Good news, sad news

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’ll start with the good news!

Yesterday, as I was heading back inside through the sun room, I spotted Button and his blue, blue eyes. I’ve been trying to capture just how blue they are and, this time, the light was hitting them just right. The camera was even able to capture the colour very well, too!

Freman baby!

I was able to get a few pictures and even a short video. When I had the chance, I shared them with the Cat Lady (and others! 😁), just so she could see the colour.

Soon after, she was asking me questions about Button, and telling me she was going to share the photos around. She knew some people that had lost their elderly cats and was hoping they’d be willing to adopt a kitten.

Well, I don’t know about the ones that lost elderly cats, but she did find someone that was very interested!

Best of all, this person is a vet!

For all his tiny size and blue eyes, we know Button is likely at least five weeks old, based on things like how much he’s eating solid food, compared to how often he nurses on the creche mothers. The vet knows that he is a foundling, and that we know little else about him. We also just assume he has ear mites.

The Cat Lady will pick him up, most likely on the weekend when they are in the area again. He’ll be with her for about a week before going to the vet. The vet is even taking on the expenses that the rescue would normally take on before a cat is adopted out.

Now, we’ve had way too many of these things fall through in the past couple of years, so I’m not holding my breath on this, but as it stands now, Button’s gorgeous blue eyes seems to have found him a forever home!

Now for the sad news.

The girls had fed the cats outside quite early in the morning, so when I went out to do my rounds, I topped up the kibble a bit, then did my usual routine.

There is one black and white kitten – one of the Squashes (kittens that like to sit in the pots with my summer squash) – that we’ve been keeping our eye on. He (she?) did not seem overtly sick, but was definitely not thriving. Yesterday, I honestly thought he was dying, like the other black and white Squash kitten I’d found a few days ago. However, when I picked him up, he perked up, got active, wanted down, and started behaving normally.

I was keeping an eye out for him while I was outside and, by the time I was ready to head in, I had not seen him anywhere. This kitten was one that always stayed close to the house, with several favourite places to hang out, and he was in none of them.

*sigh*

So I started looking for him, knowing I was likely looking for a body. But where could he be? If anything, this is one kitten I would have expected to find out in the open, like some of the other kittens we’d found passed on.

Once all the obvious places where checked, I started looking for the less obvious places he might have gone into.

Which is when I saw the tail, peaking out from under the back of the kibble house.

An orange tail.

This year, we’ve had one orange fluffy kitten, and one orange and white kitten. The orange and white kitten was in the sun room, enjoying himself in the cat cage.

Which is when I realized, I hadn’t seen the orange fluffy one in a while.

I will not go into detail but, let’s just say, the orange kitten had been under there for quite some time. It took some creative effort to get him out and bury the remains under a rose bush.

I made sure to hose down under the kibble house after. There is a sheet of rigid insulation on the ground that fits perfectly under the floor of the kibble house, and a lot of the cats and kittens will hang out under there, or hide under there if they feel threatened. The back wall of the kibble house is just a few inches above ground; too low for an adult cat to squeeze under. The front is more open, with just the 2×4 supporting the floor of the kibble house for them to squeeze under. It’s hard to see anything under the kibble house without basically getting down on the ground. When I retrieved the remains of the orange kitten, I did make sure there were no other remains.

Which means I still had the black and white kitten to find.

With the condition of the one kitten, I really wanted to make sure the black and white wasn’t in the sun room for us to find by the smell or something. After looking all over, I found myself eyeballing the counter shelf. The kittens like to hide under it, and go between it and the window.

Then one of the other cats moved out from under the table saw, and I could see a little black.. something.

It turned out to be a barely visible tail tip.

*sigh*

This one got buried under the honeysuckle.

So that’s two more gone, and we don’t know why. The Cat Lady says it’s most likely lung issues. I suspect she’s seen a lot more of this than we have!

But still, this is 5 kittens I’ve buried in less than a week, and only one of them looked like it was having issues. I can’t say for sure about the orange one, since it ran from us all the time, but the other two had seemed hale and hardy, until they weren’t.

It just occurred to me; this black and white and the orange kitten were both Brussel’s babies. That’s at least two out of her litter of four she has lost. Possibly three, as the other black and white might have been hers, too.

I just went looking through my photos. There is one of her kittens that has a distinctive black splotch over its nose, and I’ve been seeing that one around the house. Looking at the others in the photo, I am now more convinced that the other three from her litter are now gone.

Wow.

So…

What a start to the day.

At least we have the good news of Button soon to be going to his forever home with a vet!

I’ll take what I can get.

The Re-Farmer

The state of things, and unboxing my new toy!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

Well, the predicted thunderstorms did hit us last night! What a light show, too. Once I started seeing the lightning out my window, I went into the sun room to tie off the doors, then drop a bit of kibble around the room to attract the cats indoors. We got quite a deluge.

