outside cats

Spring clean up: I couldn’t resist!

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Okay, so I was supposed to take it easy today, so that I wouldn’t be too sore for manual labour tomorrow.

But I kept going outside because, aside from the wind (I’m so tired of the wind!), it was gorgeous out. Unfortunately, the wind limits some of what I could do.

No limits on feeding the kitties, though!

Not-Junk Pile kept watching me closely, but would not let me near her. From what little I could see as she moved around, it does look like she is probably nursing. I haven’t the slightest clue where her litter might be.

One of the things I ended up doing was tending the bed we’ll be planting peas into, a bit.

I just pulled the mulch back from the fence line to expose the soil to the warmth of the sun. There are a fair number of weeds and grass coming up. If I let them get bigger, they’ll be easier to pull up.

I also watered the beds we planted, as well as where the girls sowed the alternative lawn mix in the maple grove. That included pulling back the plastic on the hoops over the carrots to water them. I couldn’t see any carrots germinated, but I am seeing some weeds we missed, pushing their way through. I won’t try to pull those until the carrots have established themselves, so I don’t accidentally pull of carrot seedlings.

Since I had the plastic off anyhow, I improved the hoops set up. I’ve got a pair of bamboo stakes across the tops, and added two more pairs on the sides, just a few inches above the soil, to make sure the plastic doesn’t end up on top of the carrots planted closest to the walls. Then I zig zagged twine from the bottoms of the hoops, to the bamboo stakes at the top. I was noticing the wind was pushing the sides of the plastic inwards more than I liked, so that should help prevent that a bit. By the time it was done and the plastic put back, it didn’t really look any different, so I didn’t bother taking photos.

That was in the afternoon. In the early evening, after feeding the cats, I decided to extend my evening rounds in the outer yard. I went into the warehouse to look again at what’s in there, besides the many bags and boxes of my parents’ belongings and furniture. There’s what appears to be a folding table that we could make use of, but we’d have to move quite a few things to access it. Not as much as what we’d need to access what looks like good lumber and plywood in another corner.

I also went looking under the warehouse. Quite a bit of stuff had been shoved under there. Boards and beams of various sizes. Old drawers. Electrical wire. Lead pipes, some with taps still attached. Some is potentially useful, but others are looking like they’re breaking down, even though they are well sheltered under there.

I also made sure to check the area around our septic outflow. We’re going to have to do some clean up around it, as branches from nearby trees have been falling around it. There is a low spot nearby that, when I was a kid, had a pond in it most years. Since moving here, it had water during last spring’s flooding, but was otherwise bone dry. Right now, it’s full of water – and frogs, from the cacophony I was hearing!

While back there, I was looking around the back of the collapsed log building and noticed something half buried in the tall grass. I ended up pulling out a metal fence post. There were a couple of wooden fence posts under there, too, one of which was still quite useable, so I dragged both of those over to where I have two other metal fence posts leaning against the back of the garage. The one I found is covered in rust, but still solid – and the same length as the other two! Seven feet, I think.

I spent some time looking at stuff in the barn, too. It seems like every time I go in there, I see something “new” that I hadn’t noticed before. One of the things I wanted to look at were the “spare” windows that I’m hoping we can use to replace the windows in the sun room that have lost their inside pane, and the one where the inside pane is cracked. Looking at the larger windows, though, I realized we won’t be able to use them for the sun room. Taking a closer look at them, I realized they are much bigger!

There are a lot of old windows all over the place. Many have broken glass, but many more are still intact. I went into the shed near the barn; the one with the tarp on the roof. There are so many more old windows in there, some of which we could probably find uses for, as we build various sheds and shelters. There are also a lot of doors of various types, styles and ages. I took a closer look at some of them, and they turned out to be closet doors. One pair are a type that are made to slide on tracks. The other is a pair of folding doors, like we are already using as a table top for our transplants. What we used to hold the transplants to harden them off and keep them safe from cats last year are not available. If we can find solid supports that are tall enough, these closet doors would probably give us enough space to set out all the transplants for hardening off!

On the way back to the inner yard, I decided to start moving some things along the side of the garage, where we’re looking to have a shed offered to use placed and used as a chicken coop. There were some odds and ends, some boards on the ground, one of which was so rotted, it had grass growing through it in places, and a length of steel pipe buried in the tall grass. There’s also a small maple that was growing in the space between the boards, and a small red osier dogwood, that we’ll need to get rid of. But first, I grabbed a rake and did more clean up.

