postaday

Digging out

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Oh, man, I am so tired.

Today, we started digging out from yesterday’s blizzard.

We didn’t finish, but progress was made.

My husband was a sweetheart and did the cats’ food and water this morning. He shouldn’t have, but did have to dig his way to the kibble house and uncover a couple of water bowls. He slogged his way to the kibble tray under the shrine.

Knowing him, he was probably wearing his sandals while he was out there! LOL

There is a set of stairs to the main entry over under that snow. Good thing we are using the sun room doors! The cat path is pretty funny.

I shovelled my way to the stairs before I stopped, then slogged my way around the corner to grab the 100 ft extension cords, then went to the garage.

I am not standing in a drift, here. The snow is up to my knees.

I shoveled in front of the garage enough to open the doors to where little Spewie is stored.

This little thing is not made for a job as big as this! The expeller was barely higher than the snow!

Seeing the photo, I am noticing the knob at the end of the handle to rotate the expeller. I wish I’d noticed it earlier. The bottom of my parka kept getting caught on it, and the knob end fell right off! I did eventually get a chance to look closer, and it just needed to be screwed back on.

At this point, I paused to add the second 100 ft extension cord.

As you can see, there is a lot of water under that snow! As light as little Spewie is, the wet made it very difficult to push it forward, and my footing was precarious.

Here, the snow was above my knees.

You can see in this photo, that the knob end had fallen off by this time.

Guess who finally reached the gate, only to discover they’d forgotten the key? LOL

At least the walk back would be much easier!

Along the way, I also paused to knock the snow and ice off the trail cam, though I didn’t switch out the memory cards, yet. I haven’t even tried to reach the one by the new sign – a sign, and camera, I’m sure is now plastered with a layer of snow and ice, too!

Once I got the key, I discovered another problem.

I couldn’t get it into the lock.

No, it was not because of ice.

There seems to be a piece of metal jammed in there!

Off hand, I’d think it was our vandal, but there were no tracks in the snow. The last time we opened the lock was Wednesday morning, 2 days ago. We did get a prescription delivery early that evening. My daughter met the driver at the gate, since I was up to my elbows in flour, but never had to unlock the gate.

Well, maybe we’ll see something in our trail cam, before it got covered with snow, when I switch the memory cards out tomorrow.

I had to cut the lock off to open the gate, and continue on to the road.

Once that first pass was made as far as the road, the rest went a bit easier. Going back and forth, I could only clear a few inches wider each time, because of how deep it was.

The road has not been plowed yet. Which means we’re going to have a ridge of snow across the end, soon! LOL

I cleared it just wide enough to drive though. Barely.

But I wasn’t able to finish in front of the garage. We can’t back the van out, yet, and where my mother’s car is, we can’t even open the doors, yet.

In one of the photos, you can see the path my daughters shoveled. They also shoveled paths to the burn barrel, the meter on the power pole, and even to the pump shack. There was concern that a cat was in the pump shack and was snowed in. We kept hearing plaintive meowing, but couldn’t really tell where it was coming from. There is a hole in the bottom of the pump shack door that smaller cats go in and out of that they cleared, just in case.

They also shoveled the sidewalk, around the kibble house, and to the kibble tray under the shrine. You can see that snow even got into the kibble house! A garden hoe turned out to be the perfect tool to clear that out. It was remarkably hard packed.

After they did the shoveling, they made supper and, by the time I came in, there was food and a fresh pot of hot tea waiting for me!

I really needed it, by then. While it was almost too warm for how bundled up I was, I was very wet. My boots were soaked and, even though I had a pair of those foot warmer things, my toes were starting to feel frozen. Plus, while clearing beyond the gate, the wind was blowing the snow all over me, so even my parka was wet by the time I was done. Of course, my double layer of pants were wet to my knees, too. We will have to finish tomorrow.

One of the last things the girls did before heading in was go around to some of the lilacs and knock off the snow, so they wouldn’t break under the weight. Some things, however, were already broken.

One large branch along the south fence line near the driveway was visible from the garage security camera, so I was expecting that one. It turned out to be the top of a dead tree. Another large piece of dead tree fell right on the barbed wire, but we haven’t been able to get at it, yet.

Nor have we been able to get at the large branch that fell in front of the outhouse. I’m sure there are other fallen branches around, but we haven’t even tried to make our way through the snow to check, yet.

Tomorrow, we will need to get back at it. At the very least, we need to clear enough to be able to back the van out of the garage and turn towards the road. We also need to clear enough of the yard that we have room to drive up to the house, with room to turn around.

This is one of those days were I really wish our vandal had returned the Bobcat, as my mother repeatedly requested. This could all have been finished, including the yard, in less than an hour with that thing. I was out there for more than three hours. I’m seriously considering contacting our renter and seeing if we can hire them to come over with their tractor! I’m sure we could find somewhere to squeeze that our of our budget.

Our forecast has changed, of course. We are no longer supposed to get snow tomorrow (Saturday). Sunday is supposed to be colder, but also without snow. Monday, however, it now says there will be “isolated flurries”, with rain and possibly another 5-10cm of snow.

Monday is when I have to drive into the city for Case Management about our restraining order.

*sigh*

At least I can be confident the roads will be plowed by then. When I first started working on our driveway, I could hear the reverse alarm of heavy equipment in the distance, so I think the main road may already be done.

For now, I’m going to have another giant mug of tea!

The Re-Farmer

First snow of the year is a doozy!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

When I tried to make my last post using my phone, I hoped to get enough of a data signal to publish a text post.

I never did.

After about an hour of trying, our internet started to come back sporadically, and it finally posted.

Our internet continues to go in and out, but I did manage to upload photos and am daring to make a proper blog post!!

While this year’s kittens have seen some snow a little while ago, this is the first time in their lives that snow has actually accumulated on the ground for any length of time. I’m sure it’s been a bit of a shock to them! It was sunny to see one using my foot prints to get around.

The kibble house was nice and dry, though I had to knock snow out of the tray on the side, and the one under the shrine. Then I had to dig out the water bowls, knock out the slush inside, and refresh them with warm water.

