making do

Procrastinating

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I had quite the crowd greeting me when I headed out this morning!

Of course, they immediately abandoned me, once there was food! :-D

I will have to be more careful when I do this. One of the spice boys slipped into the sun room without my noticing, and got trapped! Thankfully, one of my daughters heard his plaintive meowing after she’d turned the light on to go into the bathroom, lighting up the sun room a bit through the window. He’d been in there most of the day! I went in through the old kitchen, then opened the outside doors of the sun room to let him out. It didn’t quite work! Instead, his brother immediately ran in, and the two of them started to snuggle and rub their faces against each other. They missed each other so much! :-D I was able to lure them out while topping up their food in the kibble house. :-)

Yesterday, I headed to town and finally got the opportunity to check the outside of the gate. Checking the gate is part of my morning rounds, but I don’t take the gate key with me, so I can’t check the outside of the gate very well. And why should I have to? After seeing how our vandal had reefed on the south gate, I took a closer look.

Sure enough, he actually managed to cause damage.

It may not seem like much, but he reefed the gate against the post hard enough to create permanent dents in the pool noodle bumpers. The top one had been shifted a bit, though I’d put it back before taking the picture. If you look at the gate post in the first photo, you can see a nick in the paint. That nick is right to the metal. The posts were originally painted black, so that is through two layers of paint. It had to take a lot of force to slam the gate hard enough against the post to cause even that little bit of damage, while there were still the other bumpers to cushion the gate.

Thank God my brother did such a fabulous job in replacing the broken hinges! Our vandal was clearly trying to break the gate. The other half of the gate had nothing, thankfully.

Dealing with this is what I’m procrastinating. I need to transcribe old phone messages to present to the court when I make my applications for a restraining order and involuntary psychiatric assessment. I am not looking forward to it.

One of the things I’ve done instead is finally put up the shelves I’d painted for the entry.

Previously, I’d had a net hanging from hooks to hold various things. The net was from our previous van, to keep things from rolling around. I’d kept it to use with the van we have now, but it doesn’t fit anywhere, but I still hung on to it. It was good enough to hold random things, but not very easy to get at those things, once they were in!

I’d painted the boards I’d cut from a piece salvaged from a shed, and they were ready to put up several days ago. My daughter provided some shelf brackets she was no longer using. I suppose I should have painted them, too, but – unlike the board I salvaged – they don’t have any damage to hide. :-D

The shelves are attached to the outside of a closet, but there is a joist only on the front and back. The rest is just paneling. With the window, I couldn’t have the shelves extend right to the wall, so only one side of each shelf is screwed into a joist. Inside the closet, there is a board that supports the rod, but not at a useful height. So for the bottom shelf, the bracket closer to the window is screwed into paneling, only. I wish I’d thought to attach the bracket to the wall, like the top one, before I’d screwed it into place, but… ah, well. We’ll just have to make sure nothing heavy gets put on that end of the shelf. :-)

We are now waiting for the inevitable crash of a cat deciding to explore the shelves and knocking everything over! :-D They love to sit in that window and watch the cats outside.

So by procrastinating one thing, I accomplished a job that had been procrastinated for a couple of years, now. :-D

Looking at the date, I am realizing that, for my husband and youngest daughter, they have been here for 3 years! In less than a week, it’ll be the 3 yr anniversary for this blog, too.

We had an idea of what we were walking into, when we decided to move out here, but my goodness, there was a lot we didn’t expect!

Having to deal with someone close to us becoming our own personal vandal, especially to the point that it has, was one of the last things we could have expected!

*sigh*

I guess I should get to transcribing those files.

Oh, wait… I should probably work on supper, first.

The Re-Farmer

Progress: kibble house is done!

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We did it! We were able to finish the winter shelter for the outdoor cats’ kibble containers!

The only thing it needs now is to be painted, which will probably wait until spring.

Of course, things didn’t quite go to plan, but that’s pretty much how everything goes! :-D

One of the first things we did was raid the barn to see what we could find for a roof. There was a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood that we dragged over.

It had some mysteries on it.

On one side was a drawing of a picnic table, done with black marker.

The other side had what looks like the template for a shed roof!

My daughter was kind enough to take those boards off for me. Each of them had about 7 screws in them!

While she did that, I set up to assemble the rest of the frame, adding in the horizontal supports.

This was where things began to deviate from the plan. In putting on the bottom horizontal supports, I forgot I’d intended to put them on the inside of the vertical supports, instead of lined up with them. This made it longer than 6 ft.

Which is not a bad thing. It’s actually more stable this way, and there’s more room on the inside. However, I wasn’t able to match the top horizontal supports. Since the roof supports are at an angle, the screws that hold them in place are more staggered, so the chance of hitting one while screwing on the vertical support was pretty high. So I moved the top horizontal posts and attached them in front of the vertical ones.

Those horizontal supports, however, were supposed to be what the back wall was attached to.

Before we worked on that, though, we popped on the plywood to see how it fit, and if we needed to cut it to size.

We decided to leave it as is. I wanted at least some overhang. More just means more shelter for the kitties.

Then it was time to get creative.

