figuring things out

A productive day, and our vandal is stalking again

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We had a slightly warmer day today, but I decided to leave working on the garden beds for the next few days, as it gets even warmer. Today, I focused on getting the cat shelters ready for winter.

I did, however, remember to take pictures of the finished garden bed in the old kitchen garden.

It doesn’t look all the different, really. The new stakes were pounded down with a sledge hammer, so they don’t need to be trimmed shorter. There’s enough height left that, should I want to in the future, more deadwood could be added for a taller wall. Towards the middle of the wall in the first picture, you can see some of the fly-away twine ends, where I had to fix where they snapped while I was pounding the stakes down.

I’m quite happy with the result. It’s not as pretty as wattle weaving, but it’ll hold the soil in place, and the taller stakes will be available to use to hold supports, should the bed need to be covered.

That done, it was time to winterize the isolation shelter and catio.

The vinyl (from dollar store table protectors) that had been wrapped around the bottom of the isolation shelter last winter was so torn up, it had to be thrown away. The vinyl around the catio had tears in it, but could still be salvaged. Especially since it ended up getting wrapped a second time part way through the winter. That gave me two layers to work with.

The bottom of the isolation shelter needed only 2′ in height. That meant I could take the vinyl from the catio and fold it in half, length wise. It took two dining table covers to wrap around the catio. With the second layer that was added, that gave me the equivalent of four covers, that were taped where they overlapped. I was able to separate the second layer easily into the original two length. There were larger tears near the bottoms, as well as small tears all along the edges, where they’d torn loose from the tacks that were holding them in place. Once folded in half, though, I was able to get a solid piece.

In the first picture, you can see that I duct taped the short ends to old the halves together, then added more to the corners to strengthen them more.

Thankfully, we didn’t have much wind and, with the folding table not put away for the winter yet, folding and taping the lengths wasn’t as much of a hassle as I’d feared. The only real problem I had was Grommet, constantly getting in front of me while I worked!

Next, I brought out my remaining pieces of wood lath and cut some to fit the shorter sides of the shelter, plus some for the section in the front. I had some short screws left from another project and used those to secure the vinyl at the top and bottom. Leftover lengths of wood lath were added to the ends of the vinyl as well, so the wind wouldn’t catch on them.

I secured one sheet to the ramp door side, first, then wrapped it around the back. The other end just reached around the opposite corner of the back, which I tacked in place with a push pin temporarily. Then I secured the other sheet to the front section of the shelter before securing the side, making sure to catch the edge of the first sheet with the screws.

For the back, I used a full length of wood lath to secure the vinyl at the top – the second sheet reached as far as the middle of the back.

At which point, I was out of the little screws I was using. I don’t want to use longer ones, as this is something that will be removed in the spring. The back will be against a well, though, so I just used a push pin half way down the centre support and let it be.

Next, I added some handles, to make it easier to move the shelter.

For the back, I had larger handles held in place with four screws. I replaced the ones the handles came with, which weren’t long enough to even go through the layer of insulation back there, with 2 1/2″ screws.

They felt good and solid at this point.

In the next picture, you can see the smaller handles I added to the front. Those had to fit in the space between the window and the edge, so there was room for a handle with only one screw to secure it. I didn’t need screws as long as for the back, but I still replaced the package screws with 1″ screws. They also had to be mounted lower down, so as not to be in the way when the roof is open.

At this point, the shelter could finally be moved to its winter home.

I was not able to use the handles.

The problem is the wheels. Even on the folded pieces of cardboard I put under the wheels, they sank into the soil. This thing is HEAVY!! It took a lot of manhandling to get it across the grass. It had to go across the sidewalk to the house, and one of wheels promptly sank so deep in the soil as soon as it was no longer on a concrete block, I had to actually lift the corner and pull the whole thing over.

Then there are the patio blocks.

Which should have been a lot easier, but there’s that tree in front of the old kitchen window. It’s roots have lifted and shifted the concrete blocks. Once again, I had to actually lift corners to get them over the edges of the patio blocks.

I did get it into position, though. Finally!

Once there, I did some cleaning, starting with washing the front windows, inside and out. I had taken out the sliding windows and gave those a wash before putting them back.

I had a couple more boards like I’d used to attach the roof panels that I added and screwed into place. It’s a low slope roof, and the plastic roof panels sagged just enough for water to sometimes collect on it. I gave the roof a washing, then left the roof open for the water to drain off. That was a good time to move the heated water bowl to the other side, and secure the heat lamp, which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.

I found a piece of scrap wood that I added as a cross piece, which runs through the hanger part of the clamp lamp, for extra security. The clamp is secured with a couple of zip ties. The new cross piece is held in place by friction, but I zip tied it to the permanent cross piece the clamp is attached to, as well.

I did make sure to test the heat lamp before I started all this!

Once everything was set where I wanted to – make sure that I could reach the on/off switch for the heat lamp from the sliding windows – they were plugged into the extension cord, which got set up on its hooks on the outside.

Before that was plugged in, though, I got the ramp door shelter box ready to bring over (it was a handy table for while I was working on the shelter!) and started getting the catio ready to move to its winter location.

Around this time, I got a message from my SIL. They needed to go into storage and were on their way, and letting me know what their rental car looked like, while their car is in the garage for repairs.

They weren’t going to be long, so I went and opened the gate for them, then went back to working on things in the yard.

I heard a vehicle coming and looked through the trees to see if it was them, only to see our vandal driving by.

On seeing the gate was open, he started slowing down.

I couldn’t see him through the trees anymore, but I could hear him stop on the road, then start backing up.

I wasn’t about to give him a chance to drive in, so I walked out towards the driveway, so he could see that I was there.

He stopped at the end of the driveway, and just stayed there, watching me.

So, I got my phone out and started recording him.

I ended up getting more than four minutes of recording him as he got out of his vehicle and started gesturing at me (turns out he was “blowing kisses”). Then he opened his shirt, took off the belly strap and waved his colostomy bag at me. Then he started yelling at me, demanding to know why I was recording him, yelling that I wanted to put him in prison, that he was dying anyway, etc. He was yelling at me for so long, I ended up walking over to one of my brother’s pieces of farm equipment nearby, so I could brace my arms while he yelled. At one point, he started demanding that I go over and talk to him – like I would do that!!! – while gesturing to the road and saying he was legal there, and I should come and talk to him. As if! Oh, and I don’t own the property. I don’t own anything.

So… why has he been yelling at my mother about how she “gave” the farm to me?

Oh, my goodness.

I just got a message from my brother. Somehow, our vandal managed to leave a voice mail with my brother (his number is blocked). He was ranting about how he (my brother) is going against “the code”. The code of “Jesus and God.” Also, my brother and I are why he’s dying of cancer. The stress from us. He mentioned me recording him and said he “asked” me to come talk to him.

Also, I’m fat and my daughters and I never have to work again, and we’re apparently enjoying steak, caviar and champagne. And the pope is going to be reading a magazine about Christianity, and my brother’s not a real Christian.

He also brought up that he helped us, years ago, by living rent free for a year in a house he owned when my husband “lost his job”. Except, it was after my husband left the military, not “lost his job”, and it was only a few months before we got things worked out (we had zero income for 4 months because someone in the DnD forgot about the paperwork). We paid him rent until he put the house up for sale.

Yes, there was a time when we were close, and he did help us out. But now it seems he’s inventing things to make it sound like he helped us more than he did.

There was a lot more in the message, but it was all just insane. He is absolutely obsessed with us!

Ugh.

So… where was I?

Ah, yes.

After yelling at me from the road some more, our vandal got into his vehicle again and just sat there. By this time, my daughters had come out to see what was going on, and make sure I was okay. So I stopped recording and walked over. Once I was past the garage and couldn’t see him anymore, we heard him yelling at me some more before he finally drove off. We could hear his vehicle all the way, even to the sound of him tearing into his own driveway.

No, he doesn’t live THAT close to us!

My daughters stayed out with me for a while. I had move the catio to its winter location, so they helped me set it on pieces of bricks by lifting the ends so I could slide them under. As before, I set the pieces under the front corners on their edges, while the ones under the back were flat, so that water would drain off the flat roof towards the back.

My older daughter is going to be up all night as she works (she’s been trying to be up during more daytime hours lately, to be available to help with things).

This is how the catio was, after they helped set it up on bricks, so the wood won’t have direct contact with what will eventually be very wet ground.

I took out the cat bed that Pinky and her babies had been using. That went into the bottom of the isolation shelter, and the box nests got put in here. They are on top of scrap pieces of insulation.

After this picture was taken, I swept the leaves off the roof. I have an old snow brush/ice scraper where the ice scraper broke. It has been incredibly handy for maintaining the cat shelters!

Then I made sure to add the weights back onto the roof, so it won’t get blown over again.

Tomorrow, I need to go into town and pay the balance for the door replacement at the hardware and lumber store. While I’m there, I hope to pick up more of the tiny screws and anything else I might need. I would need more wood lath, if I’m going to use that to attach the vinyl on the catio, too, but I will get that somewhere else at a better price. The catio frame is 2×2 lumber, and I might want to find something narrower to secure the vinyl.

This winter, I’ll make sure to have the vinyl covering the door as a separate piece. Last winter, I had tried to secure it near the hinge but it kept coming loose and start flapping in the wind.

Meanwhile, my brother and SIL arrived. My brother did his thing while I was able to give my SIL a tour of the things I’ve been doing. She even helped me adjust the isolation shelter, when I realize that one of the wheels was hanging in the air, thanks to the uneven patio blocks.

The light above our main door had started flashing instead of working properly, so my brother wanted to take a look at it. He is the one who got and installed it originally – because while my late father was still living here, our vandal (who was “helping” my dad) would show up at all hours, and the motion sensor light would let my dad at least know he was in the yard. After fussing with a switch at the top that I didn’t even know was there (can’t see it without a ladder), he got it working again, but he doesn’t think it’ll last long.

Then I helped him move the old storm door that was still leaning against the house to the barn for storage. It’s still a good door.

It was really good to see them, as always.

After they were gone, I had a few more things to finish up. Now that the isolation shelter is no longer under the canopy tent, I move the folding table under there. I’ll be leaving that out for a while longer, as there’s still plenty that needs going around the yard before the snow flies.

For now, I’m just happy the isolation shelter is winterized.

I’m just looking at the temperature right now. I think I’ll go turn the heat lamp on for the night!

