When visiting the kittens this morning, I was viciously attacked!
By a Nicco! :-D
Saffron has one eye that is a bit gooby, so I took the time to clean and medicate it. Then, after they’d all had a chance to devour some wet cat food, they all went after my legs!
They are tearing my clothes to shreds. :-D
Also, they really, really like my shoelaces.
Even Beep Beep got in on the action!
For a cat that has spent her entire life outdoors, she is really taking to this “inside” thing – and having access to people to cuddle!
Later on, while checking the trail cam files, I found a lovely surprise.
Other than discovering that FedEx made a delivery after we got home yesterday, and left a package shoved into the gate. I never even saw it, when I did my rounds! If I hadn’t seen the video, I would never have known until this afternoon. I was expecting it to come in the mail, tomorrow.
No, it was this surprise that really made me smile.
That baby is so adorable!!!
They found a spot in the fence where they can both squeeze through the barbed wire, without the mom having to jump it.
The baby can fit through any part of the fence, just by ducking its head. :-D
So sweet!
Also, there’s a package in the middle of that gate. It was shoved into the chain.
Even while walking up the driveway this morning, knowing it was there, I couldn’t see it until I was almost right at the gate!
It’s barely evening, but I think I’m done for the day! :-D
We had plans to go into the city so the girls could get some shopping done that we never quite get to when we do our monthly stock up. With that in mind, I started my morning routine early, starting with visiting the kittens.
Beep Beep dashed up the stairs when I opened the door to the basement, so I let her be and made sure no other cats came down. This way, the babies got to have the wet cat food, without having to fight over it with their mom! :-D
Except for Saffron, who was much more interested in me…
I think they did leave some behind for Beep Beep, when she finally came down. :-D
Doing my rounds outside is getting so gorgeous right now!
I noticed that the cherry tree by the house is blooming now.
Just the cherry trees by the house. The ones near the new garden plot are not blooming yet. Both areas get the same amount of light and rain. The only difference is the micro-climate created by the house itself.
I also found some surprise blooms.
When cleaning up along the south side of the spruce grove, I found a row of crab apple trees. While I still have much to do in cleaning up dead wood and thinning out the trees, what I managed to do so far, made a difference. Last summer would have been their first summer with more light and space. Like the row of crab apple trees I uncovered when cleaning up the maple grove, they had no flowers at all last year. This year, there is one tree, with one branch, that is blooming!
It should be interesting to see how things develop here over the years. I will be taking at some of these trees, and hopefully the remaining ones will have better conditions to grow and produce.
The lilacs are starting to open up, scenting the entire yard!
The chokecherries growing among them seem to be doing well this year.
I also checked the sunflowers, and even more of them are sprouting. These are the Early Russian sunflowers, which can grow 6-8 ft tall. The others are Giganteus, which can grow 10-12 ft tall. I hope to see Giganteus seedlings within a few days. The package info says it can be 10-14 days to germination.
When the girls and I headed out to the city, we had a wonderful surprise, just half a mile from home!
I pulled over and my daughter tried to zoom in on my phone as best she could, but zoom really sucks on my phone’s camera.
What you are seeing is a dozen sandhill cranes! They had been near the road when we startled them. These are really huge birds!! Seeing a dozen of them taking off at once was really something!
The drive to the city is about an hour, but along the way we made sure to stop at the medical clinic. The town our doctor is in is about 2/3rds of the way to the city. After not being able to get through yesterday, I wanted to ask about getting renewed prescriptions. Especially for my husband. Given he has the kind that requires a hand written, in triplicate, prescription that needs to be delivered to a pharmacy within 3 days of being written, I said I could come back for them after we were done in the city, rather than waiting until the doctor was off the phone with a patient.
Then it was off to the city, where we had several places to do to. Thankfully, they were not all that far apart, but not only has traffic increased substantially again, but so has construction. Most of the stores had no real restrictions or line ups. At least not the ones we needed to go to. We did drive past a few places that had long line ups outside. Even Walmart didn’t have any line ups for the cashiers, never mind outside.
I really feel for the people lining up outside in this heat we’re having right now!
Still, we got what we needed to do, done. There was some temptation to do more with “while we’re in the city anyway…”, but it was just too long, too hot and too draining! If it wasn’t necessary, we skipped it.
On the way home, we stopped at the clinic again. The doctor ended up asking me to come in to see him about the prescriptions.
It turned out that he had already faxed the refills to the pharmacy. Including my husband’s triplicate prescriptions. Because of the pandemic, they’ve waived the requirement for the pharmacy to have the physical prescriptions. Which no one told me about. They probably assumed I already knew.
My husband’s meds were ready for pick up on the 29th – a Friday – but he forgot to tell me about it until after the pharmacy was closed. So I picked them up on Saturday morning, after dropping my daughter off at work. When I picked them up, the pharmacist told me he could only fill so much, because of the need for renewals.
They must have faxed the clinic when my husband called his refills in, because the doctor faxed the renewed prescriptions …
… on the 29th.
Which means that, when the pharmacist gave me 1 week of bubble packs and told me he couldn’t do more (usually it’s 4 weeks) without a renewed prescription, they already had the renewed prescriptions come in, the day before.
:-/
Meanwhile, I’d been out of my own prescription for some time. When I went to get a refill and they couldn’t, they sent a fax to the clinic right away. I came back a couple of days later, and they still hadn’t received a returned fax.
That had gotten done on the 14th.
No one called me, so I assumed they never got a response. I’ve been without my meds for about 3 weeks. That was part of why I wanted to go in to the clinic in person, since we couldn’t get through by phone.
My doctor clarified all that for me, and even printed out copies of the prescriptions for my own records. Once we were done there, we headed to the town our pharmacy is in.
It turned out my prescription was filled and waiting in the drawer.
*sigh*
Thankfully, my prescription is nothing particularly urgent.
I did ask for my husband’s refills to be done, since he’ll be out in a few days. The bubble packs take more time, so I’ll be coming back tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I picked up something for myself.
After helping my brother patch the shed roof, I felt okay, but by the end of the day, my right wrist started to hurt. I have no idea what I did to injure, or even if it was any one thing that did it. I was able to manage well enough yesterday; mostly, I was reminded of it as a problem when I tried to do something like turn a door nob.
I am considered left handed, because I write with my left hand. With most things, I’m ambidextrous. Some things, I’m right handed.
Like when I open door knobs.
When driving around today, it was more of an issue. Just turning the ignition to start the vehicle was painful. Turning corners, hurt.
So I now have a brace to keep me from over taxing my wrist (though I had to take it off to type) and give it a chance to heal. It’s a bit on the small side, but I got the largest size available.
My and my big, manly hands! :-D
Thankfully, I have two strong daughters who can lug things around for me.
When we unloaded the van, we also brought the pieces of tree in, since it’s supposed to rain. Getting the big one was an issue; we did have to cut one of the branches off.
So far, it hasn’t rained here, but from the looks of the weather radar, we should get at least some, though a rather large rain system has already bypassed us entirely. Some rain would be wonderful. :-)
Meanwhile, it’s time for me to get that wrist brace back on!
Oy, what a day. We’re already at 27C/80F (feels like 29C/84F), and we haven’t even reached the hottest part of the day, yet! Hard to believe we had frost, just a few nights ago.
Speaking of which, it looks like the frost damage to the squash was worse than it originally looked like. I think we’re going to lose most of the one bed.
The new transplants, on the other hand, are looking great!
Before I headed into town this morning, I took the time to use water from the rain barrel to water the new garden plot with the carrots and beets. Things are growing rather well in there, too.
Once in town and after I dropped off the van, it was still cool enough to make walking around town quite pleasant. When I had the chance, I tried calling our doctor’s clinic, as we need to get prescriptions renewed, but the call went to “this customer is not available” messages. That surprised me, as it usually means a number is no longer active, so I called the hospital the clinic is in, and talked to the nursing station. I told her what happened, and after confirming I was calling the right number, she tried transferring me. It didn’t work! It turns out the clinic is just really busy with doctors making calls. They are still only doing telephone appointments now, and I don’t think they have very many phone lines available. We will have to keep trying, because my husband got only a week’s worth of meds. For his pain killers, they can’t be faxed to the pharmacy, so the fastest way for them to be delivered is if I drive to the clinic, then deliver them to the pharmacy myself.
I stopped trying after getting a phone call from the garage, saying now was a good time to come and discuss the van and my mother’s car.
That never sounds good. :-D
I had three things I hoped to get done on my van. Only one was done.
The lift gate now lifts. No more pole!
The AC is shot. The compressor isn’t even working. To fix it would cost well over a thousand dollars, and he basically said it wasn’t worth it.
The door hinge is going to wait. It wasn’t the easy thing. It’s a welding job. The holes are starting to become ovals. It is, however, just starting to happen. While there is a little bit of play in the door, it is still fine and not a concern. He recommended we wait the door dropping becomes and issue, then bring it back.
So only one out of three jobs got done.
Then there is my mother’s car.
He was able to find a second hand differential, but the total cost would be just over $950, plus taxes. We talked about it for a bit, and I asked about the possibility of making payments. Since I’d budgeted for 3 jobs and only had to pay for one, I offered to make a deposit of $300 now (which kept me under budget), then make another deposit next month. After that, he’ll start working on the car, and I can pay it off in full the month after.
The down side is, this is money that would have gone towards things like what we’ll need to purchase to build the cordwood outhouse. The payments are low enough to still have some left over that can go towards that, but not as much as I’d like. Ah, well. There are still things we can do that don’t involve any money at all. Like clearing away the sod, cutting wood to size, and making bottle bricks.
That done, I made a quick trip to the hardware store. I was looking for another garden hose. Thanks to a sale, instead of one, light duty 100′ hose, I got a pair of medium duty 80′ hoses.
We now have enough hoses (that don’t leak!) to be able to reach all the sunflowers!
When I got home, the girls were mostly done with stuff in the yard, including getting out the weed trimmer and cleaning up around the edges of the inner yard.
That lawn already needs to be mowed again, and I haven’t even finished with what I’d started!
We have a lot of lawn.
That done, I was able to use the grass clippings I’d collected while mowing in the outer yard. Only 2 days, and the core of the grass pile was already composting and getting so hot, I was almost burning my hands! We used up almost the entire pile to continue mulching around the sunflowers.
There’s only about 8 left to mulch, but I don’t have enough grass clippings to finish. My daughter followed along and dampened the mulch.
I’m happy to say, we are seeing sunflower sprouts!
It looks like the ones that have sprouted are all from one variety; the ones that grow to “only” 6-8″ in height.
I’m so glad I got these hoses. With how far we can now reach, we can be safer when we burn out the apple tree stumps that are infected with a fungal disease. Now is the time to cut out the diseased branches, before spores become a concern. The winds are so high, though, it might be a while before that gets done.
Meanwhile, the work outside has stopped for now, as it’s just too hot out there. I just checked the weather app, and we’ve got up another degree.
My husband had been trying to get through to the clinic for 5 hours, and has given up. Tomorrow, one of my daughters and I will be making a bonus trip to the city. I will try swinging by the clinic and talking to someone in person. My prescriptions can wait. My husband’s cannot.
Oh, and one last thing.
Here is your smile for the day!
None of them stayed still long enough for me to get a decent picture, but Big Rig almost co-operated. :-D
With the sun rising so early this time of year, much of it was already melting away, but there was certainly plenty in the shady areas.
It made the weeds look very dramatic! :-D
Butterscotch took advantage of my checking on the mulched sunflower rows.
She is no longer stand-offish, but now revels in snuggles and wants me to carry her around when I do my rounds!
What a mercurial cat.
Of course, I visited the babies first thing, this morning. Beep Beep was waiting at the door when I opened it, and dashed straight through. I let her be, and allowed David to come down with me for a while.
The kittens were happy to see a human to climb!
At point point, David settled himself down under the worktable, and his doppelganger came over to check him out!
After a while, I managed to catch him and put him upstairs, so I could give the babies some wet cat food. David is a real greedy guts, so there was no way I could do that with him still downstairs! This was also why I was okay with Beep Beep going upstairs for a while; the kittens got a chance to eat some wet cat food before she came back to finish it off.
I think Beep Beep is realizing she’s got a sweet deal going on right now. She hasn’t been trying to get outside at all.
She’s been living pretty rough for most of her life, and was pretty lean and hungry when we moved out here. I think she’s due a spoiled retirement. She’s one of the few yard cats left that my dad used to take care of, so she is also a connection to him, for me. My dad really enjoyed the yard cats. :-)
Hopefully, my day of rest has been enough, because there is lots to get done. I’ll need to stay in town for a while, after dropping my daughter off at work, most importantly to pick up prescription refills that had been ready, yesterday! I had no idea. :-( A dump run is way overdue, too. By the time I get home, it should be warm enough to uncover everything in the gardens. The cloches certainly did their job; they still had frost on them on the outside, while the insides had condensation that was not frosted at all. The new garden bed with the carrots and beets is still in shade, but should be warmed up nicely in just a couple of hours, if not sooner.
Along with prepping to continue with transplanting, I’m going to have to switch priorities on the mowing, and at least get the area to the barn done. We will need access to the doors, and it’ll be easier if the grass there is mowed, first. If things go to plan (which is never a sure thing! :-D ) my brother will be coming over tomorrow to help me with the trailer frame. Specifically to deal with these…
Most of the old screws still stuck in the frame are just bits of metal sticking out. I simply don’t have the tools to take care of it. My brother has an angle grinder he plans to use. I had hoped I found on in the garage, where the lawn mowers and snow blowers are stored, not long ago but it turned out to just be the box for one, full of teeth.
I was able to pick up some drill attachments to clean the rust off. I was hoping we’d be able to paint it, too, but won’t be able to pick up more of the paint we need for a while. We’ll see what’s left in the budget after the van is done on Monday and, hopefully, my mother’s car gets fixed. That can be done after the trailer frame has a bed added to it, which I believe my brother has got what is needed to do that.
I will just have to maintain awareness so as not to overdue things. This time, I only needed the one day to recover after unknowingly pushing myself too hard. There have been times I’ve needed several days.
For those who are not yet familiar with the Spoon Theory, visit this link.
Today has been turning out to be a very non-productive day. Right from the start.
The first issue was waking up in pain. Particularly in my hands. Every joint in my fingers, stiff and sore. I know osteoarthritis is setting in (inevitable, given some of the jobs I’ve had in the past), but most of the time, they’re fine. Some days, however… well… let’s just say they’re “not fine.”
I woke up fairly early and started getting ready to do my usual routing, which now starts with bringing fresh water for the kitties. My husband was using the kitchen, so I sat down on the couch for a bit to let him finish.
I basically passed out for nearly 4 hours.
It felt more like a few minutes.
My entire body is feeling achy and sluggish, I’m in a snarly mood, and I’m in a brain fog.
Definitely a reminder that I am not really all that able bodied. I didn’t feel like I’d been overdoing it over the past few days, yet I clearly have, and my body is making sure I know it.
Well, at least it’s a good day to go into recovery mode. It’s too wet to finish mowing, and too chilly to finish transplanting. Manual labour outside is not going to be much of a thing, today.
And so, I will share some smiles with you, instead! :-)
I’ve been posting so many photos of our adopted cats and kittens, I rarely get photos of the two that moved out here with us. Last night, DahBoy got to entertain us!
One of my daughters was in my doorway when DahBoy demanded up.
He did not want up on her, though. She was just a way to get to his real goal.
No, not the top of the door, either!
He wants the top of the linen closet. He knows there’s space up there, and he wants in!
Will a human assist him? No? So how is he to get down, now?
Oh, look! A handy human.
I got that last shot a split second before he leapt onto my shoulder, then vaulted the rest of his way to the ground. :-D
This morning, while visiting the kittens, I had to very carefully step my way around kittens that were determined to climb my legs. They didn’t stop until I gave them some wet cat food.
Even during the feeding frenzy, Saffron and Turmeric were more interested in me than the food! They’re not as into the solid food thing, yet. Especially Saffron, who would much rather climb a table leg. LOL
Once outside, I had another cat I had to dance around. Potato Beetle was quite determined to walk in front of my moving feet and flop onto the ground. That is, when he wasn’t doing this…
What a goof!
At least they’re entertaining. ;-)
Ugh. It feels like such a wasted day, today, and it’s only mid afternoon!
Hopefully, a day of recovery means I can get things done tomorrow. I really need to get those transplants in.
Since I neglected to get any kitten pictures to share yesterday, I’m making up for it today!
Here are some furry smiles for you to enjoy. :-)
In the end, I needed to be rescued by my daughter, who was able to de-kitten me, so I could leave!
Kitten therapy was exactly what I needed. :-)
We got our monthly shop in the city done. After last month, I was quite dreading it. We didn’t know what restrictions were still in place, or how things would be, and I certainly didn’t want to put up with snarly customers again, so we ended up skipping Costco entirely.
It does mean we couldn’t get some of the stuff we normally do, nor as much of some things. We did, however, manage to get pretty much everything on my list. Except printer ink. There wasn’t any of the type I needed, in stock. :-/ At this point, I think I’m just going to order it online. I need it to make posters of the kittens to try and adopt them.
Only one of my daughters came along, since as far as I know, Costco is still allowing only 2 people per membership, and when we left that was still part of the plan. We were well on the way to the city when I suggested to skip it and try going to Superstore, instead.
After hitting a drive through, then having breakfast sitting in the van in a parking lot, we started at the Walmart. We don’t buy anything that needs to be kept cold or frozen there, so our purchases and stay in the van without concern.
Much to our surprise and appreciation, there was no line up outside at all. There was a very short one when we left, but that was it.
We got most of the cat supplies there; we’d have had to use two carts, if we’d got all that we needed. This time, we also picked up a case of the type of cat food Beep Beep and the kittens like so much.
We had no issues finding paper products, and if we’d needed any, we could have picked up all the disinfectant cleaners we wanted. :-D I was even able to pick up some much needed work clothes.
Then I got real wild and crazy, and picked up a new garden hose, and long handled, ratchet pruning sheers. I’m so excited to use the sheers! They are going to go a long way in saving my back!
It’s the little things that make me happy. :-D
Next on the agenda was Superstore. We don’t normally stock up there, and I was rather surprised by how expensive some things have become. Particularly beef. I’ve been spoiled by Costco prices, that’s for sure.
It was very confusing when we checked out, though. After scanning everything, the cashier indicated towards the other belt, telling me to “take that”. There was a bunch of stuff, most of it packaging material, but there was also something in a long, blue fabric case. She told me I could take it, but she had to scan it first. It was free.
The whole thing was so out of context, it took me a while to figure out what she was telling me. It turned out we’d spent enough money to earn a freebie. I couldn’t even tell what it was! My daughter ended up handing the tag end over to the cashier, and could see on the label that it was a folding camp chair.
I’ve never spent that much money at a Superstore before, and had completely forgotten they had giveaways for larger purchases. :-D It turned out to be a rather nice chair, too. It will certainly be put to good use!
Once we finished at the Superstore, we went to an international grocery we really like, for the last few things, then got some Dim Sum for the drive home. That has become a much-looked-forward-to treat, if we can swing it!
While we were pretty exhausted by the end of everything, it was a much better trip than last time. Things are slowly getting back to normal. Some people are still wearing masks. Some were even wearing them properly. Not very many, but some. ;-)
The check out lines at the Walmart and Superstore are still organized with the 2 meter circles on the floors, in one long line, with a staff member telling people which tills were open. I rather hope this stays, because that is working out to be very efficient. I’ve seen some stores that, years ago, had checkouts redesigned specifically to work with one line up for all cash desk. No staff needed to run back and forth to see which tills would open next. It does make things go much more quickly! The smaller grocery store doesn’t really have a layout that would allow for it, but things still went smoothly there, too.
Normally, we would have gone to this particular Walmart, then driven a fair distant to the Costco, then back to the same area the Walmart we like is in, to go to the international grocery store. While there are other branches of these stores closer to the Costco, we find they’re not as good, to the point it’s worth the extra driving. I have to admit, though, it made for a less stressful and tiring day, with all the places we needed to go being all along one major thoroughfare. It probably took about 45 minutes of driving time out of the equation, too.
We might try Costco again, next month, though. We shall see.
For now, we are pretty much stocked up for the month again, and I am glad to have the trip over and done with!
Well, when it came to the mad dash to get the lawn mowing started, it was mosquitoes 0 : rain 1 :-D The bug spray actually worked this time. :-D Thankfully, I didn’t have to charge the battery on the riding mower, and could get started on that right away. I got rained on a bit, but it wasn’t until I was using the push mower to get the edges that the rain started falling heavily enough I had to put the equipment away.
I’m also happy to say that the lawn mower bag we found in the basement and moved to the barn is for this push mower, rather than one of the many broken ones lying about. It’s a rear bag, and normally I would have closed the cover of the side opening, but that wasn’t an option. Someone built a sort of shield of wood that holds the flat up, while also preventing clippings from spraying towards whomever is pushing it, and the shield is bolted to the body of the mower. I don’t mind it being open, since most of the clippings goes into the bag anyhow. I kept the folding wagon close by to empty the bag into, and was able to fill it before I had to stop due to rain. This will make it so much easier to have grass clippings for mulching and composting! :-)
Later in the evening, before I headed outside to do my rounds, I paused to check the indoor plants. Particularly the aloe that has started to bloom.
It had a surprise for me!
Not only has one of the flower spikes reached the ceiling, it’s pressing against it, and looks like it has more growing to do!
Outside, there were more blossoms emerging. The crab apples are starting to bloom.
This is from one of the trees in the West yard.
You can really tell that these ones get more light than the ones planted North of the spruce grove.
Earlier in the month, I had spotted some fungal growth on one of the apple trees by the spruce grove. Now that the leaves are in, I can see that the entire section of that tree is dead. There are still two sections of it growing, and seem to be healthy, so far, so we’ll see how it fares after I remove the dead section. (update: after taking a closer look, the living sections aren’t going that well, after all. :-( )
Of course, I visited the kittens, and got thorough and viciously attacked by little critters!
Big Rig looks even bigger when she’s next to Saffron, who is the teeniest of the bunch.
Now that they’re bigger, and occasionally stay still long enough for me to check, it looks like we’ve got three females and two males. Big Rig, Turmeric and Saffron seem to all be female; it’s a bit surprising, since orange tabbies are usually male. Leyendecker and Nicco both appear to be male. With Leyendecker being black, it’s even harder to tell with him! :-D
If all goes well, tomorrow, I’ll be able to get either the rest of the mowing done, or the rest of the planting done. Maybe even both, weather willing.
I completely forgot about the pumpkin seeds my mother gave me. It’s quite late for direct sowing pumpkins, but I’ll give them a try. Checking the seed trays, some of the gourds are most definitely emerging! After the trays were knocked over, they’re all mixed up, but none of the gourds had sprouted at all yet, so the new ones can’t really be anything else.
I used more of the soil mix for the sunflowers than I expected, so I think I will pick up more, the next time I’m in town. We still need to get those chimney blocks outside, to use as planters for the cucamelon transplants. The plan had been to take them through the new part basement, and up the stronger stairs, but with the kittens down there now, and always under foot, we’ll have to find a way to get them up the more rickety old basement stairs.
Once again, I am thinking of how great it would be to convert the old chimney for the wood burning furnace into a dumbwaiter! :-D
Once the blocks are in place, I plan to fill the bottoms with grass clippings and straw, then top it with a soil mix. With more squash to transplant, I don’t have enough of the soil mix left for it all.
It’s all coming together rather nicely, I think. I look forward to seeing how everything does.
I spoke to my mother today, and was telling her about what we’ve planted and where. Of course, she had to start telling me what I should be planting, none of which is what I am planting. She is currently fixated on onions. I should be planting onions. Also, I should be using the chives (which are coming up nicely) in salads. Also, I need a tiller. Because digging holes for the sunflower seeds is… and she stopped herself before saying it, though I could still here the word “stupid” hanging in the air. :-D I had told her about my wanting to go with no-till methods, and the use of straw, and she told me that she’d never seen anyone do that before. Straw is only for strawberries, not for anything else. It’s rather funny, how she is so convinced that the way she did things is the ONLY way to do things! Nobody else ever did anything different. :-D As for the old garden area, I reminded her of the conversation we’d had about planting trees there, and how we were intending to plant fruit and nut trees. She started telling me I should get hazelnuts from the bush, for free. The problem with that is, I have no memory of where those hazelnuts are. I was little more than a toddler when I went with her to gather nuts. They may not even be there anymore. So many trees and bushes have died, over the years. So she reminded me of one place we know for sure there is a hazelnut bush. The cemetery my father and brother are buried in!
I’m not sure what she expects me to do about that. :-D But hey; at least we are in agreement on the planting of food trees!
All in all, I think it’s been a decently productive day! :-)
I wasn’t able to get decent kitten pictures this morning, so here are some from last night.
I picked up some wet cat food, just for Beep Beep and the kittens, and they were in heaven! Leyendecker is an enthusiastic eater, while the others are still figuring out that whole eating and chewing thing. Once he had his fill, he crawled into my arms and began grooming himself, my arm, licking my fingers, rolling around in my arms and generally being the most adorable thing ever!
Nicco, on the other hand, is more into the water bowl than the solid food thing. He also demanded “up” from my daughter, but once he was there, he wasn’t too sure he liked it!
This morning, I was enthusiastically tackled, climbed and squealed at, by the entire bunch! They definitely enjoy people attention. :-)
While doing my rounds this morning, I started to prep a bit for working on the lawn. With the rain we’ve had, and more to come, soon, there is only a small window to get the job done. Unfortunately, it will be while fighting off squadrons of mosquitoes. The last couple of years were so dry, we didn’t really have a lot of mosquitoes. This year, we have more normal moisture levels, which means we also have more normal mosquito numbers.
The area we are in is infamous for mosquitoes. And wood ticks. I recall, when living in a different province, a co-worker of my husband shared a story. They, too, had moved from another province not long before, with the husband moving ahead to start a new job, and his wife following some time later (we’ve had to do that a few times!). She drove through several provinces. After driving through the province we’re back in now, she said the front end of their white car was black and fuzzy, from all the mosquitoes stuck to it! My husband just nodded and said, yeah. That sounds about right!
So my focus for today is going to involve girding my loins, covering myself in insect repellent, and getting as much of the lawn done as I can before getting driven back indoors by either the bugs, or rain! That includes getting the mowers checked over, making use of that mower blade sharpener I got, and likely needing to charge the battery on the riding mower, first.
Of course, the kittens are growing into ferocious little ankle biters.
They also love climbing on and clawing the grandpa slippers. :-D
Once outside, I checked the new garden bed and discovered carrots!
Unfortunately, there are also plenty of other things sprouting. At least the thistles are easy to pull out.
These carrots were done using a method found on a YouTube video, where the seeds were sprouted in water first, then put into a cornstarch gel in baggies, to be piped into the ground like icing.
These, along with the parsley, were planted on May 17. It is now the 24th. It took only 1 week for the sprouted seeds to break ground. Direct sown, they could take anywhere from 14 to 21 days.
Not only was the parsley also starting to show, but I think I’m even seeing some of the beets, which were planted 2 days later. I didn’t do anything special with them, other than cover the plots with plastic. Beets can take 7 – 14 days to sprout when direct sown.
It seems things are doing quite well in this location! I was able to remove the plastic on all the little plots. Even the kohl rabi. I just looked those up and they can germinate anywhere from 3 – 10 days.
I’m quite pleased with this!
Yesterday’s downpour has really revived everything! While doing my rounds, I found more blooming trees!
Yesterday, it was plum blossoms. Today, it’s Saskatoons. :-)
Of course, the grass is also growing like mad. Time to break out the lawn mowers! :-)
I’m going to have to try getting outside to work on things much earlier in the day. It’s getting too hot, way to fast!
I’m not sure I’m up to getting out there when it’s cooler at 5 am, though. :-D
Anyhow…
Today, I dismantled the kitty pool and brought it out to be dirty pool. ;-)
This is two bags of garden soil, two bags of compost, and the remainder of our bale of peat; about 1/3. The pool was just enough for all that, plus room to mix in water.
Which Creamsicle found absolutely fascinating.
The peat takes quite a while to absorb the water, so after spending some time mixing, adding more water, mixing, adding more water and mixing again, I decided to let it sit for the peat to fully absorb as much water as it could. Considering the hottest part of the day was still to come, I figured I would continue when it got cooler in the evening.
Which didn’t happen. :-D
I went into town to meet my daughter for lunch, then took advantage of the time to stop at a hardware store to pick up a few things, including a small coping saw and a file to sharpen our other saws that saw so much use in the last couple of years. It was hot and sunny when I went into the store. When I came out a few minutes later, it was still sunny, but the ground was wet. It had just started to rain.
On the way home, I seemed to drive out of the rain, only to drive straight into a massive downpour and thunderstorm! It wasn’t too bad while I was still on the highway, but a little more than a mile away from home on the gravel road, the deluge came down. I had to slow to a crawl and could barely see past the front end of the van! The rain was hitting hard, but… was that hail, too? I couldn’t tell.
It slacked off a little bit by the time I got to our driveway. I still got soaked as I unlocked the gate. I ended up just leaving it open and, after parking in the garage, left the garage door open, too, as I ran for the house with my bags. By the time I reached the house, I was completely soaked!
The storm didn’t last long, but one thing is for sure. That peat mixture is going to be plenty saturated! :-D
Later, I saw someone in our municipality posting pictures on Facebook, showing the lawn furniture in their back yard that had been blown around, and the marble sized hail that had drifted into corners of the building. !!!
By the time I drove back into town to pick up my daughter, it was down to a light rain. Just this one downpour made a huge, visible difference! It’s like every growing thing just perked up. For all that we still had standing water in ditches and ponds, we still needed that rain!
We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow afternoon, too, but if I can get to it early enough, I should be able to get the soil mix into the holes we dug, and the sunflowers planted, first.
Meanwhile, we have been making a point of visiting the kittens and Beep Beep as often as we can throughout the day. It was my turn to do the litter tonight, so I spent some extra time with them in the process.
Here we have Leyendecker, sampling the cat kibble in the container he’d knocked over, while Beep Beep is eating the kitten kibble. :-D
They seem to quite like all the run around space, even if they do tend to stay close to the bed frame/platform, and their little nest underneath!
I had some interlocking foam squares, like the kind sold as yoga mats or children’s rooms, that I used for blocking crocheted projects. I decided to give them to the kittens. The girls were kind enough to set them up on the concrete in front of the bed frame.
Because I’m a suck. That’s why.
Thankfully, for all the rain we had, the fan is still keeping the floor in the corner nice and dry.
The Re-Farmer 