Then I shoveled some snow to make paths from the sun room, around the kibble house, to the shrine, to the bird and deer feeding station (we have yet to see signs of deer coming around to the house) and the sidewalk to the small gate. Later, we will need to shovel a path to the power pole so we can read the meter, and the burn barrel. But not yet. The snow is incredibly wet and heavy, and still coming down.

Then I went to check on the gate and switch out the trail cam memory card.

Not going to get too many files off of this one!!

It’s not going to be easy to clear the driveway. The snow is so wet, and there is water under it. We’re doing to have to do something, though, because I need to be able to get out of our driveway very early on Monday, for my court date in the city. And it’s supposed to continue snowing trough Friday and Saturday!

This sheltered area is going to be such a nice place for a little sanctuary, once we clear out the dead trees and set up some seating.

Butterscotch caught up with me as I was using my walking stick to knock snow off of low hanging branches so they wouldn’t break.

I did find some broken branches, too.

There wasn’t too many of them, but the few there were, were rather large!

This one is more “piece of tree” than branch! I could clean up the others, but this one will likely wait until spring.

This is on the north side of the house, reminding me once again of just how glad I am we were able to get those trees cut away from the roof and power lines!!!

The snow is so wet and sticky, it even stuck to the wire mesh on the squash tunnel!

This was a disappointing find. I’d left the gazebo tent out to cover the picnic table and BBQ, set as low as it could go, but it couldn’t handle this wet, wet, heavy snow and just collapsed. The canopy even tore, too.

I used a garden hoe to clear as much of the snow off as I could, but we will likely leave it here. It is still serving as a cover for the BBQ (the cover it came with was torn to shreds by the wind, already), the picnic table, and any critters to take shelter under them.

Before heading in, I took the snow off the roof of the cat’s house, since we will need to lift it to replace the smoke detector in the near future. Then, since I was shoveling around it for access, anyhow, I went ahead and shoveled the cat path to the storage house, too.

Right now, we continue to have wet snow falling. It’s only 0C/32F with a wind chill of -7C/20F. It’s not snowing especially heavily, but it is constant. Looking at the live feed on the security camera, I can’t see the road past our gate. My brother’s field across the road is just a while blur. A lot more branches than usual are in view, hanging down from the weight of the snow. By Sunday, the snow is expected to stop and we will have our coldest day, at -5C/23F, but amazingly, we’re not predicted to reach 1C/34F by Tuesday!

For today, we will be staying indoors, except for topping out the kibble and water for the outside cats later on. While I had my baking day yesterday, my younger daughter wants to do her own baking today, too. A day of quiet domesticity is going to be much enjoyed!

The Re-Farmer

Internet Down

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

Posting might be sparse for a while. Our internet went down last night, and has not come back, yet. Likely due to Blizzard conditions to the south of us.

We are in pretty good condition here. Maybe 5 or 6 inches of very wet snow. A few branches fallen from the weight. Our gazebo tent collapsed under the weight. But we are fine, and so are the outside cats. :-)

I am getting just enough data signal on my phone, that I can make a text post. Hopefully. If you are reading this, it worked.

The Re-Farmer

A good day to be baking!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It was a lovely morning, as I did my rounds, with nothing at all to suggest we were going to be hit by a storm, later today!

As is now usual, I had a whole crowd of kitties waiting outside the door for breakfast. :-D

I counted 19, but it’s possible I missed one of the ‘icouses. They were milling about so much! I did get to pet a few furry butts, including several of the kittens that normally would have run off already, plus our newcomer.

Creamsicle Baby was battling it out with Agnoos for special attention. :-D

Butterscotch followed me while I was doing my rounds. She really likes that I now go to the corner of the property to check if the new sign has been vandalized yet, and switch out the memory card on the camera. She has taken advantage of the set up and uses the various posts to climb up and jump onto me, making it very hard to switch out the memory card!

While going through the yard, I spotted a few summer yard tools we missed putting things away, and brought a couple of our snow shovels closer to the sun room door. They are normally kept by the main entry, but we are avoiding using that door until we can get the door and frame replace; something we’d hoped to get done before this winter, but the budget for it just didn’t happen. I wasn’t even able to get the estimate done; I was going to call the same company that did the windows here, before we moved in, but I can’t find them! I do hope they haven’t gone out of business, like so many others have done in the past year and a half. :-(

When I was ready to come inside, I found this handsome fella waiting for me.

He even let me pet him and scritch his ears!

I think this one is Chadicous, but I’m not sure.

I love that pink little nose!

The general store the post office is in closes at noon on Wednesdays, so I headed out shortly after they opened. I wanted to get the battery we needed for the cat’s house smoke detector that I forgot to pick up yesterday. While there, I picked up another bag of flour, just in case.

I had a few general things planned for baking today. One of them was muffins, but I hadn’t settled on any recipes. After doing some searching, I found a couple of savory recipes I wanted to try.

The whole day of baking was about timing! The first thing I did was cook a package of bacon in the oven, until dry and crumbly, for one of the muffin recipes. Once that was cool and crumbled, I started a double batch of bread. I didn’t use our dough baby, because I forgot to set it to soak overnight. Instead, I used our basic bread recipe, which gets modified with whatever we have on hand. This time, it included oatmeal and chia seeds, with molasses for the sweetener.

While that was sitting for its first rise, I had time to make a double batch of apple bacon muffins.

Half of them were for the freezer, and half to have on hand. This recipe as a surprising amount of cinnamon in it, which accounts for the darker colour.

There is an entire package of bacon and two Granny Smiths in that double batch! The recipe sounded amazing, but it didn’t live up to expectations. Don’t get me wrong; they were quite tasty. However, I really expected to at least taste all that bacon! The predominant flavour was the apple. I’d definitely make them again, even if they didn’t life up to their hype. ;-)

When the muffins where done and cooling, the girls quickly took over the kitchen to make lunch for everyone. That gave me a chance to take a break – and see that the snow had finally arrived!

It has just changed from rain to snow when I took this photo. They’re hard to see, but there is at least one chickadee going for the sunflowers as they disappeared under the snow!

By the time we finished lunch, the bread was ready to be shaped into loaves and left for a second rising, which gave me time to make another double batch of muffins.

This time, they were cheddar cheese muffins. They were supposed to be smoked cheddar, but what we had on hand was sharp cheddar. The recipe included cornmeal and cayenne pepper. For a double batch, it would have been 1/2 to 1 tsp of cayenne, but there was no way I could use that much. I enjoy the flavour of spice, but have no tolerance for the heat. Still, I did add some. These turned out very nice. Better than the apple bacon, I’d say. Another keeper. Especially for the next time we get smoked cheddar. :-)

Once these were done, the bread loaves were ready to go into the oven. While they were baking, I started another double batch of bread. This one had oatmeal in it, too, (more specifically, rolled oats, softened in boiling water for a few minutes) and some hemp hearts I had left.

Also, I’m glad I got that extra bag of flour. We had just started a new bag, and I’ve already gone through half of it!

These are the oatmeal, molasses and chia seed loaves. I’m rather pleased with how they turned out! I’m a terrible one for using too much flour, and taking them out of the oven too soon, but I’ve gotten better. ;-)

Then, while the second batch of bread was rising, I made a batch of double chocolate cookies. Double as in, it has two kinds of chocolate (cocoa and chocolate chips), not a double recipe. A single recipe was enough to fill four baking trays. For so many, I had to get a daughter to tend the oven, as they baked very quickly, while I had to start shaping the bread for their second rising. This time, I made them into large buns instead of loaves. The timing turned out perfect. By the time the last cookies were coming out of the oven, the buns had risen enough to go into the oven.

I didn’t bother taking photos of the second batch of bread, nor the cookies. The cookie batter was the kind you drop onto an ungreased pan by spoonfuls, then they spread flat while in the oven. I ended up having to increase the cooking time, and they also turned out to be very fragile. Which is okay. Broken cookies taste just as good as not broken one! They just don’t look pretty. ;-) As for the buns, even with the oatmeal and hemp hearts, they just look like white bread. :-D Those were the ones we started on tonight. While two of the loaves of the first batch went to the freezer, along with half the muffins, I decided not to bother freezing any of the buns. Those are going to disappear very quickly!

In the middle of all this baking, I got a call from my mother. She was wanting to know if we had snow, too. By this time, it was coming down pretty heavily. She sounded so excited, and started going on about what a good thing it was we got her shopping done when we did. I agreed, mentioning that unfortunately, we didn’t get all the things we wanted to get done finished. She was completely oblivious. Instead, she started saying that, as long as the septic was covered, it was fine. She had seen the insulated tarp we had ready to cover it, the day she came out here, so she started giving me instructions on making sure it was weighted down so it wouldn’t blow away. I told her it was pegged to the ground. Apparently, she didn’t know that tarps have grommets on them, than can be used to fasten them down. She kept on going, telling me about how important it was to cover the septic tank. I ended up asking her, how long have we been living here? She thought three years. I said four, and we’ve been covering the septic every year we’ve been here. I know my mother thinks I’m stupid, but you’d think she would have noticed that the winterizing has been getting done, every year.

What I find strange, though, it that she was also talking about covering the well. In fact, she was talking about the septic tank and the well interchangeably, and then saying that if the well freezes, we’d have no water, and how terrible that would be. This was something she brought up last year. She insisted that the well cap had been covered with straw, every year, just like the septic tank. Which has never been done. Not only was it never covered with straw, but I know that even the accumulated snow was removed, likely with the Bobcat our vandal stole, as evidenced by the chips in the concrete, and one of the handles on the cover being broken right off, while the remaining one has been bent flat. Hidden by snow, it’s been hit and run over. Plus, the well cap is at least 12 feet down. It’s never been a problem in the almost 50 years since it’s been dug. She also had nothing to do with any of this sort of maintenance, so I don’t know where she is coming from on this.

It was a short phone call. I mentioned I was in the middle of baking, and she happily let me go. She just wanted to talk to me about the snow. It felt so weird. She’d been so nasty to me when she was here two days ago, and she has no awareness at all about it. I’d talked to my brother last night. My mother had just called him. I had filled my siblings in on how things went when she came out here, so he was in the loop. When my mother started talking about coming to see the sign, she was going on and on about how great it looked, how great everything looked here at the farm, and what a great visit it was. To which he said, no it wasn’t! He spent time time trying to encourage her to be kind and build people up instead of always tearing them down, to which she replied, “I’m not going to lie.” Apparently, the opposite of being cruel is to lie? She had said something about not saying that everything looked beautiful. Which isn’t what anyone is expecting and has nothing to do with simply treating people nicely. I’m grateful my brother stuck up for me, but we are both left rather perplexed by her inability to understand what it means to treat people kindly.

We may not have caught up completely, yesterday, but we did get the essentials necessary for winter, at least. This is our first real snowfall of the year, and while we will continue to be relatively mild, this is a snowfall that will stay. It is still coming down, and now the forecast says the snow will continue to fall through to Saturday, too. Our temperatures remain above freezing, so sleet is a major concern on the highways right now. We’re expected to get 10-15 cm of snow today (4-6 inches), with another 10-15 cm tomorrow, though the weather alerts say that our area might actually get more, due to the lake effect. It’s past 9pm as I write this, and we haven’t reached anywhere near the predicted levels, so who knows what will actually happen.

The forecasts do still say that today’s storm will become tomorrow’s blizzard. I was just looking at our weather history, and the record high for today was 13C/55F, in 2016, while our record low was -20C/4F, in 1991 – but our average high is 0C/32F and average low is -7C/19F, so the temperatures we’re having right now are not at all unusual. It just feels like it! Funny how that works.

Either way, it turned out to be the perfect day to stay inside and do a whole bunch of baking!

The Re-Farmer

Scrambling to catch up, and a court update

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Today turned out to be a lovely day. Sunny, and at a high of 8C/46F, warmer than predicted. It made it very hard to believe that there is a storm and blizzard coming our way, starting tomorrow! While my phone’s weather app has been saying a blizzard was coming since yesterday, it was only until early this afternoon that my desktop app changed its forecast and began giving weather alerts.

After losing so much time yesterday, today was a day to scramble and get the essentials done. The rest will wait until spring.

Last night, the girls lifted the roof on the cat’s house, cleaned it out and replaced the old straw with fresh. Unfortunately, the heated water bowl had to be removed; the cord’s sheath had cracked, right where it contacted the bowl itself, exposing wire. That is unfortunate, as the heated water bowl made a huge difference last winter! So far, however, we are still expected to have mild temperatures, so we won’t need to plug in the electricity to the shelter. Which is good, because I forgot to buy a new 9V battery for the fire alarm we have in there. The ceramic terrarium bulb we have in there for warmth is well shielded, but we still want to have the alarm functional as a safety precaution.

I don’t know of the cats are happy with the clean up. I haven’t seen them in there, yet!

When I headed out this morning to do my rounds, I counted 20 cats.

But only Nosencrantz was willing to pause for a photo! :-D

One of the things I took care of while doing my rounds was to finally scatter some wildflower seeds.

I had two packages of wildflower seeds that were meant for the area outside the yard, in front of where the new sign is. Eventually, I want that entire strip to be filled with wildflowers for the pollinators – and so I don’t have to mow it anymore! I used a bulk sized spice shaker and some soil to scatter the seeds evenly.

This was something I expected to do in the middle of September, but it was just too warm. I didn’t want to risk the seeds germinating too early, and getting killed off when winter temperatures arrived. With the storm coming, these will get covered with snow and should be good to lie dormant until things melt in the spring.

Last night, the girls also used the insulated tarp we found in the garage a while back and used that to cover the septic tank, instead of straw. It’s large enough that it could be used, folded in half. It was full dark by then, so they just weighted it down with some fence posts. This morning, I shifted it a bit to get it right up against the house, then pegged it down.

As you can see by the two pegs on the right, I hit some rocks in the process!

By the time I pegged that down, I was done my rounds and headed inside to go through the trail cam files while eating breakfast. It was rather funny to see all the files of my mother and I, when I took pictures of her at the new sign. It feels so weird to see myself on video! :-D

By the afternoon, things had started to warm up nicely, so I headed outside.

The first thing I wanted to get done was scatter a different wildflower seed mix in the yard.

This one was an alternative lawn mix, for shade and partial shade, of flowers native to Western Canada. This double row of trees is really hard to tend, so I settled on this as the location for the seeds. Unlike the area in front of the sign, though, this one needed to be raked, first.

The first raking was to remove the leaves and debris, then it got raked again to loosen the soil surface a bit. There were some maple and willow suckers coming out of old stumps that needed to be pruned as well.

Then the packet – one larger packet of seeds – got added to the shaker with some soil and thoroughly mixed before being scattered on the raked ground.

Then, the leaves got raked back, as a mulch.
I look forward to seeing if this works in the spring!

One of the priorities on our to-do list was to finally repot our house plants. They’ve been hit with overnight frost, but amazingly, the aloe vera was still alive! They were overgrowing their post, though, so most of them ended up in the trench of the third low raised bed, to break down, except the biggest one that was too big to be buried in there, so it went to compost. I ended up transplanting 4 or 5 strong, healthy little aloe vera for the girls to bring inside later. The umbrella tree looked dead, but I pruned it back and repotted it, because it does actually seem to still have life to it! I would hate to have lost that thing. It had been doing so well, even with the cats constantly trying to get into it!

One of my daughters was working on commissions, so she could only come out to help briefly. My other daughter tried to help, but she was feeling sick and looked so horrible, I sent her inside. Poor thing felt so bad! She did, however, get the last hose put away for me, and was kind enough to run into the basement to shut off the water to the taps.

Once the water was shut off, I opened the back tap and put one of the new insulated hard covers for the taps on it, then finished putting up the rest of the insulation we put around the bottom of the house. This area had been left until we were done with using the taps, and the septic was covered. The front tap still needs its cover, but it is much more convenient to get at, so it can wait a bit.

Along with some other clean up, I did finally make it to the squash tunnel to prepare it for next year, but was only able to do one side before I had to go in for an expected phone call. The rain barrel was turned on its side and weighted down, the long tools and rolling seat went into the old garden shed, and the storage bin we kept to hold shorter tools and various other things we might find handy, went into the sun room. The things we have left undone are all things that will be okay if they wait until spring. It was just time to finally put the tools away!

Then I made a quick run into town to get a few things we thought we might run out of. The predicted storm is supposed to hit the south of our province, but it’s hard to know if we’ll get hit by it as well, or just catch the edges of it. At the very least, we expect to lose internet more often. That happens any time there is bad weather to the south of us. Though it is supposed to start with rain, we might get about a foot of snow, over two days, at which point we won’t be going anywhere for a while! I had already planned on tomorrow to be a baking day, and the last thing I wanted was to runout of ingredients in the middle of something!

Meanwhile…

I got an email from our vandal’s lawyer asking if I were available for the case management session on Monday. That went back and forth for a while. It turns out it will not be with just me, him and our vandal. It will be with the same judge that we’ve been in front of, this whole time.

My brother will not be able to make it, but we don’t want to delay this any more, so I took it. I feel more confident knowing that the judge will be there. The unfortunate thing is that it is going to be at 9am – in the big city, not the closer, small one we’ve been going to all this time. Worse; the court offices are downtown. So not only will I have to leave unfortunately early, just to make sure I have time to get lost among all those one way streets, but it’s going to cost more in fuel, and I’ll have to pay for parking. Minor things, but with costs going up, there just isn’t much wiggle room in the budget! Very annoying. But, it’s that, or wait a year for a trial. :-/

So that has been confirmed.

I am both looking forward to getting it done so quickly, and dreading it.

At least, by then, wherever snowfall we get from the storm will no longer be an issue. There will be plenty of time for any road clearing needed to be done by then!

