I’m happy with how much I was able to get done outside yesterday, but I know myself well enough by now, not to try and do that two days in a row.
I was pre-emptive about things, which seems to have made a difference. Before going to bed, my daughter was a sweetheart and did my lower back with the diclofenac cream, as I could feel it starting to give out. While I was outside yesterday, taking a break to hydrate, sitting on the storage house steps, I could feel a Charlie horse threatening, so I made sure to treat both my legs with Tei Fu lotion, and took some extra magnesium with my evening meds/supplements. I still have some T3s left, so I took one as well. It seemed to work out, as I was actually able to sleep with zero muscle cramps, and my left hip giving me only relatively minor grief. When I had to get up during the night, all my joints were very stiff, but not painfully so.
Still, I was exhausted. In the morning, I got up before my alarm went off to do a wellness check on my husband. He was stable and doing all right.
My younger daughter has been going to bed very early, then getting up very early. By the time I’d gotten up to check in my husband, she had already mopped the floors and was starting to work in the kitchen. She was a sweetheart and took care of feeding the outside cats so I could go back to bed. I was still awake when she came in, so she regaled me with how the cats were for her. Sweetie seems to have mostly moved into the sun room now. She’ll run off when we come out, but quickly goes back. All the cats were eagerly awaiting the cat soup! I don’t know what we’re going to do when we run out of the donated freeze dried mix we’re using for this. They’re not going to understand why there’s no more cat soup! We don’t even give them a lot of it, considering how many cats are eating it. It’s more like a supplement but, gosh, they love that stuff. Which makes it very strange that the inside cats don’t like it at all!
Anyhow. Thanks to my daughter, I got a couple more hours of sleep, but I’ve still been tired all day. I did go out and do a deep watering of the garden beds. I had intended to work on some other larger jobs; either getting the push mower out at its highest setting to cut back that last overgrown section by the food forest area, now that’s it clear or poplar saplings, or get the electric chain saw out and cut that last big fallen section of maple that’s still in the west yard, into firewood for the fire pit. By the time I was done the watering, it was getting quite hot and, in the end, I wasn’t up to doing either.
I did get a chance to grab a pry bar to see what I could see around the elm tree’s stump that’s surrounded by a tire. After prying around the inside edge of the tire, it seems to be completely filled with soil. The edges I worked the pry bar under were flexible, but there is steel cable in there, so it could be moved only so far. If we can find a way to get that tire off, though, it will make things a lot easier for the tree guys when they come back with the stump grinder.
I must say, though, the yard feels completely different now that the elm tree is gone. I hadn’t realized just how… oppressive it had felt. Now that it’s gone, walking through the area feels so light and open and airy. Yes, we’ve lost a shade tree, and we’ll be feeling the heat through the kitchen window, but that’s nothing a curtain can’t fix. Meanwhile, I can now look out the kitchen window and see so much more! Of course, the “light” feeling has a lot to do with no longer having that one huge branch hanging over the roof, and the constant concern during high winds that it would finally break and fall.
One thing I made a point of doing was to go out and take some garden tour videos, being completely attacked by mosquitoes while I was out there. After uploading the files and watching them, I wasn’t very happy with them, so I went out and did it again. I’m still not happy with them. My head space just isn’t there for it. I plan to go to bed early and, hopefully, when I look at them again tomorrow, I’ll be able to judge them better.
It’s getting a bit cooler now, so I might try going for a walkabout before going to bed. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit hotter. I’ll be going in to town before we reach the high of the day. My husband has a prescription refill that needs to be picked up, not delivered, so I’ll be getting my new prescription at the same time. I should remember to pick up some more bug spray, too. I’ve run out. There are two containers in the truck, and I can’t find either of them! The mosquitoes are just insane. While trying to take video, I’d find my hand holding my phone suddenly covered with half a dozen mosquitoes. Worse is when I’d accidentally inhale one. Did that several times! Ew.
Anyhow.
I did get a few little things done, but mostly today was a day of recovery. I’m at an age where I know I can’t push myself like I used to!
Getting old and broken really sucks at times. Still better than the alternative, though. 😉😉
Today has turned out to be a fairly hot and muggy day. Depending on which weather app I look at, we’re either supposed to be raining right now (it isn’t) through to tomorrow, and then thunderstorm warnings for the next two days. Or, we will get scattered rain today, with more rain for a few hours, now and then, for the next two days. Once again, it looks like the more severe weather systems will go around us.
Our day started early, as my younger daughter and I needed to get to her blacksmithing workshop for 8am. We left an hour early, and just made it on time, partly due to skirting road construction and areas still damaged from the flash flooding. The road to the blacksmith’s acreage had visible damage, some of which has been repair, some still waiting to be patched. There were a couple of areas I could tell had been completely under water, with standing water and flood damage in the fields on either side.
When we got there, I started getting messages from the rescue about Sweetie. She is not doing well and bit someone again. They wanted to know when she can come back to us. After going over what we’ve got going on over the next while, it was worked out that someone will bring her here on Monday (today is Saturday). They did manage to get her spayed a week ago, so we will keep her in the isolation shelter for only a few days, so she can get used to the idea that she is back in familiar territory again.
My daughter’s workshop didn’t take as long as originally expected. There weren’t as many people signed up for this date, which is their only “build your own forge and take it home” workshop of the season, and only one person added the extra of including an electric blower to take home as well. My daughter wants a manual blower. In the end, the workshop was only about 2 hours instead of 4. When it was done, we loaded the table portion into the back of the truck and strapped it down, removing the firepot portion and putting that in the cab with the air duct for the blower. Then we headed to the smaller city nearby for a quick lunch and to pick up a few small things we would run out of before we do our next stock up shop on Tuesday.
Once we got home, we made some space for the forge in the side of the garage with my brother’s big riding mower and other equipment. Now, we need to build a structure for her smithy so set it up in permanently. In between, she wants to find a blower, and then get fuel.
With rain apparently on the way, I asked her to give me a hand with some maintenance in the garden. Plus, I had one Butterneck squash seedling to transplant.
The first bed we worked on was the summer squash. It was time to remove the protective collars. The finnicky part is lifting the netting high enough, without getting tangled up, to work in the bed. The “funnels” in between the groups of summer squash remain, as they get watered through those.
In the next image in the slide show above, you can see the fennel and chicory bed we worked on. The fennel was getting too tall for the netting, so we took it off, then added one more rod and connector to each hoop. The netting had been folded in half, but with the new height, we unfolded it before setting it back. There is still slack with the new height, but not very much.
In the next image, you can see the turnip, pole bean, daikon radish and onion bed we worked on next. The turnips and onions were getting crowded, so all the hoops here got on more rod and connector, too. We also took the opportunity to do some weeding, and add some straw for a mulch.
Once thing I’m concerned about with this bed is the red noodle beans. When I tried to grow them last year, they got to about the stage this year’s beans have reached now, and then… stopped. They never really got any bigger, and I never figured out why. I’m hoping that a different bed and consistent watering and fertilizing will help them grow. Once they get to when they can start climbing, we’ll take off the net set up a trellis. For now, though, there’s just no need.
This netting had also been folded in half and needed to be unfolded to fit over the new height, then secured. A job made much easier with my daughter to help!
The next image is something I’d actually done last night – I finally added a mulch in between the cosmos, marigolds and nasturtiums. The nasturtiums are quite small. They didn’t get very big last year, either, and I know they should be larger and fuller. No sign of any self-seeded memorial asters (I’m still unhappy that the seeds I saved indoors have disappeared), so the spaces are now all mulched.
In the last image, we have progress on the chain link fence bed. My daughter helped me raise the bottom half of the netting from end to end, securing it up so that I could work under it. After that, I could manage it on my own.
In one of the empty protective collars, I transplanted the single Butterneck squash seedling. Then I mulched with straw tightly around the collars, and carefully around the sunflowers. I also made sure not to cover the furrow I’d planted the super sugar snap peas, from our own saved seed. There are seedlings appearing now!
After the straw was in place, I carefully removed the protective collars. The mulch will protect them from the elements now. Last of all, the netting was set back down and reset nice and snug.
Once that was done, and everything was cleaned up and put away, I checked on some of the other beds. The high raised bed needs a straw mulch, too, but I’ll do that later. Hopefully, tomorrow. The short season corn is getting tall enough to mulch, too, I think. I checked on the more recent sowing of carrots. No seedlings yet, but the frogs do love hanging out under the boards protecting the carrot seeds! I didn’t notice any cucumbers coming up, yet. I checked the garden beds in the east yard, too, and was happy to see my last sowing of bush beans, in the small square raised bed, have started to germinate.
I really hope things start catching up soon. Staples like carrots, peas and beans all seem to be under the weather. The winter squash and melons aren’t doing well, either, but they’re not quite staples in the same way. The garlic is doing great, and scapes have started to form. I expect to be harvesting some in the next day or two. I’m really looking forward to those! The potatoes are starting to develop flowers, with one variety developing faster than the other. We should be able to start harvesting baby potatoes soon, if we wanted to.
So that is garden progress today. Mostly just maintenance. I’m really liking the flexibility of the hoop kits. I still plan to build more covers for the raised beds, but for now, these are doing just fine. Being able to make the hoops higher as needed really helps.
The surreal thing of the day has been the time. When my daughter and I were starting for home, it felt like 2 or 3 in the afternoon, but it was just coming up on noon. When I finished in the garden and did the outside cat feeding, I was sure it was well past 5. Maybe even 6. Instead, it was just barely 3 when I got in! Meanwhile, I can see outside my window, the sky getting darker and the wind blowing the maple branches, and I feel like it’s almost bed time… and it’s not even 4:30 as I write this!
I was able to get a couple of big jobs done in the garden. It’s going to be an odd growing year. We had another cold night last night, dropping to about 6C/43F It looks like the cold has killed some of the melons and at least one winter squash transplants that managed to germinate in the tray that got resown after a mouse got to the seedlings. A couple more winter squash have germinated in the tray and I’ll transplant them when they get their true leaves, but it’s really too late for them, unless we have a super long, mild fall. The next time I have a chance to check out a garden center, I’m hoping to find more winter squash, at least.
Right now, I’m thinking of what can be direct sown for succession sowing. I’ll be doing more peas and bush beans, I think, and possibly some beets, but that’s not what I sowed today.
The first bed I worked on was the winter sown kohlrabi bed.
The down side of having a cover that can keep the cats out is, it’s much less convenient to weed.
Lots of crab grass. Thankfully, the remaining mulch kept most of the elm seeds from germinating. That is getting to be a real problem in other areas. Especially inside the protective collars around the tomatoes in the bed next to this one, and in the chain link fence bed.
In the next image of the slide show above, you can see my little surprise. There are actual kohlrabi growing! Absolutely tiny, but surviving. I was going to leave them to grow bigger but, as I was clearing the weeds, there were rhizomes going right under the little cluster. I ended up transplanting them to one end – a whole four tiny seedlings that probably won’t survive, but at least there’s a possibility.
The rest of the bed got completely worked over as I pulled all the rhizomes I could. Unfortunately, there were quite a few tree roots in there, too, and there isn’t much I can do about those. In this location, the roots could be either from the elm in one direction, or the cherry trees in the other. Both are close enough and spread roots far enough to be possible. It might even had been both, not just one.
Once the weeding was done, I have the bed a deep watering. Especially in the three rows I planned to sow into, which you can see in the third image.
In the fourth image, you can see what I decided to plant. American Spinach, Rainbow Swiss Chard, and I had some seed tape of Uzbek Golden Carrots left. They are old seeds so I don’t expect a good germination rate, and I hoped there was enough to lay down a double layer.
Before sowing anything, I noticed my brother had left some cardboard in the garage for me that was just right for this bed, so I cut strips to lay it down as a mulch between the rows, plus a couple that would be used to lay over the carrots to protect them until they germinated.
I didn’t need much. I had only enough of the home made seed tape left for half a row. I thought I had more seeds left in the packet and went looking, but couldn’t find it. So I grabbed the Hedou Tiny bok choy seeds we collected last year – something got to the ones planted in the old kitchen garden. The rest of the new row in the middle got those. The carrots got covered with the strip of cardboard, but not the bok choy.
Then the spinach and chard got planted in the rows still marked by twine on either side. There weren’t a lot of seeds in the packets, relatively speaking, and both got emptied in the planting. Then the cat proof cover got set back on.
Hopefully, these will take. We do have some seedlings from the rainbow carrot mix growing, but very few. I might try planting more carrots later on, but we’ll see. The chard and spinach planted between the garlic are just not growing, and what seedlings there were seem to be disappearing. It would be nice to have some greens that survive!
That done, I moved on to reclaiming the small, square bed near the compost ring.
The first image is the “before” picture. The boards on the side are from a same size frame that had been around another bed. They’re pretty rotted out, but they should last at least a couple more years. They still had their screws, so I took those out, first.
In the next image, the bed is all weeded, and the soil pulled away from the sides.
My original plan had been to join the corners opposite of how the frame already in place is, but it turned out the pieces weren’t all quite the same length, so I mixed and matched to get them to line up to the existing frame as best I could. Once the corners were screwed together, I had to be careful shifting it around to lay on top of the bottom frame properly. The wood is dry and rotten enough, I could hear it cracking at the corners.
I rummaged around in the scrap lumber pile in the garage for a while, and found some pieces I could cut into eight 8″ lengths, which is the new height of the bed. Four of them were screwed into corners, and four into the middles of the sides. One side didn’t line up at one corner. After screwing the vertical support piece to the bottom board, it left a gap between the support and the top board. More rummaging in the scrap lumber pile and I found something thin enough and cut it to 4″ in length. It was a bit narrower than the gap, but nothing the 3″ screws I was using couldn’t secure.
That done, I cleared a path to the remaining pile of garden soil we bought years ago and uncovered it. I thought I might be getting two wheelbarrow loads but, in the end, only needed one to top up the bed. In the next image, you can see the finished bed, all cleaned up, topped up and leveled.
The next thing was to protect the bed from being used as a litter box!
I had decided to use the rods from my hoop kit to made supports, running to opposite corners and crossing in the middle. This time, I decided to try something different. I found a drill bit that was the same diameter as the rods in this kit and drilled holes in each corner of the frame.
Which was fine for three of the corners, but one corner is a lot more rotten. There was no solid wood near enough to line up with the rods in the other corners, so I had to make do with what was there. Hopefully, it will be enough. The hoops will not be holding anything heavier than netting, and there shouldn’t be a lot of stress on it.
In the end, it took 6 rods to create each hoop. The hoop set into the rotten corner is a bit wonky, but otherwise it’s holding.
For the netting, I decided to dig out some green dollar store netting from last year, instead of the black netting I’ve been using elsewhere – the black netting that snakes can get caught in. The green netting is quite long, and I wasn’t sure it was wide enough to simply drape over the top, so I decided to wrap it around, instead. It was wrapped low enough that the netting could be secured to the ground with ground staples in the middles, outside the frame, while also being clipped at the bottom of the hoops at each corner.
I still had a lot of leftover netting, but I didn’t want to cut it, since it’ll be used elsewhere, some other time. After fussing with the netting to gather the excess toward the top and securing it with clips, I just pulled the excess length up and over the top and back again, before securing it in place with a clip, too. You can see the final mess in the last image of the slide show above. 😄
With this bed, I might transplant the one Arikara winter squash that has germinated in the middle, and then I will likely plant bush beans around the perimeter.
But not today.
That done, I headed inside for supper before coming back out to do the watering.
Which is when the phone started ringing. I hadn’t bothered to tell the family I was outside, so when the phone started ringing, they thought I was in my office and could answer. After four calls and no messages left on the answering machine, my daughter came looking for me. I went in and saw it was my mother, which was a surprise. I’d gotten a call from the nursing home this morning – at her request – to be informed that my mother was not feeling well. They’d already informed my brother yesterday, as he’s the primary contact, and he let me know. I was told she’d had a very rough night and was doing worse today, coughing, having a hard time breathing and talking. I was informed as to what treatment she was getting, and that she’s still in quarantine. She’s not the only one that’s sick, and if enough people in her ward are ill, they have to shut it down to visitors. For now, she can get visitors that need to wear a gown and mask, which rules me out because I can’t wear a mask.
I had asked the nurse that called me to let my mother know that I knew she was having a hard time talking, so I would not be phoning her. So it was very odd that my mother would phone me! She would have gotten the message, but when I mentioned it, she didn’t say anything about getting it. She did say that the nursing home phoned me this morning because she asked them to, but I told her they’d also already contacted my brother, yesterday. I told her about the medical treatment she was getting. She knew about the antibiotics but was saying they weren’t helping – I had to explain to her that it takes at least a few days before she would feel any difference, but she expects immediate response. I told her about the medication to help with her breathing, but she couldn’t remember anything about that one, then told me whatever pills they give her, she takes. I think she’s having a harder time remembering what she’s taking and when.
Of course, she started saying how she was so sick and didn’t think she was going to live much longer. Which she has been saying for the past… five? six? or so years. Thankfully, she is in the nursing home now. She’s coming up on 96 years old, and a simple cold can be dangerous at that age.
That got her to talking about the funeral and what I thought of it, and how she was surprised to see so many people. Then she told me, in a round about way, that she wanted us to make sure that her funeral had lots of friends there. I told her, we would let people know, but didn’t mention that she’s pretty much outlived most of her friends already.
By the end of the call, her voice was getting pretty squeaky, though she sounded a lot better than I expected, and even seemed to be in good spirits. Finally being where she has wanted to be for so long has definitely made a positive difference in her, even when she’s feeling sick.
After the call, I took the time to update my brother, then headed back out to finish watering the garden beds before it got too dark.
There are a few things I want to get done tomorrow, which is Friday, because I’m going to be doing some driving around on Saturday. June is a birthday month, and Sunday is Father’s Day, so we will be combining both on Saturday, to avoid crowds. My older daughter has offered to spring for Pizza Hut, which we haven’t had in at least a year. The nearest one is about an hour’s drive away. I’ll have other errands to do as well, including a dump run, which I did not do while we had my brother’s car and the truck was in the garage. Next week has got medical appointments, my daughter’s blacksmith workshop (she’ll be bringing home a forge when it’s done), and our first stock up shopping trip. So the more I can get done in the garden in between all this, the better!
Hard to believe we’re coming up on the solstice and the first day of summer already. With the cold nights we’ve been having, it feels like it should be April or May, not coming up on the end of June!
The assessor from the insurance company wasn’t going to come this morning, but we were still expecting the prescription delivery, so when I headed out this morning, I made sure to open the gate for him. While doing my rounds, I decided to check in the old garden shed to see if the raccoons were still there. They were, but the mama was on the seat of the rolling cart, and some of the stuff I’d moved from on top of their nest had been knocked back down. The mama hid in the back of the shed while I wrestled with a tomato cage and wrapped up balls of trellis netting to get them off the babies. They weren’t too happy about it, but they stayed. They are getting definitely getting bigger!
I was feeling really tired for some reason so, after breakfast, I tried lying down for a couple hours. It was a frequently interrupted attempt at a nap. Between my phone going off with notifications and cats wanting to nap on my head, I didn’t get much rest.
I did, however, get a message about our truck. The owner apologized for the delay, telling me they were having troubles with their new lifts. The truck would be ready today, though. I told him I’d have to work out transportation so we could return our borrowed vehicle, then messaged my brother. He had already asked me if we were getting power outages, which we were not. They have been getting brief outages off an on, and he was wondering. After a bit of back and forth-ing, we decided to do the vehicole switch on Monday, when they are coming out for the funeral. I passed that on to the garage, so that is now arranged.
One of the things I’d noticed while checking on trail cam files from the camera by our sign is that I was getting a LOT of images triggered by saplings. The open area between the fence and the road is slowly refilling with poplars and, now that they have their leaves, they are triggering the motion sensor when the wind hits them. I headed out there with the wagon and loppers to start cleaning things up.
Not all of the saplings are visible in the first photo. The second photo was after I was done in the area at the corner of the property, where the camera and the road intersection is. After hauling away the first load, I came back and did a smaller load, working my way towards the gate. That area had been done more recently than the corner by the intersection, so there wasn’t as much to clean up.
By the time that was done, I was already feeling way too tired, and starting to feel a lot of pain – in areas where I had the ultrasounds taken. It’ll be three weeks before my doctor gets the results. Should be interesting to see if I’ve got more cysts dancing around in there again.
It wasn’t too bad yet, though, so after I put away the stuff for this job, I got out a weed trimmer to finish clearing the edges around the house, pausing to do other things along the way, like help out the poor Mock Orange beside the dining room door.
What you’re seeing on the ground are the Virginia Creeper vines that I pulled loose from the branches. These can completely smother a bush, and I’ve found spruce trees that had been killed by them. Unfortunately, the bases of these are right in among the Mock Orange’s roots, so there’s no way to really get rid of them completely. I got as much as I could out, and set them in the fire pit to dry out so that we can later burn them.
These flowers right near the fire pit are coming into full bloom. There are so many things blooming right now!
I got done with trimming around the house and had just moved on to the fence around the tulips when the battery died. It was past 2pm by then, so I decided to put away the weed trimmer until after I got back from the post office.
I getting ready to go when the prescription delivery came. I asked the driver how the roads were; he is also a school bus driver, and his route is in our area. He said the gravel roads were quite good. Just a few places with barricades, though the one nearest us has been there since before the storms. He says he may have lost all his tomatoes, though, as his garden is in a lower lying area. It’s mostly under water right now. We’d talked before about how he was considering doing raised beds or Hügelkultur, and I’d told him that my own beds were a sort of combination of the two. When he said he was losing his tomatoes, I encouraged him to do even low raised beds, telling him about when we had that major flooding a few years back. I lost entire sections of the garden we still haven’t reclaimed, but beds that were even just 6 inches higher had survived. I think next year, he’s going to give it a try.
After getting my husband is prescriptions to him, I headed out to the post office to pick up some parcels. I got another hoop kit – another of the set with the slightly longer rods and metal connectors – and another package that turned out to be some insect netting I’d ordered. My cabbages and kohlrabi seem to be completely gone. I plan to at least get cabbage transplants and, when I do, they will have insect netting over them!
Along with the mail, I picked up another 40 pound bag of kibble for the outside cats. I’m so glad our general store now carries them. It saves me from having to drive further afield. Right now, I want to use the borrowed car as little as possible.
By the time I was loading the car up, I was in major pain. There was no way I was getting back to anything else outside, so I just took some pain killers and tried to lie down while my daughters took over, including feeding the outside cats. Most of the outside stuff is going to have to wait. We’re supposed to get more rain – possibly another thunderstorm – in about an hour. Just a short one. Tomorrow, it’s supposed to start raining from about 2 pm to 6 am the next day! After that, we should have about a week’s break from the rain. Time enough for farmers to see how many of their crops survived the flash floods.
Late last year, we were getting predictions for another drought year this summer. From the looks of it, that is not going to be an issue!
As for me, right now, I’m getting absolutely slammed with fatigue and overall body pain. I suspect much of it is a reaction to changes in barometric pressure.
It’s just past 8pm as I write this, and I am seriously considering going to bed shortly.
Again.
Before I do, I got some shipping notifications in my email.
Yes, I bought more seeds, and they are on the way.
The first is an order from West Coast Seeds. I wanted to order more of the Giganthemum poppy seeds, since the bed I planted them in got flattened and dug into by cats. I have yet to see any poppies germinating. So I have a new package, which I will sow in the fall, and make sure the bed gets protected. For the winter, it will have mulch over the seeds, and I might just lay some chicken wire over the top, too. In the spring, when the mulch is removed, I’ll make sure to set up netting over the bed to keep the critters out.
I couldn’t just buy one packet of seeds, though, so I looked around. They have different varieties of kohlrabi that were on sale, so I ordered one each of the white and purple. Then I spotted a lovely, larger looking variety of fennel that I decided to try. These will all be started indoors in the spring.
My other order was from MI Gardener. Some are re-orders, some are new and, right now, everything on their site is on sale.
I can’t remember now if I’ve tried growing Atomic Red carrots before. If I did, they were from somewhere else. I ordered the rainbow mix before, and it does look like some have survived, but they’re still very tiny. I figured I’d try this variety next year. Unless I do some succession sowing. That’s an option, still.
The tri-colour green bean mix is a re-order, and I decided to try out the Broccoli Rabe next year, which is more likely to grow here than regular broccoli, and a relatively short season variety of green cabbage.
I also ordered more of the purple savoy cabbage – two packages this time. Next year, I’ll try starting the two varieties of cabbage indoors, and will make sure the transplants have insect netting on them.
The winter squash and pumpkin are all re-orders. After re-sowing the tray that got decimated by a mouse before we moved it outdoors, I ran out of seeds for several of them, and have only a few seeds left of the others. I want to try these again next year. It’s still possible our re-sown seeds might germinate, but it’s getting to the middle of June and, unless we have a super long and mild fall (which we have had before), they won’t have enough time to reach maturity.
Hopefully, for next spring, I will be able to have a better set up for seed starts. Our basement is just too cold, and we have a mouse that eats our seedlings. At least it’s most likely to be a mouse. I can’t think of anything else it could be, even though there is zero evidence for mice. Usually, if there are any, droppings are left all over the place, and there are none.
If we can reclaim our living room – the cat free zone – from all the stuff we’ve had to shove in there, I hope to start seeds in there again.
We really need to figure out what to do with the stuff from my mother’s apartment. Our other storage areas are already full of my parents’ stuff, plus more from my mother’s apartment, and now we have stuff in our basement that I had to find ways to elevate from the damp concrete because there was no room in the storage buildings to put them in, and more stuff in our living room. All of which was have been told to keep. My mother is finally in the nursing home she wanted to be in and can’t have much stuff at all, but she is adamant what we keep everything of hers. She also expects us to be able to know exactly where everything of hers is, and be able to dig things she suddenly wants out and bring them to her.
*sigh*
Our house is a disaster.
That’s part of why I enjoy working in the yard and garden so much. It actually feels like I’ve accomplished something out there!
My daughter and I headed out for my ultrasound early. I had instructions that included drinking 500ml of water by a certain time, so we first went to the Walmart parking lot, since it was nearby, and and I chugged it. We were early for the appointment, but didn’t wait too long before heading over to the hospital.
They actually got me in a bit early, and the ultrasounds – I got two different types in three different locations – were done quickly.
The tech had asked questions and I gave her some back ground. She was really nice and just sort of kept talking. At one point, I mentioned that I almost had to cancel the appointment because of what happened to our truck. She was glad I hadn’t, because these appointments are hard to get! I ended up telling her the name of the garage the truck was towed to, and that they had a second location in this city. Turns out, she had heard of them. Her son had taken his vehicle there to get a diagnostic. When he decided he would do the work himself, then asked how much he owed, they didn’t charge him for anything. When she takes her own Honda in to the dealership garage, it’s $200, just for a diagnostic. Every time she has to get work done, it seems it’s always at least a thousand dollars. I told her I had zero hesitation in recommending our garage and told her about when I’d gone to the second location after dropping cats off at the vet, so very last minute, and never got charged for all the testing he did to try and find why my battery gauge was doing what it was doing. She was quite happy to hear a first hand recommendation like that.
After I was done at the hospital, my daughter and I filled the gas tank, then headed back to the Walmart area. I went to the same place as last time. Where I saw others on the way out at $1.569/L, this one was $1.529 – and they had their 5¢ off/liter sale again, too, so I got a nice little discount! Even so, I was shocked that it took less than $45 to put in 3/4 of a tank. The car’s tank is so much smaller than our truck!
Once at the Walmart, we had a late lunch, then both did a bit of shopping. We took our time about it, but we didn’t need much and the store is still undergoing renovations, so it wasn’t that long. The one thing I did remember to get, for both my husband and I, were iron supplements and vitamin C. The type of iron I was after turned out to be behind the counter, so I had a nice chat with a lovely pharmacist.
As we were leaving and heading to my brother’s car, we could see dark clouds moving in and were starting to hear thunder. We weren’t sure if the system would reach where we lived, but it was definitely coming close. We loaded up the car and headed out. It started raining as we drove and I had to get my daughter to figure out how to get the wipers going, since I couldn’t look around to figure it out while driving.
It was way more convoluted that it should have been! 😄
For most of the drive, we were heading in the same direction as the storm, but eventually we were driving along side it. We could see the mass of clouds and rain heading towards where we knew the house was.
I had planned to back up to the house to unload, but we were just pulling up to the driveway when we realized it had started to hail. My daughter quickly got out to open the gate, and I drove straight into the garage. We got the car inside just in time!! The car is a lot smaller than our truck, so there was plenty of room to pull forward, and we could close the garage door.
In the video above, the first one was taken as I waited for my daughter to catch up to me from the gate. We hadn’t brought our re-useable bags, so she used the back door and dashed to the house to get some. As we set up to unload the back of the truck, I was able to close the door part way and got the second part of the video. The noise you hear is the hail hitting the metal garage door.
Thankfully, in the time it took for us to fill the bags and gather things up to go to the house, the hail had stopped, if not the rain, so we just got wet while dashing to the house.
Well. Hobbling somewhat quickly.
My older daughter was waiting to open the door for us, too.
Once we were all settled in, I headed out again to feed the yard cats and do a quick status check. It had pretty much stopped raining by then. The transplants done this morning are looking okay, so far.
Back inside, I took the time to update my brother and SIL. I haven’t heard back from the garage yet, which means they didn’t get a chance to install the part today, and I wanted to let my brother know.
Before starting this post, I remembered to text the garage to change a burnt out headlight for me. I have a new bulb waiting in the truck. It would just be a pain – literally – for me to get at that third bolt in the wheel well that would allow the light fixture to be removed. Once the truck is ready, we have to work out how to get their car back to them after I pick up the truck.
In other things, before we headed out this morning, we got messages from my SIL. She had found out when the funeral for our vandal was going to happen and where, through Facebook posts. I had messaged my sister about it, knowing she wouldn’t see the messages until after she got home from work, but never heard from her. My brother already promised my mother that he would get her to the funeral, so it doesn’t matter. If people have a problem with us being there, that’s on them. He may have hated us, but we still loved him.
Anyhow.
We’re currently expecting to keep getting rain off and on – more on than off – until about 2am. Our phones have been going off with tornado warnings, but not so much for where we are. The system is moving directly over us, though, and we are definitely getting some lightning. Tomorrow is supposed to be clear of rain, which is good, because we have an insurance appraiser coming out to look at the buildings on the property. Hopefully, my brother will be able to find a better property insurance policy with a better company. The nights of rain and days without will be good for the garden, that’s for sure.
Getting more done outside today is definitely not going to happen. Hopefully, I’ll get at least some of it done tomorrow. If we do end up getting the truck back tomorrow, I’m hoping it’s early enough to check out a greenhouse in town and see if they have cabbage and winter squash transplants available. I’m really unhappy about the destruction of what we’d planted ourselves. I want to try these varieties again next year, and this time I’ll make sure to start them indoors earlier – and protect them from any mouse looking for lunch! I’m already looking to order new seeds for the varieties I ran out of because I had to do second sowings.
One good thing about the storm, though. We went from 31C/88F to the current 20C/68F, and it feels so blessedly cool! I might even be able to get a decent sleep tonight!
After waiting for the call from my doctor until well past the clinic closed, I headed outside to finish up.
The bi-color pear gourds transplanted, I wanted to sow the short season luffa next to them. I also wanted to mark where they were and protect any seedlings, but I was out of collars, so I grabbed more 4L water jugs and cut them to make more. The packet has only 9 seeds, so I cut 5 collars to plant them all in.
Along with the luffa seeds, I brought out the two types of sunflower seeds I have.
I wasn’t sure at first which of the sunflowers I would be planting, but I prepared the bed anyhow. First up, I loosened the soil and set in the collars for the luffa, giving each collar a deep watering. Then, while waiting for the water to be absorbed by the soil, I loosened the soil along the front of the bed, from end to end, then gave that a deep watering. By the time that was done, the water in the collars was absorbed enough and I planted the 9 seeds into the 5 collars. If the germination rate is high, I will probably thin by transplanting.
All the luffa and gourds fit into 1/3 of the bed (the posts for the chain link fence makes it easy to view distances). That leaves another 2/3s of the bed where I could plant climbing things. Potentially, melons, winter squash or cucumbers, depending on how things to with the second sowing in the tray. Currently there are a total of 5 melon seedlings and 2 winter squash, but zero cucumber. The cucumber can still be direct sowed, though, if necessary. Or I could plant one of the two new varieties of peas I have available to try. Or I could plant more pole beans.
After planting the luffa and giving them another watering, I hosed down the area I’d loosened along the front of the bed from end to end.
The sunflower seed packets both have about 50 seeds in them. After thinking about it, I decided to plant the Mammoth sunflower in half the bed, on the side with nothing else in it now. I figure if we plant climbing winter squash in there, the giant stems of the Mammoth sunflower could actually hold the weight. In the other half, I planted the Black Russian. The description says the stems of those are so strong, they can be dried and used as firewood! So those would be strong enough to support the luffa and bi-color pear gourds, too.
The recommended spacing for both was 12 inches, but I didn’t plant multiple seeds per spot, so I planted them more like 10 inches apart. I was eye balling it, so it’s not exact. Once those were planted, I watered them more to settle the soil around the seeds, and then I brought the netting down and secured it.
Next, I worked on the space for the black hollyhocks.
In the first picture, I’ve yanked out the tall crab grass and flowers. The flowers in this bed are ones my mother planted many, many years ago, and they are perennials. They also grow very tall. Right now, they are still a bit shorter than the crab grass.
The stones are over a cat grave. When I found a dead cat in one of the old dog houses, I buried it there, but could not dig a deep enough hole, due to rocks and roots. To prevent it from being dug up, I put a board over the grave, then weighed it down with rocks. That was several years ago, and we could removed the rocks and board by now, but I haven’t bothered.
After pulling up the greenery, I went over the area with a hand cultivator, digging up as many roots and rhizomes as I could get. Then I opened up the roll of hollyhocks to get an idea of how many transplants there were, before using a trowel to loosen the soil deeper in for the transplants. I started by planting the largest ones, closer to the rocks, and was just getting ready to plant the rest of them slightly in front when I heard my daughter.
The doctor had called. It was almost 7pm!!
So I dropped everything, hosed the dirt off my hands and went in.
My poor doctor. It was two hours past when the clinic closed, and when I mentioned I thought the call wasn’t going to happen because of that, she told me she still had two more calls to make before she could go home!
I got a quick run down on my lab results. Nothing showed up in the pap smear (the pelvic ultrasound is next week), everything was looking good except for one thing.
My iron. It’s low.
She wants me to start taking iron supplements.
My husband had the same recommendation, just a couple of days ago. We’re all low on iron.
I am pretty sure I know why, too. It’s been ages since we’ve been able to buy enough red meat for it to be anything but an occasional treat when I can get it at a really good sale price. We’ve mostly been eating pork and chicken. Any iron from vegetables isn’t really helpful, since it’s far less bioavailable.
It didn’t even occur to me to ask what type of iron she wanted me to take. I’ll talk to the pharmacist about it, the next time I’m there.
We went through my Xrays as well. Nothing showed up in my right shoulder. As for my knee, the OA has gotten quite a bit worse since the last time it was Xrayed. Likely due to that fall I had, before Christmas last year. I mentioned to her about going to the sports injury clinic, but they didn’t have the Xrays available to see yet, so I just got the injections, in both hips this time. I mentioned having the walker now, and the doctor at the sports injury clinic gave me a prescription for it, so I could claim it on our insurance.
Which is when she brought up about me getting new knees.
???
This was something that came up, quite awhile ago, but now that I’m using a walker, and with the Xrays showing how much worse my knee got, it turns out I could get a new set of knees, if I wanted to.
!!!
They’ve actually gotten a lot better lately – I haven’t even been using the topical painkiller at all, lately. So I said no, for now. I didn’t bring it up, but if there are any joints that I would want to have replaced, it would likely be my hips, first.
With that call done, I headed back outside and finished transplanting the lost of the hollyhocks, then gave them a deep watering. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on these, as the crab grass and those flowers will want to take over again a lot faster here, I think. Eventually, though, if they take, the hollyhock should get big and bushy enough that they’ll keep those from coming back as quickly.
At this point, anything that needed to be planted is planted. Next, I need to prepare the area where I’ll be planting the short season corn.
I might start that tomorrow morning. Early. It’s going to be a scorcher, so I want to get out there as early as possible. Then we need to do a dump run and, once the grass is dry enough, I want to get the push mower and weed trimmer out, and possibly the riding mower again, to get the areas I wasn’t able to do before the rains and storms came.
Meanwhile, my brother and his wife will be out for the weekend again, working on their caravan and whatever else they have on their list.
This morning, my daughters and I headed into the city.
I am so glad we left more than 2 hours before the appontment!
Knowing there was construction on the highway I normally would have taken, we took a different route which, unlike my usual route, has an actual town along the way. We stopped at a gas station for some drinks and snacks for the road, since none of us had breakfast before leaving. My older daughter was planning to take us for lunch after her appointment.
There turned out to be construction on this highway, too, though not as much. Still, between that and other delays, we got to the hospital shortly before her appointment time.
Knowing this was just a follow up visit, we weren’t expecting things to take long. After dropping the girls off, I parked in one of the half hour parking spots near the doors. The girls went to the clinic the appointment was at while I paid for parking at the machine near the entrance, then stayed nearby, in case it took longer and I needed to pay for more time.
Which I did.
Then did again.
Then did again…
It ended up being about 2 hours before she was done. First was paperwork. Then waiting. Then a nurse came to get her ready, thinking she was there for something else, not just conversation about test results and discussing options. Then waiting. Then a nurse saw her. Then more waiting. Finally, the doctor made it in. She had simply been pulled away by emergencies in other parts of the hospital complex and couldn’t get there any earlier.
Once they were out, we got into the truck and my first stop on the way out was going to be getting gas (which my daughter paid for).
That’s when we saw the envelope under the windshield wiper.
As soon as I could, I found a place to pull over, and my older daughter quickly popped out to grab it before it blow away. My younger daughter took it while her sister buckled in, then ooked inside for me.
Sure enough, I got a ticket.
I asked the time on the ticket, and I was most definitely paid for during that time. I kept all the stubs. It may not matter, though, as they want people to actually leave after half an hour. If I’d had any idea of how long it would take, I would have, but we kept thinking, just a bit longer… just a bit longer…
So I’ll see if I can submit my payment slip and contest it. Otherwise, my daughter said she would pay for it.
We’ll be back in 3 months to follow up. Next time, I’ll just drop her off and leave the area. It’s almost impossible to find parking in the streets around the hospital, never mind just navigating the crumbling streets and one-way maze. I’ve already been warned not to bother trying any of the parkades with the truck, as I would have difficulty maneuvering around without hitting something.
As we were heading away from the hospital, we stopped at a gas station along our route and my daughter filled the tank for me. It was 1pm by then and none of us had eaten anything other than some beef jerky along the road (which my other daughter paid for, when the cashier pointed out the rather shocking price for this new, small company brand. It’s better than the big brands, though).
The gas station we stopped at happened to be very close to the international grocery store, so that’s where we went for lunch. With all the options, all three of us ended up getting steamed dim sum combo dumplings and canned bubble teas. It’s been a long time! Especially for my older daughter, as it’s been years since she’s been able to come into the city with me for our stock up shopping.
After a very enjoyable breakfast/lunch, we grabbed a cart and the girls did their shopping. It was mostly for the household in general, but they got things they like that I don’t normally know to pick up. I have no idea what the final bill was, as I left them to ring things through at the self-checkout.
By the time we were done, we were all pretty tired and glad to just head straight home. This time, I took our usual route out, even with construction, since we weren’t on any time line anymore.
I’m happy to say, the truck behaved. I still stress out over every wiggle of a gauge and every weird rattle or thump from the road. This is the third vehicle we’ve had that has had so many very strange or rare things go wrong with it.
We got gas in the city at $1.569 As we passed town and turned towards our little hamlet, we could see a station at $1.699 There isn’t usually that much of a difference between the city and town! They are usually the same.
Once at home, we brought the stuff in and the girls took take of putting everything away while I fed the outside cats and checked on the transplants in the portable greenhouse frame. Our set up to protect them seems to have worked, and there was no damage from the rain. I checked the garden beds, too. It does look like we lost a couple of Orange Current tomatoes, but they were smaller and looked to have been damaged by heat and sun, not the storm. Their collars would protect them from any severe winds.
We got home much later than expected, but still early enough. As I type this, I can hear another storm coming in. It may pass us by, but we will at least be getting more rain. We’re supposed to get hit by the system for a couple of hours followed by a couple of hours break before more rain hits. Once that’s done, that should be it. We are no longer getting thunderstorm warnings throughout the night.
Oh, that thunder is definitely coming closer. Might be a good idea to shut down the computer!
I did our first stock up shop tonight, but will do my regular price post later.
I didn’t get much sleep last night, and got up early to do the morning routine and watering while it was still relatively cool. Then I headed into the city, doing Canadian Tire, Walmart, and Dollarama and a Fresh Co (the last two shared a building). I also got gas at $1.599 in the city. One outside the city limits, the prices were $1.799
By the time I was done and heading home, my lower back was killing me, my left hip was giving out and my left shoulder kept trying to dislocate. I was heavily using shopping cards as walkers.
When I got home, I basically hit the heads, then crashed on the couch in the cat free zone, while my daughters unloaded the truck, parked it in the garage and put everything away. My older daughter was a sweetheart and brought me my water bottle and pain killers, because I forgot to do it before I lay down. I didn’t sleep, but I did give my body a chance to recover.
Then I had stuff to do outside. I’ll post photos later, but all our snail rolls and the seed tray are now outside, in the portable greenhouse frame in the shade. The snail rolls are in bins I picked up at the Dollarama for better stability, and they’re all further secured with wire to the frame, the the frame itself is now secured to the fence. Even the seed tray has the cover weighted down and is secured with wire – it seems we had an excellent germination rate overnight, but something, likely a mouse, destroyed it, even digging into individual cells to get at the seeds. I had to replant everything! Two items only had 4 seeds left in the packets, so I couldn’t replant all 6 cells in each row.
I did the watering in the front yard, then went to the back yard with some 3′ plant stakes I picked up. The mosquito netting over the potatoes was pulled up on the sides; the cats keep jumping on it! My daughter and I laid the stakes across, securing them on top of the 6′ bamboo stakes along the sides. The new stakes were a bit too long and had to be placed at angles so they wouldn’t stick out too far. Then we put the mosquito netting back on. Before I could even finish securing the edges with ground staples, a cat was already on top of the netting! After doing the edges, I put garden clips all round the sides and on the new supports across the tops. I don’t know if it’ll hold if the cats keep jumping on it, though. They are really determinded!
Also, for some reason, while working in the main garden area, we were absolutely attacked by clouds of mosquitoes! There weren’t any while I was doing the front yard watering.
Anyhow.
I finished the evening by watering the main garden area and the trees – the apple tree is recovering and has more new leaf bugs on branches I feared were dead, due to critter damage.
Now, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow, we will try to get the two littles in the isolation shelter into carriers. The goal is to bring in 3 cats. If that ends up being three fully grown males because that’s all we can catch, so be it. The rescue worker that arranged to have 3 slots available for me is aware of the problem. Since the raccoons and skunks clean up every crumb of kibble, the outside cats are essentially fasting, too, unless the go hunting somewhere. The vet will be aware of this, too.
I really hope we at least get the black and white female in the isolation shelter.
So I will be gone most of tomorrow with whatever cats we’re able to get.
For now, I’m going to try and go to bed early and get actual sleep.
I’m seriously considering sleeping on the couch in the cat free zone.
I started things off a bit early, and it was still lovely and cool. My priority, after I did my morning rounds, was to water the garden beds before the heat hit.
I’m happy to say that I am seeing new sprouts in the rows of spinach, chard, turnips and radish in the main garden area. I checked under the boards in the trellis bed and saw what might be carrot sprouts, so I removed the boards. It’s hard to say for sure, as a lot of weeds were trying to come up under there, too.
I’m pretty sure I saw new sprouts in the cabbage and kohlrabi beds, too. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing tiny bok choy and beet seedlings through the mosquito netting, thought it’s hard to be sure. I didn’t see any this morning, but this evening, I’m sure I could see the first dwarf pea sprouts!
After I finished outside, I came in and had breakfast, then tried to go down for a nap before I planned to visit my mother, then pick up anything we needed before doing our first stock up shop, tomorrow.
It was a failure.
For some reason, both Butterscotch and Cheddar have decided that, when I lie down, they absolutely MUST cuddle my head. Aggressively. Then curling up right at my head to nap themselves.
That doesn’t count the other cats that like to settle on my hip, against my back or on either side of my legs.
*sigh*
Next time, I’ll try napping on the couch. The living room is a cat free zone.
I eventually gave up and got ready to head into town. Before I did, I noted activity notification on my bank app and checked.
My husband’s tax return, which is supposed to include my first Disability Tax Credit, came in.
It was short by about $2500.
Unfortunately, my husband still can’t log into his CRA account to see why. I’m going to have to wait until our tax prepared is back from holidays at the end of the month and phone her, because she can log in and see his account – and maybe find out why he can’t log in, himself. anymore!
My younger daughter never got her disability tax credit, either. She did her taxes herself.
Frustrating.
Anyhow.
I headed into town and realized my mother would be just starting her lunch, so I decided to go to the grocery store, first. I actually picked up some ground beef that was on sale. I haven’t seen ground beef for under $6 a pound for a long time, even with sales.
My visit with my mother was pretty good. As I was headed to her room, I spotted her in the dining room and popped in. We then went to her room for the visit.
She is so enjoying having a room – and a bathroom – to herself! She says being in the nursing home, compared to the TCU, is like night and day.
Of course, she still had things to complain about. With her medications, as usual. Apparently someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time? Then the count for her morning meds was off. She said she asked who was in charge of the medications and was told it was the pharmacy in town. I suspect the person didn’t understand what my mother was asking, but she now believes the pharmacy decides what medications she gets, at their whim. She then started going on about how the staff all think she is stupid, and everyone living there is stupid, and that’s why they are deliberately messing with their medications.
*sigh*
She had asked my brother for a radio and he’d given me one to pass on to her. I plugged it in and tried to find the station she told me the number of. There was nothing on either AM or FM (she didn’t know which is was; she doesn’t understand anything about AM or FM). Since I couldn’t pick up her station (though I could pick up others), she decided it was a bad radio and started asking me if an old radio that belonged to my husband when we were in high school – a ghetto blaster, which tells you just how old it is! – was still around. It is, but I told her, it still won’t pick up that station. I tried to explain again about things interfering with frequencies, but she decided it meant that the radio stations were the problem, for having “weak” signals.
Then I tried to show her the sliding switch that goes from off to FM then AM. She demanded “just show me what button to push”. I told her, it’s not a button. It’s a switch that slides, and showed her again; Off – FM – AM.
She got angry that my brother would give her a high tech radio that she can’t understand.
*sigh*
It was a shorter visit, since there really wasn’t much we had to talk about. Now that she is in town, I can visit her more often, anyhow. Before I left, I spent some time at the nursing station. I explained what my mother told me about the medications, and that someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time. She was startled to hear that and said she would look into it. She got out the medication binder and looked up my mother’s file, going over everything, which is basically the same that it was while she was at the TCU. She said they tried looking at my mother’s list to compare (the hand written one she makes after she counts her pills, with little diagrams), but it was in Polish, so they were trying to translate it. My mother had been promised a list of her medications and they were going to try to get it translated into Polish for her, too. I told her, my mother knows pre-WWII Polish; she would not be familiar with modern medical terms in today’s Polish!
As we were chatting, the nurse told me how so many of the staff were startled when my mother was transferred over. Many of them had cared for Baba – “grandmother” – which is what they called my aunt. My mother looks SO much like her sister did. My aunt passed away a few years ago, so for the staff to suddenly start seeing their Baba again was a bit of a shock until they found out they were sisters.
This nurse had just started working there when my father came to live there. I’ve had it confirmed that he was there for only 5 months before he passed away; I thought it was 6 months. She remembered my father, and I told her about how, when I phoned him every Sunday, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him, how well taken care of he was, and how much he liked the staff. She was so touched to hear that!
So far, my mother has been very nice to them. I hope that lasts! She has been saving the nasty comments about the staff for when we are there. 😕
It was a good chat with the nurse, and I expect we will have many more opportunities to talk now that my mother is there!
That done, I headed home, then stayed indoors to stay out of the heat. Unfortunately, it just kept getting hotter. I finally headed out at around 6:30, which is about when we hit 27C/81F.
The predicted high was 25C/77F.
We’re supposed to keep getting hotter, with the hottest day in the forecast being Friday, which they are now saying is supposed to hit 34C/93F.
The yard cats are laying in puddles all over the yard, in whatever shade they can find.
Bobert was looking adorable in the cat bed I tucked under the isolation shelter’s door box, to keep the weather out in the winter.
With the heat, I made sure to do the watering again. This time, I did watering in the food forest area.
I’m happy to say that it looks like the apple tree survived, in spite of the damage to the stem. A single branch with new leaf buds has shown up. The plum tree also has leaf buds showing up finally, but only in branches coming up just above the graft at the base. None of last year’s growth is showing buds. Neither are the mulberry trees. They survived their first winter, but it looks like they didn’t survive their second. The poor little highbush cranberry have free leaves showing, but they are still remarkably tiny, including the one that the deer did NOT nibble one. The silver buffalo berry bushes, which I don’t bother watering because there are too many, had been covered with what I thought were leave buds. It turns out they were not leaf buds, but flower buds! The leaf buds are showing up now. The sea buckthorn also have leaf buds unfurling.
After the watering was done, I started working on the larger of the two East yard beds that had not been prepped in the fall.
I first removed the two lengths of twine that went around the sides. Those were there to keep anything wrapped around the box frame from flapping in the wind too much, but they were in the way for working in the bed. I considered taking the box frame off entirely, but decided it wasn’t necessary and worked around it.
In the second picture, you can see the cleaned up bed. Unfortunately, while I was leveling the cleared soil with the hoe, I caught the line running across that helped keep the sides from bowing outwards at the joins. The wood is rotting and the screw eye got pulled right out!
Honestly, I’m surprised these beds have lasted as long as they have. I used lumber I found in the barn that had been sitting there for probably at least a decade before I found them. They were not in particularly good shape, but they were the best I could find for the job. I expected them to last about 3 years, maybe, and they’ve lasted twice that by now.
Weeding the bed didn’t really take that much, except that I found a remarkable amount of tree roots! Given where this bed is located, they would not be from the elm tree, but from the nearby cherry bushes.
I look forward to when we can make these into high raised beds. These beds are about a foot high, but it was still really painful to be bending to work in it.
Once the bed was clear, I took some plastic that was rolled up and set aside from previous uses in these beds and covered the soil to protect it from cats, until we can plant in it. I’m looking to transplant tomatoes into this bed. We have four varieties to transplant, and couple probably fit three varieties in this bed. We don’t have a lot of each variety.
The pieces of wood frame on the left of the first photo are on the 4′ square bed that also needs to be done. By the time I finished the longer bed, I was too hot and in too much pain to do that one. Aside from weeding it – and that one has been infected by creeping Charlie – I will be adding the additional wood frame pieces to make it a bit higher, and can then add more soil into it. I’m planning to put the eggplant in here. It’s a small enough bed that I can add plastic walls around it, to protect them from high winds and create a semi-greenhouse around them.
I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done over the next few days. I’ll be doing our city stock up trips and a vet trip in between. Shopping always drains me, so it will depend on how much energy I have left – and what my pain levels are at. At the very least, I plan to water everything in the morning, and again in the evening, because of the heat.
Once the city trips are done, I expect to be able to start the direct sowing, and then hopefully start transplanting soon after. Somewhere in there, I’ll be uncovering and reclaiming the area to plant our corn in.
Getting that raised bed at the chain link fence done has taken way too long!
I’ll get to that in a moment.
My brother and SIL have been out working on their caravan, and whatever else my brother was able to do outside as the weather allowed, this weekend and had invited me to join them for breakfast this morning. I wasn’t able to join them last time, but was happy to do be able to join them today. They took me to the single restaurant in our little hamlet. The last time I was there was two owners ago!
Before that, I was outside doing my usual morning rounds.
There are so many tulip flower buds, with one early tulip just starting to open up.
When it came close to the time we were going to meet up, I headed out to open the gate, then took advantage of the time waiting to check the fence line and see what else needs doing. I’m going to have to head through the area with loppers again, and trim away all the poplar that’s trying to grow back, among other things. Not a priority right now, though.
When I got back to the gate I saw they had parked in front of the house and were waiting for me there! 😄
I closed the gate behind their car after they drove through which, with all the rain we’ve had recently, was rather muddy. Which got us to talking about how badly that driveway needs gravel! My brother has his front end loader here, but it still won’t run, and he hasn’t figured out why, yet. Not that he’s had much opportunity to troubleshoot the beast.
We talked about the two trees threatening the house that will be coming down – when the arborists arrive will depend on the weather. It will be a while longer before the saturated ground is dry enough to hold the weight of their equipment.
It was great to catch up with them, and compare notes on things like Mom and our vandal, while enjoying a lovely breakfast. I really like what the new owners have done with the place. It’ s longer a bar with a small restaurant on one side, but a pub and family restaurant. Which is what the last owners had converted it to, but I never saw what changes they did. We did order take out from them a couple of times, but could pick our orders up without ever going all the way into the restaurant, so I never saw what they’d done with it.
After breakfast, they dropped me off at the gate, then headed out again to a hardware store. They were back before I was ready to head outside. I needed to get that raised bed at the chain link fence finished.
The walls are done, but it needed some preparation before the soil could be returned.
In the first image above, I’ve taken straw and stuffed it into all the gaps I could find in the front wall, as well as tucking some against the end walls, to prevent soil from falling in or through the walls.
In the second image, I’ve covered the bottom and sides with two layers of carboard. Then, using the fence to steady myself, I walked across the length of it, tromping the cardboard down as much as I could.
In the last image, I had started to saturate the cardboard. I went it down, tromped on it again, then repeated the process several more times while working on the next stage.
I started by using a hoe to spread the pile out – and remove as many cat turds as I could find. The pile of soil was absolutely saturated and sticky like glue! I got it spread out though, and then scattered Sulphur granules over it. I then mixed it in with a hoe, and then by lifting the tarp to turn the soil over itself, from all sides.
Did I mention it was saturated?
Not only did that make it sticky, but heavy. Shockingly heavy!
Once mixed, I shoveled the soil into the wheelbarrow and started adding it into the raised bed. The soil was so sticky, I actually had to stop and scrape it off the blade of the shovel, because it was so coated, it was hard to push it into the pile of soil, and there wasn’t much room for it to pick up more soil, either!
The first thing I did was spread out a couple of wheelbarrow loads on the carboard, pushing it up against the sides so that the soil would hold the cardboard against the walls, and no soil would fall between the cardboard and the straw filled walls. It wasn’t as much of a concern on the back wall, since that was in protected by a layer of vinyl. You can see that in the first image.
Then, FINALLY, I could dump in the rest of the soil and spread it out as evenly as I could. Which you can see in the second image.
At this point, I couldn’t really stop for a break or anything like that. Even as I was refilling the bed, I was chasing cats out that were determined to use it as a litter box. After I leveled the last of the soil, I turned to get something, turned back, and there was another cat, starting to dig in the soil!!! It was Flopsy, so not a feral. He just started at me while I tried to shoo him away and didn’t run off until I was practically on top of him!
The bed needed to be protected right away.
For this year, the supports will be temporary, and I debated whether to use robs from the hoop kits, or some of the Pex pipe hoops I have. In the end, I decided on a hoop kit, because I wanted to use the clips, and on the new one because it had more rods left.
My original plan had been to use the pairs of taller vertical supports to secure the hoops to. Which I could have done, though this bed is so much narrower, I wouldn’t have wanted to bend the rods quite that much. However, it occurred to me that, for this bed, I don’t actually want hoops. Once those elm seed start dropping, they would gather at the back of the raised bed, along the chain link fence, and would get under that way. Also, the cats will climb on top and lie on it, and I would prefer to avoid that completely.
So I only attached the rods – connecting three rods together for each length – to the front supports, using little zip ties to hold them securely. The top of the rods were curved into the chain link fence, near the top.
You can see the rods in position in the first image above.
In the past, we tried protecting this bed with mosquito netting, and I still have the netting that was used, rolled up and waiting. The mosquito netting ended up acting like a sail in the high winds, with the edge pinned to the ground blowing loose constantly, and the whole thing flapping. So I decided to use the black netting we still have on the roll. I unrolled it on the other side of the chain link fence, which you can see in the next photo, so get the length I needed before cutting it.
Then came the hard part. This netting is folded into thirds on the roll. I needed it folded in half. After cutting the length I needed, I dragged it over to an open part in the yard and spread it out flat, with rocks to hold it in place at the corners, because it was fairly windy.
Which is about when my brother and SIL drove by on their way home, so we chatted for a bit before they headed out.
Then I messaged my daughters for help, and my older daughter !!!!! came out. A testament to how much better she is feeling!
Between the two of us, we got the net folded in half length wise, then straightened it out as best we could in the wind. Then we very carefully moved it into position, with the salvage ends set to go over the chain link fence, and the folded edge to the ground. This netting catches on EVERYTHING, so it took some doing to get it in position and straightened out as smooth and tight as we could. then I draped the salvage ends over the chain link fence at my end – at this point, the “catches on everything” was a help – and slowly made my way down the fence, pulling the netting over until I got to my daughter’s end.
At that point, I could finish off the rest myself.
The first thing to do was use ground staples to secure the folded edge to the ground at the base of each longer vertical supports the hoop rods were attached to. I started from the middle and working to the ends, pulling the netting tight between each support along the way. Once the bottom was secured, I went outside the chain link fence, lifting and pulling the netting to get it as snug as I could. I wanted as little slack as possible in between the hoop rods.
Then I went back and got the clips. Once again, starting from the middle and working my way out, I pulled the netting up and snug before clipping it to the middle rods, just above the connector. Then I went on the other side of the fence to lift and tighten the netting over the fence again. I repeated the clipping process again, this time adding clips to the next higher rod, above the connector.
Once the netting was secured to the rods, I grabbed some more ground staples and went back to the outside of the fence. I lifted and tightened the netting over the fence one more time, this time using the ground staples, woven around the chain link, to secure the salvage edges in place.
Last of all, I worked on the ends, rolling and tucking the netting until it was closed off, using ground staples to secure the bottoms to the ground, and the garden wire to secure the rest to the chain link fence.
You can see the finished product in the last photo. It’s very hard to see the clips.
No cats are getting in there. No wind is going to blow it loose. With the netting folded in half, no elm seeds should get through. Plus, with the netting set up the way it is, it can stay there for most, if not all, of the growing season, depending on what gets planted there. To access the garden bed, I can lift the ground staples and, if necessary, remove the lower clips to raise the netting as high as I need.
It’s done.
It’s finally done!
Our temperatures are expected to go from one extreme to the other. The colder nights in the long range forecast into June are no longer expected to get as cold.
Which means I can start getting my transplants out.
I’m not hardening off this time. I just don’t have the cat free space to do it, without the portable greenhouse. I will be using the water bottle collars as protection for some things. For other, larger, transplants, I’ll figure something else out. The onions are the one thing that won’t need any of that, and they need to be transplanted so badly! The snail roll thing has been working a bit too well, in that respect. 😄
I need to get as much as possible done over the next two days, because after that I just won’t be home much. Wednesday is our first stop up shopping day. Thursday, I’ll be taking cats to the vet again, which means staying in the smaller city until it’s time to go home, unless I’m picking up chicks that day. I still haven’t gotten a call about those, so I’m guessing not. Then Friday is our second stock up shop. I will finally be home long enough to work in the garden more by the weekend, though somewhere in there I need to get a visit in with my mother. My brother left me with a couple of things for her that she wanted that I want to drop off, too.
Oh, and I still need to put together my May garden tour video. I took the video clips but just haven’t had a chance to sit down and put them together and edit them. I hoped to do it tonight, but it’s already coming up on 9am, and I am tired enough to go to bed pretty much as soon as I’m done writing this!
It feels so good to finally get this done!!!
It feels so good to finally have the weather we need to get outside stuff done again.
The Re-Farmer 