Month: October 2025

Gee, thanks, Mom

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Well, I’m home and settled in, now.

I got the spark plugs in the truck replaced, but not the recommended wire replacement. I’ll get my own mechanic to check those out when I go in for the oil change I already scheduled for next week. For now, I want to avoid driving the truck, if at all possible. There probably isn’t any issue right now, and Canadian Tire is notorious for adding unnecessary work to their recommendations. We’ve been burned by them, badly, in the past, and in more than one province. This particular store has been okay for us but, the last time I was there, my brother was able to join me and basically diagnosed in advance that the problem was likely the wheel bearing, since he’s checked everything else that he could, and it was fine. Still. Better save than sorry.

After the bill was paid – I even used the last of my Canadian Tire dollars to bring the price down a bit – I still had a gas budget, so I popped across to Costco to fill the tank. There was a huge line up at every set of pumps. Their price for regular was $1.179/L while everywhere else was at $1.299/L.

Then I headed straight home.

I’m happy to say the truck did seem to be running well. The misfiring was not happening anymore! I am, however, already paranoid about any vehicle we have. Especially with how the tires feel while driving, and I did feel like I was all over the road somewhat. I had noticed they topped up the tires during the ONE HOUR diagnostic. I could see the vehicle from the waiting room and, for most of that hour, there was no one around it that I could see.

Our local garage doesn’t charge for diagnostics, and they usually take just a few minutes. Even when they’ve had to put the vehicle on a lift and physically check things, they haven’t charged me. When I was trying to figure out why I was losing air on new tires, shortly after I got it, they took the tires right off to spray them and try and find a leak, never found any, and never charged me a cent. The problem turned out to be the valves, not the tires.

Anyhow.

Once I was home (to a supper waiting for me!), I found a text message from my sister. My mother had called her. She said my mother had tried to call me, but there was no answer, so she called my sister to see if she knew why I wasn’t answering.

…

So, before I even started my supper, I listened to the messages from my mother. Well. One message. The other was just her, breathing into the phone. Then I gave her a call. She told me she left a message and when I mentioned the second message, she told me that was because she was waiting for me to answer. She assumed I was next to the phone and just not picking up.

The first message was her usual, “where are you? My fridge is empty!” spiel. When I told her I had just gotten home, she was all “where were you?”, like how dare I not be around when she calls. Then she started going on about how I haven’t called her since Sunday… or when I was last at her place (she could no longer remember the exact day, and yes, it was Sunday). I told her, I’ve been busy trying to get things done, while the weather allows.

I told her I’d gone to the city to do the Costco shop, but the truck started giving me warning lights, so I ended up at a garage all day and never got my shopping done. Without going into detail (because she wouldn’t understand it), I said that I got enough done that I could get home, but would be getting things checked out when I go to our regular mechanic next week.

Long story short:

It’s all my fault I was not available to do her grocery shopping because I’m a woman and too stupid to buy a good vehicle.

When I mentioned I was already planning to talk to our mechanic, who is the owner and sold us this truck, she started “advising” me to tell him to be “kind” to me, because I, a mere woman, know nothing about vehicles.

*sigh*

She wasn’t even being “mean” about it. That was just the gist of it by the end of that part of the conversation, and she says the same thing every time the topic of a woman buying a vehicle comes up. I told her; it’s an older vehicle with a lot of miles on it. It’s going to need work. All vehicles do. She’s had vehicle problems of her own, of course, but she always had other people to take care of them for her, so she had no idea just how often they needed work.

She also didn’t notice or care that I didn’t get my own shopping done. She just went into how she needed groceries.

I told her, I could come in tomorrow.

She hemmed and hawed. Probably because it was “too soon” (she does that, every time I try to nail down a day with her) before asking if I was good with that… maybe she’s bothering me too much… (a common guilt trip she tries). I told her, I’d rather not drive until I get the truck checked by my own mechanic that I know and trust. Then I suggested she could call the grocery store and get them to do her shopping and deliver it. She has had them deliver her groceries before, but she’s never had them do her shopping before. She hemmed and hawed again; she wants me to do it, because I know what she wants and likes. Not even my brother and sister shopping for her get it “right”. Fair enough, but I was just too tired and too hungry to play her games this time.

In the end, she did say she would try calling the grocery store and see if they could take care of it for her. At this point, she probably doesn’t even have a list. I’ve been helping her make her lists, the last few times. I hope she does try it. I know she still has food in the freezer and would still have canned meals and so on, so she might decide to just… not.

She kept wanting to talk, even after I told her I had supper waiting for me, that I was hungry and needed to eat. It took several times, saying it several different ways, before she graciously allowed me to get off the phone and have my supper.

I am just too tired for her games today.

I’ll call her again tomorrow to find out how things went.

