While heading over to put some kibble out for the junk pile kittens this morning, I found this.
Just last night, I was looking closely at this lilac, to see why one of the branches had died, and found it broken at the main stem. Now think I know what broke it. My guess is a racoon was using the lilac to get at the bird feeder, and it broke under the weight.
Which is what I think happened to this bird feeder.
When we cleaned up and painted this bird feeder, we found only two bent screws were holding it to the metal piece that fits over the pole. We replaced those and added more.
I could only find two.
What I’ll likely do is attach a new piece of wood to the base of the bird feeder, then attach the metal fitting to the new wood. Hopefully, that will prevent this from happening again.
Now that I had good light, I got a picture of the unrolled potato bags. I think this will do well to protect them from further critter damage. I’m just glad that what damage there was, was minor.
I saw no new damage in the old kitchen garden. This edge of the beet bed had been left alone until after the soap shavings were added. This end has hot pepper flakes on it.
Also, those flowers blooming in the foreground are incredibly resilient. When we ended up digging out a whole bunch of soil to make the path along the house, all the flowers and whatnot that were growing there were disturbed. I took out as many roots as I could, and the excess soil got moved over to the rose bushes and honeysuckle. The entire area was disrupted, and this far from the house, everything was buried in the dug up soil, then torn up as the soil was moved again. Yet these guys managed to push their way through the hard packed soil and mulch, and are now merrily blooming!
This morning, I worked on getting rid of the woodchuck den I found under the stairs at our dining room door. In the process, I noticed a splash of colour.
This one little cherry tree has developing cherries. There are two others, here, and they barely even bloomed this year.
I’m glad there will be at least a few cherries this year.
My morning rounds were shorter today. I did not water all the garden beds this time. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather radar, and we might actually get rain!
Yesterday evening, I grated a whole lot of soap to scatter around in the old kitchen garden. It either worked, or we didn’t get any critters visiting last night.
This morning, I raided our spice cupboard. The newly planted beds of radishes, chard, kale and kohlrabi have now been treated with a hot spices, and when I ran out of that, I started scattering black pepper, including the perimeter of the corn and sunflower blocks. I checked everything carefully, and there were no new nibbles among the corn and sunflowers, that I could see.
Before heading back inside, I was able to gather some summer squash.
It’s been a while since our first harvest of 2 green zucchini and a Magda squash. This morning, we’ve got 5 green zucchini (3 of them from one plant!), 1 Magda squash, and our very first Sunburst squash!
Later, I was able to grab a few garlic scapes, too. We still have a few left to grow more before we gather them.
These will be on today’s menu, for sure! :-D
Once settled inside, I checked the trail cam files and saw this on the garden cam.
I was not expecting the deer to cross through from that side! And there’s no way we can rope things off on that side, without it causing access issue to other beds.
At least he didn’t stop for a snack along the way.
I did put black pepper across the open side of the garden beds, and down some of the bigger paths between blocks. I hope this will convince the deer to go around the garden, instead of through it!
Thinking ahead with the girls, I remembered that the Whiffletree catalog has a wildlife tree package. We’ve been talking about planting things away from the house to feed the deer, so they’ll have less reason to go for our gardens. We don’t want to get rid of the critters. We just want them to stay out of our gardens! I went looking through the catalog and found an item I’d highlighted but forgot about. They also have a Wildlife Plot seed package. There are enough seeds to cover 2000 sq ft with things like turnips, forage kale and other tasty plants. If we get a package like that and plant it in the outer yard, that could do a fine job of keeping the deer – and the groundhogs – out of our garden beds.
I hope to order the seed package this fall, so we can use it next spring. :-)
I could not resist getting a picture of David the Magnificent!
It’s good thing we hardly ever use the microwave. This is the only counter in the kitchen the cats are allowed to climb on, and they love looking out that window! Cheddar, in particular, likes to lie here, taking up the whole spot, with his chin on the windowsill, like it’s a pillow. Today, David has claimed the prime spot! :-D
David must be just dying in this heat, but he will not let us brush him! We’ve been managing to cut away the fur clumps we find. Mostly. It’s hard to get at the ones in his armpits. He keeps moving!
