outside cats

Gardening progress: sunflowers are in!

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Today has been a lovely, cool day! Perfect to get those sunflowers done.

I had assistants.

When I started filling the holes with the soil mixture, the Potato Beetle decided to sit his butt over one of the next holes! My first thought was that he was taking a dump and I went to push him away. He just flopped onto the ground and looked at me as if to say, “Yes. Rub my belly. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Then he moved over to the next hole and sat over it, watching me. When I moved to fill that one, he went to the next one and lay down.

With his butt over the hole.

What a weird cat. :-D

Creamsicle was also fascinated by the holes.

I have no idea what he was seeing down there that was so interesting! :-D

The soil mixture in the little pool got quite a lot of rainwater, along with the water I’d already put into it, so it was quite saturated. I was still finding pockets of dry peat, though! Still, this was perfect, as it meant I didn’t have to drag buckets of water over the very rough ground to water the soil mix, first. I could just go straight to planting.

I decided to alternate the two varieties. The row still marked with flags starts and ends with the variety that can grow 10-12 feet high, while the other row starts and ends with the variety that can grow 6-8 feet high. The varieties ended up lining up with each other where the two rows overlap.

And that will be it for today, with it being Sunday. I just did what had to be done, before we got more rain (if we get more rain; we’ll see if the forecasts are right for a change).

Next, for this area, we will be adding a straw mulch, little by little, as well as taking the opportunity to dig up the burdock that’s starting to come up, as well as the self-sown trees that are showing up.

Tomorrow, weather willing, the priority will be to get more of the squash transplants in. Quite a few more are ready, now. And I might even be seeing some of those gourds finally emerging, too!

Putting in a garden this year is really changing what is being worked on outside. The original plan was to spend the first 2 years cleaning up the inner yard, the next year or two working on the outer yard, and moving beyond the outer yard as we could, after that. With my husband ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks last year, and many trips to the city to see specialists, things got more focused. Which worked out, since we ended up focusing on cleaning up where the old wood pile used to be, and finding that wonderful soil we have planted the carrots in. For this year, we will continue to work on cleaning up the spruce grove, but will also have to get things done in the outer yard, and now keep up on the garden beds. Oh, and build that new outhouse as a cordwood practice building, too.

First, the garden needs to be planted.

Then, we can mark out where we want to put the cordwood building and start clearing the space and removing sod. Cleaning up the spruce grove, etc., will continue in between stages of building. I’m hoping I can borrow my brother and his trailer, and visit a salvage yard for materials to use as a floor/base. I’m thinking along the lines of pavers, but who knows what else we might find! :-)

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

I know what I’m doing tomorrow!

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Today I took my husband into the city for a medical appointment, but of course I had to check the kitties, first!

They are getting more and more active! We’re going to have to put them in something deeper, soon, so they don’t start crawling around the basement. At their size, there are too many things they can get into, that we couldn’t be able to get them out again! :-D

My husband and I left early enough to hit the post office, first, and ended up swinging by home again to drop things off. My husband had finally got his retroactive disability tax credit, and he used some of it to get a much needed new computer. Not something we wanted sitting in the van while we were in the city!

His appointment went well, though the drive was quite painful. It was for some tests in Nuclear Medicine, in the same hospital as the cardiac clinic. I was not allowed to come in with him, though. We arrived early, as is our habit, and I expected to have lots of time to walk around on a beautiful day, playing Pokemon Go. They must have taken him in early, because he was done much faster than I expected. Which is a nice change, even if the reasons for it are not to nice. :-/

His computer was not the only thing to arrive in the mail. I got a parcel I was expecting to come in tomorrow.

My Yukon Gem potatoes have arrived!

Which means I need to get them planted right away. Looking at the forecasts, tonight we’re supposed to reach 0C (32F), and that’s the coldest it’ll get overnight from now on.

I had been thinking about where and how we would plant the potatoes. With our rock hard soil in most places, I decided to go with a completely new and different method from what I’m used to. Here are some videos about what I am going to try.

The only thing is, I don’t have hay, nor was any available. I just have straw. I hope it will do as a substitute. I’ve seen other articles and videos that used straw, so I think it should.

With this in mind, I made use of the frames from the goat catching pen we’d made. The long sides are roughly 8 ft x 4 ft. A perfect garden bed size. So I am using them to mark out where I want to put the potatoes.

I will remove them, after I’ve finished covering the seed potatoes. For the 6 pounds of potatoes I have, this should be enough. I soaked the areas thoroughly, and will soak them again tomorrow before we start again. We are expecting some rain tomorrow (I hope!), but it won’t be much. By Sunday, we are supposed to hit 21C!! (70F) so I want to make sure it’s all thoroughly covered and watered before the heat hits.

