This evening, before things started to get dark, I headed outside to do my evening rounds. I remembered to bring a bowl to finally harvest some tiny Orange Currant tomatoes!
I actually dropped quite a few of them that were damaged by frost to the ground. Which means we might have some self seeded tomatoes showing up in this bed next year, which I am okay with. I still managed to get quite a few, plus a couple of Blueberry tomatoes. I even found a Manitoba tomato that was getting ripe, with no cracks in it! All over those, I’m seeing green tomatoes already cracked. The cracked ones I’d brought in before, intending to dehydrate the non-cracked portions, ended up molding almost right away and had to be composted. *sigh*
Once the tomatoes were picked, I checked the beans in the bed beside them and found a few ready to harvest. A couple of the plants have lots of developing beans still, so this will probably not be the last beans we pick from there.
While checking the main garden area, I found myself really impressed by this bolted carrot.
It is HUGE! Those flower clusters are downright massive! We’ve had carrots bolt before. Usually Uzbek Golden carrots. This one is from the Rainbow Mix carrot seeds, and I’m not sure which colour of carrot this is from. When we can finally harvest this bed, we’ll be able to see. I’ll make sure to leave the bolted carrot. If it survives long enough before it gets too cold to develop seeds, I intend to harvest them.
We’ve got at least three more mild nights before temperature drop enough that I would want to cover as much as I can, just in case the actual temperature drops lower than the forecasted temperature – again. Overall, though, we’ve possibly got almost two weeks of fairly mild overnight temperatures.
I’m really hoping for a mild winter overall. My tolerance for our typical prairie winters is getting shorter as I get older! 😄
$513.19, to be exact, but that’s not the total for the day. Just the two I got pictures of.
My younger daughter and I headed out for the city shortly after 10. Normally, we would have taken the highway that, once reaching the city, because the street that goes past all the places we were planning to hit. There is still major construction there, so we took the highway closer to us. This one passes through one town along the way, so we stopped for gas. I put in $30 in gas from half a tank, then went in to pay and gets some drinks and some beef jerky to snack on until we reached the city, since neither of us had had breakfast, while my daughter cleaned the windows. Total was about $50. The $30 of gas, at $1.729/L, brought us to just under 3/4 of a tank. The last I’d heard, gas in this town was $1.809/L, which was a drop of 9¢/L, so seeing another 8¢ drop was good to see – even if the prices are still insanely inflated.
My daughter was cleaning the passenger side of the windshield as I came back to the truck when the squeegee caught on the driver’s side windshield wiper, pulling it off the arm.
She spent several minutes trying to get it back on, but it simply would not stay. The passenger side wiper was already being held on by the pressure of the arm alone, and she finally got the driver’s side wiper to stay the same way.
That changed where our first stop was going to be. We’d intended to go to the Walmart first, this time, since we pass it before we pass the Canadian Tire, and I wasn’t planning to get anything that needed refrigeration while there.
We went to the Canadian Tire, first.
I’d meant to get only the litter pellets there, originally, but of course we had to get a pair of windshield wipers. I ended up getting a staff member to help us find the right one for our truck. We’d tried using their computer tablet by the display and got several options that didn’t make sense. While the staff member was looking it up on his computer, I got a message from my daughter saying she’d found it, based on what came up on the tablet. Which turned out to be the wrong one – a couple of inches too short, to start with! It was also a single blade in the package that cost almost $50 by itself, and we needed two. We found the one the guy had found in his system, and it was a two pack at pretty much the same price. !!! I’m glad I asked the guy!
Along the way, we spotted some AAA batteries on sale, so I picked it up. It’s just a small package and I expect to pick up a bigger one when we do the Costco shopping, but we were out at home and I needed them.
Since the wipers were an unexpected purchased, I used some of my Canadian Tire dollars against the bill. I didn’t want to use too much, as we are saving it up, hopefully to be able to use against a new pressure tank. To get the same size as what we have now would cost about $500 after taxes, so every little bit will help.
Total at Canadian Tire, $57.79
This location is attached to a mall with a food court, so we went there for “breakfast” (it was past noon by then). I ended up getting some Pad Sew at Thai Express – something I haven’t had in years – and they even gave me a 15% off coupon to use, so the total with a drink was just under $14. My daughter ended up going somewhere else and paid for her own lunch, so that didn’t come out of my own budget.
Sadly, my lunch was not as good as I remember it being, the last time I had it. It certainly wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good enough that I’ll want to get it again.
On the way out, we passed a Dollarama and went in. I’m still looking for larger mirrors to go with the small ones I got through Amazon for the decorations with shisha embroidery I want to make.
There were zero mirrors.
In the end, I did get some gold and silver glitter felt, plus we picked up some more votive candles for our stash, plus found some taper candles that would fit the church candles we brought from the old church that was burned by an arsonist a few years back, before it was torn down.
I never did go back to bring home some pews or benches. I do regret it, but had nowhere I could store them until we could clean them up and find a place for them. I hope someone else was able to take them. To properly dispose of anything in a church, what can be burned is burned, and what can’t be burned gets buried. I would hate for those beautiful, it soot covered, pews and benches got burned! I did, at least, get a pair of candle holders with red glass globes. The candle is put inside the stems, where a spring slowly pushes it up as the candle burns down. Until today, I hadn’t found straight candles that would fit inside the stems, so I made sure to pick up a package.
I got something else as well, but my mind is drawing a blank right now. 😄 Grand total was just over $12, though.
Next stop was back tracking to Walmart. This is what we got for $163.
The stuff in the smaller basket is stuff my daughter picked up herself. Originally, I only planned to get cat supplies, but got a few extra things.
