I felt so good after the surgery, but the more time goes by, the worse I’ve been feeling.
Now, it’s back.
The pain that the doctor said the procedure should end.
Still not bad enough to go to the ER, but that is a possibility.
My daughter drove us to the post office to pick up a parcel. I ended up giving her my debit card along with the mail key and staying in the truck, in case she saw something in the general store worth picking up.
There ended up being two parcels. My latest MI Gardener seed order was in, too. Follow the link to see what made me choose these specific varieties.
There was also a surprise complementary packet of seeds; a “Salad bowl” mix. Who knows. We might even try growing some of those under lights in the winter.
The new seeds should be added to my seed bin that’s in the cool of the basement, but I can’t do the stairs right now.
In fact, I think I’m going to lie down again in a bit.
I was doing well this morning, while doing my morning rounds and harvesting the cabbage, etc. I had a brief visit with my brother and SIL and their friends just before they headed out for breakfast. I was invited to come along, but had stuff to get done and declined.
It’s a good thing I did.
Once inside, before I even started making my breakfast, the pain started to hit. I ended up having to lie down for several hours.
Two more days, and this should no longer be happening!
So it was later in the afternoon that my younger daughter and I set up our “trap” to lure the babies.
I took stuff out from inside the catio, removed the weights on the roof (to keep it from being blown over) and cleaned off accumulated debris. The weights, food and water bowls and scrap pieces of insulation that were under the self warming shelter that kept getting smushed flat, went into the wheel barrow. Then my daughter went inside the catio, picked it up by the wire “ceiling” under the roof panels and walked it over to the branch pile for me. Awkward, but much easier than us trying to carry it from the outside. I had to take off the rope handles I’d set into the corners when it was winterized with clear vinyl (which never came off in the summer), so there is nothing to grab on to.
The big donated cat carrier – so big, I have to turn it sideways and squeeze it through the door – was set up inside with the pieces of insulation under it, and the cleaned out cat bed was set up inside again. The food and water bowls were set up, and I grabbed a couple of cat toys from out of the isolation shelter. My daughter got some kibble for the food bowl while I dragged out the hose to fill the water bowl, then added some to the kibble to soften it for little baby teeth. The kittens are probably just getting old enough to eat solid food now, but dry kibble would be a bit much for them.
Slick was in there in no time at all, so I expect the kittens will have already explored it by now, and maybe tried some softened kibble.
Tomorrow morning, they will get to try cat soup.
We set the catio up based on how the door swings open, and the prevailing wind direction, so it sticks out a bit far. There is enough room to drive around it, though, so it’ll just be a slight inconvenience.
Not long after that was done, my daughter and I got ready to head out for the shopping I meant to do yesterday. I knew my brother, SIL and their friends would be gone before we came back, so we headed over to say hello and goodbye before we left. I’m glad we did, because they were packing up to leave soon after we were gone.
As my daughter and I headed for the garage, we walked past the catio and saw the squirmy wormies with Mom, not far from the catio. Hopefully, this will work out and we’ll be able to get these babies to the rescue for adoption, and Slick for spay!
Once my daughter and I reached our destination, our first stop was the Canadian Tire. Thankfully, they had replacement handles in stock, so I was able to get that. We also looked at the spray paint and found an enamel paint that can be sprayed over rusted metal; I forget which brand we ended up getting, but it wasn’t Rustoleum this time. We will scrub out the inside of the old bathtub I dug out of the junk pile and paint the inside. The outside well eventually get done, too, but not with an enamel paint. I also found a flat sink stopped that should cover the drain hole, which does not have a drain assembly anymore. I did look for a drain assembly but couldn’t find one for a bathtub, so I hope this will be enough. I want to be able to soak the cat beds and blankets for a while before washing them, as they are pretty messy right now!
Then, oddly, we saw and grabbed a case of KD. Why Canadian Tire would have mac n cheese at all, I have no idea, but the sale price was good, so we got one for the pantry.
From there, we headed across the street to the Walmart. The first thing I did was feed my daughter, who hadn’t eaten at all yet (!!!). Then we took our time with the actual shopping.
I don’t know that I quite found what I was after. I was thinking of things that are quick and easy, in case I end up with a longer recover time after my surgery. I’ve had laparoscopic abdominal surgery in the past and, while it was as non invasive as possible, I found myself feeling shockingly week for a whole month. I am not expected to have anything as major done this time, but it depends on what they find once they get the camera in me.
I got some cat supplies and paper products first, then went very slowly through the grocery aisles, seeing what was available. I did get some basics, like butter and eggs. I ended up getting some hoagies and breakfast sausages, which should be good for quick eating. I found a few other things that I would normally expect to pick up later in the month to right away instead. I even got some bananas – it’s been ages since I’ve seen bananas that weren’t all bright green!
My daughter, meanwhile, has slipped off to the restroom, but took quite a while before rejoining me. As she was heading to the section I was in, she ran into my sister, who works in this store. I never saw her at all – she works in the back, not on the floor.
She didn’t recognize my daughter. 😄 It’s been a while since she’s seen either of them! They had a chance to catch up a bit before she had to get back to work.
My daughter had her own shopping list as well, so she did some running around and returning to drop things off in the cart. As always, before we left, we stopped to think if there was anything we missed, since we have no idea when we’ll be back next. We happened to stop near the Corelle display. My daughters had asked about getting more, as they are much lighter than our other dishes. What we have now is what my late father had been using, and there are quite a few pieces missing from the set. We won’t be able to find the same design anymore, as it’s discontinued (and I’m not willing to hunt online for it). There was a design sold as individual pieces that I’ve been eyeballing for a while, and today I finally saw it available as a boxed set.
They were on the self in two different places, with two different prices.
My daughter was able to see the bar code numbers well enough to figure out which was the correct price. It was the lower price, though not a sale price. I wasn’t going to get it, but my daughter put a box in the cart, and bought it herself!
So sweet of her.
After that, we headed to the checkouts. When we left home, I was still dealing with residual pain from earlier, but that went away completely while we were out.
Instead, my back and hips started giving out.
*sigh*
I was more than eager to head out. We paid for our stuff, then my daughter took the cart to the truck while I went to the customer service. I remembered that, last time we were hear, two bags of cat food hadn’t been scanned and paid for my mistake. I had taken pictures of the bar codes so I dug those up, then went to customer service to explain what happened, so I could pay for them.
She was shocked and kept asking me “are you sure?” I said I was, and she was able to scan the bar codes from my photos, and I paid for them.
I think I made her day. She had the biggest smile! I just feel better taking care of that, and I’m glad I didn’t forget. It might be a while before we’re back again. We shall see.
After loading the truck (my daughter got stung by a wasp!), we headed out. We stopped in town on the way home to get gas and I was tired enough and in enough pain that I got my daughter to drive the rest of the way home for me.
We were got quite a while, so my older daughter took care of the outside cat feeding today, and made sure to add more kibble to the catio lure. After we unloaded the truck and put everything away, I did my last walkabout for the evening. I saw Slick going towards the house, but didn’t see any kittens anywhere this time.
I do hope they learn to trust going in there, and enjoy a soft cat bed enough to move into that cat carrier, at least during the day.
I really, really want to get those kittens, and Slick!!!
