This evening, before things started to get dark, I headed outside to do my evening rounds. I remembered to bring a bowl to finally harvest some tiny Orange Currant tomatoes!
I actually dropped quite a few of them that were damaged by frost to the ground. Which means we might have some self seeded tomatoes showing up in this bed next year, which I am okay with. I still managed to get quite a few, plus a couple of Blueberry tomatoes. I even found a Manitoba tomato that was getting ripe, with no cracks in it! All over those, I’m seeing green tomatoes already cracked. The cracked ones I’d brought in before, intending to dehydrate the non-cracked portions, ended up molding almost right away and had to be composted. *sigh*
Once the tomatoes were picked, I checked the beans in the bed beside them and found a few ready to harvest. A couple of the plants have lots of developing beans still, so this will probably not be the last beans we pick from there.
While checking the main garden area, I found myself really impressed by this bolted carrot.
It is HUGE! Those flower clusters are downright massive! We’ve had carrots bolt before. Usually Uzbek Golden carrots. This one is from the Rainbow Mix carrot seeds, and I’m not sure which colour of carrot this is from. When we can finally harvest this bed, we’ll be able to see. I’ll make sure to leave the bolted carrot. If it survives long enough before it gets too cold to develop seeds, I intend to harvest them.
We’ve got at least three more mild nights before temperature drop enough that I would want to cover as much as I can, just in case the actual temperature drops lower than the forecasted temperature – again. Overall, though, we’ve possibly got almost two weeks of fairly mild overnight temperatures.
I’m really hoping for a mild winter overall. My tolerance for our typical prairie winters is getting shorter as I get older! 😄
Last time, I’d gathered bush beans from the ones planted later in the season around the Arikara squash. This time, I harvested beans from the high raised bed. The plants there have considerably more frost damage, and yet are still producing!
Along with the beans, I picked the two Prolific Long Neck summer squash that looked ready.
The girls ended up using this summer squash in their roasted Arikara squash soup, which they tell me turned out very excellent. It included carrots and bell peppers from the garden, too. Not something I can even taste, but that’s okay. I had some of roasted Arikara squash separately, and made sure to taste some on its own, with no seasonings, first.
Definitely something we would be okay growing again. The flavour was mild, and smooth and stringless, with a texture much like mashed potatoes.
The girls also taste tested our first California Bell peppers before adding it to the soup, and they liked it enough that we set aside some seeds, though I still have some in the package. So we now have two varieties of peppers – these and the Sweet Chocolate – that pass the taste test with the family.
Aside from that, today was a home day, though it could have been our first stock up shopping day. My husband’s CPP Disability came in early, as it does when deposit day falls on a Monday. I was feeling well enough for the trip, but rainy days like this make me very sleepy, and my daughter is still fighting her own pain levels. We’ve decided to do the shopping tomorrow, instead.
One thing I started on today was a Christmas garland, crocheting around a purchased bead garland, 6 feet long, with lace weight white crochet thread paired with a strand of silver reflective thread, using a 3.25mm hook. I was working on the second row of the pattern, about 3/4 through, when I spotted an error…
Made about 6 inches from the start of that row.
I’d already found the same error made after about a foot and ripped the stitching back to fix it, but that just isn’t going to work with something closer to three feet. The strand of reflective yarn is quite thin, and I don’t want to end up breaking it or adding too much wear to it. Plus, the sheer length of what I’d have to undo would be difficult to keep from tangling. Just the short amount I’d ripped earlier, kinked into waves from the stitches, kept wanting to tie itself into knots.
So, I’m going to finish the second row and not do the third row I had planned on. On its own like this, the error would not be visible unless someone knew what they were looking for, but would throw the pattern of a third row off completely.
I still can’t believe I did that. The girls are still laughing at the wail of despair I made when I found it and realized where it was.
Ah, well.
I still have a fair bit to do to finish the second row, but I won’t finish it tonight. I’ll just have to make sure to tuck it away somewhere safe from that cats for the night. 😄
Today, the girls and I headed into the city. Something we decided on later last night. The amazing thing is that my older daughter came along, too. Not for any medical appointments or another ER trip. Just because she wanted to get out of the house, and actually felt well enough to do it!
After the last few years of barely being able to get outside the house, this is HUGE!
As for me, I took the last of my generic Percocet and almost immediately got hit with dizziness. At that time, I was able to just go back to bed, though, so it didn’t mess things up for me too much.
Potato Beetle took his turn on my leaning sheep. Which I seem to have lost entirely. After washing it, I had found it worked well as support under my knees so I could lie on my back, so I hadn’t put it back in the shelf that is my “headboard”. The cats have all claimed it at one point or another! It is now a cat bed.
*sigh*
We didn’t head out until about 11 and as I was on the way to the truck, I just had to stop and take some photos.
There were a couple of very sleepy bees on the sunflowers! It was a nice warm day by mid afternoon, but the morning was still cool enough that the bees were sluggish.
