Okay, I did say, months ago, that we did not need to order seeds this year.
I also said that I knew I probably would order more, anyhow! ๐
I’ve placed two orders so far. One was with MI Gardener, and I just got the email notification that they have been shipped. I explain what I chose, and why, in this post. Most are “back up” seeds, in case our winter sowing experiment fails.
I also placed an order with Veseys, but this was more for the food forest. The seeds ordered were so that I could take advantage of a promo code to get free shipping. I explain what I ordered there, and why, in this post.
So, why am I ordering even more seeds?
I mean, besides the fact that I just want to… ๐
Well, this order is with Heritage Harvest Seeds. It’s actually been a couple of years since I’ve ordered from them. They are a small heirloom seed company that is even further north than we are, so as far as climate and growing season goes, I know anything I order from there should grow here.
Another reason is, more back up seeds!
This is what I ordered today. (all links should open in new tabs)
At the top of the list is Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon. We tried growing these last year, and one one tiny little watermelon out of the only surviving transplant. I want to try them again, but this time give them more dedicated space, rather than having it share a bed with a whole bunch of melons. I do still have seeds left, but they are a couple of years old, so I want to have some fresh seed.
Next is the Arikara squash. This is a variety of winter squash I have been eye balling for years. I chose is specifically due to its rarity, with the goal of saving seeds. From the website description:
Originally grown by the Arikara Indians of North Dakota, This squash is oblong with pinkish orange skin and a green star on the blossom end. The Arikara Indians picked the blossoms and dried them for winter use. A very good storage squash that can be used for soup. (90 days to maturity) Extremely rare.
I may not grow these this year, as I have other winter squash we want to grow, and if I’m looking to save seeds, I don’t want to risk cross pollination. We shall see how things work out.
I also ordered more White Scallop Squash. We had issues growing them in containers last year – they simply did not germinate – but did finally get some in one of the garden beds. By then, it was so late in the season, I’m amazed we had any to harvest at all. The last of the seed went into the winter sown bed with all summer squash. These are back up seeds, in case none survived the winter.
In my MI Gardener order, I did order sugar snap peas. This time, however, I ordered Super sugar snap peas! ๐ From the website:
One of the sweetest and crunchiest snap peas available! The 3 inch pods are delicious eaten raw or cooked and are very productive. A favorite of all who try them! Tall vines to 6โ in height.
If we have the space, I’d like to try both varieties of sugar snap peas we’ll have this year. If we end up with space for only one variety, I’d like to try this one, first.
Last of all, I ordered two packets of Yukon Chief corn. Last year, we had two short season varieties to choose from. Yukon Chief and Orchard Baby. We did Yukon Chief first, due to it’s super short growing season. This year, we will be trying the Orchard Baby. Hopefully, if we can keep the racoons from eating them first, we’ll be able to save seed. We did really like the Yukon Chief, though, so I ordered two packets this time, for next year, and plan to save seed again.
One of the changes at Heritage Harvest is that they now have a $20 minimum order. We’ve never had problems with having our seeds shipped with regular mail, but apparently, others have. Solving the problem meant to have expedited mail with a tracking number, but the extra cost of that only makes sense with orders of at least $20. That brought our final cost to Cdn$36.50
Except it didn’t cost us anything. At least, not anything out of budget.
One of the payment methods is PayPal. This year, we actually got payment for ads on this blog (it took 3 years!), which was sent by PayPal in US dollars. It went into my personal PayPal account, and I left it there, so I used that to pay for this order. Which got converted to US$26.45 at the current exchange rate.
Which worked out quite well, I think.
So that’s what I got today; a combination of things to plant this year, and next year, and back up seeds, if the winter sowing didn’t work.
I have to admit, I had to mightily resist ordering more. They have the Tropeana Lunga onions that grew so well for us when we tried them a few years ago. I was also tempted by the Amish Bottle Onion, simply because of its rarity (and the shape, which I find easier to cut when cooking). I even seriously considered the Yellow of Parma onion, for its excellent storage and up to 1 pound size. We have so many of our own onions seeds, though – as well as seed producing onions – that we may never need to buy onion seeds again. I also want to try the Red Mangel, though that would for a time when we have animals, to grow as feed. There are just so many things I want to try!
This will do for now, though. We have more than enough seeds for this year, and years to come!
We just need to keep expanding the garden beds for now, and grow what we can in the beds we have available now.
I couldn’t get them all in one photo! There’s so much reflection on the windows, the camera doesn’t “see” inside very well. I tried counting and there were at least 13 in there at the time.
Today is apparently not going to be as warm as predicted – just an expected high of 0C/32F instead of the 2C/36F predicted, earlier. It’s still warm enough to set the hose through the storm door window for laundry day.
Yeah. We’re still doing that.
Tomorrow was also supposed to be 2C/36F, but now they’re saying a high of -5C/23F tomorrow, and 3C/37F the day after.
At this point, I’m just happy that high winds have passed.
Of course, the temperatures had got me thinking of the garden again… but then, the garden is never really far from my mind.
I did end up making another seed order today. I’ll explain that in a separate post! Meanwhile, I got a email notification that my MI Gardener order has been shipped. I look forward to seeing those! The girls are particularly interested in the Turkish Orange eggplant, which we will need to start indoors around the end of March.
I’m really itching for the snow to be gone. I really want to see how the winter sowing experiment has turned out!
First, the more fun stuff. I hit the post office on the way home and found more packages than I was expecting, including – finally! – the new clamp lamps I’d ordered. They were shipped by CanPar and the address we had to use was for the store the post office is in, because the system wouldn’t accept anything else. The benefit of living in such a tiny community. The postal staff knew exactly who it was for and there was a parcel slip in our mail box.
