I made it – and got garden stuff

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Well, I did it.

I had no choice.

I borrowed my brother’s truck for a trip to the post office and general store.

But first, I had to do some digging. *sigh*

We have a prescription delivery today, so I went ahead to open the gate, to be left open until after the delivery. Walking down the driveway, I was seeing a very odd shadow. It turned out to be a steeply angled drift that stretched from under one side of the gate, diagonally across the driveway for about 30 feet.

Also, the plow went by. There wasn’t much of a plow ridge, but enough that it was making the end of the driveway too narrow.

Messed up arm or not, it needed to be cleared before I could go anywhere, and before the delivery arrived.

Thankfully, the snow wasn’t too hard packed and I could mostly to it by just pushing the shovel with one hand, but it did take a lot longer for it.

My right arm is so messed up right now.

That done, I got my brother’s truck unplugged (he’s got both a block heater and a trickle charger, so I’m leaving it plugged in even though it’s warmer) and started.

First of all, I have to say, it is a good, solid truck. It has done amazing for my brother, made many trips hauling trailers and RVs, and we got an amazing amount of my mother’s furniture into it when we emptied her apartment – though the battery did die, because of the extreme cold we’d just gone through. Thankfully, my brother has a portable charger/booster for times like that.

I hope never to have to drive that truck again! 😄😄

It’s the largest vehicle I’ve ever driven and handles completely different than any other vehicle I’ve ever driven. Everything about it feels and sounds “wrong”! Even the sound of gravel getting kicked up against the undercarriage sounded wildly different. It’s an older vehicle – I don’t know the year, but I think it’s late 70’s. Maybe early 80’s. Which means the entire frame makes noises that newer vehicles just don’t, anymore. Creaks and groans, rattles, pops and snaps. Of course, it also handled very differently, too.

Still, it got me to where I was going, and I am thankful for it. I’m sure, over time, I would get used to it and it would be fine.

I don’t want to have to get used to it. 😂

I did remember to bring a couple of our hard sided grocery bags when I got to the general store. I had a bit of a shock when I pulled in. Their gas price was $1.169! The average gas price in our province right now is $1.614

I just looked it up and Costco gas prices today are $1.099 right now, while the average price for the city is $1.629

Both gas tanks on my brother’s truck were full, though.

Anyhow.

I went in and got the mail, including the two parcels I was expecting. Then I did a bit of shopping. Just a few items for us, but mostly I was looking at their kibble. We’re running low on kibble for the outside cats.

They only had small 1.5kg (about 5 pounds) bags of cat kibble, and the cheaper brand was just under $10 a bag. Lots of big bags of dog kibble, but none for cats. The store does carry feed, so I asked if their supplier carried the 40 pound bags of cat kibble. She looked it up and they do, but it’s a brand I was unfamiliar with. Still, if it’s something we could get here instead of driving to feed stores in towns to the north and south of us, that would be helpful. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I should request a bag and see if the cats will actually eat it.

I got only three of the little bags for now. The kibble bin for the inside cats was mostly full, so that went to the outside cats, and the small bags for the inside cats. We have lots of canned cat food, thanks to the very generous donation, so we can use more of that for a while.

Before heading home, I messaged and asked if someone could meet me at the garage to help me bring things in. I couldn’t carry anything with my right arm. Even with taking my bags to the truck, I couldn’t open the doors my right arm. I had to put the bag down, use my left arm, hold the door with my foot and grab the bag again. I had to make three trips to bring them to the truck, when I normally would have been able to carry all three bags at once!

When I got home, my younger daughter was waiting for me in the garage – and she was hobbling with a cane! I was glad she was there, though, as she could guide me into the garage. My brother had set a large board across as a stop so the truck wouldn’t go too far in and have the cap hit the top of the door frame, but with her there, she could let me know when to stop before I hit the board.

Then my poor daughter struggled to grab two bags with one arm, to take into the house for me! I offered to find a way to do it, but she managed. I stayed long enough to make sure the truck was plugged in and locked up (my brother is worried about our vandal) before following her.

Once settled in, I texted the garage. I let them know that the third brake light I’d ordered was in, to replace the one I stupidly broke by forgetting the garage door was not fully open before I backed out. It’s an easy fix, but requires climbing into the box, and that’s something that is increasingly difficult and dangerous for me to do. I then asked, if the truck won’t be ready by the weekend, was it possible to get a courtesy vehicle? It’s one thing to drive my brother’s truck to the post office. It’s quite another to drive it to, say, Walmart, in one of the cities, or even just to one of the other towns to go to the feed stores. The part not being in yet is not something they can control, but it has already been a ridiculously long time to be without a vehicle as we wait!

