The first photo was taken after I finished weeding, removing more soil, then leveling it off. There’s a short video next.
The remaining photos are of the stakes I prepared, to hold the deadwood walls in place.
I decided on doing half the stakes at about 24 inches. Closer to 23, really. I’m not too concerned about the length, since I’ll be driving them into the ground and can more or less level them just by hamming them in until the match. The hoops or whatever I decide on to support protective covers will be attached to these stakes. The other half, I went with about 18 inches. After cutting them to length, I used my handy dandy draw knife and a vice to create points. Then they all got de-barked.
I had gathered the materials for these in the fall, and they’ve been frozen in the garage ever since. Now that it’s warmer, they are very green, and some of them even have sap trying to run! It did make it easier to remove the bark, but these are really damp.
Because they are so damp, the ideal thing would have been to char them all over a fire. This would dry and harden the wood, and make them less prone to rotting.
It was too windy to get a fire going in the fire pit, though. Tomorrow is supposed to be even windier. So, I have them all laid out on the bench to dry overnight.
You’ll notice in the last picture there is a single piece of wood that’s different. I needed 18 stakes in each length, and I ran out of gathered materials while doing the shorter length. I was one short. I had a scrap piece of wood from another project that was about 19″ long, so I will be using that.
I will need to gather the materials to get the same number of stakes for the front wall, plus the ends.
Not today.
Having done as much as I could for the raised bed today, I got a few other things done. I’ve been watering the old kitchen and East yard beds, plus all the strawberries in the chimney blocks, and will be trying to do that daily, for now. Despite the fact that we have open water in low lying areas, the soil surface is incredibly dry. I should be watering in the main garden area, too, but I haven’t got enough hoses set up, yet.
After watering, I set the hose to start filling the rain barrel, so I can use a watering can and ambient temperature water, instead of ice cold well water. There was just a few inches of water in the rain barrel, and we won’t be getting any real rain for quite some time.
While that was filling, I finally got the tarp off the portable greenhouse, and removed the torn up original cover.
I had left the pots the luffa had been growing in, and discovered that they’ve been used as litter boxes.
*sigh*
The frame, despite being knocked half over and nearly told apart in one particularly bad wind store, is completely undamaged. It just doesn’t have a cover any more. If we’re going to cover it again, it has to be done in a way that can handle the weight of cats jumping on top of the roof.
Until then, I might end up moving the whole thing to a different location to get it out of the way, and to clean up under it.
The giant tarp that was covering it for the winter is now laid out and pinned to the ground. When I have someone to help me, or the wind dies down, I’ll fold it up and put it away properly.
That’s it. Garden progress for the day. Most of it was spent cutting, sharpening and debarking the stakes.
Tomorrow, Saturday, the dump is open for longer hours, so I plan to do that in the late morning, then I’m planning to visit my mother in the afternoon. The weekend is supposed to be cooler, and then things are supposed to warm up again on Monday, which is when I’m heading into the city for my appointment at the sports injury clinic. Somewhere in between that, I’ll need to go into the spruce grove and harvest more materials for this garden bed’s walls. I might have to go further afield to find enough material strong enough and relatively straight enough for the stakes.
Hopefully, it’ll be done soon, and I can focus on the remaining beds that need to be prepared for planting.
Today, I was supposed to do a dump run, but I was just too tired and in pain. It’ll have to wait until they’re open again on Tuesday.
I had a rough pain night and didn’t get much sleep, so I was going to try lying down for a bit, then visit my mother in the afternoon. I wasn’t looking forward to that, after her last phone call, but it needed to be done. I wasn’t down for long when I got a message from my SIL. My brother was on his way to see our Mother, and would then come here to the farm.
So I decided to head out to my mother’s earlier and meet him there. When I got there, though, I found another message from my SIL, as well as from my husband. My brother had tried to call me, but he was calling the land line. He was going to the farm, first.
Which worked out. I got the messages just as I parked at the hospital and realized my mother would be getting her lunch tray, so I walked around for a bit to give her time to finish eating before I went in. I stopped at the nursing station to find out about the phone call I didn’t get on Tuesday, about arranging a family meeting with the doctor. The person at the desk wasn’t the one in the know, so she made a note for the nurse in charge to come see us while I was visiting her.
The first part of the visit was okay. My mother talked a lot about things she remembered from back in Poland. All stuff I’d heard before, but that’s okay. I took a chance and showed her pictures of the chicken coop. She asked me why I didn’t build a shed for them instead of something with so many “windows”. I told her, because we can’t do that right now, this is what we’ve got. She laughed at me for having a chicken coop but no chickens. I told her we were getting chicks at the end of the month. Just 10 for now. Only 10? So few?
…
I told her, the coop is only big enough for 10 chicks.
Then she started going on about how wonderful our vandal is, because he buys his eggs from the Hutterites, and he bought chickens for the freezer from them, too. Now, it’s entirely possible he did this once or twice, years ago, but in her mind this is something he always does. I told her, the Hutterites have a huge operation; we just need enough chickens for eggs for ourselves.
Oh, and my sister’s husband visited our vandal, who told him he doesn’t want me or my brother at his funeral. Which I figured. My mother told me, she wanted us to do what was the right “Christian” thing to do. *sigh*
Then the nurse came and things got… brutal, though in a relatively calm way, for my mother.
In a nutshell; the doctor will not see her or have any meetings about her, because he simply doesn’t have the time. She does not have any medical need for a doctor’s care. She went on about her hearing and her vision, but neither is something that requires him. My mother is undergoing the mineral oil treatment on her ears again – it will be for 5 days this time – before they try flushing it again, and my mother had all sorts of things to complain about with that. Meanwhile, my mother is adamant that they are not giving her her second eye vitamin pill of the day. She writes it all down, she counts all her pills, but they tell her different things about different pills – the nurse and I both realized that my mother was mixing a blue pill up with a green pill, thinking they were the same pill, so that’s why she was getting different answers. My mother is also now convinced that her hearing was “perfect” before she came there, and her hearing problems have something to do with not getting her pills. When I pointed out that she used to have her TV and radio incredibly loud when I’d come over to her apartment in the past, she switched to Polish and accused me of taking their side and of lying. She also wants a pill for her eyes. I had to go over how the eye vitamin is only helpful for her left eye and the dry macular degeneration. The only treatment for the wet macular degeneration in her right eye is the injections she would have to go to the city for. She has rejected that and demands another pill; going back to how she claims they have stopped giving her the second one of the day. Even her own notes show that she is getting two pills at 5pm, but now she says she only gets one.
