Today, we went around the vehicle graveyard with a scrap dealer that my mom called, to check out what is here that might be hauled away. Among the old farm equipment was this. Can you guess what it is, or what it does.
Here is the front of the device.
And here is a look at the other side.
I have fond memories of using this thing!
The Re-Farmer
So much for weather forecasts.
For all the lower temperatures and overcast skies, and forecasts of 80% chance for rain, there has been none today. Going into town with another errand, my daughter and I played a bit of Pokemon Go. In the game, which is linked to local weather in some way, showed pouring rain on our maps. In the real world, there wasn’t a drop.
Once home again, I did a quick check around the yard and garden area. After talking to my mother yesterday, I learned that the trees in the flower garden are not cherry trees, after all, but ornamental apple trees. The cherry trees, she tells me, are in the spruce grove, behind where the wood pile used to be. No sign of blossoms there, yet. I am not sure why edible cherries would be planted among spruce trees, while ornamental (I assume that means they don’t produce anything edible) apples are planted next to the house.
The apple trees in the flower garden are leafing and budding up nicely, too. The row of apples (all varieties of crab apples, as I recall) are barely in leaf.
Planted on the north side of the spruce grove, they wouldn’t have anywhere near as much sun as the ones in the flower garden, which is the most likely reason why they are so much slower to revive for the season.
On the far side of the garden, along the fence line, the lilac border is showing flower buds already on some bushes. I was looking for a sign of the chokecherry tree that used to be there. The lilac border runs the entire length of the fence line now, but when I was a child, it was only about half the distance, and the chokecherry tree was at the end of the row, about the middle of the length of the garden at the time. I may have found it, but can’t be sure, as it’s behind lilac bushes. The tree I saw that might be it also seems to be dead; likely the chokecherry tree was choked out by the lilacs. :-( I will see if I can confirm that with my mother one of these days.
This is part of a row of what appears to be raspberry canes, though it’s hard to identify them among the scrub and without any leaf buds to be seen. On one side, it’s almost right up against a row of spruces. On the other, I can see that it was plowed within inches of the stems. They would be getting light only in the early hours of the morning, now that the sun is rising so much farther to the north than it did in the winter. By about 9 or 10 am, they would be in shade until sunrise. We’ll see what raspberries we get this year, if any. Most varieties of raspberries have canes that produce in the second year, before dying back. At that point, the spent canes should be cut away, but that is something my parents never did, as far as I can recall; they just let them be until it was decided to transplant them. I remember when they were planted on the far side of the garden, beyond where a row of trees is now planted. At the height of raspberry season, we could pick several ice cream pails’ worth of berries in the morning, then come back by evening and have more ripened berries to pick. On our list of things we eventually want to plant are three different varieties of raspberries, each with a different harvesting period, so we could have raspberries from July through September.
Whenever that happens, we will be sure to plant them somewhere that actually gets full sun.
The Re-Farmer
A chilly day today – enough that we actually turned the furnace back up again – but that’s okay. We got rain!
Not much, mind you, and I never actually saw it rain, but things are damp out there, which is so good to see. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get more. I certainly hope we do! As nice as what we got today was, it’s no where near enough, though we are still supposed to get more now and again, throughout the night.
We saw a new bird this morning. I just barely got a few photos before it took off.
An American Goldfinch. I’ve seen them at my sister’s bird feeder, and was hoping they would show up in our area, too. Just the one, so far, but at least I know we can expect to see more of them.
Though we did get rain today, there is still a burn ban, and we haven’t done a burn in ages, so our trip to the dump today included stuff that would normally go into the burn barrel. We also got another load of paint out of the garage. One more trip should clear out the last of what’s there right now.
After going to the dump, my daughter and I went into town for an errand, taking advantage of the trip to play some Pokemon Go. Which meant our regular stop at a Pokegym at the beach. The lake was so choppy in the wind, I had to go and get pictures.
The town has finished grooming the beach. It all looks like a giant Zen garden right now. :-D
Definitely not boating conditions! The water is still very cold, and the wind off of the lake was pretty chill. Neither of us had jackets, so we didn’t stay long!
With the chill and the damp, this evening sounds like a good time to sit with a hot cup of tea and catch up on some crochet. :-D
The Re-Farmer
Today turned out to be a perfect day for working outside. A bit on the cool side, and not too sunny. It would have been nice of those clouds brought some rain, but it did mean we got a lot done outside. Best of all, my husband was actually up to going outside with his walker, and walk up and down the driveway a few times, then just sit outside and enjoy the day. There used to be a bench under the kitchen window that my late brother had built for my dad to sit and enjoy some time outside, but it is among those things that disappeared after my dad died. At some point, we’ll replace it with another bench. It’s a perfect spot to sit and relax.
