Just sharing, because it’s pretty. <3
Sunburst squash blossoms.
flowers
Storms done, and pretty things
Yesterday was a day where the weather lurched from pouring rain to brilliant sunshine! Things had cleared up enough that I even turned my computer back on again for a while. The weather radar looked like we would be getting rain, but the more severe parts of the system would miss us, again.
Then, part way through a phone call, I began to see the lightning. It didn’t take long for the sky to turn completely black. Off went the computer, and I’m glad I did. Not only did we loose internet a couple of times (something we now expect, whenever the weather gets wild), but the power flickered out enough to shut everything down. Thankfully, not enough for my husband to notice his CPAP had stopped!
We were supposed to go into town this morning, so he could get some blood work and an ECG done. Unfortunately, pain had him up at 2am, and by the time I was getting ready to do my rounds, he was more than ready to try and sleep again, having completely forgotten about the tests, and couldn’t remember if fasting was required (it wasn’t; these tests are for the cardio clinic). Normally, blood work is just a drop in, but with an ECG as well, we’ll double check to see what has changed with the pandemic restrictions. Not that it’s an issue where we are. Our province never got hit hard, and there haven’t been any new cases of the virus in over a week.
Without that trip into town, I got to spend more doing my rounds, while the temperatures were cooler. On Sunday, I’d watered the garden plots with a fertilizer attachment, and yesterday morning, the squashes were looking noticeably less yellow!
These ones in particular are much bigger than the others.
Since the transplants got all mixed up when the trays got knocked over, I don’t know what type of squash these actually are, but I’m pretty sure these are green zucchini from the summer squash mix (which had 3 types of zucchini in it), only because I remember my mother’s zucchini from when I was a kid. But then, I have no idea if the other types of zucchini in the mix look any different, so really, it could be any of them. They are definitely not the patti pan squash, though. I’ve grown those in a balcony garden, and remember their leaves never got that big.
I don’t think I’m going to bother with trellising this bed at all, either. I might still do the long row in the back, if only because they are closer to the row of trees. This year is my learning year, so I’m willing to change plans and use the results to make decisions next year.
Some of my mother’s flowers are still coming up, in between the apple and chokecherry trees at the sound end of the area we put the squash beds in.
This butterfly was just sitting there, kindly letting me get a picture. :-)
While checking on the various plots, I find myself kind of torn. On the one hand, things seem to be coming up well enough. Granted, some of the squash will probably never reach full potential, between the lateness of planting and damage from that one last frost, but others look like they are doing well. Then I read from people talking about how they are already seeing little squashes starting to form in their gardens. The carrots, beets and parsley are growing well (only 3 khol rabbi sprouts survived), and we’ll be able to use the plants we thin out in salads and such. Then I talk to my mother, and she mentioned how my sister has been bringing her fresh vegetables. I have no idea what she would have in her garden that’s ready to harvest already! Lettuces and spinach, maybe, but my mother never refers to those as vegetables. So is my garden doing well, for our region, or not? I didn’t plant things that late, for this area, and my sister is in the same climate zone we are in.
Oh, dear. I was just informed by husband that our washing mashing stopped working. The breaker has not been tripped, and there is no obvious reason why it stopped.
So let me just quickly share these fun photos with you, and then I have to see what I can figure out is going on with our washing machine!!
The Re-Farmer
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Morning … flowers?
Today is Sunday, which I try to keep as a quiet day of rest, but of course, the morning rounds must be done.
After putting kibble out for the yard cats, I paused to enjoy some of the flowers that have come up in the old kitchen garden.
Though we covered the entire area with cardboard and mulch, some things have managed to come through. Like there cheerful yellow flowers that have come up near the rain barrel.
A whole bunch of these white ones have come up near the sun room window.
Then I got joined by a beautiful, furry flower!
Who insisted in being carried for most of my rounds! :-D
While one of the goals of mulching this area was to kill off some of the more invasive plants my mother had introduced, I’m not too worried about what’s coming up now. The weeds and quack grass are much easier to pull out, with such a deep layer of mulch, and the flowers have been coming up very strong and healthy. The other goal for this area is to level it off to the retaining wall, so we’re focusing on adding material at the end furthest from the house, and leaving all these flowers to grow. Eventually, this will be a kitchen garden, for herbs and vegetables that we tend to use the most, but there is no hurry on that. It’ll be done in stages, and as I figure out what flowers are there, and which I want to keep, I can transplant them to other areas.
For now, we will enjoy the flowers where they are. :-)
Including furry ones that follow me around and give love and cuddles!
The Re-Farmer
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Recovery day
It was a sleepless night last night. Even with painkillers, I still hurt all over. That, on its own, would have been fine. What made it difficult is what I could only describe as a total rebellion of m body! You’ve probably heard of restless legs syndrome? That’s when you’re lying in bed, trying to relax and go to sleep, but your legs just can’t stay still. Now, imagine that, but with the whole body. It didn’t matter how tired I was, or how much pain the moving around caused, I just couldn’t stop. I think I finally fell asleep somewhere around 5am.
What I found odd, though, is that there was NO storm last night! I’d been keeping an eye on the weather radar, because there was a wide swatch of a storm system coming for us, including areas of heavy and severe weather. There was no way it was going to miss us.
And yet, it did. At one point, I checked the weather radar, and the system had passed us, and all I could think was, what happened? We didn’t even get rain or winds!
Today is looking beautiful, though. During my morning rounds, I took extra time to check on different areas, do a bit of weeding among the carrots, parsley and beets, and visit the MUCH taller sunflowers!
You can see the little, late planted, one in the foreground. :-D
I really look forward to seeing how big these guys get.
While checking the fence line along the garden, I found these.
I don’t know what these little shrubs are, and had no idea they bloomed until today! We have quite a few of them in the area.
There are also a few Saskatoon bushes in the area. We’d done a bit of clean up in the area, two summers ago, and they have gotten noticeably stronger since then, and actually producing berries now.
Breakfast! :-D
While doing my rounds, I had an internal battle going on. On the one hand, my brain was saying, “oh, the weather is so nice today! It’s a perfect time to get out the weed trimmer and clean up around the mowed areas. Then mow the old garden area. There’s also lots of Saskatoons to pick near the house.” The list went on. Meanwhile, my body is saying, “Ow. Ow. Ow. Are you kidding me? Sleep. That’s what’s on the to-do list. Sleep.”
I think my body is winning this fight.
We have, however, opened the new part basement door, which means there is an army of kittens (the 5 kittens seem more like 15! :-D ) tearing around the house – and especially my bed! – playing with the adult cats that will tolerate them, and discovering cat toys the others have long gotten tired of.
It’s very entertaining! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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A bit of relief, and catching up
First up, kittens!
Well. A couple of them. :-D
Going down to tend to the kittens in the morning has become a two person job. The kittens are on the top step when the door is open, so we’ve got one person at the door, trying to pick up kittens so we can use the step, while the other holds a laundry basket to carry them in, and to catch the ones that slip past.
The kittens love that laundry basket! After they get a ride down the stairs, they stay and play in and around it.
Beep Beep loves that thing, too!
Temperatures have been cooling down a bit, lately. The overnight temperatures meant actually being able to sleep at night! We’ve to thunderstorms predicted for today and tomorrow, then we’re supposed to stay in the mid-20’s (77-80F) for the remainder of the long range forecast.
It really says something that “mid 20’s” are now “cooler” temperatures. Even during last year’s drought, those where our hot days. We did break 30 every now and then, but nothing like what we’ve had this year.
It does make the morning rounds outside much more pleasant.
Except for all the mosquitoes and horseflies. The horseflies usually ignore me, but I got bit this morning.
You know why they’re called horseflies?
Because getting bit by one is like being kicked by a horse, compared to mosquitoes!
It took a couple of hours, but the pain and swelling did go down. Now I just have a weird white spot at the bite, surrounded by red, and a bit of residual swelling.
After doing my morning rounds, I headed into town for a few things. One of my stops was at the pharmacy, to see if my husband’s one missing prescription got updated. Still nothing, but they did have the remains of a prescription for 3 days worth of pills on file, so I took that. These are my husband’s main pain killers. It’s not just the increased pain that’s a problem, but it basically has him going cold turkey off of a very powerful drug, and it’s doing all sorts of crazy things to his body.
With the lack of response from the clinic, I might just drive there on Monday.
Another stop in town was at the grocery store, with our water jugs for refilling. There was a line up outside, which gave me time to notice and get pictures of these guys.
Such gorgeous moths! Just hanging out on the wall, along with all the fishflies. :-D
While I was in town, the girls got everything ready for a trip to the dump, so I could unload, reload and take off right away. We’ve been needing a dump run for a while! Normally, when I get there, I unload into the bins by the caretaker’s shed (which then get hauled to the city). This time, I decided to go into the pit. As I checked in with the caretaker and mentioned I was going into the pit this time, he told me they’ve been having problems with bears lately!
