Apples to apples

July 24, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While checking on the apple trees along the garden, I couldn’t help but notice just how different they are.

They are all crab apples, but I know nothing about the varieties. I don’t know where my parents got them from.

This first batch of pictures are from different trees, with my hand there to give perspective. (click on them to see bigger images)

At least one tree was pruned back so severely, it is not producing any apples at all. I am not sure if it will survive to next year.

There is another at the far then that has two large trunks that are mostly dead, surrounded by suckers have have been allowed to get quite large. I am debating what to do with it. I am thinking to just take out the dying trunks completely, while choosing one, maybe two, of the strongest suckers to leave behind, and cutting away the rest.

As for the pruning done last year, I believe what was cut away are dead and dying parts, because most of them still need to have their branches thinned out. I will also look at thinning the apples on some of them, so the remaining ones will have more room to grow, and to take some weight off of the branches.

This next photo is from one of the ornamental apples by the old kitchen flower garden.

From what my mother told me, these apples remain quite small and are not edible.

The next photo is from a very old crab apple tree, near the ornamental apples.

This is the one that, as I was mowing the lawn as a teen, I would go under the branches, grab about 5 or 6 apples, and eat them while I continued mowing. By the time I worked my way back to the tree, I was finished eating one batch and ready to grab some more! They were to very tart, and I loved that. The apples in the photo are about the size they were when I did that. So not ripe at all! :-D

The next photos are from another tree near the ornamental apples.

It has two main trunks that are looking very dead. One has a lone branch reaching to one side, with a few leaves at the end, and a single apple.

It’s probably the largest apple of all the ones I looked at today!

From what I can see, there are no other apples from this trunk.

This next photo is from the other side of the tree.

I would say that these are two, completely different trees!

And yet, they are together…

This is the base of that apple tree. I wonder if it was grafted at some point? I can’t really tell.

I think the larger trunk on the right in the photo is actually completely dead. The branches are so entwined, it’s hard to say for sure.

What I will likely do, probably in the fall, is simply cut out the two big trunks completely, and leave behind the strongest looking of the young growth.

One of the things my mother had but never used is a juicer. I can see us making good use of that when it’s time to harvest the apples!

The Re-Farmer

Bloom time

July 20, 2018July 20, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

When we moved out here to take care of the farm for my mother, one of the things we knew is that this first year would be a year of discovery. With the yard in particular, I wanted to get an idea of what was growing where. Sure, my mother could fill in a few details, but she hasn’t lived here in a few years, and isn’t going to remember everything.

As summer progresses, and things come to bloom in their seasons, I am making more and more of these discoveries.

This is at the base of one of the dead spruce trees I’d pulled a whole triffid of vines out of, not long ago. When I was going around here with the weed trimmer, I avoided this area, partly because I could tell it wasn’t just a whole lot of overgrown crab grass and weeds, partly because I wasn’t sure what was hidden in it. I’m glad I left it. :-)

The main garden area is completely overgrown right now, much to my mother’s dismay, but I did try to explain to her that I wanted to see what was there.

In the middle of some tall grass and burdock that I’d pulled, there is this splash of colour. There is another next to it that’s more white than pink. Just the two of them, in a sea of grass!

I will see about transplanting these somewhere, to salvage them, later on.

There were a couple of areas with a lot of thistles that I pulled when they were larger (easier to pull), but I didn’t get all of them. There is another type of thistle, with fewer but larger leaves and spines, that grows much larger flower heads.

The bees and butterflies love them.

There’s only a couple of these big thistles. I will leave them for the insects and pull them out just before they go to seed.

There were many more random flowers and raspberries (I picked almost 2 cups of raspberries while taking these photos – far more than I expected to get out of them!) growing in between the trees in the maple grove, including in areas where I’d already used the weed trimmer.