The biggest accomplishment in the yardwork today is YAY! we finally got that pile of wood in the garden cleaned up. It is DONE.
While taking loads of broken down wood to the fire pit area with the wheelbarrow, I paused to get some photos of the blooming plum trees.
On the one hand, it was really cool to see them starting to bloom.
On the other, it was a bit disheartening to see how few blossoms there were. Just a few sparse branches spread over several trees.
After we finished with the wood pile in the garden, we went back to clearing up around the yard. Soon, I hope to start going into these trees, and the maple grove behind them, clearing up the fallen branches, cutting away the dead wood that hasn’t fallen yet, and taking down some dead trees.
The girls worked their way around to the three big maple trees by the fire pit. These are the ones where I finally wrested away an old awning that had been left under them for some 20 years. Plus the remains of a chair. As they raked around the bases of the trees, they found three old license plates (one of them had stickers for 1981 and 1982 on it!) and a flat plastic thing that looked a bit like the bases in baseball, except for the hole and part of a pipe still attached, and the big MAC logo. They were buried under several inches of soil; composted leaves, really.
I finally got around to working on the flower garden by the old kitchen. The girls had started to rake around the outside of the fence line, and I took the opportunity to start cutting away some of the things that have started to grow on the outside of the fence. I got the dead asparagus foliage cleared away, but there is no sign of new asparagus growing under it.
I forgot to get a picture of my find under the leaves inside the flower garden. A wooden toy rocking horse, completely buried. I’m guessing it was on the bench on the platform for the clothes line and fell, and no one noticed. I ended up having to prune quite a few low hanging branches on the big cherry tree, just to be able to get under it. I could see that it had been pruned back to where I was cutting already, but not recently.
Cleaning that garden up is going to be a huge job. It hasn’t been tending in so many years, making it hard to rake. Plus, there’s some sort of vine that seems to be spreading, and I’m finding it as the rake gets caught on it. The ground is rock hard. Getting out that invasive plant my mom asked me to get rid of is not going to be easy.
It was good to get so much work done today, but my goodness, there is so much more to do.
Well, that’s what my mom asked us to live her to take care of for her! :-)
Now to go pick the burrs out of my clothes before putting them in the laundry… :-D
The Re-Farmer
Oh, what a windy day it has been, today!
Hot, as well. It’s past 6pm as I write this, and our temperatures are at 28C (82F). Inside the house it much cooler, though, which is awesome! We were actually cold last night.
Speaking of temperatures, I asked one of my brothers about the remote sensor on the clothes line pole. It is, indeed, for weather. He found a photo of the complete set, so we know what the receiver inside would have looked like. It had the time, temperature and other information displayed on it. I don’t recall packing anything like that, but we packed so many things, I doubt I would have noticed something the looks like a digital clock. He thinks it was set up by our late brother, which means the remote sensor has been out there for more than 8 years – probably more like 10.
So that mystery has been cleared up. :-)
This morning, we discovered a bit of wind damage in the spruce grove outside our living room window.
The piece stuck in the branches is actually the top of the dead spruce tree on the right. The top was already broken, but this part was broken free in the wind. I did a check around the yard and, aside from smaller branches in the yard here and there, there was nothing else broken. I kept an eye on it throughout the morning, and by afternoon, the wind had shaken it loose from the branches holding it, enough that it’s not standing upright on the ground, looking for all the world like it had grown there.
A run into town to pick up prescription refills was an opportunity for my daughter and I to play some Pokemon Go and check out the lake.
One of our regular stops is at this park near the marina, where the van was buffeted by the wind, and we watched as several of these sail boats were blown right over onto their sides, help up only by other boats, before rocking back again.
We also stopped to visit the beach, which was being groomed today. You can see the equipment for in the distance.
