Since I was heading to the city today, I didn’t try to see if anything needed to be harvested, while doing my morning rounds. I did it while doing my evening rounds, instead.
When I do my rounds, I usually have a cat or two, following me around. Sometimes, it’s Rolando Moon, wanting me to give her pets, then trying to scratch or bite me after I do. More often, of late, it’s been Syndol, who likes to be carried around, if he can convince me to pick him up. Other times, it’s this year’s Not-Junk Pile, (the previous Not-Junk Pile is now Toni the Tripod, and indoors. 😄) will follow me around.
I believe this is the kitten that pushes its way into the old kitchen – I really have to watch my feet when I open that door! – to explore. It even lets me pick it up and cuddle it for a while. This is the first time I’ve had one of this year’s kittens actively following me around the yards and garden beds, though. It’s hard to tell some of the white and black kittens apart, though. A few have distinctive markings, but the others… they just run around too much for us to get a good enough look at them to identify which is which!
I quite enjoyed having kitten company while harvesting these.
We’ve got all three types of beans in there, plus some Black Cherry tomatoes, and some Forme de Couer tomatoes. It’s getting that we have more tomatoes for fresh eating than my family can consume! Not enough to warrant going any canning or freezing, though. It’s been the same with the beans; more than we can eat right away, but not enough to make it worth processing. I think we might have enough to do a jar, maybe two, of quick pickled beans, but that’s about it.
It’s such a strange year. We plant with the goal to have enough to process for the winter months, but the spaces where we would have been planting stuff we’d harvest throughout the summer ended up being mostly winter squash and melons. Even the corn we planted as a trail of one variety, so not a lot there. We didn’t plant anywhere near as many beans, carrots, peas and summer squash we normally would have, and what we did plant, most didn’t even germinate. Even with three varieties of potatoes (only two that were planned), there isn’t a lot. We did plant four varieties of tomatoes, but cut back on how many plants we put in the ground – we still have tomatoes in the freezer from last year!
I am happy that we have so many winter squash and melons, but it’s going to be touch and go as to weather they’ll reach full maturity before the frost hit. The long range forecast still says we’re going to have a very hot two weeks in the middle of September, but the weather will do what it does, and the forecasts will probably change a few times between now and then! As it stands right now, we might not get a first frost until October. Which has happened before, since we’ve moved here. I seem to recall a fall where we didn’t get first frost until November, though I could be wrong on that.
Still, we’re expecting a few overnight lows that are on the chilly side, so I want to have that plastic around the eggplant and hot pepper bed soon. While not all the eggplants are fruiting, with the ones that are, I’m quite happy with what I’m seeing.
As an aside, while I was writing this, I got some updates on Button. He is doing fantastic, and getting spoiled rotten! In one photo sent, you can tell he’s getting bigger… but then there was a photo with him behind The Wolfman, and suddenly, he looks miniscule again! 😄😄 He’s got vaccinations and ear mite treatment this week, and then he’s ready to go. The woman that wanted to adopt him is still interested in him, and we’re hoping that doesn’t change, but sadly, too many people do change their minds at the last minute. The Cat Lady and her family have a whole bunch of cats living with them now, because of this.
We also just treated the eye baby kitten for the night, and gave her a feeding of cat soup, with my daughter holding her wrapped in a towel like a purrito. She seems to be getting quite used to the routine and accepting the ministrations, even if she doesn’t like parts of it. The swelling around that one eye does seem to be going down, but I’m still sure the eye itself is lost. Not even the rescue has a budget for her and, while it was suggested we could try turning her over to the humane society, chances are high they’d just euthanize her.
Which I shouldn’t be having a problem with, since we really do need to reduce the population, but I’d like to give them at least a chance to get adopted out.
Well, it’s time to call it a day and see if I can get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow, I need to follow up with the septic companies that haven’t called back yet. If I can’t get through to them, we need to contact the one company I did reach, and start making arrangements. This cannot be put off, now that we know about the problem!
Hopefully, the next time I write about it, I’ll have good news to pass on!
My daughters took care of the garden this morning, while I headed into town for groceries, so I didn’t get a chance to check things out until this afternoon.
Meanwhile, not counting today, we’ve got only 14 days left before average first frost. Hard to say if we’ll get anything!
I did check on the long range forecast, and it has changed back to saying we’ll have temperatures of 30C/86F for the 10th and 11th – and his 32C/90F on the 12th! In fact, most of that week is now supposed to have highs in the 30s! Even the week after is supposed to be just below 30C/86F! The last time I looked at the September forecasts, we were looking at highs below 20C/68F, and lows dropping down to 2 or 3C/36-37F
What a difference in forecasts!
Me, I’m hoping the heat stays longer. With everything behind by about a month, we need every hot day we can get!
Right now, things have been pleasantly cooler. Overnight, we reached a low of 9C/48F. It got cold enough I actually turns the fans off in my bedroom. It must have been quite a relief for the girls upstairs! They get so much hotter out there.
