Shaggy friends, a new bird ID and… a mystery!

May 4, 2018May 4, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Early this morning, I spotted some movement at the edge of our spruce grove. It turned out to be a bird, enthusiastically digging and pecking at the ground. A surprisingly large bird; not as big as a grouse, but certainly bigger than a blue jay or crow. Not something I recall seeing before. Unfortunately, it was too far to identify by eye, so I got some pictures zoomed in as far as our lens can go. They’re not good pictures, but enough to identify it.

From what I can find, it appears to be a Northern Flicker, though there are different kinds that can look quite different.

The most distinctive thing about it was the splash of red at the back of the neck. The other distinguishing feature is the black bib.

A number of the photos of Northern Flickers I saw also had a splash of red on the cheek, but this one did not have that.

As it later flew away, I was able to see the underside of its wings, which appeared to be a bright yellow.

The Norther Flicker is a member of the woodpecker family, so it’s interesting that this one was pecking, not at wood, but at the ground.

Later on, my younger daughter and I got some progress done on the sorted wood piles in the garden. We’ve now removed all the wood we’d already sorted, except for the pile I set aside to keep for potential projects. More will be added to it as we finish going through the original pile. When we got to the larger pieces, we had to saw most of them in half so they would fit in the wheel barrows. We could really tell when we were cutting apple wood! The wood is so much harder, and the patterns in the rings are so distinctive and lovely. Even the ones I didn’t choose to keep, I set them to one side in the piles we’re making near the fire pit, for use when we’re cooking or, if all goes well, able to do some smoking.

My poor daughter. By the time we were done for the day, she was just wasted. She was really too sick to be doing this sort of work, but she did it anyways, and I really appreciate it!

After that, I went to the post office and, along the way, I found our shaggy neighbours were closer to the road, so I pulled over to get some photos.

Zooming in with a cell phone doesn’t get very good pictures, unfortunately, but still. Bison!

We got some unexpected people visitors today. First, my brother and his Lady Fair, who live nearby, came over to pick up the last of some stuff he’s got in our root cellar. I was all excited because his beautiful dog finally allows me to pet him! Then my older brother came by, just as they we leaving. My mother’s car has been stored here for the winter, and she wants to register it again soon, so he came to put the battery back in. It turned out to need charging, so he started doing some stuff at the barn. When I went out to join him, I stopped to take a look at a pile of wood that is sitting in the barn yard.

Only to discover, it’s not a pile of wood. It’s a pile of something else, covered in wood.

What on earth was I seeing under there?

Whatever the wood is covering has moss growing on it, and there’s a layer of plastic. Something is showing through holes that I at first thought was ashes?

So I asked my brother.

It’s insulation. My youngest brother had put it there.

My youngest brother died in 2010.

Why is it there? My brother didn’t know.

The wood on top showed up more recently.

What on earth are we going to do with a plastic covered, moss covered, wood covered, pile of insulation, sitting in the barn yard?

The Re-Farmer

The Return of the Deer

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

It’s been a while since I got deer pictures!

Some days, we’ve seen none at all. A couple of times, I’ve seen a lone deer in the evening, slow to come over, quick to run away. My husband sometimes sees them around dawn, but none have been coming over during the day, and none of the regulars.

Tonight, however, we had visitors!

I spotted them as I went into the living room, coming in from the opposite direction we usually see them. Two smaller deer in front, and a larger one somewhat behind. Unfortunately, my coming into the living room startled them, and they ran off – the two smaller deer one way, the larger one the other.

The smaller ones didn’t go far, though. I managed to position myself and the camera as they slowly came in. Eventually, I could see the third one, going into the spruces from the other side of the pallet pile, then making it’s way through the trees to the garden area, before finally coming around from the other side.

The first of the little ones was looking very rough!

Aside from the burrs, there appear to be missing patches of fur, and it looks like his ribs are sticking out!

Notice the antler nubs?

The second deer made its way over, and in this picture, is watching the third deer going through the trees.

The male doesn’t look as beat up on this side!

The third deer came around and they fed for a while, but they were very nervous and kept looking out way, as well as at what I figure were cats around behind the house. Unfortunately, with our light on, there was nothing to hid our own movements. My husband moved an arm to pick up his water bottle, and off they ran!

Once again, though, they did not go far. I could see them grazing on the far side of the wood pile and…

Was that a fourth deer?

Sure enough, it was.

After a while, all four of them came over to feed. By this time, it was too dark for photos, but I could still see them fairly well. There was something familiar about the battered face of the fourth one.

