Okay, so I thought my monitor was the problem, we got a new one, and…
The problem hasn’t gone away.
This is what my gmail looked like a little while ago.
I use the past tense, because when I go to another tab, then come back to it, I see the text, only to have all the text disappear when I try to click on an unread email.
It’s not just gmail. I went to another tab after embedding that image, came back, and now I’m seeing nothing but a neon green block instead of the image. Oh, and the text in all my tabs have disappeared (all WordPress blog posts I’m trying to catch up on), but the icons are still there.
So it’s not the monitor (though I do now have a bigger, better monitor out of it…). It does seem to have improved since I got it, though, which is odd.
I at first thought it was our crappy internet, but I’m the only one in the household having this problem, and it’s only on my desktop.
My husband thinks my computer might be the problem. While I think it’s possible, I don’t think it’s likely.
Is it WordPress not loading properly? WordPress always has more trouble loading than anywhere else, it seems. It does seem to happen almost exclusively on pages hosted by WordPress… except it also happens when I open my gmail.
Is it my browser? I use Firefox for this blog, and Chrome for my personal stuff (I’ve tried others but end up going back to these to, for various reasons). In fact, I just went to my other browser, logged into WP, and browsed around. Images still take forever to load, or sometimes don’t load at all, but I’m not getting that neon green thing happening. Nor am I getting the magenta text that sometimes happens. I also have no problems with my gmail.
Okay. So Firefox is definitely part of the equation. When things don’t want to load in Chrome, they just don’t load. If they don’t want to load in Firefox, I get weird colours or missing text.
Maybe I should try using Tor again. It had issues with WP’s block editor, but WP has updated since I last tried it. I’ll have to test it again.
So… It could be Firefox, plus our crappy internet, just messing me up with blinding green and magenta, and disappearing text that can only be read if I highlight it with my mouse.
They tend to show up near the end of the day, when the light makes is hard to get good photos! You can still see, at least a little, the growing antler nubbins on the deer on the right.
If all goes well, this will be the last bag of feed for the deer that we buy until the fall. Looking at the long range forecast, we’re expected to dip below freezing again, with snow on Monday (three days from now). They’re predicting 3-6cm. After a couple more days, the temperatures will be back above freezing during the day, though we’ll have below freezing temperatures overnight for a while longer.
I’m hoping we actually get that snow, and that it slowly melts. The deer should have fresh growing things to eat after that. We were supposed to have rain over the past couple of days, but once again I watched on the weather radar, as the system moved right past us. We didn’t even get a sprinkle.
Yesterday was a very lazy day for me. There is something about it being overcast that leaves me feeling like I’m ready to fall asleep, all day. Plus, with the cooler temperatures and hopes of rain, I didn’t want to be working outside with power tools. ;-) I did make a trip into town, though. Our darling daughter treated us to pizza for our anniversary. My husband and I celebrated 33 years together this month. :-) While driving into town to pick it up, there actually was a bit of rain, but it was nothing but a tease!
Today, I finally made the trip to the smaller city to pick up the last few things I wasn’t able to get during my Costco trip. They were actually sold out of cat litter, of all things! While there, I started chatting with another customer, who is also feeding a lot of cats. Mostly outside cats. He estimates he spends about $3000 a year on cat food – and spent another $5000 to get 40 cats fixed. !! That’s through some sort of program, where getting a female done is only about $80-$100, instead of the $350 we’re paying. I’ve had all sorts of organizations recommended to us, but either we can’t get through to them, or they don’t operate as far out as we are. :-(
(Oh, just got a phone call. The people who are adopting Two Face are on their way to pick her up. :-) )
While talking to the other customer, he mentioned using wood pellets instead of litter. I’ve heard of people using them, and talking about how much better it is, so I asked him more about it. It turns out that these are just the wood pellets sold as fuel for pellet stoves. He told me that when the cats use the pellets, they absorb all the moisture and break apart into sawdust. They also absorb the odor, so the only thing you smell is wood. When cleaning the litter pans, you simply dump out all the pellets in the pan and replace it with fresh – and the old pellets can still be burned. !! I don’t know that I’d want to do that. At least not in the fire pit (or a pellet stove, if we had one!), but we do still have a burn barrel. Or compost them, while burn bans are in effect. That would save us from having to haul those heavy bags to the dump. He told me the pellets are a lot cheaper, too, and they come in 40 pound bags, so they last a long time, too.