I’ll have to come back with the loppers to cut away the maple and dogwood. You can’t really see the dogwood in the photo. It just sort of disappears in the grass by the garage wall. I was finding bits and pieces of the branch pile that used to be here as well. We’ll have to come back with the wagon or wheel barrow to haul away the pile of dead grass and branches for burning – which will have to wait until the wind dies down!

Now that everything is clear, we’ll have to bring a ladder over and clean the eavestroughs on the garage. They haven’t been done since we moved here. On this side, it was because of the branch pile in the way. On the other side, it’s just a lot harder to get to, with so many trees growing near the garage.

Then we’ll have to bring over the old tire rims I’ve decided to use to put under the shed, and level things off at the front of this area, in line with the front of the garage, as best we can. It needs to far enough forward to not shade the garden beds on the other side of the chain link fence. Then I need to contact the guy who offered the shed to use and work out when he can bring it over. Once it’s in place and gets the repairs it needs, and set up as a coop, we should be able to use those metal fence posts we’ve found for the chicken run we’ll need.

I’m looking forward to getting at it, so we can finally have chickens!!!

So that’s what I ended up doing today. I didn’t push myself, and so far, I don’t feel the need to take more painkillers, which is a good sign!

We’ll see how well that last, overnight! I don’t know how much outside work I’ll be able to get done tomorrow, though. I’ve asked the girls to work on cleaning up and de-catting the sun room, so we can start moving transplants into there. I’ll be heading to my mother’s in the afternoon, then hit the hardware store on the way home to pick up the lumber I need to make proper frames for the garden beds. The one thing I haven’t figure out for them yet is what to use across the middles, to keep them from bowing outwards. I don’t want to use wood, or anything larger like that, as I don’t want it to end up being in the way of any plants. I’ve been looking at threaded rods but, at the lengths I need, they are way too expensive. So I was thinking of a steel cable of some kind. I’ll have to look around and see what they have – and how much it costs! – to figure it out.

So that’s the slightly changed plan for tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: winter survivors!

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But first, the cuteness!

I was able to zoom in to get a shot of Brussel and Sprout, sharing the tray under the water shelter. When I first came out this morning, I saw only about a 14 cats, but more kept showing up, including these two. I think I counted 22 in total, with some of them skulking around in the distance, waiting for me to leave the food area.

While doing my evening rounds, I took the winter mulch, which was corn stalks, off the asparagus and sunchoke beds. There is still no sign of the sunchokes or the asparagus, but…

… the four strawberry plants that share the asparagus bed were looking great! I wasn’t sure if they’d survive the winter. Not only did they survive, but they are looking better now than they did at the end of the season, last year! I’m hoping they’ll put out more runners this year, that we’ll transplant elsewhere. Strawberries are among the plants we want to have a lot of. They’re so incredibly expensive in the grocery stores!

Of course, I had to check on the crocuses and found this little guy.

The very first yellow crocus! There are a lot of purple ones blooming this morning, and a lot of white buds showing up, but still just the one yellow buds visible.

I should make a point of checking the bed I inoculated with morel spawn more often. May is the time of year they usually fruit. It would be cool if the giant puff balls emerged, too, but if they do, it’ll be later in the season.

It’s a good thing today is Sunday, which I try to keep as a day of rest. I didn’t do a lot when reclaiming the bed to plant poppies yesterday, but it was enough to increase the pain levels. It’s turning out to be a really windy day, too. So, tomorrow will be my day to really get into the manual labour needed in the old kitchen garden. Hopefully, at the very least, the winds will die down!

The Re-Farmer

Hello, Kitties!

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I had a HUGE and wonderful surprise yesterday evening!

Now that things are nicer outside, I’ve been able to do more extended evening rounds after feeding the outside cats for the night. My first surprise came as I was putting kibble out in the sun room. The Phantom was there, as usual, and I’ve been able to sneak some pets while she eats. I tried again, and she actually let me pet her more instead of running away! She was quite enjoying them until I left to her finish eating and continued me rounds.

I was just finishing up and about to come inside, when I saw Broccoli had finally come over to eat, and was on the cat house roof.

So, while she had her back to me, I decided to try and sneak a pet.

Not only did she not run away when she realized I was petting her, but she wanted more! She was absolutely all over, rolling around and pushing against my hands, wanting more pets. This is a cat we’ve been trying to socialize for more than two years, with no progress, and suddenly, BAM!