The first photo is everything outside the box. The second is assembled. These lamps are suitable for up to 250W bulbs, so we shouldn’t have the damaged bulb that we got with the heat bulb in the sun room. That lamp now has a 150W ceramic heat bulb in it.
The ceramic bulbs I’ve installed in the lamps are 200W, and they are ready to go. I can put one up somewhere in the sun room, without having to remove the one that’s already there, but I may want to move the one that’s already there and have the warmer bulb in that spot.
The lamp in the isolation shelter will take more doing, as the current lamp needs to be removed completely. We’ll need to open up the roof, remove the rigid insulation “ceiling”, then get the lamp out. The cord is wrapped around the support it’s hanging off of, to keep it out of cat reach. I’m hoping to get that done in the next couple of days, when it’s supposed to be warmer, so that it’ll be ready when it gets colder again.
In other things, today was my day to do my mother’s errands. I had asked her if she wanted me to pick up lunch and she ended up saying to just get food for myself, she would eat what she had.
Of course, I wasn’t going to do that.
I got to town early enough to pick something up before going to her place, but nothing was open until 11am, which is when she was expecting me. I was able to run another errand before parking and waiting the last few minutes before the restaurant I’d decided on, opened. While waiting, I called my mother to tell her I would be there closer to 11:30. She told me she was reheating some potatoes to go with lunch, and I told her, I’m bringing lunch. She doesn’t need to.
She was quite okay with that, and even joked about how spoiled she’s getting with not having to cook!
Soon, I was placing our orders, which were ready faster than I expected for them just opening, then made a quick stop at the grocery store for drinks.
When I got to her place and knocked at the door, there was no answer, but I knew she was home so I started walking in. She was in the bathroom and couldn’t hear me, which was pretty much what I expected.
What I didn’t expect was the strong smell of smoke.
While setting getting the food and drinks onto the table and getting plates, I found the source.
The potatoes my mother said she was cooking had burned. She’d salvaged them, and the carrots she was reheating with them, by scraping the burnt bits into the sink, and the rest were in a bowl on her counter. The burnt bitts were REALLY heavily charred. The frying pan she’d been using was also in the sink, soaking – and totally black!
When my mother came out and saw where I was in the kitchen, she told me about burning them. She said there’s something wrong with the element she was using, in that it stays on high, even when turned down to low.
…
Which may be true. However, this stove was installed brand new, after she moved into this apartment from the one she’d been in when she first moved into the building. She has never said anything about the element being like this before. She’s also never burned anything like this before!
I didn’t say much about it, though while we were eating, I was looking around for a fire extinguisher. Being a public housing building, I would have expected one and asked. She didn’t know what I was talking about at first, so I described what it would look like to her, and she said no, she had nothing like that. Granted, she wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to use one, but it would have been good to have one if an actual fire broke out, so someone else would have it available to use.
While talking about fire extinguishers and alarms, she pointed to the spot on the wall where her CO monitor that my brother got her, used to be. When we set up her place before taking her home from the hospital, my brother checked it and found it had no batteries. We had some issues getting fresh batteries into it and being able to close up the back. There were too many other things that needed to be done, so we took the batteries back out again, and my brother took it home with him to check on later.
My mother’s comment was that she had been “fooled” by it. It had started beeping, but she should the sound was coming from the fire detector on the ceiling, which is also a CO monitor. She’s called public housing and they send someone over. The fire detector was working fine, and the beeping was traced to the CO monitor on the wall.
Long story short, they took the batteries out so the beeping would stop.
…
So not only did my mother think this was some sort of “trick”, but apparently, she thought they were smoke detectors.
I tried to explain to her how dangerous CO poisoning could be, but she preferred to think my brother was somehow messing with her, instead.
*sigh*
I dropped it for now.
Once we were done lunch, we went over her shopping list, which included a trip to the pharmacy for some items this time, and I was soon off. When I got to the truck, though, I took the time to message my family about the things that happened at my mom’s. The burnt food is something home care had told us to watch out for, as it becomes a safety issue. While driving to the pharmacy, I remembered I had the home care coordinator’s business card in my phone case, so I called her when I parked and left a message about it.
Oh, there was another issue I’d tried asking my mother about, and that was getting a Life Line. She’d talked to the woman from the Senior’s Centre; they are the ones that arrange this. Unfortunately, she was confused about the 2 versions of it she can get and wasn’t sure which one to choose. More on that later.
The items my mother had on her list for the pharmacy were easy to find, so I was soon done there and moved on to the grocery store. I was able to get everything on her list, with no substitutions, which was nice.
Today is Tuesday, which is when the common room of her building is used for group low impact exercises, arranged with the local senior’s centre, and people from other buildings come over for it, too. When I got back, they were already starting to gather, so I went around. I had told my mother to go ahead and join them and I could put things away for her, but she was still in her apartment when I got there.
After putting things away, my mother started talking about her bubble packs. It took a while to figure out what she was getting at, and then I had to open up the lock box to be sure, but my mother’s meds were completely out. She said they were going to be delivered, but then didn’t seem sure that they would actually be delivered – and was asking me if I’d picked them up while at the pharmacy! I had no idea about, and she was starting to get so upset, I told her I would just go back to the pharmacy and get them.
It’s a good thing I did.
The prescriptions were prepared for delivery later, so the pharmacist was surprised to see me, but since I was there, she brought out the annual form they need signed to continue doing my mother’s medications in bubble packs. Since they know I have my mother’s permission with this stuff, I was able to sign it on her behalf. My mother would have been very confused by getting that form!
This time, when I got back to her building, my mother was in the common room with the others. So I took care of putting things away, then doing some light house keeping. I hadn’t tested her blood pressure earlier, and it was while I was sweeping that I’d found the box with the machine in it.
My mother had hidden it under her table.
So, no testing her BP this visit! I did put it back on the table, though.