Some time later, I started hearing someone going through the old kitchen doors, which was rather odd for the time of morning, so I went to see what was going on. It turned out that one of my daughters heard what sounded like a kitten in distress through the bathroom window and went to check.

There were plenty of cats and kittens, but the creature in distress turned out to be a young racoon. It had jammed itself on top of the table and miter saws, which are stored between the counter shelf and the door, under a built in shelf between a pair of windows. There’s not a lot of room, there!

Thinking it might be stuck, a daughter managed to move the table saw away from the wall a bit. They also untied the doors and opened them wide. There were so many cats and kittens milling about in the doorway, the raccoon would have had a hard time getting through the tied off doors. Even when they were open, there was a lot of cat traffic. I watched on the critter cam for a while, then finally got up and put out some kibble, both inside and out, to lure the cats away from the doorway. The raccoon squished itself as small as it could, while watching me and giving the odd warning growl.

I monitored the critter cam for a while, but the raccoon was out of frame, so I couldn’t tell what it was doing. It was gone by morning, though, so that’s good.

While today is at least a little bit cooler than yesterday, we’re at 77% humidity, making our 24C/75F feel quite unpleasant, even though the humidex is only at 26C/78F. As I was coming back from the post office this afternoon, and got out of the truck to close the gate, I was surprised by the sudden fog.

Then I realized the fog was on my glasses, which were cold from being in the truck’s AC. 😄😄

As for my trip to the post office, I got a new toy!

Yes, that’s a cat’s tail under the box.

We picked up a grass whip. I’ve seen them in use in one of the YouTube channels I follow, and am quite excited to try it out.

I had plenty of attention as I attached the blade to the bottom of the handle, then used the thread glue before screwing on the top of the handle.

Then I took the blade off and put it back on again, facing the right way… 😄😄

The thread glue needs 24 hours to cure. After that, I can test it out!

This thing is very reasonably priced and has good reviews, and will be able to clear areas that are too much for our weed trimmer or lawn mower – and be much faster than working by hand or using loppers! It should even cut through small trees, like the poplars that keep trying to take over, everywhere. I should be able to clear a path to the barn with this. Just a path will be enough to allow us to mow – assuming it gets dry enough. More importantly, it can be used to clear in the main garden area, when it’s time to continue building more raised beds.

Which, given the heat and humidity and rain we’ve been having, is going to be a slow job!

It will also allow us to clear the underbrush to access the dead spruces we need to cut down, much more easily.

I’m really looking forward to testing it out! Twenty four hours from now, however, we won’t have reached the hottest part of the day, yet; that’s supposed to happen around 6pm. Which means I probably won’t test it out until the next morning. The lowest temperature of the night is actually supposed to be at 6am or so. We’ll have, at best, a 2 hour window of pleasant coolness before it starts getting hot again.

At least with this thing, it shouldn’t matter if everything is wet with dew or rain!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: tiny harvest, and first pepper showing

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I just got back from my evening rounds, and a bit of a harvest from the garden. Since I was focusing on watering the garden this morning, I didn’t bother checking to see if anything was ready to be picked. It’s really just sugar snap peas and raspberries to pick right now.

I have been leaving the peas to get a bit bigger between harvests, as I find they are tastier on the larger side. I got about a handful harvested (minus the ones I ate!), and a decent amount of raspberries.

I also got a picture of our first bell pepper; a Purple Dragonfly. I can see other peppers forming, but they are still barely larger than the flower buds.

A couple of the winter squash that are growing nicely were lying directly on the ground, so I grabbed a couple of bricks to set under them and protect them from the soil. The others that are currently developing have naturally set on the log frame, which is handy.

According to my weather app, we got a bit of rain this afternoon, but it seems to have missed us. I now see that we are supposed to get rain from about 9pm to midnight. If I look at the weather radar, the system that’s supposed to reach us by then is large enough we should actually get rain, and it should continue past midnight by some hours.

We shall see!

Right now, it’s over the lake to the north of us, and there’s quite a lot of lightning happening in parts of it. Mostly over the lake. There is no rain at all over where the fires are, though.

At least we are finally starting to cool down a bit.

The Re-Farmer

Foggy morning, and another one!?!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night was one of those nights where, as soon as I went to bed, I just kept getting more and more awake! I finally got up and spent time with my younger daughter, who was busy making pies. Of course, being up at 2 or 3 in the morning, I was peckish, so I made a snack in between batches of pies, then she and I watched an episode of Columbo while they were baking.

We cheated on the pies. We had some canned pumpkin pie mix. Yesterday, I made a quick trip to the local grocery store and grabbed some frozen pie shells and other missing ingredient. There was no way we were going to be making pie dough in this heat and humidity!

By the time I got back to bed, it was 4am, and even then, I was still up at 4:30!

