Gardening

Gosh, it felt good…

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… to get some physical labour done!

My broken old body may betray me now and then, or the weather may not be cooperative, but gosh I do love it when I can do physical labour!

I actually ended up going into town again today. I realized we weren’t going to have enough kibble for the outside cats to last us until our first stock up shop next week, and with other things on my calendar, it was either get it now, or run out before then.

I did wait until later in the morning to go, though. While we got a smattering of snow last night, mostly we got freezing rain. The highway conditions group I’m on has been quiet the last while, other than warnings about deer activity or accident sites, as road conditions have been really good. This morning, I was seeing warnings as soon as I opened my FB app about how dangerously slippery various highways were.

Even as I was heading out, when things had warmed up, I almost slipped while opening the gate. There is a pair of large spruces that shade it for most of the day – especially this time of year – so it was still all ice. Today was pretty warm, and tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer, so hopefully it will all dry up before tomorrow night, when I have to drive to and from my mother’s, after it gets full dark and the temperatures are below freezing.

Normally, I would have gone to the nearest Walmart for more kibble, but with the cost of gas, I decided to try the other grocery store in town. They have a house brand kibble that the cats will actually eat, even if they don’t like it as much as other brands, that is more affordable. I lucked out. Their 8kg/17.6lbs bags were on sale for $17, which made it cheaper than the one 15kg/33lbs house brand bag that was available. Since I was there anyhow, I was able to take advantage of some sales and got a few more little things, but it was still mostly the cat food.

That done, I headed outside after lunch to see what I could do to take advantage of the lovely weather. One of those things was to set up the little scaffolding we picked up second hand, a couple of years ago, under my bedroom window that leaks. I was going to caulk it, originally, but changed my mind and decided to go with a spray sealant.

I’m glad I did.

While scrubbing off cob webs and debris, I got a good look at the outside of that window for probably the first time in my life. On the side that we used to be able to open, I could see that there was a pane of glass added, with moveable clips holding it in place. The other window has the clips, but not the extra pane of glass. The clips are painted over, so they don’t actually move anymore, but that could be changed, if necessary.

Looking around, though, I could see why the window was having issues with leaking, when the winds drove rain in just the right direction. The house was painted the summer before we moved in, and some of it was starting to peel away. I could see gaps that should have been filled. I don’t think they were there when the window frame was painted.

I hope the spray sealant works, but there might be issues. It’s supposed to be used at temperatures between 10-35C/50-95F. At the time I started working on it, we were at about 4C/39F.

The directions said to wait 10 minutes between coats so, after I applied the first coat, I set a timer, then started working into the spruce grove.

With the leaves down and the foliage dying back, I went through to find the last section of tree trunk from one of three dead spruces my brother cut down for me, several years ago, to use as raised bed frames. I step counted what was left, and figured I could get 18′ out of it, after trimming off the remains of the tree top. My daughter had already trimmed the branches away when we used part of the trunk for the low raised bed frame most recently completed.

There was still the issue of getting to it, and that required cutting away some new growth. I also noticed a lot of nice, straight poplars, as well as cherry suckers. In time, I went to get rid of that entire stand of cherries, as they are not the right type for our climate and don’t produce. They just spread through their roots. For now, though, I started to widen the opening into the spruce grove by cutting away cherry suckers. I was getting enough nice, long and relatively straight pieces that when my timer went off and I stopped to apply another coast of sealant, I messaged my daughter to see if she could come help. I dragged the pile with the straightest stems over to the branch pile (the more crooked ones went straight onto the pile), and she came out to trim away all the little twigs and branches, and setting aside the longest, straightest sections.

I got quite a bit of the cherry cleaned up – and two more coats of sealant on the window – before I stopped with the cherry stand and started working my way to the downed tree trunk. At this point, I was saving the straightest poplar suckers. Like cherry, these spread through roots.

All of this took a couple of hours of before I finally got things clear enough around the downed tree. This part of the trunk was fairly narrow, and I was able to trim the top of it with a pruning saw to get it clear.

Then there was the question of how to drag it out.

We have a rock pile near our power pole that I’d gone through to collect rocks that will form the wall of a flower bed near the gate, where my mother’s angel statue is on display. Lying upside down on the rock pile was an old child’s sled. How many decades it’s been sitting there, I can’t be sure. I decided to grab it and try something, to make dragging the tree trunk out easier. I brought that, some rope with heavy duty latch hook clips at each and, and a metal bar to use as a handle, over to the tree trunk. The sled went under the far end – the top of the tree – so that it would slide through the remaining underbrush, rather than dragging along the nubs of branches that were bound to be on the underside of the trunk.

At the near end, I looped the rope under the trunk, past some branch nubs, so it couldn’t slip, then put the metal bar through the latch hooks to make a handle.

It did actually work.

For a while.

The only problem was that I had no way to secure the tree trunk to the sled. After a while, the sled got hung up enough that the tree finally slid right off. By that time, however, I’d gotten it through the worst of the underbrush and could keep dragging it as it was.

Well… almost.

Without the sled, there were still branch nubs catching and digging into the dirt. When it got to the point that I needed to turn the trunk so that it could be dragged between trees and into the main garden area, I called my daughter over for help. The trunk itself was not that heavy, relatively speaking. The first section of it that we dragged out before was the thickest part of the trunk, and THAT was heavy!

Between the two of us, we maneuvered it through the trees and into the main garden area, near where the next trellis bed will be built. From the looks of it, compared to the nearby 18′ raised bed, I’d say it’s about 18.5′, maybe closer to 19′ long. Which gives me some wiggle room to trim the ends when it’s time to use it for a garden bed wall.

We “just” need three more 18′ lengths, plus four 4′ lengths for the ends, to make a matching trellis bed.

By this time, it was getting too dark to keep going, so we just gathered things to be put away and did some clean up. My daughter had managed to trim quite a lot of the cherry and poplar I’d harvested, and those got added to the pile on the chain link fence garden bed, where they will be used to make new, slightly higher, walls. I doubt I’ll be able to actually build them this year, but we should at least have most of the materials needed to do it in the spring. Since these will be deadwood walls, not wattle weave, I don’t have to worry about keeping the lengths flexible. They can stay where they are all winter, and still be useable.

Since it was so dark by the time we were done, I didn’t get any pictures of our progress, but I did get this…

Would you look at how that little mostly white kitten is splayed out? 💕💕

That tuxedo’s eyes are too big for its head. 😄

Tomorrow, I’m going to look around in the spruce grove some more and see what can be done next. Several dead spruces have fallen on their own already. The based of their trunks, however, are huge. The ones that are too big to use for raised bed walls without being milled, will be cut to 10′ lengths and set aside. I need a total of ten of them for the posts of the outdoor kitchen we want to build and, so far, I have only one!

Unfortunately, the space I’d set it aside in, with plans to add more as I was able to harvest them, now has my brother’s baler parked in it. I’ll have to find somewhere else to store nine more 10′ logs!

