Okay, I definitely over did it yesterday. Which happens a lot faster these days, then it used to!
I was preemptive on things, though. Before going to bed, along with my usual painkillers, I made sure to treat all the usual muscle groups that I’ve had Charlie horse issues with, with Tei Fu lotion. Just in case.
Once outside this morning, I did my usual rounds, starting with feeding the kitties. Including these hungry little wildlings.
I didn’t see the garage kittens until much later, and not both at the same time, but they are there, and getting their own bowl of kitten food. I should start moving the bowl closer to the back door, to encourage them to go into the yard and discover all the amenities, awaiting them!
I should have watered the garden this morning, but my body was giving me a great big FU on the subject. I did manage to get a tiny little harvest, though.
Just a few Spoon tomatoes. In the next photo, there’s a few sugar snap peas, the Spoon tomatoes, a few tiny little strawberries from the old kitchen garden and some raspberries. I was able to leave a bowl full of berries and tiny bowl with the Spoon tomatoes for my husband, as a morning treat when he woke up.
Once back inside, I pain killered up and went back to bed for a few hours.
Being old and broken really sucks sometimes – and I’m still almost the most able bodied person in the household! Both girls are feeling better, though, hence the “almost”. My younger daughter still has to watch herself with the wrist, and has been doing mild recovery exercises. I heard her talking with her sister today, marveling at how much better her wrist feels, even with the remaining pain and discomfort from the surgery, without Squidly wrapped around the bones. She’s so happy to have been able to get that done!
On a completely different note, thanks to some assistance from my older daughter, I was able to pay the deposit for getting the main door and frame replaced. We had 30 days to accept the estimate. After that, we’d have to get a new estimate and, with the way prices are going up, the cost would likely increase if that happened. I’m okay with them taking a while to get the job done, though. That’ll give us time to raised the balance without having to use more debt. *sigh* It needs to be done, though. It’s not like we can go a winter with nothing but a storm door there!
Ah, well. It is what it is. We’ll manage. We always do!
The cats had me up ridiculously early this morning. I ended up just doing the outside cat feeding and going back to bed, instead of doing my full morning rounds. Thankfully, I did actually get some real sleep the second time around, even if it meant having Butterscotch basically lying on my head. She seems to associate my being in bed as “it’s safe now”, and she’ll come out of hiding from under the armchair and start demanding attention before curling up and sleeping right against my head and neck.
My daughter’s appointment at the hospital wasn’t until 4:40, and we were planning to be on the road by 3:30, so I did have some time in the afternoon to get the weed trimmer out and start clearing around the house. We were way behind on that in some areas, particularly around the portable greenhouse. I had just a bit left to do around the north side when the weed trimmer simply stopped. Usually, when that happens, it means the plug in the handle had come loose, but that was fine. I checked all down the extension cords (I need three 300′ cords to be able to reach everything), but everything was fine. So I messaged my daughters asking if one of them could check the breakers, but none were tripped.
We might be down a weed trimmer.
I’m hoping it was just over worked and will start again when I test it tomorrow. By the time we confirmed it was not the breakers, I had to put everything away, so I could clean up and change before we had to leave.
I did remember to prepare the cat soup variation for the kittens, and had it all ready for my older daughter to take care of while we were gone. The kibble mixed in with the canned cat food and warm water would have had plenty of time to get nice and soft by then.
One of the things I started before the weed trimming was replace the hose end with the pin prick hole in it with one of the new couplings I picked up. It was definitely the quickest and easiest fix I’ve ever had! No screw clamps on these things. It took me a while to understand how the rest worked, though. It just didn’t make sense to me, but the shut off valve is basically just pulling the female coupling part right off. That can be screwed into the end of another hose, or into a nozzle, then popped back in place for the water to start flowing. Which works well enough, except that I was attaching this to a soaker hose. Then, after about an hour, to a different soaker hose in another bed. The hoses are different brands and their mail couplings are designed slightly differently. One is a lot deeper than the other, and both were difficult to screw onto the new coupling’s end properly. It’s really designed to work with the same brand’s matching male couplings, not regular hose ends. I haven’t tried it with a sprayer nozzle, yet. One of the sprinkler hose connections leaked a fair bit, but I just move it so it would lean into the mulch near one of the plant collars in the bed that was being waters.
