A draining visit, a good visit and some spring clean up done

May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I was supposed to do a dump run, but I was just too tired and in pain. It’ll have to wait until they’re open again on Tuesday.

I had a rough pain night and didn’t get much sleep, so I was going to try lying down for a bit, then visit my mother in the afternoon. I wasn’t looking forward to that, after her last phone call, but it needed to be done. I wasn’t down for long when I got a message from my SIL. My brother was on his way to see our Mother, and would then come here to the farm.

So I decided to head out to my mother’s earlier and meet him there. When I got there, though, I found another message from my SIL, as well as from my husband. My brother had tried to call me, but he was calling the land line. He was going to the farm, first.

Which worked out. I got the messages just as I parked at the hospital and realized my mother would be getting her lunch tray, so I walked around for a bit to give her time to finish eating before I went in. I stopped at the nursing station to find out about the phone call I didn’t get on Tuesday, about arranging a family meeting with the doctor. The person at the desk wasn’t the one in the know, so she made a note for the nurse in charge to come see us while I was visiting her.

The first part of the visit was okay. My mother talked a lot about things she remembered from back in Poland. All stuff I’d heard before, but that’s okay. I took a chance and showed her pictures of the chicken coop. She asked me why I didn’t build a shed for them instead of something with so many “windows”. I told her, because we can’t do that right now, this is what we’ve got. She laughed at me for having a chicken coop but no chickens. I told her we were getting chicks at the end of the month. Just 10 for now. Only 10? So few?

…

I told her, the coop is only big enough for 10 chicks.

Then she started going on about how wonderful our vandal is, because he buys his eggs from the Hutterites, and he bought chickens for the freezer from them, too. Now, it’s entirely possible he did this once or twice, years ago, but in her mind this is something he always does. I told her, the Hutterites have a huge operation; we just need enough chickens for eggs for ourselves.

Oh, and my sister’s husband visited our vandal, who told him he doesn’t want me or my brother at his funeral. Which I figured. My mother told me, she wanted us to do what was the right “Christian” thing to do. *sigh*

Then the nurse came and things got… brutal, though in a relatively calm way, for my mother.

In a nutshell; the doctor will not see her or have any meetings about her, because he simply doesn’t have the time. She does not have any medical need for a doctor’s care. She went on about her hearing and her vision, but neither is something that requires him. My mother is undergoing the mineral oil treatment on her ears again – it will be for 5 days this time – before they try flushing it again, and my mother had all sorts of things to complain about with that. Meanwhile, my mother is adamant that they are not giving her her second eye vitamin pill of the day. She writes it all down, she counts all her pills, but they tell her different things about different pills – the nurse and I both realized that my mother was mixing a blue pill up with a green pill, thinking they were the same pill, so that’s why she was getting different answers. My mother is also now convinced that her hearing was “perfect” before she came there, and her hearing problems have something to do with not getting her pills. When I pointed out that she used to have her TV and radio incredibly loud when I’d come over to her apartment in the past, she switched to Polish and accused me of taking their side and of lying. She also wants a pill for her eyes. I had to go over how the eye vitamin is only helpful for her left eye and the dry macular degeneration. The only treatment for the wet macular degeneration in her right eye is the injections she would have to go to the city for. She has rejected that and demands another pill; going back to how she claims they have stopped giving her the second one of the day. Even her own notes show that she is getting two pills at 5pm, but now she says she only gets one.

Even after the nurse left, my mother kept insisting they were not giving her these eye vitamins, and all her health problems have now only started after she came to this TCU. Things she has been dealing with for a long time. I kept trying to explain things, but she just went back to the manipulation, saying I was taking their side, etc. etc. I finally said, it was time for me to go.

As I was getting ready to leave, my mother brother up her wheelchair. This is a folding wheelchair that had been my father’s.

She asked me if I recognized it. I saw it in the hallway and said I did. She asked me to bring it over, and began questioning me about recognizing it. The staff had clearly given it a really good cleaning; whatever they used on the heavy vinyl got it all nice and supple and looking brand new. They even oiled the squeaky food rest. However, it’s an old chair, and there are cracks in the wheels and spots of rust that I could say where there before.

My mother clearly didn’t believe me. She has decided it’s not the same chair anymore. The hospital switched it.

This is not a new thing. For as long as I can remember, she accused my father of “trading” cattle, vehicles, furniture, the TV, etc. and he was giving the “good” versions the second family she believed he had, and the “bad” versions for us. When she tried to convince me a particular cow had been traded because it looked different – it had matured and filled out, looking bigger, strong and healthier – I pointed out that if this cow had been “traded”, we now have a better cow, so how did her accusations make sense?

I had a very confusing childhood at times.

The visit done, I headed home, utterly drained. My brother was still here, so we sat in their mobile home and I filled him in. It was good to talk to him about it in person, and we had a great visit! He was dreading his visit with Mom, but I just heard from him. He ended up staying with Mom for a couple of hours and the visit went well. It seems my mother got her nasty out of her system before he got there. I’m very glad it worked out that way, because she has been incredibly cruel to him during most of his visits with her.

After filling in my brother, I headed inside and took a bit of a break before changing into my grubbies and going outside for some manual labour. That, more than anything else, really helps decompress after a visit with my mother.

My focus for today was getting the straw off the septic tank. I had just started when I began getting messages from the cat rescue.

They are trying to get ahold of special traps to borrow and bring here. Traps with motion sensors and operated by remote. We can set up the camera currently facing the isolation shelter to monitor the traps. When the motion sensor goes off, check the camera to see what critter is in it. This way, we can trigger the trap only if the specific cat we are after – Slick, for example – is in the trap. Skunks and raccoons can be ignored. 😄 That would be amazing!

My brother was getting ready to head out around then, and dropped off some lovely compost they’d made from their own kitchen scraps for me. He had time to check out the chicken coop and we talked about the septic area, and the emergency bypass set up I had set off to the side until the straw was gone. After he left, I continued and got it all clear. The surface straw was set aside in a pile, but the damp straw touching the ground, which was already starting to rot, got raked up and repurposed as mulch around the honeysuckle and white rose bushes in the old kitchen garden.

That clear, I set up all the parts and pieces for the emergency bypass against the old kitchen wall for their summer storage.

That done, I also set up a hose at the tap in the wall next to the pipe running out of the basement for the emergency bypass. The shut off valve in the basement can now be opened. I won’t set all the hoses up until things warm up more, but I can at least fill watering cans for the pre-sown beds, etc., for now.

My next garden priority is to start more seeds inside. That keeps getting pushed back, but most of what we have left to start indoors are for 3-4 weeks before last frost, so for those we still have a bit of breathing room. I have only a few things in the 4-6 week range that need to be started now.

So this has been… a day. I’m very happy I got to see my brother and that I got some work done outside. As for my visit with my mother, it is what it is.

It just left me feeling so incredibly drained! Getting the straw cleared off actually helped with that. Now I’m just physically tired, not both physically and mentally tired! 😄

The Re-Farmer

Chicken coop build, day three – finished!

May 1, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I had to make a run into town late this morning, so we didn’t even start on finishing the chicken coop assembly until much later in the afternoon. Which was fine, because it turned out to be an absolutely lovely day today.

The first thing I worked on was reinforcing the interior roost, then securing them in place.

Each corner got one of these flat braces. My original intention had been to have the horizontal roost resting on top of the vertical support, but it was difficult to get proper measurements through the tiny opening I had to work in. The roosts ended up too short by enough that I instead trimmed them about a quarter inch shorter so that they would fit in between the vertical supports, instead of on top. While the corner braces would hold them in place, these were cheap dollar store braces and I was concerned they wouldn’t hold the weight of chickens without bending or breaking. These flat braces are higher quality and will hold. The wood itself will break before those give out.

To secure the roosts, I had to use a little kitchen step ladder to be able to reach from above at the front, to set the roosts in place and line them up, while making sure they were flush against the front and back walls. There is just a bit of a height difference because of the white edging I had to account for. Both roosts had a vertical that sort of bent away from the wall, so I used one of the pieces for later in the build, jammed at an angle to brace the wonky side in place. Once they were solidly flush against the walled, I screwed them in place from the outside. Each end got three screws. Later on, I’ll use some sort of sealant on the screws to protect the wood from moisture.

The coop now has a roost on each side, on the inside.

