Today, I finally started painting the kibble house. The temperatures were pretty warm. It is “only” 22C/70F as I write this, but after today, we’re supposed to get hit with another heat wave over the next week, peaking at 34C/93F, so I’m glad to get it started today. And glad we aren’t expected to see the 40-45C/104-113F temperatures that some provinces are getting hit with right now!
Under the tent, it was much more pleasant. If fact, I could forget the heat, until I stepped out into the sun for a few moments!
The first coat, I’m happy to say, is done.
Mostly.
We won’t be able to do the rest until the paint has cured enough to flip it, and the floor pieces, upside down.
The roof may or may not get a second coat. We will likely shingle it, but until we do, the paint will be enough to protect it from the elements for now.
Even with just one coat, it’s looking so much better already. My daughter chose a lovely colour. :-) This is REALLY going to brighten up the yard!
If we end up not putting on shingles, I’m thinking we should paint garish designs all over the roof. :-D
I tried to get the more reachable parts underneath, but not under the overlap of the roof itself. And not just because I didn’t want to disturb this beauty!
What a gorgeous moth!
As far as I know, it’s still there, too. :-)
I’m not sure if we’ll bother painting the underside of the roof. Maybe just around the overlap, if at all. I do want to get the inside walls, though. That will make it easier to clean up after dirty kitties! The gaps under the roof are there partly so the cats and get in and out through them, if needed. They did use those gaps over the winter, which meant muddy paw prints, all the way up the walls. :-D
Today, we were able to make an unexpected trip to do some shopping, thanks to my husband’s disability payment coming in early. Top of the list was to replace our broken vacuum cleaner! :-D
Of course, with making a trip to the city, even if it’s the smaller, closer one, we were going to take advantage of it and get other things we need.
I’m happy to say that we not only found a new vacuum – marketed as being particularly good for pet hair – we happened to catch a sale and got it at half the price I’d budgeted for!
We were also able to pick up more mesh for the squash tunnel. They didn’t have the same type we’d used before in stock, so we got more chicken wire. I don’t think the squash and melons care what shape the mesh they’re climbing is. ;-)
Another one of the things I really needed to get was a new pair of work shoes. Not only have I worn my old ones out to the point they’re falling apart, but the cats have discovered how to take the insoles out and have been tearing them apart!
Considering the sorts of things I’ve been doing for the past while, I also wanted to get steel toed shoes.
Much to may amazement, the very first pair that I tried on was perfect! I’d actually looked at casual shoes first – in the men’s section, because women’s shoes don’t fit my feet – hoping to get a pair of slip ons. I normally get a men’s size 9, triple wide, but I couldn’t find any wide ones. I couldn’t even get my toes into a size 11! So I wasn’t holding out much hope with the work shoes. Particularly since none of the boxes were marked as wide. So getting it right on the very first pair, and for them to be so incredibly comfortable, was like Christmas!
Then when we went to pay for our stuff, my daughter stole the box and bought them for me for my birthday. :-D
No, it’s not my birthday. It’s not even my birth month, yet. But that’s how we do things. :-D
I also got myself an early birthday present.
A 10′ x 10′ canopy tent, to replace the one that broke last year. That one was so handy when we were painting the picnic table, and didn’t have to worry about it getting rained on or whatever, I really wanted to get another. It’s just a Walmart cheapie, but we’ve had a couple of them in the past, leaving them behind when we moved. According to the box, they’ve improved the design, and added a feature to make it easier to set up with just one person.
This evening, I set it up.
And promptly discovered a problem with one of the new features.
This handle in the middle is made so that, once you have the canopy on and the legs set to the height you want, all you need to do is push up on it and it will open fully and lock in place.
Have I mentioned that I’m short?
I’m not THAT short, but still…
I had the legs at the lowest level, yet when I pushed up on the handle, I couldn’t get it far enough to lock in place. Not only that, but the entire tent would start lifting, instead! :-D I did eventually get it, of course, but I had to jump to do it.
I suspect this was designed with the average height male in mind! :-D
But I got it, and that’s the important part!
Which means we can now paint the kibble house. :-)
There is plenty of space for it! :-)
Nutmeg seems distressed that the floor is gone! :-D
You can see part of the floor in the background.
