It was a productive day today – and in a good way, if rather expensive. How expensive, we don’t quite know yet!
First up, when doing my morning rounds, I was able to water the trees as well. It’s been a few days, and wow, a lot can happen in a few days, when it comes to growing things!
While all the transplants seems to be doing all right, the Opal Plum had one heckuva growth spurt with that one branch!
The real surprise while I was watering was spotting this.
This is the Royalty raspberry! One has still survived! We got a bundle of three, and they actually fruited in their first year, even though they were first year canes. The next year, only one survived the winter, and really didn’t grow much at all. So it was no surprised when there was no sign of any at all, this spring. Until this morning!
Needless to say, it has been added to my group of trees and bushes that get watered. I’ve included a single silver buffalo berry as well, as it’s the only one that seems to not be doing well. The watering doesn’t seemed to have helped. Makes me wonder if there’s something under it that’s causing a problem. A large rock, perhaps, or meandering poplar roots.
Now that I know what silver buffalo berry bushes look like, I think we actually have some growing wild, just a short distance away! The sign cam is right near the corner of the fence line, and I can see some bushes in the ditch that look like our own silver buffalo berry bushes. If we can confirm that at some point, we might transplant a few to fill in the gaps for the ones we planted that didn’t make it.
After watering all the garden beds, I still had time to water in the outer yard, where the Korean Pine and walnuts are.
We now officially have three walnut saplings.
Two of them are from seed, one is the year old sapling we got at the same time. Yay!!!
After finishing my rounds and chores, I grabbed a late breakfast, then headed to town early for my first appointment with the truck. The autobody place is not far from a lumber yard and hardware store that I keep forgetting exists, as we don’t usually go to this area of town. I dropped the truck off almost an hour early and had a chance to talk to the lady that’s been in charge of dealing with the insurance company and trying to get our truck done. I told her where I was going after leaving the truck with them, and that I had an appointment for the front tires to be replaced a half hour after my appointment with them was scheduled. She told me that was plenty of time.
We get fliers for this hardware store that I check out, so I did know that they did doors and windows. What I wasn’t completely sure of was if they did pre-hung doors and, more importantly, if they did installations.
I was very happy to find out that they did! My searched for companies that could do it came up with rather useless results, and I was starting to get concerned. The one company I knew of that my brother had hired to install new windows here, the summer before we moved in, disappeared during the illegal lockdowns, as so many other small, independent businesses did.
The guy I spoke to filled out a form and gave me the business card for their installer. In a day or two, we will get a call to book a time for him to come here to take measurements and see what we’ve got now. We’ll then be able to talk about what pre-hung doors we want (or can afford), and things like making sure the arm bar get reinstalled.
That was done so quickly, I decided to look around the store a bit. In the gardening section, of course.
While there, I remembered that we are wanting to add more clothes lines (our posts can support three lines), and went looking for that section. They had the exact same kits that I’d seen at another store, but at a better price.
I decided to get one.
My daughter has been diligent about following her doctor’s instructions to help fight the skin infections she’s getting, and that includes washing her clothing and bedding more often, in hot water, then hanging them on the line so the sun can further disinfect them. We’ve got a long clothes line, but when things like bedding are included, it runs out of space, fast!
Eventually, we’ll have three lines set up again, but just having the second one will be a huge help.
That done, I headed back to the autobody shop. It was still early for my appointment, but I saw the truck was no longer where I’d parked it. They took it in early!
As I waited, I had a chance to chat with both ladies behind the counter. When I told them how things went at the hardware store, they both started telling me how they’ve had them do work for them, too, and how great they are! One of them said she lives in an old farmhouse that she and her family basically rebuilt the old farmhouse they bought (admitting, they probably should have just torn it down and built a new house!), and they did much of the work for them; doors, windows, flooring… She was really happy with them. So that was certainly encouraging!
A little while later, the woman working my file came around to tell me that their guy says there is no need for them to paint more than the top rail part of the box frame, after it’s straightened out, not the entire side of the box, which would include an old dent and the rust around the wheel well. That will save us $140, as the insurance company does not cover rust damage, so we would be charged for that portion of the paint job.
We talked about the tail light as well, and she made the call to find out how much a new one would cost, right then and there.
$350.
!!!!!
Good grief!
What she did do was give me the part number, then did a quick search for it on Amazon.
$135.
What a difference!
If we can get it delivered.
I explained the issues we’ve been having, and how Amazon has simply cancelled orders that would be mailed, due to the threat of a strike. If there is an alternative delivery method available, either to our physical address (which doesn’t exist on any maps) or to the store our post office is in, we could still order it, though.
She has been trying so hard to bring the costs down for us! Talk about awesome.
Towards the end, when I got the keys and was ready to head out, she told me the parts would be ordered right away, and when they came in, we would get a call.
