Kittens!

July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

I did a walk around the yard, picking up the larger twigs and branches that have come down in the wind. I was about to head into the house when Beep Beep came over. Normally, she comes right over for pets, but this time, she wouldn’t let me touch her, and went along the front of the house, which has the door we don’t use. Thinking she might be more comfortable and come over if I didn’t move too much, I sat on the concrete steps while she lounged behind a bush next to them.

Then she disappeared.

I couldn’t figure out where she went, until I heard a little mmmrrr? behind me. Getting up I looked around, then saw her peeking at me from between the concrete steps and the basement wall under the door.

I had no idea there was space back there! Certainly not enough for her to come through on the side I was looking in. I walked around and sure enough, there’s a larger gap on the other side.

She came out again, but wouldn’t come near me. Instead, she lay down on the ground behind the bush again, so I sat down.

Then, suddenly, there were kittens with her!

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I dangled my fingers over the edge of the concrete for a bit, and the tabby went for them, then disappeared behind the stairs. The tuxedo wouldn’t come close, but was curious.

I think there is a fairly large opening under the stairs. Not hollow, but not completely solid, either.

I saw two kittens, but when Beep Beep was rolling around, giving herself a dust bath, later on, I could see that she had three lactating teats. So there is probably a third kitten under there!

Now we just need to figure out where Butterscotch took her babies. I am still thinking they might be in the threshing machine.

We will then have the “onerous” task of socializing them. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Beep Beep and views

July 3, 2018July 3, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

As the girls and I headed out to the city, Beep Beep came out to see us off.

Beep Beep is pretty much the only one of the outside cats we are seeing regularly. Every time I see her, I am amazed by how little she is! Just fur and bones!

During the drive to and from the city, we saw many beautiful fields of canola in full bloom.

Gorgeous!

We even saw some cranes just half a mile from our place this morning, some pelicans flying over as we were leaving the city on a different route, and a herd of bison, with their little ones, on the final leg home.

Pretty awesome. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Dead Wood Down, and cat models

June 16, 2018June 16, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

With yesterday’s heat, I did not head out until the evening, to clean up the piles of wood I’d cleared out the day before. We had caught just the edge of the storm that night, with some rain and high winds, but nothing near as bad as the areas to the south of us. Some places got tennis ball sized hail, and there were power outages in places.

When I got to where I’d left the cut wood, I noticed a branch, just off by itself, but still near the pile of deadwood. Had I missed it, somehow how?

Then I looked up.

The big maple tree reaches out over this area, and it has a lot of dead branches. One of them was broken in the high winds we got, and the bigger part of it got hung up on other dead branches.

Lovely.

After I clearer away the piles of wood, I added another length to the extended pruning saw. I was able to pull down the dangling branch, then with the extra length, was able to cut down two dead branches.

The first one was the one at the bottom of the dangling branch you can see in the picture above. The other was a larger one, that you can see part of, above the big, thick main branch. That one was being partly held up by the main branch.

You can see all three branches, here. The big one, as it got hung up on the main branch on the way down, basically exploded, sending side branches and twigs all over the place! (That would be Rolando Moon, in the background. :-D )

After taking out the big branches, I filled two wheelbarrows with small branches and twigs, just from here!

We had a wiener roast shortly after, and when we were done eating, I stayed longer to clear both wheelbarrows. :-)

While we were having our cook out, we got visited by Nasty Crime Boy, who decided that one of the folding chairs we brought out would be a great place to hang out.

When my daughter came closer with her phone to take pictures, he was very curious about the whole thing, sticking his face up to the phone, then reaching out to grab her with his paws!

Too adorable. :-D

I ended up staying out several hours, tending the fire and watching the sun setting behind the trees while listening to the renter’s cows mooing, with frogs and cranes, croaking in the distance. By the time the girls came out to check on me, it was fully dark except for the glowing coals in the fire pit.

Life is good.

The Re-Farmer

I’ve Been Rolando Mooned!

June 12, 2018June 12, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We’ve noticed that, when we get the fire pit going, Rolando Moon likes to hang around.

Last night, she decided she really wanted my hot dog.

When she couldn’t get it, she demanded neck skritshes, instead.

It was either that, or she’d fall right off me!

(photos taken by my daughters)

The Re-Farmer

Outer yard mowing – a sadness!

June 9, 2018June 9, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today, I broke out the riding mower to work on the outer yard.

Although I don’t intend to focus on any clean up out there, we do still need to keep parts of it mowed.

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I started by “framing” out the areas I wanted to mow, mostly for access. You can see how tall it is, plus there is last year’s grass under it, too. So I was extra slow and careful while going through the thickest parts, and keeping a very sharp eye out for anything I didn’t want to mow over. I did have to get off a couple of times to move away sticks or old wooden shingles.

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Next, I started working on sections, beginning with the driveway.

The area to the left of the driveway in the photo had lots of horse droppings. Just that side. The other side didn’t. Which is weird.

My parents didn’t have horses.

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The next section I focused on was in front of the shed we’re storing my parents’ stuff in, so we can get in and out of it more easily as we add more to the shed.

I had to go over this section twice.

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I had not originally intended to do this, but decided to mow a pathway to the other gate. We still need to fix the barb wire gate, and this way, we can get to it without having to fight our way though tall, tick infested, grass.

I was REALLY careful doing this section, because I remember there were all sorts of random piles of stuff. Basically, I just followed old tire tracks.

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Next, I started working on a section between my dad’s old car, and the burn barrel.

I had just got around by the car, when this happened.

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Yeah. I broke a belt.

On my new mower.

Sadness.

Woe.

Thankfully, belts are not expensive, but I will have to enlist the help of my older brother to fix it, I think.

I guess I just pushed it too hard. :-(

I wasn’t about to let all that wonderful cut grass go to waste, though. After putting away the mower, I got out the rake and a wheelbarrow, and started hauling grass to the flower garden. Amazingly, I had to actually start scrounging for grass clippings to finish it! I not only raked in front of the storage shed, but also to the barn, then back to the driveway.

Which is when this happened.

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It finally gave out.

And this was the good fan rake!

We do have one other one, though I expect that one to break soon, too. I only needed one more load of grass clippings to finish, though. I had to go to the path I mowed to the back get to get enough!

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But it is finally gone! The entire flower garden is now covered with a thick later of straw, leaves and grass clippings. I’ve even started adding the contents of our compost bucket.

It is now being thoroughly soaked down.

The next step we plan to take (aside from continuing to add any grass clippings, etc. that we can, over the summer) is to pick up a couple of bales of peat moss and add that as another layer. I really want to build it up, to kill off the invasive plants and cover any little remaining stumps from stuff I’d trimmed away completely. Especially at the old fence line at the end of the garden, where things had gotten pretty wild.

Over by the fire pit, my mother’s lilies are now in full bloom.

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They are doing really, really well. I think, once we have the flower garden built up, I’ll transplant these into it.

While I was taking pictures, I felt something rubbing against my leg…

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It was a Butterscotch!

She looks ticked off. :-D

She was seen earlier today, carrying a kitten. My daughter barely saw more than little legs and a tail, and couldn’t even tell what colour it was. It seems she had moved her kitten(s?) to the garden shed. I’d gone into it yesterday, looking for something, and she came out from under stuff in the back and began hissing at me. Even though I didn’t go much past the doorway, I guess it was still too much for her, and she found another place for her kitten(s?).

So we are back to not having a mower, until I can replace that belt. I won’t be able to phone the shop my brother got it from until Monday.

*sigh*

Ah, well. It’s not like there isn’t plenty of other work to be done!

The Re-Farmer

First Wiener Roast of the year!

June 4, 2018June 6, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Last night, we decided to take advantage of the lovely evening, and have our first wiener roast of the year! :-D

When I was a kid, we used to have these quite often. I would go into the bush with a machete-type knife (we even found it while packing away my parents’ stuff!) and cut dogwood branches for roasting sticks. They were perfect for it, naturally growing long, straight and supple. Sometimes, I could get ones with a perfect Y shape. The bark came off easily, and I would strip off the top several inches, then sharpen them to points.

At the end of the day, we’d get a fire going, roast wieners and stuff our faces with hot dogs, then finish off with marshmallows. When we were done eating, it would be quite dark, and we would start burning our roasting sticks until the tips were glowing, then wave them around in the dark, using the red tips to create shapes of light in the air.

Sometimes, my parents hosted parties, and their friends from the city would come out with their kids, and there would be dozens of people all over. Most of the time, though, it was just us kids. We had a blast!

Thanks to the burning my daughter and I did earlier, when I cleared the yard to mow the lawn, I had a nice pile of sticks ready to set up for a fire. We brought the hose (of course) and chairs. We were thinking of moving the picnic table over, but it’s in serious need of cleaning, so the girls brought out one of our small folding tables, instead.

We’re going to have to invest in metal roasting forks soon. I picked up a package of wooden roasting sticks along with the S’mores kit, and they are a bit too flammable and bouncy! :-D

I had hoped my husband could join us, even if just to sit on his walker while we roasted wieners for him, but he had to lie down for the night, before we even started. :-(

It got to watch a beautiful sunset while we set up and got the fire going.

I’m going to have to get out there with the weed trimmer. *L*

The outside cats were all over the place, checking out what we were doing! Rolando Moon staked out a spot on the log pile to watch us. The hose sprays water at where two hoses join, and at the nozzle, and the cats played with the spray!

At one point, while I was sitting and eating, Rolando Moon actually jumped up onto my knee! That’s a first. Even the friendliest ones are still quite stand offish, so this is a big step in at least Rolando Moon’s comfort levels with us.

Ah… perfect for toasting those wieners!

We made some S’mores – that’s something we never did when I was a kid. I didn’t even hear of them until after I had my own kids.

I find I really enjoy toasting marshmallows, and getting that perfect state of golden brown on the outside, and all melty on the inside.

Problem with that is, I don’t actually enjoy eating them. Too sweet!

None of us are all that big on sweets, so while the hot dogs disappeared quickly, there’s still lots of S’more making supplies! :-D

Best part was, the entire night, we only saw one mosquito!

There is at least that one benefit to the dry spring we had!

After a while, we just hung out to watch the fire die down.

I hope we will be able to do this often. Even if we don’t have wiener roasts, to at least get a fire going and enjoy the evening. We have a lot of wood we need to use up, and will be adding more as the clean up continues, so why not? :-D

It was a fantastic evening!

The Re-Farmer

Finding things out

May 30, 2018May 30, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had an adorable surprise, while puttering around the kitchen, making supper.

I had a furry audience!

Trülbus was watching me. :-D

Then he and our mama cat started talking to each other through the window. Too funny!

This evening, I got a phone call from my older brother and had a lovely long talk. He was able to answer some questions for me – and not answer others!

That linoleum under the eaves?

No clue. It wasn’t there before. He’d never seen it before. Best guess; when our late brother was building the sun room, he might have put them there to protect the underside of the eaves from any back splash of rain from the sun room roof. That was the only thing he could think of. :-D

He also told me that he’d been looking through some old photos and happened on one taken inside the shed we’re storing my parents’ stuff in. There in the photo was an A-frame ladder. He knew we hadn’t been able to find one, so he let me know.

As soon as I got off the phone, I grabbed a flashlight and checked.

On the one hand, yay! It’s there!

On the other hand… it’s completely blocked with stuff.

Since I was there anyway, I looked around and noticed something odd about a hand saw hanging on the back wall.

It was two hand saws. One of them was the fine, narrow bladed one I remember using in my youth, that I was wishing I had while doing yard work.

Also, completely blocked off. Plus, way out of reach. My late brother would have hung it up there. He was fairly tall, but not that tall!

That shed is so full of stuff. Somehow, we’re going to have to fit in more!

*sigh*

I also got to talking to my brother about what the lawn mower was doing. Turns out it was doing the same thing for him, though he’d hoped he’d fixed it.

Easiest thing to do to fix it once and for all is to have the carburetor replaced.

Time to go looking for a small engine repair shop. I mean, we *could* do it ourselves, but when it comes to things to put our time and energy to, it would just be simpler that way.

Not everything is worth doing it ourselves.

The Re-Farmer

Morning Cats, and shopping day

May 30, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I want to start by sharing some photos of the cats this morning. Because it’s a great way to start the day!

Like waking up to this…

Actually, I woke up to see her sitting there, staring at me. :-D The cats really appreciate the extra thickness of the window sill, thanks to the log walls in the original part of the house. They’d love to get up onto the other window, too, which is much, much bigger, but it’s the one that didn’t get replaced. Which means it still has sheets of plexiglass covering them on the inside, so there’s nowhere they can sit at. Which drives them bonkers, when the outside cats are in the trees outside the window, looking in. :-D

Speaking of outside cats…

With all the rain we’ve been having, I moved the food bowls under the little roof over the basement window. They actually seem to prefer when the kibble gets a bit wet; likely softer on their teeth. “A bit wet” is not what’s been happening, lately. Which is a good thing!

When I came out this morning, Squishum (not in the picture) was all talkative, squeaking away as if wanting attention, but still won’t let me come near. Nasty Crime Boy, Beep Beep and Butterscotch were content to ignore me to come to the food.

The Hand, on the other hand…

…would not go to the food while I was around! I took this through the screen door of the sun room, after bringing back the container I use to take food to the bowls. She would only peak her head around the corner of the shelf outside, watching to see what I would do. I was able to move my phone enough to get more than just her head, but she was not comfortable with me being there and slunk away to the clothes line platform to wait for me to leave.

I don’t want to prevent her from eating, so I left.

I so want to touch that cat! :-D

Instead, I got to touch the Butterscotch!

I even got a decent picture of her! She makes it very difficult. :-D

I wandered around the East side of the house and did a bit of weeding to free up some irises that are coming up. Looking into the spruce grove, I just had to get another picture.

Remember this?

That photo was taken on May 15. The leaves are barely coming out at this point.

This is what it looks like, today.

That broken piece of tree in the first picture is still there, in the left side of the photo. Completely hidden from where I was standing, and barely visible even at other angles.

That horseradish is coming up nicely, too.

In time, that underbrush will be cleared mostly away, and the dead tree will be cut down. Likely not this year, though. I think we will focus on cleaning up the maple grove, first. At least as much as we can, until we have a working chain saw.

My goal is to have both the maple and spruce groves open under the trees, park-like and mow-able. I would like us to, at the very least, be able to walk through the trees without having to skirt dead branches, dead trees and other detritus. Including my husband, with his walker. Maybe set up a picnic table or something in the shade, so we can enjoy the spaces more.

Little by little, we will get there.

Late this morning, my older daughter and I made the trip into the city for our monthly bulk shopping trip. Our usual routine is to stop at the town we drive though on the way, to fill the tank. The gas station we stop at is a co-op we have a membership with, which will translate into a check at the end of the year, so we make it a habit. When we got there, however, I got the nasty surprise of seeing the gas prices had gone up 10¢ per liter. !!! Our tank was lower than I normally let it go (we drove over 1800km since I filled it and reset the trip counter at the end of last month), so I kind of had to put something in. I ended up putting in $30, which didn’t even bring it to half a tank. While paying for it, I asked when the big jump happened. Turned out to be a mere 2 hours before we got there!

When we finished our Costco shopping, I filled the tank there. The price was 14¢ per litre less! Plus, since it’s Costco, that will also be included in the check we’ll get at the end of the year. Even at the lower price, and having already put in $30 of gas and bringing it to just below the half way mark, it still cost over $60 to fill the tank. That’s almost half our gas budget for the month, right there. Thankfully, our van does have good mileage.

The increases in gas prices are really going to be a problem. The politicians can talk about how we should be using alternative transportation all they want. Even in the city, that’s not always feasible. For anyone living in the country, what choice do we have? It’s not like there’s a bus we can hop on, and we certainly can’t bike to the city to do our monthly grocery shopping. Or even to the next town. Plus, most people have multiple vehicles, because they are work tools, not just transportation. Heaven help those who make the commute to the city! When we last lived out here, my husband had a 70 minute commute, one way. That’s highway driving, for the most part, so it wasn’t affected by traffic until the last 10 minutes or so. I know others who have longer commutes. Back then, it was a big deal when gas prices went higher than 60¢ a litre. Now we’re looking at $1.309 (there are about 4L in a gallon, for those of you in the US. That works out to about $5.24 per gallon), and other areas are even higher.

That’s going to make life more difficult for a lot of people. :-(

We got the monthly shopping done, at least. $600 later. :-/ My splurge of the month was new wiper blades for the van, to replace the ones being held together with electric tape. :-D Tomorrow, we go to the regular grocery store to get the things we don’t need to buy in bulk.

It feels good to have well stocked cupboards, fridge and freezer again!

The Re-Farmer

An Awesome Day, and growth explosion

May 27, 2018May 27, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today, all four of us made it into the city for a family get together. It made for a very long and painful day for my husband, but he hasn’t seen his sister in 4 years. She flies home soon, so he wasn’t about to miss this chance. It was so great to see everyone and spend time with them. It is a rare thing for everyone to be together at the same time, these days.

With all this wonderful rain we’ve been having, it’s just fantastic to see everything so GREEN, everywhere. Even the drive into the city looked completely different.

A short time ago, the trees were just showing green leaves, while everything else looked like the dead growth from last year that you can still see in the ditch. Now, it’s like the trees all just exploded in green.

(Also, I’m amused by the fact that there is a reflection of me driving, hovering in the sky. :-D )

When we got home, we found all sorts of cats had missed our company!

The inside cats were very curious about Nasty Crime boy.

It was a shared curiosity! :-D

I’m loving the long daylight hours, too. Though we didn’t get home until past 8pm, there was still plenty of light, so I did a quick walk around the yard to see how things were.

The crab apple trees north of the spruce grove are finally blooming. My sister and her husband pruned them back quite heavily last summer, but I can see that there are some dead branches that will need to be cut away. These might have died off over the winter.

A few days ago, these linden leaves were just barely new leaf buds!

I had a chance to ask my mother about the linden tree, because it looks so different than I remember it. So much so that, until the leaves unfurled, it looked like two different trees! She told me that she used to cut back the suckers every year, but no one continued that after she went to the senior’s centre she now lives in. That would explain why they look so different. The growth at the base – where these leaves are – is only about 4-5 years old, whereas the trunk in the middle is more like 30-35 years old.

These lilies had been showing in green clusters but after the rain, they shot up several inches and threw out flower stocks and buds virtually overnight!

Rolando Moon approves.

I also did a basement check this evening, and the old part basement is bone dry, though there is some water in the sump pump reservoir. Well below the level of the float.

We still need to get the old hot water tank out of there. It’s much bigger and heavier than modern ones!

I was just thinking, as I wrote this, how I can’t remember the last time the old part basement was still dry this far into spring, and I remembered one year when it flooded. This had to have happened before the new part was built, so I was probably about 6 years old, give or take a year or two. I remember going part way down the stairs to see. The water was a couple of feet deep – deep enough to cover several steps – and perfectly clean and clear.

Then, as I was looking, a frog went swimming past the bottom of the stairs!

I will never forget that frog! :-D

I hadn’t thought of that in years!

Funny how things trigger old memories of growing up in this house. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Status after storms and rain

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

This morning, I made a point of walking around the yard to see if there was any damage from the storms. We’re all still very wet – enough that our sump pump has actually turned on! – and everything is so wonderfully green!

First order of business was to clean out the cat food containers, which were full of water logged kibble.

I had several cats come out to see what I was doing.

None of them were co-operative when it came to getting their pictures taken! :-D

I was very pleased at what the flower garden I’ve been working on looked like.

Absolutely none of the uncovered cardboard blew away. I am quite surprised, really. With the winds we had for a while, I’m surprised quite a lot of things didn’t blow away!

No roof damage. No dead branches fallen down – at least not in the yard. Just some small branches and twigs.

We’re getting to where we should be mowing the lawn soon. We’re expecting more rain today, but even without more rain, the grass is far too wet. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get it done on Monday.

Not that there is much grass to mow.

The above photo is of the yard to the east of the house, between the house and a flower garden on that side (though that “flower” garden is now mostly bushes). On the far side of this garden, there is better grass.

The above photo is the west section of the yard, near the fire pit. Mostly moss, some weeds, and very little actual grass.

The north side of the yard has a dead patch that perfectly corresponds with the overhanging maple branches above. Hmm. Do you think there’s a correlation? LOL

The south areas of the yard has more grass, especially on the south east, but under the Chinese Elm by the kitchen, it’s more weeds and dirt than grass.

That tractor tire is an interesting bit of decor. ;-D

At some point, though not likely this year, we will work to improve the lawn. Even if it’s to move to a ground cover rather than grass. Some areas are sparse because vehicles get driven in to the door fairly regularly, so I wouldn’t expect anything to do well in those areas.

One thing I was seeing a lot of were black ant hills, like these. The one in the middle was the biggest I saw. Most were like the tiny bundle of soil to the left of it. They’re not good to have in the yard, since they destroy root systems with their digging, but I’m not too worried about them at this point.

Our plans for the day will depend a lot on the weather, but I do hope we’ll still get some outside work done. I had been thinking of building a new barb wire gate for the other driveway, and we still might start preparations for it (like seeing if we can salvage the wood fence posts in the flower garden to replace the rotting posts in the existing barb wire gate) today. We shall see how it works out.

Little by little, it’s getting done. :-)

The Re-Farmer

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