The two sections of the floor boards got a thorough scrubbing to take off many months of muddy paw prints! :-D
The rest of the kibble house got scrubbed inside and out, including the muddy bottoms of the legs.
Once it’s dry, it’ll be ready for painting.
By the end of the day, my new shoes got a pretty decent workout!
I’m really glad to have gotten the steel toed shoes. Very handy, just in case I almost, *ahem* sort of, just about, *cough* maybe, could have dropped a kibble house on them.
The wonderful rains we’ve had has meant everything has exploded in growth.
Including the grass and weeds.
Today, I decided to break out the weed trimmer and get around some areas before mowing.
In progress, I figured I would keep trimming some other areas. Just the rougher areas, I told myself. I’ll do the rest with the push mower, I told myself. I’ll just do the places the mower won’t fit, I added.
Of course, it’s all rough out there.
Before I started, I took a look at the crab apple tree by the old compost pile. This one was looking pretty diseased last year, but other trees were looking worse, so this is a bit unexpected.
Parts of it almost started to grow leaves. Then that wicket frost we got in late May hit, and it never recovered. Now it just looks dead.
Dang. That was one of the edible crab apples, too.
Note, however, the background of the photo, and how high the grass and weeds are. It’s high enough that getting the hose over to water the corn and squash is made more difficult than it should.
It was at the other crab apple trees that I started.
The tree in the foreground has just a few live branches left. It is one of several that we will eventually be cutting down.
As for the weed trimming, the ground is pretty flat on one side, so I just went far enough that I wouldn’t be getting my head caught in the branches when I mow. There is something about apple branches are just grab onto things! If I’m wearing a hat, I usually get it pulled right of. If not, I end up having to untangle twigs from my hair. :-D
On the other side, there’s the first ridge of plowed soil. Aside from making it hard to mow over, when the grass gets tall, it’s one of those places we’ve turned an ankle, more than once!
Once at the far end, I trimmed around the summer squash. It’s particularly rough around there, as that’s where the person who plowed it last, turned the tractor, going in circles instead of turning the soil in straight lines in the same direction.
This photo was taken after my daughter had given the beds their evening water. The summer squash was looking pretty droopy while I was working around them, but they sure perked up fast after a good soak! :-)
Also, you can see where the garden cam is currently set up, on that saw horse sitting on its side. Last night, nothing at all triggered it. No deer visits to the garden! :-)
When I started working around the bean beds, I had to get one more length of extension cord to finish the job. Where the bean beds are is actually fairly level, but I didn’t want to run a lawn more in between them.
The extra length was enough for me to be able to reach all the sweet corn and sunflower beds – the pea trellises were prefect to drape the cord over, so it wouldn’t get dragged over plants. One of my daughters had already gone through the area to get rid of the tree saplings that are trying to overtake the area, so I was able to trim all the beds without having to work around little trees. This is not the most powerful of weed trimmers! ;-)
Then I just kept on going. I trimmed around all the main beds, and even in between the old raspberry plants under the dead crab apple tree and the chokecherry. My mother had transplanted some there before we moved out, and when we started reclaiming parts of the old garden area, we found more that we transplanted into there. Eventually, they will be moved to a location that isn’t under trees. ;-)
The last area was the biggest job.
I had stopped for a break when I took this picture. Not only were the grass and weeds thickest and highest here, this is where the plow took the tightest turns, leaving the biggest ridges. One of which now has the Crespo squash growing in it.
All this, and we still need to mow in the areas that aren’t as rough! But at least it’s done, and we’ll have less chance of hitting something hidden in the grass, with the mower!
But that will wait. I was supposed to work on the squash tunnel today. Having the area around it trimmed will make that a bit easier to move around while it gets worked on, tomorrow. ;-)
That cheap little weed trimmer has done really well! It may be a pain, dragging the extension cord around, but it does the job. :-)
We’ve got some lovely flowers blooming in one of my mother’s flower beds.