On the way home, we stopped at the post office, and part of my younger daughter’s birthday gift came in. Her birthday is next month, but we’ve never held much to the days themselves, and spread out our recognition over time. Which means she got her gift right away. :-)
A very pretty set of throwing knives! We’ve already discussed where we’d want to set up a target for practicing. We would like to get an archery butt, and have found the perfect place to set it up. Eventually, we want to get into archery again. My husband and I used to shoot regularly, before we had kids. I shot recurve, my husband shot a compound. The girls are interested, too, so this would be a family affair. :-)
Well, the sky is getting dark outside my window. I’m hoping that means the predicted rains (only 40% chance, though) will finally come. If not today, by Friday, they are saying there is an 80% chance of showers, 60% chance on Thursday. Any little bit will help. I found out this morning that there was another fire to the Northeast of us yesterday. In the early evening, some buildings were lost. From what I’m told, the land had just changed ownership, and no one was living there, so at least it wasn’t someone’s home that was lost. I hope the new owners had insurance, though. There were still hot spots going today, and in these winds, there is extreme danger of sparks jumping the road. At the moment, the general fire ban still allows for fire pits and BBQs, but if we don’t get rain, I foresee that changing soon. At least the winds are dying down, as the evening progresses, but I’m still seeing trees swaying out my window.
We shall see what tomorrow brings us.
The Re-Farmer
It seems that putting the feed out in the evening, instead of the morning, has been a good idea. Three deer came by, about half an hour after I put the feed out, when none at all showed up during the day. Which means they had plenty to eat, since the birds didn’t get a chance to eat it all, first! :-D
I think it’s the same trio that showed up last time, but I’d have to compare photos to be sure.
Just look at those little baby antlers! :-D
This one has such a loooong smooth face.
The fur on all of them was looking pretty rough.
This one had gone over to the edge of the trees and started nibbling on the new leaves on the wild roses, but it kept getting distracted. Then its fur got all puffed out as it kept staring in different areas.
The other two starting checking out the distraction, too.
Eventually, the source of their agitation emerged…
It was funny to see Nasty Crime Boy start crouching down in stalking position while staring down the deer!
When the deer showed up, I just started taking as many shots as quickly as I could, hoping I’d get at least a few good ones. I ended up taking over 100 pictures in the short time they were here. I got several of this deer making funny faces like this, with this one being the clearest. The deer was chewing on something that seemed to be giving it a hard time, resulting in photos that look like it’s having a good laugh!
There was the one deer with the long, smooth face. Then there is this one, with the lumpy, bumpy face.
Too cute!
The Re-Farmer
While cleaning up around the yard, one of the girls reached the far post of the clothes line and called me over to look at something.
Hmm…
So… we have a National Geographic remote sensor, attached to the clothes line post, with electric tape. (The rope is there because the post as started to lean over.)
There isn’t really anything to say what it’s there to sense. A search has turned up nothing; this thing is so old, nothing even close to it is showing up. Most of what does show up is weather related, but they look so completely different, I can’t even guess that this is also some sort of weather sensor.
The wire from the sensor is also attached to the pole with electric tape.
This has been there long enough for that bit of lichen above it to actually overlap it!
I’m guessing it was sending a signal to a receiver inside the house at some point, though I can’t recall finding anything that could be a receiver while we were packing up my parents’ stuff.
Though this device isn’t going to be sending signals anywhere, anymore!
I’m going to have to ask a sibling about it and find out what the story is!
In other areas…
Along with the clean up, we’re gathering a fair bit of stuff that normally would go into the burn barrel. We haven’t done a burn in ages, with good reason. There is a total burn ban in the area, and while approved fire pits and BBQs are still allowed, we aren’t going to take any chances. Sure, we could hook up a hose, now that the outside taps have been turned on again, and spray the area around the burn barrel, but why take chances? This stuff is just going to have to go to the dump.
I also did the meter reading today and sent that in. I then went back over the last 5 readings and worked out the differences from month to month on our power usage. This gives me some idea of what we can expect on our next electric bill. It was quite interesting. Our highest bill was just under $600, then the next one was about $550 or so. Those two months can predictably be our highest consumption periods, though this also included the weeks we spent heating water every day, until we could get the new hot water tank. The next month saw a consumption drop of about 1/3, and the month after that showed another slight drop. That’s when we saw bills of just over and just under the $400. This month? The consumption dropped by almost half – more than 2/3s less than our highest month of consumption. So our next bill, I am thinking we will see just a bit more than $200. It should be interesting to see how much it’ll drop when we are at our lowest consumption period over the summer.
Interestingly, I found that we have been living here long enough to qualify for the electric company’s “equal payment” plan – with monthly payments of only $44. !! Based on the last 6 months of meter readings, including the one I sent in today, I just don’t see how they came to that number. Unless I’m just not understanding something about the plan. I think we’ll give it a few more months and see if that changes, before we apply for it.
Our electric bill is much, much higher than it was when we were living in the city, which we expected. I’m just glad we’re not living in Ontario. I know someone there who got an electric bill of over $2000 – about double what they paid in the same month the previous year, with less consumption! So I’m definitely not complaining about our power bills, that’s for sure! Still, we will be examining our options to see what we can do to bring the bills down. Especially for the winter months. Options that do NOT include heating with wood, since that will increase the insurance costs. Add in the cost of buying wood, and there would be no savings at all. Theoretically, we could cut our own wood, but even if we were all able bodied enough to do the work ourselves, it’s not worth it. There are too many other things that our time, efforts and energy need to go to. Like so many other things, it’s a balance of priorities, not just about dollars and cents.
Which is how we will be looking at all sorts of things as we clean the place up and learn what work it needs. There is going to be quite a few things where we are simply going to hire people to come in and do it, rather than try and do it ourselves. Sometimes, it’s just more efficient that way, even if it costs money. I think some of the biggest problems we are finding now come down to the fact that no one wanted to spend the money to hire people to do it, but didn’t necessarily have the time, knowledge, resources, or skills to do it themselves. Sometimes, the best way to save money in the long run, is to spend money in the short run.
Of course, that requires having the money to spend in the short run, which is always its own problem, too!
To complicate things further, we have my mother, who owns the place, and siblings, telling us about things that will need to be taken care of, like covering holes in shed roofs. Which we do appreciate, since we haven’t spent a lot of time looking at the outbuildings, with our focus being the house and yard. Then we go to look at what they are talking about, and all I can think is, this shed is not worth patching. It’s not worth fixing. It should be torn down and gotten rid of. The stuff inside that’s worth keeping needs to be moved elsewhere, to protect it, and the rest needs to be turfed. Heck, some of the sheds I’ve gone into, I’m reluctant to even walk across the floors. I’m no light weight, and there’s a good chance the rotting wood won’t hold my weight! Meanwhile, things that could have been salvaged, like the log cabin out by the fire pit, has a roof that was allowed to cave into all the stuff that had been store inside it.
Ah, well. Little by little, we’re figuring it out.
The Re-Farmer
As we clean up around the house and yard, we are starting to discover where things are growing, and even what some things are.
These pictures are of the biggest of my mother’s flower gardens, at the old kitchen. It actually has a fence around it and everything.
Here is what I am seeing in it, now that growth is starting to happen.
I am enjoying the sight of leaves and flower buds on this cherry tree. It looks like we have a second, smaller one. I look forward to seeing them in full bloom!
Under the bigger cherry tree, outside the garden fencing, chives are coming up. Plus what looks like an onion, over on the right.
There is also some rhubarb growing just inside the garden, near the base of the tree. I am happy to see it. I love rhubarb!
Near this rhubarb, there appears to be a whole lot of onions coming up. It should be interesting to see what all we find once we get to raking in here. Though my mom has always called this a flower garden, she’s had onions planted in here for as long as I can remember, though there may have been some years without them. I remember tomatoes planted in here, too.
The middle of the garden is completely overrun with these plants. My mom told me the name of them, but I don’t remember what it is. She had planted them, only to discover they are quite invasive, and has told me that she would like me to get rid of it.
That is not going to be easy.
Along the outside edge of the garden, I can see some wild columbine starting to come up. Next to what looks like a wild rose? I like wild columbine. So do hummingbirds. :-)
Around the corner, on the opposite side of the garden, there is a whole bunch more rhubarb. Hmmm!
This tangled mass of last year’s growth is asparagus fern. We have had it for as long as I can remember; as a child, I used to love looking at the fine sprays of greenery. What I don’t remember is us ever eating asparagus! I think it may have just been too much of a hassle, so my mom left it to itself. I’m hoping to get it cleaned up soon, and see if there is new asparagus growing.
Then there is this mass of greenery, near the house, under a rose bush. I have no idea what it is, or even if it was intentionally planted.
The soil is rock hard and bone dry. It’s going to take a lot of work to get this garden going again!
I think it will be easier if we start by removing the fencing, which is falling down. Even the fence posts are starting to fall over.
I do hope we get some rain soon. There hasn’t been anything more than a few sprinkles all spring.
The Re-Farmer
I was talking to a friend who brought up something that has shown up in some of the photos of our yard that I’ve shared.
The tires.
So, I figured I would explain, because there are so many of them!
Tree tire is tired and broken.
This is from one of the pictures I posted yesterday. The pair of trees on either side of the sidewalk at the gate are in tires like this, as is the tree by the kitchen window, and others I’ve been finding, buried under leaves, in unexpected places.
At some point, many years ago, it became a popular thing to re-purpose old tires in yards. With trees, the saplings were planted inside the tire, and the tire served to protect the planting from damage. Like getting accidentally hit by a lawn mower, or backed into by a car or something. As time went by, of course, there was no way to remove the tire once the tree grew. In this case, the trunk outgrew the tire itself, which was old enough to split under the pressure of the growing tree.
Which gives you an idea of how many years this has been there!
As you can see, an attempt was made to pretty up the tire by painting it.
Then there are the tractor tires.
I find myself perplexed as I see something like this. Obviously, someone cared enough to create and protect a little flower garden at Mary’s feet, and even paint the tractor tire to pretty it up. But they didn’t care enough to remove the tree that started growing at it which, if it were left to continue growing, will eventually push aside the tire and destroy the garden inside it. I can understand the leaves in the garden still being there; there was no one here to tend to such things while the place was empty, but you’d think someone would have removed the tree, long before it got this big!
The garden gnome is now back where it was found. This was also a flower garden planted under the bird bath, though there is nothing but grass and weeds inside it now.
Slowly but surely, we are working our way around the yard and cleaning this stuff up. It will be nice to clean out the bird bath and start using it for its intended purpose again.
Then there are these contraptions.
This is a car tire that was cut in half, decoratively, then flipped inside out. The other half, without the decorative edge, was left right side out and is underneath.
It cannot have been easy to cut the tire, never mind flipping it inside out!
I’m more at a loss over what it planted inside it. They appear to be little trees or bushes. Perhaps they are self seeded?
This second one has even more of them. There is nothing to show that anything else was ever planted in there. If these were deliberately planted, why were they planted off to the sides like that, where the soil is shallowest, instead of in the middle?
I have questions. Many questions.
This planter is in a particularly bad location. It’s right up against the platform for the clothes line, which is on a pulley system. There used to be three lines, but now there is just one. The clothes can be hung on the line from the platform, moving the line on the pulleys from one spot, rather than having to walk along the line and reaching high up to hang things. This allows the line itself to be much higher, too, and less in the way. I tried hanging the king size mattress protector on the line from the platform and quickly discovered that the bushes planted in the tire planter are right under the line, and taller than the hand rail, which means anything hung on the line gets dragged through the bushes.
The planter and its contents is going to have to go. We don’t plan to use the clothes line often, but we do want to have the option!
While walking around and taking these photos, I found something very amusing. Remember this, from winter?
This is a path the cats made through the snow, from whatever shed they’ve been using out back. There is also a small hole under the fence between the pump shack and the other house, near where there used to be a gate, many years ago. It had been buried by the snow, so the cats made this new path to the gate to get into the yard.
Cat paths in the snow are an easy thing to understand.
Then there’s this.
A cat path worn into the grass is a whole different thing! :-D You can see Butterscotch, sitting at the hole in the fence.
Many, many cat feet have created this path. :-D
The Re-Farmer
First off, a happy mother’s day to all the moms out there. I hope you had a lovely day of it. My own was nice and quiet, and I am quite delighted with my early mother’s day gift from my husband; an OBD II diagnostic tool that plugs into the van, with readings sent to an app on my phone via Bluetooth.
According to it, the van is doing just great. In the near future, I’ll have to get my daughter to drive, so I can see what readings come up while driving.
My husband knows what makes my heart to pitter patter very well! :-D
We haven’t been seeing any deer lately, again, though the piles of feed I’m leaving out in the evening are gone in the the morning, so they do seem to still be coming out. There is still plenty of scattered grain for the birds, though. Right now, we’re still getting mostly fox sparrows and white throated sparrows, but today we saw a new one.
There were only two of them, so we almost missed them among the other birds.
Next to the white throated sparrow, you can see the bodies are almost identical, until you get to the head, neck and chest. I’m guessing that means it’s also a type of sparrow, but a quick search for sparrows has brought up nothing with a head like that. I’ll have to try looking some more later, but if you happen to know what it is, please feel free to let me know in the comments. :-)
Update: May 14
It looks like the new bird is a Harris’s Sparrow.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 