We are having some beautifully mild weather right now – the forecasts are still predicting we will hit a couple of degrees above freezing! (and I’m already seeing people “blame” it on climate change, as if we’ve never had warm Januaries before… *sigh*).
Our hard wired security camera is set to take a photo and email it to me when the motion sensor is triggered. With the infrared flash, that often means I wake up to a lot of pictures of precipitation. We had neither rain nor snow last night. Instead, this morning, I found a whole lot of very cloudy, out of focus pictures.
Yup. We had fog heavy enough to trigger the motion sensor last night!
I discovered something about the new trail cam. When the lens gets frosted over, we get this.
That is one heck of a pink! :-D
Even after the frost is brushed off the lens, there is a pink hue over everything.
The other cameras would go greyscale, or blue.
I find this unexpectedly cheering… and I don’t even like pink. :-D
I made it into the city today, to attempt our monthly shop.
I am definitely running low on batteries right now. I hate shopping at the best of times.
These days are not the best of times.
But before I explain that, let’s have some cuteness! How about some hugging kitties?
The cats have a habit of taking over my bed. There is always a row of them along my pillows, all mashed together. I just couldn’t resist getting a picture of Leyendecker and Keith all face-smashed together! Then there’s David, hiding his face in his paws… so cute!
Cabbages, I’m happy to say, is completely at home with the rest of the cats. Now if only she would be as comfortable with us humans! We can sometimes pet her and even pick her up, but she is not a fan of human attention, except for the occasional ear skritches.
Her siblings outside are almost more accepting of human attention!
Well, okay. Maybe not.
That doesn’t stop them from following me when I do my rounds!
One of the bigger cats (Nostrildamus, I think) burrowed these hiding places in the snow. From the gate, all I see are little ear tips above the snow, twitching in pounce mode, waiting for another cat to walk past on the driveway. :-D
I got the rounds out of the way early and didn’t even go through the trail cam files, other than to verify that the new camera had thawed out enough to start recording again. Then it was off to the city to see if I could do the monthly shopping.
My first stop was at a particular Walmart where I’ve never had problems before, but I’ve heard of some people having issues every now and then. It’s at least twice the size of the one in the smaller city I went to last month, and better stocked, so I thought it was worth a try.
It wasn’t.
Now, one of the things that had become part of the monthly shopping routine is that we would have breakfast in the city. That’s not really an option anymore, but I figured I would pick up something I could eat in the van at Walmart. I know it’s said, never go shopping while hungry, because you’ll end up buying things you shouldn’t. For me, it’s the opposite. The hungrier I get, the less I want to eat. The less I want to be around food. I’m more likely to walk away without buying anything at all. And if I let it go for too long, the sight and smell of food makes me feel physically ill. I end up having to force myself to eat at least a little bit to get back to having a normal appetite. Along with feeling physically ill by the sight of food, I also start to become … less patient, shall we say, and oddly weepy.
I had not reached that point when I arrived, but my tolerance levels were definitely on the low side.
I came in with my shield, got a cart and, while I was using the hand sanitizer before going through their barrier, the staff from the sanitation station on the inside of the barrier came over and asked if I had a mask. I told her I was medically exempt and that the shield was my compromise. That went back and forth a bit, then she looked over to a little station on the outside of the barrier and said she would get someone. There were two people at that station and one of them came over and asked if I had a mask. I said I can’t wear one. He started to say something about the shield and a mask, but I honestly couldn’t make it out though his mask. :-/ I did hear him say he would get me one and he went back to the station.
I was blocking the way, so I moved over to where he was and told him, I can’t wear a mask. I have a medical exemption. The shield is the best I can do. He ended up handing me a paper ear loop mask and told me to just hang on to it in case the inspectors give me a hard time. Great. Whatever. I turn to the barrier, and there’s a woman on the other side – another customer – who’d been watching me and she started waving a mask still in it’s packaging at me. As best as I could make out, I think she was saying she just bought a mask and… she wanted me to take it? But she just watched me being given a mask just like what she was holding… and I was wearing a shield… so… ???
At that point, I just couldn’t handle it. I’d already put up with hassles from the staff who seemed to think that a person who can’t wear a mask and is wearing a shield instead, should be wearing both. I didn’t need to be hassled by customers, before I even fully entered the store. I turned around and left.
Once back in the van, I messaged my husband and, by the time I finished, I was in a better frame of mind.
The next stop on my list was an international grocery chain that I knew would be okay. And it was. I was able to go in, do my shopping, and no one batted an eye at my shield instead of a mask.
This is the place where I like to pick up our fresh produce in non-Costco sized quantities, as well as stuff in their international aisles that we just don’t find anywhere else. This place is awesome. Best of all, they still have their hot take out food section open, so I was able to get some Chinese food to eat in the van. By then, it was almost noon, and I was reaching the “so hungry I want to throw up” stage.
This is not the place where we pick up the cat food and litter, though, and we were pretty much out of both. Normally, I would have picked up part of that at the Walmart, with the rest at Costco.