As for our scramble to get stuff done, no, we weren’t able to finish it all, but the essentials are done, and the rest should be all right to wait until next year.

Speaking of next year, we’re made progress there, today, but that will be the topic of my next post! :-)

The Re-Farmer

The good, the bad, the “someone just shoot me now”

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

What a day.

What a long day that started really well…

I had a very enthusiastic crowd waiting for me this morning. Including the new edition. I was even able to pet her a few times, though she kept moving away when I did.

But yes, I was able to confirm. Our new addition is a she.

I just hope that, wherever she came from, she’s already fixed.

In the end, I counted 19 cats this morning. Only Rosencrantz was missing. :-)

My morning rounds now include going to the very corner of the property to check on the sign. No vandalism! (yet?)

What I found interesting is that the squash tunnel was shaded. It is only this time of year that the shadows from the spruce grove reach this far. In the summer, the squash tunnel gets full sun, all day. The main garden area’s beds, meanwhile, are now in pretty much full shade all day. What a difference, time of year makes!

The transplanted mint is looking just fine; not at all droopy from being moved.

One of the empty blocks, however, seems to attracted a critter. Possibly a skunk digging for grubs. Whatever it was, it lost us some of the soil in those openings around the edges! I want to fill those with sand or gravel.

After I finish my rounds, I spend some time going over the trail cam files. We had a long list of things to work on outside, while it is still relatively warm in the afternoon. I was going to head out right after having lunch, then calling my mom to arrange to bring her to see the sign tomorrow.

She called me first.

She wanted to come today.

I told her I was thinking of tomorrow, because it’s such a warm day, and we have lots to do outside. She said the warm day was why she wanted to come today, because it would be harder for her when it was cooler. And I could spare an hour for her, couldn’t I?

Which would mean just driving her over to see the sign, taking some photos of her next to it, then driving her home. Was that what she was wanting to do?

Yes.

Okay.

So off I head to the town she lives in, and when I get there, she is cleaning out her purse and preparing a list of things she needs.

Since I’m there with her car, anyhow…

Okay, so we’ve added grocery shopping to the list. No worries.

We head back to the farm and as we come to our driveway, my Mom suggests we go straight to where the sign is from the road, not in the driveway. As we get closer, however, she suggested we keep going to look at the other quarter section, first. Just a drive by. This was something she had talked about wanting to go before, so I was expecting it. We did the drive, saw that it looks like the renter has moved his cows to that quarter, since there is a hay bale, salt blocks and a feeder set up near the gate. At the far end of the property is an intersection I can turn around at, then back we went to the sigh. I pulled over on the road, and there was thankfully a nice level spot she could go over with her walker. We got several pictures, and then back to the car.

Did she want to see what I did with the outhouse? I ask.

Oh, yes! was her enthusiastic reply.

I am such an idiot.

First, we drove over to the old workshop that is now completely filled with all my parents’ stuff we cleared out of the house. There was an old framed print she wanted. This was something else that had come up in past conversation, so we too the opportunity to grab that. Then we drove into the yard, and I backed up towards the outhouse.

My mother being ticked off that I did that, instead of parking further ahead, as usual, should have been my first warning.

To make it short, because I really don’t want to relive the experience, my mother decided to tour the inner yards, starting with the newly finished brick lined bed where the tomatoes were (she liked that, at least), but not until after making snide comments about the newly framed low beds where we have two types of garlic planted (so this is where you’re putting the garden now, is it? Uhm… no, Mom. It’s just the garlic).

I tried several times to redirect her to the outhouse, and she ignored me every time. As she worked her way around the yard, she made sure to give me a hard time about the garbage pile, which we need to hire someone to haul away for us (she didn’t have much to say when I pointed out this was garbage we found all around the yard that’s now in one place), acted surprised about the tire planters being moved, even though she’s been here since they were moved, and had just walked past the one that isn’t wrecked and could be used again), made sure to tell me to leave the spruce tree she planted at the chain link fence (I’s talked about transplanting it, before it gets so big it tears the fence apart, shortly after we moved out here, and she went ballistic on me, so I didn’t say anything this time). I commented on the second one that had been there dying, and she lectured me on how I should have watered it (it was killed by the cold, two winters ago), made numerous comments about the things I should have done around the yard (things I would have been doing, if she hadn’t asked me to bring her over), asked why I’d cut down the crab apple tree by the old compost, and when I told her it had died of diseased, lectured me about watering things again. Because, in her mind, if you water the trees, they won’t get disease. Then she mocked and laughed at me for building the high raised bed, the squash tunnel, the trellises and the low raised beds. No one does things like that, you see. They just plowed the whole thing.

Then she nagged me about various other things as she worked her way around the yard. When I thought she was finally going to the outhouse, she ended up going to the back door of the garage. She wanted to see the wood chipper.

That door leads to where her car is parked.

I tried to get her to go around, but she wrestled her walker through to door, so she could snoop in the garage. Which was have not even come close to cleaning up. I got the chipper out for her to see, and she really liked that, but then complained because there were still branch piles. Then she complained about how ugly they looked, and how ugly the post pounder my late brother built looked. I’d covered it with a tarp I’d found in the barn that was big enough, but after several years, the wind has torn it to shreds. We don’t have anything else big enough to protect it. But it looks ugly, and people can see it from the road, so it needs to be covered.

Eventually, we made our way back into the yard and…

She went to the car to leave.

By then, I’d opened the door to the outhouse, but hadn’t put the mat back because I wanted her to see how nice the floor looked, too.

She wouldn’t go near it. She just glanced over and said she could see it through the door. Then got into the car.

So, I put the mat back, closed up the outhouse, put her walker into the car, then we headed out.

Along the drive home, I tried to chat and mentioned the electric chainsaw we got. She mocked me about it, but in such a way that I didn’t understand her “joke” at all. Which then led to a whole slough of mockery.

I shouldn’t be using a chainsaw. I shouldn’t be doing men’s work. I need a man. Also, I’ve done nothing at the farm at all. Apparently, I’m a weak, useless, stupid woman who shouldn’t do actual work, except for the stuff that she used to do on the farm (while everything else magically did itself, apparently), which I am not doing right, because I haven’t done it yet, but she thinks I should have done it by now, or I’m not doing it the way she did, therefore I’m doing it wrong.

Oh, I forgot. At one point, when I told her that I’d lost a day of work by having to drive her around, she told me, what work? I don’t have cows to milk! What work am I doing? I don’t have any work.

Well, I called her on her behaviour, and pointed out that she shows no appreciation, gratitude or kindness. To which I got a sanctimonious, “yes, yes, get that off your chest” response. Because, clearly, I’m the one with the problem, and her cruelty and insults are neither cruel nor insulting.

*sigh*

Still, when we got back to her town, we were civil. I helped her with her grocery shopping, though she brought up getting an apple pie to have with tea when we got back to her place. I told her I didn’t have time to stop for tea, but she could get one if she wanted.

She didn’t.

Once at her place, I put her groceries away and she was going to give me some money for gas, which I do appreciate. She then brought out a bill (almost enough to cover the amount of gas spent in driving, but I do still appreciate it!) and told me, if I’d invited her inside for tea, I would have gotten more.

I told her, I didn’t realize that was an expectation.

By the time I left and put some gas in the tank, it was so late, I couldn’t even stop at the post office to pick up a package. My day was wasted. There was no time to even start anything when I got back, because I wouldn’t have enough time to finish before the light was gone.

I’m just so ticked off right now. After talking with my husband and telling him some of how it went, his response is, not to have her back here again. And at this point, I can’t disagree.

My mother is why we are living here. We came here to take care of the place for her. Now that the ownership has been transferred to my brother, I still try to respect her wishes as much as possible, and keep her informed of how things are going. In the end, though, she doesn’t own this place. My brother does. And he is very happy with what we are doing, and with our various plans for improving the place. He is our “landlord”. Not my mother. She has no actual say in how this place is run, and she certainly has no right to verbally abuse me.

I am lost past the stage where she can actually hurt me anymore, but my goodness, she can drain every bit of energy out of me. I feel more exhausted from a few hours with her – and it wasn’t even an unusually bad visit! – than I would have felt if I’d spend those same hours doing manual labour. Mental exhaustion is far more difficult to recover from than physical exhaustion. Still, to look at the bright side, at least there wasn’t a single racist rant or shouting about political issues she doesn’t understand, either.

Thank God my brother now owns this place. He and his wife more than make up for all the trouble my mother causes. They are such awesome people, and make it all worthwhile.

The Re-Farmer

So, about our new furry visitor…

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

When I headed out this morning, along with the usual crowd of yard cats swirling around in front of the sun room door, was our new furry visitor! The stranger is still with us, but not acting like a stranger at all!

In fact, after I refilled the kibble trays, I was even able to pet a furry butt, before he realized he was being touched, and jumped out. Which is more than I can say for most of our own cats!

Except…

He, may actually be a she. It’s hard to tell with the black fur and fast moving body!

This is clearly a cat that is no stranger to humans, even if a bit shy. This could mean it’s a cat from one of the surrounding farms that is expanding territory, but if it’s a female, I find that less likely. The other possibility is that this is a cat what got lost or dumped in the area. Which means that he or she may already be fixed.

Either way, it looks like this cat has been absorbed into the yard cat family!

The Re-Farmer

Still here!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I wasn’t able to get pictures of the cats when I first came out, as it was still dark at the time. I’ve already had a long morning, but I will post about that later. It wasn’t until the job was done that I could get a picture of…

… out new addition! He’s still here! When I was working in the old kitchen garden yesterday, he was prowling around along with the other cats.

The other cats have no issues with him at all. They act like he’s always been around! Even with the adult cats, there is no aggression towards the new cat. They’re nastier to each other, than to this guy!

Hopefully, the peace will continue, and we’ll be able to keep another cat safe and well fed!

The Re-Farmer

Manual labour is good therapy, and a court update

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I headed out early today, for my court date with our vandal. It’s been a year, minus a day, since my first court date regarding my application for a restraining order was scheduled.

It was a very, very long day.

No, it’s not resolved.

But before I get into that, I will talk about something more therapeutic. I was so mentally exhausted by the time I got home, I needed to do some good old manual labour to get some “rest”.

I feel so much better, now!

With the day being several degrees warmer than forecast, I focused on the area that caused problems before, because the ground was too frozen. The old kitchen garden.

Before our old garden fork finally bent from the mostly frozen ground, then broke when my daughter tried to straighten it, she did get a start on the retaining wall before moving to an area where the ground was not frozen. This is the area that gets the most shade, plus I wanted to transplant some mint out of another bed into some of these, so the blocks got first priority. The ground was quite thawed out, today.

After the groundhog ate the lettuce that was planted in these, they basically got abandoned until now. Happily, there wasn’t too many weeds and roots to dig out.

After I did the blocks from the chives to the opposite end, I dug up some mint and transplanted them into every other block, again starting from the chives. When I thought I was done, I walked back and found some mint that got dropped from the bunch as I moved along the retaining wall, so I cleaned up one of the blocks in the foreground and planted it there. We had buried a mystery bulb in it, earlier in the year, but there was no sign of it when I dug into that block, so mint it will be!

I don’t know if they will take, but we shall see. After they were transplanted, they got a thorough watering, and that section is now done, unless we decide to mulch it with straw, now that there is mint in the blocks. We shall see how things go over the next couple of days.

This is the somewhat triangular bed we had planted carrots in, and where the garden fork met its match. The bed is too wide in the foreground, and that is also where the mint was coming up. Mint was even coming up through the paths we covered in straw and were walking on! There was one mint plant visible in the foreground that looks frozen, so I didn’t try to transplant it.

For this bed, the carrots that had bolted got buried in the middle, while the wider end was narrowed.

I stopped before getting too close to the pink rose bush at the “point” of the triangle. We’ve pruned the ornamental apple tree that was overshadowing it, and last year it finally bloomed, but this year, like so many other things, that one cold night in May killed off any developing flower buds, and it did not bloom at all. Hopefully, next year, it will have a chance to do better!

These are the mint rhizomes I found while clearing and resizing the bed! Even the rhizomes smells strongly of mint.

I then moved on to the L shaped bed we planted beets in. This one end in the foreground was particularly bad for weeds, but the rest was much easier to clear out.

My older daughter was able to come out and give me a hand part way through. She brought the logs over to frame the resized bed. The log at the end was originally cut as an end piece for the high raised bed, but the measurement got goofed, and it was more like 3 1/2 feet long, instead of 4 ft. So it’s perfect for here! The other two logs were from the remaining tops of dead spruce trees we’d used in the high raised bed. They are too thin and wonky to use in a high raised bed, but they will work here for now. In time, this will get replaced with something more permanent, and higher.

Then my daughter helped me finish weeding the L shaped bed. Once that was done, a shallow trench was dug along the middle, and the beets that were too small to harvest got buried.

The final step was to even out the soil in the framed bed, then I used the hose to wash the soil against the logs and level it out more. As gaps were found under the logs by the water, I stuffed them with straw.

These beds are now ready for next year. There is just the bed along the retaining wall to clean up, and later the paths will get a new layer of straw to keep the weeds down.

By the time I was done, I was feeling much rejuvenated and refreshed.

The day in court was so much longer than expected. Because of the fairly long drive, plus the need to get some gas, I left before 8am. It was still dark when I left, and there was one redeeming factor during the drive. I got to see a gorgeous sunrise. We do live in a very beautiful area!

On the down side, by the time I got home, I’d burned off all the gas I’d been able to put into the tank! :-( I used my mother’s car, as it has not been driven much at all, lately. It does not have good mileage!

Anyhow.

I got there so early, I was the first person there, and the security guard didn’t even have the docket yet. We ended up chatting for a while, until the other security guard came with the docket. They both remember me by now! While we were talking the next person who showed up was our vandal. I almost didn’t recognize him at first, because of the mask (I wore my Mingle Mask, making me both recognizable and memorable, it turns out!). His lawyer was going to call in, so our vandal was on his own.

So we waited.

And waited.

Court started at 10, and they went through the docket.

We waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

The security guard called our vandal over and told him he might want to talk to his lawyer about calling in, because he was next on the docket and I heard him say the lawyer was already on the phone, waiting, too!

An hour passed.

Two hours passed.

The second security guard, who was calling people in, came out and called for anyone who was there for the first time, but was not represented by a lawyer.

Someone else went in, and we waited.

Then someone else got called in, and we waited some more.

By the time we got called in, it was well past noon.

Our vandal was asked about his lawyer, and he explained that he had been on the phone for an hour already. The judge called into the mike, but the lawyer wasn’t there.

So they took the next files while waiting for the lawyer to call in again.

Several files later (they went by very quickly) and still no lawyer, so our vandal finally offered to text him, and they went on to the next file, with the understanding that it would be interrupted if the lawyer called in.

This one took longer, and then they moved on to another that was even longer. That one did get interrupted as the lawyer finally called in, with apologies.

The judge spoke to the lawyer for a while, then asked our vandal to clarify some things. I had agreed to suspend my application, if he agreed to seek psychiatric help. It turns out that his first referral was to the bigger city, but they are so backlogged, they are not accepting any out of town patients. His doctor then referred him to the smaller city we were in for court, but they are backlogged at least 3 or 4 months.

Given the way things are going, in my mind, it’ll be twice that, at least, but who knows?

So that left us in a quandary. The judge asked me how I wanted to proceed, and I told him that I understood the issues with backlogs, but until he is getting help, I don’t feel safe. He has already caused damage and been threatening towards me, which was acknowledged. I told them I felt that the only reason we have peace right now is likely because of my application, but it’s already been a year. The problem is, if it goes to trial, we won’t have a court date until…

A year from now.

All the previous cases that got rescheduled while we waited were going to November of next year, so I was not surprised by this.

Given how long it has taken, the lawyer suggested going to Case Management. The judge explained that this would be me, our vandal and his lawyer in a room, trying to work things out. I asked if I could have someone with me. The judge asked who, and I suggested my older brother, who owns the property. I had to explain that we are basically caretakers, and my older brother owns the property; the safety issue is about me, while the vandalism affects my brother. The judge agreed. So I won’t have to be alone and bullied by our vandal and his lawyer.

So, in the interest of speeding things up, the lawyer will have to show up in court a week from now, a date for case management will be worked out with the judge, and the lawyer will inform both of us.

By the time we left, it was nearly an hour, for what is normally a 10-15 minute session.

Near the end of it, our vandal tried to interject that there was a “bigger picture” involved and brought up his civil suit against me. He started to say how the property was transferred to my brother “behind his back”, that I’m keeping him from his possessions, and that I am using the courts against him. Which is a rich claim indeed, considering he is the one that caused damage and took so many things from this property, and he is the one who has filed vexatious litigation against me, in retaliation for applying for a restraining order. However, in his mind, he is the victim. He doesn’t even deny that he vandalized things. He just acts like it hasn’t happened, and my family and I are just persecuting him. He doesn’t deny that he’s taken things, either. He truly seems to believe he was entitled to it all. But then, he also believes he’s “maintained” this place for 30 years (my parents were still actively farming 30 years ago), my parents bought the property in 1952 (they weren’t even married yet), and they somehow managed to fun a fully functioning farm, without owning anything on it (he’s told me 90% of everything here belongs to him). It’s all part of why I want him to get psychiatric help.

The judge pretty much brushed his comments off as something to be dealt with in Case Management.

Given his mental state, I don’t expect anything to be accomplished by Case Management. But, at the very least, it will show the courts that we tried.

The year long delay for things to go to trial, though… good Lord! So much can happen within that year! Even then, ultimately it’s just a piece of paper. But it’s a tool that will, hopefully, get him help for his mental health, and maybe stop drinking (which hasn’t even come up, yet). The judge may even choose to have our vandals guns removed. Not that it would stop him from doing something like setting fire to the house.

*sigh*

The police recommended I apply for the restraining order back on 2018, when I first laid charges. It was already stressful enough to press charges – which got stayed, anyhow – and I didn’t want to go through it all. On the one hand, it feels like I shouldn’t have bothered now. On the other, I wish I’d done it back in 2018, before the world went crazy.

*sigh*

What’s done is done. I can’t stop now, or things will just get worse.

Meanwhile, we just keep on going, taking care of this place, and improving it any way we can.

And protect what’s left of it it from our vandal.

The Re-Farmer

Morning mystery… solved?

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Though my husband had been able to feed the outside cats this morning, when I headed out an hour or so later, I found some of the kibble trays already needed to be topped up. While I was doing that, I came upon some mysteries.

The most obvious one was the knocked over concrete pedestal. We often see a cat perched on top of it. It’s heavy, but because of the height, not as stable as I would like, which is why it’s not being used to hold the concrete Mary statue that I think it was originally used for.

This was more of a surprise.

The shrine was not maintained over the years, so there’s quite a lot of rotted wood, but what on earth could do this sort of damage? The cats like to go up here, too. Could there have been a massive cat fight? Even so, how could the cats have done this sort of damage?

Then there was this. That chicken wire is what had been protecting the cucamelon and gourd bed. Last night, it was in the upright wheelbarrow, waiting to be put away for the season.

If there had been a cat fight this violent and far ranging, we would have heard something. Wouldn’t we?

I continued my morning rounds, heading up the driveway to check the gate and switch out the memory cards in the trail cams.

I had lots of company this morning!

Though there are six cats in this photo, I ended up with eight of them, following me around!

I found it funny that Agnoos and … one of the ‘icouses (“Sadicous, I think)… found the frost covered plywood “bridge” nicer on their toes than the ground!

While the kittens kept their distance and explored the driveway and culvert, I had Creamsicle Baby, Nutmeg, Rolando Moon and even Butterscotch, all vying for attention! Creamsicle Baby in particular was so demanding of attention, he was not only winding around my feet while I walked, but even jumping up to grab my hands. I was carrying Nutmeg then, later, Butterscotch, so I couldn’t bend over to pet him. He would not let me pick him up when I tried, though.

While continuing my rounds, I made a point of checking out where our sign is going to be set up. My brother really wants to get those posts in before the ground freezes too hard. He’ll be coming out on Saturday, which is supposed to be warmer, and the posts will be installed right at the fence line, so as not to mess with municipal rules. He ended up getting four 8′ posts – two for the sign, and two, just in case. He decided to get the taller posts so the sign would be higher. If the posts are 2′ in the ground, then the top of the sign will be at 6′ instead of 5′, as it would have been with the 7′ posts he originally intended to get. Higher means more visibility, and it’ll be harder to vandalize. Sad thing to have to take into account. I’ve been sending photos of the sign in progress to my brother, and after one set of them, he answered by basically saying “it’s looking good… it’s going to get vandalized…”

With that in mind, he plans to use carriage bolts to attach the sign.

When I started working on this sign, I basically used whatever I could salvage. I found the piece of plywood in the barn, the white paint was left over from fixing the sun room door frame, I already had the reflective paint I’d bought for something else, etc.. The only money I spent was on the paint for the lettering, which I didn’t skimp on since it will be used for other things, too, and a set of craft brushes for the lettering. Since I knew the paint would ruin the brushes, I bought the cheapest ones I could find. Then my brother finds out what I’m doing, and suddenly he’s all excited about it and buying fence posts and carriage bolts! :-D The posts, alone, cost more than what I spent! So sweet of him. I’ll just have to touch up the bolts with white paint, so they won’t be big black circles in the lettering.

With that in mind, when I came in from my rounds, I paused to finish painting the sign. This time, I used a much smaller brush and used it to straighten edges, fix some serifs, and basically make it look all nice and tidy. Well. As much as I can, with my shaky hands. It’s not perfect, by any means, but not anything anyone will notice from the road.

It’s not done, and the paint has a couple of days to dry before the sign will be installed. It’s much sooner than I expected, but that’s okay. Hopefully, our vandal will find it too chilly to try and damage it.

Speaking of which, I have a court date for our restraining order, tomorrow. It’s been over a year since I filed for it. Because of the repeated delays due to restrictions and shut downs, this time the judge actually wants me there to ask me questions. Hopefully, this means it will be finally granted, and our vandal will be required to get the mental health help he needs.

Anyhow…

Once the sign was done, I finally sat down to check the trail cam files – and got a surprise!

A cow, walking up to the gate and checking it out.

!!!

The electric fence had just been fixed, yesterday!

The funny thing is, as I was walking up the driveway, I saw the hoof prints of a cow, frozen into the gravel of the driveway. I just figured they were from the cow that got caught on the trail cam, the night before.

As soon as I could, I headed back outside to check the outer yard fence line.

Clearly, something did go through here, pulling the wire into our side of the fence, but maybe a calf, not a full sized cow!

I then went to the section of fence they had gone through previously, and it was clearly where they had come through. The tall grass was trampled, and there was plenty of dung about. The one cow I saw on the trail cam clearly had company!

The time stamp on the trail cam video (it’s a good thing we have two cameras on the gate, because while both had their motion sensors triggered, the cow was visible in the dark in only one of them) was about quarter after 9pm, so by the time I was out this morning, the cows were nowhere to be seen, though I could hear them. I sent a message to the renters to let them know, being sure to tell them there was no urgency. We’ll just keep the inner yard gates closed.

The thing is; last night, while the vehicle gate was closed, the people gate was opened while my daughter and I worked in the yard. With the electric fence fixed, I didn’t bother closing it again.

So… could it be that a cow came into the yard, and did the things I found in the morning? There’s no chance of seeing tracks in the grass and leaves. I can see knocking over the wheelbarrow and pedestal, but how would a cow cause the damage to the shrine?

Is my mystery solved? Or not?

The Re-Farmer