You know, I could have chosen a more “cutesy” picture of Broccoli, but…
… this one just seemed to show her catonality better. 🤣
The Re-Farmer
Munch
postaday
Watching
Would you just look at that face?
One of the two kittens that allow me to pick them up. The other one doesn’t like to pose for the camera, though. 😉
The Re-Farmer
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Morning adorableness, morning finds
No rain this morning, so the bitty kitties were out and about!
This one looks disheveled because I had just been holding it. 😻 Not only did it let me pick it up and cuddle it, but when I put it down in the food tray, it just started to eat, ignoring me while I continued to pet it.
*melt*
The little calico acts conflicted. It’s curious enough to slink around, watching me closely, sometimes inching closer, but shy enough to not let me anywhere near it.
This one is not conflicted. It will stay and watch me, only if it’s behind something. It will not come any closer, and will leave it I pay too much attention to it, even if it’s holding my phone off to the side to try and get a picture.
It was, however, more than happy to get into the water tray, after I refilled the gallon water bottle that I’ve set up to drain slowly. They seem to like it when I put the frozen water bottle in the tray to help keep the water cool longer, too.
As I continued on, I did a double taken when I realized I was seeing something new. A self-sown poppy had opened.
When we moved there, we found ornamental poppies growing among the lilacs along the side of the house, so seeing poppies show up in other places was no surprise. This one, however, is a completely different flower! The others are more of an orange, and don’t have the ruffled petals. So far, the is the only red poppy like this we’ve seen. A couple of self seeded poppies have sown up in our beet bed. I kind figured they were from the bread see poppies that we have in a nearby bed, but I know my mother had ornamental poppies growing in the old kitchen garden for quite a few years. When I was a kid, she had seed poppies in that garden. It should be interesting to see if these volunteers turn out to be an ornamental poppy, or an edible seed type!
As for the red ornamental poppy that just bloomed, I’ll be sure to allow it to self seed. This area needs more cleaning up, and it would be nice for the stuff we want to get rid of to be crowded out by something we would like to keep! :-)
While continuing my rounds, I had another nice surprise. Our very first golden pattypan squash is forming! It was too small to try and get a picture of, among the foliage. Hopefully, it’ll get well pollinated and not just wither and fall off.
We’ve got a very few other things trying to produce. The sugar snap peas are not doing well, but I did find a single well formed pod.
I ate it. It was tasty!
The King Tut purple peas grown from our own seeds are producing pods, but they are green instead of purple. There aren’t very many, but I have been able to pick the odd pod and give them a taste.
They are not tasty. Quite bitter, instead! Which is different from last year. I wonder if they had cross pollinated with the pod peas growing on the other trellis. The peas did so poorly last year, I would not have expected so. The one King Tut volunteer from last year has produced a single purple pod, which I’ve left to dry out and keep for seed. Now I wonder if it’ll stay true to type. It bloomed well before the shelling peas and snap peas did, so it should be fine.
Some of the Chocolate cherry tomatoes needed additional support. Not all of them are blooming yet, and no tomatoes forming yet. Some of them are growing well, but others, not so much. One end of that bed along the chain link fence got drowned, even though the bed itself it raised about 4-5 inches. We’ve lost quite a few of the shallots from sets to the wet, and it looks like none of the shallots from seed have made it, but I was able to give the yellow onions grown from seed a “hair cut”. I now have more green onions dehydrating in the oven, along with a tray of mint.
I was still able to pick some lettuce this morning. They have not yet bolted from the heat, which is nice. The chard I planted not long ago has started to sprout! I should sow more of those soon.
Though we had a decently cool night last night (it was a wonderful 17C/63F at about 7am), it quickly heated right up to our expected high of 27C/81F. We’re not supposed to start cooling down until about 8pm. Hopefully, between the heat and the wind, things will have a chance to dry up. Yesterday’s downpours flooded out quite a few towns. I’d heard the town my mother lives in got 5 inches of rain in 3 hours, however it now seems it wasn’t quite that much. More than enough to flood streets and parking lots, however. The town to the north of us was among those that got hit the worst in our province, and they had flooded streets as well. We certainly don’t have much to complain about, where we are! Still, it does keep us from getting a lot of outside work done. Frustrating, but we’ll live. 😉
The Re-Farmer
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Posers
Rolando Moon likes to keep me company when I’m puttering in the garden. She accepts a few pets, before attacking my hand. Mostly, she just hangs out…
Not always in good places! She moved before I could get a picture, but I caught her sprawled in the middle of the bed. Mostly on the far row that isn’t seeded yet, but she also rolls around, and pushed wood chips over the other row, where the fall chard has been planted.
Laster on, I caught her in another bed, rolling on an onion plant! She prefers to go through the beds to walking on the grass.
I’m glad I was able to get this picture; usually, this mama runs away if I come too close. I think she just didn’t want to move in the heat. 😄 Instead, she posed for the camera, so adorably!
The Re-Farmer
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Kitten fix!
Kitties, kitties and more kitties!
Actually, I’m not seeing very many of them, but there are a few braver ones that come out more often. Like this long haired beauty.
Of the ones I see the most often, he’s one of the shier ones, and runs off very quickly.
This little guy is the one that hangs out around the house the most. This morning, I found him trying to catch the mosquitoes that congregate under the roof of the kibble house.
So. Many. Mosquitoes.
That mama looks so very … tired. 😄
Of the slightly older kittens, the calico seems to prefer spending her time with the younger kittens, though she will make her way to the kibble house every now and then.
The little kitten beside her is one that tends to run off before I can get a good look at it. Shy, but not as shy as three of the six that I pretty much just catch flashes of, as they run away!
I’m not sure about the oldest litter. I think they are in the pump shack, but it might be more of a place they explore than where their “nest” is. Particularly since a skunk seems to be using it, too. This morning, I saw the black and white kitten, watching me through the tall grass as I brought kibble to put in front of the pump shack door, and the table beside it, before running off. I’ve seen only two of that litter, lately.
Those are just the litters we have seen. For sure, Broccoli has had a litter that must be getting quite big, and yet none have followed her to the kibble house. We probably won’t have any idea of just how many kittens there are this year until fall, when I expect they would be large enough to come for the kibble, with or without their mamas.
On a semi-related note, I’ve recently heard from the cat lady. We’re talking about the next cats to have spayed or neutered. Unfortunately, she’s been in and out of the hospital quite a lot, lately. So we are in no hurry. Her health take priority! Cabbages, meanwhile, is doing great, though dealing with a mosquito bitten nose! She prefers to be outside in the catio with the mosquitoes, than in the house! :-D
At some point, I’d love to build a catio, too, but I’m not quite sure where would be a good place to put one. No hurry on that, either. Other projects are much higher on the priority list!
The Re-Farmer
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Still together, and weather alerts
I am happy to say that all the kittens that were in the branch pile, are now in the board pile (formerly a junk pile) near the house. I managed to get this photo this morning.
One older kitty and one bitty kitty. :-) I could movement in the undergrowth from others, and another of the itty bitties came up for a snack.
I brought over another tray for water, including a frozen bottle of water to help keep things cool.
Most of the older kittens are still coming to the kibble house, and I got this picture of bliss, yesterday evening.
I just love the face on the kitten snoozing on the bench!
In other things, we are still getting heat warnings, and some areas are getting severe thunderstorm warnings. As I write this, we are at 32C/90F, with the humidex at 34C/93F Mind you, the same app that’s telling me that is also telling me we’re having light rain right now, when we’ve actually got a cloudless sky.
I did some weeding and pruning of tomatoes this morning, but the ground was still moist, so I didn’t need to water. We’ll see if that’s still true by this evening. I was able to get another load of cardboard today. Originally, I was going to use it to fill in the spaces around the silver buffalo berry, but other areas need it more. The squash patch in particular. Yes, we put straw down as a mulch, but that’s pretty much it. With most of the squash struggling so much, but weeding is almost impossible in that area. Laying down some cardboard will help. While I was out, I was also able to stop at the hardware store and pick up some slow release, granular tomato and vegetable fertilizer. Last year, we used water soluble fertilizer, but they only had versions suitable for flowers or shrubs, not vegetables or tomatoes.
While I was at it, I picked up 150 ft of clothes line, so we can finally get ours fixed. This time, they had in stock a much stronger version, but at more than double the price. Hopefully, what I got will last. With a line as long as ours, that’s a lot of potential weight it will need to hold. The spacers I got will help with that, though.
Once I got home, I backed the van up near the garden then prepped the cardboard, removing any tape, staples and stickers, as I unloaded. Thank goodness I was parked in the shade! I was still roasting. I used the garden hose to dampen my hat and shirt to help keep cool. The water in the hose was scalding hot, so I had to be careful! It did work, though.
We’re supposed to get rain tonight, so I want to get the cardboard down before then. Unfortunately, we’re not expected to start cooling down for another three hours!
After parking the van, I made sure to refresh the water bowls for the cats. Several of the mamas, and one of the kittens, were sprawled in the shade of the kibble house. It’s so hot out, the cats are actually panting! Not good. For the kittens in the board pile, I grabbed a 1 gallon water bottle and pokes some strategic holes in it, then put it on the water tray, where it can slowly drain. Unfortunately, in keeping the trays on to of the pile, so the skunks won’t get at it, it means the metal trays are in the sun. I’m trying to think of what I can use to create some shade that won’t blow away in the wind. Hmm.
For now, though, I’ll be staying inside until things start to cool down, then finish up with the cardboard. I don’t think there’s enough to cover the entire squash patch, but I should be able to get it around the smallest of the plants that need the most help!
The Re-Farmer
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Grandma cuddles
Butterscotch was very cuddly with me this morning.
She looks so kittenish!
She comes over to cuddle when I sit at the side of my bed to take my supplements. As soon as she hears those bottles rattling, she comes right over. She still doesn’t like to be picked up and held though – and I’ve got the scratches on my arm to prove it! She slid herself right off, taking her pound of flesh along with her, then got all adorable on the bed beside me. Like she knows she’s just too cute to be mad at! :-D
The Re-Farmer
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Our 2022 garden, staying out of the heat, and a garden surprise
We’ve got some heat for the next few days – today reached 28C/82F, and we’re expected to keep getting hotter for a few more days before starting to drop a few degrees, with possible thunderstorms in the forecast. Temperatures are still pretty close to average, though, so nothing like the heat waves we got last year.
Still, it does mean that some garden beds need to get watered, which I try to do in the morning, though some need an extra watering by evening, too, depending on how exposed to the sun the beds are. Yesterday evening, while checking the beds, I found a nice little surprise but didn’t get pictures until this morning.
The bed where we planted 10 bare root white strawberries has been largely ignored, since none of the strawberries had come up. Last night, however, I decided to give it a bit of a weeding, anyway, and lo and behold, I found a single strawberry plant had emerged!
No sign of any others, unfortunately, and I certainly don’t expect we’ll get anything out of the one this year, but hopefully we’ll be able to keep it alive and protect it over the winter, and it’ll do better next year.
While weeding the rest of the bed, I found a volunteer!
The soil in this bed is from the bags we used to grow potatoes last year. It looks like we missed one! We grew 4 varieties, so we won’t know which it is until there’s something to harvest, but from the looks of it, and the colour of the stems, I’d say it’s one of the two purple varieties we grew. Awesome!
After carefully weeding as much around them as I dared, I gave them a watering. They were so wimpy from the heat, they just flattened. The potato was perked up by morning, but the strawberry was still having a hard time holding itself up. Hopefully, with some of the weeds pulled away, it’ll grow stronger. If I could be sure none of the other strawberries will come up, I’d cover the bed with a mulch to help them out. I might still at least give them a light mulch.
A lovely surprise this morning is that the Giant Rattle poppies are starting to bloom! There were three flowers this morning, and this is the largest of them. These are from seeds we collected last year. With the heat waves and drought, they didn’t do well last year, and produced pods much smaller than they normally would have. This year, they seem to be doing better, though I’m still expecting smaller pods. We did get seeds for another variety of bread seed poppies that we meant to plant somewhere else, but with the weather conditions we had this spring, that just didn’t happen. If all goes well, we’ll collect more seeds from these in the fall for planting (and maybe have enough for eating, too!), and next year, we’ll be able to plant both varieties.
As I wrote this, things are finally starting to cool down a bit. The heat lingers late into the day, and it gets hot surprisingly quickly in the morning – when I started my rounds, it was already 24C/75F. The last of the spinach in the high raised bed has been pulled, and I am planning to plant some chard in there this evening. The two varieties we have from last year are Fordhook Giant and Bright Lites. I’ll probably mix them up a bit. There were 2 rows of spinach in the high raised bed, so I’ll likely just plant one tonight, and do the other in a week or two.
Aside from the 2 varieties of spinach I picked up to plant at the end of the month, we do still have seeds of one variety from last year. The spinach in the low raised beds are a complete fail. I was weeding the beds this morning and there are some seedlings, but they’re barely there and look like they’re already bolting, even though they’re less than 2 inches tall! A couple of varieties of turnip are also complete fails, though I think they got eaten by insects. There is one variety that is growing, but they are struggling, and the leaves are riddled with tiny holes. I never see the insects causing the damage, though. We’ll see how they manage. Sadly, one of the losses was the Gold Ball turnips. They simply disappeared. Not one left, though they were among the first to sprout. There were very few seeds in the packet, so there is nothing left to reseed. These were among the free seeds we got, and I was looking forward to trying them. It reminds me of the first radishes we got last year; a daikon type, and watermelon radishes. They sprouted quickly, and were just as quickly gone. Something to keep in mind for when we plant them again in the future.
In other things, I have been very slowly working on scything the hay in the outer yard. I have to be careful not to over do it, even if I feel like I can do more. I know that if I over do it, I can end up out of commission for days. If I do a couple of swaths an evening, it’ll slowly get done. The fun part yesterday was that, when taking breaks, I was able to play with a couple of kittens. Two of them are okay with being picked up, now, though they don’t really like getting caught. The mama is not happy, though. I saw no signs of them this morning, so I’m afraid she might have moved them. I still put food and water out, as they may simply have been staying in the cool of the branch pile while mama was eating at the kibble house.
Oh, wow. As I was writing this, my weather app suddenly starting showing this.
For those in the US: 35C = 95F, 16C = 61F and 40C = 104F.
None of this matches the forecast for our area, though. The daytime highs aren’t expected to go above 30C/86F, and that just for one day. The overnight lows, however, are not expected to go below 20C/68F. Definitely some mixed messages, here!
Also, the current temperature has gone back up to 27C/81F instead of continuing to cool down!
At least there is some rain in the forecast, though with our weird climate bubble over our area, that will likely to right around us! 😄 Early morning watering will continue!
Hopefully, this will be good for the heat loving peppers, eggplant, squash and melons, and they will have a nice little growth spurt.
I find myself once again thinking of what my brother and his wife said about their years of gardening. If they had to live off what they grew in the garden, they’d starve to death! Between the weather, the insects and the critters, you just never know what’s going to make it.
Still hoping for a long, mild fall to make up for the long, cold spring!
The Re-Farmer
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Morning kitties, new tech, tech repairs and estimates
A few months ago, my husband got me a new OBDII reader for the van. The one I had worked, but didn’t give a lot of information. This one was supposed to be much more detailed in its reports. The problem was, I was never able to get it working. I had the app on my phone, but the Bluetooth connection just didn’t exist, as far as my phone was concerned. My husband tested it out, and it worked fine on his phone, and his tablet. After a bit of research, it turned out the problem was with my particular phone model. It was notorious for Bluetooth problems.
In the end, my husband offered to trade phones. His is a newer version of mine and does not have the issues mine was known for. Last night, he did the necessary back up, switched SIM cards and external memory cards, then did a data switch for the rest. We both then spent much of yesterday evening, getting our “new” phones working again, switching accounts and logging in to various apps.
It’s going to take some getting used to. Aside from the various difference in basic functions, what is now my phone is physically larger than the other one. Which resulting in an unexpected problem.
Lady pockets.
It is large enough that it can’t fit all the way in my pants pocket, and a corner of it sticks out. I’m going to have to be careful mucking about outside, or the darn thing is going to fall right out!
One huge benefit to the newer phone is improved camera quality.
My first test picture, taken while starting my morning rounds.
On a completely different note: Rosencrantz no longer looks pregnant, so there’s a new litter hidden away somewhere. The Distinguished Guest made an appearance this morning. Unfortunately, the patch of missing for on his shoulder is looking newly injured, and larger. I can’t get close enough to see more than a flash of red injured flesh as he runs away from me. :-(
I am zoomed in for this picture of Caramel and Broccoli on the cats’ house. Wow! With my old phone, this would have been a horrible blurry mess!
A definite step up in the photo department.
Yesterday, while checking out the trail cam files, I saw someone pull into our driveway, slip through the gate, then slip back again some time later and leave. This happened while I happened to be out, but clearly whoever it was did not knock at the door, because everyone else was home.
I suspected it was the tree removal company checking things out, so I called them again. Sure enough, it turned out to be the owner.
I’m glad I marked those trees with marking paint!
I had marked 22 dead treed. He commented on how we have SO many of them; he counted about 30 in there. I told him it was the ones closest to the house, and the one by the garage, that was my main concern. I also mentioned wanting to keep the wood to use to build garden beds. Normally, they’d take the trees down in chunks shorter than was I’m wanting. We brought it down to about 10 trees, including the one by the garage. He told me that, for a job like this, he would be sending a 4 man crew, at $400 an hour, and estimated it would take about 10 hours to do the trees closest to the house.
He didn’t hesitate at all when I starting talking about fewer trees! That’s a LOT of money. We brought it down to 5 trees closest to the house, plus the one by the garage. For that, I got an estimate of $2500.
Yeah…. we have a bit set aside, but not that much! It’s actually a very reasonable price. Four man crew, with their specialized equipment to get up into the trees, their massive chipper to take care of the branches, they’d stack the logs (or trunks, in this case) neatly aside and do a clean up at the end. Yes, it’s higher than when we got work done before, but the increased cost of fuel alone would kick their prices up.
So I asked about chipping the big pile in the outer yard – adding that there was no hurry on that, because there are kittens living in it right now. He said he would have to take a better look at the pile, and said he would swing by the next time he’s in the area.
For that job, at least, we’ll have more time to set funds aside. Because of little guys like this.
This branch pile kitten is one that I’ve been able to pick up, several times now. This morning, I was able to pick it up and pet it for a while, and when I put it down next to the food, it actually stayed and started eating, rather than running away. There is a second one I’ve been able to pick up more than one. It is less tolerant of being picked up and still hissed and spit at me, but not as much as the last time I was able to pick it up.
Along with the food I’m leaving near the branch pile, I’ve also brought an extra old baking tray over for water. It’s heavy enough to not get blown away, and shallow enough I don’t have to worry about a kitten falling in and drowning. I’ve seen the kittens drinking out of it several times, since. 😊
Hopefully, I’ll be able to grab and cuddle some of the other kittens, too, and get them at least a little big socialized!
We had some other crazy tech problems going on yesterday. It started with my not being able to get through to my mother on the phone. I don’t know it that problem was at all related, but we started to have issues with our land line gain. My brother had tried to phone me several times, and just got crackling noises. I was actually on the phone with the phone company to arrange having someone come out to fix it, when our prescription delivery arrived. He’d tried to call, too, and didn’t get through. On my new prescription, was a note to call the pharmacist about the dosages; she had tried to call me, but couldn’t get through.
The guy I was on the phone with was doing his computer stuff but had not put me on hold as he did it, so when my husband and I talked about the delivery driver’s call not getting through, and the pharmacist not being able to get ahold of me, he could hear it all.
This morning, while walking in the outer yard, about to head back inside, there was a shout from the gate.
The guy from the phone company was already here!
It took a while, but the problem was traced to corroded wires at the phone jack in my husband’s room. He had to replace wires and the jack itself. He ended up having to go back and forth into the basement a few times, but he got it working.
I’m really happy about how quickly they had someone come out. Having a working land line is really important to have out here, where cell phones and internet connections are far more likely to have issues. That and the tech guy was really nice, too. 😊
The Re-Farmer
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So wee!
While doing my evening rounds and tending the garden (something has started to nibbled on our carrot greens, so that bed now has a net around it), I topped up the kibble trays. Along with going to the pump shack and leaving some kibble there, I also left a bit of kibble in front of the branch pile, where the bitty kitties are.
While walking around the outer yard, I heard the distinctive crunching noises of a skunk eating kibble – coming from the pump shack.
So of course, I went to chase the skunk away from the kitten’s food.
Oh. My. Goodness!
Would you look at how TINY it is!!!! The litter of kittens in the pump shack are bigger than this guy!
No, I did not chase it away. It’s just a baby! A very hungry baby that let me come quite close. Far more interested in food.
So… we have both kittens and baby skunks in the pump shack now!
I heard a noise and took a quick peek, finding one of the big kittens skirting around the pump shack. Later on, I came back and found no food and no babies, so I went inside. I found the bike I got at the garage sale had been knocked to the floor. While picking it up again I could see, behind some junk, a tuxedo face was watching me. I heard movement in other places, so I left.
The branch pile, meanwhile, was just crawling with kittens!
The four kittens that have been coming to the house were playing with the six little kittens in the branch pile.
That kitten in the foreground?
I was able to catch it and hold it for a while. Some time later, I came over and picked it up again, only to realize it was a different little kitten. I was able to pick this one up again when I came back one last time, topping up the kibble at the branch pile, and the pump shack, again.
Hopefully, this is the start of being able to socialize at least some of the kittens!
So many bitty babies!!!
The Re-Farmer