… and maybe Sprout’s lonely white and grey kitten. That one has taken to meowing, and when I come to put food in the bowls under the shrine, it now watches me, meows at me and runs back and forth, but doesn’t quite run away.
Of course, we need to get Sprout and Sprig (the white and grey’s older sister), too! That is going to be more difficult.
I’m happy with any progress at all at this point, no matter how tiny.
So that is now done.
Tomorrow, I want to head to the general store in our little hamlet in the afternoon. We’ve got a couple of packages that are expected Wednesday, but tracking says they’re already in the city, which means they should be here by tomorrow morning, though the local postmaster might not be able to finish processing all the packages until the afternoon.
Which reminds me. The manual blower I got for my daughter’s forge is hung up. I knew it had passed customs, but then my husband got an email. The email itself was just the invoice information for the blower, but the subject offered either a refund or a replacement. ??? I went online to check and it says “held for pickup at carrier locations” – but it’s still at customs. It may not even ben in Canada. I suggested to my husband to respond by requesting a replacement. Maybe with our physical address, instead of our box number. I talked to my daughter about it later and she suggested that if this happened again, to take the refund. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get it. As far as I can tell, there is no one locally (meaning, all of our province) that carries them, so online ordering is all we can do.
We’ll figure it out. I really want my daughter to be able to get her forge going. After the blower, the next thing to get her is some coal or charcoal and she can finally try doing blacksmithing at home.
I almost forgot to get a “before” picture, so the first image is after I’d already cut away a couple of cabbage heads.
I got a dozen heads loaded up in the wheelbarrow. I left the stems and outer leaves for now. Those will be composted into the bed, later on.
Everything was very wet with dew, so I laid them out on the table under the canopy tent to dry. They have since been brought in, but are still a touch damp, so they’ve been laid out in the cat free zone. A couple of them have very loose heads, so those will be used right away. My older daughter was thinking of making some cabbage soup, or even just roasting them.
We won’t have any purple savoy cabbage heads to harvest. None have formed. The leaves, however, are still edible. The youngest ones, at least. So I might find something to do with those at some point.
After the cabbage was laid out, I got the wire mesh divider from the basement and set it up on a couple of sawhorses, then took all the garlic hanging around the perimeter of the canopy tent down. They were rather damp, too, and one bulb was quite soft, so that one got set aside. The rest were freed from the cord they were hanging from, and laid out through the wire mesh of the divider. I hope that this will allow them to finish curing properly, and they didn’t get so damp from the rain that they rot or start sprouting, instead! The largest ones will be set aside for planting this fall.
Also, Gouda photo bomb. 🧀🐈
The insect netting that was protecting the cabbage actually had things growing through them along the edges of the bed. I got as much as I could out, while stretching the net out to full size on the grass. Later in the afternoon, I hung it on the clothes line and took a hose to clean it off a bit, before it gets folded and rolled up for storage.
I think I will harvest all of the Golden Boy celery next – except for the two that have gone to seed, which I will leave to collect later. My older daughter seems to be mildly allergic to fresh celery, so we haven’t been using it a lot. I’m thinking to dehydrate it, then powder it to make celery salt.
Hmmm… There’s only so much I can fit into my oven to dehydrate, so maybe I’ll just harvest a couple of bunches at a time to dehydrate. I’ve dehydrated celery before and it’s amazing how small the pieces get!
I was able to get a new handle for my garden fork today, so I’ll be able to harvest the potatoes relatively soon, once the ground is dry enough.
Or I’ll get my daughters to do it, depending on how I feel after my surgery.
Plus the original driver’s side door from our previous vehicle.
My brother and his friend got it all out, late this morning. As expected, the modern tanks were relatively easy, and could just be carried up the stairs.
The old, original tank’s inner chamber, however, was another story. My brother saw those loops at the top and had the same thought I did. They hooked up a ratchet strap made as short as possible to create a handle. My brother’s friend recenty hurt his back, so he took the top with the strap while my brother lifted from the bottom, and they got it out once step at a time.
That thing is HEAVY!
Then they got the old Uplander door out, which was more awkward than the modern tanks in some ways. My brother saw the two old pumps I’d moved over as well and wanted to take them up, so I told him about the others that were hidden by some old light fixtures I’d had to move to make room for the tanks.
The red pump is the newest one that just got replaced. The olive green one beside it, my brother tells me, is the original pump from when we got running water in the house back in the mid 70’s. That one ways about twice as much as the red one!
There were two other pumps we’d found while cleaning out the basement. I’d put all of them in the same general area, and the last two were on the bottom of a shelf. I had to move something so he could see them, and he’s pretty sure they still work, so he left them. He remembered there had been pumps under the work table, but I told him I’d moved them out from there and he’d already taken them outside.
I’d also rolled over the dehumidifier, as the last time I tried turning it on, it started making some rather unfortunate noises. My brother thinks what I described is something minor, so he left that, too.
Now that the tanks are no longer blocking the bottom of the stairs, I will bring up the old divider from between the basements so I can use it for curing things under the canopy tent.
Like the garlic.
It started raining yesterday and was supposed to stop raining by about 7am. It was still raining well past 1 pm. Which is wonderful for the garden, but not the strung up garlic. Since I wasn’t able to hang two long strings of garlic across the middle of the canopy tent, but only smaller lengths around the edges, they did get rained on, if only on one side. I trimmed off most of the stems, and the weight of the bulbs flipped them all so that they are now hanging root side down. The trimmed stems will make it easier to set them into the wire mesh of the old divider, and they will be completely under the canopy.
Not long after the tanks were taken out, I prepped the truck for a dump run. When I messaged them to let them know I was planning to do a dump run, followed by a Walmart run (which is why they took the tanks out when they did), my SIL asked if I could grab some of the bags by the old burn barrel. I’m glad she reminded me of those. We didn’t have a lot for the dump today, so we had room, but I keep forgetting they exist.
I also remembered to finally grab the garbage bag the can in the garage. I knew I needed to bring a new bag for the can, plus I knew some of the bags by the old burn barrel were torn, so I grabbed a bag of large, clear garbage bags that had been set aside. I’m glad I did. After backing the truck up to these old bags, I discovered they had been exposed to the elements for so long, the bags disintegrated as soon as I tried to pick one up. Not just the ones that I had noticed were already torn, but the ones that looked just fine until I tried to move them. It didn’t help that they were all filled with paper and cardboard meant for the burn barrel – which had been rained on all night. All that water made them quite heavy. I managed to get a decent number of them into fresh bags until I ran out, filling about 3/4 of the truck box.
That done, I backed up to the house, where my daughter started passing me the household garbage and recycling from the old kitchen. The poor thing. Even from the truck, I could hear she was dealing with a lot of back pain!
Since we were planning to go to the Walmart after the dump, I took the time to change out of my grubbies and my daughter and I were soon headed out.
I had considered I would need to be careful not to get my clothes dirty from the bags, but I forgot about the clay. I should have worn my rubber boots! I didn’t think of it, since we were supposed to go shopping next.
By the time we got rid of the garbage and recycling (I made sure my daughter didn’t lift any of the water logged bags, with her back giving out like it was), it seemed the rain was finally stopping. By the time we got back on the highway, though, it was raining much harder. At that point I decided we would just go home. There was nothing we needed to get that couldn’t wait another day, and I didn’t want to be driving the highway in those conditions if I didn’t have to.