I decided to try the Costco. Which is half way across the city from where I was.
When I got there, the parking lot was full, and there was a line all down the side of the building.
It was warmer today, but not that warm.
I found a place to pull over long enough to send an update to my family, letting them know I was going to go to the Walmart in the smaller city I’d gone to last month. They might not have as much inventory, but I knew I would at least be allowed to shop and not get hassled.
So it was, again. I had no issues at all I did get some odd looks from costumers, and at one point, while I was loading the cart with bags of cat food alongside the litter boxes, a couple of ladies in the same aisle were looking at me and whispering at each other. I could make out just enough to know they’d said something about the shield. I was going to be a while, so I shoved my cart into a corner and waited next to it, and they rushed past me. I kept running into them as I continued shopping, and every time we crossed paths, they would give me looks over their shoulders.
*sigh*
By the time I was at the cash desk, however, I was having a really hard time with shortness of breath. I hope those Mingle Masks I ordered come in soon; I’ve been told they don’t create that problem. I started chatting with the cashier and made a point of saying how much I appreciated that I don’t get any hassle there, and mentioned what happened at the other Walmart. Even with her mask, I could see how startled she was. Then she told me about her mother, who basically hasn’t left the house in 8 months. Her mother has PTSD and can’t wear a mask. They were going to try a shield, but haven’t been able to find one (they used to be available at that Walmart, but it looks like a lot of places have simply stopped carrying shields). I ended up telling her about the Mingle Mask and recommending it, based on the experiences of others.
I gotta say, I was really glad to get outside, where I could take the shield off an finally breathe again. I was so disoriented by the end of it, I almost walked away without paying!
By the time I got home, I was too drained for anything else. I must have looked it. As the girls were unloading the van, my older daughter took one look at me, and asked if I was up to going to the dump, or leaving it for later.
We left it for later. It was only open for another hour, and I would have needed more than that to recover enough for another trip out!
We’ll have to make another trip to get the rest; I got most of what we needed, but not necessarily in the quantities we need for the month.
I did splurge when I spotted a few things that I grabbed while I could.
One of them was this soil test kit. We had looked for one last year, and they were completely out of stock all summer. I couldn’t find them anywhere! This has enough to do 40 tests, so we will be able to use it on different areas as we decide on where to plant. It tests the pH, which I already have a meter for that just needs to be stuck into the soil, but it also tests for nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. That will be useful information.
The other toy I got was a battery tester.
With the trail cams each using 8 batteries, and those batteries draining much faster in the winter, we have a LOT of batteries accumulating. The dump has a special shed to drop off things like batteries, so we don’t put them in the garbage. Plus, while some batteries may not have enough juice for the trail cams, that doesn’t mean they are actually dead.
The first batch of batteries I’d tested were the frozen one’s I’d switched out of the new trail cam.
They still had full power!
Then I went though the old batteries boxes.
This first batch is all of the batteries that are not usable. Some of which I didn’t even test, since they’d started leaking!!
And yeah, that’s an old DSLR camera battery in there.
Some of the batteries in there were ones that we found while we were cleaning the place up after moving here. I have no idea how old they might be.
The next batch are the batteries that are still usable.
All the batteries in here were either in the green zone, or the very small, yellow “low battery” zone.
All 276 of them.
They may not be usable in the trail cams, but we can use them for other things. Like the battery operated string lights we have in the hallway in place of night lights. We used to use night lights all over the place, but this house doesn’t have many outlets, and there are none at all in the hallway. We rather like being able to see well enough to not trip over cats in the dark, while also not having to turn on the hall light and blinding ourselves at night.
Aside from these, there were some AAA and D cells that had full charge, too.
That little meter has already paid for itself, many times over.
As for me, I’m looking forward to Sunday actually being a day of rest. After today, I need to recharge my own batteries!
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful time last night, kicking out the old year, and bringing in the new. :-)
For us, we don’t normally do a whole lot. Living away from town or city celebrations is quite within our preferences! We had good food, each other’s company, and the entertainment of cats that were very interested in those good food smells! ;-)
This morning, as I went into the sun room, I discovered one of the spice boys in there! He would have been there since yesterday morning. :-( Not a very good New Year’s Eve for him!
Normally, when a cat gets accidentally closed up in there, we hear a ruckus or meowing and know to let them out.
We heard no such ruckus.
I suspect he didn’t actually mind being in there all that much. It’s much warmer than outside, and there are soft things to curl up on. He had to have been pretty hungry and thirsty by morning, though!
I’m not even sure which of the spice boys it was. As soon as the door opened, he ran and hid under the swing bench, then peeked at me. The two of them look so much alike, and move so constantly, it’s really hard to tell which is which unless they are next to each other. Even then, we haven’t decided which one is Nutmeg and which one is Ginger! :-D
That didn’t stop both of them – and four other cats! – from following me around as I finished my rounds!
Just look at that face! :-D What a glare!