I can do that now. 😁😁

Little by little, things are getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Catch up time, and garden progress

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I am finally able to settle in to start this – though I’m also waiting for a phone call and might be making a trip into town, still, so we’ll see if things get interrupted!

My plan had originally been to drop the truck off this morning, then use the courtesy vehicle to do the stock up shopping in the city. CPP Disability came in yesterday, though, so I figured I may as well do that right away, and not have to worry about driving a strange vehicle in the city. I’ll do another post about the stocking up.

Once home and everything was put away, I grabbed a quick supper, then headed outside. I really wanted to get that bed cleaned up and finished.

Of course, it took longer than expected.

I started working my way down the unfinished side from the North end, closer to the trees. Almost immediately, I could feel I was hitting something not rock with the garden fork. I kept working my way down and around it, but it was a while before I could actually uncover it and start moving it around with my hands.

Yeah, it was a big ol’ tree root.

In the first photo, I’d worked maybe 8 ft down the side before I could uncover it and not have the soil immediately fall and cover it again. The further down I went, the more I could get under it and loosen things up around it.

In the next two photos in the slide show, I’d finally reached a point where the root veered off to the side and out of the bed.

Yes, Sir Robin was helping me the entire time. He was really, really interested in where I was digging!

One I cleared a bit more of the root into the path, I went and got the loppers to cut it. With all the digging I’d already done, it was pretty easy to pull the rest up. It didn’t all some out, though. About a foot or so from the end, it broke free. I think this was actually a piece that branched off an even bigger root, further down!

Before we planted potatoes in this bed, I trenched it. That root was not there in the spring!

Given how far I got before it veered into the path, I can certainly see why I was finding so many tree capillary roots at the south end of the bed.

I got the bed done, though – with another bumper crop of rocks – and used the landscape rake to level the soil and make it all niche and even, as much as I could.

I then hosed it down before I got my second package of painters plastic drop sheet. It’s 10′ wide and 25′ long. It was really calm at the time, so I was able to open it up, then fold it in half, lengthwise, so it was only 5′ wide. Then I covered the bed and made sure to get everything as tight and snug as possible, with the excess length folded over at the south end. I took boards that were around the carrot bed to weight down the ends, rolling the boards in the excess plastic and pulling it tight again, before using the remaining boards I had to weight down the sides. The plastic has good contact with the soil surface, which means it should solarize properly, unlike when I’ve tried to do it over less level beds, or over areas with grass stubble on it. Well. Maybe not “properly, but at least better!

As you can see in the next picture, taken with flash, it was dark by the time I was done.

I stayed out longer to cover the winter squash, summer squash, peppers and remaining eggplants. The overnight low they were predicting had changed again, and we were to expect 5C/41F.

I am so glad I covered all the beds.

We dropped to 3C/37F last night.

The last picture in the series was taken this morning, while I was doing my rounds. It was still too cold to uncover them, though, so it got left until later.

I then headed out to town to drop the truck off at the autobody place for the insurance repairs. Before taking the courtesy vehicle – a 2020 Caravan – we did the necessary paperwork, and I signed an insurance waiver. If I were to get into some sort of accident or damage the vehicle, I’d be responsible for a $750 deductible. Or, I can sign the waiver and pay a little under $8 a day to cover that.

I’ve got the van for four days, or one day. Looking at the time as I write this, I’d say, four days. There was the possibility that they’d get the frame repaired and painted today, to a point that I could bring the truck home while it cured. I would then bring it back on Monday and they’d install the new cover. I would get a phone call before they’re done for the day to find out. I’m pretty sure they close at 5, and it’s past 5 as I write this, but maybe they close at 6. I can’t remember.

I was warned about some unusual things on the van. The first, I misunderstood. She was telling me where the shifter was, and I thought she meant it was behind the steering wheel on the column, like our truck, instead of in the front of the console between the seats, like my mother’s car.

It was neither. It’s behind the steering wheel, on the dash.

It also has a “square” key, which I’d never heard of before. Instead of a metal key, it has a plastic square that gets inserted, just like an ordinary key. The disorienting part of that isn’t just the shape of it. On one side of the square is the bright red panic button!

After spending a bit of time figuring out where things were and adjusting my seat, I headed off to the town to the north of us to pick up more 40 pound bags of kibble. I had just parked when I got a call from the autobody place.

The tech working on my truck, on seeing the condition of the rails that would be painted (only the rails, not the sides and fenders, as that would not be covered by insurance because of the rust), he wanted to know if I preferred to have it done with flatbed paint, instead. There would be no extra cost, and he felt it would give more protection to the rails. After talking about it for a bit, I agreed. It should be interesting to see how it turns out!

I then went into the feed store and paid for four 40 pound bags of kibble. The woman who processed my sale then came and helped me grab the bags. I’d mentioned it was the first time I’d driven this vehicle and, as we came out with the first two bags, I realized I didn’t even know how to open the back of the van. Was there a handle, or would I have to use the key fob, which I would not be able to reach without putting down the bag of kibble?

There was a handle. 😄

Once the bags were loaded, I tried to close it manually, but it didn’t want to close until it got past a certain point. I looked around later, and could see no buttons or anything to make that easier.

When I parked in the garage and took the key out of the ignition, though, I accidentally opened the back of the van! I did figure out how to close it using the fob, at least.

I couldn’t bring the bags in right away, though. It’s been a while since we had to store that many bags of kibble, so I had to organize and make space in the old kitchen, first. Which I did, after finally having breakfast.

Much of what I had to deal with was cardboard. Some was meant for the garden. Others had glossy coatings on them, so they needed to be sorted out. Normally, they would have gone to the burn pile, but we haven’t been able to do a burn in over a year. Between things like the weather, or fire bans, I already had quite a mess to clean up recently. I plan to take it all to the dump, but I won’t be doing a dump run until we get the truck back.

After sorting that out, it was back to doing clean up in the yard and garden. The garden beds got uncovered, though high winds made that a challenge! Then I started working on things like taking down the wire that was used to trellis the peas, and to protect the Arikara squash from critters.

For now, I’ve been putting all the garden stakes, poles, ties, netting, etc. in one spot, before they get a final organizing and bundling and putting away for the winter. I’d put the bent up wire supports that failed to hold up netting under the weight of playing kittens. One of the things I’d done as we emptied the sun room was hose down a cat cave that kept collapsing. I ended up rolling down the sides to try and make it into a sort of nest, but it keeps getting bend out of shape. The “cave” itself is basically around, thick bag with a drawstring cord to close up the top.

Those bent up wires might not be useful for holding up the netting, but I decided to try something with several of them. It’s a heavy gauge wire, but still flexible enough to bend into shape, and keep the shape.

I ended up using three of them to make a wire support for inside the cat cave. Two were formed into rings, with the top ring slightly smaller than the bottom, and a third was wound and bent and wound some more, to hole the top and bottom rinds apart. Then I stuffed it into the cat cave and closed up the drawstring top.

With the top ring where it is, the to can’t close completely anymore, but that’s okay. The sides are now being held up.

The ultimate test will be what happens when the kittens decide to climb all over it. So far, it’s holding!

I’d used three of the wire supports to make that, but had brought four, just in case.

I found a use for that one, too.

Yesterday, I’d picked up replacement sump pump hoses to replace our broken one.

The hose runs along the base of the house to drain into the old kitchen garden. That bend to go to the side instead of straight out (which is how it used to be, before I replaced the old one) was enough to finally break the hose.

Taking off the broken bit and replacing it was easy and fast enough, but I wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. If only I had something strong, yet flexible, to brace the hose at the bed…

Enter that fourth wire support, some wire cutters and electric tape.

In the last picture, you can see that I set two lengths of the wire on either side of the hose. I taped it to the piece coming out of the wall, first, just to secure it while I worked. The lengths of wire were give a gentle bend, then got taped into place. Only then did I give the hose, which was already stretched along the base of the house, I final straightening out and setting it in place. The new hose is slightly longer than the old hose (which I’d bought from a different company). Which will come in handy in the spring, if it’s wet enough to trigger the sump pump. It reached the rectangular garden bed in the old kitchen better. I’ll want to make a larger, longer, opening under the logs at the end of the bed, and it can then be set right into the opening to drain under the bed, instead of running down the paths, and water whatever gets planted in there from below.

Aside from that, there was just a lot of small things that got done around the yard. It was so incredibly windy, it limited some of the things I could work on. Thankfully, the winds seem to have died down a bit since then.

My daughter, meanwhile, has been going all out on cleaning the sun room – way more than I would have done, I’ll be honest! She even got a household step ladder and a small hand brush to get into less accessible areas. When it comes time to bring things back in, she plans to scrub, then oil, anything with wood. Since we can’t take the cat cage out without dismantling it, she floor can only be washed one side at a time. With the cat cage going on top of interlocking mats, to protect from the cold concrete floor, it has to be thoroughly dry before things can be moved over and the other side can be done.

While she was working on that, I took the hose to pressure was the larger plastic shelves that supported the platform above the cat cage. The bottom shelves, in particular needed a thorough cleaning.

We need to figure out some way to keep critters from using the corners of the room. There’s no room for litter pans there.

Oh, I just got the phone call I was waiting for – and it came after they closed!

We’ve got the van for the weekend.

I also got a final tally on what it will cost. There’s the $500 deductible, of course, but the “betterment” will cost $193.92 after taxes. Add in the waiver I signed, as extra insurance should I get into an accident with the van, there’s another roughly $35 on top.

That’s a solid Costco shopping trip right there. 🫤

It will be so good to have that fixed and a cover on the truck box again. I hate having things in there without a cover, when driving at highway seeds – even though I know that there’s nothing I put back there that might blow away! It’s more that things can be seen and walked off with. Granted, it would take some effort for someone to walk off with a 40 pound bag of litter pellets, but not so much for a 9kg bag of kibble.

So there’s all that caught up with!

Next, we’ll take a look and what my stock up shopping trip looked like for the money.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, adorableness, and unexpected outings

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I headed outside this morning with my usual feeding of adorable beasts and doing my rounds. I had a bit of a surprise when I got to the main garden area.

In the first picture, you can see a Hopi Black Dye sunflower, still trying to bloom! All of the sunflowers, which I thought were killed off by our last frost, look like they’ve actually recovered! Wild!

I had some plans to make a stew later today, so I decided to do a small harvest (second image above). Just enough potatoes for the day, plus our only bulb onions of the year! These were in the high raised bed and their necks were bent by rolling cats, so they weren’t going to get any bigger. The only onions we planted this year were the seeds included in our seed mixes. Quite a few came up, then disappeared. In the high raised bed, just these got big enough to form bulbs. All the others were basically just the greens. Even the really strong and healthy looking ones in the old kitchen garden are nowhere near starting to form bulbs.

