The temperatures are supposed to increase again today; we’re looking at a high of 30C/86F in the forecast. As I write this, in the late morning, we’re already at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F
We’re supposed to stay in this range for the next while, too.
Just out of curiosity, I checked my app’s global temperature map and found our expected high of the day is almost the same as temperatures around the equator right now.
Fun stuff.
So I was out watering the garden again this morning. A job that was made easier today, too. Yesterday, I’d gone to the town north of us as the hardware store in that location carries the septic friendly bio stuff for drain and pipe maintenance.
I got three bottles.
Since I was there anyhow, I looked around other departments, including the section for hose repair and the like.
Which was right next to the display of various nozzles, some of which were at half price.
I ended up getting a spray wand, and a spare nozzle. We’re down to the two nozzles that are on the hoses now. I got these at Costco last year, as a two piece set. Once is the usual nozzle with several different spray options. The other lets you change the spray by turning the tip of the nozzle. I really dislike that one, because the finer spray just spreads out like an umbrella and wastes a lot of water.
I put the wand on the main garden hose and moved the good nozzle onto the front yard hose. We now have two spares.
I really like the new wand sprayer! I like being able to get in under the leaves and vines, and being able water more directly – and be less likely to step on vines in the process!
It was while I was watering in the south garden beds, at the chain link fence, that I met some strangers. I was collecting grass clippings to mulch around the self seeded tomato I transplanted last night, when I hear a cat meowing in the tall grass towards the pump shack. So I went to investigate.
I never found the cat I heard, but I did see a strangely orange … something… on the wooden box under one of the old fuel tanks.
Orange and… fluffy?
Of course, I had to go look.
Yup. It was an orange kitten!
We’ve had only two orange kittens in the yard. Brussel’s almost all orange one died, and Caramel’s orange and white one hangs out close to or in the sun room, most of the time.
I’m kinda happy to see another orange kitten. When we first moved here, the yard cats were almost all orange tabbies. Now, we’re down to one orange tabby adult, an orange and white adult, and an orange and white kitten. Having lost an all orange kitten already, it’s cheering to see another one.
Plus, orange cats are more likely to be males.
I managed to zoom in and get a picture, but as I tried to quietly move closer, a different kitten appeared in the same spot!
When I was able to get it to turn my way, I discovered it was a baby Hypotenose!
From what I could see, there are just the two kittens. Where they’ve been hiding out until now, or who the mother is, I have no clue. I don’t even know how many female cats we have anymore.
They are looking big enough and active enough that I expect them to start at least showing up at the food bowls under the shrine, soon.
At this point, we still don’t have a kitten count. They move around too fast and hide out in various places too much to get a firm number. Plus, as today has shown, there may still be more unknown litters that haven’t starting coming to the kibble, yet. On top of that, we may be having more losses, too – ones that I’m not finding and having to bury. It will probably be some weeks before we start to get an idea of how many survivors there are.
For now, whatever the number is, it just went up by two this morning!
With our garden not having the usual things that could be harvested throughout the growing season, the most we’ve had this year has been pretty small. The only real exception to that was the garlic scapes which, a much as there were and how much we enjoy them, is more of a flavouring than anything else. Aside from that, we’ve had handfuls of sugar snap peas, strawberries and raspberries. Much enjoyed, but not very substantial.
Today, I decided I wanted to cook with potatoes and carrots.
We don’t have any potatoes or carrots in the house at the moment.
A good excuse to see how the Red Thumb fingerling potatoes turned out! These are the ones we planted using potatoes from last year. They were small, even for fingerlings, and had been sprouting in the box they were hidden in (for some reason, the cats love playing with them!) for way too long. I shoved in as many as would fit in the leftover space, then dumped the rest in the compost heap. I honestly wasn’t sure they would grow.
Well, grow they did, and all of the, from the looks of it, unlike the Purple Caribe in the other 2/3rds of the bed.
The ones in the compost pile started growing later, are looking huge and are blooming right now. We’ll probably get more and bigger potatoes out of the compost pile than in the garden bed!
It’ll be a while before we can dig them up and confirm that, though.
I wanted just enough for tonight, so I only dug up a few at one end of the bed. There was a self seeded tomato in with them so, as soon as I had the space for it, I dug it out with a large amount of soil, so the roots would have virtually no disruption, then transplanted it at the very end of the bed. As I dug around for more potatoes, I built the soil around the stem a bit, then made the mound so that water would flow towards the stem rather than down the sides, where it would wash away the soil. I’ll put a mulch around it as soon as I have the materials to do it.
I ended up digging out three plants altogether, then went and harvested some carrots.
I had been wondering about the Uzbek Golden carrots. There’s lots of leaves, but there are no “shoulders” of carrots sticking out of the soil. Last year, they grew quite large, and we could see the carrot tops much earlier in the season.
All the carrots I pulled up were still quite small!
Which is okay for a day’s meal. Still, what I harvested was almost a quarter of the carrots we planted, since we never had the space to plant more.
That’s what we get for starting ALL the mixed variety packs for winter squash and melons, and having an almost 100% germination rate. Plus extra melons! Plus transplanting all those overwintered onions for their seeds.
After harvesting these, they got hosed down a few times to get the big dirt off. Since they are so fresh, they just need to be scrubbed clean and the carrots trimmed, before being cooked unpeeled. Otherwise, I would never have kept some of the really tiny potatoes and carrots.
I did harvest the one ripe Purple Dragonfly pepper last night, but I don’t eat peppers, so the girls get to enjoy that.
I haven’t quite decided what I’ll be making with the ingredients I have right now. It’s still too hot to cook, so it’ll wait for a while!
On another note, my daughter’s transfers went through today, so she was able to etransfer to her father so he could use his credit card to buy her new computer. We were willing to drive to the city to pick it up at the local location, but it turns out they only have one location with pick up, and it’s in Toronto! So it will be mailed to us, by express post. Which means my daughter should have her new computer by the end of the week. Canada Post tends to be pretty good for that, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually arrived by Wednesday. Which would be awesome. I’m amazed my daughter has been able to keep her computer running at all! I don’t know if she got any sleep at all today, as each step of getting the funds transferred until the purchase could finally be made took longer than usual. But, it’s finally done. She still needs to keep her old computer functioning until the new one arrives, plus the time to set up the software she uses, make sure it can connect with her drawing tablet (that probably needs to be replaced soon, too) and both monitors, get the drivers updated, etc. until she can finally use it for work.
Even so, it’s a huge weight off her shoulders, just having it purchased and on its way!
There is definitely and up side to the girls being up during the night and sleeping during the day. It means there is someone up and about to keep an eye on things.
My younger daughter came downstairs to discover our entry way flooded, and water pouring down the stairs to the basement.
We still have the washing machine set up with a hose extension. When we do laundry, we run the hose through the window on the storm door to drain into the grass, rather than drain to the septic tank. The septic pump has been having so many issues, the less wear and tear on it, the better. When we’re not doing laundry, the hose is pulled in and sort of rolled up between the drier and the wall of the build in closet.
Somehow, a cat turned on the washing machine last night.
Usually, if they accidentally push the on button, the machine will eventually turn itself off. Somehow, that didn’t happen this time. Instead, it ran an empty load. Which is the one plus side, as the machine automatically adjusts the water level based on weight. So it would have run a very small load.
That’s the only saving grace.
My daughters mopped as best they could. After they told me about it, one of them went down to move the new blower fans and set them up over the worst areas. One at the stairs that have old carpet on them (we really ought to take that off, but whoever put it on, really nailed it down thoroughly!). The other is aimed at a low area where the water tends to pool under some counter shelves. We’ll have to check things regularly and move the fans around, as needed. I might have to steal another fan or two from the old basement.
I did get a bit of a fun thing out of it, though.
There is a window at the stairs for the new basement. It doesn’t have a screen, but I had opened it up just a bit to allow some air circulation.
The swing bench is on the patio blocks outside of this window, as well as a wooden bench right up against the wall behind it. The more feral kittens tend to hang out there, so I’ve made a point of leaving kibble under the swing bench, but they will not let us come anywhere near them.
As I was going up the stairs, I saw some kittens playing at the window, with one on the wooden bench batting at another under the bench, right at the window, who was batting back. A third kitten was managing to squeeze a leg in to join the batting party, too.
So I stuck my fingers through the window and wiggled at them.
Immediately, three kittens started batting at my fingers!
I don’t think they could see me through the window at all, or I’m sure they would have run away. I was able to slowly open the window a bit more and reach further. There’s one kitten that’s mostly black but has two white spots under its nose like a funny mustache. That one was on the bench and kept playing with my fingers even as the others got nervous and left. It even let me almost touch it, sniffing at my fingers as I reached as far as the bench’s top.
Thanks to a window, I was able to make physical contact with kittens that we’ve never been able to get closer than 5 feet or so before!
Once things were set up in the basement, I noticed a small pool of water near the door at the top of the stairs. The mop and bucket were still there, so I started mopping it up, moving some things to get more puddling that I found – and started to see water running across the floor again!
That’s when I realized the drainage hose was still full of water. I’d knocked it over a bit, and it was starting to empty onto the floor.
*sigh*
We got the hose running through the door to drain and left it set up. I was needing to do laundry today, anyhow!
Some day, we intend to put new mesh in the window of that storm door. For now, being able to run things through the door has been the handiest thing ever! We do have to fill the gap under the window with a towel to keep the mosquitoes out, and to keep the bottom of the window from dropping directly onto the hose, but that’s not a bit deal.
So… that was quite a way to start the day!!!
After we finished setting all this up, I headed outside to feed the cats and do my morning routine. One of the first things I saw was that the green zucchini is finally starting to bloom!
The plants aren’t looking very strong, though. I did move both pots with squash growing in them onto the patio blocks by the swing bench. I was concerned they were getting too hot where they were. They’ll still get plenty of light, but will be shaded during the hotter parts of the day.
I’m trying to think of an empty spot we might have somewhere, large enough that I could dig a hole to fit the entire pot’s soil. I think the zucchini will do better in a garden bed then a pot, but transplanting them at this point would have to be done very carefully.
Note for future reference. Don’t try to plant summer squash in pots. At least not these ones. I believe there are varieties that were bred specifically for container gardening, but these aren’t them.
At least they didn’t get eaten by slugs this year.
While the potted summer squash aren’t doing very well, the G-Star patty pans that got planted so much later are getting huge! I’m so glad we got those sent to us by mistake a couple of years back. This variety seems to just love growing here.
I’m also glad we have so much space between the shifted beds in the main garden area. We are training the winter squash and pumpkin vines to grow along the sides of the beds, but they are getting so big, it’s getting harder to walk between the beds to check on them or water them. Even the melons in the low raised bed are starting to need to be trained to run along the sides of the bed, to keep the path open.
The corn is really starting to kick in, with silks visible all over, and the tassels opening up. There isn’t much wind to blow the pollen around right now, though. I considered trying to hand pollinate them, or even just give the stalks a shake, but the winters squash vines below are so big, it would be hard to reach without damaging them. I’ll just have to let nature take it’s course.
I’m happy to say, the new strawberry plants that got eaten by a deer are recovering. I’m seeing new leaves appearing, at least. I don’t expect them to recover enough to produce berries again, but hopefully they will recover enough to survive the winter.
We’re supposed to be getting hotter again today, and even hotter tomorrow, so I’m still watering the garden every morning, while it’s still cooler. After feeding the outside cats, of course. Some of the kittens are getting gummy eyes, including Button. I brought him inside and held him while my daughter cleaned his eyes, but he was the only one I was able to catch.
Speaking of Button…
I was just finishing up when I started getting messages from the Cat Lady. Her son is expected to be home from the hospital on Friday, so she’s hoping to be able to get Button on the weekend. I’m so glad to hear he’s responding to treatment, and isn’t going to need surgery. Thank God! Things could have been so much worse!
She came home late last night to discover Cabbages had knocked over a 15′ palm tree they have in their house. That’s a new achievement for Cabbages! Good grief! What is it with her and plants?? I told her about a cat turning on our flooding issues, and we commiserated over the destructiveness of cats! 😁
Thankfully, Broccoli isn’t destructive! At least not like that. She’s very destructive when it comes to anything threatening her babies.
I spotted her nursing her calico baby under the wheel barrow while I was watering. They stayed there long enough that I was able to sneak a photo, after they were done. Rabi is such a beautiful kitten! She’s going to be a long haired beauty, like her big sister, Brussel. Hopefully, though, we’ll have better luck socializing Broccoli’s kittens, this year!
I’ve started making plans for an outdoor isolation cage. I’ve got two versions I’m thinking of. The small version, we could probably put together with materials we have on hand and maybe just need to buy hinges, or wheels, if we decide to make it more easily mobile. This “small” version would still be 4’x4’x4′, I think – plus the height of legs – and have two levels. I want it to have a floor at least a few inches off the ground. It also has to be solid enough to keep the raccoons out, since it would have food and water inside. A smaller cage would be ideal to keep a single newly spayed or neutered cat safe during the recovery period. I’m thinking an insulated shelter box on the bottom level, with a hinged access door on one side or the back, and a covered area beside it for a litter box. The litter box would also have a hinged door to access it from the outside. The door in the front would be hinged so that we can drop it to the ground like a ramp. When no cats are in isolation, they could go in and out as they please, and it wouldn’t be associated with the fear of being trapped. The upper level would have space for a cat bed or two, food and water bowls or whatever we set up for them to enjoy and play with.
While we plan to use wire mesh for the walls of the shelters, we’ve got so many salvaged windows in the barn and one of the sheds, I would love to be able to incorporate some into the walls of an isolation cage. It would be very convenient, for example, so have a window in the wall that could be slid open to access the litter box or food bowls inside, rather than making a hinged door.
I haven’t decided on the roof, yet. We still have leftover pieces of metal roofing material, so we’ll most likely scavenge some of that.
A larger version would be something with a human sized door, that we could walk into. Maybe not with a lot of room, but enough to go in and clean things or do whatever is needed. That one I’m thinking would be made large enough to keep two or three cats in during recovery or treatment. If we get the old catio the Cat Lady can no longer use, that would probably be what we use to make a larger isolation cage. I have no idea what the catio looks like or how big it is. We did have some photos of cats in catios sent to us, before they moved to their current house, but I don’t know which one couldn’t be used anymore after their move.
For now, though, we need to have something ready for when we can start trapping cats, one at a time, for spays. A smaller isolation cage should be faster to build.
In theory, at least!
Anyhow.
So that was our morning today.
As I write this (just past noon), we’ve reached 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 29C/84F. We’re expected to get a few degrees hotter, but we might actually get a bit of rain late this afternoon. Just a 35% chance of it, though, so not likely. The weather radar does show the system being pushed right over us, though, so we’ll see.
The Re-Farmer
[just before publishing this, I decided to see what the AI assistant would tell me about this blog post. I found it rather funny, and thought I’d share. This is what the AI thinks of this blog post:
The content is engaging and provides a detailed account of a challenging morning. Consider adding subheadings to break up the text for easier reading. Also, including more images or visual elements would enhance the reader’s experience. Additionally, linking to relevant content within your own blog can increase reader engagement and time spent on your site. Overall, the personal storytelling style is authentic and enjoyable to read.
😄😄
Also, I hate their “improve title” alternative title suggestions. They are the sort of titles that would have me NOT click to read a blog post! They feel so… artificial.
We aren’t expected to get as hot today as the last few days, but it’s still supposed to get right up there, so I went ahead and watered the garden again this morning. As I write this, we are at “only” 24C/75F, but feeling like 28C/82F. Over the next 5 days, we’re supposed to be back at or near 30C/86F.
Considering how many heat loving plants we ended up with in the garden this year (not really our original intention), this works out. Most of them also need a lot of water, too. Especially the squash and melons.
Last night, I went around and took photos, with my hand as reference, of the developing fruit. At least the larger ones that have clearly been successfully pollinated. There were a few I saw that are still at the sage where they might wither away and fall off the vine, so I didn’t bother taking photos of them. I will see if I can stick to taking photos in the evening, though maybe not every evening, so I can have a progression on how quickly they are growing in this heat.
First up, the Sumer of Melons Blend melons in the trellis bed.
The pumpkins are really something! There is one really big one, plus quite a few more developing on the two plants. If we were after growing the largest pumpkin we could, we’d prune all but the biggest one from each plant, but I’m not after growing a show stopper, so we will take what they give us. I even hand pollinated a couple more this morning. Last night, I noticed some were getting large enough that I put scrap boards under them, to protect them from getting rotten spots on the ground. There was even a pair of them so close together, I put a longer piece of board that they can both rest on, once their weight has them both lying on the ground.
I’m quite happy with the winter squash. I don’t know why I’ve become so obsessed with winter squash! There’s one really big one growing on the corner of the log frame. I’d put a piece of scrap board under it but, now that it’s getting bigger, it was starting to roll off the narrow board. After I took the photo, I found a wider piece to put under it, and tried to stabilize it so it wouldn’t roll off and break its own stem or vine. There’s a large green squash that had also been resting on a log, but I found it rolled into the bed. Thankfully, there was no damage to stem or vine, so I found a scrap board to put under it and stabilize it. I even put boards under some smaller ones, just to get ahead of the game.
We also have a single Purple Dragonfly pepper that has changed colour. This morning, it was even more fully purple. I suppose it’s ripe enough to harvest now, but with just one pepper, I’m not in any hurry. There are others developing among the other plants, but this one started forming much earlier. I might harvest it tonight or something.
While I was watering the squash and corn bed, pausing to hand pollinate more flowers and checking on the developing squash, I spotted a garter snake! I was so happy to see it! First one I’ve seen in the garden all year. It disappeared before I could try for a photo. Hopefully, it is busily eating all the slugs, and not any of the many, many frogs we have this year, which also eat the slugs.
They (the frogs, not the snakes) are absolutely everywhere, this year! I don’t remember ever seeing so many before. I love it! Most that we see are Wood frogs, though looking up our native frogs, it’s possible some are the Boreal Chorus frog.
This morning, I spotted this beautiful friend and was able to get a photo.
This is the gray tree frog, even though it’s green at the moment. They can change colour. Definitely one of my favourite local frogs! I love their round, round bellies. 😁 This one is sitting on a raspberry leaf.
It looks like our raspberries are starting to wind down for the season.
The last thing I reached to water this morning was the grape vines, and I found some damage. The weight of the vines has pulled down the wire mesh from the rebar that was holding it up. I was able to lift it part way back, but we’ll have to figure out a way to secure the mesh to the rebar more effectively so it will stay. The grape vines are definitely the biggest I’ve ever seen them get since we discovered them buried in the spirea!
I really want to transplant them into a better location, and onto more stable and permanent trellis. I’m picturing an arch over a bench would be awesome. I’d originally considered planting them against the chain link fence, so they can use the fence as a trellis, but we shall see. It will be a while before we get to them, so we have time to find a good spot for them and plan it out.
In other things, the kitties are doing okay. I was concerned when I didn’t see the one orange and white kitten anywhere, but as I was moving the hose to water the east garden beds, I spotted him on the tarp covered pile of boards, nursing on Caramel. I guess they still use their “nest” under there at times. I’m concerned about Button. He, and other kittens, are starting to get leaky eyes, but he’s so much smaller than the others it concerns me more on him.
Oh, that reminds me. It’s been a month since we tried to order the 4 pound bucket of lysine for a second time (the first one was lost and we got refunded, but it still showed up on Amazon as being on its way). There is no option to cancel the order for a refund by this point, but I’ve still requested a refund, since we never got it. Last information we got, it was hung up at the border. If it hasn’t arrived by now, it’s not going to. We ordered the stuff we got last time, which is very granular and doesn’t stick to the kibble was well as the fine powder that we can’t find anymore. I was hoping the 4lb bucket would be the fine powder, but even if it wasn’t, it would last us a good long time. We’ll see how that works. The next time I’m at the feed store to get their 40 pound bags of kibble, I need to remember to ask if they carry lysine, too.
As for Button, I’m seriously considering bringing him inside. If it weren’t for the fact that the mamas are still letting him nurse, and that’s the best for him right now, I probably would.
I did get an update from the Cat Lady about her son that’s in the hospital. He’s going to be there for a while longer. They’ve got a team of doctors working on him and trying to avoid surgery. Poor kid. So there’s no way they’re going to be picking up Button anytime soon. They’ve got too many other things to worry about right now!
On the home front, my daughter has been managing to keep her computer going enough to work on commissions – commissions that she needs to pay for a new machine! Usually, while working, she’s got Discord up, or a podcast playing in the background, etc. Right now, she has nothing extra running in the background as she works, is saving everything constantly, and is backing things up to her cloud storage AND a thumb drive every chance she gets. Once she’s done working, it gets shut off. No browsing or game playing with her online friends.
If all goes well, we’ll be able to get her computer ordered within the next few days, while the system she wants is still on sale. She’s ordering from Memory Express, and there’s a location in the city that’s easy for us to get to, so we could even drive in to pick it up, which might be faster than having it delivered.
Thankfully, she has really good customers, who are understanding if there is some sort of delay because her computer died!
We shall see how things work out over the next few days.
Meanwhile, I have my outside stuff and gardening to keep me busy and sane, and I am thankful for it!
It’s a hot and muggy day today! As I write this, past 3:30 pm, we are at 26C/79F, with the humidex at 31C/89F We are not expecting any rain, but with the heat and humidity, I wouldn’t be surprised if a thunderstorm suddenly appeared.
No storms, but we did have a power outage this morning! The power went out in the area for more then an hour. After it came back, I learned that the outage, which included several towns in the area, was due to a fire on a power pole. !!
I did get my morning rounds done before we lost power, checking on the babies and the garden beds.
I found a new female winter squash blossom forming! Hopefully, when it opens, there will be some male flowers open to pollinate it. I’m rather happy with how the winter squash is recovering from being transplanted.
The kittens are doing all right. As I was coming back to the sun room, I actually found Broccoli’s two babies had come around to eat. They ran off as soon as they saw me, though, and are really skittish.
I’m not sure what to make of some of the adults, though. Sprout, one of Broccoli’s calico babies from a couple years ago and sibling to Brussel, comes over for food, but she is not just skittish of me. She frequently growls and snarls at the other cats. I don’t remember her doing that before, but then, this is the first year she’s really been coming this close to the house for food, too. She’s not the only one, though. There’s a grey and white cat that I think it is a mama that is also snarly. This morning, a male that is all black except for a white blaze on his chest showed up, and he was growling and snarling at other cats, too, though with him, I got the impression he has not had food for awhile.
That was this morning. Yesterday evening, things seemed to be okay.
We had some power flickers due to storms, and I had to go back and forth between the house and the garage to reset the device we have for our garage security camera. WiFi isn’t reliable at the garage, so it’s plugged into a device that uses our power lines to send the signal, which gets converted to WiFi inside the house.
Some of the kittens are getting quite used to my coming and going, and don’t bother moving, never mind running away (unless I approach them).
Two of them ran off into the tall grass, while two of them just loafed on the driveway!
I left, then came back, and found just a black and white fluff ball still loafed on the driveway. I also saw a tiny black and white face peaking at me from the hole under the doors to the side of the garage we store the lawnmowers in.
I decided to see how close I could get to the one loafed in the driveway. As I got closer, it ran to the edge of the tall grass, then leaned against the grass to hiss at me. I came closer, and it rolled onto its back and hissed at me.
I picked it up and it lay on its back in my hand, and hissed at me!
Also, it’s a boy. 😂
A carried him over to the garage and put him down next to the hole under the door, where I could just see the legs of his sibling. Once on the grown, under the door he went!
So I guess that’s where Brussel has her babies now. Which she might have issues with, when we need to get at the lawn mowers.
I do hope she brings her babies to the house, soon!
Today, however, I saw no sign of them when I headed out.
I did not have plans to head out.
I got a call from my mother this morning. She started telling me about how she has stuff that she’s packing up and setting aside to go to my sister. Then she mentioned adding more things to her bag for the hospital – long story behind that I won’t get into here. Then she said she had stuff she wanted me to take to the farm. It took a bit of questioning, since she talks as if I already know the background of what she’s saying, but I eventually figured out that she is starting to go through her stuff, basically to give to people she things they should go to, after she dies or something. The stuff she wanted me to take was things like fabric (???) that she thought we could use, and if we don’t, then we can donate it to a second hand store. She started talking about she has so little room (true) and needs to get rid of stuff, so they can go to the farm…
I told her, we have too much stuff here already!
That’s when she suggested we could donate things to the second hand store. I wasn’t sure these would be things suitable for donation, okay.
I asked when she wanted me to come over.
Can I come over today?
…
So, that was my unplanned trip out!
I did stop at the post office first, though. Our reordered 4lb bucket of lysine is supposed to arrive today – but when I look at the tracking information, it says it’s still at a carrier facility in the US, and hasn’t moved since June 27.
It wasn’t there, but I just checked the tracking information again. It still says it’s in a carrier facility in the US, but also it’s supposed to arrive locally by 8pm today. ???
Anyhow.
Once at my mother’s, she at first basically ignored why I was there, as she kept going through her “important” papers. Which are basically all old newspaper clippings, printouts of photos of dead relatives, and various other papers that she considered of great historical value.
My poor sister is going to be getting all this stuff.
Eventually, I got her to tell me what she was wanting me to take to the farm.
Which turned out to be a storage bin she wanted me to dig out of her closet.
So we went through that together, and most of it we might actually be able to use. I did put my foot down when it came to taking an old bra. She said it could go to the second hand store. I told her to just throw it away!!
Then there was another storage bin to go through.
It was quite a mix of things. Pieces of fabric that she used to use as a cover for an old couch here at the farm – a couch our vandal stole while the house was empty. Old curtains that had been using in the living room window. Why would she even take those with her? The living room window is huge, and there’s nothing in her apartment they could have been used on! There were some table cloths that look like they were among those my late brother salvaged from a restaurant he demolished, years ago (a lot of the cutlery we still use now was from that one job!). One thing I was very happy to take was a lacy crochet table cloth. My mother crocheted it. I remember it being used when I was a child! That, to me, is a treasure! There were a few things from Poland, and some strangely old sewing kits material, crochet hooks and knitting needles. Apparently, my mother bought the sewing kit – woven box – for me. I have no memory of that, though I do remember the woven box. What I was really excited to see what the darning mushroom inside! I remember using it to darn socks when I was a kid. I’ve been wanting one for years, but they are rather hard to find, and the few I have found over the years are strangely expensive.
After going through the bins, she got me to grab a bucket that was full of yarn and other odds and ends.
Including the Bamboo Silk yarn I’d used to make a wheelchair shawl for my aunt. A shawl my cousin gave to my mother after her sister passed away. Which my mother undid.
I talked to her about that, trying to get her to understand how I had made this for her sister, and it was something she could have used herself, that would have reminded her of her sister, but she undid it.
I washed it first, she assured me.
???
Also, her sister is dead now, so it doesn’t matter.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just…
…
no words.
I just have no words.
What makes it extra bizarre is that, here she was, spending all this time and effort to divide up her possessions to the family members she thinks they should go to, because she thinks she’s going to die any day now. She actually asked me what I thought about how much longer she’ll last. I told her I thought she had many years ahead of her, yet, and I truly believe that. Barring her doing something weird to herself again, like messing with her medications, she’ll probably outlive us all, even as her mobility and cognition decreases. She’s got the most amazing constitution.
But, she thinks she’s about to go any time now, yet still refuses to call an ambulance when she’s having the breathing problems she complains about. She did call my sister yesterday, knowing my sister works on Sundays, then hung up when, after complaining about burping so much (my mother has got it in her head that if she forces herself to burp, it makes her feel better, but she talks about burping a lot as if it’s something happening to her, rather that something she’s doing to herself), and my sister said people don’t go to the hospital for burping. My sister was so confused after being hung up on, she called me. I told her, my mother wouldn’t call me or my brother, because we’re both telling her that if she feels that bad, call an ambulance. This time, she tried my sister. But she won’t call an ambulance, and prefers talk about how she’s going to die any minute now.
*sigh*
So…
She was given stuff that belonged to her sister, including things that were hand made by me for my aunt, and she had no problem destroying them, but we’re all supposed to be falling over ourselves for the stuff she is “leaving” to us, most of which is important only to her, and a lot of which is literally just garbage, and expects us to keep them and value them long after she’s gone. As my mother set aside a stack of papers for my sister, most of which were printouts my sister made for her, at my mother’s request, I suggested that maybe she doesn’t need the empty, used envelop.
It’s not empty, I was told.
Well, I just saw her removing the contents and adding it to the pile of papers, but.. okay.
So the bucket of yarn and other items were combined with the other stuff in the storage bins.
Then my mother started talking about calling the lab to see if they were open, before I took her there.
I was taking her to the lab?
She had told me she was going to take the Handi Van to get her blood work done. She hadn’t done it yet, and since I was there…
Okay, fine. I put the bins in the truck, moved it to where she could wheel right up with her walker, prepped the foot stool for her, came back and…
She was still going through papers for my sister, and kept offering me juice or whatever… “sit down… have a rest…”
I told her, this was not a planned trip. I do have stuff to do at home. Oh, but you have helpers. I don’t have any helpers.
*sigh*
I did finally get her to set the papers aside, and focus on having her blood work requisition form ready, as well as her health card, so she wouldn’t have to dig for it once at the lab.
She really would have done better taking the Handi Van.
I had the foot stool out for her, but still had to physically help her get up into the truck. It’s much easier for her to get out – no foot stool needed – but getting in is so diffuclt.
That fact that she can get in at all is pretty amazing, to be honest.
The hospital the lab is in is just a few blocks away from her place. She was the only person there, so she got in very quickly. She only needed to give one vial of blood for the 5 things she’s being tested for. She asked about what she was being tested for, and the technician explained it – whether my mother didn’t remember me already explaining it to her after dropping off the form, or didn’t believe me when I did, I don’t know. When she mentioned one of the things being tested for was urea, my mother immediately launched into how this was a problem, and how she has just a few drops…
For the sake of the technician, I mentioned that, while that may be a problem, this blood test isn’t about that at all. Once the technician understood my mother was conflating different things, she made a point of saying that this was correct; the test results from this are about kidney function only.
I don’t think my mother got it, but that’s okay.
As we were leaving, I asked my mother if there was anything she wanted me to get for her while we were out, but the only thing she’s going to need to do is go to the bank, and I can’t do that for her. This trip already exhausted her, so it will wait for another day. Perhaps my sister will be able to visit during the week and can take her, using her car. That would be much easier for my mother to get in an out of.
Speaking of cars…
When I went in to reset the garage cam device, I noticed my mother’s car now has two flat tires on the driver’s side!
It hasn’t been used since the day I tried driving it and it started making a banging noise from the back.
I’ll have to use a hand pump on them. After discovering the leaking valves on our truck, it now makes sense to me why my mother’s car got flats so often. I suspect she has leaking valves, too. The other two tires look just fine. Which is good, because that side of the car is parked closer to the wall, so that the driver can get in and out without hitting a shelf against the opposite wall.
So that’s one of the things I was wanting to do today.
I think I’ll wait for things to cool down a bit more, though – and use lots of bug spray! We’ve been storing our bags of aluminum in the garage, in front of my mother’s car. Most of the cans are from cat food, so critters have been getting into them. Before I can pump up her tires, I will need to pick up and bag a lot of cans, first!
The cats have also been using the dirt floor as a litter all winter. With how much rain we’ve been having, we haven’t been able to clean it up.
They turn a remarkably bright green under those conditions.
So that’s going to need to be raked up, too. It’s still a bit damp for it, but it needs to get done!
The problem is, it won’t even start to cool down for another 3 hours or so, and the front of the garage faces south. Full sun and full heat!
*sigh*
It would have been good to get started before it got hot, but that’s when my mother called, wanting me to come over.
Well, I’m hoping the heat will be good for the garden. I was trying to remember how it was last year at this time, so I went looking at some of my garden tour videos for June and July of last year.
This was recorded on June 1, 2023
This is the one I recorded on June 16, this year.
Then there is the one I recorded on July 4, 2023.
We were much further ahead, as for as growth, at the start of July last year, than we are this year. We actually had peppers forming at the start of July last year! This year, only the hot peppers, which were started much earlier, are starting to bloom. The luffa are a lot smaller this year, too, even though they were transplanted at about the same time, and had a stronger, healthier start indoors this year. We also already had tomatoes forming by the start of July last year. Right now, we just have some of them blooming.
All that rain this spring has really set a lot of things back!
I did my June garden tour video in the middle of the month, so I will wait until the middle of the month before doing a July garden tour. Hopefully, things will have picked up at least a bit by then!
This has been a very different gardening year. Not only because of the weather, but just everything we ended up planting this year. I had so many things planned for that just didn’t happen. The balance between things that can be harvested earlier and throughout the summer, and things that get harvested all at once, is way off.
Next year will be different, again. Hopefully, we’ll have more progress on the trellis beds, and the area that was a squash patch last year will have new beds built into them, and we’ll have much more growing space.
This morning, while feeding the cats before doing my rounds, I made sure to be on the lookout for the newly snipped boys, and the kitten I found yesterday.
I’m happy to say the kitten is still hanging around the sun room, and I think I even saw one of the creche mothers – Adam – nursing it.
As for the newly snipped boys, I saw Syndol in the sun room a lot yesterday evening, but not this morning. I did see Stinky and Nosey, who were their usual selves. With Nosey, that means a combination of PET ME NOW and I’M GOING TO BITE YOU! Of course, I checked their nibs, and everything looks fine.
There has been no sign of Collin since he ran out of the carrier. It may be a while before we see him again!
I was scheduled to help my mother with her grocery shopping this afternoon, but I remembered that I still hadn’t picked up her bloodwork requisition at the clinic. I was supposed to do it while going to and from the city, since this town is on the way, depending on which highway I take. I completely forgot.
So, after I finished my rounds, I left early enough to pick up a couple of packages at the post office before they closed, then drove the 45 minutes to the clinic, got the requisition printed out, then drove to my mother’s place.
She didn’t quite understand what I was giving her when I handed her the printout. She thought it was test results of some kind, but she hasn’t had any tests done recently. She just remembered that they took 5 vials of blood last time, and thought this was the results. I had to repeat myself a few times, and read out what she is being tested for (she might be getting 6 vials taken, this time) and why. The call from the doctor telling her to stop taking her water pills for a month was based on her last bloodwork, and this is to see if anything has improved.
Once she understood, she said she would go to the local lab and get her bloodwork done, no appointment needed, on Monday. The town she lives in has a handi van available that, for a few dollars, will shuttle people with mobility requirements around town. It would be far easier for her to use that, than for me to drive her in the truck.
After getting that cleared up, we went over her shopping list, for both a pharmacy trip and the grocery store, talked about potential substitutions if things weren’t available or didn’t look good, and then I headed out.
I had a pleasant surprise while at the grocery store part of her shopping. I ran into an old friend/former co-worker and her kids that I haven’t seen in ages. They live on a farm in the area, and I pass their place fairly regularly, but we just don’t cross paths very often. So that was really nice.
After the shopping was done, I went through everything with my mother while I put things away. While talking about her blood tests, I’d asked her about drinking more water, and she remembered to add water bottles to the shopping list. I was happy to hear she found them very handy, though I got the impression she has not been drinking more water like she’s supposed to. Anyhow. The water turned out to be on sale, so I got her a bigger case this time. Water bottles will help her keep track, visually, of how much she is drinking, too.
She didn’t have protein of any kind on her list, as she apparently still had, but there was such a good sale on chicken legs and thighs, I got her a package. That one package could last her a week. She was quite happy with my additions and substitutions (all within her budget, of course), and even complimented me on how I’ve got so much “experience” with this sort of thing. I’m not entirely sure how she means it, but I’ll take the compliment.
In fact, the entire visit with her was good. She definitely was having one of her good days.
She had something going on in her building in the afternoon, so I wasn’t going to stay long. I did remember to ask her about the commode home care got for her. She told me, she doesn’t use it.
??
The problem was in emptying the reservoir. It’s light and easy to remove, but requires two hands to carry it. Since she would have one hand either using a cane, or using the walls and furniture to steady herself, she can’t carry it to the bathroom to empty it. So she has continued to use an ice cream bucket at night, rather than going to the washroom. How using the ice cream bucket is easier than walking to the bathroom in the first place, I can’t understand. I have no idea how she actually uses it, what with her messed up knees, but it has handle and she can carry it with one hand, so…
The solution turned out to be easy.
The ice cream bucket fits inside the commode reservoir, and the seat opening fits over it, almost exactly. She can use the commode, then easily carry the bucket away to empty it during the day.
Problem solved.
There was one other thing I remembered to ask my mother. When arranging for me to come out today, she mentioned having an appointment this morning – but it was a secret and she wouldn’t tell me what it was, and no one else was supposed to know.
Which means, of course, I had to warn my brother about it, because she has a terrible habit of causing problems he ends up having to fix.
So I jokingly asked her how her seeeecret meeting went this morning.
Well, it turned out, our vandal had somehow arranged with her to come over for a visit. Since his phone number is blocked, I don’t know how this was done.
The first thing I wanted to know was, was he alone? He has been behaving properly, when there is someone else there as a witness, but when it’s just him, that’s when he is verbally abusive towards her. It did turn out that he was alone.
I’m not sure what he was after, but whatever it was, I don’t think he got it. Apparently, he’s got cancer and is undergoing chemo, but she can’t even remember if it was his lungs or kidneys or whatever. But he’s taking lots of pills, and is getting surgery soon.
Whether this is true or not, I have no way to know, but I’m guessing he’s going to milk it for all he’s worth on her for… something. Usually, money, but who knows. Whatever it is, though, it’s going right over her head. After only a few hours, she was already forgetting most of what he talked about.
At least he didn’t start yelling at her in the doorway, like he usually does when he’s on his own.
After that, I headed home. Before settling in, inside, I made a point of doing some outside stuff first. Our high of the day was supposed to be 26C/79F, which I’m sure we did reach. As I write this, it’s past 4:30, and we’re at 25C/77F, with the humidex putting us at 30C/86F. It was definitely feeling hot out there, and the humidity isn’t helping. Especially when it comes to mosquitoes. We have SO many mosquitoes right now! They are just loving this weather.
I went to top up the cat kibble outside but, in this heat, they aren’t actually eating all that much. I still made sure to leave some spread out in spots around the house, where I know kittens are starting to come closer.
Then I was going to continue my evening rounds, when I saw a cat lying in the grass, in the shade of the storage house, looking like it was asleep.
Except, cats don’t sleep there. It’s too open and exposed.
It turned out to be Driver (Adam’s sibling), and he was dead.
There was no sign of injury of any kind on him. Since the snow melted, we had only been seeing him every once in a while. The few times I’ve seen him recently, he was very skittish and nervous around the other males; particularly Shop Towel. There was no evidence he’d been in a fight of any kind, though. He was just lying there, like he was taking a nap in the shade.
So bizarre!
I then had the problem of finding a place to bury him. We’re running out of places to bury cats and kittens. Too many big tree roots and rocks. In the end, I buried him where we were supposed to have a poppy bed this year, but it never got cleared out in time for sowing. We can build up the bed and plant flowers over him, next year.
*sigh*
This has been a pretty rough week or so for that. The litter of newborns, the baby raccoon, and now Driver…
Yeah, I know; this is to be expected when you live in the boonies, and we do have way too many cats, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
Well, it took a couple of hours, but I’m finally settled in and able to take a break.
Which, for me, means doing other things. Like blogging. 😁
And fixing the typos in my last post, which are always pretty bad when I write using my phone!
My time waiting for the vet clinic to call me took a very pleasant turn. I got a message from my SIL and, as we chatted, I mentioned were I was. Which is about half way to their place. She was free, so she drove out to meet me, and we had a great time together.
My SIL is so awesome. I just love her to pieces.
I also got a few calls while we were together.
The first was from the vet clinic. They actually tried to call me earlier, but I never got the call. They contacted the Cat Lady and she messaged me, so I went back to the clinic. It turned out they weren’t sure who three of the cats were, so I cleared that up. Then, after not getting anything to say I had a missed call or a voice mail message, I checked the number they had. It turned out there was one digit wrong. So they had called someone else completely! Oops.
When they did get through to me, it was about Collin. They’d done Syndol first, and I’d mentioned he had a limp, but we couldn’t see what was wrong with his foot. They found nothing wrong, but Collin had a wound on one leg. I hadn’t realized, when we snagged him, that he was the one with the injured leg. We didn’t see it at the time, and with so many white and grey cats, we lose track. I’ve just made the executive decision that he is now Collin (because of the receding hairline marking on his head).
It turned out the wound was quite infected. They wanted to know if they could give him a slow release antibiotic (they know these are all yard cats and semi feral) and a couple of stitches. The rescue was paying for this visit, but when they told me how much it could be, I gave the go-ahead. We would make it work, and it wasn’t all that much. More than the neuter, mind you (the rescue got a really good deal!), but we could manage it.
Then I got another call from them. The cats all had really bad ear mites. When the Cat Lady and I were signing them in, they asked about ear mite treatment, if any were found (I told them I just assume they have ear mites, since they are outdoor cats). This would have been a gel treatment we’d have to do at home, and there was no way we’d be able to do that, so it was declined. Their ears were really bad, though, to the point of ear canals in danger of rupturing. They wanted to know if they could give the cats Ivermectin.
I didn’t have room in the a budget for that, after giving the okay on the stitches and antibiotics.
I explained that, and said that the rescue was paying the bill for stuff, but I had no idea what the rescue’s budget was. I also mentioned the Cat Lady had come home to their dog having had a medical event, and she was at a vet clinic with it at the time. Which is bad enough on its own, but to have to ask her about this, too? They did call her, though, and she did agree to the treatment.
She is so amazing.
I’m surrounded by so many awesome people.
After my SIL had our visit, it was past 3pm, so I decided to head to the clinic and see about paying for our part of the bill. I got there just as they were working on the invoice and billing the rescue. Which is also when the Cat Lady called!
They had talked to her about the ear mites and the obvious problem that, as outside cats, they will just get infected again.
She paid for 15 doses, including the four in the clinic.
Which means we now have a vail of Ivermectin and a syringe applicator. We need to put a single drop into each ear.
Which I suppose is going to be easier than doing the gel thing, but not by much! If nothing else, the syringe gives us better control and reach.
So we’re going to have to work on catching and dosing the ears of as many cats as possible – and keep track of which ones we do, so as not to double treat any!
Once the bills were paid – ours ended up being only $109, which was less than the estimate I was given (I think the Cat Lady covered part of it!) – I loaded up four very unhappy cats, sent a message to the family to let them know the status of things, and headed home. They had the gate waiting open for me, so I could drive straight to the yard, but I saw our vandal walking his dog down the road, so I made sure to stop and lock it, first. Thankfully, the stop did not startle the cats too much.
They did NOT like being unloaded, though!
We set them up in the sun room and left them in the carriers at first. My daughter brought over some wet cat food that she divided up into 4 bowls while I fed the rest of the cats to distract them away, and gave Collin his first doze of painkillers mixed in. We have three more dosed for them, to be given every 24 hours, but I really doubt we’ll be able to give him those. I was able to slip the bowls into the carriers for Collin and two others, but Stinky slipped out and disappeared.
So other cats got to eat his wet cat food.
I gave them time to eat their food as we unloaded the rest of the stuff from the truck. Then I parked the truck in the garage. I then had the unhappy job of disposing of the body of that poor baby raccoon I found this morning.
So you can probably imagine that, when I started to hear distressed crying, I had to go looking.
I found the source at the junk pile. A little, blue eyed, cream coloured ball of fluff, alone and clearly afraid.
I was able to pick it up before it had a chance to run away. I got a bit of hissing and spitting, but not all that much. I took it straight to the sun room. I figured the mama would find it there, and if she didn’t, the creche mothers would, plus there was food and water already there.
When I put it down next to a food bowl, it didn’t bother being scared anymore and immediately started sniffing at the bowl.
It reminds me so much of Ghosty when we first saw her, except this one has fewer markings visible. Pretty much just the darker patches on its head. There are some very faint markings on the body, but barely visible.
I’ve since checked on it, and the last I saw, it was loafed in the middle of the sun room, sleeping.
I feel much better having been able to help out at least one baby, today, even if it was just to carry it across the yard and to food and water. Particularly since we were hearing so much thunder at the time. In the end, the storm we were hearing went past us, and we got no rain, so that worked out, too.
Meanwhile…
Once inside, we set up the new cat trees, and can finally throw away the remains of the old ones. One is shaped like a cactus and it top heavy, so the cats keep knocking it down. The girls are considering duct taping it to the linoleum floor. 😄 The cats clearly love it!
There was a super soft, super fluffy cat cave with some hand knit blankets inside – and when I pulled those out, I found packages of cat treats and cat nip hidden in the blankets!
Then, before I finally settled in, I made some cat soup for the inside cats, using a new feeding tray I found at the dollar store today, to replace the one in my bedroom/office. It looks like it will work out better than the last one I found, so the next time I have the chance, I’ll pick up another one.
My daughters are now making supper and cleaning up in the kitchen, etc, while I finally get a chance to sit down. I’ve got the critter cam live feed on. The new kitten was nowhere to be seen at first, but I just saw it come into the sun room from outside, and it’s now watching one of the adult cats eating.
Oh!!! I think that might be Collin. I hope so. I had to let him out of his carrier before he at all his medicated food, because I was afraid he would hurt himself trying to get out. If he’s comfortable enough to come back into the sun room and eat from bowls right next to the cat carriers, that’s a good sign. I still can’t be 100% sure it’s him, though.
Ah, supper has just arrived. My daughter just brought me a plated supper, and some boozy hot chocolate.
I could really use that boozy hot chocolate, after a day like today.
Today was forecast to be a hot one, before things cool down a little bit for the next while. We surpassed our predicted high and reached 30C/86F.
Tomorrow’s predicted high is supposed to be either 18C/64F or 20C/68F, depending on which app I look at. Also depending on which app I look at, we are now supposed to get rain starting tomorrow evening until about midnight – or it’s supposed to rain both day and night!
*sigh*
This afternoon, my older daughter and I finally messed around with the portable AC unit. It would start, then immediately shut itself down again. So we wrestled it out of the living room (that 70’s shag carpet is not helpful for the wheels! 😄), fighting cats away from the divider door into the living room, then to the steps between the new and old parts of the house. I had a bucket ready and we set it to drain.
It didn’t sound like there was any water in it, though I could hear some minor splashing as we were moving it, and nothing but a few drops of water came out.
So… the water reservoir being full was not the issue.
We had this happen to use last year, and we never found out why it kept stopping then, either. However, after we went through the process of draining it, it started working again. Would that happen now?
Yes.
Once we got the AC back in the living room and set up, it turned on and stayed on.
It did stop cooling faster than expected, but the louvers were still open. When I checked it, I lowered the temperature setting and it turned on again. It seems the default setting for the AC to stop cooling is 23C/73F, which is ridiculously warm for indoors. I dropped it to 16C. It’s been running pretty much ever since.
We already have an oscillating fan set up on the piano, aimed to blow cool air from the living room into the dining room, so that helps a lot.
My daughter and I then set up the hardware cloth “door” to the old basement – though we went down and swept water into the floor drain or sump pump reservoir, first. With the most recent rain, there’s quite a lot of water down there again, even with two blower fans, and and oscillating fan in the old basement, a box fan set up in the old basement window, and another oscillating fan running in the new basement. That floor is starting to show more damp seeping through the concrete. Not a good sign for the weeping tile! I might wet up the old blower fan in there, but with so many fans already running, I really don’t want to set up another one. The amount of electricity we’re using right now must be insane. I’ve got a box fan in my office/bedroom, my husband has two box fans in his bedroom, and my daughters have several fans upstairs, which is the worst area for overheating. With the humidity, it’s just brutal on my daughter’s computer. She actually sets up ice packs wrapped in towels near her computer while she’s working.
With how hot things are, the last thing we wanted to do was heat up the house with cooking, and my daughter offered to order in. We ended up going to a pizza place in town and getting a jumbo (18″) size pizza for each of us, to feed us for the next couple of days!
The pizza place didn’t open until 4, so I had some time to wait and checked to see if we had any parcels in. I wasn’t actually expecting any. There were two.
Once of them was the drain auger my husband ordered! It wasn’t supposed to come in for another four days!
What I was really looking for was our 4 pound bucket of lysine. This time, in the orders list, it said “your order may be lost”. I checked the tracking and that was unchanged – it said it was picked up by the delivery company and that’s it.
There was a “contact seller” option, so I started that process.
Which is when I discovered the seller had cancelled the order, and that the refund would be processed in 3-5 business days.
The seller cancelled the order on May 31st.
No explanation was given.
We still need lysine. We’re almost completely out.
I mentioned it to my husband, so he could check his Amazon credit card and see if the refund went through. I guess it did, because he ordered it again. We now have a delivery date of July 2-4.
Interestingly, the cost was lower than the first time we tried to order it.
When 4:00 rolled around, we called in our pizza order, making sure to tell them where we were driving in from. It takes us a bit longer to get there than for them to make the pizzas. With a stop at the post office having to be done along the way, since it was closing at 5, I have gave them a rough idea of how long it would take us to get there.
It ended up taking a bit longer than usual for me to just get out the door! When I got to the store the post office is in, I saw a box next to a counter by the door. The owner saw me and just said, that’s the one! 😄
I even made sure to back the truck up to the door, because I knew it would be larger and heavier. I got the other package and loaded that first, then tried to figure out how to get the auger loaded. The box wasn’t particularly big, but it was pretty beat up looking. The delivery folks clearly had problems with it. I finally just picked it up was as good a grip as I could – which wasn’t very good. I’m so glad I backed the truck up to the door, because having that slip out of my hands while trying to go further would have really sucked! The owner was a sweetheart and already holding the door open for me. It was definitely heavier than I expected. Later on, I looked up the specs and the actual weight. It’s 36.2kg – just ounces under 80 pounds. That’s just the auger. Not the other stuff shipped with it (bits, hoses, etc.) or the packaging.
From there I started for town to pick up our order, only to realize it was almost the time I told them I’d be there, so I pulled over and gave them a call. I didn’t want them to think it was a bogus order.
When I got home, I pulled into the yard so I could back up to the house. I tried to be careful about it and avoid the area I usually turn around in, since it is still basically a pond.
I got stuck.
I could go forward a bit, but when I tried to reverse again, the tires just spun. I had to set the truck to 4 wheel drive to be able back out without completely tearing apart the grass. We’ll have a bit of repair to do once things dry out a bit – if they get a chance to try out a bit! – but not too much.
Getting through our own door, with the arm bar in the door jab, was going to be awkward, so my daughters were already waiting for me to get the door open (and keep cats away) and angle the box through the doorway.
So it’s in – and it’s still in its box! It’ll be easier, once it’s unpacked, since it’s on wheels and had a handle, but I am not looking forward to getting that thing down the old basement stairs. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think we should take it down the new basement stairs, then rolls it through to the old basement, where it will be used the most.
We’ll figure it out.
Needless to say, I didn’t get any more work done in the garden, with this heat. Tomorrow should be better for that sort of work, and I should be able to get it done before the rain reaches us.
So much for the 5 day break in the rain that was forecast yesterday. Even the rain expected on Friday has changed to being all day, instead of just the evening.
So we’ve been catching up on inside stuff, like doing laundry.
Extra laundry, thanks to cat messes. 🙄
I’ve also been keeping an eye on the critter cam, which has been a delight.
Junk Pile showed up regularly and would nurse her babies on the floor mat in the middle of the room. At one point, she got up and left behind a fan of kittens that fell asleep as they nursed! I’m really glad to see her going in there to take care of her kittens, rather than her kittens having to leave the sun room.
I’m not so glad to see the skunks show up, though only because they eat the cat’s food.
I’m super not glad to see the racoon show up.
It does seem to be leaving the bigger kittens alone, probably because they can run away and hide under the counter shelf. Eating kibble is less effort, but that doesn’t mean it won’t try something, now that it’s done it once.
The image I was able to get of the kittens was a screen cap of the critter cam on my phone, cropped down to just the kittens. The image quality really sucks. We’re starting to look at possibly betting an indoor monitor – the kind sold as baby or pet monitors. They can pan and zoom, which is something this camera can’t do. The biggest selling point for me is that we wouldn’t have to buy an Amazon subscription to be able to have the live feed running continuously. We’d also have the option of using a micro SD to record things. So we’re looking at different versions, some of which come with their own display device, so we wouldn’t be having to use our phones. Some come with multiple cameras, which has me thinking… it would save me some anxiety to have one set up in the basement to monitor the septic pump!
We shall see. Not a thing we can get soon, but they can be surprisingly inexpensive.
Aww… I’m watching the critter cam right now. Syndol, who still has a limp, is eating in the sun room, and there’s a kitten rolling around on the floor beside him.
Anyhow. Time to get to bed! I want to get working in the garden early tomorrow morning, and take advantage of the cool!
We have a first sighting of Caramel’s babies! I thought they might be in the wood pile (which we thought was a junk pile, until we took the junk off the top), since I would sometimes see her disappear under it, but cats in general like to shelter under there.
As I was heading back to the house, I spotted a grey tabby by the opening under the tarp. When it saw me, it ducked under. For the briefest of moments, I saw an orange face peek out, then Caramel stuck her head out and stared at me. She seemed to be okay with my watching from where I was and came out. Her little grey one came out soon after, and then the orange one – which turned out to be orange and white – came out and stayed behind Caramel. I stayed long enough to see if any others would come out, but it looks like there are just the two of them.
As for things outside.
The water has been absorbed in some places, though everything is still very wet. I lifted the mosquito netting cover off the potatoes, since the elms are no longer dropping seeds, and over the chain link fence. I will leave it there for now, as the blowing of the netting should startle the deer away. Not that they’ll eat potato plants, but it might keep them from going into the yard and eating other things. I considered lifting the netting off the chocolate cherry tomatoes, too, but they don’t seem to be hampered by it at all, so I’m leaving it for now.
I took the cover off the bed with the German Butterball potatoes. They’re getting so big, they are starting to crowd against the netting. I set the cover on top of the old dog houses by the outhouse, for now. It’s pretty much the only place with enough for it, while also keeping it off the wet ground.
It looks like I will need to try planting the Seychelle beans again. Only a few have come up in one row, and none at all in the other. The seeds are a few years old and, between that and the weather we’ve been having, it’s no surprise if they don’t come up.
I did plant more of the Royal Burgundy bush beans. In fact, I had enough seeds to plant a row on either side of the original row, which has only one successfully sprouted bean plant coming up. I still have seeds left over, too. For some reason, I remember having only enough seeds to plant one short row, but these are the same brand’s seeds as before. I’ll have to check my seeds bin and see if I still have some left, after all. With only one bean successfully germinating (plus one more that broke ground and that’s about it), I figured planting two more rows on either side of the original row would hopefully ensure we have at least a few bush beans survive!
The water around the bed I was going to work on next has been mostly absorbed into the ground, and I considered working on it – but only for a moment. It’s 22C/72F out there, with a humidex of 28C/83F. I was not about to do that kind of work in full sun with this level of heat and humidity. I did do a bit of weeding, through. With the ground so wet, I could pull some of the weeds out, tap root and all. A bit of that was more than enough to convince me, turning new sod and shifting the remains of that bed over is just not something I should be doing right now! If I get out early enough tomorrow morning, though, I should be able to get it done and, if all goes well, transplant the last of the onions. Since I have so many, and this bed won’t have anything else in it, I should be able to get away with planting them a bit denser, too. It would be great if I could get all the onions, plus the last few shallots, in. It’s getting really late for onions. They really should have been planted in late May, as they prefer the cooler temperatures, but we shall see how they do.
Once that’s done, I can breathe a sigh of relief for a little while. Then I can look into seeing what I can do in the gaps where things that were direct sown didn’t come up, and replant where the spinach was sown. What little spinach came up and actually grew is now bolting in the heat! We never got anything to harvest, even out of those.
Maybe I’ll just plant more of the Uzbek carrots. I intended to plant a lot more carrots, but the beds are all full of winter squash and melons, which grow too big to interplant carrots under. I could have planted them under the tomatoes, but the onions needed to be transplanted – plus, the onions should help deter deer and other pests from the tomatoes.
Well, writing this just got interrupted quite a bit. A racoon was back in the sun room and had to be chased off repeatedly. We’re prepared to deal with it, once the opportunity arises. There is, however, a second one, and I haven’t seen both at the same time since last night.
For now, I’m going to enjoy watching kittens on the critter cam.
Oh!!! Did I just see a white kitten running by past a window??? It would be so great if the white babies came back, too! We were making such good progress in socializing those ones.
Ah, well. What will be, will be.
Oh… that’s a skunk I just saw walking by this time…
We had short, fast downpours throughout the night. It never really cooled down, though. I was hoping to get out early again but, at 5am, it was already 18C/64F, and still blowing like crazy. Things have calmed down a bit – still very windy, but the sun is out. All the areas that had finally become just wet, rather than filled with standing water, are once again filled with standing water. I’m glad we got as much mowing as we did. It’s going to be a while before we can try again.
When I came out this morning, there were plenty of cats eager for food, at least. The poor long haired cats are just soaking wet. I didn’t see any kittens at the time, though. When I finished my rounds and was coming around the laundry platform, when a single, wet little kitten climbed out from under the platform and onto a step. I’d left a bit of kibble there, and it seemed to be sniffing for it.
This is the kitten that has been the most willing to be cuddled, so I picked him up and did just that, so warm it up. He was a bit nervous about being carried around until I set up a small bowl of kibble in the cat cage and put him beside it, at which point he started chowing down!
Over the next while, I kept looking for the other kittens. Yesterday, it seems the litter was down or 3, so I was concerned it was now down to one. He was okay with running around and playing in the sun room, at least, and I kept an eye open for any others.
With the soil being far too wet to continue working on the garden bed, I decided to make recordings for a garden tour video, in spite of things looking a mess and being half done. After I finished that, I paused to pull some burdock coming up from under the cat house – and startled a baby! The two other kittens were inside the cat house! That makes me so happy. The cats haven’t been using it much, lately – it probably gets pretty hot and muggy in there at times like right now. The kittens were happily playing in the entrance, though, so I brought the other one over and they immediately started all horsing around together.
As I write this, we’re now at 21C/70F, with an expected high of 22C/72F. The winds are supposed to die down this afternoon. We should get a break from the rain for today and tomorrow, though we’re supposed to get more the next evening. Hopefully, that will give use the time we need to finish those beds and get the last transplants in.
Either that, or I’ll have time to put the garden tour video together, at least.
Looking out the window right now, we definitely aren’t getting the break from the wind, yet! I’m honestly amazed I found only a couple of fallen branches. The box frame over the eggplant and hot peppers is tied down and holding, but even the plastic around it is still there, though the bottoms keep getting pulled loose and need to be weighted down again. I’ve given up tacking down the mosquito netting at the chain link fence. They are well secured at the top, to the fence itself, but the ground staples keep getting yanked out, and most have disappeared. Bricks used to weigh the bottoms down just get flipped off. This netting lets water through, but the weave is still fine enough that they are more like sails than nets. They still do the job of keeping the elm seeds off. Those, at least, are almost done their season.
On the plus side, our water table may finally be recovered from all those years of drought that started before we moved out here! I’m not sure where to find that out. Plus, this is normally fire season. I’m quite liking not having to deal with smoke for weeks at a time!
There’s always a trade off of one kind or another, both good and bad. We just hope to have more good than bad!
The Re-Farmer 