While doing the morning watering, I noticed the grapes have babies!
The teeniest of bunches of baby grapes are now visible. :-)
Doing the watering this morning was a bit of a challenge, as we were having some pretty high winds. High enough to blow the water all over the place. :-D
As always, I check the weather frequently throughout the day. Especially before heading out in the morning. Between the app on my phone and the one on my desktop, I can usually get some idea of what to expect for the day. There are differences between them, but usually they’re pretty minor.
Today, not so much.
My desktop app, which is with The Weather Network, says we’ll hit our high of 31C/88F by 7pm, with variable cloudiness and no precipitation.
My phone app, with AccuWeather, says we’ll hit our high of 31C/88F by 6 pm…
… but around 4pm, it’s predicting thunderstorms, adding “Watch for a strong thunderstorm this afternoon; storms can bring gusty winds and even an isolated tornado.”
Tornado?
Yeeeaahhh…. I don’t think so.
This is definitely the most extreme difference I’ve ever seen in the forecast between the two apps!
Well, we’ll see what actually happens. I just went ahead and did the watering, in case we get no rain at all. That’s one thing about all the rocks and gravel where we live. It’s pretty much impossible to over water. Drainage is exceptionally fast!
The Re-Farmer
[addendum: our internet connection has been unusually bad of late. It took me four hours and three different browsers just to open the WordPress editor so I could write this post! Much of the problem is with our satellite internet provider. Apparently, they over sold and are in a permanent state of over capacity, now that so many people are working from home or staying home in general. One of our neighbours with the same provider contacted them for service only to be told their “slow speeds” were adding to the over capacity of their towers, and their contract is being terminated. Which makes no sense whatsoever. So… we’ll deal with the connectivity issues until the new Star Link service is available in our area!
Which is my long winded way of saying that, if posting becomes more sporadic, or the posts themselves start getting truncated, that is likely why!]
We never took him to the vet, because we couldn’t find him!
I did see him this morning, and should have locked him up in the sun room, but I didn’t want him have him locked up like that for almost 6 hours. A couple of hours before we were planning to leave, we went looking for him. He was nowhere to be found!
So I called the vet and explained the situation. Whenever we manage to snag him, we are to give them a call and they’ll fit him in. Unless, it turns out not to be needed. I took some photos this morning, and offered to email one in, and they were good with that.
I still couldn’t see his wound this morning, but I can often get photos at angles that let me see more than I could manage otherwise, so I took a bunch of shots while he was eating.
You can tell from this first one, why the wound was so hard to see. If it had not been so matted and had dry blood in the fur, yesterday, I would not have noticed it. Today, it looked much cleaner.
This is the best look I’ve had of the wound itself, ever. It’s not actively bleeding, and does not appear to be infected. In showing the photos to my older daughter, she told me she had seen what she thought were puncture marks on either side of his leg, where the fur goes white, but I could see no sign of anything like that. Likely, they are small enough for the fur to hide completely.
He was chipper and active enough to follow me as I did my rounds, when he helped me demonstrate perspective on some tracks in the snow.
My brother’s dog has huge paws! :-D With yesterday’s warmth, followed by the overnight freeze, there were a lot of his tracks sunk deep into the snow during the warmth of the day, then frozen overnight. :-)
There were lots of other tracks. Mostly from deer. Probably including these ones!
I spotted them outside our north facing window. Only one of them went to the feeding station by the living room window, though from the lack of feed on the ground, I think the herd was leaving rather than arriving.
When my daughter and I went outside to try and find Potato Beetle, and he wasn’t in the usual places, we decided to do some noisy chores. If he were at my younger brother’s place, or the empty farm yard across the other road, he would likely hear us and come over.
He didn’t. Which tells me he went further afield. I suppose that’s good news, since it would mean he was feeling strong and healthy. My daughter, of course, was fretting that he might be hurt in a ditch somewhere.
We never saw Potato, but I did get this job done.
When the girls shoveled snow off the roof, before things started melting, the snow covered my path to the feeding station, and no one had a chance to clear it until today. After the melt and freeze we had, I ended up having to use a metal garden shovel, instead of our plastic snow shovels, because it was the only thing strong enough to break through the hard packed top layer. My daughter, meanwhile, used the ice chipper to clear the sidewalk. As things warm up, the paths will melt away and clear faster.
With all the chopping and scraping, we were making more than enough noise to attract curious kitties. Just not the one we were after!
I was thinking that, tomorrow morning, I could put him in the sun room with some food and water – I’m just not sure what I can use as a litter box – and we can keep him tucked away. I won’t be able to take him in to the vet tomorrow, because tomorrow I will be doing a big shopping trip. Not quite our monthly shop, since I will be using my mother’s car, but enough to stock up for at least a couple of weeks.
And why will I be using my mother’s car?
Well, I ran the van today, and it’s still making that whining noise that I thought was the serpentine belt, but now think is the power steering pump, next to the belt. I checked the fluid level, and it’s full.
So when I had the chance, I called up the garage and left a message about it, asking him to call me back.
Which he probably tried to do, but would have gotten a busy signal.
You see, I did something else today. I purchased and downloaded this year’s TurboTax and started the tax returns for myself and my husband. Because of our internet connectivity problems, I made sure to get the desktop version, not the online set up, like we used last year. Our returns are pretty basic, so I finished them this morning. Tax returns are easy when your incomes are “nothing” and “better than nothing”. I was able to file mine electronically, but when I tried to file my husband’s, I got a message saying I’d used up all the available returns and it wanted me to buy more. Considering the software I bought allows for up to 20 returns in total – and the checker even showed I still had 19 left – it should have worked. After several failed attempts, it was time to contact TurboTax!
After not being able to find contact information of any kind on the website (they route people to the community, instead), I finally went to their Facebook page and sent a message briefly explaining what was happening. While my daughter and I were outside making noise to try and attract Potato, I got a response with a phone number to call.
I made that call after calling the garage.
I ended up on the phone for about 2 hours.
Among the problems we had was the software simply not opening. It kept “not responding”. We were using a sharer, so the tech person I was talking to could see my desktop, and my computer decided that today was the day to get all sluggish on me. I ended up reinstalling the software and trying to open it again, and it still wouldn’t. After several more failed attempts, we tried restarting my computer.
Which stalled during the restart. I ended up having to do a hard shut down and trying again.
Once I finally got the computer itself started, I tried opening the software before linking up with the tech, only to have it want to restart the computer again, because changes were made.
*sigh*
Eventually, we did get it going. I was able to open the software, our tax returns were still there, with my husband’s ready to be sent, and the tech person could see my desktop. I tried to file my husband’s return, and it sat there, spinning for a while. On that one, I did assure her that it was our unstable internet that was the problem, this time!
The screen telling me I was out of returns popped up and she finally got to see what was happening. She got me to check a few things for her, she asked all sorts of questions, before finally settling in on her side to find a solution.
I was not at all surprised when she told me it was passed on to someone in Tier 2, and she was waiting for a response.
There was a lot of waiting. She was very apologetic. I told her I didn’t mind the wait. I just needed it fixed. Particularly since we have to more people who need to file! So I didn’t have a problem with the wait.
I ended up being put on actual hold a couple of times before we got to the end, and it was pretty much what I had suspected would happen.
The problem is going to the next level.
It’s a bug, and there’s nothing that can be done about it at our end. Someone will get back to me, possibly within 24 hours, as they fix the bug. I should be able to file my husband’s return tomorrow.
Well, I won’t be holding my breath on that, but we’ll see.
By the time I got off the phone I had no doubt that, if the garage had tried to call me back, he would have given up rather quickly.
So, tomorrow morning, I will try calling him again, before I head out. Hopefully, he won’t be too booked and I’ll be able to bring the van in, soon. Depending on how early I can get the shopping done, who knows. Maybe we can still get Potato Beetle in to the vet! Unless they look at the photo and say not to bother. It’s possible, I suppose.
As if all that wasn’t enough, I got a quick phone call from my older brother. He had just talked to my mother but was about to start a meeting, so he wanted to let me know that our vandal had called her today. Three times! She let it go to message, thankfully. So while he went off to his meeting (which will be 3 hours long!), I called my mother to see if she was okay. She did sound upset. Our vandal had said “the usual”, but I had to clarify that. There are several “usual” things he says. He had been ranting at her about “giving” the farm to me and my brother (why he still thinks I have any ownership of the farm, I have no idea), apparently brought God into it (he knows she’s deeply religious, so one of his things is to tell her she won’t go to heaven to be with my late father and brother, because she’s not doing what he thinks she should be doing). There was a new one in there – at least new to me, though it’s possible he’s used this before and my mother never mentioned it. Basically, he was telling her to talk to him – as in pick up the phone, rather than letting it go to machine. Of course, anytime she does try to talk to him, it’s very much a one way conversation, as he doesn’t let her get a word in edgewise. Then she ends up hanging up to him. We’ve been working on getting her to let calls go to the machine, unless she can see who is calling. If that means my siblings and I ended up talking to a machine and calling her back later, we’re good with that. Better this slight inconvenience than her being verbally abused.
I have no idea what triggered him to call her today. Especially three times! It does remind me that I should call the court office this week, and see if a court date for the restraining order I applied for will finally happen. It’s already been pushed back three times because of the shut downs. :-(
So… It’s been quite the day, today!!
If I were a drinking person, I’d be pouring myself a stiff drink right now! But I’m not. So I will brew myself a pot of tea, instead. :-D
This afternoon, the girls and I did a bit of winterizing around the house by laying sheets of foam insulation around the base of the house and covering the septic tank, and the pipes to the house, with straw. The only part that is left to do is around the tap at the back of the house. There is still a hose attached, and we’ll likely be using both front and back hoses for a while longer. Once those are put away and we shut the water off from the inside, we’ll cover it with more pieces of foam insulation. We’re doing this quite a bit earlier than last year. There was already snow on the ground then!
Once that was done, one of my daughters and I decided it was time to take down a branch of the tree in front of the kitchen window. This is the branch the tech from our internet provider singled out as the last possible thing that might be preventing our secondary internet account from having any signal at all to its satellite dish. I can’t say that I was hopeful. There are far fewer leaves left on the branch, yet the signal to our primary account has been worse than ever.
Still, the wasps are gone, so it was time to give it a go.
We considered our options and decided to use the extended pole pruning saw to take the branch down, rather than climb up a step ladder and use something else. We figured that, this way, we could more easily jump out of the way if the branch went in an odd direction as it fell.
We also chose to cut it further out, so that the cats will still have their perching branch. They like to sit on it and watch us through the kitchen window! :-)
It was a pretty large branch, so rather than try and manhandle the whole thing, I used the reciprocating saw to break it down to smaller pieces. The thin, leafy branches went to the chipping pile in the outer yard. The lengths of the “trunk” were big enough, we lay them out around one side of the bed the white lilacs are in. We only needed to grab one more piece from another large branch we had taken down from the tree near the gate to completely line one side, and curve around the end.
Then, because I was able to find some this summer, my daughter sprayed the cut end with pruning paint.
At some point, we are going to take this tree out completely but, until then, I’d really like to get the branch hanging over the roof removed. There’s no way for us to take it down without it falling on the roof. We just don’t have the equipment to take it down safely in pieces.
So it will wait. It seems to be quite strong and unlikely to come down in a storm, but then, so did the branches on this tree that have come down in storms!
Once we were done and everything was cleaned up, we went inside to see if we could notice a difference in our signal with the primary account.
We had no internet.
Nothing.
Zero.
Zilch!!!
After doing the usual troubleshooting, there was still nothing.
So my husband started phoning our internet provider. After several calls that went straight to a busy signal, rather than their usual recorded messages to direct calls, we figured we were not the only ones having issues! My husband tried again about an hour or two later, and this time it went straight to a recording saying they were getting an unusually high volume of calls and were not able to answer.
Eventually, though, we did get our internet back!
Once we did, one of my daughters tested it out by trying to log into a particular game where our intermittent signal was giving all sorts of problems. She was actually able to log in first try – and was even able to switch servers in the game! Now, this could just mean we are having a particularly good night. It could mean taking down the branch made a difference. Or it could mean that, in fixing whatever shut down our IPs service completely, they also fixed whatever problem was causing our intermittent service.
One thing I’ve noticed in preparing to write this post, though; WordPress seems to be loading better now! I have been having endless problems embedding images into posts, and this time, they worked just fine. I still had tabs that didn’t want to load, but even those were able to finally load, much faster than usual.
Tomorrow, my husband will call our IP to get the suspension on the secondary account removed, and we will see if we finally get a signal. If there is still no signal to that dish, there’s nothing else here that would be causing the problem. For all we tried to ration our internet usage, we still went over last month, and the overage fees per gig are so high, the final bill was higher on one account, than the cost of both accounts together!
Until then, I’m just happy to have any internet at all, again!
Long story short, we are still down to just one account.
Long story long…
First, we got a call from the tech guy, saying that he would be here between 1 and 3pm to see what’s going on with our secondary internet account.
Second, we got our ebill for the month.
Yeah. Over $550. They charged us $2 a gig in overage fees, even though my husband had been told they wouldn’t.
Which is when he had a conversation with them!
At first, they tried to say they couldn’t credit us the amount, or credit us for the account we couldn’t use all month that we paid for, anyway.
So he told them to cancel the secondary account.
Well, they couldn’t credit the whole amount, but they could credit us $10 a month for 6 months.
He told them to cancel the secondary account.
He got put on hold while she went to see what she could do.
In the end, he agreed to a credit of $20 a month for 6 months. Which basically covers the cost of the secondary account for a month.
After all the huge expenses we had this month, like having to get a new lawn mower and new washing machine, among other things, plus we’ve still got the rest of the bill for my mom’s car to pay soon, we’ll be paying this bill down slowly for a while. I’d already budgeted a higher amount for the bill, but not that much!!
Meanwhile, we still had the tech guy coming out.
Shortly after noon, I headed out to unlock the gate – just in time for him to pull into our driveway! Yup, he arrived almost an hour early. We got a good laugh over my being there to unlock it at just the right time. :-)
He started off by bringing in his own router to test with. While he did his best to make sure he wouldn’t disconnect us from the one account that was still working, if badly, my daughter stopped working, just in case. The last thing she needed was to be in the middle of something, and suddenly, no internet. So she and I started on the picnic table.
The tech ended up switching modems, changing connectors, changing the entire cable, replacing the receiver on the satellite itself, all while constantly checking and rechecking the signal we were getting.
He was actually getting negative numbers. Which never seen before. I mean, if there’s no signal, it should be zero, but to get negatives?
He was at it for about three hours, in 25C/77F heat, with the humidex at about 30C/86F, in full sun on the roof, and not even a breeze!
Thankfully, we had just picked up a case of van water, and what didn’t fit in the cooler in the van, I brought to the house. I had some nice, cold water bottles to give him!
He did everything he could, and nothing worked.
That one dish is just not getting a signal.
In the end, there was just one thing left, and it was not something he could do.
I identified a specific tree branch that might be causing the problem.
It was actually one I’d narrowed it down to, myself, though partly because it’s the one we can reach to try.
I was ready to just grab a ladder and take it down right away.
Thankfully, my daughter stopped me.
This is the trunk of that tree.
Do you see those holes?
The elms are all riddled with them.
They are made by bald faced hornets. Which are wasps that burrow into trees to make their nests.
That’s right. The tree itself is the nest.
In the fall, they all die. The ones that hatch, build a nest elsewhere.
The tree we’d already pruned huge branches from had been a nest last year, but is empty now.
The year before, they had been in this tree, but in other branches.
This year, their nest is this branch.
Now, these wasps are actually pretty docile. They will leave you alone, if you leave them alone. They are not aggressive. In fact, they are desirable, as they keep down other insects.
If, however, you F* them up, they will F* you up.
Cutting down the branch that is their nest is about as F’ing them up as you can get.
The guy was still hear as my daughter explained all this, which I think he appreciated. He may well need that information at someone else’s place, in the future!
Which reminds me…
I had talked to him earlier about how the satellites had worked for the past while, and that the trees themselves actually have a lot less branches than before. We can tell when the branches are a problem during high winds, as they block and unblock the signal. So when he told me which particular branch he thought my be the problem, we also talked about what to do if we took the branch down, and it still didn’t work!
After he was gone, we had a talk about it.
One option is to pick up a whole lot of wasp and hornet killer, spray the branch, then cut it down. The problem with that is, this isn’t an external nest like with paper wasps that we can spray. The nest is inside the branch, and it’s very unlikely we’d be able to kill them all. We’d probably have to empty 3 cans over the length of the branch, and hope the contact kill gets the ones we miss.
Unlike the paper wasps, though, we don’t actually want to get rid of these guys. These ones are “good guys”. Plus, they will die on their own in the fall. Until then, they will help keep actual problem insects down.
My daughter suggested we just get used to having one account for a while, then take the branch down after the tree stops buzzing.
So tomorrow, my husband will call our provider back and ask them to suspend the account for now. We’ll just have a small fee each month, instead. If we keep paying what we normally budget at the same time, we’ll pay off the current bill much, much faster, too.
In a couple of months, we should be able to remove the branch, then ask them to activate the account again and see if it worked. If not, it’s time to call someone to come out again. Which is what the “care” charge on our bill covers.
Until then, we just have to keep rationing our internet usage, and get used to having horrible internet. The guy did check the primary account, too, and it was working fine, though as I type this I’m noticing we have lost internet again.
Oh, it’s back.
Anyhow.
So I’m kinda feeling really lucky right now. I had been eyeballing that tree and thinking of that one branch that was most likely to be at least part of the problem. I was thinking of just taking it down, and even decided on where to cut it, so that new branches growing out of the remains would still provide shade.
I just never got around to doing it.
When going under the tree, you can hear buzzing, but I’d never been able to see where the buzzing was coming from. My daughter was able to point it out, and you can actually see the wasps crawling around. If I had cut that branch, once it crashed to the ground, I would probably have been swarmed.
I seemed to have really dodged a bullet on that one!
So that’s where we stand now.
Given that my husband already got them to credit us for the next 6 months, they might balk at suspending the account. Still, it’s not the same as cancelling it, and I would hope that they would be understanding once he tells them why we have to wait before we can take the branch down and see if that’s what’s causing the problem. The tech couldn’t even say that it would work. It’s just that he tried everything else he could do. It’s the only thing left that he could think of.
We’ve been wanting to get rid of that tree for various reasons, but now we have a new one.
Wasps!
We’ll just have to find some other way to provide shade.
Well… except for the mosquitoes. The bug spray we used is supposed to last for 8 hours. It didn’t!
Unfortunately, my husband wasn’t up to joining us, so it was just the girls and I. One of whom helped me unload the riding mower for the van, while the other tended our first fire in the new set up. :-)
Those blocks turned out to be very handy, in many ways!
With the pit all cleaned out, we were reminded of just how big it really is!
This metal ring is one of several my late brother had acquired. He worked in demolitions, and once had the job of dismantling a coal fired electric generating station. A company in the States had purchased it, so my brother and his team had the job of dismantling the pieces that would go to the train station for shipping. Dismantling them was very dangerous. While the station had not been used for many years, there was still coal dust all over, and coal dust is explosively flammable. What wasn’t shipped to the purchaser was demolished and went to the landfill, so he was able to salvage sections of pipe. This is one of three that I know of, that became fit pit rings. :-)
As for our cookout, we have a terrible habit of starting to cook way too early. We’re just too impatient to wait for proper cooking coals! :-D So we deliberately didn’t being the food out until later. The question was, how to set up the food and fixings? The picnic table is in the process of being prepped for painting. The folding table we’d used before is now being used for something else. Plus there was that whole bug problem.
Solution found!
Yup. The mini greenhouse! We could put everything in, the close it up to keep the bugs out. :-D
The only thing that was a bit of a problem was how wide the mesh is on the shelves. The squeeze bottle kept tipping over. :-D
Ah, perfect!
Did I mention how handy those blocks turned out to be? :-)
After we’d had a bunch of hot dogs, we build the fire up again, then tossed in a packet of stuff to make colourful flames. I’d actually bought them last year, but with the fire bans, we never had a fire to use them in!
I’m sure the colours would have been much more dramatic if we had waited until it was darker. :-D We’re saving the second one for another time.
Unfortunately, no one remembered to read the packet to see how long the stuff lasted. We still had S’mores to do, and a coloured fire is not for cooking over. I was eventually able to find that it could take from 1 – 2 hours, depending on the fire and conditions. So we built the fire up more, until it was all burned up, before letting it get down to cooking coals again.
Then we made S’mores. :-)
The problem with that is, while we all love to toast marshmallows to golden perfection, none of us actually like eating them all that much. :-D I could sit there and toast marshmallows all day, as long as I had someone else to eat them! :-D
It was a wonderful, peaceful evening. While the girls and I were out there, we got visits from Creamsicle and Potato Beetle, with all their loving attention. We also got to see Junk Pile cat’s THREE kittens! Just flashes of them, really, as they’re even more skittish than their mom, but they are now coming to the house – even into the sun room! – with her. We also got charmed by a chipmunk on the stacked wood pile, and even Stinky came by, determined to dig for grubs among the nearby hawthorns.
With our big shop coming up some time next week, the girls and I will have cookouts in mind when we make our list. :-) I can definitely see popping on the racks and cooking supper out there.
Hmmm. As I’ve been working on this post, I’ve noticed some connectivity issues. We had still not received a call from a tech about coming here to check out equipment. The secondary account is still getting no signal at all, while the primary account is also kicking out much more frequently than usual – and no winds or storms to account for it. At least my daughter can still work. That’s the main thing!
Now let’s see if the connection is back, and I can hit “publish”! :-D
It seemed our internet woes were solved, late yesterday. Alas, by morning, we had no signal, once again.
My shoes finally blew apart, though, so the girls and I went into the city. Yes, we can find shoes locally, but not anything suitable for my monstrous, deformed feet.
Since we are in the city, anyhow, we are taking advantage of the trip. While the girls are in another store, I stayed in the van to put on my new shoes, and take advantage of having a data signal on my phone, to write this post.
Hopefully, we will have internet again by the time we get home. I have pictures to upload and share! 😊😊
First up, a big Thank You to City Mouse for making a quick update post for me yesterday.
We are still having internet issues, and it’s not the trees!
For those who are new to visiting this blog, here’s out set up, in a nutshell. Because of the house being surrounded by tall trees, which protect us from severe winds and snow, we cannot get “regular” internet. We can only get satellite. There is only one company that services our area. When we first got a satellite, the highest data plan available was 100 gigs. Our normal usage before moving out here about about 350 gigs, with 4 of us using it. We had to get a second account, with a second satellite, just to get another 100 gigs of data. So we would keep an eye on our data usage, then when we got close to 100%, we’d switch cables on the router to switch accounts.
Some time later, the company got a new satellite, which allowed us to get a better plan, but it required moving the satellite dishes to another location on the house. However, their new system allowed us to add another 100 gigs to the primary account. So we’d use the primary account for 2/3rds of the month, then switch cables when we got close to 100% of our data. The secondary account had some issues due to tree branches, but it wasn’t that bad.
When the lock down started, our internet provider waived overage fees for a limited time, so we didn’t bother switching cables for the last couple of months. This month, my husband got the courtesy email saying we were at 90% of our data. Which is the first I knew of their no longer waiving the fee. We switched cables, but by then, we were already at 103%. The overage fees is double the regular cost per gig.
When we first switched cables, we had intermittent signals, but the next day, we lost our internet in the morning, and it didn’t come back. We actually did get a signal at about midnight, but it only lasted about an hour before we lost it again.
The problem is, my daughter’s business is all online. She has commissions to work on and clients to contact, references to download, etc. She can do up to a certain point offline, but then she has to go online.
She and I just tried going into town, with the plan to go somewhere that has free wifi, sit for a while as she used her laptop to do what she needed over a cuppa or a snack.
Instead, we found all the usual places – restaurants, coffee shops, hotels – have their free wifi disabled.
So we went home.
Right now, we’ve switched the cable back to the primary account. As I write this, we have internet, but we’ve lost it a couple of times already. My husband had tried calling the company, only to get a recording saying they were having technical difficulties, then going into a very long list of the different areas that were affected.
The problem is, if we use the primary account, we’re paying double for the overage, while also paying for a secondary account that isn’t working at all. Even the light on the transceiver is showing there is no signal from the satellite, most of the time, but even when the colour changes, showing that we should have a signal, all of our devices show no internet.
But my daughter needs to get work done. So I am posting this for the time she needs to do what is necessary, and then we’re switching the cables back. At some point, we have to get through to the company to find out wtf is going on. And we had better get a credit of some kind for this!
Until then, I will make quick update posts as I’m able, but using as little data as possible in the process, or make posts when I’m in town and have a signal on my phone.
In my last post, I mentioned how we were having connectivity troubles with our satellite internet, due to heave foliage.
It’s very windy today.
Since we switched cables on accounts, we’ve had constant interruptions in service, to the point that my daughter was having difficulties working.
I’d gone outside to use up more of the rain barrel’s water around the yard when the girls came out to take a good hard look at the tree situation.
The satellites are aimed through a gap between two trees. A gap that is mostly filled with leaves right now.
The question was, should we prune?
It came down to a particular branch on one of the elms beside the small gate in the chain link fence.
Now, I’ll be straight about the pair of trees on either side of this gate. I would love for them to be gone. They were planted in a poor location, and their roots are currently pushing up the sidewalk blocks. My ideal plan would be to remove both trees, pull up their stumps, and lay down a new, wider, properly installed sidewalk that would better accommodate my husband’s walker. That is a HUGE job we are in no position to do for many years yet, if at all.
I’m pretty sure that when the current sidewalk was installed, the pavers were just laid down on the grass, and then some dirt was thrown up against the sides so the lawn mower could go over them. I think the paving stones forming a small patio under the kitchen window were install much the same way. Those ones are being lifted and shifted by the roots of the elm tree in front of the kitchen window; another problem tree.
I understand why my mother planted them. They provide excellent shade. The problem is, she didn’t think far enough ahead when she chose the locations. Now, the one by the kitchen is a problem for the roof, as well as the patio blocks and the basement wall. The ones by the small gate in the chain link fence were planted too close together, never mind the sidewalk running between them.
So these are trees that have many issues.
In the end, it was these many issues that had us agreeing to prune away one of the major branches growing towards the house.
That, and they’re elms. We could cut them down to stumps, and they’d grow back. The one in front of the old kitchen had already been cut back significantly, leaving behind a flat top the yard cats now use to hang out on. :-D
I didn’t have my phone with me, so I have no before pictures, but this is how it is now.
As you can see, this is not the first time this branch has been pruned!
This was also our first opportunity to use the pruning paint I found, which is black, so it’s not easy to see in the photo.
The girls had started off using the long handled pruning saw to cut it, but it started to jam. I ended up bringing over the step ladder and a buck saw. Once up there, I could see that where they’d started cutting had a huge knot, out of sight from below! So I started cutting a few inches away. We never did have to cut all the way through; the weight of the branch itself started breaking it, long before. One of my daughters grabbed it with the hook on the long handled pruning saw and was able to pull it the rest of the way down. After that, it was just a matter of cutting it free from the tree, which required one daughter to lift the weight of the main branch while the other did the cutting.
Once it was on the ground, I was able to go at it with the reciprocating saw and cut it into manageable sized pieces for hauling away.
Except for the main body. We set that aside for now.
We were thinking of the possibility of my using parts of it for carving, but I don’t think that will be possible.
It looks like the core of this branch was already rotting away! I think I even see insect damage.
Which means, if we hadn’t taken it down now, it may well have broken in high winds, like branches in the tree in front of the kitchen window already have. Well, that’s a likelihood for any of the trees. The rot just made this one a higher risk.
You can just see the black end of the branch we cut in this photo.
You can also see some of the many dead branches above it.
In this photo, you can see part of the elm tree on the other side of the gate, on the right side of the photo. Lots more dead branches, all out of reach.
Taking this branch down has opened up the yard quite a lot! I remember getting that same feeling of openness when I cut away the broken branches in the elm by the house (on the left edge of the photo, you can see part of a branch from that tree). We still have plenty of shade, too.
In the end, I’m glad we got it done. Whether or not it reduces how often our internet cuts out (which happened again while I was writing this, but only once, rather than the 3 or 4 times when I wrote my last post), we will see. For now, though, we got the one branch done, and will hopefully find a way to get at the dead ones, too. I’d really rather not wait for storms to bring them down, if I can!
I have been trying for days to upload images, with very little success. We have had no real problems going online. It is just uploading that is an issue.
This might be why. 😒
At one point, during the doors test, the upload speed dropped to 0.01mbps.
Also, it took a couple of tries to upload this from my phone, too.
The storm continues and is expected to, through the night. While shoveling this morning, I checked the satellite dishes, and they seem clear. The wind is from the north, so they are sheltered.
I’m still having difficulties uploading images, so I’ll have quite a bit of catch-up to do later. So far, I’ve been able to upload a few photos here and there, but not enough to do even one complete post with them! The rest of the family is having slow uploads on their machines, too, so it seems like it’s our internet, even though downloads seem to be unaffected.
For now.
The predicted snow and stormy weather has arrived. When I drove my daughter to work, we had some freezing rain, but just barely enough to feel it. We started to drive into snow the closer we got to town.
After dropping her off, I stopped by the lake to see the conditions. It took a while, but I was at least able to upload this video.
I was being pelted with freezing rain as I took this, so I didn’t stay out long. By the time I went from getting this video to getting to a gas station, just a few blocks away, the freezing rain had become blowing snow. On the drive home, I was heading right into the oncoming storm! Visibility was down to about 150 meters, if that.
As I write this, the winds seem to be doing down – at least for a little while. It’s supposed to continue snowing through tomorrow, then be rain and snow on Saturday. By Sunday, it should clear up. Which is good, because we are having Thanksgiving dinner that day with my old brother; we’ll get to finally meet their first grandson! I certainly hope the highways are good, because they’re driving in from out of province. :-( Looking at the weather radar, this storm system is coming almost straight up from the US, so they should be clear for most of their drive. Unfortunately, the most severe part of the system looks like it’ll pass over the city. My brother’s place may get some of that, too. While they may not get the worst of it, they’re definitely going to get hit harder than we are. My nephew and his family will have to drive through that to get to my brother’s.
After this, things will start to warm up a bit and I expect that, locally at least, the snow will not stay. Which is good, because we still have some winterizing to do out there!
The Re-Farmer 