progress

Productive – finally!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Okay, still limited, but productive!

Morning was quiet overall. My poor daughter has been caning it today; the last while of taking on a lot of what I normally do during the day has not been easy on her.

Still, she was well enough to do the morning routine and, when our prescription delivery came in, to meet the driver.

I got my new meds. Just in time for my afternoon painkiller dose. I got to take new new generic Percocet instead of the T3s. I have enough to take them at the same schedule, every 6 hours, for 7 days.

So far, it seems to be working! I’m not holding my breath as other painkillers I’ve tried did work for the first while, then gradually stopped working. However, it meant I did not get that gradual pain building up and lasting for several hours.

I took advantage of that, while trying to still maintain light activity levels.

I decided it was a good time to start the very, very last “spring cleaning” of the sun room!

I moved things around to make space under the canopy tent, then brought out the cat carriers. They got dismantled and scrubbed down. Some of them have bolts with wing nuts on them that were getting rusted, so I set them in a bowl with some CLR.

Then my daughter and I went to the general store to pick up a couple of 40 pound bags of kibble, which my daughter was able to carry for me (I felt perfectly able to do it, but I’m banned) and the mail. Which included an unexpected, long thin parcel for my husband.

After we got home and unloaded, my husband presented my daughter with a new cane he’d got for her! She has a fantastic “tactical” cane that she doesn’t use because it’s too top heavy.

Hmmm… I wonder why… 😄

Also in the mail, finally, was our ambulance bill. Since they only came and treated my husband, but did not transport him anywhere, the bill was only $100, and we’ll be able to submit the receipt to my husband’s insurance for partial reimbursement. Not too shabby!

After a very late lunch, I headed back outside.

The carriers could be reassembled by then, and I brought over an old toothbrush to scrub the bolts that had been sitting in CLR. Once those were rinsed and dried off, I treated them with WD40 before using them on their respective carriers again. We now have five clean carriers ready. There’s another in the sun room but the cats knocked it off the shelf so many times, it can no longer be closed. Then there’s the huge donated one that is in the catio, with a cat bed in it, as a trap for the kittens. You can see the before and after for the cat carriers in the first to images of the slide show above.

Once the carriers were done, I got the flat sink stopper I’d picked up not long ago and started filling the old bathtub I dragged out of the junk pile. It still needs more coats of enamel paint sprayed on, but there is enough that it can be used. While I had the hose going in the tub, with some laundry detergent added, I started bringing over various cat beds, blanket and caves from the sun room. Not everything would fit, though.

You can see in the last image of the slide show above, how it is now. I added water until it reached the overflow opening, poking at everything with an old broom handle to get it submerged and soaking, then tried to “stir” it a bit.

The handle broke.

I’ll be using a garden hoe to continue, later on. For now, it’s all left to soak overnight. It’s all pretty disgusting, to be honest. I expected to change out the water and soak it in detergent a couple of times before I start to actually wash the individual pieces. I’ll most likely transfer them into the wheelbarrow individually for the final cleaning. Then I plan to give them a final soak/rinse with the 10% cleaning vinegar.

That old tub is going to be very handy.

While doing all this, I kept an eye on the kittens. They all got their evening cat feeding. The kittens their their kibble softened with cat milk. I also brought out some of the donated cat treats. Some I used by the house to distract the adult cats, while kitten treats went into the catio “trap”.

I am getting quite frustrated. I’m leaving bait for the kittens, but keep having to chase away adult cats and skunks. Which startled the kittens, so they stay away instead of coming for their treats.

They have been enjoying their new “home” in the remains of the junk pile, though. Lots to run and jump and play around.

They even found a bed.

There’re some sort of old chair cushions in there; a matching seat and back. The seat cushion was leaning at a steep angle, but several kittens still found it made a cozy bed.

Once the tub was set up and soaking, I tried sitting by the catio to “fish” for kittens. Four of them had zero interest, and they all seemed to be easily startled.

When I was ready to move on, I took the cushions from the junk pile and lay them on the ground inside the catio, opposite the big cat carrier. Hopefully, this will encourage them to sleep in the catio instead of in the junk pile.

Then I got a container and did a garden harvest.

There was a surprising amount of bush beans available to harvest! The ones planted later, around the Arikara Squash, are absolutely prolific right now.

The two red tomatoes in the photo are supposed to be Blueberry tomatoes. The other three plants of that variety all have tomatoes so dark, they’re almost black, but one plant is producing red tomatoes instead, which are ripening faster. The plants are otherwise identical looking.

There were quite a few orange currant tomatoes ready for picking, too. The most I’ve picked at one time, so far!

While in the area, I checked on the one Arikara squash that’s maturing. It’s gotten as big as I think it’s going to get, and the shell is starting to harden. I had set it on top of a brick to get it off the ground, and I picked up the squash to check that the brick wasn’t causing any damage.

It wasn’t, but I found several huge snails!

Thankfully, the squash is big enough and hard enough that they’re not interested in trying to eat it. I still flicked them away. Then I went into my stash of lumber cast offs in the garage and brought back a board to set under the squash, on top of the brick, to give it smoother support – and hopefully, the snails won’t want to climb around it!!

After that, I checked on the grapes (second photo in the slide show above). It’s really hard to find them under all the foliage, but there are a LOT of grape clusters hidden in there. They look quite ready for picking. Not this evening, though. Hopefully, they’ll still be there tomorrow and we can start picking them and maybe make some jelly or something. It’s been a while since we’ve made grape jelly. The last few years, the raccoons got to them before we did.

By then, I could tell I was reaching my limit and didn’t want to push things. Once inside, my older daughter suggested we make up some individual charcuterie platters for ourselves for supper, which was quite enjoyed.

By then, the painkillers were definitely wearing off – just in time for my evening 6 hour alarm to go off and it was time to take some more.

As I write this, it’s still a bit achy, but it does not seem to be getting worse. I’m about ready for bed, though, and it’s not even 8:30 yet!

It looks like we’re going to have some absolutely beautiful weather over the next while, including days with more rain. Daytime highs are expected to mostly be in the low to mid 20’s C/68F, with overnight temperatures staying in the teens. Our average last frost date was September 10. As of right now, the forecast for the 10th is a high of 19C/66F, and the overnight low at 13C/55F. Absolutely no danger of frost at all.

Thank you, El Nińo!

At this point, the long range forecast suggests we’ll see our first frost around the 20th or so. I’m hoping for a repeat of one of our first winters out here, were we didn’t get our first frost until November and almost had a brown Christmas!

I’d rather like to see that again – and just a mild winter, overall.

I’m getting too old for winter, and we have too many things that break down – including ourselves! – when it gets colder. 🤣😂

Now, if I could just get a few cats off my bed, I might be able to call it a night.

I’m so glad I was able to be productive today! Even if it was just a little bit.

The Re-Farmer

Kitten progress!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Whoot!

Before I get to that, though, this is what I found as I first headed out to see how my daughter was doing in the garden…

Curtis, just lounging on his back, like he’s at the spa or something! 😄

After talking to my daughter I checked to see if there was any kitten activity. I almost missed seeing this little one.

It was just sitting there, frozen, until I got a bit too close, and then it slithered away into the branch pile. I saw no others at that time, though.

When I came out again later on, I noticed kittens were exploring the catio. I decided to bring them more things to encourage this. Some cat milk added to the remaining kibble, several cat toys we had inside, still left over in the Christmas stocking of toys we got late last year (the inside cats got a few of those, too), and some kitten treats donated to us from the rescue.

As I got closer to the catio, I saw a little tabby slipping away and into the branch pile, but I also saw there was at least one kitten in the cat bed inside the carrier.

Progress!!!

There turned out to be two of them. Possibly three.

They disappeared between the bed and the carrier wall. I took a photo, not sure what I was going to get, since my screen was blinded by the sun. Then I went back to get some fresh water and a couple of ice bottles. The catio gets quite warm, so I got one ice bottle in the water bowl and one for inside the edge of the cat bed. As I was returning, I saw a little black kitten slink out of the catio and disappear into the branch pile.

This is very encouraging. I hope that they will spontaneously move into the catio, just for the comfort of the cat bed sheltered by the carrier. I would like to find something I can set up as ramps to the shelves above, as the kittens are too small to jump up there. I’m sure they would love the one hammock that’s there. We still need to find a piece of strong fabric to replace the plastic mesh hammock that was on the other shelf that broke; the plastic mesh got brittle from the cold and broke apart under the weight of whatever critter jumped onto it. Which could have been a cat or a raccoon. Anyhow, it will be good to have something they can climb up to the shelves.

The white and grey singleton kitten also seems to be progressing. It is still very shy, nervous and runs away, but it also will meow at us from a distance, as if asking for cat soup! When we get closer, it stays longer before moving away, and it comes back a lot more quickly to get food once we are gone.

This evening, I was up to doing the outside cat feeding. The cat milk with the remaining kibble I’d left in the catio before was completely gone, the bowl licked clean. So I made sure to bring more cat milk to add the their kibble. Later on, as the day gets cooler, one of us will go out and set the door mostly closed for the night. We dropped to 8C/46F last night. As I write this, we are at 23C/73F, with the humidex putting us at 26C/78F. Tonight is not supposed to get as cool and tomorrow’s high is supposed to be a bit warmer than today. I want to make sure the door to the catio is open wide during the day, but closed up so there’s just enough space for a cat to squeeze through, during the night. I had intended to remove the vinyl around the walls, or at least fold up the bottom half, for the summer but decided against it. I was a bit too diligent when securing it for the winter! Which was fine when the catio was in the yard and shaded for much of the day. Where it is now has no shade at all. Plus, we have too much wind, which would make being in there quite unpleasant. We might still drop one of the very large crocheted cat blankets over it for shade, but I’m not sure if that will make things better or worse! They are quite heavy, so we would have to make sure the edges of the catio roof are supported, or the weight of the blanket would cause it to bend enough to pop out the shorter screws holding it in place. I’d have to get my daughter to do that, as they are heavier than I’m allowed to pick up right now.

I wasn’t out a lot and the only “work” I did was feed the cats and carry a garden fork to my daughter. I am now feeling like I’m ready to fall asleep on my keyboard. Still, I’m glad I did get outside a little bit, just for the fresh air and sunshine!

Plus, I got to see kittens.

The Re-Farmer

I touched a baby!!!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was starting to be concerned that Slick had moved her litter. I was feeling better this evening and headed out to walk around and get some fresh air, which is when I spotted her. She was in the grass in front of the catio, her babies around her.

I started getting photos and video while slowly moving closer. I spotted one of the black kittens going into the catio, where I had earlier added some water to the dry kibble to soften it, setting the door to its mostly-closed position for the night.

The closer I got, the other kittens saw me and ran off, but not the one in the catio. When I got to the door, I found it completely in the kibble bowl, eating like it had made a new and amazing discovery in solid food. I snuck a hand in to pet it, and it completely ignored me.

Before long, I had the door open and was actively petting it.

I even got to pick it up, and it didn’t panic or hiss or anything.

I’m under no illusions about this. The only reason I was able to approach the kitten was because it couldn’t see or hear me while it was inside the catio, eating. All the other kittens disappeared into the branch pile while Slick stayed in the grass, but as I came closer to her, she actually hissed and growled at me – but had no issues at all with me petting her baby!

I passed pictures and video on to the chat group I have with the rescue. One of them immediately asked if I could get all of them, and that she could help with an appointment to get Slick spayed.

I said it was too soon, only to be told it’s not too soon; they’re eating, and if we wait too long, they will be harder to socialize and adopt out.

Which I completely understand. It is true. However, as much as these volunteers are doing to get cats rescued and adopted out, I am getting the impression they have little experience with colony cats and ferals. I explained, that shelter has been there for only 24 hours; they’re not used to it yet. If I can spot them and Slick inside, I might be able to just close the door, but getting Slick into a carrier has always been a problem. (I have told them we’ve been trying to get Slick to a vet for years, already.) I mentioned that, in my experience, if we move too quickly, it can backfire and make it even harder to get them. Then I added that I am going for surgery tomorrow.

Then, much to my surprise, one of them asked if my surgery was “major” or not.

…

I told here it was supposed to be a day surgery if all goes well, but until they get a camera in me, they don’t know what’s wrong.

…

I’m still blown away to even have gotten that question.

They really, really want to get Slick and the litter in this week. Something I totally understand and appreciate. I don’t think they quite understand just how unlikely that is.

Plus, they aren’t weaned yet, and I think they still have at least a couple of weeks to go on that. Slick shouldn’t be spayed until the kittens are weaned. Today may very well be the first time any of them have eaten solid food.

No matter. Today was huge progress.

We have the morning cat soup, tetra packs of cat milk and kitten treats. Between the girls and I, we should be able to use various things to lure the kittens closer. The hard part about using treats like that will be keeping other other cats away, because they’ll just push their way in to try and get the treats.

