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!
Today, let’s go for something fun; Lost in the Pond; America’s Finest British Import. Lawrence Brown moved to the US from Britain, and has turned his culture shock into some fantastic and hilarious YouTube videos, in his “…quest to uncover all of the memos that Britain and America Lost in the Pond!” He also has a presence on the usual social media, a website and a Patreon page.
Some of his earlier videos were so popular, they have gone on to become series.
Such as his videos on American Things Britain Doesn’t Even Have a Word For.
He’s also been working his way across the US with videos on how to pronounce different US place names.
Ha! Someone should do videos like with with Canadian place names, too. :-D
My favourites, though, highlight the differences in ordinary things.
Like kitchens…
… refrigerators…
… bedrooms…
Okay, I didn’t know the US had so many HUGE bed sizes.
Then there’s ordinary household objects.
To me, the faucet is the part the water runs from. The tap is the knob or lever you turn to make the water flow.
There’s also the differences in hotels.
He would get a laugh out of some of the elevators I’ve been in, that have things like M for Mezzanine, G1 or G2 for different ground floors, and buttons for the front or the back doors of the elevator. I once lived in an apartment building where my 3rd floor apartment was on the ground floor at the street level main lobby, while the 1st floor, ground level was two floors down, but opened out to a courtyard near a lagoon. It also had two underground parking levels, the side lane entrance to which was under my 3rd floor, street level apartment.
I really enjoyed this one.
After our second daughter was born, I got a cookbook that covered how to make meals that could be adapted for adults/older kids, toddlers and baby food, all from the same recipe. It turned out to be a British cookbook. It took me forever to figure out what courgettes and aubergine were!
Also, what they’re calling as either a gyro or a … donna kabab? Is that what he’s saying?
We know them as Donairs. That’s a Canadian thing.
Oh, how I miss a real Donair.
Gotta love the winter related ones.
Being Canadian, some of the laughs I get is because we are such a mix of both the US and Britain in our everyday lives! :-D
At the time I’m writing this, there are 6 years of videos to enjoy, and I do hope you have a chance to go through many of them. They’re a hoot! Well worth recommending.
Closer to the house, the inner and outer yards are getting thoroughly saturated, with standing water in places I’ve never seen water collecting in.
Thankfully, the old basement doesn’t seem to be getting any more water seeping into it, though I can see through the floor drain that water flowing from the weeping tile under the new basement has increased. I moved the big blower fan to a different spot, and the window has been switched to the summer screen window, with the plastic cover still leaning over it, so no rain can go directly into the window. The improved air circulation might be helping keep the damp from spreading too much.
Our provincial government has announced they’re giving $15 million dollars to the municipalities for road repairs. I figure that’ll run out in about a week. :-/ After spending billions of tax dollars on things like phone apps for the Vid, I expect they’ll be crying poverty, now that the funds are needed for what they were intended for.
Forgive me if I sound a bit cynical. We continue to be okay where we are, but I know many others will be struggling not to lose their homes and farms to the flooding. Even our short range weather forecast has changed. Instead of 2 days without rain, followed by 2 days with light rain, now we’re supposed to have 1 day without rain followed by 3 days of rain, with the heaviest rain on the second day.
I was so distracted by a conference call I had to make this morning, I completely forgot to schedule today’s Recommended post! I will post it tomorrow and be back to Mondays and Fridays after that.
I did make sure to feed the critters before the conference call, since I had no idea how long it would be.
The cats are much more laid back out the food and take their time coming out, even though the kibble trays were empty. Clearly, they are no longer as hungry as they were when it was still cold out. I only saw 8 cats in total this morning, which means we are “missing” about 10 cats. I know some, like Potato Beetle and Broccoli, will come by later, but others have not been seen in weeks.
After the conference call was done, I went back out to do the rest of my morning rounds. One of the fun things now on the list is checking on the tulip patch. Look what showed up overnight!
Whole bunches of them now have flower buds!
