planning ahead

Costco extra stocking up: this is what $899 looks like

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I am exhausted.

It was a good trip. The actual shopping wasn’t too bad, considering the time of year. I’m just getting drained, and it’s starting to have an effect on me.

With Christmas and New Year’s coming up, which changes when my husband’s disability payments come in, I decided to go into next month’s budget and get as much as I could on this trip. So this shopping trip included larger packages or extra items to stock us up into January. Plus, I’ve started to get things that we will be having for New Year’s in particular. We have decided to make our Christmas and New Year’s celebratory meals to be as stress free as possible. So there will be a lot of frozen appetizers as finger foods, heat and eats, etc. We will likely do some charcuterie as well, so some items, plus any fresh foods, will be picked up locally, closer to Christmas.

We already have a turkey in the freezer, plus we are getting our 1/8 beef next week. We’d been making monthly payments against that until the ranch told us they thought there was enough. The beef has been butchered and is being cut and frozen now, so they got the final weight, and it turned out we overpaid for our share. We will be getting a credit on that. I would have preferred extra beef, but they don’t butcher for general sales anymore; just pre-ordered beef shares, so there was no extra available. So we didn’t need to get a lot of meat this trip, not did we need to get as much cat food.

On the way out, the truck’s tank was below half, so I did stop at a gas station in my mother’s town along the way. I got $30 of gas, at $1.309.

As had been my plan when I tried to do this trip last week, I stopped at a shopping mall, first. It was past 11 by then, and I hadn’t had breakfast yet. This time, the food court was all open, though, and I ended up getting some Chinese food. That cost about $18 and change.

Once at the Costco, my first stop was to fill the tank. The Costco price for regular gas was $1.119 and it cost me $47 and change to fill the tank. So before I even started shopping, I already spent $77 in gas and $18 on food.

This is what $899.82 at Costco looks like.

I got a shot from each side, because so much was hidden from view.

So what did I get for almost $900

For the cats, I got two 9kg bags of kibble and a box of puppy pads. There is a case of Coke Zero for my husband and I, plus a case of energy drinks, which my daughter paid for. Also among the drinks list was a large box of Earl Grey tea and some iced tea mix. I also got some Eggnog, which was on sale, mostly for the girls, and a case of oat milk, completely for the girls.

Paper produces included toilet paper and paper towels. I probably should have got more facial tissues, but I didn’t want to take up too much space on the flat cart. I needed room for the big bag of sugar and the case of vinegar.

Also among the non-food items is some dish detergent, toothbrushes and a package of pens. I was out of normal coloured pens.

In the pharmacy section, I got both acetaminophen and ibuprofen, plus adult gummie multivitamins for my daughters.

For bread products, I got a couple of 2 pks of rye bread, four packages of tortilla warps and a 3 pack of sunflower and pumpkin seed, multigrain sliced bread.

For protein, I got a package of chicken breasts that was on sale, plus some tilapia fillets for the girls. I also got a panini pack for sandwiches, with canned chicken and pack of Spam for the pantry. There’s also a double flat of eggs (5 dozen).

In dairy, I got 5 pounds of butter, whipping cream, a 3 pack of cream cheese, mozza, Old cheddar, marble cheddar, goat cheese and a wheel of brie.

There’s also a bag of spinach and mini portabellas (aka: cremini mushrooms).

Among the jarred items, there are two big jars of mayo, olives and pickled asparagus, which was on sale. The pickled asparagus will be used, along with tortilla warps and cream cheese, to make appetizer pinwheels for our celebratory dinners.

There is a bag of Basmati rice and some hazelnuts. Oh, and a 3 pack of 4 cheese, rainbow tortellini, which was on sale.

For snacks, I got my husband a big back of Munchies Mix, and two boxes of Sweet and Salty granola bars for the four of us.

Then there are the frozen items. Along with a box of perogies and a box of Pizza Pops for quick heat and heats, we have the appetizers for our celebratory dinners. There are Mac n Cheese bites – something we’ve never tried before – mozza sticks, bacon wrapped scallops and mini quiche.

And that’s everything.

Hopefully, I won’t need to go another Costco trip until February! Or at least not until mid-January.

So it was a very productive trip, though part way through the shopping, I realized I was not doing well. I was over heating, but also getting very dehydrated. I did use their public water fountain about half way through my shopping, which helped a lot, but by the time I was standing in line to pay for the stuff, I was starting to feel dizzy and getting the shakes. I was at least getting a breeze from the giant fan above, while half taking off my coat and removing my hat, which helped.

While my items were being rung through and they were doing the stuff still on the flat cart, I dashed over to a water bottle vending machine and got one to start hydrating once back at the till. It wasn’t a large bottle, so by the time I loaded everything into the truck, I’d finished it off. I also keep water in the truck, and still had half my drink from my lunch, so I was able to continue hydrating for the ride home, and was feeling much better.

My back was also starting to give out, well before I reached the till, but that was also much better by the time I got home. An hour or so of sitting instead of walking around, wrestling the flat cart, helped a lot.

I was able to back the truck up quite close to the house, making it easier to unload. My daughter’s knee was still hurting her from her fall yesterday, but she was no longer using a cane. Once the truck was empty, I had to feed the outside cats to get them away from the truck – by then, it was starting to get dark and time to feed them, anyhow – so I could park it. Once I got back to the house, I also got some warm water to top up their bowls. The big water bowl in the sun room just had sheets of ice left in it, and the working heated water bowl in the shelter was almost dry!

The babies in the isolation shelter still had plenty of water. They got canned cat food with their morning feeding, along with the kibble. There was still kibble left in their bowl, but the wet food was long gone!

Unfortunately, as I was unloading bags to the door, I spotted Kohl digging around on the cat bed on the lower level. The little bugger had just pooped on the cat bed, instead of the littler box, right next to her!

Both of them seem much calmer now, but Kohl would not let me touch her, never mind pet her, or check her incision. I’m not too concerned about her, though. I’m more relieved the male it no longer panicking and trying to bash his way out through the wire mesh walls. They were both watching us closely, as we unloaded the truck, right near them.

When I topped up their kibble, neither tried to escape or anything like that. When I reached in to try to pet Kohl, I could feel it is nice and warm in there. I’ve been keeping the Cat Lady up to date on how they are doing, and she was very relieved to hear they are doing well. For all the effort we’re making to provide them with a safe, warm shelter during their recovery, the isolation shelter is still basically just a small box outside in the winter. She would really like to find homes for them. I told her to go ahead and share the photos I’d been sending her, and to tell people these two will be released to the yard again, after their recovery period. Hopefully, that will encourage someone to want to adopt and rescue them from the outdoors and give them an indoor forever home. It doesn’t hurt that they are both so incredibly adorable!

So, that’s my running around for today. Tomorrow, the dump is oven longer hours, and we are overdue for a trip, so I am hoping to get our garbage and recycling finally out. From there, I should be able to continue on to the feed store with the brand of kibble in 40 pound bags that the cats like better. As of right now, the high for tomorrow is expected to be 3C/37F, which makes it the ideal time to repair the wind torn vinyl around the catio. Plus, there are some tears in the vinyl around the bottom of the isolation shelter, where other cats were trying to get in. We should be able to patch those up with the extra vinyl table protectors I picked up while I was waiting for the vet to finish with the spay and neuter, yesterday.

Which means tomorrow will be another day of running around. Thankfully, I will be able to stay home on Sunday. I’ll be going to my mother’s on Monday. She has a telephone doctor’s appointment, and she wants me with her, since I help her remember things, and can understand what the doctor tells her and can spend the time to explain it to her later.

