My daughter got some pictures of a squirrel at our feeder stand today.
It would go up onto the platform, then stretch out to catch the bottom of the hanging planter, pull it closer, then climb onto it.
It saw my daughter taking pictures.
Now, there’s a face that can haunt dreams! :-D
Sure doesn’t seem happy with being watch, that’s for sure. :-D
The Re-Farmer
I posted about an area I’ve been working on for some time that I feel is now pretty much done. Today, I was able to go back and take some photos. It will still need some raking and a pass with the weed trimmer, and the odd pruning of little things that got missed, but the big work is done. You can read more about the progress here, here, here, here, and here.
Yeah, I’ve been working on this section for a while!
Here are some before and after pictures.
What used to be rows of lush lilac bushes have been reduced to mostly dead branches and stems, and many long, tall stems with nothing but a few green leaves at the top, trying to get some sunlight.
I was being pretty ruthless in what I cut; the back of the row had a lot of undergrowth of false spirea at one end, caragana at the other, and lilac suckers all over. Much of it could be pulled right out of the ground without using pruning shears or saw.
Here is the next section’s before picture.
In this picture, I had already done some cleaning in the front rows of trees and bushes. Here it is, after clearing the back row.
I used a bow saw to cut part of the dead tree down as well. Some of the tiny little trees still in between are plum trees, so I wanted to keep them. Otherwise, I took out all the undergrowth and cleaned out the remaining lilacs in the back.
In the next section, I worked my way up to an old caragana, which is as far as I’d cleaned up from the other end of the row of trees and bushes. This next picture is from before I started on the front area with the plums.
I had cleaned up the front around the plums and linden tree, and from one side, cleared out some old lilacs and the caragana. This is what it looks like now that the back is cleared up.
I’ve decided to keep this caragana, though it still needed to have some old trunks removed. Like a lot of the other dead wood I removed, I was pulling some of it right out of the ground, with no need for cutting, it was dead for so long.
There are quite a few dead bits of trunk sticking up in several places that I have left for now. I am not able to cut them flush to the ground at the moment, so I’d rather they were taller – and more visible – then cutting them only part way down.
It’ll be good to get in with the weed trimmer and a rake, but it’ll wait for cooler temperatures!
The Re-Farmer
This morning we had some very welcome rain. We are also supposed to hit above 30C today, with chances of thunderstorms, so I decided to do a check around the yard and see if any more branches had come down, etc.
There were a few small branches, but as I went around the other house (I think I should call it the storage house, though we aren’t storing anything in there ourselves), I found a surprise.
Remember this tree?
The dead one on the right of the picture, with the crows nest in it?
This is what it looked like today.
Yeah, the crows nest is now almost hidden by greenery.
The trunk to the right is part of the tree, too, and is dead, but the trunk with the nest had suddenly sprouted leaves.
Just a few days ago, there was NO sign of life in that trunk. Not even buds. The only living thing growing on that trunk was moss and lichen.
Many of the branches are still dead or mostly dead, but fresh leaves have burst out all over the place.
The dead trunk had a large branch leaning on the disconnected power line running to the storage house, while the rest of it leans above it, holding up a broken, though still living, branch from another tree.
So I decided to take some of that down.
After taking down the branch on the disconnected power line with the extended pruning saw, I made the initial cut on the dead trunk higher up, where it was most vertical, so that I could guide the fall straight down, rather than have it falling sideways onto the power line. Granted, the power line is only held up by a tree outside the yard, but I still didn’t want anything landing on it, as much as I can avoid it. Then I cut the trunk again, lower down in a spot I could access with the bow saw.
As I was cleaning up after all this, I found another surprise, by the branch that had come down earlier in the month.
I had gone over this area with the weed trimmer as much as I could, and it was basically all just grass. I guess clearing it as much as I did was enough to spur the growth of some hidden horseradish!
I had no idea horseradish had ever been planted here!
When we first moved to the city we were living in before coming back here, we used to hike in the river valley trails a lot. The first spring we explored the trails, I was seeing horseradish growing wild, all over the place. It was like a weed! I’ve never seen anything like it, anywhere else. I like that it is such a resilient plant.
With big, healthy horseradish growing in other areas of the yard, I will not be making any effort to keep these when I come back with the weed trimmer, but it was still cool to find them.