I did get a bit of sleep, though, but was just after a nap at that point. We were looking at reaching a high of 29C/84F today, but the coolest part of the day was going to be a brief period at about 5 or 6am. My goal was to water the garden while it was still cool.

So when I woke up at 6, I got up and headed out.

The first thing was, of course, to feed the outside cats. As I was going into the sun room with the kibble, I saw several kittens asleep together in a small cat bed on the floor. One got out, another start looking around, and the third…

*sigh*

One of the tabby kittens was lying stretched out, looking like it was asleep. With this heat, I see a lot of the cats sleeping all stretched out like that, but with all the commotion, this one wasn’t moving.

Yup. We lost another kitten.

That’s three kittens in four days.

After putting the food out, I quickly buried it near the unknown kitten I found yesterday morning.

I wonder if it’s the heat and humidity getting to them? There was no sign of anything obvious. It was about 17C/63F at the time. The sun room would not have been much warmer – these days, we leave the doors to outside wide open and the ceiling fan on all the time, for maximum air circulation. If anything, down at the concrete floor, it would have been a bit cooler.

I don’t know what to make of it. About the only solace I can take is, fewer cats in the colony.

Once the sad deed was done, I started my morning rounds. It was very foggy this morning!

It was so dense that I could see the fog covering the tops of the spruce trees in the inner yard. My phone’s camera automatically clears up the image, so in reality, it looked foggier than in the photo.

It wasn’t just fog, though. It was also smoke.

That sun is red because of smoke. Again, the camera doesn’t capture it well. It was much redder than it appears in the photo!

I just checked the live fire map. There are no fires near us; they are all quite a bit further up north. However, there are currently 6 fires listed as out of control, another 5 listed as being held, 29 (!!!) listed as being monitored and another 9 listed as under control. Some of these, however, are grouped closely on the map, almost on top of each other. All of them are listed as natural causes. None are near populated areas.

So this morning, it was both smoke and fog!

Checking the weather forecast last night, it was saying thunderstorms during by around midnight tonight, but when I checked again this morning, it was saying thunderstorms starting at about 3pm this afternoon.

I’m writing this at quarter to 3 right now, and on checking the weather radar, there are no storms on the horizon. My phone’s app is now saying to expect a thunderstorm around 8 or 9pm.

We shall see.

Either way, with the upcoming heat, once I did my rounds, I did a thorough watering of the garden beds. Which was rather torturous, because I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Not so bad that I was willing to go back to the house and get the bug spray, though. Having had only a little more than an hour of sleep, I was planning to go back to bed as soon as I got inside and didn’t want to have to wash all

As I write this, we are at 27C/81F, with the humidex at 32C/90F The expected high had changed to 28C/82F, and I’m not sure if we actually reached it.

Oh! I just got a message from the Cat Lady. She just dropped stuff off at the gate for us. She didn’t message ahead, or I’d have opened the gate. She had The Wolfman with her, and she says he started going nuts as soon as they got on the gravel road. When they opened the windows at the gate, he started clawing to get INTO his carrier. He didn’t calm down until they were back on the highway.

This cat has gotten completely attached to them! More than any of the others they ended up keeping permanently!

Excuse me while I head out and collect the donated kibble from the gate.

Wow! Four 9.1kg bags of kibble were waiting for me! I’m glad I dug the wagon out of the garage to bring them over. That will be such a huge help!

Also, I am absolutely dripping with sweat. I just checked and yes, we reached the predicted high of 28C/82F in the last twenty minutes. The humidex is at 33C/72F Apparently, our humidity levels are just 56%, but I question that. Stepping outside was like walking into a sauna!

I did top up the cat food outside with some of the new kibble, and they definitely prefer it over the feed store kibble I got. They’ll eat the feed store brand, but not as enthusiastically. Not that they are eating much in this heat, anyhow!

We should have a brief respite over the next few days – meaning will be in the mid 20’s rather than approaching 30C/86F – but then we’re supposed to get right back up there again.

This is the sort of weather that breed thunderstorms, but so far, those only seem to be forming up north. If only they would get just rain to help put out those fires, instead, that would be good!

Well, the tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, melons and squash will sure enjoy the heat! We just need to keep up on the watering.

I think I’ll go to the living room and stand in front of the air conditioner for a while!

The Re-Farmer

July garden tour video up, and another sad find

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, I finally got my mid July garden tour video done and uploaded. I actually finished it yesterday, but waited to go over it one last time today before deciding it was done. It’s just a plain narration video with very little editing. I hope the video quality is okay.

I’m happy to say that, since this was taken, we do have a couple of white scallop squash growing, though not in the pot and, so far, they are still surviving!

In other things…

We had another loss this morning, but it was a new one. When I went into the sun room to start feeding the cats, I saw something through the window in the old kitchen garden. A little ball of black and white fur. *sigh* Several adults paused to sniff at it, and one or two seemed to try and move it.