So we headed home.
The good thing about the grass being so wet is that I was able to clean my shoes while walking from the garage to the house, just by dragging my feet! 😄 The grass was recently cut, though, so my daughter ended up having to use the hose on her boots.
Not long before I started this post, I headed out to do the evening cat feeding and my evening rounds. I’d done a bit of research first and made a point of checking the green cabbage to see if they were ready to harvest.
They are.
It’s too wet to do it now, though, so I will do it in the morning. The largest heads look like they are beginning to open up, which means they are starting to bolt; something we want to avoid.
So we should have a dozen heads of cabbage harvested tomorrow. Possibly thirteen; one of the pots had two transplants in it, and I wasn’t able to separate them without damaging the roots, so I left the extra.
The potato plants are almost completely died back now. Those will be harvested once the ground is dry again, then set under the canopy tent to cure.
I’m happy that, with the help of my brother and his friend, we at least got two major things accomplished. First, the tanks, pumps and old van door are now out of the basement. My brother wanted to leave them near the house until he could drive his trailer in and load them, rather than move them to the junk pile. They are not in the way near the house where they are, so that will be fine.
The other major thing was that we made it to the dump, and the truck didn’t break down.
Today has, somewhat surprisingly, been a day of progress.
Surprisingly because I was dealing with the pains on and off today. I was fine when I went to bed, then got awakened by the pain in the wee hours of the night. I managed to finally fall asleep and it was gone by the time I got up, but was back again after I did my morning routine and was having breakfast. Then it went away.
There just doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason behind it. I really, really hope the surgery next week puts a stop to this!
This morning, I did a head count and there were 12 cats showing up for breakfast. When I counted again at the second feeding of the day, there were 14, plus the kitten showed up later.
I did contact the rescue about needing to adopt the cats. They recommended I contact other rescues as their resources are stretched really thin right now. I wasn’t asking for fostering. Just if we could post them on their website, but it doesn’t look like they can even do that right now. The problem is, I’ve tried contacting other rescues before and they don’t cover our area. The only one that did turned out to have… issues. The only good thing that came out of that is we connected with The Cat Lady, who helped us so much while she ran her own little rescue.
I already know none of the rescues are doing intakes right now. Everyone is full. So… we need to figure things out.
Anyhow…
As usual, after feeding the cats, I went through the garden. I am just so happy with how the Arikara squash is doing!
I’ve got my hand in the second picture as a size reference. We’ve got one squash that’s growing. A couple others have withered away, and there’s one that I’m not sure is going to make it. It’s bigger that the size of the others that withered, but it doesn’t seem to be growing. There are some female flower buds visible, too.
The winter squash at the chain link fence are looking good, with lots of male flowers blooming. There was one that had a single female flower that dropped before it ever opened. Currently, I see a different winter squash with a female flower that will hopefully blossom and at least have a chance to get pollinated.
The Super Sugar Snap peas that were planted later at the chain link fence bed are blooming and forming pods now.
The yellow bush beans had matured faster but are winding down now, yet are still just as prolific as the green and purple beans that are pretty much at their peak right now. There are fewer green and purple bean plants, too.
Next year, I hope to remember to try using the wire tomato cages on the bush beans, like I do now for peppers and eggplant. They seem to need that extra support.
Bush beans do great in the high raised bed, but it isn’t big enough. We have enough beans for eating fresh, but not enough to freeze or can. We definitely need to grow more beans. Normally, I’d be starting to harvest pole beans as the bush beans are winding down, but the Red Noodle beans seems to be struggling. Not as much as last year, where they only reached 6-8 inches high then stagnated. The first year we tried growing them was a drought year and they barely grew at all. It wasn’t until I was cleaning up at the end of the season that I found a single, skinny bean pod that was about the size of a worm. This year, they are bigger but, again, they seem to have stalled. There’s next to nothing climbing the trellis, and the leaves are a yellowish green, like last year, instead of the darker green I see in pictures of mature plants. I don’t know if we’re going to get any pole beans at all this year. We do have the bush beans planted later, with the Arikara squash, and I’m seeing pods starting to form there, so we’ll have at least a bit more beans to harvest from there, soon.
I harvested a couple of green scallop squash, deciding to leave the golden zucchini to get a big bigger before picking them. There are still a couple of varieties of summer squash that barely have flower beds, even.
On coming back to the house through the sun room, I could hear noises through the door. As I came closer, a little raccoon ran out, but I could still hear noises.
Of the two you see in the first image above, the top one eventually ran by me and out the door. The one below it, however, ran to another corner, and just sat there. I even tried to persuade it to leave with an old broom handle I’ve got in the sun room for times like this. I was going to just sort of push it from its back, to convince it to move.
It didn’t move.
I ended up “petting” it with the broom handle while it just sat there, frozen, staring at me, which is what you see in the second picture.
I tried leaving for a bit and tapping on the other side of the window. Nothing. So I puttered around outside some more before coming back. It was still there. I moved in closer do to something else and all it did was turn around and stare at me some more, which you can see in the last picture.
The little thing looks so sad and adorable. The most tragic of expressions! 😄
It did eventually leave, some time after I was back in the house.
Once my morning routine was done and I was making breakfast, I used some of the fresh beans I picked this morning. I ended up making the fanciest breakfast I’ve ever made for myself, ever. 😄
My daughter had roasted the marinated pork belly last night, so I used some of that. I cooked up a couple of packages of ramen noodle soup, boiling the cut up beans in the stock for a few minutes before adding the noodles. Then, once the noodles were softened, I added a couple of eggs to poach for the last couple of minutes. We have some very ripe avocados that need to be eaten quickly, so I sliced one up.
The noodles and soup liquid didn’t all fit in the bowl, though, so the last of it went into a mug to be added to my bowl once there was room.
Since the meat was already cooked, the whole thing took hardly any time at all. I think waiting for the water to come to a boil was the longest part.
It was quite delicious, too!
Unfortunately, by the time I finished cooking, the pain was coming back. When I finished eating, it was bad enough that I had to take some pain killers and try lying down for a couple of hours. By the time the pain eased, it was long enough that I’m pretty sure it went away on its own, and the painkillers didn’t actually do anything.
Still, I was feeling well enough that I headed for the basement, sneaking past my daughter as she was mopping the floor before she got to that part. 😄 My brother is wanting to haul away the hot water tank collection, and I wanted to at least move them from the old basement to the bottom of the stairs in the new basement, as there is more room around them and they are stronger.
The modern tanks were pretty easy to move, though one of them turned out to still have a fair bit of water in it. I had it tilted over the little trench in the concrete floor that drains to the sump pump reservoir for a while. The water coming out was thick and deeply orange from rust!
With the tanks being round, it was quite easy to “walk” them across the old basement, though the space at the bottom of the old basement steps is so narrow, I had to drag them through there. Once in the new basement, I could mostly just roll them along a bottom edge.
Then there was the original tank. The one I thought I could make lighter by removing the outside of it. That inner tank is way heavier.
I tried rolling it back and forth at first, testing the weight, and could hear all sorts of things rattling around inside. There must be so much scale in there! I stood it up, and almost immediately, noticed some water leaking from the outflow valve. I started rocking it a bit and more water started spurting out. I ended up walking to over to the drainage trench in the concrete and held it there, at an angle, for a while.