Our destination in the city was a Medigas. My husband had ordered new nasal “pillows” that he has instead of a CPAP mask. The pressure he needs on his CPAP is so high, the type of mask that covers the nose and mouth leaks air unless it’s tightened so much, he actually developed lesions. He’s gone through various styles of nasal prongs over the years, as designs changed and older ones were no longer being made. He isn’t able to order from his usual source in the US, though. For some reason, they no longer accept his prescription that’s required to buy replacements. So he had to buy from Medigas.
He got two nasal prongs, and it cost $110.
When he was able to buy them from the US supplier, he got a package with 6 different sizes for maybe Cdn$30.
He’ll be able to submit his receipt to his insurance company to be reimbursed for most of that, but the cost of CPAP supplies from Canadian sources is just insane and always has been.
By the time we got to the Medigas, we’d been on the road for over an hour and I was starting to hurt. My alarm for my afternoon dose of painkillers was about to go off after we got the nasal prongs, so I made sure to take the T3s I had with me before we made our next stop. I had hoped to take advantage of being in the city to stop at the Walmart to do a bit of shopping, but wasn’t up to it. The Medigas is on the same highway that we do our non-Costco stock up shopping on, and the international grocery store was on the way home, so we stopped there to get supper for when we got home. I picked a couple of things for my husband and I while the girls remembered they were out of oat milk and went to get some. They ended up coming back with a few other things as well, then went looking for something they wanted for their own supper – while I had to sit down. The T3s never really seemed to kick in.
In the end, the girls were sweethearts and paid for everything.
One thing I meant to get on the way out of the city was gas. Prices had gone up to $1.799/L, even in the city. On the way to Medigas I spotted a place that was $1.639 and on the same side of the highway we were on, so I got gas there. It was pre-pay only, so I went in to pay for $40 while my daughter took care of the pump. It turned out to be just enough to fill the tank from about 3/4s, which was nice.
After we picked stuff up at the grocery store, I had to get my younger daughter to take over driving. There was no dizziness at all with the T3s, but they don’t work as well. Frustrating.
Once we got home and my daughters brought things inside, my younger daughter took care of feeding the outside cats, before we had our food and relaxed a bit. I felt well enough later to head outside and into the garden to do some harvesting.
These are the California Wonder bell peppers, which are starting to turn colour. The Sweet Chocolate peppers are also starting to ripen. We won’t be getting a lot of peppers, but we’ll at least have a few! Since these have the tomato cages protecting them, if things get chilly overnight, they can be easily covered with some fabric we have for frost cloth.
What amazes me is just how many bush beans I was able to harvest! Most of them still from the high raised bed, that were planted earlier in the season.
The yellow beans on top are from the later planted ones in the Arikara Squash bed. There are a couple of Blueberry tomatoes, and a whole bunch of Orange Currant tomatoes. Some of them are fully red, like Spoon tomatoes, instead of orange. I also grabbed a couple of yellow zucchini.
I think we have enough bush beans to actually be worth blanching and freezing in a medium sized freezer bag – and there are still developing beans we’ll be able to continue harvesting!
I am so grateful for the mild weather we are having so far. The forecast has changed again, of course, and now it’s looking like we won’t be hitting below 6C/43F for a couple of weeks, and will mostly be closer to 10C/50F. Not that I trust long range forecasts, but it does give something to plan on.
Tomorrow, we have no plans to go out anywhere. If we hadn’t gone in today to get my husband’s nasal prongs, it would have had to wait until Monday, and I didn’t want to do that to him. He really needed replacements, long ago. My younger daughter has been wanting to work on breaking down that fallen tree for a while now, but we have either not been home long enough, or it’s been too windy and rainy.
At some point, we’re going to need to get a gas powered chainsaw. There’s only so far we can get on extension cords, and battery powered anything won’t last long enough to finish the jobs we need to do. Our baby chainsaw (electric pruner) has two batteries and my brother’s weed trimmer has three, and none of them recharge fast enough to be able to cycle through them and finish most jobs.
Anyhow.
I’m just thankful to be able to get as much done as we have been, with all the crazy medical stuff going on.
On the right and on the board in the middle are the Red Wethersfield onions that were interplanted with the bush beans in the high raised bed. The largest ones were all on the south end of the bed. The others were probably too overshadowed by the bush bean leaves to get as big.
The ones on the right are the Red Long of Tropea, which were interplanted with the caraway and along the west side of the bed with the (already harvested) turnips. On the other side of that bed, by the Daikon radish are the Red Beard bunching onions, which are looking very tall and strong.
I forgot to look for the onions that were planted near the celery, Those aren’t even visible anymore. Out of sight, out of mind!
That one tomato is a Chocolate Stripe tomato that I found fallen on the ground.
While checking other beds, I noticed some red tomatoes.
The little ones are supposed to be Blueberry tomatoes. 😄 The other, larger ones are Manitoba tomatoes. Then there’s that Chocolate Stripe tomato off to one side. They are now all set aside in the cat free zone to continue to ripen.
After harvesting the onions and the tomatoes, I checked on the summer squash and found a bit of wind damage. These are being grown vertically, but some did not get tied off high enough, yet, and one had been blown over, bending at the highest tie. So I spent a while going through all of them and securing them to their vertical posts with garden wire.
