We had kittens in the sun room last night, so we left the doors tied partially open. When I had a chance, I joined them for a while, sitting on the swing bench with one kitten violently and playfully attacking one arm, while another was trying to figure out if my fingers were edible on the other. Out the window, I could see other kittens playing in the old kitchen garden.
It’s a very good thing the fall spinach beds are covered with the hoops and mesh!
Then I spotted a large shadow moving at the far end. A raccoon?
I headed out to check. The noise of me moving about sent the raccoon climbing up one of the ornamental apple trees. It was completely dark, but I tried to get some photot, anyhow.
Just look at that big, furry butt!
What I didn’t notice until I was cropping the photo to post here, was the second raccoon in the tree!
Then, while checking the trail cam files, I saw we had a visitor of a very different sort passing by.
This coyote got picked up by the other camera, too. It was just sauntering down the road!
It was a spur of the moment decision to move the original old camera onto this tree and keep it going. It went haywire quite some time ago. I am amazed that it’s working at all. I had even tried setting it to stills instead of video, and it still didn’t work. One of the things it would do was get triggered to start recording, but not shut off. I’d come out the next morning to find the batteries dead, and nothing on the memory card. Now, I still sometimes get an error message when switching the cards – I just have to take it out and put it back in until it starts working. I think that has more to do with the connections on the cards wearing out than the camera, though.
I’m glad it’s working again. Not just so that I can have the old camera on the new camera, in case this one gets stolen, too. It picks up interesting things, like this coyote – and we have a few images of a mouse running across the top barbed wire! 😁
So, yesterday ended up being quite a bit of a write off for me.
After I finished posting yesterday, I was going to sterilize some jars and make pickles. I was falling asleep at the computer, however, so I decided to take a short nap, first.
I woke up more than 3 hours later, wasting most of my day.
I did get some work done outside, while it was still light enough. This included raking up the nicely dried grass clippings from a few days ago. I was able to finish mulching the popcorn, and start mulching on either side of the sweet corn. The mulch is as much for next year, as it is to help the plants growing now. I was able to give the berry bushes a thorough watering, as well as the nearby trellises, but not much more than that. By the time I went inside, not only was I still frustrated by how far behind I am getting, but was getting a headache and actually felt ready to go back to bed!
So my daughters, sweethearts that they are, headed out at first light to do a few things before heading to bed for the day. Among other things, the Korean Pine got a deep watering. They also got a first coat of paint on the bed frame that my brother left for us when we moved in here.
It was actually built by one of my nephews. It came in very handy as a platform for hardening off our seedlings. I kept it covered with a tarp, but it’s been outside ever since, and I don’t want it to get water damaged. After it’s been painted, it’s going to go back into the basement, where it will be used as a platform for litter boxes, so if the basement ever does get wet like it did this spring again, the cats won’t be stuck using litter boxes in the middle of a damp concrete floor! We’ll put something under the legs to raise it off the floor slightly, to protect the legs from damp beyond what the paint will do.
One of my daughters sent me a picture of something they found when they first came out of the sun room.
Our province has 4 types of snakes.
This isn’t any of them.
Normally, the only snakes we ever see are garter snakes. There are two types that live here, but we tend to see only the red sided garter snake. The other two types look completely different, and I’ve never seen them before. As a child, however, I have seen a brown snake like this, a couple of times. Once, it got into the house and my poor mother flipped right out. They were both very tiny and slender. This one looks absolutely beefy in comparison. It kind of looks like the Red Bellied snake native to another province, except there’s no sign of a red belly that can be seen in the picture.
We like snakes. They eat slugs and other garden pests, so we try to protect them as much as possible. I’ve seen all of 2 garter snakes this year, and they were crossing the road both times. I suspect our horrible did a number of their population. In September, they start going back to their dens for the winter, so I hope we will see more of them.
I harvested from the garden yesterday, but today I grabbed some of the ripest tomatoes.
The under ripe ones we picked before are fully ripe now. There isn’t enough of the Cup of Moldova tomatoes to make yet, though. They will be cooked down to about a quarter of their volume, and with what we have so far, I’d end up with maybe 2 or 3 of my little half-pint jars full.
So I went over all the Cup of Moldova tomatoes we have so far, and put the good ones in the freezer. I’ll keep adding more to the bin they’re in until it’s almost full, and then I’ll have enough to work on making tomato paste and canning it.
It seems like we were growing SO many tomatoes this year, and yet I’m realizing that we actually aren’t growing that much at all! At least not for what we want to use them for. Mind you, the chocolate cherry tomatoes aren’t even ready yet, and the yellow pear tomatoes are still just starting to ripen, but when it comes to canning and preserving enough to supply us until the next harvest, we could easily double how many we plant.
Next year, we’ll be shooting for an even bigger garden! 😄 The good thing is, we do have the luxury of space, even if we do have to do massive reclamation to use it.
This little guy just LOVES attention, and wants to play with the Giant Food Givers!
I’m hoping these ones will get used to me if I keep coming over while they eat.
I was actually able to touch the tortie this morning! Granted, it was in the process of leaving when I did, but it did stop for a moment before hissing and continuing on.
Did I mentioned this one loves attention?
He actually trapped me. I bent over to reach something, he went onto my back, then settled. I couldn’t straighten without either dropping him, or ending up with a scratched back. When I tried to reach him, he rolled into my arm and I ended up in an even more difficult position, trying to keep him from falling onto the concrete floor! Thankfully, I’d been able to reach my phone in my pocket and had already sent a message to the family, asking for assistance. 😄 My husband was able to come out and remove the bebby. Who did NOT want to be left behind! I had to dash in and rush – carefully! – to close the door.
I had quite the crowd this morning! One of the little black and whites apparently wasn’t hungry, so it hung out, out of frame.
Do you see the catten (that’s what I call our “teenagers” – not quite an adult, but too big to call a kitten anymore!) on the right? Over the counterweight? That’s the one that looks like it’s going to be big and bushy, like David. If we can socialize it, we have a forever home waiting already. One of my SIL’s really, really wants a David. 😂 Unfortunately, it’s one of the shier ones!
The catten climbing up into the kibble house is another shy one that we see pretty rarely.
Rosencrantz and her crew had company this morning! The catten that looks quite a bit like Junk Pile – but with a distinctive black lower lip! This one tends to show up alone, and I’ve yet to see it with any of the adults in a familial way. Here, Rosencrantz tolerated it for a very short time.
Also, I managed to get that tortie to look at me while taking the photo. What a cutie!!!
Here we have it. Finally! A photo with all five of Rosencranctz’s kittens in one shot! The spotted one on the far left tends to hang back while the others go for the food, and tends to be the first one to run off when I come around.
My original plan of the day was to continue mowing the lawn after doing my morning rounds. Unfortunately, I realized that I would need to get new SD cards for the new trail cam, which did not come with its own. Since I switch cards every morning, each camera needs two card, and the old SD cards we’ve been using for the past few years are starting to wear out.
Which meant a trip into town, after feeding the kitties.
So. Many. Kitties!
There are 10 kittens and three adults in this photo – with many kitties that hadn’t come out yet!
Except these ones, that emerged rather quickly, since they have their own kibble bowl.
Gotta love the one that likes to sit completely in the bowl!
The fifth kitten came out of the lilacs after I got this picture, then ran off before I could include it in a shot. It is pretty distinctive, with more black spots on is body than it’s mostly white siblings.
The only place in town that I could think of that would have memory cards was the pharmacy, so I picked up my prescription refill while I was at it. My doctor switched me from pills once a day two injections once a week, which he wants to try for a year.
Thank God for my husband’s insurance! The price went up, and it cost almost $70. Which means that, without insurance, it would cost almost $700. My dosages are still building up to what the doctor wants to be on. At full dose, I am probably looking at about 2 boxes every 3 months, if I remember correctly. As it is, one box now costs more than my husband’s bubble packs for 4 weeks, and he’s got something like 10 different medications spread over 3 times a day in there.
Ugh.
Anyhow…
The pharmacy turned out to not have any memory cards in their little electronics sections. The cashier suggested I try a store across the street. They didn’t have any in their electronics section, but when I asked, it turned out they have them behind the counter.
I was about to buy two of them when I realized they were micro SD, not SD cards. I tested a micro SD on the camera, and it doesn’t work.
After telling her what I needed, she wracked her brain then suggested I try a cell phone place a few streets over. So I did, and they did have one type in stock – with far more memory than I needed, and so expensive, I couldn’t get the two I needed with the budget I had.
The guy wracked his brain, then suggested a small computer repair shop. I’d completely forgotten it existed, because is shares retail space with another shop. So I went there.
They did carry memory cards – but were completely out of stock and would not get more for at least a week.
Crud.
The next option was to go to the small, slightly nearer city. They have a Walmart. I figured I should at least be able to find one there! I made a quick stop at the gas station, then home to leave my meds, then off I went again.
The trip took quite a bit longer than expected, though. This time of year, the provincial and municipal road maintenance crews are out in full force. They’re cutting the overgrown grass and saplings along the shoulders, scraping the shoulders free of weeds, clearing ditched and culverts for the winter, and even painting fresh lines on the highways. This particular highway was being resurfaced – finally! – leaving only half a lane open for traffic. We were all driving half on the road, half on the shoulder, for miles, while traffic in the other direction was having to wait. The road crews wouldn’t even let people make turns along the way, because the asphalt was so fresh.
Once I got to the Walmart, though, I realized it shared a parking lot with a Staples, so I went there.
I found two 32G cards (I would have been happy with 16G, or even 8G, but there were none in stock) at a price low enough, it actually made up for the cost of gas to drive out!
My daughter had given me her card and a shopping list, so I hit the Walmart, too. Then, it was home by a different route!
Once home, I formatted the cards, then finished my morning rounds, which included switching out the memory cards. Though we had a good rainfall yesterday, we’re heating up over the next while, and won’t get rain again for some time (if we get it in our area at all), so I gave the all the garden beds a good watering.
I’m just amazed by how quickly this pumpkin is turning colour! Obviously, it’s not going to reach anywhere near its potential, but we made no effort to do that. I prefer to have a pumpkin that doesn’t need a forklift to carry. 😉
I’ve been eyeballing our long range forecast and, so far, it looks like the mild temperatures will continue well into September. Our average first frost date of Sept. 10 is expected to have a high of 19C/66F, and a low of 10C/50F. The middle of the month is looking to have lows of 5C/41F. Forecasts that far ahead are far from reliable, of course, but it is hopeful. Every mild day is that more more time for all the stuff that’s behind in the garden to catch up!
It’ll also be good for the litters of kittens that were born later in the season, too!
For some reason, I just could NOT sleep last night. I didn’t finally fall asleep until around 5am, and even then, I woke up several times before I finally gave up.
So I was a bit late with my morning rounds.
I managed to get a decent photo of this fuzzy cutie.
Yup. We most definitely have another “David” here. This is going to be an equally long haired cat. I do hope we can socialize him (or her), because if we can’t get at him when he’s an adult, he’s going to end up with all sorts of mats in his fur.
Last night, I made a final push and got the rest of the silver buffalo berry mulched. It was too dark and I was going to get a photo this morning, but completely forgot. The cardboard is mulched. Once we get more cardboard, we’ll fill in the gaps between the saplings in the second row, the mulch that, too. Until then, the next area to work on will be the Korean Pine in the outer yard.
While I was working, I had Rolando Moon hanging around and keeping me company. She was enjoying sitting on the wood chips next to one of the saplings! As long as she wasn’t rolling on the saplings, I don’t mind.
While I was putting food out for the kitties this morning, Rolando Moon came by – and she was limping! While she will let us pet her, within limits, there is no way she’ll let me look at her paw to see what’s going on. I think I see some swelling, but I’m not sure.
Mostly, she hung around the yard, watching the other cats while they ate, waiting her turn. Including Rosencrantz and her five babies (one of the grey and whites ran off when I came close, so there’s only four in the picture). Junk Pile photobombed me while I was taking pictures. She is not a happy kitty, and will hiss at any of the other cats – including her own cat-tens – and us. I know she’s had a second litter, and the one time I saw her rolling on the ground, she is definitely nursing, and I don’t think she’s impressed with the situation.
Meanwhile, after my morning rounds, I had to make a trip into town. With the raccoons knocking over the kibble bin, we did have some spillage. Not much, thankfully, but enough that we weren’t going to have enough to last until our big shopping trip. If I hadn’t been so late with my morning rounds, I could have stopped at the post office before it closed for lunch, and I would have been able to pick up our new trail cam, to replace the one that disappeared. I’m quite looking forward to trying it out. We did put the old, original trail came up at the sign and, amazingly, it’s actually working all right. It’s set to stills, not video, and is aimed at the area in front of the sign, but it’s not a wide angle lens, so it’s mostly picking up the road.
It always amazing me how much traffic we have on our little road.
So right now, I’m just waiting for the post office to open, and I’ll head out again to pick up the camera.
Meanwhile, I’ve set up a painting job under the canopy tent. When we moved here, there was a platform bed frame that turned out to have been left for us by my brother, until our stuff came in. For the last few years, tt had been in the basement until I brought it out this spring to use as a platform to hold seedlings out of cat reach, to harden off.
This spring, that basement got very wet, and things started to mold. It’s dry now, and my younger daughter has been spending her nights slowly cleaning it. One of the things we now want to do is raise all the litter boxes off the concrete floor. That end of the basement had the most dampness. Thank goodness we use the stove pellets for litter, because if we were still using clay, that would have been so difficult to clean up!
To prevent this from happening again, we’re going to use the old bed frame, which is twin size and only about 6 or 8 inches high, as a platform for the litter boxes. It’s just raw wood, so we’re going to paint it, first. That way, it can be cleaned more easily. The only paint we have right now is the red exterior paint I used on the bench and the stairs, which should be just fine.
Over the next while, I’ll be slowly picking up paint for the basement. The girls want to paint between the floor joists to lighten things up, make it more visible, and easier to clean. I’ll also pick up a mold and mildew resistant primer, then regular interior paint for the walls.
It’s very handy having two daughters who worked in a hardware store and were both paint trained. They can tell me exactly what we need for the job. :-)
That will be a winter long project, though, working on a little at a time!
It was still nice and cool when I headed out this morning. It’s been really humid lately, though, which means everything is completely soaked with dew.
Including…
… poor Ghost Baby!
I don’t know where her “nest” is, other than somewhere in the outer yard. Wherever it is, she clearly goes through a lot of tall – and wet! – grass to get to the kibble. She looked so miserable, too, and was hissing at me or any cat that came close.
Most of them were content to give her a wide berth.
Shortly after, I spotted Rosencrantz with the newest kitties under the shrine – which confirms for me that this is, indeed, her second litter. The mostly white ones were with her, but I spotted some movement and waited until the dark one came out. Unfortunately, with its siblings climbing right into the kibble bowl, he couldn’t get at the food! Then he saw me and ran off. So I got another scoop of kibble and spread little piles around the shrine platform.
Now that I have a better look at the dark kitten, I have to wonder. What would you call a cat with a pattern like that? Is this a tortoise shell? Do they normally have grey? There is orange on its face, but I can’t see orange anywhere else. Any ideas?
Later, I heard some distressed meowing and went to check. For a moment, I thought one of the white and grey kittens had got its foot caught in the rotten wood of the platform. It wasn’t, but I did see a third grey and white kitten, running away from the shrine and through the chain link fence! Which makes this a litter of five.
I also spotted the older grey and white kitten that looks so much like Junk Pile, but isn’t hers. It comes here alone, and I’ve yet to see it with any of the adults. I think I saw another older “stranger” coming through, but couldn’t be sure.
The main thing is that they are learning that the house is a safe and reliable place to get food and water. Come winter time, they’ll be more willing to discover and enjoy the heated cat house.
And winter is not that far off. September is just around the corner!
I’ve read they used to be common in our area. I have only ever see one, once before, when I was in my teens, and it wasn’t even here. It was at a mini golf course in a lakeside town about half an hour from here.
I have seen a lot more frogs – mostly wood frogs – this year, which always makes me happy. Seeing this handsome fellow is a real treat!
I wasn’t feeling very well this morning, so the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before heading to bed for the day. I didn’t start the rest of my morning rounds until late afternoon.
Tomorrow is expected to be a hot one, so I wanted to make sure the garden got a deep watering. I set up the soaker hose on the tomato bed and left it running while I did a dump run, then used the warm water in the rain barrel by the trellises and the Styrian pumpkins, to water everything at that end.
Part way through watering the trellises, I decided to set up one of the spray hoses I found while cleaning up around the junk pile. I set up the first one in the summer squash bed, then through the zucchini and some of the Teddy squash in the squash patch nearby. After hooking up the water and seeing that it was working out all right, I tried adding on the second spray hose, only to find it had a large crack near the connector. Well, at least I could get some of the squash watered while I continued using a watering can by the trellises. By that time that was finished, the spray hose had had enough time to do it’s job, and I could continue watering the rest with the hand sprayer.
I was quite pleased to see this fuzzy fellow.
One of the bird-seeded sunflowers by the carrots has at least 5 seed heads opening up, and there were several bumble bees buzzing around.
I love the bumbles!!!
The yellow pear tomatoes are finally starting to turn yellow!
I had some help by the chain link fence.
They were trying to pull out some of the crab grass that was growing through the netting. 😁
It’s about time to lift the net and to a thorough weeding under there.
There are quite a few nice, big (relatively speaking) Red Kuri squash developing here, and every couple of days or so, I’m finding new female flowers ready to be pollinated. I’m quite happy that we’ll have at least one type of winter squash to store for the winter!
Speaking of pollinating, while watering the corn and squash patch, I spotted our very first female Boston Marrow flower! I made sure it was pollinated and checked the other plants but, so far, they only have male flowers. I also spotted our first G-Star green pattypan squash, though it’s at the stage where it just dropped its flower. Over the next few days, I’ll be able to see if it got pollinated, or if it just falls off.
Still praying for a long, mild fall. So many things in the garden are suddenly starting to grow, bloom and produce fruit but, as of today, there’s only 3 weeks to our average first frost date.
I was surprised to have company while I was watering the grapes! Normally, she would have run away when I came this close. Instead, she just stayed all curled up and napping in the shade.
I got photos from my sister in law, yesterday. Their grapes are almost ready to harvest. Ours are still very small and green.
Hmm… I keep forgetting about that cross. I found it while uncovering the grapes from the spirea. I later learned my sister had put it there as a support for the grape vines. We should scrub off the rust, give it some sort of protective coat, and set it up somewhere permanent. I don’t know where it came from, but it would be a safe guess that my late brother salvaged it from one of this demolition jobs, like the stone cross by the spruces, for my parents. So I definitely want to hang on to it.
I topped up the kibble trays before going inside, including the one near the grape vine. Earlier, I’d seen the newest group of kittens playing around the shrine, so I made sure that container had plenty of kibble, too.
Pouring dry kibble into metal trays can be pretty loud. The sound is like ringing a lunch bell. By the time I was putting kibble in the last tray, I could see cats swooping in from all directions, heading for the kibble house! 😂 Unfortunately, the skunks have learned that sound means food, too! Ah, well.
Hopefully, I’ll be feeling good tomorrow morning. I want to get out while it’s still cool and continue putting wood chips around the saplings. I also plan to collect a harvest tomorrow morning, too. I’m just loving that we have so many fresh beans to harvest – the last batch did end up in the freezer, so we’re getting quite a few bags by now!
I went to check out some distressed sounding mews, and found Broccoli Baby in one of the elm trees by the sidewalk. She seemed to not like the “getting down” process.
I was able to walk past her on the sidewalk, and she just watched me from here, ready to run off in a moment. Which is progress!
I also caught sight of a couple of kittens in the big junk pile, with Rosencrantz nearby. I saw the white one with the mostly orange head, and behind it I clearly saw the kitten I’d only seen shadows of, earlier. Just it’s head, really. It looks like we have another tortie.
I am guessing that they are Rosencrantz’s second litter. We never did find out what happened with her first litter, but whatever it was, with everything still frozen, their chances for survival were low from the start. Now, she has four more, and they are looking strong and healthy. At their small size, and having them coming to the kibble tray under the shrine already, I’m hoping we’ll have better luck socializing them, than we’ve had with Broccoli Baby and the other older kittens!
The Re-Farmer 