Meanwhile, I really, really glad to get this stock up shop done, even if it did get pretty expensive. This is meant to last us longer than usual, and will hopefully result in a quieter time over the holidays.

I’ve reached that stage in life where quite and boring is all I want! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Finally home and settled!

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I swear, it was more hectic as soon as I got home than with the running around I did earlier!

The Cat Lady and I met up after I dropped the cats off at the vet, then had breakfast at McRaunchies at the Walmart. She started handing me things for the back of the truck.

Then more things.

Then more things!!

This is so amazing!

The big reusable bag, the cat bed, the small bags of cat food under it, and the big bag on the other side, are all from the Cat Lady. These are all things she can no longer feed her own cats, because it all has chicken in it, and The Wolfman keeps steeling into it, even though they give him things like freshly baked salmon way too often. There are five small bags under the cat bed. They are some fancy type of cat food – she described it as a prescription cat food, though the bags say senior cat on them – that normally cost $60 each. *gasp* She got them at half price, which is still insane. She warned me that this kibble really stinks. It’s a herring and chicken blend, so it’s likely the fish smell, she says. The cat bed is one her cats have stopped using for some reason, so she passed it on to us.

I am more than happy to take her cast offs!!

The other two bags were donated by a friend of hers for us. She’d never seen the brand before, so she couldn’t tell me anything about it.

After we loaded up the truck box, parted ways. I headed to the Dollarama to get new vinyl to repair the catio covering and things I thought might help hold it in place better – and some spring cat toys.

Then it was off to the Walmart to get some stuff my husband asked for. I also got myself a pair of slipper shoes. I’ve been trying to replace my inside shoes for ages, and can’t find any that are as comfortable as the old ones. So I tried the men’s slippers. I wasn’t able to try them on, but I got some size 9’s – the size I usually get – that were indoor/outdoor with memory foam insoles. I figured, if they didn’t fit, my daughter/s would have some new inside shoes.

I would have looked around for other things, but so many people were blocking the aisles, I gave up, paid for my stuff and left.

I still had time, so I drove across the street to the Canadian Tire to hang out there. Usually, I would have just stayed in the truck and napped, but it was too cold.

I did remember to pick up a carabiner for the isolation shelter latch, and a windshield fluid funnel for the truck. I was able to pay for it with change. I’m glad I had some, because I wouldn’t have wanted to make such a small purchase on my debit card! 😄

I did almost buy myself a new winter “going out” coat. I found a display of nice parkas on clearance that were very affordable. Alas, it was not to be. Being built like a tank has its disadvantages. I found an XXL to try on, and it mostly fit, until I tried to move my arms. My shoulders were too broad for it, and they didn’t have any bigger sizes.

Ah, well.

I still had time and it was coming up on noon, so I headed over to a nearby Timmies for lunch. For my readers outside of Canada, Tim Horton’s, aka: Timmies, is an iconic Canadian coffee and donut shop, though I don’t think they are Canadian owned anymore. Tim Horton was a hockey player. Today, they now do all sorts of sandwiches, soups and so on, as well as coffee and donuts.

Until yesterday, when my daughter and I went to one for breakfast, I hadn’t been to one in ages.

My daughter worked at the local one for awhile. She ended up quitting because of the health and safety violations from one employee. When she made a complaint to the manager, she was the one who got in trouble. After seeing more health violations by this employee that got ignored, she quit. She later got a job at the pharmacy across the street. During her interview, she told them why she’d quit her last job. The manager that was interviewing her just nodded and told her, that manager was gone.

The problem employee, however, wasn’t, yet.

We don’t go to that location at all anymore.

Then the illegal lockdowns and mandates happened and the entire franchise went full gestapo, right down to the physical assault of patrons.

I would rather have gone somewhere else, but it was either Timmie’s or back to McRaunchies. I do like their chili. A nice, thick, robust chili that is low on spice heat, so it’s something I can actually eat, served with a generously sized baguette style bun. I figured I would have chili for lunch.

It was quite the disappointment. It wasn’t chili. It was soup. I ended up literally drinking it out of the cup, because I could barely get anything with the wooden spoon they now provide. The bun was half the size, too. Meanwhile, the price was higher than it used to be, too.

Ah, well. At least the Boston Creme I also got was still tasty! A donut used to be part of the meal deal, but I had to order it separately.

I should have gone back to McRaunchies.

At this point, I still hadn’t heard from the vet clinic, but I figured I would be hearing from them soon, so I decided to go back and stay in their waiting room until the cats were ready to go home.

When I got there and told the receptionist which cats I was waiting for, she went to check their status for me.

They were ready!

It turned out, they had tried to phone me and left messages, but I never got a call. I had given my cell phone number before I left earlier, and asked what number they had.

One digit was wrong.

Someone out there must be getting some very confusing messages on their voice mail! This happened last time, too. I will need to take extra care in enunciation when I gave them my cell phone number in the future.

I’m told the kittens both did really well. They got their spay and neuter, basic vaccinations, tattoos and treatment for ear mites.

Since the rescue was covering the cost of this, they had to call the Cat Lady before they could release the cats, and then I was on my way.

They are both so incredibly adorable!!!

Once they were loaded up, it was straight home. I’d already arranged for my daughter to take care of getting the isolation shelter ready, making sure the food and water was topped up, the litter box was good, moving the entry box and closing the ramp door so that there would not be other cats in it. She had to use the bricks that were under the entry box to keep the ramp door closed, though, until I could get the carabiner on the latch.

When I got home, I backed the truck up to the house, then dashed inside for a quick bathroom break while my daughter headed to the truck to get the carriers out.

When I got back to help her, I discovered she had slipped and falling, landing hard on one knee, on the concrete.

She is now walking with a cane again, because of it!

😢😢

As for getting the cats in, we used one of the sliding doors on the second level. I tossed in a couple of the spring toys for them, first.

Kohl was easy to do; she let me pick her up and cuddle her a moment before I put her on the shelf board with the sheet of insulation on it. She promptly loafed on the insulation and stayed there.

The fluffball – we still haven’t named him – wouldn’t let me take him out of the carrier, though, so my daughter just brought it up to the open window in the second level and opened the carrier door. He dashed right in, then down to the lower level and tried to get out!

My daughter took the carriers in while I unloaded the truck. Kohl stayed calm, but the poor male was having panic attacks, in between stopping to eat a bit. He really wanted out.

With the stuff brought inside, I fed the rest of the outside cats early to occupy them, so that I could safely drive the truck out of the yard and park it in the garage. When I came back, I grabbed a can of wet cat food and added it to the food bowl in the isolation shelter. While they are in isolation, they will get to enjoy wet cat food, since we know it won’t freeze in there. Hopefully, that will help socialize the male.

In between things, I took the new cat bed and set it on my bed next to our elderly Freya, who was asleep on one of my pillows. I came back a few minutes later and found this.

It absolutely envelops her!

The Grand Old Lady deserves to be pampered!

I then used a half dozen of the donated cat food to make cat soup for the inside cats before going through the bags and organizing things.

There are three cases of 24 cans from the Cat Lady – plus the 6 I used to make cat soup. There were also two big containers of treats. Made with Real Chicken! There’s another case of 12 same size cans from her friend, plus I think 9 of the big cans. There are also 3 boxes. They are labelled duck paté, but also as “sensitive” and as grain free. The boxes look like they should have liquid in them, though, not paté. I’m curious to find out what these are!