Next year, we’ll be starting seeds indoors again. 😄 From our own seed, too.

I was back inside, helping my daughter, who’d been working on the “cat free zone” (the living room) for most of the night. We’ve basically been just shoving things that needed to be protected from the cats into there, but never quite getting the chance to go back and put them away properly. It had gotten to the point that there was just a path in between furniture to the shelves in front of the window, where I’ve got tomatoes ripening and seeds drying.

I didn’t get to help her for long before the phone rang.

It was home care.

I have to admit, it’s been a long time since they’ve called. The scheduler was very apologetic, but they had a last minute cancellation. Someone called in sick.

My mother’s meds were scheduled for 9am.

It was about 8:35 when she called. Driving time alone to my mother’s is 25 minutes.

I didn’t even bother changing out of my grubbies. I just made a quick call and left a message with my mother, grabbed my purse and headed out. So she got her meds just a little bit behind schedule.

Apparently, the person who was supposed to come this morning was also supposed to do my mother’s two evening visits, and she didn’t show up for those, either. Apparently, a guy came to do it, and he was all the way from the city! I appreciate that they found someone to do her evening meds. Her and however many other people are on that home care aide’s list!

In the end, it worked out. My mother was still in bed and not feeling well. I ended up making some toast for her, so she’d have something to eat with her meds. She also likes to have milk, half and half with boiling water, as her beverage, so I made that, too – finishing off both her milk and a loaf of bread in the process of making her breakfast. I told her I would get her more milk and asked if she needed anything else. I figured I would go get it while she was having a peaceful breakfast.

Which is when things got strange. I have no idea how she interpreted my request, but she seemed to think I was trying to rush her and was leaving right away or… I don’t know. She started going on about how she needs to rely on me and my siblings more now, and making …. less than charitable, shall we say … comments about my brother and sister. Now, I admit, to a certain extent, I can understand about my sister. She used to call my mother almost every say, and visit on some of her days off from work (she only works 3 days a week at a Walmart). In fact, my mother used to lord it over me, how my sister was calling her every day. Then my sister started to get more involved in their church again. The Worldwide Church of God, which is recognized as a cult. Her behaviour has changed since then, and she has been … not cutting the family off, but definitely cutting us out of things. She’s back to refusing to celebrate birthdays (they’d relaxed on that for a while) and hating Christmas and Easter, going on with the long debunked claims about them being pagan holidays, etc. There are definite issues there, but my sister does still do things like to my mother’s laundry, or mop her floors, and will pick up things like clothes and other things from Walmart for her. My sister used to sew her own clothes all the time and she knows my mother’s measurements, so anything she gets for my mother, she tailors to fit. So while there is definitely tension and issues, she does still help out in ways my brother and I can’t. We each have things we can do individually for my mother that the others aren’t able to.

Anyhow.

She made a comment about my wanting to leave so soon (I think she decided my wanted to get her milk while she was having breakfast meant I was in a hurry to leave?) and how there are two girls at home that can help take care of my husband. Which threw me, because my mind wasn’t there at all. I told her, we’re winterizing. There’s lots of work to do. She actually seemed confused by that. I don’t think she ever knew all the things my dad and brothers did to prepare the house and yards for winter.

I kept trying to bring her back to, I want to get you milk, do you need anything else? but she kept going back to saying things about my brother and sister. Finally, I just grabbed my hat and purse and told her, I’m going to get you some milk.

To which she told me to hold on… she might need something else…

…

*sigh*

In the end, there were just a couple of things from the grocery store she wanted, but we also checked her Volataren supply. She still had but, since she’s using it on her back now, as well as her knees, it was worth picking up more. Which meant a trip to the pharmacy.

My mother then started getting cash out, took out a 50, and asked if I wanted an envelope. I said it would be good, since I put all her change and receipts back into the envelope for her to go through later. She started looking for an envelope, found one on her table – and it still had the change and receipts from the last time I did shopping for her! Then, just in case, she took the bills from that and included it with the $50 bill she already had ready.

I then left her to her breakfast and my first stop was at the pharmacy. They know me pretty well by now, and I’ve had pleasant chats with the manager a few times. They are aware that I’m shopping on behalf of my mother, and I’ve also talked about having to come in to cover for home care way too often. So when I came in and the manager saw me coming in so early in the day, I told him about home care cancelling again this morning – but, it turned out to be okay, since it meant I could run errands for my mother, too.

He laughed and said, “let’s not tell them that!” 😄

My mother’s Voltaren turned out to be on sale, which was nice – until I tried to hand over the $50, then went into my own wallet for the change. The manager very sheepishly asked if I had anything smaller. This early in the day, making change for a $50 would have emptied his float! He even commented that he should have a bigger float, but almost no one pays in cash anymore. In the end, I had enough of my own cash to add to my mother’s smaller bills and was able to pay with exact change. He was so very thankful!

I’ve worked retail for many years. I totally get it!

We talked about how so few people use cash these days, but then you have people like my mother. She simply could not use a debit card. It’s beyond her. He commented that, if ever the machines go down, though, it’s people like my mother that will be in the better position!

That done, it was off to the grocery store to pick up the few things my mother wanted, plus I got a couple of extra things that were on sale that I knew she’d enjoy and could put in her freezer. It was still a really small shopping trip.

When I got back to my mother’s and put things away, showing her what I got different, I tried to entertain her with what happened at the pharmacy. In the end, I think I only confused her. She seemed to be trying to figure out how they were trying to cheat her by not being able to make change for a $50 bill, that early in the day.

*sigh*

Then she started going through the envelope with the change and receipts and the contents didn’t make sense to her. I told her again, because I used the smaller bills, adding in my own cash, there was no change from the pharmacy. The change in the envelope was only from the grocery store.

I’m not sure she got it.

In the end, I didn’t stay much longer. My mother was feeling very tired and I encouraged her to go back to bed, which she said she would do. She told me she’d even used her LifeLine last night, to talk to someone about how she was feeling. She wanted them to tell her what to do, but they can’t really do that. The guy did ask her if she wanted him to call an ambulance, and she told him no. Instead, she told him he could go back to bed, and she would do the same.

I hope she did go back to bed after I left!

From there, I went straight home. My daughter had managed a lot more progress on the living room while I was gone, including moving some things to the basement. (If we can figure out how to get it down the steps, I’d like to move the big aquarium to the basement, too.) She was really exhausted – I think she was up all night! – and was feeling sick, but had just remembered that she had a prescription to pick up for our joint appointment tomorrow. It’s a vaccine that needs to be kept refrigerated, so it was something to call in at the last minute. She did that and was told it’d be ready for pick up this afternoon, and I told her I’d take care of it, and sent her off to bed. She was more than happy to do that!

Which meant that, after a couple of hours, I was on the road again. My husband needed a few things from the pharmacy, too, so that worked out. Before heading home, I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a couple of small trays of sushi as a thank you for my daughter. I’m pretty sure she hadn’t eaten, again.

By the time I got home again, it was time to feed the outside cats. I headed out again later, to close some things up.

Which is when I spotted this.

Some of the kittens have discovered they really, really like the portable greenhouse! That’s Colby snuggling with a much, much smaller tabby in the foreground. I’m not sure about the other older kitten, watching me through the doorway. I’ll have to remember that distinctive black chin. When I moved around, I spotted two more littles, curled around each other on the grass near a luffa pot. Today was a decently warm day, but they quite enjoy the extra warmth, when they can find it!

I’ll be heading outside one more time before calling it a day. With the extra trips out, I did not accomplish what I’d intended to, but none of it was particularly time dependent. We’ll be out again for much of tomorrow, too. After that, there are no more planned outings until I have to pick up my mother’s refills on Sunday, then my husband and I have a dental appointment later next week. We’re supposed to have good weather so, hopefully, we’ll be able to get the bigger outside projects done. Getting the sun room cleaned out for the winter will probably be the biggest and longest job. The critters have made a real mess in there – and I don’t mean just the cats!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: transplanting tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, and creating supports

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I am very happy to say that, as of today, ALL the transplants are in! There is just the final direct sowing to do, now.

The first transplants to get in where the tomatoes, and they all fit into one garden bed.

This bed had already been prepped, then covered with plastic, except for one end, where there had been onions gone to seed. They did not survive another winter, though.

The plastic didn’t solarize the weeds to death, but at least it kept most of the elm seeds off! The challenge was to get the plastic off again, without dumping them all onto the soil.

For a bed that had already been weeded before the plastic was laid down, there were a LOT of weeds to clear out. As I worked around the bed, I suddenly realized that I was pulling out baby carrots! Last year, we had a couple of Uzbek Golden Carrots bolt and go to seed, so I left them to it, so I could collect the seeds in the fall. When I went to gather them, though, the seed heads were shriveled and messed up looking, and there were no seeds to collect.

Looks like one of them did have seeds, after all!

There was no way they could be transplanted or anything like that, so away they went.

Once the bed was clear of weeds and roots, I finished off our last bag of manure into it, and worked that into the soil.

Then it was time to figure out where the tomatoes would go.

I used the collars (I found an extra “stash” of the water bottles I make the collars from in the basement, so I had plenty for the tomatoes) to figure out the spacing. There were four Black Beauty, four Chocolate Cherry and nine Sub Arctic Plenty.

We’ve grown the Black Beauty and Chocolate Cherry before, so I know what to expect with those. They both get quite tall, while the Black Beauty became really heavy. They had trellis supports, and I ended up having to add supports to the supports, to keep the whole thing from tipping over in the wind!

With that in mind, I made sure that these were on the north side of the bed, so they wouldn’t shade out other plants. So I set out eight collars on that side, with a space in the middle.

If I remember correctly, the Sub Arctic Plenty are a bush type tomato, so I don’t expect them to get tall. I’m thinking they will be more like the Forme de Couer tomatoes we grew last year. Each tomato plant had a pair of bamboo stakes to support it, and I’d used twine around the plants to secure them. The plants got so heavy with tomatoes, the supports started falling over, and some of the bamboo stakes even broke from the weight.

With that in mind, I planted the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes along the south side of the bed, where they would get the most sunlight.

As with everything else, this bed was dry, dry, dry, so it got repeated waterings at every stage. I’d taken the cover off the other bed and every time I watered the tomato bed, I gave the other bed a gentle watering, too.

