Just before heading inside after finishing up with the gardening, I saw a very, very filthy Creamsicle Jr go by!
So of course, I had to try and get some photos.
When he first went past me, I barely recognized him! Gosh, they do love rolling in the dust.
I got quite a surprise when I uploaded the photos and saw this…
He’s transparent! You can see that insulation under the kibble house, right through him!
Too funny!
The Re-Farmer
I had a rather amusing start to the morning!
While heading out to feed the outside cats, I heard a noise from an unusual direction.
I had startled Nicky the Nose on the sun room roof!
I always get a giggle out of how he pancakes himself like that when he’s startled. As if he can somehow make himself small. :-D
Our cats never go on the sun room roof, that we’ve seen. They’ll go onto the new part roof, where they can look at the girls through the second floor windows, but it’s quite a leap to go onto the rest of the roof from there. It was a surprise to see Nicky there!
My daughters had a Mother’s Day treat planned out for me. In our tiny little hamlet, we have a small hotel with a bar and itty bitty restaurant. Well, with all the restrictions in place, they’ve had to change things up. About a month ago, the separate bar and restaurant was reworked as a single country style pub, and quickly got a good reputation for their excellent food. It’s a small menu for a small town, but we’re just excited to have options at all.
Of course, the government promptly pulled the rug out from under restaurants again, so they’re limited to take out, only. I guess the government isn’t done killing small businesses, yet. So we wanted to give them some support!
I saw them post a photo on their Facebook page for a platter that is not on their menu, so I had to ask about it. They were able to put together an appetizer platter for us, including deep fried mushrooms, which are also not on the menu yet. It was awesome! Even with 4 of us, by the time we were done, I could only manage one slice of the pizza I got for myself. My daughters ordered their cheeseburger platters, and were thoroughly impressed just by the size. There was enough there for two meals! And yes, they tasted really good, too! It’ll be much nicer to be able to order food from just a few miles away, instead of having to go to another town. Unless we want Chinese food. ;-) I’m glad we were able to order there today. Driving by over the past month, I was always seeing vehicles and people out front and, on nice days, people sitting and eating at the tables outside. Today, with the increased restrictions kicking in at midnight, there was nothing. Just two employees, and me, and I only heard the cook, but never saw him. So we’ll be trying to order food from there as often as our budget allows. Hopefully, lots of other people will be doing the same. Considering how few people live here, that still won’t be much, but it might be enough to keep them going.
In other things…
I had hung on to the soil samples from the tests done in them, and today I finally got some photos before getting rid of them. Here are the jars from the first two tests we did.
The first sample was from the soft soil uncovered when the old wood pile was cleaned up. The water is still very distinctly orange! The second sample is from the new garden soil we purchased.
These are from the third and fourth tests we did. The one that’s more orange and still cloudy is from where we’d planted potatoes using the Ruth Stout method, while the other is from the unamended soil that has never had anything planted there before. I find it interesting to see how clear – or not! – the water became, after letting the samples sit undisturbed for so long.
Later this afternoon, my daughters and I went out to do some watering, and to plant onion sets in the last of the beds in the old garden area. The 2 bags of shallots had only a dozen sets each, so they were planted in one row along one side, while the yellow onions were planted in a three row grid on the other. Later next week, kohlrabi will be planted in between the two. Besides that, there’s still half a bed left that will be planted with carrots. Aside from successive sowing the spinach, that will be it for those beds.
There were still maybe a dozen onion sets left over, so I’m thinking of interplanting them with the beets that will be planted near the garlic beds. Hopefully, they will help deter deer from going after the beet greens. If all goes well, that will be completed tomorrow.
Before heading back indoors and out of the high winds we were having, the girls and I checked on the flowers we’d planted in the fall.
We’re finding more and more of the teeny, tiny crocuses blooming! I know these are not large flowers, but I didn’t expect them to be this minuscule! I suspect, after they’ve had a year to establish themselves, they will come up a bit larger, next year.
