Considering it took me two days to do a relatively small area, I figured it was worth a video!
I am so glad I finally got this done. There was so much dead thatch in there, I spent more time emptying the bad into the wagon, then hauling it away, than actually mowing.
The Re-Farmer
The handsome fellow was captured by the gate cam.
Just look at those big antler nubbins!
We had another lovely, cool night last night. As expected, I had a hard time getting going in the morning, so the girls were kind enough to take care of feeding the outside cats. By the time I was pain killered up enough and ready to head out, I didn’t bother switching out the memory cards on the trail cam.
I did, however, get back to working on mowing last year’s grass. It took all day, but I finally got it done! What a huge job it was, but all that tall grass and dried thatch from last year is cut, and almost all the clippings hauled away. When there was just a small triangle of tall grass left, I gave in. I set the mower as high as it could go and went over the tall grass a couple of times. Then I took the bag off and mowed the whole remaining section. I really should have put the bag back on and gone over it again to pick up the thickest areas of grass clippings, but I just didn’t have the energy left for it.
It’s all done, and I now have huge amounts of grass clippings available for the garden. Because of how thick last year’s dead grass was, it’s mostly dry clippings, too. For all that the area looked so green, there actually was very little live grass in there. Now that it’s cut, and most of the dense clippings removed, it will have a chance to recover. All we need now is a good rain!
We have a 45% chance of rain tomorrow afternoon.
I figure, we might get a few drops.
The garden is going to get its watering, just in case. The girls will be taking care of that, though! I’m done for the day.
The Re-Farmer
Today has turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!
We dipped to 10C/50F during the night, and as I write this at almost 3:30 pm, we’re at 17C/63F, and I’m absolutely loving it!
I took advantage of the temperatures to work on a job that I was avoiding during the hot days. Mowing in the outer yard, with the push mower.
I had a specific purpose for this. When it was cut before, the riding mower was at its highest setting. I’ve lowered the push mower, while also using the bag to collect the clippings. In this area, that would be a mix of old, dried thatch from last year, and fresh growth. I had the wagon handy, as it holds a lot more clippings that the wheelbarrow, to empty the bag into until the load could be hauled off to the garden.
This is as far as I got before filling the wagon for the first time. About two and a quarter passes. It takes about five bags to fill the wagon. In the drier area with the deepest thatch from last year – including the portions we were able to mow and rake up last time – I was emptying the bag ever few feet. I’d say doing this narrow strip took me at least 15 minutes. Then, when I filled the wagon, I started mulching around the transplanted squash right away, which probably took another 15 minutes before I brought the empty wagon back and took this photo.
This is how far I got before stopping for lunch.
By this point, I was able to mulch all the squash mounds, including the ones that were direct sown with summer squash, all the grow bags with peppers and onions, and even low raised beds, around turnips, beets and carrots. I’ve removed the boards that were placed to protect the tomatoes from the wind, which opened up space that needed to be mulched.
That done, I started dumping loads onto the black tarp that has been so handy. We use to to cover areas to start killing off grass and weeds, to hold sifted garden soil until it can be returned to the beds, and now to hold grass clippings for later mulching.
I’m going to continue to focus on using the push mower in this area. Everything else can be done with the riding mower that my brother and his wife left for us to use.
He’s done a lot on the riding mower they took back with them. The drive chain turned out to be stretched, and that’s why it kept falling off. He replaced that – but even the new chain needed to have a link removed for it to work. He replaced the seat, which I didn’t even think needed replacing. The belt for the mowing blade had fallen off at some point. It may need a new battery, and at least one of the tires will need replacing, as the rubber was showing huge cracks. We’re all amazed it held air long enough for my brother to get the mower onto his trailer!
It turned out to need a whole lot more work than expected! He keeps finding more and more things that need to be fixed.
I so appreciate that they left one of their riding mowers behind for us to use while he works on it. It will save us a lot of time, that’s for sure.
For now, though, I’m going to continue to use the push mower and slowly reclaim the super long grass that we never got to cut, or even scythe, last year. This will give me huge amounts of wonderful clippings to use in the garden!