After I finished cleaning up and putting things away, I started heading out. My mother was in behind a table with someone next to her, so I was going to skirt around the group as quietly as possible to give her a hug and a kiss goodbye, but enough people recognized me and started saying hi that I just laughed and said I was going to interrupt, when right through the circle of people to get around to my mother and gave her hugs and kisses. They got a good laugh out of that!
Later on, my mother phoned me and thanked me for that. Apparently, doing this was “good for my reputation”. ??? She explained that the group talks about all sorts of things, and one regular subject is about how many of the seniors are either largely forgotten by their adult children, or treated badly by them. I got the impression my mother hear a lot of positive comments after I left. Which made her happy, so that makes me happy.
She also told me she’s talked to the woman from the Senior’s Center again about the Life Line, and she will be coming by to my mother’s tomorrow to start the paperwork for it. I told my mother that, if necessary, I expect to be home all day, so she can call me if she feels the need.
Meanwhile, I updated my siblings about how things went, including about the CO monitor. My brother soon responded. He found out what was going on. Once he was able to get the batteries in, it started to beep. A double beep every 30 seconds. The display screen also said “end”.
On the back of the monitor, it explained that the monitor needs to be replaced every 10 years and, as a reminder, it would start to double beep every 30 seconds and display the word “end”.
You’d think the public housing guys that maintain CO monitors would have caught on to that.
Or maybe they did, but my mother didn’t understand what they were saying to her.
I feel better about that, at least!
Not so about the burned food. My mother is always super cautious about that sort of thing, so it was *really* unusual for her to not just burn food, but burn it so badly.
As alarming as that is, this may turn out to be a blessing in disguise. My mother really wants to be in long term care. She is aware of how much she is physically failing, and she at least somewhat recognizes her own cognitive decline and it, understandably, scares her. I really hope this is what gets her into the care she needs!
Total change of subject.
I got a call from the Cat Lady while I was working on this. She had sent me some security camera images. The property they moved on to about a year and a half ago, backs up against a national park, where lots of people walk their dogs. Six off leash dogs suddenly showed up on their deck, just minutes after their youngest daughter had been out there with Button. Button is completely blind and deaf now, and their youngest daughter makes a point of going out there with him in a harness to get some fresh air when she comes home from school for lunch.
Her husband had chased the dogs off and they confronted the owner, who said outright she didn’t care. Even when they told her their daughter had been on the deck with a blind and deaf cat, the response was, that cat would have been eaten. !!! When they confronted her on that, her response was, I don’t care, I hate cats. !!!! She also called the Cat Lady rude names, and her very butch partner started looking ready to be violent.
They called the RCMP on them. This is not an off leash park, for starters, and they are on something like 10 acres, so that’s quite a distance for the dogs to be running around away from their owners. People that irresponsible with their animals should not have any, let alone 6 big dogs! I just can’t imagine knowing your animals are prone to violence, and not caring if the kill another animal or possibly hurt a child.
They were so relieved their daughter and Button had already gone inside, that’s for sure!
Which lead to an update on Button. His sight had been going for a while now, and then it was just gone. The vet thinks it was a viral infection, in utero. Any other kittens in the litter and the mother likely died, and they really don’t know how Button survived. It has effected his development in many ways. The Cat Lady tells me, they don’t care. They adore him. Even their dog adores him. He is in almost constant contact with a human, and they even take him out for coffee and other outings. And to think, he was supposed to be adopted by someone else entirely, who ended up backing out and adopting another cat, when his vet care kept getting longer and longer!
Meanwhile, she will be looking into booking a couple more neuters for us. I mentioned we might be able to get a female, now that Adam actually comes up to us for pets, so she will see what they can arrange. I told her, whatever they can manage, we’ll happily take. Beggars can’t be choosers! We’ve got so many friendly males, but we really need to get the females done.
She will get back to us when she has more information.
What a day she had, though! I appreciate that, in the middle of all this, she still thinks of us and of how her rescue can help us.
As much as I appreciate that we are slowly warming up and getting some really nice days, the weather whiplash of spring seems almost like an insult. ๐
With things warm enough to be melting all over, today’s high of -7C/19F (which we are already at) with a wind chill of -21C/-6F feels so much colder. A few weeks ago, these temperatures felt like spring!
While doing my morning rounds today, little Magda decided to follow me around. She kept getting under my feet, so I picked her up. She doesn’t like to be carried and ended up on my shoulders – which she didn’t like, either! – but she was cold and shivering, and actually allowed me to tuck her into my jacket.
There’s a weather system blowing from West to East, almost straight across the country, bringing snow and high winds. The snow is supposed to start hitting us withing the next half hour or so, and continue for several hours. Tonight’s low is supposed to drop to -22C/-8F, which means the winds will probably make it feel colder than -30C/-22F
This see-sawing of temperatures means our usual explosion of pot holes on the roads over the next few weeks! While we’re just getting a bit of snow today, it’s not unusual to have at least one big blizzard in March or April.
Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have a high of -7C/19F again, with a warmer overnight low. I’ll be helping my mother with grocery shopping tomorrow, then do some of our own errands as well. After that, we’ll be getting a few days above freezing, then dropping down again, for more weather whiplash!
Winter and spring will be battling out for a few more weeks, yet!
I’m happy to say that today has been a quiet, uneventful day!
I’ve learned to really appreciate boring days. ๐
I was even able to sleep in… sort of. The girls took care of the outside stuff for me, as well as taking care of the inside cats. This includes kicking all the cats out of my room except for Butterscotch and Freya, so they have have their extra feeding of wet cat food, and Butterscotch would get a chance to use the litter. I’m happy to say that she is starting to use more of the room, instead of just the quarter or so of it that she was isolating herself into, but there is still the problem of the young cats going after her when she tries to use the litter.
