Today’s garden progress

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With no rain on the horizon and lower temperatures, I finally had a chance to work on the low raised bed with the logs in place. With the winter squash getting so big right now, it was getting to be a “now or never” situation!

These are some before and after pictures. I started on the side facing the high raised bed first. The vines needed to be lifted safely out of the way, and I was able to use the pea trellis to hold them.

I look forward to when we have our permanent trellis beds done. The temporary trellis is fine for beans and peas, but can’t hold the weight of squash vines. The permanent trellis tunnels will be built with the weight of large vines and heavy squash in mind.

Once they were safely lifted out of the way, I went over the path with the weed trimmer, then rolled the 18′ log towards the high raised bed. I did some weeding on the inside of the where the log was, then used a stirrup hoe to loosen and level the soil under where the log was. Then, cardboard was laid out so that part of it was covering the soil inside the bed, as well as under the log. The cardboard got a soaking with the hose, then the log rolled back. I have a couple of 4′ lengths of wood cut for the ends of the trellis bed that ended up not being used. I set them against the high raised bed and the log to both keep the path at 4′ wide, and keep the log from rolling out of place.

Then I took the wheelbarrow and forced my way through the overgrown grass – some of it reached to my shoulders! – to the wood chips. One load of wood chips was enough to lay on the outside of the log, using my foot to press them solidly under, so it won’t roll away, plus some on the cardboard on the inside, too.

Once that was done, I could take the vines down from the netting. The less time up there, the less chance of damage, though some did get damaged as I was doing this. When laying them down, I set them to train them to grow along the sides of the log, rather than into the path. Some of the vines were growing adventitious roots, and I made sure those were over the wood chips.

I had considered not doing the short ends at all, but in the end, I went for it. The squash at the ends are the largest, and there’s no trellis netting at the ends to hang them off of, so greater care needed to be taken to move them aside.

I did the south end, first, using the same process: move the vine, weed trim, move the log, weed by hand, cover with cardboard, soak the cardboard, then put the log back. With this one, I had a rock I could use to keep it from rolling away, as I didn’t have any wood chips left. When returning the vine, I worked it around so that it will grow along the side of the log I’d put the wood chips against.

Then it was time to do the other side. This time, I weed trimmed the path, plus the end, and moved both the 18′ log and the 4′ log at the North end, then hand weeded. This side required more leveling of the soil as there was quite a gap under the North end of the 18′ log. I had just enough cardboard left to place on the ground, then rolled the logs back. This time, I had a wheel barrow load of wood chips ready and waiting, and got that laid out on both sides of the logs. Last of all, the vines were laid down and laid out in the direction I wanted them to grow. It wasn’t intentional, but I ended up with the vines all running counter clockwise around the bed.

What I am not going to do is permanently attached the end pieces to the side pieces, yet. There’s too much risk of damaging the vines. We’ll do that in the fall, when it’s time to get it ready for the winter. Having the cardboard and wood chips down will be enough for now.

That done, I decided I needed to set up a temporary trellis for the melons. Getting the permanent supports isn’t going to happen quite yet, and the melons were starting to make their escape!

Since this was going to be a temporary trellis, I made it closer to the middle of the bed, rather than the outside. I had recently picked up more plastic coated metal supports at the Dollarama recently, in 4′ and 5′ lengths. I set up six of the 5′ lengths along where the melons are growing, then added 4′ lengths across the tops.

The netting I had was quite a bit longer than the bed. After setting the netting in place along the melons, with jute twine woven through along the bottom to hold it in place, the excess height was draped over the top. I didn’t open up the excess length, and wrapped it around the other side.

Once that was secured, the melon vines needed to be trained up the netting. If I’d had some, I would have used more of the 4″ square trellis netting. With the finer mesh, I wanted to make sure the melon vines were all facing the outside, so they can be more easily tended and harvested from. Some of them were so long, I secured them by fixing one end of some jute twine to the bottom, wrapping it around the stem of the vine, then securing the twine high enough on the netting to hold the vine up. Now that they’re set where they are, their tendrils will naturally start grabbing onto the netting as they grow, but until then, I’ll be checking them and training them towards the netting.

It may be a cooler day today than the last couple of days, but it was still hot out there. I’d considered doing more weed trimming around the house when I was done, but I was just too hot, tired and dehydrated by this time. So that will wait a bit longer. Tomorrow is supposed to have a high of 18C/64F, which will be perfect for the weed trimming. Most areas are still too wet, but we might be able to get at least some areas mowed. Unfortunately, the temperatures are supposed to start getting hotter again after tomorrow, but at least we’re not supposed to be getting more rain. We’re still waiting for the yard to dry out enough to finally be able to use the truck to get that tree off the outhouse!

I’m happy to finally get as much done in the garden as I did today, though. With the temporary melon trellis up, there won’t be any rush to get those vertical support posts in place, so we can take more time to do a solid job of it.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

So many kittens

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I ended up going into town this morning. One of my stops was not far from the marina.

I forgot it’s fish fly season right now.

Buildings and sidewalks are covered with them. Piles of them were under street lights. I walked past a poor guy using a leaf blower, trying to clear the sidewalk in front of retail outlets. Before going inside, I had to shake my shirt to knock the still living ones off of me. Ew.

While in line at one of my stops I – with permission, of course – removed a number of them from the back of the woman in front of me, and she was kind enough to check if I had any on my back, too! 😄

The good thing is, they emerge, mate, hatch their eggs and die, all within 24 hours, so this won’t last long!

After I got home, I was able to make the medical appointment for my mother to go over her prescription changes. They were actually able to fit her in this coming Friday, which is nice and fast.

Then, with the temperatures a much more bearable 20-22C/68-72F outside, and no rain expected, I finally got outside and got some progress in the garden. That will be for another post. For now, I share the cuteness!

Two of Brussel’s kittens are now regularly at the sun room. If the other two are around, I’m not seeing them.

Broccoli’s calico looks like a grizzles old man!

