garden status

Our 2026 Garden, and how things are going.

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First, the garden stuff, then the updates…

I was out before things got too hot, giving the garden a solid watering. I was able to work on some weeding as well, particularly in one of the beds in the East yard.

I need to work on the purple cabbage bed next, but I got some solid weeding in the mixed bed.

I ended up taking some short videos.

The plants look wimpy in the video because I used the watering to help make it easier to pull the weeds. Several times, I went to pull up crab grass and the rhizome ended up lifting a section of the tiny bok choy with it! The rhizome had run directly under the bok choy, so their roots were grown around it. I was able to set them back and hopefully, they will recover.

The bok choi all bolted and I’m leaving them to collect seed from. I still have seed from last year and am going to try planting them again as a fall crop, as they clearly do not like this heat!

The spinach doesn’t like it, either, and it has bolted, too, but it looks like we’re going to get a decent amount of Swiss Chard.

I’ll need to do the cabbage bed, next.

On the one hand, I’m impressed with how much the purple savoy cabbage has grown. They were so tiny when I found them while weeding the bed. Unfortunately, they are rather leggy and not forming heads, like the green cabbage transplants I bought have started to do. This bed does get sunlight, but not enough for cabbage, it turns out. Something to keep in mind for next year!

I’m really, really happy with the Arikara squash! This is the biggest squash plant we have right now, and it’s grown so much, I had to lift the netting off one corner for the vine to run through. The netting will need to be removed soon, but I first have to figure out how to still protect the bed. Deer love to eat bush beans and, of course, I don’t want cats going in and rolling around or digging in there.

I’m also quite happy with our little flower bed. The nasturtiums we direct sowed are blooming enthusiastically. The transplanted not-red cosmos are winding down, but still have flower buds developing. The transplanted Crackerjack marigolds look like they’ll be going for awhile. All of these, I plan to let go to seed. My only disappointment is there were no self-seeded asters from last year, since the seeds I collected in the fall have completely disappeared; one of several packages of collected seeds that have disappeared.

The trellis bed is another area I spent some time using the hose to make weeding easier. Unfortunately, with the bed as low as it is, I can’t reach very far, so the first carrot planting isn’t getting the weeding it needs. The peas on the trellis are winding down. I did pick a handful, then ate them all before moving on to the next area to water. 😁 The super sugar snap peas aren’t at the blooming stage yet, and the dwarf peas are not very productive, so I’m thinking a sowing of more peas near the end of July for a fall crop might be good, if I can find the space.

After taking a break for breakfast, I headed back out to use the push mower around the edges of the yard. Some spaces are too tight to use the riding mower, but too big to use a weed trimmer. As long as I was in the shade, it wasn’t bad, but by then we were at full heat (and we still are). Every time I stepped out of the shade, it was like walking into a wall of heat! I managed to get the south and east yards done, but still need to do the west and north yards, plus the paths in the main garden area.

When switching to the second half of the south yard, I did a walkabout to pick loose branches and whatnot, then stopped to take care of this poor spruce tree.

Yes, there’s a tree in there! If you click through to the next image, you’ll see what I uncovered. The tree is not looking very healthy right now, but it should get better now that it isn’t being smothered by vines!

This is a tree that I’ve been wanting to transplant, but it’s starting to get too big for that. My mother planted two of them, right next to the chain link fence. One died since we moved out here. When I told my mother we needed to transplant them, she demanded they stay. When I explained that, if we left them there, they would eventually destroy the chain link fence. She told me she didn’t care, and insisted they stay. When one of them died, she thought I had killed it on purpose because she told me not to transplant them.

We’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile…

My brother was out by about 5am, doing more mowing, then getting getting the truck and trailer out to load more junk into the bin. They went through a number of areas and cleared a lot of the junk pile near the chain link fence, and filled it. They’ve called it in and it should be picked up tomorrow, but it won’t be coming back again right away. They got enough area cleared that they can start organizing things more, and have the bin brought back in the fall. Until then, my brother is going to focus on getting the metal stuff to the scrap yard, where he’ll at least get some money for it. I did remember to tell them that the old bath tub in the junk pile is a keeper – though they never found it! I’ve found I need something larger to wash things that too big or too dirty for the washing machine, like the outdoor cat beds and blankets. I’ll need to pick a spot for it that is out of the way, but still easily accessible.

In other things…

My husband is doing a lot better today. During the night, his blood glucose did drop very low again, though not as dangerously as before. He was able to eat something, then went back to bed. Between us, we’ve been making sure he actually eats regularly.

I found out something that was a surprise, though. My husband has been on a ludicrously high dose of Ozempic, which is supposed to help control his blood glucose. Something I have a real problem with, because it didn’t seem to help that, but the side effects were causing problems. He has decreased his slow-release insulin and I remembered to suggest he might want to decrease his Ozempic dose, too.

He isn’t taking it, and hasn’t been for a while.

The pharmacy has been sending him refills for he regular meds, even if he hasn’t called them in, because it pops up on their files. Some things are “take as needed” so he has to call those refills in. When he ran out of Ozempic, he never got a refill – and he never called to ask for one. I don’t know how long he’s been off it, but considering how low his blood glucose had dropped, it’s scary to think how much worse it would have been if he had still been taking it!

As for the rest of us, we’re managing all right, though the heat is brutal upstairs, even with their AC and fans. My older daughter has had to send notes with apologies for some of her commissions, saying they may be late. It’s hard to use a drawing tablet when it’s covered in sweat! I am so thankful for the new roof and the AC. It was bad enough in the summer on the second floor before. With the temperatures and humidity we are having now, it would be unlivable up there.

So that’s where we are at now. It’s coming up on 6pm as I write this, and we are still at 30C/86F I need to get out and do the evening cat feeding, though I might wait until later to finish my evening rounds!

Tomorrow, thankfully, it will be quite a bit cooler – though that is a relative statement! I’m planning to head into town to do some errands and visit my mother. I’ll have to remember to leave the gate open for the guy picking up the bin. The family will have to keep an eye out, as much to make sure the renter’s cows don’t get through the electric fence as for the bin pick up!