You’d think that would make it easier to sleep in, but after the other cats are done with breakfast, they want back in, and start scratching at the door.
Loudly.
Today was warm enough that, when it was time to do the evening feeding outside, I made their own version of cat soup by softening their kibble in hot water for a while. They absolutely loved it!
First off, going into the sun room, it looked like there had been a fight or something. What probably happened, though, is that racoons were digging around. Trays were pushed aside all over. Cat carriers on the shelves were pushed aside and half out of their shelves. The litter box was half way across the room. Even the cat beds and self-warming mat on the platform were messed up.
All the food trays and the heated water bowl were empty.
There is the big heated water bowl that no longer heats, but it still being used for water. Of course the water freezes. With the temperatures we’ve been having, it no longer freezes solid. This morning, I could see that the ice on the top had been broken through, and the water below was almost gone.
My guess is, racoons got into the sun room and, once the trays were empty of kibble, they just started digging around on the floor and shelf and the platform, looking for stray bits.
What really hit me, though, was the smell. It’s gotten really bad in there. Yes, we have a litter box, but it looks like it’s only been used to urinate in. Which means, somewhere in hidden corners, we’ve got messes thawing out.
It will be good, once things are warm and dry enough, to empty the sun room and give it a thorough spring cleaning! That’s something we’ve been trying to do every spring. It’s just easier to empty the whole room to clean it, than to try and clean it around the shelves and whatnot stored in there.
Outside, I found one of the food bowls from the bottom of the shelf shelter was on the sidewalk, but that one is always knocked out for some reason. The bowls on all three shelves were empty, though.
All the food trays in the kibble house, and under the water bowl shelter, were empty.
The heated water bowl in its shelter was almost completely dry.
Only in the isolation shelter, did I still find a bit of kibble left in the food bowl.
What I also found was this. It was not there, yesterday.
I noticed something had been digging into the snow pile a little while ago. My guess was that, when I last cleared snow off the top off the well cap, where some cats prefer to eat, old kibble was mixed up in the snow and a skunk or racoon was digging for it.
The hole was bigger after a while, and it looked smoothed out, like something had been lying in the snow cave created.
Today, not only was the “cave” deeper, but if you click through to the next image, you’ll see the other entrance.
The cave had become a tunnel!
I wonder if there is a “room” somewhere in there?
There are too many tracks in the snow to be able to tell what made this. Not the cats, of course. I don’t think a racoon did this, though. It’s too small. Which means it was probably dug out by a skunk.
I noticed cats snuffling about one of the openings, but none seem interested in exploring inside.
Can’t blame them for that! I don’t think it was occupied at the time I found it, but who knows what’s inside?
With the freeze-thaw cycle we’ve been in for a while, the top of that pile of snow has developed a pretty heft crust of snow that partially melted, then froze again, several times. I could probably stand right on top of where the tunnel is, and it would still hold my weight. Not that I’d try, since I’d probably slip and fall right on my butt. Just moving around to the other side of the pile to get a better look at the second opening was rather treacherous!
Inside that tunnel would probably be quite snug and even warm. Snow can be an excellent insulator.
We’re supposed to go above freezing today – we’re almost there already – and be slightly warmer tomorrow. There’s going to be quite a bit more melting happening! The paved roads are good, but it’s going to make portions of the gravel roads very touchy, when my daughter and I head into town to get her prescription. She wants to check out the second hand store I visited yesterday, too. I think she wants to check out that bucket of knitting needles! ๐
It should be a good day for it. Hopefully, the winds have changed. Yesterday was a good day for walking around, except for the wind coming off the ice covered lake. Such a warm day, only to be hit with bitterly cold wind at the same time!
But I will have my daughter for company today. Thankfully, she is feeling better. She had to use a cane, yesterday, and could barely walk from joint pain. PCOS really sucks.
We are such a household of gimps! It says a lot when we have days where I am the most able bodied person in the house!
Ah, well. It is what it is! We just deal with whatever the day brings us!
As usual, I dropped it off early. I confirmed it would be done around 2:30, and the mechanic said he would message me if they were done early, then headed out.
I made my way to a restaurant where I knew I could hang out for a while. Once done there, I didn’t want to go back to all the same places I went to yesterday, partly because the truck wasn’t going to take as long to be done. Then I remembered that there was a second hand store I’ve been meaning to go to for years, and just never got around to it.
It was a nice store. They’ve got lots of place available for their inventory at the moment, so it was easy to see everything. I did get a laugh when I found this display, though.
There isn’t a single crochet hook in there. It was right next to a bucket stuffed full of knitting needles. These were all short enough that they would have disappeared completely in there, so I can see why they’re in another display, but you’d think they’d change the label or something! ๐
Considering how many times I’ve been crocheting in public and had people ask me “what are you knitting”, though, it could simply be they didn’t know there’s a difference. ๐
Eventually, I meandered my way back to the garage. I got there early, and saw my truck was in the parking lot. The owner had stepped out, though, so I got to hang out in the office until he came back and could process the payment.
The total was pretty much where I expected it to be. After taxes, it was $245.88 The “oil cooler line gasket” was under $10, labour was only $50. The alignment was $159.99.
*sigh*
It’s all done, though. We shouldn’t have to go back to the garage again until our next oil change. Unless we want to replace those sensors with the dead batteries, and there is no urgency on that.
Now, hopefully, I won’t need to do more driving for quite some time! We’ve burned through a lot of gas, just since I reset our trip meter after filling the tank at Costco.
Oh. I forgot. I have to go to town tomorrow for a pharmacy trip. After that, however, I have no scheduled trips for almost 2 weeks!
Won’t that be nice!
Of course, there will be unscheduled trips. If nothing else, I’m hoping we can manage some birthday take out for my older daughter. She hates it when we spend money on her, though, even though I budget for it. We shall see.