There were also three more bags of kibble hidden under the cans, the same size as the five small bags of kibble from the Cat Lady.

I’ve looked up the brand for most of these, and it looks like they are the house brand of a specific pet store franchise, which would explain why neither the Cat Lady nor I were familiar with it.

After I got all the cat stuff done, I finally settled down to try on the new slipper shoes I bought.

My daughter now has new indoor shoes.

I couldn’t even get my feet into them! I do usually get size 9 men’s shoes – in triple wide. These were NOT triple wide. *sigh*

Then I remembered that, since I had cats in the truck, I hadn’t stopped to close the driveway gate behind me, so I bundled up and took care of that. On the way back, I got a couple of pictures.

The entry box is just off to the side, and as you can see, it’s also being used as a shelter, even though it’s completely open at the back!

A lot of cats were trying to get into the shelter. Some of them had gotten used to being able to stay in there. Unfortunately, we can’t be letting other cats in and out when we have one that needs to recover. The fluffball male could probably be let out, but then Kohl would be in there by herself, and that would not be good. The male does seem to be calming down and only panics a bit and tries to get out when the house door opens and startles him. If you click through to the next picture, you can see that Kohl is still quite content to just loaf on the insulated shelf!

So the isolation shelter is getting its first test run. So far, it seems to be holding well, though it already looks like cats have tried to claw their way in from the outside! The vinyl on one corner at the back is tattered a bit. Not that they can get through the wire, but they may be trying to reach the window. They know it opens.

As I write this, we are at -16C/3F. The wind chill is -33C/-27F, but with the plastic around the bottom, that should have little effect inside the isolation shelter. The vinyl wrapped around the lower level should keep the wind out. They have the heat lamp, two cat beds to curl up in, one on each level, plus the insulated box “nest” under the shelf. Even the heated water bowl would add some warmth to the upper level. Some wind might get through the spaces between the boards of the ramp door, but this will make sure they get some fresh air coming in. With colder air coming in from the bottom, and warm air escaping through the gaps around the sliding windows and the space in the insulation ceiling the extension cord runs through, there should be decent air circulation in there, while still being warm.

Our temperatures are supposed to go up overnight, and keep going up for our daytime highs. Our forecast for Saturday is now a high of 4C/39F. It’s expected to slowly drop after that until we get a sharp drop on Wednesday, which is supposed to have a high of -20C/-4F, though the overnight low is supposed to be just a few degrees colder.

The long term forecast has changed and, while we are still supposed to reach highs above freezing in the week before Christmas, the overnight lows around Christmas and Boxing Day are expected to dip below -30C/-22F. 🥶 The cats will no longer need to be isolated well before then, so they will be able to join cuddle puddles in various heated areas by then.

Of course, the forecast is different pretty much every time I check it, so we’ll see how things actually go. I just want things to stay mild during their isolation period!

Meanwhile, tomorrow I will finally be able to do my Costco shopping. December is a weird month for my husband’s disability payments, though, and it comes in before Christmas instead of at the end of the month. Usually, that has meant us doing our Christmas/New Year’s shopping and January stock up shopping at the same time. This trip is so much later in the month than usual, I might be able to do most of that tomorrow, but we’ll see.

The less time spent shopping, this time of year, the better. I’d hibernate all winter, if I could! I don’t like shopping and I don’t like crowds at the best of times, never mind with holiday crowds and winter driving! Even just today, by the time I got home, I found the donated canned cat food I used to make the cat soup had started to freeze!

Ah, well. It is what it is. No point complaining about it! 😁

As for me, I didn’t get much sleep last night and had to get up extra early, so I am more than ready to go to bed early tonight!

Who am I kidding. I’ll probably be lucky to get to bed before midnight, anyhow! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Stuffed winter squash experiment: a successful fail?

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Last night I went down to the root cellar to grab a winter squash and ended up grabbing two. One was needing to be cooked immediately, with some of it needing to be cut away for the compost pile.

The squash was a nice round one, and there was still about 3/4 of it that was perfectly fine – it looked like it would make an excellent bowl, in fact.

So that’s what it became.

I decided to fill it and roast it.

I’ve never done this before and didn’t bother looking up a specific recipe. I browned some ground beef, adding a packet of onion soup mix for seasoning. I also added about half a cup of leftover tomato soup, two cups of water and one cup of uncooked rice. After mixing it all together, it went into the cleaned out squash bowl.

I roasted it at 350F for an hour, stirred the filling, added another half an hour, stirred the filling and added another half an hour. At that point, I just shut off the oven and let it sit for a while.

This is how it turned out, after giving the filling another stir.

It looked pretty good to me! Some of the rice at the top was a bit undercooked, but not by much.

It was past midnight by the time it was done, but I had to at least try it! So I grabbed myself a bowl, got some of the filling, then scooped out some of the squash to go with it.

I found it a bit low on salt (I did not add any seasonings out than the onion soup mix and the leftover tomato soup), but that was an easy fix. I found it quite tasty. I even had some for breakfast, and the undercooked rice was no longer undercooked. It made a great breakfast.

Unfortunately, it looks like I’m the only one that will be eating it.

The first problem is the filling.

For many years, ground beef and rice was basically what we ate the most. Sometimes with an added can of mushroom soup, sometimes with some added frozen vegetables, etc. Whatever we had at the time, but the base of many meals was ground beef and rice. It was our poverty diet, to be honest, but my husband really likes it, too, so I kept making it even when things got better, financially. The rest of us got pretty tired of it, but my husband still loves it.

My daughters, however, hate it now. In particular, the texture of it. It makes them feel ill.

While this stuffing is mostly ground beef, there is enough rice in there that they will not eat it. They might eat some of the squash, once more of the filling is gone and they can get at it.

My husband, meanwhile, doesn’t like winter squash. He won’t eat it.

I thought he’d at least still enjoy the filling, but nope. He won’t even try it.

*sigh*

I can understand food likes and dislikes or intolerances – I’m the one that can’t eat fresh tomatoes or any peppers at all, after all. As a family, however, it’s getting very hard to find things we will all enjoy! I thought most people got less fussy about food as they got older, by my family has all gotten more fussy! Add in things like me being the only one that is NOT lactose intolerant, it does make grocery shopping a challenge. It also makes deciding what to grow in the garden more difficult, too. Winter squash is a great staple crop that can store well (if the squash get to mature enough to be cured properly). The girls like them, but my husband doesn’t. My family likes tomatoes, which I can’t eat. Some of us like peas, some don’t. Some like carrots, some don’t. Some like corn, my younger daughter can’t eat it. On it goes!

So while this experiment was a success, as far as cooking goes, it was a fail when it comes to being something the family can eat.

Ah, well. More for me, I guess.

On another note, I just had to share this.

Remember the forecast for December that I posted yesterday?

This one?

Note those temperatures on the 6th and 7th.

For those in the US, we’re looking at -20C/-4F as the high, with -33C/-27F and -34C/-29F for the overnight lows.

This is what the forecast looks like, now.

They now have a forecast of 1C/34F for the 6th and -3C/27F for the 7th. The low for the 7th is still expected to be a bitter -27C/-17F. They no longer have a 8C/46F predicted for the 20th, but we’re still expected to be above freezing.

Long range forecasts can really be all over the place!

I do hope the warmer forecasts end up being the correct ones, though. I still plan to add a ceiling of rigid insulation to the isolation shelter, for when the ladies get spayed. It’s the overnight temperatures that are the main concern. During the day, the windows will allow for passive solar heat even on an overcast day, but they will little to keep the cold out once it gets dark.

