I just couldn’t resist posting another David picture.
How can I resist that face? :-D
As I was waiting for this image to load in the editor, I heard a thump behind me. One of the cats fell of my bed and thudded onto the floor…
Keith just jumped onto the bed looking sheepish. I believe he was the one who fell off. :-D
The Re-Farmer
The cats spend most of their days, sprawled all over various surfaces, usually in bizarre positions, sleeping away the hottest parts of the day.
None, however, can match David the Magnificent, in all his glory.
He looks like he’s broken! :-D
We’ve been trying to brush him as often as we can. Oddly, he has almost no fur coming off on the brush! Then there’s Cheddar, who has very short, coarse fur, that fills the brush in only a few strokes!
Unfortunately, David will not let us brush his armpit area, which is the only place he’s getting clumps in his fur. We end up having to cut them off.
What a big, fluffy, magnificent, malleable boy.
The Re-Farmer
I have to admit, after yesterday’s damage, I was quite trepidatious about checking the garden beds while doing this morning’s rounds!
I was, however, greeted with a happy sight, first thing.
Potato Beetle is still here!
With him being gone for so many months, there’s no reason to assume he’s here to stay, so every day that we see him will be a gift. :-)
The down side is, he’s been mean to the other cats. Though he used to be part of the crowd filling the kibble house since we built it last fall, he chased all the other cats away this morning. Yesterday, he went after Nutmeg for no reason, and even growled at Junk Pile cat while she was hiding under the cat shelter. I’m hoping this will settle down once he’s been back for a while.
I found an Ozark Nest Egg gourd blooming this morning. Between the density of the leaves, the chain link fence and the protective wire around them, there’s no way I can look to see if there are any female flower buds developing. Of the few I could see, they were still only male flowers. The vines are pushing their way through the chain link fence, and we should be able to start training them up the fence soon.
If they don’t get eaten, first!
More and more tomatoes are starting to change colour. Until today, the most Spoon tomatoes we’ve had ripe at the same time was only three. Plus, we have our very first ripe grape tomato, from the Mosaic Medley mix of seeds!
Alas, there was more deer damage this morning, though nothing like what we found yesterday. This time, it was the yellow beans that got nibbled on.
I was able to pick a small handful of both green and yellow beans this morning, but I am not finding anything in the purple beans. While moving aside their leaves to look, I was seeing a lot of stems, and I wonder if they’d been eaten. The purple beans have so much more foliage, it’s harder to tell, compared to the other beans.
While the sweet corn and sunflowers appeared untouched, I found an entire Dorinny corn pulled out of the ground. The plant next to it has a big chomp taken out of the cob.
The ants were all over that cob!
I also found a cob that had been torn off another plant, with nothing but a nibble off the top. Curious, I went ahead and shucked it.
It was almost completely ripe! It was so well pollinated, too.
Well, I wasn’t about to let it go to waste, so I washed it and ate it raw.
It was delicious!
However things go for the rest of the season, at least I can say I’ve tasted both the Dorinny and the Montana Morado corn this year. :-D
I had one more find that I wanted to share, but I saved the photo for last. If spiders bother you, you might want to quickly scroll on by.
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Still here?
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I found a garden friend among the purple bean leaves.
I had been pushing aside and turning the leaves, looking for beans underneath, so it was a real surprise to see this spider, not being startled away. Just look at the grip it’s got on that egg sac! It didn’t move at all while I got close to take the photo. Such a good mama!
When I was done, I took the leaf off and put it on the ground in between some bean plants, where it was more sheltered.
Once I was back inside, I checked the garden cam files and confirmed that yes, it was a deer that had done this morning’s damage. The only other critter that triggered the motion sensor was Potato Beetle, while he was keeping me company in the garden yesterday evening.
I have a few ideas on what to try next to keep the deer out, but I’ll need to go into to town to find the materials for it. Today is a holiday here in Canada, and there is a festival going on in town right now, so I’m going to avoid it completely. :-/
The Re-Farmer
As I write this, we’ve had several rainfalls, and even a couple of downpours. We’ve had more rain today than we have had all year until now! It is so exciting!
We actually got our first bit of rain this morning, while I was quickly doing my rounds. In fact, it was a bit of a problem at the time. While changing the micro disc cards on the driveway cam, the card I took out of the camera slipped through my fingers and fell to the ground.
I never found it.
I had a fresh card to put in and came back several times today, and nothing. I have extras, but I’d really hate to have lost it completely!
When checking the garden beds, I found a couple more sunflowers got nibbled on.