For now, I’m just going to enjoy being home for the evening.
I got to spend some extra time with the outside cats this morning. We had a chilly night, and it was still pretty cold, but they didn’t seem to notice! It’s going to be a decent day today, and then just keep warming up, so they’re going to be all over the place!
While putting kibble out in the sun room, I got accosted by a tuxedo, who wanted all sorts of pets.
We have a few tuxedos, but I haven’t seen most of them for a while. I’m actually not sure if this is one of our regulars that has come back from exploring, or if this is a new cat. It cats hard to keep track when they come and go so much.
I’m thrilled to have caught him in a tongue blehp, though.
He was incredibly friendly, though, and eager for both food and attention. So he’s probably one of ours that has returned. I suspect that if he were a dump, he would have been more skittish. He could be visiting from another farm, too.
Once outside, there was a crowd of cats on the cat house roof, waiting for kibble, so I went over and got an absolute thrill.
The tabby in front was named by the girls because he apparently always goes for their toes. He nips when he wants attention. He’s not the only one that does that!
Before I got my camera out, not only was I able to pet Adam, but I was able to give her full on, two handed, face and neck scritches. She looked like she was in heaven! This is so awesome! We have been trying to socialize her for 3 years, with virtually zero success. No, suddenly, she has decided she likes us. ๐
She is one of the cats that went into heat early, but she doesn’t seem to be pregnant. Given how long it’s been, I would have expected her to start showing by now. There’s no real way to know right now, though. However, now that she had decided to let us actually pet her, we should be able to get her into a carrier, rather than having to trap her, and get her spayed. Hopefully, the rescue would be able to arrange something, soon. It’s getting warm enough that I would be willing to try trapping cats soon. It’s those overnight temperatures we have to keep an eye on, since we have no way to monitor a trap.
As I was finishing up my rounds and passing by the isolation shelter, I had a whole crowd of faces, watching me!
Magda is one of the cats that is just too smol. She’s almost a year old, but looks like she’s just a few months old. There are several littles like her, but she is the only friendly one – and even she has her making strange moments, still. She would be an easy one to catch for spay and adoption through the rescue, but I’d be afraid to do it. With her small size, that tells me she’s probably going to need extra medical care. Whenever that happens, it seems they end up keeping the cats permanently, and they already have so many unadoptable cats right now!
I tried to do a head count this morning, and I think I counted a total of 30. It’s hard to know for sure if I got them all, or if I double counted some.
So many of them would make such great indoor cats, if we could find people to adopt them!
I just had to include my hand for perspective, though the kitty prints help, too. That is one big raccoon was had visiting us!
It’s doing a good job of cleaning up the old kibble that cats won’t eat anymore, so I can’t complain. I haven’t checked today’s trail cam files yet, so I don’t know it it was caught, but a few days ago I saw him going in and out through our gate, and he is a big’un!
While putting kibble into the isolation shelter, I got tackled.
That little tabby has been after attention pretty much every morning, now.
Colin wanted attention so much, he forced himself into my hand while I was trying to get pictures! Lately, I’ve typically had about 5 or 6 friendly males, pushing for attention, in the mornings. Plus Magda. I have to be careful trying to pet her. She’s so small, the big boys push her around without even noticing!
As usual, I left for my appointment early, remembering to leave the gate open for today’s prescription delivery. My husband would get his meds faster that way, than if I went to the pharmacy to get them myself.
While dropping off the keys, I asked for a general idea of how long it would take. The best he could tell me was “a few hours”. Thankfully, it’s warmer now (we are still at our high of -6C/21F), so it was a fine day to walk around town.
The first thing to do was find somewhere to get breakfast. I was still early enough that not a lot of places were open yet, but also, I needed to find somewhere were I could adjust my order to fit my Lenten fast from sugars and starches. I ended up walking across town, almost to the lake, to a hotel cafe where I knew they would be open for breakfast. I don’t often go there, partly because they are not accessible, and I don’t do well with stairs. But, it’s got reliably good home cooking type meals, and they open early in the day. I also knew that I would be able to take my time while there, and not feel like I’m taking up a table they needed for any sort of rush.
All their breakfast meals include home cut hash browns and toast in your bread of choice – both things I wanted to skip. I told the waitress what I was needing to cut out, and asked if they could just add an extra egg or something, instead. She said she would talk to the kitchen staff, and that’s what they ended up doing. I got their “Farmer’s Breakfast) of eggs, bacon, ham and sausage. The hash browns and toast would have made it a really huge meal! It was very good.
My tea without sugar, however, was … tea without sugar. ๐
When I was done there, I went to several nearby shops to look around. One of them was a dollar type store, and I did find a few things, including a long pipe cleaner style brush for our bathroom sink. When we had to take stuff out of the bathroom while replacing the taps, faucet, some pipes, and the old tub surround, we had to take pretty much everything out of the bathroom. That included one of these pipe cleaner type brushes. It’s the only thing that can clean out the bathroom sink properly.
Unfortunately, it disappeared at some point. We figure a cat had to have dragged it off, but to where? It’s been months, and we still haven’t found it!
I was happy to see they had some in stock and made sure to grab one!
I spent enough time looking at things and checking out other stores that when I got closer to another restaurant, a fried chicken place, it was actually a good time to stop for lunch.
They had a new sign out front. They are now open for breakfast, too! Until recently, they didn’t open until 11am. Something to remember, should I need to in the future.
It took a while, but I finally settled on one of their “snack” meals, that came with only one side and no bun. Instead of the usual fries, I chose their coleslaw. I like their coleslaw better than their fries, anyhow! So that worked out.
Again, I was able to take my time about it, as much to make it easier on my hips and knees as anything else! I knew I would have a lot more walking ahead of me.