It might actually be worth replacing the other hose ends with this new type I got. A lot of the ones with screw clamps on them either still leak, or they are hard to attach and detach, because the screw clamps are in the way.
Anyhow. Just the two beds got watered, so I’m going to have to make sure to do a full watering of everything else, tomorrow morning. We’re expected to reach a high of 23C/73F tomorrow, then a high of 26C/79F the day after, so everything is going to need it!
My daughter had a questionnaire they’d sent to her all filled out to bring along for her appointment. It was close enough to her appointment time that I dropped her off at the doors before finding a parking spot. When I caught up with her, there was absolutely no one else in the waiting room, so she got called in right on time.
The first person (a nurse?) took her sheet with the questions, but the only reason they went through them at all was because my daughter hadn’t quite understood some of their questions, and hadn’t answered them. After a little while, she was taken to see the surgeon that will be operating on her wrist.
Most of what they asked was, in a nutshell, are you really sure you want to do this? Is it really so bad you’re willing to go under anesthetic and have someone digging around in your wrist? The surgeon was, at first, careful with how he phrased things but, after hearing how my daughter answered, realized he could go right into gruesome detail without any issue. So my daughter got a very intense description of what the surgery will entail, and was she really sure it was bad enough to go through this?
It makes me wonder just what sort of things they had to deal with in the past, to make them have to asked some of these questions!
My daughter, meanwhile, was more than happy to accept the surgery. Her ganglion happens to be on the small side right now, but when it gets bad, it gets really bad. The pain gets extreme and renders her arm pretty much useless.
She left with a printout with pre-op instructions. We have a date for the surgery, but she’ll get a call in about a week for the exact time she needs to come in. It’s just day surgery, so I’ll be driving her in, then hanging around to take her home.
We’re pretty impressed that she’s getting her surgery so relatively quickly. The referral was sent in April. To get such a quick surgery date for what is classified as elective surgery so quickly is very rare. She’s still waiting on other referrals her doctor had sent out for her.
Once she was done, I asked if there was anything we needed to do, while we were in town. After messaging with her sister for a bit, it was decided that we would go to a Pizza Hut – her choice for her special birthday take out (it’s not her birthday yet, but we split things like this up throughout the birth month, instead) – courtesy of her sister. We ended up getting four large stuffed crust pizzas, plus two 22 count boneless wings with different sauces.
That cost my daughter over $200 – and that was before the tip was added!
It’ll feed us for several days, though!
The ride home sure smelled good, though – and we were both quite hungry by then!
I may not have done my full morning rounds, but I did do my evening rounds. I’m concerned about a lot of my transplants. All of the transplants in the main garden area, and even in the east garden beds, are looking strangely yellow and floppy. The eggplant, peppers and herbs transplanted into the old kitchen garden seem fine, but all the other transplants are looking like they are dying. This doesn’t look like transplant shock, either. I don’t know what to make of it, but at this point, I’m not sure any of the melons or winter squash will survive! I’ve tried looking up the possible causes, and the only thing that seems likely is lack of nitrogen.
I did get some water soluble fertilizer while in town recently, so I think I’ll be making use of that when I do the watering tomorrow!
Other things are looking just fine. Like the raspberries that have spread into the old compost pile.
You can’t see very many, but the raspberry bushes were absolutely buzzing with mostly bumblebees. There is one huge bumble in the second video. You can even hear the much deeper tone of that one’s buzzing!
These raspberries have had zero tending to, other than my pulling some of the weeds around the edges. No watering or anything. They’re doing fantastic, though!
On a completely note, here is some adorableness for you.
I’m actually not 100% sure which cats these are, but I think it’s Mitsy and Toni all snuggled together. The cats just love this box! It’s a compromise with the cats, to allow them on the dining table; we used to allow only Ginger and Toni up there, as a safe space to get away from the other cats. When we started to find them snuggling with other cats, it just didn’t make sent to chase the 4 legged cats away from the 3 legged ones! Now, we’ll go past the box and sometimes find three large cats mashed into the box, literally hugging each other to fit. They keep moving when we stop to try and get a picture, though.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll be able to make a dump run, and my daughter plans to break out the riding mower. I do hope I can get that weed trimmer going again, as there are still areas that need to be done. Particularly around garden beds I need to work on. If not, I might be able to borrow my brother’s gas powered weed trimmer. I’m hoping they’ll be able to come out this weekend. The last couple of times they came out, I missed them entirely, and I’d love to do some catching up with them, too.
We shall see!
For now, I’m happy with what I managed to get done outside today, in the short time I had available for it, and that we got my daughter’s surgery consultation appointment done. It seems strange to be excited about getting surgery, but that ganglion has been causing her so much pain, it’s going to make a huge difference for her, once it’s gone!
I’m so glad we found this doctor and my daughter is finally getting this stuff done!
I just got back from my evening rounds, and a bit of a harvest from the garden. Since I was focusing on watering the garden this morning, I didn’t bother checking to see if anything was ready to be picked. It’s really just sugar snap peas and raspberries to pick right now.
I have been leaving the peas to get a bit bigger between harvests, as I find they are tastier on the larger side. I got about a handful harvested (minus the ones I ate!), and a decent amount of raspberries.
I also got a picture of our first bell pepper; a Purple Dragonfly. I can see other peppers forming, but they are still barely larger than the flower buds.
A couple of the winter squash that are growing nicely were lying directly on the ground, so I grabbed a couple of bricks to set under them and protect them from the soil. The others that are currently developing have naturally set on the log frame, which is handy.
According to my weather app, we got a bit of rain this afternoon, but it seems to have missed us. I now see that we are supposed to get rain from about 9pm to midnight. If I look at the weather radar, the system that’s supposed to reach us by then is large enough we should actually get rain, and it should continue past midnight by some hours.
We shall see!
Right now, it’s over the lake to the north of us, and there’s quite a lot of lightning happening in parts of it. Mostly over the lake. There is no rain at all over where the fires are, though.
At least we are finally starting to cool down a bit.
I took advantage of today’s relatively cooler 20C/68F, give or take a degree or two, to mow the lawns. Last night, we actually dropped to 8C/46F! At least, that’s what it was at about 5:30am I actually felt cold last night! Not cold enough to close the window, though. I was enjoying it too much!
I’d already done most of the edges around the yard with the weed trimmer yesterday. Today, I went to start the riding mower, but the battery was dead. So I put the charger on it, then used the push mower to mow the edges wider, so it would be easier to make the turns with the larger riding mower.
After doing all the edges along the inner yard, I got the riding mower going and started doing the rest.
I doubt I got as much as 50 feet of mowing before I gave up and parked the riding mower. I don’t know what’s wrong with that thing, but it just won’t cut! It’ll cut for the first foot or two, then nothing. The grass wasn’t that tall, so I can’t blame it on that, this time. If I reverse, then go back and forth a couple of times, I can finally clear an area – but only if the deck is as low as it can go, and I use the slowest speed.
At which point, it’s faster to use the push mower.
So that’s what I did.
By the time I finished the south and east yards – the largest sections with the thickest grass – I’d been out there for several hours. I went in for supper and was considering finishing the rest tomorrow. The north and west yards are a lot smaller, and the grass is thinner, so it wouldn’t take long.
Then I saw that we’re supposed to hit 27C/81F tomorrow.
There is no way I want to be mowing in that heat!
So I went out and finished the last two sections, and even mowed the one path through the maple grove I’ve managed to clear this year.
Then I filled the tank one last time and started working on the outer yard. Usually, I work in a circle, but this time I started at the chain link fence and just went back and forth until I ran out of gas. I managed to cut around the junk pile – most of that was grass that hadn’t been cut this year – and a path to the electricity meter. By the time I ran out of gas, I had almost finished clearing as far as the last time I was able to mow, except the driveway. I didn’t even try for the driveway this time. Next time, I’ll grab the gate key and mow all the way to the road.
But not today.
It was past 7pm by the time I finished, and I am totally beat!
I’m really happy with how the yards look, though, Plus, the grass clippings get to dry in the sun tomorrow, and at the end of the day, I should be able to collect quite a lot of it to use as mulch. Especially around the junk pile, where the grass was the tallest.
Also, I think there is a new litter of kittens in the junk pile. I’m seeing some white and greys running around in there. Previously, there’s only been the one fluffy tabby, until I found Button. I’m not sure if I saw two or three or four kittens!
Aside from the mowing, I tried to record some video for the July garden tour. I did some recordings yesterday evening, but I wasn’t sure I was happy with them. So I did more this morning. I don’t think I’m happy with them, either. However, I was really tired while going through the files, both times, so I think I’ll get one or both of my daughters to review them and tell me what they think.
Meanwhile…
After making some recordings this morning, I got a bit of a harvest.
I also startled a deer this morning! It was on the far side of the row of problem trees on the north side of the main garden.
Deer make the most interesting huffing noises.
While doing my rounds and mowing the lawn, I also saw lots and lots of frogs. All that rain may mean we’ve got lots of mosquitoes, but we also have lots of frogs to eat them, too!
I found this beauty on the upside down garbage can we use to support a rain diverter I needed to move so I could mow in the north yard. It’s held in place by a brick on each side. When I moved the diverter, the frog scooted under one of the bricks. I just had to move it long enough to get a picture! What a beauty!
I was still trying to use the riding mower when I spotted it climbing up the tent canopy that’s draped over the chain link fence right now. If it weren’t for the running motor, I would have taken video. It looked so adorable, climbing up the canvas! It’s body was, at most, an inch long. Probably less.
Even when using the push mower, there were a few times I had to pause to let some frogs jump out of the way. One little thing got stuck in the grass and I ended up catching it and moving it. That was was only about half an inch long!
I like frogs, and am so happy we’ve got so many this year!
Now, if they would just eat up all those slugs in the garden!
Well, I think I’m rested enough. Time for a shower. I’ve already got one of my daughters to put the bath chair in the tub for me. I’m so tired and unsteady right now, I don’t want to take a chance, no matter how many arm bars we’ve got in there!
It’s a “good” tired, though. Everything looks so much better out there, and I really do enjoy mowing!
Tomorrow, however, will be a different story. I am definitely going to be paying for that last push to do the outer yard! Just the weed wacking I did yesterday had my damaged left elbow hurting so much, it kept waking me up during the night. The pain killers I have don’t really do much for this type of injury, though. *sigh* It had been pretty good for so many years. Why is it coming back so badly, now?
My plan after doing my morning rounds was to get started on the weed trimming. It seems we got more rain overnight, though, so it’s probably not going to happen until this afternoon.
This was the first time there were enough sugar snap peas to harvest an actual handful. I also got a handful of raspberries. There were a couple of everbearing strawberries, but I ate them. The strawberries in with the raspberries are the tiny ones in the wattle weave bed we grew from seed. Such huge, strong plants, and such small berries! As cute as they are, they don’t taste any better, and they’re taking up space. I might decide to transplant them somewhere in the yard to grow wild, and use the space for something more productive.
The strawberries with the asparagus are a lost cause. I was going to put more netting around the bed but, at this point, that’s just locking the barn door after the horses have run away. There’s hardly anything left of them.
I wonder if they would survive if I transplanted them into the wattle weave bed, next to the ones already there?
These are from the ones growing pretty much wild in the old compost heap that have been there since before we moved here. With how much rain we had this spring, I honestly wasn’t expecting any to be ripe for at least a couple more weeks, so this was such a bonus.
Speaking of bonuses, while walking past the garlic at the end of the old kitchen garden I spotted one last garlic scape that I missed this morning, when I’d picked another that I’d missed when I did the last harvest of them.
While heading back into the house, I had to step over another bonus. Kittens!
There was two of them, this time, and I’ve even been able to pick up and cuddle the fluffy one. Button seems to have quite the preference for that spot and I often see him napping there.
The problem is, between him being so incredibly tiny, and the losses we’ve had this year, when I see him conked out there, or in the middle of the floor (another favourite napping spot of his!), I find myself checking to make sure he is okay.
Before doing my evening rounds, I topped up the kibble and was happy to see Broccoli’s two, curled up on the sidewalk block by the rain barrel. The black and white (Kohl) immediately ran off towards the garden shed, but the calico (Rabi) just stared at me, ready to flee.
Now, if they will just start going into the sun room and the shelters…
We’re supposed to get quite hot for the next while, so I tried going to be very early. Usually, I don’t go to bed until 2 am or so. Especially this time of year, when it’s still light out for so long. So “early” usually means “before midnight” for me. Instead, I tried to be in bed by about 8, hoping to be up and about outside by 5.
It didn’t work.
Some people can fall asleep soon after lying down. My husband has always been able to do that. I’ve never been one of these! I think I did finally fall asleep before midnight, but didn’t wake up any earlier.
Also, I need to start being very careful rolling over at night, because I’m starting to wake up with kittens chewing on my toes!
Anyhow.
The first order of business outside was to feed the cats. One of the first cats to show up was Octomom! I think the girls had called her Slick, but she’s around so infrequently, the name didn’t stick.
She is such a beauty! She didn’t like me being around, though, and kept moving away as I set kibble out in different places.
Last of all, I put kibble in the bowl in the garage for her. It was not only empty, but I could see in the box nest, that she had been digging around for any remaining kibble that might have been left behind in there.
Since the mama was at the kibble house, I took advantage of it. I grabbed one of the blankets, then went over to the barrel the kittens are in. After removing the “cover” (a sheet of aluminum weighed down with a brick), I took out the rotted pieces of the barrel top that had fallen inside, then lay down the blanket on one half of the bottom – which, I could not see, is just dirt. The barrel is upside down. The pieces I had taken out used to be the “floor” of the barrel. Now, it’s open at both ends.
After moving all the kittens onto the blanket, I went and got the other one and tucked it into the other half. Then I found some clean pieces of wood in the garage. They used to be part of the packaging for the wood chipper, if I remember correctly. They are longer, and I put them at angles above the kittens. This gives the mama something to land on when she jumps in, and an area to perch on above her kittens, when she needs a baby break.
By the time I was putting the cover back on, the mama was returning, and she was not happy to see me! She hovered around, growling at me, until I moved away. I watched as she climbed up to the rim of the barrel and looked down, but she did not go in yet. Instead, she perched on the edge and glared at me! The last I saw, she had moved onto the other barrel and continued to watch as I continued my morning rounds. I’ve been out that way a couple of times, since, and once I saw her in the grass. Later on, I’ll have to check again, when I’m sure the mama isn’t around.
As I headed back to the sun room, I spotted this.
It’s SuperAdam!
I don’t think any of those kittens are her own, and there are kittens from at least 3, possibly 4, litters that she is nursing!
One of the things I checked this morning was the raspberries, of course.
Those purple raspberries we transplanted this spring are doing amazing! The one in the photo is the largest of the three. We have been able to pick a whole 5 ripe raspberries from the three bushes.
The other image is of the raspberries I picked from the ones in the main garden area. My mother had transplanted them in the area long before we moved out here. Now that the crab apple tree that was there has died and was cut down, the raspberry bushes at that end, and around the old compost pile, are doing much better! The ones at the other end, closer to the chokecherry tree, are not doing as well.
Also, I don’t know if you’re seeing the bowl of raspberries okay, but after I uploaded the images to Instagram, that picture now looks like it’s got a semitransparent black overlay on it. Instagram seems to have issues with multiple images uploaded at once.
One of the other things I worked on this morning was an experiment.
I took the remains of some chicken wire and added it to the box frame. It’s just held in place with wire twists. I had a lot less chicken wire than I thought; not even enough to cover one side.
We do have enough of the black netting we got last year to cover it completely, which we might use as a temporary cover. I definitely want to use hardware cloth attached semi-permanently to the sides. I will probably put some on the top, too, but not permanently. The thing it, once the sides are covered, the only way to tend the bed would be to remove the box cover completely. That would be a 2 person job, to avoid damaging the corn.
Hmm… I was just thinking, as I look at that picture. Right now, I’ve got the excess wire over the top. The hardware cloth also comes in 4′ widths. I could have excess mesh on the bottom, covering the sides of the raised bed. That would ensure critters won’t be able to slip under the bottom of the box cover. It would also serve to keep the whole thing from getting knocked off the bed by a determined critter.
Something to think about.
By the time this was done, it was getting too hot and humid to stay outside, and it wasn’t even 10am yet!
We have a change in plans for today, anyhow.
We got a call from the vet clinic about Leyendecker’s appointment tomorrow. Looks like they got a cancellation or something, because they were asking if we could come in today, instead! So he now has a 4:30 appointment today.
Hopefully, it will not be something serious, but after his last vet visits, I have my doubts. 😟
When I finally got outside to do my evening stuff, I was able to pick a bunch of peas and raspberries.
It seems quite a lot of our peas have been “topped” by deer, but they seem to like the leaves, and not the pods.
I wanted to have that photo first, so no one squeamish sees the next photo in the post previews. You are warned!
The first time I started to go outside, I spotted the kitten with the messed up eye. After putting the food out, I was able to snag it and bring it inside for an eye washing.
That eye was looking worse than ever. The swelling was massive, and it looked like the eye was not going to make it.
We decided to call the vet. After talking to them for a bit, they had me come in as an emergency visit. This is how the kitten looked after we got it in the carrier.
That is not good. Not good at all. You can’t actually see in the photo, just how bad the swelling is. Just a great big ball over his cheek bone and partly towards his ear. While we washed the eye, I move the lids around and could see gunk was accumulating under the eyelids, too – not something we had any way to wash out.
By the time I got to the vet, it actually looked better, though all the pink tissue was blood red. The eyeball itself no longer looked cloudy, like in the photo.
I was taken to an examination room immediately. Just before leaving, I messaged the Cat Lady with the above photo, and we chatted for a bit while I waited for the vet. She has seen this before and told me about some medications that worked wonders for her, in just a couple of days. I was feeling better about that, by the time the doctor came in.
Not so much for the Cat Lady, though.
Her cat that is blocked is back in surgery, and he’s either going to make it, or be euthanized, depending on how things go. They’ve already spent thousands of dollars on this cat. I’m assuming they are doing the last ditch surgery of creating a “female” urethra. I honestly would never go that far. There can be so many problems after the surgery, and a severe reduction in quality of life. I don’t know for sure, though. Unfortunately, not only are they dealing with this, but family from out of country are in and they have to put a smile on their faces attend a family gathering. She’s a total mess – and yet she still was able to encourage me about the kitten!
When the vet came in, we talked for awhile and I explained the background on the kitten. This is only the second time I’ve been able to catch him (when I mentioned I hadn’t even had a chance to see if it was male or female, she did check and was mostly sure it’s male). She said the eye was likely related to herpes, and I told her how we’ve been giving the outside cats lysine to help with that. The adults are fine now, but once the kittens start getting weaned and eating solid food (including the mice and birds the mamas bring them), their eyes start getting gummy.
She used a light to look into his eye and confirmed that it’s gone. It’s full of blood and apparently starting to rot inside. All that swelling you can see in the photo? That’s all eyeball. *shudder* We’d be treating it for a while, and then having it removed later. So many of them have red, leaky and stuck eyes, but we can only catch a couple of them, once in a while.
The only way we could treat the kitten would be to bring it inside, of course, but that meant we would be able to control the lysine dose. They weighed him and worked out that he would be getting half a scoop – the scoop that comes with the lysine, not the size I’m using for the outside cats! – mixed into his food, twice a day. For an adult cat, it would have been 1 scoop twice a day. We would have gotten eye drops, too.
Note that I’m speaking in the past tense now.
The vet then took him out to wash his eye with saline solution, cover the eye with gel to keep it from drying out, and give him a slow release antibiotic injection.
Then she came back with him and a handful of medications to take home with him, started to talk to me about it, then asked, “unless you want to adopt him out…?”
???
I wasn’t quite sure if she was serious, but I said yes, of course. That would be a huge help. We already have too many cats in the house (the last I saw this vet, we had 16, but now Decimus and the 6 babies are inside, too).
Then she asked if I wanted to take him home first, or adopt him out now?
It seems one of the techs wanted to take him home. Now? Or Monday?
I was a bit confused, things were coming at me so jumbled. At first I was going to bring him home to treat him over the weekend, then bring him back on Monday, but then she told me to wait and went to talk to the tech again.
The tech was happy to bring him home with her right away.
So that was settled!
I was stunned, but happy.
Then I went to settle the bill. I figured it would be more than I got for the van, just this morning, and had already been checking my bank account to see what I could transfer over out of savings, if necessary. I’d mentioned to the vet that I’d been chatting with the Cat Lady, so when I was at the counter, she asked me if the rescue was covering the bill or was I? I told her the rescue was not involved with this kitten. Then I saw some semi-verbal communication between the vet and the tech that was out of view.
Suddenly I was being told it was okay. It was covered. The tech that adopted the kitten would take care of it, and I was basically – cheerfully! – kicked out. 😂😂
So… yeah.
By the time I left, I was in a bit of a daze. It all happened so quickly! I went in with a messed up kitty, worried about how we were going to pay for vet care and sure the baby was going to loose an eye. I left with the kitten in the best of hands. Who better than someone that works at a vet clinic to take care of it? The only way things could be better is if, by some miracle, the eye recovers. Unlikely, but possible.
We had another cold night last night, for this time of the year. Temperatures dropped to 6C/43F. It’s coming up on noon as I write this, and we’ve warmed up to 21C/70F, with an expected high of 23C/73F. I made sure to get outside to do my morning rounds a bit earlier, as we got word that my brother and his wife were coming out with the repaired riding mower, and it was just beautiful out.
Of course, I was checking all the garden beds, and saw so many of these…
A lot of the purple corn seem to have exploded with tassels emerging, overnight! I had expected them to get much taller, first. I may have made a mistake in choosing pole beans to plant with them, instead of bush beans! 😄
I also was able to pick a handful of the wild-ish raspberries growing around the old compost pile. Until this year, I would usually find enough to nibble on a few while doing my rounds, but not usually enough to be worth picking. They’re just starting to ripen now, and I’m already finding more than before – and that’s just in this patch. There are still the raspberries growing wild in other areas that we can pick from.
I even found a couple of fully ripe pea pods to nibble on, and some Saskatoons. The peas will have more ready to pick soon. So will the Saskatoons, if we can stay ahead of the birds! Even the sour cherry tree by the house is starting to ripen.
When I later put the washed raspberries on the kitchen counter, I had a good laugh. My daughters can be so silly at times! Last night, my younger daughter made mint syrup for the first time, and set it aside on the counter to cool, with a Post It note to let everyone know what was in the bowl.
Her sister added to the note…
Too funny!
My brother and his wife came out in their truck; the riding mower fits quite well in there. Once it was out, he showed me the things he replaced and repaired, and some of the things he found. There was one wire connector, for example, that he found was completely off. Which means the mower blade could not be lowered. Even if the chain he replaced was working, we couldn’t have use the mower! I have no idea when or how that happened, because the last time I tried to use it was right after it had had the chain put back on. The chain immediately fell of, so I never got to a point where I’d have tried to engage the mower.
He replaced the seat. I didn’t even think it needed replacing, but he explained it to me. It seems there was some video of me he’d watch, riding around on the mower, and the bottom of my sweater was on the top of the mower – a part that spins! This seat has a back on it, so that won’t happen anymore.
He’d replaced the battery cables and the corroded connectors, and they are now covered with a protective grease. He also found a new battery holder. That was one of those things where I’d seen something was wrong, but didn’t know what it was. There was a vertical metal bar that was wobbling around. I knew it should be attached to something, but couldn’t figure out what. It turns out it was one of the bars that held a plastic piece that was supposed to be holding the battery in place. There was no sign of the plastic piece. It was held in place with a couple of nuts and washers. This is something that can only be seen if the seat and cover are lifted. How or when the plastic piece fell off, I don’t know, but it had to have been fairly early on, because I have zero memory of ever seeing it there in the first place.
After showing all the changes to me and my younger daughter, who’d joined us by then, he started it up and tested it out on the outer yard grass before driving it into the garage.
As for their mower, the best I could do was make sure the tank was full, have it out and ready for them to load, and clean it off. They were happy to get their mower back. It’s slightly narrower and can store in their garage – ours was too wide! It’s also too wide to fit between some of their trees, so they couldn’t use it for that, either.
I am so thankful that my brother was able to do all this for us. He’s so sweet!
Once done with the mowers, we did a “tour” of things. They checked out inside the shed with the roof that collapsed; there’s still quite a bit of stuff in there, and my brother even borrowed the wheel barrow so he could move some of it to the barn, so it wouldn’t be exposed to the weather anymore. He was able to identify some of the things in there, including some things that really had me wondering why they are there at all – they are for equipment that the farm has never had! My SIL found some ripe cherries to try out, and we all got to snack on Saskatoons. She’d never had them fresh off the tree before, and loved them. They planted a Saskatoon bush at their place, but it’s too early to be producing yet.
We talked a bit about some of the trees we need to deal with. The elm in front of the kitchen really needs to come down, but that is one for the professionals, as are the dead spruces closest to the house. The cost is prohibitive, though. My brother, being the sort of person he is, just sort of took off suddenly and went on the roof to empty the eaves toughs. While there, he checked out the elm tree, which has branches overhanging the roof. At the very least, those need to be cut back, so they don’t damage the nice new shingles!
Altogether, we had a wonderful time, wandering around the yards and chatting about what we’ve been doing, what needs to be done, and what we’d like to do.
They had another surprise for us, though that will be brought out later. They found themselves with an air conditioner they’d bought for someone else, but is no longer needed. It’s been used for only a year. They have central air and don’t need it themselves, so they will be gifting it to us. It’s not the kind that fits in a window, though. It’ll need to be installed in a wall, and near a 3 prong outlet. We have a limited number of those. My brother walked around the house, talking to my daughter about where to install it. It was decided there was no way to install it upstairs and be able to plug it in. It also can’t go into any of the log walls. Since we have cat proofed the living room, that’s where it will be installed. So we will have to do some rearranging in there… again… in preparation for that.
It won’t be the most efficient location for air conditioning, but it’ll still make a world of difference!
They are so awesome!!!
So now I’m looking forward to using the riding mower around the main garden area. I didn’t want to use their riding mower for that, because it’s so rough, I was paranoid about breaking their machine.
I think today would be a great day to finally get that done! Or at least started. 😊
After the hours spent outside yesterday, trimming, cutting and dragging around trees, I fully expect to be in a world of hurt today. I wasn’t! Just tired. Sleepy tired, not fatigue tired.
Today was a wonderfully cool day and it would have been prefect to get back out there, but I decided not to push my luck. Instead, I went out and made recordings for a July garden tour video. My husband had some parcels come in, so in the afternoon I went to the post office to pick them up. My younger daughter got her new debit card in the mail, which needed to be activated by doing a physical purchase, so we went into town and she bought me lunch. After we ate, we went to walk on the beach. By then, I was really noticing my hips were starting to give out. No pain. Just… unstable. So I’m glad I didn’t push myself to do more work with the trees, just because I thought I was better than I really was.
I couldn’t let such a wonderful day go to waste, though, and took advantage of the riding mower my brother loaned us. I was able to do the driveway and most of the outer yard before running out of gas again. By then, the light was starting to go, and it had been trying to rain for almost an hour, so I left the rest for later.
One of the things I need to mow around in the outer yard is the pile of insulation buried in branches. It’s been there so long, there are trees growing out of it, and wild raspberry bushes.
Lots of wild raspberry bushes.
With ripe berries! The ones in the garden are almost ripe, but these had berries ready to pick now!
So after the mowing was done and the kibble topped up outside, I got the girls to grab some bowls and pick berries with me. I’m not sure what happened with my younger daughter, though. She came out using a cane! After we came back from town, she went for a bike ride and seemed fine, but something gave out on her. Her PCOS really affects her joints, and she worked hard in the basement today. None of us do stairs well at all! I didn’t get a chance to ask what happened, though.
After we picked some berries, I was going to do my evening rounds when I remembered, we have other berries, too! There are Saskatoons ready to pick. My older daughter helped pick for a while, then commented on the cherry tree by the house. It has so many cherries on it, and some of them are just starting to turn red. I told her to go take a look at the other cherry trees along the edge of the spruce grove. I have been able to just see red cherries there. She took a look and forced her way closer, to pick some.
She was able to get at a whole 4 ripe cherries!
My older daughter and I ate those. They’re really sour cherries, and she and I are the only ones willing to eat them fresh like that! 😄
Not too shabby for a first berry harvest of the year! The girls washed them and made whipped cream to go with them. They were awesome.
The weather is supposed to be quite pleasant for the next while – slightly below average for July. I’m pretty excited about that. Hopefully, that means I can finally get lots done outside!
The Re-Farmer 