The cherries at the edge of the spruce grove are blooming like crazy right now. We might actually have berries from them this year. The one by the house – the one we plan to keep – is just starting to bloom. Usually, it blooms before the ones in the bushes.
The different types of lilacs are showing flower buds, but only the double lilac in the old kitchen garden is starting to show a few open blossoms. Most of the crab apple trees have buds, but the one big one that has tasty apples just sort of exploded in flowers this morning.
The grape hyacinths have their flower cones up. Little spots of purple, all over the area they’re in. Unfortunately, they are almost completely hidden by the purple bellflower that has taken over every open space among the trees. The area is too large to weed by hand, but I don’t want to use tools or the weed trimmer, and risk accidentally taking out the grape hyacinths.
I’m really looking forward to when the lilacs start opening. We’ve got five different kinds that my mother planted, and they all bloom at different types. Everything smells amazing for weeks!
I also made sure to check our little strawberry patch. Something – likely the cats – keeps digging into the mulch, but not the strawberries. I just need to put the mulch back in the morning, and everything else is okay.
It looks like 8 out of 9 are doing quite well right now. The 9th one does have leaf buds on it, so it will hopefully recover soon. Considering we ordered a package of 8, that one’s a bonus, anyhow!
Hopefully, these will do quite well where they are – as long as the bed doesn’t get invaded by those Chinese elm roots again!
They weren’t too happy to seem me. 😁 Still, I got to hold them for a bit while I straightened out their bedding, then pet them before putting them back. Then I left food for their mother. I’m so glad she hasn’t moved them! The outside mamas have all been notorious for moving their babies as soon as we figured out where they were, until they were too big to conveniently move. Which means these once have a chance of being socialized. I have no idea how many other litters there are right now, or where they are. None of tried using the cat house, nor the old dog houses behind the garage that were set up as general critter shelters. I think Brussel might have had her kittens in the garage, but only because I see her there fairly regularly. It seems to be her preferred home, in general. Where in the garage, I can’t figure out. Nothing in there seems like it would be a good nesting area for kittens.
Ah, well. When the times comes, they’ll start showing up, and then we’ll figure it out.
The rhubarb in the south corner of the old kitchen garden is doing very well. I harvested a bunch, which should open things up and give the other stalks more room to grow. I have no idea what we will do with it. Maybe we have the ingredients for the rhubarb cake my daughter likes to make.
Today is turned out to be an off day. Since I did a dump run and a Walmart trip, it should have been a recovery day. Instead, I woke up stiff and sore in every joint. This, on top of a mostly sleepless night. I couldn’t get myself to bed until well past 1am; I knew trying to go to bed earlier would just be an exercise in frustration. Then, once I did finally get to bed, several cats suddenly got the zoomies, and were chasing each other around the house. That, of course, included running right over me in bed, as well as getting into placed they are not allowed.
Still, I should not have been waking up in so much pain, and just sooooo sleepy.
Then I checked the weather and realized why.
The rain we weren’t supposed to get until Friday arrived early. Just scattered showers, but still cloudy and dreary out there. Depending on which weather app I check, we’ll either get a bit of rain today, none tomorrow, then rain on Friday – or we will be getting scattered showers tomorrow as well.
This sort of weather has always made me feel sleepy. Even when I was a kid, it had that affect on me. Then I developed osteo-arthritis, and this sort of weather triggers it, badly. Everything hurts. Not severely, but enough to make moving around rather unpleasant, to say the least!
Things are supposed to clear up and warm up a bit, later, so I think I’ll take some painkillers and try lying down for a couple of hours – if I can squeeze in amongst the cats, that seem to be worn out from all their running around last night, and are now sprawled across my bed!
I can’t afford too many days like this. There is too much work to do outside!
I had a really hard time getting going this morning, so I was a bit late in feeding the outside cats. Once I saw Broccoli, though, I just had to go and check on her babies!
They are definitely getting bigger and more attentive to what’s going on around them. The little calico would let out a hiss, every now and then. I picked them both up to straighten out their blanket a bit, and made sure to pet them, so get them used to human interaction.
Then I left some food for Broccoli inside the shed, plus a sheltered area outside the shed.
