After none of us seeing him at all, yesterday, I was quite concerned about how Judgement was doing, so I was VERY happy to see him this morning! It looks like he spent our rainy night tucked warm and cozy in the shelf shelter.
His front paws look fine. I see no sign of injury. Not that I’m getting more than a glimpse, but he also followed me around while I did my rounds, as is his custom. No limping. No favouring of the paw. It’s as if there was never anything wrong! Whatever was causing him pain a couple of days ago seems to have worked itself out.
This morning I headed into town to refill our big water jugs and pick up a few things at the grocery store. By the time I headed back, our post office was open. I’d checked the tracking last night and knew our Veseys order would be in today, but when I got there, she still hadn’t had a chance to finish processing all the parcels that came in. She found them for me, though – among several other boxes from Veseys that I could see! They are a popular company, with good reason.
For the potatoes, we got a total of 4 pounds each of Red Thumb fingerling and Purple Peruvian fingerling. We really liked the Purple Peruvian when we grew them a couple of years ago, and I’m hoping we’ll have enough to save seed potatoes for next year.
There is also a 3 pound back of Irish Cobbler.
Irish CobblerRed Thumb FingerlingPurple Peruvian
Two of the above images are from the Veseys website. The Purple Peruvian are some of our own harvest.
I can see that the potatoes have already started to sprout. We’ll need to lay those out for air circulation as much as for chitting. I’ll have to go through the old feed bags we have and see how many are left, since we’ve stopped buying deer feed and bird seed. We have too many slugs and not enough garter snakes or toads, to try growing them in the ground again.
Then there was the box with our trees.
Would you look at those mulberry trees!!
I knew they would be small, but I didn’t think they would be THAT small! Normally, there would have been a single, larger, 2 yr old sapling, but they had a shortage of that size. Instead, they sent out two 1 yr old saplings for the same price.
Liberty appleTrader mulberry
The above pictures are from Veseys. Hopefully, in a few years, we’ll have apples and berries to harvest!
Right now, I’ve got them out of their plastic bags and set up in the living room, safe from the cats. I find myself seriously considering leaving them to grow indoors for a year but… well… I don’t know that their chances for survival would be any better indoors than out! We will have to make sure to put a cloche over them when they are planted, to protect them. The funny thing is going to be transplanting these tiny little things with their fully grown size in mind. They can grow 15-20 ft high. This variety is supposed to be hardy to our zone, but winter protection is still something we’ll want to ensure. At least for the first couple of winters.
The apple tree is quite a bit larger! It started raining as I got home, so it might be a little while before we plant it, so I opened the plastic bag and set it up next to the mulberries. I didn’t take it out, since it’s packed in sawdust.
The planting instructions for the mulberry state:
Unless you have heavy clay soil, there isn’t much to do in terms of soil preparation. You can add amendments such as compost or peat moss to the soil and/or a layer of mulch over the root area after planting will help retain moisture, especially during the first year. While it may be tempting to add fertilizer or manure to your freshly dug hole before planting your new tree, PLEASE resist! Fertilizer or manure in close contact with the root system could chemically burn the roots and potentially kill the tree.
Mulberry trees can grow quite large, up to 15-20 feet tall. Avoid planting near walkways and driveways as the fruit will drop and create stains. Mulberries are self-fertile and require full sunlight.
Where we will be planting them, the soil is very rocky and hard packed, and a whole lot of sun, so we’ll be giving them some garden soil to grow in, and plenty of wood chip mulch around them.
It’ll be different for the apple tree. The planting instructions are:
Plant apple trees 5-6 meters (15-18 feet) apart in the spring in a full sun location with good air circulation and drainage. For best results, two varieties should be planted to ensure successful pollination and fruit production. Dig a hole large enough to accommodate all of the roots without bending (approx. 18 inches). Place the tree in the hole with the graft union about three inches above the soil surface. You should be able to see the soil mark on the trunk where the tree has been taken out of the ground, it should be planted no deeper than this. Mix compost with the soil to fill back in the hole once the tree is set in place, and lightly firm to ensure good soil root contact. Water surrounding the tree to ensure good root establishment. Water every two to three days if your season is dry.
It will be planted closer to the crab apple trees for cross pollination, but far enough away to hopefully protect it from the fungal disease that is killing them off. This variety is also a zone 4 tree, which means it will need shelter for the winter.
