planning ahead

Hoop Jumping, discoveries and tech upgrades

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Since moving out here, there have been quite a few things that we’ve tried to do that needed unusual hoop jumping.  The most severe being our issues with transferring our identification, but another has been getting an internet connection.  Since we couldn’t afford to have a minimum 60ft tower installed, we had to go with satellite internet, and then ended up needing to get two accounts, because it was cheaper than going over our data limit.  Satellite internet has more speed limitations, too.  Our internet provider, however, recently gained access to another satellite and could offer higher upload and download speeds, with less interruptions, so we signed up for it.  Someone was scheduled to come in this afternoon to switch it for us.

Before that happened, we got to work on our daughters’ taxes.  In Canada, we have until April 30 to file.  Normally, we just do the TurboTax thing, but it had issues with my husband’s disability information.  So he and I have taken our tax information to the tax preparer in the next town.  This guy (it’s a family business) has done the taxes for my parents for as long as I can remember, and still does them for my mother.  Probably my brother who lives out here, too.  We’d gone to him when we lived out here years ago, so it was a bit funny to be going back to him again, after all these years.

Our daughters, however, should have been able to just do theirs as usual, right?

Wrong.

Turns out that they can’t file their taxes online, because of the new address.

They can’t log onto the Government of Canada website to change their address, because they’ve never needed to start accounts on the site before, and to start one, they needed information from last year’s taxes.  Which was lost when we lost my husband’s desktop computer after the move.

The alternative is to phone Canada Revenue.  The website says to change the address online, or call a 1-800#, providing a list of the information that would be needed.  One of my daughters called the number, got the automated system, went through the whole thing, only to have a recording tell her to go do it online.

Of course, the reason for phoning was because doing in online wasn’t an option.

Which meant they couldn’t file their taxes.

In the end, we gathered their tax stuff, drove into town and dropped it off with the same guy that’s doing mine and my husband’s.

The tax preparer’s wife took their stuff and got their information onto envelopes.  As we were chatting, she made an observation on how much my younger daughter resembles her grandfather (my husband’s dad).  Until then, I had forgotten that he’d done my in-laws’ taxes, too!

That done, we didn’t stay in town long.  Sadly, it seems one of my daughters has caught my cold.  I’m still sick as well, though I am getting better – the coughing fits are still a problem – so being out and about was pushing things.

Speaking of pushing things, before we headed out, I started to gather up some of the branches and twigs in the yard, now that the snow is gone.  There is a LOT of them.  In the process, I made a discovery.

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These little spruce trees were deliberately planted, right by the fence.

I don’t get it.

First off, why are two spruce trees planted in the middle of the fence line like that in the first place.  There are already quite a number of mature maples there, including a couple that will need to be pruned away from the power line to the house, as well as trimmed so that, once the leaves come in, they won’t be blocking our satellite signal.  You can see part of the row of maples on the other side of the fence.  The fence line used to be on the other side of those trees with a gate to the pump shack – the red building in the background.

Second, why so close together?  Spruces get quite large.  They should be planted anywhere from 8 – 15 feet apart.  We’re looking at less than 4 feet apart here.

And finally, why are they planted right at the fence?  As they get bigger, they will grow into and destroy the fence.

Yet there they are, with little support poles and tiny picket fences to protect them.  Initially, I’d thought maybe they seeded themselves, but the fact that they are protected like this shows that they were deliberately planted.

Why would someone deliberately plant trees in such a way that they will destroy the fence as they get bigger?

I don’t get it.

Meanwhile…

When we got back home, the internet guy was here and busily installing two new satellite dishes.

On the sunroom roof.

Oh, dear.  My old brother specifically said he didn’t want them installed on the roof.  Turns out, there was no choice.

Because of the trees.

It was the only place he could get a signal.

The old dishes were already down, and he took extra care to ensure there would be no leaking caused by the satellites.  It took him a couple of hours to finish up.  When he was done, he tested the speed at about 35mbps.  When I had the chance, I tested the wifi signal on my phone.  I got 40mbps for download speed, and 1.89mbps for upload speed.  The first is quite a lot faster than before – I think we were getting between 10-14mbps consistently.  The upload speed is almost doubled.

That should make live easier!

We also got cool looking new modems, with the black boxes replaced with white triangles. :-D

This is what we had before.

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That’s our original dish.  When we got the second account, the other dish was installed above it.

This is what we have now.

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They are aimed in a very different direction.  No wonder he couldn’t get a signal through the trees!  The other satellites were aimed through a gap between threes.  In the same location, these would have been aimed right into the trees.  From here, they are now aimed through the gap over the big gate into the yard; the one that can be driven through.  Mind you, there are still trees on either side that will need to be pruned, because they are overhanging the gate.  Plus one that’s shorter, but close enough that its branches get in the way when I have to make a wide turn into the yard.  Pruning is still in order.

I like trees.  A lot.  They are wonderful things to have, and can be very protective.  We intend to eventually plant more trees in the future.  Preferably food trees.

But they are also potential problems.  Many of the trees that have been planted in the yard seem to have been done without much thought given to what would happen, once they reached maturity.  From the Chinese Elm in front of the kitchen window, planted too close to the house with branches damaging the roof, to the pair of Chinese Elm on either side of the small gate, whose roots are now making the sidewalk blocks uneven.  Even the original maples on the north side of the house have been allowed to reach too close to the house itself; they should have been cut back many years ago, when they were smaller and it was safer to do so.

It’s going to be interesting, during our first summer living here, to get a good understanding of what all is planted around the yard, what we can keep, what needs to be gotten rid of, and possibly, what can be moved.  Those little spruce trees, at least, as small enough that they can be easily transplanted.

There is much to do here, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

 

 

 

Looking around – and critters!

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Today was another day where I didn’t get a lot of deer photos, but I did get a few good ones.  Hungry Girl was obliging in letting me get my favourite kind – silly ones!

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I have noticed that when Hungry Girl and Barbecue come over, I get very few good pictures of Barbecue, but I always seem to get lots of good ones of Hungry Girl! :-)

Here’s another…

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*childish giggle*

With things warming up today, I decided to take the camera and go for a walk after supper.  There’s still too much snow around the yard, so I went on the road.

On my way out, I discovered that the cats just LOVE those tire marks in the driveway, left behind by the movers.  Rolando Moon was enjoying one of them as I came out.

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She was rolling around in there in absolute ecstasy!  My daughters did a burn while I was walking and told me that they saw other cats rolling around in them, and rubbing their faces in the little wall of ground between the divots.  Too funny!

One of the areas I passed on the road brought many happy memories.

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It certainly doesn’t look like much now.  It’s just three sections of the ditch that are somewhat wider and deeper, so we called it the Three Ponds.  I spent so many happy hours of my childhood, slogging around barefoot in the water, often accompanied by our dog.  He fetched rocks, not sticks, and if you threw a rock into the water, he would actually dive in and get it.

We had to be careful doing that, when he’d go after rocks even in the deep water that weren’t intended for him to fetch!

He also would fetch logs.  Which is a story for another time!

In the Three Ponds, I remember looking out for frogs’ eggs, and when they finally showed up, it felt like I’d found an absolute treasure.  I would go back day after day to look at them, watching for the tadpoles to hatch.  And then I would watch the tadpoles.  I remember seeing all kinds of interesting things in the water, including bright red mites that looked like the tiniest of spiders, and walking bits of plants that I later learned were caddisfly larva.  I’d pull up bullrushes (aka cattails) and pretend I knew how to weave baskets out of the leaves (I never figured it out!), and in the fall, when their seeds were starting to come loose, I’d make big piles of the fluff on the road and wait for a car to come by and puff right through it.

It was such fun!  I look forward to seeing how pond-ish the area still is, once all the snow is gone.

Farther down the road is a sort of driveway into our field.  I don’t know that there’s a gate there or not, but there is a gap in the fence.  This is part of the farm my parents rented out when they retired from farming.

This falls into the “why this here?” category.

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Just a big ol’ tractor tire, leaning on a tree, with what looks like an inner tube draped over it.  My guess is the guy renting it had to change the tire on his tractor in the field, leaned it there and never came back for it.

I wonder how long it’s been there?

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I just thought this picture was pretty and wanted to share it with you. :-)

Walking past the wooded section of the farm, I’m seeing a lot of dead trees fallen down.  The old cattle shelter has long since collapsed, and looks like it’s been partly cleared away.  There are also a lot of parked vehicles in what used to be the hay yard.

Once the snow clears, I’m going to have to take a good look at what all is there. It would be nice if all this stuff could be cleared away, including what’s stored in the barn, so that we could maybe have animals in there again.

But that is years down the road.

The Re-Farmer

Doesn’t quite match

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Here’s a good illustration of how different micro-climates can be!

This is a picture of the thermometer outside my office window.

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That reads a VERY balmy 13C.

This is the actual temperature, in a screen shot from my phone, which is getting readings from a weather station maybe 5 miles from us.

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These were taken moments apart, shortly before 12:30.  It is now about 1:45, and the thermometer outside is reading 21C, while the weather station is reading -9C.

