postaday

That worked out unexpectedly well!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, the cuteness!

I just got back home again and spotted Poirot in with her babies, and had to pause for this.

I actually couldn’t see the little black one until viewing these files on my desktop! The little voidling disappears into the void of his mother’s fur. 😁

Last night, I remembered that we hadn’t done my mother’s monthly blook work yet, and that she had a fasting blood test to do as well. I made arrangements with her to come over this morning, aiming to get her to the lab, which is just a few blocks from her place, as early as possible, so she wouldn’t have to keep fasting for so long.

I ended up having a ridiculously early morning. I’ve been waking up as the days get light, which means I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier for a while now! This morning, it was about 5:30am, and I didn’t need to get up until later. While in the washroom, though, I heard suspect kitten noises, so I got a daughter to join me to check on them while feeding them. It’s much easier to get wet cat food to the kittens with a second person! I still had to close up the inner door on the sun room to let the babies have a chance to eat. Poirot and Brussel had left when I started dispensing the kibble, with Poirot heading off somewhere in the outer yard. Caramel’s kittens were in the cat house, of course, so I tucked their tray into the entry, hoping they would find it and eat before the other cats discovered it. I have noticed that the other adult cats don’t go into the cat house at all, now that the babies are in there, which is good.

By the time I finished my rounds, Poirot was back and at the sun room door, wanting in but too scared to let me come close and open it for her. It doesn’t actually close all the way; things have shifted too much over the winter. It jams onto the threshold enough to stay closed, but if a cat were to push against it, it opens – something some of the other cats have already figured out!

I headed out to my mother’s for about 8:30am. As I parked and headed in, I saw someone leaving and immediately thought it was probably the health care worker. Sure enough, I was right; I had just missed her. My mother remembered not to have breakfast with her pills, which was good. She was all dressed and ready to go, too… including a grocery list! Which I was happy to see, as I forgot to suggest I could do her grocery shopping while I was there. We had time to go over her list and the new flier. Whole chicken was on an excellent sale and she was okay with getting one, which made me happy. She is not getting enough protein, and we all need more protein as we get older.

That done, we headed to the lab in the hospital. She was the only one there, so they were able to take her in and get it done very quickly. So quickly, she actually complained as I was helping her out of the chair, that everyone is in such a hurry! The technician didn’t actually hurry, but was efficient in doing a very basic blood draw, but for someone who struggles just to get in and out of their slightly higher chair, I’m sure it feels way too fast!

Since she was out and about, and in need of breakfast, I suggested we try out the newly renovated and re-opened restaurant that she’s been wanting to go to for some time. Even when they were still closed and very much under renovation, she tried to get me to stop and go inside to see if they were open yet. 😄 I drove past it on the way to her place, so I knew it was open for breakfast. She happily agreed, but was then surprised when I drove to the highway. She wanted to go to the “new” restaurant, and this building has been there for a long time.

???

She then told me her neighbours were talking about a new restaurant. This was the only one that I knew about.

With the new renovations, this place now has a wheelchair ramp, but no automatic doors, which I found a bit odd. If I had not been there with her, my mother would have had a very hard time getting in on her own. They are clearly not completely finished with their plans, with dining tables in only one half of the space. Tables spaced nice and far apart, with plenty of room for someone to get through with a walker, even if there were people sitting in the chairs. At this time, though, there was only one occupied table.

We had a basic eggs, hashbrowns, meat (I had sausage, my mother had bacon) and toast breakfast. It was quite good, and the portions generous. Given that my mother was literally breaking her fast, she was quite hungry, so that worked out very well.

More people came in while we were eating and, my mother being my mother, she started talking to people at the other tables. As I was coming back from paying the bill, I caught the tail end of someone explain to Mom about the new restaurant she had been hearing about. It turns out it was more like a canteen in the rec centre that is only open a few days a week. No wonder I hadn’t heard about it!

Once we were done there, I took my mother home, since she was clearly getting pretty tired. When we got to her door, though, we found something in front of it.

A reusable grocery bag with a card in an envelop sticking out of it.

My immediate thought went to our vandal, while my mother started listing off all sorts of other possibilities.

I was right. Our vandal and come by and, with my mother away, had left things at the door for her.

My mother was so tired, she settled into her chair without pausing to take her jacket off. The bag turned out to have four mini fruit pies in it. I opened the card for her, too. It was a mother’s day card, and she was quite delighted by the chickadees pictures on the front. I opened it up and there was a note written inside from our vandal. It was from both him and his wife, though clearly his handwriting. The note was a brief mention about something his “cancer counsellor” told him. It was unusually benign, which suggests to me his wife actually saw and knew about the card, though it still reeked of manipulation. Other cards and letters he has left with her were typically quite nasty.

My mother was too enamored by the pretty chickadees to notice or care.

Once she was settled and comfortable, I headed out with her shopping list. I also needed to go to the post office, which is almost directly across the street from the grocery store, so I parked at the grocery store, then grabbed the envelopes to walk across and mail them, first.

I immediately noticed a very familiar looking vehicle.

While I was getting the envelopes out, I saw our vandal getting into it. My mother and I must have just missed him at her place by minutes!

As I walked across to the post office, he left the parking lot and I was concerned that he might have seen and recognized me, and would decide to go back to my mother’s again. So I got things mailed and did the shopping quickly. Not that it would have taken long, anyhow; my mother’s shopping lists are not long.

When I got back to my mother’s place with her shopping, the first thing I asked was if everything was okay. She was surprised to see me back so quickly – she hasn’t even taken her jacket off, yet! I explained to her about seeing our vandal and that I was concerned he would come back, if he’d seen me.

Then we promptly forgot all about him.

After the groceries were put away, I stayed longer to do a bit of housekeeping for her. There wasn’t much she needed done, so I was soon on my way home.

It was actually quite disorienting to realize it was not even 11:30 when I left.

By this time, things were starting to get quite hot, and the high winds were in full force. Our expected high of 27C/81F has been dropped to 25C/77F, which we are at right now and are expected to stay at for several more hours.

When I got home, I had to check on the raised bed covers, and they are all holding up to the wind. The portable greenhouse, however, is not doing as well. We had to tie the door open, as it was over 50C/122F in there. The door faces the house, and the wind is from the south, so at least the doorway is sheltered, but plastic covering the frame is still ballooning. At some point, the ties for the door came loose, so it was flapping. My husband’s window faces it, so he was able to let us know and my daughter fixed it. She ended up draping a broken hose over it, and pushed the cat trap right against one side of it, to try and reduce the ballooning. That actually helped quite a bit. Unfortunately, the plastic around the doorway is starting to tear. Where it’s attached to the zipper already had some tears, and that’s gotten much worse, but even at one corner, where the tie down loop is, has started to tear.

*sigh*

I can’t say I’m surprised by this, but I really was hoping it would hold out longer. At least the roof and three sides are still holding out. It’s just the side with the doorway. We’ll still be able to make it work out.

It’s getting time to feed the outside cats for the evening, so I’ll be heading outside to check on things soon. With this wind and heat, though, there is no way I’ll be able to continue clearing out the garden bed I started on, yesterday. The high winds are supposed to continue through the night, but tomorrow is supposed to be cooler (as in, just under 20C/68C) and the winds are supposed to die down by then, so I should be able to finish clearing that bed then. I have decided that I will plant peas down the middle of this bed, and potatoes on either side. Once the bed is clear, I will set up posts to hold trellis netting down the middle, then get netting on it right away, so that’s over and done with, before planting anything. If things go smoothly, I should be able to get the peas and potatoes planted by the end of the day.

If things go smoothly.

I don’t really count on that. 😄

Now to go feed some kitties and check for wind damage!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: where the sprouts are!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It was a very calm morning, with almost no wind, so this was a good time to water the plastic covered winter sown beds.

The first image is under the cover of the low raised bed in the East yard. This one has a root vegetable mix of seeds, plus 1 type of lettuce and onion seeds. There are a lot of sprouts in there! I’m guessing mostly radish and beets. I’m not seeing signs of carrots or onions sprouting, but it’s really hard to tell at this point.