I think it’ll be worth trying it out. Maybe start with just a few litter pans, first, and see how the cats like it.
The conversation got me thinking about just how much we spend on critters. With the cats, it’s about $350-$400 a month in wet and dry cat food, plus litter. So, about $4,800 a year, on the high end. Plus the deer, which we do only for about 6 months, which works out to about $300 a year. Then there’s the bird seed, which we do all year, and works out to about $1000 a year.
Which we’re doing my husband’s disability payments.
Thank God for private health insurance!!
There are a lot of things we are doing without, to keep the critters fed. We include it all in our grocery budget. If, however, we were just setting that money aside, we’d have been able to save enough to replace the roof in only 2 years.
Now, we’re not going to stop feeding the animals, but we really need to find a way to address that expense. This is not sustainable. The problem goes back to my not simply being able to go out and get a job, since any income I would make would get deducted from my husband’s disability payments. If I ever made enough to bring that replace my husband’s disability payments, he would lose his insurance entirely (since he would no longer “need” it) – and he’d no longer have coverage for his prescriptions. So it’s a lose-lose situation. That’s why we had to be so careful when fund raising for Ginger’s vet care. We can accept gifts. We can’t have additional income.
*sigh*
Reducing the costs will help, which is why I want to try the wood pellets instead of cat litter. Cat food isn’t going to get any cheaper, though. It’s another reason why we want to grow and preserve as much food for ourselves, as well.
Slight interruption in writing this, as the people adopting Two Face arrived. As a thank you for Two Face, we were gifted with a bag full of brand new, still in their wrappers, Tupperware! Looks like the lady is a distributor. :-)
I hope Two Face is happy in her new home. We’re going to miss her!
Well, with the weather getting colder again for the next while, we’ll be slowing things down as well. At least, outside. Not so much, inside. The tray of bulb onions are now in the sun room. It’s warmer in there, but with the cooler temperatures coming, we’ve got them heated from below. By the time things warm up again, we should be ready to move more seedlings from the aquarium greenhouses to the sun room, then use the aquariums to start the summer and winter squash.
If all goes to plan, we should be ready to start direct sowing some things near the end of May, then do the final direct sowing and transplanting after our last frost date of June 2.
After what he’s been through, I think he deserves it! :-D
I only saw four members of his outside family this morning.
Nutmeg has a habit of body slamming the kibble container as I’m filling the bowls, sending kibble flying everywhere! :-D Such a silly boy! I even got to pet him and Rosencrantz this morning.
Now if we could just get Creamsicle Baby and his cousin to let us come close. :-)
Oh, we got a call from the people who came to look at Two Face and Susan a while back. They’ll be coming over this evening to pick up Two Face and bring her home. They were originally going to pick her up on the way to an appointment for their dog, but had plans to do some visiting after and didn’t think she would like being in the vehicle for so long. So they’ll get her on the way home, and take her to a vet in a town closer to where they live.
Which means that, tonight, we’ll be back down to 16 cats in the house.
Time to update the posters to adopt some of the others. We still have another seven available for adoption.
Ginger, of course, is staying with us, and we’ve decided to keep his sister, Cabbages, and Beep Beep. Beep Beep was my dad’s cat, and I just can’t bring myself to adopt her out! :-)
Ginger was playful this morning, and I was able to get a lot of pictures.
Some of them even turned out okay. ;-)
Last night was the first night we did not close the outer cats out, and I’m happy to say there were no issues. I think he spent the night in his favorite spot in my closet. :-D
In the morning, though, he came out and demanded attention!
I was not the only source of that attention.
Turmeric decided to check out her cousin, and yes – grooming happened! Yay!
Turmeric is a couple of months older than him, yet he is so much bigger! Her sister, Saffron, is even smaller. At only about 9 or 10 months old, he’s already looking like he’s going to be a big, burly boy! Maybe not the big slab of meat Cheddar grew up to be, but certainly as big as Keith. We’ve already had times when we’ll look over to see an orange cat curled up and thinking, “Aw, Keith is so cute! … Hold on. That’s not Keith!”
His aunt came over to give him a sniff, but he was far more interested in tackling my hand and chewing on my thumb.
He’s actually quite good at “chewing” without actually biting.
