planning ahead

Gorgeous days, and another delay

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It is so beautiful out there right now!

And so is this beastly beast!

Rolando Moon was loving the hard packed snow on the sides of the driveway, while I was doing my morning rounds. In fact, all the cats were running around, enjoying the bright morning sunshine. I counted 26 this morning. The most I’ve seen for a while, now!

At the time I did my morning rounds, it was about -5C/23F, but felt much warmer. As I write this, shortly after 1pm, we’re at 2C/36F, and expected to reach a high of 5C/41F! Several degrees warmer than the forecast has been, for the past few days.

Even yesterday, with the forecast shifting and predicting a high of 2C/36F, we actually hit 4C/39F, and things were melting all over!

This morning, I took the time to widen a section of the driveway, to make it easier to turn into the garage when coming home. Coming back to the house I noticed the old market tent set up by the fire pit was partially collapsed. It’s broken on one side, so it doesn’t take much. Unfortunately, we haven’t dug any paths to the fire pit, so I was slogging through snow half way to my knees to get to it.

Getting the roof of the market tent, which is set up over the old picnic table and the folding table we made with parts and pieces we found in the barn and basement, clear was more difficult that I expected. Because of how warm it was yesterday, melted snow started pooling in the canvas roof, even leaking through and leaving icicles hanging on the inside. We have an old hoe with rounded edges that is safe to scrape the snow off without damaging the canvas. The handle is a steel pipe welded onto the hoe, so we use it in the fire pit, rather than the garden, so it was handy. I got as much snow off the tent roof as I could, then ducked underneath to try and knock it off from below, and lift the roof supports. One section turned out to be really, really heavy for some reason. That’s when I realized there was a big pool of water that had frozen overnight! I was able to scrape more snow off and break up the ice from the outside, until I could finally lift things from the inside.

We have been using the picnic table to cure onions and potatoes, setting them on old window screens I found in the barn and sheds. Short scrap boards were used to elevate the screen for more air circulation. All of that is still stored on the picnic table. The boards are just long enough that I could set them up on the picnic table and the folding table to prop up the tent roof supports. Unless they get knocked over by a cat or something (the cats do love the shelter the tent and tables provide!), they should keep the roof from collapsing again. The long range forecasts have changed again and now say that, a week from now, we will have highs below freezing again and, depending on which app I look at, we might get a bit more snow, too.

I got a message from the Cat Lady last night. The “problem cat” that the city shelter had asked her to take on is going to her today. The cat had all its teeth pulled and is now well enough for her to try and rehabilitate. Which means she couldn’t meet me to get our three today. We should be able to connect mid week, but that will depend on how things go with her new acquisition.

Since we were going to meet her half way, at the smaller city, I was going to take advantage of the trip to pick up a few things. Now that we were not going to be meeting her today, after all, my younger daughter and I went to town this morning, instead. Since I was in town anyhow, one of my stops was at the pharmacy. My husband had ordered prescription refills for delivery on Wednesday, so I thought I might be able to pick those up while there. They weren’t ready yet, so those will wait, but the other reason I was there was to get our printouts for our taxes, now that my husband’s second T4A is in. They were able to print mine out, but then needed permission them to be able to give me my husband’s printout. They gave me the form for him to fill out, and we’ll give it to the delivery guy when he comes. They will make sure my husband’s printouts are included in the bag with his refills.

I found out something interesting while doing this. Just about everyone that works there knows me well, by now, so when I come in, they know my husband’s name, and that I have a hyphenated name. Today, there was a new person helping me. I first asked about the refills, and gave her my husband’s name for her to look up. She confirmed having the right file using our postal address. After she confirmed the prescription wasn’t filled yet (since it didn’t need to be delivered for another 2 days), I said it could wait and mentioned the printouts.

In looking up my file, she didn’t know I had a different name. She started confirming my postal address, but the box number was one we hadn’t used since the last time we lived in this province, some 25 years ago! A pharmacist that knows our file well came by and helped her find the right file under my hyphenated name. While doing all this, I commented that the box number she had read out was one we used to have, many years ago. She noticed that the health care number was the same.

They had two files on me!

My old file had been using my non-hyphenated married name – something I would use when people didn’t have enough space to put in my full name. A common problem I had for many years! At some point, programmers changed software to fit longer names, because I no longer have that problem.

As I was leaving, they were in the process of merging my old and new accounts, so they will have just one account for me now.

To think, if it hadn’t been for a new person who didn’t know me as well, it wouldn’t have been discovered that there was a second file for me!

I may not have been able to get my husband’s refills early, nor get his tax printouts, but we at least got that discovered and fixed!

Today was such a nice day to be out and running errands. In the time it took me to write the above, we’ve already warmed up to 4C/39F – with a “feels like” of 7C/45F! That’s downright tropical for this time of year. 😄 Meanwhile, the thermometer in the sun room is reading 15C/59F!! There are cats played out in sun spots all over the room. 😄

On days like today, I can hardly wait for the snow to be gone, and finally getting outside and back to work! We’ve still got probably another month or two before we can do that, though!

I guess I’ll just enjoy it as it is. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Learning about soil zones (video)

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Most of us are familiar with climate zones, but soil zones, too?

Of course, I was aware of different soil types in different regions. I just didn’t know there were names and classifications for them.

Gardening in Canada just did a video all about soil zones, and I learned so much!

Well, things make a lot more sense, now!

In the past, I’ve described where we live as being in that transition zone between Boreal forest and prairie. It turns out that zone is known as the Dark Grey soil zone.

I’ve also written about testing our soil. You can read about how those went, here, here and here.

This is a picture from one of those soil tests. Blue cap is phosphorous, purple cap is nitrogen and orange cap is potash. The only bright colour is the dark green pH test, showing we have very alkaline soil. The test colour strip only went to 7.5, and the samples were all darker than the colour strip got! Even our direct soil pH meter only goes up to a pH of 8, and I think our soil is probably at least a pH of 9 or even 10.

Besides being in a Dark Grey soil zone, we are also sitting on top of where the ancient glacial Lake Agassiz one was. When the lake drained, it was with incredible speed, and is believed to have extended the last ice age. Which means the water also took a lot of the lighter sediment from the lake bottom, with it, leaving behind the heavy stuff.

Like rocks, gravel, sand and clay.

Dark Grey soil zones have a problem with leaching. Basically, any time we have rain, the soil nutrients get leached down through the sandier layers below. Our region has more sand and gravel, than others. That means we’d have nutrients leaching out of our soil, even faster. Also, the leached nutrients would normally form a dense, compact lower layer. I don’t know where that layer would be forming in our area. Even when heavy equipment was used to deepen our gravel pit, as well as a dugout in the other quarter section that’s rented out, there’s just gravel and sand and clay.

When my mother had her huge garden here, my dad would plow cow manure into it almost every fall. That hasn’t been done in over 20 years. However, gardening did continue. Even after my parents could no longer garden, a couple of my brothers and their wives kept up small areas. The old garden area did still get plowed in the fall.

Plowed, but not amended. Among the things that disappeared from here over the years was the old manure pile from behind the barn. In fact, there are now dips on the ground where the pile used to be, so whoever took it, dug down pretty deep.

Yeah. Someone stole the manure pile.

I’m pretty sure I know who, but no matter.

So our soil conditions are as poor as they are due to both the lack of amendments, and our geology.

We’re not in a position to buy truckloads of manure and getting it all plowed into the area. Which means our plans to use raised beds of varying heights, modified hügelkultur style, is going to make all the difference in the world.

Thank you, GIC, for putting out this video! This information is going to be very useful in helping us plan things out.

The Re-Farmer

Good morning, my pretties!

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Just look at these handsome boys!

Gotta laugh at Patience in the back, caught mid yawn!

I got to pet the tuxedo on the left while it was eating. He seemed so surprised when I did. Not “oh, no, the human is touching me!” surprised. More like “I’m not supposed to like the human touching me!” surprised. 😄

I counted only 17 outside cats this morning. Most in the sun room. They are using the cat house for shelter, but clearly the heat bulb in there is not working. I tried looking in the window, and I can see the heat shield is handing down, but that’s about it. I am assuming they unplugged it somehow, because I can’t see the red light that’s on the timer device. The window is so dirty and dark on the inside, I can’t see the timer or the outlet it’s plugged into at all. The good thing is, even without the heat bulb going, it’s warm enough that their body heat alone will warm it up in there. Opening up the roof to check isn’t an option right now. I like to leave the snow on the roof for extra insulation, plus we haven’t dug the path around it since the most recent snowfalls, so we can only access one corner right now. Even the back, where the counterweight is set up, would need to be dug out more. Otherwise, it can’t be fully opened.

