up north and parking it. It was several hours of driving for them to get here. My brother was then running around like crazy, as he usually does! My SIL was able to catch me up on things while I gave her a tour of what I’ve been doing around with the garden. She really liked the new section of wattle weaving, and I told her about the issues I was having with the project, and my plans to get some basket willow, and where I would be planting them. Definitely with more planning than with the other willows we’ve got on the property! Some of them, like the ones near where the ejector is, should be cut down. They were planted way too close to the ejector and, even at its new location, their roots can destroy the system. I’m really surprised that they were planted there in the first place and, from the looks of some of them, someone already tried to cut them down at some point, and they just grew right back!

My brother and his wife have been talking about ways to help out with big jobs like that. We simply don’t have the tools and equipment to do a lot of it.

There isn’t a lot left of the season for this year, but next year I suspect there are going to be a LOT of changes and progress being made here, now that they no longer have their acreage to take care of, and can come out here more often. They’re even going to bring out a more permanent structure they were able to get a very good deal on. Something more like what in the UK is, I think, called a caravan. I can’t remember the name of it she told me. They want to be able to bring the grand kids out and have them stay the night, and that won’t work in the RV trailer they have right now.

I’m excited over their grandkids being able to come out here, too. They live in another province, so I hardly ever get to see them, and they’re growing so fast!!!

There are going to be so many changes here over the next few years!

The Re-Farmer

Wattle weave bed experiment

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Okay, so this project has been incredibly slow going!

I first started preparing the area at the beginning of July. That was just to prepare the bed in advance. It wasn’t until the middle of the month that I could finally get started on the wattle weaving.

For the vertical support posts on the long sides, I used the openings of the chimney block retaining wall to space them out. They’re not quite 2 1/2 feet apart. The bed itself is roughly 12 feet long. For the bottom wattles, I was using maple, which is not very flexible, even when freshly cut, green and newly stripped of its bark. So in that respect, the wider distance was better.

The problem is, I had I think only one straightish piece that was 12′ long. I had a few that were long enough that I could use two, but anything less than that, and there was just too much space between the verticals to do any weaving.

So that got set aside while I figured out where I could find long enough materials.

For the retaining wall side, I decided to experiment, and to completely the other direction. Each of the chimney blocks has three openings in the sides on the front and back. I spaced the verticals with four opening between them. In retrospect, I should have done it with three, but it’s too late to change that now!

I decided to add vertical supports in every opening, and try weaving with much shorter, thinner wattles.

I used the remaining pieces of maple and cut them slightly shorter than the verticals that are already in place.

Then I made a point at one end.

That mostly white cat on the left is Frank, aka: Old Blue Eyes.

Yes. He turned out to be a she, and she is pregnant. *sigh*

I used a scrap piece of board to hammer in each of the new verticals. I ran out of the maple, though, and use some willow for the last four. You can see those set in place in the second image of the slide show above. The willow I used is from what I harvested a couple of weeks ago, yet when I peeled them, they were still pretty green! Which is why I had to peel them. If I just stuck them into the ground, they would root themselves and start growing, and I don’t want to grow willow in my retaining wall blocks!

Once those were in place, it was time to harvest as many willow switches and maple suckers as I could find.

In the last picture, you can see the two piles I gathered. One is of willow switched, the other of maple suckers. I took advantage of needing these to clear out some growth that needed to be cut back completely, so I knew that some of them would not be useable for this. For the weaving, I need long, flexible, straight pieces. Unfortunately, even with the shorter, younger pieces I was harvesting, they tend to grow just a few feet before suddenly ending and splitting off into two.

Once the material was gathered, I grabbed my first piece of willow to start trimming the twigs and branches off when…

My pocket started to ring.

There’s only one place that calls my cell phone.

Yup. It was home care.

They didn’t have someone for my mother’s supper time med assist. They did for her bedtime assist. Just not supper. Normally, they are both done by the same person, so it looks like they found someone to cover for her for the end of day assist, but not the supper time one.

My mother was scheduled to get her med assist at 4:45pm.

I had just enough time to clean up, change and head out.

*sigh*

I did phone my mother in advance and left a message on her answering machine before I left. When I got to her place, however, she was sitting outside, enjoying the day, and was very surprised to see me!

I was early enough that we could sit outside together and chat for a while before heading in. Since I was there anyhow, once I got her meds set out, I helped her get her supper together, did some dishes, etc. I’m going to be back tomorrow morning to take her to the lab for blood work, so I didn’t stay for very long. I reminded her not to have breakfast tomorrow, as one of the tests requires fasting.

This makes three days in a row I have had to do med assists for my mother because there was no home care aid to do it.

While I way away, my daughter made supper and was feeding the outside cats for me again. I was very happy to grab some food, and then head back out again. I wanted to at least get those maple suckers woven in, as they will dry out and get brittle much faster than the willow.

Yes, Sir Robin is chewing on the tip of a maple!

I got about a dozen out of the maple I’d harvested and got started with the weaving.

