Today has been one of those days where I haven’t been paying much attention to things outside our little cave. I’ve been using various apps to keep in the loop about the Freedom Convoy, but simply have not been able to keep on top of the hundreds of messages, posts and videos. I have had to mute most of the channels. Otherwise, my phone would be constantly singing at me with notification noises.
This evening, I finally got to sit down and try to look at some of the stuff, and figured I’d check out some of the YouTube videos that so many people have been posting.
Well, now.
First, not a lot of related videos were showing in my feed, even though quite a few channels I follow are directly involved in some way. So I did a search. I did that yesterday and found all sorts of interesting videos, some of which I shared.
Not today.
Today, about 99% of the videos that showed up in my search were from mainstream media. Since they aren’t really covering it much, most of them are also days old. After a while, I did see more independent videos show up, but they are even older than the media ones.
YouTube is messing with the search results, and keeping people from finding videos made by anyone other than our government approved media.
The mainstream media has, of course, been spreading all sorts of lies and slander about the Freedom Convoy. Our Prime Dictator came out and made a little speech, supposedly to explain why he refuses to talk to the truckers. It was a speech filled with lies, misrepresentations, and was clearly intended to create more division and hate against the truckers. The former drama teacher was over acting again, too.
One of the few politicians that has openly and unapologetically supported the Freedom Convoy from the start has been Maxime Bernier, of the PPC; the video above has his response to some of the disgusting things our Prime Dictator said. The NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, who is Sikh, also made some really vile comments denigrating the protestors as racists. Which would be a real surprise to all the Sikh truckers and supporters of the protest. In fact, the Sikh community has been one of the staunchest supporters. There have also been a lot of immigrants, some truckers, some supporters, that talk of having escaped tyrannical regimes. They are saying they are there, supporting the truckers, because they could see the same things happening here in Canada, that lead to the destruction of human rights and freedoms in their homelands. Of course, there are also the many First Nations groups that have joined the protests. It’s gotta be the most racially and ethnically diverse group of “white supremacists”, ever!
One of the YouTube channels I follow is The Rubin Report, and I still had to go looking to find this coverage.
Other platforms, such as Rumble, aren’t censoring videos.
The Rebel, which is completely independently funded, is one of the few larger media covering the protests. This one addresses the real problem of people infiltrating the protest to deliberately mess things up.
This is something everyone knew was going to happen. It’s a standard MO, really.
If we were to listen to the mainstream media and our own federal government, we would believe that there’s just a “fringe minority” of racist hicks that can’t be taken seriously, that are also domestic terrorists bent on violently overturning our (oh-so-saintly) government and the greatest threat our nation has ever faced.
Well, I suppose you could say it is an uprising. An uprising of courage, hope, unity, and love from ordinary Canadians, standing up against division, medical apartheid an government enforced segregation.
The Re-Farmer
Update: well, this didn’t take long. I just found this story, from The Counter Signal.
“Ottawa City Councillor Mathieu Fleury wants to seize the protesting truckers’ GoFundMe support account, which has raised upwards of $9 million, to cover the costs of policing the city — among other costs.
Fleury, who represents the city’s Rideau-Vanier Ward, publicly announced on social media that he asked the city manager and city solicitor to “immediately launch court proceedings targeting the millions of dollars in funds frozen by [GoFundMe] so Ottawa taxpayers are not left holding the bag for these protests.””
The wind changed direction this afternoon, so I took advantage of it and headed outside to shovel the path to the compost ring that was completely filled in. Knowing we would be getting a delivery from the pharmacy this evening, I made sure to unlock the gate, first. The driver always calls when he’s close so we can unlock the gate, but I knew I would still be outside when he did.
Once I got the path to the compost ring clear, I continued on and cleared the path to the back door of the garage. It want much faster, since it doesn’t get blown in as much.
I had just reached the back door of the garage when I saw a car pulling up near the chain link fence.
To go to meet him, I had to take the path to the compost ring, across to the house, then down the sidewalk to the person gate he’d pulled up to.
I’ve been meaning to make a path from the back of the garage to the vehicle gate for a while. I wish I’d done it earlier! LOL
By the time I was done, it was getting dark. I had to adjust the lighting in this photo, just to see the new path! It now joined up with the path dug along the garden bed between the two gates, where there is a path to the driveway.
Normally, the inner yard would be cleared of snow enough for us to drive up to the house, with room towards the outhouse for turning, and we wouldn’t have needed all these little paths. Last year, we were able to keep it clear just with our little Spewie, but there is too much snow for the little thing, this year. We probably could have done it if the big snow blower was working. When I was a kid, my dad would use the old Farm Hand tractor to push snow into a pile about where the kibble house is now. It would reach most of the way between the house and the maples that our now outside the chain link fence, but used to be part of the inner yard back then. I remember one year, my siblings and I carved the pile of snow into three sets of stairs, with tunnels in between, leading to a two step platform at the top. The centre staircase had a wide, curved bottom step. We wanted to carve a throne at the top, but the snow pile wasn’t tall enough. :-D Gosh, that was fun!
This year, we’ve got snow more like what I remember as a kid.
Anyhow, without the heavier equipment, paths will have to do!
It was as I was near the garage door, and having to fling the snow ever higher, that I finally noticed just how deep it was.
I couldn’t quite stretch my arm out far enough to get a good angle, but the snow here is about hip height on me. Maybe a bit higher.
No, not all of where I was shoveling was that deep, though I wasn’t exactly shovelling right down to the ground in most of the paths, either.
After I cleared the new path, I kept on going, clearing the path in front of the garden bed, then scraping the sidewalk and clearing it wide enough for my husband’s walker. Which is really handy, when we have to use the wagon to haul stuff from the van to the house, like the sack of deer feed and other stuff I picked up today. Then I went ahead and cleared the cat paths, too, while there was still light out.
Clearing those paths is getting harder in places. The piles of snow from all the shoveling are getting high enough that the new snow I’m shovelling slides back down if I don’t throw it far enough – or falls into another path if I throw it too far! LOL
The cats were very happy with the cleared paths. :-)
As I write this, I can see more snow blowing around in the live feed from the security camera. I’m glad I got it done when I did! It’s still rather warm out – only -8C/18F as I write this. We’re supposed to have a high of -18C/-0.4F tomorrow, then it’s supposed to warm up a little bit again, and stay there for the next week. Much nicer than the couple of days of deep freeze we got, when our mini-convoy headed out, and the big one passed through our province.
That’s one of the amazing things about the convoy for freedom. This is happening in Canada, in flippin’ January. A friend of mine in the city had gone out to cheer the convoy as it passed by. She estimated there were about 150 people, just around where she was. It was about -32C/-26F where she was, at the time. In places, the convoy is so long, it took 4 hours to go by, with people outside, cheering them on, the whole way!
As the main convoy makes its way from the Western provinces towards Ottawa, more mini-convoys from the Eastern provinces are starting to make their way out as well. They don’t have as far to go, so they started later, timed so everyone gets there on the 29th. I heard there were so many trucks from Newfoundland, they got a ferry out just to take the trucks across. I’ve also heard that one of the border crossings into Ontario had so many truckers from the US coming in to join the convoy, the line stretched back 70 miles!
Our mainstream media has been avoiding reporting on it as much as possible, but they can’t avoid it any more. Of course, they are misreporting it, completely. One of the things they’re doing is wildly underreporting how many trucks there are. It’s just a few trucks, according to them. Not very many. There is also the usual, predictable slanderous reporting. They’re portraying the truckers as “anti-vaxxers” (most of them are vaccinated, and if they’re coming in from the US, they’re allowed to cross only if fully vaccinated), of course. Today, they’ve been ramping up the disparaging portrayal. The truckers are white supremacists, right wing, extremists, racists, and homophobes. You know. All the tired old insults that get thrown out so much, the terms have lost all meaning. Then there is that truly Canadian insult that comes from the leftist media that gets trotted out every election, and is being trotted out now. The truckers are inspired by *gasp* “American style politics.” Apparently, being compared to Americans is supposed to be an insult. This time, one news station even suggested that the convoy is somehow inspired by the January 6/2021 protests in the US that the media continues to lie about. They are really pushing the idea that the truckers and their supporters are violent crazies. Oh, and another claim that is supposed to be an insult: the truckers are “anti-government”. Because if you don’t 100% agree with what the current government is doing, that can only mean you are “anti-government”.
It’s all BS of course. Unfortunately, too many people believe it, and it’s endangering lives. A number of trucks were found to have their pins pulled. In one incident, a trucker who was not part of the convoy, and did not agree with it, apparently deliberately rammed his own truck into a truck that was part of the convoy. It’s been portrayed by the media as an “accident”. With the way the media is whipping up hatred and division – while accusing the truckers in the convoy of spreading hatred and division – they may very well get people killed.
And our Prime Dictator? Apparently, he’s on vacation in Costa Rica right now, though I don’t know if that’s true.
Thankfully, we have independent media who reporting on the convoy with better accuracy and truthfulness. Best of all are all the people who are documenting it themselves and posting about it. Like this guy.
Language warning!
It’s absolutely amazing! Our Prime Dictator has actually managed to accomplish something useful, in spite of himself. He has united the country. Against him! I have never seen so many wildly diverse groups, completely united in their support for the convoy and the push to end all the mandates.
The guy who made the above video is just one of many supporters, and he can only cover so much. We are also seeing many First Nations groups stepping forward in support. FN peoples are notorious about not getting involved in anything that could be considered even remotely political, with good reason. I’d mentioned before that a group of Hutterites had planned to set up kitchens to feed the truckers. The police wouldn’t let them, apparently because the parking lot was too full, so they drove 2 1/2 hours to the next major city, ahead of the convoy, and set up there, determined to feed them all. The GoFundMe has, as of this writing, reached over $5.7 million. I can’t even estimate how many hundreds of people are even joining the convoy in their own vehicles, so it’s not just a convoy of long haul truckers, but of all sorts of vehicles, too. Then there are the people getting together to prepare meals in take-out containers to hand out to the truckers, people arranging for things like porta-potties along routes where public washrooms are few and far between, and on it goes.
Meanwhile, there is stuff like Facebook deleting groups supporting the convoy, all of Toronto’s traffic cams along the 401 not working, people posting their own videos on social media are finding there is no share button for some reason, and I’ve lost track of the number of people I know who have found themselves suddenly restricted from posting on social media, and not knowing why. For all that, there is still tonnes of stuff out there, for all to see, showing what’s actually happening, and how huge this whole thing is.
Our Prime Dictator has already tried to call in the military and RCMP to stop the convoy, and they refused. So far, publicly, he’s been vocal about framing the truckers as angry (duh!) and potentially dangerous people, chastising them and their supporters for being angry, saying we don’t want to be that way as Canadians. Pure gaslighting, of course. The only truckers he’s talked to is an organization that is heavily connected to the Liberal party, condemns the convoy, but does not actually represent the truckers at all.
It’s a remarkable thing to see happening, and I honestly don’t know how it’s going to turn out. What I do know is that it is going to affect all our lives, here in Canada.
Today we have been steadily warming up. When I headed out to do my rounds this morning, it was up to -15C/5F and looking lovely.
Lovely, until I actually stepped outside.
The wind was coming from the south again, which means we were getting the full brunt of it. The wind chill at the time was around -35C/-31F. It actually felt colder, after things had warmed up, than it did when we were at -25C/-13F.
The south winds whip around the corners of the house, blowing snow into the kibble house! I had to knock snow out of all the kibble trays before I could put food in them, then dig out the water bowls. You can see in the photo, the crust that formed on top of the heated water bowl.
Smart Nosencrantz, quickly ate, then went back into the nice warm shelter!
The path to the compost heap is completely gone.
I was going to shovel it out this morning, but the winds were just too severe. Instead, I went to the gate at the driveway. As long as we’re on the inside of the gate, the trees in the old hay yard block most of the winds from the south.
With the snow we’ve been having, it’s been blocking our ability to open the gate all the way. When our angel with the front end loader cleared our driveway, there was less space at the gate because of this, creating a bit of a bottleneck just inside the gate that was slowly closing in, more and more. I was able to clear enough know that we can at least swing the two sides of the gate until they are 90 degrees with the gate posts.
Note how nice and bright it is in the above photo. Wind was the only issue to deal with. I had to go into town later, and of course checked the weather. We were supposed to get snow later, but the weather radar showed clear skies. I kept zooming out to see where this weather system was, but everything was clear. I thought there was something wrong with the data until I zoomed out enough to see some rain heading across towards Florida. !! And yet, when I went online, I was seeing people reporting road conditions on the highways, talking about poor visibility and drifting highways. ???
The call we got about Cabbages came just in time, as I needed to head out before the general store our post office is in closed for the day; they are open only half a day on Wednesdays. We had some packages to pick up there, then I had to go to town to pick up a Purolator delivery at their drop off point, since we are not in their delivery zone.
What a difference a bit of time makes.
Clearly, the weather radar was messed up. It had started to snow by the time I left, and the couple of miles on the main gravel road to the highway was drifting over quite a bit. In the time I spent at the general store to get our packages and some more deer feed, the winds were dying down, but the snow was heavier.
Then there was the drive to town. Yikes! The closer I drove to the lake, the heavier the snowfall, and the worse the visibility. The roads were not icy, though, so it was still okay to drive, if a bit slower.
The parcel I went to pick up, however, wasn’t there. We had gotten a call from Purolator to find out where they should drop the package off; it was either the town we usually go to, East of us, or the town my mother lives on, which is further away. When we told them where to drop it off, they said the package would be there by 11am. When I got there, however, the person working there told me the drivers always come at 2pm!
Well, we certainly weren’t going to come back today, but we do have a week to pick it up, once it arrives.
This place is also a small convenience store that also does takeout. Since I was there anyhow, I splurged and got a bucket of mini donuts. :-D Happily, I had a small insulated bag in the van to keep them warm for the drive home. So it wasn’t a wasted trip, after all. ;-)
As for the drive home, the snow was falling even more heavily, especially in our area.
I’m so glad we’ve got good snow tires.
This is what it was like when I got home, keeping in mind that the camera on my phone automatically clears images up, so I can actually see more in the photo, than I could while taking it!
Then it was gone.
As I write this, the snow has stopped, and I can barely even see branches moving in the trees outside my window. We have warmed up to -8C/18F, and are still expected to reach a high of -3C/27F. Not quite as warm as had been forecast previously, but I’m certainly not complaining!
I’m glad this winter has been so much milder than the last two winters, and certainly thankful for the snow we’re having, that will be such a boon to farmers in the spring. It does make getting around more difficult, though!
You know, I can handle the -27C/-17F temperatures. Bundle up enough, and the only real problem is my glasses frosting over.
But that -44C/-47F wind chill, I could do without!
My husband was a sweetheart and was able to feed the cats outside this morning, so when I headed out, I only had to feed the birds/deer. Smart kitties were nowhere to be seen when I came out.
We had been fully prepared to hunker down and stay close to home for the next while. It has turned out to be the complete opposite! On Monday, I took advantage of a warmer day to stock up on more cat kibble, picking up a few other things while I was at it. Tuesday, I had to go to the post office to pick up the packaging for the satellite pieces we needed to return to our old IP. Today, it was back to the post office to send them off, so we don’t have to worry about getting dinged almost $400 for them. I’d shovelled the end of the driveway yesterday, to clear out the old plow ridge before the plow came by and added to it. The plows didn’t come by, but the end of the driveway was drifted over. Driving right now is a game of “can you find the road?” Hopefully, the plows will be out today, because tomorrow, I have to go out again, this time to help my mother with her grocery shopping, using her little car which means we probably won’t be able to do the dump run we’d planned. At least her car is a four wheel drive. It also had butt warmers in the seats.
I’ve become spoiled by butt warmers. And heat vents that work. ;-)
Friday looks like it’ll be a day I can finally stay home, but Saturday will be the first day it’ll be warm enough and the winds are expected to die down enough, that it’ll be safe to do more shoveling. Maybe even break out little Spewie and do some snow blowing. Saturday is likely when we’ll finally be able to do a dump run.
I just want to stay home! :-D And to think, by the middle of the month, we’re supposed to warm up to -10C/14F I’m quite looking forward to it!
I can’t complain, though. Around this time last year, we were getting slammed by a Polar Vortex, both our van and my mother’s car froze, we were snowed in, and we ended up having to ask my brother to do some shopping for us in the city and bring it over, because we couldn’t get out to do it ourselves. His vehicle could handle the cold and snow, even though they don’t have a garage and their cars are out in the elements. So right now, I’m thankful that we actually can go out and about, even if I’d rather we didn’t.
Another item for the list when we win the lottery: new vehicles that can handle the cold! The last time I looked it up, the Ram 1500 and the F150 were the two top vehicles for that, and both can come with plow attachments.
Time enough for a post, before I head off to my mother’s. I’ve decided to leave early enough to hit the post office before it closes, then grab something for lunch with my mother. I’m seriously debating whether or not to bring some of the pierogi we made last night for her. On the one hand, it would mean less cooking for her. On the other, they are not like how she fills her pierogi, and that’s always a bad thing. Plus, with my luck, she’ll get the one pierog with a cat hair in it or something, and I’ll get lectures on what a horrible human being I am for having cats. Or she might actually appreciate it. Ha! Who am I kidding?
I don’t know whether to look forward to visiting her, or to dread it. Hopefully, she’ll be having one of her good days.
This morning, as I was getting ready to head outside for my morning rounds, some movement out my window caught my eye.
I knew the deer were going through our West yard, as the snow is crisscrossed with their tracks, but this was the first time I happened to be there to see them in daylight.
They are so fluffy!!!! I just want to smoosh my hands into their fur. <3
After the last couple of bitter days, we’ve screamed up to -4C/25F, which feels downright tropical! We’re already warmer than forecast. In a few days, we’re even supposed to hit 3C/37F! Which would be the perfect day to install our Starlink system on the roof.
If we get it by then.
FedEx never showed up yesterday.
Maybe when I go to the post office this morning, I’ll find they left it there? Here’s hoping.
The cats are certainly enjoying the warmer temperatures. :-)
When I came out this morning, the heated water bowl was bone dry! It wasn’t knocked over. Just empty. It makes me think that a larger animal is drinking the water. It could be my brother’s dog (I saw him on the security camera again this morning), but there’s even a possibility that the deer have discovered it.
Or it couple be something else.
While heading to the corner cam to switch out the memory card – and back again to change out the frozen batteries – I noticed some indistinct tracks along the path. At first I thought it was from a cat, but after a while, I could tell it was something else. Eventually, I got to a place where the tracks were very clear.
Looks like a raccoon had come for a visit!
Well, time to get some stuff done before I head out. Hopefully, at some point today, we’ll get our Starlink system! While it’ll be great to have the better speeds, that’s not the main reason I’m so eager for it. Our current satellites give us some pretty decent download and upload speeds. It’s mostly the connectivity. The new system should mean a more reliable signal. Plus, we’ll have unlimited data and not have to worry about that anymore, either.
One of the tasks I got a bit of progress on yesterday, was the sign I am making to replace the one with my late father’s name on it, that identified this farm.
Before adding the second coat of paint, I cut a scrap piece of 2×4 from the wood we found in one of the sheds and brought to the basement a while back, and made “legs”. They are short, but they are something I can work with when we are finally able to put the sign up. Mostly, I wanted them screwed in place before the second coat of white paint was added. That way, I could brush over the screws to make them less visible, while making sure not to fill in the holes for the screwdriver, so they can be taken out easily, if necessary.
They also did a better job of keeping the sign above the top of the freezer while I painted, than what I was using before. :-D
There is one problem with working in the old kitchen, though.
The wasps are somehow getting in from the hive in the crawl space.
So far, they are staying at the north window, trying to get outside; the south window faces into the sun room, and the west window is covered with foil, so there is actually more light from the north. Plus, the old kitchen is not heated in any way and is always a few degrees colder than the rest of the house, so the wasps were pretty groggy. Still, when I first came in to start working on the sign, I did have to move a wasp off that had landed on it, while the paint was still a bit wet. If it had been warmer and the wasp less groggy, it probably could have flown off on its own. As it is, when I gently brushed it loose, it just fell to the floor, where I could no longer see it.
They won’t last long, as wasps die off over the winter, but it does mean my husband has to be careful going into there, since he is allergic to stings.
With the second coat of white paint done yesterday, the next step on the sign for today will be to take it outside and use the reflective spray paint on it. I’ll have to read the label on the can again, to see if it should have more than one coat or not.
I can do this part outside, as we are not expected to have rain again for a while. With how much we got recently, this morning I decided to check out the old gravel pit that the renter got dug deeper, so see how it was. Along the way, I checked a pond, and there was no standing water at all, though the bottom has a lot of green growth at least.
The old gravel pit is wonderfully full of water! This is the most it has had all year. Thankfully, there is a lot of clay to keep it there, too.
The hill created when the pit was deepened has been noticeably affected by the rain, as well, and I could see where actual rivulets had formed, washing things away.
This is the bottom of one of the rivulets, where you can see a deer had made its way through the clay and silt. All around the bottom of the hill, there are now patches of clay and silt like this, but this is the only one that had tracks in it. :-)
I’m really glad the renter was able to get this pit dug deeper. Even with all the rain we’ve been having, the water table has not recovered yet, so this is the only water around for wildlife. Of the dugouts in the area that I can see from the roads, only one, about two miles away, has any water in it, and it was also dug deeper this year, too.
Well, things have warmed up nicely – it’s currently 15C/59F right now! – and it’s time to get outside and get some manual labour done! :-)
We’re having some pretty hot and humid days of late. Not heat like we’ve been having all summer, thankfully, but more “average for August” hot. Though it didn’t rain last night, when I came out to do my morning rounds, the dew was so heavy, I would have though we’d had some, had everything else not been completely dry.
The squash and gourds are certainly enjoying the moist heat!
The Ozark Nest Egg gourd plants are busily climbing the fence and blooming – and completely dwarfing the Thai Bottle gourd plants (on the left).
One of the flowers even made its way through the chicken wire critter barrier! :-D
So far, they all appear to be male flowers. No gourds forming, though it’s possible there are some hidden under the leaves. I won’t mess with the chicken wire to look.
Thanks to all the wonderful rain we’ve had, the grass is actually green and growing again, and in need of a mow. It took hours for the grass to dry enough for that to be an option, which meant mowing during the hottest part of the day.
Or it would have been, had the battery on the riding mower not been dead! It’s only been used once this year, and I had to charge it then, too.
With the time it took to charge the battery, it was actually starting to cool down, so I guess that was a good thing! I took advantage of it and was able to do both the inner and outer yards, including areas I did not more the one other time this year we mowed. I kept doing as long as the light held, and managed to get it done just before it was full dark, though the yard light had turned on well before I finished. I was even able to mow in front of the storage shed. Which means that, weather willing, in the next day or two, we’ll have lots of grass clippings to rake up and set aside for the garden.
By the time I finally came inside, it was 9pm, but it was worth it! :-)
Last night turned out to be one of those odd nights. I’d stayed up late to finish of part of a crochet project, then work the set up on the next part of it, before going to bed.
I didn’t sleep a wink.
This wasn’t even a sleepy night of tossing and turning or interruptions, but just plain, “hmm. I’m awake.”
The problem with such sleepless nights is that I end up feeling hungry. So by 4am, I finally gave up and got something to eat, then watched some Midsomer Murders on Tubi. By 6am, I figuring I could actually fall asleep, but it was getting light out, so I did my morning rounds, first.
As early as it was, Rosencrantz was already waiting for breakfast! :-D
While checking on the garden beds after switching out the memory card on the garden cam, I was very happy to see these.
The one Red Kuri (Little Gem) squash is changing colour so nicely! One of my crochet projects has been to make mesh hammocks for the squash and melons. We have all smaller varieties, so the vines can hold the weight. The hammocks are more to ensure that, if they do drop off their vines, the ones that are higher up won’t hit the ground.
After all this time, we FINALLY have another winter squash developing. Possibly more, but this is the biggest, and shows no sign of dying off like so many others have done. Which is, on the one hand, quite exciting to see. On the other, it’s a bit frustrating. Our first frost date is September 10, and it’s already August 24. Hopefully, we won’t actually get frost that early, but that chances of this, and any others, reaching full maturity before first frost is low. These varieties were chosen specifically for their shorter growing season, but even with our watering and fertilizing, the drought has set so many things back. Now, after all that heat, it’s our cooler days and almost cold overnight temperatures that are slowing things down again.
Ah, well. We shall see what the fall brings us.
Meanwhile, I did manage a few hours of sleep. It’s drizzling outside, so I think I’ll continue on the crochet projects I’m working on.
Today, we finally have cooler temperatures! According to the hourly forecasts, we should be at about 23C/73F right now, but we’re still at only 18C/64F, which is awesome. There are still predictions of rain, all of which have been passing south of us. We desperately need rain. I’ve been reading about how it’s affecting some of our farmers. Those growing things like oats have had their crops gone crispy. Cherry producers (I didn’t even know we had a cherry industry in our province!) have had their cherries bake, right on the trees.
On top of all that is the smoke. I had to make a trip into town this morning, and it’s even worse there. There are fires on the other side of the lake, which is likely why. There are no fires near us but, today, the smoke is heavy enough to affect visibility quite a bit. I was talking to my mother on the phone a little while ago, and the smoke coming into the house was so bad, I had to excuse myself for a couple of coughing fits while talking. I’ve been able to reduce my mystery coughing fits pretty well over the last few years, but with this smoke, I’ve had more in one day than I’ve had in the last 4 years since we’ve moved here. I’ve actually reversed the fan in my window to blow the smoke out, even though I would normally be drawing the cooler air in while we’ve got it.
This adorable monster was eating our bird seed this morning. I saw one of the smaller ones out my window, heading to the bird feeder, just a little while ago. I should probably chase them away, but as long as they’re eating the seeds, they’re not eating my garden, so… I’m letting them be for now.
I’ve got the garden cam set up to try and see what has been eating our peas. The only things that got caught were a skunk and Butterscotch going by. Skunks are omnivores, so it could potentially be a skunk, but the one I saw was just passing through.
When doing the watering last night, I uncovered the beds with radishes, chard, kale and kohlrabi. This morning, I left them uncovered. We’re overcast, so they don’t need the shade, and if we do get rain, I want them to get some!
While talking to my mother about the current drought conditions, I mentioned that there are people whose wells have gone dry. I told her I thought my brother had said our well is 80 feet deep. It’s a number that’s been bothering me, but I couldn’t remember him saying anything different for this well. The old well in the pump shack (which predates my family owning this property), I remember him saying is about 110 feet. My mother, however, corrected me. She didn’t know about the old well, but she did remember that the well by the house is a little over 150 feet deep.
I suddenly feel much, much better. There is no way my brother would have been wrong about that, since he was heavily involved when all the work was being done, so I don’t know where I got that 80 feet from. Especially since I know we have a deep well pump. “Deep” is a relative statement, depending on the geography and elevation, but I know that in our area, even 80 ft would be considered pretty deep. However, if we’re loosing pressure while using two hoses at the same time (granted, one of those hoses had been running a sprinkler for an hour) at 150 ft in current conditions, at 80 ft, our well would probably be dry right now. Which is a rather alarming thought.
And so we pray for rain, for respite for our farmers and firefighters, and to clear some of that smoke out of the air!
The kind where things start going wrong from the start, and nothing goes to plan.
Today was one of those days.
Thankfully, it ended on a more positive note.
Things started very early, with hearing noises from the basement and discovering Saffron had somehow found her way into the old part basement, discovering another cat had gotten into a plant pot and scattered dirt everywhere in the living room, to my daughter trying to vacuum the carpet and our vacuum cleaner suddenly starting to smoke and no longer creating a vacuum. I was planning to head to the smaller city to get a new air filter for the push mower, but my sleep had been interrupted so much, I felt too tired to be safe to drive. I figured I’d get a nap in, and go later. Of course, that got interrupted a few times, too, with scam phone calls about credit cards we don’t have, cats getting into the old basement again (my daughter found where they were getting through and blocked it), and so on. When I finally got up – which was disorienting, because it was still morning – my daughters convinced me to save making the trip for another day. I must have looked a sight for them to do that!
So basically, it was a pretty wasted day. I got nothing useful accomplished until evening, when it cooled down enough to do the evening watering. It was so windy today, the sawhorse the garden cam is attached to was knocked over, and I had to do some repair work on one of the stakes and lines over a row of sunflowers that had blown apart.
Also, the sound of wind going through the wire mesh on the squash tunnel is very musical!
I was quite happy to see a few of the summer squash are starting to bloom.
When I was finishing up watering at the front of the house, and was moving the hose out of the way, I heard an odd noise coming from the kibble house. I was behind it, so I couldn’t see, but figured there was a skunk inside. So I carefully walked around it and…
… it was empty.
But I was still hearing that noise.
So I ducked to look under the kibble house, where there is still a sheet of rigid insulation on the ground. There I saw a little black critter, and the noise was claws making warning scratches on the insulation. It was one of the baby skunks, all by itself!
It ended up dashing under the cat’s house. On seeing there was no food at all left in the kibble house, I topped things up a bit, then went to sit on the stairs to the storage house, where I had a view of the back of the kibble house and cat shelter. Sure enough, after a while, I saw the little guy come out, then make a run for the storage house. I did get a short video, but apparently, I can’t upload anything right now, or I’d include it here! As I walked away from the storage house, I just caught sight of the skunk family, ducking under the chain link fence and out of the yard. I’m glad the little one was reunited with its family!
So I guess that was a cute end to an otherwise miserable day.
For now, I’m hoping to get some decent – uninterrupted – sleep, so I can make the trip I was supposed to do today.
The Re-Farmer 