Today, we did indeed break the 30C/86F mark, but by the “cool” of the evening (you know you’re acclimatizing to the heat when 27C/81F starts to feel cool!), the kittens were out to play!
I haven’t had much luck getting Butterscotch’s babies to come close while I’m sitting in the camp chair, but they’ve come closer to my daughter when she sit on the ground. So when I had the chance, I decided to get down on the ground to see if I could lure them closer.
It worked.
This was totally worth the pain of having to get back up again! :-D
Also, I would like to introduce to you, Bradicus, of the twins, Bradicus and Chadicus. These two look very much alike, but Bradicus has the distinct white line going up his forehead, and a white tip on his tail.
Out of focus in the background is Caramel, with her caramel coloured swirls on her sides.
Awww… Butterscotch and all her babies. :-)
Nutmeg was enjoying attention this evening, and he even let me pick him up! As long as we don’t try to walk, he will let us hold him, and he gets very cuddly!
Rosencrantz’ babies were running around, too.
Meet Nosencrantz.
I wasn’t able to get a picture of her orange sibling, Toesencrantz, this evening.
Then there are Junk Pile’s four, but when we see them, it’s usually in the form of a tornado of kitten, running away across the yard. Hopefully, they will start hanging around more.
I got to see all sorts of adorable things this morning. Starting with these guys!
They were very rambunctious this morning. :-)
The girls have informed me that the calico that looks like Cabbages has been named Broccoli. The tabby twins have also been named, but I forget them right now.
The fourth kitten, sharing breakfast with her mother here, does not yet have a name.
I also saw an adorable, fuzzy little monster this morning, but I wasn’t able to get a photo. The woodchuck was by the old garden shed, then ducked under it as I came over.
I’m happy to say that adding two bigger rocks and a bunch of broken bricks seems to finally be enough to keep the woodchuck from digging its way back under the stairs. I think it still tried, though. A small, gap-filling piece of insulation had been braced between the brick wall and the big rock, before. Looks like it got pushed inwards.
One last adorable bit of fuzziness! This bee wasn’t even gathering nectar or anything. It was just sitting there, like it was taking a nap while it was still cool. :-)
I got a few things worked out in the garden, before coming in from my morning rounds, but that will get its own post. :-)
Today, with repeated warnings for thunderstorms, and even the sound of thunder in the distance, we got only a smattering of rain this afternoon. Barely enough to get the ground a bit wet. :-( At least we’re a couple of degrees cooler than forecast. With the conditions we’ve had this year, our Rural Municipality officially declared an agricultural emergency. We had one last year, and I seem to remember there was an attempt by the province to declare one the year before, but it was rejected by the federal government. When I was growing up here, there were no such declarations. Whatever federal funding programs that are now available were brought in while we were living elsewhere, in cities.
It was during one of those times our skies were spitting a bit of moisture that I headed outside for a bit and made a point of checking the newly planted beds. Happily, we now have more seedlings appearing!
Swiss Chard “Bright lights”
Kohlrabi “Early Purple”
Kale “Russian Red”
Yes, these pictures were all taken after there was some rain. :-/
Both types of chard are showing seedlings, though I only took a photo of the one type.
It would be awesome if we FINALLY got some kohlrabi! We will be taken extra steps to try to protect these beds, since what’s growing in them are favoured by all kinds of critters. The red flakes you see on the ground around the seedlings are hot pepper flakes, which we hope will deter critters better than the sprays and granules we’ve bought.
Which leads me to why I headed outside.
I saw the woodchuck out by the old compost pile again.
Yes, I sprinkled the new mystery squash seedlings growing in there with hot pepper flakes, too.
As I came out, the woodchuck watched me for a while before finally running off and into…
*sigh*
…the old burrow we thought had finally been abandoned. We’re still running water into it, and collapsing the entrance little by little. The entrance is not being cleared, but they’re still squeezing in.
After seeing the woodchuck go in, I went and raided my kitchen cupboards again and dragged out a package of whole, dehydrated hot peppers. After giving them a rough chop, I scattered them in and around the opening.
At some point, we will be sure enough of it being empty, that we can finally fill it in. :-/
While heading back inside, I did get a chance to play with some more pleasant critters. Butterscotch’s junk pile babies!
Three of them like to come out to play with the stick, though they still won’t come close enough to touch. There’s that one tabby, hidden in the background, that just will not come closer.
