The very first thing I do when I head outside for my morning rounds is to feed the yard cats, then the birds.
The yard kittens have all now come to expect it.
They are getting increasingly brave about NOT running away when I go back and forth from the sun room. The tuxedo almost went into the kibble house while I was pouring out food inside. (I believe the one on the cat house roof is Junk Pile’s little tabby that looks like Bradicous and Chadicous.)
The problem is, when one of them gets startled and dashes off, it startles the rest of them, and there is an explosion of kittens, running in all directions! :-D
When I took this photo, one bunch had returned and were eating at the kibble tray on the ground outside the kibble house, while this bunch patiently waited for me to move on!
Nosencrantz and Toesencrantz, meanwhile, where with their mom at their own private dining area under the shrine. :-D
While topping up the yard cat’s kibble trays last night, I actually got to pet a kittie!
The fact that Rosencrantz let me pet her, for a change, probably helped, but Nosencrantz still looks pretty unsure of the situation! :-D
The lure of kibble was enough for her to ignore me petting her while she ate.
Unfortunately, she is still the only one of the yard kittens that doesn’t run away every time we come out, though a couple of them are starting to come back faster, or watch from nearby. I hope that, as winter sets in and they start using the cat shelter more, they will at least calm down in our presence.
Not my usual feline cuddle partner, so I was really enjoying the snuggles.
Hard to believe this was a yard kitten that wouldn’t let us anywhere near her for the longest time! She still has some of her more feral habits, though, as you can tell by the scratches on her nose! This is a girl that stands her ground. :-D
Okay, before I get into it, I just have to share a laugh.
The phone rang just as I was about to start this post. It was clearly from a call centre, from the noise I heard in the background. After the usual greetings, the very polite person told me he was calling about our Visa or Mastercard… provider? I can’t remember the exact word he used.
Of course, I found this incredibly funny and started laughing.
I don’t have a credit card.
Too funny!
Anyhow.
While doing my rounds through the garden this morning, I found some new growth happening.
After seeing flowers for a while, now, there is finally an Ozark Nest Egg gourd starting to form! This is the first female flower I’ve seen. Hopefully, it has been pollinated and the new baby gourd will actually keep growing.
Meanwhile, among the sweet corn, I found…
… our very first green pea pod!
These peas were planted among the corn, late in the season, for their nitrogen fixing qualities, but peas are a cool weather plant, so we might actually have a decent amount to harvest before our growing season is done.
Looking at the long range forecasts, our overnight temperatures should be cool, but it’s not until October that we’re looking at temperatures just above freezing. If that holds out, that means our garden has another 20 days or so for things to grow. The beets and the surviving carrots can stay in the ground until it freezes, if we wanted to leave them. The few chard that made it are doing quite well, though I don’t think the radishes will have a chance to reach their pod stage. If they’d been planted for their roots, we’d have a whole three radishes to pick, but none of them seem to be growing into full sized plants. The lettuce that was planted for a fall crop is just reaching a size worth harvesting baby leaves while thinning things out a bit. The seeds were well spaced to begin with, so not a lot of thinning is needed.
It’s new growth like the Ozark Nest Egg gourds, the sunflowers that have not yet opened their seed heads, and the new squash and melons that I am hoping the weather holds off for. The Halona melons have been ripening nicely, and there aren’t a lot left on the vines, but there are still lots of Pixie melons. I picked the one melon to taste test, before it was fully ripe, and have just been waiting on the rest to reach that point where they will fall off their vines. It seems to be taking an oddly long time! There are a lot of little Red Kuri squash that just won’t have time to fully mature before the cold sets in, but I hope the Teddy squash will have time to mature. They are so small, they should be able to.
A lot of people on my gardening groups have already brought their green tomatoes in to ripen indoors. With our tiny indeterminate varieties of tomatoes, I don’t know that we’ll bother. We have ripe tomatoes to pick every two or three days, and that is working out quite well.
On the down side, while I’m glad I was able to finish the extensive mowing around the inner and outer yards, by the time I was done, I was in massive pain. Especially my hips, where I have bone spurs. I’m still in a lot of pain today, so that limits what I am physically able to get done outside, as far as manual labour goes. The temperatures are supposed to remain pleasantly cool for the next while; perfect temperatures to get caught up on the heavy work outside.
There are actually six kittens in this photo. There’s the four in the kibble house, Junk Pile Jr at the other kibble tray outside the kibble out, and there’s a grey tabby behind her. You can just barely see the top of it’s back.
Nosencrantz actually stayed in the kibble house with her cousins, while Toesencrantz and her mother used their own private dining area under the shrine. Potato Beetle as hanging out as well, though he walked out of frame as I was taking this picture. :-D I also saw flashes of the other three kittens, wanting to come and eat, but still too nervous with me around. The little tuxedo actually stayed close, and didn’t even leave the kibble house when I went around the other side to fill the kibble tray on the ground. :-)
A lovely little bee, laden with golden pollen, on a Hopi Black Dye sunflower!
I was very happy to see it this morning. Strangely, I have not been seeing very many pollinators since we finally got rain. We still have flowering summer and winter squash, beans and peas, along with the sunflowers. With the sunburst squash, which is the most prolific of them all, I can see quite a few losses due to lack of pollination. The Magda squash as well, and we only have the one plant. We have plenty of yarrow blooming, among other wildflowers, so there is plenty to attract them. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t tried to get rid of the wasps nest in the crack in the foundation under the old kitchen. They are almost the only pollinators I’ve been seeing lately!
I had a very happy surprise this morning, as I headed out with kibble for the yard cats.
One of Junk Pile’s kittens was in the cat’s house, looking at me through the window!
Unfortunately, it ran out and off before I could get a photo. To I have these, instead.
Rosencrantz, Nosencrantz and Toesencrantz enjoyed their private dining area. :-D
I got to boop Nosencrantz on her nose as she gave my fingers a sniff, but she wouldn’t let me pet her today.
The kitten that was in the cat’s house is at the food tray, in between her two siblings. It has the same white and grey tabby markings their mother has. The kitten in the front looks just like Bradicous and Chadicous! I’m told I accidentally closed it up in the sun room a couple of nights ago, so I’m going to have to stop leaving the door into the sun room open behind me when I’m working in the yard. The girls had a hard time getting it to leave, because any time they came near, it would high. Apparently, the tuxedo and Nosencrantz were trying to rescue it. :-)
While picking up fallen branches and adding them to the pile, I had an audience!
I am hoping their curiosity will help us eventually socialize them. :-)
Kittens make for a great way to start the day!
On another note, we found a mystery burrow yesterday!
We found this near a tree, not far from the old doghouse critter shelters by the outhouse. I was working around there not long ago, so I know it wasn’t there just a few days ago.
We don’t know what critter made this! It’s way too small to be a woodchuck. It might be the size of a gopher/prairie dog hole, which are about half the size or less of a woodchuck, except they leave piles of soil around their dens, too. In fact, that’s part of the mystery. This is a very deep hole. Where is the dirt? There is no dirt scattered around at all. I’ve been trying to think of all the burrowing critters that live in our geographical area, and nothing matches. They are either too big or too small for the hole, or they leave hills around their dens. The closest I can think of is rabbits, and we don’t really have rabbits here. We have hares; the big ol’ jackrabbits that are the size of a small dog. There is one type of small rabbit that might be in our area, but from what I can find of what their dens look like, this isn’t it.
Curious, indeed!
I just moved the garden cam back to the driveway. Maybe I should set it up here, to see what lives here!
Yesterday, I was able to actually pet her while she was eating. This morning, I was able to touch her, but she would stop eating and move away, so I let her be.
I had to add the rock to the kibble tray to weigh it down, after finding it knocked onto the ground a few times. Mostly because of skunks, but once looked like a critter got startled while it was eating, sending everything flying. :-D
I was a bit late heading outside to start my morning rounds. As I went into the sun room, there was a sudden chorus of meowing outside the door. There was at least half a dozen cats and kittens, crying for kibble! :-D
Once the food was out, almost all the kittens were at the kibble house, eating away. My presence made them nervous, but not enough to leave completely. Toesencrantz had the kibble tray under the shrine all to herself. The only kitten I didn’t see this morning was the tuxedo.
While heading out to do my evening rounds yesterday, I topped up the cat kibble – and got invaded by kittens!
There is only one adult cat in the kibble house in the above photo, plus Rosencrantz and her two are at their private dining area under the shrine.
All three litters of kittens were running all over the yard, playing with each other! The fact that most of them stayed to eat while I took photos – even with zoom – is very encouraging. :-) It will be good for them to get used to each other, since we can expect them all to be using the cat shelter over the winter.
While checking the garden beds, the girls gave me a hand moving one of the mesh covers so we could collect our very first chard leaves!
These are the Bright Lights chard, with their brilliant colours.
In the other bed where we had planted chard and radishes, only a single chard plant has survived the grasshoppers, and it’s pretty small, still.
Here we have the largest of the developing Hopi Black Dye sunflower heads. These are the ones that were direct sown after last frost.
This morning, I found this.
This is another Hopi Black Dye sunflower, from the row of transplants. These are the ones that did not germinate until after the others were direct sown, so they were much smaller and further behind. Then they had their tops chomped off by deer. Yet here they are, spindly and barely knee high, yet the seed heads are starting to open before the big ones!!
Speaking of seed heads…
I collected the driest of the poppy pods. I was a bit concerned that the rain and humidity would create a mold issue, so they are now in the sun room. As you can see, some of them are even dropping seeds!
These are Giant Rattle Breadseed Poppy, and the pods should be much, much larger than this, but given the growing conditions of this year, I’m just impressed we have any at all. There are still others that are green, but starting to dry out. I am debating just leaving them be, to self sow for next year. Given how few survived, there isn’t enough for eating, other than a taste, but more than enough to keep seeds for planting in a different area next year, if we want. I wouldn’t mind even finding a spot to scatter them as if they were wildflowers, where we can access them to harvest seed pods, but also where we can leave them to self seed, year after year. At the same time, I’m thinking of ordering more of this variety from Baker Creek, plus trying a different variety of eating poppies I found from a Canadian source. This is something I don’t mind having lots of, as poppy seeds are among those things I enjoy, but rarely buy. Neither variety I’ve found are like the ones I remember my mother growing, but I believe she got her seeds from Poland.
As things are maturing, my mind seems to constantly assess for next year or, as in the case of the poppies, for a more permanent crop. For all the difficulties we’ve had with this year’s garden, due to things pretty much out of our control, we have learned a lot that we can apply to future gardens, what we want to keep, and what we need to change. Especially as we move from our temporary garden beds to our permanent ones. :-)
On a completely different note, today we had an early birthday party to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday at my brother’s. I was my mother’s chauffeur. :-) We had a great time, and we able to see her great grandson for the first time in almost 2 years. They live in a different province, so it was fantastic that they could come out for the birthday party.
Between the drive and how long we stayed to visit, we were out pretty much all day, but my mother held out very well. She even seemed to like the necklace we got for her gift and put it on right away, though she was completely indifferent to the little bag I crocheted to “wrap” it in. Even when I suggested she could use it to hold one of her rosaries, she said nothing. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know if she took it home. I helped bring in and put away her packages, and it wasn’t in any of them, so unless someone tucked it into her purse, she doesn’t have it. Which is actually a better response than I was expecting. :-D
Some things just don’t change! ;-)
Anyhow.
As wonderful as it was to see everyone, this introvert needs a battery recharge. I think an early bed time is in order! :-D