There are, however, more dead spruce trees that need to be cut down, that are not so wide at the base. Not only am I looking to harvest them for the pairs of trellis beds that will become trellis tunnels, but there are another 5 or 6 already prepped low raised beds that need walls. The trellis beds will be 2 logs high for starters, but the low raised beds will be one log high for starters. We can add more height to them over time, as we are able, but the main thing is to get them framed. The goal is for most of the beds to be 4 logs high, like the current 9′ long high raised bed. That one is the perfect high for excellent reach without back or joint pain. Some beds will remain lower, to be used for tall climbers or things like corn, but I still want them to be at least two logs high.

I’ve been thinking ahead to the open area closer to the food forest. I’m hoping to have at least two more pairs of trellis tunnel beds beyond what is being worked on now. Give the amount of sun, etc. the open area gets, I am thinking of how to set up polytunnels. Perhaps we can continue to build more pairs or raised beds, but instead of forming trellis tunnels over the paths in between them, we can add supports to the outsides of the beds and cover them with greenhouse poly. I think we’d have room to build two, maybe three, pairs of beds as we get closer to the food forest area. If we can do that, it would allow us to grow perennials that would otherwise not survive our winters, and extend our growing season significantly. With the amount of direct sun that area gets, a polytunnel would be very warm, even in winter. We’d just have to find a way to keep it from getting too cold overnight.

Things to think about!

We will, eventually, run out of dead spruces we can harvest for this and will have to go further afield to find materials. Once we’ve cleared the spruce grove of dead trees and underbrush – and those spirea that I’d pulled out but came back anyhow! – I want to start transplanting spruces from other areas and make the spruce grove a spruce grove again. With how poplar spreads through its roots, it’s taking over. They are a useful material to harvest for various projects, but they are not as good at protecting from winter winds as the spruces are. With all the stumps we are leaving taller, we’ll also be able to use those to create benches and tables, and make ourselves a nice little park in there. When I was a kid, I used to be able to mow in there. Not any more! It would be great to have a space in there that my husband can go into with his walker, and just sit and enjoy the outdoors. Plus, once we’ve cleared out the cherry stand and all the dead spruces, we’ll be able to finally build that outdoor bathroom with a composting toilet I’ve been wanting to build, to replace the outhouse over a pit.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for 8 years now. When we first moved here, we’d developed a year by year plan on what we wanted to work on, staring with the inner yard, then moving outwards.

Things certainly have changed. Not the main goals, perhaps, but how and when we plan to reach them. That all four of us are also now broken, one way or another, with three of us officially considered disabled (my older daughter still won’t see a doctor and, really, I can’t blame her), that has changed our focus as well.

Which makes me appreciate days like today, when I can get out there and do things like drag tree trunks around! Even if I do need some help from my daughter. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Some progress, and isolation kitty update

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Today turned out to be a decently warm day, with a slightly higher than forecast high of 4C/39F. Thankfully, most of where I needed to work was sheltered from the wind.

I decided it was a good day to start collecting material for the walls on the chain link fence garden bed, to replace the temporary walls we have right now, as well as cutting things away and clearing up at the same time. This is progress so far.

The first stack is maple suckers that are strong and straight enough to be used as vertical supports for the garden bed walls. For what I have in mind, and the space I’m working in, I’ll need a total of 48 stakes, with a quarter of them double the length of the others. The longer ones will be used to support a cover for the bed, to keep it from being choked out by Chinese elm seeds, or used as a litter box by the cats. They’ll be cut to length, sharpened at one end, and peeled of bark. For now, I am mostly aiming to do the wall against the chain link fence, so I need only 24 stakes to be able to get started.

The next picture in the slide show is a collection of poplar, maple and willow branches and suckers. I will need a LOT more of these, but it’s a start.

Some of the material came from maple and willow I needed to cut back to get branches away from the power lines. I wasn’t able to clear it completely, as I needed a ladder to reach. It was a bit too windy to safely use a ladder there and, by then, that wind was causing what promised to be a massive ear ache, if I didn’t get inside soon!

Meanwhile, we have been keeping an eye on the isolation shelter. Pinky is doing very well and seems quite content in there with the three littles.

One of my daughters was able to get a look at her incision and it’s all looking excellent. They are all quite enjoying their special isolation shelter treat of wet cat food. Hopefully, this means the little will start gaining weight and getting bigger!

The angry looking little fluffball tabby is so chill for a mostly feral kitten! Totally enjoying the shelter. None of the littles have shown any interest in leaving it!

I think we have a name for the angry looking kitty.

Furriosa.

😄🤣

That little tuxedo has the smallest, roundest eyes. They look huge because the kitten always has this stunned expression on its face. I’m able to pet him (her?) and the white and grey pretty regularly, but Furriosa allows touches only while s/he’s eating.

Speaking of pets, I was able to pet Frank today! She’s still very nervous and was very cautious about coming to my outstretched and, but I was able to give full back pets, and even got some purrs out of her. Which means our chances of getting her to the vet one of the two slots we have on the 28th just improved dramatically.

Now, if I could just get one of the other adult ladies friendlier! They just will not let it happen. *sigh*

The kittens in the isolation shelter are too small for spays or neuters, but we might be able to get one of the bigger kittens in the sun room. A couple of tabbies are getting okay with being pet and handled, though I think the bigger one is male and the smaller is female. If I’m right, neither are ready for spay or neuter. The smaller one is under 2 pounds, which is the minimum weight the vet will do a spay, and if the other is male, his balls haven’t dropped yet, so he can’t be done for a while yet. We do have older, bigger kittens that would be easy to grab, all male, and priority is much higher to get females done.

Well, we’ll see how it goes. We’ve got about a week to work on it.

As much as I am appreciating the mild November we are having, just to get stuff done outside, I also appreciate it for making life a lot easier on the furballs! Especially the tiniest ones.

The Re-Farmer

Progress outside!

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I wasn’t sure if it was going to get done. When I headed out this morning to feed the outside cats, it was decidedly unpleasant.

I also counted 38 cats. I haven’t seen that one tabby that I didn’t recognize, but none of the ones I did see were unfamiliar. Which means the crowd was congregating all at once!

I didn’t soak the kibble in the morning, because I knew it would freeze, so I saved that for the afternoon. I counted 32, that time. Including this little fluff ball.

Tomorrow evening, we are going to get Frank and Pinky closed up in the isolation shelter, so that they can have their fast (after a treat of wet cat food) and be easier to catch in the morning, for their spays. The other cats and kittens are not going to be happy with not being allowed in the isolation shelter for a month! We’ve got the first two that will be in there until it’s time to switch them out for about 10 days, and then we’ll have the next two set up in there for their recovery period. Assuming we can catch two more females. If we ended up with males, they won’t need that much time for observation and recovery.

After the second feeding, I did my evening rounds before it got too dark – these are being done earlier and earlier! Today, I made a point of checking the asters. I’d left the flower bed untouched, so that the Cosmos could shelter the memorial asters from the frost, and hopefully give them time to go to seed.

It worked!