I’ll have to go out to check later, but as I was finishing up, I took the container with the remains of Cat Soup out. Yesterday, when it seemed most of cats weren’t too keen on it, I tried something. I emptied the remains of dry kibbles from the other bowls into the Cat Soup and mixed it all up. That made it more of a paste than a soup, and it made a big difference. Most cats were willing to eat it. So, next time we do this, we’ll use less water. My daughter suggested reducing the amount of ground pumpkin seed, too, as that likely has a stronger taste than using the same amount of pumpkin puree.
One thing that made me happy was seeing our elderly Freya going back to eat throughout the evening. She ate more last night than I’ve seen her eat in quite a long time. That alone will keep us making this stuff when we do their wet cat food!
Still, with the kibble mixed in, there was quite a lot, so I took what was left in the morning and set it outside for the yard cats. I’ve no doubt that bowl will be licked clean by the time I go back to get it!
I just got back from feeding the outside cats. Shop Towel, aka: Sad Face, made an appearance – and he was really living up to his alternate name! He’s looking so beat up.
The wounds you can see on his side were full of wood ticks, too. He was so hungry, not only did he let me touch him, but he let me pull all the ticks off!
Unfortunately, he tends to be the one starting the fights, and he’s considerably larger than most of the yard cats. He may be getting on in years, for a feral, but he is brutal.
I had to do a dump run today and took advantage of the trip to head into the nearer city’s Walmart and pick up a few things. While there, I tried to find canned pumpkin to use in Cat Soup, but couldn’t find any. They didn’t even have pumpkin pie filling. Or any pie filling, for that matter.
This is a very small Walmart.
So I got raw, unsalted pumpkin seeds, instead. Once at home, I ground them to a powder, and we made a half recipe of the Furball Farm Sanctuary cat soup recipe. The leftover powder is being kept in the fridge. Pumpkin seeds are an oily seed, and we don’t want it to go rancid.
Most of the cats ignored it, but Freya, our grand old lady, loved it! She’s one that I am concerned about, as she seems to have something going on in her mouth that she won’t let us look at, and isn’t eating as much. She has trouble with the dry kibble in particular. So seeing her enthusiastic about this stuff is very encouraging.
Now, if we could get Peanut Butter Cup eating it, too, that would be great. The lysine in it should help with her respiratory issues, and the ground pumpkin seed with her… leakiness. Actually, several cats are more… liquid… than they should be, so it’ll be good for all of them.
PBC, however, slept through the commotion.
*pause*
I just woke her up with some pets, then set her by the bowl we have in my bedroom. She is now enthusiastically enjoying it!
Since this is the first time we’ve made it, we don’t have any appropriate bowls. Instead, we’ve commandeered a lasagna pan for the dining room, and a cake pan for my bedroom. If this becomes a regular thing, we’ll make sure to have something just for the cat soup and 22 cats!
We’re running low on lysine, though. Gotta order more. We’re stuck with the granular type still; it’s the only kind I can find in the larger bulk sizes. Still no luck finding it in a fine powder form, which will stick to the kibble when we toss it together. There is a type that’s available in 4 pound buckets. It’s meant for horses, but lysine is lysine, isn’t it? I don’t know if it is granular or fine powder, but since we’re already using the granular, I guess it doesn’t matter much. Another reason to be making the cat soup. We can dissolve the lysine in it.
1/8 cup pumpkin – in our case, raw, unsalted, hulled pumpkin seeds ground to a powder
6 cans cat food
1 cup warm water
To make it thicker or thinner, adjust the amount of water or canned cat food. Today, the tins at the top of the case where shredded turkey in gravy, so we probably could have reduced the water by half. Instead, I accidentally put in 1 1/2 cups water. The markings on our plastic liquid measuring cups as worn off, but I thought the one I used was only 1 cup. My daughter was helping me and pointed out it was 1 1/2 cups! Oops. 😄
We don’t have a pitcher type blender, but we do have an immersion blender, so that’s what we used. Our deep, 8 cup measuring cup was a good size for this, with room enough to keep anything from splashing outside the cup while being blended.
So far, only a few of the cats seem to like it, but the two we are most concerned about like it a lot, and they are why we are trying this! Yay!
