With the bitter cold coming in, we’ve made a couple of changes to the set up in the sun room, for the outside cats.
Continue readingplanning ahead
Abandoned
Usually, when I do my morning rounds, I stick to the inner yard and the garage. Every now and then, though, I go farther afield and check on the septic field and the sheds in the outer yard.
Today was one of those days, and it took me past the old Farm Hand tractor that’s still sitting among the collapsing outbuildings.
You know how you walk past things time and again, look at them, but don’t always “see” what’s there, then suddenly something that’s always been there, catches your attention?
I had one of those moments today, when I saw this.
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Cat Mess
So, this is what the cats left for me, this morning.
Glancing out the bathroom window, earlier, there were 3 or 4 of them – including Big Jim sitting over the light bulb – looking at me with innocent faces.
Or, more like, “where’s our food and warm water, human?”
It’s all fixed up now, but I wonder how it happened. From the looks of the top of that box, I’m guessing a cat slid off, taking the blanket with it. But how did the piece of Styrofoam insulation get knocked off? The one that was between the box and the arm bar on the transfer bench?
The one that was at me feet, as I took this picture!
I look forward to building something better for the cats, next summer. I have a few ideas, but I haven’t built anything of substance since I helped my dad build the desk I’m using right now. One of the downsides of being the youngest of 5, and having 3 older brothers. My dad didn’t have much need to show me how to do stuff like that, and my mom was determined to keep me in the house, for my “duties as a woman”.
Well, I can learn, and I’ve got two strapping young women to help me out. :-D
The Re-Farmer
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Winter Prep, and future plans
Well, I’m certainly glad that yesterday was a good day, weather wise, because today certainly wasn’t!
Yesterday had warmed up quite a bit, which meant the ice and snow was melting and coming off the trees with a constant rattle of ice pellets hitting the ground. When I had the chance, I checked around the yard to see if we had lost any other trees or large branches, and am happy to say that we did not. Just a few little branches.
Heading over towards the apples, I could see that, while we only saw one deer over by the bird feeder, there were certainly others we didn’t see! Continue reading
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Off the “get done before winter” list
Yay! I can tick “straw bale” off my list of things we need to get/do before winter!
The renter was taking his bales off our field today, and this beauty was just delivered.
That is going to be enough for so many things!
The main thing is to cover the top of the septic tank – the other thing on the list is getting that emptied, and I’ve already contacted the company about when they’re going to be in the area again. There will be enough to cover that entire corner. I’ll be able to put a nice, thick layer on the small garden by the Old Kitchen. The girls plan to rake some leaves to layer on to there today, too, so we’ll be able to build up lots of organic matter onto it. This garden slopes, so I’m loosely planning to eventually build a low retaining wall at the west end, and find a way to do the sides as well, to level it off.
We will also be able to put new straw into the old dog houses the cats use as winter shelters, and insulate the outside of them, too. I want to see if I can move those to more sheltered places, first, though.
We might even still have enough left to use the remains of the bale as a throwing target. :-D
Oh, I am so happy!
It’s the little things that make life good. :-D
The Re-Farmer
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I missed you!
I had to make a quick trip into town this morning, and came home to DahBoy, waiting for me.
Okay, so maybe he was just watching the action outside, and not really waiting for me, but it’s cute, either way. :-D
Plans have been changed for the day. I’ve learned my mother is going to be released from hospital this afternoon. They were actually going to kick her out this morning, against doctor’s orders and before confirmation for home care, but my brother talked them into making it this afternoon, as was originally being discussed. I am waiting on my brother to let me know when they are leaving, so I can meet them at my mother’s and help out.
Which meant a planned trip into town this afternoon, to drop some stuff off at the lab for my husband, got done this morning, instead.
Home care for my mother won’t start until tomorrow, but thankfully, my older brother will be able to stay overnight with my mother and be available for her until then. If he hadn’t already worked that out, chances are I’d be doing it. Hopefully, if my mother does need help with stuff beyond home care, she’ll call me, at a 20 minute drive away, instead of my brother, who is about an hour and a half away!
