There are some exposed roots that the kittens love to just sit on.
It must be warmer on the butt or something. :-D
The Re-Farmer
photo of the day
Building the new back gate
Today we picked up some fence wire to make a new gate for our second driveway.
The wire we got was 1 inch mesh, in a roll of 36″ x 25′ I was pleased to see the hardware store had 1 inch mesh in stock. When I price checked it a while back, the largest they had was 3/4 inch mesh. I would have preferred something like a 2 inch mesh, but this will do just fine.
My younger daughter and I then went out to the back gate to replace the old barbed wire gate.
When we moved out here, the gate was open and we had no idea that it was in such bad condition. When the girls went over to close the gate, they had to replace the post at the end (the lock and chain around it is the only thing keeping it closed) and salvage the wire as much as they could with what was there.
We salvaged the posts for the new gate, cutting down the round one at the end so that it was the same length as the middle ones.
In the process of working on it, I made sure to gather up and set aside the old barbed wire from the gate.
It’s amazing how much rusty barbed wire just disappears in the grass. There were a couple of times when, even though I knew the wire was there, I still managed to catch it with a shoe, or almost step on it.
Keep that particular detail in mind for later…
On to the new gate!
The first thing we did was lay out the wire and position the posts more or less where they needed to be, while using other posts I’d brought, just in case we couldn’t salvage the old ones, as weights to keep the wire from rolling itself back up again. :-D
For the end post, we first affixed the end of the mesh to the post with U nails, then wrapped the wire around the post and affixed it again, opposite the first U nails. Since this post will see the most movement, the wire needs to be secured the strongest here.
Once the first post was secured, we slid the next two posts under the wire, making sure their bottoms lined up with the bottom of the first post. Then, after making sure the wire mesh was pulled taut again, the wire was affixed with more U nails.
Next, the gate was put in position and the mesh affixed to the gate post.
The main gate post on the right has a barbed wire loop at the bottom that the first post tucks into. A second barbed wire loop at the top was then tucked over the top of the post to hold it in place. You can’t see it, but the chain is hanging down from that wire loop, as it had been threaded through one of the links when the chain was added.
You can see my daughter at the other end, securing the wire mesh to the opposite gate post with more U nails. The posts in the gate itself each has 3 U nails securing them, but at the end, the mesh is secured with 5 U nails.
The space between gate posts is about 22 feet. Once the mesh was secured, wire cutters were used to remove the last 3 feet or so of mesh.
The chain fits through the mesh, which worked out perfectly.
The barbed wire loop at the top was replaced with the wire that was wrapped around the mesh roll, to keep it from unraveling. It is the same type of wire the mesh itself is made of, but was long enough that we could fold it in half, twist it around itself, fold it in half again, then twist it around itself again (something I do with string or yarn to make cord when crafting). The loop itself is secured to the gate post with a U nail as well.
Yay! The gate is finished, and it looks SO much better than barbed wire!
That done, my daughter headed back to the house to put away the tools and supplies, except for the hand saw and anvil shears I’d brought to clean up some of the self sown saplings that were starting to encroach.
Remember what I said about barbed wire, disappearing in the grass?
Well, this was next to the gate.
The old gate had been on top of this pile of posts and barbed wire (and an ant hill). My daughters referred to this as the barbed wire trap! We’ve already had the renter’s cows end up on this side of the fence once (and as bad as the old gate was, it was enough to keep them from ending up on the road, so it still did the job. :-) ), and it’s always possible it will happen again. I don’t want any cows getting hurt in barbed wired, so I figured I’d take some of the loose wire and pull it out to add to the pile of junk we plan to get hauled away later in the year.
I grabbed some of the wire and pulled…
… and pulled…
… and pulled…
Before I knew it, I was pulling up the wire from an old fence line, long since collapsed. Since I had already started pulling the wire up, I couldn’t even stop, since lifting it made it that much more of a hazard.