Okay. Time to stop procrastinating and go feed some kitties! (and skunks… and racoons… *sigh*)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden, and a general update

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We were expecting a very hot day today, so I was up early to water the garden thoroughly before things got too hot – even though we have rain in the forecast. Depending on which app I check, we’ll either get rain or thunderstorms. Just before I started writing this, our phones started going off with tornado warnings, but it looks like the system will be passing to the north of us. We might get some rain from the edges of it. We did hit 31C/88F today. As I write this, past 7pm, we are at 28C/82F right now, with the humidex making it feel like 30C/86F.

After I did the morning cat feeding (with some cats very confused by the early hour!) and garden watering, I went back to bed. I must have been really beat because I slept for about 3 hours, checked the time, then passed our for another 2 hours.

Unfortunately, today has turned out to be a bad pain day, and not just for me. My daughter somehow ended up getting a sun burn yesterday, even though she was in the shade most of the day. I’ve been getting so much sun since it got warm enough to work outside longer, I don’t get burned, though apparently I’m quite the redneck right now. 😄 Meanwhile, my other daughter has had increased health issues again. Her pre-op appointment in the city is a couple of Fridays from now – the day the bin my brother is renting is supposed to be delivered! My younger daughter will have to stay home so she can meet them and tell them where to drop the bin off.

Aside from the pain related to why I got those ultrasounds done, my left hip has decided to start working wrong again. Not a lot of pain there. The joint just isn’t moving right and wants to give out.

I am so thankful for all the arm bars and hand rails that were installed for my father, all those years ago!

Eventually, though, I did head outside. I had to use the walker for it, but I set up the new deer scarer my brother picked up for me.

I’ve set this one up by the corn, which is going to need the netting removed from it pretty soon. I set the other one up by the peas to keep the deer away with the sound of a dog barking. With this one, I expect raccoons to be more of an issue, and I set it to the ringing of a bell, since I think raccoons would get used to the sound of a dog barking very quickly.

Once that was set up, I wandered around and checked on various things. In the next image in the slide show above, you can see some chard leaves. These are planted between the garlic and are finally starting to grow! Still pretty much nothing on the spinach in the other row; what little germinated and survived promptly bolted. It does look like we will at least have some Swiss Chard for greens this year.

In the next image, we have a red nasturtium flower. The seeds I collected were from a package with a variety of colours in it, and so far we’ve had yellow and red. They are still quite small, but adding that straw mulch once they got big enough has really helped.

Next is the row of summer squash. Those are picking up quite nicely. The plan is to grow them vertically, but I’ll need to remove the netting to do that, and they still need that protection for now.

The last picture is of the fennel and chicory. They’ve had a bit of a growth spurt! Unfortunately, some of the fennel at the end of the bed got flattened. Stinky found his way under the netting and I found him lying there. I opened the netting up at the other end, so as not to spook him, then moved to scoot him in that direction. Instead, he panicked and started running into the netting over and over before I finally got him to go out the open end. *sigh* He didn’t do too much damage, at least. We added more rods to the hoops over the fennel and it’s getting so tall, it’s almost touching the top of the netting again!

We just got another tornado alert on our phones while I was writing the above paragraph. While that is passing to the north of us, our region and the entire south end of the province are currently under a severe thunderstorm watch this evening and overnight. The warning includes 4-6cm (about 1.5-2.5in) hail, 50-70mm (about 2-3in) of rain and wind gusts up to 100km/h (about 62m/h). For us, we’re to expect rain starting around 4am tonight and lasting until about 10am.

We are definitely not going to be hit with the worst of it, for which I am thankful, but my heart hurts for the people that have been slammed by these storms, over and over again.

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

Afternoon in the garden, and there’s our vandal again

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Today, I was out giving the garden and the food forest trees and bushes a deep watering. Yes, we did have good rain not long ago, but everything is bone dry again.

I had company, of the adorable kind.

I caught him, mid yawn! 😄

Sadly, in the video in the next file above, it did not pick up the purring. Eyelet started purring loudly as soon as I started moving closer with my phone. So adorable! Someone needs to adopt this baby!!!

Party way through, my younger daughter came out to let me know her sister had to jump into the shower, asking me to pause on the watering for a bit. While I was waiting for her to be done, I decided to see what we had for potatoes. With them dying back like they are, without ever having bloomed, I wasn’t sure if we could have any at all. I chose a spot where the plants were the deadest, and this is what I found.

This was from two or three plants, so not a lot, but gosh, those are lovely potatoes! Whatever is going on with our potatoes, we will at least have enough for a few meals, from the looks of it.

One of the things I noticed is that we are finally having some flower buds on bush beans.

Two of the three surviving Royal Burgundy bush beans – the two that did not get topped off by a deer – are blooming. Some of the yellow bush beans in between the tomatoes are also starting to bloom. The plants are still absolutely tiny, so I don’t expect much. They just don’t have the foliage to provide a lot of energy towards growing beans. We’ll see how that works out.

Then there was the weird thing that happened.

While I was watering, I could hear a quad start up and head out way, which meant it was our vandal. I saw him driving by through the trees, but he didn’t keep going. I could hear that he’s stopped at our driveway. So I went over to take a look, cutting through our garage, since we keep the main door wide open for most of the summer.

Sure enough, he had stopped at the end of the driveway, and was off his quad. I missed whatever he’d been doing since I first could hear that he had stopped. He was doing something to the back of his quad when he saw me looking at him from the garage. So he lifted his hands up to either side of his head, and seemed to be wiggling his fingers at me?

Then he pointed straight at me, before pointing down to the ground.

It was clearly intended to be a threatening gesture.

Then he got on his quad and drove away.

*sigh*

I really hope the cameras got that, and it didn’t get missed in the gap between capturing files and the motion sensor being triggered again. I’ll know, tomorrow.

Our vandal is clearly getting more unhinged, and his anger and hatred is aimed directly at me. He claims even his doctor said that I caused his cancer, which I assume is due to stress. Which is his own problem. I’d happily forget he existed, except he’s starting to show up and do weird stuff again.

