So. Many. More!!!!

September 30, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Wow. Just… wow!

I’m pretty sure I was saying that yesterday, too.

We’re going to run out of space.

Last night, my brother and SIL picked up and dropped off another load of haskaps in large pots. I’d already gone to bed after taking my evening meds, so I wasn’t able to see them until this morning.

I counted and got 30 pots. If you look at the second picture, you can see that some of them have invaders. Willow, in that photo. Poplar in others. Herbaceous weeds in others.

I wasn’t sure how many more, but my SIL wasn’t sure if they’d have to make two trips to get the rest. Which means about 30 more in one load and who knows how many in another.

I started marking and measuring more rows.

Each row is 6′ apart, and the stakes in the rows are 4′ apart for a dozen spots marked in each row.

I ran out of stakes and grabbed the ones from the trellis for the red noodle beans that never grew large enough to use it. I had a thinner, shorter stake that I used to hold the end of the measuring tape at a stake marking spots in the row I’d done yesterday. After lining up the first three stakes of new rows, at 6, 12 and 18 feet, I moved the end of the tape measure down each stake along the row I’m made yesterday, then lay one end of a 4 ft stake at the previous 18 ft marker to line up with the tape measure to find where the next 18′ marker would go, then placed the next 6, 12 and 18 ft markers. Lather, rinse, repeat.

When my older daughter came out to join me, I was running out of stakes again. She helped me steal 6′ stakes from the Orange Currant tomatoes, since those are a bush type and weren’t attached to the stakes like the other two varieties needs. Just the plastic coated metal ones, since the few bamboo ones in there would just break in this soil.

Then my younger daughter came out to join us and things went much faster. By that point, I had enough stakes to make one more row of 12. My younger daughter would move the stake holding the end of the measuring tape, my older daughter would use the 4 foot stake to find the 6 ft mark, and I’d push in the next stake.

At this point, even with the curve at the south end of the row, it was getting close to the largest crab apple trees. W

Well, I least we knew there wasn’t going another load!

By this time, we’d made enough rows and marked enough spaces that, counting the empty spaces from the rows already transplanted into, we could plant another 71 haskaps.

My daughters and I went went around to check out other things while I put the measuring tape back where it belongs in the garage, then they went inside while I headed back to the haskaps. I wanted to make water trenches around the 21 that were transplanted yesterday.

How close the ends of the rows were getting to the crab apple trees was bothering me, so I made a decision. The rows were a dozen spots long because I was lining up with the sliver buffalo berry, not because I was counting how many spots per row. I decided to shorten all the rows to 10 spots to transplant into, rather than 12. That meant the first three rows my brother had been tilling in the dark until we told him to stop weren’t going to need more tilling, other than a single spot that he didn’t get to before we told him to stop.

I used those to mark out another row. Since I had both 6′ and 4′ stakes available, I used those to work out where each stake would be placed in the new row. In the end, a total of 6 new rows of 10 stakes were marked out, plus there 9 spots remaining in the original three rows that were already transplanted into.

I then used a garden hoe around each transplant already in the ground, creating a trench, making sure the outside of it had a higher wall of soil. Once each had a trench, I dragged the hose around to the south end of the rows, since I now had 6 rows of stakes preventing access from the side, used the jet spray in the trench so the water could level out the soil as it filled, then switched to the shower setting to water the based of the plants themselves. They’re going to need a lot of watering to be able to develop new roots out of root-bound plants. They’re going to suffer for it, but there’s just no way we could deal with that before transplanting so many at once.

Meanwhile, I eventually got a message from my SIL. She said they’d packed 32 large pots, plus smaller plants she wasn’t sure of.

Which meant we marked out more rows than needed. Which is okay. I’d rather have extra than not enough! I had no idea what these smaller plants were, so I left it, in case it would still be needed.

I did move the pots already hear, setting them closer to the spots they would be planted in. It turned out I had double counted a pot, and there were 29 of them.

The first image above is of the marked out rows, with water bottles on some of the stakes to make them more visible. With there being “only” 29 pots, it was exactly enough to set them out at two marked rows, plus the 9 spaces left in the original three rows.

They ended up taking longer to come out as they had opportunity for other stuff to do before getting here. I had plenty of time to go inside and have a late lunch before going out again to feed the outside cats. I had come back in and was just settling down when the gate cam notification told me they had arrived, so I headed back out again.

When my SIL backed the truck up to the food forest area, she had a surprise for me. I’d messaged them about a new hose connector repair set, and my brother had picked up a pair of them for me and left them before they headed out this morning. I went to fix the hose and realized I neglected to tell my brother than I needed a 5/8 repair kit. He’d picked 1/2 inch sets. Oops! He did leave the receipt in the bag, though, so I can exchange them later.

They came back with hoses… and a drip irrigation set up!!!!

These are not regular garden hoses! On the stump are a couple of timers. There’s a couple of cannisters that we’re not quite sure what they are. The pink stakes, I was told, are to hold electric fence wire, but are just there as highly visible stakes. There are steel clamps and reflectors in there, too, plus a couple of pieces with rigid pipe on them. In the second photo is a hose with drip irrigation nozzles. A couple of pots had the short length of drip hoses and ground stakes to hold them, which each pot would have had at some point. The third photo has a better look at the timers and a cannister; the second one is still attached to a hose somewhere.

I’m going to have learn how to use a drip irrigation system. We would need to buy the drop hoses and nozzles and stakes before we can actually use the system.

I am truly blown away by all of this!! This is all stuff the family was ready to throw out!

Once we got the hoses out, it was time to unload the haskaps. My SIL climbed into the back of the truck and passed them to me, while I set them aside by the trays of spruces. By this time, my brother had brought their tiller over. He shifted each of the stakes, one row at a time, marking where they were with a spade, so he could till an entire row at one, pausing the tiller to let it go deeper, next to a stake. Then we went over the rows again, working to get each pre-measured spot deeper and looser.

He was still working on that when we finished unloading the truck. I set them out in rows of 10, and there turned out to be 27 big pots in total. My SIL told me later how they kept trying to count how many pots there were, and kept losing track! Sounds like me, trying to do a head count of yard cats in the morning. 😄

Then there were the trays.

They turned out to be more haskap in little 4″ pots, but they were so overgrown, they should have been in 8 or 10 inch pots!

The first image above shows the large pots, the second shows the trays.

After all these were unloaded, my SIL drove the truck back to where they keep it parked out here, then drove their car over to fill the back with the trays of spruce that will be passed on to a friend.

While she was doing that, I started digging holes in the original rows that were tilled. I managed to get three done – taking it very easy and letting the weight of the shovel do most of the work – before I stopped for the day. My alarm for my evening painkillers was going to go off soon, and we were starting to lose the light.

My brother managed to get all the rows tilled, including the “extra” row, making sure to get a fairly wide, deep area by each stake that he’d shifted aside.

That’s as far as things could go tonight. They needed to get back to the city, and won’t be able to come back for some time.

So, it looks like we’ve got a total of 77 haskap in the large pots. Twenty one are already transplanted, plus another 56 in large pots, and an unknown number in the trays. We’ll have enough to fill every pre-measured spot, fill in the empty spots among the silver buffalo berry and have more left over. The ones in the trays are in very rough shape, though, so we can afford to be picky over which ones get transplanted.

Over the next while, we will be digging holes.

Lots of holes.

We’ll have to take our time about it, since we’re all pretty broken, though the deep tilling my brother did will help a lot. Once the holes are dug, transplanting will go much faster.

It’s unlikely we’ll get any digging done tomorrow as my younger daughter has her medical appointment at the skeevy downtown clinic in the city, and my older daughter is coming along, too. That’s in the morning, but who knows how long it’ll take once we’re there. I’m glad we did the bigger stock up shop on the weekend. Normally, today would have been our Costco shop, but we can postpone that for a while as we focus on getting those haskaps transplanted!

Then we see how many survive. They have all been neglected for quite a long time, I’m told.

The area that these are being planted in is now so large, it will actually change my plans for building raised beds. I had intended to make two or three more pairs of trellis beds, plus a polytunnel. There is no longer room for that. We will probably just finish off the pair that’s in progress right now (much delayed), then the polytunnel. After that, we will start working in the other direction, in the space I’d been thinking to use for perennials and self seeded things that can be treated as perennials.

I am absolutely blown away by all this. So many haskaps, plus the drip irrigation equipment!

I’m really looking forward to finally having them. Our original three haskap bushes did not produce a single berry that I could find this year, and the two others I got are in their second year and barely grew at all this year. Much like the highbush cranberry don’t seem to be getting much bigger.

I have no idea how much my brother and SIL paid for all this. My SIL only said it wasn’t much – and she had offered to buy them when she found out they were going to be thrown out, then confirmed we had the space for them here. This is easily several thousand dollars worth of plants and irrigation supplies, had we tried to buy these new through the usual sources.