Almost every one of the transplanted Mongolian Giant sunflowers in this row have had their head bitten off. :-(
The culprit was caught on the garden cam!
Anyhow.
This morning, I made a trip to the smaller city to do the Walmart part of our monthly shopping, then swung by town on the way home to pick up my husband’s prescription refills. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized mine weren’t in there. I’ll have to remember to call them and get mine delivered. I only have one prescription, compared to my husband’s bubble packs and injections.
I wanted to make sure I got all the errands done early, because we were going to have visitors this evening. My brother and his wife were going to swing by, on their way to somewhere else. I’ve been sharing photos of the garden progress with them, and they wanted to see it in person.
It was while they were on the way over that the first thunderstorm hit. It stopped and started a couple of times, then stopped before they arrived. Meanwhile, during their drive, they saw no rain at all! It wasn’t until they got close that they finally saw wet highway. When they got here, we did the tour, including my showing them where the groundhogs have been hiding out.
I saw one crossing by the spruce grove just before they arrived, heading under the junk pile. When I took a look, there it was, watching me!!!
The cheeky little bugger.
While checking out around the junk pile, I was disappointed to see this.
These are Saskatoon bushes. We have a couple of them here, and they are in terrible shape. Not only do they show signs of fungal disease, but their leaves are riddled with insect damage, and little growths where insect eggs are. There is even a sudden grown of lichen on the trunks and branches! Lichen is supposed to be slow growing, yet these bushes, and even the dead branches on nearby spruce trees, have suddenly turned bright green and thick. Or perhaps it’s just the rain waking up what was already there? That sounds more likely.
There are a few places where we will have to clear out the diseased trees and bushes, then not plant anything nearby for a few years.
We were just finishing off our tour of the garden beds with my brother and his wife when it started to rain heavily again. We still have the gazebo tent set up, where we had painted the kibble house. The kibble house it back where it goes, so we had plenty of room to be sheltered from the rain, while still enjoying the lovely cool wind and freshness. They were really hoping some of the rain would make it their way; they’ve been pretty much as dry as we have, and while they have had a bit more rain than we have this year, it’s been more like a tease than anything else.
When the rain let up a little big, we made a dash to the pump shack. I had asked my brother if he remembered when the pump got changed, and he wanted to see what I was talking about.
He had no idea.
He remembers better than I do, what the set up was like before, when there was a motor to operate the pump with electricity. When I pointed out that the current pump was not attached to anything, but just sitting on the pipes, loose enough to move while I was pumping, he mentioned something interesting. It seems the pipes into the well are “floating”, and the pump itself will actually move up and down with the water table. !! He also described the piston system at the bottom of the well. The fact that I could get water but couldn’t keep it going suggest to him that the O rings are giving out.
We are still left with the mystery of what happened to the motor and the frame that supported it.
Later this evening, my mother phoned and I remember to ask her about it. Not only does she not remember, but as far as she knew, there was never electricity to that pump. She insisted it was only ever manual. This tells me that it was my dad that had it set up, after they moved out here. As far as I remember, there was always the electric system, which suggests that it was installed in the 5 or so years before I was born, but my mother no longer remembers this at all. I find that a rather strange thing to forget!
Which leaves us with the mystery of what happened to the old pump system. I suppose it’s possible my late brother had it removed, perhaps with plans to get the old well repaired? I can’t think of any other reason someone would have removed it. If he had, however, the parts and pieces would still be around, and they aren’t. So what happened to it?
It seems that there is no longer anyone alive that could tell us.
By the time we were done looking at the pump, it was starting to pour again, and my brother and his wife still had other places to do, so they had to quickly head out. I’m really happy they were able to stop by, and we could show them how things have been going. Including with the woodchucks. My brother brought up a possible solution, and it’s one I’d already taken steps towards. Hopefully, it’ll work and I’ll be able to post about being free of woodchucks! We shall see. Until the problem is solved, however, I’m not even going to try to plant the fall spinach and lettuces I was planning on. I’m not going to go through the effort, only to have it eaten!
I think I may have come up with a way to keep the grasshoppers off, too. They are decimating our poor radish and kale seedlings as thoroughly as the groundhogs have been wiping out our carrot beds!
At least our garden beds have finally had a thorough soaking. No amount of watering with the house can match a good, solid rainfall!
Here’s hoping the rain helped with the wildfires to the north of us, too!
The Re-Farmer
Little Nosencrantz turned her nose up at the freshly filled food bowl near their home in the big junk pile, in favour of clambering into the kibble house to join Mom and Uncle Creamsicle.