Once the tomatoes were in, it was time to give them support. For the verticals, I used 6′ plastic coated metal stakes. I’m glad I got more of these! Every collar got one of these tucked against one side. I used up all the stakes from last year, and used a couple of the new ones, to make one for every tomato plant.

Once those were in place, I used bamboo stakes to weave through the verticals. I did three horizontal rows on each side, and more can be added later, if need be. I then added some sticks to connect the two sides. There’s just a couple at the ends of one level, and a couple more further in, at another level. We may not need any more than that. We’ll see how things progress over time.

I did not have any clean grass clippings left for mulch, so I made use of the stove pellets we use for cat litter. I scattered them around, and even inside, the collars before giving the whole thing one final watering, to get the pellets to break up into sawdust.

I think it worked out rather well, and should be able to hold the weight of the tomatoes we can expect from these varieties,

Once this was done and cleaned up, and I took a break for lunch, it was time to work in the old kitchen garden. I decided it was time to remove the cover and netting from the greens bed, so the first thing to do was roll up the two sheets of netting, then take the cover off.

The kittens are going to miss their little mosquito netting hammocks!

The greens bed was really dry, so I spent time time watering it from the rain barrel – the rain we had was almost enough to refill it – and weeding. The spinach is bolting and we’ve decided to let them go to seed. I also found a second tiny bok choi that is staring to bloom.

That done, the herb bed got a watering, too, and then I did the pruning and clearing I mentioned in my earlier post, before I could even start on the wattle weave bed.

I decided that the Sweetie Snack Mix mini bell peppers would go in the short part of the L shaped bed, and the eggplant in the long section, among the strawberries.

The short side of the bed didn’t need a lot of weeding, and I was careful to work around the garlic that got missed and started growing this year. The old mulch got pushed up against the wattle weave sides, and the hard packed soil was broken up and fluffified. It was surprisingly hard packed. So I added some of the remaining rehydrated coconut coir over the area and worked that into the soil.

I laid the transplants out, in their cups, to figure out the bed way to space them. After that, it was the usual routine of wetting everything down, then again and again, in between every stage of transplanting. When the peppers were finally planted, I made sure to press down around each one, to create a shallow “bowl” to collect water and drain it towards the plant. Then each pepper plant got its own wire tomato cage to grow up into.

That done, it was time to work on the other side. It was a bit more challenging, working around the strawberries and onion survivors that are there. There was no sign of any of the chamomile self seeding, and the thyme that almost survived the winter was long dead, so that gave a bit of extra space. The mulch was moved aside, the compacted soil broken up, and the last of the coconut coir worked into the soil.

The transplants in their cups were laid out to figure out the spacing, along with the mystery flower. I decided to plant that at the very end of the bed, where it could stay permanently. If it survives! The flower did get a plastic collar, more to keep the cats from rolling on it.

Once the eggplant were in, each with their shallow “bowl” around them, they got their wire tomato cages set in place, and they were done!

Almost.

The mulch I’d moved aside was mostly old wood chips. I didn’t want to push that back. I did, however, have some leaf mulch that had been pulled off and set along the inside of the L shape, by the double lilac. It was old and dry, so I was able to crush handfuls of it, and shake it out over the transplants, to give the soil a light protection. More mulch can be added as the plants get bigger.

I forgot to take an “after” picture when I was done, so I went back out later, and got a picture of the entire finished bed, which is the last image in the above slide show.

That done, I went on to water the new trees in the fruit forest area, and the walnuts in the outer year. Still no sign of anything emerging where the seeds are planted, but the year old sapling is starting to get some bigger leaves on it.

I headed outside shortly after 7am to go my morning rounds and start on the garden. By the time I was done and heading back inside, it was past 8am. Taking into account stopping for breakfast and lunch, I got about 10 hours in the garden today!

Which is great, because all the transplants are IN!!!

Tomorrow, my main goal of the day is to get the third low raised bed near the compost rind cleaned up and planted with short season corn and yellow beans. After that, I want to work on the permanent trellis bed where I want to plant red noodle beans. That will make sure the trellis gets finished off, because they’re going to need something to climb!

Last of all, I will be clearing the bed at the chain like fence, salvage what I can find, replant with what I can manage, then cover it up again. Somehow. I like the netting that’s over it, but it really need something better than the wire to support it. I’m not even sure I can salvage the ones that cats have bent up!

I’ll figure it out.

Just another day or two, and the garden will be officially in!

Almost there!

On a completely different note, while I was working outside, my daughter let me know that the shop I took our push mower to had called and left a message. As expected they can’t find the part that’s needed. It’s simply not available, anywhere.

I was expecting this and had been thinking about it. I’d told them not to worry if they couldn’t find it; I’d just come pick it up. However, it would just end up as more junk here. So when I called them back and talked about it, I suggested they could keep the mower and use it for parts. If I ever buy a push mower again, it won’t be that brand, so it would be of no use to me. They, however, might be able to scavenge it if some other poor soul has the same brand of mower and needs a part that’s hard to find. They happily accepted the offer. Win, win!

Thankfully, my brother has provided us with mowers we can use! I was going to take my mother’s old mower in, but my brother thinks he can fix it himself, so we don’t even need to bring that in.

Oh, my goodness. It’s past midnight as I finish this! I need to get my butt into bed!

Have a good night!

The Re-Farmer

Take the good where it comes

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Today has not been a good day.

It hasn’t been a completely bad day, though, so I’ll start with the good stuff.

How about some cuteness?

I gave Poirot new digs, and she accepted them.

The first photo is the carrier she insisted in putting her babies into. As you can see, they fit, but she doesn’t really have room to stretch out.

We have a larger carrier that was sitting on the platform supported by the shelf this little carrier is on. When I had a chance this afternoon, with Poirot outside, I made the move. I prepped a puppy pad on the bottom of the big carrier, removed the loose top of the small carrier, then started moving babies.

Hastings (the almost all white one) had one eye stuck shut, so she (pretty sure they’re all female) got an eye wash, first. She wasn’t happy with it, which got Poirot’s attention from outside. I put Hastings into the big carrier, then moved of Miss Lemon (the white and grey), who did not need any eye washing, before picking up Japp (the black with white on her belly). By then, Poirot was jumping up to the small carrier and the platform and looing around, but make no move to stop me when I picked up Japp.

Instead, she went to the bigger carrier on the platform and joined her other babies!

Japp had a sticky eye that got washed before being returned to mama, who was contentedly nursing. You can see them all in the second picture.

This carrier is large enough that, when I set out her personal food bowl, there was room for it inside the carrier. She was quite happy with that!

I took the small carrier out and gave it a wash. Later on, when Poirot was once again outside, I shifted the bitter carrier to where the smaller one was, where there is a sun shield at the window side to keep them from overheating. It was warm enough that I tucked a frozen water bottle under the puppy pad near the front. The kittens were all cuddled at the far end of the carrier and barely noticed being moved.

Another good thing today is that I got the luffa transplanted, but only because I wasn’t up to doing the other stuff I’d intended to work on today. It was something I could do, just so I could get at least something productive done outside! That will get a separate post, though.

The day actually started out pretty good, in that I got sleep! I’d used the Voltaren stuff for the first time, along with my usual prescription painkillers, before going to bed. At first, I thought it wasn’t making any difference. As soon as I lie down, my hips and knees start becoming acutely painful, as did my left shoulder and elbow. My finger joints were hurting, too, as usual.

Yet, I fell asleep before midnight, and didn’t wake up until the cats woke me up at 4am. I distracted them by topping up their kibble and closed most of them out of my bedroom, so Butterscotch could use the litter box without getting bothered, and went back to bed. I fell asleep again almost immediately and slept another two hours, waking only slightly when I heard someone opening my door to let the cats in before they started scratching at it.

It was the closest thing to a pain free sleep I’ve had in …. I can’t remember.

So this stuff works better than the prescription topical painkiller the doctor tried me on, years ago – and my OA wasn’t as painful as it is now!

Just as an experiment, I applied some to my husband’s lower back, where the worst of his injury is, just a little while ago. If this stuff will help him, too, even a little bit, that would be a huge improvement for his quality of life! Lord knows, the drugs are barely keeping things bearable for him.

Then, there’s the not so good stuff.

While my daughter and I had been coming home from the city, yesterday, I’d got a call from home care letting me know they didn’t have anyone for my mother’s suppertime med assist. So we swung by on the way home and I set her meds out for her – only to have the home care person show up, anyhow!

This morning, after I’d done my morning rounds, I had just enough time to grab breakfast before I needed to go to town for the appointment with the insurance company rep about the truck. I was just sitting down with my food when the phone rang.

It was home care.

They didn’t have anyone for my mother’s morning med assist, though I was assured they had someone for supper and before bed.

My mother is supposed to get her meds between 7 and 9. It was about 8:45 when the call came in.

It takes 25-30 minutes to get to my mother’s place.

So I quickly put my food back in the kitchen and left immediately. I didn’t take the time to call my mother, nor did I try to call her using the hands free unit my brother gave me, because I knew my mother would be angry and start going off on me. I did not need the delay, and I certainly didn’t need that while driving.

It was the right decision.

When I got to my mother’s place, I knocked and went in, calling out “Hi, Mom” a few times. There was no response, but she was in the bathroom – with the door open. In her tiny apartment, that meant I had to close up the bathroom door just to get in far enough to close her entry door!

By then, she had made an acknowledging response, so I started to say that I got a call from home care, telling me there was no one for this morning, while getting her lock box and little bowl for counting out her pills ready.

Then my mother comes out of the bathroom, starting to talk, saw me and stopped in her tracks. Oh! It’s you! I thought it was home care!

…

I don’t think they normally come into her apartment calling out “hi, Mom”, so I guess that meant she didn’t hear properly.

Maybe it’s time to get her hearing tested! I don’t know that it’s ever been done for her.

I moved aside so my mother could sit in her chair at her dining table, before working on the combination lock. My mother was still standing just outside the bathroom, leaning on the other chair at her table, and half blocking my way.

She was angry, and wouldn’t move.

After it was clear she wasn’t going to sit down, I went back to opening up the lock box.

My mother was on a rant.

She is obsessed with those pills from missed days in older bubble packs. She wanted me to give them to her. I had already mentioned I didn’t have much time, because of my appointment in town (a 15-20 minute drive from our place, but a 30+ minute drive from my mother’s., which I’d told her about yesterday.

