The first seedling to break soil surface was a drum gourd – one of the two in the middle pot – but then a Crespo Squash, on the right, burst through and exploded out of the soil. It seems like every time I look at the pots, there’s more visible growth.
What I’m really happy about is that not one of the seedlings emerged with the outer shell of the seed stuck on the leaves. Last year, there was more than a few times that I had to very carefully remove the shell, because the seed leaves were being killed off. As careful as I was, sometimes pieces of the leaves would break off, because the shells were so tightly encasing them.
I really like this pre-germinating technique!
The heat mat will need to be unplugged very soon. I won’t move them off right away, as I need to arrange space. I won’t need it until I start more seeds.
This weekend will be 7 weeks before our last average frost date. I will go through some of my seeds to see what I want to start first. The seeds we have left are pretty much all supposed to be started 3-4 weeks before last frost, but if I started all the ones I want to, I’ll run out of space in no time at all – and I will have way too many things that need to be transplanted, all at once. So I plan to stagger them.
I might even start some of these.
Baked Potato SquashMashed Potato squash
I had to go to town today and finally picked up the mail. There were probably in and waiting for a while. Since we have so many varieties of winter squash seeds, we will probably start just a couple of seeds of each. At this point, we’re still after trying out different types to see what we like the most, and will then probably drop it down to one or two varieties.
Who am I kidding. We’ll probably be constantly trying new ones! Just maybe not quite so many different types, all at the same time.
That’s one thing about having the luxury of space like we do. We can spare some to try growing new things we don’t even know if we’ll like, yet.
No, not finally petting this cat, though that did happen (I counted 30 yard cats this morning).
No, not finally the snow is almost gone, or the moat around the garage disappearing, or even large sections of the main garden area accessible again.
No, what finally happened was our tax returns finally got deposited!!!!
I’ve already called and left a message with the septic guy about replacing the pill switch in our septic tank.
Just a little bit longer, and we won’t be having to manually turn that thing on several times a day.
We’ve certainly learned to recognize the signs of when it needs to be done, before things start backing up into the basement!
We were having a problem with it yesterday, though. One of the things that was modified on our system was the addition of a pool filter. Greywater from the tank goes through the filter before it reaches the pump, which then sends the water out to the field by the barn. Hang on… I should have some photos. That will make it much easier to explain!
There they are!
These go back to 2020, in February, when things backed up into the basement, and my brother helped get things unplugged – at least until we had the roots professionally augured out of those floor drains!
This is what it looked like, before the filter was installed.
This is what it’s like now.
The filter needs to be primed for proper flow, but once that’s done and closed up, it should run fine. If, however, we turn on the pump, but the greywater side of the tank outside isn’t full enough to be drained, the filter reservoir drains out the bottom, and that’s it. So we need to open it up and fill it to above the inflow opening to prime. We can even keep an eye through the clear lid and see what’s going on, which I find very useful.
You can see the white handle of the filter basket inside. We have two of them, so that when it needs to be cleaned, we can just quickly switch in the second one, then let the dirty one soak in detergent for a while before scrubbing it out. Typically, we only need to do this a couple of times a year.
That got switched out when the septic tank was emptied and it was really bad, so I switched out the detergent water it was soaking in a few times, and it was still soaking, as of yesterday.
Yesterday, we could tell that the tank needed to be drained, but every time I tried to run the pump, the filter would drain, but no greywater from the tank would come in. I’d prime the filter, but it would happen again.
So I decided to switch the filter basket, but the other one was still soaking. The detergent got most of the gunge off, so I gloved up and started scrubbing the basket with brush that we have, just for this job.
What I found myself doing was pulling out wads and wads of cat hair! Enough that it was blocking the mesh of the filter basket from the inside.
Once I got that clear and clean, I took the other filter basket out and set it to soak. I also made a point of cleaning the inside of the reservoir, the threads and the parts and pieces of the cover. I even scrubbed the inside of the clear cover as best I could. Over time, grease and grime can build up under there and make it harder to see inside.
It was a very disgusting job, but it needs to be done!