In fact, that’s what I plan to work on next.

After I have some of the squash bowl for lunch.

The Re-Farmer

Clearing the lane

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Yes!

Finally!

I was able to get out with the chainsaw and work on that dead spruce tree.

It was still damp out, but more because it’s not warm enough for things to dry than because of any rain. We’re under a weather watch right now, as a large system is being blown almost straight North from the US, so the southern and eastern parts of our province are expected to get a storm. Locally, we’re expected to start getting rain at about 7am tomorrow morning. It’s then expected to continue to rain, off and on, through to the next morning, when it is supposed to become a mix of rain and snow.

Based on the current forecasts, today was pretty much my last day to get this done.

Here is my Instagram slideshow of how it went.

The first two pictures were taken before I got started. That’s basically how it has been since my daughter was last able to work on trimming away branches.

Which was the first part of what I had to do. I had my baby chainsaw (electric pruner) for most of that job. This part took the longest, because I took the time to break down the branches to fit into the wagon, then dumped them on the big branch pile in the outer yard. A lot of these were branches from the diseased crab apple tree, so they need to be burned. Previously, we were able to get the branch pile chipped, but this year we’ve been piling up diseased branches as well as things like squash plants that had powdery mildew on them.

While cleaning up the branches, I found the remains of an old bird’s nest.

When I finally got things clear enough to start using the chain saw on the crab apple tree, Syndol decided that would be a good time to climb the tree! I even cut away a broken section while he was up there, hoping the noise would have him jump down, but nope! In the end, I dumped another load of branches and came back before he finally made his way down.

Then it was more cutting and clearing and cutting and clearing. Crab apple tree branches are so bent and twisted, they took a remarkably long time to deal with. The wood is so much heavier, too. The difference is quite noticeable when I had pieces of apple tree cut quite short to load into the wagon and haul away, then tossing them on top of the pile, then started working on the spruce tree. I cut sections that were much longer than the apple tree trunk pieces, and the spruce tree’s trunk was at least twice as think at the top section of the tree, yet were so much lighter!

In the end, I had to stop because it was getting too dark. I left a section of the crab apple trunk alone, so that we could easily see it when we can finish cleaning it up later – likely in the spring. I was able to load three sections of the spruce tree’s trunk into the wagon to haul away (my apologies for the very fuzzy picture!) – that will NOT be going onto the burn pile, but will be stacked near the old garden shed – while a couple of larger pieces were left for later. The main thing is that there is now a cleared land that we can walk through – or drive through, if necessary.

Once the cut pieces of trunk are cleared away, the rest of the tree can be left for the spring. It’s going to take a lot more effort to clear that out, since it is in between other trees and in underbrush in the spruce grove.

In the end, I messaged a daughter to come out and help me put things away, because I was losing the light so fast, so the remaining logs have been left where they are until tomorrow. Hopefully, it won’t be raining too hard, and we can haul them away and stack them. We may be able to use these pieces for when we make a new garden shed as our cordwood practice building. We’ll need a lot more, but the walls for the practice building will probably be only about 8 inches wide, instead of the 12 – 16 inches more typical of cordwood building. I still want to use the method for when we build an outdoor bathroom (NOT an outhouse over a pit), but we need to clear some very large dead trees before we can work in the area I want to build it in.

We still have lots to do to collect and prepare before we can start building, but these logs could at least be a start, if the wood is in good enough condition.

All in good time.

For now, I’m just glad I was able to get that tree cleaned up and cut up enough to get that lane open again.

Little by little, things are getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Getting things done!

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Today was a really lovely fall day! We reached a high of 12C/54F this afternoon, making it perfect to get things done in the garden.

But first, the cuteness.

I managed to get a picture of Eye Baby this morning. Not a very good picture, but the best I could get! He just will not stay still long enough for a photo.

His one eye is still looking weird, but it is SO much better than it was! I honestly expected him to loose the eye.

I have no idea how much, if any, sight he has in that eye. There is no difference in how he manages, compared to the other kittens.

He needs a face wash, but now that we’re not grabbing him every evening to give him antibiotics anymore, he has no patience for that sort of thing!

My first goal of the day was to finish clearing the raised bed I’d taken the netting and supports off of, yesterday. I got the T posts out, then worked on weeding it.

It needed a LOT of weeding.

When I got to the seed onions, I pulled them out and set them aside until the bed was cleared.

Once the bed was cleared, the seed onions got transplanted again. There was four of them, including two bulbs together that I split.

After the frost did in the lone ground cherry that showed up in this bed, I found there had been a whole bunch of berries hiding under the foliage. They had been completely hidden until then! I’d gathered those up and set them aside, earlier. Today, I decided to go ahead and plant them in the area next to the onions. I just took the berries, still in their casing, and shoved them in like they were garlic bulbs. If there are any viable seeds and they survive the winter, they should do all right. This end of the bed gets more sun than the other one, so they’ll have a better chance at having a full growing season.

Or, none of them will make it, and I’ll plant something else there.

In the next photo of the slide show above, you can see the entire bed was mulched, with grass clippings. I have the end with the seed onions and ground cherries a thicker mulch, while the rest of the bed was just lightly covered, to protect the soil, more than anything else.

The next bed to work on was the eggplant and hot pepper bed. That bed was mulched with cardboard around the transplants, then grass clippings, so not a lot of weeds got through. With this bed, I just did a chop and drop with the dead remains of the eggplants and pepper plants.

Hmmm… the photos are not lined up the way I set them when I uploaded them to Instagram!

Anyhow…

In the second photo, you can see the yellow Mason’s line I used across the middle of the cover. It had been bowing out. The box frame is the same size, so I used that as my guide as I pulled in the side of the cover frame. I didn’t bother doing anything to the wire mesh, as I plan to replace it with something stronger at some point. This wire mesh is just too bendy.

With this done, my next job was to go through all the stakes and supports I’d gathered together. It took quite some time to organize them. We have metal stakes in two sizes that got bundled up, making use of the garden twist ties that had also been set aside for next year. The bamboo stakes were sorted by height and, for some of them, thickness before being bundled up. The smaller, broken pieces were tucked into a bucket in the garden shed, as they are still useful as supports.

Then there were the hoops and wire fences and other odds and sots that got organized and bundled. The remaining ties and clips were organized as well. We have one of those rolling seats – we found it when we were cleaning the new part basement of the house – that got lubricant added to various places before that got put into the shed for the winter, too.

That old garden shed may be dilapidated and falling apart, but it’s still managing to be useful! It would be good if we could finally gets started on building a replacement next spring.

With everything finally sorted and put away, it was time to work on the cat house. The first thing was to set up an extension cord through the window of the old kitchen. I’d put hooks up last year so we could run the cord above our heads, rather than across the floor, with another outside, keeping the cord snug into the corner of the door frame, so both the inner and outer doors could still open and close without damaging it.

There is a fair bit of excess cord that we usually kept tucked to one side on the ground. This time, I got a utility hook I’d picked up for something else, only to find something better, later on, and used that. So now the excess length is neatly wrapped up on the side of the kibble house, instead of laying on the ground.

As for the cat house itself, my younger daughter did the bulk of the cleaning. After getting the roof open, my job was mostly to make sure it didn’t drop (highly unlikely, but possible) while my daughter clambered inside. There was a large crocheted blanket on the floor, on top of some high density foam mats I found in the barn. It’s too heavy to wash in the washing machine, so we set that aside. The last time we were able to wash it, we used the kiddie pool, but that now has drainage holes in the bottom so it can be used as a garden bed.

