I’m taking a bit of a break from working outside, to avoid the hottest part of the day. We’ve reached 22C/71F, and our high is supposed to be 23C/74F.
One of the things I’ve been trying to do early in the day is water all the beds that we’ve planted. I’ve been concerned about them, since we are so incredibly dry right now. It’s hard to give the beds even a shallow watering, never mind the deep watering they need. The problem is that the surface dries out so quickly. What we need is a mulch. The only thing we have for mulch right now is straw. Which is fine if I’m mulching around larger plants, like when we transplant our squashes, etc. Not so good for things like greens.
What I do have, however, is a lawn mower.
So after I planted the last of our beet seeds – three types all mixed up – in the L shaped bed in the old kitchen garden, I brought out the mower.
We already had some chopped up straw that had been on top of the garlic beds; we’d removed most of it and it’s been sitting in the kiddie pool, waiting for use. I chopped all that up a couple more times with the mower, then filled the wheelbarrow with more straw and chopped it up several times, too.
The finished mulch, which now included leaf litter that was on top of the lawn, went back into the kiddie pool, which made it very easy to drag around to where it was needed.
The mulch is so light, I could let the wind distribute most of it for me!
The L shaped bed is all beets. I had thought to put some carrots along the edge of the bed, but there was no room! In fact, I ended up broadcasting the last of the seeds in another little spot.
The patch of mulched soil near the plastic and the tree is where the last of the seeds went. Almost all of these beets are last year’s seed, so who knows how many will germinated.
I then scattered mulch onto the poppy bed, too.
After thoroughly watering everything, I moved on to the big garden.
Once again, I could let the wind lightly cover the beds for me. The beds at each end, with the onions, got fully covered. The spinach beds have their first sowing in the middles only, so I just focused on that area. When we sow more in another week, we can add more mulch then.
Everything got another thorough watering. All the beds will be watered again this evening, when it starts to cool down.
Until then, my next job is to mark off and start preparing the block to direct sow the one variety of corn we have that needs to be planted before last frost. That’s going to be out by the peas, and that’s where we’ll be working on for the next while, as we prepare beds for the beans, corn and radishes, sunflowers, squash and gourds. Then, last of all, the block at the opposite end of the garden, where the Montana Morado corn will be transplanted. None of the sunflowers or corn starts have germinated yet, but it hasn’t been very long yet. I’m just impatient! :-D
We will also use the lawnmower to chop up more straw for more light surface mulch. That, at least, I’ll be able to work on in the shade this time! :-)
Lats this morning I headed over to my mother’s place with a turkey dinner to have lunch with her.
On the way out, I spotted three sets of ears in the window of the cat shelter.
Tiny sets of years belonging to the little kittens! I didn’t dare go closer for a picture, though, because I didn’t want to startle them away. There may have been more cats inside with them that I couldn’t see, too. I’m so glad to see them in the shelter, rather than hiding under it!
My mother and I had a very nice lunch and visit (how visits turn out is always touch and go with my mother! LOL). I brought a mask exemption card to tape to her door, and another she can carry with her. Hopefully, that will help reduce the harassment from the caretakers. Unfortunately, I think more has happened than she is telling us, because she kept insisting she “doesn’t want a war” and even started asking me not to call the housing department responsible for her building to talk about the caretaker’s abusive behaviour. She wore a mask – under her nose! – to meet me at the side door that’s very close to her own apartment door, and even in that short distance, by the time she was back in her apartment, she was struggling to breathe. She had also mentioned to me on the phone, waking up and struggling to breathe again. So I brought a foam wedge we got for my husband that he ended up not being able to use. Depending on how it’s positioned, it can be used under the knees, to lean against while sitting up in bed, or to sleep in an inclined position. The doctor had recommended trying to sleep more upright to see if that helped. When she saw it, however, she flat out refused to even try it and told me to take it home. Eventually, she said it was because it looked ugly! Which I highly doubt is the real reason. Frustrating!
Still, it was a good visit and my mother was very happy I was able to come over. I think the pandemic social restrictions are really getting to her. There used to be many events and gatherings, either in her own building, or in nearby venues, that she attended. Now, there are none. It seems the only real “social” interactions she’s getting these days are with the nasty caretaking couple. The restrictions seem to be bringing out the worst in people. I think she is getting very lonely, and some serious cabin fever!
Once at home, I took advantage of the warmer weather. With the garlic ready to be picked up when the post office opens tomorrow, I was thinking of how I wanted to mulch the beds. The straw is not breaking down as I had expected, and I decided to try an experiment.
Using the new push mower to chop it into smaller pieces!
The bag filled up very quickly, but it wasn’t until I had already started that I realized I’d forgotten to check the height of the mower. It was at 7; the highest setting! So things weren’t quite as chopped up as I wanted.
