While I was working outside, my husband worked his magic, and fixed our internet problems. Now let’s see if I can catch up before another thunderstorm hits!
First, we gotta have the kitties!
The calico that hands out with the bitty kitties must have been really hungry, because she came over to join her brother (sister?) in the kibble house! they’re over on the left, and you can just barely see her behind her sibling.
I left a bit of food by the grape vines, and the black and white kitten from the oldest litter showed up for breakfast. :-)
The fourth kitten ran off before I could get my phone out. Throughout the morning, I was able to pick up and hold the two on the right a couple of times, but not the fuzzy one. The other black and white kitten disappears so fast, I barely see it, never mind try to touch it!
As for the adult cats, Potato Beetle is still in the sun room – and he really wants to leave! Unfortunately, he doesn’t like to use the litter box, so I did have a mess to clean up. I’ve been making sure his water was a frozen water bottle in it, and have even left the door open into the old kitchen, in case he wants to go somewhere cooler. It’s difficult to keep him in, when I have to go in and out of the sun room with tools so often.
I have noticed one thing, though. He is still limping! The last time we took him to the vet, it was for his limp, and they found some puncture wounds, but not much more. They figured the tooth or claw that caused the punctures caught on a tendon, too. Still, I would not have expected him to still be limping after all this time!
Oh, the thunderstorm is almost on us! Glad I finished up outside when I did. :-)
Something weird happened with our intern during a storm last night. We lost internet, but it didn’t come back right. At the moment, I can only connect with my phone. It won’t let my desktop connect. Even the tablet I use with our security camera can’t connect. It can’t even fund any networks.
My daughters tell me they have the same issues. Unfortunately, the modem is in my husband’s bedroom, and he’s medicated and asleep right now.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to figure out the problem, soon.
Today turned out to be quite pleasant out. Though we had some rain last night, it wasn’t enough to refill the areas that were turned into pools not long ago. More rain was being predicted, however, so today was dedicated to trying to get the lawn mowed! Especially some of the area that have been neglected, due to the conditions.
I was able to get more done around the outhouse, and some of the area behind the three low raised beds near the compost ring. I also got some of the area in the spruce grove cleared. Nowhere near what needs to be done, but I at least cleared the stumps from the dead trees I cut down last year. The grass and weeds were so tall, the stumps were completely hidden, as was a tree top that fell in high winds a while back. That needs to be dragged out to the branch pile for chipping. It’s next to the dead tree marked with an orange X in the background. We’ve done no clean up in the spruce grove at all this year. The spirea is reclaiming much of it, even though I pulled them out by the roots as much as possible. They spread so fast! The Saskatoon berries can be picked, but they’re hard to get to with the undergrowth. Plus, the deer at the lower branches and twigs, so the only berries are way up high. The bushes are flexible and can be bent down to reach. I’ve made no effort to gather any. I’ve tasted some, and they’re not very good this year. Plus, a lot of them have … stuff… on them. Some, it looks like an orange powder. Others, it’s a tan colour that look like spores. Things like that. We had only one good year of berries since we uncovered them, but it looks like whatever fungus or mold or whatever that has been affecting the Saskatoons in other areas has hit these ones, too. I think we’re just going to have to bite the bullet, take them out completely, and buy healthy trees – making sure to plant them well away from where they are now! I’d had to plant new trees, only for them to get hit by something in the soil that’s making these ones sickly.
As for the stumps, we won’t be making them into benches or tables until after the dead trees around them are cut down, but I can still prep them. At the very least, I want to cut the tops straight, and debark them. Maybe apply some paint to the top to keep them from getting wet and rotting before we can attach things to them.
I FINALLY managed to mow most of the space in the maple grove. Well. Not most. We can access the branch piles now, at least. The other half will wait for another day.
I finally remembered to take a “before” picture, of sorts. It’s always so incredibly difficult to mow here, because of how uneven the ground is. Last year, I used the weed trimmer, rather than put the mower through it. Not an option, this time. It’s hard to tell, but in the background is where we tried to grow purple corn last year. The ground still has “hills” where the rows were, so I wasn’t able to mow there before. Some of the greenery in there was taller than me.
I managed to get that section done, just as it was starting to rain.
Normally, we would have all that area in the background mowed, too, but this is as far as we’re going to do, this year.