I plan to get more. They are very handy.

For now, it’s set aside.

The two cat beds in there were pretty torn up. I don’t know if they’re worth washing, or should be just thrown away. They ended up in the shelf shelter for now.

We decided not to return the litter box. The cats just kicked the litter pellets all over and made a mess, but didn’t seem to have actually used it much.

After sweeping up the inside, we added the two new cat beds that were donated, one at each of the larger windows. The insides of the windows all got washed, too.

The heat bulb was plugged in and tested, as was the smoke detector. We also added a small cat blanket we had in the sun room.

The cats were very, very interested in what we were doing, this whole time. When it came time to close up the roof, we had to be very careful, in case a cat decided to jump up at the last moment!

Once that was down and the crates returned to their place under the counterweight, my daughter and I worked on the rain barrel. It was full of water, so we used the watering cans to empty it until it was empty enough to tip over and drain completely. It’s now set on its side in the old kitchen garden for the winter.

By the time that was done, we were starting to lose the light and time to call it a day. The outside cats got their evening feeding (even though it was really just late afternoon) and we were done with outside stuff for the day.

The next while is supposed to be cooler, though were are still expected to get a few days as warm as 7C/45F or 8C/46F. We might actually get some rain tomorrow afternoon/evening, but otherwise, it should be clear. While the main things that needed to get done are now done, there is always more to do. Right now, my goal for tomorrow is to move the insulated tarp aside and sow the wildflower seeds over the area beneath.

Anything else we manage to get done around the yard and garden at this point is just bonus.

I’m really glad to have been able to take advantage of what will probably be our last actual warm day of the year!

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Finally got it done

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What a difference a magnet makes.

This morning, I was able to load the truck up with bags of aluminum for the scrap yard. It was late morning, as I waited for the rain to stop, first.

I fit in the 10 large bags I loaded last time, when the truck’s onboard computer started blaring at me, plus three more smaller recycling bags of cans from the house. I still have three large bags that I need to sort through with a magnet.

In the second photo of the slideshow above, you can see the return I got for the cans.

Last time, the weight was also just over 200 pounds, but had mixed metal in with the aluminum.

We got about $17 and change last time.

Basically, having a few non-aluminum cans mixed in last time cost us about $100.

Lesson learned!

We still have all the old batteries that can be brought in, but my brother has had to shove so many things into the barn, they’re inaccessible right now. My brother will be coming out as he is able, to organize things. So those will wait until spring. I’d hoped to get the scrap guys in this year, but until my brother can move things around, they can’t even get at some of the old vehicles anymore.

Ah, well.

After dropping off the aluminum, I headed out to the nearer Walmart to pick up a few things my husband requested. I hoped to meet up with the Cat Lady, as she has cat food, a scratch tower and cat bed donations for us. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to meet me this time. Hopefully, we’ll be able to connect next week. Her husband would like to have the stuff out of their car! 😄

She also hopes to be able to get some spays booked for us, soon. She will let us know the dates as soon as she has them.

Now that we have the truck back, we’ve got another outing tomorrow that’s been put off – a trip to the dump! After that, we need to winterize things around the house. The insulation that gets set around the base of most of the house has been brought from the barn, but we need to clear out leaves and other debris, first. That will require the catio being moved away from where it is now.

The catio sides will get wrapped in plastic for the winter. I am thinking a good place to set it up for the winter is near the shrine, for the cats that are shier.

I put the latch on the isolation shelter ramp/door. It will just need a carabiner to keep it closed – something racoons shouldn’t be able to open. I also prepped some plastic to go around the mesh enclosed lower level for the winter.

We will need to attach something sturdy across the middle, under the roof, to hang the clamp lamp heater from. After much consideration on how to get power to the isolation shelter, I’ve decided we won’t be able to set it up near the other shelters by the house. There’s just no practical space for it. So I am thinking of setting it up under the kitchen window, where the catio is now. There is an outlet around the corner of the house that it can be plugged into. We could plug in a heated water bowl, too.

There are other winterizing things that will need to be done. The forecast has us being fairly warm over the next while, even reaching highs of 10C/50F over the weekend. After that, we’re getting to where the daytime highs will be closer to freezing, and even dipping below.

It’s still relatively mild for this time of year, though. We haven’t had any blizzards – it’s not unusual to have a blizzard in October, so this is good. Especially if we’re going to be keeping cats closed up in the isolation shelter to recover from spays. Yes, it has insulation in the upper level, and passive solar with the window. Yes, the bottom level will be covered in plastic. Yes, we will even have a heat source in there. It’s still not the same as being inside the sun room, or the cat house!

Once the winterizing is done, it’s back to cleaning up the garden beds and, if all goes well, finish assembling the new log framed raised bed, now that I no longer have to worry about harming squash vines.

That should go relatively quickly, since the bed walls are just one log high. I’m still holding out hope that I’ll be able to start on the permanent trellis supports, but those will be more complex to assemble. They have to support themselves until the matching raised bed is built, and they eventually become part of a trellis tunnel.

Those are the plans, anyhow!

We shall see how far we actually manage to get.

Oh! I just realized, I haven’t mentioned how the Crespo squash turned out!

The squash was roasted plain, so we could try them in different ways. I first had a chunk as a savoury side dish, just adding some butter and salt and mashing it up on my plate. I quite liked it. Then, I had another piece, mashing in a bit of butter again, along with brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. That was also very good, though I think I liked it as a savoury dish better.

The description for the seeds described Crespo squash as a particularly delicious variety of pumpkin. I’ll be honest, here. While I quite enjoyed it, it doesn’t compare to, say, the Red Kuri, Candyroaster or Pink Banana squash we’ve grown before. However, I’m not entirely sure the Crespo squash reached full maturity, given how much green there was under the flesh when we cut it open. Plus, some types of winter squash taste better after being in storage for a while. I would definitely want to grow it again, but if we could only choose one or two winter squash varieties, I would choose something else.

I had started a tomato sauce in the crockpot and decided, since it was handy, to include some of the roasted squash. This sauce included San Marzano tomatoes ( I had enough that there was no room to add more tomatoes from the freezer), with maybe two Forme de Couer in the mix, plus a yellow bell pepper from the ones ripening in the living room, a few shallots, and the pieces of roasted squash. It was seasoned with salt and pepper, plus dried sage, thyme and basil. Last of all, I added a splash of Krupnik (not an affiliate link) – simply because we happen to have some right now.

When the tomatoes got to the stage where I could blitz the whole thing with the immersion blender, it was left to cook down overnight to thicken it, though we would dip into it to use with our meals every now and then. Before I started writing this post, I decided it was thick enough to jar up. By then, we had enough to fill two 750ml jars, plus one 500ml jar. Once they are cool, they will go into the fridge to use right away.

My taste buds are far from refined, so I honestly couldn’t tell you if adding the squash or the booze made any difference! 😄

As for the rest of the roasted squash, I can hear my daughter in the kitchen right now. She’s making pie out of it!

I’m really looking forward to seeing how it turns out!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: winter sowing two more beds

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Mission accomplished!

I really wanted to push to get the rest of the seeds in for our 2025 garden. I still had to wait until the afternoon to start, so the ground had time to thaw from overnight frost. From there, it was a race against time to finish before I lost light. I even managed to get some quick footage for an October garden tour video. I haven’t checked the files yet, though, to see if they are worth using.

