Can you help?

After yesterday's post about some 'unfriendly' visitors, I happened to be outside last night when they started up a chorus.  Can you help me identify these critters?

I think the yipping is a coyote, but I'm not sure about the deeper howl - is that also a coyote?

On a different note, Zim recently had a swollen ear and face, and started vomiting.  We figured that it was an allergic reaction of some kind, but we weren't sure of the cause.  But last night, on the way to visit the chickens, we walked past two trees that had a slight humming around them, and Zim started to dance.  He stomped his feet, jumped around, rolled in the grass, and frantically scratched himself.  Based on this evidence, I suspect he was stung by something, and is allergic to whatever that was.

He's now back to eating small amount of rice, and we'll manage his food quite closely over the next few days.  The swelling has also gone down to the point that it is barely perceptible, and requires much ear and face rubbing to detect.  Luckily, his breathing and bloodflow weren't affected, and he's still just as energetic as always, even though at the time I took this video he'd only eaten 1/4c of rice in over 36 hours.  All in all, he's on the mend.

Visitors

Work continues on the house - Jordan is mostly done sanding, and we should be washing the house by the end of the week.  I've not been much help, unfortunately, as we've had a few visitors lately, which means a few weekends off for me!  (Jordan has some time off coming up, so he'll get his chance to relax as well!)

My friend Steph came up from Ye Olde Stomping Grounds for a weekend in July.  We hit a few of the local parks, played a round of mini golf, made kale chips, and lazed about.  It was a wonderful time, and the timing was great too - we'd had a busy few months, but work on the house was on hold as we waited for the sandblaster, so a weekend off was both needed and permissible.

Waterfalls!!!

This past weekend, some of my extended family came up for a visit - my grandfather, aunt, and a cousin from my mother's side of the family.  We spent Saturday at the farm, generally taking it easy with a game of "guess that tree" (we couldn't identify it, other than that it's a kind of pine), a wander to the berry picking spots (we found some highbush cranberries, discovered that the birds have eaten the rest of the saskatoons, and braved the wild roses to pick some thimbleberries), some lounging on the deck, and finishing with a fabulous dinner outside as the sun set and a fire.  Sunday we ate breakfast at my favourite restaurant, enjoyed a round of mini golf and a few laps around the go-kart track, and had another delicious supper outside.

My Aunt raiding our peas

Dinner!!!

Foghorn behaved very well for my cousin

Giant tires after mini golf and go-karts

Why be 28 when you can be 6?!!

We've also had some not-so-friendly visitors.  We've got a pack of coyotes hanging around, and they're brave enough that they've been out during the day to pick a fight with a neighbouring dog.  As such, the chickens haven't been outside in weeks, as we don't want to risk any getting snatched while our back is turned.  We suspect that the coyotes have one den in the field behind the barn, and another den in the adjacent field to the north.  They start howling around sundown, and we've seen a few wandering between the suspected dens; all of this activity drives Zim crazy so we've been keeping a very close eye on him as well.  Coyotes spend their whole lives scrapping, and I don't think Zim's ever been in an earnest fight in his life, so we don't want to rake any chances.

Also, something took a wander through the garden this past week and ate the tops off the beets.  So it looks like I'm canning this weekend - I'll borrow Kim's pressure canner and hopefully do all the canning inside.  If that doesn't work out, I can move out to the longhouse; it has no running water, but we can plug in the old stove and bring water in buckets from the house.

We also went on a visit last week!  We popped over to see the neighbours and the four of us had a wonderful chat.  They were able to provide us with more history of our farm and our neighbourhood, and send us a few aerial shots of the farm from 2009.  They are pretty fabulous people, and we are so lucky to have such friendly and helpful neighbours!

(c) belongs to our neighbour.  Wish the photo was bigger?  Give it a click!

Gardening - not just for home!

We have cats.  Two of them, in fact.  And these cats aren't fond of plants.  As such, I can't keep any plants at home, so I keep my plants at work instead!  Last Friday, I brought in the unused half of our computer desk and set it up so I could get all the plants off the windowsills and the various stands coworkers have donated.

Various plants on the desk, aloes below it, and fuschias off to the right.

Aloes!  The large one on the right came from Mom's aloe, which she's had for as long as I can remember.  It's sprouted another baby, and the other pots originated from this plant as well - on the top is Kim's, and to the left is one for our former landlord, which is now sprouting a baby of its' own!

L-R: Striped spider plant, ; the top of "Princess", now dubbed Princess Two, a parrot's beak; Kim's donkey's tail; Princess, the original parrot's beak; and a normal, solid green spider plant.

A bit of history on these guys:  The striped spider plant came from one plant downstairs here at work.  Princess the parrot's beak and the donkey tail both came from an event here at work, in which our greenhouse brought plants to teach us about propagation by cuttings.  Princess got pretty tall, so when she sent out a side shoot that started flowering, I lopped off her head and planted it in another pot (to try to discourage any more upward growth from putting her further off balance).  I named her Princess because she was very wilty when I got her, but she spruced right up if she had a semi-opaque bag over her to great a humid little greenhouse; whenever I took the bag off, she'd wilt again until I put it back on.  She eventually hardened sufficiently to no longer need the bag, which has now been pressed into service as Princess Two displays the same neediness.  The solid green spider plant came from a silent auction fundraiser at a previous employer.

Princess Two

Princess

Two fuschias, picked up for free - bonus spider mites included!  I'm still battling the mites, which infected Princess for a time and resulted in two other plants meeting their untimely demise: a kalanchoe and a Welsh onion, who were too infested to surive (and the onion is the suspected source of these little buggers).  So this is Mite Villa, and the fuschias can join the others once they get a clean bill of health.

I'm not currently growing any edibles at work - that's what the garden at home is for!

Peas behind the pumpkins

Two huge pumpkin plants

Red Acre cabbage

Potatoes in flower, then more cabbage, then another pumpkin

Carrots in back, then beets, then yet two more pumpkins

I want to save all the seeds from the peas that came from the seeds we planted last year, and this time I'll store them correctly - they sat in a pie tin in a window all winter, and still managed to grow, so proper storage should really help!!!  Then there are about 14 more feet of double-planted peas for us to enjoy - and some are ready for harvest.  The potatoes have been quite successful at out-competing the weeds, and the beet tops have made a few wonderful salads!

Greenhouse photos to come - our cukes are producing!!!

Naked house

The sandblasters were here on Tuesday, and our little house looks AMAZING! We also finished the two pieces of fascia that were left (with huge thanks to Kim and David for their ladder and contact extender thingy!) so we've started sanding and have purchased almost everything we need to finish the house: log wash solution, pump sprayer for application, check filler, stain, airless sprayer for application, log end seal, top coat, chinking, and the majority of our backer rod. And (hopefully without jinxing it) our weather is supposed to be very hot and very dry for the foreseeable future. I anticipate we'll encounter a challenge or two - what home improvement project would this be without a hiccup?! - but at this point I am confident we can finish this before the snow flies.