The last time I went into the pit, it actually was a pit. Now, it’s so full, there’s just enough space for vehicles to back into it, and add things to the pile. !! I really don’t like going into there, mostly because I’m paranoid about my tires. I don’t want to be driving over nails or broken glass or anything like that. :-(
After unloading the garbage, I went back to the bins to unload the recycling and electronics garbage. I was just getting ready to head out, when I saw a truck pull in, hauling something.
Something large, round and made of steel.
The driver stopped to talk to the caretaker, so I just had to snap a picture, as I was leaving!
Yup! A bear trap!
In our area, we have typically only have black bears. They tend to prefer to stay away from people, but what bear won’t take advantage of free food – and defend it? Much better for the bear, to catch it and release it well away from the dump.
Once home, I had hoped to start on some work outside. Maybe get some mowing done. It started to rain a bit on the ride home, and now I can see dark storm clouds in the distance, through the security camera.
I guess that means it’s a good time to join the kitties in the basement, and finally build that window for the old basement. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Heat wave continues
I missed my daily post yesterday. The day was pretty much a total write off!
This is largely why…
This screencap was taken shortly before 1pm. We were at 30C/86F with a humidex of 37C/98F, but we easily reached the expected high of 33C/91F and humidex of 39C/102F by the end of the afternoon. The hottest time of day is typically about 4:30-5pm.
I realize you folks living in the south are probably getting a giggle out of our thinking this is really hot, but my goodness, how do you guys put up with it??? :-D It’s a lot cooler in the house, thankfully. Well, on the main floor, at least, but we were all just melting. The girls have it the worst, on the second floor, though.
We ended up with three weather warnings at the same time, too – for the heat, high water levels and potential flash floods! Several towns and cities in the South West of our province did get hit with flash floods and severe thunderstorms. Some areas even had tornado warnings! I was keeping a close eye on the weather radar, watching the storms.
They went right past us!
The most severe parts of the system got pushed up to the North of us, and while some towns to the West certainly got hit, we got the edges of the system. Just some rain!
I am increasingly fascinated by our little local climate bubble. What is it about our geographical location that causes these weather systems to be pushed away or around? There are a lot of lakes in the area, including one huge one, so that certainly would have an effect. We’re kinda in the middle, East to West, between the biggest ones, but well to the South of the middle, from North to South.
Whatever the reason, I’m thankful that it means we aren’t getting hit by the worst of the storm systems. I really feel for some of the small towns and cities in the South-west, though. They get hit by every one!!
Today is going to be another hot one; we’re expected to hit 32C/89F with a humidex of 39C/102F again, by about 5 and 6pm. We still have the three alerts for heat, high water and flooding, throughout the South of our province. Right now, however, we’re sunny and clear. It’s insanely humid. Yesterday, I made a quick trip into town to get a couple of our 18L water jugs refilled. Even though the water was not at all cold, the jugs were covered with condensation by the time I got home! This morning, everything was still wet, as if we’d just had a rainfall.
We did, but at about 3am!
In the old kitchen garden, one of my mother’s roses has been blooming, for the first time since we moved out here.
This rose was little more than a scraggly stick for the past couple of summers. It’s overshadowed by one of the ornamental apple trees, and I really wasn’t sure if it would make it. We still worked around it, when cleaning out and mulching the garden, just to give it a chance, and it seems to have paid off! All the other roses around the house are the white Cherokee roses. I’m glad the one different type of rose is managing to survive.
When checking the sunflowers, I found another loss.
This pretty much confirms it’s a deer. The other critters it might have been would have clipped it much lower down.
It’s like a deer decided to have a quick snack while passing through!
This one will likely survive, but I doubt it will produce a seed head.
Thankfully, lots more seedlings are popping up. The replacement variety I’d picked up had lots of smaller seeds in the package than the ones I got before, so my daughter was able to plant two or three in each spot. We’ll actually have some to thin out, as they get bigger.
Assuming nothing eats them, first!
The Re-Farmer
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Growing things, wins and losses
Oy, what a day it’s been!
Our high of the day was reached at about 4:30 pm! 32C/89F, with the humidex putting us at 36C/97F. We’re not going to be cooling down much, even overnight, either.
At least there’s a wind, and on the weather radar, it looks like we’ll at least get some rain this evening, if not the thunderstorms. Those look like they’ll go right past us.
It was, at least, much more bearable when I did my rounds this morning. That, and the basement is nice and cool for the kittens.
Since they have gotten so good and escaping as soon as the door is opened and my hands are full, I’ve sacrificed one of my slightly taller laundry baskets for kitten jail.
I succeeded only in catching David! :-D He loves that thing!
I ended up just leaving the door open and let them be, until after I was done outside. By then, a daughter was available to help herd them back downstairs.
I am happy to say that some of the replacement sunflower seeds we planted are starting to sprout! They are just starting to break ground. The ones from the first planting have, for the most part, been growing quite well.
Something has been digging into the softer soil where we planted the seeds. Whatever it doing it, isn’t after the seeds themselves. This time, at least, the seedling didn’t get dug up in the process. My guess is, skunks are after grubs or worms.
We did, however, have a couple more losses of the original seedlings.
Something just up and ate a couple of them! Most likely deer. *sigh* The deer aren’t coming around much anymore; there is one that I’ve been seeing at the gate on the trail cams, but that’s it.
So far, at least, nothing has been eating the squash plants, and it doesn’t look like we’ve lost more beet greens.
The small mock orange by the side door of the house is going to be blooming very well this year! It got a major pruning, the summer before we moved out here, so that the walls could be painted, but it has recovered very well. The other one by the clothes line platform had a rough time last year, but it does have some flowers – all along the bottom! Most of it, however, has no buds at all.
These guys are finally starting to open. I expect to see many more, within the next few days!
This little shrub along the south side of the driveway has lots of berries on it. I have no idea what they are. There are quite a few of them around, but only this one has berries. I’m thinking location has much to do with it. It’s the only one that gets a lot of sun all day. The others are shaded by trees or sheds.
If anyone knows what this is, please feel free to let me know in the comments.
For now, I’ll just assume that whatever it is, is poisonous, and just appreciate it for its beauty. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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First, the fun stuff
Forecasts for today were for a high of 29C/84F, with the humidex at 33C/91F, with afternoon thunderstorms. So I wasn’t expecting to accomplish much outside.
In the end, I wouldn’t have been able to, anyhow. Pain levels are pretty high today. As long as I’m just walking on level ground, I’m okay – I’m just limping and hobbling like a decrepit old lady ;-) – but any sort of step sends shooting pains in my right knee.
I’ve been using my husband’s bath chair more than he has, lately! :-D
I was still able to do my rounds, as usual, though.
Rolando Moon has been hanging out in this tree, and on the roof, lately! She is so deceptively adorable. :-D
She even joined me when I was switching out the trail cam memory cards.
We have some new flowers I wasn’t expecting yet, this morning.
My mother has had a small flower garden along the East side of the house for as long as I can remember. This iris is near where we now keep the bird feeder. They and some lilies were completely crowded out by other greenery (I’m not sure they those were planted deliberately or not) and chickweed, but I managed to weed them out at least a bit. There were no signs of buds anywhere, then suddenly, this morning, there were two flowers!
Still no signs of other buds, though!
In checking the garden plots, it seems to me that something might be eating our beet greens in one of the plots. I’d thought at first that the cats were digging in the garden again, and that’s why it looked like there were fewer beets, but as I weeded, I noticed bare stems. It might be deer, but while I have been seeing deer at the gate in the trail cams, they don’t look like they came from the yard at all, but more like they’d come from the direction of the barn. Plus, I would expect deer to do more than nibble a few leaves here and there. I suppose hares are another possibility, but with the presence of yard cats, I don’t think we actually get them in the yard. So I’m not sure what’s going on there.
With no plans to work outside, I made a trip into town. I wanted to pick up a Dremel tip so I could finish my spoon, as well as pick up another litter pan for the basement. The kittens are getting bigger, and one pan isn’t enough for them anymore! The kittens were thrilled, which is pretty funny. Who knew litter pans could be so much fun for kittens?
I’ll post about how the carving went, separately. While I was working, however, I did have company!
Two Face and David joined the kittens, too. Between playing with them, and crawling all over me, the kittens got tired right out! :-D
When I was done and started up the stairs, I found someone looking at me!
David found one of the kittens’ favorite spots!
Then he “pounced”. :-D
What a funny boy!
While uploading photos to write this post, we lost our internet as a thunderstorm rolled by. From the looks of the weather radar, there is a very long, narrow storm system heading our way, so I think I’d better get to my other post, then shut the computer down, while I have time! :-D
Uh oh. Looks like we lost internet again… oh, it’s back. For now.
It’s going to be an interesting evening!
The Re-Farmer
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Catch up, and kitties!
I’m happy to say that, yesterday evening, when things started to cool down a bit, we got a couple of big jobs finished.
The first was to finish cleaning up the pile of branches pruned from the apple trees.