It wasn’t until I uploaded the pictures that I was able to confirm that yes, these are deer we’ve had before!

There’s the little one with the scars on either side of its snout. The fourth one, with the battered face, is the one I’d identified as her mother, the last time they were here.

I’m happy that they came back, though they do look the worse for wear!

Though I’d put plenty of feed out in the morning, the birds had been at it all day, so there wasn’t a lot left by evening. Since the deer are coming very early in the morning, and in the evening (if they come at all), we’ve decided we will start leaving more feed out in the evening, instead of the morning. That way, the evening visitors will get feed, but there should still be plenty in the morning, since the birds won’t be eating it during the night.

So after the deer left, but before it got too dark, I went to put out a bucket of feed. As I was coming around the house, I was startled by the weird, loud, breathy cough, and the sound of hooves. All for of them had been in the garden area!

As they ran off in opposite directions again, and this is clearly a family group, I expect they’ll make their way back to join each other. Maybe even back to the fresh feed I just left out! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Checking things out

May 3, 2018May 3, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

This afternoon, I took advantage of pleasant temperatures to walk around the yard and the spruce and maple groves. There was snow on the ground the last time I went into these areas, so I was able to get to areas I couldn’t before.

Walking through the spruce grove, it continues to strike me, just how many dead and dying trees there are. Quite a few have already fallen, but many have not. It’s slowly being taken over by broad leaf trees, but a lot of them are dead and dying, too.

This is from one of the spruce trees.

You can certainly see why it fell. This is caused by carpenter ants. They nest in wood and can cause all kinds of damage and, in this case, weakened the trunk enough for it to fall, probably in high winds. When I was a kid, splitting logs in the basement for the furnace in the winter, I would sometimes split a log with a hibernating nest of ants in it. They’d fall out into a sluggish mass on the concrete.

Then they’d go into the fire.

You don’t mess with these guys.

Thankfully, we’ve never seen signs of them nesting in the house itself.

Walking through the row of apple trees, which are just barely starting to show leaf buds in a few places, I discovered why the mystery box jammed into one of them hasn’t blown away.

It has a mystery bucket inside.

I’m sure someone had a reason to put it there. I just can’t think of what it might be!

I started going into the maple grove next. It used to border the garden, but at some point, a couple of rows of spruce trees were planted into what used to be garden. The garden area was slowly made smaller and smaller over the years, with tree plantings.

So many are dead or dying. What you see on the bottom left is where there is a water tap. That used to be at the the very outer edge of the garden border.

This row of trees was planted some time after I left the farm. Like so many others, they were planted way too close together. Most seem to be dead or half dead.

I don’t think there’s much left to salvage of this old willow, but we’ll see better when it’s in full leaf. I remember it being huge and healthy, when I was a child, as was a second one behind it. That, too, has many dead branches on it, but it’s not as broken as this one.

I eventually made my way to the fence side of the house in our yard. I was noticing some wasp nests, and remains of wasp nests, under the eaves when I suddenly realized I was looking at something that didn’t make sense.

That’s an electrical cable running from a hole into the “basement”, up to the roof.

When I was a kid, I spent many summer nights sleeping in this building, and even had sleepovers with my friends – back when it was still is decent shape. There was no power hooked up to it. We used candles and kerosene lamps for light.

Now that I think of it, I do remember one time when there was electricity being used in there. My brothers also used the house, for parties. I recall there was a stag held there one, and the next morning, I’d joined them to watch a movie on the TV that was brought in. I also remember lights and music playing. I had completely forgotten about that until now. I wonder if this wire was the source of the electricity?

So where does the line go?

Straight through the branches…

Over this dead tree on the other side of the fence…

Then it disappeared into the grass.

So I went around the fence and pulled it out of the grass to see what I would find.

There was far more length then I expected, before I pulled up the insulator – then there was even more wire before I found the plug.

From what I can tell by the electrical tape at the insulator, the wire is spliced.

And that plug… well. You can see the inner wires are exposed.

I am guessing the insulator was attached to the pump shack, then the cable continued into the pump shack to one of the outlets inside.

It’s basically a giant extension cord.

I’m starting to wonder how no one ever caused any electrical fires and burned this place down, over the years!

Speaking of burning, as I was walking around, I could smell smoke. I couldn’t see smoke anywhere, and have heard nothing about any new fires, but then, I didn’t see smoke or hear anything about the last two fires out here, for some time.

