So Green!

May 29, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We had predictions for a series of thunderstorms throughout the day, starting at noon.

It didn’t quite work out that way. At least not in our area. The first rainfall (I won’t even call it a thunderstorm, though there was some thunder) didn’t start until late afternoon/early evening.

Which worked out well for us, since today was when one of my husband’s medical appointments was rescheduled to. We left early enough to have lunch in town. Ooooohhh… a date! His appointment was for an hour, though, so it did make things a lot longer than was probably good for him. Especially after pushing himself so much for the family dinner in the city on Sunday, which he would not have recovered from quite yet. The specialist he was seeing cut the appointment a bit short, which was a good thing. We still had to stop at the pharmacy, grocery store and post office on the way home, too. My husband stayed in the van, with the AC going, by that point. No sense in dragging the walker out for quick stops.

It’s been a hot and muggy day today; the main floor manages to stay pretty cool, but the upstairs gets really hot. Just like, in the winter, it got really cold! There isn’t even anything we could do about it. Even if we got, say, an air conditioner, there aren’t enough grounded outlets to plug it in.

When the rains did come, it swept through in short bursts, with one big downpour. We even lost our internet for a bit, which is something we can expect any time there’s more severe weather. At least until we can get about 14 feet cut from the tops of the trees in the south yard.

It’s pretty amazing, how different things are looking right now!

This was our west yard, a month ago.

This is what it looks like now.

So much green!

We needed this so much!

After taking the above photo, I had some issues coming back into the house.

Mom and son, with their noses at the bottom of the door, waiting for me to come back! :-D

The good thing is, when I open the door, they aren’t really all the interested in going outside. They just become a tripping hazard. ;-)

At about 10pm, we’re still at 21C, and its expected to cool down only a few degrees as we get more rain overnight. More thunderstorms are expected tomorrow evening.

I do wish I’d been able to mow the lawn before the rains returned.

Ah, well. At least the girls were able to get most of the eaves troughs cleaned.

My mother had mentioned to me that there was a hooked tool somewhere around that allowed for cleaning the eaves from ground level, though she said a hose was still needed to finish the cleaning. She told me where she thought it was, but the only things there are long handled pruning tools (that I look forward to making use of!). I mentioned it to my older brother and he knew exactly what she was talking about. He’d bought it for my parents! He said it was in the sun room.

So that’s what that thing was! I’d seen it, tucked into a corner, and was wondering.

Turns out that it’s a hose attachment. My brother had demonstrated to my parents how to use it, but he didn’t think they ever did. This was before my mom moved to the senior’s centre, so we’re talking quite a few years ago!

It came in very handy.

It couldn’t clean out the eaves troughs on its own, though. My younger daughter got up on the ladder with a stick to clear out some of the eaves troughs out, then got onto the new part roof through the 2nd floor window to clear the others, while my older daughter used the hose attachment to finish clearing everything away with water.

Thankfully, we do have some very long hose.

There’s still one corner on the north side of the house that needs to be done, but that will have to wait until we get another break in the weather.

With how much rain we’ve been having, I am sure the fire bans can finally be lifted, and I hope the fires around the province have been thoroughly rained on!

We’re basically getting the sort of weather we were expecting last month. Which I suppose makes sense, since the winter weather came in about a month behind, too.

As long as the shift keeps matching all year, it should work out for the farmers and gardeners.

The Re-Farmer

More progress

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Since the ladder was out anyway, after my daughter caulked the screw holes from the previous satellite dishes on the side of the house, I decided to tackle one of the Chinese elms.

There was a large branch overhanging the vehicle gate into the yard. With the power pole being replaced in a few weeks, I figured I’d better get it down now. I don’t know what kind of equipment will need to be brought into the yard, but it needs to be done anyway, so may as well!

Since we don’t have a (working) chain saw, it ended up taking all three of us, taking turns sawing, until our shoulders got too sore.

20180528.elm.branch.down

And it’s down!

The next while was spent breaking it down and adding it to the pile I’d started with the saplings I’d cut away, earlier.

20180528.elm.branch.down.after

The remaining log was a bit much to manhandle alone – the wood is remarkably heavy, compared to other types of trees – so it’ll wait until there are two people available to toss it on the pile.

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This is so much better!

There is still a higher branch that should probably come down, as it’s half dead, and there’s another that’s completely dead, but that will wait for another time. At least the one big one is now down.

20180528.days.work

Not bad for a day’s work.

The Re-Farmer

Another Mystery

May 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

This afternoon, while my daughters broke down the pile of branches I’d trimmed at the back of the house, I got the ladder out to caulk the holes in the wall left from the original internet satellite dishes. Hearing the noise, my younger daughter came around to help. Sweetheart that she is, she braved the incredibly bouncy ladder to fill the holes while I held the ladder for her.

My older daughter came around to see what was going on. In the process of looking at her sister caulking the higher set of holes, she noticed something very strange, under the eaves of the second floor roof.

20180528.linoleum.soffit

Yes. That’s right.

Linoleum tiles.

Why?

Why is that there?

The Re-Farmer

Trimming, clean up and… NOT mowing the lawn?

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

With predictions for rain tomorrow and storms the day after, I decided that this was my day to try and mow the lawn.

Of course, nothing is quite that simple around here.

When I got outside, I was greeted by…

20180528.seed.drifts

… a reminder of one of the reasons I stopped liking Chinese elm. There are millions of these seeds, being blown everywhere. They’re starting to drift in places, and they’re coming off the trees like rain with every breeze.

Ugh.

Before I could mow the lawn, I needed to clear the back door into the garage of trees. This will be needed for when the power pole is replaced, but also to get the mower in and out.

Let me find a before picture…

20180429doors

Hmm. Apparently, I don’t have a picture that includes the fence, as well.

You can see that there are saplings growing in front of the door and along the garage walls. More were growing along the fence to the gate. Most of is was poplar, but I also found some raspberry canes and vines, and along the fence was an unintentional coppice of maple.

I had noticed a metal pipe in the middle of the maple, but had left it until I could start cleaning up the area. So while clearing the saplings away, I pulled it out and…

20180528.surprise.hoe

… it’s a hoe. Someone replaced the handle of a hoe with a length of heavy pipe.

Well, it’s certainly not going to break. :-/

This is the after picture.

20180528.garage.cleared

I started stacking the saplings I cleared outside the yard, alongside the garage, which you can see part of on the right of the photo. I cut away poplar towards the outhouse, too. There’s more that needs to be cleared, there, but it will wait for another time.

Leaning against the garage and half buried in tall grass and dead branches, I pulled out three lengths of … hmm. I don’t know the name of them. They’re used as ramps to drive a vehicle onto a trailer or something like that. Two were longer and the same length, plus there was a shorter one.

I ended up using the shorter one to cover the hole in front of the outhouse. It will do double duty in keeping the door from coming open on in the wind again.

I found other stuff in the grass and leaves.

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Along with more branches, some plastic margarine tubs and what might have been a metal tobacco tin, I found these concrete blocks.

I’ve left them for now.

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Ah, yes. Another tire planter.

You can see part of the remains of the maple I cut away in the bottom right corner. I had some concerns about accidentally hitting the remains with a lawn mower, so I decided to take advantage of wanting to move the planter and cover it with the soil.

Flipping the planter over, I heard an unexpected noise.

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Metal on brick.

Not sure why the bricks are there. It’s not like they could support anything under there.

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I don’t know what was planted in there, but it was amusing to see a perfect mold of the rim in the root systems and soil.

Since there was this handy hoe nearby, I used that to move the dirt over the remains of the maple.

Once it was all cleared away, I got the lawn mower out. Finally!

It didn’t want to start, but my brother did tell me it was finicky. It didn’t help that the part that held the throttle cable to the handle frame kept popping off. Nothing a zip tie couldn’t fix.

I finally got it going, but it didn’t have a lot of oompf. Still, I was able to mow along the fence line and around a few trees before I started working on a section in front of the house.

Then it puttered and died.

I checked the fuel. There was still some in there, but low (I’d started with about half a tank or so), so I topped it up with the gas my brother had left for me with the mower, when he did maintenance on it in the fall.

I got it going again, but it kept stalling. It ran as long as I was going over areas where there was hardly any grass, but as soon as I hit slightly greener areas, it would stall again.

And again.

By this point, it was getting too hot to be working outside, anyways, so I finally just put it away.

So frustrating.

I did some research to see what might be causing the problem, and the only thing that seems to make sense is the fuel didn’t handle the winter well. Yet, it was stored properly. It shouldn’t have gone bad in so short a time.

I just don’t have the spoons to fight with it.

It will have to wait. Not after all the clean up I’d already done.

Ah, well. There are other things that need to be worked on.

The Re-Farmer

An Awesome Day, and growth explosion

May 27, 2018May 27, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today, all four of us made it into the city for a family get together. It made for a very long and painful day for my husband, but he hasn’t seen his sister in 4 years. She flies home soon, so he wasn’t about to miss this chance. It was so great to see everyone and spend time with them. It is a rare thing for everyone to be together at the same time, these days.

With all this wonderful rain we’ve been having, it’s just fantastic to see everything so GREEN, everywhere. Even the drive into the city looked completely different.

A short time ago, the trees were just showing green leaves, while everything else looked like the dead growth from last year that you can still see in the ditch. Now, it’s like the trees all just exploded in green.

(Also, I’m amused by the fact that there is a reflection of me driving, hovering in the sky. :-D )

When we got home, we found all sorts of cats had missed our company!

The inside cats were very curious about Nasty Crime boy.

It was a shared curiosity! :-D

I’m loving the long daylight hours, too. Though we didn’t get home until past 8pm, there was still plenty of light, so I did a quick walk around the yard to see how things were.

The crab apple trees north of the spruce grove are finally blooming. My sister and her husband pruned them back quite heavily last summer, but I can see that there are some dead branches that will need to be cut away. These might have died off over the winter.

A few days ago, these linden leaves were just barely new leaf buds!

I had a chance to ask my mother about the linden tree, because it looks so different than I remember it. So much so that, until the leaves unfurled, it looked like two different trees! She told me that she used to cut back the suckers every year, but no one continued that after she went to the senior’s centre she now lives in. That would explain why they look so different. The growth at the base – where these leaves are – is only about 4-5 years old, whereas the trunk in the middle is more like 30-35 years old.

These lilies had been showing in green clusters but after the rain, they shot up several inches and threw out flower stocks and buds virtually overnight!

Rolando Moon approves.

I also did a basement check this evening, and the old part basement is bone dry, though there is some water in the sump pump reservoir. Well below the level of the float.

We still need to get the old hot water tank out of there. It’s much bigger and heavier than modern ones!

I was just thinking, as I wrote this, how I can’t remember the last time the old part basement was still dry this far into spring, and I remembered one year when it flooded. This had to have happened before the new part was built, so I was probably about 6 years old, give or take a year or two. I remember going part way down the stairs to see. The water was a couple of feet deep – deep enough to cover several steps – and perfectly clean and clear.

Then, as I was looking, a frog went swimming past the bottom of the stairs!

I will never forget that frog! :-D

I hadn’t thought of that in years!

Funny how things trigger old memories of growing up in this house. :-)

The Re-Farmer

I found them!

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

With this wonderful rain we’ve been having, there has been so much new growth.

When I had the chance to go around the house with the weed trimmer, I found a lovely surprise.

The horseradish has emerged.

In two places!

I found the first one in the end of the flower garden, where we’ve been putting feed out for the birds and deer. I had just moved the bird feeder stand into that area, shifting about to find the most steady spot for it, and it was most certainly not there, just a few days ago.

20180526.horseradish.flower.garden

In fact, it’s growing out in one of the first spots I’d set the stand. If it had been a bit more level around there, the base of the stand would have been right on top of it!

The other greenery, my mom tells me are weeds.

I now know which spruce tree by the house my mom meant, when she told me where she transplanted the horseradish intentionally.

20180526.horseradish.tree

It’s partly hidden by saplings and other growth.

Both areas have been cleared up a bit with the weed trimmer; some of it, I’ll have to come back with the pruning shears I found.

Using one of the 100 ft extension cords my older brother gifted to us, so we could have electricity to plug in our van in the winter, was enough for me to go around much of the house, as well as most of the south end of the yard. There were just a couple of places I couldn’t reach.

While working around one area by the fence, I saw a frog hopping in the grass. A wood frog, which is very common around here. I wasn’t able to get a picture, though. Ah, well. We may not see them much, but we sure hear them a lot, in the evenings!

I was glad to get the trimming done, but it was so muggy, my face was just dripping, even though I wasn’t exerting myself at all. It wasn’t even particularly hot – only about 18C.

There had been predictions of more rain this afternoon, but that seems to have changed. After that, there’s no rain predicted until more storms are supposed to arrive on Wednesday, so we should have time to mow the lawn and build that gate. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Status after storms and rain

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

This morning, I made a point of walking around the yard to see if there was any damage from the storms. We’re all still very wet – enough that our sump pump has actually turned on! – and everything is so wonderfully green!

First order of business was to clean out the cat food containers, which were full of water logged kibble.

I had several cats come out to see what I was doing.

None of them were co-operative when it came to getting their pictures taken! :-D

I was very pleased at what the flower garden I’ve been working on looked like.

Absolutely none of the uncovered cardboard blew away. I am quite surprised, really. With the winds we had for a while, I’m surprised quite a lot of things didn’t blow away!

No roof damage. No dead branches fallen down – at least not in the yard. Just some small branches and twigs.

We’re getting to where we should be mowing the lawn soon. We’re expecting more rain today, but even without more rain, the grass is far too wet. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get it done on Monday.

Not that there is much grass to mow.

The above photo is of the yard to the east of the house, between the house and a flower garden on that side (though that “flower” garden is now mostly bushes). On the far side of this garden, there is better grass.

The above photo is the west section of the yard, near the fire pit. Mostly moss, some weeds, and very little actual grass.

The north side of the yard has a dead patch that perfectly corresponds with the overhanging maple branches above. Hmm. Do you think there’s a correlation? LOL

The south areas of the yard has more grass, especially on the south east, but under the Chinese Elm by the kitchen, it’s more weeds and dirt than grass.

That tractor tire is an interesting bit of decor. ;-D

At some point, though not likely this year, we will work to improve the lawn. Even if it’s to move to a ground cover rather than grass. Some areas are sparse because vehicles get driven in to the door fairly regularly, so I wouldn’t expect anything to do well in those areas.

One thing I was seeing a lot of were black ant hills, like these. The one in the middle was the biggest I saw. Most were like the tiny bundle of soil to the left of it. They’re not good to have in the yard, since they destroy root systems with their digging, but I’m not too worried about them at this point.

Our plans for the day will depend a lot on the weather, but I do hope we’ll still get some outside work done. I had been thinking of building a new barb wire gate for the other driveway, and we still might start preparations for it (like seeing if we can salvage the wood fence posts in the flower garden to replace the rotting posts in the existing barb wire gate) today. We shall see how it works out.

Little by little, it’s getting done. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Hmmm… foood!

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

A quick post, before another storm moves in and I shut down the computer…

Photo by Daniel Frank on Pexels.com

It’s almost 6pm, and I have finally ingested my first meal of the day.

I’m not counting the meal replacement shake, because… no.

As soon as the earliest dental clinic in the next town was open, I called to see if they could fit me in – after checking to see if they did direct billing with our insurance company. Which they did, and they could. I got an appointment for the afternoon. Yay!

I then spent the next while, doing work on the computer, and trying to figure out what we had that I could safely eat. It wasn’t just needing soft food. Even soft food getting in there could cause more of the tooth to break up.

Before I finally decided (I was leaning towards egg flower soup), I got a call back from them. Could I be there by 11:15? It was 10:53. I could leave right then and there!

By the time I parked and walked in the door, it was just a few minutes past 11:15. After the paperwork was done, I barely had time to sit down when I was being called to come in.

The hygienist got started on me with getting an Xray, as I told her about the history of the tooth, and the troubles the dentist who did the root canal had had with it, because of a bent root. She got me to bite on the thing to get the Xray, but had to do it twice, just to get it far back enough. The screen for the Xray was facing me, so we could both see the problem root.

Then, just before the dentist came in, I pulled out another piece of tooth. Just getting the Xray taken broke off more.

I’d already told the hygienist that I was more interested in just having it pulled, but it turned out to not be a choice. There wasn’t enough of it left to do anything else. The dentist even had to break it apart to take each root out, individually.

As I knew would happen, because apparently I have some pretty massive bone density (this is not the first tooth I’ve lost), this took quite a bit of effort.

But that was okay. I got to lie in a massage chair and watch You Gotta Eat Here on the TV in the ceiling.

Though requesting it be put on The Food Network was probably not the best of ideas, considering how hungry I was. :-D

However, it was done, and because it was just a pull and not any major work, it actually cost much less than I feared. Which is good, because I then had to go to the grocery store and buy more pain killers for when the freezing wore off, and food that I could safely eat.

I had to wait 4-6 hours before trying to eat, though I could drink water. I have a gauze to bite on that needs to be changed every hour. Starting tomorrow, I need to swish with salt water after eating anything.

I am, however, good to go for the big family dinner on Sunday, even if I won’t be able to eat certain foods. I just have to bring my bottle of salt water with me.

So that is done!

On the home front, it was an indoor day. The girls kindly made supper, though I could only eat the perogies they made. Very, very carefully. Oh, I was so hungry by then!

It was too hot to safely do any yard work today, anyhow, and while it’s cooler now (a mere 26C *L*), it has quickly gotten very dark, and I can hear thunder and see flashes of lightning in the distance. We’ll see if we get the sort of downpours we got yesterday or not. Until then, I think I’ll just shut down the desktop computer, just to be safe!

The Re-Farmer

In the Storm, and … really??

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Last night, we did indeed get an all out thunderstorm with pouring rain!

It was fantastic!

At one point, I was hearing things hit the window that sounded like hail. Our van was in the yard, to make it more accessible for my husband to get to his appointment, but he ended up rescheduling the appointment, so there it stayed. I figured, if there was going to be hail, I’d better get it to the garage.

It was less than 20 feet to the driver’s door, and I was SOAKED! As I started it, I saw a shadow at the passenger window (closer to the house) and it was one of my daughters warning me that they’d seen a cat sheltering under the van. She was out for mere seconds, and that was all it took for her to get drenched. I couldn’t see out the windshield, other than shadows, even with the wipers going full blast. Thankfully, I know our yard well enough that it was all I needed, so after revving the engine a few times to scare off any possible sheltering cats, I got the van into the garage.

Then I got some pictures from the main door.

The camera picked up more than I could actually see.

The ground inside the garage (it’s just a dirt floor) was dry when I drove in, but by the time I parked and walked to the door to take a few pictures, then open the side door on the van to get an umbrella, there was water spilling in under my feet. My dash to the house involved leaping puddles.

Nice to know I can still do that sort of jumping around, when needed. LOL

My grandpa slippers were full of water, regardless of any leaping of puddles. :-D

It wasn’t long before we were also shutting down computers and closing up windows. Then we lost our internet for a while, so even our cell phones became useless (and I was in the middle of a Skype conversation. :-D ).

The storm quickly passed, though a much smaller one swept through later, and we continued to see lightning to the northeast of us for some time.

Best of all, the rain continued for quite a while.

This morning, everything looks so much greener, already!

My plans for the day, however, have changed. Because something rather ridiculous happened last night.

See this?

That fell out of one of my teeth, last night.

Yup. It’s a filling.

All I could think was, really??? I do NOT need this right now!

I now have a big, gaping hole in the back of my mouth. The remains of an old root canal, done at least 15 years ago.

Which means that I have to be very, very careful what I can eat or drink for the next while.

Thankfully, because the tooth is already dead, there is no pain. The remaining pieces of tooth, however, would be rather fragile, I’m sure.

I phoned a dental clinic in town this morning and, thank God!, they do direct billing AND have an opening they can put me in this afternoon.

It means juggling the budget again, but at least I won’t have to wait until next week, when pay comes in.

And maybe, just maybe, when we go into the city on Sunday for a sort of a family reunion dinner with my husband’s family in the city, I’ll even be able to eat with everyone else!

Speaking of eating, I’ve not had breakfast yet, and I can’t think of anything we’ve got right now that would be safe for me to eat. I might have to whip up a quick soup or something.

Time to get creative!

The Re-Farmer

It’s Raining! Also, we need another wood pile.

May 24, 2018May 24, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This is so awesome!

We’ve got a real, honest to goodness RAIN happening right now!

We recently got more weather alerts, this time for thunderstorms, for the south and east areas of the province. The usual warnings about possible hail, etc. These storms tend to pass us by, where we are. I remember talking to my dad on the phone and asking about storms I was hearing about, and he’s say, no, nothing over here.

I did just hear a rolling of thunder as I wrote that last sentence. Oh, it is so wonderful to see the rain!

So here are some pictures from yesterday.

20180523.flower.garden.leaf.layer1

More was added after this picture was taken, but it still wasn’t enough to cover the entire flower garden.

There are plenty of leaves to rake up that can be added. The maple grove has lots. Unfortunately, it’s such a mess, we can’t actually do any raking.

I started cleaning up around the area closest to the flower garden. Just around a lilac bush and a maple tree.

Most of the lilac bush was dead. Even with the living branches, I still trimmed away deadwood. Thankfully, I’d found some anvil pruners, which made the job easier. At least until those break, too. :-/

I also cut away most of suckers at the base of the maple tree, taking out dead branches that had fallen – including one that had fallen right into the lilac bush – and as much as I could reach of those that hadn’t fallen yet. These suckers have had years of growth, so a saw was needed. The space needed to saw them meant I wasn’t trimming them as close to the trunk as I should be. :-/

(Darn. Sounds like the rain has already stopped. I hope more comes, later!)

This is what’s left of the lilac bush.

20180523.cleared.lilac

I took about about 3 or 4 dead trunks, along with lots of dead suckers, and trimming the excess. I love lilacs, but they do have a spreading habit, so there was quite a bit to trim at ground level, spreading towards the maple.

I moved the old wash basin, once it was clear enough. There’s a maple stump on the left that it used to be sitting on, as a planter (I had to cut away maple suckers from the stump, too!). I considered turning it right side up, but that cats like to sit on it. :-D

Now there’s just the pile of soil from inside the basin to clean up. I might put the basin upside down over the stump, just for the cats. :-D

20180523.mostly.clear.maple

The base of the maple tree is mostly clear; there are still suckers to cut on the other side of the trunk.

It’s amazing how much difference, just this little bit of cleaning did. For one thing, there is no longer dead branches hanging over what used to be an open path.

20180523.trimings.dead.wood

This is what I cleaned out.

We need to start another wood pile. The dead stuff can go where we are currently piling wood, but the green stuff needs to be set aside to dry, to be fuel for the fire pit next year. :-)

You can kind of see what it looked like before; the following picture was taken from the garden side, and you can see the wash basin planter and the stump it had been on.

20180507.cut.trees

In between working on the open areas of the yard itself (that weed trimmer is sure going to pay for itself, over and over!), we will continue to clean up in the maple grove, and continue to layer the leaves we rake up onto the flower garden.

That will take a few months.

:-)

I also moved this…

A strange place for a bird feeder stand. It is now in the end of the flower garden outside the living room window. We’ll look into finding some way to anchor it, since that area is more exposed to winds. Between this and the bird bath I want to move over there, we should soon have a nice little sanctuary outside our living room window. :-)

The Re-Farmer

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