Hhhmm… I’m rethinking where to plant the apple tree. There are some dead and dying trees in the west yard that need to be cleared out. Better shelter, full sun, and close enough to the ornamental apple trees in the old kitchen garden for cross pollination.
We’ll figure it out. That’s now our job for the day!
When I headed out to top of the cats’ food outside last night, I saw Judgement coming over well after the other cats had gathered.
He was limping.
He was barely putting any weight at all on one of his front legs. He was also acting unusually nervous when I tried to come close – normally, he’s all for the pets! – but even when I did, I could not see an obvious wound. There might have been a puncture – possibly a bite – but there was no blood or anything like that.
Unfortunately, in trying to get close, I ended up spooking him, which made a noise, which spooked all the other cats, and they all exploded in every direction. Including Judgement.
Which meant he was running in a panic on an injured foot.
I let the family know so we’d all keep an eye out for him. This morning, I saw lots of kitties…
… but no Judgement.
The girls did their rounds early this morning, too, and saw no sign of him, either.
I hope he’s okay!
I did get a chance to look at the tuxedo’s paws as he followed me around today, and sometimes rolled on the ground. Yesterday, I’d seen a bit of blood on one toe, but there isn’t any now. He even let me remove a burr from his tail. Just one of the many stuck in his tail, but one is better than none!
I’m going to go worry about Judgement all day now, though. 😥
When I headed out this morning to feed the outside cats, they were acting really, really hungry! I suspect their kibble got eaten up by skunks and racoons during the night. They were very happy when I started refilling their trays, that’s for sure!
Which is the only reason I was FINALLY able to pet Decimous, the little black and white cat. Normally, I can’t get near him. He didn’t like me being so close, but he didn’t want to leave the food, either, so I didn’t bother him too much. Running my hand across his back, though, I could feel so many lumps and bumps hidden in his fur! We so need to socialize this one, just so we can get the burrs and matts out of his fur!
I managed to get a picture of him later, and he does NOT look happy! 😄 Normally, when he looks at me, he has this wide-eyed, innocent, somewhat stunned expression. Here, he looks ready to rip my head off. 😄
Well, if I had fur that was full of spiky burs and tangled matts, I’d probably be unhappy, too!
In other things, I finally got what I needed to do in the old kitchen garden done. I’ll be putting together a video for that, which I hope to finish and upload tonight. We shall see!
But first, I’m going for a much needed shower. I did a lot of digging in the dirt, today!
Before I get into today, I just had to share what I saw yesterday, while doing my evening rounds.
One of the things that got done was switching the winter window to the old basement to the summer window. This spring, things are wet enough that we are starting to have moisture seeping through the concrete floors, and the sump pump is going off every now and then. Nothing like what we were dealing with last year, of course, but more typical than the dry years we had previously.
The summer window is one that I built a few years ago to replace the makeshift cover that was being used before. Having air circulation through there helps keep the old basement from getting too damp and humid. My brother built a platform on the inside to hold a box fan to blow air out of the basement that helped, too, but that disappeared before we moved in.
We have a cat barrier between the two basements. The opening in the old basement wall was basically bashed out, so it’s uneven on the sides, making it impossible have a proper door. We have a wire mesh frame over it that was meant to be easily moved to one side if we needed to cross through. The old basement has the pumps, sump pump reservoir and breakable stuff, so we want to keep the cats out. In the end, we have had to brace the barrier with stuff on one side, while having Bungee cords holding it in place on the other.
Well, it wasn’t enough.
I was trying to see what Gooby was finding so interesting down there, and found a Susan on the window’s platform, looking back!
I messaged the picture to my family and my younger daughter went down to take care of it. She found David and Big Rig in there, too!
They could get in, but couldn’t get back out, and were very eager to leave when she opened the door!
Later, with her in the new basement and me in the old basement, we managed to secure the barrier a bit more. Hopefully, it will be enough!
I had a different surprise this morning, when checking the gate. When the snow melted enough that we could finally close it, it was like this.
They had shifted quite a lot over the winter!
If it had shifted a small amount, we could micro adjust the nuts on the J pins that make up the hinges, but for that distance, the gate posts themselves would have to be adjusted – once we brought out a level to see which one had moved the most.