I think she is going to be glad to be home, and away from the noise and bustle of the hospital.
The Re-Farmer
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Pretty, but …
With autumn making itself felt for a little while now, the changes in the leafs is sometimes showing us things we couldn’t see when all was green.
Like this beautiful splash of red.
This spruce tree is probably 50-60 feet high, and entangled in the beautiful, horrible, invasive vine I’ve been digging up and tearing out all over the place. It looks so gorgeous, but from some of the trees I’ve found, is probably killing the spruce it is climbing. Whether or not it is why this spruce has branches only on the south and east sides of the trunk, I can’t say.
We’ve lost a lot of spruces in the spruce grove already. When I get to clearing in there next year, I will hopefully be able to cut the vine at its base – no chance of being able to get it off the tree without special equipment, but I’ll pull down as much as I can. Who knows. It might end up like the dead spruces on the north side of the house, and come right off as one giant triffid.
Once things are cleared and cleaned more in there, I will likely transplant new spruces into the spruce grove. Like the two my mom planted right against the chain link fence around the inner yard! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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Reading the signs
Though it’s only the end of August, everywhere we look, we see the signs of autumn.
This is one of the crab apple trees in the West yard. The apples are smaller than usual. Though the apples are not ripe yet, the tree, like so many others, is turning colour and dropping leaves already.
One of the plum trees has completely changed colour already, and the plums…
Most have already dropped, and what few remain on the tree are looking like these.
Today was our day for heading into the city for our monthly shop. Along the way, we saw flocks of Canada Geese in the fields, taking a break from heading south. We’ve been seeing them in fields on the way to town, too.
On the drive home (when it was warmer), the snakes were out. I was able to avoid a couple, but the highway had many squished snakes on it that others did not miss. They have been making their way to their hibernation dens to the north of us for at least a couple of weeks, now.
I had seen a news article about how it’s expected to be a mild winter this year, but earlier, I’d see that The Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a long and bitterly cold winter, with possibly a late spring as well.
From what I’m seeing, I think The Farmer’s Almanac is likely to be the more accurate prediction. :-(
Either way, we’re going to have to start our fall preparations for winter over the next few weeks.
The Re-Farmer
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Looking ahead: spruce grove fence line
I won’t be able to continue cleaning up the perimeter of the spruce grove for a while, yet, but this evening, I decided to walk through it, check things out and take some photos of what it looks like now, so I can go over them later and plan ahead for when I work in the area next year.
Mostly, though, I wanted to go along the fence line I plan to work on soon, and especially check on the fence where I knew a tree fell on it.
Here’s a look at what I’ll be working on in that area.
In this first photo, you’re actually seeing the tops of two trees. In the foreground, to the right, is the top of a tree that fell some time ago. On the other side of the fence is the top of the tree my brother had cut off, to get its weight off the barbed wire to the right of the fence post.
Here, you can see the mess of dead branches, and the section of barbed wire that was damaged by the fallen tree.
All along the fence line, I am seeing trees that have sown themselves on the outside of the fence. In the section of fence line going in the other direction, some have been there so long, they are full sized, mature trees. I’ll just have to clean them up and leave them. However, going towards the gate, the self-sown trees are still quite little, and I want to clean them out while it’s still easy to do. This had not been done between the fence and ditch on the far side of the gate. It’s not just overgrown, but practically a forest. This affects ditch drainage and, of course, visibility.
I have no plans at this point for clearing that out, except perhaps what needs to be done for visibility. For now, I need to just focus on the inner yard.
The first of the above photos shows the two, quite large, trees that have come down, with one of them landing on the fence. A third tree is caught up in the mess, too.
I found this interesting…
The damaged barbed wire is propped up with a stick! I’m guessing my older brother did this, after cutting the tree loose from the wire.
Also, that pile on the other side of the stick?
That’s an ant hill. Red ants like to build big nests like that, using spruce needles.
I did not try to get close enough to see if it’s an active nest. Yet.