The light isn’t good there, so I was using my phone’s flashlight to check the outflow pipe and could see it was threaded at the tank. There was an old pipe wrench handy in a nearby shelf so I used that, at the “tap” end of the outflow, to try and unscrew it. It was coming loose quite nicely when I realized it wasn’t coming loose from the tank. The “tap” was coming off – I couldn’t even see that it was threaded, earlier! After a while, a white pipe was visible and I was able to pull the whole thing out by hand. By then, most of the water had already drained and it was just a slow trickle. I ended up dragging something over to lean the tank against, so I didn’t have to sit there holding it at an angle the whole time.
Once it was down to a drip, I continued moving it to the other basement steps. Which was way easier than I expected. With the outer shell removed, it was narrower than the modern tanks, making it easier to get past the bottom of the old basement steps. Once it was on the smooth concrete of the new basement, I was able to just push and slide it most of the way!
So we now have three hot water tanks at the base of the new basement steps, waiting to be hauled out.
Then I went and got the old door from our last vehicle. It’s been leaning against a wall off to the side for years now. That turned out to be an easy move. The concrete floor in the new basement is nice and smooth, and it slide across quite nicely.
So that’s all ready to drag up the stairs and outside to the junk pile, which the girls and I were thinking of doing today.
It won’t be done today.
Once everything was moved, I cleaned up where the tanks had been, then grabbed the very handy old garden hose we keep for clearing the pipes to the septic tank to clear the drainage trench to the sump pump of all the thick, rusty sludge still sitting in it. Ew.
That done, it was about time to feed the outside cats, so I headed back outside. After feeding the cats, I broke out the push mower to FINALLY get a job done that I’ve been meaning to get to for weeks.
I cleared the two overgrown spaces in the main garden area, and around the fallen tree by the old squash tunnel we still haven’t taken down. These areas both needed to be mowed twice. The first time with the mower as high as it can go. The second time, a few notches lower. The old garden area is still so insanely rough from the botched plow job done before we moved here, I can’t really mow it as short as I’d like. I was able to mow in between the silver buffalo berry, though. Those need more wood chips mulched around them, eventually, too.
It looks so much better now!
After I put the mower away and headed back to take the above photos, I spotted little Bug in the north yard, behaving strangely. Like something in the grass had her full attention…
That mouse is about half the size of her skull. Such a good little Bug, earning her keep! 😁
I had intended to water the garden after I finished with the mowing, but I was at my limit for the day. My older daughter was able to do it for me, while I was working on this blog post.
As I write, I can start to feel that I may have pushed myself a bit too far with moving those tanks, though. My shoulder and neck muscles are starting to stiffen up.
Time to be pro-active with the painkillers, I think. Maybe some Tei Fu lotion on my legs before bed, too, since I can’t take my magnesium supplements until after my surgery.
An early bed time is definitely in order, tonight.
For all that I ended up having to lie down due to pain for several hours, I glad I was able to get things done.
Just a few bush beans and some Golden Boy celery. Later this evening, while looking at the tomatoes with one of my daughters, I accidentally harvested some! They came right off the vines when I touched them! You can see those in the second image of the slideshow above. My daughter had tried one, thinking it might be ripe because of how easily they came off the vine.
It was most definitely NOT ripe. So the rest will sit in a window still or something until they ripen fully.
After lunch, I headed back outside again. I wanted to work on the area where the next garden bed will go, starting off by dragging our accumulated cardboard over, then using the weed trimmer on the grass and weeds that had come through the cardboard already laid down. That required moving all the boards and pieces of log that were holding the cardboard down. I had a pleasant surprise when picking up a board that was overlapping another board. A lovely little garter snake, curled up on the cap! It slithered away very quickly, so I wasn’t able to snag a picture, but I was very happy to see it.
After using the trimmer on that area, I kept going and trimmed around some old crab apple tree stumps, then around the plum, apple, gooseberry and haskaps, where the mower can’t get close enough.
Party way through, my older daughter came out and we walked around the yard (to keep the mosquitoes at bay) to talk about our options regarding the property. She and her sister had been talking about it already. With them, as they are now getting the medical treatment they need and will be getting the surgeries they need, they know that they will be in a better position to do things in the relatively near future. Just the fact that my daughter could walk around the yard with me is a demonstration of that.
Until I get the most recent numbers for what my brother pays in property taxes and insurance, we can’t say some things for sure. My brother has given me this information in the past, but I know the taxes have gone up, and I don’t yet know if things are complete with the new insurance provider he’s been in contact with.
In the end, though, my brother and his wife own the property and can do whatever they want with it. We can make some offers to lift the burden of the cost from him, but if we end up needing to move, we need to know that as soon as possible, as that would change our focus completely. No point in doing things like building the outdoor kitchen or planting more fruit trees and bushes if we aren’t going to be here in a couple of years.
One thing that needs to change as quickly as possible, either way, is, we need to get indoor cats adopted out. They are destroying the house, and we are spending more of our limited income on cat food and supplies per month, than on food for ourselves. The rescue has said they would be willing to post pictures and information on their adoption website, but that requires getting photos and video of each individual cat that’s available for adoption. Which means we’ll need to create a “set” in the cat free zone – aka: the living room – and bring them in, one at a time, and see if they will co-operate enough to get some shareable images and video. We have 21 indoor cats, and basically only three or four that we don’t want to adopt out. Unfortunately, adult cats are exceptionally hard to adopt out. Especially cats with any health issues, like missing legs, or a giant fat cat that has blocked twice already.
So I need to contact the rescue and we need to prioritize getting photos and video taken.
After we had a chance to talk, I went back to the weed trimming before getting back to the garden bed area.
The first thing to do was to measure and mark the 4′ wide path, then the 4′ wide future raised bed. Then I started laying out all the cardboard I had, starting with the smaller pieces along the outside edge, then working towards the existing bed this one will be paired with.
I didn’t have enough cardboard to cover all of the 8′ x 18′ area. More like about 6′ x 18′.
Then came the more difficult part.
The large log the tree removal guys had cut and brought over for me needed to be moved into position. It still needs to be de-barked and have branch nubs cut flush, but I wanted it to be in the location where it will eventually permanently sit, 4′ away from the current bed.
I’ve got two other lengths this log was placed beside. They are skinny and light enough that I could move them out of the way. The new log, however, is a lot bigger. Particularly at one end. It was also too far past one end. Once I rolled it near where it goes, I had to figure out how to shift the entire log about 8 inches over.
The direction it needed to go was also the thinner, lighter end of the log. What I ended up doing was finding some rope in the garden shed to wrap around the log near the thinner end then, using a short piece of wood that I’d moved aside earlier as a handle, pulled the whole thing over.
They cut it to 18′, but it’s not as long as the bed it needs to match. I didn’t measure, so I don’t know if they cut it shorter than 18′, or if the other bed is longer than 18′ because of the logs at the ends. Either way, I should be able to match the lengths with the end pieces, when the time comes.
In the above photo, you can see the rope and piece of wood I used as a handle. I also rolled the larger of the other two logs, which still need to be cut to size, to the outside 4′ mark of the bed. This log is too thin to be a bottom log, though. It’s there to hold the cardboard down for now. The really skinny piece is meant to go across the top of the vertical posts of the trellis bed this one will be paired with.