But would it happen again?

This morning, she came out for food later again, and much of the kibble on the cat house roof was gone, but there was still enough for her nibble. When I came over, she happily accepted pets again!

She was also clearly very, very hungry, so I didn’t bother her too much.

She is such a beauty!

She is also very skinny and bony.

Yesterday, I tried to touch her belly, to see if she was nursing, but I couldn’t tell. Yes, I could feel nip, but none seemed more prominent than the others. Without actually seeing her belly, though, I can’t say for sure. Given the time of year, it would not surprise me if she lost a litter. I don’t know. I’m happy to see her eating well, though, because this girl needs meat on her bones!

This girl, however, is fine.

Marlee is a solid slab of compact muscle!

While I’m sitting at my computer in the evenings, she comes over and demands I reach down to pet her, but she will NOT let me pick her up. She’s also been spending more time on my bed, even with other cats beside her. There’s quite the difference, though. Where the other cats are relaxed and tend to turn into big puddles on the soft, comfy bed, she is a tight little ball, with everything tucked in, and looking very alert, even when she’s asleep. She’s still got those survival habits in place, that’s for sure. She still won’t leave the room. I did try taking her with me into the living room while I was working on potting things up, but she just hunkered down at the barrier door and wouldn’t move until I opened it, and then she went right to my bedroom door, wanting back in.

Ah, well.

All in good time.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: new growth!

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I’m back from doing the Costco shopping today, but before I post about that painful trip, here’s some good news!

While doing my rounds, I found new growth in various places!

There are more purple crocuses up and blooming, plus more white crocus buds are up.

There is no sign of the muscari/grape hyacinth yet, but I did have a wonderful surprise nearby.

Okay, I know they’re hard to see, but there are at least 14 tulips coming up here! Before resizing the photo to post here, I looked at it at full size to try and find them all. Some of the green is blades of grass, but I spotted the leaves of a few tulip plants piercing through the dried leaves above them. I’ll have to keep an eye on those. I remember last year, seeing some of them getting taller, but not able to break through the leaves they’d grown through, so they were all squished together. Once they get taller, and I know where not to step, I’ll go in and pull the dead leaves off, so they can spread out and grow properly.

I had another pleasant surprise in the old kitchen garden, too.

We have one Egyptian walking onion that’s been trying to grow every year since we moved here. Last year, it actually survived long enough to form bulbils. After building a new, little raised bed, I took those bulbils and planted them in front. Here, you can see two of them have sprouted! There were several more, too. I can’t remember how many were planted, but I’m pretty stoked that they survived the winter and are now emerging through the mulch. I didn’t see if the “parent” onion has started to emerge, but think I might have seen, maybe, possibly, leaves from one of the flower bulbs my daughter planted along the edge of this garden. Last year, some leaves came up, but none bloomed. There’s another spot, at one end, where she planted daffodils which did bloom last year but, so far, no sign of them.

I did also check the carrots, and there are no sprouts that I could see, but I was just peaking under the edges of the plastic and couldn’t see very far in. I need to put a priority on building covers for those beds, as the current set up is very temporary, and not as functional.

We’ve got highs of 9C/48F predicted for today and tomorrow, with a bit of rain now and then. After that, we’re supposed to warm up a bit more and have sun for at least 5 days. Great weather to get work done out there!

But maybe not today. City trips three days in a row has sucked all the energy out of me! Right now, I just want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week.

I really dislike shopping. 😄

The Re-Farmer

Foggy morning, and minor wind damage

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This morning, we had new weather warnings – this time for fog!

This is taken through my bedroom window, and the phone camera automatically cleans up the image, so the visibility was actually for less than this. We had no wind, so it hung around until past 10 or so, and as I write this, it’s nice and clear. In fact, I’m seriously considering making another trip to the city. Not for the Costco shopping. That trip is going to be big enough, I’ll wait for my husband’s private insurance disability payment to come in, but the international grocery store we try to go to regularly has a case lot sale starting today. There are a few things we find only in this store (I’m not willing to drive around the city to find other stores that might carry them), so it would work out. However, it would also mean making trips to the city, two days in a row, plus yesterday’s trip to the smaller city.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, I had a bit of a surprise when I headed out to do the morning rounds.