Finding and fighting the bigger tree roots was bad enough. Once I was finally clear of those and working my way through new ground to the other end, I had another issue. At about the middle, I started hitting mats of Creeping Charlie. At that point, I didn’t even try to weed them, and was just digging out and tossing aside sod. Plus, I kept hitting rocks. Not particularly large rocks, but lots of them.
So now the new edges of the bed are clear, and the soil piled in the middle … mostly. The hole where I dug out the most roots got filled, but that’s it.
The next bed is probably going to be done differently. One side of it is so infested with Creeping Charlie, it’s not worth weeding or shifting the soil I’ll probably remove the infested soil completely. Which sucks, because we worked really hard to amend that soil for our vegetables, not for the Creeping Charlie!
I won’t be starting it today, though. Time to pain killer up again, and take a break.
I keep forgetting that I’m getting too old and broken for this.
I decided not to continue with prepping the garden bed I started working on yesterday. That area was in full sun, it was hot, and the mosquitoes were out in full force. So, other than helping my daughter drag out the first of the 18′ logs she prepped (she also cut two 4′ pieces for the ends, and they are now waiting to be debarked and have any branch bits cut flat), I stayed inside.
Instead, I went to be unusually early for me – at about 8pm – and actually fell asleep and everything! I was awake by 5am. Usually, I do my morning rounds, have breakfast, then head back out to do the more laborious stuff. This time, I made sure to eat first, then just stayed out after doing my rounds, so work on the garden bed.
I got distracted.
The first distraction was remembering to put netting over the chimney block planters at the chain link fence.
I had a roll of netting just long enough to cover the length of these blocks. It was actually longer than needed, but this piece has a tear near one end that was “sewn” together with twine. I made sure that end was the excess netting wrapped around the far end of the blocks
So that area is now protected from getting smothered by the elm seeds.
Of course, I checked the other beds, then gathered my tools to continue working on the low raised bed.
I had the loppers with me, to cut away the roots I knew I would find.
… I went into the edge of the spruce grove and started clearing things away from the Saskatoon bushes. There’s a lot of chokecherries crowding them – one bunch was so entwined, I accidentally cut away some Saskatoon branches along with the chokecherry! There were quite a lot of dead, broken branches to clear away. Those were broken by the deer standing up on their hind legs to reach the berries, and pulling the branches down. There was an elm growing right from the based of some Saskatoons. I cut most of it away, but will have to come back with a saw to get the rest of it.
That was just the big stuff. The next thing to do will be to clear away the false spirea.
Again.
I had this whole area cleared of the spirea, a few years ago! It’s all completely filled in again. That stuff is so hard to get rid of, and so invasive!
That will be for another time. Getting those chokecherries out was the main thing. The Saskatoons will no longer be competing with them for water and nutrients, and they will get more sunlight, too. These Saskatoons are the healthiest ones we’ve found. There are others, out by the garage, but every year, as the berries start to form, they start to get what looks like some sort of fungus. So we want to be keeping these ones by the house well cared for and healthy.
That done, it was time to finally get back to that bed!
The first part of the job went well enough. I cleared the weeds out of the second half of the bed, and started piling the soil up onto the half I cleared yesterday, shifting the edge of the bed in the process.
Trouble started at the end nearest the trees, where I was breaking new ground to the 18′ mark. I already knew there were roots under there, but I kept finding more! The finer roots are one thing, but those larger ones – even the smallest of them – are much more difficult to get out. After shoveling the soil away as best I could, I took a hose to them. Partly to make them easier to see, partly to wash the grit off the roots so I could more easily cut them with the loppers and not damage the cutting edge.
I didn’t get all of them out, but I did make sure to cut them at the tree side of the roots, pull them up and dig them out as far as was reasonable, then cut them out. Anything left should die off.
I hope.
Once those were out, I started putting some of the soil back into the hole and leveling off the side where a log will be placed. Then I started digging out past the existing bed, along the 18′ line to corner marking the new 4′ width of the bed, breaking new ground.
Where I found more roots, besides the one that I was hitting when putting the marker back up.
These ones continued through to what will be the path between beds, so I cut them away to that point.
At which point, it was time for a hydration break!
One of the things I remembered to do once inside was to turn the aquarium greenhouse lights back on. Since I was there anyhow, I decided to check on the pumpkin seeds I’d scarified and set to pre-germinate.