It isn’t a lot, but it felt good to be able to do at least that much in the garden!
After a draining morning, I lay down after taking my pain killers to wait for it to pass.
It didn’t, but it at least got less severe.
Somewhere past 3:00, I headed back outside with my walker. I fed the outside cats, then say with the fishing rod toy to keep Sweetie busy so the littles had a chance to eat. We have storm warnings for tonight (as I started this, I could hear thunder in the distance!), so I took the bigger carrier we had set up for the kittens to explore and put it inside the catio, setting the door mostly closed. Then I headed to the garden.
One thing I noticed over the past while is that some of the winter squash on the chain link fence are producing more female flowers! I was even able to hand pollinate a few this morning.
Most of them are these Butterneck squash. There’s at least one that looks like it’s going to wither away, but the ones I got pictures of all look pretty darn good. I also spotted a new Black Futsu female flower that was open and hand pollinated it. Why I bother, I don’t know. It’s Sept. 6 today. There is basically no season left for them to mature! Still, I want to give them all the chance they can. It should be interesting to see how big they get before it gets too cold.
We will, however, have one winter squash this year, at least.
The outer shell of the Arikara squash is getting pretty hard. I should be able to cut it and set it to cure fairly soon. All the other squash that started on this plant have died off, almost as if it pruned itself.
The yellow bush beans around the Arikara squash are producing quite nicely, and I had plenty to pick from a relatively few number of plants. I also found a single red Manitoba tomato, hiding under some leaves that I picked. Then I went to the high raised bed and picked the bush beans there…
… after I picked the two Chocolate Stripes tomatoes that were ready.
In the above photo, all the beans to the left of the tomatoes are from the later planted beans by the Arikara squash. Everything to the right of the tomatoes are from the high raised bed. The yellow beans in that bed seem to have had a second life and are suddenly producing quite a lot, again. There’s only a couple of green bean plants, and they are not at all productive.
I didn’t keep this. I got a bowl for it all, then wheeled over to my brother and SIL’s caravan and offered it to them. They were quite happy to accept. After my SIL transferred them to their own container and brought back my bowl, we were able to stay outside and chat – I just sat on my walker rather than try to climb up into the caravan. They have stairs with a hand rail now, but they came outside rather than have me hobble my way in.
Unlike my mother, with her snarky comments about the little tomatoes I brought her, it was nice when my brother and SIL quite appreciated the beans and tomatoes I brought for them! They have been growing some things on their balcony, but no beans. My SIL is thinking that, next year, she’ll try to grow enough tomatoes to do some canning. This year, they have cucumbers and cucamelons that have done quite well!
We got all caught up with the birthday visit with my mother this morning. My brother hadn’t had a chance to go into detail with my SIL yet. My mother was so all over the place, it took both of us to describe things and figure out what she was saying. Part of the challenge is that her sense of time is completely gone. There was something she’d said that my brother thought had happened recently, but I’d caught her mentioned the town she used to live in, which means it could have happened several years ago. In some things, we had to mash together things, my sister had told me my mother had said to her, compared to what my mother had told me, compared to what my mother had told my brother, and work out what was actually intended. It’s like putting together a puzzle, but half the pieces are still missing, while pieces from another puzzle show up randomly, too.
Still, we do the best we can.
I can hear that the rain has started. My SIL was very happy to have gotten the mowing done!
It would be really awesome if the weather holds long enough for us to actually get more winter squash.
$364.05, to be exact. Plus the stuff I didn’t get photos of.
My daughter did the morning routine again. This morning, she found all six kittens – plus the older singleton! – playing together near the shrine feeding station. She startled them and they ran off, but when she came back with cat soup, she said all seven of them were eating out of the same bowl!
More progress on that later…
We headed for the city around 10am or so, crossing over towards town and stopping at a gas station to pick up drinks for the road, first. We chose this route because the highway goes straight into the city and turns into the street that all our stops are on.
That was a mistake.
While no construction workers were on the highway, there were still limits in places that required reduced speeds. Mostly because of the drop off at least a foot deep where the shoulder used to be! Then we got into the city itself and there was even more construction, with the first intersection we needed blocked to turns, so we had to pass it then turn around.
By the time we got to where the Canadian Tire is, it was lunch time, so we popped into the mall to eat, first. We ended up both going to A&W for some double mozza burgers – it’s been ages since I’ve had one. My daughter had poutine with hers and I chose sweet potato fries, plus we both had medium fountain drinks. It ended up costing just over $42.
*sigh*
This mall has a Dollarama, and I wanted to go there before we headed to the Canadian Tire. I was looking for the 10% acid vinegar in gallon jugs. We didn’t find any; just in smaller spray bottles. So we skipped that, but we did get a few other things. We’ve somehow lost track of a couple of spray bottles we use for water – mostly to use on the cats! – so we got two more. I also picked up two more pet odor remover pucks to keep near litter boxes. I also spotted some absolutely adorable little sauce dipping bowls in a set of four. My love of tiny bowls is a bit of a running joke, but we do actually use them a lot. My daughter noted that they were a very good size and shape, too, so I got a set. While going past the hats display, my daughter went digging and found a hat with the front and visor in rainbow glitter.