I then spent some time tending the seed starts in the sun room. The gourd pots got moved to the sun room awhile ago, but there is still nothing of the Ozark Nest Egg, Thai Edible Bottle gourd, and birdhouse gourds. I am hoping it’s just because they take so long to germinate normally. I probably should have started them earlier. It’s the squash and melons that I’m eyeballing more. They haven’t been in the sun room long, but I was hoping the increased warmth would help. I’m happy to say that I did see a couple of seedlings trying to push their way through, but most show no sign of any germination. I keep second guessing myself about what we used to plant them in and all the things we did differently this year, thinking that maybe I’ve gone and killed them off somehow. :-/ It’s still just under a month before we can transplant anything outside, so there’s lots of time yet for them to germinate.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself!
Oy. Today has been a really bad day for internet connectivity – as happens every time we have high winds. This post took forever to get done! Time to stop trying to do internet things for a while.
Hmm… I still have lots of my Mother’s Day pizza left. Maybe a late snack is in order? :-D
The Re-Farmer
Mornings can be difficult with so many cats in the house.
Cats that like to sleep across my legs or braced against my back, then don’t want to move when I try to roll over!
Ginger has become one of those cats. The problem is, he likes to lean against me on the outside of the bed. Then, because he refuses to move when I roll over, he ended up falling off the bed!
Silly thing.
His big sister, Nicco, is also a silly kitty. :-D
Cousin Susan, however, can be a mean bugger! She’s one of several that, for some reason, tend to go after Nicco. :-(
It’s been interesting to see how Ginger’s fur is growing back. One of the scars is now the demarcation line between the white fur on his chest, and the orange fur on his shoulder. The orange seems to be growing in much darker than the rest of his fur, though. We are curious to see if he’s going to have a dark patch on his shoulder.
Ginger is now, I believe, a big brother.
When I came out to feed the outside cats, Butterscotch was waiting at the door for me, looking considerably less round.
I can’t tell with the other cats. They all look thicksome at the best of times. I’m just going to assume the females are pregnant. We still are sure if Ghost Baby is male or female. No sign of Junk Pile today. If she were also pregnant, it’s entirely possible she’s busing having kittens right now. They tend to all give birth within days of each other.
I even saw a skunk this afternoon. I was working in the sun room when I heard what sounded like a bird hitting the window. I went outside to check and startled a skunk away from the kibble house. They don’t usually come out during the day like that, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a hungry mama, taking a chance.
Today was a planting day, but things didn’t turn out as expected (does anything ever turn out as expected?? LOL). More to come in my next posts! :-)
The Re-Farmer
After hauling to many loads of soil over the rough, rough ground, none of us were up to doing it again today.
So our Sunday remained a day of rest!
We did still go out to soak down the beds we are working on, though, along with other watering and checking of things. There is fresh new growth on the grapes, which was good to see. I wasn’t sure they’d survived February’s deep freeze. We’ve got rhubarb coming up, and the one haskap is leafing out nicely. The other is still struggling. :-( The garlic is looking awesome. Unfortunately, the birds are digging into the soil, as they have been digging into all the leaves on the ground all over the place. They’re not after the garlic, but they’re scatting soil all over, and some are getting partially uncovered in the process. We’re going to have to come up with a way to cover those!
While checking out the snow crocuses and grape hyacinths (so many are coming up now!), we found a strange, furry, orange mushroom in a tree.
Rolando Moon found a perfect spot to settle down and groom herself! :-)
The girls and I talked about where we are going to plant things; the space we have to work with is turning out very different than we expected while working with the satellite image, and we’re going to have open spaces where we had expected to have garden beds.
Which is okay. Nothing is written in stone, and most of the beds are going to be temporary.
We then went through our seed packets, sorting out the ones that need to be planted before the last frost date.
There are a lot of things that should have been planted “as soon as the ground can be worked”, but we aren’t ready for all of them.
These are the ones that should be in the ground right now.
Two of the three beds for the spinach collection are not ready yet. The kale will be interplanted with onions, and one of those beds is ready. The bed for the strawberry spinach is ready. The beets will be going into the new bed beside the garlic, and that one’s not quite ready. It’s a small bed, so we will probably be planting one type there, and another somewhere else. The poppies will be going in the old kitchen garden, which also is not ready yet.