After cutting a 10′, then an 18′, length from the dead spruce, the tree guys cut the rest of the trunk into three 4′ pieces before it got too small; the top of the tree got chipped with the branches. I set one shorter piece at each end, then laid the last on inside the bed, to help hold down the cardboard. Then all the boards and pieces of wood I’d taken off earlier got set onto the cardboard, spread out to keep it from blowing away. You can see the final result in the second image of the slide show above.
The log that is currently on the outside of the bed will eventually be set on top of a base log. For now, these beds will be built to two logs high.
I need more cardboard to cover the rest of the path, up to the current bed. I’d like to cover the path in wood chips once more cardboard is down. Grass and weeds get through uncovered cardboard very quickly.
It’s a tiny bit of progress, but it’s better than nothing! I don’t know when I’ll be able to get more logs for this. I’d asked my brother about clearing dead trees out of the spruce grove with the help of his tractor. I believe he was finally able to get that fixed, but they said something about finding a lot of trees along the road heading south along the property line that need to be cleared away from the fence, so I’m expecting that will be a priority for him. I don’t know. I could cut trees down, cut them to length in situ, the drag the logs out myself, or with the help of a daughter, like we’ve done with all the others. It would just be a lot faster and easier to do it with a tractor!
So the past couple of days have been SO much better, it just blows me away!
Yesterday, I was not only well enough to go into the city for the stock up shopping at Costco, but felt well enough to keep on going after everything was put away and we’d had supper. I headed outside for the usual evening cat feeding, then gave the garden a solid watering before heading back in.
A couple of nights ago, my brother and SIL quickly came by to drop off a box with a small raccoon proof shed they picked up. I had some bags with cans at various stages of sorting against the garage, and critters had gotten into them again, spreading them all over. So this is something we can store the aluminum cans in until it’s worth bringing them to the scrap yard. Most of the cans are cat food cans. Even though they are empty, the critters still smell food on them and sometimes tear the bags apart – even after ignoring them for months!
They also let me know that they were coming back the next day (yesterday) to take the trail loaded with metal items to the scrap yard. When they told me about the shed, I mentioned that we had more bags of cans in our basement that would fit in the truck. My SIL said that they could load the bags into their truck (which has a taller cap over the box) and take it in with the rest of the load.
I didn’t know what time they would be coming by with the shed, so I headed out with some fresh bags to at least re-bag the bag with aluminum only that had been torn up. As I was walking to the garage, however, I saw something that wasn’t there when I’d gone out to feed the cats and water the garden earlier.
That wasn’t there when I was out watering the garden beds! I sent the picture to our family chat and my daughters said they had heard something – maybe 40 minutes earlier – fall. It wasn’t even particularly windy at the time!
After re-bagging the aluminum cans at the garage, I came to see how bad the damage was under this tree top. Much to my surprise, the garden bed cover was not damaged. The netting was bent, but it doesn’t have hoops under it, to it can be easily pushed back into shape. All those branches sticking out in every direction actually kept the full weight of the tree top from landing on the cover and doghouse roof. I broke off some of the branches while one of my daughters came over, and she held the tree top up until I could get the garden bed cover out from under it, then pushed it aside, so it’s not over the old dog house anymore. We’ll have to come back with the chain saw to break it down, soon, but for now it waits.
We went in after that and my brother and SIL were in and out to drop off the shed in its box so quickly, if I hadn’t gotten security camera alerts, I’d never had known they were here!
With my SIL’s kind offer to take our aluminum in, that meant getting all the bags out of the basement. I didn’t know what time they would be coming buy, and knew I’d be going to the city, so I wanted to get the cans out before we left. Which had to be done in stages, since we can’t just leave doors open, or the inside cats would be getting into the basement, or outside.
I got it done, though. By the time I got them out near the junk pile, which has been cleared out significantly, thanks to my brother and SIL, I had 11 large clear bags, plus another 8 or so small blue bags. Including the two bags from beside the garage I’d rebagged the night before.
What I found out later was that they weren’t coming out until my brother was done at work (I had thought he might have arranged to leave early or something). So we were back from Costco well before they got here, in seperate vehicles.
I had actually gone back out to water the garden, but suddenly realized my brother had somehow arrived and parked by the barn without my ever hearing him! Then I heard my SIL arriving at the gate. So I postponed the watering and started tying the garlic off so I could hang them to cure.
Which didn’t work out as planned.
Normally, I make two long strings of garlic that I hang under the canopy tent to form a large X across the middle. The garlic, however, turned out to be too heavy. The first string of garlic kept snapping at different spots. In the end, I hung the remaining pieces, reinforcing the longest one with more jute twine. With the rest, I tied off strings of roughly a dozen garlic each and hung them around the sides of the canopy tent.
I was working on this when my brother and SIL drove their truck and trailer up to where the aluminum bags were. In the end, though, they didn’t take them yet. They didn’t have time. The scrap yard closed at 8, but it was at least a 45 minute drive to get there, and they needed to be there before closing time. Last call is usually about 15 minutes before closing.
So they left without the aluminum, with my brother driving the truck and trailer and my SIL following in the car my brother had come out in. They got there just in time and were able to get it done. Once the trailer was cleared, my brother took the car and drove home, since he had to go to work the next morning. My SIL drove the truck and trailer back here.
Meanwhile, I had finished stringing up the garlic.
There are two images in the above slide show. I don’t like that the garlic is around the edges, as they could be affected by the weather more. We’re not expecting rain for a while, though, so I hope they will be okay.
I was just finishing watering the garden when my SIL got back with the trailer. I helped her unhitch the trailer (something neither of us had done before, though at least my SIL has seen my brother doing it), then she drove the truck over to the bags of aluminum. We didn’t want them out overnight, as the raccoons would probably tear them apart.
It was getting dark, so I messaged my daughters and they were both able to come out and help load the truck. Much to my surprised, they all fit, with room to spare!
By then, it was pretty much full dark. My SIL parked the truck near their caravan and stayed the night.
This morning, I was up by about 6am, even though I hadn’t actually slept much last night. I headed out into the wonderfully cool morning to feed the cats and do a quick walkabout before going back inside.
The last time I saw this Arikara squash, it was maybe 6 inches long!!
I set a brick under it, so it wouldn’t have direct contact to the ground. There are several more squash developing, but this one got huge, fast! One squash plant, and we might have as many as 5 squash off of it, if they all survive. This is how all our winter squash should be looking, but even the biggest of the other varieties do not look this vigorous and healthy!
This is a chokecherry tree, part of which has split.
Oh, I just realized. This is probably NOT wind damage. This might be deer damage. There are ripe chokecherries on this tree. If they were pulling on the berries like they do when going after the crab apples, they could easily have broken the tree like this.
My SIL and I were planning to head out around noon. That gave me time to go through the house for any remaining aluminum cans that were waiting to be bagged up, filling about half of a large, clear bag. Then I went to the garage, where a bag with crushed cans had been torn and spilling and picked that up. Then I crushed all the cans I could find in the crate and bin we us for recyclables. Last of all, I headed outside the garage with a magnet and sorted the last bag that’s been sitting there for months, pulling out the cans with steel. By the time I was done, I’d filled the large clear bag and about half of a small blue recycling bag. I carried them over to my brother’s truck and added them to what was in the back.