I now have a new hat in my sparkly hat collection.
The grand total came to $21.28
From there, we headed to the Canadian Tire. The main thing to get there is the litter pellets, however we also went looking for some other things and found stuff to pick up that we normally would not.
We got two 40 pound bags of pellets for litter. They also had a whole bunch of gallon jugs of 10% acid cleaning vinegar! We got two. Then we headed to the paint department. While there, I found a display of 30% acid vinegar! That one had all sorts of corrosion warnings on the label. 😄 A 4L/1gallon jug of 10% acid cost $4.99 each. The 30% acid vinegar cost almost $30 for a gallon. !!
I also found a new SeptoBac product to try. We have the powder that gets flushed down the toilet to add bacteria to the septic tank. This stuff is meant to be used monthly to help clear and maintain the pipes. We plan to use it from the kitchen sink, as it’s the length of pipe that runs from there to the corner under the bathroom that is of primary concern.
I found and picked up a roll of Tucktape outdoor repair tape, because the one I’d picked up before has simply disappeared, after a single use. I am a complete loss as to what happened to it, as I’d made a point of putting it somewhere in the open, with plans to use it again soon. When I came to get it, it was gone. It hasn’t shown up again in a few months, so I just bought another one.
Then we got a couple of wood conditioners. For myself, I picked up some Butcher’s Block finishing oil, designed for food handling surfaces. Aside from conditioning our wooden cutting boards, I have some elm rounds from the tree that was in front of the kitchen window that I plan to chainsaw into thinner rounds. They’ll be made into live edge, round cutting “boards” to be used with our outdoor cooking. Once the rounds are cut, cleaned and sanded smooth, they will get treated with this oil.
My daughter, meanwhile, wanted something to use on our tools and other outdoor items, and chose a teak oil. The blend has linseed oil in it, but she can work with that. We had been talking about various products during the drive in and she mentioned the warnings about linseed oil they got when she worked at a Home Depot and was paint trained. Be extremely careful with the rags when you’re done, because they have a tendency to spontaneously combust!!!
The oils were both pretty expensive, and they brought the total bill up to $123.48 (it would have been so funny if that 8 had been a 5…)
That done, our next stop was a Walmart, and I managed to get a photo of that cart. 😄
This is what $191.35 looks like.
Not a lot of stuff, really, but there are things I plan to pick up tomorrow after my doctor’s appointment that we didn’t want to bother picking up today.
I picked up some XXL puppy pads to go with the XL size we got at Costco. I usually get a pack of 50 but find I need to get a second one before the end of the month, so I went ahead and got a box of 100.
We have messy cats.
I also remembered to pick up wet wipes. The receipt says “baby wipes” but the packages say “all purpose wipes”. One will be for the truck, and the others are handy to have on hand around the house.
I remembered to grab a two pack of extra strength Pepto-bismol, as we were running low. My daughter remembered that we needed some hair conditioner, too. We also got a two pack of air freshener, plus a couple of spray bottles of all purpose cleaner. Also, a carpet powder odor eliminator and stain remover.
The cats like to be messy on my horrible, horrible bedroom carpet.
We got four 4L jugs of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier.
My daughter then picked a couple of boxes of teas and a couple of bottles of coffee creamer.
Finally, my one real splurge; a box of moon cakes we grabbed on the way to the check outs.
That done, we headed to our next stop at the international grocery store.
Which took a lot longer than it should have, since we were driving back through that construction zone again.
This trip was not quite as planned, but that’s okay.
This is what $172.69 looks like.
There was one thing I was hoping to pick up, but we never found it. The big blocks of frozen ahi tuna were on sale, but it looks like they were completely sold out of the frozen ones.
I made up for it with a brisket.
The brisket was on sale for $4.99 a pound, which made it cheaper than any of the “cheap” cuts of beef out there. There were only three left and I picked the middle sized one that came to $83.27 by weight. Which pretty much took up the meat budget! Worth it, though.
They also had a significant sale on the locally made, smoked and peppered bacon, so I got two. I also got a dry sausage as a snacking item for my husband.
We found a couple of cheeses on sale that we decided to pick up. One was an ages Havarti, while the other was something we’ve never seen before; Iberico.
The only fruit we got was some bananas; we should be able to get fresh fruit at decent sale prices locally. My daughter also found an instant milk tea mix that was also on sale, so we got one.
My daughter picked up an Arizona green tea for the drive home, then we picked up supper from the restaurant area of the store. I got a hot two item combo of Chinese food and picked a Lumber Jack sandwich for my husband. My daughter picked a chef sampler of sushi for herself and a Poke bowl for her sister.
Last of all was a package of cheesy bread to snack on during the drive home, as we were starting to get pretty hungry again. Once done, we popped over to a gas station next to the grocery store and added $40, which just barely filled the tank. Gas in town when we stopped for drinks on the way in was $159.9 In the city, it was $154.9
Thankfully, on the way out of the city, there wasn’t as much construction. We did cut across to take another highway home, though, so avoid all the construction that slowed us down on the way in.