Once everything was cleaned up, I popped the newly cleaned filter basket in, primed the filter, then turned on the pump.
It ran fine! I could see the inflow splashing through, and the water level remained high.
While that ran, I started cleaning the other filter basket…
… and started pulling out wads of cat hair!
There was enough cat hair lining the inside of the basket to prevent proper flow and mess with the vacuum seal.
I got the cat hair out, but left the basket to soak in detergent longer, since the other scunge that was already accumulating wasn’t going to come off well, otherwise.
When living on a town or city sewage system, we don’t really think about what goes down the drains. Sure, we know about flushing toilets, baths, showers and draining washing machines. How often, though, do we think about the bits of food and grease from washing our dishes? Or all the different types of cleaners, getting all mixed up together? Or how much HAIR gets in there! We already have to regularly clear the drains in the tub and bathroom sink because of the hair that gets caught – both human and cat – but I never imagined that so much cat fur was making its way into the septic system that it would clog that filter basket after only about 10 days. The Septo-Bac and the bio pipe maintenance stuff both include bacteria and enzymes to break down grease and hair. It just needs more time to do it!
It would be getting in through the washing machine, mostly. Every time we do the laundry, and I clean out the lint trap on the drier, it’s got a thick layer of cat hair on it. It gets everywhere. What we need to get are some air filters for various rooms, but even that would reduce the problem, not get rid of it. We just have too many indoor cats!
Well, by the end of today, we’ll be down by one, as I deliver the Wolfman to the rescue for vet care and adoption. I’m happy to say his eye is looking SO much better today. Hopefully, that will mean a much smaller vet bill for the rescue, though the vet was willing to give them samples of that super expensive medication.
Talking about the Wolfman with my husband today, he joked that he’ll put money on them deciding to keep him permanently. I hope not! They already have 17 permanent cats, plus the ones up for adoption that have their own space, and 4 or 5 (or is it 5 or 6?) of their permanent ones are from us!
Wolfman is such a sweet cat, though. We’re going to miss him!
What can’t we adopt out the a****e cats, instead?
Oh, right. Because they’re a****s. 😂
Anyhow.
It will work out.
Later today, I will deliver the Wolfman, then take advantage of the trip to pick up a few necessities. Hopefully, I’ll hear back from the septic guy before then, and will know how much cash to take out to pay him, and a date for when he can replace the pill switch.
Today is turning out to be such a gorgeous day! The outside cats are very happy and spending more time outside, rather than in the sun room.
Unfortunately, the skunks are out, too. I went into the sun room from outside and found one in there, eating the cat kibble. At least the skunk doesn’t bother the cats any, and the cats generally stay in the sun room while the skunks are there. The racoons, on the other hand, usually come in groups and tear the place apart, digging for stray bits of kibble, and they’re easily twice the size of any of the cats. Expect maybe Shop Towel.
As I write this, it’s coming up on 4pm, and we’re at 13C/55F, with a “feels like” of 15C/59F. I couldn’t resist! I had to get out there and get some work done!
So I decided to work on the low raised bed that runs along the chain link fence between the people gate and the vehicle gate. It needs to be narrowed for better reach, but we didn’t get a chance to work on it before the ground froze.
I’ve been making sure to take photos and videos that will be put together in a video later on, but there was one thing I found I just had to share now.
After removing the mulch to get started, I found onions!
Last year, after transplanting onion seedlings in various places, I still had lots of teeny, tiny onions left over. I also found onion bulbs in various places, from the year before, that had survived the winter. Most of the seedlings got transplanted just inside the bricks framing the bed – and most did not survive. The bulbs I found from the previous year’s onions – Oneida onions, if I remember correctly – all got transplanted at one end of this bed, plus there was a single surviving shallot that survived the previous year’s flooding that I just left to grow. It tried to go to seed, but didn’t quite make it. I didn’t harvest any onions out of here in the fall, because there was nothing to harvest.
Well, those previous year onions actually survived the winter, and I uncovered a bunch of them! Even the shallot at the opposite end was starting to show green!
Where they were growing was part of the bed I had to move to make it narrower, so these had to go.