I don’t know how often they check their texts in between jobs. I figure I’ll hear from them just before they close, again.

Then I had my other parcel to open, and this one is for the garden.

One thing that I ordered was 6mm thick greenhouse plastic at 10′ x 26′ (about 3m x 8m) That is long enough to cover an entire 4′ x 18′ bed in the main garden area, with a fairly decent height. I’ve been using painters drop cloth plastic, and it’s just too thin and tears too easily. I haven’t been able to find anything thicker, anywhere, other than vinyl table protectors, which are all too small. Unless I go for clear tarps, which I might still do for other things, but those can be very expensive. I not going to open that package until spring.

Then there is the hoop kit. I’ve been making do with things like Pex pipe, which works well enough, but for the price of the pipe, I wasn’t saving anything compared to this kit. The “60 piece set” includes 50 connectors, 27 garden clips, wire, gloves and 60 fiberglass 17″ hoop rods. The second picture in the slide show above shows the instruction side of the card.

The gloves are the one thing I would consider as probably useless in the kit. They wouldn’t fit my simian hands. They might fit my younger daughter, though. Maybe.

If this works out, I might go ahead and order more of these kits in the future.

Over time, as we slowly frame all the garden beds with logs, we plan to build more 3′ x 9′ covers. The beds are 4′ wide on the outside, so with the thickness of the logs, the actual growing area is closer to 3′ wide. We have three 3′ x 9′ garden beds made with scrap lumber I found in one of the sheds, and that’s the dimensions I was able to make with them, so it’s become sort of the default when it comes to making covers that are interchangeable. In the main garden area’s 18′ beds, we’d be able to fit two covers over one bed. The plan is to be able to use greenhouse plastic or netting interchangeably over the covers, as needed. Until then, we’ll use a hoop system, like this.

Then, there is the portable greenhouse.

Which has its own challenges.

High winds and cats, mostly.

It’s currently covered with a huge tarp, black on one side, grey on the other, that was generously sent to us. It’s a heavy duty tarp, but you can actually see in the photo that there are lots of tiny little holes in it already! I can see light through them, on the inside.

*sigh*

I just came back from getting the prescription delivery, and there was another cat sitting in that same spot. I’ve seen others perched on the peak, as well.

So anything we try to use to cover the frame, so we can still use it, has to be cat proof.

I’ve been sent links as inspiration to use repurposed clear plastic bottles to make a greenhouse. Aside from the 1 gallon size distilled water jugs we get for my husband’s CPAP humidifier that I use in the garden, we don’t use a lot of clear plastic bottles. We haven’t even bought cases of bottled water from Costco in ages. However, it’s something we could make a point of collecting. Theoretically, we could do something like that to create walls that the cats can’t climb. If we were to instead cover it with, say, a clear tarp or 6mm plastic, we would have to put something under it to prevent any sort of sagging, like chicken wire (we have a roll with enough left on it to do that).

Something to figure out. Honestly, though, the bigger priority this year is to create something like a polytunnel in the main garden area this summer, as we would need to use it to overwinter the chickens we are getting this spring. That coop I got is fine for three seasons, but not enough to handle our prairie winters! Still, it would be nice to be able to use that portable greenhouse for our seed starts again. We only got one spring out of it before the cover was destroyed!

Meanwhile, I’m glad I was able to pick up the hoop kit and 6mm plastic. We’ll test it out once things melt enough. The prices were good enough that, if they work, it would be worthwhile to get more. It’ll be much easier to protect the beds from cats with netting, and these rods should even fit in the channels of the dollar store netting kits we got last year. Those were good, except the wire supports couldn’t handle the weight of kittens jumping on the netting.

Lots of work to do. I am looking forward to the warmer weather to get started on it!

Now, if my body would only cooperate and stop breaking down on me.

The Re-Farmer

Ouch

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Well, I did get out to work on some shoveling. I needed to focus on the inner yard so that we could drive the truck up to the house.

It was a beautiful day for it and I did get a decent amount done, but I wasn’t able to finish it. My right elbow gave out, first. It became simply too painful to bend it after a while.

Once inside and settling in, I paused to take some painkillers. I keep a bottle by my nightstand, so I sat on the edge of my bed to reach it.

With my right arm.

I could barely pick up the bottle.

Then I tried to get up to get a water bottle from my mini-fridge.

That’s when my left hip gave out.

I actually had to get my husband – the one with the back injury that has left him disabled for almost 15 years – to get the water bottle out for me, so I could take my painkillers! Thankfully, I keep a cane with feet standing by my bedside; I use it to help me stand up out of bed. It’s on my right, but I had to move it so I could use my left arm to get myself standing, because I couldn’t put any weight on my right arm.