This flower bed has lilies, roses and a current bush my mother had planted. These flowers are mixed together with another type, and are the first to start blooming. When these are done, the others will start blooming. I don’t think either were deliberately planted. :-)
This is from a screen cap on my phone’s weather app. Just before 3 in the afternoon, and we’re at 35C/95F, and it feels like 38C/100F.
At least, that’s the data from the weather station this app is linked to.
This is the thermometer outside a south facing window.
Yeah. The thermometer is “only” labelled to 50C/122F, and the needle has passed that. It looks like it’s close to where a 60C/140F would be. Certainly past where a 55C/131F would be.
This thermometer is mounted on a white wall, so there’s no reflective heat from any dark surfaces, but it’s also in full sun, so it’s probably reading a bit high. Still, this is what it would feel like if someone were insane enough to be out in the sun today.
One of the down sides of having so many cats in the house is how much they “love” our houseplants! We’ve had to get increasingly creative to protect them. The smaller ones ended up getting hung up. Thankfully, my daughter’s orchid kokedama are very light, as they ended up being hung from a curtain rod we don’t use. I had several succulents, one of which was apparently delicious to cats. I’ve managed to save two, while a third ended up being totally destroyed.
The problem is with the larger plants. I have a big umbrella tree, we have a whole bunch of aloe vera (less than we started out with) and several jade trees. We’re down a few jade trees, too. :-( I also had 5 avocados growing in one large pot. They had been doing very well, too.
Then Cabbages happened.
She has a thing for digging in dirt. She’s not interested in the plants themselves. She just wants to dig. The other cats like to bite the aloe vera leaves, which at least won’t harm them, but they also like to break of jade tree leaves, and play with them like cat toys. Jade trees are not good for cats! None of the other cats have Cabbage’s obsession with dirt digging. Thank God for that, or I wouldn’t have any plants left!
We’ve tried many things to deter them. Our aloe vera now all have protective rings of plastic around their bases (except the biggest one, which is so big, with so many babies growing under it, it can protect itself!), cut from those cheese ball and pork rind containers from Costco we’d been keeping to use as garden cloche. They’ve been coming in handy for a lot of other things!
The umbrella tree got a ring of 1 inch wire mesh around its base. The kittens would still jump over it and sit in the middle of the umbrella tree but, as they’ve grown bigger, they seem to have stopped doing that. The smaller plants got the plastic containers put over them as cloche, but some of the cats figure out how to knock those off – and the pots under them. The larger jade trees got various things stuck into the soil to both support their stems, which were being pushed over by cats sitting in the middle of the pots, and to make things difficult for the cats to get in.
The pot the avocado were growing in is a large double-layer pot. The inner pot holds the soil while the outer pot has a reservoir for water, so the roots can be watered from below. In one corner is a triangular piece that holds a float in place, and covered the opening where water is poured into the base.
This pot is on a shelf by the dining room window, along with a number of other plants. Eventually, though, we were down to just one other plant on the shelf; another jade tree. To stop the digging, we tried things like putting duct tape, sticky side up, over the dirt. The jade tree got a plastic collar, which kept getting knocked out of place, so we tried wrapping it with plastic, and even sticking in dozens of bamboo skewers in all directions, to dissuade the digging. Nothing worked for long. We even ended up putting the pot on top of an upturned bucket to raise it higher above the window ledge that cats like to lie on, but Cabbages is very determined, and still managed to get in to dig!
The remaining two avocados got a shield of hardware cloth around the perimeter of the soil. That worked for a while, until Cabbages discovered she could just jump over the top. We ended up putting a box over the top, but it was too late for the avocado. We just needed to stop her from making a mess. When she started digging, she throws dirt everywhere! She knows not to try for it while we’re around, too, so we’d find the mess in the morning, of after we’d been outside for a few hours.
Well, she still managed to get the box off the top and get into the dirt again. She also got into the jade tree again. So today, my daughters got the pot outside. The remains of the avocado were removed, and the jade tree was transplanted into the bigger pot. The hardware cloth got wrapped around it again, and the extra piece I had left from the roll got folded over the top as a cover. Then it went back to the shelf at the dining room window.
This evening, I went into the dining room only to find David lounging on the table – they are not allowed on the dining table – so at first I missed it. My husband was coming in behind me and saw it right away. The hardware cloth that was on top was gone, the rest was askew, and there was dirt, everywhere.
I was not a happy camper!
This time, it looked like Cabbages got under the mesh. The cover for the water reservoir was knocked completely off, too. We found the wire mesh that had been on top, rolled up under the dining table, with Tissue curled up inside. !!
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
The hardware cloth got placed around the jade tree again, but instead of putting it on the inside of the put and pushing it into the soil, it was jammed between the inner and outer pots. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long enough anymore, so the piece that had been over the top was squeezed in, too. Then, we got the remains of a roll of 1 inch wire mesh and used that to create a top.
The wire mesh on the sides has been pushed down quite far between the two layers of pots, so there’s no way a cat is getting under it or lifting it out. The 1 inch mesh on the top is wider than paws, so if a cat tries to jump on top, it will hold the weight, but little paws will tend to slip through, which will be a deterrent.
The down sides are, we can no longer use the opening in the corner to water into the bottom of the reservoir, and watering from the top is going to be a challenge! We also can’t reach the plant to tend it. The top is held in place with a couple of twist ties, but the wire ends along some edges were also bent inwards, to help hold it in place. It can be taken off, but it’ll be a pain in the butt.
It should, however, finally be safe from Cabbages and her digging!
Today, we continued work cleaning up along the west side of the spruce grove, between the garlic beds and the old outhouse. We haven’t really done anything there since last year.
Here is how it looked before I started.
I could see some poplars in here that would make good upright support posts for the squash arch.
I broke out the little electric chain saw for this job, but only used it once. The rest was just too small, or had too many even smaller things growing around them, so I ended up doing most of the job with the loppers and the baby chain saw.
Here is how it looks now.
Yes, there are even spruces left in the spruce grove!
My goal was to clear enough to reach the apple tree (to the right of the spruce in the middle) and an old, rotten bench.
Yes, there is a bench in there. Can you see it? To the left of the spruce tree in the middle?
There had been cherry suckers growing on either side of the seat. I’ve left it for now, and will clean it out another time. We are finding the remains of benches and seats all over the place. As we work around the yard, we have often found ourselves wishing to have something to sit down on, and plan to put seating areas all over. It’s interesting to find that my parents had already done the same thing! Sadly, none have survived time and the elements.
The apple tree had a lot of things crowding around it – and a piece of tree stuck in its branches!
I cleared as much as I could to the apple tree. The next time I work around here, it’ll be with the chain saw, clearing away the fallen trees. At least for now, the apple tree is open and getting more light. When I dug my way to it last fall, to try it’s apples, I found it quite tasty, and we’re always happy to find a tree with apples that are actually edible! There are way too many that are not. :-/
Several trees were cleared out of this patch of flowers my mother planted, many many years ago. I’d found them while cleaning up the area behind the garden beds, but I don’t think I saw any of them bloom. Now that they have light, I look forward to seeing the flowers!
I also uncovered other flowers. Unfortunately, I had a hard time not stepping on them!
I think one of them might be tiger lilies, but I’m not sure.
I suspect we’ll have quite a few new blooms this summer, now that things are cleared up!
Much of what I took out were suckers of cherry trees, grown up around the remains of older, dead ones. Some were so old and rotted, I could pull them out with my hands.
The big branch on the top of the pile is the piece of tree I pulled out of the apple tree.
We really need to invest in a chipper.
Meanwhile…
My daughter did short work of cleaning up the poplars I set aside for building material. We not have more than enough larger, stronger ones to be our upright supports for the squash arch.
The smaller and thinner ones will also be used in various ways, including cross pieces and supports on the squash tunnel. My daughter added quite a bit more to this pile, then everything got moved to the stacks by the side of the house, closer to the garden. A nice shady place were we will be able to pre-assemble parts of the squash tunnel.
Temperatures were reaching 27C/81F by the time I headed inside, while my daughter finished the job. The winds were high, which at least made it feel cooler. As I type this, things are getting dark and and even windier. We’ve got severe thunderstorm warnings happening right now – with the potential for hail! Looking at the weather radar, it does look like the worst of it will pass us by, but…
I think it’s time to finish this and shut down the computer. Just in case!
My morning rounds includes checking the various growing things, and I finally got a decent photo of my daughter’s tulips emerging!
The leaf mulch has made it hard to see them in photos, but at this angle, you can see quite a few! There are more, out of frame. We’re so happy they survived their first winter! :-)
This morning, I headed out to be part of a surprise for my mother. My older brother was able to acquire a nice scooter, and he wanted to bring it over for her to see and try driving. While getting her to test drive it, he was going to get her to a nearby park, where we siblings were planning to surprise her with a picnic lunch together.
The problem was, we weren’t sure where the picnic tables were, so we weren’t quite sure exactly where to meet. We also weren’t sure the park was officially open for the season, yet. People could walk in any time, of course, but the entry gates get closed to traffic in the off season. So I left early to check it out.
I think we timed it just right. Not only were the gates open, but there was a crew of people doing all sorts of maintenance and clean up started. I was so focused on looking at where the picnic benches were, I didn’t realize I drove right past my brother! He’d had the same idea I had, and come early to scope the area.
There were quite a few clusters of picnic tables, including a whole bunch under a shelter. There was one that was closest to the entry that we considered moving closer to some buildings, because of the wind. As we walked around, though, we realized there would be no point. The wind was swirling in all directions. There was no shelter from it, anywhere! It was a warm enough day, but we knew the wind would be an issue, so my brother was going to make sure my mother dressed warmly.
My mother loves her fried chicken, so my contribution for the day was picking some up. We were so early, though, I had time to play some Pokemon Go, first! :-D I didn’t want to get it too early, even though I had an insulated bag to keep it hot. I still ended up back at the park early. Which worked out okay, because I soon saw my brother and mother making their way down the road. It was fun to sneak around the building and wait for the opportune moment to step out and surprise her! :-D
My mother, being my mother, was determined to be miserable. She makes a big deal about not liking surprises (except for those times when she tells us how much she likes surprises…), so she was already giving my brother a hard time. She refused to get a warmer coat or a hat, and wouldn’t even put on shoes; she was wearing house slippers! Then she saw me, and that was another surprise she didn’t like. :-D But then we got to the picnic table and I started setting food out. It turned out she hadn’t had lunch yet, and … well … there as fried chicken and wedges to be had! :-D My sister had the day off, so she was able to join us, so that was one more surprise for my mother. By then she was eating, so she skipped being miserable. ;-) Among the things my sister brought was a big thermos of hot tea, and today was certainly a day for it! I’m glad I had my picnic backpack; not only did we have real plates and cutlery, but I had room for actual cups. If we’d gone the disposable route, everything would have blown away!
We managed to have an excellent picnic outside, even with the wind. Plus, we brought enough food that my mother would have enough for another meal or two. :-)
As for the scooter, because my mother has been waffling back and forth between wanting one, because her knees are hurting so much, and not wanting one, because apparently, someone has told her it would be too much for her to take care of (apparently, plugging in the charger would be more than she can handle?) and too much responsibility. So my brother made sure to tell her that it was his, he was not leaving it for her, but he wanted her to try it out and think about it. If she does decide she wants one, it would mean getting rid of her couch (which she doesn’t use, anyhow), and probably at least one shelf. Her apartment is very tiny, and she would need to be able to turn around with it in her living room. I know quite a lot of people who use motorized wheelchairs or scooters, and they tend to have very little furniture, so they had room to maneuver – and they had much larger apartments than my mother’s! She wouldn’t miss the couch, but she does love her little tchotchke!! And not-so-little ones. I forget. She’s even got a garden statue of an angel in her living room, and that thing’s pretty darn big!
But now that she’s had a chance to drive this one around a little, she can think about it, and decide what is more important to her; maintaining independence as her knees get worse, or her bulky furniture and bric-a-brac.
I do think she’ll eventually agree to taking it. Especially as we assure her that she just needs to plug it in to charge the battery; any other maintenance is stuff my siblings and I can take care of, for her. It’s not something to load up like her walker (I have ramps and can load it into my van, but it’s very hard for her to get in and out of it), but it’ll let her make runs to the shops in town as needed.
We shall see.
I’m glad we were able to get together today. Our province has decided to lock down even harder again, starting tonight at midnight. I’m not entirely sure why, but we were already listed as “critical” (even as our Schrodinger’s Virus numbers, which were never all that high to begin with, continue to go down as the season progresses). Not sure what word they’ve come up with to be scarier than “critical”. Anyhow, it was already illegal for more than one person visiting at a time – and even then, only because my mother lives alone, so she has an exemption. That was why we met at a park, though my mother’s apartment is so small, we couldn’t have all fit comfortably in there, anyhow. More than a few people have noticed that these intensified lock downs and restrictions happen right before every special date or holiday, regardless of what the actual data is, or that the lock downs themselves have been completely ineffective. I’m quite content to be a hermit, but for people like my mother, who thrives on social interaction, it’s making life more … well, like no life at all. Today’s visit will, I hope, provide a bit of relief from the malaise I’ve been seeing in her lately. She tried to be critical and miserable about the surprise, but I could see that she was really enjoying herself – even with the wind!
When I got home, it was early enough that I considered getting some more gardening in, but not only was it still quite windy, the girls convinced me to back off a bit. It’s a good thing I’ve got them watching out for me, because I have a terrible habit of overdoing things, then ending up out of commission for several days. :-D
So I made mocha chocolate truffles, instead. Not the best I’ve ever made, but good enough to satisfy a craving! I did accidentally make a double recipe, though. The recipe I was found called for 1/2 pound of one type of chocolate, and 1/2 pound of another. I didn’t have fancy chocolate, but I did have lots of chocolate chips that were suitable, so I broke out the scale. It’s in metric, and 1 pound total of chocolate is 2.2 kg, so I started weighing it out. It was an awful lot of chocolate, so I decided to do a half recipe. It wasn’t until I’d poured the hot cream into the chocolate to melt it that I realized I had it backwards. 1 kg is 2.2 pounds, not the other way around! I’d weighed out 1.1 kg.
Oops.
Thankfully, part of the reason I was making it was to use up the cream before it expired, so I just doubled the rest of the ingredients.
Normally, this would be a Critter of the Day picture post. We’ve been getting so busy with the outside work while the weather is good, I haven’t had a chance to go through my photos to choose which are worth posting. So we’ll be taking a bit of a break.
Critter of the Day will return as soon as I can!
Thanks for your patience. :-)
The Re-Farmer
2025 update: due to running out of storage space for images, I’ve had to go through most of our Critter of the Day and Photo of the Day posts. Which really, really sucks.
I just finished switching the new keyboard with my husband’s old keyboard. I was wrong about his keyboard, though. It’s identical to my old one. It doesn’t have lit keys.
Here is my new, old keyboard! :-D
Believe it or not, I actually cleaned this a bit, already… :-D
As for the broken leg, it turns out the legs are exactly the same height as the width of an old tape measure I had on my desk. Something I’d found while cleaning out my late father’s desk and kept handy. The clip on the back even fits into the space the leg used to be in, so I can slide the keyboard around, and it goes along for the ride. :-D
My wrists and hands are already thanking me! :-D
My husband, meanwhile, is quite happy with the new keyboard. He doesn’t type anywhere near as much as I do, so the issues I was having just don’t bother him. Plus, I’m the one with arthritis in my wrists and fingers.
I suppose I should pop the keys off and clean them, but honestly, I don’t think I care enough to bother. It works. That’s all the matters.
The new keyboard was the closest my husband had been able to find like what we already had, in a split keyboard. Since my husband had to place the order a second time, he missed a sale price, so the new one was pretty expensive, too. Quality wise, as far as construction goes, it is nowhere near as good as the old keyboards, which are both from Microsoft and well over 10 years old.
Considering how much use my keyboard got, I’m rather impressed that it lasted this long. I’m still going to keep it. It may be a bit janky, but it still works well enough that it would do as a back up, should something happen to one of the others that are in use. Now that I think about it, the light up keyboard I remembered my husband had was one that came with a desktop system he’d bought, years ago. That one died after a cat knocked a drink all over it, which is why he was using the one I have now.
My wrists are thanking me. My thumb, in particular, is much, much happier now! :-D