This bed was getting the most difficult to tend to with the high winds, so when I took the cover off to water it, I spent a lot of time securing the plastic after the cover was put back on. The plastic on all the beds is meant to be there only until the plants establish themselves and don’t need as much warmth or protection. It will likely be replaced with netting later in the season. So securing the plastic involves a lot of rolling and carefully tucking under the frame. With this one, that also meant completely redoing how it was weighted down on top. Hopefully, it will hold. We’re expecting high winds again, in a few days.

There wasn’t much to see in the high raised bed or the ground level bed with mixed flowers in it. There are sprouts, but not very many. The main thing is, they are no longer being dried out by the wind, nor dug into by the cats!

The next picture is of the old kitchen bed. There is quite a bit of spinach coming up in there, and I can even see tiny onion sprouts. The cluster of larger leaves visible came up very early and I thought it had to be a missed onion from last year, but now I can see that these are most definitely garlic. We had garlic planted in here, two years ago! I did try to pull things that were most obviously weeds – crab grass and dandelions – but only if I could do so without disturbing any seedlings, so there wasn’t a lot I could pull.

The other winter sown beds got watered as well. I think the summer squash bed, and the end of the garlic bed, are lost causes. The only things coming up in the summer squash bed is clearly not summer squash, and the few feet of the garlic bed shows nothing at all. I don’t think they made it!

There are more sprouts coming up in the mesh covered bed at the chain link fence, though still just the one pea shoot. This is the bed that has Dalvay shelling peas, a few King Tut purple, Royal Burgundy bush beans, Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflowers, a few black Montano Morado corn seeds, plus onion seeds. So there should be more pea seeds showing, as peas prefer to germinate in cooler soil. That suggests to me, most of the peas did not survive the winter. As for the sprouts I am seeing, about all I can say right now is that none of them are corn.

Unfortunately, while covering the bed with netting will protect it from the Chinese Elm seeds that are forming right now, the net only partially protects from the cats. There are a few smaller cats that are absolutely determined to get under the netting. Then, when I go to get them out, instead of leaving through the open space next to them that they got in on (the netting slides on the wire hoops), they run down the length of the bed, bashing themselves against the netting every now and then, in a panic. Or, like this morning, they simply climb on top of the netting and play on it! This set up wasn’t designed to actually hold that kind of weight, so quite a few of the wire hoops are now bent out of shape. It is really frustrating.

This bed is still made with temporary materials. Along the path side and ends is loose bricks. The chain link fence there are old boards to keep the soil from spilling through. When we finally have the materials to make it more permanent, we will need to keep protection in mind. It’s not enough to just cover it with netting to keep the elm seeds from smothering the bed, stop the cats from using it as a litter box, or keep the deer from eating whatever is grown there. We need the cover set up to be able to hold the weight of cats – we just can’t keep them from going right on top of any of the covers!

The cover that we have over the old kitchen garden bed is the one that was made using fence wire. When it was done, I swore I never wanted to work with that again! It’s so thick, I had to double up the frame on the sides to secure it in between, then double up the ends, just to keep it from falling apart. However, while it was on the high raised bed, I found it worked out really well, in that I could reach through the wire to tend to the bed, without having to remove it. The openings are not all the same size, though. It’s meant to be installed with the narrower openings at ground level to keep small critters out, while the larger openings at the top are all that’s needed to keep mid sized critters out. Which means there are spaces where I cannot fit my hands through, but I can still reach around from other openings.

The wire is also strong enough that no support hoops were needed. Not only can it hold itself up, but when the plastic was placed over it and the cats started jumping on it, it held their weight, too!

The cover that’s on the winter sown bed in the East yard is almost there. The hoops are strong enough to hold weight; especially now that I’ve secured them permanently, and they no longer slide through the pieces of metal strapping I used to hold them in place. I originally thought it would be useful to be able to remove the hoops at some point, but that potential convenience caused more problems than solved any. They do, however, still bend inwards, slightly. Particularly the ones at the ends.

The hoops are supporting a plastic mesh that is stiffer than netting, but more flexible and easier to work with than hardware cloth. As you can see in that first photo, it’s wide enough that it creates more shade, so this is a cover that would be idea to use for things like lettuces, which like more shade. The plastic mesh does sag when the cats jump on it. My plan is to add horizontal supports in between the hoops. These would keep the hoops at the ends from being pulled inwards, plus keep the plastic mesh from sagging downwards. I am hoping it will only need horizontal supports across the very top, but it might need more halfway up each side, too.

Once the plastic sheet is no longer needed, I will have to put something across the open ends, to keep the cats out. I have some black plastic mesh that should work out well, once I figure out how to secure it!

I don’t want to be spending too much time or effort on these covers, though. These were my first experimental raised bed covers. Now that I know how these have been working out, I plan to build new ones using better and stronger materials, taking into account what we have found works, or doesn’t work, with these ones. These ones still have a few years in them, though, and we will keep building more raised beds, so we will need more covers as time goes by.

Meanwhile, as I was watering the bed at the chain link fence, I took a good look at the haskap bushes.

*sigh*

I have one “Mr. Haskap” and two “Mrs. Haskap” bushes – cross pollinating varieties. With haskap, you need two varieties for cross pollination. The “Mrs. Haskap” is the Borealis variety. I can’t remember what the “Mr. Haskap” is, but that one still has its label, so I can check later.

Here is now they looked this morning.

The first image is the “male” haskap. It’s leafing out beautifully and, in the second picture, you can see it even has flower buds forming!

The next two photos are the “female” haskaps.

The larger one was bought at the same time as the Mr. Haskap and, at one point, I was sure that one had died. It has barely any leaves opening on it. The smaller one is still really small, even though it’s only one year behind the other two. At least it has more leaves, but still, they are way behind their pollinator variety! This is why, after all these years, we’ve never had more than a small handful of berries. They simply aren’t blooming at the same time long enough for proper pollination.

The varieties I have coming later in the month are Aurora (the pollinator) and Boreal Blizzard. These will be planted out in the food forest area, near where the apple and gooseberry just got planted. The Opal plum should be shipped at the same time as the haskap, and it will be planted in that area, too.

Hopefully, this will work out better than what we’ve got now, and we’ll finally have berries to eat! Two bushes should be enough to meet our needs; they are supposed to be quite productive. We’ve got three, and have barely had enough to taste.

At least we know we like them!

So that is how things were in the garden this morning. With today being a calm day, I hope to get back out there soon, and get some work done!

The Re-Farmer

Baby moving day and a visit to the doctor

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, and update on Poirot and her babies.

We tried getting her to move into the cat cage. The babies were tucked into the cat cave, for darkness and warmth. We watched and could tell that she knew where they were, and I kept an eye on the critter cam. My older daughter, who works at night, checked as well, though there was no way to see if a black cat was in the darkness of the cat cave.

When I came out to do the morning feeding (waaayyy to early for me!), I took a peak and could see the babies. I pet them, mostly to make sure they were actually alive, and they immediately started crying for mama.

My daughter helped me with putting the food out, with me setting the dry kibble out first, to distract the other cats, while she split up a couple of cans of wet cat food for the babies, then passed them to me. I made sure to put some wet cat food inside the cat cage, but could not see Poirot anywhere.

So I continued my morning rounds and, while coming back from switching out memory cards at the gate cam, I spotted a whole bunch of cats following from a distance on the driveway.

Including Poirot.

I continued me rounds, hoping she would go to her babies in the sun room but, as I finished up, she was still outside. She just would not go to them.

So I decided to take the cat cave, babies still inside, and moved it back to the water bowl shelter, where she seemed to be hanging out the most. I even put some wet cat food inside the cat cave.

She did come over and stick her head in to eat, but would not go inside.

I hung around behind the cat house, watching her, but she just jumped onto the roof to eat, then back down again. I could hear her kittens crying, and she would stick her head in, but not go in all the way. Which you can see in the first image below.

Okay, so she doesn’t like the cat cave. I decided to take them out and put them on the cat bed she gave birth in, that was right beside it.

I then headed into the sun room and stood by the old kitchen door, messaging the family to update them.

Which is when Poirot suddenly ran into the sun room.

With something black in her mouth.

Her black kitten.

I froze and watched through the sides of my eyes so as not to scare her out. She brought the kitten to the set up just behind me, only to drop it. She tried again and dropped it again.

The way we have things set up in that area, we have a couple of plant stands of different heights in front of the mini greenhouse frame that is now used only by the cats. These are against one of the shelves that supports the platform, and where we store several open cat carriers for the cats to be comfortable and familiar with them. At the moment, there is one on the bottom shelf, and the cats keep pushing the door closed – not latched, but it doesn’t swing open on its own. There had been one the next shelf up, but we had to use it and it is now sitting directly on the floor, opposite the cat cage. I even toss a bit of kibble inside so the cats are comfortable going in and out of it. Then there is a cat carrier on the third shelf up, which is the shelf that supports the platform at that end. Because of the platform, it’s turned sideways, so the open doorway faces the top of the mini greenhouse.

That’s where we found the black kitten, yesterday evening. It has a cat blanket inside that the cats have managed to not drag out and onto the floor, like the other ones.

It was clear to me that Poirot was wanting to get to that carrier. After dropping her kitten yet again, it started crying loudly, so I took a chance. As soon as I moved, she backed away from her kitten, but not very far. I picked it up and put it into the carrier.

She immediately jumped up the shelves, into the carrier, and settled to nurse and groom her kitten.

At that point, I decided to give in. I went and got her other two kittens and brought them over. As I came close, she started hissing at me, but immediately stopped when I put a kitten in, and was grooming it before I could put the last one in. The kittens immediately went hunting for nip.

I then went and got some for the remaining wet cat food intended for her and put it in close enough that she could eat while her kittens continued to nurse. I then hung around and found things to do until I could see she had mostly finished eating.

I then went and got the last squeeze treat for her. She once again started hissing at me when I got close, but then she discovered the treat, and she started eating it. As with Brussel, once the tube it too empty to comfortably squeeze with one hand (I have to use my other hang to hang on to something, since I’m having to lean forward so much to reach the mama), I pulled it back, then squeezed the last of the treat out of the tube and onto my finger and thumb, then reached in again to let her lick the last of it off my fingers.

Which she did, without hesitation.

Meanwhile, Brussel was sitting in her spot by her kittens, under the platform, watching me. I had developed a routine of giving her a squeeze treat before going into the house, but I had none left. We did still have other donated treats; they look a bit like squares of chocolate. I opened a couple of them and broke them into their little squares. There was enough for me to scatter some for Brussel and her kittens, Poirot in her cat carrier, then around the kibble trays for any other cats that happened to still be around.

If you scroll through the Instagram post, you’ll see a video of a very happy Poirot.

The problem is, if the kittens ever squirm their way out of the carrier, which would not take much to do, there is a very real chance they’d fall to the concrete floor below. The girls and I are doing to use some of the cardboard I’ve set aside for the garden and sort of box the area in, so if they do get out, they’ll just be on cardboard, and there will be no gaps for them to fall through.

Poirot definitely won this battle! It would be safer for her to be in the cat cage and, especially, in the warmth of the cat cave, but being in a carrier is hardly a bad thing. I tried calling the rescue in the city the Cat Lady recommended to me, but there was no answer and no option to leave a message. If we can get through to them and they are in a position to taken in a mama and kittens, it will be much easier to do that with them already in a carrier!

So that was my morning adventure!

Once back inside and breakfasted up, it was still quite early, so I took advantage of it to lie down for about an hour. I’d say “take a nap”, but my phone’s notifications kept going off, so not much sleep was to be had.

My daughter’s appointment with the doctor was at 1:30, and we needed to be on the road by 12:30. We ended up leaving shortly after noon, instead, which gave me time to swing by the feed store in my mother’s town and pick up a couple of 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats.

Which I have forgotten in the truck… 😄

That done, we continued to our appointments. We were early, but not early enough to have lunch, first, so we just went in and waited. My appointment was at 2, and we both got called in about half an hour late.

The primary thing for both of us was to take care of the disability paperwork the doctor asked us to bring in. We’d already filled out our portions. For me, it was all about my osteoarthritis, which she listed as severe. At one point, I told her that it’s really hard for me to even think of being disabled. I mean, it’s just arthritis, right? Everyone gets arthritis, eventually (meaning OA, of course, not rheumatoid), right? Everyone gets sort feet, right? She just started laughing and shaking her head.

The forms ask about things like being able to walk and needing to use mobility aids (I did have to use a cane, just yesterday evening, which I haven’t needed to do in quite a while), and she listed canes, arm bars, hand rails and the bath chair, as well as sometimes needing to have someone else prepare food for me. What the paperwork doesn’t have a space for it specifically about hands. Just walking. While my walking is affected, my hands are really the more of an issue for me, as I have trouble turning door nobs, or being able to do things like hold a cup.

Which reminds me. We’re going to need to replace the door knob on our bathroom door with a lever style handle, sooner rather than later. As we were talking and she was filling in different parts of the form, I mentioned that I was diagnosed back in 2000, and was already using a cane before then, and she went back and added that in, too. I had checked off the box giving the okay to get retroactive disability payments, but I really don’t think that’ll happen all the way back to 2000!

Now, I fully expect us to both get rejected immediately. That happened with my husband. When he took the letter of rejection to his doctor, the doctor told him they always reject the first application. Just send it in again. Which we did, and my husband’s application was accepted the second time. Now, that was back in…. 2014? 2025? Somewhere around there. So we’ll see if that’s still the case. After the paperwork got the appropriate clinic stamp and scanned for our files, we got them back – after paying $50 each – and will need to mail them out ASAP.

Beyond that, we went over various things and talked about my meds. I’ve been bumped up from T2s to T3s.

I mentioned how I’ve started getting Charlie Horses again, now that I’m active outside more. I’m already taking the supplements that would help, and she suggested I add squats to my regimen. This would actually be quite difficult for me, since my knees are shot. My legs are already over developed, since muscle is the thing keeping them from bending in directions they are not designed to do, but doing squats (and stretches, but I am already doing that) should also help. Talking about it with my daughter, later, I’m not entirely sure how I would do them. My knees are simply not stable enough. We do have an exercise bike, so that might work, too. I will try doing squats, too, though. As long as I’ve got something I can grab on to for support, I might be okay.

Meanwhile, the doctor says she doesn’t need to see me for a follow up for 3 months, and wrote me up to get bloodwork done just before then. My daughter had more bloodwork done after her appointment, so she’s booked to come back next month.

We both had changes in prescriptions, so we messaged my husband to call the pharmacy and let them know to fill the faxes they would get, as we were on the way. This gave him a chance to add anything he needed for himself, but there wasn’t anything this time.

By the time we got to the pharmacy, it was letting late in the afternoon, and neither of us had had lunch. So we ended up getting some take out before heading home. It was late enough that I left my daughter to take things in and split up the food while I went out to do the evening cat feeding.

Poirot was still curled up with her babies in the cat carrier. She did growl a bit at me, until I put the food bowl down in front of her, just outside the carrier. Hopefully, we will have better luck at socializing her than we’ve had with Brussel. For all that she now expects to get the wet cat food and the treats, she still growls and attacks my hands. Aside from a couple of times I took advantage of proximity and managed to pet her, she does not like it when we get within reach, if it doesn’t involve food!

The bigger kittens, meanwhile, are all over the sun room. The third white and grey kitten is still there and joining the cuddle piles with its siblings – litter mates and adopted siblings alike!

The long days are really starting to throw me. It feels like it should be the middle of the day right now, and it’s getting past 6:30pm as I write this! We’re expected to drop to freezing, or even below freezing, tonight, so I’ll be heading out one more time to make sure the heat lamps are on, and the plants in the portable greenhouse are brought into the old kitchen for the night. Our temperatures are expected to lurch back and forth all over the place, from highs of near 30’sC/86’sF and lows of 12C/57F or higher, to much more pleasant daytime highs, but lows just barely above freezing again. We’ll be getting high winds again, soo, too.

