I got some Tissue cuddles.
Not my usual feline cuddle partner, so I was really enjoying the snuggles.
Hard to believe this was a yard kitten that wouldn’t let us anywhere near her for the longest time! She still has some of her more feral habits, though, as you can tell by the scratches on her nose! This is a girl that stands her ground. :-D
The Re-Farmer
My husband sat on the edge of the bed to chat with me, and Ginger glommed onto his hip for a cuddle nap. Just look at that face!
Cabbages was enjoying a nap, too. Being so adorable can get very tiring, I guess! :-D
The Re-Farmer
It has been a long time since I posted a picture of our Ginger beef!
Our beefy boy does love his morning cuddles!
However, as soon as I bring my phone out to take pictures, he attacks it and tries to eat it. :-D
Also, he has the loudest purr!
The Re-Farmer
Well, the forecasts have changed again. Instead of things starting to cool down starting today, we’re now supposed to hit 33C/91F with a humidex of 40C/104F this afternoon, and hit 30C/86F over the next couple of days. Thunderstorm warnings are back for tomorrow, but now extending over two days.
I really hope we do get them!
Overnight temperatures are high, too, making it hard to sleep. Especially since the box fan I had in my window broke. I suppose I could take the one we’ve got in the root cellar, but I think our curing garlic needs it more than I do.
The cats, meanwhile, are melting.
David is just so… magnificent!
Layendecker spent hours in my butt spot, splayed out like this, until I had to claim my chair.
We were able to have our very first BBQ (grilling, for the purists) yesterday.
This is the first time we’ve used the BBQ my brother gave us. It was insanely hot, even in the shade, but being able to cook everything at the same time, and not heating up the house, was worth it.
After the meat was set on the warming grill, I took the zucchini strips and put them directly on the grill, just enough to get some char on them. It was awesome! Unfortunately, the photos I took of the finished meal did not turn out, but it was as pleasing to the eye as to the palate. The purple corn was interesting. The kernels were far harder than I expected. I liked them. I look forward to growing enough for both fresh eating (or making chicha morado) and to make corn flour. That will be a few years, which will also give us time to pick up a decent quality mill.
The steaks are the sirloin steaks from the meat pack we got from a local ranch. I kept it simple. Just a bit of oil (okay, maybe not so simple; I used (fake) truffle oil), salt and pepper. Oh, man. It’s been so long since we’ve had steak! My husband and I even made a “date” of it and ate at the table. He usually isn’t able to sit at the table for very long, but he put up with the pain for steak! :-D
We got a nice little haul of tomatoes yesterday evening; these are mostly the Spoon tomatoes.
I am quite enjoying having these, but have found I still can’t eat fresh tomatoes. About the best I can say when I tasted one last night is, at least I didn’t gag.
Much.
Which is weird, because I like tomato in things, to a certain extent. I just can’t handle eating them fresh. My younger daughter is much the same. No loss, though. We planted these for my older daughter and my husband. They enjoy tomatoes!
As the temperatures started to drop a bit, yesterday evening, my husband opened up various windows and the inner door in the dining room – setting up the little step latter so the cats can look out the window of the outer door, of course. We still have food and water set up on the concrete steps for Butterscotch and her kittens. Even though they have moved to the empty property across the road, she still brings them over.
Not long after things were opened up, I heard a commotion outside the door, and the cats were very interested in whatever was under their perch. So I popped over to the living room window to see what was on the steps.
I never saw anything on the steps, but I did find a shadow on the post for the hanging bird feeder! It was getting dark by then, but I could tell it was a raccoon. Not the big one we saw the first time, but a slightly smaller one.
So I went outside to shoo it away.
Now, normally, they run off as soon as they hear the door open, and I come around the corner just in time to see them dashing away.
Not this time!
As I came closer to the feeder, making shooing noises, the raccoon was far too busy eating to take off. It was sitting with its lower body on the bird perch – what used to support a platform feeder on the post before we cleaned it up and painted it – and was grabbing the base of the hanging feeder with its front paws. When I got to the post, it just froze.
And stared at me.
So there I am, standing RIGHT next to the post, face to face with a raccoon.
Before anyone starts, yes, I know what to watch out for re: rabies and so on. I am very aware that wild animals are unpredictable and can F you up, in general. I was being cautious and giving it plenty of opportunity to jump down and run away.
I think, however, the way it was hanging onto the feeder, it couldn’t just let go, and with this big human standing there, it probably didn’t want to off balance itself and drop to the ground.
So it froze.
And stared at me.
With that adorable face.
Since it wasn’t moving, I carefully reached out and poked the end of its tail.
Nothing.
I poked it again.
Nothing.
I wiggled its tail a bit.
Still nothing!
I poked its hip.
It just kept staring at me.
I even gently poked at its strange little man-hand foot.
Not a twitch.
Finally, I reached out and began to pet its lower back.
It let me.
The only time it really moved was then Potato Beetle started weaving around my feet. I paused to pick him up and the two of them stared at each other for a bit, but Potato Beetle was far more interested in being held than in the creature on the bird feeder post.
