With my brother and his wife on the way, I made sure to have the gate open for them, then started working on things outside, so I could keep an eye on things.
I didn’t realize until late last night that, in one of my posts yesterday, I’d said I would give an update on what’s going on with our vandal, but completely forgot about it when I hit publish.
Our vandal is out of the hospital, and I’m suddenly seeing him on the trail cam files quite frequently.
Granted, he has to go past our place to check on his fields, but considering he just had major surgery, it’s rather odd that he’d be doing this so often, when he’s just back from the hospital. I’ve seen his wife doing it while he was in the hospital, so it’s not like he’s the only one that can get it done.
There’s more to it than that, though.
Other than seeing him go by on the cameras, we’ve had no contact with him, even after the restraining order expired. He knows that I am willing to do things like that, and press charges for his vandalism. He’s not used to having someone stand up to him, rather than make excuses for him, so he stays away. I’m happy with that, as I really didn’t want to apply for it again. With the horrible messages and calls to my mother he’d been making, his number was blocked on her phone. My brother also blocked his number.
Yet, somehow, he was able to leave a message on his voice mail a few days ago.
We still don’t know how.
I have a copy of the recording, but could barely make it out. Probably because I was trying to listen to it on my phone. My brother was able to transcribe it, though.
Most of it was the usual weird stuff. He has invented scenarios in his head about what he thinks we are doing, and yells about it. This time, apparently my brother has a thousand dollar bottle of wine with which to celebrate our vandal’s death that he will have to put away for now. Oh, and my brother wants to put him in jail, apparently.
As always, he’s obsessed with this farm.
The property we’re on consists of two quarter sections. The one we’re on is all rented out except for the corner the house is on, which we are responsible for (and to keep an eye on the rest, in general). The other quarter, which is a half mile up and across the road, has no buildings or even fields on it and the whole thing is rented out to the same person. He, the renter, uses it for pasture and rotates his cows from there to here, regularly, along with other pastures he’s got for them. He’s very responsible when it comes to the land, whether it’s how he takes care of our field he grows crops on, or ensuring the pastures are never over grazed.
Well, our vandal had driven past the other quarter section recently (I only know this because my mother had tried calling him – which she should not have done – and spoke to his wife). In the message to my brother, he said that there’s a particular weed taking over and was ranting on how he took care of that piece of land for years – but also that he was fighting this weed on his own property. He was conflating the two things, so it’s hard to tell exactly if he meant he picked this weed on that quarter, as well as picking it on his own property right now, or just on his own property right now.
Either way, how could he have been taking care of that property for years, when it’s been rented out to the same farm family since my parents mostly retired from farming? I mean, we’re talking two generations renting from our family at this point. Plus, with the renter having his cattle grazing there, he would be on top of any invasive weeds that would affect the quality of the pasture, if they were there. So I honestly don’t know if this weed is actually there, or if our vandal just thinks that’s what he saw as he was driving by.
It’s also none of his business.
Either way, he ranted about how it’s going to ruin the farm, and that my “porkchop” daughters should go out there with a push mower to get it under control.
Yes. He said we should be mowing a pasture with a push mower.
Then he had a whole bunch of nasty stuff to say about me and my daughters (apparently, my husband doesn’t exist), with his usual lies about us having never worked a day in our lives (and by “work” he means a job he thinks is a “real” job, apparently), and trying to put him in jail, while demanding to talk to my brother about me, face to face.
It was how he ended the message that was the most concerning.
It was with a threat.
But of what?
Whatever it is, apparently he has something planned for before he dies, or after he dies, that is so big, even “the Pope will read it in a magazine,” about what we’ve done to him.
So his cancer scare and brush with death certainly hasn’t changed him in any way. If anything, he seems even more obsessed with the property – he is an example of what it means to “covet” something – and me, and my family. He has convinced himself we are trying to destroy him, so he is planning something to harm us as some sort of revenge.
*sigh*
I was hoping we’d be able to start relaxing a bit, but nope.
So while the gate was open, I wanted to be outside to make sure our vandal didn’t just suddenly show up.
One of the things I did was finally unwrap the sheets of clear plastic roofing material. I set up the saw horses and cleared space on the work table to support their 8′ length. They needed to be cut to 4′ lengths.
I marked out the centre of the panels, but wasn’t sure of the best way to cut it. I left it be, though, and went inside to have breakfast before my brother and his wife were supposed to arrive.
I timed it just right, too.
After they got here and my SIL was loaded up with tomatoes and a cantaloupe, she headed back home, and I went to help my brother.
He had a surprise for me.
One of the last times he was he, he checked on my mother’s car. We were able to get the compressor hose through a hole in the wall on that side of the garage, across the middle, section, and just reach the flat front tire on her car. We couldn’t reach the back tire, though.
He got me an extension for the compressor hose. One of those coiled ones that can stretch to 50′!
We can now easily reach the back tire on my mother’s care (which is starting to look low again), and I can even top up all the tires on our truck, without having to turn it around to reach the other end.
He is so thoughtful!
Meanwhile, since he was there, I asked for his advice on how best to cut the roof panels in half. After asking and seeing what I had, he suggested the jig saw, but to put painter’s tape over where I’d be cutting first. The jig saw, I had considered, but I would not have thought of the tape.
The hose extension set up and done, I helped him tie down a new tarp on the box of his dump truck, to keep the elements out, and the old tarp was getting worn out. The winds get really high out here, so we really wanted to make sure it was solidly tied down.
He’s already unhooked the piece of equipment he’d hauled out here, so as soon as the tarp was secure, he was off again. He wanted to come back with another load on his trailer before it got dark.
As for me, I followed his advice and used the painter’s tape over the line I’d marked. I could still see the line through the tape, so I didn’t have to measure and mark it out again.
Using the jigsaw worked, but WOW did it vibrate like crazy! So much so that the jigsaw blade and the line I was trying to follow were like trying to see with double vision! I was able to get it done, though, and pretty straight, too.
The cut edges were rough, though, so after removing the tape, I sanded the edges.
Leaving the panels still on top of each other, I left one end on top of the isolation shelter for later, then took the other end out to the catio.
Before starting on the roof, though, I brought over some of the wire that was used to hold the welded wire mesh rolled up. The bottom half of the catio is new mesh, with about 9 or 10 inches of overlap between old and new wire mesh. My daughter felt that some of the smaller kittens, should they require isolation in there, could potentially squeeze between mesh and get out, so I wanted to use the wire to “sew” it closed across the top.
I had help.
Gouda is no longer being kept in the catio.
Once he got over the scare of not being able to get out, he seemed to really enjoy his time in there. The Cat Lady thought she might have someone that could adopt him, but hadn’t heard back from them yet, so there was no point in keeping him in there longer.
When I opened the door for him, he didn’t even try to leave right away. As I was going back and forth with things, I suddenly realized, he was back in the catio, watching me!
Him and several kittens.
The cats quite like the catio! Especially the kittens.
Interestingly, after letting him out, Gouda seems to be extra calm, and wanting human attention more. He reaches out to my hands to get me to pet him – but if my hands are busy and I don’t pet him, he reaches out with his teeth!
He was not the only helper.
This little kitten was all over the top of the catio! When I was bent over to lace the wire through the mesh, she kept batting at my hat.
Yes, this is a she, and she is friendly!
I had other cats rolling around on the top of the catio while I worked, but this one, I sent pictures of to the Cat Lady, mentioning that she’s friendly. She seems to be the only female kitten that is friendly. All the rest of the friendly ones are male, as far as I can tell.
The Cat Lady responded that we should get her fixed soon, while she still is young enough to qualify for the special pricing for spays at the vet clinic we took Gouda to. That would be awesome! So, maybe next month, we’ll be doing her instead of two males.
I did as much as I could with the wire wrapping, but had to stop for a while. I ended up going into town to refill three of our big water jugs. I should have done a dump run, too, but after driving over that glass jar last time, I really don’t want to risk my tires. People on the local RM Facebook group I’m on have been talking about how bad the conditions at the dump have become in the last little while.
So I decided against going today.
Since I was not going to be around to supervise, I had to make sure the gate was closed up.
The good thing is, my brother has his own key.
By the time I got back, my brother was hear and had already started to load. After unloading our truck and leaving a daughter to put things away, I went to help my brother unload his trailer. He didn’t stay long after that, as he needed to start loading the trailer again when he got home, before things got dark. Nothing that’s coming here, though, so we shouldn’t be seeing them again this weekend.
Once we were done and he left – and the gate was locked again – I went back to the catio. I finished off with the wire wrapping, then brought over the hose. It had taken Gouda a while to figure out the litter box, and he’d made a mess on the cat hammock. I got that cleaned off before finally starting on the roof.
That catio now has a roof again!
The screws all have washers with neoprene seals on them, so water shouldn’t leak around them.
Since no cat will be in there overnight, I removed the empty food bowl, but didn’t bother removing the water bowl. The box nest went back in, though, as did the litter box, just to keep it out of the elements until I empty it and clean it for the next time it’s needed.
After this, we can finish painting the rest of it black, and replace the torn cat hammock that was removed. It will then be officially done!
Then I can get back to working on the isolation shelter. I really need to get that finished. Not just for the cats, but so I can get everything out of the garage and cleaned up, so we can park the truck in there again.
For now, I’m just glad to have that roof on. We’re supposed to get thunderstorms at around 5am. This gives the cats a bit of extra shelter they can tuck into.
After two weeks or driving all over, I’m happy to have one week of almost no driving at all, before it’s back to running around. This coming week, I expect to do grocery shopping for my mother at some point, but that’s about it. That will give me time to work on projects, but also get caught up on things like lawn mowing, and getting the loppers out to clear away saplings that are starting to take over some areas again.
Maybe even finally get back to working on those raised garden beds we’re supposed to be harvesting trees for!
If the weather holds. We may not be expecting frost, but by phone’s weather app is predicting thunderstorms on at least three days next week.
We shall see how it goes!
I’m just happy with whatever progress I manage to get right now.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 
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