Somewhere in there, I need to get all sorts of things done outside!

Ah, well. Spring does tend to be a very mercurial season! We just do the best we can.

What else can we do, right? 😁

The Re-Farmer

New baby update

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

After the heat of yesterday, this morning felt almost cold, at 16C/61F!

One of my goals with the new babies is to try and get them and their mama into the cat cage in the sun room. While setting out the kibble, Poirot joined the crowd on the cat house roof to eat, giving me a chance to see her babies in the cat bed.

I had already prepared bowls of wet cat food for the sun room kitties, and for Poirot. Once the cats were distracted with eating kibble outside, I closed up the inner door to the sun room (sort of; it doesn’t close completely without being forced) so the kittens and Brussel could have their wet cat food. Then I set things up in the cat cage, returning the cat cave into one of the bottom cubes. I’m hoping a nice, dark cave will be accepted by Poirot after we move her babies into it. When I was done, however, she was back with the babies and nursing them, so I just brought over her container of wet cat food. She was not happy with me coming close, but once the bowl was close enough, she devoured the food.

I hung around a bit to make sure the other cats didn’t come to steal her food before going back into the sun room and leaving the door open; the littles had eaten their fill by then. The other cats seemed to be ignoring Poirot and her babies, so I did the rest of my rounds, taking the time to water the winter sown beds that aren’t covered in plastic. By the time I got back to the house, Poirot had licked her bowl clean. She hissed at me when I moved it out. Before going in, I saw Brussel was tucked under the platform, on top of the cat cage, so I went to get our last two squeeze treats. Three of the littles were in the cat cage, so when Brussel wouldn’t come closer to have some treat, I was able to give a few squeezes to the babies. She did finally come closer to eat her treat. When the tube is almost empty, I squeeze the last of it out onto my finger and thumb, and she will lick that right off – then start growling at me for being too close!

I then went to give the last tube of treat to Poirot. When I came out, she was squeezing herself into the box covered part of the cat bed, getting her kittens in with her. I tried reaching in with the open squeeze treat, but I couldn’t see where her head was without lifting the top of the box (cats like to sit on it, so it’s bent). She was disturbed enough to start coming out of the box, at which point I practically shoved the squeeze treat to her mouth. Only then did she clue in that this was something good! I was able to give her most of the tube after that, but there was no chance of squeezing the last of it out only my fingers and letting her lick off the rest of it. That would have been pushing her tolerance too far! Stinky and Kohl were on the cat house roof while I was doing this, so they got the remains.

It’s not going to be easy to get Poirot into the cat cage. We were spoiled by Brussel actually giving birth in it, then willingly moving her babies into the shelter of the cat cave when we tucked into the cube next to her. Basically, I’ll have to wait until the kittens are alone, but Poirot is nearby enough to see me moving them. Tonight, we’re expecting a lot of 7C/45F, but tomorrow night we’re expecting a low of 0C/32F, so I really want to get them into a cozier shelter as soon as possible!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: first pea shoot! and fighting the wind

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

Good grief, what a day!

It’s past 5:30pm as I start this, and we’re just now starting to cool down to what was or forecasted high of 28C/82F

Knowing today was supposed to be hot, I made a point of watering the winter sown chain link fence bed, where I’m happy to say, I spotted a first!

A very first pea shoot!

I have no idea what the other shoots are, yet.

As things got hotter in the afternoon, I headed out again, hooking up an extra hose to the front tap to water that bed again, as the winds are drying everything out. Inside the portable greenhouse, it was above 50C/122F. Since this is just a plastic covered frame, there is no way to vent the heat, other than to keep the door tied fully open. So I misted everything in there, several times, to try and cool things down. Even the chitting potatoes got misted, a little bit.

The wind was threatening to blow away the plastic covers in the East garden bed and on the high raised bed. The heavier plastic on the old kitchen garden bed cover was handling things much better, even though that cover is slightly elevated by bricks and whatnot, allowing some air flow underneath. I did open up one end and gave it a watering, too. Normally, I would have lifted the cover off completely to water that bed, but that was just not going to happen with this wind!

The covered raised bed in the East yard was getting hit the worst. I ended up tying some more sticks together to drape across the top, but they were still too light. This bed did get a watering, too, and I kept tucking the excess plastic under the frame itself, but the wind kept blowing it loose. I even tied it down around the entire base of where the mesh connects with the frame, but that just got blown loose, too. Eventually, I raided a pile of rocks I’d taken out of the sun choke bed and stacked against the garage, grabbing the larger ones, and using them to weigh down the edges more, rolling them up in the excess plastic where I was able.

The high raised bed was also being blown around like a balloon. Even the extra hoops on the outside of the plastic were getting pulled loose from the stakes they were set on. I used the 3′ extra piece of pipe at one end to give a bit more something to keep the plastic from ballooning in the wind. Between that and the stone and board I already had to secure it, it finally held.

This bed got a pair or sticks joined with twine draped over it, too. These sticks were heavier, but still not heavy enough. I had already used rocks rolled up in the excess plastic as weights, but they were not heavy enough, so I raided another rock pile for larger ones to weight the edges. One of the hoops on the outside kept getting blown loose and I finally had to find a longer piece of bamboo stake – going from about an 8″ piece to one almost 2 feet long – before I could finally secure one end enough that it couldn’t get blown loose again. Once that end was secure, the other end was no longer being pulled loose.

In between fighting with the wind, going back and forth between the two beds, I also set up several hoses from the back tap to the main garden area and got a daughter to open the valve in the basement. I managed to water inside the high raised bed cover first. I’ve got one of those long reach spray guns and the sprayer end can be adjusted up and down. I had it spraying upwards, into the plastic, to rain down, so I wouldn’t accidentally damage the sprouts under there with water pressure. The weight of the water also helped with securing the plastic cover a bit.

The garlic bed also got a thorough watering, including the end that has the same mix of seeds as the high raised bed. The bed winter sown with summer squash got a thorough watering, too. There are things sprouting in the squash bed, but definitely not any squash seedlings, yet!

The one bed I didn’t have to do anything with is the one with flower seeds winter sown into it. When my daughter and I covered that one with plastic last night and weighted down the edges with bricks, I ended up using the mulch set to one side and basically burying the edge of the plastic along that side. That was all it took to keep that bed’s cover from being blown around! I could also see condensation inside the plastic, so I knew it wasn’t going to need watering yet.

Tomorrow, we’re expecting heat again, so I’ll be doing more watering early in the day. I’m hoping the wind will die down by then. One of my weather apps says possible rain tomorrow might, but looking at more detail, it’s only a 1 or 2% chance of rain. So I’m going to keep watering.

Weather willing, I am hoping to get to the outer yard and transplant that Walnut sapling. The way things are going, I’m going to shoot to do just one planting out there a day, starting with the sapling that should have already been planted by now. The walnut seeds are less urgent for planting. Each is going to be a big job on its own. I’m rather dreading to see how many roots I will be hitting when I try to dig transplant holes!

I watched this video this morning, and I might be changing up a few things.

After watching the video, I checked and it seems our last average frost date has changed from June 2 to May 21-31. This is based on the town to the north of us, which is now the same as the town to the East of us. The town to the East of us had a last frost date of May 28, so it’s still in that range now.

This means that, once I get the beds ready, we should be able to get things into the ground about a week earlier than I expected to. Some of the direct sowing can be done now, if I had beds ready for them. I’ve got a couple of beds solarizing that will be easier to prep, and I want to get the potatoes in soon. We still need to finish building the trellis supports on one of the low raised beds, but the climbers I want to plant there can be planted before the trellis is ready.

We’re supposed to cool down to more reasonable temperatures in a few days, then get hot again. The overnight lows are still expected to drop to just above freezing a few times. We’ll see how it actually turns out, when the time comes!

For all the fighting with the covers in this wind, I’m glad we got them on.

On a related note, the water table is high enough that I had to set up a the blower fans in the old basement, where water is starting to seep through. The sump pump has even gone off a couple of times, which will be great for the bed in the old kitchen garden it is set up to drain at. My brother came over again today and checked on the ejector; the stand pipe still has ice in it, but with this heat, I’ll be testing it more often, to see if we can finally start getting through the venturi pipe. Even if it’s just a dribble, once fluid starts going through, it will thaw out faster at the bottom.

It’s hard to imagine, with how hot it is today, that the ground is actually still frozen further down!

The Re-Farmer

It’s done – and we still have an outhouse!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My brother and his wife are amazing. Incredible. Awesome. Especially my brother, who took on a very physical, long and dangerous job that took about 6 hours.

Wow.

As for me, I wasn’t much help this time, even if I had been physically up to doing more. It really was a mostly one person job, but I was still recovering from a very rough night. I over did it yesterday, so my plans to start digging holes to plant the walnuts went out the window. I always take painkillers before bed, just to be able to sleep, but I also made sure to treat my legs and hips with Tei Fu lotion, and got a daughter to do my left arm, shoulder neck and back.

It wasn’t enough.

Aside from the usual stiffening of joints that happens whenever I am sitting or lying down for any length of time, I got hit with a Charlie Horse. I had just gotten up to go to the washroom when it hit. My left thigh went completely out of control. Very painfully so. I had no choice, though; I had to walk on it. I did manage to grab the tube of Tei Fu lotion, though. Thankfully, the way the house it laid out, I had a lot of things I could use to support myself as I made my way to the bathroom. The girls must have heard me struggling, because I soon heard a knock at the as my older daughter asked if I was okay. At that point, I was very carefully massaging the while sitting on the toilet – there are body parts you really don’t want this stuff to come in contact with! I told her what was happening, and she waited at the door for me.

As I was struggling to walk out of the bathroom, my thigh muscles suddenly released. Like some sort of spring giving out. It only lasted a few moments, but those few moments of relief were amazing. Then it was right back to struggling my way back to bed, this time with my daughter helping me along, then helping me get more painkillers – I couldn’t take any more of my prescription ones, so it was just extra strength Tylenol – before helping me get back into bed. She even made sure I have my phone close to hand so that I could message her for help, if I needed to. Thankfully, by then, the cramping had pretty much stopped. My left leg is still feeling weak from it, though, and it’s been almost 20 hours. Short but vicious! The rest of the night was heavily disrupted, but at least no more cramping.

Which meant any plans involving physical exertion today went out the window.

I still found myself getting up early, because the inside cats were getting rambunctious. So they got kicked out of my room so I could feed them, then feed Butterscotch and Freya separately in my room.

I wasn’t the only one who had a rough night. We have discovered another food that makes my daughter sick, but we can’t figure out why, since none of the ingredients are problematic. It’s just stuff chicken breasts. We’ve tried different fillings, and every one of them make her sick. So she was up all night in pain and wasn’t able to finally fall asleep until about the same time I was getting up – and she usually gets up earlier than I do!

Anyhow, I very slowly did my morning routine, which included lots of attention from these guys.

Kohl has forgiven me for the bad haircut!

My morning rounds now includes splitting a can of wet cat food between the extra little food and water bowls I got for the traps and setting them where the kittens can reach them. Even the bitty baby has started to eat, though I think she would much rather be nursing! Brussel has been leaving them more often, even if it’s just to hide on top of the cat cage, under the platform. The white and grey mama still hangs around, but won’t go in if I’m around – and we still have no idea where her third kitten is. Or if it’s even still alive, to be honest. I’m just assuming it is hidden away somewhere, and mama’s dividing her time between her secret next and the sun room.

While putting the transplants into the portable greenhouse – and leaving the door tied open, as it was already getting quite hot in there – I figured I could use the black garbage can heat sink to refill the watering cans.

Well, I now know why the heat sink wasn’t been working much.

There was just a couple of inches of water left in the can.

I don’t know where the leak it, but it’s obviously a very slow leak. I refilled the garbage can, along with the watering cans, then checked it later in the day, and it was still looking full.

Once my rounds outside were done, I managed a breakfast, and that was it. I knew my brother and his wife were planning to come out, but I just couldn’t stay awake. I figured I could lie down for an hour and be good.

Two hours later – just past noon – I finally woke up. I found a message from my SIL, letting me know they were here. I still needed to do a dump run, but made sure to go over to their trailer to say hello. My brother was already bringing tools and supplies to the tree on the outhouse.

I had one bit of a surprise, though. Before heading outside, I decided to test the septic ejector again. (I noticed we have water seeping into the old basement, and the sump pump reservoir is getting full. Time to set the fans and blowers up again, soon!) I turned the pump on manually and it seemed as if the fluid was swirling actively in the filter, as if it was actually draining. I couldn’t be absolutely sure, though, so I shut it off (making sure to set the valve back to the diverter) and went to check the ejector. I figured if it did start draining, it would be wet on the sheet of metal we have to divert the flow towards the low area.

What I found was the cap completely off of the ejector! Did it somehow get blown right off? I was sure my brother had screwed it back on after he’d added the thawing fluid.

Then I found them sitting on the old oil drum he’d set up nearby, so use as a table.

As I was heading back to the house, I saw my brother carrying a ladder from the barn and he came over. He told me he’d poured more of the thawing fluid in – after confirming the stand pipe and venturi pipe were still full of ice – and had left the cap off so the sun could warm it more. The fluid level had dropped from when he’d poured it in, though, which was a surprise. He topped it up again.

After that, he returned to setting up by the tree on the outhouse, while I brought the truck to the yard and loaded it up for a trip to the dump. I also grabbed our empty water jugs, so after going to the dump, I then went to town to refill them and pick up a few groceries, including the ingredients I needed to make a chili.

By the time I got back, they were both at the outhouse, setting up straps and trying things off around the tree. My brother wanted to cut the top of the tree free high enough above the roof that it wouldn’t hit the roof as it feel. It was secured at the top, so it wouldn’t hit the ground, either. He still had lots of set up to do, though.

After unloading the truck, I headed back out in time to see my brother was in the process of using a chainsaw to cut loose the top of the tree. This required cutting wedge shaped chunks out. There were ratchet straps and ropes all over to ensure the tree couldn’t fall onto the house, couldn’t roll to the side, and securing his ladder. Once he reached a certain point, the job was finished by pulling on some ropes to get it to crack the rest of the way, before it was finally free.

We did pause in between things for something else entirely, though. While I was in town, my brother got a carrier message notification. There’s only one person that this message could be from; someone who’s phone number is blocked on my brother’s phone.

Our vandal.

We took a break so my brother could play the message back for me.

Wow. Just… wow.

He had some new ones in this message. Apparently, my brother has broken some sort of dude code by letting us live here and not allowing our vandal to come onto the property. The code! He broke the code!!

He just wants to walk on the property, he said. Because he spilled his blood taking care of the place… Then he went on a rant about me and my daughters. He won’t use our names, even, but just calls us the “fatties”.

He hasn’t seen my daughters in years.

He had plenty more vile things to say about us. Nothing new in that part.

What caught all our attention, though, is his comment about my brother having sold their property. According to our vandal, that makes my brother a millionaire now. ???

The question is, how did our vandal find out about the property sale? The only person that could have told him is my mother – and we know he’s been dropping by her place unannounced a lot more frequently. It now seems like he goes there after every chemo session in the city? Which would explain some of the horrible things my mother said about my brother, the last time I was with her. Our vandal is poisoning her mind, and she’s letting him do it.

He brought up that he was dying of cancer, of course – then said that he was going to beat the cancer, and there would be retribution.

*sigh*

My SIL thought he sounded drunk again. Which wouldn’t surprise me. His mental state seems to be getting worse in general, though.

After that listening to the message, it was back to work. For me, that meant going inside and getting a chili going in the Instant Pot. It’s the first time I’ve used it that way; usually my daughters use the rice cooker function. Once it was set up, I was able to go out and give what little help I could. My brother had cleared away a number of branches, so I dragged those over to the burn pile – which we can’t burn, because of the seasonal fire ban. In the process, I found he’d cut away some of the poplar saplings that had sprung up since I’d last clear the area.

Some nice, straight and flexible lengths. I’d actually been eyeballing them before, and had intended to harvest them to use in wattle weaving.

I set those aside. After I’d cleaned up the rest, and there was nothing I could help my brother with, I pruned off all the twigs, trimmed them, then sat down with a knife to debark them. I noticed some of the poplar we used in the wattle weave bed actually started to grow, so I wanted to make sure that couldn’t happen again!

I didn’t finish stripping the bark on off of them, though.

By this time, my brother and his wife had gotten the top of the tree free, and it was hanging from the straps holding it near the top, where it was stuck on another tree that kept it from crushing the outhouse entirely. He had been trimming things and working to lower it down to fall in a certain directly, only for it to slip a bit – and catch the chain saw. It’s just a little battery operated chainsaw, so it stopped running on its own right away.

Getting it free, however, took at least another hour, a stack of old tires with their rims, and a jack-all to lift the weight.

Eventually, though, he got it free.

During this time, they did stop for a meal and hydration, at least, after they had gotten the bottom of the tree down to the ground.

A frustrating thing while doing on this is, we’ve spent the last year + dumping the stove pellet litter behind the outhouse to compost. I chose that location because it was out of the way and mostly out of view behind the outhouse. The tree that the fallen spruce was caught on is basically coming out of the middle of the pile. An older part of the pile, at least, so it was more compacted and starting to decompose, but it still meant my brother had to walk over, set ladders over, and work over, a big pile of sawdust full of cat mess.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after much effort, many trips up and down ladders, and much trying to figure out how to safely get things done – and this really was quite a dangerous job – it finally got done.

The tree is down.

The first photo above is the part of the tree that was handing and took so very long to get safely down. It’s actually the middle of the tree – last weekend, my brother was able to cut the very top off, and it’s still standing on its end, leaning against another dead tree. Basically, it was brought down in roughly thirds.

In the second picture, you can see the bottom of the tree. That section alone probably weighs about 300-350 pounds.

The last picture is what the inside of the trunk looks like. This tree has been dead for many years, so there was time for this rot to start hollowing out the trunk from the base. It took two very wet springs, which standing water flooding the area behind the garage and all around the outhouse, for it to weaken enough to get blown over in the wind.

Of course, now I’m thinking, what can I do with it? There must be something useful that can be done!

The trunk does have a crack running the length of it, though, so that limits things.

My original plan had been to have this tree taken down, leaving a stump tall enough to use to support a table and seats, like some of the stump benches I’ve already made. As we were cleaning up, my SIL and I took a break and found ourselves sitting on the trunk and I realized, having a bend there really would be very handy. I could use the wood to make a rustic bench. I’ve seen some photos of benches made from logs that might actually work. It depends on how bad that crack is, really.

All in good time, though.

I’m just to happy the tree is finally down – and we didn’t have to sacrifice the outhouse! We had intended to repair the roof before this happened, anyhow. Considering I was basically going to remove the moss covered and rotting shingles, then laying plywood down directly over the original roof surface to make a larger roof with more overhang, not a whole lot of my plan needs to be changed.

By the time they were done, it was coming up on 8pm, and they still had lots of packing up to do before heading home.

There are so many things they could have been doing on their weekend, but instead, they spent the last two weekends working on getting that tree down, without destroying the outhouse.

They are just so awesome!!!

I am so glad they are out “landlords”. 🩷🩷🩷

The Re-Farmer

Today’s garden and tree planting progress

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It’s been a looooong day!

My husband had a medical appointment this morning, so that was our first order of business.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

We got there maybe 10-15 minutes early for his 10:15am appointment. After checking in and settling into the waiting room, a receptionist came by and said, “you know you’re appointment is at…” I’m not sure if she said 11 or 11:30. We double checked our calendars and confirmed, we had 10:15 – which was the time his doctor gave him when he had his last telephone appointment. She then said it should be okay, they might be able to fit him in. So when we were taken to the examination room at 10, we figured things were worked out and we’d have his appointment at the time we expected it to be at. We just had to wait a bit.

And wait.

And wait.

After half an hour, my husband was simply in too much pain and had to leave. He took the truck keys and headed out, while I rescheduled. He now has an appointment later in the month – and we have a physical printout of the time and date, this time.

I remember when we first got a doctor after the move, in this same clinic, that there were several times we’d come in for an appointment, only to be told it was a different time. The thing is, we are very diligent when it comes to getting the appointments correctly into our calendars. Getting to an appointment is not always easy; particularly for my husband. The last thing we’d want to do is make a wasted trip.

Which is what today turned out to be.

I was not impressed.

After we got home, I had lunch (my husband can’t eat when he’s in this much pain), then headed outside.

My goal for the day was to plant the walnuts, or get as close to planting them as possible. The first thing I wanted to do was mark where they would be planted. The markers will remain after they are planted, so we know where they are, so I found some older bamboo stakes and other markers and added bright orange paracord to their tops for visibility. Then I headed to the outer yard, to the area the Korean Pine are planted.

The first photo is the “before” shot. The bamboo stake in the foreground is at one of the Korean pine. There are two others straight down the right of the image. The bamboo stakes marking them are pushed through chicken wire cages protecting them – somewhat, at least! – from critters.

You can just barely see in the top left corner, a hint of orange. That’s marking a chicken wire cage surrounding an ash tree my mother gave me a couple of years back. There used to be three more Korean pine on that side, but those did not survive, and the ash tree is planted where one of the Korean pine used to be.

That ash tree was my starting point. From there, I paced off and marked off every 20 feet or so to the north. There was space for two markers. I marked off one more to the south of the ash tree. There was room to mark another, but we discovered that area is low enough to flood in a wet spring – and that’s what killed off the last of the Korean Pines planted on that side!

I’ve got 8 walnut sees and one sapling, which left me with five more areas I needed to mark off. I started off in line with the Korean pine, but ended up changing things up. I ended up marking three spots in a triangle; not quite 20 feet apart, but close. I then needed to leave a gap at the gate into the main garden area. I ended up marking spaces closer to the inner yard fence line than the Korean pine, and spaced them so they were staggered with the two pines in this area, rather than in line with them. The Korean pine have a potential spread of 30 feet, so I needed to take that into account when it came to the spacing.

The next two pictures show the markers, though most of them are very hard to see.

The corner where I set a triangle of markers then needed to be worked on. There were a LOT of poplars trying to take that space over.

I ended up filling two wheelbarrow loads of the poplars for the branch pile, and one of those probably should have been two loads! I kept finding more and more of them as I worked my way through.

Getting into the corner area, I found the remains of fence wire in the tall grass. It looks like there might have been a sort of double fence there at some point. If there was, it would have been to protect newly planted trees from cattle. If that’s what it was there for, it didn’t survive. Aside from some lilacs at the property line fence, there’s just poplar lots of tiny self-seeded spruce.

I’ve left the spruces for now. We’ll let them get bigger and eventually transplant some of them into the spruce grove, after we’ve been able to clean and clear away the dead trees and underbrush.

There was also a pile of old tires against the corner of the fences.

Because of course there is. Is there any part of this property where we don’t find old tires strewn about???

Once that corner was done, I went across to the other markers and cleared more poplars. That side didn’t have anywhere near as many to clear out, thankfully.

In the long term, assuming these all survive, we will have a row of four walnuts along the west side of the outer yard, plus one ash, there will be an open space for driving through – someday, it would be great to put gravel down and have an actual driveway to the second gate – then three walnut in the corner, a space to drive into the main garden area, then two move walnut next to two Korean pine. The last Korean pine is planted on the other side of the gate to the inner yard by the fire pit.

If they don’t all survive, well… we’ll find something else to plant out there. These will serve not only as food forest trees (except the ash, of course), but as part of the shelter belt.

By the time I got the poplars cleared out, I was done with this job for the day. The temperature was apparently just 11C/52F, with a “feels like” of 17C/63F, but it felt a lot hotter than that to me! Mind you, I was working in full sun the whole time, so that might have something to do with it!

I may not have been up to digging holes after that but, after a hydration break, I was up to doing some less strenuous stuff.

We’ve had some more rain overnight recently, but the covered beds couldn’t get any, of course, so today I took the covers off the old kitchen bed and the one in the east yard, then gave them a thorough watering before covering them again. I ended up watering the mesh covered bed at the chain link fence, too. We may be getting rain, and even have standing water in ponds and ditches, but the soil surface still dried out insanely fast. So far, nothing winter sown seems to be sprouting in that bed. The East yard bed has lots of things sprouting in it, and they all look exactly the same. I’m guessing they’re radishes. The old kitchen garden bed still seems to only have spinach coming up in it.

Then it was time to get a couple more winter sown beds covered, too. I got out the Pex pipe cutter we bought when we had to fix the bathroom plumbing and set to measuring and cutting the pipe I’d picked up to use as support hoops.

I’d picked up a couple of 10′ pipe to use over the 4′ square beds. Those got cut in half, and will be placed in an X formation over the beds they’re intended for.

The roll of pipe I got was supposed to be 50′ long. I cut it to 5′ lengths and ended up with an extra piece almost 3′ long.

The first image above is all the 5′ lengths, plus the leftover short bit. I’m sure we’ll find somethin that will be useful for!

I then raided the old garden shed and found short pieces from broken bamboo stakes. These fit into the 1/2 inch pipe quite nicely. I used those to set up four pipes as support hoops in the high raised bed, then joined them across the top with a couple of not-broken bamboo stakes. I repeated the process over the area where mixed flower seeds were planted in the fall. Each bed got 4 hoops, so I had 2 left over.

One of the reasons I wanted to cover these beds was to protect them from critters. The ground level flower bed in particular gets catted a lot. Protecting from critters just needed netting, but I went with plastic covering, instead. While the plastic would serve as a mini greenhouse, what I was really after was something to keep the humidity in. The soil surface – right where the seeds are – is way too dry. It’s possible some stuff had started to germinate, only to dry out and die. All I can say is, I’ve seen seedlings start, and then they disappeared.

After the supports were in place, I brought over a couple of watering cans and have the high raised bed a thorough watering. Then I used one of the 8’x12′ plastic sheets to cover it.

The wind was a major issue.

In the end, I found some more broken pieces of bamboo stakes and set up the two leftover pieces of pipe over the plastic, to help keep it from ballooning in the wind and blowing away! You can see how those are set up, with Syndol next to one of them, giving everything an inspection. Even with the extra hoops over top, I had to grab rocks and scrap pieces of boards to weight down the edges.

When it came time to do the ground level bed, I got one of my daughters to give me a hand this time! Covering that bed went much, much faster with help! The wind was still a major issue, but not as bad as with the high raised bed.

My hope is that the plastic will keep the humidity levels higher over the beds, so they don’t try out and things can finally germinate.

I have a couple of much longer sheets of plastic and I want to put one of them over the bed with summer squash winter sown in it. That bed already has netting over it to keep the critters out. As with the other beds, it’s completely dried out on the surface. I can see some things germinating in there, but no summer squash. I think overnight temperatures are going to be warm enough that I can set the hoses up, too, so that should make watering things in the main garden area much easer!

So that is on my to-do list, hopefully for tomorrow. Deep water and cover the summer squash bed. I’m trying to figure out how I can do the same for the end of the garlic bed that was also winter sown. There’s just a few feet that would need covering, while the garlic doesn’t need covering at all. This bed is also already covered with netting, so it’s protected from critters, but that one end could really use the humidity being covered with plastic would give it.

We’ll figure it out.

The priority is getting those walnuts planted. Once those are done, then we can shift back to finishing the trellis build, and get other beds prepped and ready for planting. It will be a few weeks before we can put the transplants into the garden, but there are some things that can be direct sown, before then. The area the asparagus crowns and bare root strawberries will be planted needs to be prepped, too. More digging! 😄

The next few days are supposed to be quite a bit hotter. Sunday is even supposed to hit 27C/81F! The 10 day forecast shows us as having quite a few days hotter than 20C/68F. The overnight lows, though, are still looking to be below 6C/43F for most of May, so even with it being hot during the day, it’s still going to be too cold at night to leave the transplants overnight in the portable greenhouse.

Well, we’ll see how it goes. Things are going to be very busy in the garden for the next while!

I’m loving it!

The Re-Farmer

Moving Grublings – and a new tenant???

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was in and out through the sun room a lot today (more on that in another post), which meant many opportunities to check on the kitties.

I ended up having to move the tiny one.

The girls had needed to pull the cat cage further from the wall to access kitties, and now Brussel likes to hang out in that space. The older kittens have no problem getting to her, but Caramel’s tiny baby can barely climb out of the cat bed she spends most of her time in. A few times going by, I saw her crying for mom – or at least some nip! – but Brussel kept behind the cat cage.

So I took the little grubling out. With the wet cat food we’ve been giving them, I’ve sacrificed a larger mixing spoon from the kitchen to be able to put it into the cat cage and not get attacked by Brussel. I ended up using it to hold the kitten to get it to the back of the cat cage, closer to Brussel. It worked well enough – she was able to get the rest of the way on her own!

The last I looked, two of the white and grey foundlings were snuggling in the cat bed. There is still no sign of the third one anywhere.

In the next picture, you can see the calico and her adopted sister snuggled together. The cats had knocked the self warming mat off the platform and I decided to leave it where it fell, and the kittens are making full use of it.

Oofus the Brave had been snuggled with them, too, but when he heard me moving about, he came over to say hello.

There were some issues with the new set up.

There was a skunk stuck in the corner, in the bottom of the shelf there. It couldn’t get out the usual way – behind the cat cage – because Brussel was there. It couldn’t get out in the only other direction, because it was blocked by the door of a cat carrier, and bundles of kittens.

There were two cat carriers stored there. I took one out completely, then move the other one aside, so the skunk could finally get out.

Except, it didn’t.

In fact, it seemed to be comfortably taking a nap in the corner!

The cats don’t seem bothered by it at all, in general.

I really hope it hasn’t decided to move in! We’ve already got one that keeps hiding under the counter shelf instead of leaving the sun room. It does eventually leave, but still…

The skunk wasn’t even there eating the cat kibble. There isn’t any, where it was sitting. It was just hanging out in the corner.

I want the sun room to be a safe place for the yard cats. Not the skunks!!

The Re-Farmer

Grubling update, and a near disaster

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Before I get into today’s stock up shopping post, I wanted to share an update on the grublings. Here are some video clips I took just a little while ago.

In the first video, we have the three kittens that don’t really leave the cat cage. The calico has, and has even figured out how to get out at the bottom, rather than climb out the “doorway”.

In the second video, we have Brussel’s black and white, who insists on climbing up the inside of the cat cage to clamber out the second level height doorway. This, even though he knows there is a kitten sized opening under it. He’s even used it. He just prefers to climb! He not clambers out as soon as we go into the sun room and wanders about. We really need to watch our step!

Oh, and he has a name, now. Oofus The Brave. 😄

The next video is of another brave baby that is constantly leaving the cat cage and wandering around. These two are also very much into eating solid food, which I’m sure is giving Brussel a break!

We haven’t seen the third foundling in a while. I have to assume the mama found a “nest” somewhere, and her baby has stayed with her. The other two seem content to stay with Brussel.

Last of all are Caramels other two little grublings. They seem so small compared to the others!!! I do wish we had a small door into the cat house in that back wall. That way, we could check on the babies, but also reach in to give them wet cat food. Right now, the only way into the cat house is by lifting the roof, and it’s definitely showing its age when we do that!

On another note, we had a near disaster with our transplants yesterday. Our first time using the portable greenhouse, and we almost lost and entire bin of tomato seedlings!

It’s possible the bin was knocked over by a cat – the door was tied open to keep it from getting too hot inside. It was also really windy, and that bin had been tucked into a corner on a top shelf. It’s possible the wind pushed the plastic enough to knock the bin right off.

My daughter helped me gather up the soil and repot the seedlings that had fallen out entirely. Some cups had very little damage. One seedling was completely buried in soil and it took some careful searching by my daughter to spot it. We lost a fair bit of the soil, as there was no way to scoop it all up out of the grass without getting too much debris, but I’ve got that bucket of reconstituted coconut fibre in there, and we were able to use that to top up the cups.

Once these were repotted, everything went back into the old kitchen for the night. Before I headed out this morning, the greenhouse has warmed up enough to move them back in. I even left the doorway partially unzipped so it wouldn’t get too hot. Happily, everything was fine when I got back! It was also warm enough that I opened the door all the way and tied it off. It’s nice enough today that we don’t need to move them back into the old kitchen for quite a while. I still don’t dare leave them in there overnight.

It’s too early to tell with the potted up seedlings, but the squash transplants show significant improvement after just a couple of days in the greenhouse. In the basement, when the true leaves started coming in, they were pale and almost on the yellow side. They needed better light. Looking at them today, there is no sign of yellowing in the leaves, and the plants are even looking more robust and slightly bigger! The luffa were really struggling, and we lost one of the three seedlings. A second one was just not growing, and still had only its seed leaves. Now that they are in the greenhouse, the one that had its first true leaves is showing definite signs of growth, and I think I’m even seeing the beginnings of true leaves showing up in the other one! The melons are going to do a lot better in there, too. Even the chitting potatoes hadn’t been showing any real growth while in the basement, and a few pieces simply shriveled up. Now, they’re starting to show some signs of growth, too. It would have been so much better if we could have put them into the greenhouse earlier! Ah, well. It’s our first time using it, and I’m happy with it so far!

Looking forward to calling an early night tonight, after the transplants are brought back inside. Doing the stock up shopping always wipes me right out. I’m glad I got it done, though. I’ll post about that, soon – after I have the supper my daughter has made for me!

She’s such a sweetie.

The Re-Farmer

Mystery babies! Plus, this and that

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Last night, my older daughter started hearing kittens outside, meowing loud enough for her to hear them over her headphones. So she went to see what was going on.

She found three mostly white kittens wandering around in the yard, crying. No mother in sight.

So she scooped them up and put them into the cat cage with Brussel.

Brussel was quite okay with the new additions.

What a good mama she is!

The image and video above were taken last night.

They were still there this morning, and my daughters kept an eye on them while I was away.

I admit, when I did my morning rounds, I was on the lookout for bodies. If there were more to the litter and they were outside during last night’s cold, they would not have made it. When I checked the thermometers, it was about -10C/14F inside the greenhouse and the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. Happily, I found nothing.

Brussel’s black and white kitten has been really working at climbing out of the cat cage and, this afternoon, he finally succeeded. One of the new babies discovered the opening under the door. So when I got back, there were two kittens I had to be really careful about not stepping on when I got home!

In the above slideshow, you can see the two most active kittens outside the cat cage. The last image in the series is the possible mother.

As of this evening’s feeding, there are now only two of the white kittens in the cat cage. It looks like Mamma has come for them.

Usually, the mamas bring their babies to the house when they are old enough to be weaned. They bring them here and basically leave them where the food is. This doesn’t typically start until late June, at the earliest, July or August. These babies are definitely NOT old enough to wean, so it’s strange that they should show up like this. The Cat Lady and her rescue have been updated. After last night, things should warm up enough for it to be safe to start trapping and hopefully getting more ladies spayed before we have more kittens!!!

As for me, I am totally exhausted. I went to my mother early, to be there for her doctor’s appointment. The confusion about her puffer was cleared up. She showed me the bottle she was talking about.

It was the spray for dry mouth.

She thought it was an inhaler.

I’m not going to get into all the stuff about her visit; it would just be too much. Suffice to say, this was note on of her good days, and she went off about my brother and how terrible he is, and even admitted that our vandal “was right”; she believes all the lies and slander he has said about my brother. It blows me away that she trusts the person that is the most abusive towards me, while treating the person who has given and sacrificed so much for her like crap.

On the plus side, the home care aid showed up while I was there. She was new to the schedule; it turns out the regular person was away today, so she was the substitute.

My mother recognized her. She provided home care for my late father. She even remembered him and the farm, and had the nicest things to say about him. I told her that, at the time, I was living in another province, but when I phoned my dad, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him and what excellent care he was getting. He was definitely a favourite of all the home care workers.

My mother is very, very different.

After the telephone medical appointment was done, I stayed long enough to get laundry going, then did some grocery shopping for her. She also had stuff to pick up at the pharmacy, which gave me a chance to talk to them about things discussed with the doctor this morning. After I got home, I called home care and left a message about relevant things they needed to know.

Speaking of medical appointments, my husband FINALLY has an appointment at the new pain clinic.

In June.

He doesn’t expect them to be able to do anything at all for him, though. After all these years, he’s gone though all the options and has given up on anyone being able to help him just control the pain, never mind improve.

On a less pleasant note… I hate being right sometimes.

Last night, as I predicted, Marx Carnage was installed as our new Prime Dictator. The media has been priming us for that result from the start. Yes, there were plenty of shenanigans. The election was called before ballots were even counted.

The ballots from the advance polls get counted after the regular polls. There were 7 million votes cast at the advance polls, but the election was called before they were counted. Video has surfaced of people taking the sealed ballot boxes out of their secure locations – one person was even seen rifling inside a ballot box – and taken to someone’s private home. Vote counting is not supposed to stop until it’s done, but they stopped at 9:30pm, after ballot boxes had been unsealed, then starting up again in the morning. Etc.

Then there was this.

This is a ballot from CPC Leader, Pierre Poilievre’s riding. Over 20 years of him serving that riding, there was never a ballot like this before, nor was there another like it anywhere in Canada. That’s 90 names running against him. He lost in his own riding because of it. Most of the people on there are listed as Independents. Most of them apparently didn’t even know their names were on the ballot. To be listed as an independent in this riding, it costs $1000, and only 50 signatures needed, per potential candidate. Now picture that process, 100 times, with 90 making it to the ballot. Somehow, Elections Canada didn’t question this. As the party leader, Poilievre can run in a bi-election elsewhere, but this seriously needs to be investigated. It won’t be, of course.

Dozens of ridings have results with less than 1% between the top two candidates. Normally, that would trigger an automatic recount. I doubt it will.

About the only good news is that the NDP lost so many seats, they lost official party status. Sellout Singh lost his riding and resigned.

The Liberals got a minority, but the Bloc, which is in Quebec only, got enough seats that they can form a de facto coalition with the Libs, just like the NDP did, and they will essentially get the majority government they were after. Another dictatorship.

There are a few things that can happen from here. The Libs already put out a report promising… er… predicting that people are going to be so desperate in a few years, they will be forced to resort to hunting, fishing and foraging on public land (people are already doing that), among other things. They plan to do things like tax the equity on people’s homes, along with their capital gains tax and layers of carbon taxes. They want to ban vehicles with combustion engines, and phase out the energy industry, phase out meat, etc. Basically, Canadians are about to see some very hard times.

I see a few possible options. Some have predicted that things will fall apart so fast, we’ll have another election within the year. I don’t think so. Another possibility is, Alberta will finally separate. Thanks to Quebec threatening to do this for decades, the process is actually easy. A referendum is held with a clear question, and a simple majority wins. So if AB holds a referendum and 50.1% votes in favour of separating, the results must legally be accepted. If they go, SK will soon follow. MB and BC won’t be far behind, though both have NDP premiers right now, so that will stall things.

If AB goes, Canada’s biggest cash cow is gone. Quebec will go bankrupt in no time at all, since they depend almost entirely on equalization payments to pay for their socialist paradise. The Western provinces and probably the territories will combine to form a new republic (this has been in the works for years, and there is already a draft constitution, among other groundwork). Without having the federal government and the Eastern provinces sabotaging everything, this would easily become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Just as Canada could have been already.

Or, the provinces could separate and join the US. Which I think is jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, but it would still be loads better than continuing under a corrupt Liberal government, and a system designed to favour one part of the country at the expense of another.

Well, we’ll see how it pans out.

For us, it’s doing more of the same; trying to be as self sufficient as possible, grow and produce our own food as much as possible. It’s something we’ve been working towards anyhow. It has just become more urgent to get there.

The Re-Farmer