Just a short video of today’s harvest.
Not to shabby for a frost enforced harvest!
The Re-Farmer
Just a short video of today’s harvest.
Not to shabby for a frost enforced harvest!
The Re-Farmer
I’m just going to post this photo for now; I took some video and will upload that later.
Until then, this is what I was able to harvest today.

We did get another frost last night. I was out doing my rounds early enough to see some frost still on the ground. Once again, there was no frost warning and, according to the official past 24 hours record, we never dipped below 6C/43F, while I know I saw 4C/39F on my app when I checked before heading out this morning.
I should get one of those high/low thermometers that have needles to mark the highest and lowest temperatures on the dial.
So for now, all the stuff affected by the frost has been harvested that could be harvested. I left the melons, because they look like enough of the vines survived for ripening to continue. We’re supposed to warm up over the next while, so that will give more time for things like the melons, peppers, Spoon tomatoes and the one eggplant to ripen. The other things, like the carrots and onions, can handle frost so they’ll be fine for quite a while longer.
Our gardening season is not done yet!
The Re-Farmer
While doing my morning rounds, I make a point of looking at the squash blossoms to see if any need to be hand pollinated. With the chilly nights we’ve been having – we dropped to 6C/43F last night – I’ve been finding bees in the flowers, curled up and covered in pollen.
Not this morning!
These bees had made their way out to warm up in the sun!
You can even see how wet their “fur” is. That’s not from rain. That’s from the morning dew!
I am so happy to see so many bees this year. They got hit really hard the last two springs, and it’s good to see them recovering.
I also got a small harvest this morning.
We’ve got so many tomatoes inside already, waiting to be processed, and I still have the unripe Romas sitting on screens under the market tent, until we have room to move them indoors, but when they’re ripe, they’re ripe. They need to be picked!
Then there was just one, lonely zucchini. 😁 Which I’m quite happy with, since we almost had no surviving zucchini at all, this year!
With the overnight temperatures dropping lower than forecast, I find myself wondering if we should gather all the tomatoes and bring them in to ripen. We’ve got a couple of nights coming up that are now predicted to drop to 6C/43F overnight. Considering that we’ve been hitting that on nights we were supposed to drop to only 10C, it has me concerned. Sunday is the 10th – our first average frost date. We’re supposed to have a high of 18C/64F that day, and an overnight low of 6C/43F. The next day is supposed to have a high of 17C/63F, with no change in the low. After that, things are supposed to warm up again. Depending on how the forecasts change, we might be trying to cover the tomatoes, peppers and melons. There’s no way we can cover the squash bed. It’s just too spread out.
So many things depend on the weather right now. For things like the winter squash, peppers – only the Sweet Chocolates are far enough along to have ripe ones to pick – and our one eggplant that’s trying to grow fruit right now, a frost would mean no harvest at all. The carrots, onions and purple potatoes would be fine, at least.
Well, we shall see when the time comes. Just praying for the frost to hold off long enough for things to finish ripening, though even chilly nights will slow things down.
I know the bees would sure enjoy the warmth hanging around longer!
The Re-Farmer
Well, I’m going to be running around tomorrow, after all.
But first, while doing my evening rounds, I found myself bringing in a small harvest.