Which meant we drove through the town my mother used to live in, and saw gas prices at $147.9 !!! It is very unusual for the smaller towns to have better prices than the city.
Ah, well.
Both my daughter and I took our time about the whole thing, but were starting to struggle by the end of it. I brought my walker along and am glad I did, as it allowed me to sit down any time the pain levels started to creep up. My daughter was caning it by the time we hit Canadian Tire. I absolutely credit my daughter’s help for my feeling as well as I did when we got home!
In the time we were gone, I was getting messages from my brother and SIL. Their grandchildren went back home yesterday, as they start school tomorrow. Today, my brother was able to stop to visit my mother and take care of a few things for her before they headed here, just long enough to drop something off. By then, my younger daughter and I were on the road home, and my older daughter took care of feeding the outside cats. I’d let the family know my brother and SIL would be popping by, but she hadn’t noticed they were already their. Totally startled her while she was feeding the kittens in the catio!!
After we got home, put everything away and had supper, I cut the brisket into four chunks, then processed those further. One chunk got cut into stewing meat, another into “steaks”, and the last two into roasts. Three of the packages went into the freezer. These will be something to use the Instant Pot for!
Then I headed outside to check on the kittens. I had started getting messages asking how trapping the kittens was going. I know they are officially closed to intakes right now, but they really want those kittens! I updated them a bit, but they were pushing to trap them right away. Which I can understand, but they don’t seem to be quite understanding how it can’t really be done that way.
The food bowl in the catio was completely empty again, so I put out some distraction cat food in other bowls, then added more kibble with cat milk in the catio.
No sign of kittens.
I then went around the yard to check on things before coming back.
I found three kittens playing around the junk pile area. No kittens at the branch pile.
Time to move the catio!
I took the items on and in the catio and set them in the wagon, then walked the catio over until it was close to the junk pile, then set everything back up again. I kept seeing the three kittens playing around, with one of them even going all the way to the main door on the house! As I was finishing up and checking one last time before going in, I saw a little black kitten at the food bowl. I went over and, instead of running away, it ran into the huge cat carrier in the corner, which its cat bed inside.
Where there were already two other kittens.
!!
At that point, I could have just closed the door, but that would have left them without food an water overnight. I could have closed the catio door, but that would have prevented other kittens from coming in and having access to the food and water bowls near the carrier. So I left things be.
Once inside and at my keyboard, I started answering messages from the rescue group. I explained to them that the catio is our trap, and how we’d used it before to get Pinky’s two kittens closer to the house and socialized to the point we could just put them in carriers and bring them in, with no fight and no trauma. These kittens are much younger, so that will make things a bit easier. Especially with Slick gone, so they rely completely on use for food and water. Normally, they would be too young for weaning, I think. I don’t think they are 6 weeks old yet.
After explaining the progress made, I asked for instructions on what to do for the next time I can just close up the carrier door with kittens inside. I now have some available days and times. On any of those days (including, potentially, tomorrow after my doctor’s appointment) I will close up the carrier on any kittens inside, then contact the rescue group and one of them will be able to meet us to take in the kittens. One of them is making space in her house for them now.
I don’t expect to be able to get more than three kittens at once, and it’s three kittens that are braver and more playful. Once they have been taken in, we’ll have a better chance of getting the shier ones and – hopefully – the older white and grey singleton.
So, that’s where we stand now. Second stock up shop is done. All of it together, with lunch, gas and three different stores, came to $467.33
Those are some of the emptiest shopping carts for a stock up shop we’ve had for a while, but we did get some unusually expensive items on this shop that we likely won’t need to do again for some time.
After yesterday’s trip to the ER, my daughters have been absolutely brutal about me not doing anything.
Which was probably a good idea. I have been feeling really good today, which means I probably would have overdone it, if they hadn’t!
My younger daughter has been focusing on the outside stuff and taking over in the garden. She’s been doing the morning cat feeding and this morning she did a deep watering of the garden beds – something that probably won’t be needed tomorrow, as there are thunderstorms in the forecast. Then she went out again to dig up all of the potatoes. Which turned out to be a harder job than it should have been. She couldn’t find where I’d left the garden fork, which still needed to have its broken handle replaced, so she was using a spade. When I came out to see how she was, she’d stopped for a break in the shade, having brought my walker out to use.
She found that thing so handy, she’s now considering buying one for herself!
When I found out about the lack of garden fork, I got the new handle I bought, a screwdriver and the garden fork over. Unfortunately, the Canadian Tire handle turns out to be smaller than the handle on the fork, so she wasn’t able to get it all the way on. We’ll need to reduce the circumference of the handle by a small amount – small enough that just some sand paper would do the job – to get it all the way on. So she had to finish using the spade.
Most of the Yukon Gold got rinsed off with a hose then brought inside. The first photo above is after her sister used some of it for supper. The second image is the last of the Yukon Gold with all of the Viking potatoes, curing on the screen.
I’m not too concerned about curing them fully. There aren’t a lot of them and they will likely be finished off rather quickly, much like the cabbage harvested earlier are being used up now.