In other things, I have not had any calls back from the other two septic companies. I’ll be in the city tomorrow, so I’ll give them that one more day, then try calling them again after that. If I still can’t get through to them, then we’ll just have to go with the one company I did connect with. I’ll just have to get confirmation with my mother, in paying for it, and my brother. I was a bit perplexed when he started messaging me, suggesting I track down someone that had done this sort of work for my father in the past, but who may not even live in the area anymore. Heck, for all I know, he might not even be alive anymore. I recognize the name, but have probably never met him in person. I thought my brother had a problem with the companies I’d contacted, but I think maybe he just remembered this guy and started suggesting him to me.
Then he started telling me about how the emergency back up pipe will need to be installed while it’s being worked on, and how he’s got a pipe extension that will drain the effluent into the maple grove (which we may still need) … as if it was going to be done tomorrow, or something!
I’m so anxious about all this, I honestly couldn’t tell if this was his way of telling me what I should be doing, instead of what I am doing. My brother is awesome, but we don’t do things the same way at times. I hadn’t even considered going to somebody who happens to have an excavator, rather than a licensed and insured company that specializes in this kind of work. When I asked him more about it, he just came back with, it’s not a problem, going with a company is fine.
I hate to think I’m doing something he thinks is the wrong way!
So basically, there was a potential diversion, but then it went away.
I did not call the scrap company today. I will do that later, because I did contact the guy that bought scrap cars for parts last year, as I remembered they’d been looking at them. I told him that we were looking into calling the scrap dealer for the threshing machine and several vehicles, including those two, but wanted to know if he was still interested in them.
So those are now sold. Not for as much as before, but still more than we’d likely get from the scrap dealer for them. He won’t be able to pick them up until the end of September, though, as he’d going into surgery tomorrow, and needs the time to recover. There was another vehicle, which basically just the shell of a panel van, he asked about, but my brother and I didn’t talk about any of the vehicles on that side of the outer yard fence. I would hope the scrap company can come earlier than the end of September, but if they do, I hope they can work around the two cars by the threshing machine.
Okay, I’m getting perplexed. As I’m writing this, I keep hearing the septic pump go off, but no one is using any water. It’s shutting itself off as it should, but why is the tank filling so quickly? I’m not hearing the well pump go off more often, which would happen if we had a leak of some kind that was fast enough to trigger the septic pump that often.
I wonder if it’s related to the problems at the expeller end? That’s some 300 feet away, though.
Man, I’ve been paranoid about the pumps since we’ve moved out here. Now, it’s even worse!
Relax, Re-Farmer. Breathe.
Think gardening thoughts. That should calm me down!
Meanwhile, I took advantage of the lovely cooler day and got some lawn mowing done, using the lawn tractor my brother lent us. I was going to try our riding mower, but the battery was dead again. My brother replaced that battery when he repaired it for us, so it shouldn’t be dying so quickly. I didn’t want to take the time to charge it, and just used my brother’s machine, instead. Not all the lawns needed to be done, and one area still has a piece of tree that broke in our recent storm, waiting to be broken down into firewood for the the fire pit. The grass around there doesn’t grow very fast, so it can do without being mowed for a while. I did get to do the outer yard and driveway, though, and will have plenty of clippings to collect and set aside for mulch and for composting.
Well, it’s just hit 9pm right now, and I should be going to bed. I want to start for the city quite early.
Hopefully, I’ll get some decent sleep tonight!
The Re-Farmer
[addendum: okay, this is too funny! After I hit publish, I went ahead and clicked on the AI “Generate Feedback” button. This time, I didn’t get suggestions on breaking up paragraphs or adding pictures. Nope. This time, I got suggestions for regular maintenance on equipment, better communication with my brother, and possibly getting help to deal with my anxiety over the septic issues, and ensuring good self-care. 😄😄😄]
Today, we were expecting another hot day. There was a small potential chance for rain in the morning, but not a lot.
It was also my day to help my mother with her groceries, so was outside, watering the garden, earlier than usual.
It was a rather strange thing to start hearing thunder, and find myself hoping I could finish watering the garden before the rain hit!
I did get the main garden area watered, then emptied the last of the rain barrel to water the old kitchen garden. I did have an adorable surprise with that, though!
I’ve got two watering cans that I fill and bring with me to whatever section I’m working on. As I was reaching down to pick the second watering can up, something was looking at me!
There, clutching the opening of the watering can, was a green tree frog – on the inside of the can!!!
I tried to carefully get it out, but it let go and dropped into the water, instead. So I emptied the can on the wattle weave bed as quickly as I could. I ended up having to turn the can upside down and shaking it to get the frog out! Thankfully, it was none the worse for it, and soon hopped away.
Gosh, tree frogs are so adorable!
The girls, meanwhile, took care of eye baby. Now that we are out of eye drops, and the antibiotics are given in the evening, this just making sure she got fed supplemented cat soup with the modified bottle, then an eye washing before setting her outside.
The bottle feeding can get a bit messy.
We’re using a nipple that is cut back for a wider opening, but the cat soup sometimes still has chunky bits just big enough to block the opening. Which means, every now and then, it spontaneously plugs, then unplugs – all over the kitten! On top of that, once she’s done, she just closes her mouth and turns her face away, and ends up with cat soup all over her face.