At those length, I needed three to go the length of the bed.

I made it to two.

Even as thin and green as they were, with how close together the vertical pieces are, they just weren’t flexible enough. While trying to weave through, I broke a vertical. I managed to scrounge a long enough piece of older maple to replace it, but when I broke a second one, that was it. I found another piece of maple to replace that one – at this point, the remaining pieces were among those that were rejected for being too bent or whatever – and gave up using the maple suckers.

The willow was much faster to prepare. I didn’t even need to use pruning sheers.

For the first three passes, I wove the willow switches – it took three to complete one run – up higher. They didn’t want to bend around the verticals until I got to the skinniest tips, and would instead push them to one side or the other, if it was just one run of the willow switches. Once the first three runs were done, I used a scrap piece of board to hammer them down, little by little, to the base.

I kept that pattern up, but still had problems with the willow switches basically being stronger than the vertical supports. I ended up snapping one of the verticals after several passes. It didn’t break off completely, though. I was able to find a strong and straight piece of willow harvested last time and drive it into the space, alongside the vertical that snapped.

Some time later, another vertical snapped right off. This time, the piece of willow I found to add into the space had to be trimmed flat on one side to be able to fit alongside the remains of the broken vertical.

It took some doing, but I eventually figured out how to force the wattles to bend around the verticals as I went along. Unfortunately, that’s when the wattles started snapping, too!

In the end, I was able to get about a dozen runs woven through the verticals, sometimes having to get creative with shorter pieces to make up for not quite being able to reach the ends.

If you scroll through the slide show above, you’ll be able to see a picture I took from above the wattle weave, where some switches bent to the point of breaking, while others were just running straight through!

I don’t need to make the wattle weave on this side any taller. I had to stop at this point and head in, and will continue tomorrow, which is basically to tidy things up. At each end, the wattles will be trimmed evenly, and the shorter verticals will be trimmed to just above the wattles. The original, taller verticals will be left long. As they match the verticals on the other side, they will be left tall so that, should this bed ever need to be covered with netting or something, the taller verticals will be available to attach support hoops to.

Aside from the tidying up, this side of the new wattle weave bed is done. For all the pain in the butt it was, it looks much nicer than the other side. I’m not sure how those pieces that snapped during weaving will hold out, but on this side, it’s not going to be holding soil.

The ends, of course, can be woven in with any short pieces we’ve got; there are only three supports to weave around.

It’s the other long side that is going to be more of a challenge. I need to find more materials long enough to weave around those widely spaced vertical posts.

So, my conclusions on how this is going.

Obviously, on the inside, the posts are two far apart. On the retaining wall side, they’re too close together for the base thickness of wattles I was weaving, even though they are MUCH thinner than what I had for the other side. This is where it would be handy to have basket willow instead of the varieties we’ve got. Side note: if you noticed that some of the willow looked green, while others looked more yellow, that’s because they came from different trees that seem to be different varieties of willow.

With the closer spacing, the biggest advantage is that there are fewer gaps between the wattles. Which means they’ll hold soil in place better. What I have now on the other side has gaps large enough that I will have to line the inside with something to keep the soil in. With the L shaped bed, I had cardboard at the bottom of the bed that was wide enough to go partially up the sides. The rest of the height was lined with grass clippings. The soil in this bed has already been amended, so there’s no lining the bottom with cardboard again. I will probably just use cardboard along the inside.

I’m seriously considering removing the weaving I’ve done so far on the inside of the bed, and adding another vertical between each of the ones currently in place. I don’t know that I’d be able to reuse the maple wattles, though. If I had something long enough for them that could hold water, I would soak them for a day or two, to make them more flexible, but I’ve got nothing like that. It might be worth sacrificing the maple wattles to get a better and tighter weave. If I did do that, some of them would be used to make the additional vertical posts.

I’ve been eyeballing the trees in the spruce grove, and I might be able to harvest some poplar to use for weaving.

It’s a good thing I have time to figure it out. It won’t be used until it’s needed for next year’s garden, which might include getting winter sown this fall. As long as it gets done before the ground starts to freeze, that will be fine.

I really like the wattle weave beds, but gosh it’s hard to get enough materials for them. They use so much more than you’d think, and it’s surprisingly hard to find material that is the right combination of long, straight and flexible.

In the end, though, I think it’s worth it.

It is another reason for us to get basket willow, though! 😄

The Re-Farmer

August coming in hot

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We’re only 3 days in and August is already hammering us, and it looks like it’s not going to get much better for a while! As I write this, it’s just past 6pm and, depending on which app I look at, we’re still at our high of 27C/81F, or we’re 25C/77F with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F.

I just got back from outside, and I’d go with the humidex of 29C/84F.

Looking at the long range forecasts, we’re looking at highs of 30C/86F or higher. In a couple of weeks, though, we might start getting overnight lows dropping below 10C/50F here and there. We’ll see what actually happens!

