The last of our seed orders FINALLY came in the mail today. They were shipped quite a while ago!

This was the first batch that was ordered.

I completely forgot that, on noticing how few seeds were in the packets compared to the giant sunflowers we ordered last year (which was by weight, not seed count), I had ordered two of each.

The Crespo squash, which is a type of pumpkin from the Andes, was a last minute addition. I couldn’t resist!

I love how they use adorable children for scale.

This was my second order.

This was another “I couldn’t resist” order. After placing the first order, I went looking around the site. Baker Creek then sent me an email to up-sell me, using some of the new things I’d added to my wish list. I ended up ordering all of them. With seeds selling out so quickly again, I figured it was worth it. The price was right, too.

I have no idea if we will be able to plant any of these this year. We shall see how much space we have for starting seeds indoors. I think, at the very least, I want to try and germinate 2 or 3 of each variety.

Then there are the freebies.

This is the second package of purple kohlrabi we’ve been sent. I really, really want to try growing kohlrabi again. Gotta protect them from the bugs somehow!

As for the kale… we’re not fans of kale, except as kale chips (leaves tossed in olive oil and salt, then dehydrated in a warm oven). They are supposed to be very cold hardy, though, so that’s always a bonus for our area. We’ll make that decision then the time comes. I’m certainly willing to try a new variety!

I was very relieved to have these finally come in the mail! We do still have some back ordered items, and others that will be shipped at planting time, from Veseys, but those haven’t been shipped yet. These were shipped about month ago.

Something else came in the mail today.

It was from my husband’s health insurance.

Every year, he has to fill out a form to confirm that yes, he is still disabled, still under the care of a doctor (well… as much as he could be, this past year) and still alive. He is able to fill out the form, take a picture of it, and email the image, rather than send it through snail mail. At this point, he doesn’t even need a doctor to sign anything anymore. Everything gets process very quickly, and he later gets a letter detailing how much he will be getting in disability payments per month (it changes by a few dollars every now and then).

A while back, he got letter reminding him to send in the form.

Which he had already sent in.

He phoned them up and, after some digging, discovered that there was a different email for these forms than the one he’s been using for the last 5 years. Once he had that, he sent the form in again.

Today, he got another letter, reminding him to send in the form.

!!!

Thankfully, it was still early enough that he could call the insurance company, the office of which is in a different time zone. After sitting on hold, then being transferred to several different people, he got to the right one. His filed was looked at and…

All is good. His form had been processed.

Yesterday.

So that was a bit of a heart attack. If something had gone wrong, we don’t just loose the income we’re living on. We lose his coverage for prescriptions. This province does have Pharmacare, but that does not cover all of the medications he’s on. The medications are actually covered by a different company. His employer switched companies after he went on disability, so while his long term disability payments stayed with the original company, prescriptions are now covered by the company they switched to. If he loses one, he loses the other.

Which means we really, really appreciate that his insurance company was willing to send not one, but two reminder letters!

One thing I can say. Even with some screw ups related to the move, the insurance companies have done very well by my husband, and even gone above and beyond.

I thank God constantly for the excellent health insurance plan my husband was on. Yes, Canada has a “safety net”, but I know people who rely on it, and it sucks. We would have been financially devastated within months, probably weeks, without private health insurance.

We have much to be grateful for!

The Re-Farmer