We were going to use scrap wood from the junk pile for the walls and floor, but that idea quickly was discarded. Back to the barn we went, where we found a couple of pieces of 1/2 inch plywood that were almost 4 feet square.

We finally got to use the table saw I found in the shed! :-D

When cutting the frame pieces, I had cut two spare 2 ft lengths, and we made good use of them. I happened to have right angle plates I’d expected to use for something else and those were used to attach one length to support plywood roof in the middle. The other became support for the back wall. The bottom of the new vertical support could be screwed in place from underneath, but the top took a bit more creativity to get it attached!

We cut one of the squarish pieces in half to get the height of the wall, then cut one of the halves shorter to fit, and used them for the back wall. The pieced we’d cut off turned out to be the right size for a side wall, so we just traced that on the other squarish piece of plywood and cut a second one.

I dragged two buckets of nails from the basement to put the walls and roof one. One had roofing nails that were the right length for the walls, while the other had 4 inch nails that were perfect for attaching the roof.

That left the floor.

Cutting a wall piece off the second square of plywood left an L shaped piece. After taking several measurements, I cut the short part of the “L” off. The remaining longer piece got a notch cut out of it.

The smaller piece got a bit of a trim to fit the remaining space, and now we have a floor that can be removed, if needed.

And yes, I did want the floor to extend past the frame.

Time to test it out!

My daughter had to go in earlier, so I carefully maneuvered the whole thing by myself, to where I wanted it by the cat house. The containers we use for the cats’ food were pretty much empty, so I put them in and topped up them up.

A couple of cats were crawling around in it before I even came out of the sun room with more kibble! Once they heard that distinctive sound of kibble hitting the container, there was quite the rush of kitties!

I wanted the shelter to be close to the cat’s house, to provide shelter for the entry, but also wanted to make sure they had a path in between them. They already go around the cat house in that spot often enough that they’ve worn a patch in the grass. They can also fit under the kibble house and, if they really wanted to, they could probably get in from the back, through the gap under the roof.

One more thing to do!

It was time to open up the roof on the cats’ house and plug in the heated water bowl.

I also tucked their cat toy inside. They love that thing!

The cord on the heated water bowl is long enough that the bowl can be well under the overhang of the kibble house roof.

I then spent the next while putting everything away and cleaning up, which meant I could watch the cats checking it all out. They explored all over, including jumping up on the roof, and seem quite happy with their new shelter!

Since it’s unlikely we will paint any of it this year, we will probably cover the roof with a tarp for the winter. The rest should be fine.

I’m so glad we were able to get this finished today. It was just a couple of degrees above freezing, and we’re supposed to get a couple of centimeters of snow in a couple of days. Not the sort of weather I want to be outside, building stuff, if I can avoid it!

The Re-Farmer

Progress: sun room door and cat kibble shelter

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There was quite a crowd of kitties this morning!

There are 12 cats in this picture. Happily, Rolando Moon is still hanging around, busily hissing at any cat that comes near. We haven’t seen Creamsicle in a while, though. I hope he is all right.

The cat butt sticking out of the entry is a hoot. That is Rosencrantz’s baby, and she seems to be the shiest of the bunch.

As you can see by the frozen blocks of ice, artistically embedded with leaves, it’s been getting a bit cold out at night! It did warm up a few degrees above freezing. Not good for paint, but it had to be done.

I can now officially say that replacing the door on the sun room is DONE!! I just came in from outside a little while ago, and the paint was dry enough I could close the door. What’s supposed to be blue is now blue, what’s supposed to be white is now white, and nary the twain shall have contact with each other!

Yaaah!!

No, I didn’t take pictures. I’m am tired of taking pictures of that door! :-D

The next project is the shelter for the cat food. It will be placed about where the kibble containers currently are. I want to position it so that it will also provide extra shelter for the entrance to the cat house. The heated water bowl can be plugged in, inside, but the bowl has to be outside, since there’s no way I’m going to be lifting that roof every morning to refill their water. ;-) The shelter for the food containers will help keep the snow off the water bowl, too.

It took a couple of hours, but I got the end pieces of the frame done.

Working with this wood we salvaged from the barn has been a challenge. Nothing is even, so about the only thing I can measure is length. After that, I basically just made sure all the pieces matched and lined up. Not being able to just take measurements meant I had to get creative in lining up the pilot holes. Just making the pilot holes was an issue! My drill bits that were the right diameter for the pilot holes are just barely long enough to drill through the wood. I went hunting in the basement and the garage and, while I did find longer drill bits, they were all too large.

Thankfully, the bits I did have were long enough that, after drilling the pilot holes in one piece, I could position them on the other piece, “drill” though the pilot holes again, and make a mark on the other piece.

It worked most of the time. With the uneven wood, there were a couple of spots where the bit just wasn’t long enough to leave a mark.

Once I’d marked the pieces, I could drill more pilot holes, then screw them together.

When we used this wood to make the goat catcher, I had 3 inch screws, and only used two per corner. This was meant to be temporary, but I still didn’t expect it to be so wonky, it would end up bending and breaking the screws! So this time, I got 3 1/3 inch screws, and there’s 4 in each corner.