She started saying that, if it was illegal for them to take pills from different days to give to her, then it’s also illegal for them to not show up to give her her pills at all, and having me come out to do it for them.

All I could say is, Mom, I don’t have time for this.

She eventually sat down, but was now accusing me of “being on their side”. Then she started saying how we (my siblings and I) are not taking care of her and leaving her in the hands of strangers. All I could say at the time was, none of us live here. I certainly didn’t have time to go into it beyond that!

I got her pills from the correct bubble for the day out, which got her angry about the pills again. I was “on their side”. I got the pills in her little bowl and made notes about what was doing in the notebook I now keep in the lock box for the home care workers to see, and got her inhaler out.

She did take her inhaler, though that was weird. She’s supposed to take a few deep breaths first, exhale, inhale the puffer, hold for a count of ten, then rinse out her mouth. She even had a cup of water waiting for that.

She started taking the breaths, but had trouble doing the exhale before using the puffer. After a few times of not taking a puff, she started forcing herself to burp. For some time, she’s been going on about how she burps so much, and it’s such a problem, only to eventually say that she’s making herself burp because it helps her chest pains.

…

Whatever.

This was the first time I’ve seen/heard her doing it like this, though. First, I have no idea how she was doing it. Where was she getting all this abdominal air from? Second, it was really really gross – and it takes a lot to gross me out! She managed to keep it up for almost a minute, too, before finally taking her puffer.

That done, I started putting things away into the lock box, and she started railing again – but not taking her pills. She said that she was thinking of taking a hammer to the lock box. I told her, that (her attitude) is why you have a lock box! Then I told her (again) that I had to go to my appointment and was in a hurry. Oh, you’re always in a hurry.

…

So, yeah. She was nasty right from the moment she saw it was me and not the home care worker, right to the moment I left.

I did make it to the appointment location in time (it was just in a parking lot!). There was someone else being finished up, so I had time to send messages to my family about how things went with my mother. I wasn’t quite done when the other vehicle got their paperwork and left, and the insurance rep came to me.

We talked about what happened, and he took pictures.

With the box cover, he started talking about how this was the second one he had this week, and that these Velcro types have a habit of getting caught in the wind. Over time, the Velcro just doesn’t hold as well, getting full of dust or whatever. Basically, making it sound like it was more likely a product fault, which the insurance wouldn’t cover.

I showed him the bent part of the frame and the broken tail light. Under the tail light, there’s a dent from before we had the truck, and the crack in the tail light ends just above it. He tried to say that the impact from whatever caused this dent broke the tail light. I told him, the tail like was not broken before. I did mention that we’ve only had the vehicle for just over a year. While it’s certainly likely that, whatever caused that dent had broken the tail light, it had been fixed before we bought it.

One of the things that was noted and the took pictures of was a crack in the fender. The truck had rusted spots when we bought it. I don’t really care about what are essentially cosmetic issues. Along the edge of the fender, framing the wheel well, there’s a section with more rust. The crack is in that section. It actually is a new crack, but I never bothered mentioning it, since it was clearly cracked because of the older rust damage that was already there. I didn’t bother telling him that the crack was new. I just confirmed that the rust and other little dents and dings were old damage.

After he did his inspection, he went to his own vehicle to process the claim to get an estimate. That gave me time to finish updating the family.

End result with the claim.

He couldn’t even find the replacement value of the box cover, since there was nothing like it in his system. The estimated repair cost he came up with was just over $1000, and we could pay our $500 deductible. A replacement cover would be a new, improved version, so we would also have to pay 30% of the difference for “betterment”.

Once I got the estimate, I went straight to the company we’d be taking it to, which was just a block or two away. I had talked to them on the phone, previously, and our mechanic recommended them to me, as they are authorized to handle insurance claims like this.

Of course, since I literally just got the estimate, it was too early to be in the system for them to download the claim file. She did go out to look at the truck with me.

As she couldn’t look into the claim file to see the details, she couldn’t give me any hard information. She did explain to me that, with when they fix the bend in the frame, so new cover can be installed, they will have to paint the frame. That area of rust, where it was thin enough to crack, would be a problem when it comes to painting. I told her, I really don’t care about the paint, but it’s something they are required to do.

So… we might have to pay extra for rust repair, as that is not at all covered by the insurance, nor would I expect it to be.

As we were talking about the 30% betterment and so on, I told her, we might not be able to cover much. We can do the $500 deductible, but anything beyond that, well… we’re on a fixed income. She understood.

Tomorrow, she will download the file, then talk to the insurance company. When she has some hard numbers and confirmed data, she will give me a call.

I completely forgot, though. Tomorrow, I’m going to be at my mother’s. I’ve got her grocery shopping to do, plus I expect to be doing her laundry (Fridays are her scheduled turn for the shared laundry room) and whatever else she needs doing. She’ll have her Meals on Wheels for lunch, but I would want to make sure she has things she can easily put together for her meals during the weekend.

I’ll just have to make sure someone in the house has the phone with them while I’m gone!

So we may or may not be able to get the truck fixed and get a new box cover. We’ll figure that out, some time tomorrow.

By the time I got home, I was wasted. I’d spent probably less than 5 minutes at my mother’s, and she sucked all the energy out of me in that short time. When I got home, I ended up crashing for a couple of hours. While I certainly needed the rest, I woke up feeling like I’d wasted precious time in my day, plus I didn’t have the physical energy left to do most of the things on my to-do list. I won’t be able to them tomorrow, either, because I won’t be home. I’ll be at home mother’s, and I know that by the time I get home from helping her out, I’ll have zero energy to get anything done outside. Thank God I’ve got the girls taking care of things inside, so I don’t have to worry about that, too!

Then, to top things off, while I was at my computer, getting some stuff done while listening to a YouTube video, my sound suddenly disappeared.

After much checking of the system, everything was fine.

I checked the connections on the speakers, which required moving way too many things to access the back of the tower, that all checked out fine, too.

I tested it using my Bluetooth sleep headphones.

They worked fine.

I eventually gave up in frustration, then headed outside to feed the outside cats and get at least one things accomplished in potting up the luffa.

My husband, sweetheart that he is, unhooked and brought over set of speakers for me. They can be plugged into the tower, or be used with Bluetooth, so when I got back inside, I got my speakers out and hooked his up on Bluetooth.

They didn’t work.

We checked the power bar. It seemed fine. I flicked the switch back and forth, but there was no change.

Eventually, my husband was able to look and see where I’m too short to see, and discovered the power bar’s plug to the wall was half out. I keep that blocked off so that cats can’t mess with the cords, so it took some doing for him to be able to reach and plug it back in.

Still nothing.

I tried the switch on the power bar again.

It turned on.

*sigh*

My husband, meanwhile, took my speakers to test them out on his computer. It turned out that there was a loose connection, even though I’d checked them, and they seemed fine!

*sigh*

I didn’t have the energy to switch them back again, so I now have my husband’s Bluetooth speakers, and he’s got my old ones. These were speakers he kept on his headboard to play basically white noise to help him sleep.

Well, we’ll see how it works out.

My daughter just swung by a little while ago and showed me something else that I can add to the “good” list for the day. She just spent the past couple of hours in the basement, with baking soda, water and a toothbrush, cleaning the smoke damage off the book stand I salvaged form our tiny, historical burned out church after the closing services. I’m still debating going back for the benches or a pew, if someone else hasn’t already taken them. I know I’ll regret it if I don’t, but we just don’t have anywhere to store them until they can be used in the future.

I remember admiring this book stand when I was an altar server. The one that was used regularly was on the altar, and was a rather plain wooden stand. This one was sparkly “gold” with glittering “gems” in the front, and was kept in a tiny room on one side, where the priest got ready for services. Us altar servers would get ready in a tiny room on the opposite side then, just before mass started, cross over to join the priest for the procession. The room where we would get ready is where the back door was located, and that was where the person who broke in, started the fire. That room was completely burnt out, but the other room was surprisingly undamaged, other than smoke. This book stand was completely blackened with smoke, except for where there had been a crochet doily on the adjustable book rest. That left a clearer pattern in the smoke.

My daughter wasn’t able to get the black completely off; she didn’t want to damage the surface by scrubbing more. She did get it looking gold again, and while not as clear and shiny as they used to be, the glass “gems” look like gems again. She did an amazing job! I’ll have to try and get a picture of it in nice, bright light.

My mother was very happy when I told her I’d taken it home, and asked if she could see it again. I should bring it with me, tomorrow, to show it to her.

After showing me her handiwork, my daughter asked me what there was that she could do for me outside, tomorrow, while I’m gone. She’s going to try and finish the lawn mowing for me. I still have to refill the jerry can of fuel for the mowers, but haven’t been able to get done, yet, so she’ll do as much as she can before running out of gas. 😄

As for me, I should probably call my mother about tomorrow. Her evening med assist should be happening around now, so I know she’ll be up and about, at least!

Then I’ll share about how the transplanting went in my next post. 😊😊

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden, and then off the rails!

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It’s just past 5:30pm as I write this, and it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. I am SO tired! Please forgive any odd sentence structure or typos, because I’m sure I’m going to miss many when I got over things before hitting publish!

The cats had me up at about 5am this morning. I got up and fed them – the morning feeding includes kicking all the cats out of my bedroom except Butterscotch and Freya. After the dry kibble is dispensed, I pour some cat milk into a small bowl for our elederly Freya (Butterscotch gets the rest of the little carton), and then I sit beside her on my bed, holding the bowl for her while she eats until she is done. This saves her from having to jump down from the bed to eat, and she can stay all curled up in whatever cat bed she’s in.

Yeah. I’m a suck for the cats.

After a while, I let the other cats back in, then tried going to bed for a couple more hours. I swear, the cats know exactly when I fall asleep for real, and that’s when they start getting into things they shouldn’t, and start making loud noises. Or just going crazy. Tissue got the zoomies this morning. So what sleep I did manage to get was highly interrupted. I can’t even keep the door closed, because then they start scratching at it and that keeps waking me up.

The temperature had dropped to 2C/36F at 5am. By about 8am, it had warmed up to a whole 8C/46F. Which was about when I started heading out. First, the kitties got fed, and I got a daughter to help out. Not with the feeding, though. With kitten catching! Kale and Sir Robin the Brave are incredibly fast about getting into the old kitchen, and haven’t learned to stay away from moving feet, or closing doors! After luring the adult cats away with kibble, I closed the inner door into the sun room and my daughter started handing me bowls of wet cat food to set out for the littles, plus one with both wet and dry cat food for Poirot at her cat carrier nest. Another bowl with part kibble and part wet cat food went into the cat house for Caramel and her babies.