When it comes time to build a new cat house, I definitely want to change up how to access the inside. The roof is just too heavy to be opened the way it is now. As it’s getting older and more fragile, we have to have two people to open it, so it won’t twist and crack. The counterweight helps, but not enough.

My brother built it so it’s sitting on a skid that allowed him to move it around. That skid is rotting and falling apart now, so it wouldn’t be of any use to try and move it again. In the future, I want to built a cat house that’s on legs maybe 6 inches off the ground, and then we can use things like bricks or whatever, to 1) protect the wood of the legs from the moist soil and 2) level it, since our yard is wildly uneven.

Since the cats like to use the space under the various shelters, I will also want to put some sort of skirting around probably three sides, maybe 3 1/2 sides, to shelter them from the winds. With how well having a sheet of rigid insulation under the kibble house has worked out so well for them, I’d want to do something similar under any other shelters we build, too. It would be good to include a racoon proof space to store their kibble and supplies. We need to free up space in the old kitchen, where it’s all currently stored. We used to keep it in the sun room, but the racoons kept getting at it.

I also want to have one whole wall, or at least a large part of one wall, to be of Lexan, and have that side facing south. That will allow for passive solar heating (we would need to be able to vent that heat out in the summer, so it doesn’t get too hot!), while also allowing us to see what’s going on inside. The problem is, a single sheet that’s .093 Inch x 18 Inch x 24 Inch costs almost $90! That’s at Home Depot in the city. There are cheaper brands, like Optix, where a sheet that’s .080 Inch x 18 Inch x 24 Inch costs a little under $35. Lexan is a much higher quality, but… well, it’s for a cat house, so we don’t necessarily want to go all out on it!

One of these days, when we have a budget for it, I want to go to the Restore in the city. There’s no way to know what’s going to be in stock at any given time, but they often have all sorts of building materials available for much lower prices. Not just for building cat houses, of course! We need materials for the sheds and other structures we need to build. For the cordwood garden shed we want to build, for example, I want to make sure it’s on a foundation that can hold the weight of the walls. Otherwise, it’ll just sink into the soil. I follow the local Restore on Facebook and have seen all sorts of bricks and pavers and the like some available at times. There’s also a salvage yard in the city that sells items salvaged by a demolitions company – the company my late brother used to work for – and they’ve got huge piles of bricks and stone that would work. For a trip there, though, I’d want to go with my brother and his trailer. This is not stuff I would be able to load into the back of our truck!

So many plans to prioritize!

The Re-Farmer

Orders in!

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We’re back from town and picking up the packages in the mail. One of my daughters came along to do her own shopping, so I had both company, and help bringing things to the house!

Here’s one of the packages that came in; we finally replaced the outside heated water bowl that stopped working.

It’s the same size as the one that’s in the sun room. I had intended to buy another large one at the local hardware store again, as the price was better than ordering the same larger size online, but my husband went ahead and ordered this one before I got around to it.

I like the pretty colour. 😁

I was happy to see our order of lysine came in a couple days earlier than the tracking information said it would.

Then there were these.

I decided to get a new USB extension and adapters, instead of using the old ones we’ve got. The ones we’ve got would be from before we moved out here, so probably close to 10 years old. I figured some newer, more up to date items would be better! The adapters came in a three pack, so we have extras for anything else we might need them for. So many things come powered by USB these days!

Of course, I had to test it out on the lights that came with the seed starting kit. We can easily fit 4 of them on one shelf of the mini-greenhouse at the window. Then, since we don’t need to start seeds for a while yet, I decided to set three of them up. I’ve got the tray with the eggplants and hot peppers on the second level right now, and two trays of onions at the top level. Since whatever is on the second shelf wouldn’t be getting as much light, I would alternate them every few days. Of course, they would also need to be rotated regularly. What I did was place three of the LED grow lights from the kits on the top shelf, over the side of the seedling tray that gets the least amount of light.

It should be interesting to see if it makes any noticeable difference.

Meanwhile, I’ve been looking up the bulbs for one of my aquarium greenhouse lights. We have one burnt out bulb, and the other is starting to look dim. I got them from the same fish supply store my daughters bought the aquarium set at (hugely discounted for Boxing Day, or we could never have afforded it!), and never really looked into the type of bulbs. I just knew it was the right kind for our tank.

Well, it turns out these bulbs are general grow lights, not just aquarium bulbs. Which, unfortunately, makes them a bit more expensive. I found them on Amazon, but I don’t want to buy them there. I’m going to check out some hardware stores, first. At least that way, I can be sure any bulbs I get will make it home without breaking! Plus, I might be able to just buy one or two, instead of packages of 5, 10 or more! Not something I’ll have the budget for until next month, anyhow, but I can look.

As for our drive to town and back, our road is STILL not plowed, but at least the main road to the highway is. I am starting to think they’re not going to bother plowing side roads like ours until after tonight’s expected snowfall. I am SO thankful for our truck!! If we still had the van, we would have been dragging the undercarriage through the snow the whole way. My mother’s car wouldn’t have made it at all.

When I got home, there was a message from the salvage yard I’d contacted to see about getting rid of things like our collected aluminum, and the 13+ large batteries we found while cleaning out the basement and parts of the garage, plus a few other things we could get rid of, like the broken appliances. Other stuff, I would want my brother to be there to say what can stay and what can go. I called the guy back. He told me they’d be in our area in the next while, however we can’t get to the barn right now! So I suggested we wait at least a couple of weeks. When I told him about how some things would need my brother’s okay to clear out, and we’d have to book it in such a way that he could arrange a day off to come out here, he suggested we wait until we can do that. By doing one trip for everything, they only have to bring the equipment out once, and can give me a better price. This company actually weighs the scrap metal on location, rather than hauling it away first, then weighing it. That way, the customer can see exactly what the weight is, right then and there.

So that will wait until spring, or at least until enough snow is gone that we can get to areas like the car graveyard well beyond the outer yard.

I will be really happy to finally get a lot of that junk cleaned up. And I’m sure the renter will be happy to see it gone, too. That way his cows won’t be getting into stuff and possibly hurting themselves!

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Got some snow.

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I was keeping an eye on the local highway conditions groups last night, and apparently things were pretty bad. We didn’t get a large amount of snow, but the high winds made the biggest difference.

It was all over by this morning, though.

I got this shot as I was coming back inside, and they were all done with breakfast. This bunch is directly under the heat lamp. The mostly black one is friendly, and the orange one allows pets most of the time. The tabby with his head tucked allows pets at feeding time, but that’s it. The other tabby runs off. The tuxedo on the left is at that “hey! I think I actually like this… maybe?” stage of discovering pets.

I love that black strip on his nose.

Once again, it seems the racoons visited during the night. The water bowl in the sun room was dry, even though I’d refilled it during the evening feeding, and I had to clean dirt off the bottom before I could refill it.

After their food and water was done, I started shoveling.

And shoveling.

And shoveling some more!

Fair warning, there is a photo of a wound later on.

I was able to clear the cat shelters and the cat paths to the food bowls under the shrine, and to the corner of the storage house, where they go in and out of the “basement”. The cats get SO excited when their paths are clear! It’s hilarious to watch them running around and playing in the paths. I then made sure to clear the sidewalk to the gate in the chain link fence wide enough for my husband’s walker walker. The snow was still light and fluffy, though, so I kept going and cleared the area I back up into, to unload the truck. The rest of the driving area will wait for the snow blower, though.

Then, because I actually enjoy shoveling snow, I kept going and cleared paths to the burn barrel and electricity meter, before continuing to the garage. The path to the garage needs to be wide enough for my husband’s walker, plus I cleared enough in front of the driveway that we can open the side doors where little Spewie is stored. The snow isn’t deep enough that clearing the driveway and yard is a necessity, but we’re supposed to get more snow later in the week, so it’s more to keep things from accumulating.

It’s stuff like this that’s the problem, though.

That’s a whole lot of ice under the snow!

This is the path to the garage where it crosses the “driveway” to the inner yard. That area is lower and collects water, so when we had our nice, warm days with all the snow melting, the moat around the garage started to form. A couple of days ago, we reached a high of 6C/43F, only to have a high of -11C/12F yesterday. This morning, while I was shoveling, we were at a very mild -7C/19F, which was perfect for shoveling – as long as I was out of the wind. However, I kept hitting patches like this, which can be quite dangerous to find unexpectedly. In the inner yard alone, around the cat shelters, I almost slipped a few times.

I was still shoveling in the inner yard when I suddenly noticed this.

I have no idea where I got this, but by the time I noticed it, enough time had passed that it had stopped bleeding. My cuff kept sliding over it while I was shoveling, which is why it looks so horrible!