We still aren’t sure where the carrots will go. They need deep soft soil, so I think they will be going where the potato beds were last year. We are making those longer, so only the part that was used last year will have the soft soil needed. Some might end up in the old kitchen garden, too.
Then there is the next batch.
We can start planting lettuces now, with successive sowing every couple of weeks until about the middle of June, before it gets too hot. These will go in the old kitchen garden, with some of them going into the retaining wall blocks, which are ready now, and others further into the garden, once we’ve worked out where the paths will go and add more soil.
These can be planted in the middle of May. It’s a bit surprising for a corn to be planted before first frost. Once we’re done with the beds that need to be direct sown right away, I’ll be marking off the block the corn will be planted in. At the same time these are being direct sown, I will be starting the Montana Morado corn indoors, along with half of the sunflowers.
The kohlrabi will be interplanted with onions. Onions are supposed to repel those beetles we had issue with last year.
While going through the seed packets, we discovered an oops.
The pink celery should have been started 8-12 weeks before last frost!!
So we quickly planted them now.
The seeds are absolutely minuscule! They are surface sown, so they just needed to be scattered on the soil and pressed down, so we used a take-out container as a mini-greenhouse. The sun room is warmer than the house, and there’s no room in the aquarium greenhouses, so we set it up with the tomatoes and luffa. We still use the ceramic heater bulb at night, but according to the thermometer in the sun room, it reached almost 30C/86F in there today!
They’re getting less than half the time to start than they should, but we’ll see how it goes. Who knows? We might have a long summer this year.
Everything else that needs to be direct sown has to wait until after our lost frost date. Especially the Peaches ‘n Cream corn collection. The radishes (two varieties) will be interplanted with some of them, to help break up the soil. They mature very quickly, so being overshadowed by the corn will not be an issue. The sunflowers will be a mix of transplants and direct sowing, to see which works better. And finally, there are the three varieties of bush beans.
If all goes well, we’ll be transplanting all the squash, gourds, cucamelons and tomatoes at about the same time. The potatoes and asparagus should be in and ready to plant by then, too.
The first few weeks of June are going to be very busy, and we’ve got a lot of manual labour to get done ahead of that!
The Re-Farmer
This morning, we had snow coming down with flakes so big, I could see them without my glasses! :-D
They even triggered the motion sensor on the security camera during daylight. That happens all the time at night, with the infrared flash (and I wake up to hundreds of emails with images of snow or rain streaking across… :-D ), but almost never, during the day.
The outside cats are completely unphased by this little bit of snow. :-)
The future tomato bed got some much needed moisture! The more the better, to help break down that cardboard and straw.
The garlic sprouts don’t mind the snow at all. :-) The snow actually made it easier to see how many more have sprouted since I last checked them out.
It was interesting, going through the maple grove and checking out the areas we planted bulbs and corms in. There was a void in the snow, under every single spruce tree. This is a good visual to ID which areas are getting the least moisture, so if/when we do water where we planted, we know which areas need it more. Of course, once the other trees and bushes leaf out, there won’t be any difference, but that’ll be a while, yet.
There are still only two tulips showing, and that one onion that’s managed to survive from when this was my mother’s garden, in the areas my daughters planted their bulbs. They don’t seem to mind the snow at all!
In the sun room, while it was still just below freezing outside, the thermometer was reading 10C/50F. That is more than adequate for the onion seedlings. The light and heater bulb kept the tomato and luffa seedlings nice and warm through the night.
By the time I finished my rounds, much of the snow was already melted away, and from what I can see on the security camera live feed, there isn’t a bit of it left.
I don’t know that we’ll have a nice enough day to continue working outside today, but we’re supposed to get warmer over the next couple of days, then cool day with rain. As much as it slows down how much progress we can make on the garden beds, I am thankful for every drop of moisture we’re getting right now! After one hot day, the temperatures will drop down and basically flat line at around 8C and 10C (46-50F) for highs, and hovering at or just above freezing for the overnight lows, for the next two weeks. We might even get a bit more rain in there, too!