My awesome daughters actually finished the job by cutting up the largest pieces. Except that one big stump piece. We’re not going to bother with that.
It’s going to take a while to burn this away, but at least it’s neatly stacked, and I can mow around it.
Speaking of which, that was the other big job I finally got done. I finally got into the west end of the old garden area, and into the maple grove. The new mower is just awesome, getting in between the trees. I turned on the “health” app that my phone came with, for the pedometer, and according to that thing, I walked about 7 km (4.34 miles), just mowing in the trees.
I’m glad that got done last night, because when I did my rounds this morning, it was already 24C/75F, and the dew wasn’t even dry yet!
These flowers will soon be a riot of purple, all along the south fence by the spruce grove. :-)
Since manual labour outside was not going to happen yet, I decided to spend some time working with the basement.
The kittens had already escaped when I first came down to tend to them in the morning, and I couldn’t get them all back. My husband was sweet enough to supervise them while I did the outside part of my rounds (more to make sure the adult cats didn’t hurt any of them), then helped me get them back into the basement, so I could give them some wet cat food.
When I tried to go back down later, I opened the door and found 4 kitten heads at the top step – the door just clears them when it opens! – and that was it. They were gone. All five of them ended up upstairs, running around.
I let them be. They’d done all right earlier – only Fenrir is a concern for aggressiveness – and I decided to take advantage of them being out of the basement. I brought down a long corded power bar, and some large cup hooks (among other things). I attached the cup hooks into one of the floor joists running across the ceiling of the basement. Two of them are now holding the cord for the power bar, with the plug ins hanging down. It even has USB ports, if I need to charge my phone. Three other hooks are now there to hold whatever else is needed.
With the kittens away, I used my wood burning tool, with the knife blade attachment, to cut a couple of 5 gallon water jugs in half, then cut the necks off the top. The halves are now available to use as covers for plants, if needed, and the necks I left as cat toys. ;-)
I was then able to let the tool hang from one of the hooks to cool down, completely safe from kitties, until I could take off the knife blade and put it away in its case.
Then my daughter helped me bring the babies back down again.
Once that was done, I started working on my carving practice. I had kittens crawling all over me until they got bored and left me alone.
How adorable is that!!!
Beep Beep had been persuaded to come down, too, and she decided to join her babies.
That lasted until I started using my Dremel tools and scared them all away. :-(
After I was done with the noisy tools, and continued to work on the spoon, I started hearing a very tiny, very wet, slurping noise.
Yeah. That’s Leyendecker, nursing!
What a silly kitty! Even Beep Beep is looking at him funny. :-D
I am quite happy with how the spoon progressed today, but I’ll post about that later.
We’ve finally reached the high of the day for today (27C/80F), so things should start cooling down now. I’m hoping that, after supper, it’ll be cool enough to get stuff done outside. The next couple of days are supposed to be even hotter, with thunderstorms expected tomorrow, so anything I can get done tonight is bonus.
The Re-Farmer
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Mourning roundup – and what a nasty boy!
The morning rounds, as usual, started with a visit to the kitties.
I fully expected to find a couple at the top of the stairs, as has been the usual thing lately.
Nope. Just Beep Beep.
The other usual thing is to go down the stairs and find the kittens not already on the stairs, coming sleepily out from under the platform bed frame, where they’ve created a nest.
Not this morning!
Beep Beep jumped into the pile faster than I could get my phone out for a picture, but all the kittens had been on the chair, curled up in a furry mass, sleeping!
The outdoor part of my morning rounds went rather quickly, because I was being eaten by mosquitoes! Every time I paused to take a picture, I would be attached by clouds of them!
The first of my mother’s poppies has opened up.
The dwarf lilac by the house is just a riot of flowers!
This other variety of lilac, planted by the chain link fence, doesn’t have a lot of flowers, but the few clusters is does have are starting to open.
When feeding the outside cats, I saw some faces that have not been around as much, lately.
Junk Pile cat has been hanging around, even if I only see him in passing, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen Butterscotch. I was happy to see Rosencrantz show up.
While checking the garden plots and switching memory cards on the trail cams, I got some company.
Creamsicle came to join me and wanted attention. :-)
Butterscotch came along this time, too.
Then this happened!!!
Her boy went into a full-on attack! I couldn’t believe it! He wouldn’t stop, either. I broke them up several times, until I just couldn’t catch up with them. Each time, Butterscotch would run off, and Creamsicle would run right after her and attack as soon as he reached her!
What a terrible son!
I am not impressed.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 