Meanwhile, my wonderful, awesome daughters got 4 van loads into the shed today, while I brought over my mother’s dressers from the bedroom, taking out the drawers and removing the mirror off one of them. Even without the drawers, they were surprisingly heavy. The mirror alone weighed more than any of the others we hauled out. This bedroom set of my mother’s is of amazing quality! It’s a shame she left them behind when she moved out, though I suppose they would have been too big for her current apartment.

By the time they were done unloading the last of the stuff into the shed, their bodies let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they were still sick. I am so grateful that they got it done. While they did that, my husband and I decided on how we’d arrange things for when the hospital bed is delivered, and I switched some things around. We are at the point now that, once we get the call that it’s on the way, we need only to take out the bed we’re using now.

Once the box springs we are borrowing are loaded into the shed, we have nothing else that will need to go through the main part of the house into storage. There is just the Old Kitchen and sun room to work on, so things can go straight outside from there.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Hello, Shaggy Friend

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Heading to town, I paused on the side of the road to get a picture at one of the neighboring farms.

Until today, we’d only seen them way in the back, in a corral. This farm has been raising bison for many years now. I was happy to see they still are.

I like our shaggy friends. :-)

Today, we had a visit from someone in home care. As part of my husband re-establishing the medical and other specialists he lost in the move, we was referred to home care for assessment.

As far as direct home care services, nothing is needed at this point. Not with three adults in the house to help him. He will, however, be getting a hospital bed. Some time within the next two weeks, though it could be as early as Friday (two days from now), depending on the delivery drivers.

Which means it’s now urgent to get my mother’s dressers out of the master bedroom, and we have to figure out what to do with the king size bed. At least we’ve got a spare twin, so I’ll still have a bed.

Unfortunately, we are now all sick. Though I am recovering from the cold quite a bit, I’m still coughing a lot. My oldest daughter seems to have gotten over the worst of it, while my younger daughter is just getting into the worse of it, and now my husband is starting to come down with it, too. :-(

Which means that, at the moment, it looks like I’m the healthiest person in the house!

As we spoke with the woman from home care, I brought up about wanting to put in a ramp outside. It turns out Occupational Therapy assesses for stuff like that, so she will start that process for us. OT has been here for my dad before; that’s why there’s arm bars all over the place. Though my dad did have a wheeled walker, he usually used a non-wheeled one. At least for inside. His wheeled walker had a seat on it, with storage underneath. He kept his tools in there, so it was handy around the yard. :-D

We still have that walker. I intend to hang on to it, should I ever need one. I’ve been doing really well, as far as mobility goes, and haven’t needed to use a cane in ages, but I never know when something will suddenly dislocate again, or a knee will bend sideways. Better to be prepared, just in case!

Anyhow. A ramp wasn’t included in the mobility improvements done for my dad, though one of my brother’s had intended to build a ramp for him, himself. Instead, my dad ended up in the nursing home, so it never happened. She’ll put in the paperwork for OT to come and assess the house and confirm if we qualify to have a ramp put in. Even if it can’t get done this year, at least we’ll have the information we’ll need.

Tomorrow, however we are feeling, we have to start hauling things to the shed and get those dressers out of the way, so the hospital bed can be put in. The delivery company will assemble and install it. We just have to make sure the space is open. We have been forewarned that it comes with a basic hospital mattress, so we might want to pick up a mattress topper for it or something.

It should be interesting.

This afternoon, I figured I was feeling well enough to start working on moving the wood piles in the garden. I started in the area I wanted to put the wood, near the fire pit. There were already dead trees and branches I needed to clear up, so I’ve started one pile for logs and larger branches, and another for the small branches and twigs for kindling. While working, I kept seeing beyond into the maple grove, with all the dead branches and trees, and was just itching to start cleaning up in the yard. Unfortunately, my mother has been obsessed with getting the garden area plowed. I don’t want it done, and it’s far from a priority. I can’t help but feel a bit angry, because I’m having to focus my limited energy working on the garden, instead of cleaning up around the yard, which needs it so much more. But it’s her place, not ours, and two out of three of my siblings agree with her, so we’re outvoted, too.