Then I found one of Brussel’s kittens in one of my summer squash pots! Thankfully, not on the one seedling that has managed to germinate. I was able to harvest the fuzzy little squashling and move it to the sun room.

It did not appreciate this.

This is a kitten that hunches down rather than runs away, and it did hiss at me. I think it did clue in that I mean it no harm, because I was able to handle it later, without getting hissed at. I just got a death glare, instead!

Button’s habit of sleeping right in the doorway is a bit of a pain, but with all our losses this year so far, every time I see him sleeping like that, I find myself checking to see if he’s still breathing!

Yes, he was fine. 😁

Seeing Brussel with only two of her kittens does make me wonder about the other two.

Then there is a pair of white and grey/black kittens that have decided the hand rail is the place to hang out.

They are not socialized, but I was able to pet them. Once actually stopped and let me, but the other disappeared under the branches of the rose bush that covered half the hand rail. I did manage to pet its back as it duck into the foliage, though.

Gotta keep working on the socialization thing, if we’re going to be able to get them adopted out! The Cat Lady even contacted me today, as she has someone looking for a kitten, and we do have some that we can handle regularly now, that are also old enough to be weaned.

Getting any adoptions done at all right now would be amazing!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: first and last – plus bonus kittens!

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I just got back from doing my evening rounds and had a lovely surprise harvest.

Our first ripe raspberries of the year!

These are from the ones growing pretty much wild in the old compost heap that have been there since before we moved here. With how much rain we had this spring, I honestly wasn’t expecting any to be ripe for at least a couple more weeks, so this was such a bonus.

Speaking of bonuses, while walking past the garlic at the end of the old kitchen garden I spotted one last garlic scape that I missed this morning, when I’d picked another that I’d missed when I did the last harvest of them.

While heading back into the house, I had to step over another bonus. Kittens!

There was two of them, this time, and I’ve even been able to pick up and cuddle the fluffy one. Button seems to have quite the preference for that spot and I often see him napping there.

The problem is, between him being so incredibly tiny, and the losses we’ve had this year, when I see him conked out there, or in the middle of the floor (another favourite napping spot of his!), I find myself checking to make sure he is okay.

Before doing my evening rounds, I topped up the kibble and was happy to see Broccoli’s two, curled up on the sidewalk block by the rain barrel. The black and white (Kohl) immediately ran off towards the garden shed, but the calico (Rabi) just stared at me, ready to flee.

Now, if they will just start going into the sun room and the shelters…

The Re-Farmer

Muggy day

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Today, being Sunday, is my day of rest, and I’m going to take full advantage of it!

Not that it means I don’t do my usual rounds and checks, of course. My daughters, however, were sweethearts and took care of feeding the outside cats before going to bed for the day, so I could sleep in.

That was quite early in the morning, so when I did head out, I topped up their kibble. As I was doing it, I heard a bit of a cat fight in the space between the cat shelters.

I saw a cat get run off by Adam, who then settled in among a few kittens. I do believe she was protecting them!

I have no idea which of the kittens in the photo are hers anymore! There are just a few that I know for sure are not.

She is such a good mama!

While checking the garden beds, I’m now always on the lookout for developing female flowers and squash. There is one pumpkin vine that has a couple of baby pumpkins that are pretty darn big, for the stage they are at!

I’m hoping they got pollinated and will keep growing, but it’ll be a while before we know for sure. The pumpkin flowers, both male and female, are larger than most of the winter squash that are blooming. There are a few winter squash, though, that have had some equally large male flowers blooming. It should be interesting to see what kind of squash they turn out to be!

After I was done outside, I grabbed our empty water jugs and headed to town. I had considered taking them with me to the city yesterday for refills, but I’m glad I didn’t. We don’t usually allow our drinking water get down to just one jug, though, and the last one was set up last night, so I wanted to make sure to get the empties refilled right away.

I was rather surprised by how busy things were in town, though. Even for a summer Sunday in a tourist town. My first hint at what was going on was as I left the grocery store and had to wait for an absolutely gorgeous old low rider, painted black with red and yellow flams all over, drive by. Then, as I was leaving the parking lot, I could see the street ahead was closed and filled with people.

There was a classic car event going on.

No wonder it was so busy! For the population of the area, it’s amazing just how many classic cars there are! The show is very popular and with good reason.

Still, I was glad to leave the crowd behind. It’s been more than 6 years since we moved out of the city, and I’m still peopled out. 😄

In other things, we are supposed to get more rain, off and on, late this afternoon and evening. We still have a lot of standing water all over, and I wasn’t able to pull into the yard to unload the truck. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get more rain from 4am – 6am and then continue to be cooler and drier for the next few days. Hopefully, that means I’ll finally be able to get out with the electric weed trimmer and clear the spaces around the garden beds I need to work on. I really don’t want to be dragging an extension cord through wet grass!

Last night, it actually got cool enough that I had to turn off my fan! Last year, I had a box fan set up in the window, but I hadn’t done that yet, this summer. Part of the problem is the power bars (we have surge protection power bars at almost every outlet – and this house does not have enough outlets!). I’ve got different things plugged into the one I needed this year, and some of them are the larger plugs that take up two spaces. I was able to move things around between power bars and free up a plug in the power bar that can be reached from the window, and I could finally set the box fan back up. What a difference that made!

The cats are not happy. 😄 They like to sit on the wide ledge to look outside, or use it to get to the top of the shelf, where there are beds set up for them.

During the day, I have the fan facing the screen and blowing hot air out. At night, I flip it around to blow cool air in. We dropped to 13C/55F last night! It was glorious!

As for right now, even though it’s 23C/73F, with the humidex at 28C/83F right now, I’m having a hard time not going back outside to try and get some things done before it rains again. Even if I weren’t taking a day of rest, things are still just too wet for the work I want to do! None of it is urgent anymore, like it was to get those beds shifted so we could finish getting the transplants in. It can wait. It would be nice to get some more progress done before I do my next garden tour video, though.

We shall see. It all pretty much comes down to what the weather allows!