The girls and I have been talking about what we’d like to do, and it turned out we’re all on the same page. When things are cleaned and cleared out, we want to plant, in some areas, a variety of wildflowers and bulbs that will naturally spread. The rows of trees are not the same distance apart, so I’m thinking of keeping the widest area clear, and planting between the rows that are closer together. If we’re careful about what we select, we can encourage them in these areas to not only make it look pretty, but to reduce maintenance. No grass to mow or weeds to trim. We’ll just have to make sure there is plenty of grassy areas, too (or maybe moss) to walk in. Plus, I’d like my husband to be able to enjoy the space, too, and not have to worry about getting stung, since he’s allergic to stings.

Finding that balance, and thinking years into the future, will be the key in deciding what we do. We don’t want to be in the same situation, years down the road, that we are in now with the spirea and the vines!

Until then, we’ll just enjoy the blooms as we find them!

The Re-Farmer

I think I’m done?

June 22, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

With today’s heat (we hit 32C today, and it stayed there for hours), I wasn’t able to get any work done in the trees and bushes until past 8pm! Even then, it was about 28C when I first started. As I write this, we’ve dropped to 25C, so it’s still quite warm.

I continued to work in the row of old lilacs I had been working on last, and I think I’m pretty much done now. By the time I stopped, it was too dark to take pictures. There is still clean up to do; the piles of what I cut and pulled away need to be cleared out of the yard, and the ground needs to be raked up of the many, many twigs and who knows what is in among the dead leaves. I wasn’t too surprised to find the odd piece of garbage at the based of trees. Things blow in from all over, and once caught, no one would have seen them to clear them out. The oddest thing I found, though, was the tray from a Hungry Man dinner. My dad loved his Hungry Man dinners! But how did a tray end up buried in leaves in the bushes? It’s not the first one I’ve found, either. I found one buried in the tall grass when I was mowing along the driveway. I can’t even suggest they came from the pile outside the yard that was being used as a garbage dump, because of how far it is, and the face that there are rows of trees and fences in between.

After this section, I will start working my way through the maple grove again. I’ll be getting into clearing some big stuff in there!

But not tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the girls and I are planning on a day trip to the city to see some movies, to celebrate my younger daughter’s birthday – and to be in air conditioning! Unfortunately, it’s going to be too long of a day for my husband to join us. :-( We considered using the time for him to visit his dad, but that would just make a long day for both of them!

When we lived in the area back in 2004, we didn’t think twice about hopping in the car and driving to the city just to see a movie. My husband used to commute to the city every weekday. Now, just getting outside is an accomplishment for him. I had hoped that living out here would help him with getting outside more, but the pain just isn’t in control enough for him to manage.

Which really sucks.

The Re-Farmer

Looking around, planning ahead

June 18, 2018June 18, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

The heat is on for the next few days, with some thunderstorms predicted by the end of the week. This will limit what we can do in the yard, and when, for a while.

After dropping my younger daughter off for her first shift at her new job, I decided to finish up the sun room. I’ve emptied it out completely, and mopped the concrete floor. I’d originally intended to take a hose to it, but there is nowhere for the water to drain.

I mopped that floor three times, with many changes of water. I swept it as much as I could, but there was just so much dust left behind!!

It is now drying, so I figured this was a good time to make a post. :-)

Yesterday was our day of rest, and I took advantage of it to just walk around, checking things out now that it’s all as green as it’s going to get, and thinking ahead.

After I finish with the area I’ve been working on for the past while, I intend to slowly work my way through the maple grove to the garden area.

There was a time when this space was a path to the garden. I think that stick next to the dead spruce tree is marking one side of where it used to be.

As you can see by the dead branches in the foreground, there’s more than dead spruces blocking the old path. There is where there are a bunch of maples that had been cut down, cut into pieces, then left there. I don’t know who started the work and then stopped part way through; for all I know, it was my late brother, which might also explain why it was left unfinished.

Before we can even start on taking down the small dead trees (the big ones will wait until we have a chain saw), I will have to clean up all the deadwood on the ground.

We’re going to have several years worth of fire wood for cookouts, by the time it’s done!

I squeezed my way through to check out the West end of the garden space. There, I discovered a huge mass of horseradish! My mother had told me she’d transplanted some there, but that the younger of my brothers had plowed too close to the pole and dug it up, so she transplanted it again, under a spruce three nearer the house. Clearly, she missed some, and it is thriving!