For now, I think I’m going to go to bed. It’s barely past 8pm, and I’m ready to pass out. It doesn’t help that my left hip keeps threatening to dislocate. No pain. Just instability.

Yeah. Bed sounds like a great idea.

The Re-Farmer

Sigh

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I went into the city for the Costco shop.  Stopped at a mall across the road first.  As I drove across to Costco, the dashboard lit up with warnings.

Once parked, I was able to link up my OBDII scanner.  Four codes showed up.  I sent screen caps to my mechanic and he recommended I go to the nearby Canadian Tire, as it looked like I would need a new ignition coil and spark plugs.

That was over 5 hours ago.

They were able to bring it in for a diagnostic after about 3 hours, as there were several people ahead of me.  The diagnostic alone would be over $150 after taxes.

I just got called to the counter after I started this.  Spark plugs, for sure.  They recommended changing the wires, too, but it’s was not essential.  Apparently, with GM, the wires are known to crack, do it would have been preemptive. Do8ng that woukd have brought the bill to over $835, before taxes, and not counting the inspection.

I authorized the spark plug change.  They just ordered them from the parts store across the street.  Total damage for that plus the inspection, almost $550.

My Costco budget was $600.

On the plus side, I will be using my Cdn Tire MC.  That’s what I put my budget on.  I should be able to get 12 month, interest free financing.  I even have some Cdn Tire dollars left I can put towards it.

So, now I wait.  If things go well, I might still be able to do a small Costco shop.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: beets, bok choi, dwarf peas – and Judgement!

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I definitely want to start with the good news, before getting into the gardening stuff.

As I was putting things away in the sun room, I saw a cat in the cat cage jump out and meow a greeting. Nothing unusual about that, except that this cat had something around its neck that was flapping.

Which is when I realized, it was Judgement!

I haven’t seen Judgement in months!

We had put collars on the cats that got fixed, to make them faster to identify, but I also made sure they were reflective collars, so they would be less likely to get hit by a car or something. Most of the cats lost their collars long ago. Judgement had lost one or two already, but he still had a ratty yellow collar still on him.

I took it off and threw it away!

Now I’m hoping to see Syndol back, too! It’s not unusual for cats to disappear for the summer, then come back for the winters, but sometimes they don’t come back at all. So this was a nice surprise for the day.

My priority for today was to finish what I started in the old kitchen garden. The rectangular bed in particular needed a bit more work. I was able to pull more weeds and roots I could no longer see when I stopped last night. I also found the gap under one log was quite a bit larger than the hole the cats had made, so I found more sticks to push in front of it. The gap extended all the way to the corner, though, so I used the scrap board I’d been using when hammering stakes into the ground to lay across the opening on the inside, then added a few more sticks to hold it in place.

Then I could use the rake to level all the soil again.

The section of the wattle weave bed I’d prepped yesterday needed some clean up again. I kept having to chase cats out of the garden beds because they kept wanting to use the nice, soft, fluffy soil as a litter box!

After levelling the soil in the rectangular bed, I marked out four rows with stakes and twine. This required repeated removal of kittens. In the second picture, you can see what I planted and transplanted. In the row north of centre, I planted the mixed beets, so they wouldn’t overshadow the Hedou Tiny bok choi I sowed on in the row south of centre. The bok choi can get quite tall, after it has bolted and gone to seed, but for harvesting, they should only be about 2 or 3 inches tall. I do plan to leave one or two to go to seed to collect at the end of the season.

In the outside rows, I transplanted a whole bunch of the onions I’d been finding. On one side, I transplanted the ones that were clearly bulb onions. On the other, I transplanted the ones that look like they might be white bunching onions, except I’ve never tried to grow white bunching onions before.

In the next picture, you can see where I planted one packet of dwarf peas. I got two packets, but this is a very short row, so I only needed the one. The peas went in the back of the bed (north side). I’d already transplanted some onions at the end and at the front near the corner before. Today, I took the two garlic bulbs I’d found, broke up the cloves, and planted them in line with the onions. They filled the entire remaining front space.

Once everything was in, it all got mulched with leaves. Then I mulched around the herbs in the tiny bed as well. I didn’t cover them, as we’re still using them as needed. Before the hard freeze hits, I’ll cover them completely with a leaf mulch, and we’ll see how they survive the winter!

I also moved the raised bed cover over the rectangular bed for the winter.

I didn’t take final pictures, though, as I decided to take garden tour video, instead. I’ll be going through them and putting together a garden tour video. If I’m satisfied with what I took. Otherwise, I might take new recordings tomorrow, before I head into the city for the Costco shop. We’ll see.

At this point, the only bed I was considering winter sowing into is the small bed off to the side where the Albion Everbearing strawberries had been last year. It still needs to be cleaned up, and I plan to sow bread seed poppies there. That can wait until spring, though, if necessary.

As it stands now, other than mulching the transplanted strawberries and little things like that, the garden can be done for the year. The winter sowing is in, and anything left can wait until spring if I can’t get to it in the next while. We’re getting a bit of rain right now, and the next couple of days are supposed to be dry and cooler, but Sunday and Monday are supposed to get warm again, with plenty of sun, so there’s still the possibility of getting ahead of things for next year.

So, to recap, we have winter sown for next year:

Purple savoy cabbage
White and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi
Daikon Radish
White Egg turnip
Rainbow Mix carrots
Spring Blush peas
American spinach
Yellow Swiss Chard
Garlic
Hedou Tiny bok choi
Assorted Mix beets
Tom Thumb Dwarf peas

Then transplanted miscellaneous onions and garlic that were found during bed prep. Plus seed onions.

Last year, I scattered seed mixes and they did surprisingly well. This year, I’m hoping the more orderly plantings will survive the winter and give us a nice head start in the garden next year!

Not too shabby, I think!

The Re-Farmer

Eight years? Really?

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It’s a good thing WordPress remembers for me, because I forgot completely.

Eight years ago today, we started this blog.

Image created by Grok

I say “we” because, originally, my husband and I were both supposed to be writing posts here. Which my husband did try to do, when he and my younger daughter found themselves coming out here earlier than expected, when his father was suddenly hospitalized. Since then, his condition has deteriorated and, with all the meds he’s on, he just doesn’t have the motivation, nor ability to focus, on keeping it up.

Things sure have changed a lot in 8 years! Our original goals have shifted, out of necessity. Meanwhile, our physical challenges have increased. At this point, at age 57 and now officially designated as disabled, I am actually the most able bodied person in the household!

Image courtesy of Aria AI

While my original reasons for needing to remain anonymous have changed, it just went from having to keep some crazies we left behind in the city we used to live in from knowing where we were and what’s going on, to having another crazy we have to be concerned about.

My goal for this blog hasn’t changed, though. I wanted this to be a place to basically document what we are doing here at the farm I grew up on, the good the bad and the ugly, in hopes that others can learn from our mistakes and be at least somewhat inspired. If a short, fat, broken, middle aged woman with a disabled husband can do this, most other people should be able to do much more, and much better!

For those long timers who have been following this blog for years, thank you for your loyalty. I do hope you gained at least a little something from my ruminations, foibles and current gardening obsession. As for the more recent followers, welcome! Glad to have you on board!

While looking at my stats before I started this post, I noticed a huge spike in traffic today. Most of the viewers of this little blog from central Canada have been from the US, and that has been true from the start. Second place had been Canadian viewers, but that spot has now been taken over by the UK, putting Canadians in third place. I’m curious how Chili and Australia show up as tied for fourth highest country of origin views, followed by a tie with Denmark and Germany.

I would love to know how people have been finding this blog, since I do zero promotion of it. Do feel free to leave a comment and let me know!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 garden: winter sowing kohlrabi and cabbage, and prepping the next bed

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I got back from the city early enough, and it was still warm enough, to get some progress done in the garden.

My first priority was to winter sow in the east yard low raised beds. Two of these beds were already prepped, but not covered in any way, so they did require some clean up. The cats have been using them as litter boxes!

Some of their “presents” were astonishingly huge.

Ew.

My original plan had been to do the kohlrabi and cabbage on the outside of the beds, then have peas down the middle of one, while leaving a gap in the middle of the other to plant pole beans in the spring.

I forgot. The kohlrabi and cabbage will need to be covered in netting to keep them from being decimated by flea beetles and cabbage moths. Having something growing on a trellis in the middle is probably not a good idea!

In the first picture below, the beds are cleaned up, leveled and rows marked out.

In the second picture, you can see the planted rows of purple and white kohlrabi. If I had gone ahead with the plan to grow pole beans down the middle, these rows would have been further apart. I decided to stick with just the two rows and moved them closer to the middle. These raised beds are more prone to freezing than the beds in the main garden area, simply because the boards are so much thinner than the logs used in the longer beds. We’ve lost almost entire beds of garlic over the winter due to excessive cold, even with a mulch. I’m hoping that, with sowing them closer to the middle, deep mulching them with leaves, plus the predicted milder winter we’re expected to have, they will survive. The plant spacing for these, according to the package, is 4-6 inches, so I tried to scatter the seeds with my little hand seeder fairly lightly. If they survive and germinate, they will still need to be thinned later on, but not by too much. Hopefully, if I have the space, the will be thinned by transplanting.

In the next picture, I have the Purple Savoy cabbage. This is the first time we’ve tried to grow cabbage. I originally planned to have two rows on the outside, then peas in the middle, but decided to do three rows of cabbage. As they need about a foot per cabbage for spacing, I tried to scatter two or three seeds every foot or so, though a few spots accidentally got quite a bit more! You can sort of see a grid in the soil, from where the seeds were covered and the soil gently pressed down, while the rest of the rows I made with a hoe remain untouched.