The Re-Farmer
Today, I will do things a bit different. Movie reviews! :-D
We made the trip into the city to see a couple of movies for my daughter’s birthday. With the drive being more than an hour, it made sense to take advantage of it and see two.
In the afternoon, we saw The Incredibles 2, then Solo; A Star Wars Story in the evening.
So I will start with The Incredibles 2.
It’s hard to believe that the first movie came out 14 years ago! We enjoyed that one, and after reading some reviews, I was really looking forward to seeing it.
I was not disappointed. I would even go so far as to say, The Incredibles 2 was incredible.
Ah, ha! I slay me!
Sorry about that. ;-)
Before the movie started, there was a short called Bao.
We followed from baby bao through angsty teenager bao, to little bearded bao, introducing his fiance to his mother. I won’t give out any spoilers, but Mom’s reaction to that was not at all what I expected to see! Yeah. I teared up. I also loved the way it ended. So touching!
On to the main feature.
The movie begins where the first movie ended, which I think was a wise move on the part of the creators, even if they did drop the antagonist pretty much immediately. After the movie ended and the girls and I were talking about it, I noted that they never did catch that particular bad guy!
Visually, the movie was really beautiful. They kept the same aesthetic, while the graphics were simply so much better. At one point, a character walked into the scene and she is wearing a knit cardigan. Being a fibre artist myself, my eyes made a beeline for it. The detail, textures and drape of it were amazing. This was true of everything. The physics of things like how Elastigirl’s body responded while being a parachute, for example. The flow of water. Jack Jack’s transformations.
The movie did come with a warning that several scenes would have bright, flashing lights. Those definitely were potentially seizure inducing! But they were also a vital part of the story.
Which leads me to the next thing; the story line. Which was also really well done. You had all the family dynamics going on, as the family struggles with the consequences of what happened in the previous movie. They’ve got no jobs, no home, and with the government project shut down, no support system to help them start over again. Basically, you’ve got a regular family, trying to figure what they’re going to do next. They just happen to also have superpowers that are illegal for them to use.
Within all the superhero antics in the story line, this family dynamic continues to play out. Ultimately, it is their strength as a family, working together, that makes them strong as superheros, too. As Supers, none of them could reach their full potential on their own. It is only when they come together as a group that they succeed.
Among the highlights is when Edna Mode and Jack Jack are brought together. It was hilarious!
The whole thing was very well done, and I would highly recommend seeing it. No, you don’t need kids, either. :-D
This is a movie I would happily see again, and we will probably buy it when the disc comes out.
Then we saw Solo.
With this one, I’d heard that it was not doing well in the theatres, and was not well liked, but not a whole lot beyond that. When I first heard they were making a movie about young Han Solo, my reaction was basically, why? Was there some sort of interest in Han’s back story I missed?
Apparently, not.
Still, I was interested in seeing for myself.
If The Incredibles 2 was incredible, Solo was…
Loud.
Incredibly loud.
I have no idea what was going on in this auditorium, but we spent much of the movie with our fingers in our ears. It was painful. I still feel half deaf because of it, after nearly 3 hours.
As for the movie itself…
Well, it was kinda entertaining. It wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t call it good, either. It was just… there. Lots of action. Lots of fight scenes and flying scenes and flying fight scenes.
Aside from Han, Chewy and Lando, basically all the characters were new, but none of them were really developed enough to care what happened to them. The details revealed as the story line developed were not things that mattered. Did anyone really clamor to know how Han got his surname, or his blaster? Then there was that pair of dice that kept showing up. Yeah, it played a part in the Star Wars; the Last Jedi, and you could tell that’s the only reason they got written into this side story. Stuff like that could have been dropped completely, and no one would have noticed.
Ultimately, when it came to the story progression, there just wasn’t a lot of reason given to care about the story or the characters. So if all you want is to be entertained and see some cool flying and fighting scenes, it’ll fit the bill. As far as the plot, it was pretty mediocre, and for all the attempts to throw in twists and turns, they were all really predictable. It certainly didn’t live up to the standard set by Rogue One.
I’m glad to have seen it, but have no interest in seeing it again. Definitely not something I’d have any interest in owning.
In conclusion: I would definitely recommend seeing The Incredibles 2. It’s fantastic.