We had several cats trapped in the sun room. The wind had blown the outer door closed. Since we keep the pair of doors just barely open for the cats to squeeze in, but still keep the weather out, we couldn’t tell when checking through the bathroom window that it was closed.

They did have food and water, but the litter box that used to be in there is in the cat house now.

Yeah. I could tell when I walked in!

The cats that were stuck outside were very hungry! The food trays outside get emptied a lot faster than the sun room trays that they could no longer access. I still counted only about a dozen or so cats, including Sad Face, skulking away.

Considering how high the winds got yesterday, I was rather impressed with how little damage there was. The girls did check repeatedly while I was out yesterday, so this is stuff that happened after I got home. The diverter over the rain barrel was knocked right off, which means the rain barrel was overflowing during the night. The diverter being knocked off isn’t all that uncommon, but this hasn’t happened in a long while…

The metal roofing sheets got blown off the garden shed! You can see the strap that held them in place, dangling off a tree branch.

We tried to fix these permanently to the roof, but just couldn’t do it. Not only is there too much rot, but there are too many odd… things… that were attached to it to cover the leak. It is also no longer flat, which I think is also due to a rotten section.

We really need to get another garden shed built!!!

So those metal sheets were just laid out on top and held in place with the strap. They used to get blown out of place all the time, when winds came from the north, until we overlapped them differently and found a way to get them to lie somewhat flatter. Yesterday’s winds, however, were from the south. Still, that strap didn’t break. It somehow got unhooked.

Well, one of my goals for this year is to finally haul away the junk from around this shed, add it to the pile that will get taken to the dump, and store away stuff that we can use again, like that roll of snow fencing. It’ll be good to get this clear. Once we build the new shed, I will quite happily tear this old thing apart! I’m curious to see what it looks like underneath. At the very least, I know we’ll find a groundhog den. The whole thing is sitting on top of rocks, which I think my daughters will find useful for the forge shelter they’re planning to build. I believe they plan to build mostly rock walls, to keep things as fire proof as possible.

Anyhow.

So getting those metal sheets back on top of the garden shed roof is a multi-person goal for the day. It may leak and be falling apart, but we’re still using it.

Other than that, I found a few small fallen branches, and that’s it! Those first few years of cleaning up dead branches has been paying off! Best of all, the cover on the carrot bed held just fine. I’m quite pleased!

Meanwhile, the 10 day forecast has changed again. We were supposed to warm up, then cool back down again, but now it’s saying we will warm up, and keep getting warmer. We’ve even got a 20C/68F day in the forecast!

We’ll see if that actually happens! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Stocking up: this is what $282 and $110 looks like

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First, the cuteness!

I only saw about a dozen cats this morning. It was quite lovely out there, with little hint of what was to come!

I knew we were supposed to eventually get rain. The high today is supposed to reach 7C/45F. This morning it was already quite windy, so I made sure to tend the smoldering burn ring so the cover lay flat over it. Normally, I set it so the slight gap faces the wind, to encourage the smolder, but this time I made sure it was facing away.

Turns out I didn’t really need to worry about it.

As I write this, we are at 3C/37F, with the wind chill at -1C/30F, and not only is it raining, but snowing, too!

I’m glad I have those carrots I planted yesterday under plastic! The cooler temperature and snow isn’t the problem. Though I covered the seed tape with soil, the wind would probably still have blown some of it away, and whatever didn’t get blown away would have been bashed about by the rain.

Today, my husband’s CPP Disability came in, so I was planning to go to Costco. By the time I headed out, shortly before 11am, the winds had increased to the point that I was thinking I would be changing plans. When I got to the town my mother lives in and gassed up (168.9 cents per liter, there!!!), Costco was off, but I decided to head to the smaller, closer city for the Walmart and Canadian Tire part of our regular shopping. Honestly, though, I seriously considered just getting a few things where I was and heading home. If the price difference wasn’t so dramatically different, I probably would have. Even while parked next to the gas pump, the car got buffeted by wind gusts, and I was facing into the wind!

The route from my mother’s town to the smaller city takes me on a several east/west stretches of road. The wind was coming almost directly from the south, and I was fighting it the whole way. It was better when I was driving into the wind, though the gas gauge sure was dropping faster! I took it slower at times, and wasn’t even getting passed, which is saying something!

Still, I got there safe and sound, and my first stop was at Canadian Tire.

This is what $110.67 looks like.

There were two things I went there for. The stove pellets for cat litter, which were $7.29 each, and another 4 fire bricks, which where also $7.29 each. The plan is to pick up a few fire bricks each month until we have enough for our outdoor kitchen, when we are ready to build it.

The cast iron frying pan was a serendipitous find. For starters, the 10″ size was 80% off! Cast iron anything has become extremely expensive, so getting this for $19.99 was something I did not want to pass up. Even so, I would not have bought it if it weren’t for one other thing: the bottom of the pan is flat. The cast iron pans we have all have a slightly raised ring around the bottom. Which isn’t an issue with a typical electric stove, but we’ve got a glass top stove now. It actually affects how the pan heats up. This one does still have a ring on the bottom, but it is indented, which solves that problem!

It says it’s pre-seasoned, but… we’ll probably season it a few times ourselves, first!

The other thing is that blue metal bar. There used to be a pencil tip bar like that here on the farm – I even remember it from when I was a kid – but it is among the things that disappeared before we moved here. These don’t tend to be in stock very often and, when they are in stock, they’re usually out of budget. This one is a 60″ chisel tip pry bar, which will meet our needs quite nicely. Best of all, it was 40% off, which brought it in budget!

I then made sure I left very quickly, before I found something else to spend money on!

Hardware stores are a very dangerous place for me to be, which money! 😄

That done, it was off to Walmart. This is what $283.38 looks like.

*sigh*

Part of that total was a donation to the Children’s Hospital, for which I was given a lanyard as a gift, which you can see sitting on the case of wet cat food. That case cost $28.77 The 10kg bags of dry kibble cost $29.97 each. I don’t usually get a 16 pack of facial tissue, but it was on sale at $17.97, instead of something like $23 regular price. There is also a 6pk of double roll paper towels at $18.97; another sale price. One extra, off list, thing that I got was a pair of sweats for myself, at $18. The other was a hanging scratch pad for $4.97. The cats in my room tend to ignore the small scratch post I have for them, in favour of the carpet, so I’m hoping a hanging scratch pad of similar texture will better appeal to them.

For my lactose intolerant daughters, there are two 2L cartons of soy milk at $4.78 each, as well as coffee, at $8.97, though that had a $1 off coupon attached to it. There is a bag of mixed frozen berries at $12.97 and four different cheeses at 2/$10. There’s a 4L jug of 3% milk for $5.88, a large jar of green olives for $8.97, and 4 things of liquid Crystal Light drink mix for my husband, at $3.37 each, which is more than a dollar cheaper than locally. There’s a giant pack of wieners for $5, but there was only one package of hot dog buns left, at $3.37. There’s a 5lb bag of yellow potatoes at $5.97, and a 5lb bag of red potatoes for $4.97. Finally, there are two bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier, at $1.87 each, and bottle of a Coke Zero for the road at $2.27. Of course, all the bottles and jugs also had their 3 cent enviro fee which, in this province, we don’t get back when we recycle them.

The grand total, before taxes and donation, was actually $256.86 However, I see on the receipt that the quantity sales – the Crystal Light was 2 for $6, and the soy milk was 2 for $8 – got deducted at the end, so that brought the subtotal down to$253.82 before my donation. Taxes totalled $19.56

So this was a smaller – though heavier! – shopping trip than the Costco trip I intended to make. Between the 40 pound bags of pellets and the pry bar that weighed more than one of those 10kg bags of kibble, I wasn’t going to get too much more while using my mother’s car. We’re not using the van until I can get that noise in the engine checked, and we won’t have the budget for that until June.

Still, I was appreciating that weight on the drive home. By the time I finished shopping at Walmart, it had started to rain. Between the extra weight and having the wind at my back, the car was not being buffeted around anywhere near as much. I was still fighting the whole drive home, though, this time with all the rain accumulated on the highways that wasn’t draining off.

I took a different route home. Instead of going back the way I came, I took the highway to the town closer to us, which is a more sheltered route. It also runs through several small towns, so the speed limit is lower for most of it. When I got to town, I topped up the gas tank again – this time at 155.9 cents a litre! – before the final stretch home. I kept the family updated with where I was, every chance I got, and my daughter kept me updated on what the weather radar was showing. The last leg of my trip was driving east, which meant I was getting broadsided by the wind again, as well as the rain. For most of the drive, I was doing 80km in a 100km zone and, once again, no one was passing me! I did my shopping just in time, though. According to the weather radar, after I left the Walmart area they got hit with the brunt of the storm, and I was safely home before the worst of it hit our area.

And in the time it took me to finish writing this, the rain and snow has stopped! From the looks of the trees outside my window, the wind has died down dramatically, too! Even on the live feed from the garage cam, I’m not seeing the trees in the distance moving at all. Not even the tarp on the shed roof near the barn is flapping anymore, and that thing was billowing when I left!

Ah, weather. If you don’t like what you’ve got at the moment, just wait 5 minutes and it’ll change! Especially in April!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 Garden: planting carrots! (video)

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Okay, this is a first. Planting something in April!

We had a bed prepared and covered with plastic over hoops for the soil to warm up more, so that is where I started. All of the carrot seed tape we made fit into the bed, with even a bit of room to spare. After that, another bed was finally prepared and covered with more plastic, and in a couple of days, it will get spinach planted in it.

I tried an experiment this time, setting up an old phone to take a time lapse video of both jobs.

Plus some random cat appearances.

The time lapse made for a short video. I hope you enjoy it!

The Re-Farmer

Thank you for breakfast!

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It was delicious!

What a pretty poser!

We are definitely seeing fewer cats at feeding time, as the weather improves. Sometimes, I’ll see a few of the more feral ones sneaking across the yards, waiting until I’m gone, before they come for food.

Then there are the ones like this little guy. They come as much for the pets as for the foods!

Last night, I was chasing that big racoon and a pair of skunks out of the sun room again. Overnight temperatures in the long range forecast look to be staying above freezing, so I think it’s going to be time to start closing the doors for the night. They’ll just have to put up with the beds in their cat shelter instead of the swing bench to sleep on. 😉

As I haven’t been able to do a burn during the day because of wind, the girls were kind enough to get it going last night, when things were calmer. They got hoses hooked up and I turned the water on from the basement for them, but there were issues! One hose just would not properly attach to the tap. Now that it’s daylight, I’ll take a look to see if there was any damage, because even when we hooked up a different hose, it wouldn’t attach to the end of that one, either. Thankfully, there was a third hose that worked well. Not that I would mind doing a controlled burn out there. Just not in the middle of the night! Now that the burn is finally done, I can clean out the ashes.

We’ve got some lovely weather predicted over the next while. Time to get outside and get to work! Woo Hoo!!

The Re-Farmer

Spring walkabout, and who is who?

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It’s mostly dry enough now that this evening, I decided to check out the gravel pit and our seasonal “creek”.

The gravel pit is very full! I’m standing at the westernmost end of the marshy area that is still sort of part of the gravel pit.

Gooby followed me around until I finally picked him up, tucked him into my jacket, and walked around with him tucked in like a baby. Which would have been a lot more pleasant, if he didn’t keep trying to eat my chin!

I went over to where the road had washed out last year. There is a sort of lane over a culvert on our side of the fence that is in pretty bad shape still, from last year’s flooding, plus deep divots from cows walking through it while it was still wet. The water wasn’t quite high enough to overflow the lane, but higher than the culvert, creating a whirlpool of foamy water. Still muddier than I was willing to cross over, so I headed back around to check another pond, which is also very full, and the drainage into the field. We have a rather fast flowing little creek going under the fence there right now.

I wonder if the renter will try growing corn there again this year? Last year, it was a complete write off.

I also went through the car graveyard and went looking for this.

This is the roughly 90 – 100 yr old wagon that I’m hoping to salvage. The wooden sides have broken and fallen more since I last checked it. The wheels are deep in the ground, which is still too frozen to try and pry out. It looks like I’ll have to remove the rotted wood here – after removing the sheet metal someone put in it – before we can try prying it out of the ground. I really hope the metal parts are still solid enough to use. It would be great to salvage it for the mobile chicken coop I want to build.

Once I was back in the yard and looking around for the garlic and crocuses my daughters spotted, I saw a rare visitor. This is one of Broccoli’s two calico babies (her third kitten is a grey tabby). The long haired one is Brussel, which would make this one Sprout.

I have not been able to get a good picture of her face, though, so when I saw that black “mask” over her eye, I thought maybe this was the cat the girls referred to as The Phantom.

However, there is also Rosencrantz’s tortie.

Who also has a “mask”. She is the one that has been hanging out in the sun room a lot, and I’m actually able to pet every now and then. In fact, earlier this evening, I came into the sun room and saw her sleeping on the swing bench alone. Her back was to me as I went over and began to pet her. She started moving around and pushing against my hand and accepting ear skritches… right up until she turned, saw me, freaked out and jumped away! Clearly, she liked being pet, but didn’t realize who the pets were coming from.

I sent these pictures to the girls, asking them which is which. They confirmed that the tortie is The Phantom – but they didn’t recognize the other one! They described Sprout as being similar in colouration, but with a clearer face, and hangs around more often.

I have no idea what cat they are talking about. The only other calico, besides Broccoli, is Brussel, and Brussel is a long haired cat.

Maybe Broccoli is who they are talking about? I do see her more often.

With so many yard cats, it gets hard to keep track!

Well, I’m going to make the executive decision. The calico with the black over her eye, and the black spot under one side of her nose, is now officially Sprout.

I just wish she would stay close to the house more, so we could have a better chance of socializing her! But even Broccoli and Brussel, who do hang out closer, won’t let us near them.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Wounded boy

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

We’ve got a lovely day outside, and I was hoping to be able to do a burn. While setting up the burn ring, I noticed The Distinguished Guest was lurking about in the outer yard. He wouldn’t come near me, but I could still see that something was wrong.

I had to zoom in quite a bit to get this shot. That is a new wound on his leg. I sent the picture to the cat rescue lady, but since we can’t actually catch him, there’s nothing we can do but monitor from a distance. At least he’s still coming around for food. My guess is, the damage was done by Sad Face (AKA; Shop Towel). Sad Face has been quite aggressive towards TDG and some other cats, and he’s got the size and bulk to be the winner pretty much every time. I still see Sad Face around, but he runs off pretty quickly.

About the only positive thing I could make out is that TDG wasn’t actively limping as he walked around. He’s is such rough shape, though. He was a lot more social when he first showed up at our place, which is why we think he was dumped, but with Shop Towel beating on him, and likely getting chased away from other farms around us, he is a lot more feral now. I’ve only been able to get close to him when he’s been too hungry to be willing to leave the kibble.

He is not the only critter I saw today. When I first went outside to bring burnables out, I spotted a groundhog running away, first to the raised beds near the spruce grove, then skirting along the edge of the spruce grove towards the garage, then around the other side of the garage. Where he went after that, I couldn’t see. From the looks of the hole in the ground we found by the house when the snow first melted away, it’s possible it’s being actively used, and if it is, this might be the grog that’s using it.

I was really hoping to not have to deal with grogs in the garden this year.

Ah, well. It is what it is.

I’m more concerned about TDG.

As for the burn, it’s all set up, but we’ve got too many wind gusts to do a burn today, so it’ll have to wait. The burn ring is getting so full of ashes, we won’t be able to cover and let it smolder this time, but need to burn it down as much as possible, then clean out the ashes. Since we are slowly burning away the rotten pallets cleared out of where the wood pile used to be, before an electric furnace was installed, there’s a lot of nails in there, so we’ll be using the soil sifter over the wheel barrow to catch things like nails, as well as larger pieces of unburned wood. Since this is all from litter pellet sawdust and garbage, we can’t use the ashes in the garden, but we can dump it in some of the low spots in the outer yard.

This post has been oddly difficult to type. For some reason, Fenrir has decided she really, really wants to sniff and lick my keyboard, directly under my left hand. Earlier, she was trying to do the same thing with my mouse and mouse hand, and when I tried to stop her, she actually got angry enough to attack my hand and try to bight me! I can’t imagine what she could possibly be smelling on there all of a sudden.

But I digress.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a calmer day and we’ll be able to get that burn done. If possible, I’d like to do a controlled burn of the outer yard around there, but for that, I’d want to make sure to have enough hoses joined together to reach, and the water tap’s shut off valve in the basement turned on. It’s still freezing overnight, so we’d have to make sure to turn the valve off again.

It may be dipping below freezing during the night, but not by much, so I unplugged the extension cord to the cats’ house and put that away, then unplugged the outside heated water bowl. I haven’t bothered to unplug the heated water bowl in the sun room, yet, simply because I like for that cats to have access to at least some warm water during the night.

Okay, this is weird. Fenrir is back. It’s not my keyboard she’s trying to get at. It’s my left hand. I don’t know what I touched that she might be smelling, and I did wash my hands when I came back inside, so I have no idea what’s going on! Time to give up trying to type, though. Every time I remove her, she comes right back and tried to eat my hand!

What a strange girl.

The Re-Farmer