Our 2025 Garden: winter sowing two more beds

October 31, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Mission accomplished!

I really wanted to push to get the rest of the seeds in for our 2025 garden. I still had to wait until the afternoon to start, so the ground had time to thaw from overnight frost. From there, it was a race against time to finish before I lost light. I even managed to get some quick footage for an October garden tour video. I haven’t checked the files yet, though, to see if they are worth using.

This is what I was able to get done today:

The first area I worked on was along the chain link fence. The long bed in the first image above was mostly done already, since I’d harvested potatoes out of it. I even found a couple of little potatoes that I’d missed when harvesting.

It still took a remarkably long time to prepare it, though. The section that had the purple caribe potatoes that never grew was compacted like crazy, even though I’d loosened at least part of it, to plant the kohlrabi.

Those actually had some leaves trying to grow! If they hadn’t been eaten by flea beetles, they’d still be growing now.

There was also the lone Jabousek lettuce that had seeded itself and survived being munched by deer. I got a bucket to use to collect the seeds. There was a lot for just one plant! I ended up putting a healthy scoop of them with the remaining root vegetable seeds, giving it a shake to mix them in with the other seeds, potting soil and vermiculite.

I also cleaned up the chimney block planters along the other section of chain link fence a bit. I just took down the tomato supports and cut the tomato plants at their bases, leaving the roots. I will be leaving those as is until spring.

As for the narrow bed, once the soil was loosened, weeded and leveled, I scattered the seed mix. This mix has Dalvay shelling peas, a few King Tut purple peas we saved, Royal Burgundy bush beans, Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflowers and a few black Montano Morado corn seeds I’d saved, plus onion seeds.

The onion seeds are so much smaller, though, I scattered the larger seeds first, which probably included a few onion seeds as well, then went back over the bed to scatter the remaining onion seeds. There wasn’t enough to do the entire bed, though, but I made a modification, later.

First, though, I went over the bed several times, looking for the larger seeds and pushing them into the soil, spreading them further apart, if necessary. When I found the bush beans, I pushed them into the soil closer to the brick edging. If I had to move peas, I pushed them into the soil closer to the chain link fence. The Mongolian Giant seeds were easy enough to see, but the corn and black dye seeds are so dark, they were much more difficult to spot. I’m sure I missed quite a few. I also replanted the two little potatoes that I’d found.

If all goes to plan, the peas will be able to climb either the fence, the corn or the sunflowers, the beans will have room to get bushy along the outside edge of the bed while doubling as ground cover, and the onions will dissuade hungry deer.

Once I’d pushed in as many of the larger seeds as I could find, I got some of the shallots and onions I’d set aside earlier for replanting. I transplanted them around the outer edge of the end that did not get the scattered onion seeds. These shallots and onions are there to go to seed – and to dissuade any hungry deer, I hope! Everything in this bed, except maybe the corn, is stuff deer love to eat!

After planting the shallots and onions, the soil was gently raked to make sure everything was covered before getting mulched with leaves topped with grass clippings.

That left the root vegetable – and now Jabousek lettuce – seeds to sow. Those went into the low raised bed that the German Butterball potatoes had been in, which is in the second photo of the slideshow above.

When the potatoes were harvested, the bed was weeded, and hadn’t been touched since. All it needed was to break up soil clumps, pull out any weed roots that got missed, soil clumps broken up and leveled.

With this higher bed, I did things a bit different. Anything along the walls of the bed would freeze, since the mulch can only protect from the top. So I focused on making sure the middle of the bed was readied for seeds, leaving about 6 inches from the walls unplanted.

This seed mix has Uzbek Golden carrots, Napoli carrots (an orange variety), Merlin, Bresko, Cylindria and Albino beets, French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Bell and Zlata radishes, Purple Prince turnips and our saved onion and lettuce seeds in it.

It sounds like a lot, but this was finishing off packets of older seeds, so there wasn’t much of each variety, plus I don’t expect a high germination rate for any of them.

Once the seeds were scattered and gently raked over, they got mulched with leaves topped with grass clippings.

That is the last of the winter sowing vegetables to do! The only thing that could still be sown before winter is the wildflower mix, and that could even wait until spring, if I wanted. The space I’ll be planting them is still covered with an insulated tarp, and that won’t need to be moved to cover the septic tank for a while, yet.

While I was working on this, my younger daughter was taking care of things in the house, including re-installing the arm based over the new tub surround. She was able to find a way to fit the big L shaped bar in, as well, though it does make one of the corner shelves in the surround of limited use, now. Which is fine. The arm bar is needed more.

Now that the arm bars are in, my husband can finally use the shower! Even with the bath chair, he can’t get in and out without the arm bars.

My older daughter is not well today, and we’re all pretty broken and hurting, so my daughter offered to get us take out, if I were up to it.

Yes. Yes, I was!

Meanwhile, my brother and his wife were coming over for one last trip – to drop off the trailer they’ve been using to bring everything from their property to wherever it needed to go. They arrived after I left for town, but I was able to see them before they left. Tomorrow is the possession date for the new owners, so they not only pushed hard to get their own stuff out, but to make sure the new owners had things like flax bales to cover their septic field, and a few other things that got set up for them.

One thing they did was take off their “road sign” at their driveway. When the road past our driveway was named for our family, the municipality made five signs, but only needed four, so my brother was allowed to take the extra. They’ve had it at their driveway ever since. It has now been removed.

That sure made things feel a lot more final!

It would be good if we could use it at our intersection. There was one when we moved in, but then the stop sign it was attached to was knocked down and the road sign stolen. We’re pretty sure our vandal did that, but have no way to prove it, but like we can’t prove he stole the sign with my father’s name on it off the corner fence post, or that he stole the trail cam we had mounted on that post.

The municipality never replaced the road sign. I suspect that if we put this one up on the stop sign that got repaired, it would just get stolen, too.

Well, we’ve got our own painted sign at the corner, with a camera on it in case there are more vandalism attempts. That is working out just fine.

There is, of course, still lots more work to get done in the garden, but getting this winter sowing done was the thing that had to get done first. Now, we just do as much as we can while the weather holds. At the same time, my brother will be coming out as often as he is able, as he wants to sort things to their more permanent locations. Particularly the farm equipment, now that the storage trailer is in place. A lot of small things just shoved into the barn that will need to be sorted into the storage trailer or bread truck (which will be a workshop). He also has a dismantled shelter he needs to rebuild over the tractor that got its radiator damaged while lifting the discer off the trailer. It will need to be replaced, and he’s planning ahead to be able to do it during the winter, so having a roof over the tractor will be very important.

Anyhow…

They got here after I left to pick up the food, but I got home fast enough to at least give my brother a hug – my SIL was so exhausted, she fell asleep in their truck! – before they had to go.

We’re going to be seeing a lot more of my brother and, hopefully, his wife from now on!

That makes us very happy.

Getting the last of the winter sowing done today also makes me very happy.

😊😊

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 garden – I hope!

October 30, 2024 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Yes!!!

It felt so good to get a really productive day outside. It’s been so long!

I did have to wait until the afternoon, when it warmed up to our expected high of 6C/43F. Even so, some of the areas I worked in that were shaded longer were still partially frozen.

The first thing I did was finish off the bed I was working on yesterday. That little section was shaded and still rather frozen, so it took longer than it normally would have. When I was done, I grabbed a nearby roll of plastic that was rolled up and waiting to be put away for the winter and laid it out on the bed, starting from the shaded south end. It wasn’t long enough to cover the entire bed, but all I really wanted was to get the end that got more shade to warm up a bit, once the sun was able to start hitting it.

Once that was done, I shifted to the old kitchen garden and cleared the rectangular be that had the Forme de Couer tomatoes this year. That bed was shaded by the house on one side so it, too, was partially frozen. After clearing it of weeds and mint rhizomes, I grabbed one of the plastic sheets that had protected the eggplants and peppers earlier, and laid it over the soil. This bed is shorter, so the plastic was plenty long enough.

I had decided to use the high raised bed, which is already prepared, and the open section of the garlic bed for winter sowing, so I didn’t need to clear another bed, yet. Leaving the plastic to warm the soil, I headed into the house and started going through my seeds.