I just kept shoveling, though. No point in stopping when it wasn’t bleeding anymore, and didn’t hurt at all. Once I was inside, my daughter was handy, so after I washed the blood off, she got the wound all cleaned up and bandaged for me. The wound was actually a lot bigger than I expected, and it’s a couple of scratches, not just one.

I keep going through what I did before I started shoveling, trying to figure out where or how I could have gotten this, and I’m still drawing a blank!

Ah, well.

The paths to the compost pile, outhouse and the back door of the garage still need to be done, but I stopped for a while and finished my rounds instead. My daughter, sweetheart that she is, made breakfast for me after tending my wound. The more time goes by, the stiffer my body is getting, from the shoveling. 🫤 Time for some more painkillers, I think!

Tomorrow, I’m expecting to do our Costco shopping, so if we’re going to get the rest of the driving area in the inner yard done, it’s going to have to be today. Unless the girls do it while I’m gone tomorrow, but tomorrow is supposed to get much colder again. Current forecast is for a high of -5C/23F today, but a high of -18C/~-1F tomorrow. We’re also expected to be getting some light snow from about 4pm tonight until 4am tomorrow morning.

Oh, wow! I’m just looking at our record highs and lows for today. The record high is 5C/41F in 1999, but the record low for today is -34C/-29F, set back in 1962! The average high for this time of year is a nice and mild -7C/19F.

A few more days and we’re into March. The time feels like it is really flying by, this winter! Maybe it’s because my brain is constantly thinking ahead, to what we need and want to do, once spring arrives.

The next few days are going to be really busy ones, with our stock up shopping and other end of month errands, so I’m going to appreciate having one more quiet day, with no running around involved – and no crowds of people!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: herbs and peppers

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Today, I did some seed organizing.

After marking out the weeks backwards from our June 2nd last frost date on our calendar, I then went through my bin of seeds and organized them by when they need to be started indoors. Then I picked out the ones I could get started now.

We won’t be starting everything that we have seeds for.

Starting from the 3-4 weeks list:

I still haven’t decided if we’re going to plant any gourds at all this year. There are several I really want to grow, but we just don’t have the space. With the winter squash, we have the new packet of mixed winter squash seeds to try, plus one type for pies my daughter asked for. With the mixed seeds pack, we will of course want to plant the entire package, and see what we’ve got! I would still like to try the Honeyboat Delicata squash again; the few we got didn’t get a chance to fully mature, but they were great in the pie my daughter made! We also really liked the Pink Banana and Georgia Candy Roaster. There are other varieties that didn’t do well that I want to try again, just so we can decide if we like them or not, but that will depend on how much space we have. The problem is, there are a LOT of things that need to be started in that 3-4 week time span. I’m still not sure if we’ll do cucumbers this year. I’d rather use the space for the melons and winter squash. We’ll be skipping the hulless seed pumpkins this year, but I really want to try the Crespo squash again. Last I saw, Baker Creek didn’t carry the seeds anymore, so I want to successfully grow at least one to collect seeds from!

As for the tomatoes in the 6-8 week list, we’ll not be planting all that we have seeds for. We’ll do the San Marzano paste tomatoes for preserving and the Black Cherry for fresh eating. The free seeds we got are tempting me greatly, and I always want to grow more Spoon tomatoes! They’re just fun. I want to start quite a lot of the San Marzano, but not as many of the cherry tomatoes. I don’t want a situation like last year, where we ran out of space and had to give away so many transplants!

From the 8-10 week list: the Butterfly Flower is a type of milkweed, so I definitely want to get those going. We have three varieties of “early” peppers that I waited to start last year. They have such a short growing season, technically we could direct sow them. It didn’t work out. They didn’t get to produce, though with most of them I now know that the grow bags they were planted in were invaded from below by roots from the nearby Chinese elm. So we’ll definitely need to keep that in mind, when deciding where to transplant them this year. I will be starting fewer seeds, shooting for at least 2 plants per variety in the garden, but between the 6 varieties I’ll be starting this year, we’ll still have plenty for our needs. Hopefully, my family will have peppers of each kind to try, so we can decide which varieties we like enough to keep growing, year after year.

You’ll notice there are no summer squash on my list. Those got moved to the direct sowing bin. I’m not going to have the space to start them indoors. As long as I can keep the slugs away from them, they should be okay to start outdoors.

There were four things I could start today. Since I was after fewer plants per variety, I decided to go with the Red Solo cups to start them in, rather than the larger trays with smaller grow cells.