The largest bulbs in here are the yellow onions that I think are Oneida. The shallots had two bulbs growing against each other, plus there were a few little onions that I think may have been survivors last year’s transplants. There is a pair of bulbs that look like yellow onions that I think might be a different variety of shallots, but I’m not sure.
These got transplanted in the raised bed we will have peas planted all down the middle. I haven’t quite decided what I will plant on either side of the peas but, at one end, it now has these onions. If they survive, they should go to seed, which would be awesome. Onion seeds are viable for only a year, but once the plants go to seed in their second (or, in this case, third) year, I believe they go to seed every year. We could potentially have our own annual onion seeds to collect.
We shall see!
After the onions were transplanted, I went to work on the end of the bed next to the people gate. That’s where I’d found there were broken pieces of sidewalk blocks and bricks, buried under the soil. You can read about that here.
Unfortunately, the ground it still too frozen. I got one broken piece loose that can be left in place, as it will not be under the bed. I was able to remove another broken piece, but found the edge of yet another chunk. I tried pouring water over it do make it more visible, and possibly thaw the soil a bit, too, but eventually had to stop. Depending on where it extends under the soil, I might be able to leave it for now.
When I realized I was just chipping through soil that was frozen rock solid, I set that job aside and started working on pulling up weeds along the edge of the bed, and moving the soil away from the path and closer to the chain link fence. In some places, it worked out okay, but for the most part, the ground is just too frozen.
With the mulch removed and the black soil now exposed to sunlight, it should start thawing out faster. Hopefully, we’ll have that bed reworked and ready for planting, soon. It’s one of the areas thawing out fast enough that we will be able to direct sow things that can be planted before last frost.
Gosh, it felt good to be working out in such a beautiful day!
We’ve got another beautiful day today. It was already above freezing by the time I got outside to feed the kitties and do my morning rounds. I counted 28 yard cats this morning.
I was coming back from the outer yard when I spotted the gathering…
Sorry for the shakiness. I was zoomed in from across the yard! If you turn your volume up, you’ll hear a noise right at the start. That’s actually ice crackling! You’ll also hear the Canada Geese flying overhead. There were a lot of them this morning. We’re at that time of year where the cats are preferring to drink melt water instead of the warm water I’m still leaving for them in the heated water bowls. Here, though, I think they were mostly just playing. The water is receding quite a bit – which is good, because it’s actually being absorbed by the ground, not washing away. In some areas, though, that means there is a top layer of ice, then a gap over the water level, with another layer of ice. It’s that sort of top layer of ice cracking that you’re hearing in the video.
Enough snow has melted away that I was able to start adding areas back into my rounds, and even start doing a bit of clean up. It’s still too early for the snow crocuses, but the area they are in is mostly clear of ice and snow. I was even able to check on the Korean pines. I think we lost one of them. There’s four left altogether, and I’ll be happy if even just one survives. We shall see!
In other things, today is our anniversary. Thirty six years ago, while my husband was in “X platoon” in Basic Training (Basic Officer Training Course, to be specific; it’s an option that I don’t think exists anymore) due to an injury, he flew home for about a week. He arrived late on a Thursday, before Easter weekend, which meant all government offices were closed from Friday to Monday. On Tuesday, we bought our marriage license, then waited the requisite 24 hours before getting married on Wednesday. We had two days together, then he flew back to Chilliwack.
The powers that be were not impressed. Apparently, he was supposed to get their permission before getting married!
We didn’t see each other for another 3 months. That’s when his parents and sister were able to fly in from Africa, where they were living at the time. My husband was still in X platoon, so he was able to fly out for a few days, and our two families gathered together here at the farm to celebrate our marriage. After he returned to Chilliwack, we didn’t see each other again for another 3 months, when I took the train and moved out to join him, just in time for him to officially leave X platoon and be part of the next BOTC start date. We didn’t actually live under the same roof until after he was done the 13 week course, and we moved to Victoria, BC, where he had his first posting as a very green naval officer.