This morning, I saw another furry beast that I haven’t in a while.
Creamscicle Baby is back! He’s been away for a few days. He and Junk Pile (David’s sister) were very happy to see each other. :-)
She’s like, “look who’s here!”
He was clearly very hungry, but he just wouldn’t stop rubbing up against Junk Pile. :-)
Even while they were both eating, he’d rub up against her, eating at the same time, to the point of pushing her away from eating, too!
Too bad he won’t let us pet him anymore, and Junk Pile never has. :-(
The only down side is that Creamscicle Baby has been pretty aggressive with his brother, Nutmeg, of late. Not just play wrestling, like they used to, but all out fights.
Ah, well. Nothing we can do about that, but break them up with a spritz from the hose.
This big cheesy creature! Cheddar has grown to be such a big, meaty, boy. ;-)
I usually have several cats splashed across my bed, right where the breeze from my fan in the window hits. :-D
We’re at 33C/91F right now, with a humidex of 35C/95F. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach a high of 34C/93F with a humidex of 37C/99F. After that, we’re supposed to drop a few degrees, but then head back up to just above 30C/86F again. Not as hot as the heat wave we left behind, but definitely higher than the long range forecasts had been predicting earlier.
Which means the cats have been spending their days in furry puddles around the house during the day…
And going nuts during the night.
Somehow, flying insects are getting into the house. In my office/bedroom, I have a shelf that has a space for them (the cats, not the insects), right up near the ceiling. Unfortunately, to get to it, they can only use the back of my office chair, since their alternative jump off point is now filled with a box fan. I have a wall shelf at the head of my bed, and I’ve set things up to prevent them from getting to the top, since that is where fragile items that don’t fit anywhere else are stored. Some of the smaller cats, however, can climb straight up on part of it. I’ve tried to block the top by storing a triangular support designed to go under the knees, or behind the back, depending on how it is oriented, where they climb. Every now and then, I’m awakened by it crashing down because a cat has decided to go for it. Last night was so bad, I had to kick them out and close the door. Unfortunately, that meant they tore around the upstairs, instead. There are no doors up there, so the girls can’t close them out.
At least the cats won’t be keeping them awake for the next while. With the increasing temperatures, even with the much improved conditions after adding a box fan to the south window, set up to blow the hot air out, it gets too hot for my daughter’s computer and drawing tablet. She’ll be working at night again, which means they won’t be going to bed until something like 5am; shortly before sunrise. So they’ll be able to deal with the cats tearing around after flying bugs during the night! :-D
Time to start leaving ice packs on the floor for the cats to cool down on again. :-)
I got a couple of photos of what we did yesterday, to try and protect parts of our garden.
There is plenty of slack in the cover for things to grow, and if it ever reaches a point where it needs more, we can unroll the netting wrapped around the scrap wood weighing it down on the ends. It won’t stop small critters like skunks or the woodchuck, but they don’t tend to go here, anyhow. Deer are the ones that seem to find beet green delicious. :-D
While walking towards the Crespo squash mound, those tart tins were flashing away, and there was hardly any breeze at all, so that was good to see.
As for the woodchuck, I’m now 99% sure it has a new den under the garden shed. The only reason it’s not 100% is because we have no way to see under there to confirm.
A couple of times today already, the brazen bugger parked his adorable furry butt under the bird feeder and was eating sunflower seeds. Which, I guess, is better than him being in the garden and eating our vegetables! Still, I went out to chase him away, startling a skunk away from the cat kibble. :-/
On a more positive note, I saw Junk Pile’s kittens again. It does seem like there are 4 of them in total, but they ran off as soon as they saw me. The only one I did not see was the little grey and white one. The tuxedo dashed under the storage house, while two mostly grey kittens ran past the fire pit and out the yard near the old threshing machine.
Those little guys are FAST!