The Re-Farmer

A city trip, kitten cuteness, and another deluge

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Today, things are a supposed to be a bit cooler than the past couple of days, but it sure didn’t feel that way while doing my rounds this morning! I’m writing this at a little before 7:30pm, and we’re still at 25C/77F. We were expected to hit 27C/81F this afternoon, but I’m pretty sure we beat that.

We did have rain overnight. Enough to refill the rain barrel, so I made sure to put the diverter back on. I’m glad I did!

Though several hours had past, and it was quite hot out already, it was so humid that nothing was drying. The grass and plants, I would expect, but even the sidewalk and patio blocks, and the front steps, were all still damp. By the time I was done and got back to the house, my feet were soaked!

After finishing my morning rounds, I was planning to go to the city, but made sure to call my mother and check on how she was doing. She sounded really good. We talked a bit about her prescription change, and that I would be calling the clinic on Monday to get her an appointment with the doctor to talk about them and get her prescriptions updated for the pharmacy. Of course, now that she’s back on one pill she was told to stop for a short while, then get the blood tests she had done at the beginning of the week, plus another pill is now morning and evening, instead of just evening, she has immediately begun to associate starting the medications again with whatever she happens to be noticing at the time. Lately, it’s been “dry mouth”. Not anything close to the medical dry mouth that can be a symptom of various things, but she doesn’t understand just how extreme the medical condition can be. From what she describes, it makes me think she is either dehydrated (for all our encouragement, she is just not drinking anywhere near enough water) or sleeping with her mouth open at times – or both! Well, she woke up with a dry mouth this morning, so it must be because she restarted taking that one pill, yesterday. More alarming, she started saying that maybe she should stop taking it again, and…

I stepped in at that point and reminded her to not start messing with her medications. Again!

*sigh*

We talked about it for a bit, and I reminded her that she’s been complaining about that for quite a while now, both with and without that one pill. She did admit that this was true.

As we were talking and I mentioned I was planning to go to the city, as my own little “day off”. This is my birth month and, when I was asked if I wanted to do the usual take out again, I said no. I wanted a grocery shopping trip! Not just any grocery shopping trip, though, but a more luxurious one. 😄 So I got a rather generous budget, instead!

I mentioned my birthday was coming up, too, and my mother had forgotten about it completely. Which doesn’t bother me at all. If it weren’t for my family and Facebook, I’d forget my own birthday. I even forget my age, most of the time. 😄

Anyhow.

When she found out I was going to the city, my mother wondered if I could pick up some milk for her along the way. 😄 I had intended to take a different route, but that was fine. I told her I’d do it on the way out, not on the way back, since I would have things in the truck that needed to stay cold.

So that was worked out. Before heading out, I remembered to return our reusable bags – most of them insulated – to the truck, including one filled with ice packs.

Then it was off to my mother’s town, a quick stop to pick up her milk, and a brief visit.

She was sweet enough to have an envelop with a monetary gift for me. Which I made sure to say, she did not need to do. I appreciate the gift (gas money!), of course, but I don’t want her to think she’s in any way obligated to gave me anything.

I did have to chuckle when I transferred the cash to my wallet, though. It was $50, which was very kind of her. What is funny is, with my brother as PoA keeping track of her finances, I know that she sent our vandal a check for $1000 for his birthday, a few months ago.

*shakeshead*

She has such a terrible habit of making things worse for herself and is completely oblivious as to how what she does can be such a problem. I mean, it’s her money, she can do what she wants with it, but to even keep having contact with our vandal, after his years of verbal abuse and trying to get her to change her will to leave this farm to him instead of my brother… what was she thinking???

Ah, well.

Once done at her place, I made a stop at the gas station. This time, I just preset the pump to $30, then went inside when it was done to get some food and a drink for the road as well, since I forgot to have breakfast. After I paid for everything, making sure to say which pump I’d used, I drove away from the pump and off to the side and parked. After opening my drink and setting up my food (I even keep a plastic plate in the truck, to protect the seat, for times like this), I checked my phone for messages before leaving.

There was a purchase notification from my bank that I started to clear, when I noticed something strange about the number.

I hadn’t paid too much attention inside the gas station as I was paying, and I don’t normally keep the receipt. I thought I’d heard the woman on cash give me the total, but clearly I’d heard wrong. This number was way too low!

She forgot to charge me for the gas!

So I went back inside.

I explained that I hadn’t got my receipt, but I saw my bank notification, and I didn’t think they charged me for the gas. At this point, I was talking to two women behind the counter, including one I see almost all the time. As soon as I mentioned the gas not being included, they both looked at each other and said “The $30!” After I’d left, they’d noticed the indicator on the machine inside, but I guess neither had seen who had gotten gas there!

I’m so glad I checked my phone before I left! If I hadn’t, I would not have seen the notification until I’d parked at my first stop in the city! I’m also glad I have my bank app set up to send me those notifications, too, I might not have noticed at all, even when checking my accounts, later!

Once that was cleared up, it was off to the city. I had a regular shopping list as well as personal shopping, and my first stop was at a large Walmart. I ended up getting most of what was on my list there, including more kibble. For myself, I picked up a couple of t-shirts, since I’m managed to stain pretty all of mine, including my new ones. I tried looking at shoes, too. I need to replace my indoor shoes, which I’d found at a Walmart, but I just can’t find another pair like them. The ones that are similar don’t fit my feet right. I ended up having to skip the shoes again. I did amuse myself by first looking at women’s shoes, including some “wide” pairs. Ha! Wide compared to what? I was looking at several sizes larger than my feet, and they were all so narrow, I didn’t even bother trying any on.

It’s not just a problem with shoes. Most of my clothes these days come from the men’s section. Even the Plus Size women’s clothes are just wrong for my body type. The fabrics and overall quality tend to suck, too, and even plain shirts tend to be more expensive.

So I’m happy with my very plain, very generic, men’s t-shirts!