I collected some to bring inside for planting next year. I left others to self seed. I’m so happy they had enough time to develop seeds before the deep freeze hit!

It was nice enough out that I grabbed a rake and collected leaves to do some mulching, then did a bit of winterizing.

The first picture in the slide show above is where the tiny strawberries were transplanted. I have no idea if they will survive in their new location, but it is worth a try. In the next picture, you can see that the strawberries transplanted into the retaining wall also got mulched with leaves. Next was the saffron. I don’t know if I am being too early with this, or too late, since they are showing new growth. The one flower bud that is still there looks like it froze before it could open, so I left it. I had considered leaving those until later, as we are supposed to warm up a little bit over the next week, but then I saw cats digging around them to leave “presents”, so the mulch is to keep them away, too.

I didn’t mulch the little herb bed, as we are still able to harvest from them, but I did get a pile of leaves ready for when it’s time.

Now that our septic tank is empty, it’s time to get that area ready for winter, too. We’ll be setting the emergency bypass up, just in case, so I stretched out the flexible hose so that it can warm up in the sun and straighten out. I ended up sitting a short length of pipe into the far end to flatten it, because it kept sticking up into the air. The two lengths of PVC pipe we set over the pipe from the basement got shoved into the flexible hose at the other end to help straighten that out, too. In a couple of sections, I leaned boards and bricks and whatnot to get them to straighten out and flatten to the ground.

We did not get the straw bale I was hoping to get this weekend. It might still get delivered in the next while but, just in case, I set the insulated tarp over the septic tank and weighed it down.

The forecast now says we should reach highs of 5C/41F next weekend, and that should be pretty much it for the winter. Time enough for a few last things, like covering the herb bed and, if the straw comes in, using that in various places. I’ll take advantage of every warmish day we have right now!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: they’re alive!

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Right now, there’s basically nothing in the garden. The herb bed, amazingly, is still chugging along, but everything else is done for the year. So, when I do my rounds, I don’t check the garden beds like I do throughout the growing season.

Which is why I had such a surprise today.

When the septic guy showed up to empty our tank, I stayed around on kitten duty, to keep them away from the open tank. A couple of cats wanted to hang out.

I had to pick up and carry Sir Robin most of the time, because he was so curious. When I put him down to look at things, he stayed close and even posed quite nicely for me.

Fancypants, here, is more feral, but still very curious, so I was keeping a close eye on him.

His going into the area fenced off from the deer, to protect the tulips and apple tree, is why I was there to spot my surprise.

First, it was seeing fresh green leaves poking up where the saffron was planted, two autumns ago. I’d seen some sprouting in the spring, but then they disappeared and I thought they died off. Their first growing season was much the same. It’s really hard to keep this area clear of the creeping bellflower that threatens to choke out the tulips. The crocuses are much more delicate. Plus, these are zone 4 corms, and we’re in zone 3, so I really wasn’t expecting much. Just hoping.

Today, I found fresh new saffron crocus leaves coming up! In November!!! These are supposed to bloom in August, never mind start coming up.

When I first started taking pictures, I actually missed it.

Yes. That is a spent saffron crocus flower laying on the leave litter!

The plant just to the right of it in the picture has what looks like a flower bud ready to open soon.

!!!

I opened up the makeshift gate in the fence wire to get better pictures, which you can see in the rest of the photos of the slide show above.

Yes, I picked the flower.

We have our very first saffron threads from our first blooming saffron crocus!

We’ll keep an eye on the flower bud over the next few days, to see if it opens or not. If it does, we’ll pick that, too, for a grand total of 6 saffron threads. 😁

The clusters of crocus leaves are looking strong and healthy, now that their competition is died off for the winter. They also look like they are spreading, even though they’ve barely survived their first two seasons.

I’m just blown away. I honestly thought they’d died off. I knew, when I bought these, that their chances of survival would be low, so this is just really awesome.

We’ve got a few more warmer days, but before the ground freezes, I want to put a nice, thick mulch of leaves over it. I don’t want to put it on too early, as that would smother them. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we could possibly wait as long as another week and a half, but I don’t want to wait too long, either! I think I might need to look at the overnight lows more than the day time highs when deciding when to cover them.

I can still hardly believe they survived!

The Re-Farmer

Progress for today, self sabotage and the cuteness

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Today was going to be a warmer, less windy day. My plan had been to get out the chain saw and start breaking down some of the fallen trees. It’s an electric chain saw and in the end, I decided I didn’t want to be dragging an extension cord – two 100ft extension cords, most likely – across the yard to do the job, when getting more garden beds cleaned up would be more productive.

I didn’t head out until after lunch, though, waiting for things to warm up a bit. This morning, though, I got a call from my mother. It was about a minute or two after 9am. When I answered, the first thing she did was ask me if I’d just phoned. Someone had called her but hung up before she could get to the phone to pick it up, and they didn’t wait for the answering machine. My mother’s phone does have caller ID, but she doesn’t know how to use it.

I had not called, of course. If I did, I would have left a message. I’ve told her that a few times, but she still does this.

Which turned out to be a good thing because she then told me that home care didn’t show up (at 9am), so she took her pills herself.

Now, I know she has the correct time on her clocks because my brother had changed all her battery operated clocks for daylight savings while he was there. She also has a “dementia clock” he got for her, which shows the date, day, time, and has images to show if it’s day time or night time. That one changes itself for daylight savings.

I really like that clock and am considering picking one up for myself!

My mother had mentioned hiding a bubble pack away, just in case, a few weeks back. I had been going through her lock box to see if she was in need of refills, and it has several weeks worth of bubble packs, so I wasn’t sure how she could have a spare to set aside. I told her I was checking to see if it was time to pick up her refills soon, and she got mad at me because she had lots, so why was I wanting to pick up refills? This is a regular thing. She refuses to consider getting refills before she runs out, but leaves it until she’s on her last day or two.

Anyhow, when I said, don’t do that, give them time to get there, she immediately said, ok, I won’t do that anymore. Which, knowing her, meant she’ll do it but just not tell me anymore. Again, she has done this before.

Meanwhile, I looked up to confirm her schedule that I got emailed to me from home care. I had called and talked to her about her new schedule and times yesterday. Her first visit of the day was scheduled for 9:15, and they had 20 minutes scheduled to help her out. I had repeated the times to her several times and explained that she would be getting a lunch visit now, too.

So she had taken her secret pills before calling me which, considering what time she called me, after just missing another call, meant she had actually taken them at least 5 minutes before 9, when she claimed she was expecting them to come AT 9am. So even if they had been scheduled for 9, she had already decided they weren’t going to show up and took her meds from her secret stash.

My mom didn’t talk for long, which is out of character for her, but as soon as the call was done, I updated my siblings, sent an email to the home care coordinator about it, since the first scheduled visit on the day was still to come, then called my mother’s pharmacy.

I confirmed that they had delivered her refills to her on the 17th, which explains why there were so many bubble packs in her lock box when I checked. I was supposed to pick them up for her, specifically so I could put them in the lock box right away. Since they were delivered, that meant she had access to them until the next home care worker arrived and could put them in the lock box.

