In the first picture, there were three seedlings – two that I’d planted after the first pre-germinated one. All three, gone.
In the second picture, you can see that one of the cells was dug into – and the stem of a seedling. There were actually two cells that had been dug into.
The third is what’s left in the tray. The row on the bottom is the Sweet Chocolate peppers. They were doing the best. All the cells had seedlings, with the “just in case” seeds sown later also emerging. The row of seven cells had at least ten seedlings, with hints of more emerging. Now, it’s down to two.
The California Wonder row, in the middle, didn’t do as well, but I did have four seedlings. Now there is just one.
The top row is the Caspar eggplant. There were three surviving seedlings, which seem to be untouched. Whatever ate the others doesn’t seem to like eggplant, I guess.
With the evidence of digging, it must be a mouse. There are a couple of ultrasonic mouse repellents plugged in, in both basements. They’ve been there longer than we have, so I’m guessing they aren’t working anymore.
*sigh*
The celery, herbs and luffa in the other tray are untouched.
About the only thing I can be glad of is that these are all short season varieties. In theory, I could even direct sow them. Not that I would expect that to work with our growing season, so I do want to try again, but how do I keep this from happening again?
We could set traps, of course. There are several live traps that are currently stored in the sun room. They’re not really accessible right now, though.
My daughter suggested the three of us find a way to get the big aquarium into the basement to use as a greenhouse again. A mouse can’t climb the glass, and it has wire mesh covers. The original problem remains, though: how to get it down the stairs. There is so little room at the bottom turn something of its dimensions. Not that we can access it, anyhow. We’ve got so many of my mother’s things shoved into the living room, safe from the cats, that we can’t access where the aquariums are, never mind carry the big aquarium, and the shelf that supports it, out. I was planning on getting some of my mother’s stuff out and into the storage house (which is already so full of my parents’ things) so that we could use the big aquarium to house the chicks, but that won’t be until the end of May.
So frustrating.
Meanwhile, our day changed completely. My doctor’s appointment was this afternoon. If the truck behaved and the road conditions were good, I would have gone on to do the Walmart shopping, after. My younger daughter’s appointment was on Monday, but she wanted to come with me as there was something she needed to get at Walmart.
Note, I said “was”.
We were expecting snow today, but when it started coming down, it was harder than expected. If we can see the snow and wind around the house like that, we know it’s a lot worse on the roads. It was early enough in the day that I called the clinic to cancel my appointment. We’re expecting a combination of rain and snow over the weekend, so I cancelled my daughter’s appointment on Monday, too. When I explained about road conditions, the receptionist I was talking to concurred. The clinic is about a 45 minute drive away, and it sounds like conditions were worse there, than here. I’ve certainly driven in worse conditions, but we’ve had so many issues in such a short time, I just didn’t want take the chance.
They are booking new appointments at four weeks right now, so I could have rebooked for the end of March. I told her, we’ll call to rebook closer to the end of March instead, to make the appointments in April. March being the sort of month that it is, I didn’t want to book appointments only to have to cancel them again due to weather.
So, we stayed home today. I ended up going back to bed. I got up again before noon, in enough pain that I could barely walk. I can’t say the nap helped that much, because I still feel ridiculously tired.
Ah, well. It is what it is.
I’ve got to figure something out to protect my seed starts.
When I first checked, before 8am, it was still -32/-26F, with no wind chill. Almost an hour later, the temperature hadn’t changed, but the wind chill dropped to -37C/-35F
I waited until later than usual to head outside, partly so the yard cats wouldn’t be disturbed and start running around in this cold. I worry about the littles! I also wanted to text the garage. I mentioned how cold it was, and that I was okay with coming in, in the afternoon, and that I would see if the truck would start.
Then I headed out. After topping up the kibble bowls in the sun room, I stepped outside and immediately saw something wrong.
Across the yard, where I’d shoveled the turn around area for the truck, there was something dark that wasn’t there before.
Yes, it turned out to be a frozen cat. A large adult tabby. I could tell it was male, but there was too much frost to identify it. I think it might be Larence, though. Either that, or that big tom that’s been visiting.
For the rest of the time I took care of the food and water, I was watching all the cats to see who was missing. That doesn’t actually tell me much, since they don’t all show up at the same time when the food it put out.
Once the cats were fed and watered, I grabbed the snow shovel to move the remains. Normally, with the ground frozen, I would put the remains in the branch pile for later cremation, but we can’t access it right now. I had to leave it in the spruce grove, as far as I could get into it.
Damn.
All that bitter cold we had, without finding any losses until today. Last night should be last night with lows of -30C/-22F or below for this winter. One last night, and he didn’t make it.
We have so many shelters, I don’t know why he was out there, in the yard yet far from the house. I can make guesses, though. One is, it looked like he’d just taken a dump, though we have litter boxes in the sun room and isolation shelter available. The other is, we’ve been hearing more cat fights lately, and other cats may have driven him out. Still, we have so many shelters, plus the ferals have other hidden shelters somewhere in the outer yard. They can get into the pump shack, the barn, etc. So many places he could have stayed warm.
