surprise!

An awesome gift!

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But first, the cuteness…

Ghosty, using her adopted brother, Shadow, as a bed. 😁

Today was a wonderfully mild day. Our high this afternoon was supposed to be -8C/18F, but it sure felt warmer! We had more fog last night, which meant more frost on the trees, on top of the frost from yesterday morning, so it was looking pretty gorgeous, too.

I had two places I needed to get to today; a dump run, and then on to the feed store in the town north of us, to pick up 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats. This feed store has a section for work wear, too, ranging from socks and boots to all sorts of outerwear. This is where my younger daughter found the high quality gloves and Tough Duck bib overalls she loves so much, so I asked her if she wanted to come along. Which she did.

I did not realize she had a secret purpose to come along!

The dump run was a bit different, in that we had a bin of stuff we weren’t sure were recyclable, or if they needed to go into the pit. I’d mentioned in an earlier post about a new RM council that was so bad it was disbanded and the province had to take over until another election could be held. Along with messing up when it came to getting the roads plowed and not going with the company that had been doing such a great job for years, they also messed up with the landfill caretaker. They fired the guy that had been going the job for years. For a while, I think it was contracted out to a company, because instead of one caretaker, with occasional help brought in, we were seeing a team of four people or more doing all sorts of stuff. Then, they were gone, and the caretaker was an older woman with mobility issues. She did the best she could, but she physically could not do a lot of things, like operate the front end loader, and the state of things got really bad. Someone would be brought in to clear the area in front of the pit, but whoever it was didn’t do a particularly good job. That was when I found myself with a flat tire after a dump run, and we got into the habit of my daughter walking in front of the truck into the pit area, to clear away any broken glass, nails, or other sharp objects scattered about.

Well, things have changed again. Lately, I’ve been seeing a young guy there, and I do hope he is a permanent employee, because he is really awesome! Aside from being diligent in doing the checks when we come in, he clearly knows how to use that front end loader.

Today, as we came in, we had the usual checks. We have a card with a number on it to prove we live in the RM. Other RMs charge a fee, while ours doesn’t, so people were going to the dump in our RM to avoid having to pay at their own, and these cards were the solution to that. We also get asked what we’re bringing which, in our case, is almost always just household garbage, which goes into the pit, and recycling, which goes into various bins around the caretaker’s shed.

This time around, we had some things we weren’t sure about. Mostly electronics. The woman that had been the caretaker before had told us to toss things like power cords into the pit, but this time we had some odds and ends. So when we stopped at the caretaker, I told him we had stuff we weren’t sure of. Then I pulled up to the nearby recycling bins and I started dumping the recycling while he and my daughter went through the bin we’d brought.

Some things, I knew they had special places for, like batteries and aerosol cans, but those have been moved.

The cordless glass kettles that started leaking or got chipped, we found out, cannot be recycled and had to go into the pit. Their bases, however, went into the electronics area – and he even took some of the stuff over for us, while do took items to other areas, so save us some walking! He was so sweet about it, too.

That done, we went into the pit area. Along the way, we could hear the front end loader was running, warming up to be used to clean things up. It wasn’t even that bad, yet, but he was getting ready to do it again!

I have to remember to find somewhere to pass on how great a job he’s doing.

…

Done.

I didn’t want to take a chance of forgetting by waiting until I finished this post!

Anyhow.

That done, we continued on to the feed store. I paid for 4 bags of kibble, then moved the truck around to have it loaded, while my daughter was inside looking around. I later joined her in the outerwear section and started chatting, asking what she was looking for this time. She was looking at some coats, then brought me over to where she’d found her overalls. I joked that I want a pair, too, but I would make sure that they were a different colour, so we wouldn’t get them mixed up. Not that that would be possible, as I would want a larger size. I did try hers on when she bought them and they fit me, but I like more room for layers.

The next thing I knew, when someone came around to ask if we needed help, she asked if they had the size I wanted, in black.

!!!

The lady had to go check their inventory, as they don’t have enough space to have all the sizes on display, and it turned out they did.

My daughter bought me these (not an affiliate link), though the price at the store was better than the price on the website. What an awesome surprise! Hers are tan, and she had to take 7″ off the legs for them to fit, and she’s thrilled with them.

Once we got home, I tried them on and she adjusted the shoulder straps to where I need them. Then she turned them inside out and got me to put them on again, so she could fold the bottoms and measure how much to remove. As I write this, she’s in the process of removing 6 1/2″ from the legs and hemming them, by hand. After that is done, I’ll try them on again and we’ll see if we need to add elastic anywhere, but I suspect it won’t be necessary. They’re oversize, but not in any inconvenient places.

These are going to be so very handy!

She also got herself a vest. No modifications needed!

My daughter tells me that she has decided to use her very modest disability income to get us all high quality, weather appropriate clothing, starting with me, since I’m the one that’s doing most of the outside work.

She is so sweet!

Aside from that, it’s been pretty uneventful. When it was time to do the outside cat feeding, I decided to clear the clumps of snow I’d knocked off the truck’s mud flaps. Then, since I had the shovel out anyway, I decided to clear the light snow out of the cats paths. It was so warm out, I had my jacket wide open, so I wouldn’t overheat while shoveling.

Before I knew it, an hour had gone by, and I’d cleared fresh snow from the entire turnaround area for the truck, plus the paths to the compost pile and litter compost, then started a new path towards the main garden area. Then I had to stop after only about 15 feet, because it was getting too dark. I haven’t been able to get to the sign cam in over a month. We’ve got some very mild weather expected over the next week, so I figured this would be a good time to dig out a path!

Oh, my goodness. I just checked the weather app on my desktop again. The last I looked, we were expecting things to warm up to a high of 0C/32F on Monday, but now it’s saying to expect a high of 2C/36F TOMORROW!!! Monday is now expected to hit 1C/34F, with highs just below freezing, in between.

This would be a good time to find an excuse to get the fire pit going!

[edit: I just had to add this. I looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow again, a few hours after writing this. It now says tomorrow is expected to reach a high of -6C/21F instead of 2C/36F. Good grief. How are we supposed to trust any of these forecasts when they constantly change, and by so much!]

Not tomorrow, though. Tomorrow, I need to go into town to pick up another prescription refill for my husband. It’s his “controlled substance” painkillers, so we weren’t allowed to get it refilled when I was there yesterday. While I’m in town, I’ll swing by the hospital to visit my mother, too.

After that, I think I’ll get the fire pit uncovered and prepped. We might just enjoy a fire, but I’m thinking we may as well break out the Dutch oven and cook supper, too.

We shall see what we come up with!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: they’re alive!

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Right now, there’s basically nothing in the garden. The herb bed, amazingly, is still chugging along, but everything else is done for the year. So, when I do my rounds, I don’t check the garden beds like I do throughout the growing season.

Which is why I had such a surprise today.

When the septic guy showed up to empty our tank, I stayed around on kitten duty, to keep them away from the open tank. A couple of cats wanted to hang out.

I had to pick up and carry Sir Robin most of the time, because he was so curious. When I put him down to look at things, he stayed close and even posed quite nicely for me.

Fancypants, here, is more feral, but still very curious, so I was keeping a close eye on him.

His going into the area fenced off from the deer, to protect the tulips and apple tree, is why I was there to spot my surprise.

First, it was seeing fresh green leaves poking up where the saffron was planted, two autumns ago. I’d seen some sprouting in the spring, but then they disappeared and I thought they died off. Their first growing season was much the same. It’s really hard to keep this area clear of the creeping bellflower that threatens to choke out the tulips. The crocuses are much more delicate. Plus, these are zone 4 corms, and we’re in zone 3, so I really wasn’t expecting much. Just hoping.

Today, I found fresh new saffron crocus leaves coming up! In November!!! These are supposed to bloom in August, never mind start coming up.

When I first started taking pictures, I actually missed it.

Yes. That is a spent saffron crocus flower laying on the leave litter!

The plant just to the right of it in the picture has what looks like a flower bud ready to open soon.

!!!

I opened up the makeshift gate in the fence wire to get better pictures, which you can see in the rest of the photos of the slide show above.

Yes, I picked the flower.

We have our very first saffron threads from our first blooming saffron crocus!

We’ll keep an eye on the flower bud over the next few days, to see if it opens or not. If it does, we’ll pick that, too, for a grand total of 6 saffron threads. 😁

The clusters of crocus leaves are looking strong and healthy, now that their competition is died off for the winter. They also look like they are spreading, even though they’ve barely survived their first two seasons.

I’m just blown away. I honestly thought they’d died off. I knew, when I bought these, that their chances of survival would be low, so this is just really awesome.

We’ve got a few more warmer days, but before the ground freezes, I want to put a nice, thick mulch of leaves over it. I don’t want to put it on too early, as that would smother them. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we could possibly wait as long as another week and a half, but I don’t want to wait too long, either! I think I might need to look at the overnight lows more than the day time highs when deciding when to cover them.

I can still hardly believe they survived!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: Surprise finds!

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While going through what’s left of the garden as I do my evening rounds, I’m constantly surprised by what’s still surviving. The still blooming summer squash and eggplant. The pumpkin vines growing new leaves and blooming. The bush beans still blooming and producing.

This evening, however, I had some more unexpected surprise finds.

The first was tomatoes!

Yes. Actual tomatoes are ripening. The tiny self seeded tomatoes in the trellis bed got hit hard by the frosts we got at the beginning of the month, but mostly survived. To find a spray of ripening tomatoes, however, was the last thing I expected to find! It also confirms that they are Spoon tomatoes.

The next two pictures are of pea plants I found near the end of the bed with the newly completed log frame around it. The last picture was of a group of three pea plants I had unknowingly stepped on! We didn’t grow peas in that bed. They were in the bed next to it, roughly 7 feet away.

My guess is a deer eating the pea plants might have dragged a section of vine away, dropping a pod in the process. Which still seems unlikely, but it’s the most logical explanation I can think of.

I’ve since stuck some short pieces of bamboo stakes into the ground beside them, so I won’t accidentally step on any again. I don’t expect them to get very big before the season ends, but I don’t want to walk all over them, either.

What a strange, strange gardening year this year!

The Re-Farmer

Three!!

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I had a rough night last night and my balance wasn’t very good, so I asked one of my daughters to accompany me while I was doing my morning rounds. My daughter popped out ahead with the warm water for the cats while I was getting the kibble ready when I heard her saying something about Brussel and the kittens.

When I first looked over, I was quite alarmed. I had not been able to straighten up the cat cave, so it was still on its side – but now it was half crushed and Brussel was sitting on top of it, looking at me! My first thought was that the kittens were still inside, being smothered.

I was wrong, of course. They were on top of the flattened side of the cave with Brussel.

All three of them.

That’s what my daughter was trying to point out to me. Caramel’s first kitten was still with Brussel and nursing!

I tried to get a picture, but this was the best I could get.

That little calico is resting her chin on her new sibling while she’s nursing. I think this kitten is a tortie; if so, it’s a female.

So it seems that when Caramel jumped into the cat cave with Brussel and my daughter moved her baby in with them, Caramel just left her baby to Brussel’s mothering. When I saw Caramel the next morning, she still looked pregnant, but not when I got home, which is when I spotted the two in the sun room.

I’ve heard that cats can do that sort of thing, but for there to be such a long time between births is pretty amazing. It’s unlikely she had them somewhere else then brought them over, or she would have brought her first kitten over, too. It would have been much closer and easier to bring to the cat house.

Caramel is also much more comfortable leaving her babies while she goes outside – unlike Brussel who barely leaves them to get some kibble, water and do her business.

Here, you can see Caramel milling around with the boys. It took a bit, but I was able to pet her – until one of the males pushed his way in between, demanding I pet him, instead!

When we peeked through the window, we could see the kittens curled up around each other, sleeping.

The down side of Caramel being in the cat house is, there’s no way I can give her wet cat food or squeeze treats like I can with Brussel. Caramel, at least, already allows us to sometimes pet her. Unlike Brussel, who actually seems to be getting more aggressive, not less, even as she accepts the food and treats.

We had another surprise this morning that was a bit more perplexing.

This is the side of the water bowl shelter. Somehow, one of the boards got loose! It may not even had been doing by a cat, but a racoon or skunk. Well. Maybe not a skunk. Nothing was knocked about inside, so I don’t think it got pushed out during a cat fight. It was just nailed in, so we’ll dig out the drill and use screws to secure it, later on.

My daughter and I checked out a few areas while we were out and about. The garden beds in the main garden area are almost completely uncovered now. With today’s high expected to be 17C/63F, the rest of the ice and snow should soon be gone. We can start doing some clean up and remove the mulch on the winter sown beds. I remembered to tuck one of the thermometers under the plastic covered bed. It should be interesting to see what it’s at, when we remove the cover to remove the mulch this afternoon. With the cover on, it’s entirely possible the soil below is already thawed out.

But not yet. I got another Charlie horse during the night, and my leg still feels unstable, though it was the mildest Charlie horse I’ve ever had. I’m going to try and get a bit more recovery time. Today is Saturday, which means the dump is open longer hours, so a dump run is also on my to-do list today. We’ll also need to get the isolation shelter prepared to hold three adult females for 2 weeks. We’ll be moving one of the box nests back into the bottom, after it’s cleaned out as best we can, and the litter box prepared.

I look forward to when we can roll that isolation shelter out, open it all up and give it a good cleaning! I’m glad the cats are enjoying it, but they do make a mess of things. 😄

Things are going to be busy for the next while. Lots of driving around to do, on top of the usual spring clean up.

I’m looking forward to it, but I really need to remember that I’m a lot more broken now, than when we first moved out here!

I’m also falling asleep at my keyboard.

*sigh*

Time to try lying down and hopefully get some real sleep for an hour or two.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025(+) Garden: They survived!!!!

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But first, the cuteness…

Gouda has a new necklace.

He has lost his other reflective collar before, but I’ve always found it and was able to put it back on. No sign of it this morning, so now he has a spiffy new blue one. We use the collars to make it easy to see which cats have been fixed, but we have only two orange cats right now – Rolando Moon, the grand old lady, and Gouda, who is about half Rolando’s size. So we really don’t need a collar to tell if he’s been fixed. It does, however, make him more visible at night and, if he every visits a neighbour’s farm, they can see that he’s not for target practice.

I got his collar on while I was doing the second feeding for the outside cats. I put out less food, in hopes it will all be gone and there will be nothing to tempt the racoons and skunks during the night. On the critter cam, though, I spotted a skunk at one of the trays, surrounded by about 6 cats, all eating!

After they were fed and watered, I went around to check on things as much as the snow and ice will let me. That included checking on the hose for the emergency bypass from the septic pump. It runs past the rigged fence where the tulips and Liberty apple tree are. On my way back towards the house, I noticed that the snow had melted away along the fence line, including where we’d planted saffron crocuses in the fall a couple of years ago. They had started to come up in the spring, but we couldn’t keep the weeds away, and they were soon choked out. If they had made it, we should have had flowers around August, with saffron to harvest.

Last fall, I didn’t even bother to mulch the area over them. They are a zone 4 crocus, so the chances of them making it was already low, with our without mulch.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this.

Do you see those sprays of greenery?

Those are the saffron crocuses!

Not only did they survive the summer, after being choked out by weeds, they survived the winter without a mulch, and have made their way through the still frozen ground!

After taking the picture, I looked around some more and got another surprise.

They have increased.

Last year, there was a single spray of green where each corm was planted. This year, I saw more sprays, and even clusters of sprays, showing that more corms have developed.

How they had the energy to do that, after the weeds took over, I have no idea. But there they are!

I have no idea how we are doing to do any better to keep the weeds from taking over again, once things warm up, to be honest, but we will definitely be trying.

The rest of the area, where the tulips are, still has a pretty thick layer of snow, so it’ll be a while before we can tell how many tulips survived.

I’m just blown away that even a single saffron crocus made it!

The Re-Farmer

A day of surprises

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Today was expected to be a warm on, though the forecast kept changing when it came to what our high was supposed to be. In the end, it was a glorious 3C/37F! It’s past 6:30pm as I start this, and we are still at 1C/34F It is so awesome!

Things had warmed up pretty constantly overnight, so while I was doing my morning rounds, I was able to check on the frozen ejector. My brother had brought over one of his tarps to cover it, but until this morning, I hadn’t seen just how long it was! It took a while to get it off, and I made sure to lay it out on the snow, so that I could fold it in half (black side out) for later.

After very carefully removing the elbow and cap, the first thing I saw was that the venturi pipe – the discharge pipe – inside the 4″ stand pipe was loose and could move around. My brother and I left a length of copper pipe nearby, supported by a fence post and a tree, so it couldn’t freeze in the snow, that I used to see how far down the ice was. I was able to get the copper pipe its entire length in, and never hit ice! It was the same inside the venturi pipe. I was extra careful while doing this, as the last thing I needed to do was drop the thing! It’s a few feet shorter than the height of the stand pipe, so if that hadn’t, I would not have been able to get it out again.

As for the venturi pipe, while I could wiggle it around, it was still solid at the bottom. That could have just been the venturi valve properly seated at the bottom, but I wasn’t about to force it out to find out.

This is very encouraging, though, and a very pleasant surprise. I was expecting it to still be frozen a few feet down. We might be able to hook things up to the pump again soon!

For now, I left it as it as it was and covered it back up again, tying the tarp around itself so the wind won’t blow it off. I didn’t add more of the liquid ice melter. I updated my brother about it and he did ask me to add a bit more, but I will do that tomorrow, as we were out most of today.

That was my first surprise – just how well that stuff worked!

My second surprise happened when I went to check on the truck and do a scan.

We have not been able to do much about clearing and organizing the garage since moving here. Among the things we will need to deal with are various long items stored in the rafters.

The yard cats like to go up into the rafters and use them to move around. There are shelves they climb to get up there, so I sometimes find things they’ve knocked down in the process.

This morning, I found a bundle of scrap molding and whatnot, on the ground beside the truck, along with a board. These had been in the rafters.

The first thing I did was check the truck for damage, but it seems it was missed completely!

After cleaning things up, I did the OBDII scan on the truck to make sure it was still just the sensor setting off the check engine light, then fired up the compressor to top up the tires. I was checking the tire pressures still when my daughter caught up to me, so she started topping up the tires that were a bit low.

I was telling her about finding the bundle that had been in the rafters next to the truck, when I realized.

We were being watched!

One of the more feral kitties was up there, on another bundle – one that did not look like it could be knocked down, thankfully! – watching us very closely. Thankfully, this is not one that panics and dashes awake, leaving a wake of destruction behind. We have others that do, and I worry that they will hurt themselves in the process! Not to mention, break things.

So that was another surprise.

Once we were done prepping the truck, my daughter and I headed out. Our first stop was the post office, where I knew we had some parcels waiting to be picked up. Two of them were not a surprise; my husband got me a new pair of boots, as the right foot on the ones I have now finally started splitting. It’s always my right foot that wrecks my shoes, first! He also picked up a siphon with a rather unique design, This is something we could use to drain some of the water in the ejector – both the stand pipe and the venturi pipe – if needed. Based on what I saw this morning, the level is going down, which means it might be draining slowly from below, but it’s hard to say for sure.

There was one large but very light box among the parcels that I wasn’t expecting – at least not so soon! The replacement hose for our washer came in. They expedited the parcel, even though I only paid for regular mail! That was really awesome of them!

There was another package that was a total surprise, though.

A whole bunch of cat collars! They have breakaway collars and are reflective. We will be able to get all sorts of cats collared up as they are fixed! Right now, Syndol is the only one that still has his collar, and his winter fur is so fluffy, you can’t even see it, even though it’s bright red. I have a bunch of collars ready to put on them. Only one of them is reflective, though, so I will likely use these, instead

I didn’t order these, by the way. There was nothing on the package to say who sent them to us. There were a couple of possibilities, and I can now send a great big thankyou to M for being so very thoughtful in sending these! M, you are awesome!

It’s so nice to have good surprises for a change, instead of all the “what is breaking down now??” surprises!

Meanwhile, my daughter and I ended up changing our plans and heading to the city today, and I ended up doing a smaller stock up trip. By the time we got back from the city, it was starting to get dark, so it was a much longer day than expected, too!

That, however, will be my next post…

The Re-Farmer

We were wrong

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We were all wrong.

We also had no way of knowing how or why we were wrong!

My brother, saint that he is, came out today to work on both the frozen ejector and the septic pump problem.

My SIL dropped him off, as he would be taking their car that they loaned us, back. The first thing he did was head to the ejector – he was here for an hour before we even saw him! He set up a low power heater around the ejector and covered the whole thing with a tarp to hold what little heat there was.

When I came out to join him, I was surprised by how much is was snowing. There had been no snow at all when I did the morning rounds and opened the gate for them. We ended up having what felt like a light snow, though it was actually heavier than it seamed, it was so calm out, the whole time.

He had spent yesterday evening running around all over the city, looking for the parts and pieces he needed for the septic pump. With the water leaking out of the filter, he concluded that the back valve was leaking. The pictures he asked me to take and sent to him helped a lot, as he couldn’t quite remember the details on the pump.

Once he did as much as he could around the frozen ejector, I helped him bring in his tools and supplies into the basement.

He came well prepared. A habit he got into when he would come here to fix things for our late father, because all Dad’s tools were scattered all over, or “borrowed” by our vandal.

First, I need to explain what we were wrong about.

When we first started having issues, I was thinking the pump itself was the problem. I thought it was about 20 years old and, which all the plumbing issues we had and with it running dry for way too long at times, I was thinking it was wearing out. It was even starting to sound worse.

I was wrong.

My brother replaced the pump only about 10 years ago, got the best pump available at the time, and he had full confidence in it.

The company that installed the ejector also thought it was the pump, with not enough pressure going through the venturi valve, causing the ejector to freeze.

He was… partially right. There was low flow, so low pressure, but it wasn’t because of the pump.

Other thoughts from various people, including me:

– that there was an air leak somewhere in the pipes from the tank to the pump.
– the O ring was failing
– the pipe from the house to the ejector was starting to get filled with gunk
– gunk from inside the pipe to the ejector was breaking loose and clogging the venturi valve
– the ground around the venturi valve was too saturated (which may still have been a contributing factor)

While it sounds like we’re talking about two problems – the frozen ejector and the septic pump problems – once we set up the emergency diverter, we got more of a sense that the problem around the pump lead to the ejector freezing. Thawing the ejector is its own problem.

With the water draining out of the filter, my brother conclude that the back valve was broken and wanted to replace it.

He was half right.

He was going to replace a whole section of connectors and a bit of pipe, removing the original back valve completely, and installing a new one, in line.

I’ve actually uploaded a bunch of short videos, because photos could not do it justice. Here is the first one. Here, the section of pipe and elbow connectors has been removed, but not the back valve.

No, you will not see the brass filter in another video. We never used it.

Instead, we found this.

W. T. F.

We were just flown away. HOW did a piece of cloth that big get into there! How many years was it there?

That is a BIG chunk of fabric! The fact that the pump worked at all with that in there is amazing!

With that filter installed after we moved here, we know it had to have happened before then. I don’t know when the other filter was finally removed, because it never worked. My guess is the fabric got into the pipes somewhere in that time between filters.

The only way I can think of how that got into the system is either by getting flushed down the toilet somehow, or it fell into the tank at some point when the lid was open.

It could well have taken years to get sucked into the pipe and work its way through all the elbow connectors. There are three on either side of the filter, and even when there was just a straight pipe before this filter was installed, the elbows were still there.

Then, once it got through the pipe, it got forced through the valve, where it could go no further.

Upon removing the fabric, my brother looked over the valve, and it was undamaged.

So he just put everything back together as it was, with fresh Teflon tape on the threads.

One of the other things he did was set up the switch by-pass. Right now, we have a switch on the wall to turn the pump on and off manually – but the pump won’t run unless the pill switch in the tank is high enough to trigger it. He’d set up the wiring before, but they were tucked behind the switch plate. He set the wires to they were now outside (after I turned the breaker off, of course) and connected them, so that when the switch was turned on, the pump would run immediately.

Before starting work on the pump, he ran it to drain the tank. It had run not that long before, so there wasn’t much in there, but he wanted to make sure it was empty before he started taking off pipes and draining what water was inside the pump itself. He was going to need to test it again later, so we had to run water for quite a while, just so he could have something in there to test the pump with, once everything was back together.

It takes a long time to fill that tank.

Eventually, though, we got it to the point where he could turn the pump on and test it out.

At the very end, you can see a sudden change in the flow. That’s when the tank was empty and the pump had to be shut off immediately.

What a thing of beauty. Everything was flowing well – just like when it was installed!

Which makes me think that piece of fabric was stuck flat against the inside of a section of pipe somewhere between the filter and the pump, because that filter and pump were working great at the start, and for quite some time after.

We’ve had other problems with the system that, in retrospect, were probably caused by that piece of fabric moving down the pipes a bit further, then a bit further, then a bit further.

There was absolutely no way anyone could have known.

Oh! I just heard the septic pump turn on as I write this. I’d checked the filter earlier, and it was completely full, and I know it’s pumping fine and faster than it has in probably years!

The only down side is the vibrate-y noises from where the emergency diverter makes contact with things.

Wow. The pump just turned off. That took less than two minutes, easily!

What an excellent pump.

I am so happy to be wrong about that pump!

Once that was done, my brother disengaged the bypass, so the pump would only turn on when triggered by the pill switch. My brother wanted to test it again, but it would take a while I left a tap running in the old laundry sink, next to the pump, but I made sure the rest of the family knew to use water, flush toilets, take showers, to fill that tank enough to test it again.

Then, it was time to head outside and work on the ejector.

In the first photo, you can see the fluid level is quite high, because my brother had poured in about half a jug of liquid ice melter – calcium chloride. This won’t damage the plastic pipes, but there is a brass fitting at the bottom that could potentially get corroded, but that would likely take a long time. Once things are thawed out, we can hook the pipe back on and anything down there will get flushed away when the pump sends fluid through.

In the next photo, my brother is using the heat gun on the copper pipe to try and get the ice inside the venturi pipe – the discharge pipe – thawed more. It had been frozen to the top before. When we got there and my brother started this, it was down about 2 inches. By the time we stopped, it was down about 4 or 5 inches.

We spent quite a bit of time out there in the falling snow, using the heat gun and the copper pipe and the calcium chloride to get more of it melted down. There was no way it was going to be thawed out completely, though.

For that, we used the heat tape that came in the mail yesterday. That’s the blue you can see in the third image. The glass tape that game with it wouldn’t stick, buy my brother brought electric tape that he kept in a pocket inside his jacket to keep it warm, and that worked. We ended up using the heat tape box to hold the sheet of metal roof out of the way, as it rests right against the pipe. Being frozen to the ground and covered in snow and ice, we can’t move it away. My brother dug through his tools in the barn and found something to bend it back.

The cap and elbow were put back on the ejector, but only loosely. We want to be able to pop them off easily to check on how it’s melting.

My brother did some scrounging and dug an old, rotten saw horse out of the snow to put over the ejector. This would keep the tarp from having contact with the ejector itself. The last thing we want is for it to snap off the elbow or something in the wind.

Last of all, the tarp was wrapped around the whole thing – black side out to absorb warmth from the sun (whenever we get sun next) and tied off a bit. If we get high winds from the south, it might still get blown off, but it can’t be tied down too tightly, or I’ll have trouble checking on it.

All of this took quite some time, with a few trips to the barn or the garage, etc. to find things we needed. At one point, I needed to go into the house. As I was leaving, I caught a light whiff of septic, so I went around to check on the outflow pipe.

The septic pump must have just shut itself off by the time I got there. I could immediately see a whole lot more snow had been washed away. In some areas, the flow goes under the snow, creating gaps in the snow above in places. While there was no water coming out of the outflow pipe, I could see through one of the gaps, water that was flowing fast. The pump was definitely working well!

Before he left, my brother checked the pump in the basement one more time – the filter was full to the top and the filter basket was floating, just like it should be – then checked the outflow pipe. He was surprised by the direction the water was flowing, but I wasn’t. There’s a reason I have a retaining wall at that end of the old kitchen garden!

Now that this is fixed, and we’ve had the clogged drained fixed, we need to use our water. Especially in the kitchen and laundry. We still need to set the washing machine drain hose back into the pipe – no one has needed to do laundry yet – and I plan to do a machine clean cycle. That uses straight hot water. We’re also going to keep up the drain maintenance routine we’ve already started, plus what the plumber recommended we do with the kitchen sinks every few days. Last night, I even flushed out the access pipe to the septic tank in the old basement floor with the hose, to make sure that second bottleneck was still clear. Having the laundry draining into the septic again should actually help keep that clear, too.

By the time my brother left, he’d been here about four hours, with a brief stop for lunch, working on all this!

My brother is allergic to cats, so I had lunch with him in his car.

Meanwhile, he can return all the parts and pieces he never needed to use, and get his money back!

We’re still blown away by finding that piece of fabric stuck in the valve. So utterly unexpected.

The fact that nothing was damaged by it is pretty amazing, too.

So we were all wrong about what was going on, and that’s just fine! With some of the possible causes, this is one of the easiest fixes there could have been.

As for the frozen ejector, it’s hard to say how long it will take for the calcium chloride to work its way down to the bottom. Then my brother will need to come back and switch the pipes so we can test it out and, hopefully, be able to leave it.

We might not be using the emergency diverter all winter, after all!

Wouldn’t THAT be nice!

Also.

My brother is the best.

The Re-Farmer

Morning surprise

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Well, I got one heck of a surprise this morning!

Our bathroom window faces into the sunroom, so we can often hear, even if we can’t see, the cats and kittens.

This morning, I started to hear the mewing of kittens.

Mewing that began to sound increasingly distressed!

I finished up as quick as I could and headed into the sunroom.

Of course, the first thing I checked was the cat cage.

It had one grey kitten in it.

Where was the mewing coming from? Was a kitten trapped behind a shelf of something? Hurt somewhere?

Then I heard the mewing again and realized it was coming from the bigger cat carrier. The one that opens from the top.

So I opened the top…

… and found four newborn kittens.

I had no idea we even had a pregnant cat! As far as I could tell, they all already had their kittens, weeks ago.

It seems one of the more feral cats – one of the ones we don’t even know the gender of – had her kittens in the carrier last night.

The problem is, there’s no sign of her. I’ve been keeping an eye on the critter cam as I write this, and there are no cats – or other kittens – in the sun room.

It looks like the white and grey litter has been moved out. I only saw two of the greys this morning, and the last time I went by, I only saw one.

I currently have the app for the critter cam in the sun room running. I have not seen any cat going to them. In fact, I’ve only seen one short haired black and white, just as it was leaving the sun room, and I don’t think it was the mama.

Sometimes, I have to turn the sound off on the camera, because they start mewing and it just breaks my heart to hear them, but not see a mama.

Now, out in the wild, so to speak, this would not be unusual. The mamas have to leave their babies for hours as they go hunt (or come to the house for food). They come back when they are ready to feed the babies. But with them being in the sunroom, I’m concerned they have been abandoned, or will be abandoned. We are currently going to avoid using the sun room for the next while, so the mama won’t be scared off. While working outside this morning, when I needed to go into the sunroom, I’d check the camera first to make sure it was empty before going in.

This mama found a really safe “cave” to have her babies, though. You’d think that would mean she will come back to tend to them.

Right?

The Re-Farmer

Four!!!

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Okay, I was definitely wrong about that kitten I found in the sun room last night.

This morning, I heard the beginnings of a cat fight in the sun room, so decided to quickly feed the outside cats right away, instead of waiting until I headed out to to my morning rounds. By spreading kibble all over, it would get the cats out of the sun room, and away from that baby. I messaged a daughter to join me, to check on kittens, and went on ahead with the kibble.

The first thing I saw was two kittens on a cat bed INSIDE the cat cage! Then I spotted two others outside the cage. It was like they were still trying to be close to each other.

I left some food for the mama – whoever that is! – in front of the cat cage, then went outside to feed the rest of the cats. Meanwhile, my daughter tried to figure out how to get at the two outside the cat cage, and put them with their siblings.

I saw Broccoli at the kibble on the cat house roof, so I went around to the old garden shed to leave some food for her there. No sign of her two, but unless they pop out to look at me from their hiding place in the back, I have no way of knowing for sure.

Now that I see the kittens in the sun room, I realize they are younger and smaller than Broccoli’s would be by now.

When I got back to the sun room, my daughter had just managed to reach one of the kittens, and was able to pass it to me. I gave it a cuddle, then put it with the two inside the cage.

It was more difficult to get the other one! It ended up going behind the cage, where there is a window sill the cats like to sit on.

I took the plants outside, then we had to mess around with the plant table to make space. The “table” is an old folding closet door over sawhorses, above the cat cage. An extra board was added for the cats to sit on, instead of the plant trays. That got removed, which gave a bit of wiggle room, but the kitten made its way to the other side of the cage. My daughter had to get down on her hands and knees and squirm under the sawhorse, but she managed to reach it and pass it to me. I got a quick cuddle and put it with the others.

Yes, the kittens hissed and spit at me while being cuddled, as expected.

My daughter was able to pet them a bit through the doorway of the cage, which is at the second level, before going back in to wash up.

Now, we set this cage up for Toni, in hopes that we could keep her in there to recover from her leg amputation. She had kittens somewhere, and we cut a small opening in the cage side, under the “door” for her kittens to fit through.

We didn’t expect Toni to be able to squeeze through the openings of the cage, though! So she ended up inside and, as far as we know, her kittens got adopted by the creche mothers. We never got the straight of which ones were hers, so we can’t be sure.

We’ve left the cage in the sun room and several cats quite enjoy going in there for naps.

After the kittens were all in the cat cage, I finished putting the last plant tray out, came back and…

There was a kitten, outside the cat cage, looking at me. It had found the opening!

I was able to grab it and pick it up – and it didn’t really resist this time! After I put it back in, I set other things back in place, including putting that board back over the sawhorses, but I also grabbed a cat blanket to put over the opening. I stuffed part of it in the opening, from the inside of the cage, and already had to move away the kitten that was going for it again!

After the opening was blocked and the kitten dug around in the blanket a bit, looking for the opening, it just sat there, looking at me.

So I reached in and pet it.

It let me!

I went inside and got a few cat toys, and put them in the cage with the kittens. It didn’t take them long to start investigating!

Over time, we’ll take the spare little litter box that was donated to us, and set it up in the cat cage. It’s small enough for the kittens to crawl into.

I’m going to have to check the critter cam more often, and hopefully spot which of the cats is the mama. I just checked now and the only cat I can see in the sun room right now is Stinky – a male – napping on the board above the cage.

The interesting thing is, the mama would have put the kittens inside the cat cage herself! The kittens can get out but, once out, they can’t seem to figure out how to get back in. Aside from the opening under the door, the bottom of the cage is lined with cardboard on the inside, since we were trying to stop Toni from squeezing through the 2″ square wall pieces (the are 1″ square).

I would love to get Broccoli’s kittens in here, too!

Well, time to get my butt in gear and get outside. We didn’t get actual thunderstorms in our area last night, but I need to see what wind or rain damage there might be. Especially on those melons that were transplanted yesterday. They are the most fragile transplants compared to all the others we’ve got. Then it’s back to work to prep more beds, so the last of the transplants can go out!

After I take more painkillers.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024… er… 2023 garden: We have survivors!

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I just finished doing my evening rounds – it is so gorgeous out there right now! – which gave me a chance to see how far my daughter got on the garden bed she was weeding.

Before I left this morning, she asked me which beds needed to be worked on, and if there were any surprised to watch out for, like fall plantings of some kind. I said no, we did the fall garlic in the old kitchen garden beds this year, and those were the only fall plantings we had.

The bed she started on is where we planted the Roma VF and Red Wethersfield onions, last year. The tomatoes ended up not very healthy, and seemed to get blight near the end, but the onions… they just disappeared. The seedlings I transplanted around the perimeter seemed to be doing well at first, and then they were gone. Not dug up. Just died away. So I definitely had plans for amending this bed, and we were most definitely not going to be planting tomatoes in it, again.

Imagine my surprise – and probably hers! – when I looked today and saw this.

All along the perimeter, Red Wethersfield onions are growing! There are so many crab grass rhizomes in there, my daughter has basically been digging them up and transplanting them.

I am totally amazed. Onions I thought had died off, with no evidence of them to be seen when that bed was harvested and the diseased looking tomato plants pulled for burning, had been there, all along, and survived the winter!

We started more Red Wethersfield onion seeds this year, too. I was going to give them one more try before giving up on them, at least for a few years. Now, it looks like we’re going to have plenty!

The bed is only about a quarter finished; it took my daughter a lot longer then usual, since she was both weeding and transplanting all the onions she was finding. Even through the crab grass growing around the edges, I can see more little onion bulbs pushing their way through!

Onions are biannual. Which means that these onions, if left alone, will go to seed, which we should be able to save.

What an awesome surprise!

The Re-Farmer