A Whole New Yard to Shape

Late Aug. 2015, I moved into this little house in north Lethbridge. It was a big move. New town, new home, new job and new circumstances. I didn't have a lot of time to get to know the yard or do anything to it.
This summer, I discovered the place needs shade! Lots of shade. The grass in back was more weeds than grass and that's not exaggerating.

From the back of the yard - raspberry patch, weed patch and walk

The back of the house faces south west and bakes all afternoon in the sun. On those days when the temp hits 32C, the house heats up like an oven.
The house itself, really isn't worth spending $1,000s on to correct that from the inside, so YARD WORK!


First, I thought I'd just plant some shrubs and perennials. Then I found out that many fruit trees are short and so can go under power lines.
WHOO HOO!

So, I bought some and installed them.

The reason the grass looks dead is because I'm killing it.

Installed shrubs and a plum tree. 

While I knew I had to wait for growth, I began to notice that when we sat outside, we sat on the grass in front of the garage because it was too hot on the patio by the house. That led me to think about how a patio is a heat sink right up against the house too. That may be fine in winter, but not a Lethbridge summer. Also, we were avoiding it, so clearly, it was in the wrong place.
I hired a landscaper to do the heavy lifting and now it looks like this.

 

The bonus here is that the new tree is 1) a cherry tree, 2) in line with the peak of the house and 3) positioned between the wires that go from electric pole to house and house to garage.

The Uh Oh is that I have a whole bunch of open dirt. So, potatoes and squash will be abundant at my house next fall. :) 

Now the backyard has
a plum tree positioned to shade the back door,
a cherry tree positioned to shade the tallest part of the house
a lilac positioned for the wind to blow its scent in the back window

2 high bush cranberry bushes BECAUSE I CAN
the old raspberry patch
the strawberry rhubarb patch
and flower beds taking shape all around the perimeter of the yard.

The front yard got some new plants too. There is a pear tree in the front yard and some shrubs for the same reason. I need the shade and because I can. Mmmmm pears.

The shrubs are a bit hard to see here,
but you can see the squash plants
around their bases.

Taking in the orphans

This is what they looked like when they arrived at my house.
This is after an initial bath at the shops

Last Monday, June 20, I went out to the research site to help with some of the work. We started with lunch in the shops where the sound of kittens mewing was overwhelming. I knew there were kittens, but I didn't know the story of the kittens.

They are very young orphans. They can't feed themselves or get into the adult litter box. When I saw them, rather than wanting to cuddle them, I wanted to walk away quickly. They were filthy and clearly not going to make it without major intervention.

Over lunch, I found out most of the staff were concerned, but didn't know what to do for them. I'm no expert, but figured I could do better than that situation. After lunch, Dawne and I bought syringes to feed them and bathed them, but we didn't have warm water. So it was a quick dip to get the worst off so we could hold them to feed them. They seemed strong enough, but clearly needed mothering.
So, I brought them home. 

Kenzie trying to top up hungry kittens.

Now lucky for me, but not so much her, Kenzie is staying with me right now. She's on the kitten day shift by default; which I acknowledge is unfair to foist 3 kittens on anyone, but Kenzie is a trouper and kind and hasn't shot me yet.



We made the kitten formula Shirley from Lethbridge No Kill Animal Association (NOKA) taught me last fall and set about feeding them... often. By around 9 pm we figured we had them full and gave them a thorough bath. Because they're so small, Kenzie got out her blow dryer and I cuddled them while she waved it over them. They looked blissful for the first time at that point. All fell asleep and stayed that way over night.


They seemed to be doing well and getting stronger until Thursday. It was a hot day and by evening, the little orange guy was a limp rag. He kept trying to crawl into a corner to die. The little grey guy wasn't much better. Oddly, little blackie, the runt was doing fine.
We called in emergency medical help from NOKA. This is the group I worked with last fall.

I'm tempted to call him Fred for some
reason, but I should probably check with
my brother Fred before I do that.

Sue came by and gave little orangey water under the skin or a subcutaneous water injection. He didn't look much better when she left and grey was a bit of a sorry sight too. She checked them all over, guessed their age at 3 weeks and wished us luck. I was so grateful she had come. 
None of us expected to see little orangey alive by morning and little grey didn't look like he'd make it much longer. 
I prayed. For the record, I can count the number of times I've prayed in my life. I remember them all. I save prayers for times when I really mean it.
Then around 9 pm, little orange guy came bouncing out of the kitten room and hopping across the floor like nothing had happened earlier! So Kenzie sat for the next couple of hours and dribbled water into little grey.

Friday morning, I opened the door to the kitten room not sure who would be alive. All 3 little fur balls came trotting toward me mewing for breakfast. So I fed them, but made them all take 2cc water before I gave them milk.
Friday night, Shirley came by and fixed us all up. She gave us 10cc syringes that the kittens can suck on easily, she gave us nutrient rich kitten formula and the kittens a clean bill of health. 
Since then they have done really well. They are eating, sleeping, using the litter box and playing with each other. Before, they cried all the time because they were never quite full and weren't defecating well (you have to help them at this age - Yeah!).

So, we'll see from here. They are still very, very young to be without a mom. Shirley says she's raised lots of orphans and there's no reason these guys shouldn't make it. Everybody pray now and Kenzie and I will do our best at this end. 

Apples

I’m reading a book right now by Bill Bryson called At Home, A Short History of Private Life. I’m not quite halfway through. The book is about human habitations and how they’ve changed over the centuries and why. For example, when he talks about the cellar, we learn the history of cement among other things. 

It’s an interesting book if you like random information about human history. What strikes me though is that all the world conquering that takes place even today is only about one thing. Did you guess oil? You’re wrong. It’s all about food.

The history of the modern world, in fact human existence, has always been about finding or growing more food. Slavery, exploration, colonies, war, science, community – all these things build from the bottom of Maslow’s famous pyramid.

Jared Diamond writes fascinating, if somewhat difficult to read, books about human development. I live in the First World, so I get to operate at the top of that pyramid. Diamond will tell you that humanity didn’t even know about the top of the pyramid until we had cities large enough to support people who didn’t have to spend all day, every day working on those bottom two rungs.

Also, because I live in the First World, I am back on the very bottom rung looking at food. Listen to what Caleb Harper says about apples in the first minute of this TED Talk.

He mentions that the average age of an apple in a US grocery store is 11 months old. Then he tells us how “they” preserve the apples to make this possible.

Not too long ago, I saw a video of someone pouring boiling water over a fresh apple and collecting the water in a clear bowl underneath. The water distinctly showed wax floating on top. I had noticed that the water had wax in it before she started though, so I was skeptical about the severity of the problem.

But, this was something I felt I could repeat at home. So, I did. My bowl of water didn’t have nearly the amount of wax as hers, but look at the apple! It was the same as the one beside it before the boiling water trick.

Don’t ever tell me not to peel my fruit, Ever, again. Because people will tell you that peeling is wasteful and the bulk of nutrition is in the rind of anything. So is the bulk of whatever the food industry did. (I could write a whole other blog about terminology such as the Food Industry)

This is likely a First World problem (as the kids like to say), but that could be because fresh fruit in winter is a First World problem. It’s why our ancestors learned how to preserve food in the first place. Even when I grow my own food, I can’t keep it fresh between harvests.

So, we’ve bred fruit that can travel and come up with ways to keep it looking fresh 11 months after it’s picked.

We did the same thing somehow with chickens to have fresh eggs all year round too. Think about that for a second. Birds don’t lay eggs year round in the wild now do they? 

I’ve got that song from the musical Oliver Twist running in my head, Food, Glorious Food 

I have a life-long relationship with food preparation. I made my first bread when I was 12 and I’m one of the few people I know that still makes almost all my own bread. I cooked professionally for years.

Here’s what worries me about where we are with food today. If you live in a city in a northern climate, you are not food secure. To survive a breakdown in our food system, you need a stash that will last at least a year and you need to know how to grow food, look after animals or hunt and have the equipment and knowledge to preserve food. Otherwise, you’re hooped. 

Meanwhile, everyone is up in arms over GMOs. So, are GMOs bad?

I have no idea and, frankly, don’t care. Because we have much bigger problems to tackle than singling out one way we’ve changed our food over the past 100 years.

Peas in the field

And look at what Caleb Harper thinks we should do! I’m pretty sure the soil microbiologists would knock a few holes in his idea in seconds! How do you support the human micro biome by feeding it food that has never met the planet’s micro biome? Hmmmm

Food security is a basic need and a hugely complex modern issue. But maybe I just think so because I like to cook and garden.

I mean look what the younglings are into https://www.soylent.com/

Could be my age. Remember this?