Of course, we had all sorts of people making assumptions about why we eloped like we did, but it really came down to, it was the only time slot we had. It was either do it then, or wait a couple of years. The entire wedding, including my dress (I bought it earlier because I was able to get an employee discount on top of a warehouse clearance discount – it only cost me $10! I never thought I’d be getting married in it!) and rings (I got those with my employee discount, too! 😄) cost about $100. My BIL paid the $40 or whatever it was for the license fee, and my brother and his wife took us out to dinner after the wedding. My brother and his wife were the only family members to know what we planned to do in advance, and my SIL walked me through what I needed to do and where I needed to go to get it all arranged before my husband (fiancé) flew out.
I highly recommend eloping. Very stress free!!
My mother had been okay with it at first; just surprised. Then she talked to the local priest, who told her we weren’t really married, because we didn’t get married in a church.
*sigh*
That priest didn’t last long. He replaced a well loved priest that retired early for health reasons. The new guy was a terrible, angry and bitter man who should never have gone into the priesthood in the first place. So many people complained about him, the bishop moved him somewhere else (hopefully, to either get some counselling, or leave the priesthood!). Which says a lot because, even then, there were very few priests, and it was a long time before they found someone to stay as parish priest.
But I digress.
My husband and I were both 19 when we eloped, so of course, we had all the predictions of how it would never last. Interestingly, our marriage has outlasted many others that did things “right”.
It was no fairy tale wedding, but I’ve never been big on fairly tales, anyhow. I wouldn’t have it any other way!
As for celebrating, my husband is in no condition to go out, so I headed into town and got take out to celebrate, instead.
Okay, it could have been worse, but I had a bit of a disaster this morning.
While trending the seedlings and doing a tray rotation, I topped up the larger cell tray of San Marzano tomatoes with more soil. I’d deliberately half filled the cells to start, and now I’m “potting up” the seedlings this way.
After carefully putting the soil around the seedlings, tamping it down gently, then gently top watering to settle the soil around the stems more and avoid air gaps, I went to put the tray back into the mini greenhouse frame at the window. I had to rotate the peppers and eggplant tray back to the top, as they’re getting too tall to be anywhere else, so the tomatoes needed to go one shelf down. I’ve got the LED lights set up above the lower shelves, but I did move the cables around to get them out of the way.
Well, not enough.
Between getting caught on a cable and the uneven bottom of the tray catching on one of the wire squares on the shelf itself, the entire tray ended up sliding off the far side. There is a gap between the shelf and the wall, because of a baseboard heater (these are never used and the breakers are off. I don’t remember them ever being used when this part of the house was built!). The tray, however, landed against the window sill, rather than sliding all the way down to the floor.
In the process of falling, it knocked one of the onion trays on the shelf below, off in the other direction.
What. A. Mess.
I was able to retrieve the tray, but a lot of the soil – and water! – was all over the window sill, down the wall, and on the carpet below.
The shag carpet.
*sigh*
I think they’ll survive, though.
Once the tomato tray was cleared away, I had to pick up the onions before I could reach anything else. They are in four sections of a vegetable tray, and the roots actually held everything together pretty well, but some soil was lost. The bundles could be popped back into the tray. I think they’ll survive, too.
The mini greenhouse frame had to be cleared of everything else before I could move it and reach the biggest mess. I was able to save some of the spilled soil, but most of it will have to be vacuumed up.
I fixed up the tomato seedlings as best I could, and had to add more soil to a few of them.
For now, I’ve got the trays spread out in various sun spots, though those will be gone soon. We have a fan going in the room for the seedlings all the time, so that will help dry things out faster. Once the mess can be vacuumed, we can put the frame back and return the seedling trays.
It could have been worse.
Well. I suppose it still could be. Let’s see how the seedlings survive over the next little while!
Yesterday was incredibly gorgeous, reaching 8C/46F, bright and sunny. Things were melting all over the place! I’m loving the longer days, too. My daughter was able to slog through the snow to do a perimeter check I haven’t been able to do for some time, and tells me she is seeing signs of new growth all over the place.
As I write this, we’ve reached our expected high of 6C/43F, with a “feels like” of 11C/52F The outside cats are in heaven with these temperatures!
There’s the cat with the messed up eye, which seems to be doing better. I counted 32 this morning. I did not see Sad Face anywhere.
Speaking of messed up eyes, Wolfman’s eye really does seem to be looking better to me. I got a call fairly late last night from the Cat Lady about him. She’s just gotten a call from the vet! He’d felt bad about not really answering her when she showed him the pictures of Wolfman and he kinda blew her off. So he took another look at the pictures. He thinks there is still vision in the eye, and it can be saved. There’s a non-steroidal drop I don’t know the name of that he thought would be the right treatment. The Cat Lady told me has a cat she’d used this stuff on before. She had been sure this cat would lose it’s eye, as it was all shriveled. When this stuff was prescribed to her, she had been shocked. She’s never seen such a tiny amount before. A single drop is applied, every 2 weeks, for a 6 week treatment. So, 3 drops total – at about $100 a drop! However, after just the first application, the next day the eye looked almost completely recovered, and the cat is still doing fine. The vet is aware of the situation, though, so if Wolfman in brought in, under her name, he does have samples he can give her for free. !!! Technically, he’s not supposed to give them out to the general public, but she’s a rescue, and they’ve got a good working relationship. They are a business, though, and need to do things the right way.
So next week, I’ll meet up with her with the Wolfman, she’ll take him in for the usual shots and blood tests, and he’ll get his eye properly checked out. Who knows. He might not need this stuff, after all. The main thing, though, is that the vet thinks there is still sight in the eye, and it can be saved. At least that’s what he can say based on just looking at the (rather horrifying, I thought) pictures of the eye.
After all the usual vet care and assessments, Wolfman will then be officially put up for adoption. I told her, I would expect him to be adopted out fairly quickly. He is such a gorgeous cat, with this massive, fluffy tail! Talking about him with her family, it seems they are already bracing themselves, though. So many cats from us have become permanent members of their household, they’re half expecting to fall in love with him and keeping him. 😂😂 He’ll be going into the “cat room” part of their house, for the adoptables, with other cats, but if he ends up in the regular household…
They know themselves too well!
That got us to talking about some updates she got from other cats they found homes for, for us. She sent me a picture of one bonded pair that were adopted out together. One had been so very ill, but is now fully recovered. They are currently hanging out at their winter home, in North Carolina, where they had been flown out first class (!!) and are living in the lap of luxury.
Can she find people like that to adopt me, please?
Then there was another pair they adopted out for us. One of them we’d named Plushy, because she looked like a gorgeous, fluffy stuffed toy. She has another name now. Shortly after adoption, she had a sudden emergency surgery that everyone was surprised by, and ended up having a portion of her small intestine removed. There had been zero sign of any problems, then boom, this happened. She recovered very well, though, and the couple that adopted her and her buddy just dote on them.
They also entered her into a cat show. The show was for Norwegian Forrest cats and Maine Coons, but of course there is no lineage for Plushy, so she was entered in the “long haired house cat” category.
She won third place!
So she is certified gorgeous!
I’m absolutely delighted that these former yard cats are now in such loving homes, and living their best lives.
The Wolfman is not even a year old yet, but he’s already a stunner, and I think we’ve got another David happening – we think he’s going to be a big, fluffy boy! So different from his siblings. Soot Sprite is getting bigger, but he’s still a very slight cat. Tiny, The Beast, on the other hand, looks like she’s going to stay pretty tiny! She’s another stunner, too. They are both short haired cats, and absolutely sleek.
Oh, I almost forgot. The Cat Lady has been talking to the vet at the clinic that still does cheap spay days. While they will also do males on these days, they’re looking to do a males only day in the near future. That’s good news for us, because among the outside cats, the most socialized ones that we could easily get into carriers, are all male. If we could manage to get Sad Face in there, that would be amazing, but getting him into a carrier would definitely take some doing! He’s such a big boy, too, there’s only one carrier we have he would even fit in. We can easily find 5 outside cats for our 5 hard sided carriers, if the Cat Lady can things out. We’ve also got the 2 soft sided carriers, so we could potentially bring in 7 cats, but with outside cats, they might actually tear their way out of one of those. They may be more socialized, but stuffing them into a carrier is something else entirely!
We shall see how that goes. We’re still waiting on our tax returns. I hear these are delayed because Canada Revenue had to fire several hundred people who inappropriately got CERB money during the illegal lockdowns. Not very encouraging to know so many tax department employees had no problem committing fraud, but not very surprising, either. Hopefully, the refunds will be processed soon. Aside from potentially paying for cheap neuters, it’ll be nice to finally get the pill switch replaced on our septic tank, so we’re not having to turn the pump on manually several times a day!
Ah, well. It is what it is. It’ll work out.
Meanwhile, I’m still giggling over the updates on our adopted out yard babies. I knew we had some really gorgeous cats, but now it’s official; some of our yard cats are show quality gorgeous!
It’s been a quiet, homey sort of day today. Not much to write about.
I head-counted 31 while feeding the outside cats this morning. Then, as I was returning from my morning rounds, I saw Broccoli and Sprout had arrived – they, at least, are very distinctive! – making 33 in total.
I heard back from the Cat Lady about Wolfman. She talked to the vet about his eye, but the vet would not comment either way without seeing Wolfman directly. I was hoping to at least get a ballpark figure on what a removal might cost, if one is needed. So she will let me know the next time she needs to be near our usual half way meeting point to pick up Wolfman and pass on some kibble donations.
As for Wolfman, if we were to go strictly by his behavior, you might miss that there is anything wrong at all. Just a little while ago, I saw him dashing around me, and it does seem like he can still see through that eye. Given what it looked like in the photos I managed to get, that’s surprising. He may simply have gotten used to it. She still sometimes squints with the one eye, but that’s about it. There is no appearance of discomfort, and he’s his usual playful self. He’s even still play fighting with his adopted siblings, which may well be how the eye was injured in the first place!
In other things, I’ve decided to try sprouting the seeds I got soaking yesterday, before potting them. They are now between layers of damp paper towel in a take out container. With large seeds like this, I covered the semi-transparent lid to reduce light exposure, and I did also scarify their outer shells.
While tending the seedlings, I noticed a strange thing with the large tray that has the eggplant and hot peppers. Most of them are getting nice and big, but a few seem to be wilting, and are more stunted. The stunted ones are all on one side of the tray.
I need to look up my old post about starting these. This tray may be the one where I ran out of one brand of seed starting mix, and opened a bag from another brand. Most of the cells in the tray would have a bit of both, but one end would have had only the second brand.
What I didn’t do was mark which side that was!
If this tray is the mixed brand one, then the San Marzano tomato tray is all the second brand. So far, they seem fine. In fact, I’ll be needing to add more mix to top up the cells around their stems soon. I’ll leave them in these cells a while longer, before I thin by transplanting.
Ah, I just went and looked up my old post. Yes, this is the tray with the two different brands of seed starter mix. Considering that I had the tray mostly full before I had to open the second bag, there would be fewer cells with the second mix, only, and the others would have had the first brand in the bottoms, and then just got topped up with the second brand before the seeds were sowed. Which means the smaller number of cells that have stunted seedlings in them would most likely be the ones with the Miracle Grow brand of seed starting mix. I believe the other brand was Jiffy, but I’m not sure.
Dangit. I should have taken better notes! Ah, well.
We have more seedlings that we need, so if some don’t do as well, that’s okay. At long as we have at least a few of each that survive transplanting, we’ll have enough for our needs.
I had a much interrupted night last night, so the girls took care of the morning rounds for me, so I could sleep in.
Well. As much as the suddenly cuddly cats would let me! 😄
I did end up having to go to the post office to pick up some packages, and ended up going into town to run some errands while the post office was closed over the lunch hour. I finished too quickly, so I used up time by going to the local dollar store – I forget which franchise it’s actually part of.
The tomatoes and peppers on the heat mat are ready to be moved aside, so today I prepared the next batch of seeds to start.
Oops on the labels on the left and the centre!
The packages across the top of the photo were my dollar store find. After watching the Gardening in Canada video about useful Dollarama garden finds, I went looking to see if they had clear plastic drop cloths. They did, so I picked up three of them; one for each of the raised bed covers we have, with the curved tops. This plastic is quit thin – about half the thickness of actual greenhouse plastic – so I don’t expect them to last more than a season but, at 12′ x 8′, they should be just the right size to cover the frames. If we can get at the frames and cover them early enough, they will made nice little greenhouses for the three low raised beds next to the spruce grove. The sooner we can warm up the soil, the sooner I can direct sow those seeds that can be planted before our last frost.
Until then, I got my gardening fix by preparing Crespo squash, drum gourd and luffa seeds, all of which have a long growing season. There were only 6 luffa seeds left in the package and they’re pretty small, so I’m using all of them. With the drum gourds, I still had some left in an open package, plus I have an unopened package. Because the seeds are so large, I chose only 4 of the drum gourds and the Crespo squash seeds. There are still more seeds left in the Crespo squash seed package, too.
Yes, I did catch on that the plant labels are under the wrong seeds! The smooth seeded Crespo squash’s bowl is on the correct seed package. The drum gourd seeds look like they have a rough texture, but have a soft surface that’s almost fluffy.
Usually, I would scarify the seeds and plant them after only a short presoak, mostly because I would forget to let them soak overnight. Last year, I had such trouble with them and had to reseed the pots several times. This time, I am making sure to do a longer pre-soak. I got them going in the mid afternoon so, by morning, they should have about twice the soaking time compared to leaving them overnight.
I plan to split the seeds between two pots per variety. Hopefully, we’ll have decent germination. If only one seed each manages to germinate and survive transplanting, I’ll be happy!
Now that I think about it, this would be a good time to try doing it the way Maritime Gardening suggests; leaving the seeds on wet paper towel until the start to germinate, the planting them. Hmmm… Yes. I think I’ll do that – after they’ve had their overnight soak. With big seeds in particular, I think that would be especially helpful.
We had visitors yesterday afternoon. Three of them!
They were very curious about that cat, too! They hung around for a while before coming into the yard and checking out the compost heap.
This morning I counted either 28 or 29 yard cats. I’m not quite sure.
It’s not actually the black cats I loose track with. It’s the “printer babies”. All the white and greys!
Here, you can see the one cat’s messed up eye. That inner eyelid is making it harder to tell, but the pupil has a cloudy spot on one side that seems to be clearing up, while the other side is still looking brown.
On the topic of messed up eyes.
We’re going to have to change focus for when my tax return comes in. We still have to get the pill switch replaced on our septic tank, but we’ll have to wait on the pipe clearing. We need to get the Wolfman to a vet. After talking with the Cat Lady and showing her pictures of his eye that looks like it got scratched by another cat, we treated him with the last of our Metacam and monitored him. The rescue’s donations had run out, so even though Wolfman is on the list for adopting out, there’s nothing for vet care. Any donations they do get are quickly used up with spays and neuters.
I have the hardest time seeing the condition of the Wolfman’s eye, but he was opening it more often and blinking, so I thought it was getting better. The inner lids are still pretty swollen, but we can’t get more Metacam without a prescription, we can’t get a prescription without an exam, and we can’t get an exam done until we have funds. The girls seem to have better luck with seeing the eye, and this morning, they told me it was looking deflated.
*sigh*
Which means when we go bring him in, most likely the eye will need to be removed. I have no idea how much that will cost. I don’t think it’ll be as much as an amputation, of course; those both cost in the $1300 range. Still, it is a surgery, and that’s always expensive.
Damn.
Today, I got a call from the tax preparer. They just had one question for me, and then our files were done. I’ve already made the drive over to pay the bill, brought my husband’s form home for signing, and got it back right away. I didn’t even look to see what the final numbers were until I got home. Mine was exactly as I expected. I have no income, so I’m getting my caregiver tax credit, and that’s it. My husband qualifies for the disability tax credit, but his private disability and his CPP Disability combined bumps him into a different tax bracket. Without the disability tax credit, he’d be owing. Instead, he typically gets less than $20 back. That changed this year, though, and he’s actually getting more. Not much more, but enough to be helpful.