Every now and then, I’d reach a fence post and try to lift it up, only to have the wood disintegrate in my hands. On some of them, the bared wire was attached to the post with nothing but bail twine. ???
Now, the thing about barbed wire fences is, they never have just one line. There’s usually three. Which meant there were at least two more barbed wire lines, hidden in the grass.
About half way down the row of trees, I found myself pulling up two wires at once, because they were stuck to each other in places. Then one of them ended abruptly, while the first one continued…
… and continued.
When I finally reached the end of the row of trees, at a large willow, I saw the remains of what turned out to be the last post of the fence line (I hope!). I pulled it up, but the wires attached to were basically all broken off a couple of feet away. I tucked the post itself against the willow. I did find some ends and started pulling them up. Once they were clear of the tall grass and old thatch (that area needs a controlled burn, big time!), I started working my way back, rolling up the wire as I went along, eventually adding in the second line as I found it again.
When I got back to the area of posts in the picture above, it was all pretty tangled together, so I tried lifting the post that looked like it was the furthest out in the line and began pulling on it.
As near as I can make out, the pile of posts were the remains of another barbed wire gate. But why would there be two of them? I’m thinking maybe an old gate was replaced with a newer gate, and rather than getting rid of the old one, it was just tossed aside at the fence line. Then when the fence line collapsed, the old gate came down with it.
But that’s just a guess on my part.
I did, however, find the third wire of the fence!
So back I went down the row of trees, pulling up the third wire until it ended. Which was about 2/3rds of the way down the row of trees. Which means there’s probably more of it under the grass somewhere along the way.
Once I found the end, I worked my way back to the gate again, rolling it up as I went along.
This is where the fence line was.
The tip of the arrow at the back is pointing to the willow the fence line stopped at.
My guess is that, when the row of trees was planted along the fence that’s still there, this fence line was added to protect the plantings from cattle. Since then, the current fence line was kept up, since the land is being rented out for grazing on the other side, but the inner fence was allowed to just rot away and collapse. [Update: I have since learned that I got this backwards. It turns out that the collapsed fence is the original one, and it has been there for an estimated 40 years!]
Leaving barbed wire hidden in the grass for anyone, or any cow or deer, to step on, trip over or otherwise hurt themselves on.
Which just blows me away.
In the end, I couldn’t even get rid of the wire, because it’s all still attached to the main fence line. I just didn’t have the tools for it. So I moved the posts and the wire I rolled up into one, more obvious pile that I think even a cow will not bother getting into.
I hope!
After this, I cut away the spreading saplings on both sides of the area I’ve been mowing to the gate we just replaced, including clearing them away from the gate into the garden.
Notice that this gate has 5 lengths of barbed wire on it.
In the future, as I work my way around, clearing the yard’s fence line, I will eventually cut back that lilac to uncover the gate post it’s growing over. I checked the area over as I cut away the saplings and it’s clear, so the next time I mow down this way, I will probably mow a path to this gate, too. (I haven’t done that to the gate by the fire pit yet, as it seems to need some clearing, first; I’m not entirely sure what’s buried under the thatch and tall grass, but it’s very uneven.)
This is the corner created by the garden/yard fence line leading to the roadside fence line. Though I will be clearing the fence lines themselves, I have not yet decided if I will also clear away these self-sown saplings. It might be nice to just leave them be. They’re not blocking anything. I’ll leave them for now and decide what to do with them later, when we get to the point of working in the outer yard area.
It wasn’t until I was at the computer, uploading these photos, that I noticed this…
I honestly don’t know what that happened! I’ve got so many scratches from doing yard work, I don’t even notice them anymore. :-D
The back gate is finally done. One more thing to check off the list! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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A rare sighting of The Hand
Once spring arrived, most of the outside cats just seemed to disappear. Butterscotch and Beep are around all the time, of course, since their kittens are here. Rolando Moon comes around fairly regularly. Nasty Crime Boy joined us a couple of times when we were doing cook outs, but we haven’t seen him in ages.