That thing is solid!

I started by attaching the 2 ft cross piece on the bottoms. The first corner was screwed together manually. Even with the pilot holes, it was not easy – and with arthritis in my wrists and fingers, rather painful. Our new drill isn’t a quick release type, and I didn’t want to be switching from drill bit to screwdriver tip, over and over, so I decided to use an old drill that we “inherited” to put in the screws.

That worked much faster!

Once the cross pieces were in, I got out a tape measure and figured out how much of an overhang I wanted on the roof supports. I decided to make the roof supports 3 1/2 feet long.

Lining those up at an angle was a pain in the butt! Once again, it was more about making sure the pieces matched, because there was no way I was going to be able to take usable measurements. I managed to get them lined up and the pilot holes done. By the time I was putting in the last set of screws, though, the drill was starting to complain, so I set them as far as I could before the drill started having a hard time, planning to screw them the rest of the way by hand.

When I took the screw driver tip off the drill, I realized I was seeing smoke coming out of the drill!! I remember that happening when we used it before. This old thing overheats very quickly!

By then, it was getting too cold to keep working outside, so I will continue the rest tomorrow. Once I have the 6 foot horizontal supports in place, we can take some measurements for the floor and wall boards.

The good thing is, we’ll be using the scrap wood in the junk pile. They are a lot thinner. That means I can finally use the table saw, and do all the cutting at once. :-) Those will be nailed into place; in cleaning up the basement, we found an old ice cream bucket full of nails that are just the right size for this job.

We can also go hunting in the barn or sheds for something to use as a roof. The roof supports are 3 1/2 feet long, but I hope to be able to have a sheet that’s 4 ft. The roof will be the last thing put in place.

After that, it’ll be done for this year. It’ll need to be painted, but we’ll be using it right away, so that will wait until spring. The one exception might be the roof, depending on what we find to use for that.

I hope to get a lot more done tomorrow, but that will really depend on the weather! At least they’re no longer predicting snow flurries, but who knows what the day will actually bring!

That reminds me. We need to bring the sheets of rigid insulation stored in the garage, back to the house. We’ll have to find a better way to get the sheets for the sun room windows to stay in place, though. At least this winter, we won’t be keeping the doors to outside propped open for the cats to go in and out, now that they have their own heated house! :-)

Lots to do before winter sets in, that’s for sure! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Progress: the sun room door is don… AAAAAAaaahhh!!!

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This afternoon, with the help of a daughter, we hung the replacement door back up onto the newly painted frame.

We lined the hinges up with where they were before, except further in as far as we could go. Just to be on the safe side, my daughter held the door in place while I marked the holes for the screws, then I drilled pilot holes for just the top hinge. We screwed in the top hinge, then double checked the locations for the other pilot holes and re-marked accordingly.

As you can see in one of the photos, the entire frame looks like it’s pulling away from the wall! It was like this when we moved here, and the gap doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem. At least not any more than anything else is! :-D

Also, we only had the old screws available, since none of the new screws we have were the right size, and there were only 6 of the same type. So each hinge is missing 1 screw! I still drilled the pilot holes, though, for when I pick some up.

Of course, as soon as we got the top and bottom hinges secure, we tested the door, just in case.

Aaannndd…

Really???

The door was hitting the frame again! It had to be forced closed!

We decided to finish hanging the door, though. Once it was in, I tested it again, which is when I noticed this…

The door latch was now higher than it was before.

Keep in mind that we did NOT raise the door when we put it back. The hinges were lined up with where it was hung previously. The only change was mounting them further in the frame than it was before. Apparently, that was enough for the door latch to be about half an inch higher than it was before!

Using where the blue paint marked the frame as a guide, I went back to trying to reduce the wood in those spots. I used the shaver, a chisel, a rasp, and even some of my coarsest sandpaper. For some of the tools, it was hard to get right into the corner. Time and again, I tested the door, and it still was hitting.

Finally, I started shaving wood off the door itself. That wood is so much softer than the frame, I could do in moments what took several minutes, and a variety of tools, to take off the same amount of material.

I took these photos when I figured I was done, but then went ahead and took off more material. Just in case!

I also gouged out more of the hole for the latch. After testing the door again and again, I finally put the latch plate back on.

That mark on the inside of the frame by the latch plate?

It turned out part of the door handle assembly – I just looked it up and now know it’s called a “rose” – hits it. So I used sandpaper to gouge out a recess there. That wood is also very soft compared to the frame pieces I’ve been fighting with!

The door now closes, easily and properly!

In fact, it’s probably the smoothest working door in the entire house right now!

I had one last thing to attach.

The stop chain!

I started screwing it in where there were pre-existing holes, but realized the bent part of the plate was extending beyond the wood, and the door would be hitting it. While moving it over, I noticed the plate for the chain on the inner door had only one screw holding it in place, so I fixed that, too.

Now, there is no chance the door will bang open too far. It doesn’t even hit the shelf behind it anymore, which means no risk it’ll hit the window. I can now move that shelf to the other side of the door, in front of the cracked window.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll be touching up the paint that I scraped off, including the door; thankfully we still have some of that blue left.

Once I was done hanging the door, I just couldn’t help it.

I stood there, opening it and closing it again, and giggling to myself. :-D

I am easily entertained!

This door was so much more of a problem to replace than we could have imagined!

The Re-Farmer

Almost to plan

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Well, most of what I intended to get done today, happened. Plus, some unplanned stuff got done. :-)

There was quite the crowd around for breakfast – and not all of them are in this photo! Most of them came out of the cat shelter, which was quite gratifying to see.

They were hungry enough that the little kittens allowed me to pet them while they were eating, including the calico. I was also able to finally confirm that both orange tabbies are male. That leaves the two bigger kittens (behind the food bowls in the photo) that we don’t know the gender of, yet. We’re really hoping they are males, because we have had zero progress in getting those ones more socialized. At least with the little calico, there is some hope we’ll be able to get her inside before she goes into heat.

The water bowls were all frozen this morning, so I brought out some warm water for them. The cats really appreciated that! I’ll have to get that heated water bowl set up soon.

While doing my rounds, I remembered to try and get a photo under my mother’s car. It took quite a few tries!

The last time I drove it, I noticed something was loose underneath. I only saw it because of how I happened to be parked in an otherwise empty parking lot, as I walked to the car from a store. From a distance, I could see something hanging down near the front passenger tire, but once at the car, I had to look through the tire rim at just the right angle to be able to spot it.

When it was time to go to my mother’s to help her with errands, I left early so I could stop at the garage near her place. It is just a plastic shield, and it looks like a bolt probably vibrated off. Who knows when that happened, but it had to be recently, since I picked it up from the garage not that long ago. I have no way to get under there myself, but it’s such a small job, I didn’t even need to make an appointment to get it worked on. I was told to just give a call in the morning, then come on over. I will do that as soon as I can, so I don’t have to make my mother clamber up into our van anymore!

I was able to help my mother with several errands, and even get a bit of a visit. I was happy to see the mask exemption card I’d taped to her door was still there. Her municipality has a mask mandate right now, so we did get asked a couple of times if we had masks. Since I was with her, I was able to tell them we had medical exemptions, and there was no problem. Interestingly, while at the pharmacist’s counter, where they didn’t even bat and eye over our lack of masks, my mother did fish out a surgical mask from her pocket and put it on, saying she didn’t want any trouble – except no one was giving her trouble! I just cringed, because she has no ability to put one on properly. She only kept it on for maybe a minute, probably less. She didn’t even try to put it on when we got to the grocery store. I’ve helped my mother shop often enough, and the staff knows her well enough, that they talked to me about the masks, not her. It all worked out well. It was a real relief for me, given how much she struggles to breathe with a mask on. She still has a hard time understanding mask exemptions, and I could see she was concerned about being given a hard time, but the staff at all the places we went to were awesome. I did give her an exemption card to carry, but I have no idea what she did with that!

Once my mother was all set, I headed home and was expecting to hang the replacement door for the sun room back up. I wasn’t able to get another set of hands to hold it for me, so I instead worked on some cutting I needed to do. I had found a board in one of the sheds that I cut to length to make a couple of shelves in the entry. The pieces now just need some sanding and painting.

Then I started on cutting pieces that will be the frame for a cat kibble house. :-D

I’d made a rough and flexible plan for it. For the frame, I am using the pieces of wood from the frames I’ve been using to mark out garden beds. I also had a couple of extra long pieces we never used when we built the goat catcher.

I ended up changing the dimensions a bit, based on the wood I had available. All the pieces had one end slightly more damaged than the other, so I worked around that when making my measurements and cuts.

The short end pieces from the dismantled frames will be the upright pieces for the cat kibble house. The back pieces are 3 feet long, while I decided to make the front pieces 3 1/2 feet, instead of the 4 feet I was originally thinking of doing. The longer side pieces of the dismantled frames will be the length of the kibble house. I actually measured the group of kibble bowls and decided to make it 6 feet long, instead of the 5 feet I was originally thinking of. I then used the cut off pieces from those to cut cross pieces that will be the depth of the kibble house. They weren’t long enough to do the 2 1/2 feet I’d originally considered making it, so I cut them 2 feet long, instead.

I cut 4 of them, though I only need two, just in case I need extra.

The only pieces I haven’t cut yet will be the support for the roof. I will decide on the length of those later. I want a considerable overhang on the front of the roof. It can’t extend too far, though, because then it will be in the way when trying to reach the kibble bowls inside.

As for the roof itself, I’ve been finding sections of plywood in the barn and sheds that I should be able to salvage. Once I decide on how long of an overhang I want, I’ll have the dimensions I need to hunt out a piece that will fit.

The kibble house will also have a floor and three walls. For that, I plan to use wood salvaged from the junk pile. The pieces are pretty inconsistent in size, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be enough to keep the bulk of the wind and snow out. The roof will be the most important part.