Then she mentioned they would need the truck for a couple of days.
…
I told her, we’ve only got one vehicle. I’d have to make arrangements of some kind. She said that, when we get the call later one, we can talk about that.
??
As far as I know, they don’t offer the loan of a service car, as some places in the city can do.
If nothing else, I might be able to borrow one of my brother’s cars for a couple of days, but I’d really prefer to avoid that. They use both their cars quite a bit.
That done, it was off to the garage to drop off the truck and the keys.
A friend from high school had messaged me a couple of days ago, saying she was in town, and we had arranged to get together after I dropped the truck off. She doesn’t have her own transportation this time, so we walked around for a while, stopping at a couple of places, before sitting down in one of the smaller restaurants for a very late lunch.
I didn’t know how long the truck would take, but by the time we were done lunch, I figured it was time to start heading back. Which turned out to be just right; they finished with the truck maybe 10 or 15 minutes before I got there! My friend was able to join me for most of the way before we said our goodbyes. We’ll be able to get together again, before she heads home.
As for the truck, I was happy to hear they found no other issues while working on it. 😄
In the end, though, it cost over $660 after taxes, including a “new tire enviro tax”.
*sigh*
Tomorrow, I’m supposed to bring it back whenever I have a chance to get the tires torqued. It should be done withing 100km of driving.
That done, I drove across the street to the grocery store.
In that short drive, I could already feel the difference. I had not realized just how much I was feeling something of off about the tires! Not even anything I could specifically pinpoint, but gosh, once it was no longer there, I could sure tell!
One thing I needed to get at the grocery store was more kibble for the outside cats. With the cost of gas jumping 5 cents per liter, and only needing a couple of things, it wasn’t worth it to drive to the nearest Walmart for better prices.
Their shelves for large cat food bags were completely empty!
The only other thing I needed was eggs, so I got those, then headed to the one other grocery store available. With this one, I was able to pick up a couple of bags of their house brand in 8kg sizes, totaling about $45. They had one 7.5kg bag of name brand kibble available, and it cost $45 just on its own!
The outside cats are going to just have to put up with no-name cat food for now.
I did have to pick up a bit of gas before leaving town, feeling rather frustrated with myself for forgetting to get gas the last time I was in town, when it was still $1.299 a liter, instead of $1.349 a liter!
I’ve been getting weather alerts for incoming rain or thunderstorms all day, so after everything was put away and the outside cats were fed, I did my evening rounds to check on things.
I spotted this guy, that I haven’t seen in a while.
I tried zooming in to get a picture of his face. It looks like he’s sporting a rather large new scar on his head!
He is pretty feral, and won’t let me even walk in his general direction without running away. I still haven’t completely figured out if he is one of ours, returned after months away, or a stranger that discovered we are a source of food and relative safety.
There is still no sign of Caramel’s two little ones, though this morning, I think I caught her trying to lure Havarti away. I so wish she would bring her littles back! They need access to solid food, and she’s been hanging out here most of the time, instead of tending to them, or hunting for them.
No sign of Zipper, either.
😢
I checked on all the garden beds, of course, which had me walking past a large currant bush my sister had given to my mother. My mother planted it near the main garden area, right under a chokecherry tree, so it’s completely shaded out almost all day. I almost never find berries on it, though, and it was years before I found one and could confirm it was a black currant bush.
This spring, it bloomed prolifically, so I was hopeful for a grand harvest.
Nope.
Not going to happen.
I think I finally found out why it hasn’t been producing.
The leaves have yellow spot all over them, I just realized, now that I can see them in the photo, that these are egg clusters!!!
As you can see, the forming berries are being killed off. I had thought the spots might have been some sort of fungus that’s also killing the berries, but if the spots are actually eggs, and there are so, so many of them, perhaps it’s whatever is laying the eggs that’s doing it. I haven’t seen anything on the leaves that was laying eggs. Certainly not in such numbers. There’s hundreds of leaves, covered in these spots.
The second picture shows more what the berries should be looking like, at this stage, though it’s got an odd bump on it.
Gotta do some research on this!
My weather apps keep saying we’re supposed to be getting rain or storms, but as I finished my evening rounds, I just got hit by a couple of raindrops, and that’s it.
We could really, really use some rain. It just keeps missing us!
Tomorrow is supposed to be hotter, but the hottest part of the day is not supposed to hit until 4pm. Hopefully, that will give me a chance to finally get back to working on that trellis bed in the morning. I plan to take the truck in to get the new tires torqued in the afternoon.
Must. Get. Sleep!!!!
Well, we’ll see how that goes, when the time comes!
Altogether, though, it has turned out to be a very good and productive day.
It will be a while, though, before we find out how much getting the front door replaced, and the truck done, will end up costing us.
It’s going to be expensive. That’s all I know for sure!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 