Okay, before I get to the insane stuff, here is some adorable stuff.
First, a majestic Syndol!
I was watering the future food forest when I heard some scrambling. Syndol had climbed to the top of the old squash tunnel. He looked so very majestic, silhouetted against the sky, so I had to get a couple of pictures!
I also spotted some exploring kittens.
Even the shy ones are exploring the isolation shelter. I think that’s their sibling in the upper level, with Eyelet.
When doing the evening feeding, Colby has been getting brave enough to actually start coming back to the food bowls, while I’m still nearby. I almost touched him today! The shy ones in the photo, though, ran off even though I was across the yard from them still.
Speaking of feral kittens, while I was out, my daughter took care of paying the septic guy, then making sure the gate was closed after he left. As she was going past the garage, she spotted the mama that lives there, the white and grey kitten I spotted this morning, and a second kitten! She tried to get pictures, but was too far away, and the ran under the door as soon as they saw her. From what we can make out, the second kittens looks SO much like a Siamese!
We have got to get them closer to the house somehow. The mother just isn’t bringing them. At least they’re going outdoors!
As for my day…
Good grief.
Everything was fine when I headed out. I made sure to leave the gate open for the septic truck, so I didn’t have to stop to close the gate behind me. I got to my mother’s in good time, and did her morning med assist. Then we went over her grocery list and she made sure to give me cash. She just couldn’t resist making a nasty comment about how she didn’t want me using my card again. Somehow, she seems to be blaming the high cost of her inhaler on my using my credit card to pay for it. As if it somehow would have been free, if I hadn’t done that. Very confusing.
Speaking of confusing, I made sure to get pictures of my all my mother’s bubble packs. She has three “active” bubble packs, and one completely untouched one – and her secret stash bubble pack is now in the lock box, thankfully. There’s still one pack that has a single bubble in it with pills still in it from a day no one showed up for her morning meds. My mom made comments about how confusing it all was, as if it was the fault of the home care aids. It old her, it’s a mess because of what she’d been doing!
Once I was done going over her grocery list with her, I headed out to the truck to go to the store.
It wouldn’t go.
It started fine, but when I went to shift out of part to drive, nothing happened. The lever just moved up and down, freely, with no resistance.
My immediate thought was that something was wrong with the transmission. Which was a worst case scenario, really.
Whatever it was, the truck wasn’t moving.
After turning it off, then on and trying again several times, I finally went back inside, while sending messages to my family and my brother – I knew my brother was coming out to the farm this morning, but didn’t know when.
Once inside, I told my mother what was going on, and finished sending my messages. Then I told her I would just walk over to the grocery store, do her shopping then, when everything was put away, I planned to walk to a garage that was up the street from her place.
My mother suggested that I get them to deliver her groceries, which would have been done after the store closed, but I said it was fine. The store is just a couple of blocks away, and she didn’t have a large list.
As I headed out, I stopped at the truck to get a couple of hard sided grocery bags I knew would fit all her shopping. Of course, I tried the truck again.
Nothing.
Off I went to the grocery store and picked up my mothers items, then brought them back. As I going past her with the bags to get into the kitchen and put things away, she shoved a box of chocolates at me and said to take some. She wanted me to sit down with her and finish off the last few chocolates in the box. I said no thanks for now, I wanted to put the groceries away first. I always make sure to show her what I got, as I put things away, even if I didn’t have to make any changes to her list.
Then I sat down for a bit and did have a couple of chocolates while messaging with my brother and my family, and updating her, before going walking to the garage.
Which is when she asked me to sweep her floor.
Now, I had expected to do some housework for her today, but that went out the window once the truck stopped working. I needed to somehow get it to a garage and find a way home! We only have the one vehicle. I was still thinking “transmission”, even though, after trying to get it out of park a few times, it didn’t seem like the transmission was being engaged at all.
So I told her I needed to work on getting the arrange to get the truck to a garage.
She wanted me to sit down and “rest” for a while.
I really needed to get on this.
“So, you’re done with me, then?”
…
Yes, today, I am done and have to go!
I went to give her another hug before leaving, and she hung on to me, like she was trying to stop me from leaving.
