It Rained! and Baby Raccoons!

Hi Everyone! 😊

Guess what? WE GOT RAIN!!! Not much, a passing thunderstorm that lasted maybe 10 minutes!

But it was enough to water my raised beds and we are expected rain almost every day this week. I'm so grateful. Alex and I went out for a walk in the rain, it was pretty romantic! 💕

My 'taters are growing well, now I need to figure out how to "hill" them properly. I used to grow potatoes in garbage bins and tires so adding more dirt as they grew was easy. I may have to add some wood to my raised beds to make them taller.

We got our appliances!!! Our fridge is up and running but it's EMPTY. I haven't had time to shop! So we're still eating sandwiches for dinner, last night it was subs with braised mushrooms, Jarlsberg cheese, tomatoes and lettuce. We had some ice cream sodas last night, what a treat to cool us off! (sorry for the blurry photo! I was in a hurry to eat lol!)

Whenever I have a spare moment, I'm researching. This time it was about our well. I have realized that we have what's considered a "low yield well" and it's directly related to the fact that the well has been dug through the bedrock where there is very low groundwater. It's not the end of the world, it just means that we can get enough water to meet our needs over say, a 24-hour period - but water on demand is a thing of the past. I can't take a shower, flush the toilet, do dishes, then do a load of laundry or the well runs dry. I can do a load of laundry at 9am and then take a shower around noon and do dishes at 2pm and we're okay. Flushing the toilet is an interesting thing...our toilets really draw lots of water, low-flow toilets are probably in our future! 

We're figuring things out and scheduling our water needs for now, but in the future, we are looking into installing a 500-gallon holding tank for water. This will run between the well and our pipes so that we don't run out of water when we have "high demand" periods. 

Funny. Taking a shower, doing some dishes and watering the garden used to be a no-brainer. Now I see how much water we used to waste when it used to flow so easily! My eyes are opening to how precious fresh water is.

Yesterday I was taking the dogs out back and they all lunged in one direction and started to sniff up in the air. There were three baby raccoons in the trees! Two of them were high up a pine tree, hanging like monkeys...it was so windy we were worried they might fall but they were playing and having a grand old time.

The third one was halfway up the tree taking a nap.

We left some food and water at the base of the tree then periodically snuck over to see what they were up to. Sleepy head woke up from his nap.

And down he came from his coniferous bed. Alex took this photo. We didn't want to scare the babies so we went inside and the next thing we knew they were gone. Mama Raccoon was nowhere to be found...We set up the trail cam today and put out some more food, maybe we'll catch them coming back for a nibble!

Canada Day is July 1st. I do love my country, especially the province that we chose as our home. We are so happy here. I'm a little emotional when I type this: I have never felt safe enough to fly the Canadian flag. I used to live in a province that (mostly) hated the English and hated Canada. You rarely saw a Canada flag up because more likely than not, that flag would either be stolen, vandalized or burned. I kid you not. This didn't happen in the urban areas and big cities, but it was well known in the rural areas that if you put up the red and white, it wouldn't be welcomed.

I put up my first Canada flag yesterday. Yeah, it's a dollar store polyester one, but my pride was shining and I have no fear that it will be taken from me. Happy Canada Day to my fellow hosers! 😉 Freedom is also very precious!  🍁