He was quite enjoying the comfort of a bed for humans, rolling around all over the place while his Aunt Beep Beep watched over him. He’s already heavier than she is, but Beep Beep has always been a tiny one.
Ginger has been busy, claiming the house. He’s been going into the basement, where he has discovered the fantasy land of food bowls and litter boxes. :-D He even joined the crowd when the girls gave them their wet cat food. He’d pretty much ignored the wet cat food we gave him when we first brought him into the sun room to await his surgery, but this time, he actually ate it. So far, I think the only place he hasn’t explored yet is the second floor.
The down side of his exploring is that he decided to jump up onto the dining table this morning. My daughter and I were nearby and managed to get him off without startling him too much, only for him to jump out of my daughter’s arms, back onto the table, skittering about, knocking over and breaking a large glass mug, before jumping down to the floor.
*sigh*
Ah, well. He’s still getting used to things.
We’re pretty blown away by how active and mobile he is. He has adjusted very well to the loss of the leg, and is doing pretty well adjusting to the indoor life, and all the new cats around him, too.
Oh, my goodness, but our internet connection has been bad tonight! It’s taken me forever to finally be able to load the editor to start this post! It’s not done giving me grief yet, either!
Still, I wanted to get this posted before calling it a day, since I’m basically using this blog as a journal that I can reference later on, if I need to.
The last 4 varieties of gourds have been started!
The luffa are the three pots together on the right. The one sprout at the top got visibly bigger, just today! You can see a second one coming up at the bottom. The pot inside the red solo cup is the Tennessee Dancing gourd. On the left are the Ozark Nest Egg, Thai Edible and Birdhouse varieties. The light fixture inside the tank is, as before, just there for its warmth.
Next on the list to start indoors are the summer and winter squash.
Today, after being delayed for … two months? … more? … I was able to pick up the replacement hot water tank.
The current hot water tank is still working. There is no longer a puddle under it, though there is a scale build up along the seam of the bottom cap. It must be a small enough leak that leaving the panel off is allowing for evaporation to keep it from actually puddling anymore.
I went to a different town to get it; one we don’t normally go to. In fact, I’d forgotten the franchise the tank is from even had a location there. The location we’d picked up the last tank from has gone full mask nazi and doesn’t even allow the Mingle Mask or shields. I’d heard this town has been more sane. I phoned first, to make sure they had one in stock available for a warranty replacement. It took a while; I got the impression they don’t get warranty replacements very often! :-D
Once that was all figured out and I said I could be there this afternoon, I mentioned that I am medically exempt from wearing a mask. The guy I was talking to said that would be no problem, and that there were quite a few people in town that were also exempt, adding that it wasn’t their job to police people over it. That was very reassuring. When I got there, I walked in, everyone else was masked up, but no one said a thing. It was so nice to not be given a hard time or have to justify myself!
Once the paperwork was done, I drove over to one of their buildings in the back to pick it up. I got to chat with a really nice and interesting young man who loaded it into the van for me. He’d had me back right into the building, so when I got out, I found myself surrounded by stacks of plywood, which reminded me we need a couple of sheets to make a floor for the trailer frame my brother found tires for. I asked how much a sheet of 3/4″ plywood cost, and he got someone on the radio to find a price for me. It turned out to be about $145 for a single sheet! That’s just for the rough stuff. He told me the type that are smooth on both sides is actually a bit cheaper. !! My husband and price checked in the city, at a different franchise, and they were about $85 a sheet.
When my daughters worked for that particular franchise, before we moved, a sheet cost about $35.
Not only have prices gone through the roof, but supply is really low. He told me of people driving across three provinces to get the supplies they needed, because nothing was available closer!
It makes me wonder just how much more it would cost to replace our roof at this point. When we got the estimates, they were both just under $9000. Assuming that they would find damage under certain areas, for which both companies charged by the square foot to repair, we figured $10,000 was a reasonable expectation for the final amount. Of course, we don’t have that, and with so many unexpected bills over the past couple of years, saving up for it has been pretty much impossible. I hope that, by the time we do find the money, the supply issues will be resolved and prices will become more reasonable!
During the drive to and from this town, I noticed something interesting. This town is about a half hour’s drive north of us. Not that far. Yet, I could still see quite a few patches of snow that haven’t melted yet and – most encouraging of all – water! There were several ponds that were almost full, and even standing water in some ditches. It was nice to see that not everywhere is quite as dry as we are!