I saw Rozencrantz’s babies – the other junk pile babies! – today, too, though I couldn’t get any pictures. The one that looks like Nicky the Nose is a bit braver and doesn’t run off until it’s sure if I’m coming closer. They like to play in the soil the cucamelons and gourds are planted. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except that I’ve caught them actively digging into the edge of the bed! At least they’re not digging near the plants, themselves. :-/
While we are still getting thunderstorm warnings, when I look at the hourly forecast, the warnings disappear. Instead, we will have sun and clouds for a few hours, and then it switches to “smoke”, all night. There are quite a few wildfires in the province right now, including about 5 that are listed as out of control, but none are near our area. Fire risk, of course, remains high so we are still under a total burn ban. It looks like we won’t get to test out the firepit grill my brother and his wife got for us this year at all, nor the big BBQ that they passed on to us after getting a smaller one for themselves.
Maybe we’ll get a chance to use them in the winter!
I could not resist getting a picture of David the Magnificent!
It’s good thing we hardly ever use the microwave. This is the only counter in the kitchen the cats are allowed to climb on, and they love looking out that window! Cheddar, in particular, likes to lie here, taking up the whole spot, with his chin on the windowsill, like it’s a pillow. Today, David has claimed the prime spot! :-D
David must be just dying in this heat, but he will not let us brush him! We’ve been managing to cut away the fur clumps we find. Mostly. It’s hard to get at the ones in his armpits. He keeps moving!
This morning, I saw another furry beast that I haven’t in a while.
Creamscicle Baby is back! He’s been away for a few days. He and Junk Pile (David’s sister) were very happy to see each other. :-)
She’s like, “look who’s here!”
He was clearly very hungry, but he just wouldn’t stop rubbing up against Junk Pile. :-)
Even while they were both eating, he’d rub up against her, eating at the same time, to the point of pushing her away from eating, too!
Too bad he won’t let us pet him anymore, and Junk Pile never has. :-(
The only down side is that Creamscicle Baby has been pretty aggressive with his brother, Nutmeg, of late. Not just play wrestling, like they used to, but all out fights.
Ah, well. Nothing we can do about that, but break them up with a spritz from the hose.
I was able to get a whole bunch of kitten pictures this evening.
Only three of Butterscotch’s 4 kittens were visible while I was nearby.
Butterscotch’s expression is just too funny. :-D
I’ve been slowly trying to lure the kittens closer, so I can finally touch them, but it’s a little more difficult while sitting in a chair. My younger daughter can sit on the ground, and she has been able to get some of them to come close enough to touch. :-)
That stripe on the calico’s nose is just hilarious! :-D
This little lady almost came close though to touch. :-D
Later on, I spotted one of Rosencrantz’s babies, taking a drink, so I move a camp chair near their food and water bowls, too.
This one’s face bears a strong resemblance to Nicky the Nose. Particularly that tragic expression!
Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is another spawn of Nicky the Nose! :-D
The little orange one is quite a bit shier than its sibling. Rosencrantz, at least, is tolerant, if not friendly, and will once in a while let me pet her.
I’ve seen Junk Pile cat around today, but no sign of her two kittens. I do hope she brings them around again!
I went out to do the evening watering this evening, after trying to wait until things cooled down. When we were still above 30C/86F by 7:30pm, I headed out anyway, so I could be done before dark.
I started in the old kitchen garden, and this should have been my first warning.
When I had gone out earlier to apply the spray repellent, I made a point of spraying the edges of the beds and into the paths, where it would not be washed away by watering as quickly.
Nutmeg is sprawled right on top of where I’d sprayed. Clearly, he is not the least bit bothered by the repellent!
If you look to the bed on the right, you can see the stems of our nibbled on carrots. They were like that this morning, before I did the spraying. In fact, they were why I made a point os going out to apply the repellent when we were nearly at the hotted part of the day!
Meanwhile…
As I was finishing up in the old kitchen garden, I picked our first rhubarb of the season.
We could have picked rhubarb long ago, but we were thinking to do a crumple or a crisp with them, and no one wants to bake in this heat. However, I had other reasons to pick them.
We planted poppies in the new bed next to one of the rhubarb bunches. The only seeds that germinated are all near the rhubarb. While I was trying to weed them, I discovered there was more than we thought.
The rhubarb leaves were covering them, and preventing them from getting any sunlight.
So I uncovered them by picking rhubarb. :-D We’ll see if they recover, now that they are getting light.
After I was done watering the more southerly beds, I headed over to the main garden beds and started watering. When I had been there earlier, spraying around the carrot bed, I was noticing that they looked to be recovering quite well, with lots of new fronds. I made sure to spray a wide swath all around them, on them, and even on the wire mesh cover.
As you can probably imagine, I was must unhappy when I came back to this.
The entire bed is once again decimated. All of it, from end to end. Apparently, when I sprayed the repellent, all I did was season the fronds for the woodchuck!
I am so frustrated!!
I’ll be taking the wire mesh cover off. All it’s really doing is preventing me from weeding. Though I suppose there’s no point in weeding it anymore. I will, anyhow, but the chances of the carrots recovering just dropped substantially. We knew it couldn’t stop a woodchuck, but I thought it might not want to be under something, and potentially trapped, and at least the carrots in the middle would be ignored. Nope. Apparently, this furry beast had no problem being under a wire net for so long!
This was not our only loss.
The greedy guts even eat the mystery squash seedlings in the old compost heap!
Obviously, I hadn’t sprayed the compost heap, but still… they weren’t exactly easy access in there, and were surrounded by all sorts of things the woodchuck never tries to eat, like the self-seeded raspberries that are also growing out of the pile.
I was really hoping to find out if they were from last year’s pumpkins.
Thankfully, nothing else was nibbled on, but this is damage enough!!
When things started cooling down, I headed outside and checked on the old kitchen garden. I started to pull out some weeds I missed this morning, when I heard a noise.
I had startled Junk Pile cat, who was lying on the beets by the retaining wall.
She wasn’t alone!
What a cutie!!
I saw another one dash around the tree, so I started carefully moving around to the side of the garden…
Only to startle more critters.
I certainly wasn’t going to begrudge the skunks a drink of water, so I let them be (the water bottles had been frozen, earlier) and kept moving slowly though the side of the garden.
This confused the skunks, as usually we never go between them and the storage house. We usually go to the other side and use the hose to chase them that way, instead.
This baby was so confused, it started to follow me! :-D
On the far side of the retaining wall, I found the kitten.
It just froze there, watching me.
The other one came bounding over, playing in the mosquito netting, until it realized I was there, then it ran off into the maple grove. The first one stayed frozen for a while longer before it ran off.
I am so glad Junk Pile finally brought her kittens over! From how many teats I could see were in use, I had thought she had more. I don’t know if these are the only ones that were brave enough to follow her, or if they are the only survivors left.
As I headed around the kibble house – which got its second coat of paint yesterday – I spotted Rosencrantz’s babies.
This little one was hiding behind the pedestal, watching me, before coming out for a drink.
It’s sibling was watching me, too, while lounging on some scrap carpet in the junk pile.
I had been wondering how the kittens were getting through the fence. The ground rises slightly here and, between that and the junk, there is no gap at the bottom. This morning, I saw how. They are still small enough to fit through the chain link… but just barely! Pretty soon, they’ll have to go around to another part of the fence, where there is a gap underneath, to get through.
So that’s three litters of kittens we’ve seen now. Butterscotch and her four, and Rosencrantz and Junk Pile’s, with two each. That leaves Ghost Baby, assuming Ghost Baby is actually female and has a litter. We still don’t know, but are kind of assuming.
Hopefully, we will be able to socialize some of them, but if they just become comfortable enough to come to the house for food and water, I will be happy.
I had a pleasant surprise when I first went outside to do my morning rounds. Rosencrantz and her kittens were playing at the bottom of the little shrine, on the INSIDE of the chain link fence!
So I found a couple of containers and put food and water out for them. Not longer after, I saw this.
The grey and white kitten ran off when it saw me, but the orange one stayed. This would be their first time eating kibble and the orange baby seems to really like it!
It was also brave enough – or hungry enough! – to stay eating after Mom left.
After finishing my rounds outside, I was just about to settle at the computer to go over the trail cam files when I saw movement out in the garden.
It was a groundhog, making its way towards the beds.
When I saw it stop and start going after some onions, I dashed out to chase it away. (Checking later, it did not eat any of the onions, but when I was weeding the carrots in the next bed earlier, I’d noticed some of the greens had been nibbled on. Deer, I thought, but maybe not? What do groundhogs eat, anyway?)
As I was making noise to chase the groundhog away from the beds, I saw it go under the pile of branched I’d pruned from the nearby trees. A pile we should have moved long ago. :-/
So I went over to the pile and shook the branches to chase it out.
Nothing.
Moved around to get at some other branches.
Nothing.
Mover around and…
What on earth is that?
Well, that explains why it wasn’t running out from under the branch pile. It has a den under there!
Those larger branches on the left? I’d put those there not very long ago. They had been set aside for potential use, but when I needed to mow around the pile, I moved them on top. That hole was not there when I did it, which means it was dug some time within the last week or so.