I really don’t want to go through the process of applying for a restraining order again. It is such a pain.

Bah.

Anyhow. Once he was gone, I just went back to watering the garden and that was that. I never heard him driving back again, so who knows where he headed off to.

I really wish I understood why he got like this. I can come up with all sorts of contributing factors, but lots of people have been through the same or worse, without becoming like he has. It is the one major point against living here. Even my brother has said, if this farm ever does get sold, it will be because of our vandal, and my parents’ wishes have always been very clear about keeping the property in the family name. The irony of that is, our vandal is hating on me and doing all this because we live here when he expected to be able to convince my mother to change her will and leave it to him, instead of my brother. He’s causing all his own problems.

Well, there isn’t much we can do about it. We just focus on the thinks we can do something about!

Side note; while I was writing this, I got a message from the rescue that took in Poirot’s babies. She was asking what other kittens we have! I told her, but made sure to mention things like Eyelet being deaf, and Sir Robin’s infected eye that isn’t quite recovered. I told her about the feral kittens, too. Who knows. They might be able to help out with them! One can hope!

Oh, on a completely different note.

I got a call back from the autobody company. The arrangements we made for them to pick up the truck tomorrow have fallen through. Partly because the guys that would be doing the repair and painting on the damaged part of the box says they will need to use a primer, and it will need to sit overnight, at least. They know we don’t have any other transportation, so until the can arrange a courtesy vehicle, our insurance work is on hold. Otherwise, the earliest they can book us for is in September. Thankfully, the damage being worked on is not essential, and the truck can be driven.

Which worked out, in the end. My daughter was able to order her new computer, using my brother’s address for it to be delivered to. It’s supposed to arrive tomorrow. Which means that, after my eye appointment, we should be able to drive to my brother’s and pick it up, since where my eye appointment is is already about half way to their place.

I also just realized something else.

I’ve been doing various things, inside and out. I’ve taken no pain killers since yesterday morning. I’ve only had two dozes of the new anti-inflammatories, though I can take them up to three times a day, if I felt the need.

I am virtually pain free right now. Even my shoulder isn’t bothering me as much. Normally, while typing, my finger joints would be stiff and sore, making it hard to type. Not only that but, after sitting for a while, when I got up to walk around, I could actually do so normally. Usually, my knees and feet would have stiffened up so much that I have to hobble for a while, before I “grease my joints” and they can bend normally again. Yes, there is still some pain and stiffness, but much, much milder.

How utterly amazing. Such a huge difference, in so short a time!!!

Wow.

I wish I, or one of my doctors over the years, had thought of this earlier.

The Re-Farmer

Dangerous heat

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It’s a running joke about how cold it gets in Canada. The thing is, in much of the country, we get as hot in the spring/summer as we do cold in the fall/winter.

Today being a prime example. In the winter, we hit temperatures colder than -30C/-22F/ Now, we’re hitting temperatures above 30C/86F. The forecast was for a high of 31C/88F, but we easily hit 33C/92F.

I did the evening cat feeding and round not too long ago.

The temperature in the portable greenhouse was off the scale – and then some!

I did not know the needle could keep going like that. This would be what? 70C/158F? 80C/176?

I started off misting to cool things down, but that wasn’t going to be enough. All the bins and trays of seedlings got taken out and set in the shade next to the portable greenhouse. The new bags of seed potatoes were at the bottom, where it would have been cooler, but I moved them out and into the shade, too.

Cats were splayed all over the place. Inside the cat house would have been very hot, but those kittens are big enough to leave on their own and move to cooler places with the creche mamas.

There’s some video if you scroll through to the next file above.

It was the littles that were the problem. In fact, it was downright scary!

Poirot put her babies into a cat carrier in a shelf that’s supporting the platform that runs across that side of the sun room. For that time, it was a nice, cozy and protected spot with a soft blanket on the bottom.

Not good at all for today.

When I first stepped into the sun room to start gathering the bowls we use for wet cat food for the kittens, I saw that Poirot was not with the kittens. Nothing unusual there.

What was unusual was that all three kittens were panting.

Cats do not pant unless something is very wrong.

After moving things around for access, I took the carrier off the shelf and into the old kitchen. There, my daughter and I took the top of the carrier off completely. She had already brought out a frozen water bottle from the freezer, but we needed to cover it with something, and the knit blanket in the carrier had to go. I got a puppy pad and laid it on the bottom of the carrier, and the frozen water bottle was tucked under it at one end. While I held the carrier, with the distressed kittens inside, my daughter dug around in the freezer and found another frozen water bottle. That got tucked under the other end of the puppy pad.

I had moved out the plant stands the cats used to jump up the shelves, and I tried putting the carrier on the concrete floor there. When Poirot came in for her babies, though, she went right past them and up to the now empty shelf where she was looking for her babies. She ran off when I came close. I ended up putting the carrier back there, and she went right in to her babies.

Unfortunately, not only was it still hot there (the wall thermometer was reading almost 40C/104F, but the sun was hitting that spot, too. In the second file is some video I took. Poirot was trying to nurse her babies and just panting from the heat! I ended up getting a small plastic bowl with some water with ice cubes in it for her, but she wouldn’t let me get close. I didn’t want to chase her away from her babies, so I put it beside her food bowl.

She didn’t stay long. Not only was she too hot being there, but her own body heat would have made it worse for her babies.

While giving her time to be with her babies and figuring things out, I got the hose going, letting it run for quite a while to get rid of the scalding hot water from the hose sitting in the sun. I refreshed water bowls with cold water (our well water gets very cold, even in summer), misted plants, watered garden beds, and hosed down sidewalk blocks and concrete steps to cool them down. Which gave me the idea to wet the floor in the sun room. There are indoor/outdoor mats on the concrete floor and I went those down, so that the evaporation would help cool the room.

