It’s a Wonder

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Before coming back inside, I remembered to check out the flower I spotted on the Wonderberry.

Such a pretty, tiny little thing!

Then I killed it. :-(

I pinched off all the flower buds that I could find, so the plant will put more energy into growing foliage. With no insects to pollinate them this early anyhow, blooming is just wasted energy for the plant. Hopefully, it will continue to do just fine until we can plant it outside.

The sunroom was about 16C/61F at the time I did this! That’s over 20 degrees Celsius warmer than outside! If the temperatures didn’t drop down to about 3C/37F overnight in there, all our seedlings would be set up in the sun room right now. I’m hoping, as things warm up over the next few days, we’ll finally be able to start doing that. After Easter, we’ll be starting the seeds that need to be started at 6 weeks before last frost. That will be the Kulli corn and the remaining tomato varieties; yellow pear and Chocolate Cherry. We have a very few Spoon tomato seeds left. Maybe we’ll finish those off, too.

It’s the four week seed starts that are going to need the most space. These include:
– the remaining gourds we’ll be doing this year (Yakteen and Apple)
– all the summer squash (Endeavor green zucchini, Goldy yellow zucchini, Madga, Sunburst yellow pattypan and G Star green pattypan)
– and pumpkin, including three types of hulless seed pumpkins (Styrian, Kakai and Lady Godiva), the Baby Pam from last year that didn’t germinate at all, but I hope will work if we scarify the seeds first, plus some giant pumpkin seeds that were given away for free that I’d like to try.
– all the winter squash (Little Gem/Kuri and Teddy from last year, Georgia Candy Roaster, Winter Sweet and Boston Marrow)
– all the melons (Halona and Pixie, from saved seeds, Kaho watermelon and Zucca, plus some seeds saved from grocery store melons we liked)
– cucumber (Eureka)

These are all things we do want to plant quite a bit of each type, since they are being grown more for preserving than for fresh eating. Except the melon. We might freeze or pickle some, but mostly, we’ll be eating those fresh, and I can hardly wait!

We’re also going to be using many of the squash in particular to reclaim portions of the old garden area. Anything that is doesn’t need to be trellised, or their fruit is too big to trellis, we’ll take advantage of their spreading habits and large leaves to shade out the weeds beyond the hills and mulch we’ll be planting them in.

After that, we’ve got the stuff we’ll be direct sowing, some of which can be started before last frost. We’ve got 4 types of turnip (I ordered 2, but got 2 more as freebies), 2 types of bread poppies, strawberry spinach, I think 2 types of beets this year, 3 types of pole beans, including 1 shelling type, 2 types of bush beans left over from last year, 2 types of peas, 4 types of carrots, 2 more types of corn, including a popcorn, 3 types of radishes, which I still want to grow for their pods, not their roots, 3 types of spinach from last year, 4 types of lettuce from last year, and 2 types of chard from last year. Then there’s the stuff that will be shipped when it’s time to plant, including 3 types of potatoes, sunchokes and sweet potato slips.

I don’t know where we’re going to plant a lot of this. We do have a general sort of map set out. Quite a few things will be planted in temporary beds to help prepare the soil for future plans, and some things will be interplanted with others, so they’ll be sharing beds. We will likely need to build more temporary trellises, too. In the end, though, we’re still figuring things out, so we have no fixed plans. Almost everything is going to have to be flexible.

Getting this all in is going to be a wonder in itself!

The Re-Farmer

We’re clear!!

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I am just so thrilled right now!

I was literally about to get my boots on to go outside and see if I could do some snow blowing, when I glanced at the live feed for the garage cam, and saw a lane down our driveway.

Our driveway was being cleared!

The renters, God Bless them, had sent someone over to do our driveway for us.

I came out and watched for awhile, as he piled more and more snow over the big branch pile that needs to be chipped. I knew it would be a lot of work to clear the driveway with our little electric snowblower, and we would have been able to clear just enough to drive through. Seeing how much snow he was pushing made me realize we probably could not have done it. Little Spewie could not have handled that much snow. Oh, we probably could have made a few passes, but would probably have been tripping the power bar the extension cord is plugged into, repeatedly. It’s something that happens when the snow it too much for it. Chances are, we would have burned the little thing out, if we pushed to get the job done.

