I spotted these guys on the driveway cam!
They are looking to spritely!
Also, while doing my rounds this morning, I heard Canada geese for the first time this year. They’re back!
Yup. Spring is here.
The Re-Farmer
white tail deer
We have a fire pit again!
Today is turning out a bit cooler than yesterday.
The outside cats don’t mind at all, and have been widening their horizons. This morning, I only saw 10 of them, even though there was no kibble left in the kibble house at all. The warmer temperatures has them needing fewer calories to keep themselves going.
When I put seed out for the birds and deer, our three usual visitors took off. They seem to have formed an actual little herd together. The piebald has always been a loner until now, but the mother and her yearling seem to have accepted her as part of their group.
Even if they do still bicker over the seeds.
Since digging the path to the sign cam, I now head over to switch the memory card right after putting the seed down. The deer usually come back to the feeding station right away, so my going in that direction seemed to confuse them! They went onto the road, milled around the intersection, then ran off down a different road.
While I was switching out the memory card, I heard noises.
They were running back again! Then they stopped and watched me while I finished with the trail cam. As I walked back to the house, they came running along the road again. There’s one spot along the north fence they have been able to use to use to get into our yard, and that’s what they were heading for.
They’ve been in front of our living room window, on and off, ever since.
While things were still below freezing, I decided to keep working on the path to the fire pit.
This is as far as I got, yesterday. You can see the shape of the BBQ under the remains of the tent – and the piece of tree that fell on it!
The tent, not the BBQ. The tent protected both the picnic table and the BBQ from damage.
To the right, there’s a bar with a handle on it sticking out of the snow. That’s where the fire pit is. That handle is for the cooking grill.
This is why I didn’t want to wait until it was warmer. I’m standing on the cat path to the storage house to take this photo. There’s a low spot that fills with water, and it’s still too chilly for my rubber boots. ;-)
Here, I’m standing where the path curves, so the rest of it can be seen. I’d dug out most of the fire pit by this point. Yesterday, I had dug to just past the big maple tree.
We have a fire pit again! Yay!
Now that it’s uncovered, the sun should melt away the remaining snow in it rather quickly. There are two concrete blocks on the sides, and a the support for the cooking grill is in a half-block. Those will warm up quite a bit, once the sun hits them.
I don’t know where my parents got those glazed bricks around the fire pit. They are everywhere, and I don’t remember a time when we didn’t have them. I like them but, my goodness, they are dangerous! So incredibly slippery! I accidentally stepped on them more than a few times while shovelling, and almost lost my footing, every time.
The space around the fire pit still needs to be widened, so there’s room to set up chairs or even just stand around a fire and not be too close to it. From here, I’ll dig to the collapsed tent to access the BBQ and finally put the new over on it. The snow on the fire pit side of the tent isn’t as deep as around the other side.
There are a couple of large, hollowed out spaces under a nearby spruce tree. I think they are where deer had lain down in the snow.
Then a path needs to be dug to the wood pile.
Critters have already made their own path to the pile!
There’s a cover over most of the wood, so if we did want to do a cookout, we have dry wood available.
Here is the entire path, looking back towards the house.
There is something absolutely delightful about walking down these paths, through hip and waist deep snow. They’re like some sort of secret passageway!
I fully expect to see hoof and paw prints down here, soon. :-D
Now we just need an excuse to have a cook out! For the past few years, we’ve hardly been able to use the fire pit at all, due to dry conditions. Winter has been the only safe time to light a fire.
Hhhmmm… Now I’m thinking of what we’ve got that would do well, cooked over a fire… LOL
The Re-Farmer
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Morning critters and… *sigh*
Well, I guess it was too much to hope for.
The cats got into one of the aloe vera we moved out of the large aquarium greenhouse, to make room for seed starts.
They even went after the one that was the most barricaded! As you can see by the aloe looking like it was carefully set aside, it’s not the plants they want. It’s the dirt!
Repotting that and figuring out how to protect it, is a job for later today.
The new location for the mini-greenhouse seems to be working well. It was getting direct sunlight this morning, on all levels. With the aluminum foil around the sides and back, the seedlings were getting light from all sides. I’m rather pleased with that.
We had a much warmer morning today, almost no wind, and lots of sunshine, so I took advantage of that.
So did the outside cats! I counted 17 of them outside, plus there was one in the sun room, so they are all accounted for.
I startled our usual 3 deer away from the feeding station, but they were running back almost before I finished putting out the seed.
I then took advantage of the conditions and got the burn barrel going. It’s a lot harder to burn off the wood pellet cat litter, when it it’s too cold for it to dry out.
Then, in between tending the burn barrel, I started clearing out the paths that were blown in by the high winds we’ve had recently.
I actually enjoy shovelling, so I just kept going, and ended up clearing all the paths, in both the inner and outer yards.
I found Potato Beetle enjoying his sun spot, when I cleared a path to the front of the garage. :-)
I even took the time to break up the ice and snow near the cat’s house to haul it away. There was no more room for the ice from the metal water bowls anymore. With things warming up as they are, I also cleared the roof of the cat house of most of the snow, and even the snow overhang on the kibble house. I considered clearing the kibble house roof, too, but by then, I was done for the day!
The problem with doing all the shovelling is that, once I stop, that’s when things start to hurt! As soon as I sat down, my entire body started to stiffen up and ache. *sigh* Thankfully, though, there was a hot breakfast and a pot of tea made. Between that and some painkillers, I’m going all right. :-)
The Re-Farmer
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Morning critters
We had another colder than predicted night, with a bitterly cold wind chill. It’s supposed to warm up quite a bit today, though not until this evening. After that, things are supposed to keep getting warmer.
We’re also supposed to be snowing, as I write this, and it isn’t, so… yeah. We’ll see.
I counted 14 or 15 outside cats this morning. Then I spotted Ghost Baby later on, so we had a headcount of possibly 16 of the outside cats.
They are most definitely appreciating having access to the heated water bowl in the sun room. As you can see in the above photo, the outside bowl is completely empty. Likely, the piebald visited the kibble house again, and finished off the water, too.
Speaking of which…
The three regulars were at the feeding station when I came around with seed. They ran off, but almost immediately started to come back. So I paused to see what they would do.
As usual, the piebald would chase off the other two, but they kept coming back.
They came within 20-25 feet of me!
I’m happy my phone was able to pick up that huffing sound the piebald makes.
I was making them nervous, though, so I moved on and let them be.
Chadiccus does not approve of my taking his picture, instead of petting him!
Oh, what a loaf Rolando Moon makes!
They keep breaking and knocking out the rigid insulation. I’ll have to think of something better to use, if we are going to keep using this old shelf as a cat shelter.
I had been talking about doing our Costco trip today, but one of my daughters has been suggesting that Costco on a Saturday might not be a good idea. Looking at the weather, we might not be snowing here, but it’s sure to be snowing to the house of us, and I’d rather not drive in it, if I don’t have to. So that will probably wait until Monday, then.
I’ve been keeping a close eye on the seedlings, and today we’re going to be doing some major changes, from re-planting to replace losses, to physically re-arranging a whole bunch of things. I’ll post about how that goes, later.
The Re-Farmer
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Fourteen!
Today was a deceptive day. Beautifully bright and sunny – and colder than forecast! As I write this, we have warmed up to -19C/-2F – with a wind chill of -30C/-22F.
Oh, look at that. We’re supposed to warm up a few more degrees, but as I typed the above sentence, my weather app’s desktop icon just dropped to -20C/-4F, with a wind chill of -32C/-26F
We’re supposed to warm up over the next few days, until we reach above freezing, where we are supposed to stay for almost a week before dropping a couple of degrees below freezing again. Considering how off the forecasts have been, with the cold hanging on longer and colder than predicted, I’m not holding my breath.
Needless to say, I was not looking forward to going out today.
The outside cats were happy to see me. Or at least the fresh kibble I brought out for them! Even the kibble in the sun room was all gone. As cold as it got, the outside heated water bowl still had liquid water, and not even a layer of ice over the top. I’m not sure if that means it started working again, or if there was simply enough water in it to keep it from freezing over.
I left really early to go to my mother’s, giving myself time to shovel away the small snow drift that formed overnight, in front of the garage doors where her car is parked. I wanted to make sure to get to the post office before it closed for a couple of hours for lunch, as my daughter got notice that a parcel was delivered.
It wasn’t there.
Then I went to my mother’s town with plans to get some gas and pick up some take out chicken and wedges for lunch. Had a small heart attack when I saw the gas prices had gone up another 10 cents per litre, to 174.9. That works out to Cdn$6.63 per US gallon, or US$5.21 at today’s exchange rate.
Ouch.
My mother doesn’t do meat on Fridays for Lent, so we shared the potato wedges for lunch, and she saved her chicken for tomorrow. I gave up most social media for Lent, which is a heck of a lot harder for me than giving up meat!
With the lockdowns, a lot of the social activities my mother so loved about where she lived had ended, but after a while, people started just making their own coffee nights in the lounge on their own. Which may be why events are starting up again. (We’re supposed to open up completely in a few days, but the powers that be are already talking about locking down and imposing restrictions again.) Today, the social workers from the senior’s centre were going door to door (happily, I didn’t see a single mask in my mother’s building. What a relief that was!), letting people know there would be coffee and cake in the lounge this afternoon. My mother was quite excited about it, so we headed out as soon as we finished lunch. Once her errands were done and her groceries put away, it was early enough that she still had time to watch Mass on TV before her coffee date, so I didn’t stay very long. She was in very good spirits, and was even moving around better on her bum knee than I’ve seen in a while. So that was encouraging.
This meant I was on my way home a lot earlier than I expected, giving me time for a quick stop at the post office/general store again, to pick up more deer feed. A full bag is more than fits in the bin we use for the deer/bird feed, so I put an extra bucket of feed out. I’d startled a deer in the yard when I got home, so I figured it wouldn’t be long before I saw one or two out the window once inside.
It was more than one or two! We had five of them out there, in no time at all!
After taking a few pictures, I sat at my computer to upload them when my daughter called out, asking me if I saw the seven deer outside the window.
Seven? No I hadn’t! So I grabbed my phone to get some pictures and…
There was a LOT more than seven.
Where did they all come from?
This is our fifth winter here. The most deer we’ve ever seen outside our window at one time has been seven. Today, we counted at least fourteen!
I’m guessing some of them came from my brother’s farm, across the road, as he puts a bale out for them. He’s had as many as 30, during some really severe winters. I’ve driven by and seen as many as eight that I could count while driving. But fourteen? Wow! The down side of that is, the coyotes start coming in, and he’s seen them take down a deer, right by his house.
I only scoop out enough feed to fill a 1 gallon container at a time. That’s barely a snack for the few deer that usually show up, minus what the birds manage to eat. I’m not sure how this tiny bit we put out has managed to lure so many deer!
We are definitely going to have to take this into account when we plant our berry bushes this spring. The buggers are doing a number on the chokecherry and Saskatoon bushes we found between the spruces near the feeding station, after cutting away some self-sown elm and maple, and the invasion of spirea. They never went for the spirea twigs and branches. Berry bushes must taste better!
Once we start cutting down all the dead spruces, that whole area is going to open up quite a bit. We want to get rid of all the spirea in there, allow the wild roses and red osier dogwood take over as undergrowth, reduce the chokecherries, and increase the Saskatoons. We also intend to plant fruit trees that require more protection from the winds in there. It’ll all be a waste, if the deer just come in and eat them! We’ll have to figure out the best way to protect things, while still following our plants to turn some of the tree stumps into benches, seats and tables. My long term goal is to create a little park-like sanctuary in the area behind the stone cross, surrounded by rose bushes and dogwood, and whatever wildflowers re-emerge once things are cleared out and the ground starts getting more sunlight again.
So… deer, racoons, groundhogs, squirrels and birds are all critters we’ll have to take into account. Probably black bears, too. They haven’t shown up in our yard, but one of my neighbors about a mile away from us had them raiding and destroying his bird feeders all last summer. With the drought, they were pretty desperate for food.
More reason to plant forage trees, well away from the house. Near the newly dug out gravel pit, which should be able to hold a lot of water for a much longer time now, would probably be a good place. If they have enough food and water elsewhere, they won’t have reason to come close to were people are.
Much to think about and plan around!
The Re-Farmer
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Our 2022 garden: lost?
Well, that “blowing snow advisory” has certainly been valid.
My husband noticed the piebald deer heading for the kibble house again, so I figured that was a good time to empty the kitchen compost bucket – and get her away from the kibble. When I opened the door from the sunroom, pausing to take this photo, she just stared at me until she saw me moving outside.
I don’t think she appreciated the interruption of her snack!
I topped up the kibble for the cats, while I was out.
Since it was a quick run to the compost pile, I hadn’t bothered putting on a coat. It was only -12C/10F, after all!
Of course, that didn’t take the wind chill into account. I don’t know what it was at the time, but we’re at -13C/9F right now, and the wind chill is -23C/-9F. Brrrr!!!!
But I’m thinking of spring as we tend the seedlings. I’d mentioned in my last post that the seedlings in the mini-greenhouse were not looking well, so I decided to get some photos to show what I meant.
At which point I discovered I’d forgotten to drop and zip closed the front of the plastic cover.
Much to my surprise, the cats have made no attempt to go into it! Perhaps they’ve satisfied their curiosity already. I decided to leave it open, for now.
These are the Cup of Moldova seedlings that got potted up as we thinned them out. They are actually looking worse now than this morning, and I don’t know why. They had been doing quite well after being transplanted, then suddenly… this.
Were they over watered? Too hot in the mini-greenhouse? Not enough light? Not enough air circulation? Any or all of the above? I have no idea. I’m hoping that leaving the front of the cover open will be helpful.
The Sophie’s Choice that got eaten are… well, the two that were down to just stems are dead, but the ones that still have leaves on them… I don’t know. They might still survive.
These are the ones that got repotted after a cat lay on and crushed the original pots they were in. They actually are doing better than anything else in the mini-greenhouse. The damage done to them is more visible now. Surprisingly, the peppers and eggplants that got the most shmooshed are doing pretty good! The remaining tomatoes are showing damaged leaves, but beyond that, they look like they will recover.
I guess we’ll see over the next few days, how many are complete losses, and how many will survive.
The Re-Farmer
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Good morning, kitties!
I just had to laugh when I came into the sun room this morning, and found Potato Beetle, curled up in the window.
My attempt to take a photo disturbed him.
Gosh, he looks like such a grizzled old man!
He’s only three.
Since we’ve been keeping the sun room doors propped slightly open to allow access to the working heated water bowl, he seems to be spending most of his time in there – if he can claim their favourite bed before one of the other cats gets into it!
In total, I spotted 15 cats this morning. Even Ghost Baby flashed momentarily into view before disappearing again.
I had a bit of a surprise this morning. After finishing with food and water for the cats, I popped into the sun room to get seeds for the feeding station. When I stepped outside again, I was startled by a loud HUFFFFFF!!
The piebald deer had just wanted into the people gate in the chain link fence. I think we startled each other, and she was warning me off! :-D
This is the first time I’ve actually heard a deer make a noise.
It was funny to watch her as she ran down the shovelled paths to towards the back of the garage, then across to the compost pile, huffing away at me every now and then, before running into the spruce grove. There, she and another deer that was already there, stopped to watch while I put the feed out.
I later saw three of them at the feeding station, watching me as I moved around in the outer yard.
I got the burn barrel going again and, as usual, had company.
I don’t know why, but Agnoos just LOVES it when we are at the burn barrel. He rolls around in the snow, usually at our feet, asking for attention. Of all the outside cats, Agnoos seems to be the one that wants human attention the most, but never so much as while we’re tending the burn barrel!
I wasn’t able to stay out too long, though, as it started to snow. We were already at -5C/23F this morning, and are holding there for most of the day, but we are now under a “blowing snow advisory”.
Unfortunately, for all the shoveling on the roof my daughters did, the warmer weather has resulted in leaking at one of the windows upstairs. *sigh* We need a new roof so badly! We have the leak upstairs, and right now the ceiling in the sun room has icicles hanging from it. :-(
We’re supposed to cool down to between -10C/14F and -15C/5F over the next few days, so that should stop the leaking for a while, at least.
The Re-Farmer
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Deer visitor, and seedling status
I guess I was just too disruptive this morning, because I wasn’t able to get any pictures of the outside cats! We’re expecting another warm day, so I wanted to make sure the sidewalk was scraped and cleared, so the concrete can warm up in the sun and melt away any remaining ice and snow.
The deer didn’t seem to mind! I saw a group of three, before I headed out, then my husband saw the usual pair, before the piebald finally came around. We are definitely seeing a lot more deer lately, all over. Sadly, that also means we’re seeing more on the side of the highways, that had been hit by cars. I’ve lost count of how many bald eagles I’ve seen, scavenging the carcasses. I’ve never seen as many bald eagles as I have this year – and it’s only the beginning of March!
While checking and tending our seedlings, I was happy to see the 4 new Canteen gourd seedlings are growing very quickly. I had been wondering about the on luffa that started to sprout, but hasn’t gotten any bigger, so when I had the chance, I checked it out.
Oh. This would be why it’s not growing.
That little bit of seedling had been right against the side of the pot, but when I touched the leaves, it fell right out.
So far, there’s just the one luffa seedling we have, which seems to be surviving the cat damage all right. I’m not as sure about the one Canteen gourd in that tray, but with that one, we at least have 4 new sprouts. Aside from the one seedling that did not succeed, there is no sign of more luffa germinating. We still have luffa seeds, so I’m thinking of adding more to the pots to try again.
The seedlings in the mini-greenhouse seem to be struggling, and not just the ones with cat damage. I suspect part of the problem is that we have to keep the plastic cover on it, to keep the cats out. I’ve put the little fan we’ve got, inside the mini-greenhouse, so there is at least going to be air circulation. They may be getting over watered, too. We’ll have to watch out for that.
In other things, I got word from the garage about my mother’s car. It’s ready to be picked up. He checked it over, reset the codes and found nothing wrong with it. Most likely, the check engine light and codes were triggered by changing out the battery. Which is a relief to hear, but I still don’t know what made that “pop” noise when the car died! We’ll head in this afternoon to pick it up and hopefully, I’ll have a chance to talk to him about it.
It’ll be good to have the car issues over and done with for a while!
The Re-Farmer
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Hard Crab Apple Cider follow up – I am the queen of procrastination!
We’ve had a busy day outside our living room window!
We’ve had quite a few deer visiting the feeding station, and just plain hanging out. The piebald has been standing around the old junk pile (maybe we should start calling it something else, since we cleared out the junk and there’s just old stacked boards now), chillin’ for at least a couple of hours. Others have just been wandering around the area, sometimes at the feeding station, sometimes nibbling lilac twigs, sometimes among the spruces, nibbling whatever underbrush they happen to be next to.
Keith had front row seating to watch them all, with his ever tragic expression!
Now that Saffron is gone, other cats have been sitting on the warm light fixture over the seedlings. Especially Fenrir and, pictured above, Beep Beep.
It must feel nice on their still nekkid bellies!
Today, I finally got around to sterilizing bottles and equipment, and bottling the second carboy of hard crab apple sider.
The one I meant to bottle months ago!
The other other we had fermenting was bottled back in August. If you follow that link, the post has links to the whole process of making it, starting from when we picked the apples back in September, of 2020. We had no apples in 2021, so no new crab apple brews of any kind, sadly.
So… yeah. This carboy has been fermenting since September of 2020.
When the other carboy was bottled, we didn’t do a hydrometer reading, so I did that from the last bottle we’ve got of it, while preparing to bottle the second batch.
I really hate doing hydrometer readings. I can’t read the tiny numbers and have to take pictures to be able to see them – but the camera does NOT want to focus on the hydrometer.
Anyhow.
After – hopefully – reading the hydrometer right, the ABV calculator I’ve got came to 10.5% Alcohol By Volume.
For the second carboy, I did a reading before starting to bottle, and the calculation came to 11.8% Alcohol By Volume.
Not too shabby!
The jug we’re using as the carboy after racking the initial brew was repurposed from a 3L wine bottle. I was able to fill three 750L bottles, plus a 250ml bottle, before it was down to the dregs.
Of course, we had to do a taste test to compare the two.
The first thing you’ll notice in the pictures, is that the cider I was about to bottle is a darker colour compared to the one already bottled.
The previously bottled cider had a strong, almost bitter, taste to it. It tasted stronger of alcohol, too, though it had a lower percentage.
The newly bottled cider had a fruitier, smoother taste.
Both tasted good, but I prefer the one that stayed in the carboy for 1 1/2 years. That extra 7 months seems to have made a positive difference.
I do hope we have crab apples this year. I look forward to making this again!
The Re-Farmer
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Kibble thief!
We had a pretty good notion that deer were finishing off the water in the heated water bowl. Sometimes, all the kibble would be cleaned out, and we were pretty sure a skunk has been coming by. They don’t completely hibernate in winter, and I’ve seen a big on on the security camera live fed, every now and then.
While in the kitchen, I noticed the piebald deer standing in one of the cat paths, in front of the house. The other two deer were at the feeding station. The piebald usually drives them off, but when she disappeared, but the two were still at the feeding station, I looked around to see where she went.
No, it wasn’t the compost pile, as I’d expected.
She was in the kibble house!!
My daughter was able to sneak quietly into the sun room and get a bunch of photos.
Even Tuxedo Mask seems to be wondering what the heck it going on!
What a thief!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 