At first, I thought I’d just grab the few ripe Indigo Blues I spotted, but then I noticed the Red Swan beans, among the purple corn. The plants are small and sparse, but once I started looking around the leaves, I kept finding more and more larger bean pods! The yellow zucchini was one I looked at this morning and thought would wait until tomorrow or the day after, but it was noticeably bigger by the evening.
I really should know better than to move the peppers to see how ripe they are. Where the sun hits turns brown rather quickly, while the parts in shade stay green longer. They are completely ripe when they are all brown. The problem is, their stems are fragile, so when I move a pepper to see the other side of it, it just snaps right off!
Which is fine. My daughter is using it for her meal right now.
Meanwhile…
While still at my mother’s, I got a message from my husband letting me know there was something to pick up at the post office. One of the packages was RAM for his computer. He was very excited about it.
Some time later, I came out and noticed he wasn’t in his room. Eventually, I found him in the living room, reading on his tablet.
Not a good sign.
He had installed the RAM, which was absolutely the right hardware for his computer, but when he turned it on, it wouldn’t work. He just had a black screen with a spinning circle on it.
Turns out, this is a known problem with his brand of computer. It doesn’t like being upgraded.
After fighting with it for a while, he reinstalled the original RAM.
And it still didn’t work.
His computer was dead.
At which point, he pain killered up and lay down for a while, because installing the hardware really did a number on his back. When he couldn’t handle being prone anymore, he moved to the living room.
At least he was still able to research his issue, then try something else.
Ultimately, he was able to get the original RAM working again, and he has a working computer again.
He’s also going to return the RAM.
That requires printing out a return label.
The printer is in my room. We don’t need to print a lot of stuff, but the self cleaning uses a lot of ink, anyhow. I’m out of cyan and magenta. You’d think we’d still be able to print out a black and white label, but nope. Even when it’s set to black and white, if more than one colour of ink is out, the printer simply won’t print.
Which means that tomorrow, I have to go to the nearest place that sells this brand of ink.
Which is a Staples, in the smaller city.
Then, after the ink is installed the the labels printed, I’m going to have to go to a Purolator to send the return out.
Which is driving to either the town we usually go to, or the town my mother lives in. Considering were the Purolator depot moved to in town, there isn’t really any difference in time or distance between them.
So I’ll have a couple of hours, more or less, of driving to get the ink and bring it home, then another 45 minutes to an hour of driving to get to a Purolator.
A significant portion of the refund is going to have to go back to paying for the gas and ink!
Well, so much for starting on that tomato sauce tomorrow.
The Re-Farmer
I will start with the kitten update!
The kitten seems to be completely normal right now! No favouring the leg that was dislocated. No limp that I can see. The kitten stays away on its own, for the most part, but doesn’t run away when the other kittens come over to say hi. I’ve even seen TTT grooming in on the way by.
I’m also not finding any messes. Not even on the puppy pads under my desk. It looks like TTT has finally starting using a litter box. Not while I’m in the room, though, so I’m hoping she’s using the covered box in my closet – the only one I can’t see into – and not in some secret corner somewhere. I’m not seeing any tiny messes, either, so it looks like the kitten figured out litter boxes right away.
The main thing is, the kitten appears completely uninjured! I was able to sneak a pet this morning, but otherwise it stays away. Now that it’s indoors, socializing it will be much easier, so I am not concerned.
Today is supposed to be “cooler”, with a high of 27C/81F. We currently have weather advisories for smoke. I can see it on the security camera live fee, hanging in the old hay yard like a fog. It is worse now, than when I was doing my morning rounds.
Our squash flowers are very popular.

They are pretty much the only things blooming right now, other than some wild yarrow, so the bees are happy!
I wasn’t expecting to harvest anything this morning, but I found these!

I was surprised to find such large patty pans. They got missed yesterday, hidden under leaves, but this morning I could actually see them. I normally like to pick them a bit smaller, but these will still be tender, without a seed cavity yet.
I was not intending to pick the pepper, though. I had moved it to look at the back and see how much green there still was, and the stem broke off!
Some of the beans growing in the compost ring are completely dried on the vines, so I picked one of the pods. Once inside, I opened it up and found…

A mystery.
When I first opened the pod, I thought they were black, but once I uploaded the photos to the computer, I could see they are actually a deep, dark blue.
I have no idea where they came from.
I have never bought seed beans like this, nor do I remember buying dry beans like this. If we did buy some that I can’t remember, they would have been cooked; no viable, uncooked seeds would have ended up in the compost heap.
I’ve tried looking them up, but have had no luck. These had pale purple flowers, green pods, and now deep blue, almost black, seeds. I’ve found seeds similar to this, but they all come from yellow or purple pods, none green.
Well, whatever they are, we’ve got more of them with pods drying out on the vines. I’ll keep the seeds and maybe try growing them in the garden next year, and seeing if they are actually a tasty bean.
I’m considering a couple of things in the garden beds right now.
One is going to have to be done; it’s just a matter of doing it when it’s cooler in the day. The Roma VF look like they’ve picked up a fungus. I don’t know if it’s tomato blight or something else. Either way, all the remaining tomatoes need to be picked and the plants pulled. They will be burned, not composted.
I’m debating the bed along the chain link fence. The peas are pulled, but there are still some of those Czech lettuces in there that I’m allowing to go to seed. Plus the volunteer tomatoes.
The tomato plants are really small, but if the long range weather forecast is at all accurate, they still have more than a month of growing season. So I am thinking of transplanting them into the empty bed in the old kitchen garden, where the Irish Cobbler potatoes had been. I would need to protect them from the kittens that like to play or nap in there.
Once that bed by the chain link fence is clear and ready to be prepped for the winter, I’m going to make it a bit narrower. It’s too painful to reach near the chain link fence to weed. Plus, some of those pieces of concrete patio blocks I found run under one corner of the bed, and I want to dig those out.
I have those tillage radish seeds still. I am thinking, once some beds are emptied and cleaned up, I can plant some of those as a cover crop. They won’t reach full size before winter, but they should drill far enough to make a difference. These are meant to be left in the ground, where they will freeze in the winter, decompose, and add organic matter to the soil in the spring.
Amending this soil into something healthy again is definitely a years-long process.
The Re-Farmer
What a difference a warmer night makes!