We are also going to have to watch out for the Potato Beetle!

He kept us company while we started on the future potato beds.

I had considered setting them up where we’d covered with straw last year, as I am sure we won’t be having as many squash to transplant as I had hoped. There’s still a possibility that more seedlings will come up before the end of the month, so I figured I may as well just go off to one side, instead.

How well this works will help us decide what to do as we increase the amounts and varieties of potatoes we grow in the future. If we can get a good crop, without having to plow or till this hard, rocky ground, that would be really awesome!

The Re-Farmer

Morning adorableness

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Before I head out to visit my mother (outsider her window… :-/ ) for Mother’s Day, here are some adorable, furry worms to make you smile!

I’m glad Beep Beep used this cardboard nest we set up to have her kittens in. The box is the base from a case of cat food tins. Not only did it turn out to be the prefect size, but it makes it easy to slide in and out of the crate (which is on its side) to check on the babies.

The concrete floor is pretty saturated this spring. Under the crate, there is a puddle of moisture. A bit like condensation created by the warmth of cat bodies above. The crate keeps the cardboard from contacting the floor, so it stays nice and dry.

As I was petting the babies, this little mini-Beep Beep (right down to the orange spot on her forehead!) grabbed my hand…

… and started licking my fingers!!!

Yeah, I melted into a puddle of goo over the adorableness of it.

Then it was time to tend to the outside cats, and we had quite the crowd this morning!

At the top left is Rosencrantz! She stared showing up again very recently. I wonder where she goes, when we don’t see her for weeks at a time?

In front of her is Pump Shack cat and in the top middle is Junk Pile cat. While I was able to pet Rosencrantz this morning, these two just won’t let us near. :-(

Butterscotch and Creamsicle are eating on the right of the photo, and Potato Beetle was with them, but he found me more interesting than food!

Why?

This is why.

He just HAD to fling himself bodily across my feet and start rolling! He eventually slithered his way across my feet, around my legs, to eventually end up sitting at my other foot, looking up at me, as if to say “why haven’t you picked me up yet?”

He did it one time while I was looking at something else, and I did end up stepping on his tail a bit. At some point, this guy is going to have to learn that moving feet are not a place to drop in front of! :-D

Happy Mother’s Day!

The Re-Farmer

No, I didn’t forget!

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After an oddly sleepless night and a fair bit of running around, I just didn’t have the energy to post earlier today.

I did, however, get kitty pictures! Here’s a bit of cuteness to make you smile. :-)

That one smooshed kitten… :-D

Creamsicle was very demanding about being picked up this morning!

The Potato Beetle is a trusting soul. Trusting that when he flings himself to the ground in front of my feet and start rolling, I won’t step on him!

The cuteness. It just oozes out everywhere! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Morning cheers

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Today was a day to work on a whole bunch of little things that needed to be done or started – and a surprise breakage. Rather than do one huge post, I’ll split them up into a bunch of little posts.

But first, here’s something that cheered me up this morning.

Of course, there was checking on the babies.

It’s going to be interesting in the basement, when these guys start getting more mobile!

While doing my rounds, I had my furry escort, including Creamsicle…

He’s about 10 feet above my head in this photo! Of all the cats, he seems to be the one who loves to climb the most. :-D

What a great way to start the day!

The Re-Farmer

Broken gates, sad seedlings and critter company

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The chain link fence in front of the house has two gates in it. One smaller, people-sized gate, and a larger vehicle-sized gate.

Both are broken at the hinges.

I had been leaving both gates open; we only ever needed to close them when the renter’s cows got into the outer yard, when his electric fence failed. With the people gate, when we closed it to keep the goat in the inner yard, the top hinge came completely loose from the pin. It still was doing the job, though – until today!

While I was working on the new garden plot, I heard a commotion. I don’t know how she did it, but the goat knocked the gate off its hinges, and got a hoof caught in the chain link!

She was able to get herself out without any help, but I had to just set the gate aside until later.

In the early evening, while I was in the pen, trying to get the goat comfortable with the idea of being in there with me, the girls were kind enough to fix the gate. Well. As much as it can be fixed, for now.

The ring around the post ended up needing to be lowered. The clasp on the gate side was twisted open, and has been closed up again around the pin, as much as we can. The bottom one, at least, just needed the pin straightened out, then it could be slipped right into the clasp.