I got an early start today, and a lot has been accomplished this morning. I’ve come inside for a hydration brake. More on that later, though. First, the cuteness!
While feeding the outside cats this morning, Broccoli came over – and she even let me pet her! It’s been quite a while! So I went to check on her babies, straightened their bed out a bit, and left some food for her in the garden shed.
I counted 19 or 20 cats this morning, and one of them was Driver. I haven’t seen him in a while! He was very vocal about wanting breakfast. He even let me not only pet him, but remove some ticks as well.
After getting a few other things done, I started working on the garden bed I’d started yesterday, and was thoroughly entertained.
I’ve been finding some of the markers on the ground pretty regularly. One was hitting a rock, so I dug that out, and now it stays up. Another was down this morning and I was hitting something as I tried to put it back. I figured I would dig out the rock, except it turned out to be a root! One of the markers holding the twine by the first trellis bed was on the ground, too, even though it was braced with a rock.
Yes, all of them have the spinners on them. I figured the high winds we’ve been having were part of the problem, but now it looks like it’s been cats helping them down, too! At least the one at the far end is deep in the ground and staying up. 😄😄
In one sense, I got a lot done this morning. In another, I did not get much done – at least not in what is the biggest job. More on that in my next post!
I’ve stopped for a hydration break and to get out of the sun and heat. As I write this, we’ve reached our predicted high of 19C/66F. The winds are still pretty high, which does help, but it was time to go in! I’m not sure if I’ll be heading back out again today, or not. It depends on how my pain levels are. I did remember to take painkillers before I started, at least!
I got a couple of “before” pictures before I started. The marker for what will be the path between the bed that got done yesterday is almost exactly at the middle of the next bed to work on. Which means half the bed will need to be shifted on top of the other half.
The first thing that needed to be done was to loosen the soil in the entire bed with the garden fork. Years of amending these beds has really made a difference! When we started growing here, we could barely get a spade or garden fork into the soil more than a couple of inches. Now, I can push the tines on the garden fork all the way into the ground! The rains have certainly helped to soften the soil, too. It is already just moist, though, and not at all soggy.
The drainage here is a bit too good!
Next was to start weeding along the side that will be the middle of the bed, once everything is shifted over. This bed had a lot more dandelion tap roots to get rid of, compared to the crab grass rhizomes. The rhizomes are more of an issue along the edges.
As expected, once I started getting closer to the trees, I was catching more and more elm roots. Plus more larger rocks. One of the marking posts kept falling down because it couldn’t go deep enough into the soil. I ended up getting a trowel and digging out the rock it was hitting, right at the 4′ measurement that needed to be marked.
Then I started hitting larger roots.
I extended the weeding up to the 18′ mark, beyond the existing bed, which is about 17′ long, counting the width of the logs that had framed it. In the last picture of the above Instagram slide show, you can see one of the tree roots partially pulled up and draped over the handle of the garden fork. There’s another, larger root that runs across and into what is currently the path. I’ll have to bring the loppers over cut that, and any other roots I find along the way.
I just had to get a picture of the tree branches against the sky. The maple trees are leafing out nicely, with all the rain we’ve been having, but the Chinese elms… They’re not getting their leaves yet. They get their seeds, first. All that green on those branches is seeds, seeds and more seeds.
Seeds that will mature, dry up, turn brown, and fall.
A whole storm of them, blowing and drifting and getting into everything.
So. Many. Seeds.
I’ve started to really, really dislike these trees! Not only do their roots invade up into our garden beds and grow bags, but they suffocate everything around them with their seeds – and once those little buggers start germinating, they have ridiculously long and strong tap roots that makes weeding them far more difficult than one would think, when pulling on a tiny little seedling to weed them out!
I wonder if I have enough plastic to cover these beds and solarize them before their log walls get added? I definitely have enough for at least a couple of beds. It might be worth sacrificing more of our clear garbage bags, if it’ll keep those god-awful seeds off the bare soil!
While working, I was thinking about what to do with the paths, since they are basically all crab grass, not lawn grass. It might be worth investing in some landscape cloth, weed whacking them as close to the ground as possible, covering them with the landscape cloth, then covering them with wood chips.
Something to think about, after these beds are done!
The Re-Farmer 