The next stage of the build was to add the roosts that came with the kit, which were to be mounted underneath, on either side of where the ramp would be. For that, I needed an extra pair of hands and asked my daughter to come help. After I went inside and looking up online, just how they were supposed to be attached. The pictographs were really useless for that and even an image I’d shared with my daughter, showing how high off the ground they were supposed to be secured, looked like there was something else entirely going on.

She ended up basically taking over the build, and I was her assistant. Mostly because she can actually get down on the ground, and I can’t.

This time, though, we set a sheet of plastic on the ground as a drop sheet. Last time, my daughter was crawling around on the ground, she later discovered she managed to get cat poop on her pants. Ick.

Getting the exterior roosts in place was definitely a two person job. Especially for the front. With the area for the door empty, the sides sides were slightly spread out, and I had to push the entire side in and hold it in place while my daughter screwed the roosts in place.

After that, the floor between the two sides had to be installed, then the hinged ramp attached to the floor. That was all my daughter, as there was no room for me to do anything other than hand her screws.

That done, we had to attached the door to the frame by the hinges. There were a couple of plates that I’ve been using as spacers every time we had to attach a hinged door. After the door was hung, those plates were added across the insides of the frame’s corners at the opposite side, to stop the door from going past the frame when closed. Then the latch was added to the top, and the door and frame could be attached to the coop.

With the ramp on hinges, that could be lifted up and out of the way, so my daughter could go inside and screw the door frame to the coop. The ground isn’t level, so my job was to line up edges and corners and hold them in place – which required actually lifting the coop itself slightly, on one side – until my daughter got enough screws in to hold it in place, and she could do the rest without me holding things.

Once the door and frame were in place, there were a pair of cross pieces to attach between the top of the door frame and the back mesh wall of the coop. These were part of the roof supports.

The roof was the next thing to do, and it took a lot of figuring out what the pictographs were showing. We noticed some pre-drilled holes in some pieces and had to look at instructions a couple of pages later to see what they would be used for, and we could tell which direction they were supposed to face.

The roof supports were assembled in two parts before they could be set on top and secured to the coop. Then we could finally put on the plastic roof panels.

Which was more of a pain than it should have been.

First, was figuring out which side was up, as both sides were identical. They had pre-drilled holes in them that needed to line up with the supports they would be screwed into. Then there were the overlaps. After much shifting and flipping and trying again, it was the pre-drilled holes that determined which panel edge went on top of the other. It was not the way I would have expected it to, when it comes to drainage, but it was the only way one screw could secure both edges at the same time.

Once we got that figured out, and the panels were centered and lined up, we could finally start screwing them into place. For this, my daughter was using the little step ladder a lot, and we found a different problem. The ground was too soft and the legs of the ladder started to sink! I had a small piece of plywood nearby that I could put on the ground under one set of legs, which worked out very well. When it was time for my daughter to move the ladder to reach another section, I just kept moving the board.

We found other problems, though.

The screws for this part of the build are quite short. Too short for where the panels overlapped. After some digging around in the garage, I found a few that could replace some of the screws along the seams, but then we had a whole different problem along the front. For all the care we took to line up the pre-drilled holes with the supports below, the entire row of pre-drilled hold along the front were just a touch too far. The boards in that part of the roof were slightly warped. Probably from sitting in the box in the garage for over a month in the winter. There were extra longer screws in the kit and my daughter ended up using those, and not using the pre-drilled holes, to secure the roof panels. Some of the screws went in crooked and the tips got exposed, but not anywhere I chicken could hurt itself, so we weren’t too worried about it. We’ll have to go over the roof with sealant in places, anyhow.

Once the roof panels were on, the only thing left was to attach the hooks and eyes that would be used to hold open the two front doors for air circulation. For that, the hooks were first attached under the roof, and then we could use those to decide where to attach the screw eyes at the height we wanted the doors to be held open at. In spite of using a measuring tape and marking out where to attach them, we ended up doing one door at a different height than the other. The white edging in one of them had marks already on them that I mistook for the marks I’d made below! Which is fine. As long as they can be held open.

That done, the coop was officially assembled. We just had to move it.

Slight problem. The hinged ramp. With the roof in place, it couldn’t be lift up like when my daughter worked under it before. What we ended up doing was lifting is as high as we could through the open door, then quickly shutting the door before it could drop. We still had to push the ramp up through the wire mesh so the door could be closed but, once it was, the door itself held the ramp up and out of the way.

It wasn’t easy to move the hole thing. We were able to get grips on each end, because the wire mesh is on the inside of the coop, so there was enough of a lip on the frames that we could get our fingertips under there. The main problem was me and my janky elbows. I could hold the weight for only short distances before I could feel them giving out.

Still, we managed it, and set it up in front of the retaining wall, where the ground seemed to be the flattest.

It’s still not level, but at least the whole thing isn’t being twisted out of shape by uneven ground.

Where is how the finished coop looks, with all the doors closed, plus the back, which has no doors of any kind.

You can really tell in the side views, how the ground is sloping! In the front and back views, you can see the screws holding the inside roots in place.

Here are the three sides with all the doors open.

The coop was designed with the roosts below as a way of not having to deal with lots of chicken poop inside. With the added roosts sheltered inside, we’ll be adding bedding. The nesting boxes will probably get straw, but I plan to get pine shavings for under the roosts inside.

With the coop right up against the retaining wall, we can potentially secure it to the blocks so it won’t get blown over in high winds.

We will probably not be able to keep it there, though. It is facing west and the sun can shine right through the wire mesh, the sides might create too much shadow for the garden bed behind it.

One of the things I want to do if find a way to add wheels to it, so it will be easier to move around as needed. It might be easier to just make a pair of wheeled platforms that can be tucked under the ends, then removed once the coop has been moved.

This coop will work out fine for when we get our first chickens, and for the summers. It is not the strongest of structures and definitely not suitable for a Canadian winter, but the plan is to build a polytunnel in the garden this year, so that we can move the chicken coop into it for the winter. It will do until we can build a proper, sturdier, chicken coop. We’re just getting a few chickens to start; enough to supply us with eggs. Over time I want to get more, including meat hens, so we will need to expand things quite a bit. It will take time and materials we don’t really have, but at least now we can get started.

Meanwhile, we can get ready for the chicks to arrive at the end of May. We’ll need feeders and waterers (the ones my parents used are still in the old chicken coop, but I don’t know that any of them are useable, after so many decades since my parents had chickens), both for while we have the chicks in a brooding pen indoors, and for when they get moved outside.

Something else that will be coming at the end of May is our order of basket willow. I got an email from the nursery with several shipping dates available, and I requested the latest one. That will give us time to prepare where we will be planting them, beyond the outer yard, and working out how to protect them from the renter’s cows.

On a completely different note…

It is confirmed that Slick lost her litter. While working outside, I heard a commotion and it was Slick. She’s gone into heat again, and had a whole crowd of dudes wanting their turn with her. She was not happy about it, either. I sent a quick message to the rescue and they want me to trap her as soon as possible. I don’t think we’d be able to trap her specifically, though. However, she has been super friendly when we do the morning cat feeding, and we might be able to get her into the big carrier. Tomorrow morning, my daughter is going to come out with me to try and get her. If we can manage it, she’ll go to the rescue for however long it takes for them to get her spayed, then she will come back here.

If we can get her contained!

Here’s hoping!!!

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shop: this is what $739 looks like

April 30, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well… $738.95, to be exact

Today was my day to go into the city for our second stock up shop for May.

It was a very rough start to the day.

I had a hard time sleeping, so when I was awake – again – at about 6am, I asked my older daughter to take care of the morning routine, so I could get a couple more hours of sleep before I needed to drive. I even managed to fall asleep for some of that time.

I was getting up and starting to get ready when the phone rang.

It was my mother.

She almost immediately launched into asking me about the call I had been expecting on Tuesday about the doctor. I told her, they didn’t call, but I was in the city yesterday and would be doing our Costco shop today, so I wasn’t able to follow up on it yet. She started ranting about the doctor neglecting me like he was neglecting her but I reminded her it wasn’t the doctor that was supposed to call me, but the administrator.

She eventually got around to telling me that when she woke up this morning, her hearing was gone completely. Obviously, she could hear me as we spoke on the phone, but I still had to ask questions to find out what happened, as she went on about how they’d need to do the oil treatment again and so on. When I asked her, several times, if she’d told the nurses about it, I found out that no, she had not. How was she able to hear now? She’d dug her fingers into her ears until she could hear again…

!!!!

