sunflowers

Frosty morning, and… stuff (updated)

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I headed out to do my morning rounds a bit on the late side, yet there was still frost in the air!

It was looking downright foggy, in fact.

Everything looked like a fairy tale, sparkling away!

Even the ugly wires used for fencing looked beautiful. I love how the lichen on this fence post looks, all frosted up!

Taking photos was a bit of a challenge at times, though!

They just wanted to keep their paws warm. Butterscotch didn’t even growl and hiss at Potato Beetle when he jumped up my back!

While checking out the garden areas, I could see from the tacks in the snow where the deer have been going around. I knocked some of the frozen crab apples they can’t reach, down to the ground. The sunflower stalks have been completely denuded, except for the tallest ones. Those were denuded as high as the deer could reach! :-D

The birds are eating the sunflowers a little bit.

I bent all the taller ones that still have leaves and seed heads, so the deer can now reach them to nibble on.

Part of the reason I was out later was because I got a phone call from my older brother this morning. He called me back while I was out, and he is keeping my updated.

He got a call from my mother, very early this morning. Her stomach has been hurting since Friday, and she wanted him to drive her to the hospital.

Keep in mind that, for him, it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive to her place, but only 20 minutes for me – and I have her car. She wanted him to drive her, though.

*sigh*

Getting information out of her was like pulling teeth, of course. In the end, though, it sounds like she has been eating too many oranges. It also sounds like she has really bad gas. She has acid reflux, which she doesn’t understand no matter how many times I’ve tried to describe it to her. I’ve given her easy to read, colour coded lists of what she can safely eat, and what she should avoid. The lists have disappeared. All citrus fruits, tomatoes and onions are things she should avoid, but she loves them and eats them anyway. Small amounts wouldn’t be an issue, but mandarins are in season now, and cheap, so she’s been buying them by the box full. She does think it might be the oranges that are causing her grief, but she thinks that, because the price went down and they’re from China, she had to have eaten a bad orange.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after updating me on the situation, my brother called the health line, since it’s been made clear hospitals really don’t want people going in right now. The health line couldn’t tell him much, since they were not talking directly to my mother, but in the end he was told to take her in, simply because of her age.

*sigh*

My brother called me back on hands free, while we was on the way to pick her up to update me.

*sigh*

…

I just got a call back from my brother. He has dropped our mother off at the hospital. It seems she also had breathing issues at night (which she often has, while trying to sleep) and nausea (also not unusual for her). They were able to take her right in, but he couldn’t come in with her. He did have a chance to explain things to the person at the entry – particularly about our mother’s difficulty in understanding the questions she is being asked. My brother was told he could go home, but with how long the drive is, he’s just going to hang around town until it’s time to pick her up or they call him. He was satisfied that they were taking her seriously and taking good care of her, so there’s that, at least.

So today will be a day when I stay close to the phone. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Update: Well that has to be the fastest ER visit ever! My brother called the contact number to check on our mother, only to be told they were just finishing with her and he could come pick her up. She’s got some anti-biotics, and she’s good to go.

Well… I suppose that’s one way for my mother to get my brother to “visit” her… :-/

Frosty morning – and a rough start to the day!

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This morning, I was awakened by my husband, asking me if there was some trick to starting the washing machine.

I think it was a rhetorical question.

Our new washing machine, which we’ve had for only 2 1/2 months, simply stopped working. It won’t turn on.

Of course, my husband went through the usual check list. Breaker? It was fine. Outlet? Tested both plugins. Meter reads fine. While I went through the manual’s trouble shooting chart (which basically said, check the breaker, check the outlet), my husband went online and found that there’s a hard reset you can do, so we tried that. Still nothing. It simply will not turn on.

So I started looking at how to contact the LG to get it fixed, since we’re well within the 1 year limited warranty. I tried their website, first. Made an account, registered the item, started a request for getting warranty work done…

Got a note saying we were not under warranty, and we would be billed for the service call.

???

So I finally just phoned.

The good news is, the person I spoke to confirmed we are still under warranty; their website glitches sometimes. She was apologetic about that. Since I had just made an account on the website, she was able to find me in the system, so that made things faster.

They didn’t have any technicians available for where we are, but there is a local company that does warranty work for them, so they will contact this company on our behalf, and we will get a phone call from them.

Soon, I hope!

While I was working on this, I heard the well pump turn on and the noise it made really threw me. Since our plumber hasn’t gotten back to us, and I happened to catch the name of another plumber being recommended on a local Facebook group, I asked my husband to try contacting them.

It turns out that, this time of year, a lot of people are closing up their cottages for the winter, so he’s really busy with those jobs right now. So busy, he recommended we try someone else, because there was no way he could come in within the week. I don’t imagine other plumbers will be any different, so we might have to just wait until after Thanksgiving, which is next weekend.

By the time we got all that done, I was still earlier than usual to get the outside rounds done. I figured the cats wouldn’t mind being fed early! :-D

It was -1C/30F at the time. The cats’ water bowls had ice on them, and the ground was covered with frost. It was quite beautiful.

  • Cat paths!
  • Frosted burdock

Rosencrantz was not impressed.

While going through the garden areas, I noticed the one sunflower with the seed head that was killed off by grubs looked… odd.

It looks like the grubs continued eating their way down the stalk – and then got killed by the frost!

Die, grubbins, die! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Stripped bare, and heavy traffic day

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It’s working out to be a very unpleasant morning, weather wise! Thankfully, I was out earlier to do my rounds outside, so I could make sure the gate was open. We’ve got a septic company coming in to clean out our tank for the winter, some time this morning.

Checking on the sunflowers this morning, I just had to get some pictures to share.

The stalks have been stripped bare of any leaves under about 6 1/2 – 7 feet!

From the fresh pile of deer droppings visible at the bottom of the above photo, you can guess why!

The leaves were mostly frost damaged and already drooping. You can’t see in the photo, but the ground in places was littered with stems left behind after the soft parts were eaten.

It’s looking like we’re not going to get any actual seeds out of these. This seed head is one of the best that’s out there. Many never had the chance to fully open and get pollinated. Even the two I harvested and brought inside to dry are looking no different, really, than this one. I plucked a seed out of one of the dried ones, and it had pretty much nothing in the shell. I’m leaving these outside for now. The weather is going to cool down for a few days, then warm back up again, and the sunflowers are pretty much the last thing we’ll be cleaning out. Mind you, their role as wind breaks are rather defeated by the lack of leaves!

Our sunflowers may not be doing well, but it’s been a great year for farmers’ crops this year. After such a horrible year last year, this is wonderful news. A lot of people planted corn again, including our renter. Yesterday, we were hearing and seeing a LOT of traffic by our place. Checking the trail cam files this morning, I was seeing gravel trucks, hay bale trailers, trucks full of fire wood and farm equipment. It wasn’t until I’d gone through a number of images that I realized what I thought were dump trucks full of gravel were actually full of corn. Or, at least, they couldn’t possibly be gravel. The images aren’t very good at that distance and speed of subject! :-D I have one of the trail cams now set to stills instead of video, and going through that one, I counted 23 full loads going by! Those are just the ones that were captured. There could easily be more that got missed by the camera delay. At one point, the road was so busy, two dumpt trucks had to squeeze past each other in front of our driveway. That road is barely wide enough for two cars, never mind two dump trucks!

Sometimes, I kinda wish we lived even further into the boonies. Too many neighbours! Too much traffic! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Cat crowd and sad sunflowers

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We had another frost last night, and today is going to be distinctly chillier. We’ve already had a smattering of rain, which is supposed to continue off and on.

Then, on the weekend, we’re supposed to go above 20C again!

The outside cats seem to be taking it in stride. In this weather, they will be growing in their denser winter coats.

How is this for a lovely family picture!

Starting from the top left, we have Rosencrantz’s baby. Next to her is the mystery kitten; I am unsure which mom she belongs to! Next is Rozencrantz herself – who as even been letting me pet her! Until the food is out, of course. :-D

Next in line is Tabby, then Little Braveheart (her head is hidden behind her mom), and finally, Junk Pile cat.

Junk Pile cat was the one kitten of Rosencrantz’s that we were unable to catch. Keith and David, with their leaky, glued shut eyes, were caught and treated and are now both indoors.

This means that Rosencrantz’s babies are siblings to Junk Pile, while Junk Pile’s kittens are the grandkittens of Rosencrantz. Which means Rosencrantz’s kittens are also the aunts/uncles of Junk Pile’s kittens! :-D

I did see Butterscotch around when I first came outside and started getting the cat kibble. I have put the container for her and her kittens at the side of the house, near the steps I have been seeing them play around most often, lately. She went past me as I was filling it. Later, as headed towards the old garden area, I could see her kittens, playing among the squash beds.

Which confirms that Butterscotch has moved her kittens again.

Across the road, to the neighbouring property! No one lives there, but there is still the house, barn, garage, and various sheds and equipment used by the current owner.

*sigh*

She has done this before, and when her kittens grew bigger, they did stay at our place on their own, but I don’t like that she and her kittens are crossing the road like that. That one is a main road, and gets a lot more traffic than the one our driveway leads to.

I really wish Butterscotch wouldn’t do that. :-(

The frost we’ve been having seem to have finally done in the sunflowers.

The leaves are drooping on all of them, and even the unopened seed heads are drooping. I don’t expect many of them will ever open, even as we warm up again.

With the ones that are already open, I’m sure they can better withstand the frost. The problem is, it’s too chilly for the pollinators. No pollinators, and the seeds will never develop. I’m hoping they will be out again as things warm up.

Not all of them are tucking down for the winter. The wasps on the tree outside the kitchen window – the tree we need to cut back in hopes of establishing an internet connection for the second satellite – is still buzzing. As chilly as it was this morning, I could see a few flying around, too.

It’s hard to know how much longer it’ll be, before we can safely cut that branch down. Meanwhile, we’ve already got our 90% data usage warning, with 2 weeks before the account flips. We’re still rationing our internet usage, but we’d have to basically stop using the internet almost completely, to avoid going over the limit. Our service won’t be interrupted, but we will be charged double per gig once we do.

I really hope taking that branch down works. The tech already checked everything and replaced everything he could, and it still got zero signal. If it’s not the branch blocking the signal, there’s really nothing else left to fix. Yet, if it was just the branch, we would have had at least an intermittent signal, rather than no signal at all.

Ah, well. We’ll find out, one way or the other, once those branches come down.

The Re-Farmer

Morning surprises, and is the hard cider okay?

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So I had a few pleasant surprises this morning.

And one not so pleasant.

When I headed out to do my morning routine, I had a rush of outside cats come running as soon as I opened the door! And who was in the lead?

Little Braveheart!

She ran right up to me. She still won’t let me pet her, but she’s coming the closest.

While in the sun room, filling a container of kibble at the storage bin, there was a crowd of cats going in and out, including Butterscotch, Potato Beetle, Junk Pile cat and her 2 kittens. When I felt a cat rubbing against my legs, I looked down, expecting to see Potato Beetle, who has been begging for attention these days.

Nope.

It was Little Braveheart! Weaving around my feet.

*melt*

The mystery kitten came out from under the cathouse again. That seems to be a favorite place now. I’m glad she’s willing to hang out so close.

Once he’d eaten his fill, Potato Beetle accompanied me for the rest of my rounds.

He did not want me to put him down, either! :-D

The biggest seed head on the mutant sunflower, with its 20 or so seed heads, is opening up quite nicely!

Once back inside and chatting with my daughters, I noticed a kitten on a side table. They are allowed on this table, but it’s also where the hard crab apple cider is sitting, and the kittens have been going after the airlocks. So I went to move her away and…

… noticed both airlocks were gone.

!!!!

I had checked the temperatures before heading outside, and didn’t notice they were gone. I guess it’s a good thing it’s been relatively chilly; they both read at 17C/62F this morning, while the ambient temperature is 16C/60F. They are both wrapped in a towel to keep the warmth of their own fermentation in, but at these temperatures, there’s not a lot of activity in the airlocks.

I found the airlocks, upside down, between the towel and the wall. The bungs were quickly covered with plastic wrap. The main concern is that we have a fruit fly problem right now, and we just can’t seem to get rid of them all. Another reason to be glad the cooler temperatures mean slow fermentation, I guess. They weren’t attracted to the open holes in the bungs! There were no fruit flies in the jugs. *phew*

They can’t have been without airlocks for long, but even so, could this be a problem? Will they be okay?

I have no idea.

We need to find a way to warm them up. For the mead, we used an electric heating pad, but there is no electrical outlet anywhere near where we have them now. We were thinking of wrapping something warm around them, like those microwavable neck warmers, but we don’t have any.

Hhmm… I could warm up a towel and wrap them in it.

*sigh*

Well, we will just have to keep a close eye on them and see how they turn out!

The Re-Farmer

Stages of sun

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I recently harvested the two biggest heads of sunflower seeds that were done blooming. They are now hanging in the basement to dry, where the birds can’t get at them.

As for the rest of them, we’ve got seed heads at all stages! Not all will have time to mature before the growing season ends, but we should still have a decent number of them to harvest and dry for the winter.

Click on the images to see larger sizes, though they are all 25% of the original size.

That one mutant sunflower, with all the extra seed heads developing, is one to keep an eye on! We might actually get a couple of seed heads mature enough to harvest before the end of the growing season.

While going through some of the photos I took with one of my daughters, she was suggesting I make some available for sale, in various forms. We’re still trying to come up with ways to be able to raise funds for things like a new roof, when I cannot get a job (for the new folks following this blog; as we are living on my husband’s health insurance disability payments, anything I earn would be deducted from his payments. If I were to earn more than his payments, he would lose his plan, which means no more coverage for his prescriptions). I was considering offering things up as fundraisers: all proceeds go towards replacing the roof, or getting yard cats fixed, or building a wheelchair ramp, etc.

So I’m putting the idea out there. If I were to, say, make photos available on, say, Redbubble, as prints, mugs, t-shirts, etc., would this interest you? I’ve had it suggested to put a donation button up, but I don’t like to ask for something for nothing. Other people use sites like Patreon, where there are rewards for different tiers. Of course, there are always affiliate links, like with Amazon, where the site would earn a commission. All proceeds would go to specific things, such as a new roof (long term goal) or getting yard cats spayed and neutered (short term goal) or building a wheelchair ramp (mid term goal), etc. It would have to be fundraising for a specific project, not an income for us. We would have to be very careful about that.

What do you think? Is it worth giving it a go?

The Re-Farmer

Appreciate the beeauty

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Let’s start by enjoying this lovely photo I was able to get this morning.

There were two bees on this sunflower, busily pollinating!

A nice, cheerful burst of sunshine.

I feel like I need it right now.

I had intended to use my mother’s car to run some errands in town today, just to get it on the road. Then my mother called me in the morning, asking for help to do her shopping, so I did my errands at her town, instead. Plus, I got to surprise her with her own car, which is easier for her to get in an out of than our van.

So that worked out rather well.

Of course, it was a visit with my mother, and all that this entailed. It was a pretty good visit, overall, but as usual, it left me drained. As an example of just one of the things that came up, apparently we did our celebration on Sunday all wrong. Not only was she still upset about the ceiling fan, but apparently we each, individually, were supposed to give her cards, there was supposed to be a tablecloth and candles, and after dinner, we were all supposed to make speeches.

???

Never mind that we were originally supposed to have a cookout and be eating outside, or that two other people’s birthdays and an anniversary were being celebrated at the same time. She had an expectation, and we didn’t meet it, therefore it was all wrong.

So is everything about our gardening this year, and the fall planting we’re intending to do later this month.

And so on. Everything is all wrong, because it’s now how she would do it, or the way she thinks it used to be, or how she thinks the “proper” way to do something is.

*sigh*

But that’s okay. Tomorrow, I get to recharge. We are taking my mother’s car out for a longer highway drive, and finally visiting my older brother at his place. He has come out here so many times, yet since we’ve moved in, we’ve managed to go to his place only a couple of times.

It’s going to be really great to see them!

For now, it’s back to recovering from visiting my mom, and appreciating the beauty of bees and sunflowers! ;-)

The Re-Farmer

In the sun

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I just couldn’t resist sharing these photos!

I’m happy to say that last night’s frost seems to have had no effect on the sunflowers at all.

The only leaves with frost damage that I saw were leaves that had first been broken by the high winds we had a few days ago.

Right now, we’ve got seed heads at pretty much all stages of opening and ripening!

The birds seem to have finally discovered this one. Based on what I researched, I should be able to cut this seed head off and set it up to dry, but in the video I saw that demonstrated this, the guy was able to easily brush off the flower heads from the seeds. That isn’t happening on this seed head at all! The ones that haven’t already fallen off on their own are still attached quite well.

The girls and I will be heading into the city tomorrow, but I might harvest this seed head after we come back. If not then, then the day after. I’m planning to dig up the potato beds as well. We’ll see how the timing of things goes.

Hopefully, tomorrow’s trip to the city will be more productive than today’s – but that will get it’s own post later!

The Re-Farmer

Dark Sun

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More and more of the sunflowers are opening up, and today I spotted one that’s different.

Most look like this.

Bright, sunny, mostly yellow with light oranges and greens around the developing seeds.

Then there was this one.

The camera actually lightened it up a bit. Compared to the others, this one looks almost black in the middle! Very dramatic.

This may be the first of the slightly shorter variety of giant sunflowers we first planted, so start opening its seed head. If so, I expect to see more. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Sunflowers progress

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The first seed head to blossom is already losing its little flowers!

I think I should be able to harvest it and set it to dry at this point; at least that’s what I’ve learned from my research. But would the seeds normally be this white?

I think I’ll leave it a bit longer. So far, no birds seem to be going for it.

Pollinators aren’t’ the only ones interested in the budding sunflowers.

The leaves make great shelter for resting dragonflies!

Those leaves have a lot of holes in them. I can’t see what’s causing them, though. They still seem to be doing all right, so I’m not concerned at this point.

The Re-Farmer