Now, if this were someone else, I’d be flattered, but this is my mother. It wasn’t that she wanted my company or anything like that. It was because I had a problem to solve instead of paying attention to her and doing stuff for her. It was like some sort of test.
Which I’m sure I failed.
We said our goodbyes and I headed out. My brother suggested something to try first, so I did.
Nothing.
They were on the road to the farm, and said they would meet me at the truck along the way.
The cab of the truck was way too hot to sit in, so I dropped the tail gate and sat to wait for my brother.
It turned out that he misunderstood what I meant when I said the truck wasn’t moving. When he tried it himself, he figured it had to be a linkage problem. He then popped the hood and got me to move the lever while he watched inside. My SIL had to actually look around the hood to confirm that yes, I was moving the lever back and forth, continuously.
Nothing.
We now had to get the truck to a garage. My brother suggested I call CAA and arrange a tow, but I told him I needed to find out where to tow it, first. That’s why I wanted to walk over to the garage, first, so see if they would take the truck.
So they drove me over, with my poor SIL squished in the middle seat, and my brother went in with me. We talked to the woman behind the counter and explained what was happening with the truck. Her immediate thought was that it sounded like a linkage problem! I asked about getting the truck towed to them and she checked their schedule.
They wouldn’t be able to look at it until Wednesday.
Today is Friday.
My brother and I talked about it briefly and she suggested we try one of the other garages, in case someone else could look at it sooner.
So that’s what we did.
The other garage is one I’ve been to before, but not in many years, since we now go to a garage in the nearer town. The original owner sold the garage to one of his mechanics, but kept working his towing company, in the same location. When we got there, I was surprised to see the towing guy, but we talked to him about the truck and he looked at their schedule.
Tuesday. Maybe Monday.
Well, that was better than Wednesday!
So we agreed and he wrote my into the schedule. As we were talking about getting it towed, I found he no longer did CAA tows at all, but they would use the garage a couple of blocks away. He suggested I call CAA for the tow, since it’s covered, and that would save me $100.
That done, I started making the call to CAA while we drove back to the truck. The plan was for me to leave the keys hidden in the truck and then I would go home with my brother.
The call continued after we got to the truck and I had it on speaker phone so my brother could hear as well. We also had a hard time giving the name of the garage, as the guy couldn’t find it. My brother finally looked it up on his own phone and it turned out the only name that showed up was the towing company name, so that was the location they put it in as. The entire call was made extra difficult as we were suddenly getting some of the loudest traffic going by, ever!
As we arranged the tow, the guy told me I had to be with the truck when the tow truck arrived.
???
They haven’t required that in years.
Oh, and the tow would arrive at around 1:30pm
It was barely 11am at the time.
I told him, I can’t do that. I don’t live here, and I don’t have transportation. He said, if I wasn’t there, the driver couldn’t tow the truck.
My brother finally just said, we’ll be here, so I confirmed that with the guy.
I was thanked for my cooperation.
Uh huh.
Once the call was done, my brother suggested I hide the keys in the truck, then we would go back to the garage.
So that’s what we did.
Because of the trouble we had finding the place on the map, I made sure to look for the spelling on the sign when we got there.
The sign wasn’t there.
There was the towing company sign.
Looks like the original owner owns the garage again!
Which I’m good with. I liked him better.
So we talked to him about the call with CAA and what they told us about needing to be there when the truck arrived. Now, he used to do towing for CAA, so his reaction was a big WTF?
The towing company was just up the road, so he suggested we talk to the guy about it.
Meanwhile, I already received a text confirming the arrangement with the towing company, complete with reference number.
So we went over to the other garage (this town has one grocery store, but at least three garages!) and got to talk to the tow truck driver directly. We explained what CAA told us, and he was all, WTF? No, I did not need to be there. I told him where the key was hidden, and made sure he knew that the truck wouldn’t go out of park. That was useful for him, because they normally need to put the vehicle into neutral to be able to move it. I also warned him about the missing handle inside the driver’s side door. My brother laughed and joked, “you probably see that all the time.” The guy said yes, yes he did!