I was able to stick my phone through the branches to try and get a better picture.
That is a pretty big hole! But then, so was the groundhog.
I knew there had to be dens around somewhere, and suspect there is at least one under the big branch pile in the outer yard, but this is the first one we’ve actually seen.
I find myself looking at all that sand and gravel piled up outside the opening. I know the top soil isn’t very deep, but this really shows what our ground is like under it.
Well, I guess this is a good incentive to finally move that branch pile! Then to see what we can do to persuade the groundhog to find somewhere else to live. Preferably not in the yard at all!
The weather forecast said that we would be cooler today.
They lied.
When I did my morning rounds, it was already above 20C/68F, and we easily hit 28C/82F this afternoon, with a humidex above 30C/86F. Which meant that we spent as much of the day indoors, out of the heat, as we could. Thankfully, the way things are oriented, we can keep certain windows open to allow a cross breeze without heating the house up.
The cats appreciate that.
Yes, we leave the little step ladder at the door, just so they can look out the window! It was so funny to watch these to, with their matching positions, heads turning and tail tips twitching, in unison! Hard to believe that little Layendecker is now just as big as Cheddar! With the smaller cats, three of them can fit up there, but these big boys fill up the whole stop step! :-D
I did have to make a run into town, as we ran out of kibble for the outside cats. While I was there, I picked up some ingredients for my daughters. Yesterday, they finished off one of the giant bowls of spinach to make a spinach soup.
We’d already finished off one giant bowl, mostly through dehydrating (using the screens in the sun room didn’t work, so we did batches in the oven). When making the soup, that huge bowl cooked down to a remarkable small amount in the stock pot! :-D With my trip into town, the girls have enough to make a huge batch of baked spinach dip, which we plan to enjoy while watching watching Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett and David Burke.
It’s going to be a late one, though. We didn’t get back from working on the garden until past 10pm. I had tried going out a bit earlier to start prepping the spinach beds to plant in again, but those beds are in full sun. I wasn’t interested in getting heat stroke! It didn’t get cool enough to head out again until past 8:30pm.
The girls did the evening watering while I worked on the beds.
The logs were added after we’d started making the beds, so once I’d cleared away the remains of the spinach plants and the weeds, I took advantage of the situation to level the beds out, and create a bit of a ridge around the edges, to help keep the water from draining down the sides – and taking the soil with it. I used a garden fork to loosen the soil, to more easily pull the roots out. I was most pleased with how keep the tines could go, without any sort of resistance. This bed would handle root vegetables very well!
I had “help” while I was working.
Nutmeg could not get enough attention! :-) While I was pulling out roots and weeds, he kept getting under me, demanding pets, and rolling around in the freshly turned soil, sometimes rolling right off the edge of the garden bed – just like his brother does on our beds, indoors! Unfortunately, when I was using the garden fork, he had a terrible habit of suddenly lunging at the fork to “catch” it, even as I was stabbing it into the soil.
This bed was surprisingly different from the first one. When pushing the fork into the soil, I would quickly go through the raised part of the bed – about 8 inches – then hit solid. I wasn’t hitting rocks. Just rock hard soil! The last bed was much the same, though not as bad as this one. There is a difference between them. The first bed I worked on had been a squash bed, mulched with straw, last year. These two beds were a last minute change. When I’d prepped the area last fall, I’d made three smaller beds oriented East-West, where three pumpkin hills had been. This spring, I decided to make these two larger beds, oriented North-South. The soil beneath would be a mix of soil that had been turned in the fall, and walking paths. It’s remarkable what a difference that one season of use the previous year has made in the soil of that first bed.
All three beds are now prepared and ready for planting! We will be planting lettuces in succession along one side of each bed.
Since the radishes we interplanted with the corn all disappeared, and I ended up picking up more. Three different varieties to try, though I couldn’t find a daikon type that my daughter likes. They are fast maturing, so we should be able to grow some radishes, and still be able to grow more spinach in these beds for a fall crop.
We’re not actually fans of radishes in general, so we won’t be planting many. I do want to leave some to fully mature. I’ve read that radish pods are very tasty, but it’s not something available in stores, and I’d like to try them. From what I’ve read in the past, radishes used to be grown for their pods, not their roots, and the pods can be canned as well. It should be an interesting experiment. I’m still disappointed that none of the ones we planted earlier survived, even though they did germinate so quickly. I had specially ordered those varieties for my daughter. :-(
We’ll just have to try them again, next year!
Well my other daughter had just swung by to inform me that the baked spinach dip is ready! I am really looking forward to it! :-)
The Re-Farmer 