That done, I packed everything into the truck, but was left with a bit of a conundrum. One of the things on my list that I picked up was a couple of packs of ice. They went into an insulated bag along with some other things that needed to be kept cold, plus ice packs I’d brought from home. I made sure to keep those bags in the cab, with air conditioning, but once the truck is parked, it gets so hot, the insulated bags can only do so much!

It just meant I needed to do the rest of my planned shopping a bit faster.

The next stop was at the international grocery store, which I haven’t been to in ages. It shares a parking lot with a Dollarama, so I dashed in there, first. They had the taller, plastic coated metal support stakes in stock, so I bought 8 of them. These ones each some with an adjustable plant tie, and cost $3. The same size support stakes, without the ties, cost more than twice as much at Canadian Tire, and Walmart doesn’t even have them.

That was my mother’s birthday gift to me. 😄

Part of why I wanted to go to the international grocery store was to go to their eatery section and treat myself to dim sum for lunch. Oh, how I love their dim sum!

It was also the place to pick up a nice selection of cheeses and charcuterie meats. I even found truffle enhanced gouda this time!

The fungus, not the chocolate.

I’m thinking, a Columbo marathon and some charcuterie with the girls. My husband wouldn’t be joining us, though. He likes Columbo. He doesn’t like charcuterie. 😄

While I was in the city, I got a message from my husband. He told me they’d just been hit with a wicked thunderstorm! They didn’t lose power or anything, but there was definitely a nearby lightning strike!

There was also a deluge.

Did I mention I was glad I put that rain diverter over the full barrel?

It was probably another hour and half after the storm ended, that I got home. Before leaving the city, I’d sent a message about driving into the yard to unload. My daughter went out to check the status of things, and suggested that was not going to be an option.

The moat was back.

Wow.

When I got to the gate, the driveway was still full of water. So was the entry through the vehicle gate into the yard. The ground there is already really soft, but with open water all around behind the garage again, the truck would have torn up the grass, or even gotten stuck, if I’d driven in!

My daughter helped me carry everything in. We didn’t even try to use use the wagon. Once loaded with things like 9kg bags of kibble, it would have sunk into the mud, too!

Once everything was unloaded, I gave the cats their evening feeding, then checked around the yard. It was the wheelbarrow that really showed me just how much of a deluge we got. This morning, the wheelbarrow had just a couple of inches of water in one corner. That corner now had about 8 or 9 inches in it! All the low spots around the garden were full of water.

Everything in the raised beds, though, is very happy! They got their fertilizer just a little while ago, and now they got a deep watering. Nothing seemed to be damaged by the rain itself. The winter squash is getting really big, and even the much smaller melon vines are seeing a growth spurt!

As for the cats…

I’m happy to see that Brussel’s babies are hanging out around the house now! Well. At least the orange one. The other two are black and white and, while one has a distinctive patters on its nose, there are so many black and whites or grey and whites, and they run around so much, it’s hard to identify them at times.

Thanks to a donation of kitten kibble, I’ve been making a point of mixing a bit of it in with the adult kibble, then putting the food around outside the sun room, first. Once the adults are distracted by eating, I put kitten kibble in the bowls inside the sun room, where the kittens prefer to hang out. Not all of them, though. Quite a few are coming to the house to eat, but they haven’t discovered the sun room, yet. By including some kitten kibble with the adult kibble that gets spread in some of the areas they are willing to go to, they will at least get some of it before the adults eat it all!

When I was done with the feeding and checking of the yard, though, I wasn’t able to go back in through the sun room, as Adam was busy nursing some babies in front of it. So I went in through the main doors, then went into the old kitchen to finish putting things away. From there, I spotted Adam through the window. She had moved outside, and was nursing a whole bunch of kittens – including Brussel’s orange baby! She had kittens climbing all over each other, trying to reach the nip, and she was just laying there, putting up with it all!

What a good creche mother she is!

I do sometimes see two other mamas nursing babies besides their own, in or near the sun room, but none on the scale that Adam does!

So, that has been my day today. All in all, I’m pretty happy with a more relaxed trip to the city, and am looking forward to treating myself to some really awesome cheeses!

I wonder if the girls are up to a Columbo marathon tonight?

The Re-Farmer

More cuteness, and a quick direct sow

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I just got back from outside, and get to share a bit of cuteness with you!

Drier Sheet is back today, and still just a bundle of nerves. I was, however, able to get a look at the stitches on his leg. We were not able to dose him with the remaining painkillers the vet sent home with him because he simply disappeared for several days. The wound seems to be healing nicely, though, and the dissolving stitches are still holding.

Button has been an easy one to catch and hold. In fact, we have to be really careful walking around the sun room, and just outside, because he has this terrible habit of going under our feet.

This kitten has the absolute bluest eyes, and I think that may be his permanent colour! I tried to get a picture to capture the colour, but did not succeed. Still cute as a Button, though!

One of the things in the packages I picked up today was a donation of kitten food and some cat treats. When I did the evening feeding, I used the regular kibble outside to lure the adults away, then put kitten food in the sun room and other places the kittens tend to congregate in, in hopes the adult cats wouldn’t eat the kitten food before the littles got some.

It was somewhat successful. There are several male cats that prefer to eat inside the sun room, though. We have several bowls, spread apart, and sometimes I’ll find a kitten eating with an adult cat. Mostly, though, the adults just push their way over the bowls and scarf down the food. With the kitten food, I actually had to chase some of the adult cats out so they wouldn’t eat all the kittens’ food!

All the while I was out there, I was hearing thunder in the near distance. I decided to take advantage of possible rain and quickly weeded and loosened some soil in the potato bed at the chain link fence, where the potatoes didn’t come up, and direct seeded some White Vienne kohlrabi. I’ve seen several resources saying that they can be planted now as a fall crop in our area. In the past, I’d always planted them in the early spring, but if they ever germinated, something ate them right away. Perhaps if I try them now, it’s past the season of whatever ate them. That and they are in a completely different location, which might also help. We shall see!