We – quite happily – have a lot of work ahead of us in the next while!

The Re-Farmer

Twenty one – for now!

September 29, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Wow.

Just… wow.

Yesterday, I’d prepped as much as I could in advance of my brother and SIL coming out with haskap bushes they managed to acquire. My SIL estimated about 30 pots. I marked out 36 spaces to plant them in.

My brother arrived first, having come out after he finished work, getting their tiller out of the barn. By the time he checked it, filled the gas tank and pushed it over to our food forest area, and we were talking about what I’d done, my SIL was driving their truck over to unload.

We were already loosing the light by then.

My brother started tilling the soil at each marked spot while I helped my SIL unload the truck. She had managed to bring 21 pots of haskaps, along with more than 10 trays of spruces. Spruces are not something we need – if we ever want to transplant any, we can get seedlings out of all sort of places, including the ditches. Those got laid out between the crab apple trees and will be taken back later, to be given to a friend.

My sister now estimates there are about 45 pots of haskaps in total. She had brought barely half of them.

My brother had intended to till each spot, then start digging holes to plant all the haskaps, before the left. It was full dark, and my SIL had moved the truck around so he could work under headlights. We stopped him after he’d done about 30 of spots. As we started transplanting from the north end, he realized there was no way they’d all be done that night. Between the three of us – and several flashlights – we got 6 into the ground. Then they had to leave.

My SIL took the truck, leaving the car she came here with, so she could pick up the rest of the haskaps today. We messaged each other this morning. Since my brother is off tomorrow (I keep forgetting that the last day of September is a statutory holiday), they will both come out tonight to unload, stay the night, then plant them tomorrow.

We talked about where to plant the extra haskaps. It’s a bit difficult to figure that out, since we don’t know exactly how many are left. She hopes to give me a count as soon as she is able. We settled on adding a fourth row, which would be another dozen spaces marked. That would bring the total to 48. If there turns out to be more, there are empty spots among the silver buffalo berry, where bushes had not survived, they could go in.

My younger daughter headed over after she did the outside cat feeding. She was determined to finish transplanting the remaining pots this morning, before things started to get too warm for her to work. Our expected high was 20C/68F. Which we have reached now, in the mid afternoon, with the humidex putting us at 23C/73F. That area gets full sun and bakes, and my daughter has a little tolerance for heat.

I made sure to have breakfast before I headed out to help her. While she was digging and transplanting, I measured and marked off another row. Then I wanted to help her, but she banned me from digging holes. Instead, I got the thatching rake (or landscaping rake, or whatever that type of rake is called now) and used it to level out the “excess” soil around each transplant, while also removing some of the bigger rocks that would be in the way of any mowing or weed trimming.

Towards the end of it, my daughter switched to just digging the holes, then setting a haskap into it, before moving on to the next hole to dig. I had caught up enough that I could bury the root balls and pack things down, then continue raking the soil into place.

We got them all done just in time. I don’t know what temperature we were at by then, but my daughter was already having a hard time with it.

We had some light rain last night, and it was still raining when she first started on the transplanting, which is great for the transplants, but I made sure to give them all a watering. I brought another hose from the front tap, so we could reach to water each transplant directly. Plus, with the soil damp and rather sticky, I needed to stop to wash the muck stuck on the rake, and even my shoes, before I could continue. While watering, I mostly wanted to use water pressure to settle the soil between the root balls and the walls of the holes that were done, and wash away any loose soil that fell onto the base of the stems. These have been in their pots for too long, and were quite root bound. With so many of them, we made no effort to address that, so anything that encourages them to start extending roots into the surrounding soil is a good thing.

Later on, I will go back and make narrow trenches around them, or build up soil walls, depending on how rough the ground it, so encourage the water to stay and get absorbed near the root balls, rather than draining away into the paths. Then, they will be mulched with wood chips.

This is the final result.

The first image has the 21 freshly watered haskap bushes. In the background, you can see the trays of spruces. Now that I look at it more closely, I think there’s a dozen trays of seedlings. On the right of the photo, you can see the new row marked out.

You can also see just how huge these are!!!

In the second image of the slide show above, you can see a photo my daughter took when she was still just starting with digging the holes. We expect to find rocks and roots, but under this one, she seems to have hit a boulder. She could not get it out, at all. She did, however, find an “edge” around it. In the end, she went ahead and planted on top of it. The haskap should still be able to spread its roots to the sides and around the boulder.

Given that these have been getting neglected for some time, the owner of the greenhouse having become ill before passing away, we fully expect that some of these will not survive the winter. The next while is expected to be mild enough that they should start developing new roots, and they should be able to survive their first frosts. With so many of them, we should still get enough surviving to get decent harvests. My daughter even noticed a few of them already had berries!

This is such a HUGE boost to our food forest area. We had meant to get more haskaps, but this is enough that they could potentially bring in a market income in a year or two, even if half of them don’t make it. There is no way we could have afforded to buy this many through regular channels.

What we don’t know is what variety they are, or even if they are all the same variety. There could be several varieties in there. Nothing was labeled. Given this came from someone’s greenhouse dreams, I would expect there to be cross pollinating varieties in there. Expectations, however, don’t mean much!

It’s getting later now and I don’t know what time my brother and SIL are expected to arrive tonight. It may be while we are losing light again. Sunset, this time of year, it shortly after 7pm, so that wouldn’t be particularly late, either.

Tomorrow should be interesting!

The Re-Farmer

A huge jump ahead on the way!

September 28, 2026September 28, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I got a surprise this morning!

My SIL started sending messages, telling me they had an opportunity to get a whole bunch of haskaps, if there was somewhere to plant them.

Somewhere around 30 of them.

!!!!!

I told her we’d been preparing areas in the food forest for the past several years that had the full sun and space needed.

Long story short…

She would come over to get their pick up truck, so she could pick them up and bring them over. My brother would then come out after work to plant them.

While she was on the way out, I went to the future food forest area and started preparing it. The three rows where we once grew bush beans, with fresh garden soil added, were still there, slightly elevated from the new soil. What had been an annoyance while mowing now made it easy to find and clear them with the weed trimmer.

The old rows were marked out at 6 feet apart, while the rows themselves were about 2 feet wide and 18 feet long, leaving a 4 foot path between them.

With planting space needing to be 4 feet apart, I knew the three rows would not be enough. I weed trimmed the length of them, then extended them in a curve to match the curve of the silver buffalo berry. The plan was to leave a lane in between large enough to drive through with a truck, and the curve making it easier to change direction.

Once the weed trimming was done, I measured and marked out three rows at 20 feet, each with six poles that were 4 feet apart. I was just finishing up when my SIL arrived, so I went over to ask if she had time to see.

She was surprised. It turns out they intended to do it all themselves, expecting nothing from us to do in advance. I was feeling really good today, so I was happy to do it.

Once we got out there and I explained what I was doing, and why I was marking the way I did, I realized the curves I’d trimmed were completely off and did not match the curve of the silver buffalo berry as well as I’d though, while actually doing the trimming.

While showing there the different zones for planting I had in mind, she was quite surprised by how much we had planned out already. I told her that, with these new trees, they’re basically shaving probably 5 years off our plans!

While we were talking, my SIL noticed the gorgeously red crab apples, and we went over to check them out. The small red ones still have apples higher up and she was able to reach some. She also grabbed one from the tree with larger apples. We both enjoyed a snack of them and agreed that the smaller ones, with their sweet tart flavour, were more delicious than the larger, milder ones, though both are quite good.

As we walked back to their truck, she told me that she would drive right up to where I’d marked the rows, if I were okay with her driving through the yard. She was concerned the truck might damage the yard. We have a septic truck drive though there with no issues, so I assured her it was fine – and was exactly the sort of thing I was leaving a drivable lane open!

While she was getting the truck ready, I started heading back to continue marking rows but realized there was a bit of a problem. The huge maple by the old garden shed overhangs the entire space between the maple grove and the spruce grove, and one branch in particular was hanging low enough to be in the way while mowing the lawn. The truck would be hitting that branch.

So I headed to the garage and got the long handled pruning saw set up. The pole is designed to telescope but the wingnut that would have allowed the length to be adjusted was plastic and broken. I’d tightened it with a wrench. Ironically, that part of it held. The nut that was secured to the bottom length didn’t, coming loose while I was using it. I hadn’t put it back yet, not having needed the extra length until now. So, today, I finally worked on it and got the two lengths together again, making extra sure they were secure. Then I headed over and cut away the lowest hanging branch.

It was quite large, but I was able to drag it off to the branch pile outside the gate near the fire pit, where I left it on the ground. It was too big for me to maneuver onto the pile without over doing it. I messaged the girls and arranged for someone to come out and break it down enough to toss onto the pile, then went back to the tree.

Walking back, something dramatic caught my eye.

The dead maple near the fire pit had a pale frill around its base.