At this point, we have a couple of bags with just ferrous metal in them. We could have taken them with us, but it just wasn’t worth is for barely two bags. The price for steel is quite low.
I later found out my brother got 12¢ per pound for their load. The stuff didn’t weigh as much as my brother had estimated.
The cans sorted and bags and cleaned up, I headed back in to change out of my grubbies and into going out clothes. I double checked the hours I’d found for the place online, and they said they were closed today. !!!??? So I phoned.
They were very much open.
My SIL and I headed out soon after. We went to the salvage yard directly to the south of us that I was already familiar with, rather than the one they went to last night. There was enough in there that they brought out one of the bigger cages with a forklift, rather than the bin they’d brought out the last time we’d managed the trip, and we actually filled it. It turned out to be 252 pounds, and they paid out 70¢ per pound. a bit lower than the average going rate, but these were not “clean”; a lot of the cans had been outdoors for some time before we had to put the bags into the basement to keep the critters from getting at them, so they had literal dirt on them.
That got me just over $175 in cash. Not too bad!
I also remembered to ask for a new magnet keychain to replace the one that was stolen, I think by a raccoon. They had a whole basket full of them available to give out!
My SIL had suggested we go for lunch afterwards, and this allowed me to treat her, for a change!
I don’t know a lot of what’s available in this town, so when my sister suggested Chinese food, I was quite happy to try a place I’d never been to before. We had a lovely meal and a great time catching up with each other.
As we were finished, my SIL mentioned she wanted to go to the town north of us after we were done. I asked if she wanted company and went along, with just a side trip to the post office for something my husband was expecting.
The extra drive meant almost a lot more driving time to chat in. I really enjoy spending time with my SIL. She’s awesome.
The place she wanted to go to was the livestock supply store. She’d never been there before, but that’s one of the places I’d been getting 40 pound bags of cat food from, plus this place has all sorts of other farm supplies to ogle. I was able to give her directions to the store, which is actually away from the town itself. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up a couple of bags of cat food, as well as a very plain, inexpensive, folding knife. Something better than the utility knife I’ve been carrying around when doing yard stuff, with no fancy saw edges or do-dads. Just a plain knife. They had one left in bright orange, and I grabbed that. This way, if I drop it in the grass or dirt, it’ll be easy to see!
My SIL, meanwhile, picked up some stall liners. Something to put under the stairs to their caravan, or other places where they don’t want the grass to be taking over.
I have to admit, when I saw them being loaded into the truck, I started wanting one for our kitchen! These are designed to withstand cow hooves. The cats would not be able to scratch this up! They’re actually too big to fit on our kitchen floor, though, but gosh, that would be so nice. Pricey for what would essentially be considered a floor mat, but worth every penny.
That done, my SIL wanted to check out the hardware store. We both got a couple of little things, but mostly she wanted to look at their display sheds. They had quite a variety of designs on display, from basic wide open spaces, to ones with front porches, pretty windows and lofts.
Some of the price tags on these, though… there’s a reason I want to build a garden shed using the cordwood wall technique! The mortar needed for that, plus using wood from dead spruces we already have, would be a lot cheaper, even with having to buy roofing material.
With all the driving and checking things out, it was late enough that the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before I got home. We’re now good on dry cat food for both the inside and outside cats for probably the rest of the month, which was a nice bonus.
My brother has since made it out and they will be here for the weekend. Much of the focus is still going to be on cleaning up and hauling things away.
Which brings me to something the family is going to need to figure out.
My brother is going to retire in a couple of years. The deal is, he pays for the property tax and insurance, we pay the utilities and keep the place up – something that is getting harder for us to do with all of us being broken, one way or another. Something I hope will improve within the next 6 months or so, as my daughters and I each get the surgeries we need.
Once he retires, they won’t be able to keep up paying the expenses for this place. The money brought in by renting most of it out doesn’t even cover the cost of taxes.
We need to figure out what our options are, and we have only two years to do it in. Meanwhile, my husband’s disability income through is employer ends at age 65. That’s only 7 years away. It’s not like we can take over the property. With both our daughters having health issues, their options are limited, too.
I had to zoom in from half way across the yard, then crop the photo, to get the above image. This cat goes into that splay legged position, like it’s ready do run away in a flash, quite often.
I hadn’t done their water yet, but didn’t want to scare the little one away from the food, so I went around to the main garden area to start watering that garden beds, partly to judge just how well I was doing, and if I’d be going to Costco or not.
I took it easy and didn’t do a really deep watering; we weren’t expected to get unusually hot today, so that was enough. By the time the main garden area was done and I moved to the other side of the house, the cats (and a few skunks) had all had a chance to eat, so I refilled their water bowls in between watering different beds.
We are now up to four luffa seedlings, with a second one showing up next to the oldest one. Each spot got several seeds, so it’s entirely possible more will show up, still. Even with only 55 days to maturity, it’s getting really tight for them. They will have a chance only if have a very mild fall and no frost until the end of September.
Which, given that this is a Super El Nińo year, might actually happen. At this point, the shorter daylight hours will also have an effect.
By the time I was done, I knew going to Costco was going to be an issue. I could handle the drive, but not the shopping. Not without making things much worse.
The problem was, my younger daughter, who is the only one that can come with me, was dealing with her own very different pain issues today, too.
I decided to pain killer up and try lying down for a while, to see if things would improve.
They did not. The tramadol seemed to have zero effect. Not only that, but the bleeding kicked up again, too. *sigh*
After waiting a long enough time, I tried taking the T3s and lying down again.
It’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to nap. As soon as I lay down, I got covered with cats, including some that don’t normally cuddle with me like that. At one point, I had 5 cats directly on me, and I don’t know how many against my legs. I ended up with Shadow right against my side, and Clarence right against him, both draped over my bicep.
Both images are of Shadow, just inches from my face. So close that my phone’s camera (which I keep close by in case I need to message for help) measured as dark and used the flash. His face looks mashed because it IS mashed. By Clarence.
I had updated the family on our group chat about my status, still willing to go into the city later in the day, if someone could come with me. My husband had already suggested I wait until tomorrow. My older daughter came by later and basically said the same thing.
*sigh* Another day wasted because of this pain. I am so glad the surgery is happening in just a couple of weeks.
Eventually, the pain did recede a bit. My daughters were working on supper – my younger daughter was looking really rough today! – and I felt well enough to do the outside cat feeding again. Once that was taken care of, I did a light version of my evening rounds. I find the fresh air and moving around helps. Mentally, if not necessarily physically.
While doing that, I noticed that the old, leaking water barrel by the apple tree and gooseberry bush was looking surprisingly full of water. Usually, it leaks until there’s only about half a foot of water on the bottom, but I could see the water line was at about 3/4 full.
So I took advantage of that and watered just some of the fruit trees and berry bushes. I wasn’t up to hooking the hose up to do all the ones I normally water. It actually felt pretty good to do as much as I did, and didn’t make things worse, which I was grateful for.
While checking the main garden area, I noticed these are getting nice and big.
So far, only one of the Chocolate Stripe tomato plants has developing tomatoes. They’re looking pretty good!