With Poirot away from her babies again, I moved the carrier to the floor, then set her special food and water bowls beside it. At first, the kittens were splayed out on the bottom of the carrier. When I came back later, they were as you can see them in the last image in the slideshow above. All together, with their heads against where the frozen water bottle is on one side of the carrier.

Looking at my desktop’s weather app, apparently we hit 35C/95F at about 4pm today. We are slowly starting to drop, but our overnight high is still expected to be around 19C/66F. Tomorrow – Tuesday – we’re still supposed to get even hotter then today, yet by Friday, we’re still expecting a high of only 4C/39F, with an overnight low of -1C/30F or -2C/28F, and a mix of rain and snow. After that is supposed to be another week of highs barely above 10C/50F, and overnight lows above freezing, but not by much.

On the plus side, there are now more days were we can expect rain (or snow), which will be helpful with all the wildfires going on right now. Most of them are now listed as under control.

Oh, dear.

I just checked the critter cam in the sun room.

Poirot’s babies are no longer in the carrier.

I hope she at least put them into the cat cage or something!

Time to go look!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a little big of everything!

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With the photos I took of the garden for my mother today, I realized that I haven’t really been doing general photos to share here. I’ve been doing that in the garden tour videos. So this is basically a photo tour of the garden today, and how things are doing.

First, the south garden beds.

The Goldy zucchini is blooming now! I didn’t get photo of the summer squash in pots, but the green zucchini is also blooming, though it’s not looking very healthy at all. The Magda squash is not blooming, but the plants are looking healthier. Go figure!

I set the images on Instagram to include the whole image, not just a cropped square, but for some reason, it didn’t take. So the image with the chocolate cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence is cut off, and you can’t see the potatoes in the background.

The kohlrabi seedlings are getting nice and big! I’m quite excited by them. Every time I’ve tried to grow them in the spring, they’ve failed entirely. This time, I actually have seedlings! They are protected from the deer by the netting but, unfortunately, the cats like to go under it and lie right where the kohlrabi are! So some of them are squished.

I didn’t bother taking a photo of the sad asparagus bed, or the sunchokes. The sunchokes, at least, are doing well, and are very tall.

The late potatoes are really huge and starting to show signs of dying back. The sugar snap peas are still growing and producing, which is a bit of a surprise. Early peas are usually done by now. The carrots seem unchanged, but the chard seedlings are definitely getting bigger, though in some spots, they seem to have not germinated at all.

The eggplants are growing bigger and blooming a lot right now; adding the grass clippings on top of the paper and cardboard mulch seems to be just what the doctor ordered! Even the hot peppers seems to be getting a boost from it, with more flowers, though I can’t see if there are more peppers forming.

The Crespo squash is really sprawling out! Cut off in the image is the single squash that’s growing, though I’m starting to see more female flowers again. Way too late in the season, though, for anything to come of them, unless we have a really long and mild fall.

I had to split up the photos of the main garden area into two Instagram batches.

The melons in the future trellis tunnel bed are doing quite well! I keep finding more and more hidden melons as I try to train more vines up the netting. This afternoon, I found even more, and have been putting bricks under the ones touching the ground to protect them. Even the surviving bush beans are looking really good. The onions gone to seed are getting so tall, they’re starting to fall over!

The pumpkins are also doing great and – much to my excitement! – when I was going through the vines this afternoon, I actually spotted some baby drum gourds! I never even saw female flowers, as they were hidden in the leaves! They are still at that stage where they might simply shrivel up and drop off but, hopefully, the pollination stuck.

There are quite a lot of peppers developing, hidden among the leaves. Only the dark Purple Dragonfly peppers seem to be getting ripe, though. The others are still very, very green.

Last night’s rain seems to have given the winter squash a huge boost; they just exploded in flowers this morning! All male flowers, but that’s okay. As I was going through them this afternoon, I kept finding more and more developing squash! I’ve been putting bricks or scrap pieces of boards under them as I find any that look like they’ve been successfully pollinated.

The shelling peas are not getting very tall, but they sure are getting lots of flowers and pods developing! This is really late for peas, but they were also planted late, and I’m impressed with how well they’ve survived the heat. I think the shade from all those squash leaves definitely helped!

There may not be a lot of pole beans, but they sure are getting tall! They are also starting to bloom, so I hope will will have something to harvest, soon.

The corn in the other winter squash bed is also doing very well. A few have fallen over in the wind, but I’ve been able to use the dollar store row cover hoops we aren’t using anymore to support them. Those are turning out to be quite handy, and I think I’ll be picking up more of them when I have the chance.

Finding a tiny tree frog on the biggest winter squash just made my morning! I love frogs! We have SO many of them this year, too!

The second melon bed is also doing fabulous. The watermelon is even starting to finally bloom. I found so many melons in there that were hidden among the leaves! I have been putting bricks, scrap pieces of wood, and even flat rocks under any that I find that look large enough to not dry up and fall off. I’m seeing many, many more tiny melons among the vines, but most of those will probably fall of, We shall see!

The San Marzano tomatoes in the main garden area are looking amazing. These are the ones that were the last to be transplanted, and the weakest, most damaged seedlings. Yet now, they have these thick, strong stems that don’t even really need the support posts! I think there’s lots of tomatoes on there, but it’s hard to see through the leaves. I haven’t been pruning them or anything, so we’ll see how that works out. The onions around them are doing well, too.

The shallots in the other bed aren’t doing as well – I think they’ve been rolled on by cats. The G-Star pattypan plants are getting so huge! The White Scallops are growing, but still quite small. The yellow bulb onions are going okay, except for one corner where it looks like something rolled right over them.

Then there is the strawberry bed. The deer eaten plants are recovering – and even starting to bloom! They might actually produce more berries this year! What an amazingly hardy variety! I’ll have to get more of them, that’s for sure.

Then there’s the Old Kitchen garden.

The San Marzano tomatoes in the retaining wall blocks are producing fruit and growing, but nothing at all like the ones in the main garden area. The mint is doing well and I later harvested a large amount of it. Enough to make some jelly or a syrup, I think.