Meanwhile, as I worked, it was so hot and humid, I had sweat just pouring off my face!

I used to dream of some day living in, or at least visiting, a tropical paradise. I could have handled it in my younger days, but as I’ve gotten older, I just can’t seem to tolerate the heat anymore!

As for the thunder I was hearing, I just checked the weather radar, and it passed us by completely. It’s almost 10pm as I write this, and we’re still at 25C/77F with a matching humidex. The predicted rain that was supposed to start around 11pm and last until about 2am, is now expected to to be light showers, starting at 2am, lasting about an hour, then starting again at about 5am and lasting another hour.

It’s a good thing I gave the freshly sown kohlrabi a through watering. Later, I’ll cover it with some mesh or something, to keep the cats off.

Aside from planting the kohlrabi, about the only other thing I got done in the garden was to harvest the last of the garden scapes. We have been hanging on to most of the previous harvests, so we can make a big batch or two of… something. We haven’t decided it. Tonight, though, the girls are planning to use some to make a pasta sauce. Sounds wonderful!

As for me, given that I got pretty much no sleep last night, I should probably got to bed but…

Yup. You guessed it.

The later it gets, the more awake I am!

That and it’s so hot and humid in my room, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to sleep anyhow. Especially when Butterscotch, Cheddar, Clarence, Peanut Butter Cup, Ghosty, Fenrir and Freya, all decide they need to snuggle right up against me as they sleep! Not necessarily all at once, but usually at least 4 of them at a time. You’d think they’d try and avoid more heat, but nope…

We have the old basement door open, hardware cloth barrier in place to keep the cats out of the basement, and a blower fan at the bottom of the stairs, blowing cooler air up. It helps quite a bit, but the basement door has to be fully open.

When the basement door is fully open, it covered the doorway into my room. Which means all that cool air doesn’t go into my bedroom at all. I do have a box fan in my room, but it mostly just blows around warm air.

Ah, well. Better the heat than the cold. If we lose power or something major breaks down now, it’s not that big of a deal. If the same thing happens at in the winter, it can be life threatening.

So yeah; I’ll put up with the heat!

The Re-Farmer

Unexcepted concerns, and unexpected finds

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I am so exhausted.

First, the cuteness.

Adam was blocking my way into the house again, nursing the bebbies – including Button! I’m so happy to see he’s been absorbed into the creche.

Now for the more serious stuff.

Last night, I got a call from my mother. She had called for an ambulance and, as we had discussed before, she was letting me know so that I could update the rest of the family and check on her place, etc.

That was at about… 4:30pm – ish.

After several hours with no word, I tried calling the closer hospital ER I thought they would take her to.

She wasn’t there.

So I tried the next hospital, and there she was.

She was stable and doing fine, but a doctor had not seen her yet.

After confirming phone numbers for myself and my brother, who has PoA, that was about it.

My plan was to head over to check on her place in the morning. I wasn’t decided on whether I should call the hospital before I left, or from my mother’s town.

I ended up not being able to sleep at all until past 5am. Since I was intending to do some driving, when I woke up less than 2 hours later, I asked my daughters to take care of the morning outside stuff and tried to get more sleep.

It didn’t work.

About an hour later, I found a direct message from my brother, asking if I’d heard anything. No one had called him. I had not heard anything, either.

I was tying my shoes, getting ready to head out, when the phone rang. It was the hospital, letting me know my mother was discharged and ready to go home with a prescription. After confirming which entrance I’d be picking her up at, I was on my way.

It turns out she’d spent the entire night basically in the waiting room, in between getting tests and Xrays done. There were no beds available. When I got there, she was talking to another older woman who had been there just as long as my mother, and still hadn’t been seen by a doctor! It was 15 hours in the ER by then!

I got my mother into the truck, and she was so tired, she wanted to go straight home. She was, at least, given a meal while she was there!

I tried to ask lots of questions about how things went, and she was already starting to forget details. I got information in dribs and drabs over the next while. When we were at her place, she showed me the hand written prescription she was given. I didn’t think she had one, since she also told me the doctor assured her copies of everything would go to both her doctor and the pharmacy.

The good news is, the issue found the last time she saw the doctor has improved. The bad news it, it had nothing to do with why she called the ambulance. She did get one of her prescription doses increased, though, and – little by little – she told me things the doctor suggested that we’ve already been trying to get her to do for … oh… several years now? She still flat out refuses to get a hospital bed.

Then she showed me the physical prescription. I couldn’t read some of it, but it looked like one medication’s dose was increase, so I said I would take it to the pharmacy and talk to them about it.

I’m glad I did. They needed that physical copy.

It turned out one medication was back to normal; the pharmacy didn’t even know there was a chance, since it was a temporary experiment. Another did have an increased dose. After some discussion, I went back to my mother’s to get her bubble packs, so they could add the change to them. It was going to take long enough that I had time to have breakfast while I waited!

By the time I got the updated bubble packs and brought them to my mother. She was sleeping soundly, so I just left them on her table with a note.

I think hung around town just long enough that the post office would be open when I got to our little hamlet. M, I got your surprise parcels, but have not looking them them yet. Thank you so much! I ended up having 4 packages, including a large but light one, so I messaged my daughters to have one of them meet me at the garage, to bring them in.

Once we got everything inside, it was late enough that I decided to top up the kibble for the outside cats.

That’s when I found a less pleasant surprise, on the ground under the water bowl shelter.

A stillborn kitten, still fully encased in its amniotic sac and attached to its placenta.

I went around to put kibble in the bowls under the shrine, and found a second one!

After that, I decided to do some walking around to see if there were any others.

There was not, so I buried the two that I found.

I don’t even know what cat was pregnant. There is one – I believe a sibling to Peanut Butter cup – that we’ve not been able to get close to, but I’ve been able to confirm as female. I think she might be pregnant. She’s so fluffy, it’s hard to tell, but if she is, she still is, and the stillborns were not hers. No other cat that I know is female looked even remotely pregnant.