After clearing the snow, he pushed a lane over to where I was standing by the gate, and we chatted a bit. Of course, I thanked him profusely.

That was just so incredibly thoughtful of them. And they would have had no idea how much it meant for us. It means that, for sure, I will be able to drive my mother out to meet her new great-grandson, on Easter.

That is a LOT of snow!

And yet, it’s warm enough that there’s still water in that low spot along the fence line.

He even turned around and cleared as close as he could to the garage doors. All I needed to do was get that last bit out.

Which I did right away.

What didn’t get done was clearing a path to the burn barrel. My daughters did the cat litter and dumped the sawdust litter into the burn barrel while I was clearing snow. They had a hard time getting to the barrel!

After I cleaned the doors and made sure I could open the swing doors all the way, I checked on the van, because I could see garbage under the door. We never made it to the dump, and I had to take the bags out of the van to run errands, leaving them on top of things to keep them up off the ground.

Unfortunately, critters still got to them. Pretty much ever single garbage bag was pulled down and torn to shreds, with garbage strewn all on the one side of the garage, and under the van.

*sigh*

In the time it took me to clean up the mess, using a garden hoe to pull as much as I could see/reach out from under the van – then moving the van to get what I missed – the ground I’d cleared in front of the garage had started to thaw! It’s -7C/19F with a wind chill of -16C/3F out there, but the winds are from the north right now, and the south facing garage was quite warm. In fact, when my daughters came outside with the litter, or to bring things I needed, they didn’t even bother putting on coats.

The next couple of days are supposed to be just below freezing, then for the rest of the week it’s supposed to be just above freezing, with even possible light rain at the end of the week, before things start o warm up again. It’s going to be that slow melt that we need, in order to keep all this wonderful moisture right here, instead of flooding and washing out all the way to the lake.

I’m just so happy right now! We have such wonderful neighbours.

The Re-Farmer

That’s just deep, Man!

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Well, relatively speaking.

Still, the snow is deep enough that the deer were struggling to get through. They were very happy to find the paths we’ve dug!

I spotted about 11 outside cats this morning. Potato Beetle came out of the sun room when I went out to make sure the deer coming into the yard weren’t going for the kibble. He happily went back in when I finished my morning rounds.

After feeding the critters, I started to do a bit of shoveling on the main paths. While clearing in front of the sun room, I accidentally caught the shovel on something, making a loud noise, startling the cats in the kibble house. There was an explosion of cats as they all ran off.

Except Ghost Baby, who took advantage of the situation, planted herself in a kibble tray and kept on eating!

That is so completely the opposite of how she has been in the past. Before, if you so much as looked directly at her, she’d ghost away. I think she’s finally learning that it’s safe to eat while we’re around.

One of the potential plans for the day was to take little Spewie out and start clearing the driveway. I’m not so sure if that’s happen, though. It’s going to be another chilly day, but it’s more an issue of wind. Things are supposed to be calmer tomorrow, but also warmer, which means the snow blower is more likely to struggle with the snow. *sigh* Still, it needs to get done.

I’ve heard from my brother that my nephew and his family are still making the drive out. The highways are open all along their route, so they’re going for it. I do wish they’d just cancelled. He is confident in making the drive, though. They should arrive late tonight. I figure, if they are willing to make the trip, the least we can do is clear our driveway so that I can drive my mother out to meet her newest great-grandbaby!

Whether the snow blowing happens today or tomorrow, when that’s not being worked on, we’ll be going through the seedlings. Some of them, like the Crespo squash and the second planting of Wonderberry, are outgrowing their starter pots. I picked up larger versions of the pots that can be just buried in the ground when it’s time to transplant, so we’ll be able to pot them up with little to no root disturbance. We might have some space issues, not just for the bigger pots, but their heights. Looking at the long and short range forecasts, though, we should be able to start putting more pots in the sun room. How well the one Wonderberry plant is doing is quite encouraging. It makes me wonder if the thermometer on the wall is reading on the cold side. It’s right against the wall, and one of the window’s it is above lost its inner pane before we ever moved here, so it might be reading temperatures that don’t reflect other parts of the room.

