progress

Baby bed, drainage and feeling frustrated

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Would you look at this tiny worm?

I found a cardboard carton large enough for the mama to fit comfortably in and lined it with one of the blankets the Cat Lady donated to us for the kitties. Unfortunately, I really spooked the mom when I opened the door; enough that she ran out the hole in the back of the shed she’d been using to get in and out. I suppose that made it easier, since I didn’t have to worry about her reactions. I quickly put the baby in the bed box outside the shed, cleared the netting and other odds and sots where the baby had been lying, fit the bed box in, and left. The whole thing probably took less than a minute to do.

Picking up that tiny baby, though. Wow! It must have been maybe hours old, the first time I spotted them a few days ago.

The mother is Baby Beep Beep, which means she is NOT the mother of any of the sun room kittens.

In other things, we got quite a lot of rain last night. I’d used the rain barrel to water the front garden beds, as it was full to the top, and got it down to maybe a quarter or a bit less. This morning, it was full to the top. Not overflowing, but close, so I put the diverter on for now. We’re expecting more little thunderstorms passing through tomorrow. This morning, I was hearing thunder around us, and even got rained on a bit.

The potted herbs on the front step seem to be doing well. The lemongrass is getting taller. The spearmint in one pot by itself, and the thyme and oregano in the other, seem to be recovering from being transplanted well. Those two post have drainage holes and are sitting on trays, but the pot the lemon grass is in does not have any drainage holes. As I was weeding, I could see it was way too wet, so I just got a hammer and a nail and made one drainage hole.

I got this picture after it had been draining for more than half a minute, and there was still lots of pressure!

The bottom and sides of the pot are lined with grass clippings, and I don’t really mind there being some water accumulated in the clippings. Having a drainage hole higher up will work well, I think. It’s not like I could tip the pot and put holes in the bottom!

The down side is that, after weeding the Chinese elms that were sprouting in that pot, my hands smell like stagnant water. Yes, I’ve washed them. Several times. The smell still lingers. Ick.

I moved the last of the Jiffy Pellet trays to the steps near these pots. There is still that one Lemon Cucumber that sprouted, nothing else. It’s probably too late in the season, but when it gets its true leaves, I’ll find somewhere to transplant it. One cucumber plant is better than none.

This has been a very frustrating gardening year. The intension had been to expand the garden again, or at least use as much as what we did last year. With the weather and the heat, we weren’t able to build those trellis beds in time, which means two large sections, where we’d planted potatoes and melons last year, aren’t being used at all. We got transplants in, but didn’t have room for all of them, which means we have far fewer paste tomatoes than I intended. That was the one type I wanted to have a lot more of, since making our own tomato paste last year went over so well. Along with the weather and heat issues, I’ve lost more than a few days that would have been good days to work outside, because I had to help my mother out, and she demands I take a “holiday” when I’m with her, and not be “in a hurry” to leave. When I point out I have work to do, she just says, “what work? You don’t have cows!”

*sigh*

We didn’t do anywhere near as much direct sowing as intended, because there weren’t enough prepared beds to sow into. As it is, we had to use the old kitchen garden differently then intended, just to get things in the ground. That’s okay. Normally, I’m quite flexible about such things, but after a while, it just gets frustrating. In the end, instead of expanding the garden this year, we’ve got a smaller garden then last year. One positive thing, at least, is that we aren’t having the no good, terrible growing year we had last year!

I was feeling good about the garden in many ways. We have tomatoes growing and starting to produce fruit. The Gold Ball turnips, which disappeared last year, are growing well. Yes, something is eating the leaves, but not enough to hinder their growth. We’ve got two types of carrots, and both are doing well. The bush beans are struggling a bit, but they’re growing. Even the tiniest of onion transplants – the ones so small, they probably shouldn’t have been transplanted at all – are picking up. I’m happy to see so many pea pods forming, even though the plants themselves seem a lot shorter than I expected them to get. I think it’s the squash patch that is most encouraging. They failed so badly last year, and now I’m seeing the winter squash getting big and strong. It even looks like we’ve won the battle against the slugs! I’ll just have to keep up with sprinkling that corn meal. We might actually have fully mature winter squash to harvest this year

The melons germinated so late, they probably won’t get a chance to produce fully mature fruit, but they are recovering from being transplanted nicely and, you never know; we might get a long, mild fall and the frosts will hold off until late in the year again.

Then I see people sharing pictures on the local and Zone 3 gardening groups I’m on, showing their huge plants and talking about the vegetables they’re already harvesting. How can they be harvesting beans already? How is their corn so tall? One person was even eating fresh tomatoes! In June!

I try to remind myself that Zone 3 is about winter temperatures, and covers a large, geographically diverse area, so a lot of these people have a last frost date in the middle of May. Even with local groups, most of the members live well south of us. With this year’s very early and warm spring, even people with later frost dates took a chance and planted earlier. We’ve also had a decent amount of rain, though some people did lose or partially lose their gardens to driving rain, winds or hail.

Still, seeing all those photos of huge, lush garden growth and harvests, suddenly my garden seems really pathetic, and way behind, without even taking into account the things we didn’t get built in time to use this year.

I know better than to compare our situation to others, because it’s so different, but when I’m already feeling so far behind, it’s easy to start feeling down about the whole thing.

Things are supposed to cool down over the next few days, and the storms are supposed to stop for a while. Which means we should finally be able to chop our way through the undergrowth and get those trees my brother cut down for me! This should have been done weeks ago.

Well, it is what it is.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Stuck

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

As things cooled down, I was able to get some stuff done outside, which had me in and out of the sun room quite a bit.

I had to be careful not to step on any kittens!

Yes, most of them were running away and hiding, but a couple of them were not.

This is why.

Now I understand why I kept seeing this kitten doing things like napping in the middle of the floor, or just moving around slowly. It can’t see.

One eye was completely stuck closed, and the other was open, but not wide open.

I was able to pick it up and gently dampen the eye until the gunk finally started to come off. The kitten was not happy with the rubbing on the eye, of course, even though I was more about getting it wet then actually rubbing. After a while, though, I got the big stuff off and the eye started to open, so I left it at that. I didn’t want to push things too far.

There was another kitten with gummy eyes, but it was just around the eye lids, not gluing them shut, so it would still see. We will have to make cleaning those eyes a regular thing. That’s one way to socialize them, I guess. Handle them while their eyes are stuck shut!

The good thing is, the kittens are starting to eat kibble, which means they’re going to get the lysine it’s coated in. That will help them fight off the herpes that’s causing this. If things start getting worse instead of better, we’ll see about getting eye drops for them.

While I was tending to the kitten, Baby Beep Beep came in, with a mouse. She growled constantly as she ate it, but didn’t leave! I think she might be the mom of the littlest kittens. Later on, I saw Adam skulking around the door – with another mouse hanging out of her mouth! Towards the end of the day, when I was ready to come in, I found her lying just inside the doorway, nursing. She’s the mom of the bigger kittens – the black and white ones that look so much like her! That means the grey and white cat I’ve been seeing in the sun room (I believe the girls call that one Pistachio), would be the mother of the in between sized kittens, including the ones with the gooby eyes.

I’m still not sure who the mother of the tuxedo is. I’ve seen him try to nurse on a grey and white, but she wouldn’t let him, so either it was his mother enforcing weaning, or another mother, refusing to nurse a kitten that isn’t hers.

As things started to cool down, I was able to empty most of the rain barrel to water the front garden beds. Then I went around to use a hose in the main garden area. While doing the squash patch, I hoped to see some frogs using the little houses we made for them, but so far, nothing. I also wasn’t seeing any slugs, so that’s encouraging. The second sowing of summer squash still hasn’t germinated. Looks like we’re going to be very short of summer squash this year!

For the tomato beds, I hooked up the sprinkler hoses, and remembered to get some ground staples to hold them in place, facing slightly inwards, so the inside of the beds are being watered, not the paths. The soaker hose takes a lot longer to deeply water the bed, and that gave me time to remove the old straw and what’s left of the cardboard underlay in the area the trellis beds will be built. Once the beds are built, and the vertical posts for the trellis are in, the old straw will be layered back into the beds.

I’d watered the Crespo squash, in the bed far from the house, with the watering can earlier in the day, so the rain barrel out there was due for a refilling, too. After using the watering can, I always leave it full of water, so it doesn’t blow away. When I used that first can of water, it sure was warm from the day’s heat! Not hot enough to harm the squash, thankfully.

When I was done and heading back to the house, I startled some creatures at the kibble house. Racoons. A whole family of them! One big one ran off – I think the same one I’ve been seeing fairly regularly, by itself – but then I saw about four of five little ones and an adult run off. Some of them ran under the laundry platform, which is accessible only though the spaces between the steps. From the noise, I think there was a bit of a panic when they realized they couldn’t get out any other way. I made sure to stay back and to the side, so they couldn’t see me, and could get back out.

Gosh, racoons are cute. Especially when they are little!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: watering set up

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was able to set up hoses in the three beds with tomatoes in them.

The black soaker hose is definitely the one I prefer to use. It does take longer, and directly waters only the soil directly below it, rather than the plants beside it, but if left running long enough, it allows for a gentle, deep watering.

As for the sprinkler hoses… they’ll do for now!

One of them – the one in the bed with the turnips – is a new dollar store purchase. The spray zone is larger than I expected, and I had to fuss with it so that the hose was on its side and spraying into the bed, instead of watering the grass in the paths! The connector does not rotate freely, though, making it difficult to attach the garden hose without twisting the sprinkler hose. I wouldn’t expect much out of a dollar store hose. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the end of the hose, which is just heat sealed, gives out. 😄

The other sprinkler hose is one of two I found while cleaning up around a junk pile in the yard. I have no idea how old they were, but one of them ended up cracking and had to be tossed, last year. This one has much tinier holes than the dollar store one, so the spray is gentler, but it seems like a lot of them are blocked or partially blocked. The holes were also so small, I couldn’t tell which side of the hose was “up”. Once I had that figured out, I set it to spray inwards as well, and ended up having to use bricks to hold it in place, as it is far less flexible. Later on, I’ll dig out the ground staples I picked up awhile back, and use those to hold the sprinkler hoses in position, and also keep them from flipping on top of the onions!

I keep hearing that tomatoes should never be watered from above, because if the leaves get wet, they’ll get diseased. Not sure how they survive being rained on, if that’s true, but I try to avoid it if I can. With the setup I have now, the sprinkler hoses are still getting the leaves wet. Just from below, instead of from above! Still, it’s a lot gentler than using the spray nozzle on the hose, and while it will take longer to water the beds and it will mean moving the garden hose from bed to bed, it should be more efficient to water them this way. Plus, I can just hook up the hose and move on to other work until it’s time to move the hose to another bed.

When we convert these beds to high raised beds, I want to think about different watering systems to set up. Since we plan to fill the high raised beds hügelkultur style, they shouldn’t need a lot of watering, but some things just need more water than others.

I’m just looking at the forecast for the next week.

*sigh*

Why is it that the one day it’s not expected to be insanely hot, it’s also the day I will be driving my mother around, and won’t be able to do much work outside?

The Re-Farmer

This and that

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had an adorable surprise when I headed out this morning!

The tuxedo kitten is back!

We haven’t seen the litter of four, for a while. I suspect the mama moved them across the road, to the empty farm buildings there. Quite a few of the mamas seem to move back and forth from there. We had been seeing six kittens together for a while, including this tuxedo, but the other two have not been seen for even longer. That this one is now showing up alone suggests the other did not survive after being moved. I do wish the mamas wouldn’t move their kittens around that that, but it seems to be an instinctive thing for them, no matter how safe of a location they happen to have their kittens at any particular time.

You can just see it in the photo, but this tuxedo actually has stripes! I was able to walk past fairly close before it ran and hid, and one time I got a good, clear look at his side (and yes, I’m 99% sure it is male). His black fur has dark grey stripes in it that can’t even be seen at some angles.

I’m pretty sure the white and grey sharing the kibble tray is its mama. Not completely sure, though. It has mostly been alone, though it also interacts and plays with the other adult cats.

Today was expected to be a hot one, so I made sure to get some things done in the garden, before giving it all a good watering. I’m glad I did. We were expected to reach 27C/81F for a high. As I write this, at almost 7pm, we’re still at 28C/82F – only one degree short of the record high for today.

I direct sowed more summer squash this morning – four out of the five varieties that were planted. The G-Star (green) patty pans are doing well. No Magda squash germinated at all, and when I loosened the soil to plant new seeds, there was no sign of the old seeds. The germination rate for the Goldy (yellow) and Endeavour (green) zucchini, as well as the Sunburst (yellow) patty pans was very low, and with some, the seedlings were not looking very strong.

We lost one Honeyboat Delicata to slugs, and I considered planting a few more summer squash in the empty hill, but decided to try an experiment. I took some of the Jiffy pellets that had the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons in them, and transplanted them. One broke up a bit as I did, and I could actually see an intake seed in it, so it is actually possible they might germinate in the new location. We shall see! No harm in trying.

When I transplanted the zucca melon and drum gourds into the bigger squash hill, I mulched in between the transplants, but didn’t have enough to mulch the sides of the hill. Well, I’ve got lots of grass clippings for mulch right now, so I took care of that, this morning. The main reason it was needed was to prevent the sides from eroding when the hill was watered. I was happy to see that a the transplants – aside from the one the slugs ate – are looking strong and healthy. They are liking this heat! We will have to make sure they get watered often, though. Especially ones like the zucca and Crespo squash, which are supposed to grow very large fruit. The Crespo have lots of flowers on them, but they’re all still male flowers, so I’m hoping more watering will help with that. Where they are is far from the house, gets full sun all day, and the soil out there gets dry very quickly, so we could probably get away with watering them twice a day, if we were up to it. Along with watering everything, I topped up the rain barrel by the Crespo squash, too. I keep a watering can beside it, full of water to is doesn’t blow away, and it’s amazing how warm the water in there got, even though it was still morning, and a few hours before we’d hit the high of the day.

When feeding the cats, I realized we would run out of kibble faster than expected, and before our monthly shopping. Since I’m going to be taking my mother to her eye appointment tomorrow, I decided to do a Walmart trip today. The price difference is worth the cost of gas to drive that far, but of course, I had to combine errands to make it even more worth while! The egg lady was going to be in town tomorrow, but I wasn’t sure if I’d be done with my mother in time to meet her there, so I contacted her and arranged to swing by her place on my way home today. Then, while at the Walmart, I remembered to pick up new hose connectors. I couldn’t remember if I needed to replace male or female connectors, so I got one of each. I drove over the hoses at the front tap by mistake, when unloading the car, which normally would have been okay, except I happened to catch one of the connectors on the sidewalk. More specifically, the metal part under the connector. So while the two hoses connected to each other were fine, the bent metal part resulted in water spraying from where the connector joined the hose.

While looking at the connectors, I also noticed an L shaped swivel connector for the tap, so I grabbed one of those, too.

Once at home, it took me more time to cut off the broken hose connector than it did to fix the hose! So the front hoses no longer leak. At least not at the connectors. The spray nozzle, however, drips. This spray nozzle was actually here when we moved here, and has outlasted all the nozzles we’ve bought so far! So I ended up taking the front plate off of that and soaking it in CLR for a while, then scrubbing it with an old toothbrush. It works much better, now!

I also put the swivel connector on the back tap. That tap is a real pain. It’s difficult to connect a hose to it because of how close to the wall it is, and the angle. We have tried using flexible hose connectors, but they’ve been even more difficult to screw on, and leaked like crazy. Even with screwing the hose directly to the tap, when we move the hose to the side, it starts to drip enough that I ended up putting an old rectangular balcony rail planter under it to collect the water, set up so that when it filled to overflowing, the water would flow further away from the basement wall.

This new connector, however, was much easier to screw on, and angle of the swivel part made it easier to attach the hose, too. Best of all, with everything finally screwed on properly, no more dripping! I like being able to turn the tap on and leave it on.

Hmm… I wonder if, with this new connector, I could attach the hose that runs to the tap on the garden. The last time I was successfully able to attach it, we discovered water spraying from the ground next to a branch pile. The branch piles are gone now, so if I test it again, I’ll be better able to see and mark exactly where the buried hose is damaged.

I think I’ll test that out tonight, when I do my evening rounds!

Along with all that, I had a surprise from the egg lady when I stopped to pick up two flats of eggs. She included some guinea eggs! Enough for all for of us to try them out. She told me that the eggs from guinea hens have higher levels of protein and other nutrients, compared to chicken eggs. I really look forward to trying them!

Well, it’s time to go out and do my evening rounds! One of the things I want to get done is set up the soaker hoses in the low raised beds, with the tomatoes. They should have been set up before they were transplanted, but I wasn’t sure exactly where or how many tomatoes would fit at the time.

It has cooled down to 26C/78F in the time it took me to write this. Better than nothing!

The Re-Farmer

First day of summer

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, here it is! The longest day of the year, and the first official day of summer. It’s going to be another hot one, though not as hot as yesterday, thank God. We’ve had thunderstorms blowing past us through the night. Here, we did get a decent amount of rain. The rain barrel by the sun room is now about 3/4 full, which is roughly double what was already in there.

While feeding the outside cats, I spotted a wound on one of the mamas.

I thought it might be the cause of all the blood I found in the kibble house a few days ago but, to be honest, it doesn’t look bad enough for that. Though I suppose if it was from more than one wounded cat, it’s possible. We can’t get near her, so we can only monitor from a distance.

The bitties under the cat house are now gone. I’m actually surprised it took Caramel so long to move them. It’s a very high traffic area, and where she had them was where many other critters would squeeze under, so she probably had to face down other cats, kittens and the odd skunk while there. She was waiting for me with the other cats when I came out with kibble in the morning. I hope that means here babies are close by. I’m seeing far fewer cats at the same time these days – typical for this time of year. This morning, I counted only 14 in total.

The rainfall seems to have been enough to make the garden beds very happy. I posted a few photos on Instagram (I keep forgetting that exists!).

The flowers on the Irish Cobbler potatoes are starting to open, and I’m starting to see flower buds on the Red Thumb potatoes. More of the Sweet Chocolate peppers are starting to bloom, and the one that bloomed a while ago has the tiniest of peppers forming. The zucca melon continues to bloom, and now one of the Caveman’s Club gourds has started to bloom. Still male flowers only. The peas have started to bloom as well! In the main garden area, I spotted more Roma VF tomatoes developing, while the Black Beauty and Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes are still just blooming; no developing tomatoes yet.

In the old kitchen garden, I found a surprise. Quite a number of things come up around the side of the garden, where the tiny raised bed and step stones are, some of which I have been keeping, like the dill and the poppies. There were a couple of tiny plants next to some old asparagus ferns, very similar looking to dill, that suddenly shot up flower stalks. I swear, they weren’t there last night, when I weeded the shallot bed! One has pink flowers, the other purple. I’ve never seen them before. I guess with weeding everything else, they finally had a chance to grow and bloom!

Temperatures are supposed to stay pretty high over the next while – slightly above average for this time of year. As uncomfortable as I find it, it’s great for the garden – as long as we keep getting a decent amount of rain! So far, so good, at least.

I’m looking forward to when the tax assessor comes and goes, tomorrow morning. We delayed the joint Father’s Day, birthday pizza night my older daughter planned out, so that’s going to be done tomorrow, too. Then it’s time to get back to work.

Of course, my mother phoned this morning. Even though she told me my sister was able to get groceries for her recently, she suddenly wants me to go over and help her with groceries. BUT she says she doesn’t want me to be in a hurry. In other words, she wants me to stay with her for a long time. I’d just told her we were going to be busy for a while, and had plans, including celebrating my daughter’s birthday (which was already postponed) but she told me we should postpone it to Sunday, so I could spend time with her, instead.

She brushed past the whole “birthday” part as if it wasn’t there. She’s never cared about any of her grandchildren, other than expectations for them to be always sending her cards or phoning her or visiting her. And when they don’t, because she treats them like crap, she starts talking about how, “oh, if they only knew that if they would come to visit me, I’d give them money.”

Okay. I have to admit. I’m still irritated by her phone call. When I called her on it, she started making “joking” comments about how she only thinks about herself, and that she’s my biggest “baby”. I simply said, yes. She has zero respect for other people’s time or priorities. While it has gotten worse as she’s gotten older, this is not a new thing, by any means. It’s one thing when she does it to me. It’s quite another when she does it to my kids or my husband.

Bah.

Anyhow.

When she found out I’d gotten my eyes tests, she asked me to make an appointment for her, but things have been busy and I kept forgetting. So when she brought it up, I told her I’d call the clinic, make the appointment, then call her back.

Well, it went to machine, and now I’m sitting here, waiting for a call back, when I should be doing other things. At least it’s giving me a chance to write this post.

I think, however, I will call them again, in case they simply haven’t checked their messages.

I have stuff to do.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: so many things!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Yesterday was hot, and today is supposed to be a hotter, so I made sure to give the garden a thorough watering last night. I think it really appreciated it!

The mock orange next to the laundry platform is just exploding with flowers. Even the smaller one against the east side of the house that I keep forgetting to water is starting to bloom (we really need to move both of them!).

I found a few surprises this morning.

We have ripening strawberries. The ones in the photo look like they had some pollination issues, but it looks like all the plants are producing.

The big surprise was finding Roma tomatoes! They’re not the first to start blooming, and where the third variety to be transplanted, so for them to be the first to have developing tomatoes was very unexpected.

Some, but not all, of the resown green beans have germinated. Even some of the summer squash have started to germinate. With the winter squash, while transplanting Jiffy pellets with sprouts in them, I also transplanted the pellets that didn’t germinate. At least one of those has sprouted with big, strong seed leaves emerging. All of the squash seem to be recovering from transplant shock, little by little.

There was one transplant I did not expect to survive. There was a squash of some sort that sprouted in the wattle weave garden bed, between a bell pepper and some shallots. I did not plant it there, and it would have to go, since a squash plant there would completely envelop the shallots and peppers. So I transplanted it to an open space next to the pink rose bush, where we grew leftover lettuce seeds last year. As I tried to gently dig up the squash plant, I discovered that it was far, far deeper than I expected. I’m guessing the seed came with the garden soil, which has compost in the mix. When I pulled it up, it was basically all long, buried stem, but I did see a hint of a root just under what had been the soil level, so I transplanted it anyway. When I saw it the next day, drooping on the ground, I figured it didn’t survive, but included it when watering, anyway. This morning, it was looking perked up and much stronger! So it might actually survive, and we’ll find out what kind of squash it is.

I also got a harvest this morning! We don’t have a lot of garlic this year, and one variety is a soft neck garlic, so even fewer will develop scapes. I’d noticed scapes starting to show up recently, so it was a surprise to see they were ready to harvest, this morning! I picked almost all of them. There are a few remaining that should be ready tomorrow or the day after. Then they will be done.

Next year, we have to make sure to plant a lot more hard neck garlic, and protect the bed over the winter more thoroughly.

In other things, when I came out with the cat food this morning, I saw Caramel out and about, looking very hungry. She even let me pet her, though I think that was more because she wanted food. I dropped a handful of kibble at the opening where she had her kittens. It wasn’t long before she eating it, and was back under the cat house. I could hear the squeaking of kittens. She may have let me pet her while she was on the cat house roof, but when I tried to use my phone again to look under the cat house, she was back to growling!

There was one unpleasant surprise this morning, though. When I got to the kibble house with food, I found blood all over the place! On the floor, in the empty trays, and even against the walls in a couple of places! I’ve seen blood around before. The cats do fight pretty violently at times. Never this much, though. While doing my rounds, I kept an eye out for an injured cat, but saw nothing. Not even blood on the grass to show me where an injured cat might have gone. I’m assuming it was from a cat, though it’s possible it came from a racoon. Definitely not a skunk, since there was no smell.

The weird part is, no one heard any fighting last night. My daughters have a window facing that way that is kept open all night. My older daughter was working all night, as usual, and she didn’t hear a thing. My husband’s window is closer, but between the fans and his CPAP, he would only hear something if he’s up and about already. It would take a lot of noise outside to wake him from all the white noise he’s got going around him, inside.

It is a mystery.

The kittens inside are getting more active. In fact, I found one crawling around on the floor! I don’t want to risk stepping on one during the night while going to the bathroom or something, so with the help of a daughter, we move the cat cave, with the whole family inside, into baby jail. One of my daughter has put strips of carboard around the bottom few inches, so if any of the kittens get out of the cat cave, they won’t be able to get through the cage openings. They’re still small enough to squeeze through!

So far, they seem to be okay with the new arrangement.

A lovely young buck – and I’m finally done!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

The handsome fellow was captured by the gate cam.

Just look at those big antler nubbins!

We had another lovely, cool night last night. As expected, I had a hard time getting going in the morning, so the girls were kind enough to take care of feeding the outside cats. By the time I was pain killered up enough and ready to head out, I didn’t bother switching out the memory cards on the trail cam.

I did, however, get back to working on mowing last year’s grass. It took all day, but I finally got it done! What a huge job it was, but all that tall grass and dried thatch from last year is cut, and almost all the clippings hauled away. When there was just a small triangle of tall grass left, I gave in. I set the mower as high as it could go and went over the tall grass a couple of times. Then I took the bag off and mowed the whole remaining section. I really should have put the bag back on and gone over it again to pick up the thickest areas of grass clippings, but I just didn’t have the energy left for it.

It’s all done, and I now have huge amounts of grass clippings available for the garden. Because of how thick last year’s dead grass was, it’s mostly dry clippings, too. For all that the area looked so green, there actually was very little live grass in there. Now that it’s cut, and most of the dense clippings removed, it will have a chance to recover. All we need now is a good rain!

We have a 45% chance of rain tomorrow afternoon.

I figure, we might get a few drops.

The garden is going to get its watering, just in case. The girls will be taking care of that, though! I’m done for the day.

The Re-Farmer

I’ll likely pay for this, tomorrow!

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

After taking a break, I went back to the mowing, planning to stop when I ran out of the third refill on gas.

I didn’t quite make it. Just too tired! Working through that super tall grass involved a lot of back and forth-ing, and at times, the bag would be full within just 3 or 4 feet. It felt like I spent more time emptying the bag than mowing. I definitely spent more time trudging to the main garden area to dump the clippings than mowing. I did get all the necessary mulching done, though, and have been working on a second pile of clippings.

Once everything was put way, it was time to feed the outside cats, so I took care of that, too. Which is when I spotted these guys.

At first, it was just the one mostly white kitten at the food bowl, then the other three emerged from under the spirea. You can just barely see the black and white one on the other side of not-Junk Pile’s front leg.

That other white and grey one has really distinctive markings on one side! The other side is pretty much all white.

I’ve seen these kittens in a group of 6, but I think this litter is just the 4 of them. I think the other two are from another litter, but I have no idea who the mama might be.

From the size of the kitten I saw with Brussel, I think we’ll be seeing those ones around the kibble bowls too, pretty soon!

I was pretty tired when I finally came in, but it was after I’d sat for a while and had supper that I realized I will probably paying for today’s progress. My entire body stiffened up to the point that I could barely walk when I finally got up again. Yes, I did take pain killers, but it wasn’t pain that was giving me trouble. My joints just didn’t want to move! Of course, the only way to take care of that is to force them to move until the limber up again, but until that happens, I’m hobbling and lurching around like a broken automaton.

I keep telling myself to go to bed early, so I can get an early start on the day, only to find myself still up at 2 or 3 in the morning. Or awakened around that time by cats. Decimus is wandering around more often when her kittens are asleep, and that sets Marlee of into continue snarling and growling. Decimus just ignores her.

Now that the mats are trimmed off of her, and most of her fur is gone, we’re getting to see what an incredibly tiny cat Decimus is! Small in stature, but also very thin. I’m hoping that having a kibble bowl right next to her and her kittens, plus regular wet cat food, will get her filling out soon. I don’t think she’s going to grow any larger in size, though. She would be about a year and a bit old right now, and should be at her adult size.

I see the other cats have been fussy again, and didn’t eat much of their share of the wet cat food. More for Decimus, later! 😄

Okay. Time to pain killer up and try to get some sleep!

The Re-Farmer

About three hours

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today has turned out to be absolutely gorgeous!

We dipped to 10C/50F during the night, and as I write this at almost 3:30 pm, we’re at 17C/63F, and I’m absolutely loving it!

I took advantage of the temperatures to work on a job that I was avoiding during the hot days. Mowing in the outer yard, with the push mower.

I had a specific purpose for this. When it was cut before, the riding mower was at its highest setting. I’ve lowered the push mower, while also using the bag to collect the clippings. In this area, that would be a mix of old, dried thatch from last year, and fresh growth. I had the wagon handy, as it holds a lot more clippings that the wheelbarrow, to empty the bag into until the load could be hauled off to the garden.

This is as far as I got before filling the wagon for the first time. About two and a quarter passes. It takes about five bags to fill the wagon. In the drier area with the deepest thatch from last year – including the portions we were able to mow and rake up last time – I was emptying the bag ever few feet. I’d say doing this narrow strip took me at least 15 minutes. Then, when I filled the wagon, I started mulching around the transplanted squash right away, which probably took another 15 minutes before I brought the empty wagon back and took this photo.

This is how far I got before stopping for lunch.

By this point, I was able to mulch all the squash mounds, including the ones that were direct sown with summer squash, all the grow bags with peppers and onions, and even low raised beds, around turnips, beets and carrots. I’ve removed the boards that were placed to protect the tomatoes from the wind, which opened up space that needed to be mulched.

That done, I started dumping loads onto the black tarp that has been so handy. We use to to cover areas to start killing off grass and weeds, to hold sifted garden soil until it can be returned to the beds, and now to hold grass clippings for later mulching.

I’m going to continue to focus on using the push mower in this area. Everything else can be done with the riding mower that my brother and his wife left for us to use.

He’s done a lot on the riding mower they took back with them. The drive chain turned out to be stretched, and that’s why it kept falling off. He replaced that – but even the new chain needed to have a link removed for it to work. He replaced the seat, which I didn’t even think needed replacing. The belt for the mowing blade had fallen off at some point. It may need a new battery, and at least one of the tires will need replacing, as the rubber was showing huge cracks. We’re all amazed it held air long enough for my brother to get the mower onto his trailer!

It turned out to need a whole lot more work than expected! He keeps finding more and more things that need to be fixed.

I so appreciate that they left one of their riding mowers behind for us to use while he works on it. It will save us a lot of time, that’s for sure.

For now, though, I’m going to continue to use the push mower and slowly reclaim the super long grass that we never got to cut, or even scythe, last year. This will give me huge amounts of wonderful clippings to use in the garden!

Meanwhile, one of my daughters have been supervising the cats in my office/bedroom. At about 3am, I was awaked by strange kitten noises and discovered Decimus had already moved two of her babies out of the cat cage. I found her peeking at me from one of the cat cave the Cat Lady gave us, so I quickly moved the last two babies over for her. Marlee has been snarling and growling at her most of the night, too. Every now and then, Decimus will leave her sleeping babies and go around the room, getting into things. I’ve learned that this is her looking for a place to poop or pee. For some reason, after the litter boxes where cleaned (with the litter pellets, we just need to empty the bins completely, every few days), she stopped using it – which got very messy! I managed to distract her away from her searching, and she finally ended up using one of the litter boxes. I get the impression eliminating isn’t very comfortable for her, yet. It’s been less than a week since she gave birth, after all.

She’s not the only one moving her babies. After using a load of grass clippings as mulch and starting to head back, I spotted Brussel, crossing the grass in the main garden area. There was something with her! It turned out to be a black and white kitten. It’s not as big as the first litter of kittens we started seeing in the yard, but pretty close! Based on where I’ve been seeing her, I think she had her kittens at the empty farm across the road, and she is now bringing them closer to the house – and kibble! I have no idea how many she has. I’m just assuming she had more than one.

Well, time to head back out and see how much more progress I can get on that super tall, thick grass!

The Re-Farmer

Morning happenings

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

We had an almost quiet night with Decimus and the babies. At one point, I was awakened by scratching that I thought for sure was Nosencrantz at the window again… but Nosencrantz was curled up next to my head!

It turned out to be Decimus. She had gone up onto the bed above where her kittens are (the cat cage has four “rooms” on two levels along one side) and was scratching at the cardboard on the roof. The carboard is under some towels, as cats like to sit on top of the cage, but their feet were pushing the towels through the open squares.

When she heard me moving around, Decimus stopped clawing at her “ceiling”. Soon after, though, I heard more useful scratching – in her litter box! So she has most definitely figured out what to do with that.

Babies having breakfast!

Motherhood suits her. She’s absolutely blissful and content, and enjoying when we reach in to pet her. A complete switch from the cat that would run away any time we came close, unless we managed to start scritching her neck and ears while she was busy eating and didn’t notice us coming close.

Her entire back is one huge mat of fur. Like armour plating.

Last night, I briefly took the kittens out and lay them together on my bed. Decimus stayed in the cage and rolled around to let me pet her belly. I managed to get her out and put her on the bed with her babies, but she got nervous and tried to go back into the cage! She was a bit confused on how to get in, though, as the “door” is on the second level, and she didn’t realize she needed to jump it. I picked her up and put her in, and she immediately settled down.

Also, she is really, really enjoying wet cat food. While the other, fussier cats turned their noses up at the food bowls when I did the evening feeding, she not only finished off her own share, but when I switched bowls and gave her what other cats ignored, she ate that, too. In the end, she had almost an entire can, all to herself. Usually, they get split 3 or 4 ways, depending on how many cats I have in the room at the time.

In doing my morning rounds, I counted only 14 adult cats. One of them was The Distinguished Guest. Then I saw Sad Face coming across the outer yard. So there’s a recipe for cat fights starting. 🙁 The mama with her two kittens are still in the cat house, which is good.

Of course, I checked all the garden beds. The transplants seem to be doing all right. The raspberries we planted this spring are starting to bloom! We might actually get raspberries off of them. I would not have expected that until next year. The raspberries that predate us, growing around the old compost pile and among flowers near the main garden area, are also blooming. Looks like we’ll have quite a bit, this year. I even found one of the Sweet Chocolate peppers has started to bloom!

We have a bit of a mystery between the Sweet Chocolate peppers, and those last tiny shallots I stuck into the end of the bed. A squash has sprouted! I have no idea what kind it is, or where it came from. The soil topping up this bed was from the pile of garden soil we bought. I’m curious as to what it might turn out to be. I’ll probably transplant it, though, because a squash in that spot would end up covering the shallots and probably the peppers and nearby thyme, as well.

The down side is those horrible Chinese Elm seeds are starting to sprout. There are so many of them, I think they choked out the bok choy and lettuce we planted next to the peas. There’s just no way to brush or scoop away so many seeds. We’ll be pulling seedlings out of the garden beds all over the place for the next while.

I really look forward to when we can take down all those Chinese elms. I think I’ll start with the smaller ones on the north side of the main garden area. I’m okay with leaving the maples in there for now, but those elms have got to go!

The Re-Farmer