But I digress.
We have the new tank, and it awaits installation. After having the same thing happen to two new tanks, we’re tempted to keep using the leaking tank for a bit longer. Even if it’s just for the summer. I wouldn’t want to lose hot water in the winter again!
While tending the seedlings last night, I finally remembered to take one of the tomato pots out, so I could actually get a picture.
These are the Spoon tomatoes (from Baker Creek). I planted three seeds in each of four cups, and so far there is one that has not shown any growth at all, while all the seeds have sprouted in the others, for a 75% germination rate – though it’s still possible something might show up in the fourth cup. The Mosaic Medley seeds (a mix of cherry and grape tomatoes from Veseys) were also planted with three seeds in each cup. Three of them all sprouted at close to the same time as the Spoon tomatoes, and all look pretty much identical in size and health. In the last cup, two finally did sprout, though they are looking much weaker than any of the others.
I would be happy with only 3 plants from each seed pack, since only half of us actually like tomatoes. We’ll see how they look when it’s time to transplant. In the future, we plan to grow varieties suitable for making tomato paste or maybe for drying, but not so much for fresh eating or even canning. A lot of gardeners in groups or channels I follow get so excited about growing massive amounts of tomatoes. I don’t see us ever going that far with tomatoes! We hardly even use them as an ingredient.
Last night, we broke out the rest of the gourd seeds.
We had seven of the Jiffy pots left, and four types of gourds. We decided we will do the Tennessee Dancing Gourd in just one cup (each cup will get three seeds). Someone on the Baker Creek website had left a review stating that their one plant had at least 250 tiny gourds on it. If they’re that prolific, I think we’re good with fewer plants! :-D
We’ll be planting two cups of three seeds of the other varieties. I had to do some searches to find the maturity information for them, as there’s nothing on the seed packets (they’re all from Baker Creek). It’s different with the Thai Bottle Gourd, as they are meant to be eaten like zucchini, while very young, though some will be left to fully mature. I’m sure the other varieties could be eaten while very young, too, but those are all intended to be dried out and used for crafting purposes.
The peat was saturated with water already, and added to the Jiffy pots at the same time as we set the seeds to soak, so the pots themselves would absorb excess water. After finding how much the cardboard egg cartons sucked the moisture out of the growing medium with our bunching onions and shallots, we don’t want any chance of that repeating, and I want to make sure these pots are in trays or containers to allow watering from below. We’ll be wanting to keep those pots damp.
So these will be planted later today. Until then, they are inside an under-bed storage container with a lid, to protect them from cats.
Meanwhile…
… when the girls went out for a walk last night, they managed to extricate this old wooden ladder from where it was sitting by the storage shed. It was a bit difficult to get to, and it’s been there for so long, I was sure it would fall apart if we tried to move it. It turns out to be surprisingly not-rotten!
It’s interesting to see how each step is supported by steel wire!
The girls are thinking it could be used as a trellis. I’d like to find some way to preserve it, if we can, so it doesn’t degrade too much. At the very least, find a way to protect where it will be coming in contact with soil. I’m sure the only reason this thing didn’t rot away is because it was sitting on top of other things, well above the ground.
I think the girls are pretty excited about gardening this year. :-D
It’s a lot hard to get pictures of Ginger, now that he’s joined the inside clan!
I was able to get this one, last night.
The other cats had been lured away, leaving Ginger and his new mouse on my very, very hairy bed.
He loves that mouse! I didn’t realize when I bought it, that it has a pull string to make it vibrate. :-D
Once again, we kept the other cats closed out overnight, to avoid any potential hassles while we were asleep.
Ginger has discovered the comfort of those things the crazy humans sleep on. :-D Several times, I woke in the night to find him cuddled up against me. He can jump up onto the bed himself, which is good. Later this morning, I found him going to explore in the basement, so stairs aren’t a problem for him, either.
I almost got to pet his brother and aunt this morning, but they were much more interested in the kibble!
His other brother photo bombed me, while I was trying to get a picture of his cousin! I am so tickled that I caught him while airborne! :-D
I’m happy to say that all the kitties seem to be doing quite well. :-)
We’re actually seeing a lot more than usual, for this time of year. Particularly at our main gate. With how dry this winter had been, I suspect they are hunting for water sources.