In the future, we would need to plant a LOT more to have enough to last us the winter and, hopefully, have seed potatoes for the next year.
My daughter removed the garlic from the screen to make room for the potatoes, and then she trimmed the roots and dirt off the garlic, getting them ready to bring indoors.
We’ll be sure to selected the ones with the largest cloves to plant in October. We will have plenty to choose from. We’ve got the largest garlic we’ve grown yet, this year!
I joined my daughter again shortly before she finished with the garlic, so we were able to walk around a bit. I did harvest some bush beans planted around the Arikara squash, while she looked for any ripe Orange Currant tomatoes. Later on, I also harvested the one Prolific Long Neck squash that was large enough to make it worth picking.
While walking around, I couldn’t help but notice this.
The tree removal company has not been able to come out with their stump grinder, with the rain we had last week. From the looks of it, we’ll be getting thunderstorms and severe weather through Monday and Tuesday.
Which means the elm has had time to start trying to grow back already.
Elm is very difficult to get rid of, which is one of the reasons why my brother is willing to pay for stump grinding.
So the girls have been wonderful about getting things done that I would normally be working on, which is appreciated. Even feeling as good as I did, and as lovely it was to walk around the yard to get some fresh air and sunshine. it wasn’t all that long before I started feeling warning signs that I needed to get back inside to sit down. I still managed to get a few easy things done, though I had to sneak that in after my daughter went inside with the garlic. 😄
I admit, I’m writing this post in the morning, instead of the evening, as a distraction. Normally, after finishing my morning rounds, I would be making breakfast right now.
I’m hungry. And thirsty.
Unfortunately, I’m in the stage of my pre-op fast where I can’t even drink water.
My daughter is definitely doing the driving on the way in. I’m starting to feel quite light headed and ill, and my hands are getting shaky – and we aren’t leaving for another hour yet!
So, here I am.
I am quite happy with the harvest I got this morning. The beans didn’t get picked yesterday, so there was quite a lot.
These are quite nearly the last of the yellow beans. From what I could see, we won’t be getting more than a few green beans over the next while. The purple beans, however, are at their peak. I don’t expect to pick this many again, but the plants have lots of developing pods visible.
I also picked the one Early Prolific Straightneck squash that was ready. There is a second, smaller one and possibly some female flower buds, spread around the three plants.
Not very prolific, but then, none of the summer squash has been prolific this year. I can see female flower buds on the green pattypan squash plants, and there’s a single Golden Zucchini squash that should be big enough to harvest in a few days. No lemon squash. No Yellow Scallop squash.
Then, out of curiosity, I harvested some Hollow Crown parsnips. The plants are huge and I was curious to see how large the roots were.
Small. They are very small. Parsnips have a ways to go in the season, though, and are a cool weather crop, so maybe they will be better as we approach fall.
I haven’t tried to pick any of the beets. Their greens are huge, which we’ve left, because we are not big on beet greens. Beetroots, however, form right at the surface of the soil, so I can see how they are. These seeds were from a variety mix, and some of the plants look very, very different from others. I can see some roots forming from the red varieties, and they are really small. Other varieties that I am guessing are yellow, orange or white varieties, I can’t see any roots forming at all. Which is so very strange. Particularly for this bed, which has good loose soil, and gets “extra” watering from below, any time the sump pump goes off. Which hasn’t been often, lately, but with how wet things were earlier in the growing season, anything in this bed had a huge advantage.
Well, we’ll see when it comes time to harvest everything and clean up the beds.
So much for that one Yellow Swiss Chard that I was leaving to go to seed. Apparently, the deer like Chard.
The motion sensor noise maker is still there, so I moved it over to the former garlic bed, where the Yellow Swiss Chard is. Hopefully, the closer proximity will help? We shall see.
Meanwhile, my daughter just popped by and we are almost ready to head out to the hospital. Leaving early is good, since there is road construction on our route, so we’ll be heading out fairly soon.
I’m so looking forward to getting this surgery over and done with!!!
I almost forgot to get a “before” picture, so the first image is after I’d already cut away a couple of cabbage heads.
I got a dozen heads loaded up in the wheelbarrow. I left the stems and outer leaves for now. Those will be composted into the bed, later on.
Everything was very wet with dew, so I laid them out on the table under the canopy tent to dry. They have since been brought in, but are still a touch damp, so they’ve been laid out in the cat free zone. A couple of them have very loose heads, so those will be used right away. My older daughter was thinking of making some cabbage soup, or even just roasting them.
We won’t have any purple savoy cabbage heads to harvest. None have formed. The leaves, however, are still edible. The youngest ones, at least. So I might find something to do with those at some point.
After the cabbage was laid out, I got the wire mesh divider from the basement and set it up on a couple of sawhorses, then took all the garlic hanging around the perimeter of the canopy tent down. They were rather damp, too, and one bulb was quite soft, so that one got set aside. The rest were freed from the cord they were hanging from, and laid out through the wire mesh of the divider. I hope that this will allow them to finish curing properly, and they didn’t get so damp from the rain that they rot or start sprouting, instead! The largest ones will be set aside for planting this fall.
Also, Gouda photo bomb. 🧀🐈
The insect netting that was protecting the cabbage actually had things growing through them along the edges of the bed. I got as much as I could out, while stretching the net out to full size on the grass. Later in the afternoon, I hung it on the clothes line and took a hose to clean it off a bit, before it gets folded and rolled up for storage.
I think I will harvest all of the Golden Boy celery next – except for the two that have gone to seed, which I will leave to collect later. My older daughter seems to be mildly allergic to fresh celery, so we haven’t been using it a lot. I’m thinking to dehydrate it, then powder it to make celery salt.
Hmmm… There’s only so much I can fit into my oven to dehydrate, so maybe I’ll just harvest a couple of bunches at a time to dehydrate. I’ve dehydrated celery before and it’s amazing how small the pieces get!
I was able to get a new handle for my garden fork today, so I’ll be able to harvest the potatoes relatively soon, once the ground is dry enough.
Or I’ll get my daughters to do it, depending on how I feel after my surgery.
Today has, somewhat surprisingly, been a day of progress.
Surprisingly because I was dealing with the pains on and off today. I was fine when I went to bed, then got awakened by the pain in the wee hours of the night. I managed to finally fall asleep and it was gone by the time I got up, but was back again after I did my morning routine and was having breakfast. Then it went away.
There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind it. I really, really hope the surgery next week puts a stop to this!
This morning, I did a head count and there were 12 cats showing up for breakfast. When I counted again at the second feeding of the day, there were 14, plus the kitten showed up later.
I did contact the rescue about needing to adopt the cats. They recommended I contact other rescues as their resources are stretched really thin right now. I wasn’t asking for fostering. Just if we could post them on their website, but it doesn’t look like they can even do that right now. The problem is, I’ve tried contacting other rescues before and they don’t cover our area. The only one that did turned out to have… issues. The only good thing that came out of that is we connected with The Cat Lady, who helped us so much while she ran her own little rescue.
I already know none of the rescues are doing intakes right now. Everyone is full. So… we need to figure things out.
Anyhow…
As usual, after feeding the cats, I went through the garden. I am just so happy with how the Arikara squash is doing!
I’ve got my hand in the second picture as a size reference. We’ve got one squash that’s growing. A couple others have withered away, and there’s one that I’m not sure is going to make it. It’s bigger that the size of the others that withered, but it doesn’t seem to be growing. There are some female flower buds visible, too.
The winter squash at the chain link fence are looking good, with lots of male flowers blooming. There was one that had a single female flower that dropped before it ever opened. Currently, I see a different winter squash with a female flower that will hopefully blossom and at least have a chance to get pollinated.
The Super Sugar Snap peas that were planted later at the chain link fence bed are blooming and forming pods now.
The yellow bush beans had matured faster but are winding down now, yet are still just as prolific as the green and purple beans that are pretty much at their peak right now. There are fewer green and purple bean plants, too.
Next year, I hope to remember to try using the wire tomato cages on the bush beans, like I do now for peppers and eggplant. They seem to need that extra support.
Bush beans do great in the high raised bed, but it isn’t big enough. We have enough beans for eating fresh, but not enough to freeze or can. We definitely need to grow more beans. Normally, I’d be starting to harvest pole beans as the bush beans are winding down, but the Red Noodle beans seems to be struggling. Not as much as last year, where they only reached 6-8 inches high then stagnated. The first year we tried growing them was a drought year and they barely grew at all. It wasn’t until I was cleaning up at the end of the season that I found a single, skinny bean pod that was about the size of a worm. This year, they are bigger but, again, they seem to have stalled. There’s next to nothing climbing the trellis, and the leaves are a yellowish green, like last year, instead of the darker green I see in pictures of mature plants. I don’t know if we’re going to get any pole beans at all this year. We do have the bush beans planted later, with the Arikara squash, and I’m seeing pods starting to form there, so we’ll have at least a bit more beans to harvest from there, soon.
I harvested a couple of green scallop squash, deciding to leave the golden zucchini to get a big bigger before picking them. There are still a couple of varieties of summer squash that barely have flower beds, even.
On coming back to the house through the sun room, I could hear noises through the door. As I came closer, a little raccoon ran out, but I could still hear noises.
Of the two you see in the first image above, the top one eventually ran by me and out the door. The one below it, however, ran to another corner, and just sat there. I even tried to persuade it to leave with an old broom handle I’ve got in the sun room for times like this. I was going to just sort of push it from its back, to convince it to move.
It didn’t move.
I ended up “petting” it with the broom handle while it just sat there, frozen, staring at me, which is what you see in the second picture.
I tried leaving for a bit and tapping on the other side of the window. Nothing. So I puttered around outside some more before coming back. It was still there. I moved in closer do to something else and all it did was turn around and stare at me some more, which you can see in the last picture.
The little thing looks so sad and adorable. The most tragic of expressions! 😄
It did eventually leave, some time after I was back in the house.