These little pockets of warmer temperatures are why my mother had been able to grow things that were rated for zone 5, when we live in a zone 3.  Or zone 2B, if I were to go by my Veseys catalog, which conveniently includes our hardiness zone right next to my name and address.

Granted, my mother also had two green thumbs.  Even when she was downright brutal with her plants, when it came to transplanting, tending, or even just weeding, they absolutely thrived.

These are the sorts of things we need to keep in mind when we get around to planting around our yard.  What can grow on the East side of the house (more shade, wind tunnel) is going to be very different from the West side (more sheltered, mix of sun and shade).  The main garden, to the more exposed North, is going to be very different from anything we try to plant in the more sheltered South yard.

I’ve started up a list of things we might consider planting.  I want to focus on things that produce trees, but I also want to encourage pollinators.  I’ve made up a list of flowering plants that both attract pollinators and deter deer.  I may love having the deer come and visit our living room window, but I don’t want them eating our garden!  I am thinking a border of pollinator friendly, deer deterring plants, around any areas of food plants we end up including.  My daughters and I will be making another list of vegetables.

Not for this year, I don’t think, but very likely next year, at least to start.

Any gardeners out there that have had to deal with things like this?  What sort of solutions have you come up with?

What sorts of things would you be considering, in a situation like ours?  Big yard, huge main garden area, many small garden areas, wildlife, and lots to clean up before we can start!

The Re-Farmer

A Good Day to Stay Inside!

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It was just a bit nippy out there! :-D

I posted a video, taken from the cat food area, on my Instagram showing some of the branches blown into our yard, though a few of them were there from a previous blustery day.  I took another video from the deer feeding area that I posted previously.

That was the only time any of us stepped outside today!

The wind actually managed to knock over some of the insulating foam we’ve got around the base of our house.

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I can see the one bin being blown over, as it was empty, but the other had stuff in it to weigh it down.  Plus, there were bricks holding up the foam.

It was the only area I had to fix, though.

I was holding the containers of deer feed when I took this photo.  You see those seeds on the bin and the step below it?  That was blown out from them, in just the few seconds it took me to get out my phone and take the photo!

I ended up not having to refill the cats’ food at all; I just got some of the snow out of what was already there, then refilled their water.  Only Rolando Moon braved the winds to say hello, and take a few bites…

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… and give my finger a gentle chomp, immediately after this shot was taken! :-D

The deer feeding area had only quick visits with deer, including one I didn’t recognize that came by, but didn’t go near the feed.  The area is just too exposed to the wind, I think, and they were very skittish.

I first saw what I thought was Barbecue, running away from the feed, across the garden area.  I’m pretty sure I saw Hungry Girl already ahead of him.

It turned out they were chased off, by two more deer I’ve never seen before!

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This one dared come to the feed for only a few quick mouthfuls.  I noticed the mark on its neck and, once the photos were uploaded, confirmed that it was indeed a scar.

It looks like there are antler buds on this one, too.

The other deer didn’t even get that close…

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This second one started towards the house, but only a bit.  Then they both ran off.

It wasn’t until I uploaded the photo that I saw the red mark on its inner leg.  It looks like a fairly fresh wound.

This one also seems to have antler buds starting to show.

Happily, Hungry Girl and Barbecue did come back later, but only for quick visits.  The area, however, was just full of redpolls, today, in spite of the winds!  Those little guys sure do move quick!

We humans, on the other hand, stayed warm inside.  Normally, we would have gone to church for Palm Sunday, but if it’s this windy by our house, the roads would be far worse.  Instead, my daughters baked some more bread, since we were going through the last batch so quickly.  I started a list of what we’ll need for our Easter baskets and prepared some recipes.  The girls requested I bake a special bread I used to do regularly, when opportunity allowed.  It’s very similar to challah, and I enjoy making pretty shapes with it for our basket.

Our Easter basket is based on the traditional Polish Easter baskets of my family’s tradition, which means it will be full of symbolic foods, plus a few token chocolates, if we happen to pick them up.  The bread is the centerpiece, and of course, there are lots of eggs.  We make sure to have both peeled and unpeeled eggs (no unnecessary work is to be done on Easter Sunday, including peeling eggs, if it can be avoided).  One very non-traditional way of doing eggs we’ve decided to do again is pink pickled eggs.  Those require 2-3 days to pickle in, among other things, beet juice. Sometimes we like to do herb and olive oil marinated goat cheese, but those need about a week to marinade, so it’s too late to do that this year.  The basket will also include ham, kielbasa, butter, cheese, salt, horseradish (we’ll be buying that in a jar, this year) and a few other things.