These ones were caught on the trail cam a couple of evenings ago.
Can you spot all six of them?
There was a seventh one, but it jumped the fence on the far side of the gate before the last three reached the road. They won’t jump the gate, though they are clearly curious about it. They much prefer going through, or over, the barbed wire fence.
This next image was captured just this morning.
The arrow points out the second deer going through the ditch. In the video file, taken after this still shot, a third deer is seen in the trees in the background, jumping the fence from inside the old hay yard. Not far from there is where there is an old dugout that would normally have water in it, this time of year. Which is why I think we’re seeing more deer because they’re searching for water. There isn’t even mud there right now. :-( There is an old dugout on my brother’s property, across the road, not far from his gate. I suspect there isn’t much water there, either.
An interesting thing I’m noticing about the new trail camera. The camera’s internal temperature readings can be very different from the ambient temperature. For example, in the second photo, it reads -8C/18F Our overnight temperatures did not get that low last night.
It was very exciting last night! We spotted our very first luffa seedling!
I am not surprised that it is closest to the light we’ve got in there for its heat!
There was just one this morning, but when I turned the tray so the others would get a bit more direct warmth, just before starting this post, I found a second one, in a different pot, had broken ground!
Tomorrow, I will start planting other gourd seeds.
Today, a daughter and I headed into the city for our monthly shop (except some things we needed were out of stock, so we’re going to have to make another trip). I made sure to pick up a shelf for the sun room. It’s time to transfer the tray of bulb onions to the sun room, to make room for more seed starts in the aquarium greenhouses. The tomatoes and the new batch of bunching onions to replace the ones that failed will stay in the aquarium a bit longer.
When we got home, we quickly unloaded the van, then I headed out again to the post office, where I could also pick up more deer feed and bird seed. My new monitor arrived in the mail, and I’m using it now. What a difference! Unfortunately, there are still some pages that do the weird colour thing that is why the monitor was replaced. It’s better, but not gone. Which means the monitor was only part of the problem.
I must say, though, I’m glad to have it. It’s quite a bit bigger than my old one! Meanwhile, my husband tested my old monitor, and it worked just fine while hooked up to his computer. My younger daughter has been wanting to have a second monitor for a while, so she’ll be able to use it.
Which all means it was a while before I could set up a corner of the sun room in preparation for our seedlings.
While Ginger was in isolation in here, we used the frame of the mini-greenhouse to hold the terrarium heater bulb above the bed we set up for him, since it still got pretty chilly in the sun room overnight. I didn’t realize until I put the plastic cover back on that the cats had torn it at the back. It will still work, though.
Some seed trays will be moved here after being started under the lights of the aquarium greenhouses, but later in the season, less delicate things can be started in the sun room. This room gets long hours of sunlight, so while I will probably have to rotate trays, I shouldn’t need to add supplementary light. The lights we have are designed to fit over fish tanks. I might be able to rig them up, if necessary, but it would hardly be ideal.
As for temperatures, the thermometer in the sun room has been reaching as high as 30C/86F during the day. Granted, the thermometer is hanging at the top of a pair of windows, so it would be hotter there than head height, but it’s still quite roasty toasty in there. If for some reason we feel the overnight temperatures would be a bit too low for the seedlings, we do have the ability to warm things up at least a little bit.
So the luffas are started already, which I now know should have been started back in January (we’ll see how those turn out!), which leaves the remaining gourds to start. I know they’re supposed to be started “late April”, but gourds have such long growing seasons, and our frost dates can be so early, I’m going to take the chance and start them a bit early.
Starting the summer and winter squash should be interesting. With the gourds, we’ll be planting just a few seeds of each, but with the squash, we intend to plant most, if not all, the seeds in their packages. We have two packages of the patty pan squash, which we enjoyed so much last year, and intend to plant all the seeds! :-D
If all goes well, we’re going to have squash coming out of our ears. ;-)
By late May, if all goes well, we’ll have our garden soil in and will be able to direct sow those things that can be planted before our last frost date.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how the gardening goes this year! Right now, as we start things indoors, we’re also praying for some rain! Fire bans are already in effect (and likely were in effect before the grass fire that started near our place last week), and not a lot of farms were able to do controlled burns.
The Re-Farmer 