Once I was done there, I made my way to another shop where I found a few more small things to pick up. The pharmacy was across the street, and I remembered to go there to get the printouts for our taxes.
We paid over $1400 in co-pay for my husband’s meds last year. His private insurance covers 90% and, once the $3000+ deductible is covered, some of his medications switch to the provincial prescription insurance, which then covers 100%. Most of his meds aren’t covered by the provincial insurance at all.
Thank God for private insurance!
My prescription co-pay amount is miniscule compared to his.
From there, it was more walking – and finding a clean bench to sit on for a while. Last of all, I stopped at a hardware store, where I finally found a metal dish rack to replace the plastic coated one we’ve been using since moving here. It was here before us, and pieces of the plastic coating was already starting to break off. After 7 more years, it was definitely time to replace it! It was surprisingly hard to find a non-plastic dish rack in the size we needed.
I mightily resisted picking up grow light kits today. One would have done will for our plants in the living room. The other would be great for starting seeds. I have decided I do want to use the new part basement for seed starting, but we have to do some re-arranging, first. I do have a nice, bright shop light down there now, but it’s not the kind where a timer could be set. I can still use one of the big aquarium lights, though, and it does have a timer, so that could work. We shall see.
At that point, I was just a couple of blocks from the garage. I hadn’t heard from them yet, but I was done with walking, so I headed over. I knew I could stay in their office waiting area, at least for a while.
When I got there, the truck was up on the lift.
There were 3 mechanics under it, the owner/mechanic had something in his hand, and they were all looking slightly perplexed.
Hmmm.
Once I was in the office, one of the first things I noticed was a bag of take out food on the desk, still all closed up.
The owner soon came in and told me they would have to change the oil plate gasket another day. He had the wrong one! He ordered a new one immediately.
He went out and was back again. The only thing left to do was the wheel alignment, and he suggested doing it at the same time as the gasket, rather than today. The bay with the equipment to do the wheel alignment had another vehicle on it still. They’d have to finish that vehicle first, then move the truck, which would make it another 2 1/2 hours! They were so busy, they had all three bays full, plus smaller vehicles/equipment tucked in spaces in between that, even with three mechanics, they hadn’t been able to stop for lunch, yet! It was well past 1pm by the time I got there.
By stopping at this point, though, it would only be a few more minutes.
So I paid for the work they did today. When he mentioned that the gasket he’d ordered would be in tomorrow, I asked if I could come back tomorrow, and he fit me in for the afternoon.
Just one more day, and the list of small(ish) fixes will be done!
It was just a bit longer as they lowered the truck and tested it out before it was ready.
Today’s work was replacing a front left axle seal, the new oil pressure sensor, a new cv boot and new front links. The parts totaled $216.35. Shop supplies cost $36.99. Three hours of labour cost $299.97 After taxes, the final bill was $619.71
I’m expecting tomorrow’s work to be in the $200-$250 range, after taxes.
That done, I still had a couple more stops to make, now that I could use the truck to do them. First, a quick trip to the grocery store across the street to refill two of our big water jugs. We didn’t need anything else, but I looked around anyhow, and did get a few things that were on sale – specifically, cheese and lactose free cheese, plus some salad kits that I can eat. The ones I got at Costco have dressings that are just over my tolerance level for spicy heat.
Before leaving town, I got some gas at the one gas station where the prices have started to go down. $1.519/L instead of $1.569/L
My husband had let me know a parcel had come in, so I stopped at the post office on the way home. The 250 watt ceramic bulbs I ordered were in. However, the pair of clamp lamps I ordered that can handle 250 watt bulbs are not in yet. Once that package reached the Canadian side of the border, it switched to CanPar for delivery. I think we might actually get delivery to our physical address with them! Tracking information says March 14 for delivery, but I do know it’s in our province now, so it shouldn’t take that long.
Once it’s in, I want to replace the fixture in the isolation shelter. The new fixture has a wire guard around the bulb, so no cats can burn themselves. The current fixture has no such protection. Granted, it would take a lot for a cat to end up that close to the heat bult, but still, I’d rather not take the chance! Plus, the current heat bulb is incandescent, so there is light in there, day and night, which can disrupt sleep patterns. Considering they cluster together right in front of the bulb to stay warm, that can potentially be an issue.
The clamp lamp in the sun room has a 150 watt ceramic bulb in it right now, and I’m thinking of still using that, but setting up a second 250 watt heat bulb nearby, somewhere.
Look! No check engine light! And the oil pressure gauge is working again!
The tire light is for the three remaining tire sensors with dead 14 yr old batteries that need to be replaced. Those can be done, little by little. We’ve had that light on for over a year, now. I think we can last a few more months! We need to focus on paying off the credit card for the work we’re getting done right now, first.
The trip meter shows how many kilometers I’ve driven since filling the tank at Costco. Which is about twice what it normally would be, this early in the month!
Oh, I just realized. I need to go read the meter for our electricity, while it’s still light out enough to see it!
My last task on today’s “to do list”.
It’s been a pretty darn productive day.
I’m going to feel much, much better once the final work is done, tomorrow!
I was tending to the flexible hose for the emergency septic diverter, getting any liquid sitting in it, out, and the cats were very interested! Syndol, however, went for a post-eye view! ๐
This morning, I was just starting to feed the cats outside, when my cell phone started ringing.
*sigh*
There’s really just one place that calls my cell phone.
Home care.
Yup. They were short staffed again. This time for my mother’s morning meds.
Given what time it was, I quickly finished feeding the cats, grabbed my purse, then finished short rounds before heading to my mother’s. With what time she’s supposed to take her morning medications, I didn’t have time to change or call her ahead. So my mother got a bit of a surprise when I came in the door instead of home care this morning!
I wasn’t there for very long, but a lot happened in that short time. She has some confusion about her meds and that led to her making all sorts of assumptions and accusations. Then she commented on how the case coordinator we had a meeting with yesterday had said we’d soon be getting rid of the lock box. Very clearly, she said this, according to my mother.
Which is the opposite of what she actually said.
After answering her as best I could while doing her meds, I took her blood pressure. It is much better this early in the day than in the evening. She had already made herself some breakfast, but I was able to empty her commode for her. I offered to help her dress, but she was happy to stay in her warm and fluffy night gown today, as she doesn’t need to go anywhere. My sister will be coming by later, so she will be able to do more light housekeeping and laundry for her. Hopefully, she also found a hot water bottle and some Velcro shoes for my mother, too. Finding shoes that my mother can get her feet into is even harder than for me. She has massive bunions and bunionettes, so her feet are much, much wider at the ball of the foot, even compared to mine. My sister was also planning to bring some microwave dinners as well. Home care will be able to heat those up for Mom, if she wants them to.
As we were talking, my mother mentioned that our vandal and his wife had stopped to visit her not long after I’d left yesterday. !!! It seems they were on the way back from another chemo treatment. Apparently, he was so sick, he couldn’t sit down, but had to lie on the couch and, even while driving, has to lay the seat back.
If he’s that sick, he shouldn’t be visiting my mother.
But, he’s playing her like a lute, and it’s working. She feels so sorry for him, and started telling me how my brother and I shouldn’t be “afraid” of him, and that we should basically suck up to him because he’s sick. She heard the messages he’d managed to leave with my brother’s voice mail, and knows full well he claims we caused his cancer, among other far more vile things he said about me and my daughters. Unfortunately, she is easily swayed. I don’t know what he’s trying to get out of her (and I doubt his wife has any idea that he made those calls), but he’s certainly succeeding in getting her to feel sorry for him. I think my brother may need to keep an eye on her accounts to see if any checks made out for large amounts get cashed!
After I left, I decided to stop at the post office to pick up a couple of parcels. I have another that’s supposed to arrive tomorrow, and was going to pick them all up on my way home from getting the truck to the garage, but went ahead and got the two that were there today, anyhow. More on that later!
Once I got home and updated my family, I called up the case coordinator. She was actually in her office, so I was able to talk to her directly. I knew she would have heard the messages I’d left yesterday, but there was no need for her to follow up on those. I wanted her to know about how my mother had declared she had said the opposite of what she really said, about the lock box, and about my mother’s confusion with her bubble packs.
I also mentioned that our vandal had showed up yesterday. She is somewhat aware of that situation. We talked about how it would work out if my mother were in a nursing home. Particularly the one she wants to be in. I would hope that we’d be able to ban him from visiting her, but they don’t really have security. Their security is to keep nursing home patients from wandering off, not to keep people out. The only real way to keep him away would be if there were a court order, and we looked into that several years ago. My mother would have to go to court herself, which she physically can’t do. My brother, as PoA, could only do it on her behalf if a doctor declared my mother mentally incapable of doing it herself. That she is physically unable to doesn’t matter. Granted, her cognitive decline would make it difficult for her to do it, too, but she’s not far enough gone for the PoA to kick in, in that regard.
Either way, it’s disturbing that he keeps showing up at my mother’s, and that she lets him in. At least his wife is with him, so he’d be on better behaviour. Apparently, he’s so unwell, he can’t sit, and had to lie down. Even while in the vehicle, he has to have the seat back. Even the case coordinator wondered, if he’s that sick, why is he stopping to see my mother?
Once all that was done, I could finally make myself breakfast – brunch? Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Once again, I am giving up sugar and simple carbs. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, that sort of thing. The first year I did that, it was not that difficult. Last year, it was oddly difficult. But then, it wouldn’t mean as much if it was easy.
I ended up making a creamy meat soup for breakfast, with bacon lardons, celery, mushrooms, ground beef, mushroom broth, cream, a can of mushroom soup and a handful of shredded cheese (cheddar and mozzarella). It turned out delicious!
That done, I finally got to opening the packages. One of them was the keyboard protector I originally bought for myself. March is a birthday month, though, and after talking to my younger daughter, I found that my older daughter would not want what I originally planned to get her. Knowing that she has the same issues with cats on her keyboard that I do – and her computer is how she makes a living – I decided this might make an acceptable gift, instead.
When I took it out of the box, I discovered some pleasant surprises!
This is what I got. (not an affiliate link) Just a basic acrylic piece in the large sise, that would fit over my ergonomic keyboard.
It was not the only thing in the box!
The cover itself came with self adhesive, no slip pads to protect the desk surface. There is also an optional back cover, with clear Alien Tape type stuff to attach it, if necessary.
Then there was the clear acrylic phone holder.
A colourful round mouse pad.
and… what the heck???
An odd looking stick and some brightly coloured fuzzy things???
The odd looking stick turned out to be a “fishing rod”, and the fuzzy things were the “lures”.
It was a cat toy, with two different fluffy “lures”.
I called my younger daughter down and asked her if she thought her sister would like it as her birthday gift. We knew she wouldn’t have much use for the phone holder, and the cat toy would, of course, be for the cats, but she said that yes, her sister would like the gift. So she took it upstairs to set up over her sister’s keyboard as a surprise.
Then she got the cat toy out and put it together with a highlight marker yellow lure, discovering that the rod was telescoping!
The cats went absolutely insane over it!
Unfortunately, one of them woke up my older daughter after parkouring off of her stomach to get to the other room and try and catch the lure!
So my older daughter now knows what she got for her birthday – and then promptly fell back asleep!
My younger daughter was able to get all the cats downstairs and played with them for some time. Only the three grandmas were completely uninterested, and stayed on my bed! Tin Whistle was the most insane with her leaping and twisting and flipping through the air. Amazingly, the cat that was almost as acrobatic was Tin Whistle was Cheddar! He’s such a big boy, I really did not expect that!
When she saw Tin Whistle actually starting to pant (cats should NOT pant!), she stopped and tucked it way into the bathroom, where the cats are not allowed, until next time.
I plan to get two more of these covers. One for my own keyboard and one for my younger daughter. While I did balk slightly at the cost, the extras that came with it more than made up for it! Only the optional back panel was included in the description.
I am getting quite the giggle out of this “Engrish” description of the large sized cover.
ใlarge sizeใ20โlong x 7โWidth x 4.7โhigh. 0.4โ thick๏ผ- this is large enough to cover each of them with enough room for keyboard. It’s high enough allows boys with large palms to type without any hindrance. that you can use the keyboard easily. It’s thick so it can take the weight of you chonky adult cats easily. Compared with glass, the sturdy and drop-proof acrylic material makes it safer.
Boys with large palms!
You chonky adult cats!
Too funny.
On a completely different note, I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady today. They’ve been in the US for the past while, combining a family holiday with her husband doing a presentation at a conference. It turns out he was offered a job and they are seriously considering moving. Or, more accurately, she would really like to move. He’s not too keen on moving. As someone who has moved so many times, I’d be more like her husband on this one! Plus, they’ve been in their house for less than 2 years. So why would she want to move?
Better weather (Florida).
Better healthcare (US in general)
No state income tax (her husband would get to keep 52% more of his income).
Better political leadership, both state and federal.
I can’t argue against any of those points. Especially right now, when our Liberal government has chosen a tariff war that will destroy our economy, rather than accepting the reasonable request of beefing up our border security, dealing with the fentanyl crisis and meeting our NATO obligations, all of which we should already be doing.
If you’re hearing about it in the news and the US is being painted as the “bad guy” in all this, and Canadians are all up in arms against Americans and boycotting, they are lying. We could easily have avoided a tariff war, but our governments, federal and most provincial, have decided to play a dick waving war. Most Canadians see that, but you won’t be hearing about them, in the media.
Like the quote, wrongly attributed to Sun Tzu, goes…
“An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground… to rule over the ashes“.
That is what our own government has chosen to do. Burn our nation to the ground, but now they can blame Trump for it. Our own government is the “evil enemy”, not the US.
Honestly, it’s gotten to the point where, if it were an option, I’d be moving, too. That whole “51st state” thing? That might well be the only thing that can save Canada. Lord knows, we haven’t been able to save ourselves. As I write this, Trudeau is still our Prime Minister, having stated his intent to resign after a new Liberal leader and PM is chosen, in a few days.
In our system. we don’t vote for our Prime Minister in federal elections. We have 338 elections for our Members of Parliament. The party that has the most winning MPs wins the federal election, and that party’s leader becomes the PM. The PM is supposed to also be an MP. Technically, he or she could still be PM if they did not win in their own riding, but they would not be able to debate in Parliament. In the rare event that this happens, an MP that did win would volunteer to step down. The party leader would officially move to that riding and be the MP in their stead.
On announcing his intent to resign, our Prime Dictator got the Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the crown, but is a partisan T2 appointee) to shut down parliament. This was to avoid a planned vote of non-confidence which would have passed and triggered an election. The act was blatantly unconstitutional, but then, most of what T2 and his Liberals have done for the past 10 years have been unconstitutional and often outright illegal, and they’ve been getting away with it.
With T2 (not to be confused with his father T1, who was the most hated PM in Canadian history until now) saying he will step down when a new party leader is selected, there is now a leadership race. They managed to get rid of the one person that was actually competent (a woman born in India, and if there’s one thing our “feminist” PM can’t stand, it’s a strong, ethnic woman), so there are 4 people running for leadership. The one that they are blatantly working to install is Carney, a guy that hasn’t lived in Canada for more than 10 years, holds 3 passports, has destroyed the UK economy and, it turns out, has been advising our Prime Dictator for the past 5 years. So he’s been busy destroying our economy, too. Of course, he isn’t an MP, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He’s actually worse than T2. If (when) he is installed, he would automatically become PM – though when asked directly, when he would resign, T2 said it would be up to whoever won the leadership race. So… he might not resign after all.
Carney, meanwhile, has already talked about using emergency measures in Canada. My prediction (please, God, let me be wrong) is that, once installed into office, he’ll pull a Zelensky. Invoke the war measures act (aka: the emergency act) and declare martial law (because, Trump), and ban any elections. They can keep parliament from resuming, but can push through that “internet safety” bill they were trying to force through before parliament was shut down. This bill, if passed into law, would literally allow for people to be arrested for thought crimes and pre-crimes. Basically, anything anyone says that the government does not approve of can lead to charges, but it would also allow people to press charges against each other essentially for hurt feelings. It would allow them to ban opposition parties, start arresting anyone who disagrees with them, and give them the power to control the media, including social media.
It blows my mind that Canada has fallen so far. Worse, there are so many people who actually cheer this on.
So… yeah. I can understand why so many people have been leaving Canada (a trend that has been going on for years) for greener pastures, like the US.
I would certainly be sad to see the Cat Lady and her family go, but if they are able to escape, more power to them!
Thankfully, we live in the boonies. Things would be much worse if we still lived in a city!
I also mentioned to the Cat Lady about my having to cover for home care so many times. She completely understood our situation. Her mother had gone through the same with her mother (the Cat Lady’s grandmother. She had to be there almost all day, every day, because there were so many cancellations and screwups.
Suddenly, our situation doesn’t seem to bad!
When I got the call this morning, I confirmed that this evening’s med assists were still on schedule, and was told yes. I’m still half expecting my cell phone to ring, and be told they suddenly don’t have staff again.
The Re-Farmer 