Breakfast buddy, a great idea, and little garlic

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Today turned out to be a relatively productive day.

More than I expected it to be, considering I woke up in pain.

Which was odd considering I was up for a while between 2 and 3am, and had no pain, but when I woke again at about 6am, there it was.

I went out to feed the outside cats to see if moving around would improve things. I tried doing a head count this morning and saw “only” 14 cats.

I didn’t count the skunks.

This little guy was waiting with the cats in the sun room when I came out. It seems to prefer this particular tray just outside the sun room, and was eating kibble where when I came out with the cat soup. It did not want to stop eating when I came close! Hungry baby. It did finally move but came back as soon as I moved on to the next tray. I find it amusing that Sweetie – who still behaves as if terrified all the time – is buddies with the skunk!

After feeding the cats, I hoped to water the garden but, after walking around and checking the beds, I was just in too much pain – and I had taken pain killers before I headed out. So I went in to have breakfast and hoped the painkillers would finally kick in.

They didn’t.

In the end, after waiting long enough, I took some more and tried lying down. That finally did it.

One of the things on my to-do list today was a trip into town. My younger daughter had her own list, so she came along. While heading to the truck and getting things ready, I had a surprise. The shed my brother had bought was up! I never heard a thing!

What really caught my attention was this…

I had been wondering what could be done to create a base for the shed. After leveling the area, my brother salvaged an old steel door – for some reason, there are quite a lot of them scattered about! – to set under the shed. It is the perfect width.

I later found out that the shed is surprisingly light, so he wants to find a way to secure it to the steel door, so it doesn’t blow away in the wind.

I had a bag and a half of non-aluminum cans in that spot, and the cats were already starting to get into one of them. They are now in the shed. No more coming out to find cans scattered all over the place!

My daughter and I headed out soon after. I haven’t seen the renter’s cows for a while and I think they’ve been rotated out. We decided to leave the gate open and I made sure to send a message to let my brother and SIL know, so they knew it was us and left intentionally.

We had lunch first. While we were eating, I started getting a lot of notifications on my phone. It was the security camera at the gate. My SIL took advantage of the gate being open while she was mowing around the driveway. We had actually talked about that earlier and she wasn’t planning to mow, as we haven’t had rain lately and the grass wasn’t very long. The path to the barn that my brother uses a lot, however, was a fair bit taller, so she mowed that for them and just kept on going!

After lunch, we went to a nearby store to look for one of the things my daughter was after. She ended up finding a couple of things she needed, which was handy. Then it was off to the grocery store. I had a couple of the big water jugs to refill, plus a short list from my husband. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up some fresh fruit and a few other things that we would need soon that were on sale, and my daughter found a few things as well. I’m glad she was able to come along.

By the time we got home and everything was unpacked and put away, it wasn’t too much longer before it was time to feed the outside cats again, so I took care of that before doing the watering. This time, I also watered the trees and bushes in the food forest area. It’s been dry enough lately that they got extra watering.

After finishing watering the main garden area and the trees, I came around to do the south garden beds when I found my daughter going by with the wheel barrow. She had dug up the enameled bricks from around the fire pit and brought them closer to the house, where they are currently soaking in water to loosen the dirt before she scrubs them a bit. We were planning to take those bricks out and replace them with rocks that we’ve picked out of the garden, more of which needs to be brought over to the fire pit area. Knowing these were going to be taken out, she wanted to salvage them – to use in the basement! She is wanting to reorganize and do a keep clean in the living room. We’ve got that big fish tank we’d used as a greenhouse for seed starts in the past, and it’s in the way. We’d been talking about putting it in the basement, where I can use it as a greenhouse in the spring, but the concrete gets wet in the spring (parts of it are still wet now) because the weeping tile is probably full of silt and tree roots. Anything we set up has to be elevated, and we’d run out of bricks. Once she has these salvaged bricks cleaned up a bit, they will be used to set under the stand the fish tank rests on, so the wood won’t rot.

Getting all that out of the living room and down the stairs is not going to be easy. It will, however, free up a lot of space we need!

This was set up near the old kitchen garden so, once the bricks were soaking, that’s where I started the watering. While doing the wattle weave bed, I decided it was time to lift the garlic in there. These are from a bulb of garlic I’d found while preparing the rectangular bed nearby in the fall. This was well after I’d planted the garlic in the main garden area, and were clearly quite a bit smaller, even before I dug them up.

These are very young and small garlic, so we will be using them right away, rather than setting them with the other garlic to cure.

It’s a good thing I enjoy doing the deep watering, because it takes at least 2 hours – closer to 3, when the trees get watered, too. I was pretty tired, sore and hungry by the time I was done, and my daughters were sweeting enough to make me a supper when I came in.

Meanwhile, my brother has headed back to the city while my SIL stays here for a while longer. We never crossed paths in person today at all!

Anyhow.

Today has been a mixed bag, but I am happy with how much I was able to get done, in between dealing with pain. One of the things that came up while I was talking to my daughter about what I was feeling this morning was my doctor’s offer to start the process to get me a new pair of knees. I said no to that, as they aren’t that bad, really.

My left hip, however… that is something I should probably bring up, the next time I see my regular doctor!

Not anytime soon, though. One thing at a time, and there’s three of us waiting for various surgeries right now!

Ain’t life grand?

😄

The Re-Farmer

A small harvest and garden progress

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Today has turned out to be a lovely day to work outside.

After feeding the yard cats, I gathered a small harvest before watering the garden beds.

Just a few bush beans and some Golden Boy celery. Later this evening, while looking at the tomatoes with one of my daughters, I accidentally harvested some! They came right off the vines when I touched them! You can see those in the second image of the slideshow above. My daughter had tried one, thinking it might be ripe because of how easily they came off the vine.

It was most definitely NOT ripe. So the rest will sit in a window still or something until they ripen fully.

After lunch, I headed back outside again. I wanted to work on the area where the next garden bed will go, starting off by dragging our accumulated cardboard over, then using the weed trimmer on the grass and weeds that had come through the cardboard already laid down. That required moving all the boards and pieces of log that were holding the cardboard down. I had a pleasant surprise when picking up a board that was overlapping another board. A lovely little garter snake, curled up on the cap! It slithered away very quickly, so I wasn’t able to snag a picture, but I was very happy to see it.