With the snow completely gone, we can finally see the condition of the garden area itself. I had been told it was very rough (another one of the reasons some family members are insisting it get plowed; it hadn’t been done properly last year, so for some reason, it’s now really, really urgent to do it this year). Like so many other things, it was even worse than I expected. Not so much because of how rough it is, but because of how full of rocks it is. I spent many years helping my mother in the garden, and while there have always been rocks, I don’t remember there ever being THIS many! Unfortunately, plowing it is just going to dig up more rocks. Geologically, we’re on the bed of an ancient glacial lake. This entire area has shallow soil, with lots of gravel, clay, sand and rock below. What I want to do is build the soil up, not tear it up even more. I much prefer to use no-till techniques, for many reasons. Plus, if we do get chickens, they will be kept in the garden area and can help keep the weeds down and build up the soil, too.

So we will continue to work on removing the wood pile from the garden (thank God I was able to prevent it from being turned into a bonfire!), before we start cleaning the yard itself. There is a lot of work to be done, that’s for sure. I don’t mind. I miss the manual labour. :-D

I didn’t get too much done in the garden before I had to stop. Instead, I started working around the fire pit area. There are three maple trees in a group with an old awning under them, among other things, that has been sitting there for many years. I wanted to get the dead branch that’s overhanging the fire pit, which meant clearing that stuff out.

It took some doing to get it out. It turned out to have been there long enough for soil to build up over the bottom of the frame!

After moving it, I found this…

… in between two of the maples.

I wonder how many years it’s been there? Probably longer than the awning. That’s been there long enough that my daughters used it to get into the trees when they were little, so we’re looking at probably around 20 years.

At least it wasn’t another fridge or freezer! :-D

I did get part of the dead branch down. I basically just reached up and pulled. It’s been dead and dried up for so long, it broke quite easily. Now, there’s just half of it, and it’s too high up to reach, so it’ll wait until we bring over a ladder.

I found another odd thing while working around the fire pit area.

Old cow poop.

I found it in the area where I’m putting the wood piles, but I was also finding it around the compost pile, as I cleaned up what had fallen out as the snow melted. These are two very different areas of the yard.

Now, the farm has been rented out and the renter rotates his cattle here, but this is a fenced yard. They should not be getting into the yard.

Also…

That’s not cow. That’s horse.

The only person I know of with horses nearby, is my own brother. I don’t know if the renter has horses, but even if he did, why would they be with the cows?

So both cows and horses had gotten into the yard at some point, and not that long ago, either.

Oh, along with cow poop around the aluminum ring that contains the compost pile, I was finding small branches and twigs in the pile itself. Plus a plastic container of the kind sour cream or cottage cheese comes in.

I seem to remember that the wood pile in the garden had originally been put on the compost pile, and one of my siblings was going to burn the whole thing until another said not to. I don’t understand why anyone with do that, since the compost pile itself is right next to trees. Burning the pile means burning the trees. That would explain why there’s so much wood in the compost pile.

*sigh* Even our compost pile is in worse shape than I expected! And why would anyone burn it, when it’s right next to trees?

Ah, well. Little by little, we’ll get it done.

One thing’s for sure. By the time we are done cleaning up all the dead trees and branches in the garden area, yard, spruce grove and maple grove, we’ll have enough fuel for dozens of wiener roasts!

I’m hoping I didn’t push myself too hard, too soon, by working on this stuff today, but gosh, it felt good to finally be doing it!

The Re-Farmer

Another Stunner

May 1, 2018May 1, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It was a rather cold day today, but peaceful. At least for us. From what I’ve heard, two more homes were lost in yesterday’s fire to the North of us. At this point, I know nothing more. The province’s website that is supposed to have an up-to-date interactive map of current fires has not been much help. It didn’t have either of the local fires on there at all. I’ve seen others comment on the site’s lack of updating, as they’ve had to turn to social media to keep on top of the fire situation.

We never got the predicted showers, but at least with the reduced wind and colder temperatures, the fire risk has dropped a bit.

It was another day of the birds, outside. I think it might be a while before the deer start coming back.

Oh, my. As I was inserting the above photos, I heard another thump at the dining room window. I went outside and found a little junco on the ground. My younger daughter came out to hold on to it, to keep it safe from the cats, until it was ready to fly away on its own. I’m hearing her come back inside right now, so it must be gone.

This is the second junco we’ve tended to after it hit the dining room window, just today. The earlier one took quite a bit longer to recover.

Here is the female, dark eyed junco from earlier today, in my daughter’s hands. It was very calm about being held, too.

It started to stand itself up and look around after a minute or so. Note its bent under foot. The other foot was like that, too. No damage, it turned out. It seems that it just wasn’t aware of it, quite yet.

When it finally did start to flutter away, it just moved over to my daughter’s arm. And immediately pooped on her! :-D

It seemed fully aware at this point, looking around and watching us closely, but content to stay on her arm for several minutes more.