Grommet REALLY wanted to “help” me with the sowing!

I had made sure to rake up plenty of leaves into the wagon and the wheelbarrow before I started, and was able to give the beds a good mulching for the winter. Then I transferred one of the raised bed covers for the winter. There is another one on the third bed I could move over, but I decided against it. That cover’s wire mesh does not have hoops to support it. Cats would knock that flat and out of shape in a heartbeat. So it’s up on top of the box frame one the other bed, which I’ve found surprisingly useful. I plan to make more 3′ x 9′ covers like this over time, but we need to buy more lumber for it, first.

That done, it was time to shift over to the old kitchen garden.

The cats have been having a field day in the cleaned up wattle weave bed, so that got a clean up, first. My plan is to winter sow dwarf peas in the back of the south facing section of the wattle weave bed, and transplant any onions, etc that I found in the rectangular bed in the front.

That… might not quite work out! At least, not so much for the onions part.

The first thing was to harvest the remaining Swiss Chard. It wasn’t until I uploaded the pictures onto Instagram that I realized I forgot them outside! They should be okay overnight.

In the second picture, you can see an area on the south side of the bed, where the cats dug into the dirt. I suspect there was a mouse or something that got their attention for them to dig it out that much. There had been grass clippings chinked in the gap between the logs, but that disappeared. It’s been filled repeatedly, and the cats keep pulling it out. So one of the things I needed to do was find a way to block that gap in a cat proof way.

Once the chard and remaining kohlrabi roots were cleared out, it was time to loosen the soil, pull the weeds and set aside any little onions I found.

I found so many, I started just tossing them with the weeds after a while!

What I really wanted to find out is what was going on with what looked like a cluster of garlic coming up, and another cluster of what I thought were onions but, as they got larger, the leaves started to look like some sort of ornamental allium, instead.

In the next picture, you can see that there were two entire bulbs of garlic that somehow got missed! I planted garlic in here a couple of years ago. This year, two garlic bulbs grew among the seed mix in this bed. They grew into nice sized bulbs that got harvested.

Now I find two full bulbs of garlic that somehow got missed over two growing seasons! I will probably separate the cloves and transplant them.

Next to the garlic is the cluster of alliums growing near by that did turn out to be onions. Several of them were growing together like bunching onions, rather than bulb onions, but I’ve never grown bunching onions. They are large enough that I will probably transplant them, too.

In the next photo, you can see most of the other onions I found while cleaning the bed. There were so many tiny ones! One red onion was quite large. I will transplant the larger ones, but I don’t know if I’ll bother with the teeny ones.

While working across the bed, I was finding a surprising number of roots. Some were definitely from the rose bush at the end of the bed, but it’s possible others were from the ornamental crap apples and the double lilac. It definitely made the job take longer. As I worked my way up the bed, I took advantage of having lots of old stakes handy from the bed along the retaining wall, before the wattle weaving was added on top of the retaining wall blocks. Some of the largest, strongest ones were used to stabilize the top side logs, as their supports were getting old and starting to break.

To block the gap, I used some flat pieces of scrap wood that were in the corner, then a whole bunch of old stakes, on the inside of the wall. Once the bed is done and ready for planting, these will be mostly buried and hidden from view.

As you can tell by the last picture, and the flash needed for the pictures of the onion and garlic, I had to stop before it was all finished. It was simply getting too dark. I was working by the light of the shop lights at the sun room window by then, and those were on only because their motion sensors were being triggered.

I don’t have anywhere to be at tomorrow, so I’ll be able to finish the job then, and do more winter sowing. I should also be able to clean out that little bed off by itself in the main garden area, where I’ve decided to plant bread seed poppies. Since I didn’t winter sow a variety of peas I’d meant to plant between the cabbage, I’m considering finding somewhere else to winter sow them. Once the dwarf peas are planted, that’s two varieties of peas that are winter sown, so leaving the third variety I was planning to winter sow for the spring would be fine, too. I also have our own saved sugar snap pea seeds that can be sown in the spring.

The rectangular bed that’s being cleared now will have beets and tiny bok choi winter sown in it, probably interplanted with some of those onions and/or garlic I’ve been finding! I was thinking of planting something down the middle, but I can’t for the life of me remember what that was right now. I’ve got diagrams drawn out, but those are in the basement, along with my seed inventory.

So that’s the garden and winter sowing status, for now. We should have a nice head start into next year’s garden, if this works out.

I will also be making what will probably be my last garden tour video of the year. Last year, I ended up doing my October video using video recorded on November 1, because the video I’d taken on October 31 was done too late in the day, and everything was too dark. So I want to make sure to get it done earlier, and earlier in the day.

Thankfully, it looks like the weather will hold for a while yet, and I should be able to get other things done before the snow flies. We’ll see how that works out!

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $376 looks like

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Today was definitely a full day! I was able to both head into the city for the stock up shop, plus get winter sowing and garden clean up done. The garden stuff will be in its own post, though.

I headed out early, though I did wait until it was light out, first. The deer are very active right now. Sunrise is at about quarter past 8 now, and sunset at about quarter past 6, so I didn’t have a lot of daylight hours to work with!

My first stop for today was the Walmart. I did get breakfast there, which cost a whole $13.00 (I rounded up for the donation option). There wasn’t a lot I planned to get at Walmart, though. Basically, just cat food.

This is what $181.09 looks like.

That’s 7 items in that cart. There’s two cases of wet cat food.

The paper towels were on sale, so I got a package. I picked up some 30″x36″ puppy pads. The dry cat food actually went down in price. The wet cat food did not.

While driving in, I started getting notices on my truck’s onboard computer that my water fluid was low. It kept turning on, over and over. Very annoying! Anyhow, I picked up some all season washer fluid, rated to -40C/-40F.

That’s it. Seven items at almost $200, and that was taking advantage of cheaper prices!

My next stop was Canadian Tire. Yesterday, I noticed one of my headlights was out, so I picked up a new low beam headlight, along with a couple of bags of stove pellets for cat litter. That totaled $39.17, but I decided to use my Canadian Tire dollars, so it didn’t cost me anything. Instead, when I headed out, I stopped at a gas station and put in $50, until I can do a fill at Costco. That’s when I reset my trip meter, which is currently about 1900km since my last end of the month fill (we didn’t go to Costco last month).

I did have a weird thing happen with the truck. As I was leaving Walmart, I started getting an alarm dinging, the “slippery” icon showed up on my dash, and the onboard computer told me my stabilization system was turned off. Then it told me my traction system was off. Then it told me to service my stabilization, then traction, systems.

Then all the low washer fluid warning came on and all the other warnings went away.

Now, it could be a sensor thing again. GM vehicles are apparently notorious for sensor problems. How am I supposed to know if a warning is for real or not?

Meanwhile, we still need to replace the inner handle on the driver’s side door, replace three more tire sensors and, when I get the oil change we are due for, we need to find out where there is a slow leak happening. I’ve had to top up our oil a couple of times, since our last oil change, and that is WITH the leak-stop additive.

So before I headed into the Canadian Tire, I sent a text to our mechanic. I told him I was going to book an oil change soon, but then I got these warnings (which did not happen again for the rest of the trip). We simply can’t afford any more fixes, after the huge expenses we had this past month. I told him it might be time to talk about trading the truck in for another vehicle. It would have to be something that would give us lower monthly payments. We may end up getting a car instead of a truck.

*sigh*

We shall see. He got back to me and I now have an appointment next week for the oil change.

Fun stuff.

Which means that, while we won’t have to skip our Costco shopping trip again, it will have to be a bare bones trip. With that in mind, my next stop was Superstore.

I actually did all right there!

This is what $195.31 looks like.

I focused on somewhat on protein on this trip.

From the top, there’s a large no-name container of peanut butter; my husband has been going through the peanut butter a lot, lately. There’s a big bag of penne pasta, and a Monster energy drink for the drive home.

From dairy, I only got a giant block of Old Cheddar cheese. The Oat Milk I got for my daughters is in the natural foods section.

In the frozen section, there’s two bags of perogies and a bag of mixed vegetables.

Not much in produce. A bag of “ugly” avocados. There were 7 avocados in a $6 bag, so that is a really good deal these days. I also got a small back of seedless red grapes.

With meats, I got a box of frozen chicken nuggets and two boxes of brand name chicken nuggets and strips. Those are mostly for my husband. All were on sale. I spotted some bacon on sale and grabbed a packages.

Chicken drumsticks were an excellent price, and I ended up getting three packages. My husband won’t eat those, though. He can’t tolerate meat with bones in them anymore.

There’s a package of pork and beef breakfast sausages and a package of pork tenderloin. They weren’t on sale, but were some of the best meat prices I saw today. For the girls, I got a frozen pink salmon and a fresh whole trout, both on sale. I also grabbed a pack of sandwich meats, half turkey, half ham. There are two packs of the torpedo buns we love so much (Italian buns, on the receipt) and a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. Last of all, I remembered to grab a couple of bottles of distilled water for my husband’s CPAP humidifier.

I believe that came out to 27 items in total.

So the two grocery stops totaled $376.40. Add in the $13 for breakfast, plus $50 for gas, plus the $39.17 that was paid for with Canadian Tire dollars, I purchased $478.57 in goods today.

Oh! I almost forgot. On the way home, I stopped at the feed store and picked up two 40 pound bags of kibble for the outside cats. That cost $124.99 in total. That brings the total for the day to $603.56 Of that, about $275 was cat food, puppy pads and litter pellets.

Well, one thing will be different at Costco. Since I got the kibble already, I’ll just need to get more canned cat food and maybe more puppy pads. They have a very good price for puppy pads, but only have one size. I’ve found the XXL size to be much more useful. It sucks that we even had to buy the things, when we’ve got litter boxes all over the place.

Anyhow.

That’s the status of the shopping!

Time to enjoy the supper my daughters have made, and then do and update on how much got done in the garden today. I’m rather pleased!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: winter sowing peas, carrots, turnips and radishes

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After all the rain we had, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work in the garden today, though today’s weather was supposed to be better. I had to head to the pharmacy, so I figured I would know when I came back.

I ended up in town a lot longer than expected!

My daughter’s prescription, that they did not have in stock yesterday, the main reason to go back to the pharmacy. My husband had ordered refills for delivery, so I figured I would get his bubble packs while I was at it. My daughter wasn’t feeling well enough to come along, unfortunately. I headed out and got to the pharmacy shortly after 11am.

That turned out to be an oops. They don’t get their inventory orders in until the afternoon. Typically around 1pm.

Also, since my husband’s refills were ordered for delivery on Thursday, and today is Tuesday, they weren’t ready yet, either. Those were left for delivery. I asked about my daughter’s meds, as I thought she got a partial refill, but no, she hadn’t gotten any of this one at all, and she needed them.

At first, I was going to head home then come back tomorrow until I remembered I was going into the city tomorrow. So I gave them my cell phone number and told them I would stay in town, and they could call me when the meds were ready.

That left me with quite a bit of time to find something to do, so I ended up doing a lot of walking!

Most places were closed for the season, but I did remember there’s a second hand store, so I went to check that out. I ended up spending a whole dollar when I left…

I already a similar drinking jar at home, but it’s colorless. They had a couple like that, but only one in this green tinted glass, so I got it.

I did enough wandering around that my left hip was starting to talk to me. Not pain – it hasn’t hurt like it used to since I got that injection at the sports injury clinic – but it started feeling like it was about to give out. By then, it was past 1:30, so I went to the pharmacy. I was just going to sit and wait, since they hadn’t called me yet, but they are so on top of their customer service, I had someone asking if I needed help before I had a chance to! It turned out they were working on my daughter’s prescription right then, so I didn’t have long to wait.

From there, I headed home, where my daughters had a late lunch waiting for me. The weather was good and things were relatively warms, so as soon as I finished eating, I decided to go for it, and headed to the garden.

My focus for today was to get winter sowing done, and I decided to do the sowing planned in the main garden area, first. The first thing I needed to do was a lot of raking of leaves! Once I had both the wagon and the wheelbarrow filled, I started at the trellis bed.

This bed already has seed onions planted along the non-trellis side. I chose the Spring Blush peas for the trellis side, and the rainbow mix of carrots in the middle.

The rows I planted in remain marked with stakes and twine. There is room between the carrots and the onions to plant something else. Fresh bulb onion transplants, perhaps, or more carrots.

In the second photo above, you can see the row of peas is shorter! There were only 25 peas in a packet. I should have bought two! I planted a pea every 6 inches or so, but it would have been good to plant the full row and have them more densely planted, in case some don’t germinate. As it is now, in the spring, I can plant something else in the remaining space that can use the trellis.

Once that was done, I covered the whole thing with a deep mulch of leaves. I actually ran out and had to get more.

Then I decided to finally use that pile of cardboard that I’ve had set aside for the entire season! I used it to cover where the next trellis bed will be built, as well as the path, to kill off the grass below. If I’d had enough, I would have put cardboard on the other paths, before I put wood chips on them as a mulch. The dandelions in particular had no problem growing through the mulch, and you can barely even tell the wood chips are there anymore. *sigh*

There was still enough time and light to work on the next bed.

The only problem was, that bed had turned into a pool!

I removed everything that was holding the plastic down and just started rolling it up. The piece of wood I used to roll up the excess is long enough to rest on both sides of the bed, so there was space below. Rolling it up meant pushing the water further and further to the end before it could finally overflow the plastic. Which meant that only the very end of the bed got an extra watering.

I left that to drain while I went to rake up more leaves.

In the next photo, you can see where I planted the Daikon radish and White Egg turnip. Those went on the outsides of the bed, leaving the middle for a spring sowing of probably pole beans. I’m planning to plant bush beans in the high raised bed.

In the last photo, the bed is mulched with leaves. Once again, the stakes and twine were left to mark where things were planted.

By this time, it was getting quite dark and it was time to stop for the day. The beds that I have winter sowing planned for in the main garden area are now done. In this area, there are still two beds that need to be cleaned up but, if necessary, that can wait until spring.

