A pretty good day, and trying it out

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Today came in densely foggy. Enough that we were getting fog advisories from the weather department. While the girls were out doing the morning cat feeding, they heard was sounded like rain, but it turned out the fog had condensed on tree leaves so much that it started to “rain”, but only directly under trees!

I was feeling good today, and my plan had been to get some more progress on the sun room. It was too damp out for the things that needed to go outside. Instead, I decided to focus on jerry rigging a tool to finally work on the eavestroughs. We have three areas where it is too dangerous to get up to the eaves without proper safety equipment, which we don’t have. I’d bought a bristle brush tool to clean them from the ground, but both heads that came with the kit broke off. I also got a hose attachment. We can’t see it, but there was obviously too much debris for the hose attachment to accomplish much, plus the elbows on the downspouts kept clogging.

The brush tool’s head might be broken, but I was left with a useable handle. I repurposed some heavy gauge wire from the mesh garden bed row cover hoops that the cats bent up by jumping on it. A hoop got folded in half with the ends secured to end piece the bristle brush had been attached to, with the loop formed by the fold bent to make a hook. It’s only held with tape, but it’s the heavy duty repair tape I picked up. I figured if it worked, I could find something more permanent to use another time. Until then, this stuff is strong enough to hold it.

It worked surprisingly well. Two of the eavestroughs were particularly bad, as it’s been quite a long time since anyone has tried to clean them. There was basically compost at the bottoms of them. As well as the modified tool worked, there was only so much I could flick out with the wire hook, but I was at least able to loosen things a bit, too. Hopefully enough that the hose attachment could finally wash it away.

It was a very messy job.

I started working with the hose attachment on at the eavestrough that runs along one side of the old kitchen, then over my bedroom window, with a right angle turn where the two roof sections meet. The roof sections form a sort of channel where everything drains or falls into that corner, so it was seriously built up with debris. Being a corner, it was also very difficult to use the hook tool in the space, but I got a fair bit out.

Once I switched to the hose attachment, the first thing I focused on was the opening to the downspout to try and clear the elbows. Thankfully, I was able to get it fairly clear. The next while was spent trying to drive debris towards the opening, then forcing it through the elbows when it started jamming up again. Every now and then, I would hear a thunk as the debris would finally come free and drop down to the elbow at the bottom before finally getting washed away. I had to stop regularly to clear debris away from the opening at the bottom.

It was slow going.

I could only work small sections at a time, and had to stop to scrape with the hook tool again, several times. After about an hour of that, I got the old kitchen section – roughly 10 feet – mostly done, and had started around the corner. That corner is going to be particularly difficult to clear!

Then my alarm went off for my scheduled painkiller time. By then, I was actually start to feel it, so I knew I would have to call it a day and come back to it later. Still, I’m pleased with how much I was able to clear.

Meanwhile, I started getting messages from my SIL. They were on their way over to take the trailer of hot water tanks to the scrap yard, then use the trailer to get and bring back a water tank for their caravan. Water suitable to use for showering as well as the toilet and sinks. They’ve been using an outhouse all this time! There was already one against the storage building that they had cleaned up and put a new door on, as well as using the one in the inner yard that we’d made all pretty inside, several years ago. Definitely not something they’ll be wanting to do if they come out in the winter!

Once inside, cleaned up and medicated, I ended up helping my daughter in the kitchen.

She was trying to butcher the Arikara squash. It was fighting back.

The outer skin on that thing was definitely well cured. 😄

She managed to get it cut in half crosswise, with me helping keep it steady on the cutting board. It took a lot of strategic stabbing, then it took both of us to break it open. We made sure to collect the innards in a bowl, and I started collecting seeds while she tried to split the halves lengthwise. The knife would only go so far, and then it took the two of us pulling to break them apart.

Success!

The second image in the slide show above is the collected seeds, rinsed and set out to dry on parchment paper.

We are wanting to get a taste of this to know if we even like it, so the pieces are being roasted plain. My daughter will be using half of it for a soup that I will not be able to eat, as it will be spicy and full of fish. I prefer to eat winter squash on its own, seasoned with butter and brown sugar. My husband doesn’t like winter squash, so I’ve basically got an entire half of the squash to myself!

While my daughter was getting things into the oven, I headed out to the compost pile and found a surprise at the door. My SIL had left a bag with some items she had brought for us! I called back to my daughter to tell her that my SIL had already come to the door, then went to the compost ring. She was still close enough to hear me and came back. It turned out she had knocked on the door, but we were so buy wrestling with the squash, we never heard it. She thought I might have been resting and didn’t want to disturb us, and just left the bag.

So we had a chance to talk, and walked over to where my brother was struggling to hook the trailer up to their truck. It was not cooperating! Since I wasn’t going back in right away, I messaged my daughters about the bag by the door, so they took it in and my older daughter came out to return the bag. We talked for a while longer and got caught up on things. They won’t be staying overnight, and likely not come back during the weekend. They’ll just be coming back tonight with the water tank, dropping it off and leaving, and it might be full dark by the time they get here.

After that, it was late enough to do the evening cat feeding, so I headed in through the sun room, where I spotted this guy, tucked away in the shelf shelter.

This is Bobert. He is not very friendly, but not feral, either. He and Larence, another grey tabby, with no white on the nose, used to both hang around together a lot, but Larence seems to be among those that have disappeared. I saw very few cats around when I did the evening feeding. More show up during the morning feeding. I think I’ll try to join my daughter tomorrow morning and do a head count while she’s setting out the cat soup.

My older daughter just came by to let me know that the squash is done roasting.

Time to go and find out how it tastes!

The Re-Farmer

addendum: I almost made it – then got a message. They got to the scrap yard and almost got turned away, because they’re on strike!!! My brother explained they drove 80 miles to get there, and how where they do know about the strike? They were eventually allowed in, but only if he unloaded the trailer himself. For the amount they got back, with him having to do the work himself, it’s no wonder most people just send this stuff to the landfill. It’ll barely cover the cost of gas for the trip in that truck! That’s why I’ve been just collecting aluminum. Ferrous iron just isn’t worth much.

Our 2026 Garden: another little harvest, plus an update

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We had some rain, off and on, during the night, and today was mostly overcast. Overnight temperatures were quite nice, and the garden survives.

This morning was very good, on the pain scale, for myself, but not for my daughter. I headed to the garage this morning on my own, and didn’t even bother to bring the walker – though I did remember to bring the water jugs.

I always leave early, but I forget that the new location is closer enough to make a difference in travel time. I got there almost 45 minutes early.

He took the truck in almost right away.

The oil change got done and, when I asked, I found out he’d already checked the steering linkage for me when he was doing the diagnostic on Monday. All is good. We talked for a while about the check engine light. The most common fix he’s seen for that code is changing the gas cap, but we might not need to do that. It could be as simple as the cap not being on tight (we know it is), or the O ring not sealing as well. Applying some oil to the O ring would help with that. It could be dust in the EVAP system, especially since we drive on gravel roads. He described the system to me and told me about a number of other possibilities. My scan showed it as a “very common” code to come up. He assured me it won’t affect drivability. He never recommends getting work done, if it isn’t actually necessary. We can clear the code ourselves with the scanner, or it might even go away on its own.

In the end, he charged me for the oil and filter change, and an hour of labour for the diagnostic testing done on Monday. Considerably less expensive than I feared, at the start.

The whole thing was done before my actual appointment time!

I didn’t have a lot of driving after that, but I could already feel the truck felt like it was running smoother. The oil gauge was where he said it should be, and looking better than before. We’ll be doing many trips into the city next week, so it’ll get a work out, then.

I headed into town to refill the water bottles and picked up a few other little things, then headed home. My older daughter helped me with bringing the bottles in, as her sister has barely been able to get out of bed for the pain.

Later on, after I’d gone out to do the outside cat feeding, I hosed down the mats from the sun room some more, then checked on the garden. I ended up with a little harvest; just enough for a meal or two.

It’s been a while since I’ve tried harvesting, or even weeding, any carrots. The Rainbow Mix carrots are harder for me to reach, but are the one planted earlier, so I made sure to take from that row. They were a lot thicker than I expected! Then I grabbed the two Lemon Squash from the old kitchen garden. My older daughter is making a hearty potato soup for supper and made sure to include some of this!

The 10 day forecast is looking pretty good. Aside from a trip to the post office, we don’t need to go anywhere and the weather looks like we should be able to get things done outside – and finish clearing and cleaning the sun room!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: a single bean, and a little harvest

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My daughter and I headed into town this morning, hoping to get the truck worked on, even though I hadn’t received a message back from the garage with a time. I had my suspicions, but my daughter had something to do in town after, so I knew it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.

Oh, my. I really feel for the owner of the garage.

When we got there, he was outside, on the phone. My daughter stayed outside by the truck while I went into the office and waiting for him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying on the phone, but I could hear his tone, and it was a lot tenser than his usual laid back manner.

When he came to the office door, he was furiously texting while also apologizing. He had meant to text me back with a time, but had never had a chance to look at his schedule to tell me when. He was finally able to set his phone down on a shelf just outside the door, telling me how, after he’d had to go home yesterday, unable to work on our truck, things ended up taking hours longer than it should have. Of course, that absolutely screwed up his schedule completely.

He had just sat down at his desk and started getting his schedule out when his phone started ringing again. From where he’d left it just outside the door! He had to answer it and went outside again to talk. When he came back, he looked absolutely frazzled.

He was, of course, needing to catch up on things, and I could already see his bays were full, so there was no way we’d be getting in anytime soon. He had no openings today and, at best, could squeeze me in between other scheduled jobs. Of course, that would me us waiting in his office, since there’s nowhere else to go in the industrial park his shop is now located in. Alternatively, he had openings tomorrow.

We’ll be back tomorrow morning.

Poor guy. Yes, there was another mechanic, but there are things only the owner can take care of and, when it comes to our truck and needing to figure things out, he had taken that on himself rather than delegating.

That arranged, my daughter and I headed into town. I had forgotten our water bottles to refill, but we’ll be back to do that tomorrow. My daughter ran her errand and we were soon home.

I was feeling really good today – left the walker in the truck and didn’t even need a cane. After we had lunch at home, I headed outside to see what I could get done, as we are expecting rain.

I got the cat beds soaking in the tub finished and set out to drain and, if it doesn’t rain, dry. Floor mats got hosed down, which will need to be done again another time or two. I got the cat cage dismantled and the interlocking mat under it set out for soaking, then hosing down.

With the cat half of the sun room finally empty, I swept as best I could, but the floor washing and window washing will have to wait. Instead, I brought out all the cleaned cat beds and blankets and set them on one side, then brought all the food trays that had been removed and laid them out on the other, along with a water bowl. This way, the cats will at least have someplace warm and dry to hang out in, should the weather get wet. The wind, at least, seems to be dying down.

By the time all that was done, it was time to do the outside cat feeding. The singleton kitten would not let me touch her today, but she kept calling at me. She looks so sad without the little kittens to play with! I’m glad she’s staying close to the house now, though. Hopefully, with all the trays returned to the sun room, she will start hanging out in there more often, and the other cats won’t chase her out.

Before heading in, I did my evening rounds and checked on the garden. I watered the muskmelon, since they are under their own mini greenhouse set up. Then I noticed a strange bit of colour among the yellow leaves of the red noodle beans in the other bed.

There it is. Our single, sad, floppy little red noodle bean! I couldn’t see any others. Which I found funny because the same thing happened the first time we tried growing this variety during what turned out to be a drought year. We got just one sad little bean that year, too.

I would really like to successfully grow this variety, but I think I’ll wait a year or two before I try again.

I was still able to get a little harvest for today, though.

I got a handful of beans from the ones planted later in the season, with the Arikara squash. My pain levels started to kick in, so I asked a daughter to make supper, and I now have those beans on my cooling plate as I write this. I also grabbed a few of the Blueberry Tomatoes for the girls.

Sept. 23, and we still have a few things we’ll be able to harvest. If the long range forecast is at all accurate, we will have no danger of frost at all for at least the next 10 days.

I’m appreciating every frost free day we’re getting as a gift right now!

The Re-Farmer

Almost…

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Okay, main goal of the day: getting the truck to the garage for our afternoon appointment.

As usual, we planned on leaving early. My daughter was really struggling this morning, unfortunately. She’d had a bad night. We’ve had more outings than usual that she came along with to help me out, and it’s starting to wear on her.

I spotted this guy, on the way to the garage.

This time, it was Gouda, parked on one of the inside out cat beds under the canopy tent. So adorable!

I was having a good day, when it comes to pain levels, and started off driving but right away realized I was feeling unusually sleeping. A down side of having to take painkillers every 6 hours. I never get more than a few hours of sleep at a time, if I manage to fall sleep at all.

We got to the garage about half an hour early and settled in the waiting room chairs. We could hear the owner working on something in the back and he didn’t see us, which was fine. We were in no hurry. I actually started to fall asleep in the chair.

Then he walked by the door to the office, focused on his phone, stopped and did a double take when he realized we were already there and waiting. He greeted us then continued outside, going back to his phone.

Shortly after, he came back and apologetically asked us if we wanted to go into town for lunch or something; he needed to go home to take care of something. We were okay with that and he said he would text me when he was back.

I got my daughter to drive and we ended up going to the Dairy Queen, because I had some coupons. My daughter was a sweetheart and insisted on paying for it, too.

We took our time about it, though I wasn’t that hungry and ended up saving my burger for home. I just snacked on some fries. I don’t really like fries all that much, and gave the last of them to my daughter, since she hadn’t eaten before we left. After a while, we decided that we could just as easily go back to the garage and stay in the truck, where I’m sure I would have fallen asleep. We were getting ready to head out when I got a text.

The thing he had to take care of at home was taking longer than it should have, and he had no idea how long it would be. Rather than have us wait, he asked if we were willing to come back tomorrow.

I answered yes, then asked if he wanted us back for the same time. By that point, I don’t think he was able to keep checking his work phone. I’ll just assume the same time if he doesn’t respond.

So we headed home, instead, stopping only to pick up some gas.

$1.899/L

Ouch.

At least I got my 3¢/L CAA discount, so we paid $1.869/L instead. Every little bit helps.

Once at home, I sat at my computer for a while, but was still so sleepy, I couldn’t actually accomplish anything useful. My husband came over to talk and the first thing he said was that I looked really horrible! 😄😂 I did consider just going to bed but, by this time, it was past 3 and I knew that would screw up my night.

After a while, though, I started feeling better. Well enough to go outside to do the evening cat feeding. The singleton kitten, I noticed, is no longer a junk pile cat. She is now and under the cat house cat! The sun room trays are all outside right now, as we’ve made very little progress on clearing and cleaning the sun room, and spread out on the ground near the cat shelters. As I was topping them up, the little one was peeking out from under the cat house, meowing at me. I could see she wanted to come out so badly, but was also too scared to actually do it!

She did come out eventually, though. Especially after I started to add cat milk to some of the trays, too.

I was still feeling good, so I decided to do some yard stuff and garden watering in between topping up the cats’ water bowls a bit at a time, so as not to scare them away from the food. I checked the drying cat beds and stuff, and they were finally all dry, so I tucked those into the wagon and under the screen for now. I’ve got other pieces soaking with detergent in the tub, so I agitated them for awhile. That water got quite brown in the process! They are still soaking, as I wasn’t up to scrubbing them today. Then I started watering the garden.

Yes, the garden is still worth watering! Not all of the beds, but some of them. The strawberries, squash and sunflowers at the chain link fence all got a watering. I’m really impressed that the squash – winter and summer – is still surviving and blooming.

The old kitchen garden got watered and I found a surprise. In the beets and parsnip bed, the parsnip greens have gotten so tall, their leaves were sticking through the wire of the cover. Some of the beets are also quite tall and the only reason they aren’t going through the wire is because they’re in the middle of the bed, under the highest part of the curve.

About a third of them were gone.

Not completely, but at one end, there was a substantial empty spot that had been full of leaves.

My first thought was deer, but that seems so unlikely. The deer don’t typically go through that garden; too many paths and obstacles. Plus, my daughter added more wood chips to the paths yesterday, and that’s not a surface a deer would want to walk on. The alternative is skunks or racoons, and they would have cause more damage than just a bunch of leaves eaten. So it must be from a deer.

The wire cover did protect the plants at least somewhat, as they were not completely eaten down to the ground, like the Swiss Chard all was. So frustrating!

The tomato bed in the east yard got watered, but I didn’t bother with the other two beds. Since our single Arikara squash has been harvested, I cut away the vine, so that bed is now just bush beans. The leaves do have some minor frost damage, but I could see there are still beans developing. I probably could have harvested some, but didn’t have a container for them and didn’t want to push my limits.

In the main garden area, I did some more selective watering. I was doing the very last bed when my older daughter came out. I asked how her sister was doing, and she said not very good. She’s dealing with with increased pain levels now, so she’s settled down in the cat free zone to have some movies playing while she continues knitting my ankle socks for me.

While I finished watering the last bed, my daughter told me her plans for roasting the Arikara squash and to use half of it to make a squash soup. Personally, I look forward to having straight up roasted squash. I want to get a good taste of it to see if this is something we want to keep growing in the future, other than to keep collecting seeds for a rare squash variety.

I started telling my daughter how surprised I was with how little frost damage there was, and that I could probably harvest some things – then asked if she wanted some peppers. We had two California Bell peppers that are fully red now, plus a couple of Sweet Chocolate peppers that were ripe. She happily took them and will be using them in her soup. There are still some green peppers on the plants that will hopefully do all right. With peppers, though, we can also harvest them early and let them ripen in the house.

I did remember to look up what colour the California Bell peppers get, since they are bright red and, for some reason, I thought they would be yellow. I found images of both red and yellow peppers. 😕 I got them from MI Gardener and looked at their page, and their image is of green peppers!

So… red it is.

I headed inside soon after, as I didn’t want to push myself. At this point, I might head into town tomorrow on my own, rather than dragging my daughter out with me again. This time, I want to remember to grab a couple of 5 gallon water jugs to refill in town, after the oil change and whatever else needs to be done.

For now, I’m coming up on my schedule evening painkillers time, and I think I’ll try to go to bed after that and get a few hours of sleep before the next set. I tried that last night and it didn’t work. I ended up awake until somewhere past 4am. That might actually help me finally get some sleep tonight, though!

An odd thing about taking the painkillers every 6 hours. I’m not entirely sure how much it’s making a difference. I still get hit with the lower abdominal pain, enough that I’ve used the topical painkiller to help with that. Yet even when I’m not feeling the abdominal pain, I’m still feeling other pain. Particularly that left shoulder’s rotator cuff. The painkillers don’t seem to be touching that at all. Which makes me wonder; if they’re not helping with something as relatively minor as the shoulder pain, how much can it be helping with the abdominal pain? Granted, my shoulder has never hurt badly enough to warrant a trip to the ER, but you’d think a dose as strong as what I’m taking now, 6 times a day, would reduce the shoulder pain too, wouldn’t you??

Ah, well. It is what it is. At least I’m not getting side effects like that violent dizziness I was getting with the Percocet.

So… that’s how the day went today. We almost got the truck done! Our mechanic had told us what he’d needed to go home for, and I really hope it all worked out for him and his family.

If all goes well, the truck will finally be done tomorrow, and it’ll be ready for the winter, as well as all the trips to the city we’ll be needing to do over the next couple of months!

The Re-Farmer

Good news… mostly?

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Okay, we are back from town, and were done with the truck way earlier than expected.

As we pulled into the parking lot at the garage, we saw a truck pulling out and leaving. Then we found the doors locked! It turned out we had just watched the owner leaving to drop someone off. Which was fine. We were about 40 minutes early for the appointment.

I messaged our contact with the rescue to let her know we had arrived and were waiting for the owner of the garage to come back. She messaged back right away, suggesting she come over right then. She had just arrived at work and was only 2 minutes away.

Of course, I said yes!

Then the owner returned. I went in to talk to him while my daughter waited outside, then helped the woman from the rescue load donated cat food into the truck box. None of which I could see from where I was standing inside.

I described to the owner what I was seeing on the gauge, even as we drove to the garage, compared to what we were seeing for weeks after our last oil change, which included an engine flush and the third oil sensor replacement. It had been working just fine after that. I explained how the readings started changing after a while, first only when we made a trip to the city, little by little. There was the direct correlation with engine temperature, which I monitored during the drive in.

After they were done loading the truck, he drove it into the shop and started testing it – well before our actual appointment time.

While he was getting ready to hook up his physical mechanical oil pressure gauge to test it, my daughter told me about the ear mite medications and where she tucked them away, and that she’d made sure to set the biggest cat food bags centered over the axle to distribute the weight. I quickly popped open the tail gate to take a look and was totally amazed!!!

There was SO much in there!

Of course, I messaged the women from the rescue to thank her again.

It wasn’t until later that I realized the larger bags my daughter was talking about were not the 9kg size we typically see, but two 40 pound bags of a brand we buy from the feed store in the town north of us. !!!!! You can just barely see one of them in the shadows in the first photo above.

We had expected that the garage would hang on to the truck for a while, and we’d get a ride into town, but that didn’t happen. We sat outside in the sun for a while, then popped into the waiting room when it started getting too hot. My daughter had brought her knitting bag and worked on one of the ankle socks she’s making for me while we waited.

They worked on the truck, revving the engine at times, testing it out. After a while, the owner came back and got on his computer for a bit, then got a printout to show us, which I got to keep.

What it came down to is that yes, our oil pressure is slightly lower than “normal”, however, it is within range. I told him flat out that, after all the problems we’ve had, I don’t know what “normal” is anymore, so he told me where, on the gauge itself, I should expect to see it. Then we talked about how that can change based on things like temperature (winter is going to show higher than summer), and even just age and wear and tear on the engine.

There is nothing else to show why that pressure would be that small amount lower, so he wants to change our oil to something thicker. He asked if I could come back tomorrow, and we can, so that’s now booked for tomorrow afternoon. As he was starting to remove his pressure tester, I remembered to ask him to change out our burnt headlight bulb – I’d bought a new bulb weeks ago, but we were never able to get it done ourselves, for various reasons. So he quickly did that for us.

The whole thing was done, and it wasn’t even noon, yet.

When I asked about paying, he told me he’ll give me a total after I come back tomorrow and he does the oil change. We both forgot about the check engine light, but the oil change with a new filter might actually fix that. I did remember to text him about it shortly after we left.

My daughter hadn’t had breakfast before we left, planning to take me out for breakfast after being dropped off in town. So the first thing we did was go for lunch. After that, we walked over to the dollar store, as I was looking for some specific things for the Christmas ornaments I wanted to work on. I ended up not finding anything, but my daughter found several small things she picked up.

From there, it was a stop at the pharmacy, where my daughter was a sweetheart and quickly ran in with the signed consent form they needed for my new pain meds. My husband had asked me to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, and my daughters had their own shopping list, so that was our next stop.

Normally, I would have put some gas in the tank at that point, but I didn’t want to do that until after the truck was done and paid for. So that will wait until tomorrow.

By the time we were heading home, I remembered that we needed to stop at the post office, too. We are expecting several important letters, and one of them was there today. My older daughter now has a time for her appointment that was rescheduled to early November, along with the date they were able to give her right away.

I still haven’t received a call about my own biopsy I was supposed to get at the end of the month. The one I was supposed to receive before the weekend. If I don’t get a call by tomorrow, I’ll call the clinic that referred me and let them know.

That done, we got home and unloaded at the house. After bringing in the groceries, assembly line style, we started bringing in the donated cat stuff.

Then I got some pictures of what we got, which are the rest of the images in the slide show above, though I had already emptied two small bags that were torn, into the kibble bin for the inside cats. The 40 pound bags and two boxes of cat milk went straight to the old kitchen, so they were not included in the photos.

One bag had nothing but cat treat. So many cat treats!!! Another had more cat treats, plus three small bags of freeze dried chicken catfood, plus several loose little cartons of cat milk. There was a freezer bag of loose kibble, plus a slightly bigger bag of kibble that were on the side.

The last bag I went through had a couple of larger bags of kibble, a smaller one that was partially used and taped shut, and some canned cat food – and even more bags of cat treats!! I also started finding some strange little individual packets that were loose among the treat bags. I found the package they’d fallen out of and found out they are pill pockets.

With so many bags of dry treats like that, we should start mixing some in with their kibble feedings.

Which is what I can do next, as it’s getting time to feed the outside cats.

We did come home to a problem, though. Something is wrong with our toilet. It had gotten clogged, which seemed to be cleared, but now it’s slow flushing. We’ve checked the basement and there’s no sign of problems at the drains to the septic tank, though we’re due to run the hose through and flush it, anyhow.

But not right now.

I’m going outside to feed some kitties.

The Re-Farmer

We pet the baby!

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My daughter came in from doing the morning feeding of the outside cats, so very excited!

She was able to pet the shrine baby. The single older kitten – who has started to come to the house, not just eating at the shrine feeding station!

What my daughter noted was that if she made eye contact with the kitten, it ran away – but if she faced another direction, it came back to the food bowl. Then she came back with the cat soup. It moved away, so she just crouched down near the bowl, looking in another direction.

While the kitten was eating, my daughter was able to reach out and pet it – and she let her! She even got an elevator butt response, while the kitten kept eating soup.

The kitten’s fur, my daughter told me, was astonishingly soft.

I was not doing very well today and ended up going back to bed. While I was down, my younger daughter headed out to start clearing and cleaning the sun room. This is something that needs to be done in stages, and it a huge and filthy job, since we were never able to get a spring cleaning done. She got some cat shelves out and cleared about a quarter of the room to bare floor, before she stopped for the day.

Unfortunately, I never got to see my brother and SIL before they had to leave. It turned out to be a good day for repairs. When he went to move his old pick up truck to move it and the trailer still attached, it wouldn’t start. After checking it over, he thought it might be the starter and was prepared to have it towed to our usual garage. Today, however, he thought of something else to try and it worked. He was able to do some other repairs, move the antique dump truck back onto the concrete blocks it had rolled off of, and even was able to check on the riding mower and get it working. It turned out that something was stuck, and nothing had actually broken. phew!

This evening, I decided I was well enough to do the outside cat feeding. Mostly because I needed to get outside and get some fresh air. Today is the 20th, so I was also hoping I’d be up to doing garden tour videos.

All the food trays that had been in the sun room are currently spread out on the grass near the cat shelters, since the sun room is being cleaned out. While setting the kibble out, I spotted the lone kitten.

So I tried what my daughter tried. I can’t crouch, but I could stand nearby and look the other way, until the kitten came back to the tray to eat. Without looking directly at her, I was able to slowly bend down and touch her.

She let me!

I didn’t stay for long, though. We don’t do cat soup for the evening feeding, but I do add a couple of little cartons of the donated cat milk (we’re on the last case that was given to us) spread out among various trays. I did only trays near the house, since we want to encourage the little one to stay close by.

She came back to the tray with Fancy Pants, whom she seems to get along with, and started eating again.

This time, I was able to pet her more.

She even started to purr!!!

After a while I went to put things away when I heard a noise. A little skunk had come running and pushed itself onto the tray, shoving the kitten aside, startling Fancy Pants away, and started eating greedily. I scooted it away a couple of times before it left. I don’t mind them finishing off the kibble, but I want the cats to have a chance to eat, first!

After the cat feeding, I walked around a bit before going back inside and weighed in on how I felt. I decided to go ahead and do the garden tour videos. I haven’t gone over them yet, so I’ll see if I end up making new ones tomorrow or not.

Tomorrow, we take the truck in and I will be away until it’s ready to take home again. That’s partly way I made sure to get as much bed rest as possible today. My husband will make sure to keep the phone handy, as I never got the call from the cancer clinic in the city on Thursday or Friday, as we were told to expect. It means not much will get accomplished. My daughter will be coming with me, just in case I need help or need her to drive home when we get the truck back.

For now, I’m just happy we finally got to pet the lonely baby!

The Re-Farmer

A good day – mostly

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I’m happy to say that I woke feeling very well today. It was also a lovely, warm day, which meant getting things done outside. That included moving the cat stuff out from under the canopy tent to dry in the sun.

I got this picture before they got put back under the canopy tent for the night. The self warming mats were dry, and I ended up putting them into the catio for now, and the smallest cat bed was dry enough to go back into the shelf shelter it had been in before. The rest will eventually go back into the sun room, after that finally gets cleared out and cleaned.

In the back, you can see the summer window for the basement. It got a very thorough hose down, after the winter window was put back in. I’m glad I put hardware cloth as well as window screen on that. The screen has all sorts of little holes and tears in it. Without the hardware cloth, we would have had cats and probably racoons and skunks getting into the basement!

One of the top priorities on the list for today was to finally get a dump run done. My younger daughter helped, though there was nothing so heavy that I needed to be concerned about lifting it. The one thing I noticed during the drive, however, was that frustrating oil pressure gauge reading. As the engine warmed, the pressure reading dropped even faster than the last few days, just barely within the “normal” range, even at highway speeds. It wasn’t that long ago that the gauge didn’t start reading that way until we’d reached the city, and it would drop when I was stopped in traffic for one reason or another. When stopped, the needle dropped below the normal range. Not enough to set any alarms, but not where it should be.

*sigh*

I think we’ll be sure to not drive anywhere until we get it to the garage on Monday!

After the much needed dump run was done, I stayed outside while my daughter headed in. I’d pruned the dead branches from the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden last night, and today I added to the branch pile. The white Cherokee Rose bush in front of the sun room it remarkably tall and tied back, but when I had tried to get to the laundry platform, I was having to duck under violently thorn covered branches drooping over the path. We can now get to and from the laundry platform without risking serious injury! 😄

My daughter came out soon after with heavy leather gloves and cleaned up the pile or rose branches, straight to the fire pit rather than the branch pile. I got things moved out of the way in preparation to mow the lawn with the riding mower while she did that. My brother and SIL had gone out with their truck and trailer early in the morning, and they got back while I was doing that. I went to say high and mentioned I was planning to mow the lawn in the inner yard. My SIL was concerned, and she had been planning to do the lawn mowing herself, but I told her I can use the riding mower. I just can’t use the push mower. She still looked worried and told me she would do whatever areas I wasn’t able to get it.

Then I had to fight off my daughter from using the riding mower. 😂

So she switched gears and started working on the old kitchen garden, doing a job I can’t do right now. She started bringing wheelbarrow loads of wood chips to the old kitchen garden.

She got the one path done before her back started giving out. This is quite a thick layer of wood chips over the closely trimmed path. Hopefully, that will keep the weeds and grass from growing back for at least a couple of years! There are a couple more paths to cover, but that will be slowly worked on while the weather is good.

It was just reaching 1pm when I got the riding mower out and got started. In the half hour or so before my alarm went off to take my afternoon meds, I was able to get the southeast and southwest lawns done. The grass was still pretty wet, but it couldn’t really wait any longer. Then I parked the riding mower beside the pile of elm tree pieces that is still by the house, then went in for my scheduled painkillers and a late lunch.

At this point, I should not that the riding mower was working fine the whole time, and there were no bumps or ruts or other such things that might get run into.

Which means I had no warning for when I got back.

I started the mower, put it in gear, released the brake and…

Nothing.

It wouldn’t move.

I spent the next while trying different things, turning the mower off and on several times. Everything seemed to be working just fine until I tried to move.

Nothing.

Now, we had that happen with the riding mower my brother and SIL bought for us soon after we moved here. A chain kept falling off. This mower doesn’t have a chain.

I went to my brother’s caravan and my SIL was there. I told her what happened and she let me know my brother was working on his tractor – something he’s been trying to get to for the past three weeks!

On my way over there, I walked past his dump truck and, for a moment, I though he might have been working on that. The last weekend they were here, he’d been able to set concrete blocks under the tires, so they wouldn’t sink into the ground, with wooden blocks in front of the tires to keep them from rolling forward into the driving lane. The truck had been rolled backwards, completely off the blocks and onto the grass. As we walked past it later, he asked if we had moved it. !!! Of course, we hadn’t.

It had been rolled off the blocks by the wind!!!

I found my brother under his tractor and told him what happened with the mower. He went over to take a look as best he could. I shifted from reverse to forward to neutral while he tried to see what was wrong. He could see nothing.

In the end, he pushed the mower back to the garage, so he could go back to working on the tractor. He was going to have to put the mower on a lift so he could see better, but that will have to wait.

Since I could no longer mow the lawn, I worked on other things. I cleaned out in front of the basement window, put on the winter window and hosed down the summer window before setting it aside to dry. Then I cleared out along the side of the entry, next to where the basement window is. There were a few things being stored there, and others that just ended up there. I needed to empt the area because those *(^&$#%&$(#& elm tree seeds were sprouting. Plus, a larger elm sapling I’d cut away during our first spring and summer out here has been growing suckers. So everything got moved out and either set aside nearby or it went into the junk pile. Several things needed to be hosed down first. There was a whole lot of leaves, elm tree seeds and dirt to clear out and I had to start out with the landscape rake, then the fan rake and, finally, a broom to get most of it out. It needs to be hosed down, but the row of bricks closest to the house are all leaning towards the house and would drain against the root cellar wall that’s there. The area there is lined mostly with the glazed brick that we have around the house, which gets incredibly slippery.

My daughter had gone inside by then, so I was able to grab the wheelbarrow to haul the debris away. As I was putting it back my SIL rode their zero turn mower into the yard and stopped to talk for a while. She had been doing the outer yard and wanted to know how much I’d done on the inner yard before the little riding mower stopped moving. I told her what had been done, then we just talked. I told her about where I was working on, and the enameled bricks. We wondered where on earth my dad had managed to get so many! They are everywhere! I told her about how dangerous they are when wet, and that I wanted to pull them all out from around the house and lay down gravel, instead. Much safer! She agreed with that. The bricks are really nice and I told her I could see being able to use them – just not as a floor!

She had seen the water bottle collars I used when starting the summer squash stored on some T posts along the retaining wall and asked about them, and we talked garden stuff for a while before we both went back to work. I just had some things to put away, as I’d done as much as I could for the corner. Then I gathered the cat stuff and took care of those before heading inside.

Before I did, though, I made one last pass around the south yard to check the things growing on the chain link fence. Which is where I spotted this…

Four bees found the one late blooming sunflower (Mammoth variety) to gather pollen from! Some of the Mammoth sunflowers are looking to be more than 7 ft tall right now, and several have small seed heads that haven’t opened yet. Hopefully, that means more pollen for the bees. There isn’t much else blooming right now!

All in all, I’m rather happy with how much I was able to get done outside, though unhappy that my brother’s lawn tractor stopped moving. He has so many other things to deal with!

The main thing for me is that I’m still feeling good. I didn’t push myself too far and am not feeling any abdominal pain. Hopefully, it will stay that way!!

The Re-Farmer

Weighing in, and hardy survivors

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Well, we finally managed it.

We weighed all the cats.  All 21 of them.

Sort of.

The only way we could do it was to have my daughter stand on the digital scale to get her weight, then weigh her while holding a cat and doing the math.

The problem with that is, the digital scales reading changes based on how the feet are positioned, how you might be leaning while standing, or even what part of the floor it’s on.  When my husband came over and I mentioned this, he tried getting on the scale.

My husband has no balance.

He wobbled so much, the numbers never settled, and the scale turned itself off to no display at all, like it does after you step off the scale. !!!

So we got estimates.

I’m both surprised and not surprised that Leyendecker turned out to be the heaviest at 30 pounds. 

He’s not just a fat cat.  He’s a tank.  He’s got a skull almost as big as a softball.  Hard to believe he was the smallest of his litter!

The lightest cat was Susan, at only 7 pounds.

I passed the numbers on to someone at the rescue.   We will be able to buy ear mite medication through them.  The kind that’s applied to the skin between the shoulders, since treating the ear canals hasn’t been working well.  When it doesn’t take for just one cat, they all end with getting the mites again. We will work out getting the medication after the truck is looked at, on Monday.

Later today, I was able to head outside with the girls.  While one daughter did the evening cat feeding, the other helped me with the washed cat blankets and beds, before we got the rain expected tonight.  Some were dry, but most were too thick to be fully dry yet.  The damp ones all got laid out under the canopy tent, most on the wire mesh curing frame, to continue drying.   Hopefully, we’ll get more sunny days to set them out in, to dry and bleach in the sun.

That done, I stayed out to check the garden beds.  It’s surprising to see how much survived the one night that reached freezing temperatures!

Those (wild? Alpine?) strawberries are amazingly hardy.  There are still loads of tiny berries, and they are still blooming.

Even more surprising is how well the tomatoes that could not be covered are doing. Especially the Orange Currant tomatoes.

The California Wonder bell peppers were covered the night it reached 0C, and are getting quite red.

I’ll have to look it up, but I was sure they were supposed to be a yellow pepper.  😄

I took a closer look at some of the sunflowers, brushing dried petals off so I could see the developing seeds.  The seed heads are all very small for the varieties, but it does look like there may be viable seeds.

After checking on things, I  grabbed the loppers to prune dead and dying branches from the pink rose bush in the old kitchen garden.  They are insanely thorny, but I was able to use the loppers to move the pruned branches aside, for the girls to clear away tomorrow.

While I was working on that, my brother and SIL arrived for the weekend, and I got to talk to them for a bit before finishing the pruning.  I really enjoy spending time with them.

Overall, today was a good day.  I was even up to making a quick run to the post office by myself.  I didn’t start having pain creeping up until shortly before my evening meds alarm went off.  It’s been getting worse since then, and I’m currently writing this while in bed, rather twisted up to find the least painful position.  It’s not too bad… yet?  We shall see.

One thing about the new dose and variation of painkiller.  It makes me sleepy.  My sister happened to call only a minute past my meds alarm going off.  I had meant to lie down right away, but we spoke for a while.  I ended up having to say goodbye, before I dozed off and dropped the phone!

Of course, now that I’m finally lying down, the sleepiness has passed. 😒

Not that it’s anything to complain about.  Just something to work around.

Anyhow.  I’m mostly really happy that we got the cats weighed as best we could.  It’s been delayed for too long!

The Re-Farmer

A really excellent day – except for Damocles being weird again

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This morning, after taking my scheduled meds and supplements, I was feeling well enough to do the morning cat feeding. Which meant, of course, I stayed out to check on the garden.

There is definitely cold damage on a lot of things, but most might actually have survived. The winter squash on the chain link fence was my biggest surprise.

The first one is what should be a Black Futsu. It had been protected by a large leaf. The other images, save the very last one, are of the butterneck squash – and they are still producing female flowers! Even the summer squash, which could not be covered, seems to have had minimal damage. The last image above is of some lemon squash developing in the plant in the wattle weave bed that was a thinning by transplanting location. It’s smaller, but further ahead in maturity, than the plants in the retaining wall bed that were direct sown and never moved!

It will be another day or two before we really see how much the cold damaged things, though.

Yesterday had been quite damp and chilly, so we never did take the frost covers off. I did that this morning. The chocolate stripe tomatoes look like they didn’t handle the cold too well, but it’s still too early to be sure. The peppers and our single developing eggplant seem okay. We had rain yesterday and the frost covers were quite wet, so those went on the clothes line. The mock orange my mother had planted at the laundry platform has grown a lot this summer and was very much in the way.

My daughter and I headed out to our appointment at the garage at noon. The plan was to basically just hang out in their waiting area while the oil change was being done. My daughter even brought along her knitting. She has finished the socks she was making for herself and has started a pair of ankle socks for me with the glitter yarn.

We got there about half an hour early, even after being stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. The garage owner was there when we came into the office – me with my walker, my daughter with her cane. What a pair we make! For me, though, the walker was more of a “just in case”. I was actually feeling really good still. Usually, the pain levels start to creep up in the afternoon.

I asked him if he’d received the screenshots of the OBDII scan I sent him yesterday and he had. He spent some time going over the readings and noted that replacing the oil sensor had come up as a fix again. We talked about the other things, and they did not concern him. One of them is the gas cap sensor, which I didn’t realize until then. I’d look the part up on Amazon, following the link from the app, but didn’t look any further into it – I was pretty distracted by other things at the time. I described to him the changes I saw with the oil pressure gauge readings over the months since it last got replaced, and that I thought the oil change might help with. He said, only a little bit. Maybe. I should not be getting those readings. He asked more questions and spent some time looking things up on his computer.

In the end, he asked if I could bring the truck back on Monday and leave it with him for the day. He wants to set up an oil pressure tester and drive it around. This would tell him if it’s the sensor acting up again, or if there’s something else going on. I told him the only problem with that is, we have no other transportation. We talked for a while and, in the end, he asked me to bring the truck back on Monday morning. They’ll drive us into town, so we’re not stuck in his waiting room while he tests it out. He does not want to do the oil change until he’s had a chance to run the test.

So we booked that and headed home. We actually got home at almost exactly our appointment time. 😄 We didn’t even stop to get the mail because the post office wasn’t going to open again for another hour, and we have a parcel to pick up.

While we were gone, our prescription delivery came in, which included my new painkillers. My doctor is quite serious about pain management! I went from Tramadol/hydrochloride, 50mg, up to 3 times a day, as needed, to Tramadol/acetaminophen, 325mg, 4 times a day for two weeks. In two weeks, I should be in the city getting more tests done, so if I need more or something else, that’ll be taken care of, then.

Which means that when my afternoon alarm went off for my next painkiller dose, I had my new Tramadol to take, instead of the T3s I had in my purse I expected to take while the oil change was being done. I read the paperwork that came with it and noted that the potential side effects include dizziness and nausea, which is what I started getting about a week into the Percocet trial. Something to watch out for.

I was still feeling really good. So good, in fact, I was decidedly suspicious. At this point, not feeling pain is downright weird. (Even stranger is, the bleeding seems to have stopped, too!) After taking the meds, though, I got incredibly sleepy, falling asleep at my computer. That passed, though, and I was feeling good enough, I decided to take a chance and headed outside.

I didn’t push myself with anything too “manual labour”-ish. The outside cats got fed and I was going to finish washing and rinsing the cat beds and blankets from the sun room, but my presence was keeping the singleton kitten from going to the food bowls, so I switched gears.

I got the weed trimmer out. My brother had fixed the cracked handle on the larger one and brought it back, but I noticed there was only 2 batteries instead of 3 for that. Which was probably good, as it made sure I didn’t push myself too much. The lawn needs to be mowed, so the first thing I did was trim around the low rocks in the yard, so no one will hit them with the lawn mower, then moved to the old kitchen garden. The paths there have not been trimmed for quite a while, and some areas were getting pretty thickly overgrown. So much so that I needed to rake it all up before doing a bit more trimming around the garden edge and the nearby cat shelters. Now that we have a lovely, huge pile of wood chips, I want to lay down a thick layer on the paths in the old kitchen garden.

But not today.

Instead, I went back to the cat beds and blankets. They’ve had several soaks in the old tub with detergent, but for the past few days, they’ve been sitting on the grass, getting rained on. I got the wheelbarrow to wash individual pieces, having to use a scrub brush on some of them, to get the mats of cat hair and burrs off, then set them in the old tub for rinsing.

The first things I worked on were flat things I could hang on the line, so after the first few were done, I headed over and took the dry frost protector sheets off the clothes line.

Then I pruned the mock orange back, so the laundry would no longer catch on it. What a difference that made! I left the branches for a daughter to clear away tomorrow, though.

That was what I worked on for the next while; scrubbing a few pieces in the wheelbarrow, rinsing them in the tub, hanging them on the line, then doing another batch. Both the wash water and rinse water had to be changed several times. An entire winter and spring, plus part of a summer, of cats, skunks and raccoons make a serious mess! The last items could not be hung on the line. Some because of their shape, like two cat caves. Others because they were just too thick and heavy to be able to hang on a line. Some of those ended up on the water bowl house, which has a metal roof, to drain and dry. They’ll need to be flipped a couple of times, I’m sure. The last ones got draped over the upturned wheelbarrow to drain. Once they’ve had a chance to drain most of the water they soaked up, they’ll get moved onto one of the cat shelter roofs to dry in the sun. We are expecting rain tomorrow, but not until the evening, so we’ll have to keep an eye on things. The thicker items will probably take several days to dry.

I’m happy to say that I still felt really great, even after all this. I don’t know how much I can attribute to the new pain meds and how much to it just starting out a good day and staying a good day!

So the main thing we needed to get done today – get Damocles an oil change, at least – didn’t happen, but today still worked out to be a productive day.

That makes me happy!

Gosh, I miss being able to work outside more! That’s the part of all the health issues that bothers me the most. I really enjoy the work, and not being able to do it is so very frustrating. I’ve gone over the things that need to be done over the next while with the girls, to prepare the yard and garden for winter. Getting the sun room emptied and cleaned out is a priority right now. Nights are starting to get cold, and the cats will need their winter shelter. My older daughter has her commissions to work on, so there’s not as much that she can do, but my younger daughter is planning out her days based on the to-do list, now that we expect to be able to stay home for a few days, other than a much needed dump run on Saturday.

Time to catch up on things while the weather holds!

The Re-Farmer