Morning update

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First, some cute critters.

There are eight in the photo, plus Rosencrantz at the kibble tray under the shrine. Before I headed outside, I spotted Sad Face on top of the kibble house roof, and later I saw Ghost Baby skulking into the yard, making for 11 yard cats I saw this morning. Rolando Moon is taking her turn, staying warm in the sun room right now. I didn’t see Potato Beetle anywhere, yet.

Aside from the wet from the water bowls I emptied and refreshed, there was a lot less mud around the kibble house and the paths in the snow. In fact, all around the inner and outer yards, water levels have gone down. As all but one area along the driveway has nowhere to drain, this shows how much the ground has thawed and absorbed the water.

I took the walk to check on the washed out area to the south of us, and things are a lot better there, too.

You can see some of the debris lines, showing how far up the water had been in the foreground.

This was a third area that started to wash out, but never got too bad before the water started to recede.

This is the wider, shallower area that washed out. Where I’m standing to take this picture had been under water, yesterday.

I was able to wade across the deeper washout to get this photo. Yesterday, the water was deeper than my boots. Again, where I am standing to take the picture had been under water, yesterday.

I took video as I crossed back, and I might put it together with video I took yesterday, to show the difference. We’ll see if I have time to work on that.

After I’d crossed and finishing taking video, I saw a pick up truck coming, so I started heading home. I did keep checking to see how the truck managed the crossing. The driver took his time, especially where the deeper damage is, but he got through okay.

As for our laundry disaster that flooded our entry and parts of the new basement last night, I still need to deal with that.

The problem has actually gotten worse.

While running water in the kitchen sink this morning, I started hearing some weird noises. After turning off the water, I could hear gurgling in the laundry drain pipe. The water was backing up into it!

So we now have to be careful using the kitchen sink, too!

We still have some super duper gel to unclog drains left, so I ended up using it in both the kitchen sink, and the laundry drain, letting it sit for half an hour before pouring hot water, as per the instructions, after it. For the amount of sink use since then, I still don’t know if it made any difference.

I checked on how things were in the basements. The stairs into the new part basement have a strip of carpet on them, and that’s still pretty wet, but the concrete floor is mostly dry.

The pipe from the kitchen sink comes into the basement, just outside the door to the root cellar. Inside the root cellar, I can see the laundry drain pipe coming through the wall, right near the concrete corner of the old basement. There is an angle to the pipe before it joins the main pipe in a T. When trying to use the plumbing snake, I could feel it going through that bend, and then it would reach the main pipe and that was about it. It was basically like hitting a wall.

All of the laundry drain plumbing is new; when my husband and younger daughter came out here several weeks ahead of me and our older daughter, my brother installed the washer and dryer in the entry way with the help of my daughter, including putting in new plumbing for the drain, which had been there for a sink, previously. The T where the pipes join almost sits right on top of the concrete wall of the old basement. Since this is a corner of the other basement, the main pipe runs through a beam above the wall of one part of the corner and behind the other, into the old basement.

I checked it out in the old basement, too. There is a space on top of the concrete wall, which is wider than the house wall resting on it. The pipe runs all along there, until it finally bends to join the main drain where the bathtub, toilet and bathroom sink also join.

Of course, there’s nothing to tell me where the clog is, but I can at least see that there is no obvious damage to the pipes.

I admit to being very confused about the water pipes, though. In the entryway, the taps are next to the drain, closer to the entry to the dining room. That would be to the east. However, when I go into the root cellar, I see the water pipes running to the kitchen, and logically, there should be pipes running up to the laundry taps, on the east side of the drain pipe.

They’re not there.

They’re in the old basement. I’d estimate about three feet to the west of the drain pipe, putting them under my husband’s bedroom, not under the entry. The heat duct to the vent into that bedroom runs by there, too. Using that as reference, those pipes are coming up right about where the head of my husband’s hospital bed is.

That wall is part of the original log house.

Which means that somewhere, hidden in the log wall, the water pipes make a 90 degree bend to where the taps are in the entry. Why those pipes are so far from the taps, instead of just going straight through the floor in the entry, escapes me.

If we ever get to the point where we can finally renovate this place, I will be very curious to see what’s under all the paneling.

Anyhow.

Later this afternoon, I need to get my laundry out of the washing machine, use the new syphon hose to drain out as much water as possible, set the rigged sump pump house out the storm door window, then plug in the washing machine and see what happens. Hopefully, I’ll finally be able to finish my laundry. I need my clothes!

The Re-Farmer

Recommended: The Bearded Butchers

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Welcome to my second “Recommended” series. Here, you’ll find various sites and channels that I’ve been enjoying and wanted to share with you. With so many people currently looking to find ways to be more self sufficient or prepared for emergencies, that will be the focus for most of these, but I’ll also be adding a few that are just plain fun. Please feel free to leave a comment or make your own recommendation. I hope you enjoy these!

When I was a kid, I remember helping my dad butchering and processing our own cows and pigs, and helping my mother do the chickens, but I was pretty young and don’t remember much about it, so it’s one of the skills I’ve been doing more research on. This is a YouTube channel I recently discovered. It’s a bit different from my usual recommendations, but for those who are looking to supply their own meat and do more of their own food processing, there is a lot to learn from The Bearded Butchers. If you go to their About page, you’ll find links to their websites and social media.

To start out, as butchers, they focus on straight-from-the-farm and humanely harvested meats. Their YouTube channel has been around since 2016, but Whitefeather Meats has a 200 year long tradition.

With more people looking into raising their own chickens, or just finding ways to save money by buying whole birds, here is a very practical video on how to butcher a chicken.

Also, love that vacuum sealer!! :-D

Their “how to butcher a… ” videos cover a wide range of animals, including beef, pork, lamb, goat, deer, elk and even bison. They also have videos on how to skin wild rabbit, hog and lamb. You’ll even find video on how to field dress a deer (which is how I found their channel!).

You’ll also find comparison videos, like this one.

Here, they talk about wet vs dry aged beef, but you’ll also find videos comparing bison vs beef, grass fed beef vs grain fed, and comparing Wagyu beef and Kobe beef!

You’ll even find cooking videos, like this one comparing Crockpot beet pot roasts.

They’ve got a lot of grilling videos, too. :-)

Then there’s more in depth, long videos, ranging from a complete breakdown on how to butcher a cow or a pig, to …

… makin’ bacon! They say “at home”, but they get to cheat with their massive band saw. This video is with pork, but they have a video in making beef bacon, too!

You can even learn how to make your own hot dogs.

Yeah, another video that’s almost an hour long.

I’ll be honest; I haven’t been able to finish watching the hour long videos yet, as I can rarely stay at the computer long enough to finish one, so I have to watch them in bits and pieces.

While we are looking at getting chickens first, I’m also thinking of the possibility of raising rabbits for meat, and hunting deer. One of the things I really like about this channel is the sheer variety of animals, including game, that they cover.

For anyone who is looking to at least process, if not raise and hunt, their own meat, I definitely recommend The Bearded Butchers.

That and they have the most awesome beards.

The Re-Farmer

Flooding of a different sort

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What a wet and terrible end to the day! And it’s not over yet.

No, I’m not talking about the storm related flooding outside. Nor am I talking about the water collecting in our old basement.

No, this is a completely different sort of flooding.

I tried to do laundry.

We’ve been having issues with our laundry. A while back, we discovered that when the washer tried to drain, the water would slowly back up the drain pipe and start spilling on the floor.

Cleaning that mess when it first happened was when we discovered that the septic had backed up into the old basement, and we figured it was related.

Photo by Hilary Halliwell on Pexels.com

It wasn’t.

Somewhere in the pipes, there’s a bottleneck block. Wherever the block is, it’s past the T where the drain pipe from the laundry joins the main pipe from the kitchen. The plumber’s snake won’t make the bend, so we haven’t been able to clear it.

We’ve used super strong (septic safe) drain cleaner. We’ve been doing regular pipe-cleaning bacterial treatments (that are also designed to help break down the contents of the septic tank). So far, nothing has worked. In fact, it was getting worse. We’ve had to hover around the washing machine, waiting for the drain stage, listen for the water coming up the pipe, pause the machine, wait for the pipe to drain, then start it up again. Repeatedly.

The length of time it takes for the pipe to fill has been getting shorter.

Today, it got impossible. Almost as soon as the water started to drain, the pipe would fill and water would literally start shooting out the opening. Of course, it takes a moment for the water to stop flowing after the pause button is hit, so there was basically no time for there to not be water coming up the pipe.

I tried using a smaller plumber’s snake that we have – one that has a bottle brush type of end that is great for pulling cat hair out of the bathroom sink. I think I even managed to get it to bend at the T. Pulling it up, though, there was no sign of anything stuck to the bristles that would show it had brushed up against something blocking the pipe.

There was no way I was going to be able to drain the washing machine this way, and it couldn’t possibly be good on the electronics to be constantly hitting the pause button over and over. I started thinking, if I could drain it into a bucket or something, but that would take a pretty large bucket, and quite a few pauses to empty it. If only I could just drain it straight out of the house.

*lightbulb moment*

I remembered we have that spare hose for the sump pump. The washing machine is in the entry, not far from the main doors we aren’t using because of the hinge problems. If the hose were long enough, I could open the inner door and run the hose out the storm door window, which has no screen.

So I went to the sun room and got the hose. It was more than long enough. I was in the process of checking to make sure the drain hose on the washing machine would fit, when it happened.

The washing machine, which was still on pause, turned itself on, and started to drain.

I was holding the drain hose.

Water started splashing all over me, the washing machine, the dryer and the floor, with remarkable pressure.

I hit the pause button.

Nothing.

I hit the power button.

Nothing.

I kept trying to turn the machine off, but it just would not respond. Then I noticed the display showed something about the door. So I tried to lift it.

With the machine running, it should have been locked.

It opened.

Meanwhile, I was trying to hold the hose, with water spraying, away from the machines and the outlets behind them, to spray onto the floor instead, but there’s not a lot of length to work with. The machine needed to be unplugged, but I was soaking wet.

By then, I was already calling for help, and the family came running. I quickly said that someone needed to unplug the washing machine while staying dry to do it. My older daughter launched herself over the steps (there are only 2, but they were also wet) and onto the machine to reach the plug and got it done.

By this time, half the water of a very full drum was flooding the entryway and pouring down the basement steps.

Another time when I’m glad we have unfinished basements.

I asked for a broom and my younger daughter got it for me while her sister got down from the washing machine – with considerable more care than how she got on it! I started sweeping the water down the stairs, while we also tried to move various things off the sopping floor, untangle the sump pump hose, and so on. After a while, my daughter took over with the broom, and I went into the basement to see what the status was, there. The basement floor is not the least bit level, and the water was starting to run under the root cellar door and pool behind it. Nothing else in the root cellar was affected, though.

Back upstairs I went, and got our mop and bucket. My daughter started mopping up the entryway to get as much as she could, then headed into the basement to clean up as much as she could there, too. The water had continued to flow past the root cellar door and was starting to puddle about half way to the other end.

That washing machine has a huge drum. The machine adjusts the fill size automatically, based on how much is in the tub (I’m assuming by weight), and it had been full to the top. The first time I tried to stop the water, I’d accidently hit the power button instead of the pause button. That meant I had to start the load over. I think the weight of water in the drum messed things up, and it filled for a much larger load.

My daughter also adjusted the pedestal fan I had moved to help dry out the far corner of the basement that was getting damp, then set it to oscillate to try and get air circulating to both ends of the basement as much as possible.

I went back to the entryway and started drying off the washer and dryer, which also got unplugged. After a while, I got the sump pump hose again. The washing machine’s hose fit into the end, but wouldn’t stay. I ended up duct taping them together. I was then going to tape the hose to the side of the drier to hold it in place, but the duct tape wouldn’t stick to the drier. Wiping it down apparently didn’t get it dry enough. So I left it for now.

Since we were dealing with water, anyhow, I went into the old basement to sweep the standing water into the drain. As I was thinking about what happened, wondering out the machine turning itself on and not turning itself off, and why the door didn’t lock, it finally occurred to me.

Once I realised I could open the door to the washing machine, I could have aimed the drain hose into the drum. In the middle of everything going on, it just never occurred to me.

*sigh*

Extending the hose out the door, however, will work. Once everything is dry again, we’ll plug the dryer in. Then, after making sure the hose is set up to drain through the door, we’ll plug the washing machine in and see what happens.

Hmm… this would actually be a good time to test out the new syphon pump and drain the tub that way. The washing machine can’t be set to go straight to another part of the cycle; you can only start a full wash cycle, or pause part way through one. If we plug it in and it doesn’t, say, turn itself on again, the only way to get the machine to drain the tub would be to start a new load.

What a pain.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have to see what numbers in the budget I can juggle, so we can get a plumber in.

Not that that will happen anytime soon, with all the flooding happening right now. I had expected the main road to wash out in a particular spot, but I’ve since seen photos people shared showing that it has washed out right at the highway – and the (no longer used) church and bell tower at that intersection is completely surrounded by water.

Even if I called a plumber now, I wouldn’t expect them to have a chance to get out here for days, if not weeks. I imagine all the plumbers are insanely busy right now!

How bizarre that, with all the flooding going on around us, the flooding we’re having to deal with is from our own washing machine.

It’s past midnight now. I’m going to go to the old basement and do one more sweep before bed. I’ll leave dealing with the washing machine for day time.

What a way to end the day.

The Re-Farmer

In a state

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I just found out that, this afternoon, our rural municipality, among many others, was declared in a state of emergency. People were informed where to pick up sand and sand bags, if they need it, and where to muster if they need to evacuate.

Where we are, things are not so dire. One of my neighbours drove the roads in the area, including the one past our place that I’ve been checking. It is nowhere near the worst if them. He drove through all the washed out areas, as he has a truck that can handle it, but I wasn’t sure he would make it through some!

Around our home, however, the water continues to slowly recede. The rain has stopped, though we did see a few snowflakes. The water seeping into the old basement has not increased, though it hasn’t decreased, either. One corner of the new basement is damp, so I put a fan on it. Before we moved here, my brother had found that corner full of water, with mold all up the wall. It was a huge job to clean up. A rain barrel had been left unattended outside that corner, during a rainy summer. It overflowed right at the wall. We now believe the weeping tile, at least near that corner, is filled with sand and soil, which I see washing through the drain to the septic tank, because of this. That corner now still gets damp occasionally, and we need to keep an eye on it.

We are very fortunate where we are. We aren’t much higher than other areas, but it’s enough to make a huge difference. I’ve been seeing other photos people are sharing on Facebook, and it is pretty devastating.

We have much to be thankful for right now!

The Re-Farmer

Signs of spring – I’m so excited!

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After checking on the road conditions, I continued checking areas of the inner yard we can now access again. I also checked on the old kitchen garden. It just happened that the sump pump was running, and I was quite amused by what I saw.

Along with the water coming out the end, there was water spraying like fountains out of the hose! There are three areas with holes in them. Once I saw the two smaller holes next to the rain barrel, I pulled up the slack a bit, so that they will hopefully spray on the paving slabs, instead. Once things dry up a bit, I’ll just patch it with some electric tape. We do have spare hose, but I’m still considering adding it to the end of this one, to send the water further away from the house. The ground does slope away from the house rather well, here, so I really don’t need to, but it does give us more options.

Walking through the old kitchen garden, I could see deep hoof prints in the garden beds from the deer. Which made a good indicator of how thawed out the ground is!

Going into the maple grove, I noticed an area was clearer of snow that I wanted to get a closer look at.

Between these two rows of trees is where we planted crocuses. About a quarter of it is still too covered with snow, but I wanted to see if there was any sign of them, where it was clear.

Yes!!! In one section, I found so many little crocuses coming up! Including the one you see here, that has pierced its way through a leaf. :-D

I am just thrilled that they survived the winter. I went to check the area we planted the grape hyacinth in, but it’s still too covered with snow.

With the crocuses coming up, I was curious. Was it possible? I had to check.

YESSSS!!!!!! We have tulips coming up! Just look at them all! I put arrows pointing to the ones I could find. It’s entirely possible there are more, camouflaged among the leaf litter.

There are even a few visible in a section my daughters planted fewer, more unique, tulips. Only a couple are visible in this photo, but there were more.

This is just so exciting! After the deer and other critters decimated the tulips last year, we thought they were done for. It was their first growing season, and we didn’t think they had the chance to establish themselves.

My daughter is so happy. She was heart broken when all her tulips were eaten! One of the things the girls had done was make sure the bulbs were buried extra deep, as recommended on the package to keep them as perennials. A lot of people buy and plant tulips and other bulbs every spring. If they’re buried closer to the surface, they can’t survive our winters. We didn’t want that, so my daughter made the extra effort. It looks like all their hard work paid off!

Now I’m wondering if my daughter’s irises and daffodils, planted along the edge of the old kitchen garden, will come up, too. One type did show some leaves last year, but never got to the point of sending up flowers. Another type didn’t come up at all, that we could see.

Aside from some leaf buds starting to show, this is the first major sign of spring growth we’ve had this year!

Oh, and we have more exciting growth, this time indoors. We’ve got melons sprouting! Two types; the Halona melon, plus one of the grocery store melons I lost the name for.

Flowers and food, there’s lots to look forward to in the gardens this summer!

The Re-Farmer

Road conditions – extended!

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This morning, while switching out the trail cam memory cards, I found a new sign on the main road past our place.

That is not where I expected to see a road closed sign! This road has a lot of traffic, as it’s the main road to get to quite a few farms. I wasn’t surprised that there might be a problem, though. The municipal drainage ditch that washed out the road I’ve been checking crossed the main road about a half mile up from here. I just would have expected the road to be closed further to the east of this intersection.

I saw a large excavator going by our place yesterday, so I decided to walk to the washout and see what, if anything, was done there.

It turns out, nothing. I could see the tread marks continue past the washed out area.

This is the section that’s too deep for me to try and cross with my short rubber boots. The third area I saw yesterday that was starting to wash out has gotten bigger, but overall, things have not gotten much worse. During my walk up, it seemed that the water had receded in a few places in the fields, too.

I did get some video; this is raw from the camera, with no editing.

The winds from the north were quite high – enough to make me glad I wore my winter parka this morning, as I was walking back against the wind!

With the amount of snow that has melted away, and the water around the inner and outer yards somewhat receded, I went over to check on the septic field (which, as my brother pointed out when I called it that, isn’t actually a septic field, because we have an ejector. It’s the area where the grey water and, this spring, at least, runoff collects) and the sheds that I could get at. There was enough snow gone that I decided to check our back gate.

I’m glad I did!

It’s completely torn loose! The other end is held up by the chain and lock. You can see the U nails/staples in the gate post. The wire mesh of the gate was torn right off. Considering there is snow on top of the mesh, this happened quite some time ago, but we haven’t been able to get over this way to see it.

My guess: deer on the road got startled and plowed their way through the gate.

This secondary driveway accesses the main road. Since the gate was down anyway, I decided to walk up the road and see why it was closed.

I found out what the excavator was doing, yesterday!

It patched a section of road that had been washed out completely, at a culvert that drains into our quarter section. As you can see, the patch is already starting to wash out!

I didn’t try to walk any further (I’d already walked about 2 1/2 miles by then), but looking further down the road, I thought I could see another area that was washed out, maybe a quarter mile up the road. I’m thinking at, or near, the municipal drainage ditch.

Just look how far that new gravel has been washed down!

This culvert is not part of the municipal drainage ditch system. I believe it’s been here since before my parents acquired the farm. I remember playing in the culvert when I was a kid and, from what I can see of it, I think it’s still the same culvert, and hasn’t been upgraded or anything like that. No need to fix what ain’t broke!

Not far beyond the fence line is an area that I remember being just a really rough spot across the low area. There is water flowing here only during spring melt, or in excessively wet years. When the cows walked through it, their hooves would sink into the mud, squishing the soil into hills and holes. At some point while I was living in other provinces, a pair of narrow culverts were buried here, to create a sort of low driving lane. The washed out gravel is actually starting to go over this “lane”, and you can see just beyond it, where water is flowing through the small culverts. This seasonal “creek” continues on to the field the renter has been growing corn in the past two years, and eventually connects with the municipal drainage ditch. Which means that this water is contributing to the flooding that has washed out the other road.

On the way back, I freed up the gate from the remaining snow on it, and make it look like it’s fixed. :-D

It’s actually being held up by a single barb on the lower strand of barbed wire. We’ll have to come back with tools to fix it properly. For now, it’ll likely come down again with a stiff breeze! :-D What I should probably do is find a post to wrap the wire mesh around, then affix it to the gate post in a way that’s more flexible. Maybe even add hinges. We’ll see.

On the list of things we want to do is extend the main driveway all the way to this secondary driveway with gravel. It came in handy the first time we found our gate’s lock glued shut, and we had to go out this way to get to town – and buy bolt cutters! Once we get past the collapsing log building in the inner yard, it gets very bumpy. At some point, someone had driven through when it was muddy, leaving deep ruts all over an area of it. We’ve tried to keep at least a lane mowed, so we can see where we can drive through without hitting rocks, or who knows what else that’s hidden in the grass and thatch.

When I have the chance, I want to make my way through the fence around the outer yard and check the gravel pit that the renter dug out last year. It should be very full of water, right now!

After checking out the road conditions, I also checked out newly accessible parts of the inner yard and found some things that got me very excited – but that will be for my next post! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Wet morning kitties

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Well, I got quite a lot of walking done this morning, checking road conditions out. It was also another late night, partly to keep checking the old basement and sweeping the water into the floor drain and to the sump pump, partly because… well. I’m a suck for the kitties. I noticed Broccoli had been using the shelf shelter just outside the sun room, because every time I came through the door, she (and sometimes several other cats) would explode out of there and run off. She has been so bedraggled, and is still very pregnant, I wanted to do something to help keep her warm and dry. So I stole some of my husband’s yarn (my own stash doesn’t have much plain yarn in it) and crocheted a bed for her. I used 4 strands on my hook, to make it night and thick, and the base is a double thick, with low sides. So newborn kittens can’t accidentally roll out of it if she decides to give birth in it. By the time I was done and went out to put it in the shelf shelter (I neglected to take pictures), it was about 2 am.

Alas, when I came out this morning, a couple of pieces of the rigid insulation used to create the shelf shelter was on the ground. Since I made the openings narrower, when the cats get startled and run out, they’re more likely to bash into the sides now, and it looked like they finally knocked some pieces off. With the shelf shelter so open, there were no cats using it at all.

After putting out food and warm water, I took the time to fix the shelf shelter and, hopefully, made it more secure.

Broccoli wouldn’t let me get her in any of the pictures I took this morning! Junk Pile didn’t even come out, staying with her kittens in the cats’ house. The cat you see at the entry is her baby from last year, that looks so much like her.

After feeding the critters and switching out the memory cards, I went on to check the road conditions – more on that in another post. I was also able to check areas we haven’t been able to access for a while. More snow has melted away in the rain, but the standing water in the inner and outer yards has actually receded in most places.

One of the areas I checked out was the shed where my parents’ belongings are stored. There are several abandoned cars near is, one of which has a window that’s partly open. As I got closer, two cats exploded out of the window and ran off.

I could see another cat – I’m not sure if it’s Nutmeg or Toesentcrantz, but considering it didn’t run off, I’m guessing Nutmeg – watching me from the back window.

Then I saw Broccoli climb up onto the front seat!

So there were at least 4 cats in that car. I saw The Distinguished Guest sitting on the trunk of another one, so maybe he was in there, too, and I just didn’t see him leave. The car must be nice and toasty on days like today. I’m glad they are able to use it.

Once we’re finally able to get a scrap dealer to haul away all the junk cars, we’ll have to make sure there are alternative shelters available for the cats! No chance of that happening until our vandal’s civil suit against us is done. As you can see by the spray paint on the windshield, this car is one of the things he tagged and thinks he’s entitled to. Or at least entitled to $10,000 from me for it, and all the other junk he’s claiming are his. So for now, the cats can enjoy the shelter!

This area has a lot of burdock growing around it. I saw Potato Beetle in the area, too. This would explain all the burrs stuck in his tail!

Oh, I see my video uploads have just finished. I’ll include those in my next post!

The Re-Farmer

Water levels, on the road

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After seeing the sign the municipality put on our road, I decided to check out the status of where things are washed out.

While walking over, I was paying to much attention to the state of the road and the ditches, I completely missed the 4 sandhill cranes in a tree, until they suddenly took off, making their croaking sounds. Startled the heck out of me! :-D

Along with the sign at the intersection, they also marked off the flood zone with high visibility markers.

There was a new section, just starting to wash out.

This is the smaller washed out area – smaller, as in how deep the water was, and how much was washed away. It actually covers more area. You can see all that gravel washed into the ditch!

This is the same area, from the other side.

I didn’t try to cross the bigger washed out area; my rubber boots aren’t tall enough for that water!

You can see the clay that’s left behind, after the gravel got washed away. In some areas, I think that clay is the only thing keeping the damage down.

That’s a lot of gravel in the ditch!

Before improvements were made, when this area washed out, there would basically be a ravine, cutting through the road. Right now, if someone had a sturdy enough vehicle, one could still drive through this – so I was only a little surprised during my walk home, when I heard a vehicle coming up behind me!

I wouldn’t dare go through this with our van.

I’m seeing traffic using the main road, so hopefully that is still in good shape. Mind you, if it did wash out, it would be after the first mile, and people would have to take other roads to get around it, and I don’t know what those roads are like right now, either.

I’m quite thankful we don’t need to go anywhere. Our work is right here at home.

The rain continues to fall as I write this, though it’s so light right now, I can’t really see it. We’re supposed to get up to another centimeter of rain this evening – less than half an inch – with even less, overnight. We are on high enough ground that we should not have issues with overland flooding, but flat enough that the water is mostly just staying in place, as the soil slowly thaws out enough to actually absorb it in places. We just have to keep on top of monitoring the old basement for water.

I haven’t been online much, so I haven’t heard how things are in the south, which was expected to get hit with a lot more rain. The city was bracing for more flooding. South of the city is a flood plain, with a lot of small towns dotting it. Many of them have dikes around them, and houses built outside of towns are supposed to be built at a minimum height above grade, because of the regular flooding, but there comes a point where even those measures just aren’t enough. My brother built a dike around his house near the city (but not on the flood plain) and for now, things are under control there. He was even able to pick up a pair of new pumps, on sale, even!, to help drain any water inside the dike faster. The dike has a one way culvert to drain water from the inside of the dike, but sometimes it needs a little extra help, and this was one of those times. It took him years to slowly build up his flood control measures, and all that work is paying off very well right now.

The Colorado Low is still sweeping its way across parts of US and Canada. We are still expecting more rain, but not anything usually severe. There’s still the possibility of mixed rain and snow by tomorrow morning. Then things are supposed to warm right up. If things stay as predicted, farmers will soon be able to start seeding their fields, right on “schedule” (at least for our area), and it’ll be the first spring with adequate moisture in years.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: potting up, and new sprouts!

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After checking on the plants last night, I ended up shifting things around earlier than expected. Some of the Cup of Moldova tomatoes at the top of the mini-greenhouse were getting too big! With not being able to remove the cover, it was actually a bit difficult to get them out. The door flap doesn’t open all the way to the top of the cover, so I only had a few inches to get them through.

I was going to just take them to the sun room, but they were so tall, I decided to pot them up, using some pots we found when cleaning up the old basement.

I had to commandeer a larger bin being used for something else, to fit them! The plants were potted with about 3 inches of their stems buries. If I’d had deeper pots, I could easily have buries another 3 inches.

There were also some new seedlings I finally was able to get pictures of.

These were taken last night. The Yellow Pear tomatoes had started to come up earlier, and there were finally some Chocolate Cherry sprouts showing. Among the squash and gourds, there was that one Giant Pumpkin pushing it’s way through – then a Tennessee Dancing Gourd suddenly popped up!

This is how they looked this morning. It’s always so exciting to see how fast they grow, once they germinate! That Giant Pumpkin looks like a tiny Audrey II, about to sing “Feed me, Seymore!”. :-D Since this picture was taken, the leaves have already opened.

The tomatoes handled their first night in the sun room quite well. The only place there was room to put them and still get light was at the bottom shelf. The shop light we’re using to give light from the inside isn’t long enough to light up all the shelves we’re using. The highest shelf we’re using only gets light during the day, so that’s where we’ve got smaller bins of toilet paper tube pots seeded with the tulip trees, paw paws, and some of the kulli corn. Until they germinate, low light is not an issue for them.

These tomatoes are the same age as the ones we’d brought to the sun room earlier; they’d been left in the mini-greenhouse because they were smaller. Now, they’re bigger than the ones that have been in the sun room for a while, but the sun room ones looks sturdier, though they also still have a bit of cold damage on their leaves from their first night in the room. The greater temperature swings make for stronger plants plants, almost like hardening them off.

One of the things I did before coming in from my rounds was got into the garage and grab the folding closet doors we found in the outhouse when we cleaned it up. We’ll need more space for plant pots in the sun room, and we’re going to use it, probably with the new saw horses I bought, to set up a “table” over the swing bench. Depending on the height, there should still be room for Potato Beetle to curl up on the swing bench when he wants to be in the sun room again. :-) He, I’m happy to say, leaves the plants completely alone.

Unlike Susan, who desperately wants to eat them all.

Or Beep Beep, who wants to sleep on them.

Or Tissue, who wants to dig them all up.

They do make this whole “starting seeds indoors” thing much more difficult that it should be!

These tomatoes, however, are now safe in their new pots and new location. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Water levels, close to home

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When I headed out this morning, there were a lot of areas to check during my morning rounds!

Things are actually pretty good.

The storage house pretty much has a moat right now. It doesn’t go quite all the way around, but pretty close!

That’s a lot of water for the cats to get through. It looks like it goes all the way to the opening they use here, to get under the storage house. The only other way for them to get in and out is through a broken window at the back, which also has an old bench under it, so there is at least that access to one of their primary shelters.

This is the area by the feeding station, where a lane had been made for the septic truck. There is a lot spot near where the pile of poplar wood is that always gets water when the snow melts, but this is the first time I’ve seen the water extend to far towards the gate in the chain link fence!

Before and after pictures of the area in front of the house that we would normally drive up to, when loading and unloading the van. Though the pictures were taken a week apart, there had been another snowfall, so there was actually more snow there, just a couple of days ago.

The water in front of the outhouse and behind the garage is the deepest, and most wide spread, I’ve ever seen it. I don’t know if any critters are using those two old dog houses near the outhouse, but I think that might be where Potato Beetle came from, to get so wet and have straw stuck to him. I’m not sure where the burs would have come from, though.

As deep as it is here, the usual lake that forms at the driveway to the garage isn’t particularly large. It looks like the water is actually being absorbed, since it doesn’t look like it’s draining anywhere.

The driveway itself isn’t draining very well. We can still drive through, but I wouldn’t want to unless we absolutely had to, as we’d be just causing more damage.

I took the route outside the fence to get to the sign cam, pausing to check the state of things as best I could. You can see where the rows of corn had been planted, and further back, where there had been a pile of pulled up plants from the garden that were meant to be buried in new plots. The deer had dug them up and eaten most of them, which is why that spot is melted away a bit faster.

Much of the garden area has about a foot of snow still on it, with a few bare patches exposed here and there.

There was a new sign near the sign cam…

The road hasn’t been closed, but drivers are forewarned!

I decided to check the status of the road after this. I’ll share those photos in my next post. :-)

When my daughters went out later on, they checked things in directions I did not go. They were able to get to the shed that has all my parents’ stuff stored in it, and check out the field our septic ejector drains into. There’s water there, of course, but all looks well.

At this rate, we might even be able to get to the barn again, soon! :-D

While talking about the state of things with the girls, one of my daughters commented on what a good thing it was, that we were able to do the big shopping trip to the city when we did! We may not have gotten everything, but we’re easily good for a couple of weeks, and even then, the only thing we’d be running out of is the dry cat kibble.

All in all, we’re doing pretty good. Even the water seeping into the basement isn’t too bad.

Hopefully, all is well with our neighbours, too.

The Re-Farmer