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Morning kitties

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For the past while, pain has been driving my husband out of bed quite early in the mornings, so he has been sweet enough to feed the outside cats as soon as it gets light. Which is great for the kitties, and for me, though it meant I didn’t get to see the morning crowd at all! :-D

Yesterday, I headed outside to see if I could work on the high raised bed garden. It was a no go, as it started to rain while I was out there. I did, however, get company…

The ever nomadic Rolando Moon had been away for a few days, but yesterday she came back. She was still with us this morning, too. :-)

There are nine kittens and three adults in this photo! Including Junk Pile and Junk Pile Jr. I can tell them apart because Jr. has more white on her back legs.

I had come out to top up their food in the kibble house last night, after it got dark. As the noise of dry kibble hitting metal pans started, there was a sudden scrambling from the cat’s house beside me, and kittens began flailing out of the doorway. It turned out to be full of cats, and I had scared them!

I then went to top up the tray under the shrine. As I came back to the sun room, I went wide around the kibble house, trying to be quiet. It was completely full of cats, eating! :-D

It’s good to know that, as the nights get cooler, they are using the cat house. I’m even seeing a kitten or two through the window during the day, too.

Nosencrantz has started to regularly come right up to me! Sometimes she lets me pet her, sometimes she just wants to be close by and watch. This morning, I got to give her skritches. :-)

Toesencrantz got to share breakfast with Grandma Butterscotch – but not for long!

When I had come out this morning, I found Stinky in the kibble house. He ended up going around and under the cat’s house, before finally running off. As you can see, he came back, and the cats know well enough to give him space! You can even see Ghost Baby disappearing off on the left. She had been under the shrine, eating with Butterscotch and Toesencrantz.

I was not happy that Ghost Baby was driven away, so I got out the hose to spray the skunk away.

He wouldn’t leave!

Yes, I was hitting him directly with water, but he just shook it off and kept coming back for the food! I finally gave up. I figure he must be really, really hungry to put up with being soaked like that.

Ghost Baby did come back later. Gosh, I want to snuggle that poor baby so much! The other cats tend to drive her off, and she’s so shy of us, we’ve had no opportunity to socialize her. I’m assuming that Mystery Kitten Eleven is hers, which means her own kitten is more socialized that she is, just because it’ll come up to the house, and eat while we are around. Hopefully, over time, she will get more used to us, and the current crop of kittens will be more welcoming of her than some of the adults have been!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: sleepy bee, a pretty harvest, and more rain to come?

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While doing my rounds this morning, I was specifically looking to see how things held out after the colder than predicted overnight temperatures a couple of nights ago. Quite a few heads are at that drooping/maturing stage. Others are still in their early stages of blooming. It isn’t unusual, in these cooler mornings, for me to find a variety of small insects in the flowers, not moving much because of the cold.

This morning, I found this beautiful creature.

This beautiful bee wasn’t just sluggish. It was “sleeping”. We were at 10C/50F when I took this photo, and we’re only supposed to get a degree warmer, but I do hope the bee managed to make its way back to its hive!

That we have any pollinators out and about right now is pretty amazing to begin with. Mostly, I’m seeing yellow wasps, probably from that nest at the crack in the foundation under the old kitchen, or the nest in the big branch pile in the outer yard.

Having them around is appreciated, because even though the colder temperatures have resulted in drooping, cold damaged leaves on all our squash, they are still blooming! The flowers don’t seem to have been affected, and summer squash seem to have been protected by their own leaves.

I will be checking on the pattypans later, but I did pick these this morning.

This is actually the second Red Kuri/Little Gem squash we harvested. There is still the mutant, which I’m leaving because its vine is still looking so green still, and a smaller one that is still more yellow than orange. I’ve left our two little Teddy squash for now, as their vines seem to be doing all right, and I want to see if they will get any bigger.

The Tennessee Dancing Gourds were a bit of a surprise. They weren’t the largest ones, which were still firmly attached to their vines when I checked them. Then these ones just popped off their vines when I handled them! We’ve got more than a dozen of these picked, and the vines still have so many more, and more flowers! Even the luffa is still blooming.

How long this will last, I can’t even begin to guess. It’s been such mild fall, and these are plants that are not typically grown in our zone. Our mild fall has extended our growing season by at least a month, already.

It does not look like we will be able to do any chipping today, nor for the next couple of days. We are supposed to be getting more rain. Our own area looks like it will just get the edges of the weather system, but my weather app was sending out warnings for possible flash flooding in some areas. From the looks of the weather radar, the south end of our province is already getting heavy rains. The same system looks like it’s been dropping snow as it passed through the US before reaching us! Since we moved back here, we’ve seen snow, and even blizzards, before now, so I am incredibly thankful for the mild temperatures and rain. Every drop will help in recovering from this summer’s drought conditions.

Oh, my goodness! I just have to share this!

I got interrupted by a phone call while writing the above. When I answered, someone asked for my late father, by his first name only. Without saying he was my father, I told the guy my dad had passed away several years ago. He expressed sorrow, but then another male voice came on, this one with a strong accent, so it was clearly a second person on the line, asking if Mrs. ________ (mispronounced, but that’s not unusual) – my mother – was there. I said no, she no longer lives here. I was then asked if the man or woman of the house was available. I said that would be me. Which is when the first guy started talking again, saying he was from CARP, and how was I doing this morning? I told him that I was very confused right now, so he said he would call back again at a better time.

!!!

I just looked up CARP and, aside from lots of websites about fish, I found this.

C.A.R.P.—A New Vision of Aging is Canada’s largest advocacy association for older Canadians promoting equitable access to health care, financial security, and freedom from ageism. Backed by more than 320,000 members, C.A.R.P. is a non-partisan association committed to working with all parties in government to advocate for older Canadians. Our mission is to advocate for better healthcare, financial security, and freedom from ageism. C.A.R.P. members engage in polls and petitions, email their elected representatives, connect with local chapters and share stories and opinions on urgent issues.

C.A.R.P. membership support creates major changes in government policies and protects the dignity of Canadians as we age. Members are also rewarded with discounts on over 100 everyday products and services they know and love from C.A.R.P.’s trusted partners.

https://www.carp.ca/about/#about

So… I don’t quite fit into their demographic, yet. :-D

Also, they really need to update their phone lists! My mother hasn’t had this number for at least 7 years, and my dad passed away more than 5 years ago.

Oy vey!

Anyhow. Back to topic!

After a few days of rain, we are actually supposed to get sunny and warmer again. Hopefully, that will be a good time to get more chipping done. For now, while the rain holds off, I’ll see what progress I can get on the high raised bed. I want to at least get one high raised bed completed in time for when the garlic comes in, since they will need to be planted right away. I also just got word back about getting another round bale of straw, so we should be getting that delivered soon, too.

There is so much work to get done before the snow flies!

The Re-Farmer

Feeling chipper today!

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I am so excited!!!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, and WOW! do I have a wonderful gift to be excited for!

A few days ago, I wrote about a proposal I’d made to my mother. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on a garden shed we do not yet have a prepared space for, I suggested she give us the money to put towards getting the tools and equipment needed to clean things up (things she is constantly complaining about). She said she would only discuss it with my brother. Not because he’s the one who now owns the property, but because he’s a man, and I shouldn’t be doing “men’s work.”

The day before Thanksgiving, my brother made the drive out to join my mother for church and go out for lunch. Among the things they talked about was the farm, and what we were doing. Of course, my mother was complaining about what a terrible job we are doing, and apparently my daughters don’t sweep the floor.

???

How she would even know that, one way or the other, I have no idea. It’s an assumption she’s making. My husband is Metis, which means he’s an Indian, and all Indians are dirty and have dirty houses, therefore we are dirty and never sweep the floor.

Aint’ racism fun? :-/

The irony is that, when I was a kid, my mother made a big deal about teaching me my “duties as a woman” and I was forced to do not only the housework, but things like making my brother’s beds – and hers! Basically, I was expected to be a little household slave. It was very much an abusive situation, though I didn’t understand that at the time, just as I didn’t understand for many years that my reaction to housework after having a family myself was what we now know as PTSD. I was fine if it was just me. I even had a job as a housekeeper at a resort hotel without any problem. As soon as other family members were part of the picture, however… well, let’s just say it was unpleasant. It took many years for me to recognize what was happening and work through it. I still have that response, but I now know how to spot it happening and take steps. What it comes down to, though, is that I am a terrible housekeeper directly because of the trauma she caused when I was a child. I couldn’t even begin to explain it to her. She wouldn’t be able to grasp it.

But I digress.

As my mother criticized me and my daughters for her perceived ideas of how we run the household, my brother tried to tell her to encourage me, rather than attack me. He even asked her outright if she were punishing me for not sweeping the floor, and she said yes!

Well, my brother is an amazing man, and he continued to defend me and tell her she needs to encourage me rather than attack me. She brought up about the “mess” in the yard – most of which are the branch piles – and in the end, she actually agreed to pay for a wood chipper.

!!!!

More specifically, she told my brother to make the arrangements, and she would pay for it.

Since equipment like this tends to be on short supply this time of year, my brother and his wife went shopping yesterday. They had to go to a bit far afield to find one in stock, but they did get one. Then, since it was already loaded in the car, they came over last night to drop it off!

This baby will chip branches up to 3 inches thick, and he made sure to pick the version with a more powerful engine.

It was starting to get dark by the time they got here, so I took a picture this morning. Yes, it’s still in the box. Today, I plan to spend some quality time with the instruction manual and assemble it. Hopefully, we’ll be able to start using it tonight. I will probably have to pick up more fuel, but it should already have the oil it needs. If not, I probably already have the right kind.

This morning, I phoned my mother to say thank you. She knew nothing about it, yet! My brother will bring her the full receipt (he left a gift receipt with me) later.

Of course, my other had to try and bring me down and made sure I knew that this actually belongs to my brother. Which is a given, as far as I’m concerned. What’s on the farm belongs to the farm, and the farm belongs to him. It’s just a matter of semantics, really. Still, he made sure to get this for me, because it’s a tool we need to do the job, and I am over the moon with excitement. We should be able to make a massive dent in all those branch piles, before winter sets in!

I can hardly wait to fire it up!

The Re-Farmer

A Crespo surprise

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It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day, but we are having our big dinner today. My mother loves her turkey dinner, so I will be bringing her some tomorrow, while my brother visits with her today. Right now, the turkey is in the oven, as are most of the potatoes that were harvested yesterday, so I can take a break to post about our Thanksgiving garden surprise. :-)

Last night, as we headed outside before the light faded completely, I took my daughters over to see how quickly the Crespo squash is growing. In the process, we discovered a hidden squash!

Hidden Crespo squash

It had been hidden by leaves until now!

I came back this morning to get a photo, but of course my phone’s camera decided to focus on everything but the squash itself! :-D

This is easily the biggest of all the Crespo squash we have developing. This is the only pumpkin type of squash we’ve got this year, so it seemed appropriate to find this on Thanksgiving weekend.

I didn’t get any photos, but the Ozark Nest Egg gourd is also showing us surprises. There are SO many female flowers showing up, with their little gourds at their bases, and it even looks like quite a lot of them got pollinated! A few have wizened away, but more seem to be making it.

If the weather can just hang in there! I’m now seeing overnight lows of 2C/36F by Friday, with rain at the same time. The squash and gourds seem to actually like these cooler temperatures, and are producing like crazy, but I doubt any of these will survive such lows, even without frost. We shall see. It would be so awesome if they managed to mature! For that, though, I think we’ll need mild temperatures through half of November, too. Which does happen. It’s whether or not we get frost that will make the difference.

That we haven’t had frost yet is something to be thankful for, this Thanksgiving weekend!

Just in case I’m not able to post tomorrow, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

The Re-Farmer

Gonna getcha

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Sometimes, the Potato Beetle is terrifying…

He really wanted to get on my shoulders! I’d already been painfully climbed while switching the memory card out from the other camera. I wasn’t going to let him do it again, so he did this, instead. I had to back right off to avoid being pounced on! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Kitties of the morning!

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One of the most fun things about heading outside in the mornings has become seeing all the cats waiting for me, outside the sun room door.

Most were moving around too much to try and get photos through to door, but Nosencrantz was willing to post for me!

Gosh, she looks so much like Nicky the Nose!!! I wonder if she will get big like him, too?

Junk Pile Jr. was patiently waiting for me to move on, so she could get back to the kibble!

As was her brother (sister?), Tuxedo Mask, and her cousin, Caramel. :-D

Nosencrantz is getting so comfortable with me! I could walk right up to her, pet her and take photos, without her even looking like she was about to run off.

Caramel was perched and watching me from the old tire planter, but when I moved to take her picture, that was a bit too much for her!

Meanwhile, four other kittens were prowling in the nearby white lilacs!

Two of them are completely hidden by the leaves in this photo, but if you look closely, you’ll find part of a little orange face – just one eye and one ear – peaking through the leaves.

I like my morning company!

The Re-Farmer

We still have tomatoes

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I just had to share this photo.

Before I headed out this morning, I took the time to pick tomatoes.

It’s October 7, and we still have tomatoes!

I probably could have picked more beans, too, but I didn’t have time before I had to head out.

Those little Spoon tomatoes are the most adorable things ever! They almost make me like tomatoes.

Well. No. Not really. I just like growing them. I don’t think that really counts. Thankfully, I have others in the household the household that like to eat tomatoes. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden; enjoying a sad little corn harvest

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This morning, I went through all the sweet corn blocks and harvested anything the looked like it might have a few kernels on it. :-D

I can’t remember which variety I’d planted in each block, but you can really tell the difference in them! I’d started with the southernmost block, which almost filled my giant colander. The husks with so much red in them are from the middle block. Most of that one had split husks with green or dried out kernels visible, so there were not a lot to pick. The teeniest cobs were the largest ones I found in the northernmost block.

These are the husked corn from that northernmost block. I’m honestly surprised by how many developed kernels there are on them. They are the tiniest of cobs, and yet they are still edible!

These are from the centre block. Their darker colour has more to do with that fact that these where the first to develop cobs and are past their peak eating stage. I actually enjoy corn at this stage; there is a toothiness to them that I like, and the flavour is more “corn” than “surgar”. A lot of the cobs had a whole side that did not get pollinated, so as the pollinated kernels formed, the cobs formed a curved shape.

The southernmost block where the last to mature, and these are actually at their peak. In fact, some of the cobs I picked turned out to still be way too under ripe, and went straight into the compost pile. Even as I shucked them, I had to be careful as the kernels were so tender and juicy, if I accidentally scraped a fingernail over them, they’d practically burst!

While I joke about this being such a sad little harvest, I’m actually really happy. They are tiny, poorly pollinated, and there are so few of them, but we actually have corn to pick! I honestly was not expecting any in these blocks. Thankfully, we have not had any frost yet, and our temperatures have remained mild, if not downright hot at times. If not for these weather conditions, we would have had none at all. I’d be pulling everything up for compost.

Instead, I had sweet, buttered corn for breakfast!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: dead trees, and I’m being watched!

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Yesterday evening, I was able to head out and finally work on the dead tree that’s stuck. While I was getting tools out of the sun room, I discovered I was being watched!

They were not only watching me, but they did NOT run away, and one of them looks almost relaxed!

I’ll take that as progress. :-D

Then it was time to get to work.

For the tree that’s stuck, the first thing that needed to be done was to brace it before I started cutting. Then I measured a little more than four feet from the bottom and cut it most of the way through. Then, just to be safe, I used a rope to pull out the brace from a distance, then used the rope again, to pull out the cut piece.

Now that this has been cut shorter, the tree can be pulled out with the van, once we have something we can use to safely haul it out. We do actually have chain handing around but 1) I won’t want to use chain, because if it breaks, the damage could be catastrophic and 2) the chain I’ve found is so big and long, I would have to use a wheelbarrow to bring it over! :-D At this stage, though, the tree can wait until we get some strong enough rope. It’s also now low enough that I could remove the rope that was wrapped around the trunk, from when I tried to get it to roll off the branches it’s stuck on.

The four foot length was moved to join the others by the main garden beds. Then I took down the third dead tree in this group.

This tree was a fair bit thinner than the other two, and was faster to cut down. When it fell, it landed on the stuck tree, which basically guided it away from the trees it’s stuck on, and down to the cherry trees.

All of those cherry trees will be cleared away, as they are not right for our climate zone, so the first order of business was to start clearing enough of those away that we could access the trunk. Dead branches were also cleared off the trunk. Then, while I continued to clear more of the cherry trees away, using loppers for the thinner ones, and the baby chainsaw for the few larger ones, my daughter started to measure off the trunk to cut the first four foot length.

We got two four foot lengths and a nine foot length before it got too dark to work, so I got these photos this morning.

As with the other two trees, the wood is nice and solid, with no sign of rot. That means, not only will the wood be used to build our high raised beds, but the stump will be used to support a seat or a table.

With so many dead trees to clear away, we’re going to have a lot of those by the time we’re done!

While cutting lengths from the trunk off, we were able to pull the rest of the tree out a bit, but at this point, it’s too hung up on the cherry trees that haven’t been cut away, yet. I had thought to be doing more of that today, but it might have to wait. Pain levels are high, which is no surprise, but as I write this, it is also 30C/86F right now!

One more nine foot length, and I’ll have enough wood to make a raised bed that’s 3 logs high. With how thick the trunks are, that might be high enough! :-)

The Re-Farmer

First Burn, and kitty count

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Last night, I did something we haven’t been able to do in almost two years – and the last time I did it, I probably shouldn’t have!

I did a burn.

The burn barrel has been full for some time, but with the conditions we’ve had for the past two summers, we had full burn bans, including burn barrels and fire pits. I suppose we could have done burns in the winter, but we had such a bitterly cold winter in between, we just didn’t.

While I was outside, tending the fire, I had cats and kittens, circling around me the whole time! The kittens were curious enough to play around me, but not enough to come close. :-D

Speaking of kittens…

I did a head count will feeding the outside cats this morning. For two areas, it’s easy. Rosencrantz and her babies were at their private dining area (and what is Toesencrantz doing, the way he’s all stretched out and flattened like that?? LOL), while Butterscotch and Tuxedo Mask were at the kibble tray on the ground. So we’ve got three kittens accounted for.

Inside the kibble house, however…

So we have Potato Beetle in front and Rolando Moon in the roasting pan. That leaves… nine kittens?

Do we have twelve, this morning?

Then I realized I was seeing double.

There are two Junk Piles in the kibble house. Junk Pile Cat and her mini-me, Junk Pile Baby! Who is almost as big as her mother.

So now I’m thinking that on the one day that I counted a dozen kittens, I may have accidentally counted Junk Pile as as kitten.

The kittens are all getting so big! :-)

The Re-Farmer