None of the garlic is ready to be harvested, still. This is quite late for garlic! The Forme de Coure tomatoes are thriving, as are the Black Cherries. What a difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes! Those cherry tomatoes are getting so tall, they’re starting to get higher than the lilac they are climbing through! The little strawberries we grew from seed also seemed to love the rain we had last night, and are just full of ripe berries. Even the luffa are getting noticeably bigger, though still nowhere near producing flowers. Ah, well.

So that is how the garden looked today. I wish I could say my mother was happy to see the pictures, but the closest she could come to a complement was to say how she hoped I’d be giving her some winter squash later on. 😄

Which I was planning to, even though when I did that before – at her request – she looked confused and told me she didn’t know what to do with it. She never grew winter squash. Just zucchini. Ah, well. We’ll figure something out for her!

As for me, I’m pretty happy with how things are looking right now!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons, squash, pumpkin progress – and it’s crazy hot out there!

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According to my weather app, we’re still at 31C/88F, which “feels like” 33C/91F

Well, this evening (it’s coming up on 6pm as I start this), I got photos of our thermometers.

The thermometer in the sun room was reading 39C/102F. This thermometer is against the west wall, about 3/4 of the way up to the ceiling. It does not get direct sunlight on it.

The thermometer outside my husband’s bedroom window was as high as the needle could go. If the numbers went that far, it would be about 60C/140F. This thermometer get blasted with the full sun for most of the day, in a mostly sheltered corner of the house. No shade and rarely any breeze.

The last thermometer is stored in the top of a cat shelter shelf. The shelf is in full sun, but the thermometer itself was in shade inside. It was reading 43C/109F. Of all the thermometers, I’d say that one is the most accurate to how it felt while walking around the garden beds.

Wow.

Honestly, I’ll take that over matching temperatures on the other side of freezing. Not that we see -60C/-76F, but we do see -40C/F at times, and that is far more deadly.

A couple of evenings ago, I took photos of our squash, pumpkins and melons, using my hand for perspective. Today, I did it again – but this time, I found more to take photos of! Since Instagram allows “only” up to 10 photos in a slideshow, I split the squash and melon photos up by beds.

Yes, I was able to find melons in the second bed this time! I had spotted one before, but today I moved the leaves around and found others.

First, there is our single Crespo squash.

I’ve spotted some tiny female flower buds, but so far, there is only one successfully germinated Crespo squash among the three vines.

Next up is the bed with just the Summer of Melons mix melons.

I dug around in the leaves and found some “new” ones, too. In one photo, there are two melons, but the leaves and vines prevented me from getting a photo of them both, individually, so one of them is only half in the frame.

They’re getting big enough that they are starting to look like distinctively different varieties, too.

The next bed is the pumpkins.

The smaller ones are getting noticeably not-small anymore!

The pumpkin vines are getting intertwined with the drum gourd vines. Those have many male flowers, but I have yet to find a female flower anywhere. It’s possible I can’t see any under all the leaves, but I think that’s unlikely. I’m wondering if they are getting enough water? These have a buried gallon water bottle buried next to their bases, so they get watered slowly and deeply, but a gallon of water might not be enough for something like this. I don’t know. It seems to be sufficient for the pumpkins, though!

The next bed is the winter squash interplanted with shelling peas and pole beans.

The biggest squash at the corner of the bed had a friend on its stem!

The next bed is the winter squash interplanted with corn.

Still not very many among these, but they were also transplanted a fair bit later than the first bed.

Finally, there is the second melon bed.

The first and largest one is among the few Summer of Melons mix transplants that were left over. The others, I’m not sure. They look like they are the same variety, but one was on the far side of the single surviving Cream of Saskatchewan water melon, which I know for sure are not from that mix. That would make them Sarah’s Choice melons. We grew those last year, but they were grown in a bed next to two other varieties and the vines were so mixed up, we lost track of which were which. The other melons in this bed would be the Pixie melons.

Oh, wow. I just linked those to where I bought them, and my goodness, the prices have sure gone up!!! Especially for the Pixies!

If you want to compare how fast these have been growing, you can check out the comparison posts I made on July 30 and July 28.

We may not have anything to harvest on a daily basis this year, but we sure to have a lot growing!

If the warmth keeps up, though, we might actually be able to have things to harvest. The bush beans first had to survive the slugs. Then they had to survive the deer. Amazingly, there are some that have recovered enough that they are starting to bloom! So Royal Burgundy bush beans are a possibility.

There aren’t a lot of pole beans, either, but they are also starting to bloom, so we might be able to harvest both the green Seychelles and the purple Carminate beans at some point. Which isn’t going to be easy, with all those winter squash vines growing around them! The shelling peas seem to be very prolific, with lots of flowers and developing pods, but it will probably be at least a couple more weeks before any of those can be harvested. The corn is also going to be a bit longer; they are sure releasing a LOT of pollen right now!

We also have green tomatoes developing, but nothing is even close to ripening, yet. Then there are the summer squash. I have no idea if we’ll get any green zucchini, Magda, Goldy zucchini or White Scallops, but I think we’ll definitely be getting some of the G-Star patty pans to harvest at some point. They’re not blooming yet, but there are buds starting to form, at least.

What a strange, strange gardening year. That rain we had in the spring really messed things up and set things back. We had Saskatoons blooming, but there are no berries – it was probably too wet for the pollinators. The cherry tree by the house isn’t going to have many berries, though there are some that are ripening. One chokecherry tree in the spruce grove is showing berries, but the one next to the main garden area has almost nothing on it. Even among the crab apples trees, there are a couple of trees where I’m not seeing any apples! These are the ones that have small apples the birds like to eat. The ones with apples that we like to eat do have apples on them, so the timing of blooms and pollinating seems to have been just right for those trees, but not the others.

We have plenty of pollinators, though. I don’t usually see them, but when I’m going through the garden, I can hear them buzzing. I will still hand pollinate the squash if I spot a female flower, but the melons have so many flowers that are so small, hidden among so many leaves, it’s all on the pollinators for those!

With the spring set backs, we can only pray to have a long and mild fall to make up for it!

As my SIL once told me some time ago; if we depended on our garden for food, we’d be starving! 😄

I’m working to change that, though! 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

Melting

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Well, we reached our predicted high of 31C/88F, with the humidex putting us at 33C/91F, and we’re not expected to start cooking down until well into the evening.

I had a much interrupted night, so the girls took care of the outside stuff for me, including watering the garden, so I could try and get some more sleep. Which is rather difficult when, every now and then, a cat will suddenly get the zoomies and parkour off my body while careening across my room. What a way to be awakened!

I did make my trip into town, late this morning. It was slightly delayed when I stopped at the post office to pick up a package, and found my daughter’s computer was in a day early! I’d even checked the tracking this morning, and it was still saying tomorrow, by the end of day. Once I had that, I went back home to drop it off, then headed into town. My daughter hasn’t tried to take it upstairs yet. Her old computer is still chugging away, backing things up onto online storage – a very sloooooow process. She’ll start getting the new machine set up during the night.

I had intended to see what errands I could do while I was in town after sanitizing and filling our water jugs (it’s a different grocery store than where I usually go to, that has a sanitation station with their refill fountains), I got a message from my husband asking if I could swing by the Greek restaurant and pick up a couple of gyros for him. I found out this morning that my husband had eaten almost nothing all day yesterday – he just didn’t have any appetite – and his blood sugars dropped dangerously low. He had to pop glucose tablets to get himself back up again. The water refill station at the grocery store happened to be next to their pharmaceutical section, and they had some of the glucose tablets in stock, so I grabbed a bottle. With his Ozempic dose being doubled, the danger of his blood glucose levels dropping are much higher. Which ticks me off because I am 100% certain that is his chronic pain could be brought under control, he blood sugars would normalize. However, there’s no fix for his back, and so far, no pain killers tried have been able to get it under control. At best, it become more bearable. It’s like when he was diagnosed diabetic the first time. After that he was diagnosed with sleep apnea and started using a CPAP. Almost immediately, his blood sugars normalized and he lost about 100 pounds. I suspect the increase in dose for the Ozempic is more for the potential side effect of weight loss, but he’s been on this stuff for years now, and it has had zero effect on his weight. Plenty of other side effects, like losing much of his sense of taste, a loss of appetite, loss of muscle mass and intestinal distress, but his weight just won’t change.

Needless to say, when he asked for the gyros, my other plans went out the window, got his food and headed straight home with it, and skipped the other places I was going to check out.

I had been thinking of going to the dump later today, when it opens for the evening, but we really don’t have enough garbage and recycling to make it worth burning the gas in another trip.

My other plan had been to try and get some lawn mowed this morning, before it got hot, but that didn’t work out. Tomorrow is supposed to be a little bit cooler, so I will see if I can get it done then. In fact, our entire 10 day forecast has changed and, after tomorrow, we’re now supposed to be closer to 20C/68F instead of in the 30C/86F range.

I just got back from refreshing the cats’ water bowls outside, and adding frozen water bottles in a couple of them to help keep them cooler. The cats are just splattered all over, trying to keep cool

Except for these ones.

She’s nursing six kittens.

She only had four kittens in her litter.

So happy to see Button in there, getting some nip!

I’m just looking back at some of my garden posts from a year ago. At this time, our garlic was all harvested and curing, and I tried planting beets, radishes and spinach in the empty bed (they did not do well at all). I was also harvesting bush beans, turnips and G-Star pattypan squash. Not a lot, but at least something! I was even getting some yellow zucchini and the odd green one from the plants that survived getting eaten by slugs. We had Black Beauty tomatoes getting so big and heavy, we had to add extra supports. Our Spoon tomatoes were turning red, and our Sweet Chocolate peppers were covered in developing fruit. We even started harvesting some Indigo Blue tomatoes, and our Pink Banana and Georgia Candy Roaster had so many huge squash developing!

I’ll be doing another garden tour video in the middle of the month. Hopefully, things will have progressed between now and then! It should be interesting to compare the two.

For now, though, the main priority is to keep things protected from the heat.

Including us!

The Re-Farmer

What a morning – good stuff and not to good stuff!

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There is definitely and up side to the girls being up during the night and sleeping during the day. It means there is someone up and about to keep an eye on things.

My younger daughter came downstairs to discover our entry way flooded, and water pouring down the stairs to the basement.

We still have the washing machine set up with a hose extension. When we do laundry, we run the hose through the window on the storm door to drain into the grass, rather than drain to the septic tank. The septic pump has been having so many issues, the less wear and tear on it, the better. When we’re not doing laundry, the hose is pulled in and sort of rolled up between the drier and the wall of the build in closet.

Somehow, a cat turned on the washing machine last night.

Usually, if they accidentally push the on button, the machine will eventually turn itself off. Somehow, that didn’t happen this time. Instead, it ran an empty load. Which is the one plus side, as the machine automatically adjusts the water level based on weight. So it would have run a very small load.

That’s the only saving grace.

My daughters mopped as best they could. After they told me about it, one of them went down to move the new blower fans and set them up over the worst areas. One at the stairs that have old carpet on them (we really ought to take that off, but whoever put it on, really nailed it down thoroughly!). The other is aimed at a low area where the water tends to pool under some counter shelves. We’ll have to check things regularly and move the fans around, as needed. I might have to steal another fan or two from the old basement.

I did get a bit of a fun thing out of it, though.

There is a window at the stairs for the new basement. It doesn’t have a screen, but I had opened it up just a bit to allow some air circulation.

The swing bench is on the patio blocks outside of this window, as well as a wooden bench right up against the wall behind it. The more feral kittens tend to hang out there, so I’ve made a point of leaving kibble under the swing bench, but they will not let us come anywhere near them.

As I was going up the stairs, I saw some kittens playing at the window, with one on the wooden bench batting at another under the bench, right at the window, who was batting back. A third kitten was managing to squeeze a leg in to join the batting party, too.

So I stuck my fingers through the window and wiggled at them.

Immediately, three kittens started batting at my fingers!

I don’t think they could see me through the window at all, or I’m sure they would have run away. I was able to slowly open the window a bit more and reach further. There’s one kitten that’s mostly black but has two white spots under its nose like a funny mustache. That one was on the bench and kept playing with my fingers even as the others got nervous and left. It even let me almost touch it, sniffing at my fingers as I reached as far as the bench’s top.

Thanks to a window, I was able to make physical contact with kittens that we’ve never been able to get closer than 5 feet or so before!

Once things were set up in the basement, I noticed a small pool of water near the door at the top of the stairs. The mop and bucket were still there, so I started mopping it up, moving some things to get more puddling that I found – and started to see water running across the floor again!

That’s when I realized the drainage hose was still full of water. I’d knocked it over a bit, and it was starting to empty onto the floor.

*sigh*

We got the hose running through the door to drain and left it set up. I was needing to do laundry today, anyhow!

Some day, we intend to put new mesh in the window of that storm door. For now, being able to run things through the door has been the handiest thing ever! We do have to fill the gap under the window with a towel to keep the mosquitoes out, and to keep the bottom of the window from dropping directly onto the hose, but that’s not a bit deal.

So… that was quite a way to start the day!!!

After we finished setting all this up, I headed outside to feed the cats and do my morning routine. One of the first things I saw was that the green zucchini is finally starting to bloom!

The plants aren’t looking very strong, though. I did move both pots with squash growing in them onto the patio blocks by the swing bench. I was concerned they were getting too hot where they were. They’ll still get plenty of light, but will be shaded during the hotter parts of the day.

I’m trying to think of an empty spot we might have somewhere, large enough that I could dig a hole to fit the entire pot’s soil. I think the zucchini will do better in a garden bed then a pot, but transplanting them at this point would have to be done very carefully.

Note for future reference. Don’t try to plant summer squash in pots. At least not these ones. I believe there are varieties that were bred specifically for container gardening, but these aren’t them.

At least they didn’t get eaten by slugs this year.

While the potted summer squash aren’t doing very well, the G-Star patty pans that got planted so much later are getting huge! I’m so glad we got those sent to us by mistake a couple of years back. This variety seems to just love growing here.

I’m also glad we have so much space between the shifted beds in the main garden area. We are training the winter squash and pumpkin vines to grow along the sides of the beds, but they are getting so big, it’s getting harder to walk between the beds to check on them or water them. Even the melons in the low raised bed are starting to need to be trained to run along the sides of the bed, to keep the path open.

The corn is really starting to kick in, with silks visible all over, and the tassels opening up. There isn’t much wind to blow the pollen around right now, though. I considered trying to hand pollinate them, or even just give the stalks a shake, but the winters squash vines below are so big, it would be hard to reach without damaging them. I’ll just have to let nature take it’s course.

I’m happy to say, the new strawberry plants that got eaten by a deer are recovering. I’m seeing new leaves appearing, at least. I don’t expect them to recover enough to produce berries again, but hopefully they will recover enough to survive the winter.

We’re supposed to be getting hotter again today, and even hotter tomorrow, so I’m still watering the garden every morning, while it’s still cooler. After feeding the outside cats, of course. Some of the kittens are getting gummy eyes, including Button. I brought him inside and held him while my daughter cleaned his eyes, but he was the only one I was able to catch.

Speaking of Button…

I was just finishing up when I started getting messages from the Cat Lady. Her son is expected to be home from the hospital on Friday, so she’s hoping to be able to get Button on the weekend. I’m so glad to hear he’s responding to treatment, and isn’t going to need surgery. Thank God! Things could have been so much worse!

She came home late last night to discover Cabbages had knocked over a 15′ palm tree they have in their house. That’s a new achievement for Cabbages! Good grief! What is it with her and plants?? I told her about a cat turning on our flooding issues, and we commiserated over the destructiveness of cats! 😁

Thankfully, Broccoli isn’t destructive! At least not like that. She’s very destructive when it comes to anything threatening her babies.

I spotted her nursing her calico baby under the wheel barrow while I was watering. They stayed there long enough that I was able to sneak a photo, after they were done. Rabi is such a beautiful kitten! She’s going to be a long haired beauty, like her big sister, Brussel. Hopefully, though, we’ll have better luck socializing Broccoli’s kittens, this year!

I’ve started making plans for an outdoor isolation cage. I’ve got two versions I’m thinking of. The small version, we could probably put together with materials we have on hand and maybe just need to buy hinges, or wheels, if we decide to make it more easily mobile. This “small” version would still be 4’x4’x4′, I think – plus the height of legs – and have two levels. I want it to have a floor at least a few inches off the ground. It also has to be solid enough to keep the raccoons out, since it would have food and water inside. A smaller cage would be ideal to keep a single newly spayed or neutered cat safe during the recovery period. I’m thinking an insulated shelter box on the bottom level, with a hinged access door on one side or the back, and a covered area beside it for a litter box. The litter box would also have a hinged door to access it from the outside. The door in the front would be hinged so that we can drop it to the ground like a ramp. When no cats are in isolation, they could go in and out as they please, and it wouldn’t be associated with the fear of being trapped. The upper level would have space for a cat bed or two, food and water bowls or whatever we set up for them to enjoy and play with.

While we plan to use wire mesh for the walls of the shelters, we’ve got so many salvaged windows in the barn and one of the sheds, I would love to be able to incorporate some into the walls of an isolation cage. It would be very convenient, for example, so have a window in the wall that could be slid open to access the litter box or food bowls inside, rather than making a hinged door.

I haven’t decided on the roof, yet. We still have leftover pieces of metal roofing material, so we’ll most likely scavenge some of that.

A larger version would be something with a human sized door, that we could walk into. Maybe not with a lot of room, but enough to go in and clean things or do whatever is needed. That one I’m thinking would be made large enough to keep two or three cats in during recovery or treatment. If we get the old catio the Cat Lady can no longer use, that would probably be what we use to make a larger isolation cage. I have no idea what the catio looks like or how big it is. We did have some photos of cats in catios sent to us, before they moved to their current house, but I don’t know which one couldn’t be used anymore after their move.

For now, though, we need to have something ready for when we can start trapping cats, one at a time, for spays. A smaller isolation cage should be faster to build.

In theory, at least!

Anyhow.

So that was our morning today.

As I write this (just past noon), we’ve reached 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F. We’re expected to get a few degrees hotter, but we might actually get a bit of rain late this afternoon. Just a 35% chance of it, though, so not likely. The weather radar does show the system being pushed right over us, though, so we’ll see.

The Re-Farmer

[just before publishing this, I decided to see what the AI assistant would tell me about this blog post. I found it rather funny, and thought I’d share. This is what the AI thinks of this blog post:

The content is engaging and provides a detailed account of a challenging morning. Consider adding subheadings to break up the text for easier reading. Also, including more images or visual elements would enhance the reader’s experience. Additionally, linking to relevant content within your own blog can increase reader engagement and time spent on your site. Overall, the personal storytelling style is authentic and enjoyable to read.

😄😄

Also, I hate their “improve title” alternative title suggestions. They are the sort of titles that would have me NOT click to read a blog post! They feel so… artificial.

Go figure.]

Foggy morning, and another one!?!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night was one of those nights where, as soon as I went to bed, I just kept getting more and more awake! I finally got up and spent time with my younger daughter, who was busy making pies. Of course, being up at 2 or 3 in the morning, I was peckish, so I made a snack in between batches of pies, then she and I watched an episode of Columbo while they were baking.

We cheated on the pies. We had some canned pumpkin pie mix. Yesterday, I made a quick trip to the local grocery store and grabbed some frozen pie shells and other missing ingredient. There was no way we were going to be making pie dough in this heat and humidity!

By the time I got back to bed, it was 4am, and even then, I was still up at 4:30!

I did get a bit of sleep, though, but was just after a nap at that point. We were looking at reaching a high of 29C/84F today, but the coolest part of the day was going to be a brief period at about 5 or 6am. My goal was to water the garden while it was still cool.

So when I woke up at 6, I got up and headed out.

The first thing was, of course, to feed the outside cats. As I was going into the sun room with the kibble, I saw several kittens asleep together in a small cat bed on the floor. One got out, another start looking around, and the third…

*sigh*

One of the tabby kittens was lying stretched out, looking like it was asleep. With this heat, I see a lot of the cats sleeping all stretched out like that, but with all the commotion, this one wasn’t moving.

Yup. We lost another kitten.

That’s three kittens in four days.

After putting the food out, I quickly buried it near the unknown kitten I found yesterday morning.

I wonder if it’s the heat and humidity getting to them? There was no sign of anything obvious. It was about 17C/63F at the time. The sun room would not have been much warmer – these days, we leave the doors to outside wide open and the ceiling fan on all the time, for maximum air circulation. If anything, down at the concrete floor, it would have been a bit cooler.

I don’t know what to make of it. About the only solace I can take is, fewer cats in the colony.

Once the sad deed was done, I started my morning rounds. It was very foggy this morning!

It was so dense that I could see the fog covering the tops of the spruce trees in the inner yard. My phone’s camera automatically clears up the image, so in reality, it looked foggier than in the photo.

It wasn’t just fog, though. It was also smoke.

That sun is red because of smoke. Again, the camera doesn’t capture it well. It was much redder than it appears in the photo!

I just checked the live fire map. There are no fires near us; they are all quite a bit further up north. However, there are currently 6 fires listed as out of control, another 5 listed as being held, 29 (!!!) listed as being monitored and another 9 listed as under control. Some of these, however, are grouped closely on the map, almost on top of each other. All of them are listed as natural causes. None are near populated areas.

So this morning, it was both smoke and fog!

Checking the weather forecast last night, it was saying thunderstorms during by around midnight tonight, but when I checked again this morning, it was saying thunderstorms starting at about 3pm this afternoon.

I’m writing this at quarter to 3 right now, and on checking the weather radar, there are no storms on the horizon. My phone’s app is now saying to expect a thunderstorm around 8 or 9pm.

We shall see.

Either way, with the upcoming heat, once I did my rounds, I did a thorough watering of the garden beds. Which was rather torturous, because I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Not so bad that I was willing to go back to the house and get the bug spray, though. Having had only a little more than an hour of sleep, I was planning to go back to bed as soon as I got inside and didn’t want to have to wash all

As I write this, we are at 27C/81F, with the humidex at 32C/90F The expected high had changed to 28C/82F, and I’m not sure if we actually reached it.

Oh! I just got a message from the Cat Lady. She just dropped stuff off at the gate for us. She didn’t message ahead, or I’d have opened the gate. She had The Wolfman with her, and she says he started going nuts as soon as they got on the gravel road. When they opened the windows at the gate, he started clawing to get INTO his carrier. He didn’t calm down until they were back on the highway.

This cat has gotten completely attached to them! More than any of the others they ended up keeping permanently!

Excuse me while I head out and collect the donated kibble from the gate.

Wow! Four 9.1kg bags of kibble were waiting for me! I’m glad I dug the wagon out of the garage to bring them over. That will be such a huge help!

Also, I am absolutely dripping with sweat. I just checked and yes, we reached the predicted high of 28C/82F in the last twenty minutes. The humidex is at 33C/72F Apparently, our humidity levels are just 56%, but I question that. Stepping outside was like walking into a sauna!

I did top up the cat food outside with some of the new kibble, and they definitely prefer it over the feed store kibble I got. They’ll eat the feed store brand, but not as enthusiastically. Not that they are eating much in this heat, anyhow!

We should have a brief respite over the next few days – meaning will be in the mid 20’s rather than approaching 30C/86F – but then we’re supposed to get right back up there again.

This is the sort of weather that breed thunderstorms, but so far, those only seem to be forming up north. If only they would get just rain to help put out those fires, instead, that would be good!

Well, the tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, melons and squash will sure enjoy the heat! We just need to keep up on the watering.

I think I’ll go to the living room and stand in front of the air conditioner for a while!

The Re-Farmer