This is what I was able to get done today:

The first area I worked on was along the chain link fence. The long bed in the first image above was mostly done already, since I’d harvested potatoes out of it. I even found a couple of little potatoes that I’d missed when harvesting.

It still took a remarkably long time to prepare it, though. The section that had the purple caribe potatoes that never grew was compacted like crazy, even though I’d loosened at least part of it, to plant the kohlrabi.

Those actually had some leaves trying to grow! If they hadn’t been eaten by flea beetles, they’d still be growing now.

There was also the lone Jabousek lettuce that had seeded itself and survived being munched by deer. I got a bucket to use to collect the seeds. There was a lot for just one plant! I ended up putting a healthy scoop of them with the remaining root vegetable seeds, giving it a shake to mix them in with the other seeds, potting soil and vermiculite.

I also cleaned up the chimney block planters along the other section of chain link fence a bit. I just took down the tomato supports and cut the tomato plants at their bases, leaving the roots. I will be leaving those as is until spring.

As for the narrow bed, once the soil was loosened, weeded and leveled, I scattered the seed mix. This mix has Dalvay shelling peas, a few King Tut purple peas we saved, Royal Burgundy bush beans, Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflowers and a few black Montano Morado corn seeds I’d saved, plus onion seeds.

The onion seeds are so much smaller, though, I scattered the larger seeds first, which probably included a few onion seeds as well, then went back over the bed to scatter the remaining onion seeds. There wasn’t enough to do the entire bed, though, but I made a modification, later.

First, though, I went over the bed several times, looking for the larger seeds and pushing them into the soil, spreading them further apart, if necessary. When I found the bush beans, I pushed them into the soil closer to the brick edging. If I had to move peas, I pushed them into the soil closer to the chain link fence. The Mongolian Giant seeds were easy enough to see, but the corn and black dye seeds are so dark, they were much more difficult to spot. I’m sure I missed quite a few. I also replanted the two little potatoes that I’d found.

If all goes to plan, the peas will be able to climb either the fence, the corn or the sunflowers, the beans will have room to get bushy along the outside edge of the bed while doubling as ground cover, and the onions will dissuade hungry deer.

Once I’d pushed in as many of the larger seeds as I could find, I got some of the shallots and onions I’d set aside earlier for replanting. I transplanted them around the outer edge of the end that did not get the scattered onion seeds. These shallots and onions are there to go to seed – and to dissuade any hungry deer, I hope! Everything in this bed, except maybe the corn, is stuff deer love to eat!

After planting the shallots and onions, the soil was gently raked to make sure everything was covered before getting mulched with leaves topped with grass clippings.

That left the root vegetable – and now Jabousek lettuce – seeds to sow. Those went into the low raised bed that the German Butterball potatoes had been in, which is in the second photo of the slideshow above.

When the potatoes were harvested, the bed was weeded, and hadn’t been touched since. All it needed was to break up soil clumps, pull out any weed roots that got missed, soil clumps broken up and leveled.

With this higher bed, I did things a bit different. Anything along the walls of the bed would freeze, since the mulch can only protect from the top. So I focused on making sure the middle of the bed was readied for seeds, leaving about 6 inches from the walls unplanted.

This seed mix has Uzbek Golden carrots, Napoli carrots (an orange variety), Merlin, Bresko, Cylindria and Albino beets, French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Bell and Zlata radishes, Purple Prince turnips and our saved onion and lettuce seeds in it.

It sounds like a lot, but this was finishing off packets of older seeds, so there wasn’t much of each variety, plus I don’t expect a high germination rate for any of them.

Once the seeds were scattered and gently raked over, they got mulched with leaves topped with grass clippings.

That is the last of the winter sowing vegetables to do! The only thing that could still be sown before winter is the wildflower mix, and that could even wait until spring, if I wanted. The space I’ll be planting them is still covered with an insulated tarp, and that won’t need to be moved to cover the septic tank for a while, yet.

While I was working on this, my younger daughter was taking care of things in the house, including re-installing the arm based over the new tub surround. She was able to find a way to fit the big L shaped bar in, as well, though it does make one of the corner shelves in the surround of limited use, now. Which is fine. The arm bar is needed more.

Now that the arm bars are in, my husband can finally use the shower! Even with the bath chair, he can’t get in and out without the arm bars.

My older daughter is not well today, and we’re all pretty broken and hurting, so my daughter offered to get us take out, if I were up to it.

Yes. Yes, I was!

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife were coming over for one last trip – to drop off the trailer they’ve been using to bring everything from their property to wherever it needed to go. They arrived after I left for town, but I was able to see them before they left. Tomorrow is the possession date for the new owners, so they not only pushed hard to get their own stuff out, but to make sure the new owners had things like flax bales to cover their septic field, and a few other things that got set up for them.

One thing they did was take off their “road sign” at their driveway. When the road past our driveway was named for our family, the municipality made five signs, but only needed four, so my brother was allowed to take the extra. They’ve had it at their driveway ever since. It has now been removed.

That sure made things feel a lot more final!

It would be good if we could use it at our intersection. There was one when we moved in, but then the stop sign it was attached to was knocked down and the road sign stolen. We’re pretty sure our vandal did that, but have no way to prove it, but like we can’t prove he stole the sign with my father’s name on it off the corner fence post, or that he stole the trail cam we had mounted on that post.

The municipality never replaced the road sign. I suspect that if we put this one up on the stop sign that got repaired, it would just get stolen, too.

Well, we’ve got our own painted sign at the corner, with a camera on it in case there are more vandalism attempts. That is working out just fine.

There is, of course, still lots more work to get done in the garden, but getting this winter sowing done was the thing that had to get done first. Now, we just do as much as we can while the weather holds. At the same time, my brother will be coming out as often as he is able, as he wants to sort things to their more permanent locations. Particularly the farm equipment, now that the storage trailer is in place. A lot of small things just shoved into the barn that will need to be sorted into the storage trailer or bread truck (which will be a workshop). He also has a dismantled shelter he needs to rebuild over the tractor that got its radiator damaged while lifting the discer off the trailer. It will need to be replaced, and he’s planning ahead to be able to do it during the winter, so having a roof over the tractor will be very important.

Anyhow…

They got here after I left to pick up the food, but I got home fast enough to at least give my brother a hug – my SIL was so exhausted, she fell asleep in their truck! – before they had to go.

We’re going to be seeing a lot more of my brother and, hopefully, his wife from now on!

That makes us very happy.

Getting the last of the winter sowing done today also makes me very happy.

😊😊

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: A quick garden bed before and after

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I had a bit of time between coming home from a city shop, and my SIL arriving to help bring our truck home. So I took advantage of the daylight and started preparing the next garden bed, hopefully for winter sowing.

I didn’t quite finish, though.

Here is how it looks so far.

Click through to see the “after” image.

This is the bed that had the San Marzano tomatoes and yellow bulb onions in it. With the onions filling in the spaces between the tomatoes, it didn’t get mulched much at all. Mostly, a grass clipping mulch was added around the outside, mostly to prevent soil from washing away when watering.

With our compaction problems, I was pleasantly surprised how almost fluffy the soil was. Aside from some Creeping Charlie showing up at each end, it wasn’t all that weedy, either, though there were certainly plenty of weed roots and rhizomes to remove. There wasn’t anywhere near as many elm tree roots invading as in the previous bed I’d worked on, either.

I did find quite a few onions missed during harvest!

The one problem I had in clearing this bed is that I could only use my right hand. I had to dig into the loosened soil to get those roots out, which is when I discovered I managed to somehow cut the tip of my index finger on my left hand. Even with gloves on, it was too painful to push my fingers into the soil – which is how I discovered the injury!