As you can imagine, the noise of cutting the pieces spooked the cats quite a bit. Some of them, however, were spooked into the cat shelter. As I was putting things away, I looked to see that the indicator light for the timer was on. I could also see a little calico kitten, curled up under the heater! I am so glad the little kittens are using it. They are the ones I’m most concerned about for the winter!

Unfortunately, other critters have discovered the shelter.

Stinky came by as I was cleaning up! I had unhooked the hose, though it was too cold and stiff to put away, so I screwed it back on and used it to spray the skunk away. Long before the cats were willing to check out their new shelter, I could tell from the smell that Sir Stinks Alot had already visited. Nicky the Nose – the only one of the big toms that still visits regularly – has been seen coming out of it, too. We’re trying to discourage him from visiting, because he has been attacking our own male cats. Especially Creamsicle. :-( If he’s in there, chances are he will chase away some of our own cats.

He’s also the daddy of way too many kittens!

I have come to the conclusion that Nicky the Nose is deaf, or at least mostly deaf. There have been a few times I’ve come towards him, even talking as I walked, while he was facing away, with no reaction. It isn’t until he turns his head and sees me that he reacts and runs off.

Tomorrow, barring some unexpected change in plan, I will continue to work on the cat kibble house, and hopefully be able to snag a daughter to help hang the sun room’s replacement door.

It’s starting to get pretty chilly out there, and there’s still plenty we need to get done before the real cold hits!

The Re-Farmer

Fall planting: the garlic is in!

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I was so excited to finally get our bulbs this morning!

Here are the three varieties of garlic we ordered.

I appreciate how they add things to the label, like “best for roasting” , “rich, spicy flavour” and “big cloves with bold flavour”.

This is what 1 pound of each variety looks like. I wasn’t sure how many bulb heads or cloves that would translate into. That was the main reason I wasn’t sure if the two beds I’d prepared for them would be enough. At least I was reasonably sure it wasn’t going to be too much space! :-)

Today turned out to be a very windy day, so my daughter and I broke apart the cloves inside the house.

Those old take out containers were perfect for keeping the varieties organized!

Also, they made the house smell absolutely amazing!

I had been watering the prepared beds, to try and get moisture down to the layer of compost and straw buried inside. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do that as often as I’d wanted to, so I gave them another thorough soak.

The frame used as a guide to dig 4′ x 8′ beds fit in the next space, inches to spare between it and the ring around the new compost pile. It was ready, just in case I needed a third bed.

Thankfully, I didn’t!

Porcelain Music Garlic

The first variety I planted was Music. Directions for planting hard neck garlic I have looked up, say to plant cloves 4 – 8 inches apart, in rows about 12 – 18 inches apart. Since we are doing beds rather than rows, I laid them out in a roughly 6 inch grid. The soil is so soft here, I was able to plant the by just pushing my gloved fingers in to the correct depth, without the need for any tools.

Purple Stripe Garlic

With the number of cloves we got from the Purple Stripe, my grid wasn’t quite as even at the end. :-D The corners on this bed seemed like they would collapse a bit, so I moved the cloves that would have been planted there to the other side.

Once the two varieties were planted, I added boards to mark where the grid ended, and the third variety, which would be in both beds, started.

Racombole Garlic
Roggenrola (Pokémon) - Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia

The last ones to plant were Racombole. Which sounds like a Pokemon.

Meet Roggenrola.

(image source)

The Racombole turned out to have a lot more cloves, including more smaller ones. It was almost like soft neck garlic that way. So these were planted slightly closer together. More like 4 inches apart, rather than 6. I probably shouldn’t have bothered to plant the smallest ones, but I didn’t want to waste a single clove!

Those boards across the beds also came in very handy to put a foot on to brace myself, making it easier for my short little arms to reach the middle. ;-)

Planting in these beds really demonstrated for me that building much higher raised beds for accessibility is a very good idea!

The next step was to add the mulch, and this is where the wind became a real potential problem.

Thankfully, I thought to put the chopped up straw on a tarp.

It was easy to slide the whole thing into the path between the beds. I could then grab handfuls, keeping them low and out of the wind as much as I could, to spread out.

I then had to rush to give the mulch a soak with the hose, more to weigh the mulch down than anything else! As you can see, the wind was already starting to blow the straw away!

The last step was to cover the beds with plastic – which the wind certainly made challenging! Thankfully, we’ve found a couple of rolls of plastic while cleaning up the house and basements, so we have plenty, and I could unroll it directly on the mulch, adding weights as I did.. The plastic is actually folded in half on the roll, and I didn’t bother to unfold it, so this is a double layer of plastic on the beds.

As you can see, those board across the beds came in handy for the weights, too!

The plastic isn’t something I’ve seen suggested, in general, but we are in zone three, and most of the places I’ve looked up are in at least a zone 6. While October is the month for planting hard neck garlic for them, we probably should have planted these at the end of September – and would have, if they had not been back ordered.

The issue is overnight temperatures. We’re consistently hovering just below freezing. In the long range forecasts, our highs for the day will be just barely above freezing.

There are a few things going for these beds that should help with our planting this late in our zone. Burying the organic matter at the bottom of the beds means there should be some warmth generated as they break down, just as it would have if it were in a compost pile. The mulch will also help regulate the temperatures and, finally, the plastic should help keep things a bit on the warm side. I don’t want it warm enough for the garlic to start sprouting, but they do need to start their growth below ground before winter temperatures set in.

I might remove the plastic later on. Snow also acts as an insulator, plus these beds should not need any watering throughout the growing season. Between normal precipitation and the mulch, they should have enough moisture. Letting the snow cover the beds would give them that first burst of moisture in the spring, and the beds being slightly raised means they should thaw out faster than the ground surrounding them. However, the plastic will also keep the moisture they already have from drying out before the snow falls, and will help the soil warm up even faster in the spring, giving the garlic a chance to start growing a bit earlier. I would then remove the plastic once I saw that greens were making their way through the mulch.

My mother grew garlic in the old kitchen garden, but she never used mulch or plastic or any of the other techniques I am using that irritates her so much. :-D So I can’t go by how she did things, in past years.

So if there are any experienced garlic growers here, I would love to hear how you have done it! And would you leave the plastic, or take it off before the snow falls?

I’m really looking forward to seeing how these do. When it comes time to harvest them next year, we will be looking to save the largest bulbs for planting. Hopefully, we’ll have enough large ones to have more to plant than what we started with.

You just can’t have too much garlic, after all!

The Re-Farmer

Replacement door: hung

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The replacement door to the sun room is back up again!

Of course, things went wonky in the process. At this point, I expect nothing else!

I don’t know if you can tell, but we ended up adding yet another piece of wood under the bottom hinge. The gap there was still massive. And yet, none was needed at the middle hinge!

Of course, the door didn’t quite fit, even after all this. We still needed to force the door over the threshold. We’d had to do that with the old door, to a certain extent. It wasn’t as noticeable, and I think that was partly because the door was already starting to fall apart before we moved here.

Using the blue paint scraped off the door as a guide, I used whatever tools I could dig up to smooth out the side piece. I tried one of the planes we found in the basement. It was a bit big for the space, but it would have worked, except the plate was loose, which is when I discovered the frame holding it was cracked.

We didn’t find it that way. The cats had knocked it off the shelf I’d put it on.

*sigh*

I carved out a recess for the latch plate and deepened the hole for the latch itself until it could finally catch and stay caught. I also began chiselling, carving and rasping away at the outer edge of the threshold until the door could close without being forced.

Well. It still kinda needs to be forced. There is still an issue with the hinges. Understandably, there is a lot of stress on them. I’m trying to think of what I can do to fix that, and not a whole lot comes to mind that is feasible.

I suspect this door won’t last very long, but it’s the best we can do right now, and at least there’s a working door!

I still need to work on smoothing out the frame some more before we paint it. I have been eyeballing some tiny little planers at the hardware store that would be perfect for the job. I might just have to spring for one.

I will be so happy when this job is finally done.

The Re-Farmer

Got a new toy, and dealing with unexpected issues

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“Only” 10 yard cats showed up for breakfast. :-)

This morning, after doing my rounds and feeding the felines, I headed into town to run a few errands. This included stopping at the post office in our little hamlet. Which is also a liquor store.

I bought a whole lot of wine.

Or, should I say, my daughter did, since she paid for it. :-D

We don’t actually want the wine, but it came in 3L jugs. We need to rack our hard apple cider, and I’ve been hesitating because we only have gallon jugs (4L) to rack into. With using unfiltered, raw apple juice, there is going to be a LOT left behind when we siphon off the liquid, and 4L jugs would have left a lot more headroom than there should be.

The 3L wine bottles will be perfect carboys.

We will just have to drink a lot of wine over the next couple of days! :-D

I hope it’s actually good wine. I’m not a wine drinker to begin with, so chances are pretty high I won’t like it. :-D

I was happy to see the waterproof cord protectors came in in the mail, so that’s another step closer to winterizing the cat house.

Once in town, I made a point of stopping at a local business that had been getting threats, including death threats, for putting up a humorous sign saying “face diapers” were not required to enter. I’d talked to one of the owners online, and wanted to stop in in person to show them some support. We had an excellent chat. It turned out the owner has a health condition and cannot wear a mask. Even though there is no mask mandate, some of the local businesses are refusing to allow anyone in without a mask, even if it means discriminating against people on the basis of health, so he wanted people to know everyone was welcome in his business, with or without a mask. It was good to hear that, for all the threats and efforts to cancel his business out completely, he’s now busier than ever! It’s a printing business, and he gave me a bunch of business card sized notices of exemption, citing the relevant portion of the mandates (for those municipalities the province put mandates on) and phone numbers.

One of them will be going on my mother’s door, and I’ll be giving her one to carry with her, too.

After visiting the shop, I went to the other hardware store in town, hoping they might have something I could use to cut the piece of door frame for the sun room. Even just clamps, so I could use the reciprocating saw.

I ended up leaving with an inexpensive jigsaw.

My new toy got a major workout today! It even went through hidden nails.

But before I started that, I ended up spending some time on the computer, emailing with my siblings about the situation with my mother. Then I called her and asked for the name and number for the social worker she deals with. These are the people she talks to when there are problems where she lives. She didn’t want to give me the number, saying she didn’t want to make trouble with the caretakers. She had found a note under her door saying that I should be wearing a mask in the building, but it was not signed or anything. She’s pretty sure who left it. We talked about how she should not be wearing a mask, and she again said she didn’t want to make trouble, and just takes it off her face when she needs to breathe. !!!! I convinced her to give me the information, and promised to be nice to them. :-D

It turns out that the number was for a senior’s office, and while they often do things where my mother lives (until they got canceled by the pandemic restrictions), they don’t actually have any say in what goes on there. That falls under a provincial department.

When I called them, identifying myself and my relationship to my mother, then told them what happened, they immediately came to the same conclusion as my mother about who left the note. At one point, I was talking to two people on speakerphone, and they seemed so incredibly happy that I was calling on behalf of my mother. It turns out they have been trying for years to get this caretaking couple fired, due to their horrific and abusive behaviour towards the seniors in the buildings they work in – not just the one my mother is in! – but they have the residents so intimidated, no one is willing to write a formal complaint to the provincial department that manages the building. It turns out this couple has especially targeted my mother, who stands up to them the most. The ladies I spoke to vehemently agreed that my mother should not be wearing a mask, but she has told them she’s afraid of what would happen – meaning how the caretakers would react – if she didn’t. !!! They have already threatened to get my mother evicted, and it turns out they’ve threatened the job of one of the social workers, too!

In the end, I got a name and number for the person they’ve been working with at the provincial level, and they were thrilled that I was willing to call with a complaint (because even if they witness something, they are not allowed to say anything themselves), asking me to let them know how it works out.

When I called the number, though, it went straight to voice mail, so I left a message saying I wanted to talk about elder abuse towards my mother. I will try again tomorrow.

Once I did as much as I could with that, I headed outside and started to set up to use my new toy.

I was being watched!

Sibling snuggles!

So adorable!

Of course, once I started making too much noise, they ran off.

With my daughter’s help, I was able to cut the marked area off the piece of frame. Then we set it in place and…

… made a new mark to cut it again.

Finally! We can close the door with the frame piece.

I had considered screwing the pieces in place, but in the end, decided we’ll just nail them.

The crazy thing is, with all the buckets, jars, tins and plastic margarine containers full of nails all over the place, we have absolutely no nails that we can use to put the frame pieces in!

We’ve got lots of roofing nails, though. :-D

So tomorrow, I will make another trip into town.

Once the frame pieces are back, we will remove the door and use the pieces I cut off the frame on one side, to add to the frame on the other side, so that the door will hang straight, even if the sun room itself is now shifted.

It is all a horrible, messy looking patch job, but until we are in a position to replace the entire door frame, it’s the best we can do for now.

I’m glad I found that little jig saw. It still had a hard time cutting this surprisingly hard wood. That is also managed to cut through some hidden nails, barely slowing down, is bonus.

I will have to make a point of stocking up on spare blades. I foresee using this baby a lot, in the future!

Once we did as much as we could with the door, I had a chance to paint the other side of the support post for the old platform bird feeder. I’ve already picked up a new hanging feeder to put on its hook, ready and waiting. For now, I will not be trying to put on a new platform, and will just leave the little support pieces for that, where they are.

If all goes well, we should be able to set it up by the end of this week. I’ll just have to pick up some more bird seed. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Prepping a cap for an airlock – using the tools at hand

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Last year, we made apple cider vinegar using the bright red apples from just one tree. The result was a delicious, delicately pink cider vinegar, and we were looking forward to making it again.

There was just one problem.

The instructions we followed said to put the jar in a dark place, so we tucked it into a cupboard. Unfortunately, it attracted fruit flies. The jar was covered with a coffee filter and they couldn’t get in but, as it fermented, some had bubbled up enough to dampen the paper. Which meant any time we opened the cupboard, we’d find a cloud of fruit flies inside!

Not good.

Since then, we’ve bought the things necessary to make mead. This includes smaller bungs to fit airlocks into gallon jars. We will be using some to make hard apple cider out of our crab apple juice, later. With airlocks being so cheap, I’ve picked up extra, so we could have all our gallon jugs, plus the 5 gallon carboy, all going at once, and still have extras.

This year, I will be taking advantage of our mead making supplies.

Since making the ACV requires using apple pieces, I need to use a wide mouth jar. I also want to make more than last year, so I wanted to use something bigger than a quart jar.

Every now and then, we picked up the big gallon jars of pickles at Costco, and I’ve been keeping the jars. That’s what I’ll be using to make the vinegar this year.

The question then becomes, how do I use an airlock on one of these?

Now, if I had some silicon grommets (which I learned the name of only yesterday), I could drill an appropriately sized hold in a cap, pop on a grommet, and insert an airlock.

I don’t have those. I do have extra bungs, though.

I don’t have anything I can use to simply drill a hole that big into a cap, though, so I had to do it the use-watcha-got way.

The first thing to do was mark the size of hole I needed. After protecting the bung with plastic wrap, I traced around it with permanent marker. As the bung is tapered, the actual size of the hole needs to be slightly larger than the inside of the circle.

With a scrap of wood underneath, I punched a series of holes well within the marked circle, then used pliers to break off the middle.

Working directly over a garbage bag, I used a series of metal files to grind away at the opening to smooth it out, then make it larger.

Once I’d reached the inside of the marked circle, I switched to the Dremel to grind and smooth the metal.

Then it was time to test the size of the opening. A perfect fit!

We’re not done yet!

Though the metal was ground smooth, it still is sharp enough to potentially damage the bung, if I were to push it in tight enough to great a proper seal.

Silicon sealant to the rescue!

I used the same stuff we got to fill screw holes when our satellite dishes got moved, then again, for a final seal in the cracks on the rain barrel we set up by the garden. It’s a multipurpose, indoor/outdoor product that is coming in very handy.

The tube it comes in is also very easy to control, even for a job as small as this. After giving the cap a very through cleaning, I lay a bead down on both sides of the cap, right on the edge of the hole, so that top and bottom would touch and completely cover the metal edge. Basically, I imitated a silicon grommet. This should both protect the bung, and ensure an air-tight seal is created.

Now it just needs time to cure before I can test it again with the bung.

Since we have so many apples, I might make two; one with the airlock, and one without, to see which works better. I’ve also picked up some fancy-schmancy ACV “with mother” to use as a starter (last time, we just used water and sugar). Using just a coffee filter, it relies on exposure to the air to get the bacteria needed for fermentation. So it’s touch and go, whether you get a good bacteria or not. With an airlock, it won’t get that exposure, so using a vinegar with the mother in it will ensure the right kind of bacteria is already in there.

We shall see how it turns out!

The Re-Farmer

Furry friends, and making do

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Last night, while heading out to do my evening rounds, I had a little surprise – a stinky friend coming out of the sun room!

I wanted to use water from the rain barrel, but Stinky had other ideas! :-D

He is not, however, the furry friend I was alluding to in the title.

While mowing the outer yard today, I saw a little dark shape, running across from the deep grass to the pile of junk that needs to be hauled to the dump.

Then a mostly while shape followed.

Two little kittens! About the same size as the inside kittens.

I am guessing they are Junk Pile cat’s babies, but they might be Rosencrantz’s, too. I saw no mom around.

This means we might start seeing kittens show up at the food bowls soon!

Which reminds me. I noticed, a couple of days ago, that Butterscotch is no longer pregnant. After what happened with her last litter, it’s hard to guess how many will survive. :-(

Also, this evening, I won lawn mower chicken! I was doing the very last patches of grass for the night, when the mower started to stutter. I just managed to back it up over the last bit of grass when it coughed and died, completely out of fuel! :-D

While I was finishing up with the lawn (though I still have the area in front of the storage shed to do – tomorrow!), the girls tended to the gardens, including thinning out the carrots. We now have lots of little, bitty carrots to snack on. They are all new varieties for us and, so far, they all are quite tasty! :-)

This morning, before I headed into town, I had a conversation with one of my daughters. Later, when I was at the hardware store, that conversation had me looking extra hard at the display of 20 x 20 inch box fans. We need at least a couple, including one for the old basement to replace the one that disappeared.

I finally broke down and bought one.

Plus a package of 20 x 20 furnace filters.

We now have a poor-man’s air filter! :-D A furnace filter is attached to the back of the fan with a few little strips of duct tape. For now, it’s sitting on my husband’s leather working desk as we test out how it works, before deciding on a final spot to put it. This one will stay in the living room, though. Depending on how things go, I hope to pick up another when we’re in the city, for the basement window. For now, I want to see how well it does in keeping the levels of cat hair down! :-D

I also had to pick up a round file while in town. I still haven’t been able to put on the second latch on the screen window. I did find a round file in one of the miscellaneous drawers in the basement, but it’s the wrong type, and was doing absolutely nothing as I tried to enlarge the opening for the new latch post. Hopefully, this new one will do the trick.

The cats and kittens have, of course, been exploring the counters and shelves in the basement, and I’ve been finding a few things knocked to the floor. Yesterday, I found a piece of wood with a rose design carved in relief into it, lying on the floor. Today, I found another piece of wood on the floor; this one had floral designs on one side, and my late brother’s name carved on the other. I don’t recall seeing those when we cleaned up the basement before bringing Beep Beep and Butterscotch indoors. I’d forgotten my brother had tried his hand at wood carving, too, and you can see quite a skill improvement between the two pieces.

While looking for a round file, I also found a small carving tool. I recognize it as part of a set we had, when I was quite young. There were at least a dozen different types of blades in the set. In fact, I’m pretty sure the wood box it came in is what’s now under my computer monitor, raising it up to a more comfortable viewing height. That box now holds my late father’s hair cutting supplies. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the wood carving tools. Considering how long ago we had them, I’m surprised to have found the one that I did!

I set it aside for sharpening. It has a flat tip, like a very fine chisel, that I think I will find useful.

Funny how, after being here for more than 2 years, we’re still finding things like this! :-D

The Re-Farmer