Being broken sucks.

I’ll have to make sure to take my anti-inflammatories soon, but I’ll need to take those with a full meal.

Ouch.

Meanwhile…

I sent a text to the garage. Obviously, we weren’t going to be getting the truck back today, and I acknowledged that I could see that. I brought up that, with all the weird things going on with the truck, we need to talk pre-financing to find out what we can trade it in for. Plus, about selling my mother’s car on consignment. I was hoping to wait until after the snow was gone, at least, before trading the truck in, and getting a few more payments against it, but we just can’t hold off anymore.

I got a response, just before they closed for the day. The part had not arrived yet. He said he would phone to find out where it is, and agreed about talking pre-financing. Since he has the truck there, they have access to all the information they need to look up the trade in value, etc.

It is highly unlikely we’ll be able to get another truck. Ideally, a minivan would be the alternative, but their resale prices tend to be even higher than trucks, apparently. SUVs, on the other hand, tend to be more reasonable. In the end, beggars can’t be choosers! We’ll take what we can get, as long as it’s something my husband can get in and out of without too much pain, and there’s room for his walker.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Which will it be?

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A lot of areas in our province had a lot of problems with yesterday’s snowfall. It wasn’t as bad where we are, but at this point, I’m okay if the truck repair doesn’t happen today, either. More time to clear some snow.

The question is, what will things be like over the next few days?

I got this forecast from the weather app on my desktop.

Up to 3C/37F tomorrow? Up to 6C/43F the day after? Mix of sun and clouds? Wouldn’t that be nice!

I got this from the weather app on my phone.

So… 2C/36F over the next two days. Fog tomorrow evening. Mix of rain and snow the next morning, then just snow through until the weekend.

We’ll see which one turns out to be right!

This time of year is always the hardest. Spring is teasing, but winter just isn’t letting go, yet!

Meanwhile, we hibernate while waiting for work on the truck. My younger daughter got up at 2am, cleaned the kitchen and has been baking bread all morning. What a sweetheart!

The Re-Farmer

Could winter just go away now?

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Granted, conditions are worse to the south and west of us, but still…

While we are at a relatively balmy -12C/10F right now, the wind chill is at -27C/-17F The snow will continue, off and on, through the evening. At this point, even if the part came in and the truck is fixed, we’re not going anywhere. With the blowing snow, we might have to dig out again, first – even though my brother cleared the driveway with his gas powered snow blowers just a few days ago!

On the plus side, the temperatures are supposed to keep warming up overnight. Tomorrow, our high is supposed to be -3C/27F, and the next couple of days are supposed to reach above freezing. More importantly, overnight lows are expected to stay warmer than -15C/5F for another week.

The yard cats seem to be taking it in stride. The inside cats have no idea how good they have it!

They look so sweet and innocent.

The liars! 😄

I’ve been very low energy all day today. Partly due to having much interrupted sleep for the past couple of nights, what with the cats mostly sleeping all day and going wild at night. 😄 Plus, I think I’m starting to get low in iron of late. 🫤 Joint pain has been high lately, too. Not a surprise, with the weather we’ve been having. I’ve had to get the girls to take over for me with most of my usual jobs. My hands are the worst right now. I’ve been needing to use two hands to pick up my tea cup, simply because I can’t grip the cup handle well enough to lift it. Very frustrating.

Ah, well. It is what it is. To paraphrase in English what my late father used to say, “what are you going to do? You can laugh, or you can cry. I prefer to laugh.”

Or sleep.

Sleep sounds really, really good right now.

I am getting so tired of winter.

The Re-Farmer

Can’t be soon enough

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But first, the cuteness!

I have no idea what’s going on with Grommet’s face! I think I caught him with his mouth open.

I actually got this picture yesterday, while going in and out during the cookout. I’m really glad we did that yesterday, as I don’t think I would have been up to it, today!

I did get the morning cat feeding done outside – and discovered the cats had somehow unplugged the larger heat lamp again. We hit around -25C/-13F during the night, and the thermometer in the sun room was at -15C/5F this morning. The heated water bowl had ice forming at the top!

That done, it wasn’t long before I ended up going back to bed.

Getting the truck back from the garage can’t happen soon enough. I know, my brother got his truck ready for us to use, and I would be okay driving it for short distances, but that’s about it. I certainly wouldn’t be comfortable driving it to, say… our doctor’s clinic.

TMI warning.

As soon as we get our truck back, I need to re-book my doctor’s appointment. As someone that’s been post-menopausal for almost 20 years, I should not be having another period. Having one last month is why I booked an appointment in the first place.

I don’t feel sick. Aside from very normal feeling mild cramps, I’m not in any other pain. I have no other symptoms typical for this sort of thing to happen. It’s just… there.

