storm

Incoming

/ Re-Farmer / 11 Comments

Man, monitoring this storm has been just a wild world of confusion.

I have a weather widget on my phone that has animated weather in the background to match current conditions. When I looked at it, first thing this morning, it was snowing. Opening the app, there was a message saying heavy snowfall will continue for at least an hour and a half.

What was out my window?

Nothing. Not a flake in the sky.

The edge of the storm was supposed to reach us around 3am, with blizzard conditions by 10am. We had no snow at all last night.

Looking at the weather radar, we had that remarkable bubble over our area again. The storm’s edge was swirling around us, but not on us.

Yet.

So I quickly bundled up and headed outside to do my morning rounds – spotting two deer walking through the West yard when I got into the sun room.

The sun room seems to have stayed just above freezing overnight. The Wonderberry, which is by itself at one window, where it’s colder, seems to be doing just fine. I did move it away from the window a bit more. It’s not going to get much light today, anyhow, and the closer to the window it is, the colder it is.

By the time I got outside, the first flakes were starting to fall. The winds were already quite high, though, so it was no surprise that only a few cats came out for food. I did move a small dish of food just inside the entrance to their cat house, though. Potato Beetle was the only cat in there when I started putting the food out. As overcast as it is, the light sensor on the timer should be triggered to turn on the ceramic heat bulb, so it should be nice and warm in there.

In the time it took me to put feed out for the birds and deer, put the container back in the sun room, and come back around the corner on my way to the sign cam, there were at least 4 deer at the feeding station already. They got startled and ran off into the trees, so I’m not sure, exactly.

It didn’t take them long to come back!

Snow was starting to come down a bit harder by the time I very quickly did my morning rounds. Those winds, though! We’ll have to keep an eye out for falling branches and trees. As I sit here, writing this post, I can watch the snowfall increase and the visibility drop on the garage cam live feed. The driveway and paths that had been exposed ground are now white with snow.

The weather alerts have changed, of course. The south of us is getting the brunt of the storm. The system is splitting up and swirling in two directions; the snow is being pushed to the northwest, across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, while the rain is being pushed to the east, across Ontario and Quebec. The rain part of the system looks like it’s going to be more severe than the snow part.

The alert is now saying that south of us is getting the brunt of the storm basically now, but not as much snow as expected. Our area is supposed to now get the brunt of the storm tonight and into tomorrow.

Except.

As I watch the weather radar, it looks like we’ll still be getting the brunt of the storm… now, bascially, and over the next couple of hours. Then it looks like it’s clearing up. The system should be clear of our area, continuing North and West, by about 3:30pm.

If I look at the hourly forecast, this afternoon will actually have wet flurries, but where I earlier saw predictions of 5-10cm/2-4in in one hour, over a couple of hours, I’m now seeing ~1cm or >1cm every hour through Thursday.

That’s with The Weather Network.

AccuWeather is telling me we are having “heavy snow” right now (it’s snowing, but I’d still call it flurries at the moment), while the hourly forecast is saying much the same as the other; about a centimeter – less than half an inch – per hour. The “looking ahead” note says “A snowstorm continuing into Friday morning with blizzard conditions today and storm total accumulations for 40-60cm.” This is supposed to be for our area, not the entire region the storm is crossing.

A lot of mixed messages.

So…

I look out the window, or watch the garage cam.

The snow is definitely getting heavier, though still nowhere near what I would call “heavy snow”. In past storms we’ve had this winter, when we have heavy snow, the garage cam gets whited out. We’re not there yet.

I’m watching the maple branches outside my window, and when those gusts hit, you can really tell!

But we are safe and warm inside, the outside cats are fed and should be cozy in their favorite hidey holes about the property by now.

Yesterday, we started pickling eggs for our Easter basket. Today, my goal is to bake the Easter bread.

For now, though, it’s a good time for another cup of strong, black tea!

The Re-Farmer

Turmeric update, and winter is back!

/ Re-Farmer / 3 Comments

My goodness, what a day today has turned out to be!

As I dropped Turmeric off at the vet, it was just barely starting to snow. There was no snow at all as I drove home. I did, however, see 11 deer in the field by our hamlet’s fire hall, and more during the drive in!

The weather forecasts have been all over the place. Previously, this week was supposed to be about 8-10C warmer than right now, but those forecasts slowly dropped. Then we were told to expect 6-10cm (roughly 2-4 inches) of snow, then less than 1cm of snow and rain. This morning, when I checked before heading out, it was again saying 6-10cm. After dropping Turmeric off, it was saying 6-12cm.

Looking at the weather radar, I could see a huge system swirling counter clockwise over Eastern Canada and the US – many states look like they are getting walloped with rain, while snow was hitting South Eastern Canada. As usual, we looked like we’d be getting just the edge of the system.

By the time I was heading back to pick up Turmeric, the snow was falling much more heavily, though there was still some rain in it, too. Visibility was quite reduced.

I left a bit early so that I could stop to order some anniversary pizza. There’s a brand my husband and I haven’t had since we were in high school, so we couldn’t remember if we even liked it anymore. After placing the order, I went to pick up Turmeric, who was doing just fine.

Getting her was faster than the pizzas, so I waited with her in the van.

Would you look at those cracked out eyes!!! I put my phone right up against the door, then used voice to take the picture. The command I usually use is “smile”. She had been looking out the holes in the sides, but when I said “smile”, this is the look she gave me! :-D

I talked to the vet about getting more of the painkiller, just in case, but the dose is so low, and for only 3 days, she suggested I wait. If we were doing more cats soon, it would have been worth it to get a bigger bottle of the stuff, but the next cat we get done, it is likely the Cat Lady will be picking her up, and keeping her for the recovery period, instead. The stuff might expire before we use much of it, so the vet suggested waiting and just using what we have left. If we run out, we can get more.

Once we got the pizzas, it was a careful drive home. The roads weren’t that bad, but this would be a bad time for a deer to suddenly appear out of the blowing snow.

I had about 45 minutes before I headed out again, to pick up the freezer pack of beef. Time enough for supper!

The pizza was very good. I would definitely order from there again.

Due to the road conditions, I left early.

I just had to open the window to get a picture while at the stop sign. As usual, the camera cleans the shot up automatically, so visibility in real life was poorer than it seems in the photo.

The good thing is that the days are longer, so it was still light out. When we picked up our quarter beef, back in December, it was pitch black out at this time.

We met up at the parking lot of a grocery store, so I took advantage of that and went in to pick up some cake and ice cream for our anniversary, too.

Oh! I see our usual 3 deer, including the piebald, walking up our driveway on the security camera. Thankfully, they are the only deer I was seeing this evening.

Before driving home, I checked the weather conditions, and it was still saying to expect 6-12cm of snow – but for the first time, the word “storm” was used.

We shall see what we actually end up with.

I messaged the family to let them know I was on the way, and asking someone to meet me when I backed the van closer to the house, to avoid the big lake of water between the house and the garage. I got some confusing responses about a delivery. No, not the delivery of meat I just picked up. A delivery for my husband, at home!

It was very confusing.

After I’d left, they got a phone call from a delivery driver, letting my husband know he was in our little hamlet. My husband told him I was already out to pick up the delivery in the town to the North of us.

The driver was very confused.

So was my husband.

It turned out to be the pharmacy driver, with prescription refills for my husband.

We didn’t order any refills.

It seems, now that the bubble packs are made in the city, they simply fill his prescription refills automatically, then send them out to the pharmacy in town. Since we always get them delivered, and today is delivery day, they got sent out. We haven’t even been charged for them yet, or I would at least have gotten the transaction notification from my bank app.

Once that was straightened out, my younger daughter went out to meet the driver and pick up the package. Due to the nature of some of the drugs my husband takes, there was a paper for him to sign, so my daughter was going to take it in for him to do that, then bring it back out again.

She described to me what happened, herself. Since she was just popping outside briefly, she was wearing her house sandals. As she turned away from the driver, bag of pills in one hand, the paper to sign in the other, her foot went onto slush on ice, The next thing she knew, her foot slipped, spinning her into a pirouette, before she fell, slamming into the mud with one knee and the hand holding the paper, as she kept the bag of pills high in the air, so it wouldn’t hit the mud.

The driver, of course, was quite alarmed, but thankfully, she was okay. The mud was soft to land on. ;-)

My husband signed a very wet and muddy paper, though.

Poor thing!

Needless to say, it was her sister who came out to help me bring the box of meat, and the bag of cake and ice cream, in.

Meanwhile, we continue to have a mix of rain and snow. Looking at the weather radar, the system that looked like it was going to just brush past us, is now right on top of us. We, however, are warm and safe inside, and well stocked. No need to go anywhere for quite a while, if we don’t want to.

The long range forecast has us at just a few degrees above freezing with more snow and/or rain, off and on, for the next two weeks before things turn spring-like again.

Tomorrow, we’re planning to start the next batch of seeds. I think that’s the perfect activity to be engaged in, with the weather we are having right now! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Just a bit of snow…

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

Our first blizzard of the season has passed us by. The weather system is still going, though. On the weather radar, I can see that a swath of the US, Ontario and Quebec are being hit as the storm makes its way to the East coast.

As I write this, we are at -22C/-7.6F, with a wind chill of -36C/-32.8F (I usually round the Fahrenheit down, but decided to include the decimals today. :-D ) Our high of the day is supposed to reach -19C/-2.2F with a wind chill of -30C/-22F Tomorrow is supposed to be a couple of degrees colder.

Then on Christmas day, we’re supposed to reach a high of -9C/15.8F with a wind chill of -14C/6.8F We’ll have these mild temperatures for a couple of days, then it’s supposed to drop around the -20C’s for a couple of days, before going back to mild temperatures in time for the new year.

It’s going to feel like spring.

The girls did some shoveling yesterday, so things wouldn’t accumulate too much as it continued to snow.

I was seeing this on the live feed from the security camera last night.

The storm came in from the west, but it was swirling so much, the winds in the image are actually coming from the east!

When one of my daughters had to take the bag of cat litter they cleaned out last night to the bin we have for it outside, she had to push the door open through a snow drift.

You can see signs of that, below.

This is how it was this morning.

You can almost see the path the girls shoveled down the sidewalk! :-D

They also shoveled in front of the cat shelters.

Do you see those icicles hanging from the cat house roof? You know what that means?

It’s warm in there! Warm enough to melt the snow from underneath.

I’m so glad that aquarium bulb is working out as a heater! It’s not enough to warm it up too much, either; too warm, and it will affect their ability to acclimatize to the winter and put them more at risk from the cold.

Some snow did get into the kibble house, unfortunately. We’ll have to clean that out later, when we’re doing more shoveling. This morning, I just did the minimum I needed to do to feed the critters.

The other water bowls were completely buried, but the heated water bowl was doing just fine!

You can see tracks in the background, between the two shelters. Those led to the storage house, so we know that some cats are still sheltering under there, too.

Once I cleared enough snow to give the cats fresh food and water, I continued clearing a path to the feeding station, where the smaller bird feeder is hanging. That will do for now. Eventually, we will need to dig paths to the compost pile, down the sidewalk and to the electricity meter, and to the garage. The girls had cleared all three doors of the garage, including where the snow blower is stored. I can see on the security camera that it isn’t completely filled it again. :-D

I was going to take pictures of the shoveling I did this morning, but I just wanted to get back inside! Plus, my glasses were frosted over and I couldn’t see. :-D

Aside from the paths, we will need to clear the driveway to the road, of course, but we will also need to clear into the yard, for when we need to drive up to the house. That has to include space for a turning radius. Plus, we will need to make paths around the house, so we can reach the septic tank, if needed, and it would be good to have a path to the fire pit, too. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take the big snow blower in to see why it won’t start and get it fixed. So all we’ve got is the little electric one. We do also have an “electric shovel” that my dad used to use. We used it our first winter here. So we won’t have to do all of it by hand, at least!

All that clearing does not have to be done right away. We are well stocked and don’t have to go anywhere, so it can wait until it warms up a bit.

The last couple of winters, our first blizzards were in October, so this one was very late in the season. It may be a lot more snow than we’ve had so far, but it’s actually not too bad. We still only got hit by the edges of the storm. The more severe parts of the storm moved across the Canada/US border, so the south of the provinces all got hit a lot harder. We are doing pretty good where we are. I’m also happy to have more snow in general. Having this stored water will be essential in the spring, for gardens and fields. Lots of snow with a nice, gradual spring melt, would be ideal conditions for planting in the spring, whether it’s farmers’ crops or garden beds. Our first two summers here were drought conditions. Last year, we had a wet spring, followed by a hot, dry summer, and that wet spring was enough to keep crops going through the heat later on.

We shall see what the rest of the season brings us. I’ve seen predictions for both severe cold and mild temperatures for this winter. So far, it’s looking like the mild prediction is the one that’s panning out.

Until then, we’ll enjoy our Christmas while snowed in, all warm and cozy!

Including the outside kitties. :-) Relatively speaking!

I hope anyone reading this that got hit by this storm, too, is also safe, warm and well!

The Re-Farmer

Stormy day

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

If all had gone to plan for today, I would be just arriving at my mother’s right now, to help her with her grocery shopping.

This morning, things were looking just fine out.

Some of the cats still didn’t want to go out in the relatively warm temperatures! :-D

Switching out the memory card on the new camera was a problem this morning. I had my little bowl under it and pushed the micro SD card in to unlatch it, but it didn’t pop out. I tried several times, eventually getting it looser, but I still couldn’t get the card out. It has a little ridge at the end for taking it out of card reader adapter, but even pulling on that with a fingernail was not getting it loose. It did eventually come out, dropped into the waiting bowl I was holding under it…

Then bounced out, and fell into the snow.

*sigh*

I put the replacement card in, then went hunting. Thankfully, the snow was really soft under the camera, and I could see a little slot in the snow were the memory card sliced through. I scooped a handful around where it fell, but still couldn’t find it. The snow was so soft, it fell even deeper! So I had to very carefully dig around in the snow, and I did find it.

I then had to make sure it got good and dry before using it!

I also have to come up with something better to catch the memory card, that I can also fit in my pocket. Ideally, I’d have a little tray attached to the post, under the camera. Figuring out how to rig one of those up would probably be better.

It’s a good thing we’re not actually trying to hide the camera or anything like that! LOL

There has got to be a better way to do this, though. :-/

When I finally tried to upload the files, however, I realized I’d forgotten something important.

I hadn’t formatted the second card. There was nothing on it.

When setting up the camera with the first card, I was able to format it right in the trail cam. When I switched cards yesterday, I wasn’t able to get the screen working (likely due to the cold), and I forgot completely about it needing to be formatted before use.

So there’s a day or recordings, lost! I even saw our vandal going by on his quad, in files on the other camera, turning around near our driveway. It did look like he was just turning around, not stopping or doing anything nefarious, but I really would have liked to have had the different view of him.

We shall see how things work tomorrow.

That’s if I switch out the cards tomorrow. I might skip a day, with the weather we’re having right now.

On seeing that it looked like the storm was actually going to hit us, and fairly soon, I called my mother to see if she was up to doing her shopping earlier. She was, thankfully. She had other places she wanted to go to as well, so we picked up the groceries last. Unfortunately, there was a line up outside the store, which she had never seen before! With the restrictions on how many people can be in the store, they had someone outside (poor kid was NOT dressed for the weather!), counting people. He was a sweetheart and got a cart for me that I could bring to my mother so she could use it as a walker. Thankfully, the line was moving fast, so my 89 yr old mother with her damaged knee didn’t have to stand outside in the cold for very long!

I’m rather incensed about that. Not only have there been no cases of Covid traced to retail outlets in our province, there are none at all in her town.

The storm reached her town while we were in the grocery store. I was able to bring her groceries to her apartment, at least (her building is locked down, but it turns out they do allow deliveries). I wasn’t able to stay and put her groceries away for her, like I usually do. I didn’t want to get her in trouble with the abusive caretakers. Things didn’t look too bad in town, but once I reached the highway, I could see the storm had reached town. I actually drove out of it on the way home, but in the last couple of miles to the farm, I could actually see the storm coming in from the west. Not longer after I got home, my mother phoned to say how glad she was that we did her shopping earlier, because it was really blowing hard around her building! By then, we were getting fairly heavy snow, but not the winds. As I write this, the snow has actually let up a bit. The south of the province is getting the blizzard warnings. It’s a large system, but we may be far enough north to get just the edges of it.

The good thing is, we are well stocked and, now that my mother is also well stocked, we don’t have to go anywhere for some time. We could probably hunker down until after New Year’s, if we needed to. Not that I expect to need to. The storm should pass by tomorrow, and we’re supposed to get a couple of cold days, and then its supposed to get mild again. And by “mild”, I mean around the -10C/14F range.

About the only thing that is going to be an issue is our internet connection. Which we just lost, so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to publish this post! Oh, it’s back again!

Better publish this while I can! My apologies for any typos I’ve missed. :-D

The Re-Farmer

After a wild and crazy night!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

It was shortly after 1 am and, as I was lying awake in bed, something I was seeing finally soaked through my heat-numbed brain.

Lights.

Flashing lights, out my north facing window.

The sky was lighting up, over and over, hardly a break in between! Constant flashes of lightning.

My West facing window was open, but I heard nothing. No thunder. No rain. Hardly even wind.

But the flashes kept going.

After a while, I went to the main entry and watched the storm coming in through the outer door, before finally moving to the sun room.

Creamsicle and Potato Beetle were very thrilled to see me, and just begging for pets and cuddles!

While standing at the mostly-closed outer door, I heard a distinct crunching noise. Using the flashlight on my phone, I took a peak through the gap behind the garbage can, and could just see the tip of a skunk’s nose!

He waddled away, pausing to scream for a while, soon after.

Skunks make the strangest noise!

One of my daughters came down after hearing me go through the old kitchen, but with Creamsicle and Potato Beetle at the door into the sun room, she decided to go out through the main entrance.

After making sure we were clear of skunk.

We stood outside for a while, watching the sky.

Time and again, the entire yard was lit up bright as day!

Then it started to rain, so we went into the sun room. After a while, my daughter went back into the house, through the main entry, making sure to prop a sawhorse in front of the outer door (we still haven’t been able to finish fixing the frame on that!), to keep it from blowing open, while still being open enough for the cats to come in for shelter.

I remained in the sun room, watching the storm through the outer door, when my other daughter came to join me. She was just telling me about how she had checked the weather radar, and the main part of the storm looked like it was passing us by, but we were still getting warnings for hail… when the hail started!

Then the wind pulled open the outer door, sending the saw horse flying. Even though I was inside, I immediately started getting hit with rain, so I quickly closed up the inner door, and continued watching through the window on that.

The video is much MUCH darker than it actually was outside.

Creamsicle was very happy to be inside the sun room, with me! He kept trying to get my attention while I took photos and video so, after a while, I put the phone away and just cuddled him. He was in heaven, giving me all kinds of hugs and kisses!

Then Potato Beetle got in on the action, and soon I was holding both of them, and watching the storm!

The storm passed by rather quickly, and I was soon able to get the outer door set up with the saw horse to keep it from blowing open again, then went inside. Once inside, a quick check on Facebook found I was not the only one up at almost 2am, posting about the storm!

One of the pages I follow is a local weather group, and they posted an image showing the hundreds of places lightning was detected on the weather radar. The storm itself, amazingly, split just before reaching us. Most of it passed by to the North, and a tiny bit passed us by to the South. What we got was the less severe gap in the middle.

Wow.

So when I headed out to do my morning rounds today, I did a more thorough check for fallen branches and see what other storm damage there might be. There was quite a lot branches to pick up. Only two were live branches, though. The rest were already dead. The elm tree in front of our kitchen window lost so many tiny dead twigs, I didn’t even try to pick them up. I’d need a rake to get them all.

I was happy to note that there was no substantial hail damage to any of the garden plots. I did, however, have a wonderful surprise in the squash.

Two of them have suddenly bloomed! These were not there yesterday, and I really was not expecting to see flowers while the plants are still so small.

These are in the second, larger bed that was transplanted later, and they are doing much much better than the others. The long row in the back that was planted at the same time is doing all right, but not as well as the wider bed. The first bed I’d planted, that got frost damage in spite of our covering them first, is still struggling.

Of the three pumpkin mounds, one of the ones that had a packet of 3 seeds planted in it, now has a second seedling sprouting. The mound that had the packet of 5 seeds planted it in has a first seedling just starting to break ground now.

This late in the season, the only way we’ll get ripe pumpkins, I think, is if we have a late and long, mild fall.

Which could happen. We’ll see.

The surviving first planting of sunflowers have also made a very noticeable increase in growth.

No hail damage on anything planted in the old garden area. No deer damage, either.

It wasn’t until I was almost done my rounds that I found the one tree that fell during the storm.

It’s one of the dead trees I need to clean out, anyway, so this actually saves me some work! :-D

With the heat wave, our weekly checking of the root cellar has provided useful information already. With the possibility of building a cheese cave in there, a few years from now, we are looking for a temperature range of between 7C – 12C (45F – 55F) and a humidity level in the 85-95% range, though some types of cheese require different temperatures. As of this morning, the root cellar was at 17C/62F, and the humidity was at 88%. It was the same last week, too. So for most types of cheeses, it would be too warm. It also is not as consistent as it should be. There is an air vent that goes straight outside, with nothing but window screen mesh to keep the bugs out, at the end. I’d tried partially blocking it, but enough of a wind gets through that it blows out whatever is used. It might be worthwhile to add some sort of vent covering that can be opened and closed to help keep the temperatures from fluctuating too much.

Meanwhile, the heat wave continues. We’re already at 29C/84F (“feels like” 33C/91F), with a predicted high of 31C/87F (humidex: 36C/96F). Heat alerts remain. At least the high water and flood alerts have stopped for now, though we have more thunderstorms predicted overnight, so that might change.

Heat or no heat, we have really got to get the counter moved out, so we can put in the new stove. With the old stove, we’d already stopped using one of the elements, due to sparking when it was turned on or off. The girls, who have taken to cooking and eating at night rather than during the day, have noticed other elements have started to spark, too.

It’s going to be dreadful, and take hours to accomplish, but it has to be done.

Installing the stove itself will be the easy part. Juggling the dining table, chairs, shelves, the contents of the counter, and the counter itself, while still leaving room for the old stove to be pulled out, and the new stove to be moved in, is the hard part.

The Re-Farmer

An interesting night!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

The predicted thunderstorms did pass over us last night. Not the severest part of the system, but enough that we had quite the light show. More are expected today, though I think we will, once again, just get hit by the edges of the system.

I had intended to actually *gasp* go to bed before midnight last night, but I noticed something odd in the live feed from the garage security camera.

One of the side doors was open, and swinging in the wind.

Which is when I remembered: I had intended to do a dump run yesterday, so I prepped garbage bags in the garage, then left the main door open, for when I came back for the van.

I built a screen for the basement door, instead. By the time I remembered, the dump was closed. I completely forgot I’d left the main door open.

So one of my daughters and I went out in the storm; me in my nightgown, rubber boots and an umbrella. :-D My daughter didn’t bother with an umbrella.

We had already lost internet for a while by then. It was up and running again, but then the power flickered out long enough that everything re-set. The router took a while to get going again, and the security camera put itself in default position, rather than facing down the driveway. The power flickered off again later, but not long enough that we had to fuss with things all over again.

It did, at least, cool down! As I write this, we are at what now feels like a fairly cool 22C/71F (“real feel” 25C/77F). The humidity is at 73%. When I did my rounds this morning, it was actually raining, every so slightly.

The rain we’ve been having has been awesome, though. I’ll put up with the overgrown weeds and lawn for things like this.

This is part of a Saskatoon bush we’ve got next to where we are planning to build the cordwood outhouse (though at this rate, I’ll be amazed if we can manage to remove the sod and create a base for it by fall!). Just look at all those berries! This tree isn’t even particularly healthy, either!

These unripe berries are already larger and plumper than the fully ripe berries it had last year – and I watered this one that year! You see the one dark, dried up berry? That’s more like what they looked like last year, fully ripe.

Hhhmm… I wonder what Saskatoon berry mead would be like? :-)

I really need to go visit my cousin and pick up a couple of his big buckets of honey.

One down side of all the rain is, the mosquito population has exploded. It meant rushing through checking on things, and I never did go through the areas I normally do after a storm, so see what branches have come down. I did check the gardens and the sunflowers, though.

The sunflowers are really starting to grow fast! The one in the middle is the taller variety, and it already shows.

Unfortunately, another top got chomped, which you can see on the bottom. I believe I saw our culprit in the trail cams, too. The one deer that still visits regularly. It has a very distinctively long face and leggy body that makes it recognizable.

I really hope we don’t lose too many more of these. I should pick up some chicken wire or something to protect them.

Which reminds me; my intended trip into town today will be delayed until tomorrow. I completely forgot that yesterday was the last day of June.

Happy Canada Day!

Not that anyone’s allowed to celebrate it this year. :-/ Why anyone bothers with restrictions on crowds right now, after allowing all those protests without consequences, I have no idea. Not only has Canada Day celebrations all been canceled, but warnings had gone out over “rumors” that people intended to have their own celebrations.

At times like this, I really appreciate living here, away from everyone. I’ll take dealing with deer eating my sunflowers over people, any day!

What can I say. I’m a hermit at heart! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Gotta be quick!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Taking advantage of a break to quickly post!

My attempts at getting kitten pictures has been a failure today. Those little buggers move fast! :-D

So do flowers, actually. At least with the winds we had when I was doing my rounds this morning!

These delicate little wildflowers have burst into bloom now. It’s interesting how there always seems to be some wildflower blooming, one after the others.

These wild roses are almost completely engulfed by the spirea!

One of our goals is to pull up most, if not all, of the spirea from here. The junk pile, in general, needs to be cleared so we can get access to it and start cleaning it up. I’m hoping the wood pile that makes up the bulk of it will still have some salvageable wood in there. One of the things I want to build is a box to put our garbage bags into, so the animals can’t tear them apart.

I noticed in the area around the stone cross, which had been full of spirea, now has what looks like flowers coming up. If they are what I think they are, they won’t bloom for a while yet, but I’m seeing them pop up all over, in areas that have been cleared up. Especially where I’ve also been able to finally mow. It seems once the grass (or, in this area, the spirea) was no longer the dominant plant, all sorts of greenery is now able to grow. When I get to mowing in the maple grove, there are some paths I plan to deliberately leave alone, just to see what is there.

After my morning rounds, I got back outside as quick as I could, to finish mowing around the old garden area.

I was almost done when I ran out of gas, so I took a quick rest and hydration break. The Potato Beetle came over for cuddles. I’m rather surprised, considering how covered in bug spray I was!

I’m happy to say, I managed to finish the old garden area, including the section I hadn’t been able to get to at all, yet. After this, I can start going into the maple grove.

But not today.

For the last half hour or so of mowing, there was a whole lot of thundering happening, so I was really happy to get that last bit finished before putting away the mower.

Since then, we have had a quick storm pass by, with a heavy downpour. We also lost internet for a while, and then we momentarily lost power. Just enough to cause the computers to restart, and the security camera to reset its position.

I love power bars.

Looking at the weather radar, we seem to be in the path of several small but severe thunderstorms for the rest of the day.

Which means it’s time to quickly get caught up, then shut down the computer, in case we lose power again. No doubt, once the winds pick up again, we’ll lose internet again.

It’s going to be an interesting day!

The Re-Farmer

Just a bit …

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… of a spring storm.

I’m not looking forward to clearing the driveway after this.

It’s supposed to continue snowing through most of the day. I was planning to go to the post office, as I’m expecting some packages, but I think I will wait until Monday! My daughter is working on Saturday, which is supposed to still be chilly. There isn’t going to be much of a window to clear the driveway so she can get to work, and I can get the rest of my husband’s prescription refills.

On Sunday, it’s supposed to warm right up again, and stay warmer for the rest of the week, even as we’re supposed to get a bit more snow. Things should melt away fairly quickly.

Which isn’t going to help us get out and about tomorrow!

The Re-Farmer

A few interesting things today

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While doing my rounds, I noticed something about the storm damage to one of our elms that I hadn’t before. I simply didn’t stop to look, since it’s still to wet and snowy to start cleaning the damage up, until today while doing my morning rounds.

This branch here isn’t just broken.

It’s broken off completely. The only reason it’s not on the ground is because it fell on another little branch that’s holding it up!

The girls and I had to make a trip into the city today, and while driving around, we saw so many damaged trees. Some were large ones that basically split apart at their turns, as heavy branches on different sides broke off in different directions.

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The Aftermath

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It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and after the blizzard that hit us, we have so much to be thankful for! Parts of the province are described as looking like they were hit by a tornado, and I just learned that my sister was without power for 2 days. Thankfully, they have a wood stove and fireplace for cooking and heat, as well as a generator.

When I drove my daughter to work on the Thursday, things were still looking good. By the time we reached town, it was starting to snow, but it was on the way home that I drove into the beginnings of the storm, locally.

When it was safe to do so, I pulled over to get a picture.

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