I did move my supplies over to the east garden beds. Two of those beds will get winter sowing, hopefully tomorrow afternoon, after I get back from the city. That will be the warmest part of the day. Those beds will get kohlrabi and cabbage sown into them, as those beds will be easier to cover with insect netting to protect from flea beetles and cabbage moths.

After that, I have one bed in the old kitchen garden that still needs to be harvested of alliums and Swiss Chard, and then I will be doing winter sowing in there and the wattle weave bed. The only other area that needs to be cleaned for winter sowing is the square bed off to the side of the main garden area that I’d grown the Albion Everbearing strawberries in, last year. The survivors got transplanted along the new asparagus bed, and I’ve decided the space may as well be used as a permanent poppy bed, since I expect those to self seed readily, and it can be treated as a perennial bed. However, if I run out of time to winter sow those, they can still be done very early in the spring.

So there we have it! Four more things winter sown for next year.

From the predictions I’m seeing, it’s supposed to be a mild winter, but other sources say a harsh winter. We shall see! Hopefully, the winter sowing will survive and we’ll have a head start to next year’s garden!

With how short our growing season is (I’m not counting on the newly revised averages yet), every little bit will help.

One of these years, I hope to get enough to actually can or freeze again! The last two years have been pretty brutal. If we depended on the garden for food at this point, we’d starve! :-D

Little by little, it’s getting done, and I’m feeling pretty good about it so far!

As long as the weather holds…

The Re-Farmer

Wet, wet day, so here’s a video

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Not much going on today. It’s been raining constantly since the wee hours of the morning.

Heavily.

My daughter and I did head into town this morning. She needed to go to the pharmacy and I, thanks to a timely donation, was able to go to a dollar store to pick up some puppy pads, since we are all out. We’ll have to go back tomorrow for meds that weren’t in stock. For now, the weather forecast no longer says the rain will continue into tomorrow, so I’m hoping to get some winter sowing done, if it’s not too wet. Not much point, if it’s so wet the seeds will just rot away!

With nothing much to write about, here’s a video from Max Miller, Tasting History, to share. He’s doing a “villains” series right now, and this is the newest one, as of this writing.

I love it when he tries a recipe and it turns out to taste awesome.

I also love it when they don’t, because his reactions are hilarious. In fact, I’ll include one of those, too…

This one took three years to make!

Enjoy!

The Re-Farmer

Covering for home care, and cozy from the wind

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This morning, I was to cover for home care for my mother’s med assist, so I was up and about feeding the outside cats before it was light out.

They seem torn between famished for breakfast, and wanting to still be in their cozy spots!

Thankfully, it was light out by the time I started heading for my mother’s, as the first thing I saw when I got on the main road was a pair of deer on the road! The highway condition group I’m on has been reporting a lot of deer activity this year, with certain areas being particularly dangerous right now.

I got to my mother’s a bit early. She was still in bed, and I would have brought things to her, but she came out to join me. I made her a breakfast that she could have with her meds. I suspect it was a fuller breakfast, small as it was, than she would have been up to doing on her own. Hopefully, she will be willing to have the home care workers help her with that. The new assists aren’t part of her current schedule, but they would be informed by now, and her morning assist is 10 minutes to allow for extra help, even if it’s just to get the kettle going and doing some instant oatmeal.

When getting some milk out for her, I discovered she had issues with the carton. She had tried, and failed to open it from both sides and ended up making a hole with a knife! I was able to get the spout side open for her but, with the hole she made, had to be very careful pouring it into her cup. Last time, I’d got her a plastic jug of milk from another town. She had cleaned it out to use it as one of her water jugs for drinking and cooking, so I gave it an extra rinse and transferred her milk from the carton to the jug.

I wish her local grocery store still carried the smaller plastic jugs. They only have 4L in plastic, and my mom can’t handle jugs that size. My siblings and I will have to make a point of getting 2L milk in plastic jugs for her, when we know we can swing by to drop it off.

After that, I spent the next hour or so doing some of the things home care can do for her, like emptying her commode and rubbing the Voltaren on her back, and stuff they can’t, like changing her bedding and sweeping her entire apartment.

She told me that she’s been asking the ladies to do the Voltaren in the morning and before bed, and they have been quite willing to do it, but there’s one home care worker she has issues with. This is the same one that will come in, get her pills out, then leave without making sure my mother takes them. Last night, my mother has asked if she could rub the Voltaren on her back. Her response was to look at the sheet and say, that’s one listed on there. Which… of course it isn’t. This stuff doesn’t require a prescription. But they are supposed to be able to help with a number of things – her bed time visit has 15 minutes schedules for that. I don’t know if this worker refused to do it or not.

As we were chatting, my mother asked me if living here at the farm has been helpful for us, financially. I told her that yes, it was at first, but things are getting really expensive now. Especially when we have things like the door to replace. This is the first time I told her that we had to put it on credit. That’s when she started saying that my brother should be taking care of this stuff for me. I just laughed at that, because I know when she says that, she’s saying it’s because he’s male, and I shouldn’t be doing “man” stuff. However, she had also been teasing about helping pay for the door, so that would also have been her way to say he should have paid for it. Meanwhile, our deal is that we live here “rent free”, in exchange for maintaining the place and keeping it up as much as we can. I wasn’t going to go there, though.

Then she started saying that we should be communicating more. That confused me because she knows I’ve been talking to my brother about this (it’s his house, after all), and her. So I asked her, what did she mean? Oh, I should be talking to my brother about it and… don’t forget! He has access to her money.

…

???

Yeah, he has Power of Attorney, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to use her life’s savings!

I told her, she needs to talk to my brother about her money, not me. Then I added, I won’t ask her, like our vandal did. He was forever going to her for money. He even expected her to pay for a large building he wanted to build and was furious when she refused, and blamed her for having to take out a loan. She said, oh, that was a long time ago. He doesn’t ask for money. Not any more, I pointed out. I reminded him of how she’s given him a check for a substantial amount, only for him to come back asking for another one, saying his wife had accidentally burned the check with their garbage in the burn barrel. She gave him another, much smaller, amount (still a lot, though). When my brother found out, he checked her account and discovered the first check had already been cashed!

She remembered that. That was money she gave him to go towards the building he wanted to build.

*sigh*

That did give me a chance to tell her about our incident from a couple of days ago. When I told her how he’d opened up his shirt, took off the support strap and started waving his colostomy bag at me, she told me, he’s been showing that thing to everyone.

*shudder*

All in all, things went really well this visit. I was able to get quite a bit done for her, which was nice. I even remembered to ask her if she wanted me to make lunch for her before I left – and from her reaction, I could tell she had meant to ask me to do just that, but had forgotten! She told me what she wanted put together on a plate for her, then to set it in the microwave, so that all she needed to do was turn it on when she was ready to eat, after someone from church came over to give her communion.

After I was done there, I was going to swing by the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for home, but they were closed. So I made a side trip to the town closer to us and got a few things there before heading home.

By then, the winds had gotten even worse, so there was no way I was going to get anything done outside today. A forced day of rest!

The forecast now says we will be getting rain all day tomorrow (Monday), continuing on through half the next day. So that’s two more days of outside work lost. After that, it’ll be cooler, but at least the winds will have died down and the weather clear. The problem is, Wednesday is my first city stock up shopping trip. I’ll shoot to head out as early as I can and hopefully get back with enough daylight hours to get at least some work done outside. At this point, I think I’m going to start winter sowing, just to get things into the prepared beds while I still can! On the plus side, the long range forecast now suggests the first couple of weeks of November might still be warm enough to get more done out there.

When it was time to head out and feed the outside cats, I ended up spending quite a long time doing my evening rounds, checking for wind damage, picking up fallen branches, etc. I was finishing up when I spotted this cozy scene.

In the first picture, you can see Pinky in the cat bed on the bottom. That is the cat bed that had been in the catio, where she and her little would cuddle together and sleep.

In the upper level Midnight is in the cat bed there, and in the second picture, you can see he is cuddling with a little grey tabby kitten! Which is amazing, because he usually growls and swipes at the kittens!

I’m glad to see kittens in there. Most hang out together in the sun room, but some just won’t stay there other than to grab some food. The winterized catio is being well used, too. So far, it’s been holding up to the wind all right. I did put the red bench I made against one side wall, to reduce how much it was fluttering in the wind, so that helps, too.

Technically, it’s warm today, but with that wind, it’s very unpleasant out there, so I’m very happy to see the cats using the shelters. Some, like Adam, Sprout and Sprout’s calico seem to have secret spots out in the outer yard somewhere that they hang out in. Sprout’s fluffy orange and white seems to have moved into the portable greenhouse!

Oh, I have news about the ones that have gone to the foster. The adult and Pinky’s two have been spayed and neutered. The adult is completely deaf and has a really bad ear infection, but there were no ear mites in any of them! The vet thinks the adult may have been born deaf. I fully expected to learn the infection was from a really bad ear mite infestation, and that that is what caused the deafness.

So the adult is going to be rehabilitated and socialized, so she can be adopted out rather than coming back to us, since she won’t survive long as an outside cat. If she really were dumped, as we suspect, I’m amazed she survived long enough to find our place at all!

We do the best we can for the outside cats, so they can be cozy, safe, well fed and warm, but nothing beats getting adopted and living the good life indoors!

Gotta work on socializing more kittens, and getting those ladies fixed!

The Re-Farmer