I estimate it took about 5-6 hours of mowing time for what I got done. That included mowing the paths to the Korean Pine trees. It’s been a while since we’ve made our way out there. I had to stop and uncover several of them to pull the weeds that grew up around them. The covers we’re using are not very high, so the weeds ended up filling the space. The covers are working well, but they are already getting to be too small. The saplings are touching the tops already. The one that got dug up by a critter, then replanted, is most certainly dead, though. One loss isn’t too bad, though. It could have been much worse!
Along with the rest of the maple grove, I still need to mow the other side of the garden area, and the parts of the outer yard where we drive that I’d been able to mow before. I won’t have enough fuel to finish the job, though. Any gas budget we have left is needed for the van or my mother’s car, so I won’t be getting more until pay comes in, but that’s just a few days away. It’s unlikely I’ll have another chance to mow anytime soon, though; we’re supposed to get thunderstorms over the next two days, then rain after that. I’m glad I got as much done as I did! It’s been quite frustrating, not to be able to get the work down outside that I’ve been wanting to. It feels good to get even this little bit done!
While working on breaking down the largest of the branches pruned from the ornamental apples, I heard a cat starting to “talk” loudly. This is something we’ve learned about The Distinguished Guest. He makes noises that sound like he’s talking!
The problem is, the only time he makes those noises is when he’s being aggressive towards another cat.
For the last while, Sad Face has been going after him – and winning. TDG has a nasty scar across his shoulder to show for it. If Sad Face were around, I wouldn’t have been hearing TDG talking. I would have heard an all-out cat fight.
There’s only one cat that is now lower on the pecking order than both of the visiting toms.
Making my way around to the pump shack, I spotted TDG with his fur sticking out like a bottle brush. He ran off as I came close. It took a bit longer to spot Potato Beetle, flattened in the tall grass. He was more than happy for some pets, that’s for sure!
He was also looking very skinny. I knew TDG would go after him again if Potato went for the kibble trays. Thankfully, Potato actually likes being picked up and carried, so I took him to the sun room, where his own personal food and water bowls await him.
He was very, very hungry!!
After topping up the food and refreshing the water, I left him be. When I headed into town to get the mail, I sent a picture of him to the Cat Lady. She has us booked for 2 females for spays and shots on Aug 3, but she had space available for 1 male, too.
If we can keep Potato Beetle in the sun room until then, we can get him to the vet to be neutered at the same time.
That’s just over a week, though. It will not be easy to keep in there for that long. Plus, he’ll need to stay another 4 days for recovery. We’ll also have to keep a close eye on the temperature in there. We aren’t expecting excessive heat for the next while, but it does get quite hot in there. If necessary, we’ll bring out some ice packs or frozen water bottles to help him keep cool.
For now, at least, he’s quite enjoying his own personal sanctuary!
As for the other cats, the girls took care of feeding them again this morning. I had been leaving food by the pump shack for the oldest litter of kittens that’s in there (and possibly a baby skunk…), but they forget that. Which is okay. The kittens are used to eating kibble by now. They’ll be looking for it. Which meant that, when I came out not long after, I spotted an unfamiliar black and white kitty butt, at the tray on the ground beside the kibble house. It ran off when it heard me, which is when I saw the tabby and the tuxedo, hiding in the spirea by the storage house. I did try to get pictures, with no success.
I did, however, get a different kitty!
A very thirsty little kitty!
He seems a bit more skittish around me right now. My managing to pet him and briefly pick him up seems to be something he does not want to happen again – at least for now! Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to try playing with him again, and convince him to let me touch him again.
The Cat Lady has a bead on someone on a farm that is looking for a cat. She was talking about possibly trapping one of the kittens and getting it fixed. I wonder if they’d be okay with an adult cat, instead? Potato Beetle really deserves a better situation than what we can give him, with the visiting toms beating on him.
My daughters were sweethearts and took care of feeding the cats outside for me, as I’m still feeling pretty unstable, so the cats weren’t out and about by the time I headed outside. I did get to briefly pet a kitten, though! :-D
While checking out the garden, there was some new progress – and a bit of deer damage – to find.
The Carminat beans are reaching the top of the trellis, and you can see their flower buds. At my fingers, however, you can see the stem of a missing leaf! There was a vertical row of missing leaves, a few feet along the trellis. Right about deer height! Time to find more noise makers and flashy things to set up.
On this side of the trellis are the Seychelles beans, which are starting to get pretty tall, too. None of them show deer damage, which is good, since less of them germinated. In the foreground are the self seeded (or should I say, bird-seeded) sunflowers that I left to grow. The beans can climb them, too! With the flooding this spring, we did not plant any of the Hopi black dye or Mongolian Giant sunflower seeds we’d collected from last year, so I don’t mind letting these one grow. These would be the black oil seed that we put out for the birds in the summer. We’re finding them all over the place, thanks to being spread by birds!
The first sowing of shelling peas may be about half the size they should be, but they are loaded with pods. At least on the north end of the pea trellis. Towards the south end, the sugar snap peas are barely surviving, and the shelling peas on the other side of the trellis are much weaker, too. The entire trellis gets an equal amount of sunlight, so this would be a reflection of soil conditions.
This should be the last year we use this spot for growing vegetables. Next year, they’ll be moved closer to the house, and this area will be made available for planting fruit or nut trees. We haven’t decided what to get next, yet.
The cucumber row is a mixed bag of plants that are growing nice and big, and filled with little cucumbers, and others that are barely bigger than when they were first transplanted!
I had an adorable find at the big trellis.
We have a first Tennessee Dancing gourd developing! It is so cute!
The beans on the same side as the dancing gourds are the red noodle beans. The plants are pretty large, but they are still not at the point of climbing. The shelling beans on the other side, however…
The are much smaller, but have tendrils climbing the trellis, and have even started to bloom!
The most adorable little pollinator showed up just as I was taking the picture.
I startled a bee when checking out this HUGE pumpkin flower.
Yes, it’s on a giant pumpkin plant. 😁
I’d seen some female flowers previously, but now I can’t find them, so there are no pumpkins starting to form, yet. While we are not shooting for super big pumpkins, and won’t be pruning them down to just one pumpkin per plant, it feels like it’s too late in the season for any giant pumpkins to mature. We’re near the end of July already, and none have formed, yet!
In the south yard, we finally have Chocolate cherry tomatoes! Just this one plant, yet. Of the 4 varieties we planted this year, the Chocolate cherry have been the most behind – and they are planted where tomatoes had done so well, last year. The plants themselves are getting nice and tall, and we’ve been adding supports and pruning them as needed, but there are much fewer flowers blooming, and only today do we finally have tomatoes forming. Thankfully, the other varieties are much further along.
I also spotted some ground cherry fruit forming! These plants are doing remarkably well, given how much water they had to deal with this spring. It took a while, but not they are quite robust plants, and I’m happy to see them setting fruit!
Hopefully, it won’t be too much longer before we start getting actual food from the garden. Everything is so, so behind, I am extra happy to see progress like this.
I have had no progress at all in the scything lately. Between the heat, the rain and getting sick, it just hasn’t happened.
I got a call this afternoon from the tree removal company. He was in the area and would be able to stop by and look at the branch piles to give me an estimate. So I went out to unlock the gate, then decided to stay and work on the hay from the scything I did manage to do.
This windrow, and what is already in the wagon, is the equivalent of 4 passes with the scythe. The grass that was cut has already grown so much!
I was emptying that first load when the tree guy showed up. On looking at the big branch pile, he had a recommendation for me.
Find a farmer with a tractor that can just get rid of it for me.
Because the pile has been there for so long, stuff on the bottom will be composting already. They’ve done jobs like this before, and the guys end up having to use forks to pick up the branches, because they’re so broken down. It’s a real pain, not not really worth it.
I told him that we want the chips, too. We walked around a bit and I showed him the other branch piles, and talked about how we’re finally planting trees instead of just cutting them down. We will need lots of wood chips for mulch.
For a chipping job like this, he would send two guys, at $200 an hour. At that rate, with what we’ve been able to set aside, we can do 3 hours next month.
So that’s what we’re going to do. Some time after July 31st, he’ll find a day to sent a 2 man crew here. They will chip as much as they can. With three hours, he thinks they should be able to do quite a lot of it. The priority is the big pile in the outer yard, and the smaller one by the garage. If they have time, the next priority are the two piles in the maple grove, behind the house. With those ones clear, we’ll be able to dig up the hose to the garden tap and replace it, so we can have water at the garden again. Anything more than that is bonus.
He did make sure I knew there would be a mess to clean up when they were done. All the stuff that’s too composted for them to put through the chipper. Which is fine. With the big pile in particular, we already have a burnable junk pile next to it. Anything that can’t be chipped will be burned or composted. I don’t expect any of it to be otherwise useable.
Before we worked that out, he mentioned that if we wanted wood chips, he could bring us a load if they had a job in the area, for $50. Since they chipped the wood for us when they cleared our roof and power lines, I know what size their load is, and that is a very good price. I will make sure that we have cash on hand, so that if they’re in the area and can swing by with a load, we’ll be ready for them. With all the stuff we are doing, we will continually be needing more wood chips. There’s only so much we can use the wood chipper we have, since it can only take really straight branches. Almost none of what we’ve accumulated is straight enough! He knew exactly what I was talking about when I mentioned that. It just gets jammed.
After he left, I continued moving the hay to the garden, deciding to start adding it to the squash patch.
That’s all I was able to cover; 10 plants in total. Which is better than nothing! I did make sure it was a good, thick layer.
Check it out! This is a Baby Pam pumpkin. They don’t get very big. I’m surprised this one is still growing. Given the colour, I thought it wasn’t pollinated and expected it to wither away, but nope. It’s still growing! There’s another plant with a female flower that I hand pollinated, just in case.
Once the hay was all laid out, I took a hose to it to soak it as much as I could. The carboard below dries out so fast in the summer heat, which means it’s more likely to get blown around by the wind. Adding the hay for mulch serves several purposes!
The garden could really use a lot more of this mulch, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to scythe the rest of the area in front of the barn. Aside from still feeling weak after getting sick not long ago, high winds have blasted parts of the area flat. It’ll be harder for the scythe to cut through hay that’s already lying on the ground.
I decided to try something different.
I decided to try using the weed trimmer, since I could plug it in from the nearby garage. This is how it looked before I started.
This is all I was able to get done! I didn’t even finish the entire length to the branch pile. It started to rain, so I put away the weed trimmer and extension cords, only for it to stop raining before I was done. I didn’t bother continuing.
Using the trimmer was much slower and less efficient than the scythe. The only advantage was that I could physically do it, whereas I would not have been able to use the scythe at all with how I’m still feeling. The resulting “hay” is a mess, too. The length of the grass wants to get wrapped up in the weed trimmer, so I had to sort of work my way down, shortening the strands as I went. I suppose the one good thing about that is, the dried seed heads fell off. I’ll leave the “hay” to dry for a bit before I gather it to mulch the garden, so even more of the seed heads should get threshed out in the process.
I’ll try scything the area again, when I feel up to it, but I might have to give up and use the push mower. I would first have to go over it with the mower as high as it can go, then cut it again at least once more, at a lower setting. It might take three passes to do it all. Scything would be faster, if I can cut the flattened grass. There are just patches of those, not the whole thing, so we shall see.
Still, using the trimmer was worth a try, and I got at least some of it done, even while I’m still not back to 100%. I thought I was feeling better until I tried to eat something and… no. Still unstable. Ugh.
Looking at the weather forecast for the next while, we should be able to get more done. If I’m not up to scything, I should at least be able to do regular mowing. The puddles in the yard are gone again, so I can actually do all of it.
I hate getting sick. So much productive time gets wasted!
Not only did I see the little kittens this morning, I got to have HUGE progress with them!
First progress was with this one. This one kept right on eating as I came closer, then reached out to pet it. That’s when I spotted a wood tick on its ear. It took some doing to reach over the water tray, hold on to the ear with one hand and pull the tick with the other (getting a wet boob in the process. 😂), but it never stopped eating! It just let me do my thing and ignored me.
The others had moved away, but this little fuzzy one likes to just sit there, posing so adorably, to watch me. After a while, its sibling came out – the less fuzzy one that I’ve been able to handle more often. I did manage to pick up the fuzzy one last night, but it wasn’t happy about that, so I didn’t hang on to it for long.
The calico and the other black and white started to come closer, too. They wanted that food, but not quite enough to go to the tray while I was there.
When these three were in the tray, I was able to pet ALL of them! Yes, even the fuzzy one! They just kept on eating.
Eventually, they all came out, though the other black and white one didn’t want to be too close to me. Still, I was able to pick up the container I use to carry the kibble, without them all running away. Even the calico just froze in place and watched me, then went back to eating after I picked up the container and moved away.
For the past while, I’ve been rather confused about these kittens. While they were in the branch pile, I counted 6 small kittens, and even saw the mama nursing all of them. Then there were the 4 larger kittens, including that calico, and they all played together. I just went back to some older photos to confirm, and that calico is definitely one of the kittens we would see under the cats’ house last month. The one that, when we first saw it, had leaky eyes that were almost glued shut. That dark patch on its forehead is quite distinctive.
So the calico has simply moved in with this younger litter. The other three older kittens still frequent the area by the sun room, playing in the old kitchen garden or on the laundry platform, and eating from the food there.
That accounts for 8 kittens.
So I went looking at older photos.
This is the very first photo I got of this litter, when I discovered they were in the entry into the cats’ house. There are 5 kittens. You can see the two black and white kittens on top of each other. In the foreground is the fuzzy one, and beside the mama is the other one that I’ve been able to pick up every now and then.
The dark kitten next to the fuzzy one is missing.
Also… where did the 6th kitten I saw among them in the branch pile come from? I suppose it’s possible it was in the cats’ house with the 5 pictured above, just out of sight.
Whether it was originally part of this litter or not, where did it go when the mama moved her kittens to the board pile?
I found some video I took of the kittens in the branch pile. The quality sucks, because I had to zoom in so much, but I can still figure out which two kittens are now missing.
So are these two actually gone gone? Was there three, rather than two, litters in the pile at the time? Are the two unaccounted for kittens hidden away somewhere else? The mamas don’t seem to care all that much about which kittens are their own or which are part of another litter.
We put a twine “fence” around the squash and corn bed, with bells and whirligigs to discourage deer from walking through it. It wasn’t going to stop any little critters, but I hoped it would at least dissuade the deer from tromping on our plants.
I was wrong.
Well, maybe it did, for a while, but as you can see by the tracks, a deer simply stepped through, then walked along the length of the corn patch. Why it would choose to walk on soft ground where its hooves would sink, instead of the harder ground with grass on it, I have no idea.
Somehow, it managed to not step on any of the corn or bean plants, though. Nor did anything get eaten. It just walked through, so I can’t really complain.
I guess it’s time to put some net around it. I was hoping to be able to finish mulching the area with cardboard and more straw or grass clippings, first. The critter barriers make it a pain to get into the growing areas. I’ll need to find another something to use as a post, so we can make a “gate” into the patch.
Well, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep myself from doing at least something productive outside! So I went out to top up the kibble trays (no sign of the little kittens; I’m hoping the mama hasn’t moved them again) and picking up things blown around by the wind – though I don’t think it was the wind that knocked over the water tray for the little kittens! I suspect something more like a groundhog did that.
Of course, I checked all the garden beds and decided the two Magda squash could be harvested today.
I probably shouldn’t have put them in my pocket while I went on to water the garden! They are looking a little beat up for the experience. 😉
Most of the stuff in the garden that has been struggling are slowly perking up. This includes all the different squash, though they are still so far behind where they should be for this time of year. The beans at the trellises are looking all right. The two varieties at the A frame trellis are both climbing now. The ones at the tunnel are finally progressing. I was starting to second guess myself that these were vining types at all. The shelling peas, though smaller, have finally starts to sent up vines and climb the trellis. The red noodle beans are bigger plants, but still look like bush beans, and aren’t at a climbing stage at all.
The beans that are doing the best, however, are the yellow bush beans that were interplanted with the kulli corn. That bed is looking pretty lush! I’m starting to think ahead to when we’ll have to change how the netting is set up. Right now, it goes over the whole thing, but kulli corn can reach up to 8 ft tall. The net is, at its highest, about 6 1/2 ft. The bush beans are huge, with big, glossy leaves and flowers all over the place. No signs of pods yet, but I’m not looking very hard at this point.
The netting has helped a lot in protecting the plants from critters, but they do make it very inconvenient to weed.
Hard to believe we are heading towards the end of July. We should be picking a lot more than just two little summer squash right now! Ah, well. I’m still holding out for a long, mild fall, like we had last year.
The Re-Farmer 