Then I continued my rounds, leaving the sun room closed up, even though all three mamas were out. The white and grey mama has been seen nursing the creche babies more often, now that her third baby is in the sun room again.

Poirot’s grublings are getting more mobile, so I set up a a bit of a shield for them.

I’ve been saving cardboard for the garden in the old kitchen, and there just happened to be a couple of pieces of cardboard that was used as spacers inside a box that were just perfect for this. In the second picture, you can see how they’re set up to cover the gap between the shelf and the wall, and cat carrier and the wall. This should be enough of they accidentally squirm out of the carrier. As they get more mobile, we might just move the carrier to the floor, so they can go in and out as they wish.

Once done with tending the colony, the first thing I do it switch out the memory cards. As I go out to the sign cam, past where the food forest is being built up. That corner gets very sun baked and dry in the summer, but these guys don’t seem to mind at all!

They are absolutely everywhere. It’s impossible to not walk on them, but they don’t seem the least bit bothered by that. I don’t know what they are, but if I had to guess, I’d say they are some type of pansy? Whatever they are, they are pretty indestructible!

The next thing was to check on the garden beds. Especially the one where I just planted peas, yesterday. I thought they were fine until I got to the northernmost end, where I saw the cats had been digging. *sigh* Hopefully, they didn’t actually dig up any seeds, but I really couldn’t tell. I was trying to figure out some way to cover things when I remembered I still have grass clippings saved to use as mulch. There isn’t a lot left, but enough to do the job!

The soil got a gentle watering, first. After the grass was laid down, that got watered down, too. Partly so it wouldn’t blow away too easily.

The plastic covered beds all got watered, too. With the sprouting seedlings, it’s hard to tell which are what I planted and which are weeks. Some that I suspected to be weeds were starting to show their true leaves, and I was correct: they are maple seedlings. So I pulled as many of those as I could, along with identifiable stuff like dandelions – so long as pulling them wouldn’t disturb any other sprouts.

The low raised bed that no longer has plastic on it got watered. I’d tried blocking off one end of the cover and hoped that would be enough protection until I could do the other end. This morning, I discovered, I was wrong.

*sigh*

After repairing the digging damage as best I could, I got creative. This is all temporary.

In the first picture, you can see I just stuck some boards across the opening. The stick holding them in place is secured at the top through the mesh, so those could only go so high, so I used what I could find to add verticals on the inside. Hopefully, the cats won’t try to jump through the gaps.

In the next picture, you can see the twine I wove through the mesh to close up the end. Again, temporary, but this should hold for a while.

After the watering and weeding was done, I headed inside for breakfast, before going back out and continuing what I hoped to get finished today.

It was almost exactly 10am and I just sat down with my food when the phone rang.

It was my mother.

No one showed up to do her med assist this morning.

I should have gotten a call, but I got nothing. My mother had tried calling the case coordinator, but it’s Saturday; her office is closed.

So I told her, I would quickly finish eating, then head out to give her her medications. She wanted me to dispense her other two meds for the day, too, in case her med assist didn’t show up for those times, either, but I refused. Got quite a mocking for following the rules. So what will you do? she asked me. Come out two more times?

I said, yes! I will!

I told her, there’s a reason your medications are in your lock box. You were messing with your medications, forgetting if you took them, etc. Oh, I wasn’t that bad, she said. Yes, you were, Mom. That’s why you have a lock box! She actually seemed to stop and think about that!

One of the things I did was write up a note and leave it in their notebook, stating that I had dispensed that morning’s medications and at what time.

I also told her that, since I was out anyhow, I would make a trip to the nearest Walmart to do a bit of shopping. I had planned to do it later in the weeks, but I could do it now. The Walmart carries 2L plastic milk jugs, which she finds easier to handle, so I told her I was thinking of getting a plastic jug for her. I did just get her a carton, but…

She does still have milk, but it turns out she had dropped the carton while trying to open it and spilled some. So more milk, in a better container, was a big yes from her!

I ended up leaving with a small shopping list and some cash. One of the things she was running low of was the topical pain killer she’s been using on her knees. She’s now using it on her back, too, so she’s going through it faster. I had already been thinking of checking that out, too, as I figured it would be a better price.

Since it was well past 11am by the time I was going to head out, I offered to make a lunch for her, but she said she had leftovers from yesterday’s Meals on Wheels, so she was fine. Once I knew she was settled, I headed out.

My first stop was actually a Dollarama that shares a parking lot with the Walmart. There were a few small things that I wanted to pick up and, of course, I went through the garden supply section. I ended up picking up four 4′ metal posts. Not T posts, but the same idea. They have hooks in the metal to hold trellis netting. They would have been perfect for what I was doing yesterday – and easier to set into the soil! We will be trellising pole beans and more peas, though, so new posts will not go amiss. I probably should have gotten more, but I should be able to get some more next month, if I need to.

After I was done at the Dollarama, it was across the parking lot to Walmart.

I got a few things that were not on my list. 😄

One thing that was on my list was more wet cat food. Since we are giving wet cat food to the kittens, we’re going through it faster. Normally, at Walmart, I pick up cases of 32. Looking at the new prices for the individual cans, though, I realized it would actually be cheaper to buy them loose, than by case lot! I ended up using some of their cardboard flats and got 48 cans of paté for the inside cats (paté works better when making cat soup) and 24 cans of chunks in gravy for the kittens.

They had sales on canned food for humans, too, and I got a flat of 24 cans of tomato soup for the pantry, too.

I also went through the garden centre. I picked up some replacement Yukon potatoes, since I’m sure the ones I’ve been chitting are no longer viable. Their herbs and vegetables were out, so I went hunting and found a few herbs. I got English Thyme, Golden thyme, two containers of oregano, lemon balm and basil. These will go into the tiny raised bed in the old kitchen garden, which has a cat proof cover already.

As for my mother’s list, the topical painkiller she uses was there – and cost $11 less than at her local pharmacy! That’s a huge difference!

The store was very busy, so it took a while for me to get everything I was looking for (and then some), and I was really tired and hungry by the end of it. I had some frozen stuff in my cart, so I stopped to get some take out that I could eat while driving, then headed out, making sure to update my family and let them know I was on my way to my mother’s, then home.

Which is when things went sideways.

Literally.

The last part of my route to my mother’s is a provincial trunk road, from one highway to another, that leads to my mother’s town. This is an east/west route.

The wind was coming from the south.

As I was driving towards an area of wide open fields, I saw the entire horizon was covered with what looked like black smoke. Once clear of some trees, I could see it swirling over the fields – but no flames.

It was dust.

Basically, the topsoil from the south side of the road was being blown to the north side of the road.

As I was being buffeted by the wind, driving through it.

Which is when I heard and felt something behind me and looked in my mirror just in time to see the cover over the box of our truck blow off, into the ditch and keep on going!

I pulled over, but by the time I did, there was no sign of the cover. I’m sure it was still being blown across that field for some time!

I had stuff in the box of the truck, and it was already getting scattered across the box. I gathered it all together and crammed it mostly into the back of the cab, making sure nothing went to the front that could get mixed up with my mother’s stuff.

I made sure that there was no way those metal posts would be able to slide and hit a window!

Once everything was put away, I continued to my mother’s place. Wow, what a difference in how the truck felt while driving! The wind swirling into the box of the truck was very noticeable.

When I was done at my mother’s, I was able to get for damage, which you can see in the second image in the slideshow above. There was enough flex on the box when the cover was torn off that it cracked the tail light cover.

But I didn’t get a chance to see that until later.

As soon as I entered her apartment, my mother, who was lying in bed, started saying, Oh, I’m so glad you’re here! I’m so glad to see you! while getting up to sit on the side of her bed.

I’m doing poorly, she tells me. Maybe I should go to the hospital. What do you think?

I certainly did not voice what I was actually thinking. My mother has cried wolf so many times, and uses having us take her to the hospital as a way of getting attention.

I asked her questions about what was going on. She was pretty vague about it; as if she expected me to already know. She told me she took one of the new pills (the T3s), but it didn’t seem to make a difference.

I told her, these pills aren’t magic. They are just stronger painkillers. As she kept on basically about what her expectations were (take pill: pain ends utterly and completely), I told her that her prescription for these is just a couple a day, morning and evening, as needed. I’m on the same pills, same dosage per tablet, and I can take up to 9 of them in total, per day. So it really depends on the individual.

She was pretty shocked that I could take so many per day, when she had a limit of two per day.

As I was putting things away, she lay back down in bed and suggested that maybe using the topical painkiller would help (confirming, finally, exactly what it was that was causing her problems this time). So that’s what we tried. She asked me to do, not only her hips (the pain is mostly just on one side), but her entire back as well. As I was doing that for her, she said to add lots, so I did it second time. As I was putting away the tube, she started saying she could feel a difference, already!

Hopefully, that will be enough.

My brother and I are planning to be there tomorrow for Mother’s Day, so we’ll be able to check on her more thoroughly, then.

Meanwhile, whenever I had a few moments, I kept my family and my siblings updated on things. I told my mother that I had frozen things in my vehicle and had to get them home, so I was soon back on the road. A daughter was sweet enough to have the gate open for me when I got in.

After everything was unloaded, and the new transplants and bags of seed potatoes secure in the portable greenhouse, it was time to feed the outside cats. I had another daughter on kitten duty, too! Other than doing a quick check to make sure none of the raised bed covers were blown away, I was more than happy to finally settle in at home.

So much for my garden and planting plans for the day! As I write this, we have continued to get warmer. It’s past 7pm now, and the temperature has risen to 24C/75F, though with the wind, it does feel a bit cooler. Not much, though! One of the local weather groups I follow on Facebook has been posting information and the coming heat way, with significant heat warnings to come.

We’re supposedly getting rain right now, though the current systems are skirting right past us. Later this evening, we’re supposed to be getting real rain. One of the things that the weather nerds that run the group noted is what appears to be pyrocumulous clouds forming in some areas! These are thunderstorm clouds that are created by heat; you might typically see them form over volcanoes, but can also form over forest fires, if the conditions are right. Scary stuff!

Tonight, the coolest temperatures are supposed to be at around 5 and 6am, at 14C/57F, and then start heating right up. The heat wave is supposed to hit us the hardest on Monday and Tuesday, but still be very hot on Wednesday and Thursday.

