Ah, what a day!

Before I get into it, however, I will share some adorableness! :-D

I was outside and decided to check the sun room, to see if it was safe to close up the doors for the night.

It wasn’t quite there yet…

Jim still won’t let me touch, but at least he’s letting me go closer!

While I was slowly moving towards him, a flash of a Rosencrantz (or Guildenstern) dashed out of a corner and out the door!

My coming outside seemed to be a signal, because suddenly there were cats and kittens all over the place!  Doom Guy came over and demanded attention!

What a beautiful kitten!

I even got to sneak a pet of Corvo as he went by.  He didn’t seem sure what to make of that! :-D  Just the fact that he came close enough to me that I could do it is a huge change.

I ended up topping up the food bowls, mostly to attract the cats away from the sun room so I could close it up.  After I did that, I looked over and found…

Some extra greyness!

The Outsider snuck in from somewhere while my back was turned.  The other kittens seem quite used to him and will play with him, too.

He wasn’t comfortable with me coming closer for a photo, and started to run off.

He didn’t go far, though, and I was finally able to snag a decent photo.

Those eyes are amazing!

While walking around the yard, I gave the bigger crab apple tree in the west yard a shake, to get the apples down.  It will make it easier for the deer and other critters to eat them up.  I also went to the row of crab apple trees by the main garden area and started shaking the ones that still had apples on them.

With the year we had, most of the apples were not very good, with the exception of one tree that had bigger, tasty apples.  That tree is pretty much empty now, but one next to it still had quite a lot of apples.  I ended up giving one a taste, to see how the frost we’ve been having had affected them.

The answer is, deliciously!  They were still tart, but much sweeter than before, and even their texture was better.

I ended up gathering a bunch to take inside, after shaking the loose ones down.

A few of them had even turned all red, though most where pale green.  They will be nice, tiny little treats. :-)

As for the day, I took my van in for its oil change a bit early, and talked to them about my concerns about the wheel bearings.  The high pitched noise I’ve been hearing seems to go away when it’s rainy, and it was rainy today, but the low hum of the wheel bearings is always there.  I basically told them that I’m paranoid about it, because of the high mileage, and it’s our only vehicle, so to go ahead and see what else might be a concern.  I knew the brakes would need to be done, soon enough, and if they found anything else, I wanted to know!

He told me when, at the earliest, they would be done with the oil change and the inspection, and then I walked over to my mother’s to visit.  We had already talked about my coming over while I was in town, so she was ready with a prescription she needed refilled, and a short grocery list.  Since I wouldn’t do it until after I got the van back, I stayed to visit, as well as check her fridge and freezer to see how her stock of food was.  I did have a conversation with her about how the health care aids did not have time to cook; they could assemble and heat, but that’s it.  She was not happy with that and, sure enough, she brought up her time working as a health care aid, decades ago.  And, yes, she did only have to take care of one person, so she never had to worry about how long she took while there.  I tried to explain again that, not only did they have other people to take care of where she is living, but then they would be going somewhere else, too.  She told me the health care aid was “dumping” on her, and why would she be adding her own stress to my mother’s?  As near as I could figure out, the “dumping” was the care aid telling her she had many other people to see, yet.  At one point, I told her that things would probably be much better if she were nicer to people.  Instead, she justified her behavior, and was rather proud to tell me that she ended up yelling at the care aid to get out and go home!  The care aid came back the next day, and my mother had expressed surprise that she was back.  The care aid told her that it would take more than that to drive her away.  !!  I asked her, if someone yelled at her like she did to the care aid, would she like it?  My mother tried to say that, if she were doing something wrong, yes, she would accept it.  They are doing something wrong?  Yes.  What is it?  Oh, you’re just taking their side and defending them.  I tried to explain that if the care aid is doing something wrong, it needs to be reported.  At that point, my mom dropped the subject.

*sigh*

It was still a good visit, overall, at least.  I told her about cleaning up the fence where the Christmas lights are, and my goals for cleaning up among the spruces next year.  I only got one “that’s man’s work” comment, so that’s a step up! :-D

When the time came, I walked over to the garage, rather than just calling them, to see how things were.  The guy I spoke to before introduced me to the mechanic that worked on my van, and he walked me through what he found.  Sure enough, one wheel bearing was quite bad and needed replacing.  One of the brake pads was also in really bad shape.  The one, I could get taken care of right away.  Could the other wait until next month?  He didn’t recommend it.  He also found my coolant pressure was down 30%.  I told him what had happened, and he was all “yeah, that explains it”.  I will need a coolant flush, eventually, but that’s just one of the things I wanted to get done to winterize the van, anyhow.  It doesn’t need to be done right away.  He also mentioned the ABS light being on.  I told him it had been checked multiple times.  He said it was an easy fix, and could wait.

After getting the estimate of how much the work would cost in total, I asked him if I could leave the van with him overnight.  I figured I could borrow my mother’s car, since she wants me to take it to the farm, anyhow.  As for the work,  I could pay for either of the repairs, plus the oil change, right away, but not both.  My husband’s disability pay comes in tomorrow.  They had no problem with that.  They could start on it today, or do it tomorrow.  While I sat down to send a message to update my husband, they were already on the phone, ordering in the parts.

So much for doing the trees this pay. :-(

Back I went to my mother’s.  I told her about the van and asked about borrowing her car.  She was okay with that, but immediately launched into how this garage is dishonest – she had been taking her car to them before, but someone living in the building told her how garages are dishonest, especially with women, etc. After that, she didn’t trust anything they said, and even believed they sold her a used tire, when they had to special order one in for her.  Her behaviour got really bad, before she started going somewhere else.  My poor older brother had to do quite a bit of damage control after that.  It’s part of why I chose this garage; to make up for her bad behaviour!

I told her they only found what I was expecting them to find (I just hoped I could wait longer!).

In the end, I ended up using her car to run her errands.  While going from one place to the other, I drove past the garage, and there was no sign of my van – it was already taken in!

I stayed with my mom a bit longer before heading home.  About an hour later, I got a call from the garage.  The van is done!  And it’s “running like a dream.”  I had to laugh because his voice had gone from friendly and matter of fact to actually dreamy as he said that.  He sounded so happy!

So tomorrow, I go back with my younger daughter and husband, in my mom’s car.  We’ll pick up the van, then visit her to pick up my late father’s wheelchair, which she got the younger of my brothers to bring, but now doesn’t want, and the spare key.  Then my daughter can drive the van home with her learner’s license, with my husband as the supervising driver, and I’ll bring my mother’s car to the farm for the winter, or until she decides what to do with it.  She won’t be registering it again and is going to stop driving.

I think our monthly shop in the city is going to wait until Monday.  Maybe.  On the one hand, I don’t want to shop at Costco on the weekend.  On the other, I just want to get it over with!

As for the repairs, the final tally for rear brake pads and rotors, plus repairing the wheel bearing, is just pennies under $700.

Ouch.

The Re-Farmer