Today is going to be a quiet day of rest for us, then tomorrow is going to be a busy one! I will be heading into the city to do our monthly shop, as early in the day that I can. When I get home, we’ll unload the groceries, then load up the garbage and recycling for a much delayed trip to the dump. Earlier in the week, I had my days mixed up and thought we could do it on Thursday night, thinking that New Year’s fell on Saturday, not Friday. Thankfully, Saturday is the one day a week they are open for a full 8 hours – and it’s not a holiday – so we will have time make the trip to the city first. It’s been so long since we’ve gone to the dump, though, we might have to make two trips. We shall see.
Amazingly, it’s going to warm up quite a bit over the next couple of days. For Sunday, the predictions keep going up, and are now at 2C
Yes. Two degrees above freezing. In January! That would be 35.6F Then it’s supposed to stay warmer than -10C/14F for the next two weeks.
I had feared we would have another bitterly cold couple of months, as we had for the previous winters we have been here. I am really going to enjoy a milder winter – and the reduced electricity/heating bills. Even our equal payment plan payments will drop, with temperatures this warm! Before we were able to get on the equal payment plan, we were paying over $600 a month for December, January and February. Last year, we had a month were we would have been paying over $700 for our electricity. On months like that, our equal payment plan adjusted to a little over $300. Usually, it’s about $290, though it’s dropped to as low as $250ish.
This house is not very energy efficient, at all! :-( And the upstairs is freezing cold in the winter, with it’s one heat vent for the entire floor. When I stand at the bottom of the stairs, I can feel cold coming down, like a breeze. The girls put sheets of rigid insulation on the walls by their beds, which they then covered with decorative fabric, which made a big difference. Without out the insulation, they were actually feeling waves of cold, coming off the walls. !! This year, they haven’t even needed to use their little heater, yet. Meanwhile, in the summer, it gets insanely hot up there. :-/
Of course, with snow on the ground, my mind keeps going ahead to garden plans. In fact, I’ve been almost obsessed with garden plans! In a good way. ;-) I’ve been researching on different ways to start seeds indoors – something we had issues with last year. I am constantly reading about how important it is to use grow lights, which is something we just don’t have and can’t afford right now.
Or…
Maybe we do…
Everything I’ve been reading says ordinary lights can be used, so long as they’re bright enough.
We have two aquariums.
The little 20 gallon one I’ve given up on after the last fish finally died, has a light that is part of the lid, so no worries about the cats getting into it. It can hold one of the seed starter trays we have now, and maybe a bit more.
The big tank has two lights. The original that it came with, and one we got later. The glass lids on the big tank eventually broke and couldn’t be used. The original light rested very close to the glass lids, which actually caused problems with algae growth and scale forming on the undersides. When we had to get rid of the glass lids, the light was no longer protected from what little splashing there was from the filter output, so we got one that with risers that set it higher off the frame. It also has a built in timer.
Since a piece of the filter system broke during the move and we have not been able to find a replacement part, the tank has been used to store baskets, hidden by a cover that the cats can sit on. If we can find a way to cover the top of the tank to keep the cats out, while still allowing full light and air flow, that tank would make an excellent greenhouse for a whole several seed trays or lots of pots! We plan to use at least 3″ pots to start squash, this time, and we have a lot of summer and winter squash we want to start this year! :-)
So that is going to be a project for the next while. I’m pretty sure I have enough hardware cloth left cover the top of the big tank. I just have to figure out how to make a frame that can handle the weight of cats that are sure to jump on it, while making sure the stands that hold the light will still sit on the tank edges, where they are supposed to.
That would leave us with one more aquarium light from the big tank. If we can find a way to set that up over trays and keep the cats off at the same time, we could have even more seed trays well lit.
While heading out to do the food and water for the kitties outside, I discovered the heated water bowl.
Frozen solid.
A quick glance through the entry, and I found the cord wasn’t just knocked loose from the outlet, but the hook I put in to hold the cord and keep the cats from knocking the plug loose.
Which meant I needed to lift the roof.
*sigh*
At least it happened on a warmer day, and not when we had our deep freezes!
I could take the weight of the snow off, easily enough, but there’s nothing I could do about the ice. The roof was much heavier to lift, because of it. For me to lift the weight is not the issue. The problem is that, as I lift it, I can hear the dry old wood the roof is made up, creaking and cracking. Thank God we found a way to put on a counterweight. The beam it’s attached to runs the length of the roof, so it takes a lot of that strain off.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think to shovel under the counterweight after moving the milk crates that support it. The roof was just barely open enough for the centre of balance to keep it from dropping right back down again.
As you can imagine, I got that heated water bowl plugged in as quickly as I could!
Then the snow had to cleared to the ground, so I could put the crates back under. The brick is tied off so that the crates support it’s full weight, without having to lift it more than the few millimeters needed to clear the outer edges of the crate. Any higher, and the entire block needs to basically be picked up.