Meanwhile, one of my daughters have been supervising the cats in my office/bedroom. At about 3am, I was awaked by strange kitten noises and discovered Decimus had already moved two of her babies out of the cat cage. I found her peeking at me from one of the cat cave the Cat Lady gave us, so I quickly moved the last two babies over for her. Marlee has been snarling and growling at her most of the night, too. Every now and then, Decimus will leave her sleeping babies and go around the room, getting into things. I’ve learned that this is her looking for a place to poop or pee. For some reason, after the litter boxes where cleaned (with the litter pellets, we just need to empty the bins completely, every few days), she stopped using it – which got very messy! I managed to distract her away from her searching, and she finally ended up using one of the litter boxes. I get the impression eliminating isn’t very comfortable for her, yet. It’s been less than a week since she gave birth, after all.
She’s not the only one moving her babies. After using a load of grass clippings as mulch and starting to head back, I spotted Brussel, crossing the grass in the main garden area. There was something with her! It turned out to be a black and white kitten. It’s not as big as the first litter of kittens we started seeing in the yard, but pretty close! Based on where I’ve been seeing her, I think she had her kittens at the empty farm across the road, and she is now bringing them closer to the house – and kibble! I have no idea how many she has. I’m just assuming she had more than one.
Well, time to head back out and see how much more progress I can get on that super tall, thick grass!
The Re-Farmer
Look who I saw, today!
If you look carefully, you’ll see a total of four kittens. Two stay hidden under the spirea.
It looks like the kittens in the cat house are no longer in the cat house. I did see the mama at feeding time. I hope she didn’t move them too far.
My daughter and I headed into town today to run several errands. As we were finishing up, she wondered if the haze we were starting to see what fog or smoke.
It was smoke.
We are now getting air quality advisories for smoke from fires to the east and north of us. Most are on the other side of the lake, but quite a few are way up north, too. As I write this, only two are listed as out of control, and those are nowhere near any towns or villages. Most are listed as under control or being held, with a few as being monitored. Our current fire year isn’t anywhere near as bad at other provinces, but most of those are turning out to be arson. Ours are almost all listed as natural caused.
Right now, I feel like I’ve been totally lazy. Once we got home and put everything away, I tried to catch up on a few things on the computer before changing and heading outside. I was falling asleep in my chair, though, so I lay down to close my eyes for a few minutes.
Almost three hours later, I suddenly woke up, thinking it was morning. !! My brain still feels foggy.
I might still get some work done outside, but we’re at the hottest part of the day now, so not quite yet.
It definitely feels like a wasted day.
The Re-Farmer
Well, we’re not going to hit our predicted high of 30C/86F, but got close enough to not matter!
I took this screen shot after my daughter and I got back from the city. Last night, my older daughter asked when I had time to go in, and since today was going to be basically heat stroke weather, I figured a trip to the city in an air conditioned car would not be a bad thing! Since my younger daughter had their shopping list, in preparation for joint Father’s Day and birthday celebrating, I went ahead and got a few things, too.
While today’s heat is not conducive to debranching and dragging out dead trees, I did manage to get some tiny steps done yesterday evening.
I marked out where the first pair of mid-height raised beds, with a permanent trellis tunnel, will be. I’m rather impressed with how close it matched the Ruth Stout potato and melon bed. That was determined by the size of the black tarp we lay down to start killing of the grass, first. The posts at the far end are just a few inches longer than the straw bed.
The posts across the ends are all 4 ft apart. There will be a path down the middle, and the logs for the walls of the beds will be placed inside the markers, so that they will be 4 ft wide on the outside. Yes, we will loose some growing space; especially once the vertical posts for the trellis tunnel are put in, but the width is for reach and accessibility, not growing space.
The beds will be 18 ft long – twice the length of the high raised bed beside it. I used the high raised bed to first mark out the south end and the middle of the first bed, then I could use those markers to help make a straight line to 18 ft at the north end.
My tape measure only goes to 16 ft. 😄 Not a problem, but it was funny! Once I had the corners of the first bed marked out, I used them to mark out the second bed.
I must say, trying to place those old conduit pipes I was using to mark the corners, really illustrated how much we need to make raised bed. I was able to use a piece of board to hammer most of them in, just enough that they could hold themselves up, but with some of them, they simply would not go into the ground. I ended up using a hoe to loose the top couple of inches, only for it to still not go into the ground. So I’d use the hoe again, until I could finally get the post to stay up. It wasn’t just that I was hitting rocks, but the ground in places were just as hard as the rocks! The only exception was when I pushed a post to mark in the middle, lined up with the north end of the high raised bed. That one post was in the middle of the amended garden space, and I was able to push it easily into the soil. The other posts were just along the edges of the amended soil.
The next step will be to remove the straw mulch from where the beds will be, and make a shallow trench were the long logs will rest on the ground, so they don’t roll away. For these beds, we’ll use salvaged shorter logs – we still have lots of 4 ft lengths from getting the chipping done available to use – and screw them into the ends of the long logs to hold them in place.
Once the vertical supports for the trellis are installed and the walls and ends secured, we’ll do some layering of organic material – the straw we took out, wood chips and whatever else we have available – before topping the space with garden soil.
Then I can finally transplant those melons we have waiting, and maybe even have space to do some direct sowing. At this point, anything we direct sow has to have a growing season of under 90 days, including the time needed to germinate. Under 80 days would be better.
If we can manage to get two beds with trellises done this spring, I will be very happy. We’ll be dropping quite a few things that I hoped to plant this year, simply because it’s taking so long for us to get these beds ready. Still, we did manage to get quite a few things in, among the various garden beds we have spread out around the inner yard.
Over time, we still plan to have garden beds built in the outer yard. With those, we can focus on having things that get harvested all at once in the fall in the outer yard, while things that get harvested throughout the summer will be planted closer to the house.
We’ll see how the timeline works out! I do see that we’re going to need at least another truck load of garden soil before then. That probably won’t be purchased until next year, though, at the earliest.
In the time it took me to write this, we are now past 4pm, and we’re still at 29C/84F, so we’re not going to be heading out to work on the garden beds tonight. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get out early in the morning, before things start getting too hot.
Meanwhile, my younger daughter and I got a big job, done in tiny snips, done this afternoon.
We decided to work on Decimus’ matted fur.
What we ended up doing was laying a towel on my bed, then putting all her kittens on it, then getting her out of the cat cage – a space she clearly considered her safety zone! – and putting her with her kittens. While one of us comforted her by stroking her head and neck, and holding her in place, the other worked on snip snip snipping away. We got a burr buried in fur off of one of her legs, and another off her back, before focusing on the big mat covering her back.
It was even bigger than we thought.
It was easily as big as my daughter’s hand.
While Decimus did try to get away or squirm around a few times, I think she could feel improvement, and became much more patient. As we took turns snipping away, depending on who could get the best angle at the time, I could see that her skin was pulled up and even twisted in places. You could see folds of skin dropping down, bit by bit, as we snipped the fur away. There was a lot of cat dandruff stuck in there, too, and we even found a smothered bug! No signs of any other insects or lice, thankfully. It easily took at least 10 minutes to get that one mat off.
Once we finally got the piece free, we let her go. She had been so patient! Her back is pretty much completely shorn now. There is another large mat on her back end, but we will give her a break before working on that one. Then there are all the little ones, all over.
As soon as we let her go, she ran straight back into the cat cage and lay down on the baby nest! Her little grublings, meanwhile, had been squirming all around while she was getting trimmed, trying to find some nip. They were very happy to be back in the cage with Mom!
I think Mom is a lot happier now, too.
As for me… I think I need to go wash my bedding and certain towel, now!
The Re-Farmer
We had an almost quiet night with Decimus and the babies. At one point, I was awakened by scratching that I thought for sure was Nosencrantz at the window again… but Nosencrantz was curled up next to my head!
It turned out to be Decimus. She had gone up onto the bed above where her kittens are (the cat cage has four “rooms” on two levels along one side) and was scratching at the cardboard on the roof. The carboard is under some towels, as cats like to sit on top of the cage, but their feet were pushing the towels through the open squares.
When she heard me moving around, Decimus stopped clawing at her “ceiling”. Soon after, though, I heard more useful scratching – in her litter box! So she has most definitely figured out what to do with that.
Motherhood suits her. She’s absolutely blissful and content, and enjoying when we reach in to pet her. A complete switch from the cat that would run away any time we came close, unless we managed to start scritching her neck and ears while she was busy eating and didn’t notice us coming close.
Her entire back is one huge mat of fur. Like armour plating.
Last night, I briefly took the kittens out and lay them together on my bed. Decimus stayed in the cage and rolled around to let me pet her belly. I managed to get her out and put her on the bed with her babies, but she got nervous and tried to go back into the cage! She was a bit confused on how to get in, though, as the “door” is on the second level, and she didn’t realize she needed to jump it. I picked her up and put her in, and she immediately settled down.
Also, she is really, really enjoying wet cat food. While the other, fussier cats turned their noses up at the food bowls when I did the evening feeding, she not only finished off her own share, but when I switched bowls and gave her what other cats ignored, she ate that, too. In the end, she had almost an entire can, all to herself. Usually, they get split 3 or 4 ways, depending on how many cats I have in the room at the time.
In doing my morning rounds, I counted only 14 adult cats. One of them was The Distinguished Guest. Then I saw Sad Face coming across the outer yard. So there’s a recipe for cat fights starting. 🙁 The mama with her two kittens are still in the cat house, which is good.
Of course, I checked all the garden beds. The transplants seem to be doing all right. The raspberries we planted this spring are starting to bloom! We might actually get raspberries off of them. I would not have expected that until next year. The raspberries that predate us, growing around the old compost pile and among flowers near the main garden area, are also blooming. Looks like we’ll have quite a bit, this year. I even found one of the Sweet Chocolate peppers has started to bloom!
We have a bit of a mystery between the Sweet Chocolate peppers, and those last tiny shallots I stuck into the end of the bed. A squash has sprouted! I have no idea what kind it is, or where it came from. The soil topping up this bed was from the pile of garden soil we bought. I’m curious as to what it might turn out to be. I’ll probably transplant it, though, because a squash in that spot would end up covering the shallots and probably the peppers and nearby thyme, as well.
The down side is those horrible Chinese Elm seeds are starting to sprout. There are so many of them, I think they choked out the bok choy and lettuce we planted next to the peas. There’s just no way to brush or scoop away so many seeds. We’ll be pulling seedlings out of the garden beds all over the place for the next while.
I really look forward to when we can take down all those Chinese elms. I think I’ll start with the smaller ones on the north side of the main garden area. I’m okay with leaving the maples in there for now, but those elms have got to go!
The Re-Farmer
Well, Decimus and her babies had a very quiet first night indoors!
One thing that has always been distinctive about Decimus is her teeny, tiny quiet meow. Which really isn’t much louder than her kittens!
When I did the wet cat food last night, she absolutely devoured her share. She has been allowing head pets – we can’t reach much else in the cage – and enjoying them. We’ve been handling her babies, and she’s been okay with that, too. At one point, I even found her in another part of the baby cage, while her kittens were asleep in a pile, enjoying a bit of a break. I could tell that the litter had been used, as well. So she is settling in and figuring things out.
When I did the outside cat food this morning, I checked through the cat house window, and could just make out the two kittens sleeping inside. The mother was outside, eating, at the time. So far, so good, with them.
The only trouble I’ve been having lately is with Nosencrantz. The cat that refuses to leave my room has increasingly tried to claw her way out the window. This morning, I was awakened by the noise and found her somehow behind the box fan that blocks the window and the extra screen I’ve got to cover a gap on one side and the piece of cardboard to help keep the screen in place. Thank goodness we replaced the window screen with cat proof screen! So far, it seems to be holding up. My main concern right now is that she’ll simply pull the mesh right out of the frame.
Things have really cooled down. Last night, it was almost chilly! We’re coming up on noon as I write this, and we’re still at only 15C/59F. It’s gorgeous! Now, if the wind could just die down a bit. I’ve actually moved all the transplants off the picnic table under the old market tent and put them back on the laundry platform set up. The tent sheltered them, but they weren’t getting enough sunlight for too long. Some of the Spoon tomatoes were so gangly that, when Gooby decided to be really, really friendly while I was setting the trays down, two of them ended up breaking off at the stems. I just replanted them. They’ll probably be fine. We have so many, though, and may not get enough space to plant them, so we can afford to loose a few, if it comes to that.
Yesterday’s transplants are looking good. No sign of transplant shock, so far.
Everything seems to be doing fine, today.
The Re-Farmer
I had a sleepless night, so the girls took care of feeding the outside cats for me this morning. It wasn’t until much later that I headed out to try and get some work done. Before I did, I paused to top of the water bowls, when I heard a little squeak.
Decimous had a litter in the shelf shelter!
I wasn’t even sure she was pregnant, with her long and matted fur.
We always put some kibble in the shelf shelter, and it’s her favourite place to eat, so I’m not too surprised she had her kittens there. I’m so glad she didn’t have them in some secret place, like the other cats do.
My daughter brought out the cat carrier and, between the two of us, we got the four kittens in. They are just hours old! Decimous, who normally runs off, was definitely feeling maternal and enjoying scritches. She wasn’t too keen on being pulled out of the corner of the shelf, even though her kittens were already in the carrier. It took both of us to gently get her out and lift her into the carrier. There was a moment of struggle until we got the top closed, and she basically just stopped.
We got the carrier into the house, and it’s now sitting next to the baby cage. Marlee is going to have to give up her favourite place! For now, though, my daughter put a food bowl into the carrier. Decimous ate a bit and, then settled down to nurse.
What a cutie she is!
We finally got her.
Now that she’s got her kittens, it should be easier to socialize her, then finally get those mats cut out of her fur!!!
We’ve set up the baby cage a bit better. There’s a bin in there with litter pellets already, that the other cats ignored. A water bowl is set up, and the food bowl will be moved over once we’re ready to transfer the little family. For now, though, we will leave them in the carrier to calm down. Other cats have come over to sniff at them and moved on.
I’ve messaged the cat lady about them. Hopefully, she will be able to find a foster for them and get them adopted out.
For now, my daughter will be hanging out in my room to supervise, and I’m heading outside to get some work done.
An adorable start to the day!
The Re-Farmer
I headed out to do the morning rounds a bit earlier than usual. We’ve finally been able to arrange for our septic tank to be emptied (usually we try to get it done in April or May, or as soon as the snow is gone). The truck is coming some time this morning, so I wanted to make sure the gate was open.
While continuing my rounds, I checked out the Crespo squash, and they are looking great! They are all getting increasingly robust, and I’m seeing roots forming all along the main vines. Two of the vines have started blooming already!
I’m quite happy with how these are doing.
This early in the morning, everything was feeling wonderfully cool, and everything was still very wet! For all the rain we got, it did reduce the humidity, but not by all that much, really.
Which might explain this.
I don’t know where Gooby was when I first came out with the kibble, but he was there when I got back to the house, and completely soaked! Only Decimous had wet fur like him, but only on her lower half, not all over, like he was. All the other cats managed to stay almost completely dry!
We really, really need to get ahold of Decimous. She is so badly matted, I can see burrs stuck in her fur, there are some mats starting to dangle, I see bald patches and I’ve even found some of them in the yard. I’m guessing she’s been scratching at them. While I’ve managed to give her neck and ear scritches a few times, she mostly moves away before I can get close. Aside from trapping her (which is more likely to get other cats, first), if we even had a trap, trying to socialize her is the most we can do. It would be easier if we could offer her wet cat food, but if we did that, we’d have all the friendly cats crowding in for a treat.
Oh, and either she’s got a whole lot of mats around her belly, or she’s pregnant.
*sigh*
Well, we do what we can.
I now await the arrival of the septic truck. I want to be around when the septic guy gets here, mostly to make sure the cats stay away from the open tank while it is being worked on, and at some point I’m going to have to go out to pick up some packages. It seems that for one of them, Purolator decided not to leave the package at the store our post office is in, as they have been lately, but at the depot in the down my mother lives in. We’ve got two packages that are supposed to be in right now. When I check the tracking, it says that Canada Post had issues with delivery. Neither says they were to be shipped by Purolator, so I don’t know what’s going on there. What I really want to do is go back to bed. I got almost no sleep last night. It was finally a relatively cool and pleasant night, but I didn’t get to bed until late, and then got hit with busy brain. It wouldn’t be any better to get my daughter to drive, because I think she had an even worse night than I did.
We’ll see how it works out.
The Re-Farmer
We’ve had all sorts of things budding and blooming in succession. The most recent buds developing is the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden.
This rose was almost dead when we first moved here. It took years to help it recover, and prune away enough of ornamental apple tree above it, so it was finally getting enough light. Now it’s starting to thrive and has SO many buds developing!
The Re-Farmer