Ideally, the truck will be ready tomorrow, or it might be the day after. Hopefully, replacing the differential again (under warranty) is the solution, because they can’t find anything else wrong with the truck. It should not be doing the things it’s doing! Kinda like my body right now. Once it’s back, I’ll call the clinic and book a new appointment – for the third time!

The clinic is booking appointments 4 weeks out right now, but perhaps they’ll have a cancellation or something that could get me in sooner.

Once we have our own transportation again.

The Re-Farmer

Open fire cooking

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After all the digging yesterday, today we got to enjoy the fruit of my labour with a cookout.

March is a birthday month, but we never celebrate birthdays on the day, but the weekend before or after (unless the birthday happens to fall on a weekend, of course), plus like to do nice things for the birthday person spread out over a couple of weeks.

The other thing we normally used to do was take the birthday person out to the restaurant of their choice. Which isn’t really an option anymore. So instead, we would do the take out of their choice.

Now, in theory, we could have done that this time. My brother got his truck prepped and it’s available for us to drive, should we need it. He is also convinced something is going to go wrong with our own truck! It is a much older truck – I don’t know the year, but I think it’s either late 70’s or early ’80’s. With my luck, I’m afraid that if I drive it, it’ll break down, too! 😄

My older daughter that has a birthday this month, however, insisted we not spend any money on her for her birthday. When I told her, I budgeted for it, she said to put it towards the truck.

*sigh*

So, instead, I decided to do special meals. Today, it was a cookout.

The cooking was done outside, but the eating inside, because dang, it’s still cold out there!

My younger daughter headed out early to get the fire pit going and build up coals for cooking, while I brought out the stuff to cook. This was our first time using our square Dutch oven that I got on clearance at Canadian Tire, months ago.

I had eight baking potatoes, wrapped in foil with olive oil and course salt. They all fit quite nicely in the Dutch oven, as you can see in the second picture.

I got the pictures after she’d had it in the middle of the fire pit for more than an hour (we forgot to check the time), then moved it off to one side to start cooling it down a bit.

The nice things about this Dutch oven. The square shape made fitting the potatoes in much better than with a round shape, which made for more even cooking. As with the other Dutch oven, the lid can double as a separate cooking surface. It’s smaller, and lighter, perfect for if we want to cook smaller portions, and easier to carry when full.

The down sides with this design. It has no legs, so it rests directly in the coals. The lid isn’t recessed, so any coals set on top are not as secure. It’s handles are built in; larger areas on opposite corners, rather than a wire carrying handle that swings up and down, or can even be used to hang it over the fire. There is also no handle on the lid. Which means we can’t use a tool to lift the lid off, nor use a carrying handle to lift the entire thing in and out of the fire pit. Instead, we had to wait for things to cool down enough to handle in some way. My daughter was able to push the lid off to the side so I could remove the potatoes and take them into the house to stay warm in the oven. Eventually, my daughter was able to get the lid out so finish cooling off on the side, but it took quite a bit longer before the rest was cool enough to remove with oven mitts. Even then, it had to rest on top of some logs (so as not to come in directly contact with the snow) until it was cool enough to handle and bring inside.

Then my daughter reset the fire and built up more coals to cook the hot dog wieners. We have a moveable grill surface (you can see the shadow of it in the first picture above) and a cooking tray designed to go on a BBQ grill, for things that would otherwise fall through the grill. It fits a dozen wieners at once.

Wieners that had started to freeze by then!

With the temperatures, once those were on, we had to cover them with foil. I had a metal dish to bring them into the house with, later; with the wind, I ended up setting it on top to keep the foil from blowing off!

When it was time to turn them, though, I realized I forgot something important.

I forgot to oil the cooking surface. The wieners were stilling to it!

As soon as they were cooked through enough, my daughter transferred them into the (now warm) metal dish. They were pretty torn up, but she did the best she cook! I wrapped the dish in foil and went in to keep them warm with the potatoes. Originally, we were going to toast the hot dog buns, too, but quickly gave up on that idea. We would toast them in the oven, so I took the bag of buns in, too.

They were starting to freeze as well!

In the end, though, it all worked out well. The potatoes turned out to be perfectly cooked! I was more concerned about them. The last time we did foil wrapped potatoes in the fire pit, they were set directly into the hot ashes. They cooked way faster than expected, and were pretty burned in places. Cooking them in the Dutch oven protected them and let them cook more evenly. Definitely something worth doing again!

That was for today. Later on, we’ll be baking a cake, and I’ve got fish fillets thawing out for another special dinner – one only my daughters can eat, but that’s just fine! My husband and I don’t tolerate fish – or most seafood in general – well. The girls, on the other hand, love pretty much all seafood.

As for me, it’s back to spending time with the family! It’s been a good day.

I hope you are having a wonderful day, too!

The Re-Farmer

A day of digging

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I ended up outside for about four hours, digging paths in the snow – and I’m not done!

The priority was to get the fire pit area cleared. That has been drifted over for at least a couple of months now. I got the easy paths done first, though, like the path to the litter compost area. On that side, there was one path that got drifted over that I hadn’t gotten to previously, and I needed to use the ice scraper tool to break up the packed snow to get it clear. The rest of the most used paths only needed minor clearing.

The first section of the path to the fire pit area was brutal. I didn’t even try to re-dig the original path from before. That’s where, in the video, you can see a dark trail from dirty little cat feet. Normally, I’d clear the cat path to where they get under the storage house, with a branch off towards the fire pit. That cat path was too hard packed, so I cleared a new path next to it, until I reached where the old path branched off.

Even working off to one side, the snow was so hard packed, even the blade from the ice scraper had difficulty cutting through. I probably spent as much time on that one short section as I did the rest of the path to the fire pit area. If I had tried to use little Spewie to try and clear it, it would have broken. I’m pretty sure even my brother’s gas powered snow blower would have broken, trying to get through there!

Speaking of which, my brother came out today. Along with stuff he needed to do in their storage, he got his own truck set up. He used the snow blower in the outer yard and driveway as well, and moved his truck to our garage, where it can partially fit through the door. The cap on the box of his truck is too high to drive all the way in. He made sure it was all prepared so we can use it, if we have to.

He is convinced something is going to happen to prevent our truck from being ready in a few days, or it’s going to break down again, and we’re going to need to use his truck.

I really don’t want to use his truck! I appreciate the offer, for sure, but it’s a bigger truck, a rear wheel drive and basically a one wheel drive. It’s done very well for them, and I am incredibly grateful the option is there, but I really, really would rather not have to use it!

While I was digging one of the last sections of path, my brother came over to get me and show me the truck. He had it part way in the garage, and had set up a large board across the floor, in front of the tires, to make sure it didn’t go past that point. Otherwise, the top of the box cap would hit the top of the garage door frame! He had me start it and back it out, and walked me through various things on it. This truck as two gas tanks; something we’ve never had. As old as it is, it has lower mileage than our truck! He had some things he wanted to take out of the back, so after going over it with me, he took care of that, then drove it back in position party way into the garage while I went back to shoveling.

I was near finished shoveling when he came over again. He wanted to take pictures of section of the drain pipe from the kitchen, across to the bathroom. Under the bathroom, with the maze of pipe joins, the main drain changes size twice before the final length of 3″ pipe that runs to the septic tank. He is thinking of replacing the pipe from under the kitchen to under the bathtub with 3″ pipe, so that it can handle the volume of water from when the washing machine drains. The washing machine’s pump drains it faster than the water can go through the 1 1/4″ pipe. The problem is, there not a lot of room to put a 3″ pipe through!

I told him about how I’d run the drain auger through three times, after the plumber last got it unblocked for us. Not even the commercial drain auger can get the inside of the pipes completely clear from decades of grease and grime from the kitchen sink, and the sink that used to be set up where the washing machine is now.

I’ve picked up a brush set that’s designed to clean pellet stove pipes or dryer vents. It has two brush sizes, one of which will fit inside this pipe, and it can reach up to 30 feet. It’s about 20 feet to the corner under the bathroom. I think that if I can scrub out the inside of the pipe, that would solve the problem, and we can have the washing machine drain to the septic tank instead of out the window in the main door! I haven’t done it yet because it would be a very messy job that I would need to prepare for. Just running the auger through was messy and disgusting enough! Until it’s done, though, we don’t even dare try testing it again. The last time we did, even after the blockage was cleared by the plumber, we ended up flooding the entryway again. The water just couldn’t drain through the pipe fast enough.

That done, it was back outside. My brother had a few last things to do before leaving, and I did a bit more clean up around the paths before starting to put things away. I dug out fire wood that had been partially buried in snow, and left it out in the sun to melt a bit before having a cookout tomorrow. March is a birthday month and we always celebrate on a weekend near the birth date, usually with a special take out meal (going to a restaurant is no longer an option). Obviously, we can’t do that this month, but I still want to do something special, so we’ll be having a cookout, instead!

Before putting everything away, I finally took the snow off the cat shelter roofs. I’d been leaving the snow as an extra layer of insulation, but we don’t really need that anymore. Now, I want the sun to actually warm up the shingles and metal roof panels and melt away any remaining build up of ice and snow.