Do you get the impression Rosencrantz is trying to warn me off from her baby? ;-)
The Re-Farmer
Every now and then, we’ll discover we have company in the bathroom.
We’ll find Keith in his favourite spot, hiding behind a hanging towel. This time, he happened to be napping. Other times, we’ll discover eyes, peering at us from the shadows. :-D
Keith has such distinct behaviours, his name has become a verb in this household!
The Re-Farmer
Well, we’ve passed our forecasted high of the day and have reached 30C/86F, with the humidex putting us at 35C/95F, this afternoon. We did, however, get RAIN this morning! I was awakened by the sound of thunder, so I quickly went outside to make sure the cats and birds had food before the rain hit. The storm blew past us, but it did start to rain while I was still outside. I’ll take the nice, gentle rain, thank you very much!
Unfortunately, it looks like this will be the last rain we’ll have in a while, and tomorrow the smoke is supposed to be back. What rain we did have never reached the fires up north. :-(
While doing my evening rounds yesterday, and checking the old kitchen garden (the floating row covers are doing their job; no signs of critters trying to get under them, and our carrots are recovering!), I stumbled on a pretty green friend!
It was just hanging out on the leaf of one of the flowers that made its way through the layers of mulch we put on this garden, two summers ago. We’ve seen a lot of frogs this year (likely because all the ponds and ditches have dried up), but we don’t often see the green tree frogs.
It didn’t seem to like us giants hanging around, so we let it be, though I must admit, it is very tempting to want to hold it.
I also was able to get a picture of some furry friends.
Rosencrantz and Nosencrantz were calm enough to just watch me as I went by. Toesencrantz, unfortunately, is more skittish and was hiding.
I so want to boop Nosencrantz’s nose. :-D
While the girls and I were checking the garlic beds, I showed them this odd garlic.
It looks like garlic is forming inside the stem, and this one is getting pretty big. I’d noticed another had started to show signs of this happening a few days ago. This is only in the Racombole garlic, which is split between the two garlic beds, so the girls started looking around in the other bed, and we found several more.
This one was the strangest looking one, and it may explain what’s happening.
This looks like a garlic scape! This might explain why the Racombole seemed to have fewer scapes than the other two varieties. Instead of growing out the tops, as they should have, the scapes look like they got stuck in the bottoms of the stems in quite a few of the plants. Since they didn’t get harvested, bulbils are now forming inside the stems, eventually bursting through. Only this one had the rest of the scape emerge from the stem for us to see.
It also looks like something tried to give this one a taste!
In theory, we can keep the bulbils and plant them in the fall. Hardneck garlic are bi-annual, growing seeds in their second year. Planting the cloves, rather than the bulbils, and harvesting the scapes by passes that, allowing for large bulbs with lots of cloves to form. If we planted bulbils, we sould get small bulbs that are basically one big clove. Kind of like the garlic we had to harvest early, because the plants died back so soon.
It should be interesting to see the bulbs that form under the plants that have these trapped bulbils growing in their stems. I would expect they would be smaller bulbs, though with conditions this year, I expect all of them to be smaller. I don’t expect to have any suitable for planting next year. This year, for our fall planting, we are looking to double the amount of garlic we plant. I should order them soon; they will be shipped when ready for planting in our zone, so ordering early will not be an issue. We will just have to decide where we want to plant them this fall, as we rotate things.
I am finding that half the fun of gardening is planning out next year’s garden! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Well, we seem to be back to having all the rain systems passing us by again. We are a bit cooler – as I write this, we are at “only” 26C/79F – but our humidex puts us at 33C/91F. Which I suppose helps, as we didn’t need to water the garden at all, yesterday. I probably could have left them be for another day, but I used a water soluble fertilizer on most of it, this morning.
This is the biggest of the Pixie melons that I checked on this morning. I just love how perfectly round they are! :-D
We had a whole bunch of poppies blooming this morning, including this tiny one. So far, it’s the only one with petals that are almost the pink they are supposed to be.
Unfortunately, the potatoes are getting more grasshopper damage these days.
They seem to prefer to eat the flowers! There is a fair bit of leaf damage, though the potatoes are doing so well, they can handle it pretty well right now. Though this seemed odd.
The Purple Peruvian fingerling potatoes have virtually no damage at all! I think I found only two leaves that had been chewed on. That’s it. All the other varieties, meanwhile, have quite a lot of chewed up leaves. Apparently, these potato leaves taste bad to grasshoppers! :-D
I don’t know what it is about today, but the entire household seems to be having a hard time. Perhaps it’s the humidity? I’m actually feeling an oppressive weight in my upper chest and throat that gets worse when I lie down, making it hard to sleep, and my chronic cough has been an issue, even though the rain we did get cleared the smoke out of the air. I don’t know, but we’re all barely able to drag our butts around to get anything done, and we all feel like falling asleep where we stand. Even the cats are sprawled all over the house in furry puddles, sleeping.
Speaking of furry puddles…
The big woodchuck was under the bird feeder earlier today – along with a chipmunk! You can’t really see it in the photo, but the woodchuck’s back hips are just sort of flattened to the ground, like a puddle.
It came back again later, then got some company.
The little one wandered over and started munching. They look peaceable in the photo, but when the littler one got too close to the big one, the big one attacked it! Had it flipped over on its back, teeth at its throat, in a heartbeat!
Then it let the little one go. This was clearly a dominance thing, not an attempt to do real damage. The little one didn’t fight back, but submitted to the big one. Given the size – and likely age – difference, that was probably a wise decision on the little one’s part!
With today being a day where manual labour seems to be out of the question (and there is much of it that needs to be done, but couldn’t be, because of the heat we’ve been having), I decided it was a good time to write out some plans and lists, and make some diagrams, for next year’s garden. I’ve got our catalogues out and started some wish lists, as well as working out what we want to do for next year. The girls and I will go over things and hash out details, using what we learned with this year’s gardening. Having this worked out early will be useful as we clean things up at the end of this growing season. The main thing I’m trying to figure out is what to use to build the first permanent, high raised beds, which will be where we currently have the low raised beds bordered with logs. Buying lumber is out of the question for our budget, but the barn and sheds got picked over by our vandal over the years before we moved here, quite thoroughly. The barn used to be full of salvaged lumber. I have a few ideas in mind, but it looks like it’ll be a while before we can see if they’re even possible. Ah, well. We’ll figure something out.
The Re-Farmer
While heading back and forth between garden and house today, passing by the hanging bird feeder, I kept disturbing woodchucks, eating the sunflower seeds on the ground. I saw all four of them today, including the little one the girls had told me about. A few times, there were two of them at the bird seed at once.
Usually, they’d run off into the spruces, or under the garden shed. Then one of them decided to run along the back of the house, where we still have a row of various things used to hold the insulation we put around the based of the house in the winter. We just kept forgetting to move them. :-/ The little bugger decided to hide in the ceramic chimney inserts, running from one to the other, then back again. I didn’t want him using the house as a place to hide, so I tried to get him to go elsewhere, but he just wouldn’t leave the inserts.
I got close enough that I could have touched that angry looking face (not that I would have!), and he still wouldn’t run off! I finally had to get a long stick and basically shepherd him along before he finally ran to the garden shed.
Of the various woodchucks we’ve seen, there’s just the one that tends to freeze in a sort of panic mode, rather than run off like the others. He was especially unhappy that Nutmeg was with me. Nutmeg completely ignored him and kept trying to rub against me to pet him, even when the woodchuck tried running his way, saw him, froze and started to… growl? I’m not sure how to describe the noise it made!
Among the things I’ve read to use to keep woodchucks from eating the garden is to scatter cat hair around the plants, because cats are their natural predators. Which I find hilarious. The woodchucks are bigger than any of our yard cats! They also seem to get along just fine. I even saw a woodchuck drinking from the water bowl we have by the junk pile for Butterscotch and her kittens.
Cheeky little buggers.
Also… just look at that hand in the photo!!! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Last night, as I was topping up the food dishes near where kittens are, I found Butterscotch and her babies playing around the concrete steps at the side of the house. So I sat on the stairs and scattered some kibble at the bottom to see if I could convince them to come closer.
This was about as close as Bradicus got. At least I could see him! Chadicus just hid in the lilacs and peaked at me. :-D
While I was trying to get a picture of Chadicus (I never did), I heard a small noise beside me.
Broccoli had come over and was licking the container I used to carry the kibble in! :-D
Of course, I scattered some kibble on the step for her, as she ran off a little ways.
Those eyes!!!! My goodness!
Caramel is definitely one of the braver ones. My daughter has actually been able to put Caramel on her lap and scritch her ears.
Eventually, I had both Caramel and Broccoli on the step by my foot, eating kibble, and I was even able to touch and pet both of them!! They’re not comfortable with that at all, but were interested in the food enough to put up with it. A bit.
Gosh, they are cute. I just wish Butterscotch wasn’t leading them to the empty farmyard across the road. These babies need to stay close to the house!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 