I had to explain to her that she needed to tell the nurses what was going on, not just anybody, but specifically the nurses, but she kept ranting. It was nursing pretending to be doctors. She wanted the doctor to do the ear flush. She wanted to talk to the doctor about her pills (they repeatedly explain her pills to her, but she is convinced they are lying and deliberately messing with her meds so she will die, because “they” do that to old people…) and so on.

When she started going on about how she was a patient in the hospital so they should be doing… whatever it is she wants them to be doing at any given moment, I had to remind her, this place isn’t a regular hospital anymore. She is a resident in a transitional care unit, not a patient. Things are done differently in her situation, and the doctor isn’t there just for her, but has a lot of other people he is responsible for.

At some point, I tried to tell her again that I was going to Costco today, so she wouldn’t try to demand I visit her or do whatever it was she was winding up for. At which point she started railing at me… “All you think about is food, food, food! And see how you look!”

Yes, my mother decided this was the time to attack me for buying groceries, because I’m fat. I didn’t even try to point out that it’s not just food we buy at Costco, but seriously. According to her, we should all… stop buying food? Stop eating? Because she has problems with her hearing and wants me to do something about it?

She got so bad, I finally just said, that’s enough, and hung up on her.

Now, my mother knows I do stock up shops to the city only twice a month, at the end of the month. She doesn’t understand why I stock up for the month like this, instead of just going to the local grocery stores every week, like she used to. I’ve even explained to her that we save hundreds of dollars a month by doing this, which is the only reason we can afford to still buy things locally throughout the month. That’s why I make these trips. Somehow, she always manages to “need” me to drop everything and devote every moment to her, at the end of the month. Month after month. Just like she knows that, with the snow gone, there is lots to do outside, but she doesn’t think I have anything to do, because we don’t have cows. I should devote every moment to her.

Aside from her making it very, very hard to want to spend time around her when she gets nasty like this, I can’t help but think how she never really did this for her own mother until my grandmother literally moved in here with my parents until she passed away. Nor did she do anything for my father after she moved off the farm, leaving him to the abusive treatment of our vandal. Abuse she now denies, even though our vandal’s behaviour towards her is one of the main reasons she moved off the farm. She often tells me, she depends so much on us to take care of her, which is something she wasn’t willing to do herself when the need arose.

It’s very hard not to feel bitter. I can’t even blame it on cognitive decline or aging. She’s been like this for as long as I can remember. She’s just more open about it now.

After that, I took the time to message the my brother and SIL in our group chat about our mother (my sister is no longer on Messenger, but I didn’t have time to text her about it), let my family know what happened, then booted up and headed out. My husband had a prescription delivery for today, so I made sure to leave the gate open, and my younger daughter made sure to keep a handset with her for when the driver called before getting here.

My only stop on the way to the city was at a gas station for a drink and something breakfast like.

I should have filled the tank when I had the chance, yesterday. Prices are $1.889/L all over now.

It was too early for their fried chicken, but they did have fried perogies ready. I grabbed some of those so I wouldn’t be having my energy drink on an empty stomach. Plus, they were something I could easily eat while driving. I was still thinking of eating at Costco, since the new location I was going to has the awesome corned beef sandwiches again, but I never did get to that.

When I arrived at the Costco, about an hour + after leaving home, my first stop was to get gas. I was at just under half a tank by the time I reached the city.

Costco price for regular gas was $1.749 It cost me $96.10 to fill my tank.

This after our federal overlords promised to bring the fuel prices down by temporarily not charging one of the many taxes they have on fuel. Instead, prices are much higher now.

The tank full, it was time to get a flat cart and start shopping. Thankfully, it wasn’t too insanely busy.

This is what $738.95 looks like.

There’s a few things buried from view, of course.

This is what I got today.

For the non-food stuff, there are 3 bags of kibble for the outside cats, a case of wet cat food for the inside cats, a case of XL puppy pads and toilet paper.

For drinks, we got a flat of energy drinks, which my daughter paid for, a flat of Coke Zero for my husband and I, and oat milk for my daughters. There is also a large box of Earl Grey tea.

In dairy, I got a block of mozzarella cheese, a wheel of brie and a 1L of whipping cream – the whipping cream is a treat we rarely get these days. Then there’s 5 pounds of butter, and a large shaker of Parmesan cheese my daughters requested.

In bread, we got two 2 packs of rye bread, two packs of tortilla wraps and a big bag of ciabatta buns. The buns are a treat. I don’t recall if we’ve ever bought them before. At least not since we’ve moved to this province.

Not sure what’s going on with the receipt, though. It says I got one 2 pack of sliced French bread instead of two 2 packs of rye bread. So I got undercharged? The rye bread packs were more expensive.

Not going to complain. Last time, I got overcharged for something. It’s an odd mistake to make, though, since I had no French bread for them to scan. That makes it a error in their pricing system. Very strange.

For protein, I got two panini packs for sandwiches, a pork loin that will be broken down into different cuts, two packs of drumsticks that were $5 off at the counter, two packs of loose Mild Italian sausage meat (cheaper per kg than links), and a hot rotisserie chicken. The chicken was for my husband and I to have for our supper. My daughter sent funds and requested some sushi, so the sushi and the nigiri platters are for her and her sister. Oh, and the double flat of eggs, plus a 6 pack of canned chicken. I also got peanut butter, which I guess fits under the protein category, too.

We also got a 9 pack of variety pasta, a bag of Basmati rice, I finally found the popcorn kernels, two large jars of mayo, a large jar of sliced pickles, a 3 pack of baking powder and the only frozen item, a box of perogies. There’s a giant bag of nacho chips for my husband.

According to the rest of the receipt, I had 45 items and a total of $16 in discounts.

Together with the gas, I spent a total of $835.05 at Costco.

This is starting to really hurt.

Not just the budget. My whole body is hurting, and that pain in my lower abdomen is kicking in again. I’ve got my doctor’s appointment in a few days. We’ll see where that gets me. Probably on a waiting list for an MRI or ultrasound or something. Maybe some Xrays for my knee that still hurts from when I tripped and fell in the sun room, before Christmas, along with my right elbow and my left rotator cuff that feels like it’s about to pop out all the time. After I get those joints looked at, I’ll see about booking myself at the sports injury clinic again for another injection into my hip. That’s starting to hurt when I’m in bed, no matter what position I try.

I’m just falling apart all over the place.

Scary thing is, I’m still the most able bodied person in the household.

Seriously considering going to bed, and it’s not even 7pm yet.

I am so tired.

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $694 in total looks like

April 29, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today, I made it into the city for the first of our stock up shops for the month.

But first, I was greeted with this!

Yeah. April 29, and we had snow overnight.

*sigh*

It didn’t last long, of course, but still… not sure if the winter sown beds I removed the mulch from will survive the cold nights we’ve been having. I had to take the mulch off, to keep the seeds from being smothered, but weather is weather, and this is Canada, so yeah. We get snow pretty much any time of the year.

I’ve reordered some of the seeds, just in case.

The cats didn’t seem to mind the snow, though!

This little furball is on the roof of the isolation shelter, right above where the heat lamp is. I do have sheets of rigid insulation under the roof for the winter, but the cats have torn holes in it. This cat is pretty much on top of one of them, so it’s a warm spot.

I headed into the city on my own today, as my younger daughter who sometimes comes with me was still not feeling very well today. Today’s shopping was a triple shopping stop, though I did stop at a gas station on the way out to get a drink and a sandwich for breakfast, then at a Domo in the city to put in $30 in gas (fuel is from a separate budget line).

The price of gas. Oh, my goodness.

The gas station just outside of town I stopped at to get breakfast (their sandwiches are made fresh by a local bakery, and the single restaurant in our little hamlet, and are very good), the price of gas was $1.689/L

As I drove into the city, the first gas station I passed was $1.449/L ! As I continued on, I saw a Shell station at $1.889, but two other stations were at $1.449. After I was finished at Canadian Tire, I stopped at a Domo along the way and put in $30 before continuing my shopping. As I was leaving the city, that first gas station I saw had changed its price to $1.889!!! A 44¢ per litre jump happened while I was shopping!

I’m afraid to find out what the local prices will be. I took a different route home, so I never saw, one way or the other.

My first stop of the day was Canadian Tire, since there are no food items to get while there. This time, I actually got a picture, since I got a few extras.

This is what $92.02 looks like.

Yeah. Not much.

The main thing on the list was the litter pellets. I also found the small wood screws I needed, then picked up some flat right angle corner plates to further secure the extra roosts I made for the chicken coop. The angle brackets I used to assemble them are not very strong, and I don’t want to risk the weight of roosting chickens to break them loose.