For now, I’m just thrilled to have been able to touch the one kitten, and it let me, without any sign of fear or anxiety. That is just a huge thing!

The Re-Farmer

Done, done and not yet done

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Here it is…

My hot water tank and pump collection.

Plus the original driver’s side door from our previous vehicle.

My brother and his friend got it all out, late this morning. As expected, the modern tanks were relatively easy, and could just be carried up the stairs.

The old, original tank’s inner chamber, however, was another story. My brother saw those loops at the top and had the same thought I did. They hooked up a ratchet strap made as short as possible to create a handle. My brother’s friend recenty hurt his back, so he took the top with the strap while my brother lifted from the bottom, and they got it out once step at a time.

That thing is HEAVY!

Then they got the old Uplander door out, which was more awkward than the modern tanks in some ways. My brother saw the two old pumps I’d moved over as well and wanted to take them up, so I told him about the others that were hidden by some old light fixtures I’d had to move to make room for the tanks.

The red pump is the newest one that just got replaced. The olive green one beside it, my brother tells me, is the original pump from when we got running water in the house back in the mid 70’s. That one ways about twice as much as the red one!

There were two other pumps we’d found while cleaning out the basement. I’d put all of them in the same general area, and the last two were on the bottom of a shelf. I had to move something so he could see them, and he’s pretty sure they still work, so he left them. He remembered there had been pumps under the work table, but I told him I’d moved them out from there and he’d already taken them outside.

I’d also rolled over the dehumidifier, as the last time I tried turning it on, it started making some rather unfortunate noises. My brother thinks what I described is something minor, so he left that, too.

Now that the tanks are no longer blocking the bottom of the stairs, I will bring up the old divider from between the basements so I can use it for curing things under the canopy tent.

Like the garlic.

It started raining yesterday and was supposed to stop raining by about 7am. It was still raining well past 1 pm. Which is wonderful for the garden, but not the strung up garlic. Since I wasn’t able to hang two long strings of garlic across the middle of the canopy tent, but only smaller lengths around the edges, they did get rained on, if only on one side. I trimmed off most of the stems, and the weight of the bulbs flipped them all so that they are now hanging root side down. The trimmed stems will make it easier to set them into the wire mesh of the old divider, and they will be completely under the canopy.

Not long after the tanks were taken out, I prepped the truck for a dump run. When I messaged them to let them know I was planning to do a dump run, followed by a Walmart run (which is why they took the tanks out when they did), my SIL asked if I could grab some of the bags by the old burn barrel. I’m glad she reminded me of those. We didn’t have a lot for the dump today, so we had room, but I keep forgetting they exist.

I also remembered to finally grab the garbage bag the can in the garage. I knew I needed to bring a new bag for the can, plus I knew some of the bags by the old burn barrel were torn, so I grabbed a bag of large, clear garbage bags that had been set aside. I’m glad I did. After backing the truck up to these old bags, I discovered they had been exposed to the elements for so long, the bags disintegrated as soon as I tried to pick one up. Not just the ones that I had noticed were already torn, but the ones that looked just fine until I tried to move them. It didn’t help that they were all filled with paper and cardboard meant for the burn barrel – which had been rained on all night. All that water made them quite heavy. I managed to get a decent number of them into fresh bags until I ran out, filling about 3/4 of the truck box.

That done, I backed up to the house, where my daughter started passing me the household garbage and recycling from the old kitchen. The poor thing. Even from the truck, I could hear she was dealing with a lot of back pain!

Since we were planning to go to the Walmart after the dump, I took the time to change out of my grubbies and my daughter and I were soon headed out.

I had considered I would need to be careful not to get my clothes dirty from the bags, but I forgot about the clay. I should have worn my rubber boots! I didn’t think of it, since we were supposed to go shopping next.

By the time we got rid of the garbage and recycling (I made sure my daughter didn’t lift any of the water logged bags, with her back giving out like it was), it seemed the rain was finally stopping. By the time we got back on the highway, though, it was raining much harder. At that point I decided we would just go home. There was nothing we needed to get that couldn’t wait another day, and I didn’t want to be driving the highway in those conditions if I didn’t have to.

So we headed home.

The good thing about the grass being so wet is that I was able to clean my shoes while walking from the garage to the house, just by dragging my feet! 😄 The grass was recently cut, though, so my daughter ended up having to use the hose on her boots.

Not long before I started this post, I headed out to do the evening cat feeding and my evening rounds. I’d done a bit of research first and made a point of checking the green cabbage to see if they were ready to harvest.

They are.

It’s too wet to do it now, though, so I will do it in the morning. The largest heads look like they are beginning to open up, which means they are starting to bolt; something we want to avoid.

So we should have a dozen heads of cabbage harvested tomorrow. Possibly thirteen; one of the pots had two transplants in it, and I wasn’t able to separate them without damaging the roots, so I left the extra.

The potato plants are almost completely died back now. Those will be harvested once the ground is dry again, then set under the canopy tent to cure.

I’m happy that, with the help of my brother and his friend, we at least got two major things accomplished. First, the tanks, pumps and old van door are now out of the basement. My brother wanted to leave them near the house until he could drive his trailer in and load them, rather than move them to the junk pile. They are not in the way near the house where they are, so that will be fine.

The other major thing was that we made it to the dump, and the truck didn’t break down.

Things to be grateful for!

The Re-Farmer

A quiet day

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I did get a decent amount accomplished today. Got rained on for some of it, which I didn’t mind.

First up, I just had to share this clip from the outside critter cam that I found.

That’s Sweetie in the front. The cats gets along with the raccoons, but I don’t blame her at all for running with those three barralling towards her!

While feeding the outside cats, I got to snag a picture of this little cutie.

The poor thing is such a bundle of nerves, ready to run away at any moment. The important thing, though, is that it’s staying close to the house and regularly coming over for food.

This morning, I had to stay close to the phone as I was expecting a call from a nurse about my surgery next week, any time between 8am and noon. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long! I now have pre-op instructions. I stop taking any supplements as of today, and one of my two prescriptions needs to be stopped three days before surgery.

Once that call was done, I could get some work done.

One of the things I got started on today was moving more rocks cleared from the garden bed over to near the fire pit. Then I took out the broken cinder blocks and fire bricks from inside the pit. It needed to be cleared of old ashes and leveled inside, then the fire bricks returned, as they are used under the Dutch Oven. The cinder blocks were very handy in there, but they can’t handle the heat and broke into pieces. We’ll make do without them for now.

The soil around the outside of the fire pit needs to be loosened and leveled before the rocks are added, to replace the old enameled bricks my daughter took out for me. The cracked handle on my garden fork finally gave out, unfortunately, so it’ll have to wait until I get a new one. Last time I was at the hardware store, there were none in stock. That fork is only thing I’ve got that’s strong enough to break up that soil, other than a spade.

This is a project that’s going to be spread out over quite a while.

After doing as much as I could on that for now, I heard something odd and went into the outer yard to see if something among my brother’s stuff had fallen or blown over. I never found anything out of place but, since I was there, I started pulling a whole lot of vines off the back of the junk pile and the willow trees beside it. I was able to access the old bath tub, drag it out and set it up.

It wasn’t that rusted out when it got buried in the junk pile.

For now, I’ve got it supported and stabilized with pieces of the elm tree that had been in front of the kitchen window. I’ll have to pick up something up to stopper the drain, as it will be used to soak and wash the outdoor cat beds and blankets. Some are too big for the washing machine, and all of them are too dirty and gross to use in our washing machine. At some point, the tub will get sanded down and spayed with enamel paint to keep it from rusting out entirely, and then I’ll build some sort of stand to hold it upright. Preferably with wheels, so it can be moved around easily as needed.

Once I got as much outside stuff done while being rained on as I could, I quickly changed and headed to the post office to pick up a couple of packages.

This was a surprise…

This is the 5 pound container of salt my husband got for me. The packaging was damaged, so Canada Post put it in this plastic bag, which has an apology printed right on it.

A 5 pound container, and Amazon packed it in a plain paper envelope. Not even a padded one. This really should have been i a box!

We also got a package of LED lights my husband got for me.

Each light came with the teeniest, tiniest of screwdrivers! That’s to open them up to change the batteries. 1

The Velcro it came with isn’t long enough to fit around my all terrain walker frame. My husband had some longer Velcro strips that he didn’t need, so I used those, instead.

Red light on the left, green on the right.

Who, reading that, knows why?

I gave the other two to my husband for his walker, though he’s stuck with blue instead of green.

I now have my first walker bling. 😄

For now, I’m done with the outside stuff I hoped to accomplish. We didn’t get a lot of rain, but it’s still too wet to use some of the equipment I’ll need to sue.

It’s not even 5:30 yet, and I’m so sleepy, I could probably call it a night! As it is, I’m starting to have a hard time typing. I can at least say it was a relatively pain free day, for now, and there’s no sign of it kicking in for the evening, either. Here’s hoping it stays away!

The Re-Farmer

A small harvest and garden progress

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today has turned out to be a lovely day to work outside.

After feeding the yard cats, I gathered a small harvest before watering the garden beds.

Just a few bush beans and some Golden Boy celery. Later this evening, while looking at the tomatoes with one of my daughters, I accidentally harvested some! They came right off the vines when I touched them! You can see those in the second image of the slideshow above. My daughter had tried one, thinking it might be ripe because of how easily they came off the vine.

It was most definitely NOT ripe. So the rest will sit in a window still or something until they ripen fully.

After lunch, I headed back outside again. I wanted to work on the area where the next garden bed will go, starting off by dragging our accumulated cardboard over, then using the weed trimmer on the grass and weeds that had come through the cardboard already laid down. That required moving all the boards and pieces of log that were holding the cardboard down. I had a pleasant surprise when picking up a board that was overlapping another board. A lovely little garter snake, curled up on the cap! It slithered away very quickly, so I wasn’t able to snag a picture, but I was very happy to see it.

After using the trimmer on that area, I kept going and trimmed around some old crab apple tree stumps, then around the plum, apple, gooseberry and haskaps, where the mower can’t get close enough.

Party way through, my older daughter came out and we walked around the yard (to keep the mosquitoes at bay) to talk about our options regarding the property. She and her sister had been talking about it already. With them, as they are now getting the medical treatment they need and will be getting the surgeries they need, they know that they will be in a better position to do things in the relatively near future. Just the fact that my daughter could walk around the yard with me is a demonstration of that.

Until I get the most recent numbers for what my brother pays in property taxes and insurance, we can’t say some things for sure. My brother has given me this information in the past, but I know the taxes have gone up, and I don’t yet know if things are complete with the new insurance provider he’s been in contact with.

In the end, though, my brother and his wife own the property and can do whatever they want with it. We can make some offers to lift the burden of the cost from him, but if we end up needing to move, we need to know that as soon as possible, as that would change our focus completely. No point in doing things like building the outdoor kitchen or planting more fruit trees and bushes if we aren’t going to be here in a couple of years.

One thing that needs to change as quickly as possible, either way, is, we need to get indoor cats adopted out. They are destroying the house, and we are spending more of our limited income on cat food and supplies per month, than on food for ourselves. The rescue has said they would be willing to post pictures and information on their adoption website, but that requires getting photos and video of each individual cat that’s available for adoption. Which means we’ll need to create a “set” in the cat free zone – aka: the living room – and bring them in, one at a time, and see if they will co-operate enough to get some shareable images and video. We have 21 indoor cats, and basically only three or four that we don’t want to adopt out. Unfortunately, adult cats are exceptionally hard to adopt out. Especially cats with any health issues, like missing legs, or a giant fat cat that has blocked twice already.

So I need to contact the rescue and we need to prioritize getting photos and video taken.

After we had a chance to talk, I went back to the weed trimming before getting back to the garden bed area.

The first thing to do was to measure and mark the 4′ wide path, then the 4′ wide future raised bed. Then I started laying out all the cardboard I had, starting with the smaller pieces along the outside edge, then working towards the existing bed this one will be paired with.

I didn’t have enough cardboard to cover all of the 8′ x 18′ area. More like about 6′ x 18′.

Then came the more difficult part.

The large log the tree removal guys had cut and brought over for me needed to be moved into position. It still needs to be de-barked and have branch nubs cut flush, but I wanted it to be in the location where it will eventually permanently sit, 4′ away from the current bed.

I’ve got two other lengths this log was placed beside. They are skinny and light enough that I could move them out of the way. The new log, however, is a lot bigger. Particularly at one end. It was also too far past one end. Once I rolled it near where it goes, I had to figure out how to shift the entire log about 8 inches over.

The direction it needed to go was also the thinner, lighter end of the log. What I ended up doing was finding some rope in the garden shed to wrap around the log near the thinner end then, using a short piece of wood that I’d moved aside earlier as a handle, pulled the whole thing over.

They cut it to 18′, but it’s not as long as the bed it needs to match. I didn’t measure, so I don’t know if they cut it shorter than 18′, or if the other bed is longer than 18′ because of the logs at the ends. Either way, I should be able to match the lengths with the end pieces, when the time comes.

In the above photo, you can see the rope and piece of wood I used as a handle. I also rolled the larger of the other two logs, which still need to be cut to size, to the outside 4′ mark of the bed. This log is too thin to be a bottom log, though. It’s there to hold the cardboard down for now. The really skinny piece is meant to go across the top of the vertical posts of the trellis bed this one will be paired with.

After cutting a 10′, then an 18′, length from the dead spruce, the tree guys cut the rest of the trunk into three 4′ pieces before it got too small; the top of the tree got chipped with the branches. I set one shorter piece at each end, then laid the last on inside the bed, to help hold down the cardboard. Then all the boards and pieces of wood I’d taken off earlier got set onto the cardboard, spread out to keep it from blowing away. You can see the final result in the second image of the slide show above.

The log that is currently on the outside of the bed will eventually be set on top of a base log. For now, these beds will be built to two logs high.

I need more cardboard to cover the rest of the path, up to the current bed. I’d like to cover the path in wood chips once more cardboard is down. Grass and weeds get through uncovered cardboard very quickly.

It’s a tiny bit of progress, but it’s better than nothing! I don’t know when I’ll be able to get more logs for this. I’d asked my brother about clearing dead trees out of the spruce grove with the help of his tractor. I believe he was finally able to get that fixed, but they said something about finding a lot of trees along the road heading south along the property line that need to be cleared away from the fence, so I’m expecting that will be a priority for him. I don’t know. I could cut trees down, cut them to length in situ, the drag the logs out myself, or with the help of a daughter, like we’ve done with all the others. It would just be a lot faster and easier to do it with a tractor!

The Re-Farmer

Catching up

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

So the past couple of days have been SO much better, it just blows me away!

Yesterday, I was not only well enough to go into the city for the stock up shopping at Costco, but felt well enough to keep on going after everything was put away and we’d had supper. I headed outside for the usual evening cat feeding, then gave the garden a solid watering before heading back in.

A couple of nights ago, my brother and SIL quickly came by to drop off a box with a small raccoon proof shed they picked up. I had some bags with cans at various stages of sorting against the garage, and critters had gotten into them again, spreading them all over. So this is something we can store the aluminum cans in until it’s worth bringing them to the scrap yard. Most of the cans are cat food cans. Even though they are empty, the critters still smell food on them and sometimes tear the bags apart – even after ignoring them for months!

They also let me know that they were coming back the next day (yesterday) to take the trail loaded with metal items to the scrap yard. When they told me about the shed, I mentioned that we had more bags of cans in our basement that would fit in the truck. My SIL said that they could load the bags into their truck (which has a taller cap over the box) and take it in with the rest of the load.

I didn’t know what time they would be coming by with the shed, so I headed out with some fresh bags to at least re-bag the bag with aluminum only that had been torn up. As I was walking to the garage, however, I saw something that wasn’t there when I’d gone out to feed the cats and water the garden earlier.

That wasn’t there when I was out watering the garden beds! I sent the picture to our family chat and my daughters said they had heard something – maybe 40 minutes earlier – fall. It wasn’t even particularly windy at the time!

After re-bagging the aluminum cans at the garage, I came to see how bad the damage was under this tree top. Much to my surprise, the garden bed cover was not damaged. The netting was bent, but it doesn’t have hoops under it, to it can be easily pushed back into shape. All those branches sticking out in every direction actually kept the full weight of the tree top from landing on the cover and doghouse roof. I broke off some of the branches while one of my daughters came over, and she held the tree top up until I could get the garden bed cover out from under it, then pushed it aside, so it’s not over the old dog house anymore. We’ll have to come back with the chain saw to break it down, soon, but for now it waits.

We went in after that and my brother and SIL were in and out to drop off the shed in its box so quickly, if I hadn’t gotten security camera alerts, I’d never had known they were here!

With my SIL’s kind offer to take our aluminum in, that meant getting all the bags out of the basement. I didn’t know what time they would be coming buy, and knew I’d be going to the city, so I wanted to get the cans out before we left. Which had to be done in stages, since we can’t just leave doors open, or the inside cats would be getting into the basement, or outside.

I got it done, though. By the time I got them out near the junk pile, which has been cleared out significantly, thanks to my brother and SIL, I had 11 large clear bags, plus another 8 or so small blue bags. Including the two bags from beside the garage I’d rebagged the night before.

What I found out later was that they weren’t coming out until my brother was done at work (I had thought he might have arranged to leave early or something). So we were back from Costco well before they got here, in seperate vehicles.

I had actually gone back out to water the garden, but suddenly realized my brother had somehow arrived and parked by the barn without my ever hearing him! Then I heard my SIL arriving at the gate. So I postponed the watering and started tying the garlic off so I could hang them to cure.

Which didn’t work out as planned.

Normally, I make two long strings of garlic that I hang under the canopy tent to form a large X across the middle. The garlic, however, turned out to be too heavy. The first string of garlic kept snapping at different spots. In the end, I hung the remaining pieces, reinforcing the longest one with more jute twine. With the rest, I tied off strings of roughly a dozen garlic each and hung them around the sides of the canopy tent.

I was working on this when my brother and SIL drove their truck and trailer up to where the aluminum bags were. In the end, though, they didn’t take them yet. They didn’t have time. The scrap yard closed at 8, but it was at least a 45 minute drive to get there, and they needed to be there before closing time. Last call is usually about 15 minutes before closing.

So they left without the aluminum, with my brother driving the truck and trailer and my SIL following in the car my brother had come out in. They got there just in time and were able to get it done. Once the trailer was cleared, my brother took the car and drove home, since he had to go to work the next morning. My SIL drove the truck and trailer back here.

Meanwhile, I had finished stringing up the garlic.

There are two images in the above slide show. I don’t like that the garlic is around the edges, as they could be affected by the weather more. We’re not expecting rain for a while, though, so I hope they will be okay.

I was just finishing watering the garden when my SIL got back with the trailer. I helped her unhitch the trailer (something neither of us had done before, though at least my SIL has seen my brother doing it), then she drove the truck over to the bags of aluminum. We didn’t want them out overnight, as the raccoons would probably tear them apart.

It was getting dark, so I messaged my daughters and they were both able to come out and help load the truck. Much to my surprised, they all fit, with room to spare!

By then, it was pretty much full dark. My SIL parked the truck near their caravan and stayed the night.

This morning, I was up by about 6am, even though I hadn’t actually slept much last night. I headed out into the wonderfully cool morning to feed the cats and do a quick walkabout before going back inside.

While checking on the garden beds, I found this.

The last time I saw this Arikara squash, it was maybe 6 inches long!!

I set a brick under it, so it wouldn’t have direct contact to the ground. There are several more squash developing, but this one got huge, fast! One squash plant, and we might have as many as 5 squash off of it, if they all survive. This is how all our winter squash should be looking, but even the biggest of the other varieties do not look this vigorous and healthy!

I also spotted this – more wind damage!

This is a chokecherry tree, part of which has split.

Oh, I just realized. This is probably NOT wind damage. This might be deer damage. There are ripe chokecherries on this tree. If they were pulling on the berries like they do when going after the crab apples, they could easily have broken the tree like this.

My SIL and I were planning to head out around noon. That gave me time to go through the house for any remaining aluminum cans that were waiting to be bagged up, filling about half of a large, clear bag. Then I went to the garage, where a bag with crushed cans had been torn and spilling and picked that up. Then I crushed all the cans I could find in the crate and bin we us for recyclables. Last of all, I headed outside the garage with a magnet and sorted the last bag that’s been sitting there for months, pulling out the cans with steel. By the time I was done, I’d filled the large clear bag and about half of a small blue recycling bag. I carried them over to my brother’s truck and added them to what was in the back.

At this point, we have a couple of bags with just ferrous metal in them. We could have taken them with us, but it just wasn’t worth is for barely two bags. The price for steel is quite low.

I later found out my brother got 12¢ per pound for their load. The stuff didn’t weigh as much as my brother had estimated.

The cans sorted and bags and cleaned up, I headed back in to change out of my grubbies and into going out clothes. I double checked the hours I’d found for the place online, and they said they were closed today. !!!??? So I phoned.

They were very much open.

My SIL and I headed out soon after. We went to the salvage yard directly to the south of us that I was already familiar with, rather than the one they went to last night. There was enough in there that they brought out one of the bigger cages with a forklift, rather than the bin they’d brought out the last time we’d managed the trip, and we actually filled it. It turned out to be 252 pounds, and they paid out 70¢ per pound. a bit lower than the average going rate, but these were not “clean”; a lot of the cans had been outdoors for some time before we had to put the bags into the basement to keep the critters from getting at them, so they had literal dirt on them.

That got me just over $175 in cash. Not too bad!

I also remembered to ask for a new magnet keychain to replace the one that was stolen, I think by a raccoon. They had a whole basket full of them available to give out!

My SIL had suggested we go for lunch afterwards, and this allowed me to treat her, for a change!

I don’t know a lot of what’s available in this town, so when my sister suggested Chinese food, I was quite happy to try a place I’d never been to before. We had a lovely meal and a great time catching up with each other.

As we were finished, my SIL mentioned she wanted to go to the town north of us after we were done. I asked if she wanted company and went along, with just a side trip to the post office for something my husband was expecting.

The extra drive meant almost a lot more driving time to chat in. I really enjoy spending time with my SIL. She’s awesome.

The place she wanted to go to was the livestock supply store. She’d never been there before, but that’s one of the places I’d been getting 40 pound bags of cat food from, plus this place has all sorts of other farm supplies to ogle. I was able to give her directions to the store, which is actually away from the town itself. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up a couple of bags of cat food, as well as a very plain, inexpensive, folding knife. Something better than the utility knife I’ve been carrying around when doing yard stuff, with no fancy saw edges or do-dads. Just a plain knife. They had one left in bright orange, and I grabbed that. This way, if I drop it in the grass or dirt, it’ll be easy to see!

My SIL, meanwhile, picked up some stall liners. Something to put under the stairs to their caravan, or other places where they don’t want the grass to be taking over.

I have to admit, when I saw them being loaded into the truck, I started wanting one for our kitchen! These are designed to withstand cow hooves. The cats would not be able to scratch this up! They’re actually too big to fit on our kitchen floor, though, but gosh, that would be so nice. Pricey for what would essentially be considered a floor mat, but worth every penny.

That done, my SIL wanted to check out the hardware store. We both got a couple of little things, but mostly she wanted to look at their display sheds. They had quite a variety of designs on display, from basic wide open spaces, to ones with front porches, pretty windows and lofts.

Some of the price tags on these, though… there’s a reason I want to build a garden shed using the cordwood wall technique! The mortar needed for that, plus using wood from dead spruces we already have, would be a lot cheaper, even with having to buy roofing material.

With all the driving and checking things out, it was late enough that the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before I got home. We’re now good on dry cat food for both the inside and outside cats for probably the rest of the month, which was a nice bonus.

My brother has since made it out and they will be here for the weekend. Much of the focus is still going to be on cleaning up and hauling things away.

Which brings me to something the family is going to need to figure out.

My brother is going to retire in a couple of years. The deal is, he pays for the property tax and insurance, we pay the utilities and keep the place up – something that is getting harder for us to do with all of us being broken, one way or another. Something I hope will improve within the next 6 months or so, as my daughters and I each get the surgeries we need.

Once he retires, they won’t be able to keep up paying the expenses for this place. The money brought in by renting most of it out doesn’t even cover the cost of taxes.

We need to figure out what our options are, and we have only two years to do it in. Meanwhile, my husband’s disability income through is employer ends at age 65. That’s only 7 years away. It’s not like we can take over the property. With both our daughters having health issues, their options are limited, too.

We don’t have a lot of time to figure this out.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden, and how things are going.

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

First, the garden stuff, then the updates…

I was out before things got too hot, giving the garden a solid watering. I was able to work on some weeding as well, particularly in one of the beds in the East yard.

I need to work on the purple cabbage bed next, but I got some solid weeding in the mixed bed.

I ended up taking some short videos.

The plants look wimpy in the video because I used the watering to help make it easier to pull the weeds. Several times, I went to pull up crab grass and the rhizome ended up lifting a section of the tiny bok choy with it! The rhizome had run directly under the bok choy, so their roots were grown around it. I was able to set them back and hopefully, they will recover.

The bok choi all bolted and I’m leaving them to collect seed from. I still have seed from last year and am going to try planting them again as a fall crop, as they clearly do not like this heat!

The spinach doesn’t like it, either, and it has bolted, too, but it looks like we’re going to get a decent amount of Swiss Chard.

I’ll need to do the cabbage bed, next.

On the one hand, I’m impressed with how much the purple savoy cabbage has grown. They were so tiny when I found them while weeding the bed. Unfortunately, they are rather leggy and not forming heads, like the green cabbage transplants I bought have started to do. This bed does get sunlight, but not enough for cabbage, it turns out. Something to keep in mind for next year!

I’m really, really happy with the Arikara squash! This is the biggest squash plant we have right now, and it’s grown so much, I had to lift the netting off one corner for the vine to run through. The netting will need to be removed soon, but I first have to figure out how to still protect the bed. Deer love to eat bush beans and, of course, I don’t want cats going in and rolling around or digging in there.

I’m also quite happy with our little flower bed. The nasturtiums we direct sowed are blooming enthusiastically. The transplanted not-red cosmos are winding down, but still have flower buds developing. The transplanted Crackerjack marigolds look like they’ll be going for awhile. All of these, I plan to let go to seed. My only disappointment is there were no self-seeded asters from last year, since the seeds I collected in the fall have completely disappeared; one of several packages of collected seeds that have disappeared.

The trellis bed is another area I spent some time using the hose to make weeding easier. Unfortunately, with the bed as low as it is, I can’t reach very far, so the first carrot planting isn’t getting the weeding it needs. The peas on the trellis are winding down. I did pick a handful, then ate them all before moving on to the next area to water. 😁 The super sugar snap peas aren’t at the blooming stage yet, and the dwarf peas are not very productive, so I’m thinking a sowing of more peas near the end of July for a fall crop might be good, if I can find the space.

After taking a break for breakfast, I headed back out to use the push mower around the edges of the yard. Some spaces are too tight to use the riding mower, but too big to use a weed trimmer. As long as I was in the shade, it wasn’t bad, but by then we were at full heat (and we still are). Every time I stepped out of the shade, it was like walking into a wall of heat! I managed to get the south and east yards done, but still need to do the west and north yards, plus the paths in the main garden area.

When switching to the second half of the south yard, I did a walkabout to pick loose branches and whatnot, then stopped to take care of this poor spruce tree.

Yes, there’s a tree in there! If you click through to the next image, you’ll see what I uncovered. The tree is not looking very healthy right now, but it should get better now that it isn’t being smothered by vines!

This is a tree that I’ve been wanting to transplant, but it’s starting to get too big for that. My mother planted two of them, right next to the chain link fence. One died since we moved out here. When I told my mother we needed to transplant them, she demanded they stay. When I explained that, if we left them there, they would eventually destroy the chain link fence. She told me she didn’t care, and insisted they stay. When one of them died, she thought I had killed it on purpose because she told me not to transplant them.

We’ll figure it out.

Meanwhile…

My brother was out by about 5am, doing more mowing, then getting getting the truck and trailer out to load more junk into the bin. They went through a number of areas and cleared a lot of the junk pile near the chain link fence, and filled it. They’ve called it in and it should be picked up tomorrow, but it won’t be coming back again right away. They got enough area cleared that they can start organizing things more, and have the bin brought back in the fall. Until then, my brother is going to focus on getting the metal stuff to the scrap yard, where he’ll at least get some money for it. I did remember to tell them that the old bath tub in the junk pile is a keeper – though they never found it! I’ve found I need something larger to wash things that too big or too dirty for the washing machine, like the outdoor cat beds and blankets. I’ll need to pick a spot for it that is out of the way, but still easily accessible.

In other things…

My husband is doing a lot better today. During the night, his blood glucose did drop very low again, though not as dangerously as before. He was able to eat something, then went back to bed. Between us, we’ve been making sure he actually eats regularly.

I found out something that was a surprise, though. My husband has been on a ludicrously high dose of Ozempic, which is supposed to help control his blood glucose. Something I have a real problem with, because it didn’t seem to help that, but the side effects were causing problems. He has decreased his slow-release insulin and I remembered to suggest he might want to decrease his Ozempic dose, too.

He isn’t taking it, and hasn’t been for a while.

The pharmacy has been sending him refills for he regular meds, even if he hasn’t called them in, because it pops up on their files. Some things are “take as needed” so he has to call those refills in. When he ran out of Ozempic, he never got a refill – and he never called to ask for one. I don’t know how long he’s been off it, but considering how low his blood glucose had dropped, it’s scary to think how much worse it would have been if he had still been taking it!

As for the rest of us, we’re managing all right, though the heat is brutal upstairs, even with their AC and fans. My older daughter has had to send notes with apologies for some of her commissions, saying they may be late. It’s hard to use a drawing tablet when it’s covered in sweat! I am so thankful for the new roof and the AC. It was bad enough in the summer on the second floor before. With the temperatures and humidity we are having now, it would be unlivable up there.

So that’s where we are at now. It’s coming up on 6pm as I write this, and we are still at 30C/86F I need to get out and do the evening cat feeding, though I might wait until later to finish my evening rounds!

Tomorrow, thankfully, it will be quite a bit cooler – though that is a relative statement! I’m planning to head into town to do some errands and visit my mother. I’ll have to remember to leave the gate open for the guy picking up the bin. The family will have to keep an eye out, as much to make sure the renter’s cows don’t get through the electric fence as for the bin pick up!

Okay. Time to stop procrastinating and go feed some kitties! (and skunks… and racoons… *sigh*)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden, and the heat continues

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today was another hot one, with the temperatures reaching at least 34C/93F. I don’t know what the humidex was, but the humidity levels reached 80% at one point. For all the fans and the AC going, much of the house felt like being in a sauna.

… and now tomorrow is also expected to reach a high above 30C/86F, too. We continue to be under a Severe Heat Warning.

Which meant I was outside early again this morning, to water the garden before it got too hot – though the overnight temperatures never dipped below 20C/68F and was climbing again fast as I headed out.

I had a couple of surprises this morning.

The first was while I was putting out food for the outside cats, and found this very hungry little one, by the sun room door.

It was a surprise partly because it was so tiny!

It was also extremely hungry. I let it be. I was putting frozen water bottles into the cats’ water bowls at this point, and spotted a larger skunk at the shrine food bowls. It ignored me while I was at the insolation shelter. Then I went to the catio, and that’s when I spotted the little one. It was running through the grass like I wasn’t even there, going straight for Mama.

It ran over my foot, pausing a moment, then continuing on to the mama.

I literally could have reached down to pet it!

No, I didn’t try.

If you click through the slide show above, you’ll see it with the mama, and then a short video of them going up and down the sideway to the house.

They are just too cute for words!

Once the cats were taken care of, and the skunks moved on, I watered the south garden beds. Before heading to do the main garden area, I went past the seed starting tray on the step and checked it. There are more seedlings popping up, but one of the cells had a big green leaf blown onto it, covering any potential germinating seedling. So I went to brush it away.

It moved.

Then jumped down to the concrete.

!!!

This is what it turned out to be…

So. Flipping. Cute!!!!

Meanwhile, the garden actually seems to be enjoying this heat! I was happy to see that most recent sowing of bush beans are growing.

On the down side, some seedlings I saw pushing their way through the soil yesterday are gone. Something got to them. Something small enough to get through that netting.

Still, it looks like we’ve got a decent number of survivors.

I’m particularly happy by how that Arikara squash is doing! It’s already much larger and healthier than when we tried to grow them last year. There’s just the one plant. I do hope it gets enough time to produce squash to maturity, as this is a rare variety, so I want to be able to save seeds from it.

In the last image of the slide show above, there is a new little tomato I spotted yesterday. There’s a whole two of them in the entire tomato bed right now, though there are lots of flowers now. This one is a Blueberry tomato. The other is a Manitoba tomato. Still no sign of any Orange Current tomatoes in this bed, nor the Chocolate Stripes tomato in the main garden area.

Most of the rest of the garden is doing well. The green cabbages under their insect netting look visibly bigger between the morning and evening watering. Even the red noodle beans look like they might be getting bigger. I’m still concerned that they will just stagnate, like they did last year. The bush beans in the high raised bed are blooming like crazy, and the more recent sowing of carrots is actually surviving, while the earlier sowing of Rainbow Mix carrots are looking like we can start thinning by harvesting, too.

With the temperatures rising above 30C/86F, we are going to avoid going anywhere. Tomorrow, however, I do need to at least go to the general store to get another 40 pound bag of kibble for the outside cats. I’ll be doing that right after the morning watering, before things get too hot for the truck.

July is a birthday month. My daughter has said she will pay for the take out treat (it’s my turn to choose, and I chose Chinese food) but, after looking at the weather forecast, we decided it will wait until Wednesday! Absolutely no one wants to do any cooking in this heat. The oven is being used to dehydrate scapes, on the “keep warm” setting”, anyhow.

I’m seriously considering sleeping on the couch tonight, near the AC. I should have done that last night.

I may not be able to handle the heat like I used to, but I am glad the garden is handling it as well as it is. There’s at least that one positive we can make out of it!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: poppies, melons, and a deluge

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was rather late in heading out this morning to feed the outside cats and do my morning rounds. A thunderstorm rolled in when I normally would have gone out and lasted a couple of hours.

We got a lot of rain in a very short time! The upstairs window started leaking again; the same one that used to leak a lot when the snow started to melt in the winter, before we got the new roof. This is the second time it has leaked during a heavy downpour. I’ve contacted my brother about it, since he had the warranty papers and was able to pass on details he thought the company would need. He’ll let me know what he gets back from the roofing company.

The usual low spots that were finally drained were full again. Even the inner yard had standing water all over the place. I was rather hoping to be able to mow the lawn or at least do some weed trimming. Lawn mowing was out of the question and likely will be for a while, but I did managed to get the weed trimmer going to clear the paths in the old kitchen garden. It’s higher there so no standing water there. I kept trimming until I went through all three batteries.

The lower eavestroughs are terribly full of elm seeds that are sprouting. None of us are able to get up to them safely with a ladder. Last year I got a cleaner brush that can be used from the ground. It came with two brushes, and the first one broke rather quickly.

The second one broke before I could get very far with the cleaning.

*sigh*

My daughter has been looking into hiring someone to do it for us. Someone with a lift or a harness… and insurance. Meanwhile, I’ve just ordered a hose attachment, but it won’t get here for a couple of weeks.

After failing to get much done on the eaves, I switched to working in the garden. There are a couple of things I want to get done. One of them is to work over the entire area that was supposed to be planted with corn to loosen the soil, then scatter sow the tillage radish seeds I got a while back as a cover crop. These can grow up to 6 feet long and should be able to force their way through the layers of gravel, sand and clay under our shallow top soil. They are left to freeze and die off over the winter. The decomposing radishes create channels and enrich the soil, and the leaves can be worked into the topsoil to compost in place. At least, that’s what I’ve read they can be used for. Over time, this area will be getting a combination of perennials, annuals that self seed and can be treated as perennials, and possibly some shorter, 12′ long raised beds. We’ll see.

The exposed ground that had been under the black tarp is starting to get taken over, even though it’s pretty compacted. I will work on that later. For today, I decided to work on the small bed where I’d planted the giant poppies. A few actually survived, but the area was being overtaken by weeds.

I forgot to take a “before” picture, so the first one in the slide show below is after I’d started clearing around one side of the poppies.

The second picture shows the area all cleared. The soil here is really, really good. I could dig into it easily with my bare hands. Which I needed to do to try and get as many of the tree roots as I could.

*sigh*

With more than half of this little bed empty, I decided to transplant into it. In the next image, you can see a couple of little sprouts. One of those was quite a bit smaller this morning, and the other was barely breaking the surface. They just sort of exploded in a few hours! So I figured, why not. These are Canary Yellow melons, with 80 days to maturity. I made sure to get a photo of the label, since I haven’t been labeling anything from my own transplants. I’m using my photos as a record of what things end up where.

We have about 60-70 days left to our average first frost date. At this point, I’m counting on that Super El Nińo giving us an extended growing season.

I transplanted them in protective collars, then mulched the whole bed heavily with straw. The soil was still moist from today’s deluge but, once the straw was down, I gave the bed a thorough watering, focusing more on getting the straw soaked through.

In the last photo, you can see one of the poppy buds. This variety can potentially get poppy heads the size of a softball. I don’t expect to get any that big, considering how relatively small the plants are right now, but it should be interesting to see how large they do get by the end of the season. I did get another packet of the seed when I thought none had survived, but plan to save seed from these, too. The seeds are edible, but there won’t be enough poppy pods to harvest for eating. There should be plenty of seeds to save for planting.

Unfortunately, by the time I was done with this, my pain levels had kicked in pretty high. Once inside, I was able to take some painkillers, hydrate and start this post while my daughters made supper – and brought some over to me so I didn’t have to get up again! That was much appreciated.

Time to eat before it gets cold! 😁

The Re-Farmer