I had asked my mother again about the horseradish growing here, and this time she told me where she’d last transplanted them.

Under the spruce tree, next to the house.

I tried to get her to be more precise as to which spruce tree she meant, since there are quite a few by the house, but I never did get a clear answer.  She seemed to assume I would know exactly which tree she meant! :-D

Ah, well.  We’ll see where it comes up and will know for next year!

We make sure to have the basket ready by the end of Good Friday, so it can be assembled and taken for blessing on Saturday.  The contents are then used for our Easter brunch.  It’s one of our favorite traditions, and I’m really looking forward to it.

This tradition is huge in Polish culture (shared in Ukrainian culture, too).  I recall when our Polish priest had to finally retire for health reasons, and we got a new and younger priest that was…  I don’t know, actually.  Just “not Polish.”  :-D  When Easter came around, he announced that there would be no blessing of the baskets.  I don’t remember the exact explanation, but basically, it wasn’t “Catholic”, so it wasn’t going to be done.

Boy, did he have a revolt on his hands!

By the time the uproar was done, he was doing the basket blessings.

That priest didn’t last long.  He was a very bitter man.  I don’t know how he was ever ordained in the first place.

As far as I know, no priest assigned to this parish has ever tried to end the tradition of blessing of the baskets!

The Re-Farmer

Quiet – and critters

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Oh, how I’ve learned to appreciate quiet, boring days.

Not that today turned out to be either quiet, or boring – but it was close enough!

The temperatures dipped a bit today, but the windchill made it feel so much colder.  I was glad not to be going out, that’s for sure!  It was still pretty mild in our area.  In other areas South-West of us, I heard they were closing down the highways in some areas.

Though I was looking forward to sleeping in today – and even stayed up much later last night as well – it seems my brain had other ideas.  I ended up waking up at about the same time as I have been for the past week!  Ah, well.  It could be worse; my husband is up even earlier, every day, because it’s just too painful to be lying down.  That’s the crazy thing about back injuries.  There is no position you can stay in for any length of time before the pain forces you to shift.  So there’s that cycle of getting up, sitting down, getting up, lying down, over and over again.

My older brother was going to drive my mother to the hospital today, had she needed to go.  Since she didn’t, he just had a visit with her, instead.  It’s quite a drive for him to come out here, so that was really nice of him.  He even texted me a photo of her eye, though it didn’t come in for almost 3 hours!  Ah, the joy of cell phone dead zones.

My mother’s eye is noticeably better today; amazing how quickly it’s recovering now that she’s off that one medication.  The new medication is considered a blood thinner, too, but it doesn’t lead to bleeding the way the other one did.  She even let my brother put the brace on her leg, too!  That is such a wonderful step for her.  Now I just hope she’ll be able to get home care to help her get it on.  Theoretically, she can do it herself, but it would be very difficult to get all those straps tightened on her own without the brace shifting out of position, and it’s really important to have that knob properly aligned.

After seeing my mother, my brother came over to our place and we had a nice visit.  Plus, we checked out the door on my van.  The door that he worked so hard to replace has started to drop again when I open it.  *sigh*  It isn’t much, but after what happened previously, I’m a little paranoid about it.  We tightened the hinges again and it’s better, but it looks like it’ll be something that will need to be continually monitored.

One of the things he and I have been talking about was setting up security cameras.  I had been thinking around the house (more to capture the visiting wildlife… :-D ), but he was looking to put one above the garage door, too.  It’s the perfect spot to cover anyone coming in and out of our driveway.  So while we were still in the garage, he closed the door from the inside to look at where the cables would be coming in from a camera mounted outside.  Over there, he points out to me.  You see where that wasps’ nest is?

!!!!!

Turns out we have a fairly large wasp nest inside the peak of the roof, against the garage wall, plus there’s a row of 3 more new nests, just a couple of inches long, and what looks like the remains of other beginning nests.  It was fairly dark (since we don’t have the electricity to turn on the lights, thanks to our movers), so I couldn’t quite make out all of them.

We’d never seen them before because any time we go in the garage, it’s through the main door, which hides them when it’s open.

My husband is allergic to stings.

Those are going to have to disappear.  Preferably before it warms up enough for them to come out of hibernation.

So I’m doubly glad my brother came over!

He didn’t stay too much longer, though, as he was concerned about road conditions, but he still took the time to check out the barn, which also needs to have power restored to it again.  When we get our power pole by the garage replaced and electricity restored there, he’s arranging for the barn to get hooked up again, too.  At some point, we’ll look at restoring the water, too.  When we got running water in the house, with a new well dug in the yard, a trench had been dug towards the barn.  The pipes for the septic field, as well as for water to the barn, were installed all at the same time.  Along with a water pump in the barn, two heated water fountains had been installed for the cows, so they would always have water, even in the coldest of weather.  When, how or where all this got shut down, we don’t know, so there’s going to be some sleuthing to do before any of that is restored.

Add that to the list of things that needs to be worked on, now that we’re living here.

It’s a long list.

In the afternoon, my lovely daughters did some more bread baking, giving me a chance to catch up on my crochet.  With the blustery weather, we weren’t seeing a lot of activity at the feeding station, and what activity we did get was very quick!  I managed to get a cute bluejay photo…

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I love how they tilt their heads like that.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue came over as well.  They dashed in quickly, and seemed very antsy – probably eager to eat and then find some shelter from the wind! – so I didn’t try to take very many photos.  Seeing me in the window seemed to make them more nervous, and I didn’t want to startle them away from the food.

I did manage to get a very pretty profile picture of Hungry Girl.

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In going through my folders of photos, I’ve got quite a lot of photos like this; the deer frequently look behind the house while feeding, so many images are of them in this pose.  I never tire of seeing, them, though.  They’re so lovely!

Ah, but of course, I got some fun pictures, too!  This time, it was Barbecue to was sticking his tongue out (though from the lack of antler buds starting to show, I’m thinking he might actually be a she!).

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This one had me laughing out loud, but I think the next one is some kind of record…

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I think that’s the most tongue ever, in any of the shots I’ve managed to get over these months! :-D

They didn’t stay for much longer after this.

Tomorrow we’re technically supposed to warm up a bit, but the wind is supposed to increase, with more snow.  How much of that will reach us, we shall see, but it’s still going to be another chilly one.

Oh, how I’ve already been spoiled by the calm, warm days we’ve had for the past week.

I think I’ll go through those seed catalogs I got in the mail and dream of warmth and green, growing things.

The Re-Farmer

The deer showed up, too!

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One last post for today!

This morning, I was quite surprised to see Hungry Girl show up on her own.  This was early enough that the feed wasn’t quite covered by the snow, yet.

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She was very skittish coming in.  I wouldn’t be surprised that all that snow would have made everything sound very different to a deer.

Gosh, she still looks pretty rough, doesn’t she?

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Though the feed was still visible, she nuzzled pretty deep into the snow as she was feeding.

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I just couldn’t resist posting this goofy photo of her!

Later on, well after the snow had covered the feed, Barbecue came by, too.

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He had to dig his nose down pretty far to get at the feed by then, but he had no problem finding exactly where the food was!

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He gets a more dignified profile picture. :-D

I saw Hungry Girl come along shortly after, but they were both very nervous and ran off before she got to the food again.  They did come back, but not for long.

They at least got some food, though.  I’m hoping that Mama and the twins come by at some point, too, for a bit of a snack.

The snow has stopped falling now.  My brother who lives nearby was kind enough to come and clear our driveway out.  He’d fired up the tractor to do his own driveway and just popped over to do ours as well.  I’d seen the snow plows going by the main road earlier, so I’m hoping they’d already gone through the road past our place before he came over.  The last time the snowplows went by, they left a windrow across our driveway.  Not enough of one to be more than a bump, but having another one on top of that now would be much more than just a bump!

After doing the driveway, he came in for a bit of a chat.  During the conversation, he mentioned last winter being one of the coldest in many decades!  He feeds deer with hay at his place, and he said he was feeding 39 of them!  I just can’t imagine that many deer crowded around by his place.  He trained his dog to leave them alone.  He said that they were pretty mean to each other, too, attacking each other with their hooves.  One young orphan deer was small enough to jump up into the round hay bale and get some food while avoiding attacks from the other deer.  After a while, he broke up the bale to spread it out, so they could feed farther apart and not be attacking each other so much.  Sadly, one night, a pack of coyotes killed a young deer, right there next to his house!  They had heard their dog barking like crazy, but by the time they saw why, it was too late.

Coyotes can be a real problem.  Especially when the population is high enough for them to start forming packs.  That’s one of the reasons I want us to get our firearms acquisition certificate as quickly as we can, and get at least a .22 rifle.  Being on the farm without a gun feels very wrong.  It’s a vital tool.  Especially if we do start getting farm animals over the next few years.

This has been a pretty mild winter, though, so there is less chance of a hungry coyote showing up and attacking anything in our yard.

It’s supposed to be just below freezing over the next few days, then creep above freezing again.

Time to keep a close eye out on the roof, and for any more leaks that might show up!  Hopefully, once the roof is shoveled off, that won’t be an issue.  We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

So. This Happened

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Last night, the girls alerted me to a leak that started in one of the rooms upstairs.