Well, that’s no longer an issue. This is what it looked like, this morning!
I haven’t been able to slide that pin through so easily in probably a year!
That’s a lot of shifting in less than a month!
The funny thing is, I got a call from my sister in law this afternoon. She and my brother were on their way with the arm chair they were passing on to us, plus my brother was bringing tools so he could fix the gate! I was happy to tell her, it no longer needed fixing!
And that was our big change in plans.
After dropping off the armchair, they were going to visit my mother and take her out to dinner and invited me to come along, which I decided to do.
But first, we had to clear a path from the door to the living room for a rather wide armchair. Then, when they got here, I was on both door duty and cat duty, while my brother maneuvered it through. My SIL can’t come into the house, though, as she is quite allergic to cats. So my brother just left the chair on its side in the living room, waiting for the legs to be put back on. After a quick visit to the sun room to see all the transplants, they headed out and I followed in my mother’s car.
The plan had been for my SIL to be dropped off at a restaurant first, then my brother would take his truck over to pick up my mother. They even brought a footstool to help her climb in. Since I was there with her car, though, my brother took that, instead.
When he got there, he first made a point of setting up her air conditioner for the season, and testing it out. The batteries in the remote were dead and my mother didn’t have the right size, so he brought it with him as he took her to the restaurant.
She was very perplexed when he took her to her car. Was that her car? How did he get her car? Then she saw me when they got to the restaurant! It was quite a surprise for her.
While we got her settled in, my brother quickly ran to a store across the street to buy the batteries needed, and then we had a nice dinner together.
Mostly.
I’m glad I decided to come along. It took all three of us playing interference to keep the conversation from getting derailed into a racist rant or a political diatribe from someone who doesn’t actually understand politics very well, guilt tripping, or the many other ways she makes things difficult! It takes a lot of energy, but we managed to actually have a very good time. After a while, though, I could see we’d reached the limit of what we’d be able to do, and she was winding herself up, so I suggested to my brother it was time to go!
Since he wanted to test her air conditioner, now that he had fresh batteries in the remote, he drove her back while my sister in law and I stayed and waited until he got back. My mother was all surprised we weren’t all going to go to her place to visit! As if we’d all fit comfortably in her tiny apartment to begin with!
So, off they went, and my sister in law and I got to have another excellent conversation with just the two of us. For longer than expected. When my brother finally came back, he looked so frazzled! On the way, my mother first had him stop to pick up a few groceries, then while he was testing the air conditioner, she gave him a hard time because she thought he was fixing her TV remote, and she didn’t care about the air conditioner! Then she tried to keep talking to keep him from leaving, but he finally had to tell her he needed to go, because we were waiting for him. Of course, she tried to guilt trip him over things. It always amazes me how he does the most for her, yet she gives him the hardest time about anything and everything. He has such a good heart, and she stomps on it without even realizing what she’s doing, half the time. The other half, she knows exactly what she’s doing! I was very glad to be able to keep that down, at least somewhat!
They still had an hour and a half to drive home, so we parted ways soon after. I so enjoy spending time with them! It was also encouraging to hear from my sister in law that they are quite happy with the things we are doing here. Us being here saves them from having to take care of two properties, but they are also appreciating the work we’ve been able to do, and the plans we have. I really needed to hear that today, as I was feeling particularly useless. I had a number of jobs planned for today, but I woke up in quite a lot of pain. My left knee and left hip have suddenly started giving me a lot of grief. My plan had been to start working outside early, before things got too hot, but as I was checking the files on the trail cams, I found myself falling asleep in my chair, and ended up lying down for a couple of hours, instead. When I mentioned that to her, she told me she’s been struggling with the same thing; fatigue and joint pain. Especially in her hands. Perhaps the seasonal changes are affecting both of us!
Still, I feel like I should be accomplishing so much more. It does help that they understand the challenges we’ve been having here. Particularly with my mother’s expectations and demands, even though she walked away from the farm more than 10 years ago. I do wish we could get together more often! I actually feel both encouraged and refreshed after spending time with them.
Let’s see if that extends into tomorrow! I try to avoid unnecessary work on Sundays, but right now, I’ve got a lot of very necessary work that needs to get done!
Meanwhile, my daughter put the legs on the armchair they brought over and set it up.