After the sad job of burying the babies, I made a point of checking things I normally would have in my morning rounds. I find my morning rounds to be very meditative and enjoyable.

It was, however, hot and muggy. As I write this, just past 4pm, we’re at 29C/84F with the humidex at 32C/90F, and we haven’t even reached our high of the day, yet.

Yesterday, when I saw no rain in the forecast, I wrote that I would have expected thunderstorms. Well, last night, I did hear thunder in the distance as storms passed us by. While I was driving to get my mother, there were storm warnings on the radio, including the possibility of golf ball sized hail! Our local forecast now says rain should be starting around 11 or 12 this evening, and continuing until about 2am. We are now also expected to have rain all day Monday. We’re supposed to cool down slightly over the next few days, then get hot again. For us, that means close to, or hotter than, 30C/86F.

The conditions are frustrating. The coolest part of the day is in the morning, but the humidity is so high, it’s too damp to do anything like mowing or weed trimming. I need to get the weed trimmer out to work on the log frame of the low raised bed, but the winter squash plants are getting so big and long, it’s going to be a challenge to do the work without damaging them. I should be able to temporarily fix them to the trellis netting for the peas and beans, though.

So the grass cutting and weed trimming needs to wait until things are no longer too wet – but by then, it’s too hot. The temperatures don’t start coming down until about 7pm – and if the heat doesn’t get us, the mosquitoes and horseflies will! Bug spray or not bug spray!

Bah. At least the garden is planted. If we’re expecting rain tonight, I might take a chance and plant some kohlrabi in the empty space where the Purple Caribe potatoes didn’t come up.

But not until things start to cool down.

Until then, I’ve got a couple of boxes to open up and see what’s inside!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvesting scapes, first pumpkin, and a bit of nip!

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We’ve got a hot day coming, so I wanted to give the garden beds a solid watering, to help them cope with the coming heat. It was already 22C/72F at the time. I can’t remember what the humidex was.

While doing my morning rounds, though, I got a bit of a harvest.

There were quite a lot of scapes to harvest! There’s a few left to harvest over the next few days, but at this point, the bulk of them are harvested. We just need to figure out what we want to do with them all!

There were a few sugar snap peas large enough to pick. The little strawberries are the ones grown from seed last year, and the larger ones from the bare root plants we planted this spring. There is one plant among the asparagus that has berries, but the other three have been eaten, in spite of the barriers I put up to discourage the deer. *sigh*

I have spotted our first female pumpkin flower. The camera on my phone just did NOT want to focus on it, though. After I got the picture, I found a male flower and hand pollinated it. I later found a new female flower among the winter squash and was able to hand pollinate that one, too.

After a quick breakfast, my older daughter and I headed outside – my younger daughter is out of commission and walking with a cane again. 😢 We finally got around to removing the insulation around the base of the newer part of the house. This uncovered two windows – a third was already uncovered. These two windows don’t have screens on them, so I’m hoping to build some new screens for them. This way, we can have the windows open and allow more air circulation in the basement and hopefully help it dry out.

The insulation was taken to the barn for storage. My daughter took the smaller pieces in the wagon, fighting her way through the tall grass. With both of us, though, it took only two trips to get it all stored away.

Since I was going to be watering the garden anyway, I had decided to use the hose attachment and water soluble fertilizer. We have the 30-10-10 Acidifying fertilizer we’d found when cleaning out the old kitchen. Everything in the box was well sealed in plastic bags, so even though the box got wet at some point, the fertilizer is fine. With our alkaline soil, I decided it was worth trying. The peas and beans, of course, won’t get any benefit from the high nitrogen content, but anything that makes our soil at least closer to neutral will be a help.

I had a bit of trouble getting back into the sun room to get what I needed, though.

It was blocked.

Adam was nursing Button, in front of the door!

I was NOT about to interrupt Button getting some nip. Especially when he wasn’t having to fight the bigger kittens for it.

So I took advantage of the time to clear things on the patio blocks in front of the south facing basement window. The swing bench is there. The seat cushions have needed replacing for years, but I keep forgetting to get the measurements for cushions. Being out in the elements, moisture and debris gets caught in the fold between the back and the seat portions, so I undid the Velcro holding them in place and flipped the folds backwards for them to dry.

We stuck an old wooden bench against the wall that my daughter helped me move away after the insulation pieces were taken out. I ended up taking it off the patio blocks completely. All sorts of buckets and other things were stored under the bench, some of which got garbaged, some hosed off and set to dry in the sun. After that, it was old leaves, twigs, and other nature debris that needed to be scraped off the patio blocks and swept away. The window and the basement wall, of course, had to be swept clear of debris that got between the wall and the insulation pieces.

By the time I finished clearing that, Adam and Button were done, and I could fill the hose attachment and get to watering. The box of fertilizer has one large bag in it, with four smaller bags. One had been opened, but hardly anything had been used. Each one of the smaller bags was premeasured to put into the hose attachment. Handy! Of course, I used the one that was open already, even though it was missing a small amount, and set it up on the hose at the main garden area.

All the beds got a watering then, after the first watering had time to be absorbed by the soil, a second watering. Hopefully, it will be sufficient to protect the plants from the heat, even though a lot of these are heat loving plants.

I don’t know if the last Zucca melon will survive. When I did my evening rounds and checked on it, it was just covered in slugs, eaten to the point the stem with the newest growth on it broke off while I was removing the slugs! It still got a fertilizer watering, though.

That done, I switched to the front yard hose and did the East yard garden beds, and the beds along the chain link fence. There’s a section where we planted the Purple Caribe potatoes that never came up. I’m thinking of direct sowing something for a fall crop. I’m told we can actually still plant kohlrabi now, so I might do that. There is a single self seeded Jebousek lettuce that showed up in the gap, and I’m leaving it to go to seed, as it would be acclimating to our local conditions quite nicely by now. That, and the seed it came from survived the entire bed being reworked!