In the middle of all this, my daughter let me know when the septic guy came and went, she took care of paying him (with tip. The septic guy always gets a tip) – and about the kittens she saw! All was being taken care of on the home front.
So arrangements with the garage and the tow was finally done. We then squeezed back into my brother’s truck and drove to the farm!
My brother and his wife, meanwhile, were going to lend us a vehicle.
The one that’s stored in the barn.
Now, there are reasons they replaced it, but it still runs and they were pretty sure the registration hasn’t expired yet, either. My brother would get it out of the barn for me and we could use it until we got the truck back.
!!!
Once we got to the farm, they had to rush to get what they needed to do done – and now they had the extra job of getting the car out of the barn! A lot of stuff had been shoved into it and around it, in their hurry to get everything off their property before possession was turned over to the new owners.
My brother and his wife are the best. I don’t know what we’d do without them!
A few hours later, I was in my room folding laundry, my older daughter came in to let me know that she’d heard the storm door open and close. She went to check and found my brother had dropped some peas on the floor and left.
Peas?
Okay.
As we were talking, I mentioned that they were in a huge hurry, but were making sure to have the vehicle available for us.
Which is when I realized my daughter had said, keys. Not peas.
Auditory processing disorder can be really funny, sometimes.
Thanks to the new security camera my brother installed at the gate, I was able to check the live feed to see them leave. My brother drove the truck out with their trailer, and my SIL followed behind with the care they’d loaned us in the past. When she stopped to close the gate behind them, I was able to use the camera to say thank you again, and wish them safe driving, and hear my SIL’s response.
I love technology!
Not long after, I got a call from the garage.
He had a few minutes, so he got the truck in and took a look.
It was exactly what everything thought it might be. A linkage problem. The cable broke.
He was able to use a clip and put it together and it was working, but he couldn’t give any sort of guarantee on how long it would hold. A few months. A few weeks? Eventually, the part would need to be replaced, which would be the entire assembly. It has been a long time since he’d replaced one, but he thought it was around $400plus.
This is our only vehicle. We can’t take chances.
I gave the go ahead. to order the part, asking him to call me back when he knew how much the part would cost. Labour would be $100 an hour, and he estimated about 2 hours to replace it.
I was getting ready to go out and water the garden when he called back.
Was I good with an off market cable for $150?
Uhm… yeah!!!!
So that’s what he ordered for me. The total, with 2 hours of labour and taxes, would come out to less than the part if it came from GM.
So that will be done on Tuesday.
Just in time for my daughter and I to have our joint medical appointment on Wednesday.
Then my eye test on Thursday that she has to drive me home from.
I had completely forgotten about the medical appointments on Wednesday. If we’d gone with the first garage, we would have had to reschedule, and who knows when that would have had to be.
Thank God the problem turned out to be relatively minor and not the transmission!!!
Plus, my older daughter has said she can cover the cost, so it’s not a hit to our budget, either.
That’s a huge relief!
Meanwhile, I’m going to have to use my brother’s vehicle tomorrow, though I was planning to avoid it. It all the fuss, I completely forgot I was going to hit the feed store for more kibble for the outside cats.
I used the last of their kibble to do this evening’s feeding, and even had to stretch it a bit by making a big bowl of cat soup with it.
The cats didn’t complain, that’s for sure!
After all that, I finally headed out to water the garden and baby food forest, which I’ll write about in my next post.
On the one hand, this was a pretty stressful day and another expense we just don’t need.
On the other than, things couldn’t have worked out better, under the circumstances.
The problem didn’t happen until after I got to my mother’s, and I could still do her grocery shopping.
My brother happened to take the day off today so they could get their trailer set up and out for the rest of the summer, so stopping to help me out was on their way.
They still had their hold vehicle, it was being stored here at the farm, and it’s insured (though they did have to run into town to make sure of that).
We went with the second garage that could work on the truck a day earlier than the first one, which meant we don’t have to reschedule medical appointments I’d forgotten about.
I mean, if something’s going to go wrong, it couldn’t have happened under better circumstances.
As my SIL said, someone is watching out for me, and I totally agree – and give thanks!
What a day.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 