Once the kibble was dispersed, I went to look, and it was a very young kitten. Maybe a few weeks old, so not one we’ve seen before. I am thinking it didn’t survive the mother trying to move it. No visible evidence of why it died, though.

I was able to bury it under a rose bush.

It looked like we got a light rainfall some time in the night. Just enough to make things damp, but that’s about it. (I wonder if the rain was a contributing factor re: the kitten…) So I went ahead and watered the garden before the heat of the day hit. As I write this, it is almost 3:30pm, and we’re at 27C/81F. The humidex has us at 31C/88F, and we’re still supposed to get warmer. Even while I was out early with the watering, we broke 20C/86F, having never really cooled down during the night. Yesterday, it was so hot upstairs, my older daughter gave up trying to sleep and went into the living room to be in the AC and ended up passing out on the couch. Today, her sister is crashing on the couch. It isn’t much better on the second floor during the night, when they are up and about, for all their fans and ice packs. Granted, the ice packs are more for their computers than for themselves! For all that the AC helps on the ground floor, it really doesn’t do much for their “apartment” upstairs. Especially with the high humidity.

Well, we do the best we can. Among the things the girls have been doing is the bulk of the dishes and the cooking at night, so it doesn’t have to be done during the hottest part of the day, which I greatly appreciate!

They were still doing some cooking when I finished the watering this morning, then grabbed a bowl to pick some raspberries and a bunch of the small strawberries. We don’t have a lot of raspberries, relatively speaking – most of the bushes are first year canes – but they ripen so quickly, they can be picked twice a day. I am thinking it would be good to prepare a place to transplant some of them, in the fall. Right now they are basically a big wild mass of plants covering the old compost pile. We were never able to use that compost, after I moved the ring out. When I started digging into it, I found it was filled with tree branches and someone had been using it for garbage. I got the garbage out and just left it to continue to decompose, and the raspberries are taking full advantage of that! We should be able to transplant out a very decent sized raspberry patch, when the time comes. It will be much easier to harvest them in rows than from one giant mass! There are others that are easier to reach, but not being in the old compost pile and getting too much shade from the chokecherry tree, they are much smaller. I’m really not sure why my mother decided to transplant the raspberries from a sunny location into a shady one. This was a flower bed. After we move the raspberries out, I want to convert it back into a flower bed and select shade loving flowers for it. There’s a black currant bush right under the chokecherry tree I want to move out. It bloomed a lot this spring, but I see almost zero berries forming. Currants need at lot more sunshine, but the two large bushes that were here when we moved in were both planted right under trees! Actually, one of them may have been seeded by birds.

While at the farmer’s market yesterday, talking to my cousin, I saw he had red currants for sale and talked to him about it. He told me currants can be propagated by just cutting a branch off and sticking it in the ground. Like a willow, they will take root, just like that! Which is good to know. They need regular pruning, too, which we’ve never done, and I know my mother never did. My sister gave her the currant that’s under the chokecherry, but my mother told me she never ate the berries. She was unfamiliar with them and afraid they were poisonous – as if my sister would give her a poisonous berry bush! I guess my mother thought it was just decorative. Meanwhile, she potted up and grew a cutting from a bush near her place and gave it to me to transplant. She told me she didn’t know what it was, but people in her building were eating berries from the bush, so she took a piece for the farm. I’ve planted it in the south yard, near the chain link fence, finding a spot not shaded by the elm trees or lilacs, and it’s doing really, really well this year. I don’t think it’ll have berries for another year or two, but the plant sure is looking strong and healthy. I had to ask my mother a lot of questions before I got enough information to conclude it was a black currant, too.

Ugh. I’m procrastinating right now. I’ve got stuff to do, but it’s so hot and sticky, I just don’t want to move.

From the state of my bed, neither do the cats. Cat puddles, all over the place!

I will need to make a trip into town, but I want to connect with the Cat Lady, so I’m waiting to hear back from her before I do. It might be a while. I believe she and her family have gone sailing today!

It must be pretty crowded at the beach right now! We should try and remember it exists, and make a trip out during the week, when it’s quieter, and take a dip in the water. Gotta make sure to have water socks, though. Zebra mussels can be very painful to step on.

But I digress.

Come on, Re-Farmer. Get your butt out of the chair and do something productive…

😄😄😉

The Re-Farmer

Back home, and a new source for cat food?

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

But first, the cuteness!

Big, giant cuteness.

Leyendecker is such a big boi!

Today was my day to take my mother to her medical appointment. It got hot fast this morning, even as I was just going my rounds. As I write this, coming up on 7pm, we are still at 29C/84F, and the humidex is at 34C/93F. This heat is supposed to continue for the next couple of days, and no rain or even thunderstorms expected, so tomorrow morning, I’ll have to make sure to give the garden beds a deep watering, before it gets really hot again.

I am really appreciating the AC in the truck!

I was thinking of going to my mother’s a bit early, so we could get a bit of a visit in before her appointment, since I had to go to pick up eggs after. I was going to call her to see if she was good with my arriving early when she called me, instead.

While I was in the washroom, of course.

The message she left was almost a wail, asking where I was, and did I forget about the appointment today?

I had told her I would arrive at about noon. She was calling shortly after 11.

So I called her back and told her I could leave right away. In the end, it was only about half an hour earlier than I intended to be there originally.

I tried to have a conversation with her. I really did!

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out well. A couple of times, I was trying to share some information with her related to the topic at hand, and she would cut me off and start going off on a rant. It was as if she’d assumed the conclusion of what I was saying and responding to that – even though it was not at all what I was trying to say. She had no interest in what I was actually saying, but in what she thought I was saying.

When she cut me off again by making a racist comment, I gave up and suggested it was time to leave.

So we were a bit early for the appointment.

While in the waiting room, we got to talking about the purpose of the appointment, which was to get her medications reviewed, including the changes done by the ER doctor, and for the pharmacy to get the updated information before they have to do her next bubble packs.

That’s when I found out my mother wasn’t taking the one pill the ER doctor told her to start taking again, every day. She was taking it every other day. She had already been saying to me, how she was feeling better after being back on the pill, but then she was saying that she was feeling worse after being back on that pill.

I told her she needs to stop messing with her prescriptions, and that we needed to make sure to tell the doctor about this. She was to stop taking the pill for 30 days, and the blood work she had done would tell the doctor if anything about it needed to be changed.

When the doctor came in, we explained about my mother going to the ER. She tried to look it up on my mother’s file.

The hospital never sent the information to her!

She was able to go online and link into their files, though, and see test results, at least. There were no notes of any kind attached, which was very frustrating. The ER doctor had not only told my mother to start taking this one prescription again, but doubled another one, so she’s now taking it morning and evening – but no information as to why the doctor made these decisions!

The other information was there, though. My mother had Xrays done, and everything looked clear. The hospital’s blood work was done a week after my mother did her scheduled blood work after stopping the pill for 30 days, so the doctor was able to compare three different test results; the first one that identified a problem, then the other two showing any changes.

My mother’s results showed significant improvement in that 30 day period, and even more improvement in just the week before the ER tested her again. Everything is now right back where it should be!

The doctor has taken this pill off my mother’s prescriptions. If my mother starts to have any particular symptoms start, she’ll add it back, but only as a “take as needed” prescription, not part of her bubble packs.

My mother’s turning 93 this year and, for all her complaints about her health, she is remarkably resilient and has an amazing recovery time. It’s just amazing!

After her appointment was done, my mother had wanted to go to a particular grocery store that was on our way out of town, but she changed her mind as we were leaving. It turned out she’d only eaten a piece of toast for breakfast, and had deliberately not eaten lunch before this appointment. I’m not sure why! Needless to say, she was famished, so we stopped for lunch and shared a pizza. After that, she didn’t have the energy to get out of the truck again.

As we were leaving her town, I’d pointed out to her where I’d be going to get eggs later; part of their property borders the highway. My mother suggested I stop to pick up the eggs on the way, rather than driving back later. She even said she might want to get some eggs, too.

Of course, what she really wanted as to see was the egg lady’s place and make judgements. Because that’s what my mother does!

I ended up sending a message to the egg lady, because I wasn’t sure if she was even home.

She wasn’t, but she was on the way.

I told her about my mother being interested in getting a dozen eggs, too, and we worked things out. I was going to stop at a gas station and take my time about it, to give her more time to get home ahead of me.

Which worked out well. We got there and, as we were driving in, my mother got to see the guinea hens, and a couple of free range goats, without having to leave the truck.

She changed her mind about the eggs, though. Which I expected, since I knew that was just her way to get me to take her to the egg lady’s place.

I don’t think my mother was impressed. It didn’t look like a picture postcard, but an active homestead and home based business that also involved animals.

I’m probably going to hear about it later. At the time, she was just too tired to say much.

I got her home and settled in, but couldn’t stay long with the eggs in the truck; they didn’t fit in any of my insulated bags. Hopefully, my mother went for a nap soon after I left!

As we were driving into her town, though, I realized the farmer’s market was started. It’s every Friday, but I’m almost never in this town on Fridays. I saw my cousin’s truck there, too, so I wanted to make a quick stop.

But first, I wanted to stop at a nearby feed store. We haven’t been able to connect with the Cat Lady to pick up the kibble donation, and we were running low. I knew the grocery store prices would be insane, but maybe the feed store would be better.

Plus, it was half a block away from the farmer’s market.

So I went there first and looked around. Sure enough, they did have cat food – in 40 pound bags! (18.1kg). The price was a little over $60, though, which would have used up most of my cash on hand. They did have 20 pound bags (9.1kg) for just over $30, though. It looked like they had only one 20lb bag left, too! So I bought it and paid cash. Then I picked up the bag and set it on my shoulder to carry it out.

Which is when I heard and felt something very strange.

I pulled the bag down and discovered the sewn strip across the top had come loose. I’d just spilled kibble all over the floor!

Of course, I was very apologetic. What mess!

The guy behind the counter came out with a broom and dustpan to clean it up while telling the other guy (the owner?), who was in the office, what happened. They talked back and forth for a bit when the other guy said, “give her a 40 pound bag.”

??? !!!

In the end, the other guy came out and went to their storage building out back and got me a 40 pound bag himself, while the guy behind the counter finished sweeping up the kibble.

So I got to take home a 40 pound bag for the price of a 20 pound bag!

That was so awesome of them!

As soon as possible, I want to go back and pay the difference.

The one guy (the one I think is the owner) was also complaining to the guy behind the counter that almost ever third bag they’ve been getting, the stitching is loose at one corner, so this is not the first time it’s been a problem! As he was loading the bag into the back of my truck, he made a point of telling me this, and to watch out for those corners.

With such great customer service, I definitely plan to go back there!

Plus…

While the price per kg is slightly higher than what I’m paying at Walmart for the 9kg bags, and Costco has even better prices for that size, the price is SO much better than at the grocery stores. Factoring in the cost of gas to drive to the city, and it comes out cheaper.

So while we will still pick up kibble when we are already in the city to do our stock up shopping, when it comes time to get more, later in the month, it would be more cost effective to buy from the feed store than to drive to the nearest Walmart.

Best of all, I’ve already given some to the cats outside, and they like it. The last time I got kibble at a feed store, it was in another town, and they had 16kg bags (35 pounds) for an even better price. The problem was, the cats didn’t like it, at all. Even the outside cats didn’t want to eat it. They did anyhow, since there was nothing else, but this stuff is clearly a better quality cat food.

After getting the cat food, I popped over to the farmer’s market. I talked to my cousin for a while, and picked up some of his creamed honey. He doesn’t have a lot of honey right now; he lost all his bees when a neighbour sprayed their field for grasshoppers, and had to buy more. He doesn’t have much of an inventory yet. No 3kg buckets for quite a while!

Then, I made a quick stop at a booth selling baked goods and picked up a bumbleberry pie. It had better be good – it cost more than the honey I just bought, and more than twice the grocery store price!

While I was doing that, I got a message from my husband asking if I could swing by the post office. I had just enough time to get there before they closed.

All this made for a very long day, but a more productive one than I expected. I’m really glad I remembered this feed store and decided to check it out.

Ugh. I need to go outside and do my evening rounds. It’s now coming up on 8pm, and we’re still 27C/81F with the humidex at 30C/86F.

It’s going to be sticky out there!

Even our overnight temperatures are supposed to only drop to 19C/66F. I think I’ll be leaving my window fan to keep blowing hot air out, for the night.

There should be quite a few raspberries to pick, though, so I’d better remember to bring a bucket of some kind, and get out there!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: morning firsts

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I had a couple of nice surprised while doing my morning rounds!

The first was spotting new seedlings – of White Scallop patty pan squash!!!

This was our third attempt of sowing these, and I planted two pairs of seeds in the bed with the onions and shallots. There are still none in the pot (sowed them twice in there) and I had been thinking of what I could plant in the empty space where the Magda and White Scallops had failed, only to find these! So far, it’s just the one pair of seeds. No sign where the other pair was planted, but if it took this long for the first ones to show up, there is still hope!

Now, they just need to survive.

Still no Magda here, but a second one germinated in the pot on the steps.

There is also a nice little row of tiny kohlrabi seedlings popping up in the potato bed at the chain link fence.

I got a surprise phone call this morning, too. The scrap guy was going to be in our area. Did we want him to come by?

Today???

Yes, today.

*sigh*

I’m taking my mother to her medical appointment today, so that won’t be an option. We talked a bit about the state of the ground for getting to the barn and stuff. He’s going to be in the area again later – he has to wait for the ground to dry out more, first, so he can’t say exactly when, but he can call us first, if we want.

Yes, please!

We need to re-bag the aluminum, anyhow. Between the cats, racoons and skunks, quite a few bags have been torn up. That’s the down side of having so many cat food cans in there!

Since I’m going to be in the area, anyhow, after I bring my mother home from her appointment, I’m going to head over to my homesteading friend that sells eggs. She’s overwhelmed with eggs again – this has been a good year for eggs for a lot of people! – and is all but giving them away. When she posted about it on FB and someone asked the price, she just said “whatever is reasonable!”

We still had eggs, but the girls cooked some up with their supper, and boiled the rest for egg salad, so there is room in the fridge again. I’ve asked for 4 flats. I remembered to ask if she needed egg trays, and she does, so I’ll be bringing a bunch of those over for her, too.

With all the driving around, plus the likelihood that my mother will be seen late (hard to say; I’ve actually been seen early, at this clinic!), and a trip to pick up eggs, I’ll probably not get home until well into the evening.

Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of 28C/82F, and now the forecast has the same high for the next two days. As I write this, we’re at 23C/73F, but the humidex is already at 31C/88F! Humidity is at 81%, but apparently there’s just a 9% chance of rain this afternoon – or thunderstorms, if I look at a different app!

Next weekend, we’re supposed to reach highs of 30C/86F, and stay there for days.

I do wish we had better forecast regarding rain or storms, so we know whether the garden needs to be watered or not! I probably will anyhow, tomorrow morning, just so the garden can better handle the heat.

Especially our tiny little seedlings!

The Re-Farmer

Rough night and another loss

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

It was another sleepless night last night. Pain and stiffness, I expected, but the worst of it was the pain in my damaged elbow. Talking to one of my daughters about it – at about 3am – we tried an experiment. One thing that helps it is warmth. Which is weird, considering how warm it was during the night. My daughter had some scrap sleeves in a stretchy material that she brought down. We found a section that fit fairly well and cut it into a shorter tube to cover just my elbow. My pjs already had long sleeves, which helped hold the tube in place.

It seemed to help, because I did finally get a couple of hours of sleep.

After that, it was the cats going crazy that kept me up!

My daughters took care of the morning routine for me, though, as well as the cats, and I did finally get another hour or two of sleep. Which I needed, since I was going to be doing some driving this afternoon.

Once I was finally up and about, I did my usual rounds. I was just finishing up and coming around past the cat house to go in through the sun room when I spotted Squash lying in the grass.

I’ve been able to pick Squash up fairly regularly, so I went to pet him (her? we never did find out. I’ll just say “he”) and realized something was very wrong.

Squash was clearly dying.

I ended up spending almost two hours with Squash, trying to comfort him. He did not seem to be in any pain, but was barely breathing. He did seem to perk up a bit when I started giving him water, one drop at a time, with my finger.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay with him any longer. I left him in a shady spot, then headed to town for, among other things, a pharmacy run to pick up my husband’s injections. When I got back, Squash was gone, and I buried him near Driver.

With so many kittens, there are bound to be losses. and we’ve had quite a few over the years. Among this year’s kittens that we’ve seen so far, if there was any I would have expected to suddenly pass, it would have been Button. He’s so incredibly tiny, we’re sure he was the runt of his litter. Yesterday, however, I did pick up Squash and found him very… lethargic. When I put him down in the sun room, he went back outside, though, and that was pretty normal for him.

The one symptom he did have was a severely leaky butt, which he did not have yesterday. We had something similar happen with a kitten we’d brought inside, last year.

Unfortunately, with this heat, we’ve had kittens and cats splashed all over the place, all stretched out and trying to keep cool. Every time I see one – especially when it’s Button or one of the other smaller kittens – I find myself wondering if they are okay! So in a way, it wasn’t really a surprise to find Squash in his condition. The only surprise was that it was Squash.

After the sad job of burying him, I loaded the truck with our garbage and made a run to the dump. Later on this evening, I plan to go out again and rake up some of yesterday’s grass clippings for mulch. It’s past 6pm right now, and still 25C/77F with the humidex at 28C/82F, and we’re not supposed to start cooling down more for a couple more hours. It’s a good thing the days are so long! Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter and, depending on what app I look at, we’ll either have no rain at all, passing showers, or possible thunderstorms.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m taking my mother to her doctor’s appointment, right when it will be getting the hottest. Thankfully, the truck’s AC works all right!

Meanwhile, I need to start editing my July garden tour video. One of my daughter’s previewed the recordings made on the 16th and the 17th, and said both days were fine. The only think she noted is that I sounded tired – which I was!

I still am, to be honest. I might just skip collecting the grass clippings tonight, and do it in the morning, before I have to leave for my mother’s. I seem to be waking up at 5:30am, no matter what, so I may as well be productive when it’s a bit cooler.

I just hope I don’t find any more kitten losses. 😢

The Re-Farmer

Soooo tired

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I am absolutely exhausted right now.

I took advantage of today’s relatively cooler 20C/68F, give or take a degree or two, to mow the lawns. Last night, we actually dropped to 8C/46F! At least, that’s what it was at about 5:30am I actually felt cold last night! Not cold enough to close the window, though. I was enjoying it too much!

I’d already done most of the edges around the yard with the weed trimmer yesterday. Today, I went to start the riding mower, but the battery was dead. So I put the charger on it, then used the push mower to mow the edges wider, so it would be easier to make the turns with the larger riding mower.

After doing all the edges along the inner yard, I got the riding mower going and started doing the rest.

I doubt I got as much as 50 feet of mowing before I gave up and parked the riding mower. I don’t know what’s wrong with that thing, but it just won’t cut! It’ll cut for the first foot or two, then nothing. The grass wasn’t that tall, so I can’t blame it on that, this time. If I reverse, then go back and forth a couple of times, I can finally clear an area – but only if the deck is as low as it can go, and I use the slowest speed.

At which point, it’s faster to use the push mower.

So that’s what I did.

By the time I finished the south and east yards – the largest sections with the thickest grass – I’d been out there for several hours. I went in for supper and was considering finishing the rest tomorrow. The north and west yards are a lot smaller, and the grass is thinner, so it wouldn’t take long.

Then I saw that we’re supposed to hit 27C/81F tomorrow.

There is no way I want to be mowing in that heat!

So I went out and finished the last two sections, and even mowed the one path through the maple grove I’ve managed to clear this year.

Then I filled the tank one last time and started working on the outer yard. Usually, I work in a circle, but this time I started at the chain link fence and just went back and forth until I ran out of gas. I managed to cut around the junk pile – most of that was grass that hadn’t been cut this year – and a path to the electricity meter. By the time I ran out of gas, I had almost finished clearing as far as the last time I was able to mow, except the driveway. I didn’t even try for the driveway this time. Next time, I’ll grab the gate key and mow all the way to the road.

But not today.

It was past 7pm by the time I finished, and I am totally beat!

I’m really happy with how the yards look, though, Plus, the grass clippings get to dry in the sun tomorrow, and at the end of the day, I should be able to collect quite a lot of it to use as mulch. Especially around the junk pile, where the grass was the tallest.

Also, I think there is a new litter of kittens in the junk pile. I’m seeing some white and greys running around in there. Previously, there’s only been the one fluffy tabby, until I found Button. I’m not sure if I saw two or three or four kittens!

Aside from the mowing, I tried to record some video for the July garden tour. I did some recordings yesterday evening, but I wasn’t sure I was happy with them. So I did more this morning. I don’t think I’m happy with them, either. However, I was really tired while going through the files, both times, so I think I’ll get one or both of my daughters to review them and tell me what they think.

Meanwhile…

After making some recordings this morning, I got a bit of a harvest.

Just little one!

I also startled a deer this morning! It was on the far side of the row of problem trees on the north side of the main garden.

Deer make the most interesting huffing noises.

While doing my rounds and mowing the lawn, I also saw lots and lots of frogs. All that rain may mean we’ve got lots of mosquitoes, but we also have lots of frogs to eat them, too!

I found this beauty on the upside down garbage can we use to support a rain diverter I needed to move so I could mow in the north yard. It’s held in place by a brick on each side. When I moved the diverter, the frog scooted under one of the bricks. I just had to move it long enough to get a picture! What a beauty!

Then I spotted this one.

I was still trying to use the riding mower when I spotted it climbing up the tent canopy that’s draped over the chain link fence right now. If it weren’t for the running motor, I would have taken video. It looked so adorable, climbing up the canvas! It’s body was, at most, an inch long. Probably less.

Even when using the push mower, there were a few times I had to pause to let some frogs jump out of the way. One little thing got stuck in the grass and I ended up catching it and moving it. That was was only about half an inch long!

I like frogs, and am so happy we’ve got so many this year!

Now, if they would just eat up all those slugs in the garden!

Well, I think I’m rested enough. Time for a shower. I’ve already got one of my daughters to put the bath chair in the tub for me. I’m so tired and unsteady right now, I don’t want to take a chance, no matter how many arm bars we’ve got in there!

It’s a “good” tired, though. Everything looks so much better out there, and I really do enjoy mowing!

Tomorrow, however, will be a different story. I am definitely going to be paying for that last push to do the outer yard! Just the weed wacking I did yesterday had my damaged left elbow hurting so much, it kept waking me up during the night. The pain killers I have don’t really do much for this type of injury, though. *sigh* It had been pretty good for so many years. Why is it coming back so badly, now?

Being broken really sucks.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a tiny morning harvest

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My plan after doing my morning rounds was to get started on the weed trimming. It seems we got more rain overnight, though, so it’s probably not going to happen until this afternoon.

I did, however, get this.

Yes, I found one last garlic scape!

Or is it really the last one, this time? 😂

This was the first time there were enough sugar snap peas to harvest an actual handful. I also got a handful of raspberries. There were a couple of everbearing strawberries, but I ate them. The strawberries in with the raspberries are the tiny ones in the wattle weave bed we grew from seed. Such huge, strong plants, and such small berries! As cute as they are, they don’t taste any better, and they’re taking up space. I might decide to transplant them somewhere in the yard to grow wild, and use the space for something more productive.

The strawberries with the asparagus are a lost cause. I was going to put more netting around the bed but, at this point, that’s just locking the barn door after the horses have run away. There’s hardly anything left of them.

I wonder if they would survive if I transplanted them into the wattle weave bed, next to the ones already there?

The Re-Farmer