A patch of my mother’s flowers that she still constantly asks about is now in full bloom.
These are all about 3 feet tall. Can you make out the two markers hidden in them? That’s where the haskap berries are planted. The flowers are actually cleared away from around them, and they’re still hard to see! :-D
Does anyone know what these are called? I’ve tried using Google Lens on my phone, but the possibilities it offers up have included things like a type of coneflower, and even dandelions!
These pictures were taken yesterday, with the top one taken just as it was starting to rain. By the time I was out again and took the second one, it was bright and sunny again. For all the thunder and winds, we didn’t get much rain at all. More than we have in a while, to be sure, but it’s a good thing I needed to empty the patched rain barrel by the garden, because I still needed to water the squash beds.
I would really like to know what it is about where we live that pushes storm systems away. Watching the weather radar, the storm did not miss us. It passed right over. My mother told me they had a solid downpour at her place, yet we had only a light rainfall.
Microclimates can be strange and perplexing things!
Today started off very well, so I’ll start with that, too!
I’m happy to say that the new bed has made a huge difference. There must be something about no longer being so close to the floor, because I slept like a rock – for almost 11 hours!
Which meant I got a late start to doing my morning routine.
The kittens were in fine form this morning!
They found perfectly kitten sized places to hang out, about it all!
These little nooks exist only because the area under the entryway was walled off to make the root cellar. The ceiling there is slightly lower than the rest of the basement, so the top ledge there is actually level with the entryway floor, while below is the root cellar wall.
The upstairs cats wanted to play, too.
In the one photo, you can see David’s nose – and the glowing eye of another cat!
I’m going to have to delay doing the kitten stuff until there are others available to come down at the same time. Saffron and Turmeric got upstairs before I could close the door, while David, Cheddar and Two Face made it downstairs. While wrestling her kittens downstairs, Beep Beep went up and stayed there. I only saw three kittens, though, so I started looking around for Leyendecker and Big Rig. I realized Leyendecker had also snuck upstairs, when I saw tiny little black and white paws going past – right about where you can see David’s nose in the above photos. :-D So I got him down, but I still couldn’t find Big Rig. I feared she may have gotten into the old part basement, but after some searching, my daughter found her curled up asleep, under the bed frame. The box my husband’s computer came in had a cardboard divided that fits under there perfectly, and they use it to sleep in. I’d pulled it out, but apparently not enough, and never saw her. I felt no weight, and didn’t think to pull it out all the way! It was a relief to find her. Once we managed to get the adult cats out, we were able to treat the babies with some wet cat food, then persuade Beep Beep to come down again.
Once outside, I was joined by Creamsicle and Butterscotch.
Lots of things are blooming now.
More wild roses are blooming now.
I also checked on, and counted, the sunflowers.
I counted 30 this morning, with some having just broken ground. We also lost more; in one spot where I was sure there was a seedling growing, I checked more closely, and found the remains of a stem. :-(
I was very happy to find this. Last year, I spotted two little bunches of red berries on this bush. Using the magic of the internet, it turns out to be a cranberry bush.
It was not planted there deliberately.
This is another of the things that are getting more light, after I cleared away trees from the fence line. Last year, that resulted in this bush having just a few berries. This year, it is covered with clusters like this! I am thrilled to see them!
These are tiny wild strawberries growing at the base of a dead tree in the maple grove. We need to be weeded with great care, as the other growth is so close, it’s hard to pull them up, without also pulling up the strawberries.
This will require a lot of time set aside (after being liberally covered in bug spray) for delicate weeding. At some point, I’d like to transplant them to a better location, but transplant wild strawberries is another delicate thing!
I don’t know what these flowers are, but I really like them! Near them are some lilies that are full of buds.
The hawthorn my mother planted as a “living fence” bloomed so fast, I missed it! Berries are starting to form now.
I’ve read that hawthorn berries are edible. We might try something with them, one of these days.
My mother’s white roses and double lilacs planted near the old kitchen and sun room as looking good. The lilacs are almost done their blooming time, but the roses are just covered with buds!
After making sure it was okay with my mother first, checking to make sure there was nothing she wanted saved, I completely covered and mulched the old kitchen garden, two years ago. You can see what it was like when we started here (back when I thought the ornamental apple trees were cherry trees, because that’s where the original cherry tree had been planted, years before). As I cleaned up, you can see in this post, just how much the above flower had spread all over. I got it to the point where I could lay down a layer of cardboard, and finally cover it all in mulch. The idea was to basically kill off what was already growing there (especially the invasive vines we were finding all over the place!), and eventually use the space to grow vegetables and herbs that we use most.
After I finished all that, my mother suddenly started talking about some blue flowers that were there that she wanted me to keep, because they reminded her of flower that grew in Poland, when she was a child. I reminded her that she’d given me the okay to get rid of everything! Still, some things have worked their way through the mulch, including her little blue flowers, so she was happy to see them and asked me to save some. Which I can do. :-)
After I’d finished my rounds, I called my mother, then went to help her do a grocery shopping trip. That went quite well, and I was happy to be able to help her stock up on the bigger items she would normally have to pay to get delivered.
It was when I got home that things started to go wrong.
I had just driven through the gate and stopped the van so I could close it again, when I saw someone in my rear view mirror.
It was our vandal.
He’d seen me go by and came over.
He then proceeded to yell verbal abuse at me – all while recording me closing and locking the gate – from where he stood. I just ignored him while taking care of the gate, and he eventually just walked away, but he was yelling loud enough that the girls came out to see what was going on.
Based on past experience, from long before we moved out here, I knew I had to sit down and write down exactly what happened to record it. While I was in the middle of that, I got a call from my brother. It seems our vandal went straight from hurling verbal abuse at me, to calling my brother – who was at work – and verbally abusing him. There were things he said to both of us, though, that got us wondering about a triggering event. Once I had the chance, I called my mother.
Sure enough, it went back to her. He had left another abusive message on her answering machine, and she made the mistake of calling him back. She’d left a message, basically asking what he wanted from her, and they ended up speaking in person. He told her that he wanted to sell the farm and split up the money, part of which he believes he is entitled to. The farm, however, is supposed to stay in the family name, and that’s why she transferred the ownership to my brother. We had been trying to keep that quiet, but it’s public knowledge now. We have the same arrangement with my brother that we had with my mother. We are taking care of the place for him. So now we know, by his own words, that our vandal was pressuring my parents to change their wills for years, just so he could sell the farm to line his pockets.
This revelation explains why he started showing up recently on the trail cams, giving us the finger. He thinks something has been taken from him. I’m still a target, since we live here, and he believes the things that are here belong to him. Of course, he’s got his own place, so there is no reason anything of his should be here. He’s also the reason so many things disappeared over the years, and especially while the place was empty for 2 years.
Now that he knows about the transfer of ownership, it’s hard to say how he will continue his harassment. At least when it came to ownership of the farm, there was some predictability. Now that he knows the farm belongs to my brother, not my mother, he’s going to be coming up with something new. The only thing we can be sure of, is that he won’t stop. He’s become obsessed with this place, and my family living here.
*sigh*
Ah, well. It’s still better than what we left behind by moving here. We just have to worry about one crazy person, now. :-/
Well, when it came to the mad dash to get the lawn mowing started, it was mosquitoes 0 : rain 1 :-D The bug spray actually worked this time. :-D Thankfully, I didn’t have to charge the battery on the riding mower, and could get started on that right away. I got rained on a bit, but it wasn’t until I was using the push mower to get the edges that the rain started falling heavily enough I had to put the equipment away.
I’m also happy to say that the lawn mower bag we found in the basement and moved to the barn is for this push mower, rather than one of the many broken ones lying about. It’s a rear bag, and normally I would have closed the cover of the side opening, but that wasn’t an option. Someone built a sort of shield of wood that holds the flat up, while also preventing clippings from spraying towards whomever is pushing it, and the shield is bolted to the body of the mower. I don’t mind it being open, since most of the clippings goes into the bag anyhow. I kept the folding wagon close by to empty the bag into, and was able to fill it before I had to stop due to rain. This will make it so much easier to have grass clippings for mulching and composting! :-)
Later in the evening, before I headed outside to do my rounds, I paused to check the indoor plants. Particularly the aloe that has started to bloom.
It had a surprise for me!
Not only has one of the flower spikes reached the ceiling, it’s pressing against it, and looks like it has more growing to do!
Outside, there were more blossoms emerging. The crab apples are starting to bloom.
This is from one of the trees in the West yard.
You can really tell that these ones get more light than the ones planted North of the spruce grove.
Earlier in the month, I had spotted some fungal growth on one of the apple trees by the spruce grove. Now that the leaves are in, I can see that the entire section of that tree is dead. There are still two sections of it growing, and seem to be healthy, so far, so we’ll see how it fares after I remove the dead section. (update: after taking a closer look, the living sections aren’t going that well, after all. :-( )
Of course, I visited the kittens, and got thorough and viciously attacked by little critters!
Big Rig looks even bigger when she’s next to Saffron, who is the teeniest of the bunch.
Now that they’re bigger, and occasionally stay still long enough for me to check, it looks like we’ve got three females and two males. Big Rig, Turmeric and Saffron seem to all be female; it’s a bit surprising, since orange tabbies are usually male. Leyendecker and Nicco both appear to be male. With Leyendecker being black, it’s even harder to tell with him! :-D
If all goes well, tomorrow, I’ll be able to get either the rest of the mowing done, or the rest of the planting done. Maybe even both, weather willing.
I completely forgot about the pumpkin seeds my mother gave me. It’s quite late for direct sowing pumpkins, but I’ll give them a try. Checking the seed trays, some of the gourds are most definitely emerging! After the trays were knocked over, they’re all mixed up, but none of the gourds had sprouted at all yet, so the new ones can’t really be anything else.
I used more of the soil mix for the sunflowers than I expected, so I think I will pick up more, the next time I’m in town. We still need to get those chimney blocks outside, to use as planters for the cucamelon transplants. The plan had been to take them through the new part basement, and up the stronger stairs, but with the kittens down there now, and always under foot, we’ll have to find a way to get them up the more rickety old basement stairs.
Once again, I am thinking of how great it would be to convert the old chimney for the wood burning furnace into a dumbwaiter! :-D
Once the blocks are in place, I plan to fill the bottoms with grass clippings and straw, then top it with a soil mix. With more squash to transplant, I don’t have enough of the soil mix left for it all.
It’s all coming together rather nicely, I think. I look forward to seeing how everything does.
I spoke to my mother today, and was telling her about what we’ve planted and where. Of course, she had to start telling me what I should be planting, none of which is what I am planting. She is currently fixated on onions. I should be planting onions. Also, I should be using the chives (which are coming up nicely) in salads. Also, I need a tiller. Because digging holes for the sunflower seeds is… and she stopped herself before saying it, though I could still here the word “stupid” hanging in the air. :-D I had told her about my wanting to go with no-till methods, and the use of straw, and she told me that she’d never seen anyone do that before. Straw is only for strawberries, not for anything else. It’s rather funny, how she is so convinced that the way she did things is the ONLY way to do things! Nobody else ever did anything different. :-D As for the old garden area, I reminded her of the conversation we’d had about planting trees there, and how we were intending to plant fruit and nut trees. She started telling me I should get hazelnuts from the bush, for free. The problem with that is, I have no memory of where those hazelnuts are. I was little more than a toddler when I went with her to gather nuts. They may not even be there anymore. So many trees and bushes have died, over the years. So she reminded me of one place we know for sure there is a hazelnut bush. The cemetery my father and brother are buried in!
I’m not sure what she expects me to do about that. :-D But hey; at least we are in agreement on the planting of food trees!
All in all, I think it’s been a decently productive day! :-)
While cleaning up after yesterday’s winds, I did the usual circuit around the yard, including behind the storage house.
Funny how, no matter how many times we go through different areas, we still find things we missed before.
Somehow, I missed this.
It looks like someone dumped the lava rocks from their BBQ behind the storage house.
My parents didn’t BBQ. Though I do remember seeing several old BBQs in the barn at some point. I believe they are all gone now.
Well, it’s better than old cat litter and toilets, I suppose.
By the time I finished my round, this is what I’d picked up.
Yes, there is a wheelbarrow under there.
This isn’t everything, of course. Just the stuff that was big enough that they would be in the way of mowing. There will always be little stuff around. I did end up getting a rake out to pick up what was under the Chinese elm outside the kitchen window. They were all of a size I would normally leave behind, but there was so many of them, they would have hampered mowing, while also too small to be practical to pick up by hand. That, alone, half filled the wheelbarrow.
Before I started cutting down the apple tree that fell, I checked the few raspberries we have, and found this lovely Painted Lady.
I’d actually seen another, larger, butterfly first – I don’t know what kind – but it flew away before I could get a photo. This, and another Painted Lady were quite content to stay and pose for me. :-)
After breaking down the fallen tree (oh, how good it is to have my little chain saw, and a supply of chain oil!), I took a look at the next closest apple tree. It had a dead branch that I decided to take down as well, but on closer inspection, I noticed something. This tree splits into 3 major trunks, one of which had split off to make a fourth that grew straight up. The part that grew outwards had already been pruned back quite a bit, but did have new green branches growing out of it. The part growing straight up was dead. While I had noticed a few dead branches before, it was so hidden by the leaves of the rest of the tree, I didn’t see that the whole thing was dead. I was able to cut it free and untangle it from the living branches, finding it much larger than I expected. By the time I took off the dead branch, plus this dead trunk, the tree looked a lot less crowded! Which should be good for the crab apples. More light, air and room to grow.
While talking to my sister in law about their apple trees that they’ve been pruning back due to an insect infestation, she commented that apple trees seem to be very susceptible to problems. Judging from what I’ve been seeing with ours, I tend to agree. Thankfully, we don’t seem to have insect issues, but I don’t think the signs of fungus I’m seeing on so many of them is any better. :-(
My mother’s white roses by the sun room have been in full bloom for a while, and the one in the flower garden has caught up.
The bumble bees are loving them!
I’m not sure what type of bumble bee this one is. There are several types that are similar, and none of the pictures I was able to get show it well enough for me to say for sure.
This bee with the orange stripe is the Hunts Bumble Bee; also the Tricolored Bumble Bee.
Bumbles have always been my favorite bees. I remember finding a bumble bee’s nest by accident, when I was a kid. I was wandering around in the quarter section that my younger brother now lives on and noticed bees flying out of a hole in the ground. It was awesome, to sit there and watch them. Until then, I hadn’t known they had ground nests – I’d just never even thought of how they might nest before.
I wasn’t finding bees on the lilac bush at the time I took these, but WOW is that bush ever a prolific bloomer! It’s just a mass of purple, and I can even smell it while I sit in my office!
I’ve tried to find out what variety of lilac this is. I’ve found a variety that had similar flowers, but different leaves – and I’m pretty sure we do have that variety in another part of the yard! With these, I can’t be sure, but I think they might be Dwarf Korean lilacs.
With all the yard work we’ve been doing over the past while, I’ve been really appreciating all the blooms.
The ornamental apple trees and plums are long since finished blooming, but now we have all sorts of flowers, scenting the air!
Right by the sun room door is this white rose. There are others in the flower garden, but they are not as prolific as this one is!
After clearing away the vines that had climbed up the lilacs by the people gate, I could finally see that they were blooming! I’m sure my mother told me, at some point, that these were white lilacs. Not that I can remember one way or the other! So it was a nice surprise. :-)
This is the huge lilac bush with teeny, tiny leaves and flowers, that I’d cleared a maple tree out of, earlier. I’ll need to go back to this garden and finish cleaning and clearing it. It, too, is inundated with vines! There are regular lilac bushes at the other end of this flower garden.
This is also technically the “front yard”, and the door in the middle of this side of the house is the front door. Which isn’t used. In fact, I still haven’t been able to open the screen door; it’s still stuck at the base, and I don’t want to force it and break something.
If all goes as planned, though, that is the door the ramp we hope to have added will be installed at. Depending on the dimensions, it may be necessary to remove this garden.
The post in the foreground had a bird feeder on it. I took it off after I turned away from pruning a branch and smacked right into it with my glasses, knocking them askew.
Thankfully, the base was designed to lift right off. It needs to be cleaned up and repaired, anyhow. :-)
In the big flower garden, off the old kitchen, is this honeysuckle bush, in full bloom! When talking to my mother about clearing this garden, one of the things she requested as to save this bush. It was being choked out by the invasive undergrowth!
The Re-Farmer 