Oh, I totally forgot to take a picture! I’ll have to go back later. The Wonderberry in the sun room has actually started to bloom! With the sun room being so much cooler than inside the mini-greenhouse, I’d thought it would slow down in growth, but it seems to be quite enjoying the condition in the sun room, and thriving!

I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not, for a Wonderberry to be blooming already. We won’t be able to transplant it outside for at least another month! There are no pollinators for it. Which means I should probably prune the flower buds off, so its growth can focus on foliage.

Not until I’ve taken a picture of the pretty white flowers. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Like Mother, Like Daughter

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Don’t let those sweet faces and adorable loaf shapes deceive you!

These two buggers can be real beeeyotches! Especially to each other! One moment, they’ll be all sweet and cuddly, the next, they’re picking fights.

We love them anyway.

The Re-Farmer

Recommended: RoseRed Homestead – That “Woman with a gadget”

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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!

Over the past few years, I’ve seen quite a rise in people interested in leading more self sufficient lives, and especially a rise in the “homesteading” area. Which kind of threw me when I first stumbled on the community, since that was how I grew up, and no one called it “homesteading” back then.

There are now many, many websites, video channels, Pinterest boards, social media groups and even streaming services, dedicated to the them. On many of these, you’ll see references to “going back to how Grandma used to live”. Many extol the virtues of living a “simpler” life, going “off grid” and low tech. They’re learning how to grow gardens, raise animals, and preserve the bounty, moving away from certain materials, whether it’s plastics or hydrocarbon based fuels, or away from certain types of companies, like big box stores or massive online shopping services, like Amazon. The goal is to be more “green”, “sustainable”, etc. Just like “Grandma” used to live.

Now, these are laudable goals. I share many of them. But here’s the thing.

That’s not how “Grandma” used to live.

I mean, yes, most of those things were true, but they are true only from today’s perspective. In reality, whenever possible, “Grandma” embraced new technology, new materials, and resources. Canning wasn’t possible until it became cheap and easy to get standard sized jars, lids and rings. Techniques such as fermenting, brining, drying, smoking – these all were continually improved as new equipment and materials came available. Anything that made life easier, made it faster and safer to preserve food, or acquire material goods, was embraced.

Grandma was as high tech as she could afford to be.

When I stumbled on the RoseRed Homestead YouTube channel, one of my first thoughts was, THIS is Grandma. Our previous generations would have absolutely embraced all of the gadgets, if they could, and if they couldn’t, they found workarounds.

I’ll quote this from their About page.

We focus on three simple themes: Emergency Preparedness, Food Security, and Self Reliance. If difficult times are coming, we want to help our channel community be as ready as possible to sustain themselves for an extended period of time and to assist others when possible. You will find videos on safe canning, dehydrating, freeze drying, gardening, and preparedness projects from safe water storage to cooking off grid. We have even done scientific testing of new electric canners with a special “gadget!”

This channel has only been around since the spring of 2019, but is well filled with some really amazing and useful videos – and now they have a new website, too.

It’s really, really hard to pick just a few videos as examples, there are so many fantastic ones.

One of the things I love about this channel is their thorough experiments and comparisons. So surprise that Rose works in Science Education! This is one excellent example.

Here she preserves potatoes by various methods, including freeze drying – yes, she has a freeze dryer! Those things are expensive! – then reconstituting, tasting and comparing the final product.

Interested in pressure canning? Confused with all the information out there? Check this out.

Great information, but I’m also blown away by the gadgets sitting on her counter. :-D

Want to learn about dehydrating? She’s got you covered.

As someone who is interesting in grinding our own flour, I found this one quite useful.

Gotta love that 40 yr old mill she’s got!

In this next one, she tests out a “survival soup” recipe.

There is some great information on that one. In the “emergency preparedness” and “survival” areas, there are a lot of claims made, so it’s great to see some of them being tested out in such a methodical way.

Like this other one.

Here, she shows her off-grid kitchen gadgets – and how her back ups have backups!

It’s not all high tech, though. Here, she makes and demonstrates a home made solar cooker.

Then, when people commented about her many, expensive gadgets and asked if she could talk about some low tech options, she responded with this.

I look forward to her follow up videos on this!

This is just a sampling of videos covering a broad range, and I didn’t even touch all of the topics she covers.

This channel is an absolute gold mind, and I highly recommend checking out their videos, and learn how “Grandma” does things to live a self-sufficient, prepared lifestyle!

The Re-Farmer

Recommended Reboot

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It occurred to me that it’s been about 2 years since I added to my Recommended series of posts. I’ve found many more great resources to add to the list, so for the next while, I’ll be making a new series of posts to add to the list. Given the circumstances, most of them will be in some way related to self sufficiency, homesteading, etc., but I’ll also include a few that are just fun.

Last year, I posted these once a week, but even paring things down quite a bit, there’s still quite a few I’d like to share with you, so I’ll probably be making them twice a week, this time.

Feel free to recommend a few of your favourite resources in the comments, too.

I hope you enjoy them and look forward to hearing your thoughts about them.

The Re-Farmer

More digging, and I’m a suck

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We got a break in the snow, so I went outside to do some more digging. All the paths I dug this morning, plus what my daughter dug out, had to be redone, as they were already filling with snow and, in a couple of places, were drifted over.

The main goal was to be able to get to the garage.

Unfortunately, right in front of the garage is where it tends to build up with extra snow blown off the roof.

And I needed to dig out the far set of doors.

Which I did. Both doors can be fully opened, to access the equipment inside.

Which is basically little Spewie. My thoughts of trying to fire up the old gas power snow blower disappeared rather quickly. Since it wasn’t working, it got shifted to the back and never got shifted forward for the winter, so it is blocked by the push mowers, the broken riding mower, the chipper, and little Spewie.

Which I won’t break out until tomorrow. That little thing takes a long time to do the job, partly due to the small size and partly due to having to drag 200 ft of extension cord behind me, to be able to reach the road.

That thing was made to clear things like short sidewalks, not entire country driveways! :-D Still, it does the job quite well, and sure beats trying to manually dig out the driveway. Thank God our driveway isn’t very long!

I didn’t realize until I was inside, that I forgot to get a picture of the main sidewalk, so I took this photo from inside the house.

Yes, the snow was coming down again by then!

To get this photo, I opened the inner door of the main entry, reminding myself of why we don’t use that door anymore. I’d really hoped my fix would last longer (if you’re new to the blog, you can read about how that was done here, here and here), but I’m not bothering to take off the hinges to find out what happened. The entire door and frame needs to be replaced, so there’s no point in trying to fix it again.

Meanwhile…

I am a total suck when it comes to the cats.

When I first headed out this morning, Potato Beetle managed to dash into the sun room when I opened the door. I left the doors partly open so he could come out and have some food once I cleared the kibble house. He didn’t come out, so I left a bit of food for him in the sun room.

I came back later to check and didn’t see him, but I did startle Rolando Moon off of my husband’s walker seat. :-D

It’s a very comfortable seat.

Thinking Potato Beetle was out, I closed up the doors, since we’ve got plants in there and I didn’t want it to get too cold, then continued digging. Coming back in later, I found him tucked in a corner under the swing bench. So I left him be, and made sure he had food and water.

When my daughter went outside to dig some more, I checked the sun room again. I thought he went outside after her, only to catch a glimpse of him.

He was in the plant shelf.

On the tray under the small light fixture that we’re using as a minor heat source for the plants above. He was actually wrapped around the fixture!

Every now and then, I’d check on him to see if he was ready to go out. After a while, he moved away from the fixture, but still next to it. When I went out to dig again, I found him one shelf down.

He is absolutely content in there.

So I made sure his food and water was topped up, then dragged out the extra litter box and put some litter in it. And made sure the box bed with the pillow in it was handy. He can stay in there all night, if he wants to.

Because I am a total suck for the cats.

Oh, yeah… while digging out the snow that drifted around the kibble house again, I also dug out the cat path to the storage house, too, so it’ll be easier for the cats to get to and from the kibble house.

Did I mention I’m a suck for the cats?

Yeah. I totally am.

The Re-Farmer

The digging begins

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Checking the weather this morning, my app told me we were still snowing. Which was a surprise to me, since I couldn’t see any snow falling out our window! :-D Eventually, looking out a window with dark tree trunks in the background, I could finally see the tiniest of flakes.

There were 394 emails of images from the garage cam waiting for me this morning. It would have been more, except I made sure to clear the inbox before going to bed. From the looks of it, the heaviest snow stopped hours ago, but with the infrared flash, all it takes is a single snowflake to trigger the camera to take an image and send it to me.

Though I did see at least one with deer image, that happened while I was outside, digging.

There was a drift in front of the sun room door, but I was able to open it wide enough to get through. It’s a salvaged door, so I stopped opening it as soon as I could hear it cracking! LOL

The main thing was that I could get out and get to where the snow shovels were sitting. I’d even thought that I could put one in the sun room, yesterday, but completely forgot to actually do it!

The first job would be to dig my way to the kibble house. Unfortunately, the way the winds swirl around this corner of the house, a drift forms right under the kibble house roof and snow gets into the kibble house itself.

We were supposed to build a smaller version of this for the water bowls. We really need to get that done for next winter. With the three structures around each other, they should shelter each other and keep this from happening. At least, not as much as happens now.

While I was shoveling, some kitties patiently waited for their kibble!

There was a lot more snow inside the kibble house than I expected!

Once that was clear, I made sure to set out the food and water before continuing on, so they could have a chance to eat.

That drift between the kibble house and their shelter is right on top of a kibble tray. That was my next goal.

As soon as it was clear, I added more food for the kitties that are too shy to go into the kibble house. Then it was time to dig a path to the shrine and uncover the kibble tray there, for the even shier cats.

That took a lot of digging. This one needed an ice chipper, as the chunks of old snow underneath had frozen.

The main issue with all the digging, however, was the snow itself. It’s still relatively warm for such things, so the snow is fairly wet. Not only did that make for heavier snow, but it was sticky. I’d throw a shovel full, and half the snow would stick to the blade. I’d have to knock it off, then shovel it away again.

The kitties fed and watered, it was time to turn my attention to the next path.

I needed to dig my way across the south side of the house, then to the feeding station, before I could leave feed out for the birds and the deer.

The deer were not as patient as the kitties!

Look what I found!

I’d put our winter sowing experiment in the snow on the south side of a path, originally, but as the snow melted and became less stable, I moved them here, and they got completely buried.

I didn’t take the snow off the top. I figure it’ll melt into the containers a fair bit, through the open tops and the air circulation holes on the shoulders. I’m also not bothering to dig out the rest of the concrete stairs yet, since we’re not using that door.

This is how the south side path looked when it was done. I also dug out the well cap.

On the south side, I dug a path as far as the lane that was cleared for the septic truck to get into the yard. As amusing as it is to show how deep the snow it along the paths, this is a more accurate representation of how much snow we actually got.

I’d say, about 8-10 in/20-25cm, at most.

I didn’t dig the rest of the way to the compost heap. We can get through that with our boots, and it’s going to all melt away fairly soon, anyhow.

The path along the east side of the house was mostly blown completely clear, even as the snow drifted into the lilacs and cherry trees. Even the low sloped roofs on the east side of the house were blown clear of snow.

Clearing this path went MUCH faster! :-D

The snow drifted over where I usually put seed, under where a bird feeder should be hanging, but I didn’t bother clearing that. I dropped the seeds on the exposed grass, closer to the house.

I’m sure the birds and deer will be fine with that. ;-)

The snow was coming down harder by the time I was done, though it’s slacked off again. The next path to dig is the path to the garage, and maybe to the burn barrel.

That’s something the girls will take care of, later.

Once that’s done, we’ll have an idea of whether or not we can get out of our driveway. I’m seriously considering trying to start that old gas powered snow blower again. If we could get that going, we could clear the driveway. If we can’t… well, we’ll see how things go over the next few days. If it’s not too deep, I might break out little Spewie. The temperatures over the next while are supposed to remain below freezing, light snow is supposed to continue through tomorrow, and we’re even supposed to get a bit more snow on Easter Sunday, so it’s not like anything is going to be melting away anytime soon.

It sucks that this happened over the Easter weekend, when we actually want to get out and get together with family. If it weren’t for that, I’d be just fine with getting all this extra moisture. Once it does finally melt away, it should be great for when it’s time to plant our garden!

The Re-Farmer

This looks familiar

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The snow has continued, off and on, throughout the evening. The system that, on the animated weather radar, looked like it was going to blow past us this afternoon, now seems to have slowed down. The snow part of the system is swirling around in a giant circle covering 3 provinces and several US states, but the new moisture being pushed up from the southeast and turning from rain to snow over Ontario, looks like it’s going to miss us on its way north. We shall see.

The warnings and alerts have reduced in severity, but we’re still supposed to get blizzard conditions – it’s just been pushed back several more hours, and is now supposed to hit us at around midnight. The amount of snow did get heavier again, and the winds are still high, which means…

… the garage cam is going to be triggered to send an image by email, every minute.

We’ve had many a night of that, this winter!

Oh, wait… it’s spring. :-/

I’m tempted to change the settings, so that I’m not going to find 400-500 emails with images like this, in the morning – I have a separate email address, just for the garage cam! I know myself well enough to realize it would probably be days before I remembered to turn it back on again. :-D

I can still see tracks left by the deer I saw going by, while it was still light out. I watched them come up the driveway, but didn’t see them leave, so I went looking out various windows. I expected to see them by the feeding station, or stealing the cat kibble again. I finally spotted one standing out by the compost pile. Eventually, I saw another, also just standing in the trees.

After a while, I noticed the one by the compost pile was digging around in the snow. I had to think a moment, to remember what was there, buried under the snow.

The grass clippings pile, saved to use as mulch on the garden. It looked like the deer was eating it!

About the only good thing is that it’s at least relatively warm. We’re at -2C/28F right now, with an overnight low of -8C/18F. As long as the critters can stay out of the wind, they should be okay, as far as the cold goes. They’ve certainly have much worse to deal with these past few months.

The system is supposed to keep swirling around, with snow continuing all day tomorrow. The predictions for how much keep changing, so I’m not even paying attention anymore. We’ll get whatever we get.

We’re supposed to continue to have highs just below freezing, for almost another week, before things start thawing out again. Which means we’ll be digging out our paths again, just to move around in the yard. How things are over the next few days will determine what we’re doing for Easter. My nephew was planning to drive out, though I hope they decide against it, but whether they make it or not, my brother and his wife are hoping to still do Easter dinner. I do expect the gravel roads will be plowed by then. Our municipality has been good about that. The plows would be out on the highways already, to keep the snow from accumulating too much. I’m supposed to drive my mother out with her car on Sunday, but plowed roads won’t do much good if we can’t get out of the driveway.

It should be interesting to see the state of things, in the morning!

The Re-Farmer

Kitty Progress!!

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My younger daughter snagged Nosencrantz and ended up sitting on the couch for a long time, just holding her. Nosencrantz even fell asleep. For a while, she had Fenrir (!!!) on her lap as well, with no fighting happening, and Cheddar on the armrest.

Cheddar then slithered down beside her, and began snuzzling Nozencrantz, who seemed quite alarmed by this.

Clearly, she got over it.

They’re still like this, as I am writing.

This is some major progress. Being out of my room AND cuddling with another cat!

Sweet!

The Re-Farmer