I explained what happened and they now have instructions to not deliver refills to my mother anymore. Instead, when the refills are ready, they will call me, and I will pick them up and get them into her lock box right away.

By the time that call was done and I updated my siblings about it, I had a response from the coordinator about it. She was worried that this might have been older pills that my mother had stashed away, so I was able to confirm that these were part of her most recent refills. The home care workers can’t look for her hidden stash, but the last time this happened, she showed the worker the stash herself and the worker was able to put them into the lock box. If they are in the open, or my mother brings them out herself, only then can they take them and put them in the lock box. My siblings and I can, of course, actually search for them, if necessary.

My mother’s first visit of the day was done by the time the home care coordinator got back to me – as soon as she got my email, she would have called the scheduled aide to let her know my mother had already taken the pills for the morning – and was able to update me. My mother had allowed the worker to make her breakfast, but was not willing to let her help her with washing herself. We’re trying to be delicate with this; we can understand my mother not being willing to allow someone to assist with such intimate care. The problem is, she needs the help. She sponge bathes herself, because she’s afraid of falling in the shower, even though her shower is an adapted one and has a built in seat. Sponge bathing only accomplishes so much, since it’s hard to reach in areas, and extra hard for someone of my mother’s size and with mobility issues. So we’re all going to have to encourage her to accept that help. We haven’t been saying anything to her directly but, the truth is, sometimes we can tell that my mother hasn’t been able to clean herself properly – and I have a terrible sense of smell.

For someone who is self aware enough to actually WANT to be in a nursing home and is upset that, after all this time (we started this more than a year ago), she still can’t get in, you’d think she would actually be willing to accept the sort of help she would be getting while living in a nursing home, while still in the comfort of her own home.

The home care coordinator has already submitted her panel report, after her most recent interview with my mother. Hopefully, between that and my mother actually accepting the help she is scheduled for, she will finally be accepted for a bed in a nursing home.

Now, if my mother would just stop self sabotaging herself!

Anyhow.

After a frustrating morning, I did have a productive afternoon.

The first area I decided to work on was the newly re-finished bed in the old kitchen garden.

Along with the weeding, there were plenty of “presents” from the cats to get rid of. I thought it would need more soil added but, once it was weeded and no longer compacted, the soil level was even with the top of the retaining wall blocks!

Once it was all cleaned up, I raked up leaves to mulch it for the winter, mostly to keep the cats from using it as a litter box.

I know I stopped to take a picture of the bed after it was finished, but I must have failed to do it somehow, because there was no “after” picture on my phone!

The bed itself did have tree roots in it as well – mostly from the crab apple trees, but I’m pretty sure some of them were from the pink rose bush and the double lilac bush, too. It wasn’t all that bed, though.

That done, I turned my attention to the short side of the L shaped wattle weave bed. It had already been cleaned up, but the cats had been digging in it. I got that all cleaned up, then gave it a leaf mulch, too.

Collecting the leaves was actually more difficult than cleaning up either bed. It was still pretty windy today, and every time I tried to rake leaves into piles, then get them into the wheelbarrow, the wind would blow a substantial portion away!

The beds old kitchen garden are now finished for the winter.

That done, there was still enough light in the day to get one more bed done. This time, I went to the main garden area.

I decided to work on the bed that had the garlic and summer squash in it.

The part that had garlic in it has been empty for some time, so a fair number of weeds had taken over. Mostly, it was tree roots I was expecting to have issues with, and I did, right from the end furthest from the elm trees. So I loosened the soil around the entire before before I settled into actually digging in to weed and remove rocks. That way, any roots I did find would be easier to pull out.

In the end, most of the roots I found were running across the bed instead of running the length of it, which also made them easier to remove. I did find one large root running through, but it was large enough and deep enough that I decided not to fight with it and just left it.

I hope I don’t regret that.

In the second picture, you can see the bed after it was all cleaned up. You can also see the pile of roots and weeds I pulled out at one end, plus some of the rocks I’d been pulling out, tossed onto the fabric covering the ground nearby. While it was in reach, I was tossing them into the kiddie poll, so what is visible in the picture is nowhere near all of what I pulled out.

In the last picture, you can see the bed, covered with plastic for the winter. Again, this is more to keep the cats out than anything else!

In this area, there is one more 18′ bed that needs to be cleaned up, plus the 4′ square bed, off to the side, that I transplanted the surviving Albion Everbearing strawberries out of. If I do get to that small bed before the hard frosts hit, it will be winter sown with bread seed poppies.

Outside of this area, there is one more 9’x3′ raised bed, plus the 4′ square bed, in the East yard to clear up. Those should not take long at all.

Depending on the weather, and if I have time to gather and process materials, the only bed that will be left to work on is the one along the chain link fence. Considering how long it took me to do the bed in the old kitchen garden, I might get this one started this year, but will probably be finishing it next year! Maybe. With the one in the old kitchen garden, I was experimenting more before finally figuring out things weren’t working as I wanted and coming up with an alternative. That alternative is what I plant to do in the chain link fence bed, so there is no “figuring out” time to factor in. Just a “gathering materials” time. Looking at the long range forecast, there is a possibility we’ll have decent weather for such work, after the other beds are cleared up. Those beds have priority. If the weather doesn’t hold, that’s okay. These can be done in the spring.

By the time I was done, things were getting dark and chilly, and it was definitely time to get inside!

Which is where I got to appreciate the cuteness.

Ghosty had been sleeping across Cheddar when I stopped to take the picture, and disturbed her nap in the process.

She does not look impressed by the interruption!

I just looked over to see is they were still there and yes, they are – but have traded places! Ghosty is now curled up in the cat bed, and Cheddar has been squeezed off to the side, half on top of Ghosty, busily grooming Ghosty’s face.

Then there was this crowd.

That’s Tin Whistle on the bottom, mid yawn. Nuzzled into her is Toni. I think that’s Shadow using Toni as a pillow. Or it might be Clarence. Clarence is there as I write this, but without seeing distinctive face features, I can’t tell Shadow, Clarence and Mitsy apart.

Toni is not a cat that seeks out attention from humans, in general, so I’m glad to see that she gets along with the other cats as well as she does.

Anyhow, that’s been my day for today.

Tomorrow, I take the truck in for an oil change and for them to check out the work done in the city to make sure everything it all right. I have to remember to ask them to take care of a burnt out headlight for me, too. I already got the bulb, but it’s a pain in the butt to access the light to switch the bulb.

I got an email from the company we did our insurance and registration with, letting me know that it’s time to renew. The vehicle registration and insurance doesn’t need me to do anything, since they’ll just continue taking monthly payments, as usual, but it’s also time to renew my driver’s license. Normally, I would get something in the mail with all the information, including any changes in how much things will cost, and I could take care of it online. However, with the Canada Post strike disruptions, I haven’t gotten the letter. So after I drop off the truck, I’ll walk over and take care of it in person. I also need to take cash out so we can get the septic tank emptied for the winter. After that tank is emptied, we will winterize it as usual, but I also want to set up the emergency diverter, just in case. This way, if the ejector freezes again, all we would need to do is open the shut off valve to the emergency diverter, and not have to be digging around in the snow to set up the pipe and hose outside.

So I will be out for most of tomorrow and, if all goes well, I’ll be finally doing our Costco stop up trip the day after. These are pretty much our last two “warm” days before temperatures drop a fair bit. If the long range forecast is at all accurate, we’ll then get about a week of relatively warmer weather to potentially get more done outside. We shall see what actually happens! This time of year, it’s always touch and go.

I’m just glad I got more beds done. It means less that needs to be done next year, and there is no hurry on getting those fallen trees broken down and cleaned up.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: beets, bok choi, dwarf peas – and Judgement!

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I definitely want to start with the good news, before getting into the gardening stuff.

As I was putting things away in the sun room, I saw a cat in the cat cage jump out and meow a greeting. Nothing unusual about that, except that this cat had something around its neck that was flapping.

Which is when I realized, it was Judgement!

I haven’t seen Judgement in months!

We had put collars on the cats that got fixed, to make them faster to identify, but I also made sure they were reflective collars, so they would be less likely to get hit by a car or something. Most of the cats lost their collars long ago. Judgement had lost one or two already, but he still had a ratty yellow collar still on him.

I took it off and threw it away!

Now I’m hoping to see Syndol back, too! It’s not unusual for cats to disappear for the summer, then come back for the winters, but sometimes they don’t come back at all. So this was a nice surprise for the day.

My priority for today was to finish what I started in the old kitchen garden. The rectangular bed in particular needed a bit more work. I was able to pull more weeds and roots I could no longer see when I stopped last night. I also found the gap under one log was quite a bit larger than the hole the cats had made, so I found more sticks to push in front of it. The gap extended all the way to the corner, though, so I used the scrap board I’d been using when hammering stakes into the ground to lay across the opening on the inside, then added a few more sticks to hold it in place.

Then I could use the rake to level all the soil again.

The section of the wattle weave bed I’d prepped yesterday needed some clean up again. I kept having to chase cats out of the garden beds because they kept wanting to use the nice, soft, fluffy soil as a litter box!

After levelling the soil in the rectangular bed, I marked out four rows with stakes and twine. This required repeated removal of kittens. In the second picture, you can see what I planted and transplanted. In the row north of centre, I planted the mixed beets, so they wouldn’t overshadow the Hedou Tiny bok choi I sowed on in the row south of centre. The bok choi can get quite tall, after it has bolted and gone to seed, but for harvesting, they should only be about 2 or 3 inches tall. I do plan to leave one or two to go to seed to collect at the end of the season.

In the outside rows, I transplanted a whole bunch of the onions I’d been finding. On one side, I transplanted the ones that were clearly bulb onions. On the other, I transplanted the ones that look like they might be white bunching onions, except I’ve never tried to grow white bunching onions before.

In the next picture, you can see where I planted one packet of dwarf peas. I got two packets, but this is a very short row, so I only needed the one. The peas went in the back of the bed (north side). I’d already transplanted some onions at the end and at the front near the corner before. Today, I took the two garlic bulbs I’d found, broke up the cloves, and planted them in line with the onions. They filled the entire remaining front space.

Once everything was in, it all got mulched with leaves. Then I mulched around the herbs in the tiny bed as well. I didn’t cover them, as we’re still using them as needed. Before the hard freeze hits, I’ll cover them completely with a leaf mulch, and we’ll see how they survive the winter!

I also moved the raised bed cover over the rectangular bed for the winter.

I didn’t take final pictures, though, as I decided to take garden tour video, instead. I’ll be going through them and putting together a garden tour video. If I’m satisfied with what I took. Otherwise, I might take new recordings tomorrow, before I head into the city for the Costco shop. We’ll see.

At this point, the only bed I was considering winter sowing into is the small bed off to the side where the Albion Everbearing strawberries had been last year. It still needs to be cleaned up, and I plan to sow bread seed poppies there. That can wait until spring, though, if necessary.

As it stands now, other than mulching the transplanted strawberries and little things like that, the garden can be done for the year. The winter sowing is in, and anything left can wait until spring if I can’t get to it in the next while. We’re getting a bit of rain right now, and the next couple of days are supposed to be dry and cooler, but Sunday and Monday are supposed to get warm again, with plenty of sun, so there’s still the possibility of getting ahead of things for next year.

So, to recap, we have winter sown for next year:

Purple savoy cabbage
White and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi
Daikon Radish
White Egg turnip
Rainbow Mix carrots
Spring Blush peas
American spinach
Yellow Swiss Chard
Garlic
Hedou Tiny bok choi
Assorted Mix beets
Tom Thumb Dwarf peas

Then transplanted miscellaneous onions and garlic that were found during bed prep. Plus seed onions.

Last year, I scattered seed mixes and they did surprisingly well. This year, I’m hoping the more orderly plantings will survive the winter and give us a nice head start in the garden next year!

Not too shabby, I think!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 garden: winter sowing kohlrabi and cabbage, and prepping the next bed

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I got back from the city early enough, and it was still warm enough, to get some progress done in the garden.

My first priority was to winter sow in the east yard low raised beds. Two of these beds were already prepped, but not covered in any way, so they did require some clean up. The cats have been using them as litter boxes!

Some of their “presents” were astonishingly huge.

Ew.

My original plan had been to do the kohlrabi and cabbage on the outside of the beds, then have peas down the middle of one, while leaving a gap in the middle of the other to plant pole beans in the spring.

I forgot. The kohlrabi and cabbage will need to be covered in netting to keep them from being decimated by flea beetles and cabbage moths. Having something growing on a trellis in the middle is probably not a good idea!

In the first picture below, the beds are cleaned up, leveled and rows marked out.

In the second picture, you can see the planted rows of purple and white kohlrabi. If I had gone ahead with the plan to grow pole beans down the middle, these rows would have been further apart. I decided to stick with just the two rows and moved them closer to the middle. These raised beds are more prone to freezing than the beds in the main garden area, simply because the boards are so much thinner than the logs used in the longer beds. We’ve lost almost entire beds of garlic over the winter due to excessive cold, even with a mulch. I’m hoping that, with sowing them closer to the middle, deep mulching them with leaves, plus the predicted milder winter we’re expected to have, they will survive. The plant spacing for these, according to the package, is 4-6 inches, so I tried to scatter the seeds with my little hand seeder fairly lightly. If they survive and germinate, they will still need to be thinned later on, but not by too much. Hopefully, if I have the space, the will be thinned by transplanting.

In the next picture, I have the Purple Savoy cabbage. This is the first time we’ve tried to grow cabbage. I originally planned to have two rows on the outside, then peas in the middle, but decided to do three rows of cabbage. As they need about a foot per cabbage for spacing, I tried to scatter two or three seeds every foot or so, though a few spots accidentally got quite a bit more! You can sort of see a grid in the soil, from where the seeds were covered and the soil gently pressed down, while the rest of the rows I made with a hoe remain untouched.

Grommet REALLY wanted to “help” me with the sowing!

I had made sure to rake up plenty of leaves into the wagon and the wheelbarrow before I started, and was able to give the beds a good mulching for the winter. Then I transferred one of the raised bed covers for the winter. There is another one on the third bed I could move over, but I decided against it. That cover’s wire mesh does not have hoops to support it. Cats would knock that flat and out of shape in a heartbeat. So it’s up on top of the box frame one the other bed, which I’ve found surprisingly useful. I plan to make more 3′ x 9′ covers like this over time, but we need to buy more lumber for it, first.

That done, it was time to shift over to the old kitchen garden.

The cats have been having a field day in the cleaned up wattle weave bed, so that got a clean up, first. My plan is to winter sow dwarf peas in the back of the south facing section of the wattle weave bed, and transplant any onions, etc that I found in the rectangular bed in the front.

That… might not quite work out! At least, not so much for the onions part.

The first thing was to harvest the remaining Swiss Chard. It wasn’t until I uploaded the pictures onto Instagram that I realized I forgot them outside! They should be okay overnight.

In the second picture, you can see an area on the south side of the bed, where the cats dug into the dirt. I suspect there was a mouse or something that got their attention for them to dig it out that much. There had been grass clippings chinked in the gap between the logs, but that disappeared. It’s been filled repeatedly, and the cats keep pulling it out. So one of the things I needed to do was find a way to block that gap in a cat proof way.

Once the chard and remaining kohlrabi roots were cleared out, it was time to loosen the soil, pull the weeds and set aside any little onions I found.

I found so many, I started just tossing them with the weeds after a while!

What I really wanted to find out is what was going on with what looked like a cluster of garlic coming up, and another cluster of what I thought were onions but, as they got larger, the leaves started to look like some sort of ornamental allium, instead.

In the next picture, you can see that there were two entire bulbs of garlic that somehow got missed! I planted garlic in here a couple of years ago. This year, two garlic bulbs grew among the seed mix in this bed. They grew into nice sized bulbs that got harvested.

Now I find two full bulbs of garlic that somehow got missed over two growing seasons! I will probably separate the cloves and transplant them.

Next to the garlic is the cluster of alliums growing near by that did turn out to be onions. Several of them were growing together like bunching onions, rather than bulb onions, but I’ve never grown bunching onions. They are large enough that I will probably transplant them, too.

In the next photo, you can see most of the other onions I found while cleaning the bed. There were so many tiny ones! One red onion was quite large. I will transplant the larger ones, but I don’t know if I’ll bother with the teeny ones.

While working across the bed, I was finding a surprising number of roots. Some were definitely from the rose bush at the end of the bed, but it’s possible others were from the ornamental crap apples and the double lilac. It definitely made the job take longer. As I worked my way up the bed, I took advantage of having lots of old stakes handy from the bed along the retaining wall, before the wattle weaving was added on top of the retaining wall blocks. Some of the largest, strongest ones were used to stabilize the top side logs, as their supports were getting old and starting to break.

To block the gap, I used some flat pieces of scrap wood that were in the corner, then a whole bunch of old stakes, on the inside of the wall. Once the bed is done and ready for planting, these will be mostly buried and hidden from view.

As you can tell by the last picture, and the flash needed for the pictures of the onion and garlic, I had to stop before it was all finished. It was simply getting too dark. I was working by the light of the shop lights at the sun room window by then, and those were on only because their motion sensors were being triggered.

I don’t have anywhere to be at tomorrow, so I’ll be able to finish the job then, and do more winter sowing. I should also be able to clean out that little bed off by itself in the main garden area, where I’ve decided to plant bread seed poppies. Since I didn’t winter sow a variety of peas I’d meant to plant between the cabbage, I’m considering finding somewhere else to winter sow them. Once the dwarf peas are planted, that’s two varieties of peas that are winter sown, so leaving the third variety I was planning to winter sow for the spring would be fine, too. I also have our own saved sugar snap pea seeds that can be sown in the spring.

The rectangular bed that’s being cleared now will have beets and tiny bok choi winter sown in it, probably interplanted with some of those onions and/or garlic I’ve been finding! I was thinking of planting something down the middle, but I can’t for the life of me remember what that was right now. I’ve got diagrams drawn out, but those are in the basement, along with my seed inventory.

So that’s the garden and winter sowing status, for now. We should have a nice head start into next year’s garden, if this works out.

I will also be making what will probably be my last garden tour video of the year. Last year, I ended up doing my October video using video recorded on November 1, because the video I’d taken on October 31 was done too late in the day, and everything was too dark. So I want to make sure to get it done earlier, and earlier in the day.

Thankfully, it looks like the weather will hold for a while yet, and I should be able to get other things done before the snow flies. We’ll see how that works out!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: winter sowing peas, carrots, turnips and radishes

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After all the rain we had, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work in the garden today, though today’s weather was supposed to be better. I had to head to the pharmacy, so I figured I would know when I came back.

I ended up in town a lot longer than expected!

My daughter’s prescription, that they did not have in stock yesterday, the main reason to go back to the pharmacy. My husband had ordered refills for delivery, so I figured I would get his bubble packs while I was at it. My daughter wasn’t feeling well enough to come along, unfortunately. I headed out and got to the pharmacy shortly after 11am.

That turned out to be an oops. They don’t get their inventory orders in until the afternoon. Typically around 1pm.

Also, since my husband’s refills were ordered for delivery on Thursday, and today is Tuesday, they weren’t ready yet, either. Those were left for delivery. I asked about my daughter’s meds, as I thought she got a partial refill, but no, she hadn’t gotten any of this one at all, and she needed them.

At first, I was going to head home then come back tomorrow until I remembered I was going into the city tomorrow. So I gave them my cell phone number and told them I would stay in town, and they could call me when the meds were ready.

That left me with quite a bit of time to find something to do, so I ended up doing a lot of walking!

Most places were closed for the season, but I did remember there’s a second hand store, so I went to check that out. I ended up spending a whole dollar when I left…

I already a similar drinking jar at home, but it’s colorless. They had a couple like that, but only one in this green tinted glass, so I got it.

I did enough wandering around that my left hip was starting to talk to me. Not pain – it hasn’t hurt like it used to since I got that injection at the sports injury clinic – but it started feeling like it was about to give out. By then, it was past 1:30, so I went to the pharmacy. I was just going to sit and wait, since they hadn’t called me yet, but they are so on top of their customer service, I had someone asking if I needed help before I had a chance to! It turned out they were working on my daughter’s prescription right then, so I didn’t have long to wait.

From there, I headed home, where my daughters had a late lunch waiting for me. The weather was good and things were relatively warms, so as soon as I finished eating, I decided to go for it, and headed to the garden.

My focus for today was to get winter sowing done, and I decided to do the sowing planned in the main garden area, first. The first thing I needed to do was a lot of raking of leaves! Once I had both the wagon and the wheelbarrow filled, I started at the trellis bed.

This bed already has seed onions planted along the non-trellis side. I chose the Spring Blush peas for the trellis side, and the rainbow mix of carrots in the middle.

The rows I planted in remain marked with stakes and twine. There is room between the carrots and the onions to plant something else. Fresh bulb onion transplants, perhaps, or more carrots.

In the second photo above, you can see the row of peas is shorter! There were only 25 peas in a packet. I should have bought two! I planted a pea every 6 inches or so, but it would have been good to plant the full row and have them more densely planted, in case some don’t germinate. As it is now, in the spring, I can plant something else in the remaining space that can use the trellis.

Once that was done, I covered the whole thing with a deep mulch of leaves. I actually ran out and had to get more.

Then I decided to finally use that pile of cardboard that I’ve had set aside for the entire season! I used it to cover where the next trellis bed will be built, as well as the path, to kill off the grass below. If I’d had enough, I would have put cardboard on the other paths, before I put wood chips on them as a mulch. The dandelions in particular had no problem growing through the mulch, and you can barely even tell the wood chips are there anymore. *sigh*

There was still enough time and light to work on the next bed.

The only problem was, that bed had turned into a pool!

I removed everything that was holding the plastic down and just started rolling it up. The piece of wood I used to roll up the excess is long enough to rest on both sides of the bed, so there was space below. Rolling it up meant pushing the water further and further to the end before it could finally overflow the plastic. Which meant that only the very end of the bed got an extra watering.

I left that to drain while I went to rake up more leaves.

In the next photo, you can see where I planted the Daikon radish and White Egg turnip. Those went on the outsides of the bed, leaving the middle for a spring sowing of probably pole beans. I’m planning to plant bush beans in the high raised bed.

In the last photo, the bed is mulched with leaves. Once again, the stakes and twine were left to mark where things were planted.

By this time, it was getting quite dark and it was time to stop for the day. The beds that I have winter sowing planned for in the main garden area are now done. In this area, there are still two beds that need to be cleaned up but, if necessary, that can wait until spring.

I did move my supplies over to the east garden beds. Two of those beds will get winter sowing, hopefully tomorrow afternoon, after I get back from the city. That will be the warmest part of the day. Those beds will get kohlrabi and cabbage sown into them, as those beds will be easier to cover with insect netting to protect from flea beetles and cabbage moths.

After that, I have one bed in the old kitchen garden that still needs to be harvested of alliums and Swiss Chard, and then I will be doing winter sowing in there and the wattle weave bed. The only other area that needs to be cleaned for winter sowing is the square bed off to the side of the main garden area that I’d grown the Albion Everbearing strawberries in, last year. The survivors got transplanted along the new asparagus bed, and I’ve decided the space may as well be used as a permanent poppy bed, since I expect those to self seed readily, and it can be treated as a perennial bed. However, if I run out of time to winter sow those, they can still be done very early in the spring.

So there we have it! Four more things winter sown for next year.

From the predictions I’m seeing, it’s supposed to be a mild winter, but other sources say a harsh winter. We shall see! Hopefully, the winter sowing will survive and we’ll have a head start to next year’s garden!

With how short our growing season is (I’m not counting on the newly revised averages yet), every little bit will help.

One of these years, I hope to get enough to actually can or freeze again! The last two years have been pretty brutal. If we depended on the garden for food at this point, we’d starve! :-D

Little by little, it’s getting done, and I’m feeling pretty good about it so far!

As long as the weather holds…

The Re-Farmer

A productive day, and our vandal is stalking again

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We had a slightly warmer day today, but I decided to leave working on the garden beds for the next few days, as it gets even warmer. Today, I focused on getting the cat shelters ready for winter.

I did, however, remember to take pictures of the finished garden bed in the old kitchen garden.

It doesn’t look all the different, really. The new stakes were pounded down with a sledge hammer, so they don’t need to be trimmed shorter. There’s enough height left that, should I want to in the future, more deadwood could be added for a taller wall. Towards the middle of the wall in the first picture, you can see some of the fly-away twine ends, where I had to fix where they snapped while I was pounding the stakes down.

I’m quite happy with the result. It’s not as pretty as wattle weaving, but it’ll hold the soil in place, and the taller stakes will be available to use to hold supports, should the bed need to be covered.

That done, it was time to winterize the isolation shelter and catio.

The vinyl (from dollar store table protectors) that had been wrapped around the bottom of the isolation shelter last winter was so torn up, it had to be thrown away. The vinyl around the catio had tears in it, but could still be salvaged. Especially since it ended up getting wrapped a second time part way through the winter. That gave me two layers to work with.

The bottom of the isolation shelter needed only 2′ in height. That meant I could take the vinyl from the catio and fold it in half, length wise. It took two dining table covers to wrap around the catio. With the second layer that was added, that gave me the equivalent of four covers, that were taped where they overlapped. I was able to separate the second layer easily into the original two length. There were larger tears near the bottoms, as well as small tears all along the edges, where they’d torn loose from the tacks that were holding them in place. Once folded in half, though, I was able to get a solid piece.

In the first picture, you can see that I duct taped the short ends to old the halves together, then added more to the corners to strengthen them more.

Thankfully, we didn’t have much wind and, with the folding table not put away for the winter yet, folding and taping the lengths wasn’t as much of a hassle as I’d feared. The only real problem I had was Grommet, constantly getting in front of me while I worked!

Next, I brought out my remaining pieces of wood lath and cut some to fit the shorter sides of the shelter, plus some for the section in the front. I had some short screws left from another project and used those to secure the vinyl at the top and bottom. Leftover lengths of wood lath were added to the ends of the vinyl as well, so the wind wouldn’t catch on them.

I secured one sheet to the ramp door side, first, then wrapped it around the back. The other end just reached around the opposite corner of the back, which I tacked in place with a push pin temporarily. Then I secured the other sheet to the front section of the shelter before securing the side, making sure to catch the edge of the first sheet with the screws.

For the back, I used a full length of wood lath to secure the vinyl at the top – the second sheet reached as far as the middle of the back.

At which point, I was out of the little screws I was using. I don’t want to use longer ones, as this is something that will be removed in the spring. The back will be against a well, though, so I just used a push pin half way down the centre support and let it be.

Next, I added some handles, to make it easier to move the shelter.

For the back, I had larger handles held in place with four screws. I replaced the ones the handles came with, which weren’t long enough to even go through the layer of insulation back there, with 2 1/2″ screws.

They felt good and solid at this point.

In the next picture, you can see the smaller handles I added to the front. Those had to fit in the space between the window and the edge, so there was room for a handle with only one screw to secure it. I didn’t need screws as long as for the back, but I still replaced the package screws with 1″ screws. They also had to be mounted lower down, so as not to be in the way when the roof is open.

At this point, the shelter could finally be moved to its winter home.

I was not able to use the handles.

The problem is the wheels. Even on the folded pieces of cardboard I put under the wheels, they sank into the soil. This thing is HEAVY!! It took a lot of manhandling to get it across the grass. It had to go across the sidewalk to the house, and one of wheels promptly sank so deep in the soil as soon as it was no longer on a concrete block, I had to actually lift the corner and pull the whole thing over.

Then there are the patio blocks.

Which should have been a lot easier, but there’s that tree in front of the old kitchen window. It’s roots have lifted and shifted the concrete blocks. Once again, I had to actually lift corners to get them over the edges of the patio blocks.

I did get it into position, though. Finally!

Once there, I did some cleaning, starting with washing the front windows, inside and out. I had taken out the sliding windows and gave those a wash before putting them back.

I had a couple more boards like I’d used to attach the roof panels that I added and screwed into place. It’s a low slope roof, and the plastic roof panels sagged just enough for water to sometimes collect on it. I gave the roof a washing, then left the roof open for the water to drain off. That was a good time to move the heated water bowl to the other side, and secure the heat lamp, which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.

I found a piece of scrap wood that I added as a cross piece, which runs through the hanger part of the clamp lamp, for extra security. The clamp is secured with a couple of zip ties. The new cross piece is held in place by friction, but I zip tied it to the permanent cross piece the clamp is attached to, as well.

I did make sure to test the heat lamp before I started all this!

Once everything was set where I wanted to – make sure that I could reach the on/off switch for the heat lamp from the sliding windows – they were plugged into the extension cord, which got set up on its hooks on the outside.

Before that was plugged in, though, I got the ramp door shelter box ready to bring over (it was a handy table for while I was working on the shelter!) and started getting the catio ready to move to its winter location.

Around this time, I got a message from my SIL. They needed to go into storage and were on their way, and letting me know what their rental car looked like, while their car is in the garage for repairs.

They weren’t going to be long, so I went and opened the gate for them, then went back to working on things in the yard.

I heard a vehicle coming and looked through the trees to see if it was them, only to see our vandal driving by.

On seeing the gate was open, he started slowing down.

I couldn’t see him through the trees anymore, but I could hear him stop on the road, then start backing up.

I wasn’t about to give him a chance to drive in, so I walked out towards the driveway, so he could see that I was there.

He stopped at the end of the driveway, and just stayed there, watching me.

So, I got my phone out and started recording him.

I ended up getting more than four minutes of recording him as he got out of his vehicle and started gesturing at me (turns out he was “blowing kisses”). Then he opened his shirt, took off the belly strap and waved his colostomy bag at me. Then he started yelling at me, demanding to know why I was recording him, yelling that I wanted to put him in prison, that he was dying anyway, etc. He was yelling at me for so long, I ended up walking over to one of my brother’s pieces of farm equipment nearby, so I could brace my arms while he yelled. At one point, he started demanding that I go over and talk to him – like I would do that!!! – while gesturing to the road and saying he was legal there, and I should come and talk to him. As if! Oh, and I don’t own the property. I don’t own anything.

So… why has he been yelling at my mother about how she “gave” the farm to me?

Oh, my goodness.

I just got a message from my brother. Somehow, our vandal managed to leave a voice mail with my brother (his number is blocked). He was ranting about how he (my brother) is going against “the code”. The code of “Jesus and God.” Also, my brother and I are why he’s dying of cancer. The stress from us. He mentioned me recording him and said he “asked” me to come talk to him.

Also, I’m fat and my daughters and I never have to work again, and we’re apparently enjoying steak, caviar and champagne. And the pope is going to be reading a magazine about Christianity, and my brother’s not a real Christian.

He also brought up that he helped us, years ago, by living rent free for a year in a house he owned when my husband “lost his job”. Except, it was after my husband left the military, not “lost his job”, and it was only a few months before we got things worked out (we had zero income for 4 months because someone in the DnD forgot about the paperwork). We paid him rent until he put the house up for sale.

Yes, there was a time when we were close, and he did help us out. But now it seems he’s inventing things to make it sound like he helped us more than he did.

There was a lot more in the message, but it was all just insane. He is absolutely obsessed with us!

Ugh.

So… where was I?

Ah, yes.

After yelling at me from the road some more, our vandal got into his vehicle again and just sat there. By this time, my daughters had come out to see what was going on, and make sure I was okay. So I stopped recording and walked over. Once I was past the garage and couldn’t see him anymore, we heard him yelling at me some more before he finally drove off. We could hear his vehicle all the way, even to the sound of him tearing into his own driveway.

No, he doesn’t live THAT close to us!

My daughters stayed out with me for a while. I had move the catio to its winter location, so they helped me set it on pieces of bricks by lifting the ends so I could slide them under. As before, I set the pieces under the front corners on their edges, while the ones under the back were flat, so that water would drain off the flat roof towards the back.

My older daughter is going to be up all night as she works (she’s been trying to be up during more daytime hours lately, to be available to help with things).

This is how the catio was, after they helped set it up on bricks, so the wood won’t have direct contact with what will eventually be very wet ground.

I took out the cat bed that Pinky and her babies had been using. That went into the bottom of the isolation shelter, and the box nests got put in here. They are on top of scrap pieces of insulation.

After this picture was taken, I swept the leaves off the roof. I have an old snow brush/ice scraper where the ice scraper broke. It has been incredibly handy for maintaining the cat shelters!

Then I made sure to add the weights back onto the roof, so it won’t get blown over again.

Tomorrow, I need to go into town and pay the balance for the door replacement at the hardware and lumber store. While I’m there, I hope to pick up more of the tiny screws and anything else I might need. I would need more wood lath, if I’m going to use that to attach the vinyl on the catio, too, but I will get that somewhere else at a better price. The catio frame is 2×2 lumber, and I might want to find something narrower to secure the vinyl.

This winter, I’ll make sure to have the vinyl covering the door as a separate piece. Last winter, I had tried to secure it near the hinge but it kept coming loose and start flapping in the wind.

Meanwhile, my brother and SIL arrived. My brother did his thing while I was able to give my SIL a tour of the things I’ve been doing. She even helped me adjust the isolation shelter, when I realize that one of the wheels was hanging in the air, thanks to the uneven patio blocks.

The light above our main door had started flashing instead of working properly, so my brother wanted to take a look at it. He is the one who got and installed it originally – because while my late father was still living here, our vandal (who was “helping” my dad) would show up at all hours, and the motion sensor light would let my dad at least know he was in the yard. After fussing with a switch at the top that I didn’t even know was there (can’t see it without a ladder), he got it working again, but he doesn’t think it’ll last long.

Then I helped him move the old storm door that was still leaning against the house to the barn for storage. It’s still a good door.

It was really good to see them, as always.

After they were gone, I had a few more things to finish up. Now that the isolation shelter is no longer under the canopy tent, I move the folding table under there. I’ll be leaving that out for a while longer, as there’s still plenty that needs going around the yard before the snow flies.

For now, I’m just happy the isolation shelter is winterized.

I’m just looking at the temperature right now. I think I’ll go turn the heat lamp on for the night!

I can do that now. 😁😁

Little by little, things are getting done!

The Re-Farmer