So I pet the raccoon some more for a while, the left it be. It took a minute or two before it finally got down and ran off.
I got to touch a raccoon. !!!!!
The rest of the family missed all this. I didn’t even have my phone with me to try and take a photo, though it was probably too dark for one. I certainly wasn’t going to use a flash on the poor thing. When I told them, I got chastised by my daughters, first for taking the risk, then for terrorizing the poor raccoon. :-D
Meanwhile…
With today’s heat, the garden beds are getting a thorough watering. Instead of standing out there in what is already 28C/82F, I’ve been using the sprinklers, moving them every 45 minutes or so, and will be finishing with the spray and soaker hoses. Though someone had already put kibble out for the cats, I did have to top up the containers by the junk pile and concrete steps already.
The kittens were out and about.
Toesencrantz won’t come anywhere near us, but she will watch from a distance.
I was watering the tomatoes and cucamelons from the rain barrel, going back and forth, and in one of my trips, I found I had an audience!
I love how Toesencrantz has her toes on the log like that. So adorable!
Since the rain we did get, and now the heat being back again, the squash are all blooming like crazy.
I really like the luffa flowers!
Still no luffa, though. For those who grow luffa, is that normal? Shouldn’t there be gourds by now?
The ants really like the luffa vines. I’m not sure why. They seem to just be climbing them. As long as they are not damaging them, I don’t mind. Ants are pollinators, too. I find it odd that they are only climbing the luffa, though, and nothing else growing at the squash tunnel.
The one Red Kuri squash is getting bigger. :-)
I am starting to think we can harvest some of our melons, but I’m not sure. The bigger ones don’t seem to be getting any bigger, so I figure we can at least start harvesting those.
Maybe I’ll pick one of each type, when I hook up the soaker hose, later on. :-)
The Re-Farmer
I neglected to write a post yesterday, so I will make up for it today. ;-)
Starting with some inside cats for a change. :-)
Cabbages and Tissue needed to nap after their battle with the deadly flip flops.
Ginger, meanwhile, took advantage of the girls for some double cuddles on the couch.
Later, I found these furry shrimps on my bed. Cabbages, Turmeric, Beep Beep (or Big Rig) and Susan.
It was so fabulous to get a visit yesterday, and I’m so glad he was able to make the side trip to our place while on his way home. He was able to stay for a couple of hours, and even my husband was able to join us and visit for a while. Sitting at the picnic table did a number on his back, but he says it was worth it. :-) It was great to be able to sit outside and enjoy the breeze; something we had never been able to do before our move. Of course, we gave him the tour. He got too meet some of our new kitties, and reunite with our old mama cat that moved out with us, too. :-)
It was a good day, and I’m glad we were able to spend so much of it outside, before the heat came back!
The Re-Farmer
I just couldn’t resist posting another David picture.
How can I resist that face? :-D
As I was waiting for this image to load in the editor, I heard a thump behind me. One of the cats fell of my bed and thudded onto the floor…
Keith just jumped onto the bed looking sheepish. I believe he was the one who fell off. :-D
The Re-Farmer
The cats spend most of their days, sprawled all over various surfaces, usually in bizarre positions, sleeping away the hottest parts of the day.
None, however, can match David the Magnificent, in all his glory.
He looks like he’s broken! :-D
We’ve been trying to brush him as often as we can. Oddly, he has almost no fur coming off on the brush! Then there’s Cheddar, who has very short, coarse fur, that fills the brush in only a few strokes!
Unfortunately, David will not let us brush his armpit area, which is the only place he’s getting clumps in his fur. We end up having to cut them off.
What a big, fluffy, magnificent, malleable boy.
The Re-Farmer
This spot is, hands down, a favourite of pretty much all the cats…
There had been three of them here, all sitting with their front paws at the window, watching the activities outside. Susan took off before I could get her in the picture. :-)
They have plenty to watch out there! Butterscotch’s kittens like to play on the concrete steps below the door. Recently, I moved their food and water bowls to the steps, partly to get them used to being closer to the safety of the house, and partly to have them spending less time at the junk pile, now that a grog – my daughters’ word for the woodchucks – has dug a den under it.
One time, the cats suddenly became very alert, so I went over to the living room window to see what they were looking at.
There was a grog, standing up like a little man, next to the lilacs!
Unfortunately, our hanging bird feeder got broken yesterday. I had refilled it that morning, but didn’t notice that I hadn’t hung it properly on the hook. That time of the morning, this time of the year, I get blinded by the sun when I hang it back up, and I keep forgetting to move. :-D I noticed it out the living room window, with the hanging cable sitting on top of the hook, instead of in it. For some reason, the hook is wrapped in electric tape, and that was keeping it from sliding off. Then I promptly got distracted and forgot to go outside to fix it. A few hours later, my daughter noticed it was gone completely. We spotted it about 15 feet away, in pieces, and the seed reservoir had a chunk broken off.