Right near an outlet, too.  So they shut down their computers and unplugged the power bar as soon as they could.

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The water was coming in between the window box and the moulding.  It was leaking out the bottom, too, for a while.

These windows were installed just this past summer.  Wherever the water is coming from, it’s going into the wall, first.  The girls crawled out to clear things a bit, and they found the wall itself was quite dry on the outside.

I emailed my brother about it and he thinks this has been an annual leak; we just happen to be here to see it.  Even when my dad was still living here, the upstairs was hardly used and, in the winter, blocked off completely at the stop of the steps, to conserve heat.

It stopped leaking during the night, but now there is water damage to the nice, new window frames.

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There is a similar water stain on the bottom of the frame.

20180303_120750.25%So today, the girls crawled through the window to try and clear the roof as much as they could.  This is what they found.

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This moss is over the north window (it’s the south window that’s leaking).  After speaking with my brother, he tells me that moss has been there for many, many years.  They had replaced the rotten wood all along the outside wall this past summer, too.  He also cleared the eaves (I believe they are called gutters in other parts of the world) several times over the summer.

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This is the ice dam they found under the snow; my daughter included her thumb for perspective on how thick the ice is.  Unfortunately, the ice was going under the shingles in some places, so they couldn’t get it off without damaging the shingles.

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Check out the beautifully clear – and empty – eavestrough!

This section of the roof was raised to make more room in the second floor, so the slope is not as steep as it should be.  Now that the upstairs is being used and heated, even though there has been very little snow this year, it would be melting from underneath and not draining as well as it should.

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They also got a picture of this for me.  I asked my brother about it, and apparently it has always been like this (I was very young when I was clambering on the roof as a child, so I did not remember it).  So the water is draining directly onto the shingles, rather than down the side of the building.

Not that there is much water to drain right now, since it’s not melting into the eavestrough.

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This is not the only area with potential problems.  These are new icicles outside our living room window.  Formed between the eavestrough and the eave.

Apparently, my dad did not believe in soffits.

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This ice jam has formed at the corner between the master bedroom and the old kitchen.  I’m told it’s an annual thing.

You can see the pruning saw leaning against the wall in the corner.  It’s on a very long pole.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to do the actual pruning, before the sap flows, as we wanted to.

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This section of tree is the one that’s causing the most problems for the shingles.  Despite my brother cutting it back over the years, branches are touching the roof again.

I wasn’t able to unhook the broken branch that’s stuck on the TV antennae support wire.

The only way to make it not be a problem anymore is to cut that whole “branch” (it looks like a trunk!) back to the main trunk.  To do that, though, it has to be cut back in sections, so as not to cause damage to the house as the pieces fall.

Theoretically, it can be done with a ladder, but the safest way to do it is with a lift bucket.  Because a chainsaw would be the best tool for the job, and using a chain saw while on a ladder is just not ideal!

No one has lift buckets around here.  We’d have to hire someone.

We do have chain saws here.  There are three of them in the garage. I’m pretty sure one of them used to be ours; we’d given our chainsaw to my late brother before we moved out of province.  No need for a chainsaw when living in a city apartment!  It’s unlikely any of them work.  We’ll have to get some maintenance done on them.

It is not the only tree that needs to be cut back severely back there; there is another huge maple with a large trunk leaning towards the house.

Then there is the tree in front of the kitchen window.

Let’s look at this photo again.

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Ideally, we’d get rid of it completely.  It’s the reason the eavestroughs needed to be cleared so often.  I was thinking we might be able to, say, turn the stump into the support for a table top, so we’d have a sort of picnic table out there, but this is a Chinese Elm.  It has been cut back severely in the past, but it just grows back.  Apparently, these trees are very hard to get rid of.  It was a mistake to plant such a large tree so close to the house, but I think my mother had wanted the shade, and this is a variety that grows very quickly.

Little by little, we will figure out what needs to be done, and do it.  The challenge will be to prioritize things!

The Re-Farmer

Thinking Ahead

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As we are settling in to our new home and going over the immediate property to see what needs to be done, we’ve been having discussions about what we want to do over the next few years.

Gardening isn’t likely to happen this year, unless my daughters do some planting.  At least not any deliberate gardening on our part.  Come spring, we’ll see what my mother has planted that will come up.

I’m really hoping the asparagus is still there.  And the rhubarb and horseradish.

We’ve talked about making raised bed gardens for accessibility, and what sort of vegetables we’d plant.  We’ll have to see what the status is of the raspberry bushes, how the apples do this year, and any other fruit trees that might still be productive around the yard.

We’ve also talked about getting chickens, and how many we would need to provide an adequate amount of eggs.  There’s the possibility of getting goats, though more about getting angora goats for their fibre.  A couple of goats for their milk would not be a bad idea.  I’m the only person in the family that isn’t lactose intolerant, and goat milk is something they can drink.  It’s just too flippin’ expensive to buy.  They love milk, so they put up with the discomfort of drinking it.  It would be nice for that not to be a thing.  Plus, I’d like to try making cheeses.  The friend I ran into at the clinic with my husband raises goats for meat, plus milk for their own use.  She told me that you can raise 10 goats on the resources of one cow, plus they give birth in twins and triplets, so they are a good return on investment for food production.  I’ve never actually eaten goat, though, so I don’t know if I’d like it.

Looking just at the size of our yard, I’m realizing that we could do most, if not all, of what we want to do, just in our fenced yard/garden area, and not even need to beyond the yard itself, once we’ve taken care of the overgrowth.

Along with those ideas, I’ve also started looking at other options.  Specifically, I was looking into fruit and nut trees.

It’s surprising, how many food trees will actually grow in our planting zone.  Here is a map from the federal government.

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We fall solidly into the 3a zone, so any fruit or nut trees we plant have to be quite hardy, and able to withstand some pretty chill temperatures.

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Unlike a vegetable garden, any trees or shrubs we plant have to be able to survive lows into the -40C range in the winter and survive, even if we do work out micro-climates to facilitate their growth and production.  It’d be nice to actually have some of that global warming that’s supposed to be happening.

Here is a wish list I’ve started.

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Kiwi.  Yes, kiwi!  Turns out they can handle zone 3 quite well.  We would need at least 3 plants, including 1 male pollinator.

Seedless grapes.  Yes, grapes grow on the prairies, and there are native varieties, but I am interested in red and green seedless hybrids.

Saskatoon.  These actually grow wild in the bush, though I no longer remember where.  It would be nice to have some in the yard.  The fruit looks similar to blueberries, but they are related to apples.

Raspberry varieties; I’d like to have three varieties that mature at different times, so we have raspberries available for a much longer season.

Cherry.  We may have some cherry trees in the yard already, but I don’t know that they are a hardy enough variety to provide much fruit.  There are varieties of cherries that can handle our zone 3 quite well.  Later in the year, I want to check out an area where I remember we had pin cherries.  These are very tiny and tart; more seed than berry, but I remember eating them by the handful, anyhow, and my father made wine with them.  It would be cool if they’re still around, too.

Haskap.  This is a hybrid I’ve been learning about that looks a bit like a long, somewhat misshapen blueberry.  They can be used the same as blueberries, too.

Sunberry.  This is another berry that can be used just like blueberries, though they look quite different.

Plums.  We might have plum trees, still.  They were little, hard bright red plums, not the soft purple or red ones you buy at the grocery store.  We didn’t really eat them, but like the pin cherries, my dad would make wine with them.  I think my mom might have made jam with them, but I never liked jam, so I don’t remember.

Pine nuts (Korean pine).  Yes!  They can grow here!  Pine nuts are so expensive, it would be awesome to have our own trees.

Buartnut.  This is a hybrid walnut.  They are also fast growing shade trees that get huge, so we’d have to be careful where we plant them.  Black walnut is a native Canadian variety, but after reading up a bit, I think I’d rather try the hybrid.

Butternut.  This is another Canadian native that I’d like to try.

Beaked hazel nut.  This variety, I remember picking with my mother once, as a child.  I don’t know how she found the bush, because I remember having to go deep into the bushes to get to it, well away from any cow paths – and loosing my sandal in some muck we had to cross in the process!  I think this would be a good thing to plant along the edge of our spruce grove or along a fence line.

Gooseberries.  Mostly for sentimental reasons.  I have such fond, delicious memories of the one we had when I was a child.

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So that’s my list so far.  Some of these require a lot more work than others – the grape vines, for example, need to be trained and pruned over several years.

What we actually end up doing over the years, who knows.  I’d be excited even if we manage just a few of them.

If you’ve got any sort of experience or knowledge about some of these – or suggestions to make – I’d be thrilled to hear it!

The Re-Farmer

 

Around outside

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A last post about my walkabout in our yard.

spruce.grove.canopy

The spruce grove next to the house might be what’s preventing us from being able to get more stable internet (with better data plans!), but it sure is beautiful.

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This view is from the end of our garden near the road to our driveway.  As you can see, there are quite a lot of downed trees in there.  Quite a few dead trees that we will eventually need to cut down, too.

