sun room

Updates on cats, doctors and more cats!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I woke up late this morning which, unfortunately, meant we had a lot of very hungry cats outside! I asked one of my daughters to simply pour a scoop of kibble onto the sun room floor to tide them over before I could do a proper feeding. Which helped, I suppose, but they were really eager for their morning food. That is when I mix up a small bowl of “cat soup” with just one can of wet cat food, and use that to soften the bowl if kibble, first. I also prep a smaller bowl of kitten soup that I leave on top of the freezer until later. I could hear so much commotion at the door, I ended up taking the bowl of softened kibble and going out the main doors, instead. Even if I had someone ready to herd cats out the door as I went through, I just didn’t want to risk stepping on a kitten!

Which means I filled their food trays and bowls in reverse, doing the furthest ones first and making my way to the sun room. I didn’t take long for them to hear me and come running. Which worked out so well, I’m thinking I might start doing this regularly!

After I finished putting the last of the softened kibble in the sun room trays, I grabbed Frank’s two remaining littles and brought them into the old kitchen to have their own kitten soup without having to fight off other cats. That also gave me time to wash their eyes open again. That done, I quickly popped into the sun room and back again. Frank wanted into the old kitchen and I let her, so she could have the special food along with her kittens.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

She was too nervous and went hiding and exploring around the old kitchen. I let her be and went to get the squeeze treats I bought a while back but never got to using, yet. I gave some to the kittens in their food bowl, then just squeezed the last of it onto the freezer near them, hoping Frank would be tempted. At one point, I was able to reach her and pick her up, but as I moved towards the freezer, she got more and more nervous. Before I could put her down beside her kittens, she panicked, scrambled when her feet touched the top of the freezer, sending food – and kittens! – flying. One of the kittens ended up falling behind the freezer, while Frank ran and hid under a couch.

The other kitten was still on the freezer and done eating, so I let it out through the screenless storm door window. Then I tried to get the kitten that was behind the freezer. It was sitting on the floor, just out of reach. I thought I could use something to push it from behind and get it to move out from behind the freezer.

Instead, it disappeared. It took me a moment to realize it had gone into the opening where the freezer’s guts are! After several attempts, to reach it, it finally came close enough that I could grab it and lift it out without getting tangled in things I could feel, but not see, in there!

The kitten got to enjoy a bit more food and squeeze treat, but Frank wouldn’t come out. I finally went out with the kitten, hoping that Frank would go onto the freezer and eat, while I wasn’t in there.

The kitten joined the cuddle puddle – and was nuzzling Sir Robin, trying to nurse!

I spent some time refilling water bowls, then opened the doors to the old kitchen, where I found Frank just inside, waiting. She never ate what was on top of the freezer, and was very eager to just leave the old kitchen! That gave me a chance to take the bowl of kitten soup and leave it out for other kittens to finish. There was still the glob of squeeze treat on the freezer, though. I ended up picking it up with my fingers, trying to hold it in my hand. It was messy, but I got most of it. I then went to the cats and kittens at the kitten soup bowl.

Two kittens I’ve never been able to get close to before where there. Both of them happily licked the squeeze treat off my fingers instead of running away!

Then they ran away. 😄

Meanwhile, I started getting messages from people with the rescue. This continued throughout the morning, and while I was in the city. Long story short, we might be bringing as many kittens over on Sunday as we can get into carriers! I’ll have to get some clarification, first, though. There seemed to be some communication issues. Tomorrow is Saturday, so I need to get that cleared up fairly quickly!

When I was done my morning rounds, it wasn’t much longer before my daughter and I started for the city. We left insanely early, to give ourselves time to get lost. 😄 I did look the place up on the map last night, plus I had Google Maps up on my phone to give directions. The route looked pretty straightforward, though what it was showing in the app did not match was I saw on my desktop last night. The address was the address, though, and I did remember the area fairly well, from my days when I used to work around there, and lived just across the river. I was not looking forward to trying to find the address, then finding parking. The area is mostly narrow, one way streets.

We did make a stop at my mother’s down along the way, though, to pick up a couple of energy drinks and some chicken and wedges for breakfast. From there, I got the app going to give me directions while I drove. My daughter was a sweetheart and passed potato wedges to me while I drove. I couldn’t eat my chicken while driving, but my daughter could eat hers, and I was more concerns that she got some food in her. She has a terrible habit of not eating, because eating most foods makes her sick. We have not been able to track down exactly why.

As we got into the city, I had the app up on the dashboard holder, but for some reason, it wasn’t giving voice directions. So my daughter took the phone so she could see the map and gave me the directions as we went along. I did remember the route from checking the map last night, but it’s been so long, I preferred having a navigation officer!

When we got to where the area, one of the first problems I noticed was not being able to find street numbers, anywhere. We got to where the app said the address was at, but couldn’t see anything to show where the clinic was. Specifically, a building tall enough, as the endocrinologist clinic was on the 9th floor.

With the one way streets, we drove around the block a couple of times, made slower because of construction, before finally spotting a parkade that didn’t have a “lot full” sign and headed in. We figured we could find the place more easily on foot. It couldn’t be far.

We then had the fun time of trying to find a place to park with enough room for our truck. The first four levels were all reserved parking. We finally got to a level that wasn’t all reserved, but the first side of that level was half roped off, apparently reserved for “game day”. We finally got to where it no longer was all reserved, and nothing was roped off, but the only open spots we saw were “small car only”.

Then I spotted two accessible parking spots.

My daughter and I don’t have our own accessible parking placards, but we do have my husband’s. We used it and finally parked.

My daughter actually forgot her cane at home, but we had three spares in the truck. After she grabbed one for herself, I decided to grab another for myself, just in case.

I am so glad I did. My left hip may be better after the steroid injection, but that lasts for only so long, when pounding concrete!

We had to back track to the street the clinic was on (with a gorgeous, castle-like cathedral as a landmark; I once had the opportunity to go there for mass, when I lived in the area, and can attest it’s as beautiful on the inside as the outside), then tried to find someplace with a street number. We found one, but didn’t know which direction we needed to go for the clinic. We were in the 300’s, and the address was in the 200’s.

We were about to wing it when I spotted a guy in a suit about to cross a street, so I quickly asked him if he knew where the clinic was, and which direction we’d need to go. He was an absolute sweetheart, quickly found the place on his phone (his app got it right, where ours clearly didn’t!) and pointed us in the first direction. We had about 3 blocks to walk, though part way along, the sidewalk was blocked off for construction (which was happening all over the place), so we’d have to cross the street, then cross back again, along the way.

The guy was so wonderful and happy about giving directions, he really made our day!

So, off we went, picking our way through construction at an intersection across from the area blocked off for construction (!!!) before finally making it to the final stretch. That’s when we could see a big billboard sign for a clinic. We couldn’t actually read all of it, because there was a tree growing right in front of it, but we could make out enough that it looked right. The entrance wasn’t on the street the address was on, though, and as we walked past the corner and could see the other side of the billboard, which wasn’t blocked by a tree, we realized it wasn’t the right clinic. We still popped in to ask for directions.