We will have to keep a close eye on them. This is the stage last year, when something ate all the flower buds. We still have some rope barriers and distractions, like bells and spinny, sparkly things, around it that seems to be keeping the deer away (I can see their hoof prints in the mud, going past it), but there’s nothing to stop any small critters.
It’s a chilly and overcast day today, and the crocus flowers are mostly closed, but I was seeing more of the purple ones again.
The first wonderberry in the sun room has started blooming again, and the younger two are covered in clusters of buds. I gave up pinching off the buds; there were just too many to keep up with! We still haven’t even found a spot for them, yet. As they readily self seed, it has to be someplace they can be treated as perennials.
I did try to peak into the cats’ house to see the babies. What I saw were two adult cats so wrapped around each other that, aside from their heads, I couldn’t tell one from the other. It did seem that both were nursing kittens, but I couldn’t really tell. I’d love to be able to get those windows cleaned on the insides; they are quite smeared from the cats rubbing up against them all winter, but we aren’t going to open that roof right now.
As for the conference call, it was to set a new trial date for our vandal’s vexatious litigation against me. It turns out the previous date was cancelled because the judge got sick. When it was cancelled, we received an email with alternate dates; three early ones, two in May, one in June, all in the city, or three late ones, one in November, two in December, at where we have been going for my retraining order application against our vandal. The only time we had to go to court in the city was for court mediation. I left something like an hour earlier than necessary, and still ended up late. The area is a disaster to navigate. Meanwhile, our vandal didn’t even show up. Just his lawyer was there.
He doesn’t seem to have any lawyer for this one. He has no case, so I doubt any civil lawyer would take it, though when it came up during court mediation, his criminal lawyer did say he’d be willing to represent, if asked, but he hadn’t been asked.
These conference calls run through a docket and, in the past it has taken a while, but this time we were the first ones called. After clarifying that we were there to set a new trial date, and asking if we wanted to attend in person or by video call (which neither of us can do), the clerk spent some time searching and found one date in August. After clarifying that it was at our usual location, I said I was good with any date at that location. Our vandal, as I expected, jumped in and asked if it could be done in the city, and brought up the date he’d chosen before – which he knew I couldn’t do. He said he just wanted to get it over with. Ha!
Anyhow.
The clerk told him it had be be where the “cause of action” was taken, and couldn’t be done in the city unless one of us lived there, or if we both agreed to it. He said he hadn’t known that. Then she said that the August date was the ONLY one that had an open slot we could take. So he had no choice but to accept the date the court gave us. Which is pretty much what I’d suggested be done when I tried to take the November date in the original email exchange, because I knew he’d never accept any date I chose. For me, it wasn’t so much about the date, but the location, so of course our vandal tried to choose the other location! With so many files being delayed over and over, the next available date likely would have been next year.
The main thing is, it’s done and we have a new date. Barring more crazy stuff happening, as it has since all this started back in late 2020, I look forward to a judge throwing it his case out in August.
At this point, even if we were able to do a May date more locally, I still wouldn’t be sure if I could make it. Our vandal may have vehicles that can get through the washouts, but we don’t, and those washouts might just get worse. The predicted rain started while I was writing this, and was coming down pretty hard for a while. We’re still getting weather alerts, and now they’re saying we might be getting 3.5 – 5.5cm (about 1 1/2 – 2 inches) at times. The Overland Flow Flood warning now reads:
High amounts of rainfall occurring in a short period could create overland flooding in these areas which may impact low lying areas, roads, and properties. As the ground is extremely saturated, a sudden rise in water levels could occur in some waterways and creeks Residents along these areas are cautioned about the potential sudden rise of water levels. Follow all directions by local authorities. Listen for updates and take all necessary precautions to stay safe.
We aren’t near any waterways, unless you count the municipal drainage ditches, but the washouts we already have will likely get worse. We’re supposed to get a couple of warm sunny days next, then two more days of light rain again. At least now, the 14 day forecast shows a week of sun before we are supposed to get rain again. For us, around the house and the inner and outer yards, that mostly just means more mud. The areas low enough to collect water are not a threat to any buildings we’re actually using. We are okay. I’m concerned about some of our neighbours, though. :-(
What a gorgeous day today! We seem to have skipped spring and gone straight to summer, reaching a high of 19C/66F this afternoon.
The weather is not done with us yet, though. We are getting weather alerts again, for tomorrow. More rain is on the way, with the south end of our province expected to get another 2-3cm (under an inch) of rain. With waterways already full and the ground saturated, this could make the flooding situation worse. The municipalities to the north and south of us, which have rivers and large creeks running through them, are also on high water level alerts. Besides the expected rain tomorrow, looking at the 14 day forecast, we’re supposed to get showers almost every other day.
Talk about one extreme to the other! Drought last year, and now this.
I took advantage of the lovely temperatures today and spent some time at the picnic table, taking apart the collapsed canopy tent frame.
There it is! All the bits and pieces. I was even finally able to get the broken leg out of the ground – the hole was full of water, making it much easier.
The frame pieces to the left of the unbroken legs on the table top are all broken. They are still perfectly useable, though. There were a couple of longer pieces that were bent but not broken. I was able to bash on straight again with a brick, but the one you can see in the photo was more stubborn. :-D
The great thing about all these frame pieces is that they’ve got holes in them. We’ll be using the longest ones to support temporary fencing around small garden areas, like the old kitchen garden or an individual block of corn. They all have these handy screw holes in them, which will allow cord to be threaded through them, to provide extra support for any netting they will be holding up. The short pieces can be used to support netting or plastic over individual beds. We have been keeping our small water bottles, and those can be used as caps on the tops, to further support any netting or plastic laid over them.
I’ve also kept all the connectors, with their nuts and bolts, as well as the piece in the middle of the canopy, with the handle that allows for one person to pop the tent up at the highest point. The hub from the peak of the canopy has a crack where one of the nuts went through. I have no idea if we’ll ever find a use for all these connectors, but I’m sure we’ll find one at some point. :-D I’m also not sure what we can do with the legs. Especially with one of them damaged. If we don’t extend them, though, they can still hold a surface. We might come up with something.
The canopy cover was a total loss and severely torn apart, so that got thrown away.
There are seeds that we can direct sow right now, but we need to protect the beds from critters – like the pair of groundhogs I saw at the feeding station today! I saw one of them come out from the den under the stacked, salvaged boards at the edge of the spruce grove that used to be covered in junk. They would make short work of any new seedlings! Salvaging the pieces from the canopy tent will go a long way in helping protect our garden beds.
A lot of the squash in the big aquarium greenhouse were getting too big for their britches, so it was time to thin them out and pot them up!
The Giant Pumpkins were easy enough to do; there’s just one plant per biodegradable pot, so they just got put into bigger biodegradable pots with little issue.
With the others, we thinned by division. We had only a few of the larger biodegradable pots left, so the biggest ones were transplanted into those. After that, they went into the red Solo cups. Then they all went into the sun room.
Once those were done, we went through the mini-greenhouse and moved the remaining eggplants and peppers to the sun room as well. A couple of them got thinned by division, too.
These two bins are all winter squash, the giant pumpkins and hulless pumpkins, under the bright shop light.
The gourds that were already in the sun room joined more squash and Apple gourds in a bin.
The peppers that survived the Great Cat Crush, as well as replacement starts of peppers and eggplants, got moved into the window shelf.
Back in the big aquarium greenhouse, there is now more room to space things out. The melons were looking leggy, so I put something under the bin they’re in to raise them closer to the light. There’s still just one Zucca melon sprouted (the big one in the foreground).
There are still some smaller squash and gourds on the heat mat. The Yakteen gourds have not germinated yet. I tried to get a photo, but the camera decided to focus on the aquarium frame instead of the plants. LOL
In the mini-greenhouse, there are still the Chocolate Cherry and Yellow Pear tomatoes, and the ground cherries. With more space available, they’re now all spread out to get maximum light and air flow.
It’s always a risk to pot up things like squash. Once the new bins were in the sun room, water was added to the bottoms to let them absorb more moisture from below; particularly the biodegradable pots, so the pots themselves wouldn’t wick moisture out of the soil and away from the roots. I left the shop light on all night, to hopefully give them the energy they needed to handle the changes.
As of this morning, everything looked pretty much as I left them. Nothing was drooping or otherwise showing signs of stress from being divided and potted up. So far so good!
In about a week or two, we will start hardening off the transplants. By then, everything that’s in the aquarium greenhouse and the mini-greenhouse should be moved to the sun room, with the tomatoes divided and potted up.
If all goes well, we should have most, if not all, or cold tolerant seeds direct sown outside by the end of the month, too.
It feels so good to finally be able to move ahead with the gardening!
Last night we had some rain storms blow through. High winds were the main issue. Having rain now, when the flood waters have yet to finish receding, probably didn’t help much, but I don’t think we got enough for it to be an issue. Mostly, it was the winds that were of concern.
Since things have warmed up, there are far fewer outside cats to greet me in the morning.
I only saw 5 or 6, in total. The amount of kibble needed has also dropped considerably. For a while, I was putting food out twice a day, and sometimes even a third little top up got done if I was up in the wee hours and saw they were out again. Now, I’m finding kibble still left in the trays at the end of the day!
That’ll make things a bit easier on the budget!
While switching out the trail cam memory cards and checking the state of the garden beds, I noticed something rather unusual.
The straw bale had grown hair!
Green hair.
Looks like last night’s rain was enough to get the seeds caught in the straw to sprout, enthusiastically! It’s even growing out the sides exposed by the straw that had fallen away from the bale over the winter.
Too funny!
I’m going to just leave it. Once the soil had dried enough, we’ll be bringing the wood chipper over and running straw through the shredder chute for mulch. Last year we tried that by running the lawn mower over the straw, and it worked much better than non-shredded straw, but doing it that way clogged up the air filter on the mower like you wouldn’t believe! We are very happy to have the new wood chipper available.
Anyhow.
Having sprouted greens included with the dry straw for mulch is just more nutrients for the soil. :-)
It should be interesting to see how tall it gets by the time we’re ready to do the shredding.
A couple more showed up after I got this photo; I think I saw 8 or 9 altogether, with Potato Beetle going straight for the sun room.
I haven’t actually seen Broccoli for a little while. She is looking far less round right now.
I wonder where she found to have her babies?
Speaking of babies, I still can’t tell exactly how many are in the cat’s house. They tend to be all in one big pile, and I can’t tell one from another. I couldn’t even tell where the grey and white one was, it was to thoroughly buried by the others!
The tulips are getting a lot easier to see among the leaf litter. Just look at how many there are!
Now, if we can just keep the deer away, we should have quite a show of flowers this year!
With yesterday’s successful trip to the city, I decided to grab the big water jugs and get them refilled in town. I also wanted to look for something for Mother’s Day, thinking that I would surprise her tomorrow and meet her for church. I was pretty sure my brother would make the trip out, and we could visit her together.
I’m glad I made the trip today, because I don’t think we’re going anywhere for quite a while. I would not have wanted to discover this while driving my mother’s car, tomorrow!
I had checked the washout on the road to the south of us. Whatever heavy equipment I’d heard the day before, they were not working there. The water may be down, but the erosion has worked its way further across the deeper washout. As I was still walking towards it, I saw a truck coming from the other direction. It stopped at the washout, then backed up until it reached a higher driveway into a field it could turn around in. I was just wearing regular shoes, not my rubber boots, so I wasn’t able to do more than check the washout from one side, but as I did, another truck came by from the opposite direction. This one did drive through, but when it reached the deeper washout, I could see it struggle to get through.
This morning, remembering a neighbor that told me our road was good to the north, I decided to avoid the washout by the bison ranch and go that way.
That neighbor clearly doesn’t take the road to our main gravel road to get out, likely going north to a paved road, instead. His driveway is a little over a mile from our intersection. At about 3/4 of a mile, I reached a washout that was even deeper, if narrower, than the one to the south I’ve been checking.
This time, I was the one carefully reversing until I could reach a stable driveway to turn around in.
So I took the main road out, but when I reached the washout near the bison ranch, I could see that it, too, had eroded quite a bit more. I was able to get through but, clearly, this was going to be our last trip out until the road could be fixed.
None of these washouts can be fixed right now. Not even a quick patch job. The water levels may be dropping, but it’s still flowing way too fast over the roads. Any attempt to repair them right now would just get washed away.
With that in mind, I made sure to pick up the few things I didn’t get yesterday, though when I saw the price of even no-name brand vegetable oil, I was thinking I’d have done better getting the big restaurant sized bucket at the wholesale store, instead! While I was paying for my few items, I commented on how much the price had gone up on the oil. The cashier got quite wide eyed (they’re still forced to wear masks, so that’s all I could see) and commented on how ALL the prices had gone up. Yeah – as cashier, she would be seeing all of it going by! She commented that she’s starting to expect wagons to show up in the parking lot, pulled by horses, because people can’t afford the increased gas prices. I truly wouldn’t be surprised to see that.
Knowing it might be a while before we could get out again, I made a quick stop to pick up a couple more of those storage bins we’re using for the transplants, then headed back again.
In the time it took me to do that, the washout was worse.
I stopped to take a closer look before trying to cross.
It’s hard to tell from the wide angle shot I took, but there’s a darker spot about in the middle. Just past that, there’s a deeply eroded part more than half way across. The water on either side of it, though, hides other deeper areas – and those are on the side that’s still safer to drive through! The wind from the south is actually strong enough that the water was being pushed back. I could see more of the road than earlier, and was not encouraged.
While I was checking it out, I saw a truck coming, so I went back to the van. I watched him as he drove through and my heart dropped when I saw the start bouncing around in one area in particular. His truck could make it, though. He stopped beside me and we talked for a bit. He told me he thought it was better around the other way. The roads here are on a 1 mile grid. If I went back to the highway, went a mile south to the next gravel road, took it west one mile, then cut across, past the bison farm’s driveway, to the intersection on the other side of this washout, I’d be able to continue home. He did think I’d be able to make it through here, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve taken the road past the bison ranch and it’s not one that’s maintained as well as those that get more traffic, at the best of times.
So I went for it and drove through here.
Yeah. I’m definitely not going to my mother’s, tomorrow! Our van had a hard enough time; my mother’s little car could never make it.
As I said, I’m glad I decided to go into town today and found out how much worse it was, now!
Which means we are basically stuck again. It’s possible that I might find a route I could get through to the west of us – the opposite direction of the highway we need to get to. The main road is no longer closed and I’m sure I could go quite some distance, but the side roads would be no different than any of the side roads near our place. I’ve talked to quite a few people who say they simply can’t get out to friends and family that way at all, and that’s even using the paved road to the north of us that I’d hope to use this morning.
We are going nowhere.
I really hope at least the main road can finally be fixed soon. I haven’t gotten any shipping notices yet, but we’re going to be getting our potatoes and live trees mailed to us fairly soon. The potato company typically finishes shipping their orders by mid-May. That’s just a week away. Then there are the sweet potato slips and more than 40 trees that will need to be planted as soon as possible – and we can’t even start digging the holes for them, yet, because of all the water in places. The last thing I would want is for these to be at the post office while not being able to pick them up. The potatoes might be okay, but the rest can’t stay there for too long.
It all depends on how much longer it takes for the water to go down and not be rushing across the roads like this, then how long it takes for the road crews to fix them up. The one by the bison ranch will be a priority fix, since that’s a main road. As long as that one gets done, most people stuck as we are will be able to get through.
So once again, we hunker down. Which is okay. We are well stocked up, and there is plenty of work to get done! A whole lot of seedlings in the big aquarium greenhouse need to be thinned, potted up and moved to the sun room. The different types of pumpkins are getting such huge leaves! Meanwhile, the winter squash started at the end of April – Boston Marrow, Georgia Candy Roaster and Winter sweet – are doing much better on the heat mat. Almost every pot has seedlings exploding out of the soil! It’s so awesome to see!
With all of these, if the plants seem strong and healthy, we plan to thin by dividing. The more we have to transplant, the less of a concern it is, if we lose some to transplant shock.
And if they all survive transplanting, some may get eaten by critters, bird or bugs.
And if they all survive that, we’ll just have whole lot of squash.
I’m good with that.
We’ll have plenty to keep us busy while we wait for the roads to be fixed up.
Okay, I went ahead and did it. I got one more tray of seeds started.
Most of them are summer squash.
I also decided to start the only 4 King Tut Purple Peas I was able to save last year. They did not do well at all in the drought, but they bravely tried!
The seed tray holds 32 square pots, and I wanted to plant just one seed per pot. I decided to start only 4 each of the Magda (a mottled light and dark green squash), yellow zucchini (Goldy)…
… and green zucchini (Endeavor). With these summer squash, I want to also try direct sowing more, and see if that makes any difference.
That left room to plant 8 each of the patty pans; Sunburst and G Star.
It occurred to me after I uploaded the pictures that I should have just planted each flat of 4 x 2 pots with one type, instead of two long rows of the patty pans. :-D Ah, well, The flats will come apart easily when it’s time to transplant.
The tray then went straight into the sunroom, covered to keep them moist until they germinate. As you can see by the one that got pushed to the back, it’s working rather well.
There we are. Done. No more seeds will be started indoors.
To follow up on the post I did with our large shopping trip, to stock up for the month, I’ll go into detail on what was picked up today.
Normally, we would have done the big trip, going to three different major stores on one day, then done a smaller trip to fill in the gaps a few days later. This time, however, we had to wait until the water receded and roads were clear.
Yesterday I happened to see one of the gravel trucks making a return trip past our driveway, and could hear heavy equipment, so I think the washout to the south of us was repaired. This morning, though, the flood warning sign was still at the intersection. The “road closed/local traffic” only sign was gone this morning, though, so the repairs to the west of us are done.
While taking the main road towards the highway, I found they hadn’t tried to do anything with the washout to the east of us. It isn’t as major as some other ones, and can be driven through without too much issue. I stopped at the post office first and asked about the highway conditions. The highway is still closed to the north, but it’s open to the south. I wouldn’t have to go to the next highway to go to the city. In fact, while driving towards the town my mother lives in, I couldn’t even tell that the highway had been washed over, the water levels have gone down so much in this area.
I stopped to fill the tank and got an unpleasant surprise.
The gas prices went up 11 cents, yesterday.
At 180.9 per litre, that’s Cdn$6.84 per US gallon. At the current exchange rate, that works out to US$5.31/gallon, for regular gas.
It cost me about $40 for an eighth of a tank of gas. That means it would cost Cdn$320 to fill my tank from empty right now.
When we last lived in this province, just before moving to the city we came back from, I worked night shift at a gas station. The only time I saw people paying that much on gas was when the drag races were on, and people would fill the tanks in the backs of their pick up trucks to fuel their race cars. The most I ever saw was in the $400 range. Not even the fishermen were spending that much, buying fuel for their boats. This would have been in 2004, when gas prices increased to an astronomical 67 cents per litre.
Those were the days… :-/
Anyhow.
Today, I decided to go someplace I hadn’t been to in 4 years. The Wholesale Club. This is the Canadian Superstore warehouse chain. Their prices aren’t all that different from their regular retail stores, but they do carry more varieties than Costco, and have bulk sizes of things I don’t see anywhere else. They also cater to the restaurant supply market, so a significant portion of the building is filled with take out supplies and commercial kitchen items.
I love going through that section.
Before moving here, we used to go to The Wholesale Club fairly regularly, but the one time I went to this location after we moved, I did not want to go back. It was a real mess and, when looking at their fresh meat section, I was seeing a lot of meat that looked like it had gone off completely.
I wasn’t planning to get fresh meat, though, so I decided to give them another try.
I’m happy to say, things have improved!
I completely forgot to get a picture of the flat cart when I was done, though.
This is what I got today; I had a $300 budget, and stayed under budget.
Cat kibble; three 8kg bags: I had intended to get more, but this was their last three in that size. They also had their no-name kibble, but not even the outside cats want to eat that stuff. Popcorn: a couple of bags. I prefer to buy that at Costco, because we keep the containers they come in, but we were running low. 1 small bag each of pinto beans, navy beans and pearl barley. I want to try making our own baked beans and, if we like them, start making more to pressure can. As for the barley, we don’t often get it, since my daughters can’t stand barley, but every now and then, I have a craving for it. :-) 1 bottle Maple syrup; we don’t often splurge on maple syrup, but it’s a nice treat. Plus, I chose a brand that came in a swing top bottle. It will be kept for future reuse. 1 large pkg toilet paper – it was actually hard to find non-commercial toilet paper rolls! 1 case tomato soup 1 case Coke Zero 1 giant bag Fusilli pasta 1 bag medium couscous – personally, I prefer large couscous, but they didn’t have any. 1 large block each of old cheddar and mozzarella cheese 1L whipping cream 1 large bag frozen potato and cheddar pierogi 1 large bag frozen potato and bacon pierogi 1 box Medjool dates – and no, I didn’t accidentally buy Two Bite Brownies instead of dates this time! :-D 1 bulk pack of wieners 1 pack hoagies 2 bags of 12 hot dog buns – when things dry up a bit more, we’re having a wiener roast! 2 loaves rye bread; rye bread is one of the things we don’t usually bake ourselves 1 pkg flour tortillas
The grand total, after tax, was $273.55
There were a couple of things on my list that we didn’t get. One was plain vegetable oil. They only had it in restaurant sized buckets, which isn’t much use to us. I also couldn’t find corn meal, but that’s something we can buy locally. There were a few things I did get that were not on my list, like the popcorn, Coke, maple syrup, dates and pierogi.
With this place having so much in giant, restaurant sized packages, it will be a good place to go to specifically for adding to our stash. They also have more varieties; where Costco might have something available by the case in one flavour, Wholesale Club has the same number of varieties that would be in their regular retail stores.
While I wasn’t looking for fresh meat, I did check out that section, as that’s what had turned me off last time. I can happily say that all their meats really did look fresh. The big change, though, was that there is now a wall of fridges, mostly with really huge cuts of beef, that is now behind a locked cage. You need to get a staff member to open it up if you want anything in it.
A sad sign of the times.
So that is our smaller stock up trip, to fill in the gaps from our big trip. Anything else we need will be bought locally. About the only thing we might make another trip for is the dry at kibble, but as the weather warms, the outside cats are out hunting, and aren’t eating it as much, so we won’t be going through it quite as fast. I do still make sure to put out a bit extra at the end of the day, for the mamas.
I had a few pleasant surprises this morning. Such as some new crocuses that exploded into bloom overnight!
When I checked them this morning, there was only this one cluster of purple crocuses. I just got back from walking around the yard with my daughters, and a second cluster was blooming, next to it!
There may be only a couple of clusters of purple crocuses, but the yellow ones burst into bloom all through the area we planted them – and there are more spikes of leaves that we can see that haven’t developed flower buds yet. It’s going to be so beautiful, once they all start blooming!
There was another wonderful surprise this morning, in the sun room.
The very first Tulip tree has emerged! I was really wondering how these would do, as there is so much mold on the soil and pots.
Meanwhile, in the big aquarium greenhouse, there are now 4 out of 8 watermelons germinated, and another Apple gourd is breaking through.
Oh, and I have to make a correction about those peppers in the sun room.
I really out to read my labels. They’re eggplant. The peppers are still in the mini-greenhouse in the living room! :-D
I’m seeing a lot fewer cats around when I put the food out in the morning.
Only 3 came to the kibble house.
The Distinguished Guest is still limping, but he is putting weight on that injured leg again. He’s pretty skittish right now and I wasn’t able to come near him.
Speaking of skittish, there were 4 at the tray under the shrine, and I had to zoom in from quite a distance to not scare them off from the food.
After doing my morning rounds, I headed into the city to finally do our second shop that we normally would have done a week ago. We’re able to pull the van into the yard to unload now, which is much nicer!
After things were put away, the I joined the girls to look at things outside. They wanted to see the new seedlings (there are SO many Kulli corn coming up, too!), and we found a potato.
Or should I say, a Potato Beetle.
This is partly why I wanted to put a platform for the transplants above the swing bench. Last year, we had bins right on the bench. The platform is high enough that any cats in the sun room can still use the swing bench as a bed.
He’s really liking that roll of mosquito netting!
It’s 20C/68F right now, and tomorrow is supposed to hit 22C/72F. The sun room gets warm enough, we leave the inner door open with the screen window in the outer door open all the way, the ceiling fan on, and even the inner door of the old kitchen open, and the screen window of the outer door open, too. It’s a lot cooler in the the old kitchen, so it should help cool the sun room down, while the sun room should help warm the old kitchen up a bit. We wouldn’t want things to get too hot in the sun room for the plants – or for Potato Beetle!
Gosh, he’s adorable.
While checking things out, the girls and I went into the main garden area, where there is another garlic bed mulched with straw. They helped me remove the straw just over to the bale nearby, and we had a very pleasant surprise.
Almost all the garlic is coming up already! They’re mostly yellow from lack of light, and uncovering them will help with that. This bed warmed up much faster than the other ones. These are the Porcelain Music garlic.
We checked the other beds and, with their straw mulch gone, they are no longer frozen in the middle. We should be seeing garlic coming up there soon, too.
Before heading inside, I checked one more thing – the cat’s house! I’ve looked through the windows a few times today, and usually saw two adult faces looking back at me. The adults happened to be out this time, though.
It is very hard to see through the smudged up window, but I am positive there are now two litters in here.
That tuxedo in the back is one of the first kittens I saw. The grey tabby and the grey and white it’s using as a pillow are its siblings. I could never tell how many more there were, but thought there could be 4, or even as many as 6, but we just couldn’t see them well enough. I was pretty sure there was at least one more dark, possibly black, kitten.
Looking at the photo above, it looks like there are two much smaller kittens! And possibly that 4th dark, possibly black, kitten I can never be sure I’m seeing.
If it wouldn’t result in the mamas moving the kittens and hiding them somewhere else, I’d be popping up the roof to check on them, and start socializing them.
And clean the inside of the windows, so we can see them better! :-D
At it is, I’m concerned just looking through the windows might scare the mamas away with their babies. After I checked in them, I started heading to the sun room and found a matched set of cats – Junk Pile and the ‘iccus that’s been hanging out with her – coming around the corner of the cat house. They froze in matched poses, with matching expressions of alarm, staring at me. Even when they finally moved, it was like they were synchronized! Too funny.
I quickly headed in so they could go in to the babies. If my guess is right, these two mamas are taking care of both litters together, as we would sometimes see Butterscotch and Beep Beep do. Well. Mostly Beep Beep. Butterscotch spent as little time with her kittens as she could!
The Re-Farmer 