Unfortunately, when I dropped the tail gate of my brother’s trailer on my fingers later on, it was on my right hand. Now, the tip of the index finger on my right hand is all swollen and rather purple.

It’s going to make things interesting, as I try to finish the job tomorrow!

I think after I get this bed ready for winter sowing, I’ll move on to the rectangular bed in the old kitchen garden. The high raised bed in the main garden area is already prepped. It’s a much shorter bed, but with the open space left where the garlic is planted, that should be enough. I think, in the main garden area, I’ll try winter sowing summer squash in the bed I’m working on now, then do a mix of root vegetables and onion seeds in the high raised bed and the remaining space with the garlic. Then, in the old kitchen garden, I’ll do a mix that includes more onions with kohlrabi, peas and spinach, and maybe some other greens. Once the beds are ready, I’ll go through my seeds and see what I have.

If the winter sowing works, that’ll be a great head start for next year. If not, I will still have plenty of seeds to plant.

For now, looking at the long range forecast, it seems we will have almost 3 weeks before our first potential snow. With only one more city shopping trip to get done, no more trailer loads being dropped off, the hot water tank working again, the truck repaired and home… I should be able to finally focus on getting things done outside again!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 – and 2025 – garden: final harvest, prepping for next year, and a long, long evening

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Yes! Finally!

I got work done in the garden!

It was pretty chilly this morning, so I didn’t get started until about 10 or 11. With overnight temperatures dropping below freezing, regularly, I focused on our final harvest. The German Butterball potatoes, and the sunchokes.

I’m actually really surprised by how many potatoes we got out of the bed. It wasn’t a very large bed, and the other potatoes we planted we pretty sparse. Plus, there is our compaction problem. Even so, after removing the mulch and pulling the dead plants, I was able to gather a surprising amount, just by brushed the soil aside with my hands.

I also managed to damage only two potatoes with my garden fork! 😄

The potato bed is a foot deep and, when I prepared it in the spring, I pulled out a lot of Chinese elm roots. Today, I was pulling out even more! It’s remarkable, how much those roots invade the raised bed!

I didn’t finish preparing the bed for winter, though, and left that for later, when I have more time to do a thorough weeding and removal or roots.

From there, I went to the sunchoke bed. I harvested the nearer half of the bed before I popped inside for lunch. I even grabbed a few potatoes and sunchokes to include with my food!

They were very tasty.

The second half of the bed took much, much longer, but I think I got most of them.

If you click through to the second photo above, you can see the sunchokes spread out. I went through them to pick the bigger ones for replanting. A couple of them were big enough to split before planting them.

There is one problem with the sunchokes. I tossed a few of them because they had some sort of worm in them. I assume it’s actually a caterpillar or some sort. They seem to burrow into the chokes and then just die. Some of them didn’t even burrow all the way, and at least once, I picked one up and saw half the worm wiggling away.

Being so close to the Chinese Elm trees, I was not surprised to find a lot of roots, though I found myself hitting a really massive one. In the second half of the bed, I found myself harvesting about as many rocks as I was finding sunchokes!

If you click through to the next image, you can see that Kohl was my helper today.

Also, I was pulling out some pretty big rocks! I could feel myself hitting what seemed to be even larger ones. I couldn’t get the garden fork under anything to be able to try and lift it out. I tried to dig out as many as I could, which slowed things down considerably.

When it came time to replant the chokes I selected, I made some changes.

I decided I needed to make the bed narrower, and further from the chain link fence.

A couple of sunchokes had come up close enough to the fence that they grew through the chain link, so I dragged over a couple of boards that we found inside the outhouse when we cleaned it out, and set them up as a barrier.

After removing all those rocks and loosening the soil, I laid out the chokes I picked out for replanting. I then used the soil I’d pulled aside while harvesting the sunchokes to build up a shallow mound over them. I then used some of the old mulch that had been set aside and set it all around the mound of soil.

I think got the rake out and started to gather leaves.

The rake’s handle snapped on me, so had to find another one!

I gathered two wheelbarrow loads and set those on the mound of soil over the sunchokes. Then I used the sunchoke stalks and set them on top, to keep the leaves from blowing away, as well as adding an extra layer of insulation.

I was just finishing this up when my brother drove in, pulling a trailer, followed by a friend pulling a second trailer, and finally my SIL. They have been working to empty the sheds before the new owners take possession of it – just five more days! – and had originally expected to arrive here at about noon.

It was closer to 4pm before they finally made it!

My SIL backed the car up by the garage to unload – they had more smaller pieces of wood for me! There was even some clear plastic, like what we used on the cat isolation shelter, shelf boards, pieces of plywood and more. All things perfect for the small building projects we want to work on.

The trailers were first taken to where their storage trailer and former bread truck are parked. The bread truck is going to be a workshop, so there were tools and equipment to go in there. Then they backed one of the trailers up to the barn to unload.

Things were going into the lean-to side of the barn. When the barn got a new metal roof, for some reason, the lean-to roof wasn’t done. It is covered with metal sheets that used to be parts of billboard type signs.

They all leak, now. My brother will need to cover things in there because when it rains outside, it rains inside that side of the barn, too!

Quite a few things stored in the lean-to had to be moved around or – in the case of an ancient washing machine – out! That will be included in the scrap pick up, whenever that happens.

Once space was made, they could start unloading some things from one trailer into there.

When that trailer was emptied, the other trailer was brought over to be partially emptied. Some stuff was emptied into the pump shack for storage, including something from my childhood!

When I was little, and the “new part” of the house wasn’t built yet, we did not have running water in the house. We did have a bathtub set up in the pump shack, and a wood burning cookstove for heating water.

At some point, my mother was going to get rid of that old stove, so my brother took it.

It is now back in the pump shack!

It’s a smaller cookstove than the one we have in the old kitchen, but it still has a water reservoir opposite the fire box, and a simple warming shelf that is just a open shelf, nothing more. The one we have in the old kitchen has an enclosed warming shelf with doors that swing downward. The one in the old kitchen is too damaged to use anymore, though, but this one is still functional.

So that has come full circle!

As hard as they pushed to get things unloaded, it was soon full dark and they were nowhere near finished unloading! The big trailer went from barn to storage to the pump shack and back to the barn, several times, and then they had to unload the truck, too, which was jammed full.

When it got full dark, I used the flashlight on my phone to help them see to unload. After a while, I gave my phone to my SIL to hold, and I went to get our large flashlight.

My SIL ended up leaving earlier, once they reached a point where she could no longer help out. I couldn’t do much to help, either, but I could at least hold a flashlight, so they could see! The barn, pump shack and even the old bread truck all have lights inside them, but it was in and around the trailer itself that needed light.

Eventually, they put all they could into the barn, then went back to the old bread truck and storage trailer. At that point, I had both the flashlight on my phone, and our big flashlight, going at the same time, and lighting up opposite areas, as they went back and forth.

Finally, they got it all unloaded, but had to put away straps and various other things before they could leave. For that, they moved the trailer under the yard light, so they could see.

At that point, I said my good nights and headed inside. With all the digging around in the garden earlier, and the evening getting chillier, my pain levels were really starting to get up there. As it is, I’m having difficulty typing this post because all the joints in my fingers are trying to seize up. 😞

I expect more things will be dropped off tomorrow, and probably the day after, as well. After living in one place for 30 years or so, and my brother being “Mr. Fix-It”, they have a whole lot of stuff to clear out – and this is after they’ve thrown things away, given things away, and sent things to an auction house.

