Month: December 2020

No rest for the wicked!

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My goodness, I can hardly believe it’s just barely afternoon as I write this.

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, isn’t it??

Things started off pretty routine. I did my rounds and the outside cats were very happy to see me. Well. Happy to see fresh kibble and water!

Potato Beetle joined me, as he often does. I caught this picture just before he jumped straight up me!

Doesn’t that expression look malevolent? :-D

The Potato, however, was not the walking disaster today. Oh, no! It was the cute, little adorable ones that were pure destruction!

I posted a while back about how we had to do an intervention to rescue our remaining avocado plants.

We had started off with 5 plants, and now we’re down to one poor, battered avocado… and a stick that still had live roots on it, so we’ve left it for now.

The cats did try to get in there, but the cage worked. I think the avocado is recovering, but it still looks pretty beat up!

Well, that didn’t stop the cats, unfortunately. They just moved on to other plants.

First, was the umbrella tree. After various barriers were tried and failed, I was able to put some 1/2 inch wire mesh around it that I had left over from some other projects. They still could get over it, though, and every now and then, we find a kitten sitting in the middle of it.

Yes, we have barriers in there, too. I made a spiderweb of cord to support the branches, and they still fit in between. This morning, I heard a strange noise and found Cabbages trying to climb the wire mesh to get at either Nicco or Tissue, half-hidden in the middle.

At least they’re not digging in it anymore.

They just moved on to other pots.

We have since lost a small pot with a jade plant in it – and it was one of the ones that was covered by a cloche to protect it! A while pot full of soil, all over a shag carpet… Fun times! A couple of succulents that were hanging in windows had to be moved, because they were still getting at them, including all my daughter’s orchids. The biggest jade plant got 4 hollow tubes (unused legs from a utility shelf) inserted into the soil, with cord wrapped around, because the cats kept sitting in the middle of it. That seems to be working, plus I found it works well to water it through the tubes. :-D

Then they moved on to another large jade tree. That one even got knocked off the shelf several times. For that one, I tried laying foil over the soil, but that does not deter any of our cats! We have some large plastic containers from Cheese Balls and pork rinds I would get at Costco. The containers make great cloches and I was saving them for spring planting. I ended up cutting one to get the straight middle part of the container, which I was able to fit under the jade plant branches and place around the edge of the pot.

That finally stopped them!

Unfortunately, I just discovered they have moved on again, and started digging in one of the aloe vera pots. This surprised me, because aloe vera is so splayed out, the soil is hidden. They had to actually dig out a couple of aloe babies to get at the soil. It wasn’t much, though, so I moved the plant pot to the dining table and finished my rounds.

Later, while I was on the phone with my mother, my husband popped his head through the door to tell me that cats had been digging in the pot.

*sigh*

When I finally came out, I found Cabbages, innocently sitting on the table next to the pot, and soil all over the table and floor.

*sigh*

The face of destruction!

As I cleaned up, I put a towel on a chair and moved the pot over. While working on the table, I happened to look up to see Fenrir on the chair, her front paws in the soil, starting to dig!

Another face of destruction!

I ended up having to put the pot with my husband, so he could guard it while I finished cleaning up.

So how do I stop the cats from doing this? After many years and many moves, it was a very long time before we lived anywhere long enough to have house plants, so having them is not only something I really enjoy, but it gives a feeling of stability for me. Unfortunately, the cats just can’t seem to resist them! They dig in the dirt like a dog digs for a bone!

What to do? If I protect one pot, they just move on to another.

Well, I did have a few more of those plastic containers left.

My poor, sad, beat up, cat chewed aloe vera!

I ended up using the flat side pieces to protect three aloe pots, including one rather large one. I have no idea how the plants will adjust to this, but it can’t be any worse than the damage the cats were already doing to them, just in going to and from the window ledge. I used the curved top of one of the containers around another jade plant. There is still one more aloe vera left without a shield of any kind, but that thing is so massive, there is simply no way I can do anything around that pot. Hopefully, the sheer size of it is enough to keep the cats from trying.

While I was doing all this, I kept finding kittens on the dining table. Mostly Cabbages! I hate having to chase her off. She still isn’t completely socialized, and this will set her back, but there are some places we just can’t let the cats get onto.

Hopefully, they will stop digging up our plants now. It would be great if we could set up a bin with soil for them to dig in, but they’d just use it as a litter box. I do wish I knew why they all suddenly decided that digging in plant pots was a good idea! We’ve never had this problem before.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Wood carving: completing the set

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Having made an olive server, using my new gouge, I thought it would be good to use some of the remaining wood to make a spreader and olive fork.

After cutting a length off, the first thing I did was split the wood down the middle.

Here, you can clearly see the rotted out core that I had to work around with the olive server.

The utensils I wanted to make would be well away from that core, though, so this was okay. I split off some excess wood from the opposite sides, then debarked the remains.

In sketching out the spreader and fork, I decided not to include the knot at one end. It may have added visual interest, but I just didn’t want to fight with it.

Once rough sketches were made, I rough cut away excess wood. A band saw would make the job easier, but I don’t have one that works, so I made do with a little Japanese pull saw that I got last summer, and a coping saw. The coping saw has been a problem, as it won’t lock at the handle end anymore, so it tries to rotate while I’m using it!

For the spreader, I added another rough sketch on what would become the top. I wanted a slightly wider bit at the start of the spreader blade as a sort of stopper, more for visual interest than anything else. I wasn’t too worried about matching the sketch closely, since it would depend more on how much I had to cut away from the core of the wood.

Next up was using carving blades to do more shaping and trim away excess wood at the core, to take out that rotten strip.

Then I broke out the Dremel.

After trying out different tips, I ended up just using the sanding tips. They are a course grit and did a good job of taking off the excess wood, grinding away the remaining saw cuts, and shaping it more.

Then it was back to the carving knives for more delicate clean up and shaping, then sanding.

Ready for oiling!

That knot in the blade was why I switched to the Dremel. I like how it looks in there, but my goodness, it was brutal to work around!

Next, the olive fork.

For this, I just went straight to the Dremel and used the sanding tips to rough shape it.

I then used carving knives to clean it up and work on the tines end to narrow it down even more. Once it reached the point where I would otherwise have started sanding, I made the tines.

My Dremel set includes tips for carving and engraving, and I used one of them to drill a hole where I wanted the tines to join. Then I used a cutting wheel down the length of it.

There was a knot right in the middle. The Dremel cutter did NOT like going through that knot!! :-D

After that, it was back to doing more detailed shaping until it was ready to sand.

Doing those tines was a real pain in the butt!

It actually worked out much better than I thought it would, though.

For both the spreader and the olive fork, I worked my way through increasingly fine grits of sandpaper, finishing with 220 grit. Because that’s the finest grit sandpaper I have.

There they are, ready for oiling!

You can see the edges of the knot that was cut through to make the tines much more clearly, after oiling!

The slightly wider bit on the spreader turned out to be a perfect thumb rest!

When sanding the blade of the spreader, I actually had to be a careful not to make it too sharp. It’s meant for spreading, not cutting! It’s remarkable how sharp a wooden blade can get.

A closer look at the tines of the olive fork.

Then I wiped off all the sanding dust that got onto the oiled surface! :-D

They fit! I had not actually planned this, but it makes sense, since they’re from the same piece of wood, but I’m really happy to discover they fit so perfectly inside the olive server.

I am quite pleased with these. Not only with how they turned out, but how quickly they worked up, too.

Now to think about what to make next! :-)

The Re-Farmer

First seeds in! Plus an early Christmas present.

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I was very happy to see our first order from Rare Seeds (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) come in. With so many delays in deliveries, I was more hoping than expecting.

Also, I’m a suck.

More on that later. :-D

Here is what came in: (click on the images to see them better)

We’ve got 2 varieties of carrots in. We’ll have 2 more varieties in our Vesey’s order, too. I would love to plant all of them, but that will depend on what we will be able to prepare for garden plots. There is basically just one place where we have soft, deeper soil, and that’s where the hard neck garlic is currently planted. I have room to make one more bed over there.

One thing I really liked was how much information is on the backs of that packages.

Which Tissue decided she needed to investigate.

In fact, ALL the cats came over to investigate!

The Kyoto red is supposed to be a “winter” carrot, but that does not apply to our climate. For our Zone 3, this is a summer carrot! Customer comments on the website included someone who very successfully grew it in another province, but also Zone 3. It was really that review that convinced me to try it.

Unfortunately, the Montana Morado corn’s package has no growing information on it. It is a black corn that is also a good flour corn. I am really glad I ordered it when I did, because it is now out of stock! These are both varieties we will be saving seeds from. We’ll have more corn coming in with our Vesey’s order, but whether or not we plant those ones as well will be decided by how much garden space we can prepare. Particularly since they have to be planted well away from each other, to avoid cross pollination.

I am so excited to have these poppies! I have no idea where we will plant them, but we will find a place! Saving seed with those will also be a priority. The strawberry spinach should be interesting. I’ve tried them before in a balcony garden, with limited success.

I had to laugh when I saw the free seeds they included.

We had decided not to try and grow Kohlrabi again, until we could figure out how to protect them from cabbage beetles and deer. Who knows. We might be able to figure something out by spring. I would really love to grow some! For me, these are a “treat” vegetable. :-)

My husband also got a package and, along with round sharpening stones for serrated knives, he had my Christmas present.

He didn’t bother waiting for Christmas. :-D

Yup. My darling, wonderful, thoughtful husband got me SPORES!!!! Oh, I am so excited!!! My husband is the best!

Both of these are native to the area. I haven’t seen morels since I was a child, and that was on the other quarter section, which is rented out. I’ve never seen them on the home quarter. As for puff balls, I actually saw some growing along the side of our driveway last summer! Not this giant variety, to be sure, but it was good to see them. Large ones like these can be sliced and grilled or fried like steak. Big steaks! They can also be battered and fried.

Growing these outdoors will be touch and go, but I am really looking forward to trying it. The morels package mentions elm as a tree to plant them under (the other trees mentioned don’t grow here), and we have plenty of elms around the yard.

Meanwhile, I’ve gone and placed another order with Rare Seeds!

Because I’m a suck.

I got a promotional email from them saying something along the lines of “hey, we noticed you looking at these, so we took the liberty of adding them to your list” and it included a link.

It wasn’t my wish list they added it to. It was my shopping cart.

Normally, I would have just blown it off, but…

I just couldn’t resist. It was affordable, and I really, really want to try these, even if we can’t plant them this spring. Plus, they are still in stock.

They are all gourds.

There is the Birdhouse gourd (I definitely want to try those again), the lovely Ozark nest egg gourd, the absolutely adorable and prolific Tennessee Dancing of Spinning gourd (in the customer comments, someone said they got about 250 off a single plant!), and finally, the Thai Bottle gourd, which is actually an edible gourd, unlike the others, which I plan to use for crafting purposes.

Plus there’s another package of free seeds. :-)

I do not expect to plant these next spring. The Birdhouse gourds take so long to germinate, they would have to be started much earlier than we did last time. And in bigger starter pots, because of how late our last frost date is.

Mind you, nothing says we have to plant entire packages. We could try growing just a few seeds and see what comes up.

Oh, this is going to be an interesting growing year! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Things that came in today

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We had a bunch of things waiting for us at the post office today, including a surprise package!

M, you are a sweetheart! These will last us for years. :-) Thank you!

One of the things that was listed as, ‘it might come in or it might be delayed’, was the pasta drying rack. It was in today.

I love how flat it gets. That will make is much easier to store!

Now we’ve got both the pasta machine and the drying rack, as well as well as the durum flour I was able to find in the city. Time to decide what we want to make! :-D

The other packages that came in were our first order from Rare Seeds that I thought might have gotten hung up at the border or something. You can read about all the other stuff we ordered, and why, here.

I also got an early Christmas present from my husband!

All of which I will post about tomorrow, because it’s starting to snow and blow, and our internet keeps cutting in and out. :-D

One thing that did not come in was our UPS delivery. The driver probably couldn’t find us. I’ll have to see what I can find out about that. I really want to get that new trail cam set up! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Babcia’s Bread Experiment, part 6: restarting

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Okay, so after accidentally killing off our ball of old dough “yeast”, I had to start over. Since I have no idea how my grandmother got her first ball of old dough, this is all a guessing game, anyhow!

This time, I went with another old technique: the sponge.

It’s just 2 cups warm water, 2 cups flour and 2 Tbsp of yeast, mixed together. This is the sort of thing one might put into the fridge overnight, to bake in the morning. Instead, I put it in the oven that was warmed up to its lowest setting, then turned off.

After about an hour or more, the resulting sponge was all soft and fluffy!

I added another half cup of warm water, which also made it easier to transfer it to my big mixing bowl, then added the salt and flour, as usual.

Once I’d kneaded in as much flour as I wanted (I have to catch myself and not add too much!), the dough was set aside to rise in a floured bowl. Once again, it went into a warm oven to rise.

But not before I took out a dough baby! My mother described my grandmother as taking dough out for the next batch after the second rising, when she was shaping the loaves. Since I’m using actual yeast in this, I did only one rising before shaping the loaves. I flattened the ball out this time, to see how that changes things as it sits buried in the flour.

As for the rising dough, it ended up taking about 2 hours, even with using commercial yeast!

This would have been a 2 loaf recipe, but I decided to play around a bit.

I made 4 plain mini loaves, first.

Yes, there are only 3 in the picture. My husband already ate one. :-D

After taking the picture, I ate one, too!

The other half was used to make surprise buns. During our city shop, I’d found a gouda-like cheese (I can’t remember what it was actually called) with truffle in it. There was still some left, so I cut it into small slices and wrapped them inside the dough.

I did try and seal the dough well, but as you can see in the photo, the cheese still made its way out, and started bubbling in the middle!

I can hardly wait to try it out!

With our new dough baby, I will have to make a point of using it every few days again. Since I didn’t start out with an “instant sourdough” yeast, it will take longer to develop that sour flavour. At least, that’s my assumption.

I will also keep taking the dough baby out for the next batch at the start, as the dough it being setting aside to rise. That way, I can do things later on, like knead baking soda in again, or knead in things like herbs or shredded cheese or anything else that catches my fancy.

I just have to not kill the old dough again! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Catching up

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Before I catch up on things, I just had to share this photo.

This is Little Braveheart, now known as Tissue, cuddling with “grandma”.

That is the protective foam insert that came with the new washing machine. Our old mama cat has claimed it as her favorite bed, but she doesn’t mind a kitten joining her for cuddles!

They do like to chew on it, though. :-D

Meanwhile…

Yesterday, I bit the bullet and headed out to do some bigger shopping. It’s really mostly cat food and litter, where the price difference makes it worth the cost of gas to drive so far to get it. That, and supply. Locally, not only are the prices higher, but they just don’t have the space for much inventory or selection. After hearing about what people have gone though in the city, where we usually go, I wasn’t sure it was safe for me, so I went to the smaller city instead. It’s big enough to have a Walmart. :-D It’s a small store, but it carries what I need, and they don’t bat an eye when I walk in with a shield instead of a mask. I did remember to bring our pulse oximeter, and was glad to have it. It still amazes me that even a shield causes my blood oxygen levels to drop like that. The kitties are now well stocked in kibble again, though. :-)

I had a bit of a surprise later on, when looking up the tracking numbers for various orders that we have numbers for. Our new trail cam is supposed to arrive today, along with some other stuff – maybe. Lots of stuff are now coming up as delayed, as Canada Post is overwhelmed. When checking this time, though, I realized the trail cam wasn’t being sent by mail. It’s being shipped by UPS! So now I’ve got the garage security camera aimed at the gate, with the sound on, to keep an eye out for the delivery. Assuming they even find our place. We don’t exactly show up on GPS. :-/ The first time we tried to have something delivered by UPS, they had the hardest time finding us. The last time, they left the parcel at the general store/post office for us to pick up. So I’m not sure what will happen.

I don’t like ordering things online, and this is another reason why. It’s just that much harder to actually physically get things out here! I’d much rather get things locally, but so many things just aren’t available here.

I look forward to getting to a point of self-sufficiency, where we don’t have to depend on questionable delivery services, supply chains and such. It’ll take quite a few years to accomplish, but with all the stuff going on right now, it’s really been hitting home, how necessary that goal is for us, out here in the boonies. It’s hard enough to get things we need at the best of times, and these are not the best of times!

The Re-Farmer

Babcia’s Bread Experiment, part five: I killed it!

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Ah, I was afraid of this. I managed to kill the dough ball.

My mother describes how her mother would bake only once a week. So after working using the old dough after letting it sit in the flour few a few days, this time, I left it longer. Last night, I took it out and prepped it to soak overnight, as usual. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me.

The dough ball didn’t look any different on the outside from before. The extra time did mean the inside was drier, which I did expect. It was basically a hollow ball. Being drier, it was easier to break up into small pieces. I added 2 cups of water that had been boiled and allowed to cool to the right temperature (because of concerns with our well water), and it was set in a warm oven with the light on, overnight.

This is what it looked like this morning.

Yeah. That yeast is dead.

In stirring it up, the dough was completely dissolved, but no hint of yeast activity.

I can say with confidence that the extra time buried in flour did not kill the yeast. I could have dehydrated it completely, and it should have reconstituted and kept right on going.

Nope.

I killed it.

And I know how I did it, too.

The last time I used the dough was written about here.

One of the things I mention in there was that I “cheated” by using baking soda. If you’ve worked with sourdough recipes that called for baking soda before, you know what happens! There is a lovely chemical reaction that results in a light, fluffy dough or batter.

My mistake was, I didn’t take the dough ball out before I added the soda. That chemical reaction would have continued after I buried the dough ball in the flour, which is why it still developed a hollow center. However, as I thought might happen, the yeast was spent in the process. I didn’t remember to take the dough ball out until too late in the process, but I hoped that maybe it would still work. Alas, it did not.

Well, this IS and experiment!

So I am restarting the process. I don’t have the “instant sourdough yeast” I used before, so I am using regular yeast to make a sponge, which is currently in a warm oven to get all spongy. I’ll post the details later, but it is also a very old technique. It will slow down my bread baking plans for the day by quite a bit. Ah, well. That’s okay. It’s a learning process, and that’s the whole fun of it!

The Re-Farmer

Stripped

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A few days ago, I wrote about doing this…

Most of the sunflower stalks had been stripped of their leaves and tops, but the tallest ones were beyond the reach of the deer. I bent the stalks on each of those to bring the tops down.

This morning, they all looked like this.

They are all now stripped bare of leaves and seed heads! The deer were most efficient.

In other things I am happy to say I was able go pick up our new pasta maker in the mail. We look forward to using it soon! It had actually arrived on Friday, but I was expecting other things to be in by now, so I waited. Alas, nothing else had arrived. Including my Rare Seeds order. At this point, I suspect we won’t see either order from there from there until January, but the first part of my Veseys order should arrive next week.

Like everywhere else, people are ordering online a lot more, as local stores are either closed or not allowed to sell “non-essential” items. Like clothing. Our lock down was supposed to end on Dec. 11, but it’s already been announced that it will only be “relaxed” a bit. You still can’t buy new clothes, but now you can go to a thrift shop and buy used ones. You still can’t buy new toys for your kids, but you can buy wrapping paper and decorations, though those items are only temporarily allowed. Kids still can’t play hockey or go to the playground, but the NHL team is allowed to have practices now. They finally allowed the drive through light displays. Church services had been banned, but some had drive in services. After ticketing them for 10’s of thousands of dollars, the drive in services are now allowed, but with very stern warnings about compliance. The crazy thing is, these parking lot services went above and beyond, right from the start. Even the cars themselves were physically distanced, as if the virus can get through glass and steel and leap from vehicle to vehicle. They’re just a scapegoat, of course. Just like anyone who can’t wear a mask.

Something happened in the city just a few days ago that was incredibly disturbing. A young woman with PTSD had tried to go to a Giant Tiger to buy some groceries. Normally, why a person can’t wear a mask is not to be talked about, since it’s a privacy violation, but in this case, the young woman and her mother (who first shared the story on a group we’re on) were willing to tell why. This young woman had been raped as a child, and her rapist held his hand over her mouth as he attacked her. She now cannot have anything in front of her face without triggering her PTSD. Not a scarf or a blanket, nor a shield or mask.

When she went into the store, she was told she needed to wear a mask. She explained that she was medically exempt. Instead of honoring the mandate, which explicitly states when people are exempt from wearing a mask, they called the police.

What happened next was horrific. SIX squad cars responded. When she tried to explain she was medically exempt from wearing a mask, she was attacked, thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and a mask forcibly put over her face. She was then arrested and taken to a police station.

In the end, they let her go, because she had done nothing wrong. Later, after so many friends came to her door to check on her, she made a short video of herself, so she wouldn’t have to keep describing what happened, over and over. As you can imagine, the whole thing traumatized her all over again, but she assured those who cared for her that she was NOT suicidal, and that she was going to get through it. She just needed to be left alone for a little while.

This sort of thing is increasing. A politician in another locked down province recently shared what happened to his own son. His son and a friend were in a bar, which are allowed to be open. They are both medically exempt. His friend went to the bar to order a beer and was told he had to wear a mask. He explained he was medically exempt. They called the police. The politician’s son tried to stand up for his friend, explaining they were both medically exempt.

He ended up being tazed in the back.

As you can imagine, as someone who cannot wear a mask, these sorts of things really concern me. It’s not too bad when I go to local stores – I only go to the ones I know are safe – but I will have to go to the city to do the second half of our monthly shop. I was hoping to be able to do it after the lock down expired on the 11th, but that no longer matters. Nothing of substance is changing. I’m fortunate, in that I can get away with wearing a shield for a short time, but in some places, not even those are accepted. They say you have to wear a mask under it. Meanwhile, I struggle even with the shield, if I wear it for too long.

Part of what’s frustrating is when well meaning (and sometimes not so well meaning) people suggest wearing a mask anyway, to avoid all this. It’s just a few minutes, after all. That’s like telling someone with a peanut allergy that they should just try a different brand of peanut butter. :-/

Well, I’ve gone off on a tangent. I do try to keep things on this blog neutral but, from the start, I wanted to keep things as real as possible, talking about both the positives and the negatives of restarting our lives here. I didn’t want to put forward any illusions that things are sunshine and roses, because nothing ever is. Personally, I think we often learn more from the negatives than the positives! I never imagined I would find myself writing about being stripped of our basic human rights and dignity, but it is what it is. It’s one of the things we have to deal with.

I will say, though, that I am really, really glad we are no longer living in the city! The province we moved away from just entered a new lock down, too. Things are even worse, there – and I don’t mean with the virus.

We’re living in a house that needs major renovations, on a farm where most of the usable tools disappeared before we moved here, are being sued by the person who took them, for more money than replacing the roof would cost, and have to maintain security cameras in case our vandal does something stupid again, while our peace bond application against him has been delayed due to the Covid restrictions.

And I am still grateful to be living here.

The Re-Farmer

Frosty morning, and… stuff (updated)

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I headed out to do my morning rounds a bit on the late side, yet there was still frost in the air!

It was looking downright foggy, in fact.

Everything looked like a fairy tale, sparkling away!

Even the ugly wires used for fencing looked beautiful. I love how the lichen on this fence post looks, all frosted up!

Taking photos was a bit of a challenge at times, though!

They just wanted to keep their paws warm. Butterscotch didn’t even growl and hiss at Potato Beetle when he jumped up my back!

While checking out the garden areas, I could see from the tacks in the snow where the deer have been going around. I knocked some of the frozen crab apples they can’t reach, down to the ground. The sunflower stalks have been completely denuded, except for the tallest ones. Those were denuded as high as the deer could reach! :-D

The birds are eating the sunflowers a little bit.

I bent all the taller ones that still have leaves and seed heads, so the deer can now reach them to nibble on.

Part of the reason I was out later was because I got a phone call from my older brother this morning. He called me back while I was out, and he is keeping my updated.

He got a call from my mother, very early this morning. Her stomach has been hurting since Friday, and she wanted him to drive her to the hospital.

Keep in mind that, for him, it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive to her place, but only 20 minutes for me – and I have her car. She wanted him to drive her, though.

*sigh*

Getting information out of her was like pulling teeth, of course. In the end, though, it sounds like she has been eating too many oranges. It also sounds like she has really bad gas. She has acid reflux, which she doesn’t understand no matter how many times I’ve tried to describe it to her. I’ve given her easy to read, colour coded lists of what she can safely eat, and what she should avoid. The lists have disappeared. All citrus fruits, tomatoes and onions are things she should avoid, but she loves them and eats them anyway. Small amounts wouldn’t be an issue, but mandarins are in season now, and cheap, so she’s been buying them by the box full. She does think it might be the oranges that are causing her grief, but she thinks that, because the price went down and they’re from China, she had to have eaten a bad orange.

*sigh*

Anyhow, after updating me on the situation, my brother called the health line, since it’s been made clear hospitals really don’t want people going in right now. The health line couldn’t tell him much, since they were not talking directly to my mother, but in the end he was told to take her in, simply because of her age.

*sigh*

My brother called me back on hands free, while we was on the way to pick her up to update me.

*sigh*

…

I just got a call back from my brother. He has dropped our mother off at the hospital. It seems she also had breathing issues at night (which she often has, while trying to sleep) and nausea (also not unusual for her). They were able to take her right in, but he couldn’t come in with her. He did have a chance to explain things to the person at the entry – particularly about our mother’s difficulty in understanding the questions she is being asked. My brother was told he could go home, but with how long the drive is, he’s just going to hang around town until it’s time to pick her up or they call him. He was satisfied that they were taking her seriously and taking good care of her, so there’s that, at least.

So today will be a day when I stay close to the phone. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Update: Well that has to be the fastest ER visit ever! My brother called the contact number to check on our mother, only to be told they were just finishing with her and he could come pick her up. She’s got some anti-biotics, and she’s good to go.

Well… I suppose that’s one way for my mother to get my brother to “visit” her… :-/

Well, it’s up and done!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

The Christmas tree is decorated as much as it’s going to be, and the base is covered.

Theoretically, the cats can still get inside the planter stand near the floor, but now that the stand it stabilized, it should be okay if they do. The tree skirt will hopefully be too “in the way” for them to want to jump up the stand anymore. Hopefully, they won’t try to climb it, instead!

Tonight will be the big test. While we are all in bed, will the cats leave it alone?

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer