It’s been a rather rough day, all around, in different ways.

After I had to stop mowing to take a rest break, I started heading out to go to the post office, and then to town to pick up my husband’s insulin.

I found this.

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One of my tires was completely flat.

Thankfully, we have a full size, brand new, spare tire.

Thankfully, we have CAA!

So I phoned CAA, rather than trying to use the app or their website. With reason. I gave our address and, of course, it didn’t show up, because according to the online maps, we don’t exist. Which meant she had to fight with her system to get it to accept the address given, plus the directions to find us. This was all done by maybe 2:30. She then gave me a time of arrival of 4:25.

!!!

If it was going to take that long, by the time the tire was changed, the placed I needed to go to would be closed!

From past experience, though, I found they would get to use much quicker, so I gave the phone to my husband, then went back out to unlock the gate, then go back to the truck.

I had no clue how to get the spare tire.

After going through the owners manual, I found where the jack, which comes with tire blocks, and tools were stored. We keep the back seats up, but even so, we never saw the parts and pieces! Then I found where the tire was to be lowered from, which had a lock on it. The only key for the truck is the ignition key, and I was quite happy to find it fit the lock.

By the time the guy got to our place, I had all the lock out and the tools on the cover of the box, so he could get right at lowering the spare tire. Which was absolutely covered in gravel road dust!

Then he set to using his own much better jack to lift the truck and start changing the tire. He had a cordless driver, but the lug nuts turned out to be over tightened. That would have been Canadian Tire. When I had the oil changed, the package included a tire rotation. Which means they used an impact driver rather than a torque wrench to put the tires back on, and over did it. He had to fight with it to get them loose enough that he could finish up using his driver. Things were rusty, and no… oh, I can’t remember the name of it now…. something that keeps them from seizing… I’ll probably remember later. It wasn’t used. Later, before putting the lug nuts back on, he knocked the lug nuts against a hard surface, and I could see the rust falling out. He also showed me how the covered on the lug nuts, which are basically decorative, were starting to crack from being over tightened. Something to get taken care of before the become loose and start spinning, instead of turning the lug nuts and damaging them!

The tire was replaced in excellent time, and I was still going to be able to go to town. So I got in and started the engine…

Only to get a warning that the tire that just got changed was low on air.

Okay. It’s been sitting unused for about a year, so that’s not too surprising. It didn’t seem very low on my gauge when I pumped it up, but I guess it was low enough to trigger the sensor.

Then I started the truck again…

… and got the same warning, for the same tire I just topped up.

Which tells me the spare tire doesn’t have a sensor, so the computer has noting to read and gives this automatic response.

I’ll just have to ignore it for now.

I headed out and first stopped at the post office to pick up a parcel, then kept going to town. The CAA guy had put the flat tire into the box of the truck for me – we both looked it over but could see no obvious cause for it to be flat. My first stop was at the garage. The owner happened to walk outside just as I got there, so we chatted for a bit, and I told him about the tire. My guess is, I ran over something when I did the dump run on Tuesday. As soon as I said I’d done a dump run, he basically said the same thing.

He’ll take a look at it and text me when it’s done. Hopefully, it’ll just need a patch, and not replacement. If all goes well, I’ll be able to book an appointment to have it put back, and the spare returned where it belongs, before I head in to the city to do our stock up shopping.

Once that was dropped off, I made the pharmacy run and took advantage of the trip to run a few more errands. While I did that, my daughter was busy at home and got another 18′ log for me. We just need to get it dragged out of the spruce grove. I now have enough to frame out one of the prepared beds in the main garden.

Then it was time to head home and unload the truck, have a very late lunch, then head back outside to continue mowing.

It was while I was doing that, when I got a video call from an old friend from high school. It was only last night that I saw her share something on Facebook that absolutely stunned me, about another friend from high school. She had passed away a few days ago, but I’d heard nothing about it until then. So she called me and we talked for quite a while. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to go to the funeral. Not only is it two provinces away, but it’s on a date we’ve already made arrangements to connect with a friend that’s back in Canada from South America. I was updated on the circumstances, which made the whole thing even more shocking. Basically, the hospital killed her, by assuming treatment before doing a CT scan. Which is something that I’ve seen happen – or almost happen – way too many times. My husband is very lucky to still be with us right now, since they almost killed him three times when he developed his heart condition, as just one example.

So we’re all kind of reeling about the circumstances.

It does make you think how important it is to stay connected to the people you care about. To not put off that phone call, or that email, or that visit. Any one of us can be gone in an eye blink, regardless of our age or health or whatever.

As much as I love that we live out in the boonies and don’t have to deal with so many people all the time, it does make it harder to stay connected with the people I want to stay connected with!

Anyhow. That’s the biggest reason this day was on the rough side.

Things still need to be done, though, so after the call, I finished mowing the section of yard I was working on. The inner yard is now half done (not counting the garden area). Unfortunately, the forecast now says we’ll be getting rain starting in the wee hours of the morning, and continuing on through to Saturday morning. We’re still getting heavy rainfall warnings from the weather services. Overnight temperatures are also expected to drop, with a low of 2C/36F on Saturday night, which makes frost a possibility. The cooler overnight temperatures will just give us more time to get those low raised beds cleaned up and shifted over, and ready for planting after we pass our last frost date in June – and get the rest of the lawn mowed before it turns into hay!

We’ll see how it works out. I’m certainly not going to complain about getting rain.

The Re-Farmer