Even after the nurse left, my mother kept insisting they were not giving her these eye vitamins, and all her health problems have now only started after she came to this TCU. Things she has been dealing with for a long time. I kept trying to explain things, but she just went back to the manipulation, saying I was taking their side, etc. etc. I finally said, it was time for me to go.
As I was getting ready to leave, my mother brother up her wheelchair. This is a folding wheelchair that had been my father’s.
She asked me if I recognized it. I saw it in the hallway and said I did. She asked me to bring it over, and began questioning me about recognizing it. The staff had clearly given it a really good cleaning; whatever they used on the heavy vinyl got it all nice and supple and looking brand new. They even oiled the squeaky food rest. However, it’s an old chair, and there are cracks in the wheels and spots of rust that I could say where there before.
My mother clearly didn’t believe me. She has decided it’s not the same chair anymore. The hospital switched it.
This is not a new thing. For as long as I can remember, she accused my father of “trading” cattle, vehicles, furniture, the TV, etc. and he was giving the “good” versions the second family she believed he had, and the “bad” versions for us. When she tried to convince me a particular cow had been traded because it looked different – it had matured and filled out, looking bigger, strong and healthier – I pointed out that if this cow had been “traded”, we now have a better cow, so how did her accusations make sense?
I had a very confusing childhood at times.
The visit done, I headed home, utterly drained. My brother was still here, so we sat in their mobile home and I filled him in. It was good to talk to him about it in person, and we had a great visit! He was dreading his visit with Mom, but I just heard from him. He ended up staying with Mom for a couple of hours and the visit went well. It seems my mother got her nasty out of her system before he got there. I’m very glad it worked out that way, because she has been incredibly cruel to him during most of his visits with her.
After filling in my brother, I headed inside and took a bit of a break before changing into my grubbies and going outside for some manual labour. That, more than anything else, really helps decompress after a visit with my mother.
My focus for today was getting the straw off the septic tank. I had just started when I began getting messages from the cat rescue.
They are trying to get ahold of special traps to borrow and bring here. Traps with motion sensors and operated by remote. We can set up the camera currently facing the isolation shelter to monitor the traps. When the motion sensor goes off, check the camera to see what critter is in it. This way, we can trigger the trap only if the specific cat we are after – Slick, for example – is in the trap. Skunks and raccoons can be ignored. 😄 That would be amazing!
My brother was getting ready to head out around then, and dropped off some lovely compost they’d made from their own kitchen scraps for me. He had time to check out the chicken coop and we talked about the septic area, and the emergency bypass set up I had set off to the side until the straw was gone. After he left, I continued and got it all clear. The surface straw was set aside in a pile, but the damp straw touching the ground, which was already starting to rot, got raked up and repurposed as mulch around the honeysuckle and white rose bushes in the old kitchen garden.
That clear, I set up all the parts and pieces for the emergency bypass against the old kitchen wall for their summer storage.
That done, I also set up a hose at the tap in the wall next to the pipe running out of the basement for the emergency bypass. The shut off valve in the basement can now be opened. I won’t set all the hoses up until things warm up more, but I can at least fill watering cans for the pre-sown beds, etc., for now.
My next garden priority is to start more seeds inside. That keeps getting pushed back, but most of what we have left to start indoors are for 3-4 weeks before last frost, so for those we still have a bit of breathing room. I have only a few things in the 4-6 week range that need to be started now.
So this has been… a day. I’m very happy I got to see my brother and that I got some work done outside. As for my visit with my mother, it is what it is.
It just left me feeling so incredibly drained! Getting the straw cleared off actually helped with that. Now I’m just physically tired, not both physically and mentally tired! 😄
I had to make a run into town late this morning, so we didn’t even start on finishing the chicken coop assembly until much later in the afternoon. Which was fine, because it turned out to be an absolutely lovely day today.
The first thing I worked on was reinforcing the interior roost, then securing them in place.
Each corner got one of these flat braces. My original intention had been to have the horizontal roost resting on top of the vertical support, but it was difficult to get proper measurements through the tiny opening I had to work in. The roosts ended up too short by enough that I instead trimmed them about a quarter inch shorter so that they would fit in between the vertical supports, instead of on top. While the corner braces would hold them in place, these were cheap dollar store braces and I was concerned they wouldn’t hold the weight of chickens without bending or breaking. These flat braces are higher quality and will hold. The wood itself will break before those give out.
To secure the roosts, I had to use a little kitchen step ladder to be able to reach from above at the front, to set the roosts in place and line them up, while making sure they were flush against the front and back walls. There is just a bit of a height difference because of the white edging I had to account for. Both roosts had a vertical that sort of bent away from the wall, so I used one of the pieces for later in the build, jammed at an angle to brace the wonky side in place. Once they were solidly flush against the walled, I screwed them in place from the outside. Each end got three screws. Later on, I’ll use some sort of sealant on the screws to protect the wood from moisture.
The coop now has a roost on each side, on the inside.
The next stage of the build was to add the roosts that came with the kit, which were to be mounted underneath, on either side of where the ramp would be. For that, I needed an extra pair of hands and asked my daughter to come help. After I went inside and looking up online, just how they were supposed to be attached. The pictographs were really useless for that and even an image I’d shared with my daughter, showing how high off the ground they were supposed to be secured, looked like there was something else entirely going on.
She ended up basically taking over the build, and I was her assistant. Mostly because she can actually get down on the ground, and I can’t.
This time, though, we set a sheet of plastic on the ground as a drop sheet. Last time, my daughter was crawling around on the ground, she later discovered she managed to get cat poop on her pants. Ick.
Getting the exterior roosts in place was definitely a two person job. Especially for the front. With the area for the door empty, the sides sides were slightly spread out, and I had to push the entire side in and hold it in place while my daughter screwed the roosts in place.
After that, the floor between the two sides had to be installed, then the hinged ramp attached to the floor. That was all my daughter, as there was no room for me to do anything other than hand her screws.
