I heard back from the garage when they checked their messages this morning (they don’t check while the shop is closed), and the mechanic agreed that it was likely a burnt fuse. I ended up talking to him on the phone and we made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon so they can look at it.
Then, I headed to the post office to finally pick up our packages. One of them was my West Coast Seeds order that came in almost two weeks ago!
Also, I’m an idiot.
I’m also short. Have I mentioned, I’m a bit on the short side?
Well, I didn’t open the garage door quite far enough. As I backed out of the garage, I hit the door. Broke the light above the box on the back of the cab. Just cracked the plastic, but still… What a doofus!
Our driveway may be mostly clear, but there is still that mix of hard packed tire tracks and softer snow on either side. The hard packed snow was already getting slippery – we have been warming up all night and were just a few degrees below freezing. Still, I got through all right and onto the road.
Where it started again.
That strange shuddering that wasn’t there when the mechanics test drove the truck before I took it home.
I was still on 4 wheel drive, as I needed it to get the truck unstuck, so I stopped and switched to 2 wheel drive. After that, it ran fine.
Then I saw the clock.
The time was wrong, but the clock was visible. I turned on the radio, and all the display information came on, as usual.
The console display is working again so, obviously, it’s not a burnt out fuse!
When I got to the post office, though, I confirmed that the warning dings for keys still in the ignition or headlights left on, that are supposed to start when the door is opened, didn’t.
I got our mail and a few groceries in the store, then headed home. As soon as I was settled, I sent a message to the garage, along with the picture of the broken light, asking what it would cost to get it fixed. Then I asked him to call me so I could tell him what was going on with the truck. I did add that it was NOT a burnt fuse, but maybe the ignition switch?
He called me back right away. I described what was happening, both with the shuddering back while on 4 wheel drive, and with the console display being on again, but not the warning dings that should go off when the door it opened.
He doesn’t think it’s the ignition switch, as he thinks that would cause other issues as well, but he will check it out.
He also asked how much we had left to pay off the truck. He knows we just can’t have this happening all the time, and we’ve already talked about trading the truck in a bit. We’ll see what happens when I get there, tomorrow.
I would really, really like to get our stock up shopping finally done!!
Meanwhile, I got to check out my new seeds and decided to make a short video of it.
You can also see how the seedlings are doing. Not the best. I’ve added “walls” around two sides of the trays to help keep the heat from the heater from blowing right past everything, and moved the thermometer to one end, away from the heater. I’ve actually seen that thermometer at 20C/68F since moving it closer to the trays! When I was doing the video, though, it was more like 17C/63F or so. It really should be closer to 24C/75C for the seedlings, but we just have no way to give them that. Still, I’m seeing more of the extra California Wonder bell pepper seeds I added, just in case, emerging. We’ve only got 3 surviving Caspar eggplants, but at 75 days to maturity, technically I could direct sow those.
There we have it, though. My little West Coast Seeds haul
After three days of shoveling and snow blowing, my daughters made sure to let me know that they would take care of the cat stuff, inside and out, this morning. Much appreciated, as we did reach that -31C/-24F last night. I don’t know what the wind chills were at the time, but from the weather reports I read this morning, we did get wind chills of -45C/-49F during the night.
Sleeping in a bit past sunrise was nice, at least.
Then I headed down stairs to check on the seedlings. I heard the septic pump running and went to the old basement to check on things.
I found water on the floor.
Not a lot, and with how uneven the floor is around there, it wasn’t quite clear where it was coming from at first. Then I opened the access pipe, and found it full of liquid and toilet paper.
I uncovered the floor drain and it was backed up to there, too, though not to overflowing.
*sigh*
What a way to start the day.
Thankfully, that commercial drain auger we got is enough to punch through such clogs without bothering to even plug it in. It’s the bottleneck somewhere between the basement and the tank that was the issue again. Thankfully, I caught it as early as I did.
Once I got through the clog, I switched to the old garden hose that’s missing its end. I don’t even bother to take it off the tap that used to be the cold water tap for the washing machine before the laundry got moved upstairs. The hose just gets hung up on hooks from the floor joists above.
The next part took longer. The drain from the weeping tile goes through past the floor drain and into the access pipe. It was blocked all the way, and took quite a bit of work with the hose to flush it all out. Then the concrete floor got hosed down and cleaned up.
Great fun.
Not.
My goal of the day was to work on clearing snow from the inner yard, though I also wanted to put the charger on the truck battery. We’ve had issues with it being low before and, with the cold we’ve been having, I had my concerns.
It took me a long time to get my act together and get back outside.
The first thing I had to do was get the extension cords running out the back door of the garage, for better reach.
What is is about extension cords? How can an inanimate object seem so determined to actively try to trip and injure? Granted, with the cold, the cords aren’t as flexible so there are plenty of loops that don’t want to straighten out, but those loops were constantly finding ways to wrap around my feet!
Then I could get little Spewie out the back door before heading back in to hook up the charger. Then I had to drag Spewie through the snow. It might have been easier to just pick it up and carry it!
Finally, all set up, plugged in and ready to go!
Nope.
As soon as I heard the off sound, I stopped it immediately. The auger wouldn’t turn, but the motor was trying to get it to!
I tried to turn it manually, which normally is easy, but it would not move.
I did make sure to brush it off when I put it in the garage last night, but I think somewhere in the workings, something froze and it keeping the auger from turning.
I didn’t have the time or energy to fuss with it.
It was going to have to all be shoveled by hand.
*sigh*
I’d already used the shovel and ice scraper to break up the more drifted areas that I knew were too packed or deep for little Spewie, so those were still handy.
I focused on clearing the area closest to the house. Then I cleared the most drifted areas along the sides, as well as clearing to the outhouse and to the litter compost behind it. I took it slow and careful. Given my physical state by then, I knew I was at higher risk of hurting myself. What I didn’t clear wasn’t deep enough to cause problems for the truck.
I hope.
Part way through, the battery reached full charge and I pause to put that away. I didn’t bring my key, so I didn’t check on the console display. I’ll do that tomorrow. I plan to call the garage as early as I can and see if I can swing by. I’m about 80% sure it’s just a fuse. I don’t have a fuse tester and even if I did, the last time I tried to check the fuse box, shortly after we bought the truck, I couldn’t get it open. It’s supposed to easily pop off. There isn’t supposed to be any sort of trick to it. I just wasn’t able to do it. I even got our mechanic to show me how. He got it off not problem, without doing anything different than I had. I’m obviously missing something, but I’ve no idea what. I mentioned that to my brother. His response was, YouTube is your friend.
YouTube is not my friend.
I did later try to look, searching specifically for the 2011 Sierra. I got videos on how to find the fuse box – with I already know – and what’s inside, a video on how to test fuses, but nothing on how to open it. Then I found lots and lots of videos on the Silverado and various other makes and models of trucks that had nothing to do with my search terms.
I just don’t have the energy to work it out.
Taking it easy did mean I was out there for quite a while. When I was done, it was late enough that I went ahead and did the evening cat feeding before heading in.
I am so tired.
One of the things I wanted to do before it got too late in the day was to call my mother. I was rather dreading it. I knew she’d be asking when I would visit next, which I probably won’t do until I at least talk to our mechanic, first. I knew that if I told her that, she would start giving me a hard time again. She doesn’t understand anything about vehicles, which is fine, but that doesn’t stop her from demanding explanations for things she can’t grasp, then making sure I know exactly what a failure of a human being she thinks I am for having any problems at all.
Still, I knew I had better call. My brother and his wife had visited her yesterday, so I knew she was struggling with things. My SIL said she was seeming pretty depressed. She doesn’t like where she is, even though she just got there and there are activities that she didn’t have access to while in the hospital, and the other TCU didn’t seem to have at all. Life is not meeting her expectations. She had told them, she has all this money, but not even a bed to call her own.
She doesn’t have a lot of money, really. What she has may have been considered a lot, 70 years ago, but our dollar is worth so much less today, it really wouldn’t get her very far. It certainly can’t buy her way into the nursing home she wants to be in, either.
My SIL said she asked my mother if she maybe wanted her own little house here at the farm, like her mother had when living on my aunt’s farm, before she moved here for her final years. My mother said no. She isn’t able to take care of herself on her own anymore.
Anyhow.
I called her up and she did sound rather down, right from the start. I asked how she was doing and she said I probably didn’t want to hear it. She was also in the common room with other people around, so she wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it. They did leave shortly after, though. She then started telling me about how she has such a tiny bed (?? it would be a standard size hospital bed), such a tiny space in her shared room, there’s always noise and TV and talking and laughing… No peace. No privacy.
She’s been there for less than a week.
We talked about how this is temporary and hopefully, she will soon get transferred to the nursing home she wants to be in. I did remind her, thought, that there will be noise in the nursing home, too. She would have her own room, though. If nothing else, she could close her door.
I did confirm that she got communion today, and it was brought to her by the same guy that was bringing it to her when she had her apartment. She was happy about that, at least.
Of course, she started asking me when I would come to visit. I told her I did get the truck home and got stuck in our own driveway, because there was so much blowing snow. I then mentioned that there was something else that I needed to get checked, even though the truck seems to be running fine. As expected, she started demanding explanations and started giving me a hard time about it. I basically just cut that off and changed the subject. I told her, I just don’t know when I’ll be able to visit, but I would let her know before I do. She did make sure to tell me what she wanted me to bring to her when I do make it out.
*sigh*
She told me she had been able to get her short wave radio set up and working. My brother had tried to set it up while she was in the hospital but just couldn’t get a signal. It was even worse in the first TCU, but where she is now, she can get a signal. She was looking forward to listening to Mass in Polish soon, so we didn’t talk for too much longer. She did start going on about how she wants us all to find someplace for her, where she can have peace and privacy. I told her, even if we found someplace, if she leaves where she is now, she goes to the bottom of the waiting list (or off it entirely, now that I think about it) for the nursing home she wants to be in
I don’t think she heard me. I had a hard time hearing her at times, though for a different reason. It was as if we were losing the connection, but when I mentioned it was happening, she said something about how she was accidentally doing something with her fingers. ??
Well, hopefully that won’t be an issue for much longer. After going back and forth with my brother about it, he went ahead and ordered a phone for seniors for my mother. It’s in already, but the SIM card is still on the way. The phone company has a senior’s plan, too. It’s a cell phone that looks like a small cordless phone, and is even more basic than the phone she had before. It has a charging dock just like her old cordless handset had. The display screen shows the time, day and date as default, which I think she will find useful, too.
I would absolutely enjoy having a phone like that for myself, instead of a touch screen smart phone. Those may be convenient, but I’ve never liked touch screens.
Hopefully, it won’t take her long to figure it out, and we will be able to call her directly instead of having to go through the nursing station and have them bring a cordless handset to her.
The call with my mom wasn’t as bad as I half expected it to be, at least. I just don’t quite understand what my mother’s expectations are anymore, other than unrealistic. She hated being at her apartment because there was no one around in case she needed help, but now that she’s where there is always someone around that can help if she needs it, she hates that there are people around all the time, and they make sounds.
Ah, well. Hopefully she will get to where she wants to be, soon. She told my brother that her room mate has been there for a long time already, and is staying. Which doesn’t make sense, since this place is for temporary placement only, not permanent.
As for me, it’s time to pain killer up for the night and get to bed.
I am so very tired. Tired physically, tired of the truck, tired of always being on guard when talking to my mother, tired of winter, tired of cold, tired of the plumbing in this house, tired… tired… tired.
I had gone to bed early last night. Exhausted as I was, I didn’t get as much sleep as I should have. Partly because I decatted myself to roll over, only to get hit with a Charlie horse.
Yeah, I over did it with the shoveling and snow clearing to get the truck out.
Still, I woke up before sunrise – early enough that I expected to be able to do the outside cat feeding, only to find the girls had already done it.
Yeah. That’s -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -41C/-42F It stayed like that for hours longer, too.
I got to stay in bed, covered in cats. Even Big Rig came over and crawled under the covers with me. Big Rig never does that with me. She is usually buried under the covers in my husband’s hospital bed! That, or loafed on a heat vent in the hallway. 😄
Still, it did eventually start to warm up. I was just settling down with breakfast before I planned to head out again when I got a message that a couple from the rescue group were on their way from the city with a kibble donate. It would be another hour before they got here, so I had time to finish eating before heading out.
The first thing I had to do was shovel away the blocks of packed ice and snow I’d cleared from the truck tires to get it un-stuck. Once I got anything that looked like it might break little Spewie, I dragged it out, along with the extension cords, so start snow blowing away the rest of the path.
I’d barely made three passes when I heard a little honk behind me. I’d already opened the gate, and a gentleman came over to confirm they were in the right place. I’d cleared enough that they could get through with their car as far as the garage, so I just stuck Spewie on a snow bank and moved the extension cords aside so they could drive in.
Then the started unloading the back of their car…
… and the back on the passenger side…
… then the back on the driver’s side, too!!!
I opened the tailgate on the truck to load things on, out of the snow.
It turns out someone had given the rescue a massive donation, and this was just some of what they got that they could pass on to us! Not just try kibble, either! There were three big bags of kibble, six smaller bags of fancy kibble, eight cases of fancy canned cat food, and a case of cat milk they thought we might be able to use.
What a treasure trove!
Yes, a lot of them are near their “best before” dates, but they are all well sealed, so they will be fine.
After the stuff was unloaded, I invited them to check out our shelters. As we were walking around, the lady noticed the collapsing log building by the fire pit and got all excited. Barn wood!
They want to come back in the spring or summer, so she can buy some. 😄😄 I’m quite happy with that offer, since we really need to clean out and clean up the collapsed buildings. If someone can make use of the antique wood, all the better!
After they left, I let my daughter know about the cat food in the truck, and she took it inside while I finished clearing the driveway.
You can see where the truck got stuck by the piles of shoveled snow and ice on either side. 😄
It wasn’t a large area that was left to do, but it was really rough. I had to be careful not to twist an ankle or fall because of the mix of hard packed snow and much softer snow. I was able to also clear the second side of the path to the trail cam. I started off with the snow blower, but the hard packed foot path was quite narrow. In the end, I got the shovel and cleared the non-packed side to make a safer path to the trail cam. The snow there was so much lighter, I was able to clear right to the grass!
I was also able to clear space to back into when leaving the garage, and widen the path towards the small gate on the chain link fence. That also cleared a decent chunk of the driving lane leading to the large gate into the yard.
Then I stopped for the day. I did not want to push myself too far. This would be the third day in a row of shoveling, second day with snow blowing as well. I have to remind myself not to do too much, or my body is just going to give out.
So I will work on the inner yard, tomorrow. That will be mostly the snow blower, at least. I didn’t even bother putting little Spewie and the extension cords completely away. They’re just set in beside the truck for the night. Tomorrow, I’ll run the extension cords through the back door of the garage to better reach the inner yard.
After that, it’s supposed to warm right up, even to above freezing, over the next couple of weeks. Not that I’m holding much stock on those predictions. Long term forecasts had predicted a mild February, until we started getting hit with Alberta Clippers and Colorado Lows. It certainly wouldn’t be unusual for us to get a couple of blizzards between now and the end of April.
As I was putting everything away, I was entertained by finding adorableness all over the place.
The smaller cats are really liking that collapsed cat cave! It’s right near the bigger heat bulb, so even though they’ve managed to flatten it, they’d still be getting some warmth from the lamp. Blot using Colby as a bed is just adorable. I’m glad Colby’s sister, Sprig, didn’t run away when I stopped to take a picture. That’s actually progress. I’m not sure if that tabby is Flopsy, the one we recently got neutered, or if it’s the female tabby that looks just like him that we weren’t able to snag.
By the time I got in, it was well past noon, and I’d been out there for at least two hours. Thankfully, we did warm up to a relatively balmy -21C/-6F, with almost no windchill. We’re under an extreme cold warning for tonight, though, when we are expected to hit -31C/-24F again. Wind chills are expected to hit anywhere from -40C/F to -45C/-49F
I was already stiffening up and made sure to take some pain killers, but my daughter had to make a lunch for me. I’m going to have to be really pro-active on the pain killers and anti-inflammatories tonight, so that I’m still mobile tomorrow.
In other things, I still haven’t heard back from the garage about the console display on the truck no longer working. I would really like to get that fixed before I go into the city for our stock up shopping, just in case it’s not just a fuse. There are just so many weird things happening with the truck, it has made me paranoid.
Ah, well.
For now, I’m going to make sure I get enough rest so that I’m good to go for finishing up tomorrow. If I haven’t heard from the garage by Monday morning, I think I’ll just go into town after picking up our packages at the post office and talking to them in person.
Exhausted and cold! The high winds we got today were from the north, and my bedroom is north facing. It’s usually one of the coldest rooms in the house, but now I feel freezing. Meanwhile the rest of the house is warm enough to not trigger the furnace to turn on. I’m actually having a hard time typing!
I’ll be warm soon enough. I plan to go to bed as soon as I’m done this, even though it has just turned 6pm.
The yard cats managed to somehow flatten the cat cave, in spite of the wire supports I put on the inside. That hasn’t stopped them from using it, though! The first picture was taken when I did the morning feeding. The next two, after I did the evening feeding.
A bit early, because I did not want to go outside again.
The cab was booked to arrive at our place at around 11. I planned to meet him at the gate, since I wasn’t expecting a car to make it down our driveway though, at the time, the truck would have made it.
Yeah, some foreshadowing there!
I headed out a bit early, knowing I could wait out of the wind in the garage. The main door was open, but it faces south, so there was no wind at all coming in.
Thankfully, my brother installed a wifi booster in the garage where the lawnmowers are stores, so I was able to get a call on my cell phone. It was the taxi driver. He apparently didn’t read my directions all the way through and was at the highway, asking which side I was on. I gave him the rest of the directions and he soon arrived.
The drive into town was downright scary!
Portions of the gravel road were completely hidden by blowing snow, with hidden drifts beginning to form. It was worse on the highway. Even in town, with building to cut the wind.
Just as scary was realizing this guy was not a particularly good driver, and wasn’t driving to the conditions. Not the worst driver I’ve been a passenger with, but with the roads the way they were, it wasn’t long before I was seriously concerned he’d slide off the road! Especially as he was speeding through our little hamlet, where things are always way more slippery. We were talking about the conditions and I told him I was in no hurry, and to feel free to take his time. Thankfully, he did slow down.
Once past our hamlet, visibility kept getting worse anywhere there was open fields. We could barely see the road, nor oncoming traffic until they were quite close. As we were getting close to town, in a wide open area near the airport, I could see a dump truck just into a cross road, it’s back end leaning precariously into the ditch! Then a huge gust came up and he literally had to stop. Zero visibility. The only thing we could see was the top of the truck because he pulled over right near where it was. Thankfully, it started to clear up relatively quickly. Once he was able to start moving again, we realized he had gone off to the side by a fair bit. Thankfully, we were right in the intersection, so he was more on the gravel road instead of more into a ditch!
When we got into town, I had him stop at a bank first, where I could take out some cash to pay him, rather than try to use debit on his phone. The car was a regular car, so he was tracking the mileage and fare on his phone. As we were talking, he told me he’s been in business for just over a year. He had quite a bit more driving in these conditions to pick up other fares, too!
After I got the cash – including a well deserved tip – he drove me to the garage.
The truck was parked outside by the building. It was blocked by a car, but it was running, so I knew it wouldn’t be there for long.
I went in to talk to the owner and the mechanic that has driven the truck with me. The owner just handed me the keys. No charge!
We talked for a while, and they have concluded that the issue was never with the transfer case. It is fine. They’ve concluded it had something to do with the ABS trying to kick in. I do remember seeing the ABS light flash briefly when I was driving it. I was told what to watch out for, but in the end, there is nothing wrong with the truck. There was nothing to fix.
!!!
The owner’s wife and toddler were there as well, when I mentioned I was blocked. It turned out to be their car. I was in no hurry, though, and used the command start to warm the truck up while waiting until his wife headed out.
The truck was running fine, but… ???
There was no clock display.
The dashboard displays were fine, but not clock. I tried turning on the radio. Nothing.
This was while I got the truck out and crossed the street to the grocery store. With the road conditions, I wanted to get the shopping done as quickly as possible. My plan to stay in town and time my return for when the post office reopened at 2pm went out the window. I wanted to get home before things were drifted over too badly!
Once the shopping was done, I messaged home saying I it would be a slow drive home, and asking for someone to open the gate. I didn’t want to have to stop and lose momentum.
It was, indeed, a slow drive home, but visibility was not as bad as earlier. I did have to stop at the same intersection as on the way out, though. This time, because my side of the highway was blocked by the massive tow truck that just got the dump truck out of the ditch! So only one lane was open and I had to wait for oncoming traffic to get by. I didn’t have to wait long.
The end of the driveway and at the gate was still clear. The walls of snow were high enough to prevent drifting. The rest of the driveway had more snow on it than when I left.
Which would have been okay, if I’d managed to stay on the hard packed tire tracks. Unfortunately, I slid off, and once I was off, that was it.
Yes, I even switched to 4 wheel drive, but I just wasn’t moving.
*sigh*
With the way the truck was now diagonal across the driveway, I could only reach the driver’s side doors. I let my family know and started pulling bags on the passenger side out from the driver’s side and taking them to the house. My younger daughter booted up and came out to help as soon as she could. The green you see on the hood of the truck in the first picture is one of the grocery bags.
Then I left my daughter to put everything way and start cooking the individual flat bread pizzas I picked up, because I knew none of us would be up to cooking from scratch today. She got quite a bit done while I was gone, and was still doing the last load of my laundry for me.
Once everything was in, I got on the lovely bib overalls she got for me, because they cut the wind like nothing else, and headed back out. I was able to shovel around the truck, then had to get the ice scraper to break up the packed snow and ice that had “fenced in” the tires. I was protected from the wind enough that I actually started to overheat a bit!
That done, it was time to break out little Spewie.
There was enough drifted snow that I started out by clearing in front of the garage, so I wouldn’t get stuck again trying to pull in, then cleared the driveway up to the truck.
That took quite a long time.
Before I stopped, though, I did clear the foot path to the gate wide enough for my husband’s walker, then cleared a path to the electricity meter. That was so drifted over, you’d never know a path had already been dug out there. Several times.
I had thought to do a bit more clearing once the truck was in the garage, so I made sure the extension cord was out of the way before getting back to the truck. A bit more clearing with the ice scraper, and I gave it a go.
Thankfully, I was able to get out with little trouble and parked in the garage.
In the second picture of the slide show above, you can see the tracks where the tires had sunk on the sides of the packed tire tracks. Had I not cleared it with little Spewie, I probably would have gotten stuck again.
The last picture is where I got stuck, and the rest of the driveway that needs to be cleared.
Not today.
I realized I was done at that point. With the ice and snow I’d gotten loose with the ice scraper, it needed to be shoveled clear, first, so they wouldn’t break the blade on Spewie, and I just didn’t have the energy left to do the rest of the job.
It needs to be done, though. We’ve got someone coming out with a kibble donation tomorrow. If they can’t get through the driveway, we’ll have to haul it through the snow, and that area is now so uneven, it would be dangerous. I also want to clear the turn around area in the yard, so we can drive up to the house to unload our stock up shopping.
Plus, I still don’t have the clock display working. I texted the garage but haven’t heard back. I might need to go back for them to take a look and see what happened. Might just be a fuse.
In the end, I put Spewie away in the storage side of the garage. Normally, I’d properly put away the extension cords, too (I had to use two 100′ cords to reach the truck), but this time I just pulled them in off to the side, so they are easily accessible tomorrow.
How much I can get done tomorrow, though, is questionable. I did make sure to plug in the truck. As I write this, we are at -22C/-8F, with a wind chill of -38C/-36F. We’re supposed to drop to -31C/-24F during the night, but at least the wind is going to die down. Still, tomorrow’s high of the day is supposed to be -21C/-6F Sunday’s high is supposed to be -16C/3F, so I might leave doing the inner yard for then.
By the time I got in, it was coming up on 3pm, so I ended up doing the outside cats’ evening feeding. I had no idea I had been out that long! It wasn’t even quite noon when I got home.
The next while was spent updating the family and finally sitting down to eat. When I was still thinking of heading home late enough to go to the post office when it reopened at 2, I expected to have lunch in town. That didn’t happen. All I’d eaten all day was a hunk of cheese for breakfast, and half a can of Monster during the drive home. My poor little pizza was pretty dehydrated by the time I got to it. 😄
I also found a text from my sister, letting me know she’d tried to call our mother, but would be trying again later. My mother was busy – playing bingo and having birthday cake!
That is such good news. My mother had been going stir crazy with boredom while in the hospital. She wasn’t at the first TCU for long, but if they had any activities, we never heard of them. I think most of the people there had more severe cognitive issues and dementia. That where my mother is now already has her doing activities is fantastic news.
I really should call her myself, but I’m just too tired.
I already took my anti-inflammatories with my supper/lunch/breakfast. Now is the time to take some pain killers and crawl into bed!
I was up early today, so I did the outside cat feeding – something my daughters have been doing for me in the mornings for the past while.
WOW!!! is it windy out there!
0C/32 with a wind chill of -18C/0F Maybe 2 minutes after I got that screen cap, it had already dropped to -2C/28F with a wind chill of -21C/6F
We’ve already passed our high of the day. For the rest of the day and through the night, we are supposed to slowly drop to -30C/-22F
Brutal.
We are supposed to be having a light snow. The blowing snow advisory we’re under right now has little to do with the snow actually falling, but the snow already on the ground. Even as I headed out to switch the memory card on the gate trail cam, I could see the snow being kicked up in the open areas.
I’ll be getting the truck back today and had already planned to do a smaller grocery shop locally rather than try for a Walmart. With the blowing snow conditions today, I wouldn’t be heading to either city for a proper stock up shop today anyhow!
I’ll have a talk with our mechanic when I pick up the truck. I just don’t trust the truck! For something like what we were feeling to just… disappear on its own like that. I mean, I’m glad I won’t have a massive repair bill, but will it happen again? Why did it happen in the first place?
The mesh used to replace the cloth hammock that was damaged during transportation to us is completely torn up. How on earth did this happen? It looks like maybe a cat fell through it. This stuff is pretty strong – it’s meant to protect gardens from things like deer and other critters.
No chance of repairing it until spring. That gives time to find some other material to use. If I can find some that is strong enough, I should probably replace it with fabric, like what was there originally. I’ll have a few months to find a proper alternative. Until then, the original fabric hammock on the other side is still very much being used and enjoyed by the cats. It even still had straw on it. The straw that I’d put on this one got knocked away, long ago, so that cats weren’t actually using as much.
Also, that’s Frank enjoying her supper, well away from the other cats crowding the kibble trays in the sun room and isolation shelter. Smart girl.
A rather minor mystery here. Then there is a much bigger mystery.
I got a message from the garage, asking me to give them a call about the truck. I talked to the owner. He told me they’d gone over the truck and found nothing. They still replaced fluids, just in case. He’s just taking it for a test drive.
The truck was running fine.
He’d even taken it on the highway and and drove it at the 100km/h speed limit. He drove it on 2 wheel drive and both 4 wheel drive settings.
It ran fine.
He drove it with the mechanic that had driven it with me and had felt exactly what I was talking about, and how it happened only while on 4 wheel drive but not 2 wheel drive.
The heard and felt absolutely nothing wrong.
What the heck??? They are completely perplexed, but there was nothing for them to fix.
About the only thing he could think of is that something had been frozen in the wrong place. The truck had been in the garage overnight, where anything like that would have melted away and left no trace.
We talked about it for a while and I commented on how I should probably drive it on 2 wheel drive instead of auto, just in case. I would just switch it to 4 wheel drive if absolutely necessary. He said that would be good, anyhow. While the manufacturer says it is fine to keep it on auto all the time, he disagrees.
The truck is now ready and waiting to be picked up.
Given that today is Thursday, I had figured there was no way I’d get the truck back before the weekend. If they found something minor but needed parts, they could order parts today, which would arrive tomorrow – but with so many vehicles bring brought in due to the weather conditions, that doesn’t mean they’d be able to do any repairs right away. I had messaged my brother and SIL asking if it were possible to get a ride for grocery shopping, just to the nearest Walmart or something. Before they even saw that message, I changed it to asking about the possibility of getting a ride to pick up the truck.
We started going back and forth on that for a while. They weren’t available during the day, while the garage was open, but could drive me in the evening. Would the garage be okay if I picked it up while they were closed? I hadn’t thought to ask what we owed for the truck, though; I am assuming there would be a charge for the fresh fluid, but they have not charged me for stuff like that before, so I may owe nothing. So we were thinking that I might call tomorrow during the day to find out what I owed, before working out picking up the truck.
Then my brother phoned. He had had an idea and did some searching online.
It turns out our neighbouring town has a taxi.
Singular. One taxi.
He had called the company and talked to the driver to see if they went as far as where we are and apparently they do it regularly.
!!!
I had no idea. I remember seeing a taxi in town once, years ago, so it never occurred to me that they might still be around. It might not even be the same company as years ago.
After talking to my brother about it, I got the number and texted. It is now arranged for a taxi to come here for 11am to take me into town to pick up the truck.
It should cost somewhere between $40-$50, but is about what it would cost my brother in gas to come out here and drive me to town, then drive home again.
I won’t be doing any city shopping after picking up the truck. I’ll go across the street to get a few more groceries, but the drive home will be my test drive to see if everything is still okay.
I admit, I am very nervous about driving the truck at all. We don’t know what went wrong in the first place. Perhaps our mechanic was right. Perhaps it was something frozen that caused it to shudder like that. If that wasn’t it, there is no way to know whether it will happen again!
So I will do some local driving first. As it stands now, I think my first stock up shop will be Costco on the weekend.
I need to talk to our mechanic again about getting a replacement vehicle. That it’s working fine and they didn’t have to repair anything is literally the best case scenario and I want to be happy and thankful about it. However, the truck has been so weird lately, it’s really been hell on my nerves. I just don’t trust it. There was no mistaking just how bad that shuddering was by the end of the test drive I did with the mechanic. They were just as confused about why it was happening as they are now confused about why it stopped!
Hopefully, I will have the truck back tomorrow, and it will continue to behave. I just wish I was more confident that it has worked out for the best, and that it won’t happen again while I’m driving home!!!
I woke up to a message from the cat rescue group, asking about the truck. I told them I hadn’t had any word yet. The person asking me then said that she would drive to our place to deliver the donated kibble on Saturday!!! (today is Thursday)
What a sweet thing to start the day!
Then she asked what my address was.
Bahahahahaha!!!
I gave directions. She will message me when she heads out. Hopefully, we’ll know what’s going on with the truck before then.
I had texted the garage yesterday afternoon but didn’t hear back before they closed. I texted again this morning, asking if there was any news. I needed to know if I had to arrange for a ride to get groceries. I got an response and an apology. With all the snow we’ve been having (they got a lot more of it in town at the lake than we did here!), they were swamped. He promised to get back to me soon.
With today and tomorrow being so much warmer, but then a steep drop in temperature after that (though not as steep are predicted earlier), the first thing I wanted to get done was clearing the end of the driveway. I did take the time to help run the hose out the door’s window so my daughter could start on the many loads of laundry we’ve all got waiting, then shovel some of the paths around the house, first.
Then it was off to the gate.
I remembered to grab some of the outdoor solar powered lights I got a box of not long ago. I grabbed three of them last night and was going to prep them with double sided mounting tape under the tops, where the solar panel is, but found that wasn’t going to work. These are designed to be mounted onto wood with provided screws. The way the casing is designed, under the solar panels isn’t flat. There’s a slightly recessed area. I would need foam core mounting tape to fill the gap. Which I didn’t have. So I used what I had under the light portion, where it was flat. Hopefully, it will be enough to hold them in place.
I put the lights on the gate first – one on the slide bar, positioned to it would light up the lock and chain below, plus two others above the middles of each side of the gate. I forgot I meant to have the other two facing the other way, though. That’s okay. If these work out, I can add two more, facing the other way, in between the three already there.
Then it was time to push the gates open through the drifts under them and start digging.
Thankfully, the plow ridge wasn’t too hard packed, though using the ice scraper to break up packed snow was still needed in some areas. There were two areas that I needed to focus on. The plow ridge and the drifting under the gate itself. In between wasn’t too bad. The rest of the driveway could use a run with the snow blower, but I don’t think I’ll bother. Not worth dragging around a couple hundred feed of extension cord. It’s not that bad, and we’re going to be warming up more consistently, soon. Friday night through Saturday night are supposed to be cold, but there is no new snow expected. After that, things are supposed to warm right up again, we should even see some melting in some areas.
I had to force myself to slow down and take many little breaks while shoveling. I enjoy it so much that, when I get started, I’m working like I’m 27 instead of 57, and this was going to be a big job! I started at the plow ridge and then worked my way down far enough to clear the swing zones of the gate.
While working, I did see a bit of traffic. Much less than usual for our surprisingly busy road. While I was clearing the second side of the gate, I started hearing another vehicle coming that sounded… off, somehow. Looking up, I saw our vandal driving by veeeeeerrrrryyyyy slowly. Thankfully, he didn’t stop to yell and wave his colostomy bag at me again. 🫤
At one point, I thought I would take a break by sitting on the wall of snow along one side of the driveway. Silly me! It wasn’t as hard packed as I thought, so I sank down. Which wouldn’t have been a problem, if my knees weren’t shot! I couldn’t just stand back up again. In the end, I had to get down on one knee – the left knee, since I still can’t put weight on my right knee – and use the shovel as a brace to stand up again.
Being broken sucks.
Last of all, I dug a path to the trail cam, which I haven’t been able to get to for some time. That path needed some serious chopping up with the ice scraper! It was so snow and ice packed at the bottom, I only did one part of the path. I was just too tired to try and dig out the path running at another angle. It was completely filled with snow and would have been just as packed with ice and snow under the much softer top layer.
In the end, I was out there for two hours.
Still no word on the truck when I got in, but I did tell him I was going to be shoveling and might not be able to hear a message come in. I’ve since let them know I’m inside again.
My daughter, sweetheart that she is, had a not lunch and a pot of tea ready for me when I came in. 💕
It was so nice out there today that I was actually overheating somewhat while shoveling. We’re definitely going to have to get a new snow shovel, though. I really like the one I’ve been using, with the blade width and ergonomic handle. Unfortunately, it started to crack a few years ago. Today, while pushing snow, it got hung up on a chuck of something, hitting it hard enough that I heard a cracking sound. The old crack is now much larger. Amazingly, it still held as I finished the job! Unfortunately, a really good snow shovel like this one is not cheap. They also tend to not be in stock when the end of season clearance sales happen. Still, when I finally make it into the city, I’m going to have to look for a replacement. We do have other snow shovels, but they are not as good.
For now, I’m going to just get some rest until it’s time to head out and do the second cat feeding outside. I really ought to take more pain killers. Or my anti-inflammatories. I haven’t been needing those every day, lately, but today is a day I should take them!
If I can just haul my stiffening body out of my chair to walk across the room to get them.
We had some more snow last night. Checking the security cameras, I saw that the road was plowed. We’re going to have to dig out the end of the driveway.
I also started getting a lot of motion detection notifications from the garage cam. I never saw what was triggering it, though.
So I started going through the history, checking both stills and video clips. They weren’t there on Sunday, but as I watched myself walking towards the gate to meet my SIL on Monday, there they were, slightly less snow covered, but also less visible in the diffused light at the time.
It took a bit of going over the files more, then remembering that the motion sensor is triggered by people (and the occasional cat or deer), but not vehicles. We haven’t been able to figure out why (this is one of my brother’s new security cameras, not one we got).
My brother and nephew were here on Sunday. I saw them getting into their care to leave, but the camera wasn’t triggered by the care as they backed up towards the driveway then turned to the gate.
These are tire tracks. After the snowfall and in the morning light, they just happen to now look like hearts.
There’s at least three more cats in there that are not visible in the photo.
Somehow, they got one corner of the hammock off its hook. I haven’t been able to put it back as it can only be reached through the ramp door, which has the box sheltering it. A box that’s currently stuck in place with packed snow and ice.
I took this when I did the second feeding. My darling daughter did the morning feeding for me. It was -27C/-16F at the time. I don’t know what the wind chill was, but when I checked later and we had warmed up to -20C/-4F, the wind chill was -34C/-29F Thankfully, by the time I did the second feeding, there was hardly any wind, so it was just really cold, instead of brutally cold. 😄
In other things, my mother was successfully transferred to the temporary long term care unit in the town she had her apartment in, last night. My brother called them this morning and talked to the nursing staff before talking to my mother. She got there shortly after 7pm in a taxi handivan – and no, we are not going to be charged for that. However, a bag that contained, among other things, my mother’s Pepto got forgotten in the van, and the staff were trying to track it down. The other TCU always uses the same taxi driver for these transfers, as he’s so good with the seniors, so it would be easy to track it down.
As for my mother, once he started talking to her, she started railing about how things were even worse here than where she had just left. It took a while to get to what she was saying, and it seems she was still just rattled from the transfer. She does have a room mate, but she did say that this person was better (by which we understand she means, this is not a person with dementia trying to tell my mother to go away while claiming my mother’s bed was hers).
My brother gave me the proper numbers to call this TCU, though he didn’t have the room number. I tried calling as soon as I could. It went to voice mail so I left a message, but no one got back to me. I texted the contact info to my sister, though. After several hours, I tried again and got through.
I talked to the nurse, first, and asked how things were going. She seemed a bit hesitant in answering, as if she was trying to find the right words. My mother wasn’t quite happy and something my mother told her had her thinking she had been in a single room before. I told her that she had been in a single room while at the hospital, but at the first TCU, she had a room mate. I explained about the roommate having some level of dementia and her behaviour. The nurse was surprised because, while they do have single rooms, those are usually reserved (if possible) for people with dementia that shouldn’t be sharing a room because they might do things like that. She would have expected this other TCU not to place someone with dementia with a room mate. I told her, I didn’t think they had any single rooms!
I remembered to ask about the missing bag.
It turns out my mother thought it was missing because it didn’t go to her room. It contained her medications, which they never keep in patients’ rooms, and was at the desk (they would have a secure lock up for meds). She was even able to tell me some of the items that were in it.
After talking with the nurse, I asked to talk to my mother and got transferred to their cordless phone.
It was a… strange call.
My mother seemed out of sorts, but she was happy to tell me that my sister had come to visit. She was extra happy, because my sister had brought her “cabbage” (sauerkraut) and pickle juice. My mother has been craving something “sharp” to counter what she described as all the sweet she’s been getting. I have no idea what she meant by that. Some of her meals might have a dessert, but that would be something along the lines of canned fruit. Whatever. She’s happy with her “sharp” snacks!
She asked me about the truck at one point and I explained to her that they weren’t able to look at it yesterday, but were hoping to do it today (I’ve still had no word about it, and they are closing soon). That set her off. She started saying how I should “explain to them” that we need the truck. I told her, they know our situation. Oh, but if I just explain to them. I told her, they have appointments. They have to fit the truck in, in between appointments, and need at least a couple of hours to look at where they think the problem is. I then started getting lectures about how other people’s appointments didn’t matter, they should take care of me. Then she started saying how my brother and I need to get together to find a “good mechanic”. Because mechanic always cheat women. When she started to invent accusatory things about how they were cheating me, I had to put an abrupt stop to it and pointed out she had no idea what she was talking about (in regards to the problems we’ve had with our truck), and she shouldn’t start going on like that. We should talk about something else.
After that, I had dead silence. Apparently, if she couldn’t complain about things, she had nothing else to say.
I remembered about the bag that she thought was missing, so I told her that it wasn’t missing. That it had medications in it, so it when to the nursing station, not her room, explaining that they have to lock up the medications.
She didn’t believe me.
She then gave me this description of her the transfer last night, looking into the bag and what she saw in it, how the bag was on the seat of the van and didn’t come in with her. It was still in the van. I told her, the nurse said she had it. Her medications were in the bag, so it had to go to the nursing station, not her room.
My mother didn’t believe they had her medications, either.
…
She would have gotten at least her bed time meds, and her morning meds, by the time I’d called her.
No matter what I said, she refused to believe me that the bag was not forgotten in the van, nor that they had her meds. She finally said she would go to the nursing station and ask them, herself.
There really wasn’t much else to talk about after that. She did say she was glad for the phone calls from me and my brother today. She calls the calls and visits her “second medicine.”
She may still be out of sorts, but where she is now is definitely better than where she was. She did complain a bit about the small size of the rooms (I don’t think she gets just how fortunate she was to have the big room in the hospital, all to herself!) and that she didn’t know the place yet. I brought up that she had told me she’d been there before, to visit people, so I thought she would be familiar with it.
No, she’s never been here before, she insisted.
…
She told this to me not long ago. Even made out like I was stupid, or that I thought she was stupid, to think she didn’t know about this place being in the town’s hospital. Told me how she knew people there and had visited them. Now she’s telling me the opposite?
When I said, she had told me she’d been there before, not that long ago, she just said, well, it’s a big place. So maybe she visited someone in a different ward? I dunno!
The good thing, though, is that she will start getting communion on Sundays from the church she used to go to, and they will likely be done by the same guy that had brought it to her after services at her apartment across the street.
So that’s where we are at with my mother’s transfer. Hopefully, she will settle in and be happier there. She did confirm that her transfer to the personal care home wasn’t cancelled. I said for sure it wasn’t; where she is now is all temporary. If all goes well, she will not be moved again until is to the specific nursing home she wants to be in.
Toni and Ginger, our two tripods, snuggling while they nap.
On my very cat fur covered bed.
So the first thing I got today was a message from my brother, updating on the situation with our mother. He had called the main office and it was confirmed my mother would be transferred to the temporary long term care centre in the town her apartment was in. They still had to get things ready for her at the other end, and then arrange transportation. They couldn’t say when it would happen, but they wanted to get it done as soon as possible.
Almost immediately after, I got a text from my sister (who doesn’t really do Messenger anymore).
My mother had just phoned her, convinced that if we just talk to the right people, they would get her out of where she is. My sister talked to the nurse and they said they had told my mother, repeatedly, that they don’t know when she would be transferred.
I’m not sure what my mother is thinking is going on. Perhaps she’s interpreting it as not happening soon. Or not happening at all. It’s hard to say, as she tends to twist things around pretty severely, once she gets a conclusion in her mind.
In the middled of that flurry of messages, I got a message from the cat rescue, asking when I was expecting to go to the city next. I responded saying I didn’t know, since I currently have no transportation and don’t know when I’d be getting it back. Otherwise, it would have been tomorrow and Friday.
It turns out they have dry kibble for us! I was incredibly grateful to hear that. Especially with how much we’ve been having to spend on the truck for the past while, and now with an unknown hanging over us. I spent some time on that group cat, too. If we don’t get the truck back soon, one of them volunteered to drive the kibble out to us. !!! They are so awesome!
Then later one – while I was cooking and couldn’t stop what I was doing, of course – I got a phone call. It was from the TCU, so I called them back as soon as my hands were free and clean.
The TCU nurse started off by telling my my mother accepted the bed in the other location.
…
I’m not sure why that was still an issue, after all the calls between us all that were done yesterday. They only needed to arrange transportation. She had already called my brother and left a message.
Would I be able to transport her.
????
I said no, I have no transportation. My brother is at work and my sister would be on the way to work. We thought they would arrange the transportation.
Oh, we always ask the family first, as there would be no charge. If they do it, there would be a charge for it.
???
I told her that if there is, my brother, as PoA would be the one to pass that information on to, and told her I would message him and update him.
This perplexed me because, when my brother talked to him, I was sure he told me they’d said they would take care of the transportation, because they were the ones doing the transfer. Much like when my mother first went to the hospital by ambulance, she got a bill for it, but when they used an ambulance to transfer her to the TCU, she did not get a bill for it, because it was their responsibility.
I messaged my brother and it wasn’t much longer before I got word back. He had called them back and was told our mother would be transferred later this afternoon (she might be on the road now, as I write this) and they are arranging a taxi van, so they could fit everything. This would include not only her personal affects, but her walker and wheelchair, so that makes sense.
He also confirmed that he had been told previously that there would be no charge for the transfer, but when he called back today, it never came up. He said he would deal with that later. For now, we just need to have her moved!
So the first, and only, time any of us heard about being charged for transportation was when the TCU contacted me earlier today.
Between all of this, I found myself spending most of the day on the computer, messaging back and forth with two very different groups of people – plus texting with my sister and on the phone with TCU.
As the afternoon progressed, without hearing from the garage, I sent them a text asking about the truck. I mentioned that I’d looked up the part, just to see what it looked like, and saw the prices. I let them know that if it needed to be replaced, we simply can’t afford it. Hopefully, it will be something more minor!
A response came in while I was outside, doing the evening outside cat feeding. It was very apologetic. They weren’t even able to drag the truck into the garage at all today. They will look at it tomorrow.
I can’t say that wasn’t unexpected. I knew they could only look at it, in between appointments, and once a lift would be free for at least a couple of hours. They have three lifts, but each one is different and used for different purposes, depending on what they need to be able to access. One of them can only fit small cars.
So, one more day with the Sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.
On a completely different note, when I finished putting food and warm water out for the outside cats, I went into the old kitchen and discovered Bug on top of chest freezer! She snuck in while I was going out and I never saw her.
Unfortunately, she was nervous and spooked. Usually, I can at least pet her and sometimes pick her up, but this time, she ran off and hid.
She’s still there.
I’ve set out food, water and a squeeze treat, squeezed out onto a container, to lure her out. It’s way too cold in there for such a tiny cat (the old kitchen is unheated and seems to have no insulation at all – it wasn’t needed when it was an active kitchen and the wood cookstove was always in use!) so I set up a carrier that needs some work done on it, wrapped in a blanket, on top of the freezer with another smaller blanket inside. I’ve checked a few times and saw her snuffling around the middle of the floor, but she ran off as soon as she heard me turn the door knob. I found the container that has squeeze treat on it stuck against the door, licked clean, so I know she’d gone onto the freezer again and knocked it off while eating the treat. Hopefully, she will come back out again, soon!
Really hoping I can snag her and set her back in the sun room, where she has access to the heat lamps and warm bodies to snuggle with.
I’m also hoping my mother will soon me in her new temporary long term care unit. She’s familiar with this place, as she has visited friends there before, and I think it will be a much better situation for her.
Now, if we could just have some good news on the truck and have that back soon. I’ll finally be able to visit her, as well as do a whole lot of driving around that’s needed! Which included picking up what is likely a build up of parcels at the post office. My West Coast Seeds order has been in for almost a week, now!
Ah, well. It’ll all work out.
Oh! My husband just informed me that Bug is in the cave I created for her! Now, if I can just get into there without her running and hiding again…
The Re-Farmer 