The lady pointed out the window to another high rise building across a parking lot.

A building with a huge painted on sign on the side.

With the name of the clinic at the bottom, in white paint on a pale blue background, barely readable.

We were very appreciative for the help.

Thank God we left as early as we did! My daughter’s appointment was at 1pm. We reached the front doors at about 12:40!

When we got to the 9th floor, the elevators opened up to a reception desk.

With things roped off in front, as if under construction. I think it was actually just to keep people from waking up to the counter, though.

There was no one at the counter.

We tried reading the sign, all it really had was arrows for endocrinology in both directions, and some doctor’s names. My daughter didn’t have a name for the doctor she was booked at, so we didn’t know which way we had to go. I spotted a cleaning lady, so I asked her which way to the endocrinologists. She asked which doctor we needed to say, and I told her we didn’t know. She said the staff (meaning the receptionists) were on lunch and would be back soon, so they’d be able to tell us.

We thanked her and went to a nearby waiting room. We couldn’t see the reception desk from where we were but, thankfully, could hear when someone was at the counter. My daughter and I – and several more people in the waiting room – promptly headed over to check in!

… and ask where a bathroom was. It was a long drive!

Of course, it was while my daughter was still in the bathroom that someone came out and called her name! I let them know. 😄

Even with all that, my daughter ended up at her appointment almost 10 minutes early!

She was out much faster than I expected for a first time appointment. She had requisitions for blood work, one to be done right away, the other to be done later. She had been told there was a lab on the ground floor, and she could get her first blook work done there, so that was her first stop.

When we got there and she was checked in, I asked about how long it would be, since the waiting room was quite full.

About 40 minutes was the answer.

!!!

It turned out they were short staffed today, and falling behind.

With time ticking on our parking spot, we decided it would be faster if we head out and stopped at a lab on the way home.

So, off we went to get the truck and head home, this time taking a route I was much more familiar with. It wasn’t until we got home that I had a chance to check why we were sent to a completely wrong area.

It turned out the address in my calendar for the clinic had two numbers reversed. The bizarre thing is, when I was looking at the address and directions on the website last night, I saw the address that was in my phone. Yet, when I looked up the clinic last night, I used the street address that was on my phone, and found it.

So weird!

As we were leaving the clinic, my daughter made a comment about how much she appreciated our new doctor, but she was going to wait until we were out of the city, and I didn’t have to focus on traffic so much (dancing around more construction) before telling me how it went.

We did make one stop along the way. Gas prices in my mother’s down had dropped to $1.269/L, but I planned to get gas in the city. I’d seen a station on the way in that had gas at $1.239/L and was planning to go there – until we passed a station with gas at $1.199/L !! I was just over a half tank and put $40 in, which filled my tank! I can’t remember the last time I was able to fill my tank from half for only $40!

Once we were out of the city, I remembered to ask my daughter how the appointment went.

Not well.

It was a very short appointment and I won’t go into detail, but the doctor was very rude and “just an old b***”, as my daughter described her. Long story short, though, by the time she told me some of the things the doctor did, my jaw was dropping. She needs to make a formal complaint. The doctor apparently made it clear she was disgusted by my daughter’s body. My daughter has hirsutism. She was there because of her PCOS. How does an endocrinologist not encounter a PCOS patient with hirsutism before? Or maybe she has, and just treats all her hairy female patients with hormonal disorders with disgust?

As if that weren’t bad enough, my daughter was manhandled, without explanation nor consent, in a way that is considered sexual assault. Sure it was a physical exam, but NO doctor is supposed to touch a patient like that without first explaining what they were examining for, and getting consent.

She also tried to test my daughter’s reflexes, but kept missing the tendon, then getting ticked off because there was no reaction to her hammering on my daughter’s ankle.

I really hope my daughter files a formal complaint, because… damn!

Along the way, we stopped in the town our doctor’s clinic is in, to do her first blood tests at the lab in the hospital. My daughter went in to get her tests done, while I stayed in the truck to finally eat the rest of my breakfast!

I’m glad we chose to go to a lab on the way home. My daughter was out so quickly – with two people called in ahead of her – that I was just finishing eating when she came back to the truck! Had we stayed at the lab in the city, we would have been just getting out and heading to the truck, unless they fell behind even more.

Her second set of blood tests can be done whenever she is able, but for this one, she is supposed to take a medication at 11pm, then get her blood tested at 8am.

I don’t even know if the local labs are open at 8am. I think they open at 9am. We’ll have to figure that out. Either way, she has a prescription to pick up before she can do the second test.

After the results are in, she hopes to get a telephone appointment only, or pay extra to get the results emailed to her. She does NOT want to go back to this doctor. I told her that she needs to let her regular doctor know about what happened so that, if necessary, she can get referred to another endocrinologist. Apparently, there’s a new clinic being built and there’s already a long waiting list for it, but she’s more than willing to wait, rather than go back!

For the most part, my daughter is just angry, but she realizes that a patient with, for example, a history of sexual abuse, a visit like this would have been very traumatic.

So glad that appointment is over with!

By the time we got home, it was late enough that the first thing I did was get the outside cats fed. No crowd trying to break through the old kitchen door during the evening feedings! Then I got changed and head outside, focusing on getting all the now-dry stuff from the sun room packed up and put away in bins with lids.

As seems to be the usual around here, it took longer than I expected, but I finally got it done!

The storage area is now organized and packed. Before winter, more things will be added for storage but, over all, it is done. On the cat side of the room (second picture) I still need to figure out where to set the second heat lamp, which has a lower wattage heat bulb, but that’s pretty much it. That cats really, really like the new set up! More and more of them seem to have figured out the litter boxes, too.

Finishing the sun room meant I could finally move the cat isolation shelter under the canopy tent.

That took some doing. The wheels kept sinking into the soil! That thing is heavy. What I would like to do, once I have the spare funds for it, is replace the wheels with something larger. For now, I put scraps of cardboard under the wheels to keep them from sinking into the dirt. I also have some handles I want to add to the front and the back, so it’ll be easier to move around.

Meanwhile, the cats can still use it where it is now.

Or that one skunk I have been finding, napping in the cat bed!

The box to go over the ramp door during the winter needs a bit of work. The overlapping plastic cracked when I set it on its side to attach the legs. I did try to set it where it could overhang the edge of the well cap, but it kept moving while I tried to work on it. Nothing some duct tape can’t fix. 😜 The panel in front, with a smaller opening for the cats to get through, was broken by cats panicking and hitting the edges while running out, so that needs to be trimmed. I also want to add a couple of pieces of the same material used for the legs to the sides, as handles to make moving it around easier. Right now, it’s hard to get a grip on it without damaging that roof panel even more.

It might be a couple of days before I can do the painting. Saturday would be perfect for it – a warmer day and, more importantly, a warmer night in the forecast. I might be able to get just one coat on before it starts getting too cold for wet paint to cure, but even that is better than nothing.

I’m going to be out and about a lot over the next while. Tomorrow, I’ll be at my mother’s for longer than usual. Along with her grocery shopping, I will be cooking up some of the chicken she was so angry at me for buying for her. I even remembered to ask her to take it out of the freezer tonight, so it’ll be thawed out before I get there. She’s also asked me to trim her toenails for her. I want to take a good look at her feet, as she apparently is getting an ingrown toenail, and that might need to be checked by a doctor. Of course, I’ll be doing some housework for her, changing her bedding, probably doing her laundry. Some of this stuff, my sister would normally come out on Fridays (my mother’s scheduled laundry time with the shared machines) and do for her. Since my mother gets her Meals on Wheels at noon on Fridays, I don’t plan to be there until about 1pm, so she has a chance to eat, first, and I can take the tray out to the common room for pick up, later in the week.

Saturday, I’ll be out again for a dump run, but that shouldn’t take long.

Sunday afternoon, I will be meeting to drop off cats near a Walmart, so if there’s any last things we need before Thanksgiving on Monday, that would be my time to get it.

Then I get to stay home for a while! The only appointment I have next week is a telephone follow up about the injection to my hip. I’ve got lots to do to prepare beds for winter sowing, as both day time highs and overnight lows will soon be cool enough to sow seeds but not have them germinate until spring.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Winterizing the sunroom, and cheeky kitties!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today has been gorgeous and sunny, with almost no wind. The weather apps say we’re at 13C/55F, but feeling like 10C/50F.

The thermometer in the shelf shelter, which was getting hit with full sun, was reading almost 30C/86! 😄

My daughter took on the very messy job of starting to scrub the walls around the tub, as we let the rotten parts we found under the tub surround, dry a bit. There is very little room to assist, so I took advantage of the pleasant day to start winterizing the sun room, as well as making some changes in the old kitchen.

Last winter, we set things up for the cats on one side, while the other side was used to store our tools and supplies.

Unfortunately, the cats knocked so many things off the shelves and all over the floor. Then, because it’s darn cold out there in the winter, they used all sorts of corners to do their business in.

The girls started cleaning it up in the spring, but it never quite got finished.

So I got it mostly done today, which included moving some things out of the old kitchen.

The first thing was to get the broken pieces of tub surround and get that onto the junk pile for later hauling to the dump. Once those were out of the way, I could get at a rocking chair that was here when we moved in. We can’t use it in the main part of the house – too many creatures with tails! – and it’s just taking up space in the old kitchen, so I ended up putting it in the storage house. That gave me access to the small shelf I wanted to move to the sun room. It was meant to be used to hold things like extra packages of toilet paper or paper towel, cases of canning jars and the like. It ended up getting blocked off, and not just by the rocking chair! There were cases of canning jars on it that we never opened. Last year, we didn’t have enough produce to make it worthwhile to can, and this year will be much the same. I just moved those over to a plastic couch for now.

The old kitchen had been cleaned out and set up to be someplace we could sit and relax in, but that didn’t work out, either. We had to move the kibble into the old kitchen because the racoons kept knocking the bin over and spilling it onto the floor. Then we found ourselves having to use it to store our garbage until we could make a dump run. That basically took up most of the space.

I’d like to get that couch moved out, too, but there really isn’t any room for it in the storage house, either.

Still, once I cleared out the rocking chair and the shelf, I could move my late father’s walker in the space where the shelf was. Now we have all sorts of room in the old kitchen again!

I’m keeping the walker handy, because I see the day coming when I will need to be using it myself.

As for the sun room, I didn’t have to empty it entirely, which was nice. I started off cleaning and clearing around the cat cage until I could move the cage, and the interlocking floor mat it sits on, towards the middle of the west facing windows, then clean up the corner where it had been. The collection of cat carriers we keep in there got taken outside and dismantled to varying degrees, depending on the design, before getting scrubbed down and left to dry in the sun. Basically it was clear a spot, clean up under it, clear a spot, clean up under it…

The cats may use the great outdoors to do their business in the summer, but the skunks and racoons will drop their messes anywhere and any time!

Ew.

Then I had to take out a whole lot of stuff on the storage and tools side of the sunroom, and empty the matching shelf that needed to be moved into the other corner.

Quite a bit of stuff ended up getting thrown away due to cat damage.

Other stuff got moved to the garage for storage, including all the paint supplies I could find. Others got tucked into the counter shelf, where the cats can’t get at them.

Finally, the shelf itself got taken outside, where I could hose it down.

Once the shelf was out, I had to mop the floor several times to get the messes that were uncovered in the process.

Ew, again!

Finally, I was able to shift over the wooden shelf that was under the bathroom window, and move it into the corner. That cleared enough space to be able to open one of the doors under the counter shelf all the way. The floor isn’t level, so I had to put scrap pieces of rigid insulation under it, so it can’t fall forward. Then the small shelf from the old kitchen was set in place, and I could finally start putting things away again. This shelf got mostly gardening supplies, plus the critter cam was set up on to top of it, too. I ended up getting a piece of scrap 2×4 to raise the camera up a bit higher, with pieces of Alien Tape to hold them in place.

Eventually, I was able to bring the big shelf back in and set it up in the corner across from the one in the window. I had to get creative to work around the shop lights we’ve got hanging across there. These are set to turn on with motion activation after dusk.

Once the lights were adjusted for the new shelf, I was able to set up a folding closet door we found while cleaning up after moving here, and have found so many uses for! It is long enough to create a platform between the shelves, with enough space above the cat cage for the cats to still use the top as a bed.

With the cooler temperatures, we no longer have the wire mesh door we made to keep the cats out of the old basement, allowing us to keep the door open and let cool air circulate. Last year, we set that up between the shelf in the window and the top of the cat cage, with a box on top to level it. We then had to use some scrap 2x4s to support the wire mesh door, since it was bending under the weight of cats, plus we put a sheet of rigid insulation under it, partly to keep things warmer below, where the heat lamp was, partly so the cats could walk over the wire mesh without their paws falling through. We still put cat beds and another piece of scrap insulation on top.

The folding closet door I set up between the shelves is narrow enough to fit inside the wire mesh door frame, so that can now be stored and used for the cats at the same time again – and the closet door is far more solid! The wire mesh door is longer, too, making the entire platform more secure.

Then I could start putting some things back on the shelf for storage, including the cat carriers.

This is how the cat side of the sunroom looks now.

There are two small cat carriers on the bottom, and larger ones in the next two shelves above. Hopefully, the cats will just use them and not knock them about!

The platform now has a couple of cat beds, plus the self warming mat, on it. Two of the shelves against the window have the canopy and walls from the broken market tents on them for the cats to use as beds.

We have a number of other cat blankets that need to be washed, and then they’ll be set up inside the cat carriers or draped over the shelves of the mini greenhouse frame, though those will need cardboard or something laid on the wire shelves, first.

The sun room kibble trays were then returned to the sun room and, last of all, I got the critter cam positioned were I wanted it.

I have the live feed running as I write this. I can see cats in the cat beds and self warming mat on the platform, and more on the shelves in front of the window. I can’t see into the cat carriers to know of they are being used or now right now.

Later on, we will set up the heat lamp, clamped to the platform, and the heated water bowl near the small shelf that’s now in there, where it can be plugged into the same cord that powers the critter cam.

Aside from little things like that, the sunroom is ready for the winter, and moving things to the garage has given us a lot more open floor space, too.

One thing I’ve been considering it setting up the canopy tent I got on clearance, somewhere close to the house, as an extra shelter in the winter. Perhaps in the corner, where it could be over the window to the old basement, if I could find a way to secure it. For now, though, the tent is in its package, on the shelf between two windows.

It has been claimed by these cheeky little buggers!

Quite a few cats have decided it is an excellent bed. Especially the kitten in the foreground of the photo above!

At least they’re not trying to knock it off the shelf!

This was not the job I planned on working on today, but it was one that needed pleasant weather to do, so the other stuff will just have to wait a bit longer. This was a big and messy job, and I’m glad it’s over with!

Meanwhile, my daughter scrubbed at the bathroom walls until her arms gave out – it was so bad under that tub surround, she only got half of it done. My other daughter made supper for all of us, then cleaned detritus out the tub as best as can be done right now.

All in all, it was a productive day.

I’ll have to leave productiveness to the girls for the next couple of days, though. I will need to help my mother with groceries tomorrow because, the day after, my husband has to be at the hospital in the nearer city for an 8:30am CT scan. Which means we need to leave here by 7:30am at the latest.

Time to go call my mother and work out what time I’m coming over!

Until then, thanks for reading all my blathering, and I hope you have an awesome night!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Pixies and shifting things around

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

According to the Window 11 weather icon on my new computer, it’s 15C/59F out there. According to the other weather app that came with my computer (why is there two of them?), it’s 17C/63F. According to the app on my phone, it was 19C/66F, but has already cooled down to 18C/65F. The thermometer on the wall of the sun room says it’s 20C/68F in there.

I don’t think any of the apps are right, because when I walk out the sun room door, it’s like walking into an oven. The sun room is cool, in comparison!

We have high winds today, which suggests that it would feel even hotter outside, without it!

My plan to get to bed early then start outside before things got too hot, did not succeed. The longer I lay in bed, the more awake I became. By the time I finally fell asleep, it was starting to get light out. *sigh*

My younger daughter and I were talking about this, and how the temperatures are expected to continue to be about the same for the next while. She had the same plans that I was trying to accomplish; to go to bed early, then get up and work outside while it was still cool.

She’s been as successful at it as I have been.

Still, that’s what we’re going to try doing. Maybe it’ll work out better if we encourage each other about it!

I did manage to get some gardening related stuff done, though.

The last two trays of tomatoes have been moved out of the living room and into the sun room. I ended up rearranging the transplants a bit. The Crespo squash are getting so big, they were shading the luffa and drum gourd sharing their bin, so those got moved to a tray and are now in the window, while the Crespo squash have a bin to themselves. I also moved the Black Cherry and Florme de Coeur tomatoes in individual pots out of the plastic tray they were in, and onto a metal one. The plastic tray was just too wobbly, while carrying them. For now, I’m using the plastic tray for the luffa and drums, but I’ll switch that out to metal trays later on. We’ll be starting to harden things off, soon, and I don’t want to risk dropping any because of a bendy tray!

I also moved a tray of winter squash to the sun room, leaving the onions and shallots in the mini greenhouse frame. I was going to set the Summer of Melons tray out of the aquarium greenhouse and to the window, but decided to take them straight to the living room, instead. I put them on the bottom shelf at the window, where they would get the best sunlight – with the overhang of the roof, the lower shelves get more sun than the upper shelves. I’m trusting the cats will leave them alone.

The makeshift table under the lights got rearranged a bit to use the space more effectively. There is a wall about a food wide between the east facing windows, casting a shadow across the table, so I’ve left a gap between the trays and bins, moving one bin of peppers and thyme to the shelf between the south facing windows, next to the mulberry and the Butterfly Flower.

Oh, we might have some oregano, after all! When they didn’t sprout, I returned the seed starting mix to the big bowl I use to pre-moisten the mix before filling pots and cells, mixing it all together. Now, some of the tomatoes look like they have oregano growing with them! They’re looking pretty leggy, but I’m leaving them be for now. They’re not big enough to be a problem for the tomatoes. If the survive, we’ll just transplant them at the same time we transplant the tomatoes.

Some of the other melons and watermelon we pregerminated have emerged from their soil, so I moved those ones off the heat mat and into the mini greenhouse frame with the onions and shallots. I checked the remaining seeds set to pre-germinate. Still nothing on the remaining two Zucca melon seeds, but one of the Pixies had its radical, and another was open, so I planted both. Those got added to the tray on the warming mat, along with the other pre-germinated melons that haven’t emerged yet. I ended up adding water to the trays under the cardboard and peat pots a couple of times. The pots were drying out, and I didn’t want them sucking the moisture out of the growing medium, and wow did they ever absorb the water from the trays fast! These are needing to be watered more often, because of the pots. The transplants in the plastic pots don’t have this problem.

Tomorrow morning, the plan is for my daughter and I to prep one of the empty raised beds in the West yard, next to the peas, carrots and spinach, with the peat and sulfur amended soil left from other beds, and finally get those German Butterball potatoes planted. We then want to set up netting of some kind around the other bed, to protect the spinach from hungry critters, as well as from the cats walking all over it, but in such a way that we can easily left the netting to tend to the bed. There are still no peas emerging, but it would be a good time to add trellis netting to the support posts set up for it. By now, I’m guessing they all failed, and I don’t know why. We do have shelling peas to plant, but I think I might buy another package of edible pod peas for that bed. It’s starting to get too hot to plant peas, though!

Hmm… I just looked at the time. The post office is open for the afternoon, and my husband’s medical grade latex tubing arrived early. They have a seed display. I’ll check and see if they have any edible pod peas! We might even plant them tomorrow morning, after planting the potatoes.

What we try to do next will depend on the weather. If it’s not still windy, we might even try to take down some dead trees!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: sunroom progress

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

It’s done!

Sort of.

The half of the sun room we use as a greenhouse is now done, and we even have spaces for the cats, several of which have been quite happy with.

Especially Syndol. He loves that baby jail! I did have to add an extra board next to the closet door on the saw horses, though. I found one in the garage, just wide enough, and cut it to match the length of the closet door. The cage is wider than the door, and I didn’t want the cats jumping up on it, like they normally would, as it was a favourite place for some of them to sleep. One sawhorse is angled, to allow access to the shelf at the south window. Unfortunately, that extra board does get in the way, but we can work around it without risking knocking the sawhorse right over!

We’ve started to move more of the heat loving seedlings in, what with the thermometer in there reading almost 30C/86F! It didn’t actually feel quite that hot, though – the ceiling fan certainly helped – so I got out the temperature gun to do some spot checks.

The ceiling was right at 30C/86F, while the floor was 20C/86F! At table height, the temperature ranged from about 24-27C/75-81F, depending on where I aimed the gun. Overnight, we’re supposed to drop to 3C/37F, but the sun room should remain adequately warm.

With the evening sun coming through the West windows, I put the trays on the table for now, then gave them a misting with the hose. In the morning, I will move some onto the shelf in the south facing window. I’ll also bring the two remaining tomato trays. I might leave the onions in the living room, as they prefer cooler temperatures. The Summer of Melons tray could probably be moved, too. The last pot’s seedling showed up today, so all 21 seeds from that packet are now growing. They just have their seed leaves, but melons are heat lovers, so they’ll probably do better in the sun room than even in the aquarium greenhouse.

I was going to work on the other half of the sun room once things starting cooling down, but… well, things haven’t really cooled down, yet. To top it off, instead of getting to sleep early last night, I ended up awake most of the night, and I’m falling asleep at my computer right now. So my daughters will do what they can in there, later on. My older daughter has commissions to work on, but they should be able to get at least some clean up done in there, once things cool down.

As for me, I’m mightily resisting going to bed right now. It’s barely past 6pm, as I’m writing this, so it would end up just being a nap, and that would really mess me up!

I definitely want to try and get an early night and an early morning, though. There’s lots to do out there, before things get hot again. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 20C/68F again – and a couple of days from now, we’re looking at possibly 24C/75F, with things cooling down a little bit after that. Looking at the low raised beds this morning is downright depressing. We pull so many rhizomes out of them, every fall, but you’d never know it from all the crab grass popping up in them right now! It’ll be easier, once they get converted to higher raised beds, though some crab grass will still find a way through.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: it’s a start

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Taking a break from manual labour yesterday seems to have done the trick. My right arm is feeling find again. So fine, in fact, it makes me suspicious! 😄

Today, I was thinking to use the amended soil pulled from the bed the potatoes are now in and starting on the chimney block planters along the other section of fence. Once I got outside, however, I remembered that getting the sun room cleaned out and set up for the transplants is a higher priority.

The outside cats are not happy with me!

When we set it up for them for the winter, one side of the room was set up for them, the other side was set up to store our gardening supplies and tools. I did put a sheet of rigid insulation on the top of the counter shelf – the top is metal and would get quite cold on their little toe beans – and left them space to sit on the shelf between the two windows on the storage side.

They, of course, trashed everything. They even managed to knock the sheet of insulation off the counter and get it stuck between the counter and the broken and now single pane window it’s covering. Boxes of screws scattered all over the floor, plant pots and garden supplies knocked out of the shelf opposite the window… just a disaster.

Getting the room cleaned out is something that needs to be done in sections, as we can’t empty everything outside. The only thing that physically can’t be removed is the baby jail that used to be in my room, when we had Decimus and her kittens. We might be able to squeeze it through – I honestly can’t remember if we had to partly dismantle it to get it from my room to the sun room, which would take it through three sets of doors.

Mostly, though, it’s because of the weather. The wind is insane right now, and we’re expecting rain. There is a large system blowing towards us and, from the weather radar, it does look like we’ll actually get some heavier rain, though the worst of it looks like it will miss us.

The first thing to do was get the floor mats out, hose them down and scrub them as best we could. They’re not hanging on the chain link fence. I think they’re heavy enough to not blow away!

Then some of the cat bedding on the floor got moved out before I could detach the heat lamp and remove the platform we made for them. The platform was basically a way to store the screen door we made to fit the old basement doorway, which allows us to have cool air circulating from the basement during the summer, while keeping the cats out. That had a sheet of insulation attached under it, then we had another small piece on top, along with a couple of cat beds, so they weren’t trying to walk on the half inch hardware cloth.

Both the frame and the sheet of insulation got a hose down and a scrubbing!

More cat bedding was removed from out of baby jail. All the food bowls were taken out, as well as the heated water bowl. The extension cord to the cat house was also pulled in and wrapped on its hooked on the wall for storage, as we no longer need to heat the cat house or the other heated water bowl outside.

Bins that were knocked out of the shelf at the window had to be cleared our. Plant clips, tent pegs, trays… all sorts of things they pushed off the shelf, so they could sit at the window, had to be picked up. I’d dragged the folding table we made a while back, over, and a number of things are now stored under it to be protected from any rain.

After finally being able to clear the shelf away from the window, I could move the baby jail, and take the interlocking mats out from under it. Those also got a hose down and a scrubbing on the lawn, just in time for some rain to rinse them off. 😄

Of course, there were cat messes to clean up, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it has been in previous years!

Still, the concrete floor did need some mopping up in a corner. We’re now at a point where we have to let that dry before we can continue.

For now, I’ve put the shelf back at the window, but we’ll need to pull it out again to clean the glass before we finish setting things up. I’ll also take the second shop light that’s in the living room right now and hang it back next to the one that’s in the sun room.

I moved the two trays of plants off the window shelf. The poor tomatoes. It looks like the cats have been walking all over them, to get to the open spot I left for them to sit in, instead of walking in the space next to the trays! We’ve lost a few, for sure, and they’re not doing anywhere near as well as the ones still inside. We had to move them out of the living room, but the overnight temperatures in the sun room were probably still to chilly for them, I think. The gourds, peppers and eggplant seem to be fine, though!

Since the interlocking floor mats are still outside and likely to get rained on again before they can finally dry and be brought in, this is likely as far as we can get for today. Last year, we rigged a table on the sawhorses using an old folding closet door we found in a shed somewhere, and we’ll be using that again this year. The saw horses are tall enough that it’ll clear the baby jail, so we’ll be able to leave that under it. Last year, we did allow the cats into the sun room while the plants were there, and they left them alone.

All the cat beds and blankets are currently being washed right now. When the time comes, we’ll set some up inside the baby jail for them. Who knows. We might even have a mama decide to have her kittens in there! Unlikely, but you never know!

After I took this photo, I gave the cats a light feeding, with no food or water bowls in the sun room at all right now. We also brought the mulberry saplings out of the living room and into the sun room. They really need to be in bigger pots, but they also need to be transplanted soon. We need to start hardening them off, and they could probably go into the ground, now. They are supposed to be a zone 3 tolerant variety.

It will be good to get the transplants out of the living room and into the sun room! We’re not starting anywhere near as many seeds indoors as we did last year – we were expecting to have a lot more growing space ready for them! – but it’s still pushing the limit as to what we can fit in the cat free zone inside. Unlike the cats outside, some of the inside cats would quite happily destroy all the seed trays, just for fun!

We definitely made good progress in setting things up on this side.

The other half of the room, however, is not going to be this easy, that’s for sure!

Ah, well. That’s what we get for being such sucks for the cats!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 Garden: moving day, finished!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

It took quite a few trips and a fair bit of rearranging, but all the transplants that were in the living room are now in the sun room!

There is a down side to not being able to close the outer door for the sun room. To keep the cats out, that means closing the inner door. The outer door has a screen window.

We reached a high of 21C/70F today, but the sun room reached 27C/81F! And the only air circulation is the ceiling fan. We are keeping the inner door into the old kitchen open. The outer door has a screen window, and with the old kitchen staying so much cooler, it should help at least a little bit. While it will help keep the sun room temperature down a bit, it will also warm up the old kitchen, so it’s a trade off.

Hmmm. I just remembered. I think we have a spare hook and eye closure somewhere. If I can find that, we can latch the outer sun room door from the inside. That would help. We’d still have to close the inner door for the night, so we don’t lose too much heat, but that’s okay.

Meanwhile…

I got the second light hung up and plugged into the first one. We are pretty much out of trays and bins to hold all the transplants, and I’m not finding more like the ones we have. We do still have a couple more of the black plastic trays, but they’re not very strong, and some of them have started to crack. I’ve been doubling them up, anyhow, just for the extra strength, and that way I can also use the cracked ones without leaking water everywhere.

There’s still a bit of room on the shelf! Those peppers had been in the big aquarium greenhouse and will need potting up, but I think they’ll enjoy being here for a while, first. They, at least, will really like the heat in here! I’m hoping the oregano and spearmint will do better here, too. They are not doing as well as the oregano and second variety of thyme we planted more recently are. I think the sad little luffa will like it better in this heat, too. In fact, depending on how things go, we might even try growing it in a pot in the sun room, instead of outside, this year.

We are expected to cool down a bit over the next few days, with Sunday being the coolest at 10C/50F. Tomorrow is supposed to reach 15C/59F, so it should be a good day to continue working in the old kitchen garden and finish that last bed. I’ll start hydrating my trays with the Jiffy pellets, so they’ll be ready for starting seeds the next day.

The priority for tomorrow, though, will be to go to the post office and pick up those raspberries that are in! We’ll want to plant those as soon as possible.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: moving day! and cat damage. 😥

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, we’re supposed to reach a high of 20C/68F. It’s not even noon yet, and we’re already 17C/63F. Considering that yesterday, while working in the old kitchen garden, I was getting too hot at 16C/61F, my plan was to start on the other bed earlier in the day, while things were still cooler.

My daughter, however, made so much progress cleaning out the sun room (even though she was not feeling well, she kept at it!) that I changed my mind. Living things take priority, and our transplants really need to be moved out of the living room!

After a bit more organizing, arranging and setting up, this is what the sun room looks like now.

The largest plants – the Crespo squash and gourds – went on the shelf between the smaller windows, where they have a combination of the most space, and the most sunlight. I’ve got a tray with our first peppers and the lemon grass there for now, but that will likely be moved, later.

The swing bench was removed completely and will stay outside for now. That allowed me to set up the “table” along the west facing windows. There is a light hanging above them, as this area tends to get darker faster, and a second light will be moved over later. The tallest tomatoes went onto here.

I should probably start hardening off the onions. They can be transplanted before last frost, and could actually be out right now. At least the shallots. They’ll be going into the tiny bed in the old kitchen garden. I have not yet decided were to plant the red and yellow onions. They will likely be planted in between other things. I figure at least some of them will be going into the wattle weave bed. We’ll see.

Three trays of the Roma tomatoes got moved over as well. If I can arrange things well enough, I hope to move all the transplants from the living room here, except the ones that need to be potted up. Then I can start the last batch of seeds in the next few days, as this Friday is 4 weeks from our last frost date.

Before setting the shelves up, I found a solution for how to hang the lights. I put a pair of cup hooks in the old kitchen wall, and another pair inside the window frame opposite. I strung a rope across the window. I then attached two more ropes to the first on, in such a way that they can easily be slid from side to side. Those lines went up and over the black shelf. You can see one of them in the photo above. The lights have hanging chains with carabiners at the ends. I’ve got a light with its chain hanging from one of the hooks in the old kitchen wall, and the other being held up by the rope set up. I took advantage of the hooks on the old kitchen wall to hold the extension cord up and out of the way. Last year, I’d put a hook in between the two west facing windows and had a power bar set up. I likely won’t need it. These lights can be plugged into each other, so that only one needs to be plugged into a power source.

It is so good to finally get the plants in here! Plus, we can leave the ceiling fan going, so there’s a breeze to help strengthen their stems. Some of the Roma tomatoes are not doing well, and I think we lost some of both those and the Spoon tomatoes. We have so many, though, we will still have lots. I’m hoping the sun room will be a better environment for them.

Of course, this means we have to keep the sun room door closed, and I made a discovery. We’ve had the doors propped open slightly all winter, so the cats could go in and out. Today is the first time anyone has tried to close the doors in months.

The outside door won’t close.

That’s the one we had to replace with a salvaged door. It seems the sun room has shifted again, because the door is now getting stuck at the top. We’ll have to remove some of the wood again.

There was only one down side to this morning’s progress.

Cat damage.

It seems there was an altercation in my room while I was away. The corner of my craft table, where I also now have the cat shelf under the window, is my tea station. I came in to find the cat blanket knocked off the shelf and hanging over my tea stuff. There happened to be one of those big A&W mugs on the table. It was on the floor, in pieces. I was in the middle of things, so I messaged the girls to take care of it for me.

Along with the broken mug, they found these.

My lizard incense holder has lost his head! Sadly, the lid to my (fake) sugar bowl was cracked and (fake) sugar was spilled all around. The matching creamer was among the things broken by the movers, but I think I can glue these two back together.

I really wish I could leave my door open!

Ah, well.

Later on, I’ll see about taking care of the rest of the transplants. The old kitchen garden can wait another day.

Oh! I just checked the post office tracking! Our raspberries are in! Unfortunately, today is Wednesday, and the store closes at noon, so the post office is, too. I’ll have to pick those up, tomorrow! The trees and potatoes tracker still says they’ll be in on on May 9.

I’m really looking forward to planting the trees and bushes!

The Re-Farmer

Medicated kitties, and the sunroom is basically done

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I’m planning to do our final (hopefully) trip into the city for a Costco stock up shop for this month, so I would normally not have gone anywhere today. Especially with it being Halloween, and I would expect the stores to be filled with last minute shoppers.

I did, however, want to pick up some lysine for the outside cats, to use until the powder I ordered comes in. Since I was going to be in town anyhow, I remembered to grab the empty 5 gallon water jugs for refilling. We have four of these for our drinking water, and try to never go less than one on the go, and one full one waiting, though sometimes that doesn’t quite work out.

Once at home and my daughter took care of hauling the water jugs inside, I started getting ready to give the outside cats some lysine with their evening kibble top up.

*sigh*

I got my daughter to bring me a mortar and pestle. I was expecting to be opening up gel caps with powder in them, like the cat lady was telling me she does.

I even got the same brand she gets!

As for getting it on the amount of kibble I put out at once, which almost fills a gallon sized container, I stole one of the bins we used for taking transplants outside for hardening off in the spring. I put the measured amount of kibble in the bin, ground the tablets into powder and sprinkled that on top, then tossed it until I was sure all the kibble was coated.

I think, the next time I do this, I’ll give the kibble a very light spray of water first, so the powder will stick to it better.

Then the treated kibble got poured back into the gallon container, and I fed the kitties.

They didn’t seem to notice any difference with the kibble, and ate it without any hesitation.

The kittens are already mostly improving with all their leaky eyes, stuffy noses, coughing and sneezing, but this should help them get better faster, and hopefully prevent them from getting sick again. It’s especially dangerous if they get sick in the winter, and with so many really young kittens this year, they are the most at risk.

Speaking of kittens…

I couldn’t get a photo, but when I headed out to town I could see a ludicrously big pile of kittens on the new cat bed I’d put in front of the east facing window. It was hilarious! With the other cat bed at the corner by the south facing window, that entire side would have been packed with babies! They all started moving around and looking to come outside when they saw me, so I hurried away. The last thing I wanted was to have kittens following me to the garage, when I can’t see them while backing out.

After adding the lysine to the kibble, I stayed out and worked on the sun room. This meant leaving the doors open, much to the joy of many kittens. Not all of the kittens are interesting in exploring the sun room, though. At least not yet, but I was very happy to see this!

The bitty baby was out! He was hunting leaves and making friends with some of the cattens. Aside form the one time I saw Junk Pile nursing the bitty, along with her own kittens, we still have yet to see an adult cat mothering this little spitfire. Yet, clearly mothering is happening. He does look bigger, and he’s getting more active, exploratory and playful. All good signs.

I had quite a bit of furry company while working on the sun room. They were into everything!

One of the first things I had to do was clear the wall under the bathroom window, then clean the cube shelf and set it up. Because there’s the possibility of water getting onto the floor, I made sure to put it on some scrap pieces of rigid insulation. Once that was in place, I could start working on the other side.

I’m still debating putting rigid insulation against that big window in the corner. These are double pane windows, but the inner pane on that one has been gone since before we moved here, so it gets covered in frost in the winter. I do want to let the light in, though, so maybe we’ll get one of those clear plastic window kits, instead.

This half is mostly garden related stuff and, of course, having a place to sit.

We used to have a large cardboard moving box behind the door for tall stuff. After digging around, I found a tall aluminum garbage can I could replace it with. It had been sitting outside for who knows how many years, and the bottom of the inside needed to be scraped of… something. After cleaning it as best I could, I cut a piece of insulation to fit the bottom. That way, it’ll be quieter if we drop something hard or metallic inside. Eventually, we’ll have more garden tools stored in there for the winter. Another piece went on the floor under it, for those times when the floor gets wet.

It’s not quite finished, of course. Some things, like the tool box, will be moved out of the sun room completely, when it’s no longer needed for outside stuff. We found a set of legs to make a folding table, and I’ve got those behind the swing bench until we can find and cut a piece of plywood to size and attach them. The folding chairs get stored in the old kitchen.

This side… still looks like a disaster! *sigh*

When I found the metal garbage can to use for storing tall things, I also found a smaller plastic garbage can inside it. It was intact, so I gave it a cleaning, and now it’s sitting upside down by the walker to dry. I’m not sure where it’ll finally go, but this room does need a garbage can. There’s a bucket to catch drips if we get rain and the roof starts leaking again (still no word on when the roofers will be coming out). I had some square buckets on the counter shelf I was using for small hand tools, only to discover water in the bottom of one of them, and the tools inside were starting to rust. *sigh* So I cleaned the tools as best I could, then left the bucket to catch drips. We don’t have rain in the forecast anymore, but it did start raining a bit while I was in town, so until the roof gets done, we’ll just leave the drip catchers where they are.

I would love to find a better place to store the bin of insulation pieces. They come in so handy, though, I want to keep them accessible. There’s a few other things that need to be organized better, but that can wait. The main thing is that everything that was outside is now inside, the room is more useable, and it’s easier to get at things like the table and miter saws. Even the electric chainsaw now has a spot on a shelf. However that, and the battery powered mini chainsaw, will be going into the house for the winter, though. Things get too cold for batteries or chainsaw oil in the winter.

So there we have it! The sun room is pretty much done, and mostly winterized. At some point we’ll set the food and water bowls and a litter box up in there, for when we need to use it as a kitty recover room again, but aside from little things like that, it’s finally done.

Now I can get back to working on garden beds again! 😁

The Re-Farmer

Sun room progress

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

I was able to get at least a bit of progress in the sun room today. This is what where it was left off after my daughter worked on it.

The only thing different is the addition of the new kibble bin that doesn’t fit on the shelf. The room has been slowly becoming a disaster, and using it as a recovery ward for the cats certainly hasn’t helped. Where the swing bench had been was the worst of it, with so much stuff fallen behind, and the messes the cats made. The rest was going to be easy after that!

Because of the mess the cats made on this side of the sun room, it needed extra cleaning after being emptied out.

It got emptied, then vacuumed, including around the windows and walls – lots of cobwebs! The windows finally got washed on the inside. The shorter extension cord could finally be wrapped on its hooks (there are no outlets in this room), and I added some hooks so the longer extension cord that is powering the kibble house is now running through the tops of the doors rather than the bottom.

Then the kittens got kicked out and the door closed so that floor could get a thorough washing. Some areas needed to be scrubbed by hand, and I still couldn’t get all the stains out. Last of all, it got rinsed of cleaners, with the ceiling fan running to help it dry faster.

It was getting pretty dark by the time I starting to bring stuff in again, though mostly to protect some things from critter damage. The floor is still damp, too.

After five years, I think we’ve got a pretty good bead on how we need to use this space. The main thing is mobility friendly access. When we first moved here, my husband kept his walker in the main entry, folded up against the washer and drier. There were two problems with that. First, it was in the way of using the washer and drier, and second, it became increasingly difficult for him to get in and out with it. The door’s threshold is fairly high, requiring him to lift the walker wheels over it, and then there are two steps to go down. He didn’t mind it too much at first but, over time, his back just kept getting worse. Then we finally cleared and cleaned the sunroom, which was a HUGE job (I still can’t believe all the stuff my parents had in there!). My dad kept his own walker in the sun room, and now my husband’s walker is kept here, and it’s much easier for him to get in and out. I still want to get little door ramps for him, as he does still need to lift his walker a bit to get through the door, but it’s greatly improved his ability to get in and out by using the sunroom.

So access is a primary concern when it comes to how we want to set things up.

We also use the room a lot for keeping tools and supplies, and we need to find a better way to organize those. The table saw I found in one of sheds had been by the door into the old kitchen, but there it ended up blocking access to things, It’s now set up near the counter shelf by the doors to outside, with the miter saw I got at a garage sale sitting on top of it for now. The swing bench will stay where it is now – right in the corner, with no shelf behind it. The last time we moved things around, I’d set it up against the wall with the two windows, but my husband moved it against the shelf, so he could sit on it and see outside. That blocked access to the shelf and, before we knew it, all sorts of things were falling behind it and getting stuck – and of course, the cats took full advantage of that! So now the cube shelf will go against the wall under the bathroom window. I’m going to try and keep all the tool related stuff on that side.

We found using the room as a greenhouse was handy, but we need to figure out a more efficient way to do it. Being able to set up a surface to hold transplants over the swing bench worked out pretty well, even if it meant only the cats could use the bench! So this side is going to be organized in a way that we’ll be able to set transplants up again in the spring, including a better way of setting up the lights. For a “sun” room, it’s actually pretty dark in there!

One other thing we use this room for is an isolation ward for recovering cats. Which means we’ll be wanting to set up food and water bowls, and a litter box, which is currently in the cats’ house outside. It hasn’t been used yet but, once snow is on the ground, I think the kittens will figure it out! We’ll get another one for the sun room.

We will also be using this room to store things for the winter, until they’re needed again in the spring.

All of this, we will need to figure out as we bring things back inside. Now that that floor has been cleared and sanitized, we can work out how to organize things most efficiently.

While I was finishing up and things were getting dark, I was very happy to see how well the new solar powered motion sensor light was working out. When I checked on it last night, it didn’t turn on. It’s mounted to the top of the outer door, so it should have turned on when I opened it. It didn’t turn on, but I startled some critter out of the kibble house! I could hear it run across the yard, and slam into the chain link fence as it went under it. It sounded bigger than a skunk. I’m thinking racoon, but they usually freeze instead of running away, so I’m not sure. As I came out of the sun room to check, I heard more noise – from the four deer in the yard that got startled and ran out towards the barn! I grabbed a flashlight and went back out again. I could hear something was crunching kibble, but couldn’t see what it was. From the sound, I was pretty sure that one, at least, was a skunk, which turned out to be correct.

With all that going on, the new light would have been very helpful, but it just wasn’t turning on. I knew it worked, because when switching it from off to either high or low light, it turns on and stays on for about a minute before shutting itself off. I had turned it on just before starting to screw it onto the door. Thankfully, the way it is sitting, I didn’t have to unscrew it from the door, and could shift it enough to reach the switch and turn it on. I’m not completely sure why it was off, but my guess is that I switched it off by accident. While I was attaching it to the door, at one point it slipped and started to fall. I managed to catch it, but must have hit the switch in the process. Whatever it was, I got it going again, and set to the brighter light.

Which was really handy as I finished up! I had plenty of light to see what I was doing – and it even lights up as far as the inside of the kibble house. The cats running around also triggered the motion sensor, which means any skunks, racoons or deer will also trigger it. Hopefully, that will be a deterrent.

Ha! Who am I kidding! It won’t deter them, but it’ll make it easier for us to see what’s stealing the kibble!

If all goes well, we should have the sunroom organized and finished tomorrow. Then we can go back to putting the garden to bed for the winter. We’ve got some nice, warm days coming up, which means we can give the trees we planted one more deep watering before the temperatures drop again.

As long as the weather holds, there will always be a bit more we can get done!

The Re-Farmer

Wet, wet morning

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

While the Western parts of the prairies got walloped with snow yesterday, by the time the system reached us last night, it was rain. Some places even got thunderstorms, apparently.

When I headed out this morning, it was still raining pretty heavily, so not a lot of kitties were coming out for kibble! Quite a few of them were inside the cat house, though, so that was good to see. As I went to switch the memory card for the driveway trail cam, I had to walk on the grass to the side of the driveway because it was covered in water.

We seriously need more gravel on that driveway.

While we have not finished winterizing the sun room, we did get the broken glass cleaned up, so I’ve been allowing the kittens to go in. When I topped up their kibble last night, some of them were still in the sun room, so I rigged the doors so that they were mostly shut, but the kittens could still get in and out. Then, because racoons remain a problem, even if we don’t see them, I used my husband’s walker to brace the kibble bin in its shelf, then took the two big bags of kibble my BIL and his family so generously gave us, and tucked them into the old kitchen.

Well, I forgot to put the breaks on, on the walker! This morning, I found the walker had been pushed aside, and the kibble bin open and almost knocked onto the floor. Thankfully, the bin was only half full, so while it was on its side, hung up on some buckets (with a kitten sitting in the kibble!), the kibble wasn’t spilled onto the floor.

Before moving things around, I’d had a shallow bin, designed to fit under beds, on the top of the shelf we used to hold the kibble bins to catch water from the leaking roof. Well, that shelf isn’t there anymore. I wasn’t expecting it to rain this heavily, so there was just stuff set aside against the wall until we could finish cleaning and winterizing the sun room. I had to move those out – and my husband’s walker that had been pushed that far back – so I could set up a bucket to catch the drips.

I will be so happy when that roof finally gets done, though my brother and I are both on pins and needles, afraid our mother will suddenly decide not to pay for it after all. She tends to do that at the last minute, though, so I expect that once the roofers are actually here and the final bill is being tabulated (the total will likely be higher than the estimate, as I expect them to find rot from leaks that needs to be repaired), she’ll try to refuse to pay it. Much like she tried to do after promising to pay for the movers so we would move out here to take care of the place for her.

There was water on the sun room floor, of course, but it’s a concrete floor and not going to be a problem. Seeing how it all flowed across the room to the opposite corner, though, really shows how much the room has shifted since the concrete was poured, and how much that one corner has been undermined.

Speaking of which…

Something knocked the diverter off the downspout above the rain barrel. It had not been full before, but it sure is now, and was starting to overflow. I got the diverter back in place, so it’s not an issue anymore. Getting that barrel empty and set aside for the winter is going to have to be done soon. The girls are going to have to clean the eavestroughs (aka: rain gutters) out again, too. I did pick up rolls of mesh to cover them, but those won’t be put on until after the roof is done. I also picked up a spray sealant to be used after they’ve been cleaned. There are a couple of places where they are leaking. The roof is supposed to be replaced, but I don’t think that includes the eavestroughs.

Looking at the short range forecast, we’re supposed to get a couple of chilly days, with highs barely above freezing, then it’s supposed to warm right up again for about a week, with several sunny and dry days. That will be a great time to get more progress on things, and to finally be able to finish cleaning out and winterizing the sun room. Cleaning the other half of the sun room will require removing the swing bench, the table saw, and a couple of shelves, along with all the stuff in them, outside. Because overnight temperatures have already been going below freezing in there, all the remaining squash have already been moved to the living room. Some of them are still ripening, so they won’t be going to the root cellar, yet.

In putting the stuff back, we need to keep in mind that we’ll be using the sun room as a greenhouse again in the spring. I want to come up with a way to be able to hang those lights we used last spring, more efficiently. If we do it right, the same set up can then later be used in the fall to hang things like strings of onions and garlic to cure.

Wow. I just realized that, if we’re going to be doing things like starting onions from seed again (which we likely will be), we’ll be needing to get those going in just a couple of months. Onions should really be started indoors in January in our area.

The girls and I will go over how the garden went this year and, taking into account the failures due to flooding and other issues out of our control, what worked, what didn’t, what we want to keep doing, what we will stop doing (if only temporarily), and what we don’t want to ever do again! 😄

We have lots of work to get done before the snow flies, and then lots of planning for next year to get working on.

It’s going to be fun!

The Re-Farmer