Well, we’ll have plenty of wood for our fire pit, when the time comes!

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In a corner of the yard, near the fire pit, is one of several old log cabins on the property.  The wall facing into the yard has vertical boards for siding.

There used to be a gooseberry bush at the opposite corner.  I used to love picking the juicy, tart green berries and eat them when I was a child.

Years later, I discovered that they were supposed to be eaten after they turned red and soft.  I’d always thought that was when they’d gone bad, because they tasted so bland. :-D

I don’t know what happened to that gooseberry bush.  It’s not there anymore, and other trees are growing near where it was.

This wall here faces what used to be an open area where my late brother had his “bike shop.”  There were all sorts of bike parts and pieces that he would use to cobble bikes together.

Quite a lot of those parts and pieces seem to still be there, rusting away.

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I’ve read that this type of corner joining for log buildings is a style mostly unique to our region.

This old shed was used for storage for as long as I can remember.  I don’t know what its original purpose was.

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This is part of the inside.  The roof is collapsing on both sides.  The rafters are full of all sorts of things.  I have no idea what that machine is, but it looks like it runs the length of the building.

The stuff jammed into there is amazing.  An old wringer washer.  An electric stove.  What looks like a very, very old washer and drier set.  Pieces of antenna.  Head and foot boards.  Old window frames.  A bike that I think used to be ours.  Tires.

I don’t think anything in there is salvageable.  It all just got shoved in there and forgotten about.

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This old log building looks to be in better shape.

That’s a relative statement.

This is actually outside the fenced part of our yard, but is still part of the larger yard that includes the barn and various outbuildings (and cars, trucks, tractors, hay rakes, fuel tanks… ).  Before my father bought the property, this was the “summer kitchen.”  There was a wood stove and the cooking and canning would be done in here in the summer, rather than in the main house, so the house wouldn’t get overheated.  I imagine it reduced the risk of burning the house down, too. :-/

We used it as a chicken coop.  There was a walled in area around two sides of the building for a chicken run, though we would let them out during the day in the summer.

I briefly considered going over to look inside.

I changed my mind.

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I just didn’t feel like working my way through the barrier of burs!

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We’re back in the yard, next to the house again.

My late brother built this bird house for my mother, and it can be seen from our dining room window.  My mother is a strongly religious person, so he built it in the shape of a church.

It still gets used by birds every year.  I am hoping that we will have a chance to take it down and fix it up this year.  Maybe prune back some of the branches around the post, too.  Once we have a better idea of what’s actually growing there.  It’s in what was one of my mother’s many little flower gardens around the yard, but it seems to be all bushes now.

What I would love to do is have a deck built along this side of the house, with a ramp leading to the end of the house where the current main entry way is, and the direction we need to go to get to the van, so that my husband doesn’t have to fight with the door while trying to get his walker up and down the steps.  Then we’d also be able to start using what is supposed to be the front door.  If that happens, this garden bed will likely need to be taken at least partly out.  Which would not be a bad thing, I am thinking.

The Re-Farmer

Happy Trails

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As I went out to empty our kitchen scraps onto the compost pile at the edge of the garden area, I paused to look around and noticed something interesting.

There were trails, everywhere.

And not one of them made by human feet.

They were all deer trails.

They all lead to our feeding station!

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This is by far the most well worn trail of them all, cutting through an old section of the garden that hasn’t been in use for some time.

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This pathway runs between the maple grove and rows of spruces that were planted much later.  You see that post in the mid-ground?  That’s where there is a water tap.  When I was a kid, the walking path around the edge of the garden was right up to that post.  All those trees to the right are growing in an area that used to be part of the garden.  Same with the apple trees in the opposite direction, near the spruce grove.  As big as the garden area still is, it is much smaller than it used to be.

I made my way through here, having to wind around broken branches and dead trees all over the place.  There don’t seem to be very many maples left in our maple grove. :-(  We’re going to have some major clean up to do in that area.

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This is one of the furthest ends of the garden.  This gate is where we could drive into the garden itself.

As you can see, it is no barrier for the deer!  Their tracks look as if they can walk right through the gate, as if it’s not even there!  I know they’re jumping over, but it doesn’t look like it from the tracks alone.

Going through the maple grove was a bit of an eye opener.  We have got SO much work to do to clear that area out!  It’s a lower priority over working on the house itself, of course, but I hope we will be able to do at least some of it over the summer.

At times like this, I think my family and I really got the short end of the stick with this deal we made with my mother to live here for “free.”

Ah, well.  We came here expecting to have work to do, even if we didn’t expect quite this much.

The Re-Farmer