The cat kibble, wet cat food and large box of XXL pee pads where on my list. Between this and what we have left from last month, we won’t need to get any more for October. We’ll be getting toilet paper at Costco, but when I saw large packages on sale, I grabbed one. Because in our family, we can never have too much toilet paper!
My daughter remembered that we were almost out of conditioner, so I got a large bottle, plus some antiperspirant – the cheapest brand – for myself. The orange yarn is for some ear warmers that fit over a baseball cap that I want to make to sell.
Grand total (including a donation to round it up) was $163.
*sigh*
My phone’s alarm went off for my scheduled painkiller while we were finishing up and I almost forgot to take it. I had my T3s with me, not the Tram-acet I’ve got only a 2 week prescription for, and my daughter got that for me while we were driving to our next stop.
Superstore.
Normally, we would go to the international grocery store, but I wanted to make it a bigger trip today, just in case our Costco trip got delayed. I was supposed to be going for surgery by the end of the month, but still haven’t heard from the cancer clinic in the city. I’ll be calling my specialist’s clinic again to see if I can find out what’s going on, since I have no idea who to call at the cancer clinic.
Plus, Superstore has some things we wouldn’t get anywhere else, including Costco.
Today, that included a free turkey. !!
This is what $350.19 looks like.
You can just barely see the frozen turkey under the cart. For the promo, the cashier apparently didn’t need to even scan it, so it isn’t on the receipt.
I do like that their receipt prints out sorted by category.
First up, under “grocery”, we got a can of roasted, salted cashews for the truck, as we try to always have some sort of food in the truck for emergencies, or for those days we have to drive around and don’t have time to stop for a meal.
The honey Dijon is for my husband, as he likes to use it as part of a dip with mayo. Normally, we get mayo at Costco, but we’re almost out, so I got one here, too. They had large bags of cornmeal at a very good price (almost $4 less than local, for the same size package). The stuffed olives are mostly for my husband, too. They had Monster energy drinks at a very good price compared to most places, so we picked up two cans each for myself and my daughters, until we pick up a case at Costco. Then my daughter spotted some Beaver Buzz. Yay! They have it again! Two flavours were on sale, so I got three cans in two flavours. We also got my husband’s favourite soy sauce, and the drink in that list was something my daughter picked out of a fridge as we were in line, for the drive home.
Under dairy, I picked up some Old Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese, some butter to last us until Costco, and an 18 pack of eggs.
I’m not sure why eggs is listed under “dairy”.
Under “frozen” (which doesn’t include frozen meats”, we’ve got some mixed berries (mostly for my husband), plus a big package of perogies.
Under “produce”, there’s a bag of Ambrozia apples that were on sale, as were the Mandarin oranges and a bag of avocados.
Next is the “meats” section. My older daughter specifically requested a sausage she wanted to use in a soup. For my husband, we got several different types of frozen chicken pieces – something he is able to cook himself, when he is able to, since his pain levels often leave him unable to eat at regular meal times. I also got a piece of frozen pork loin, plus a package of pork tenderloin.
For my seafood loving daughters, we got some frozen popcorn shrimp, frozen tilapia fillets, and fresh rockfish fillets at a “use tonight” discount price.
Under “bakery”, we got two big bags of torpedo buns, one for the freezer and one for right away, a couple of loaves of 14 grain bread, plus a tin of mooncakes as a treat.
Under “deli”, there’s just a wheel of double cream brie, at a “use right away” discounted price.
Then, there was supper for when we got home, under “home meal replacement”. A massive sandwich for my husband that will be good for at least a couple of meals for him, some teriyaki chicken sushi for myself, and my daughter picked a couple of “family size” sushi platters (one is labeled as a bento) for herself and her sister, plus three taro bubble teas for the three of us (my husband has zero interest in bubble tea).
There we have it. $350.19 after tax. Since the total was over $300, we got the free Thanksgiving turkey, too.
By the time we were done with the shopping, my poor daughter was really starting to struggle. She’d brought her cane and was needing it, badly.
Thankfully, along with my T3s, I also keep some extra strength Tylenol in my purse, so my daughter took some after we loaded everything into the truck.
I was actually doing way better than she was. My lower back was starting to go, but nothing out of the ordinary for all the walking we did, and nothing I couldn’t deal with easily. Usually, by this time, my left hip starts to give out, too. It barely ached. No cancer related pain (just some extra bleeding) at all.
Meanwhile, my poor daughter struggled just to walk to the truck!!
Thankfully, that was our last stop, other than getting more gas. I’d thought to get more in the city, thinking there would be a better price. The prices we saw in the city, however, were all $1.799/L So we skipped it until we reached the same gas station we went to this morning.
I was just under half a tank by the time we reached the gas station – from the gas station, through all the city driving, then back to the same gas station, taking the same rough, used up that $30 I put in this morning.
*sigh*
This time, I put in $40, and we got nothing else. I did, however, use some of my points to get 10¢/L off when I paid for it, so I actually paid $37.69
That put me just above 3/4’s of a tank. That extra $10 made very little difference!
I’ll do a complete fill when we do our Costco trip, and reset my trip meter for the month.
Once at home, I back up to the house and my daughters and I unloaded the truck, assembly line style, then I left them to put things away while I parked the truck in the garage. As I drove out of the yard, however, I spotted something dark, moving in the grass behand my brother’s parked trucks.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen one! We had one year, back when we could still afford to buy black oil sunflower seeds to set in the bird feeders outside our living room window, where we had several of them. They would come eat the bird seed, along with a cat or two.
Yes, we had a couple of cats that would eat bird seed.
The groundhogs caused some problems with their digging, and eating our garden vegetables. The next spring, we had massive flooding, and I think the dens they were hibernating in got flooded. Especially if there was one under our outhouse. Even in a normal spring, it floods under there. In the years since, I think I’ve seen only one or two, in about the same area as this one.
They are so cute. Destructive, but cute!
So that’s our first stock up shop for October. The grand total, give or take some change, is $684.67 That includes gas, food, the Dollarama purchases and the extra expense of having to get windshield wipers, though most of that was covered by my Canadian Tire points.
Considering what we were able to get, that’s not too bad for these days.
It also means our Costco trip shouldn’t be as big. I’ll probably get only one more bag of kibble (we still have donated kibble) for the inside cats, while for the outside cats, I expect to be getting 40 pound bags from the feed store.
Speaking of outside cats…
When doing the morning feeding, my younger daughter has been able to give the Shrine Lady kitten all sorts of skritches! She still allows it only when food it around – especially the cat soup – but she is becoming more tolerant of it.
She has the softest fur imaginable!!!
While we were heading home, my older daughter did the evening feeding – and she was able to pet the Shrine Lady, too!! Just a bit, while she was acting very offended that there was no cat soup.
When I do the evening feeding, I have started adding a couple of cartons of cat milk to the food trays in the sun room (my older daughter does not do that). I want to encourage the kitten into there, and it has apparently been working. She does have a favourite tray to eat from, outside the sun room door, but when they’ve gone out to feed the cats lately, she has been inside the room.
Progress!
Hopefully, we will soon be able to get her into a carrier, and off to the rescue for spay. They are overwhelmed and aren’t doing intakes, but she is younger and they might be able to find a space for her. Otherwise, she will come back to us.
We shall see.
Meanwhile, our next stock up trip at Costco should happen on Wednesday, the last day of the month.
Oh, and I’m happy to say that the truck was behaving – and I think we got a confirmation that the cause of that check engine light is dust in some lines. When putting gas in this morning, I used the hold-open latch that lets you let go of the nozzle until it’s either full, or the pump reaches the pre-set amount. Right away, it started clicking off, as if the sensing port was reading the tank as full. After a couple of times, I had to manually hold the lever for it to fill without stopping itself. When we had the 2007 Uplander, before getting this truck, it was doing that constantly not long after we moved here. Driving on gravel roads so often means dust gets into spaces that triggers this. The person I was talking to about it added that getting it fixed is really expensive, and it’ll just happen again, so it’s not worth the cost. It affects nothing else.
I’ll bring it up with our mechanic when I have the chance, but that seems to be the most likely thing. The only difference now is, in this truck, it triggers the check engine light. Which also means it probably won’t turn off, even if we clear the code.
The main thing is, the truck is running well. We’ve got a lot of trips to the city for medical appointments coming up over the next couple of months, and really need to be able to rely on it!
Last time, I’d gathered bush beans from the ones planted later in the season around the Arikara squash. This time, I harvested beans from the high raised bed. The plants there have considerably more frost damage, and yet are still producing!
Along with the beans, I picked the two Prolific Long Neck summer squash that looked ready.
The girls ended up using this summer squash in their roasted Arikara squash soup, which they tell me turned out very excellent. It included carrots and bell peppers from the garden, too. Not something I can even taste, but that’s okay. I had some of roasted Arikara squash separately, and made sure to taste some on its own, with no seasonings, first.
Definitely something we would be okay growing again. The flavour was mild, and smooth and stringless, with a texture much like mashed potatoes.
The girls also taste tested our first California Bell peppers before adding it to the soup, and they liked it enough that we set aside some seeds, though I still have some in the package. So we now have two varieties of peppers – these and the Sweet Chocolate – that pass the taste test with the family.
Aside from that, today was a home day, though it could have been our first stock up shopping day. My husband’s CPP Disability came in early, as it does when deposit day falls on a Monday. I was feeling well enough for the trip, but rainy days like this make me very sleepy, and my daughter is still fighting her own pain levels. We’ve decided to do the shopping tomorrow, instead.
One thing I started on today was a Christmas garland, crocheting around a purchased bead garland, 6 feet long, with lace weight white crochet thread paired with a strand of silver reflective thread, using a 3.25mm hook. I was working on the second row of the pattern, about 3/4 through, when I spotted an error…
Made about 6 inches from the start of that row.
I’d already found the same error made after about a foot and ripped the stitching back to fix it, but that just isn’t going to work with something closer to three feet. The strand of reflective yarn is quite thin, and I don’t want to end up breaking it or adding too much wear to it. Plus, the sheer length of what I’d have to undo would be difficult to keep from tangling. Just the short amount I’d ripped earlier, kinked into waves from the stitches, kept wanting to tie itself into knots.
So, I’m going to finish the second row and not do the third row I had planned on. On its own like this, the error would not be visible unless someone knew what they were looking for, but would throw the pattern of a third row off completely.
I still can’t believe I did that. The girls are still laughing at the wail of despair I made when I found it and realized where it was.
Ah, well.
I still have a fair bit to do to finish the second row, but I won’t finish it tonight. I’ll just have to make sure to tuck it away somewhere safe from that cats for the night. 😄
Today came in densely foggy. Enough that we were getting fog advisories from the weather department. While the girls were out doing the morning cat feeding, they heard was sounded like rain, but it turned out the fog had condensed on tree leaves so much that it started to “rain”, but only directly under trees!
I was feeling good today, and my plan had been to get some more progress on the sun room. It was too damp out for the things that needed to go outside. Instead, I decided to focus on jerry rigging a tool to finally work on the eavestroughs. We have three areas where it is too dangerous to get up to the eaves without proper safety equipment, which we don’t have. I’d bought a bristle brush tool to clean them from the ground, but both heads that came with the kit broke off. I also got a hose attachment. We can’t see it, but there was obviously too much debris for the hose attachment to accomplish much, plus the elbows on the downspouts kept clogging.
The brush tool’s head might be broken, but I was left with a useable handle. I repurposed some heavy gauge wire from the mesh garden bed row cover hoops that the cats bent up by jumping on it. A hoop got folded in half with the ends secured to end piece the bristle brush had been attached to, with the loop formed by the fold bent to make a hook. It’s only held with tape, but it’s the heavy duty repair tape I picked up. I figured if it worked, I could find something more permanent to use another time. Until then, this stuff is strong enough to hold it.
It worked surprisingly well. Two of the eavestroughs were particularly bad, as it’s been quite a long time since anyone has tried to clean them. There was basically compost at the bottoms of them. As well as the modified tool worked, there was only so much I could flick out with the wire hook, but I was at least able to loosen things a bit, too. Hopefully enough that the hose attachment could finally wash it away.
It was a very messy job.
I started working with the hose attachment on at the eavestrough that runs along one side of the old kitchen, then over my bedroom window, with a right angle turn where the two roof sections meet. The roof sections form a sort of channel where everything drains or falls into that corner, so it was seriously built up with debris. Being a corner, it was also very difficult to use the hook tool in the space, but I got a fair bit out.
Once I switched to the hose attachment, the first thing I focused on was the opening to the downspout to try and clear the elbows. Thankfully, I was able to get it fairly clear. The next while was spent trying to drive debris towards the opening, then forcing it through the elbows when it started jamming up again. Every now and then, I would hear a thunk as the debris would finally come free and drop down to the elbow at the bottom before finally getting washed away. I had to stop regularly to clear debris away from the opening at the bottom.
It was slow going.
I could only work small sections at a time, and had to stop to scrape with the hook tool again, several times. After about an hour of that, I got the old kitchen section – roughly 10 feet – mostly done, and had started around the corner. That corner is going to be particularly difficult to clear!
Then my alarm went off for my scheduled painkiller time. By then, I was actually start to feel it, so I knew I would have to call it a day and come back to it later. Still, I’m pleased with how much I was able to clear.
Meanwhile, I started getting messages from my SIL. They were on their way over to take the trailer of hot water tanks to the scrap yard, then use the trailer to get and bring back a water tank for their caravan. Water suitable to use for showering as well as the toilet and sinks. They’ve been using an outhouse all this time! There was already one against the storage building that they had cleaned up and put a new door on, as well as using the one in the inner yard that we’d made all pretty inside, several years ago. Definitely not something they’ll be wanting to do if they come out in the winter!
Once inside, cleaned up and medicated, I ended up helping my daughter in the kitchen.
She was trying to butcher the Arikara squash. It was fighting back.
The outer skin on that thing was definitely well cured. 😄
She managed to get it cut in half crosswise, with me helping keep it steady on the cutting board. It took a lot of strategic stabbing, then it took both of us to break it open. We made sure to collect the innards in a bowl, and I started collecting seeds while she tried to split the halves lengthwise. The knife would only go so far, and then it took the two of us pulling to break them apart.
The second image in the slide show above is the collected seeds, rinsed and set out to dry on parchment paper.
We are wanting to get a taste of this to know if we even like it, so the pieces are being roasted plain. My daughter will be using half of it for a soup that I will not be able to eat, as it will be spicy and full of fish. I prefer to eat winter squash on its own, seasoned with butter and brown sugar. My husband doesn’t like winter squash, so I’ve basically got an entire half of the squash to myself!
While my daughter was getting things into the oven, I headed out to the compost pile and found a surprise at the door. My SIL had left a bag with some items she had brought for us! I called back to my daughter to tell her that my SIL had already come to the door, then went to the compost ring. She was still close enough to hear me and came back. It turned out she had knocked on the door, but we were so buy wrestling with the squash, we never heard it. She thought I might have been resting and didn’t want to disturb us, and just left the bag.
So we had a chance to talk, and walked over to where my brother was struggling to hook the trailer up to their truck. It was not cooperating! Since I wasn’t going back in right away, I messaged my daughters about the bag by the door, so they took it in and my older daughter came out to return the bag. We talked for a while longer and got caught up on things. They won’t be staying overnight, and likely not come back during the weekend. They’ll just be coming back tonight with the water tank, dropping it off and leaving, and it might be full dark by the time they get here.
After that, it was late enough to do the evening cat feeding, so I headed in through the sun room, where I spotted this guy, tucked away in the shelf shelter.
This is Bobert. He is not very friendly, but not feral, either. He and Larence, another grey tabby, with no white on the nose, used to both hang around together a lot, but Larence seems to be among those that have disappeared. I saw very few cats around when I did the evening feeding. More show up during the morning feeding. I think I’ll try to join my daughter tomorrow morning and do a head count while she’s setting out the cat soup.
My older daughter just came by to let me know that the squash is done roasting.
Time to go and find out how it tastes!
The Re-Farmer
addendum: I almost made it – then got a message. They got to the scrap yard and almost got turned away, because they’re on strike!!! My brother explained they drove 80 miles to get there, and how where they do know about the strike? They were eventually allowed in, but only if he unloaded the trailer himself. For the amount they got back, with him having to do the work himself, it’s no wonder most people just send this stuff to the landfill. It’ll barely cover the cost of gas for the trip in that truck! That’s why I’ve been just collecting aluminum. Ferrous iron just isn’t worth much.
We had some rain, off and on, during the night, and today was mostly overcast. Overnight temperatures were quite nice, and the garden survives.
This morning was very good, on the pain scale, for myself, but not for my daughter. I headed to the garage this morning on my own, and didn’t even bother to bring the walker – though I did remember to bring the water jugs.
I always leave early, but I forget that the new location is closer enough to make a difference in travel time. I got there almost 45 minutes early.
He took the truck in almost right away.
The oil change got done and, when I asked, I found out he’d already checked the steering linkage for me when he was doing the diagnostic on Monday. All is good. We talked for a while about the check engine light. The most common fix he’s seen for that code is changing the gas cap, but we might not need to do that. It could be as simple as the cap not being on tight (we know it is), or the O ring not sealing as well. Applying some oil to the O ring would help with that. It could be dust in the EVAP system, especially since we drive on gravel roads. He described the system to me and told me about a number of other possibilities. My scan showed it as a “very common” code to come up. He assured me it won’t affect drivability. He never recommends getting work done, if it isn’t actually necessary. We can clear the code ourselves with the scanner, or it might even go away on its own.
In the end, he charged me for the oil and filter change, and an hour of labour for the diagnostic testing done on Monday. Considerably less expensive than I feared, at the start.
The whole thing was done before my actual appointment time!
I didn’t have a lot of driving after that, but I could already feel the truck felt like it was running smoother. The oil gauge was where he said it should be, and looking better than before. We’ll be doing many trips into the city next week, so it’ll get a work out, then.
I headed into town to refill the water bottles and picked up a few other little things, then headed home. My older daughter helped me with bringing the bottles in, as her sister has barely been able to get out of bed for the pain.
Later on, after I’d gone out to do the outside cat feeding, I hosed down the mats from the sun room some more, then checked on the garden. I ended up with a little harvest; just enough for a meal or two.
It’s been a while since I’ve tried harvesting, or even weeding, any carrots. The Rainbow Mix carrots are harder for me to reach, but are the one planted earlier, so I made sure to take from that row. They were a lot thicker than I expected! Then I grabbed the two Lemon Squash from the old kitchen garden. My older daughter is making a hearty potato soup for supper and made sure to include some of this!
The 10 day forecast is looking pretty good. Aside from a trip to the post office, we don’t need to go anywhere and the weather looks like we should be able to get things done outside – and finish clearing and cleaning the sun room!
My daughter and I headed into town this morning, hoping to get the truck worked on, even though I hadn’t received a message back from the garage with a time. I had my suspicions, but my daughter had something to do in town after, so I knew it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.
Oh, my. I really feel for the owner of the garage.
When we got there, he was outside, on the phone. My daughter stayed outside by the truck while I went into the office and waiting for him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying on the phone, but I could hear his tone, and it was a lot tenser than his usual laid back manner.
When he came to the office door, he was furiously texting while also apologizing. He had meant to text me back with a time, but had never had a chance to look at his schedule to tell me when. He was finally able to set his phone down on a shelf just outside the door, telling me how, after he’d had to go home yesterday, unable to work on our truck, things ended up taking hours longer than it should have. Of course, that absolutely screwed up his schedule completely.
He had just sat down at his desk and started getting his schedule out when his phone started ringing again. From where he’d left it just outside the door! He had to answer it and went outside again to talk. When he came back, he looked absolutely frazzled.
He was, of course, needing to catch up on things, and I could already see his bays were full, so there was no way we’d be getting in anytime soon. He had no openings today and, at best, could squeeze me in between other scheduled jobs. Of course, that would me us waiting in his office, since there’s nowhere else to go in the industrial park his shop is now located in. Alternatively, he had openings tomorrow.
We’ll be back tomorrow morning.
Poor guy. Yes, there was another mechanic, but there are things only the owner can take care of and, when it comes to our truck and needing to figure things out, he had taken that on himself rather than delegating.
That arranged, my daughter and I headed into town. I had forgotten our water bottles to refill, but we’ll be back to do that tomorrow. My daughter ran her errand and we were soon home.
I was feeling really good today – left the walker in the truck and didn’t even need a cane. After we had lunch at home, I headed outside to see what I could get done, as we are expecting rain.
I got the cat beds soaking in the tub finished and set out to drain and, if it doesn’t rain, dry. Floor mats got hosed down, which will need to be done again another time or two. I got the cat cage dismantled and the interlocking mat under it set out for soaking, then hosing down.
With the cat half of the sun room finally empty, I swept as best I could, but the floor washing and window washing will have to wait. Instead, I brought out all the cleaned cat beds and blankets and set them on one side, then brought all the food trays that had been removed and laid them out on the other, along with a water bowl. This way, the cats will at least have someplace warm and dry to hang out in, should the weather get wet. The wind, at least, seems to be dying down.
By the time all that was done, it was time to do the outside cat feeding. The singleton kitten would not let me touch her today, but she kept calling at me. She looks so sad without the little kittens to play with! I’m glad she’s staying close to the house now, though. Hopefully, with all the trays returned to the sun room, she will start hanging out in there more often, and the other cats won’t chase her out.
Before heading in, I did my evening rounds and checked on the garden. I watered the muskmelon, since they are under their own mini greenhouse set up. Then I noticed a strange bit of colour among the yellow leaves of the red noodle beans in the other bed.
There it is. Our single, sad, floppy little red noodle bean! I couldn’t see any others. Which I found funny because the same thing happened the first time we tried growing this variety during what turned out to be a drought year. We got just one sad little bean that year, too.
I would really like to successfully grow this variety, but I think I’ll wait a year or two before I try again.
I was still able to get a little harvest for today, though.
I got a handful of beans from the ones planted later in the season, with the Arikara squash. My pain levels started to kick in, so I asked a daughter to make supper, and I now have those beans on my cooling plate as I write this. I also grabbed a few of the Blueberry Tomatoes for the girls.
Sept. 23, and we still have a few things we’ll be able to harvest. If the long range forecast is at all accurate, we will have no danger of frost at all for at least the next 10 days.
I’m appreciating every frost free day we’re getting as a gift right now!
Okay, main goal of the day: getting the truck to the garage for our afternoon appointment.
As usual, we planned on leaving early. My daughter was really struggling this morning, unfortunately. She’d had a bad night. We’ve had more outings than usual that she came along with to help me out, and it’s starting to wear on her.
This time, it was Gouda, parked on one of the inside out cat beds under the canopy tent. So adorable!
I was having a good day, when it comes to pain levels, and started off driving but right away realized I was feeling unusually sleeping. A down side of having to take painkillers every 6 hours. I never get more than a few hours of sleep at a time, if I manage to fall sleep at all.
We got to the garage about half an hour early and settled in the waiting room chairs. We could hear the owner working on something in the back and he didn’t see us, which was fine. We were in no hurry. I actually started to fall asleep in the chair.
Then he walked by the door to the office, focused on his phone, stopped and did a double take when he realized we were already there and waiting. He greeted us then continued outside, going back to his phone.
Shortly after, he came back and apologetically asked us if we wanted to go into town for lunch or something; he needed to go home to take care of something. We were okay with that and he said he would text me when he was back.
I got my daughter to drive and we ended up going to the Dairy Queen, because I had some coupons. My daughter was a sweetheart and insisted on paying for it, too.
We took our time about it, though I wasn’t that hungry and ended up saving my burger for home. I just snacked on some fries. I don’t really like fries all that much, and gave the last of them to my daughter, since she hadn’t eaten before we left. After a while, we decided that we could just as easily go back to the garage and stay in the truck, where I’m sure I would have fallen asleep. We were getting ready to head out when I got a text.
The thing he had to take care of at home was taking longer than it should have, and he had no idea how long it would be. Rather than have us wait, he asked if we were willing to come back tomorrow.
I answered yes, then asked if he wanted us back for the same time. By that point, I don’t think he was able to keep checking his work phone. I’ll just assume the same time if he doesn’t respond.
So we headed home, instead, stopping only to pick up some gas.
$1.899/L
Ouch.
At least I got my 3¢/L CAA discount, so we paid $1.869/L instead. Every little bit helps.
Once at home, I sat at my computer for a while, but was still so sleepy, I couldn’t actually accomplish anything useful. My husband came over to talk and the first thing he said was that I looked really horrible! 😄😂 I did consider just going to bed but, by this time, it was past 3 and I knew that would screw up my night.
After a while, though, I started feeling better. Well enough to go outside to do the evening cat feeding. The singleton kitten, I noticed, is no longer a junk pile cat. She is now and under the cat house cat! The sun room trays are all outside right now, as we’ve made very little progress on clearing and cleaning the sun room, and spread out on the ground near the cat shelters. As I was topping them up, the little one was peeking out from under the cat house, meowing at me. I could see she wanted to come out so badly, but was also too scared to actually do it!
She did come out eventually, though. Especially after I started to add cat milk to some of the trays, too.
I was still feeling good, so I decided to do some yard stuff and garden watering in between topping up the cats’ water bowls a bit at a time, so as not to scare them away from the food. I checked the drying cat beds and stuff, and they were finally all dry, so I tucked those into the wagon and under the screen for now. I’ve got other pieces soaking with detergent in the tub, so I agitated them for awhile. That water got quite brown in the process! They are still soaking, as I wasn’t up to scrubbing them today. Then I started watering the garden.
Yes, the garden is still worth watering! Not all of the beds, but some of them. The strawberries, squash and sunflowers at the chain link fence all got a watering. I’m really impressed that the squash – winter and summer – is still surviving and blooming.
The old kitchen garden got watered and I found a surprise. In the beets and parsnip bed, the parsnip greens have gotten so tall, their leaves were sticking through the wire of the cover. Some of the beets are also quite tall and the only reason they aren’t going through the wire is because they’re in the middle of the bed, under the highest part of the curve.
About a third of them were gone.
Not completely, but at one end, there was a substantial empty spot that had been full of leaves.
My first thought was deer, but that seems so unlikely. The deer don’t typically go through that garden; too many paths and obstacles. Plus, my daughter added more wood chips to the paths yesterday, and that’s not a surface a deer would want to walk on. The alternative is skunks or racoons, and they would have cause more damage than just a bunch of leaves eaten. So it must be from a deer.
The wire cover did protect the plants at least somewhat, as they were not completely eaten down to the ground, like the Swiss Chard all was. So frustrating!
The tomato bed in the east yard got watered, but I didn’t bother with the other two beds. Since our single Arikara squash has been harvested, I cut away the vine, so that bed is now just bush beans. The leaves do have some minor frost damage, but I could see there are still beans developing. I probably could have harvested some, but didn’t have a container for them and didn’t want to push my limits.
In the main garden area, I did some more selective watering. I was doing the very last bed when my older daughter came out. I asked how her sister was doing, and she said not very good. She’s dealing with with increased pain levels now, so she’s settled down in the cat free zone to have some movies playing while she continues knitting my ankle socks for me.
While I finished watering the last bed, my daughter told me her plans for roasting the Arikara squash and to use half of it to make a squash soup. Personally, I look forward to having straight up roasted squash. I want to get a good taste of it to see if this is something we want to keep growing in the future, other than to keep collecting seeds for a rare squash variety.
I started telling my daughter how surprised I was with how little frost damage there was, and that I could probably harvest some things – then asked if she wanted some peppers. We had two California Bell peppers that are fully red now, plus a couple of Sweet Chocolate peppers that were ripe. She happily took them and will be using them in her soup. There are still some green peppers on the plants that will hopefully do all right. With peppers, though, we can also harvest them early and let them ripen in the house.
I did remember to look up what colour the California Bell peppers get, since they are bright red and, for some reason, I thought they would be yellow. I found images of both red and yellow peppers. 😕 I got them from MI Gardener and looked at their page, and their image is of green peppers!
So… red it is.
I headed inside soon after, as I didn’t want to push myself. At this point, I might head into town tomorrow on my own, rather than dragging my daughter out with me again. This time, I want to remember to grab a couple of 5 gallon water jugs to refill in town, after the oil change and whatever else needs to be done.
For now, I’m coming up on my schedule evening painkillers time, and I think I’ll try to go to bed after that and get a few hours of sleep before the next set. I tried that last night and it didn’t work. I ended up awake until somewhere past 4am. That might actually help me finally get some sleep tonight, though!
An odd thing about taking the painkillers every 6 hours. I’m not entirely sure how much it’s making a difference. I still get hit with the lower abdominal pain, enough that I’ve used the topical painkiller to help with that. Yet even when I’m not feeling the abdominal pain, I’m still feeling other pain. Particularly that left shoulder’s rotator cuff. The painkillers don’t seem to be touching that at all. Which makes me wonder; if they’re not helping with something as relatively minor as the shoulder pain, how much can it be helping with the abdominal pain? Granted, my shoulder has never hurt badly enough to warrant a trip to the ER, but you’d think a dose as strong as what I’m taking now, 6 times a day, would reduce the shoulder pain too, wouldn’t you??
Ah, well. It is what it is. At least I’m not getting side effects like that violent dizziness I was getting with the Percocet.
So… that’s how the day went today. We almost got the truck done! Our mechanic had told us what he’d needed to go home for, and I really hope it all worked out for him and his family.
If all goes well, the truck will finally be done tomorrow, and it’ll be ready for the winter, as well as all the trips to the city we’ll be needing to do over the next couple of months!
Okay, we are back from town, and were done with the truck way earlier than expected.
As we pulled into the parking lot at the garage, we saw a truck pulling out and leaving. Then we found the doors locked! It turned out we had just watched the owner leaving to drop someone off. Which was fine. We were about 40 minutes early for the appointment.
I messaged our contact with the rescue to let her know we had arrived and were waiting for the owner of the garage to come back. She messaged back right away, suggesting she come over right then. She had just arrived at work and was only 2 minutes away.
Of course, I said yes!
Then the owner returned. I went in to talk to him while my daughter waited outside, then helped the woman from the rescue load donated cat food into the truck box. None of which I could see from where I was standing inside.
I described to the owner what I was seeing on the gauge, even as we drove to the garage, compared to what we were seeing for weeks after our last oil change, which included an engine flush and the third oil sensor replacement. It had been working just fine after that. I explained how the readings started changing after a while, first only when we made a trip to the city, little by little. There was the direct correlation with engine temperature, which I monitored during the drive in.
After they were done loading the truck, he drove it into the shop and started testing it – well before our actual appointment time.
While he was getting ready to hook up his physical mechanical oil pressure gauge to test it, my daughter told me about the ear mite medications and where she tucked them away, and that she’d made sure to set the biggest cat food bags centered over the axle to distribute the weight. I quickly popped open the tail gate to take a look and was totally amazed!!!
Of course, I messaged the women from the rescue to thank her again.
It wasn’t until later that I realized the larger bags my daughter was talking about were not the 9kg size we typically see, but two 40 pound bags of a brand we buy from the feed store in the town north of us. !!!!! You can just barely see one of them in the shadows in the first photo above.
We had expected that the garage would hang on to the truck for a while, and we’d get a ride into town, but that didn’t happen. We sat outside in the sun for a while, then popped into the waiting room when it started getting too hot. My daughter had brought her knitting bag and worked on one of the ankle socks she’s making for me while we waited.
They worked on the truck, revving the engine at times, testing it out. After a while, the owner came back and got on his computer for a bit, then got a printout to show us, which I got to keep.
What it came down to is that yes, our oil pressure is slightly lower than “normal”, however, it is within range. I told him flat out that, after all the problems we’ve had, I don’t know what “normal” is anymore, so he told me where, on the gauge itself, I should expect to see it. Then we talked about how that can change based on things like temperature (winter is going to show higher than summer), and even just age and wear and tear on the engine.
There is nothing else to show why that pressure would be that small amount lower, so he wants to change our oil to something thicker. He asked if I could come back tomorrow, and we can, so that’s now booked for tomorrow afternoon. As he was starting to remove his pressure tester, I remembered to ask him to change out our burnt headlight bulb – I’d bought a new bulb weeks ago, but we were never able to get it done ourselves, for various reasons. So he quickly did that for us.
The whole thing was done, and it wasn’t even noon, yet.
When I asked about paying, he told me he’ll give me a total after I come back tomorrow and he does the oil change. We both forgot about the check engine light, but the oil change with a new filter might actually fix that. I did remember to text him about it shortly after we left.
My daughter hadn’t had breakfast before we left, planning to take me out for breakfast after being dropped off in town. So the first thing we did was go for lunch. After that, we walked over to the dollar store, as I was looking for some specific things for the Christmas ornaments I wanted to work on. I ended up not finding anything, but my daughter found several small things she picked up.
From there, it was a stop at the pharmacy, where my daughter was a sweetheart and quickly ran in with the signed consent form they needed for my new pain meds. My husband had asked me to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, and my daughters had their own shopping list, so that was our next stop.
Normally, I would have put some gas in the tank at that point, but I didn’t want to do that until after the truck was done and paid for. So that will wait until tomorrow.
By the time we were heading home, I remembered that we needed to stop at the post office, too. We are expecting several important letters, and one of them was there today. My older daughter now has a time for her appointment that was rescheduled to early November, along with the date they were able to give her right away.
I still haven’t received a call about my own biopsy I was supposed to get at the end of the month. The one I was supposed to receive before the weekend. If I don’t get a call by tomorrow, I’ll call the clinic that referred me and let them know.
That done, we got home and unloaded at the house. After bringing in the groceries, assembly line style, we started bringing in the donated cat stuff.
Then I got some pictures of what we got, which are the rest of the images in the slide show above, though I had already emptied two small bags that were torn, into the kibble bin for the inside cats. The 40 pound bags and two boxes of cat milk went straight to the old kitchen, so they were not included in the photos.
One bag had nothing but cat treat. So many cat treats!!! Another had more cat treats, plus three small bags of freeze dried chicken catfood, plus several loose little cartons of cat milk. There was a freezer bag of loose kibble, plus a slightly bigger bag of kibble that were on the side.
The last bag I went through had a couple of larger bags of kibble, a smaller one that was partially used and taped shut, and some canned cat food – and even more bags of cat treats!! I also started finding some strange little individual packets that were loose among the treat bags. I found the package they’d fallen out of and found out they are pill pockets.
With so many bags of dry treats like that, we should start mixing some in with their kibble feedings.
Which is what I can do next, as it’s getting time to feed the outside cats.
We did come home to a problem, though. Something is wrong with our toilet. It had gotten clogged, which seemed to be cleared, but now it’s slow flushing. We’ve checked the basement and there’s no sign of problems at the drains to the septic tank, though we’re due to run the hose through and flush it, anyhow.
My daughter came in from doing the morning feeding of the outside cats, so very excited!
She was able to pet the shrine baby. The single older kitten – who has started to come to the house, not just eating at the shrine feeding station!
What my daughter noted was that if she made eye contact with the kitten, it ran away – but if she faced another direction, it came back to the food bowl. Then she came back with the cat soup. It moved away, so she just crouched down near the bowl, looking in another direction.
While the kitten was eating, my daughter was able to reach out and pet it – and she let her! She even got an elevator butt response, while the kitten kept eating soup.
The kitten’s fur, my daughter told me, was astonishingly soft.
I was not doing very well today and ended up going back to bed. While I was down, my younger daughter headed out to start clearing and cleaning the sun room. This is something that needs to be done in stages, and it a huge and filthy job, since we were never able to get a spring cleaning done. She got some cat shelves out and cleared about a quarter of the room to bare floor, before she stopped for the day.
Unfortunately, I never got to see my brother and SIL before they had to leave. It turned out to be a good day for repairs. When he went to move his old pick up truck to move it and the trailer still attached, it wouldn’t start. After checking it over, he thought it might be the starter and was prepared to have it towed to our usual garage. Today, however, he thought of something else to try and it worked. He was able to do some other repairs, move the antique dump truck back onto the concrete blocks it had rolled off of, and even was able to check on the riding mower and get it working. It turned out that something was stuck, and nothing had actually broken. phew!
This evening, I decided I was well enough to do the outside cat feeding. Mostly because I needed to get outside and get some fresh air. Today is the 20th, so I was also hoping I’d be up to doing garden tour videos.
All the food trays that had been in the sun room are currently spread out on the grass near the cat shelters, since the sun room is being cleaned out. While setting the kibble out, I spotted the lone kitten.
So I tried what my daughter tried. I can’t crouch, but I could stand nearby and look the other way, until the kitten came back to the tray to eat. Without looking directly at her, I was able to slowly bend down and touch her.
She let me!
I didn’t stay for long, though. We don’t do cat soup for the evening feeding, but I do add a couple of little cartons of the donated cat milk (we’re on the last case that was given to us) spread out among various trays. I did only trays near the house, since we want to encourage the little one to stay close by.
She came back to the tray with Fancy Pants, whom she seems to get along with, and started eating again.
After a while I went to put things away when I heard a noise. A little skunk had come running and pushed itself onto the tray, shoving the kitten aside, startling Fancy Pants away, and started eating greedily. I scooted it away a couple of times before it left. I don’t mind them finishing off the kibble, but I want the cats to have a chance to eat, first!
After the cat feeding, I walked around a bit before going back inside and weighed in on how I felt. I decided to go ahead and do the garden tour videos. I haven’t gone over them yet, so I’ll see if I end up making new ones tomorrow or not.
Tomorrow, we take the truck in and I will be away until it’s ready to take home again. That’s partly way I made sure to get as much bed rest as possible today. My husband will make sure to keep the phone handy, as I never got the call from the cancer clinic in the city on Thursday or Friday, as we were told to expect. It means not much will get accomplished. My daughter will be coming with me, just in case I need help or need her to drive home when we get the truck back.
For now, I’m just happy we finally got to pet the lonely baby!
