This is what greeted me when I went into the sun room this morning.
Two kittens came running as soon as I opened the door, but the rest were looking a lot more sluggish and sleepy! :-D
I’m quite amused by the one kitten’s face sticking out from under the tool dresser. :-D
You may notice some changes on the blog over the next while. We were finally able to upgrade our account, and now have the refarmer.ca domain name set up.
Hopefully, in the next day or two, I’ll be able to start up my critter of the day photos, now that I have plenty of storage again! :-)
Today, the girls and I headed into the city for our monthly shop.
We took advantage of the trip to accomplish a few things, and ended up going to 5 different places covering half the city. It made for a long day, but we accomplished what we needed, and then some.
I have a whole bunch of things to share with you today, but the first thing I want to share is some good news. Our van didn’t need to get any work done on it today!
A couple of nights ago, it got cold enough overnight for the furnace to turn on, only to hit highs in the 20’s, half a day later!
Yesterday was supposed to be my day to finally get the mower out – which required taking the snow blowers out first, taking out the riding mower, then moving the snow blowers to the back of the shed until winter. I also made room by taking out the two broken push mowers my brother had tested. I stuck them in another shed at the old hay yard. There used to be a tractor in there, but that is one of the things that disappeared before we moved in.
Once the mower was cleared, I topped up the oil, filled the gas tank, checked it over and…
Posting is going to be a bit light over the next few days. Hopefully, I will be able to upgrade my WordPress account by this weekend, giving me more storage for photos. I am hoping to continue doing the before and after posts that I did while cleaning and clearing the yard last year. I will also be restarting the Critter of the Day posts – we’ve been seeing all sorts of new birds I’m excited to share with you!
It’s been a surprisingly chilly spring. It’s warm enough during the day, but even last night, we got another frost warning, and we’ve had our furnace turning on during the night!
Which leaves me feeling very behind on my work outside. I just hope this means we’ll have a longer fall to make up for it.
Meanwhile, here are some of the things I see as I do my usual routine.
A bit more progress on the garden today; my daughters used some pieces of the trees that were taken down to edge the area we mulched yesterday.
The North end was left alone, since we won’t be going into there much at all, and the South edges were left open a path between the raspberries and the future garden.
The beauty of using these logs is that they are big enough to made an adequate “wall”, but will be easy to move away again, when that time comes.
One of my daughters tried to use a hoe to level some areas, so the logs wouldn’t be more level. The ground is so hard, it just bounced off the dirt!
Things have been rather hectic the past couple of days, to the point that I even missed yesterday’s critter of the day photo – I ended up driving my mother to the emergency and staying with her until she got the all clear to go home. She is fine, but she was scared about some chest pains. They never found what caused the pains, but once again, her heart is checking out just fine. They couldn’t identify what was causing the pains, so she had to go a regular doctor to start that process. :-/
In the middle of this, the girls took down a branch from the Chinese Elm in front of the kitchen window. The outside cats are going to miss their last easy access to the roof!
Getting it down took some doing. While one person used the extended pruning saw, the other pulled on a rope that was slung around the branch. This way, when the branch finally fell, it wouldn’t land on the roof, but get pulled away.
It worked. It landed right on my mother’s fancy lilac bush, but when I checked it later, there wasn’t a single broken branch on it! Very flexible branches!
Yesterday, the girls needed to pick up stuff not available locally, so we made a trip into the city.
While we were out, a wonderful, long rain came through our region.
We could actually see the difference in the trees between when we drove into the city, and when we drove back!
The only down side is that we had also been getting strong winds. Enough to blow over the bird feeder stand in its summer location. The hanging feeder fell apart, but thankfully, it just pops back together easily. I was needing to refill it, anyhow.
I also finally saw birds using the bird bath, in its now location. So I’m happy. :-)
I had nothing I needed to get in the city myself, but of course I was checking things out. Especially the garden centres. One of our goals is to plant food trees, so I’ve been checking out the varieties of apples – I’d like something other than crab apples! – that can grow in our region, as well as anything else that produces fruit, nut or berry.
I ended up buying our first food trees.
Also known as haskap, these berries were on my list. I’ve never actually had one before, but they can be used like blueberries, raspberries or strawberries. Part of why I included them on my list was due to their extreme hardiness. These babies can withstand -45C temperatures! They are also an early producer, with ripe berries (after the second year) by mid-June.
This is a variety that needs male and female plants to pollinate, and when I saw there was only one of each left, I grabbed them. We won’t expect berries in their first year, but we should have plenty, next year.
What we now have to do is figure out where to plant them. They require sun and shade, can grow 5-10 ft high, and should be planted about 4 feet apart. We thought of taking out more of that spirea by the storage house, and planting them near the grapes, but with the size and spacing needed, I’m moving away from that idea. They could be planted in one of my newly mulched beds in the south yard. They will also be easy to water, there.
Something to figure out over the next couple of days. :-)
I’m really looking forward to seeing how these grow!
Yesterday, after moving Butterscotch’s babies out of her most recent hiding place and putting them with Beep Beep’s babies, I check on them several times throughout the day.
I also got some adorable videos.
The babies were clearly quite content with the set up. Beep Beep was also quite good with all the babies.
Butterscotch, on the other hand, was not happy.
She and Beep Beep don’t get along at times, but I hoped her own kittens would be enough for her to make the effort. There’s lots of room in that cat cave.
At my last visit with them, however, I changed my mind. I was able to pick Butterscotch up briefly, but she was very nervous and jumped down. Not before I could feel that her teats were engorged. The kittens were fine, which means Beep Beep must have been nursing them, too, because Butterscotch sure hadn’t been.
The last thing I want is for her to end up with mastitis, or lose her milk. So I put her babies back into the box nest, so she could nurse them in peace.
Ah, well. The kittens are getting more active as they get bigger, and will be able to cuddle and play together soon enough.