This morning, at least, was pleasantly cool. When I first headed out, early since I had to go to my mother’s for her morning med assist, I at first thought the smoke was really bad again. Happily, it wasn’t smoke, but fog.

Well. Mostly. Once the fog dissipated, it was still really smokey. Last I read today, several new wildfires have been spotted, while several others have merged. High winds and poor visibility have prevented helicopters and water bombers from being able to go out, but things have cleared up a bit, and they were able to see the changes.

There was, of course, morning cuteness.

I didn’t see the calico this morning, but fluffy little Colby now likes to join the crowd of cats converging at the sun room doorway, calling for food. The garage kittens wouldn’t move away from the garage this morning, so I brought their bowl back. I was hoping if I left it closer to the house, they’d be encouraged to come over, but they’re still too scared. It doesn’t help that their mother is so stand-offish and aggressive with the other cats. She will let me pet her sometimes, and starts purring right away, but she does NOT like other cats! The kittens did seem curious about the other kittens, when I saw them by the house, so they might be different as they get bigger and braver.

The cats fed and my morning rounds done, I was soon off to my mother’s to do her morning med assist. Since I was there yesterday morning, there wasn’t a lot else that needed to be done.

Since I was out anyhow, I kept on going to the smaller, nearer city. I hit the Canadian Tire first to get more stove pellets for the litter boxes. While there, I picked up some deer repellant spray that I can spray directly onto our fruit trees, as well as surfaces. It’s supposed to repel racoons and mice, etc. too.

My peas had been getting a second growth spurt, with several plants blooming and developing new pods.

This morning, they were gone. The pea pods and fresh growth, that is. Not the entire plants.

I’m not going to spray my peas with this stuff, so I stopped at a Dollarama next. I found more of the taller tomato cages, like I set around the plum tree. I picked up four sets of them and plan to put them along one side of the bed with the peas as a sort of wall, and spray those, instead. I’m going to just do the side with the Super Sugar Snap peas, since those are the ones still trying to produce, and where I have a couple of drying out plants with pods I’m allowing to fully mature to collect seeds for next year. I’ve bought more pea seeds, but none are sugar snaps.

Last of all, I hit the Walmart, starting with an early lunch at the McRaunchies. One of the things on my list was some ibuprofen for my daughters, but I was still too early. The pharmacy department was still closed and the extra strength stuff was covered and locked, still. So I took my time getting the other things on my list, plus a few other items I remembered.

In the end, I got four 4L bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, the ibuprofen (the most expensive item), a container of beef bullion powder, a couple of containers of sour candy for my husband (for when his blood sugars drop), four little bottles of sugar free water flavours for him as well, plus a bag of praline covered peanuts and two containers of gum to keep in the truck. Last of all, I grabbed an energy drink for the drive home. It cost just under $83. !!! The scary thing is, if I’d bought all this locally instead of at Walmart, it would have cost about 50% more.

That done, I headed home with only a stop at a gas station along the way. Gas in the town nearest us is the same as the city, at $1.379, instead of the $1.389 that it is in my mother’s town. I’ll be back at her place on Tuesday, to take her for her monthly blood work, and I wanted to make sure I got gas at a slightly better price.

Once I was home and the truck was unloaded by the house, I couldn’t move it because there were too many kittens around the tires. It was too early to feed them to lure them away, so I left it to move at feeding time. Once my daughter and I put everything away, I decided to just lie down for a bit. Between my aversion to shopping and the heat, I was wiped out, so I thought a bit of a rest was in order.

Two hours later, I woke up to find myself encased in cats. 😄

Good grief. I just checked the temperature again, as I want to do the evening watering, and it has actually gotten hotter!

Well, the garden needs to be watered. Time to put on my big girl panties and suck it up.

I really don’t tolerate the heat like I used to, that’s for sure! I used to love temperatures like this!

Ah, the joys of getting old.

😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Future gardens: did I over do it? 😄

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Okay, so I took advantage of MI Gardener having a 40% sale on seeds. Which means I got a lot of things I wouldn’t normally have been able to get and still stayed in budget. Most of these will be for future gardens, as we continue to build more beds and extend further afield.

Here is what I ordered today. Click on the images to see them better. I’ll include links as I list them below, this time in alphabetical order.

Oh, the crazy thing about going back and looking up the links. When I placed the order, I selected “in stock” items only. Going back, I just went through all the seeds, not just categories and not just “in stock”. I found that quite a few things I ordered are now listed as out of stock – but there are things that I see listed as in stock, but weren’t there when I was placing the order from the in stock only list!

Must. Not. Place. Another order!!

Ah, well. Here is what I chose today. All links should open in new tabs.

Anise One for our developing herb garden. I had no idea anise could grow here, but it’s only 75 days to maturity, so we should have no problem.

Bachelor’s Button – blue
Bachelor’s Button – pink Years ago, I lived in a city where Bachelor’s Button practically grew wild and always loved them, but I had no idea they were also edible! These are deer resistant, so they will be planted strategically.

Butterneck Squash This one is a Canadian heirloom variety that is apparently almost extinct! So of course we’ll have to grow some to save seed. 90-100 days to maturity.

California Wonder Bell Pepper these are to restock our pepper seed inventory. It’s a thick walled pepper, which caught my attention. Some varieties we’ve tried had surprisingly thin walls. 75 days to maturity.

Canary Yellow Melon I’m as much a sucker for melons as I am for winter squash! 80 days to maturity

Caraway Another one for our future herb garden. 70 days to maturity.

Chocolate Stripes Tomato A pretty slicing tomato for the family to try. 75-80 days to maturity.

Coffee Seeds (coffea arabica) I always like to have at least one “for fun” thing and one “challenge” thing. This will be a “challenge” thing – and to be grown as a house plant, as this is a zone 11-13 item. 2-4 years to maturity, and yes, this is a real coffee plant that we could potentially harvest beans from to make our own coffee. This one is more for the girls, since they are the coffee drinkers in this household.

Dazzler Red Cosmo I got this because the red is a less common colour for them, and they are great for attracting pollinators. 75-90 days to maturity.

Gold Rush Wax Bean (Bush) I did already get a tri-colour mix of bush beans, but I’ve almost used up the yellow bush bean seeds I had in my current collection, so this is a replenisher. 55 days to maturity.

Golden Boy Celery I’ve never grown celery before. The one time I tried, it was a pink variety and I started them way too late. These ones, however, are 80-90 days to maturity, so I shouldn’t have that problem.

Golden Hubbard Squash Yeah, I’m a sucker for the winter squash! These are a smaller and more prolific variety of Hubbard that grows to “only” 5-15 pounds. 95-110 days to maturity

Hales Best Jumbo Cantaloupe Melon Yup. Another melon! These are described as being more drought tolerant and thrives in hot weather – kinda like we’ve got right now. 85 days to maturity.

Long Grain Rice I looked these up out of curiosity and was shocked. We can actually grow this variety of rice here! Gotta try it! 90-100 days to maturity.

Manitoba Tomato This is an all purpose tomato, and the variety my mother used to grow here, so I know these should work. With only 65 days to maturity, we could direct sow these, instead of starting them indoors.

Meadow wildflower mix One of these days we’ll get a wildflower mix that will take! 90 days to maturity.

Oaxacan green dent corn (x2) There aren’t a lot of seeds per packet, so I got two of these. As a dent corn, we would be growing these to make corn flour. Only 80 days to maturity, too!

Orange flesh honeydew melon Oh, look! Another melon! We have the green flesh honeydew (none of the melons we have this year are going to produce, and I still don’t know what happened), and now orange flesh. 75-110 days to maturity.

Red Long of Tropea onion We’ve grown this variety before, and they did really well. We have our own onion seeds, but none of this variety. 90-110 days to maturity.

Red Wethersfield onion While I think we these are the red onions we have in the mix of our own seeds collected, they were from onions that had died off after transplanting – we thought! – but came up the next year. We’ve never actually successfully grown edible bulbs of these, so I figure it might be worth trying again. 100 days to maturity.

Rouge vif D’Etampes / Cinderella Pumpkin This variety caught my attention partly because it’s listed as being able to last in storage longer. 110 days to maturity.

Russian Tarragon Another one for the future herb garden, and it apparently overwinters well with little protection. Not sure if that applies to our zone 3 winters, but no zone is listed at all for it. 60 days to maturity.

Stowell Evergreen Corn (x2) Another corn, and another addition to our collection of white things! This variety is listed as drought tolerant, which is important for where we are. There aren’t a lot of seeds in the packet for something that needs to be wind pollinated, so I got two. 80-100 days to maturity.

Tom Thumb Dwarf Pea (x2) This variety grows to only 13-18 inches high. No trellis needed. Which would make it much, much easier to protect from deer! Not a lot of seeds per packet, so I got two. 45 days to maturity.

Triticale (x2) Okay, this one is for well into the future! At some point, we do want to grow our own grain to make flour. I’ve already got some heirloom wheat that is particularly noted for making good bread flour though, even with two packets, the amount of seeds I have for those would be grown only to collect more seeds for the first couple of years! The triticale comes in 500 seed count packets, but I still got two. Even so, the first crop would be mostly to get more seed for larger, future plantings. Thinking well ahead on this one! 85 days to maturity.

There we have it! My second order with MI Gardener, in as many days, and third order this summer. 😄

While there are still some things we will get from other sources, these orders will set us up for several years, as we build and expand on our garden beds and growing areas, plus more flower seeds for the pollinators. The additions for the herb garden has brought that goal closer to reality by quite a bit. There are many other herbs I’d love to get, but most of them need a much longer growing season than we’ve got. At least until we get a permanent greenhouse.

I seem to have become addicted to getting seeds like I used to be with getting yarn. Seeds are cheaper, though! Especially with sales like this one. This order totaled US$36, with a savings of US$24. No shipping costs, either. Plus, they have a points program and I now have enough points to get $5 off my next order.

Which is not going to happen for a while. I’ve got lots of seeds now!

Honest!!

At least until their new inventory comes in, after this blow out sale clears space for them.

😂🤣😄

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden (and beyond): Oops. I did it again

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Yup.

I ordered more seeds.

I placed an order with MI Gardener previously, and it arrived a while ago. So why did I order more? Well, MI Gardener prices are some of the best around right now, even when ordering from Canada. I’m on their email list and they announced a 25% off sale that started today. I happened to be up past midnight, so I went ahead and placed an order to take advantage of it. In fact, I might even made another one. I haven’t decided yet.

I took advantage of our winter sowing experiment to clean out my seed inventory of older seeds, so part of my goal was to replace things with fresh seed. With the sale, I’m continuing that, but I am also building my my seed inventory with extra. How much we actually plant will depend on how many beds we have ready this fall for winter sowing as well as for spring sowing and transplanting next year.

So, without further ado, this is what I ordered last night/this morning.

This time, I’m going to link to each item I ordered. All links should open in a new tab. They are list below in the same order as in the images above.

Tigger Melon This was something I had in my wish list. It’s a tiny, personal size, melon. More importantly, it takes 90 days to full maturity, and we average 99 days between first and last frost. In theory, we could direct sow them and get a harvest, though I would start them indoors, just to be safe.

Summer Savory This year, I bought a summer savory transplant. We plan to expand our culinary herb garden, and this will be part of that. Only 65 days to maturity.

Golden Sweet Pea I got another colourful variety last time. We have other peas as well. I just like to have a variety to shake things up. 😊 60 days to maturity.

Black Futsu Squash We have a variety of winter squash seeds, but we’re still experimenting to see what we like. This variety has an edible skin and stores 4-5 months. It needs 110 days to maturity, so definitely one to start indoors.

Orange Currant Tomato This looks very much like an orange version of the Spoon tomatoes we’ve been growing for a few years now – and it the only tomato that has anything we can harvest at the moment. It would be great if these do as well. 65-70 days to maturity.

Yellow Swiss Chard We have Rainbow Chard. We have Fordhook Giant Chard. Why not Yellow Chard, too? As with the other chards, this one is heat tolerant, drought tolerant and can grow in cold weather, so it can be succession sowed as well as winter sown. 28-57 days to maturity.

Sweet Siberian Watermelon One of these days, I’d really like to get watermelon! I only get short season varieties, of course, but so far, none have done well. The one Cream of Saskatchewan melon we got last year about about the size of a baseball, and they’re supposed to be much bigger. This variety is supposed to produce 15-20 pound fruit, yet has only 80 days to maturity. It does come with the warning that it needs lots of room to spread!

Shogoin Turnip a good cool weather variety that needs only 40-60 days to maturity. Plus, it’s really pretty.

Lemon Squash In our first couple of gardening years, we had good summer squash production. Then… nothing seems to be growing! I’m hoping this variety will do better. It’s supposed to be prolific, and only 50-60 days to maturity.

Hailstone Radish with finally being able to grow radishes, and even radish seed pods, through winter sowing, I’m more than happy to experiment with different varieties. This one is only 25 days to maturity!

Garbanzo Bean Okay, this is an odd one. Until fairly recently, I didn’t even know garbanzo beans, aka chickpeas, could grow here. I happen to really like chickpeas. However, they are also drought tolerant, nitrogen fixers. They are 100 days to full maturity, though, so it’s touch and go for this one.

Early Prolific Straightneck Squash So this seems to be another winter squash with an edible skin? The description specifies it is like zucchini, and that the whole thing can be eaten. I’m not sure, but with our luck with any squash these days, I’m willing to try it! Heat tolerant and somewhat drought tolerant. Only 70 days to maturity.

Chicory Okay, I’m not sure how to categorize this one. Perhaps it’s one for the kitchen garden. The leaves can be eaten, and it can be used medicinally, but it’s mostly the roots I’m interested in, as they can be used as a coffee substitute. I remember my parents sometimes buying it at the store, but never tried it. I don’t drink coffee, but my daughters do, and that stuff’s getting really expensive. So… worth a try. Especially with only 80 days to maturity.

Caspar Eggplant I’ve definitely got a “white” theme going on this year! This is described as a rare Japanese variety. Of course, I see “rare” and I’m all for growing it to save seeds. 😄 75 days to maturity.

Blueberry Tomato yes, another tomato to try! A cherry tomato with a lovely appearance. Hopefully, it’ll taste as good as it looks. 75-85 days to maturity.

Purple Savoy Cabbage Growing cabbages is something that’s been our list for when we have more space in the garden. Cold tolerant and good for storage. Only 65-70 days to maturity, too.

Daikon Radish I actually meant to order this last time, but they were sold out. I got the icicle radish instead. My younger daughter really likes Daikon radish. The last time we tried to grow it, something ate them as soon as they sprouted. With winter sowing, we might actually succeed this time! Best of all, only 55 day to maturity. Long for a radish, but well within our growing season.

Florence Fennel This is another one that we tried before, but it did not succeed. We didn’t have the right growing conditions for it. This is one of those vegetables we like, but almost never buy, just as a matter of budget priorities. 70 days to maturity.

And now I’ve gone and removed everything I’ve ordered from my wish list, so I don’t accidentally buy them again! 😄

All of these cost US$27, which is pretty darn good!

Oh, look at me… I’m already going through what they’ve still got in stock to see if there’s something else I want to order.

😂

Anyhow.

We will now have lots of options to choose from when we do our winter sowing in the fall. Last fall, I just scattered mixes of seeds. This time, now that I’ve seen how things worked out, the sowing will be more planned and more attention paid to spacing. Plus, our seed inventory is built up again, so if some things don’t work out, there are other things that can be sown in their stead.

Of course, that means continually adding more garden beds!

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: still kicking! Plus, bonus kittens and insane prices

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First, the cuteness!

When I went out this morning to feed the yard cats, I had an adorable little surprise. Fluffy Colby was with some other cats INSIDE the sun room! I found the other three kittens around the cat shelters and they did run off, but Colby stayed close.

When it was time to bring out the kitten soup bowls, I found him sharing a tray with Havarti. He ran off a bit when I put the kitten soup bowl down, but he was soon back, sharing with with his cousin.

I want to pet that kitten so much!!

The garage kittens, sadly, still won’t come closer.

Today, my plan was to focus on finally giving the garden, and the food forest additions, a deep watering. Particularly since tomorrow will be hotter again, and I will be doing my Costco shop in the city. Tomorrow is supposed to reach 25C/77F. Today reached a comparatively cool high of 23C/73F. I didn’t need to go anywhere today, so I hoped to get some progress outside.

Well, of course, that changed.

My husband called in refills for his injections, so a trip to the pharmacy was in order. Of course, I combined errands as much as possible, grabbing our big water bottles to refill at the grocery store after getting the meds. Then, since I was there anyhow, I checked out the sales and picked up a few things.

There were also a few things I did NOT pick up.

Like Necterines.

$5.49/lb, or $12.10/kg

*gasp*

*choke*

Nectarines always tended to be more expensive, but they still were usually under $2/lb in season.

The next image is of a beef tomahawk steak. This is a cut I almost never see. I know people on carnivore that prize these as having an excellent protein to fat ratio. I just can’t imaging spending $84.95 ($55.09/kg) for about 3 pounds of bone-in meat (1kg=2.2lbs) that would be just one meal. Sure, that might be enough for the entire day on carnivore, but… yikes!

I did pick up a family pack of stew meat, though, which was in the $20 range.

Once back at home, I was soon outside doing the watering. When I got to the high raised bed, though, I also did some harvesting. In this bed, I had left one Purple Prince turnip to go to seed. Which it did.

Then the deer at the seed stalk.

So, I harvested the turnip.

Look at the size of that thing!

It’s probably past its best stage for eating, but it wasn’t regrowing a new seed stalk, so I figured it was harvest it, or it would start rotting.

In the next photo, you can find the fuzzy friend I found on one of the leaves. I broke off that section of leaf and set it aside, so as not to disturb the caterpillar. I have no idea what type of caterpillar it is. Hopefully, not something I will regret saving!

In the last image, you can see the turnip with the Uzbek golden carrots I also harvested. I was careful to pull the biggest ones. I’m leaving the smaller ones to give them a change to get bigger, instead of just harvesting the entire bed as I was considering doing. I found a single orange Napoli carrot large enough to harvest. I see hints of orange on some of the other carrots, but for the most part, it’s the Uzbek Golden carrots that have been growing. The Napoli carrot seeds were a couple of years older, and I finished off the last of what was left in the packet. I didn’t expect many of those to germinate.

For all the garden struggles this year, things are still kicking! In both winter sown beds, the radish seed stalks that the deer ate are trying to recover.

They’re blooming again, and sending out more leaves in some of them.

While watering the Spoon tomatoes, I noticed something. When they were being transplanted, I pruned off the bottom leaves before planting them inside the protective collars. One transplant had a larger branch that I pruned off. It was so nice and strong, I decided to just stick it into the ground between two other tomatoes and giving it a chance to grow.

It’s still tiny but, as you can see in the next image above, it’s producing tomatoes!!! The entire plant is maybe 8 inches high, if that. Just one little branch, and it’s producing!

As for those Royal Burgundy beans in front of the Spoon tomatoes – the whole three plants that emerged – one of them has a tiny bean starting to grow! I didn’t get a picture, but one of the yellow Custard beans planted with the tomatoes in the East yard had a whole bunch of tiny bean pods forming. It’s really late in the season, but we might actually have beans to harvest before summer is over!

Even the sugar snap peas are trying to make a come back! Some of them are dying back – they are well past their season – but after the deer munched away at them, some of the plants are pushing out new growth, and blooming! I’ve got one Super Sugar Snap pea plant that I’m leaving (and the deer have left alone) to fully mature so I can save the seeds, but it looks like we might have a few more fresh pods to enjoy, too.

If the deer don’t get to them, first!

It’s encouraging to see some signs of the garden trying to recover and grow. The tiny summer squash are getting a bit bigger, and blooming, though still just male flowers. The winter squash seem to be recovering a bit, too, and some are blooming. The melons are still tiny, but some of them are blooming. The pumpkins are doing quite well, and one of them even has a female flower bud showing!

Whether or not any of this will have time to recover, grow and produce before our season runs out is questionable. With some things, unlikely. Looking at the monthly forecast, it’s possible we’ll have all of September with no frost, though we would probably still need to cover things on colder nights. August, at least, looks like it’ll stay pretty warm. Of course, such long term forecasts are completely unreliable. I’m still going to assume our average Sept. 10 first frost date.

After finished up in the garden and bring the little harvest in, I used some of the carrots, onions from last year – yes, we still have a few! – and an entire head of fresh garlic in a beef and barley dish for my husband and I. The girls hate barley, but my husband and I love it, so they get to make their own supper using some of the fresh fish I picked up for them, yesterday. There will be enough of the beef and barely for my husband to have tomorrow, as well, while I am in the city. My younger daughter is having some PCOS issues right now, so she won’t be able to come with me this time. Which is fine; I don’t actually need the help, but I do like her company. I’ve been doing so much better myself, since I’ve been on the anti-inflammatories, I’ve actually been able to handle these outings better, too. I’m only taking them at the end of the day, instead of twice a day, before with my last meal before bed. I can take them up to 3 times a day, as needed. I just haven’t needed to take that many!

I haven’t taken any pain killers at all since I started on the anti-inflammatories. I do still have pain. Particularly if I lie on my left hip for too long, and I still have issues with my injured left arm. The pain, however is now more specific, and really not all that bad. Nothing worth taking more meds over. I should probably take some painkillers before I leave for the city, though, since I’ll be doing a lot of walking on concrete, and these shopping trips really take a lot out of me.

Our 2025 Garden: “just enough” harvests

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This afternoon, I harvested just a few things to use right away.

In the first image, I finally harvested that White Vienna kohlrabi I’ve been eyeballing for a while now! I also grabbed a smaller Purple Vienna kohlrabi.

They were peeled and quartered to go into a roaster with potatoes and carrots, including the Uzbek Golden carrots in the photo. I made sure to taste test them, first. If I had to choose, I’d say the Purple Vienna was tastier, but I think I might have allowed the White Vienna to get too big before I harvested it, so that might account for the taste difference. Once peeled, there’s really no visual difference between them.

In the next photo in the slideshow above, I picked some of the largest beets that had their greens eaten by deer. On one of the albino beets, you can see where the deer actually chomped off part of the beet root, too! These, I’m leaving for my daughters to get creative with.

I went to my mother’s this evening to do her med assist, as home care didn’t have anyone for her two evening med assists. I didn’t bring anything from the garden for my mother at the time, but I will be in her town again tomorrow. I’m meeting a friend as she drops her car off at the garage to be checked out. Originally, she was going to come by and pick me up on the way, but my mother’s almost completely out of her medications, so I want to make sure to get her bubble packs from the pharmacy – and that they get properly locked way in her lock box! Last month, she snuck one of the bubble packs away and hid it, for those days when home care simply doesn’t show up.

Since I’ll be leaving quite early to meet my friend, I’ve already prepared a bag with some fresh potatoes and some garlic bulbs from the ones curing under the canopy tent outside for my mother and left it in the truck. I had already promised her some garlic, and I think she’ll really like the fresh potatoes, too.

Also, I’m happy to say that my not being up to watering the garden this morning was not a problem. We got a lovely little downpour this afternoon!

Tonight is supposed to be a fair bit cooler. Hopefully, that means I’ll finally be able to get some real sleep!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden

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I have to admit, I’m feeling disoriented right now, looking at the time. It’s still morning??

It was another mostly sleepless night, so I did my morning rounds, then went back to bed. I did get some sleep, but my brain just wouldn’t shut off. I’m starting to feel rather ill at this point.

Thankfully, we did cool down during the night, and today is not as hot. We’re supposed to have some rain in about an hour, and it should keep raining for a couple of hours. Which is good, because I wasn’t able to water the garden this morning.

I started off feeding the yard cats, as usual. This morning, little Colby – the fluffy orange and white feral – was actually in the space between the cat shelters, meowing for food! What a brave little one. Even the other three were in the grass, heading towards the cat shelters near the house. As I came closer, the tortie ran into the isolation shelter and watched me go by with the kibble from the bottom level, rather than running away. Alas, my hands were full, and I wasn’t able to get any pictures!

After the dry kibble is set out, the bowls of kitten soup get set out. Some of the cats have started to actually wait for the kitten soup before they start eating! I have to set a couple of bowls up higher for the four socialized kittens, then quickly set out more bowls in various spots outside, so they have a chance to eat before the grownups push them away. One of the larger two-sided bowls goes to the shrine feeding station for the Colby and his sibling. I also have the mixing bowl and add some kitten soup to some of the dry kibble bowls before taking the rest of it to the garage for the kittens and their mom living in there. These days, they are almost always outside and seem to have moved out of the garage and into the area directly behind it. This morning, I spotted the two kittens were making their way through the sun choke and asparagus beds. They seemed to be aiming for the shrine feeding station! It would be great if they did that.

After the cats were fed, I did my usual rounds, which includes switching out trail cam memory cards. For one of them, I get to check on the crab apple trees along the way.

There are lots of apples forming, and some of them are starting to blush. The apples on this tree still have a long way to go. They get larger and tend to be ripe in September, or even October. The big tree with smaller edible apples tends to ripen a month earlier.

Checking on the garden beds, there was this blooming pumpkin. Of the five plants, this one is the largest. It has one primary vine that is long enough that I’m starting to train it up the bean trellis – since the beans clearly will not grow large enough to start climbing it. You can see how yellow they are, in the background.

In the top right corner, you can see the sunflower that got its top eaten by a deer. It is sending up a pair of new tops that grew out from the bases of the remaining leaf pair.

The onions from last year are blooming nicely, and one of them was serving as a bed.

I could not resist getting a bunch of pictures of the sleepy bee!

While doing my rounds, it’s not unusual for me to be followed by one or more cats. Usually, Stinky comes along and wants all sorts of attention. Lately, though, I’ve had a tabby hanging out and calling to me. He has a high pitched, peeping sort of meow, and he meows at me like he wants attention. He’s feral, though, and will not let me near him. Instead, he circles around, lays on the ground when I stop, but if I move towards him, it’s a big NOPE!

This morning, he was rolling around adorably in the grass. He stopped when I tried to get video of his cuteness, though. 😄

It’s hard to be sure, but I do think I actually have been able to pet this cat – when it was a teenager! I think he’s the one that would hang out in the upper level of the isolation shelter, when it was set up against the house for the winters, waiting for me to fill the food bowl. That was the only time he allowed me to pet him, and he stopped doing that after the isolation shelter was moved to its summer spot. He’s much bigger now, but he’s got a mark on the side of his nose that makes me think it’s the same cat. That might explain the almost-socialized behaviour.

Today being Sunday, I do normally try to make it a day of rest, and it seems like today, I won’t have much choice. Lack of good sleep is doing me in. I do hope things improve, since I need to go to my mother’s for her evening med assist.

Ugh. I just checked the weather. According to two of my weather apps, it’s raining right now (it’s not). We’re at 26C/79F right now, and the humidex is 29C/84F. We’re supposed to cool down a bit, then reach our predicted high of 27C/81F at about 6 or 7 pm. Checking the weather radar, more thunderstorms are happening to the south of us. There’s still that huge, out of control fire across the lake. It has crossed provincial borders. Then there are more fires to the north, including an ever bigger one, also still out of control. There are so many fires, in a big swoop along the Boreal forest, starting from Alaska, all the way down into Northern Ontario.

We could really use a whole lot of rain right now!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden

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Today is going to be a killer.

It never cooled down much during the night, so none of us got much sleep. We are now expected to reach a high of 30C/86F, with a humidex of 38C/100F While nothing much reached us, a massive storm blew in from the US across the south of our province, with alerts telling people to seek shelter.

As I write this, it’s 26C/79F, which is only slightly hotter than it was while I was watering the garden this morning. Humidex puts us at 30C/86F right now.

About all I can say for now it, at least it’s not windy like it was last night. I’m happy to say that we did not lose any trees. At least not anywhere that I could see.

My morning, of course, started off with feeding the yard cats. With the expected heat, I set frozen water bottles in the water bowls, too. I’ll change them out for fresh ones, later in the day.

I saw little Colby running around and playing in the grass.

In the second photo above, you can see his sisters still eating. I didn’t see the white and grey one anywhere, though. I hope it’s all right.

After doing my rounds, I gave the garden beds a deep watering, which ended up taking about 2 hours, maybe longer. I didn’t even make it to the trees. The heat and humidity was already getting to me. They still need to be done, though. I’ll have to go out again, later.

Meanwhile, I’m happy to say that some of our corn finally has tassels!

Only in the bed with the Arikara squash, where they are bigger than the ones in the corn bed. No sign of cobs, though.

When doing the watering, I often see lots of frogs jumping out from under the mulches and hopping away. Usually, they are the greyish, brownish wood frogs. Sometimes I’ll see some tiny copper or emerald ones.

Today, I got to see this beauty.

Apparently, this is a Pacific tree frog! Which is strange, because we are nowhere near their range. The other possibility is the common tree frog, but from the images I’m finding, that’s not it.

Well, whatever kind of frog it is, I am happy to see it!

Today is looking to be a day of staying out of the heat as much as possible. None of us tolerate heat very well, it seems!

The Re-Farmer