On Friday, the temperature is supposed to drop right down, with overnight lows of 0C/32F, and a mix of rain and snow. Saturday is supposed to be only slightly warmer.

Spring weather is so chaotic.

Well, if we can work around the hottest parts of the day, I should still be able to get at least some of those walnut seeds planted, get more areas prepped in the garden and, if all goes well, even do more direct sowing done. Chances are, though, that very little will get done until after the heat wave passes, and we’re back into cooler temperatures. At which point, we’ll be needing to protect some things from frost! For now, we’ve been able to leave our transplants in the portable greenhouse day and night, but we’ll have to bring them inside on those coldest nights.

As for me, it’s time to pain killer up and get to bed. If the cats are going to be waking me up at 5am anyhow, I may as well take advantage of it and get work done outside, before it gets too hot! I just have to work out what time I’ll be meeting up with my brother at my mother’s place tomorrow.

What a day today has turned out to be!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: where the sprouts are!

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It was a very calm morning, with almost no wind, so this was a good time to water the plastic covered winter sown beds.

The first image is under the cover of the low raised bed in the East yard. This one has a root vegetable mix of seeds, plus 1 type of lettuce and onion seeds. There are a lot of sprouts in there! I’m guessing mostly radish and beets. I’m not seeing signs of carrots or onions sprouting, but it’s really hard to tell at this point.

This bed was getting the most difficult to tend to with the high winds, so when I took the cover off to water it, I spent a lot of time securing the plastic after the cover was put back on. The plastic on all the beds is meant to be there only until the plants establish themselves and don’t need as much warmth or protection. It will likely be replaced with netting later in the season. So securing the plastic involves a lot of rolling and carefully tucking under the frame. With this one, that also meant completely redoing how it was weighted down on top. Hopefully, it will hold. We’re expecting high winds again, in a few days.

There wasn’t much to see in the high raised bed or the ground level bed with mixed flowers in it. There are sprouts, but not very many. The main thing is, they are no longer being dried out by the wind, nor dug into by the cats!

The next picture is of the old kitchen bed. There is quite a bit of spinach coming up in there, and I can even see tiny onion sprouts. The cluster of larger leaves visible came up very early and I thought it had to be a missed onion from last year, but now I can see that these are most definitely garlic. We had garlic planted in here, two years ago! I did try to pull things that were most obviously weeds – crab grass and dandelions – but only if I could do so without disturbing any seedlings, so there wasn’t a lot I could pull.

The other winter sown beds got watered as well. I think the summer squash bed, and the end of the garlic bed, are lost causes. The only things coming up in the summer squash bed is clearly not summer squash, and the few feet of the garlic bed shows nothing at all. I don’t think they made it!

There are more sprouts coming up in the mesh covered bed at the chain link fence, though still just the one pea shoot. This is the bed that has Dalvay shelling peas, a few King Tut purple, Royal Burgundy bush beans, Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflowers, a few black Montano Morado corn seeds, plus onion seeds. So there should be more pea seeds showing, as peas prefer to germinate in cooler soil. That suggests to me, most of the peas did not survive the winter. As for the sprouts I am seeing, about all I can say right now is that none of them are corn.

Unfortunately, while covering the bed with netting will protect it from the Chinese Elm seeds that are forming right now, the net only partially protects from the cats. There are a few smaller cats that are absolutely determined to get under the netting. Then, when I go to get them out, instead of leaving through the open space next to them that they got in on (the netting slides on the wire hoops), they run down the length of the bed, bashing themselves against the netting every now and then, in a panic. Or, like this morning, they simply climb on top of the netting and play on it! This set up wasn’t designed to actually hold that kind of weight, so quite a few of the wire hoops are now bent out of shape. It is really frustrating.

This bed is still made with temporary materials. Along the path side and ends is loose bricks. The chain link fence there are old boards to keep the soil from spilling through. When we finally have the materials to make it more permanent, we will need to keep protection in mind. It’s not enough to just cover it with netting to keep the elm seeds from smothering the bed, stop the cats from using it as a litter box, or keep the deer from eating whatever is grown there. We need the cover set up to be able to hold the weight of cats – we just can’t keep them from going right on top of any of the covers!

The cover that we have over the old kitchen garden bed is the one that was made using fence wire. When it was done, I swore I never wanted to work with that again! It’s so thick, I had to double up the frame on the sides to secure it in between, then double up the ends, just to keep it from falling apart. However, while it was on the high raised bed, I found it worked out really well, in that I could reach through the wire to tend to the bed, without having to remove it. The openings are not all the same size, though. It’s meant to be installed with the narrower openings at ground level to keep small critters out, while the larger openings at the top are all that’s needed to keep mid sized critters out. Which means there are spaces where I cannot fit my hands through, but I can still reach around from other openings.

The wire is also strong enough that no support hoops were needed. Not only can it hold itself up, but when the plastic was placed over it and the cats started jumping on it, it held their weight, too!

The cover that’s on the winter sown bed in the East yard is almost there. The hoops are strong enough to hold weight; especially now that I’ve secured them permanently, and they no longer slide through the pieces of metal strapping I used to hold them in place. I originally thought it would be useful to be able to remove the hoops at some point, but that potential convenience caused more problems than solved any. They do, however, still bend inwards, slightly. Particularly the ones at the ends.

The hoops are supporting a plastic mesh that is stiffer than netting, but more flexible and easier to work with than hardware cloth. As you can see in that first photo, it’s wide enough that it creates more shade, so this is a cover that would be idea to use for things like lettuces, which like more shade. The plastic mesh does sag when the cats jump on it. My plan is to add horizontal supports in between the hoops. These would keep the hoops at the ends from being pulled inwards, plus keep the plastic mesh from sagging downwards. I am hoping it will only need horizontal supports across the very top, but it might need more halfway up each side, too.

Once the plastic sheet is no longer needed, I will have to put something across the open ends, to keep the cats out. I have some black plastic mesh that should work out well, once I figure out how to secure it!

I don’t want to be spending too much time or effort on these covers, though. These were my first experimental raised bed covers. Now that I know how these have been working out, I plan to build new ones using better and stronger materials, taking into account what we have found works, or doesn’t work, with these ones. These ones still have a few years in them, though, and we will keep building more raised beds, so we will need more covers as time goes by.

Meanwhile, as I was watering the bed at the chain link fence, I took a good look at the haskap bushes.

*sigh*

I have one “Mr. Haskap” and two “Mrs. Haskap” bushes – cross pollinating varieties. With haskap, you need two varieties for cross pollination. The “Mrs. Haskap” is the Borealis variety. I can’t remember what the “Mr. Haskap” is, but that one still has its label, so I can check later.

Here is now they looked this morning.

The first image is the “male” haskap. It’s leafing out beautifully and, in the second picture, you can see it even has flower buds forming!

The next two photos are the “female” haskaps.

The larger one was bought at the same time as the Mr. Haskap and, at one point, I was sure that one had died. It has barely any leaves opening on it. The smaller one is still really small, even though it’s only one year behind the other two. At least it has more leaves, but still, they are way behind their pollinator variety! This is why, after all these years, we’ve never had more than a small handful of berries. They simply aren’t blooming at the same time long enough for proper pollination.

The varieties I have coming later in the month are Aurora (the pollinator) and Boreal Blizzard. These will be planted out in the food forest area, near where the apple and gooseberry just got planted. The Opal plum should be shipped at the same time as the haskap, and it will be planted in that area, too.

Hopefully, this will work out better than what we’ve got now, and we’ll finally have berries to eat! Two bushes should be enough to meet our needs; they are supposed to be quite productive. We’ve got three, and have barely had enough to taste.

At least we know we like them!

So that is how things were in the garden this morning. With today being a calm day, I hope to get back out there soon, and get some work done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up, and protective covering

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Okay, we got some useful garden things done!

First up, the transplants.

In the first image, you can see the seedlings that need potting up. They all should be much bigger than this, but it’s just not warm enough, even with using the heater and the heating pad, in the basement.

With concerns about the outside cats potentially knocking the transplants over when we moved them out, I decided to use some storage bins to hold the Red Solo cups I was going to re-use to pot up into. They’ve been stored in the sun room all winter, so they had to get a cleaning of cob webs and whatever other debris managed to get on them. Thankfully, the old basement is where the laundry used to be, so we still have the old laundry sink that I could soak them all in, then scrub the ones with drainage holes in the bottom to transplant into. I also pre-soaked the seed starting mix with hot water, so it still be at least not cold, by the time the cups were filled and the seedlings transplanted.

These bins hold only 9 cups in them, so that basically became my default for the maximum number of transplants to pot up into. Which worked out really well. With the Black Beauty tomatoes, there were only 4 large and strong enough to pot up. With the Chocolate Cherry, there was only 5 to pot up, so they got to share a bin. The Spoon tomatoes and the Sub Arctic Plenty both filled one bin each. The Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and the Turkish Orange eggplant both got one bin each, too, with almost zero “extras” that didn’t get transplanted.

In the second photo, you can see them after they were all potted up, before I topped them with vermiculite. The potted up seedlings are small enough that I could use the lids on the bins, but I had only 2 of them handy at the time. The next photo is after the vermiculite was added. Then I got more lids for the bins from the sun room and my daughter helped me get them out of the basement. Which was actually quite dangerous. We started with me taking them through the old basement and up the stairs to where my daughter was waiting at the door, one bin at a time. She would grab the bin at the door (keeping the cats from dashing downstairs) and take it to the old kitchen, while I went to get the next bin.

The old basement stairs are narrow; each step is about half the width of a typical step. It is also steep than most stairs are, and there is very little space at the door. Which means I could only go to the third step from the top before I ran out of space. Even going sideways and carrying the bin on one arm, I couldn’t reach the door knob, so having my daughter open the door was an essential. Once she had the bin, I could go higher and close the door, but just going up and down these stairs is simply not good. I go down them backwards, like on board ship or using a ladder.

After a few bins, my daughter kicked me out of the basement and we traded places. Apparently, I sounded like I was in a lot of pain. Which I was, but I wasn’t going to say anything, since I know it’s not any better for her!

In the last picture, you can see all the bins and trays now set up on the freezer in the old kitchen. I was so tempted to put them into the portable greenhouse. The thermostat in there was reading more than 40C/104F! Pretty impressive, considering we never got above 4 or 5C today (39 or 41F). And that wind!! Yikes! The problem is that we’d just have to take them back inside after a couple of hours, and I didn’t want to do that today. We’re still forecast to have -6C/21F tonight, though we’re not expected to reach those temperatures until 6am tomorrow, and I know it will drop below freezing inside the greenhouse, even with the heat sink. They will go into the greenhouse tomorrow, after I get back from running around.

Once that was done, I grabbed a late lunch, then headed to the post office to pick up a parcel. On the way back, my cell phone started ringing. I don’t have hands free, so I couldn’t answer it. When I got home, I found a message from the home care coordinator asking about something strange my mother had told the morning home care aid about her puffer, and having already taken it in the hospital.

???

I called back and left a message telling her as much as I knew, then called my mother. I hadn’t gotten through to her this morning about her telephone doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning, so I told her about that, first. She wasn’t impressed that it was in the morning, but it’s at about the time she gets her morning meds, so she’ll be up, anyhow – and I intend to be there, too. I then asked her about the puffer. She told me a completely different thing from what the apparently told the home care aid. She also seems confused about the type of puffer they used with her while she was in the hospital, and the original type she was using before then – which she has started using now. She had an unopened refill from before she went to the hospital, and the other type was done, so she started taking it on her own. I have no idea where she had it stashed away. Then I found out she’d already taken it three times today. I told her, she’s only supposed to take it once in the morning, then again before bed. Not several times throughout the day. Plus, we already talked to her doctor about it. This was an experiment to see if it would help with her breathing at night. It didn’t, and she turned out to be developing pulmonary edema, which she no longer has after being in the hospital for a couple of weeks.

Things were still confused, but we agreed we would talk about it when I’m there tomorrow, and she could show me what she had. I then called the home care coordinator back and got her right away. We talked for a while and confirmed my mother told different things to them than what she told me. I then found out they were giving her two puffs in the morning, but not in the evening (with the disc type of puffer, a dose is one puff, while the other puffer, a dose is two puffs, which is why the pharmacist and I decided to fill the prescription for the disc type). So there’s a mix up right there, too. Not that the puffer has been helping her in any way, but a neighbour of hers has asthma, so she decided she needed a puffer, too, and the doctor was willing to test it out with her rather than go through the years it would take to refer her to a specialist and get all the respiratory testing done.

Hopefully, we will get that straightened out tomorrow.

After I was done on the phone, it was time to get out and see what I could do to protect the winter sown raised bed.

I have a cover for the bed, but it needed some maintenance work first, so I brought it closer to the garage, where my tools where. One of the things that needed to be done was secure two sections of the mesh. The jute twine it had been tied together with before had degraded and broken apart. I’d already had to replace the twin in the other join and used paracord for that, so I did the same thing again.

The hoops supporting the mesh are sections of pipe that turned out to be rather too strong. They are held in place with strips of metal strapping, but would get pushed downwards – usually because of a cat jumping on it! So I wanted to get those nice and snug, then screw them into place.

I had helpers.

Syndol and Judgement decided the mesh was a night place to sit!

After the hoops were secured, I brought the cover over to the raised bed, but had to get a daughter to help with the rest, because of the wind. We got the cover on the bed, then opened one of the 8’x12′ plastic I’d picked up to cover it.

It was a lot thinner than I expected. Definitely not 7mm, which is what the guy looking up the information for me said it was. I suspect he didn’t quite understand what I was asking for.

Still, it will work for now.

We made sure to water the bed before putting the cover on (and I had to fix yet another hole dug into it). I noticed there are more sprouts coming up, so getting it covered to protect it from tonight’s cold will be a good thing!

After unfolding the plastic, we rolled and tucked the excess under the frame as best we could, but that wind was still threatening to blow it off. After looking around, I found a couple of sticked I’d joined with twine threaded through sections of a hula hoop to create a support for ground cherries flattened by the wind, a couple of years ago. That did well to drape across the top of the cover. We also found some lighter old boards to set on top as well; you can see the end result in the last photo above. Hopefully, it will be enough, but with how strong the winds are, I’m not entirely sure!

If it does hold out, it will protect the sprouts from tonight’s cold – and I plan to leave it on to also protect the bed from the cats! When it’s less windy, I’ll see if I can find a better way to secure the plastic, too. It’s meant to be temporary, though, so we’ll see. When the plastic is no longer needed, I have to find a way to close up the ends of the cover, so it can still be used to keep the cats out.

Since the coldest time of the night will be around the time I’ll be feeding the outside cats before heading to my mother’s, and then I’ll have to hit our own pharmacy in a different town when I’m done there, I’ll have to get my daughters to keep an eye on things and, when it starts warming up, move the transplants into the portable greenhouse. We’ll probably need to leave the door tied at least partly open so it doesn’t get too hot in there. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 9C/48F, but if it could get as hot as it did in there at our current temperatures, it’ll get even warmer tomorrow. By the weekend, we’re expected to get highs above 20C/68F. Hopefully, before then, we’ll be able to get more progress on the trellis build. We’ll also have our Costco stock up trip in a couple of days.

Things are going to be busy over the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Testing out a heat sink

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For a while now, I’ve been talking about our issues with the new portable greenhouse. It gets nice and warm during the day, which would be ideal for our seedling trays, but the temperatures drop right down during the night. Yesterday, for example, the outside temperature reached 17C/63F, and the thermometer in the greenhouse, which “only” goes to 50C/155F, was off the scale. Likely warmer than 60C/140F (my thermometer that is marked up to 60C is currently being used to monitor the covered bed in the old kitchen garden).

Last night, we dropped to 0C/32F. While I was doing my morning rounds, it was about 1C/34F. By the time I got to tending the greenhouse, that’s what thermometer was reading in there. The basement may be cold, but it doesn’t drop below 10C/50F during the night. It doesn’t go above 12C/54F unless we have the heater going, but at least things are not at risk of freezing.

Today, I rummaged around and dug out a black garbage can that was being used to store some odds and sots. I set it up in the greenhouse, got a garden hose hooked up and one of my daughters was kind enough to turn on the shut off valve in the basement for me, so I could fill the garbage can.

Thankfully, the garbage can doesn’t seem to have any cracks or leaks anywhere. It’s been outdoors for many years, even before we moved out here.

There is no lid, so I had to figure out what to use to cover it, just in case a critter got into the greenhouse. At first, I was going to make do with an indoor/outdoor floor mat, but then I spotted a piece of rigid insulation that looked large enough. That worked out much better.

While there is no wind in there to blow it off, I still put a weight on it, just in case. Granted, if a critter does get in and jumps up there, it would probably still knock it off, but it is more likely to be scared away, than fall in.

The water in the black plastic bin will heat up during the day, creating a heat sink that will slowly release that heat during the night. Once we do finally have trays in there, it will serve a dual purpose. There will be warm water that can be used to water the plants.

Going in and out of the greenhouse and standing there while monitoring the water level was enough to increase the temperature by almost 2 degrees before I was done. If that’s all it takes to start warming things up, the heat sink should work quite well.

It should be interesting to see what the thermometer says in the morning. Our overnight low is supposed to be 0C/32F again, but we’re supposed to get a mix of rain and snow in the wee hours. Tomorrow night we’re supposed to drop to -2C/28F, then have lows above freezing until Friday, when we’re supposed to drop to -4C/25F overnight.

Today’s high is supposed to be only 6C/43F with overcast skies. We definitely won’t be hitting 50C/122F or higher in there, today! However, we should still get temperatures of at least 20C/68, which should start getting that water warmed up nicely.

We shall see how the experiment goes!

The Re-Farmer

Rough night

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I tried to go to bed early last night.

The cats had other ideas.

So did my hips.

Ah, well.

This morning, I stayed in my pjs, popped on some rubber boots and did my short rounds. Which is just as well. It was snaining – snow-raining – at the time. You could even hear a continuous almost crackling noise as frozen rain hit. In fact, you can hear it in the video I took this morning.

It was -1C/30F, with a wind chill of -4C/25F at the time. The thermometer in the portable greenhouse was reading 1C/34F. Not a lot of difference.

The holes in the roof probably didn’t help.

Yup, I found a couple of tears in the plastic this morning. Best guess is, a cat tried to jump onto it from the kibble house roof.

Thankfully, there was no other damage. For now, I used clear duct tape to close them up from the inside. Once everything is warm and dry again, I’ll at more to the outside.

I had a lot of hungry cats this morning, including Brussel, but she was nursing her babies and wouldn’t leave the cat cave. She waited for me to deliver her wet cat food breakfast, instead. I’m glad of that, as it is more assurance that she and her kittens won’t simply disappear one morning, to some hidden location.

Last of all, I gave her a squeeze treat. It was harder than usual, as there were other cats around, and they can smell it. They want some, too, but we don’t have enough for all the cats. They’re just for the mama.

Once again, as I moved the tube away so I could squeeze the rest out, she got angry at me. She did wait, though, as I squeezed the last of it onto my finger and put my hand in. There was no hesitation as she licked the last of it off – but when I pulled my hand away, she attacked it, trying to pull it back!

Sorry, Mama. You ate it all up!

Once I was back inside, I headed to bed pretty much right away. This time, the cats let me sleep – as did the pain killers. Somewhat. I got at least a couple of hours of sleep out of it.

Meanwhile, my daughters got the drain from the washing machine set up out the storm door and started laundry day. Later on, I will be opening up the drain pipe in the basement and working to clear it out some more. We’ve done the hot water/detergent flush from the kitchen sink a few times, but I can still hear from the laundry drain, what sounds like water backing up the pipe a bit. Not a problem at all for the kitchen sink, but a potential problem for wash cycle draining, as it drains so much faster than the kitchen sink, and is at least 6 feet closer to that first bottleneck. As good as that drain auger tip is for clearing the pipe, what we really need is a heavy duty bottle brush type pipe cleaner that can really scrape off the inside of the pipe. I’ve been looking and the closest I can find is up to 30 feet long (you can add sections to it) and can be attached to a drill, but it’s designed to clean dryer vents, so the brush is a LOT larger than the inner diameter of the pipe I am trying to clean out. The bristles may be flexible enough to bend and fit, though. I’ve found another version that includes a narrower bottle brush end for the lint trap that looks like it would fit much better, but the rod is only a maximum of 2′ long, and costs almost a much as the 30′ version.

*sigh*

I hate having to shop for this stuff online. I’ve never even seen anything like these at the hardware stores. Perhaps, however, I was just not in the right sections. Something to keep an eye out for.

Meanwhile, we’ll try to clear the pipe out as best we can, with the tools we’ve got.

It’ll be so nice to not have to run a house out the storm door window to do laundry again.

The Re-Farmer