That done, we had to attached the door to the frame by the hinges. There were a couple of plates that I’ve been using as spacers every time we had to attach a hinged door. After the door was hung, those plates were added across the insides of the frame’s corners at the opposite side, to stop the door from going past the frame when closed. Then the latch was added to the top, and the door and frame could be attached to the coop.
With the ramp on hinges, that could be lifted up and out of the way, so my daughter could go inside and screw the door frame to the coop. The ground isn’t level, so my job was to line up edges and corners and hold them in place – which required actually lifting the coop itself slightly, on one side – until my daughter got enough screws in to hold it in place, and she could do the rest without me holding things.
Once the door and frame were in place, there were a pair of cross pieces to attach between the top of the door frame and the back mesh wall of the coop. These were part of the roof supports.
The roof was the next thing to do, and it took a lot of figuring out what the pictographs were showing. We noticed some pre-drilled holes in some pieces and had to look at instructions a couple of pages later to see what they would be used for, and we could tell which direction they were supposed to face.
The roof supports were assembled in two parts before they could be set on top and secured to the coop. Then we could finally put on the plastic roof panels.
Which was more of a pain than it should have been.
First, was figuring out which side was up, as both sides were identical. They had pre-drilled holes in them that needed to line up with the supports they would be screwed into. Then there were the overlaps. After much shifting and flipping and trying again, it was the pre-drilled holes that determined which panel edge went on top of the other. It was not the way I would have expected it to, when it comes to drainage, but it was the only way one screw could secure both edges at the same time.
Once we got that figured out, and the panels were centered and lined up, we could finally start screwing them into place. For this, my daughter was using the little step ladder a lot, and we found a different problem. The ground was too soft and the legs of the ladder started to sink! I had a small piece of plywood nearby that I could put on the ground under one set of legs, which worked out very well. When it was time for my daughter to move the ladder to reach another section, I just kept moving the board.
We found other problems, though.
The screws for this part of the build are quite short. Too short for where the panels overlapped. After some digging around in the garage, I found a few that could replace some of the screws along the seams, but then we had a whole different problem along the front. For all the care we took to line up the pre-drilled holes with the supports below, the entire row of pre-drilled hold along the front were just a touch too far. The boards in that part of the roof were slightly warped. Probably from sitting in the box in the garage for over a month in the winter. There were extra longer screws in the kit and my daughter ended up using those, and not using the pre-drilled holes, to secure the roof panels. Some of the screws went in crooked and the tips got exposed, but not anywhere I chicken could hurt itself, so we weren’t too worried about it. We’ll have to go over the roof with sealant in places, anyhow.
Once the roof panels were on, the only thing left was to attach the hooks and eyes that would be used to hold open the two front doors for air circulation. For that, the hooks were first attached under the roof, and then we could use those to decide where to attach the screw eyes at the height we wanted the doors to be held open at. In spite of using a measuring tape and marking out where to attach them, we ended up doing one door at a different height than the other. The white edging in one of them had marks already on them that I mistook for the marks I’d made below! Which is fine. As long as they can be held open.
That done, the coop was officially assembled. We just had to move it.
Slight problem. The hinged ramp. With the roof in place, it couldn’t be lift up like when my daughter worked under it before. What we ended up doing was lifting is as high as we could through the open door, then quickly shutting the door before it could drop. We still had to push the ramp up through the wire mesh so the door could be closed but, once it was, the door itself held the ramp up and out of the way.
It wasn’t easy to move the hole thing. We were able to get grips on each end, because the wire mesh is on the inside of the coop, so there was enough of a lip on the frames that we could get our fingertips under there. The main problem was me and my janky elbows. I could hold the weight for only short distances before I could feel them giving out.
Still, we managed it, and set it up in front of the retaining wall, where the ground seemed to be the flattest.
It’s still not level, but at least the whole thing isn’t being twisted out of shape by uneven ground.
Where is how the finished coop looks, with all the doors closed, plus the back, which has no doors of any kind.
You can really tell in the side views, how the ground is sloping! In the front and back views, you can see the screws holding the inside roots in place.
The coop was designed with the roosts below as a way of not having to deal with lots of chicken poop inside. With the added roosts sheltered inside, we’ll be adding bedding. The nesting boxes will probably get straw, but I plan to get pine shavings for under the roosts inside.
With the coop right up against the retaining wall, we can potentially secure it to the blocks so it won’t get blown over in high winds.
We will probably not be able to keep it there, though. It is facing west and the sun can shine right through the wire mesh, the sides might create too much shadow for the garden bed behind it.
One of the things I want to do if find a way to add wheels to it, so it will be easier to move around as needed. It might be easier to just make a pair of wheeled platforms that can be tucked under the ends, then removed once the coop has been moved.
This coop will work out fine for when we get our first chickens, and for the summers. It is not the strongest of structures and definitely not suitable for a Canadian winter, but the plan is to build a polytunnel in the garden this year, so that we can move the chicken coop into it for the winter. It will do until we can build a proper, sturdier, chicken coop. We’re just getting a few chickens to start; enough to supply us with eggs. Over time I want to get more, including meat hens, so we will need to expand things quite a bit. It will take time and materials we don’t really have, but at least now we can get started.
Meanwhile, we can get ready for the chicks to arrive at the end of May. We’ll need feeders and waterers (the ones my parents used are still in the old chicken coop, but I don’t know that any of them are useable, after so many decades since my parents had chickens), both for while we have the chicks in a brooding pen indoors, and for when they get moved outside.
Something else that will be coming at the end of May is our order of basket willow. I got an email from the nursery with several shipping dates available, and I requested the latest one. That will give us time to prepare where we will be planting them, beyond the outer yard, and working out how to protect them from the renter’s cows.
On a completely different note…
It is confirmed that Slick lost her litter. While working outside, I heard a commotion and it was Slick. She’s gone into heat again, and had a whole crowd of dudes wanting their turn with her. She was not happy about it, either. I sent a quick message to the rescue and they want me to trap her as soon as possible. I don’t think we’d be able to trap her specifically, though. However, she has been super friendly when we do the morning cat feeding, and we might be able to get her into the big carrier. Tomorrow morning, my daughter is going to come out with me to try and get her. If we can manage it, she’ll go to the rescue for however long it takes for them to get her spayed, then she will come back here.
Today was a fair bit warmer than yesterday and sunny, making up somewhat for the wind. After losing a day of work in the yard and garden yesterday, it was a perfect day to catch up. I managed to get a lot more done than I expected. The pre-sown and fall transplanted beds are now cleaned up. I even got some direct sowing done!
The warmth and sunshine brought out some lovely colour, too.
The snow crocus buds have been showing for a few days now, and today they finally bloomed.
While working, I took some video and some photos, but forgot to get before and after photos of all the areas I worked on. I might put together a series of short videos on the progress, rather than one long one, later on. For now, I don’t even want to think about it. I’m just too tired.
This bed has a row of rainbow carrots down the middle, a variety of pea with a pink blush making a partial row near the trellis posts, and the other side and ends with onions meant for seed and deer deterrent – I hope.
I started with the carrots, since they were the hardest to reach. I think I might have seen a sprout or two, or maybe it was weed seedlings. I’m not sure. Once the mulch was off the row (the straw removed completely, the leave mulch below pushed aside), I covered it with boards to keep it damp. I’ll check it every morning and remove the boards when I see carrot seedlings.
Uncovering the peas was a pleasant surprise. There were quite a lot of seedlings!
I did the onions last and found quite a few, but also quite a few gabs. I might transplant some of my bunching onions that I started indoors to fill those, if nothing shows up.
Next, I uncovered where the flower bed was last year.
This took more than expected. I’d tossed the mulch on top of the Cosmos stems and meant to leave the root balls to compost in the soil. In the end, I had to dig it up a lot more because of a combination of creeping Charlie and elm tree roots.
*sigh*
When I collected seed from the memorial asters planted in the same bed, I did allow some seeds to drop, to see if they would survive and grow this year. I really hope some show up, because I still can’t find the packet I’d put the collected seeds into. Another packet is missing, too, but it’s the memorial asters that I really wanted to keep going. I’m quite unhappy that they’ve gone missing. There is only one area they could be, and there’s just no sign of them.
In the end, I did plant some collected nasturtium seeds at the sunny end, lightly covering that area with straw to hopefully discourage cats.
The next area I worked on was the asparagus and strawberry area.
I wasn’t going to uncover where the asparagus was planted, as they can grow through a mulch like this. There were only a few of the green asparagus (at the far end of the photo) that survived last year, but it’s entirely possible some of the purple asparagus might show up. Maybe. Who knows.
What I focused on was uncovering the Albion Everbearing strawberries I’d found and transplanted last year. As I found and uncovered surviving plants, I made sure to return some straw around them to keep the ground moist and the weeds at bay.
Next was the spot I’d found the surviving strawberry plants. I had done nothing in that bed last year; I just was never able to tend it. This year, I plan to grow the giant pod poppy variety I got seeds for this year.
The first thing I did was move the 4′ x 4′ wood frame out, setting it with the one near the compost pile that’s the same size. I plan to put them together to make that bed a touch deeper.
This bed took a lot more work. Which I did expect. I worked a fair bit outside where the frame had been, because there was so much creeping Charlie trying to work its way into the bed. There were, of course, plenty of crab grass rhizomes to clean up. Unfortunately, there was also quite a lot of tree roots in it, too. I couldn’t do much about them, as they were coming up from deeper than I was able to dig down to.
After this bed was done, I took a sustenance break, then came back with the poppy seeds, as well as the nasturtium seeds I planted in the other bed.
This bed had already started to dry out, and poppy seeds need to stay pretty much on the surface, so I filled a watering can and watered it first.
I look forward to when we can hook the hoses up again! It still gets too cold overnight right now.
There were fewer seeds in the packet than I expected, so they weren’t scattered as evenly as I would have liked. Then I used a rake to spread things evenly and just barely cover the seeds. This bed now needs to have some cold nights, including nights below freezing, for the seeds to germinate. The daytime highs for the next while are supposed to be similar today, or cooler, with a mix of sun and clouds. I’ll have to make sure to keep watering this bed, so the seeds don’t dry out and get baked.
The main garden area was now done. I just had a few more mulches to move, but I neglected to take still shots. I really should have for one of them!
The fenced off area with the tulips, apple tree and saffron crocuses were next, as well as the retaining wall blocks. Around the apple tree, I just moved the straw a bit further from the stem, where the weight of snow had pushed it closer to.
Then I uncovered the saffron crocuses and was wildly surprised. There were so many crocus leaves! They were surprisingly long and mostly blanched yellow from trying to grow through the mulch, with some of them having actual green in their leaves. I was very impressed by how many I saw. Last spring, I uncovered them and found a few, but they sort of disappeared among the weeds as the season progressed, and I thought they’d died off – until I found some spent and frost damaged blooms, way later than was expected!
Next, I took the straw off the retaining wall, taking it over to the tulip patch. I lightly scattered the straw over the tulips, though the wind made that a challenge. Later on, I took extra straw from over the septic tank and made an extra thick later in placed I was 100% sure had no tulips planted.
The retaining wall blocks have mint, chives, and tiny strawberry plants I’d transplanted from the wattle weave bed. Under the straw mulch was a leaf mulch that I removed carefully. There were a few green strawberry leaves, but it may be that most of them didn’t survive the winter. I also didn’t see any green in the mint, but that might show up later. The chives, of course, were coming up just fine as I cleared away the dead matter from last year. Chives survive anything! 😄
Last of all, I went to the chimney blocks along the chain link fence. Those got the last of the tiny strawberry transplants. The straw on those was set as mulch around the nearby black currant bush, which I think might be old enough to produce berries this year. It’s doing really well for something that started out as a little stick in a jug of water my mother snagged from a bush at the apartment building she used to live at and gave to me. These strawberries also had a leaf mulch under the straw, and that was used to mulch under the white lilacs on the other side of the path, to try and keep down the grass and weeds in there.
Once again, it seems like a mix of strawberries that survived and didn’t survive. For both areas, it will be a while before we know for sure what survived or not.
All in all, I am very happy with the progress and how the pre-sown beds look so far.
After this, there are other beds to prepare, but I think what I will need to do is get those boxes of chicken coop parts and assemble it, first. We’ll be getting chicks near the end of May and will set up a brooder in the house for their first 4-6 weeks, but I still want the coop assembled as soon as possible, and the ground is now dry enough.