I found some clear repair tape, and a hose repair kit I needed, plus another bag of seed starter mix; I haven’t been able to start the 4-6 weeks before frost seeds, yet, and will soon need to start the 3-4 week seeds.

I ended up getting a package of LED bulbs. We just used our last spare, and these were 53% off. On the way to the checkout, I spotted some nitrile garden gloves on sale. After making sure the size large would actually fit my hand, I picked up a pair. Most of the garden gloves I have now are wearing out.

Just that, for almost $100. *sigh*

From there, my next stop was the Walmart.

This is what $413.84 looks like.

That cart isn’t even full. It’s a lot of non-food items, though.

Going through the receipt from the top, there’s a package of paper towels that was marked down in price. Then there are four bags of dry kibble. Two for the inside cats, two for the outside cats. Feed store kibble is cheaper per kg, but this way they get variety, which is better for the cats.

The price of strawberries was very good, so I got 4 clamshells. There’s a couple of loaves of rye bread – I’ll get more bread at Costco – and a bag of 5 avocados for a very good price. I got some heat and eats – fish sticks and chicken nuggets – for those days when none of us is up to cooking. Those have gone down in prices. There’s a 2L of 3% milk and a 2L of oat milk, plus a large block of Old Cheddar cheese. For my husband, I got some pretzels, plus I got a small bag of popcorn. Normally we get the big container of popcorn at Costco, but we couldn’t find any, last time.

I found the brand of soy sauce my husband likes and picked up a bottle. I’m glad I did, because the international grocery store didn’t seem to have any again. For my husband, I got four boxes of Crystal Lite, in two different flavours.

Next is a large bottle of hair conditioner. Yes, just conditioner. We use twice as much of that as we do shampoo. Then there is the Lactaid, except I got the wrong kind. I thought I was getting chewable, which my husband asked for, but when I went for the extra strength, they turned out to not be chewable. There is a box of antihistamines for me, some *ahem* personal hygiene products for the girls and I.

The budget for this part of the shop was supposed to be under $400, but the taxes put it over.

Ouch.

After this, I had one last stop to make. I did consider going to the Dollarama next door, afterwards, but I was just too tired and just did the International grocery store.

By this time, it was coming up on 1pm, so I got lunch, first. Some Chinese food and a drink, that came out to $17.70 after taxes.

As for the rest of the shopping, this is what $188.24 looks like.

There’s … not much there at all.

You know what we didn’t get?

Beef. We did not get beef. I was looking at a “value pack” with a whole two grilling steaks in it that cost $56.65. The price per kg was $79.34. Those two steaks weighed only 0.714kg

I don’t expect the prices to be any better at Costco.

There is some instant milk tea for the pantry. Last time, we couldn’t find any, and now it’s a new brand to try. That and the instant Matcha Latte I got for the girls were on sale. I got a large bunch of banana, some Pink Lady apples, and a tiny Camembert cheese round that has a $1 off sticker on it.

The two Chef Samplers are sushi and nigiri platters I got for the girls – there was no way any of us would be up to cooking by the time I got home. For my husband, I got a Lumber Jack sandwich, and a Teriyaki Bento box for myself.

I had planned to pick up ground cinnamon at Costco, but when I saw the price here, I picked up a bag. Why pay more for a shaker container when we can just reuse the old one?

The frying chicken was a very good price. I got two whole chickens for about half the usual price.

The 10 pound bag of Russet potatoes was a good price, so I grabbed on. The sushi right for the girls was the most expensive thing on the list, but that will last time a long time (my husband and I prefer the Costco Basmati). I got two different types of smoked bacon, unsliced, that was on sale. There are two types of tea that I got on sale; tea is getting insanely expensive, but these are house brand teas, so they’re a bit less expensive even when not on sale.

Last on the list, I got two different types of fish fillets for the girls.

That’s it. That’s all of it.

The grand total for all this is $694.10 Add in my lunch and the gas, and we’re at $721.80

This isn’t even much of a stock up.

After what we got today, we’re working out the list of what we will be getting at Costco. I’m already dreading what it’s going to cost, but my older daughter has already told me she’ll be sending funds for some things. That will certainly help. Along with the usual budget times for May, we need to cover things like the annual WordPress subscription, and the bi-annual emptying of the septic tank. Which cost about the same. 😄

Well, that’s one stock up shop done, at least. Such as it is.

The Re-Farmer

Chicken coop build, day two – modifications

April 28, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Normally, I would have gone into the city today for our first stock up shop. I’d forgotten what day it was when I arranged for someone from the hospital the TCU my mother is in to call me.

No one called.

*sigh*

I headed out to work on the chicken coop in the early afternoon. I had decided last night on how I would modify the coop to include roosts in front of the nesting boxes, if I could find the materials for it.

I did.

After taking some measurements (it was very awkward to reach where I needed to measure!), I dug around the scrap but useable lumber bits in the garage my brother gave me and found a 2×4 that was long enough. I cut it to the length I needed for the roosts with my miter saw, but was stuck trying to figure out how to cut it in half length wise. A hand saw would just take too long, and the old table saw we have stored in the sun room would have been too much of a pain to get out and use for just one cut. In the end, I got my jig saw out of winter storage and used that.

The down side is that I got a wonky cut out of it. When it came near the end, I flipped the board and restarted at the uncut end. Of course, it went wonky and I ended up with a jaggy bit where the cuts met. I ended up taking the pieces to the vice in the other side of the garage and smoothed the roughest parts with my draw knife. Then they got a sanding, just with some course sand paper, so the pieces were smooth on all sides, and the edges were slightly rounded. Should be much nicer on chicken feet!

While getting the jigsaw out of storage in the basement, I looked through the scrap we had there and found a leftover piece of wood that was the right width to use as uprights to support the roosts. I measured off and cut two 12″ pieces, then took everything to the coop to see how they fit. I found I needed to trim a bit on the cross pieces, then remembered that I needed two more upright supports. The remaining piece of wood was just shy of 2′ long, so I ended up cutting it in half and getting two pieces just barely over 11 inches long.

I also had a package of right angle brackets and used those to attach the uprights to the cross piece, though I did have to trim just a touch off the cross pieces for them to fit. Unfortunately, the angle brackets I had are dollar store cheepies, and the screws just did not want to bite! It almost took longer to screw on the angle brackets than it did to cut the wood to size!

I got them done, though, and have set them up inside the coop, in front of the nesting boxes.

I had to use a little household step ladder to be able to reach in and set one end in place, from above. Ideally, these should have been installed when before the end walls were attached, but I hadn’t figured out how to add the roosts inside, yet.

You can see the new roosts in the second and third photos of the slideshow above. At this point, I had to stop. The uprights need to be secured to the walls. Otherwise, they’ll just fall loose while the coop is being worked on and moved around. I’ll have to screw them in place from the outside.

After going through my collection of screws, I realized I didn’t have anything the right size. I will be going into the city tomorrow for the stock up trip I normally would have done today, and one of my stops is Canadian Tire for litter pellets, so I can pick up the right screws while I am there.

Which means there will be no progress at all on the coop tomorrow, nor probably the day after, as that is when I would be going into the city again for the Costco shopping. My daughter will probably be coming with me, so she won’t be working on it for me, either.

Thankfully, we don’t actually need it for quite some time, and by the time we can get back at it, the weather should be warming up again.

As I was putting everything away, I spotted these adorable ones.

They really love that pile of straw mulch I’d moved under the mock orange bush!

When doing the evening cat feed, I saw Slick. She didn’t show up this morning, so I was glad to see her. As I put food on the cat house roof, her favourite place to eat, she actually came over, purring, and wanting pets! Which I stopped to do, and made a point of trying to feel under her belly. I was hoping to feel and active nips she had, to get an idea of how many kittens she has.

I felt none at all.

Which is very strange. I’m sure I would have felt something if she were nursing kittens. Either she just has one and the active nip was somewhere I wasn’t able to touch her, or … did she lose her litter? It’s really hard to know at this point. After she ate, she suddenly got strange on me again and moved away as I came close, even if it was to pet a different cat. As she moved around, I tried to see her belly fur, and still, nothing.

I don’t know what to make of it.

As I continued my evening rounds, I checked on the fruit and berry bushes. It’s too early to see if they all survived the winter at this stage. One exception is the silver buffaloberry.

The branches are absolutely covered with these tiny little leaf buds!

I may have made a mistake in not covering the trellis bed, with the peas and carrots. Peas are cold tolerant, but newly uncovered sprouts may not have been strong enough to handle the overnight temperatures we’re having right now. Some of the other beds, the rows got re-covered in leaves by the wind, which I’ve left, as it may be protecting any seedlings from the overnight cold. It’s too early to tell, even with the beds that are under plastic.

The colder temperatures are good for the poppy seeds I sowed, though. This is nature doing the cold stratification for me.

Hopefully, the winter sown beds will make it. If not, I’ll have a lot of free space to plant into, when things finally warm up!

I might just pick up more packages of certain new seed varieties I was trying, just in case…

😁

The Re-Farmer

Chicken coop build, day one

April 27, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, we did get a lot done, but it isn’t complete.

I didn’t even head out until the afternoon. I wanted to wait until it got at least a bit warmed. I’m glad I did, because I got a phone calls from my mother and brother. They are back from their pilgrimage and he even visited my mother on Saturday, not longer after I’d left! We must have just missed each other that day!

The first call was from my mother, giving me the name of a doctor at the clinic in the same hospital building the TCU is in. Someone else there gave her the name of his wife’s doctor, and I got all sorts of details that were absolutely irrelevant. I eventually found out that her hearing has gotten worse, especially in her right ear, and so on.

Now, that last time I talked to someone at the nursing station about this, I was told that because the doctor in charge of the ICU does his rounds only once a week and can’t stay with any one person for too long, I would have to make an appointment at the clinic, instead. I had passed this on to my mother, but that was as far as it went.

I managed to get my mother to let me off the phone so I could call the clinic. I looked up the clinic’s website for the phone number, and also looked up the names of the staff.

The name she gave me was not for a doctor, but a Registered Nurse. There is no permanent doctor at this clinic; all the doctors come in from the city on some sort of rotation, so most of the appointments are doing by RNs. I knew my mother wasn’t going to like that.

Still, I called up the clinic and talked to the receptionist, explaining that my mother was right in the building in the TCU and wanted to make an appointment.

They can’t do that. It doesn’t work that way.

???

I told her what I’d been told by the nurse, some time ago, and it was not the correct information. In short, we have to book a family meeting with the doctor, an administrator, my mother and any family members that can be there (which would probably just be me) to talk about my mother’s needs. Which would need to be arranged through the administrator. Who wasn’t in today. She’d be in tomorrow, though.

So I called the nursing station at the TCU and talk to the nurse there. Not the same one I spoke to about this before. I explained the situation about not being able to book and appointment and my instructions, and she was all, yeah, that’s how it’s done.

*sigh*

She got my name and phone number and the administrator should be calling me tomorrow.

That done, I called my mother back to let her know. She was eating her lunch at the time, so I kept it short. She still tried to keep me on the phone longer, as she was eating and talking to me at the same time.

It took me a while to recover from the noises. I don’t think she had her teeth in.

Then, just before I was going to head outside, my brother called. He had just talked to my mother, having to do a three way call, because he needs to do her taxes and there is stuff missing. As her PoA, he could take care of it, but it would have taken 90 days, but if my mother talked to them in person and gave permission, they could do it right away. My brother wanted to make sure I knew about it all in case I got a call from my mother and she was sounding flustered or something.

I’m so glad he did that.

Finally, I could head outside and get started. I had been trying to figure out how to move the two big boxes from the garage to the yard, where we’re thinking to set it up, and never quite came to a conclusion. In the end, once I dragged a box out of the garage, I found I could simply walk it, rocking from one corner to the other, all the way across. It was surprisingly fast that way. The boxes where not the same size and shape, and one of them was more awkward than they other, but I got it done.

The next thing to do was unpack them both and sort everything on the lawn.

Then I brought my tool bag and a chair, then sat down to start going through the instructions.

They are pictographic instructions.

They’re not very clear.

Still, I got a fair bit of progress on the first section before I had to message a daughter for help. It needed to be stood up, but it wasn’t very stable yet and I didn’t want to risk breaking anything. My younger daughter came out to help – then stayed! In fact, she pretty much took over for me.

Which I really appreciated when I realized I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. She kept working on it, trying to decipher the instructions for the next stage. We’d already had to take some things off and reverse them, because the images in the instructions looked the opposite of what it was supposed to be.

As I was eating, the phone rang again.

It was my mother.

She told me my brother had called, and it was about insurance. She doesn’t have insurance.

Did I mention how glad I am my brother filled me in already?

I explained to her that he called about her taxes. One of the things he had to get for her claim is her prescription information. Our province has insurance coverage for that, connected with our provincial health care.

She still doesn’t understand it. She knows she sometimes has to pay for her medications, and sometimes gets them for “free”, but doesn’t understand the concept of a deductible, or that the “free” is when the insurance covers the cost.

Then she started complaining about how my brother never phones or visits.

I pointed out, he’s been back from Spain for maybe 2 days, he just visited her recently, and phoned her today. “Oh, in general”. Then she complained my sister doesn’t phone or visit, and passed on stuff she wanted me to tell them for her. It seems she’s lost track of their phone numbers, and can’t figure out how to use the contacts list on her phone. The number here at the farm hasn’t changed since they had a telephone installed some time in the 60s, it’s the only number she remembers.

I had mentioned to her that I was eating and that I had to get back outside to help build a chicken coop, but still had a hard time getting her to let me off the phone. I messaged my brother right away, before I could forget anything, inhaled the rest of my “lunch” (it was well past 5 by then), then went back to help my daughter.

When I’d done in, we’d done as much as we could on one side of the coop at this stage, and the second side needed to be assembled. She had gotten some good progress on that by the time I got there again, but she was stumped at the next part.

It turned out she had attached the floor in reverse. There was nothing in the pictographs to show there was a difference. On the side that’s supposed to face the end of the nesting boxes go, there were pre-drilled holes for pegs. The walls for the nesting boxes are set in place with the pegs, first, then screwed into place through pre-drilled holes under the floor.

We had to take almost the whole thing apart again to fix it. The side walls also had wooden pegs, and a couple of them broke in the process. They were placeholders, though, so with two of us there, it got reassembled just fine.

We finally got to the point where the two sides are attached to each other at the back, then brackets added for the floor runs from one side to the other.

Before the section of floor was added, though, the roosts were supposed to be attached below.

The pictographs were particularly confusing.

By then, it was starting to get really cold. We were both in t-shirts, since it was nice out early. When I got inside and checked, I discovered we were at 5C/41F, but the windchill was -2C/28F

Definitely not t-shirt weather!

Here is a slide show of today’s progress.

The pile of packing foam sheets in the second picture got put back into a box to get it out of the way before I started assembling things. Even then, the wind was high enough to try and tear it out of my hands and snapped a couple of pieces!

While reading the instructions, I unbagged and sorted out the parts and pieces, which are in the second picture.

The third picture is when I had to get assistance to flip the whole thing upright. The mesh sections just didn’t have anything to support them, yet.

Also, I screwed up. I put two back panels on. My daughter fixed that while I’d gone in to eat. The front panel has a door that opens for air circulation.

I was too late when I got the fourth picture of Judgement. He had been napping on the roof panels for much of the time, but then he started rolling around luxuriously on them. Of course, once I got my phone out to take some video of his adorableness, he stopped. At least he pretty posed for a picture! 😄

The fifth and last photo is where we stopped. My poor daughter’s back was killing her by then, so I took care of stacking the remaining pieces close to what we’ve got assembled so far.

What I should probably figure out before we put the ramp, door and roof on, is where I will be adding roosts on the inside, in front of the nesting boxes. There are two roosting bars, under the floors on each side. Which, to me, seems completely exposed. the bottom is wire mesh on all sides. We get a lot of wind. Unless we make covers for the mesh bottoms, the chickens aren’t going to enjoy roosting there!

This is most definitely a “summer” only coop. We’ll have to prioritize protecting it in the winter. That’s one of the reasons I want to build a polytunnel in the main garden area. We can stick the whole coop inside for the winter. The entire structure is relatively light, so moving it would not be that difficult.

It’s going to be another month before we get chicks, and another 4-6 weeks before they go into the coop, so we will have plenty of time to figure it out!

The next several days will be chillier, and then we’re supposed to warm up again. If all goes well, the coop will be finished tomorrow. I don’t want it to be sitting outside, partially finished, for too long. At this point, if we get high winds, it could be blown over quite easily.

One other thing that has made the built more difficult than it should be is the fact that we have no level ground, anywhere. We’re working on one of the most level places, and it should be okay once it’s completely assembled, but it made two people a necessity to attach some parts – one to pick the corner of the coop being worked on and hold the pieces aligned with each other, while the other drove the screws in.