With the herbs, I’m just doing the oregano and German Winter Thyme again. The chamomile we planted last year should have self seeded, and we’ll see if the spearmint survived the winter in their pot. We ended up not using the lemongrass at all, so I’m not trying them again this year. We’ll plan out our herbs more, as time goes by. The herb seeds are so incredibly fine – especially the oregano! They got surface seeded over the pre-moistened seed starter mix, then covered with a light dusting of dry starter mix to just barely cover them, followed by a spritz to moisten the tops. Vermiculite would have been better, but I don’t have any. The herbs went into two cups each. With such tiny seeds, there’s no way to know how many I managed to sprinkle onto them. I still had seed left over, too, so if they don’t take, I can try again. The oregano really struggled last year, and I ended up with only one surviving seedling to transplant. That one plant did well, at least! They were started in the little Jiffy pellets last year, so I hope they do better in the larger cups and a different growing medium.

I decided to go ahead and plant the last of our Purple Beauty seeds, which are two year old seeds. The first time we planted them was a year of drought and heat waves, and they did very poorly. Last year, what was planted in that bed also struggled, so I think it’s more a problem with the soil in that bed. I split the last 7 seeds of Purple Beauty between two cups.

The Sweet Chocolate peppers were the one pepper that we were actually able to harvest mature peppers from last year, and they were also the only ones I started quite early. We saved seed from them, too, but there was still plenty in the packet, so I used those. There was enough to plant three seeds into each of three cups, with plenty of seed left over. I had intended to do just two cups, like the others, but the bin they’re in for bottom watering holds 9, and I just had to fill in that last space! Yeah, it’s a bit OCD, but I have an excuse. If there are gaps in the bins, the cups tend to fall over more easily when the bins get moved around.

So these are now in the big aquarium, on the warming mat.

The next seeds don’t need to be started until the second half of March, at the earliest.

Must… resist… starting too early!!!

😂

The Re-Farmer

Ah, well.

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First, the cuteness!

PBC has settled in so quickly – and very quickly discovered the cats’ window shelf on my craft table! What a cutie. Some human will be very lucky to have her. 🩷

I made it out today to do a bit of shopping. It was absolutely gorgeous today. We even reached -2C/28F! That’s warm enough for snow to be melting off the roof of the house and the garage. When I was in the sun room to feed the yard cats for the evening, I actually found it too warm, so I checked the thermometer on the wall. It was at about 16C/61F!!!

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were running low on kibble and, for the price difference, it was worth the cost of gas to go to the nearest Walmart. Since I was there anyhow, I looked for other things as well. My first stop was a Canadian Tire, where I found some replacement trays for under my next seed starts. The ones I have in the house are cracked and, with the platform set up in the sun room, I can’t get at the ones stored in there. They also had a variety of grow lights, including a smaller one that would fit over our small aquarium greenhouse perfectly, but I didn’t have the budget for it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to pick it up next month. There were some affordable standard bulb sized grow lights available, but we don’t have lamps suitable to use them.

After getting some kibble and a few other items at the Walmart, I decided to also check out a Dollarama nearby. They’re just starting to get their gardening and Easter supplies, so it was filled with unpacked boxes. The few gardening items on the shelf were not the sorts of things I could use. I did, however, spot a toy/scratch pad in the pet section I decided to get two of. It’s one of those round rings with a ball trapped in it for the cats to play with, but the middle has one of those corrugated cardboard scratch pads. The scratching posts we have now are pretty much destroyed, so I figured it was worth a try! One of them went upstairs, since the girls have no cat toys or scratching posts at all up there. Hopefully, it will help reduce some of the damage!

The stores were very busy, and rather loud, so it wasn’t until I got my phone to send a message home, letting them know I’d be on my way, that I saw a message from the Cat Lady. She was asking when I’d be in this city next – our usual half-way meeting spot is next to the Dollarama. I told her I was already there, and was just finishing up. Unfortunately, the timing wasn’t right, and we weren’t able to connect. Which is unfortunate, because she’s got a kibble donation for us! Four 7k bags. I don’t expect to be there again until next month, since the next time we’ll be doing any major shopping, it’ll be our stock up shopping in the larger city. However, I told her to let me know when’s good for her. My schedule is flexible, and for that much donated cat food, it’s more than worth the drive to meet her!

But not tomorrow.

While I was out, my mother called. I called her back, and we now have an arrangement for me to go over tomorrow afternoon and do her grocery shopping and run some errands in the afternoon. I might come over earlier and bring a lunch, though by the end of the conversation, I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle. As we were talking, she mentioned that she was about to cook up a package of ground beef I brought for her, from our quarter beef. She started saying how that amount of meat should last her for about a week, because she’s avoiding eating meat, so she doesn’t get fat.

My mother is already fat, and has been for as long as I can remember. It’s never slowed her down. It still doesn’t slow her down, even with her knees wrecked from a car accident!

I told her that, at 92 years, that’s not something she should be worried about. Just eat well, and beef is some of the healthiest meat out there. To which she responded that she could see how “healthy” it is just by looking at me and my daughters. Then she started laughing like she’d made the best joke, ever.

I told her, there was nothing funny about what she’d said (my daughters both have PCOS, which is something she couldn’t begin to understand), and pointed out that she was using our conversation to insult us for no reason. She started to justify by saying, well, we eat lots of meat, so that must be why we’re so fat. I told her no, we don’t eat lots of meat. We eat too much bread and pasta and rice (who can afford to eat lots of meat these days, when you’re not in a position to raise it yourself??). I wasn’t going to bother telling her that the girls eat almost no meat at all, though they do eat seafood when they can. She wouldn’t believe me, anyhow. I called her out, again, on her going out of her way to insult us. She back tracked and started to say how she shouldn’t worry about what we do; we’re all adults now.

This from the person who would justify trying to run every aspect of our lives by saying, “I’m still the mama” so that gives her the right to try to control us. Not hust my own family, but my older brother’s as well. Strangely, she doesn’t do it with my sister, but she sure does try to play us against each other!

Ugh. I need to stop that train of thought. I’m starting to dread going over there now. Honestly, she’s been pretty good lately. Either that, or I’ve gotten better at redirecting her.

But then, I haven’t told her that I’ve given up sugar and simple carbs for Lent again this year. Last year, she mocked me about it, every time we were together, when I kept refusing all the high carb food she kept insisting I eat. She was even offering me sugar for my tea, which she never did any other time. She makes a big deal about staying away from sugar because of her diabetes (she’s not diabetic), so she never takes sugar in her tea, therefore she doesn’t think that anyone else might want it. Which is fine. I have no problem drinking most teas without sugar. It’s when she starts offering the bland cookies, carrot muffins or whatever crackers she has on hand at the time, to go with that tea. Things that, to her, don’t taste very sweet, therefore they don’t have much sugar in them. Except they do. She also doesn’t get that her whole wheat bread is still “sugar” – and she eats a LOT of bread!

Which is fine. It’s only irritating because she insisting things like eating meat makes her feel bad, so it must be bad for her – while continuing to eat foods that contribute to her acid reflux, and when she gets heartburn, she thinks she’s having a heart attack. I’ve printed out a whole list of foods, colour coded and everything, to help her remember which ones can contribute to these pains, and which ones won’t, but she just ignores it, keeps on complaining and blaming whatever other foods that the TV or magazines, or people in her building, told her are “bad”.

*sigh*

It’s really hard to help my mother, when she sabotages our efforts. She does that as much with her health issues as she does with our vandal! I can’t even say this is part of her ageing, though we are definitely seeing increased cognition issues. She’s been like this for as long as my brother can remember, and he’s almost 10 years older than me!

Ah, well. It is what it is. Hopefully, tomorrow, she will be having one of her good days, and things will go smoothly.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: first peppers!

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I went to bottom water the seed trays and turn the lights over them for the night, when I made a happy discovery. Our first Cheyenne hot peppers have sprouted!

The peppers are in the row of cells on the left. It’s hard to see, but there is a second one barely visible in the cell at the top of the photo, just breaking ground!

Now that those are starting to sprout, I’ve unplugged the heat mat. Tomorrow, I want to set up the mini-greenhouse frame near the window and above the heat vent – we’ve got some shelves to move out of the way, but we now have a portable AC unit stored in the living room that we might have to move, too. Once these trays are out, the next batch of seeds will be started and set up in the aquarium greenhouses.

One nice thing about using those fruit and vegetable trays for starting seeds. They have a smaller, round space in the middle that had either a container of dip in it, or some strawberries, that’s not deep enough to plant anything in. I’ve got their lids under the trays, which is handy, as they have recesses that fit each section of the trays, but there’s not a lot of space to reach for bottom watering. Instead, I’ve made drainage holes in the empty spaces in the middle, and pour the water in there. They then drain slowly into the lids below. Bottom watering from above! 😁

The red onions are still very sparsely emerging, and not very many of them, so I want to put them into the big aquarium for at least a few days. 

Once everything is ready, I’ll have to make some decisions on what long season seeds to start next. Some herbs, for sure, but they don’t need to be in the remaining new tray with the larger cells. I want to save that for larger seeds. I should have room enough to start some tomatoes, I think. I don’t think they all need to be started this early, though. I’ll probably start more peppers, too. Yes, they are supposed to be short season varieties, but the only ones we had a really good harvest with last year were the ones we started much earlier. I don’t want to start as many pepper or fresh eating tomato seeds this time; we had such a high germination rate last year, we ended up giving away lots. Space for the trays will be an issue this year, as we were gifted a nice big armchair that is now the most comfortable chair in the house – but now we don’t have room for how I set up an extra “table” for seed trays like we did last year!

Setting up the living room as the cat free zone has become way too handy. The room is getting way too full of things we need to protect from the cats, because our house plants and seed trays!

The Re-Farmer

G.I.C. video: seeds to start in February

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When it comes to deciding what seeds to start indoors, and when, your frost dates are more important than your zone. Gardening in Canada talks about what to start now, whatever zone you are in.

We’ve got our onions,shallots, eggplants and hot peppers started (even though the hot peppers are supposed to be a short season variety). Next up, I have herbs to start.

We don’t have luffa seeds to try this year; I will buy more to try again next year. I’m debating whether I want to try any gourds this year. I’m not sure how many beds we will have access to this year. I think I should skip them this year and focus more of the edibles than things I am growing for crafting purposes.

What about you? If you have a garden, what are you trying – or skipping – this year?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: T&T seeds are in, plus some updates

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This morning, I headed out to drive my mother to her doctor’s appointment. It really sucks to not be able to use her car right now, because it’s a real struggle for her to get into the truck, even with the foot stool. She finds it easier to get out, and refuses the foot stool completely, preferring to use her walker for support.

I’m certainly glad my shoulder is all healed up, because I had to help boost her up into the truck! Something I could not have managed, just a few days ago.

Once in the truck, though, she was happy as a clam! She commented on how nice it looks inside, and how smooth the ride is, compared to her car. I think she finds the seat more comfortable too.

At the doctor, she got the referral she was there for. The doctor was supposed to give her a physical exam, but my mother couldn’t even get up the step to go onto the examination table, so that was skipped. My mother will get either a call or letter about an appointment in the city to see a specialist, and the wait should not be long.

After that, she was up to stopping for lunch before heading home. I didn’t stay long after dropping her off; mass on TV was about to start, and she watches every day. Plus, I wanted to stop at the grocery to pick up an ingredient we were missing for my daughter, who wants to use the last of our winter squash to make a pie, and my husband sent me a message saying we had parcels to pick up at the post office.

Along with the parcels, my seed order from T&T Seeds was in.

It took several tries to get a photo without a cat photo bombing me!! 😄

The potatoes will be shipped in the spring, but they included a pamphlet on how to handle their various types of perishables with the seeds.

Based on what the package says, with our June 2 average last frost date, the tomatoes can be started indoors in the first half of April, and the winter squash can be started indoors at the beginning of May. Both say 80 days, though, and our growing season from last frost in the spring, to first frost in September, is 100 days. Technically, we could direct sow both of them! I don’t think I’d want to take that chance, though.

I must say, it’s very hard not to buy more seeds right now! The McKenzie Seed displays are out, and they are everywhere. Even some gas stations have them! As soon as I walk in somewhere – like the grocery store, today – and see the displays, I just zoom right in and start looking. We have so many different seeds, and for many we also have several varieties, so there’s really not been anything in the displays that I would get, that we don’t already have. About the only thing I really find myself looking for is sugar snap peas. We have lots of seeds for shelling peas. The first year we grew peas, we grew both types, but that was the drought/heat wave year, and the snap peas barely survived.

With everything melting outside right now, and the rest of the winter expected to be mild in our area, who knows. We might be able to get things started earlier than usual! At the very least, we should be able to get to work on the building more trellis tunnel beds and reworking others. early. There are seeds that can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked, even if there are frosts later on, so I’d quite like to have some of those started, nice and early! Things like the peas, which I want to plant in the bed the popcorn was planted in, last year, to get some nitrogen back into that soil, spinach and onions.

I so looking forward to getting outside and back to work again!

The Re-Farmer