That done, I have several beds that need to be cleaned up, plus two that need some building up of walls. The bed against the chain link fence will be a priority. It will be a bit narrower and a bit deeper when I am done, and I want to make sure it can be covered and protected from both the elm tree seeds that will drop in their billions, and the cats. The kittens got under the row netting I used last time and completely flattened anything that I’d pre-sown in that bed, except some Jebousek lettuce and a few sad onions that had survived the previous winter. I’ve already got some materials for the deadwood walls I plan to make, but I know I will need a lot more to finish the job. It’s always surprising just how much material is needed to make a wall! I’m not even going to try doing wattle weave; the materials we have are just too bent up and inflexible for that. We do have an order of basket will that will probably be shipped out in may. It will be a few years, but we will eventually be able have willow switched that will work much better than the poplar and maple suckers we’ve been using. Even the willow we do have is a different variety and, while it works better, the willow switches are not as straight as the basket willow will be.
For 8 years, I’ve been hearing that old pump going off, never knowing what “normal” sounded like. Just that this one was sounding worse and worse as time went on. Now that it has finally been replaced, it actually feels weird to just barely hear it when it goes off.
The other thing I’m appreciating, in a still stressful way, though, is not having to worry about the truck’s oil pressure sensor triggering alarms. The alternative, until the OEM sensor comes in, is no sensor at all, but I’ve had to drive it with the gauge at 0 before. The check engine light is on now, of course. I’ve driven with that on for quite a while this past winter, until it warmed up enough and it shut off on its own. That was the O2 sensor and likely caused by the polar vortexes that his us freezing something in it.
Still, I’m going to be nervous driving the truck no matter what. We’ve had so many crazy things break down, that’s really to be expected.
Today, however, the dump is open from 9am to1pm, and we were seriously overdue for a dump run. The last time I managed a dump, I ended up needing a tow.
My younger daughter, sweetheart that she is, offered to come with me to keep me company. 😄
We loaded the back of the truck after the morning cat feeding was done. We had so many garbage bags, including from the sun room and the garage, to load, there was room for only one bag of recycling. The recycling can wait. The temperatures are warming up, and the garbage bags no longer freeze in the old kitchen, so they needed to be gone!
When we got to the dump and started making our way to the pit, my daughter got out to walk ahead, looking for anything that might puncture a tire. There was a pick up truck parked on the side, and we hadn’t realized someone was in it! It was one of the staff having his lunch, I think. He could tell what she was doing and I could see he was assuring her it wasn’t necessary. We got a chuckle out of that after she guided me in backing up to the pit and she told me what he’d been saying. He had even asked if we needed a hand unloading!
After we were done and driving out, I stopped at the truck to thank him. I mentioned to him about being paranoid, having gotten a flat after doing a dump run once. He told me that he’s been hearing stories like that from many, many people, so he has been making sure to keep an eye out and to clear in front of the pit if he sees anything that could cause damage. I made sure to tell him how great of a job they’re doing; the place hasn’t looked this good for a long time! I wanted him to know how much it is appreciated.
From there, it was a quick stop at the recycling bins, then then we made our way to the town north of us. I’d brought our files to drop off at the tax preparer. Our taxes are about as simple as can be; the only change this year is that I no longer am going to get the Caregiver Tax Credit, but now qualify for the Disability Tax Credit. We gave up trying to do taxes ourselves; the last time I picked up the software, it had changed so much, I could barely navigate it. I even got another company’s software, and it turned out to be just as useless. My husband has T4A slips – the slips for persons on long term disability. One brandy’s software didn’t even recognize the A, nor could I find where we could claim the Disability Tax Credit and the Caregiver Tax Credits. When it came to claiming my husband’s medical expenses – just his prescriptions, usually – it became impossible. There simply wasn’t any way to input his data accurately. I gave up, took it to a pro, and we’ve been doing that ever since.
After dropping the files off, I asked my daughter if we needed to get anything while in town, and she informed me we were out of milk, so we went to the grocery store.
Good grief.
I got a 4L of 3% milk instead of our usual 2L. A 4L of 3% is usually just over $5. In this town, one brand was over $8, and one was just under. That happened to be the brand we usually get, so we got it again.
We went through the store to see if there was anything else we needed. Most of the prices were just insane. The exception was beef prices. I saw a couple of big beef tenderlions that were just over and just under the $100 range. Those same beef tenderlions cost almost $300 at Costco! Still, it wasn’t something we were ready to get today, and ended up just getting snacks for the ride home. My daughter picked up a package of donuts to share with her sister. I don’t like cake type donuts much, but she said she’s been craving a good donut.
Then she grabbed everything and snuck ahead to pay for it for me! 😄
Later on, she came to me, very disappointed. The donuts turned out to be terrible. The same thing happened the last time we picked up some mini donuts about a month ago. They looked so good, but tasted horrible!
After we got home, I remembered to phone my mother. I usually remember too late in the day to actually make the call.
*sigh*
I asked how she was doing, and she started to complain about being in pain, but when I asked what kind of pain, she just started going on about how she’s been there for three months, and the doctor has never seen her. She told me that when she tells the staff that she wants to see the doctor, they just tell her “he’ll be here tomorrow” or “he’s on holidays”. She’s conflating responses. He was on holidays over Easter, but he’s been back for awhile now. She still claims they’re saying he’s on holidays. I tried to explain again that yes, he has (briefly, to be sure) seen her, but that he’s only there 1 day a week, and it’s to go over the staff reports, not necessarily to see individual people. She cut me off and told me she didn’t care
She did ask me if I’d heard from my sister and my brother. I told her, it’s been a few days since I’ve heard from my sister and got a lecture about how we need to stay in communication. I told her, if we have nothing to say, there’s nothing to say! Then I told her I’d heard from my brother yesterday, and how they’re now in Spain, after walking 190km, with another 90km to go. She told me, she didn’t care about kilometers, and how all she knows is that my brother has basically run away from his responsibilities and is hiding overseas. I told her, they are on a pilgrimage. Following the paths of saints. She brushed that off.