After using the trimmer on that area, I kept going and trimmed around some old crab apple tree stumps, then around the plum, apple, gooseberry and haskaps, where the mower can’t get close enough.

Party way through, my older daughter came out and we walked around the yard (to keep the mosquitoes at bay) to talk about our options regarding the property. She and her sister had been talking about it already. With them, as they are now getting the medical treatment they need and will be getting the surgeries they need, they know that they will be in a better position to do things in the relatively near future. Just the fact that my daughter could walk around the yard with me is a demonstration of that.

Until I get the most recent numbers for what my brother pays in property taxes and insurance, we can’t say some things for sure. My brother has given me this information in the past, but I know the taxes have gone up, and I don’t yet know if things are complete with the new insurance provider he’s been in contact with.

In the end, though, my brother and his wife own the property and can do whatever they want with it. We can make some offers to lift the burden of the cost from him, but if we end up needing to move, we need to know that as soon as possible, as that would change our focus completely. No point in doing things like building the outdoor kitchen or planting more fruit trees and bushes if we aren’t going to be here in a couple of years.

One thing that needs to change as quickly as possible, either way, is, we need to get indoor cats adopted out. They are destroying the house, and we are spending more of our limited income on cat food and supplies per month, than on food for ourselves. The rescue has said they would be willing to post pictures and information on their adoption website, but that requires getting photos and video of each individual cat that’s available for adoption. Which means we’ll need to create a “set” in the cat free zone – aka: the living room – and bring them in, one at a time, and see if they will co-operate enough to get some shareable images and video. We have 21 indoor cats, and basically only three or four that we don’t want to adopt out. Unfortunately, adult cats are exceptionally hard to adopt out. Especially cats with any health issues, like missing legs, or a giant fat cat that has blocked twice already.

So I need to contact the rescue and we need to prioritize getting photos and video taken.

After we had a chance to talk, I went back to the weed trimming before getting back to the garden bed area.

The first thing to do was to measure and mark the 4′ wide path, then the 4′ wide future raised bed. Then I started laying out all the cardboard I had, starting with the smaller pieces along the outside edge, then working towards the existing bed this one will be paired with.

I didn’t have enough cardboard to cover all of the 8′ x 18′ area. More like about 6′ x 18′.

Then came the more difficult part.

The large log the tree removal guys had cut and brought over for me needed to be moved into position. It still needs to be de-barked and have branch nubs cut flush, but I wanted it to be in the location where it will eventually permanently sit, 4′ away from the current bed.

I’ve got two other lengths this log was placed beside. They are skinny and light enough that I could move them out of the way. The new log, however, is a lot bigger. Particularly at one end. It was also too far past one end. Once I rolled it near where it goes, I had to figure out how to shift the entire log about 8 inches over.

The direction it needed to go was also the thinner, lighter end of the log. What I ended up doing was finding some rope in the garden shed to wrap around the log near the thinner end then, using a short piece of wood that I’d moved aside earlier as a handle, pulled the whole thing over.

They cut it to 18′, but it’s not as long as the bed it needs to match. I didn’t measure, so I don’t know if they cut it shorter than 18′, or if the other bed is longer than 18′ because of the logs at the ends. Either way, I should be able to match the lengths with the end pieces, when the time comes.

In the above photo, you can see the rope and piece of wood I used as a handle. I also rolled the larger of the other two logs, which still need to be cut to size, to the outside 4′ mark of the bed. This log is too thin to be a bottom log, though. It’s there to hold the cardboard down for now. The really skinny piece is meant to go across the top of the vertical posts of the trellis bed this one will be paired with.

After cutting a 10′, then an 18′, length from the dead spruce, the tree guys cut the rest of the trunk into three 4′ pieces before it got too small; the top of the tree got chipped with the branches. I set one shorter piece at each end, then laid the last on inside the bed, to help hold down the cardboard. Then all the boards and pieces of wood I’d taken off earlier got set onto the cardboard, spread out to keep it from blowing away. You can see the final result in the second image of the slide show above.

The log that is currently on the outside of the bed will eventually be set on top of a base log. For now, these beds will be built to two logs high.

I need more cardboard to cover the rest of the path, up to the current bed. I’d like to cover the path in wood chips once more cardboard is down. Grass and weeds get through uncovered cardboard very quickly.

It’s a tiny bit of progress, but it’s better than nothing! I don’t know when I’ll be able to get more logs for this. I’d asked my brother about clearing dead trees out of the spruce grove with the help of his tractor. I believe he was finally able to get that fixed, but they said something about finding a lot of trees along the road heading south along the property line that need to be cleared away from the fence, so I’m expecting that will be a priority for him. I don’t know. I could cut trees down, cut them to length in situ, the drag the logs out myself, or with the help of a daughter, like we’ve done with all the others. It would just be a lot faster and easier to do it with a tractor!

The Re-Farmer

Catching up

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So the past couple of days have been SO much better, it just blows me away!

Yesterday, I was not only well enough to go into the city for the stock up shopping at Costco, but felt well enough to keep on going after everything was put away and we’d had supper. I headed outside for the usual evening cat feeding, then gave the garden a solid watering before heading back in.

A couple of nights ago, my brother and SIL quickly came by to drop off a box with a small raccoon proof shed they picked up. I had some bags with cans at various stages of sorting against the garage, and critters had gotten into them again, spreading them all over. So this is something we can store the aluminum cans in until it’s worth bringing them to the scrap yard. Most of the cans are cat food cans. Even though they are empty, the critters still smell food on them and sometimes tear the bags apart – even after ignoring them for months!

They also let me know that they were coming back the next day (yesterday) to take the trail loaded with metal items to the scrap yard. When they told me about the shed, I mentioned that we had more bags of cans in our basement that would fit in the truck. My SIL said that they could load the bags into their truck (which has a taller cap over the box) and take it in with the rest of the load.

I didn’t know what time they would be coming by with the shed, so I headed out with some fresh bags to at least re-bag the bag with aluminum only that had been torn up. As I was walking to the garage, however, I saw something that wasn’t there when I’d gone out to feed the cats and water the garden earlier.

That wasn’t there when I was out watering the garden beds! I sent the picture to our family chat and my daughters said they had heard something – maybe 40 minutes earlier – fall. It wasn’t even particularly windy at the time!

After re-bagging the aluminum cans at the garage, I came to see how bad the damage was under this tree top. Much to my surprise, the garden bed cover was not damaged. The netting was bent, but it doesn’t have hoops under it, to it can be easily pushed back into shape. All those branches sticking out in every direction actually kept the full weight of the tree top from landing on the cover and doghouse roof. I broke off some of the branches while one of my daughters came over, and she held the tree top up until I could get the garden bed cover out from under it, then pushed it aside, so it’s not over the old dog house anymore. We’ll have to come back with the chain saw to break it down, soon, but for now it waits.

We went in after that and my brother and SIL were in and out to drop off the shed in its box so quickly, if I hadn’t gotten security camera alerts, I’d never had known they were here!

With my SIL’s kind offer to take our aluminum in, that meant getting all the bags out of the basement. I didn’t know what time they would be coming buy, and knew I’d be going to the city, so I wanted to get the cans out before we left. Which had to be done in stages, since we can’t just leave doors open, or the inside cats would be getting into the basement, or outside.

I got it done, though. By the time I got them out near the junk pile, which has been cleared out significantly, thanks to my brother and SIL, I had 11 large clear bags, plus another 8 or so small blue bags. Including the two bags from beside the garage I’d rebagged the night before.

What I found out later was that they weren’t coming out until my brother was done at work (I had thought he might have arranged to leave early or something). So we were back from Costco well before they got here, in seperate vehicles.

I had actually gone back out to water the garden, but suddenly realized my brother had somehow arrived and parked by the barn without my ever hearing him! Then I heard my SIL arriving at the gate. So I postponed the watering and started tying the garlic off so I could hang them to cure.

Which didn’t work out as planned.

Normally, I make two long strings of garlic that I hang under the canopy tent to form a large X across the middle. The garlic, however, turned out to be too heavy. The first string of garlic kept snapping at different spots. In the end, I hung the remaining pieces, reinforcing the longest one with more jute twine. With the rest, I tied off strings of roughly a dozen garlic each and hung them around the sides of the canopy tent.

I was working on this when my brother and SIL drove their truck and trailer up to where the aluminum bags were. In the end, though, they didn’t take them yet. They didn’t have time. The scrap yard closed at 8, but it was at least a 45 minute drive to get there, and they needed to be there before closing time. Last call is usually about 15 minutes before closing.

So they left without the aluminum, with my brother driving the truck and trailer and my SIL following in the car my brother had come out in. They got there just in time and were able to get it done. Once the trailer was cleared, my brother took the car and drove home, since he had to go to work the next morning. My SIL drove the truck and trailer back here.

Meanwhile, I had finished stringing up the garlic.

There are two images in the above slide show. I don’t like that the garlic is around the edges, as they could be affected by the weather more. We’re not expecting rain for a while, though, so I hope they will be okay.

I was just finishing watering the garden when my SIL got back with the trailer. I helped her unhitch the trailer (something neither of us had done before, though at least my SIL has seen my brother doing it), then she drove the truck over to the bags of aluminum. We didn’t want them out overnight, as the raccoons would probably tear them apart.

It was getting dark, so I messaged my daughters and they were both able to come out and help load the truck. Much to my surprised, they all fit, with room to spare!

By then, it was pretty much full dark. My SIL parked the truck near their caravan and stayed the night.

This morning, I was up by about 6am, even though I hadn’t actually slept much last night. I headed out into the wonderfully cool morning to feed the cats and do a quick walkabout before going back inside.

While checking on the garden beds, I found this.

The last time I saw this Arikara squash, it was maybe 6 inches long!!

I set a brick under it, so it wouldn’t have direct contact to the ground. There are several more squash developing, but this one got huge, fast! One squash plant, and we might have as many as 5 squash off of it, if they all survive. This is how all our winter squash should be looking, but even the biggest of the other varieties do not look this vigorous and healthy!

I also spotted this – more wind damage!

This is a chokecherry tree, part of which has split.

Oh, I just realized. This is probably NOT wind damage. This might be deer damage. There are ripe chokecherries on this tree. If they were pulling on the berries like they do when going after the crab apples, they could easily have broken the tree like this.

My SIL and I were planning to head out around noon. That gave me time to go through the house for any remaining aluminum cans that were waiting to be bagged up, filling about half of a large, clear bag. Then I went to the garage, where a bag with crushed cans had been torn and spilling and picked that up. Then I crushed all the cans I could find in the crate and bin we us for recyclables. Last of all, I headed outside the garage with a magnet and sorted the last bag that’s been sitting there for months, pulling out the cans with steel. By the time I was done, I’d filled the large clear bag and about half of a small blue recycling bag. I carried them over to my brother’s truck and added them to what was in the back.

At this point, we have a couple of bags with just ferrous metal in them. We could have taken them with us, but it just wasn’t worth is for barely two bags. The price for steel is quite low.

I later found out my brother got 12¢ per pound for their load. The stuff didn’t weigh as much as my brother had estimated.

The cans sorted and bags and cleaned up, I headed back in to change out of my grubbies and into going out clothes. I double checked the hours I’d found for the place online, and they said they were closed today. !!!??? So I phoned.

They were very much open.

My SIL and I headed out soon after. We went to the salvage yard directly to the south of us that I was already familiar with, rather than the one they went to last night. There was enough in there that they brought out one of the bigger cages with a forklift, rather than the bin they’d brought out the last time we’d managed the trip, and we actually filled it. It turned out to be 252 pounds, and they paid out 70¢ per pound. a bit lower than the average going rate, but these were not “clean”; a lot of the cans had been outdoors for some time before we had to put the bags into the basement to keep the critters from getting at them, so they had literal dirt on them.

That got me just over $175 in cash. Not too bad!

I also remembered to ask for a new magnet keychain to replace the one that was stolen, I think by a raccoon. They had a whole basket full of them available to give out!

My SIL had suggested we go for lunch afterwards, and this allowed me to treat her, for a change!

I don’t know a lot of what’s available in this town, so when my sister suggested Chinese food, I was quite happy to try a place I’d never been to before. We had a lovely meal and a great time catching up with each other.

As we were finished, my SIL mentioned she wanted to go to the town north of us after we were done. I asked if she wanted company and went along, with just a side trip to the post office for something my husband was expecting.

The extra drive meant almost a lot more driving time to chat in. I really enjoy spending time with my SIL. She’s awesome.

The place she wanted to go to was the livestock supply store. She’d never been there before, but that’s one of the places I’d been getting 40 pound bags of cat food from, plus this place has all sorts of other farm supplies to ogle. I was able to give her directions to the store, which is actually away from the town itself. Since we were there anyhow, I picked up a couple of bags of cat food, as well as a very plain, inexpensive, folding knife. Something better than the utility knife I’ve been carrying around when doing yard stuff, with no fancy saw edges or do-dads. Just a plain knife. They had one left in bright orange, and I grabbed that. This way, if I drop it in the grass or dirt, it’ll be easy to see!

My SIL, meanwhile, picked up some stall liners. Something to put under the stairs to their caravan, or other places where they don’t want the grass to be taking over.

I have to admit, when I saw them being loaded into the truck, I started wanting one for our kitchen! These are designed to withstand cow hooves. The cats would not be able to scratch this up! They’re actually too big to fit on our kitchen floor, though, but gosh, that would be so nice. Pricey for what would essentially be considered a floor mat, but worth every penny.

That done, my SIL wanted to check out the hardware store. We both got a couple of little things, but mostly she wanted to look at their display sheds. They had quite a variety of designs on display, from basic wide open spaces, to ones with front porches, pretty windows and lofts.

Some of the price tags on these, though… there’s a reason I want to build a garden shed using the cordwood wall technique! The mortar needed for that, plus using wood from dead spruces we already have, would be a lot cheaper, even with having to buy roofing material.

With all the driving and checking things out, it was late enough that the girls took care of feeding the outside cats before I got home. We’re now good on dry cat food for both the inside and outside cats for probably the rest of the month, which was a nice bonus.

My brother has since made it out and they will be here for the weekend. Much of the focus is still going to be on cleaning up and hauling things away.

Which brings me to something the family is going to need to figure out.

My brother is going to retire in a couple of years. The deal is, he pays for the property tax and insurance, we pay the utilities and keep the place up – something that is getting harder for us to do with all of us being broken, one way or another. Something I hope will improve within the next 6 months or so, as my daughters and I each get the surgeries we need.

Once he retires, they won’t be able to keep up paying the expenses for this place. The money brought in by renting most of it out doesn’t even cover the cost of taxes.

We need to figure out what our options are, and we have only two years to do it in. Meanwhile, my husband’s disability income through is employer ends at age 65. That’s only 7 years away. It’s not like we can take over the property. With both our daughters having health issues, their options are limited, too.

We don’t have a lot of time to figure this out.

The Re-Farmer

Costco stock up shop: this is what almost $790 looks like

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Yes! Finally! I felt well enough to go the Costco stock up trip!

In fact, I was up quite early and feeling rested. Did the morning routine and prepped the truck. We even remembered to grab the ice packs from the freezer before we left.

We postponed leaving long enough to go to the post office, first, to pick up a couple of parcels. There turned out to be three, with one of them being fairly large, so we headed back home to drop two of them off. One of them was a new phone case for me, as my old one was getting warn out, and my daughter switched my phone to the new one on the way out. It’s the thinnest “wallet” style I can get, so it fits in my pocket without being bulky, and keeps the screen from being activated by accident.

On the way to the city, we stopped at a gas station at the one town along the route, for some drinks and a food for my daughter, who hadn’t had breakfast yet. I also picked up some extra beef jerky to keep in the console of the truck as part of our usual stock of food and drinks we try to keep in the truck. Which came in very handy when I was in the ER and finally told I could have something to eat after fasting for well over 12 hours, and would NOT be going for any sort of emergency surgery. That totaled $50.04 Then it was off to the city again.

The first stop at Costco was to fill the gas tank. Gas prices had actually gone down to $1.669/L in most places, but at Costco, regular cost $1.619/L

It still cost me $89.61 to fill the tank

*sigh*

Once inside, we were not in any hurry and went through some aisles we hadn’t bothers to for some time. We haven’t had any major break downs or sudden bills, so the budget was a bit more relaxed, allowing us to get a few things that we might not have, or would have had to wait on.

When we were done and one of the staff directed us into a line, I went to get my membership card out of my pocket.

It was gone.

Checking that I hadn’t put it in my new phone case’s card slots and wallet, I was ready to have my daughter pull aside while I went back to look. My new phone case is not as smooth as my old one. It has a slight texture to it that feels slightly “sticky” with friction. I had pulled my phone out a few times while shopping. The card must have stuck to the new phone case and been pulled out. Which means it was on the floor, somewhere. I was going to backtrack.

The guy that had directed us into the line was still nearby and heard us. He asked me my name, then said he would see what they could do and went to the customer service.

He came back and handed me my card! Someone had found it an already turned it in!

God bless whoever did that!

While shopping, I keep a running count in my head and always round prices up. If something as a price that’s discounted at the till, I still count at the full price. This way, the final tally will always be at least a bit lower than what I kept as a running tally while shopping. That can lead to some nice surprises.

This time, that nice surprise was a final bill over $100 less than I was expecting.

This is what $789.86 looks like.

There’s quite a bit hidden from view. Here is the breakdown.

We tried to do all the frozen and refrigerator stuff first, as well as the heavier jars and such. A lot of refrigerator stuff was in a box and my daughter put the whole thing on the belt so the big stuff on the flat cart could be reached with the scanning gun.

So, from the top…

There is a case of frozen perogies and another of Pizza Pops (which mostly became our supper when we got home). There’s a 3 pack of oat milk for the girls. Two packages of chicken drumsticks that were discounted at the till. Two packs of loose sausage meat in mild Italian. A wheel of brie and a 4 pack of cream cheese. Two Panini packs of sandwich meats. Five pounds of butter. A liter of whipping cream. A 2L of Kefir for a treat. A shaker of grated Parmesan. Two blocks of cooking cheese; Mozzarella and Old Cheddar. A big bottle of oyster sauce.

On the cart was a case of Monster energy drinks, a case of Coke Zero and a case of water. There were two bags of Kirkland brand cat kibble, plus two larger bags of Whiskas. The Whiskas was on sale, at least. There was also a box of XL puppy pads and a cast of wet cat food.

One of the extras we got was a two pack of “cooling” pillows for my husband and I. Another was a three piece set of nesting ceramic “baskets”, designed to look like the cardboard baskets that fruit sometimes comes in.

We also got a case of large black garbage bags and another of clear bags for recycling.

Also scanned on the cart were two 2pks of rye bread and a bag of ciabatta buns.

Back to the stuff on the belt, there’s a large jar of mayo and another of peanut butter. There’s a big container of popping corn. I also grabbed a container of iced tea mix that was on sale.

We got some of the Dawn Platinum dish detergent; it’s better for keeping the plumbing clear. There’s also a case of toothbrushes; something we had been well stocked up on and were finally starting to run out of. There’s a package of seaweed for the girls, and a double flat of eggs. I got a sack of the Kirkland brand of Basmati rice. I’d bought another brand last time, and it sucked. Definitely don’t want to run out of the Kirkland brand again. Last of all are two packs of tortilla wraps and a package of Medjool dates from Israel. The last couple of times I picked up dates, they were from other countries, and they turned out to be pretty gross. These ones cost more, but are delicious. That is a “me” snack. I’m the only one in the family that likes dates!

And there we have it. $789.86 with several items that are not bought on a monthly basis, which actually put me right on budget!

On the way out, we made one stop at a gas station just outside the city to pick up some drinks and snacks for the ride home. That was another $17.08

Total damage for the day: $946.59

Ouch.

Still, there was stuff on there that we don’t normally get. The only thing that was truly a splurge was the set of ceramic fruit baskets, and that cost under $10.

I’m also just glad we finally made it in, a week later than it normally would have been done.

I am so looking forward to surgery.

The Re-Farmer

What a difference a day makes!

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Today, I was feeling so good, not only did we do the Costco shop, but I was able to get the garlic strung up, and kept going until it was getting too dark to see.

Which means I will be doing the stock up shop and update posts tomorrow. I’ll be heading out again tomorrow, this time to the scrap yard with my SIL. She and I and my daughters were able to fit about 3 years worth of cans into the back of their truck, with room to spare! There’s now way we could have gotten all that in the back of our truck and properly secured under a tarp.

For now, I need to start heading to bed. I want to have an early start tomorrow.

I can’t believe how much better I feel today. Every now and then, it hits me, and all I can think of is one word.

Salt.

What a difference it made!!!

The Re-Farmer

Really??

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Oh, boy. What a day.

Yeah, we missed going to Costco again. I wasn’t feeling well.

Not because of the pain levels I’ve been having lately. Not at all.

The morning actually started out rather well. I woke up around 5:30am. Usual routine; use the facilities, feed the inside cats, supervise Butterscotch while she uses the litter box so other cats won’t bother her. I was back in bed by about 6am and actually slept, waking up before my alarm went off at 8. I felt rested and awake.

Then I sat up.

I was immediately dizzy.

Just a head rush, I thought. I sat up too quickly.

I took my morning meds and supplements.

It didn’t go away.

I got up and took care of feeding the outside cats…

… and some skunks. Those little ones were acting so famished!!! I didn’t have the heart to chase them away.

The bigger one with the feral kitten, I left alone because if I tried chasing it away, I’d scare the kitten away, too, and she really, really wants to have her share of cat soup!

I was still dizzy.

I decided to walk around a bit to see if the fresh air would help, but I definitely wasn’t up to watering the garden or harvesting anything. I finally went back inside and settled in.

My younger daughter, who was supposed to go with me, was up so I messaged her to come over. I told her how I was feeling. I wasn’t safe to drive, but if she could do the driving, I could probably do the trip. Not to Costco, but at least to the nearest Walmart.

There was a problem with that.

She had managed to get only a couple of hours sleep, and wasn’t safe to drive, either.

So I figured, we could both lie down fore a couple more hours and head out later.

Before lying down, though, I realized I hadn’t eaten yet. I wasn’t feeling hungry, but felt I should have something in my stomach, at least. I managed a small piece of cheese.

Cheddar aged with malted whiskey. Probably not a good choice, but it was already cut, and it was quite delicious.

I didn’t feel any better or worse after eating, at least. Then I tried to lie down.

The dizziness got worse. Bad enough that I had to grab my garbage can to get sick into.

That ended up happening two more times over the next few hours. After the second time, I gave up on lying down and was at my computer, watching gardening videos.

At this point, the family was getting quite worried and kept checking on me, trying to figure out why I was feeling like this. After the third time I got sick, I asked a daughter to make something mild for me to eat, just so I wouldn’t be getting sick again on an empty stomach. My daughter ran some options past me and I chose a couple of hot dogs, just because that would be the fastest.

It was the hot dogs that brought an idea to mind. Eating didn’t make me feel any better or worse, but something about the wieners made me feel… different.

I did a quick search.

My suspicions seemed to be in the right direction.

I was low on salt.

Now, this is something I’d been aware of for a while, because low sodium is one of the things that can contribute to the Charlie Horses I’d been getting, along with a lack of things like magnesium, zinc and potassium. Symptoms of lack of salt include dizziness, nausea and muscle fatigue, which I had been attributing to the dizziness and hadn’t thought much of.

I don’t use a lot of salt in my cooking, because we all have different preferences. You can always add more salt, but you can’t take it away. So, to compensate, I kept a tiny bowl next to my keyboard of coarse Himalayan pink salt. The little chunks are easy to grab, and I would just eat a little piece of salt every now and then.

I emptied my little bowl some time ago, and kept forgetting to refill it.

Could it be that simple?

I refilled my salt bowl and let the family know what I was trying, and ate a few pieces.

My daughter came down to check on me less than a minute later.

I was already starting to feel better, but I didn’t want to jump the gun.

I kept eating more little pieces of salt, slowly, with water.

After a while, my daughter came back to check on me. By this time, I could definitely say I was feeling better – I had gone from getting increased dizziness just from turning my head, to being able to shake my head from side to side energetically, before I felt any dizziness. With my daughter there, I decided to try walking.

I was back to walking normally again. No dizziness. Balance returned. No nausea.

Aside from still feeling a bit weak, and my throat on fire from the last time I got sick, I was back to normal.

Salt.

It really was that simple.

We’re getting a bit low on the coarse pink salt. Something I could pick up when we finally get out for our second stock up shop. It’s a bit hard to find it without being in a grinder, and we have a refillable grinder we prefer to use, but sometimes it’s in stock.

My husband went ahead and ordered 5 pounds of it off of Amazon.

When it got to be time to feed the outside cats, I decided I was well enough to also to a harvest and water the garden, so I messaged my daughters to see if one of them was able to come along, just in case. My younger daughter joined me, bringing my walker and the harvest colander out for me.

Not only did I feel well enough to feed the cats and do the harvesting, I felt good enough to dig up the garlic while my daughter did the watering!

Right now, not only is the dizziness still gone, but I actually have an appetite, and feel I can eat a full meal again.

With plenty of salt.

Tomorrow, we’re going to try for Costco again. Unless something else happens.

Third time’s the charm?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: first scallop squash, and the garlic is in!

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So… I didn’t make it to the city again. I didn’t even make it to the garden to harvest until the late afternoon.

I will cover why in my next post.

When I did make it out, my daughter was there to help me with the walker and to harvest the bush beans. Then, as I was feeling well enough, she started doing the watering while I went to the old kitchen garden to harvest a bit more.

The amount of bush beans available to harvest has dropped quite a bit by now, so we didn’t have much to pick. I also harvested what will likely be the only kohlrabi we’ll get this year. Then a grabbed the two largest Green Benning scallop squash. We will definitely be getting more of those, later on! Those are looking really beautiful. Last of all, I grabbed a bunch of mint, to make fresh mint tea.

Then I decided I felt well enough to harvest the garlic. As I started on that, my younger daughter got a message from her sister asking what we were picking, as she was thinking to do a stir fry. So I told her where the colander with the vegetables was, then grabbed a few Swiss Chard leaves for her, for added greens. There wasn’t a lot of surviving Swiss Chard between the garlic large enough to pick, but enough to add to a stir fry.

I am so happy with the garlic. This is easily our best year for garlic, with SO many huge garlic heads! I believe the variety is Porcelain Music, if I remember correctly. They are from our own saved garlic, not purchased.

The first image of the slide show above is where I’d stacked them all while digging them up, on the mulch by the potatoes. There was one garlic head that broke off when I tried to pull it up, even after digging under it with the garden fork, with a snap so loud my daughter heard it while watering at the other end of the garden! I’m happy to say, I timed it right this year. Last year, I’d put it off longer and about half a dozen bulbs had starts to split. Which is fine. Those just got eaten right away. There were no split bulbs at all this time.

Yesterday evening, I’d set up the canopy tent and the folding table. You can see the bundle in the second image. In the last image, they’re all laid out with the bulbs off the edges of the table. I’ll leave them to dry overnight, then string them up to hang for curing tomorrow.

After we get back from Costco.

Unless something else happens… *sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Here we go again

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I had done so well yesterday. Feeling almost completely normal again.

This morning, my body gave me a great big F you.

In the wee hours of the morning, I woke. I did two things. I used the bathroom and fed the inside cats. That’s it.

By the time I got back to bed, the pain was starting.

It was still there when I got up for the day. It wasn’t too bad, so I headed out to feed the outside cats.

Good news. Flopsy showed up for breakfast! Then disappeared again. At least we know one of the disappeared cats is still around.

I also saw this little one…

I had to zoom in from half way across the yard, then crop the photo, to get the above image. This cat goes into that splay legged position, like it’s ready do run away in a flash, quite often.

I hadn’t done their water yet, but didn’t want to scare the little one away from the food, so I went around to the main garden area to start watering that garden beds, partly to judge just how well I was doing, and if I’d be going to Costco or not.

I took it easy and didn’t do a really deep watering; we weren’t expected to get unusually hot today, so that was enough. By the time the main garden area was done and I moved to the other side of the house, the cats (and a few skunks) had all had a chance to eat, so I refilled their water bowls in between watering different beds.

We are now up to four luffa seedlings, with a second one showing up next to the oldest one. Each spot got several seeds, so it’s entirely possible more will show up, still. Even with only 55 days to maturity, it’s getting really tight for them. They will have a chance only if have a very mild fall and no frost until the end of September.

Which, given that this is a Super El Nińo year, might actually happen. At this point, the shorter daylight hours will also have an effect.

By the time I was done, I knew going to Costco was going to be an issue. I could handle the drive, but not the shopping. Not without making things much worse.

The problem was, my younger daughter, who is the only one that can come with me, was dealing with her own very different pain issues today, too.

I decided to pain killer up and try lying down for a while, to see if things would improve.

They did not. The tramadol seemed to have zero effect. Not only that, but the bleeding kicked up again, too. *sigh*

After waiting a long enough time, I tried taking the T3s and lying down again.

It’s a good thing I wasn’t trying to nap. As soon as I lay down, I got covered with cats, including some that don’t normally cuddle with me like that. At one point, I had 5 cats directly on me, and I don’t know how many against my legs. I ended up with Shadow right against my side, and Clarence right against him, both draped over my bicep.

This was my view when I opened my eyes.

Both images are of Shadow, just inches from my face. So close that my phone’s camera (which I keep close by in case I need to message for help) measured as dark and used the flash. His face looks mashed because it IS mashed. By Clarence.

I had updated the family on our group chat about my status, still willing to go into the city later in the day, if someone could come with me. My husband had already suggested I wait until tomorrow. My older daughter came by later and basically said the same thing.

*sigh* Another day wasted because of this pain. I am so glad the surgery is happening in just a couple of weeks.

Eventually, the pain did recede a bit. My daughters were working on supper – my younger daughter was looking really rough today! – and I felt well enough to do the outside cat feeding again. Once that was taken care of, I did a light version of my evening rounds. I find the fresh air and moving around helps. Mentally, if not necessarily physically.

While doing that, I noticed that the old, leaking water barrel by the apple tree and gooseberry bush was looking surprisingly full of water. Usually, it leaks until there’s only about half a foot of water on the bottom, but I could see the water line was at about 3/4 full.

So I took advantage of that and watered just some of the fruit trees and berry bushes. I wasn’t up to hooking the hose up to do all the ones I normally water. It actually felt pretty good to do as much as I did, and didn’t make things worse, which I was grateful for.

While checking the main garden area, I noticed these are getting nice and big.

So far, only one of the Chocolate Stripe tomato plants has developing tomatoes. They’re looking pretty good!

I’m going to have to get that canopy tent set up soon. The garlic looks about ready to harvest, and I plan to hang them under the canopy tent to cure. I’ve got one kohlrabi and a couple of green pattypan squash (Green Scallop Benning) that I will be able to harvest tomorrow. Of the five types of summer squash I’ve got, one of them has not had any flowers yet, male or female. The Lemon squash. The yellow scallop squash at least has male flowers blooming, if no female flowers, yet.

Now, near enough to the end of the day that a trip to Costco is out of the question, I’m actually feeling a lot better.

If only that can last through tomorrow, and I can finally make the trip in, and not need to drag a daughter along, too.

The Re-Farmer

A sad good by, a happy visit

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As expected, we lost little Batman last night. I kept an eye on him on the critter cam and knew he was gone when I used the camera to chase out the raccoons in a kibble tray nearby, and there was no movement.

He is now buried under where I plan to plant another tree in the outer yard.

We were never able to socialize him, but I’m still going to miss that little guy.

Today, the plan was to go into town and pick up some fruit for my mother, then visit her for a bit, in the afternoon. I figured, with the festival winding down, it wouldn’t be too bad. It did mean I would be out at a time when my pain levels tend to get bad, so I was pro-active about it. I was up by about 5am and outside by about six, first to feed the outside cats, then bury little Batman.

I spotted Sprout and her baby!

Then I did my usual rounds and checks, gathering a harvest from the garden. After I got back inside and had breakfast, I made a point of lying down for a couple of hours, at least. Not necessarily to nap, though I did doze a bit, but just to make sure my body rested before I headed out. It worked. I did not get hit with the pain later on, even when I was doing quite a bit of walking around.

As I was eating my breakfast, I got a call on my cell phone. That it even came through was the first surprise. The second was who we calling. A friend from high school. She was in town for a short while and was hoping we could get together. I told her I was going to be in town later, so we worked out that I would contact her before I went in to see my mother, and we would get together when the visit was done.

While getting ready to head out, I was surprised to see my brother out front with his truck and trailer, already partially loaded. He was getting the appliances and other metals on, to take to the scrap yard once he could get the time off work to take it in while they are open. As I headed to the truck, though, I spotted something loaded among the old freezers, furnaces, washers and driers I did not expect to be there.

The antique enameled sink that was leaning against the pump shack.

I was surprised as said, that doesn’t go! He said, yes, it goes. The junk goes. I told him I had planned to use it. We went back and forth about if for a while, as I told him where I’d planned to use it. He mentioned the stainless steel sinks in the sheds and garage (yes, we have a collection of those, too), but I said I don’t want a stainless steel sink. I want that one! In the end, though, it’s his sink. He can do whatever he wants with it, and I wasn’t going to argue. I was on my way to town, anyhow.

When I got to town, I was happy to see there was not a lot of traffic on the main road, though the temporary traffic lights were still set up. I headed to the grocery store and picked up apples, grapes and a few bananas, and decided to pick up some crackers, tiny cans of Ginger Ale and a container with a lid that she could use as a fruit bowl.

I also remembered to bring her old fan that she had asked for.

Thankfully, the nursing home has its own parking, and there was one open spot when I got there. The festival was winding down, but not finished yet, so public parking nearby was out of the question.

As I got to her floor and walked past the nursing station, I greeted the nurse, then turned around and came back to ask how my mother has been.

Not good, it turns out. She’s been yelling at them. Things like, when she didn’t get her tea fast enough, yelling “I want my tea”. Sadly, none of this is unusual or unexpected. She has always been one to be abusive towards those who are trying to help her. The nurse actually wished me luck when I continued on to my mother!

Thankfully, I had my friend as reason to leave earlier.

The visit actually turned out rather well.

She did try to do her usual digs and insults, but they didn’t get very far and I was able to distract her. She was happy with what I brought her. I washed the grapes right away and put them in the container I’d brought, and she started eating right away. Oddly, she was spitting out the skins. I asked her why, and she told me that she has to be careful with her digestion. Turns out, she has decided grape skins are hard on her stomach. ??? She decides all sorts of things are “bad” for her, but grape skins are a new one to me.

She tried to grill me on where my brother was and what he was doing. She had treated him so badly the last time he visited, and has zero understanding that this is a problem she is causing. Oddly, when I told her he was very busy, and only has a short length of time to get things done outside of work, she told me not to speak for my brother. I told her, then don’t ask about him. At which point, she started crossing herself. 😕

She complained about how they staff don’t “want” her to see a doctor, or a dietician. Which I know isn’t what’s going on, but she apparently told them that if they don’t want her to see the doctor, she’ll get us to take her to another doctor. Who that would be, I have no idea, but I told her, we can’t just take her to see another doctor. It doesn’t work that way. She’s under the care of a doctor already. She just doesn’t have the health problems other people living here have. I explained the nurses go through her file with the doctor regularly, along with all the other stuff (turns out she convinced them to put her on an inhaler again; only a doctor can write that prescription), but she refuses to accept that.

Then she got around to why she wants my brother to see her. She wants to talk to him about her health. Then she started repeating a story of how, back when she was about 25 years old (so… 70+ years ago) she had the same pain in her chest she has now (very unlikely) and the doctor gave her a prescription and she felt better. She wants us to find this medication and get it for her. All she remembers of it is that it had cherry and orange in it.

I tried to explain to her (again) that whatever she took 70 years ago probably doesn’t exist in that form anymore and, based on what she has described, it sounds like an early version of the “pink medicine” (Pepto) she takes now. The cherry and orange would be flavours, not the medicine.

She still wants to get my brother to find this mystery medication, because she’s convinced it is the only thing that will magically make her all better again.

She still complains about her breathing at night. I tried to suggest she try and take advantage of the hospital bed to sleep sitting upright, with her knees supported, but she stopped listening to me and started talking over me about something else entirely.

*sigh*

I had told her about my friend from high school being in town and asked if she remembered her. She didn’t, but when I gave her name, my mom just wanted to know her ethnicity. When she heard her married name, she wanted to know that ethnicity. When I told her I didn’t know she asked, what kind of friend can this be? I told her, a friend that doesn’t care about such things! Then she mocked her married name because it means “without clothes” in Polish.

I looked it up when I got home. The word in Polish is vaguely similar, but it is not her name at all. But “similar” is enough for my mother.

Much to my surprise, she didn’t give me a hard time about leaving fairly quickly to meet with my friend. Possibly because I mentions I see her only once every year or two. It was only as I was leaving that my mother thought to ask about my own health, since I’d told her I had been to the ER when she’d called me, wanting me to visit her that day. I told her I was going for surgery, party to find out what is actually going on, because so many tests are coming back normal. Something she would understand very well.

She did.

As I was heading out, I called up my friend and found out she was at a particular shop she visits every time she comes out here, trying on dresses! So I headed that way, though I had to park several blocks away. If the nursing home parking hadn’t been private parking that I could stay in, the walk would have been shorter! Which is fine, though I was glad I did that lie down this morning.

I caught up to her and, this time, I got to finally meet her husband! The building this shop is in used to be a butcher shop and grocery store. The owner had a secret recipe for steak spice that is the best ever. When they bought the building, they bought the recipe and regularly have it available, tucked into a corner of the store among completely unrelated items. So while my friend was in the fitting room, I popped over to see if they had any in stock. A customer was in front of the display so I started waiting, but as he and his son were talking about things, I could see they would be a while and just excused myself to grab a bag – then asked if he’d every tried it. It turned out he was local enough to remember the butcher shop and grocery store that was there before, and I told him the story behind the steak spice mix, and that it was the best we’ve ever had.

Then I grabbed a second bag, because I didn’t know when I’d be back.

I saw him walking out of the store later, carrying a bag of steak spice. I know he’s going to love it!

After my friend was done, we paid for our stuff, then worked out where we were going next. She wanted to go to the park where the main festival activities were still happening. We walked while her husband went to their car to try and find a closer parking spot. This gave us a chance to catch up on all sorts of things. She was having difficulty with an injured knee, so I just had to extoll the virtues of having a walker. She told me, she was trying to stay away from that. I told her that my husband had done that for a long time. When he finally got one, he wondered why he waited so long. It is such a huge improvement in quality of life. I don’t know that I convinced her, but I think she’s more open to it.

We took our time walking to the park, resting whenever we found a bench.

The park had the carnival rides still going, as well as a vendor village. All the little tents with the usual stuff you find at carnivals, but a few that were a little more unusual. One that caught my attention had a display of drinking horns and wooden steins that caught my attention. They had the style of drinking horn like we got for one of our daughters for her birthday a few years ago. The also had DnD items, “Viking” jewelry, and other interesting things. I saw grab bags for “hair weapons” that I just had to ask about. I was directed to a display of hair pins in the shape of medieval style weapons – swords, war aces, and the like. The grab bags were cheaper than the display ones, of course, so I grabbed one for each of the girls. We caught up with my friend’s husband and wandered around a bit more. After a while I spotted a donair food truck. We haven’t had real donairs since we left the city. The local restaurant has gyros, which are not quite the same thing. So I got four of them to take home.

Which did mean I had to leave right away, while the food was still hot. They ended up giving me a ride to where I parked my truck.

I found “graffiti” on my truck.

That is so adorable!

My daughter had actually done it a while ago, but this was the first time I saw this part of the truck in full daylight like this, instead of in the shadows of the garage.

My husband had messaged me for something, so I made a quick stop at the grocery store again before heading home. By then, my brother and SIL had left for home. My brother loaded so many washers and driers on that thing. Why were there so many washers and driers? I thought it was funny that we found 6 old toilets around (my brother found the 6th one, buried in the junk pile). There was the one washing machine we brought out to the junk pile when we replaced it. The rest were in the warehouse and storage sheds all over the place. Along with a couple of old furnaces, the remains of a wringer washer, and a couple of huge old chest freezers.

I also got a message that my brother had taken out the enameled cast iron sink and left it for me. That was so sweet of him! It’s a gorgeous sink; the kind with a built in drain area. Antique collectors and interior decorators would pay a pretty price for it. Especially in such good condition. Not that I’d ever sell it. That design is just too useful.

So today turned out to start off sad, but ended well. Even the visit with my mother was okay. I also didn’t get hit with pain after all that walking around, either.

Tomorrow, though, I’ll be walking around at Costco. Hopefully, my younger daughter will be able to come with me.

I’m not looking forward to it, but at least it’ll be on a Tuesday, not a holiday weekend!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: morning harvest

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Today was much cooler, with possible rain, so I didn’t need to water the garden today. I did get a harvest, though. This time, from the opposite end of the row.

These are the Viking potatoes. Not as many as when I harvested from the south end of the bed, but there was a definite reason for that. SO many elm roots under just the two plants at the end of the bed I dug under! Very frustrating.

In the next image is the complete harvest. More tri-colour bush beans, a few little carrots (they don’t seem to be getting any bigger; the soil is probably too compact again) and a couple of stalks from the walking onions. I broke off most of the bulbils and laid them down where I want to keep the walking onions growing, otherwise, they’d take over in the grass beyond the garden. The “stalks” are so big, I only grabbed two of them, which was more than enough for the day’s use.

I checked out one of the corn cobs that had dried out silks. It was on the outer edge, and I found it was very poorly pollinated. Very few developing kernels. I did try to shake the pollen down and make sure the stalks along the outside were dusted, to sort of imitate the wind, but I guess it didn’t work very well. I really should have had that second block I’d intended to plant but was never able to, right next to it. That would have improved things. Ah, well. We should still have something!

I then headed out for most of the day, which I’ll cover in another post, and the girls will be doing something with what I picked. I look forward to seeing what they come up with!

The Re-Farmer