It may have been just an old chair on its last legs to them, but right now, it’s the most comfortable chair in the house!
There are quite a few crocus buds popping up, and we’re also seeing lots of grape hyacinth greens emerging! Too early for the flower stalks to start forming, but the leaves come up in distinct little clusters that are easy to identify, compared to the grass and weeds that are in the same area. I’m looking forward to when the crocuses and hyacinths spread enough to start choking out the weeds and grass where they’ve been planted!
Last night, I started hydrating the seed trays with the Jiffy pellets, then headed into town this morning to pick up some more seed starting mix for the other tray.
There wasn’t any.
I tried a few places and found lots of potting mix, but no seed starting mix. I wasn’t willing to drive to another town, so I ended up getting more of the small trays with Jiffy Pellets in them. I did pick up a few bags of manure, though. Two of composted cow’s manure with peat, and two more of composted sheep’s manure with compost. These will be good for top dressing some of the beds, and for the trees we’ll be transplanting when they come in next week.
When I got home, I first had to start new trays hydrating, then I could work on the ones that were ready.
I had 5 trays, each with 12 pellets in them. I decided to do two different seeds in each tray, for a total of 20 new seed starts. Hopefully, we’ll have a nice, high germination rate, since each pellet got only one seed each.
These are what I chose for the first batch.
For melons, I’ve got the Sarah’s Choice, a new variety, Halona and Pixie, which we’ve successfully grown two years ago, and Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon, also new. Our attempt to grow melons last year was a complete failure, due to flooding. There are the two types of cucumber; Lemon, which we got as a freebie, and Eureka, a dual purpose variety for both fresh eating and canning. Then there are the winter squash: Pink Banana, North Georgia Candy Roaster, Honeyboat Delicata and Little Gem (Red Kuri). We tried the Candy Roaster last year, but they got drowned out. This will be our third year growing the Red Kuri squash, which survived last year because we planted them in a completely different location. I thought I’d ordered a new packet of those, but couldn’t find it. I ended up finishing off the few seeds in this older packet, then used seeds we’d saved ourselves from the first year we grew them.
I rearranged things a bit in the sun room to make room for these on the makeshift table. Later on, I’ll move the mini-greenhouse frame to the sun room to have more space for the trays.
As for the second batch, it will have:
The three varieties of hulless pumpkins, Kakai, Lady Godiva and Styrian, that we also grew last year. We’ve been slowly going through the ones we harvested last year – yes, we still have some! – but I lost track of two varieties that looked alike, so I haven’t been able to keep track of which seeds we like best. There is more winter squash: Red Warty Thing is new, while Boston Marrow and Winter Sweet were among those that got drowned out last year, though the Boston Marrow did start to recover somewhat. I’ve got more gourds, too. We started the Canteen gourd too early last year, and they were starting to bloom before we could transplant them, so they are being started later this year. Hopefully, they will actually get a chance to produce fruit this year. The Yakteen gourd transplants got killed off along with the melons, during our terrible, no-good growing year last year, and I hope to be able to actually try some this year. The Ozark Nest Egg and Apple gourds seemed to do well last year. We still have some Ozark Nest Egg gourds curing. The Apple gourds actually recovered rather well from the terrible conditions the squash were all hit with last year, and were producing quite a lot of gourds, but it was too late in the season by then. We were hit by frost before they could fully mature. I’m hoping we’ll have a better year this year.
I was tempted, but decided against growing the Tennessee Dancing gourd again this year. They are fun and do well, but we just have too many things going – and that’s not even considering what needs to be direct sown!
The new trays are being hydrated now. I’ve got another 5 going, though I have a spare available to hydrate, just in case. Hopefully, I’ll be able to plant into them tonight, and things can be moved into the sun room right away.
Once the last seeds are started, it’s back to working outside! I’ve still got the one last bed to work on in the old kitchen garden, then we need to build at least one trellis tunnel, with the raised beds that will be part of it, and prepare existing beds for planting, as well as grow bags for the potatoes, and containers for things like the lemongrass, some of the peppers and probably the eggplant as well.
Lots to do, and just a few weeks left to do them!
I’m so happy being able to get outside and get work done again!
I paused what I was working on to help my daughter get some old bikes out of the barn hayloft. She and my husband have been looking at the one I got for $10 at a garage sale, and I’m told it would cost more to fix it, than get a new bike! Given the price of new bikes these days, I don’t think so, but it needs a lot of work.
There are old bikes strewn around all over the farm, and my daughter had already brought a couple over. For the ones in the hay loft, the won’t fit through the opening in the floor, where it’s accessed by a ladder. There is a pair of doors on the side facing the house that haven’t been touched since the girls went up to secure them, after they were blown open during high winds.
Except… it turned out someone else had been up there.
In the fall of 2018, we discovered our vandal had boarded the barn doors up to try and prevent us from accessing stuff he felt entitled to. It never occurred to us that he would have gone up into the hayloft and boarded the doors up from the inside! It took my daughter quite a while to get them out, without damaging the doors more. The screws were driven deep into the wood, with two of them so deep, she didn’t even see them at first. He’d done that same thing with the main doors, with one driven so far into the wood, I never did get it out. I had to break the screw – something that was not an option for my daughter, today. The second door is still attached somehow, but she could not see where. One door open was enough to fit the bikes through, though. The floor up there is increasingly unsafe to walk on – I can’t go up there at all anymore – so she very carefully grabbed 4 adult size bikes that were up there (there are also a couple of tricycles!) and lowered them down with a rope. I would remove the rope and set the bike aside, while she got the next one.
There was one bike on the lower level she hadn’t noticed earlier, but I’d seen it while scavenging through the various piles of stuff back there. I dug it out for her and, in the process, discovered a couple of piles of ceramic tiles. Maybe about 30, altogether. They weren’t the usual used salvage, either, but look like none of them have ever been used! I’m sure we can find something to do with them. 😊
Anyhow.
After we got the bikes down, my daughter looked around for anything else worth taking out. There’s a lot of stuff there, including the ubiquitous stacks of old tires, with and without rims. She ended up passing down to me some wood that looked like it was still in decent condition. Four or five 2×6 boards that are all about 12 feet long! I say “about” because they all have rotted ends, just like the other salvage lumber in the barn we’ve been making use of as best we can. There’s more lumber up there, but it’s all pretty rotten.
After we finished up and my daughter secured the doors from the inside so they wouldn’t blow open, I headed back to the house with a few things, while she started bringing the bikes closer. We now have a collection of 8 bikes out there. We’re hoping to be able to cobble together at least one that will work!
As I came to the house, though, I was thoroughly distracted by an adorable, squished kitty!
We keep this bin under the laundry platform bench, on its side and weighed down with bricks, as a place to keep the bucket of clothes pins out of the weather. The cats love to squish in the remaining space. Adam had been asleep when I came by, and does not look at all impressed that I interrupted his nap!
It looks like he’s been getting those burrs out of his fur, little by little. I managed to sneak a pet of his back while he was eating, recently, and didn’t feel the lumps I’d felt before. His long haired tuxedo brother, Driver, still has them in his tail and won’t let me get them out, but the ones on his body seem to be gone. Even Decimous, the little black and white, is looking like he as fewer mats in his fur. That leaves Brussel for the long haired cats, and she’s so stand-offish, we’ve never been able to tell if she’s getting matts or burrs in her fur. I’m just sort of assuming there are burrs in there. Even the short hairs cats have been having problems with them!
I do wish we could socialize all the outside cats! It would make it so much easier to take care of them!
They do make life more cheerful, though, just by existing! 😊
It has just reached noon as I begin writing this and apparently we’re at only 14C/57F out there. That can’t possibly be right, because it felt so much hotter while we worked outside!
Today, we made our newest addition to what will be our food forest area.
I picked up our Royalty raspberries from Veseys at the post office this morning. They’re even showing leaves already! Getting these in the ground became our top priority.
This is where I decided to start planting raspberries (we will be adding more, as we are able). You can see the remains of the row where we’ve been planting peas for the past two years.
Because there is a phone line buried nearby, we are keeping an area open that’s large enough to drive through on the north side, where I am standing to take this picture.. With that in mind, these first raspberries were lined up with the cranberries that mark the ends of the berry bush rows we planted last year. That sawhorse on the left is over one of the cranberries.
Of course, I was hitting a lot of rocks while I dug the holes! One of them had more roots than rocks. After this, I watered the holes a bit, then went and got some of the soil in the garden we sifted free of weeds and roots last fall. This is soil we’ve been working on and amending for a couple of years now. It’s been covered by black tarp since then, so I knew it was still clear.
My daughter, meanwhile, brought over the raspberry transplants – and a lopper to cut those roots out!
The canes were planted into new, root-free, soil, then given a bit of a watering. Each of them got a tomato cage to protect from the deer.
Last of all, a deep mulch of wood chips was placed around them, then a final watering. The sod that was removed got broken up and spread out, while the rocks from the holes, plus rocks that had been left at the ends of other rows we’d grown in last year, were collected. Thse all got dumped into the new groundhog hole we found next to the house when the snow melted. It still doesn’t look like it’s being used, nor does the original one beside the dining room door steps, just a few feet away. For now, we’re just going to block off the one. The other one is behind a mock orange bush, so I’ll want to fill that one with soil, first, if it keeps looking unused.
My daughter is quite happy with the raspberries. The ones we planted before, that I got her for her birthday, were eaten by deer and hit with drought in their first year, and never really recovered. It’s too early to tell for sure, but I don’t know if they survived this past winter. If they did, we’ll probably transplant them near these ones, in the fall. As we add more, the rows will extend to the south, with more rows added to the west, were we’d been planting beans and peas.
This is why we’ve been planting vegetables so far from the house for the past couple of years. To give the food trees we’ll be planting here a better chance of survival!
Oh, and while I was digging holes, my darling daughter fixed the sun room outer door that wouldn’t close. It turned out to be the latch plate was coming loose. The door does still stick at the top, but it at least closes now. It seems the wood is rotting, and that’s why it came loose. The main thing is that we can use the outer door for now, and leave the inner door open, for air circulation. When my daughter came out through the sun room, she noticed the windows were starting to steam up!
It took quite a few trips and a fair bit of rearranging, but all the transplants that were in the living room are now in the sun room!
There is a down side to not being able to close the outer door for the sun room. To keep the cats out, that means closing the inner door. The outer door has a screen window.
We reached a high of 21C/70F today, but the sun room reached 27C/81F! And the only air circulation is the ceiling fan. We are keeping the inner door into the old kitchen open. The outer door has a screen window, and with the old kitchen staying so much cooler, it should help at least a little bit. While it will help keep the sun room temperature down a bit, it will also warm up the old kitchen, so it’s a trade off.
Hmmm. I just remembered. I think we have a spare hook and eye closure somewhere. If I can find that, we can latch the outer sun room door from the inside. That would help. We’d still have to close the inner door for the night, so we don’t lose too much heat, but that’s okay.
Meanwhile…
I got the second light hung up and plugged into the first one. We are pretty much out of trays and bins to hold all the transplants, and I’m not finding more like the ones we have. We do still have a couple more of the black plastic trays, but they’re not very strong, and some of them have started to crack. I’ve been doubling them up, anyhow, just for the extra strength, and that way I can also use the cracked ones without leaking water everywhere.
There’s still a bit of room on the shelf! Those peppers had been in the big aquarium greenhouse and will need potting up, but I think they’ll enjoy being here for a while, first. They, at least, will really like the heat in here! I’m hoping the oregano and spearmint will do better here, too. They are not doing as well as the oregano and second variety of thyme we planted more recently are. I think the sad little luffa will like it better in this heat, too. In fact, depending on how things go, we might even try growing it in a pot in the sun room, instead of outside, this year.
We are expected to cool down a bit over the next few days, with Sunday being the coolest at 10C/50F. Tomorrow is supposed to reach 15C/59F, so it should be a good day to continue working in the old kitchen garden and finish that last bed. I’ll start hydrating my trays with the Jiffy pellets, so they’ll be ready for starting seeds the next day.
The priority for tomorrow, though, will be to go to the post office and pick up those raspberries that are in! We’ll want to plant those as soon as possible.
While going in and out of the sun room today, I spotted this, out the window.
Someone found a nice spot to nap!
I call this one Potato Baby, because he looks so much like Potato Beetle. 🤍
The cats seem perplexed that they aren’t allowed in the sun room anymore, and I’m seeing the ones that used to be in there regularly, hovering nearby. The swing bench is outside and available for naps, but it looks like the garden bed was more comfortable!
Which is going to be a problem when we finally have stuff planted in there!
The Re-Farmer 