After a while, it flew off to the bench seat on the platform to our old clothes line. There was a cat about, though, so I came over to encourage it away. It moved to this bush and stayed there for another minute or so before finally flying away, none the worse for the experience.

While it’s unfortunate so many birds are hitting our window hard enough to stun themselves, it is so amazing to be able to hold them and watch over them until they can fly away on their own. They seem to like the warmth of our hands as they recover, too.

Pretty awesome!

The Re-Farmer

A Day for the Birds

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

With the fires in the area, it’s no surprise that we aren’t seeing any deer, at all. It has, however, been a day full of birds outside our window.

Mr. Blue Jay allowed me to take his photograph today, though they certainly did make me work for a good shot!

In amongst the masses of bark eyed juncos, this bird went off into the flower garden and started digging like mad into the dried leaves.

I’ve had two strong suggestions as to what this bird is. Either a fox sparrow, or a type of thrush. I spent some time looking and comparing photos online to ones I’d taken myself.

Bird identification sites often have really unhelpful photos, I’ve come to notice.

Ultimately, it was the markings on the head that made the ID for me. These are fox sparrows, of the “red” variety.

Speaking of red.

I had taken so many pictures of these red birds before the snow fell, but it never occurred to me to try and identify them. I think I may have just lumped them in as another type of bird in my mind. While looking up local bird species online, however, I found photos of these guys, and it turns out they are purple finches. In the above photo, you see both the bright red males, and the less showy females.

As I was zooming in to get photos of what I though might have been the thrush/fox sparrow I wanted to identify, the bird turned and I realized I was looking at a new visitor!

This is a male white throated sparrow. Love that distinctive patterning on the head. It made it much easier to identify it, though it wasn’t any easier to find online. My bird book doesn’t have it at all, though it does have several other types of sparrows.

Just look at the face! :-D

Looks like some females were in the crowd, too.

Weather willing, I will soon be raking near this area, to get some of the leaves out of the flower bed and clean up dead branches. We are finally starting to see some green forcing its way through the dead leaves. Not too much longer, and we’ll be able to start trying to identify the plants around here, as well as the birds! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Fire Status

April 30, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

First, thank you to everyone who has sent kind words and said prayers for us about the fire. It is so much appreciated!

I have since learned that two homes were lost yesterday. Sadly, one of them did not have insurance. I hope to learn more soon, and see if there is someone organizing help for them.

Just another reminded, of house important it is to have insurance! My mother has property insurance, though it is inadequate, so when we take that over at some point, we intend to improve it. Plus, we have our own content insurance. If anything every happened, we are covered.

One thing I found encouraging when we were preparing for the possibility of evacuating. We now know that, if need be, we could probably be out of the house with our bug out bags and the cats in less than 10 minutes. There just isn’t a lot that we would need to take with us. It’s all just stuff. As long as we have our IDs, medications, and some clothing, plus food for that cats, we’re good. Everything else is replaceable. About the only thing we’d add to the list, if we had time, is the computer towers and laptops.

I went into town with my husband for a medical appointment. We got home shortly before noon. I had to wait until after 2 to go and pick up a parcel in the mail, and my younger daughter came to get some driving practice. We were thinking of going to town to play come Pokemon Go after, but when we got to the post office, there was smoke, everywhere. The fire station parking was full of vehicles from the volunteer firefighters still, but the fire trucks were gone. I asked at the post office and was informed that there is another fire to the North of us.

Of course, the winds are coming from the North, today. :-(

It’s further away and doesn’t seem to be a risk to where we are, but we decided not to go into town. We did drive out to see the fire area before coming home, though.

Here, you can see how the roads themselves can act as fire breaks. This is 1 mile north and about 1 1/2 miles south of our home.

You can’t really see it in the above photo, but there is smoke in the distance, still.

In this area, the fire mostly followed the road, but in some places, when further in.

Every now and then, we’d see an opening like this, and smoke in the distance. The fire is out, but still smoldering in places.

One of the burned out homes. I honestly couldn’t see where the house had been.

It’s a good thing this area is rather marshy, and there are still ponds around as well, with how dry this winter has been.

Still smoking in the distance.

The next videos were taken after the above photo, and while we were on our way back home. Probably about 4 -5 miles from our home, as the crow flies.

Now, if only that predicted rain would actually show up!

The Re-Farmer

Windblown

April 29, 2018April 29, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Oh, my goodness, what a windy day it is today! As I sit at my computer, I can see the trees behind the other house in the yard, swaying back and forth. This is the sort of weather that brings trees down!

I’m rather concerned about that.

Oh, I just heard a door banging. Excuse me while I go check that…

Back. I’ve just had to tie down one of our screen doors!

Our sun room has two pairs of doors. It was tacked onto the Old Kitchen, which had its own inner door and screen door, plus there is another inner door and screen door to enter/exit the sun room from outside. The screen part of the screen door has no glass, so the wind has been pushing the inner door open. When I went to close them, I found the inner door of the Old Kitchen had also been blown open, held in place only by the security latch on the inside.

The doors and frames are in need of repair and/or replacement, and there was no way I could keep the inside door of the sun room from opening, so I blocked it with my dad’s walker for now.

In the process of moving it, I found a corded weed wacker! Yay! I hope it works.

The walker is at least keeping the door from swinging, but the outside screen door is also being blown open, so I just tied it to the arm bar in the door frame.

We’ve learned to appreciate all the arm bars installed around the house, just for the aid in mobility, but I never thought I’d appreciate them as something to secure a door closed!

We’ll have to find a better solution soon, though, since that exit is our only remaining fire escape, now that the front door at the dining room is stuck closed.

The wind had also blown the metal roof pieces off the dog house the cats have been using. Turns out, they’re not fastened in any way; the pieces just got placed over the shingled roof underneath.

*sigh*

I did a walk around to see what else might be blowing in the wind, and discovered this.

The back door to the garage can only be fastened shut from the outside. Which means, when my daughter went in to open the main garage door from the inside, after the handle broke off, she could only close the door, but not latch it. So no surprise that it was being blown around, too.

It takes a bit more to blow open the outhouse door, though.

I don’t recall ever looking inside the outhouse, since moving here. I did not expect it to be so colorful!

Also, it has a mirror.

Why is there a medicine cabinet in the outhouse?

There’s also a fluorescent light fixture stored on one side of the door, and some shelf boards on the other.

As far as I know, the last time anyone’s been in here was back in late November, when the guy who tried to find an internet signal somewhere in our yard had to use it, because we only have one bathroom, and my daughter had just got in the shower.

That poor man.

I’m fascinated by the effort taken to decorate the inside of the outhouse like that.

The stacks of books reminds me of back in the days before we had indoor plumbing, and we used old catalogs as toilet paper. I don’t think we ever bought toilet paper until we got an indoor bathroom.

While closing up the door, I could hear the sound of another door banging, so I checked the front of the garage.

It’s even more surprising to see this door open, because of these…

It takes a fair bit for this type of latch to come undone.

Since I was there anyhow, I took a look at the main garage door, thinking I might be able to install the new handle.

It looks like we won’t be able to use it.

The mechanism works by pulling on cables on the inside that unlatches the door at the sides. The cable runs through a hole in a squared post that the handle is attached to. Turn the handle, turn the post, which pulls the cables.

The new handle’s post doesn’t have a hole the cable can run through. It’s obviously designed for a different mechanism. Which would be fine if we could just remove the squared post on the new handle and use the old one, but it’s all one piece.

Looks like we might have to make a trip to the city to find the right kind of handle.

As I checked around the yard, I noticed something else that’s concerning. The smell of smoke. This time of year, it’s common for people to do controlled burns. The municipality, for example, might burn the dead foliage along the sides of ditches, or farmers might burn last year’s stubble. We’ve seen some areas along the sides of roads that had been done earlier in the month. Right now, however, it’s so dry that there are a lot of burn bans. Coupled with the wind, it’s unlikely that someone would be doing a burn. Which means, if there is a fire somewhere, it’s not a controlled burn.

There is no visible smoke, at least. In these high winds, if there was visible smoke, it would mean there’s a really large fire somewhere. According to the weather app, the winds are south winds at 57kmh (35.4mph), with gusts up to 74 (50mph).

I think I’ll go check the government fire maps right now, and see if anything’s been reported that we need to be concerned about!

The Re-Farmer

Blue for You

April 28, 2018April 28, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Alas, no pictures of deer today. I did see one cautiously making its way towards the house, just a few minutes ago, but it saw me move in the window and dashed right off.

Sadness.

I did, however, manage to get a photo of a blue jay today. For the past few weeks, even if I’ve been at the window, watching them for a while, the moment I get behind the camera, they all fly off!

This morning, I managed to get just one decent picture, through the sun reflected on the window.

I love how they collect so many seeds in their beaks like that, before flying off.

It was a fairly quite day today. We’re still in recovery mode and pretty low on energy. My younger daughter and I made a run to the dump with our garbage and recycling, before heading to town to find a new handle for our garage door. In the process, I remembered to pick up some chain and a carabiner to replace the heavy duty wire that’s been used to hold our main gate steady. It has a sliding bar across the top to close it. I’m not sure why it also needed the wire to hold it closed, and one of these days, I’ll remember to ask a sibling about it. :-D The chain and carabiner will be much easier to handle than twisting and untwisting the wire every time. It’ll look better, too! Plus, we’ll have the ability to add a lock as well, if we ever need to. Sadly, there have always been people who seek out solitary farms as targets for theft and vandalism. At best, the RCMP are at least half an hour away, and that assumes they can even find any individual farm. My oldest brother and I are already talking about adding a security camera on the garage, which would catch anyone coming in or out of the driveway, and another on the house itself.

Such is life, even in the sticks!

My daughter and I went to two different hardware stores, looking for a garage door handle. Both stores had only one option available! They were even the same brand and style. On the plus side, the second place we went to had a much, much better price.

On the down side, while driving to town, I went into a coughing fit so bad, I had to pull over and get her to drive the rest of the way.

It’s so nice having another driver available!

This cold has really done a number on my chronic cough. :-(

We had some other things happen that were polar opposites. Such as my husband’s disability payment coming in early (they do that every now and then!) on the plus side, then getting a call from the tax preparer and finding out he’s now owing $3000 instead of the $1300 that came up when we tried using Turbotax at home. I don’t understand how he can owe anything. He’s supposed to be paid back taxes, retroactively, from two years ago! And here we thought getting our taxes professionally done would mean it would be better, not worse. On top of that, it’s going to cost us almost $70 in fees.

*sigh*

This has happened every time we’ve moved back to this province, no matter how late in the year we’ve returned. We would be expecting a return, only to end up owing thousands. This time, though, I am sure that has to be some kind of mistake.

Living here was supposed to save us money. Instead, it’s been unexpected expenses, one right after the other!

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out in good time.

The Re-Farmer

That Circle of Life thing… and I hate shopping

April 27, 2018April 27, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

For the past while, we’ve had a huge drop in deer visits. I didn’t see any yesterday, until quite late, when one showed up, then ran off when it saw me in the window. Pretty sure it was a new one, since our regulars are no longer bothered by seeing us.

We are certainly getting plenty of birds, though, including this new one that I’ve been trying to identify.

There were two or three of them among the dark eyed juncos and the male redpolls that were also in the feeding station. Looking through my bird book, its body looks similar to a Brown Thrasher, but the eye and beak are totally different. Another closer match is the Fox Sparrow, but according to the book, we’re not really in their territory. They might be passing through during migration, if that’s what they are.

If anyone reading this knows what they are, please let me know in the comments! Thanks. :-)

As I was taking pictures of the new birds, there was a sudden whoosh of movement and all the birds flew off.

Well, almost all.

What a beautiful hawk! I barely managed to tilt the tripod over to snap a few quick pictures before it flew off, with its meal, into the trees. Much to my surprise, the pictures all turned out, but only a couple caught the hawk’s face as it looked over before flying off.

This is one of the things we have to consider, if we do get chickens.

Later on, I went to tell my older daughter, who was upstairs, about the hawk. She hadn’t seen the hawk, but she did see the fallout, as panicked birds suddenly flew up, including one that smacked right into the window near her.

She went out onto the roof and moved it, so it could fly off when it regained consciousness.

Except, it didn’t. It hit the window hard enough to kill itself. It looked like one of the new birds, too. :-(

Wow.

This all happened in the mid morning or so. Shortly before noon, my younger daughter and I headed out to the city – our first trip to the city since all that work was done on the van – for a much needed Costco trip.

Just to jump ahead a bit, the van ran beautifully. Also, I didn’t get a call back from the garage about those parts they’d ordered for me. I’m not sure how I would have handled such a call, now that the work they wanted to do turns out to not be needed at all. Aside from not bringing the van in, of course.

I had hoped, even though it’s a Friday, going to Costco in the early afternoon would mean missing out on the crowds.

Maybe we did, but it was still insanely busy.

We didn’t go to the closer one, which is smaller, has a ridiculously horrible parking situation, and where the pharmacy staff were such a problem. Instead, we went to one that was not only larger, but also near a whole lot of other shopping.

Along with our usual bulk grocery shopping, I had one goal in mind. To get more undies for my husband. We’re in the city. That shouldn’t be a problem, right?

Well, it turns out that Costco didn’t carry any in his size. They do in clothing, just not in underwear. Which makes no sense.

So after we finished at Costco, with all its joyous moments (seriously; what is it about people who saunter to a stop, blocking the entire isle, and just stand there, staring into space? This happened several times, all different people!), we figured we’d just go to that mall up the block. They had a Marshals there. Marshals has clothes, right?

We’ve never actually been to a Marshals before.

It turned out to be kinda like a crappy Winners. We found the teeny, tiny men’s underwear section, half of which was shirts, and it was such a disaster, I could barely find anything at all, never mind the size and style I wanted. There was only one brand, too – an expensive one, of course.

But we’re in a mall, right? There’s lots of other stores we can try, right?

I found a map and… it wasn’t very encouraging. Still, there were several possibilities among the athletic stores.

We went to about 4 or 5 different shops. Any that did have men’s underwear had hardly anything at all, none in the style I was looking for, and certainly not the size.

What the heck?

As we were leaving the mall, my daughter pointed out that there was a Winners across the road. So that’s where we tried next.

It was better than the Marshals, at least. The shelves were better organized, but again, there was only one tiny display for the men’s section, and nothing in the size we were after.

I checked on my phone and found the nearest Walmart. I figured that would be our last stop. Even if we didn’t find the style I was after, if I could only find the size, that would be great.

Walmart, at least, has a nice, big section for men’s underclothes – but still a tiny clothing section.

Men, you guys are really short changed in the clothing department! Sheesh!

We found several brands in the style we wanted. Yay, right?

Nope.

There was a lot out of stock, so my daughter and I kept hunting for the right size, somewhere. After a while, I stopped looking at what was there and started looking at the labels in front of the hooks.

It turned out they weren’t just out of stock. They didn’t even CARRY the size we needed. In any brand, or any style!

What the heck??? He wears a common size. Why don’t they have it?

This was supposed to be our last stop, but we had noticed further down the parking lot, a Marks.

One more try…

Sure enough, we actually found both the style and size we were after!!! Finally! So I bought as many packages as I could afford without messing up our budget.

When we got to the counter, me looking a little wild eyed by now, the cashier asked us if we’d found everything we were looking for.

I told her that yes, we did, and that they were the ONLY ones to have what we were looking for. She looked completely surprised. Not even Walmart, she asked? Nope. Nothing in this size. That is so strange, she tells me.

It’s their most popular size.

Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. So why don’t other places even HAVE the size at all?

Who know buying underwear would be so difficult?

By the time that was done, we were both exhausted and more than ready to go home.

I really, really dislike shopping.

After we got home and unloaded, it occurred to me that none of us had the energy to cook supper. My older daughter is sick, my younger daughter is also getting sick, and just unloading the van was more than enough to remind me that I’m certainly not yet recovered from this stupid cold.

Since my daughter can now legally drive, I asked if she was up to a trip into town, so we could get some take-out. Thankfully, she was. So off we went to the van and…

When she tried to open the garage door, the handle came off.

Talking to my oldest brother not long ago, I mentioned this. He told me that thing has needed replacing for probably 15 years. It just never got done. It was on our list of things to fix sooner rather than later. Well, it just got bumped up higher on the list. :-D

My daughter had to go into the garage from the back door (which is used so rarely, it has self-seeded trees growing in front of it) and open it from the inside. The bar that runs through the hole to the handle is still there, and I couldn’t find any pieces that fell off onto the ground, so I’m actually not sure why the handle hadn’t fallen off sooner! :-D

I was just informed that we had deer outside our living room window again. A group of four. It’s almost completely dark at the moment, but still enough light for us to see them. And for them to see us. And hear us. Even the creaking of the floor had their ears going in all directions, and they could hear my daughter cough! As I was at the window, one was watching me until I shifted slightly, and off it ran, startling the others away.

So we will stay away from the window for a while, in hopes they come back.

Looks like we’ll be going into town again tomorrow, even if it’s just to pick up a new handle for the garage door! :-D

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

photo of the day

Shaggy friends, a new bird ID and… a mystery!

The Return of the Deer

Checking things out

Hello, Shaggy Friend

Another Stunner

A Day for the Birds

Fire Status

Windblown

Blue for You

That Circle of Life thing… and I hate shopping

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