In other news, I’ve heard from the foster that’s taking care of Frank. Her two babies that she rejected are in another home with experienced kitten bottle feeders. Frank is absolutely traumatized, though for a cat that just had major surgery, she sure is active! She growls and hisses at humans, but is curious about the cats that show up at the special screen door they have. Looking at some video I was sent, I think she actually is liking the amenities of indoor life. As much as a traumatized cat can! Considering all they had to do to get her to the vet for her C section, then get her back again, it’s going to be difficult to calm her down. Still, it will be easier than when she was outside. After she escaped when we tried to get her spayed, it took months to regain her trust, but we didn’t have constant access to her to work on it, either. We just saw her at feeding time, mostly.

Hopefully, it will all work out in the end. Frank really is a sweetie, once her trust is gained!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: snow crocus blooming, and spring clean up progress

April 26, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today was a fair bit warmer than yesterday and sunny, making up somewhat for the wind. After losing a day of work in the yard and garden yesterday, it was a perfect day to catch up. I managed to get a lot more done than I expected. The pre-sown and fall transplanted beds are now cleaned up. I even got some direct sowing done!

The warmth and sunshine brought out some lovely colour, too.

The snow crocus buds have been showing for a few days now, and today they finally bloomed.

While working, I took some video and some photos, but forgot to get before and after photos of all the areas I worked on. I might put together a series of short videos on the progress, rather than one long one, later on. For now, I don’t even want to think about it. I’m just too tired.

So, this is what I can show you now.

Whoops! How did that get there? 😂🤣 The cats are really loving that sunny pile of straw I put under the mock orange bush.

The first area I worked on is the trellis bed in progress. (click through to see the “after” photo in the next series of images)

This bed has a row of rainbow carrots down the middle, a variety of pea with a pink blush making a partial row near the trellis posts, and the other side and ends with onions meant for seed and deer deterrent – I hope.

I started with the carrots, since they were the hardest to reach. I think I might have seen a sprout or two, or maybe it was weed seedlings. I’m not sure. Once the mulch was off the row (the straw removed completely, the leave mulch below pushed aside), I covered it with boards to keep it damp. I’ll check it every morning and remove the boards when I see carrot seedlings.

Uncovering the peas was a pleasant surprise. There were quite a lot of seedlings!

I did the onions last and found quite a few, but also quite a few gabs. I might transplant some of my bunching onions that I started indoors to fill those, if nothing shows up.

Next, I uncovered where the flower bed was last year.

This took more than expected. I’d tossed the mulch on top of the Cosmos stems and meant to leave the root balls to compost in the soil. In the end, I had to dig it up a lot more because of a combination of creeping Charlie and elm tree roots.

*sigh*

When I collected seed from the memorial asters planted in the same bed, I did allow some seeds to drop, to see if they would survive and grow this year. I really hope some show up, because I still can’t find the packet I’d put the collected seeds into. Another packet is missing, too, but it’s the memorial asters that I really wanted to keep going. I’m quite unhappy that they’ve gone missing. There is only one area they could be, and there’s just no sign of them.

In the end, I did plant some collected nasturtium seeds at the sunny end, lightly covering that area with straw to hopefully discourage cats.

The next area I worked on was the asparagus and strawberry area.

I wasn’t going to uncover where the asparagus was planted, as they can grow through a mulch like this. There were only a few of the green asparagus (at the far end of the photo) that survived last year, but it’s entirely possible some of the purple asparagus might show up. Maybe. Who knows.

What I focused on was uncovering the Albion Everbearing strawberries I’d found and transplanted last year. As I found and uncovered surviving plants, I made sure to return some straw around them to keep the ground moist and the weeds at bay.

Next was the spot I’d found the surviving strawberry plants. I had done nothing in that bed last year; I just was never able to tend it. This year, I plan to grow the giant pod poppy variety I got seeds for this year.

The first thing I did was move the 4′ x 4′ wood frame out, setting it with the one near the compost pile that’s the same size. I plan to put them together to make that bed a touch deeper.

This bed took a lot more work. Which I did expect. I worked a fair bit outside where the frame had been, because there was so much creeping Charlie trying to work its way into the bed. There were, of course, plenty of crab grass rhizomes to clean up. Unfortunately, there was also quite a lot of tree roots in it, too. I couldn’t do much about them, as they were coming up from deeper than I was able to dig down to.

After this bed was done, I took a sustenance break, then came back with the poppy seeds, as well as the nasturtium seeds I planted in the other bed.

This bed had already started to dry out, and poppy seeds need to stay pretty much on the surface, so I filled a watering can and watered it first.

I look forward to when we can hook the hoses up again! It still gets too cold overnight right now.

There were fewer seeds in the packet than I expected, so they weren’t scattered as evenly as I would have liked. Then I used a rake to spread things evenly and just barely cover the seeds. This bed now needs to have some cold nights, including nights below freezing, for the seeds to germinate. The daytime highs for the next while are supposed to be similar today, or cooler, with a mix of sun and clouds. I’ll have to make sure to keep watering this bed, so the seeds don’t dry out and get baked.

The main garden area was now done. I just had a few more mulches to move, but I neglected to take still shots. I really should have for one of them!

The fenced off area with the tulips, apple tree and saffron crocuses were next, as well as the retaining wall blocks. Around the apple tree, I just moved the straw a bit further from the stem, where the weight of snow had pushed it closer to.

Then I uncovered the saffron crocuses and was wildly surprised. There were so many crocus leaves! They were surprisingly long and mostly blanched yellow from trying to grow through the mulch, with some of them having actual green in their leaves. I was very impressed by how many I saw. Last spring, I uncovered them and found a few, but they sort of disappeared among the weeds as the season progressed, and I thought they’d died off – until I found some spent and frost damaged blooms, way later than was expected!

Next, I took the straw off the retaining wall, taking it over to the tulip patch. I lightly scattered the straw over the tulips, though the wind made that a challenge. Later on, I took extra straw from over the septic tank and made an extra thick later in placed I was 100% sure had no tulips planted.

The retaining wall blocks have mint, chives, and tiny strawberry plants I’d transplanted from the wattle weave bed. Under the straw mulch was a leaf mulch that I removed carefully. There were a few green strawberry leaves, but it may be that most of them didn’t survive the winter. I also didn’t see any green in the mint, but that might show up later. The chives, of course, were coming up just fine as I cleared away the dead matter from last year. Chives survive anything! 😄

Last of all, I went to the chimney blocks along the chain link fence. Those got the last of the tiny strawberry transplants. The straw on those was set as mulch around the nearby black currant bush, which I think might be old enough to produce berries this year. It’s doing really well for something that started out as a little stick in a jug of water my mother snagged from a bush at the apartment building she used to live at and gave to me. These strawberries also had a leaf mulch under the straw, and that was used to mulch under the white lilacs on the other side of the path, to try and keep down the grass and weeds in there.

Once again, it seems like a mix of strawberries that survived and didn’t survive. For both areas, it will be a while before we know for sure what survived or not.

All in all, I am very happy with the progress and how the pre-sown beds look so far.

After this, there are other beds to prepare, but I think what I will need to do is get those boxes of chicken coop parts and assemble it, first. We’ll be getting chicks near the end of May and will set up a brooder in the house for their first 4-6 weeks, but I still want the coop assembled as soon as possible, and the ground is now dry enough.

That done, I have several beds that need to be cleaned up, plus two that need some building up of walls. The bed against the chain link fence will be a priority. It will be a bit narrower and a bit deeper when I am done, and I want to make sure it can be covered and protected from both the elm tree seeds that will drop in their billions, and the cats. The kittens got under the row netting I used last time and completely flattened anything that I’d pre-sown in that bed, except some Jebousek lettuce and a few sad onions that had survived the previous winter. I’ve already got some materials for the deadwood walls I plan to make, but I know I will need a lot more to finish the job. It’s always surprising just how much material is needed to make a wall! I’m not even going to try doing wattle weave; the materials we have are just too bent up and inflexible for that. We do have an order of basket will that will probably be shipped out in may. It will be a few years, but we will eventually be able have willow switched that will work much better than the poplar and maple suckers we’ve been using. Even the willow we do have is a different variety and, while it works better, the willow switches are not as straight as the basket willow will be.

But first, the chicken coop!

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

What a day

April 25, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

My original plan. It’s colder today, so I was going to wait until we got near our expected high of the day, do some work outside, then visit my mother.

Of course, that didn’t quite happen as planned. I never got any work done outside at all.

After my morning rounds, I had breakfast and spent some time catching up on my computer, which is working very well again right now. Which is when I found posts on FB from the rescue, talking about Frank!

The intake person still has Frank, and Frank has not warmed up to her or anyone at all. At most, she came out of her hiding place and had a nap on the floor in full view, once.

Well, yesterday, she went into labour, but it was clearly not progressing. They had to take her in for an emergency C section, and managed it only because she had hunkered down into a cat cave. They were able to slide the entire thing, with her in it, into a large dog crate. Once at the vet clinic, they apparently had to use a net to get her!

She had three kittens. Two survived, but Frank didn’t want anything to do with them. Volunteer fosters with experience bottle feeding newborn kittens have stepped in, and as far as I know, Frank is still at the clinic, recovering from surgery.

Poor Frank!

So far, her two baby boys are doing well with the fosters.

Once I saw the posts, I messaged the group chat I have with some people from the rescue and we were talking about her, when my mother phoned.

After our hellos, I told her I’d been planning to visit her later today, after I got some work done outside.

I was promptly informed that she was more important than anything else, and I needed to visit her.

No, she didn’t have any emergency, though she did bring up her ears and hearing problems. I tried asking her if they were doing the oil treatment to be able to clear her ears if it was a wax build up, as she has had happen in the past. She made some disparaging comments about the staff and I knew I wasn’t going to get a straight answer from her.

In the end, she asked me to bring her some Ginger Ale – just a small bottle – and a tube of Voltaren that she wanted me to bring to her and hide from the staff.

*sigh*

My mother had been asking for a particular cushion with a crocheted cover she wanted me to bring to her. I had found two almost identical ones and already had one of them in the truck to bring to her. After our call, I quickly changed out of my work clothes and headed out, just before lunch time. I stopped at the pharmacy to get her Voltaren, then went to the grocery store to find the small bottles of Ginger Ale. I’d considered getting her the tiny pop cans, instead, but a 6 pack of those costs almost as much as a 12 pack of full size cans! So I got her a 6 pack of Ginger Ale.

On entering the grocery store, though, I saw a sign saying their had seed potatoes in stock. I ended up getting a 5 pound bag of Yukon Gold and another of Viking Red, which I am not familiar with. I don’t know if we’ll get more potatoes later on, but we will at least have as many as we planted last year. It depend on what space I’m able to get available.

When I got to my mother’s, I stopped to talk to the nursing station first. The nurse there today actually worked at the hospital while my mother was there and remembered her, though I don’t think my mother remembers her back. I asked about my mother’s oil treatment for her ears, mentioning that my mother had specifically brought up that her right ear is worse. She dug out my mother’s file in their note book, where every shift’s nurse writes down things of note for the next shift, and for the doctor when he does his rounds once a week.

My mother’s file has a lot of notes.

She found the notes from the nurse to did my mother’s ears. She got the mineral oil treatment for three days, then he flushed her ears. The notes said her right ear was clear, and only a small amount came from her left year.

Since it is now confirmed it’s not a wax build up causing the problem, we talked about the situation for a while. In the end, we would have to make an appointment with an audiologist in the city ourselves, but once we let them know when the appointment is, they would arrange the transportation, since my mother would have to use her wheelchair. A family member could accompany, of course.

While the nurse was reading the notes on my mother’s file, she spotted something of concern for me. My mother has a new room mate now. A very frail woman. It seems my mother has pushed her walker and something else of hers out into the hallway, angry that they were … in the way? It wasn’t very clear.

That got me to asking about the possibility of my mother getting one of the private rooms, if one opens up. My mother will always complain about her room mates, no matter what, and she did have one that was apparently aggressive towards her, in the other TCU, but this is about my mother’s behaviour towards her room mates, not the other way around. The nurse took notes about that. We also talked about how my mother is on the waiting list for a particular nursing home. There’s no way to know now long that would happen, though.

We also talked about my mother’s medications, as the notes say she keeps asking about them. It turns out the “extra” pills my mother is getting are just multivitamins. This has been explained to her, but she doesn’t seem to get it.

Before going to my mother’s room, I showed the 6 pack of Ginger Ale bottles I was bringing to my mother, but also told her about the Voltaren, and that my mother asked me to keep it a secret from them. I explained, it’s just for her knees, which she can apply herself. That’s it. They already do her back and hip for her. The nurse agreed that it would be fine for my mother to have some to apply to her knees, herself. I just made sure to remind my mother later that I got her the extra strength version, so to use it only once every 12 hours.

When I got to my mother’s room, there was a cleaning staff member there, offering to take my mother’s lunch tray away. There was a note my mother had written on a napkin that she asked about, and it was for the kitchen staff. She wrote that they were giving her too big of a glass of milk and she couldn’t finish it and didn’t want to waste it, so she wanted a smaller glass. The woman tried to explain to my mother that she can’t write a note like that, or tell someone like her about it. My mother needed to go to the nurse so they can write it down in the instructions for her meals. My mother wasn’t understanding why; she felt writing the note should be enough. Since I was there and heard all this, I said I would take care of it and went back to the nursing station.

After explaining the situation, the nurse got out the folder with instructions for each residence and found my mother’s. She already had instructions to have a cup of hot water to go with her milk, so she can mix them together.

I spotted the problem.

They give her a full cup of milk, and a full insulated coffee/tea cup of hot water. Both are so full, she can’t combine them.

There are now instructions to give my mother only a half glass of milk with her meals, and she will have the room to mix her milk and hot water, the way she likes it, now!

As I was walking back, I crossed paths with the cleaning lady, and she started saying how she is surprise she hasn’t run into me before. She’d worked in our little hamlets single hotel/restaurant/bar for years.

Turns out, she’s a neighbour. She’d been to this farm, years ago, probably while I was still living here! When I asked her name, I did recognize it, though I certainly didn’t recognize her. Too many years have passed.

I told her I’ve been living in other provinces for some 30 years, and we’ve only been back for 8, going on 9, years. Plus, we don’t go out much. 😄

It turns out she knows our vandal quite well and mentioned him in passing, since she sees him all the time and knows how close we used to be. Even as she talked about him and started to cringe, commenting on “how he is” now.

*sigh*

As we were talking, my mother popped her head out of the room and we both greeted her. Not long after, she popped her head out again and told me, “I thought you came to visit ME!” I told her, “I was just saying hello to my neighbour!”

We said our goodbyes and I went to my mother’s room. Her room mate was not there, so we stayed there for my entire visit. As I came in, the first thing she did was tell me to close the door. There is someone across the hall that has his TV on and she found it too loud.

For someone who is having hearing issues, it’s surprising how much it bothers her, because it really wasn’t that loud. She had her own TV and radio on in her apartment when I’ve visited her, much much louder!

The visit went… okay. It certainly has been worse.

She complained about her pills, convinced that they are deliberately messing with her medications because they want old people to just die.

She brought out a list she’s been writing, of how many pills they give her and when, and now they’re giving them to her at the wrong times and the wrong amounts. She wouldn’t let me actually see the list, though.

I told her I talked to the nurse about her ears and she told me the flushing was done by a Filipino guy who says he’s a nurse, but who knows what he really is, and how nothing was flushed out of her ears. I told her, that meant there was no wax build up and explained about needing to get her ears tested in the city. That got a derisive comment about how they are just trying to push responsibility for her onto someone else. Why can’t the doctor do it? I had to explain, she needs to go to a specialist with the training and the equipment for it. A regular doctor can’t do it. She disagreed.

Oh, and she thinks her pills are causing her hearing loss. And eating is causing her breathing problems.

She complained that I brought her a 6 pack of Ginger Ale, when she only asked for one bottle.

She complained that the noise from the TV was breaking her sanity and literally killing her.

She complained that there was a chair in the corner of the room, where she stacks some of her stuff, because it’s ugly and big and doesn’t suit the room and she has asked for a shelf, instead. The chair is not big, not ugly, and all the double occupancy rooms are furnished exactly the same. She just doesn’t want it there.

She tried to make me take a pocket book on the life of Princess Diana that someone gave her but she has trouble reading because her eyesight is going. I tried to politely decline, so she tried to tell me to give it to my daughters. They need to read, too. I told her, we all read. What do we read? All sorts of things. We just don’t have any interest in the personal life of a dead princess. She took issue with the fact that we don’t read the things she thinks we should be reading.

At one point, she actually asked me what was new. I told her, she already knew about the well pump. That was pretty much it. She told me, she didn’t want to know about that, it’s our business. I told her, then don’t ask what’s new if you don’t want to know! She then explained she meant if we watched anything new on TV. I reminded her, we don’t watch TV.

I tried to tell her about uncovering the garlic bed and how they’re already sprouting, and got a lecture about how it’s too early to uncover them because it’s still too cold. Then went on about how, after we first moved here, she had offered to hire someone to plow the old garden area for us to garden in, but I said no. I told her, right… I said no. Because that would not have been a good thing. I tried to remind her, we don’t have a herd of cows with manure we can add to the soil, like she did, and the soil is very poor now. That’s why we are doing things differently.

That got the same response as mentioning the well pump did.

When the door opened and someone assisted my mother’s room mate in, my mother immediately began to complain about the TV. I told her, maybe they are hard of hearing, too? Oh, but then everyone has to suffer. I pointed out that not all people are bothered by it, and just tune it out (which I had already done during). I reminded her that some people always have a TV on, like my in laws did, just for background noise. Oh, that must be why she (my late mother in law) died.

…

I told her flat out that this was a very terrible thing to say.

My mother was completely indifferent and unapologetic.

Needless to say, I didn’t stay too much longer.

By the time I got home, it was late in the afternoon. I finally had my lunch, then headed out to feed the outside cats. I never did get any work done in the garden. I’ll have to make up for it, tomorrow.

I did get more messages from the rescue while I was with my mother, and they are talking about trapping cats. After what happened with Frank, the intake person really wants to get the females done, so no other cat has to go through what Frank is going through. It turns out Princes Auto has an 80% off sale on traps right now, and two people have already picked some up.

When I headed outside to do the second feeding of the day, I managed to get a good picture of one of our most feral females.

We have not named her. I am open to suggestions!

I have not seen Adam or Slick today at all, but this one, and Sprout, who is just as feral, have both shown up. I strongly suspect this white and grey is not nursing, because of how often I am seeing her in the inner yard. I find it hard to believe she didn’t get pregnant, when she and others went into heat in January, which is really, really early for that. Which suggests to me she may have lost a litter. I had no way of knowing, though, and we don’t see enough of her body to be able to tell if she’s nursing.

The second picture in the slideshow above is of the two big traps we have, which I sent to the rescue chat group. We have two others that my brother gave me, but they are more appropriate to catch squirrels, not adult cats. The thing is, if we were to manage to trap a cat, we’d have to get them in somewhere immediately – and we still have to find a way to monitor the traps. The intake person agreed, yes, immediately, but I asked, immediately to where? I have not had a response yet. As far as I know, I can’t just show up with a cat in a trap at a vet clinic and request a spay or neuter. Especially since the only clinic that we’re dealing with (with special rates and arrangements with the rescue) is a 45-50 minute drive away. So where would I go with them once they are trapped?

Other folks in the chat group were talking about coming here, as a group, with traps to get as many as possible for spay or neuter and release. Which would be the best plan, since they would be able to work something out before they even arrived here. The intake person wants me to focus on females only, but there’s no way to pick and choose who gets trapped.

We shall see what actually ends up happening.

So that is where I am at now. A very different day than expected!

I do hope Frank heals up well, and they are able to find a way to get her adopted out. While we are more than willing to take her back, I’d hate for her to become an outside cat again, and it would be too much for her to join the crowd of inside cats we already have.

Ah, well.

What will be, will be.

The Re-Farmer

Feeling thankful

April 24, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today has been pretty chilly, compared to yesterday, but it was still warm enough to get stuff done in the garden. I’ll actually put together another video on how that went. Probably not today, though.

Before I headed outside, I had a rather alarming start to the day, when I tried to log into my computer.

I got this.

Yes, that’s cat hair all over my monitor’s screen.

I have never seen this particular warning before. I also couldn’t really fuss with it, either, as I needed to have my breakfast, then head outside to get the winter sown beds uncovered. So I got my husband up and told him what was going on and he said he would look at it while I was outside.

He had to go into my bios to reset it.

It turns out part of the problem is all the photos and video I’ve got.

This is a new computer, which I got after my previous desktop died an ignominious death. When looking for another desktop, I was surprised to find that pretty much everything only had 500 Gigs of storage space. When I got my previous one, they all had at least 1T. I’ve been transferring files to an external hard drive as I am able, but it was already mostly full with data rescued from my old computer. Still, I needed to free up space on my computer; it’s slow going to transfer over USB, so I’d do things like one month’s worth of photos and video at a time.

In spite of that, after I uploaded the photos and video I took for my last gardening video, the files took up enough space that the computer just couldn’t process my log in.

As we were talking about it when I came in for lunch, my husband mentioned that he had a 2T hard drive on his old computer; we’ve kept both our old computers for salvage purposes. He wasn’t sure if my new computer had the ports for it, though. He got it out of his old computer to give it a try after I finished my lunch, and headed back outside.

It worked.

As soon as I was able to, I started transferring files. I was able to transfer all of our 2025 trail cam files at once, instead of one month at a time, in a very short time. Had I tried to transfer the 2025 fold to the external hard drive, it would have taken more than an hour. That one folder turned out to be what was taking up the most space.

I really need to delete more trail cam files, but I enjoy keeping files with, say, herds of deer going by, or cats – some we no longer have – running around. Of course, I also keep the files that show our vandal creeping around, too.

Moving that one folder almost doubled the available space I had.

From now on, all my photos and videos will be going straight to the 2T hard drive; something I used to do regularly, with my previous computer. I was able to transfer it all in mere moments.

My desktop is doing much better now!

Meanwhile, I was able to get a decent amount of work done in the main garden area. I focused on the garlic bed first, and found lots of garlic already emerged – and a surprising number of chard and spinach seedlings! They were trying to grow through two layers of mulch (first a leaf mulch, then the straw mulch I added later), though, so they were all very leggy. I don’t know if they’ll make it. That bed is now clear and protected by netting, though, so they at least have a chance.

The next bed I worked on has the radishes and turnips in it. This one has the two rows closer to the sides of the bed, with the middle open for what will probably be pole beans later on. There was a surprising number sprouts on one side – the radishes, if I remember correctly. This bed got covered with the 6mm poly I had order a couple of months ago.

By the time that was done, it was getting late, and my daughter was treating us to pizza at a place that opens at 4pm. We all got different 18″ jumbo size pizzas, which is enough to feed us for several days!

After the order was phoned in, I headed out to the truck but just had to stop to get this picture.

These three in particular just love the isolation shelter! With the cooler temperatures, I turned the heat lamp back on, too. That’s Furriosa, curled up in the hammock under the lamp.

On the way to town, I stopped at the general store and post office. I was able to pick up a 40 pound bag of kibble, along with getting the mail.

There was a surprise parcel waiting for me!

From there, I continued on to town, first stopping at the grocery store; my daughter had sent funds for a few things from there, to go with the pizzas, as well. Last of all, I got the pizzas, then headed home.

The truck smelled amazing.

Once everything was unloaded and put away, I opened up the package. It was from a dear friend that was a neighbour before we moved out here. Along with some things for the garden, and treats as “bait” for the outside cats, I found this, well wrapped in a tiny box.

How utterly precious! The teeniest most adorable bunny, ever!

And yes, I did scrub my hands after I was done in the garden. Honest. 😄

In between the stops I made while going to and from town, I got some messages from my husband. Out of curiosity, he looked up the price for the exact same SSD, 2T hard drive he scavenged from his old computer to install into mine.

It now costs $925.

Before taxes.

Out of curiosity, my husband looked up the invoice from when he bought it a few years ago.

Less than $250 AFTER taxes.

For the EXACT same hard drive. That’s on Amazon. No idea what the local prices would be, or if anyone even carries it anymore.

In the end, there was much to be thankful for today.

Thankful that my husband could get into my computer in the first place. Thankful he had a spare 2T hard drive, and my computer is now breathing easy again.

Thankful we didn’t need to spend almost a thousand dollars for a new one!

Thankful for the work I was able to get done in the garden today.

Thankful for my daughter treating us to pizza. Gosh, it’s been ages since we’ve ordered in pizza.

Thankful that I was able to get a 40 pound bag of kibble, right at our own hamlet’s general store and didn’t have to drive to towns to the north and south of us for one.

Thankful for a wonderful and thoughtful friend who sent us a delightful care package.

All in all, life it really good!

The Re-Farmer