outside cats

Wind damage, and Our 2024 Garden: growth

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The outside cats are most confused!

There are no food bowls in the sun room right now. I checked the critter cam a few times during the night, and would sometimes see a cat wandering around where their platform and cat beds used to be, seeming lost! This morning, there was a whole crowd of them, milling about, waiting for their breakfast. They were all over the baby jail, inside and out, but there are no beds or blankets inside it right now, either.

As I fed them, I counted only 17, though.

With yesterday’s high winds, while checking around the yard, I was surprised to find just a couple of fallen branches, and just one broken tree.

The trunk of a poplar snapped off and will need to be cleared out. There’s also a live spruce tree nearby that has been slowly falling over, but it’s been doing that for years now. I’ve been keeping an eye on it. The only reason it’s not on the ground already it because it’s leaning against another tree. The dead trees around it, however, are all still standing straight!

It looks like we won’t be getting any haskaps again this year. The one “Mr.” haskap is leafing wonderfully, and even showing flower buds. The “Mrs.” haskap that was purchased and planted the same year is barely showing leaf buds. The smaller “Mrs.” haskap that was planted the following year is actually further ahead, but is really small compared to the other two. There’s just 1 year’s difference between them, so it should be much closer in size.

We’ll see how they do this year. I keep saying we need to transplant them to a better location, but every time I talk about it with the girls, they are concerned that moving them would damage them too much. Considering how poorly they are doing now, I don’t see what difference that makes. For the length of time we’ve had them, we should be getting plenty of berries every year by now, but there’s just no possibility of proper cross pollination to happen.

Of course, I checked the bed with the peas, carrots and spinach planted. I think I might, maybe, possibly be seeing a carrot sprout or two, and there are no peas coming up yet, but we’re finally seeing spinach!

The garlic, meanwhile, is seeing an absolute growth spurt, in all the beds they are planted in!

Syndol was following me around this morning, and he is frustrating me to no end! He kept going into the garden beds as I was checking them. I’ll have to put something around the bed with the spinach to keep him out! We can’t put a cover back on it, because of the T posts set up inside, which will have netting set up for the peas to climb, later on. The tiny raised bed that has its own cover is closed at the ends, so cats can’t get inside. Instead, Syndol climbs on top and uses it like a hammock! He’s the only cat I’ve seen that does that, but I’m sure there are others. I have to put another support hoop in the middle, plus a cross piece at the top, because there’s no way we’ll be able to keep the cats from climbing it.

But not today.

Today, the focus is back on the sun room. First, the windows in the plant corner need to be cleaned, then the second light hung back up over where the makeshift table will be set up. After that, we can set up the plant table over the baby jail, and bring the cat beds and blankets back.

Washing those was quite the thing! We split them all into two loads, and both loads had to be washed twice. Actually, I think my daughter washed the second load a third time, during the night. The amount of debris that had to be cleaned out of the washing machine’s tub was rather shocking, too. Some of the bedding needed a lot of mashing and bashing, as the layers inside got all messed up and bunched up. There’s one large cat bed that was donated to use that I’ve just not been able to get flat and even again. I’m serious considering opening up a seam so I can reach inside and break up the filling. The cats hardly even use it, because gets so lumpy after being washed.

So that’s my main goal today. Getting the plant side of the sun room done. Then the tools and storage side can be worked on.

That side, I’m afraid, it probably going to have a lot more messes hidden among the stuff they’ve knocked about. Now that everything’s thawed out, there’s an unfortunate smell, and it has to be coming from somewhere on that side.

At least it’s got a concrete floor that makes it much easier to clean!

The Re-Farmer

Another damp morning

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It rained steadily through most of yesterday, and continues today. No downpours, but constant enough that we’re getting quite a bit of standing water in the usual places.

Also, the rain is light enough that the cats don’t mind being out and about in it!

I think I counted 30 or 31 this morning, but they were milling around too quickly. Then something startled them and they exploded in all directions, at which point, I gave up trying! 😄 Sad Face was in the sunroom when I first came out, and I was even able to pet him briefly while he was outside.

I haven’t seen Judgement in a while. Hopefully, he’s just out exploring his territory and will be back soon. I also didn’t see Broccoli. She would be somewhere with her babies. Hopefully, there will still be kibble left when she does finally come to eat!

While doing my rounds, I was joined by Syndol. While petting him, I spotted what looked like blood in a patch of white fur. He let me check, and it looks like he got into a fight and a tuft of fur was pulled out at his neck.

While checking that out, I also found a wood tick, right next to the bald patch!

Syndol was patient about letting me get a grip on it and pulling it out. Not easy, in that long fur!

While going through the maple grove I paused at an old willow that is half dead. Something about it looked… different. I’m not entirely sure what the change was, but it was enough to make me grab hold of it and give it a shake.

At which point, I brought the camera out…

I was easily able to pull that dead trunk down with one hand. I honestly don’t know how it stayed up for so long!

This was basically two willow trunks against each other, and the other trunk also has some rot on it. I’m not sure if it’ll keep going for a few more years, of if it will come down, too. It leans quite a bit already. With willow, though, you just never know. The big willow nearby has been slowly dying for years, and it’s center, where it splits off into several trunks, is fully rotted out. Yet, year after year, it keeps going!

I could see more snow crocus flower buds this morning, and the tulips are growing nicely. I’m seeing more garlic coming up, too, which is a bit of a relief. I was starting to think most of them hadn’t survived the winter.

Once again, it’s too wet and muddy to do the outside work I need to do. This afternoon, I’ll be making a trip to the post office. Yes, more packages for my husband to pick up, but also one to return. He had picked up a video card for his desktop computer, in hopes of getting it working again.

He had the tower open to work on it, when a cat came in and knocked it to the floor, and onto his foot. No injury, thankfully, but … well … he now has a big, expensive paperweight.

He is not a happy camper.

The video card is not much use now. I’m not sure he even finished getting it out of the packaging.

*sigh*

As much as we need this rain, it’s really doing a number on the gravel roads. The road running past our driveway isn’t too bad. It gets a bit more maintenance, since it gets a lot more heavy traffic than some of the other side roads. A lot of dump trucks, tractors and heavy equipment use this road to get to the fields to the south of us, including our own that is rented out. I was talking to the guy who delivers our prescriptions, and he was telling me some of the gravel roads he has to take are in really bad shape. Some of them even have grass growing on them! Nothing can really be done about it right now, though. If the roads are too wet and muddy, the graders can’t go down them without causing more damage.

The main gravel road that runs past us, which we take to go to town, is constructed for heavy traffic, and is considerably wider than any of the side roads, but there are still patches of it that break up, every year. It’s actually in worse shape than the section of road that goes past our driveway!

All in all, we’re doing pretty good, while getting some much needed moisture. Which will continue for a couple more days! When I looked previously, we were supposed to get a break over the weekend, then a couple more days rain. Now, that rain is expected to hit us over the weekend, instead. We’ve got some decidedly cool days in the upcoming week, too. [update: the forecast has already changed! Now we’re not supposed to get rain over the weekend again. LOL]

Meanwhile, my brother is coming out tomorrow, to set up my mother’s air conditioner. I’ll get joining him to help out – and enjoy his company. She won’t be needing to use in for a while! Still, it’s good to get that done now.

There is no hurry at all in getting the AC they gave us set up. We’ve got the living room set up for transplants right now, so the outlet is blocked. Once we no longer have seedlings in the living room, we can move the shelves away again, and hook it up. It should be interesting to see how much of a difference it will make in the household, come summertime. When he set it up for us last year, the summer was almost over, so it didn’t get much use before being set aside for the winter. I suspect the living room is going to become a favourite place to hang out this summer! Especially for my husband. I would not be at all surprised if he ends up linking his laptop to the TV to use. His south facing bedroom gets pretty warm in the summer, and he does not tolerate heat well, at all.

We’ll find out in about a month or so!

I’m still wrapping my brain around the idea that we’re in May already. This year is just flying by.

The Re-Farmer

Broccoli is first, and growing things

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I was a bit later than usual when I came out to feed the yard babies, so there was quite a crowd.

I immediately noticed Broccoli’s back end was looking bedraggled.  As she milled about, eating ravenous, I could confirm.

She has had her litter.  Possibly just hours before. 

She has her “nest” somewhere in the outer yard, so we likely won’t see them until they are old enough to bring them to the kibble houses. 

*sigh*

This would be the first litter of the year.  Out of the 33, at most, that we see, I have been able to spot possibly 5 in total that look pregnant, including Broccoli, with one tuxedo I think might be female and is probably pregnant, plus the tiny fluff ball that hangs put in the sun room that I think is female, but is from the youngest litter from last year.  I’m working on socializing her, but have had little success.

Why are the ladies all the most feral ones?

We are also getting a regular stinky kitty visiting.  A very small skunk, too, and only by itself.  The cats are completely indifferent to its presence!

On a different note, while doing my rounds this morning, I’m see8ng more snow crocuses blooming… but not very many plants. Hopefully, more will cone up.

Speaking of which, my daughter’s tulip patch has lots coming up, including a surprise.  I found some working their way through the mulch I moved aside from the saffron crocuses.  I planted them there because the tulips planted nearby didn’t make it.  At all.  Now, after at least 2 years, there are tulip leaves visible!  These should be the Bull’s Eye tulips, with their unique blossoms.  Hopefully, they will actually bloom, and we can confirm that. 

We had lights rain, off and on, yesterday, and should be getting more, today and tomorrow.  The weekend should be clear-ish then a couple more days of rain.  Which would be great, if it were more than just a fine mist that just makes surfaces damp.  We could really use some good downpours.  We are still being affected by the strong El Nino, though, so our area is unlikely to get much. 

Today, my main goal is to plant the summer mix melon seeds.  I gave them a extra day in their containers.  In checking the others last night, I saw my first watermelon seed germinating. 

If the seedlings remain as successful as the pre-germination, after transplanting, we will have a massive amount of winter squash and melons this year!

The Re-Farmer

All the things…

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… and it’s barely past noon!

First the fun stuff.

I counted 31 yard cats this morning! Likely because it’s a rather chilly and damp morning – and I was a bit later than usual for bringing food out!

With the chill and that damp, I don’t expect to get much done outside, but I might get some seeds planted into cells this evening. I might wait another day, but when I checked the mixed melon seeds when shutting down the lights last night, I saw a whole bunch of radicles peaking out! None of the other seeds are showing them yet, but almost all the mixed seeds were sprouting. I checked again this morning, and it looks like we’re at not quite 100% germination with the mixed melons, already! This was the packet that had 21 seeds in it. The large celled trays I am trying out this year have 21 cells, so that works out, if they all make it. I don’t want to put them in soil too quickly, though. A bit more time in the warmth and dampness above the heat mat will be good for them.

Speaking of dampness…

While checking the status of the basement, I was able to shift the new blower fans to focus more on the stairs. The space under the stairs is looking pretty dry, as well as most of the concrete floor, but it’s going to take longer on the steps.

We should probably remove that carpet that’s nailed to the stairs. Most likely, it’s scrap carpet salvaged from somewhere that my parents acquired and added during the years we lived out of province. Likely to make them less of a potential slip hazard? Or just because they felt like it. I don’t know. I think, in the near future, we should pick up a gallon of durable paint, get rid of the carpet, and paint the stairs as soon as possible, so there aren’t any exposed holes in the wood. The girls have plans for fixing the basement up a bit, including painting the ceiling – the exposed floor beams and joists – white, to brighten up a really dark area. I’d like to get more of those shop lights that we are using as grow lights. I prefer them to the lights that are already down there and, to be honest, I’m not too keen on replacing the existing wired in fixtures just yet.

But those are plans to slowly work on over time.

I checked the root cellar floor as well, and it’s mostly try, so the box fan remains. The hydrometer I’ve got in there was at 60% humidity still!

We might later need to move the new blower fans to the counter shelves. The pedestal fans are still aimed at them, and there is significant improvement, but there’s a lot of stuff blocking air flow. We’ll probably need to move some things out – and it’s a good excuse to finally drag out the old door from our old van that my brother was able to replace for us, shortly after we moved out here. Yeah, it’s been sitting there all these years, just in case parts were needed. Now that we no longer have the van, there is no reason to leave it there.

Other than the weight and how awkward it would be to get it up the stairs and out the door!

Anyhow.

After I did my rounds this morning, I called my mother. She sounded better, but she told me she was preparing to head out to the clinic. I asked how she was feeling, and yes, the Pepto seemed to really make a difference. We talked a bit about that, and then she went back to talking about going to the clinic today.

Why, if she’s feeling better?

She kept jumping back to my brother telling her that she needed a doctor to say she could move to the nursing home, and I eventually figured out that she believed she could just show up at the clinic, have a doctor say she needed to move to a nursing home, and basically start getting ready to move.

She has gotten really eager to move out of where she is and into the nursing home! Specifically, the one in town, where her sister and my father spent their final time, as well as many old friends and neighbours of hers.

Once I figured out why she still wanted to go to the clinic, I told her it doesn’t work that way! I told my mother she would need to make an appointment, then told her I would call the clinic about it right away, and get back to her.

Which I did, and had a great conversation with what turned out to be an unusually knowledgeable receptionist on the topic. It turns out she also does home care and is quite familiar with the process.

One of the things she told me is that we need to give the doctor a “top 3” of nursing home choices, not just the one my mother wants to live in, and they all have to be in the same region.

My mother’s doctor, however, is on holiday for most of May, so the earlier appointment I could get for my mother was at the end of May. She booked my mother for a longer appointment, since it is for a long term care assessment, and made sure the appropriate forms were attached to the appointment file.

I really like the people in this clinic!

Then I called my mother back with her appointment, and explained things to her, including how this just puts her on a waiting list, so the whole thing can take months, and she might not end up where she wants to be. We talked about other towns with nursing homes, and even the smaller, nearer city, which is in the same region (the bigger city is its own region, by itself). When we’d talked about assisted living previously, she was adamant she never wanted to live there, but now that we’re talking nursing homes, she actually seemed quite okay with the idea of living there. Particularly since it puts her closer to both my brother and sister. It’s roughly half way between us and my brother’s, so our trips to see her would be about the same length of time. My sister would be only maybe 15 minutes away, at most.

But, who knows? We have to get her assessed first, and we now have an appointment to get that ball rolling.

My mother updated, I then updated my siblings. While we can all help out, ultimately, it’s on my brother, as Power of Attorney for my mother, to finalize things on her behalf.

After all that, I was finally able to take a breather, have breakfast and start this post – at lunch time! 😄

I’m glad to have gotten that done, but I’m also glad to NOT be making a trip to the clinic with my mother, nor anywhere else. I don’t even have to go to the pharmacy; my husband’s refills are going to be delivered today.

Between all the phone calls and writing, and the cool, damp weather, what I’d really like to do now is go for a nap. Weather like this always makes me so sleepy!

The Re-Farmer

Morning beauty, first garlic, and apparently, I’ve been hardening off wrong.

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First, the cuteness!

I counted 28 yard cats this morning, and Driver was really wanting attention, following me the entire time I did my rounds. I even picked him up a couple of times, though he didn’t like it much and quickly jumped back down – then demanded more pets!

Of course, I’ve been checking the garlic beds daily. I spotted what might have been our very first garlic, maybe 2 days ago, in the tiny raised bed. It’s now big enough that I can be sure that it is, indeed, a garlic sprouting. Today, I could finally see more emerging.

This one is in the long, rectangular bed closer to the house. The last garlic cloves were planted all down the middle of it. The first ones in the bed along the retaining wall are starting to show, and I think I even saw one or two in the short part of the wattle weave bed. In the long part of the bed, I’m seeing fresh green leaves from some of the strawberries we started from seed, too.

Of course, I checked on the trays and bins of transplants that spent their first night in the sun room. They are all exactly as I left them; no cats (or racoons, or skunks) have gotten into them. While the outside temperatures dropped to just below freezing, the sun room’s thermometer stayed hovering around 10C/50F. Our living room, where they were moved out from, typically stays around 15C/59F during the day, so while the overnight temperatures may be cooler in the sun room, they’re going to get a lot warmer during the day. I’ll have to remember to turn the ceiling fan on for at least a few hours.

Doing a quick look and video channels I follow while having my breakfast, I enjoyed this new one from MI Gardener, about hardening off transplants.

I’ve been doing it wrong, of course. 😄

Actually, what I’ve been doing is closer to how he describes in the video, mostly because it’s such a pain timing things to bring them in and out. The main problem I have is that the only accessible and level space we have that also allows us to keep the cats out, is right outside the sun room. Which means the transplants are getting that peak period of sunlight in the middle of the day, and are at risk of getting sunburned – something that happened to quite a few tomatoes transplants, last year. We did make use of the old market tent to keep some of them shaded at the hottest part of the day. Ideally, we’d put them on the East side of the house, but it slopes quite a bit on that side. The West side has the old kitchen garden. The North side gets no sun. So that leaves the south side.

This year, though, I might be able to set things up across the yard, so the transplants can be shaded by the willows and white lilacs during peak sunlight hours.

We’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile, I was just informed that a package is in at the post office, so I’m off to get it, before they close for a few hours at lunch time.

The Re-Farmer

Morning finds!

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Doing my morning rounds this time of year can be so much fun.

Of course, all year, I get to play with the yard cats.

Well. The ones that allow me to, anyhow.

The face Hypotenose is making… too funny!

I even got to pet Broccoli!

You might need to click through to Instagram to see the above video. Some of the boys really fight for attention! Broccoli decided to get in on the action, which was nice. Still not to the point that we’d be able to get her into a carrier and to a vet. I’m trying to think of some way we can isolate her before she has her kittens. She has her nest somewhere in the outer yard, or possible across the road, so we don’t see her kittens until they’re old enough to follow her to solid food. In the past, we’ve used the basement for this, but the set up down there has changed and is going to change some more, so that’s not an option anymore.

We’ll figure something out.

Meanwhile…

Look what I found!

Again, you might have to click through to Instagram to see the photos. Our first snow crocus flower buds have appeared!

We’ve also got a crowd forming in the tulip patch.

I counted at least 21 tulips coming up. Some, I can’t quite be sure if what’s poking through the leaf litter is a tulip plant, or something else.

I can see something has been digging in the leaves, but not into the soil. Skunks will dig for grubs, but there are no divots of soil pulled up, so I’m guessing it’s cats. They can get in and out of the fencing around this patch fairly easily. That’s not much of a problem. We just need to keep the deer out!

As for the day, I forgot something I should have picked up for my husband at the pharmacy yesterday, so I’m going to have to go into town again, after they open at noon. I checked on the remaining pre-germinating Wild Bunch squash seeds, and there are more ready to pot up. Time to get some of the melon seeds pre-germinating, too, and maybe some other winter squash that need the extra time.

Ah, spring is most definitely in the air!

The Re-Farmer

Our day so far

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Morning rounds are so much more enjoyable, now that it’s warmed up, and I don’t have to slog through snow, slush or mud. 😂

First, the cuteness!

Broccoli let me pet her today.

She is so very round.

I counted 32 yard cats today, including 5 that were following around one of the white and greys that was obviously in heat.

*sigh*

Of all of them, the least feral one was Shop Towel!

I tended to the raised bed that was planted in yesterday.

In the first photo, you can see that the stove pellet mulch has absorbed moisture and broken apart into sawdust. The second photo is after I gently spread it around. I like using stove pellets as mulch when direct sowing because even things with small seedlings, like the spinach, can easily push their way through the light and fluffy sawdust.

I also managed to get a picture of an emerging snow crocus!

We’re not seeing many, yet, and the few we do see tend to be too far from the path for me to get a decent photo. Looking at the forecast, I was happy to see rain, but a closer look at the hourly forecast shows that we have an only 4% chance of rain, so… none. At best, we’ve got a 25% chance of rain some time tonight.

After finishing my rounds, I headed to the post office to pick up a couple of parcels. One was a courier delivery, so timing wasn’t an issue, but the other was to our postal box, and I wanted to pick it up before the post office closed at 11:30.

There was nothing there.

Strange, but okay.

My husband was surprised, as he got email notifications for 4 different parcels, instead of just the 2 I was expecting. When I had the chance, I went online to check the tracking, which has timestamps on it.

Two showed “attempted delivery” times that were shortly after I left. Two others had time stamps that were after the post office was closed. A fifth (!!) simply said “delivered today”, which would have been a courier.

One of the packages that came in has our sulfur in it; last I checked the tracking information, that one was supposed to come in on Thursday, so it’s three days early!

The post office opens up again at 2, so I’ll head out again this afternoon.

Then it’s back to work in the garden beds! Woohoo!!

The Re-Farmer

Still there, and thinking warm thoughts

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Well, it stayed cold enough that the snow we got is still there – with a bit more. We might get more flurries later today, and then the wind is supposed to pick up.

It’ll all be gone by tomorrow.

I counted 33 yard cats this morning – but I didn’t see Sad Face anywhere! Which means there’s another new one in the bunch.

I plugged the heat lamp in the sun room back in. They had really enjoyed the warmer temperatures and only a few continued to hang out in the sun room, but now that the temperatures have dropped again and the snow is back, every time I look out the bathroom window, there’s a crowd. Several crowds, actually, on and under the platform.

They will not be happy when they loose their platform so I can set up for my plants. 😁

Breakfast in the snow!

I got a good shot of the cat with the damaged eye. The hematoma doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller, that I can tell, but he seems to have no vision issues. He’s certainly more lively and active now, after having spent several days being quite lethargic and shivering in the sun room. I’m glad he sought out the warmth and shelter when he was feeling sick. Now that he’s improving, the down side is, he’s no longer letting me touch him. I managed to sneak pet his back while I was petting Driver (on the far right of the photo), but he quickly moved away. He is less skittish then he used to be, at least. The cats were all very hungry this morning, so I let him be rather than interrupt his breakfast.

With the chill and snow out there, I wanted to share something more spring like, so here is a video from MI Gardener to enjoy.

Some of these “hacks” are things I’ve already been doing, or trying to do. The first one is to have hose guards on his raised bed corners. That’s something I’ve appreciated about the higher raised beds, as the beds themselves are the hose guards. The only problem is that I typically have several hoses joined together, and the couplings tend to get caught on things. I’ve seen people use curtain rods they picked up at thrift stores; the round kind, where one half slides over the other to adjust the width. Setting them so the outside half is on the top allows it to rotate as the hose is pulled around it, which keeps things from getting stuck.

In the comments under the video, someone described how they’ve put permanent hose guards in their beds, made from small fence posts – then topped them with tennis balls for safety, so their grand kids are less likely to hurt themselves on them. What a great idea!

Using a board across the beds is something else I do, though I don’t have the knees to get right on one and squat to reach the soil! Mostly, I use them to lean against and support myself with one hand, while using the other to do what I need to do. Handily, we’ve got quite a bit of scrap boards that can be used for that, though they tend to be pretty rotten and damaged, and I’ve had more than a few of them crack and break up!

I’ll have to remember the “using the pot to make a transplant hole the right size”, tip.

With the carrots, I’ve used scrap boards to cover the seeds until they germinate. Only because I tend to have plenty of those, but not cardboard! What’s fun is to move them aside to check for germination – and finding frogs sheltering under them! Slug eating frogs must always be encouraged. 😁

I like his pretty dibbler tool. Since mobility is an issue for me, I tend to use something longer. Some days, I’ve used 4′ long support stakes as dibblers. Those are handy to mark out shallow trenches for smaller seeds, too. If I need larger holes to plant in, we’ve got lots of sticks or tree branches that will do!

Another commenter mentioned a tip I’ve heard of before that I definitely want to try, for the low raised beds. Get a piece of PVC pipe and use it to drop seeds in place. That would solve both mobility/pain issues, and short-people-like-me reach issues!

Just a side note, when it comes to reach; the lower the bed, the harder the reach. So for a low raised bed, accessible from both sides, like what he has, I’d recommend going no more than 3′ wide, but with a high raised bed, 4′ wide works just fine.

I’m really looking forward to winter finally being done with us!

The Re-Farmer

It’s baaAAAAaaccckkk…. (and a WP frustration)

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Yup.

It’s white out there again.

Yesterday’s rain turned into snow overnight. At the time I was doing my rounds, it was more rain than snow, but still coming down.

It won’t last long. Areas such as the driveway are full of puddles but no snow, and we are expected to have a high of 8C/47F today, so it won’t last long. A couple more chilly days, then things are supposed to warm up again.

While giving the yard cats their food and water, I tried to do a head count. Every time I counted, the number got higher! I counted 33 at most.

A couple of the ladies are definitely looking round. With Adam and Brussel, it’s hard to tell, since they have such long fur, but I’m sure they’re getting big, too.

While checking the trial came files yesterday, I found that cats had triggered the gate cam a couple of times, with their baby making activities, as well as just rambling around the driveway.

Including one cat with distinctive patterns I’ve never seen before!

My guess is, he lives across the road from us. I know our own cats go across to two different properties on the regular, and I know other cats live there, too. One of them likely just followed ours back. The gate seems to be as far as he went, though, because we’ve never seen him in the yard.

On a completely different note, I’m not sure I solved any problems by using Google Photo to store images to post here. I tried it before but forgot what wasn’t working about it. Now I remember.

WP seems to still be storing the images in my own WP media files account. They’re still taking up space.

I think.

The image of the cats above, for example, was uploaded to my Google Photo account (which comes with my blog’s gmail address). After using the image block to select the image using Google Photo, it works fine in the post – but then shows up in my WP media files. If I look at the address for the image itself, it goes back to WP media. Which means I save nothing by saving the files externally. WP just automatically stores it locally. With some of the recent images, I hadn’t resized them first (I having worked the kinks out of using the software on my new computer yet), so that means full size files are being uploaded into my blog posts.

Except…

While adding the above photo, I notice it said “inserting” image, not “uploading” image, as it would if I were adding the image from, say, out of my phone.

It could be just a thumbnail showing up in my media files.

The main reason I have my doubts about it is because I’ve sometimes used the free images available through WP. They specifically say that if you use these images, they don’t take up storage space in your account. Yet those images also show up in my media files, and if I open the image in a new tab, I can see it tracks back to my media storage, not Pexels or Openverse. I don’t see anything in the source code that suggests the images are anywhere but in my own account’s storage.

Yet, these images are “inserted” not “uploaded”.

So…

Are the images I am storing externally taking up space in my account or not?

All I know is, my storage space just went from 98.2% full to 98.3% full.

The Re-Farmer

Sowing wild, and a test

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

With the current conditions, and the melted snow quickly disappearing, I decided to do some wild sowing.

I’m also going to do a test, since I’m almost out of storage space for files on my WP account. It now allows images to be uploaded from Google Photos, so that’s where these are from. Please let me know if you can also see them!

A friend sent me a whole bunch of old seeds. These are all the flower seeds from the stack. Not all the packages had years on them that I could find, but one of them was dated 2020.

I dumped all the seeds into an old spice shaker with very large holes in the lid. The old prescription bottles with Icelandic Poppy seeds from 2018 form the majority of these.

This is where they went.

This low area on the North side of our driveway still has a bit of standing water and the soil is still saturated in places. It gets full sun and. It’s an area that’s too rough to mow, so it’s as good a place as any to sow some random seeds! I simply broadcast the seeds as widely as I could over the area.

The chances that such old seeds would germinate at all is low to begin with. They will also have to contend with birds finding and eating them. How many will even have enough contact with the soil to take root is another factor.

Still, who knows? We might have ourselves quite a mix of flowers growing here this year.

Now, since this way of posting photos seems to be working (at least as far as I can tell on my own computer!), here’s a bonus.

I eventually counted 29 cats this morning, though not all together at the kibble bowls.

Hypotenose really, really wanted attention this morning!

The Re-Farmer