What isn’t helpful is that as of today, appropriately on April Fool’s Day, yet another Trudeau carbon tax has kicked in, which will make the cost of everything go up. I’ll let Quick Dick McDick explain it, as only he can. Language warning.
Not only is the idea that taxing “carbon” is somehow going to make the weather gooder laughable (keep in mind that we are carbon based life forms on a carbon based planet, so taxing “carbon” is taxing life itself – oh, and if you take into account Canada’s vast Boreal forests, we are actually CO2 negative), but we keep getting told that we will somehow get back more than we paid in.
Our Prime Dictator has openly admitted that he can’t do math, but you’d think even a trust fund baby born with a silver spoon in his mouth would know better. Which I’m sure he does, but the psychologist in my recognizes a narcissistic psychopath when I see one.
We’re told that we are supposed to be getting these quarterly rebates to make up for the new tax. My daughters get them, along with the GST rebate. Paltry sums, really, considering how expensive everything has become because of these taxes. My husband and I don’t get either. Apparently, he makes too much money on disability, which is insane. Since we’re a married couple filing our tax returns together, that means neither of us get any federal rebates. Sometimes our province will throw out a bone, but even then, I get it but my husband doesn’t. No doubt there are plenty of other families in our position that will keep seeing our costs increase, but never see any of these “getting back more than you pay” rebates. Then the powers that be will and their propagandists blame the eeeeeevil capitalists and the Conservatives for everything, right on script.
For those of you who have been following Karlyn Borysenko, who has been deep diving into the “woke left” for years now, you know that this isn’t really a politically left or right thing, but the result of decades of neo-Marxism.
I don’t want to go too far into this sort of thing on my blog, though, but this is something that affects all of us directly. Even us, in our little corner in the boonies, and the choices we need to make, so I feel I have to talk about it at least a little bit.
Looking at just the past few years, on top of the carbon taxes, they’re also punishing the use of nitrogen (which makes up almost 80% of our atmosphere) to grow food, they’ve declared that home gardeners are actually causing more “climate change” damage than large scale agriculture, and cow farts are heating up the globe, so they’re trying to get rid of cows in favour of ultra processed “plant based meat”, even though they know this stuff is worse for both our health and the environment, and so on.
What it comes down to is that people like us – people who just want to be as self sufficient as possible, and produce as much of our own food as we can – are going to have a much harder time of it, unless there are massive changes in the next few years. Having homeschooled our daughters, we’re already used to autocrats either trying to make what we were doing illegal or, failing that, making it so they control what, when and how we did it. During our final homeschooling years, we came very close to losing so much in the province we lived in at the time, as the NDP and the teacher’s union tried to push legislation that would have literally controlled what parents could talk to their kids about at the dinner table. They tried twice, actually. They learned from the first time, so the second time, they framed it as a way to “fight hate” and “homophobia”. A remarkable number of homeschoolers fell right in line, and they succeeded in pitting homeschoolers against each other. I don’t think people realize just what a disaster it would have been, had the proposed legislation passed, it was so broad and ambiguous. It’s just another step to see the same thing being tried to control our ability to grow our own food and live self sufficiently. I mean, it’s already illegal for a lot of people to grow food in their yards or keep a few chickens in their back yard. Hell, the mayor of Toronto is pushing to tax rain, for crying out loud.
Of course, we’re already seeing the effect of this new tax, and it just kicked in today. When I was in town to see the tax preparer, I saw gas prices had gone up another 4 cents per litre. Honestly, I expected it to jump higher than that.
Meanwhile, the price of groceries is going to keep going up, tradespeople like plumbers and our septic guy are going to have to increase their prices again, and the value of our dollar is going to keep going down due to this artificially created inflation.
Which makes what we are trying to do here, just to feed ourselves, all the more important.
At least while growing and producing our own food is still legal.
The Re-Farmer 