She’s asked what was new with us, so I told her about the well pump. I knew she wouldn’t care, but I figured it would stave off any lectures on why I hadn’t visited her. I told her the pump had stopped working on Sunday, so we had no water, which seemed to confuse her. Then I said we called plumbers, and she started demanding I call a guy she remembers my father hiring in the past that lives not far from us. I said no. I’m going to call a real plumber! Plus, he’s tight with our vandal. The guy actually is a plumber by training, but hasn’t worked as a plumber in years. He’s been on disability for years. I had to cut my mother off from demanding I call him to say, it’s already fixed. We got a plumber in and, thanks to my brother, we already had a pump, so it’s done. We have water again.
Oh, that’s your problem.
…
At that point I told her, don’t ask me what’s new with us, if you don’t care to hear about what’s new. I had to repeat it a few times before she got what I was saying, then tried to blame it on how bad she’s feeling.
She never did tell me exactly how she’s feeling bad, other than generic stuff. She started off talking about pain, but finished by saying she thinks it’s her digestion that’s causing problems.
The real problem is, my mother is someone that is 94 years old, has lived a life of great physical hardship, including surviving starvation and a war, but somehow thinks she would be feeling perfectly healthy – and any doctor that can’t just fix her (without pills, though, because she’s already taking so many and she’s still in pain…) is not a good doctor. I have tried to get her to explain her expectations to me, and she never quite answers.
It was a frustrating call.
She had been about to go for a nap, though, so I didn’t keep her on the phone for too long.
Meanwhile…
It’s been a lovely day, but one where I’ve been fighting sleep all day. I’m just drained. Still, I made sure to do the evening cat feeding, just to get outside and enjoy the sunshine and warmth. We hit 10C/50F today, and it’s been so lovely!
This morning, my daughter had helped me return all the carriers for storage in the sun room, with the doors open so cats can go in and out. After doing the feeding, I got some puppy pads to set inside the carriers in such a way that they would also keep the doors from closing all the way.
That’s little Flopsy on the left. The one on the right is an unsocialized cat we haven’t named. Can’t get close to it, but it is quite content to go into a carrier and use it as a nest!
It was so nice out, I took the time to grab the snow shovel and do some clearing. I shoveled in front of the old kitchen garden retaining wall, clearing more than enough space for the assembled chicken coop. Now that there’s no longer over a foot of snow on the area, the layer of ice left on the grass can melt away and the area will have a chance to dry out faster. We won’t get chicks until the end of May, and they won’t be big enough to go into a coop for weeks later, but the earlier we set up the coop, the better. It will give us time to determine if that area will actually work, or if we need to try somewhere else. We don’t have a lot of level areas, anywhere.
I’m really, really enjoying the warmer weather! At this rate, it won’t be long before I can remove the mulch on the sown garden beds, so the soil can thaw out faster. Not in the main garden area, yet. That’s still completely covered in snow and will take longer, but the slightly higher raised beds in the old kitchen garden and in the east yard are already mostly free of snow.
Looking ahead, we are going to have a few days where the highs will dip below freezing again, but after that we’re supposed to start getting highs above 10C/50F, and overnight lows staying above freezing, regularly.
I can hardly believe April is almost half gone already.
The first picture in the slideshow are the tomatoes, hollyhock and fennel. They are doing quite well! I’m very happy with what I’m seeing there.
The next picture is the leggy herbs, the sad little luffa, the celery that should probably be “potted up” and split into two rolls! – the marigold and cosmos.
The last picture has my surprise.
I’d rotated the trays just a couple of nights ago, so with the peppers and eggplant, the eggplant row is now in the foreground, and the California Bell Peppers are in the back.
There are three new seedlings in California Bell Pepper row, that weren’t there yesterday. There’s even at least one new seedling in the Sweet Chocolate pepper row in the middle!
Those poor eggplants are struggling, though. At least two have just withered away.
It’ll still be at least a week before I start the next back of seeds, but I might just re”pot” the eggplant and peppers into snail rolls before then. I’ll just need to sift more potting soil again, first!
We definitely have some things struggling, but over all, they seedlings are doing remarkably well for being in a rather poor environment for them!
The plan for the day was to give the truck a test by heading into town this morning, then if all went well, to visit my mother in the afternoon.
Well, one out of three got done.
This morning, after taking care of the outside cats, I did a bit of shoveling around the house and the truck, which is parked in the yard until my brother can move his truck out of the garage into a spot I’m not even going to try and get it into, with all the snow. The snow in the yard wasn’t too bad, though.
Then I decided to check the end of the driveway.
It was drifted over.
The road didn’t need to be plowed, but there was enough snow drifted across between the gate and the road that it had to be cleared before I could go anywhere.
So did the rest of the driveway.
I could have gotten through, I’m sure, but 1) I didn’t want to push the truck when I’m not even convinced the replaced differential was the cause of all the problems I was having, 2) I would have been slip sliding the whole way and 3) our forecasts are no longer showing temperatures above freezing coming up in the 10 day forecast, but they are showing more snow before then.
I did the end of the driveway, first. The snow was still light and fluffy, so it was an easy job. It still took almost an hour. I stopped after that to head in, have breakfast, hydrate and take some painkillers.
Before coming in, though, I checked on little Spewie.
The auger still won’t turn. Which means it wasn’t just something frozen in the works somewhere. It’s actually broken. Nothing is visibly broken, though. I’d have to dismantle it to find the problem.
Not going to happen any time soon.
It did mean the driveway had to be done the old fashioned way.
I didn’t even do all of it. I did part of the turning radius to get into the garage when coming in from the road, but not where I would be turning in from the inner yard. I did clear around my brother’s truck, though.
Then I had to head in and take a rest brake. I really, really didn’t want to go anywhere, but I wanted to test the truck again before my dental appointment, tomorrow, and refill a couple of our water bottles in the process. I am also not counting on being able to get into the city on Saturday, and had some stuff I wanted to get, just in case, while at the grocery store. Things just keep happening and changing my plans!
I had just finished with the shoveling, gotten inside and was starting to take my coat off when the phone rang. I didn’t even try go get to it before the answering machine picked up.
It was the pharmacy delivery driver, letting us know he was almost at our place.
So I put my coat back on and headed out to meet him at the gate.
Oh, gosh. I just realized, as I write this. It’s still open.
*sigh*
After taking a break – and more painkillers – I grabbed the water jugs and headed out.
Happily, I did not get stuck getting out of the yard.
As for the drive in, the truck seemed to be working fine, but the road is in such bad shape, plus it now has the remains of drifts and ice along the way, that it was really hard to judge what I was feeling. Was that the truck shuddering, or was it the road making it shudder?
Along the way, I saw three back hoes, busily clearing the ditches of snow – two of them in our own municipality, including one right in our little hamlet. They’ve gotten a lot of progress in the past couple of days. It’s going to make a big difference, once the snow finally starts to melt.
I got a few things “extra” to take advantage of some sales, along with refilling the water jugs. Blocks of cheese were on sale, so I ended up getting four different kinds. I was able to get a decent amount of meat this time, including stewing beef. Rye bread, as always, plus some Naan that was on sale. Stuff like that.
I saw some 7.5kg kibble on sale and got a bag for the outside cats, just in case. In the end, even with the sale prices, it came out to $200, but I used some of my points and got $30 off.
By the time I was done, I knew there was no way I was going to visit my mother. I was in just too much pain. Instead, I headed straight home, without even stopping for more gas ($1.729/L still) or the post office. I can do that tomorrow, when I go in for my dental appointment.
I’ll call my mother later on, instead.
Once I got home, I drove up to the house and my daughter helped me unload everything but the kibble. I took that through the sun room and added it to the bin right away, then did the evening cat feeding, so no one would have to go out again, later.
I was supposed to close the gate again before going back in. I’m thinking it should be safe to leave open for the night. Our vandal doesn’t seem to do as much stupid stuff in the winter.
*sigh*
I think today is a good day to go to bed early – after I call my mother.
And take more pain killers.
*sigh*
It’s a good thing I actually enjoy shoveling so much.
Well, I did get out to work on some shoveling. I needed to focus on the inner yard so that we could drive the truck up to the house.
It was a beautiful day for it and I did get a decent amount done, but I wasn’t able to finish it. My right elbow gave out, first. It became simply too painful to bend it after a while.
Once inside and settling in, I paused to take some painkillers. I keep a bottle by my nightstand, so I sat on the edge of my bed to reach it.
With my right arm.
I could barely pick up the bottle.
Then I tried to get up to get a water bottle from my mini-fridge.
That’s when my left hip gave out.
I actually had to get my husband – the one with the back injury that has left him disabled for almost 15 years – to get the water bottle out for me, so I could take my painkillers! Thankfully, I keep a cane with feet standing by my bedside; I use it to help me stand up out of bed. It’s on my right, but I had to move it so I could use my left arm to get myself standing, because I couldn’t put any weight on my right arm.
Being broken sucks.
I’ll have to make sure to take my anti-inflammatories soon, but I’ll need to take those with a full meal.
Ouch.
Meanwhile…
I sent a text to the garage. Obviously, we weren’t going to be getting the truck back today, and I acknowledged that I could see that. I brought up that, with all the weird things going on with the truck, we need to talk pre-financing to find out what we can trade it in for. Plus, about selling my mother’s car on consignment. I was hoping to wait until after the snow was gone, at least, before trading the truck in, and getting a few more payments against it, but we just can’t hold off anymore.
I got a response, just before they closed for the day. The part had not arrived yet. He said he would phone to find out where it is, and agreed about talking pre-financing. Since he has the truck there, they have access to all the information they need to look up the trade in value, etc.
It is highly unlikely we’ll be able to get another truck. Ideally, a minivan would be the alternative, but their resale prices tend to be even higher than trucks, apparently. SUVs, on the other hand, tend to be more reasonable. In the end, beggars can’t be choosers! We’ll take what we can get, as long as it’s something my husband can get in and out of without too much pain, and there’s room for his walker.
I ended up outside for about four hours, digging paths in the snow – and I’m not done!
The priority was to get the fire pit area cleared. That has been drifted over for at least a couple of months now. I got the easy paths done first, though, like the path to the litter compost area. On that side, there was one path that got drifted over that I hadn’t gotten to previously, and I needed to use the ice scraper tool to break up the packed snow to get it clear. The rest of the most used paths only needed minor clearing.
The first section of the path to the fire pit area was brutal. I didn’t even try to re-dig the original path from before. That’s where, in the video, you can see a dark trail from dirty little cat feet. Normally, I’d clear the cat path to where they get under the storage house, with a branch off towards the fire pit. That cat path was too hard packed, so I cleared a new path next to it, until I reached where the old path branched off.
Even working off to one side, the snow was so hard packed, even the blade from the ice scraper had difficulty cutting through. I probably spent as much time on that one short section as I did the rest of the path to the fire pit area. If I had tried to use little Spewie to try and clear it, it would have broken. I’m pretty sure even my brother’s gas powered snow blower would have broken, trying to get through there!
Speaking of which, my brother came out today. Along with stuff he needed to do in their storage, he got his own truck set up. He used the snow blower in the outer yard and driveway as well, and moved his truck to our garage, where it can partially fit through the door. The cap on the box of his truck is too high to drive all the way in. He made sure it was all prepared so we can use it, if we have to.
He is convinced something is going to happen to prevent our truck from being ready in a few days, or it’s going to break down again, and we’re going to need to use his truck.
I really don’t want to use his truck! I appreciate the offer, for sure, but it’s a bigger truck, a rear wheel drive and basically a one wheel drive. It’s done very well for them, and I am incredibly grateful the option is there, but I really, really would rather not have to use it!
While I was digging one of the last sections of path, my brother came over to get me and show me the truck. He had it part way in the garage, and had set up a large board across the floor, in front of the tires, to make sure it didn’t go past that point. Otherwise, the top of the box cap would hit the top of the garage door frame! He had me start it and back it out, and walked me through various things on it. This truck as two gas tanks; something we’ve never had. As old as it is, it has lower mileage than our truck! He had some things he wanted to take out of the back, so after going over it with me, he took care of that, then drove it back in position party way into the garage while I went back to shoveling.
I was near finished shoveling when he came over again. He wanted to take pictures of section of the drain pipe from the kitchen, across to the bathroom. Under the bathroom, with the maze of pipe joins, the main drain changes size twice before the final length of 3″ pipe that runs to the septic tank. He is thinking of replacing the pipe from under the kitchen to under the bathtub with 3″ pipe, so that it can handle the volume of water from when the washing machine drains. The washing machine’s pump drains it faster than the water can go through the 1 1/4″ pipe. The problem is, there not a lot of room to put a 3″ pipe through!
I told him about how I’d run the drain auger through three times, after the plumber last got it unblocked for us. Not even the commercial drain auger can get the inside of the pipes completely clear from decades of grease and grime from the kitchen sink, and the sink that used to be set up where the washing machine is now.
I’ve picked up a brush set that’s designed to clean pellet stove pipes or dryer vents. It has two brush sizes, one of which will fit inside this pipe, and it can reach up to 30 feet. It’s about 20 feet to the corner under the bathroom. I think that if I can scrub out the inside of the pipe, that would solve the problem, and we can have the washing machine drain to the septic tank instead of out the window in the main door! I haven’t done it yet because it would be a very messy job that I would need to prepare for. Just running the auger through was messy and disgusting enough! Until it’s done, though, we don’t even dare try testing it again. The last time we did, even after the blockage was cleared by the plumber, we ended up flooding the entryway again. The water just couldn’t drain through the pipe fast enough.
That done, it was back outside. My brother had a few last things to do before leaving, and I did a bit more clean up around the paths before starting to put things away. I dug out fire wood that had been partially buried in snow, and left it out in the sun to melt a bit before having a cookout tomorrow. March is a birthday month and we always celebrate on a weekend near the birth date, usually with a special take out meal (going to a restaurant is no longer an option). Obviously, we can’t do that this month, but I still want to do something special, so we’ll be having a cookout, instead!
Before putting everything away, I finally took the snow off the cat shelter roofs. I’d been leaving the snow as an extra layer of insulation, but we don’t really need that anymore. Now, I want the sun to actually warm up the shingles and metal roof panels and melt away any remaining build up of ice and snow.
By the time I got in, I was pretty wasted. My daughters have basically taken over the other jobs I normally would have done, and made sure I got fed! 😄
Tonight, I’m thinking to prep some things in advance for the cookout before heading to bed. I’m still deciding on what that might be.
Meanwhile, I still need to dig out one more path. With the cookout planned for tomorrow, I might leave that for Monday. We’ll see. I definitely want to get it done before the first day of spring, though, as I plan to do my first “garden tour” video of the year. 😄 It won’t be the first time I did one with everything covered in snow!
My first goal was to “pot up” the onions in their seed snails. For this, I wanted to use potting soil, rather than more seed starting mix. I have a bag of potting soil from last year with plenty still left in it, but I knew it was really full of sticks. Which meant I needed to sift it, first, because there was no way it could be used in the snail rolls as it was.
I got out a bucket and a colander that I use for harvesting in the summer, and started sifting in batches. The potting soil was bone dry which made it easier to sift, but also meant there was a LOT of dust. Even misting with water didn’t really help much. I did try to use a dust mask, which is difficult all on its own, since I can’t wear masks anymore. It was either breathing dirt without it, or struggling to breathe with it. Definitely a no-win situation. It didn’t actually help much, to be honest, but it was better than nothing.
I was blown away by just how many sticks I sifted out.
That pile on the side? That’s what I sifted out of what you see in the bucket. I poked my finger in to measure, and it was up to my second joint, so about 2 inches deep. Good grief! It was almost more sticks than soil!
The next step was to moisten the sifted potting soil. I used hot water for that, so it wouldn’t be a shock to the plant roots. It took a remarkable amount of water to moisten it, and I was just aiming to get it wet enough to be able to stick to itself.
This is how they looked to start with. These rolls all fit into one bin, and the seedlings are looking pretty good.
The length of them did make unrolling the snail a bit of a challenge! They were tangled together, and wanted to twist around each other as I unrolled the snail.
In the first photo above, I unrolled the first seed snail. These were bottom watered, and you can see that the soil is moist all the way through, and the roots are all the way to the bottom. Some of them seemed a bit crowded, so I did adjust a few of them to space them out a bit. In the second picture, you can see where I’ve added the potting soil on top. From there, it got rolled up and taped closed again.
It was a lot bigger, of course. Only two could fit in the bin I was using, but I did have a second, slightly smaller one, available.
Here are the “potted up” onions. In the second picture, you can see that one of the snails is a lot smaller. That’s the bunching onions. It’s a good thing those didn’t need as much soil, because I was scraping the bucket to get every last bit out for that roll. I really didn’t want to have to sift more!
These are now back in the living room. They are the only things I have space for there, this year.
In order to do this, I had to completely clear my work table. That meant taking away the trays, lights, heat mats, and everything under and around them.
With the onions done, I could then arrange the work space to be ready for the next batch of seed starts. I have the top shelf from a plastic shelf that was too tall to fit in the old basement, and it was used last year to hold trays higher up. That’s what I am using it for again now.
Hopefully, the new seeds I sowed yesterday will germinate – and won’t get eaten! I had some concerns about not having heat mats under them anymore, but before I set up the shelf, I made sure to create a wall of cardboard around the back and at one end, then moved the heater so that it was blowing under the shelf. That made a big difference, and the warmth is kept under the shelf enough to warm the trays from below. Not that the heater is on all the time, but even when the furnace is on, now that the opening between the basements is uncovered again, there is heat blowing in and the cardboard, etc. holds it around the plants surprisingly well.
The insulation leaning at one end it just there until it’s needed later; the cardboard forms a “wall” behind it, out of frame. I’ve got the flaps of the cardboard box under the back legs, so I had to put something under the front legs to level the shelf. Then I set up the insulation pieces, which protect the cutting mat from warping, and the heat mats, ready and waiting. With the seedlings so close to the shop light, the plant lights aren’t needed for now, so they’re just clamped to the table in the front. There is no place to clamp the lights to use them on top of the shelf, anyhow. Everything gets plugged into a power bar with USB ports that I have set up above my work table.
As for our next seed starts, I don’t think I’ll be using the seed trays again. They are all smaller seeds, and for the space, I think I will do more seed snails. I wouldn’t me making them as deep was what I used for the onions, though. More like a third of that height. I have lots of that packing foam available.
I need to remember, though: do not use painters tape to attach them together to make a longer strip. One of the onion rolls started to split at the tape while I was rolling it back up again. It doesn’t like moisture. I’ll have to see what alternatives we have.
That won’t be needed for another week or so.
For now, I’m just glad I don’t need to sift more of that potting soil for a while!!
The Re-Farmer 