Though it had been refilled this morning, there was no sign of the birdseed that was in it! It was already all eaten up. My guess is, some larger bird landed on it, it slid off the hook, cracked when it hit the ground, and then a grog dragged it off and broke into it to get at the seeds. Just a guess, but a likely scenario.
When the girls were done the evening watering and went to shut off the back tap, they found another watcher.
This adorable BIG tree frog, just hanging out on the wall. :-)
Anyhow…
With the hanging feeder broken, I finally got around to attaching a piece of wood to the bottom of the big feeder, reattaching the metal fixture, then setting it back up on its post. The fixture is larger than the post, so I found some foam covered wire I had left and wrapped it around the post. It still wobbled a bit, but not as much as before.
The birds were happy to have the big feeder back up.
So where the raccoons.
I happened to pop outside some time after midnight and startled at least two of them. One ran off into the darkness, while the other ran up the tree outside our kitchen window, and just stayed there, frozen, until I left.
Unfortunately, they came back.
*sigh*
This is how I found it this morning. I’m going to have to find me some longer screws. Most of what I have are actually too long, and would go right through the base of the feeder.
I was heading to the city today to do our monthly shop, so I had to do a quick version of my morning rounds, which is when I found this.
Three sunflowers in one row, and one in another row, have lost their heads! The three with the twine around them were the larger, transplanted ones.
Given the height, I would say this was done by a deer, but when I finally got to check the garden cam, whatever did this did not trigger the motion sensor. I would have expected something as large as a deer to trigger it, but if it were something smaller, like a grog or a raccoon, it would have eaten the bottom leaves, or broken the stem, pulling it down to reach the heads.
The plants are far enough along that they will grow side shoots to replace the missing heads, but it will certainly slow their development.
The critters invading our yard this year are causing some issues of their own.
Having moved the kittens’ food bowl closer to the house also means the skunks will be coming closer, too. Which I’m not too worried about. They just eat the kibble, not our garden. When my daughter came around the house on her way to the garden, she startled a skunk at the steps. It ran off and went under the old garden shed.
Then suddenly began chittering like crazy, ran out and ran off.
The garden shed began making grog noises.
It seems the skunk ran to hide under the shed, only to run face first into a woodchuck.
I’m amazed it didn’t spray!
In other things, I’ve hit a bit of a delay in working on the bench I was doing to make, over the pair of stumps near the garden. I brought out the electric chainsaw to cut the stumps flat across the top, and to even heights.
The first curiosity was finding the chainsaw’s oil reservoir was empty. I’d only used it once since we had it services, and even then, just for one cut, before moving on to other tools. Once that was refilled, it was doing the job all right – until it wasn’t! The chain stopped turning. It didn’t stop running, though. After fussing with it, the chain started turning again, then would stop soon after.
I’ve had this thing services twice, and no one spotted anything that would cause this.
I noticed the chain was really dry, too. I don’t think it’s getting oiled as it runs, the way it’s supposed to. It has a button to push to oil the chain, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.
I don’t think I’ll bother getting it serviced again.
I’m hoping to be able to use our reciprocating saw to do that job, instead. The last time I used it, however, it was having issues, too. It’s a cheaper brand, and has seen a lot of use, so that doesn’t surprise me. It does, however, have a blade on it that’s longer than the bar on the electric chain saw, so if it does work, it’ll actually be easier to use on the larger stump than with the electric chain saw.
I think it will wait until tomorrow, though, which is supposed to be a bit cooler.
For now, I’m going to start the evening a bit early, since I wasn’t able to water the garden beds this morning.
The Re-Farmer
Every now and then, we’ll discover we have company in the bathroom.
We’ll find Keith in his favourite spot, hiding behind a hanging towel. This time, he happened to be napping. Other times, we’ll discover eyes, peering at us from the shadows. :-D
Keith has such distinct behaviours, his name has become a verb in this household!
The Re-Farmer
I could not resist getting a picture of David the Magnificent!
It’s good thing we hardly ever use the microwave. This is the only counter in the kitchen the cats are allowed to climb on, and they love looking out that window! Cheddar, in particular, likes to lie here, taking up the whole spot, with his chin on the windowsill, like it’s a pillow. Today, David has claimed the prime spot! :-D
David must be just dying in this heat, but he will not let us brush him! We’ve been managing to cut away the fur clumps we find. Mostly. It’s hard to get at the ones in his armpits. He keeps moving!
This morning, I saw another furry beast that I haven’t in a while.
Creamscicle Baby is back! He’s been away for a few days. He and Junk Pile (David’s sister) were very happy to see each other. :-)
She’s like, “look who’s here!”
He was clearly very hungry, but he just wouldn’t stop rubbing up against Junk Pile. :-)
Even while they were both eating, he’d rub up against her, eating at the same time, to the point of pushing her away from eating, too!
Too bad he won’t let us pet him anymore, and Junk Pile never has. :-(
The only down side is that Creamscicle Baby has been pretty aggressive with his brother, Nutmeg, of late. Not just play wrestling, like they used to, but all out fights.
Ah, well. Nothing we can do about that, but break them up with a spritz from the hose.
The Re-Farmer