The weather for today is still saying we’ll have a high of 7C/45F, but that it’ll feel like 4C/39F. I’m hoping to be able to get some more progress outside, but we shall see. The melted snow might actually make it easier to dig more post holes for the other pea trellises we’ll be making. If we can’t get to that, there’s plenty of other things we need to work on! :-)
What fun! :-D
The Re-Farmer
I had some spicy company this morning!
Ginger was quite enjoying his morning stretches. :-)
He had been rolling and stretching next to me so enthusiastically, he rolled right off the edge of the bed. Whereupon he looked up at me, as if to say, “I meant to do that!”
His brother was also keen for attention this morning, even to the point of demanding face pets instead of scarfing down breakfast! He followed me around a bit while I was doing my rounds.
He decided to roll in the dirt next to the chives. :-D
If you look past him, you can see rhubarb coming up, too.
When we plant in this garden, we know not to plant around this particular tree. It’s one of their rolling spots. They don’t roll around under the other one, likely because this spot gets more sun. :-)
The brothers are very much alike in personalities! :-)
The Re-Farmer
Things went in unplanned directions this morning!
But first, the fun stuff. :-)
We have the handsome Ginger to greet us! He’s been quite the character, and a lot of fun. :-)
The outside cats were happy for breakfast. :-)
We finally took the tarp off the top of the kibble house. We got some rain yesterday; enough to soften the ground a bit. It should be fine until we get some paint.
My daughter wants to paint it yellow. !! Not a bright lemon yellow or anything like that, thankfully. :-D
The girls and I removed most of the mulch from the garlic beds the other day, and uncovered many more sprouting garlic. Most were a bit on the yellow side, since they hadn’t worked their way through the mulch to the light, yet, but they are already looking nice and green and strong.
We moved the mulch over to the new bed, then covered it with a sheet of metal we scrounged from the outer yard, so the wind wouldn’t blow it away. We will have to build a box around this bed. At this point, if I add soil to the top as planned, it’s high enough that it’ll just fall off on the sides. I think we have some scrap wood in the barn we can use for that. It’ll be temporary, so it doesn’t need to look fancy or anything! :-)
After doing my morning rounds, I had some calls to make. One of them was to the court office about the restraining order I applied for against our vandal. The last time we had a court date, everything had been cancelled again, due to our province’s extended restrictions. I was told everything was deferred to after April 23rd, and to call around them. Well, that was on Friday, but I remembered too late in the day, so I called today.
The person I spoke to told me that they were holding court sessions now, and that I have a court date on May 21st. She wanted to check something, though, and said she would call me back.
Which is when I found out that the file had actually been in court on Friday. Our vandal was represented by a lawyer. The court offices informs the lawyers when things change, but people who don’t have representatives have to call themselves to keep updated. :-/
Nothing came of it, other than the new date, and it’s just on the morning docket. It will likely go to a trial date after that. One of the possibilities she said that might come out of it is a mutual restraining order. He stays away from us, we stay away from him. Before our move, I was in a situation where I agreed to one of those, and I regretted it. The type of restraining order I applied for would mean our vandal would have to stop drinking – and provide proof of that regularly – and have his guns removed. I believe his drinking has a lot to do with his behaviour. He often sounds drunk in those bizarre messages he’s been leaving with my mother. I would hope if he were at least sober, he might finally get the help he needs. It would, however, drag things on longer. His having a lawyer, and our not being able to afford one. I have LegalShield, which gives me free, unlimited phone consultations, among other things. If I need a lawyer to represent me in court, I would get a discounted price, but we don’t have the funds to spare to begin with, so that’s a moot point. I’m not going to let what he’s doing to us financially ruin my family, even if he’s willing to financially ruin himself, apparently. He has no defense, really. About the only thing a lawyer can do is drag it on. That’s just going to cost him more money – and he’s already said that he’s willing to sell his farm and be homeless, so he can sue me, my mother and my siblings.
I wonder what his wife thinks of that. :-/
Anyhow.
After that, there was an unplanned trip into town, and then a stop at the post office. We crossed paths with our vandal in the process, but only passing him on the road. I could see him well enough to tell that he recognized our vehicle, too. He lives near enough that, when I was working outside later one, I could hear him and his chainsaw, as he cut wood.