Most of the kittens are getting braver, and wandering around the yard more. Butterscotch’s kittens were seen around the old compost pile. No surprise that they went in that direction, as Butterscotch frequents the old farmyard across the road. Rosencrantz’ kittens have been playing in the white lilacs and climbing the willow tree.
It would be good if we can convince them to stay close to the protection of the house and inner yard!
It was a rough night for me, last night. Very little sleep, and the pain levels are just high enough to make any position uncomfortable after only a short time. Thankfully, my husband was well enough this morning to head out do all the food bowls for the cats, and refill the bird feeder, allowing me to postpone the rest of my morning rounds until later in the day.
Once I did get out, the first thing I noticed was the haze. I know we don’t have fires nearby, but we’re getting smoke. I’ll have to check the fire maps later, and see what the current status is.
The other thing I noticed was Junk Pile cat. Who looked at me and growled.
Now, why would she do that?
Because she had brought her kittens over, and they were around the cat shelter! I saw some furry little butts disappearing behind it, so I carefully went around, giving them lots of space, to check on the potatoes and grapes. I saw a little grey and white kitten run across to the storage out, while a little tuxedo squeezed under the cat shelter.
A tuxedo?
Yup. She had more kittens with her this time! There were at least three, possibly four. I was just catching glimpses of them, though later on I saw the tuxedo under a tree by the storage house, watching me from a safe distance.
I am so glad she’s bringing her babies over to the food bowls!! Hopefully, they will be moving into the inner yard now.
Before finishing my morning rounds, I got the hose going to refill the water barrel at the far beds. Unfortunately, it is still leaking. I’ll have to pinpoint exactly where, then empty it enough that it can dry and I can try sealing them again.
Once everything else was done, I came back outside to give the onions a hair cut. :-D
It was on one of the gardening groups I’m on that I saw someone post pictures of the green onions they had just harvested and bagged up for the freezer. I know it’s recommended to trim onions grown from seed, down to about 3 inches, before transplanting. I hadn’t thought about trimming them, other than to gather greens for the day’s cooking, before harvest. The gardener that posted the pictures said that trimming them meant more energy going towards growing the bulbs. If the greens start falling over, the onions stop growing for the season. I knew that last part, but it never occurred to me that the growing season could be extended by trimming. I’ve never grown onions before, and the onions my mother grew were left in the ground to come back, year after year, so I never saw her doing that, either.
The yellow onions sets that I bought locally got really large greens. I quickly ran out of space in my colander, and had to come back to do the bigger shallots, then the other onion bed. The red onions (from sets) and the other yellow onions (from seed) did not have as many large greens, but the colander still got pretty full again! All the greens completely filled our giant metal bowl. Thankfully, it has a lid, because the cats were VERY curious! It’s full enough that the lid is sitting on top of greens, but at least that cats can’t get at them. Onions are toxic to cats, but that doesn’t stop them from being very curious about them!
We’ll have a lot of washing of greens to do, and then they’ll be coarsely chopped. We will probably dehydrate a couple of pans of them in the oven, and the rest will get frozen.
We’re going to have enough to last us quite a long time! :-)
I love how, every day, there seems to be something new or different in the garden!
While doing my rounds, one of the first things I do after putting food and water out for the cats (or like today, just water, as my husband was feeling good enough to go outside and do their food), is check the nearby potatoes.
They are so huge and lush, you can barely see the grow bags! Of everything we planted this year, nothing is doing as well as the potatoes.
Hopefully, that means we’ll have lots of potatoes, and not just lots of greenery!
Potato flowers are such pretty little things!
While checking the tomatoes, I tried looking for the baby tomatoes we’ve been seeing and had a hard time finding them. Then I found this “huge” spray of tomatoes I’ve somehow missed seeing all this time!
“Huge” being a relative terms, for the world’s smallest tomatoes! :-D
While heading back down the driveway after switching out the trail cam memory card, I had to pause to get this photo.
There are less of these flowers than last year, and they are blooming later. Like so many other things, they had been damaged by that one cold night in May, and it’s taken this long for them to recover. We don’t water down here at all, and we’ve had no rain, so it’s amazing to see them at all. Such resilient flowers!
I was weeding the big carrot bed this morning, which is rather difficult right now. I sometimes wonder why I bother, considering how much they’ve been eaten. I accidentally caught a remaining carrot frond while pulling up a weed, and pulled a carrot up with it.
I’m… kinda glad I did.
If they have this much root after all they’ve been through, there is still a chance for them! We won’t get any big carrots, and my hopes of having enough to can are certainly dashed, but we might still have something worth harvesting.
As for this little guy, I washed it off with the hose and ate it, and as small as it was, it was tasty.
So that’s encouraging.
I had another surprise waiting for me in the old compost pile nearby.
Amazingly, there are more mystery squash coming up, next to the stems of the chewed up ones!
Of course, nothing will come of them after sprouting this late in the season, but we might at least see them get big enough to determine what they are.
I find these two Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in the old kitchen garden very interesting. The bigger one was the first of the seeds we started indoors to germinate. That was after the ones we’d direct sown outside had already germinated. The smaller one, which has the label next to it, germinated some time later. Right now, both of these are bigger than the ones that germinated first, in the large beds. The difference, of course, is the soil. The other ones are planted in an area that has not been amended or planted in before, while these are in a garden we’d been working on for 3 summers already
As for the tall plant behind the smaller sunflower, we still don’t know what it is. :-D
I was happy to see that many of the poppies have seen quite a growth spurt, and the ones that were under rhubarb leaves are getting stronger.
Then there is this plant, nearby.
When we were preparing the bed next to the retaining wall, there was a compact plant growing in it. Unsure of what it was, other than “some kind of flower”, we dug it up and transplanted it between the rhubarb and the chives. It quickly grew from a compact, bushy plant to the tall, leggy thing you can see in the photo.
I also now recognize it, though I still don’t know the name.
Do you see those sprays at the ends? With the small round things hanging down?
When it starts blooming, this plant has lovely, delicate little flowers.
Which then become some of the most annoying little burs, ever. It isn’t possible to go near one of these without ending up with masses of tiny burs stuck in your clothes, that are harder to get out than burdock! I’ve had some get so thoroughly stuck in my clothes, not only was I not able to get them completely out, but they managed to stay stuck after several washings!
After I took this photo, I pulled it up. Even though it is in the flower bud stage, it still tried to stick to my clothes!
It did not go into the compost, but into the fire pit for eventual burning.
If we ever get to light the fire pit this year. I suspect not.
While things have finally cooled down today – in fact, it actually got chilly last night! – and we are no longer getting heat warnings on our weather apps, we are now getting air quality alerts. There are a number of fires burning in our province right at the moment. I’d actually been smelling wood smoke for a while before we started getting the alerts, and with our heat and dryness, I was very concerned. None of the fires are near us, thankfully, but we’re still getting some of the smoke.
Today will be our coolest day for the next while, with a high of only 18C/64F so I will be taking advantage of it and getting things seeds sown in those empty spinach beds! :-)
Apparently, we got rain while I would outside, watering the garden, too.
That would have been nice, but all we had was hot, muggy, thick air.
*sigh*
One of the awesome things about gardening is how fast things can grow. We’ve got a whole bunch more summer squash blossoms, more squash growing (still no yellow zucchini, though), and the squash that started earlier could probably be picked right now. I’m going to wait until they’re a bit bigger, though.
I was very excited to see our very first WINTER squash blossom! Those are starting to get quite big. As we are able, we’re moving them to train them up the trellis, and some are sending out tendrils and looking almost ready to be climbing on their own, as are more of the melons. We’re going to have to go back with some twine to string between the sections of mesh and fill in the gaps a bit for the few plants that are under them. I had remembered to look for twine when I was last in the city, and found a huge roll of it. It should last us until next year! :-D
I am absolutely thrilled by the Montana Morado corn. This is the stalk that we are seeing silk on already. Pretty soon, it will have pollen, too! A few of the others are starting to show the little red bits, but they do not yet show corn silk.
We’re going to have to go in between these and “hill” the corn. With having to water so often, and not having a mulch, the water is eroding the soil at the base of the corn a bit. A couple were starting to fall over, so last night I worked the soil around their bases and secured them upright with it, but I want to do that with all of them. The ground here is so soft, though, we don’t walk in here at all unless we absolutely have to. I’d hoped to be able to add grass clippings for mulch, but with the heat and lack of rain, the grass hasn’t been growing.
There are just a few potato blossoms that are fully open right now, but I am seeing many, many buds!
Of course, I’m always second guessing myself about deciding not to “hill” the potatoes more. As determinate type potatoes, it won’t result in more potatoes, but the plants have gotten so tall, it feels like they should be hilled! :-D
When I got to the old kitchen garden, I found the end of the L shaped beet bed was nibbled on.
I did see the woodchuck run under the garden shed this morning, but I’m not sure it is responsible for this. I think the carrots in this garden were nibbled on more, but I’m not sure. The motion sensor light would cover that carrot bed and the section of this beet bed next to it, and should be startling off any critters, but the section in the photo has a lilac bush between it and the light, so it wouldn’t be triggered by anything nibbling on the beets here.
I did see a deer going by the garden cam when I checked the files this morning. They seem to be just walking through, and not even going very close to the garden, now that I’ve put up the stakes and twine around the corn, and rope along the back of the Dorinny corn and the pea beds. I find myself wondering if a deer might have nibbled on the beets, since the woodchuck doesn’t seem to like beet greens, but that would mean the deer coming right up to the house, and pushing its way through the asparagus ferns and rhubarb, and I just don’t see that.
The beet beds in the old kitchen garden did get the Critter Ridder granules, but I was finishing off the container in the area in the photo, so there wasn’t as much there. It obviously doesn’t work to stop cats, since yesterday evening, we saw Junkpile and her kittens in the beets by the retaining wall. :-D
I still have to use the new spray we got, but it’s supposed to be applied on dry surfaces, so I’ll have to wait until later in the day.
Or until tomorrow, if we actually get the predicted storm!
When things started cooling down, I headed outside and checked on the old kitchen garden. I started to pull out some weeds I missed this morning, when I heard a noise.
I had startled Junk Pile cat, who was lying on the beets by the retaining wall.
She wasn’t alone!
What a cutie!!
I saw another one dash around the tree, so I started carefully moving around to the side of the garden…
Only to startle more critters.
I certainly wasn’t going to begrudge the skunks a drink of water, so I let them be (the water bottles had been frozen, earlier) and kept moving slowly though the side of the garden.
This confused the skunks, as usually we never go between them and the storage house. We usually go to the other side and use the hose to chase them that way, instead.
This baby was so confused, it started to follow me! :-D
On the far side of the retaining wall, I found the kitten.
It just froze there, watching me.
The other one came bounding over, playing in the mosquito netting, until it realized I was there, then it ran off into the maple grove. The first one stayed frozen for a while longer before it ran off.
I am so glad Junk Pile finally brought her kittens over! From how many teats I could see were in use, I had thought she had more. I don’t know if these are the only ones that were brave enough to follow her, or if they are the only survivors left.
As I headed around the kibble house – which got its second coat of paint yesterday – I spotted Rosencrantz’s babies.
This little one was hiding behind the pedestal, watching me, before coming out for a drink.
It’s sibling was watching me, too, while lounging on some scrap carpet in the junk pile.
I had been wondering how the kittens were getting through the fence. The ground rises slightly here and, between that and the junk, there is no gap at the bottom. This morning, I saw how. They are still small enough to fit through the chain link… but just barely! Pretty soon, they’ll have to go around to another part of the fence, where there is a gap underneath, to get through.
So that’s three litters of kittens we’ve seen now. Butterscotch and her four, and Rosencrantz and Junk Pile’s, with two each. That leaves Ghost Baby, assuming Ghost Baby is actually female and has a litter. We still don’t know, but are kind of assuming.
Hopefully, we will be able to socialize some of them, but if they just become comfortable enough to come to the house for food and water, I will be happy.