Unfortunately, the other post has shifted, so while the latch parts now line up again (with a bit of adjusting), the post is leaning too far away for the latch to catch. So we’ll just use the rubber cord that was already on the fence when we moved here. :-D

The vehicle gate has been left as is. I don’t know if we’ll even bother trying to fix the hinges on that one. They are pretty twisted up, but at least they can’t be knocked to the ground, as they currently are.

We partially succeeded in getting the goat to go into the pen, then let her be, so as not to create bad associations with the pen. We still wanted to be out and around her, though, so it was a good time to start soaking the new garden plot.

She and Potato Beetle kept us company!

The cats are still intimidated by her, but their curiosity seems to be slowly overcoming their nervousness!

Also, we need to pick up a new 100 ft hose. The old ones, in spite of my repairs last year, are not holding out well! The only good hose we have right now is the new 50 ft hose we picked up last fall. With two hoses together to make 100 ft, it doesn’t reach the plot, so we can’t set up a sprinkler. We just have to spray it from a short distance away.

We will be giving the garden plot thorough waterings over the next few days, while I start the carrot seeds germinating indoors. According to the video, it should take up to 4 days. We’re not expecting any rain in that time, so it’s up to us to get the soil watered deeply.

As for the seeds I started in trays…

This is the tray with all squash seeds. No gourds have come up at all, yet. The middle is the “summer surprise” mix and, so far, I’m thinking only one variety as started growing. On the right are the patty pans, and only a couple have showed up, there.

These are the cucamelons, and I’m actually rather pleased with how many have sprouted, so far.

Once I see how many have successfully sprouted for transplants, I’ll have a better idea of how I need to prep the garden area, and what I need for trellises. I was going to build those in advance, but I decided to see how many sprout, first, so I know how many I’ll need. From the looks of it, that was a good decision.

Then there is the fennel.

I’m rather disappointed with these. The only ones that have sprouted where the ones that showed up while it was still set up in the living room. They got really leggy, immediately, and no other seeds have sprouted! We might not have any fennel at all this year, if this doesn’t improve.

Meanwhile, I got notified by Veseys, with a tracker number, that our Yukon Gem potatoes have been shipped. They are expected to arrive in 8 days, so we have time to prepare where we want to plant them.

Thankfully, the weather is pleasant during the day, though temperatures are still dipping below freezing overnight.

There is lots to get done outside in the next little while!

The Re-Farmer

Morning critters

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Hello, kitties!

The kittens seem to be away more often, and squirming around their nest a bit more. When I first came down to tend to their mother, the tuxedo was well away from the others, and close to the outside end of the box. My being there seemed to disturb him, because he quickly squirmed his way back to the fur pile. :-D

My morning escort! :-D

Of course, I tried to spend time with the goat. When I got some feed in the container I use as a scoop, she was willing to stick her head right in to eat, and let me pet her.

As an aside, the Costco popcorn containers are really useful. I’ve got several that I used to scoop up feed or cat kibble. These ones have the bottoms cut off and the lids left on. I use others, without any parts cut off, for water in the winter, instead of the pitcher we used before. The heavy duty plastic of the containers make them better for scooping the feed out, and the size lets me keep a rough consistency in portions.

As for the goat, she was really interested in the feed while I carried it, but once I added it to the feed container in the pen, she still wanted to check me out for feed and followed me around. She let me pet her again, but only while she had her face in the feed. :-D She did go into the pen a couple of times, and at one of them, I swung the “gate” closed a little more. I probably should not have done it while she was in there, as it spooked her out, but I didn’t think of it until it was too late. If we can keep closing the “gate” end, little by little, so she gets used to it, is should make it easier to close her in .

Theoretically. She might simply refuse to go in at all, if it’s too closed up.

As I walked around the yard, she didn’t quite follow me, but she did move further away from the doors. She has been going into the old kitchen garden and finding things to eat in there, which is good – for now. There are plants coming through the layers of mulch we put down to build up the soil that we are trying to kill off. This includes some spreading roses. I had hoped to not have to dig them out by the roots, but it seems I will have to, to get rid of them. There are a couple of rose bushes that will stay. It’s the spreading ones that are going to make using this area more difficult. I was happy to see that she will eat the stems that have come up. The thorns don’t seem to phase her at all.

Of course, she also tried to come closer to the cats.

She followed Pumpshack cat up onto the clothes line platform, but when the cat went around the bin, and she could no longer see him, she decided to give Mary a kiss on the head! :-D

She is also very curious about the sun room! She knows this is where the feed bag is – or at least that food comes out through this door! It’s too bad we can’t use this room to contain her, since she seems much more willing to go into here than the garage. If we did close her in and she tried to escape, though, I could see her knocking my seedlings all over, or even breaking her way through the glass.