By the time I got in, I was pretty wasted. My daughters have basically taken over the other jobs I normally would have done, and made sure I got fed! 😄

Tonight, I’m thinking to prep some things in advance for the cookout before heading to bed. I’m still deciding on what that might be.

Meanwhile, I still need to dig out one more path. With the cookout planned for tomorrow, I might leave that for Monday. We’ll see. I definitely want to get it done before the first day of spring, though, as I plan to do my first “garden tour” video of the year. 😄 It won’t be the first time I did one with everything covered in snow!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

I’m going to need to decompress after this one!

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Okay, so things got done and I’m home now.

First, the good parts.

I texted the cab company (it’s one guy with one car) last night to book a trip for today. Once it was confirmed he was available to pick me up in the afternoon, I called the grocery store. I had used their website to build a shopping list, using the new flier, etc. They have a delivery service that allowed to have the list transferred over with a click. That would have allowed me to submit my shopping list, work out payment, and then either have it delivered or ready for pick up. Except I knew no one would be delivering where we live. I expected to be able to arrange a pick up. Our nearest location, however, didn’t even come up as an option.

Which just meant I had to phone the store directly. Since I used their website to build my list, I could just read it off. I also let them know when I would be arriving to pick up (more or less) and was assured it would be ready by then. That done, I confirmed with the taxi about the times. I even got a call this morning to ask about substitutions, and could even call them back later on to add something to the list my husband requested.

The grocery store was just the first place I needed to go. I went to the customer service desk and the only delay was people running around because someone had fallen in the parking lot, and an ambulance had been called. My order had already been processed and suspended, so it just needed to be called up and paid for, then someone went to the back to bring out the cart. It was all boxed up, so I didn’t even need to use the bags I’d brought along.

After the cab was loaded up, the next stop was the bank so I could use the ATM to pay him. I asked him how much it was before I went in, so I had an idea of how much I needed to take out. It was already $50 by then.

From there, it was back home with a stop at the post office. It has been more than a week, so the mail box was stuffed with fliers, but the important mail we were waiting for was there, plus I now had a parcel to pick up.

As we left, I messaged the family to let them know we were almost there, so they could be ready to assembly line things to the house, and that I was telling the driver to just pull up to the garage, not into the yard, so it would be easier for him to leave.

Final bill was pennies over $90, before tip. I can’t begrudge it. Gas prices have gone up to $1.559 – and no, it’s not because of what’s going on in the Middle East. It’s just our government inflating prices again, then blaming Trump and the US, which has become the modus operandi since Marx Carnage became our new Prime Dictator.

I’d better watch myself. With the newest bills they’re trying to push through, especially after buying another MP and getting the majority government they couldn’t get through an election, I can be arrested for saying that.

Anyhow…

The girls were waiting for me when we got there, everything was unloaded to the garage and we assembly lined bringing everything to the house as the driver left.

Now for the down side.

The drive is a nice guy. He really is.

He’s a terrible driver.

Also, he car sounds like it’s about to break down any minute. It did not sound like this, the last time he drove me into town!

When he first got here, I met him at the gate, leaving it open for when we got back. He didn’t drive fully into the driveway, and had to do some maneuvering in order to turn around because of it. He mentioned getting stuck twice in the last while, so I can understand his being super cautious.

As soon as we headed out, I immediately heard and felt something wrong with the car, but I didn’t say anything about it. I figured, he would know about his own car.

What he clearly doesn’t know, is how to drive on icy gravel roads. Even in the first quarter mile, he was already starting to speed and I could feel the car losing traction. I told him to feel free to drive as slow as he needed, and that the area ahead was prone to deer crossings. He did slow down, but after the first mile, he started speeding again. That section was better, but he didn’t slow down when we were coming up on the intersection at the highway, where it is always sheer ice. So I let him know that the area ahead was really bad for being slippery, and he did eventually start to slow down, but still ended up sliding a bit because he was still going too fast while breaking for the stop sign.

Once driving through our little hamlet, where the speed limit is 50km/h in good conditions, he started speeding again. It wasn’t good conditions, though certainly better than the gravel road.

Then we got through the residential area, and the limit increased to 100km/h. Which would have been okay, except, being a nice guy, he was also very talkative.

He talks with his hands.

At least he mostly kept one hand on the steering wheel, but he was all over the road. At one point, driving in the middle of the highway. Thankfully, there were no oncoming vehicles at that time!!

Meanwhile, the entire time we were driving, I was literally expecting the car to break down.

He drove me to where I needed to go, and then we were on the way home. I discovered he’s not good at getting around other vehicles, either, and had a mild heart attack as he drove around a plow truck that was just through an intersection, setting up to clear drifts off the shoulders. With oncoming traffic.

When we got back to our hamlet, we stopped at the post office and it wasn’t too bad – until he got back on the gravel road. Again, I tried to let him know, he didn’t need to be in a hurry, and which sections were known to be slippery. He started asking about other towns and hamlets in the area, gesturing broadly with one hand, weaving on the icy road with the other. As we started to get to the intersection by our place, I mentioned how the road past our place isn’t on any maps, so that’s why we made the sign at the corner of the property, with the road name on it, because the sign with the name got stolen. I even gestured at the stop sign that had been knocked down in the process. At that point, I had to say, please slow down!

It turns out he was so distracted by talking, he was about to drive right past our intersection. He had to back up to be able to take the turn.

When we drove in, one of my daughters was waiting at the garage, while the other was waiting at the people gate into the yard. After bringing everything in, my younger daughter went back out to close the gate while I helped my older daughter put things away. As we were talking, she comments on the noises coming from the car! She thought it sounded ready to break down, too.

I’m happy we got the errands done, the mail finally picked up – and to be home again, safe and sound!

I really wasn’t sure about that last part for much of the drive.

I really hope the truck gets fixed soon. I don’t think I could handle another cab ride.

Oh, crud. I’ll have to get the cab to drive me in to pick up the truck, anyhow.

*sigh*

We’ll figure it out!!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: Yellow Celery – I hope this works!

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Well, it was time.

The yellow celery (Golden Boy celery) had outgrown their tray. They needed potting up.

The question was, how to do that without damaging their roots?

That’s the down side of scatter sowing such tiny seeds. Especially when the germination rate was so high!

I decided the best way to do it was to set them into a seed snail roll.

As with the onions, I wanted to use potting soil rather than a soilless seed starting mix. That meant, more sifting. Which had its own challenge. Wearing a dust mask again was out of the question. I just can’t wear a mask anymore, and trying to last time was really awful. Yet not having some sort of protection was also out of the question because of how much dust sifting the dry potting soil would raise up.

My solution turned out to be pretty simple. The clear plastic garbage bag I use to protect my work surface is large enough to cover the entire bucket, and have enough slack that I could grip the handles of the colander I am using as a sifter and shake it. Yes, small amounts of dust did come out from below, but this was at floor level and it wasn’t an issue.

Before I started, I emptied the old, cracked tray I was using to collect the big pieces. This is what I got.

The depth of the soil barely reached my second knuckles. Meanwhile, just look at all those pieces that got sifted out! Totally insane. This bag was purchased last year, and I’ve heard that a lot of people were having the same issue. A few sticks is pretty normal, but nothing to this extent. It wasn’t even just one brand, either. Hopefully, the companies have gotten better at making sure their raw material is properly composted before bagging it up and sending it out!

That done, it was time to prepare the seedlings.

The first picture is the “before” shot. You can see how dense they are. The tray is bottom watered, and roots are showing out the opening. Roots that would be quite entangled. How to get the seedlings out and apart, then transplanted, gently?

In the second picture, you can see what I decided to do. I had a tray (a thoroughly cleaned and repurposed meat tray that we’ve had for a few years now) that was wider and flat. I carefully moved the whole clump over into the tray, then very gently started to loosen the seed starting mix to untangle and free up the roots a bit.

Then I got some hot water and thoroughly moistened the sifted soil. The seed starting mix the seedlings was in was really quite cold. Not good! I wanted to transplant them into soil that was at least a bit on the warm side.

I had prepared a strip of packing material – this time, using a clear repair tape I happen to have, instead of painters tape, to join three sections to make one long strip. I started out by laying a thin layer of soil over about 3/4 of the strip, as I wasn’t sure just how much of it I would need to use. Then it was time to VERY carefully and gently pull apart and set out the seedlings.

I was able to get all of them in, and did add more soil to the roll to fit them all.

The remaining seed starting mix got added to the bucket of sifted soil. I added more hot water and mixed it all up before adding another layer of soil to the roll; just enough to cover the roots.

Before rolling it, I added strips of masking tape to the end, so it just needed to be lifted into place, with the tape already handy to close up the roll.

With the two layers of soil in there, the result was a pretty thick roll. I could use the plastic underneath to hold the soil in at the bottom, but there wasn’t much that could be done at the top, and soil was falling out. Once it was taped closed and the roll set upright, I found a few seedlings had fallen out with the soil. I found some gaps and carefully set them back in. I then used some of the soil that fell out to fill in the top of the roll and support some of the seedlings that seemed to need it more.

Now, it’s back in the tray under the shop light. Both trays were empty of water, so I added warm water to the trays to maintain bottom watering.

While I was doing all this, I had the heater going. It’s aimed under the shelf I have the trays on. The thermometer is kept at the far end, and the temperature was only about 13C/55F. Holding my hand under the shelf, though, I could feel it was a lot warmer just under the trays. So I set up the thermometer next to the tray with the snail roll, which is at the far end from where the heater is.

The first picture shows the “potted up” celery back in their tray. After setting up and leaving the thermometer for a while, I got a reading, which you can see in the next photo above.

It’s just barely touching 25C/77F! This is great, as cold is the big issue here. The ambient temperature really should be about 20-24C/68-75F

Since the heat is under the trays, that will warm up any water that is in them which, in turn, will warm up the soil and seed starter mixes. Not by a lot, but enough to hopefully keep the chill off the roots. Plus, it will be better for the fresh pepper and eggplant seeds I sowed to hopefully replace the ones eaten by a mouse or whatever it was.

The hygrometer reading is low, though. Ideally, it should be between 50% and 60% – even 70% for some plants. Hopefully, the bottom watering and occasional misting helps counter the ambient humidity at least a bit.

The celery seedlings now have a nice deep roll to spread their roots into, so they should be good in there for a while.

Hopefully, they will survive this! I seem to remember that I used the entire packet of seeds for this, so there’s no trying again if they don’t make it.

Well, we shall see, soon enough, I guess!

The Re-Farmer

Some news

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First, the cuteness.

Kinda creepy cuteness, though…

Beep Beep and Susan in a cuddle puddle.

That eye, though… it wasn’t blinking. Just… staring like that…

👁️👁️

Anyhow…

I got some news from the garage today. They think that they got a bad differential, and are now working to get me a new one, on warranty. Which makes sense, since that shaking and shuddering started right after it was installed. The weird electrical stuff is probably unrelated, but who knows, with this truck!

No time line yet, though. They are closed now, but I hope to get some info tomorrow. We need to at least a small grocery shopping trip for the fresh stuff, plus a trip to the mail.

At least my husband’s prescription refills will get delivered as usual, tomorrow!

Hopefully, we will get the truck back soon. It might be nice to stay home, but not to much when it’s not a matter of choice. Having zero transportation a real problem.

The frustrating thing is to get lectures and “advice” from my mother, and even my sister, though through conversations with my mother. With my mother, she can’t understand vehicle stuff, so I don’t bother telling her details. That doesn’t stop her from deciding she knows everything and can start telling me what I should be doing. Even just telling her, we don’t know what the problem is, and the garage is having a hard time finding it, her response was to say, “can’t they find someone who can?” or “… someone who knows what they are doing?” As if hopping from garage to garage will find someone who can magically know exactly what’s going on, instantly. Then telling me to get a new truck, buy the truck from my BIL (who isn’t planning to sell it until he can replace it, in the summer), oh, and maybe I could make payments! Uhm… Mom. I’m already making payments. We’d have to get re-financing. To which I was told, I should talk to my brother. He’ll take care of it for me.

…

I told her, I wouldn’t be talking to my brother. I’d be talking to a financing company.

“Oh…”

She also started telling me about a conversation with my sister, and how she was saying that what we need is a second vehicle.

Yeah. We do. But we can’t afford insurance on two vehicles, while also making payments. We certainly can’t afford to be making payments on two vehicles at the same time!

Then my mother told me that my sister should lend us one of their vehicles.

…

I said no, they can’t. My sister uses the car to go to work. My BIL uses the truck. I also told her, I don’t want to be getting anyone else involved in this. I’m talking to my brother about things, and I’m talking to the garage about our options, and that’s it. No one else needs to be part of it.

I don’t know if she got it or not.

Ah, well.

As an aside, I’m happy to say that my mother has been making sure to have her new phone with her at all times, wearing it on a lanyard around her neck. We’ll have to walk her through how to make calls again. She apparently tried to phone us – I think on our land line – but said there was nothing; our phone wasn’t working. Except, of course, it was. She also tried to call my brother and that didn’t work. So she manually dialed a number and got my SIL. She thought she was calling my brother’s cell phone number, but called my SILs cell phone number, instead. We didn’t even know my mother had my SIL’s cell phone number! She was just as surprised as we were. It’s not like the numbers are at all similar.

My siblings and I have been able to reach her, though, and not have to go through the nursing station, which we are all happy about. Strangely, for me, it was a long distance call, and it shouldn’t have been, so my brother will be looking into that.

So the new phone is working out for my mother, even if she’s going to need more help in how to make outgoing calls. She said she asked someone at the nursing station to help her, and they refused, which is odd. I’m sure we’ll get the rest of the story later on.

Hopefully, we’ll soon have our truck back and working properly again, and I’ll be able to visit her again and help her figure things out.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer