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Growing things

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While doing my significantly more limited rounds this morning, I had to pause and get a photo of the ground by the feeding station. With the rain we’ve finally been having, things have really greened up again, and started to grow.

Including bird seed and deer feed!

This picture if of the area on the far side of the bird feeder, from the window – where we put the bulk of the deer feed in the winter. There is a smaller area on the side closer to the house that also has a patch like this.

The only thing I recognize in there is oats! We haven’t bought mixed bird seed, sticking to the black oil seed, since fall and we tried several different types, so I have no idea what all might be growing here. It’s going to get mowed, anyhow, but it’s neat to see!

While switching out the memory card on the trail cam, I got a picture of one of the asparagus growing wild by the fence.

None of the asparagus by the house is showing signs of berries, which makes these the only female plants around. This makes me extra curious about how they ended up growing here. It’s still possible that the seeds were spread by birds, but there are no other female asparagus plants nearby that could have been the source. The nearest garden to us is my brother’s, about a quarter mile away, and as far as I know they don’t have any.

I’m looking forward to when they turn that beautiful bright red again. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Current conditions – going up!

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While working on my last post, my friend mentioned the weather conditions, so I paused to take a look.

29C, but feeling like 38C (that’s 84F and 100F, for you folks in the US), with 61% humidity!

No wonder going outside feels like walking into a wall of moist heat. That’s exactly what we’re doing!

Less than 2 hours later, I checked the conditions again. I got this screen capture just minutes ago.

The temperature is still going up! 30C (86F), feeling like 39C (102F).

The forecast over the next few days hasn’t changed (yet?). I’m driving my friend to the airport tomorrow, and we’re planning to go in early to play tourist a bit.

Somewhere with air conditioning.

We might be driving through thunderstorms!

Looks like I might be driving my mother through storms when I take her for a medical appointment in a few days, too.

At this point, a nice storm would be very welcome. More rain to cool things down and get that humidity out of the air, and into the ground!

Chances are, the storms are going to miss us again, but I’ll take the edge of a storm, too!

The Re-Farmer

Ice and snow

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I swung by the lake this morning, after dropping my daughter off at work.

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The fishing sheds are still there – from what I know, they were supposed to be off by three days ago! In the distance, I could see some people walking on the ice to a vehicle. There’s been a lot of plowing of snow, done, clearing “roads” to various areas. The open water that was visible the last time I got pictures from here, due to a water main break nearby, is all frozen over.

This morning, I finally started getting the weather alerts for blizzard conditions tonight, in the southeast of our province. The weather system is blowing up from the US, and there is an expected 10-20cm of snow.

Except locally. Our area is supposed to get light snow flurries overnight.

Starting from about a week from now, temperatures are supposed to go above freezing, and stay there. I’ve been reading about the ice breakers already hard at work on the major rivers to the south of us, that drain into this lake. As the ice will be breaking up and snow melting faster in the US and the South of our province than here, ice dams tend to form, leading to flooding. The ice breakers are working to prevent that and will work their way up towards the lake, as quickly as they can.

Here, the ice will soon start to “rot”, and form into candle ice. This can be very dangerous, as the ice still looks thick and solid, but easily breaks apart. On the lake, at least, the tides will break it apart and start pushing the ice onto the shore. I happened to be on this beach one time, many years ago, as the tide was coming in, and it was really quite dramatic!

It’s already warming up nicely this morning; we even had fog, as we drove to town, closer to the lake. We’re supposed to reach +1C this afternoon, but it already feels that warm in the sun. The outside cats are definitely liking the warmer temperatures, and spending less time in the sun room.

I’m looking forward to when I can empty that room and clean it out, though. The warmer it gets, the worse the cat urine smell. :-( Ah, well. All in good time!

The Re-Farmer

Taste Testing Tea

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20190124.advent.tea.cups

One thing about the cold temperatures we’ve been having; we’re drinking a lot more tea!

While there are a few favourites we try to keep on hand all the time, the girls and I also love to try new teas. Sometimes, though, the price tag that comes with some of the ones we’d like to try … well, I just can’t justify spending that kind of money on some dried leaves, ya know?

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It’s a bit breezy out there

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I took this screen shot at about noon. That was two hours ago.

It is currently -17C, with a “RealFeel” of -31C.

I’m glad I thought to check the temperatures before I headed out this morning, as the beautiful sunny day made it seem deceptively pleasant out there. And it was – on the south side of the house. As soon as I came around the corner to put out deer and bird feed, I got blasted with the wind from the north. It was blowing the deer feed away, as I poured it out of my bucket! At that time, it was -16C with a wind chill of -30C.

Which kind of changes my plans for the day.

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Huuurrrrhhhh…

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flu%20clipart

So, things have been a bit quiet here at The Re-Farmer.

There is a reason for that.

A cold has slowly been working its way through all of us. Even my husband is starting to get it, despite our efforts to keep it away from him.

Sick or not, stuff still needs to get done. Today, that included a trip into town.

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Flavored Salts: gift jars

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Today, I finished up the sets of gift jars filled with the flavored salts we’d made earlier.  I found the most adorable mini mason jar mugs to use.

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Using 2 cups of Kosher salt to make these, I was able to fill three mini jars in each flavor, and have some left over for our own use. :-)

Recipes:

Rosemary Lemon
Scarborough Fair Garlic
Mushroom
Raspberry Wine
Bacon


Let’s try that again

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So, the outside cats have been using the cat cave put together to help conserve their body heat.  Overall, they seemed to adapt to it rather quickly.

Of course, they also explored it quite a bit, and every now and then, we’d look out the bathroom window and see a cat sitting on top of it.  Especially Ferdinand.

The problem is, the only thing supporting the blanket was a sheet of Styrofoam insulation, which would bounce under their weight.

Not anymore! Continue reading →

Too Cute

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When I was deboning the turkey and cleaning up from our family dinner the other day, I made sure to label the various containers as I put them away.  Post-it Notes are quite handy for that! One was a bowl of leftovers to go to the outside cats, the next day.  Feeling silly, I also drew a quick picture of a cat on it.

The next morning, it had kittens.

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The Re-Farmer