Oh, look. Another Bud Light can.
I’ve found a number of beer cans around the place. I think my late brother was the only one to drink that brand of beer. Since he died in the early summer of 2010, that means these have been sitting around for a minimum of about 9 years. It looks like no one has gone through here to clean things up in at least that amount of time, too.
This is why the tree came down. Ant damage. From the freshness of the exposed wood, I’d say this tree fell within the past year, year and a half, at most.
The other tree came down for the same reason, though quite a while ago, from how much the wood is weathered.
This makes at least three large spruces that have come down after being weakened by ants, that I have found. While there were many other downed trees scattered about the spruce grove, there are also a significant number of dead spruces still standing. And there’s no real way to see if any of them have ant damage, just by looking at them.
Which is why I look forward to having the tools to start cutting them down, before they fall and cause more damage.
This undergrowth will be kept, after we clean the dead trees off of it. I think it’s a type of juniper.
There is an area full of wild roses, closer to the house, that will be cleaned up, but also kept.
I took quite a few more photos, though less than I would have, were it were not so difficult to wrestle my way through the undergrowth and dead trees and branches.
Cleaning up this area is going to be a huge job. I’m hoping by the time we get to it, we’ll not only have a full size chain saw, but some sort of large wagon or small trailer we can use to help haul things away more easily. All the work done in the maple grove was downright easy compared to what is going to need doing in here!! I would not be surprised if it takes me a couple of summers to finish, at least.
At least I’ve got some idea of what we’ll be facing in there!
The Re-Farmer
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A bit early, isn’t it?
I would not have expected this many leaves on the ground, this early in the year. :-/
This photo also shows just how little rain we have had this year. If you look in the back, near the tire planter, there is a definite rectangle of greener grass. I had set up the sprinkler to water where the grapes are, a couple of times. Since it was there anyway, I set it to full to water the grass as well. When I came to harvest some grapes, I moved the sprinkler to the other side of the steps, to water the wilting lilacs at the corner of the storage house. Just that little bit of watering made a difference!
While I will water the plants, I don’t typically water the lawn. Yes, we are on a well and water is “free”, but running the water means the pump is running constantly until it’s shut off. I’d really prefer not to wear it out!
I have been chomping at the bit today, wanting to start working on the spruces. While it hasn’t been quite as hot as predicted yet, we’re still up there, and the humidex makes if feel even hotter. I kept thinking, it’s not that hot. I could probably get a couple of hours in… I managed to resist working on the trees, but I did go outside to work on the wiper blades on the van. It’s parked by the house, to make it easier to load up for the dump run we’ll be making later, and I finally remembered. Our van’s washer fluid sprays out from the wipers themselves, but on the driver’s side, the sprayer was held on with electric tape, which seemed to be blocking it. The other side was held in place with a zip tie. I ended up doing both of them with new zip ties, only to find that it just sprays wonky, anyhow. LOL Then I cleaned up and rearranged in front of the main entry, making the hand rail more accessible. I didn’t realize how much my mother needed it to get to the door. The bench I placed in front of the bin we use to keep garbage bags until we can haul them away was blocking her from reaching it.
By the time I was done, I realised that yes, it is quite hot out there, and heavy manual labour is not a good idea. No matter how fun it is! :-D
Tomorrow will be cooler and…
oh! My phone just dinged. A severe thunderstorm watch for today and tomorrow for the area. Hmm. What I was going to say is that it is expected to be cooler tomorrow, but it’s Sunday, and I do try to have Sundays as a day or rest, so I wouldn’t be working on the trees, anyhow. I guess the weather is going to be making sure of that, after all!
Seeing all those leaves on the grass has made me more aware of how quickly time flies. I want to get as much done in the yard as I can, before winter sets in.
I know it’s a running joke to talk about the weather, but it really is a big deal. For my neighbouring farmers, weather can make or break their entire year. I am grateful that our income does not depend on what the weather does, it still plays a big part in deciding what we do, and when. Something as simple as the leaves coming down early is a good reminder of that.
The Re-Farmer