Then, there is the elusive The Hand.
She just slinks in and out, once in a while. I happened to be at the living room window, by the tripod, when I saw her go by and barely managed to get a picture!
She is just a beauty, and so very shy!
The Re-Farmer
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A Productive Day
Today turned out to be a nice and productive day, despite the rain this morning.
After driving my younger daughter to work, my older daughter and I went to the city to do the rest of our monthly shopping. An unplanned stop at Walmart, where I got some canning supplies I hope to use to preserve chokecherries, though I have yet to decide what I will be doing with them; a quick trip to Costco – or at least as quick as any trip to Costco can be! – and then to the grocery store we discovered after our last trip. We had lunch before we started that last bit of shopping, going through their kitchen area, for some Chinese food. To be completely honest, it was hardly the best Chinese food we’d ever had, but it’s been so long, it was absolutely amazing! Talk about hitting the spot!
Of all the things to miss about city living. The dizzying variety of ethnic fast food! :-D
We took advantage of the incredible international sections of the store to get a few things we normally wouldn’t – including a couple of ingredients for something I want to try that I will save for its own post. We haven’t been doing a lot of cooking in the heat we’ve been having, and pretty much no baking at all. Our sourdough starters, sadly, did not survive. The Rye of SourOn was the first to go, and even though my daughters were using Sir Sour Alot almost every morning to make hotcakes, in double batches, it basically went black over one hot and muggy night.
When things start to cool down later in the year, and we’re not doing so much yard work, we’ll get another Alaskan sourdough going and start baking again. Until then, we stock up on bread at Costco and freeze most of it. We’ve been going through bread rather quickly, since no one wants to cook in the heat, so we’ve been having lots of sandwiches! :-D
For now, the less time in the kitchen, the better, which means our grocery shopping trips are filled with more things that can be eaten cold, or with minimal cooking.
We finished early enough that we went straight home to unload before heading back into town to pick up my daughter from work. We were able to make a stop at the beach in the process.
It was much windier at the lake, and the water was so choppy!
Some people even braved the waves!
I’m not sure I would have been willing to do that, but then, I’m not a very strong swimmer.
The water gets so murky when it’s like this! Not that it’s ever clear, given how shallow it is, but on days like this, it’s pretty opaque!
The weather had cleared up around our area by then, so after we got home, I went straight to mowing the outer yard. I’m still mowing a drive-able path to the second gate. We have yet to fix the barbed wire gate. I’ve decided not to make another barbed wire gate, and will instead pick up some fencing wire to use instead.
Now that we have power to the barn, and my brother fixed the melted plug end of the line to the storage shed, I should make a point of going around the areas I mow with the weed trimmer. Though I will not be focusing on the outer yard for clean up, other than what’s essential, I also don’t want to give things a chance to get overgrown where we need to access them. Tall grass is one thing. Nettles, burdock, thistles and self-sown trees are something else entirely!
After I finished with the mowing and was coming back to the house, I noticed Butterscotch’s kittens were out. I got some cat kibble for the kittens and refilled the water bowl by where Beep Beep has her babies. Beep Beep’s kittens were out, too, but only the tuxedo stayed out while I was around, and did not like me being there. So I went back to Butterscotch and her babies as they ate. I actually got to pet the teeny tabby! That itty bitty kitty is turning out to be the braver of the lot. Unfortunately, none of my attempts to get photos turned out. Ah, well.
The fridge and cupboards are stocked up, the freezer is full, the outer lawn is mowed, and I got to pet a kitten.
All in all, it’s been a good day. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Clean up progress; west yard trees
Today, I went back to around the west side of the maple grove to continue cleaning up. This time, however, I focused on the area nearest the fire pit and gate. This area seemed to have been mostly spruces, though only a few have survived.
Let’s look at the before pictures.
This spruce tree is right behind one of our piles of wood for the fire pit. It’s doing rather well, though as with most spruces, the lowest branches on the trunk were dead and hidden by the ones above.
Right at the wood pile is an elm tree that we thought was dead, but after we finally got some decent rain, suddenly shot out some green. It is still mostly dead, but we’ll be leaving it for now.
Most of the spruces behind it are completely dead. Only two are still alive, plus one scrawny little thing that I’m hoping will survive now that I’ve cleared away the dead stuff.
I went further under the trees for these next photos.
Going through here, looking at all the dead wood, all I could think of was “that’s a fire hazard, that’s a fire hazard, that’s a fire hazard…”
I started by pruning the spruce in the top photo and working my way in a bit, then went to taking down the two bigger dead spruces. These ones have been making a mess of my nerves, every time we used the fire pit and a breeze blew towards them!
I took the bigger one down first, because it was easier to get at.
When it finally started to drop, it got hung up on the trees on the other side of the gate. The cut part also just stayed on the trunk. I finally grabbed a piece of wood from the log pile and swung it like a baseball bat against the trunk.
It still just dropped straight down, being held up by the other trees.
I finally got it to fall, though!
After this, I cut the tree up into small sections so I could move it and work on the next one.
Which also got stuck and needed whacking.
It, too, was being held up by the trees on the other side of the gate.
My older daughter happened to come out to ask me something, so she got to do the whacking…
And also got it down from the other trees.
After this, I took down the two smaller dead spruces.
Then I realized I had completely blocked the gate, so the smaller stuff I would have taken to the pile outside the yard with a wheel barrow had to wait.
Here are the after pictures.
In the foreground is the spruce from the top photo. As I cleaned up after taking down the dead spruces, including cutting back some spreading lilac and caragana, I kept finding more and more dead stuff, buried under dead leaves and grass, and especially along the fence line.
I’m leaving the stumps of the trees I took down for now. You can see the pruned trunks of the two remaining spruces here; the skinnier one has just a few live branches at the top. There are still dead branches I want to prune away, but for those, I’ll need the extended pruner, so it will wait for now.
There’s still lots to clear out of here but, at this point, the heat was becoming and issue and I was getting ready to head inside.
The remains of the 4 dead spruces I took down, plus some of the larger dead pieces I dragged out while cleaning up. Lots of dead caragana and lilac hidden among the living. It seemed every time I thought I was done, I kept finding more and more to pull out!
I was just taking these last photos when my daughters came out to haul it all out of the yard for me.
They are so awesome!
Though it’s no where near done, the difference is still pretty amazing.
The Re-Farmer
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All Choked Up
Just a bit of catch up from yesterday, since I shut down the computer when we heard a thunderstorm coming in. It ended up passing us by, but even so, it got pretty loud out there!
When doing my evening walk around the yard, I decided to head around the main garden area to check out the choke cherries.
There is one chokecherry tree on the south side of the garden, that my mother planted among the raspberries. It has very few berries on it; I don’t think it’s getting anywhere near enough sun in that location. The few it has are starting to turn a darker red.
This first photo is from one of the trees hidden among the lilacs along the north fence line.
This next photo is from a tree about 50 feet away.
These black ones are basically ripe.
Quite the difference between the two trees!
I’m not sure if we will be doing anything with them. My mom was suggesting making jam, but I am really not up to that. Especially for such a small amount of berries. I wouldn’t mind trying to make wine with them, but we don’t have the set up for that right now. They’re not the sort of thing you eat straight, though you certainly can. They’re more pit than berry. :-D
Anyhow.
Yesterday was our day to go into the city for the Costco shopping. It was a relatively small shop, though. My husband gets his disability payments at the end of the month, and gets both CPP Disability (from the government), which is a fairly small payment that comes in a few business days before the end of the month, and then his private insurance payment, which comes in on the last business day of the month. So we’ve been doing our monthly shop with the first one comes in, the paying the bills with the second one.
Not this month.
Because his CPAP died, we made sure to order that as soon as the money came in. It ended up costing about CDN$650, which is an incredibly good price. His insurance will reimburse a portion of that, but that won’t happen until next week, at the earliest.
Hopefully, the CPAP will come in quickly. Although the sleep apnea does not seem as severe as it was years ago, the affects are being felt. It’s not even the lack of oxygen, but the lack of REM sleep that can really cause problems. When he was first diagnosed, the specialist estimated my husband hadn’t had any REM sleep for at least a year. It almost killed him. So we don’t want to take any chances!
The CPAP was ordered on Friday and my husband got a shipping notice before the end of the day. However, the company can only guarantee shipping up until it gets to Canada. After that, it’s up to Canada Post. So the shipping estimate is 2-3 business weeks. !!!
I don’t expect it to take that long. Packages tend to get shipped faster than envelopes.
With that done, we basically did a half month shop, rather than a full month shop.
Now, I want to make one thing very clear.
I hate shopping.
Okay. Maybe “hate” is too strong of a word. Still, I really, really, really dislike shopping. I don’t like being around so many people, in crowded aisles, etc. Basically, everything about shopping, I dislike.
Which means a trip to Costco uses up all sort of spoons, until I’ve got nothing left but knives!
Which is why I like to have at least one of the girls with me. They make sure I don’t just turn around and leave half way through shopping. It’s much more pleasant with their company!
So we (both girls came along this time) did the Costco shopping, gassed up the van, and I even remembered to bring the jerry can to get premium gas for the riding mower (regular gas at Costco was $1.169, compared to $1.239 elsewhere, and premium was $1.269, so it was worth doing it there!).
Before the move, our usual routine was to do the Costco shopping for the big stuff, then go to a local grocery franchise for the non-bulk stuff. In the years we were away, that franchise expanded into the city here, but there are very few of them. The girls wanted to pick up something we knew was carried by this company. We did consider checking out a couple of the other grocery chains, but really don’t like them, so I looked up the nearest store of the one we do like. It turned out there was a location a convenient drive from the area we were in, so we decided to check it out.
Well now.
Did I mention I hate shopping?
When we got to the place, the first thing we saw were the extra signs. It was an “international” store, with online shopping. Of course, that had us joking about whether they delivered to where we live, out in the sticks. It also had a “kitchen” area.
Hmm.
Then we walked in.
Wow.
I must have looked like a country yokel that had come into the big city for the first time!
We couldn’t believe this place!
It was huge and open. The aisles were wide, and accessible (knowing so many wheelchair and walker users, it’s now automatic for me to assess aisle space and judge how well someone in a wheelchair would be able to navigate). The “kitchen” area had a wide variety of local and international foods, hot and fresh, with a lovely, well lit and welcoming seating area. They had several food “bars”, with the usual things like chicken wings, olives and Chinese food – and a perogie bar! There was a cheese island. Half the store was dedicated to international foods – three aisles were of just Filipino food.
Before the move, there were a couple of local grocery stores that had stuff we couldn’t find anywhere else. One was an Italian store that specialized in European imports. The other was a Chinese grocery store that included hot food take out/dine in areas (with some of the best bao I’ve ever tasted).
This store was like those two, plus the regular grocery store, merged into one.
It was heaven. A total joy to shop there!
We had to deliberately stop ourselves from going through all the international aisles, so we wouldn’t completely blow our budget!
We need to come back. With money. All three of us agreed that this store alone was worth the drive to the city to shop in.
Did I mention I hate shopping?
Not here!
I can’t wait to go back. And this time, we’ll plan on having lunch there, too!
The Re-Farmer
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Morning at the beach
A couple of photos of the lake, taken this morning.
The water was so still this morning!
While it’s usually quiet in the mornings, there isn’t going to be any swimming for beach goers for a while. Several beaches at this area of the lake are now closed. It seems some pipe got damaged, resulting in untreated sewage draining into the lake. From what I’ve read, the water tests were still testing safe, but the province closed some beaches to be on the safe side.
This is unusual only in regards to the cause. The usual reason for beach closures are high algae levels, which has been an ongoing problem on the lake for decades, or high e. coli levels from bird poop.
And that, kids, is why we use chlorine in pools! ;-)
The Re-Farmer
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Kittens video
As promised, here is the video I took this morning.
We just got back from city shopping, just in time for a thunderstorm to start rolling in.
Turning off the computer now! :-D Just in case!
The Re-Farmer
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Clearing the apple trees
This afternoon, I got out the weed trimmer and started going around the edges of the yard, in preparation for mowing. I wanted to trim all the way to the end of the row of crab apple trees by the main garden, so I grabbed an extra extension cord. This made for a total of 250 feet of cord, and it was enough to do almost the entire yard, without having to move from the outlet outside the kitchen to the one in the sun room.
I also tried to go further into the overgrown main garden a bit. The plow line is there, and my goodness, it’s rough. What a mess. Still, I was able to go into the overgrown area a bit to trim out some burdock, before it got too bid, as well as some thistles.
Mostly, though, I’m glad to get the area around the apple trees finally done all the way to the end.
This is the very last tree in the row, and as you can see, the main trunk is mostly dead. It’s just got a few little branches with a handful of leaves on them.
I am planning to take the main trunk down completely. What greenery is there is mostly from the saplings at its base. I will select the one that looks the strongest and healthiest, then cut away the rest.
It you look in the background of the photo, you can see the north edge of the spruce grove, though a fair number of poplars have seeded themselves further in. That north side is a straight line of spruces which, I learned only recently, was planted by my oldest brother. I’m not sure if I was even born when those were planted!
When I am done in the maple grove, I plan to start working on the spruce grove from here. I want to clear away the majority of the self-sown trees, but mostly, I want to clean out the bottom branches of the spruces. They are all dead, though hidden by the living branches higher up.
I think, for the spruce grove, instead of working from one end to the other, as I have been with the maple grove, I will start with clearing the circumference. Especially the fence lines. They are getting away too overgrown, and I want to reduce the damage being done to the fence as long as I can (though when we moved here, there was already one tree that had fallen right on the fence). Hopefully, I’ll at least be able to get that done this year. The bulk of the clean up in the spruce grove will be done next year. This is going to eventually involve clearing out many downed trees, and cutting down lots of dead ones, too.
It’s going to be a huge job!
The Re-Farmer
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Cute kitten overload!
I noticed that Butterscotch’s kittens tend to be out and about later in the day, so I decided to head out and see if they would be out again.
They were!
Oh, they are so cute!
Unfortunately, the light makes for some poor photos. I tried taking video, and the image quality sucked. These are the best of the photos I was able to get.
When I first came out, they were quite far afield! One of the orange kittens had gone as far as the garage.
There is a significant size difference between the two orange ones.
The tinier one was in the planter near the outhouse, falling asleep, until I got too close for its comfort – though I did almost come close enough to touch!
I use the weed trimmer around the yard, in preparation for mowing, and went further in between the bushes between the old dog house and the outhouse then usual. They seemed to like the newly cleared areas.
The little orange one, and this calico, both looked like they could barely stay awake! :-D
For a while, I was kind of playing with the larger orange kitten while it was on the other side of the tree, on that tire. Butterscotch kept putting herself between me and her kittens, demanding I pet her, and ended up on the tire as well. Her kitten immediately started going for her tail. When I had the chance, I started wiggling my fingers around the tree, and it went for them. <3 That was all it was willing to put up with, though!
This brave little one climbed higher for a better look at me. :-D
Sooo sleeeeepppyyyy…
Tired baby!
I am hoping they will start feeling more confident and let us play with them. I really want these to be less feral than the rest of the outside cats!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 