I lowered it to 3 and that chopped things up much better.
It took only 2 bags to fill the wagon, it’s so fluffy. LOL I laid out a tarp near the beds the garlic will be planted it, to make it easier to work with when it’s needed – plus I can fold half the tarp over the pile to keep the wind from blowing it away.
Unfortunately, I had an unexpected problem.
The new lawn mower stopped starting.
Right from the beginning, it was harder to start, but every time I had to turn it off to empty that bag, it kept getting harder to restart it until, finally, I just couldn’t start it at all. It had been so easy to start, before! In the spring, when we had so much rain, I was using it a lot and had no problems. Then the rain stopped, and the grass never really got long enough to make it worth cutting again. So it’s been sitting in the garage for the last couple of months. That on its own should not cause the problem. I couldn’t find any reason for it. It just won’t start. After getting only 2 1/2 wagon loads done, I finally gave up.
I will just have to take it in to the small engine shop in town to get it looked at, later in the year.
So the experiment worked, as far as chopping up the straw to make a finer mulch. It was just the lawn mower that failed!
After giving up on that task, I took the time to take the sun room replacement door off in preparation for painting the frame. I plan to get at that as soon as possible tomorrow morning, then go to the mail to pick up our bulbs. I will get the garlic in, while the girls will be doing the digging to get their flowers in.
While working at the door, I spotted this.
That is two little kittens in there! One of the orange tabbies, and Creamsicle Jr. As I walked around after taking the picture, Potato Beetle came out of the entry. I hadn’t seen him at all in there!
So I decided not to go inside after taking the door off, and stayed to see if I could get the kittens to play.
I had a target in mind.
This little lady. In the interest of trying to reduce future litters, we are hoping to get her friendly enough to bring her inside.
Yeah. I know. We have too many cats inside already!
Nostrildamus, meanwhile, couldn’t get enough attention! It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were lucky if we could pet him at all. Now, he’s all over us, asking for pets! He still doesn’t like to be picked up, but he does like chewing on fingers!
The two napping in the shelter eventually came out to see what was going on, and joined in on the play. I was able to pet the little orange one – the smallest of the 4 younger kittens – and even managed to pet Creamsicle Jr. a bit. The calico, however, would not let me touch her! However, my daughter came out to join me for a while, and she tried to play with them. Not only did she get the calico close enough to pet, she was even able to pick her up! Only briefly, and she didn’t like it, but she didn’t run away after jumping down, either.
Aside from Nostrildamus, we seem to be having a better time of socializing Butterscotch’s second litter than the older kittens. Though it didn’t help that Butterscotch was around and growling all the other cats away, including her own babies!
Still, we have made some socialization progress!
The other little orange kitten came by later. That one, the gender is still in doubt, but from what little we’ve been able to see, I suspect it is female.
I thought it was supposed to be rare for orange tabbies to be female, but here, they seem to be the majority! Of the older kittens, Nostrildamus is the only whose gender we are sure of. His one confirmed sister is now inside, but with the luck we’ve been having, his other sibling and Rosencrantz’s baby are also female! And we can’t get anywhere near any of them. :-(
Ah, well. We will just have to do what we can. Mostly, I’m just really, really glad the little kittens are going inside the shelter.
We certainly won’t be needing to mulch the bulbs we planted! They’re getting an excellent cover right now. :-)
We’ve got a bit of a challenge in winterizing things outside. One of the things that needs to be done is to replace the rotting skid under the cat house.
After dismantling our goat catcher earlier in the year, we left the frames together. The two 4′ x 8′ ones were prefect to use as guides for our potato beds. When I noticed how rotten the skid under the cat house was, I grabbed one of the frames to check.
It’s actually a better size than what’s already under there! Right now, only one side rests completely on the length of the skid, while the other rests on the skid at only 2 points. That’s the side that also had the little addition, where the entrance is. There is nothing supporting the weight of the entry at all, other than the floor beams.
The problem is, this thing is incredibly heavy. My brother had managed to move it onto his trailer all by himself, but he did that by putting straps around the skid. We need to take it off the skid, then put a new one underneath. The whole thing will be on bricks to keep the wood from contacting the ground, and I plan to add more under the entry to support it, as well.
We discussed taking the roof right off, since that’s where a lot of the weight it, but we are already hearing crackling of wood every time we raise it. It’s already got a lot of years on it, and we’d like to be able to use it for quite a few more! Once we have it on a new skid, set up a bit closer to the house for the extension cord to reach, it will hopefully never need to be moved again until it’s no longer usable. Another part of the problem is the lack of tools. We don’t even have a bar we could use to lever it – there was one, but it was among the things that disappeared while the place was empty.
We will have to make do with whatever we can find!
The Re-Farmer 