When it started raining harder and I had to come inside, I discovered one of the other kittens, cleaning eye baby up!
The other kitten was very enthusiastically grooming that cat soup, out of her fur!
She seemed to be quite content with the attention.
In the other slideshow photos, there’s that little fluffy cat. She is, if I remember correctly, one of the late litter of eight kittens from last year. She is also the one that dropped her litter of kittens all over the yard and abandoned them. I’m really working on trying to get her socialized at least a bit. If we can catch her to get her fixed next month, that would be awesome! So far, she has started to allow me to pet her after I’ve set food out in the kibble house. She prefers to eat there over the other areas we scatter kibble. Outside the kibble house and no food around, though, she still won’t let me near her.
As for the others, I tried to do a head count this morning, counting both adults and kittens. I think I counted 31, but when I counted again, I got 29. Broccoli and her two were not there; I saw them later at the old garden shed. There were a couple of regular adults that weren’t there, either, including Brussel. There is at least one kitten that has gone “missing”. The fluffy orange one that showed up with Baby Hypotenose – the two kittens that Sprout finally brought to the house. I have been seeing Baby Hypotenose a fair bit, but its orange sibling just disappeared. If this is another loss, that would be the last of the orange kittens gone. We have one orange tabby and one orange and white among the younger adult males, plus the Grand Old Lady, Rolando Moon, and that’s it for orange cats. Quite the change from when we first moved here, and almost all the outside cats were orange tabbies!
Since I was out so early this morning, I actually had time for breakfast before I had to leave for my mother’s. I timed it so that I could pick up lunch for us. She likes the dinners that the grocery store sometimes has available, but there were none today. Which I didn’t mind. I was really looking forward to some Chinese food.
They were closed.
They weren’t supposed to be closed. All the signs said they should have been open, and I could see lights on inside, but the door was locked. I ended up going around the back of the motel the restaurant is in and went in through the bar. The lights were on in the dining room, but the kitchen and back areas were all dark. I asked the woman working the bar before leaving, and she had no idea why they weren’t open.
I ended up going to the gas station to get some of their fried chicken and wedges, getting there just as they were bringing out the first batch of chicken for the day.
Which was good – theirs is the best fried chicken! – but I really was looking forward to Chinese food! 😄
Then I had the problem of getting into my mother’s building.
It was locked!
This has happened only once before. The main doors are usually never locked, even overnight. These are also the accessible doors, with the automatic door openers; another reason for those doors to never be locked!
I do have keys but, for some reason, the outside door key have never worked. It almost works – the lock did start to turn, but towards the “lock” position, not the “unlock” position. I have no idea why it doesn’t work. My mother’s own key does sometimes stick, too, but nothing like this! I ended up having to phone my mother to let her know I was at the door closer to her apartment, but couldn’t get in.
So my mother had to toodle over with her walker to let me in. These doors have a tiny vestibule between an unlockable inner door and the always locked from the outside outer door. My mother was able to open the inside door, then had to use her walker to block it open so she could push the bar on the outside door top open it for me. (When coming in from the outside, there is barely enough room in the vestibule for her walker, and for the door to swing open. It still ended up hitting one of her wheels, but she prefers it over using the main doors.)
The alternative would have been to make her walk down the hall and through the lobby to reach the main doors, and still have to fight to open two doors. The inside one, at least, would have opened with the push of a button, but the walk would have been harder on my mother than opening the doors closer to her apartment.
What a pain!
Once inside, I set things up and we had our lunch. While moving things aside, I saw she had a notice of inspection for bedbugs again. She told me, it was just slid under her door this morning. It looks like they will be back on the 28th. I looked up the calendar on my phone to confirm what day that falls on, while she quickly tucked the letter away before I could read the rest!
It falls on the day I’ll be making my first stock up shopping trip to the city.
My mother is not happy about them coming by again. The last time they did, she didn’t get up to let them in because she wasn’t feeling well. She did yell out verbal permission for them to come in, but they would not. She doesn’t quite understand that she risks eviction by constantly finding ways to avoid them! She doesn’t appear to have bedbugs, but if her neighbours do, that can change very quickly, and they are required to check a certain number of times since the last time they sprayed.
Once we had our lunch, we went over her shopping list. There were a few things I needed to clear up. She writes her list in a sort of mix of Polish and English, and her English words are spelled phonetically – in Polish! She then makes little drawings of the things she has on the list, but sometimes that doesn’t make it any clearer! I mean, a sour cream container and a yogurt container are basically the same. 😄
This time, she had flour on her list – it was even spelled correctly in English! – but the doodle was quite clearly and ear of corn. Corn flour? My mother doesn’t use corn flour, but that’s what she called it.
She meant corn meal, which she uses all the time.
I did explain to her that corn meal and corn flour are different things. I don’t think she’ll remember, though, as she’s never seen corn flour, so she doesn’t have any sort of connection to make to help her remember. Not that it’s a problem, but I did want to clarify, based on what she had on her list!
Her list was very short, so I asked a few questions and a few more things were added to it. She had the newest flier, too, so we went over some of the sale items, and talked about possibly substitutions. There was no meat on the list, and the only thing that could be considered a protein was the cheese I ended up adding to her list after going through the flier with her. She insisted that she still had plenty. I am suspicious, though, as she has increasingly tried to blame eating meat or “heavy foods” (she has her own definition of what that is!) on her not feeling well.
At one point, she started telling me that she feels like she’s dying, every night, and had considered getting me to take her to the clinic in the nearby hospital. She’s also becoming obsessed with an appointment with the “new doctor” that’s there, because it conflicted with a home visit appointment she had on the same day. I was the one who cancelled the appointment for her, so I knew that it was not with the new doctor. It was with a nurse practitioner. It was my sister that had taken her in to the clinic, but no one was available to see my mother, so they made this appointment – and forgot about the date. Neither of them seemed to realize that the appointment was with whoever was available, not the new doctor.
I suggested that if she wanted to see a doctor, I could make an appointment with her current one for her. She actually yelled angrily at me, NO! I told her, you’ve got a good doctor, and she laughed and made a comment about the doctor talking to the computer instead of to her. I told her, the doctor was reading what she was looking up on her file. Some people tend to think out loud, or read out loud, as they do that. I was with my mother during her last appointment, and could see that’s what she was doing; as she read through my mother’s file, she would sometimes say parts of it out loud, very quickly. It’s entirely possible the doctor doesn’t even notice that she’s doing it.
When I explained that to her, my mother finally just said, “I’m scared of black people.”
*sigh*
With how hard it is to find a doctor these days – especially when living outside the city – it’s aggravating that she’s allowing her racism to deny herself the health care she’s demanding!
As we talked, I brought up again, she needs a hospital bed, so she can sleep upright.
Which is when she started saying it was her stomach – her digestive system (she literally does not understand what is or isn’t part of her digestive system, or where the organs are located in her body) – that she now thinks is the cause of her troubles, then tried to make connections with eating “heavy food”, like the chicken we just ate…
I asked her, what does that have to do with her breathing? She’s been complaining that she can’t breathe at night, and that’s why she feels like she’s dying. Now, she says it’s her stomach?
I tried to ask more questions, but she changed the subject.
*sigh*
It’s frustrating that she is so all over the place with how she feels, and latch onto things as the “cause” of all her problems, usually because of something she heard on TV, or one of the people in her building saying. But when solutions are offered – like having a hospital bed so she can sleep more upright – she refuses.
Other than this, though, things went smoothly. I worked out what she needed on her list, then did the shopping for her.
Once everything was put away, I stayed a bit longer, but was feeling incredibly sleepy. The overcast skies and rainy weather has that effect on me. I still had to go back to the grocery store for a water jug refill – just one, for now – before going home, too.
Once that was done and I got home, I went for a nap almost right away. It seems I really needed that sleep, too!
As for right now, the skies are clear again and it’s sunny out there, so I’m looking forward to my evening rounds. Meanwhile, as I was writing this, my younger daughter came in to let me know that she was able to harvest the last of the garlic for me! They were getting a bit over due!
For now, they’re laid out on the freezer in the old kitchen. Once the dirt has dried out a bit more, we’ll brush them off, trim them and string them up to hang with the others in the garage.
As for the cat isolation shelter build in the garage, I won’t be doing anything on it today. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. Mostly, though, I think I’ll have to go through the sheds and garage again, so see what materials I can find to continue the build, until I have the budget to buy the materials I need to finish it.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to find what I need and get this finished soon. I will have to double check with the Cat Lady to see what date she has booked for us, for a spay or neuter (depending on what cat we can catch!). If we end up with a male, we won’t need the isolation shelter, but if we can get that fluffy little cat, or one of the other mamas, that would be idea.
There were some pretty decent sized bulbs in there!
They got trimmed and strung up and are how hanging in the garage with the garlic harvested from the bed with the Forme de Coeur tomatoes.
Speaking of which, I spotted a couple of those, starting to turn red, too! Finally!
Still nothing on the black cherry tomatoes, though.
While doing my evening rounds, I spotted a few things I could probably have harvested, but I decided to leave them for tomorrow morning.
While I didn’t have to water the garden this morning, I definitely will have to do it tomorrow morning. Today, we reached our high of 27C/81F, but the humidex definitely put us above 30C/86F. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 28C/84F, with not even a hint of rain in the forecast – and it’s supposed to continue like that for the next week to ten days.
What I found interesting when I did my evening rounds in the garden was that so many things were noticeably bigger – particularly the squash plants, both summer and winter – just from this morning! The Crespo and G Star squash are getting huge!
Now, if we can just keep this up through at least half of September, that would be good… 😁
Ha! I just checked the long range forecast. For a while there, around September 10 – our average first frost date – it was looking like we’d be getting pretty chilly, with lows of only 4C/39F on that day. Now it’s saying that we should be hitting 30C/86F on the 10th, with a low of 15C/59F! As it stands now, we might not get first frost until October.
Of course, I expect that forecast to change a few times over the next while, but still, there’s hope for the garden!
Button is in the bottom cuddle pile of the photo above, wrestling with the black and white kitten.
The kitten being used as a pillow by the orange while white kitten is the one with the messed up eyes. We brought her in last night again, to spend the night in a carrier in my bedroom. We have to keep her completely isolated from the inside cats. She seems okay with the carrier. I gave her a stuffy, and she spent the night sleeping right up against it.
Unfortunately, her eyes are still swollen shut and she’s essentially blind. We’re washing them, of course, but that helps only so far. We did make sure she had cat soup for food – extra thin, for more hydration – with supplements that should help boost her immune system. The Cat Lady has medication to give us, but as of this morning, she still couldn’t find it. Hopefully, she’ll be able to find it before we meet up this afternoon.
After they have Button for a week, then pass her on to her forever home, they might be able to take in eyes baby, too. I have really been trying to avoid that. They’ve taken so many sick kittens from us, and end up keeping them permanently, because hardly anyone is willing to adopt healthy cats, never mind any with past health problems. Plus, it seems the cats at our place have a particularly bad strain of herpes. The sick cats they’ve helped us with before have recovered, but are still prone to relapses. Other sick cats they’ve helped from communities around us have recovered and not relapsed.
Also, it seems the cats from us have a bit of a reputation among several vet clinics now. We’ve had some very unusual cases, with Cabbages being the first anomaly. At least her treatment is now saving the lives of other cats. Then there’s the one that turned out to be Down’s. Who know cats could be Down’s?
Anyhow.
All the more reason we need the isolation shelter, and I got a bit more progress on that this morning.
I cut more corner supports from the remaining true to size 2×4 piece that I have. I was able to cut them larger this time. The smaller ones were ready for more painting, as were the frame pieces. As of right now, the only things left that need to be painted are a couple of 2×4 frame pieces, and the larger angle cut pieces. Once those are done, assembly can start. I’m hoping I can get that done this evening, if this morning’s coat of paint is cured enough.
As you can see by my hat in the last photo, it was quite hot and muggy in the garage while I was working! I normally wear a hat to help keep the sweat out of my eyes, but today was just too hot, and I took it off pretty early on, so all that wet is from a very short time! Lately, I’ve taken to folding up a strip of paper towel and putting it between my forehead and the hat band, to help absorb the sweat. That does make it more bearable, but by the time I could have done that, my hat was already soaked!
Well, time to start getting ready to head out with Button. I need to make sure the smallest cat carrier is ready. We keep it with several others in the sun room these days, so cats are in and out of them – and climbing on top of them – regularly, so they get pretty dirty.
I still need to go to the post office first, but I’ll do that along the way. I did already go this morning, but I went too early. I was sure the post office opened at 9am, but when I got there at 9:30, they were just opening up and hadn’t sorted any of the mail, yet! I think Button will be okay in the carrier alone in the truck for a few minutes.
I’m so happy she is finally going to her forever home!
The Re-Farmer
[addendum: I just had to include the AI generated feedback I got for this!
The content reflects a heartwarming story of finding a forever home for Button and the dedicated care for the kitten with eye issues. The updates on the isolation shelter’s progress are interesting. Consider adding subheadings to distinguish between the different topics discussed. Additionally, breaking up the text into smaller paragraphs can enhance readability and make it more visually appealing for the reader. Good luck with the ongoing care and shelter construction efforts!
The first female flowers have shown up on the green and yellow zucchini plants.
Whether or not they’ll be properly pollinated and actually form zucchini, we have yet to see. In fact, one of the green zucchini flower buds already looks like it’s going to whither away, as it’s more yellow than green.
I was talking to my mother on the phone last night. After telling me about all the wonderful things about my sister’s garden, she asked me about mine. I know better than to believe she’s actually interested – she does this as an opening to find ways to make sure I know what a failure she thinks I am. Still, I told her about how we planted so many squash and melons, we didn’t have room to plant things like the lettuce my sister brings her, or cucumbers, etc. I even told her about the squash we ended up having to harvest because it broke its own stem.
As we were talking, she started say, in a disapproving tone, how she never grew “quash”, that was something she never did. Meanwhile, she’d already told me about how she used to have so much zucchini. I told her, yes, you did grow squash. Zucchini is squash. She didn’t grow winter squash (though, now that I write this, I think she did eventually grow spaghetti squash at some point), but she did grow summer squash. Then I reminded her of the year she let the zucchini get big, and we had so many giant zucchini harvested, when we stacked them against the wall in the basement, they covered the entire wall in the corner. She laughed as she remembered. As a child, I remember that year very well. We had so many giant zucchini, we eve used some to make Jack O Lanterns that Halloween!
As we talked a bit more about the garden, I mentioned that I had to find a way to support the corn because gusts of wind had blown them flat. She started saying how I’ve had sooo many problems with the garden. Which is sort of true, but I reminded her, she had problems with her garden, too. Did I? she asked, sounding shocked. I told her, she had things fail, too (in fact, some of the times I’ve mentioned a thing that didn’t grow for us, she dismissed it by saying, “oh, that happens sometimes… I’ve had that too…”), and then there were the potato beetles.
Oh, the potato beetles!
I remember, year after year, picking off potato beetles!
My parents grew a LOT of potatoes. Enough to last the winter with 7 of us, plus have enough left to plant in the spring. The potato beetles were absolutely brutal. Some years, my dad even went so far as to buy poison to dust onto the plants to save them, because there were too many for us to be able to pick them off.
Funny. When I mentioned the potato beetles, my mother just laughed – and changed the subject! 😄
Today we’re supposed to reach 24C/75F. As I write this, just past noon, we’re at 21C/70F, with the “real feel” at 25C/77F. I did end up watering the garden this morning, even though it’s not going to be exceptionally hot. Most of it, anyhow. We have so many things growing that need a lot of water. I’m not watering the garlic, though. Those are looking like we can finally start harvesting them. Maybe not today, but soon.
One thing I do want to do today is take some garden tour videos. It’s a bit early, but today is one month before our average first frost date, which is Sept. 10.
Yup. We technically have only 31 days left in our growing season.
I’m still holding out hope that we won’t get frost until later in September, but as I look at the long range forecast, I see it has changed again, and we’re looking at temperatures possibly dropping as low as 3C/37F, even before the 10th.
At the very least, we’ll need to be prepared to protect some things from frost. Most things, like the melons and squash, are just too large to cover, but we should be able to protect the high raised bed, the pepper and eggplant bed, and maybe some of the tomatoes, if it comes to that.
*sigh*
I look forward to when we have a greenhouse.
Meanwhile, I need to get back to working on the cat isolation shelter. The rescue has us booked for some September spays or neuters (depending on what cats we manage to trap), so we’re going to need it. I got nothing done yesterday. While on the call with my mother, I found myself feeling ready to fall asleep. After the call, I quickly finished the blog posts I was working on. I was falling asleep at my keyboard! Once done, I went for a nap, crashed for 3 hours, then woke up still feeling completely groggy and drained. So I made it a day of rest.
Not that I had much choice.
Today’s goal with the isolation shelter: painting and wheels. I’ve gone through our paint cans to see what we have left. Mostly, it’s the bright blue I used to paint the folding table and floating benches.
Hmmm… I should see what is left of the red paint. They are the same type of paint. Maybe I can combine what’s left. I like purple… 😄 It’ll be a while before I can buy more paint, so if I can stretch what we have, all the better. We’re not after winning any beauty contests here!
I’m thinking of painting the cut pieces before putting the shelter together, since it will be difficult to paint it once assembled. Especially on the inside. I plan to start painting one side of the cut frame pieces first, then putting the wheels on the base while the paint dries. Once the wheels are on, I plan to paint the base. By then, it might be long enough that I’ll be able to paint another side of the cut pieces. I know we have paint rollers and pans somewhere, so I’m hoping to use that and make the job get done faster.
Time to go digging around the basement to see if I can find some paint rollers and pans!
Or the sun room…
It’s really hard to keep track of the stuff that we found while cleaning up this place. 😁
My usual morning routine starts with feeding the outside cats, then doing my rounds to check everything is as it should be, switching out memory cards on the trail cams, tending the garden, etc. We did get a good rainfall last night, so no watering needed, this morning, but that’s usually part of the morning routine, this time of year.
By the time I’m ready to head back inside, the yard cats have had their chance to eat and are more relaxed. Sometimes, I can even walk relatively close past some of the more feral ones.
This morning, I found several kittens and Adam on top of the shelf shelter next to the sun room door.
The cluster of three kittens snuggling for a nap was adorable, but then there was Adam and her one of her progeny, glaring at me. 😄 They have matching angry expressions.
We had some packages come in today and the store the post office is in, closes at noon on Wednesdays, so I headed out as soon as I could. The truck is parked in the yard for now, with the garage being set up as a workshop right now. As I was leaving the yard and driving past the garage, I spotted Brussel’s last surviving kitten, just loafed in the grass, watching me. Even when I stopped the truck to take a picture, it just stayed there.
When I got back and was heading up the driveway, Brussel and her kitten were in the vehicle zone in front of the garage. As I got closer, Brussel ran off, but her kitten just hunkered down! I was able to drive around, but there’s a point when I just can’t see the kitten anymore. By the time I got to where I could see it again, I found it had barely moved at all, and was just sitting in the grass.
The little bugger. Runs away from people, but not a moving truck!
In other cat related news, we finally connected with the Cat Lady this morning. The vet appointment I was concerned has been changed; she’s bringing in a couple of other cats, including a pregnant female, instead. She has us for September, though I don’t have a date or details yet. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get a female or two in for that one! The isolation shelter should be finished by then, too.
As for connecting to pass on Button, that is likely going to happen on the weekend. One of her other kids is sick now, too! They just can’t catch a break! But she will be in our area on the weekend and we’ll meet up to pass on Button. He’ll stay with the rescue for a week for vet checks and the usual treatment (he won’t be neutered, since he’s waaaayyy too small for that!) before going to his forever home.
I had considered making a trip to the nearer city today, but will be doing that tomorrow, instead. One of the things I’m looking for is in Canadian Tire, and it goes on sale, starting tomorrow, so it’s worth a bit of a delay. Among the other things I’m looking for is wheels for the isolation shelter. This is one shelter we will want to be able to move around, as needed.
I’m still gathering what materials and tools I can think we might need, and hope to get started on it this afternoon. I might end up redoing the plans in more detail, now that I have more of an idea of what materials I have to work with. I did get a chance to look at the windows in the barn and shed, but there is nothing suitable for this project. Many of them are broken, too. Which makes me think that if we ever do make windows in any shelters we build, I wouldn’t want to use real glass at all!
We’ll figure that out when the times comes. Until then, we make do with what we have!
My daughter heard a possible commotion last night, so I popped out to check on the kitties. No sign of raccoons or skunks, thankfully. It was such a gorgeous night, though, I ended up staying out for a while, and even tried to get some photos of the stars.
I was just using my phone’s camera, and I didn’t have a tripod. Instead, I rested the phone on top of the wire covers on garden beds. Which, I discovered, bounced for a while once the phone was laid down! So several of the photos have very shaky looking stars. 😄 I did manage to get shots with the streak of a satellite going by, which is neat.
We are supposed to get some rain late tonight, but I decided to water the garden, anyhow. This year’s garden is unusually full of things that require large amounts of water, and from the looks of the weather radar, the system is going to pass to the north of us, anyhow. We certainly aren’t going to be hit with a storm like what hit Calgary last night! I was seeing photos shared on some of my Zone 3 gardening groups on FB, and it was just devastating. The largest hail reported was the size of a baseball! Scary stuff!
After doing the watering, I went back and picked another handful of shelling peas.
I’m really appreciating the logs on the sides of that bed. I can step on a log and reach the peas, without stepping on any winter squash vines! While watering, I noticed a couple of vines, including one with a female flower, that were trying to climb the trellis netting. The Wild Bunch Mix package did say these were all vining types, and they really do want to climb! The trellis netting is strong enough to hold the peas and beans, but nowhere near strong enough to hold the winter squash vines, not to mention any fruit that might show up on them. I got them loose and laid them on the ground, in the process finding tendrils that had wrapped themselves around bean pods and vines, actually cutting off the bean pod in the process!
I’m hoping to have pole beans to harvest by the end of the week.
In other things, I’m hoping to get meet up with the Cat Lady tomorrow or soon after. I know she has medical appointments today. The last time she set up a vet appointment to neuter 4 of our male yard cats, covered by the rescue, a second appointment was made for this month. Then they had emergency vet car needed, which cost a great deal. The appointment is still on my calendar, though – this Thursday (today is Tuesday), for two cats, preferably female. I checked to make sure the appointment was cancelled, as I know the rescue budget was low. She said she’d contact the vet, but I haven’t heard back about that, yet. I hope to hear from her soon, because I don’t want to unknowingly be a “no show”.
Meanwhile, I got some photos of Peanut Butter Cup this morning for her to share among her contacts.
She has really turned into a beauty, and has the softest fur of all the cats! More importantly, we brought her to full health. She was the only female that was done at the time. While the males could go straight outside after a brief recovery period in the cat carriers, she needed 2 weeks. Once they come inside, they don’t go back out. That’s when we found out she had leaky butt issues, but we got that all fixed up. Gotta love that Healthy Poops stuff! Thank you, M, for sending us that first container! I never would have known such a product even existed. We have been using it in place of the ground pumpkin seeds (pumpkin is one of the ingredients) that we’d been using in the cat soup, along with lysine. All of the cats have been eating it, and it has made a real difference in PBC! No more leaky butt! Her respiratory issues have disappeared, too. We now have special shallow trays for the cat soup, big enough for several cats to eat out of at the same time, with one kept in my room for Butterscotch.
Who still refuses to leave my room!
I don’t get it.
Anyhow, I hope the Cat Lady will be able to share the photos and someone will be interested in adopting PBC.
Meanwhile, I’m basically just waiting for the post office to open for the afternoon. The special sheets for my husband’s hospital bed mattress came in yesterday, even though it was a holiday and the post office was closed! So I’ll be picking those up. If they work out, we’ll order more, and he won’t have to fight with having to use top sheets on his mattress, because regular fitted sheets are too short.
While yesterday’s lawn mowing never got finished, I did get enough done that I can park the truck in the shade of the inner yard. Then I’ll set up a work table and power tools in the garage, gather materials and get started on the outdoor isolation cage for when we can start trapping and spaying the more feral cats. Hopefully, the females! Not that we will have much control over which cat gets trapped.
As long as we don’t end up trapping skunks or raccoons, instead! I don’t think the trap that will be loaned to us will be big enough for raccoons. Well. One of the young ones, maybe, but a cat sized trap would not be big enough, nor strong enough, for an adult raccoon.
Speaking of which, the isolation cage we’ll be building has to be strong enough to keep the raccoons out. Once it’s built, we’ll set it up with the door open, so the cats can get used to it, so I would expect the skunks and raccoons to explore it, too. I don’t plan to keep food, water and a litter box in it until there is a cat actually closed up in it, but it will still provide cats and kittens with shelter in the mean time.
As for the build itself, I’ve got general plans drawn up, but ultimately, it will depend on what materials we find in the barn and the sheds. I’m hoping to incorporate at least one of the many salvaged windows we’ve got. Something that can be slid open to access the inside, rather than a hinged door.
One thing we will probably have to buy, rather than scavenge, is more hardware cloth. I’ve got most of a roll of hex type chicken wire, but a raccoon can tear through that easily.
It isn’t a lot, but the more they get picked, the more they will keep producing! These are the Dalvay variety of peas that we got several years ago, and still have lot of seeds left over.
There is nothing like peas fresh off the vine!
The purple Dragonfly peppers are ripening much earlier than any of the other varieties we’ve planted this year. All the others are still very green. Eventually, we will have brown Sweet Chocolates, orange and yellow Early Sunsation and Early summer, and Purple Beauty peppers in this bed, too.
We aren’t going to be particularly hot today, so the only watering I did this morning was to fill the reservoirs by the drum gourds and pumpkins. The biggest of the pumpkins is starting to turn orange! I’ll be taking the comparison photos for the series I’ve been doing this evening – and hopefully, I will remember to include the Crespo squash this time! I completely forgot, last time.
My goal for today is to finish mowing the inner yard. I’d intended to do some mowing yesterday, but never got that far. I’d picked up replacement hose connectors, as we have leaking front yard hoses. With one connection, both hoses had already had their connections replaced, and both were leaking. One of them had a 1/2 inch connector instead of a 3/4 inch connector. The clamp couldn’t quite tighten it enough. The other was the right size, but still leaking. So I replaced both.
That took a LOT longer than it should have. The old connectors had to be cut off, one of the new clamps was bent and wouldn’t loosen or tighten properly, I tried to use the old clamp only to have part of it disappear completely, so I had to figure out how to get the bent new one to work, etc. I used Teflon tape on them, too, as an extra precaution to prevent leaking. I think I ended up spending at least an hour fighting with it.
The front tap has three hoses connected, and one of them predates our living here. It’s still one of the best hoses we have, though! It was leaking, so I replaced the rubber washer.
Then I turned the hose back on and…
It’s all still leaking.
*sigh*
I do have the contractor’s grade hose that was gifted to us. It is going to be used to replace the hose in the back and set up a garden tap again. It’s going to be a while longer yet, before we can dig up the rest of the buried water pipe, and I won’t start that until I have the pipe I want to run the hose through to protect it, before burying it.
The problem is, the pipe I’m looking to get costs at least $27 – $35 for a 3″ x 10′ length. The 4″ pipe is easier to find, but more expensive – and I’d need four of them, plus angled connectors for each end. The idea is that, if the hose ever needs to be repaired or replaced, it can be easily pulled out of the pipe without having to dig the trench again. I might be able to find pipe in the diameter I want that’s a better price, but for that, I’d have to actually go into a store in the city that carries them in stock (I’m not finding anything in stock locally) and look at what they have. Their websites are not very helpful.
So if it’s going to be a while before I can even consider using that hose to set up a garden tap, I may as well use it now!
Meanwhile, this time of year is when things like hoses go on clearance, so I should be able to get more heavy duty hoses to replace all our cheapies. I’m getting really tired of having the world’s kinkiest hoses! Even the non-kink hoses I got a year or two ago are constantly kinking!
All in good time, I guess.
For now, though, I want to get the inner lawn mowed, so I can move the truck to the yard and use the garage as a workshop to build an outdoor cat isolation cage. We have some pretty feral ladies that need to be trapped and spayed, and there’s no way we can keep them indoors anywhere for the 2 weeks they need for recovery. Who knows. We might even get them to be more semi-feral than feral while they are in an isolation cage!
Today the last day of July. We’ve got about a month and 10 days before our first average frost day, though if we’re lucky, that won’t happen until much later. We haven’t even harvested our garlic yet, but when we do, we need to think about what to do with the empty beds. I’ve been considering planting some very short season crops, but there just doesn’t seem to be much point. Not with only about 40 days of growing season left, as of today, never mind from whenever any beds are harvested and open.
Which means I’m thinking about getting the garden ready for next year, rather than extending the harvest for this year.
No. It’s not too early! 😄
This timely video from Gardening in Canada talks about one option I was considering. Growing a cover crop.
There are a lot of seeds in that bag! There are a few places I want to use them to help break up compacted soil, in preparation for expanding our garden space. Instead, we ended up unintentionally reducing garden space!
The idea is to plant them and leave them. As they grow, they “till” the soil, then add organic material as they decompose.
The only hesitation I have is our Dark Grey Zone soil, with its thin layer of top soil over gravel, sand, clay and rocks.
So. Many. Rocks.
This type of soil drains quickly and leaches nutrients. The tillage radish might increase how quickly water drains in the soil… or it will reduce the drainage by adding organic material in the sand/gravel/clay below, and act as a sponge.
If nothing else, it’s worth a try. I’ve got the seeds, after all. May as well use them before they get too old!
The Re-Farmer 