*sigh*
Once that sad duty was taken care of, I went and started the truck. It didn’t like it, but it did start and seemed to be running okay. I can’t tell if any oil has leaked under it until I move it out far enough to access the hood and check the oil levels. As I came in, I found Fluffy, pretty posing for me.
The long haired cats, at least, have lots of insulation!
When I got inside, I found a response from the garage. He laughed about my wanting to wait until things warmed up before coming in. He said he was swamped this morning, anyhow and to touch base in the afternoon.
By this time, it was already warming up. As I write this, it’s coming up on 11, and we’re at -26C/-15F.
Last night, I was messaging with my sister about how to get my mother’s keys. In the end, she suggested she go to my mother’s apartment this morning – she might have already come and gone by now – and take more things, then leave the keys there. That means leaving it unlocked, so I HAVE to go to my mother’s apartment today to get the keys and lock up, as well as take more things here to the farm.
So I messaged the garage back suggesting I drop the truck off around noon or shortly after, then go visit my mother at the hospital, adding that I needed to go to her apartment. It can be later, but I have to get there today. I don’t know if he’s seen the message, yet, if he’s so busy, but I need to get the truck fixed. I’ve got too much driving to do over the next few days.
Which means that, in a little while, I’ll be heading back outside to move the truck, check the oil levels, top it up if I have to, then head into town.
Hopefully, he’ll be able to squeeze me in fairly quickly. We shall see. At least the day is warming up fairly quickly!
I look forward to the time of year when we no longer consider anything higher than -20C/-4F as “warm”.
I was messaging with my brother this morning. In the wee hours of the morning, someone got stuck on the road in front of their place, and it took two tow trucks to get them out. Then the tow trucks came back into the parking lot, for someone else!
The plows were out, though, so the roads should be clear again. The highways, at least.
I was questioning whether my brother was going to come out to my mother’s place today. They were already recommending I stay home, but my brother is going to make the trip! This must be the only day he has available for it.
I headed out to do that cats stuff and, at first, things looked pretty good. The bright sunny morning, and being sheltered from the wind, was deceptive. The sun room’s thermometer was reading 0C/32F, which was encouraging.
A few minutes outside, though, and I was starting to really feel the cold, even as bundled up as I was!
In the end, the choice was made for me. There isn’t a lot of drifting, but enough that I’d want to dig through them, before trying to drive anywhere – and there was no way I would be outside shoveling today!
After today, things will warm up a little bit, and then we’re supposed to drop down to highs of -30C/-22F, as another Polar Vortex sweeps through. Wednesday coming up looks to be the warmest day over the next little while, which is good, because that’s when we’re supposed to bring 3 yard cats in to the vet for spay/neuter.
Today, however, is a day to stay indoors as much as possible!
While doing the morning rounds, I could not believe just how slippery everything was! I don’t think we’ve had anything like this, since we moved out here. Today was even more dangerous than after it was actually raining.
The camera on my phone seems to compensate a bit for the brightness. I couldn’t actually look at where I was taking the pictures, the sun’s glare on the ice was so blinding. I had to be super careful walking the paths to set out food and water for the yard cats. I was really appreciating the handles I’d put on the isolation shelter, as they gave me something to grip as I went from one sliding window to the other. I’d cleared the patio blocks below, but they are now covered with a thick layer of sheer ice.
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to get above freezing, so things should soften up and, in some areas, melt clear. Hopefully, that means the highway will be dry by the afternoon, as I plan to go to my mother’s apartment to check on things, then hit the hardware store to get some Roof Melt to get rid of the ice dam that has formed on the sun room roof.
Speaking of my mother…
I called the hospital last night. I timed it badly, as they were doing shift change, and I was asked to call back later. That meant I was talking to a new shift nurse, who had just barely been debriefed.
My mother, it turns out, had a rather “bad” day… and by “bad”, it was about her behaviour.
She had called me early in the morning, before they came to do her vitals, and over an hour before they were scheduled to do her morning meds. After I called the nurses’ desk back to explain the call to my mother, they checked on her, then I got a call back with an update.
Some time after that, it turns out my mother went into the hall and started yelling and swearing at the staff, calling them stupid. The nurse I was talking to had been updated during their shift change meeting, but hadn’t completely finished reading the written report yet, but she was able to tell me that the previous nurse managed to get her back into her room. The nurse then addressed her behaviour, in private.
I was both surprised and not surprised at the same time. I think it was the swearing that actually surprised me the most, because I didn’t think she knew any swear words in English. I’m probably wrong on that. If she had been swearing in Polish, it’s unlikely they wouldn’t have known if something was a swear, other than by tone.
I apologized for my mother’s behaviour, of course, but the nurse just laughed it off. She told me, the get this quite a bit, and never take it personally.
At the end of the call, I made sure to pass on my gratitude for how well they are taking care of my mother. She does not make it easy.
Some changes in her schedule were made, though. My mother complained that they weren’t doing anything for her, regarding her pain in particular. The only things they do for that is give her her Tylenol and rub affected areas with Voltaren, both of which help her a lot. These, however, were “as needed”, and if she didn’t specifically ask for them, she wouldn’t get them. It seems she wasn’t asking for them as often as she should have been. So now, both are scheduled. She will get both, twice a day, without her having to ask for them first.
There really isn’t anything else they can do for her. Most of her maladies are not things that can be fixed. At 94 years old, her body is simply giving out in places – and she really is doing remarkably well for her age! She doesn’t think so, of course.
Hopefully, they will find a care place for her soon, whether its assisted living, or a nursing home, like she wants. These places tend to have activities to help with cognitive decline, or simply for socializing. There is nothing like that available in the hospital, so she’s basically stuck alone for much of the day, stewing in her own mind, without the distractions she had become used to.
At the end of my call with the nurse, who was about to do the evening meds, she promised to call me back, if there was anything of concern. She did not call, so no news is good news.
After checking my mother’s apartment tomorrow, depending on the road conditions, I will drive to the hospital and visit her, too.
For a while, there, my mother had been doing so well. She really was happier than I’d seen her in years. Now, she seems to be reverting to her usual self again. Which makes the idea of visiting her or calling her on the phone a lot more stressful than it should be.
The hospital staff are saints. My mother is not the only difficult patient they have to deal with! At least, with her, she is an “easy” patient, in that she doesn’t need a lot of physical care, for someone that is hospitalized.
While we haven’t had anything official yet, we at least have been told she is not going to be discharged back to her apartment. They just don’t know when or where she will be discharged to, yet.
Which puts the rest of us in limbo.
I suppose we should start packing her apartment, though. I just don’t know where to start!
It had actually warmed up a bit, by the time I took this screen shot. There was no wind that I could tell, yet it takes next to no breeze at all to drive the wind chill down.
That cats outside seem to be okay. I spotted one of the more feral mamas inside the cat house, alone, while the crowd was in the sun room and isolation shelter, when I first started putting the food out. I start out with two gallon jugs of hot water, but it’s just warm by the time I fill the water bowls.
I changed out the litter boxes in the sun room today. They were frozen solid. As soon as they were done, I turned around and there were too kittens using them! One ran off when I came too close. I’m glad they figured out the litter boxes, though some clearly are just going on the concrete. Something to clean up in the spring, when the mess is no longer frozen. Beats trying to go in the snow, so I can’t fault them for doing it!
Ha! No thanks, Bing. I’ll stay inside, where it’s warm.
That -22C/8F is cold, sure (it’s actually gotten colder; while I was doing my morning rounds, it was -20C/-4F).
That wind chill of -40C/-40F, though. Yikes!
When I first headed outside, I thought I might do some shoveling after I finished feeding the yard cats and giving them warm water – which had started out as hot water, but was a drinkable temperature by the time I refilled their bowls. By the time I finished with the cat stuff, which only takes about 5 or 10 minutes, I knew I wasn’t going to do any shoveling.
Nor would I be going to my mother’s. As soon as I opened my FB app, the first thing I was seeing in my news feed was posts from the highways group I’m on, talking about nasty road conditions. There is a provincial site with road conditions, but it doesn’t get updated much, so this group is far more accurate when it comes to current conditions.
Once I got back inside, one of the first things I did was call my mother. By then, it was about 8:45, so I knew her home care would be arriving soon and I figured she might be up and about. It went to her (new) answering machine, though, so I left a message about not coming out and that I would call back soon, because I knew home care would be there soon.
About five minutes later, my mother called. I thought she had heard my message. Instead, she asked if I had just called her. I said yes, I left a message.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
What followed was several minutes of my mother ranting and raging.
There was no message. There’s just numbers. Tell [my brother] to bring back her old phone. She doesn’t need his technology (he got the least technical phone he could find for her!!), she needs a doctor.
????
This went on in circles for quite some time. She kept saying, she doesn’t need technology, she needs a doctor, and she wants me to take her to a doctor.
She can’t even get into my truck anymore, and where would I magically find a doctor available on short notice, like this? It’s not like anyone takes walk ins anymore.
I did manage to say that the reason I’d called was because I wanted to reschedule today, because of the weather, and had been thinking of Monday, since I could do her grocery shopping as well by then.
She lost it again, and I couldn’t continue for several more minutes. She doesn’t need groceries. She has groceries. She needs a doctor. She needs to see a doctor.
Not once did she say why.
As for my not coming out to her today, her response was a nasty dig of how “of course” I can’t come out. Like it was a personal rejection.
I finally managed to tell her, if she feels that bed, use the Lifeline, get an ambulance and go to the hospital.
Dead silence.
I repeated the instructions.
Dead silence.
I tried again, adding that if she wasn’t feeling that bad, home care would be there soon. She could talk to them.
Dead silence.
You’re not talking to me now?
Dead silence.
I told her I would call back after she’s had a chance to calm down and said goodbye.
I tried again when I was pretty sure home care would be there. She actually answered the phone fairly quickly, and was much calmer. We talked for a while about her situation, and how I wasn’t going to be coming out today. I asked when home care was supposed to arrive, and she said they show up whenever they feel like it. I’d mentioned the weather and road conditions, and she actually considered that this might be why they weren’t there yet (she never told me the actual time they were scheduled for, she just has a time in her mind they should be there, regardless of what the schedule says). With a day like today, it would not be a surprise if people were falling behind, even if they only need to drive in town. She started to talk about how, if she just had a “slip”, she could take her pills herself, and I shut that down, saying flat out that what she needs is to be in a nursing home (which she has been fighting for, for over a year now), and I’m really upset that it hasn’t happened yet. That seemed to actually mollify her a bit.
Then the home care worker showed up, so I asked to talk to her.
I briefly explained the situation, and how my mother wasn’t saying WHY she needed a doctor. I asked if she could make the best assessment she could (they have their limitations) and that, if necessary, get my mother to use the Lifeline and get her to a hospital.
I haven’t had a call back, so that probably didn’t happen.
So my morning has been spent on the phone and on my computer, updating my siblings and so on. I’ll be calling my mother again later to check on her. Otherwise, it’s a day to stay home and stay warm!
Good grief! As I write this, we are supposedly at only -1C/30F, but the wind chill has us at -18C/0F.
It feels colder than that!
I head out earlier this morning to do the cat feeding and my morning rounds, while it was still dark, so that I could open the gate. The wind was already really bitter by then, though it had to have been calm during the night, as everything was covered in hoarfrost. The septic guy said he would be here in the morning and, sometimes, that has meant right at 8am, so I figured I’d better get it open early.
When he didn’t show up before my younger daughter and I had to leave, I called and left a message saying I would be gone (he would see the empty garage as he came in), but that there would be someone home, so just knock at the door as his payment was ready.
In the end, he never made it. I’ll have to call him tomorrow and see about a reschedule. The last time that happened, their truck broke down!
I headed to the truck early to warm it up and noticed that front tire with the leaky valve was pretty low, so I fired up the compressor to pump it up. Then I headed back inside, out of the wind, to text the garage. The leak seems to be getting worse, so I asked if they could order the new sensor and replace it when I come in to get the oil seal replaced later in the week.
After that’s done, there’s still two more sensors to replace.
My daughter and I had to go into town for the pharmacy, first, as she had to pick up a prescription she needed for her medical appointment. I had called in one of my own for refills, too, but their delivery from the city wasn’t going to be in until the afternoon, so I told them to include it with my husband’s delivery. I’ll be in town that day, but it’ll be to drop the truck off for my appointment, and I don’t want to be carrying meds around while it’s being worked on.
I’d received a response from the garage, confirming that they could get the sensor ordered in and done at the same time. I asked if they needed any info off the tire but when they didn’t answer before we were done at the pharmacy, we just swung by and I ran in to ask. They didn’t, so we were soon back on the road.
Headlong into the wind.
We had left early enough that my daughter and I could stop for lunch at a Subway right near the clinic. We timed it perfectly, as there was a huge rush starting, just as we were paying for our food. We were able to take our time to finish before heading into the clinic.
One of the things my daughter wanted to bring up is that she will NOT be going back to that endocrinologist again. I still think she needs to make a formal complaint over how she was treated and manhandled.
Her appointment wasn’t very long, so we were soon heading out again, this time to the nearest Walmart in the smaller, nearer city.
I was no longer driving headlong into the wind, but the route was mostly open fields at this point, so I was instead fighting to not be blown off the road!
My daughter and I had out own shopping lists, and I had one from my husband, but we even altogether, we didn’t need a lot. It was just stuff we either couldn’t get locally, or was so much more expensive locally, it was worth the gas and the side trip to get them there.
Before we left, I got a message from my husband. My mother had called. She had gotten a call from the Meals on Wheels office saying that her deliveries were cancelled, and she was wondering if I had cancelled them.
?!?!?!?!!!!!
Obviously, I didn’t. Once we were home, I called her up as soon as I could, to get as much information as I could, before calling Meals on Wheels. It was past 4 by then, and I had no idea if they would even still be open. The meals are cooked and assembled in the kitchen of an apartment building similar to my mother’s, except they offer meal service and a few other things. My mother has actually been on the waiting list for that place for a few years now.
I called my mother and she immediately started talking about what happened today, and it was a bit confusing. Basically, her Meals on Wheels delivery came at the same time as her lunch assist person. there was some sort of confusion. Why, I have no idea. This is not the first time she’s had both since her increased service. Home care is aware that she gets Meals on Wheels and were good with it. I think maybe it was the first time they arrived at the same time.
After they left, she got a phone call from the Meals on Wheels office (they don’t actually have an office) saying that someone had cancelled her service, and that there would be no more dinners from them. My mother was wondering if I had cancelled it. Of course, I hadn’t. So she wondered if my brother hand, and of course, he hadn’t either. I didn’t even have to ask him about that!
Part of what was confusing is that as she was trying to describe what happened and the confusing of her lunch assist and Meals on Wheels coming at the same time, she started talking about how she doesn’t need both. If she had people coming every day to do her meals, why have Meals on Wheels?
I told her, these meals are more complete than she would make for herself, and require more preparation than home care is able to do for her during daily meal assists, so it would be better if she kept it up. I didn’t really get to say more, but these are also the most nutritionally complete meals she has all weak.
Then she started taking that she didn’t need… and here I lose it on the words she used, because they were more implying than saying outright, but basically, she’s trying to suggest that these meals are so big, they are making her fatter, so she should probably stop. She’s been getting to the point of saying she should practically stop eating entirely, so I needed to cut that off, quickly. I told her, she’s 94 years old. She doesn’t need to be worried about her weight at this point. Who cares?
I told her I needed to call Meals on Wheels right away, because I didn’t know when they closed, but then she launched into how she takes the “pink stuff” (Pepto) and Tylenol and started going on about how she thinks her problems are her digestion (this after years of blaming her insanely healthy heart) – so basically, she was working herself up to blaming everything on the Meals on Wheels meals. I had to cut her off and say I would call her back after calling Meals on Wheels.
I was too late. They were closed.
The number I called was directly to the kitchen, but I noticed another number in my online search, so I tried that, too. That was the building’s management office. Their answering machine gave office hours, and they are open only 3 days a week, and the message added that if it was about Meals on Wheels, to call the kitchen number.
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day and I normally wouldn’t expect a call back until the day after, but they do cook daily meals for the residents, so it’s possible I’ll get a call back tomorrow.
I called my mother back and told her as much as I could. Thankfully, she didn’t try to blame her various issues on the Meals on Wheels meals again. It frustrates me to hear her trying to blame all her problems on her food, but she knows nothing about nutrition. Half the time, she’s basing things on something she saw on TV 30 years ago, or some women’s magazine that the ladies from the Senior’s Centre drop off sometimes, or something her neighbours have said, to just leaping at associations with no real connection. All the more reason for her to have those Meals on Wheels! If it were up to her, she would be seriously malnourished while convinced she is eating “healthy”.
Anyhow, I told my mother I would get back to her as soon as I knew something. I have, of course, updated my siblings about it as best I could.
I’ll be at my mother’s on Friday to get her bubble packs and do her shopping. I’ll stay to do other stuff for her, too. I should remember to ask her to take the chicken I got for her a while back, out of the freezer so I can make up another stock for her. That will give her cooked meat that the lunch assist people can use for her meals, too. This time, I want to bring one of my stock pots from home. Last time, I had to split things up between a small pot and a frying pan! I should bring a proper knife, too. She has been using what look like cheap “as seen on TV” steak knives, and is happy with them, but they really are terrible. At least for full food prep. I had to use one to butcher a whole chicken for her a while back and it was so bad, I ended up using the only other thing she had – a bread knife!
Hopefully, the Meals on Wheels thing will be straightened out by then. I’m really at a loss as to who would have cancelled her service. Unless my mother gave specific instructions, they would not have had any authority to do so. It doesn’t sound like my mother did anything like that, but she talks in circles so much, someone may have misunderstood her? I just don’t know.
I am just noticing one of my weather apps that I have on display at all times. According to that, we’re now at 0C/32F. We should keep warming up all night, to a high of 6C/43F tomorrow. It’s not supposed to be as windy as it still is right now, but still pretty windy. On Friday, we’re supposed to reach a high of 8C/46F! That would be a great day to get a few more things done outside, but I’ll be at my mother’s. Ah, well. I’ve at least got the next two days at home to work on things. Once the septic tank is emptied, I want to head over to the ejector to cut away all the weeds grown up around it, then dig more of a trench to drain the greywater towards the low area, rather than forming a pool just 10 or so feet away.
Hopefully, the septic guy will be able to come in soon! This is not a job I want to work on when it gets colder again.
Gotta take advantage of every warm day we get. It won’t be long before anything left will just have to wait until spring.
I would really love it if I could just hibernate all winter!
Setting the hoops over the winter squash bed worked. They’re taller than I would have liked, but they are held in place by stakes, not pushed into the ground, and in places, I could barely get the stakes pushed into the ground. Too many little rocks.
Thankfully, I had enough hoops and stakes for decent spacing. I still ran three lines of twine across, to keep the cover from caving inward too much. I removed the staked holding the boards along the sides. Those were there to keep the soil from eroding from the edges, but with the mulch there, and time, they’re not really needed for that anymore. Instead, I planned to use them to hold the cover in place.
My original intension had been to use mosquito netting, until I remembered I had picked up 10’x25′ medium weight plastic drop clothes specifically to fit over these beds. “Medium weight” is still very thin, unfortunately (you can see the package in the second photo of the slight show above).
Once the hoops were set, I left it until it was starting to get cooler before we covered all the beds that we are able to. We were able to fill six 4L/1 gallon water bottles with hot water, which is all the empties my husband had from his distilled water at the moment. All the others we had have already been cut to suit other uses in the garden.
Two of them went at each end of the row of eggplants, where they are the least protected by the too-short fabric we have for that. The peppers are planted more densely, so they are covered better.
The remaining four bottles of water were spaced out in between the winter squash before my daughter and I put the cover on. At 25 feet, it was more than long enough to cover the hoops on an 18′ bed. I’d hoped we could keep it folded in half, length wise, but at 5′ wide, it was too short to be able to secure it on the sides. We had to open it up completely, but that did give us more material to wrap around the boards up to the bases. It will certainly not be blowing away!
The down side is, kittens.
While we were covering the bed, Sir Robin and Grommet decided that we were making a lovely tunnel, just for them. After fishing them out and setting the plastic out on the ground, so the boards could be used to roll up the excess, Sir Robin started pouncing on the plastic and promptly made holes in it. Holes in a section that’s now wrapped around a board, but gosh, that didn’t take long!
One bonus in having plastic to cover this bed is that I could probably leave it there. We’re only supposed to reach 12C/54F tomorrow, and only 9C/48F the day after. We’re supposed to get rain a couple of times tonight, and they’re still saying we’ll be getting a low of 7C/45F, but the next night, they’re saying we’re dropping to 4C/39F. If we leave the plastic, or only partially lift it for watering, it should act as a greenhouse.
That’s a “cover your plants, there might be frost” temperature.
Today, we’re supposed to reach highs of 23C/73F and an overnight low of 8C/46F.
We’re in the last week of June.
I just took a look at the historical data. Our average low for today’s date, since 1951, is 12C/54F. The record low of 1C/34F was set in 1958. We almost matched the record low!
Needless to say, I was concerned about our cold sensitive plants, like the melons, squash and eggplant.
It was a couple more hours before my daughter and I did the outdoor cat feeding. They are such a mob in the mornings, since the adults have discovered the cat soup we’ve been making for the littles, it’s gotten quite necessary to have two people doing it. For the kittens, I mash up a couple of cans of wet cat food, add enough hot water to make it very thin, then add dry kibble. That gets divided up among a whole bunch of bowls. Those then sit so the kibble can absorb most of the liquid while I go out with a the dry kibble bowl. That gets distributed in many areas, so that even the shiest of ferals can have breakfast.
The first challenge is just getting out the doors into the sun room. Once both doors are open, there’s a crowd of kittens right under the threshold, making it very difficult to step down without stepping on a cat or kitten. Poirot’s 3 are particularly eager to jump up onto the threshold to go into the old kitchen, so closing the doors behind me is also hard to do without hurting kittens diving into the space.
Once the sun room door – the storm door with the missing screen in the window – it closed, it is safer, though I still have to wade through swirling cats and kittens. They are very hungry, by this time! Some of them actually start fighting, so I try to get food spread out for them as fast as I can.
There are kibble trays in the sun room, the shelter shelf just outside the door, the kibble house, under the shrine and in the open isolation shelter. I also put some out on the cat house roof, in a tray on the well cap, the patio blocks outside the sun room, inside the catio and on the front step.
A number of adult cats, however, know that the warm cat soup is coming out next, so they hang around the sun room door, instead of going to the kibble bowls. Kittens are also milling around, so I try to scoop them into the bowl I used to carry the kibble and get them into the sun room.
Then my daughter starts handing me the kitten food bowls through the screenless window.
I try to put a couple of two sided bowls into the cat cage and get Poirot’s babies into there. Poirot usually joins, as well and, if I can snag them, one or two of the bigger kittens. The Grink, who is still very tiny, will jump into the cat cage and push away the kittens, if we don’t act fast! I set some bowls in one of the larger kibble trays on the floor before starting to take the rest, outside. This morning, I had to actually chase most of the adult cats out of the sun room and close in the kittens, so they could eat without being bowled over by bigger cats, while taking more bowls of cat soup outside. Several go into the water bowl shelter, one or two into the entry of the cat house, or wherever the kittens are. While going back and forth, I was able to snag all the bigger kittens – even Havarti, who did not want to get got! – and put them in the sun room, where they could eat their fill with only Magda to contend with. Magda is so small, my daughter mistook her for a bigger kitten, at first!
That done, I was finally able to do my morning rounds. While switching out memory cards on the gate came, I spotted Adam, making her way down the driveway towards the house. I have not been seeing her as often, and I think she may have had a later litter of kittens somewhere. She’s so fluffy, we can’t tell if she’s pregnant or nursing. I’m still 99% sure that one stillborn kitten we found in the cat house, about the time Brussel had her two in the sun room, was Adam’s.
Of course, while doing my rounds, I carefully checked for cold damage in the garden. This is where I think our cat protection and water conserving measures actually helped. The melons and winter squash all have their plastic collars around them, which would have protected them at least a bit. Even the tomatoes, which are much taller, would have had some protection. A lot of other things we have growing right now are more tolerant of colder temperatures. Eggplants and peppers are no, but they are in the wattle weave bed, and that little garden is more sheltered in general.
Everything seems undamaged, though it might take a day or two before we can be sure.
So that’s a relief, for now.
Once done my rounds, I opened the sun room to allow free access again. I couldn’t see most of the kittens – I think most of them were playing under the counter shelf – but I did spot this cutie.
Eyelet is big enough to discover how to climb up to the platform above the cat cage. That meant, he got to enjoy a cat bed, all to himself!
As for today, if all goes well, my younger daughter and I will be loading up the truck for a trip to the dump, then to pick up another birthday take out courtesy of my older daughter. We’re all so busted up right now, no one is up to doing any cooking!
Doing the first stock up shop in the city tomorrow is going to be… interesting.
Last night, things did drop to freezing, so I’m glad we brought the transplants in from the portable greenhouse last night. When I headed out to do the morning rounds, it was only about 1C/34F, but it was just below 10C/50F in the portable greenhouse, so they got moved back in this morning.
After I did some repairs.
The garbage can I’m using as a heat sink doesn’t have a lid, so I’d been using a square of leftover 3/4″ rigid insulation as a lid, weighed down with a brick, and holding the thermometer. With the tears at the bottom of the door zippers from wind damage, cats can get in and out. They don’t jump up onto the wire shelves much; the wire forms 1″ squares, and I don’t think it’s comfortable for them to try and walk on. They do like to sit on the insulation, though.
Well, I came out one morning, and the insulation was broken in to, fallen into the garbage can, along with the brick and the thermometer. I haven’t spotted where it’s leaking yet, but it was less than half full at the time.
Looking around for something else to cover the garbage can with, the only thing I found that was large enough was one of the old window screens we used for things like curing onions in the fall. The smallest of the screens is still a pretty long rectangle, but it cover the entire top of the garbage can, so I gave it a try. Unfortunately, for the last couple of nights, I’ve been finding it knocked off the garbage can. This morning, it was knocked off again, in spite of my efforts to stabilize it, and this time a corner tore through the back of the plastic cover on the greenhouse.
*sigh*
I taped it up as best I could with clear duct tape. For now, I’ve tried covering the garbage can with overlapping bin lids and the broken pieces of rigid insulation from before.
Most of the transplants are too call to use the lids on the bins, so we can’t stack them all like we could before. Being able to use lids on just two of the bins to stack on top of is the only reason we can fit all the trays and bins on the chest freezer in the old kitchen. So the transplants got to spend the day in the relative warmth of the portable greenhouse for the day, but we’ve already brought them in again for the night. From the forecast, we’ll probably have to do it again for one more night before we can safely leave them in the portable greenhouse overnight again.
The winter sown bed that has a plastic mesh cover on it seemed to handle the overnight cold just fine. I can see there are some carrots coming up, and the others whatever radishes, beets and turnips that survived the winter. The radishes should grow the fastest, so we should be able to identify and harvest those earliest. That will make more space for the other root vegetables in the process. For now, though, I have no real clue what is what!
In the next photo, you can see the plastic over where we’d winter sown flowers was torn badly by the wind. All it took was a small tear at one end, from the tip of one of the bamboo stakes set across the top, and this morning, it was all wrecked.
There are a lot of seedlings coming up in there but I recognize them from when we grew pumpkins and gourds here, last year. They are all weeds.
This bed will be replanted with flowers, soon.
In the last photo, difficult to see against the soil, is a potato sprout! Some of the potatoes we planted already had pretty long sprouts on them, and one of them broke through the soil rather quickly.
The mesh over this bed is good for keeping the cats out, but the mesh isn’t fine enough to keep the Chinese Elm seeds out! The seed development hasn’t anywhere near its peak, yet, and already there are seeds everywhere.
I so look forward to when we can get rid of all the Chinese elm. They cause way too many problems!
After I did my rounds, I had a quick breakfast, then headed out. Before I get into that, though, I must share the cuteness!
In the first photo, if you look carefully, you can see there are 7 kittens, from 3 litters, mashed into that cat bed! The only one “missing” is Sir Robin, who was already out and running around.
The next photo was taken while I was gathering the bowls out of the cat house entry, for the evening feeding.
I was able to get a good photo of Poirot’s three this evening. The black on (Inspector Japp) looks like it’s got a sticky eye that will need washing. The mostly white one – Miss Lemon – is getting pretty active, and I’ve actually seen it fumble out of the carrier briefly, then scramble right back on. The white and grey – Captain Hastings – is also pretty mobile but, so far, has not gone all the way out of the carrier door. Once they get too mobile, Poirot is going to have to put up with them being brought down to floor level!
Last of all is the crowd inside the isolation shelter. I left things plugged in today, for the heat lamp, and it seems they really appreciated it!
Today was too cold and wet to get much done outside, so it was a good time to run some errands, mostly at Walmart. I did get a start on one wet and potentially messy job, though. The new septic ejector is working great, now that it’s no longer frozen, but with the excavation, there is now a lower area at the end of the metal sheet we have to divert the fluid away from the ejector. Normally, it would have naturally flowed towards a low spot nearby, but now it forms a sort of pool. I headed out with a garden hoe and used it to create a small trench to drain the fluid towards the low area, but to get the pool to drain, more small trenches had to be made, because it is all so uneven. In some places, I was able to use the hoe to move some of the clay/gravel nearby, into the lower areas around the edges. What it really needs is for the deepest parts to be filled, but that will be a job for another time. For now, I just want more of it to drain away. The last thing we want is for a small pond to form so close to the ejector. That will prevent the saturated ground around the ejector from drying out, and it’ll just freeze again, next year.
Of course, I sent progress photos to my brother and his wife, so they were up to date about it.
No, I’m not going to post pictures of pooled septic greywater here! 😄
When I did as much as I could and headed back to the house, I made sure to hose down my rubber boots. So much clay was stuck to the bottom of my boots, they felt a couple of pounds heavier, each!
Once I was cleaned up and changed, and had a quick breakfast, I headed out. My brother and his wife aren’t too far away from the Walmart I was going to so, before I left, I messaged them where I was going and asked if they wanted to meet for lunch or something. It turned out their schedule was open, so we made arrangements to meet at a restaurant near the Walmart I was going to.
I got there early, so I went to my other intended stop first; the dollar store nearby. I wanted to pick up more ground staples – can’t have too many of those! – as well as packages of shorter stakes. I got two packs of 25 bamboo stakes, which I am thinking of using to around the snap pea bed to support whatever I find to set around it and keep the deer from eating our peas. I also picked up four 2 packs of 2′ metal stakes. I am thinking to use them to support the hoops intended for the two 4′ square beds. I will probably cut them in half, though. We’ll see when the time comes.
Once done there, I made my way to the restaurant and met up with my brother and his wife. We had a lovely visit. They also talked about some of the things they are planning to do here at the farm, that we aren’t able to do. One of the things that is badly needed it to get more gravel on our driveway. My brother, however, remembers that the last time my late brother used gravel from our own gravel pit, it turned out to make a real mess when things got wet. Likely because there’s so much clay mixed in. They are thinking of buying crushed limestone, or even slag. Slag would be ideal, as it compacts to form a sort of concrete surface. They covered their own driveway on the property they sold with slag, and were very happy with it.
They also told me that they will have a push mower for us to use! We already have permission to use their riding mower, which is currently being stored in the garage near our truck. They’ve actually used it themselves, around where their trailer is stored, but that area is way too rough. Once they can access the tractor stored in the garage again, they’ll use their big rotary mower to cut that area, and my SIL wants to harrow it to level it somewhat.
With our “new” push mower (it’s just a couple of years old) in the small engine shop still, as they try to find the parts needed to fix it (which is highly unlikely), my brother told me about my mother’s old lawnmower that I had talked about wanting to bring in to get fixed, instead. I know it needs a new prime pump, along with general servicing, after sitting for so long. It turns out this mower was actually theirs, originally. They’d bought another push mower for my mother, but the self propeller was too fast for her, and she couldn’t understand that if she let go of the bar, the self propeller would stop and she would just push it. This lawn mower’s self propeller wasn’t as fast, so they ended up trading, and she was very happy with that! My brother told me not to bother taking it in to be serviced. He said he would look it over and could probably fix it himself.
Which means he would be doing that here.
Which means my daughters and I will have the chance to watch and learn, and eventually be able to do it ourselves!
I look forward to that!
After a very enjoyable lunch, we parted ways briefly. They needed to shop at Walmart, too, so we crossed paths a couple of times there, too!
One of the things I wanted to do was look at the garden centre, but it was too cold for the plants to be outside. Instead, the shelves were all jammed around the outdoor furniture displays, and not really accessible. Aside from being crowded, there was a group of people that were just hanging out around the display furniture, while their kids ran around. I didn’t actually need anything, so I moved on.
The main thing I needed to get was more kibble for the outside cat and canned cat food for the inside cats. My brother had gifted me with one of his vehicle hands free devices, so I can take calls while driving. After checking with the girls at home to see if we had an extra USB-A charging cable, I ended up grabbing one for the truck. It took me and a saleswoman quite some time to find one! They only had two, and I picked the longer cable. So I can now link my phone to this device and it will automatically pick up calls for me. My brother is pretty much the only person who calls me on my cell phone – either him, or home care to say there’s no one to cover for my mother’s med assist – so I don’t expect to use it often, but it’s good to have. I never, ever, touch my phone while driving. We’ve lost friends to people talking while driving.
The shopping done, I had a much more pleasant drive home than the drive in. When I left home, it was rather nice, but the further south I drove, the worse the weather. At first, it was like there was a mist all over. Then I saw precipitation, but couldn’t tell if it was rain, or snow! Then it became very clearly snow, and coming down pretty heavy. It all melted on contact, though, so there was no accumulation anywhere. Just poor visibility!
Then it was done and gone, like driving through to the other side of a wall!
The drive home, however, was warmer and dry, which was nice. Once home, the girls helped me unload and they put the groceries away while I did the evening cat feeding, including wet cat food for the kittens. I was able to close up four of the bigger kittens in the sun room, so they could eat their fill. With the bowls that get set into the cat house entry, it’s more of a hope that they and their moms will get a chance to eat their special food (for inside the cat house, I include kitten kibble, too) before some of the other adult cats eat it all. Once they had a good long time to fill their little bellies with wet cat food, I opened up the sun room again and a daughter helped me do my evening rounds, then bring the transplants in for the night.
We’re at 5C/41F as I write this, just past 8pm. It is supposed to very slowly keep getting colder all night, reaching our expected low of 2C/36F at about 6am. That has been the coldest time of the night for the past while, too. Our daytime highs are supposed to warm up nicely over the next few days, but the overnight lows aren’t expected to get much better for some time. At least the days will be warm enough to get work done outside. Including our first mowing of the lawn, once we get the wagon out and go over it to pick up all the smaller branches that have been coming down all winter. The temperatures will be perfect for getting some manual labour done!
So overall, today has been a very good day – but then, any day when I see my brother and his wife is a very good day! 😊😊😊
The Re-Farmer 