Recently, I saw this video from Gardening in Canada.
I liked what I saw with the seed starting kit, and her review of it. The main thing being, each tray has its own grow light, and we have lighting issues. The price was in the Cdn$30 range, which isn’t much more than getting a seed starting greenhouse kit, with the 72 pellets and dome, making it well worth picking up. So I logged into my husband’s Amazon Prime account and put it on my own wish list. I was planning to get it on our March budget, and the first disability pay was coming in soon, so I put it in the cart, too.
What I didn’t expect was for my husband to place an order before the end of the month! He saw it in the card, and included it with his own order.
It came in today.
Here are the contents.
As you can see, the cats were very interested, too!
At the top, under Cheddar, are the 5 green base trays for bottom watering and the 5 clear growing cells. Next to Soot Sprite are the tall cloche lids, each with an indentation for the lights and openings to allow moisture to escape.
Bottom left are a pair of tiny little garden gloves. Okay, tiny for me and my wide, simian hands! On top of the gloves are the label markers. Above them are a pair of very interesting looking tools!
Bottom right are the LED lights, tops and bottoms showing. Once inserted into the covers, they can be turned to cover or uncover the openings and control moisture levels. There’s the instruction sheet, and finally the cable to power the lights.
It was the cable that I was unsure of, and this is why.
It’s USB, with octopus cables for each of the lights.
We are going to not only need an adapter to plug this in, but an extension cable. A long one. There are no outlets anywhere near where we can set these up, and the one power bar we have with USB slots on it, both are being used for phone different chargers.
I’m pretty sure we already have both the extension cable and spare adapters. I’ll have to check with my husband, as he tends to have things like that with his computer stuff.
The one surprise for me is that I somehow expected the trays to be bigger. I don’t know why, since I saw them being handled in the video.
We don’t need to start seeds again until after mid March, so we have time to arrange a set up for the trays in the cat free zone, then work out getting power to that USB cable.
I was keeping an eye on the local highway conditions groups last night, and apparently things were pretty bad. We didn’t get a large amount of snow, but the high winds made the biggest difference.
It was all over by this morning, though.
I got this shot as I was coming back inside, and they were all done with breakfast. This bunch is directly under the heat lamp. The mostly black one is friendly, and the orange one allows pets most of the time. The tabby with his head tucked allows pets at feeding time, but that’s it. The other tabby runs off. The tuxedo on the left is at that “hey! I think I actually like this… maybe?” stage of discovering pets.
I love that black strip on his nose.
Once again, it seems the racoons visited during the night. The water bowl in the sun room was dry, even though I’d refilled it during the evening feeding, and I had to clean dirt off the bottom before I could refill it.
After their food and water was done, I started shoveling.
And shoveling.
And shoveling some more!
Fair warning, there is a photo of a wound later on.
I was able to clear the cat shelters and the cat paths to the food bowls under the shrine, and to the corner of the storage house, where they go in and out of the “basement”. The cats get SO excited when their paths are clear! It’s hilarious to watch them running around and playing in the paths. I then made sure to clear the sidewalk to the gate in the chain link fence wide enough for my husband’s walker walker. The snow was still light and fluffy, though, so I kept going and cleared the area I back up into, to unload the truck. The rest of the driving area will wait for the snow blower, though.
Then, because I actually enjoy shoveling snow, I kept going and cleared paths to the burn barrel and electricity meter, before continuing to the garage. The path to the garage needs to be wide enough for my husband’s walker, plus I cleared enough in front of the driveway that we can open the side doors where little Spewie is stored. The snow isn’t deep enough that clearing the driveway and yard is a necessity, but we’re supposed to get more snow later in the week, so it’s more to keep things from accumulating.
It’s stuff like this that’s the problem, though.
That’s a whole lot of ice under the snow!
This is the path to the garage where it crosses the “driveway” to the inner yard. That area is lower and collects water, so when we had our nice, warm days with all the snow melting, the moat around the garage started to form. A couple of days ago, we reached a high of 6C/43F, only to have a high of -11C/12F yesterday. This morning, while I was shoveling, we were at a very mild -7C/19F, which was perfect for shoveling – as long as I was out of the wind. However, I kept hitting patches like this, which can be quite dangerous to find unexpectedly. In the inner yard alone, around the cat shelters, I almost slipped a few times.
I was still shoveling in the inner yard when I suddenly noticed this.
I have no idea where I got this, but by the time I noticed it, enough time had passed that it had stopped bleeding. My cuff kept sliding over it while I was shoveling, which is why it looks so horrible!
I just kept shoveling, though. No point in stopping when it wasn’t bleeding anymore, and didn’t hurt at all. Once I was inside, my daughter was handy, so after I washed the blood off, she got the wound all cleaned up and bandaged for me. The wound was actually a lot bigger than I expected, and it’s a couple of scratches, not just one.
I keep going through what I did before I started shoveling, trying to figure out where or how I could have gotten this, and I’m still drawing a blank!
Ah, well.
The paths to the compost pile, outhouse and the back door of the garage still need to be done, but I stopped for a while and finished my rounds instead. My daughter, sweetheart that she is, made breakfast for me after tending my wound. The more time goes by, the stiffer my body is getting, from the shoveling. 🫤 Time for some more painkillers, I think!
Tomorrow, I’m expecting to do our Costco shopping, so if we’re going to get the rest of the driving area in the inner yard done, it’s going to have to be today. Unless the girls do it while I’m gone tomorrow, but tomorrow is supposed to get much colder again. Current forecast is for a high of -5C/23F today, but a high of -18C/~-1F tomorrow. We’re also expected to be getting some light snow from about 4pm tonight until 4am tomorrow morning.
Oh, wow! I’m just looking at our record highs and lows for today. The record high is 5C/41F in 1999, but the record low for today is -34C/-29F, set back in 1962! The average high for this time of year is a nice and mild -7C/19F.
A few more days and we’re into March. The time feels like it is really flying by, this winter! Maybe it’s because my brain is constantly thinking ahead, to what we need and want to do, once spring arrives.
The next few days are going to be really busy ones, with our stock up shopping and other end of month errands, so I’m going to appreciate having one more quiet day, with no running around involved – and no crowds of people!
For us, building our raised beds is a matter of using what materials we can get without having to buy anything. We’re scrounging and salvaging whatever we can.
If, however, you are in a position to actually purchase raised beds, there are a lot of options, kits and companies out there to choose from.
Gardening in Canada covers some of the things to think about – and a few things I didn’t think about at all, since they’re pretty irrelevant to our situation. This video is well worth a watch.
After we’ve built more of our raised beds, I think I might do a video about them. Everyone has their own very individual situations to consider. Perhaps it might be useful to people if I go through my thought processes as to why we made the choices we did, and apply that process to their own situation.
I try to keep Sundays as my day of rest, but that doesn’t always work out. Today, I finally did, though not from much choice! 😄
I was awakened early by hungry cats, so I went ahead and did my morning rounds early, too.
The outside cats get rather confused when I come out that early! The sun was barely up. I got a head count of 28 or 29, though.
Also, I can tell when the racoons have gotten in. Now only is the garbage can typically knocked over, but they leave the water bowl absolutely filthy! Ew.
As I was heading back in, these four posed beautifully for me. When I moved to pet them, after taking this picture, the tuxedo with his back to me took off. Syndol, of course, wanted aaaaalllll the pets and pushed the orange and white away to get them. 😄 I tried to pet the tuxedo with more white on its chest. He wouldn’t let me, but he didn’t run away, either. As I pet Syndol, he sniffed my hand – then started giving me kisses!! It was so sweet!
Once back inside, I uploaded and went through the trail cam files. No computer troubles! Yay! I did have a surprise, though. The gate cam is set to take one still image, then a 10 second video. I was going through the stills when I saw a great big racoon near the gate, but the next image… what the heck was that? Something looked to be jumping through the bottom bars of the gate, but I could not tell what it was.
Then I checked the video.
It was a fox!
We know we have foxes around, but very rarely see them. I think we saw a fox crossing the outer yard once, our first summer here? I only vaguely remember.
So… now I’m wondering if we’re feeding foxes in the kibble house, too!
One of these days, I’d love to set up a critter cam facing into the cat shelter area, just to see what visitors we get! Any camera there would have its motion sensor constantly triggered, so I’d be looking for something NOT on batteries.
Maybe some day.
Anyhow.
After going through the files, I tried to get other stuff done on the computer, but was falling asleep at my keyboard, so I finally gave up and tried for a nap. After fighting the cats for space on my bed, they converged on me as soon as I was lying down. Potato Beetle was really cuddly! He kept shoving his face into my hands, and ended up sleeping curled up around the top of my head, with his face snuggled up against my forehead. It was so sweet!
I’m happy to say that, at some point, PBC joined the pile and napped with me, too! She’s getting quite socialized. She still gets a bit standoffish, but likes pets, purrs lots, and cuddles with the other cats.
Speaking of cats.
I heard from the Cat Lady last night. She has someone that’s looking to adopt. It’s an older person who is healthy and living on her own, but is lonely. So she’s looking for a calm and affectionate cat. Given her age, her family has already said that they will take care of the cat when she passes, but that’s unlikely to happen soon. The Cat Lady told her about Ginger, but asked if we had others that might fit the bill. So we sent her pictures and told her about several others, including Cheddar and Potato Beetle. Ginger would still be top of the list. She asked about PBC, but while she’d be great to adopt out, I don’t think she’d be appropriate for someone that’s elderly.
So that information has been passed on. It would be good for Ginger to be away from so many cats, and to have his very own human. Things like his needing help to clean his ears, since he can’t do the ear on the side of his missing leg – something Toni manages to not have a problem with! – have been mentioned. If he gets picked, he will first stay with the Cat Lady as he gets vet checked and shots, etc. first. With our history with cats, that makes me nervous. The vets always seem to find some hidden but major health problem! Okay, so it hasn’t been all of them, but enough to be rather alarming. Not that Ginger has shown any signs of health problems, but then, neither did some others that got adopted out.
Gosh, I feel teary just thinking about giving up Ginger! He’s so sweet. It’s better for him, though.
I just have to keep telling myself that.
So we’ll see how that goes. For all I know, the Cat Lady might have other cats that would be a better fit with this potential adoptee. Whatever happens, happens!
The German Winter Thyme has sprouted. Gosh, they are so tiny! I actually had to wait a day before I could get a picture where they could be seen for what they are.
I expect the oregano to sprout next – unless we have problems like last year. It will be a while longer before I expect to see the peppers sprouting.
We made the living room a cat free zone to protect our house plants. It has a huge east facing window and gets lots of light for a brief period in the morning. After that, it’s a pretty dark room. It’s not too bad for the plants near the window, but our huge jade tree… well… one of them… is against a wall in the middle of the room. We have another that’s gotten just as big, but with needing the window for seedlings, it’s off to one end of the shelf it’s on, and no longer in front of the window. The only light it gets is from the shop lights I have over where the seedlings and small plants are.
Then there are the aloe Vera. They’re on plant shelf near the older jade tree, which puts them pretty low down.
The old jade tree is not doing well. I regularly rotate the pot, so all sides eventually get light – not easy to do, with such big branches, so close to the wall! Unfortunately, I can see the leaves are getting thinner and less succulent, and a lot of leaves are simply shriveled up. It does get adequate moisture, and is in a self watering pot. It’s just not thriving in this location.
There is no room for it, anywhere else.
What we need is a light fixture along that back wall. When we moved here, there was a light fixture in the corner where the big aquarium greenhouse is now. It reaches floor to ceiling, held in place with pressure, and has 3 lights that could have their directions adjusted. It’s in the storage shed now. If that thing still works, we could set it up with standard bulb sized grow lights, near the Jade tree. Those types of grow bulbs are more affordable, anyhow.
Looks like I need to trek through the snow and see what I can find in the storage shed. I hate going in there, though. Every time I do, I’m afraid a cat might sneak in behind me and accidentally get closed in. That shed is so full of my parents’ stuff, we can’t even access most of it, anymore. Lots of places for a cat to hide!
I should grab a daughter to go with me and stand guard!
This is the time of year many are starting their seeds indoors, and there are many growing mediums available. Some swear by ordinary garden soil, straight compost or the compressed pellets of peat or coconut coir – though I hear many in my local gardening groups with a definite hate on for the pellets!! Then there’s potting soil and seed starting mixes.
What to choose? Let a soil scientist explain!
I currently have two different brands of seed starting mix, because those were the ones available at the time I was there to buy them. So far, I don’t see any difference between them.
I had a much interrupted night, so I asked the girls to feed the outside cats. I’m supposed to be trying to get sleep right now, but the interruptions continue!
While a daughter was outside, feeding cats, I checked the weather. Good grief!
Twenty below zero, with a windchill of -27C!!!
And my daughter hadn’t bothered to put on a coat!
She informed me that she was able to pet the super fluffy little tabby.
Today, our high is supposed to be -10C. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach 5C!
The critters outside must be so confused.
Speaking of critters, the raccoons are showing up in the sun room at night, more often. I chased at least 4 out last night!
Anyhow.
I don’t think I’ll be getting that sleep I need. The interruptions just aren’t slowing down! I’m going to be a useless wreck, today. 🙁
But first, the pleasant stuff. Like this adorable beast.
No name here just can’t get enough attention!
This morning, I counted only 20 yard cats while I was feeding them.
This coukd have something to do with it.
The high forecast for today actually changed, increasing from 1C to 2C, within an hour. The forecasts are all over the place! It’s already 1C as I write this, but -10C tomorrow, followed by 4C the day after?
Well, we’ll see what we actually get.
Meanwhile, I’m struggling with my computer again. At first, while trying to upload the trail cam files, it seemed to be the same problem. This time, I just left Windows Explorer to do its thing, and moved onto something else for a minute or so, and UT would work itself through. It was just being incredibly slow. I checked my RAM and CPU status, but there wasn’t anything taking up massive resources to explain it. Eventually, though, it sorted itself out and everything worked fine again. I was even able to go through the back up data on the external hard drive and continue setting the new computer up with it.
It wasn’t Windows Explorer I was having troubles with. I’ve been using Firefox as my browser, but today, it simply stopped loading pages. I checked around and discovered my computer was unloading a couple of gigs to One Drive! All the changes I’d just made were being uploaded. I thought I’d turned off permissions for that.
So I spent some time shutting that, and other things I found, off.
Firefox still wouldn’t load anything.
Looking around some more, I saw it had an update. So I updated it and tried again.
It still won’t load.
The problem isn’t the internet connection, as other things connected are working fine. It’s just Firefox. In fact, I’m using my phone to make this post, while trying to get something – anything! – to load.
At this point, I think I’ll have to try MS Edge and maybe use it to download another browser. Assuming Edge works at all.
What a pain.
The Re-Farmer
Update: Well, it worked. I was able to us MS Edge and ended up downloading Opera. It works fine. I still have no idea why Firefox just stopped working!
Now I have to input all my passwords and bookmarks again. *sigh*
Okay, so I last wrote about the issues I was having with my Windows Explorer. It just kept crashing on me, constantly.
I downloaded and tested two different file manager apps. They both worked perfectly. I had no problem navigating through my system. Even going into the external hard drive was without issue.
The new one. The old one is not even detected right now. I think my old computer corrupted something on it.
I took a break from beating my head against my keyboard, slithered my way in between the cats on my bed and took a nap.
I woke to find a useful comment from Silk (thank you!) suggesting I go to the Windows 11 website. One of those obvious things I probably should have already tried, but I really haven’t had this computer for long.
It turns out that “Windows 11 explorer crashing” is a common enough search term, it was the first term suggested when I started typing it into DuckDuckGo. One of the top results was this link here.
There were a few step by step fixes on the page, and I tried the first one.
Could it really be that easy???
Basically, it was Control Panel>File Explorer Options, select the General tab, open the Open File Explorer drop down menu, and select “this PC”. That’s it.
The screen cap in the instructions showed only “quick access” and “this PC” as options, but mine had a third. When doing the initial set up, after reinstalling Windows, it apparently named my PC with my initials, and that’s what it was set to.
After setting it to “this PC”, I opened explorer and tested it out.
It’s working perfectly.
Not only was I able to navigate through my PC and the external hard drive with zero issues, I found the February sub folder I’d started to upload pictures from my camera into. I’d been able to dump the photos into the folder, but was never able to organize them the way I usually do. I was able to create a series of sub folders and sort all the photos in there, without any issues at all.
While doing my morning rounds, I got this rather serendipitous shot of Shop Towel.
That piece of kibble looks like it’s stuck to the tip of his tongue. 😁
I know the girls named him Shop Towel, since he’s clearly Tissue’s dad. I still think of him as Sad Face. Just look at that poor beat up face and sad, sad eyes! Even his body language, as he moves around the sun room, looks heavy and sad.
Having said that, he seems to be integrating into the colony rather well. Since Judgement got fixed, there has been a dramatic drop in cat fights. They do still happen, but seem more due to being startled, than active “I’m going to kill you” cat fights. He now spends much of his time, curled up on the platform set up in the sun room, sleeping. When I bring the kibble out, I put some right on the cat bed or warming mat he’s always on, so he doesn’t have to jump down and battle it out with the swirling mass at my feet. Given how he looks, I imaging getting up and down may be uncomfortable for him.
Any time I’m in the bathroom, I always look out the window to check on the cats. Often, I’ll see a big pile of cats on the platform, above the heat lamp, and Sad Face curled up and asleep on his own, on the other half of the platform. In the last few days, however, I’ve started to see other cats curled up with him! I wasn’t able to get a picture, but just day ago, I saw Patience with his chin draped over Sad Face’s back. Last night, it looked like there were two or three of the smaller cats, curled up around him.
Five years, he’s been showing up at our place and causing trouble. I managed to sneak up behind him while he was eating and pet him once last summer, and it’s like he’s a whole new cat. We’re now able to pet him regularly, though he still has his nervous times. We need to get him comfortable enough to be able to get him into the big carrier. That’s kept in the sun room right now, with the door open, so they can all be used to going in and out of it. I usually find Judgement sitting on top of it when I go into the sun room!
Yesterday, my husband let me know he had a package in, so after I did my rounds, I headed to the post office. It turns out he got more RAM for my new computer!
Which brings me to my odd computer issues.
I was having insane problems using Windows Explorer. It kept locking up on me. I couldn’t even browse through the folders to get where I needed to go without it locking up. With some things, like uploading trail cam files, I was at least able to right click on the Explorer icon in my task bar and select the trail cam folder from the “recently used” choices. That allowed me to at least be able to make a new folder for the files I needed to upload, but it would lock up and I’d have to end task and start over. When I opened it again, the new folder would be there, at least. When it came time to renaming the folder, it would lock up again, half way through typing the new name, I’d have to end task it, and start over. Then I’d have to do the same thing, over and over, to access the trail cam files through the card reader.
Last night I downloaded and installed the Advanced System Care recommended to me, along with their Driver Booster. I did scans, updated drivers, etc. This system came with only 8g of RAM and we thought that might be the problem, but the ASC actually has a little widget that continuously shows how much RAM is being at any given moment.
By last night, I concluded, it’s not the RAM. I don’t have problems with anything else. The one almost exception was when I tried to test out my video making software. When it came to importing the files – which is basically through Explorer – it would lock up. It was so impossible to work with, I had to give up until we solve this problem. I haven’t even installed my photo editing software yet because, what’s the point?
So there is something wrong with our Windows 11 Explorer.
When the new RAM came in, though, we gave it a try. There was one 8G card, and he says RAM cards should always be paired, so he took out the original one and installed the pair of cards he got. I now have 16g of RAM and I still have 2 slots left. If we get another 8g card and use the original card, we could potentially double my RAM again.
I don’t think that’ll be necessary for the things I do with my computer.
Unfortunately, it made no difference with Windows Explorer. I went to upload the trial cam files, and started having the same problems.
Now, one possible issue is that I’ve been trying to upload these to the new external hard drive that computer repair place backed up my data to. One of the changes in Windows 11 is that the “pictures” folder is now in One Drive, and stored in the cloud. I really don’t want that, but navigating through USB on anything is always going to be slower. So I tried navigating through my local disk and got to the “saved pictures” folder under users. It did fail on me once, but I was eventually able to create a new trail cam folder and upload the files. It seems to me that the photos are now being stored both in my computer, and in the cloud, at the same time. As I went through the files and deleted what I didn’t need to keep, I got a pop up warning me that if I deleted the files, they would no longer be accessible by other devices through the cloud. Which I’m just fine with.
What I also found was that, as I added or deleted things while going through the files and it seemed to lock up again, if I left it alone long enough, it would start working again. So, if I made a new sub folder and it would not appear, I ignored it and did stuff on my phone, until suddenly the folder would appear. I’d then rename the folder, nothing would seem to happen, so I’d work on my phone again, and eventually it would appear. So while Explorer still locks up on me completely, it also seems to just be incredibly, ridiculously slow in responding.
I don’t know what to make of it. Everything else is working fine. Not that I’ve done transferred or installed much from my old computer’s back up data to the new machine, mostly because of this problem.
I wonder if I dare install my photo editing software now? All I’ve got is a very old version of Paint Shop Pro that I’m happy with and, for my uses of it, have no need to upgrade.
Hmm. My husband just came over and suggested I get a different file manager to try, and see if it works any better.