By the time the south and east beds were watered, the water in the attachment was looking pretty clear, so for the old kitchen garden, I switched gears. I used watering cans and water from the rain barrel, opening another bag of fertilizer and adding measured amounts into the cans after filling them. As I was watering, I spotted some Forme de Couer tomatoes developing!

I just realized; I forgot to water the green zucchini in the pot. The Magda and White Scallop pots still have nothing in then, and I’ve figured out part of the problem. I’ve got stakes to keep the cats out, but the kittens still fit! I’ve been finding kittens curled up in between the stakes, right over where the seeds were planted.

*sigh*

Oh, that reminds me. We now have all four G-Star seeds I planted, in the bed with the onions and shallots, germinated and starting to show their true leaves. Still nothing with the Magda and White Scallop I planted at the same time. I was really hoping to get those. We quite enjoyed the few Madga squash we’ve been able to grow over the years, and the White Scallop patty pans are a new variety we were really looking forward to trying. The G-Star, however, seem to thrive here, so we should at least get some of those!

After everything was watered, I took the time to put away some plastic for the garden. I’d laid the pieces out on the grass, weighted down to keep them from blowing away, to dry. Instead, it rained, and ended up with puddled. After a while, they were starting to kill the grass, so I finally gave up on that idea. Yesterday evening, I hung them up on the clothes line, instead. They’re pretty long, even with the biggest piece folded in half, so there was a risk the cats would start playing with the ends and tearing them up.

The wind was starting to pick up, and the plastic was starting to get twisted on the line, so I took them down. The biggest piece got folded smaller, before being rolled up into a bundle. The other pieces were long and thin – mostly clear garbage bags with the sides cut, and used to solarize a garden bed. Those got rolled up around a stick.

By the time I got inside and checked the temperature, we were – and still are – at 28C/82F, with the humidex at 31C/88F. The high for today is expected to reach 30C/86F.

I can’t complain. In the city we lived in before moving here, they hit 36C/97F with the humidex at 40C/104F, yesterday. Mind you, we’re expected to reach a humidex of 40C/104F today ourselves, even with a lower expected high. Most of the prairies, now extending into southwestern Ontario, are under extreme heat warnings. Tomorrow is supposed to be much of the same.

Looking at the extended forecast, we’re not supposed to get any more rain until the beginning of August, and temperatures are expected to remain high. Given the heat and humidity levels, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get sudden thunderstorms in there.

Well, all those squash and melons, peppers and eggplants, are going to love the heat! They might get a chance to really get growing.

Hmm. This is interesting. I just checked a completely different weather app, and it says we have a 100% chance of rain on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Every app seems to have a different forecast!

We shall see.

Until then, we’re going to hunker down inside the house. It’s not supposed to cool off out there until 7pm, and even our overnight temperature is supposed to be a low of 21C/70F!

Gotta love the prairies. We get as hot in the summer as we do cold in the winter!

The Re-Farmer

What a day

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We’re at 27C/81F right now, with the humidex at 33C/91F It’s sunny, hot, humid, and there’s virtually no breeze at all.

A perfect day to be fighting with our septic system again, right?

*sigh*

I actually wasn’t feeling very good this morning. The girls took care of the usual outside stuff for me so I could go back to bed. They’d been up all night, of course, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures for my older daughter to work on her commissions, and do things like their laundry. We’re still running the hose out the storm door window, so at not to add more wear and tear to the septic system.

When I finally got up, I thought I was hearing a pump running, but we’ve got so many fans going, I wasn’t sure. I went down to check and, sure enough, the pump was running dry again.

I tried the usual things. Priming the filter and turning the pump’s switch on again, only for it to still start running, draining the filter and continuing to running dry. I even stuck the hose through the floor pipe, but there were no blockages. I checked the tank, and everything looked normal, there. The grey water side was pretty full, but not so full as to trigger the float yet.

So I grabbed a particularly strong hoe that we have. I actually remember using it as a child. At some point, the original handle must have broken, and the head was welded onto some steel pipe. That thing is practically indestructible. I also grabbed a flexible drain cleaner meant to be used in sinks, thinking it could be used on the outflow pipe.

I also made sure to be wearing my rubber boots!

I went through the barn’s back door to go around the outflow pipe from the far side. This gave me a chance to see the state of things on the downhill side.

I look forward to when the renter’s cows are here. The grass is chest high right now!

The outflow pipe has a sheet of metal roofing material under it, to guide the flow of water away and towards a sort of pond; it’s a low area that is dry most of the year, but hold water in the spring.

Before I could even get to it, I was using the hoe to cut away a forest of burdock. None gone to seed yet, thankfully. Just really tall and lush growth!

[sidetrack: after water was used again, I turned the pump back on. I had to prime the filter again, but the pump did finally start to actually draw water from the tank, then ran and shut itself off, as it’s supposed to. Yay!]

I eventually found where the sheet of metal was buried and started clearing that off of mud and crab grass – and even a bullrush! That cleared off the metal fairly easily, but I found that the entire sheet had been shifted at the end, likely from cows walking over it. I also found a spot where the metal had rusted away completely.

Once I got it clear of gunk and could move it, it was obvious it needed to be replaced. In between where the outflow is, and the barn, there is a lot of stuff, including leftover sheets of metal roofing. I started through the tall grass towards where they were and conveniently found a long sheet that the wind had blown closer. Even better, one end of it was curled, while the other was flat.

How perfect can it get?

While I pulled out the old sheet, it basically folded in on itself where it had a corroded chunk missing. I set the folded end to one side of the outflow pipe, partly to keep things from growing back beside it, and partly to make use the curled end of the new sheet didn’t end up flopping in that direction. With the way the water had been flowing, it was draining towards that side, and pooling by the collapsed log building behind it.

Once the new sheet was in place, I dug around in the grass and found some old branches that I lay on it, to weigh it down. I don’t want it to blow away, the next time we get high winds.

That done, I popped the cap open and pulled out the outflow pipe (it’s all one piece). It’s quite long, and the overhanding willow branches got in the way. I’ll have to go back with the loppers and cut them away.