As for Solo; not really. Maybe rent it, if you are really curious, but I wouldn’t recommend paying theatre prices to see it.
The Re-Farmer
With today’s heat (we hit 32C today, and it stayed there for hours), I wasn’t able to get any work done in the trees and bushes until past 8pm! Even then, it was about 28C when I first started. As I write this, we’ve dropped to 25C, so it’s still quite warm.
I continued to work in the row of old lilacs I had been working on last, and I think I’m pretty much done now. By the time I stopped, it was too dark to take pictures. There is still clean up to do; the piles of what I cut and pulled away need to be cleared out of the yard, and the ground needs to be raked up of the many, many twigs and who knows what is in among the dead leaves. I wasn’t too surprised to find the odd piece of garbage at the based of trees. Things blow in from all over, and once caught, no one would have seen them to clear them out. The oddest thing I found, though, was the tray from a Hungry Man dinner. My dad loved his Hungry Man dinners! But how did a tray end up buried in leaves in the bushes? It’s not the first one I’ve found, either. I found one buried in the tall grass when I was mowing along the driveway. I can’t even suggest they came from the pile outside the yard that was being used as a garbage dump, because of how far it is, and the face that there are rows of trees and fences in between.
After this section, I will start working my way through the maple grove again. I’ll be getting into clearing some big stuff in there!
But not tomorrow.
Tomorrow, the girls and I are planning on a day trip to the city to see some movies, to celebrate my younger daughter’s birthday – and to be in air conditioning! Unfortunately, it’s going to be too long of a day for my husband to join us. :-( We considered using the time for him to visit his dad, but that would just make a long day for both of them!
When we lived in the area back in 2004, we didn’t think twice about hopping in the car and driving to the city just to see a movie. My husband used to commute to the city every weekday. Now, just getting outside is an accomplishment for him. I had hoped that living out here would help him with getting outside more, but the pain just isn’t in control enough for him to manage.
Which really sucks.
The Re-Farmer
It’s been another scorcher today, but I decided to work on the lilac row in the West yard. It was shady, and I made sure to have a water bottle with me to stay hydrated. By mid-afternoon, though, the sun had moved far enough that my shade was gone, and it was time to stop.
Most of the work was done around just one old lilac bush!
Here is the before picture, from when I first started working in this section.
Then after I’d cut away the false spirea (and the branch that fell on it after hitting the power line!).
Finally, here is how it looks now.
Lots of skinny little dead branches among the skinny little live branches! :-D Several dead main trunks were cleaned away. There was quite a lot of undergrowth behind the lilacs that needed to be cleared away, just to reach the lilacs themselves. In one lilac bush towards the left in the photo, I didn’t even have to cut the trunks. They just pulled out of the ground, or came out easily with a twist.
At some point, we’ll have to rake under there to clean up the many tiny dead twigs and branches in the leaves. For now, I am focusing on just getting the big stuff cleaned and cleared out, while slowly working my way down the row.
It’s much slower work with the lilacs, since it involves removing so many little things, compared to working on the big trees, that’s for sure!
The Re-Farmer
It was another really hot day today, so outdoor work was limited.
My daughter and I loaded the items from the sun room that we will not be using, into the storage shed, and noticed that stinking nettle was starting to crowd the stairs. The area is in need of another mow, too. So before things go too hot, I decided to clear away the nettles, then maybe do some mowing.
I cleared away the nettles, but it was hot enough that I didn’t want to stress the motor on the mower.
Instead, I shifted to a different area.
Some time soon, the electrician will be coming by to install the broken power pole, and also hook electricity back up to the barn. There are some trees between the main pole, and the one between it and the barn, that will be in the way of the wires and the installation.
So I started cutting them back.
Ideally, I’d be taking them down completely. They seem to have sprouted out of a stone pile, around a support wire for the power pole, and I could tell that they had been cut back several times in the past. Just not recently.
There is only two trees here; a maple and an elm. This photo is after I’d cut away a substantial amount on one side, stopping when it simply became too hot to continue.
It’s the branches on the other side, however, that are in the way of where the power line is going to do.
Do you see the problem?
Yeah. The car.
My father’s old car has been parked there for quite a few years. Long enough that I think the tires are now flat. As far as I know, however, it can still be repaired and made roadworthy without too much work; it’s not one of the scrap vehicles lying about.
If I start cutting the branches on that side, they are going to fall right on the car.
I’ve been wondering if we’d be able to pop it in neutral and push it out of the way. If we manage it, though (I have no idea if we’ll even try, yet), it would need to be pushed back again. We’ll have to decide soon, since I would like to have those trees cut back before the electrician needs to work in the area.
It’s unfortunate the car wasn’t parked in one of the sides of the garage, or even one of the sheds that used to shelter a tractor. Mind you, that shed has a roof like a sieve, now, and I’d really like to have it torn down, eventually.
This is the pile of what I’ve cleared away so far. They are not broken down much at all, to it’s really mostly air. Still, there are some very large sections of tree in there!
I am beginning to foresee a potential problem with having piles of cut and pruned tree pieces all over the place.
The Re-Farmer
Today was another good day to get pictures of the goldfinches outside our living room window.
They are so fun to watch!
And from the looks of it, they find us fun to watch, too!
The Re-Farmer
Yes! It’s done!
The sun room is now cleaned and put back together into a usable space!
The challenge in rearranging the room was that is has to fit two uses. One is to have a nice space to just sit and enjoy. The other is to put away and store tools and supplies.
The initial cleaning was a huge job, so the difference is very stark! Here are the before and after pictures, starting with the East side. (click on them for larger images)
The dresser now holds the tools that I found in the sun room as I was cleaning it up, including a collection of saws. I even found one with a long, very thin blade that would be perfect for cutting branches in odd places. Except it looks completely dull, so we’ll see. I also found several different types of hammers and hatchets, including a hatchet that is also a hammer. :-D Buckets of screws, clothes pins, and even the containers I used to take deer feed out, are all now tucked away into the dresser.
I just realized, I forgot to check under the seat of my dad’s walker. He used to keep tools in there, too. :-D
That tiny instrument hanging on the wall is a music box. I remember it from when I was a child!
Now, instead of pictures on the walls, I have saws.
Which is much more my style, anyhow. :-D
On the West side…
I chose a before picture that was taken after the dresser was moved out, since that was added by us from another room and was only there for the winter. I’d also already moved the plastic couch that is in the East side “after” pictures.
Whoever wants to use the rocker will have to move my dad’s walker out of the way. Depending on how things work out when we clear out the old kitchen, it might end up being stored in there. My mother likes to use it when she visits.
In the “before” picture, about half of that stuff is what we brought into the room, including the weed trimmer.
I am keeping the prie dieu and plan to pick up some wood oil for it. The side facing the wall is in much better shape. I am guessing the majority of the damage to it is from the sun (as I notice it is in a sun spot…). It’s a bit rickety at a pair of joins on the bottom, and I want to investigate the best way to repair it.
There are a few things not going back in, including one shelf (the dresser is a much more useful and attractive fit for the space) and the metal table. Having packed all of the books, phone books and magazines my mother had in there, the two shelves I did decide to keep have nothing to put in them for now!
Knowing us, that won’t last long. :-D
My dad’s favourite seat is a glider rocker that has lengths of pipe added to the legs to make it higher, so it would be easier for him to get in and out of it. I am happily keeping those, since we’re not exactly limber, either. I plan to replace the cushions when I get the chance. These original ones are very old, and very stained!
With both the glider rocker and the rocking chair on the same side, we have to make sure they don’t get pushed back too far, so no one will bump into the windows!
There will, of course, be other changes made over time. I want to add some hooks on the wall by the old kitchen window, so I can hang the extension cord when it’s not being used. We might even add some decorative items on the walls. Who knows? Minor stuff. For the more major stuff, the outside doors need to be replaced completely. The screen door doesn’t even close properly anymore, and the inner door has a lot of water damage on the bottom. Even the doors into the old kitchen should be replaced at some point, but they are in better shape.
No hurry on any of that, though. The main thing is that the room has been packed up, cleaned and can once again be used!
Next and last room (not counting the basements) to pack up, clear, clean and rearrange: the old kitchen!
The Re-Farmer
The heat is on for the next few days, with some thunderstorms predicted by the end of the week. This will limit what we can do in the yard, and when, for a while.
After dropping my younger daughter off for her first shift at her new job, I decided to finish up the sun room. I’ve emptied it out completely, and mopped the concrete floor. I’d originally intended to take a hose to it, but there is nowhere for the water to drain.
I mopped that floor three times, with many changes of water. I swept it as much as I could, but there was just so much dust left behind!!
It is now drying, so I figured this was a good time to make a post. :-)
Yesterday was our day of rest, and I took advantage of it to just walk around, checking things out now that it’s all as green as it’s going to get, and thinking ahead.
After I finish with the area I’ve been working on for the past while, I intend to slowly work my way through the maple grove to the garden area.
There was a time when this space was a path to the garden. I think that stick next to the dead spruce tree is marking one side of where it used to be.
As you can see by the dead branches in the foreground, there’s more than dead spruces blocking the old path. There is where there are a bunch of maples that had been cut down, cut into pieces, then left there. I don’t know who started the work and then stopped part way through; for all I know, it was my late brother, which might also explain why it was left unfinished.
Before we can even start on taking down the small dead trees (the big ones will wait until we have a chain saw), I will have to clean up all the deadwood on the ground.
We’re going to have several years worth of fire wood for cookouts, by the time it’s done!
I squeezed my way through to check out the West end of the garden space. There, I discovered a huge mass of horseradish! My mother had told me she’d transplanted some there, but that the younger of my brothers had plowed too close to the pole and dug it up, so she transplanted it again, under a spruce three nearer the house. Clearly, she missed some, and it is thriving!
When I was younger, this area was pretty much all open. Now, there is a dense, virtually impenetrable wall of trees where I remember we once had a cabbage patch. From what I could see, along with the usual maple, elm and black spruce, I believe there is also some Colorado blue spruce and birch.
Unfortunately, the trees near the pole are tall enough that they are reaching the power lines! I think they are still clear enough, though, that we can safely cut them down without hitting the the lines. At the very least, we will need to thin the area down. It is so dense, everything is fighting for survival. I can tell quite a bit of it is deliberately planted, such as the Colorado blue spruce (not a native species) and the row of birches, plus the rows of black spruce, but I’m pretty sure there is quite a bit that is self sown. Some of the black spruces, perhaps, and most likely the maples and elms. I am hoping to save as much as I can; the birches look pretty good, but I will likely be removing 2 out of every 3 trees in the rows of spruces. Though just removing the dead ones might achieve the same goal. I would really like to save the Colorado blues.
A number of years ago, the Canadian government was encouraging people living on farms to plant more trees and shelter belts. They had a program where people could sign up and order all kinds of trees, shipped to them for free. I have no idea if this program is still available, but I know lots of people took advantage of it. I am thinking that this is how my parents ended up planting so many of the trees I’m finding, including the shelter belt outside of the yard, along where the cow fence is now.
After checking this area out, I took a look at the North fence line. At this end, there are a number of trees that look like they were deliberately planted, along with some obvious self-sown ones. There is a gap between the big trees and the fence line, which is good. I’d like to clear that gap, so that the fence is accessible. Once the lilac hedge starts, though, I couldn’t see the the fence line at all, and couldn’t tell if there was a space between the bushes and the fence. While walking along the lilacs to try and see, I did find a couple of chokecherry trees.
There are quite a few berries forming, though a lot of them seem to have insect damage to them. We shall see how they do throughout the season.
Eventually, I found a gap in the lilacs and went to see how close to the fence line they are and found…
… some mystery wire.
I have no idea what kind of wire this is, other than it is NOT fence wire. I can’t even see anything nearby that it might be from, or that might explain why it is here.
Something else I’m going to have to clear out and add to the haul-away pile.
The lilacs, meanwhile, are well into the fence line. Not going to be able to clear a path out. Ah, well.
As I was finishing up, I went past a bush my mother planted by the clothes line platform. I had ruthlessly pruned it down, because it was in the way of trying to hang things on the line.
It seems to have like the pruning, because it is now completely dense with foliage, and covered with flower buds, including one early bloomer!
Based on how many buds I’m seeing, by the time this bush is in full bloom, we’ll hardly be able to see any leaves at all; it’ll be a mass of white!
I’m rather looking forward to seeing that.
Well, I think the sun room floor has had enough time to dry. Now I have to decide what to put back, and what will have to go into storage!
By the end of the day, we should finally have a usable sun room. :-)
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 