Once my morning routine was done and I was making breakfast, I used some of the fresh beans I picked this morning. I ended up making the fanciest breakfast I’ve ever made for myself, ever. 😄
My daughter had roasted the marinated pork belly last night, so I used some of that. I cooked up a couple of packages of ramen noodle soup, boiling the cut up beans in the stock for a few minutes before adding the noodles. Then, once the noodles were softened, I added a couple of eggs to poach for the last couple of minutes. We have some very ripe avocados that need to be eaten quickly, so I sliced one up.
The noodles and soup liquid didn’t all fit in the bowl, though, so the last of it went into a mug to be added to my bowl once there was room.
Since the meat was already cooked, the whole thing took hardly any time at all. I think waiting for the water to come to a boil was the longest part.
It was quite delicious, too!
Unfortunately, by the time I finished cooking, the pain was coming back. When I finished eating, it was bad enough that I had to take some pain killers and try lying down for a couple of hours. By the time the pain eased, it was long enough that I’m pretty sure it went away on its own, and the painkillers didn’t actually do anything.
Still, I was feeling well enough that I headed for the basement, sneaking past my daughter as she was mopping the floor before she got to that part. 😄 My brother is wanting to haul away the hot water tank collection, and I wanted to at least move them from the old basement to the bottom of the stairs in the new basement, as there is more room around them and they are stronger.
The modern tanks were pretty easy to move, though one of them turned out to still have a fair bit of water in it. I had it tilted over the little trench in the concrete floor that drains to the sump pump reservoir for a while. The water coming out was thick and deeply orange from rust!
With the tanks being round, it was quite easy to “walk” them across the old basement, though the space at the bottom of the old basement steps is so narrow, I had to drag them through there. Once in the new basement, I could mostly just roll them along a bottom edge.
Then there was the original tank. The one I thought I could make lighter by removing the outside of it. That inner tank is way heavier.
I tried rolling it back and forth at first, testing the weight, and could hear all sorts of things rattling around inside. There must be so much scale in there! I stood it up, and almost immediately, noticed some water leaking from the outflow valve. I started rocking it a bit and more water started spurting out. I ended up walking to over to the drainage trench in the concrete and held it there, at an angle, for a while.
The light isn’t good there, so I was using my phone’s flashlight to check the outflow pipe and could see it was threaded at the tank. There was an old pipe wrench handy in a nearby shelf so I used that, at the “tap” end of the outflow, to try and unscrew it. It was coming loose quite nicely when I realized it wasn’t coming loose from the tank. The “tap” was coming off – I couldn’t even see that it was threaded, earlier! After a while, a white pipe was visible and I was able to pull the whole thing out by hand. By then, most of the water had already drained and it was just a slow trickle. I ended up dragging something over to lean the tank against, so I didn’t have to sit there holding it at an angle the whole time.
Once it was down to a drip, I continued moving it to the other basement steps. Which was way easier than I expected. With the outer shell removed, it was narrower than the modern tanks, making it easier to get past the bottom of the old basement steps. Once it was on the smooth concrete of the new basement, I was able to just push and slide it most of the way!
So we now have three hot water tanks at the base of the new basement steps, waiting to be hauled out.
Then I went and got the old door from our last vehicle. It’s been leaning against a wall off to the side for years now. That turned out to be an easy move. The concrete floor in the new basement is nice and smooth, and it slide across quite nicely.
So that’s all ready to drag up the stairs and outside to the junk pile, which the girls and I were thinking of doing today.
It won’t be done today.
Once everything was moved, I cleaned up where the tanks had been, then grabbed the very handy old garden hose we keep for clearing the pipes to the septic tank to clear the drainage trench to the sump pump of all the thick, rusty sludge still sitting in it. Ew.
That done, it was about time to feed the outside cats, so I headed back outside. After feeding the cats, I broke out the push mower to FINALLY get a job done that I’ve been meaning to get to for weeks.
I cleared the two overgrown spaces in the main garden area, and around the fallen tree by the old squash tunnel we still haven’t taken down. These areas both needed to be mowed twice. The first time with the mower as high as it can go. The second time, a few notches lower. The old garden area is still so insanely rough from the botched plow job done before we moved here, I can’t really mow it as short as I’d like. I was able to mow in between the silver buffalo berry, though. Those need more wood chips mulched around them, eventually, too.
It looks so much better now!
After I put the mower away and headed back to take the above photos, I spotted little Bug in the north yard, behaving strangely. Like something in the grass had her full attention…
That mouse is about half the size of her skull. Such a good little Bug, earning her keep! 😁
I had intended to water the garden after I finished with the mowing, but I was at my limit for the day. My older daughter was able to do it for me, while I was working on this blog post.
As I write, I can start to feel that I may have pushed myself a bit too far with moving those tanks, though. My shoulder and neck muscles are starting to stiffen up.
Time to be pro-active with the painkillers, I think. Maybe some Tei Fu lotion on my legs before bed, too, since I can’t take my magnesium supplements until after my surgery.
An early bed time is definitely in order, tonight.
For all that I ended up having to lie down due to pain for several hours, I glad I was able to get things done.