At the bottom of the pipe is what my brother called a Venturi. I had to look it up, and I guess he meant venturi pipe? Anyhow, it has a section at the bottom that comes almost to a point. I went to clear it with the drain cleaning rod I brought – it has bristles at the end, like a bottle brush – but couldn’t get very far. It was clear, anyhow. So back it went, and I made sure I felt it pop into position at the bottom.

So at this end, at least, things should be working better. I’ll have to check it to make sure it’s directing the flow to where it should, properly, or if the metal sheet needs to be shifted or something. I even made sure to walk down the middle of it, to the flat end, to create a bit of a hollow. The roofing metal already has ridges to directed the flow of water, so it shouldn’t be an issue, for the amount of water that flows through at a time, but I’d rather take the extra precautions! The only real issue I can think of is that the renter’s cows will probably walk on it. There used to be a barbed wire fence around it, and the low area the water is supposed to drain into, but that collapsed long ago.

That done, I went back and tested the pump again, and it still kept just draining the filter and running dry. I finally primed the filter and just left the pump off.

Getting back into the house, however, was a challenge.

The sun room was blocked!

Driver was not only nursing her four, just inside the doorway, but Button was in there, too! Driver would have only four active nips, though, but Button was quite aggressive about getting access to one of them!

With the washing machine hose through the main entry, the storm door is locked from the inside, so the cats don’t accidentally open it and get out. The inner door at the the dining room has a security latch. We installed it because of our vandal, but we’ve since discovered that, as the house shifts, the inner and outer doors sometimes pop open on their own. The storm door, I can see, but the inner door, too? So those doors are locked and latched from the inside, all the time.

Well, I needed to hose off the hoe and drain cleaner wire, anyhow. By the time that was done, Driver had moved.

By this time, it was past noon and I hadn’t eaten yet, so after checking the pump and it still running, I just left it off. I knew it would soon need to actually empty the tank and, even if we didn’t use much water ourselves, the weeping tile under the new basement is constantly draining into there, so it wouldn’t be long before I’d need to turn it on again.

It was almost another hour before I finally settled down with some food! Since I’d slept in, I hadn’t had breakfast, and was so hungry, I was feeling sick. Especially out in that heat!

Since then, the pump has been turned back on and is working again. I’m glad we can see into the filter like that. I knew the tank should have been full enough to be emptied, so I was watching closely. After the pump drained the filter and started running dry again, I primed it and tried again. This time, I could just see water starting to flow into the filter, so I left it running. It was slow going, but it finally started to pull more water, and was at least not running dry. A little longer, and the flow of water increased, and I could see it splashing against the clear lid. I puttered around in the basement as it ran, and was happy to hear it turn itself off on its own, just like it should!

The basements, meanwhile, are still pretty wet. The old basement is pretty much wet all summer, but it’s the new basement that is the concern. It has weeping tile. It shouldn’t be so wet. I ended up moving one of the blower fans into the new basement, and set it up on a block near the middle of the basement, pointing downwards. The oscillating pedestal fan got moved closer into the wettest corner. Between the two of them, things should start drying off. It’s a shame I can only open one of the basement windows for air circulation. The other two are missing their screens.

So that’s what I’ve been fighting with all day – but I’ll leave you with more cuteness! I got this photo through the bathroom window. I didn’t want to disturb them!

Yes, they are both asleep. Button draped over that sponge (they love to play with that sponge, so I gave up trying to put it back on the shelf! 😄) is just the cutest thing, ever!

I’ve sent pictures of Button to the Cat Lady to share in her groups. We can’t bring him inside. Aside from already having too many cats indoors, as long as he stays close to the house, he’s got at least two, maybe three, mamas that are willing to nurse him, and he’s way too little to be weaned. Better a mama, outside, than a bottle, inside! But there might be someone out there willing to rescue an abandoned kitten, and willing to bottle feed him until he’s old enough to be fully weaned.

I was able to give the kittens some leftover turkey as a treat today, and made sure to give Button his own piece, away from the other cats and kittens. He does love his solid food, that’s for sure! Hopefully, he will grow big and strong and healthy.

Speaking of which, my daughter got a look at Shop Towel’s cheek while feeding the cats this morning. She says it looks like a hole! My guess is the original wound got infected and maybe abscessed? He is, however, eating normally and doesn’t seem to be bothered by it. It’s not bleeding or anything like that, and since it’s not being bothered by insects, it’s not leaking any fluids, either. It’s just… there.

What’s interesting is that he’s been really good with the kittens. Where other adult cats, both males and some of the more feral mothers, will bat at the kittens, or growl and hiss at them, he is just fine with them. I’ve seen him curled up and sleeping on the log pile by the old garden shed, with Broccoli and her two kittens curled up and sleeping on another log next to him. At night, the sun room kittens like to pile up together in different “rooms” of the cat cage, while a mama or two like to sleep on top of it. This morning, my daughter found Shop Towel curled up in one of the cat beds on the cage – with several kittens! So he’ll attack an adult cat, unprovoked, but is a cuddle bug with the babies. While I can appreciate it, it does seem quite strange!

Hmm. I was wondering if it would be worth it to try and get some stuff down outside. The temperature had dropped while I was working on this, but it’s gone right back up to what it was when I started! It’s not supposed to start cooling down until about 8pm, and it’s just past 3pm as I write this.

*sigh*

Well, it is what it is. We’ll just have to get used to it.

The Re-Farmer

Well, colour me not-surprised…

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Yes, I’m hearing thunder out there.

And what does the weather app now say?

Current weather 2:21 PM
Partly sunny 26°C Feels like ‎32°C
Thunderstorms will move through your area. The high will be 26° on this humid day.

That small system with storms in it that I saw to the North of us on the weather radar grew a lot bigger as it passed over the lakes closer to us.

Meanwhile, most of Western Canada, as well as both the East and West coasts of the US, are under “severe weather” alerts.

It still says only a 49% chance of rain for us, though.

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer