Clean Up

A huge job!

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Before I get into the progress we got done while my brother and his wife were here, I must share the cuteness!

The kittens had all been asleep, curled up around each other, but my trying to take a photo woke up the little black and white kitten. Who looks huge compared to his adopted sister!

I love that little black chin.

While my daughter and I were heading to the city, my brother and his wife were heading her to the farm! Along with stuff they had to do in their stored areas, my brother checked on the septic ejector. We’d had to use electric tape to fix the heat tape to the portion that is above ground, and my brother had to take it off before he could open up the cap and check inside the stand pipe. Using the copper pipe we kept nearby, he later told me that he was hitting ice about 4 feet down. No chance of being able to switch over from the emergency diverter right now! He had looked for the de-icer we used before, but it just isn’t available this time of year. He found something else meant for RVs and poured that into the stand pipe. Hopefully, that will get things thawed out faster. He wrapped the heat tape back around the stand pipe lower down, so that we can still access and open the cap if we need to. It turns itself on and off depending on the temperature, so he wants to leave it for now.

I had some concerns about how loose the soil around the new ejector is – plus, a portion of the old ejector’s stand pipe was still sticking out of the ground, about 10 feet away. Once the renter’s cows are rotated to this quarter, they could easily sink into the soil/clay/gravel around the excavated area and injure themselves, or even break the new ejector, as it’s so much shorter than the old one was. My brother cut away the piece of the old stand pipe that was sticking out and filled the buried portion with soil. He also went into some of his supplies that they brought from their sold property to here, putting in some fence posts, then using some of their rolls of snow fencing around the entire ejector area, including the metal sheet we have to direct the flow towards the low area, away from the barn. He secured it as best he could for now, but I will need to go back there with more twine to secure it more thoroughly. Plus, there is a gap that cows could easily get through. I need to find something I can put across there that can be easily opened like a gate. It will be some time before we have cows out here, so there’s no hurry on that, but I’d rather get it done sooner rather than later.

That was not the big job, though.

The big job was working on that dead tree that fell on the outhouse.

My brother had also been thinking about how to get that off, without destroying the outhouse. It does still get used, even with the tree sitting on it!

Part of the problem is that the top of the tree fell on top of another tree, and is stuck. That’s the only thing holding it up and keeping it from crushing the outhouse! So it’s a good thing, even though it makes it so much more difficult to get the tree off.

One of the first things my brother wanted to do was cut off the top of the fallen tree, on the far side of the tree that’s holding it up, to get some of the weight off. He set up a ladder against the tree holding the fallen tree up and, after trying several other things first, ended up using my little electric chain saw. He cut through only until we could hear it starting to crack. It was too dangerous to try and cut all the way through while on a ladder. Once he got that far, he climbed back up the ladder with a rope to toss it over the top of the tree, using a hammer as a weight, on the far side of the cut.

The next while was spent trying to get the top of the tree down with the rope. At one point, my brother and his wife were pulling the ends of the rope together from the same side, which caused the entire tree trunk to sort of roll, rocking the outhouse in the process! The rocking even caused the door to pop open. In the end, they went one on each side of the fallen tree, trying to pull it down. The problem was that the tip of the tree was on yet another tree, eventually getting caught between a branch and the trunk. This other tree, however, was also quite dead. When the top of the fallen tree finally gave out at where my brother had cut it with the chain saw, the heavy end dropped straight down, and the tree it was hung up on fell and broke in several places, hitting the ground in pieces. The top of the tree on the outhouse, however, ended up standing on its end, up against yet another tree – and it’s still standing there now!

The next thing to do was to start cutting away branches. Some, my brother could cut away using his extended pole chainsaw/pruner, but with others, it was back up the ladder with our electric chain saw. He got as much as he could, while my SIL and I grabbed and hauled away the branches.

There was only so much they could get done tonight, though.

In the first image above, you can see where the branches above the outhouse roof were cut away. He even took a chain saw to the sticky-outy-parts of the roots at the base of the tree.

My SIL noticed something interesting, though, as he was up there.

If you look at the next couple of photos in the slide show above, you can just see that the tree is no longer in contact with the outhouse roof! There was more damage done to the corner of the roof when the tree was being rocked while the top was being pulled down. While my brother was on the ladder, cutting, my SIL could see that the trunk was rolling slightly, back and forth, with each cut.

That tree it landed on is holding it up off the outhouse roof completely, now!

With the top and most of the branches removed, a lot of weight has been taken off of the fallen tree. We now have to figure out how to keep that weight off the outhouse while trying to get it down. They’re thinking of using rachet straps and another tree.

It will have to wait, though, until the next time they’re able to come out here and work on it.

Today has been a VERY windy day, and the entire time we were out there, we could hear squeaky noises from other dead trees in the spruce grove, rubbing against each other. There is one dead tree close to the house that died after we moved out here. It needs to be taken down as soon as possible, as this one could potentially fall onto the house. At least with the direction of today’s winds, if it did fall, it would have been away from the house. The problem with all these dead trees that need to be cut down is that we’re often far too windy to do so safely!

I am so grateful that they were able to come out today and get so much progress on this tree. It’s still possible that, in the process of trying to get that tree down, it could end up destroying the outhouse, but at least now there is some hope of saving it. We’d fixed up the inside of the outhouse already, and had plans to fix up the roof and replace the moss covered shingles with some of the metal roof pieces we still have lying about. More repairs will need to be done now, of course, but that’s okay. If we can salvage it, we can get a few more years out of it. Hopefully, we’ll have the outdoor bathroom with composting toilet we are planning to build done well before this outhouse is no longer useable! The location I have in mind for it needs to be kept open for a while longer, though, as we’ll be dragging dead trees through there for some time, as we harvest them. They will mostly be used to build more raised garden beds.

Lots of work to do, that’s for sure! It’s going to be a lot easier, now that my brother’s equipment it out here, though. My goodness. We’re probably going to be able get more done whenever my brother is able to come out on the weekends, than we’ve been able to do in the 7 years we’ve been living here, just because his tools and equipment will be available.

What a concept.

The Re-Farmer

Taking a break from good progress

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Today, I started on cleaning and organizing the basement.

Again.

A few years back, we were able to clear out all sorts of things from the “new” basement – the part that’s under the addition added in the 70’s. Lots of stuff went into the barn for storage until we could figure out what to do with them. Lots went to the dump. Eventually, we got it to the point that we could scrub and sanitize the concrete floor, and set it up into a useable space. We were even able to turn a table down there into a work station that I was able to use for wood carving and other general small building projects.

Then we used it as a maternity ward when Butterscotch and Beep Beep were both pregnant at the same time again.

Then we blocked off access to the old part basement so we could let the case into the new part basement. It became where we kept most of the litter boxes and and food bowls.

The cats, being cats, ended up using pretty much the entire space, as litter boxes. Sadly, that included my work station, causing damage to some of my tools, including some of my carving tools.

Then we had some wet springs and discovered the weeping tile was no longer doing its job. As water seeped through and fans needed to be set up, we had to start moving things wherever we could find the space, to get them out of the water, even though they were already on top of things like floor tiles that we found, to keep them from having direct contact with the concrete.

Eventually, we had to stop allowing the cats in the basement at all, and it’s been quite a disaster ever since.

Which meant we could move the barrier between the basements (there is no door; just a vaguely door shaped hole in the old basement wall), so we no longer have to go upstairs and around to the other door to go from one basement to the other.

It also means we have a large, cat free space.

Right now, my goal is to set up a space where I can start seeds in the last week of March. My original thought was to reclaim the work station and use that.

Well, that didn’t quite work out.

Because of how disorganized things have become, I need to work in stages, and that table was the first stage.

The table itself is a bit rickety, and has a larger sheet of not-plywood on top. After clearing the surface, I decided to take it off completely to see why the the table was so unstable.

It turned out that the surface was two wide boards nailed to the frame. The frame itself has extra cross pieces that allow for long items to be stored underneath – something I’ve found quite handy. There were still a few things under there, so that got taken out, too.

In moving the table around, I found the corners of one board were lifting, so I decided to secure both boards with screws. I used the old nails as guides on where to drill the pilot holes, since the frame they were on hid the supports they were nailed to. On one side, while drilling the pilot holes, I discovered gaps and had to drill new ones about an inch over. Then I had to add a couple more screws at each corner to secure it to the outer part of the frame as well as the supports I couldn’t actually see, underneath.

Securing it with screws did improve the ricketiness, but one corner still seemed to be lifting somehow. I finally tipped it on its side to see what was under there.

Which is when I could see just where these boards came from and, to be honest, it broke my heart a little.

Years ago, my parents bought some property as an investment. The building used to be a general store in the front, with living quarters in the back. The general store itself closed some time in the 60’s. There was a semi-detached storage building (which is now here at the farm), and I remember finding old inventory lists from 1963.

Most of the wall shelves were removed. I have a large section of one against the wall in my bedroom right now. Smaller sections were turned into dividers between the living and dining rooms. Other parts and pieces of them have been turning up in various places around the property.

The wood that was used to make these shelves is really excellent – and very distinctive in their size and colour.

The underside of the table had that distinctive colour. I couldn’t see it on the top, because it had been so scoured and damaged.

Even the larger board I moved looks like it came from this old store. Once I saw the underside of it, there were “shadows” showing it was part of something else. I even remember what it was. There was a multi-tiered display shelf in the old store, and this was the top of it.

Which also explains the cut off corners.

There is another sheet of this same wood that’s even larger that we found while cleaning the basement, and I now realize it would have been a lower level of this display shelf.

It’s such a shame that someone took apart these shelves and used this excellent wood to basically make a scrap material work table, and the surface got so damaged.

I never did find why it still seemed rickety, though. In fact, it handled being moved around quite well.

Once I had it upright again, I realized the narrower size of the table was much easier to reach around, and I considered not putting the sheet of not-plywood back on. However, my husband had picked up a huge self healing cutting mat for the work station, and it was finally going to be used – and it was wider than the table!

So, the top sheet went back on, and it turned out to be just a fraction wider than the cutting mat.

Then I put stuff back on the table, and I now have a work station again.

Yes, that’s a re-purposed gun rack.

There is an outlet on a pillar opposite this wall and I’ve got a power bar running from there, across a floor joist in the ceiling, and a number of hooks to hold power cords up and out of the way. This allowed me to use my Dremel and wood burning tool, and now the charger for my drill and driver batteries. The power bar has USB ports, so I can set up a charger cable for my phone, too.

That top board is not attached in any way, so when it was time to put the vice back, I didn’t want it over the cutting mat. It is now on one end and holding the top piece to the table surface together. The top piece is almost exactly the same length as the table.

Before I’d put the table back and starting returning things, I made sure to clean the floor underneath as best I could without actually mopping it. I could see that the bottoms of the table legs had water damage. After looking around for something to protect them, I found my stash of old sour cream containers. I’ve been cutting those up to make plant markers, and had a bunch of them waiting to be used for that. It turns out the table legs fit in them, so we now have protection from water, if we get another wet spring.

Once that was done, I was happy to have a work station again.

However, I still don’t have a place to start seeds!

So I started working on the next section of the basement, at one end, clearing it out and mopping it. We have a low-to-the-ground twin size bed frame one of my nephews made that we painted and have been using for all sorts of things, inside and out. Once the end was mopped, I set it up under the counter was what was supposed to be a bar my late brother started building when he was in his teens and never quite finished. It has an outlet on the “outside” of the counter that we have found quite handy.

The bed frame is now set up under the counter, on bricks to keep it out of any water should we have issues again. I will be storing larger stuff on it, but made sure to plug an extension cord for us to use, as we won’t be able to access that outlet once the things are moved onto the bed frame.

The bed frame’s platform needed to be mopped, too.

After that was done, I set up a blower fan facing that end of the basement and am taking a break while it dries.

Oh! Break time is over! My brother is now here and in the old basement, figuring out how to set up the bypass valve so we can switch between the ejector and the emergency septic bypass. as needed – and not have to remove and switch pipes every time!

My brother is the best!

The Re-Farmer

Clearing the lane

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Yes!

Finally!

I was able to get out with the chainsaw and work on that dead spruce tree.

It was still damp out, but more because it’s not warm enough for things to dry than because of any rain. We’re under a weather watch right now, as a large system is being blown almost straight North from the US, so the southern and eastern parts of our province are expected to get a storm. Locally, we’re expected to start getting rain at about 7am tomorrow morning. It’s then expected to continue to rain, off and on, through to the next morning, when it is supposed to become a mix of rain and snow.

Based on the current forecasts, today was pretty much my last day to get this done.

Here is my Instagram slideshow of how it went.

The first two pictures were taken before I got started. That’s basically how it has been since my daughter was last able to work on trimming away branches.

Which was the first part of what I had to do. I had my baby chainsaw (electric pruner) for most of that job. This part took the longest, because I took the time to break down the branches to fit into the wagon, then dumped them on the big branch pile in the outer yard. A lot of these were branches from the diseased crab apple tree, so they need to be burned. Previously, we were able to get the branch pile chipped, but this year we’ve been piling up diseased branches as well as things like squash plants that had powdery mildew on them.

While cleaning up the branches, I found the remains of an old bird’s nest.

When I finally got things clear enough to start using the chain saw on the crab apple tree, Syndol decided that would be a good time to climb the tree! I even cut away a broken section while he was up there, hoping the noise would have him jump down, but nope! In the end, I dumped another load of branches and came back before he finally made his way down.

Then it was more cutting and clearing and cutting and clearing. Crab apple tree branches are so bent and twisted, they took a remarkably long time to deal with. The wood is so much heavier, too. The difference is quite noticeable when I had pieces of apple tree cut quite short to load into the wagon and haul away, then tossing them on top of the pile, then started working on the spruce tree. I cut sections that were much longer than the apple tree trunk pieces, and the spruce tree’s trunk was at least twice as think at the top section of the tree, yet were so much lighter!

In the end, I had to stop because it was getting too dark. I left a section of the crab apple trunk alone, so that we could easily see it when we can finish cleaning it up later – likely in the spring. I was able to load three sections of the spruce tree’s trunk into the wagon to haul away (my apologies for the very fuzzy picture!) – that will NOT be going onto the burn pile, but will be stacked near the old garden shed – while a couple of larger pieces were left for later. The main thing is that there is now a cleared land that we can walk through – or drive through, if necessary.

Once the cut pieces of trunk are cleared away, the rest of the tree can be left for the spring. It’s going to take a lot more effort to clear that out, since it is in between other trees and in underbrush in the spruce grove.

In the end, I messaged a daughter to come out and help me put things away, because I was losing the light so fast, so the remaining logs have been left where they are until tomorrow. Hopefully, it won’t be raining too hard, and we can haul them away and stack them. We may be able to use these pieces for when we make a new garden shed as our cordwood practice building. We’ll need a lot more, but the walls for the practice building will probably be only about 8 inches wide, instead of the 12 – 16 inches more typical of cordwood building. I still want to use the method for when we build an outdoor bathroom (NOT an outhouse over a pit), but we need to clear some very large dead trees before we can work in the area I want to build it in.

We still have lots to do to collect and prepare before we can start building, but these logs could at least be a start, if the wood is in good enough condition.

All in good time.

For now, I’m just glad I was able to get that tree cleaned up and cut up enough to get that lane open again.

Little by little, things are getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Makin hay, while the sun shines!

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Or, in my case today, raking leaves and planting wildflowers!

This afternoon, we reached our expected a high of 8C/46F, with some lovely sunshine and NO high winds!

What a difference that makes.

We did get some rain this morning, but by the time I headed out after lunch, you couldn’t tell we’d had any.

My first job of the day was to rake up some leaves to mulch the wattle weave bed.

Not all of it. Just where the wild strawberries and herbs are growing.

This was the first time I used the pair of hand rakes my brother and his wife gave me. Now that they’ve sold their property, they are living in a townhouse, and have no need for gardening tools anymore. I don’t think these were ever used before!

They work really, really well! The only complaint I could have about them is the straps for the hands are on the small side. At least for broad simian hands like mine! 😄

Oh, gosh. I just realized what I caught a kitten doing in the other mulched bed in that first photo.

*sigh*

The next photo is the packaging for the hand rakes, though Instagram cut part of it off, even though I have it set to “original size” on the slideshow. The website says uncleweiner.com (not an affiliate link). A rather unfortunate name, but a good product!

Oh… gosh. They are located in Prince Albert. That’s… double unfortunate! 😂😂😂

In the last photo, you can see I had a helper when it came to mulching the Albion Everbearing strawberries in the main garden area. I put the chicken wire back over it to keep the leaves from being blown away but, as you can see, it doesn’t lie flat on the strawberry bed. Little Magda quite enjoyed going under there!

That done, I got another wagon load of leaves and started on the patch that’s been covered by the insulated tarp all summer.

After removing the old T posts and a board I’d put around the edges, to keep it from blowing away, I peeled off the tarp. That was unexpectedly difficult. All along the edges, Creeping Charlie had started growing on top of it. It turns out that some of them set their roots into, or even through, the tarp!

So the first thing I did was drag the tarp out to the front yard, where I have one hose still set up. The tarp was spread out to its full size. After hosing it down for a while, I went over it with a stiff bristle broom to get rid of the bigger debris, then used the hose to pressure wash it as best I could. It then got another scrubbing with the broom and a rinse.

For now, I’ve left it out where it is, to dry off as much as possible. Unfortunately, there are some holes in it. Some are tears from winds that happened a couple of years ago. Others were caused by weed roots pushing their way through and into the insulation layer! So parts of it now have water on the inside of the tarp. Not much I can do about that. I don’t have tarp tape, but I do have clear Gorilla tape, so I hope to at least patch up the bigger holes – if they are dry enough! Eventually, the other side will need to be cleaned, too.

That done as much as could be for now, it was back to the patch of soil it covered. In the second picture, you can see how it looked after the tarp was removed. Most of it does look dead but, along the edges, you can see white lines of roots extending into the what will be the growing area.

The soil needed to be loosened for the seeds, so I used the landscaping rake for that – and promptly found a roll of wire, buried in the soil! When we first moved here, this is where most of the chimney blocks and all the ceramic flues had been stacked, along with bricks and other odd things, and even garbage. We cleaned it up, but clearly missed this piece of wire!

The entire area got raked from the inside out, so as to pull the living roots out of the growing area, while also loosening the soil for the seeds.

As you can see in the next photo in the slideshow, the cats were very interested in what I was doing!

After the soil was loosened, I took the container of seeds shaken up in some seed starting mix, and scattered it evenly – I hope – over the area. Then I drew the back of the rake back and forth over the area to cover the seeds a bit.

While chasing away cats that figured this was a big new litter box, just for them!

Last of all, I scattered a wagon load of leaves over the entire area. This layer of leaf mulch is not as thick as on the garden beds. I was trying to more or less emulate how it would be, if leaves had fallen naturally on the ground. They will not be removed in the spring.


These seeds are a Western wildflower mix, so they should be able to handle the winter temperatures just fine. Any that succeed in germinating should have little problem growing through the light mulch.

The seed mix description doesn’t tell everything that’s in this mix. It just says “This mix includes Lupins, Poppy, Coreopsis, Flax, Blanket flowers and much more.” It should be interesting to see what comes up next year!

Image belongs to Veseys

One packet of seeds is supposed to be enough for 1000 sq ft. I used two packets. Technically, this means this area should be very densely sown. I’m not going to assume they’ll all germinate. We’ve tried to plant these plus an alternative lawn mix in areas nearby, and only some of them took – a year after they were sown! – and in only one area.

Still, if all goes well, enough of them will germinate that they will choke out any weeds that might otherwise spread into the area, and the wildflowers will spread their own seed further into the maple grove.

By the time that was done, it was starting to get close to sunset, to I moved on to things to go in the front yard. One of those was to clean up the flower bed the haskap bushes are planted in.

The first two photos in the above slide show are before and after shots. The dead flower stalks were clipped with loppers for a chop and drop. The old mulch I’d pulled off the garden bed at the fence was then raked on top along one side, and leaves along the other edges were raked up and added to the other sides. I don’t mind if the mulch reduces the number of flowers here. They get so tall, they cover the haskaps! Now, they are a mulch for the haskaps, and the lilac at one end.

I also snagged a couple of bricks and broken pieces of sidewalk blocks from the pile in the foreground. I keep thinking the catio is going to blow away, now that it’s wrapped in plastic for the winter. A corner of the plastic did tear off in yesterday’s winds, so that got tacked back into place, and there is now a weight on each corner of the roof.

I finally got around to laying out the hoses, to get the kinks and twists out. Once they moved, I was able to get to the old basement window to clean it up, then switch the summer window for the winter one. There was more to clean up than usual this year. The kittens have been using the area in front of it as a little box. 🫤 The window is now clear, though, and has a cover leaning over it. Eventually, we will pick up a window well and cover for around this window. The window wells are pretty affordable. The covers can sure get expensive, though!

That cleaned up and done, it was time to roll up and tie off the hoses. I ended up using a garbage can, laying it on its side over a hose, then rolling it with the hose around it. Doing it that way prevents the hose from twisting and kinking, though in these cooler temperatures, any kinks that were in the hoses when I laid them out were still pretty bent up when they were rolled up. Those are now ready to set aside for the winter.

Aside from finishing cleaning the insulated tarp, this is it for winterizing on the south side of the house. Tomorrow, I’ve got some things I want to get done in the main garden area. Our high is expected to be only 4C/39F tomorrow, but the day after is now expected to hit 9C/48F. I might wait for the warmer day before breaking out the chain saw to clean up the dead spruce tree that fell on the crab apple tree.

How much I get done tomorrow, though, may be up for debate. I felt really good while working outside, but once inside and sitting for a while, all my joints are stiffening up. Including my hands. I’m having a heck of a time typing right now. I forgot to take painkillers before I started this post.

Hopefully, I will finally get a good night’s sleep, and that will help. What I’d really love is have a hot soak in the tub, but it’s not worth the risk of injury, trying to get in and out. Sitting on the bath chair in the shower just isn’t the same, though!

Ah, well. It is what it is!

Whatever happens tomorrow, it felt great to be working outside, and I’m quite happy with the progress I was able to do while I had the chance!

The Re-Farmer

Getting things done!

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Today was a really lovely fall day! We reached a high of 12C/54F this afternoon, making it perfect to get things done in the garden.

But first, the cuteness.

I managed to get a picture of Eye Baby this morning. Not a very good picture, but the best I could get! He just will not stay still long enough for a photo.

His one eye is still looking weird, but it is SO much better than it was! I honestly expected him to loose the eye.

I have no idea how much, if any, sight he has in that eye. There is no difference in how he manages, compared to the other kittens.

He needs a face wash, but now that we’re not grabbing him every evening to give him antibiotics anymore, he has no patience for that sort of thing!

My first goal of the day was to finish clearing the raised bed I’d taken the netting and supports off of, yesterday. I got the T posts out, then worked on weeding it.

It needed a LOT of weeding.

When I got to the seed onions, I pulled them out and set them aside until the bed was cleared.

Once the bed was cleared, the seed onions got transplanted again. There was four of them, including two bulbs together that I split.

After the frost did in the lone ground cherry that showed up in this bed, I found there had been a whole bunch of berries hiding under the foliage. They had been completely hidden until then! I’d gathered those up and set them aside, earlier. Today, I decided to go ahead and plant them in the area next to the onions. I just took the berries, still in their casing, and shoved them in like they were garlic bulbs. If there are any viable seeds and they survive the winter, they should do all right. This end of the bed gets more sun than the other one, so they’ll have a better chance at having a full growing season.

Or, none of them will make it, and I’ll plant something else there.

In the next photo of the slide show above, you can see the entire bed was mulched, with grass clippings. I have the end with the seed onions and ground cherries a thicker mulch, while the rest of the bed was just lightly covered, to protect the soil, more than anything else.

The next bed to work on was the eggplant and hot pepper bed. That bed was mulched with cardboard around the transplants, then grass clippings, so not a lot of weeds got through. With this bed, I just did a chop and drop with the dead remains of the eggplants and pepper plants.

Hmmm… the photos are not lined up the way I set them when I uploaded them to Instagram!

Anyhow…

In the second photo, you can see the yellow Mason’s line I used across the middle of the cover. It had been bowing out. The box frame is the same size, so I used that as my guide as I pulled in the side of the cover frame. I didn’t bother doing anything to the wire mesh, as I plan to replace it with something stronger at some point. This wire mesh is just too bendy.

With this done, my next job was to go through all the stakes and supports I’d gathered together. It took quite some time to organize them. We have metal stakes in two sizes that got bundled up, making use of the garden twist ties that had also been set aside for next year. The bamboo stakes were sorted by height and, for some of them, thickness before being bundled up. The smaller, broken pieces were tucked into a bucket in the garden shed, as they are still useful as supports.

Then there were the hoops and wire fences and other odds and sots that got organized and bundled. The remaining ties and clips were organized as well. We have one of those rolling seats – we found it when we were cleaning the new part basement of the house – that got lubricant added to various places before that got put into the shed for the winter, too.

That old garden shed may be dilapidated and falling apart, but it’s still managing to be useful! It would be good if we could finally gets started on building a replacement next spring.

With everything finally sorted and put away, it was time to work on the cat house. The first thing was to set up an extension cord through the window of the old kitchen. I’d put hooks up last year so we could run the cord above our heads, rather than across the floor, with another outside, keeping the cord snug into the corner of the door frame, so both the inner and outer doors could still open and close without damaging it.

There is a fair bit of excess cord that we usually kept tucked to one side on the ground. This time, I got a utility hook I’d picked up for something else, only to find something better, later on, and used that. So now the excess length is neatly wrapped up on the side of the kibble house, instead of laying on the ground.

As for the cat house itself, my younger daughter did the bulk of the cleaning. After getting the roof open, my job was mostly to make sure it didn’t drop (highly unlikely, but possible) while my daughter clambered inside. There was a large crocheted blanket on the floor, on top of some high density foam mats I found in the barn. It’s too heavy to wash in the washing machine, so we set that aside. The last time we were able to wash it, we used the kiddie pool, but that now has drainage holes in the bottom so it can be used as a garden bed.

I plan to get more. They are very handy.

For now, it’s set aside.

The two cat beds in there were pretty torn up. I don’t know if they’re worth washing, or should be just thrown away. They ended up in the shelf shelter for now.

We decided not to return the litter box. The cats just kicked the litter pellets all over and made a mess, but didn’t seem to have actually used it much.

After sweeping up the inside, we added the two new cat beds that were donated, one at each of the larger windows. The insides of the windows all got washed, too.

The heat bulb was plugged in and tested, as was the smoke detector. We also added a small cat blanket we had in the sun room.

The cats were very, very interested in what we were doing, this whole time. When it came time to close up the roof, we had to be very careful, in case a cat decided to jump up at the last moment!

Once that was down and the crates returned to their place under the counterweight, my daughter and I worked on the rain barrel. It was full of water, so we used the watering cans to empty it until it was empty enough to tip over and drain completely. It’s now set on its side in the old kitchen garden for the winter.

By the time that was done, we were starting to lose the light and time to call it a day. The outside cats got their evening feeding (even though it was really just late afternoon) and we were done with outside stuff for the day.

The next while is supposed to be cooler, though were are still expected to get a few days as warm as 7C/45F or 8C/46F. We might actually get some rain tomorrow afternoon/evening, but otherwise, it should be clear. While the main things that needed to get done are now done, there is always more to do. Right now, my goal for tomorrow is to move the insulated tarp aside and sow the wildflower seeds over the area beneath.

Anything else we manage to get done around the yard and garden at this point is just bonus.

I’m really glad to have been able to take advantage of what will probably be our last actual warm day of the year!

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: A quick garden bed before and after

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I had a bit of time between coming home from a city shop, and my SIL arriving to help bring our truck home. So I took advantage of the daylight and started preparing the next garden bed, hopefully for winter sowing.

I didn’t quite finish, though.

Here is how it looks so far.

Click through to see the “after” image.

This is the bed that had the San Marzano tomatoes and yellow bulb onions in it. With the onions filling in the spaces between the tomatoes, it didn’t get mulched much at all. Mostly, a grass clipping mulch was added around the outside, mostly to prevent soil from washing away when watering.

With our compaction problems, I was pleasantly surprised how almost fluffy the soil was. Aside from some Creeping Charlie showing up at each end, it wasn’t all that weedy, either, though there were certainly plenty of weed roots and rhizomes to remove. There wasn’t anywhere near as many elm tree roots invading as in the previous bed I’d worked on, either.

I did find quite a few onions missed during harvest!

The one problem I had in clearing this bed is that I could only use my right hand. I had to dig into the loosened soil to get those roots out, which is when I discovered I managed to somehow cut the tip of my index finger on my left hand. Even with gloves on, it was too painful to push my fingers into the soil – which is how I discovered the injury!

Unfortunately, when I dropped the tail gate of my brother’s trailer on my fingers later on, it was on my right hand. Now, the tip of the index finger on my right hand is all swollen and rather purple.

It’s going to make things interesting, as I try to finish the job tomorrow!

I think after I get this bed ready for winter sowing, I’ll move on to the rectangular bed in the old kitchen garden. The high raised bed in the main garden area is already prepped. It’s a much shorter bed, but with the open space left where the garlic is planted, that should be enough. I think, in the main garden area, I’ll try winter sowing summer squash in the bed I’m working on now, then do a mix of root vegetables and onion seeds in the high raised bed and the remaining space with the garlic. Then, in the old kitchen garden, I’ll do a mix that includes more onions with kohlrabi, peas and spinach, and maybe some other greens. Once the beds are ready, I’ll go through my seeds and see what I have.

If the winter sowing works, that’ll be a great head start for next year. If not, I will still have plenty of seeds to plant.

For now, looking at the long range forecast, it seems we will have almost 3 weeks before our first potential snow. With only one more city shopping trip to get done, no more trailer loads being dropped off, the hot water tank working again, the truck repaired and home… I should be able to finally focus on getting things done outside again!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 garden! Garlic is planted, and clean up continues

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Yay!!

Today, we were expected to hit 15C/69F, making it the last really warm day of the year. We’re expected to his 11C/52F in a few days, that that will likely be the last double digit Celsius temperatures we’ll get.

My goal was to get the garlic into the bed that was already about half prepared and covered with plastic, to see if we’d be able to get any solarization happening.

There was a slight side trip, though. The rescue had ordered a kibble donation from Amazon that was supposed to arrive tomorrow. Amazon deliveries – at least those sent by mail – tend to come early, so I went to the post office, just in case.

I’m happy to say, they were there! I don’t know what kind of promo or coupon the Cat Lady took advantage of, but it was for three smaller (compared to what we usually get) bags of indoor cat food.

The outdoor cats don’t care!

When I let her know, with thanks, that the kibble had arrived, the Cat Lady told me they now have FIVE large bags of kibble for us! That is so amazing! The challenge right now is to stock up extra kibble for the winter, in case we find ourselves unable to get out. I do not want to run out again!

The outside cats, however, have enjoyed their warm morning kibble softened in sludgy bone broth (I removed the meat from the bones, put it back in the stock, then blitzed it with the immersion blender) so much, I’ve got more being made in the slow cooker right now, since the last of the first batch was finished this morning.

The kibble picked up – and a feeding done so I could drive out of the yard again – it was time to get to the garden.

First job: preparing the rest of the bed.

The first image in the above slideshow is the “before” picture. The second picture if after removing the plastic, and the grass clipping mulch in the part that needed to be cleaned up.

The part that was covered in plastic did have a few weeds in it, but didn’t need much work to get that cleaned up. The rest of it had one really bad patch of crab grass, but was otherwise pretty good – except for the very end, where some Creeping Charlie was staring to invade.

There were also elm tree roots, of course.

And rocks. There’s always rocks!

I wanted to amend this bed with some trench composting. I made the trench in the middle, from one end to the other, with the spade. The soil in this bed is not anywhere near as compacted as I’ve had issues with in other beds, so no actual digging was needed.

This was a good time to remove more weed and elm tree roots.

And rocks.

Then I used the landscaping rake to widen and level the trench some more, while also removing more roots.

And rocks.

So many rocks!

The next photo shows the filled trench. I took advantage of this and emptied the compost buckets from the kitchen directly into it. Then I pilfered the compost pile, taking most of the Crespo squash vines that were in there.

Last of all, I scattered some dried grass clippings over the whole thing, then tromped back and forth on it a few times, to tamp it down.

That done, the soil was pulled back over the compost materials, evened out and leveled. For some reason, there was quite a bit more soil at the south end (away from the elm trees) than the north end.

There was still some bits of squash vines poking through, but that’s okay.

In the process of all this, I did find little surprises!

There were three yellow bulbing onions that had been missed, and a whole bunch of little shallots! These will be transplanted elsewhere and allowed to go to seed, next year.

Finally, it was time to plant garlic!

I’d selected a dozen of our biggest garlic bulbs from this year’s garden to plant. As these beds will eventually be framed with logs (at least, that’s still the plan!), the actual growing space is being kept fairly narrow. That makes it a lot easier to reach with my short little arms! 😄

After laying out the garlic bulbs in short rows of three, they didn’t make it all the way to the end of the bed. I will find something else to plant in the remaining empty space.

When I pause to take a photo, though, I realized something.

Garlic grows relatively shallow. Which means they won’t be affected by the elm tree roots at the north end of the bed, where there are the most roots.

So I moved the garlic from the South end of the bed to the North end.

Once the garlic was laid out, it was just a matter of pushing the root end into the soil. Once they were all in, I used the back of a fan rack to cover them.

After just a couple of passes, I stopped and got a broken piece of bamboo stake to mark how far the garlic was planted in the south end of the bed. Once the soil was raked over the cloved, there was no other way to tell how far they went!

Once the garlic was covered, I raked up several wheel barrow loads of leaves to created a nice, thick insulating mulch. Then I topped that with a thin layer of grass clippings, more to weight the leaves down, so they don’t get blown away!

After that was done, I took the time to rake in between most of the garden beds. While weeding, I generally toss the weeds and roots into the path. I wanted to get rid of that, so things like crab grass didn’t accidentally end up back in the low raised beds.

At that point, I didn’t have the energy for more digging and bending, so the next bed had to wait.

Instead, I started working on the old kitchen garden.

I didn’t bother taking any before shots.

I was quite surprised by what I was seeing in the wattle weave bed. The wild strawberries are looking quite green and healthy. The thyme was also looking great, and the chamomile actually had some fresh flowers blooming!

In the second picture of the above slideshow, you can see my garden helper. 😁

I’m saving the plastic rings that went around the tomato and luffa plants to use another season. I quite liked how that worked out.

The bed with the Forme de Couer tomatoes had a soaker hose in it. Once the tomato plants were removed, I took that out. I don’t know that I’ll use it again. It took forever to do any level of watering, and I’m not sure why. It’s possible our super hard water is clogging pores.

All the support takes were gathered up and set aside, except for the two broken ones I’m using to hold the plastic rings. The tomato and luffa plants were pulled and set aside – they will likely be trench composted, too.

That that was as far as I got today.

I’ll have to weed the tiny raised bed again. I see all sorts of grass coming through the mulch. I’m thinking of planting the remaining Red Wethersfield onions that I found among the Forme de Couer tomatoes in or near the tiny raised bed. These will also be allowed to go to seed, so I want to find a permanent spot for them.

The long, narrow bed against the retaining wall needs a bit of work, and I’m thinking of replacing the very crooked top log with wattle weave, if I can find enough materials to do it.

By this time, I had to stop. I’d completely forgotten to eat lunch, and it was getting to be supper time!

I won’t be able to continue this tomorrow. CPP Disability comes in tomorrow, so I’ll be heading into the city for our first stock up shopping trip. I’ll be using the car my brother and SIL lent to us. We haven’t heard from the garage about the truck. I think I’ll phone them in the morning. At this point, all I want to know is what’s wrong with it, and an estimate on getting things fixed. When the time comes to pick up the repaired truck, I will need to drive to the city first, to get my SIL, drive back with her to get the truck, then I can take the truck home while she takes their car back to the city.

Speaking of which, I was expecting them to drop off another load today, but I haven’t heard from them at all. There was just small stuff left. Perhaps they decided to take it to their new place, instead. They were talking about coming here, though, and my brother was going to look at the hot water tank for us after unloading. I’m quite surprised to have not heard anything from them, either way.

Well, they certainly have their hands full right now, so maybe that’s not surprising after all.

I’m just happy I got my main goal for today accomplished.

Our garlic for next year is in!

There is still lots to do. While things are expected to be cooler, the next couple of weeks should still be mild enough to get more garden beds ready for the winter, and to try our winter sowing experiment. I’m thinking I might do one or two went sown beds in the main garden area and, maybe do a third bed in the old kitchen garden.

I’ll have to go through my seeds and decide which to plant together, where. I plan to do a sort of organized guerilla gardening. I’ll be selected in what gets planted where, but once it’s time to plant, the seeds will be mixed together and scattered about.

But first, the beds need to be prepared, and there’s going to be just a few days when I’ll be able to work on it before things start to get too cold! Once the winter sowing is done and mulched, the other beds can be done at a more leisurely pace.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-farmer.

Before and after, times four

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Oh, it feels good to have such a productive day!

Even if it wasn’t where I intended it to be. 😄

In the main garden area, I can happily say that the high raised bed is done! Here are the before and after pictures.

I got the first picture after cleaning up all the supports and netting, and collecting all the twist ties, the sheets we used to try and protect the peppers from frost, and finally removed the cover. You can click through to see the “after” photo.

After cleaning up the dead pepper plants and finding shallots that had been missed, the grass clipping mulch was removed and I started loosening the soil and weeding it.

Compaction is a real problem. That soil was rock hard!

After getting out as many weed roots and rhizomes as I could, I dug a trench down the middle of the bed for trench composting. The pepper plants I pulled out where cut into smaller pieces into the trench, and some of the grass clipping mulch went in as well. After the material was covered again and the soil levels, I scattered more grass clippings over the top and used my little hand cultivator to work the clippings into the soil. Hopefully, as it breaks down, it will help keep the soil from compacting so much.

Next, the soil was pulled away from the edged and mounded in the middle. More grass clippings were stuffed against the logs. Especially in the corners where the logs have some gaps, so the soil won’t wash out. Finally, the mound in the middle was leveled out again.

When we get to direct sowing seed to overwinter and, hopefully, get an early start next year, the beds will not be watered. We don’t want them to germinate yet. For now, however, the high raised bed got a thorough watering, to kick start the breakdown of the plants matter buried in the trench. The top of the bed got a scattering of grass clippings to protect the soil.

I was just finishing this when my brother arrived, so I headed out to help him as best I could. They are bringing their storage trailer out tomorrow, and it will be full, so he had brought large concrete pavers that will go under the tires, so it won’t sink into the soil

He also brought two snow blowers.

One of them even works!

Well… the other one does, too, but it has an issue that he needs to tweak for it to run properly.

Which means we will have access to a working snow blower this winter!!

We might get to retire little Spewie – or just use it to make paths around the house, instead of the entire driveway.

With the trailer coming tomorrow, my brother wanted to clear away some low hanging tree branches, so it could get through the more solid part of the driveway past the pump shack.

So, while my brother went to unload some stuff out of his truck, first, I started a different job that needed to be done.

Clearing around the pump shack.

Across from the pump shack is a lilac bush. It had been planted with an old tire around it, but it has spread quite a bit. So I decided to cut the suckers back to the tire, widening the drive again.

Here are the before and after pictures.

First, one corner of the pump shack.

To the left of the first photo, you can see part of a maple that keeps growing back. This has become an unintentional coppice. There are some really nice, straight stems in there. I will leave them for now. I’m hoping they will do well for some future wattle weave garden beds I’m thinking of doing.

I didn’t get the “after” photos until after my brother left, and things were starting to get pretty dark! I had the charger for my mini chainsaw set up in the shack. Very handy.

Most of what got cleared away from this corner was self seeded raspberry bushes.

After clearing this corner, I went to the other side of the drive to work on the lilac bushes until my brother came over to cut the largest branch he was concerned about, which was almost directly above the lilac. I finished clearing the lilac after all the branch cutting was done and cleaned up. Here is the before and after on that.

Now that the south side is cleared away, the suckers growing behind them will get more light. I don’t mind this lilac spreading out to make a bit of a hedge, but not towards the driveway. Once I could access the tire, I could see that the parent plant had long died away. There was nothing but old and rotten pieces of it left. So this bush is basically all suckers from that original, now dead, lilac.

Once that was done, I went back to finish off the other corner of the pump shack.

Here are the before and after pictures of that.

I cleared those trees away back when I dug out my dad’s old makeshift forge, which is now against the wall. It didn’t take long for them to come back!

If you click through to the next photo, you can see what a huge difference it made to clear those away!

When my brother started using his extended pole chainsaw to clear away the big branches, he also used it to cut down the largest of the trees coming up by the pump shack for me, too. I still went back over the stump with my mini chainsaw – there were about 4 stems coming out of one tiny old tree stump! – to get rid of as much of it as I could. Drained one of my batteries in the process!

Most of this clean up was done with a pair of loppers, though. The mini chain saw was only used for the few things too large for the loppers, including the dead lilac stems I uncovered.

All of this, including the branches my brother cut away, went onto the burn pile. Some of the branches will need to be broken down further, though.

The large branches are all maple. As they get broken down, I think I will set some of them aside for fire wood, for future cookouts in the fire pit.

Eventually, we will need to burn that pile. It’s not something that can be chipped, as we have been tossing things like diseased apple trees and squash vines with powdery mildew on them. With how big the pile is getting, this will likely happen after there is snow on the ground, when it will be safer to burn.

My brother had a couple of surprises for us, as well. For my daughter, he brought over an old bike his son had attached a motor to. His son had even used it to get to work! It needs new tires, but he’s pretty sure the motor still works. That would be very handy for quick trips to the post office, rather than taking the truck.

He also gave use several boxes of spray paint, most of which have never been opened, new tubes of caulking, roofing tar and even a caulking gun. All stuff that will come in very handy here, that he doesn’t need anymore.

He even loaned us a socket set. A very unusual one, with all super large sockets! We’ll be able to use it to practice removing the anode rods from the old hot water tanks.

Tomorrow, I’m going to call the hot water tank company. We shouldn’t be able to get another replacement tank on warranty, but it is still within the 6 years, and this tank only lasted one year after installation. It’s worth a shot.

If not, we’ll see about getting replacement heat elements and, hopefully, that will be enough to get it working again. And if we replace the anode rod with the powered one that should arrive next week, they will hopefully last longer, and we won’t have that sulfur smell in our hot water anymore. Even if we do get a warranty tank, we plan to install the powered anode rode. We might be able to get a plumber to install it, too; it won’t be as expensive to have a hot water tank installed, if we already have everything needed.

We shall see.

So that is where we are at now!

Tomorrow, we are looking at another nice day, with an expected high of 20C/68F. While I do plan to work in the garden more, I want to re-bag our aluminum, removing any mixed metals in the process, and see if I can get it to the salvage yard either tomorrow or the day after. The bags are mostly old cat food cans, to the outside cats keep digging in them and making a mess! Plus, once we remove any mixed metals that got in there, we will get a much better price, and I really want to get those bags cleared away.

As for the garden beds, based on the long range forecast, I am looking to have enough beds ready to do the winter sowing in the beginning of November. We’ve got some cooler days coming up, but only one day with possible rain, and then we are supposed to be slightly warmer. There’s even a day predicted to be 22C/72F before the end of October!

We shall see.

Meanwhile, my daughter got the last coat of milder resistant primer over the spacers around the tub. Which means that we can start installing the new tub surround, tomorrow!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Little by little, it’s getting done

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It is turning out to be a lovely day today! We’re at 19C/66F right now, which is our predicted high of the day, with almost no wind at all. Which means I’ve been able to get some stuff done in the garden! Finally!

The first thing to get done was take down the last of the nets and support stakes on the future trellis bed and around the strawberries. I was surprised to find more strawberry plants have been eaten, though! As near as I can figure, a deer managed to get its heat under the netting on one side.

*sigh*

I had some chicken wire around the side where a hole had been made in the netting. Once everything was cleared, I put the chicken wire over the bed for now. The strawberries – what’s left of them – will be heavily mulched for the winter, but at this point I’m thinking we may need to transplant them closer to the house, where we can more easily keep the deer away. I’ll decide that later.

With all the hardware collected and set aside, I started cleaning up the high raised bed – mostly because it’s easier on the body!

I was expecting to find shallots that I missed harvesting, once I started cleaning up the dead pepper plants, and I was right. I found quite a few, actually, considering how small the bed is.

I’ve decided I will find a place to transplant these and mulch them over the winter, so that next year, we will have shallot seeds.

I removed the grass clipping mulch on the high raised bed and got about half way through digging out weeds and their roots, when I got a message from my brother. He’s on his way over with another load. He plans to cut away some tree branches while he is here, as they have a storage trailer they will be bringing out tomorrow, and they are in the way.

I’m more than happy to get those branches cleared away!

So I paused in the garden to come in and have lunch before he gets here, as I plan to help my brother as much as possible once he gets here.

While I was waiting for my food to heat up, I tended to the dehydrated peppers.

This is three trays of peppers, combined into one. They’re back in the oven for now, while it cools down (we used the “warm” setting at 150F to dehydrate the peppers). Later on, we might pop them into a jar for storage, or perhaps powder them. I’m not the pepper eater, so I will let the family decide which they would prefer.

Time to head back into the main garden area until my brother gets here. Now that all the stakes and netting are down, it should go faster. My goal right now is to prepare as many beds as I can to direct sow into, then cover with leaves for the winter. Hopefully, we will get a head start on the garden next year by doing this, but if it doesn’t work, the beds will still be ready for planting in, in the spring.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Garden clean up started, and water woes update

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Today is the first of a short spell of warmer days we are expecting. As I write this, at almost 7pm, we are at a lovely 12C/54F. The weather app says it feels like 5C/41F, but it doesn’t seem that chill around our home.

This afternoon, I took advantage of the warmer temperatures and finally got to work, cleaning up in the main garden area. What I’m shooting for is to get some beds ready to try some fall planting – because garlic, that is. I’ve been inspired once again by Gardening in Canada.

The more we can get done in the fall, the easier it will make things in the spring!

I’m surprised by just how much can be planted in the fall, with our zone 3 winters. Her list includes wildflowers; particularly poppies, hollyhocks, sunflowers, coneflowers and columbine. Now that I think about it, all of those make sense; we’ve had all but coneflowers sow themselves here, and the only reason we haven’t had coneflowers overwinter here is because we don’t have them anywhere to begin with. I do still have a native wildflower mix that needs to be sown, but those will have their own space to be seeded in.

For vegetables, she listed them in groups. One is the alliums; onions, leeks and shallots. We’ve got our own onion seed this year, so that is an option for us. We should also be able to use our own garlic for planting this year, too.

She mentions root crops like turnips, carrots, radishes and beets, all of which benefit from winter sowing by becoming sweeter and more flavourful, the following year.

Peas is something she plants all over, as she uses them as an indicator plant. You can tell how warm the soil is becoming by when they germinate.

The next group she mentions are brussels sprouts, kale, spinach, kohlrabi and possibly cabbage.

Last of all, she mentions squash and pumpkins. Considering the squash we had in our compost pile last year, we’ve already had those by accident!

They are normally a hot weather plant, but our compost tomatoes shows that, in the right conditions, tomatoes could be added to the list, too. Hmm… so can beans, for that matter.

Looking at her list and remembering what I have for seeds right now, we could plant onions, turnips, carrots, radishes, beets, peas, spinach, kohlrabi and both summer and winter squash.

What I might end up doing is just mixing up the seeds for onions, turnips, carrots and beets and planting them randomly in one bed – mostly because the onions could protect the things it’s planted with from deer. I could probably interplant onions with kohlrabi, peas and spinach, too, though I’d have to watch the spacing more. Squash… well, they take up so much space, they would be on their own, for the most part!

In order to do this, there are two things I need to get ready. First, is prepare the soil by increasing organic material. Compaction is a huge problem with our soil. I can do trench composting again, which really seems to make a big difference in production, but the soil itself needs to be amended as best we can.

Then, once seeds are planted, the other thing they will need is a light and fine mulch. Grass clippings and leaves would be what we have on hand to use. She recommends piling snow over the seeds in the winter for added insulation, but for the main garden area, I don’t see us needing to do that. That whole space gets well covered with snow over the winter!

Right away, I can see that we would have a very different garden next year, if we do this fall sowing.

We shall see if we can get to that point over the next week or so!

With that in mind, I focused on the main garden area. Here is a slideshow of today’s progress.

I started off using the weed trimmer. I hadn’t been able to do much clearing of the paths, once the winter squash, pumpkins, drum gourds and melon bed vines really took off. In some paths, I could barely walk through them without stepping on a vine.

I started to use the weed trimmer in where the next raised bed that will be part of a squash tunnel will be built, but not too much, just yet. I’ll clear into there more when I have to access the stack of what will be vertical support poles attached to the existing bed.

After trimming one side of the high raised bed, I stopped to pull up the winter squash vines. All the squash got powdery mildew towards the end of the season, so all of these were for the burn pile, not the compost. In fact, the only squash that did not get powdery mildew was the Crespo squash, in a completely different area.

I ended up spending most of my time on the pole bean trellis. There were only 5 surviving plants but, my goodness, they sure took over that trellis netting!

Also, folding up that netting for storage is a lot easier when you lay it out, then weave a bamboo stake through one short end.

After the first squash bed was cleared, I moved the corn stalks over from the other squash bed, so I could get at the vines under them. Later, I plan to trench compost the corn stalks.

Pulling up the squash vines was truly interesting, at times. I couldn’t believe how long some of them had gotten! These would have been so awesome on a trellis tunnel!

The only two beds I did not clear this time were the high raised bed, and the first trellis bed. I did finish weed trimming the paths, though. Right now, the bed that needs the least amount of work is the westernmost one, where I’d already prepped half of it after harvesting the onions and covered it with plastic.

The solarization doesn’t seem to be working, though. I’m seeing a lot of green growing under one end. The problem is, that end of the bed gets a lot more shade, this time of year, so it doesn’t get a chance to get hot enough to solarize. At least not at the south end. There may be greater success towards the middle of the bed.

Around the time I finished the weed trimming, I found some messages from the family. My daughter had spent some time going through all the fittings I picked up, working out which would be needed, which wouldn’t, etc. In the end, we were going to need more of two fittings – and will likely have quite a few to return to the store, once the job is done.

It was past 3:30 by then. The store we needed to go to was the second one I’d gone to, yesterday. Thankfully, they weren’t going to close until 5:30 – the local one closes at 4. My daughter came along with me.

While she was looking at the fittings, I looked around for the hot water tank element tool I needed, then asked for help, because I couldn’t even find the section. It turned out to be tucked away in a corner. 😄 I also asked about a socket large enough to remove the anode rod but, in the end, I think the same heat element tool will fit the anode rod. I’ll test that out, later.

Then my daughter needed help, because one of the fittings she was looking for was behind locked doors! Quite a few displays in this store were behind glass. I would not have expected theft to be more of a problem in this location, that the store I usually go to!

After we got what we needed and were heading home, I missed my turn to cross over to the other highway – the streets look no different than driveways in this town! That meant we ended up driving to the town closer to home.

My daughter hadn’t eaten anything since early in the morning. Since we ended up in town anyhow she, being the sweetheart that she is, sprung for some Dairy Queen for all of us.

It now looks like we have everything we need to replace the pipes and faucet set for the tub. The hard part is going to be cutting the copper pipe to get the old pieces out. There is very little room to work in. Especially since the cutter needs to spin around the pipe.

While I might be able to assist, this is a job mostly for my younger daughter. She’s the most able bodied among us – and considering she has PCOS and all the joint pain that can come with, that’s not saying much!

Hopefully, I will be able go get more progress in the garden instead, and if all goes really well, be able to plant things for next year in a few days!

If all goes well for my daughter, we might even be able to use the tub and shower again, soon, too!

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer