kittens

I love our septic guy

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The septic guy has come and gone, and the news turned out to be much better than I expected.

But first, the cuteness.

The kittens are getting very comfortable around the sun room and the house, running and playing together. Even the smallest ones are rough housing with the older kittens. Then they all pile together, sometimes in one big group, sometimes in several smaller ones, and nap.

It’s so flippin’ adorable.

Back to the less adorable stuff.

We closely monitored the septic pump all night. I went to bed early, since I wanted to get up very early to drive to a bank machine and take out cash to pay the septic guy. Before I went to bed, I heard the pump start running, so I went down to keep an eye on it. At the end, it did the thing again; the filter suddenly emptied of all liquid, but the pump kept running, dry. Thinking of what the septic guy told me on the phone, about how it sounded like we had an air leak somewhere, I shut it off manually, primed the filter, and turned the pump back on again, making sure to check if anything seemed to not be sealed properly. As soon as I flicked the switch, the pump started running, drained the filter, and kept running. So I repeated the process a couple more times until I flicked the switch, and the pump stayed off. I saw no sign of any leaks, and when I opened the top of the filter, there was most definitely a tight seal.

Everything worked the way it should, for the rest of the night.

I know this because every time the pump started running, I went back down to check. My intent to get to sleep early went right out the window. My daughters were going to check on it regularly during the night, but I’m the only one that can actually hear when the pump starts running, so I ended up checking anyhow. The girls still checked on it, too. That basement saw more traffic in and out in one night than it has in years! 😄

Which means I got no sleep last night. I didn’t finally get an hour or two of sleep until past 5am.

Oh… the pump just turned on. Gotta keep an ear out on it…

Okay, so I couldn’t do that. I had to go down and keep an eye on it.

It worked perfectly.

Anyhow. Where was I?

Oh, yes.

By about 7:30, I was on the road to my nearest bank branch, in the town my mother lives in, took out some cash and put some gas in the tank, since we’ve got a trip to the vet tomorrow, with whichever four males we can get into the carriers before we feed the outside cats.

Once back at home, I made sure the gate was left open, then did some work around the house until he arrived.

When he got here, he stopped in front of the garage, then got out to check the conditions. We still have standing water at the vehicle gate into the yard. There are ruts in the entry just from driving through with our truck. Walking through where he would be backing up together, we could see there could be problems. He did NOT want to back into the yard with that super heavy truck, and get stuck!

So, he first did a visual check on the tank. The pump had clearly run fairly recently. Everything looked the way it should.

Next, he wanted to check the pump itself.

When I checked on it earlier, I remembered his questions about vibrations and the possibility of a crack at the fittings. With that in mind, I grabbed a brick and a thin piece of Styrofoam that was no longer being used for something else, and set it under the filter. The filter basically floats above the concrete, held up by the pipes. I figured the weight of the water in there might be a possible contributing factor, so it is now supported. When he saw that and I explained I’d just added it this morning, he said it was a good idea.

He checked all the fittings and connections, then we opened up the filter to check that. He examined the condition of the O ring, while I topped up the water in the filter reservoir. It was an inch or so lower than it had been, but not so low that the inflow opening at the top was exposed. We put the cap back on, and everything looked fine.

He asked me a number of questions, wracking his brain, trying to figure out what was going. Then he asked about the outflow. Did we have an expeller or a septic field?

We have an expeller.

Was the pipe white or black?

White.

That got his attention, and he wanted to see where the water gets expelled.

This is just past the fence around the outer year, in the area the renter rotates his cows over to graze. They aren’t here, yet, so the grass is really tall. Of course, the grass in the outer yard is tall, too, since we can’t mow it. We made our way through and went to where the pipe was.

Or, should I say, where the pipe should have been.

The grass was so tall, it was hard to see, but we made our way to where it should have been, and couldn’t find it! I was having a bit of a heart attack, thinking it had been knocked over some how (it would have take a LOT for that to happen), but it wasn’t even lying on the ground.

Then he spotted it, hidden not only by the tall grass, but over handing willow branches.

The willows are fuller than I’ve ever seen them!

Unfortunately, the expelled water isn’t flowing in the direction it should, as there is too much debris, so there we had an area full of water we couldn’t get through. We were, however, able to go around from the other side.

When we got there, and he was checking out the pipe, water started flowing out. The pump was running. He popped the cap off, with the narrow, inner pipe attached, and pulled it out.

I commented that I had no idea that came out so easily.

It shouldn’t he told me. !!!

He started examining the bottom of the pipe he’d pulled out. Meanwhile, the larger, outer pipe filled with water and began overflowing, as it should. He’d brought along a long screwdriver and used that to poke into the bottom of the inner pipe, and I could see debris falling out. He popped it back on place, and water started flowing through it much better than before.

This clog was most likely the source of our problems!

As we walked back to the house, he told me that gunk inside the pipe running from the house to the inner pipe he’d just cleared would be breaking loose in chunks and getting stuck at the bottom of that inner pipe. He mentioned a chemical product with enzymes that they use. I told he, we do use the SeptoBac (which is specifically for the tank), as well as a product for maintaining the household pipes. This commercial stuff they use is much, much stronger, and designed specifically to clear these pipes that run underground.

He told me that if it gets clogged again, to take that inner pipe and cap off completely, and leave it off for about a month. The water will overflow the outer pipe, like it did while we were there, and that would give it a change to wash out the gunk in the pipes. He said this is a pretty common problem, too.

We checked the pump again and everything was fine. He took off the ring holding the clear cap in place, but the seal was so tight, he couldn’t take the cap off. I’m used to it, so I was able to pop it off. The water level was just a bit lower than before, so I topped it off (I keep a bucket of water in the old laundry sink, just for this) and we closed it up again.

He said to keep an eye on it over the next few days, and if we have a problem, to call him again. With it working, he was not going to empty that tank; there was no need, and no need to risk getting his truck stuck in our yard!

I asked him what we owed him, and he said nothing! He did not charge us for his time! I know he, technically, didn’t do any repairs, but he still spent at least half an hour, figuring things out.

He is so awesome! I’m glad to be having the septic guy checking all this out, too. Normally, we would have called a plumber, but who is going to know a septic system better than a septic guy? Especially an old and more uncommon system like ours.

So we are now on monitoring duty, and hopefully things will be back to working the way they should.

Plus, a nap.

I really, really need a nap.

I might even be able to sleep through the sound of the pump running, now!

The Re-Farmer

First harvests, first sighting and first use

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It’s been a day of firsts!

Some, better than others.

This morning, I harvested our first garlic scapes! Not a lot, but enough to enjoy today.

The strawberries in the wattle weave bed had one ripe berry to harvest.

It was quite tasty. 😄

I also saw our first female winter squash blossom! That was quite a surprise, since they don’t usually show up until later. The flower was oddly closed, though. It wasn’t until later that I saw why. One of the vine’s tendrils had wrapped itself around the petals before they opened! So when the outer edges of the petals did open, they were “strangled” and there was no access to the inside for pollinating. I did take off the tendril which, unfortunately, broke off most of the petals. We’ll see if the remaining parts of the petals will finish opening up to allow pollination.

When coming back inside after doing my morning rounds, I saw an adorable sight.

I’m so glad the kittens like that cat cage!

Later on, I needed to make a run to the post office, and saw another adorable sight.

Barely.

Brussel and her sprouts were snuggled in the tall grass! This is the first official, confirmed sighting of her with her babies.

I am not sure if any of them have shown up in the sun room or not. I couldn’t even see how many there were. Two, for sure, but if there was more, I couldn’t tell.

The final “first” of the day was…

… using our new drain auger.

I’d gone to check on the septic pump, when I realized it was running, but no one had used any water recently. I hadn’t heard it earlier, because I have the fan going in my room, and my room is pretty much the only place where it can be heard.

— major interruption as I fought with the septic pump and tank, again —

Oh, man.

Where was I…

Right… I checked the pump’s filter, and it was running dry. No liquid flowing through. I shut off the pump manually, primed the filter with fresh water then turned it on again. Sometimes, that’s enough. The pump, when it first turns on, shakes a bit, so before turning it on, I like to grab the outflow pipe to hold it steady.

The pipe was hot.

The pump was running dry for so long, and got so hot, the pipe itself was hot!!

That is NOT a good thing!

For the last while, when this happens, I would run a hose through the access pipe in the floor. I can tell where there are some bottlenecks and, by the length of hose pushed through, can generally tell when it’s all the way into the solids side of the tank. With the water turned on, I can usually push through any blockages and eventually get it so that, when the pump it turned back on, it no longer runs dry. Which means the float has dropped far enough.

I know. This shouldn’t work. The hose is in the solids side. The float is in the liquid side. But it works.

This time, it didn’t. Instead, I basically hit a wall, and the hose would go no further.

Worse, fluid was backing up the access pipe enough to start overflowing the floor drain.

Well, there’s a reason we got that drain auger. Now we just had to get it down the stairs.

The problem is the stairs. These are steeper than usual, with narrower steps. Just going down them, I basically turn myself sideways, using both the hand rail and the wall, and go down one step at a time.

With the help of my husband, though, I was able to get it part way down, and then I could carefully maneuver it the rest of the way on my own.

Then I spent some time reading over the manual again.

Unfortunately, the schematics in the manual did not show how the belt was supposed to be attached. The photos looked like colour photos that had been photocopied as black and white, so I couldn’t even see where a belt might be. As far as I could tell, there was only one way for it to go, and that was around the drum that the cable is rolled up in. I finally just went on my computer, looked up the order and the colour photos. There, I could actually see the belt around the drum.

The tips are secured with a screw and tightened with an Allen key that came with the auger.

It was missing.

I know it was there when I unpacked it, but it was not where I put it.

Someone will probably find it with their feet at some point, wherever the cats left it.

*sigh*

I do have a tool kit with Allen keys in both metric and imperial, so I was able to use that.

The next hour or so was spent using the different tips to clear the pipe. The water didn’t drain, though – until I remembered the pump was still off! That got turned on, and things cleared. Yay! All done!

Right?

Wrong.

The pump ran for a while, then started running dry again. So that got shut off.

I tried pushing the hose through and there was still that bottleneck a couple of feet past the wall. I ran the auger through again, then the hose. Eventually, I could determine that the pipe itself was clear; the problem was in the tank. With the pump running properly again, though, and so much well water being used to clear things up, the pump and the outflow pipe were so cold, there was condensation on them.

However, things were working again, so everything got cleaned up and put away… and there was much cleaning up to do. I had expected to find tree roots blocking things, but nope. No sign of roots. Just… solids, shall we say.

I just can’t seem to wash up well enough to feel clean again.

After I started writing about all this, I realized I had the fan going, and was I hearing the septic pump running or not? I shut off the fan, and yes, it was running.

I went to check, and discovered it had been running dry, long enough for the outflow pipe to be starting to get warm again.

This time, in pushing the hose through, I hit that barrier again, far enough from the basement wall that it had to be in the tank itself.

WTF?

This time, I got my husband to be in the basement while I went to check the tank.

After putting on a latex gripper thing I don’t know the name of, that attached to the ear pieces of my glasses and goes around the back of the head, to ensure they don’t fall off. I am forever paranoid that when I look down from a height, my glasses will fall off, and that last thing I want is for them to fall off into the septic tank!

Now, with the pump running dry, I expected to find it drained and the float visible at the liquid side of the tank. From above, you can see a larger opening over the liquid side and and a smaller opening over the solids side. A few feet above is the pipe that the float’s cord runs through from the basement, directing it over the solids side and above the liquid side.

When I opened the tank, it was over full, and just a foot below the pipe the float’s cord runs though.

This is not a good thing. Not at all!

I got my husband to the pump on.

No change. I could see some sort of bubbling on the solids side, but that’s it.

That would have been from water running through the hose at the time.

When there was no sign of the contents being pumped out, I covered the tank again, then headed back to the basement. The pump was still running, but it was running dry! At that point, I was able to relieve my husband from duty. 😉

Not only did the pump not drain the tank (we shut it off manually again), but water was backing up to the basement again.

It turned out the hose was still on.

With the hose off, I kept pushing it back and forth. It was definitely moving easier. After a few minutes, I turned the pump back on and…

It started training the tank!!!

So I hung around like a mother hen as it ran, until the filter suddenly emptied and it started running dry again. I still had the hose handy, so I primed the filter again, then ran it through and turned it the water on. After pushing it through a few times, I turned the pump back on. It started running for about half a second, then shut itself off.

Once that was done, I went back out to look into the tank. I could once again see the top of the tank, with the two openings. I could see the float on the one side…

It seems to be sitting on something.

I really don’t know what it was I was looking it. It just seemed to me like there was something in the tank.

We’re going to have to get it emptied. Especially since it overfilled the way it did.

So I called the septic guy. As I was explaining what was going on, he was quite perplexed. My using the hose like I do should not make a difference, because it’s in a different part of the tank.

After more descriptions and questions from the septic guy, he does have one theory. Because the pump does shake when it first turns on, he thinks we have an air leak. Most likely, the shaking has caused a crack, probably on the underside of where the pipe from the tank is attached to the filter. He won’t know until he sees it, though.

He’ll be coming out late tomorrow morning. A basic pump out will be $160. He won’t know if it’ll cost more than that until he sees what’s going on, and if he is able to do any repairs.

My older daughter, bless her, will be able to cover the cost. It’ll just take a few days for the PayPal funds to be transferred. (While I was doing all this, she was a sweetheart and did the cooking, etc., too)

Which means tonight, I should probably head to my bank and take out some cash to at least pay for the pump put. If it costs more, I can pay him the rest later.

Or maybe tomorrow morning. I really don’t want to go anywhere right now.

I think I’ll go wash again, then call it a night!

The Re-Farmer

Happy Canada Day – and a kitten sighting!

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First up, a Happy Canada Day to my Canadian visitors.

I think we’ve got a wet, rainy and windy day in most places!

We have a little thing to celebrate this morning.

Broccoli has finally brought her two babies around the house! I spotted them in the old kitchen garden while in the sun room, after I’d finished up outside, and they were looking very nervous. I made a point of not hanging around so as not to scare them away from the kibble.

Today has been a quiet day, overall. We’re not getting rain as heavily as the weather radar seems to think we are. It has come and gone, all day, and will continue through to tomorrow morning. Plus high winds, of course. Areas to the south of us, however, are getting hit with more severe weather, including thunderstorms. We have nothing to complain about. I’m taking advantage of the time inside to finally work on the video I’m editing. It’s slow going, with many interruptions – I just got back from chasing a skunk out of the sun room, and it wasn’t leaving because of the racoon blocking the doorway!

I’ve been able to pick up and cuddle one of Adam’s little fluff balls. One that looks like it’ll grow up to look a lot like mama! I think the only reason I’ve been able to get it is because it’s the time to freeze rather than run away immediately, not because it’s any more socialized than the other kittens!

I really hope we can get more of them socialized this year, so we can get them fixed more easily. It would be a lot easier if the mamas could be socialized!

Well, time to get back to editing. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready to upload to YouTube tonight – and not have the weird situation where the video ends up a ridiculously huge file for some reason, like the last one!

The Re-Farmer

Some kittens, and a day of rest

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I can’t say it was a good start to the day. I was awakened about about 3am, and the cats kept me from falling back asleep again. I finally got up around 7 to feed the outside cats, have some breakfast, then go back to bed for a few hours of real, honest to goodness, restful sleep.

I did the rest of my rounds quite late, and did get a few things done. As always, I checked on the garden beds. I remembered to bring along the Seychelle green pole bean seeds, to replant them because the Crespo squash. Since so few Carminate purple pole beans germinated, I planted some Seychelle in the gaps. We’ll see if there will be enough growing season left for pole beans! Assuming they germinate at all.

The Royal Burgundy beans that I replanted have quite a few sprouting right now – but only in one row. I’d planted two rows, on either side of the original single row, and there’s just a couple of those that survived. Now, there’s at least half a dozen sprouts coming up, but they area all in the row closer to the outside of the bed. The row closer to the middle has nothing. Very strange!

While going in and out of the sun room for my garden tools and whatnot, I got to see many babies.

The puffy one that’s asleep while through the cube wall is one of Adam’s tinies, and just too cute for words. It won’t let me near it. When it sees me, it immediately runs and hides. This tiny little fluff ball bouncing into the sun room. I want to scoop it up, so badly! 😄

Before heading inside, I gathered a bunch of rhubarb. This has been the best year for rhubarb we’ve had since moving here. The chives are looking amazing, too. We have quite a bit of cream cheese right now, and my daughters are talking about making a chives infused cream cheese spread. That sounds really good!

I’m trying to think of some way to put a barrier around the eggplant and hot pepper bed again. The plastic was completely destroyed by the wind, but I’m thinking what they might actually need is a bit more shade! They don’t seem to be growing much at all, and I think they’re getting baked. Which is odd, considering these are heat loving plants, and they’ve got plenty of heat. Both had done quite well int he wattle weave bed last year, and that bed is heavily shaded by one of the ornamental apple trees – both of which need more pruning, to open them up and let more air and light through. Honestly, I’d take them out completely, if they weren’t a food source for birds in the winter.

Anyhow, that’s pretty much the extent of my “work” today, and that was more fun than work. Sunday is supposed to be my day of rest, but it hasn’t worked out that way lately. We had to do as much as we could outside when there was a break in the rain, no matter what day that fell on. Now that those beds are shifted, and all the transplanting and direct sowing is done, I can get back to taking a regular day of rest. I seem to be really needing it, too. I had been planning to work on editing a video today, but for all that I did get solid sleep this morning, it’s been all I could do not to crawl back into bed all day! Even now, I can feel myself falling asleep at the keyboard. I don’t want to mess up my sleep cycle too much, though, and end up awake all night.

Anyhow.

The video editing will probably wait. It requires more mental focus than I can manage right now.

We’re supposed to get rain starting at about noon tomorrow, and continuing on through to 6am the day after. That would be as good a time as any to work on the video editing.

For today, I’ll take a break.

The Re-Farmer

Rough start to a good day

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I woke this morning to way too much pain and stiffness, so I asked my daughters to do both the outside and inside cat feeding, so I could take some painkillers and sleep in a bit.

Then I saw my younger daughter come in to do the food bowls in my room, and she’s still using a cane! Damn. We’re quite the household of gimps!

I’ll cover the garden stuff I got done today in a different post, but besides that…

First on the to-do list was a trip into town. Our expected prescription delivered on Wednesday is going to be delayed, as their driver isn’t available on the usual day. With most of my husband’s medications, he has ample supply, but not his new painkillers. So that got ordered, and was ready for pick up today. That gave me a chance to pick up some antihistamines for myself as well. I don’t know what I’m allergic to outside – likely a tree pollen – and it’s very annoying.

Since I was going to be in town anyhow, I grabbed our two empty 18.9L (5 gallon) water jugs to refill at the grocery store.

I forgot.

This is Canada Day weekend.

Town was so incredibly busy and crowded! We definitely need to avoid it until after Canada Day.

There were, at least, some really good sales on at the grocery store. I only took advantage of two; one brand of salad kits were almost half off, so I ended up getting 12 bags; 4 of three different mixes. Then I saw nacho chips were on sale, so I grabbed some of those. We already have cheese and olives, so my husband could have some nachos for a treat.

Once back at home and after I had lunch, it was outside to get some work done, while the weather was good. In the process, I got to see a whole bunch of kittens, of course.

We can now confirm that the white and grey mama has brought her four white and grey/black kittens back to the sun room! I spotted her on the critter cam, nursing some of them, while others – white and and greys from Adam’s litter – played nearby. I counted six kittens with her at the time. That makes 12 kittens in 3 litters now using the sun room.

I do wish Broccli would bring hers over. They are starting to get big! I’m going to stop leaving food by the old garden shed, so they have reason to come to the house for kibble, instead.

Towards the end of the day outside, I just had to pause and get a picture of the mock orange under the clothes line.

It is in full bloom right now, and a mass of white flowers. Just gorgeous!

The only downside of the day was finding the racoon back – with two very big, round babies (more like teenagers!) in tow!

Racoons make the strangest snarling, barking noise.

I saw some skunks around, too, but they are not as destructive or greedy as the racoons, and easier to chase away.

Still, I was able to get quite a bit done outside, in just a few hours, so I’m happy.

More on that, in my next post!

The Re-Farmer

Stock up shopping: Canadian Tire, Walmart and Superstore total of $378

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Well, I’m really, really glad I pushed to get so much of the mowing done yesterday. All the usual areas are under water again! We’ve got a bit of a break in the rain right now, but in a few hours, it’s supposed to start up again.

We didn’t even get the worst of it. The further south I drove, the heavier the rain. I’m most definitely not complaining!

For today’s trip, I went to our usual Canadian Tire and Walmart locations, but instead of the international grocery store I like to go to, I ended up hitting a Superstore in the same area. There really wasn’t anything on my list for the international store I couldn’t get elsewhere – or so I figured at the time. Turns out I was wrong about one thing.

My first stop was Canadian Tire, which had a few extras I normally wouldn’t get.

The litter pellets were my usual purchase.

This trip, I also picked up a new headlight and license plate light bulb for the truck. I also got a new tire gauge. On the way out, I got a low tire warning, so I stopped at a gas station to pump up. (One of the gas jockeys was a sweetheart and pumped the tires for me. Less time in the rain!) I checked all the tires while I was at it. At one point, I had to turn the truck around, as the hose wouldn’t reach. I put the tire gauge down on the console between the front seats. As I turned, it rolled off and in between the console and the driver’s seat.

And disappeared.

Thankfully, I did have another in our emergency kit, but it’s a cheap one. After the tires were pumped, I went into the convenience store to get another gauge, but the only one they had was for the big rigs. I liked the idea of having a dial, but the cost was not worth it. I did find similar at Canadian Tire that were not dual valve and cheaper, but in the end, I got just another plain one of a higher quality than was in the emergency kit. I do hope we find and dig out the other one, though. We got it as a freebie from somewhere, years ago, and it’s one of the best tire gauges we’ve ever had!

Last of all, I got a can of bug spray, since we were running low and the mosquitoes are insane, with all the rain we’ve been having. I’m glad I remembered to get it while at the Canadian Tire, because when I looked at the display in the Walmart, they didn’t have the powerful stuff, and the cans they did have, which were smaller, cost just as much!

One thing on my list that I did not find: a new filter for our push mower. None in stock.

Total damage at Canadian Tire, after taxes, was $72.74

The main thing on my list for Walmart where those XXL puppy pads, as we were running out of that size.

I got more raw pumpkin seeds that will be ground into a powder for adding to the cat soup. The canned cat food was not on my list, but they’ve actually gone down in price! We were going to need more, eventually, so I picked them up now.

The personal products were on my list, but the air freshener was not. I got lavender scent, which is supposed to be calming, and some of the cats could really use some calm! The coffee was on sale, so I grabbed one for the pantry.

I also added a donation to the children’s hospital.

Grand total and Walmart, after taxes and including the donation: $119.57

The next stop was Superstore. For this one, I had some specific things on my list, but mostly, it was “see what’s good”, or “see what’s on sale”.

While at the Walmart, I completely forgot to look for toilet safe drain cleaner, so I looked for that at the Superstore. The only ones they had specified not for use on toilets. I was also going to get Beaver Buzz energy drinks – the one thing I would have gotten at the international grocery store. Since I found some at the Superstore I went to after my Costco shopping, while stopping for road food, I figured I’d just get it here.

Well, it seems this location doesn’t carry Beaver Buzz.

They did have cases of Monster with a regular price that was a cheaper than the sale price, locally, so I got that, instead.

One thing that was on my list was canola oil, requested by my daughters. I also got paper towels, a flat of Coke Zero, and a case of tomato soup, among the larger items.

I got some frozen fish for the girls, as well as frozen perogies and frozen pot stickers. For fresh meat, I got ground beef and ground pork, plus a bag of cheese hoagies that were on sale.

I decided, as I was shopping, that I will be making a chili, so I got some canned mixed beans and some crushed tomatoes. Which is silly, considering how many tomatoes we have in the freezer, but they are whole and we really need to process them! They got buried, though, so I keep forgetting about them!

For fruit, I got bananas and cherries. The cherries were really cheap; $2.99 a pound. Usually, they’re $8.99 a pound locally, or $4.99 a pound elsewhere in the city.

Let’s see… what else did I get. There’s a large jar of olives for the pantry – those are going up in price! I remembered to grab a small jug of apple cider vinegar, as we are out completely right now. There was a good sale on whole wheat bread. I got torpedo buns, plus a round sourdough loaf.

Last of all, I got myself some fresh sushi and a cold Monster to have for lunch in the truck, before heading home.

The grand total at Superstore, after taxes, was $185.87. I accidentally cut the total off in the above image!

For what I got at Superstore, I probably could have just done the grocery shopping at the Walmart. Walmart doesn’t have those torpedo buns, though. 😄

By the time I was done, the rain had almost completely stopped, but the wind picked up. While sitting in the truck in the parking lot, eating my lunch, the truck was actually being buffeted, hard!

On the way out, I filled the gas tank, which cost another $56.

So the shopping was a grand total of $378.18. Add in the gas, and I spent $434.18 today.

Considering we got extras like the headlight, I suppose that’s not too bad.

On the way home, I stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel that was supposed to arrive today. It wasn’t there. The website says “arriving by 10pm tonight”. Which means we’ll get it on Tuesday, since Monday is Canada Day.

I pulled the truck up to unload, as usual. Before driving it to the garage, I made sure to feed the outside cats to get them away from the vehicle.

I still had to chase one off the hood!

I made sure to put food out for the kittens by the back of the garage, the tarp covered wood pile, and the old garden shed, along with the usual places. Last of all, I put food in the sun room for the kittens in there – then had to chase out the crowd of adult cats that left the food outside, to come in and eat the kitten’s food! Adam’s kittens dive under the counter shelf as soon as I come in (I’m so glad we put that up on bricks!) so I make sure to scatter some on the floor under there a bit. That way, they don’t have to fight off the adults for food!

As I was walking back to the house from the garage, I spotted a little ball of fluff under the shrine, and was able to grab a picture.

The one kitten in the junk pile was enjoying some kibble under the shrine, with its mother.

So, from what we are seeing now, we have 8 kittens (2 litters) in the sun room, 4 behind the garage, 2 under the tarp covered pile and 2 in the old garden shed. The 4 white and greys that were the first to show up in the sun room are still gone, and I’m starting to think they were victims of the racoons, along with the newborns. There wasn’t enough… evidence… left behind for me to be able to say one way or the other. How many others there are, beyond the inner yard, we have no way of knowing until they start showing up at the kibble bowls. As for the adults, I haven’t even tried counting them lately. They come and go so much. I did see Sad Face this afternoon, though, and he’s got a wound of some kind under one cheek. He won’t stay still long enough for me to see it. Considering he’s been actively stalking and attacking other cats lately, it doesn’t surprise me. He’s getting on in years and looking more and more beat up. He tends to win those fights, though!

Which reminds me. Syndol’s limp is getting much better. Driver showed up yesterday, and he was limping, too, though not as bad. I haven’t seen the white and grey with the puncture wound on his front leg, so I can’t say how he’s doing.

A few more days, and we’re bring 4 males to the vet, courtesy of cheap spay/neuter day and the rescue. By next month, the kittens should all be weaned, so grabbing some females to be spayed is the goal. We should have a trap loaned to us by then.

Anyhow.

We are now stocked up for the month, except for the usual local purchases.

The Re-Farmer

New babies!

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I did my Costco shop today, and pretty much as soon as everything was put away, I headed outside to do as much mowing as I could. We were expecting a prescription delivery today, so I had the gate open. I took advantage of that to mow the driveway. Not just the sides of the driveway, but the driveway itself! It’s got so much grass and weeds coming through the gravel.

One of the areas I tried to mow through was behind the garage. This is where we have had water more than ankle deep for so long. There isn’t open water right now, but it’s still very wet. I really should have waited before trying to mow, but I just can’t trust the forecasts about when the next rain will hit us again.

The mowers – both the push mower and the riding mower – are having the hardest time cutting the grass. it’s so wet and slippery, it just bends rather than cuts. I end up having to set the mower blades as low as possible, and with the riding mower, I still even up having to reverse repeatedly.

Which means I was spending quite a bit of time behind the garage.

Which also means, I finally got to see the garage kittens, for the first time!

I just assumed that Adam or Brussel (or both) had a litter in there, because that’s sort of where I see them hang out the most. The kittens were out and about behind the garage, and I saw them dash behind some metal sheets we have leaning against the back, when I came by with the big noisy machine. I never got photos of those ones – but I did see one of the sun room kittens playing with them!

The white and grey mama that I think is mother to the white and grey kittens that have disappeared from the sun room (we have so many white and grey cats, it gets hard to tell them apart at times) has seriously attached herself to Adam. Every time I see Adam walking around, this white and grey is right beside her, pushing against her, rubbing her face against her, and generally being exceedingly affectionate. Adam, on the other hand, seems to just tolerate her. 😄

At one point these two were crossing the yard when I had to shut the riding mower off briefly – followed by a puffy white and black kitten! I had to get the mower started again and continue. The mamas ran for the back of the garage, but the kitten went for the chain link fence and ended up running around the garage.

I didn’t finish the mowing I hoped to do; the riding mower just couldn’t handle it anymore, and I was getting too tired to continue with the push mower. Plus, I’ll been going to town to get more gas, tomorrow. As I was putting things away, I saw Adam again, heading towards the house – being followed by one of the sun room greys! This one has a distinctive dark grey coloring, with white around “eyeliner”, so there was no mistaking it.

When everything was put away, I was going to go into the house through the sun room.

The door was blocked!

One of the greys was loafed in front of the door, while Adam nursed her babies, just inside.

It looks like she has four babies.

Meanwhile, I’d seen at least three more when I checked behind the garage before heading to the house!

I have no idea how many different kittens I actually saw today, but I’m glad that Adam was willing to bring hers to the sun room. Hopefully, the others will be brought over, too. Especially Broccoli’s two, from the old garden hedge, and Caramel’s two, from under the tarp covered pile of boards beside the house.

It will probably be a few more weeks before we have an idea of just how many kittens there are.

It would be awesome if we could actually socialize them, and adopt them out!

The Re-Farmer

Morning babies

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I’m happy to say the grey babies are still happily in the sun room, with mama frequently coming over to nurse them right in the middle of the floor. Even with having to chase racoons and skunks out, they remain.

They are also starting to find favourite spots to nap.

One of them has finally discovered the cat bed next to the carrier that I brought over from the old garden shed. Broccoli’s babies weren’t using it, but there is still the self warming mat bed set up for them, if things get chilly. The kittens had been running and playing around it for a while, but this is the first time I saw one actually in it. Another kitten prefers the bed inside the cat cage. The other two kittens seem to be just find dropping for a nap pretty much anywhere! 😁 I have a floor mat laid upside down over a bin in there, after cleaning it. It’s been dry for a while, but I’ve noticed the kittens like to lie on it, mashed together in a squished group, so I’ve left it there for them to use.

It should get interesting in there, when more kittens start showing up!

The Re-Farmer

Beating the heat… a bit

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Today was forecast to be a hot one, before things cool down a little bit for the next while. We surpassed our predicted high and reached 30C/86F.

Tomorrow’s predicted high is supposed to be either 18C/64F or 20C/68F, depending on which app I look at. Also depending on which app I look at, we are now supposed to get rain starting tomorrow evening until about midnight – or it’s supposed to rain both day and night!

*sigh*

This afternoon, my older daughter and I finally messed around with the portable AC unit. It would start, then immediately shut itself down again. So we wrestled it out of the living room (that 70’s shag carpet is not helpful for the wheels! 😄), fighting cats away from the divider door into the living room, then to the steps between the new and old parts of the house. I had a bucket ready and we set it to drain.

It didn’t sound like there was any water in it, though I could hear some minor splashing as we were moving it, and nothing but a few drops of water came out.

So… the water reservoir being full was not the issue.

We had this happen to use last year, and we never found out why it kept stopping then, either. However, after we went through the process of draining it, it started working again. Would that happen now?

Yes.

Once we got the AC back in the living room and set up, it turned on and stayed on.

It did stop cooling faster than expected, but the louvers were still open. When I checked it, I lowered the temperature setting and it turned on again. It seems the default setting for the AC to stop cooling is 23C/73F, which is ridiculously warm for indoors. I dropped it to 16C. It’s been running pretty much ever since.

We already have an oscillating fan set up on the piano, aimed to blow cool air from the living room into the dining room, so that helps a lot.

My daughter and I then set up the hardware cloth “door” to the old basement – though we went down and swept water into the floor drain or sump pump reservoir, first. With the most recent rain, there’s quite a lot of water down there again, even with two blower fans, and and oscillating fan in the old basement, a box fan set up in the old basement window, and another oscillating fan running in the new basement. That floor is starting to show more damp seeping through the concrete. Not a good sign for the weeping tile! I might wet up the old blower fan in there, but with so many fans already running, I really don’t want to set up another one. The amount of electricity we’re using right now must be insane. I’ve got a box fan in my office/bedroom, my husband has two box fans in his bedroom, and my daughters have several fans upstairs, which is the worst area for overheating. With the humidity, it’s just brutal on my daughter’s computer. She actually sets up ice packs wrapped in towels near her computer while she’s working.

With how hot things are, the last thing we wanted to do was heat up the house with cooking, and my daughter offered to order in. We ended up going to a pizza place in town and getting a jumbo (18″) size pizza for each of us, to feed us for the next couple of days!

The pizza place didn’t open until 4, so I had some time to wait and checked to see if we had any parcels in. I wasn’t actually expecting any. There were two.

Once of them was the drain auger my husband ordered! It wasn’t supposed to come in for another four days!

What I was really looking for was our 4 pound bucket of lysine. This time, in the orders list, it said “your order may be lost”. I checked the tracking and that was unchanged – it said it was picked up by the delivery company and that’s it.

There was a “contact seller” option, so I started that process.

Which is when I discovered the seller had cancelled the order, and that the refund would be processed in 3-5 business days.

The seller cancelled the order on May 31st.

No explanation was given.

We still need lysine. We’re almost completely out.

I mentioned it to my husband, so he could check his Amazon credit card and see if the refund went through. I guess it did, because he ordered it again. We now have a delivery date of July 2-4.

Interestingly, the cost was lower than the first time we tried to order it.

When 4:00 rolled around, we called in our pizza order, making sure to tell them where we were driving in from. It takes us a bit longer to get there than for them to make the pizzas. With a stop at the post office having to be done along the way, since it was closing at 5, I have gave them a rough idea of how long it would take us to get there.

It ended up taking a bit longer than usual for me to just get out the door! When I got to the store the post office is in, I saw a box next to a counter by the door. The owner saw me and just said, that’s the one! 😄

I even made sure to back the truck up to the door, because I knew it would be larger and heavier. I got the other package and loaded that first, then tried to figure out how to get the auger loaded. The box wasn’t particularly big, but it was pretty beat up looking. The delivery folks clearly had problems with it. I finally just picked it up was as good a grip as I could – which wasn’t very good. I’m so glad I backed the truck up to the door, because having that slip out of my hands while trying to go further would have really sucked! The owner was a sweetheart and already holding the door open for me. It was definitely heavier than I expected. Later on, I looked up the specs and the actual weight. It’s 36.2kg – just ounces under 80 pounds. That’s just the auger. Not the other stuff shipped with it (bits, hoses, etc.) or the packaging.

From there I started for town to pick up our order, only to realize it was almost the time I told them I’d be there, so I pulled over and gave them a call. I didn’t want them to think it was a bogus order.

When I got home, I pulled into the yard so I could back up to the house. I tried to be careful about it and avoid the area I usually turn around in, since it is still basically a pond.

I got stuck.

I could go forward a bit, but when I tried to reverse again, the tires just spun. I had to set the truck to 4 wheel drive to be able back out without completely tearing apart the grass. We’ll have a bit of repair to do once things dry out a bit – if they get a chance to try out a bit! – but not too much.

Getting through our own door, with the arm bar in the door jab, was going to be awkward, so my daughters were already waiting for me to get the door open (and keep cats away) and angle the box through the doorway.

So it’s in – and it’s still in its box! It’ll be easier, once it’s unpacked, since it’s on wheels and had a handle, but I am not looking forward to getting that thing down the old basement stairs. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think we should take it down the new basement stairs, then rolls it through to the old basement, where it will be used the most.

We’ll figure it out.

Needless to say, I didn’t get any more work done in the garden, with this heat. Tomorrow should be better for that sort of work, and I should be able to get it done before the rain reaches us.

So much for the 5 day break in the rain that was forecast yesterday. Even the rain expected on Friday has changed to being all day, instead of just the evening.

So we’ve been catching up on inside stuff, like doing laundry.

Extra laundry, thanks to cat messes. 🙄

I’ve also been keeping an eye on the critter cam, which has been a delight.

Junk Pile showed up regularly and would nurse her babies on the floor mat in the middle of the room. At one point, she got up and left behind a fan of kittens that fell asleep as they nursed! I’m really glad to see her going in there to take care of her kittens, rather than her kittens having to leave the sun room.

I’m not so glad to see the skunks show up, though only because they eat the cat’s food.

I’m super not glad to see the racoon show up.

It does seem to be leaving the bigger kittens alone, probably because they can run away and hide under the counter shelf. Eating kibble is less effort, but that doesn’t mean it won’t try something, now that it’s done it once.

The image I was able to get of the kittens was a screen cap of the critter cam on my phone, cropped down to just the kittens. The image quality really sucks. We’re starting to look at possibly betting an indoor monitor – the kind sold as baby or pet monitors. They can pan and zoom, which is something this camera can’t do. The biggest selling point for me is that we wouldn’t have to buy an Amazon subscription to be able to have the live feed running continuously. We’d also have the option of using a micro SD to record things. So we’re looking at different versions, some of which come with their own display device, so we wouldn’t be having to use our phones. Some come with multiple cameras, which has me thinking… it would save me some anxiety to have one set up in the basement to monitor the septic pump!

We shall see. Not a thing we can get soon, but they can be surprisingly inexpensive.

Aww… I’m watching the critter cam right now. Syndol, who still has a limp, is eating in the sun room, and there’s a kitten rolling around on the floor beside him.

Anyhow. Time to get to bed! I want to get working in the garden early tomorrow morning, and take advantage of the cool!

The Re-Farmer

First sighting, and a bit of stuff done

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I headed outside this afternoon to check things out. Before I get to that, though, I just have to share!

We have a first sighting of Caramel’s babies! I thought they might be in the wood pile (which we thought was a junk pile, until we took the junk off the top), since I would sometimes see her disappear under it, but cats in general like to shelter under there.

As I was heading back to the house, I spotted a grey tabby by the opening under the tarp. When it saw me, it ducked under. For the briefest of moments, I saw an orange face peek out, then Caramel stuck her head out and stared at me. She seemed to be okay with my watching from where I was and came out. Her little grey one came out soon after, and then the orange one – which turned out to be orange and white – came out and stayed behind Caramel. I stayed long enough to see if any others would come out, but it looks like there are just the two of them.

As for things outside.

The water has been absorbed in some places, though everything is still very wet. I lifted the mosquito netting cover off the potatoes, since the elms are no longer dropping seeds, and over the chain link fence. I will leave it there for now, as the blowing of the netting should startle the deer away. Not that they’ll eat potato plants, but it might keep them from going into the yard and eating other things. I considered lifting the netting off the chocolate cherry tomatoes, too, but they don’t seem to be hampered by it at all, so I’m leaving it for now.

I took the cover off the bed with the German Butterball potatoes. They’re getting so big, they are starting to crowd against the netting. I set the cover on top of the old dog houses by the outhouse, for now. It’s pretty much the only place with enough for it, while also keeping it off the wet ground.

It looks like I will need to try planting the Seychelle beans again. Only a few have come up in one row, and none at all in the other. The seeds are a few years old and, between that and the weather we’ve been having, it’s no surprise if they don’t come up.

I did plant more of the Royal Burgundy bush beans. In fact, I had enough seeds to plant a row on either side of the original row, which has only one successfully sprouted bean plant coming up. I still have seeds left over, too. For some reason, I remember having only enough seeds to plant one short row, but these are the same brand’s seeds as before. I’ll have to check my seeds bin and see if I still have some left, after all. With only one bean successfully germinating (plus one more that broke ground and that’s about it), I figured planting two more rows on either side of the original row would hopefully ensure we have at least a few bush beans survive!

The water around the bed I was going to work on next has been mostly absorbed into the ground, and I considered working on it – but only for a moment. It’s 22C/72F out there, with a humidex of 28C/83F. I was not about to do that kind of work in full sun with this level of heat and humidity. I did do a bit of weeding, through. With the ground so wet, I could pull some of the weeds out, tap root and all. A bit of that was more than enough to convince me, turning new sod and shifting the remains of that bed over is just not something I should be doing right now! If I get out early enough tomorrow morning, though, I should be able to get it done and, if all goes well, transplant the last of the onions. Since I have so many, and this bed won’t have anything else in it, I should be able to get away with planting them a bit denser, too. It would be great if I could get all the onions, plus the last few shallots, in. It’s getting really late for onions. They really should have been planted in late May, as they prefer the cooler temperatures, but we shall see how they do.

Once that’s done, I can breathe a sigh of relief for a little while. Then I can look into seeing what I can do in the gaps where things that were direct sown didn’t come up, and replant where the spinach was sown. What little spinach came up and actually grew is now bolting in the heat! We never got anything to harvest, even out of those.

Maybe I’ll just plant more of the Uzbek carrots. I intended to plant a lot more carrots, but the beds are all full of winter squash and melons, which grow too big to interplant carrots under. I could have planted them under the tomatoes, but the onions needed to be transplanted – plus, the onions should help deter deer and other pests from the tomatoes.

Well, writing this just got interrupted quite a bit. A racoon was back in the sun room and had to be chased off repeatedly. We’re prepared to deal with it, once the opportunity arises. There is, however, a second one, and I haven’t seen both at the same time since last night.

For now, I’m going to enjoy watching kittens on the critter cam.

Oh!!! Did I just see a white kitten running by past a window??? It would be so great if the white babies came back, too! We were making such good progress in socializing those ones.

Ah, well. What will be, will be.

Oh… that’s a skunk I just saw walking by this time…

The Re-Farmer