What’s being brought over are also things my brother intends to use here on the farm, for maintenance and repairs – things we haven’t been able to keep up with since the tools and supplies that used to be here were all disappeared before we moved in. He probably won’t be able to do anything much until after winter, but I am looking forward to learning many things from him!

The next few days are supposed to be pretty nice still, so my plan is to get as much as possible done in the garden beds. The garlic needs to go in, and I’m hoping to get at least one bed winter sown with a mix of seeds.

Now that the potatoes and sunchokes are finally harvested, that can finally be my priority again!

For the moment, though, I need to pain killer up and try to get to bed. Even as I was writing this, I could feel muscles in one thigh trying to cramp up. I really, REALLY do not want to deal with another Charlie horse tonight!!!

The Re-Farmer

Before and after, times four

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Oh, it feels good to have such a productive day!

Even if it wasn’t where I intended it to be. 😄

In the main garden area, I can happily say that the high raised bed is done! Here are the before and after pictures.

I got the first picture after cleaning up all the supports and netting, and collecting all the twist ties, the sheets we used to try and protect the peppers from frost, and finally removed the cover. You can click through to see the “after” photo.

After cleaning up the dead pepper plants and finding shallots that had been missed, the grass clipping mulch was removed and I started loosening the soil and weeding it.

Compaction is a real problem. That soil was rock hard!

After getting out as many weed roots and rhizomes as I could, I dug a trench down the middle of the bed for trench composting. The pepper plants I pulled out where cut into smaller pieces into the trench, and some of the grass clipping mulch went in as well. After the material was covered again and the soil levels, I scattered more grass clippings over the top and used my little hand cultivator to work the clippings into the soil. Hopefully, as it breaks down, it will help keep the soil from compacting so much.

Next, the soil was pulled away from the edged and mounded in the middle. More grass clippings were stuffed against the logs. Especially in the corners where the logs have some gaps, so the soil won’t wash out. Finally, the mound in the middle was leveled out again.

When we get to direct sowing seed to overwinter and, hopefully, get an early start next year, the beds will not be watered. We don’t want them to germinate yet. For now, however, the high raised bed got a thorough watering, to kick start the breakdown of the plants matter buried in the trench. The top of the bed got a scattering of grass clippings to protect the soil.

I was just finishing this when my brother arrived, so I headed out to help him as best I could. They are bringing their storage trailer out tomorrow, and it will be full, so he had brought large concrete pavers that will go under the tires, so it won’t sink into the soil

He also brought two snow blowers.

One of them even works!

Well… the other one does, too, but it has an issue that he needs to tweak for it to run properly.

Which means we will have access to a working snow blower this winter!!

We might get to retire little Spewie – or just use it to make paths around the house, instead of the entire driveway.

With the trailer coming tomorrow, my brother wanted to clear away some low hanging tree branches, so it could get through the more solid part of the driveway past the pump shack.

So, while my brother went to unload some stuff out of his truck, first, I started a different job that needed to be done.

Clearing around the pump shack.

Across from the pump shack is a lilac bush. It had been planted with an old tire around it, but it has spread quite a bit. So I decided to cut the suckers back to the tire, widening the drive again.

Here are the before and after pictures.

First, one corner of the pump shack.

To the left of the first photo, you can see part of a maple that keeps growing back. This has become an unintentional coppice. There are some really nice, straight stems in there. I will leave them for now. I’m hoping they will do well for some future wattle weave garden beds I’m thinking of doing.

I didn’t get the “after” photos until after my brother left, and things were starting to get pretty dark! I had the charger for my mini chainsaw set up in the shack. Very handy.

Most of what got cleared away from this corner was self seeded raspberry bushes.

After clearing this corner, I went to the other side of the drive to work on the lilac bushes until my brother came over to cut the largest branch he was concerned about, which was almost directly above the lilac. I finished clearing the lilac after all the branch cutting was done and cleaned up. Here is the before and after on that.

Now that the south side is cleared away, the suckers growing behind them will get more light. I don’t mind this lilac spreading out to make a bit of a hedge, but not towards the driveway. Once I could access the tire, I could see that the parent plant had long died away. There was nothing but old and rotten pieces of it left. So this bush is basically all suckers from that original, now dead, lilac.

Once that was done, I went back to finish off the other corner of the pump shack.

Here are the before and after pictures of that.

I cleared those trees away back when I dug out my dad’s old makeshift forge, which is now against the wall. It didn’t take long for them to come back!

If you click through to the next photo, you can see what a huge difference it made to clear those away!

When my brother started using his extended pole chainsaw to clear away the big branches, he also used it to cut down the largest of the trees coming up by the pump shack for me, too. I still went back over the stump with my mini chainsaw – there were about 4 stems coming out of one tiny old tree stump! – to get rid of as much of it as I could. Drained one of my batteries in the process!

Most of this clean up was done with a pair of loppers, though. The mini chain saw was only used for the few things too large for the loppers, including the dead lilac stems I uncovered.

All of this, including the branches my brother cut away, went onto the burn pile. Some of the branches will need to be broken down further, though.

The large branches are all maple. As they get broken down, I think I will set some of them aside for fire wood, for future cookouts in the fire pit.

Eventually, we will need to burn that pile. It’s not something that can be chipped, as we have been tossing things like diseased apple trees and squash vines with powdery mildew on them. With how big the pile is getting, this will likely happen after there is snow on the ground, when it will be safer to burn.

My brother had a couple of surprises for us, as well. For my daughter, he brought over an old bike his son had attached a motor to. His son had even used it to get to work! It needs new tires, but he’s pretty sure the motor still works. That would be very handy for quick trips to the post office, rather than taking the truck.

He also gave use several boxes of spray paint, most of which have never been opened, new tubes of caulking, roofing tar and even a caulking gun. All stuff that will come in very handy here, that he doesn’t need anymore.

He even loaned us a socket set. A very unusual one, with all super large sockets! We’ll be able to use it to practice removing the anode rods from the old hot water tanks.

Tomorrow, I’m going to call the hot water tank company. We shouldn’t be able to get another replacement tank on warranty, but it is still within the 6 years, and this tank only lasted one year after installation. It’s worth a shot.

If not, we’ll see about getting replacement heat elements and, hopefully, that will be enough to get it working again. And if we replace the anode rod with the powered one that should arrive next week, they will hopefully last longer, and we won’t have that sulfur smell in our hot water anymore. Even if we do get a warranty tank, we plan to install the powered anode rode. We might be able to get a plumber to install it, too; it won’t be as expensive to have a hot water tank installed, if we already have everything needed.

We shall see.

So that is where we are at now!

Tomorrow, we are looking at another nice day, with an expected high of 20C/68F. While I do plan to work in the garden more, I want to re-bag our aluminum, removing any mixed metals in the process, and see if I can get it to the salvage yard either tomorrow or the day after. The bags are mostly old cat food cans, to the outside cats keep digging in them and making a mess! Plus, once we remove any mixed metals that got in there, we will get a much better price, and I really want to get those bags cleared away.

As for the garden beds, based on the long range forecast, I am looking to have enough beds ready to do the winter sowing in the beginning of November. We’ve got some cooler days coming up, but only one day with possible rain, and then we are supposed to be slightly warmer. There’s even a day predicted to be 22C/72F before the end of October!

We shall see.

Meanwhile, my daughter got the last coat of milder resistant primer over the spacers around the tub. Which means that we can start installing the new tub surround, tomorrow!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer