I made it into the city today, but not for a Costco stock-up shopping trip. In fact, very little of what I got today was for stocking up.

After I got home and settled in to start this post, I found a notification from WordPress.

Today is our 5th anniversary since starting this blog!

Five years ago today, my husband and younger daughter were already here for almost a week, having left even earlier than planned when my FIL was suddenly hospitalized. My older daughter and I were downsizing, sorting, and packing things like mad before the movers arrived to finish packing, and we would make the drive out.

Somehow, in the middle of all this, we thought it would be a good idea to start a blog.

What were we thinking? 😂

Things sure have changed in five years!

Anyhow.

I’m happy to say that I took my mother’s car into the city and there were no issues at all with the repaired tire rim. Nothing else broke down either. That’s something I’m always grateful for!

All the stops I planned to make were along one strip, and all pretty close to each other, which made it very convenience.

Not any shorter, though!

My first stop was somewhere I’ve never been to before; Tool Town. I needed to get an affordable tarp large enough to cover that shed roof for the winter.

Oh, this is a dangerous place for me to be in!!! The location is actually pretty small but, my goodness, it was jam packed with so many things we could use!! I had to stick to my budget, though. I got a 20’x30′ medium weight tarp that should do well to cover the needed parts of the shed. Then I just walked through the aisles, ogling all the stuff I wanted to buy! I did get one more item that was on my list, though I was expecting to get it at Canadian Tire. Some time ago, we got a solar powered motion sensor light that’s facing the old kitchen garden, and it works quite well. We have a motion sensor light over the main entry door, but we use the sun room door almost exclusively now. That’s where the cat shelters are, and with things getting dark so quickly, we decided it would be good to get another motion sensor light for over the sun room door. There’s no wiring there, so it has to be solar powered. They had a sale on a larger size light, with two brightness options, for the same price as the smaller size, which was the same was what we already have. So I got the bigger, brighter one. The two items together was still under budget, so that was an added bonus!

My next stop was Canadian Tire, where I got a couple of bags of stove pellets for the litter boxes. I would have gotten more, but I didn’t want to put too much weight in my mother’s little car, and I still needed to get more kibble. I also went looking for a new kibble bin, since the racoons broke apart the lid on the one we have now. There was a sale on 80L bins, making them the same price as the 72L bins. It was the right size for our shelf, so I got the 80L bin. I also got a couple of little things, including a new pair of safety glasses. I bought some not long ago, but they’ve gone missing!

I also checked the prices on tarps. Canadian Tire didn’t have the same size as what I’d about, but the one I got was about a third the cost of their closest size – and that’s before the sale price I actually paid!

It was as I was loading the stuff in the car that I noticed a corner of the bin’s lid was cracked. So I grabbed the lid and went back in to customer service. I left the broken lid and my receipt with the employee after explaining what happened, then quickly went to grab a different one. I figured it would be faster that way.

Well, not quite.

Despite there being so many of the 80L bins on display, there was only 1 matching lid left – and it had a chunk missing from one corner! This was a temporary display, and I knew they had some in the regular aisle for storage bins, so I went there, only to find there were no lids at all in that size.

I went back to customer service and told the employee there weren’t any other lids, except one broken one, on the floor. She called it in to get someone to look elsewhere, but after some time he called back to say he couldn’t find any at all, anywhere.

A bin isn’t much use without a lid, so I returned it. I just hoped I would find something somewhere else.

My next stop was at the international grocery store, where I could also grab a late lunch. There are a few things that we only find in this store, such as the big slabs of uncut bacon, which also happened to be on sale today. I even remembered to go through their pharmacy section and did find some lecithin for the outside cats that was NOT soy based. It was in capsules, but we can open those. I have to remember to ask the cat lady where she gets hers. We might have to order the containers of powdered lecithin online, which I would really prefer not to do, but for so many outside cats, we’d need containers with a whole lot more than what I found! I don’t want to be paying extra for capsules we’ll be breaking open, either.

Update: I messaged the cat lady, asking where she got her lecithin. You mean lysine, she asked?

Oops!

Well, lysine is a lot easier to find, and cheaper. She’s been buying the capsules for humans (the same thing marketed for cats is more expensive) and breaking them open. With so many cats, that’s going to get old fast, so I found and ordered a couple of tubs of the powder. Until it gets here, I can pick up the capsules and use that. So many of the little kittens are dealing with the gooby eyes and stuffy noses right now, I won’t want to wait before treating them.

That done, my last top was at Walmart, where I got a couple of 10kg bags of kibble, and a small cat bed for inside the cats’ house. I had looked through the window where the cat bed is set up, and it was full of bigger kittens, while the bitty baby was by the box bed it’s too small to climb into! I was able to find a small bed that should do nicely. I did also find a new kibble bin that was affordable – and with an intact lid! There weren’t a lot of options for the size and shape I needed. I would have preferred a semi-transparent bin, so we can see how much is in it, but I had to settle for a completely opaque one. After that, I just got a few small items.

When it came time to pay, I went to the single line for the cashiers, instead of the self checkout. There were plenty of tills, and one guy that kept an eye on them before telling the next person in line which till to go to next.

He goofed with me.

The till he sent me to had a couple with a very full cart. It looked like they had to do some price checks, too. They split their purchases into two bills, which made things take longer. The second bill included a microwave, which they got the extended warranty on, so that added more time, too. In the end, they had over $500 in stuff on the second bill alone. Which is fine, but while I was standing there waiting, the guy was sending other customers to other tills, instead of redirecting me to a faster till. At least 8 people who had been in line behind me were through with their purchases, before I was even able to start unloading my cart.

Then he sent a customer to wait behind me, and the couple in front of me wasn’t even paying for their stuff, yet!

It’s a good thing I wasn’t in any hurry, but I sure was glad to finally get out of there.

That done, I could finally start heading home.

While I was gone, the girls started working on the sun room, so there was quite a bit of stuff outside when I drove into the yard to unload. They didn’t get everything out, but they did get the swing bench out, which was the main thing to move. We haven’t been able to get around it to clean up, and when we’ve had yard cats in there for varying lengths of time, they don’t always use the litter box we had in there. Instead, they’d go behind the swing bench.

My daughter was able to get that mess cleaned up, and what a difference that made!

After unloading, I started setting up the new kibble bin, but discovered a problem. The bin just barely fits in the shelf – but only with the lid off! With the lid on, it’s too tall.

Ah, well, It will just have to sit on the floor.

We didn’t open the cat shelter to put in the new cat bed. For the time being, it went onto the swing bench.

It immediately had kittens in it, checking things out.

Then the tuxedo claimed it. That didn’t take long at all! 😄😄

Last I saw, he was asleep in it!

One thing I did make sure to do right away was set up the motion sensor light. I was going to put it above the sun room door, only to realize the solar panel would be shaded by the eaves, so I ended up attaching it to the outer door itself. There was just enough room above the window to screw it in place.

It’s full dark now, so I will be going outside to test the motion sensor later. Before setting it up, I put it on the brighter setting. If it works as it should, it will probably be triggered by cats a lot, but I don’t mind that! 😁 Mostly, I just want to be able to see when we’re topping up the kibble for the evening. It gets dark quite early right now!

So this trip is done, and we only have the Costco trip left for the final stocking up for the month.

That one can wait until after Halloween, though!

The Re-Farmer