When I was younger, this area was pretty much all open. Now, there is a dense, virtually impenetrable wall of trees where I remember we once had a cabbage patch. From what I could see, along with the usual maple, elm and black spruce, I believe there is also some Colorado blue spruce and birch.

Unfortunately, the trees near the pole are tall enough that they are reaching the power lines! I think they are still clear enough, though, that we can safely cut them down without hitting the the lines. At the very least, we will need to thin the area down. It is so dense, everything is fighting for survival. I can tell quite a bit of it is deliberately planted, such as the Colorado blue spruce (not a native species) and the row of birches, plus the rows of black spruce, but I’m pretty sure there is quite a bit that is self sown. Some of the black spruces, perhaps, and most likely the maples and elms. I am hoping to save as much as I can; the birches look pretty good, but I will likely be removing 2 out of every 3 trees in the rows of spruces. Though just removing the dead ones might achieve the same goal. I would really like to save the Colorado blues.

A number of years ago, the Canadian government was encouraging people living on farms to plant more trees and shelter belts. They had a program where people could sign up and order all kinds of trees, shipped to them for free. I have no idea if this program is still available, but I know lots of people took advantage of it. I am thinking that this is how my parents ended up planting so many of the trees I’m finding, including the shelter belt outside of the yard, along where the cow fence is now.

After checking this area out, I took a look at the North fence line. At this end, there are a number of trees that look like they were deliberately planted, along with some obvious self-sown ones. There is a gap between the big trees and the fence line, which is good. I’d like to clear that gap, so that the fence is accessible. Once the lilac hedge starts, though, I couldn’t see the the fence line at all, and couldn’t tell if there was a space between the bushes and the fence. While walking along the lilacs to try and see, I did find a couple of chokecherry trees.

There are quite a few berries forming, though a lot of them seem to have insect damage to them. We shall see how they do throughout the season.

Eventually, I found a gap in the lilacs and went to see how close to the fence line they are and found…

… some mystery wire.

I have no idea what kind of wire this is, other than it is NOT fence wire. I can’t even see anything nearby that it might be from, or that might explain why it is here.

Something else I’m going to have to clear out and add to the haul-away pile.

The lilacs, meanwhile, are well into the fence line. Not going to be able to clear a path out. Ah, well.

As I was finishing up, I went past a bush my mother planted by the clothes line platform. I had ruthlessly pruned it down, because it was in the way of trying to hang things on the line.

It seems to have like the pruning, because it is now completely dense with foliage, and covered with flower buds, including one early bloomer!

Based on how many buds I’m seeing, by the time this bush is in full bloom, we’ll hardly be able to see any leaves at all; it’ll be a mass of white!

I’m rather looking forward to seeing that.

Well, I think the sun room floor has had enough time to dry. Now I have to decide what to put back, and what will have to go into storage!

By the end of the day, we should finally have a usable sun room. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: before

June 13, 2018June 13, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I plan to work my way down the front of the row of trees and bushes in the West yard, from the fire pit area towards the flower garden. I’ve started at the linden tree at one end. Here are the areas I will work on next.

Like the maple and spruce groves, when I was a kid, I used to be able to mow in between the trees and bushes here.

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Nearest the linden and plum trees I’ve already cleared is this tree. I don’t know what it is, but a lot of the leaves are turning yellow with black spots on them. I’ve done a quick search, and it might be a fungal disease. If so, I might have to do some serious work on it – but first I have to get to it through the undergrowth!

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I’m going to have to somehow get to that dead tree in the middle of some false spirea and… some other bush. I think the dead tree used to be another plum.

I like the false spirea. Really, I do! But my goodness, they are invasive!

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This crab apple tree seems to be doing okay. It’s got lots of bitty apples starting, no bigger than rose hips right now. It is still going to be needing some pruning…

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More self-sown false spirea at the end if this row, and you can see some of the deadwood on the crab apple tree.

Also, I think you can see some surviving lilacs.

You can’t see them in any of the other pictures, but there used to be two rows of lilacs behind all these trees and bushes. I remember how, at the end where the linden tree is now, the two rows of lilacs formed a natural tunnel that I used to be able to crawl into.

Now, I’m not sure how many of them have survived, blocked as they are from the sun by the overgrowth.

I hope to start cleaning up these areas over the next few days, weather willing.

The Re-Farmer

Ready to Go, and a nice surprise

June 10, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today, my older daughter and I confirmed that the mower would fit in the back of our van, took out the seats, emptied it of my crates of supplies (we kept the emergency kit and cooler of van water, though), and loaded it up.

I won’t be taking it to the shop until they open on Tuesday. I had thought of dropping it off tomorrow, but my brother tells me they don’t have a secure drop off point.

Which means the mower, with an almost full tank of gas, will be in the van for two nights and a day, in the heat we are having again.

I made sure to open the windows a fair bit. Plus, we still haven’t replaced the handle on the garage door (I finally got some replacement cable for it), so it’s wide open. No chance of accumulated fumes.

Earlier in the day, I went into town with my younger daughter so she could drop off some resumes, and we could pick up a few things at the grocery store. There’s a hardware store next to it, so I popped over for a bit. Turns out they don’t have fan rakes, but they did have metal roasting sticks. So I picked up a few for our next cook out. :-)

My mom called while we were out, so I called her back as soon as we got home. She was wondering how we were doing in this heat (we were hovering around 30C today), and telling us that if we open the basement doors, we would get cool air. I remember doing that, when I was growing up here. It works very well. Unfortunately, we can’t do that until we’ve cleaned up the basements. The old part basement is pretty good, but the new part basement is filled with all sorts of breakable things (years of accumulated jars and booze bottles, spare florescent light tubes, etc.), and way too many hidey holes that the cats would get into.

While we were talking, I told her about the different areas I’ve been working on. I found out that she did, indeed, deliberately plant those little spruce trees at the fence line. Why there, I ask her. Where else? she answers. :-D So I bring up that, when the trees are full grown, they will destroy the fence. Oh, by the time they’re that big, she says, it won’t matter. I think she was implying the fence would be old, or would be replaced before then? I’m not sure. I told her I will be transplanting them, once I find a good place of them. Much to my surprise, she just said not to worry about them for now. Considering that, earlier in the conversation, when I told her I cleaned up around her white lilacs, she thought that meant I had cut them down, this is a good thing. :-D

Then I mentioned wanting to clean up the bushes growing around the other house.

In the past, these false spirea had covered the old stairs on both sides, as the wood rotted away. I remember this because, when we made a road trip to visit family after getting our first van, I had tried to go to the door and a step gave out under me! Now there are nice strong steps, and I want to keep them well maintained.

Which means cutting back the spirea. Plus, I’ll be thinning away the dead branches, etc.

As I tell my mother this, she asks me how her vines are doing.

Vines?

All I could think of were the vines I’ve been finding all over the place, choking out trees and bushes.

No. Vines. She had planted them by the steps. How are they doing?

Well, I did notice what appeared to be dead vines in the spirea, which I thought were the same vines I’ve been getting rid of all over. That was not what she was talking about.

Then she mentioned she’d actually picked from them.

Picked what? Berries? I had no idea what she was talking about. The only vines I’ve seen don’t have berries.

Finally, she remembered the English word for them; grapes.

We have grapes?!?

That’s on my list of food plants, too, but at the bottom of the list, since they need a lot more tending than most plants.

I told her I didn’t remember seeing any, and perhaps the spirea had choked them out? I told her I would check.

Which I did.

Lo and behold, there are, indeed, vines growing that aren’t the ones we’ve been fighting for the past while.

Not only that…

… there are even little baby grapes started!

I will have to ask my mom if she remembers what kind they are, so I can look up how to properly care for them. There are not a lot of varieties of grapes that are hardy enough for our growing zone, so even if she doesn’t, I should be able to figure it out.

I do know that they shouldn’t be the way they are now! If possible, I would want to transplant them to the fence, which can be used as a trellis, and they will have full sun. With judicious care, we should be able to get good harvests of grapes from them.

Oh, I am suddenly quite excited! I had no idea my mother had ever planted grapes! She’d simply never mentioned them before.

I filled in my mother about all sorts of things, from what the electric company told me about clearing the trees, and my wanting to get a quote for the job, so we know what to budget for, to progress on the flower gardens. She had a hard time understanding some of what I was telling her, sometimes. She has what she’s always done so firm in her mind, it’s hard for her to picture something different, just from a description. But it was a good conversation, overall, even if she doesn’t seem quite sure about what I am doing. When it gets to a certain point, though, she starts talking about how this is all men’s work, so she will talk to my older brother about it, so he can take care of it. We got to that point in the conversation, but I didn’t mind too much at all, since she started talking about how good my dad was about taking care of things, and how he understood electricity and plumbing and so on. Then she started talking about how women’s work was housekeeping and so on, and I just kept saying, no. Nope. No. Until she started to say, well, that’s how she and my dad did things, and that worked for them, but others might do it differently.

Yay, Mom! That right there was a HUGE step for her, and I am so proud of her. :-)

It was a good conversation.

Later on, while talking to my older brother, he told me he’d just talked to our mom as well. At one point during their conversation, he told me that my mom expressed her satisfaction with how we are taking care of the place.

She would never tell me that to my face, of course, but I don’t expect her to. For her to say it to my brother, however, is another HUGE step, and I am so proud of her. :-)

I am happy that we are able to take care of this place for her. It takes a big burden off of her shoulders, and it’s been pretty good for us, too (as much as possible, under the circumstances! :-D ). She was having a hard time with letting go, which is understandable. If she is reaching the point where she is able to start trusting that we know what we’re doing, even if it’s different than how she did things, that will also reduce stress for her.

Win, win! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Morning Cats, and shopping day

May 30, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

I want to start by sharing some photos of the cats this morning. Because it’s a great way to start the day!

Like waking up to this…

Actually, I woke up to see her sitting there, staring at me. :-D The cats really appreciate the extra thickness of the window sill, thanks to the log walls in the original part of the house. They’d love to get up onto the other window, too, which is much, much bigger, but it’s the one that didn’t get replaced. Which means it still has sheets of plexiglass covering them on the inside, so there’s nowhere they can sit at. Which drives them bonkers, when the outside cats are in the trees outside the window, looking in. :-D

Speaking of outside cats…

With all the rain we’ve been having, I moved the food bowls under the little roof over the basement window. They actually seem to prefer when the kibble gets a bit wet; likely softer on their teeth. “A bit wet” is not what’s been happening, lately. Which is a good thing!

When I came out this morning, Squishum (not in the picture) was all talkative, squeaking away as if wanting attention, but still won’t let me come near. Nasty Crime Boy, Beep Beep and Butterscotch were content to ignore me to come to the food.

The Hand, on the other hand…

…would not go to the food while I was around! I took this through the screen door of the sun room, after bringing back the container I use to take food to the bowls. She would only peak her head around the corner of the shelf outside, watching to see what I would do. I was able to move my phone enough to get more than just her head, but she was not comfortable with me being there and slunk away to the clothes line platform to wait for me to leave.

I don’t want to prevent her from eating, so I left.

I so want to touch that cat! :-D

Instead, I got to touch the Butterscotch!

I even got a decent picture of her! She makes it very difficult. :-D

I wandered around the East side of the house and did a bit of weeding to free up some irises that are coming up. Looking into the spruce grove, I just had to get another picture.

Remember this?

That photo was taken on May 15. The leaves are barely coming out at this point.

This is what it looks like, today.

That broken piece of tree in the first picture is still there, in the left side of the photo. Completely hidden from where I was standing, and barely visible even at other angles.

That horseradish is coming up nicely, too.

In time, that underbrush will be cleared mostly away, and the dead tree will be cut down. Likely not this year, though. I think we will focus on cleaning up the maple grove, first. At least as much as we can, until we have a working chain saw.

My goal is to have both the maple and spruce groves open under the trees, park-like and mow-able. I would like us to, at the very least, be able to walk through the trees without having to skirt dead branches, dead trees and other detritus. Including my husband, with his walker. Maybe set up a picnic table or something in the shade, so we can enjoy the spaces more.

Little by little, we will get there.

Late this morning, my older daughter and I made the trip into the city for our monthly bulk shopping trip. Our usual routine is to stop at the town we drive though on the way, to fill the tank. The gas station we stop at is a co-op we have a membership with, which will translate into a check at the end of the year, so we make it a habit. When we got there, however, I got the nasty surprise of seeing the gas prices had gone up 10¢ per liter. !!! Our tank was lower than I normally let it go (we drove over 1800km since I filled it and reset the trip counter at the end of last month), so I kind of had to put something in. I ended up putting in $30, which didn’t even bring it to half a tank. While paying for it, I asked when the big jump happened. Turned out to be a mere 2 hours before we got there!

When we finished our Costco shopping, I filled the tank there. The price was 14¢ per litre less! Plus, since it’s Costco, that will also be included in the check we’ll get at the end of the year. Even at the lower price, and having already put in $30 of gas and bringing it to just below the half way mark, it still cost over $60 to fill the tank. That’s almost half our gas budget for the month, right there. Thankfully, our van does have good mileage.

The increases in gas prices are really going to be a problem. The politicians can talk about how we should be using alternative transportation all they want. Even in the city, that’s not always feasible. For anyone living in the country, what choice do we have? It’s not like there’s a bus we can hop on, and we certainly can’t bike to the city to do our monthly grocery shopping. Or even to the next town. Plus, most people have multiple vehicles, because they are work tools, not just transportation. Heaven help those who make the commute to the city! When we last lived out here, my husband had a 70 minute commute, one way. That’s highway driving, for the most part, so it wasn’t affected by traffic until the last 10 minutes or so. I know others who have longer commutes. Back then, it was a big deal when gas prices went higher than 60¢ a litre. Now we’re looking at $1.309 (there are about 4L in a gallon, for those of you in the US. That works out to about $5.24 per gallon), and other areas are even higher.

That’s going to make life more difficult for a lot of people. :-(

We got the monthly shopping done, at least. $600 later. :-/ My splurge of the month was new wiper blades for the van, to replace the ones being held together with electric tape. :-D Tomorrow, we go to the regular grocery store to get the things we don’t need to buy in bulk.

It feels good to have well stocked cupboards, fridge and freezer again!

The Re-Farmer

I found them!

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

With this wonderful rain we’ve been having, there has been so much new growth.

When I had the chance to go around the house with the weed trimmer, I found a lovely surprise.

The horseradish has emerged.

In two places!

I found the first one in the end of the flower garden, where we’ve been putting feed out for the birds and deer. I had just moved the bird feeder stand into that area, shifting about to find the most steady spot for it, and it was most certainly not there, just a few days ago.

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In fact, it’s growing out in one of the first spots I’d set the stand. If it had been a bit more level around there, the base of the stand would have been right on top of it!

The other greenery, my mom tells me are weeds.

I now know which spruce tree by the house my mom meant, when she told me where she transplanted the horseradish intentionally.

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It’s partly hidden by saplings and other growth.

Both areas have been cleared up a bit with the weed trimmer; some of it, I’ll have to come back with the pruning shears I found.

Using one of the 100 ft extension cords my older brother gifted to us, so we could have electricity to plug in our van in the winter, was enough for me to go around much of the house, as well as most of the south end of the yard. There were just a couple of places I couldn’t reach.

While working around one area by the fence, I saw a frog hopping in the grass. A wood frog, which is very common around here. I wasn’t able to get a picture, though. Ah, well. We may not see them much, but we sure hear them a lot, in the evenings!

I was glad to get the trimming done, but it was so muggy, my face was just dripping, even though I wasn’t exerting myself at all. It wasn’t even particularly hot – only about 18C.

There had been predictions of more rain this afternoon, but that seems to have changed. After that, there’s no rain predicted until more storms are supposed to arrive on Wednesday, so we should have time to mow the lawn and build that gate. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Status after storms and rain

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 / Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

This morning, I made a point of walking around the yard to see if there was any damage from the storms. We’re all still very wet – enough that our sump pump has actually turned on! – and everything is so wonderfully green!

First order of business was to clean out the cat food containers, which were full of water logged kibble.

I had several cats come out to see what I was doing.

None of them were co-operative when it came to getting their pictures taken! :-D

I was very pleased at what the flower garden I’ve been working on looked like.

Absolutely none of the uncovered cardboard blew away. I am quite surprised, really. With the winds we had for a while, I’m surprised quite a lot of things didn’t blow away!

No roof damage. No dead branches fallen down – at least not in the yard. Just some small branches and twigs.

We’re getting to where we should be mowing the lawn soon. We’re expecting more rain today, but even without more rain, the grass is far too wet. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get it done on Monday.

Not that there is much grass to mow.

The above photo is of the yard to the east of the house, between the house and a flower garden on that side (though that “flower” garden is now mostly bushes). On the far side of this garden, there is better grass.

The above photo is the west section of the yard, near the fire pit. Mostly moss, some weeds, and very little actual grass.

The north side of the yard has a dead patch that perfectly corresponds with the overhanging maple branches above. Hmm. Do you think there’s a correlation? LOL

The south areas of the yard has more grass, especially on the south east, but under the Chinese Elm by the kitchen, it’s more weeds and dirt than grass.

That tractor tire is an interesting bit of decor. ;-D

At some point, though not likely this year, we will work to improve the lawn. Even if it’s to move to a ground cover rather than grass. Some areas are sparse because vehicles get driven in to the door fairly regularly, so I wouldn’t expect anything to do well in those areas.

One thing I was seeing a lot of were black ant hills, like these. The one in the middle was the biggest I saw. Most were like the tiny bundle of soil to the left of it. They’re not good to have in the yard, since they destroy root systems with their digging, but I’m not too worried about them at this point.

Our plans for the day will depend a lot on the weather, but I do hope we’ll still get some outside work done. I had been thinking of building a new barb wire gate for the other driveway, and we still might start preparations for it (like seeing if we can salvage the wood fence posts in the flower garden to replace the rotting posts in the existing barb wire gate) today. We shall see how it works out.

Little by little, it’s getting done. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Sun Room Cats

May 20, 2018 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This evening, I decided to spend a bit of time in the sun room, leaving the door open to see if any cats came to join me.

They did, of course.

Including this strange cat…

My first thought was that it was The Hand, whom I rarely see and stays away, but quickly realized the patterning was all wrong. Yet, I still felt I should know this cat.

Then a (suddenly skinny) Butterscotch came by, and clearly they were familiar with each other.

As the cat slunk into the doorway, I realized…

The strange patterning was dirt. It was Squishum!

The cats LOVE rolling in the dirt, but this is the first time one got dirty enough that I no longer recognized it. :-D

Squishum and Butterscotch hardly came into the door, but Butterscotch was more adventurous, coming all the way in and exploring behind the stuff that still needs to be taken to the storage shed.

Nasty Crime Boy also explored the room, including spending time in one of his favourite places; my dad’s old walker.

When my mom came out yesterday, she borrowed the walker to get around the yard. At one point, I looked over to see the walker sitting outside the sun room, while my mom was inside, and it was covered in cats. Two on the seat, and one in the basket! :-D

Trüllbus the Crime Eater is looking like he’s shouting “Ah! Something under the door has got me!”

Though it was evening, the sun room was very hot. Once we get it cleared out and set up the way we want, I can picture spending some late evenings in there, enjoying the residual warmth, long after the sun goes down.

I can also foresee using the room as a greenhouse to start seeds in late winter, for transplanting in the spring.

We won’t work on it until the yard is cleaned up enough that it can be mowed. The grass is starting to get to that point!

While in the sun room, I plugged in the weed whacker I found in there and tested it out. It doesn’t work. :-( There’s another one in the garage, but my older brother pointed out to me where it was broken, so it’s not usable, either.

I guess we’re going to buy our own, after all. :-/

The Re-Farmer

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