I’ve been researching about goats, of course, and one of the things I’ve read is that they don’t like to eat feed or hay off the ground, and if they’ve pooped or peed near food that’s on the ground, they won’t eat it. So I took a container we found while cleaning out the basement – a rectangular bin of thick, hard plastic, with a nice, flat bottom – and put it upside down in the pen, then put the feed container on top of the bin. She seemed pretty good with that set up.

So my plan will be to spend much of the day outside, working on the new garden plot, to keep an eye on her.

The down side with all this is, we haven’t had a chance to work on the replacement door. All it needs at this point is to have the recesses for the hinges chiselled out, touch up the paint in the recesses. Once the paint is cured, we just need to attach the hinges and install it.

Hopefully, that is something we can make progress on, today.

The Re-Farmer

Yes, there’s still a goat at our door

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She spent the night sleeping in front of our door, ignoring the shelter I rigged up for her.

Shortly after 7 this morning, I looked out the kitchen window to see a very chilled man in a hoodie, sitting at the front step, very diligently not making direct eye contact with the goat, a container of feed in front of him. Later, I saw him almost manage to lure the goat into the garage.

No success.

Thankfully, we have multiple doors.

I went through the sun room to bring food out for the cats. When it came time to put feed out for the birds, I went around the house from the other side.

The poor guy doesn’t know what to do. He can’t catch her, and he can’t stay around here, trying, when he’s got a farm to run. I assured him again that we were okay with her being here. There is someone here all the time, so we can slowly work on taming her. The only problem is, we don’t have any feed or shelter or anything. He commented that he’s running out of the feed mix he was trying to bait the goat with and, like so many, money is tight. He won’t be able to get more until Wednesday. The goat can at least graze now, if she wanted to. Except she really doesn’t want to leave that door! He said he would come back later, and hoped we would be able to at least lure her into the garage, where he’d left the container of feed, but I think she’s already forgotten about it. As he was leaving, he commented on how he’d really like to get her back (I think our being so okay with her here has ended any notions of killing her for meat!) and had hoped to breed her, and just doesn’t know what to do. Then he made a passing comment of, well, she was a free goat for him, she might be a free goat for us. !!

We shall see.

Meanwhile, I was able to do my morning rounds, followed by not one, not two but three boys!

Yes, I was finally able to confirm that Pump Shack cat is a boy. Not only was he following me around with the other boys, he was coming closer to me than ever before.

They weren’t following me for any sort of affection for each other. Not at all, as you can see.

No, they were following me because Butterscotch was also following me. They’ve been trying to breed with her. :-( She seems very ticked off with that idea and has been fighting them off fairly easily. She’s less than 2 weeks from having kittens, so I don’t imagine she’s in any condition to go into heat right now. That doesn’t stop the boys from trying!

I noticed something yesterday that I made a point of checking out this morning, and I am very excited.

While following the goats around, I noticed that the surviving haskap bush we planted last year is leafing out very nicely.

This is the male plant. I’m impressed with how large those leaves are. All the other trees are just starting to show buds. I’ve read about how cold hardy these are supposed to be, and it definitely shows!

It was the other one that I was most happy to see.

This is the female haskap. It is very hard to see, but it has leaf buds! Each spot that has the remains of leaves from last year, when it suddenly just died off in the fall, has tiny leaf buds under them.

I don’t know what happened to it, but I am glad it survived!

With this spring actually having real moisture, unlike our first two springs here, the sump pump is doing its work to keep the basement from flooding. It doesn’t turn on often, but enough to notice. While the new part basement, with its weeping tile, is dry, the old part basement is showing some moisture this spring.

This is where wood for the furnace used to be store, and I remember well how very wet it would get, when I was a child. This is very dry in comparison. On the other side of the little wall is the sump pump reservoir, and there is a bit of a puddle there, but again, not much at all. Hopefully, it will stay that way.

On the other side of the old basement, where the floor drain it, is is drier, but still shows signs of seeping water.

Some of it is following the concrete patch over what I now know covers the weeping tile drain pipe from the new basement. There are also patches at the base of the wall shared with the new part basement. I’m glad we were able to clean that area out and elevate the things we put back.

Beep Beep and the kitties, meanwhile, are dry and cozy on the other side. I just wasn’t able to get photos this morning. Beep Beep was keeping them all warm with her own body, and I wasn’t going to disturb them. :-)

I’m a little frustrated by the long range forecasts right now. Even just yesterday, I was seeing that we would be chilly for a few days, but only a couple nights would dip below zero. Then the temperatures were expected to warm right up again. Well, the forecasts have now changed dramatically. We’re supposed to continue to be chilly for longer, with lower temperatures overall. Even when it is supposed to warm up, it’s no longer expected to warm up as much, and the nights are all expected to dip below freezing. The warm temperatures we were to expect by the middle of the month have been pushed back to the end of the month, with not a lot of sun. Which is not good for our seed starts. Even in the sun room, they will have a hard time getting full sun, and while the room is certainly warmer, I’ve still taken steps to keep them even warmer. I considered moving them back into the house but the house is actually a bit colder than the sun room is. :-/ I even turned the furnace back up a couple of degrees so it would turn on during the night.

Well, we shall see how the seed starts do. If they won’t work out, we’ll manage.

For now, though, we’ll be focusing more on taming a goat! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Update, up and broken things

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First, an update on the kitties!

Beep Beep came half out of her baby nest to have a bit of food while I was there, with the babies peacefully snoozing in a pile. I was even able to get a picture, despite her best efforts to use her butt to block my attempts. :-D

She was more co-operative later.

That is one happy, contented bunch of wormies!

Beep Beep looks ticked off at the flash. :-D

While I was outside, doing my rounds, Butterscotch and her boys followed me around.

Creamsicle really, really wanted up – and not just with me!

He does love climbing things!

Including my leg. :-D

Potato Beetle was more polite about it.

Just look at that face!

He has a terrible habit of running in front of us as we are walking, then flopping down on the ground, right in front of our feet. It can be very hard not to step on or trip over him! :-D

He likes to go up on the roof and watch the girls through the upstairs window. I’m told he even falls asleep with his forehead against the glass! :-D He is such an affectionate boy. :-)

Butterscotch not only let me pet her this morning, but even let me pick her up, if only briefly. This let me get a quick feel of her belly. The one teat that was very swollen yesterday is still swollen, but already getting softer. This is good, since her not suckling could potentially lead to mastitis.

Before heading outside this morning, I checked on the seeds I’d started earlier, and found there are some seedlings sprouted among the fennel, so I took the dome off the tray. They are already really leggy. I need to get them set up in the sun room soon. The main concern I have for there is how much the temperatures drop during the night. We can’t get a good sense of that with the doors propped open all the time, so I was going to close the outer door, leaving the inner door with its much smaller window, open. We could then keep an eye on the temperature through the bathroom window, throughout the day.

Unfortunately, the door can’t close.

Even when we first moved here, this door was difficult to close. I had to lift it and basically force it shut. Now, not even that works.

Not that it matters anymore. We need to replace the door.

A part of the door’s edge appears to have changed shape and just hits the frame. That’s the part that prevents the door from closing. If this had been the only issue, I could just use one of the planes we found in the basement and shave it down. However, as you can see in the photo, the door itself is coming apart at the bottom, and the window is no longer attached along one side. The caulking is old, brittle and has been breaking off all long that side.

Theoretically, I could take the door off its hinges and repair all of this, but it’s really not worth the effort. I’m pretty sure this is a standard sized door, and we should be able to switch it out with one of the doors we’ve found in a shed.

It’ll be worth a try, at least.

If that doesn’t work… we’ll have to figure something out, or I won’t be able to use the sun room as a greenhouse. I need to be able to protect the trays from the cats.

So that’s something I hope to get done this afternoon.

Wish me luck! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Sad news

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It is already turning out to be a very warm day today. We’re supposed to hit a high of 15C/59F this afternoon!

While doing my rounds this morning, I had a Potato demanding cuddles the whole time. :-)

It was warm enough that I went to try and move the saw horses by the storage shed. The ground was thawed enough that I got one of them loose, but the other turned out to be in worse condition than I expected. Instead of breaking loose from the ground, it just broke. !!

Of course, I checked on the babies before heading out this morning.

Beep Beep and her brood are easier to check. They are even right in a sun spot, in the morning. :-)

Butterscotch’s babies are harder to check on, since she tends to block the opening with her own head. I’ve been using the camera on my phone to try and see the babies.

Which is the only reason I was able to see a problem this morning.

In the photo, I could see one of her babies was pushed off to the side. I’d noticed this same kitten had been pushed off to the side yesterday, and had brought it closer to mom, but when I saw it this morning, I knew it was gone. Judging from the state of its hind end, something had gone wrong with it. My guess is, Butterscotch sensed it was not doing well and had been pushing it away from her healthy babies. It may well have been weak from the start.

My daughter and I have been talking about how we can set Butterscotch and her remaining babies up in a new nest, and block the inside of the old radio off completely. It’s just too difficult to see them in there. It’s unlikely it would have made a difference, to be honest, but at least we’d be able to check on them more easily.

A sad way to start the morning. :-(

The Re-Farmer