The maples get mushrooms growing on them regularly, but I’ve never seen a ring of them completely surrounding a trunk at the base like this!

Once back at the trimmed maple, I could see two other branches were hanging low enough that they would scrape the truck, so I took them down, too. Those branches were already dead and a bit smaller, so I was able to drag those over the branch pile inside the yard, for fire pit fuel. That left quite a few small broken off branches to clean up in the grass before I could continue. There was one more low hanging branch that should probably be trimmed, too, but even at its full extension, I couldn’t reach where the branch would need to be but to bring it down. There was room to drive around it, though, so it can stay for now.

Another thing I’d done was hook the garden hose back up. We have three hoses to be able to reach all of the main garden area, plus there is a fourth one added on when watering the food forest trees and bushes. While working on clearing the eavestroughs with the hose attachment, I needed only one hose length. I’d already hooked that back up again to the second length but, as I was cleaning up the broken branches, I realized I was hearing a hissing noise.

The female coupling on the second hose was leaking, under where it rotates to attach to the male coupling. I fiddled with it a bit and it got worse. I had to shut the tap off. Since we need the hose working to water the transplants, I messaged my brother and SIL, asking if they could pick up a Quick Connect repair kit, and was even able to send them a photo one I had an another hose, so they knew exactly what I was asking for. Hopefully, one of them will have a chance to swing past a hardware store along the way and get one, and I’ll etransfer them to pay them back for it. Otherwise, I’ll have to steal a hose from the front tap until I can pick one up myself.

Then it was back to marking planting spaced in a curve that match the sliver buffalo berry.

By the time I was done, lining the three rows up, I had marked 36 potential spots to plant in.

I was going to go back with the weed trimmer to clean up the corrected curves, but my alarm went off to take my afternoon pain meds, just as I was finishing the last couple of markers. I hadn’t had lunch yet, either, so I went in for both.

I still haven’t heard from cancer care, so I called my specialist’s clinic to see what I could find out. I’d called and left a message last week, but no one had called back.

The guy that answered the phone was able to look up my file and saw that cancer care had acknowledged they received my referral…

On the 24th.

I’d been expecting to get a call from them on the 17th or 18th.

Which means that, at this point, my file is most likely being assessed by the doctor(s) that will be taking my case, working out what needs to be done and finding a date for me to come in for the surgery. This is for a biopsy and to test my lymph nodes and determine what stage I’m at. Given my circumstances, it should happen quickly. Just not as quickly as my specialist expected. He then told me he would phone them right away to see what he could find out, as far as a time line.

With the longer wait, I brought up that the specialist, who was out of office today, had given me a 2 week prescription of Tramacet based on her expecting me to be in surgery around the time it ran out. I’ve got about 4 days of it left (only because I’ve taken T3s instead, while not at home). He told me that, once he had a chance to talk to cancer care, he’d be able to give the doctor enough information to know if I should get a 1 or 2 week extension on the prescription.

That done, it was past 2pm and the post office was open, so I headed out to pick up the mail and a parcel, then came back and made myself a late lunch.

Unfortunately, I seemed to have pushed myself a bit too far, as the abdominal pain started to come back, even with the painkiller. By the time my food was ready, it was still getting worse. I was going to lie down after having my lunch, but decided I was feeling well enough to write this post, instead.

As I was writing the above, I got a message from my SIL. She had messaged me earlier to tell me she had overestimated how many she could fit into the truck. She sent me some photos. She had already told me that these were from a friend who had a greenhouse and dreams of selling trees, only to become ill and recently passed away; they went to his funeral this past weekend. His family are dealing with a lot right now, of course, and she found out they were planning to throw them away. That’s why she was wanting to contact me about whether there was a place for them this morning. So these are all potted saplings. She sent me some photos of them, and the partially loaded truck. They are HUGE!! She did tell me they were starting to be neglected, so it’s possible they won’t all survive, but even if they don’t all make it, we’ll still end up with quite a lot.

She is still working out how to get them all into the truck, and it has started to rain where she is. My brother will be coming out here ahead of her and start preparing the ground for transplanting. They have a working tiller stored out there, and I now have what should be more than enough spots marked out for him to prepare. If things work out, it’s going to be quite late by the time it’s all done, but this is not something that can be set aside for later. They have “now” to do it, so it needs to be done.

Hopefully, the preparations I made will help it go faster. If nothing else, my brother won’t need to do any measuring.

With the mild fall we are having now, they should have enough time to develop a root system before the ground freezes, and they’ll survive the winter.

So that is where we are at now. Hopefully, tomorrow, I’ll be able to get some photos of a whole bunch of transplanted haskaps to share!

For now, though, I think I’ll go ahead and lie down for a bit, so that I am more likely to be feeling up to joining them outside when they get here – or at least when my brother gets here after work. For my SIL, it’ll be about a 2 hour drive from where she’s picking up the haskaps!

I love my brother and SIL. They are amazing.

This will be a HUGE boost to our food forest plans.

The Re-Farmer

A good day – mostly

September 19, 2026September 19, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I’m happy to say that I woke feeling very well today. It was also a lovely, warm day, which meant getting things done outside. That included moving the cat stuff out from under the canopy tent to dry in the sun.

I got this picture before they got put back under the canopy tent for the night. The self warming mats were dry, and I ended up putting them into the catio for now, and the smallest cat bed was dry enough to go back into the shelf shelter it had been in before. The rest will eventually go back into the sun room, after that finally gets cleared out and cleaned.

In the back, you can see the summer window for the basement. It got a very thorough hose down, after the winter window was put back in. I’m glad I put hardware cloth as well as window screen on that. The screen has all sorts of little holes and tears in it. Without the hardware cloth, we would have had cats and probably racoons and skunks getting into the basement!

One of the top priorities on the list for today was to finally get a dump run done. My younger daughter helped, though there was nothing so heavy that I needed to be concerned about lifting it. The one thing I noticed during the drive, however, was that frustrating oil pressure gauge reading. As the engine warmed, the pressure reading dropped even faster than the last few days, just barely within the “normal” range, even at highway speeds. It wasn’t that long ago that the gauge didn’t start reading that way until we’d reached the city, and it would drop when I was stopped in traffic for one reason or another. When stopped, the needle dropped below the normal range. Not enough to set any alarms, but not where it should be.

*sigh*

I think we’ll be sure to not drive anywhere until we get it to the garage on Monday!

After the much needed dump run was done, I stayed outside while my daughter headed in. I’d pruned the dead branches from the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden last night, and today I added to the branch pile. The white Cherokee Rose bush in front of the sun room it remarkably tall and tied back, but when I had tried to get to the laundry platform, I was having to duck under violently thorn covered branches drooping over the path. We can now get to and from the laundry platform without risking serious injury! 😄

My daughter came out soon after with heavy leather gloves and cleaned up the pile or rose branches, straight to the fire pit rather than the branch pile. I got things moved out of the way in preparation to mow the lawn with the riding mower while she did that. My brother and SIL had gone out with their truck and trailer early in the morning, and they got back while I was doing that. I went to say high and mentioned I was planning to mow the lawn in the inner yard. My SIL was concerned, and she had been planning to do the lawn mowing herself, but I told her I can use the riding mower. I just can’t use the push mower. She still looked worried and told me she would do whatever areas I wasn’t able to get it.

Then I had to fight off my daughter from using the riding mower. 😂

So she switched gears and started working on the old kitchen garden, doing a job I can’t do right now. She started bringing wheelbarrow loads of wood chips to the old kitchen garden.

She got the one path done before her back started giving out. This is quite a thick layer of wood chips over the closely trimmed path. Hopefully, that will keep the weeds and grass from growing back for at least a couple of years! There are a couple more paths to cover, but that will be slowly worked on while the weather is good.

It was just reaching 1pm when I got the riding mower out and got started. In the half hour or so before my alarm went off to take my afternoon meds, I was able to get the southeast and southwest lawns done. The grass was still pretty wet, but it couldn’t really wait any longer. Then I parked the riding mower beside the pile of elm tree pieces that is still by the house, then went in for my scheduled painkillers and a late lunch.

At this point, I should not that the riding mower was working fine the whole time, and there were no bumps or ruts or other such things that might get run into.

Which means I had no warning for when I got back.

I started the mower, put it in gear, released the brake and…

Nothing.

It wouldn’t move.

I spent the next while trying different things, turning the mower off and on several times. Everything seemed to be working just fine until I tried to move.

Nothing.

Now, we had that happen with the riding mower my brother and SIL bought for us soon after we moved here. A chain kept falling off. This mower doesn’t have a chain.

I went to my brother’s caravan and my SIL was there. I told her what happened and she let me know my brother was working on his tractor – something he’s been trying to get to for the past three weeks!

On my way over there, I walked past his dump truck and, for a moment, I though he might have been working on that. The last weekend they were here, he’d been able to set concrete blocks under the tires, so they wouldn’t sink into the ground, with wooden blocks in front of the tires to keep them from rolling forward into the driving lane. The truck had been rolled backwards, completely off the blocks and onto the grass. As we walked past it later, he asked if we had moved it. !!! Of course, we hadn’t.

It had been rolled off the blocks by the wind!!!

I found my brother under his tractor and told him what happened with the mower. He went over to take a look as best he could. I shifted from reverse to forward to neutral while he tried to see what was wrong. He could see nothing.

In the end, he pushed the mower back to the garage, so he could go back to working on the tractor. He was going to have to put the mower on a lift so he could see better, but that will have to wait.

Since I could no longer mow the lawn, I worked on other things. I cleaned out in front of the basement window, put on the winter window and hosed down the summer window before setting it aside to dry. Then I cleared out along the side of the entry, next to where the basement window is. There were a few things being stored there, and others that just ended up there. I needed to empt the area because those *(^&$#%&$(#& elm tree seeds were sprouting. Plus, a larger elm sapling I’d cut away during our first spring and summer out here has been growing suckers. So everything got moved out and either set aside nearby or it went into the junk pile. Several things needed to be hosed down first. There was a whole lot of leaves, elm tree seeds and dirt to clear out and I had to start out with the landscape rake, then the fan rake and, finally, a broom to get most of it out. It needs to be hosed down, but the row of bricks closest to the house are all leaning towards the house and would drain against the root cellar wall that’s there. The area there is lined mostly with the glazed brick that we have around the house, which gets incredibly slippery.

My daughter had gone inside by then, so I was able to grab the wheelbarrow to haul the debris away. As I was putting it back my SIL rode their zero turn mower into the yard and stopped to talk for a while. She had been doing the outer yard and wanted to know how much I’d done on the inner yard before the little riding mower stopped moving. I told her what had been done, then we just talked. I told her about where I was working on, and the enameled bricks. We wondered where on earth my dad had managed to get so many! They are everywhere! I told her about how dangerous they are when wet, and that I wanted to pull them all out from around the house and lay down gravel, instead. Much safer! She agreed with that. The bricks are really nice and I told her I could see being able to use them – just not as a floor!

She had seen the water bottle collars I used when starting the summer squash stored on some T posts along the retaining wall and asked about them, and we talked garden stuff for a while before we both went back to work. I just had some things to put away, as I’d done as much as I could for the corner. Then I gathered the cat stuff and took care of those before heading inside.

Before I did, though, I made one last pass around the south yard to check the things growing on the chain link fence. Which is where I spotted this…

Four bees found the one late blooming sunflower (Mammoth variety) to gather pollen from! Some of the Mammoth sunflowers are looking to be more than 7 ft tall right now, and several have small seed heads that haven’t opened yet. Hopefully, that means more pollen for the bees. There isn’t much else blooming right now!

All in all, I’m rather happy with how much I was able to get done outside, though unhappy that my brother’s lawn tractor stopped moving. He has so many other things to deal with!

The main thing for me is that I’m still feeling good. I didn’t push myself too far and am not feeling any abdominal pain. Hopefully, it will stay that way!!

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day… not really in a good way

September 7, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Things were all right in the morning. After taking my morning painkillers, I went out to join my daughter during the cat feeding.

We did not get any kittens. They are still very skittish, and the older cats kept pushing their way in for the cat soup, even though they got some in the other food bowls. I tried distracting Sweetie with the cat toy but she was too hungry to be distracted, and insists on eating at the shrine feeding station, where the kittens come through the chain link fence. As today was supposed to be another day or rain and potential storms, we put the carrier and bait bowl back into the catio, with the regular food bowl set to keep the door from closing by accident, and let the kittens be for now.

I had brought my walker out so, after my daughter went inside, I went around the yard and checked on the garden beds. I found both winter and summer squash that I could hand pollinate. We should have some yellow zucchini large enough to harvest soon, and some of the green scallop squash. We might get more of the Early Prolific Straightneck squash, but there are still no yellow pattypans or lemon squash. Interestingly, I think one of the squash that were thinned by transplanting might be a lemon squash. The tiniest of round, yellow female flower buds are showing up and I don’t think they are pattypans.

In the main garden area, I just had to get a picture of a monster.

The first image above is of a carrot from the Rainbow Mix that has gone to seed. It is remarkably huge and sturdy! Normally, carrots don’t go into seed until their second year, but I don’t mind having one that I can save seed from.

The second image of the slide show above shows what’s left of the Daikon radish. The flea beetles not only denuded the stems of leaves, but they even ate a lot of the pods, too! There are still pods left, but nowhere near as many as before. Enough to collect seeds from, though, if they were not too badly damaged.

Once back inside, I was feeling well enough to have breakfast before trying to lie down for a bit. When I got up again, I was able to make a lunch using some leftover brisket, with potatoes and bush beans from the garden, to make a stew.

While I was cooking, I heard some noises outside the kitchen window. My brother was leveling the ground where the tree and patio blocks had been. He had to dig up some remarkable thick roots that were buried under where some patio blocks where. He also had to remove some of the soil along the edge of where the blocks would be so that it was lower than the blocks, instead of higher. He levels a block in the corner between the house and the concrete steps so it wasn’t draining towards the house as well, and the blocks along the outside edge were sloped slightly to drain away from the house. He ended up filling our wheelbarrow completely with dirt and detritus he’d removed. Probably the heaviest load it’s ever had. Which would have been fine, except the tire turned out to be flat! I had come out to talk to him and, as he pushed the wheelbarrow from the grass onto the sidewalk, I was able to see the flat. All he could tell is that it wasn’t rolling right. He’s checked the tire before and couldn’t see a valve, so he thought it was a solid rubber tire. He did find the valve, but it had been partially pushed in from lack of air. He assured me he’s take care of it and told me to go back inside. Later on, I saw that he had also loaded all the old hot water tanks and pumps into his little trailer. They’ll be taken to the scrap yard another time.

By the time I finished cooking, the painkillers had definitely worn off. After lunch, I took them when the 6 hour alarm went off and tried to stay up longer, but eventually had to lie down again. Frustrating when it becomes difficult just sitting upright in a chair. *sigh*

I did manage to get a basement check in. I had to turn on a couple of the fans. One, aimed at the well pump and pressure tank because there was so much condensation dripping, it was creating a puddle. The other more in the new basement, more for air circulation and humidity levels. The recent rain, which is still sort of happening now, hasn’t been enough to cause problems in the basements.

I was also able to head outside and do the evening cat feeding. Some of the skunks are getting quite brazen! As I was setting up some bowls with cat milk in the kibble, specifically for the kittens (with extra to draw the adult cats away), I heard a commotion. I’d put some kibble at the back of the shrine base. A skunk was there, but one of the little tabbies was wanting that food (even though there was more) and hissing and spitting at the skunk. Which was about 5x its size!!! I scooted the skunk away, going down a path behind a willow where there’s an opening under the chain link fence they can fit through. I knew it would be coming back, so I tossed some kibble into the grass of the path, so it would have no reason to go closer and scare the kittens.

I also move the shrine feeding station bowls next to the catio, on either side of the door, with the bait bowl inside the carrier again. The bigger cats will eat the closest food, which should leave the bait bowl inside the carrier for the kittens, when they go looking for food later.

If the skunks don’t eat it first.

*sigh*

Then it was back inside, and not doing much. The painkiller either didn’t kick in, or the pain was worse and the painkiller has managed to just take the edge off. At least I can tell myself that, with how wet it is outside, I wouldn’t be getting much done out there, anyhow. It’s supposed to continue raining, off and on, until about 2am. It does look like some onions are ready to harvest, though. Something I should be able to do tomorrow, if all goes well.

Tomorrow afternoon – if we’re not delivering kittens to the rescue – my daughter and I will work on breaking down that fallen tree. I can handle a chain saw, and my daughter will be able to clear away the branches and smaller logs. Normally, the two of us together will drag the bigger logs out, but we’re both pretty broken, so I just want to cut things to size. I’m hoping to be able to get an 18′ length for the next garden bed out of this tree. The base of its trunk looks like it will match the size of the one that’s currently in place for the garden bed fairly well.

That’s pretty much it for the day.

I am looking forward to seeing the doctor, a little over a week from now, and getting those test results. If things go as expected, she’ll get me in for a hysterectomy fairly soon. If not, then I’ll be referred to specialists in the city. Who knows how long that will take.

I feel like I’ve lost most of the year over this.

The Re-Farmer

Morning kittens and a birthday visit

September 6, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This morning, I headed out with my daughter while she did the morning feeding. We were hoping to catch some more kittens for the rescue.

The kittens are definitely more comfortable around my daughter, and were willing to come over for cat soup while she was right there, and she was able to pet them. When she tried picking them up to put in the waiting carrier, though, that was too much. These kittens are a lot more skittish than the ones we took in yesterday.

Sweetie, of course, didn’t help much!

After a while, my daughter and I talked about it and decided it would be better to wait. We made sure to leave the big cat carrier out, door open, so they could go in and out as they pleased and not find it scary. The white and grey singleton also came out, but it’s even more nervous that the littles.

We will try again tomorrow – if the weather holds. We’re supposed to get heavy rain in our area overnight and all day tomorrow. It’s supposed to be worse to the south of us, and the city is getting flash flood warnings, so we shall see.

Once inside and having breakfast, I remembered to tell my brother about the chainsaw mill. He would have seen it by now, but I wanted him to know that he was welcome to use it at any time, since it’ll be a while before I am able to. While we were chatting, I mentioned my plans to go into town to buy a birthday card and visit out mother, since I wasn’t able to do it yesterday.

He was planning to visit our mother today, too, so he offered to drive me in his car, which was very sweet of him. I had enough time to head outside again to move some hoses, as my SIL said she wanted to mow the inner yard for me, then I picked some Orange Currant tomatoes and even a few Blueberry tomatoes for my mother. I figured she make snarky comments about them being so small, but thought she would still enjoy them.

We dove out in their recently acquired electric car, and there’s a charging station almost across the street from the nursing home, so we went there to top the charge up, then walked over to the dollar store, half a block away. I found a card but decided against looking for the other stuff I had been thinking of on this trip. My brother had already brought a card last weekend, but found an actual 95th Birthday card and got it for her, too. Then we walked over to his car to fill the cards out inside.

We had brought my walker along and, by then, I felt that I was going to need it, so he got it out for me and we headed in. It was coming up on lunch time, but my mother was asleep in bed when we got there. Once she was awake enough to realize we were there for a visit, she got up and moved to her corner chair.

The visit was… draining.

My mother almost immediately went at my brother, going on about how she wanted a “good” radio – she simply will not accept that the station she wants to listen to cannot be picked up in her room, and insists the problem is the “junk” radio. My brother had not intended to tell her yet, but he ended up explaining that he did get her an internet radio, like she asked for, and had spent the last week setting it up. She can’t understand any of it, but when she gets it, she’ll only need to push a button to get a Polish radio station. It was not easy, since the one station she wants doesn’t broadcast online like most others. It took him 4 days to figure out how to get their website stream connected to the radio. It was just that one station that was an issue, but none of it was easy. The next step is to activate the new internet that was installed in her room. He tried to explain all this, but she kept interrupting him and complaining.

The rest of the visit did not get any better.

She mostly dismissed the cards we got her. She mocked the tiny tomatoes, then was wondering where her garlic was. She had asked for a bulb of garlic, which my sister had brought, but apparently it wasn’t good garlic (small?). Then she asked me if I had garlic in the garden. I told her no, it’s harvested. She glared at me, asking why. I told her, it’s September. It’s all harvested. She then went to talking about how my sister and her husband eat garlic every day, and that’s why they are so healthy, so she wants garlic.

My sister and her husband are not that healthy.

Then she went on about how she’s gained weight (she hasn’t; she has water retention and bloating) because they feed her too much and keep “pushing” snacks, and “they” put chemicals in food and that’s why she’s gaining weight and why people are getting cancer. She’s cutting our beef and pork, convinced it’s the cause of her “stomach problems”. Then she started talking about something she saw on the news (she doesn’t have a TV, so I’m guessing in one of the common rooms?), except she was clearly combing two completely different things into one, but that’s why everyone is dying of cancer. ??? Then she started on how, after she’s gone, she wants my brother, sister and I to all get along and not fight and push each other away – clearly she had imagined some sort of scenario and believes it happening or will happen, or… I don’t know, but she was making a big deal of it. Not the first time, though the first time she assumed we were behaving a particular way. Then my brother mentioned she’s used our sister for something (he didn’t even try to cover how badly she had stabbed him in the back and broke his heart in the process) and I mentioned she has specifically told our sister to keep it a secret from us, pointing out that she is the only one doing things like that.

It went over her head.

On and on it went, until someone came in with her lunch. We helped her set up with her table and tray to eat, then my brother said he and I would be going out for lunch now, leaving her to eat.

I think we were there for maybe half an hour.

My brother is a saint. I would have left much earlier. Mind you, by then the pain killers were wearing off and I had very little patience in me.

We did not go out for lunch. Neither of us had the energy for it.

Once at home, I had to pretty much lie down right away and my brother, being my brother, had many projects to work on. Later, he said that with all the manual labour he did over the next few hours, none left him as tired as that half hour or so with my mother! I’m glad we were able to go in together. If it had been just him, she would have been much worse. *sigh*

I eventually made it outside again, too, and get into the garden, but that will be in my next post.

See you there…

The Re-Farmer

Done, done and not yet done

August 15, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Here it is…

My hot water tank and pump collection.

Plus the original driver’s side door from our previous vehicle.

My brother and his friend got it all out, late this morning. As expected, the modern tanks were relatively easy, and could just be carried up the stairs.

The old, original tank’s inner chamber, however, was another story. My brother saw those loops at the top and had the same thought I did. They hooked up a ratchet strap made as short as possible to create a handle. My brother’s friend recenty hurt his back, so he took the top with the strap while my brother lifted from the bottom, and they got it out once step at a time.

That thing is HEAVY!

Then they got the old Uplander door out, which was more awkward than the modern tanks in some ways. My brother saw the two old pumps I’d moved over as well and wanted to take them up, so I told him about the others that were hidden by some old light fixtures I’d had to move to make room for the tanks.

The red pump is the newest one that just got replaced. The olive green one beside it, my brother tells me, is the original pump from when we got running water in the house back in the mid 70’s. That one ways about twice as much as the red one!

There were two other pumps we’d found while cleaning out the basement. I’d put all of them in the same general area, and the last two were on the bottom of a shelf. I had to move something so he could see them, and he’s pretty sure they still work, so he left them. He remembered there had been pumps under the work table, but I told him I’d moved them out from there and he’d already taken them outside.

I’d also rolled over the dehumidifier, as the last time I tried turning it on, it started making some rather unfortunate noises. My brother thinks what I described is something minor, so he left that, too.

Now that the tanks are no longer blocking the bottom of the stairs, I will bring up the old divider from between the basements so I can use it for curing things under the canopy tent.

Like the garlic.

It started raining yesterday and was supposed to stop raining by about 7am. It was still raining well past 1 pm. Which is wonderful for the garden, but not the strung up garlic. Since I wasn’t able to hang two long strings of garlic across the middle of the canopy tent, but only smaller lengths around the edges, they did get rained on, if only on one side. I trimmed off most of the stems, and the weight of the bulbs flipped them all so that they are now hanging root side down. The trimmed stems will make it easier to set them into the wire mesh of the old divider, and they will be completely under the canopy.

Not long after the tanks were taken out, I prepped the truck for a dump run. When I messaged them to let them know I was planning to do a dump run, followed by a Walmart run (which is why they took the tanks out when they did), my SIL asked if I could grab some of the bags by the old burn barrel. I’m glad she reminded me of those. We didn’t have a lot for the dump today, so we had room, but I keep forgetting they exist.

I also remembered to finally grab the garbage bag the can in the garage. I knew I needed to bring a new bag for the can, plus I knew some of the bags by the old burn barrel were torn, so I grabbed a bag of large, clear garbage bags that had been set aside. I’m glad I did. After backing the truck up to these old bags, I discovered they had been exposed to the elements for so long, the bags disintegrated as soon as I tried to pick one up. Not just the ones that I had noticed were already torn, but the ones that looked just fine until I tried to move them. It didn’t help that they were all filled with paper and cardboard meant for the burn barrel – which had been rained on all night. All that water made them quite heavy. I managed to get a decent number of them into fresh bags until I ran out, filling about 3/4 of the truck box.

That done, I backed up to the house, where my daughter started passing me the household garbage and recycling from the old kitchen. The poor thing. Even from the truck, I could hear she was dealing with a lot of back pain!

Since we were planning to go to the Walmart after the dump, I took the time to change out of my grubbies and my daughter and I were soon headed out.

I had considered I would need to be careful not to get my clothes dirty from the bags, but I forgot about the clay. I should have worn my rubber boots! I didn’t think of it, since we were supposed to go shopping next.

By the time we got rid of the garbage and recycling (I made sure my daughter didn’t lift any of the water logged bags, with her back giving out like it was), it seemed the rain was finally stopping. By the time we got back on the highway, though, it was raining much harder. At that point I decided we would just go home. There was nothing we needed to get that couldn’t wait another day, and I didn’t want to be driving the highway in those conditions if I didn’t have to.

So we headed home.

The good thing about the grass being so wet is that I was able to clean my shoes while walking from the garage to the house, just by dragging my feet! 😄 The grass was recently cut, though, so my daughter ended up having to use the hose on her boots.

Not long before I started this post, I headed out to do the evening cat feeding and my evening rounds. I’d done a bit of research first and made a point of checking the green cabbage to see if they were ready to harvest.

They are.

It’s too wet to do it now, though, so I will do it in the morning. The largest heads look like they are beginning to open up, which means they are starting to bolt; something we want to avoid.

So we should have a dozen heads of cabbage harvested tomorrow. Possibly thirteen; one of the pots had two transplants in it, and I wasn’t able to separate them without damaging the roots, so I left the extra.

The potato plants are almost completely died back now. Those will be harvested once the ground is dry again, then set under the canopy tent to cure.

I’m happy that, with the help of my brother and his friend, we at least got two major things accomplished. First, the tanks, pumps and old van door are now out of the basement. My brother wanted to leave them near the house until he could drive his trailer in and load them, rather than move them to the junk pile. They are not in the way near the house where they are, so that will be fine.

The other major thing was that we made it to the dump, and the truck didn’t break down.

Things to be grateful for!

The Re-Farmer

Breakfast buddy, a great idea, and little garlic

August 9, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today turned out to be a relatively productive day.

More than I expected it to be, considering I woke up in pain.

Which was odd considering I was up for a while between 2 and 3am, and had no pain, but when I woke again at about 6am, there it was.

I went out to feed the outside cats to see if moving around would improve things. I tried doing a head count this morning and saw “only” 14 cats.

I didn’t count the skunks.

This little guy was waiting with the cats in the sun room when I came out. It seems to prefer this particular tray just outside the sun room, and was eating kibble where when I came out with the cat soup. It did not want to stop eating when I came close! Hungry baby. It did finally move but came back as soon as I moved on to the next tray. I find it amusing that Sweetie – who still behaves as if terrified all the time – is buddies with the skunk!

After feeding the cats, I hoped to water the garden but, after walking around and checking the beds, I was just in too much pain – and I had taken pain killers before I headed out. So I went in to have breakfast and hoped the painkillers would finally kick in.

They didn’t.

In the end, after waiting long enough, I took some more and tried lying down. That finally did it.

One of the things on my to-do list today was a trip into town. My younger daughter had her own list, so she came along. While heading to the truck and getting things ready, I had a surprise. The shed my brother had bought was up! I never heard a thing!

What really caught my attention was this…

I had been wondering what could be done to create a base for the shed. After leveling the area, my brother salvaged an old steel door – for some reason, there are quite a lot of them scattered about! – to set under the shed. It is the perfect width.

I later found out that the shed is surprisingly light, so he wants to find a way to secure it to the steel door, so it doesn’t blow away in the wind.

I had a bag and a half of non-aluminum cans in that spot, and the cats were already starting to get into one of them. They are now in the shed. No more coming out to find cans scattered all over the place!

My daughter and I headed out soon after. I haven’t seen the renter’s cows for a while and I think they’ve been rotated out. We decided to leave the gate open and I made sure to send a message to let my brother and SIL know, so they knew it was us and left intentionally.

We had lunch first. While we were eating, I started getting a lot of notifications on my phone. It was the security camera at the gate. My SIL took advantage of the gate being open while she was mowing around the driveway. We had actually talked about that earlier and she wasn’t planning to mow, as we haven’t had rain lately and the grass wasn’t very long. The path to the barn that my brother uses a lot, however, was a fair bit taller, so she mowed that for them and just kept on going!

After lunch, we went to a nearby store to look for one of the things my daughter was after. She ended up finding a couple of things she needed, which was handy. Then it was off to the grocery store. I had a couple of the big water jugs to refill, plus a short list from my husband. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up some fresh fruit and a few other things that we would need soon that were on sale, and my daughter found a few things as well. I’m glad she was able to come along.

By the time we got home and everything was unpacked and put away, it wasn’t too much longer before it was time to feed the outside cats again, so I took care of that before doing the watering. This time, I also watered the trees and bushes in the food forest area. It’s been dry enough lately that they got extra watering.

After finishing watering the main garden area and the trees, I came around to do the south garden beds when I found my daughter going by with the wheel barrow. She had dug up the enameled bricks from around the fire pit and brought them closer to the house, where they are currently soaking in water to loosen the dirt before she scrubs them a bit. We were planning to take those bricks out and replace them with rocks that we’ve picked out of the garden, more of which needs to be brought over to the fire pit area. Knowing these were going to be taken out, she wanted to salvage them – to use in the basement! She is wanting to reorganize and do a keep clean in the living room. We’ve got that big fish tank we’d used as a greenhouse for seed starts in the past, and it’s in the way. We’d been talking about putting it in the basement, where I can use it as a greenhouse in the spring, but the concrete gets wet in the spring (parts of it are still wet now) because the weeping tile is probably full of silt and tree roots. Anything we set up has to be elevated, and we’d run out of bricks. Once she has these salvaged bricks cleaned up a bit, they will be used to set under the stand the fish tank rests on, so the wood won’t rot.

Getting all that out of the living room and down the stairs is not going to be easy. It will, however, free up a lot of space we need!

This was set up near the old kitchen garden so, once the bricks were soaking, that’s where I started the watering. While doing the wattle weave bed, I decided it was time to lift the garlic in there. These are from a bulb of garlic I’d found while preparing the rectangular bed nearby in the fall. This was well after I’d planted the garlic in the main garden area, and were clearly quite a bit smaller, even before I dug them up.

These are very young and small garlic, so we will be using them right away, rather than setting them with the other garlic to cure.

It’s a good thing I enjoy doing the deep watering, because it takes at least 2 hours – closer to 3, when the trees get watered, too. I was pretty tired, sore and hungry by the time I was done, and my daughters were sweeting enough to make me a supper when I came in.

Meanwhile, my brother has headed back to the city while my SIL stays here for a while longer. We never crossed paths in person today at all!

Anyhow.

Today has been a mixed bag, but I am happy with how much I was able to get done, in between dealing with pain. One of the things that came up while I was talking to my daughter about what I was feeling this morning was my doctor’s offer to start the process to get me a new pair of knees. I said no to that, as they aren’t that bad, really.

My left hip, however… that is something I should probably bring up, the next time I see my regular doctor!

Not anytime soon, though. One thing at a time, and there’s three of us waiting for various surgeries right now!

Ain’t life grand?

😄

The Re-Farmer

Catching up

August 7, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

So the past couple of days have been SO much better, it just blows me away!

Yesterday, I was not only well enough to go into the city for the stock up shopping at Costco, but felt well enough to keep on going after everything was put away and we’d had supper. I headed outside for the usual evening cat feeding, then gave the garden a solid watering before heading back in.

A couple of nights ago, my brother and SIL quickly came by to drop off a box with a small raccoon proof shed they picked up. I had some bags with cans at various stages of sorting against the garage, and critters had gotten into them again, spreading them all over. So this is something we can store the aluminum cans in until it’s worth bringing them to the scrap yard. Most of the cans are cat food cans. Even though they are empty, the critters still smell food on them and sometimes tear the bags apart – even after ignoring them for months!

They also let me know that they were coming back the next day (yesterday) to take the trail loaded with metal items to the scrap yard. When they told me about the shed, I mentioned that we had more bags of cans in our basement that would fit in the truck. My SIL said that they could load the bags into their truck (which has a taller cap over the box) and take it in with the rest of the load.

I didn’t know what time they would be coming by with the shed, so I headed out with some fresh bags to at least re-bag the bag with aluminum only that had been torn up. As I was walking to the garage, however, I saw something that wasn’t there when I’d gone out to feed the cats and water the garden earlier.

That wasn’t there when I was out watering the garden beds! I sent the picture to our family chat and my daughters said they had heard something – maybe 40 minutes earlier – fall. It wasn’t even particularly windy at the time!

After re-bagging the aluminum cans at the garage, I came to see how bad the damage was under this tree top. Much to my surprise, the garden bed cover was not damaged. The netting was bent, but it doesn’t have hoops under it, to it can be easily pushed back into shape. All those branches sticking out in every direction actually kept the full weight of the tree top from landing on the cover and doghouse roof. I broke off some of the branches while one of my daughters came over, and she held the tree top up until I could get the garden bed cover out from under it, then pushed it aside, so it’s not over the old dog house anymore. We’ll have to come back with the chain saw to break it down, soon, but for now it waits.

We went in after that and my brother and SIL were in and out to drop off the shed in its box so quickly, if I hadn’t gotten security camera alerts, I’d never had known they were here!

With my SIL’s kind offer to take our aluminum in, that meant getting all the bags out of the basement. I didn’t know what time they would be coming buy, and knew I’d be going to the city, so I wanted to get the cans out before we left. Which had to be done in stages, since we can’t just leave doors open, or the inside cats would be getting into the basement, or outside.

I got it done, though. By the time I got them out near the junk pile, which has been cleared out significantly, thanks to my brother and SIL, I had 11 large clear bags, plus another 8 or so small blue bags. Including the two bags from beside the garage I’d rebagged the night before.

What I found out later was that they weren’t coming out until my brother was done at work (I had thought he might have arranged to leave early or something). So we were back from Costco well before they got here, in seperate vehicles.

I had actually gone back out to water the garden, but suddenly realized my brother had somehow arrived and parked by the barn without my ever hearing him! Then I heard my SIL arriving at the gate. So I postponed the watering and started tying the garlic off so I could hang them to cure.

Which didn’t work out as planned.

Normally, I make two long strings of garlic that I hang under the canopy tent to form a large X across the middle. The garlic, however, turned out to be too heavy. The first string of garlic kept snapping at different spots. In the end, I hung the remaining pieces, reinforcing the longest one with more jute twine. With the rest, I tied off strings of roughly a dozen garlic each and hung them around the sides of the canopy tent.

I was working on this when my brother and SIL drove their truck and trailer up to where the aluminum bags were. In the end, though, they didn’t take them yet. They didn’t have time. The scrap yard closed at 8, but it was at least a 45 minute drive to get there, and they needed to be there before closing time. Last call is usually about 15 minutes before closing.

So they left without the aluminum, with my brother driving the truck and trailer and my SIL following in the car my brother had come out in. They got there just in time and were able to get it done. Once the trailer was cleared, my brother took the car and drove home, since he had to go to work the next morning. My SIL drove the truck and trailer back here.

Meanwhile, I had finished stringing up the garlic.

There are two images in the above slide show. I don’t like that the garlic is around the edges, as they could be affected by the weather more. We’re not expecting rain for a while, though, so I hope they will be okay.

I was just finishing watering the garden when my SIL got back with the trailer. I helped her unhitch the trailer (something neither of us had done before, though at least my SIL has seen my brother doing it), then she drove the truck over to the bags of aluminum. We didn’t want them out overnight, as the raccoons would probably tear them apart.

It was getting dark, so I messaged my daughters and they were both able to come out and help load the truck. Much to my surprised, they all fit, with room to spare!

By then, it was pretty much full dark. My SIL parked the truck near their caravan and stayed the night.

This morning, I was up by about 6am, even though I hadn’t actually slept much last night. I headed out into the wonderfully cool morning to feed the cats and do a quick walkabout before going back inside.

While checking on the garden beds, I found this.

The last time I saw this Arikara squash, it was maybe 6 inches long!!

I set a brick under it, so it wouldn’t have direct contact to the ground. There are several more squash developing, but this one got huge, fast! One squash plant, and we might have as many as 5 squash off of it, if they all survive. This is how all our winter squash should be looking, but even the biggest of the other varieties do not look this vigorous and healthy!

I also spotted this – more wind damage!

This is a chokecherry tree, part of which has split.

Oh, I just realized. This is probably NOT wind damage. This might be deer damage. There are ripe chokecherries on this tree. If they were pulling on the berries like they do when going after the crab apples, they could easily have broken the tree like this.

My SIL and I were planning to head out around noon. That gave me time to go through the house for any remaining aluminum cans that were waiting to be bagged up, filling about half of a large, clear bag. Then I went to the garage, where a bag with crushed cans had been torn and spilling and picked that up. Then I crushed all the cans I could find in the crate and bin we us for recyclables. Last of all, I headed outside the garage with a magnet and sorted the last bag that’s been sitting there for months, pulling out the cans with steel. By the time I was done, I’d filled the large clear bag and about half of a small blue recycling bag. I carried them over to my brother’s truck and added them to what was in the back.

At this point, we have a couple of bags with just ferrous metal in them. We could have taken them with us, but it just wasn’t worth is for barely two bags. The price for steel is quite low.

I later found out my brother got 12¢ per pound for their load. The stuff didn’t weigh as much as my brother had estimated.

The cans sorted and bags and cleaned up, I headed back in to change out of my grubbies and into going out clothes. I double checked the hours I’d found for the place online, and they said they were closed today. !!!??? So I phoned.

They were very much open.

My SIL and I headed out soon after. We went to the salvage yard directly to the south of us that I was already familiar with, rather than the one they went to last night. There was enough in there that they brought out one of the bigger cages with a forklift, rather than the bin they’d brought out the last time we’d managed the trip, and we actually filled it. It turned out to be 252 pounds, and they paid out 70¢ per pound. a bit lower than the average going rate, but these were not “clean”; a lot of the cans had been outdoors for some time before we had to put the bags into the basement to keep the critters from getting at them, so they had literal dirt on them.

That got me just over $175 in cash. Not too bad!

I also remembered to ask for a new magnet keychain to replace the one that was stolen, I think by a raccoon. They had a whole basket full of them available to give out!

My SIL had suggested we go for lunch afterwards, and this allowed me to treat her, for a change!

I don’t know a lot of what’s available in this town, so when my sister suggested Chinese food, I was quite happy to try a place I’d never been to before. We had a lovely meal and a great time catching up with each other.

As we were finished, my SIL mentioned she wanted to go to the town north of us after we were done. I asked if she wanted company and went along, with just a side trip to the post office for something my husband was expecting.

The extra drive meant almost a lot more driving time to chat in. I really enjoy spending time with my SIL. She’s awesome.

The place she wanted to go to was the livestock supply store. She’d never been there before, but that’s one of the places I’d been getting 40 pound bags of cat food from, plus this place has all sorts of other farm supplies to ogle. I was able to give her directions to the store, which is actually away from the town itself. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up a couple of bags of cat food, as well as a very plain, inexpensive, folding knife. Something better than the utility knife I’ve been carrying around when doing yard stuff, with no fancy saw edges or do-dads. Just a plain knife. They had one left in bright orange, and I grabbed that. This way, if I drop it in the grass or dirt, it’ll be easy to see!

My SIL, meanwhile, picked up some stall liners. Something to put under the stairs to their caravan, or other places where they don’t want the grass to be taking over.

I have to admit, when I saw them being loaded into the truck, I started wanting one for our kitchen! These are designed to withstand cow hooves. The cats would not be able to scratch this up! They’re actually too big to fit on our kitchen floor, though, but gosh, that would be so nice. Pricey for what would essentially be considered a floor mat, but worth every penny.

That done, my SIL wanted to check out the hardware store. We both got a couple of little things, but mostly she wanted to look at their display sheds. They had quite a variety of designs on display, from basic wide open spaces, to ones with front porches, pretty windows and lofts.

Some of the price tags on these, though… there’s a reason I want to build a garden shed using the cordwood wall technique! The mortar needed for that, plus using wood from dead spruces we already have, would be a lot cheaper, even with having to buy roofing material.

With all the driving and checking things out, it was late enough that the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before I got home. We’re now good on dry cat food for both the inside and outside cats for probably the rest of the month, which was a nice bonus.

My brother has since made it out and they will be here for the weekend. Much of the focus is still going to be on cleaning up and hauling things away.

Which brings me to something the family is going to need to figure out.

My brother is going to retire in a couple of years. The deal is, he pays for the property tax and insurance, we pay the utilities and keep the place up – something that is getting harder for us to do with all of us being broken, one way or another. Something I hope will improve within the next 6 months or so, as my daughters and I each get the surgeries we need.

Once he retires, they won’t be able to keep up paying the expenses for this place. The money brought in by renting most of it out doesn’t even cover the cost of taxes.

We need to figure out what our options are, and we have only two years to do it in. Meanwhile, my husband’s disability income through is employer ends at age 65. That’s only 7 years away. It’s not like we can take over the property. With both our daughters having health issues, their options are limited, too.

We don’t have a lot of time to figure this out.

The Re-Farmer

A sad good by, a happy visit

August 3, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

As expected, we lost little Batman last night. I kept an eye on him on the critter cam and knew he was gone when I used the camera to chase out the raccoons in a kibble tray nearby, and there was no movement.

He is now buried under where I plan to plant another tree in the outer yard.

We were never able to socialize him, but I’m still going to miss that little guy.

Today, the plan was to go into town and pick up some fruit for my mother, then visit her for a bit, in the afternoon. I figured, with the festival winding down, it wouldn’t be too bad. It did mean I would be out at a time when my pain levels tend to get bad, so I was pro-active about it. I was up by about 5am and outside by about six, first to feed the outside cats, then bury little Batman.

I spotted Sprout and her baby!

Then I did my usual rounds and checks, gathering a harvest from the garden. After I got back inside and had breakfast, I made a point of lying down for a couple of hours, at least. Not necessarily to nap, though I did doze a bit, but just to make sure my body rested before I headed out. It worked. I did not get hit with the pain later on, even when I was doing quite a bit of walking around.

As I was eating my breakfast, I got a call on my cell phone. That it even came through was the first surprise. The second was who we calling. A friend from high school. She was in town for a short while and was hoping we could get together. I told her I was going to be in town later, so we worked out that I would contact her before I went in to see my mother, and we would get together when the visit was done.

While getting ready to head out, I was surprised to see my brother out front with his truck and trailer, already partially loaded. He was getting the appliances and other metals on, to take to the scrap yard once he could get the time off work to take it in while they are open. As I headed to the truck, though, I spotted something loaded among the old freezers, furnaces, washers and driers I did not expect to be there.

The antique enameled sink that was leaning against the pump shack.

I was surprised as said, that doesn’t go! He said, yes, it goes. The junk goes. I told him I had planned to use it. We went back and forth about if for a while, as I told him where I’d planned to use it. He mentioned the stainless steel sinks in the sheds and garage (yes, we have a collection of those, too), but I said I don’t want a stainless steel sink. I want that one! In the end, though, it’s his sink. He can do whatever he wants with it, and I wasn’t going to argue. I was on my way to town, anyhow.

When I got to town, I was happy to see there was not a lot of traffic on the main road, though the temporary traffic lights were still set up. I headed to the grocery store and picked up apples, grapes and a few bananas, and decided to pick up some crackers, tiny cans of Ginger Ale and a container with a lid that she could use as a fruit bowl.

I also remembered to bring her old fan that she had asked for.

Thankfully, the nursing home has its own parking, and there was one open spot when I got there. The festival was winding down, but not finished yet, so public parking nearby was out of the question.

As I got to her floor and walked past the nursing station, I greeted the nurse, then turned around and came back to ask how my mother has been.

Not good, it turns out. She’s been yelling at them. Things like, when she didn’t get her tea fast enough, yelling “I want my tea”. Sadly, none of this is unusual or unexpected. She has always been one to be abusive towards those who are trying to help her. The nurse actually wished me luck when I continued on to my mother!

Thankfully, I had my friend as reason to leave earlier.

The visit actually turned out rather well.

She did try to do her usual digs and insults, but they didn’t get very far and I was able to distract her. She was happy with what I brought her. I washed the grapes right away and put them in the container I’d brought, and she started eating right away. Oddly, she was spitting out the skins. I asked her why, and she told me that she has to be careful with her digestion. Turns out, she has decided grape skins are hard on her stomach. ??? She decides all sorts of things are “bad” for her, but grape skins are a new one to me.

She tried to grill me on where my brother was and what he was doing. She had treated him so badly the last time he visited, and has zero understanding that this is a problem she is causing. Oddly, when I told her he was very busy, and only has a short length of time to get things done outside of work, she told me not to speak for my brother. I told her, then don’t ask about him. At which point, she started crossing herself. 😕

She complained about how they staff don’t “want” her to see a doctor, or a dietician. Which I know isn’t what’s going on, but she apparently told them that if they don’t want her to see the doctor, she’ll get us to take her to another doctor. Who that would be, I have no idea, but I told her, we can’t just take her to see another doctor. It doesn’t work that way. She’s under the care of a doctor already. She just doesn’t have the health problems other people living here have. I explained the nurses go through her file with the doctor regularly, along with all the other stuff (turns out she convinced them to put her on an inhaler again; only a doctor can write that prescription), but she refuses to accept that.

Then she got around to why she wants my brother to see her. She wants to talk to him about her health. Then she started repeating a story of how, back when she was about 25 years old (so… 70+ years ago) she had the same pain in her chest she has now (very unlikely) and the doctor gave her a prescription and she felt better. She wants us to find this medication and get it for her. All she remembers of it is that it had cherry and orange in it.

I tried to explain to her (again) that whatever she took 70 years ago probably doesn’t exist in that form anymore and, based on what she has described, it sounds like an early version of the “pink medicine” (Pepto) she takes now. The cherry and orange would be flavours, not the medicine.

She still wants to get my brother to find this mystery medication, because she’s convinced it is the only thing that will magically make her all better again.

She still complains about her breathing at night. I tried to suggest she try and take advantage of the hospital bed to sleep sitting upright, with her knees supported, but she stopped listening to me and started talking over me about something else entirely.

*sigh*

I had told her about my friend from high school being in town and asked if she remembered her. She didn’t, but when I gave her name, my mom just wanted to know her ethnicity. When she heard her married name, she wanted to know that ethnicity. When I told her I didn’t know she asked, what kind of friend can this be? I told her, a friend that doesn’t care about such things! Then she mocked her married name because it means “without clothes” in Polish.

I looked it up when I got home. The word in Polish is vaguely similar, but it is not her name at all. But “similar” is enough for my mother.

Much to my surprise, she didn’t give me a hard time about leaving fairly quickly to meet with my friend. Possibly because I mentions I see her only once every year or two. It was only as I was leaving that my mother thought to ask about my own health, since I’d told her I had been to the ER when she’d called me, wanting me to visit her that day. I told her I was going for surgery, party to find out what is actually going on, because so many tests are coming back normal. Something she would understand very well.

She did.

As I was heading out, I called up my friend and found out she was at a particular shop she visits every time she comes out here, trying on dresses! So I headed that way, though I had to park several blocks away. If the nursing home parking hadn’t been private parking that I could stay in, the walk would have been shorter! Which is fine, though I was glad I did that lie down this morning.

I caught up to her and, this time, I got to finally meet her husband! The building this shop is in used to be a butcher shop and grocery store. The owner had a secret recipe for steak spice that is the best ever. When they bought the building, they bought the recipe and regularly have it available, tucked into a corner of the store among completely unrelated items. So while my friend was in the fitting room, I popped over to see if they had any in stock. A customer was in front of the display so I started waiting, but as he and his son were talking about things, I could see they would be a while and just excused myself to grab a bag – then asked if he’d every tried it. It turned out he was local enough to remember the butcher shop and grocery store that was there before, and I told him the story behind the steak spice mix, and that it was the best we’ve ever had.

Then I grabbed a second bag, because I didn’t know when I’d be back.

I saw him walking out of the store later, carrying a bag of steak spice. I know he’s going to love it!

After my friend was done, we paid for our stuff, then worked out where we were going next. She wanted to go to the park where the main festival activities were still happening. We walked while her husband went to their car to try and find a closer parking spot. This gave us a chance to catch up on all sorts of things. She was having difficulty with an injured knee, so I just had to extoll the virtues of having a walker. She told me, she was trying to stay away from that. I told her that my husband had done that for a long time. When he finally got one, he wondered why he waited so long. It is such a huge improvement in quality of life. I don’t know that I convinced her, but I think she’s more open to it.

We took our time walking to the park, resting whenever we found a bench.

The park had the carnival rides still going, as well as a vendor village. All the little tents with the usual stuff you find at carnivals, but a few that were a little more unusual. One that caught my attention had a display of drinking horns and wooden steins that caught my attention. They had the style of drinking horn like we got for one of our daughters for her birthday a few years ago. The also had DnD items, “Viking” jewelry, and other interesting things. I saw grab bags for “hair weapons” that I just had to ask about. I was directed to a display of hair pins in the shape of medieval style weapons – swords, war aces, and the like. The grab bags were cheaper than the display ones, of course, so I grabbed one for each of the girls. We caught up with my friend’s husband and wandered around a bit more. After a while I spotted a donair food truck. We haven’t had real donairs since we left the city. The local restaurant has gyros, which are not quite the same thing. So I got four of them to take home.

Which did mean I had to leave right away, while the food was still hot. They ended up giving me a ride to where I parked my truck.

I found “graffiti” on my truck.

That is so adorable!

My daughter had actually done it a while ago, but this was the first time I saw this part of the truck in full daylight like this, instead of in the shadows of the garage.

My husband had messaged me for something, so I made a quick stop at the grocery store again before heading home. By then, my brother and SIL had left for home. My brother loaded so many washers and driers on that thing. Why were there so many washers and driers? I thought it was funny that we found 6 old toilets around (my brother found the 6th one, buried in the junk pile). There was the one washing machine we brought out to the junk pile when we replaced it. The rest were in the warehouse and storage sheds all over the place. Along with a couple of old furnaces, the remains of a wringer washer, and a couple of huge old chest freezers.

I also got a message that my brother had taken out the enameled cast iron sink and left it for me. That was so sweet of him! It’s a gorgeous sink; the kind with a built in drain area. Antique collectors and interior decorators would pay a pretty price for it. Especially in such good condition. Not that I’d ever sell it. That design is just too useful.

So today turned out to start off sad, but ended well. Even the visit with my mother was okay. I also didn’t get hit with pain after all that walking around, either.

Tomorrow, though, I’ll be walking around at Costco. Hopefully, my younger daughter will be able to come with me.

I’m not looking forward to it, but at least it’ll be on a Tuesday, not a holiday weekend!

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

my brother is the best!

So. Many. More!!!!

Twenty one – for now!

A huge jump ahead on the way!

A good day – mostly

A quiet day… not really in a good way

Morning kittens and a birthday visit

Done, done and not yet done

Breakfast buddy, a great idea, and little garlic

Catching up

A sad good by, a happy visit

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