I had already considered what I wanted to winter sow earlier, but I’m always flexible on stuff like that.

After going through my seeds, I decided on some ordered chaos.

I’m also going to need to clear one more bed.

Most of the seeds I will be sowing are older seeds, so I don’t expect a very high germination rate for some of them. I also decided to include some additions.

Here are the beds I was able to finish planting before it started getting too dark.

The first image of the slideshow above is in the old kitchen garden. With that theme in mind, I’ve got more “kitchen” greens. These include:

– spinach – four different varieties
– Swiss chard – two different varieties
– Shallots – saved seed collected from a lone surviving shallot a couple of years ago
– Kohlrabi – both purple and green
– Hedou Tiny bok choi – we got these as free seeds a couple of years ago, but they were smothered by elm tree seeds after they sprouted. A couple of seedling survived and bolted, so I let them go to seed and saved them.

Lastly, I included some onion seeds collected this year. Hopefully including the onions and shallots will keep the deer and damaging insects away.

These and another group of smaller seeds were added to a repurposed herb/spice shaker container, along with some seed start mix and vermiculite I had left over from starting seeds indoors in the spring, and given a thorough shaking.

After emptying this container into the old kitchen garden bed, it was mulched with a thick, insulating layer of leaves that was topped with some grass clippings, as was done with the garlic already planted.

In the next image, you’ll see the bed I had started on last night. This one is now a summer squash bed. Years ago I had accidentally bought three collections of summer squash when I meant to get just one. We’ve been using the seeds for several years now, but they are starting to get old. The only new seeds were the White Scallop patty pan squash. The others are Sunburst (a yellow patty pan), Endeavor (green zucchini), Goldy (yellow zucchini) and Magda (mottled pale greens, similar to zucchini). I don’t expect much for a germination rate for the older seeds.

With these larger seeds, I scattered them from end to end on the bed, then pushed each one into the soil, spreading them out more evenly in the process, used a rake to gently cover them over, then mulched with leaves and grass clippings.

The next two photos – the remaining end of the garlic bed and the high raised bed – have root vegetables, plus protective onion seeds. These include:

– the last loose seeds of Uzbek Golden carrot (I still have the home made seed tape of those)
– pelleted Napoli carrot
– beets – three red varieties left over from before, plus a white Albino variety given to me
– Purple Prince turnip
– radishes – three red varieties left over from before, plus a yellow variety given to me.

Plus, protective onion seeds were added as well.

I used the shaker over the small area next to the garlic, but I honestly couldn’t tell if any seeds got out. I mulched it anyhow, but when I got to doing the high raised bed, I took the shaker lid off and just scattered the mix. I could at least see the pelleted carrot seeds! This bed is shorter, and I ended up not finishing off the container. I’ll find somewhere else to sow the rest of the seeds.

After mulching the high raised bed, I moved the wire cover onto it for winter storage. The wire is open enough that it won’t prevent snow from covering the bed, and the snow is an important part of this winter sowing process.

This left me with two containers of seeds. I decided to plant the flower seeds. I wanted those in the main garden area and decided to use the space by the high raised bed where the pumpkins and drum gourds had been planted. It’s a small space and did not take long to clean up. That last space got:

– Butterfly Flower: Orange shades (a milkweed) that I tried starting indoors this past spring, but never got to direct sowing the rest.
– Forget Me Nots – given to me by a friend
– Nasturtium; Dwarf Jewel Mix – I got those this year and never got around to planting them.

I look forward to (hopefully) have a busy patch of flowers for the pollinators in the main garden area next year! The Nasturtium should also act as a trap crop, luring in insects that might harm some of the other plants.

For flowers, I also have two packages of Western wildflowers mix. I have an area along the edge of the maple grove that has been covered with the insulated tarp, folded in half, since it was taken off the septic tank lid in the spring. I’m hoping that did the job of killing off any weeds under it. Once the tarp is removed, that is where I intend to plant the wildflower mix. It has 16 varieties of annuals and perennials native to Western Canada in it.

I am now left with one last container of seeds to plant, but I was losing light and need to prepare another bed for them. This container has:

– Dalvay peas, including seeds I collected from the ones we planted this past year
– King Tut purple peas; from collected seeds
– Royal Burgundy bush beans
– Hopi Black Dye sunflowers – just one of the two packages I had
– Mongolian Giant sunflowers – I had only one packet of those
– a small number of Montana Morado corn. We’d grown them a couple of years ago and left them to go to seed, as we were going to test grinding them into flour, only to have the cats dump the entire bowl of collected seed. I managed to salvage a few seeds – less than a dozen.

I chose this combination so that the peas could climb the sunflowers, while the pole beans can shade the ground. This group of seeds did also get onion seeds added to it. Everything in here is prone to being eaten by deer, so I’m hoping the onions will be enough of a turn off for them.

After talking to my daughter about it, we figured the place to plant this is in the long, narrow bed along the chain link fence. It’s mostly clear already, as it had potatoes in it this past year. There’s just one self seeded tomato plant still needing to be cleaned up. Plus, the kittens have been using it as a litter box, so that needs to be cleaned out, too.

So that is my plan for tomorrow. To get that last group of seeds winter sown seeds in. Then, I’m hoping to get a bit more clean up before taking the garden tour video I’d originally intended to take in the middle of the month. This will be the last garden tour video of the year.

In the spring, once the snow is melted away, the mulch on all of these will need to be removed, to allow the soil to warm up and the seeds to germinate. If all goes to plan, this will give us a head start to our 2025 garden.

With most of these, I completely finished off the seeds I had left from previous years. I still have plenty of other things that can be started indoors, and others for direct sowing.

Next year’s garden will be very, very different from how this year’s garden turned out. Not having four 18′ beds dedicated to winter squash and melons is going to make quite the difference! We will be planting fewer tomatoes next year, too.

Even if this winter sowing experiment doesn’t turn out turn out, I could get away with not buying any new seed this winter.

I will still buy more seed, of course! Just probably not until a month or two from now. I’ve already got my eye on some rare heritage breeds that I’d like to grow, if only to help keep the varieties going.

Mostly, though, I’d like to finally get some new beds started, and get at least one permanent trellis built.

If the weather holds.

We shall see.

I’m just happy with the progress I got today!

The Re-Farmer

Well, I didn’t get the progress I intended…

October 27, 2024October 27, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

But I did get progress!

My original plan for today was to get a garden bed ready to plant garlic in.

I ended up going into town, instead. My daughter’s transfer from PayPal went through, and she sent me the funds for two new heat elements for the hot water tank. Then, since I was in town anyhow, I make a quick stop at the grocery store to refill our big water jugs.

We still don’t have hot water, though.

Using the large socket set my brother loaned us, we first tried a practice run on removing the anode rod from one of the old tanks.

It would not come loose, no matter what. The socket wrench in this set had an extra long handle, so torque wasn’t the problem. It could also slide so that you can grab it from both sides of the socket.

Nothing.

This was an old tank that died a year ago, so perhaps that was part of the problem?

The current hot water tanks’ breaker is off, but I still double checked before setting it to drain completely. After a while, we tried to take out the original anode rod.

Nope. It was not moving. We also had the extra challenge of the tank trying to spin around, but not being able to hold it in place as easily as with the tank was wasn’t right up against a wall.

So that got set aside. I’m going to have to ask my brother for help with that.

We popped open the panels to access the elements, but ended up not doing anything. I just don’t want to take chances with anything electrical and, since we need my brother’s help anyhow, it would just be easier on my mind to leave it for him.

What I could do, though, was start setting up for the powered anode rod. It came with a 12 foot power cord. That was long enough to reach the outlet the sump pump is plugged into. I set up hooks to hold up the cord along the floor joists for the bathroom floor, while also keeping it away from the various water and drainage pipes, and still have a bit of slack at either end.

At times like this, it’s handy that the old basement’s ceiling is more than a foot lower than the new basement. Short little me can reach without any problem!

Meanwhile, we were kept up to date on how things were going for my brother and SIL. By the time they loaded the two trailers, their truck and their friend’s SUV, it was past 4pm by the time they could leave!

I made sure the gate was open for them. Then, when it was getting close to the time I expected them to arrive, I headed outside. I wasn’t going to be able to start preparing a garden bed to plant garlic in, but I could at least work on the small bed the Crespo squash was planted in. The A frame trellis, with its cross piece broken by the weight of a squash, and its netting was still there. I got the A frame parts and pieces unsecured and set with the stakes from the beds in the main garden area. Once all of the stakes, posts, nets, ties, etc. are gathered up, they’ll be sorted and bundled before being put into the old garden shed for the winter. There are a lot of broken bamboo stakes this year, but I might be able to use some of them for other things.

Once the stakes used to make the A frame trellis were set aside, it was time to clear the net of squash vines and pole beans. That took the longest to get done!

Once the net was bundled up and set with the rest of the stuff for winter storage, I pulled the rest of the squash vines out of the bed. The compost ring is, handily, right beside this bed.

I was just pulling the supports for the peppers in the bed beside it, when vehicles and trailers pulled in. By the time I set the supports aside and joined them, they already had one trailer backed up to the barn, both sets of doors open, and were already unloading.

With the four of us working together, unloading went very quickly, all things considered. Still, with two trailers and both vehicles loaded, we lost light quickly.

We got to enjoy another beautiful sunset, though!

Not as brilliantly orange and red as yesterday, but still very dramatic and gorgeous!

With the possession date on their sold property coming up fast, they just put everything into the barn, even though some of it will need to be moved out to their storage trailer and the old bread truck that will become a workshop. My brother is going to have to sort through and organize things later one. That’s going to be a huge job!

Even with all this going on, they had us in mind. Yesterday, we had the extra lumber that they gave us for our small building projects, as well as a heated water bowl from when they had dogs. Today, it was traps! They have two live animal traps. One is smaller; they used it for squirrels getting into their sheds. It’s big enough for a small cat. The other is a larger, two door trap that’s the next size up. After putting those in the garage, I made sure to message the Cat Lady. She was going to lend us a trap so catch the feral females for spaying, but the last person they lent it to hasn’t returned it. Now, we have two! That will come in very handy over the winter. The goal is to trap and spay as many of the feral females as we can before they go into heat in the spring.

If all goes well, the cat isolation shelter will get good use this winter!

Once everything was unloaded, they had to leave right away. Hopefully, tomorrow will be their last loads out here – at least, the last ones that need trailers to haul out!

Which means my goal of getting a garlic bed prepared and planted has been shifted to tomorrow.

It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow, anyhow!

Another delay, but considering it meant getting that much closer to having hot water again, plus helping my brother and SIL out, it was worth it!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 – and 2025 – garden: final harvest, prepping for next year, and a long, long evening

October 26, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Yes! Finally!

I got work done in the garden!

It was pretty chilly this morning, so I didn’t get started until about 10 or 11. With overnight temperatures dropping below freezing, regularly, I focused on our final harvest. The German Butterball potatoes, and the sunchokes.

I’m actually really surprised by how many potatoes we got out of the bed. It wasn’t a very large bed, and the other potatoes we planted we pretty sparse. Plus, there is our compaction problem. Even so, after removing the mulch and pulling the dead plants, I was able to gather a surprising amount, just by brushed the soil aside with my hands.

I also managed to damage only two potatoes with my garden fork! 😄

The potato bed is a foot deep and, when I prepared it in the spring, I pulled out a lot of Chinese elm roots. Today, I was pulling out even more! It’s remarkable, how much those roots invade the raised bed!

I didn’t finish preparing the bed for winter, though, and left that for later, when I have more time to do a thorough weeding and removal or roots.

From there, I went to the sunchoke bed. I harvested the nearer half of the bed before I popped inside for lunch. I even grabbed a few potatoes and sunchokes to include with my food!

They were very tasty.

The second half of the bed took much, much longer, but I think I got most of them.

If you click through to the second photo above, you can see the sunchokes spread out. I went through them to pick the bigger ones for replanting. A couple of them were big enough to split before planting them.

There is one problem with the sunchokes. I tossed a few of them because they had some sort of worm in them. I assume it’s actually a caterpillar or some sort. They seem to burrow into the chokes and then just die. Some of them didn’t even burrow all the way, and at least once, I picked one up and saw half the worm wiggling away.

Being so close to the Chinese Elm trees, I was not surprised to find a lot of roots, though I found myself hitting a really massive one. In the second half of the bed, I found myself harvesting about as many rocks as I was finding sunchokes!

If you click through to the next image, you can see that Kohl was my helper today.

Also, I was pulling out some pretty big rocks! I could feel myself hitting what seemed to be even larger ones. I couldn’t get the garden fork under anything to be able to try and lift it out. I tried to dig out as many as I could, which slowed things down considerably.

When it came time to replant the chokes I selected, I made some changes.

I decided I needed to make the bed narrower, and further from the chain link fence.

A couple of sunchokes had come up close enough to the fence that they grew through the chain link, so I dragged over a couple of boards that we found inside the outhouse when we cleaned it out, and set them up as a barrier.

After removing all those rocks and loosening the soil, I laid out the chokes I picked out for replanting. I then used the soil I’d pulled aside while harvesting the sunchokes to build up a shallow mound over them. I then used some of the old mulch that had been set aside and set it all around the mound of soil.

I think got the rake out and started to gather leaves.

The rake’s handle snapped on me, so had to find another one!

I gathered two wheelbarrow loads and set those on the mound of soil over the sunchokes. Then I used the sunchoke stalks and set them on top, to keep the leaves from blowing away, as well as adding an extra layer of insulation.

I was just finishing this up when my brother drove in, pulling a trailer, followed by a friend pulling a second trailer, and finally my SIL. They have been working to empty the sheds before the new owners take possession of it – just five more days! – and had originally expected to arrive here at about noon.

It was closer to 4pm before they finally made it!

My SIL backed the car up by the garage to unload – they had more smaller pieces of wood for me! There was even some clear plastic, like what we used on the cat isolation shelter, shelf boards, pieces of plywood and more. All things perfect for the small building projects we want to work on.

The trailers were first taken to where their storage trailer and former bread truck are parked. The bread truck is going to be a workshop, so there were tools and equipment to go in there. Then they backed one of the trailers up to the barn to unload.

Things were going into the lean-to side of the barn. When the barn got a new metal roof, for some reason, the lean-to roof wasn’t done. It is covered with metal sheets that used to be parts of billboard type signs.

They all leak, now. My brother will need to cover things in there because when it rains outside, it rains inside that side of the barn, too!

Quite a few things stored in the lean-to had to be moved around or – in the case of an ancient washing machine – out! That will be included in the scrap pick up, whenever that happens.

Once space was made, they could start unloading some things from one trailer into there.

When that trailer was emptied, the other trailer was brought over to be partially emptied. Some stuff was emptied into the pump shack for storage, including something from my childhood!

When I was little, and the “new part” of the house wasn’t built yet, we did not have running water in the house. We did have a bathtub set up in the pump shack, and a wood burning cookstove for heating water.

At some point, my mother was going to get rid of that old stove, so my brother took it.

It is now back in the pump shack!

It’s a smaller cookstove than the one we have in the old kitchen, but it still has a water reservoir opposite the fire box, and a simple warming shelf that is just a open shelf, nothing more. The one we have in the old kitchen has an enclosed warming shelf with doors that swing downward. The one in the old kitchen is too damaged to use anymore, though, but this one is still functional.

So that has come full circle!

As hard as they pushed to get things unloaded, it was soon full dark and they were nowhere near finished unloading! The big trailer went from barn to storage to the pump shack and back to the barn, several times, and then they had to unload the truck, too, which was jammed full.

When it got full dark, I used the flashlight on my phone to help them see to unload. After a while, I gave my phone to my SIL to hold, and I went to get our large flashlight.

My SIL ended up leaving earlier, once they reached a point where she could no longer help out. I couldn’t do much to help, either, but I could at least hold a flashlight, so they could see! The barn, pump shack and even the old bread truck all have lights inside them, but it was in and around the trailer itself that needed light.

Eventually, they put all they could into the barn, then went back to the old bread truck and storage trailer. At that point, I had both the flashlight on my phone, and our big flashlight, going at the same time, and lighting up opposite areas, as they went back and forth.

Finally, they got it all unloaded, but had to put away straps and various other things before they could leave. For that, they moved the trailer under the yard light, so they could see.

At that point, I said my good nights and headed inside. With all the digging around in the garden earlier, and the evening getting chillier, my pain levels were really starting to get up there. As it is, I’m having difficulty typing this post because all the joints in my fingers are trying to seize up. 😞

I expect more things will be dropped off tomorrow, and probably the day after, as well. After living in one place for 30 years or so, and my brother being “Mr. Fix-It”, they have a whole lot of stuff to clear out – and this is after they’ve thrown things away, given things away, and sent things to an auction house.

What’s being brought over are also things my brother intends to use here on the farm, for maintenance and repairs – things we haven’t been able to keep up with since the tools and supplies that used to be here were all disappeared before we moved in. He probably won’t be able to do anything much until after winter, but I am looking forward to learning many things from him!

The next few days are supposed to be pretty nice still, so my plan is to get as much as possible done in the garden beds. The garlic needs to go in, and I’m hoping to get at least one bed winter sown with a mix of seeds.

Now that the potatoes and sunchokes are finally harvested, that can finally be my priority again!

For the moment, though, I need to pain killer up and try to get to bed. Even as I was writing this, I could feel muscles in one thigh trying to cramp up. I really, REALLY do not want to deal with another Charlie horse tonight!!!

The Re-Farmer

Getting some progress, though not as much as I’d hoped

October 21, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today turned out to be a gorgeous day. We reached a high of 22C/68F and, as I write this at almost 9pm, we are still at a lovely 14C/57F.

As usual, my day started with the feeding of the outside cats and my morning rounds.

I got an enthusiastic “thank you for a warm breakfast!” cuddle from Colin.

We were expecting my brother to come out today with their storage trailer; they had to hire a semi truck driver to haul it out for them. With that in mind, after I had my breakfast, I headed back outside to start re-bagging the aluminum and removing the mixed metal. Quite a few of the bags have been torn open by the cats; they can smell all the empty cat food cans in there.

After opening the gate for my brother, I set myself up by the garage, where the bags are stacked, with a folding camp chair, a crate for the mixed metal and the magnet keychain the salvage yard gave me.

And gloves.

Definitely gloves!

Then my phone started going of with messages from various people, including my SIL, keeping me up to date on their progress, so I would know when to expect them. It was a pleasant surprise that my SIL was able to come along this time.

With all the interruptions, though, I barely got through sorting half a bag before they arrived with the truck driver!

So, of course, I joined them and got some video to sent to them later on.

While my brother and the truck driver got the trailer lined up with where it needed to be, my SIL and I were staying a safe distance away. This put us near the old log building by the fire pit with the collapsed roof. Thinking about by brother’s suggestion to have the metal salvage company come out in the spring, instead of this fall, to give us time to add more to the salvage pile, I decided to take another look inside the log building to confirm my memory.

Yes, there were several old appliances in there, and even an old wringer washer. In fact there is quite a lot of metal in there.

Including…

… what that another grinding wheel sharpening stone? (I’d found another one, several years ago) Also…

… what was that I was seeing next to it?

Something that most definitely NOT be going for salvage!

What a find!

I can’t see well enough to know how this old grindstone was powered. The gears are all ceased, but that can probably be fixed.

If you click through to the next photo, you’ll see the grinding wheel still has its axel, unlike the one I’d found back in 2020. It’s a shame there’s no sign of the pedal powered frame it would have been on, though the pieces may well be buried in there.

I showed them to my SIL and told her, I’m thinking we have enough to have the salvage company come out this fall, then come back again next year. As far as I know, they won’t go into a collapsing shed like this to get stuff, so we’d have to pull out all the metal ourselves.

I forgot to talk to my brother about it, though, by the time the trailer was set and the driver left. They then needed to check inside to make sure nothing fell over or got damaged, so I left them to it and started going through the aluminum again.

They had to leave soon after checking the contents, but they will be back again next week, this time with a friend and a second trailer to haul things! They’re going to be running out of space to store things soon. 😄

After they left, I finished the bag of aluminum I was working on, then headed inside to help my daughter. Today was the day we could finally put up the tub surround!

That took way longer than either of us expected.

The problem was figuring out where exactly to cut the holes for the taps and faucet, then how to cut the holes themselves. We don’t have any hole cutting tools.

After much measuring and marking and measuring some more, my daughter marked out where the holes needed to be on the back of a panel. Then we headed outside and used incrementally larger drill bits to make the holes. My largest drill bit wasn’t going to make a large enough hole, of course, but I could still use it to enlarge the holes before we switched to using a utility knife – one of the alternative tools recommended in the instructions.

Eventually, we got them done and set it over the pipes to see how it fit.

For all her measuring, one of them didn’t.

The problem is, there is nothing level or plumb in our bathroom – neither the walls nor the tub!

We took turns carefully shaving off more and more of the opening over the hot water tap until we could finally get it on, and the panel was flat against the wall.

Which is when my daughter discovered her mistake.

Before we started measuring for the holes, the panels themselves had to be set against the walls, with their positions marked off, so that the corner pieces could properly cover the edges.

She measured and marked the back of the panel, as if it were the front. The whole thing was off by about half an inch.

But only at the top.

🫤

We’ll just have to figure it out.

Last of all, a notch had to be cut out at the top to fit under the shower. The previous tub surround fit under it, but these panels are ever so slightly taller.

They are also ever so slightly narrower. Which means that areas of old adhesive cannot be covered by the new panels.

We will also have a bit chunk of open wall open on one end.

We’ll have to figure out how to work around this.

Meanwhile, I had to move on to other things while my daughter got out the caulking gun to apply the adhesive. I was able to give her a hand as she was finishing with the second panel, then helped her with the third.

After being adhered to the walls as best could be done with how things are, they were taped in place and left to sit for about 20 minutes, before she could remove the protective film, then adhere the corner pieces.

So I headed back outside to work on the aluminum again.

I ended up out there for several house, coming inside only long enough to hydrate or use the bathroom!

Here is how things looked when my daughter finished adding the corner pieces.

It now needs to sit for 48 hours before they can be caulked with a silicone sealant.

Which is probably what we’ll have to use to cover the gap between the panel over the taps, and the corner piece.

Once the sealant has had a chance to fully cure, we will finally be able to put the new taps and faucet back on, and the tub and shower will be useable.

Though we still don’t have hot water.

I was supposed to call and see if we might still be able to get a warranty replacement, but never got to it. Meanwhile, the powered anode rod we ordered is ready for pick up, and I wasn’t even able to do that!

I did, however, get some decent progress on the aluminum.

In the first photo above, you can see the six bags of sorted aluminum. I had only two new clear bags left, so I have been finding ways to salvage bags that weren’t too badly damaged, and reusing them. With the mixed metal removed, and filling the bags as much as I could while still being able to tie them off, I was able to combine at least 8 bags into those six. I wasn’t really keeping track, but … hold on. Maybe I did…

If you click through to the next photo, you can see the rest of the bags that need to be sorted through, on the left. On the right, there’s one bag with mixed metal in it, had half a bag of aluminum (it got too dark to continue). I had to throw away three bags that were too torn up, one of them a smaller blue plastic recycling bag, but a couple of bags were double bagged, and I was able to salvage the outer bags. When putting things aside for the night, I stuffed three empty bags to reuse, into the crate. Not counting the two new bags… That makes 10 bags of that I’ve sorted through, for 6 1/2 bags of aluminum, and almost a full bag of mixed metal.

Tomorrow, I plant to keep at the sorting, then we’ll see how many we can fit into the truck. Unfortunately, we are now expecting to get rain between 8am and noon. If it’s raining, I’ll move the truck out so I can bring the bags into the garage to continue sorting. I don’t expect to be able to head to the salvage yard until the afternoon. After that, I’ll be heading to the nearest Walmart for more cat food. We are almost out!

While was writing this, the Cat Lady started messaging me. She has someone who is looking for two male feral cats – actual ferals – to adopt! That would require trapping. We’ve got a few that we can’t get close enough to see if they are male or female.

We should be able to catch 3 female kittens and one adult female without need of a trap, so she will see about booking us for spays next month.

I told her about my plans to go to the salvage yard with some aluminum tomorrow, then to the Walmart, near where we usually meet up. She had asked me to let her know when I’d be going there next, as she has some cat beds and a cat tree for us! When I told her I was needing to buy kibble, she told me she would get a couple of bags for us, and can meet me tomorrow afternoon. That is so awesome of her! Every little bit helps. That 40 pound bag I got just a little while ago is already almost gone, partly because I had to use it for the inside cats, too.

So that’s my plan for tomorrow, I guess!

Which means I’d better be getting myself to bed.

Until next time, then…

Have a wonderful day!

The Re-Farmer

Before and after, times four

October 20, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Oh, it feels good to have such a productive day!

Even if it wasn’t where I intended it to be. 😄

In the main garden area, I can happily say that the high raised bed is done! Here are the before and after pictures.

I got the first picture after cleaning up all the supports and netting, and collecting all the twist ties, the sheets we used to try and protect the peppers from frost, and finally removed the cover. You can click through to see the “after” photo.

After cleaning up the dead pepper plants and finding shallots that had been missed, the grass clipping mulch was removed and I started loosening the soil and weeding it.

Compaction is a real problem. That soil was rock hard!

After getting out as many weed roots and rhizomes as I could, I dug a trench down the middle of the bed for trench composting. The pepper plants I pulled out where cut into smaller pieces into the trench, and some of the grass clipping mulch went in as well. After the material was covered again and the soil levels, I scattered more grass clippings over the top and used my little hand cultivator to work the clippings into the soil. Hopefully, as it breaks down, it will help keep the soil from compacting so much.

Next, the soil was pulled away from the edged and mounded in the middle. More grass clippings were stuffed against the logs. Especially in the corners where the logs have some gaps, so the soil won’t wash out. Finally, the mound in the middle was leveled out again.

When we get to direct sowing seed to overwinter and, hopefully, get an early start next year, the beds will not be watered. We don’t want them to germinate yet. For now, however, the high raised bed got a thorough watering, to kick start the breakdown of the plants matter buried in the trench. The top of the bed got a scattering of grass clippings to protect the soil.

I was just finishing this when my brother arrived, so I headed out to help him as best I could. They are bringing their storage trailer out tomorrow, and it will be full, so he had brought large concrete pavers that will go under the tires, so it won’t sink into the soil

He also brought two snow blowers.

One of them even works!

Well… the other one does, too, but it has an issue that he needs to tweak for it to run properly.

Which means we will have access to a working snow blower this winter!!

We might get to retire little Spewie – or just use it to make paths around the house, instead of the entire driveway.

With the trailer coming tomorrow, my brother wanted to clear away some low hanging tree branches, so it could get through the more solid part of the driveway past the pump shack.

So, while my brother went to unload some stuff out of his truck, first, I started a different job that needed to be done.

Clearing around the pump shack.

Across from the pump shack is a lilac bush. It had been planted with an old tire around it, but it has spread quite a bit. So I decided to cut the suckers back to the tire, widening the drive again.

Here are the before and after pictures.

First, one corner of the pump shack.

To the left of the first photo, you can see part of a maple that keeps growing back. This has become an unintentional coppice. There are some really nice, straight stems in there. I will leave them for now. I’m hoping they will do well for some future wattle weave garden beds I’m thinking of doing.

I didn’t get the “after” photos until after my brother left, and things were starting to get pretty dark! I had the charger for my mini chainsaw set up in the shack. Very handy.

Most of what got cleared away from this corner was self seeded raspberry bushes.

After clearing this corner, I went to the other side of the drive to work on the lilac bushes until my brother came over to cut the largest branch he was concerned about, which was almost directly above the lilac. I finished clearing the lilac after all the branch cutting was done and cleaned up. Here is the before and after on that.

Now that the south side is cleared away, the suckers growing behind them will get more light. I don’t mind this lilac spreading out to make a bit of a hedge, but not towards the driveway. Once I could access the tire, I could see that the parent plant had long died away. There was nothing but old and rotten pieces of it left. So this bush is basically all suckers from that original, now dead, lilac.

Once that was done, I went back to finish off the other corner of the pump shack.

Here are the before and after pictures of that.

I cleared those trees away back when I dug out my dad’s old makeshift forge, which is now against the wall. It didn’t take long for them to come back!

If you click through to the next photo, you can see what a huge difference it made to clear those away!

When my brother started using his extended pole chainsaw to clear away the big branches, he also used it to cut down the largest of the trees coming up by the pump shack for me, too. I still went back over the stump with my mini chainsaw – there were about 4 stems coming out of one tiny old tree stump! – to get rid of as much of it as I could. Drained one of my batteries in the process!

Most of this clean up was done with a pair of loppers, though. The mini chain saw was only used for the few things too large for the loppers, including the dead lilac stems I uncovered.

All of this, including the branches my brother cut away, went onto the burn pile. Some of the branches will need to be broken down further, though.

The large branches are all maple. As they get broken down, I think I will set some of them aside for fire wood, for future cookouts in the fire pit.

Eventually, we will need to burn that pile. It’s not something that can be chipped, as we have been tossing things like diseased apple trees and squash vines with powdery mildew on them. With how big the pile is getting, this will likely happen after there is snow on the ground, when it will be safer to burn.

My brother had a couple of surprises for us, as well. For my daughter, he brought over an old bike his son had attached a motor to. His son had even used it to get to work! It needs new tires, but he’s pretty sure the motor still works. That would be very handy for quick trips to the post office, rather than taking the truck.

He also gave use several boxes of spray paint, most of which have never been opened, new tubes of caulking, roofing tar and even a caulking gun. All stuff that will come in very handy here, that he doesn’t need anymore.

He even loaned us a socket set. A very unusual one, with all super large sockets! We’ll be able to use it to practice removing the anode rods from the old hot water tanks.

Tomorrow, I’m going to call the hot water tank company. We shouldn’t be able to get another replacement tank on warranty, but it is still within the 6 years, and this tank only lasted one year after installation. It’s worth a shot.

If not, we’ll see about getting replacement heat elements and, hopefully, that will be enough to get it working again. And if we replace the anode rod with the powered one that should arrive next week, they will hopefully last longer, and we won’t have that sulfur smell in our hot water anymore. Even if we do get a warranty tank, we plan to install the powered anode rode. We might be able to get a plumber to install it, too; it won’t be as expensive to have a hot water tank installed, if we already have everything needed.

We shall see.

So that is where we are at now!

Tomorrow, we are looking at another nice day, with an expected high of 20C/68F. While I do plan to work in the garden more, I want to re-bag our aluminum, removing any mixed metals in the process, and see if I can get it to the salvage yard either tomorrow or the day after. The bags are mostly old cat food cans, to the outside cats keep digging in them and making a mess! Plus, once we remove any mixed metals that got in there, we will get a much better price, and I really want to get those bags cleared away.

As for the garden beds, based on the long range forecast, I am looking to have enough beds ready to do the winter sowing in the beginning of November. We’ve got some cooler days coming up, but only one day with possible rain, and then we are supposed to be slightly warmer. There’s even a day predicted to be 22C/72F before the end of October!

We shall see.

Meanwhile, my daughter got the last coat of milder resistant primer over the spacers around the tub. Which means that we can start installing the new tub surround, tomorrow!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

Progress so far

October 19, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

My plans to work outside today have been derailed by high winds.

Hopefully, all the leaves in the yard haven’t been blown away, because I was planning to use them as mulch!

Stuff did get done, though.

But first, the cuteness!

The kibble I picked up yesterday is a different brand from what I’d picked up at the beginning of the month. The pieces are quite a bit smaller. When I set them to soak, it was absolute mush by the time I headed out to feed the kitties.

They didn’t seem to care one whit! They are just loving their warm breakfasts!

Once back inside, my first priority was to see if the leftover pieces of wood lath could be used as spacers in the cutaway portion of the wall around the tub. I was afraid they would be too thick, but they turned out to be the same width as the fake tile paneling. They were too thick for some places that already had spacers of a sort in them. We’ll just have to work around that.

My main focus was around the pipes, and the outer edges. There were also a few nails that simply would not come out, nor could they be hammered in, along the back wall, and I wanted to make sure there were spacers in between them. The areas you can see in the photo above with no spacers added are where there are already spacers of various sizes.

After that was done, my daughter grabbed the tube of mold and mildew resistant sealant. Unfortunately, when she started to apply it with the tip of the tube, the back end of the tub popped open! So she ended up squeezing the sealant out the back and using her finger to scoop it and spread it. If you click through to the second image, you can see part of where she used it. She sealed the cut edges of the openings around the pipes, and every corner and edge around the cut out portion.

She used most of the tub, but there was still a bit left. Since the tub was broken, it wouldn’t last and we didn’t want it to go to waste. I was able to use the last of it for what I’d bought it for in the first place; this stuff is both sealant and adhesive, and I used it along the edge of the overlapping roof panels on the cat isolation shelter.

Unfortunately, there is just no way to clamp it down. I put weights on, but some places still just did not want to stay together. We will just pick up another tube – this stuff is very inexpensive – and go over it again later. The catio roof needs to be seals, too.

Working on that roof was somewhat alarming, though. I’m glad the entire structure is as heavy as it is! It’s in a sheltered area, but not from the south winds we have today. The south facing edge of the roof panel was being rattled by the wind quite a lot.

Thankfully, we screwed the roof panels down quite securely. It could still potentially get blown off, but it’s not that bad, yet. We will need to keep an eye on it, though, because the wind could loosen, if not tear off, some of the screws.

Speaking of which, I was curious about what is officially considered “high winds” so I looked it up.

Did you know there is a wind scale, like there is an earthquake scale? It’s call the Beaufort wind scale.

According to the weather app, we’re getting 30kph winds. On the Beautfort scale, that is a “fresh breeze”, when “Small trees with leaves begin to sway.”

Yeah, I’m calling BS on that. Based on what I was seeing when I was outside, we are somewhere between a 6 and a 7 on their chart – a “strong breeze” or “near gale”, with the occasional “gale” gust strong enough to take down branches. I’m finding small branches all over the place, these days.

Anyhow… where was I?

Ah, yes. Sealant.

The sealant needs a full 36 hours to dure. After that, everything will get one last coat of paint.

Once that is dry, we can try and figure out exactly where we need to cut holes into the tub surround to fit over the plumbing.

So we’re looking at a couple more days before we can start installing the tub surround.

Since there is nothing more we can do in the bathroom for now, and it’s too windy to work in the garden outside, my daughter and I really pushed to get as many dishes done as we could. Without hot water, we’ve been mostly just using the kettle for hot water, which doesn’t go very far when it comes to doing dishes. This time, we filled up our stock pots (not the giant one; that would be too heavy for our glass top stove) to heat, then kept refilling and heating more. We were finally able to get those odd items that gets set to one side as we do loads of things we use the most often that somehow never get done.

My older daughter, who was working all night on commissions, sent me some funds for take out, so as the last of the dishes were being done, I headed into town to pick that up. We’ve had more take out in this month than we’ve had in years!

When I opened the garage door for the truck, I saw something curious on the tailgate.

Tiny little hand prints in the dust, from something that was climbing up to the box cover.

Those are not kitty paw prints, that’s for sure. Those are tiny little racoon hand prints!

What I don’t know is, why would racoons be climbing the truck? The box is empty, and there isn’t even food garbage anywhere in the truck or garage.

As long as they don’t damage anything…

Anyhow…

The sealant in the bathroom needs dry conditions as it cures, so no one is going to be heating up stock pots of water and use the tub for washing. Back to sponge bathing in the sink!

With getting as many dishes done as we were able to, though, I was able to set up the slow cooker with just water in it. That can be left without someone continually there to keep an eye on it, and we’ll have a larger amount of hot water handy for general washing and can just top it up as needed. Much better than our poor, over worked kettle! Our kettle is clear glass, and we can see just how quickly the rust and scale builds up! My older daughter gave it a good scrubbing last night.

Well, we might not be able to get more done in the bathroom until the sealant cures, not work done outside, so I guess this is a good day to collect the ripened tomatoes and peppers in the living room and see if there is enough to process for the winter!

Time to get back to it, then!

The Re-Farmer

Testing, testing…

October 17, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Yes! We have major progress!

But first, the cuteness.

I did my evening rounds after giving the outside cats their evening feeding. As I was coming back to the hose, I saw this adorable face watching me.

We can most definitely consider Kohl well socialized now – and boy, does she ever want to get into the house! It’s a good thing we have the old kitchen as a buffer zone. She and several others often manage to dash inside while I’m struggling with the doors and a bowl full of warm kibble for them.

The Cat Lady was asking me if we could be able to catch any females for spaying this fall. Among the kittens, we should be able to easily catch at least two – Kohl and Magda – and possibly a third. There’s also one adult female we should be able to catch, but the clinic that we’ve been going to has special pricing for spaying cats under 6 months old now. Kohl may be too old for that now, though. She is from the very first litter of the year.

Meanwhile…

I’m happy to say, the parts and pieces of plumbing for the tup that needed to be replaced, have been replaced. We were able to attach the fixtures, turn on the water and test it out.

While my daughter was working on the other side of the wall, I stayed on the tub side to turn things on and off whenever she told me to. I took advantage of the wait in between to scrub and clean as much as I could, then scrape off any remaining old caulk that I could find. In the process I discovered that I could scrape off much of the rust and scale that had accumulated under the hot water tap when it leaked during use. CLR wasn’t getting it all for a reason!

After the first test, we found that the cold water was leaking at the tub, while the hot water was leaking at a Pex to copper join in the basement. My daughter spent the next while tightening and taping everything, while getting me to turn the taps and shower on, as needed.

It looks like we finally have everything tight and leak free!

My daughter is just amazing. She was working in some really tight spaces. Especially in the basement, which had the added issue of cobwebs to deal with, even though she did sweep away most of them, first.

My daughter does not do well with spiders, so her doing that is really, really something.

Once the testing was done, the water was shut off again, and the fixtures removed again.

The next step will be to add mold and mildew resistant sealant around the tub edge, in the corners, and anywhere else that looks like it needs it. I will be bringing some wood lath over from the garage to place in strategic areas where the paneling was cut out, so the tub surround will have something to adhere to in that area. Only if it’s thin enough, though. It might be too thick. We shall see.

If we do add the wood, the cut out area will get another coat of the mold and mildew resistant primer.

Then, once everything has had a chance to dry and cure, we will finally be able to install the tub surround.

Last of all, we put back the arm bars.

In between all that, we need to pick up a couple of heat elements for the hot water tank. Hopefully, that will be enough to get us hot water again. I would hate to have to buy another tank, considering how much the price has increased since we got the last warranty replacement in 2020.

I’m not sure when we’d be able to do this, though. I got a call from my mother tomorrow, telling me “her fridge is empty “my fridge is empty!”

She isn’t actually out of food; that’s just her way of telling me she needs a shopping trip.

Still, she was wanting me to come over today! I told her I was going to be helping with the plumbing today, so it’s arranged for tomorrow. She has her Meals on Wheels coming in tomorrow, so I don’t need to leave as early to pick up a lunch for us. She still needs to get to the bank; she wasn’t up to it last time. I was hoping my sister would have been able to come over with her smaller car to help her, but she and her husband are out of province right now. So my mother will have to clamber into our truck again!

I’m not sure how long I will be gone tomorrow, but I still hope to get at least a little bit more garden clean up done. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cooler than today was, but it’s then supposed to warm up for a few days – there’s even a high of 21C/70F in the forecast! – so I hope to get more done on those days and, if all goes to plan, start direct sowing seed for next year’s garden.

We shall see!

Meanwhile, I’m going to start heating up water so I can actually bathe. The tub now is clean enough to use instead of the sink!

Man, we have had to heat water to bathe way to many times since moving out there! 😄😄

The Re-Farmer

Progress! But still no shower or hot water

October 15, 2024October 15, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Okay, so we DID get progress today. Honest!

My main thing was to go into town and talk to my favourite manager. We spent a lot of time looking at the photos I took of the bathtub plumbing, and things like whether or not we will be replacing the copper pipe for the shower with Pex as well as the hot and cold water pipes. Plus, we’d need to replace the pipe to the spout, which is completely different and would be removed with all the other old parts, since it would be soldered in place with lead, too.

My brother had talked about using Shark Bite fittings, but the manager suggested it would be better – and cheaper – to use Pex crimps. That meant getting a crimping tool, which is something we’ll need in the long term, anyway, and a Pex cutting tool. I wish I had that when I bought Pex (a different type) to use on one of the raised bed covers.

As we went through various fittings and joins, crimps and, of course, the Pex pipe, etc., there was one type of fitting they only had two of. We figured I would need at least six. He called another store for me and confirmed they had plenty in stock, so once I was done with the local store, I drove to the next town up the highway to get the rest.

He assured me that, anything we don’t use, we can return. Just hang on to the receipt for both stores, because if we want to return anything, we would have to return them to the store we bought them from, even though they are the same franchise.

I am really hoping we got everything we need.

While I was doing that, my younger daughter scrubbed the exposed walls around the tub, treated it with an anti-mold and mildew spray cleaner, then left the fan running on it. She did that a second time and, when that was dry, she started painting the exposed walls with the mold and mildew resistant primer. So far, that has two coats. I think it’ll need a third.

Once that is done, it will be ready to have the tub surround installed – whenever that will be!

Once I got home, my daughter and I went through the parts and pieces. I was already forgetting what was what. My daughter knew what she was looking at, though.

Having daughters that both used to work in a hardware store comes in very handy at times!

She was in between coats of paint, so I grabbed some tools and headed to the basement. I wanted to see if we could use one of the top elements from the old hot water tanks, and see how to remove the anode rod.

*sigh*

Since both tanks died because they started leaking out the bottom, the bottom panels were already open. Damage on those ones is visible from the outside. I uncovered the top panel on one of the tanks and removed the wires to get a good look.

Hmmm…

After consulting the manual, I realized I would not be able to take them out. There is a special tool – basically, a large socket – to remove them, and we don’t have one.

So I shifted to the anode rod.

Now, this is supposed to be easy. Pop off the cap, remove the anode rod and you’re done.

The cap did NOT want to come off.

I should have been able to slide the tip of a Standard screwdriver under the edge and lever it up, but the edge all around the cap just bent. Eventually, I was able to jam the screwdriver down between the edge of the cap and the metal and pop it off, breaking off something under it in the process.

The opening was full of foam insulation. Oddly, there seemed to be text in the foam. I had to take a flash picture of it to be able to see that yes, there was writing – and it was backwards. Looking at the underside of the cap, I could see the writing that was imprinted into the foam insulation.

There was nothing about this in the manual.

I dug out the insulation until the top of the anode rod was finally uncovered.

Oh… something else that needs a socket.

Back to the tool kit I go and come back with the largest socket we’ve got.

It wasn’t large enough.

*sigh*

So I wasn’t able to get either the rod or the heat element out. With the rod, I just need to know how to do it, for when the powered rod comes in and we replace the one in the current tank. I’d hoped to get the heat elements out and see if at least one of them is still good, so we can switch it out for the burnt out one in the current tank.

I guess I’ll be going back to the hardware store tomorrow. The tool for the heat element is $25. A large socket ranges from about $9 to $14.

I’m certainly glad we still had the old hot water tanks in the basement that I could use to find this out. It would have really sucked to find this out on the current tank!

Since I couldn’t do any more there, it was time to finally start putting away and cleaning up in the garage, so we can finally park the truck in there again, now that the cat isolation shelter is out.

When bringing stuff to store here at the farm, my brother brought me a couple of crane boxes. I have no idea what makes them a “crane” box, other than they are rated to hold up to 1000 pounds. One of them got crushed a bit, but it was still useable. They actually came in handy as surfaces I could use to hold the clear plastic for the isolation shelter. I was able to cut in a gap between the boxes, and have weights on either side to reduce vibration. It worked really well.

The garage walls are unfinished, with exposed joists. When I moved off the farm, the garage was just a single “room”, all the walls were exterior walls, with shiplap boards covering the outside. Over the years, lean to additions were added to each side.

My brother had brought scrap wood they were intending to add to the burn pile, but there was a lot of useful wood in there that I kept, instead. From those scraps, I was able to cut three supports per box and attach them to wall joists, using the shiplap boards as a guide to keep them even, since I didn’t have a level with me.

The boxes each had three “feet” on their bottoms that reached from side to side, made up of stacks of what looks like plywood, nailed and glued together. Unfortunately, they were spaced in such a way that, while two of them could fit in the space between the wall joists, the third one did not. So each box had to have one of these “feet” removed.

That was NOT an easy job. They were nailed together from both the inside and the outside, plus the inside had extra long staples into them.

I had a pry bar handy, though, and was able to get them off.

Once that was done, I could put the boxes on the supports, with the bottoms against the joists. They then got screwed directly to the joists, as well as the supports.

The supports are all longer than the boxes are deep. The boxes have lids. Once I get some larger hinges, I will attach the lids with hinges on the bottoms. This way, they can be opened from the top to form a surface. It will make it harder to reach what’s inside, but I figured having that would be useful enough to be worthwhile.

Once the boxes were hung up, I had someplace to start putting things on my work table away, rather than returning them all to the sun room. Last winter, the cats knocked way too many things down to the ground, so I want to avoid storing things there, if I can.

Here is how it looks like now.

Eventually, we’ll be making more shelves against the walls, and I will be able to clear the space under these boxes. That’s all on a makeshift shelf that’s just a piece of scrap plywood sitting on top of a couple of 5 gallon pails on their sides. It was meant to be temporary. We just haven’t gotten to working on organizing the garage, yet. There’s just too much stuff in there that I have no idea what to do with.

These boxes have enough space in them that we could probably add another shelf across the middle. Maybe in just one of them, and leave the other open for larger items.

That done, I was able to finish clearing off my work table, saving some of the wood scraps for future projects, while others will go to the fire pit, moving the miter saw, and so on, and the work table got folded up and set on the swing bench in where my mother’s car is stored.

The saw horses that I’d been using while painting now had a screen over it to hold the curing shallots. My daughter wants them to cure a while longer before braiding them, so that got moved in front of the swing bench.

Then came the finicky part.

Getting the floor safe to drive on.

I’d already fired up the compressor to pump the flat tire on my mother’s care, then used the air to clear off the sawdust on the work table. For the next while, I used the compressed air to blow away the sawdust on the ground, too.

I’m glad I did, because I found quite a few shards of glass in there! I have no idea where they came from, or how long they’ve been there.

Eventually, I got to the point where I could start raking the dirt floor, and used a magnet to find any nails or other metal bits that might have been lost.

I had to consider what to do with my brother’s lawn tractor. There isn’t room for it in the lean to’s on either side of the garage, and I don’t want it stored in the barn. I ended up moving some bins to the other side of the garage, where they are now being used to hold recycling. There was a lot of weird odds and ends in the ground under them, like rusted out bolts and very old spark plugs that predate us living her for quite some time. The area got raked and cleaned and raked again before I went over it with a magnet.

In the end, I still wasn’t confident in the space. I had rolled up the protective cover that the clear roof panels were wrapped in. It’s got a waterproof surface on one side. I decided to lay that out on the ground against the wall, and that’s what the lawn tractor is now sitting on, close enough to the wall that the truck has plenty of space.

After a bit more raking and a bit more searching with the magnet – and finding more bits of glass in the oddest of places! – I was confident enough to get the keys and park the truck in the garage.

Finally!

By the time that was all done, my daughter had finished more coats of paint in the bathroom.

So while we still don’t have the plumbing fixed, we still don’t have hot water (though if we leave it long enough, we do have very warm water at times), we did get some good progress today.

The next six days are supposed to be warmer, so I’m hoping to be able to finally work on cleaning up garden beds, but if my daughter needs help with the plumbing, that’s the priority.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

What a great day, with some excellent updates

October 11, 2024 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I am really happy with how things have turned out today!

First, we have the cat isolation shelter.

It took all day, but it is now useable! It has been moved close to the house, and the cats love it. Here is a short video I took to post on Instagram.

I was able to make the sliding doors, but one of them turned out to be a real pain. The wood lath covering the insulation on the other side, were not all the same widths, with some sticking out further than others. There was no way the panel could slide over it. So I made a stopper, instead, and it can only slide the other way. We’ll just have to be careful not to slide it out so far that it’ll fall out.

The other side was downright easy, after that!

Once those were in, I got my daughter to hold the front window in place while I drilled some pilot holes and put screws into the corners. Once that was done, she could let it go, and we added more screws to secure it.

Then, finally, we could put the roof pieces on.

Which turned out to not be as long as the boards they were being attached to. We have excess wood sticking out, front and back The back is the “handle” to lift the roof, anyhow, so I’m not too concerned about that, though at some point we’ll want to replace the strip of wood lath across the back with something sturdier. As for the pieces sticking out the front, I ended up using them to help steer as we moved it. We might cut them flush with the roof later, though.

I had to abandon my daughter part way through moving it, as my brother arrived with another load to drop off. After greeting him and he went to unload, I had a chance to take a short video of the isolation shelter. My daughter had left it in an open spot for me to do that. Eventually, I will put together a video of the entire process, which dragged on for so much longer than expected. After that, I moved the shelter closer to the house.

The door/ramp doesn’t have a latch, though – the ones I had were not large enough – so it kept dropping open, even though we’d taped it shut. The down side of using salvaged materials. One of the boards of the ramp cracked after hitting the ground. I had to add a couple more screws to fix it. Which was fine, but it required closing the door to do it.

The kitten that was inside the shelter was not happy about that! 😄

The last thing that really needs to be done is to find a latch for the door/ramp. We also need to get more paint, but that’s mostly cosmetic.

Once we work out exactly where it will stay for the winter, we’ll hang the clamp lamp with the heat bulb under the roof and get that ready for plugging in for the winter, preferably with a timer. I’d also like to attach handles to make it easier to move. The handles I had that I thought we could use are not strong enough.

After moving the isolation shelter closer to the other cat shelters, I grabbed a couple of winter squash as a gift for my brother, and went to join him while he worked. While we were there, we started hearing a noise.

A noise he identified as splashing water on metal.

From the septic expeller.

I couldn’t believe that’s what we were hearing, so we went to take a look. Sure enough, there was water coming out of the pipe!

It was not coming out as well as it should have been; it was almost dribbling down the outer pipe, and the sheet of metal that’s there to prevent erosion at the base was being partially missed. The pipe itself is leaning a bit back and to one side, instead of being straight up, which I’m sure isn’t helping, either.

I’m amazed that it was working at all. I was just there earlier today, taking photos, and saw no sign that water was being ejected from that pipe.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention!

With the one septic company ghosting us, I called the other and left a message this morning. The owner called me back less than half an hour later. They will be able to do the job for us. They are really busy and he couldn’t tell me when they can come out to fix the leak – it might be 3 or 4 weeks – but he told me that they could do the work even if the ground were frozen.

So that was definitely good news!

He asked me for photos of the expeller. While I was there, I made a point of looking to see if there was any sign that greywater has been flowing over the sheet of metal. That fact that there is some water flowing out the pipe, and not all just seeping into the ground, is actually a bit of a weight off my shoulders, making the timing of getting the repair done is not quite as urgent.

So that was more good news.

My brother had been able to come out sooner than he expected. It was still light out when he was done unloading, so he and I did a walkabout, including out to the car graveyard and the old farm equipment. I now know which things he wants to keep, and what can go to the scrap dealer – and it’s added a lot more to what the salvage company can come out for!

Oh, it’s going to be good to clear out this stuff.

My brother then came in to take a look at the bathroom, and the rot on the walls.

In the end, he said it’s not actually that bad. He said he wouldn’t bother taking it out at all, which would require taking the tub out. He suggested we just fix the taps from the other side, then cover it all with the new tub surround we already have.

Then we went around to the other side of the wall to talk about cutting an access panel. He’s pretty sure there is more aspenite under the paneling. We could take off the entire panel, but that would require removing the molding that’s over it, too. He suggested drilling through from the bathroom side to mark where to cut. Which is what I had been thinking, but only after cutting away the rotted aspenite around the taps. We have to figure out where the joists are; they should be 16″ apart, but the bathroom was installed while he was away in college, so he never saw how things were done.

So that is more good news. We don’t have to remove the tub and cut more of the walls away. He recommended we treat the aspenite with bleach, but we have some anti-mold product specifically for bathrooms we can use.

We can now put together a plan of action to get things fixed so we can use our tub and shower again!

Then my brother got his meter and we went to check the hot water tank – after shutting off the breaker! He tested the elements, and it turns out that it is the top element that is burnt out. The bottom one is working fine.

So we’ll be looking into getting a replacement for the top element.

I told him about the powered anode rod we are getting. Looking at the outlet near the hot water tank, I mentioned my thought of unplugging the extension cord that goes into my husband’s closet, then moving the plug for the well pump up, so we have room to plug in the new rod.

He advised against it.

As he put it, we’re already on borrowed time with that well pump, and he wouldn’t touch anything if it can be avoided.

We looked at the other outlet, where the sump pump is plugged in. He suggested running an extension cord from there, instead.

I will trust his advice and do that.

So we’re still without use of the tub and shower, and have only tepid water, but we now have a better idea of what to do next.

Which will be to get at the plumbing for the faucet set from the bedroom side and get that working, first. Then, even if it takes longer to get to the point we can install the tub surround, we can temporarily put plastic over where it’s cut open, so we can use the tub and not have to keep sponge bathing!

So… I rate that as more good news.

There was only one hiccup in the day that is more strange than anything else.

While my brother was unloading his truck, he got a voice mail notification on his cell phone – but his phone never rang. He joked that it was our vandal, because that’s who it was the last time this happened.

Well, after he left our place, my brother checked the voice mail, and it really was from our vandal!

I’ll get a copy of the message later, but it was much the same as last time. He’s wondering why my brother is “catering” to me – and we have no idea what he’s talking about. He also said that his doctor told him that the reason he got cancer is because of us, and that we are evil, evil, evil! He’s dying of cancer, and it’s our fault.

???

I’d say, he was drinking behind his wife’s back again.

At least he didn’t threaten us with “retribution” so extreme, even the Pope would be reading about it in a magazine, this time.

We are perplexed as to what triggered the call. Particularly since my brother was here when the voice mail was left. My brother thinks our vandal has been watching us, and saw that my brother had arrived, but I don’t see how.

Whatever the reason, my brother has our vandal’s number blocked, so he shouldn’t have been able to leave any voice mail message at all. The phone company is going to be getting a call about it, that’s for sure!

One thing else is for sure. When the scrap metal company comes to clean things up, we will have to watch out for our vandal, because he is going to go ballistic. He believes all this stuff rightfully belongs to him – but then, he thinks the entire property rightfully belongs to him.

Well, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. I’ll just be glad to get all this stuff cleaned out – and I’m sure the renter will be glad to see it gone, too, since his cows graze around almost all of it!

Oh, and I told my brother about the guy that wants to buy a couple of cars for parts, and how he will need to bring in special equipment to be able to get them out. I also told my brother that I’d arranged for him to use part of the money for the cars to pay back the guy that put a down payment on the old Farm Hand tractor, since I could see my brother wasn’t happy with the sale. My brother was happy to hear this.

So good news for him, too!

It’s just been a good day, overall, I’d say!

The Re-Farmer

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