First up, it was a great morning because MY HIP DIDN’T KEEP ME UP ALL NIGHT!!!
Sorry for shouting, but I’m pretty excited! I could even lie on my left side and everything. No pain at all!
I had been warned that it might take a few days before the steroid injection did its job, and that things might get worse before it got better. I got none of that. It just went straight to working!
So awesome.
Another thing that was awesome was the view this morning, while doing my rounds. We had a fog this morning, and that always make sunrise so very dramatic.
One pumpkin vine had a couple of huge flowers this morning. I just had to try for a close up on one of them (second picture). In the third picture, there’s a Hopi Black Dye sunflower, but it seems to have skipped developing a seed head and is just filled with flowers.
Our high today was expected to reach 25C/77F, and tonight’s low is expected to be 12C/54F, so the winter squash are being left uncovered still. From the forecast, it looks like we’ll have two more days and one more night where they can be left uncovered. After that, they’ll need to be covered for the night, and probably left covered both day and night for at least a few days. It’s nice to have an unusually warm October again – since moving here, we’ve had years with no frost until November, but not with weeks above 20C/68F – but we’re expecting to get some pretty dramatic swings between the highs and the lows.
Which means I should be planting the garlic within the next week or so, and the winter sowing might be gone before the end of the month. I don’t want the winter sown seeds to actually germinate before spring. Overnight lows at or below freezing is fine, but apparently, we’re going to be getting days at or above 20C/68F again, in the third week of October! Well, that’s where a deep mulch comes in. It will protect the seeds from both heat and cold.
We shall see what actually happens, weather wise! For now, though, my focus had to go back to working on the sun room, which is what I’ll be updating on in my next pose.
Being Sunday, we were able to mostly make it a day of rest. I didn’t even do my full morning rounds, because I have a terrible habit of starting things and not coming in for a couple of hours. 😄 Mostly, I made sure the outside cats were fed, then went back to bed for a couple more hours, since it was still pretty dark out.
I did go into town this morning to refill water jugs, as we were on our last one, and picked up a few things my daughter requested and sent funds for. Then I went to the hardware store to find an epoxy to repair the crack on the garden angel my mother sent home with me, yesterday. The hard part was finding one that dried clear.
I was about to head home when my daughter messaged me – her timing was perfect. She ended up sending more funds and treated us to Dairy Queen. She had plans to roast lots of vegetables and do bread baking today, so she didn’t want to have to do more cooking or dishes before hand. 😄 Meanwhile, her sister has been in a lot of pain lately, so she’s been in recovery mode for the past two days.
I did check on the garden, as usual. The old kitchen garden needed a watering, but I’d watered the winter squash before we covered them last night, and never uncovered them this morning, so they would have been fine. Pretty steamy, actually. We ended up hitting 27C/81F today. For the past while, our daytime highs have been higher than predicted, while the lows have been colder than predicted (we dropped to about 5-6C/41-43F last night, instead of the 10C/50F we were expecting). The next few nights are supposed to be a fair bit warmer, so I might be able to uncover the winter squash tomorrow morning and leave them uncovered over night for a while. At this point, we should have at least one, maybe two, mature squash to harvest, if I can keep them alive long enough.
Speaking of squash…
The one pumpkin we have was on a dead vine, so I brought it inside. The underside of it was rather funny.
Can you tell that it was supported by a mesh sling? 😄
Later this evening, I had a chance to message with the new rescue. As the females we need to spay are mostly still nursing, I asked about being able to get help adopting out some of the indoor cats. I explained how we sort of ended up being a “rescue” ourselves, with cats needing surgery, a couple with amputations, or being sick, plus females that we managed to snag before they were old enough to go into heat. This rescue has just officially opened their doors, and I knew they were struggling to find fosters, so I made sure to tell them I’m not looking to foist cats on them. We need help with the spays and neuters with the outside cats, and with adoption, but we are already taking care of them now. I also made sure to say we want to avoid attention. They had started talking about going to the media to bring attention to just how many cat colonies there are out here int he boonies that need help. I was all, nope. Nononono. No media. That last thing we need it that sort of attention. Obviously, with our vandal, that’s an issue. I also explained I don’t want the RM or province involved, as that’s just going to lead to a whole lot of dead cats. What I didn’t mention is that, after many years of first hand experience, I simply don’t trust the media. They often either get even the most basic details wrong, or lie outright.
They ended up asking about the outside cats and kittens. How many kittens, how many adults, how many need to be fixed, how many males, how many females.
It was really hard to answer. I tried to do a head count of the littles this morning and counted 11, but I didn’t see Slick’s 6, and who knows how many others. We never see all of them at the same time. As for the females, I tried to think of how many we’re still seeing regularly. There are quite a few that have simply disappeared. Brussel, Caramel, Ink, Slick’s white and grey companion, and Magda, just to name a few – and Magda was spayed. There are a couple that are skittish to the point that we don’t know if they’re male or female.
I answered as best I could and, at their request, started sending pictures.
I think I sent them into a bit of a panic. There are so many!
…
I did eventually get a chance to say that, in our situation, we actually have a lot less this year. I’d already mentioned that we have more in the winter than, then they take off again in the spring. I told them that one winter, I was counting about 45-50 for a while. Then spring came and most of them disappeared permanently. I mentioned last year was the worst for kittens. Not just with how many there were, but how many I had to bury, including miscarriages I had to euthanize. Even this year, I had to bury a few, but nothing like last year.
As they are completely full, the woman that started the rescue has said she would contact some of the other rescues. There are some that will come out and trap. Which would be great, if we could get those mamas! Not while they’re still nursing, though.
If there was someone who could take Frank and her three, plus the fourth she’s been nursing as well, that would be fantastic. They are the youngest, tiniest ones, and winter is coming.
If that works out, and we end up with the outside cats trapped and taken in for adoption, that would be a huge help for us. Outside cats need more food than inside ones do. Especially in winter. The cost of cat food is built into our grocery budget, and there have been times where we’ve spent more on cat food than on food for ourselves.
I had just been hoping to get help with spays, in particular, and mostly adopt out some inside cats (I’ve been asked to provide photos and information on them). It would be amazing if we could finally get our numbers down. I’m not counting on it too much; it’s been really hard for all the shelters and rescues to get adoptions. Still, every little bit will help!
Anyhow. That’s my excitement for the day! 😄 I think now I might do something really radical, and go to bed before midnight. 😂
This morning, I woke up to the sound of rain. Lovely rain!
There was absolutely nothing in my weather apps calling for rain. Even the weather radar showed nothing.
I was glad to have it as we got very little rain yesterday. Before my trip into town to pick up prescriptions, I helped my daughter gather garden and yard tools to the bench under the canopy tent, and she spent several hours cleaning, sharpening, removing rust an otherwise tending to them. The job’s not done, as some things need repairs as well, and others just took a really long time, so this is a multi-day project.
The good thing is that she was set up under the canopy. I headed out later on and, while I was in the garage, it started to pour.
No, we were not expecting rain.
Then it stopped as abruptly as it started.
Then it started again, with another downpour.
This happened a few times, on and off like a tap, but in the end we didn’t actually get much rain. Even this morning, after whatever rain we were getting when I woke up, I found the level in the rain barrel had hardly moved.
The garden – what’s left of it – still appreciated it.
The pumpkins, which look so dead, are still popping out massive flowers. So are the winter squash, though not anywhere near as big.
In the next photo are three of the stem sunflower seed heads that exploded open yesterday. They’re looking a lot better developed and healthier than the main one at the top!
That first aster that bloomed, in the next photo, was looking so pretty with the rain drops on its petals. The buds on plants next to it look like they will be a very light colour.
One of the things about working outside – at least when the grass is dry – is that we have certain cats that like to follow us around. There is one kitten, a white with grey tabby spots, from the deluge of younger kittens that showed up weeks ago that loves to follow us around. The problem is, he is absolutely tiny. Though he is weeks older, Frank’s litter that she moved into the cat cage, which are the youngest of them all, are the same size as him. I often find myself picking him up and carrying him around, just because he’s so tiny, I fear he can’t keep up. He loves being carried, though, and loves attention.
One of the things I’ve started to do is put him into the cat cage with Frank’s litter. Sometimes, just to keep him out from underfoot to I can do things. Sometimes, so he can help himself to the bowl of cat soup we put in there and not have to fight through larger cats and kittens. Usually, he leave the cat cage right away, though.
He’s also one of the kittens that makes a dash through the door when I come out with their food in the mornings! I really have to watch my step as I go through, so as not to step on him or any of the other cats in the swirling horde. This morning, it was my older daughter who was available to help me get through the doors, then herd the kittens out again. This tiny one being the most determined to stay inside!
We had to wash the eyes of two of Frank’s kittens again. One always gets two eyes stuck shut, but that doesn’t stop him from finding his way out of the cat cage and to the food trays (we have confirmed that all three of Frank’s kittens are male). The other has one eye that sticks shut. Once the eye washing was done, I had a chance to tuck the little adventurer into the cat cage to enjoy the kitten soup. There was a fluffy little tabby already in there, sitting in the litter box. Not using it. Just sitting in it. 😄 I was happy to see the tiny white and tabby kitten start eating the kitten soup.
From there I did my rounds, checked on the garden, and all the usual things.
When I came through the sun room to go inside, I spotted a cuddle puddle in the cat cage.
With an extra head peeking out.
The white and tabby was right in there with the other three.
In this picture, you can see her three milling about. You can’t see the white and tabby, because he’s underneath her.
Nursing!
She has accepted him as one of her own! I’m happy to see this because the crèche mothers all have older kittens and are pretty much done with nursing. Slick is the only one we regularly see nursing her kittens, but they’re all out by the shrine feeding station near the junk pile, where the litter lives. The sun room kittens tend not to go there at all, so the little one isn’t there to be included.
I’ll be honest in that I don’t think this little one is going to make it. He’s active and eating and playful and friendly, but he’s just not growing. I’m hoping that with Frank allowing him to nurse, he will get stronger and better able to fight off whatever is going on with him.
I am very glad to see him snuggling with kittens his own size, too. I’ve never seen him with other kittens in a way that would suggest they are litter mates. He seems to be on his own. Perhaps his siblings are among those we had to bury. It makes me happy that Frank has accepted him as her own.
Oh, before I forget, I just have to share this picture from yesterday evening.
Also, so glad I’ve got those protective collars around the luffa! 😄
In other things…
Today and the next few days are supposed to be a bit cooler, though the overnight lows are still supposed to be warm enough that I shouldn’t need to cover any of the garden beds at night. Hopefully, that means we can get some more stuff done outside today. We shall see how it works out!
I harvested the ones with the most orange colour, and there are still quite a few green and mostly green ones on the plants. From what I found, looking it up last night, these should be ripe. They are still firm, but not hard. One still has green on it I couldn’t see while I was pushing through the leaves with my pruner to cut the stem but, according to what I found last night, it should continue to ripen if kept at room temperature.
With the eggplant, and in the next picture, is a cluster of carrot seeds. I’m pretty sure these are Uzbek Golden carrot seeds, as the only other carrots winter sown in this bed were some old, pelleted Napoli seeds I had. Very few of those germinated. When I grew them before, none bolted to seed. Carrots normally go to seed in their second year, not their first, but every year we’ve grown Uzbek Golden carrots, there’s been at least one that went to seed early. At this point, there is just the one seed cluster that has fully dried off, and I didn’t want to be losing seeds into the garden bed. We have self sown carrots where we grew them last year. I’d wanted to collect seeds from them but, when I thought they were ready to collect, none of the seeds seemed to have developed. That would most likely be a sign of poor pollination. Clearly, some viable seeds did develop and fall to the ground, at least at one plant. The self seeded carrots are growing only in one area, not all the areas where there had been bolted carrots.
Amazingly, the “dead” pumpkin vines are still blooming.
That dead leaf is from the same vine as the flower. This heat we’ve been having has given a surprising boost to things I thought for sure were killed off!
I honestly thought the Cosmos would bloom first, as they grew so big so much faster. I don’t see any potential flower buds on them at all! Including the ones that do not have frost damage on them. They should have finished blooming by now, but there’s nothing. Very strange.
Today is turning out to be another hot one. We exceeded the forecast and hit 27C/81F, with the humidex at 28C/82F. As I write this, we’re at 26C/79F, with the humidex at 29C/84F. Currently, we have gusts of high winds and are under a severe thunderstorm watch. Parts of the province are under tornado warnings. Looking at the weather radar, it seems the system won’t hit our area for another three hours.
The high winds limit what I can do outside. From where I’m sitting as I write this, I can see a big maple and a corner of the spruce grove. It’s bright and sunny, with some clouds right now, but the wind comes and goes. Sometimes I’ll look up and there doesn’t seem to be any wind at all. Moments later I’ll look up because suddenly, the maple is being whipped around like crazy. This maple is HUGE and needs to have large branches that are bigger than some trees removed, before they break. Where they join at the main trunk is showing rot and, to be honest, I’m amazed one branch in particular hasn’t come down yet. I’ve removed parts of it that I could access, which may have taken off enough weight to help. Since then, things have grown back to the point that we have to duck under the branches when mowing the lawn under part of it. I might be able to get some of it down with the extended pole pruning saw, but most of it is simply too thick. Ideally, we’d have a lift or scaffolding (the scaffolding we have is meant for indoors, so it’s pretty short) and take it down in sections with a chain saw. My brother has all sorts of ladders that would allow us to reach, but the only thing there would be to secure a ladder to is other sections of the branch that needs to come down. Sections that would lift as weight was removed, potentially enough to lift a ladder secured to it right off the ground. Even branches this thick have remarkable bounce to them.
Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.
Unless it finally comes down in these high winds. At which point, it would be a pretty huge clean up job!
I did my morning rounds as usual, today, which includes checking on the various garden beds. I even did some watering as, at the time, we were expected to get quite hot. Instead, we had a slightly cooler, dreary day, with some parts of the province hit with thunderstorms.
I’m really surprised by how some things are going in the garden. Things I though for sure were killed by the early frosts are blooming!
I think the Arikara squash is the most surprising. They look completely dead, and yet there are new blossoms!
In the next photo, you can see our one pumpkin this year is changing colour. Next, you can see that the pumpkin vines themselves, as frost damaged as they are, are blooming. I’m even seeing little flower buds all over.
It was warm enough last night that I didn’t cover the winter squash, and they’ve started blooming more, too! We have two Baked Potato squash developing, plus one Mashed Potato squash. Nothing on the Sunshine squash, though.
In the flower bed, there’s still the odd nasturtium flower showing. The Cosmos should have bloomed long ago. Some have got frost damage to their tops, but they do actually look like they’ll be showing flower buds soon – if the weather holds. The asters are also way behind, but a few plants are now showing where flower buds will be forming. I really want to be able to collect seeds from the asters, as they are from a packet of memorial seeds.
The smaller crab apples have gotten so very red, and so very delicious. They are that perfect combination of sweet and tart that I like. In the next photos, I’ve got one next to the crab apples in another tree with edible apples. They form much larger apples, as you can see. I don’t think they are quite ripe yet, but they are edible now. They are much milder in flavour and, as my daughter describes them, have a floral taste to them.
One of my weather apps still says we were supposed to hit a high of 21C/70F. Which we did not. We probably didn’t go higher than 18C/64F. The overnight low is supposed to be 15C/59F, so I’ll be leaving the winter squash uncovered for the night again. It’s supposed to keep getting hotter over the next few days. Today, however, didn’t get the sun and heat we were supposed to. Just clouds and a smattering of rain.
I found myself staying up late very last night, which meant I was up to see what the weather was doing. So I was not at all surprised by what I found in the garden this morning.
The first picture in the above slideshow is the Arikara squash, which only recently had its first female flowers start to bloom. I’d wanted to grow these specifically to save seed, as it’s a rare variety.
Not going to happen this year.
Thankfully, I do have a few seeds left and can try again, next year.
The next two pictures are of some of the pumpkin plants. It’s a bit hard to tell in the photos, but the leaves are that darker colour they get from cold damage. In one of the pictures, you can see the leaves starting to droop, too. We do have the one pumpkin in its sling on the trellis. It does not appear to be frost damaged, but it might take a day or two before we can see for sure.
The next picture is of the summer squash, still under their covers. They actually seem okay, even though they aren’t completely covered. I did not try to check on the winter squash, under their plastic. They should be fine, and I don’t plan to uncover that bed at all today.
I didn’t uncover anything this morning. It was still too cold at the time. It’s not going to get much warmer, though, and now it is supposed to rain all day. From what I could see, the peppers held out fine under their sheet. So far, the eggplants do, too, but they tend to start dropping later on. It’s the plants at each end, that are the most exposed, and take the brunt of the cold. I’m hoping the jugs of hot water we set beside them helped, but it’ll be a while before we can tell, one way or the other.
Last night, I worked on getting the radish seeds out of their pods, which ended up taking a VERY long time. I stayed up a while longer to monitor the oven, so my daughters could go to bed. Which is why I was up to check the weather apps and get the screen captures in the next two images.
So much for a low of 4 or 5C/39 or 41F. We were expecting it to be colder, to be honest. We did end up hitting 0C/32F. There were no frost warnings.
I’m actually thinking of turning the furnace back up for today! I do have one of the heat lamps in the sun room turned on – the one with the 250F bulb, not the 150F lamp. It hangs above the space in front of the new cat cave, and the sun room littles have definitely figure out that this is a good spot to hang out! 😄
Our daytime highs are supposed to increase quite a bit, about half way through next week, and stay high for about 2 weeks. That will be the time to empty out and clean up the sun room for the winter, and do things like bring the isolation shelter back near the house, put the heat lamp back in and get it set up, so we just need to plug it in to the outdoor outlet there, as needed.
I am not looking forward to winter. My daughters love the colder weather. I can tolerate cold a lot more as I get older – it’s heat I’m having a harder time with now! – but I don’t like the season. Too many things that need protecting from the cold – including the house itself – and too many things that can go wrong that, in the summer, would be just an annoying but, in the winter, can be dangerous, or even deadly.
After the hot days we had recently, the 14C/57F we had when I headed out this morning felt cold! We were supposed to reach a high of 16C/61F, but that changed to 15C/59F, which is what we’re at right now, as I write this in the late afternoon.
We are supposed to drop to 7C/45F tonight, then down to 5C/41C tomorrow night. Which means we will want to cover the more cold intolerant plants.
Which are still blooming. In fact, some are blooming more than ever right now!
Unlike the Arikara squash. We finally have a couple of female flowers blooming, but the male flowers that had bloomed have died off a while ago, so there is nothing to hand pollinate with.
The winter squash are also blooming. Male flowers again, as the female flowers are done, though I was (hopefully) able to use male flowers that had bloomed the day before to hand pollinate them. There was even some zucchini to hand pollinate, too. The White Scallop squash finally has a single flower blooming, but there’s no sign of any female flowers.
I think I have figured out how I can cover the winter squash bed. There are a surprising number of developing squash right now, considering this year’s growing conditions, and I want to give them the best chance of surviving. This bed was made narrower than the 4′ that was marked for when it gets a permanent frame around it, but I think the Pexx pipe I used to make hoops is flexible enough to be used. I’m thinking of covering them with the mosquito netting we have. It wouldn’t be enough to protect from an actual frost, but it should be enough to keep them insulated. Especially if we add a few jugs of hot water around the plants before putting the netting on.
That’s a project for this evening.
Both the eggplant and the peppers are still blooming, though I don’t think they are setting any more fruit. The Turkish Orange eggplant looks really intersting!
There are two photos in the slide show above. I’m not sure how to tell when they are ripe, but in the back of the second photo, there is one eggplant that is a very deep orange, so I’m thinking they need to be at least that dark. The cover we have for the eggplant isn’t long enough to cover the ends well, but I plan to include bottles of hot water at each end to give the most exposed plants at least some extra protection. The peppers will be fine.
I also picked a few Chocolate Cherry and Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes this morning.
We will probably have to pick the remaining unripe ones tonight, or maybe tomorrow, as we have no way to cover this bed. It already has netting around it. We just don’t have anything that will protect from cold that’s large enough to cover them.
Looking at the 10 day forecast, it looks like we’ll need to cover the beds every night for the next week, before overnight temperatures start warming up again. Enough time for little squash to mature? No. But who knows what the weather will actually do over the next while! The old average last frost day, which I’m still going by, is Sept. 10, but we might get cold enough to get frost on the 6th.
The Re-Farmer 