We got to enjoy an amazing sunset tonight!
The camera on my phone was actually able to pick up the colours, just as we were seeing them.
Best of all, I got to enjoy the view with my brother, his wife and a friend. They were unloading trailers, and we all had to stop for a few moments to appreciate the incredible sky.
We live in a truly beautiful area.
The Re-Farmer
Today it was arranged for me to go back to my mother’s place to help her with basic home stuff. These are the things my mother needs help with, but that Home Care out here doesn’t provide. Light housekeeping. Laundry. That sort of thing.
Of course, I stared my day with my morning rounds. This morning, I used some stock from the crockpot in the liquid I used to soak kibble for the outside cats.
Oh, my goodness, did they ever love it!
The kibble I picked up recently was the Walmart economy brand – we needed quantity over quality, this time. It didn’t absorb as much liquid as some other brands we’ve tried. That made carrying the bowl I use, without sloshing everywhere, rather more challenging! Of course, the first trays I add food to are in the sun room, and it’s easier to just put the bowl down in the middle of the floor and start scooping.
Thankfully, the scoop I have is larger and fairly deep, so scooping so much liquid works fine.
Of course, as soon as the bowl was on the floor, it was inundated by cats, already starting to eat, which made for another challenge to scooping it out!
This time, though, the cats were for more interested in the excess liquid. Hoo boy, where they ever excited with this treat!
This is definitely something we want to do more often. Especially in the winter, when not only having warm food first thing in the morning will be a help, so will the extra fat and nutrients in the liquid.
After the morning errands and breakfast were done, my first stop was the post office. Our powered anode rod has been in for a while, but we haven’t been able to pick it up until today. I was also able to mail my mother’s payment for her ambulance bill; she doesn’t trust her local post office, nor does she trust their outside mail box. She says some of her mail to Poland never arrived, and she’s convinced the staff at the local post office kept it back, because one of them mistook a letter she was sending as being to Ukraine, rather than Poland. As for the outside mail box, it got stolen and broken into, some time before we moved out here, so more than 7 years ago.
🫤
Anyhow. It’s sent, and hopefully, it’s made out to the right name, because there was nothing on the bill to specify who to make a check out to, since hardly anyone uses checks anymore.
With all that, plus a quick stop for some gas, I got to my mother’s at about 11, which is the time I normally get there when I’m planning to run errands for her. I did pick up a treat to go with our tea, though.
I was there for just a few minutes when my cell phone started ringing. That happens so rarely, I’m always surprised by it. 😄 It turned out to be our mechanic. When I called about having our truck towed to them, I spoke to one of his employees, as he wasn’t there, nor was he there when the truck was dropped off. He just found a note with the keys and my phone number on it, so he wanted to know why it was towed in!
I explained to him what happened and what we did, just to get the truck home. After hearing that, his initial thought was that some gunk got into the switch – that’s now three different people who have suggested this being the most likely reason the alert kept going, and the pressure gauge kept dropping, even after we’d added as much oil as we did. I told him we were already planning to book an oil change (after we had to cancel it when I booked it about a month and a half ago), with a diagnostic to figure out why the check engine like was on. My OBD II scanner gives several possible reasons, not nothing definitive. Once he had that information, he could take a look at it and know what he was looking for!
I haven’t heard from him since then, so that tells me he wasn’t able to do that today. This is something he would do in between other customer bookings, when he has a bay open, so that could take a while.
Of course, my mother was hearing bits and pieces of the call, so she was wondering about how that was going, so I explained it a bit before we got to work.
One of the first things she asked me to do was to check the schedule in the laundry room. It turns out her apartment was blocked off for 1-3pm. There two other apartments blocked off for the morning, but no one was doing laundry at the time. Lunch hour wasn’t blocked off for anyone on any day. We figured it would be fine to start early – but maybe not too early.
After getting her laundry out and sorting it the way she wanted, we settled in for some tea and conversation until her Meals on Wheels was delivered. The volunteer delivering it was one of the social workers that comes regularly for planned activities. When she got there, she told my mother that someone from Home Care had come out yesterday, but she wasn’t home. We asked what time, and she said at about 1pm.
My mother’s appointment in the city was at 1pm!
Normally if there is something going on, Home Care calls me, first, as I am the primary contact person. If they did, I could have told them my mother wasn’t going to be home at that time, but no one called either of us. All the social worker knew was that it was something about meals, and not about my mother’s medical assist visits.
They really should have called first. The social worker figures they’ll try and stop by again, later, but when she first brought it up, it sounded like she thought my mother had an appointment with them, then skipped out on it. We figure it has something to do with the bulk meal preparation we were originally going to get for my mother, until she decided to go with Meals on Wheels instead. I think the Meals on Wheels is the better choice for her. I don’t think she could tolerate someone preparing and packing up meals in her apartment for 2 hours for very long, even if it was every two weeks. Plus, she is so happy with the Meals on Wheels food she is getting!
After she had her lunch, we made up a grocery shopping list for her, then I started her laundry. Her building has two washers and two driers, so I got both washers going, then headed out to do her grocery shopping. With having prepared meals delivered three days a week, it reduces her grocery list a fair bit, so I was done, back and put everything away before the washing machines were done!
After her first loads went into the drier and her last load was started, I took advantage of her watching daily mass on TV and did some sweeping and dishwashing and whatever else I could see that needed doing, then sat and finished watching mass with her.
I did have a bit of a mystery that got solved while I was sweeping up.
Shortly after I got there, and I got the call from the garage while she was getting dressed for the day, I saw her taking a bucket of urine from her room to the bathroom. I figured she was finally using the commode in her room, but couldn’t see it. While sweeping in her bedroom, I saw that it was gone, and there was a table where it used to be.
It turned out to be in the living room, covered with a cloth and being used as a table.
I don’t understand why she refuses to use the commode. Her bucket fits perfectly into the pan it comes with, so she doesn’t have to struggle to remove a pan that would need to be carried with two hands. Instead, she’s squatting over a bucket? With her wrecked knees? I just don’t get it!
Well, we can’t force her to use the thing, I guess.
While sweeping, I also found one of the traps left by the exterminator and checked it out. There were plenty of insects stuck in it – it’s that time of year, when more of them come into the warmth – but no sign of bed bugs that I could tell. I was looking closely while going through her laundry and while sweeping, too. Nothing. The exterminators still need to come one more time, and she should have gotten the notification letter telling her when they’ll be coming by now, but she hasn’t mentioned anything to any of us.
We’ll have to be on top of this, so we don’t have a repeat of her almost getting herself evicted for refusing to let them in.
Anyhow…
My mother had told me she would fold her laundry herself, but I did that for her. I was going to need the basket for her last load, anyhow. She also had some things that were too heavy for her that I moved, and others that needed to be tucked up higher than she could reach for winter storage.
All in all, I was there for about five hours. My mother was really tired by then, too. She’s still having trouble sleeping at night, but with all this going on, she wasn’t able to nap during the day, either. She was still going to get two medical assists for her medications, with one of them typically about an hour after the time I left, so not much point in trying to nap then!
After leaving my mother’s, I made a quick stop at the grocery store for a few groceries to tide us over until CPP Disability comes in next week.
Once at home and heading to the house, an absolute army of cats came out to see me, clearly looking for supper! I left my daughter to put away the groceries and mail, then headed out to give the cats their evening feeding.
They were very happy kitties!
Especially this one.
This one is black with a white blaze on his chest – no other white that I can see – and I call him Midnight. He is friendly enough that, once we are able to get more of the females spayed, we will be able to easily catch to get neutered.
That reminds me. I want to find more breakaway collars to put on the cats that get fixed, so we can spot the ones that are done right away. I did pick up a collar recently to try out, not realizing until I went to remove the packaging that it was not actually a breakaway collar. With outside cats, I won’t use any other type, as the risk of them getting caught on something and choking is too high. So far, I’ve only found them at a local dollar store. Hopefully they will have more, the next time I get there. I got four of them, but only Syndol still has his. I think I put the other ones on too loosely. Since then, Gouda was neutered, but he and Rolando Moon are the only orange cats we have right now, so there’s no mistaking them for other cats.
So that was how things went today. Hopefully, over the next few days, I can stay home for a change and finally get work done outside! At this point, the very least I want to get done (besides finally harvesting the potatoes and sunchokes) is plant a bed of garlic. Anything I mange to get finished beyond then, as far as the winter sowing I’m hoping to do, is gravy.
I just need to have a few days at home, with no running around, to do it!
Wish me luck!
The Re-Farmer
No.
No, she isn’t.
But that’s what she told me when I got a call from her this morning.
This is starting to become a common refrain, unfortunately.
My schedule for today included heading to my mother’s nice and early, so I could drive her to the city. She had an afternoon appointment for another eye injection *shudder* to try and stop the bleeding of her wet macular degeneration and maybe – just maybe – improve her vision in that eye.
I tried to get more information about what was going on, but just got repeats of her usual. Her breathing. She only got 2 hours of sleep, and it’s because of her pills (it’s not because of her pills). Her chest pains (acid reflux). Pain in general. Even her incontinence. She’s convinced she is dying.
On the one hand, I get it. I totally get it! She feels like crap, and the idea of driving 1 1/2 hours to an appointment that would take at least an hour, then another 1 1/2 hours drive back, would seem overwhelming.
She’s 93 years old with busted up knees.
Yeah, I get it.
On the other hand, she has no understanding of just how good she is doing. I mean, she’s really amazing. At this age, her sister was already in the nursing home, being shuttled around in a wheelchair, and falling deep into dementia for several years. There are people far younger than her that are doing far worse.
Plus, canceling and appointment like this at the last minute is a big deal. There is only one place that does these treatments, and if she wants to retain any vision in that eye (she did say she was noticing an improvement), she needs these treatments.
Her response was, what does it matter, if she’s going to die, anyway?
She tried to guilt me, saying that I didn’t believe her. I told her, it’s not that I don’t believe her, in how she feels. I’m trying to understand why she thinks she’s dying. Because, really, there is nothing new in her complaints. That’s what I keep trying to get to. What is happening that’s different, that’s convincing her she’s about to die any at any minute.
In the end, she said she wasn’t going to say anymore and was going to say good bye, then she hung up.
At which point, I messaged my brother and his wife to let them know the situation. They are so busy right now, it’s the last thing they need to deal with, but they needed to know.
In the end, I decided that I would go to my mother’s place, anyways, and talk to her in person. If she still refused to go, I would phone the clinic and cancel the appointment from her place.
I meant to leave early, but so many cats were following me to the car, I had to ask one of my daughters to very noisily feed them.
Yes, they’d already been fed.
Including sweet Gouda. What a lovely kitty he is!
It was Syndol that would not stop following me to the car. I kept moving him away, and he kept coming back. I finally had to carry him all the way to the house, where he finally noticed the kibble and went to eat.
So much for leaving early, but I was at least on the road at the time I was intending to be.
While I was driving, my phone started ringing. I couldn’t answer, of course, but I’d told my brother that I would be on the road, and I figured it might be home.
It was.
When he couldn’t reach my by phone, he sent a quick message. He’d phoned her, they had a good talk, and she will go. He called her in between meetings at work, so he had to be brief. By the time I parked and could check messages, my SIL added that my brother had finally told our mother that they were selling their place, just so I would be aware.
So when I got to my mother’s apartment, she was up and ready and waiting.
She then launched into giving me all sorts of instructions on what to do and where to find things when she died. I honestly think she expected to die during the drive in.
She did mention my brother’s call, but as she was giving me instructions, including about her finances, she brought up my brother, and how he has the farm, but he wants her money, too. I sold her, the only person that wants her money is our vandal, and reminded her of the legal steps my brother had taken to protect her from our vandal. She just scoffed, then said that my sister was the only one who didn’t care about my mother’s money.
Which is weird, but she does like to try and play us against each other.
I’d worked out a time when we had to be on the road by, to get to her appointment, and we ended up leaving almost 20 minutes earlier.
She did walk very slowly to the car, lots of panting and pausing. It was a struggle for her to get into the car, and then she sat there, panting.
She really did play it up.
Her struggle to get into the car was very genuine, though. If we were using the truck, I probably would have had to practically pick her up to help her in!
She made a comment about her breathing as I was getting in, but then pretty much stopped the act at that point.
As we were driving, she started telling me things like, she’d talked to some of her neighbours in her building, and one of them had the same thing she did (at least that’s how my mother understood it), she didn’t go anything, and it went away. Then my mother told me about a Jehovah’s Witness that used to come visit (how many decades ago was this???) who talked about losing vision until she prayed and God healed her, and her vision had been fine ever since. She also told me about how, years ago (how many years?) she remember she had black spots floating around in her vision. She never went to the doctor, never did anything different, and they went away.
All I could say, really, was that these are all different things. That’s great for them, but that has nothing to do with you’re specific situation.
Also, for someone who was complaining about getting only a couple of hours sleep, she was very talkative and alert. I suggested she could try napping during the drive, but she wanted to enjoy the scenery…
Anyhow.
She told me she’d gone to bed at around 11, woke at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter what, and it was because of her pills. I told her, we know it’s not the pills. It could be anything. Even just busy brain or stress. Oh, but you don’t know what I’ve lived through…
???
Eventually, she brought up about my brother selling their property, and that they were selling it privately, not through an agency.
I’m not sure what reaction she expected from that.
I reminded her, I had told her, my brother is preparing for retirement.
She did bring up about him not selling the farm – the property we are on – and I told her, he can’t sell it. That was part of my father’s will.
She dropped that, too.
Overall, though, the conversation during the drive actually went pretty well. She kept commenting on the traffic. She still seems to think traffic should be like when she and my father lived in the city until the mid 60’s.
I’m glad we left as early as we did, though. It’s construction season.
If we’d left when I originally planned, we should have arrived about half an hour early. Leaving when we did, we should have arrived as much as 45 minutes early.
We got there 10 minutes before her appointment.
They took her in almost immediatley.
The next while spent getting her eye dilated while the tech tried to get images and video of it.
Normally, during these tests, they ask you to focus on a green X, or a picture of a house, or some such thing, in the middle of the device over the eye they are looking at.
With macular degeneration, that’s not possible. She can’t see the middle of anything.
So the tech instead set up a tiny green light on an adjustable arm in front of her left eye, and asked my mother to try and focus on that.
My mother kept getting distracted.
What do you mean a green light? It’s white?
There’s a dark spot in the middle.
The light isn’t on…
After a number of attempts to get video, I finally started to explain, they just needed her to look at that spot. It didn’t matter what the colour was, or anything else. It’s the location she needs to focus on.
I think she finally understood that, but by then, the tech was done!
She was then sent to a waiting room before the next stage, but the doctor requested one more image. He needed a specific location photographed, so he could compare with an image taken last time.
That, at least, was quick!
We do have good news.
The bleeding in her eye seems to have stopped. There is still a bit of blood in there, but mostly there is scar tissue right in the middle of her vision.
Then he asked her if she wanted to continue treatment!
She deferred making a decisions (which is her usual way), wanting him to make the decision for her. Which he couldn’t do, of course. He did say he would recommend still getting the treatments since, if they are stopped now, the bleeding might resume. I finally said we should at least do a treatment today, and we decide about further treatment later.
Meanwhile, my mother launched into how she’d had these black spots floating in her eyes, (I told her, this is not the same thing, and the doctor repeated that) and they went away on their own, etc. The doctor told her, this is not going to go away on its own.
She dropped the subject.
So they went ahead with the treatment, with a light freezing of the eye, adding antiobiotic drops, and finally the main freezing. That one needed 7 minutes, and my mother was asked to hold a tissue over her eye and just relax for a while.
As we were waiting for the freezing, the doctor and the tech – plus a third person that was in training – started looking at other files. They spoke quietly, but I could hear bits and pieces, and could see some of the images they were looking at.
All I can say is…
My mother is doing really great! She is there at a time when she can actually get treated, and the damage is relatively mild. At one point, I could hear them lamenting that there was absolutely nothing they could do to help one particular patient. She had simply waited too long to get checked. As quiet as they spoke, I could still hear the pain in their voices.
The doctor had a timer going, so they were soon back working on my mother. She got her injection, and was reminded that she will have redness, which is normal, but if there’s any pain, she is to come back right away.
As for the next treatments, he told her she no longer needs to come back in 4 weeks, but maybe 4 or 5 weeks. I checked my calendar and saw that my husband is rebooked for his CT Scan in 5 weeks, so it would have to be 4 weeks for my mother.
The doctor was very understanding about the long drive in, and that the next treatment would be winter driving. There is simply no other clinic like this that’s closer. One is planned for the town we are closest to, but that’s all it is at this point – plans.
Once he was done, that was it. We just needed to book the next appointment, then go.
By that point, we were both hungry – my mother hadn’t even eaten breakfast! – but neither of us were up to trying to find a place to eat in the city. We talked about where to go in her town and she wasn’t enthusiastic about her choices. Then I suggested we stop at the gas station where I could pick up her favourite fried chicken and wedges.
She was quite excited over that idea!
So we had a good drive home – traffic was a lot lighter, and we were no longer in any construction zones.
I picked up the food and got her home. She was pretty famished by then! I got enough that she could have another meal out of it later.
After that, there were a few things she needed help with. One was a letter from the government that she didn’t understand. Another was helping her write out a check to pay for her ambulance bill, from her trip to the ER a month or two ago. It didn’t come with a return envelope, though – they expect people to pay via etransfer, credit or debit. She didn’t have a suitable envelope, so I ended up taking that home to get ready to mail, which I will do tomorrow.
As we were talking, she mentioned that she needed her laundry done. She hasn’t been up to doing it herself, and it’s been piling up. She said she hoped to “hire” my sister to do it – but my sister and her husband are coming home from out of province tomorrow, and tomorrow is my mother’s laundry day on the building’s schedule.
I also noticed, her fridge was looking empty.
But she never asked me for help. I even asked if she needed shopping, but she said the only thing she needed was milk.
Okay…
That was it!
I left soon after. I’ve got her check ready to mail and have my own parcel to pick up at the post office.
I really, really need to get more work done outside. Tomorrow was going to be my first day in quite a long time where I didn’t need to go anywhere, and could get back to it.
*sigh*
I’ve just arranged to go over to my mother’s tomorrow, to do her laundry and, if she puts a list together for me, her grocery shopping, too.
The long range forecast has changed, again. The snow I was seeing in the beginning of November seems to have gone away for the most part. We’ll even have some warmish days. If the weather holds, I should still be able to get things done.
We shall see.
Meanwhile, we’ve had no word from the garage about the truck, which means no one has had a chance to look at it yet.
I also had a chance to talk to my brother this evening, and got to hear the rest of how his call with her went. He had so little time to make the call, he basically just told her, go to the appointment, and that I was already on my way to get her. When he mentioned that yes, they are selling their property, she launched into her usual lecture about how the value of land only ever goes up, etc. He just let it slide and had to tell her, he needed to get back to work.
When I talked to him this evening, it was after he’d had a very long day at work (he starts at 5am), and was at the property, packing up shed contents. They’ll be coming out here this weekend with the stuff they are keeping, but they are also sending stuff to auction.
It’s a huge job, that’s for sure!
So we will be at least seeing my brother and their friend on the weekend, with trailer loads. I honestly don’t know where he’s going to be putting things at this point! Most of the sheds here can’t be used anymore.
I’m sure he’s got a plan, though. He always does!
So that’s been my day today.
How was yours? 😁😁
The Re-Farmer
Would you look at these happy critters?
This was taken in the late afternoon. This morning, they did get the food I used the slow cooker to make for them overnight. They dug right in!
Unlike the inside cats. They turned their noses up and their cooked food! Even when the girls gave them some of the canned cat food we still had, putting it right on top of the food cooked for them, they ate around the cooked food, but left the canned cat food that was on top of their cooked meal.
So I gave the rest of it to the outside cats, after feeding them with kibble, and they dove right into that, too!
Our inside cats have gotten fussy!
Yes, I was able to get cat food today – and we even have a vehicle now!
More on that later.
But I am getting way ahead of myself!
Last night, I got a call from my mother. She started talking about her appointment on Thursday – tomorrow.
I had completely forgotten about it! I was supposed to drive her to the city for to get her wet macular degeneration treatment.
We no longer had transportation.
My sister is next closest, but they are out of province right now and won’t be back until Friday.
Which leaves my brother, but he would be working.
Meanwhile, my mother started to say, oh, I don’t know if I should go… with my health like it is…
Yes. She was seriously considering stopping treatment that will save the vision in her eye and possibly improve it.
She even mentioned, she noticed a slight improvement. Which is amazing, after only one treatment!
I told her, we’ll find a way to get her there. Even as we were talking, I was sending a message to my brother and SIL, but while I could see that neither of them were seeing it yet.
So I told her I would call her back as soon as I knew anything. I had no idea when that would be.
With everything going on, though, I was burning out, so I tried to go to bed early.
Of course, that didn’t work.
Which was for the better, I guess, because after a few hours, I got responses.
Long story short…
They are lending us a car!
My SIL would drive out in time to get here for when the tow truck was scheduled to arrive. I would drive her back to their place, then take the car home.
That’s a LOT of driving, but there really wasn’t any other way to do it.
Have I mentioned my brother and his wife are amazing?
After that assurance, I could finally fall asleep!
This morning, my routine of softening kibble for the outside cats with hot water got switched up to transferring their food out of the slow cooker and giving it time to cool down before heading out. It was still a bit on the hot side, but they seemed to be just fine with that!
After feeding the outside cats this morning and doing my rounds, I made sure to open the gate – we were now expecting the tow truck, the prescription delivery, and my SIL to arrive – my younger daughter and I unloaded the aluminum off the back of the truck, then covered the sorted bags with the tarp.
It’s already blowing off, even though we tied it down!
After the back was clear, I took the time to put all the straps and bungee cords – the ones we used, and the extras in the truck – into the back-of-the-seat organizers we got. That set up is going to work out quite well!
Then, while I was at it, I moved our roadside emergency kit out to put in the car later, did some general clean up and even remembered to take out the disabled parking placard and the card we need to show the attendant when we go to the dump.
Not that we’ll be making a dump run in a loaned car! Not if I can help it. But we won’t have the truck for probably a week, so I figured it would be good to have, just in case.
The truck was booked to be picked up at 11am, so my SIL was shooting to arrive at our place at about that time.
It was past 11 when I got a call from the CAA Dispatcher, asking about our location, since our physical address don’t exist on any maps.
After giving country directions for the driver’s notes, we knew it might still be a while, but the truck was ready and there was no need for any of us to be around when the tow truck arrived.
My SIL hadn’t arrived yet, either, so I sent them a quick message, then popped into the sun room to tie off the outside door and keep the wind out – when I noticed there was a car parked near the truck! My sister had already arrived!
I quickly finished, grabbed what I needed and headed out – just in time to hear my phone ding, with her response to my earlier message! 😄
We were soon on the road back to their place when I realized, I hadn’t called my mother yet. My SIL offered to stop at my mother’s so I could tell her in person, which I gratefully accepted.
When we got there, I dashed in – only to find her walker was not by her door. I still knocked, even as I was looking around to see if she was in the hall. Then I went around the building, in case she was sitting outside.
Nothing.
So we went driving to the various places she might have walked to. Even the pharmacy, which is the furthest away. No sign of her, and none of the staff that know her had seen her.
We finally went back to my mother’s place, in case she came back while we were gone.
Still not walker outside her door.
I do have a spare key, though, so I figured I could let myself in and leave a note. I get my keys out and am ready to unlock it but, out of habit, I knocked first…
… and hear my mother’s voice responding from inside!
Her door was unlocked, so I let myself in.
She was at her dining table, her finished Meals on Wheels meal in front of her…
… and her walker sitting beside her.
!!
It was such a relief to find her!
I quickly told her about getting loaned a car (and messages my SIL that my mother had been home this whole time!), and that I’d be driving her to her appointment tomorrow. I even told her, my SIL was in the car waiting for me, so I couldn’t stay long. We worked out what time I could be coming over tomorrow and what time we needed to be on the road. Then she started asking me, why was I in a hurry?
I reminded her, my SIL was waiting for me in the car.
Well, why doesn’t she come in to say hi?
Because we can’t stay long. We have to drive to their place, then I have to drive the car home…
I wasn’t going to even bother saying more than that. The reality is, after decades of verbal abuse from my mother, my SIL finally said, no more. My mother has outside said that, just because she is married to my brother, she isn’t family. My SIL has never been anything but kind to my mother – probably more than any of us, to be honest – and even now, still says many positive things about my mother, but she will no longer allow herself to be abused. If my mother says she is not part of the family, then she will stay away.
My mother has zero understanding that her behaviour hurts people so much, and drives them away from her. The kinder people are to her, the more abusive she is towards them.
Except that’s changing with me. I have been putting my food down, hard, on her behaviour without reciprocating and – amazingly – she has stopped a lot of what she had been doing since we moved out here. At her request.
Tomorrow’s timing arranged, my SIL and I were back on the road.
At this point, I may as well say it. This blog is anonymous in real life, too; my family and neighbours know nothing about it.
My brother has been moving things over to here in preparation for retirement. Part of that was looking at selling their acreage. They hadn’t put it up for sale, but serendipity stepped in, and they found a buyer. The possession date is Nov. 1, so they have to get everything they’re not selling or otherwise getting rid of, here to the farm. Meanwhile, they are moving into a townhouse near the city, and today, I got to see it for the first time!
I think they are going to be really happy there – and happy not having the property to be concerned with. Especially since they are stuck with this farm that they can’t sell. Something else my mother doesn’t understand. This property has been a burden they took from her, but in her mind, she “gave” my brother “everything”. So now they will no longer have two acreages to pay takes, insurance and upkeep for!
After a tour of their new home and a brief visit, I got to drive their car home.
I have never in my life, driven anything so luxurious! What a dream it is to drive! It’s not even a new car (just newer than our truck) or high end. It’s just a basic vehicle, but – oh, my goodness, it is gorgeous!
They are also slightly closer now, and the Walmart I was planning to go to was on my way home.
I was able to get four bags of kibble and a 32 pack of canned cat food. The Cat Lady also ordered us a donation of kibble on Amazon, which is supposed to arrive on the 29th, and we will actually be able to pick it up now.
Of course, I also got a bit of groceries for us – almost all of this, courtesy of my older daughter. She says she will help pay for repairs on the truck, too, though it will take some time to transfer from PayPal, which is how her clients pay for their commissions from her.
I hope we never again get to a point where we run out of kibble like we did today! We will especially need to stock up over the winter. With no back up vehicle anymore, if things go wrong again, or we get snowed in again, etc., we are hooped.
Which would be a good time to bring up… if anyone is in a position to help, we do have a donation button! 100% of donations go towards care of the cats, whether it’s food, spays and neuters or other vet car. Today, we spent more on food for the cats than for ourselves again, and we’ll have to watch to make sure it lasts until CPP Disability comes in – we will hopefully be picking up our repaired truck by then.
Oh! I just got a message from my daughter. She has caulked up the tub surround. Twelve hours before it can be exposed to water. Twenty-four before it can be touched.
Yeah, we still can’t use our tub and shower. Aside from assisting now and then, I have left this job entirely to my daughters!
But I digress, once again…
After doing the shopping, I headed to the town nearest us to get gas. My SIL had stared off with a full tank, but with all the driving, it was down to half already. When I got to the station, I asked the attendant to put in $30, hoping that would make a dent in it, and went inside.
After I was done and heading home, I realized that $30 had filled the tank!
I’m so used to the truck. At current prices – $1.299 right now – that would have been barely a quarter tank. I forget how much bigger the truck’s tank is than a car’s!
It felt really good to be driving with a full tank!
Once at home, I drove up to the house to unload, then made sure to feed the outside cats so I could safely move the car.
Oh, the happy, happy kitties! They were quite hungry!
After parking the car in the garage, I just had to giggle over how much room there is! With the truck, I have to squeeze as close as I can to the counter at the far wall, just to be able to close the door.
That done, I headed inside and started getting ready to feed the inside cats. That included taking their trays of the food they got this morning that they wouldn’t eat – it even still had remains of canned cat food on it! – and giving it to the outside cats.
The outside cats had already polished off all the food I’d given them earlier, and eagerly dove into the food the inside cats turned their nosed up at!
The inside cats, meanwhile, were happy to get their kibble.
The snobs. 😄
So things are looking up again, thanks to my awesome, awesome brother and his wife. With them being in the middle of moving, being down a vehicle will be an inconvenience for them, so I appreciate this beyond words. They are just the best!!
Tomorrow is going to be another long day of driving – and another day of not being able to get anything done in the garden. The goal had been to have several beds cleaned up and prepared for winter sowing by now. We’ve got just one warm day between now and November – and the long range forecast now shows snow within the first 10 days of the month! Granted, when these seeds are planted, we do NOT want them to germinate, but we don’t want them to freeze, either.
Well, what happens, happens. We’ll work with what we get.
What else can we do?
The Re-Farmer
Good grief.
Okay.
My goal for today was to finish sorting enough aluminum to fill the truck bed, go to the salvage yard to drop it off, then go to the nearest Walmart to meet with the Cat Lady and pick up more cat food. We also need a few more things for the bathtub tap repair.
It was raining all morning, so I backed the truck out of the garage so I could work on the cans in the garage. Once I had ten bags, I turned the truck around to make it easier to load. It took longer than expected, and I was no longer sure I’d be able to connect with the Cat Lady.
I was able to get 10 large bags in the truck. All strapped down an ready to go.
I got about half a mile before the onboard computer started dinging, and I got a red flashing “oil pressure low, shut of engine” warning.
So I pulled over and shut it off. After waiting a bit, I tried again, but it went off again almost immediately.
We were due for an oil change, but I’ve never had this happen before!
I ended up walking home to get some oil, and my younger daughter walked back with me. As we were going along, we saw a vehicle stop beside the truck for a while. The driver stopped again when he reached us. It turns out he was a neighbour from up the road. He was hauling a flatbed trailer, so he went home to drop that off, then came back to help us.
Long story short, we manage to get the truck home, and I was able to park it in such a way that it can be easily accessed by a tow truck.
Yup. We are down to no vehicle right now.
And we’re going to run out of kibble, tomorrow.
F***
I updated the Cat Lady and she said she would get cat food to us, but I have no idea how. Someone would have to deliver it to our place, since we can’t go anywhere.
A tow has been arranged for tomorrow morning, and the garage is already expecting it. We’ll get a diagnostic and an estimate, but we won’t have a budget for any repairs until my husband’s disability comes in at the end of the month.
Today is the 22nd. CPP Disability comes in on the 29th.
That’s a week with no transportation. Heck, I don’t even know how I will get to the garage to pick up the truck once it’s repaired – assuming it’s a repair we can afford. It’s entirely possible the problem is gunk in a sensor. Or it could be something major. The engine itself sounds just fine.
Meanwhile, we’ll need to take off the load of aluminum before the truck is taken in, but that will wait until tomorrow morning. I just don’t have the spoons to do it tonight.
I’m going to have to go through our pantry and freezer and see what we can use for cat food.
The past 12 months has seen so many things breaking down this year. It’s been insane. It seems like every time we take a step forward, we get yanked back five.
One of those things that broke down has been my mother’s car – our back up vehicle – which started to make a banging noise. Since then, it now has a tire that keeps going flat, even though we’ve been using the compressor to pump it back up every couple of days. Even if it were running, though, we no longer have the budget for insurance and fuel for two vehicles anymore. Partly because we now have the truck payments, but also because the cost of everything has gone up so much.
I am just so tired, right now. Not physically tired. Not even emotionally tired. More psychologically tired.
It was around this time, 7 years ago, that my husband and younger daughter flew out here earlier than planned, as my FIL was in the hospital and things were not looking good for a while. I started this blog on the 29th of October, 2017, and we weren’t all united again here until the middle of November. Those first few months saw some rough times, and we’ve certainly had our challenges, every year since. Even so, we’ve have had so many things break down, one after the other, like we have in the past 12 months.
Ah, well. We’ll deal.
What other choice to we have?
The Re-Farmer
Today turned out to be a gorgeous day. We reached a high of 22C/68F and, as I write this at almost 9pm, we are still at a lovely 14C/57F.
As usual, my day started with the feeding of the outside cats and my morning rounds.
I got an enthusiastic “thank you for a warm breakfast!” cuddle from Colin.
We were expecting my brother to come out today with their storage trailer; they had to hire a semi truck driver to haul it out for them. With that in mind, after I had my breakfast, I headed back outside to start re-bagging the aluminum and removing the mixed metal. Quite a few of the bags have been torn open by the cats; they can smell all the empty cat food cans in there.
After opening the gate for my brother, I set myself up by the garage, where the bags are stacked, with a folding camp chair, a crate for the mixed metal and the magnet keychain the salvage yard gave me.
And gloves.
Definitely gloves!
Then my phone started going of with messages from various people, including my SIL, keeping me up to date on their progress, so I would know when to expect them. It was a pleasant surprise that my SIL was able to come along this time.
With all the interruptions, though, I barely got through sorting half a bag before they arrived with the truck driver!
So, of course, I joined them and got some video to sent to them later on.
While my brother and the truck driver got the trailer lined up with where it needed to be, my SIL and I were staying a safe distance away. This put us near the old log building by the fire pit with the collapsed roof. Thinking about by brother’s suggestion to have the metal salvage company come out in the spring, instead of this fall, to give us time to add more to the salvage pile, I decided to take another look inside the log building to confirm my memory.
Yes, there were several old appliances in there, and even an old wringer washer. In fact there is quite a lot of metal in there.
Including…
… what that another grinding wheel sharpening stone? (I’d found another one, several years ago) Also…
… what was that I was seeing next to it?
Something that most definitely NOT be going for salvage!
What a find!
I can’t see well enough to know how this old grindstone was powered. The gears are all ceased, but that can probably be fixed.
If you click through to the next photo, you’ll see the grinding wheel still has its axel, unlike the one I’d found back in 2020. It’s a shame there’s no sign of the pedal powered frame it would have been on, though the pieces may well be buried in there.
I showed them to my SIL and told her, I’m thinking we have enough to have the salvage company come out this fall, then come back again next year. As far as I know, they won’t go into a collapsing shed like this to get stuff, so we’d have to pull out all the metal ourselves.
I forgot to talk to my brother about it, though, by the time the trailer was set and the driver left. They then needed to check inside to make sure nothing fell over or got damaged, so I left them to it and started going through the aluminum again.
They had to leave soon after checking the contents, but they will be back again next week, this time with a friend and a second trailer to haul things! They’re going to be running out of space to store things soon. 😄
After they left, I finished the bag of aluminum I was working on, then headed inside to help my daughter. Today was the day we could finally put up the tub surround!
That took way longer than either of us expected.
The problem was figuring out where exactly to cut the holes for the taps and faucet, then how to cut the holes themselves. We don’t have any hole cutting tools.
After much measuring and marking and measuring some more, my daughter marked out where the holes needed to be on the back of a panel. Then we headed outside and used incrementally larger drill bits to make the holes. My largest drill bit wasn’t going to make a large enough hole, of course, but I could still use it to enlarge the holes before we switched to using a utility knife – one of the alternative tools recommended in the instructions.
Eventually, we got them done and set it over the pipes to see how it fit.
For all her measuring, one of them didn’t.
The problem is, there is nothing level or plumb in our bathroom – neither the walls nor the tub!
We took turns carefully shaving off more and more of the opening over the hot water tap until we could finally get it on, and the panel was flat against the wall.
Which is when my daughter discovered her mistake.
Before we started measuring for the holes, the panels themselves had to be set against the walls, with their positions marked off, so that the corner pieces could properly cover the edges.
She measured and marked the back of the panel, as if it were the front. The whole thing was off by about half an inch.
But only at the top.
🫤
We’ll just have to figure it out.
Last of all, a notch had to be cut out at the top to fit under the shower. The previous tub surround fit under it, but these panels are ever so slightly taller.
They are also ever so slightly narrower. Which means that areas of old adhesive cannot be covered by the new panels.
We will also have a bit chunk of open wall open on one end.
We’ll have to figure out how to work around this.
Meanwhile, I had to move on to other things while my daughter got out the caulking gun to apply the adhesive. I was able to give her a hand as she was finishing with the second panel, then helped her with the third.
After being adhered to the walls as best could be done with how things are, they were taped in place and left to sit for about 20 minutes, before she could remove the protective film, then adhere the corner pieces.
So I headed back outside to work on the aluminum again.
I ended up out there for several house, coming inside only long enough to hydrate or use the bathroom!
Here is how things looked when my daughter finished adding the corner pieces.
It now needs to sit for 48 hours before they can be caulked with a silicone sealant.
Which is probably what we’ll have to use to cover the gap between the panel over the taps, and the corner piece.
Once the sealant has had a chance to fully cure, we will finally be able to put the new taps and faucet back on, and the tub and shower will be useable.
Though we still don’t have hot water.
I was supposed to call and see if we might still be able to get a warranty replacement, but never got to it. Meanwhile, the powered anode rod we ordered is ready for pick up, and I wasn’t even able to do that!
I did, however, get some decent progress on the aluminum.
In the first photo above, you can see the six bags of sorted aluminum. I had only two new clear bags left, so I have been finding ways to salvage bags that weren’t too badly damaged, and reusing them. With the mixed metal removed, and filling the bags as much as I could while still being able to tie them off, I was able to combine at least 8 bags into those six. I wasn’t really keeping track, but … hold on. Maybe I did…
If you click through to the next photo, you can see the rest of the bags that need to be sorted through, on the left. On the right, there’s one bag with mixed metal in it, had half a bag of aluminum (it got too dark to continue). I had to throw away three bags that were too torn up, one of them a smaller blue plastic recycling bag, but a couple of bags were double bagged, and I was able to salvage the outer bags. When putting things aside for the night, I stuffed three empty bags to reuse, into the crate. Not counting the two new bags… That makes 10 bags of that I’ve sorted through, for 6 1/2 bags of aluminum, and almost a full bag of mixed metal.
Tomorrow, I plant to keep at the sorting, then we’ll see how many we can fit into the truck. Unfortunately, we are now expecting to get rain between 8am and noon. If it’s raining, I’ll move the truck out so I can bring the bags into the garage to continue sorting. I don’t expect to be able to head to the salvage yard until the afternoon. After that, I’ll be heading to the nearest Walmart for more cat food. We are almost out!
While was writing this, the Cat Lady started messaging me. She has someone who is looking for two male feral cats – actual ferals – to adopt! That would require trapping. We’ve got a few that we can’t get close enough to see if they are male or female.
We should be able to catch 3 female kittens and one adult female without need of a trap, so she will see about booking us for spays next month.
I told her about my plans to go to the salvage yard with some aluminum tomorrow, then to the Walmart, near where we usually meet up. She had asked me to let her know when I’d be going there next, as she has some cat beds and a cat tree for us! When I told her I was needing to buy kibble, she told me she would get a couple of bags for us, and can meet me tomorrow afternoon. That is so awesome of her! Every little bit helps. That 40 pound bag I got just a little while ago is already almost gone, partly because I had to use it for the inside cats, too.
So that’s my plan for tomorrow, I guess!
Which means I’d better be getting myself to bed.
Until next time, then…
Have a wonderful day!
The Re-Farmer
Oh, it feels good to have such a productive day!
Even if it wasn’t where I intended it to be. 😄
In the main garden area, I can happily say that the high raised bed is done! Here are the before and after pictures.
I got the first picture after cleaning up all the supports and netting, and collecting all the twist ties, the sheets we used to try and protect the peppers from frost, and finally removed the cover. You can click through to see the “after” photo.
After cleaning up the dead pepper plants and finding shallots that had been missed, the grass clipping mulch was removed and I started loosening the soil and weeding it.
Compaction is a real problem. That soil was rock hard!
After getting out as many weed roots and rhizomes as I could, I dug a trench down the middle of the bed for trench composting. The pepper plants I pulled out where cut into smaller pieces into the trench, and some of the grass clipping mulch went in as well. After the material was covered again and the soil levels, I scattered more grass clippings over the top and used my little hand cultivator to work the clippings into the soil. Hopefully, as it breaks down, it will help keep the soil from compacting so much.
Next, the soil was pulled away from the edged and mounded in the middle. More grass clippings were stuffed against the logs. Especially in the corners where the logs have some gaps, so the soil won’t wash out. Finally, the mound in the middle was leveled out again.
When we get to direct sowing seed to overwinter and, hopefully, get an early start next year, the beds will not be watered. We don’t want them to germinate yet. For now, however, the high raised bed got a thorough watering, to kick start the breakdown of the plants matter buried in the trench. The top of the bed got a scattering of grass clippings to protect the soil.
I was just finishing this when my brother arrived, so I headed out to help him as best I could. They are bringing their storage trailer out tomorrow, and it will be full, so he had brought large concrete pavers that will go under the tires, so it won’t sink into the soil
He also brought two snow blowers.
One of them even works!
Well… the other one does, too, but it has an issue that he needs to tweak for it to run properly.
Which means we will have access to a working snow blower this winter!!
We might get to retire little Spewie – or just use it to make paths around the house, instead of the entire driveway.
With the trailer coming tomorrow, my brother wanted to clear away some low hanging tree branches, so it could get through the more solid part of the driveway past the pump shack.
So, while my brother went to unload some stuff out of his truck, first, I started a different job that needed to be done.
Clearing around the pump shack.
Across from the pump shack is a lilac bush. It had been planted with an old tire around it, but it has spread quite a bit. So I decided to cut the suckers back to the tire, widening the drive again.
Here are the before and after pictures.
First, one corner of the pump shack.
To the left of the first photo, you can see part of a maple that keeps growing back. This has become an unintentional coppice. There are some really nice, straight stems in there. I will leave them for now. I’m hoping they will do well for some future wattle weave garden beds I’m thinking of doing.
I didn’t get the “after” photos until after my brother left, and things were starting to get pretty dark! I had the charger for my mini chainsaw set up in the shack. Very handy.
Most of what got cleared away from this corner was self seeded raspberry bushes.
After clearing this corner, I went to the other side of the drive to work on the lilac bushes until my brother came over to cut the largest branch he was concerned about, which was almost directly above the lilac. I finished clearing the lilac after all the branch cutting was done and cleaned up. Here is the before and after on that.
Now that the south side is cleared away, the suckers growing behind them will get more light. I don’t mind this lilac spreading out to make a bit of a hedge, but not towards the driveway. Once I could access the tire, I could see that the parent plant had long died away. There was nothing but old and rotten pieces of it left. So this bush is basically all suckers from that original, now dead, lilac.
Once that was done, I went back to finish off the other corner of the pump shack.
Here are the before and after pictures of that.
I cleared those trees away back when I dug out my dad’s old makeshift forge, which is now against the wall. It didn’t take long for them to come back!
If you click through to the next photo, you can see what a huge difference it made to clear those away!
When my brother started using his extended pole chainsaw to clear away the big branches, he also used it to cut down the largest of the trees coming up by the pump shack for me, too. I still went back over the stump with my mini chainsaw – there were about 4 stems coming out of one tiny old tree stump! – to get rid of as much of it as I could. Drained one of my batteries in the process!
Most of this clean up was done with a pair of loppers, though. The mini chain saw was only used for the few things too large for the loppers, including the dead lilac stems I uncovered.
All of this, including the branches my brother cut away, went onto the burn pile. Some of the branches will need to be broken down further, though.
The large branches are all maple. As they get broken down, I think I will set some of them aside for fire wood, for future cookouts in the fire pit.
Eventually, we will need to burn that pile. It’s not something that can be chipped, as we have been tossing things like diseased apple trees and squash vines with powdery mildew on them. With how big the pile is getting, this will likely happen after there is snow on the ground, when it will be safer to burn.
My brother had a couple of surprises for us, as well. For my daughter, he brought over an old bike his son had attached a motor to. His son had even used it to get to work! It needs new tires, but he’s pretty sure the motor still works. That would be very handy for quick trips to the post office, rather than taking the truck.
He also gave use several boxes of spray paint, most of which have never been opened, new tubes of caulking, roofing tar and even a caulking gun. All stuff that will come in very handy here, that he doesn’t need anymore.
He even loaned us a socket set. A very unusual one, with all super large sockets! We’ll be able to use it to practice removing the anode rods from the old hot water tanks.
Tomorrow, I’m going to call the hot water tank company. We shouldn’t be able to get another replacement tank on warranty, but it is still within the 6 years, and this tank only lasted one year after installation. It’s worth a shot.
If not, we’ll see about getting replacement heat elements and, hopefully, that will be enough to get it working again. And if we replace the anode rod with the powered one that should arrive next week, they will hopefully last longer, and we won’t have that sulfur smell in our hot water anymore. Even if we do get a warranty tank, we plan to install the powered anode rode. We might be able to get a plumber to install it, too; it won’t be as expensive to have a hot water tank installed, if we already have everything needed.
We shall see.
So that is where we are at now!
Tomorrow, we are looking at another nice day, with an expected high of 20C/68F. While I do plan to work in the garden more, I want to re-bag our aluminum, removing any mixed metals in the process, and see if I can get it to the salvage yard either tomorrow or the day after. The bags are mostly old cat food cans, to the outside cats keep digging in them and making a mess! Plus, once we remove any mixed metals that got in there, we will get a much better price, and I really want to get those bags cleared away.
As for the garden beds, based on the long range forecast, I am looking to have enough beds ready to do the winter sowing in the beginning of November. We’ve got some cooler days coming up, but only one day with possible rain, and then we are supposed to be slightly warmer. There’s even a day predicted to be 22C/72F before the end of October!
We shall see.
Meanwhile, my daughter got the last coat of milder resistant primer over the spacers around the tub. Which means that we can start installing the new tub surround, tomorrow!
Little by little, it’s getting done!
The Re-Farmer
It is turning out to be a lovely day today! We’re at 19C/66F right now, which is our predicted high of the day, with almost no wind at all. Which means I’ve been able to get some stuff done in the garden! Finally!
The first thing to get done was take down the last of the nets and support stakes on the future trellis bed and around the strawberries. I was surprised to find more strawberry plants have been eaten, though! As near as I can figure, a deer managed to get its heat under the netting on one side.
*sigh*
I had some chicken wire around the side where a hole had been made in the netting. Once everything was cleared, I put the chicken wire over the bed for now. The strawberries – what’s left of them – will be heavily mulched for the winter, but at this point I’m thinking we may need to transplant them closer to the house, where we can more easily keep the deer away. I’ll decide that later.
With all the hardware collected and set aside, I started cleaning up the high raised bed – mostly because it’s easier on the body!
I was expecting to find shallots that I missed harvesting, once I started cleaning up the dead pepper plants, and I was right. I found quite a few, actually, considering how small the bed is.
I’ve decided I will find a place to transplant these and mulch them over the winter, so that next year, we will have shallot seeds.
I removed the grass clipping mulch on the high raised bed and got about half way through digging out weeds and their roots, when I got a message from my brother. He’s on his way over with another load. He plans to cut away some tree branches while he is here, as they have a storage trailer they will be bringing out tomorrow, and they are in the way.
I’m more than happy to get those branches cleared away!
So I paused in the garden to come in and have lunch before he gets here, as I plan to help my brother as much as possible once he gets here.
While I was waiting for my food to heat up, I tended to the dehydrated peppers.
This is three trays of peppers, combined into one. They’re back in the oven for now, while it cools down (we used the “warm” setting at 150F to dehydrate the peppers). Later on, we might pop them into a jar for storage, or perhaps powder them. I’m not the pepper eater, so I will let the family decide which they would prefer.
Time to head back into the main garden area until my brother gets here. Now that all the stakes and netting are down, it should go faster. My goal right now is to prepare as many beds as I can to direct sow into, then cover with leaves for the winter. Hopefully, we will get a head start on the garden next year by doing this, but if it doesn’t work, the beds will still be ready for planting in, in the spring.
Little by little, it’s getting done!
The Re-Farmer
Well, we may not have had many yellow peppers in the garden, but now that they are ripening in the living room, we have a LOT of yellow peppers!
I neglected to take any photos, though, so here is a WordPress AI generated version…
I specifically told the AI generator “long slices”, but it gave me rounds, instead. 😄
There are two types of yellow peppers in the short season collection we got. Yellow and orangey-yellow. Once I had them under the kitchen like while washing them, I could finally tell the difference!
I prepped and sliced enough yellow peppers, plus I think one or two orangey-yellow ones, to fill a gallon size freezer bag.
The remaining orangey-yellow ones were starting to dehydrate all on their own, so I sliced those ones super thin and set them to dehydrate in the oven. That got me three 9×13 baking pans, which required a bit of creativity to fit on the two oven racks. I’ve got a tray meant to cook vegetables on the BBQ, so the bottom is perforated, to use as a spacer between two pans on top of each other.
There were other purple and Sweet Chocolate peppers that could have been processed, but I left those for later and got almost all the tomatoes that are in the living room. A few ended up in the compost, as they were over ripe. The rest got washed, then topped and tailed. I was able to fill one gallon size freezer bag with San Marzano, plus some Roma VF (I assume) compost pile tomatoes. Another gallon bag got a mix of the Forme de Coure and what are probably all Black Cherry tomatoes. There might be some Chocolate Cherry tomatoes mixed in there. Once off the vines, I can’t tell them apart.
The bags all went into the small freezer for now. The chest freezer has bins and boxes of ripening tomatoes covering it right now. I go through them regularly and pull out the ones that are ripening the fastest, and move them into my harvesting colander. Once that’s full, they get transferred to the living room to continue ripening.
Eventually, we will be able to combine the contents of bins so that there’s fewer of them, and have easier access to the chest freezer. Moving a bin or two is not an issue. Moving five bins, a box and a colander to get into the freezer it something else entirely!
All in all, that’s a pretty good haul to quickly process, considering these are all things that were harvested early, before they got hit with frost. There are many more tomatoes ripening, including the ones from the compost pile that look like Indigo Blue Chocolate, though I suppose some might be Black Beauties, from last year’s garden. The basin of unripe hot peppers in the living room is looking more and more red. There are still a lot of green sweet peppers, some of which I can tell are the purple Dragonfly peppers, with a very few Purple Beauty left, and others are the brown Sweet Chocolate peppers. The remaining ones, I expect to turn yellow or orangey-yellow.
So we will have plenty more vegetables to process for the winter over the next while.
Tomorrow we are supposed to reach a high of 19C/66F and, more importantly, we are NOT expected to have high winds again. Since there is nothing more we can do in the bathroom until the sealant has finished curing, that means I should be able to finally get outside and clean up in the garden, and prepare beds for fall planting. It’s time to get garlic planted – we will be using our own garlic from this year’s harvest – and I want to try fall sowing seeds that will hopefully survive our winter and give us an early start in next year’s garden. At this point, looking at the monthly forecast, it seems we will be in for a relatively mild winter. I certainly hope so. We’re supposed to have a La Nińa winter this year which, for our region, usually results in bitterly cold temperatures.
I could really do without that.
While I can no longer tolerate heat like I used to, I find I am absolutely dreading the cold of winter more and more, every year. Especially this year, as we have not been able to slowly stock up quite as much as we have in the past, on the assumption that we will get snowed in or whatever, for weeks or even months again. Everything is so much more expensive now, it’s getting harder and harder to get any extras at all.
So the more we can process from our garden and put up for the winter, the better!
The Re-Farmer
My plans to work outside today have been derailed by high winds.
Hopefully, all the leaves in the yard haven’t been blown away, because I was planning to use them as mulch!
Stuff did get done, though.
But first, the cuteness!
The kibble I picked up yesterday is a different brand from what I’d picked up at the beginning of the month. The pieces are quite a bit smaller. When I set them to soak, it was absolute mush by the time I headed out to feed the kitties.
They didn’t seem to care one whit! They are just loving their warm breakfasts!
Once back inside, my first priority was to see if the leftover pieces of wood lath could be used as spacers in the cutaway portion of the wall around the tub. I was afraid they would be too thick, but they turned out to be the same width as the fake tile paneling. They were too thick for some places that already had spacers of a sort in them. We’ll just have to work around that.
My main focus was around the pipes, and the outer edges. There were also a few nails that simply would not come out, nor could they be hammered in, along the back wall, and I wanted to make sure there were spacers in between them. The areas you can see in the photo above with no spacers added are where there are already spacers of various sizes.
After that was done, my daughter grabbed the tube of mold and mildew resistant sealant. Unfortunately, when she started to apply it with the tip of the tube, the back end of the tub popped open! So she ended up squeezing the sealant out the back and using her finger to scoop it and spread it. If you click through to the second image, you can see part of where she used it. She sealed the cut edges of the openings around the pipes, and every corner and edge around the cut out portion.
She used most of the tub, but there was still a bit left. Since the tub was broken, it wouldn’t last and we didn’t want it to go to waste. I was able to use the last of it for what I’d bought it for in the first place; this stuff is both sealant and adhesive, and I used it along the edge of the overlapping roof panels on the cat isolation shelter.
Unfortunately, there is just no way to clamp it down. I put weights on, but some places still just did not want to stay together. We will just pick up another tube – this stuff is very inexpensive – and go over it again later. The catio roof needs to be seals, too.
Working on that roof was somewhat alarming, though. I’m glad the entire structure is as heavy as it is! It’s in a sheltered area, but not from the south winds we have today. The south facing edge of the roof panel was being rattled by the wind quite a lot.
Thankfully, we screwed the roof panels down quite securely. It could still potentially get blown off, but it’s not that bad, yet. We will need to keep an eye on it, though, because the wind could loosen, if not tear off, some of the screws.
Speaking of which, I was curious about what is officially considered “high winds” so I looked it up.
Did you know there is a wind scale, like there is an earthquake scale? It’s call the Beaufort wind scale.
According to the weather app, we’re getting 30kph winds. On the Beautfort scale, that is a “fresh breeze”, when “Small trees with leaves begin to sway.”
Yeah, I’m calling BS on that. Based on what I was seeing when I was outside, we are somewhere between a 6 and a 7 on their chart – a “strong breeze” or “near gale”, with the occasional “gale” gust strong enough to take down branches. I’m finding small branches all over the place, these days.
Anyhow… where was I?
Ah, yes. Sealant.
The sealant needs a full 36 hours to dure. After that, everything will get one last coat of paint.
Once that is dry, we can try and figure out exactly where we need to cut holes into the tub surround to fit over the plumbing.
So we’re looking at a couple more days before we can start installing the tub surround.
Since there is nothing more we can do in the bathroom for now, and it’s too windy to work in the garden outside, my daughter and I really pushed to get as many dishes done as we could. Without hot water, we’ve been mostly just using the kettle for hot water, which doesn’t go very far when it comes to doing dishes. This time, we filled up our stock pots (not the giant one; that would be too heavy for our glass top stove) to heat, then kept refilling and heating more. We were finally able to get those odd items that gets set to one side as we do loads of things we use the most often that somehow never get done.
My older daughter, who was working all night on commissions, sent me some funds for take out, so as the last of the dishes were being done, I headed into town to pick that up. We’ve had more take out in this month than we’ve had in years!
When I opened the garage door for the truck, I saw something curious on the tailgate.
Tiny little hand prints in the dust, from something that was climbing up to the box cover.
Those are not kitty paw prints, that’s for sure. Those are tiny little racoon hand prints!
What I don’t know is, why would racoons be climbing the truck? The box is empty, and there isn’t even food garbage anywhere in the truck or garage.
As long as they don’t damage anything…
Anyhow…
The sealant in the bathroom needs dry conditions as it cures, so no one is going to be heating up stock pots of water and use the tub for washing. Back to sponge bathing in the sink!
With getting as many dishes done as we were able to, though, I was able to set up the slow cooker with just water in it. That can be left without someone continually there to keep an eye on it, and we’ll have a larger amount of hot water handy for general washing and can just top it up as needed. Much better than our poor, over worked kettle! Our kettle is clear glass, and we can see just how quickly the rust and scale builds up! My older daughter gave it a good scrubbing last night.
Well, we might not be able to get more done in the bathroom until the sealant cures, not work done outside, so I guess this is a good day to collect the ripened tomatoes and peppers in the living room and see if there is enough to process for the winter!
Time to get back to it, then!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 