A part of me wonders how it would work out, if he really did follow through with his threats. He’s already got his silly suit against me, wanting me to pay him for things that aren’t his, and that I don’t claim to own in the first place. What can he do by going after me? We own nothing, so we have nothing to lose. He’s the one willing to bankrupt himself. And if he does end up selling his farm to pay for lawyers, well… we won’t have him living so close and creeping through the bushes from the road, and whatnot.
What a mess.
Whatever happens, happens. We’ll deal with things as they come.
Once at home, though it’s been a pretty chilly day, I did get to start on one project outside.
That, however, will get it’s own post!
The Re-Farmer
It was a gorgeous day to do our morning rounds, and the yard cats were taking full advantage of it. :-D
It’s a good thing we’re not trying to keep the grass alive around the cat’s shelter. :-D This spot is where a smaller old dog house was, when we first moved here, and the cats roll around in the spot so much, no grass or weeds are growing into it. :-D
As you can see, the based of this linden tree is another favorite spot they like to roll in!
They get so, so filthy! Enough to turn and orange cat black! :-D
In other things, I found a nice little surprise this morning.
The third dancing gourd seed has sprouted!
I honestly forgot how many seeds I planted in there.
The main reason we used peat pots to start the gourds is so that we can just bury the pot into the garden and reduce transplant shock. Which means thinning out the seedlings. The problem is, most of the seedlings we’ve got so far are looking really strong and healthy! Among the luffa, there’s really just one sprout that is smaller and would be thinned out, but the rest are doing so very well! I want to plant them all! :-D
We’ve got over a month before we can transplant any gourds at all, so we’ll see how they are and make decisions then.
The Re-Farmer
I managed to get a picture of Ginger this morning.
This was just a moment before he leapt up and tackled my phone! :-D
He was very fierce-some this morning!
I got this picture of David the Magnificent, yesterday, and just had to share.
He is such a pretzel!
Meanwhile, I had a whole crowd, outside!
The Ghost Baby was peeking between the shelters to see if it was safe to go eat!
She finally dared!
My daughter told me that she sometimes shows up at their second floor window, describing her as a ghost baby. I figure that’ll do just fine as a name. Better than “that sort-of calico cat…”.
My daughters have also been telling me about another grey and white tabby. I honestly can’t remember (I’m losing track!), but they say it’s Junk Pile’s baby from last summer, and it looks like here, except thicker. So they call it Thickilous.
:-D
I may well have seen it and thought it was Junk Pile, but until I see them both at the same time, I have no way of knowing.
So we have these 7, possibly Thickilous, and Nicky the Nose, hanging around. We have more cats inside than outside right now!
Well. At least until the kittens are born. Only Butterscotch looks pregnant, but that doesn’t mean the others aren’t!
The Re-Farmer
My daughter’s orchids are looking beautiful this morning!
They have been doing very well since she starting using kokedama, though finding a place to hang them where the cats couldn’t get at them was more of a challenge!
Unfortunately, one of them seems to be struggling. You can see some of the dead leaves behind the flowers in the above photo. My daughter has figured out that, when we had the polar vortex hit us in February, it simply got too cold for them at the window, and one in particular is having a much harder time recovering.
Now that we have the aquariums converted to cat proof greenhouses, next winter we will be able to move them into one of those to keep them warmer.
I also saw some fluffy, furry flowers this morning. ;-)
I was able to bring them some meaty treats from the kitchen this morning, and they were very happy!
I love how Creamsicle Jr. is licking his chops! :-D
We’re supposed to have a nice, warm day today, and I’m looking forward to getting some garden preparations done outside. The cats have already discovered the soil my daughter moved to the old kitchen garden. They LOVE rolling around in dirt. We have several trees with bald patches at their bases, because the cats roll under them so much. One of them is an ornamental apple tree in the old kitchen garden, and now they have bonus dirt to roll in.
I don’t mind them rolling at the bottom of the tree. We can’t plant anything under them, anyhow – but it’s going to be a problem if they decide to roll in the new soil after we’ve planted!
We’ll work it out. ;-)
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 