The heated water bowl was half filled with ice, so I didn’t even try to get it out. Any attempt to knock the ice out would shatter the frozen plastic, so I just topped it up with warm water.
We had some very thirsty kitties!
They do all seem to prefer drinking from the old frying pans we’ve repurposed as water bowls. One is steel. I think the other two are aluminum.
The aesthetics of using old pans for their food and water may leave much to be desired, but they work a lot better than anything else we’ve tried, except for the heated water bowl.
After finishing up from putting out bird and deer feed, I heard a strange scrambling noise.
Nostrildamus had clambered up the side of the kibble house, and was playing with the string! :-D
The good thing is, with the layer of snow on top now, the string is no longer needed to hold the tarp in place. Funnily enough, the tarp is there to protect the roof from snow until we can paint it. :-D
It wasn’t until I uploaded the picture that I noticed there was a spice boy in the kibble house, glaring at me. :-D
The girls and I have talked about the state of the cat shelter. In the summer, we will have to look at how we can reinforce the roof and attach a handle of some sort, to lift it from the side instead of grabbing it under the the edge at the top. Along with replacing a few more damaged pieces, maybe redoing the roof (I found a box of leftover shingles in one of the sheds) we should be able to keep it usable for many years.
Today we come to the close of what has got to be the most bizarre year we’ve had in my 5 decades! I think many of us will be very glad to see the hind end of 2020, even though there’s no sign that 2021 is going to be much different. :-/
[edited for formatting problems. WTH, WordPress??]
Thankfully, one of the side benefits of 1) living in the boonies and 2) living on my husband’s disability income, is that not a whole lot of the crazy affected our everyday life. We were already living on a tight budget, and disability payments are not affected. We were already doing things like stocking up in bulk purchases once a month, so that changed only because suddenly, everyone else was stocking up, too! My “job” is taking care of this place, and only one of my daughters had to stop working outside the home because of the crazy. The other was already working from home, so as long as we’ve got internet, she’s good to go. We got to focus on taking care of the property and each other, moving forward as much as possible on our long term goals, and basically be hermits. Which is kinda how we like it! The only real negative thing affecting us is my husband not getting the medical care he needs, but honestly, I don’t know how much of that can be blamed on the virus response. We’ve been here for 3 years now, and he still hasn’t been able to get the same level of care he had access to when we lived in the city. :-(
For me, one of the things I’ve tried to do is keep up with daily posts here on the blog, even if it’s just posting a photo. I’ve learned long ago that if I don’t get at least some writing in every day, it’s not very good for my mental health, but I also hope that the things talked about here will be enjoyed by, and useful to, others.
Though I am making no efforts at all to promote the blog, somehow, people are still finding it and following along. I don’t know how you all are finding us, but I really appreciate you stopping by and giving it a read, liking and commenting. Thank you so much!
In celebration of the end of the year, here are the top 10 most popular blog posts written in 2020. I skipped over any that were written in previous years, just because I want to focus on 2020. All links should open in new tabs, so you won’t lose your place here. :-)
So here they are, starting with number 10.
Comparisons. As this was our first year gardening, it comes as no surprise that we are starting with a gardening post! This one is from early August.
This year, I did something new, with a series of “Recommended” posts. These ended up getting their own permanent page, with a tab at the top menu. Number 9 is one of these posts. Recommended: Justin Rhodes. There is a massive number of videos on their YouTube channel! If you have any interest in self-sufficient living, do check them out!
This year, I finally started to do some more creative things with all the trees we’ve been cutting down, other than sticking them in huge piles for future chipping, or burning them.
The Wonkiest comes in at Number 8, showing off my first ever carving of a fork… and it truly is the wonkiest!! :-D
Every now and then, a post becomes popular, and I have no idea why! Like this one, at number 6: Let’s give this a try. It’s just a mix of all sorts of things, but apparently, people found it interesting!
Another Recommended post on the list. Number 4 is Recommended: Kris Harbour Natural Building. This YouTube channel is filled with years of videos, following along as Kris Harbour builds off grid in Wales. Well worth checking out!
And now we reach our number 1, most popular post of 2020.
This one blew away all the other posts, with almost triple (!!) the hits that number 2 got! In fact, it still gets hits almost every day. It’s another from the Recommended series of posts. Recommended: XiaoXi’s Culinary Idyll It’s another YouTube channel, and there are some really awesome videos to check out. Yet, I have no idea what makes this post stand out more than any other, that it should get so many more hits!
If you have discovered this blog through this post, I’d love to hear what brought you here! Please feel free to let me know in the comments. :-)
Well, there you have it! The top 10 must popular blog posts written in 2020.
I look forward to joining you again in the New Year! May 2021 be a year filled with many blessings, growth, healing and above all, normalcy!
God knows, we could all use some plain, boring old “normal” right now!
Well, here we are, at the end of 2020. This is our 3rd full year, and 4th winter, of living on the farm.
We set up goals to accomplish the task of getting this place cleaned up and fixed up. Of course, goals are always flexible, since life has a way of blowing right through any plans we might make! So it’s good to take a look and see where we stand.
Of course, the first priority was getting the house itself settled. While we did get most of my parents’ belongings stored away, with some of it staying to be used, there are still things that need to get done. They are not a priority, though, so they can wait. I don’t think anyone wants to go into the attic over the old kitchen to clean that up, for example! Some day, we will have to, but it will wait.
After getting a good look (or so we thought!) of what needed to be done outside, we set yearly goals. The first two years were to be focused on cleaning up the inner yard, then moving on to the outer yard in the third year, before finally moving beyond the outer yard, where we could start looking at clearing out the vehicle graveyard and large junk piles.
In the first year, focus was on clearing out the maple grove and the south and west yards, while year two was supposed to focus on clearing out the spruce grove and east yard. The old garden area in the north was basically in limbo until we decided on what we wanted to do for gardening. The big accomplishment there was getting a new push mower that allowed us to actually mow the overgrown old garden that had been badly plowed some time before we moved out here.
Year one went to plan, but year two had other plans for us, as my husband ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks, followed by trips to the city for medical care, and other such things. The weather also did not cooperate, with drought conditions and heat making heavy physical labour outdoors potentially dangerous. So that whole area got pushed back another year, except for one thing. I managed to clear out the old wood pile, uncovering the only good and soft soil in the entire inner yard! We also set aside an area where my mother’s garden used to be for future gardening, covering it with mulch, then using the giant black tarps reclaimed from the old wood pile to cover most to the area over the winter.
Between those two accomplishments, we ended up planting an actual garden this past summer. This was not something we expected to be able to do for some time, but really, if we waited until conditions were just right, nothing would ever get done, so we went for it. In that respect, this past year had us ahead of the game a bit.
Another plan we had for this past year got pretty much zero progress. We wanted to build a cordwood shed to use as an outdoor bathroom. Having what we thought was the septic tank backing up into the basement, and having to use a honey pot until that got cleared up, showed us that we don’t just need a second bathroom. We need a bathroom that does not rely on our septic system. The old outhouse we’ve got here has a growing hole to the pit developing under the door, and we don’t consider it safe to use. We want to move away from having a pit and use a composting toilet, instead. Sure, it means having to empty the contents regularly, but in the long term, it means the shed could someday be used as something else, just by removing the toilet box.
At the very least, I hoped to get an area dug out so we could create a level “foundation” to build on top of, that would allow for drainage while also holding the weight of cordwood and mortar walls.
This past year, we had a wet spring followed by some pretty extreme heat (well… for our area), and the only thing we managed to accomplish to that goal was clear away the last of the little trees that had sprung up by the old wood pile. I think not getting any progress on that is my one real disappointment for the year’s plans gone awry.
At the same time, even with the setbacks of the previous years, there were things that needed to get done in the outer yard. Thanks to my brother, gaping holes in the roof of one the sheds were patched with pieces of metal roofing left over from when the barn and garage were done, years ago. Windows were replaced or fixed. Some trees cleared away from other roofs. These were things that were part of the original plans, so in that respect, they were being done on schedule. The other things that need to be done in the outer yard will be slowly accomplished over the space of years, but some things were just more urgent than others.
The summer heat made working in the spruce grove severely limited. Plus, while we were glad to have an actual garden this past year, tending them did take time away from the goal of clearing out that grove. It is a fire hazard, which increases with every tree that comes down in a storm, or any branches that fall. Plus, we want to take down the dead trees and plant more spruces in the spruce grove!
So that area has been pushed back for yet another year.
Which brings me to our updated plans and goals.
For 2021, we’ll be focusing even more on gardening, having picked up a ridiculous number of seeds, with more things to arrive in the spring, when they can be planted right away. This is going to rather force us to get the spruce grove cleared up faster! Areas of the spruce grove are being taken over by poplars, and these will be perfect to use to build trellises and arbors for the garden. We even plan to build a gate/arbor combination to set up next to the main gate, so people can come in without climbing the locked gate. The taller poplars would probably be useful in building temporary, deer proof fencing to protect our garden, too.
There’s at least one large dead spruce I want to take down. Not starting on the cordwood shed may actually be a plus, since I would be cutting it to (hopefully!) fall in that direction, where there are no other trees for it to fall on top of. With the old chainsaw we have breaking at one of the switches needed to start it, the very first time I tried to use it, we will need to invest in a new one to get the spruce grove cleaned up. There’s only so much that’s reasonable to do with a buck saw! Plus, we have a mulberry tree coming in the spring. It’s a zone 4 tree, so we want to ensure it is growing in a protected area that also gives full sun, and that’s going to be in the spruce grove.
With having varieties of corn and sunflowers that need to be kept away from each other to avoid cross pollination, we’ll be working in areas of the old garden that are well away from the house. All of that will be temporary as, in the long term, we are looking to plant nut trees in there, and move most of the gardening into the outer yard, south of the house. So any gardening we do around there in the upcoming year will mean breaking up the hard, rocky soil and amending it, which will make it better for any future nut trees we plant out there.
One of the goals we had for this past year was to hire the tree company to come out with their massive chipper, and get rid of the piles of wood we’ve got all over. We couldn’t do it this year, but it still needs to be done. It may be worthwhile for us to just buy a chipper instead, though the cost of one that can handle what we’d be putting it through would be considerably more than the cost of hiring this company to come out for 6 hours. From the estimate I got at the time, he figured 6 hours would be enough time for them to do all the piles, too. Hiring someone would be more efficient to get these big piles done. We can invest in a chipper of our own, later on. We will always have branches to clean up and get rid of, so it would be worth it.
So the past year has been an odd mix of goals delayed, while others were accomplished faster than expected. One thing that has been delayed for way too long is getting the junk pile hauled to the dump. This is something we will be hiring people to do, so it basically comes down to whether or not it’s in the budget at any given time. So far, it hasn’t been! It would be fantastic to get rid of that unsightly mess, though.
Aside from time and weather dependent things that will need to get done, like all things garden related, our goals and plans for 2021 have become a lot more loosey-goosey. Timelines have become much more vague, and we’re still at a loss on how to accomplish some vital goals, like replacing the roof.
Still, we’ve managed to accomplish enough in the past year, that we can spend more time building things up, rather than taking things down, in the next year.
Which is as good for the psyche as for anything else!
We had a light snowfall all night, with almost no wind. This morning, the trees looked like they were covered in frost!
It’s enough to almost make the junk cars in the old hay yard look pretty.
Almost.
Fresh tracks at the feeding station, and around to the ornamental apply trees in the old kitchen garden, show we had quite a few deer visits in the night!
As promised, I got a picture of the wonderful gift from my brother and his wife.
Well. The box, at least! No point in opening the box until spring!
Being the incredibly thoughtful person he is, on noticing the spikes into the soil are not very long, my brother included a length of angle iron we can pound into the ground, and wired to tie the post to it, for extra support!
I find myself thinking… if we have a fire, that might thaw out the ground enough to install this, and we can have some winter cook outs! With the fire bans, we aren’t using the fire pit in the summer anywhere near as much as I had expected to.
It’s supposed to be pretty mild for the next while…
Yeah. I’m just looking for excuses to get this set up out there! :-D
We had ourselves a very pleasant surprise today! Company!
Sort of…
I got an email from my older brother, asking if he could swing by this afternoon. Considering that it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive for him, this was a welcome surprise!
I got his message after doing my morning rounds, which included changing the batteries on the new camera with ones that weren’t frozen. The camera still couldn’t show a display on the screen inside, though; more than the batteries was frozen! So I had no way of knowing if it was even working or not. At least I was able to confirm how much easier it is to change the batteries on this thing. I did not have to take it down to do it!
Then, after things warmed up a bit more, we brought out Spewie, our little electric snow blower, and gave it a workout!
With a daughter helping by controlling the 200 ft of extension cord, so it wouldn’t keep getting hung up on the snow and unplugging itself, it was done much more quickly! We got the area needed to drive the van to the house, with turning space, widened the path to the compost heap, and even managed a path around the house, in case we need to reach the septic tank. I didn’t try to make a path to the fire pit or the barn this time, though.
Of course, it’s now snowing. We’re expected to only get a centimeter or so, so it should be fine. Even if it’s more, it’ll be easier to clear, later! It does seem funny to rush to clear away snow, before more snow arrives, though. :-D
The great thing is, when my brother got to our place, he was able to drive right up to the house, like he normally prefers to do. :-)
He didn’t come into the house, due to the restrictions still in place, but we were able to exchange our Christmas gifts. :-) We gave him and his wife the olive server and cutlery I’d carved, using maple I’d cut away from the pump shack so I could reach and fix the window.
I will have to get a picture later, of what they gave us: a fire pit cooking grill! One that is mounted on a post, and can be swung off and on the fire! We are so excited! It can be used above the set up we have now, or replace it completely. I can’t wait to try it out! The ground it too frozen to install it now, though, so it’ll have to wait until spring. *sigh* ;-)
While he was here, my brother took a look at my mother’s car. I had not hooked the trickle charger back up, because 1) the battery does not have + or – symbols on it, though I was pretty sure which was which, and 2) I could not figure out how the clamps would go on, while being flat enough for the cover to be put back in place.
While he was there, he ended up completely moving how the cords for the trickle charger, battery warmer, block heater and extension cord were set up. I had set it up as it was before, across the front, with zip ties holding things in place so nothing would drop onto the belts below (which had happened already, and I had to buy a new extension cord). This was not how he’d had it before, but how a mechanic had set it up, after some work was done. He’d had it set up tucked under the frame by the battery. He was able to get it to all fit into there again, and there are no moving parts they could fall onto in there!
While he was setting it up, and even double checking with a volt meter to ensure it was working, he searched and searched the battery for something to show with side was positive, which was negative. He did find the letters POS hidden under one of the clamps. I’ll have to take his word for it, because while I could see that something was under there, there was no way I could tell that it was letters!
So that is now done, and the trickle charger is finally hooked up. I try to use my mother’s car as much as possible, but over the winter, who knows how long that will be. We hardly use our own vehicle, this time of year!
Speaking of which…
After my brother left, I headed out to the post office – one of my husband’s Christmas gifts finally arrived! LOL – then into town to pick up a few last things before New Year’s. Normally, we would have done our monthly shop by now, but between the holidays and the weather, the end of December just doesn’t work out for that! With all the restrictions happening right now, we haven’t been able to stock up as well as usual, so we’re running out of things more than usual, too. Nothing essential, really, but I still prefer to stock up at least a little bit, just in case we can’t get into the city as planned. Last month, I didn’t even go to the city at all, but went to the Walmart of a smaller city, instead. It’s not as well stocked as the bigger stores in the bigger city, but at least I knew I wouldn’t be harassed for wearing a shield instead of a mask. As far as I know, 2 of the 3 stores we normally go to for our monthly stock up are safe for people with medical exemptions, and I’ve heard the one Costco location we usually go to is actually offering both masks and shields to people, and when people have gone in mask-less, they’ve only been warned if the mask nazi’s … er… inspectors where in the store. The inspectors are threatening stores with fines, even though the mandates expressly stipulate medical exemptions. But then, one store made the news for kicking a woman out for not wearing a mask, and she didn’t have hands to put one on. The exemptions clearly state that people who cannot put on or take off a mask themselves are exempt. It all seems so very arbitrary, which makes it difficult for people who can’t wear masks to know, from one day to the next, if they will be left alone, harassed, kicked out, fined or arrested.
I’m just thankful that we are isolated enough that it doesn’t affect us as much on a daily basis. Just in our own extended family, we’ve got people dealing with everything from trying to figure out how to get to work with the day-cares closed, to job losses, home losses, and dealing with severe depression as a result. I’ve always been grateful that my husband has such excellent private health insurance when he went on long term disability and, for all the challenges, happy that we left the city to live on and take care of the farm. Now, I am even more grateful for it. I honestly don’t know how we would have managed, if we were still living in the city we were in before. Our daughters could have stayed behind, too, but they chose to move out to help take care of the property, and their father, instead. They gave up a lot to do it, but it’s now turning out to have been worth it, for reasons we never imagined.
What a crazy world we live in, right now!
But I digress!
On a more fun note, after I got back from town, I was able to bring the van into the yard to unload it.
We were being watched.
Creamsicle Jr. was not alone at first. By the time I got my phone out to take a picture, Nostrildamus had come out to say hello. He had been sitting behind Creamsicle Jr.
Directly under the terrarium heater bulb.
In front of the light sensor on the timer.
I think they’ve figured it out.
If a cat is siting under the bulb, it is blocking the light sensor, which turns on the heat. While it’s unlikely that they made any sort of connection to the timer, it would be easy for them to figure out that if they sit in just the right spot during the day, that thing above their head starts getting warm again.
One thing about the yard cats; they do have to be smart, if they’re going to survive! :-D
I’m happy that the littlest ones are handling the cold as well as they are. Being born so late in the year, they were the ones most at risk from the cold. Not only are they doing all right, they’re downright playful in the snow! :-) They’re even regularly following me out to the gate when I check it, and switch out the memory cards. They still won’t come close to me, but they will follow me! :-D (I’m happy to say that, while showing the new trail cam to my brother, I found it had thawed out enough to start working again! I didn’t even have to reset the date and time. :-) )
For now, judging by how often I’ve seen the red bar across the top of my browser, warning me that auto save didn’t work because I’m offline, I’d say the weather system has hit us quite thoroughly, and it’s taking our internet out in the process. That, and my weather app will not reload! The temperatures are still relatively mild, but I can see the snow falling on the security camera’s live feed. It seems to be enough to mess with our satellite. That secondary dish may have started working again after we pruned more branches, but it still doesn’t have a good signal at the best of times. It doesn’t take much to make it worse!
Yesterday, I made another batch of bread using the old dough stored in flour as a starter. I did change things up a little bit, though.
One of the things about trying to recreate how my grandmother did this is, I’m relying on my mother’s childhood memories. There would definitely be things my mother never noticed, never saw, or simply doesn’t remember. In reality, my grandmother would have made do with what she had, so while their bread would certainly have been as basic as flour, salt and water, if she had had other ingredients, she would have used them. I know they would have made their own butter and rendered their own lard. They may even have pressed their own seed oil (my mother does remember processing hemp, so they likely had hemp oil, too). They likely had honey or some type of sugar, if only rarely. It’s hard to say, though, since my mother doesn’t remember very much of that, and none of my research so far has turned up more historical detail. There just isn’t a lot out there to describe how people in poor, backwater villages ate because, frankly, most of the people recording such things either didn’t know about them, or were indifferent to how ordinary people lived.
I do think that there is room to experiment a bit and still be pretty true to how Babcia would have done things, even if they were only on special occasions or when she happened to have access to ingredients.
With yesterday’s baking, one of the things I changed up was how long the old dough was left to soak in warm water. My mother says it was left overnight. My grandmother had a large lump of old dough, for her weekly baking of a dozen or so loaves, but I’m not working with such quantities. The amount I’d set aside from the last batch was the largest I’d done yet, and it was getting too big for my canister of flour. In fact, I didn’t get any pictures of it when I took it out, because there was just too much flour all over, it was bigger than the plate I’d brought to hold it, and I just broke it up into my crock right away.
When the old dough was left to sit in a warm oven overnight, it seemed to me that this was too long. It was no longer actively bubbling by morning. So this time, I decided to just let it sit for a few hours. I also added a small amount of sugar (about a tablespoon to 2 cups of water that had been boiled, then allowed to cool down to the right temperature) to feed the yeast. Last time, I supplemented with a bit of commercial yeast, but not this time.
This is how it looked, after about three hours sitting in a warm oven.
Just look at how bubbly that is!
I did add a bit more sugar (another tablespoon or so) to the dough as I mixed it, too. No added yeast. This was a slightly larger batch than before, too. Previous batches used about 3 cups of water in total, to 4 or 5 cups of flour, but this time I used about 7 cups of flour to 4 cups of water. Then, after cutting away a piece of dough for next time, I tried something else.
I kneaded in a cup of thick cut rolled oats. This is something my grandmother would have had, at least sometimes, so I have little doubt that she would have included it, when it was available.
Normally, I would have added the oats at the very beginning, leaving it to soak in boiling water until it was cool enough that the yeast or sourdough started could be added. I wasn’t sure how that would affect the dough set aside for next time, though, so I left it until later.
I knew the flakes would still soften while the dough was rising, and it would add some texture, too. Kneading it in was a challenge, though! I deliberately left the dough stickier than I usually would have, just to make working in the rolled oats easier, and it was still trying to fly all over the place! LOL
Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take pictures after this!
The dough itself just did not want to rise! Yes, it was in a warm oven, but I’m using a plastic bowl (metal can react with sourdough, affecting the flavour, and this is pretty much a kind of sourdough), so I didn’t want to make the oven much warmer. It did rise some, and again as I formed the loaves, but even the smaller loaves didn’t rise as well. I really should be leaving it to rise for far longer, but it’s just to dang cold.
It does rise more while baking, of course, so that helps. The bread was still dense, but it did still have plenty of air bubbles in it. The rolled oats did soften up, as expected, while still adding a bit of nice texture and a subtle flavour.
Speaking of subtle flavours, there is most definitely a light sourdough taste developing.
I made a total of 8 small loaves out of this batch; 4 round loaves (basically just big buns!) baked in a cast iron pan, and 4 long loaves baked on a pizza stone. At 400F, the round loaves needed about 40-45 minutes to bake, while the long ones needed about 30-35 minutes. I have no idea how long my grandmother would have baked hers, since she had a masonry stove, and I don’t know what method she used to determine when the temperature was right.
As for the bread it self, it was quite tasty. I like the addition of the rolled oats. This morning, I cut one of the little long loaves into slices, pan toasted one side in butter, then topped each with a slice of mozzarella, for breakfast. It was very nice! It probably would have been nicer to broil the cheese, but I didn’t feel like fussing with the oven. :-D
Next time, I’ll have to remember to take pictures through the whole process. :-D
While they don’t come around when we’re around to see them, there are plenty of signs that the deer are coming to the feeding station.
The snow was absolutely trampled this morning! You can see it all the way back to the corner of the spruce grove, before the tracks start splitting up into smaller trails.
Here, you can see their trail coming from inside the spruce grove. More tracks go through the gate and towards the barn.
We may not be able to leave much feed out – and the birds eat a lot of what we do leave out – but at least they know they can come here for a winter snack!
The suet we have right now seems to be a bust, though. When I bought it, the Walmart I found them in was out of stock except for packs with 3 different “flavours”. All mixes of seeds, nuts and fruit. Usually, the only ones I can find locally are basic seed mixes, or special mixes for specific birds. The brand is the same, though.
The individual packs were not labelled, so I don’t know which is which. The first one I put up was, as far as I could tell, completely ignored. Usually, the chickadees and nuthatches are all over it! After several weeks of it looking completely un-pecked at, I decided to put a different one in. I put the first one in the snow in the bird bath (which I am not trying to keep with water this winter; it is just too damaged for that, and I’m amazed it actually lasted another summer!).
Since then, I’ve seen Blue Jays on the bird bath, pecking away at that piece of suit, but none on the hanging feeder!
I’m thinking the larger birds don’t like the little feeder basket as something to land on, and the little birds don’t like these mixes, so they’re not bothering. Not with delicious black oil seeds for them to eat, instead! :-)
The Re-Farmer 