I just couldn’t resist getting a picture of Saffron and Ginger, enjoying a sunspot together.
Saffron did not appreciate my interrupting her nap! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Sunspot
inside cats
Dragging on
Let’s talk about pleasant things, first!
Here is an adorable photo of Ginger for you. :-)
Doesn’t he look so sweet and peaceful?
Not at all like the mischievous bugger I had to stop from trying to attack one of the trunks of the big jade tree in the living room! :-D
I did very quick rounds this morning, since I had to head out early, but I did manage to check on the mulberry tree.
It clearly has handled being transplanted just fine!
It’s also doing very well with the cooler, wet weather we’re having right now.
I haven’t been able to get much done for the past couple of days, and not because of the weather.
Yesterday, I called the court office to make sure today’s court date was still on. As expected, with the long weekend, our provincial government increased restrictions even more than they did before Mother’s day. They don’t come into effect until midnight tonight, though, so…
Well, I could only leave a message, as there was no answer. I had to go to my mother’s, on a related matter, so I quickly headed out in the afternoon. Of course, that’s when I got a call back, but not with an answer to my question. I called back, left another message, but never heard from them by the end of the day.
Thankfully, my daughters were able to continue working on things in the garden while I waited for the call. There’s one area ready for one corn variety, then they began working on a trellis for the peas. The plan was to do more clean up in the spruce grove, and use the poplars we’re cutting down to make an sort of A frame on the existing supports, but we haven’t been able to work in that area at all, lately. So they decided to use what we’ve got now and made pegs to hold the twine we were going to attach to the frame, instead. They didn’t get to finish it before they had to come in as the temperature dropped, but it’ll be a while before the peas will be big enough to need the support. I didn’t get any photos yet.
I headed out to the courthouse this morning, leaving early enough to get some fuel and still have time for delays, like road construction (there was some, but just a short stretch) and meet with my brother, who booked the morning off work so he could be with me. We deliberately set a time to meet an hour before court was supposed to start. Just in case.
When we got there, I saw security guards, so that was hopeful. From previously visits to the building, there were security guards only when court was in session.
Well, not this time. It turned out they were there for the court office! The first guard we spoke thought that court had gone virtual, so he went into the office and talked to someone for us, then came back with a number for the crown office, in the bigger city, for us to call. While we were still talking to him, the woman he spoke to came out with a printout for him, and it said everything was delayed until June 18, because of the increased restrictions.
So my brother and I went to his car and I called the crown, only to be told they knew nothing about any virtual court dates; that would be with lawyers only, and the court office of the city we were in to schedule. She was quite frustrated when we told her we were just at the court office, and they told us to call the crown!
We went back to the court office. I wasn’t allowed to go in until I emptied my pockets and they scanned me with a metal detector, while I got the usual covid questions. I did get asked about my Mingle Mask, but when I said I was medically exempt, they were fine with it. My brother had to quickly dash back to his car while I went in (only one person allowed into the court office at a time, anyhow). When I asked about the virtual court session, she told me only lawyers could call in to those (?!?!?!), but that they weren’t doing restraining orders, anyhow. After we talked for a bit, she got my name and the name of our vandal to look up our file. She remembered talking to someone about it and asked if I’d called a couple of weeks ago. I had not. I called yesterday. It had to have been our vandal. Or, more likely, his wife. My voice may be low, but not low enough to be mistaken for our vandal! She then went to look things up while I went to wait in the lobby.
Shortly after, my brother got back and, even though we were only going to wait in the lobby, the security guards still had to scan him, and we both got our temperature checked on our wrists.
When the woman came out again, she told me she’d got through to our vandal’s lawyer, and he agreed to a court date of July 9 – if the courts are open then.
Our vandal’s vindictive civil suit against us is scheduled for July 12.
*sigh*
I do, however, now have the name and phone number for our vandal’s lawyer – something I should have had long ago, but it’s not like anything it working the way it’s supposed to right now. The worst of this is that this is for a retraining order. It’s a safety issue for us, and it just keeps getting delayed. This is now the fifth time!
She said that, if I chose to, I could call the lawyer myself and potentially work something out privately and bypass the courts completely.
Well, I suppose that’s an option, but I really don’t think there’s anything our vandal would agree to that didn’t involve completely dropping the whole thing. Considering that he’s still calling my mother with his bizarre rants about how we’re all laughing at him, his mental state is clearly a concern.
So that was another wasted morning – and another day my brother booked off work that was wasted, too. At least we were finished early enough that he could still make a meeting.
*sigh*
I made sure to call my mother before I headed home, because I knew she’s be concerned. As you can imagine, she wasn’t happy, either, but is having a hard time understanding why the court office isn’t calling us to let us know about the cancellations. It’s almost as if she thinks ours is the only case they’ve got, or that there are very few of them. Meanwhile, they probably had a couple dozen files or more, just on this morning’s docket, all cancelled. The extra frustration is that they DO call the lawyers (more likely just their firms, really), so there’s a sort of two tier justice system. People who can afford lawyers (or are willing to go into debt for one) and those who can’t. Though to be honest, it’s always been like that, so nothing’s really changed, there.
Once I got home, I contacted my LegalShield firm. That membership has more than paid for itself! It’s been so long, the file was actually closed, but it was reopened, and the lawyer assigned to my file will call me. Given that today is the Friday before a long weekend, I don’t expect to hear from him until Tuesday. It’s possible our membership will cover some action between our lawyer and our vandal’s.
I also looked up our vandal’s lawyer. There is a Canadian website that lists all lawyers, and I found his profile – with no photo, and a different phone number from what I have. It listed him as “in good standing” and included the name of a firm. I looked up the firm, which was not linked from the profile, which turns out to specialize in criminal defense. This lawyer was not listed on their website. It’s not even a matter of there being more than one person with the same name. The guy has a somewhat unique surname, and only one in Canada showed up in my search. This is also not the same lawyer or firm our vandal has worked with before. I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a way to drop him from their case load. Still, it all comes across as very strange.
So now I wait for a call back from my lawyer. We’re also somewhat stuck indoors today. We’re getting actual rain right now. From the weather radar, the worst of the weather will be hitting the southern regions of our province, but it’s big enough that we’re getting at least some much needed precipitation. We might even get some of the storms they’re predicting to happen overnight, though I doubt it. What has been happening, though, is repeated loss of our internet. As I am writing this paragraph, we have no internet connection at all. Again. Hopefully, we’ll get enough of a connection that I can publish this, soon!
Traditionally, a lot of people put their gardens in on the May long weekend, but from the looks of the weather this year, few people will. Particularly those living closer to the Rockies, where they have been getting snow! From the zone 3 gardening groups I’m on, quite a few people had taken the chance and started transplanting outdoors, and are now struggling to save their gardens. Thankfully, everything we’ve planted so far is frost hardy. They should be okay, even without being covered. Hardning off our transplants is getting delayed, though I can at least open the inner door to the sun room. Between the screened window of the outer door, and the ceiling fan, the seedlings will get exposed to differing temperatures and some wind. Rotating the bin the purple corn and giant sunflower seedlings are in seems to have made a difference, too. The sunflowers that were looking all floppy and leggy, yesterday, are now standing tall under the lights. That’s encouraging. Now, if only the purple sunflowers would start germinating!!!
Oh, our internet is back! Time to see if I can publish this before the signal is lost again…
The Re-Farmer
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Say Cheese!
Ginger was not cooperative about getting his picture taken this morning.
Cheddar, on the other hand, was more than happy with the attention!
Cheddar such a big, beefy slab of cheese!
We got a lot done outside today, so I’ll be breaking things up into several posts. A few more things crossed off the gardening to-do list! :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Morning kitties… and more, somewhere
Mornings can be difficult with so many cats in the house.
Cats that like to sleep across my legs or braced against my back, then don’t want to move when I try to roll over!
Ginger has become one of those cats. The problem is, he likes to lean against me on the outside of the bed. Then, because he refuses to move when I roll over, he ended up falling off the bed!
Silly thing.
His big sister, Nicco, is also a silly kitty. :-D
Cousin Susan, however, can be a mean bugger! She’s one of several that, for some reason, tend to go after Nicco. :-(
It’s been interesting to see how Ginger’s fur is growing back. One of the scars is now the demarcation line between the white fur on his chest, and the orange fur on his shoulder. The orange seems to be growing in much darker than the rest of his fur, though. We are curious to see if he’s going to have a dark patch on his shoulder.
Ginger is now, I believe, a big brother.
When I came out to feed the outside cats, Butterscotch was waiting at the door for me, looking considerably less round.
I can’t tell with the other cats. They all look thicksome at the best of times. I’m just going to assume the females are pregnant. We still are sure if Ghost Baby is male or female. No sign of Junk Pile today. If she were also pregnant, it’s entirely possible she’s busing having kittens right now. They tend to all give birth within days of each other.
I even saw a skunk this afternoon. I was working in the sun room when I heard what sounded like a bird hitting the window. I went outside to check and startled a skunk away from the kibble house. They don’t usually come out during the day like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a hungry mama, taking a chance.
Today was a planting day, but things didn’t turn out as expected (does anything ever turn out as expected?? LOL). More to come in my next posts! :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Ginger, the Adorable!
I finally got some Ginger pictures!
It was worth the wait.
What an adorable pretzel he makes! :-D
Awww… he’s using Squidly as a pillow! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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I got Ginger pics!
Ginger has been so active, it’s been hard to get pictures of him!
I finally managed to catch him while napping. :-) He earned that nap! He spent much of the day, running around and batting at a cat toy. He clearly has adapted well to the loss of his leg, but being able to run and bat at things at the same time is really impressive!
His sister, Cabbages, and Keith were being absolutely adorable. Those two get along really well.
Ginger is not the only cat that likes to hang out on the very edge of the bed.
He’s also not the only one that has rolled and squirmed around so much near the edge of the bed, they fall right off! :-D It’s usually Cheddar that does it. Thankfully, Ginger didn’t fall off this time. :-)
(Oh! I just wanted to add that I got a rather exciting interruption while I was working on this post. My daughter came over to let me know a Crespo squash has emerged! It was not visible when I checked on them this morning. :-) )
Back to cat stuff…
While doing our city shop, we’d picked up some wood pellets to try as a litter alternative. Today I cleaned out one litter pan and put some in. The cats were very, very curious about it! It does make a lot more noise while being poured into the pan than normal cat litter does. :-D
There was one unexpected problem, though.
As the cats checked out the new, rattling round things in the litter box, they started trying to chew on it! We caught a few of them grabbing pieces and taking them out of the litter box. We discouraged that, of course. We were starting to think the cats wouldn’t use it, but I’m happy to say one of the cats finally did – and I’m not smelling a thing!
So far, so good! If this stuff works out, it’ll be much better on the budget.
The Re-Farmer
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Ginger, Nutmeg and chives
I had some spicy company this morning!
Ginger was quite enjoying his morning stretches. :-)
He had been rolling and stretching next to me so enthusiastically, he rolled right off the edge of the bed. Whereupon he looked up at me, as if to say, “I meant to do that!”
His brother was also keen for attention this morning, even to the point of demanding face pets instead of scarfing down breakfast! He followed me around a bit while I was doing my rounds.
He decided to roll in the dirt next to the chives. :-D
If you look past him, you can see rhubarb coming up, too.
When we plant in this garden, we know not to plant around this particular tree. It’s one of their rolling spots. They don’t roll around under the other one, likely because this spot gets more sun. :-)
The brothers are very much alike in personalities! :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Catching up on this morning
Things went in unplanned directions this morning!
But first, the fun stuff. :-)
We have the handsome Ginger to greet us! He’s been quite the character, and a lot of fun. :-)
The outside cats were happy for breakfast. :-)
We finally took the tarp off the top of the kibble house. We got some rain yesterday; enough to soften the ground a bit. It should be fine until we get some paint.
My daughter wants to paint it yellow. !! Not a bright lemon yellow or anything like that, thankfully. :-D
The girls and I removed most of the mulch from the garlic beds the other day, and uncovered many more sprouting garlic. Most were a bit on the yellow side, since they hadn’t worked their way through the mulch to the light, yet, but they are already looking nice and green and strong.
We moved the mulch over to the new bed, then covered it with a sheet of metal we scrounged from the outer yard, so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. We will have to build a box around this bed. At this point, if I add soil to the top as planned, it’s high enough that it’ll just fall off on the sides. I think we have some scrap wood in the barn we can use for that. It’ll be temporary, so it doesn’t need to look fancy or anything! :-)
After doing my morning rounds, I had some calls to make. One of them was to the court office about the restraining order I applied for against our vandal. The last time we had a court date, everything had been cancelled again, due to our province’s extended restrictions. I was told everything was deferred to after April 23rd, and to call around them. Well, that was on Friday, but I remembered too late in the day, so I called today.
The person I spoke to told me that they were holding court sessions now, and that I have a court date on May 21st. She wanted to check something, though, and said she would call me back.
Which is when I found out that the file had actually been in court on Friday. Our vandal was represented by a lawyer. The court offices informs the lawyers when things change, but people who don’t have representatives have to call themselves to keep updated. :-/
Nothing came of it, other than the new date, and it’s just on the morning docket. It will likely go to a trial date after that. One of the possibilities she said that might come out of it is a mutual restraining order. He stays away from us, we stay away from him. Before our move, I was in a situation where I agreed to one of those, and I regretted it. The type of restraining order I applied for would mean our vandal would have to stop drinking – and provide proof of that regularly – and have his guns removed. I believe his drinking has a lot to do with his behaviour. He often sounds drunk in those bizarre messages he’s been leaving with my mother. I would hope if he were at least sober, he might finally get the help he needs. It would, however, drag things on longer. His having a lawyer, and our not being able to afford one. I have LegalShield, which gives me free, unlimited phone consultations, among other things. If I need a lawyer to represent me in court, I would get a discounted price, but we don’t have the funds to spare to begin with, so that’s a moot point. I’m not going to let what he’s doing to us financially ruin my family, even if he’s willing to financially ruin himself, apparently. He has no defense, really. About the only thing a lawyer can do is drag it on. That’s just going to cost him more money – and he’s already said that he’s willing to sell his farm and be homeless, so he can sue me, my mother and my siblings.
I wonder what his wife thinks of that. :-/
Anyhow.
After that, there was an unplanned trip into town, and then a stop at the post office. We crossed paths with our vandal in the process, but only passing him on the road. I could see him well enough to tell that he recognized our vehicle, too. He lives near enough that, when I was working outside later one, I could hear him and his chainsaw, as he cut wood.
A part of me wonders how it would work out, if he really did follow through with his threats. He’s already got his silly suit against me, wanting me to pay him for things that aren’t his, and that I don’t claim to own in the first place. What can he do by going after me? We own nothing, so we have nothing to lose. He’s the one willing to bankrupt himself. And if he does end up selling his farm to pay for lawyers, well… we won’t have him living so close and creeping through the bushes from the road, and whatnot.
What a mess.
Whatever happens, happens. We’ll deal with things as they come.
Once at home, though it’s been a pretty chilly day, I did get to start on one project outside.
That, however, will get it’s own post!
The Re-Farmer
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Window kitties!
It’s been warm enough (out of the wind) to open the kitchen window at times.
This is the one counter in the kitchen that the cats are allowed to be on. It’s a favorite spot at the best of times, but when the window is open, we’ve been seeing as many as 4 cats crowded onto here! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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Our 2021 garden: Soil test on purchased soil and tending tomatoes
I finished testing samples of the new garden soil this afternoon.
I was interrupted by scrabbling sounds behind me.
Saffron looks so adorable!
She is also a vicious beast. ;-) Her favourite thing it to suddenly launch herself across the room, onto whichever human is passing by. She typically lands about half way up, and then starts sliding down.
Which can be very painful! She is very sharp, and rather clumsy. :-D
Anyhow.
Here are the test results from the purchased garden soil.
The nutrients are nice and high, all round – and so is the pH! Most of what we are growing recommends a pH of 6 – 6.5, so we’ll want to look into increasing the acidity a little, if we can.
Today, I decided to “pot up” the tomatoes. It feels strange to do that, since they are so tiny, but they are also tiny varieties of tomatoes! ;-)
We planted 4 double cups of each variety, but I worked with only three each. Of the Spoon tomatoes, there’s one cup where nothing at all has germinated. Of the Mosaic Medley, one cup as a single seedling in it, and it’s quite small, so I left it.
I’ve never grown tomatoes before, so I looked at a lot of gardening resources before deciding to plant them in a small amount of growing medium in the larger cups, rather than Jiffy Pellets or tiny pots, so as to add more soil as they grew bigger, rather than transplanting them from small to larger pots.
After the soil was added, they got a careful, but large watering. I left them to drain for a while, emptied the lower cups and left them to drain some more. I wanted to ensure the added soil was completely dampened, through and through. I’m hoping this will give them a nice growth spurt. :-)
The overnight temperatures in the sun room are getting much nicer, so we will be able to move things out of the aquarium soon. Over the next while, we will be starting all the summer and winter squash. We’re going to need the space! :-D
Something else on the to-do list:
Having worked out where we will be planting things (which is always subject to change until the seeds are in the ground!) and, more or less, what dimensions we’ll need, my daughters and I need to start measuring out, marking out and preparing garden beds. Some things, like our two varieties of peas, need to be direct sown well before the last frost date. They are going to be near the corn, which isn’t supposed to be planted until well after the last frost date. So we’ll need to mark out the plots and start prepping them. We’ve decided to make most beds at 3′ x 8′ (roughly 1m x 2 1/2m) for ease of access and denser planting. Ultimately, we have no idea how many of these we will need, until we actually start planting. Some varieties had packets with a LOT more seeds than others of the same vegetable type, and some were packed by weight, so we won’t know how many seeds there are until we open them.
We’re finally getting close to when we can plant things outside! Yay!!!
The Re-Farmer