I’m going to have to get that canopy tent set up soon. The garlic looks about ready to harvest, and I plan to hang them under the canopy tent to cure. I’ve got one kohlrabi and a couple of green pattypan squash (Green Scallop Benning) that I will be able to harvest tomorrow. Of the five types of summer squash I’ve got, one of them has not had any flowers yet, male or female. The Lemon squash. The yellow scallop squash at least has male flowers blooming, if no female flowers, yet.
Now, near enough to the end of the day that a trip to Costco is out of the question, I’m actually feeling a lot better.
If only that can last through tomorrow, and I can finally make the trip in, and not need to drag a daughter along, too.
I was out before things got too hot, giving the garden a solid watering. I was able to work on some weeding as well, particularly in one of the beds in the East yard.
I need to work on the purple cabbage bed next, but I got some solid weeding in the mixed bed.
I ended up taking some short videos.
The plants look wimpy in the video because I used the watering to help make it easier to pull the weeds. Several times, I went to pull up crab grass and the rhizome ended up lifting a section of the tiny bok choy with it! The rhizome had run directly under the bok choy, so their roots were grown around it. I was able to set them back and hopefully, they will recover.
The bok choi all bolted and I’m leaving them to collect seed from. I still have seed from last year and am going to try planting them again as a fall crop, as they clearly do not like this heat!
The spinach doesn’t like it, either, and it has bolted, too, but it looks like we’re going to get a decent amount of Swiss Chard.
I’ll need to do the cabbage bed, next.
On the one hand, I’m impressed with how much the purple savoy cabbage has grown. They were so tiny when I found them while weeding the bed. Unfortunately, they are rather leggy and not forming heads, like the green cabbage transplants I bought have started to do. This bed does get sunlight, but not enough for cabbage, it turns out. Something to keep in mind for next year!
I’m really, really happy with the Arikara squash! This is the biggest squash plant we have right now, and it’s grown so much, I had to lift the netting off one corner for the vine to run through. The netting will need to be removed soon, but I first have to figure out how to still protect the bed. Deer love to eat bush beans and, of course, I don’t want cats going in and rolling around or digging in there.
I’m also quite happy with our little flower bed. The nasturtiums we direct sowed are blooming enthusiastically. The transplanted not-red cosmos are winding down, but still have flower buds developing. The transplanted Crackerjack marigolds look like they’ll be going for awhile. All of these, I plan to let go to seed. My only disappointment is there were no self-seeded asters from last year, since the seeds I collected in the fall have completely disappeared; one of several packages of collected seeds that have disappeared.
The trellis bed is another area I spent some time using the hose to make weeding easier. Unfortunately, with the bed as low as it is, I can’t reach very far, so the first carrot planting isn’t getting the weeding it needs. The peas on the trellis are winding down. I did pick a handful, then ate them all before moving on to the next area to water. 😁 The super sugar snap peas aren’t at the blooming stage yet, and the dwarf peas are not very productive, so I’m thinking a sowing of more peas near the end of July for a fall crop might be good, if I can find the space.
After taking a break for breakfast, I headed back out to use the push mower around the edges of the yard. Some spaces are too tight to use the riding mower, but too big to use a weed trimmer. As long as I was in the shade, it wasn’t bad, but by then we were at full heat (and we still are). Every time I stepped out of the shade, it was like walking into a wall of heat! I managed to get the south and east yards done, but still need to do the west and north yards, plus the paths in the main garden area.
When switching to the second half of the south yard, I did a walkabout to pick loose branches and whatnot, then stopped to take care of this poor spruce tree.
Yes, there’s a tree in there! If you click through to the next image, you’ll see what I uncovered. The tree is not looking very healthy right now, but it should get better now that it isn’t being smothered by vines!
This is a tree that I’ve been wanting to transplant, but it’s starting to get too big for that. My mother planted two of them, right next to the chain link fence. One died since we moved out here. When I told my mother we needed to transplant them, she demanded they stay. When I explained that, if we left them there, they would eventually destroy the chain link fence. She told me she didn’t care, and insisted they stay. When one of them died, she thought I had killed it on purpose because she told me not to transplant them.
We’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile…
My brother was out by about 5am, doing more mowing, then getting getting the truck and trailer out to load more junk into the bin. They went through a number of areas and cleared a lot of the junk pile near the chain link fence, and filled it. They’ve called it in and it should be picked up tomorrow, but it won’t be coming back again right away. They got enough area cleared that they can start organizing things more, and have the bin brought back in the fall. Until then, my brother is going to focus on getting the metal stuff to the scrap yard, where he’ll at least get some money for it. I did remember to tell them that the old bath tub in the junk pile is a keeper – though they never found it! I’ve found I need something larger to wash things that too big or too dirty for the washing machine, like the outdoor cat beds and blankets. I’ll need to pick a spot for it that is out of the way, but still easily accessible.
In other things…
My husband is doing a lot better today. During the night, his blood glucose did drop very low again, though not as dangerously as before. He was able to eat something, then went back to bed. Between us, we’ve been making sure he actually eats regularly.
I found out something that was a surprise, though. My husband has been on a ludicrously high dose of Ozempic, which is supposed to help control his blood glucose. Something I have a real problem with, because it didn’t seem to help that, but the side effects were causing problems. He has decreased his slow-release insulin and I remembered to suggest he might want to decrease his Ozempic dose, too.
He isn’t taking it, and hasn’t been for a while.
The pharmacy has been sending him refills for he regular meds, even if he hasn’t called them in, because it pops up on their files. Some things are “take as needed” so he has to call those refills in. When he ran out of Ozempic, he never got a refill – and he never called to ask for one. I don’t know how long he’s been off it, but considering how low his blood glucose had dropped, it’s scary to think how much worse it would have been if he had still been taking it!
As for the rest of us, we’re managing all right, though the heat is brutal upstairs, even with their AC and fans. My older daughter has had to send notes with apologies for some of her commissions, saying they may be late. It’s hard to use a drawing tablet when it’s covered in sweat! I am so thankful for the new roof and the AC. It was bad enough in the summer on the second floor before. With the temperatures and humidity we are having now, it would be unlivable up there.
So that’s where we are at now. It’s coming up on 6pm as I write this, and we are still at 30C/86F I need to get out and do the evening cat feeding, though I might wait until later to finish my evening rounds!
Tomorrow, thankfully, it will be quite a bit cooler – though that is a relative statement! I’m planning to head into town to do some errands and visit my mother. I’ll have to remember to leave the gate open for the guy picking up the bin. The family will have to keep an eye out, as much to make sure the renter’s cows don’t get through the electric fence as for the bin pick up!
Okay. Time to stop procrastinating and go feed some kitties! (and skunks… and racoons… *sigh*)
The assessor from the insurance company wasn’t going to come this morning, but we were still expecting the prescription delivery, so when I headed out this morning, I made sure to open the gate for him. While doing my rounds, I decided to check in the old garden shed to see if the raccoons were still there. They were, but the mama was on the seat of the rolling cart, and some of the stuff I’d moved from on top of their nest had been knocked back down. The mama hid in the back of the shed while I wrestled with a tomato cage and wrapped up balls of trellis netting to get them off the babies. They weren’t too happy about it, but they stayed. They are getting definitely getting bigger!
I was feeling really tired for some reason so, after breakfast, I tried lying down for a couple hours. It was a frequently interrupted attempt at a nap. Between my phone going off with notifications and cats wanting to nap on my head, I didn’t get much rest.
I did, however, get a message about our truck. The owner apologized for the delay, telling me they were having troubles with their new lifts. The truck would be ready today, though. I told him I’d have to work out transportation so we could return our borrowed vehicle, then messaged my brother. He had already asked me if we were getting power outages, which we were not. They have been getting brief outages off an on, and he was wondering. After a bit of back and forth-ing, we decided to do the vehicole switch on Monday, when they are coming out for the funeral. I passed that on to the garage, so that is now arranged.
One of the things I’d noticed while checking on trail cam files from the camera by our sign is that I was getting a LOT of images triggered by saplings. The open area between the fence and the road is slowly refilling with poplars and, now that they have their leaves, they are triggering the motion sensor when the wind hits them. I headed out there with the wagon and loppers to start cleaning things up.
Not all of the saplings are visible in the first photo. The second photo was after I was done in the area at the corner of the property, where the camera and the road intersection is. After hauling away the first load, I came back and did a smaller load, working my way towards the gate. That area had been done more recently than the corner by the intersection, so there wasn’t as much to clean up.
By the time that was done, I was already feeling way too tired, and starting to feel a lot of pain – in areas where I had the ultrasounds taken. It’ll be three weeks before my doctor gets the results. Should be interesting to see if I’ve got more cysts dancing around in there again.
It wasn’t too bad yet, though, so after I put away the stuff for this job, I got out a weed trimmer to finish clearing the edges around the house, pausing to do other things along the way, like help out the poor Mock Orange beside the dining room door.
What you’re seeing on the ground are the Virginia Creeper vines that I pulled loose from the branches. These can completely smother a bush, and I’ve found spruce trees that had been killed by them. Unfortunately, the bases of these are right in among the Mock Orange’s roots, so there’s no way to really get rid of them completely. I got as much as I could out, and set them in the fire pit to dry out so that we can later burn them.
These flowers right near the fire pit are coming into full bloom. There are so many things blooming right now!
I got done with trimming around the house and had just moved on to the fence around the tulips when the battery died. It was past 2pm by then, so I decided to put away the weed trimmer until after I got back from the post office.
I getting ready to go when the prescription delivery came. I asked the driver how the roads were; he is also a school bus driver, and his route is in our area. He said the gravel roads were quite good. Just a few places with barricades, though the one nearest us has been there since before the storms. He says he may have lost all his tomatoes, though, as his garden is in a lower lying area. It’s mostly under water right now. We’d talked before about how he was considering doing raised beds or Hügelkultur, and I’d told him that my own beds were a sort of combination of the two. When he said he was losing his tomatoes, I encouraged him to do even low raised beds, telling him about when we had that major flooding a few years back. I lost entire sections of the garden we still haven’t reclaimed, but beds that were even just 6 inches higher had survived. I think next year, he’s going to give it a try.
After getting my husband is prescriptions to him, I headed out to the post office to pick up some parcels. I got another hoop kit – another of the set with the slightly longer rods and metal connectors – and another package that turned out to be some insect netting I’d ordered. My cabbages and kohlrabi seem to be completely gone. I plan to at least get cabbage transplants and, when I do, they will have insect netting over them!
Along with the mail, I picked up another 40 pound bag of kibble for the outside cats. I’m so glad our general store now carries them. It saves me from having to drive further afield. Right now, I want to use the borrowed car as little as possible.
By the time I was loading the car up, I was in major pain. There was no way I was getting back to anything else outside, so I just took some pain killers and tried to lie down while my daughters took over, including feeding the outside cats. Most of the outside stuff is going to have to wait. We’re supposed to get more rain – possibly another thunderstorm – in about an hour. Just a short one. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to start raining from about 2 pm to 6 am the next day! After that, we should have about a week’s break from the rain. Time enough for farmers to see how many of their crops survived the flash floods.
Late last year, we were getting predictions for another drought year this summer. From the looks of it, that is not going to be an issue!
As for me, right now, I’m getting absolutely slammed with fatigue and overall body pain. I suspect much of it is a reaction to changes in barometric pressure.
It’s just past 8pm as I write this, and I am seriously considering going to bed shortly.
Again.
Before I do, I got some shipping notifications in my email.
Yes, I bought more seeds, and they are on the way.
The first is an order from West Coast Seeds. I wanted to order more of the Giganthemum poppy seeds, since the bed I planted them in got flattened and dug into by cats. I have yet to see any poppies germinating. So I have a new package, which I will sow in the fall, and make sure the bed gets protected. For the winter, it will have mulch over the seeds, and I might just lay some chicken wire over the top, too. In the spring, when the mulch is removed, I’ll make sure to set up netting over the bed to keep the critters out.
I couldn’t just buy one packet of seeds, though, so I looked around. They have different varieties of kohlrabi that were on sale, so I ordered one each of the white and purple. Then I spotted a lovely, larger looking variety of fennel that I decided to try. These will all be started indoors in the spring.
My other order was from MI Gardener. Some are re-orders, some are new and, right now, everything on their site is on sale.
I can’t remember now if I’ve tried growing Atomic Red carrots before. If I did, they were from somewhere else. I ordered the rainbow mix before, and it does look like some have survived, but they’re still very tiny. I figured I’d try this variety next year. Unless I do some succession sowing. That’s an option, still.
The tri-colour green bean mix is a re-order, and I decided to try out the Broccoli Rabe next year, which is more likely to grow here than regular broccoli, and a relatively short season variety of green cabbage.
I also ordered more of the purple savoy cabbage – two packages this time. Next year, I’ll try starting the two varieties of cabbage indoors, and will make sure the transplants have insect netting on them.
The winter squash and pumpkin are all re-orders. After re-sowing the tray that got decimated by a mouse before we moved it outdoors, I ran out of seeds for several of them, and have only a few seeds left of the others. I want to try these again next year. It’s still possible our re-sown seeds might germinate, but it’s getting to the middle of June and, unless we have a super long and mild fall (which we have had before), they won’t have enough time to reach maturity.
Hopefully, for next spring, I will be able to have a better set up for seed starts. Our basement is just too cold, and we have a mouse that eats our seedlings. At least it’s most likely to be a mouse. I can’t think of anything else it could be, even though there is zero evidence for mice. Usually, if there are any, droppings are left all over the place, and there are none.
If we can reclaim our living room – the cat free zone – from all the stuff we’ve had to shove in there, I hope to start seeds in there again.
We really need to figure out what to do with the stuff from my mother’s apartment. Our other storage areas are already full of my parents’ stuff, plus more from my mother’s apartment, and now we have stuff in our basement that I had to find ways to elevate from the damp concrete because there was no room in the storage buildings to put them in, and more stuff in our living room. All of which was have been told to keep. My mother is finally in the nursing home she wanted to be in and can’t have much stuff at all, but she is adamant what we keep everything of hers. She also expects us to be able to know exactly where everything of hers is, and be able to dig things she suddenly wants out and bring them to her.
*sigh*
Our house is a disaster.
That’s part of why I enjoy working in the yard and garden so much. It actually feels like I’ve accomplished something out there!
The Re-Farmer 