Quite a few of the Roma VF could be harvested, and there was even a fair bit of beans to pick. I found a single ripe Black Beauty, and a couple of Indigo Blues. The Black Beauties are determinates, so when they finally start ripening for real, there should be lots of them all at once, like the Roma, but gosh, they’re taking a long time to get there! We might end up harvesting them all to ripen indoors, if the weather doesn’t hold.
Not too much action with the summer squash. There are a lot of female yellow patty pans blooming, which I’m hand pollinating, so we should have more of those later, but it looks like the green patty pans are almost done, and the green zucchini… well, those never really did recover from the slugs.
Meanwhile, we’re seeing all sorts of kittens around. In fact, last night, I think I spotted two “new” kittens, including a calico! Definitely much older kittens. We have never seen Sprout’s babies, so those might be hers. They ran off before I could get a good look at them.

Some of the older kittens, while still quite shy, are at least letting me come a bit closer before they run away. When it comes to feeding them, that usually means dashing under the water bowl shelter for the kibble tray there. That one is a favourite for all the kittens. Especially the littlest ones. Those would be Octomom’s kittens, and they were hanging out under the cat house, waiting their turn at the tray.
In the photo above, the tuxedo on the left is the one that lost its eye. The lids now appear to be closed, and it looks gummy, but it’s hard to tell. It will not let me come any closer than I did when I got the picture.
With so many cats and kittens showing up at different times, I have given up entirely on trying to get a head count. While the kittens may be closer to the house, a lot of the adults seem to be moving on. I haven’t even seen Gooby in a while, and he used to be among those that greeted me every morning. Now I’ve got a couple of white and grey males that are my morning greeters.
When it comes to the yard cat population, the adults seem to not like being around when it starts to get too crowded, and simply move on to new territory.
At least, that’s what I hope they’re doing. There’s no way to know what’s happened to them, once they disappear. I like to think they found new homes on their own, on one of the neighboring farms.
The Re-Farmer
What an incredibly moody atmosphere this morning!
This photo was taken shortly after 8am.

It was this wild combination of fog and bright sunshine. Just beautiful!
We were supposed to reach a low of around 11C/52F last night, but when I checked my phone at about 7am, one app was telling me it was 7C/45F. Another was saying we were at 10C/50F, but I think the 7C was the more accurate one.
With that sort of chill, I was not expecting to harvest anything this morning. Certainly, no tomatoes ripened overnight! Yet, I did find this!

There were quite a few larger Gold Ball turnips (they are being thinned by harvesting), and a single radish was ready to pick. In that bed, there are almost no beets coming up, and I’m not really seeing any spinach, either. I think the slugs got to them. But the radishes are coming up, at least. The others are still looking small, long and skinny. There was just this one that was ready to pick.
I also spotted this sleepy guy.
It was barely moving in the colder temperatures. It’ll be warmed by the sun, soon enough. According to my computer’s weather app (I really should get a thermometer for outside my window!), it’s 13C/55F, and we’re expecting a high of 21C/70F.
While checking the purple corn (which we are leaving to dry on the stalks, to collect seed), I could see the Red Swan beans we’d planted among the corn are getting bigger, with lots of flowers. I also finally spotted these!
These were planted late, specifically for their nitrogen fixing properties. I was not expecting to actually get a harvest from them, yet here they are! We should be able to start harvesting beans in a few days! I hope they taste good, because we ended up with a lot of these.
While checking on the old kitchen garden, one of the things I regularly do is look up into the lilac bush that the luffa is climbing, and try to see the little bitty luffa that are developing. There’s one that’s resting on a lilac twig, and it looks like it’s been damaged by the wind rubbing them together.
As I was trying to see among the leaves, I realized there was a much larger gourd developing, high up. I went around the other side of the wattle weave bed to try and see it better, only to discover this one.
It’s huge! Easily a foot long. It is completely hidden by greenery on the other side.
With a gourd this big, we might actually have a fully mature and tried out luffa to harvest by the end of the growing season! As long as the frost holds off.
As I was finishing up around the sun room before going inside, I saw a few of Octomom’s babies emerging from under the cat house. I also saw the black and white garage kitty, way off at the bowl under the grape vines. Nice to see that one coming to the house, finally!
I was in the sun room, just about to go inside, when another cat came up, wanting attention.
It was The Phantom! She’s back!!!
It took a bit of convincing, but when I opened the doors, she came into the house. I let her explore for a bit – and get sniffed at by other cats – when my daughter was able to pick her up and we put her in my bedroom.
The “isolation ward” is getting very crowded.
She’s settling in, though, and loving attention. As I write this, she is behind me on my office chair, keeping my butt warm!
The new kitten we brought in has no problem with her. They would remember each other. I think Decimus still recognized her, too. I’m not sure about Ghosty; they would have met before we brought Ghosty in, but she was so sick, and it was long ago enough that I’m sure she doesn’t remember Phantom anymore, even if her scent might still be familiar.
A couple of Decimus’ kittens were making themselves big, and Tin Whistle even hissed at her, but they now seem used to her and are ignoring her.
Snarly Marlee has been practically living on the window shelf. She is not happy with so many cats in the room.
I’ve no idea how TTT is; they would know each other, too, but TTT is in her favourite sleeping spot in my closet.
Speaking of TTT.
I am not happy with her.
I slept on the couch again last night. I had my mattress uncovered, with “Pet Fresh” carpet powder on the damp spots. I hoped it would be left alone, but when I came in this morning, there was a huge new pee spot, right in the middle of the mattress. There was also a “gift” next to the litter box under my desk, with a puppy pad all bunched up around it.
I ended up taking the box fan out of the window and found a way to set it up directly on my mattress. If nothing else, the breeze it’s creating is making most of my mattress an unpleasant place to be! There is one corner that’s got their bed blanket on it, and they’re not even using that, all that much. The kittens are playing around the fan, though, but they’re more interested in the cave it creates in my wall shelf behind it. A spot they are allowed to play in.
I chatted with the Cat Lady this morning, very happy to pass on the news about Phantom. I also told her about what TTT is doing. She told me that this is apparently common with cats that lose a front leg. They can’t dig in the litter, so they go just anywhere. We didn’t have that problem at all with Ginger. After he had his removed and came indoors, he used a litter box right away, even though he’d never seen one before. As for TTT, considering how much she digs at the puppy pads to bury her poop, clearly, that is not the issue with her.
Butterscotch, meanwhile, is happy the box fan it out of my window. She’s contentedly laying on the window ledge, looking outside. I expected it to be Nosencrantz, considering how much she’s been trying to get behind the fan, but Butterscotch is more Alpha that Nosencrantz. 😄 Nosencrantz is in her favourite spot in the shelf beside the window.
Well, I hope things work out over the next while. Just a little while longer. Then Decimus, the no-name outside kitten and Phantom will all get spayed, then taken to their new home.
It’s a start.
The Re-Farmer
First, the good stuff.
This was this morning’s harvest.

Just tomatoes, almost all Romas, and a few patty pan squash, but it was still quite a haul.
The other good stuff is that the kitten I brought in yesterday did just fine, overnight. It was running around and playing with the other kittens when I came into my room this morning.
Which leads me to the not so good stuff.
I had to sleep on the couch last night.
I thought we had been doing well, but in the space of just a few minutes, my nice, clear, dry bed suddenly had a massive puddle in the middle. Not only was it large enough that I couldn’t even sleep on another part of the bed, even though it’s a king size, but it was in a spot that didn’t have any puppy pads under the sheets to protect the mattress.
The girls helped me juggle kittens and strip the bed, but as I soaked up as much as I could with more puppy pads, they were the ones that suggested I sleep on the couch. After getting it as dry as we could, we took off the mattress protector, too, and got everything in the laundry. We laid out more puppy pads, absorbent side down, then carefully covered them with a blanket to keep them in place. Then I left the room with the window fan going on maximum.
I did not get much sleep last night, though I have to admit, it was rather nice sleeping in the cat free zone. I was awakened early by cat arguments. Having had just a couple of hours of sleep, I got up long enough to feed all the cats, inside and out, before going back to bed on the couch.
While doing the feeding in my room, the bed was clear and nothing was destroyed, so I was very encouraged. So I went back to the couch and managed to get almost a couple more hours of sleep.
When I came back to my room, I found a “gift” on my bed. On the blanket, next to the towel I laid out under the kibble bowls while dividing up the wet cat food.
At least it was easy to clean up, but really??? There are so many litter boxes, but noooooo. Gotta use my bed!
Then I sat on the side of the bed to take my supplements, only to discover a wet spot with my butt. The colour and fuzziness of the blanket had hidden it. At least that was on top of a puppy pad!
I am getting so very frustrated.
I did get a chance to chat with the Cat Lady a bit, letting her know that the kitten did well inside. As long as the kitten is about 3 pounds, they will spay her, and I think she’s pretty close to that. With her being inside and getting regular wet and dry cat food, I don’t think it will be an issue by the time of the appointment.
No sign of Phantom this morning, though. We’re already discussing options, if she doesn’t show up in time. I’ll simply grab one of the friendly males. I wouldn’t be able to grab any of the other females. They’re not socialized enough.
Oh, just heard from the Cat Lady again. She says she will drop a trap off for us, tomorrow. If we can snag any of the moms with older kittens that would be good. Still, it would be ideal of Phantom comes back and we grab her.
In other cat related things…

This is the kitten we thought was female that turned out to be male.
What is it all the friendly ones are male? It was the same thing last year. The females are almost universally standoffish, while the males have been more easily socialized and love attention.
Then there are those that are just plain feral. Not semi-feral. Just feral. Like this one.

I spotted this one when I finally got out to do my morning rounds. Brussel’s kittens seem to have moved into the garage, more or less. This is the shier one, and the first time I’ve been able to get a good look at him/her. I had to move slow and zoom right in to get a picture, so it’s not a good image at all. What unique face markings!
I’ve seen its orange and white sibling closer to the house. I think I even saw it in the kibble house. This one, however, stays around the garage, and that’s it. I didn’t top up the food in the bowl I set up in the garage this morning, though. Hopefully, this one will get hungry enough to brave coming to the house. I also saw Octomom’s littles. Not all of them, but they seem to have taken up residence – at least for part of the day – under the cat house.
While doing my rounds this morning, I was pleased to find just one fallen branch. We had more rain and high winds last night, but it seems that weird climate bubble we have over us has protected us. The winds did knock quite a few crab apples off the trees, though. This morning, on one of my local gardening groups, several people mentioned their gardens were completely destroyed. One posted a photo of her crab apple tree, its apples knocked to the ground and lying next to hail almost as big as the apples! So far that I’ve seen, she was the only one that also reported damage to her home. Just a broken window, thankfully.
Today should be quite a bit more pleasant. I plan to be doing stuff indoors, though. Specifically, making tomato sauce. Lack of sleep is catching up to me, though, and I’m dropping off as I type this. I think I will try napping again. I think I can squeeze into the dry corner of my bed around the kittens. I’m afraid that if I try napping on the couch again, I’ll come back to more puddles or piles!
The tomato sauce can wait a couple of hours. I’m all out of energy drinks, and feel like I’m about to drop right on my keyboard!
The Re-Farmer
We had a really solid rain yesterday – enough to fill the rain barrel by the sun room to overflowing before I got the diverter on. It looks like we got more rain last night, too. The ground was still nice and damp in the garden beds this morning.

I got barely a handful of green and yellow beans this morning, and there aren’t many little ones developing, so those are almost done for the season. I got quite a few Romas, but only a couple of Indigo Blues. I haven’t harvested any Spoon tomatoes for a while, so there were some to grab this morning. We don’t have many plants, so this isn’t too bad.
Depending on what weather app I look at, we’re supposed to reach 26C/79F or 27C/81F today. I’ve got one app saying we’re just going to be cloudy, while another is warning of thunderstorms tonight. When I checked last night, the thunderstorm warning had been for this afternoon. We we’ll see what actually happens.
I chatted with the Cat Lady last night. Decimus is more than ready to stop nursing (though she’s on the bed nursing, as I write this!), and The Phantom has been really friendly again, so I let her know. She’s going to call the lady that wants the 4 females, 2 at a time, and then call a vet to arrange spays. I will be bringing the cats in, then she’ll take it from there.
Of course, The Phantom was nowhere to be seen, this morning. The next time we see her, we’re going to have to either find a way to keep her in the sun room, or bring her indoors until it’s time to take them in for spay and adoption.
I also sent new photos of the kittens for her to send out among her contacts for adoption. Hopefully, that will result in some new homes for the babies soon.
Today is looking like it’s going to be a fairly quiet day. I’m expecting a call from someone that’s selling some small scaffolding today, but I don’t have to drive anywhere to do errands or anything like that. Of course, now that I know I’m home, the heat is back. At least it’s supposed to cool down again tomorrow. From the looks of the long range forecast, there rest of August, and all through September, looks really good. We have lots of work to do outside, and I just haven’t been able to get to it. I’m also going to be down a body soon. My younger daughter is going to be house sitting for my brother while they are away for their anniversary trip. She’s going to be so spoiled, having a cat free house all to herself, and be both on an acreage, and have a fairly large town and easy bike ride away. Heck, if her hips start giving her grief again, they even have a scooter for when my mother visits that she can drive, instead!
I think she’ll enjoy the respite! 😁
The Re-Farmer
We actually got rain some time this morning! Not a lot, but enough to raised the level in the rain barrel, and for the ground to still be moist when I was doing my rounds.
This morning’s harvest was pretty good.

There are some green and yellow beans on the bottom. The bush beans aren’t producing a lot anymore, but there’s still enough for a meal coming off of them, every couple of days. The tomatoes are mostly Romas, of course, but there is an actual ripe Black Beauty in thee! Plus a green one that broke off when I was looking through the vines. The others are Indigo Blues. There’s just a couple of patty pans, with more ripening, including some yellow patty pans I hand pollinated. With rain collecting in the cups of the flowers, no insects were going to do it, that’s for sure!
Finally, there is a Sweet Chocolate pepper. It looks pretty green in the photo, but it’s just one little patch; the rest is deep, milk chocolate brown.
On a completely different note…
TTT got her last doses of medication last night. That’s going to make feeding the cats in my room so much easier! No more wrestling kittens to keep them away from the bowl of wet cat food while it’s being medicated, or keeping TTT from eating the kitten distraction wet cat food and becoming too full to eat her medicated food.
I’m happy to say that, so far at least, TTT has not left me a big, wet gift at my pillow since yesterday morning. I was awakened during the night by odd noises that I thought might have been her finding somewhere else not-a-litter-box to use, but the kittens were active, so I couldn’t tell what the noise was. I couldn’t see TTT anywhere for quite some time, but eventually she crawled her way out of my closet. I have some boxes stacked in there and the cats sometimes use the top as a very hidden away bed. I now think the noise that woke me was her scrambling up to this prime napping cave.
The puppy pad I put on the new litter box was wet, but I still couldn’t say it was TTT, or a bunch of kittens using it. I thought it might be safe to remove it, though, and expose the litter pellets below.
Eventually, I was able to get back to bed, though it was past 5am by then. When I got up for the day, sure enough, there was a “gift” under my desk for me – on a puppy pad right next to the litter box.
*sigh*
No sign of puddles, though. Anywhere. So maybe she’s at least peeing in a litter box now?
Tomorrow, she goes in to have her staples removed. I’ll see if I can get some advice at the clinic while I’m there. She’s not seeing the vet; just a technician, but I’m sure there will be someone I can talk to.
Meanwhile, I’m wondering what else I can leave on my bed to dissuade any possible puddles!
The Re-Farmer